Should our lockdown have been harsher/stricter?

[nlogax]

Fully agree. It's easy to say we should have locked down immediately with hindsight, but would people have accepted it in late February when the virus just wasn't seen as a threat?

Instead of 'waiting to see what Europe does' I strongly feel we should have locked down at the same time as our European neighbours, which was eight to ten days before the UK. My guess is that will be proven to have been the main error on the UK's part - but again that's a hindsight view. Let's see what an inquiry says.

 

[Esker-pades]

Fully agree. It's easy to say we should have locked down immediately with hindsight, but would people have accepted it in late February when the virus just wasn't seen as a threat?

New Zealand pretty much did that. The public generally accepted it. Ardern explained it as follows: "We've got very few cases, but Italy did a few weeks ago. We have to act now." That worked.

 

[scotrail158713]

It is indeed mad. I've booked a cottage holiday in Scotland for the end of July. It's looking increasingly unlikely we'll be going. Yet I probably will be able to book a week away somewhere in Europe.

After today’s announcement you may well be ok to visit - if the trends continue as they are just now.

Coronavirus: Scottish tourism sector could reopen on 15 July

Tourism Secretary Fergus Ewing says the date is conditional on continued progress in tackling the coronavirus.

www.bbc.co.uk

Scotland's tourism businesses, including pubs, hotels and restaurants, have been told to prepare to reopen on 15 July.

Tourism Secretary Fergus Ewing said the date was conditional on moving to the third phase of the route map for easing lockdown restrictions.

Announcing a new taskforce, he said businesses needed clarity to be able to plan for reopening.

But he warned the date may change if the evidence on Covid-19 requires it.

Mr Ewing told MSPs the pandemic had left the industry facing unprecedented challenges.

But he said a new taskforce would focus on the sector's recovery needs, actions being taken by the UK government and the development of a new domestic visitor marketing campaign.

Mr Ewing said this was in addition to a £2.3bn package of support for businesses which included measures specific to the tourism and hospitality sector, such as a full year of non-domestic rates relief and specific grant schemes.

Mr Ewing said: "The coronavirus pandemic has presented challenges across the entirety of the Scottish economy, but it is very clear there are exceptional circumstances facing this sector that must be recognised.

"We have acted as quickly as we can to address the significant financial challenges faced by businesses and provide a comprehensive package of support."

'This is very, very welcome'

Tom Ponton, owner of the Oz Bar in Edinburgh, said the news was "very welcome and long overdue" after a "very anxious period" for the industry.

"We really need to know what the guidelines are before we get too excited, but this is still very, very welcome," he said.

"This is the toughest adversity I've ever faced in the 40 years I've been in the trade.

"I've felt very anxious during the lockdown and I have had to borrow £70,000 to get me through. I've never had debt in my life before and now I do.

"Maybe we shouldn't have been so quick to cancel everything in the summer. We treble our turnover during the four weeks of the Edinburgh Festivals, which now we won't have."

Mr Ewing also said the Scottish government was asking the UK government to do more, including a review of VAT rates and to consider extensions to schemes such as the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.

"I've been engaging with businesses since the beginning of the outbreak and I have heard their calls for more clarity, which today I can provide," he said.

"Businesses should start to prepare for a provisional return to trading - with appropriate safety guidelines - on the 15th July 2020.

"This date cannot be definitive and is conditional on public health advice and progression to phase three of the route map. Businesses must now use this time to satisfy the necessary regulations and adapt to the new way of living."

The Scottish government confirmed the tourism and hospitality announcement applies to pubs, hotels and restaurants.

Phase three of the route-map out of lockdowncovers accommodation providers, visitor attractions, indoor areas of pubs and restaurants and the wider aspects of tourism.

Phase four of the route map includes events and no possible dates have yet been given for this stage.

'Hugely positive'
Marc Crothall, chief executive of the Scottish Tourism Alliance, said the announcement was "a hugely positive milestone in our road to recovery".

He said they had been pushing for a date so that accommodation providers, visitor attractions, pubs and restaurants could plan effectively.

He said this would include accepting bookings, arranging for staff to return from furlough, and ensuring that safety measures are in place for both employees and customers.

