SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

[JPRouve]

How often are you actively being stopped?

I'm not marauding the streets, so I have no idea.

 

[LilyWhiteSpur]

UK cases at 2626, up from 1950 yesterday

Remember these are only the ones that make it to hospital for testing.

 

[The Cat]

Will no one think of the sheep? Is there a social distancing plan for that?

Oooof.

 

[Nogbadthebad]

I completely disagree. As not really a BoJo fan he has come across very well so far in his statements and is following the best scientific advice he's being given.

That is not true though is it.

Don't take my word for it. This is the editor of The Lancet

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[Fiskey]

I completely disagree. As not really a BoJo fan he has come across very well so far in his statements and is following the best scientific advice he's being given.

The polling (of a few days ago) would seem to suggest the majority think the government is doing a good job :http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/10133

 

[Fiskey]

That is not true though is it.

Don't take my word for it. This is the editor of The Lancet

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Why is the editor of the Lancet in possession of the gospel truth? Have a read of the study the government are going off:

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/im...-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf

 

[Rado_N]

The Uk's response has been appalling.

I think I read earlier than in Ireland we've done 5 or 6 x times the testing per capita as the UK.

How is that even possible?

Honestly I'm amazed, your government continues to do such an awful job with everything that it always seems to make our government look really competent in comparison.

Yet people on here keep defending their approach. It’s laughable. Or it would be if it wasn’t so galling.

 

[Nogbadthebad]

Why is the editor of the Lancet in possession of the gospel truth? Have a read of the study the government are going off:

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/im...-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf

Because he published a projection of deaths weeks ago following the model johnson chose. It says so right there in the tweet.

 

[fergieisold]

Yet people on here keep defending their approach. It’s laughable. Or it would be if it wasn’t so galling.

What is the point in testing everybody with a mild form of the disease. We have bigger things to worry about than having someone with a mild cough testing positive. Treat the people and test the people who have a more serious form of the disease.

 

[Di Maria's angel]

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[BluesJr]

Yet people on here keep defending their approach. It’s laughable. Or it would be if it wasn’t so galling.

They’ll close schools tonight after saying only last Thursday this was a measure that had to be taken at the ‘right’ time. That’s a period of 6 days. There is no plan. Making it up as they go along. Vallance is clueless and Boris is an absolute clown.

 

[Nogbadthebad]

What is the point in testing everybody with a mild form of the disease. We have bigger things to worry about than having someone with a mild cough testing positive. Treat the people and test the people who have a more serious form of the disease.

How do you know you can go back to work if you are not tested?

Say you have a cough, you isolate, think you've had it then go back to work.

Next thing you know, you actually have it, because last time was the flu, and you just infected your nan.

Besides, we are not, currently, even testing the doctors and nurses treating patients with this disease.

 

[DVG7]

Wasn’t Boris just a week ago saying the people of the UK should “take it on the chin”?

You can’t genuinely change attitudes that quickly. It’s deeply concerning the government approach and it’s being ridiculed across the world.

 

[Fiskey]

What is the point in testing everybody with a mild form of the disease. We have bigger things to worry about than having someone with a mild cough testing positive. Treat the people and test the people who have a more serious form of the disease.

And the frontline NHS workers so that they can work. These guys probably need to be tested on an ongoing basis.

 

[TMDaines]

The Uk's response has been appalling.

I think I read earlier than in Ireland we've done 5 or 6 x times the testing per capita as the UK.

How is that even possible?

Honestly I'm amazed, your government continues to do such an awful job with everything that it always seems to make our government look really competent in comparison.

Ireland: population 4.9m, tests 6636, one test per 738.4 people.

UK: population 67.8m, tests 56221, one test per 1206.0 people

Be interested to know the country by country breakdown in the UK, as the various NHS countries have different degrees of autonomy.

 

[Buster15]

Anyone watch PMQ’s? What was your verdict if so?

I thought that Jeremy Corbyn did an excellent job in pushing Boris to commit to vastly improved SSP. We will see what the government response is.

 

[Fiskey]

Wasn’t Boris just a week ago saying the people of the UK should “take it on the chin”?

You can’t genuinely change attitudes that quickly. It’s deeply concerning the government approach and it’s being ridiculed across the world.

He didn't say that:

https://fullfact.org/health/boris-johnson-coronavirus-this-morning/

 

[BluesJr]

What is the point in testing everybody with a mild form of the disease. We have bigger things to worry about than having someone with a mild cough testing positive. Treat the people and test the people who have a more serious form of the disease.

Because you can’t fight this blindfolded. You need to know who’s infected/who’s been infected.

