COVID-19 Pandemic

[Bartlett High]

8 minutes ago, Summer Sun said:

The Eurovision Song Contest has been cancelled.

Praise the lord!

[Tilly]

22 minutes ago, weirpig said:

Bab  With all due respect i dont think this is the place  to answer your questions    Maybe contact the NHS or dial 111  or google  there is loads of information out there

I didn’t want advice, I was just interested. I’m not going anywhere. The only place I’d need to go is shopping and by the time I’d got my lot out of the door there would be nothing left anyway social distancing is 100% the norm for me! I was just interested to know that’s all

[kold weather]

11 minutes ago, Stabilo19 said:

Sky news reporting that 25 out of 71 deaths (35%) and 601 out of 1950 positive cases (30%) are in London. 

London has around 14% of the UK population.

 

It probably shouldn't surprise anyone this is the case, simply because it is a large multicultural city that has huge levels of tourism.

I hope London isn't about to become another Madrid. If it does, I suspect Boris will have to put in some very stringent policies, even more so than what we have currently into a full lockdown.

edit - 15 deaths in the Netherlands today, another large rise there....starting to see a pattern now across many European countries.

Edited March 18, 2020 by kold weather

[Arctic Hare]

9 minutes ago, Stabilo19 said:

Sky news reporting that 25 out of 71 deaths (35%) and 601 out of 1950 positive cases (30%) are in London. 

London has around 14% of the UK population.

 

It would be interesting to know how much of that is due to various factors, though I don't know how you'd measure that. For example, London is by far the biggest city in the UK, it's also the one with the largest number of travellers going in and out, and (as that photo reminds me) it also has the Tube. I would have thought the Underground would be an almost perfect way of spreading a virus like this. No other city, even those (eg Newcastle) with metro systems, has anything quite like it.

[weirpig]

9 minutes ago, Stabilo19 said:

Sky news reporting that 25 out of 71 deaths (35%) and 601 out of 1950 positive cases (30%) are in London. 

London has around 14% of the UK population.

 

Yep  High Numbers  There.   Actually here in the Black Country  i believe there as been 8 deaths   4 in dudley   popu.lation wise that  in itself is quite alarming 

[Azazel]

1 hour ago, Summer Sun said:

 

A serology test is coming then. Excellent. Wonder how accessible it will be to the general public.

Also schools must be closed around here. Kids wandering around in their droves.

[Wiltshire_snow_lover]

wow

[kold weather]

4 minutes ago, Wiltshire_snow_lover said:

wow

Closing the border with Mexico is one thing, but closing it with Canada...that really is something!

I could have never imagined we would get this point one month ago even as Italy started to get the first few cases...

PS - death in Scotland sadly.

Edited March 18, 2020 by kold weather

[Wiltshire_snow_lover]

tbh this is making the financial crisis look a mere blip..

[beatpete]

4 hours ago, nick sussex said:

A lot of Parisiens apparently have escaped to their second homes in the sw of France leading to public anger and placards going up telling them to go home as they’ve come from a virus hotspot .

At the best of times this anti Paris sentiment is there because a lot do have second homes which they normally use at holidays .

 

Same here in Wales...

Coronavirus: Second-home owners urged to stay away

WWW.BBC.CO.UK

---

A rural GP says local health services will not be able to cope with a surge in people relocating.

 

[Snowy L]

17 minutes ago, Flipflop said:

Good news- “favipiravir, developed by a subsidiary of Fujifilm, had produced encouraging outcomes in clinical trials in Wuhan and Shenzhen in 340 patients with “high degree of safety and is clearly effective in treatment”. How well? Thread #COVID19 
https://t.co/8x0Pu2MGoV

Good news, but notable limitation:

"But a Japanese health ministry source suggested the drug was not as effective in people with more severe symptoms. “We’ve given Avigan to 70 to 80 people, but it doesn’t seem to work that well when the virus has already multiplied,” the source told the Mainichi Shimbun.

The same limitations had been identified in studies involving coronavirus patients using a combination of the HIV antiretrovirals lopinavir and ritonavir, the source added."