Mr Crothall said "urgent solutions or alternative measures" were needed to "overcome" the current two metre distancing restrictions.

He also called for some parts of the tourism sector, such as self-catering, caravan and camping parks, to be allowed to reopen earlier.

But he added: "The reassurance that there is a summer season for tourism in Scotland will offer a huge comfort and relief to many thousands of businesses."

 

[Puffing Devil]

I'm not at all convinced an earlier or stricter lockdown has any useful long-term effect.

Fully agree. It's easy to say we should have locked down immediately with hindsight, but would people have accepted it in late February when the virus just wasn't seen as a threat?

Fully agreed, and I doubt that the public would have bought in to a lock down when it'd have been most effective. SAGE concluded that there was "likely to be sustained transmission in the UK in the coming weeks" on March 2nd which is close approaching the point where it's too late to lock down to eradicate the virus. At that point there were 36 confirmed cases and no confirmed deaths.

Your view is not shared by Neil Furguson, who has been all over the news this afternoon :

Professor Neil Ferguson estimates 25,000 lives could have been saved by going into lockdown a week earlier.​

the Source Sky News, though many other reports are available.

We had a government betting our lives on "herd immunity" and a special advisor who wasn't concerned if "a few pensioners died". That's why we didn't lockdown. If it had been swift, decisive and well communicated, like New Zealand, we would have had a very good chance. Then again, their PM appears to carry respect and hasn't built their career on the back of a bumbling buffoon persona.

 

[philosopher]

New Zealand pretty much did that. The public generally accepted it. Ardern explained it as follows: "We've got very few cases, but Italy did a few weeks ago. We have to act now." That worked.

But the public in New Zealand could see what was happening in Italy and Spain when New Zealand locked down when they only had a few cases. When there were very few cases in the UK it just did not seem as too much of a threat.

I agree a lockdown should have happened sooner, but realistically mid March is the earliest the public would have accepted it.

 

[43066]

Your view is not shared by Neil Furguson, who has been all over the news this afternoon :

Professor Neil Ferguson estimates 25,000 lives could have been saved by going into lockdown a week earlier.​

the Source Sky News, though many other reports are available.

We had a government betting our lives on "herd immunity" and a special advisor who wasn't concerned if "a few pensioners died". That's why we didn't lockdown. If it had been swift, decisive and well communicated, like New Zealand, we would have had a very good chance. Then again, their PM appears to carry respect and hasn't built their career on the back of a bumbling buffoon persona.

Yes, but Neil Ferguson has a track record, as long as your arm, of talking complete and utter rubbish.

“So the real scandal is: Why did anyone ever listen to this guy?” « Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science

statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu

[Imperial College epidemiologist Neil] Ferguson was behind the disputed research that sparked the mass culling of eleven million sheep and cattle during the 2001 outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. He also predicted that up to 150,000 people could die. There were fewer than 200 deaths. . . .

In 2002, Ferguson predicted that up to 50,000 people would likely die from exposure to BSE (mad cow disease) in beef. In the U.K., there were only 177 deaths from BSE.

In 2005, Ferguson predicted that up to 150 million people could be killed from bird flu. In the end, only 282 people died worldwide from the disease between 2003 and 2009.

In 2009, a government estimate, based on Ferguson’s advice, said a “reasonable worst-case scenario” was that the swine flu would lead to 65,000 British deaths. In the end, swine flu killed 457 people in the U.K.

Last March, Ferguson admitted that his Imperial College model of the COVID-19 disease was based on undocumented, 13-year-old computer code that was intended to be used for a feared influenza pandemic, rather than a coronavirus. Ferguson declined to release his original code so other scientists could check his results. He only released a heavily revised set of code last week, after a six-week delay.

So the real scandal is: Why did anyone ever listen to this guy?

 

[Esker-pades]

But the public in New Zealand could see what was happening in Italy and Spain when New Zealand locked down when they only had a few cases. When there were very few cases in the UK it just did not seem as too much of a threat.

I agree a lockdown should have happened sooner, but realistically mid March is the earliest the public would have accepted it.