 

[Di Maria's angel]

They’ll close schools tonight after saying only last Thursday this was a measure that had to be taken at the ‘right’ time. That’s a period of 6 days. There is no plan. Making it up as they go along. Vallance is clueless and Boris is an absolute clown.

Pretty much.

 

[17 Van der Gouw]

The UK government really hasn't done as badly as the hyperbole in here would suggest. Regardless of politics, the plan is obviously being driven by dynamic, changing statistics on the advics of science advisors or they wouldn't have u-turned so hard.

I do wish the lockdowns and closures were enforced and not advisory though. I think it's madness to rely on the general public to do the right thing.

 

[Grinner]

Because you can’t fight this blindfolded. You need to know who’s infected/who’s been infected.

Why do we need to know who has been infected? That seems like a waste of time and resources.

 

[sun_tzu]

Why do we need to know who has been infected? That seems like a waste of time and resources.

because those that are infected carry an immunity and cant be infected again and cant infect other people

Seems pretty important to me - for example people taking food etc to those in quarantine it would be good to know somebody is not a risk?

Equally once we know who has been infected you can also test to find the antibodies their immune system has produced and see if this can be a short cut to a cure / vaccine

 

[TMDaines]

https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/...eak-insights-leading-expert-prof-yik-ying-teo

I've just watched this over lunch. It's a great lecture on a system level response to COVID-19 in Singapore by Prof Yik-Ying Teo, who is the second Dean of the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health at the National University of Singapore, which took place at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine last week.

It's pretty clear that they have another level of preparedness for this sort of thing, but they are a very different country geographically and in terms of size.

 

[Fiskey]

The UK government really hasn't done as badly as the hyperbole in here would suggest. Regardless of politics, the plan is obviously being driven by dynamic, changing statistics on the advics of science advisors or they wouldn't have u-turned so hard.

I do wish the lockdowns and closures were enforced and not advisory though. I think it's madness to rely on the general public to do the right thing.

I think this is part of the behavioural play which, rightly or wrongly, seems to be forming a big part of the response. I imagine the belief is that the majority will abide while a minority will resist. They will then have the support from the majority when the more draconian measures come into play, as the majority will have seen that the measures necessary to enforce the curfew.

 

[LilyWhiteSpur]

Why do we need to know who has been infected? That seems like a waste of time and resources.

It would be beneficial if we new what the rate of reinfection was, I mean if the chances of getting it again in the same season was small these people would not need to lock down.

 

[Fiskey]

because those that are infected carry an immunity and cant be infected again and cant infect other people

Seems pretty important to me - for example people taking food etc to those in quarantine it would be good to know somebody is not a risk?

Equally once we know who has been infected you can also test to find the antibodies their immune system has produced and see if this can be a short cut to a cure / vaccine

We just don't have the testing capacity at the moment for that to be a priority. 1 test does not equal one person forever, NHS workers may have 10 tests each over the course of the next few months.

What they are trying to develop is a test to show whether somebody has had it, and once that comes that will be as widely distributed as possible.

 

[Classical Mechanic]

The Uk's response has been appalling.

I think I read earlier than in Ireland we've done 5 or 6 x times the testing per capita as the UK.

How is that even possible?

Honestly I'm amazed, your government continues to do such an awful job with everything that it always seems to make our government look really competent in comparison.

Yet people on here keep defending their approach. It’s laughable. Or it would be if it wasn’t so galling.

Those stats were in the past week only. The UK is one of the top of testers per capita in Europe. Ireland was behind the UK and may not even be in front of the UK yet. I believe Ireland have also been doing these quick tests recently that some experts think are too unreliable anyway.

Here’s some data, note that whilst it has Ireland doing about half the tests per capita as the UK their data hasn’t been updated for a week.

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus

 

[11101]

From the governor of Venice:

Our mathematical models for predicting the trend of the epidemic are precise, they are not wrong, we know what the evolution will be from here to 15 days and beyond, and they predict a peak on April 15th, after which the positive numbers are expected to drop until early May. But in April we will have a critical rate of occupation of intensive care units.

There is also talk of an absolute ban on going outside akin to Wuhan as not enough people are respecting the current self quarantine measures.

 

[Dante]

https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/...eak-insights-leading-expert-prof-yik-ying-teo

I've just watched this over lunch. It's a great lecture on a system level response to COVID-19 in Singapore by Prof Yik-Ying Teo, who is the second Dean of the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health at the National University of Singapore, which took place at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine last week.

It's pretty clear that they have another level of preparedness for this sort of thing, but they are a very different country geographically and in terms of size.

They deserve to be applauded for how well they've done so far.

But you're right that we can't extrapolate too much from them. Singapore is a tiny island nation of 5.6 million people, with a land area that's only 57% the size of Greater Manchester.

