Re: Peak District
Ah, another person who wants to:
1 ) Ignore and misrepresent what the actual government advice and law is
2) Change the government’s strategy to what they think ought to have been done instead
3) Re-write the law and advice to suit their personal point of view
You may be correct that your proposed action might reduce the spread of the virus in the short term. Or you could be wrong (there is that). But that is *not* the government strategy. The strategy is to flatten the curve, to allow the NHS to handle the peak, and in the short term to reduce R0 below 1, and definitely not to zero.
It is *expected* that the majority (roughly 70%) of the non-vulnerable population get infected, and are managed in the best way we know how. In an orderly manner, and delayed until improved treatment infrastructure is in place: ventilators, PPE, hospitals, extra staffing, testing, antiviral mitigations (*not* cures or vaccination). This will prevent the NHS being overwhelmed, care for people better, and fewer doctors and patients will die.
If that doesn’t happen, and only a small minority of the non-vulnerable population get infected in this peak then we have no defense for the 10 million vulnerable people in the medium term. None. They will remain in solitary isolation for the rest of their lives, which as many of them are either over 70 or have critical illnesses, will be a few years and they will die alone, sooner rather than later.
Reducing R0 to 0 is actually a catastrophe. It condemns us all to doing this repeatedly for 3 months out of every 3.5 months forever. And that does mean forever. Even finding a vaccine doesn’t change that. Most vaccines are 30-70% effective, which even on the upper end is not enough with a virus that has R0 = 3.5-4.5 like this. It would *still* be on an exponential through the remaining vulnerable, just with a two week doubling instead of three days. That’s half a million dead in six months instead of a million dead in two months. Still unacceptable.
Just possibly, the government experts did run the numbers, came to that conclusion, and decided on their stated strategy. Did you and the vigilantes consider that? Before undermining their strategy by f’ing it up totally with your OCD, and condemning large swathes of the population to death with your half-knowledge?
If the government calculations and strategy is wrong, that will be horrific. Beyond anything imagined. But you don’t have any better insight than them. So stop being an f’ing virtue signalling prima Donna, and follow the f’ing law rather than inventing your own new rules.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
