part 2 An Ill Wind

[Peter Fairbrother]

On 17/03/2020 15:52, Charles Lindsey wrote:
> 
> 
> On 17/03/2020 11:22, Peter Fairbrother wrote:
>> 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.
> 
> You are talking Rubbish.

Well thank goodness the world's best epidemiologists, and now the 
Government, are talking the same Rubbish.

My Postman was wearing a mask yesterday. I hope it was issued to him.


> Until a large proportion of the herd get infected, the disease will not 
> go away

Ah, here we disagree on two levels. First that a high proportion of 
infections will make the disease go away (herd immunity does not make a 
disease go away, it just stops it spreading), and second that there are 
no other ways to make the disease go away.


> So you try to arrange that the younger part of the herd catch it first, because they don't get it so badly. 

If a huge infection ratio was _inevitable_ then I'd agree. Heck, when I 
thought so I did agree, and have said so elsewhere. That policy would 
still kill hundreds of thousands (the 20,000 figure is pure fantasy, eg 
see the ICL study) but it would save lives overall.

Another fantasy is the idea that once the young'uns have had the disease 
the old folk can safely come out to play. Anyone with the disease is 
still going to be able to infect old folks at the same rate - just there 
will maybe be less people doing the infecting. Or maybe not, most of the 
old folks will probably be dead of old age before that actually happened.


However we now know a huge infection ratio is very likely *not* 
inevitable, and we can probably limit UK deaths to a few thousand or less.


> In fact, it seems children show almost no symptoms at all, so keeping schools open is a good strategy.

In fact fact, we don't even actually know whether most children _get_ 
the disease in the first place.

We know a few do, and a few of those few can suffer and even die; but in 
China the rate of confirmed cases in under-18s is 1.7% of the adult 
rate, whereas 20% of the population are under 18.

This does not mean much per se (apart from the very large Hallelujah!), 
but what it does mean is that we don't know how liable children are to 
getting the disease.

Nor do we know comparatively speaking how infectious they are if they do 
  catch it - a large majority of Chinese paediatric cases are thought to 
be of adult-to-child, not child-to-child origin, though this may be 
another apparent-but-fallacious result of incomplete and biased 
data-collection.

We just don't know.


But closing schools does some other things. First of all it helps 
protect teachers, staff and parents. It encourages parents to stay at home.

Most of all, it sends a message - this is really important s#*t. If we 
don't close schools, how can we expect Boris's Dad not to go down the pub?


> The last thing we want is amateur computer modellers, who do not have 
> all the latest data available

I note that all major publishers have made COVID-related material 
free-access.


> So in China, there are many separate herds, and the Wuhan herd has probably got its immunity by now, 

Whooah, Wuhan got its immunity because they have prevented transmission 
by isolating people, rather than because of any herd immunity - over 95% 
of the population have not had the disease, so the effect of herd 
immunity on the basic reproductive ratio would be less than 5% - brr is 
proportional to susceptibility ratio, other things being equal.

If they relax the "unnatural" social isolation restrictions, thereby 
increasing transmissibility, the disease will spread again from any 
spark or ember.



Peter Fairbrother