COVID-19 Coronavirus Thread

[Matt_V939]

"Play along"? "It's more fun?" So, now it's some kind of game?

No, it's frustation.
If you can't convince people living inside their confort zone, what can you do? get upset? Yell?
If you can't convince someone 2+2=4, what else can you do?
Play along sounds good to me.

 

[Paul Iddon]

A friend of mine along with his family is in isolation - his wife has fallen ill (may have the virus though not been tested).

Not in the UK though. Still, worrying none the less.

 

[Matt_V939]

Edit on my previous comment (which I amended, #365) on Dutch approach partial closure of some activities but still "herd immunity" (it seems sweden too)

Coronavirus: Dutch adopt controversial ‘herd immunity’ strategy

Prime minister Mark Rutte says ‘large part’ of population will be infected

www.irishtimes.com

"
The Netherlands will aim to develop immunity to coronavirus among its population by allowing large numbers to contract the illness at a controlled pace, prime minister Mark Rutte announced in a national address on Monday.

“The reality is that in the near future a large part of the Dutch population will be infected with the virus,” Mr Rutte said. “We can slow down the spread of the virus while building controlled group immunity.”

“It can take months or even longer to build group immunity, and during that time we need to shield people at greater risk as much as possible.”

The idea of developing group immunity to coronavirus, also known as Covid-19, is controversial. It has been supported by Sweden’s state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell and Britain’s chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallence. But the World Health Organisation (WHO) has questioned its basis in evidence..."

 

[Nigel]

So now it seems like we're NOT following a 'herd immunity' strategy any more:

"We have a plan, based on the expertise of world-leading scientists. Herd immunity is not a part of it. That is a scientific concept, not a goal or a strategy." - Matt Han**** - https://www.gov.uk/government/news/health-secretary-matt-han****s-sunday-telegraph-op-ed

Express: The UK Government has carried out an embarassing U-turn over its strategy to delay the coronavirus pandemic. On Friday, the UK’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said the Government’s approach to tackling coronavirus was to create a “herd immunity” to the virus. However, less than 48 hours later, Health Secretary Matt Han**** confirmed that herd immunity “is not our goal or policy”.

Metro: A No 10 source said: ‘It is nothing to do with herd immunity, it is to protect as many people as possible by timing our interventions to perfection. If that also leads to mass immunity, that is a bonus – but it is not the aim’.

Hopefully now we will see clearer and more consistent messages coming from our politicians and scientific advisers

What we are doing seems to have become a bit muddy, especially after the G7 meeting, where it appeared that Boris was told by the others that he must follow the WHO guidance - ie test, test, test, test and lockdown until a vaccine is available.

However the actions taken at the later press conference suggest we are still planning to have herd immunity for the below 70s in about 13 weeks time, with the elderly and otherwise vulnerable in quarantine until then, so that they don't die and can rejoin the rest of the population bringing almost zero virus back. With the elderly in quarantine we probably only need around 45% of the total population to be infected and recovered before the virus dies out, all of them in the almost zero risk category.

No doubt the deaths will increase in the next two weeks as the elderly who are already infected recover, from then on hopefully they will drop rapidly ending up at zero in 13 weeks when we will be back to normal, apart from no foreign travel for the elderly. Clearly there is a bit of uncertainty amongst the experts about what the figures will actually be.

If Italy continues as it currently is then it will get there 3 weeks ahead of us with Spain 2 weeks ahead, with the difference that we will hopefully be more successful at protecting the at risk population, thanks to data from Italy/Spain.

OK, we can't call this herd immunity, and technically it is probably not, but the goal is the same, to quickly wipe out the virus rather than wait for a vaccine which may or may not arrive sometime. Unless Boris closes the schools, then I think that is the goal, but you could just as well say the goal is to manage the requirement for ventilators to not exceed supply, and "If that also leads to mass immunity, that is a bonus – but it is not the aim’."

 

[Dashmellow]

No, it's frustation.
If you can't convince people living inside their confort zone, what can you do? get upset? Yell?
If you can't convince someone 2+2=4, what else can you do?
Play along sounds good to me.

Well, frustration certainly sounds more understandable. I'm a bit surprised though that people need convincing considering what many grocery store shelves look like and the fact that one needs only to turn on any TV, radio or computer or open any news publication not to see the corona virus pandemic as the leading story.

Anyway, I guess you don't need to convince anyone here in this thread though.

 

[jokiin]

Anyway, I guess you don't need to convince anyone here in this thread though.

there's a strange mix of emotions with people at the moment, some are absolutely crazy, some completely in denial that it's any kind of problem all, and a bunch of nutters and conspiracy theorists, testing times that can certainly bring out the best, and unfortunately the worst in people

 

[Dashmellow]

there's a strange mix of emotions with people at the moment, some are absolutely crazy, some completely in denial that it's any kind of problem all, and a bunch of nutters and conspiracy theorists, testing times that can certainly bring out the best, and unfortunately the worst in people

I guess that's true, especially among some younger people. There are some stories floating about saying that some college kids are continuing to flock to spring break spots.

 

[jokiin]

I guess that's true, especially among some younger people. There are some stories floating about saying that some college kids are continuing to flock to spring break spots.

lots of weird decisions happening

 

[Dashmellow]

lots of weird decisions happening

The whole scenario is pretty off the charts at this point. I swear, I'm waiting for the aliens to land on the White House lawn any minute and demand a full surrender!

