Coronavirus Thread

[MonmoreStef]

1 minute ago, January47 said:

thats what you'd think but...

 

Australia ranked ninth of of 23 OECD nations on obesity, with 63% of the population over the age of 15 considered either overweight or obese. The OECD average was 58%.

 

For men, Australians had the third highest rate of being overweight or obese, behind the United States and Chile.

Lol they just bigger and more muscular. The old obesity BMI table is ridiculous.  The entire Tigers rugby team were told they were obese.

[January47]

2 minutes ago, MonmoreStef said:

Lol they just bigger and more muscular. The old obesity BMI table is ridiculous.  The entire Tigers rugby team were told they were obese.

thats what i keep telling everybody as well

[SouthStandUpperTier]

2 minutes ago, MonmoreStef said:

Lol they just bigger and more muscular. The old obesity BMI table is ridiculous.  The entire Tigers rugby team were told they were obese.

That would explain their recent form though.

[WigstonWanderer]

13 minutes ago, January47 said:

thats what you'd think but...

 

Australia ranked ninth of of 23 OECD nations on obesity, with 63% of the population over the age of 15 considered either overweight or obese. The OECD average was 58%.

 

For men, Australians had the third highest rate of being overweight or obese, behind the United States and Chile.

Unfortunately I fall more into the lard arse camp 

[Christoph]

21 minutes ago, MonmoreStef said:

Lol they just bigger and more muscular. The old obesity BMI table is ridiculous.  The entire Tigers rugby team were told they were obese.

 

Yes but 99% of people aren't usually rugby players. BMI obviously has it's issues but by and large its still more then suitable for the average person. 90% of people who are obese on the BMI scale is because they are fat and not because they are muscular. 

 

Tbh though, I don't think being muscular and obese is that good for you either. Being obese....even with a lot of muscle on you is still going to put strain on your heart etc. You don't often see 6ft 5 250lb muscly guys living into their 80s for example. I think being obese in general probably isn't ideal for the vast majority of people...even if they are muscular and have low body fat. 

[Milo]

1 hour ago, January47 said:

Is there anybody on here who really understands this because I thought is what normally happens. The antibodies drop off over time but the body would have built the 'infrastructure' to rapidly produce new antibodies in the event of a re-infection so more easily fights it off.

No necessarily - hence booster jabs for some infections

[SpacedX]

3 hours ago, MonmoreStef said:

Again I don’t think anybody on here doubts that a lockdown will bring figures down. 

Really? I suggest that you read the last month of this thread. Actually don't.

 

3 hours ago, MonmoreStef said:

When people question the effectiveness of lockdowns it’s more to do with what happens after you’ve got the figures down. It’s not like the virus will not be lurking elsewhere waiting to re appear again and when it does what will Dan do.  Lock the whole state down again and re start the lockdown cycle. Unless a working vaccine appears the stop start lockdown route can not be awarded the best way to deal with a virus award, as its success short term doesn’t mean it’s the the best route long term. 

A key part in Australia's defences lies in its geography being an isolated island. In March, it promptly closed its international borders to foreign travellers to prevent imported infections - also state lockdown policies have been decisive, committed and effectual aided by a compliant citizenship that unlike the UK has embraced distancing protocols. This in tandem with a comprehensive programme of testing and contact tracing. Lockdown is not an isolated measure - it is designed to reduce clinical impact and bring the virus under control and is not a policy that operates in isolation of a range of other measures. It is however demonstrably necessary. 

[Christoph]

18 minutes ago, Line-X said:

Really? I suggest that you read the last month of this thread. Actually don't.

 

A key part in Australia's defences lies in its geography being an isolated island. In March, it promptly closed its international borders to foreign travellers to prevent imported infections - also state lockdown policies have been decisive, committed and effectual aided by a compliant citizenship that unlike the UK has embraced distancing protocols. This in tandem with a comprehensive programme of testing and contact tracing. Lockdown is not an isolated measure - it is designed to reduce clinical impact and bring the virus under control and is not a policy that operates in isolation of a range of other measures. It is however demonstrably necessary. 

You would think that the UK..also an island could have sorted this out properly and done one very strict and harsh lockdown instead of this weird dribbled out lockdown. 

[z-layrex]

8 hours ago, January47 said:

Is there anybody on here who really understands this because I thought is what normally happens. The antibodies drop off over time but the body would have built the 'infrastructure' to rapidly produce new antibodies in the event of a re-infection so more easily fights it off.

I had covid in February when it ripped through my hospital (we didn't know what it was at the time). I've been looking after covid patients mostly non stop since, short of a brief period in the summer. My ffp3 mask never fits properly because I have a big nose, sometimes I am lazy and don't shave for a few days so the seal isn't there. The trust provided me a big reusable mask that does protect me properly, but I honestly just find it too painful to wear for 13 hour shifts so I don't.

 

Been exposed constantly, I've worn just a surgical mask with undiagnosed covid patients coughing all over me and in my face. Doing bronchoscopies on the icu creating an aerosol all around me with the mask slipped down below my nose cos I'm sweaty and my hands are full/contaminated so cant pull it up.