Italy locked down Lombardy on the 22nd of February, 14 regions on the 8th of March, and the whole country on the 9th.

We locked down on the 23rd of March. That's a lag of a fortnight.

 

[Esker-pades]

Yes, but Neil Ferguson has a track record of talking complete and utter rubbish.

“So the real scandal is: Why did anyone ever listen to this guy?” « Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science

statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu

From the same source:

There seems to some truth to [the] explanation...above, “Ferguson didn’t really make all those errors; if you look at his actual statements, he was sane and reasonable.”

Mad Cow paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11786878

From abstract:
“Extending the analysis to consider absolute risk, we estimate the 95% confidence interval for future vCJD mortality to be 50 to 50,000 human deaths considering exposure to bovine BSE alone, with the upper bound increasing to 150,000 once we include exposure from the worst-case ovine BSE scenario examined.”

Consistent with the “up to 50,000” quote but the quote fails to mention the lower bound.

It's also not just Professor Fergerson who has pointed out that locking down a week earlier would have saved thousands of lives. We have evidence for specifically the UK from Sir Ian Boyd, James Annan and Sir David King, evidence for the US from Columbia University, and then all the other countries who locked down earlier (both in terms of time and in how many people were infected) who have done far better.

 

[Puffing Devil]

Yes, but Neil Ferguson has a track record, as long as your arm, of talking complete and utter rubbish.

“So the real scandal is: Why did anyone ever listen to this guy?” « Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science

statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu

To add to the other points, above, Ireland locked down two weeks sooner. Their death rate is half of the UK's. They were in the same position, saw the same incoming disease on the same continent and have, arguably, a very similar geography and population. Somehow they managed to predict the impact and implement a lockdown. And "Saved Lives".

 

[43066]

From the same source:


It's also not just Professor Fergerson who has pointed out that locking down a week earlier would have saved thousands of lives. We have evidence for specifically the UK from Sir Ian Boyd, James Annan and Sir David King, evidence for the US from Columbia University, and then all the other countries who locked down earlier (both in terms of time and in how many people were infected) who have done far better.

So the prediction was “between 50 and 150,000”. 177 deaths so far.*

I suppose it isn’t strictly wrong, in the same way as predicting the total would be “between 50 and 5 billion”, also wouldn’t have been wrong, but still a pretty useless prediction to base government policy on!

Ferguson’s predictions have been widely discredited, as has the model he used to predict Covid 19 fatalities.

*and what about the other examples given of his ludicrous predictions?

 

[43066]

To add to the other points, above, Ireland locked down two weeks sooner. Their death rate is half of the UK's. They were in the same position, saw the same incoming disease on the same continent and have, arguably, a very similar geography and population. Somehow they managed to predict the impact and implement a lockdown. And "Saved Lives".

And if we’d isolated care homes properly, our death rate would be half of what it is now - with or without a lockdown!

Remember that over 50% of UK fatalities are in care homes.

 

[43066]

Thousands of cancer patients could die early due to coronavirus delays, study finds

Researchers warn suspended surgery and treatments will lead to some cases becoming incurable

www.theguardian.com

Thousands of people with cancer could die early because so many hospitals have suspended surgery for the disease while the NHS battles the coronavirus, experts warn today.

Can any of the posters in favour of a stricter/longer lock down to “save lives” explain why they feel reducing Covid 19 fatalities should be prioritised at the expense of causing “thousands” of unnecessary deaths amongst (usually much younger) cancer patients?

 

[Bikeman78]

Yes, but Neil Ferguson has a track record, as long as your arm, of talking complete and utter rubbish.

“So the real scandal is: Why did anyone ever listen to this guy?” « Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science

statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu

Is this the man who thought that Sweden would have 40,000 deaths from Covid?

 

[MikeWM]

Your view is not shared by Neil Furguson, who has been all over the news this afternoon :

Professor Neil Ferguson estimates 25,000 lives could have been saved by going into lockdown a week earlier.​

the Source Sky News, though many other reports are available.

