Coronavirus Thread

[yorkie1999]

23 minutes ago, Paninistickers said:

Well, that was a point made right near the start of this. 

 

Govts across the world have terrified the public and now can't coax people back. Very early on, imo, there should've been a gradual phasing of normalising Covid and softening its 'image'.  Good news doesn't sell though, I guess 

 

The emergency economic actions taken  are what I'd have expected for a new bubonic plague, or if Ebola went (literally) viral.

 

 

What gets my goat is that not one mp or person setting the rules will feel any financial hardship whatsoever.

[Chrysalis]

56 minutes ago, Babylon said:

That risk doesn’t make money, doesn’t keep jobs and businesses going. The economy is being prioritised, you open everything up and we’ll be back to square one. It’s going to be a continuously fluid situation.

Visiting family is opening everything up?

[stix]

I find it difficult to believe that London and the Greater London area aren’t having the same sort of rising levels as the areas in the north are having. There’s a large number of high rise built up areas all around Greater London. As the government have repeatedly said, this virus doesn’t pick and choose who it infects. 

[Chrysalis]

1 hour ago, Md9 said:

Just crap isn’t it. Bet half the places recently placed in lockdown won’t be in it for as long as we have been either. Once a week of the pubs being open and there is a case or 2 come from one of them it will be another month before we get out of lockdown 

Pretty much, no way they should have been opened until the lockdown was released, they should have been the last thing.  In regards to schools I understand people need educating, but schools were the first thing they released which made little sense from a risk perspective.  We was lucky it was the summer holidays.

[Chrysalis]

6 minutes ago, stix said:

I find it difficult to believe that London and the Greater London area aren’t having the same sort of rising levels as the areas in the north are having. There’s a large number of high rise built up areas all around Greater London. As the government have repeatedly said, this virus doesn’t pick and choose who it infects. 

Yeah that is just looking well .... odd.

[Paninistickers]

12 minutes ago, stix said:

I find it difficult to believe that London and the Greater London area aren’t having the same sort of rising levels as the areas in the north are having. There’s a large number of high rise built up areas all around Greater London. As the government have repeatedly said, this virus doesn’t pick and choose who it infects. 

London will be riddled with it. 

 

Multi generational Asian households -;tick

 

High density, low income housing- tick

 

Young population - tick

 

People travelling in from all.over world - tick 

 

Low car usage, high use of Public Transport - tick

 

Oh, and sweatshop style black economy of workers eg Chinatown

Edited 7 August 2020 by Paninistickers

[Md9]

16 minutes ago, Chrysalis said:

Pretty much, no way they should have been opened until the lockdown was released, they should have been the last thing.  In regards to schools I understand people need educating, but schools were the first thing they released which made little sense from a risk perspective.  We was lucky it was the summer holidays.

I am still not keen on sending mine back to school but will have little choice one they open and start fining people for it sending them in. I get a lot of kids may be struggling which is sad but I am sure if they needed to they could keep the schools shut a while longer instead of pushing for them to be open if not safe to do so 

[WigstonWanderer]

3 hours ago, Chrysalis said:

Genuine fears, I heard of no evidence potential covid cases are isolated in hospitals, if you go in for non covid reasons, are you sharing a waiting room? if you have a chest xray did a covid patient use the same xray machine before you?

 

Yet I have read numerous stories of people going to hospital, testing negative, but then catching it before leaving, or catching it and then dying from it.

You’d think they’d have Covid and non Covid zones with strict protocols keeping them apart. I too have heard of a friend of a friend dying in exactly the same circumstance. Went in for something else, caught Covid and died.

Edited 7 August 2020 by WigstonWanderer

[st albans fox]

45 minutes ago, Paninistickers said:

London will be riddled with it. 

 

Multi generational Asian households -;tick

 

High density, low income housing- tick

 

Young population - tick

 

People travelling in from all.over world - tick 

 

Low car usage, high use of Public Transport - tick

 

Oh, and sweatshop style black economy of workers eg Chinatown

Well there aren’t many people coming in from all over the world at the moment and places like Chinatown are pretty empty ....

public transport (mainly the tube) Isn’t being widely used ......

