Corona Virus

[Dahnsouff]

43 minutes ago, yorkie1999 said:

This is true, but don't you think someone should have asked the question, apart from Hollywood, what if sars came back in a slightly mutated form and was a bit more contagious, what we gonna do about it, how should we prepare. In fact, after this is done, will we be taking the threat of corona virus' a bit more seriously, and if we do, why didn't we do that in the first place. Is it better to be pro-active or, as we are now re-active. I know hindsight is a wonderful thing but, it's not really hindsight when the warning signs were there is it.

The questions being asked, by individuals far more important than Hollywood could ever present, actual informed individuals with expertise in this area. The problem has always been that we knew it was coming, we just did not knew when, and as we never knew the when the answers were not (could not??) be listened to that closely.

 

You cannot maintain an economy, a whole country of the back of woulda/shoulda/coulda, but I totally agree that this will be seen as a sh*t show in hindsight, but everything is better in hindsight. 

Edited 30 April 2020 by Dahnsouff

[Barrowblue]

3 minutes ago, Manwell Pablo said:

Making it irrelevant when all related covid 19 data is for the UK not England.

 

 

 

47 minutes ago, Manwell Pablo said:

Well no as it doesn’t count the rest of Great Britain for one.

It was the bit where you got Great Britain and the United Kingdom mixed up that confused me. Apologies. 

[leicsmac]

This is a point that has been made before, but if we're talking comparisons...

 

The UK has 60 million people (England around 50 million). Korea has 50 million.

 

Land area is similar, but population density in Korea is bigger than the UK when weighted with consideration that 70% of the country is mountainous and uninhabitable.

 

London is a worldwide financial and transport hub. Seoul, while not as prestigious, is similar.

 

Heathrow is one of the busiest airports in the world. Incheon is likewise.

 

The UK is an island nation. Functionally, so is Korea. (Nothing and no one getting in by land, after all.)

 

And yet, the consequences of this viral outbreak for both countries have been vastly different. Just in case it was missed, Korea had zero homegrown cases today.

 

When this is all done, perhaps some questions might be asked as to why the outcome has been so different when the demographic statistics are so similar. Cultural differences? Response? Luck?

[Barrowblue]

4 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

This is a point that has been made before, but if we're talking comparisons...

 

The UK has 60 million people (England around 50 million). Korea has 50 million.

 

Land area is similar, but population density in Korea is bigger than the UK when weighted with consideration that 70% of the country is mountainous and uninhabitable.

 

London is a worldwide financial and transport hub. Seoul, while not as prestigious, is similar.

 

Heathrow is one of the busiest airports in the world. Incheon is likewise.

 

The UK is an island nation. Functionally, so is Korea. (Nothing and no one getting in by land, after all.)

 

And yet, the consequences of this viral outbreak for both countries have been vastly different. Just in case it was missed, Korea had zero homegrown cases today.

 

When this is all done, perhaps some questions might be asked as to why the outcome has been so different when the demographic statistics are so similar. Cultural differences? Response? Luck?

Very fair comparisons. 

 

Whilst avoiding the lockdown debate. 

 

Cultural differences certainly a major player, Seoul is in my opinion a cleaner city than London, but that's just my view of one day in the city. 

I'm guessing South Korea didn't have thousands of returning skiers coming back from Italy during February either. 

 

 

 

[yorkie1999]

7 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

This is a point that has been made before, but if we're talking comparisons...

 

The UK has 60 million people (England around 50 million). Korea has 50 million.

 

Land area is similar, but population density in Korea is bigger than the UK when weighted with consideration that 70% of the country is mountainous and uninhabitable.

 

London is a worldwide financial and transport hub. Seoul, while not as prestigious, is similar.

 

Heathrow is one of the busiest airports in the world. Incheon is likewise.

 

The UK is an island nation. Functionally, so is Korea. (Nothing and no one getting in by land, after all.)

 

And yet, the consequences of this viral outbreak for both countries have been vastly different. Just in case it was missed, Korea had zero homegrown cases today.

 

When this is all done, perhaps some questions might be asked as to why the outcome has been so different when the demographic statistics are so similar. Cultural differences? Response? Luck?

Or it could be that they were prepared for it, because of their proximity to china and they probably knew one day their country could be hit by something from china, yet we, being thousands of miles away from those areas and not being connected to any land masses thought we wouldn't be vulnerable.  

[leicsmac]

4 minutes ago, Barrowblue said:

Very fair comparisons. 

