Coronavirus

[pete]

12 hours ago, ChrisJ said:

More people testing positive does not mean more people dying.

In other countries where the  infection rate has risen considerably deaths have not followed suit. Is the virus weakening or are we better able to treat it

[ChrisJ]

It seems that during the first wave it kills most of the people who are vulnerable to it at that point in time and then burns itself in that location. I have read that countries should expect approximately 1 month's worth of extra deaths during the course of the first wave, and once that figure is reached, that should be it.

So Australia, right now, is going through their first wave and there isn't really anything they can do apart from try to protect those at risk (there's a lot more information now than back in March, so they "should" be able to do this), and let it ripple out through the rest of the population. However, they seem to be following the UK route in trying to suppress it - although they seem to have have gone full on mental - so one buggered economy coming up. You'd have thought they might have learnt from Sweden.

NZ could still manage to protect the vulnerable as they haven't had their first wave yet, but they seem to be going for a completely zero virus approach and are cutting themselves completely off from the world - waiting for a vaccine? I think that they are going to be in for a shock - we have an flu vaccine, yet thousands die every year from flu. 

May well be seasonable, like other viruses. However in the future it will no longer a new virus, so resistance "should" be better.  

As I understand it, at first the go to treatment was to ventilate, but as time as gone by other methods have been found to be more effective and that ventilation is the last option.

[PaulCP]

With highs of 33° expected AGAIN today, it's time to ask "could the government have done more?" Downing Street knew about this heatwave weeks ago and have done nothing. Shipments of 400,000 pairs of Speedos and 500,000 bikinis, sun cream and Cornettos have reportedly been sent back as unsafe after media claims the shipment was quarantined a month ago and Boris did nothing.

Karen from Chavington said, "We just don't  know if it's safe to go outside and sunbathe because we can't function or think for ourselves. Boris hasn't told us either way and all my obese kids need ice cream and sweets, the Hubby can't get out to rob anyone so we're out of lager and weed, I blame the government entirely" 

Meanwhile, anti- heat protesters dressed in thick jumpers chanting "cold lives matter" have marched on London, Big Ben has been removed and a giant Mint Feast put in its place by protesters.

The BBC reported earlier, 'clearly the sun has come out and Downing street have done nothing to prevent it.'

A second heat Wave is expected to hit the UK in 4 weeks time .

[Clive59]

12 minutes ago, ChrisJ said:

It seems that during the first wave it kills most of the people who are vulnerable to it at that point in time and then burns itself in that location. I have read that countries should expect approximately 1 month's worth of extra deaths during the course of the first wave, and once that figure is reached, that should be it.

this shows some data, calls it a 'casedemic' and sounds logical.

 

 

[Colin P]

@PaulCP

New Cases - discussing with Mrs P last night, as a shielder she is obsessed with the numbers. New cases are irrelevant - it is a function of the number of tests being done. The best measure is those admitted to hospital as quite frankly when people get ill to the point of going to hospital then that "degree of illness" will be the same now as it was before. Therefore the number of people going to hospital will be a consistent measure.

This one could go into the "What made you unhappy thread". People returning early from France so that they don;t have to self isolate. FFS whether you return today or tomorrow does not affect the risk you represent to others. Do the honerable thing and self isolate anyway. You took the risk, knowingly, of going to France and this was always on the cards. Stop being a selfish inconsiderate bunch of XXXXs. The government should bring these measures in "with immediate effect". Adele, this applies to you too if you happen to be on a Lotus discussion forum, set an example.

[PaulCP]

@Colin P

oooooooooops, didn’t check any other threads 

@Bibs delete the post if you wish👍

[ChrisJ]

Colin - this is the site with the figures you are looking for: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/healthcare - you can drill down Nations for no of tests, Local authorities for no of +ve tests and NHS regions for healthcare.

