Corona Virus

[Leeds Fox]

7 minutes ago, StanSP said:

I think that's exactly what karma is. Had they stayed at home, they wouldn't have passed it on, no? 

Well yeah I do get what you’re saying Stan but even though they’ve gone through some hardship, someone innocent has taken the brunt of it and potentially died. 

[Alf Bentley]

6 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

I’m not aware of asymptomatic sufferers having a sudden downturn (unless the initial positive test is before symptoms have had time to show) - and if asymptomatic, I’m not sure how exposure to more of the virus is significant .....if your body has an asymptomatic response to the virus then surely that reflects your body’s response to the virus ?  Or could it be that a low exposure is likely to lead to an asymptomatic reposnse ??????

 

It seems to be a well-established pattern that people with mild symptoms can suddenly deteriorate after 7-10 days (like Johnson). I appreciate that Dalglish was reportedly asymptomatic - different from mild symptoms.

But by definition, if he surprisingly tested positive for Covid, nobody could have much idea how recently he'd been infected - and if he was hospitalised with a different infection there could easily have been a degree of confusion over the cause of symptoms.

 

Although proper data would be needed (and isn't yet available), front-line workers in health and transport do seem to be disproportionately badly affected by Covid. There must be a possibility that is due to repeated or more intense exposure to the virus, unless those people are disproportionately vulnerable for some other reason.....

 

Anyway, my purpose in making my original post was to inject some positivity so I'll leave it there.

[st albans fox]

Just now, Alf Bentley said:

 

It seems to be a well-established pattern that people with mild symptoms can suddenly deteriorate after 7-10 days (like Johnson). I appreciate that Dalglish was reportedly asymptomatic - different from mild symptoms.

But by definition, if he surprisingly tested positive for Covid, nobody could have much idea how recently he'd been infected - and if he was hospitalised with a different infection there could easily have been a degree of confusion over the cause of symptoms.

 

Although proper data would be needed (and isn't yet available), front-line workers in health and transport do seem to be disproportionately badly affected by Covid. There must be a possibility that is due to repeated or more intense exposure to the virus, unless those people are disproportionately vulnerable for some other reason.....

 

Anyway, my purpose in making my original post was to inject some positivity so I'll leave it there.

I think it’s an important part of any debate on this. frontline workers are clearly exposed to more of the virus and seem to suffer in relation to this ..... or is it just basic stats that they are more likely to become infected and the bodily response that follows is just completely unpredictable with this virus. 

[UniFox21]

10 minutes ago, ealingfox said:

 

 

Some fair points in this thread comparing Ireland and the UK.

The thread really does give a damming read. The poster is right; we didn't act quick enough. Not cancelling Cheltenham and mass gatherings was a woeful decision. They should've all been cancelled and we'd have saved potentially thousands of lives. 

 

But as @Strokes has pointed out, there were and are quite a few things I don't think she touched on. She's discussed population and pop. per capita which was an interesting read. But i feel she's under represented the differences massively. Dublin for instance has a population of 1.3million, thats ~200k bigger than Birmingham, but 6/7million smaller than London. That then doesn't take into account the millions of commuters travelling to our big cities daily. All of this leads to huge numbers of contact and potential transmission events. So yes on 'average' Ireland are doing much 'better' than us but straight up comparisons aren't particularly helpful.

[st albans fox]

56 minutes ago, Carl the Llama said:

If you don't like it, stop doing it every time a labour MP has a slip of the tongue.  Take away our power to point out exactly how you guys would respond if she was a labour MP.  Simples.

I’ve thought this for years ..... how many politicians are lawyers ?   Being a confident public speaker seems the most relevant thing when it comes to politics.......is it any wonder that we get the political class that we do. Why would more capable people want to become part of the running of the country if they aren’t confident enough to speak publicly?  They wouldn’t last five minutes ..... sadly we get what we deserve and picking apart abbot/Patel for slips of the tongue (if that’s what they are rather than incompetence) is indicative of that ....

