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

SteveJ

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If there's a court presiding over that you'd really have to question their common sense
The judge pretty much laughed at the man, and dismissed the case. :D
 

Hugh Jass

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They’ll be well aware of the risk of opening up. Just like every other government. Unlike some governments, ours seems to take the advice of scientists very seriously. The upside of having a medic in the hot seat.

I never thought we’d eliminate the virus completely. Perhaps we still won’t. It would be cool to crush it but also creates a different set of problems. Our economy needs tourism and I’m starting to think it’s in our long term interest to have the virus bubbling away amongst younger, healthy people. Gradually building up that herd immunity.

Fecks knows, though. A virologist who I really trust has started using the #get2zero hashtag and has said that that’s the best way out. Get us down to zero cases first, and then we can think about keeping out imported cases.
Personally i think reopening the pubs and nightclubs would be a disaster. My family is good friends with a pub owner, so i would not say that to their face. But i hope the pubs are closed for a while.

TBH, there are so many things where you could say, that would be bad to open up, like a restaurant. But they can do takeaway. Public transport would be another hotspot for spreading the virus.
 

RedRover

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My concern stems mainly from the sheer volume of people with it but unaware of it. The first wave started with obviously a few folk and it went from there (of course no social distancing aided spread).

If restrictions are loosened and these folk push it, it may start over again except the starting number would be in the thousands, hence why part of me fears it being worse. Of course I hope it's not and the social distancing behaviours have been ingrained, but the risk is there. Not sure if I've explained it all that well.
Seems it's more complex than that. If thousands have it without knowing, it follows that at any one time thousands more (probably many times more than have it actively) have already had it without knowing. If we assume that confers some level of immunity and they can't catch it again in the short term then they can't spread it so the virus hits a dead end.

It's also likely that those who had had it during the lock down period (given measures in place) are the "super spreaders" - i.e. those who are most likely to get it because of their job, use of public transport etc.

As i understand it (I am not an expert and will happily be corrected by anyone who knows more), this is the loose basis for herd immunity and the theories doing the rounds that it can be reached well before the vast majority have had it. That's one suggestion why the R0 was 0.4 in London according to the figures published by the Government yesterday, i.e. those spreading it have already had it and the virus is effectively petering out.
 

UnrelatedPsuedo

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It really surprises me that none of the important data is being captured and syndicated.

Anonymised and aggregated data of all Covid positive patients Would create such a strong picture.

Ignore the first two weeks after lockdown.

Every case since then could surely have listed every single place they’ve been for the past two weeks, who they’ve seen, how many people they’ve seen. A kind of retrospective track and trace.

You’d hope that even relying on humans inherently unreliable memories you’d be able to find some commonality of infection. Be that children, public transport, take aways, parcels. Then age rated infection rates within all of these possible/probable sources.

By now we’d have a solid block of data to lean on, if not quite rely on.

If you test positive for an STD you’re required to tell all recent Sexual partners. That’s surely a far more invasive requirement than giving some anonymous data when sick.

Appreciably this may already be happening. But if it is there’s not much sight of it.
 

Penna

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Personally i think reopening the pubs and nightclubs would be a disaster. My family is good friends with a pub owner, so i would not say that to their face. But i hope the pubs are closed for a while.

TBH, there are so many things where you could say, that would be bad to open up, like a restaurant. But they can do takeaway. Public transport would be another hotspot for spreading the virus.
The restaurants in Italy have been told they have to operate with far fewer tables, the staff have to wear masks and gloves and the customers have to wear masks if they leave the table. I don't think many restauranteurs think it's going to be economically-viable to run like that for long.
 

Hugh Jass

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The restaurants in Italy have been told they have to operate with far fewer tables, the staff have to wear masks and gloves and the customers have to wear masks if they leave the table. I don't think many restauranteurs think it's going to be economically-viable to run like that for long.
Maybe move everything outdoors if they have space. You would be less likely to catch the virus outdoors.

But that would not be feasible in other countries where the weather is poor.

