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

[11101]

It spreads to all - but the risk to die from it or get into serious conditions that later on impact you more - is higher for the poorer people.

I don't see any proof of that so far. Certainly not in Europe. Maybe when countries with lower quality health infrastructures start to run out of available places or prioritise according to who pays more.

Minorities are disproportionately represented in the death figures in the UK. Think they account 30% of deaths when they make up 13% of the population. Could be due to cramped living conditions and multi-generational living arrangements common in Asian communities in particular. A lot of the medical professionals that have died in the UK seem to have been Asian too.

It is partly because of things like prevalence of type 2 diabetes in Asian and Black communities which is comfortably the most common comorbidity for Covid-19. Socio-economic factors may have an influence on who gets that in the first place, but studies have shown those groups are more susceptible to type 2 even with all else being equal. There is nothing I have seen that proves poor people are more at risk simply because they are poor. You certainly would not class Asian medics in the UK as being poor.

It's similar to men being more susceptible. Is it because men are really more susceptible, or is it because men are more likely to smoke and be overweight?

 

[sammsky1]

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's address on Covid-19 situation, April 10

 

[senorgregster]

I've been trying to summarize these myself but saw this and it's waaaaaay better. I'll try to keep track of his tweets and update this post.

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[sammsky1]

Minorities are disproportionately represented in the death figures in the UK. Think they account 30% of deaths when they make up 13% of the population. Could be due to cramped living conditions and multi-generational living arrangements common in Asian communities in particular. A lot of the medical professionals that have died in the UK seem to have been Asian too.

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[Classical Mechanic]

I don't see any proof of that so far. Certainly not in Europe. Maybe when countries with lower quality health infrastructures start to run out of available places or prioritise according to who pays more.




It is partly because of things like prevalence of type 2 diabetes in Asian and Black communities which is comfortably the most common comorbidity for Covid-19. Socio-economic factors may have an influence on who gets that in the first place, but studies have shown those groups are more susceptible to type 2 even with all else being equal. There is nothing I have seen that proves poor people are more at risk simply because they are poor. You certainly would not class Asian medics in the UK as being poor.

It's similar to men being more susceptible. Is it because men are really more susceptible, or is it because men are more likely to smoke and be overweight?

The Asian medic thing is only from my own casual observation and 40% of the NHS are minorities anyway. I think cramped living conditions more common among the poor will result in a higher risk factor though.

 

[UncleBob]

Swedens strategy of letting society get on with their normal day while trying to protect elderly, and generally those at risk, hasn't been much of a success when you look at the amount of elderly that are now infected.

 

[mav_9me]

She has a lot wrong to be honest mate, @BeforeKeanetherewasRobson. It's clear she's only looked at worldometers and made her assumptions/article based on that.

She claims 719 Swedes are in intensive care, when that is in fact the total number who have received intensive care. That is the number on worldometres though under "Serious/critical". The actual number of Swedes in intensive care currently is 471.
I mean, it's not even difficult to research, it's public knowledge: https://www.svt.se/datajournalistik/corona-i-intensivvarden/

Sweden are 100% transparent on this, we have a daily 14:00 press conference from the State Epidemiologist where we are talked through everything. Stats, figures, cases, trends, models. How well social distancing is working, what we are doing wrong etc.

We know and have seen the graphs to show that since we started social distancing measures in mid-March, flu and winter tummy bug have dropped off a cliff.
We know that we have stopped the exponential growth in Stockholm and that the curve has been flattened.
We know that Gothenburg looks like to be the next place we will have our main focus on.
We know that we have so far and according to the model can treat and give ICU to everyone that needs it if we keep this up. We still have plenty of capacity there.
We also know we fecked up massively in the Järva area of Stockholm, and that we've done a dog shit job in nursing homes.
We also know that we could seriously feck this up over Easter if people don't follow the guidelines set out for them by the Health Ministry.

As for cases? What does that even mean these days? I mean, Germany has 118,235 cases.... but is anyone claiming they are doing worse than Iran, France or The UK?

