Corona Virus

[Spudulike]

If we have reached the plateau then our next move is crucial. 

 

The parachute has slowed our rate of descent so we can take it off now. 

[StanSP]

10 minutes ago, Spudulike said:

If we have reached the plateau then our next move is crucial. 

 

The parachute has slowed our rate of descent so we can take it off now. 

Agreed. I think it's good it's come during a lockdown and not right near the end of one. Carry on with these reverses and reductions and it could be a (relatively) good position by May 7th...

[Facecloth]

37 minutes ago, Jaspa said:

Received a letter from my GP telling me that I'm 'extremely vulnerable', thing is I'm late 20's with no underlying health issues and haven't even been to see a GP in a few years. Infact I've never seen this current one after being reassigned because my previous Doc retired.

 

Abit scary really, I'll have to call on Monday to see what's up.

 

Bit worrying on a larger scale that people will have received a letter when they don't require one, and even worse people won't have received a letter when they do need one.

 

Obviously that's assuming you weren't meant to get one.

[st albans fox]

Reading that the German cases have risen (ironically recorded the day they announced that the virus was under control.)

 

there was also a paywall article re Milan if anyone knows more 

Edited 18 April 2020 by st albans fox

[The whole world smiles]

1 hour ago, Crinklyfox said:

Just seen a pretty scary study in New York.

 

Women entering a maternity hospital were tested for Covid-19.  Approx. 2% were showing symptoms and tested positive.  However over 10% more also tested positive but had no symptoms.  This suggests that there are a lot more infected people out there who have the virus than the official infection figures suggest.

 

There is nothing to suggest that the virus is behaving any differently in New York than other parts of the world so it is possible that there is a significant percentage of the UK population that has, or has had, Covid-19 without being aware and that they either are or were contagious for a period of time.  This makes social distancing even more critical.

 

The article was in the New England Journal of Medicine.

 

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2009316?query=featured+coronavirus

I would read this as positive, if more people have had it. The % death rate will be much lower and we will be nearer to heard immunity if that's possible.

[murphy]

1 hour ago, Crinklyfox said:

Just seen a pretty scary study in New York.

 

Women entering a maternity hospital were tested for Covid-19.  Approx. 2% were showing symptoms and tested positive.  However over 10% more also tested positive but had no symptoms.  This suggests that there are a lot more infected people out there who have the virus than the official infection figures suggest.

 

There is nothing to suggest that the virus is behaving any differently in New York than other parts of the world so it is possible that there is a significant percentage of the UK population that has, or has had, Covid-19 without being aware and that they either are or were contagious for a period of time.  This makes social distancing even more critical.

 

The article was in the New England Journal of Medicine.

 

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2009316?query=featured+coronavirus

I'm not sure that it's 'scary' unless you think that those carriers were pre-symptomatic rather than asymptomatic.  Another study in California suggests that the virus is much more widespread than was previously thought and that could mean a higher level of immunity among the population.

 

From The Guardian:

 

An interesting study has emerged in the US which found that the number of people infected with coronavirus could be as much as 85 times higher than previously thought.

The study from Stanford University, which was released Friday, tested samples from 3,330 people in Santa Clara county, in California, and found the virus was 50 to 85 times more common than official figures indicated.

The study, the first large-scale one of its kind and has yet to be peer reviewed, was conducted by identifying antibodies in healthy individuals through a finger **** test, indicating whether they had already contracted and recovered from the virus.

At the time of the study, Santa Clara county had 1,094 confirmed cases of Covid-19, resulting in 50 deaths. But, based on the rate of people who have antibodies, it is likely that between 48,000 and 81,000 people had been infected in the county by early April – a number approximately 50 to 80 times higher.

[Crinklyfox]

10 minutes ago, murphy said:

I'm not sure that it's 'scary' unless you think that those carriers were pre-symptomatic rather than asymptomatic.  Another study in California suggests that the virus is much more widespread than was previously thought and that could mean a higher level of immunity among the population.

 

From The Guardian:

 

An interesting study has emerged in the US which found that the number of people infected with coronavirus could be as much as 85 times higher than previously thought.

The study from Stanford University, which was released Friday, tested samples from 3,330 people in Santa Clara county, in California, and found the virus was 50 to 85 times more common than official figures indicated.

The study, the first large-scale one of its kind and has yet to be peer reviewed, was conducted by identifying antibodies in healthy individuals through a finger **** test, indicating whether they had already contracted and recovered from the virus.

