covid-19

[RandBlade]

This would be super persuasive if England's first response to this news breaking hadn't been to come up with extremely poor excuses for why they messed up

That's assuming we messed up.

Seems to me to be scrambling to find a face-saving way of not saying "no thanks, they're produced in this country and we've ensured we'll get them first so why should we join your later group"? Given the French were just lambasted for a similar stunt with PPE.

Mate, look, you keep saying this, but it continues to be a load of horseshit. Wrt your comparisons to Italy, Italy desperately implemented suppression measures at a point when its epidemic was already out of control; the UK had the option to implement suppression measures at a much earlier stage

The UK has implemented suppression measures at a much earlier stage. And its done so smartly.

This is a subcategory of false dilemma that I'm gonna label "stupid dilemma". You have literally presented the solution to the apparent dilemma in your formulation of it, and it is so obvious that both you and your govt. should be ashamed for not seeing it. The solution to the "dilemma" is to swiftly implement policies that enable the shutdown of major non-essential workplaces, accompanied by an almost-simultaneous shutdown of schools. That could and should have been done weeks ago, when you still had some hope of containing the epidemic.

They have swiftly done that. In a matter of weeks they've shut down workplaces, put in a scheme whereby the government will pay 80% of furloughed employees wages to ensure they'll stay at home, and then shut down schools. Rather than shutting down schools first then realising people still have bills to pay and oh shit they need to work, lets sort something out.

Your weaselly phrasing notwithstanding: Germany, Denmark, Norway, Finland, large parts of Canada all shut down schools early or mid-March. SK, a free, democratic and developed nation that was able to quickly contain its own epidemic - initially the largest one outside China - extended their school vacations. The "why" is simple. In responding to an epidemic of this kind, a govt. has, in the early stages, a choice between pursuing a strategy of mitigation or pursuing a strategy of suppression; govts that pursued mitigation in the early stages ended up with uncontrolled epidemics that have proven much more difficult to deal with than epidemics in countries where the govt. swiftly embraced a strategy of suppression.

SK went down a different route of tracking and tracing combined with an Orwellian surveillance state that even we don't have, pinpointing cases with mobile phone data etc.

Its hard to compare stats between countries but of the nations you named Germany, Denmark, Norway and SK all have more confirmed COVID cases per capita than we do.

[Aimless]

That's assuming we messed up.

Seems to me to be scrambling to find a face-saving way of not saying "no thanks, they're produced in this country and we've ensured we'll get them first so why should we join your later group"? Given the French were just lambasted for a similar stunt with PPE.

Portraying your own govt. as idiots is not a great way to save face.

The UK has implemented suppression measures at a much earlier stage. And its done so smartly.
They have swiftly done that.

This is borderline Orwellian. The UK deliberately pursued a strategy of half-assed mitigation during the critical stage of the epidemic when suppression may have been effective; it was then forced to attempt suppression, which it again did in a half-assed manner, yet again failing to contain the epidemic.

In a matter of weeks

Too. Slow.

SK went down a different route of tracking and tracing combined with an Orwellian surveillance state that even we don't have, pinpointing cases with mobile phone data etc.

Its hard to compare stats between countries but of the nations you named Germany, Denmark, Norway and SK all have more confirmed COVID cases per capita than we do.

It's like you think you're a smarter Lewkowski, but what you do not realize is that we know the UK's testing policy has been more restrictive than the policies of other countries - esp. Germany's - and, more importantly, that the UK has more covid19 deaths per capita than those other countries.

[RandBlade]

This is borderline Orwellian. The UK deliberately pursued a strategy of half-assed mitigation during the critical stage of the epidemic when suppression may have been effective; it was then forced to attempt suppression, which it again did in a half-assed manner, yet again failing to contain the epidemic.

This is bollocks. Mitigation is stage 4 of the government's plan and has never been reached. It attempted containment then went on to suppression.

It's like you think you're a smarter Lewkowski, but what you do not realize is that we know the UK's testing policy has been more restrictive than the policies of other countries - esp. Germany's - and, more importantly, that the UK has more covid19 deaths per capita than those other countries.

Regarding deaths: Barely, they're all at a very low base currently and deaths rose considerably faster in Germany than the UK today.

Regarding tests the UK had one of the highest per capita testing rates in the world, though yes Germany's is different the other European nations you named were not.

[Aimless]

This is bollocks. Mitigation is stage 4 of the government's plan and has never been reached. It attempted containment then went on to suppression.

Here we go again. Slapping a label that says "this isn't cocaine" on a bag of cocaine doesn't magically transform the contents of the bag. The govt's initial plan - the one that was criticized earlier in this thread - cannot be fairly characterized as an attempt at containment or suppression; it had all the features of a half-assed attempt at mitigation, which is where you were inevitably going to end up - as, indeed, you have.

Regarding deaths: Barely, they're all at a very low base currently and deaths rose considerably faster in Germany than the UK today.

Well that's just plain wrong.

Regarding tests the UK had one of the highest per capita testing rates in the world, though yes Germany's is different the other European nations you named were not.

The UK had higher per capita testing rates despite being restrictive with testing because it quickly had an uncontrolled epidemic on its hands, necessitating more testing due to many very ill patients who were in need of medical care. If you implement effective suppression measures early on, and successfully arrest the development of your epidemic, you won't have to test as great a proportion of your population.

[RandBlade]

Here we go again. Slapping a label that says "this isn't cocaine" on a bag of cocaine doesn't magically transform the contents of the bag. The govt's initial plan - the one that was criticized earlier in this thread - cannot be fairly characterized as an attempt at containment or suppression; it had all the features of a half-assed attempt at mitigation, which is where you were inevitably going to end up - as, indeed, you have.

You're the one trying to slap a mitigation label on a containment or suppression plan. They were never at a mitigation plan. They explained in a detailed why how and why they were containing and suppressing - and unlike dishonest other nations claiming they would shut things down for "15 days" that once a shutdown was put in place it would last for months so it needed to be timed right.

[Aimless]

You're the one trying to slap a mitigation label on a containment or suppression plan. They were never at a mitigation plan. They explained in a detailed why how and why they were containing and suppressing - and unlike dishonest other nations claiming they would shut things down for "15 days" that once a shutdown was put in place it would last for months so it needed to be timed right.

The government's plan and its actions cannot be characterized as neither attempts at containment nor a timely and effective attempt at suppression. Those are the facts. If you understand what containment requires, you will see that the govt. was not effectively pursuing containment. If you understand what suppression requires, you can see that govt. has not been effectively pursuing suppression. The most accurate description of the govt's strategy over the course of the past few weeks is various attempts at mitigation, which is where you end up when you can't contain an epidemic and won't do enough to try to suppress it. What you're saying is that these types of strategies are defined by the inaccurate and misleading labels the British govt. and its authorities initially slapped on to them. In reality, they are defined according to what they entail. The contents of a bag of cocaine are not defined by the label on the bag but by the composition of the contents.

Meanwhile, one of the few good things about the pandemic has been the extraordinary glut of great reading in every single major scientific journal—both fascinating studies as well as interesting expert-discussions on policy. See for example this discussion on school closures:

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020...el-coronavirus

[Hazir]

I guess this is happening in more places; I'm in talks with my tenant to lower the rent for the duration of this crisis. I'm thinking of a reduction of 25% untill the situation normalizes.