[Will Hunt]

Hmmm. I don't think you're right. The inclusion of the words "for example" clearly indicate that the list is not exhaustive.



Oh, I see what you mean. So because you have to walk there you can't then put your shoes on and start climbing? That is certainly one interpretation of it.


Btw, I'm not saying that I'm going to this place, just wondering aloud.

[kac]

Its a pretty obvious interpretation in the context of the travel ban and what the government are trying to do. Otherwise how far can I walk to go climbing will? If its a bit far how about I cycle there - is that OK?

[gollum]

At the moment the interpretation that looks the most restrictive is probably the correct one, whether we like it or not.

If this feels like a delicate subject, it is insignificant in comparison to the battles going on in the ultra running world about how far you can run.

[Bradders]

Btw, I'm not saying that I'm going to this place, just wondering aloud.

You're not alone. I really want to get Pinch 32 finished off and have already checked how long it would take to walk there (a really long time....not gonna happen).

[petejh]

Thing is Will, lots of things are clearly allowed by the guidance, but don’t follow the spirit of the guidance. Which is to stay inside as much as possible.

It’s quite scary how a little bit of non compliance, or a bit of extra travelling can spoil everyone’s efforts to control the outbreak.

This vid shows some neat examples with a (very) toy model.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=gxAaO2rsdIs

Those vids are great Stu, thanks for sharing.

They do however raise issues that can be interpreted in ways counter to the intended message.
Most obviously:
at 11min 20secs when it shows the effect of social distancing, at various levels of effectiveness.
The model predicts that anything other than 100% effective social distancing results in a long tail of infections, and approx 50% of the population becoming infected 'eventually'.
The difference between 90% social distancing and 50% social distancing is *very* minor (not minor if you're one of the relatively few extra dead people or a relative of one, obvs).
People could rightly or wrongly infer that '70% social distancing' - however you define that in real life - is probably going to be as effective as 90% social distancing in our fuzzy real world.

Implication for people interpreting it as it's not that bad to go out walking, bouldering or limited socialising should be clear.

The only measures in the models which prevent large percentages of the population *eventually* becoming infected are anti-virals or vaccine. 100% social distancing also stops infection, but is
a. not possible to achieve
b. not sustainable even if you did achieve it

I'd like to know what time frame 'eventually' covers. I'd bet that it's around 18-24 months.

I'm not sure if any of the combined measures bring the infections to zero, without the anti-viral/vaccine measure?

The models just reinforce that it comes back to the race for a vaccine/anti-viral. Minimise spread in the short term, hope for the game-changer vaccine/anti-viral within 6-12 months. If it doesn't come within that time frame, then at least 50% of the populations of all major nations in the world will eventually become infected (with associated IFR).
Sorry to be a downer!

[Oldmanmatt]

I thought that was obvious, Pete?
It’s certainly been no secret.

The Father-in-law (the big cheese doctor), keeps saying “we’re all going to get it eventually, just try and do it at a quiet time”.
He is, in fact, a proper Job’s comforter about the whole thing, passing his children all his life insurance details and generally being practical in a macabre sort of way (as usual).

[petejh]

Well, yeah I've certainly always thought it since this came about. Just checking! As you were..

[Oldmanmatt]

Well, yeah I've certainly always thought it since this came about. Just checking! As you were..

It’s a fair point.
I’m not sure many actually grasp that “flatten the curve” means “don’t let them all die in the same two week period”.
Plenty of people out there think this is some sort of cure(?). Not sure how to word it.
Sucks to think about, don’t it.

[Mugabe251]

So how exactly is creating bottlenecks of human beings in local parks within Manchester and Sheffield, who would otherwise be going to the Peak, going to reduce transmission rates? A real head scratcher, if I do say so myself

[teestub]

Because as others have said transmission in open air seems to be minimal, but you reduce mixing of communities, traffic (and therefore traffic incidents), fuel consumption (and therefore use of petrol stations) and a range of other reasons, hopefully including helping people think of the situation as something that needs to be taken seriously.

[kac]

A head scratcher for other countries too. The answer has generally been to close the parks and stop people leaving the  house as much. Its not been to encourage people to disperse to the countryside and crack on with bouldering and climbing.

