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

[Tucholsky]

I wonder would it be a good strategy to encourage infections on young people (those under 40) who have a low chance of dying but are most active people? If we are going to get it anyway, why not artificially create a scenario when young people get infected first, get quarantined, get healthy and then they won't be able to spread it to other people who are more vulnerable.

I don't think there are ways of doing it, but just as a thought experiment.

Good idea, but if it is like the flu? It will repeat itself in a year and the young ones have to be tested and/or infected and quarantined again to protect the vulnerable. And that year for year, including the economic costs.
And if you don't get it right, it reaches the vulnerable in an outbreak. Sorry, I think we have to ride this one out, while reducing the losses and adjusting our health systems.

 

[stepic]

The strategy is do nothing and hope it all goes away. Let's see how that works.

i mean, it really isn't. but stick to your blind criticism.

 

[Fingeredmouse]

Gotta love how The Sun's major concern is that a number of British holidays to Spain are thrown into doubt

They mirror (no pun intended) their readership.

 

[Revan]

Good idea, but if it is like the flu? It will repeat itself in a year and the young ones have to be tested and/or infected and quarantined again to protect the vulnerable. And that year for year, including the economic costs.
And if you don't get it right, it reaches the vulnerable in an outbreak. Sorry, I think we have to ride this one out, while reducing the losses and adjusting our health systems.

No idea. There have been one or two cases of it returning, but it might have been that they resulted falsely as negative in the first place.

I think that this and possibly the next year will be the worst. I believe that within 18 months, scientists would discover efficient anti-virals, if not a vaccine.

 

[Utdstar01]

Finding the whole 'listening to science' utterly bizarre, sounds like a lot of bollocks. Either that, or the government are actually stupid. Hope it's the former that they're selfish and protecting the economy, I'd rather that than to be living under a stupid government.

I might as well just accept that I will get the virus eventually. Leicestershire has hit 6 cases now.

You from Leicestershire?

 

[Utdstar01]

i mean, it really isn't. but stick to your blind criticism.

Why are we pretty much the only country in Europe that's taking this genius approach then?

 

[sullydnl]

I don't pretend to know the long term sustainable measures we should take, but I view as cancelling all social gatherings, working from home, restricting non-essential travel etc as good measures that we can take now to help slow down the spread.

The key point though is that our governments do have to think of the long term sustainability of these measures. And things like school closures, travel bans, avoiding social situations and elderly people avoiding crowds aren't sustainable for as long as it will take for a vaccine to become available. They have to weigh up what impact different measures will have, when they will come to an end, what will happen at that point in terms of any surge in cases and what their plan at that point will be given an attempt to re-introduce those measures will inevitably have less buy-in and be less effective. They also have to take into account what measures they can and can't enforce given they're not a totalitarian regime like China.

Ireland and the UK have (according to Ireland's CMO) taken different approaches to the crisis from the start, as now reflected in the different measures being taken. Ireland's approach has also been praised by the WHO, notably unlike the UK's.

Even with those differences though the two countries (and multiple others) still agree on the same basic principles. Namely that measures should only be introduced at the point they will be most effective, as per data modelling that draws on the individual circumstances of each country. They also agree that introducing these measures too early will hinder efforts to control the virus because they are only sustainable for a certain period of time.

So when you ask "why haven't they introduced X already?", it's because their data modelling based on the reality of what they actually can and can't do has told them that it isn't the optimum time to do so yet. Simple as that. I'm not sure what you'd expect our countries to do beyond following that modelling, especially given "be like China" and "sustain unsustainable measures" aren't really options.

 

[Kentonio]

France closing schools and encouraging companies to telework. That’ll be a full lockdown by next week I’m guessing.

 

[fergosaurus]

Your partner is clearly an idiot

She's intelligent and academically much more qualified than I'll ever be which makes it more frustrating that she can't see sense here. Her behaviour is extremely selfish more than anything and we've had a few rows over this virus.

 

[0le]

She's intelligent and academically much more qualified than I'll ever be which makes it more frustrating that she can't see sense here. Her behaviour is extremely selfish more than anything and we've had a few rows over this virus.

