At first I thought this was une blague pratique. Apparently not, unless Tim Worstall’s denial is merely evidence that he is in on the joke. He writes in today’s Times:
Among the measures introduced in France to deal with the coronavirus is a requirement to fill in a form before going out for a walk.
No, really, this is not a joke. As part of the lockdown it is necessary, before leaving the house, to complete and sign a download from the Ministry of the Interior. Name, address, what you think you’re doing and so on.
This is not filed with anyone, nor registered. It must simply be carried during the errand. Absence, if caught, will lead to a €135 fine. A new form is required for every exit from the house. And yes, there’s a box to tick for “aux besoins des animaux de compagnie” which my memories of exchange visits have as “for the needs of our furry friends”.
The solution to a global pandemic is a form for walking the dog. Of course, it is easy to mock the French but there is an important point here, for this is an example of a pernicious worldview. That we, the people, are only able to cope if we are told what to do, what we may do. All must be decided and enforced by the clever people in power and nothing left to ordinary folks to get on with.
Our own tradition is vehemently different. I have surprised people in a number of countries by pointing out that a British policeman isn’t actually allowed to ask — or at least not to insist upon knowing — what it is that you are doing. If accosted, a cheery “Going about my lawful business, constable” is all that is required. Such liberties might not apply in moments of crisis but they are indicative of a different manner of thinking.
A similar restriction is being applied in Italy, according to The Local.it:
Now that justification is required simply to be on the street, you’ll need to have a copy ready as soon as you leave the house.
If you have access to a printer, you can download the form here.
Ther’s also now an application able to generate an electronic version of the ‘autocertificazione’ form as many times as needed, to keep handy on your phone with a digital signature.
Police at checkpoints (such as those at train stations) should also have a stack of paper forms available, and you can ask to take a few.
But what if you do not have access to the internet?
Alternatively you can copy out the whole thing by hand: make sure to write everything exactly as it appears on the form, in full.
This is Macron cashing in on Coro to create the kind of tyranny he wants. Just means you have to go for walks mob-handed. The French need to double down on smashing Granny’s Boy.
I’m glad to read the libertarian case for every mans right to wander about infecting others. Libertarians should really attach their brand to this essential liberty.
I thought that the days of ‘Vere are your papers?” had ended in (most of) France in late 1944. Clearly there’s some nostalgia for the ‘good old days’.
Yes, because pointing out that it is totally pointless making people print out a dog walking permit is just the same as going around deliberately coughing in people’s faces.
Black–Infecting others with the Puny Plague? By walking past them with your dog? Unless you walk your dog in the Paris Catacombs you will be at a distance.
You must be changing your underpants every hour.
Start contemplating economic wipeout if this nonsense goes on much longer. Then you can change them every half-hour.
Mr Black writes,
I’m glad to read the libertarian case for every mans right to wander about infecting others.
Stonyground has already made a pithy summary of that case.
I would add that just as “security theater / theatre” decreases actual security by wasting security officers’ time and making compliance with security measures that might actually work less likely, so “coronavirus theatre” will waste police time (and everyone else’s time too) with checking the papers of random dogwalkers while vital work such as tracing contacts of those known to be infected goes undone.
More information about the French Attestation Form in English.
https://www.thelocal.fr/20200318/frances-coronavirus-lockdown-form-your-questions-answered
“Granny’s Boy”. Perfect. Stealing that.
Mr. Black is a racial ethno-nationalist, so an obsession with state power is to be expected, no matter how preposterous its application.
I am somewhat expecting some mass civil disobedience as millions-on-millions of small business owners are bankrupted due to the public closures.
If you are going to lose literally everything you own because someone said you have to close your flower shop, and yet you bailouts in the airline industry…. What are you worried the health police will do to you? Honestly, we don’t have that many cops….
-XC
PS – Can then french letter (heh) be used to clean up after the furry friend?
“Apparently not, unless Tim Worstall’s denial is merely evidence that he is in on the joke.”
I downloaded the form itself from the Interior Ministry site to check. Not unnaturally, the people at The Times wanted to see the site as well.
It actually gets better. There are two different forms…….
You Eurowienies and Brits starting to see the nice points about the American second amendment yet?
Armed dog walkers are less likely to be bothered by officious state functionaries or state enforcers. https://pjmedia.com/trending/whose-public-safety-during-covid-19-some-cops-stop-arresting-for-assault-manslaughter-theft-and/
On the other hand, were Ecks armed…though he probably is.
France (and EU Countries) have Code Law which means your freedoms are those decided by the State and activity only legal if the State says so. It is easy for the State to withdraw its permission. UK has Common Law, freedom is natural right, nobody’s permission is needed.
In France you are obliged to carry ID and present it on demand by the police.
The French ‘Attestation’ has 5 tick-boxes and it is no joke, and these 5 reasons are the only reasons you can legally be out of doors. Gendarmes have check points.
1. Movement from home to a place to carry out professional activity (plumber, electrician, for example) where it is not possible to carry out the work on-line or by telephone.
2. Leaving home to buy essential goods, food for example, in authorised establishments. (These are supermarkets, food stores, petrol stations, pharmacies. Other shops and stores are closed.)
