Why now? I still don't understand the logic behind waiting. Why the feck did we not act 10 days ago?
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
It’s summer in half the world right now
The spread of cases in Australia, Brazil and parts of Asia at this time of year suggest warm weather doesn't prevent infection. Maybe it could slow it down a little? No one knows.
Yeah but to be fair I haven’t checked how it’s spreading in that hemisphere. Worldometers is barely accessible now. Majority of cases are on this side of Earth.
Well this is the prevailing theory around the world. You aren’t trying really trying to “nip it in the bud” any longer, as the virus has already essentially become systemic and there’s little solution unless a wonder vaccine is discovered. All the planning is about how to manage the curve and try to limit the potential spike in cases, whilst allowing society and the economy to function in the background. It’s going to be a marathon and not a sprint to limit the damage of this, which is why I am a bit bemused by calls just to quarantine for a month and then play club football in the summer. This is going to define 2020 like nothing else in recent times.
I'm not sure what you mean?
Pretty much only possible in a totalitarian country.
Tweet
— Twitter API (@user) date
So am I. I think we will be lucky to start next season as things are going. Whilst there are some who expect this to peak in the next couple of weeks. Anyone, I've listened to, all in agreement that this is just the beginning, unfortunately.
Absolutely, which is why early calls to shut down the world, or parts of it, are misguided. For vast swaths of society, the economic effects for individuals will be far more burdensome than health ones.
That Tweet does not summarise that article, by the way. That political slant isn’t present.
What can you do to stop a pandemic such as the one we're facing?
Are you not worried that seemingly healthy young doctors died in China? Why do you think that is? Exhaustion? But I wish you all the best and hope you stay healthy and help save a lot of lives.
Maybe not in the article, but my Italian colleague who lives in London and is unable to visit and check on her elderly and sick Mother in Milan was talking about this today. She was not massively positive about Europe, and she's perhaps the most liberal person I work with...
NBA likely coming to a halt as well. Either this or playing in front of close arenas which they will not like. Can’t have playoffs without fans for sure, too much revenue losses. It’s going to be easier to implement solutions in American sports than European football as there’s no pressure to finish by certain time because of next season (they can always shorten or delay following season).
7 of the top 8 read stories on the BBC website right now are related to Corona Virus. And the 8th is about the budget, which is tangentially related.
The surgical masks do little in a compromised environment.
FFP3 masks do help massively when worn correctly, but they are essentially one-time use and intended to be disposable. You can’t be taking it on and off in an infected environment, as you’ll let the virus in at some point. The problem is they are difficult to wear for a long time, so you will end up wanting a break from wearing it, and then you break the barrier and may well need a fresh mask. They are more useful for when dealing with a patient or family member who needs some care for a period of time; rather than all-day use.
Well it appears you can't stop it really but in terms of mitigating its effects, all the stuff we've already been speaking about in this thread.
My point was more about how you implement those measures. The various governments and health organisations are using data modelling to assess when to implement various measures because different timings and combinations will produce different results and secondary effects. That's what I meant when I said the response shouldn't be medieval. Whether you agree with how X government is doing it or not, the approach should be to follow the science in terms of what and when you implement the various measures. As opposed to just jumping in with the heaviest measures first because that intuitively seems like the best approach.
I actually rang my out of hours GP because I was experiencing quite significant breathing difficulties and wheezing. I've suspected that I've had an allergic reaction to Alverine that I just started taking. The doctor who called me said that she was concerned that I was exhibiting some of the coronavirus symptoms but she couldn't do anything in regards to testing me unless I've directly come in contact with someone who has tested positive or I've traveled to one of the affected countries. I'm mean who are we supposed to contain this if the doctors hands are tied, whilst in South Korea they have bloody drive through testing available. There's obviously going to be community spreading at some point.
Because no MPs were infected.
I know that isn't the reason why they're suddenly going back on the crap they said just a couple of days ago, but I'm also saying that this is exactly the reason.
so is this where we’ll start to see school closures, travel bans, cancellations of public gatherings and football behind closed doors?
Nope. SARS was active (probably a bit less active) in the summer, and MERS 2018 outbreak started in Saudi Arabia during August.
Those two are the closest viruses to this (especially SARS).
Fair enough.
But there have been plenty of scientists and medical personel who've stated that those very measures should have come into play earlier.
Just look at whats happening in Italy.
Dont think you understood what he meant
March Madness closed to the public.
I imagine NBA will follow suit at the very least.
I imagine NBA will follow suit at the very least.
Indeed there have. I suspect different experts will have different opinions and indeed different data models. Hopefully our countries opt for the right ones. Though even if they do, they could still implement the right strategy badly anyway.
Plus a lot will depend on the context of what's happening in individual countries. For example in Ireland there currently seems to be a low amount of community transmissions, with the vast majority of the current cases still traceable. If a different country had the same level of infection but with a higher level of untraceable community transmissions then that would (I guess) change the strategy, even though from the outside it might look like the same situation.
As a university student I'm considering going home for the summer now. If things got bad to the extent I couldn't leave my city I wouldn't have anywhere near enough food to keep me going. Really worried about getting the illness and having the worry of infecting the small town I'm from too so would rather leave sooner rather than later. How likely is it that the government are going to close universities/schools tomorrow ?
Maybe, maybe not, but the point stands you can’t just employ the most draconian methods immediately as they come with severe costs and knock on effects. COVID-19 is still just a tiny minority of what is being treated and managed in the UK health and social care economy, without even broaching the subject of wider determinants of health and the manifestations that occur from the loss of work/income etc.
You also didn't want footy matches called off which is starting sensibly in slowing this down, so what excatly do you want
If tou have 100 people in hospital with this, thats 100 less beds for other patients with "normal" illnesses.
Im in northern ireland and we have something like 10 cases and gp offices are closing already.
The nhs can't cope with this
So what's the end game with Corona virus? Before a vaccine that is. Obviously right now we're trying to 'stop more people getting it and passing it on' but what about when a few billion have pretty much already been exposed? Do we just start going back to work on the tubes, schools, football games, pubs, festivals, etc? The ones that don't get really ill will need to carry on living right? When does that happen? August? December?
That’s not what I said at all. Stopping attendance at UK football games in isolation whilst the world goes on around it will do feck all, especially with the limited number of cases currently.
I predicted a couple of weeks ago that I thought football would be suspended by the international break when the numbers of cases started to rose, and that was when the tone of this thread was completely different. It now looks like it might come slightly sooner than that.
A friend's daughters from Santa Monica, CA, just got the word from their middle school that the school is closing down till after spring break. They're going to do online teaching for the next couple of weeks.
Don't have a good answer for ya right now but I just had a conference I was gonna attend postponed by over a year to May of 2021....so..it could be a while?
Nobody can answer this. This is unprecedented (at least in the modern world).
Its kinda funny how we have more measures in place to stop people buying toilet roll than preventing transmission.
My gp is closed too it seems. I can't book an appointment through patient access.
That probably says more about your family, work environment and social circles, than you might want to admit.
There’s been massive behavioural change in encouraging frequent hand washing and further decontamination. That’s the biggest thing you can do to stop transmission.
I know this is impossible, but lets say we effectively quarantined the world to our homes for lets say, 6 weeks, and in the mean time, made enough testing kits, then gradually tested everybody before they were allowed back into the world, would that completely kill the virus off, barring somebody eating an infected bat again
Just seen on Twitter all schools in ni will close for 2 weeks from monday. Might not be real but a journo retweeted it