Intelligent people don't always have common sense.

EDIT: I agree with you that it is selfish.

 

[Adisa]

Lack of a national healthcare service is killing the US.

 

[Tucholsky]

No idea. There have been one or two cases of it returning, but it might have been that they resulted falsely as negative in the first place.

I think that this and possibly the next year will be the worst. I believe that within 18 months, scientists would discover efficient anti-virals, if not a vaccine.

Much the same thinking here.
If it is like the measles or polio, we could mostly rot it out with the right vaccine cause the strains do rarely/not change, and the vaccines are working for all strains.
If it is like the flu and develops different strains, in the best case we have working antivirals and vaccines for the major strains to mitigate the effects.

 

[Fiskey]

I wonder would it be a good strategy to encourage infections on young people (those under 40) who have a low chance of dying but are most active people? If we are going to get it anyway, why not artificially create a scenario when young people get infected first, get quarantined, get healthy and then they won't be able to spread it to other people who are more vulnerable.

I don't think there are ways of doing it, but just as a thought experiment.

Haha, imagine the reaction on here if Boris proposed this!

 

[MikeUpNorth]

Who'd be a politician, eh? There is no real palatable course of action here.

We will only be able to take a judgement on which countries handled it relatively well or poorly with hindsight in 3 years time, after multiple outbreaks, peaks, and waves of death.

 

[Sarni]

When you are getting symptoms but are quite young and are feeling ok otherwise, it’s actually much wiser to stay home and heal rather than rush to hospital to get tested, unless your main goal is to brag about having coronavirus or whatever. Many here are going to hospital because they coughed three times, this will only spread infection further either because you are truly sick and will infect someone else or because you will expose yourself to people who actually have it while you don’t (despite ‘symptoms’). I think this should be said by media more so that people understand.

 

[Pexbo]

I wonder would it be a good strategy to encourage infections on young people (those under 40) who have a low chance of dying but are most active people? If we are going to get it anyway, why not artificially create a scenario when young people get infected first, get quarantined, get healthy and then they won't be able to spread it to other people who are more vulnerable.

I don't think there are ways of doing it, but just as a thought experiment.

I thought similar. A Chicken Pox party of sorts.

 

[Fingeredmouse]

Intelligent people don't always have common sense.

EDIT: I agree with you that it is selfish.

Common sense is a meaningless expression.

 

[Ronaldo's ego]

Our Government our fecking this up and people will pay with their lives. Incompetent cnuts.

 

[11101]

It would seem they're making terrible decisions despite being aware. You have to realise we have a PM in charge who thinks we should just take it on the chin and take it all in one go. So I've absolutely no confidence in the government or their way of dealing with this pandemic.

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

He is right on the first part. Closing schools and gathering places made feck all difference in China and Italy. Seems you have to go into a full lockdown or you might as well keep everything open.

Is there a breakdown on casualties/age from Italy?

This is now a week out of date but:

Italian health service

80+ - 10.9%
70-79 - 5.3%
0-69 - 0.5%

I'll see if i can find anything more recent.

Another research piece on their website, if anyone ever needed another excuse to quit:

A third more of Covid-19 positive smokers had a more serious clinical situation than non-smokers upon admission, and for them the risk of needing intensive care and mechanical ventilation is more than double. These studies also speculate that the smoker's condition explains the gender difference in the reported lethality rate which would be 4.7% in men versus 2.8% in women.

 

[Smores]

France closing schools and encouraging companies to telework. That’ll be a full lockdown by next week I’m guessing.

One wonders why they didn't think to ask the experts

 

[Utdstar01]

I thought similar. A Chicken Pox party of sorts.

Is it 100% confirmed that you can't get it again after already having it for a certain period of time? Or do they still not know?

 

[Fooza]

You from Leicestershire?

Yeh Leicester in fact, luckily not the worse case of outbreak here.

 

[NewGlory]

All major sports leagues in the US have been suspended.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/basketball/51847482

It's quite crazy that EPL and UEFA (CL, EL) haven't even said anything about what they are planning to do.