No way am i eating in a restaurant for a while. Its burger king takeaways for the next two years.
 

horsechoker

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Maybe move everything outdoors if they have space. You would be less likely to catch the virus outdoors.

But that would not be feasible in other countries where the weather is poor.

No way am i eating in a restaurant for a while. Its burger king takeaways for the next two years.
This is where the future of dining out will go - to home delivery. I can see many moving to dark kitchens

 

Pagh Wraith

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The restaurants in Italy have been told they have to operate with far fewer tables, the staff have to wear masks and gloves and the customers have to wear masks if they leave the table. I don't think many restauranteurs think it's going to be economically-viable to run like that for long.
I've eaten in two restaurants over the weekend. It was pretty much business as usual. But waiters have to wear masks and tables have to be 1.5 metres apart which hardly made a difference. As long as there are enough customers, restaurants should be fine here. Same thing in pubs/bars although we couldn't sit directly at the bar and had to take a table.

Oh, and in one place the menus smelled horribly of disinfectant. :lol:
 
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Pogue Mahone

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Personally i think reopening the pubs and nightclubs would be a disaster. My family is good friends with a pub owner, so i would not say that to their face. But i hope the pubs are closed for a while.

TBH, there are so many things where you could say, that would be bad to open up, like a restaurant. But they can do takeaway. Public transport would be another hotspot for spreading the virus.
Yeah, pubs, clubs, restaurants and public transport will be a big problem for the next year or so.
 

Steven Seagull

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Is there any way of finding the rates of nosocomial infection yet in the uk?

I mean I assume not without a track and trace system in place. But maybe we could find out how many of the positive cases are from the health care workers and how many are from the community
 

Hugh Jass

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Yeah, pubs, clubs, restaurants and public transport will be a big problem for the next year or so.
People will be reticent to go to doctors and dentists as well. 90% dentists in ireland were out of work when the shut down happened.

Anything really that is a contained compact area, is dangerous.

Having said that if one of my fillings fell out i would have to go to the dentist straight away. The pain would be unbearable.
 

Hugh Jass

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Vaccines take really long to produce. They have to grow them in chicken eggs. Three eggs equals one vaccine i read.
 

Arruda

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Of all the economic consequences I can’t even begin to think how we “fix” this for places whose economy is in any way reliant on tourism. How the hell do you keep a steady flow of tourists coming in, while still trying to keep the virus out?
There is no answer for that, we're properly fecked. If Portugal is a country that relies a lot in tourism as a whole, a region like Azores in particular relies almost entirely on it, as our alternative industries are, due to geographic reasons, massively uncompetitive.

Tourism in the best of days is already an unreliable endeavor. We benefitted a lot from turmoil in places like Egypt and Tunisia - and hence are equally vulnerable to an eventual return of stability in those places (a good thing obviously). In the past 10 years the investment in tourism has been huge and helped us recover from the 2008 crisis.

It has all gone to the gutter. Even if somehow we could open up "normally" and trust the virus to remain magically low during the summer, the loss in demand will be so big that there's no way a sizeable portion of business will sirvive the summer. Let alone with the expected resurgence in cases and the restrictions that will have to remain in place.

If things like low-cost air travel become a thing of the past, like some believe, then not even looking a few years into the future will make things look brighter.
 

Pogue Mahone

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Is there any way of finding the rates of nosocomial infection yet in the uk?

I mean I assume not without a track and trace system in place. But maybe we could find out how many of the positive cases are from the health care workers and how many are from the community
They surely must have that data. We get a breakdown every day re community vs HCW cases. 1 in 4 of our total cases is an HCW.
 

Wibble

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there’s plenty of PR and spin coming from the labs working on vaccines which is understandable because they want to attract and keep funding. However, it is just PR and has to viewed as such. Vaccines for corona viruses are rarely ever found, maybe because there was never the required investment but also maybe because it is very very hard.
There are vaccines for animal corronaviruses and there are very promising vaccines for SARS and MERS either in or about to start human trials. QUT have already got a vaccine that has shown a very strong immune response to SARS-CoV-2 and will soon go to human trials. Of course drugs can fail human trials for safety/side effect reasons but I think there is a very high chance that at least 1 of the 70+ vaccines being developed will work.
 

