Coronavirus General Discussion

It’s not an argument. I was commenting on the problem with just counting number of deaths. I’m not here to argue. 

Sorry, I didn't mean an argument in an angry sense, I mean an argument in support of the government, or against the media, or whatever it is. And not that you're the only one to mention it, but it just made me think. I also find the comparison reasoning confusing, because the government was all too happy to show comparisons from around the world in the daily briefings. Until our numbers got too high, that is.

Eh?

Phew, didn't know what you meant

It's over a dozen who have spoken out now, btw, for anyone keeping track of how much science disagrees with the government's actions.

Probably the most extraordinary statistic of my political experience. Nick Watt, Newsnight political editor:

it doesn't except when the Guardian goes hunting for new attack lines.  . The CMO spent a long time today pointing out that the 5 stage traffic light system isn't intended as  the guide to when to relax restrictions-  its designed to apply locally and indicate where there's a change as we move to dealing with new hotspots.  The press is just useless at dealing with detail as soon as the issue becomes scientific. The actual guide to when to introduce policy changes  is the 5 conditions for some relaxation being met - and we are now meeting all 5 tests so have made some minimal changes - most of which don't start for a fortnight,


Government, any government, is now going to face some scientists who would be  more cautious, less well motivated, passed over scientists, with axes to grind, and panic stories from it political opponents in the  press. There's also difficult medical and social  trade offs between the wider medical downside of lockdown and Covid19 casualties.   And, at the other extreme, you have unscrupulous  businesses and press barons with economic axes to grind, demanding rapid normalization. The people running the policy are pretty carefully calibrating the impact of each change with the rate of decline of the virus threat. Whats not being said, and may not be known now or ever , is how low the R rate can be driven because we have very major levels of asymptomatic infection, or infectivity  before symptom onset, and a percentage of people not following any guidance  .  Its notable that if you look at the decline elsewhere,  its very slow and gradual with similar R rates to those we now have.  and similar relaxation of policy until in some cases it falls off dramatically over  a final  short period , You can relax controls  with care because the full  controls are not going to reduce the R number much more anyway  - if it goes it will go because something else knocks it back quickly,  and if it starts up again it will require local not national  measures

None of which helps get the theatres back working -because they are almost a worse case for the problems of social distancing , loss of key customers,  and high risk areas like narrow stairwells, closed in spaces , and those tiny viral paradises known as the toilets. 

You vastly underestimate the  theatre problem. The science doesn't work like that, at all.


Your mask doesn't stop airborne virus particles. They go through anything short of an ffp3 mask, and that doesn't stop all of them.Nor does it stop people spreading it where they  touch. 

Up to 70% of people have no symptoms according to the survey testing  .  You won't spot them.

The people  who will have symptoms are infectious for about 2 days before the  symptoms emerge and may be at their most infectious then. You won't spot them, and they have no reason not to be there. 

The duration of the  contact  is a major factor in deciding  if enough of the  virus gets through to you, There's no comparison between someone passing in a supermarket for  a few seconds  and someone breathing on you for 2-3 hours from nearby .

What may dictate how badly you get the virus is the  viral load that  infects you . Theatres score very badly on producing high viral loads. There's actors, or worse, singers, projecting their voices and viral particles at high power. There's a confined space, with poor air circulation . There's narrow corridors and stairways . And there's toilets which are tiny, have little air circulation , and multiple users dropping virus from multiple orifices . I don't see a show happening  where no one  can go to a toilet.

And you have the basic  problem that 20% audiences  won't pay the  bills with social distancing , your tourists won't be there,  your out of town customers won't be getting there if the train is running at 20% capacity, and the  cast and support staff will be falling over each other as they try and socially distance.

There won't be theatre until the odds of  the next  person you meet having the  virus  fall much lower than 1000 to one , or one person in a full WE theatre, or the vaccine  arrives. 

I think it’s important to distinguish that they were deaths recorded/reported yesterday, they didn’t all happen yesterday. It’s of course still a tragic and heartbreaking number.

This notion of "superspreaders" doing the sizable percentage of the infecting seems to be taking hold; i.e. 20% of the people doing 80% of the infecting. Might partially explain why countries able to do aggressive contact tracing and then isolation were able to minimize spread and deaths in some cases.

That would have to be unpaid surely, otherwise it would be effectively discriminating against those who can work from home as they would get 2 weeks' less holiday!

I can't imagine any employer wanting to pay an employee for forced quarantine after a voluntary holiday, and hopefully the government wont force them to.