 

[11101]

Some figures from Italy concerning how this progresses and who is most at risk (correct at March 5).

Average of death is 81 (women 83.4, men 79.9)
Average age of patient is 61

Age of death:
90+ - 14.1%
80-89 - 42.2%
70-79 - 32.4%
60-69 - 8.4%
50-59 - 2.8%

Average number of medical conditions at death is 3.4, but broken down:
0-1 - 15.5%
2 - 18.3%
3+ - 67.2%

Hypertension - 74.6%
Heart disease - 70.4%
Diabetes - 33.8%

The median time from the onset of symptoms to hospitalization was 5 days and the median time between hospitalization and death was 4 days.

@Grinner this is more recent. They are not releasing any numbers, only percentages.

 

[Utdstar01]

Yeh Leicester in fact, luckily not the worse case of outbreak here.

Ah sweet, I work in Leicester city centre but live about 11 miles out of it . No, not as far as we know but town centre has been so dead for the last couple of weeks. It's had a huge impact on trade for businesses.

 

[NewGlory]

Is it 100% confirmed that you can't get it again after already having it for a certain period of time? Or do they still not know?

Several people have been confirmed to get it second time, so sounds like - no good news there.

 

[izec]

Have the UK closed schools and universities? Only Germany and them haven't so far from what i see. Even France have now

 

[sullydnl]

Why are we pretty much the only country in Europe that's taking this genius approach then?

If "genius approach" means delaying measures until the point where you will get most effect from them then you're not the only country doing so.

If you're asking why the UK seems to think that ideal moment is later than other countries do then that's a more interesting question.

It might simply be that the situation isn't quite as advanced in the UK as other countries. For example in terms of cases per million the UK today was in a slightly better position than Ireland was in the day before, with the subsequent worsening of that position being what prompted further measures from Ireland.

Or it might be that while the UK is following similar basic principles as other countries, the actual data modelling they're using is different enough to suggest a different approach in terms of measures. In which case ye may have a problem. Or, I suppose, be proven right.

 

[Charlie Foley]

@MarylandMUFan larry Hogan speaking now

 

[NewGlory]

Our Government our fecking this up and people will pay with their lives. Incompetent cnuts.

Truth. The only "weapon" we have is social isolation and acting quickly to slow things down and prevent the kind of overwhelming of hospitals that Italy is suffering from. On both these fronts (closing things and doing it quickly) UK, US etc. seem to be failing in a major way. To make things worse, neither of these countries seem to be ready for doing enough tests so the numbers may be totally underreported.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

I wonder would it be a good strategy to encourage infections on young people (those under 40) who have a low chance of dying but are most active people? If we are going to get it anyway, why not artificially create a scenario when young people get infected first, get quarantined, get healthy and then they won't be able to spread it to other people who are more vulnerable.

I don't think there are ways of doing it, but just as a thought experiment.

The big worry is that young people might have a low mortality rate but have a similar chance of ending up in ITU as the older people who end up dead.

They might be much less likely to die than old/frail people providing they have access to an ITU bed in the 5-10 % of cases who need it. Hence if huge numbers of young people get infected at once, the health service still gets overwhelmed.

I have no idea if this is the case or not. I can’t find any data, other than the anecdotal stuff from Italy about 10% of all cases - young and old - ending up in ITU.

 

[sullydnl]

Several people have been confirmed to get it second time, so sounds like - no good news there.

That depends on how reliable the testing was though, I guess?

 

[11101]

Several people have been confirmed to get it second time, so sounds like - no good news there.

Nobody has definitively been confirmed to get it a second time. People have tested positive very soon after testing negative, and we know there are a lot of false positives/negatives out there. So much so that tests have to be verified twice to confirm infection.

 

[11101]

The big worry is that young people might have a low mortality rate but have a similar chance of ending up in ITU as the older people who end up dead.

They might much less likely to die than old/frail people providing they have access to an ITU bed in the 5-10 % of cases who need it. Hence if huge numbers of young people get infected at once, the health service still gets overwhelmed.

