Exercising more than once a day is reasonable during lockdown, says new CPS guidance for England

ktache wrote:

Not that I want to encourage your take on the BBC, here is there take on "Villager views"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-52323784

Clicked through to the Twitter article. 

'Coveney - where "social distancing" means not marrying your sister'. 

Juvenile, I know.  Made me chuckle, though.

Me too.
I liked the comments on the dangerous roof ladders shown in the background.

Herd immunity requires about 60% of the population to have immunity so it is possible to achieve herd immunity without exposing vulnerable people to the risk of infection.

If there is no lasting immunity (as with the coronaviruses that cause common colds) then we're screwed any way as that will likely make vaccination impossible.

There's a reason there isn't a common cold vaccine despite it being a guaranteed money maker.

the reason is on the whole the common cold doesnt tend to kill you, so whilst it can make you feel rotten and people would appreciate a vaccine, the big pharma industries can make more money from solving bigger problems.

we never use to have a vaccine for flu, it was only introduced in the UK as a routine vaccination from 2009.

The amount of money you can make from a drug has nothing to do with how big a problem it treats.

Antibiotics save many lives but are not very profitable.

Hair loss drugs are the complete opposite.

A common cold vaccine would likely be very lucrative, (colds cost the US economy $40 bn/year) the reason it doesn't exist is because it is too technically difficult.

As I understand it there are a couple of hundred different "colds", of which coronoviruses cause around 15%, once you catch a cold and fight it off, you get immunity to it and remain immune for quite a few years.  Though it may be that for coronoviruses it might not be as good.  There would have to be many different cold vaccines.  We get a 'flu vaccine every year, the one that has been guessed at to fight the expected years 'flu.  Many different types of 'flu.  Though only one virus "type", colds 3 main "types"

Diseases of the Western world are the ones that make real money, if malaria was a real problem in the developed world then a lot more work would be done about it by the large pharmecuetical companies.  That's how it works.

I know people who work on both SARS and MERS vaccines, but because it's a problem that can be solved by public health measures and with MERS, it doesn't effect the West, it's not very well funded.  Covid does and is and will become very well funded.

hawkinspeter wrote:

The biggest issue with the "herd immunity" strategy is that we don't currently know what kind of immunity you can get from contracting the virus. If you get long-lasting immunity, then all well and good (apart from killing off the older population and people with pre-existing conditions). If it's more like the common cold where you're immune for about two weeks, then the herd immunity isn't going to work. Also, what happens if immunity means that you don't get symptoms but are still able to transmit it?

The problem is that we don't have enough information yet.

In which case we are all f'ed anyway because the immune response from a vaccine will never be better than the immune response from having the actual virus. Ideally it will be the same, more likely it will be slightly worse. The benefit of vaccine is not in increasing the immune response compared to infection, but in lowering the risk.
So unless we are going to vaccinate thd entire population on the same day, then neither a vaccine nor controlled/slow spread of the disease are solutions.

This leaves only 2 options 1) permanent societal change similar to the current lockdown conditions, or 2) eradicate the virus completely before returning to normal.

The window for achieving 2 is long gone as the disease is now widespread in most countries, so even if a country could eradicate the virus, it would soon be reimported.

Based on numbers from Iceland (widespread testing and case fatality rate if 0.5%) and San Marino (0.1% of population already killed.) The infection fatality rate is somewhere between those figures and the number of people already exposed to the virus in this country is between 3,000,000 and 14,000,000.

This suggests we are somewhere between 3 months and 18 months away from achieving herd immunity.

The current lockdown is not reducing infections as far as I can see, it is maintaining a steady rate. An improvement on the initial exponential growth, bug in no way indicative of getting the virus under control of being able to reduce restrictions.

I wouldn't read too much into the daily number of new cases or even the daily reported deaths.

Both numbers are inaccurate.

The best metric I can see is hospital admissions and hospital bed occupancy.

Both are reducing indicating that we are now past the (first) peak.

Indeed, there are two narratives in play. There is the law, and then there are all the "rules" spoken by politicians or even published by government agencies, and the media, which have taken on a life of their own and inspired all manner of local over-interpretations. Even senior police officers have been caught up, with talk of road-blocks and shopping bag inspections.

And as you point out, the "one form of exercise" mantra does not appear in the legal text referred to in the article. It is part of the ever growing body of politicians' "rules". It is a shame that this article trips over its own laces right off the bat.

Presumably we live under the rule of law, not the "rules" of politicians.

Unfortunately motorist vigilantes and torch and pitchfork wielding villagers don't really care about the exact wording of the legislation, for them it's whatever version of "narrative" they have dreamt up that matters.

Well said, too much of what politicians say and not what they actually legislate.

The morning after Boris' initial 'lockdown' speech (23.03?) Michael GOVE states on television that exercise should be of 'about an hour' maximum duration.

Also, I have a leaflet from the 'UK Government' entitled

'CORONAVIRUS

STAY AT HOME

PROTECT THE NHS 

SAVE LIVES'

I got it together with a letter from the PM. I presume that every household in the U.K. received both.

It clearly states that 'You should only leave the house for very limited reasons:

(of the four reasons)

One form of exercise a day…

(my emphasis).

WHAT A SHAMBLES!

zero_trooper wrote:

Well said, too much of what politicians say and not what they actually legislate.

The morning after Boris' initial 'lockdown' speech (23.03?) Michael GOVE states on television that exercise should be of 'about an hour' maximum duration.

You mis-quote what Michael Gove actually said, or at best paraphrase.

