Stop arguing a strawman. I've given up trying to discuss with you why having pandemic planning is important, it currently seems as fruitful as trying to explain the big bang to an ant. I am trying to elicit why you think its a good idea to try to procure PPE and tests after the pandemic has already spun out of control and, for some reason, even after you have yourself decided to declare a lockdown.
Do you think we should hold a large standing army and fleet of nuclear submarines by the way?
What on earth are you talking about? Some of these governments I'm talking about above went into some kind of lockdown before Ferguson and his team even released their paper. Plus you do realise that the world doesn't revolve around the UK? Almost none of these governments will make their decisions based on what the UK do and certainly not on what UK epidemiologists advice. The reason the Ferguson paper is credited is because you're reading UK papers, which are focusing on the UK government and UK scientists. I'm guessing you don't often peruse Aussie or Canadian outlets, let alone Korean, Egyptian, German or Spanish etc.
We'll see in time if the Swedes have got it right. They currently have a death rate 5 times that of the Norwegians and not much less than ours despite having a population only marginally larger than London's spread out over an area almost double the size of the UK's.
The PPE shortage/lack of planning is a serious mistake. This is not a particualrly hi-tech product and to organise distribution is not 'herculean' if you involve the right people. To letdown the people who are literally staring the virus in the face is akin to blowing the whistle as the troops go over the top.
The goverments lockdown approach was to protect the NHS and save lives. By all accounts (even NHS) this has worked, (not more than 80% ICU beds occupied in London over Easter, and only a few (19) treated at Nightingale.
Have we saved lives. We simply don't know. Have we cost lives. We simply dont know. At this stage
caveat...some frontline workers deaths could have been prevented.
If every person who needed hospitalisation received the attention, skill and access to equipment that was needed....then by definition we did everything for them.
If someone is predisposed to dying from this virus then unfortunately all we have at the moment is to hide them from the virus. No other intervention is coming anytime quickly. So unless they 'hide' for 12/18months (while waiting for those interventions) the virus is still coming for them. So eg if 1000 people are predisposed, if they are front loaded or evenly spread over a longer time, bar a few extra months life, the result is the same.
The problem with treading heavily down (via lockdowns) on new cases is two fold, 1.if it goes on for too long other problems will be a by product of the draconian measures (not just the obvious economic blow up), 2. All of us are avoiding the virus, there is plenty of evidence (war ships, cruise ships, that town in Italy) to show that large sections of the population needn't have fear of catching the virus much in the same way as they don't swerve flu year in year out. Of course we are at the same time hindering the one natural defence we can develop that doesn't require science (beyond confirming immunity is obtained)...yep the dirty 'herd' word. Ironically the old/vulnerable persons friend.
An ideal situation when relaxing some lockdown measures is to keep the NHS at about 80% capacity, as i say as long as everyone who enters hospital has uncompromised care that is the best we can do. (Plus the PPE...Of course!)
The focus on deaths is possibly a logic trap, fair enough if all the old and vulnerable want to hide away for 12/18 months (imo many i think will not find that acceptable), then yes you will save them BUT the rest of the population obviously cant carry on under the current measures for too long, korea china germany have 'great' death rates now.....the deaths are still gonna come as we have no treatment beyond hiding, plus the reduction in transmission will affect their 'herd' progress.
caveat....i know anti virals, respiration etc may improve as we understand more, so some hope.
Its like the virus is in the hallway and we're all hiding behind doors of the hallway, its bouncing off those doors waiting for one to open (even a little) and bang...its back finding hosts.
FWIW if antibody testing was reliable, i'd predict 20% (if not more) off people have had the virus already, judging by how contagious it is and some of the studies (London is just like a big cruise ship) i can't see how the spread isn't massive especially if we were late on a lock down.