At the time of the study, Santa Clara county had 1,094 confirmed cases of Covid-19, resulting in 50 deaths. But, based on the rate of people who have antibodies, it is likely that between 48,000 and 81,000 people had been infected in the county by early April – a number approximately 50 to 80 times higher.

It's good if you're one of the many that can contract the virus without symptoms and for increasing the immunity in the population; scary if you consider that each of the people that have had the virus were potentially shedding it for a couple of weeks.  To me this means that there are many more people out there from whom the virus could be contracted than I had previously thought.

[st albans fox]

7 minutes ago, murphy said:

I'm not sure that it's 'scary' unless you think that those carriers were pre-symptomatic rather than asymptomatic.  Another study in California suggests that the virus is much more widespread than was previously thought and that could mean a higher level of immunity among the population.

 

From The Guardian:

 

An interesting study has emerged in the US which found that the number of people infected with coronavirus could be as much as 85 times higher than previously thought.

The study from Stanford University, which was released Friday, tested samples from 3,330 people in Santa Clara county, in California, and found the virus was 50 to 85 times more common than official figures indicated.

The study, the first large-scale one of its kind and has yet to be peer reviewed, was conducted by identifying antibodies in healthy individuals through a finger **** test, indicating whether they had already contracted and recovered from the virus.

At the time of the study, Santa Clara county had 1,094 confirmed cases of Covid-19, resulting in 50 deaths. But, based on the rate of people who have antibodies, it is likely that between 48,000 and 81,000 people had been infected in the county by early April – a number approximately 50 to 80 times higher.

These antibody tests have been questioned though .....however, the scientists here were of the opinion at one time that each death recorded probably reflected 1000 cases in the community.  That would put the total cases here approx 15m.  (Approx 20% of the population).  I would certainly expect that more than 10% of the population have had it although the could well be skewed towards the Home Counties and London as lock down further north was with the virus at an earlier stage.  That makes the risk of relaxation much worse in those northern/midland areas with lower numbers.  The second wave would presumably be worse in these areas ? (Which includes e. Midlands)

[Izzy]

 

[theessexfox]

9 minutes ago, Crinklyfox said:

It's good if you're one of the many that can contract the virus without symptoms and for increasing the immunity in the population; scary if you consider that each of the people that have had the virus were potentially shedding it for a couple of weeks.  To me this means that there are many more people out there from whom the virus could be contracted than I had previously thought.

The WHO have come out and said that there’s currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID have immunity, right? 

[BKLFox]

11 hours ago, Fktf said:

We had a choice at the beginning of the outbreak in the UK of what strategy we were going to follow. It shouldn't have been a choice based on sars or past dieseases, but on what we could see happening in Italy, and the fact Spain and France were following a similar trend, in terms of spread and deaths of Covid-19. 

 

We chose to follow the same path as those countries, rather than getting on top of the virus like Denmark, Poland, New Zealand. The first move of the successful countries (if you count death rate) has been stop the spread of the virus, and keep cases low. 

 

Any debates on how we've handled the virus post the first few deaths are a bit meaningless in my opinion. Having allowed mass spread earlier than this, we were locked to a similar course to Italy, Spain, France. Sure, we might differ by a few thousand deaths compared to these countries, but we're always going to differ by 10s of thousands to other countries that have managed to stop the spread earlier. 

Ok well i'm kinda stuck on how to answer really, not because i don't know what to say but on what you want to hear.

So, i'll start by saying i'm not that ignorant to not think that letting Cheltenham & the Liverpool match go ahead did not have a baring on the spread, there i said it, but i'm also aware that these 2 events were probably not the catalist, this virus was already rampent in the UK, do we agree on that?

At the start of my post i said every country was different but your still looking over the fence all be it quoting different countries to the usual 3, but, and to prove my point i'll look over the fence.
Lets take Belgium as an example, they locked down a week or so before the UK but they have the unfortunate position of being the country with the most deaths per million in the World currently, why is that? is it Because every country is being hit in different ways?

To the choices statement what choices do you refer too, as explained we couldn't test in the numbers required, so lockdown is that the other choice & if so when should the line have been drawn. Mid March, beginning of March, Febuary, earlier?

