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

Igor Drefljak

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Is there a page for like guidelines or rules to how a shop should operate during covid with regards to PPE etc
Been asked to find one, but not really had much joy so far
 

JB08

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Regarding the talk about care homes - really nasty situations from the sounds of it.

My mother works in a private care home and the treatment of staff (and indeed residents) there has been abhorrent. She was refused PPE when she expressed concerns and was told she is “much safer here than at home” - this is to a woman who lives completely safely on her own at home. I should add the owners/higher ups who say this have not entered the home itself for weeks now.

There are currently 8 staff in the home who have tested positive (thankfully my mother tested negative in her test a couple days ago), and 4/5 residents have tested positive. However, she tells me she is certain the number is higher as they have had at least double the ‘usual’ number of deaths in the last 4 weeks. From the sounds of it they are simply refusing to accept the levels of COVID within the home - disgraceful really, particularly as it costs £1,400/week for the residents to stay.

She tells me the home has been reported twice to some authority - unsurprisingly from the sounds of it. I really feel for the staff, residents and families stuck in this situation :(

EDIT: I also remember her telling me staff were threatened with no sick pay when the virus was in its infancy in this country. Which is obviously not fair - it shows they have absolutely refused to take the situation seriously from the start.
 

Penna

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I have to admit, there is an increasing cause for alarm for me that the media are told to not publish articles because it might impact other peoples' mental health.

That idea does somewhat worry me. A lot of my relatives seem to literally be ignoring anything to do with Corona virus, acting like everything is okay and if someone mentions the government's response it is 'Let's try and be positive.'

I don't think constantly saying 'be positive' is good for mental health. Neither is a news organisation hiding facts that might upset people.
 

fellwin

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Denmark only confirmed 46 new Corona cases the last 24 hours even though we have had 0-5th graders back in school for almost a month now (along with hairdressers and the like) and testing have gone up. Hopefully there will be no spikes due to more openess as long as people continue not hugging and touching and keep a good distance.
 

JPRouve

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If there is a second wave, I don't expect it now but in the Fall, Summer isn't really an epidemics season, if we use the flu as a reference.
 

horsechoker

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Denmark only confirmed 46 new Corona cases the last 24 hours even though we have had 0-5th graders back in school for almost a month now (along with hairdressers and the like) and testing have gone up. Hopefully there will be no spikes due to more openess as long as people continue not hugging and touching and keep a good distance.
I wonder if there's a correlation between not having a high population density and the amount of cases. It's population is smaller than Greater London's.
 

Maticmaker

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Regarding the talk about care homes - really nasty situations from the sounds of it.
I'm afraid its always been like that in many care homes, its hard work for the staff, little pay or other rewards for them, and 'Gods waiting room' for the residents.

Because of the economics of running care homes and the layouts and schedules needed to run such places, any contagious disease spreads quickly. If they know about it in advance management/ staff can take preventative action, but they will never usually carry enough PPE or medicines stocks to resist an onslaught from something like Covid-19.

Care homes are and have been for a long time the most vulnerable places with most residents there because there is no where else for them to go and staffing levels are usually the bare minimum, because for the most part, the pay and conditions of service are poor.

This situation as been highlighted by Covid-19 and you would hope after its over somethings will change... but don't hold your breath. End of life care, be it for those with chronic illness (in hospices/nursing homes) or those simply suffering from ageing (Care homes) is not front of the queue for public investment... and will be even less so for the foreseeable future as the economy will have taken a major hit.
 

Pogue Mahone

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Denmark only confirmed 46 new Corona cases the last 24 hours even though we have had 0-5th graders back in school for almost a month now (along with hairdressers and the like) and testing have gone up. Hopefully there will be no spikes due to more openess as long as people continue not hugging and touching and keep a good distance.
That’s great to hear. So fecking starved of good news these days, I love to read about stuff like this. Out of interest, do you know how “normal” life is for the kids back at school?

Seeing photos like this (from France, I think) is pretty depressing.

 

Pexbo

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Denmark only confirmed 46 new Corona cases the last 24 hours even though we have had 0-5th graders back in school for almost a month now (along with hairdressers and the like) and testing have gone up. Hopefully there will be no spikes due to more openess as long as people continue not hugging and touching and keep a good distance.
Bit harsh sending hairdressers back to school
 

Pogue Mahone

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If there is a second wave, I don't expect it now but in the Fall, Summer isn't really an epidemics season, if we use the flu as a reference.
Seasonal epidemics are usually because warm weather keeps everyone out doors and spread out. Poor weather keeps them indoors and squeezed together. What will make all the difference here is where they end up indoors. If it’s the usual places, like pubs, restaurants, theatres, gyms, cinemas etc then we’re due a big spike.