 

[Barrykearley]

 

[RobinB5]

Not going to comment on whether the global response to covid 19 is an overreaction or not, but it appears to be quite contagious but not that severe in terms of fatality. Kind of the opposite to Ebola. I just hope that the one thing we as a species learns from this is how better to prepare and protect ourselves from a pandemic that is both highly contagious and has a much higher fatality rate. We've got all kinds of technology gizmos, SpaceX is ferrying people into space, the infrastructure of this information age evolves apace etc. but I find it kind of strange (and worrying) that we don't have the technology to develop a viable vaccine quickly. We like to think of ourselves as scientifically advanced, but in all honesty we're really lacking when it comes to medical advances. It will have taken about a year to come up with a vaccine for a (relatively) mild virus. If a contagious virus pops up that has even a 20% mortality rate, society will collapse faster than its ability to develop a response.

Sure, it happened in the C14th with 1/3-1/2 of Europe's population dying. They had no complex interwoven supply chain that underpinned their society to worry about though. It heralded the end of feudalism which was one small +ve but apart from that society at the time was quite resilient in its ability to keep on surviving as it had done previously. We're much more a house of cards now. Maybe this pandemic will be a wake up call as to how ill prepared we are, and how conceited we are to assume that things will always chug along as they have done for the last few hundred years.

Sure, doubt the government and its response to covid, blame the media for all the fear mongering, but for goodness sake can we please still both trust and invest in science and medicine to ensure we are better prepared for the worse? 

[march]

[ChrisJ]

@RobinB5 - I think there was/is a Pandemic plan for the UK (here's the one for flu - https://www.gov.uk/guidance/pandemic-flu) and the government were following this pretty closely, until they were spooked by Ferguson's 500k deaths prediction and the surrounding media circus.

I think I'd have looked at Ferguson's prediction track record rather than just blindly accepting it.

1. 2005, up to 200 million worldwide could die from bird flu. Final death toll, 282
2. 2009, 65,000 deaths from Swine flu in the UK, there were 457
3. 2002, between 50 & 50,000 would die from BSE, death toll 177

So not exactly the most reliable of predictions - OK, technically he did get 1 & 3 correct, but he might as well have said between 1 and 5 billion for the usefulness of the figures.

 

 

 

[RobinB5]

But were these predictions based on the projected result of no remedial action being taken? Most of the reporting of Ferguson's models was from the media, which I don't trust to provide an objective scientific appraisal. Having said that I've not seen, and more worryingly I don't know of anywhere that has provided a measured review of his models. Regardless, some plan needs to be in place and more investment in disease control needs to be made.

[RobinB5]

Was the fact that the actual number of deaths were much lower due to a quick response to the risk, or that the predictions themselves were overinflated? That's the crux of the problem. This is where it comes down to trust in science. Balancing the risk of deaths with the risk to the economy is never going to be perceived as being 'correct', as it's unprovable after the fact. In the entitled society we live in, riddled with populism, who'd be a scientist to make predictions eh? 

[ChrisJ]

Interesting view of the statistics

https://www.travellingtabby.com/uk-coronavirus-tracker/

 

[yeller77]

Little will truly be known about this pandemic until it is all over and all of the data are analyzed. Most "experts" or "predictors" will just be making WAGs until then. Unfortunately, there's been a lot of immature "science" reported in haste that did little more than muddy the waters. Any novel virus will have unknown transmissibility and pathogenicity until it's observed. It's been difficult to analyze trends due to the evolution of testing and treatment. Early on, testing was limited to the the most vulnerable, high risk, and most symptomatic patients, and treatments were unclear (or unheeded from previous SARS-like coronaviruses) consequently high death rates were observed. Now, those populations have gotten locked down, almost anyone can get tested if they want to, and new infections are peaking in the 20-40 age group with few symptoms and extremely low mortality. Actually, manipulation of the economy to impact public health has never really been done on this scale since the so-called Spanish Flu. It's akin to deciding to reduce all speed limits to 40 mph or less on all roadways to try to mitigate traffic deaths, or eliminating personal cars altogether. That would surely be effective but the economies and populace would never tolerate it. The absolute tenet to reduce communicable diseases from spreading is to keep people away from each other one way or another. How much is too much is going to have lots of different answers depending upon where you look and who's looking.

