Coronavirus Thread

[z-layrex]

2 minutes ago, Izzy said:

I saw this on BBC, not sure if same place?

 

Absolutely appalling. 

 

Yeah same place. It's so beautiful there too.

 

I guess you had to be a huge dickhead to sit on that packed beach anyway so you would also be the kind of person to litter. 

[foxile5]

Tried to walk through Bradgate Park today. Greeted by piss heads arguing, a family of travellers swimming in the lakes next to the no swimming signs, folks smoking weed directly next to the path and shouting obscenities at women and a chap throwing bottles into the bracken. 

 

Horrifying and a real indicator of how awful the British public can be. So disappointing the first trip out yielded this. I thought we were better through the suffering but clearly, clearly not. 

[worth_the_wait]

3 hours ago, Voll Blau said:

Churchill wasn't PM in 1939.

Yeah, alright.   Fair point.    Took him an extra year to get the job!  

[Crinklyfox]

Article published recently in The Lancet on transmission rates at different distances and the effectiveness of wearing masks and respirators.

 

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31183-1/fulltext

[Jon the Hat]

11 hours ago, z-layrex said:

Yeah same place. It's so beautiful there too.

 

I guess you had to be a huge dickhead to sit on that packed beach anyway so you would also be the kind of person to litter. 

This is the problem with going a long way to a specific place - when you get there you are committed to it, so you go ahead even though it is a stupid thing to do.  The sensible people are staying local, and those who are local to beauty spots are going out of hours - and often cleaning up the mess left by the idiots.  The sooner we can pack them off to wherever they usually go on holioday the better!

[Jon the Hat]

15 hours ago, Finnaldo said:

We were pretty much the last European country that bothered to lock down, it seems like we’ll come out with significantly higher deaths that most, bar perhaps the Italians you got taken completely by surprise and were on having the healthcare system in some places collapse. 

What do people that oppose lockdown believe are an ‘acceptable’ total of Coronavirus deaths? 

You are assuming that a general lockdown made a significant difference Vs targeted protection of the most at risk groups, not dumping the elderly out of hospitals and into care homes, and a good track and trace system.  I would say that is extremely doubtful.  The "so you think we should have lets more people die???" arugment is false imo.  People will die regardless, and we won't know how bad this has been until we see a full year or perhaps two or excess death stats.  At the moment we can't for certain say that the figures are materially worse that a very bad Flu season plus the impact of the lockdown.  Too early to tell.

 

We also don't know why we have higher deaths - it is likely that population density is a factor, but there will be others too.

[Nalis]

2 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

This is the problem with going a long way to a specific place - when you get there you are committed to it, so you go ahead even though it is a stupid thing to do.  The sensible people are staying local, and those who are local to beauty spots are going out of hours - and often cleaning up the mess left by the idiots.  The sooner we can pack them off to wherever they usually go on holioday the better!

Agreed. Read that 67% of people who visited the Lake District last weekend had never been before. Whilst there will be many of that 67% with good intentions who bring home litter etc, I hope these local spots arent turned into some sort of mini Benidorm when pubs reopen by those who usually go the usual resorts. I know I say this at the risk of sounding like a travel snob.

 

[Jon the Hat]

13 hours ago, worth_the_wait said:

I just had a quick look through the 89 page Public Health England document: "Disparities in the risk and outcomes from COVID-194"

 

The section on Ethnicity states ...

 

People from Black ethnic groups were most likely to be diagnosed. Death rates from COVID-19 were highest among people of Black and Asian ethnic groups. This is the opposite of what is seen in previous years, when the mortality rates were lower in Asian and Black ethnic groups than White ethnic groups. Therefore, the disparity in COVID-19 mortality between ethnic groups is the opposite of that seen in previous years.

 

An analysis of survival among confirmed COVID-19 cases and using more detailed ethnic groups, shows that after accounting for the effect of sex, age, deprivation and region, people of Bangladeshi ethnicity had around twice the risk of death than people of White British ethnicity. People of Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, Other Asian, Caribbean and Other Black ethnicity had between 10 and 50% higher risk of death when compared to White British.