I have no idea if this is the case or not. I can’t find any data, other than the anecdotal stuff from Italy about 10% of all cases - young and old - ending up in ITU.

If you are referring to the numbers i have posted, i only post what comes from the Italian health service or the government in their daily updates.

 

[Utdstar01]

If "genius approach" means delaying measures until the point where you will get most effect from them then you're not the only country doing so.

If you're asking why the UK seems to think that ideal moment is later than other countries do then that's a more interesting question.

It might simply be that the situation isn't quite as advanced in the UK as other countries. For example in terms of cases per million the UK today was in a slightly better position than Ireland was in the day before, with the subsequent worsening of that position being what prompted further measures from Ireland.

Or it might be that while the UK is following similar basic principles as other countries, the actual data modelling they're using is different enough to suggest a different approach in terms of measures. In which case ye may have a problem. Or, I suppose, be proven right.

One of the government's failings on this is informing people enough on the severity of the situation and because of their lack of prohibitions, people simply aren't taking this seriously or taking notice.

The amount of people I've spoken to who just have no idea what's going on, know what the virus is, or how damaging it could be to our communities is frankly quite staggering.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

I think some of you are just trolling now.
If you want to reduce the number of deaths COVID-19 causes long term, you need to build up resistance in the population. Without a vaccine, the only way to do this in a pandemic is to manage the rate of transmission in such way to allow a steady number of people to acquire the virus and develop antibodies against it, which overtime reduces the virus’ R rate. Chris Witty and Sir Patrick Vallance were transparent and honest about this. Perversely, the more people that get the virus and develop resistance to it, the safer the rest of the population is as it is harder for the virus to spread and produce an unmanageable spike in cases. This is the principle behind vaccinations.

The whole point of drastic social distancing measures is to spread out these inevitable infections over as long a period of time as possible. The same amount of people end up infected but not in such a short period of time that the health service can’t cope so the death rate is much much higher. That’s the whole “flatten the curve” thing you keep hearing about. Surely you understand the concept?!

 

[Revan]

The big worry is that young people might have a low mortality rate but have a similar chance of ending up in ITU as the older people who end up dead.

They might be much less likely to die than old/frail people providing they have access to an ITU bed in the 5-10 % of cases who need it. Hence if huge numbers of young people get infected at once, the health service still gets overwhelmed.

I have no idea if this is the case or not. I can’t find any data, other than the anecdotal stuff from Italy about 10% of all cases - young and old - ending up in ITU.

Could be done in a prolonged case, for example within the next 2-3 months.

Of course, again, I have no idea if it can return, and obviously, many (if not most) people wouldn't accept to get it. I mean, even if chances of dying are 0.05% (let's say a fit person, non smoker, under 40, no preconditions) many people would not voluntarily get sick.

Would be interesting if some scientist makes some simulations on how long the disease would take to spread in that case (vs the real one), and the total number of victims.

 

[sebsheep]

Just been out to Tesco, seems things are now so panicked that people have bought out the whole-wheat pasta as well, they've even started buying the free-from stuff!
People are buying the pre-cooked rice bags as well, I said to the missus that would be the sign that people are really starting to panic buy. Not sure the woman in front of me needs 4 packs of grated cheese for the week either...

 

[sullydnl]

One of the government's failings on this is informing people enough on the severity of the situation and because of their lack of prohibitions, people simply aren't taking this seriously or taking notice.

The amount of people I've spoken to who just have no idea what's going on, what the virus is, or how damaging it could be to our community is frankly quite staggering.

Aye, I'm not from the UK so I can't say but that may well be entirely true. I also wonder about the amount of testing that has been done in the UK up to this point.

 

[Feed Me]

Just been out to Tesco, seems things are now so panicked that people have bought out the whole-wheat pasta as well, they've even started buying the free-from stuff!
People are buying the pre-cooked rice bags as well, I said to the missus that would be the sign that people are really starting to panic buy. Not sure the woman in front of me needs 4 packs of grated cheese for the week either...

People who panic shop are selfish and stupid imbeciles.