[Footwork]

I've seen loads of videos of the police dispersing crowds with canes in India. No one seems to care though

[Christobal]

A bit confusing how different countries takes different stands in this matter and how much wievs of the virus differ.
Im Swedish, we do not have much regulations. More of: stay at home if your feeling ill; do not visit your elders, keep distance and wash your hands.
I was out at a normally quiet boulderingspot today and it was crowded. (Since no one wants to be crowded inside a gym.) 
Dont know whats the right way but guess we will find out.
/Christer

[Oldmanmatt]

I've seen loads of videos of the police dispersing crowds with canes in India. No one seems to care though

Do you mean:

A) Indians don’t care about other Indians being dispersed by cane wielding coppers?
B) Indians don’t care about the lockdown?
C) No one cares about you watching videos about cane wielding coppers dispersing Indians?



Sorry.

[Footwork]

I've seen loads of videos of the police dispersing crowds with canes in India. No one seems to care though

Do you mean:

A) Indians don’t care about other Indians being dispersed by cane wielding coppers?
B) Indians don’t care about the lockdown?
C) No one cares about you watching videos about cane wielding coppers dispersing Indians?



Sorry.

  made me laugh though

[petejh]

I read it as crowds of cane-carrying Indians..

[Stu Littlefair]

Hi Pete.

You could draw those conclusions from watching the vid. It honestly never occurred to me that someone would take the “model” that seriously. The density of people, the speed at which they move, the distance they travel and the radius of infection in those vids are all totally arbitrary.

However it does illustrate some important points about how sensitive the outcomes are to what the exact transmission rate is, and how our small uncertainty as to its true value leads to a massive range of outcomes.

There are full powered epidemiology models you can download and run fairly easily (https://github.com/ryansmcgee/seirsplus) as well as online calculators for fairly decent models you can play with online (http://gabgoh.github.io/COVID/index.html) The only conclusion I can come to is that, for a plausible range of model inputs, this could last weeks to many months and lead to 20-100k fatalities. Which is a pretty big uncertainty.

[TobyD]

So how exactly is creating bottlenecks of human beings in local parks within Manchester and Sheffield, who would otherwise be going to the Peak, going to reduce transmission rates? A real head scratcher, if I do say so myself

Frankly, having run through quite a few parks in Sheffield in the last week, they're basically okay, with people behaving as they should.

There seems to be confusion between people saying what is the additional risk in I just go out and XYZ.... Probably not a lot, if anything. The point is it's not an individual decision. Lockdown only works if everyone tries their hardest to actually stick to it and stays in their homes as much as possible.
It's a collective decision and actually the law, so people should really just stick to it and not take the piss. If they don't, more people will die, the lockdown will have to be tightened, and this shit will go on for longer.
Yeah it's not terribly exciting being stuck inside 23 hours as day, but to me at the moment it's definitely preferable to being at work basically permanently on call, getting strings of emails about PPE changes everyday from managers, none of whom are actually coming into work anymore.

[Offwidth]

Maybe the assailant was a member of UKBenches.com, a forum for bench-sitting enthusiasts which had recently come to a consensus that sitting on benches is off the cards for now? The victims could be bench fans who were new to the scene and hadn't checked UKBenches to see what they could and couldn't do?

Screaming at people is simply not on. However, commonly touched hard surfaces are some of the most likely places to spread a virus in the outdoors. Most of the 2m risk data comes from being that close for some time. People should avoid benches and take care opening gates. We are lucky as our local rec on our daily walk has no gates... the benches are still quite busy.

[Bradders]

A bit confusing how different countries takes different stands in this matter and how much wievs of the virus differ.
Im Swedish, we do not have much regulations. More of: stay at home if your feeling ill; do not visit your elders, keep distance and wash your hands.
I was out at a normally quiet boulderingspot today and it was crowded. (Since no one wants to be crowded inside a gym.) 
Dont know whats the right way but guess we will find out.
/Christer

Article in the FT on exactly this:

https://www.ft.com/content/31de03b8-6dbc-11ea-89df-41bea055720b?fbclid=IwAR15q3mMusCt4O9DXq5ophBxbiCfPc5nB9GJtYXLtr5PhmavKkb_nqYsLcM

Sounds like they're just at an earlier stage of the outbreak and are doing what the UK Gov did initially before back-tracking when the modelling predicted just how many people would die.