If those places stay fairly empty with people choosing to stay home instead (which is, I think, likely) then we might avoid a big fall/winter surge. With an added benefit that we’ll probably also avoid the annual flu epidemic that puts the health service on its knees every year.
 

fellwin

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I wonder if there's a correlation between not having a high population density and the amount of cases. It's population is smaller than Greater London's.
Im fairly sure that density plays an important part, as well as many more commute via bike in Denmark
 

NYAS

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I used to live in UAE and you couldn't trust government reporting of anything relating to migrant workers from Pakistan/India/Philippines. A dry dock door burst when I was there. A friend who worked in the hospital counted over 120 bodies but the reports that came out only stated a fraction of that - 13 initially and eventually that number dribbled up to 29. The newspapers printed what they were told to print when something occurred that they wanted to suppress.
I find it really hard to believe they’d do something like that now. In the past, yes. How long ago was this?
 

JPRouve

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Seasonal epidemics are usually because warm weather keeps everyone out doors and spread out. Poor weather keeps them indoors and squeezed together. What will make all the difference here is where they end up indoors. If it’s the usual places, like pubs, restaurants, theatres, gyms, cinemas etc then we’re due a big spike.

If those places stay fairly empty with people choosing to stay home instead (which is, I think, likely) then we might avoid a big fall/winter surge. With an added benefit that we’ll probably also avoid the annual flu epidemic that puts the health service on its knees every year.
People staying home is actually not a good thing, since intra-household spread are the most effective. Your point would make sense if people didn't go outside at all but in our case, they will go outside interact with people and surfaces and then stay at home for longer hours than they normally would which means more interactions with people that weren't in contact with viruses. It's pretty much the same dynamic than care homes.
 

Pogue Mahone

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People staying home is actually not a good thing, since intra-household spread are the most effective. Your point would make sense if people didn't go outside at all but in our case, they will go outside interact with people and surfaces and then stay at home for longer hours than they normally would which means more interactions with people that weren't in contact with viruses. It's pretty much the same dynamic than care homes.
Not really. The care home epidemic was driven by agency staff moving from one “household “ to another. Spending hours and hours up close and personal with colleagues and clients then upping sticks to work another shift in a different place. We also had care workers living in accommodation together, to ramp the transmission up still further.

For a similar pattern in the community we would need people to leave their home and spend time in enclosed spaces with strangers. That’s the only way for the infection to jump from one household to another. I just don’t see that happening to anything like the same extent that has driven seasonal flu epidemics in previous years.

The more time people spend at home the less spread there will be. That’s how we managed to flatten this first curve, so will also hold true for the second wave. Whatever the season.
 

JPRouve

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Not really. The care home epidemic was driven by agency staff moving from one “household “ to another. Spending hours and hours up close and personal with colleagues and clients then upping sticks to work another shift in a different place. We also had care workers living in accommodation together, to ramp the transmission up still further.

For a similar pattern in the community we would need people to leave their home and spend time in enclosed spaces with strangers. That’s the only way for the infection to jump from one household to another. I just don’t see that happening to anything like the same extent that has driven seasonal flu epidemics in previous years. .
But aren't people going to work and using public transports? I seem to be missing something here.
 

Pogue Mahone

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But aren't people going to work and using public transports? I seem to be missing something here.
We were discussing the chance of a fall/winter surge being more likely than one in summer, as we’ve seen with previous epidemics.

My point is that typical seasonal epidemics are fuelled by behavioural changes which help a virus jump from household to household and that I don’t think we’ll see these behavioural changes to the same extent this fall/winter as we have seen in previous years.
 

fellwin

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That’s great to hear. So fecking starved of good news these days, I love to read about stuff like this. Out of interest, do you know how “normal” life is for the kids back at school?

Seeing photos like this (from France, I think) is pretty depressing.

I have a girl in 1st grade (and a girl in kindergarden) and in the start it was somewhat strict that they had to enter the school staggered and was very split up. Now it seems more like a normal day. They also reduced distance from 2 to 1 meter which is equal to no restriction. In the kindergarten its wild west where my girl licked the window the first day and drew hearts to her friends in the resulting “fog”. They are in smaller groups but cant be controlled.
 

Maagge

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That’s great to hear. So fecking starved of good news these days, I love to read about stuff like this. Out of interest, do you know how “normal” life is for the kids back at school?

Seeing photos like this (from France, I think) is pretty depressing.

The first tweet isn't actually true. We've only had 0-5th graders back in school, but not under normal circumstances. All kids have been two metres apart in the classroom (if they're even in the classroom), and a lot of teaching has taken place outside, in larger rooms which aren't usually used for teaching etc. Some schools have designated play groups meaning breaks are only spend with the same five kids. Teaching is back on to some extent but it hasn't been close to how it's been pre-covid.
When the rest of the kids go back to school from Monday it will be in a way where not everyone is at the school at the same time. So there'll be "shifts", so to speak, of different kids throughout the day.

But yeah, we haven't seen a new spike of cases, but there was a clear slow down in the decrease of daily new cases. It's going well though.
 

Massive Spanner

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That’s great to hear. So fecking starved of good news these days, I love to read about stuff like this. Out of interest, do you know how “normal” life is for the kids back at school?

