Corona Virus

[Barrowblue]

51 minutes ago, FoxesDeb said:

Nah, Ingoldmells is better 

As a child I was told it was Ingoldsmells. 

[Heathrow fox]

10 minutes ago, davieG said:

Anyone seen the roadmap?

Wasn’t the elusive road map invented during the 2003 Iraq War?

[Lionator]

1 hour ago, Fktf said:

Not sure how the second statement follows from the first - what am I missing? 

The two statements aren’t related, I should have made it clearer. The first is purely the finding from the paper, the second is a general presumption within the field 

[Guest Fktf]

1 hour ago, Lionator said:

The two statements aren’t related, I should have made it clearer. The first is purely the finding from the paper, the second is a general presumption within the field 

Are you from the field, or something closely related? This is me just wondering if we have a genuine expert in our ranks, rather than questioning your credentials..

 

My understanding is that it would have to be a real mother-F of a coronavirus for the immune response not to convey any sort of protection from reinfection. The question is how long that immune response lasts. My reading around other coronaviruses is that it tends to be relatively short term (2-3 years), but I don't have the expertise to judge if COVID-19 is likely to be similar. Presumably not if the consensus you mention is forming, which is really positive news if it turns out to be the case. 

[Nick]

I’m in a field.

[Lionator]

17 minutes ago, Fktf said:

Are you from the field, or something closely related? This is me just wondering if we have a genuine expert in our ranks, rather than questioning your credentials..

 

My understanding is that it would have to be a real mother-F of a coronavirus for the immune response not to convey any sort of protection from reinfection. The question is how long that immune response lasts. My reading around other coronaviruses is that it tends to be relatively short term (2-3 years), but I don't have the expertise to judge if COVID-19 is likely to be similar. Presumably not if the consensus you mention is forming, which is really positive news if it turns out to be the case. 

I’m not within the field but I do work with medical statistics so picking apart research, evaluating papers and stuff is my forte. 
 

I’ve just done quite a bit of background reading on the topic too, mainly through curiosity and it’s led me to get most of my information from Jeremy Farrar from Oxford (and SAGE) and Christian Drosten from Berlin. Drosten does a podcast 2/3 times a week and he has an incredible ability to describe complex virus related stuff in simple terms. They’re both of the opinion that it’s not different to the other ones, but that having it once will mean it won’t be serious next time, I don’t know why though. 

[Barrowblue]

My understanding of this coronavirus is this. 

 

My authority on this subject is web based research and two biochemical doctors in the family who have been happy to correct me. 

 

We as humans have over evolution encountered 3 or 4 different events of coronavirus. The amount of events is open to debate. 

Through evolution we have eventually developed in our genetics the antibodies to fight off the virus known as the common cold. That is essentially what a coronavirus is. No one really knows when these events happened, all we know is we have the antibodies in our DNA for these viruses. There are variables in immunity within regions of the globe from the previous coronavirus' that would suggest why we are seeing vulnerability with regards to race, sex & age. Why some people suffer from colds much worse than others. 

 

Unfortunately for us this is possibly the 5th event that we will as humans have to deal with. 

Ultimately we are dealing with a highly contagious new cold. Whilst the seasonal flu of 15/16 ? Caused 28k deaths in the UK (was a bad year) unfortunately it is not now ok to be used a comparison because the flu and cold are very different. 

 

My take so far is that there will be no vaccine for this ??  just as there's no vaccine for the common cold. However, we will develop immunity via annual exposure and genetically through generations. Fortunately we are in a much better position in the modern world that we can counter the effects of the virus and possibly through fear of damaged economies actually find a vaccine, and knock the common cold on the head too. ....

 

 

[Kopfkino]

19 minutes ago, Barrowblue said:

My understanding of this coronavirus is this. 

 

My authority on this subject is web based research and two biochemical doctors in the family who have been happy to correct me. 

 

We as humans have over evolution encountered 3 or 4 different events of coronavirus. The amount of events is open to debate. 

