Corona Virus

[urban.spaceman]

 

[bmt]

51 minutes ago, urban.spaceman said:

From 2013:

 

That’s about mers 

[Stadt]

"Corona virus" is an umbrella term isn't it?

[z-layrex]

59 minutes ago, Stadt said:

"Corona virus" is an umbrella term isn't it?

Yes there are a few strains of human coronavirus. SARS was another if you recall that.

[VLC86]

1 hour ago, bmt said:

That’s about mers 

Olly isn’t everyone’s cup of team but that’s a tad harsh.

[Sly]

I was thinking yesterday, are the people completely self isolating, going to be at a greater risk? 
 

If this mutates and gets stronger, the human body won’t have had a dose of it, to try and gain some immunity? 

[WigstonWanderer]

The UK certainly seems to be handling this differently to other countries. Having listened to the press conference it confirmed to me that the Chief Medical and Scientific Offers seem like impressive people who are clearly working to a plan based on their modelling.

 

We do not of course know what the terms of reference for their modelling is. The whole response is a balancing act between people’s health and mortality rate, hospital capacity and the economy. The UK seems to be emphasising the economy more than other countries, however, their argument that people should not be fatigued with restrictive measures taken too early also makes sense. They want to have such measures in their arsenal at a later stage when they can be more effective at reducing the load on overstretched hospitals.

 

We probably won’t know whose approach is more effective over all until the whole episode had passed.

[nnfox]

I like our approach, I have no problem with doing things differently, especially with something as new as this pandemic.  So many countries seem to be putting measures in place on the basis of "So and so did this, so we're going to do the same".  We appear to be thinking independently, backed by intelligent scientific and medical professionals.  I haven't seen many other world leaders making announcements whilst being flanked by experts who can explain the situation much better.

 

They seem to be saying that loads of people are going to get it.  It's impossible to contain it, so let's let everyone get it, but do it in a slow, controlled manner so that not too many people get it at the same time.

 

 Other options are to shut everything down and hope it goes away, the danger being that once the number of cases go down and you open a country up again you realise it hasn't gone away at all and you have to do the whole thing again. 

 

This is going to last for months and months. It could well last beyond the summer.  2020 will be remembered for being a very different year for most people.

[reynard]

41 minutes ago, nnfox said:

I like our approach, I have no problem with doing things differently, especially with something as new as this pandemic.  So many countries seem to be putting measures in place on the basis of "So and so did this, so we're going to do the same".  We appear to be thinking independently, backed by intelligent scientific and medical professionals.  I haven't seen many other world leaders making announcements whilst being flanked by experts who can explain the situation much better.

 

They seem to be saying that loads of people are going to get it.  It's impossible to contain it, so let's let everyone get it, but do it in a slow, controlled manner so that not too many people get it at the same time.

 

 Other options are to shut everything down and hope it goes away, the danger being that once the number of cases go down and you open a country up again you realise it hasn't gone away at all and you have to do the whole thing again. 

 

This is going to last for months and months. It could well last beyond the summer.  2020 will be remembered for being a very different year for most people.

I think the issue is though that we are seen now as being so far out on a limb on this. Whether they are right or not, the government seems likely to be overtaken by events (eg sports bodies cancelling events before the govt. tells them to) and by public opinion. There is a very real chance that if they continue on this cautious, some might say typical stiff upper lip British approach, that the public will lose faith in them and not believe what the scientists and medical people tell them. I'm not saying their approach is wrong, only time and the number of dead will eventually tell us this, but there is a danger they will not take the public with them which will lead to more panic on a wider scale than we have so far seen.

I'd like to see a clear statement made as to why there is a difference in scientific opinion between us and pretty much the rest of the world.

 

As to the bit in bold I think there is a fair chance this could go on well into 2021. Boris was wrong in saying it was the biggest health issue for a generation, it is the biggest for 100 years. The scale and widespread nature of this virus can only be compared to the flu pandemic of 1918/1919. That went on for nearly 2 years and came in 3 main waves. With no vaccine, virtually no community immunity and no apparent successful anti viral drug currently avaialble the only hope is that death rates are not as high as the 1918 pandemic and that the human race can relatively quickly build up some widespread immunity on the back of manageable infections spread over a period of time and hopefully not too severe for most people.

[Nalis]

Surely a two week lockdown is fine for slowdown but all it takes is a batch of fresh cases after lockdown to put you back to square one in a months time? So hard to know what the best action is.

