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

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My eldest just had his second covid test (poor bastard!) Very high fever through the night on Friday. Phone GP out of hours service Sat morning. Tested at noon on Saturday (10 minutes from where we live). Result back this evening (negative) Very impressive turnaround. System in Ireland still working very well despite current surge.
My nephew the same, tested Friday, result negative this morning. Probably tonsilitis. Hope your lad gets better soon from whatever it really is anyway.
 

Wibble

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Good news, hopefully the coming summer will help with keeping it under control. I think you guys have a big enough internal economy to cope with a lack of tourists, it wont be nice for the tourism industry but it wont be armageddon like some think.
We had another cluster appear a week ago with someone coming out of the 14 day isolation and 2 negative tests then showing as infected a week later. The family also spent a week travelling around the North island but reports have said they were really great with using the covid tracking app so the authorities have found it a much easier task to contact trace. So far so good as only immediate family members have caught it. If this works out I would have to say the health dept here deserve a pat on the back for the amount of effort they are putting in with contact tracing etc. We should see Auckland drop down to lowest level 1 by the time the election arrives in a few weeks time.
On a side issue I am over the next two weeks doing the product photography for Linen House Australia because their photographers arent able to open their studio till the 16th October. Im doing all this via LH NZ a sister company. It makes me wonder if many other types of work has been farmed out over the Tasman to NZ as well.
I'd say Victoria in particular has lost lots of work to other states and NZ.
 

Pexbo

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Something I can see happening is when it gets completely out of hand in the Universities, students are either told it’s entirely remote and they dont have to stay or students deciding that for themselves. You‘ll then have a few hundred thousand people, probably around Christmas time, spreading out around the country again, going back to family homes.
 

Jacko21

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Something I can see happening is when it gets completely out of hand in the Universities, students are either told it’s entirely remote and they dont have to stay or students deciding that for themselves. You‘ll then have a few hundred thousand people, probably around Christmas time, spreading out around the country again, going back to family homes.
All first year learning at Manchester Met has been moved online for at least two weeks. Though surely that'll be extended.

Irrespective of what may happen nationally, I don't see it being long before Greater Manchester is subject to more restrictions. Same goes for areas with similar numbers.
 

Dan_F

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So it’s open past 10pm because it’s in the workplace, but you can smoke in there, even though it’s illegal to smoke inside a workplace. That’s even better.
 

esmufc07

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All first year learning at Manchester Met has been moved online for at least two weeks. Though surely that'll be extended.

Irrespective of what may happen nationally, I don't see it being long before Greater Manchester is subject to more restrictions. Same goes for areas with similar numbers.
At the rate places are going into local lockdowns surely it's only a matter of time before there's a national one?
 

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From 6pm today 2/3rds of Wales will be in a “local” lockdown. I’m not entirely convinced that constitutes the definition of local!
It is local because we are not allowed to drive 5 miles into the next area without good reason.
 

Jacko21

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At the rate places are going into local lockdowns surely it's only a matter of time before there's a national one?
It'd be simpler at least. The idea of a 'social lockdown' has been muted again. Two-week closure of pubs/bars/restaurants and a total ban of households meeting.
 

Mickeza

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It is local because we are not allowed to drive 5 miles into the next area without good reason.
We weren’t allowed to drive 5 miles during the “National” lockdown except for work so unsure how that makes it local. 1.9m people in Wales are now under strict lockdown rules. You can’t meet another household anywhere indoors. Not even extended bubbles. It isn’t a localised issue is it? It’s a National lockdown with exemptions. They’re only calling them localised lockdowns because they’ve said all along another National one would be a failing and not needed. It’s spin. They’re also yet again doing the worst of both worlds. The hospitality sector is fecked. If you’re a pub/hospitality venue in Cardiff paying those colossal rates NOBODY from outside Cardiff can come to your venue. So yes, technically you’re allowed to open but realistically you’re ruined. There is no additional support for that sector. No targeted furlough just the shitty package the chancellor announced last week which does sod all. On the other side of that we can see from what’s happening in Manchester that these measures aren’t enough like many predicted. The infection rates aren’t slowing. It’s a shit show and we haven’t even got to October yet. Aside from all that happy Monday :lol:
 

Sparky_Hughes

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My eldest just had his second covid test (poor bastard!) Very high fever through the night on Friday. Phone GP out of hours service Sat morning. Tested at noon on Saturday (10 minutes from where we live). Result back this evening (negative) Very impressive turnaround. System in Ireland still working very well despite current surge.
Glad his test is negative chap, Good news :)
 

Pogue Mahone

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The second tweet says that they estimated that 40-50% of the region had been infected. Have you not said previously that’s too low for herd immunity anyway?
I don’t think anyone know what’s needed for herd immunity but even well below that threshold you wouldn’t expect a dramatic surge of cases if one in two people was permanently immune after being infected.
 

Adamsk7

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The truth of the matter is we can’t be sure on any of it. It’s estimated 40-60% had been infected but that’s just an estimate - what if it was less than 40%? Plenty of room to manoeuvre for the virus there. We’re also guessing that herd immunity kicks in at about 60% and up.

