Easy to say that living in Norwich who won’t face the bulk of these restrictions.
Coronavirus - the new strain XII
- Thread starter russel
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Seanm
pfm Member
The thing is it’s both, there’s no balance at all. Until the virus is under some kind of control demand is going to be fcked, most people are going to be much more cautious than they would otherwise, whether restrictions are there or not. And that’s before you even consider the economic impact of the NHS being overwhelmed, and of mass death, and of long Covid amongst working age people.
The economic logic of lockdown, as I understand it, is that it shortens the pain.That’s the theory. I admit there’s a sense of futility now, after the first, long one, because the theory depends on the government using the time lockdown buys to deal with test and trace, which we know they can’t or won’t do.
gavreid
Pretty Words...
Sadiq Khan gets it very well
"On the ’false’ choice between saving lives and saving jobs
The supposed choice between saving the economy and saving lives – between restrictions and freedoms – is an entirely false one.
Because the later we take the necessary steps to slow the spread of the virus, the more severe these steps will have to be and the longer they’ll have to last in order to drive down infection rates.
No matter how much some people want to pretend otherwise and bury their heads in the sand – the truth is that the health crisis and the economic crisis are inextricably linked.
That’s why getting this virus under control is the only way we can both protect lives and our economy.
There’s simply no other option."
cubastreet
Espresso Fiend
I see it differently. I think most will agree the gently gently approach to pandemic control doesn't work.
This leaves two options:
A) Hard lockdown and rigorous test & trace to eliminate the virus, then resume business. This will require huge financial support from the government and result in a lot of debt.
B) Sacrifice the lives of tens/hundreds of thousands of frontline workers and the lives or freedom of the sick and elderly until another solution is found.
Is there a plan C?
mandryka
pfm Member
I am sure it's true that
and so
are correct. No arguments there.
However I think there may be a fallacy in what Kahn is saying. It's not a dichotomy between savings live and saving the economy. That's a false dichotomy. You can save the economy more or less, you can save lives more or less. These things are matter of degrees.
The hard question which Kahn bypasses is this: how much should we put the breaks on the virus now (at the expense of the economy now)?
You might decide to let the virus simmer along at a medium death rate that the NHS can cope with, which will, as Sean says, harm demand but not completely, the economy will tick along. That's the balance question which won't go away.
And it's an urgent question because we've seen that it's hard to come out of a hard lockdown without starting a new wave. And it seems impossible to protect the vulnerable if you let it rip.
and so
are correct. No arguments there.
However I think there may be a fallacy in what Kahn is saying. It's not a dichotomy between savings live and saving the economy. That's a false dichotomy. You can save the economy more or less, you can save lives more or less. These things are matter of degrees.
The hard question which Kahn bypasses is this: how much should we put the breaks on the virus now (at the expense of the economy now)?
You might decide to let the virus simmer along at a medium death rate that the NHS can cope with, which will, as Sean says, harm demand but not completely, the economy will tick along. That's the balance question which won't go away.
And it's an urgent question because we've seen that it's hard to come out of a hard lockdown without starting a new wave. And it seems impossible to protect the vulnerable if you let it rip.
#1879
I’d argue that the more lockdowns you have the longer the virus will be prolonged, meaning more economic pain. Sweden didn’t lock down and has suffered less economic damage as a result.
We all know the government won’t sort out test and trace. They’ve had seven months to and failed.
Think that’s why people are a bit peeved off.
gavreid
Pretty Words...
How would that 'simmer' be achieved? It implies a steady state of case numbers - in other words R has to be back to 1 before cases stop increasing...
mandryka
pfm Member
Well you'd have three tiers of restrictions . . . regions would move from one tier to the next. Like a control mechanism on an engine (I'm just making this stuff up as I go along you know!)
puddlesplasher
pfm Member
As a fridge engineer I'm going into the quieter season of the year but we are going down to four day weeks because so many restaurants etc are either not open or not very busy. I feel we need to keep as much open as possible to keep as many people employed.
gavreid
Pretty Words...
R didn't dip below 1 until roughly the end of May after more than two months of much stricter measures than are in any of the tiers. You're just going down the same dead ends as yesterday with that argument I'm sorry to say...
Seanm
pfm Member
What about it? The Sweden we hear about from the herd immunity community doesn’t actually exist. They haven’t been as hands off as people here would like us to be, for one thing.
mandryka
pfm Member
I think it's premature to say it's a dead end, it just shows how delicate these decisions are about restrictions. Maybe we need a non political deciding body, like the Bank of England decides interest rates.
By the way, re circuit breakers, apparently that was supposed to be done much earlier, when R was closer to 1. Too late now!
stephen bennett
Mr Enigma
SteveS1
I heard that, pardon?
No real equivalence. Very different population density, property occupancy and a whole different culture of conforming with rules. Even then, their figures compared to directly comparable surrounding countries are not good.
mandryka
pfm Member
gavreid
Pretty Words...
You just don't understand exponential growth. R has to be 1 before cases stop increasing, below that they will begin to decrease. I told you yesterday that the circuit breaker would have to be a couple of months long - look at Israel I said. If you caught Starmer he actually said 'at least two weeks' at lot of people took that to be two weeks - not me...
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