3. Leaving home for health reasons… going to the doctor, or hospital, for example.
4. Movement for important family reasoning, looking after elderly relatives or children.
5. Leaving the house for short periods to take personal exercise, group sports activities excluded, to exercise pets.
A new form is needed for each different reason, even if on the same day, and must be completed with name, address, that day’s date, and signature. It must be carried with you.
There is a different form for people working in a business completed by the employer. It is valid the whole time.
The schools are closed and the restrictions apply to children, so it must be a nightmare for people living in flats or no garden and anyway children cannot play outside in the street, park or with their friends.
Macron says France is at war, but wars are fought to win freedom not to give it away.
Mr Black
‘I’m glad to read the libertarian case for every mans right to wander about infecting others. Libertarians should really attach their brand to this essential liberty.’
And rob, kill, rape, with a Cold, influenza, Chicken Pox, Mumps, Measles, body odour, etc – so should society be in permanent lockdown?
The restriction is not on people who have the disease but those who do not. In fact there is no restriction on people with the disease, they can still go out as long as they have their form.
Contrary to what John B says, it is actually easier to restrict freedom in the UK, because a simple majority in the Commons is needed. And in fact, it seems that a London lockdown is imminent.
Why is it expected? because Boris did not act a month ago: milder measures might have been sufficient then. A week after the lockdown, you all will be wishing that the lockdown had come sooner.
Remember: at whatever rate the number of new cases has increased in the last few days, the same rate will continue for a couple of weeks, whatever Boris does today. I blame young libertarians going around spreading diseases!
If you have a country house and can stay away from the town, i suggest that you do so; even if your town is not London.
As an aside, over at Instapundit, Sarah Hoyt is telling people that the US is not Italy, which would seem to encourage Americans to behave like the Italians did 10 days ago.
A cousin of mine who married a Swiss (and Switzerland is very far from the continental worst when it comes to freedom) nevertheless had to adjust to the strange continental idea that a law saying you can do something doesn’t mean you can do it – it means you can fill out the form that authorises you to do it. Her advise was useful when I spent a period there myself. She explained that filling out the (quadruplicate or sextuplicate) form was usually much easier than working out which of various possible forms you should complete. So as regards
I quite understand that Tim means ‘better’ for English-speaking people having a laugh at this, but those who have had to wrestle with this kind of thing will paraphrase Arthur Dent: “This is some strange new meaning of the word ‘better’ which I was not previously aware of.” 🙂
“The French ‘Attestation’ has 5 tick-boxes and it is no joke, and these 5 reasons are the only reasons you can legally be out of doors. Gendarmes have check points.”
Yes, and yes:
” Leaving the house for short periods to take personal exercise, group sports activities excluded, to exercise pets.”
I am informed, to my incredible delight, that some French people are now renting out their dogs at €8 an hour.
Markets will out….
If only they required these forms before those riots where folks burn cars and engage in other miscellaneous mayhem!
Walking a German Sheppard makes you a collaborationist, and around here I suppose your Chihuahua would need an accompanying green card.
Leaving out the psychology of “vhere are your papers?”, if your goal is to encourage temporary quarantine of your population, this form business isn’t a bad idea.
“Honey, I’m going out for a quick walk!”
“Did you print out your form?”
“I’m just going to the corner! I’m bored.”
“They’ll detain you, you know.”
“Aw, screw it. I’ll stay in. Do we have any more ice?”
One less amble amidst the contagion.
Snorri–XC is correct.Once quite literally millions realise that they and their loved ones are being fucked over and are likely to lose their livelihoods, businesses, futures, place in life and be reduced to near–if not actual– penury–years/decades of work down the pan–you will see a very large amount of fightback against the puny plague hysteria.
And if you think state handouts–even if evenly applied and not just channelled to the states Kronies–are going to cut the mustard in saving businesses and the suddenly income-free–think again. In the UK food banks real reason to exist aside from leftist agit-prop is that it takes the useless state an average of 16 weeks to finally cut a cheque. And that is in non-emergency, non-massively increased demand times.
Never mind what Blojo did or didn’t do–you hunker in your bunker and pray. Pray that the idiot sees sense and drops the Bunker nonsense altogether. He has what –2 weeks tops?–before its too late. And even if we see sense the International order of idiots may well bring the lot down anyway.
Bobby B–a cop on every corner. That will be the day. Esp heroic bluebottles mega-keen to drag the possibly infected back to the station house.
Assume I’m infected. IRL, in the past 48 hours, I’ve walked through two crowded airports, eaten in four crowded restaurants, walked through three large crowded stores, filled a gas tank four times and paid for it inside large trucking centers across the USA, and walked several beaches filled with people who were breathing towards me.
Start tracing.
. . .
What I mean is, we’re far beyond the utility of such tracing. Tracing was useful in the first several days of importation, but we don’t even know when that occurred.
Now it’s all dampening. Now it’s all flattening the hump. The price we’re going to pay for this virus isn’t disease deaths, it’s economic slowdown. But frankly, that’s preferable.
