Panic Buying

DK602 said:
They will have been debated at length and by all accounts Borris did not want the economy to shut but a high proportion of the cabinet said they would resign (how true this is I don't know).
I think he has agreed to it but will then evidence it doesn't in fact help and we will go back to herd immunity and just have to accept the mortality rate?

If we consider the mortality rate is 2% of those tested and we believe the actual figure of those infected is 10 x the positive rates then the mortality rate falls but is still high
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I guess that every government has to make a value judgement on how many deaths are acceptable, and the implications on the economy from those deaths. I don't think there is any right answer to that. There has to be a stage where enough deaths are going to break the economy anyway.

I am sure people are busy updating the models and have some idea of how well it's working, but we will just have to wait and see, the policy is primarily aimed at slowing down the spread to allow the NHS to better prepare for it, even a small delay is going to help.

I wouldn't draw any conclusions from the mortality/incidence rates you give, apart from us not knowing what these numbers really are, they don't mean anything without knowing how quickly the virus spreads within the population.
 
mikew said:
I think i put slow it down
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....but we will never know that, it will be impossible to tell. It doesn't look like it has helped in the rest of Europe but we won't know for sure.
What we do know is it's crippling the economy and ruining the lives for the young - it could take 10-15 yrs for the economy of the world to recover from this if it carries on much longer.
I personally don't think that's an acceptable price to pay. I think the vulnerable (I am one of them) need to accept this.
 
myotis said:
I guess that every government has to make a value judgement on how many deaths are acceptable, and the implications on the economy from those deaths. I don't think there is any right answer to that. There has to be a stage where enough deaths are going to break the economy anyway.

I am sure people are busy updating the models and have some idea of how well it's working, but we will just have to wait and see, the policy is primarily aimed at slowing down the spread to allow the NHS to better prepare for it, even a small delay is going to help.

I wouldn't draw any conclusions from the mortality/incidence rates you give, apart from us not knowing what these numbers really are, they don't mean anything without knowing how quickly the virus spreads within the population.
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Good sensible reply - thank you.
 
myotis said:
In principle and rather simplistically as I am no expert on this...

More of us die, but eventually, we learn to live with it. We have no vaccine for the cold virus.

A virus that kills its host is an ineffective virus, even if it's as contagious as this one is.

Viruses mutate quickly and a successful virus is one that can reproduce without killing its host.

The mutations that kill their host won't survive.
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Well it serves a species good by removing the weak genes or individuals and keeping the population down to a reasonable number, in our case it kills mainly elderly and sick people. Seems most won't be affected much.
 
DK602 said:
....but we will never know that, it will be impossible to tell. It doesn't look like it has helped in the rest of Europe but we won't know for sure.
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That's the nature of science, we never know for "sure" but in terms of not looking as if it has helped the rest of Europe...

Although, not the rest of Europe, the modelling for the UK predicted around 510,000 deaths if we did nothing to try and slow it down. There are no confidence intervals given for this number, but given how little we know about this virus, these could easily be something like between 200, 000 and 800,000 deaths (wild guess on my part, but I do have some experience of population and epidemiological modelling).

I assume Europe have similar models, so while we will never know if it "definitely" made a difference, we will have a reasonable idea. Especially as time goes by and we understand the virus better, updated models will give a better estimate of what might have happened if we had done nothing.

I think its also worthwhile thinking about the effect on the economy if there are possibly millions of people ill, and 100s of thousands dying, while you are trying to get on with your job. And if you get to these levels, even a small proportion of this sort of number is made up of young people being ill or dying, it's still a lot of young people. Some of which will be left with lifelong respiratory diseases.

In the US 47% of the people being hospitalised are under 55, so given the number of people involved, we could easily lose many key individuals important to our economic survival. Indeed individuals crucial to our economic survival may also include those over 55 :)

I think its really complicated.
 
myotis said:
That's the nature of science, we never know for "sure" but in terms of not looking as if it has helped the rest of Europe...

Although, not the rest of Europe, the modelling for the UK predicted around 510,000 deaths if we did nothing to try and slow it down. There are no confidence intervals given for this number, but given how little we know about this virus, these could easily be something like between 200, 000 and 800,000 deaths (wild guess on my part, but I do have some experience of population and epidemiological modelling).

I assume Europe have similar models, so while we will never know if it "definitely" made a difference, we will have a reasonable idea. Especially as time goes by and we understand the virus better, updated models will give a better estimate of what might have happened if we had done nothing.