 

Also, closing schools would mean a vast amount of nhs staff having to take time off to look after their kids.

 

But on balance, I'm with the government on this one.

[Vlad the Fox]

It does seem that people are taking this seriously however. To see how this compares to what happened in other countries would be interesting but the queues of people I saw waiting to wash their hands on Monday night, I’ve come across two people self isolating (one because their son had been somewhere where there was an outbreak, the other back from Italy). Then there’s people saying they’ve been places where there’s far fewer people than usual, pubs, trains, companies cancelling travel and meetings etc.
 

It seems that a lot of people’s fears of the public not taking it seriously may be unfounded, how this pans out remains to be seen but it does seem that the message is getting through to people and they’re responding to the governments information and considered plan.

Edited 13 March 2020 by Vlad the Fox

[Facecloth]

 

[kushiro]

Amazing interview on Sky News this morning with Sir Patrick  Vallance, the government's chief scientific advisor, who was defending the government's response. He seemed very reasonable, but there was a phrase he used which was very revealing, which I've highlighted:

 

Patrick Vallance: It is the case that if you completely locked down absolutely everything, probably for a period of four months or more, then you would suppress this virus. All of the evidence from previous epidemics suggests that when you do that and then you release it (the lock down) then it all comes back again. So the other part of this is to make sure we don't end up with a sudden peak again in the winter which is even larger which causes even more problems. So we want to suppress it, not get rid of it completely, which you can't do anyway, not suppress it so we get the second peak, and also allow enough of us, who are going to get mild illness, to become immune to this, to help with the sort of whole population response which would protect everybody.

 

Sky: That herd immunity, I know you talked about it yesterday when you were appearing with the Prime Minister. In terms of building up a herd immunity within the UK, what sort of percentage of people need to have contracted the virus?

 

PV: Probably about 60% or so. We think this virus is likely to be one that comes back year on year, like a seasonal virus, and communities will become immune to it, and that's going to be an important part of controlling this longer term. 

 

Sky: 60%?

 

PV: 60% is the sort of figure you need to get herd immunity.

 

Sky: Even looking at the best case scenario, you were talking last week of half of 1% to 1% fatality, that's an awful lot of people dying in this country.

 

PV: Of course we do face the prospect, as the PM was saying yesterday, of an awful lot of people dying - that is a real prospect. This is a nasty disease. For most people it's a mild disease. It's important to note that we don't know yet what proportion of people who have this are completely asymptomatic. The only cases at the moment are largely people who've had symptoms. That means that estimating the death rate from this is quite difficult.

[Guest Fktf]

38 minutes ago, kushiro said:

Amazing interview on Sky News this morning with Sir Patrick  Vallance, the government's chief scientific advisor, who was defending the government's response. He seemed very reasonable, but there was a phrase he used which was very revealing, which I've highlighted:

 

Patrick Vallance: It is the case that if you completely locked down absolutely everything, probably for a period of four months or more, then you would suppress this virus. All of the evidence from previous epidemics suggests that when you do that and then you release it (the lock down) then it all comes back again. So the other part of this is to make sure we don't end up with a sudden peak again in the winter which is even larger which causes even more problems. So we want to suppress it, not get rid of it completely, which you can't do anyway, not suppress it so we get the second peak, and also allow enough of us, who are going to get mild illness, to become immune to this, to help with the sort of whole population response which would protect everybody.

 

Sky: That herd immunity, I know you talked about it yesterday when you were appearing with the Prime Minister. In terms of building up a herd immunity within the UK, what sort of percentage of people need to have contracted the virus?

 

PV: Probably about 60% or so. We think this virus is likely to be one that comes back year on year, like a seasonal virus, and communities will become immune to it, and that's going to be an important part of controlling this longer term. 

 

Sky: 60%?

 

PV: 60% is the sort of figure you need to get herd immunity.

 

Sky: Even looking at the best case scenario, you were talking last week of half of 1% to 1% fatality, that's an awful lot of people dying in this country.

 

PV: Of course we do face the prospect, as the PM was saying yesterday, of an awful lot of people dying - that is a real prospect. This is a nasty disease. For most people it's a mild disease. It's important to note that we don't know yet what proportion of people who have this are completely asymptomatic. The only cases at the moment are largely people who've had symptoms. That means that estimating the death rate from this is quite difficult.

Means we're looking at something between a quarter and a half a million deaths. 