Theater. If they’re smart, no cop will ever write such a ticket, or even ask to see a form. They just want to exhaust our desire to go outside with the business of generating these forms.
To me this is a symptom of the completely erroneous response to this problem. It is though a typical government response: lock everything down; take control over everything; suppress people’s liberties.
Fundamentally the problem is a lack of CCU beds, but if, as is the case in the USA, we are borrowing gazillons of dollars, then this problem can be easily fixed. Make new CCU beds. Rent out a hospital (they are empty anyway), they already have beds, add ventilators and life support machines. These are fairly simple machines and if the FDA could get out of the way we can produce a lot of them very, very quickly. Pay the people with the patents a license fee and let everyone make them for a short while.
What about nursing staff? Again this really isn’t a hard problem to solve. There are lots and lots of people with suitable medical training out of the workforce. Some because they have other responsibilities they can’t fulfill like childcare. Incentivize them to come back with big pay and benefits like free childcare.
Private entrepreneurs can produce CCU beds quickly and easily if we would just put in place a program to provide in incentive to do so. Make a prize. Instead of sending $2000 to everyone in America offer $2000 per week for every CCU bed created up to some standard. You’d end up with too many, not too few.
Then let it play out without totally destroying the economy.
This thing is a nightmare not because of the virus but because of the response. These viruses pop up every few years. Are we now planning to wreck the economy every time someone sneezes?
Well said Mr Orr.
“add ventilators and life support machines. These are fairly simple machines and if the FDA could get out of the way we can produce a lot of them very, very quickly.”
Quote from a news article:
Does he know what he’s talking about, do you think? Or not?
Nullius in Verba
Does he know what he’s talking about, do you think? Or not?
Probably, but he is talking as the CEO of a company that makes these things and so is hardly without bias. “My company is awesome, does amazing things that no-one else can do” is what CEOs are supposed to say.
However, I have made electronic devices. I will tell you for sure that there are factories in China that you send them a design and they will send you a ship load of product back two weeks later. Of course I doubt China is a good place to do this, but if you have a design even complex products can be made very quickly with modern manufacturing tools.
OF course the CEO might not want to share his design, but that is another question.
By no means am I suggesting that anyone design a vent from the ground up.
NiV wrote:
‘Does he know what he’s talking about, do you think? Or not?’
I’m sure he knows what he’s talking about. It’s just that he’s looking at the issue in the wrong way.
A ventilator is a simple machine in principle but quite complex to make, not because the basic principle is complex but because you have to make it both fantastically-durable and incapable of killing the patient. That’s quite a complex task, but it’s been successfully done many times in the past.
By Hamilton.
So the answer is not to turn Honda or Rolls Royce loose to go design a ventilator. The answer is to license Hamilton’s last design (prior to their current offering) to Honda, or Rolls Royce, or whoever. It will be more-than-good enough for 99.5% of cases.
In fact, the really-smart move would be for the Gummint to buy the license from Hamilton, and then offer it free to all comers with a sliding scale of prices – the sooner you can deliver an exact facsimile of this machine, the higher price per unit we’ll pay you. Do that, and I bet you could measure delivery times in weeks.
llater,
llamas
A few days ago i found this tweet, possibly via Instapundit. By now it is ancient history, but if the UK is still 13 days behind Italy, then you can expect Boris to declare a nationwide lockdown this weekend, followed by a curfew a few days later.
(I don’t expect the US to get as bad as fast, though, because the Trump admin took action earlier.)
That, incidentally, is a major flaw in libertarianism: too much talking about what the government ought to do, too little worrying about what the government will actually do.
And btw Fraser Orr completely fails to understand the logic of exponential growth.
XC:
It takes two to tango. They can keep the shops open, but they won’t get enough customers to make it profitable to keep the shops open. That is already happening in the US.
Even my ‘Economy 1st!’ country’s government is taking this seriously. And very few people has ever mistaken Singapore’s bureaucrats and leaders for fools. The very fact they think it worthy of decisive action means this virus cannot be taken lightly.
As a result, we may have some good news – we have detected a less virulent strain, probably selected thru our social distancing measures.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/fl3iot/some_sarscov2_populations_in_singapore/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
“The answer is to license Hamilton’s last design (prior to their current offering) to Honda, or Rolls Royce, or whoever. It will be more-than-good enough for 99.5% of cases.”
Could be. Or you could transfer a bunch of engineers and kit over to work for Hamilton temporarily.
I’m not sure that he was saying that designing it anew is the problem, though. I would have thought setting up a production line was more likely the issue. You first have to build the tools, moulds, jigs, and so on. If it was so easy to expand production, Hamilton themselves could have done so, and increased capacity tenfold. There’s a lot of money to be made at the moment if they can do so – they can easily afford to hire or contract lots of engineers and equipment. I think the CEO’s point was that there are simple machines that are easy to produce ad hoc, and complex machines that need a lot of infrastructure just to get started.