They did have a large drop off though and we already know antibodies last a couple of months in the blood - we don’t know much about ongoing T-cell memory to fight the disease and we also don’t know if the newly infected in this area are the same people, asymptomatic, or what!

very speculative article IMO.
 

acnumber9

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I don’t think anyone know what’s needed for herd immunity but even well below that threshold you wouldn’t expect a dramatic surge of cases if one in two people was permanently immune after being infected.
The report on how many had been infected in that region hasn’t been peer reviewed yet and the article contains no figures on anything. Feels like a rush to confirm an opinion to me.
 

Pogue Mahone

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The report on how many had been infected in that region hasn’t been peer reviewed yet and the article contains no figures on anything. Feels like a rush to confirm an opinion to me.
Sure. It’s all very speculative too. But there comes a point when all the data about antibody levels falling away after two or three months, combined with reports of people being infected twice, combined with what’s happening in Manaus does point towards immunity not lasting.
 

Josep Dowling

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Something I can see happening is when it gets completely out of hand in the Universities, students are either told it’s entirely remote and they dont have to stay or students deciding that for themselves. You‘ll then have a few hundred thousand people, probably around Christmas time, spreading out around the country again, going back to family homes.
It must be horrendous being a student over the next 2 years. The whole experience of university has been lost and now they are paying bloated fees for no more than online classes. And then to be told you may not be able to come home for Christmas! The whole situation is a farce. Surely it would make more sense to ensure home classes are available in the weeks leading up to Xmas, then ensure students actually self-isolate before they go home.
 

acnumber9

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Sure. It’s all very speculative too. But there comes a point when all the data about antibody levels falling away after two or three months, combined with reports of people being infected twice, combined with what’s happening in Manaus does point towards immunity not lasting.
How many people have actually been confirmed as being infected twice?
 

Wibble

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How many people have actually been confirmed as being infected twice?
Very very few.

It doesn't prove long term immunity, as some reinfections may been missed, but the handful of cases that have been found, even assuming they are genuine reinfections, don't suggest long/medium term immunity from a vaccine is a conncern.
 
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Pexbo

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Interesting point on BBC Politics Live earlier by a lady who I think is a former Tory MP, I didn’t catch her name, but she said that she believes the rise of conspiracy theorists in this COVID era has been helped along by this vacuum of scientific data surrounding policy decisions so far. When the government has failed to explain their reasoning for each and every decision and has flip flopped so many times already, trust has been eroded. If the decisions were lead purely by the science and stood by with conviction then people would have more faith in them.
 

prateik

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Fecking hell.
Just me or is that article pretty poorly written?

- In Manaus, daily burials and cremations fell from a peak of 277 on May 1 to just 45 in mid-September, the mayor’s office said. The COVID-19 death toll that officially peaked at 60 on April 30 dropped to just two or three a day by late August.

What does it mean? Deaths from covid + other reasons peaked at 277 and went down to ~50 ..So deaths from causes other than covid were ~200/day.. deaths from Covid went from 60 to ~0 and the daily deaths went down to ~50 .. That doesnt make sense.

- Then in June, deaths unexpectedly plummeted ..
Deaths lag infections by several weeks.. so this implies they supposedly reached that number by May.. But the article then says

- Research posted last week to medRxiv, a website distributing unpublished papers on health science, estimated that 44% to 66% of the Manaus population was infected between the peak in mid-May and August
 

Pogue Mahone

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How many people have actually been confirmed as being infected twice?
None up until a few weeks ago. Seem to be popping up in the literature fairly frequently since then. Most recent cases I’ve heard about mentioned here. Bearing in mind the timing that most countries experienced their first wave we’ll probably see a lot more examples from now on.
 

acnumber9

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None up until a few weeks ago. Seem to be popping up in the literature fairly frequently since then. Most recent cases I’ve heard about mentioned here. Bearing in mind the timing that most countries experienced their first wave we’ll probably see a lot more examples from now on.
Hospital employees with no symptoms so probably tested regularly. No chance of false positives there? Funnily, that link mentions Manaus with no mention of infection being on the rise just three days ago.
 

Wibble

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They’re definitely genuine.
I'm sure some are but some are also quite likely not and may have been the result of either a failure to overcome the original infection or the result of a false positive. Or the result of the original low level infection not producing an immune response. Even if all are reinfections, plus some undetected reinfections, it doesn't seem to be a significant concern to date especially as the immune response from a vaccine will hopefully be stronger.
 

Pogue Mahone

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I'm sure some are but some are also quite likely not and may have been the result of either a failure to overcome the original infection or the result of a false positive. Or the result of the original low level infection not producing an immune response. Even if all are reinfections, plus some undetected reinfections, it doesn't seem to be a significant concern to date especially as the immune response from a vaccine will hopefully be stronger.
The only ones I’m calling as definite are when they sequence the virus and prove that the second infection was by a different virus to the first. They all seem to be quite recent.

There’s been a load of other examples of someone testing positive again, weeks after recovering - earlier on in the pandemic - which were assumed to be false positives because of viral debris being shedded even though the active infection had resolved. Now we know for sure that reinfection can happen it does make you wonder about those earlier cases too.

I’m also not sure that a vaccine will trigger a more dramatic immune response than an infection. I always assumed that an infection was the most effective way to trigger an immune response. You don’t see kids needing boosters after they catch chicken pox!