I'm amazed he dares to show his face in public, to be frank, never mind come out with more random models. The accuracy of his predictions makes economists, weather forecasters, and that octopus they used to predict the results of football matches, look good by comparison.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I'm amazed he dares to show his face in public, to be frank, never mind come out with more random models. The accuracy of his predictions makes economists, weather forecasters, and that octopus they used to predict the results of football matches, look good by comparison.

Perhaps he's turning out more stats to try and hide the fact that he called for a lockdown, then when he got one decided it somehow didn't apply to him and went off on a jolly?

Edit: not quite a jolly, but in fact potentially adultery (well, at least meeting with a married woman, who knows what they did or didn't do during such meeting, though I bet they were not 2m apart), which hardly speaks in his favour!

 

[yorksrob]

There's an argument that we might have done better had we locked down a week or two earlier - I suspect that that probably is the case.

But what has that got to do with the premise of this thread, that we should have had a "harder/stronger" lockdown ? These seem like two entirely different arguments.

 

[Bletchleyite]

There's an argument that we might have done better had we locked down a week or two earlier - I suspect that that probably is the case.

But what has that got to do with the premise of this thread, that we should have had a "harder/stronger" lockdown ? These seem like two entirely different arguments.

They're sort of related, maybe the OP should edit the subject to add "/earlier"?

 

[Puffing Devil]

They're sort of related, maybe the OP should edit the subject to add "/earlier"?

I took earlier as "harsher".

I'm amazed he dares to show his face in public, to be frank, never mind come out with more random models. The accuracy of his predictions makes economists, weather forecasters, and that octopus they used to predict the results of football matches, look good by comparison.

Given you don't support Furguson, how do you account for the Irish result with an earlier lockdown and half of our deaths?

 

[Esker-pades]

So the prediction was “between 50 and 150,000”. 177 deaths so far.*

I suppose it isn’t strictly wrong, in the same way as predicting the total would be “between 50 and 5 billion”, also wouldn’t have been wrong, but still a pretty useless prediction to base government policy on!

Ferguson’s predictions have been widely discredited, as has the model he used to predict Covid 19 fatalities.

*and what about the other examples given of his ludicrous predictions?

Case 2: "up to"
Case 3: "reasonable worst-case scenario"

I don't know enough to defend Ferguson beyond that. I'm willing to accept that he may have either got numbers wrong in the past or that they were vague.


But, as I said in the previous comment, Ferguson is not the only one to make these claims. If we accept Ferguson's research as discredited, there's still the work of others who have come to the same conclusion. I have quoted my previous comment below for reference:

We have evidence for specifically the UK from Sir Ian Boyd, James Annan and Sir David King, evidence for the US from Columbia University, and then all the other countries who locked down earlier (both in terms of time and in how many people were infected) who have done far better.

 

[Richard Scott]

Thousands of cancer patients could die early due to coronavirus delays, study finds

Researchers warn suspended surgery and treatments will lead to some cases becoming incurable

www.theguardian.com

Can any of the posters in favour of a stricter/longer lock down to “save lives” explain why they feel reducing Covid 19 fatalities should be prioritised at the expense of causing “thousands” of unnecessary deaths amongst (usually much younger) cancer patients?

This does seem to be being ignored by many - rather scandalously in my opinion. I know it's harsh to say but majority of deaths from Covid-19 are much older people (and in reality what was their life expectancy in real terms?) but cancer patients are all ages - ignored is actually around 25 percent of additional reported deaths are non Covid related so from people like this. All the keyboard warriors stating we should carry on lockdown have conveniently forgotten this. We all seem to be looking at one issue and dropping the ball with regards to many others. I know some of the things here may sound harsh but it's reality - afraid there will always be a trade off whatever decisions are made and not sure public opinion is giving us the right outcome. Lets' also remember what we really mean with 'saving lives' is 'delaying death'.

 

[MikeWM]

Given you don't support Furguson, how do you account for the Irish result with an earlier lockdown and half of our deaths?

There are far too many variables in play to draw any useful conclusions yet - hence why I said above it may take 3 years or more for things to become at all clear. We don't yet know how the death rates at this point will match up with the results when the pandemic is over.

But so far, we could equally say how about Sweden, with no lockdown but fewer deaths? Or Japan, no lockdown and almost no deaths? Or the USA, where the more severely locked down states have fared much worse than those who didn't?