 

These analyses did not account for the effect of occupation, comorbidities or obesity. These are important factors because they are associated with the risk of acquiring COVID-19, the risk of dying, or both. Other evidence has shown that when comorbidities are included, the difference in risk of death among hospitalised patients is greatly reduced.

 

The 2nd paragraph gives you the headline stat "up to twice the risk", although further reading shows that for most ethnic groups it's somewhere in the 10-50% range,

 

But It's the last paragraph that contains information just as important, as the figures above don't take into account occupation, comorbidities (underlying health issues) and obesity.

 

The final sentence is the crucial bit:  "Other evidence has shown that when comorbidities are included, the difference in risk of death among hospitalised patients is greatly reduced."

 

So this is saying you can potentially greatly reduce the 10-50% figure, once you've taken all other factors into consideration.

 

Which I think is excellent news, as that should hopefully allay the fears of anyone in an ethnic minority group.

 

Very much not the story being reported in the media.  Sad really, they do love to propogate fear!

[Jon the Hat]

Just now, Nalis said:

Agreed. Read that 67% of people who visited the Lake District last weekend had never been before. Whilst there will be many of that 67% with good intentions who bring home litter etc, I hope these local spots arent turned into some sort of mini Benidorm when pubs reopen by those who usually go the usual resorts. I know I say this at the risk of sounding like a travel snob.

 

BOOM!  I was carefully not mentioning where said idiots might usually go on holiday

[Jon the Hat]

11 hours ago, z-layrex said:

Did you see all the rubbish left at Lulworth Cove? Piles of it. Why do we have so many scumbags on this island.

I prefer to focus on the wonderful people who give their valuable time to keep them lovely.  Especially in the face of such numpties!  Amazing volunteers.

[Finnaldo]

Just now, Jon the Hat said:

You are assuming that a general lockdown made a significant difference Vs targeted protection of the most at risk groups, not dumping the elderly out of hospitals and into care homes, and a good track and trace system.  I would say that is extremely doubtful.  The "so you think we should have lets more people die???" arugment is false imo.  People will die regardless, and we won't know how bad this has been until we see a full year or perhaps two or excess death stats.  At the moment we can't for certain say that the figures are materially worse that a very bad Flu season plus the impact of the lockdown.  Too early to tell.

 

We also don't know why we have higher deaths - it is likely that population density is a factor, but there will be others too.

If population density is a factor, then how is more people mixing in aforementioned dense country going to aid the situation? The elderly aren’t the only at risk group, there’s plenty of functioning vulnerable people who could still be hospitalised as a result. Are they just supposed to either stay at home and lose their jobs or work and hope they don’t end up on a Covid ward? 

[Innovindil]

11 minutes ago, Finnaldo said:

If population density is a factor, then how is more people mixing in aforementioned dense country going to aid the situation? The elderly aren’t the only at risk group, there’s plenty of functioning vulnerable people who could still be hospitalised as a result. Are they just supposed to either stay at home and lose their jobs or work and hope they don’t end up on a Covid ward? 

Paying the full wages of the vulnerable to stay at home would probably have cost a hell of a lot less than paying millions on furlough because the economy shut down tbh. 

[Finnaldo]

1 minute ago, Innovindil said:

Paying the full wages of the vulnerable to stay at home would probably have cost a hell of a lot less than paying millions on furlough because the economy shut down tbh. 

Aren't the obese particularly vulnerable as well? Paying all the fat lads to stay off seems excessive...

[Sampson]

Not sure if anyone's posted it yet so apologies if I'm repeating it, but the worldometer site now has added mathematical modelling predictions on its website. They all seem to suggest that the virus will be virtually non-existent in western Europe by 1st August. Let's hope the models prove to be accurate.

 

Here's the UK one. It predicts just under 44,400 deaths overall https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-kingdom

[Innovindil]

5 minutes ago, Finnaldo said:

Aren't the obese particularly vulnerable as well? Paying all the fat lads to stay off seems excessive...