 

I think there is no doubt that once the virus gains some traction in the capital it will spread quickly .....for the time being it doesn’t have a hold but I guess that will change ......

Edited 7 August 2020 by st albans fox

[stix]

1 minute ago, st albans fox said:

Well there aren’t many people coming in from all over the world at the moment and places like Chinatown are pretty empty ....

public transport Isn’t being widely used 

 

I think there is no doubt that once the virus gains some traction in the capital it will spread quickly .....for the time being it doesn’t have a hold but I guess that will change ......

Yet the other 4 suggestions you haven’t highlighted are 99% of the reason why areas in the north of England and the city zone of Leicester are still under local lockdown. 
 

You can’t deny that it’s a bit strange

[st albans fox]

6 minutes ago, stix said:

Yet the other 4 suggestions you haven’t highlighted are 99% of the reason why areas in the north of England and the city zone of Leicester are still under local lockdown. 
 

You can’t deny that it’s a bit strange

For whatever reason, (perhaps a higher percentage of the population then n England previously infected) there wasn’t much virus  circulating down here but I suspect that’s now changing and we will see the consequences ........

[Paninistickers]

19 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

Well there aren’t many people coming in from all over the world at the moment and places like Chinatown are pretty empty ....

public transport (mainly the tube) Isn’t being widely used ......

 

I think there is no doubt that once the virus gains some traction in the capital it will spread quickly .....for the time being it doesn’t have a hold but I guess that will change ......

11 flights landed at Heathrow in the last half hour. 

 

I'd suggest that the largest proportion of those passengers head for London upon landing

[WigstonWanderer]

2 hours ago, stix said:

I find it difficult to believe that London and the Greater London area aren’t having the same sort of rising levels as the areas in the north are having. There’s a large number of high rise built up areas all around Greater London. As the government have repeatedly said, this virus doesn’t pick and choose who it infects. 

This seems to be the case elsewhere in the world as well AFAICT. Locations that have been hit hardest, and achieved maybe 20% or so of the population infected seem to be less susceptible to a second wave. This is only anecdotal on my part, I haven’t read studies to this effect, just an impression I get. Even the second wave in Spain is in different locations to the first wave I believe? Please correct me if I’m wrong.

 

I keep hoping that this is evidence of the lowering of the threshold for herd immunity predicted by a research paper posted here some time back which I’ve mentioned several times. The basic idea was that the most active potential spreaders of virus are also those most likely to catch it, so they catch it early on and do their worst. Once they have done so and are (presumably) immune, only less active spreaders are left, so lowering the effective immunity threshold.
 

If this is really a significant effect, second waves in places like London may be less severe than feared. There are of course alternative explanations. Perhaps people in places that have been hit hardest are naturally more cautious. At least for now I think it’s better to act with caution and not make any assumptions.

Edited 7 August 2020 by WigstonWanderer

[st albans fox]

1 hour ago, Paninistickers said:

11 flights landed at Heathrow in the last half hour. 

 

I'd suggest that the largest proportion of those passengers head for London upon landing

I work in central London - there are almost no tourists and I doubt many are coming into the country to do business ........

 

pretty well all the flights arriving this evening are from european origins.  Some of those countries are going to mean quarantine and those from low risk places will not.  Most of those on flights into Heathrow will be holidaymakers returning - those headed into London will be on transport networks which are v quiet 

[brucey]

1 hour ago, WigstonWanderer said:

You’d think they’d have Covid and non Covid zones with strict protocols keeping them apart. I too have heard of a friend of a friend dying in exactly the same circumstance. Went in for something else, caught Covid and died.

At the height of the pandemic in March and April, there were indeed these strict protocols in place (physical barriers, showering, PPE etc). But when you have asymptomatic spreaders, there is no such thing as a non-Covid zone. Just Covid-confirmed, Covid-suspected, and Covid-not-suspected zones. 
 

