Worrying times

[Geoff Chandler]

It is indeed 'Worrying Times'.

Endgames are appearing in the 'General Chat' section.

[JustinHorton]

Jon Ludvig Hammer did something like that (against Topalov) in a super-tournament a few years ago.

74 Kc6. Worse than mine, I think - he had an instant draw in his hand.

[Tim Spanton]

Latest summary:
Coronavirus: How to understand the death toll
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51979654
Some takes:

_111497077_optimised-mortality_rates-nc.png

The most immediate way to judge the current policy is to see if the health service manages to cope with the coronavirus cases it sees in the coming weeks.

Beyond that, the key measure will be what is called excess deaths - the difference between the expected number of deaths and actual deaths.

This is closely monitored during flu seasons. During recent winters, there have been about 17,000 excess deaths from flu a year, Public Health England says.

If coronavirus turns out to be no more deadly than flu, the lockdown could limit the number of excess deaths to under 1,400 - more than 12,000 fewer than would have happened under the previous strategy of slowing its spread, before the decision was taken to move to lockdown.

If it turns out to be five times more deadly than flu, the lockdown could limit coronavirus to 6,900 extra deaths - more than 60,000 fewer than under the previous strategy.

[Michael Farthing]

Latest summary:
Coronavirus: How to understand the death toll
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51979654



The most immediate way to judge the current policy is to see if the health service manages to cope with the coronavirus cases it sees in the coming weeks.



If coronavirus turns out to be no more deadly than flu, the lockdown could limit the number of excess deaths to under 1,400 - more than 12,000 fewer than would have happened under the previous strategy of slowing its spread, before the decision was taken to move to lockdown.

If it turns out to be five times more deadly than flu, the lockdown could limit coronavirus to 6,900 extra deaths - more than 60,000 fewer than under the previous strategy.

Except, of course, that
(1) the "xxx fewer than under the previous strategy" is entirely conjecture.
(2) the chances of resurgence under the current strategy are, even under the predictions of its advocates, likely to be higher
(3) there is no consideration of the increased death rate than has arisen from the lockdown policy itself.

[JustinHorton]

Except, of course, that
(1) the "xxx fewer than under the previous strategy" is entirely conjecture.

Well it's not: it's their best guess, and we can and will never know how wrong or right it was, but it's not simply "conjecture".

(2) the chances of resurgence under the current strategy are, even under the predictions of its advocates, likely to be higher

Compared to what, do you think?

(3) there is no consideration of the increased death rate than has arisen from the lockdown policy itself.

And is there such a rate? Why would you say so?

[Kevin Thurlow]

"there is no consideration of the increased death rate than has arisen from the lockdown policy itself.
And is there such a rate? Why would you say so?"

There you need all of Private Eye, Dr Phil Hammond outlines some issues, where there could be more falls, or more and nastier domestic abuse, mental health problems, excess drinking and smoking etc. (From memory, I'm too idle to walk upstairs and find it now.) I would think that people could be sitting at home feeling unwell and either feel they don't want to bother the doctor, or think they can't get treatment, or they ask for treatment and don't get it. That could be a spin-off effect from Covid-19 problems.

Our local surgery is closed, and the local pharmacy won't deliver. I had to go FOUR times to get my last prescription, as they never had it. The last isn't a fault of lockdown. You can't stay at home if you need the medicine.

However, how you can effectively quantify lockdown problems is unclear... Many might well have happened anyway.

[JustinHorton]

There you need all of Private Eye, Dr Phil Hammond outlines some issues, where there could be more falls, or more and nastier domestic abuse, mental health problems, excess drinking and smoking etc.

Right, but aren't you forgetting the other side of the ledger?

[Kevin Thurlow]

I'm not forgetting anything! He wrote it, not me... He was saying you might get more deaths for other reasons, but of course if everybody mills about coughing on each other, it won't help. I suspect he was just saying that lockdown is not 100 % win. Happily, the people I've encountered whilst on enforced trips out have kept their distance.

[JustinHorton]

I suspect he was just saying that lockdown is not 100 % win.

The specific term was "increased death rate".

Of course you're right that lockdown isn't "100% win" but nobody thinks otherwise. However, bear in mind that, for instance, massively reduced traffic may mean massively reduced casualties from traffic accidents, or from pollution-related respiratory illnesses.

Or that much of the point of a lockdown strategy is to try and avoid a health service being overwhelmed (think of the dotted line that runs across the "flattening the curve" graphs) because if that happens, your casualties, unnecessary ones, increase massively. Lockdown isn't just about reducing coronavirus deaths, it's about trying to stop people dying unnecessarily for all kinds of reasons while the time of greatest danger is upon us.

[David Gilbert]

Professor John Newton has been given the task of delivering the Government’s targets for testing. I worked with him more than ten years ago to secure funding for the childhood anomaly registers. He has a chess connection. He told me his father had been President (or it might have been Chairman) of his county chess association. I’m not sure which county, but I have Northamptonshire in my head. I wondered which job would be the most difficult, presiding over county chess or saving the country. Hmmm - tough one!

[Mick Norris]

Just to cheer up Nick F that it isn't just the foot and mouth guy that's been talking to the government, I have read this from my old maths department

The numbers game: using maths to combat coronavirus

Manchester advice has so far helped decision-makers to:

risk-assess the impact of quarantine on dozens of UK passengers from the Diamond Princess which was docked at Yokohama, Japan, after becoming a coronavirus hotspot;
order mass school closures sooner rather than later – and not wait for the Easter break;
consider the role of household transmission and the most effective advice to the public around staying in isolation.

To map these complex trends, the Manchester team have looked at other virus-based pandemics which occurred in 1880, 1918–19, 1957, 1968, and the most recent, the 2009 swine flu outbreak, which many in the health sector expected would be the ‘big one’. But the 2009 incident was less devastating than expected because the elderly population of that time had been exposed in their youth to similar flu outbreaks in the 1950s and 1960s, and thus developed ‘herd immunity’. COVID-19 is a completely new disease, which no-one in the world has natural immunity to.

Time will tell – but one thing that I would say for certain is that the people in the UK need to take government advice very seriously, especially regards mixing between young and more elderly and frail population groups

[JustinHorton]

It is indeed 'Worrying Times'.

Endgames are appearing in the 'General Chat' section.

Nobody fancy a go then?

[Daniel Gormally]

Even when this is over, can't see chess tournaments being popular for a long time. Think they will suffer massively and some well-established tournaments will go to the wall. Many professional players will end up quitting the game altogether.

Who will want to sit opposite someone and be in a room with 300 people who are sneezing and coughing? ideal situations for any virus to spread.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"Even when this is over, can't see chess tournaments being popular for a long time."

I was wondering about that - it could go that way, as once you get out of the habit of doing something, you suddenly realise that there are better things to do. I used to play cricket every weekend, then missed the rest of the season with an injury, and then never played again.

However, people could decide to play in the first tournament they can to get back to it. It would be interesting to know before the current problem, how many people played online only, proper chess only, and a mixture thereof.

[ben.graff]

I worry that society was become more introverted and screen driven before all this, and that that particular trend might be accelerated by the lock-down. (Which is in no way intended as a criticism of the current strategy, just an observation as to a possible consequence of it, along the same lines as Danny and Kevin's posts.) Personally, I don't think online chess is a patch on OTB and I'll be keen to get back to OTB, when the time comes.