Covid-19 pandemic

[Balderdasha]

Kazakhstan and the Philippines have now reported more cases than China.

[Balderdasha]

Botswana has more than 800 cases.

[Favourite Worst Nightmare]

The delay was substantially down to a fear of "behavioural fatigue," the expectation that people would only accept the restrictions for a relatively short period of time. However, the report failed to locate where such advice would have come from or indeed find any academic evidence to back it up. It seems to have been a "hunch" based on "commonsense," possibly from Chris Whitty.

Ah, so the Government line is going to be "we didn't implement a lockdown when we should have done, because the peasants couldn't be trusted to behave."

Not what was said at the time though. Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance (who should both be relieved of their duties imo) advised us that we were following a strategy of herd immunity, planning as though it were a flu pandemic, even though there was clear evidence from Spain and Italy that demonstrated that this was a flawed strategy.

My view is that Boris Johnson saw this as an opportunity to be seen as the maverick who chose to do things differently, and saved the economy. Instead he caused thousands of preventable deaths, and much greater damage to the economy.

[Balderdasha]

Global death toll of 670,463 is now higher than the population of Detroit, Michigan.

[Nefertiti2]

Here’s Reicher

https://twitter.com/reicherstephen/status/1288752613174005760?s=21

[The Red Max]

Yesterdays stats for Scotland:
22 new positive tests, 0 deaths.
14 of the 22 new cases are in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde health board area, and a possible cluster of cases at an Amazon warehouse in Gourock is under investigation.

[Patrick Thistle]

"We were trying to avoid behavioural fatigue" is arse-covering post hoc bullshit. There was evidence for it while there was evidence that covid would kill people if allowed to move through the population.

Sadly the twatty goobers who infest Twitter will be all over it as they roll out their apologetics for Boris Johnson. It's as bad as the "they would have died of something anyway" and "well they died with Covid but did they die of covid" brigade. Hairsplitting in the teeth of a pandemic.

[Nocturnal Submission]

It is a bit paradoxical, but perhaps the sooner you go into lock down, the sooner you get out of it. You stop the virus before it gets properly embedded in the community. New Zealand's experience would tend to bear this out. Go soon, go short; go late, go long.

Yes, that was exactly a point that the programme made, that the quicker and more comprehensive the initial lockdown, the quicker the introduction of easing measures and the more comprehensive the virus suppression.

[Nocturnal Submission]

Ah, so the Government line is going to be "we didn't implement a lockdown when we should have done, because the peasants couldn't be trusted to behave."

Not what was said at the time though. Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance (who should both be relieved of their duties imo) advised us that we were following a strategy of herd immunity, planning as though it were a flu pandemic, even though there was clear evidence from Spain and Italy that demonstrated that this was a flawed strategy.

My view is that Boris Johnson saw this as an opportunity to be seen as the maverick who chose to do things differently, and saved the economy. Instead he caused thousands of preventable deaths, and much greater damage to the economy.

I don't know what the Government line will be, I presume we'll have the mother of all public inquiries at some point in the future that will provide greater clarity as to the reasons for the strategic failures.

This was a journalistic investigation which tried to pinpoint where the "behavioural fatigue" supposition came from, both in terms of advisers or advisory groups but also in terms of existing scientific study. I mean, we all remember the concern in the early Spring that hospitals would be overwhelmed and that we needed to adopt an approach that flattened demand, with lockdown non-compliance deemed to be a potential issue. In fact hospital capacity was quickly ramped up and the numbers requiring critical care were lower than feared, but let's not pretend that there weren't genuine fears at one point and contingency plans were being designed and implemented off of the back of patchy statistical evidence and a rapidly evolving analysis of the nature of the virus.

I'm not going to defend Whitty and Vallance, though I'm sure that they are both honourable men doing their best, but I don't know how long, if ever, the UK was following anything that could seriously be termed a "herd immunity" strategy. But that's another matter, anyway - we're talking about the timing of the lockdown.

Again, I've got no idea what Johnson's thinking was. Failure to grasp the severity of the health crisis about to crash over the country, horror at the economic ramifications of the necessary mitigation measures and then ultimately the realisation that trust in the scientific advice being proffered was the best approach, would be my best guesses.

[Nocturnal Submission]

"We were trying to avoid behavioural fatigue" is arse-covering post hoc bullshit. There was evidence for it while there was evidence that covid would kill people if allowed to move through the population.

Sadly the twatty goobers who infest Twitter will be all over it as they roll out their apologetics for Boris Johnson. It's as bad as the "they would have died of something anyway" and "well they died with Covid but did they die of covid" brigade. Hairsplitting in the teeth of a pandemic.

Post hoc? There was a lot of talk about this at the daily pressers before the lockdown was instituted.

The Government got a lot of things wrong but an awful lot of the decisions that they made were based upon the flawed advice that they were being supplied with.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

One thing I've noticed is that - apart from some dickheads on Twitter proudly boasting about their non-compliance and "freedom" - compliance with face covering requirements has gone pretty much universal pretty much overnight. It's almost as if giving people clear instructions is better than vague 'if you can, do' guidance - who'd have thought it. And it also suggests if they had mandated it earlier people would have got on with it without worrying about behaviour fatigue.

It has certainly taken hold a lot quicker and deeper than the guidance around staying 2 metres apart (and following one way systems) in supermarkets.

[Nefertiti2]

https://twitter.com/PA/status/1288759513609273344?s=20

https://twitter.com/DrRosena/status/1288781409168035840?s=20

but they will blame the Foreigns

and they will get away with it

https://twitter.com/BlewettSam/status/1288783541816504320?s=20

[Patrick Thistle]

Post hoc? There was a lot of talk about this at the daily pressers before the lockdown was instituted.