However, I don’t know manufacturing, and I don’t know what’s so complicated about a respirator. It’s certainly more complicated than a pair of bellows, if you don’t want to induce ventilator-induced lung injury, and figuring out the settings takes some medical expertise. But it seems like you need an air pump able to precisely control pressure and flow, under software control. It’s better and more comfortable if it synchronises with the patient’s breathing, but in a crisis I’d guess a cruder approach may be acceptable. It looks like it ought to be possible. However, I know that I don’t know, and the guy who makes them says he’s sceptical.
But if it can be done, then I agree it’s the right approach.
We will very quickly see the true nature of government here. Some small scale tests have indicated that a malaria drug hydrochloroquie is effective in both treating the disease and prophylactically preventing the disease. To hear the FDA disembling on this is the very essence of government. This drug is cheap, widely available and already approved, and so doctors can prescribe it off label. (There are also a few other treatments in the pipeline too, but this one has many appealing attributes.)
The FDA can, if they want to, do a massive clinical trial, there are hundreds of terminal patients and tens of thousands of infected who would be willing to sign off and take the risk (since the risk is well established and negligible.) The initial trials indicated that it was curative with a ten day dose. That along with a fact that they have a President who is pushing extremely hard and throwing gobs of money at them. And finally this drug has been around for sixty years so its long term consequences in terms of safety are extremely well understood. (For example, people in renal failure or on certain breast cancer chemotherapeutic agents may experience extra toxicity with this drug.)
All these facts aligning means that the FDA could easily conduct a complete end to end, large scale clinical trial and have the results in three to four weeks, for immediate approval. Moreover doctors could start prescribing it TODAY for terminal patients. If, that is, they are willing to drop their bureaucratic nonsense and central control attitude.
One wonders if the bureaucracy, while demanding that everyone else sacrifice everything, is willing to even budge an inch.
My money is on “not even a thousandth of an inch” but I hope to be surprised.
Snorri Godhi
And btw Fraser Orr completely fails to understand the logic of exponential growth.
I try never to underestimate my own ignorance so you could well be right. However, what I do know is that lots of people working independently on a solution motivated by financial gain are vastly more effective that central planning. It is, after all, the economic lesson of the 20th century.
Let me give you an example. The guy who is heading all this up, Anthony Fauci, he is currently King of the World. Anything he says goes. People sit at his feet waiting for his pearls of wisdom. He asks for a billion dollars and he gets it. He asks to go on TV and they’ll give him as much time as he wants. He makes statements and nobody dare question them. No matter what he does or whatever happens he will be able to claim to have saved the world, and a hundred million people will buy his book.
I imagine he is a good and honorable person trying his best in a very difficult situation. However, it is very hard to give up being King of the World, no matter how honorable you might be. There is always just one other thing that, honorably, you might seek to use all the power to make happen. There is no reason to give up that power except at the last minute, because you are “saving the world”. There is no need to weigh the consequences of your decisions except in some very narrow way ignoring the destruction you are causing all around you.
I heard him being interviewed and he was asked something like “when will we know if all these restrictions are making a difference”. His answer was basically “we will never be able to measure, but trust me, they will.” What an answer! Why did the interviewer not follow up with more aggressive questioning? The guy is literally burning down the country, and nobody is brave enough to even challenge his methodology, challenge whether the costs outweigh the benefits, or, come to that, even ask the question?
Every time I see that guy, I get chills of fear running down my spine.
And like I say, my biggest fear is the precedent. I am sure we will get through this, but we have set the precedent that every time someone sneezes the President gets to shut everything down and take everything over. And for him not to do so will have him pilloried in the press. That, not some random virus, portends the end of civilization.
Fraser: you have not addressed my point — which admittedly i failed to make explicit, leaving it as an exercise to the reader.
My point was that the rate of increase of people needing ventilators is going to increase exponentially, but the rate of production of ventilators cannot increase exponentially. It’s a Malthusian problem.
Let me anticipate an objection to this: once everybody is infected, the number of people needing ventilators is not going to increase anymore. If we can produce enough ventilators in time, we’re fine.
To which i reply: do you really want to get as many people as possible on ventilators? and not everybody on ventilators survives!
Plus, there is a limited number of people qualified to operate ventilators; and some of them are likely (make that: certain) to become infected.
Snorri Godhi
My point was that the rate of increase of people needing ventilators is going to increase exponentially, but the rate of production of ventilators cannot increase exponentially. It’s a Malthusian problem.
My answer is a simple one. It is called the law of supply and demand. As demand outstrips supply, price changes incentivize more extreme solutions of production until every 3D printer in the country is making parts, and we start engaging the manufacturing capacity of the rest of the world too.
It isn’t a perfect solution, but neither is burning down the whole economy and crossing your fingers hoping that everything will work out.
As I mentioned already in my original comment, the law of supply and demand also addresses the personnel issue you mentioned.
Further to my reply to Fraser:
I am well aware of the long-term risks of giving governments the power to impose a curfew. (A power which, incidentally, they already have!)
Having read The Road to Serfdom, i am also aware of the long-term risks of giving governments the power to declare war. At the same time, i am firmly convinced that, if war is inevitable, then the sooner we get it done, the better. (See also Kipling’s Danegeld.)
The question is, when is war inevitable?
In the current situation, however, there is no question about it being a major emergency.