 

Whilst avoiding the lockdown debate. 

 

Cultural differences certainly a major player, Seoul is in my opinion a cleaner city than London, but that's just my view of one day in the city. 

I'm guessing South Korea didn't have thousands of returning skiers coming back from Italy during February either. 

 

 

 

Depends on what part of Seoul you go to, but yeah, broadly true.

 

To be honest though, I think the tourist traffic is another similarity rather than a difference, but I don't have numbers there.

 

3 minutes ago, yorkie1999 said:

Or it could be that they were prepared for it, because of their proximity to china and they probably knew one day their country could be hit by something from china, yet we, being thousands of miles away from those areas and not being connected to any land masses thought we wouldn't be vulnerable.  

I certainly think preparation is a factor. Perhaps that's something that should be looked into when the dust settles.

[Sampson]

Some good news - Denmark have said they're not seeing any increases after lifting some measures including opening schools for up to 11 year olds in the first phase of getting any lockdown and Germany said after its initial spike earlier in the week the r0 value has come way back down again.

 

Early days at least but it's looking like there's some room to manoeuvre to start opening some small shops and letting some kids back to school here again soonish based on how other countries are faring ok.

Edited 30 April 2020 by Sampson

[l444ry]

 

[reynard]

24 minutes ago, Sampson said:

Some good news - Denmark have said they're not seeing any increases after lifting some measures including opening schools for up to 11 year olds in the first phase of getting any lockdown and Germany said after its initial spike earlier in the week the r0 value has come way back down again.

 

Early days at least but it's looking like there's some room to manoeuvre to start opening some small shops and letting some kids back to school here again soonish based on how other countries are faring ok.

Yes some postive news there. Not sure about schools. There was an article today quoting German research that children are just as infectious as adults and opening schools could well push the R number very close to one. I can see some small shops and possibly garden centres being allowed to open towards the end of May but I suspect we will need new infections to be substantially down, perhaps to fewer than 1k per day possibly, and for the death numbers to be falling significantly too before the government will allow much movement. But let's hope for the best.

[BKLFox]

37 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

This is a point that has been made before, but if we're talking comparisons...

 

The UK has 60 million people (England around 50 million). Korea has 50 million.

 

Land area is similar, but population density in Korea is bigger than the UK when weighted with consideration that 70% of the country is mountainous and uninhabitable.

 

London is a worldwide financial and transport hub. Seoul, while not as prestigious, is similar.

 

Heathrow is one of the busiest airports in the world. Incheon is likewise.

 

The UK is an island nation. Functionally, so is Korea. (Nothing and no one getting in by land, after all.)

 

And yet, the consequences of this viral outbreak for both countries have been vastly different. Just in case it was missed, Korea had zero homegrown cases today.

 

When this is all done, perhaps some questions might be asked as to why the outcome has been so different when the demographic statistics are so similar. Cultural differences? Response? Luck?

I think we might have had some history on this before & i do agree with all the comparisons but 1 major flaw is that you compare Heathrow to Incheon alone.
Whilst yes these are the similar, SK has only 1 other International airport which is also based in Seoul, where as England has another 12 International airport (that i can think of) spread the entire length & breadth of the country, which i think is an important factor to take in to cosideration with regards to spread & containment.

 

[filbertway]

@leicsmac is there any news on what South Korea's next steps are.

 

Once you've got it under control in your country, life can basically begin to resume as before right?

 

I suppose you take steps to ensure that anybody coming into the country isn't contagious?

 

[Lionator]

10 minutes ago, reynard said:

Yes some postive news there. Not sure about schools. There was an article today quoting German research that children are just as infectious as adults and opening schools could well push the R number very close to one. I can see some small shops and possibly garden centres being allowed to open towards the end of May but I suspect we will need new infections to be substantially down, perhaps to fewer than 1k per day possibly, and for the death numbers to be falling significantly too before the government will allow much movement. But let's hope for the best.

I was reading the transcript to this which Faisal Islam posted on twitter. It's really intriguing, viral loads don't change between any age groups, so everybody is receiving the infection yet infection severity is tending to go in a positively correlated way, the older you are, the greater the risk of severe symptoms. Children simply aren't getting ill. They also found that children within families seem to be at the end of an infection chain. So in a family of 4 (2 adults, 2 children) if one of them becomes infected, the children/other child, is the least likely or the last to become infected.