The Government got a lot of things wrong but an awful lot of the decisions that they made were based upon the flawed advice that they were being supplied with.

My initial post had an error. I should have said there was NO evidence for behavioural fatigue. The lockdowns were holding in Italy and Spain.

It was mentioned back then but it wasn't given as the main reason for delaying lockdown. There was all that take it on the chin nonsense and allow it to move through society etc etc stuff. I remember there being a lot of concern at the time that the government wasn't listening to scientific advice or wasn't listening to a wide enough range of advice. There was a lot of dismay about the Cheltenham Festival for example.

You might remember things differently.

[Nocturnal Submission]

My initial post had an error. I should have said there was NO evidence for behavioural fatigue. The lockdowns were holding in Italy and Spain.

It was mentioned back then but it wasn't given as the main reason for delaying lockdown. There was all that take it on the chin nonsense and allow it to move through society etc etc stuff. I remember there being a lot of concern at the time that the government wasn't listening to scientific advice or wasn't listening to a wide enough range of advice. There was a lot of dismay about the Cheltenham Festival for example.

You might remember things differently.

I recall an initial sense of mild panic overlaid with Johnson's usual performative optimistic bluster, which I often don't take seriously anyway, but I felt that the Government became aware of the magnitude of the approaching crisis fairly quickly and was then horrified when it compared the health projections with the existing ICU/ventilator/PPE capacity. I don't remember thinking that scientific advice was being ignored or restricted, but I certainly wasn't wholly reassured by what I was hearing from Vallance and Whitty and the others.

But I was never convinced by the whole "people won't be able to withstand lockdown for too long" argument, partly, as you say, because I was watching the reports from Italy and Spain on the TV news and wondering why the experts thought that the UK wouldn't be able to respond in a similar way.

I wonder though how much the scientists, with or without outside pressure, moulded their advice to fit the existing realities of the time. If the UK had huge ICU capacity and deep PPE supplies for both hospitals and care homes, a tried and trusted track and trace infrastructure, a comprehensive, speedy national network of testing centres and laboratories and an economic rescue plan and support package ready to go, would the advice have been to institute the lockdown ASAP and enforce it for as long as the situation demanded it? Alternatively, as pretty much none of that was the case, did they convince themselves that human nature necessitated a more phased response?

[Patrick Thistle]

I don't think the scientists were dictating the pace of lockdown though. My feeds felt full of scientists arguing we weren't moving fast enough.

Edit: It may well be that some scientists adjusted their advice to take into account political sensitivities. But that's on the government for creating that kind of yes man culture. (Something they have priors for if the civil service whistle blowers are anything to go by.)

[ursus arctos]

Nef's points are well taken

Cummings has convinced Johnson that he and his pals have discovered the secret to selling the Great British Public on anything, as evidenced by the success of Vote Leave.

From the very outset of the crisis, it was clear that the UK government didn't believe that the GBP was capable of responding as the Italians, Spaniards, Germans, etc. That belief coloured all of the early advice and people like Whitty were clearly taking it as given when crafting suggested policy.

[Patrick Thistle]

Although there is probably very little hard evidence to back me up, there is a certain sense that clinicians who attain significant leadership roles do so by managing a political trade-off between evidence-based practice and what is politically acceptable. Hence my comments about adjusting advice. The way the chief nursing office got ditched after commenting on Cummings shows the tightrope they walk.

Also, doctors - even public health doctors - shouldn't really be referred to as scientists. Medical opinion =/= scientific opinion. (Even if sometimes it is)

[Patrick Thistle]

Anyway, only 9 cases reported in Wales today, but 2 deaths.

[The Red Max]

17 new positive cases, and 0 deaths in Scotland. That's now a full 14 days without a death where the deceased was confirmed as having Covid. *

Lots of changes announced for the weeks ahead, including opticians, dentists, counselling services all restarting services.
Also - sports stadia will be able to reopen for limited numbers of spectators (with distancing measures in place) from 14th September, and some professional sports events may be arranged for spectators before then with Scottish government agreement.

*EDIT - It's worth pointing out that in the last 7 days, there were 8 deaths registered in Scotland where Covid was mentioned as contributory factor on the death certificate, but the deceased had not returned a positive test result.

[Janik]

My initial post had an error. I should have said there was NO evidence for behavioural fatigue. The lockdowns were holding in Italy and Spain.

There was NO evidence of a lack of it, either. Italy and Spain were only a handful of weeks into their lockdowns, too early for the speculated behavioural fatigue to take hold. It was still an unknown how populations would behave as this was a novel situation.

[S. aureus]

Horrible people on my side of the Atlantic, a continuing series:

https://twitter.com/JakeSherman/status/1288524502649966592

[ursus arctos]

Although there is probably very little hard evidence to back me up, there is a certain sense that clinicians who attain significant leadership roles do so by managing a political trade-off between evidence-based practice and what is politically acceptable. Hence my comments about adjusting advice. The way the chief nursing office got ditched after commenting on Cummings shows the tightrope they walk.

This has been played out on a very high level in the US in the difference between Birx (who plays the game) and Faucci (who is less inclined to).

[Patrick Thistle]

There was NO evidence of a lack of it, either. Italy and Spain were only a handful of weeks into their lockdowns, too early for the speculated behavioural fatigue to take hold. It was still an unknown how populations would behave as this was a novel situation.

Yes fair enough. But that's what I mean about it not being an evidence-based idea and using it as an excuse isn't valid. It just shows poor decision-making in action weighting hypothetical risks higher than actual known risks.

[Nocturnal Submission]

Anyone know what happened to the US economy in '58? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53574953

[ursus arctos]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession_of_1958