What we ought to do is get ready to reclaim what little freedom we have left, once the emergency is over.
But not before.
@Snorri Godhi
What we ought to do is get ready to reclaim what little freedom we have left, once the emergency is over.
But not before.
I don’t agree. Freedom lost is almost impossible to get back. Increasing freedom in a society usually involves violence, death and destruction. Women got the right to vote in the UK when a young women grabbed everyone’s attention by throwing herself under the hooves of the King’s horse in the derby. Black people got their freedom at extreme costs in both the 1860s and 1960s.
It is when we are in an emergency that we must most jealously guard our freedoms.
Well spank me on the ass and call me Shirley. Apparently the President has demanded that the FDA approve the use of hydrochloroquine. One more example of what I like about this President. We will see if the FDA actually does what it was told to do.
https://dailycaller.com/2020/03/19/trump-coronavirus-hydroxychloroquine-cure-anti-viral-therapies/
@Snorri – Well, if the peeps don’t want to eat out, or buy flowers, then opening the shop endangers almost nobody.
Remember, there are 25m+ people out and about delivering food and fuel so that Amazon Prime can deliver groceries to your door … safely.
I live in an “old persons” part of Florida and last night my gym had 1/4 the crowd it usually does. The Publix (high end Tesco’s) was crowded but oddly out of youghurt and laundry detergent and (famously) bum wipe. The gas station was full of outside workers at lunch buying Modelo and hot dogs. I saw the dog walkers in my ‘hood too. As near as I can tell, it’s BAU here in FL. The governor had to tell people to get off the beach but they’re ignoring him.
We have a large young population and they feel (rightly,I suspect) pretty safe. And most of the older people seem to be choosing to live their lives,just like in every flu season.
Honestly, the best thing to come of this would be a wet squib pandemic and a complete and permanent public distrust of “our betters” for farking it all up again and dropping the best economic boom of the millennium into the toilet.
-XC
@-XC
Honestly, the best thing to come of this would be a wet squib pandemic and a complete and permanent public distrust of “our betters” for farking it all up again and dropping the best economic boom of the millennium into the toilet.
Personally, I think your assessment that the seriousness of this is greatly exaggerated is one I tend to agree with. I don’t think it is nothing, but it ain’t the black death, it ain’t even the Spanish flu.
However, this last paragraph is wrong. If it is a wet squib the response will be “see all our efforts saved the world”, if it is a big mess the response will be “boy we saved a lot of people, but you should have given us even more power.” As it always is with government action it is heads they win tails we lose. The precedent terrifies me.
Again Snorri–in a dismal attempt to promote alarm and despondency– its back to “exponential growth” and –by implication–80-90% will get it (so there must be millions of machine lungers on the way). Something no disease in human history has been able to manage at one time and across the whole of humanity. And for which there is no evidence even from aboard a hothouse like the Diamond Princess. One quarter got it with minimal precautions.
Were this a military unit and I in command I would have you shot for defeatism/ spreading alarm and despondency and conduct unbecoming a soldier in face of the enemy.
Nothing personal but there it is.
There are many companies making hydroxychloroquine. Does anybody know if any of those companies are manufacturing it outside of China? And whether the process requires materials made in China? just asking the obvious questions…
Because this is a war situation. Or do you want the C Virus to kill even more people.
It isn’t going to Gaza. The fear of it will wreak vastly more havoc than the virus itself. Economic collapse and ruin will end more lives and break more hearts than anything the Puny Plague has so far managed or likely ever will.
BTW with 150 million people murdered the evil creed of socialism–which as a Jizza fan I presume you both support and endorse–has done far more harm than the virus ever will. If you ARE an active supporter of such evil YOU are more dangerous than testubes of live coro.
Death and sickness for the poor, profits aplenty for parasitic Republican senators:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxnews.com/politics/senators-richard-burr-kelly-loeffler-accused-of-insider-trading-after-reports-show-they-sold-stocks-before-coronavirus-crippled-markets.amp
Gaza–look up the lifestyle of top soviet hacks and get back to us. Political scum are always corrupt and socialist scum more than most and sanctimonious with it.
You are obv American so Bernie fan rather than Corbin. He is the same type of scum but richer than Jizz. Still running his campaign so as to suck up extra donations from desperate leftists–which of course he won’t refund after he is inevitably forced out.
Running 3 houses takes money after all.
When the central principle is that of Jeremy Bentham “the greatest good of the greatest number” – and that is to be decided (as Mr Bentham wanted) by THE STATE, such things are inevitable.
We live in a world where “rights are nonsense” and “natural rights are nonsense on stilts” – there are no limits to government power.
Even, thanks to the terrible words “general welfare” and “regulate interstate commerce” – all interpreted as catch-all powers by the intellectually corrupt courts, in the United States.
Anyone who tells themselves that “it could not happen here” in relation to what is happening in France and Italy happening in Britain, is deluding themselves.
Mr Bentham was, after all, British – and our rulers are “educated” to admire him.
They are also “educated” to admire Thomas Hobbes and David Hume, BOTH of whom denied that the human person (the “I”) even exists.
Yes Mr Hume used polite, gentle, language – but his message was, essentially, the same as Mr Hobbes.