I'd expect a similar change of direction at some point Christer!

[jwi]

A bit confusing how different countries takes different stands in this matter and how much wievs of the virus differ.
Im Swedish, we do not have much regulations. More of: stay at home if your feeling ill; do not visit your elders, keep distance and wash your hands.
I was out at a normally quiet boulderingspot today and it was crowded. (Since no one wants to be crowded inside a gym.) 
Dont know whats the right way but guess we will find out.
/Christer

It is the forth time I have watched this movie.

The first was when some Italian students of mine were doing some sentiment analysis from the early days of the outbreak in Lombardy. It was fucking terrifying to learn how relaxed everyone was in Italy since we knew from Wuhan how horrible it was going to turn out.

The second was when France and Spain saw what happened in Italy and did not act swiftly.

The third was when United Kingdom and United States thought they were going to be spared somehow, for very unclear reasons. With the added worry for my father in law who lives in New York who's new wife is on one of those barbarian zero-hour contracts.

The forth is watching Sweden's unbelievably flat response to the treat, knowing full well that my parents could well be infected any day now.

The film has ended in tears the first three times. But I'm sure Sweden will be spared, because...

[petejh]

Hi Pete.

You could draw those conclusions from watching the vid. It honestly never occurred to me that someone would take the “model” that seriously. The density of people, the speed at which they move, the distance they travel and the radius of infection in those vids are all totally arbitrary.

However it does illustrate some important points about how sensitive the outcomes are to what the exact transmission rate is, and how our small uncertainty as to its true value leads to a massive range of outcomes.

There are full powered epidemiology models you can download and run fairly easily (https://github.com/ryansmcgee/seirsplus) as well as online calculators for fairly decent models you can play with online (http://gabgoh.github.io/COVID/index.html) The only conclusion I can come to is that, for a plausible range of model inputs, this could last weeks to many months and lead to 20-100k fatalities. Which is a pretty big uncertainty.

Instinctively From what we've been told, I think most reasonable people understand that - in the current situation involving unknown but high rate of infections - small changes in one variable can lead to huge changes in outcome.

But... JBs point - that the blanket policies which result from using the predictions of the R0 models may not be relevant or useful when looking at individual-scale behaviours - is based on a different point of view on the modelling and the relevance of the reproductive rate, here: https://quillette.com/2020/03/27/covid-19-science-update-for-march-27-super-spreaders-and-the-need-for-new-prediction-models/

My takeaway from reading through the viewpoint that JB linked to is that the most important point is kept for right at the very end - i.e. he appears to be saying that in smaller scale epidemics, the behaviour of individuals might be more important than populations. But he says that once daily infection rates reach population-wide scale (in the 10s or 100s of thousands), the blanket polices resulting from the R0 models become the most relevant. 


Whole text below as I think some will find it interesting and relevant...

.........
.........
I will return to Dr. Chun later in this article. But at this point, I’ll pivot back to COVID-19, and recommend an early-release version of a June, 2020 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report, Identifying and Interrupting Superspreading Events—Implications for Control of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2, by Thomas R. Frieden and Christopher T. Lee. Echoing points made by Dr. Chun and others, the authors note, “SSEs highlight a major limitation of the concept of R0,” since R0, being a mean or median value “does not capture the heterogeneity of transmission among infected persons.”

I wrote about the epidemiological concept of R0 in Wednesday’s update because R0 lies at the heart of all those COVID-19 projections we see in the media. At the most basic level of analysis, computer modelers apply an R0 figure to some baseline pool of infected individuals, and then iterate the spread of the disease exponentially over time. But as I noted, the idea of R0 is based on the premise that people behave with some constancy over time, since the value isn’t an inherent biological constant associated with any particular pathogen; it’s basically a composite statistic that imputes everything from human sociology to hygiene practices to environmental conditions. And it can change in an instant when people are told to, oh, say, avoid sneezing in each other’s faces. And since R0-based models are (like disease spread itself) non-linear systems typically based on large numbers of iterations, even small changes in effective R0 can lead to wildly divergent values. That’s why the same British expert who very recently warned us of 500,000 COVID-19 deaths in Britain now says he expects fewer than 20,000.