I think its also worthwhile thinking about the effect on the economy if there are possibly millions of people ill, and 100s of thousands dying, while you are trying to get on with your job. And if you get to these levels, even a small proportion of this sort of number is made up of young people being ill or dying, it's still a lot of young people. Some of which will be left with lifelong respiratory diseases.

In the US 47% of the people being hospitalised are under 55, so given the number of people involved, we could easily lose many key individuals important to our economic survival. Indeed individuals crucial to our economic survival may also include those over 55 :)

I think its really complicated.
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Firstly Graham I would like to thank you for your excellent & knowledgeable replies - it's so easy to let it turn into an emotive argument over economy Vs lives with a lot of bad feeling in between - you have avoided that and thank you again.

The reason for my posts is my daughter has been sent back from University, misses boyfriend and the social life whilst also hurting her education.

As a family we always sit together for dinner and current affairs topics are discussed.

Again tonight she says "I don't know why our generation are suffering for a few 'coffin dodgers' who are already past their sell by date and will probably die soon anyway" Please ignore the way she says it - this is the terms we use in the house!

Sometimes I struggle to discuss this with them as there is 'some sense' in what she says; she firmly believes that it is the vulnerable who need to be stricter and isolate themselves if they are worried.

She explains that even the young will catch it anyway but in general it won't be worse than flu and young people are more likely to die of cancer/road accidents etc; therefore a lockdown is over kill in her opinion.

Don't get me wrong; as a family we adhere to rules and the law and will abide by the advice stringently but I kind of get where she is coming from.

(Already had 3yrs plus of Brexit with her where once again it was the 'old cronies' fault we were leaving!)
 
kendo1 said:
Can't say I care much for her views on other humans.
It seems very, very selfish.
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I partly disagree with you Ken. The economy will always be a bigger priority than human lives - it is the way the world works and a big part of why nations go to war where the loss of human life is expected.
 
kendo1 said:
Others have different priorities - life or helping other people for instance.
Not everyone is about me, me, me
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It could also be argued that your standpoint is all about me,me,me?

Protecting the economy could be seen as protecting everyone; it's partly due to our strong economy that the people we consider as 'vulnerable' today, only a generation ago wouldn't have had a life expectancy of just over 70yrs.

Is it a weak economy that causes the loss of life/lower life expectancy in under developed countries?
 
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DK602 said:
Sorry - but I consider the Guardian a left wing comic; especially after the deplorable cartoon that was recently printed in it.
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The author of the article is Jonathan Portes , who is a professor of economics and public policy at King’s College London and a former senior civil servant . I would argue he knows what he is talking about...........
 
broc said:
The author of the article is Jonathan Portes , who is a professor of economics and public policy at King’s College London and a former senior civil servant . I would argue he knows what he is talking about...........
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Sorry Brian - I edited my previous post - yes he may well believe his own views (Or more to the point the journalist believes his views) but there are as many other economists who would disagree with him so it comes down to opinion or what else has happened in history. The article starts with trying to debunk the Times newspaper which it would obviously take an alternative standpoint to; the Times state the economy is more valued.(Or that is implied in the link?)
 
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soeren said:
Well it serves a species good by removing the weak genes or individuals and keeping the population down to a reasonable number, in our case it kills mainly elderly and sick people. Seems most won't be affected much.
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But this virus isn't taking the genetically weak, those that are dieing are probably the genetically strong, else they wouldn't be so old, in addition they have passed their genes on at least once, probably twice, maybe even three times, in having children and grand children, maybe even great grand children.
 
MatBin said:
But this virus isn't taking the genetically weak, those that are dieing are probably the genetically strong, else they wouldn't be so old, in addition they have passed their genes on at least once, probably twice, maybe even three times, in having children and grand children, maybe even great grand children.
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Very true Matt!

it is, in the main taking the vulnerable though?
 
DK602 said:
The reason for my posts is my daughter has been sent back from University, misses boyfriend and the social life whilst also hurting her education.
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Thanks for your kind words.

I fully understand your daughter being upset about the abrupt end to University, and its implications. My own University (or my ex-University as I'm now retired) just managed to go entirely virtual and get all teaching moved online at the beginning of this week. But mingled with a sense of achievement, as it had needed an enormous amount of effort, was also a great sense of disappointment at how the University year was ending for students. What year is your daughter in?