Edited 30 April 2020 by Lionator

[yorkie1999]

1 minute ago, filbertway said:

@leicsmac is there any news on what South Korea's next steps are.

 

Once you've got it under control in your country, life can basically begin to resume as before right?

 

I suppose you take steps to ensure that anybody coming into the country isn't contagious?

 

That's easy to do. Don't let anyone into your country!

[Lionator]

An optimistic peer-reviewed article in Nature from China. 

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0897-1

 

It indicates that everyone within the study produces antibodies within 3 weeks which is fantastic. The limitation however is that they don't know if they neutralise future infection. 

 

The consensus is growing that once you've had this coronavirus once, you'll be protected from serious disease again and that any future infection from this will be a mild cold. Hence this will eventually become endemic. 

[Beechey]

 

[yorkie1999]

3 minutes ago, Beechey said:

 

After watching that previous video, i would have thought the first thing to consider is a trip to weight watchers.

[Jon the Hat]

1 hour ago, leicsmac said:

This is a point that has been made before, but if we're talking comparisons...

 

The UK has 60 million people (England around 50 million). Korea has 50 million.

 

Land area is similar, but population density in Korea is bigger than the UK when weighted with consideration that 70% of the country is mountainous and uninhabitable.

 

London is a worldwide financial and transport hub. Seoul, while not as prestigious, is similar.

 

Heathrow is one of the busiest airports in the world. Incheon is likewise.

 

The UK is an island nation. Functionally, so is Korea. (Nothing and no one getting in by land, after all.)

 

And yet, the consequences of this viral outbreak for both countries have been vastly different. Just in case it was missed, Korea had zero homegrown cases today.

 

When this is all done, perhaps some questions might be asked as to why the outcome has been so different when the demographic statistics are so similar. Cultural differences? Response? Luck?

They were ready for it.  As in their pandemic response plan was aimed at exactly this SARS virus, so they had mass testing and track and trace capability in place.  Most of the West seems to have been planning for Spanish Flu again.

[UniFox21]

Now isn't the time to start asking about national debt growing, once again political journalists not being able to understand the importance of everything else at this moment.

[Jon the Hat]

22 minutes ago, yorkie1999 said:

That's easy to do. Don't let anyone into your country!

For how long exactly?  Not sustainable for long;  See New Zealand.  Their tourism industry, employing 7.5% of their workforce, is dead until they open up, along with wider effects.  They also have no plan beyond hoping for a vaccine.

[Mike Oxlong]

For all of Boris’s faults there is a real difference between the UK daily briefings and those in the US. 
 

Ours do come across as a real attempt to be informative and directed to helping the populace understand what is happening and  then there’s Trump 

[Jon the Hat]

2 minutes ago, UniFox21 said:

Now isn't the time to start asking about national debt growing, once again political journalists not being able to understand the importance of everything else at this moment.

The economic effects of this will kill more people over time than the virus.  Your call though.

Edited 30 April 2020 by Jon the Hat

[Leicester_Loyal]

PM confirms that an exit strategy is being laid out next week.

[Dahnsouff]

2 minutes ago, UniFox21 said:

Now isn't the time to start asking about national debt growing, once again political journalists not being able to understand the importance of everything else at this moment.

I would agree wholeheartedly with this sentiment, but you just know that once this crisis is no longer the major news story, the re-emergence of austerity will be.

[Kopic]

Dont know if its already been discussed or posted in here, but anyone know about the new testing? Been trying to find out online but cant really find anything.

 

Basically, I'm a "key worker" and my missus has developed symptoms over the past 2 days. Theres 5 in our house and she is the only one who hasn't been out at all, shes WFH and has no reason to go out. None of the rest of us have any symptoms. I've seen everywhere that the family members of key workers can now get tested if they have symptoms but theres no way to do it on the government website. Is it not live yet? I can book a test for myself but as I said I dont have any symptoms and noone else does.

 

Obviously all self isolating now.

 

Thanks for any advice.

Edited 30 April 2020 by Kopic

[UniFox21]

Just now, Dahnsouff said:

I would agree wholeheartedly with this sentiment, but you just know that once this crisis is no longer the major news story, the re-emergence of austerity will be.

It is definitely a concern, but i just believe there's a time and a place to discuss that. This isn't it.

 

1 minute ago, Jon the Hat said:

The economic effects of this will kill more people over time than the virus.  Your call though.

Never suggested we should disregard the economics of the situation, but there are currently more important issues to use this briefing to clarify.