In fact, one of the long-term effects of the COVID-19 crisis might be to accelerate a shift toward models that are less rooted in traditional R0 frameworks. Thanks to smartphones, the velocity of public-health information is now so high, and the penetration of that information so thorough, that prescribed behavioral changes and direct public interventions can radically disrupt disease transmission dynamics many times over within the time scale of a single pathogenic incubation period. In Wuhan, according to unpublished CDC data, the observed R0 for COVID-19 went from 3.86 to 0.32 in just a few weeks. On the Diamond Princess cruise ship, the rate went from about 15 to less than two once isolation protocols commenced.

What differentiates SSE generators from other infected individuals? The CDC authors go through a lengthy laundry list of possible factors, including possible variations between multiple disease sub-types. But the unfortunate bottom line is that they don’t know. It is even theoretically possible that asymptomatic individuals—such as Typhoid Mary all those years ago—may generate SSEs. However, the CDC authors do note that there were no known examples of an SSE being traced to asymptomatic individuals during the SARS epidemic of 2002-2003 (this being the related virus strain SARS-CoV-1, as distinct from the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic we face now). So that’s good news.

Indeed, the whole issue of SSEs more generally seems somewhat mysterious, even to experts, in part because a systematic analysis of super-spreading behaviour is difficult unless you know how a person conducts himself throughout his personal and professional life—including how he coughs, talks, laughs, eats and conducts himself in the kitchen and bathroom. These are hard things to measure. Even the task of researching a single sneeze is difficult. “A physician colonized intranasally with S. aureus exhibited a 40-fold increased airborne dispersal after acquiring an upper respiratory rhinovirus infection, becoming thus a ‘cloud adult,’ ” wrote Richard A. Stein in a 2011 International Journal of Infectious Diseases article. “And a study that examined volunteers with S. aureus nasal carriage revealed, on average, a two-fold increase in bacterial dispersion into the air after rhinovirus infection, with up to 34-fold higher dispersion observed in one volunteer. This process is mechanistically insufficiently understood, and one scenario that was proposed is that rhinovirus-induced swelling of the nasal turbinates could create a high-speed airflow that establishes aerosols” (my emphasis, Dr. Stein’s euphemisms).

But even if we have no way of detecting super-spreaders beforehand, our emerging understanding of their massive contribution to the spread of epidemics should help drive the campaign for more COVID-19 testing—and faster testing. From Seattle to South Korea, many of the biggest outbreaks were fuelled by a small handful of very sick, highly symptomatic people who drifted along for days before their condition was correctly treated and isolated. (In South Korea, some have noted, the problem was exacerbated by patients who went “doctor shopping,” spreading their germs in many different clinics.) Test everyone who is symptomatic, and test them early, and you will prevent SSEs.

While we are at it, we need to stop wasting resources on pointless measures such as closing remote parks and natural reserves, where few people come close to one another anyway. In an especially important section of the aforementioned CDC report, the authors note that even COVID-19 super-spreaders can’t seem to infect people effectively in open spaces: “Rapid person-to-person transmission of COVID-19 appears likely to have occurred in healthcare settings, on a cruise ship, and in a church. In a study of 110 case-patients from 11 clusters in Japan, all clusters were associated with closed environments, including fitness centers, shared eating environments, and hospitals, [where] the odds for transmission from a primary case-patient were 18.7 times higher than in open-air environments.” These closed environments represent the sort of scenario we need to target—not British couples out on a jaunt to Sugar Loaf, Pen-y-Fan and other rustic destinations.

We also need to be increasingly wary of computer models that apply a traditional R0-based approach to a novel coronavirus amidst a real-time public-health mobilization campaign whose speed and scale are likely unprecedented in human history. Even long before COVID-19 was a thing, infectious-disease experts such as James Lloyd-Smith were arguing that “the distribution of individual infectiousness around R0 is often highly skewed”; that approaches accounting for super-spreaders do a better job modelling the sudden cluster-based boom-and-bust quality of many diseases; and, crucially for today’s policymakers, that such analyses show how, in these cases, “individual-specific control measures outperform population-wide measures.”