[Strokes]

2 minutes ago, UniFox21 said:

The thread really does give a damming read. The poster is right; we didn't act quick enough. Not cancelling Cheltenham and mass gatherings was a woeful decision. They should've all been cancelled and we'd have saved potentially thousands of lives. 

 

But as @Strokes has pointed out, there were and are quite a few things I don't think she touched on. She's discussed population and pop. per capita which was an interesting read. But i feel she's under represented the differences massively. Dublin for instance has a population of 1.3million, thats ~200k bigger than Birmingham, but 6/7million smaller than London. That then doesn't take into account the millions of commuters travelling to our big cities daily. All of this leads to huge numbers of contact and potential transmission events. So yes on 'average' Ireland are doing much 'better' than us but straight up comparisons aren't particularly helpful.

I’m still going to argue that we did act quick enough, we aren’t attempting to defeat the virus, no country is. Just to flatten the curve to a manageable limit with the available health resources and minimise the effects on the economy.

The flatter you make the curve the longer the lockdown type restrictions and the worse the economic effects. The two things both have to be considered.

[st albans fox]

1 minute ago, Strokes said:

I’m still going to argue that we did act quick enough, we aren’t attempting to defeat the virus, no country is. Just to flatten the curve to a manageable limit with the available health resources and minimise the effects on the economy.

The flatter you make the curve the longer the lockdown type restrictions and the worse the economic effects. The two things both have to be considered.

Until this is all over, no one will know who made good/bad calls.  It may look like those countries who called early lockdowns and have a much lower death toll as a result could suffer disproportionately worse under a second/third wave of this if a vaccine doesn’t become widely available later this year .....  if there is no second wave then their actions will be vindicated .....

[Carl the Llama]

36 minutes ago, murphy said:

Yeeees, that's exactlly what happened.      . 

 

Now, remind me.  Who jumped on Patel's error?  The left being above this kind of thing, of course  Double standards obviously don't apply to the left.

 

And who brought Abbott into it in the first place, inviting the comparison?  

 

Brilliant spinning to do all that and still somehow blame us evil tories.  

It literally started from "...And if Dianne Abbot had said that, then all the flag-flying Tories on here would be wanking themselves into a frenzy for the next 6 months."

 

Not jumping on an error, pointing out that you would have happily jumped on it as though it were a big deal.  You lot respond by pointing out that you vividly remember Diane's gaffes and won't let go any time soon.  Who's spinning what now?

 

Anyway I think we should drop the subject there, clearly getting in the way of more important matters.

[whoareyaaa]

16 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

I think it’s an important part of any debate on this. frontline workers are clearly exposed to more of the virus and seem to suffer in relation to this ..... or is it just basic stats that they are more likely to become infected and the bodily response that follows is just completely unpredictable with this virus. 

it could be that there body has caught both types of the virus and then with no sufficient rest for the body its just to much for it to be able to recover. not good at all, exposure from more than one person may also be a cause its hard to know anything at this stage

[Strokes]

3 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

Until this is all over, no one will know who made good/bad calls.  It may look like those countries who called early lockdowns and have a much lower death toll as a result could suffer disproportionately worse under a second/third wave of this if a vaccine doesn’t become widely available later this year .....  if there is no second wave then their actions will be vindicated .....

I agree, nothing is clear right now, it’s far more complicated than comparing critical care beds and mortality figures at this stage. That much is certain.

[Guest Markyblue]

5 minutes ago, Strokes said:

I’m still going to argue that we did act quick enough, we aren’t attempting to defeat the virus, no country is. Just to flatten the curve to a manageable limit with the available health resources and minimise the effects on the economy.

The flatter you make the curve the longer the lockdown type restrictions and the worse the economic effects. The two things both have to be considered.

Further to that i would add , people keep going on about a second wave etc, how a country has managed this can surely only be assessed when the virus has effectively been defeated,  who's to say what method has been best when we are not at the end of it yet.

 

3 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

Until this is all over, no one will know who made good/bad calls.  It may look like those countries who called early lockdowns and have a much lower death toll as a result could suffer disproportionately worse under a second/third wave of this if a vaccine doesn’t become widely available later this year .....  if there is no second wave then their actions will be vindicated .....