 

[Stabilo19]

 

[Wiltshire_snow_lover]

 

5pm england school closure announcement i guess 

[Snipper]

11 minutes ago, Azazel said:

A serology test is coming then. Excellent. Wonder how accessible it will be to the general public.

Also schools must be closed around here. Kids wandering around in their droves.

One of the problems of closing schools is what to do with the little darlings.  Let them wander round in rabid packs might not be the best answer?

[Methuselah]

30 minutes ago, Summer Sun said:

The Eurovision Song Contest has been cancelled.

I wish they'd cancel Mrs Brown's Boys...

[Azazel]

1 minute ago, Snipper said:

One of the problems of closing schools is what to do with the little darlings.  Let them wander round in rabid packs might not be the best answer?

It's a real conundrum.

I work from home so I would keep my kids home (if I had them), but i can understand why it's so difficult for those who can't work from home. They have to understand it's not a holiday and excuse to "muck about" - though I know full well if I was a teenager I would do exactly that.

[Spikecollie]

Just now, Snipper said:

One of the problems of closing schools is what to do with the little darlings.  Let them wander round in rabid packs might not be the best answer?

They'll have to be kept in, like the kids are being kept in here in France. No youngsters wandering around but plenty playing in the sunshine in gardens. No footbalL games happening, no gathering in play areas. I guess there will be a real upsurge in technology addiction and dependence. I do feel sorry for parents.

[Stabilo19]

2 minutes ago, Snipper said:

One of the problems of closing schools is what to do with the little darlings.  Let them wander round in rabid packs might not be the best answer?

Perhaps they'll stick with the idea to keep schools open as daycare centres with lower staff numbers (those not quarantining), relieving pressure on working NHS parents. I thought that idea was doing the rounds?

Or they'll enforce social distancing and the kids won't be allowed out.

[kold weather]

11 minutes ago, Wiltshire_snow_lover said:

tbh this is making the financial crisis look a mere blip..

Oh yeah, this is hitting every single aspect of life possible to hit. This is basically what the world looks like when it is put into a war footing, and what a true pandemic looks like. I don't think many people will be forgetting this year in a hurry. 

Whats more amazing is it comes nearly a hundred years since the last pandemic that was this sharp and severe (I know HIV/AIDS is a pandemic, but a very different type to this one).

[nick sussex]

1 minute ago, General Cluster said:

I wish they'd cancel Mrs Brown's Boys...

I agree . It’s tripe. As for the Eurovision Song Contest. I’m gutted , absolutely love that . Its like an LSD trip with most of the groups on another planet . 

[kold weather]

Big rise in cases today:

As of 9am on 18 March 2020, 56,221 people have been tested in the UK, of which 53,595 were confirmed negative and 2,626 were confirmed positive. The latest confirmed number of deaths will be announced later today.

Does anyone know how many tests were done today?

Edited March 18, 2020 by kold weather

[BornFromTheVoid]

5779 new tests, of which 676 were positive. That's 11.7%.

 

[emax]

1 hour ago, Bristle boy said:

Really?! Latest stats show deaths in Germany to still be v low, compared to positive tests. So unless you've 'access' to the German hospitals in some capacity to see for yourself, surely the equipment will be in use right now saving lives. Maybe i'm being presumptious.

You're missing it entirely. The number of ICU beds wont make any difference at this stage, compared to us at least. They could have 500million ICU beds, but if only 200 are occupied, it wouldnt make any difference to the patients outcome. The most likely factor is they are reporting only deaths that are a direct result of COVID, or their actual medical expertise is 3x better than anyone in the world, which is unlikely. It could even at a pinch be that they have a lot less cases than we do, but its all just guessing.

All I'm saying is, that the number of ICU beds wont make a difference until they're at capacity.

[Guest Delete Me]

Rapid acceleration now in full swing at the start of the curve, community testing needs to happen and NOW.

[kold weather]

1 minute ago, BornFromTheVoid said:

5779 new tests, of which 676 were positive. That's 11.7%.

 

Oh dear, I was hoping that there had been an increase in testing to account for a higher positive case count...but that is not the case...

Looks like we are finally on the rapid upward curve of that bell curve. Government are going to have to bring in the toughest measures they were talking about by the weekend. 

Education secretary making an announcement at 5pm, can only mean one thing...