Seeing photos like this (from France, I think) is pretty depressing.

At least those kids are at school in some capacity.

I think our approach here in Ireland is more mental by the day when you read stuff like that. We are by far the slowest country in Europe to open back up, based on roadmaps.
 

nimic

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I wonder if there's a correlation between not having a high population density and the amount of cases. It's population is smaller than Greater London's.
Maybe, but Denmark doesn't have a terribly low population density on a European scale. It's many times denser than its Nordic brethren, for example.
 

Pogue Mahone

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I have a girl in 1st grade (and a girl in kindergarden) and in the start it was somewhat strict that they had to enter the school staggered and was very split up. Now it seems more like a normal day. They also reduced distance from 2 to 1 meter which is equal to no restriction. In the kindergarten its wild west where my girl licked the window the first day and drew hearts to her friends in the resulting “fog”. They are in smaller groups but cant be controlled.
:lol: thanks
 

Snafu17

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Recreational activities and all professionals sports in Slovenia will be allowed from the 23rd of May onwards. Our premier football league is returning on July 1st.

There has now been more than two weeks since the first batch of restrictions were lifted and there's no obvious increase in infections yet. We've had less than 10 new cases a day since the 1st of April, all of them connected to care home facilities.
 

JPRouve

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We were discussing the chance of a fall/winter surge being more likely than one in summer. My point is that typical seasonal epidemics are fuelled by behavioural changes which help a virus jump from household to household and that I don’t think we’ll see these behavioural changes to the same extent this fall/winter as we have seen in previous years.
I see what you are saying. But it doesn't really change my point because we are still going to see behavioral changes, people are more likely to stay outside this summer than they are this fall/winter. Now your point is relevant if we are talking about the scale of a potential surge but that's complicated, it depends a lot on the public health measures that will be taken in the next months and whether some places will remain close or under which conditions they will be open.

Also the lockdown still being in people's mind will make them more vigilant, it may not be the case in 4-5 months.
 

Smores

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I see what you are saying. But it doesn't really change my point because we are still going to see behavioral changes, people are more likely to stay outside this summer than they are this fall/winter. Now your point is relevant if we are talking about the scale of a potential surge but that's complicated, it depends a lot on the public health measures that will be taken in the next months and whether some places will remain close or under which conditions they will be open.
I've never really understood the logic that flu spreads in the winter due to people staying indoors. Household contact doesn't change that much throughout the year and typical indoor activities barely change on a seasonal basis.

I can understand seasonable humidity being a driver which is worse indoors in winter and mass travel events such as Christmas but a shift from pub to beer garden seems spurious.

Personally think a second wave will be July or August with pubs opening and lots of people taking staycations to visit family.
 

Walrus

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Ive decided that if I had my own country, I would have an annual one-week lockdown. It would be treated like a public holiday/celebration, but with the added bonus of helping reduce the spread of disease.

My country would be awesome.
 

Pogue Mahone

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[/QUOTE]
I see what you are saying. But it doesn't really change my point because we are still going to see behavioral changes, people are more likely to stay outside this summer than they are this fall/winter. Now your point is relevant if we are talking about the scale of a potential surge but that's complicated, it depends a lot on the public health measures that will be taken in the next months and whether some places will remain close or under which conditions they will be open.

Also the lockdown still being in people's mind will make them more vigilant, it may not be the case in 4-5 months.
Yeah, true. I was probably being pedantic. The next big wave probably is more likely in winter the summer. And, as you say, the fact it probably coincides with everyone getting a bit less vigilant is a worry.
 

Pogue Mahone

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I've never really understood the logic that flu spreads in the winter due to people staying indoors. Household contact doesn't change that much throughout the year and typical indoor activities barely change on a seasonal basis.

I can understand seasonable humidity being a driver which is worse indoors in winter and mass travel events such as Christmas but a shift from pub to beer garden seems spurious.
Another big reason for summer epidemics being rare is thought to be school closures.
 

JPRouve

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I've never really understood the logic that flu spreads in the winter due to people staying indoors. Household contact doesn't change that much throughout the year and typical indoor activities barely change on a seasonal basis.

I can understand seasonable humidity being a driver which is worse indoors in winter and mass travel events such as Christmas but a shift from pub to beer garden seems spurious.
It's not just households that drive it but all settings put together, people are more likely to be inside in the fall and winter, in smaller places with less ventilation than outside. You just need a small change to make a big difference because infections are exponential.

Another big reason for summer epidemics being rare is thought to be school closures.
That's actually a key point that makes the prediction very difficult, from memory in the case of the flu around 50% of the time, within houselholds the index is a children, which adds to your point about the scale of the fall epidemics being limited, the study that @Suedesi shared last week shows that in the case of Covid-19 children are the index only 10% of the time, so school openings are maybe unlilkely to drive infections this fall and therefore limit the size of the epidemic. It's adults that need to be vigilant and make sure that they don't get infected or infect others.