COVID-19 Pandemic

[matty007]

5 minutes ago, Snowy L said:

Like us, Italy has only been testing severe hospitalised cases. As Nadine Dorries’s mother showed us, even 80+s can have a mild cold-like illness when infected. This is why I hate the fact that no-one is doing community testing. These artificial fatality rates are causing huge anxiety and panic in many.

This is irrelevant when you are taking the figures from known cases, and then recording how many die from that number. That 16% is from the ones hospitalized. So out of all the hospitalized cases, 16% died.

Now, yes, obviously, if you recorded every single case in the nation and then calculated the death rate of those in that age, it would be MUCH lower than 16%..

But, it needs to be said that 16% mortality from all the ones of that age hospitalized is VERY high indeed.

 

Edited March 16, 2020 by matty007

[Tom Quintavalle]

1 hour ago, matty007 said:

Not a chance, I'm afraid. Barring a miraclous relentment of the virus, this will be a major issue for NHS. Of likes they probably haven't seen before.

This is true regardless of if there is lockdowns or not.

Hi matty,

Very worrying reading your comments regarding a "Cytokine Storm" being linked to Coronavirus.

My Wife suffers fron the Auto-Immune disease Psoriasis and also works as a Senior Carer in a Residential Care Home. Her Employers won't allow the Carers to wear a Face Mask, as it frightens the Residents. Crazy!!

Last Friday she had to give a Resident, Personal Care. Later that Evening, this Resident was carted off to Hospital by a Paramedic in full Hazmat suit. Very worrying.

On another personal note, my Son is in the advanced stages of Huntingdon's Disease (inherited from his Mother, my first Wife). His Mother, contracted Pneumonia following a Flu like illness, and sadly but invitably, passed away. She had been suffering from HD for 21 Years. I'm very concerned that the same fate could befall my Son should he catch the Coronavirus, as he is now very frail.

On another personal level, my Brother-In-Law is married to an Italian lady whose Family hail from a Town, S.E. of Naples. On Saturday, a Relative of hers "hosted" a Birthday Party for Relatives, Friends and Neighbours (evidently some 50 people, were present). The Carabinieri (Italian Police) broke into the Apartment Building and promptly slapped a 250 Euro fine, on all those present. Gatherings of 50 or more people are now banned, throughout Italy.

Very worrying times, personally and on a much broader scale!!

Regards,

Tom.    

Edited March 16, 2020 by TomSE12

[Captain Shortwave]

1 minute ago, Evening thunder said:

So I'm not an expert but in my head the UK idea makes some sort of sense. Surely it would be better to allow more cases in summer when the NHS has more capacity to deal with it, than try to lock it down and have it explode next winter if we then come out of that lockdown. 

What are Spain, Italy, (and even China etc) going to do when they try to return to anything resembling normal? Surely Spain's lockdown won't really last only 15 days?

Maybe they are just trying to flatten their curve more aggressively to then manage it better over summer, rather than try to actually eradicate the disease, and maybe the UK should be taking more drastic measures to try and flatten our curve to the desired extent.. no doubt it will be overwhelmed whatever happens..

However in my mind maybe there's two choices.. try to slow the outbreak but 'allow' some cases.. or remain on lockdown for most of a year/18 month period until a vaccine is both ready, produced in enough volume and then administered to the majority of the population? (short of something else changing with the disease).

I probably haven't got that completely right because I'm not an epidemiologist.. however I can't see everyone in the UK (or indeed Spain/Italy), complying with not leaving their house except for food/work for that long. and I hope the work you are meant to do in Spain/Italy is just essential work because I'm much more likely to catch it in an office environment (or even self-isolating in a shared house) than out on a countryside walk by myself!

Lockdown is essentially hitting the emergency stop button and I suspect they will be life’s slowly in time. The U.K. will probably have to do this at times too. We need to prevent our emergency services from becoming overwhelmed.

The strategy whilst it certainly a great theory, it requires a lot of data to predict when your likely trajectory in cases. It already appears the modelling are already behind reality.

The other issue in terms of reality is that there appears to be far higher numbers of working age people suffering more severe symptoms on the continent than were expected. So impacts to the health service could happen much quicker than expected.

It is all about timing but reality seems to suggest taking stronger measures earlier than expected (probably talking a couple of days earlier) is probably the right course.