There's 8 or so million people on furlough or something like that. Add that to the cost of all the handouts to businesses and all the other costs... Then there's the self employed payouts... Tax breaks... 

 

It's a hefty bill. Imo, it would have been cheaper to shield the MOST vulnerable and give fatties and the like the option. 

 

But I'm no health expert. Just seems this is going to **** us for a long ass time. Impossible to say, but not impossible to believe we'll regret it all in a few years. 

[filbertway]

7 minutes ago, Sampson said:

Not sure if anyone's posted it yet so apologies if I'm repeating it, but the worldometer site now has added mathematical modelling predictions on its website. They all seem to suggest that the virus will be virtually non-existent in western Europe by 1st August. Let's hope the models prove to be accurate.

 

Here's the UK one. It predicts just under 44,400 deaths overall https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-kingdom

 

Just seems to be following the average taking into account absolutely no variables. I'd say that's probably dangerous as a lot of people won't figure that out and will be disappointed in 2 months time haha.

[Guest Fktf]

37 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

You are assuming that a general lockdown made a significant difference Vs targeted protection of the most at risk groups, not dumping the elderly out of hospitals and into care homes, and a good track and trace system.  I would say that is extremely doubtful.  The "so you think we should have lets more people die???" arugment is false imo.  People will die regardless, and we won't know how bad this has been until we see a full year or perhaps two or excess death stats.  At the moment we can't for certain say that the figures are materially worse that a very bad Flu season plus the impact of the lockdown.  Too early to tell.

 

We also don't know why we have higher deaths - it is likely that population density is a factor, but there will be others too.

This is a bit of a false comparison though, isn't it? It would have been nice to track and trace from the first few cases, but we simply didn't have the infrastructure in place to do it. I mean, we've had months to develop a tracing app, and it still doesn't appear to be very good. 

[Sampson]

1 minute ago, filbertway said:

 

Just seems to be following the average taking into account absolutely no variables. I'd say that's probably dangerous as a lot of people won't figure that out and will be disappointed in 2 months time haha.

http://www.healthdata.org/covid/faqs

 

On the FAQ it seems their taking a lot more into account than just the averages with no variables - they're using anonymous mobile phone data to track mobility, evaluated social distancing measures etc. so I think they are taking into account variables.

[Finnaldo]

5 minutes ago, Innovindil said:

There's 8 or so million people on furlough or something like that. Add that to the cost of all the handouts to businesses and all the other costs... Then there's the self employed payouts... Tax breaks... 

 

It's a hefty bill. Imo, it would have been cheaper to shield the MOST vulnerable and give fatties and the like the option. 

 

But I'm no health expert. Just seems this is going to **** us for a long ass time. Impossible to say, but not impossible to believe we'll regret it all in a few years. 

Fair enough, I don’t think there was a chance of us getting through it without lockdown personally, you can shield older folks as best you can, if it’s spreading like wildfire through the rest of the population, then you’re ultimately going to get to old folks anyway, through food deliveries and the like. Then there’s the rest of the general population, many of which may have underlying conditions they’re unaware of. Any chance we had of not going through a lockdown vanished when the government acted in total negligence  in February and early March. 

[Dahnsouff]

18 minutes ago, Innovindil said:

There's 8 or so million people on furlough or something like that. Add that to the cost of all the handouts to businesses and all the other costs... Then there's the self employed payouts... Tax breaks... 

 

It's a hefty bill. Imo, it would have been cheaper to shield the MOST vulnerable and give fatties and the like the option. 

 

But I'm no health expert. Just seems this is going to **** us for a long ass time. Impossible to say, but not impossible to believe we'll regret it all in a few years. 

You would hope and expect that this will be one of the key tenets in a post pandemic review into how it has been handled. To think the financial support offered to population will not have longer term pain is just unrealistic, I realise you accept this, but it is a point we need reiterating with some frequency just to keep peoples expectations realistic. 