There is a strategy in tug-of-war where when you 1st pick up the rope you feed the opponent the rope only for the umpire to make them have to feed it back & the advantage to this is that at the point the tape crosses the pull line the rope is going in your direction as you snatch & pull, this sometimes leads to victory but if the opposition is mighty whilst they are rocked they eventually regain the hold & start to pull back, it then becomes a battle of wills & strength to defeat them.
We are in a battle & regardless of when we shut down we were always going to have to give & take as you can't pull for ever as something will always give be it the NHS, Complianace, the Economy or whatever.

You mention Denmark & how they will relax the restrictions but to what extent, whilst they say relax they are still in a lockdown to a degree, the primary schools open but they still have strict border control, they still won't allow more than 10 people to group together etc.

This is going to be a long road of hold, give, hold, up to the point of a vaccine & the sooner we realise & accept that the better we will all be.

 

[reynard]

15 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

These antibody tests have been questioned though .....however, the scientists here were of the opinion at one time that each death recorded probably reflected 1000 cases in the community.  That would put the total cases here approx 15m.  (Approx 20% of the population).  I would certainly expect that more than 10% of the population have had it although the could well be skewed towards the Home Counties and London as lock down further north was with the virus at an earlier stage.  That makes the risk of relaxation much worse in those northern/midland areas with lower numbers.  The second wave would presumably be worse in these areas ? (Which includes e. Midlands)

I suspect 10% is too high. Pretty sure quite reliable data out of Austria indicated an infection rate under 1% of total population. Might be a different country so apologies if I have this wrong. Add to this the WHO now saying beware anti-body tests as it appears possible having the virus once does not lead to immunity.

Also disconcerting to see what is currently going on in Japan. They thought they had the virus under control released the control measures they had in place and are now entering a second, potentially much worse phase.

[rachhere]

11 minutes ago, theessexfox said:

The WHO have come out and said that there’s currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID have immunity, right? 

I guess that's inevitable really as it will take an extended period of time to establish if that's the case so it's urging caution for people not to be relaxed in their behaviour, and also for governments not to rely on this being the case within their long-term strategies. 

[reynard]

6 minutes ago, BKLFox said:

Ok well i'm kinda stuck on how to answer really, not because i don't know what to say but on what you want to hear.

So, i'll start by saying i'm not that ignorant to not think that letting Cheltenham & the Liverpool match go ahead did not have a baring on the spread, there i said it, but i'm also aware that these 2 events were probably not the catalist, this virus was already rampent in the UK, do we agree on that?

At the start of my post i said every country was different but your still looking over the fence all be it quoting different countries to the usual 3, but, and to prove my point i'll look over the fence.
Lets take Belgium as an example, they locked down a week or so before the UK but they have the unfortunate position of being the country with the most deaths per million in the World currently, why is that? is it Because every country is being hit in different ways?

To the choices statement what choices do you refer too, as explained we couldn't test in the numbers required, so lockdown is that the other choice & if so when should the line have been drawn. Mid March, beginning of March, Febuary, earlier?

There is a strategy in tug-of-war where when you 1st pick up the rope you feed the opponent the rope only for the umpire to make them have to feed it back & the advantage to this is that at the point the tape crosses the pull line the rope is going in your direction as you snatch & pull, this sometimes leads to victory but if the opposition is mighty whilst they are rocked they eventually regain the hold & start to pull back, it then becomes a battle of wills & strength to defeat them.
We are in a battle & regardless of when we shut down we were always going to have to give & take as you can't pull for ever as something will always give be it the NHS, Complianace, the Economy or whatever.

You mention Denmark & how they will relax the restrictions but to what extent, whilst they say relax they are still in a lockdown to a degree, the primary schools open but they still have strict border control, they still won't allow more than 10 people to group together etc.

This is going to be a long road of hold, give, hold, up to the point of a vaccine & the sooner we realise & accept that the better we will all be.

 

I think care needs to be taken on this.

Belgium counts all deaths in these figures. They include those who have died in hospital, care homes and even in their own home and include all numbers suspected of having died of Coronavirus even if not confirmed.

The Uk on the other hand simply has no idea at this stage how many have died. If we included deaths in the way Belgium does then our death rate would be far far higher than it currently is.

 

I concur completely with your last point.

[reynard]

4 minutes ago, rachhere said:

I guess that's inevitable really as it will take an extended period of time to establish if that's the case so it's urging caution for people not to be relaxed in their behaviour, and also for governments not to rely on this being the case within their long-term strategies. 

Yes. Could be pointed towards the US where their great leader is setting a lot of store in this. Bad time when politics start to become involved in world health issues.