Absolutely this, no good saying who's done the right thing until this is over.  

[Leicester_Loyal]

Can we drop all the blue vs. red politics for a bit? I come in here to hopefully read about some clever Dr creating a vaccine, not to see pointless politics talk. I'm not having a go at anyone but it's not the time for it (IMO of course).

[Alf Bentley]

12 hours ago, MattP said:

Graph with deaths per percentage of population. 

 

 

It's useful to see comparative data for deaths (or hospitalisations or recoveries) as a percentage of a population. Some graphs based on nominal stats comparing, say, Switzerland to the USA are a bit pointless.

 

I'd noticed that the figure for Belgium seemed very high given population size, which is confirmed here. I wonder why? Might just be that it's a pretty urbanised country with areas of deprivation....or might be something to do with policy response (I don't know if the Belgians have been doing anything differently from most others?).

 

Of course, it's a rough measure as data will be recorded slightly differently in different countries. There are also some major differences, like the French figure now including deaths in care homes, I think (hence their jagged line).

 

For now, the gradient of the UK line doesn't look great compared to most other countries included - and can be expected to be reach about the 250 line (where Belgium is now) in 2 weeks, unless death rates don't just plateau but actually start declining before then. If the UK line ends up leveling off where Spain and Italy are now (they'll be going higher yet), UK officials will be pretty relieved, I suspect.

 

Too early for anything more than provisional judgments on anything for now, though. At the moment, if China and South Korea were included in that graph, they'd look pretty good - peaking below Germany for China and well below for Korea. But we don't yet know what the impact will be when such countries relax their lockdowns with the potential for second waves etc.

[Unabomber]

Went Tesco the other day and there was a guy who worked there stood at the end of an aisle. He wasn’t a shelf stacker or security just one of those guys who just kinda watches what people are doing. Anyway this woman went to go down the aisle to shop and the guy was like excuse me don’t you come any closer. She was like erm but I’m shopping and need to go down that aisle. He said no I’m social distancing and you can’t come closer until I move. Anyway he stood there for about 30 seconds and then moved a metre to the left so she could pass. Absolutely unbelievable scenes.

[January47]

13 hours ago, st albans fox said:

Some interesting stats ... eat less !

 

Be careful of conclusions drawn from this data. For example most cases so far have been in London and the West Midlands where that ethnic profile may be present in the general population there.

Also I'd guess that most people are above recommended BMIs so would need to compare against the wider population profile.

 For any data you always need to compare against the relevant control.

I think it quite poor they have released this data without doing that as most people would jump to conculsions.

[Nick]

1 minute ago, Unabomber said:

Went Tesco the other day and there was a guy who worked there stood at the end of an aisle. He wasn’t a shelf stacker or security just one of those guys who just kinda watches what people are doing. Anyway this woman went to go down the aisle to shop and the guy was like excuse me don’t you come any closer. She was like erm but I’m shopping and need to go down that aisle. He said no I’m social distancing and you can’t come closer until I move. Anyway he stood there for about 30 seconds and then moved a metre to the left so she could pass. Absolutely unbelievable scenes.

Yep was that Daventry Tesco by any chance?

 

Had a run in with a ‘manager’ there the other week behaving in a similar way. Took everything I had to ensure I didn’t rise to him being a massive dick. He was unsure of his role. He didn’t know if he was a security guard - which he didn’t have the build for; a manager -which he didn’t have the knowledge or communication skills to be; or a Police Officer - which I’m pretty sure given that kind of power would be a particularly dangerous new uniform.

 

Absolute ****. Woman at the checkout whispered that he was the bosses son. Who’d have guessed. 

[Foxin_Mad]

19 minutes ago, Leicester_Loyal said:

Can we drop all the blue vs. red politics for a bit? I come in here to hopefully read about some clever Dr creating a vaccine, not to see pointless politics talk. I'm not having a go at anyone but it's not the time for it (IMO of course).

So damn true. Cheap political point scoring at a time like this is pathetic.

 

All governments across the globe have made mistakes. This is unprecedented, noone could prepare for this, no one really knows the solution. 