Good post. I hope the swedes and others are able up look back and learn and educate others as to what they did good and where they failed, more transparently than others.

And yeah new cases or total number of cases is of minimal significance. What's important is how many are hospitalized, how many in intensive care and how many are dying.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

Swedens strategy of letting society get on with their normal day while trying to protect elderly, and generally those at risk, hasn't been much of a success when you look at the amount of elderly that are now infected.

You should probably tone that down to Stockholm in fairness if you wanna go that road again. Gothenburg, similar size to your biggest City and also had half term earlier than Stockholm (as did Oslo), is doing alright like.

Only a very small minority of risk groups in Stockholm had got infected, but as I've said several times today, we've done a dog shit job at protecting nursing homes, 121 in Stockholm alone have cases. Insane numbers.

You realise it's not going from Norway right? So when you open up again, it's a long road for us all, despite the brilliant brilliant job Norway have done so far.

 

[DFreshKing]

We really need to get these antibody tests on stream. Looking forward to Sweden's early results i think they have took a very good approach for their circumstance and think in the long run will fair better if this virus is set to withstand summer. Many studies show a huge increase in death/poverty for each % increase in unemployment, something a lot of countries are going to face going forward.

 

[sammsky1]

Do you genuinely believe that people should be charged with manslaughter regarding this?

I think there needs to be some common sense and logic applied to this PPE issue as frustrating as it is before we get into this endless crusade of blaming and suggesting people should be up for manslaughter charges etc. In Arruda’s case that’s really poor from the press in that particular instance. And I get why he’s fuming.

But to start with, not every hospital in the Uk has actually run out of PPE or is in short supply, a lot are well stocked. There are a lot that are clearly not however, I'd assume the problem lies with getting the equipment, masks especially?

Essentially you’ve got all these hospitals, police stations, GP’s etc that are essentially trying to order equipment that is likely to be used in a day that would ordinarily be used in a month. 2000% increase in demand is the last I heard.
That’s not mentioning the large number of irrational members of public who were
/are also ordering supply.

I think there were PPE’s in reserve for a pandemic but it’s not enough and really never was gonna be (obviously) This is something that can be questioned but then we're going into that whole weary hindsight area. This is literally a once in a lifetime situation for everyone.

Then you have to take into account the chain of supply. If your country doesn’t have the factories producing these things you have to import right?
Are the countries who make these products more regularly going to bend over to export their products abroad at this current time ? I'm not so sure

Then you take into account the difference between culture in somewhere like the Uk to somewhere like Japan/China etc . Their use of masks is a day to day thing so I'd imagine they have the supply and the resource to make more?

And then there's the fact you have hundreds of thousands of nhs volunteers who will now need and use PPE. It is near enough impossible to keep up with the country wide demand.

It seems everybody in the NHS is working together to try and get things moving, army bringing in equipment, getting equipment from schools etc. Ordering directly from wholesalers. But it'll take longer than a month to get the sufficient worldwide supply in.

And just to add I say this as someone on the frontline who has seen a spell of a lack of ppe in the last month, although it’s improved. I also have a 65 year old mother working as a nurse. So I get it, but this doesn’t seem to me to be the kind of area where we need get the pitch folks out and start blaming people.

When it became clear this was a pandemic in China (mid January), relevant UK leaders should have pressed button to increase PPE by whatever means necessary. UK was able to convert a conference centre into a world class medical facility in 9 days ... they could easily have created their own PPE manufacturing capacity inside UK within a month, or instructed UK garment private sector to produce (aided by an army of sewing machine users at home, something my mum used to do that for additional income when we were very young).

If the pandemic did not reach UK, then would only have been stuck with excess PPE, which could be used over the future, or resold back into international market. Relatively speaking it was pocket change for Government spending.

Instead, the desire to increase PPE stocks only happened in March. And UK is having to buy that from international market at massively inflated costs, and reliant on countries like Turkey for good will donations.