[filbertway]

18 minutes ago, Sampson said:

http://www.healthdata.org/covid/faqs

 

On the FAQ it seems their taking a lot more into account than just the averages with no variables - they're using anonymous mobile phone data to track mobility, evaluated social distancing measures etc. so I think they are taking into account variables.

I'm bang to rights mate

 

I'm still going to take it with a pinch of salt, if it's anything close to that though, that would be fantastic!

[Sampson]

Just now, filbertway said:

I'm bang to rights mate

 

I'm still going to take it with a pinch of salt, if it's anything close to that though, that would be fantastic!

Yeah of course. Let's not forget, the government's own modelling system predicted under 20,000 deaths so it's far from infallible. But it's the first "predictive" one I've seen and it would be fantastic if it turns out to be accurate.

[Innovindil]

5 minutes ago, Dahnsouff said:

You would hope and expect that this will be one of the key tenets in a post pandemic review into how it has been handled. To think the financial support offered to population will not have longer term pain is just unrealistic, I realise you accept this, but it is a point we need reiterating with some frequency just to keep peoples expectations realistic. 

It's not even just the money the government have spent that could cause problems. No one has any idea how this will play out long term. There was one economist on the BBC radio (**** knows who I can't hear it all) who was warbling about interest rates going to 20%. Sounds impossible when we're currently discussing going below zero interest rates. But imagine if it did go to 20% now. I'm fairly comfortable as things stand, but I reckon I'd have to pray to the money gods if we got anywhere near double figures. I'd hate to even think about what would happen to people currently with mortgages who are living month-month. 

 

Then there's jobs that will now disappear forever. Plenty of bosses with be slowly opening their businesses now and realising there's some people they just don't need. Places that were struggling before will now have the perfect time to shut up shop completely. Then you've got tourism sectors that have been slapped down. One guy I know owns 4 caravans in skeggy, not got any bookings for summer at all, still has to pay £13k~ site fee, he's going to have to sell (if he can) 2 of them to cover it. 

 

It's a mess from the bottom to the top. Anyone's guess how it all turns out. 

[Dahnsouff]

1 minute ago, Innovindil said:

It's not even just the money the government have spent that could cause problems. No one has any idea how this will play out long term. There was one economist on the BBC radio (**** knows who I can't hear it all) who was warbling about interest rates going to 20%. Sounds impossible when we're currently discussing going below zero interest rates. But imagine if it did go to 20% now. I'm fairly comfortable as things stand, but I reckon I'd have to pray to the money gods if we got anywhere near double figures. I'd hate to even think about what would happen to people currently with mortgages who are living month-month. 

 

Then there's jobs that will now disappear forever. Plenty of bosses with be slowly opening their businesses now and realising there's some people they just don't need. Places that were struggling before will now have the perfect time to shut up shop completely. Then you've got tourism sectors that have been slapped down. One guy I know owns 4 caravans in skeggy, not got any bookings for summer at all, still has to pay £13k~ site fee, he's going to have to sell (if he can) 2 of them to cover it. 

 

It's a mess from the bottom to the top. Anyone's guess how it all turns out. 

Indeed, during this we have been fortunate to keep working uninterrupted with only real change being we are both working from home and have home schooling responsibilities. It is curious how much money we have saved as well, and this has been put as extra cover/overpayments for the mortgage.

 

I am well aware that many are not so fortunate and the assistance from Sunak and the government is hopefully welcome where it is available.

 

My sincere hope is that we can progress from where we end up post pandemic and that we see a move to some level of self sufficiency, we embrace our technological expertise to become a leading nation in that regard (both pharmaceutically and in other arenas) whilst also returning to some higher level of engineering and manufacturing productivity, if this means it needs to be a higher level/grade of such industries to make it viable, so be it.

 

Whatever happens, I doubt it will be pretty or fun in the short term.

 

[yorkie1999]

1 hour ago, Jon the Hat said:

BOOM!  I was carefully not mentioning where said idiots might usually go on holiday

It'll re balance the financial problems then. They're always moaning about the lack of income up there and losing out to Spanish resorts. Benidorm didn't become a wealthy place by moaning about a few beer cans in the street.