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

Hugh Jass

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Stop eating Bats?
The problem is that if the bat eats a bit of fruit and then drops it, then some other animal eats it and it gets in the system.

The film Contaigon basically demonstrated this. A bat dropped a piece of fruit it was eating into a pig farm which was then eaten by someone and so the disease took off.

Granted though, they should close them wet markets (they wont) to lower the probability of something happening. But like i say there are other ways of the virus entering the system.

In fairness loads of people said a pandemic was just a question of when.
 

11101

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I don't think consumption is the main mode of transmission either for animals or humans (could be wrong).
My reply was tongue in cheek, but you are right. Transmission comes from prolonged close contact.

Not sure if you've ever been to a Chinese food market but they're fecking disgusting. Live animals, dead animals, dying animals and people all layered on top of each other with zero consideration for hygiene. It's no surprise so many diseases originate there and there's not a chance anything even remotely similar would be allowed to exist in the UK. We should not be making excuses for them.
 

Sarni

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The irony, considering Africa has got off relatively lightly thus far while America's response has potentially been the worst of any country up til now.
Not sure how well Africa is doing to be honest and where they are with testing. I'm not that concerned about catching it myself, I think there's a very good chance I'll have it within the next year from what I've seen, I'm concerned about not getting medical help (hopefully I won't need it) or passing it to relatives (so I'd keep myself away from them after return anyway). Besides, I just want to go to US way more than I want to go to Zanzibar anyway.
 

Sarni

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The problem is that if the bat eats a bit of fruit and then drops it, then some other animal eats it and it gets in the system.

The film Contaigon basically demonstrated this. A bat dropped a piece of fruit it was eating into a pig farm which was then eaten by someone and so the disease took off.

Granted though, they should close them wet markets (they wont) to lower the probability of something happening. But like i say there are other ways of the virus entering the system.

In fairness loads of people said a pandemic was just a question of when.
We almost never eat any animals without preparation though and I'd assume most viruses would die in very high temperatures anyway? Or is that not the case?
 

Josep Dowling

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The problem is that if the bat eats a bit of fruit and then drops it, then some other animal eats it and it gets in the system.

The film Contaigon basically demonstrated this. A bat dropped a piece of fruit it was eating into a pig farm which was then eaten by someone and so the disease took off.

Granted though, they should close them wet markets (they wont) to lower the probability of something happening. But like i say there are other ways of the virus entering the system.

In fairness loads of people said a pandemic was just a question of when.
Well if it’s proven the disease has come from China and from a wet market I expect a lot of pressure from the Western world on China to do something about it. The problem is they are blaming America for it already. The political side of this is as much concerning as the actual outbreak.
 

432JuanMata

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Stop eating the things that eat the bats?
Correct. This passed from a bat to a secondary animal then passed onto humans. They are 100% sure it wasn’t consumption it was live animals that had diseases passing it along
 

JPRouve

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We almost never eat any animals without preparation though and I'd assume most viruses would die in very high temperatures anyway? Or is that not the case?
I'm not sure about viruses but many bacterias are thermophilic, so you would have to go way beyond 120°c to bother them.
 

blue blue

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The problem is that if the bat eats a bit of fruit and then drops it, then some other animal eats it and it gets in the system.

The film Contaigon basically demonstrated this. A bat dropped a piece of fruit it was eating into a pig farm which was then eaten by someone and so the disease took off.

Granted though, they should close them wet markets (they wont) to lower the probability of something happening. But like i say there are other ways of the virus entering the system.

In fairness loads of people said a pandemic was just a question of when.
Sydney Australia is plagued with fruit Bats. Large parts of Australia has massive colonies of fruit bats. Huge things. They call them Flying Foxes. They crap everywhere yet Australia has not had any instances of these infections.
 

Amar__

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Even 28 days wouldn't work. You have households with 8+ people in it and it could well spread only every 5 days. There is no dream sprint scenario outside of science fiction or a miracle. Even those countries that have done the most stringent lockdowns, reducing the growth in cases, and are going to have to take very precise, carefully planned steps for months, if not a year.

People need to remember we cannot test who has had the virus yet. We can only test who has the virus.
Well it didn't turn out like the in China watching the numbers from past few days. By the looks of it, China and South Korea are doing pretty good after similar lockdown(not even that close as I suggested I think), but I guess we will see it in few weeks. Watching the China's model it doesn't look as that easy to spread as we here seem to think, IMO.
 

JuveGER

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Silly Question time: I normally go around at night taking photos in my hometown. I do it alone and if I don't touch anything there's zero chance I can get this, right?
Yeah, there's zero chance you can get it. It's just too small for standard photography.
 

JPRouve

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Sydney Australia is plagued with fruit Bats. Large parts of Australia has massive colonies of fruit bats. Huge things. They call them Flying Foxes. They crap everywhere yet Australia has not had any instances of these infections.
The population density is totally different, these viruses don't easily go from animals to humans, so you need to have an awful lot of contact. For example several millions of people surrounded by a tropical forest.
 

Wumminator

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The government have claimed that Taiwan managed to stop the spread without shutting schools.
Taiwan shut schools for two weeks immediately.
 

Drawfull

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I'm beginning to think that this guy isn't on the same page as anyone else. He also said earlier that Taiwan didn't close their schools, and they did alright but according to the Guardian, the schools were already closed for lunar new year (which was extended), when additional Taiwanese measures were put in place.
 