As part of his approach, Lloyd-Smith introduced the “individual reproductive number,” v, a “random variable representing the expected number of secondary cases caused by a particular infected individual… drawn from a continuous probability distribution with population mean R0 that encodes all variation in infectious histories of individuals, including properties of the host and pathogen and environmental circumstances.” In essence, what he’s doing here is atomizing R0 into a probability cloud and assigning each (theoretical version) of us our own personal reproductive number. This is all very abstract. But all you have to do is listen to different people sneeze to know that this approach makes sense.

Dr. Chun, the aforementioned South Korean doctor who studied super-spreading in the context of MERS (another coronavirus that was much more deadly, but also much harder to catch) specifically concluded that the 2015 outbreak in his country showed up the “inadequacies in the traditional [R0-based] approach,” demonstrated that SSEs played “a major role in spreading infections like SARS and MERS,” and that “the prevention and control measures for SSE should be central in controlling such outbreaks. One missed super-spreader could cause a new outbreak…By taking advantage of heterogeneity, control measures could be directed towards the smaller group of highly infectious cases or the high-risk groups.”

Of course, the law of large numbers applies to all systems. And if we were resigned to a mass spread of COVID-19 throughout our societies, it probably would be fine to fall back on traditional model, since we’d be talking about daily infection rates on the scale of many tens or hundreds of thousands, or even millions, and so individual variations would be less meaningful. But as my Quillette boss Claire Lehmann has vigorously asserted, we are very much not resigned to that; and so instead find ourselves with many countries battling to keep their symptomatic case loads in three or four figures. This is on a scale that permits SSEs to assume a large—and perhaps even dominant—role in transmission mechanics.

When COVID-19 was first declared a pandemic 16 days ago, the traditional models were useful in warning us what would happen if (literally) nothing were done to stop it. But scarcely two weeks later, we are (thankfully) a long way from nothing. Let’s go after this disease in the way that does the most good, and stop policing the paths to Pen-y-Fan.

[spidermonkey09]

I think it's interesting to take a snapshot of the climbing community and consider what would happen if it became public knowledge, via people posting on here, photos on FB, whatever, that they were interpreting the guidance as allowing climbing and going out anyway. There might be an initial period of anger and slagging of the people doing it but I think it highly, highly likely that within a week the number of people out would increase. I would be fucking fuming if I saw/heard that some selfish nob was out at Malham taking advantage of an empty crag, but if in a months time loads of other people were doing it I can see that I might crack, as might lots of others.

Now translate that to walking in a national park and think about how the population might respond. Within a few weeks the lockdown would cease to exist in all but name. It's currently working precisely because people are going slightly beyond the letter of the law. People starting to take liberties with the "why can't I take a walk in the Peak" will swiftly become "why can't I drive to the peak from Leicester" and eventually "I'm driving to Yorkshire from Leicester." Obviously this is my example. At that point the lockdown has ceased to be effective, and it would have started with people taking individual decisions that are not in the spirit of the guidance. My interpretation anyway.

[Andy W]

France is approaching week three of the lockdown, in the early part of the first week, there was similar debate and loophole/moral questioning. That seems a lifetime away, going out unless you have to is dumb! The real effort will be staying sane and avoiding the inevitable existential hole as all the best laid trading plans fall to alcohol and depression. I’m relatively happy I’ve climbed aboard my pre cris plateau, all that awaits now is injury and alcoholism 😉

[Oldmanmatt]

I await our letter tomorrow.

But, I think the lockdown will intensify, not ease.

Outside observers simply don’t know what you are doing, as a climber going outside, and won’t bother “doing the maths” about how risky it is.
This includes the authorities.

Probably, screws will be tightened anyway, because “they” will take the most cautious route.


On the other hand, come June, things will ease up a bit. I can wait, not sure why others can’t. Plenty of other things to occupy my time and far bigger worries.

I know, I said I wouldn’t directly address the issue again. But most seem to be building up the justifications to head on out. Maybe that’s not what is happening, but it looks like it.

Spidermonkey is right.

Edit:

I mean, stop torturing yourselves.
You will almost be certainly be stopped, eventually. They aren’t going to listen to your excellently reasoned debate, because Plod will have more important things on his mind and already be pissed that they’re having to police things everyone has been told to stop already.