Six-foot rule to protect against coronavirus is questionable, MIT professor says (The Boston Globe)

It's an offence in the UK too; the old public health legislation, aimed at reducing the transmission of TB, still applies as far as I'm aware.

 

This post has been moved from this tread.

On the subjet of government telling people the blunt facts, it's driving me bananas that there has not been a full explanation given to everyone instead of those who want to investigate themselves. This guy obviously thinks the distancing is about touch each other, not their exhalations. (cross posted from the food handling thread)

If the instructions people give are simply 'keep away this will stop the spread', without any (or insufficient) clear explanation of why, then this is the sort of ignorant mistakes that will keep being made.

 

I am aware of that. I am also very aware that when you ask people to put aside their usual routines and make significant, unwanted changes to how they do things, achieve some level of compliance, then the best way to thoroughly p*** them off and have them tell you to shove it is to turn around and tell them it's not enough & they need to do more.

My point isn't about risk of contracting the virus, but about increasing the risk of more people not complying with the measures that are already in place. There may be police enforcement and fines, but without general willingness to comply the police can only do so much.

The danger is if at this point when people are bored, tired of enforced time with family, stressed because they've lost their jobs, or may soon - tell them it's all been for nothing then that's a recipe for civil unrest. Nobody needs that right now.

 

Understanding why, not just what, is crucial for many areas in life. Its not just about pandemics ... but the consequences are so much worse in life and death situations.

 

Its worse, much worse, if you don't tell them the truth. People need to understand. If the death toll maxes out, uncontrolled, there will be high risk of civil unrest, and the situation will get even worse. If supply chains break down, it will be much worse again. There are provisions in the USA, and I think other countries can do the same, for military to take over trucking of supplies if the truck delivery system goes down. That is good. That only matters, however, if we can keep the food manufacturing industry running, including farms. Nobody can rely on imports in this situation.

Pointing out the facts should alarm people. The facts are actually more dire than most are saying. For example, right now there is hospital-system-based anecdotal evidence that being even a little overweight increases death rates. So we can probably add obese to the high risk group, no matter their age. We also are not talking about the likely high rates of disability after this virus, nor the hundreds of thousands of medical debt that huge numbers of survivors will face, plus ongoing unemployment and so on. The medical system in the USA, for example, is likely to be frequently overwhelmed by mid-month. Its already bad, its going to get worse. This will affect everyone with any medical condition, and anyone waiting for surgery that is not classed as urgent. I don't know if its already happened, but its been discussed, about not taking heart attack patients to hospitals because there is no room.

Historically doing quarantines, enforcing isolation, is very expensive. However the data is the places that did this do much better in the longer term, with high bounce-backs in their economies. Not doing anything to stop it, or not enough, crushes local economies.

Right now we have not yet had a huge financial crisis on top of all this. We are in the early stages of dire economic consequences. As businesses and individuals cannot pay their bills there will be chaos. This is unfolding an order of magnitude faster than the Great Depression. The financial system in many parts of the world is massively in debt. Huge numbers of companies and other organisations are going to default on their debts. I understand that right now another stimulus package is being developed in the USA to try to deal with individual and hospital financial crises. I hope it works out.

WE have the power to change these outcomes, the people collectively. The cornerstone of that is isolation and hygiene. The worst outcomes only happen if we fail to limit the spread of the virus.

 

I completely agree. What I am saying is when you put the heaviest restrictions in, you do it at the beginning.

I understand that what we know of a decision may change, especially when we are dealing with something new.

However, if you tell people they have to stop doing x,y and z it quickly becomes the new norm. However, turn around some weeks later and say, sorry old bean, that isn't enough & wasn't right so hasn't been effective so now you have to cut back even further..... Their gonna to be p**** off.

Especially, when a vast number of them are still labouring under the delusion they're doing this for the benefit of other people. The elderly, those with underlying conditions etc. Forgetting that young kids with asthma, pregnant women, their best mate with diabetes etc are all vulnerable, because other people's illnesses rarely impinge on their lives.

 

Quite so. Half measures are dangerous in this situation for a lot of reasons. Full restrictions, early, lead to much less economic impact in the long term, and much less in personal consequences.

I have said this elsewhere, but let me point out the consequences for the young. Fewer will get jobs, fewer will go to university, more will face huge medical debts, more will be disabled. We probably also need to add obesity to the high risk group as well, and in the US especially, though over much of the Western world, obesity rates are high even in the young. They will also sometimes lose family members, particularly parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, etc.

 

Definitely.

Not to mention that not everyone with an underlying health condition will know they have one. Some conditions may be asymptomatic or mild enough to be ignored initially. Health is something that can only be assumed.

Additionally, while the risks of more severe illness & death with covid 19 are higher in the elderly and those with underlying health conditions, as greater numbers of the supposedly low risk group become infected we will inevitably see more of them develop serious illness and die.

Being at low risk is no consolation when you become one of the unlucky ones.

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1253256058774134785

 

Looks way more comfortable than the current get-up, and much more friendly for those receiving care too. Let’s hope it’s up to spec.

Article linked in tweet above here:
https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2020/04/perso-deployed-southampton

Edit to add: Love this:
“Frontline healthcare staff at UHS tested the prototypes on the wards last month and the concept has been made open-source so it is available to be manufactured around the world.”