The "lock down" isn't about saving coffin dodgers, who should just self isolate if they are worried. It's about the risk of large numbers of deaths across "all" age groups if we don't do something to stop it spreading. We have already had a 21 year old from Buckinghamshire, with no underlying health problems, die last week. One of the Chinese Doctors who died from Covid-19 was 28. It's a dangerous myth, that is likely to result in misery for many young people, that only the old and infirm should be worried about this. But, she is correct that overall the risks to young people dying is low, but a low risk, isn't the same as no risk.

As aside there are about 1800 deaths a year from road traffic accidents (across all age groups) which needs to be compared with the predicted 510,000 deaths from Covid-19, across all age groups (if we did nothing). And if we got to that stage, the coffin dodgers would no longer be dodging coffins as they would be triaged out of treatment to make room for the young to middle-aged people and even then we would probably be short of ICU beds.

As a final aside, and as an "old cronie", no one I worked with, nor anyone I socialise with, voted for Brexit, and I'm probably just as upset as she is about us leaving.
 
MatBin said:
But this virus isn't taking the genetically weak, those that are dieing are probably the genetically strong, else they wouldn't be so old, in addition they have passed their genes on at least once, probably twice, maybe even three times, in having children and grand children, maybe even great grand children.
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I was talking in broad terms regarding what a virus generally does to any species.
Then it comes to the current situation its mostly elderly with multible illnesses, therefore weakened. There are also some young people who likely have a weak immune system or otherwise are weakened. The mortality rat is very low so I'd say it's a successful virus.
 
DK602 said:
Again tonight she says "I don't know why our generation are suffering for a few 'coffin dodgers' who are already past their sell by date and will probably die soon anyway"
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Does your daughter have coffin dodgers of her own?
Eg. Grandparents?
At what age would she consider you to be a coffin dodger?
 
DK602 said:
Here is a radio interview with Peter Hitchen:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e66-8_JXq6o
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So we assume that every country in the world so far that is affected takes advice from their own medical experts, as well as watching what others are doing and assessing the results as best they can, and all have come up with mainly similar solutions (potentially), and that is to close things down. Try and limit the spread.
I wonder what the situation would be in China right now if they hadn't shut down wuhan?

Or we take the advice of a daily mail journalist who has the opposite opinion?

I know others have similar views to him, but at the end of the day, I'd listen to the majority of scientists, medical experts, doctors etc etc who all appear to be in agreement about what they feel is the best course of action, even though there are no guarantees.
 
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soeren said:
I was talking in broad terms regarding what a virus generally does to any species.
Then it comes to the current situation its mostly elderly with multible illnesses, therefore weakened. There are also some young people who likely have a weak immune system or otherwise are weakened. The mortality rat is very low so I'd say it's a successful virus.
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I'll repeat, in this case it isn't the genetically weak (as far as we know) all it's doing is taking out older people and especially those with compromised immune systems, apart from a few that appear to have no underlying weakened systems, which is a worry (has it mutated but now killing it's host before jumping to a new host?). Yes it's a successful virus in that it jumps to a new host without generally killing it's previous host, I doubt though that is by some in-built intelligence.
 
MatBin said:
I'll repeat, in this case it isn't the genetically weak (as far as we know) all it's doing is taking out older people and especially those with compromised immune systems, apart from a few that appear to have no underlying weakened systems, which is a worry (has it mutated but now killing it's host before jumping to a new host?). Yes it's a successful virus in that it jumps to a new host without generally killing it's previous host, I doubt though that is by some in-built intelligence.
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Well with a median age of 80 for Death in DK if you die from covid19 much younger than that........ And the cases with Young people are few and far between so it's bare to draw a pictures of why.
Humanity is a special case since we have technology to prevent death from severel deceases and lenghten life expectancy for individuals with medication and treatments so taking age as proof of strong/good genes isnt interely correct.
Our issue is we wont accept illneses and death and the recourses we use to save people from covid19 that for a good deal of cases is merely slightly lifeprolonging are taken from other patients and other parts of society where it may have been used better to save more people maybe even cyklerne.
 
soeren said:
Well with a median age of 80 for Death in DK if you die from covid19 much younger than that........ And the cases with Young people are few and far between so it's bare to draw a pictures of why.
Humanity is a special case since we have technology to prevent death from severel deceases and lenghten life expectancy for individuals with medication and treatments so taking age as proof of strong/good genes isnt interely correct.
Our issue is we wont accept illneses and death and the recourses we use to save people from covid19 that for a good deal of cases is merely slightly lifeprolonging are taken from other patients and other parts of society where it may have been used better to save more people maybe even cyklerne.
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Very fair point about older people being kept alive "artificially" so may not be genetically strong, I hadn't really considered that. I think the "3 wise men" approach will result in sacrificing the old/weak to preserve those with best chance of survival and a long life after recovery. As much as I dislike the possibility of "sacrifice" it does make a great deal of sense, just glad I don't have to do it.
 