[mayevora]

[ChrisJ]

Well worth a read

https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/september-2020/liberty-in-lockdown/

 

[Bibs]

As is this - https://elemental.medium.com/a-supercomputer-analyzed-covid-19-and-an-interesting-new-theory-has-emerged-31cb8eba9d63

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

My sons are back from their first day of secondary schooling in 6 months. The school has done practically f**k all since they closed in March. Full class sizes. Desks in the usual position. Children sat directly next to each other as previously. Classes emptying out at same time. Year groups being held together whilst others leave. Staggered start/finish times by all of 5 minutes, so effectively everyone coming and going at the same time. Two hand sanitizers spotted. One stinking portaloo added for one group. Kids being told to repeat the homework they did during lockdown, just because many of them didn’t bother, so need to catch up. Education is a sh!tshower at the moment. The buck should stop at the top, but I cannot see Gavin Williamson resigning. He’s done a shocking job. Pretty much every decision he’s made has been wrong. Rant off.

[PaulCP]

Hmmm, sounds to me that it is be of those schools full of lazy teachers who are intent on making a political statement, wanting to enjoy their extended holiday on full pay.

In contrast, there was a head teacher on breakfast TV earlier this week. A youngish chap to be a head but he was talking & enthusing about how his school has been preparing since April to ensure that the kids have had plenty of on-line tuition with all work being marked and how they have held weekly meetings to prepare the school for the kids returning. He also said “it doesn’t take much intelligence to be able to determine what should be needed so they mainly acted upon their own Ideas in preparing the schools ahead of any official guidance.”
 

Some schools have a good head and good teachers but unfortunately others are full of lazy b’stards teachers who only want to engage in a political agenda. Why it is all Gav Williamson’s fault I don’t know, he hasn’t personally employed all of the lazy teachers who just want to continue their lengthy holiday on full pay.

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

The spin doctors certainly cherry pick the enthusiastic teachers and pupils for their TV school interviews! That’s not the reality.

Williamson is an embarrassment.

[PaulCP]

Nope they didn’t, the report was followed by interviewing a young teacher who said he was scared to death about having to go back because the school could never achieve what was required at such short notice, if ever at all. He also complained that the govt was not providing teachers with the necessary PPE.

I’d wager that he didn’t have a clue what PPE was 6 months ago!

But for once there was a bit of “balanced” reporting

[SFO]

Agree. Australia’s reaction to CV19 is way way OTT. 

[ChrisJ]

This consultation has been sneaked out to very little fanfare

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/distributing-vaccines-and-treatments-for-covid-19-and-flu/consultation-document-changes-to-human-medicine-regulations-to-support-the-rollout-of-covid-19-vaccines?fbclid=IwAR3KLXSG4ODmyAS5uEPHHd7ACJKOln5Nd-Wxo_vWuD04sK8qooR-f3s1OV4

 

 

[Mysterae]

It's not a total immunity from liability... 

Quote

Extent of the protection

Regulation 345 does not provide complete immunity from civil liability. As Directive 2001/83 requires, regulation 345(4) preserves the application of section 2 of the Consumer Protection Act 1987 (CPA). This means that if a product does not meet the standards set by the Part 1 of the CPA, manufacturers and marketing authorisation holders are not protected from legal action. A product is defective, for the purposes of the CPA, “…if the safety of the product is not such as persons generally are entitled to expect…”, taking all the circumstances into account.

If there is an intrinsic problem with the nature of the product that renders it unsafe, the producer has to be able to show that the objective state of scientific and technical knowledge at the time it was put on the market, including the most advanced level of such knowledge, was not such as to enable that defect to be discovered.

However, that'll be hard to prove in court when your dead or dying from unforeseen side effects.

What I find interesting is the coupling of the flu vaccine. Convenient to administer it at the same time yes, but also commercialising for later.

There's also this: 

Quote

4. Vaccine Promotion

This means that, in relation to medicines advertising, the permitted campaigns could relate to any medicinal product use in response to “…the suspected or confirmed spread of… pathogenic agents… toxins… chemical agents or…nuclear radiation…”.

What else are they expecting to happen in the future? Life gets a little more like Blade Runner and Deus Ex every day....