Possibly population density has an effect. Pollution. Health of the population. Vitamin D levels. Policies on care homes. Stopping flights from infected areas in good time. Etc. There's a lot of potential differences between countries other than lockdown policies.

 

[Planesandtrain]

Not stricter but slightly earlier. I remember being very anxious with the large increase in cases/deaths and steps being taken very slowley. This:

sums it up

 

[BananaRepublic]

Italy locked down Lombardy on the 22nd of February, 14 regions on the 8th of March, and the whole country on the 9th.

We locked down on the 23rd of March. That's a lag of a fortnight.

There was a local lockdown in the Lodi area of SE Lombardy on the 21st February, a relatively small area.
As the number of cases and deaths exploded across the region, the Italian national government dragged their heels and hesitated in locking down any further, despite regional politicians calling for a total lockdown.
Eventually they acted and Lombardy, including the city of Bergamo, was locked down on the 8th March along with the whole of the north of Italy.
There’s now a political row in Italy, with government being accused of acting too slowly.

In France, the first confirmed COVID death occurred on the 14th February.
In the following 2 weeks, cases and deaths increased alarmingly.
France started selective closures on the 16th March, with the full lockdown on the 17th of March, 6 days before the UK, but also 2 weeks too late.

.

 

[Domh245]

Your view is not shared by Neil Furguson, who has been all over the news this afternoon :

Professor Neil Ferguson estimates 25,000 lives could have been saved by going into lockdown a week earlier.
the Source Sky News, though many other reports are available.

We had a government betting our lives on "herd immunity" and a special advisor who wasn't concerned if "a few pensioners died". That's why we didn't lockdown. If it had been swift, decisive and well communicated, like New Zealand, we would have had a very good chance. Then again, their PM appears to carry respect and hasn't built their career on the back of a bumbling buffoon persona.

I don't disagree that locking down earlier would have reduced the amount of cases - though I'll stop short of agreeing an exact number. I also don't disagree that our PM is a bumbling idiot whilst NZ's PM is happy to act decisively, but I do doubt that you'd have been able to get a lockdown agreed in early March, which would have been the point needed to go into lock down with a similar number of cases to NZ - it just wasn't a serious enough threat in the public's eye that early on.

That said - if we compare NZ's case count 14 days after their lockdown (ie peak infection detection as anyone infected pre-lockdown should now be detectable), to our case count 14 days after it's quite interesting.
NZ locked down at 28 cases and 14 days after was at 868 cases. If we'd locked down at a similar number (say 1/3, with 23 cases as of 29/2) then 14 days on we're at 1391 cases - obviously if we'd locked down rather than carrying on as normal that number may have reduced a bit but I would say it's pretty apparent that we started off in a worse position with a far higher number of cases in the country before it was realised how bad the situation was, not to mention an almost 3 week disadvantage, which is an eternity during a rapidly evolving pandemic like this.

If you want a reiteration of how 'unseriously' it was taken at the time - here's the thread that was running on the virus at that time, it'd been created 3 days prior to the equivalent-lockdown date and was pretty much all calm discussion about hypotheticals - indeed, this was before any of the panic buying had set in!

 

[BananaRepublic]

.......Remember that over 50% of UK fatalities are in care homes.

Which is about the average across most of Europe.
Much worst in some countries, e.g. 62% in Ireland and 61% in Norway.
The old were abandoned and left to die alone after staff fled a care home in Spain.
The story in care homes across much of Europe has been dire.
Although not a good record, U.K. has not been affected as badly As some.

This article from the Irish Times published 3 weeks ago parallels similar stories in Reuter’s and in other publications, such as Euro News and La Stampa.
It is worth a read.

‘This whole corridor is dead’: Europe’s coronavirus care home disaster

Wherever the virus spread uncontrolled, elderly care homes were left unprotected

www.irishtimes.com

.

 

[BananaRepublic]

Germany’s care homes....

Rising number of COVID-19 deaths in Germany’s retirement and care homes

As the German government is effectively ending its coronavirus lockdown, reports about people dying of COVID-19 in retirement and care homes are increasing.

www.wsws.org

.