@Gary Wintle
Because this is a war situation. Or do you want the C Virus to kill even more people.
See this is the problem right here. You are basically saying that if I don’t agree with the current approach that I want people to die. It is a ridiculous statement. It is a statement designed to shut down discussion, to say “you can’t question the government”.
And you are saying that because you think it is a metaphorical war (it plainly isn’t an actual war — we are not destroying the virus with tomahawk missiles) that therefore the government can entirely suspend all liberties, all normal practices, take over everything and impose curfews, stay and home and shut down businesses. I don’t understand why that doesn’t terrify you, even if you think it is necessary. Apparently they don’t even have to declare war, they can just do it whenever they feel like it.
I have a friend who has spent the last three years building a business, spending everything she has and everything she could borrow, spending every minute of the past three years, and the business was just beginning to hit profitability. Now it is shut down and she will lose everything except the debt. People will lose their jobs, and customers will lose a vital service, and the kind of person who starts businesses and makes America great will be destroyed. Why? Because of the virus? No because of the response to the virus.
Today i discovered that there are Wikipedia pages with the numbers of cases in different countries and US States. (Though not for all countries or states.)
With the help of spreadsheets, I made plots of log(total numbers of cases) vs day number, for both Italy and the UK. The plot for the UK looks remarkably linear, meaning that the number of cases has been growing exponentially. (As anybody not delusional could have guessed without a spreadsheet.)
The curve for Italy looks slightly sublinear, meaning that the number of cases has been growing slightly less than exponentially. That does not reflect the draconian measures adopted, though, because the curve was sublinear even before the adoption of the measures (whose effects should not yet be visible, anyway).
In fact, the curve for Italy looks sublinear even before getting to the point where the UK is now.
With a bit of linear regression, i estimated the time constants* of the exponential growth for Italy and the UK. The worrying thing is that the time constant is about 10 days for Italy, only 4 days for the UK.
* number of days required for the number of cases to become about 2.7 times what it is now.
Unlike certain commenters who dismiss the danger, or even the reality, of exponential growth, i am able to stick my neck out and make predictions. Except that i myself i am not confident in these predictions, because it is possible that the time constant will begin to decrease. (Especially if fewer tests are done.) I do not expect a large decrease, however.
According to my model, there should be about 7K cases and 1700 to 1800 new cases on March 22. Presumably, these will be the numbers that the Commons would look at before they vote on the Coronavirus Bill 2019–21.
Based on the Italian experience, no improvement is to be expected for at least 10 days after the beginning of lockdown**. Therefore, in an even more dangerous extrapolation, my model predicts 150K total cases by April 3, 2 weeks from today and 10 days after any action is taken effective March 24.
** although the curfew started a few days after the lockdown.
Assuming that the ratio of total cases to total deaths remains the same as it is today, my model prediction is about 310 total deaths by March 22 and about 6600 deaths by April 3.
Be aware, however, that the number of deaths seems to increase faster than the number of cases, for now.
Meanwhile, hospitals in London are already running short of beds.
Gary Wintle wrote:
“Death and sickness for the poor, profits aplenty for parasitic Republican senators:”
Firstly, of course, not profits, but avoided losses. Maybe. Not the same things.
Secondly – Naturally, the losses avoided in identical fashion by Senator Dianne Feinstein (CCP – California)
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dianne-feinstein-3-senate-colleagues-sold-off-stocks-before-coronavirus-crash-reports
were, of course, the result of prudent and skilled financial planning, completely-unconnected in any way to the inside knowledge made available to Senators. Why, she wasn’t even at the briefing! How dare you suggest at even a hint of impropriety!
Look, don’t get me wrong – I think they’re all more-or-less corrupt, at some level or other. But you do rather beclown yourself when you indulge in this kind of partisan fingerpointing, when anyone with half a brain cell can soon figure out that they all take advantage of their position in this way or ways like it, regardless of party. How else could they all get so rich?
llater,
llamas
Snorri Godhi
Unlike certain commenters who dismiss the danger, or even the reality, of exponential growth
If you are thinking of me, I have not once dismissed the danger of exponential growth. And to be clear, it isn’t exponential it rises to a peak and then goes down, because infection in a limited population eventually saturates. No, what I have said is the public policy is to “blunt” the curve. They still expect a very high infection rate, the purpose of quarantine is not to reduce the total infection rate but to smooth it out. So without quarantine the curve is taller and shorter, and with it, it is less tall and wider, but the area under both is the same (roughly speaking.)
Why do they want to do that? Because the peak blows past current CCU capacity and, so the theory goes, the number of people dying due to insufficient resources will be higher in the tall and narrow curve that the short and wider curve.
What I am saying is that a better fix is to fix the resource shortage by engaging the market as indicated above. Then we keep the death rate down to the same, but get the whole damn thing over with more quickly. Plus we don’t destroy the economy in the process (in fact the demand for equipment might enhance the economy in some ways.)
It is the choice between “wise” central government planners making decisions for us poor proletariat, and the magic of the free market engaging our genius to solve our own problems.