[Snowy L]

1 minute ago, matty007 said:

This is irrelevant when you are taking the figures from known cases, and then recording how many die from that number. That 16% is from the ones hospitalized. So out of all the hospitalized cases, 16% died.

Now, yes, obviously, if you recorded every single case in the nation and then calculated the death rate, it would be MUCH lower than 16%..

But, it needs to be said that 16% mortality from all the ones hospitalized is VERY high indeed.

 

Yes that's true and at the hospitalisation stage you would have to assume that everyone going has pneumonia. How would this death rate compared to any other viral or bacterial pneumonia?

[weirpig]

Have not see much about the virus over the weekend  but did read this morning that in some cases in Italy and perhapd France  a large portion  ( approaching 40%)  of under 60s  are in a critical condition.  Can anyone confirm if this is true   or have i misread.

[Summer Sun]

 

[Wiltshire_snow_lover]

 

[Wimbledon88]

5 minutes ago, weirpig said:

Have not see much about the virus over the weekend  but did read this morning that in some cases in Italy and perhapd France  a large portion  ( approaching 40%)  of under 60s  are in a critical condition.  Can anyone confirm if this is true   or have i misread.

None of the above makes any sense??

[Azazel]

18 minutes ago, SnowBear said:

So I will tell you a little story, make of it as you will. 

Last mid November I went down with a hacking dry cough. I've had coughs before but this was unlike any other I've had, relentless coughing fits to gagging, and the first couple of days a high fever, enough to have to change bed clothes overnight. 

This lasted about a week while off work, by which time I was sleeping on propped pillows to try and reduce the coughing overnight.

After a further week this backed off somewhat and thinking I was getting better. I've had pneumonia before, spent 8 days in hospital with it a few years ago now and knew I was beginning to get signs of it, shortness of breath, pain in ribs and at one point not so nice what was being coughed up. I soldiered on, taking paracetamol, every type of cough medicine, sleeping almost upright as I had done in hospital. A couple of times I thought I had better call 999.

I had two long planned working weeks in Devon in the last week Nov and first Dec, at first really struggled, dragging myself around, pacing what I was doi g due to tight chest and breathing, continuing to sleep upright on propped pillow in the B&B, taking all and anything I could to relieve the symptoms. 

By the second week much improved, the signs of pneumonia gone, and feeling the return of strength but in truth I wasn't really 100% until around Christmas. 

Now I know our patient 0 is supposed to have been around mid Nov in China, but I can't help thinking this has been around longer and that he was perhaps only the first documented case, as has been said before you won't see it unless you are looking for it.

I might be wrong, and certainly treating it as though I have not had it so far, but it does make you wonder. 

As to why I didn't go to the doctors? I was damned determined not to be in hospital, had enough of that last time I was in there with pneumonia. 

Yes, many people in this thread(myself included) and all over social media have shared stories of a mystery illness that very much resembled Covid occuring between Nov 2019-Jan 2020.

[Summer Sun]

A Coronavirus vaccine trial starts today in 45 young, healthy volunteers in Seattle

Government official: Coronavirus vaccine trial starts Monday

APNEWS.COM

---

WASHINGTON (AP) — The first participant in a clinical trial for a vaccine to protect against the new coronavirus will receive an experimental dose on Monday, according to a government...

 

[Weather-history]

1 hour ago, Nick L said:

Went to Tesco before work this morning, no problems at all. Probably busier than it would usually be at 7am but shelves were well stocked, if not full.

Not the same at my local Tesco. 

[kold weather]

5 minutes ago, Wiltshire_snow_lover said:

 

Ultimately the banks can stimulate all they want but if no one is buying anything because of the lock downs it is all meaningless.

this is different from all other crashes in the past and the usual methods are banks will use will not work.

[Blessed Weather]

11 minutes ago, weirpig said:

Have not see much about the virus over the weekend  but did read this morning that in some cases in Italy and perhapd France  a large portion  ( approaching 40%)  of under 60s  are in a critical condition.  Can anyone confirm if this is true   or have i misread.

Please do not post material like this without quoting your source. On a national level the figures would be totally unrealistic.

[fujita5]

4 minutes ago, Azazel said:

Yes, many people in this thread(myself included) and all over social media have shared stories of a mystery illness that very much resembled Covid occuring between Nov 2019-Jan 2020.

If this virus had been in the UK in late November in its current form, it would have exploded a couple of months ago and thousands would be dead already with the NHS on its knees. There are many similar viruses circulating every year, you may well have had a strain of flu or another similar virus that presents with these symptoms.