 

I had zero antibodies when tested a few months ago.Touch wood I am still fine, I have to be immune to not be getting sick with this constant exposure surely?

[WigstonWanderer]

4 hours ago, Christoph said:

You would think that the UK..also an island could have sorted this out properly and done one very strict and harsh lockdown instead of this weird dribbled out lockdown. 

To be fair, it’s difficult to see (with the benefit of hindsight) how the UK could have applied the same strategy.

 

Firstly, in practice Australia has much better control of its borders, both external and internal.
 

International borders were shut very early on, whilst trade was allowed to continue. This would be almost impossible in the UK where huge amounts of freight come and go via lorries. Drivers would almost certainly have seeded new infection even as locally acquired infection was driven down. In contrast, all goods coming into and out of Australia do so via ships and planes where it is much easier to have containment protocols in place.

 

Also, the UK’s much larger international air travel and holiday industry would basically need to shut down for the duration. I doubt if there was sufficient political will to do this, particularly as the UK is a hub for passengers travelling between other countries.

 

Internally, because states in Australia are much more naturally isolated from each other, restricting travel between them has been much easier and has also played a role in reducing seeding from one state to another. Again almost impossible with UK counties, although perhaps possible during short lockdown periods.

By a combination of luck and good judgement, Australia acted very early in the epidemic cycle and this resulted in the first wave being snuffed out before it real got started. This meant that there was very little virus circulating in the community to pop up unexpectedly elsewhere, and it was almost eliminated everywhere early on. It only really broke down in Victoria due to a cock up (quite literally it seems ) in the hotel quarantine scheme. I don’t think hotel quarantine was even attempted in the UK, and would only work anyway in conjunction with strict border controls.

 

As was shown in Victoria, when a proper wave gets started it is much harder to eliminate, not least because testing, tracing and isolation has severe capacity limits that quickly get overwhelmed unless virus levels get down to very low levels. I would estimate this capacity as about 50 infections per day per state, or less. Even that requires a huge effort and considerable experience and expertise to be built up.

 

Finally. I think we have a smaller proportion of belligerent libertarians here. They do exist but have been quieted by a population that have mostly supported the measures that have been taken. The problem with getting things under control in the first place is that as soon as infection levels and death rates appear to get down to lower levels, the “are we there yet?” crowd get started, whinging about opening up, before infection levels can be appropriately dealt with through track and trace. In the UK reopening occurred before testing and tracing had anywhere near the capacity to deal with clusters that were still occurring so a second wave was guaranteed.

 

Anyway, my impression is that the current policy in the UK is simply to try to keep health services from being overwhelmed, with infection and death rates continuing as they may. So for those who wanted more of a “open up, take it in the chin and get to herd immunity as quickly as possible” policy, you’ve won, this is what it looks like. I just hope that the second wave does not get completely out of control.

 

Edited 27 October 2020 by WigstonWanderer

[Sampson]

30 minutes ago, z-layrex said:

I had covid in February when it ripped through my hospital (we didn't know what it was at the time). I've been looking after covid patients mostly non stop since, short of a brief period in the summer. My ffp3 mask never fits properly because I have a big nose, sometimes I am lazy and don't shave for a few days so the seal isn't there. The trust provided me a big reusable mask that does protect me properly, but I honestly just find it too painful to wear for 13 hour shifts so I don't.

 

Been exposed constantly, I've worn just a surgical mask with undiagnosed covid patients coughing all over me and in my face. Doing bronchoscopies on the icu creating an aerosol all around me with the mask slipped down below my nose cos I'm sweaty and my hands are full/contaminated so cant pull it up.

 

I had zero antibodies when tested a few months ago.Touch wood I am still fine, I have to be immune to not be getting sick with this constant exposure surely?

How bad were you when you had it in February?

 

I know you said the hospital beds are filling up again. How are they looking in comparison to March/April time?

 

There was an interesting article on the BBC website a couple of days ago about how people aren't being put into comes anymore they're mostly awake and talking. So ICU has a different feel to it.

 

Would be interested to get your take.

Edited 27 October 2020 by Sampson

[String fellow]

With hospitals filling up again with COVID-19 patients and the daily death rate starting to rise ominously, maybe we'll see a return to the Thursday evening street applause for NHS staff. Unrelated to that, I'm struggling to work why England's 3 tiers are named medium/high/very-high and not low/medium/high, and Scotland's 5 tiers are numbered 0-4 and not 1-5. 

[Charl91]

14 minutes ago, String fellow said:

With hospitals filling up again with COVID-19 patients and the daily death rate starting to rise ominously, maybe we'll see a return to the Thursday evening street applause for NHS staff. Unrelated to that, I'm struggling to work why England's 3 tiers are named medium/high/very-high and not low/medium/high, and Scotland's 5 tiers are numbered 0-4 and not 1-5. 

Because if you named a tier 'low', then people there wouldn't STAY ALERT and CONTROL THE VIRUS.

[st albans fox]

Tuesday tends to have a lag from the weekend but some terrible totals across Europe today (inc here)

 

 

[bovril]

Yeah some horrible numbers today. I'm just thinking about how bad S. America was hit in their winter.

