Thursday 10 September 2020

Imposing a 10pm curfew seems like a stupid idea to me

From The Metro:

Britain could be facing a nationwide curfew as part of efforts to avoid a second wave. People may be banned from going out after 10pm or 11pm to try and keep a lid on the recent surge in cases which has been attributed to younger people socialising.

Venues in Bolton will be required to close between 10pm and 5am to try and halt the transmission of coronavirus there, with a similar curfew also understood to be under consideration in Bradford.


The thinking behind this seems to be that Covid-19 infection rates are now highest among younger people who might have caught it while out in the evening. Quite why they think most of them were infected while socialising after 10pm, rather than doing something else at some other time of the day is unclear.

It's a stupid idea, because younger people are unlikely to become seriously ill and the disease appears to be becoming less virulent anyway. So it's a massive imposition for little return.

And if we are going to do "herd immunity", why not start with children and younger adults? It will go round schools and universities, pubs and clubs like wildfire, so they'll all be immune (for the time being) and then hopefully the oldies will be less likely to catch it later on (having kept their heads down for another six months).

11 comments:

Unknown said...

It's a stupid idea,
Absolutely is. Boris et al are so far down the rabbit hole they have no clue what to do for the best. Rising ‘cases’ that are mainly in asymptomatic younger people is the only cover they have left. And of course the media and the loyal ‘opposition’ are so pathetic they can’t even hold the Government to proper account.

sok said...

plandemic does not sound like some sort of fruitcake phrase after all.

formertory said...

Curfew is a ridiculous idea because it's a major step closer to grinding people's faces in the doo-doo and begging the eventual, perhaps inevitable, "f... you" response. Significant non-compliance (not necessarily violent, although the usual suspects will be out to make it so) might reasonably be expected to follow; a completely avoidable undermining of police and civil authority as they're pressed into enforcing the largely unenforceable.

As for herd immunity, that was where we were going until Boris and his band of other second-rate comedians panicked in the face of social media content and decided to pay people for doing nothing "to save our NHS".

There is something unspeakably patronising in referring to the NHS as *our* NHS". It comes close to that nasty authoritarian little Mancock's dribbling about "killing Granny" the other day. Despicable, patronising, insulting. And that's just for starters.

Oooh! I feel a bit better now. Time for another cup of tea.

Mark Wadsworth said...

U and FT, thanks and agreed.

Sok what's a "plandemic" with an "L"? A global epidemic of stupid plans?

Sobers said...

"And if we are going to do "herd immunity", why not start with children and younger adults? It will go round schools and universities, pubs and clubs like wildfire, so they'll all be immune (for the time being) "

I've been saying this for ages. The only way we will get back to some semblance of normality is when we get a herd immunity and the virus dies out naturally due to lack of victims. And the best people to create that heard immunity are the young and healthy as all the stats show that they are virtually unaffected by the virus. Most will hardly know they've had it. And the stats from all around the world suggest that herd immunity is reached when about 20% of the population have had the virus, this is why cases have died out in London - they've reached that level. The rest of the UK is just slowly catching up.

We should be saying to anyone under 30 (and probably 40) that unless they have a specific medical problem that puts them in a vulnerable category they should be out and about exactly as normal. Pubbing, clubbing and partying. No masks, no social distancing. Let the virus rip among the young and hopefully that will get us to the 20%.

Thats the best way to protect grandma, not locking all the young up like a police state.

Sobers said...

"What's a "plandemic" with an "L"?"

One assumes it references the theory that this is all planned - not necessarily the emergence of the virus itself, but the response. IE the PTB have had a list of things they want to achieve and have just been waiting for a suitable reason to implement them. The whole 'never let a good crisis go to waste' principle.

Mark Wadsworth said...

S, I thought 'herd immunity' required 70%, not 20%?

"That's the best way to protect grandma, not locking all the young up like a police state."

It makes more sense to lock up grandma, doesn't it?

Mark Wadsworth said...

S, re your comment on cases dying out in London. The stats from the USA back that up. The 'urban' states (New York etc) had a peak in April and new cases have dried up there. The 'rural' states (Montana etc) didn't have their peak until August and cases have only just started falling.

Bayard said...

S, the problem is that the restrictions were put in place to "flatten the curve", i.e. the message was, "you're going to get it, but let's try to make sure you don't get it all at once, so follow these new rules and the NHS won't be overwhelmed". Now the message has morphed to "follow the rules and you and your loved ones won't be infected", so we all have to behave as if performing the juju makes you immune.

Sobers said...

"S, I thought 'herd immunity' required 70%, not 20%?"

The official calculated figure in 60%, if 100% of the population can catch the disease in question. Its now apparent that the very young don't catch it for some reason, and a large proportion of the adult population are functionally immune, probably due to previous different coronavirus exposure. Thus the level needed to reach herd immunity drops significantly. Remember of the people on the Diamond Princess (all oldies and thus more ) only 20% were tested positive for covid, and a handful died. Despite being all locked together on a boat, an almost perfect transmission scenario. Cities like London and New York that experienced massive rises in cases and deaths in the beginning (as dense urban areas are very good conditions for transmission) had a mysterious drop off in cases and deaths once the overall infection rate in those locations reached about 20-25%. And have been low ever since. If 60% was needed for herd immunity, why did the cases in London fall off a cliff in the middle of the pandemic?

Mark Wadsworth said...

S, thanks.

Maybe it's different % for different illnesses?
Maybe the answer is, whatever is needed to push "R" below 1?

Diamond Princess - and several other cruise ships - were a good real life experiment.