Hanarchy Montanarchy wrote: Fri May 08, 2020 10:35 am
Montegriffo wrote: Fri May 08, 2020 10:24 am
Hanarchy Montanarchy wrote: Fri May 08, 2020 9:43 am
Have the godamn discussion then. Every time opening up the economy comes up, the response is invariably: not yet.
When asked when, the response is: don't know.
When asked what it would take, the response is: we need tests.
End of discussion. No plan in sight.
I have tried. Twice in the last 3 days alone I've talked about the conditions necessary to relax the shutdown and both times it resulted in zero discussion from anyone in a rush to open up the economy
https://www.martinhash.com/forums/viewt ... 00#p315673
https://www.martinhash.com/forums/viewt ... 00#p315963
No, Boris is listening to his advisors and not prepared to talk about dates until the 5 conditions for a safe end to the shutdown have been met.
1: The NHS has the capacity to provide critical care right across the UK.
2: A sustained and consistent fall in daily deaths from coronavirus.
3: The rate of infection has decreased to manageable levels across the board.
4: Operational challenges including testing and PPE are in hand, with supply able to meet future demand.
5: Confidence that any adjustments to the current measures will not risk a second peak of infections (that overwhelms the NHS)
The WHO recommends 6 conditions.
1. Disease transmission is under control
2. Health systems are able to "detect, test, isolate and treat every case and trace every contact"
3. Hot spot risks are minimized in vulnerable places, such as nursing homes
4. Schools, workplaces and other essential places have established preventive measures
5. The risk of importing new cases "can be managed"
6. Communities are fully educated, engaged and empowered to live under a new normal
I want to take these recommendations as seriously as I can, because I believe you are arguing in good faith.
1. Disease transmission is under control.
How? There isn't going to be a vaccine for some time, if ever, for the same reason that there isn't a vaccine for SARS and a vaccine of only limited efficacy for MERS.
2. Health systems are able to "detect, test, isolate and treat every case and trace every contact"
How? With the transmission rate and huge amount of asymptomatic carriers, this is more or less impossible, and there is no plan to actually achieve this herculean task.
3. Hot spot risks are minimized in vulnerable places, such as nursing homes
We already have all the tools we need for this.
4. Schools, workplaces and other essential places have established preventive measures
We already know how to achieve this, and have all the tools we need.
5. The risk of importing new cases "can be managed"
We already know how to achieve this and have all the tools we need.
6. Communities are fully educated, engaged and empowered to live under a new normal
I don't know exactly what this means, but I am fairly certain it is not something that can be achieved through shelter-in-place, or social distancing, or more tests, or more PPE.
Here is the ugly truth. It doesn't matter how long we shelter in place, or how many tests we have. We are going to be in the exact same position as we are right now until we have herd immunity or a vaccine. As stated earlier, there is not a vaccine on the horizon, and there may not be one.