[String fellow]

According to an epidemiologist friend of mine, most of us carry up to 4 different 'coronavirii' naturally (they may have been fatal to Neanderthal man and his successors), but we are now immune to them. This fifth one is new to us, having been very recently mutated and transmitted to humans. Some people have no symptoms whatever - they have already been infected by something else that rendered them immune naturally (like 'Cow-Pox' rendering recipients immune to 'Small-Pox'). Some are only mildly affected - again they must have a degree of natural resistance from possession of existing antibodies. Most people carry the basic antibodies to a range of diseases - about 25 - and will have 10 or more that no-one knows what disease they are for. It's possible to have a range of 70 basic antibodies or more, most being unidentified.

[davieG]

This phase is really no different to the last one it's all bullshit they have a private and a public agenda.

[Nuge]

Can't help but feel this isn't being took seriously enough by government. 'Just pretend everything is fine, and hopefully no one will notice'

[yorkie1999]

8 minutes ago, davieG said:

This phase is really no different to the last one it's all bullshit they have a private and a public agenda.

Don't get it, and i don't get the people agreeing with the government on these four phases. Seems to me like delaying tactics from the government hoping that it just goes away because they know we haven't the resources as the NHS was already well over stretched, if it wasn't over stretched the 350 million quid a week wouldn't have been any good as a Brexit swinger.  I really can't see exactly how  the government tried to contain the disease, outlined in phase one and surely the delay stage should come before the contain stage. It's just excuses hidden behind bullshit with all these self isolating mp's making a dash for it before anyone cottons on. Make hay whilst the sun is shining.

[Jon the Hat]

16 hours ago, MPH said:

so my sister just came back from a holiday in Egypt. there were many people in her resort  including quite a few Italians.

 

 

shes come back and isn’t feeling well. kind of achy and under the weather .  she called 111 but apparently they won’t test her because she hasn’t been to a high risk area. 

 

fair enough , she might have just caught a cold or something probably doesn’t have the covid19 but wouldn’t it be safer to be testing her? it’s little gaps like this that could cause carriers  to slip through the net undetected and that’s it, BOOM. 

 

As an aside Egypt itself has had less than 100 cases but it still accounts for more than half the cases in all of Africa..

Egypt are without doubt deliberatley not testing to avoid impacting tourism.  she should self isolate.  Not everyone who gets this is going to be tested, we just have to stay home and get better.

[Jon the Hat]

20 minutes ago, davieG said:

This phase is really no different to the last one it's all bullshit they have a private and a public agenda.

Telling people with any symptoms to self isolate for 7 days will have a big impact.

[Jon the Hat]

2 minutes ago, yorkie1999 said:

Don't get it, and i don't get the people agreeing with the government on these four phases. Seems to me like delaying tactics from the government hoping that it just goes away because they know we haven't the resources as the NHS was already well over stretched, if it wasn't over stretched the 350 million quid a week wouldn't have been any good as a Brexit swinger.  I really can't see exactly how  the government tried to contain the disease, outlined in phase one and surely the delay stage should come before the contain stage. It's just excuses hidden behind bullshit with all these self isolating mp's making a dash for it before anyone cottons on. Make hay whilst the sun is shining.

Did you watch the press conference last night?  Or are you just opining on something without the facts?  

[davieG]

Just now, Jon the Hat said:

Telling people with any symptoms to self isolate for 7 days will have a big impact.

I'd imagine any sensible person with any symptoms would have been doing this anyway.

 

Besides the horse has already bolted by not controlling people returning from infected counties.

[davieG]

2 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

Did you watch the press conference last night?  Or are you just opining on something without the facts?  

I watched it and felt like it was 905% waffle the only added advice/action was self isolate if you have any symptoms hardly a ground breaking request.

[goose2010]

3 minutes ago, davieG said:

I'd imagine any sensible person with any symptoms would have been doing this anyway.

 

Besides the horse has already bolted by not controlling people returning from infected counties.

The problem is with saying 'any symptoms' people will take the p*ss. Its already started at where i work and where the wife works. Its no coindence that the people that are always taking the p*ss with having days off sick are now self isolating. 

 

[ClaphamFox]

3 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

Did you watch the press conference last night?  Or are you just opining on something without the facts?  

At times like this you can always rely on certain people to respond to a complex situation they do not understand by proclaiming with total certainty that the government has got it completely wrong and is probably doing it deliberately for one nefarious purpose or another.