 

[MikeWM]

An alternative to Mr Ferguson's models, comparing R in the UK, Germany and Sweden:

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article...ovid-s-death-toll-fact-checking-neil-ferguson

The shape of the infection curve – for that is what it is, and presented differently would show a bell-curve – is strikingly similar for all three countries (and I could have done exactly the same with Spain, USA, France or Italy etc. – all the same shape). But it looks very different to the lockdown-induced cliff-edge graph based on Imperial modelling. All three countries were at R of 2.5-3.0 early on in the epidemic, peaked before lockdown, declined fast, dropped below 1.0 (signifying the peak of the epidemic) around the third week of March and are currently around 0.8 to 0.9 have bumbled around just under 1.0 for the past couple of months.

In other words : lockdown had little or no effect on our new favourite number R.

 

[The Ham]

An alternative to Mr Ferguson's models, comparing R in the UK, Germany and Sweden:

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article...ovid-s-death-toll-fact-checking-neil-ferguson



In other words : lockdown had little or no effect on our new favourite number R.

If suggest that much of the reduction was down to the fact that each announcement made by the government appeared to have been made after many people were willing to accept them, and so were already doing them.

As an example, a trip I made around London on the 29th February (so three weeks before lockdown) and people were giving each other a wider birth than normal, numbers around were well done on what would be typical, hand washing was being done much more and so on. As such, whilst there were still cases around and people not fully adhering to the rules when lockdown was initiated, it's not that surprising that the number of cases were falling significantly in advance to full lockdown.

Whilst there's been some wiggling about from the very low point early April soon after lockdown was implemented, it would appear that much of that could be down to some breaches around things like Easter, VE day, Bank Holidays, etc.

As such, whilst the actual act of lockdown had a fairly limited impact (although numbers did continue to fall slowly) there had been much anticipation of the lockdown happening and many had already been doing much of what they needed to do anyway.

 

[Bantamzen]

If suggest that much of the reduction was down to the fact that each announcement made by the government appeared to have been made after many people were willing to accept them, and so were already doing them.

As an example, a trip I made around London on the 29th February (so three weeks before lockdown) and people were giving each other a wider birth than normal, numbers around were well done on what would be typical, hand washing was being done much more and so on. As such, whilst there were still cases around and people not fully adhering to the rules when lockdown was initiated, it's not that surprising that the number of cases were falling significantly in advance to full lockdown.

Whilst there's been some wiggling about from the very low point early April soon after lockdown was implemented, it would appear that much of that could be down to some breaches around things like Easter, VE day, Bank Holidays, etc.

As such, whilst the actual act of lockdown had a fairly limited impact (although numbers did continue to fall slowly) there had been much anticipation of the lockdown happening and many had already been doing much of what they needed to do anyway.

I must admit I noticed similar changes in habits & numbers of people out and about in West Yorkshire in the weeks leading up to the lockdown. If anywhere near correct, this analysis does suggest that the lockdown might actually not have had that greater an effect on the 'R' value as some have suggested, and that the simpler measures asked of us prior to that might actually have been the most effective. It will need a lot more examination, but I hope it isn't swept under the carpet as being inconvenient.

 

[43066]

Case 2: "up to"
Case 3: "reasonable worst-case scenario"

I don't know enough to defend Ferguson beyond that. I'm willing to accept that he may have either got numbers wrong in the past or that they were vague.


But, as I said in the previous comment, Ferguson is not the only one to make these claims. If we accept Ferguson's research as discredited, there's still the work of others who have come to the same conclusion. I have quoted my previous comment below for reference:

Trouble is there isn’t much scientific consensus, and Ferguson’s model *has* been roundly panned. The approach of our government (and others) has been political rather than scientific, and boils down to: “make it up as we go along”.

The other thing that concerns me is that these epidemiological models only take account of reducing Covid deaths. None take account of the wider implications of the strategies used.

What we needed was a *reasonable* approach to the crisis: preventing the NHS being overwhelmed, but also taking into account the need to prevent potentially vast numbers of “excess deaths” from other causes.