Day: 19 August 2020

by Brian Gedalla We assess risks every day of our lives. We learn to do this as very small children and long before we reach adulthood we carry out most of the assessments completely subconsciously. COVID-19 is forcing us to assess the risks associated with the virus in our conscious minds and we are not very good at it. Thinking about the process we must all go through, I have concluded that what we are doing is trying to assess and juggle with three different numbers in our heads, without ever assigning an actual number to any of them. My simplistic model works like this: We assign a 'Utility Value' to an activity we are either doing, or would like to do. This is our subjective measure of the value and importance to us of that activity and will take into account our perception of the negative aspects of the risk we propose to take.The Utility Value drives us to arrive at an 'Acceptable Risk Ceiling' – the highest level of risk we are prepared to accept if we are to engage in the activity. It follows that the Acceptable Risk Ceiling is different for each activity in our lives and will be different for every person. There are no absolutes in assessing personal risk.We assess the Actual Risk (from ...

The second waves have killed far fewer people than the first waves Back in March we were facing a potentially apocalyptic scenario. An unknown and lethal disease, against which we had no immunity, was starting to run wild across the world with Europe apparently worst affected. At minimum, health systems would be at risk of collapse and some forecasts of the potential death toll put it at half a million in the UK alone. Shortages of basic foods and other essentials stoked real fears of supply chain breakdown, hunger, social unrest and worse. In response, our society and economy were effectively suspended. As a grateful public, we clapped and whooped in the street as we submitted ourselves to an unprecedented curtailment of our personal liberties. We accepted the inevitable temporary damage to our lives and livelihoods, and to our children’s education, as necessary in the face of such a grave threat. This was partly because we were afraid, and partly because the goals and logic of public policy were clear. The message ran like this: “We can’t prevent the disease from running through the population until a vaccine is available. This will take until 2021, so in the mean-time we must slow its progress, flatten the curve and make sure that our health systems don’t become overwhelmed.” Implicitly, once the ...

Handy Cock's Brilliant Solution to Ending the Covid Crisis – Even More Tests! Matt Hancock’s plans for ramped-up COVID-19 testing were soon underway at a brand new world-class facility with members of the public jubilantly lining up In a move that will surprise no one, Matt Hancock has announced that the Government will carry out even more tests in an attempt to better understand how prevalent the virus is. The BBC has the story. The Office for National Statistics' Infection Survey will test 150,000 people a fortnight in England by October, up from 28,000 now.The survey is separate from the mass testing programme of people with symptoms to diagnose cases.For the survey, a random sample of the general population is tested.That means it can provide estimates for the true spread of the virus.The diagnostic testing programme, which provides daily totals, largely relies on people with symptoms coming forward.Some people do not display symptoms when they are infected so the daily totals are an underestimate of the amount of infection that is around.As part of the expansion of the programme, data will also be gathered in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the survey was the "single most important tool" the government had for making policy decisions around coronavirus because it helped it understand how the disease was ...