[Sampson]

57 minutes ago, theessexfox said:

The WHO have come out and said that there’s currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID have immunity, right? 

Well there isn't evidence either way yet because no ones had the virus long enough.

 

It's just true with viruses in general that the overwhelming majority of cases do get immunity for a while after getting it and it's very likely this virus will behave the same.

 

There's always going to be exceptions to that of course.

Edited 18 April 2020 by Sampson

[BKLFox]

13 minutes ago, reynard said:

I think care needs to be taken on this.

Belgium counts all deaths in these figures. They include those who have died in hospital, care homes and even in their own home and include all numbers suspected of having died of Coronavirus even if not confirmed.

The Uk on the other hand simply has no idea at this stage how many have died. If we included deaths in the way Belgium does then our death rate would be far far higher than it currently is.

 

I concur completely with your last point.

Yep agreed but the bases of the example is still to point that every country is different 

[Guest Fktf]

10 minutes ago, BKLFox said:

Ok well i'm kinda stuck on how to answer really, not because i don't know what to say but on what you want to hear.

So, i'll start by saying i'm not that ignorant to not think that letting Cheltenham & the Liverpool match go ahead did not have a baring on the spread, there i said it, but i'm also aware that these 2 events were probably not the catalist, this virus was already rampent in the UK, do we agree on that?

At the start of my post i said every country was different but your still looking over the fence all be it quoting different countries to the usual 3, but, and to prove my point i'll look over the fence.
Lets take Belgium as an example, they locked down a week or so before the UK but they have the unfortunate position of being the country with the most deaths per million in the World currently, why is that? is it Because every country is being hit in different ways?

To the choices statement what choices do you refer too, as explained we couldn't test in the numbers required, so lockdown is that the other choice & if so when should the line have been drawn. Mid March, beginning of March, Febuary, earlier?

There is a strategy in tug-of-war where when you 1st pick up the rope you feed the opponent the rope only for the umpire to make them have to feed it back & the advantage to this is that at the point the tape crosses the pull line the rope is going in your direction as you snatch & pull, this sometimes leads to victory but if the opposition is mighty whilst they are rocked they eventually regain the hold & start to pull back, it then becomes a battle of wills & strength to defeat them.
We are in a battle & regardless of when we shut down we were always going to have to give & take as you can't pull for ever as something will always give be it the NHS, Complianace, the Economy or whatever.

You mention Denmark & how they will relax the restrictions but to what extent, whilst they say relax they are still in a lockdown to a degree, the primary schools open but they still have strict border control, they still won't allow more than 10 people to group together etc.

This is going to be a long road of hold, give, hold, up to the point of a vaccine & the sooner we realise & accept that the better we will all be.

 

Yes, we agree the virus was probably already rampant in the UK by the time the events you mention happened. So the choice I'm referring to comes weeks before that point, when you're detecting the first few cases. And yes, we could have locked down early, which is what Denmark did. As you say, they're starting to ease restrictions, whereas we're going to need at least another 3 weeks before we consider doing anything like that. The higher you ride the curve, you longer you must wait to come down the other side. 

 

Looking over the fence at other countries is exactly what should be doing. We're in a somewhat privileged position of being 2-3 weeks behind some countries from the initial outbreak, so we can learn what works and doesn't from observing others.

 

I don't know what data or evidence you have to support the idea the outbreak is different in every country. The fact us, Italy, Spain, France, are on similar trajectories having followed very similar strategies suggests the outbreak in each country is actually remarkably similar, despite differences in population age profiles, etc. 

 

I'm not an expert on Belgium's outbreak, but there's an argument their numbers look bad because they're recording all covid 19 deaths (including suspected but not confirmed cases in the community) compared to most countries reporting only hospital deaths.

 

What I can tell you with certainty is that comparing the calander date that Belgium locked down relative to us is utterly meaningless. You have to take some normalised measure of time like number of confirmed cases or deaths when comparing countries. For example, Poland locked down on a later calander date than us, but did so very early on in the time course their outbreak, and only has 400 or so deaths compared to our 15000. 

 

 

[Lionator]

56 minutes ago, theessexfox said:

The WHO have come out and said that there’s currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID have immunity, right? 

There's also no evidence that people don't have immunity too. It's a normalised statement which the press have picked up on and sensationalised. 