Vidyoyo

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So I went back to a review I wrote about Contagion about four years ago and it's amazing how prescient it feels now:

"Perhaps the most interesting, albeit abstract, concept is how we come to picture the spread of the virus. Marked by its representation through the presence of media—TV and Internet—it never emerges physically; instead it’s seen exclusively through impact. Like digital data it’s invisible as we only ever see how it affects people at a surface level - the body. It marks a strange twist where the presence of zombies - or another supernatural element - would make us feel like we have a physical threat to face. Contagion though is more about movement of over large spaces as an instantaneous but invisible linkage hangs over all things, personified by movement across a globalised world. By the end, the virus moves through several major cities with the narrative pushing forward an even stronger fear - that of the unknown."
 

Revan

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If I am being honest, I thought us from the Balkans (Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo) would at least be easy to quarantine due to the majority of the population's experience with wartime quarantine. However, it just has not been working so far and it seems that sterner measures will be needed here.

If we can stay home, what chances are there of people in the West listening to advice en masse? Slim to none, I would say.
People are very undisciplined in those countries. In Kosovo the first case was on Friday, now there are around 20. The government has been putting individual cities in quarantine and seems to be working with almost all new cases coming from outside of Kosovo. Which is not they are doing a total ban of traveling. Probably too late.
 

Jippy

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New government structures to coordinate response to coronavirus
The Prime Minister has set up new ministerial structures to coordinate, prioritise and respond to the coronavirus pandemic across government.

Published 17 March 2020
From:Prime Minister's Office, 10 Downing Street, Cabinet Office, Department of Health and Social Care, Foreign & Commonwealth Office, HM Treasury, Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, and The Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP

Four new implementation committees focusing on health, public sector preparedness, economy and international response, will feed into a new daily C-19 meeting, which will be chaired by the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister will continue to chair regular UK COBR meetings to take strategic decisions and review overall progress in the campaign to contain, delay and mitigate coronavirus. The additional daily C-19 meeting of key ministers and officials will monitor progress and refine the measures agreed by COBR. The chairs of the implementation committees - the Chancellor, the Health Secretary, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and the Foreign Secretary - will attend the daily C-19 meeting.
The Prime Minister has been clear that countering this pandemic will require significant national effort from government, businesses, charities, communities and citizens across the UK. The implementation committees will regularly meet with key representatives from relevant sectors to inform their decision making.
Recognising coronavirus presents unique challenges economically, internationally and across a wide range of sectors, the four implementation committees are:
  • Healthcare: chaired by the Health Secretary to focus on the preparedness of the NHS, notably ensuring capacity in the critical care system for those worst affected, the medical and social package of support for those to whom we will be providing the new shielding regime
  • General Public Sector: chaired by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to look at preparedness across the rest of the public and critical national infrastructure, excluding the NHS
  • Economic and Business: chaired by the Chancellor, with the Business Secretary as deputy chair, to consider economic and business impact and response, including supply chain resilience. It will also coordinate roundtables with key sectors to be chaired by relevant Secretaries of State
  • International: chaired by the Foreign Secretary, to consider our international response to the crisis through the G7, G20 and other mechanisms, including like-minded groups, and the UK five-point plan
Civil servants and the UK’s leading experts will continue to support the government’s efforts and contribute to our approach, which is led by the best scientific advice.
 

Hound Dog

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People are very undisciplined in those countries. In Kosovo the first case was on Friday, now there are around 20. The government has been putting individual cities in quarantine and seems to be working with almost all new cases coming from outside of Kosovo. Which is not they are doing a total ban of traveling. Probably too late.
Yes and this is what surprises me.

Maybe you could fill us in on how people behaved in Kosovo in 99 (those that werent forced to leave), but over here, during the bombing, the streets were deserted.
 

Drawfull

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I'm beginning to think that this guy isn't on the same page as anyone else. He also said earlier that Taiwan didn't close their schools, and they did alright but according to the Guardian, the schools were already closed for lunar new year (which was extended), when additional Taiwanese measures were put in place.
In fact, his numbers are farcical. A week ago, on Sky, he said he expected 40,000,000 people in the UK to catch it. Based on 'only' 20,000 deaths with a 3% CFR, that means only 600,000 or so will catch it. He's deluded, deliberately misinforming (to lessen panic maybe), or both.
 

berbatrick

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Why not invent a time machine to go back and stop the evolution of the bats.
based on this(part B), unless you were extremely precise, you'd also eliminate dogs, cats, anteaters, horses, zebras, rhinos, whales, pigs, deer, camels, cows, and sheep :lol:
 

Classical Mechanic

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I'm beginning to think that this guy isn't on the same page as anyone else. He also said earlier that Taiwan didn't close their schools, and they did alright but according to the Guardian, the schools were already closed for lunar new year (which was extended), when additional Taiwanese measures were put in place.
I'd guess that they meant to say Singapore who didn't close schools but had as much success as slowing spread as those that did.
 

17 Van der Gouw

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It's not the bat's fecking fault, Covid-19 only came into being because the poor little bastards were crammed into cages in the Chinese meat market, then exposed to the faeces and blood of other animals in cages stacked top of them.

This virus is a perfect storm caused by fecked up conditions in the 'wet markets' of China. Don't blame the bats, man!
 

BluesJr

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Vallance is that guy in every disaster movie who makes critical mistakes at the wrong time. Watch this space.