[alexisj9]

17 minutes ago, Snowy L said:

Yes that's true and at the hospitalisation stage you would have to assume that everyone going has pneumonia. How would this death rate compared to any other viral or bacterial pneumonia?

That's a good question. 

[alexisj9]

6 minutes ago, Summer Sun said:

A Coronavirus vaccine trial starts today in 45 young, healthy volunteers in Seattle

Government official: Coronavirus vaccine trial starts Monday

APNEWS.COM

---

WASHINGTON (AP) — The first participant in a clinical trial for a vaccine to protect against the new coronavirus will receive an experimental dose on Monday, according to a government...

 

I wish them all luck, and hope that it works. 

[BornFromTheVoid]

5 minutes ago, Bristle boy said:

Personally, i think the team of scientists advising the UK government have been clear that further measures are all about timing for introduction to here; the timetable is moveable. I hope they are NOT influenced by public opinion, but continue to follow the science they have at their disposal, albeit flexibly adjusting future needs in line with the evidence.

Higher peak infection = more deaths. Weak attempts to reduce the virus spread = higher peak infection = more deaths.
There isn't really a way of getting around this, whatever the government plan actually is. Which is why the rest of the world, WHO and even hundreds of experts within the UK, are looking on in astonishment. 
This isn't a case of one-upmanship, I genuinely hope the plan for the UK is actually better than the rest of the worlds experts believe.

[Azazel]

3 minutes ago, fujita5 said:

If this virus had been in the UK in late November in its current form, it would have exploded a couple of months ago and thousands would be dead already with the NHS on its knees. There are many similar viruses circulating every year, you may well have had a strain of flu or another similar virus that presents with these symptoms.

Yes, you're quite right. I'm 98 percent certain it was the flu. The shortness of breath was very strange though - and also, allllllllll of these people had something similar at the same time, yet the stats show it was a quiet flu season which is weird.

I wonder though if deaths due to pneumonia pre-Jan were simply put down to unknown viruses etc because they wouldn't have even known of it's existence.

[Summer Sun]

 

[Azazel]

So anyway my boss just walked in the office.

He says his two young children have a fever and a cough, but because he's not sick, he "doesn't have it" so doesn't need to stay away. He was then laughing and joking about it "breathing" around the office etc.

I give up. I'm going to go home later, walk my dog and practice some meditation/relaxation and just accept the fact I will catch this soon and it may very well kill me. What's the point. It's out of my hands.

[alexisj9]

9 minutes ago, kold weather said:

Ultimately the banks can stimulate all they want but if no one is buying anything because of the lock downs it is all meaningless.

this is different from all other crashes in the past and the usual methods are banks will use will not work.

The markets are effected by the fact that whole economies have almost completely shut down, air lines stopping most services, food retailers like restaurants, cafés, pubs ect closed down. It's obvious the markets will take substantial hits. We haven't seen nothing yet unfortunately in this regard. 

[Snipper]

34 minutes ago, Bristle boy said:

Personally, i think the team of scientists advising the UK government have been clear that further measures are all about timing for introduction to here; the timetable is moveable. I hope they are NOT influenced by public opinion, but continue to follow the science they have at their disposal, albeit flexibly adjusting future needs in line with the evidence.

Surprised so many seem to treat any change in the governments recommendations and actions as a U turn. All along they have said that things will be a progression. 

[Bristawl Si]

10 minutes ago, BornFromTheVoid said:

Higher peak infection = more deaths. Weak attempts to reduce the virus spread = higher peak infection = more deaths.
There isn't really a way of getting around this, whatever the government plan actually is. Which is why the rest of the world, WHO and even hundreds of experts within the UK, are looking on in astonishment. 
This isn't a case of one-upmanship, I genuinely hope the plan for the UK is actually better than the rest of the worlds experts believe.

I'm no scientist; i have biology and chemistry o level (i know that is nowt, so just jesting in that respect). But i hope our scientists are correct. I'm not saying they're right, and everyone else is wrong, because i dont know. Germany was closest to UK model, but they've moved to next phase because their timing is right i presume.

Edited March 16, 2020 by Bristle boy

[Snipper]

15 minutes ago, Blessed Weather said:

Please do not post material like this without quoting your source. On a national level the figures would be totally unrealistic.

Yes and please don’t post stuff from Twitter unless it is well and truly backed up.

[Wiltshire_snow_lover]