There were two problems with this:

 

1. The asymptomatic spreaders will be in the Covid-not-suspected zones, because they have no symptoms.

 

2. The symptoms of Covid are so wide-ranging, so someone with a fever of 37.6 C from any cause e.g. appendicitis gets put into the Covid-suspected zone. Due to the wide criteria, half of all admissions become Covid-suspected. You can’t give everyone their own private room as there aren’t enough to go round, so a bunch of people get put together in a ward bay while awaiting their swab result. So the positive suspected patient may infect the negative suspected patient in the mean time. This issue was made worse by the fact that the result used to take 2 days to come back. 

 

Edited 7 August 2020 by brucey

[WigstonWanderer]

29 minutes ago, brucey said:

At the height of the pandemic in March and April, there were indeed these strict protocols in place (physical barriers, showering, PPE etc). But when you have asymptomatic spreaders, there is no such thing as a non-Covid zone. Just Covid-confirmed, Covid-suspected, and Covid-not-suspected zones. 
 

There were two problems with this:

 

1. The asymptomatic spreaders will be in the Covid-not-suspected zones, because they have no symptoms.

 

2. The symptoms of Covid are so wide-ranging, so someone with a fever of 37.6 C from any cause e.g. appendicitis gets put into the Covid-suspected zone. Due to the wide criteria, half of all admissions become Covid-suspected. You can’t give everyone their own private room as there aren’t enough to go round, so a bunch of people get put together in a ward bay while awaiting their swab result. So the positive suspected patient may infect the negative suspected patient in the mean time. This issue was made worse by the fact that the result used to take 2 days to come back. 

 

Good points. Everything seems obvious to people like myself who are outside the system and our simplistic solutions are not practical.

 

Just goes to show though that people are acting completely rationally by not wanting to go to hospital at the height of an epidemic unless there is absolutely no alternative.

[Tuna]

[Lionator]

3 hours ago, stix said:

I find it difficult to believe that London and the Greater London area aren’t having the same sort of rising levels as the areas in the north are having. There’s a large number of high rise built up areas all around Greater London. As the government have repeatedly said, this virus doesn’t pick and choose who it infects. 

I don't think it's as simple as that. Chains of infection are more rife in the north, perhaps london testing and tracing teams are doing better at finding people. Perhaps people in London keep themselves to themselves a bit more so that cross house transmission is simply not occurring. It will go up again in London though at some point. It also helps that 20% of London have had it which means there's some herd immunity.

 

The ONS and Zoe stats have actually been really promising this week. The modelled case numbers have slightly receded so it doesn't seem like we're into a second spike, rather the fluctuation that we're going to get over the next few months sadly.

[Crinklyfox]

12 hours ago, Chrysalis said:

Genuine fears, I heard of no evidence potential covid cases are isolated in hospitals, if you go in for non covid reasons, are you sharing a waiting room? if you have a chest xray did a covid patient use the same xray machine before you?

 

Yet I have read numerous stories of people going to hospital, testing negative, but then catching it before leaving, or catching it and then dying from it.

I've been to hospital three times since March, once for a routine test and twice to A&E for a more critical condition.

 

On the first occasion in June there was no pre-screening, I went straight into a waiting room with others and awaited my turn for the test.  Everyone except one patient was wearing masks.  On the second occasion in July I was triaged before being released to waiting, this involved Covid-related questions. Everyone was wearing masks.  I was also subjected to a blood test but no Covid-specific test.  There were different areas in the hospital for Covid and non-Covid admissions but I didn't see any separation within A&E.  Ditto for the third occasion except for the blood test.

 

Thankfully I didn't contract Covid-19 on any of the visits.

[zorro en españa]

11 hours ago, WigstonWanderer said:

This seems to be the case elsewhere in the world as well AFAICT. Locations that have been hit hardest, and achieved maybe 20% or so of the population infected seem to be less susceptible to a second wave. This is only anecdotal on my part, I haven’t read studies to this effect, just an impression I get.  Even the second wave in Spain is in different locations to the first wave I believe? Please correct me if I’m wrong.