Fraser:
Of course, but even if only 1% of the infected have actually been detected in Italy and the UK, then we are far from saturation in both countries.
Even when the UK reaches 150K ‘official’ infections, even if that is only 1% of the real figure, that means that 15M UK residents are infected. Still no saturation.
This is obviously delusional, but in any case it is not relevant to my estimates, because they are completely independent of whatever action Boris will take after March 23.
Snorri–you can fiddle with all the maths you like.
We don’t even have a reliable test for the actual virus and most of those that it supposedly kills were at deaths door anyway. The Chinese are chest xraying folk and if you have anything at all odd–you’re coro.In a country with an underlying pneumonia problem and a TB outbreak in Wuhan combined with the world’s worst air pollution and mass chainsmoking of cheap nasty fags.
We have stopped testing after a few cases assuming any sniffle MUST be coro.
If the 137 British deaths align with the Italian National Institute of Health’s examination of 300+ supposed coro victims –there will be one or possibly 2 people who have died from it. Exponential? Check that you are calculating from accurate info.
And a perfect illustration of what I am talking about is to compare testing in the USA and South Korea. What happened in South Korea is that the government published the genetic sequence of the virus and four separate firms started making and stockpiling test kits. Whereas in the USA the CDC kept the sequence to themselves and decided that they would be the sole generator of test kits.
One need only look at the dramatic difference in the performance of these two sources of test kits to see why letting the free market do its thing is the solution, even in disasters (and why “price gouging” laws are perhaps the worst possible thing you can do in a real disaster.)
@Snorri thinks I am delusional. Maybe he is right, I have been drinking a lot since I have been cooped up at home, and they did just make weed legal here in Illinois… But it is a true wonder, breathtaking even, how amazingly productive the free market can be when the incentives are clear and the government stays out of the natural market processes.
Oh, bullcrap. I sold off a good chunk of equities four weeks ago when things started looking dicey. It took exactly NO insider knowledge to make such a prediction. If my elected representatives did not take such actions, I would wonder about their intelligence.
I’ll buy back in in a month or two . . . maybe . . .
Yes, because pointing out that it is totally pointless making people print out a dog walking permit is just the same as going around deliberately coughing in people’s faces.
I can see the point of it, in fact I can see several excellent justifications right away. More might occur if I gave it some thought.
I must say, I am taking a great deal of pleasure from seeing the “thinkers” from all over the internet head directly for denial and conspiracy theories when faced with a situation for which they don’t have talking points already prepared. I imagine that once the bodies pile up and these “thinkers” have had a chance to read some accounts of the Spanish Flu we’ll start to get more “on message” talking points about sensible precautions but for now, it’s a delightful clown show.
Black–The bodies aren’t going to pile up . Sorry to puncture your glee bubble.
No, Fraser, i didn’t say that you are delusional, i said that what you write on this particular subject is delusional. There is a difference.
And your comments are not even the most delusional here!
You give the example of South Korean firms producing test kits, but who do you think they sell the test kits to? who do you think use the test kits? who do you think trace the contacts of people who test positive?
(Hint: the answers are in this article, kindly linked to by Niall what feels like weeks ago, but it cannot be since the article is dated March 12.)
Another question: can you do in Illinois what the police are doing in South Korea? Are there enough police resources to track all contacts of all patients and ask them to please get tested, and if the test is positive, get info on all contacts over the last couple of weeks? Would as many people cooperate in Chicago as in Seoul?
More important, i have come up with estimates of number of cases in the UK. You have not come up with estimates of number of respirators that can be produced, or of people who can become qualified to provide intensive care, by March 3. And hospitals in London are already turning patients away!
Nor have you pondered on the economic consequences of having tens or even hundreds of thousands of people in ICU.
@Snorri Godhi
You give the example of South Korean firms producing test kits, but who do you think they sell the test kits to? who do you think use the test kits?
By no means am I saying that I agree with everything done is South Korea — I’m afraid you are muddying the issue. My point, which I think was pretty clear and also the subject we are discussing, is that your concerns over insufficient productive capacity for vents, nursing staff etc. is based on a socialist (government controlled and produced) mechanism when we have an EXCELLENT example of what happens when you let the invisible hand do its work.
Nor have you pondered on the economic consequences of having tens or even hundreds of thousands of people in ICU.
Someone who is advocating for the current response can’t possibly be baiting me about the economic costs of the alternative. The one thing Dr. Fauci plainly doesn’t give a fig about is the economic consequences of his actions.
That is what i find delusional, Fraser: you are talking about “what happens when you let the invisible hand do the work” but still do not provide estimates for how fast the invisible hand will churn out ventilators and ICU personnel.
Nor do you explain why the invisible hand is not providing enough ICU beds in London. The NHS does not manufacture respirators: why did private-sector manufacturers not stockpile respirators?
You are missing the point. Or rather, the points.
Point #0: If you think that the current response is expensive, wait until next week’s response.
Point #1: The current response is *too late*. It would have been cheaper to take action earlier. That is why i made my estimates.
Point #2: avoiding the current response would be at least equally expensive, possibly much more. Certainly much more expensive in human lives.