Dr. el-Khidir says his cousin, the deceased Dr. el-Tayar might have lived had the health service ... sooner supplied doctors with better protective gear:

“In our morbidity analyses, we go through each and every case and ask, ‘Was it preventable? Was it avoidable? I’m trying to answer this question with my cousin now. Even with all the difficulties, I’ve got to say the answer has to be yes.”

Recently deceased Dr Abdul Chowdhury wrote a facebook message to PM Johnson just 3 weeks ago pleading for more PPE.

Those 'lost 6 weeks' has endangered so many NHS and key workers (ditto USA), and is a key reason why some died, and many others infected. The 'leaders' who failed to make those timely decisions should be held accountable for tha negligence.

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[Arruda]

Supermarkets?
Items being delivered to your home?
People working who can't work from home?
Construction workers working on tasks where social distancing is not possible

Some examples of ways to get it within the guidelines

Plus all the people who got it before containment who are becoming symptomatic only now, or close contacts of assymptomatic carriers (family etc).

 

[Ekkie Thump]

Updated graph of deaths in England by day of death. 765 new deaths as of 5pm yesterday, down from 828 the day before:

Spoiler: graph

Updated graph of deaths in England by day of death. 866 new deaths as of 5pm yesterday +101 from the day before. Orange is a 5 day trailing average (last 5-7 days will see large to moderate upward changes).

Spoiler: graph

 

[Arruda]

We can already have the IgG/IgM test in our hospital, but it will take a bit before we start using it. We've yet to have a recovered case here.

 

[Pagh Wraith]

Cluj Airport yesterday (first photo) and today (second photo). Romanians travelling to Germany for asparagus season.

 

[Shakesy]

So, South Africa.

Welcome to life inside the most stringent lockdown on the planet. We can't leave our homes unless it is to go to the pharmacy or the shop. Nothing unprecedented here. Once at the shop we can only buy essential items. So, one cannot buy screws, nails, ant poison, chlorine for swimming pools, etc. OK, things are getting weirder. Kids can't buy headsets to attend online classes. No tech is available to buy anywhere.

Cigarettes and alcohol are not essentials. We cannot buy these. Mmmm... Getting a little absurd now.

We cannot go for a jog or to the beach. We cannot walk our dogs. Crazy. Crazy. There are three known cases in this 300 square mile region of the country. But no. We cannot leave our houses.

Last night our president extended our lockdown (which was due to end in a week) to the end of the month. People have no alcohol left. They are angry. After the announcement four liquor stores were looted in the area. Shops that sell ciggs are being closed down and owners are forced to pay disproportionate fines. We are going all out in our fight against this virus. Never mind this huge surge in domestic violence.

And most feel pretty good that we're "beating" this virus and that this lockdown is "working". Before the lockdown our cases climbed daily by 45%. From day ONE of this lockdown, the cases have been climbing 4%.

This local strain of COVID-19 clearly has no incubation period. And everyone is lapping this up.

Who are we fooling? Feck. I need a drink.

 

[Sky1981]

Nigeria is doing targeted testing and contact tracing with an infection rate of > 50%. The country simply doesn't have the capacity for mass testing. I feel the virus has already got out but many cities are on lockdown.
Now the problem is most Nigerian feed and earn as they work. People are literally starving and in some parts the situation is getting out of hand.
It's a bit of a rock and a hard place. The country cannot afford to allow the virus get out of hand at the same time, people cannot afford to stay at home.
Similar situation in most of sub-saharan africa.

Forget Africa. Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, hell I suppose most countries majorities would work on week to week paycheck. How many of you can honestly say you have a 3 months savings? I don't even think developed nations are ready for anything beyond 1 month lock down if we want to be brutally honest.

I really can't help but pity the government. It's a tough choice they're making, even if they have the cash to burn a total lockdown will be a food logistic nightmare

 

[DFreshKing]

So, South Africa.

