[Ed P]

I’m posting this looking for positive critiques, and number reworking as required. The following is based on some reasonable guesswork and published numbers where available. I would have loved to use the Government’s model but they have been very secretive with this.

I’m trying to rough out some numbers on the Cummings Quick Cull
(sorry herd immunity) strategy. These numbers are obviously very
rough as the Government has been very secretive about the numbers
that underpin its strategy.

At the press conference the expert stated that the maximum number
of cases would take place in 12 weeks time and follows a bell-shaped
curve, say 25 weeks to infect 60% of 66 million people.

For simplicity in modelling say a triangle with a base of 25 weeks and peak of
the highest rate of infection/week, then the area within the triangle is approximately 40 million.

Then from simple geometry the peak infection rate must be approximately
3.5million/week in that peak week.

Based on covid-19 experience to date10% of such cases will be serious and need hospitalisation
i.e 0.35 million and 0.1 million will need ICU beds.

The UK only has 167000 hospital beds i.e. half that number required,
which btw is less than half beds/population of say Korea or China or even Italy.

It seems to me likely that the Italian death rate of around 7%
(versus Korea 0.8%) will apply to all cases in excess of the UK bed
capacity i.e. The Cummings strategy will eliminate an incremental burden of
around 9000 in that week alone. I would integrate that back to a rough
total increment for the whole period of about 50000 NHS, pension and social services burdens
being eliminated by this strategy.

The Government could have tried to completely flatten the curve as
applied by Singapore and Korea.This would need measures
such as compulsory face masks, banning public gatherings, frequent
public temperature checks and enforced quarantines.

[Ed P]

Now I see why my numbers made no sense. The population the Government is considering is not 66 million,,and also the people needing critical care will be less than 10% of those catching covid-19. The 70+ cut still results in a lot of 60+ at risk people, I hope the Government speeds up its ventilator and hospital bed procurement to match quite a large incremental demand. If you are over 60 and a smoker, stop now as the statistics show that smokers are especially at risk.

That said I really do not fancy spending April through August being banged-up by Boris!

I’m going to have to do another Lidl Malt run tomorrow!

[Bob Williams]

No one is going to stop me leaving if I NEED to go out. How do they expect to stop me? We oldpharts are the ones more likely to stand up and not lie down to accept this. I understand the problem, but this solution is the usual knee-jerk political garbage.

Where are the people who will supply our “essentials”?

What is an essential, it varies as much as the individual does? There are not enough Carers in the system as it is now, the supermarkets do not have enough vans or staff to carry out the supply.

What happens to medication supplies? There is some that keeps me alive and I know that the local Prescription Delivery Service is already over-subscribed, just in this area. What will happen in urban conurbations, big towns, very rural areas?

This is bowlocks, as usual the idea is acted upon without thought of consequences. Will somebody correct the mistake made by making Matt Hancock the Health Minister?

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Ed P]

Bob,
I suggest that you write to your MP pointing out the issues that face people like you.

I am bugging my MP on a weekly basis, they must be reaching the point of just regurgitating the Government pabulum from Mushroom Matt, but every now and again I throw in something they find either hard to refute or something that they need to consider more carefully.

It is issues such as these that expose the lightweight inability to grasp detail of Ministers and their minions. Normally it just causes the populace suffering but getting it wrong in this crisis will cost hundreds or more lives. A good example was the Government call to make ventilators, then the MD of JCB pointed out that they needed patent clearances, detailed engineering drawings and specifications as JCB could not possibly manufacture all the parts, and the equipment would need to be passed to others to add their bits. God help the patients if they did not all fit together. (To be honest as a major Conservative donor he did not add the latter in public but I bet he did in private.)

[Dave Rice]

There is no detail in anything. How do you isolate a child? You cannot throw them in a room and lock the door like we’ll be doing with OAPs 😉

I am still clueless how I can get any help should I get into financial difficulties. Thankfully the wife works for the Post Office so a regular wage shouldn’t be an issue.

What about testing? How do you know you had Covid-19 when you were isolating? Are you now immune? Surely that would be a good thing to know for lots of reasons.

“Lets make ventilators” shows how bad things really are. They do not have a clue about how the world works. They clearly hadn’t sought any advice from anyone who could actually do it. I see the Germans got their order in quick, where were we?

In 6 months time there is going to be a reckoning and those governments that cocked it up are going to be in real trouble. Time will tell where BoJo and his mates are going to end up on the zero or hero scale but remember we are the herd, not them.

I any die hard Brexiteers think we’re leaving on the latest schedule I’d think again.

[Ed P]

I think this Government of lightweights suddenly realised your point about isolating a child or any person in a household for that matter. They are now talking vaguely about ‘family isolation’

[Ed P]

The Governments ‘secret’ report says 8 million could be hospitalised. I only calculated 0.7 million (0.35 critical), so either their numbers are a total over the epidemic (seems about right) or at peak patients will be in for 10 weeks.

[Author]

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