Have we not decided on a course of action as a society and whether we personally agree with the approach should be immaterial in how closely we follow the rules. Otherwise as a society we still get all of the negatives of the social isolation policy but also thousands of unnecessary deaths. Just because some people think that as they know best the rules shouldn't apply to them.
Perhaps our most significant conclusion is that mitigation is unlikely to be feasible without emergency surge capacity limits of the UK and US healthcare systems being exceeded many times over. In the most effective mitigation strategy examined, which leads to a single, relatively short epidemic (case isolation, household quarantine and social distancing of the elderly), the surge limits for both general ward and ICU beds would be exceeded by at least 8-fold under the more optimistic scenario for critical care requirements that we examined. In addition, even if all patients were able to be treated, we predict there would still be in the order of 250,000 deaths in GB, and 1.1-1.2 million in the US.In the UK, this conclusion has only been reached in the last few days, with the refinement of estimates of likely ICU demand due to COVID-19 based on experience in Italy and the UK (previous planning estimates assumed half the demand now estimated) and with the NHS providing increasing certainty around the limits of hospital surge capacity.We therefore conclude that epidemic suppression is the only viable strategy at the current time. The social and economic effects of the measures which are needed to achieve this policy goal will be profound. Many countries have adopted such measures already, but even those countries at an earlier stage of their epidemic (such as the UK) will need to do so imminently.Our analysis informs the evaluation of both the nature of the measures required to suppress COVID19 and the likely duration that these measures will need to be in place. Results in this paper have informed policymaking in the UK and other countries in the last weeks. However, we emphasise that is not at all certain that suppression will succeed long term; no public health intervention with such disruptive effects on society has been previously attempted for such a long duration of time. How populations and societies will respond remains unclear.
Alex - I thought tomtoms post earlier summed up why climbing should be avoided. Basically it is non essential travel and social contact. What do you think the government have asked us to do?
[Perhaps I've missed it but to me it seems that the talk has all been about social distancing and avoiding unnecessary social interactions.
Looks like it was from yesterday? In which case they've not done a very good job of pushing it hard IMO
You could also arguably interpret the advice as don't go outside except: to buy food/medicine, work if unable to WFH, and limited exercise close to home by yourself or with other householder.
Quote from: petejh on March 22, 2020, 06:03:13 pmYou could also arguably interpret the advice as don't go outside except: to buy food/medicine, work if unable to WFH, and limited exercise close to home by yourself or with other householder.This is my take on the current advice.
But isn't this the problem, surely we shouldn't need to have a take on it because it's explicit and well communicated??
