[eltonioni]

@johnm you appear to have responded to something that you didn't read.

[johnm]

@johnm you appear to have responded to something that you didn't read.

I can read very adequately though there are times when I ask myself why I bother with nonsense

[Flyingfemme]

Comparing Covid19 with flu is like comparing a Spitfire to a Jumbo jet. The problem is childishly simple, we have screwed up test, trace and isolate and we have given inconsistent guidance and confused people. so infection control isn't working properly.

Actually they are very similar. Covid is new, so there was no expectation, no plan and it was a problem.

Much of what we refer to as "flu" probably isn't; the real thing is nasty and kills more than half a million people every year. But 95% of us have no problem with it at all. We don't test for it, we don't lock down for it and we don't quarantine those who have it. Now we have gone to the opposite extreme and are locking down because people are not actually ill but we think they might be (the PCR test catches a lot of people who are not, and won't be, ill).
There's no doubt that we need to up our public health game and protect/educate those who are really at risk. But many of them don't seem to want protecting........and this situation cannot go on.

[flybymike]

the PCR test catches a lot of people who are not, and won't be, ill).

Catches a lot of people with false positives as well.

[johnm]

There are similarities between Covid 19 and flu, but there are important differences too, partly because mutating flu viruses have been around for a long time and vaccines are available. That said a flu pandemic because of a mutation that changed the game radically was the scenario behind the contingency planning that was done and which proved grossly inadequate when tested in 2016. A rerun of Spanish flu was more or less what was expected.

I keep saying this, but test, trace and isolate and the UK's complete failure in that respect is why we're into damage limitation. The crucial issue has never been the number of deaths per se it has always been the load on NHS, the care system and undertakers because of the speed of spread. Covid is more efficient at spreading than the known flu viruses. All of the damage limitation plans are about slowing the spread so that a NHS with deliberately minimal spare capacity in the name of "efficiency " is not overwhelmed.

[JAFO]

I'm really starting to wonder why all those who are saying just how bad the UK is at everything don't just upsticks and move somewhere they actually like.

We're about 59th in the world if you take cases per million, that looks like a middling sort of place to be, to me. I would accept that we're a middling sort of place with an idea that we're something else but I don't accept that everything the UK does, it does so very, very badly.

Test, track and isolate can only do so much with such a small window in which to have a better than 75% chance of the right answer from a test. If we had adopted hands, face, space in March and more than a few of the mouth-breathers had joined in then we could probably have side-stepped a lot of the worst effects of lockdown. I accept that other countries were quicker off the mark with that but many others were not.

I am also beginning to wonder why the media wants to confuse everybody. They seem to have been debating what the "Rule of 6" means for over a week now and have today got their knickers in a twist about what mingling means. The "Rule of 6" means: are there more than 6 of you? If not then you're doing okay, nothing more than that. Mingling means mingling

[johnm]

The UK is not the right unit for Covid management the devolved govts in Scotland and Wales are doing a somewhat better job than England in some respects.

Mingling is not a defined legal term and has never appeared in a law before. The Home Secretary does not even understand the dictionary definition.

[JAFO]

No further questions, your honour.

[malcolmfrost]

and I wish they would stop covering all the countries in the UK news bulletins. Tell us that the rules have changed and the details will be in your regional bulletin. I really don't give a flying **** what the rules are in Scotland, that's why people are confused

[kanga]

and I wish they would stop covering all the countries in the UK news bulletins. ..

.. because BBC and other radio and TV news bulletins are on media which are read, seen and heard all over UK ? Those in other parts may reasonably complain that those same reports fail sufficiently to clarify at the outset of each item that the details which immediately follow apply only to England

[eltonioni]

@johnm you appear to have responded to something that you didn't read.

I can read very adequately though there are times when I ask myself why I bother with nonsense

Then it's a comprehension problem.

Moving on... in your "scenario planning" matrix for flu do you have an annual lockdown for everyone over 70 or with a relevant health condition... which is most people over 70?

I wouldn't personally because that would be as much of a nonsense as locking down the entire population of people who are people who are healthy and unlikely to die from flu. I wouldn't put them in face masks agin' flu either. Or subject them to mass testing for flu. Neither would I stop the kids seeing the grandparents just in case a schoolmate had flu. I definitely wouldn't tell my neighbors to call the police if I saw seven people hanging around in case one of them has the flu.

I am also beginning to wonder why the media wants to confuse everybody. They seem to have been debating what the "Rule of 6" means for over a week now and have today got their knickers in a twist about what mingling means. The "Rule of 6" means: are there more than 6 of you? If not then you're doing okay, nothing more than that. Mingling means mingling

A good point well made. Everyone knows what the "Rule of 6" is for and why it is there*. Anyone pretending that they don't is either that rare thing - a genuine complete idiot, or a weird psychopath with more interest in dividing society than public health*

* making the big assumption that it's even necessary in the first place

[kanga]

Once again, I can recommend today's "More or less" for clarification of the numbers being banded about with respect to testing capacity

[Miscellaneous]

Apparently, the ONS is reporting that flu and pneumonia has killed more people than Covid since June.

I'm afraid to say comparing flu directly with covid 19 is every bit as misleading and unhelpful as many of the complaints about the handling and confusion relating to and of covid 19. Particularly when taken out of context and offered a little disingenuously as above.

[eltonioni]

@Miscellaneous one should start as one means to go on. Apparently

[Miscellaneous]

@eltonioni well, you did manage to ruffle a few feathers as a consequence of confirmation bias.