part 2 An Ill Wind

[Ben Liddicott]

I think you are being a deal too cynical. If the plan was to kill off the "unproductive and expensive" elderly the readily available method would be to simply do much less, much later.

SARS and MERS are qualitatively unlike Covid-2019/2019-nCoV - the death rate was between 10 and 40 times as high - around 40% CFR for MERS. As with Ebola radical action is the only conceivable option.

Influenza is unlike 2019-nCoV in that the death rate is 20 times lower - radical action like welding people into their apartments for months on end is unthinkable for influenza.

Covid-2019 is in between and governments are attempting to steer an in-between course. Whether this is the best course is arguable but it seems like a genuine effort to me.

I too have run the numbers and I wish they were doing more, sooner. But they have access to information I do not, so even though I think they are wrong, I don't have high confidence in my judgement.

Best regards, Ben

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ukcrypto <ukcrypto-bounces at chiark.greenend.org.uk> On Behalf Of
> Peter Fairbrother
> Sent: 17 March 2020 11:23
> To: UK Cryptography Policy Discussion Group
> <ukcrypto at chiark.greenend.org.uk>
> Subject: part 2 An Ill Wind
> 
> An Ill Wind
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XRc389TvG8
> 
> So now we know: the UK government is planning to deliberately infect 60%
> to 80% of the population, over 40 million UK citizens with COVID-19; causing,
> on their own figures, 400,000 deaths. It has already begun.
> 
> The reason given is to develop "herd immunity"; where practically everybody
> has had the virus and is immune, so that there is nobody susceptible for
> someone who later contracts it to give it to.
> 
> But the Chinese didn't do that. They implemented strong containment and
> isolation and stopped the virus dead. They didn't "lessen the peak", they
> obliterated the peak.
> 
> Less than one hundredth of 1% of the population caught the disease.
> 
> There is no reason why we can't do that too.
> 
> 
> 
> Yet the Government insists on buying herd immunity at the cost of at least
> 400,000 (more likely a million [1]) deaths. Why? What good would herd
> immunity, bought at such a terrible cost, do?
> 
> One reason given is that the Government believes that COVID-19 will turn
> into a seasonal disease, and herd immunity might protect us from it's return
> next year.
> 
> There are two big problems with that. First, we don't know whether it will
> return at all. SARS didn't, MERS didn't.
> 
> Second, if it does return next year, it will have mutated - and like flu, it is
> reasonably likely that this year's herd immunity, so dearly bought, will not be
> effective against next year's version, if it happens.
> 
> There is also concern about people in China who seem to have gotten the
> disease twice. We don't know why that is, whether it is two different strains
> [2] of the virus or people getting the same disease twice - however either
> would lower the usefulness of any herd immunity.
> 
> -
> 
> So, I don't see why the UK Government are deliberately killing 400,000
> people.
> 
> Apparently it isn't because the UK has a large proportion of older people.
> Older people who need extensive healthcare, expensive pensions, who tie
> up a lot of wealth and property - of the predicted 400,000
> (million) deaths the vast majority would be of older people.
> 
> This clearing away of unproductive and expensive (and wealthy) older
> population would more than balance the budget, releasing £10 billion per
> year in state pensions, £20 billion per year in heathcare costs, and so on.
> 
> It would stop the disease in the UK fairly quickly, and it would be the
> cheapest option (ignoring the actuarial but not-real-pounds cost of the
> deaths).
> 
> It would release several hundred thousand badly-needed homes (and cause
> a property price crash; the UK needs about 1 million homes, which is why UK
> property is so expensive) and would provide a more balanced population
> pyramid.
> 
> So for the UK as a nation it would not be a bad thing (ignoring the deaths),
> and I fear some politicians may think "Hey, it's just the useless oldies, who
> cares?".
> 
> -
> 
> But no. There is probably another reason why we don't implement strong
> confinement and stop the virus in its tracks, rather than letting it
> have its way. Unfortunately I don't know what that reason is.
> 
> If it is just a gamble on herd immunity, that is not a gamble anybody
> sane would take now - we do not know enough about the virus to say if it
> will work this year, or whether it will be of any use in future years.
> 
> If it turns out to be a step worth taking - but we do not have to take
> that step now. We can wait a year or two to find out more about the
> virus, develop a vaccine or a cure, prepare - while putting up with a
> trickle of infections, and a total death count in the hundreds or
> perhaps low thousands, not hundreds of thousands.
> 
> 
> 
> Peter Fairbrother
> 
> 
> [1] I calculate around a million deaths, but that is a back-of-the
> envelope calculation based on known death rates elsewhere and
> comparative population age spreads. Exact figures are not available as
> they would depend on things we do not know about the disease. I have
> made what I think are reasonable assumptions. I don't know how
> reasonable the Goverment's assumptions are, or how they came up with the
> 400,000 figure.
> 
> [2] there are now several hundred known varieties of the COVID-19 virus,
> it mutates fairly rapidly