Point #3: if you want the invisible hand to provide the goods, you have to flatten the curve to give it time.
Addenda:
Point #1.1: Not only would it have been cheaper, it would also have infringed less on freedom, and would have saved thousands of human lives already, possibly hundreds of thousands eventually.
Point #1.2: It is delusional to think that the ruling classes are stirring up a panic to make a grab for more power, when in fact their response has been too slow in most countries, certainly including the UK.
Your question “how long will it take” is a curious one to me. I must presume you have never been in charge of actually manufacturing things, because if you had you would know the answer to this question is “What is your budget?”
Oh if you want to use Maths, the Office of National Statistics have weekly death figures for the U.K.
So for the week ending c.22nd March
1st column year, second column death from respiratory disease, third column deaths of over 75’s
2019 1,486 7,074
2018 1,946 8,308
2017 1,436 6,994
And now the guy who started the hare running in the first place, downgrades his original ‘half a million’ deaths in the UK to 20,000.
When you remember the University of East Anglia and its CRU, and the climate crap they spewed, now this. One might be forgiven for wondering if there is a concerted plot in British Universities to utterly destroy the credibility of science.
Perhaps there should be a test before an academic is allowed to drive a computer model?
APL,
They haven’t yet realised that this virus is so deadly as it is the final straw for all those who inexplicably survived the various ‘Mad Cow’ terrors of the late 1980s with predictions of us picking our way over corpses as the Zombies died in the streets, thereby retrospectively vindicating those brave pioneers of State terror.
It’s almost as if the Labour-supporting Nomenklatura have managed to frighten Mr Johnson into turning into Corbyn and handing the next election to Magic Grandpa’s successor
“And now the guy who started the hare running in the first place, downgrades his original ‘half a million’ deaths in the UK to 20,000.”
He said it would be 500,000 if we did nothing, about 250,000 with the limited measures then being proposed, and hopefully/maybe under 20,000 with the total lock-down. The only sense in which this is a ‘downgrade’ is that the government implemented total lock-down since the original paper. The change of predicted outcome is because of the change in policy.
NiV: “The change of predicted outcome is because of the change in policy.”
No, his revised 20,000 deaths is because his new ‘model’ (Christ! do these people pull this shit out of their arses?) assumes more people have been infected by Covid-19 than his original forecast.
And one explanation for that might be, it’s been in the UK for longer than 20th January, but also it’s not as fatal as originally put about by the fear mongers. Hint You tend to notice if you’re dying.
Mr Ed: “Mad Cow’ terrors of the late 1980s”
Don’t forget, “WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE OF AIDS”.
I think there is a good case to close down about 45% of the Universities.
“No, his revised 20,000 deaths is because his new ‘model’ (Christ! do these people pull this shit out of their arses?) assumes more people have been infected by Covid-19 than his original forecast.”
Really? That wasn’t what he said to the committee, as far as I recall. Reference?
On the exact topic in another thread, I said:
I think the “he changed his model” part is wrong.
If a ‘public health scientist’ says ‘There will be 500,000 deaths in this period from X’ ask ‘What are their names?’. If the scientist cannot say, it is not science, ‘science’ a term from the Latin ‘to know’.
it is a guess, pulled out of an orifice or a computer model, one at least of those doesn’t start with ‘garbage in’.
“If a ‘public health scientist’ says ‘There will be 500,000 deaths in this period from X’”
And if someone says ‘a public health scientist said X’, ask them ‘Where?’
I read the original paper. The 500,000 figure was conditional on no measures being taken, used purely as a comparison to demonstrate the effectiveness of the measures in the strategy then in place.
500,000 with no measures, 250,000 with the measures proposed, in *both* cases taking no account of the effect of overloading the health service. To keep it within the capacity of the NHS required much more severe measures.
—
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf
NiV: “Really? That wasn’t what he said to the committee,”
NiV: “I think the “he changed his model” part is wrong.”
I’ve had another look at his testimony in Parliament and, Yes, I was wrong. Fergusson did not say he has changed his model.
He did say: “We will be paying for this year for many decades to come in terms of the economic impact.”
He also said, in his estimate those who will die without Covid-19 by the end of the year would be a half to two thirds of his estimates. So at the upper end, (200,000) between 100,000 and 130,000 will be dead anyway, by the year end. Or in the best case 13,000 will be dead anyway, because they are either EoL or suffer from prior conditions.
So it is going to be be twenty years, perhaps thirty before we’ve paid off the bill for at best 70,000 people who may live out this year plus a bit. or in the best case, 7,000 people who Ferguson describes as ‘end of life’ or with pre existing conditions.
Seems like a deal you should refuse
“He also said, in his estimate those who will die without Covid-19 by the end of the year would be a half to two thirds of his estimates.”
I’ve not seen the estimates he’s talking about, so I don’t know, but is that half to two thirds of the 20,000 with the lock down in place, the 200,000 with the lesser mitigation (but ignoring the overload of the NHS), the 500,000 with no measures (but still ignoring the overload of the NHS), or some possibly much larger number if the death rate goes up because the NHS runs out of beds and equipment? Or did he say it was half to two thirds of all of them?