Man of Steel

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A few types of coronavirus are responsible of 25-30% of colds and we currently just don't know if having antibodies for any of these give even limited immunity to SARS-CoV-2. To do this we would need to culture these viruses and somehow deliver them to people. So in effect a global vaccination program with live viruses. It would take longer to roll out than it will to develop an actual vaccination program and we don't even know if it would help at all.
Thanks for the info Wibble.
 

noodlehair

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They surely must have that data. We get a breakdown every day re community vs HCW cases. 1 in 4 of our total cases is an HCW.
They've got some data like that but what's been released of it is limited.

They've started doing mass test samples and using the figures to compare. I think it becomes easier to do stuff like this as cases go down as it frees up resouraces to do sample testing and monitering. It's already clear health or care workers are much more likely to be affected. I also think there'll be a bucket load of data that isn't made public because it'll just fuel bickering when difficult decisions get made.

I also from working in government can pretty much guarantee they'll have an absolute endless amount of data about how many people are likely to follow advice, behavioral patterns, people per area, and so forth. They'll be looking really closely at data from other countries who are doing things differently or on a different timeline. So they'll know full well what is likely to happen when they tell people they can go sit in a park, etc.

I really don't see how more people being out will make any significant difference, personally. The people ignoring social distancing will be the same ones who already were ignoring it. People have also still had to go out to do shopping the whole time, and this involves queuing together, bumping into each other, being in a large building with circulating air with hundreds of other people and touching all of the same things as them. If something like that has no noticable impact on case numbers, a load of people sitting or walking about not particularly near each other in the open air is a near non event.

Public transport would be the head scratcher I think. All well and good telling people not to use it, but where I am for example, 100% of people who commute into London have no choice, and it's not possible to run more trains than they already do during peak times. If the aim is going to switch to eliminating the virus rather then just getting numbers under control this seems like a pretty massive obstacle. Probably a bigger one even than hospitality venues, where you can at least regulate distance and capacity to a degree. Though I don't think eliminating it is ever going to be an option in England anyway.
 
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Wibble

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Thanks for the info Wibble.
Just my take on it and there are plasma therapy trials going on that potentially achieve a similar outcome.

https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-what-is-plasma-therapy-137813

Although as the article states there are apparently some potential concerns in case it causes antibody-dependent enhancement (the reason some Dengue fever reinfections are worse than the first time around) and/or the theoretic risk that pre-formed antibodies may block the body's own immune response as happens with infants who get antibodies from their mother. I have no idea how likely these issues are to occur - I guess that is what human trials are for. And then there is the general risk of spreading other blood borne infections.
 

Wibble

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Australia is slowly reducing restrictions even though we can't quite seem to eradicate the virus. NSW and particularly Victoria are being more cautious as they have more current cases but is has begin. Down to 9 new cases yesterday despite continued large scale testing. Some states are close to eradication e.g. South Australia have no new cases for a week and only 2 active cases still recovering. We had our 99th death reported today. Terrible but a fraction of the toll elsewhere.
 

RK

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Australia is slowly reducing restrictions even though we can't quite seem to eradicate the virus. NSW and particularly Victoria are being more cautious as they have more current cases but is has begin. Down to 9 new cases yesterday despite continued large scale testing. Some states are close to eradication e.g. South Australia have no new cases for a week and only 2 active cases still recovering. We had our 99th death reported today. Terrible but a fraction of the toll elsewhere.
What do you think of the current border restrictions, e.g. NSW-QLD? NSW has been averaging community transition of 4 per week for the last couple of weeks. I understand the caution but what kind of numbers are QLD waiting for?
 

Wibble

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What do you think of the current border restrictions, e.g. NSW-QLD? NSW has been averaging community transition of 4 per week for the last couple of weeks. I understand the caution but what kind of numbers are QLD waiting for?
Hard top say but it has been flagged as possibly being September before they open the border. I guess that in an ideal world states who have eradicated (or at least had no new infections for a few weeks or more) would open the border to other states in a similar position. So NSW and Vic likely to be last cab off the rank.
 