 

I keep hoping that this is evidence of the lowering of the threshold for herd immunity predicted by a research paper posted here some time back which I’ve mentioned several times. The basic idea was that the most active potential spreaders of virus are also those most likely to catch it, so they catch it early on and do their worst. Once they have done so and are (presumably) immune, only less active spreaders are left, so lowering the effective immunity threshold.
 

If this is really a significant effect, second waves in places like London may be less severe than feared. There are of course alternative explanations. Perhaps people in places that have been hit hardest are naturally more cautious. At least for now I think it’s better to act with caution and not make any assumptions.

You’re not wrong.  Barcelona and Madrid still do have a high number of cases.  Other cities that suffered initially seem to have it under control.

 

Knowledge and changing behaviours obviously have a big impact but it is interesting to see what has happened since lockdown lifted.  The north east is the current hot bed.  If I dare to compare Barcelona to Newcastle 🤫 and try to compare what it would look like in the UK ...... it has now spread to all of Northumberland, North & West Yorkshire and moving into Cumbria.  Aragon, the region bordering Catalyuna to the west is suffering.

 

Places that had virtually no cases initially have now seen a spread.  Many of these are tourist attractions with several Mediterranean towns reporting spikes.  It is well known that the Madristas take their holidays in these places and there seemed a certain inevitability it would happen.

 

Interestingly enough the average age of people testing positive has just gone below 40.  That probably reflects the high rise in cases but the relatively stable, and low, number of deaths.

[Paninistickers]

33 minutes ago, zorro en españa said:

You’re not wrong.  Barcelona and Madrid still do have a high number of cases.  Other cities that suffered initially seem to have it under control.

 

Knowledge and changing behaviours obviously have a big impact but it is interesting to see what has happened since lockdown lifted.  The north east is the current hot bed.  If I dare to compare Barcelona to Newcastle 🤫 and try to compare what it would look like in the UK ...... it has now spread to all of Northumberland, North & West Yorkshire and moving into Cumbria.  Aragon, the region bordering Catalyuna to the west is suffering.

 

Places that had virtually no cases initially have now seen a spread.  Many of these are tourist attractions with several Mediterranean towns reporting spikes.  It is well known that the Madristas take their holidays in these places and there seemed a certain inevitability it would happen.

 

Interestingly enough the average age of people testing positive has just gone below 40.  That probably reflects the high rise in cases but the relatively stable, and low, number of deaths.

Well based on comments on herd Immunity via the post you'd replied to.....and your own comments regarding low deaths in proportion to lowering ages of infection....it does beg the question why under 40s were ever locked down in the first place. 

 

A golden chance to build herd Immunity via the young, during the summer (when contagiousness is less aggressive) has been blown thanks to collective world government panic and hysteria

[Lionator]

57 minutes ago, Paninistickers said:

Well based on comments on herd Immunity via the post you'd replied to.....and your own comments regarding low deaths in proportion to lowering ages of infection....it does beg the question why under 40s were ever locked down in the first place. 

 

A golden chance to build herd Immunity via the young, during the summer (when contagiousness is less aggressive) has been blown thanks to collective world government panic and hysteria

I'm 25 and don't volunteer to be infected with coronavirus to support a depraved push towards herd immunity. 

[SpacedX]

2 minutes ago, Lionator said:

I'm 25 and don't volunteer to be infected with coronavirus to support a depraved push towards herd immunity. 

'Pride' immunity then? 

[Paninistickers]

28 minutes ago, Lionator said:

I'm 25 and don't volunteer to be infected with coronavirus to support a depraved push towards herd immunity. 

Then you could've / would've stayed at home and sealed yourself off. That's fair enough.

[st albans fox]

2 hours ago, Paninistickers said:

Well based on comments on herd Immunity via the post you'd replied to.....and your own comments regarding low deaths in proportion to lowering ages of infection....it does beg the question why under 40s were ever locked down in the first place. 

 

A golden chance to build herd Immunity via the young, during the summer (when contagiousness is less aggressive) has been blown thanks to collective world government panic and hysteria

Yes - let’s infect the younger generations with a disease that we have no idea what it’s long term effects will be on them ??