[joachim1965]

[foxile5]

The most worrying thing is that this rise in cases, and deaths, is going to continue unabated because the government are dead set against radical action. 

 

I'm going to predict a 1000 a day at least through November, December, and January. We will hear the phrase 'robust response' at least twice a week. 

[joachim1965]

4 minutes ago, foxile5 said:

The most worrying thing is that this rise in cases, and deaths, is going to continue unabated because the government are dead set against radical action. 

 

I'm going to predict a 1000 a day at least through November, December, and January. We will hear the phrase 'robust response' at least twice a week. 

The latest government covid surveillance report states that there are currently no excess deaths in England, we are currently following the five year average, no more people are dying now than were at this time last year or the previous five years.

[yorkie1999]

3 hours ago, z-layrex said:

I had covid in February when it ripped through my hospital (we didn't know what it was at the time). I've been looking after covid patients mostly non stop since, short of a brief period in the summer. My ffp3 mask never fits properly because I have a big nose, sometimes I am lazy and don't shave for a few days so the seal isn't there. The trust provided me a big reusable mask that does protect me properly, but I honestly just find it too painful to wear for 13 hour shifts so I don't.

 

Been exposed constantly, I've worn just a surgical mask with undiagnosed covid patients coughing all over me and in my face. Doing bronchoscopies on the icu creating an aerosol all around me with the mask slipped down below my nose cos I'm sweaty and my hands are full/contaminated so cant pull it up.

 

I had zero antibodies when tested a few months ago.Touch wood I am still fine, I have to be immune to not be getting sick with this constant exposure surely?

From what I can work out, antibodies  are produced by the immune system as memory cells which fight all these viruses so they’re not present all the time, only as and when required else you’d have all these different antibodies floating round in your system attacking each other.

[yorkie1999]

8 minutes ago, foxile5 said:

The most worrying thing is that this rise in cases, and deaths, is going to continue unabated because the government are dead set against radical action. 

 

I'm going to predict a 1000 a day at least through November, December, and January. We will hear the phrase 'robust response' at least twice a week. 

There’s simply no point in radical action whilst kids are at school. We can isolate all we like but sending a child to school with 30 others in one room is just increasing the odds massively of it spreading back to the home, and if someone’s got 3 children then it’s a 90 to one probability of the virus being brought home. Everyday.

[Trav Le Bleu]

2 minutes ago, yorkie1999 said:

There’s simply no point in radical action whilst kids are at school. We can isolate all we like but sending a child to school with 30 others in one room is just increasing the odds massively of it spreading back to the home, and if someone’s got 3 children then it’s a 90 to one probability of the virus being brought home. Everyday.

Erm.... I think I know what you're trying to say, but that's not the right way. 90-1 is decreasing the odds.

[yorkie1999]

1 hour ago, Charl91 said:

Because if you named a tier 'low', then people there wouldn't STAY ALERT and CONTROL THE VIRUS.

But they would know if what they’re currently doing is helping control the virus in their area. It’s a bit defeatist if everyone in an area has done their best to prevent the virus spreading only to be told that it’s not enough. People will end up just saying fvck it. 

[yorkie1999]

3 minutes ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

Erm.... I think I know what you're trying to say, but that's not the right way. 90-1 is decreasing the odds.

Is that not 1-90 with a probability. I dunno.

[Guest Fktf]

1 hour ago, joachim1965 said:

The latest government covid surveillance report states that there are currently no excess deaths in England, we are currently following the five year average, no more people are dying now than were at this time last year or the previous five years.

As was the case in March, right before we got tonnes of deaths every day for a sustained period. Only last time we had summer to rescue us.

[Sampson]

33 minutes ago, Fktf said:

As was the case in March, right before we got tonnes of deaths every day for a sustained period. Only last time we had summer to rescue us.

Not to mention that chart is ony up to 7th October - which is 3 weeks ago now in real time and a week old on the ONS reports, which come out 2 weeks later so they can compile everything.

Conveniently, that was the last week where we were below the 5 year average. As you can see on the actual latest ONS data from the ONS website below, it was the week of 10th-16th October where the deaths started to go above that again (and as we know have continued to rise since).

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending16october2020



That said, we don't know how bad this 2nd wave will be yet. I'd wager it will be flatter but longer, due to greater social distancing and better health care knowledge. But given 0.066% of our population have died of Covid, compared to say, 0.18% of the population of New Jersey (and now sadly rising again), there's certainly the scope for there to be as many deaths in this 2nd wave, or even twice as many deaths if it were to rip through the population.

Perhaps the most worrying thing this highlights though, which is what we were hoping would be the case, is that Covid only seems to be making a small difference to the usual number of people dying from flu or other forms of contagious pneumonia. Which you'd hope it would be the same people dying of flu and Covid, but that only seems to be making a small impact on less flu/pneumonia deaths than the past 5 year average. Meaning the double-whammy of both flu and covid this winter on top of each other (rather than cancelling each other out and having roughly the same number of deaths) seems increasingly likely.

Edited 27 October 2020 by Sampson