Chat about Novel Coronavirus - 2019-nCoV - COVID-19

Watched the C4 programme with Dr Xand about ending lockdown:-

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/when-will-lockdown-end

Had the hospitalisation count kept climbing it would have been finished too late to be most useful. Did we dodge a bullet?

It's almost certainly going to be required in the future unfortunately. We've probably dealt with less than 10% of the problem so far, and we've just scraped by with ~20k deaths in hospitals (and many more outside hospitals).

The major point of the programme above was that you have to choose one of:-
a) sit in lockdown until a vaccine or cure arrives, millions will die due to secondary effects of the economy crashing
b) ease lockdown somehow and deal with it until a vaccine or cure arrives
c) completely lift lockdown and watch hundreds of thousands die as the virus runs riot again and the NHS is completely swamped

(b) is the obvious choice but it's not clear at all what the exact details of "ease lockdown somehow" are. Too slowly or cautiously and there are more deaths from choice (a). Too quickly or widely and more deaths from choice (c).

There are also questions about whether the immunity that some people may have gained would help them in the future. The immunity an individual has gained may be too weak and so they just get infected again (and again) and possibly more seriously - just because someone was asymptomatic first time round doesn't guarantee anything in the future. Any immunity may not last long enough and so people just get it again 12-24 months down the line.

Bristol’s Nightingale hospital was opened today.

Are these big 'field' hospitals full or close to capacity? I've not followed but I read a while back that the London one couldn't even be staffed fully as there's not enough (EU?) nurses.