What he actually said, when pressed by a journalist trying to tie him down to a time limit was "Well there is no limit, but perhaps a 30 minute run or an hours walk with cycling somewhere inbetween depending on your level of fitness"

yes it was the medias attributing of an invented limit from what Gove had said on the Andrew Marr show (actually 29.03, nine days after the lockdown speech) that led to people thinking it existed at all https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/an-hours-walk-should-do-says-michael-...

largely on the basis well Gove is in the government, therefore what he says (or what the media says he said) is the government position and law.

Possibly confusing it with Wales

The Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (Wales) Regulations 2020

(b)to take exercise, no more than once a day, either alone or with other members of the household;

But as you say, poor proof reading

The rules:

6(1) During the emergency period, no person may leave the place where they are living without reasonable excuse.

(2) For the purposes of paragraph (1), a reasonable excuse includes the need—
(a)to obtain basic necessities, including food and medical supplies for those in the same household (including any pets or animals in the household) or for vulnerable persons and supplies for the essential upkeep, maintenance and functioning of the household, or the household of a vulnerable person, or to obtain money, including from any business listed in Part 3 of Schedule 2;
(b)to take exercise either alone or with other members of their household;
(c)to seek medical assistance, including to access any of the services referred to in paragraph 37 or 38 of Schedule 2;
(d)to provide care or assistance, including relevant personal care within the meaning of paragraph 7(3B) of Schedule 4 to the Safeguarding of Vulnerable Groups Act 2006(1), to a vulnerable person, or to provide emergency assistance;
(e)to donate blood;
(f)to travel for the purposes of work or to provide voluntary or charitable services, where it is not reasonably possible for that person to work, or to provide those services, from the place where they are living;
(g)to attend a funeral of—
(i)a member of the person’s household,
(ii)a close family member, or
(iii)if no-one within sub-paragraphs (i) or (ii) are attending, a friend;
(h)to fulfil a legal obligation, including attending court or satisfying bail conditions, or to participate in legal proceedings;
(i)to access critical public services, including—
(i)childcare or educational facilities (where these are still available to a child in relation to whom that person is the parent, or has parental responsibility for, or care of the child);
(ii)social services;
(iii)services provided by the Department of Work and Pensions;
(iv)services provided to victims (such as victims of crime);
(j)in relation to children who do not live in the same household as their parents, or one of their parents, to continue existing arrangements for access to, and contact between, parents and children, and for the purposes of this paragraph, “parent” includes a person who is not a parent of the child, but who has parental responsibility for, or who has care of, the child;
(k)in the case of a minister of religion or worship leader, to go to their place of worship;
(l)to move house where reasonably necessary;
(m)to avoid injury or illness or to escape a risk of harm.

From my very annecdotal personal experience, the roads have been getting busier every day since this weekend, I was hoping that the large increase of traffic on Tuesday was the need to get out for "essential" reasons after the closures, especially because Sunday was the most closed of the entire year, possibly decades, but no, it just keeps going up.

ktache wrote:

From my very annecdotal personal experience, the roads have been getting busier every day since this weekend, I was hoping that the large increase of traffic on Tuesday was the need to get out for "essential" reasons after the closures, especially because Sunday was the most closed of the entire year, possibly decades, but no, it just keeps going up.

Agreed, that's what I am noticing when I go out for food/a run/a ride/a walk every day.

I'm still working, cycling home each day, it seems more and more like a normal day on the roads. Not quite, but definately getting busier.

That's not a very good article to try and prove your point. It predicts a projected peak of 2,932 on 17 April, which is today and seems extremely unlikely based on the last few days totals. We've been averaging around 800 deaths per day for the last 5 days, hopefully that will be what they call the plateau.

The elephant in the room, so to speak with all these scenarios is there being no end point/exit strategy. There is no vaccine at the current time and absolutely no guarantee that there will be one any time soon or at all for that matter. If the vaccine doesn’t happen in a timely manner (within a year), then the only logical conclusion is that we will need to reach herd immunity the natural way i.e. most of the population will have caught it. That’s somewhere around 80% of the population, which is a sobering thought.

Unfortunately the 800 number is only the numbers dead in hospital confirmed with Covid.  It doesn't count those who die at home or in care homes, the weekly ONS data will at least try to cover that, and it would seem that there may be uncounted numbers where no Covid is mentioned at all on the death certificate where it should at least mention it's possibility, the very unfortunate incresease in the death rate compared to averages from previous years will probably show some of this.

ktache wrote:

Unfortunately the 800 number is only the numbers dead in hospital confirmed with Covid.  It doesn't count those who die at home or in care homes, the weekly ONS data will at least try to cover that, and it would seem that there may be uncounted numbers where no Covid is mentioned at all on the death certificate where it should at least mention it's possibility, the very unfortunate incresease in the death rate compared to averages from previous years will probably show some of this.

Going from around 800 to 2932 is a big leap and shows that the base data and assumptions that they used are very wrong.

Yes - that particular study doesn't seem to have gotten the predictions right. One article said that uncounted hospital deaths are about 75% of the hospital numbers, which would bring the figure up to roughly 1400 - still well short of 2900.

It is hard to know what the numbers mean. We are left to understand them as the "death toll". But they are in fact the numbers who died with, not necessarily of, covid. The BBC has had a stab at understanding what they mean, and how much uncertainty remains:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51979654

Listened to a good podcast from the Economist today while trundling up Alpe du Zwift.

The experts seemed to think that the second half of 2021 was the earliest we could see mass availability of a vaccine.

In better news, a study from the Netherlands found that the number of people with antibodies to the virus is 25 times higher than the official case numbers.

So, hopefully herd immunity won't take as long to reach as feared.