Through evolution we have eventually developed in our genetics the antibodies to fight off the virus known as the common cold. That is essentially what a coronavirus is. No one really knows when these events happened, all we know is we have the antibodies in our DNA for these viruses. There are variables in immunity within regions of the globe from the previous coronavirus' that would suggest why we are seeing vulnerability with regards to race, sex & age. Why some people suffer from colds much worse than others. 

 

Unfortunately for us this is possibly the 5th event that we will as humans have to deal with. 

Ultimately we are dealing with a highly contagious new cold. Whilst the seasonal flu of 15/16 ? Caused 28k deaths in the UK (was a bad year) unfortunately it is not now ok to be used a comparison because the flu and cold are very different. 

 

My take so far is that there will be no vaccine for this ??  just as there's no vaccine for the common cold. However, we will develop immunity via annual exposure and genetically through generations. Fortunately we are in a much better position in the modern world that we can counter the effects of the virus and possibly through fear of damaged economies actually find a vaccine, and knock the common cold on the head too. ....

 

 

 

The common cold is just a viral upper respiratory tract infection which can be caused by any number of known viruses, which includes 4 coronaviruses but most commonly rhinoviruses, and probably many unknown viruses too.

 

The reason there isn't a vaccine for the common cold is it's not a virus but caused by viruses and to eliminate it would mean a vaccine for each and every virus that causes it. But obviously as there are a ton that do cause it that's not particularly feasible. If you developed a vaccine that covered the 4 coronaviruses already widely circulating, you'd have a vaccine that protects against viruses that are responsible for ~15%-25% of colds, leaving 75%-85% not covered so what's the point when those viruses don't currently cause severe illness.

 

It's perfectly possible to develop a vaccine for this, whether that's as quick as proving the Oxford guys think it could be or whether it takes longer is yet to be seen. 

Edited 30 April 2020 by Kopfkino

[Barrowblue]

1 hour ago, Kopfkino said:

 

The common cold is just a viral upper respiratory tract infection which can be caused by any number of known viruses, which includes 4 coronaviruses but most commonly rhinoviruses, and probably many unknown viruses too.

 

The reason there isn't a vaccine for the common cold is it's not a virus but caused by viruses and to eliminate it would mean a vaccine for each and every virus that causes it. But obviously as there are a ton that do cause it that's not particularly feasible. If you developed a vaccine that covered the 4 coronaviruses already widely circulating, you'd have a vaccine that protects against viruses that are responsible for ~15% of colds, leaving 85% not covered so what's the point when those viruses don't currently cause severe illness.

 

It's perfectly possible to develop a vaccine for this, whether that's as quick as proving the Oxford guys think it could be or whether it takes longer is yet to be seen. 

Yes, I agree.

 

I do think this new coronavirus is already mutating into an amount of new strains as per the difference in reactions to the hosts. I feel antibody testing will give us a true reflection of how contagious this is compared to fatality rates. 

Whether it's a case of finding if there's a more fatal strain or whether some people are more vulnerable than others I'm not sure, only time will tell. Maybe viral loading is the key to severity of symptoms ? A lot of questions will be answered in the months ahead. 

I  do hope we do find a vaccine of some sort, however if we can't I'm sure we will find a way to manage symptoms through research.

 

Either way we will prevail and get on top of this. 

Edited 1 May 2020 by Barrowblue

[leicsmac]

9 hours ago, BKLFox said:

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.

 

I'm sorry, but this is not accurate. Korea has a total of eight international airports (though one is on an island) - Incheon, Gimpo, Busan, Daegu, Cheongju, Jeju, Yangyang and Muan, spread all over the country. Of course, if you're going to the other side of the world then you've got to go from Incheon or Gimpo but that's broadly the case with airports in England too (Gatwick or Heathrow, sometimes Stansted or Manchester).

 

It may not be identical but I stand by what I said in it being at least similar in terms of infrastructure - similar enough to be included in a point anyway.

 

 

9 hours 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?

 

Pretty much as soon as this all started Korea passed regs that any and all international arrivals get two weeks quarantine - no exceptions, from what I can tell. You get vouchers for online food shopping and food delivery to your door, various med supplies, and get people to visit you to test you twice - once at the start and once at finish.