Welcome to life inside the most stringent lockdown on the planet. We can't leave our homes unless it is to go to the pharmacy or the shop. Nothing unprecedented here. Once at the shop we can only buy essential items. So, one cannot buy screws, nails, ant poison, chlorine for swimming pools, etc. OK, things are getting weirder. Kids can't buy headsets to attend online classes. No tech is available to buy anywhere.

Cigarettes and alcohol are not essentials. We cannot buy these. Mmmm... Getting a little absurd now.

We cannot go for a jog or to the beach. We cannot walk our dogs. Crazy. Crazy. There are three known cases in this 300 square mile region of the country. But no. We cannot leave our houses.

Last night our president extended our lockdown (which was due to end in a week) to the end of the month. People have no alcohol left. They are angry. After the announcement four liquor stores were looted in the area. Shops that sell ciggs are being closed down and owners are forced to pay disproportionate fines. We are going all out in our fight against this virus. Never mind this huge surge in domestic violence.

And most feel pretty good that we're "beating" this virus and that this lockdown is "working". Before the lockdown our cases climbed daily by 45%. From day ONE of this lockdown, the cases have been climbing 4%.

This local strain of COVID-19 clearly has no incubation period. And everyone is lapping this up.

Who are we fooling? Feck. I need a drink.

I know I shouldn't laugh but I think those figures are being 'slightly massaged'.

Thinking of you but I've overturned my great dryuary low alcohol February with a shocking April shower of booze. I've also.put on 5lbs....

 

[Sparky Rhiwabon]

My friend works in food production so obviously a key worker and cant work from home. He said that social distancing is impossible at work. This will be repeated many times over.

 

[Redlambs]

My friend works in food production so obviously a key worker and cant work from home. He said that social distancing is impossible at work. This will be repeated many times over.

It's like the bullshit site health and safety put out about building sites.

I went to a shop site last week, and a tiny 6m x 6m stockroom had 5 people working in it. You simply can't stop it all.

 

[massi83]

https://www.thelocal.at/20200410/coronavirus-cases-in-austria-are-twice-the-reported-numbers/amp


0.32% of Austrians infected in first week of April. If the test is similar to Stockholm, it would mean 1-2% has had it or currently have it. But maybe UK has 50% infected already

 

[Shakesy]

I know I shouldn't laugh but I think those figures are being 'slightly massaged'.

Thinking of you but I've overturned my great dryuary low alcohol February with a shocking April shower of booze. I've also.put on 5lbs....

Massaged

Shower of booze

 

[Dante]

I left my flat for a walk for the first time since last Friday (on my own, whilst social distancing).

Everywhere is so much quieter than only last week. But the few people I did see were all keeping apart and seemed to be observing the rules.

Also, I saw this banner put up outside the Manchester Royal Infirmary.

 

[TMDaines]

Looks like The Torygraph is embarrasing themselves by publishing ministerial hypocricy as well.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.te...ert-jenrick-drove-40-miles-visit-parents/amp/

That would actually be a story though (although the paywall won’t allow me to find out). The Guardian didn’t cover any of that last night and entirely focussed on him nipping over to provide supplies for his parents.

The second homes issue is tricky in a lot of cases because a lot of second homes are used for business and are essentially workplaces, as opposed to leisure. I’d fully expect many people leading the country currently to be splitting time between their home area and a location closer to Westminster. This is different to the Scottish Chief Medical Officer who was clearly visiting her second home for leisure purposes and no business.

We currently have thousands of NHS, social
care and other staff who are not living at their ordinary home address to be able to do their job too.

Cluj Airport yesterday (first photo) and today (second photo). Romanians travelling to Germany for asparagus season.

Must admit I do love the wall of asparagus in German shops at this time of year.

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Another reminder of policing being just another profession filled with individuals getting drunk on the slightest taste of power.

 

[JMack1234]

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Goodness me.

The Home Secretary needs to come out ASAP and publicly tell the police what they can and can't do. Absolutely terrifying that we have Police officers who don't understand the concept of private property.

