Man, imagine being in Font and unable to get pastries...end of the world! I'd enjoy it while you can eastside, my working assumption is that climbing outside is actually the sort of activity one could quite safely carry on almost regardless of how bad it gets (and presuming you aren't yourself infected). If you're out in the open air and away from other people then surely you're quite a lot safer (both in terms of potentially catching it yourself and in infecting others if you're a carrier) than being at work/in the pub/in a climbing gym/etc. Anyone any thoughts on this?
Quote from: Bradders on March 14, 2020, 11:24:38 amMan, imagine being in Font and unable to get pastries...end of the world! I'd enjoy it while you can eastside, my working assumption is that climbing outside is actually the sort of activity one could quite safely carry on almost regardless of how bad it gets (and presuming you aren't yourself infected). If you're out in the open air and away from other people then surely you're quite a lot safer (both in terms of potentially catching it yourself and in infecting others if you're a carrier) than being at work/in the pub/in a climbing gym/etc. Anyone any thoughts on this? Was about to say the same.. Going out bouldering on your own has to be a pretty safe activity, stay away from other people, if you’re really worried about picking it up off the rock, wash your hands after. The places I boulder locally are unlikely to have seen any traffic and get rinsed by the ocean twice a day. I was thinking if we go on full shutdown that this is one activity I can do with little risk of spreading virus. I don’t think being locked indoors full time with the family will be good for mental or physical health. I will certainly take the chidlers outdoors to remote places nearby where I know we can avoid contact with others.
UK testing is focusing on those in hospital not in the wider community."Will I be tested if I think I have COVID-19?We will not be testing those self-isolating with mild symptoms."- https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-stay-at-home-guidance/stay-at-home-guidance-for-people-with-confirmed-or-possible-coronavirus-covid-19-infectionI've heard this isn't the case with other countries (Germany?) so comparing confirmed cases per population isn't a helpful measure.
Encourage construction of realistic and detailed local plans for containment in the source country. (This is different to attempting to contain the virus once it is widespread which has little chance of success, see section 3.3).
b. Low-level restrictions in international travel (e.g. less than 70% of journeys) would have a minimal impact (Mateus et al. 2014). Even relatively high levels of travel restrictions would only delay an epidemic for a few weeks. For instance, imposing a 90% restriction on all air travel to the UK would delay the peak of a pandemic wave by only 1 to 4 weeks (Cooper et al. 2006, Mateus et al. 2014). A 99.9% travel restriction might delay a pandemic wave by 2 months (Cooper et al. 2006, Ferguson et al. 2006)....f. If restrictions on travel from all countries which had epidemics of pandemic flu were put in place internationally, the effect could be somewhat greater: a 90% reduction might delay the spread by 3 to 4 weeks and a 99.9% effective ban by 3 to 4months (Cooper et al. 2006). If the UK has cases early in the pandemic, then this would involve travel restrictions out of the UK.h. While clearly possible in principle, for all practical levels of restriction, there is little chance of a country missing the pandemic altogether due to travel restrictions (Cooper et al. 2006).
c. Because of the probable multiple importations of pandemic flu, and the concentration of the population in cities, attempts at containment (similar to those explained in section 3.1b above) by antiviral prophylaxis and practical social distance measures are almost certain to fail (Ferguson et al. 2006, Nguyen-VanTam et al. 2004). d. Even very substantial reductions in internal travel between localities (of say ~90%) would have little effect on the length and peak size of the epidemic in each local area. However, coupled with the elimination of international travel, they could spread out a national epidemic by desynchronising the epidemics in the local areas (Mateus et al. 2014, and refs therein). Such restrictions are probably impractical. More realistic reductions in such travel would have a negligible effect on the national epidemic (HPA 2005)
[Arlene Foster: Schools will not be closed immediately but schools and parent should prepare because when they do they will close "for at least 16 weeks"/quote]
That multiplication idea is very approximate (it will strongly depend on test rates for instance) and will only work on the initial exponential rise... I suspect italy are moving beyond that now...keep an eye on the logarithmic graph on deaths on worldometer over the next week and see if their measures are kicking in. You can already see how their initial lack of response gave a faster exponential rise. Other places are also on top of testing, like Singapore. The US is where I worry most about a western economy with coronavirus out of control, due to lack of testing.https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/coronavirus-washington-state-us-outbreak
c. Because of the probable multiple importations of pandemic flu, and the concentration of the population in cities, attempts at containment (similar to those explained in section 3.1b above) by antiviral prophylaxis and practical social distance measures are almost certain to fail (Ferguson et al. 2006, Nguyen-VanTam et al. 2004). d. Even very substantial reductions in internal travel between localities (of say ~90%) would have little effect on the length and peak size of the epidemic in each local area. However, coupled with the elimination of international travel, they could spread out a national epidemic by desynchronising the epidemics in the local areas (Mateus et al. 2014, and refs therein). Such restrictions are probably impractical.More realistic reductions in such travel would have a negligible effect on the national epidemic (HPA 2005)
d) On the other hand, if there were significant background immunity amongst adults there may be a more considerable impact on the pandemic. For example, in the UK in the 2009 pandemic, school holidays (possibly in combination with general summer holidays) suppressed the epidemic over August (Eames et al. 2012). However, to be used successfully as a suppression strategy, closures would need to be maintained until pandemic specific vaccines were available.
e) School closure is therefore most usefully employed if children are particularly badly affected, or if there is known to be significant background immunity in adults.
j) Little direct evidence is available on the effects of cancelling large public events. However, the results might be expected to be similar to those for closing schools, albeit on a considerably more limited scale. Some benefit might be expected for those who would have otherwise attended the events but very little for the overall community. Some benefit might also be expected from the reduction in travel to such events. However, the benefits of even major reductions in all travel are small.k) Voluntary home isolation, i.e. people staying at home if they show ‘flu like’ symptoms, will decrease the number of contacts between infected and uninfected individuals, and hence is likely to decrease the spread of infection. The combined effects of various social distancing measures (including closing schools, cancelling large public events, closing places of entertainment, and home isolation) if started very early on in a locality affected by influenza may havea significant impact on reducing transmission. In some US cities in the 1918 to 19 pandemic it is thought that the combined measures reduced R to less than 1 (from an R0 value of 1.4 to 2) however such measures would need to be maintained until sufficient quantities of pandemic specific vaccine became available. In the US cities, when the measures were relaxed there was a second wave of infection.
While there is a role for the less disruptive social distance measures such as voluntary home isolation in any pandemic, school closures and the cancelling of public events are generally only justified in very severe pandemics because of their severe social impact over an extended period of time until a pandemic specific vaccine becomes available.
Implications to me of that is: this may be the big one that happens once every few generations, there will be more than one wave, we probably need a vaccine, and trying a 'probably impractical' measure might be worth a go to reduce the short-term death toll and resultant health service fall-out, but is unlikely to reduce the death toll over the longer-term.
I think my real concern is that there is logic to this, but not because of NHS loading, but because of loading on other services and panic if people start dying in their homes in great numbers.
TBF, Pete, you can't expect evidence to get in the way of Steve wanting to see the fault in everything the Conservative government does.Similarly, I mentioned to a doctor friend how surprising it was that Jeremy Hunt, ex cabinet and current chair of the health select committee, was so insubordinate in criticising the government response. All he could do was go into a diatribe of how Jeremy Hunt knows nothing. Almost as if Jeremy Hunt saying the sky was blue would somehow make that not true.
