Allow me to translate your reply: I don't have an answer to the facts presented, so i'll attempt to distract from the message.
Unless someone comes up with some tangible reasons to explain how the de-coupling of deaths from infections has occurred in a way that allows them to re-couple again in the next few weeks, this debate ends here.
Age breakdown of the new cases as compared to previous. Over and out, you are a dyed in the wool "it's just the flu", " it's all an overreaction " defender who believes quantity is better than quality. So no I am not bothering to argue with selective data, twisted data, dodgy sources. We can discuss again in January.
They haven't decoupled. We're just better at testing and have 10-20x the capacity that we had in the spring. Infections are way below what they were in spring because we stopped.
Business travel
Overseas tourism
Large gatherings such as concerts, fairs, weddings, and all kinds of other events
Cruises
Schools for many kids
Visiting the elders
Switched to WFH
Wear masks daily
And many many other things
Take those away and soon you will see infections skyrocket and so will deaths.
Perhaps you can take South Korea as an example. They had mass testing in place sind the beginning of the outbreak. You can see that infection to death rates haven't decoupled and that the ratio between the two is something similar to what we observe in Europe now. It just goes to show how unprepared Europe was and how underreported infections were during the spring. Basically your whole argument is based on shitty data.
You have to give credit to someone who can get me, The Brit and Civil Servant, the triangle of disagreement, all on the same side of a discussion.
I haven’t looked at it lately, but while it may be true that improved treatment approaches (among other things) seem to have reduced mortality, it has also been suggested that with the age profile of those affected being younger, it might take longer for the number of fatalities to show up in the numbers. There also remains a high amount of uncertainty as to the sequelae (refer to literature on “long-haulers”) meaning a degree of caution really is warranted around contracting it.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...he-coronavirus
https://twitter.com/MaxCRoser...40614413500416
The problem really is the potential exponential trajectory of any spread. Paradoxically the more seriously and responsibly everyone takes the threat, the less paranoid overall measures need to be.
To borrow a phrase from a different context, eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
Unfortunately those who argue that risk of infection is low do so based on mathematical equal distribution across the population whereas the actual spread breaks out in clusters. As for 'only' focussing on death there is also an assumption that the infection itself is a non-lasting unpleasant flu-like experience for most people with no damaging after-effects. These are the arguments. The practice is to ignore masks, social distancing and care for others. The result is that the experience in the UK is sufficiently different than in parts of Asia for individuals with a choice to make the decision not to travel to the UK considering it to be less safe for now. I originally had a HKG-LHR flight to the UK back in April. Delayed it to August. Now pushed it back to July 2021. Nobody I know in the UK suggesting I should do otherwise in light of current developments. Next Spring is their earliest forecast for a safe return.
Last edited by walkup; 26-09-2020 at 10:28 AM.