 

Slinging mud around definitely wont help.

[Guest Kopfkino]

37 minutes ago, UniFox21 said:

The thread really does give a damming read. The poster is right; we didn't act quick enough. Not cancelling Cheltenham and mass gatherings was a woeful decision. They should've all been cancelled and we'd have saved potentially thousands of lives. 

 

But as @Strokes has pointed out, there were and are quite a few things I don't think she touched on. She's discussed population and pop. per capita which was an interesting read. But i feel she's under represented the differences massively. Dublin for instance has a population of 1.3million, thats ~200k bigger than Birmingham, but 6/7million smaller than London. That then doesn't take into account the millions of commuters travelling to our big cities daily. All of this leads to huge numbers of contact and potential transmission events. So yes on 'average' Ireland are doing much 'better' than us but straight up comparisons aren't particularly helpful.

 

Yeah it seems a bit weird to go with a comparative 'analysis' based on two countries that speak the same language, are next door to each other and have similar critical care capacity but to just ignore a significant difference in population density. Why not compare the UK with similar high density countries, given that's an actual variable that matters and shared language and history less so? What about the fact that London is a significant global city and Dublin isn't. Its as if nobody has heard of omitted variable bias. 

 

We need less of these wanky, half-arsed comparative analyses disguised as smart examination. For sure, Ireland has most likely 'done better' than the UK at this stage cos it acted quicker to suppress but that really simple summation takes a handful of words not a heap of tweets pretending to be more grandiose. 

[Nalis]

As a proud Irishman I find nothing more cringe than an Irish person shouting 'Ireland good Brits bad'.

[StanSP]

27 minutes ago, Leicester_Loyal said:

Can we drop all the blue vs. red politics for a bit? I come in here to hopefully read about some clever Dr creating a vaccine, not to see pointless politics talk. I'm not having a go at anyone but it's not the time for it (IMO of course).

Agreed. Utterly pathetic.

[Unabomber]

8 minutes ago, Swan Lesta said:

Yep was that Daventry Tesco by any chance?

 

Had a run in with a ‘manager’ there the other week behaving in a similar way. Took everything I had to ensure I didn’t rise to him being a massive dick. He was unsure of his role. He didn’t know if he was a security guard - which he didn’t have the build for; a manager -which he didn’t have the knowledge or communication skills to be; or a Police Officer - which I’m pretty sure given that kind of power would be a particularly dangerous new uniform.

 

Absolute ****. Woman at the checkout whispered that he was the bosses son. Who’d have guessed. 

Nah it was Ashby but concerning that this behaviour is not a one off.

[yorkie1999]

 Matt Hancock says the way to get back to normal is to use a phone app that alerts you if you come into contact with someone who has Covid-19. Brilliant idea, if you’ve been tested, which no one I know has been, and you have a phone. Still, it’s cheap. I really can’t understand why mass testing hasn’t been implemented yet, the government are very quick to set up thousands of polling stations for a single day of voting so this seems the obvious way to test people on mass, the structure is already there, but they seem to want to re-invent the wheel.

[blabyboy]

The tests they bought were found to be less than effective that they thought.

 

Easy to setup polling stations when you have done it plenty of times before. Procurring working tests for a novel virus, not so easy, then training enough ppl quickly to do it, then hoping they don't get sick before the day, logistics of storing, transporting tests.

[Countryfox]

I get the feeling that it won’t be long before people will be clammering for the lock down to finish...   or know exactly when it will finish.   They hear what other countries are doing and it’s a case of  ‘well why can’t we do that’ ...   unfortunately we are all on different paths and at the moment there is no definitive right or wrong way ...   I mention this as I think it could easily become a problem and lead to civil unrest. 

[blabyboy]

Stress (along with exercise) is a major factor in immune system health. The good ppl in the nhs are in a very stressful environment, working often longer hours then they should do. They then leave and enter another stressful environment that is the world around them. That's going to deplete their immunity over time. Add to that environment a virus that is currently unstoppable and i would expect to see more casualties in that workforce.

 

A secondary question. When the vaccine arrives, would you take it, given the speed with which it is developed?