 

There's been one Chinese study that has indicated that neutralising antibodies are created however the immune response is more than just antibodies. For instance, there is probably a sub group of humans who are immune to this in the first place by genetic predisposition.

 

The consensus is that there will be some sort of immunity, they don't know how long that will last for for obvious reasons (we're three months into a completely new virus). Within science there has to be a lot of supporting evidence to make definitive conclusions. The WHO do not have enough supporting evidence to definitively say that people are immune.However, I would not worry about this personally.  

[BKLFox]

9 minutes ago, Fktf said:

Yes, we agree the virus was probably already rampant in the UK by the time the events you mention happened. So the choice I'm referring to comes weeks before that point, when you're detecting the first few cases. And yes, we could have locked down early, which is what Denmark did. As you say, they're starting to ease restrictions, whereas we're going to need at least another 3 weeks before we consider doing anything like that. The higher you ride the curve, you longer you must wait to come down the other side. 

 

Looking over the fence at other countries is exactly what should be doing. We're in a somewhat privileged position of being 2-3 weeks behind some countries from the initial outbreak, so we can learn what works and doesn't from observing others.

 

I don't know what data or evidence you have to support the idea the outbreak is different in every country. The fact us, Italy, Spain, France, are on similar trajectories having followed very similar strategies suggests the outbreak in each country is actually remarkably similar, despite differences in population age profiles, etc. 

 

I'm not an expert on Belgium's outbreak, but there's an argument their numbers look bad because they're recording all covid 19 deaths (including suspected but not confirmed cases in the community) compared to most countries reporting only hospital deaths.

 

What I can tell you with certainty is that comparing the calander date that Belgium locked down relative to us is utterly meaningless. You have to take some normalised measure of time like number of confirmed cases or deaths when comparing countries. For example, Poland locked down on a later calander date than us, but did so very early on in the time course their outbreak, and only has 400 or so deaths compared to our 15000. 

 

 

For the love of god, to do test and containment we would still be testing into 2022 for god sake how many times does 50k, best weekly case, go into 66m+

 

The difference in every country is there of cause it is and 1 point you mention yourself in the way things are recorded or is the UK the only affected country in the world reporting hospital deaths alone?

Another example would be the amount of foot traffic a country gets in relation to another, there are many variables it’s not cut n dry that’s what I’m saying.

 

[blabyboy]

14 minutes ago, BKLFox said:

For the love of god, to do test and containment we would still be testing into 2022 for god sake how many times does 50k, best weekly case, go into 66m+

 

The difference in every country is there of cause it is and 1 point you mention yourself in the way things are recorded or is the UK the only affected country in the world reporting hospital deaths alone?

Another example would be the amount of foot traffic a country gets in relation to another, there are many variables it’s not cut n dry that’s what I’m saying.

 

Not sure if you caught Thursday's update, but they have started breaking the graph for deaths into hospital/care homes and then Rest of deaths. I think it was the third or fourth slide. I.e. deaths related or suspected relation to Covid. Whitty or Vallance also mentioned they have been doing approximate comparisons with death rates from same periods vs last year. Obviously there are also many variables in play for those numbers but they are at least trying to get a handle on Covid's real impact for mortality

[Sampson]

Just got to say, I like Whitty and Vallance's explanations a lot on the daily briefings. Both are very clear and methodical about the data and general scientific consensus I think.

I'm sure Whitty along with many other scientists at the top of the coronavirus response are already pencilled in to get knighthoods when this is all over (Vallance already has one). But I think as public faces they are both really good - the press conferences never feel as informative when they have other scientists there I don't think.,

[yorkie1999]

2 hours ago, Spudulike said:

If we have reached the plateau then our next move is crucial. 

 

The parachute has slowed our rate of descent so we can take it off now. 

Taking the parachute of is not that advisable if your only half way down!

[murphy]

9 minutes ago, Sampson said:

Just got to say, I like Whitty and Vallance's explanations a lot on the daily briefings. Both are very clear and methodical about the data and general scientific consensus I think.

I'm sure Whitty along with many other scientists at the top of the coronavirus response are already pencilled in to get knighthoods when this is all over (Vallance already has one). But I think as public faces they are both really good - the press conferences never feel as informative when they have other scientists there I don't think.,

 

I vote Sir Captain Tom first.

 

[st albans fox]

2 minutes ago, murphy said:

 

I vote Sir Captain Tom first.

 

Wouldn’t  it be captain sir Tom? ?????  Honest question ...