 

[LilyWhiteSpur]

because those that are infected carry an immunity and cant be infected again and cant infect other people

Seems pretty important to me - for example people taking food etc to those in quarantine it would be good to know somebody is not a risk?

Equally once we know who has been infected you can also test to find the antibodies their immune system has produced and see if this can be a short cut to a cure / vaccine

Has this been actually proven though, I am on the same page as you but I don't think they know that this virus is like chicken pox and mumps. I know I have read that people who have apparently recovered have relapsed.

 

[Penna]

We have only five legal reasons to leave the house: Go to work, go to groceries stores, for medical reasons, for family emergencies and to walk dogs or individual physical activities.

When we go out we need to fill an attestation with the reason for breaking the lockdown, our name, birthdate and address. There is an other form that is given by your employer attesting that you work for him.

It's exactly the same here. The form we have to complete is long and official (Italy at its finest), and you have to sign to say you're aware of the law and the penalties for breaking it. I need petrol, I can't get that in our village so I'm going to have to venture further very soon.

 

[redshaw]

The Uk's response has been appalling.

I think I read earlier than in Ireland we've done 5 or 6 x times the testing per capita as the UK.

How is that even possible?

Honestly I'm amazed, your government continues to do such an awful job with everything that it always seems to make our government look really competent in comparison.

Probably logistically easier for a country of 4-5 million.

UK has done about 56k and goes up about 4-5k a day with a few hundred new cases in that 4-5k.

Spain was at 30k tested and found 8000 cases with 300 deaths recently and France was at 6.6k on 5th of March and estimated to be at 20-30k.

UK is testing above average and doesn't have the scale of outbreak yet and will be ramping up the testing soon to 20k a day. I've only read Germany and South Korea having lots of testing. Germany 135k in last two weeks and South Korea who've had localized outbreaks and put all efforts on one area.

 

[Fiskey]

Has this been actually proven though, I am on the same page as you but I don't think they know that this virus is like chicken pox and mumps. I know I have read that people who have apparently recovered have relapsed.

This is apparently very rare (perhaps in people who were already immuno-suppressed, but still managed to recover), all the evidence suggests you get at least seasonal immunity.

 

[Grinner]

So my mother sneaked out and went swimming. She said that her dentist told her it would be ok because the chlorine would kill the virus. We're arguing about this and she won't listen to me. Says I'm being dramatic.

 

[DVG7]

He didn't say that:

https://fullfact.org/health/boris-johnson-coronavirus-this-morning/

Boris Johnson: Well it’s a very, very important question, and that’s where a lot of the debate has been and one of the theories is, that perhaps you could take it on the chin, take it all in one go and allow the disease, as it were, to move through the population, without taking as many draconian measures. I think we need to strike a balance

So, just take it on the chin a little bit?

 

[Fiskey]

Boris Johnson: Well it’s a very, very important question, and that’s where a lot of the debate has been and one of the theories is, that perhaps you could take it on the chin, take it all in one go and allow the disease, as it were, to move through the population, without taking as many draconian measures. I think we need to strike a balance

So, just take it on the chin a little bit?

Just read the whole thing rather than quoting a little bit of it.

 

[Classical Mechanic]

They deserve to be applauded for how well they've done so far.

But you're right that we can't extrapolate too much from them. Singapore is a tiny island nation of 5.6 million people, with a land area that's only 57% the size of Greater Manchester.

It’s also looking possible that they have the perfect climate to contain the virus.

 

[horsechoker]

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/17/...pany-threatens-sue-3d-print-valves-treatments

Medical company threatens to sue volunteers that 3D-printed valves for life-saving coronavirus treatments
The valve typically costs about $11,000 — the volunteers made them for about $1

 

[sun_tzu]

Has this been actually proven though, I am on the same page as you but I don't think they know that this virus is like chicken pox and mumps. I know I have read that people who have apparently recovered have relapsed.

my understanding (and it is of course a fluid picture) was that there was an immunity developed by those that had caught it
the relapses are to the best of my knowledge thought to be because:
Either the immunity you develop is very short term (not apparently the most likely as in all other covid infections humans develop a life long immunity to it)
Or the test for the initial infection was a false positive (or the all clear was a false negative)
From what I hear there is a handful of cases of relapse and as such the false positive / negative would seem the most likely though if course as I say its a fluid situation and nobody knows much for sure

 

[Fiskey]

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/17/...pany-threatens-sue-3d-print-valves-treatments

Medical company threatens to sue volunteers that 3D-printed valves for life-saving coronavirus treatments
The valve typically costs about $11,000 — the volunteers made them for about $1

The company should be fined for idiocy.