Revan

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Vaccines take really long to produce. They have to grow them in chicken eggs. Three eggs equals one vaccine i read.
Fortunately, we are in 2020 and the technology has advanced. It won’t grow in chicken eggs like old vaccines (smallpox for example). Instead, it is gonna be totally lab based (it won’t even contain the virus), just proteins to reprogram the cells to fight the virus.

In theory, it should be safer than any other vaccine, and it should not take near as long to be mass produced. In practice, no vaccine of this type has been put in real-world yet.
 
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Revan

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There are vaccines for animal corronaviruses and there are very promising vaccines for SARS and MERS either in or about to start human trials. QUT have already got a vaccine that has shown a very strong immune response to SARS-CoV-2 and will soon go to human trials. Of course drugs can fail human trials for safety/side effect reasons but I think there is a very high chance that at least 1 of the 70+ vaccines being developed will work.
There are already several SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in human trials. The first one (from Moderna) was administered in Seattle in a few humans around 2 months ago (and the signs seem to be good). Since then, the Oxford vaccine has gone in human trials, as has gone a vaccine in China. Likely, there are other vaccines in human trials.

Moderna is soon staring Phase 2 trials, and already got licensed for Phase 3 (expected to start on the summer). With a bit of luck, the medical service might get vaccinated before Christmas, though more realistically it is gonna happen early next year. If everything goes right, obviously.
 
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Wibble

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There are already several SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in human trials. The first one (from Moderna) was administered in Seattle in a few humans around 2 months ago (and the signs seem to be good). Since then, the Oxford vaccine has gone in human trials, as has gone a vaccine in China. Likely, there are other vaccines in human trials.

Moderna is soon staring Phase 2 trials, and already got licensed for Phase 3 (expected to start on the summer). With a bit of luck, the medical service might get vaccinated before Christmas, though more realistically it is gonna happen early next year. If everything goes right, obviously.
Peter Doherty recently said that one of the vaccines undergoing trials was already in commercial production in anticipation of it passing human trials - in which case a roll out beginning in September might even be vaguely possible. Probably wishful thinking but wouldn't that be great?
 

Revan

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Peter Doherty recently said that one of the vaccines undergoing trials was already in commercial production in anticipation of it passing human trials - in which case a roll out beginning in September might even be vaguely possible. Probably wishful thinking but wouldn't that be great?
I think that the US is operating on similar manner. They are planning to start mass producing it, and so have millions of doses ready by the time trials end.

Still September looks quite optimistic to me. Even if stage 3 trials start on the summer (likely late summer, cause stage 2 trials have yet to start), I don’t see how September is realistic. I assume that at least 3 months are needed to be able to conclude anything (probably double that amount of time to have some high confidence).

For most people, I think it is unlikely that we can get vaccinated until next summer. Though the elderly and medical personal might be fast tracked.
 

Pogue Mahone

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I think I read somewhere that rhesus monkeys aren't a great test as they don't react to SARS-CoV-2 in the same was as humans, so any result is of limited use.
Then why are they testing this vaccine on rhesus monkeys?

There was another comment below that tweet saying that the weak response was because they only gave a single dose. To which the obvious response was, why give just a single dose?

If a study is not getting the results you want because it’s poorly designed, that’s not a good excuse.
 
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westmeath

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There are vaccines for animal corronaviruses and there are very promising vaccines for SARS and MERS either in or about to start human trials. QUT have already got a vaccine that has shown a very strong immune response to SARS-CoV-2 and will soon go to human trials. Of course drugs can fail human trials for safety/side effect reasons but I think there is a very high chance that at least 1 of the 70+ vaccines being developed will work.
you’re obviously better qualified than me so let’s hope you’re right. I’ve no medical qualifications at all but I recognise PR spin when I see it, particularly the Oxford stuff.
 

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It is possible that no successful vaccine gets developed - sincerely hope that is not the case but it is a possibility. What we really need are developments in effective treatments for the symptoms.