 

And yeah, things are steadily beginning to get some semblance of normality here again - the schools should reopen either the beginning of next week or the week after. Here never really had a "full" lockdown (there was always a certain amount of freedom to come and go as you pleased), they were just really damn good at tracing and containment.

 

 

8 hours ago, Jon the Hat said:

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.

Yep, preparation was likely a key part of it. You do wonder why a lot of other nations seemed to be so underprepared for it, though. Didn't consider the possibility likely?

 

 

7 hours ago, nnickn said:

Poor comparison, although both airports are in top 100 of busiest airports, Heathrow has a capacity 33% greater than Incheon.

Also the top 3 airports alone  in the UK have more passengers than the top 10 in Korea added together.

 

5 hours ago, st albans fox said:

It also has to be considered if an airport is simply a transport hub or a tourist/transport hub. I heard someone saying this morning that Frankfurt is a huge hub but how many travellers route through Frankfurt and stop off to visit the city ?  Not the same as London (or Paris or New York for that matter)

 

there are a number of mistakes that we made and we were also a victim of circumstances to an extent - it all adds up to bad. But as the docs have said, until you get a few months down the line and look at excess deaths in a country per capita, you won’t be able to make effective comparisons 

Apologies for the pedantry, but last year Incheon had 68,350,784 passengers going through, and Heathrow had 80,844,310. That's a difference of passenger traffic (rather than capacity, actual people going through is more important than what on airport can hold in this case) of roughly 18%, rather than 33%.

 

No comparison is going to be perfect and I'll take your word on combination of airports in the UK being busier than in Korea but as above I'm sticking by what I said in that they are similar enough to warrant comparison in terms of how they have dealt with this.

 

Korea also gets many tourists - particularly from China, rich folks looking to buy expensive consumer goods that they can't get over there or are more affordable here. Not many people come here from the West except to work, but the West isn't the entire world.

 

Do agree - as mentioned in the original post - that we've got to wait for the dust to settle before making real comparisons between nations in terms of their results rather than just their demographic numbers.

 

I'll repeat myself for clarity here - the UK and Korea is not a perfect comparison in terms of statistics that might have an effect on this situation, but I believe it to be closer between the two than between the UK and practically any other country, so it stands to reason that is where the UK should be looking for comparisons in terms of logistics, if nothing else.

Edited 1 May 2020 by leicsmac

[Nalis]

Random question @leicsmac.  

 

In my old place of work we had a few South Koreans clients & know people who work in Samsung, mostly seemed like nice but the working culture seems very much affixed to hierarchy. Is it like that with day to day life, eg, public being more willing to do what the government tell them to do / advice than Europeans?

[leicsmac]

10 minutes ago, Nalis said:

Random question @leicsmac.  

 

In my old place of work we had a few South Koreans clients & know people who work in Samsung, mostly seemed like nice but the working culture seems very much affixed to hierarchy. Is it like that with day to day life, eg, public being more willing to do what the government tell them to do / advice than Europeans?

Good question.

 

It's not as stringent as it used to be (which is good, look at all the incidents on Korean Air/Asiana Airlines flights in the 90's that were caused by not questioning the authority of the captain), but yeah, workplace culture is still somewhat hierarchal. Out in the world it varies: yes, most of the time the populace will follow orders or advice when they see the sense in it, but when they don't you get a million people in the streets looking for authority figures to be tarred and feathered. In this case, of course, it seems like at least most Koreans understand the sense of the advice the government has given them regarding keeping safe from Covid-19.

[pSinatra]

 

[Dahnsouff]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52496098

 

 

[Bellend Sebastian]

2 hours ago, pSinatra said:

 

Part of me does like not having the pressure of deciding where to take the kids at the weekend

[Nalis]

2 minutes ago, Bellend Sebastian said:

Part of me does like not having the pressure of deciding where to take the kids at the weekend

One of my mates has three kids under 6 and his wife drags him to a lot of social events that she wants to go to despite the fact she never attends anything when we're all meeting as couples.

 

He's absolutely loving lockdown.

[The People's Hero]

8 hours ago, Swan Lesta said:

I’m in a field.

You're on a horse...