I fear that every citizen is going to have to educated themselves of their rights and how to submit complaints to the IPCC.

 

[Alabaster Codify7]

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Goodness me.

The Home Secretary needs to come out ASAP and publicly tell the police what they can and can't do. Absolutely terrifying that we have Police officers who don't understand the concept of private property.

I fear that every citizen is going to have to educated themselves of their rights and how to submit complaints to the IPCC.

Police State behaviour, simple as that. The government better speak out about this before it starts becoming more common and people start breaking lockdown to kick back on the issue. Slippery slope that needs higher ups to nip it in the bud NOW

 

[Mr Pigeon]

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Goodness me.

The Home Secretary needs to come out ASAP and publicly tell the police what they can and can't do. Absolutely terrifying that we have Police officers who don't understand the concept of private property.

I fear that every citizen is going to have to educated themselves of their rights and how to submit complaints to the IPCC.

Can't help but think her attitude would've been different if the garden was well maintained and he answered the door wearing a smoking jacket sipping from a glass of Pimm's.

 

[Mr Pigeon]

In other news;

French police turn back private jet of holidaymakers from UK

Seven men and three women arrived on the chartered aircraft to Marseille-Provence airport, where helicopters were waiting to fly them on to Cannes, where they had rented a luxury villa.

Now, I'm not one to jump to conclusions but...

The men, aged 40-50, and women, aged 23-25, were refused permission to enter France and ordered by police to fly back to the UK.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...urn-back-private-jet-of-holidaymakers-from-uk

 

[cyberman]

Got this yesterday when a couple of guards drove up to my farm asking what i was doing, if my work was essential.
Fecker, I own this land youre standing on.

 

[The Cat]

Now, I'm not one to jump to conclusions but...

I bet business is slow

 

[Mr Pigeon]

Got this yesterday when a couple of guards drove up to my farm asking what i was doing, if my work was essential.
Fecker, I own this land youre standing on.

I'd be careful, they might have been scammers planning to rummage through your hedges for all your wads of cash.

 

[Fully Fledged]

I'd be careful, they might have been scammers planning to rummage through your hedges for all your wads of cash.

That's not how hedge funds work.

 

[cyberman]

I'd be careful, they might have been scammers planning to rummage through your hedges for all your wads of cash.

Im more brazen than that. I have Tractors made of gold thats painted over ala Tower Heist so i can hide it in plain sight.

 

[horsechoker]

In other news;


Now, I'm not one to jump to conclusions but...


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...urn-back-private-jet-of-holidaymakers-from-uk

A couple of fathers and daughters going on holiday, what's wrong with that?

 

[Mr Pigeon]

That's not how hedge funds work.

Im more brazen than that. I have Tractors made of gold thats painted over ala Tower Heist so i can hide it in plain sight.

Why not just sell the gold and buy more tractors? I've heard they're worth their weight in gold.

A couple of fathers and daughters going on holiday, what's wrong with that?

Sure, daughters...

 

[Deery]

Ireland extended the lockdown until another 3 weeks..

 

[SirAF]

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/09/dr-anthony-fauci-handshaking-needs-to-stop-even-after-pandemic.html

Now, this I can get onboard with.

 

[SteveJ]

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/09/dr-anthony-fauci-handshaking-needs-to-stop-even-after-pandemic.html

It should be replaced by mutual morris dancing.

 

[Smores]

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/09/dr-anthony-fauci-handshaking-needs-to-stop-even-after-pandemic.html

Now, this I can get onboard with.

Yeah i never got handshaking as some kind of formal introduction "here stranger please share my germs"

 

[SirAF]

Yeah i never got handshaking as some kind of formal introduction "here stranger please share my germs"

Yes. You obviously have had to play along, but this might actually lead to it being socially acceptable to not shake hands.

 

[Mr Pigeon]

Yeah i never got handshaking as some kind of formal introduction "here stranger please share my germs"

It was to prove to the other person that you didn't have a gun. Or at least that's what the documentary called Contagion taught me.