the big back to work day

Boris Johnson speech to the nation, Sunday 10-05/2020

We have been told generally the restrictions are lifted on going out, to go to work if we can and that plans will next be drawn up for further changes. I read this as a lot of further changes to come shortening any other stay at home measures and lockdown. It is provisional but is very easy to change the stay at home measures for older people, vulnerable groups and to get back to opening schools.

There was a puzzle for me that we were told we had a Cobra emergency scale (Civil Contingencies Committee) of 4 out of 5 which was in place due to the crisis and the exponential growth of the virus disease in the population. This has now gone but the actual speech did not mention any new number. The economic and medical arena is close but not quite the same.

I thought it a good speech and consider all the other restrictions are in line to be lifted. The timescale would suit very quick as it will be unfair to lift restrictions if they were not suitable for most people according to keeping a close watch on the results for now.

Medically we are not all being tested nor do we have an antibody test (note ) so I do not see any restrictions being managed in a way that can be recorded except by new hospital admissions however.

There has not ever been any evidence to back up the speed or geographical area of the spread due to testing not being rolled out or advanced enough to identify usefully the virus.

What, not who runs society

I have felt the lack of tests has been a policy behind controlling the worry caused by the semi quarantine “Stay at Home, Protect the NHS”. It has reinforced the division between those working and those who trust and don’t get any say. It is true most of us cannot identify a virus in a microscope so should not clammer for answers. However there does seem to be a need to address whether there was more to the shutdown than protecting us.

I feel the numbers in tests would either have been higher or the same. If they were the same then the virus did not spread at an exponential rate above say 1.5. The maths for Ro=1.5 starting in march are

The figure today (11-05/2020) is 223K confirmed (deaths 32,065) (source Wikipedia) WHO figures for yesterday (10-05-2020) were 215,264 cases and 31,587 deaths. Wikipedia data link here figures are the same looking at them today.

If there was 1 case in march then in April we would have the figures of today and today without a lockdown who know’s much higher still? The lockdown began on 23/3/2020 but advice had been given for several weeks before that meant many services, especially travel and holidays, entertainments and some workplaces were already curtailed by then. It makes sense if the curve was affected that we might have only reached this figure now in another 5 weeks from the beginning of April since we have still had some contacts but have been declared to be past the exponential increase rate according to the speech of Boris Johnson yesterday (Sunday). I am not able to understand the figures but have done my best to understand why they are the same and it could reflect an exponential growth of Ro=1.5 effectively being curtailed a week early to slow to reaching the same figure 5 weeks later and now lockdown being ended for most people. Restrictions are still in place but work is intended to begin again and families can socialise, exercise is unrestricted apart from a request for social distancing (commonly known to be a call for 2 meters separation from other people in all environments)

Contamination or Infection?

I could be persuaded by these figures as a person to person virus. I really do not know. What concerns me is that we did not get tests which is not a fault of the government yet there is also not, going by my feeling here, to be antibody tests now or any general continuation of the effort to get an overall test carried out for statistics to be confirmed. Given a worst case scenario and the virus going to a second peak this might change and might have to change but it is safe to have an emotional desire to not wish this for all people. I have however designed the figure Ro=1.5 myself which is very clever of me from taking figures to be anywhere from 1.4 to over 3 upon reading reports. So I will have to put to bed my contamination fear as partly it was due to hyperchondria synonymous to a collective scale of fear here affecting my own judgement. Partly also to a pathological to confront objectively as a citizen what to think upon not having a hierarchical role as an operational key worker, either in authority or the affected and called to professions

The niggle remains now that often came to the surface that there was more to this. It also it is a personal feeling that I need to defend my doubts with analysis. It is not good to suspect by extension our own authorities since little has been said. There was doubt about Chinese negligence or pride tending to theories of market greed or general political. There has been some hostility affecting differing national decisions. Over all there have been declarations all under the World Health Organisation noted international calls for clarity and cooperation. It is and remains to have been an emergency. Mental health stresses have started to be discussed as a reason to need to hurry and end the lockdown more and more on radio and internet posts. No foul play has really been considered apart from Chinese silence at the start but I am acting out my marginal mental passions to be a larger person than I am all the time. Even faced with death my mind is a bit bigger than the rest of me. I justify it now as it had a much larger space than usual to operate and I was definitely not alone here, though in fact of course I was wasn’t I intended to be alone in a physical, biological sense.

It has been odd, the social strains have been lifted now and the effects will not be discussed until they are considered to be in the past. So big has the change been in the global situation of individual lives. National, border and home security have effectively come together with economic and personal security being completely abolished. Barely a person could not have considered their life from a new perspective and also this will persist as a mental situation that many will cherish as well as have suffered I reckon so. We were necessarily policed but have we been treated fairly with information. Was there more than the recorded cases of infection and is it important and has it now gone as an emergency hazardous threat due to the medical Ro=1 being reached.