I am pretty sure the medical experts advice is what we are following, however as indicated it is rumoured that this isn't actually what Borris wanted. The medical experts won't be giving advice on the economy.

In four and a half years time the Covid-19 virus will be (hopefully) a distant memory but a crashed economy won't be.

The centre left of Politics will take full advantage of this and they will be encouraging the total lock down of the UK during this period, hoping the economy collapses completely.

Momentum as a group have very devious/disgusting methods of promoting their Politics.
 
DK602 said:
I am pretty sure the medical experts advice is what we are following, however as indicated it is rumoured that this isn't actually what Borris wanted. The medical experts won't be giving advice on the economy.

In four and a half years time the Covid-19 virus will be (hopefully) a distant memory but a crashed economy won't be.

The centre left of Politics will take full advantage of this and they will be encouraging the total lock down of the UK during this period, hoping the economy collapses completely.

Momentum as a group have very devious/disgusting methods of promoting their Politics.
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What has any of that to do with panic buying?
 
i thought this was a thread about who has found some bog roll and pasta, not who should be allowed to die first. sorry, it just seems to be going a bit off topic and political? Im not familiar with how things play in this section of forums...
 
Ricardodaforce said:
What has any of that to do with panic buying?
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dan_yell said:
i thought this was a thread about who has found some bog roll and pasta, not who should be allowed to die first. sorry, it just seems to be going a bit off topic and political? Im not familiar with how things play in this section of forums...
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Indeed.

Can we get this back on topic please, we already have a separate virus thread.

Thank you
 
Just been to my local Waitrose which is about five minutes walk up the road
Orderly queue outside apart from old people not seeming to know what 2 metres is.
Leaving requisite space between people in the queue so oldies think its ok to walk through the gap

One in and one out of the shop, disinfected trolleys waiting to be used.
Good stock of milk, butter, cheese and meat, but no eggs, frozen veg, rice or flour, some bread and plentiful beer
 
tijuana taxi said:
Just been to my local Waitrose which is about five minutes walk up the road
Orderly queue outside apart from old people not seeming to know what 2 metres is.
Leaving requisite space between people in the queue so oldies think its ok to walk through the gap

One in and one out of the shop, disinfected trolleys waiting to be used.
Good stock of milk, butter, cheese and meat, but no eggs, frozen veg, rice or flour, some bread and plentiful beer
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You're obviously not in Scotland - the beer aisle has been stripped clean :)
 
i wonder if supermarkets will look at what things people wont touch with barge pole, even in times like these and think about buying less stock of them. the two times i've been in supermarkets - warburtons white toastie bread (orange wrapper) seems unpopular? I usually buy seedy bread and it hardly ever runs out but now panic buyers like seeds? confusing.
 
dan_yell said:
i wonder if supermarkets will look at what things people wont touch with barge pole, even in times like these and think about buying less stock of them. the two times i've been in supermarkets - warburtons white toastie bread (orange wrapper) seems unpopular? I usually buy seedy bread and it hardly ever runs out but now panic buyers like seeds? confusing.
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We usually buy Hovis Granary from Ocado. If ever they're out of stock, they sub it with a warburton toastie! It's like subbing a sirloin steak with a tin of corned beef!
 
Marc said:
We usually buy Hovis Granary from Ocado. If ever they're out of stock, they sub it with a warburton toastie! It's like subbing a sirloin steak with a tin of corned beef!
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I once had a bag of Kiwis subbed with Kiwi brand shoe polish.
 
dan_yell said:
I usually buy seedy bread and it hardly ever runs out but now panic buyers like seeds? confusing.
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It just goes to prove that people will try / buy anything when they are being selfish ;)

Curiously, I used to eat nothing but white bread .. but a few years back I switched to Tesco super seeded, as I was getting a lot of stomach aches and put it down to the amount of white bread I was eating.
Sure enough that did the trick (y)

I had to buy white recently ( that was Warburton's ) as I was totally out of sarnie stuff.
I didn't like it TBH. Its funny how tastes change over the years.
( it was OK toasted I suppose)
 
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