[st albans fox]

5 hours ago, leicsmac said:

 

 

Korea also gets many tourists - particularly from China, rich folks looking to buy expensive consumer goods that they can't get over there or are more affordable here. Not many people come here from the West except to work, but the West isn't the entire world.

 

Do agree - as mentioned in the original post - that we've got to wait for the dust to settle before making real comparisons between nations in terms of their results rather than just their demographic numbers.

 

I'll repeat myself for clarity here - the UK and Korea is not a perfect comparison in terms of statistics that might have an effect on this situation, but I believe it to be closer between the two than between the UK and practically any other country, so it stands to reason that is where the UK should be looking for comparisons in terms of logistics, if nothing else.

As I have said before, circumstances play a big part.  This virus began to explode in Hubei during middle January as the country approached their new year shutdown. I don’t know for sure but I suspect there is a drop off in tourism out of China in the middle part jan - and I also suspect that the virus wasn't circulating widely around the wealthy parts of Wuhan society given its likely origin in the wet market area. So perhaps Seoul got lucky that the worst time for Chinese tourists to be coming there co incides with the quietest period for Chinese tourism?? 
 

 mid Jan period is also not a period where the Chinese tend to travel around the country. how many of us go visiting distant family/friends in the first half December ?  We generally wait for the holiday period. And they managed to shut down the country approaching their new year break which stopped wide transmission. whilst we are pretty confident that their numbers are way under stated, an escape of the virus around the whole country (as would have happened if travel hadn’t been restricted) would have not been possible to publicly suppress.  
 

Europe has plenty of ‘hard luck’ stories (as well as poor planning and disease control) when it comes to how this thing got out of control across the continent- I would point to the e european countries with their low rates as an illustration that those parts with less movement of population in/out for business and tourism have done much better. Add to that their early shut downs - without a vaccine in the next six months, it could prove difficult for them to manage their situations.  We just don’t know. 

There are no easy answers here ........ we aren’t comparing apples and apples when we look around the world on this.

[st albans fox]

14 minutes ago, Nalis said:

One of my mates has three kids under 6 and his wife drags him to a lot of social events that she wants to go to despite the fact she never attends anything when we're all meeting as couples.

 

He's absolutely loving lockdown.

I think plenty of us can relate to the fact that weekends are a bit more relaxing ....... but our partners may think differently .......

[Carl the Llama]

33 minutes ago, Dahnsouff said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52496098

 

 

Trump needs to spend less time undermining his intelligence staff and more time blocking state medical supply shipments so private companies can profiteer off them, apparently Maryland managed to sneak one through.

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/495519-maryland-governor-says-coronavirus-tests-acquired-from-south-korea-under

[The People's Hero]

My garden has never ever looked better.

[Lionator]

1 hour ago, Carl the Llama said:

Trump needs to spend less time undermining his intelligence staff and more time blocking state medical supply shipments so private companies can profiteer off them, apparently Maryland managed to sneak one through.

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/495519-maryland-governor-says-coronavirus-tests-acquired-from-south-korea-under

That's absolutely disgusting. Yet another reason to be glad we don't live in the States.

[StanSP]

Apparently 1m+ people have been recorded to have recovered from the virus. Could be more though given some people could have had it and not realised. 

[Charl91]

As a teacher, I absolutely love lock-down.

 

I'm only in work a couple of days a week.No 70 hour weeks. Only a few kids in school. No marking, and much less planning. I get lunch breaks. I can go to bed at a reasonable time. I actually have more of a social life than I've had since I started teaching, even if it is remotely. 

 

I wouldn't want this to continue, for everyone else's sake, but on a personal level, I'm going to be absolutely gutted when this is all over, because it's the least stressed I've been in years.

 

 

 

Edited 1 May 2020 by Charl91

[Steve_Walsh5]

7 minutes ago, Charl91 said:

As a teacher, I absolutely love lock-down.

 

I'm only in work a couple of days a week.No 70 hour weeks. Only 10 kids. No marking, and much less planning. I get lunch breaks. I can go to bed at a reasonable time. I actually have more of a social life than I've had since I started teaching, even if it is remotely. 

 

On a personal level, I'm going to be gutted when this is all over, because it's the least stressed I've been in 7 years.

Why do a job if it makes you feel like that?