 

[Matt_V939]

About herd immunity

The UK Only Realised "In The Last Few Days" That Its Coronavirus Strategy Would "Likely Result In Hundreds of Thousands of Deaths"

Scientists advising the government say an aggressive new approach adopted to attempt to "suppress" the virus may have to be in place for 18 months.

www.buzzfeed.com

"...
The UK only realised "in the last few days" that attempts to "mitigate" the impact of the coronavirus pandemic would not work, and that it needed to shift to a strategy to "suppress" the outbreak, according to a report by a team of experts who have been advising the government.

The report, published by the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team on Monday night, found that the strategy previously being pursued by the government — dubbed "mitigation" and involving home isolation of suspect cases and their family members but not including restrictions on wider society — would "likely result in hundreds of thousands of deaths and health systems (most notably intensive care units) being overwhelmed many times over".

The mitigation strategy "focuses on slowing but not necessarily stopping epidemic spread — reducing peak healthcare demand while protecting those most at risk of severe disease from infection", the report said, reflecting the UK strategy that was outlined last week by Boris Johnson and the chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance.

But the approach was found to be unworkable. "Our most significant conclusion is that mitigation is unlikely to be feasible without emergency surge capacity limits of the UK and US healthcare systems being exceeded many times over," perhaps by as much as eight times, the report said.

In this scenario, the Imperial College team predicted as many as 250,000 deaths in Britain.

"In the UK, this conclusion has only been reached in the last few days," the report explained, due to new data on likely intensive care unit demand based on the experience of Italy and Britain so far.

"We were expecting herd immunity to build. We now realise it’s not possible to cope with that," professor Azra Ghani, chair of infectious diseases epidemiology at Imperial, told journalists at a briefing on Monday night...."

 

[Nigel]

In this scenario, the Imperial College team predicted as many as 250,000 deaths in Britain.

That is pretty close to the normal death rate! People don't live forever, virus or not

 

[Matt_V939]

That is pretty close to the normal death rate! .....

There is a difference if 100 personss die little by little along the full year or all 100 in 2-3 months.

 

[Deleted member 46308]

there's a strange mix of emotions with people at the moment, some are absolutely crazy, some completely in denial that it's any kind of problem all, and a bunch of nutters and conspiracy theorists, testing times that can certainly bring out the best, and unfortunately the worst in people

That pretty much covers everything.

 

[Deleted member 46308]

The whole scenario is pretty off the charts at this point. I swear, I'm waiting for the aliens to land on the White House lawn any minute and demand a full surrender!

Obviously you are out of touch. They already did, didn’t they?

 

[Matt_V939]

But having witnessed the same denial which by both the Chinese regime (at the beginning of the virus spread, to censors"rumors") AND by western democracies (ALL of them) is something unprecedented.
Even worse, at least the Chinese had an "excuse" it was something new and unexpected.
In the west we cannot claim any excuse at all.
We knew it. We have all seen: you do not build an hospital in 1 week for the "seasonal flu"....

 

[Nigel]

There is a difference if 100 personss die little by little along the full year or all 100 in 2-3 months.

I took that into account, to be accurate it is an average of about 15 weeks worth, maybe 12 weeks in the winter with a bit of flu about.

 

[kamkar]

Today's numbers from Denmark:

Total number of test: 6682
Total infected: 960
In hospital: 82
In ICU: 18
Total deaths: 4

46 new cases today as i am writing this.

Danes got a scolding on TV yesterday, they are not taking this serious enough it seem.
And TV news crews did not have any problems finding people in Copenhagen to interview, and they did seem pretty ignorant, but also very liberal / tree hugging / hippie / hipster like people.

 

[Matt_V939]

I took that into account, to be accurate it is an average of about 15 weeks worth, maybe 12 weeks in the winter with a bit of flu about.

Check my post #201. February was winter too, even more "winter" than March; 1+1/2 page obituary. In March 10 pages. A bit of flu?

 

[Nigel]

Danes got a scolding on TV yesterday, they are not taking this serious enough it seem.

Seem to be doing quite well, if your cases are reasonably evenly distributed through the population, and your elderly are all locked up, then the virus should be finding it more difficult to spread now and you should be seeing the numbers of new infections drop. I think you should be congratulating yourselves on the low death count and giving encouragement to keep it up!

 

[SawMaster]

there's a strange mix of emotions with people at the moment, some are absolutely crazy, some completely in denial that it's any kind of problem all, and a bunch of nutters and conspiracy theorists, testing times that can certainly bring out the best, and unfortunately the worst in people

It always happens. Look at how people act when a hurricane/cyclone/typhoon is approaching land- pretty much the same thing happens then. So far I've heard this:

"It's a bio-weapon that's been released (accidentally or intentionally) by the Chinese/Americans/Russians/Democrats/Republicans/Rich people"
"It's the chemtrails"
"It's because of people eating animals:"
and:
"It's going to kill everybody/old people only so I don't have to take precautions/it's not real" as well as "It's just a flu and everyone's over-reacting".

Somewhere in between all this is the truth- I don't think any of these people I've noted here really have a clue. I know these people and they all have the best intentions for themselves and everyone else in their lives-if they didn't then I'd have nothing to do with them. They're all good people at heart really, but sometimes it can be hard being around them knowing that they're going to be screwing up and needing my help to get by. And sometimes like with this virus, I have to distance myself from them and let them fall on their own so that I don't get dragged down with them. It's not an easy thing to have to do, but sometimes my best response to them is silence and a smile of kindness, which i know they'll take as my agreement when it's actually the opposite and only my way of finding peace in my own life so I can be there to help them after their fall. There are some people worth saving and some who aren't, and in many cases I don't have the wisdom to know exactly who is who so I default toward the humane approach and hope for the best.

All of life is a lesson. Try to learn something good from every part of life every day because even in times like these, there is some good to be found.

Phil