COVID-19 — Coronavirus

[goalmole]

Still think we’ll have forgotten about this come May?

Think you're wrong but I'll buy you a crate of beer if you're right.

 

[marco]

Why the fuck are all the teachers off already?

someone forgot to tell the government that if the kids carry the virus the teachers become ill,,,bloody half wits

 

[kaz7]

Tesco just rang me,the drivers are told to ask everyone if they are ill,i told him yesterday i had it 3 weeks ago so his manager rang me to say they wont bring my shopping in again but leave it at the door,i told him i haven't been infectious for about 2 weeks now but he still says they wont bring in my shopping,doesnt make much difference to me but they really need to educate themselves about it,they cant catch it off me now

 

[TheRemainsOfTheDave]

There was always a bucket with shitty nappies soaking in the bathroom in the old days ;)

Ooh look at you ... a bucket. Usually in the bath or kitchen sink in our house.

 

[hello]

Might be a stupid question but I don't care. What is "flattening the curve"

The curve against cases\infected overtime, they want a lower numbers for longer to manage the threshold of health treatment capacity.

edit, as per domalino's pretty picture.

 

[M18CTID]

That’s what happens when they refuse to test anybody that isn’t deemed at risk. The figure is pointless

But haven't they increased the number of tests overall though? Be handy if we had an up to date figure on number of tests but the only figure I can find is from 4 days ago

 

[M18CTID]

Doubling every 3 days apparently.

Exponential

 

[kippaxneil]

Bet you my last pound coin on it, the second half of the year won't be much different :(

All depends on how quick that vaccine comes through.

 

[marco]

Tesco just rang me,the drivers are told to ask everyone if they are ill,i told him yesterday i had it 3 weeks ago so his manager rang me to say they wont bring my shopping in again but leave it at the door,i told him i haven't been infectious for about 2 weeks now but he still says they wont bring in my shopping,doesnt make much difference to me but they really need to educate themselves about it,they cant catch it off me now

this home shop should be restricted to poorly people,disabled etc,,some are taking the piss 'the bone bloody idle' ,,,,how you feeling these days kaz, hope your picking up

 

[MillionMilesAway]

The herd immunity thing is a classic example of poor communications and panic inducing media creating a completely false narrative.

The government's policy was never to develop herd immunity. They never even said that. It will be a result of the strategy which reduces without completely shutting down the country as Italy has done. The isolation model will result in secondary, and tertiary massive outbreaks with the whole country overrun and locked down, while the UK's approach of a long single outbreak will not have another outbreak.

The problem is that as soon as people heard "herd immunity" they completely ignored the rest of the sentence, which was -

“Our aim is to try to reduce the peak, broaden the peak, not suppress it completely; also, because the vast majority of people get a mild illness, to build up some kind of herd immunity so more people are immune to this disease and we reduce the transmission, at the same time we protect those who are most vulnerable to it.”​

Here's some comments from people who were actually involved in making the strategy -

“People have misinterpreted the phrase herd immunity as meaning that we’re going to have an epidemic to get people infected,” says Graham Medley at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Medley chairs a group of scientists who model the spread of infectious diseases and advise the government on pandemic responses. He says that the actual goal is the same as that of other countries: flatten the curve by staggering the onset of infections. As a consequence, the nation may achieve herd immunity; it’s a side effect, not an aim. Indeed, yesterday, U.K. Health Secretary Matt Hancock stated, “Herd immunity is not our goal or policy.” The government’s actual coronavirus action plan, available online, doesn’t mention herd immunity at all. “The messaging has been really confusing, and I think that was really unfortunate,” says Petra Klepac, who is also an infectious-disease modeler at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

​

It's being reported now that they're "Backing away from" that strategy, but they aren't, they're just explaining the strategy better now people will listen.

If a government spokesman states that an aim to reduce the peak and in the same sentence runs into the stuff about head immunity and transmission reduction, it's inevitable that people will link the two. It's astonishingly bad wording which creates the image, and one that the government have not (to my knowledge) issued a formal written clarification about. this is the first I've seen of this Medley quote - when was it made (it reads as though it might have been today)?

The two things - an aim, and a longterm aim - should never have been put together. That quote from Klepac is a masterpiece of understatement.

I also still don't see what has been done by the govt to reduce the peak (apart from instruct people on how to wash their hands!) but that's a different matter.

 

[Shaelumstash]

Yes, someone posted his tweet about our national policy being a parody. There are clearly differences among experts about the best way forward but my reaction is that his social media catchline was unhelpful and the article you linked is actually pretty bad - eg " About that second wave: let me be clear. Second waves are real things, and we have seen them in flu pandemics. This is not a flu pandemic. Flu rules do not apply. There might well be a second wave, I honestly don’t know. But vulnerable people should not be exposed to a virus right now in the service of a hypothetical future." The suggestion that vulnerable people are being deliberately exposed is the exact opposite of what our government merasures are aiming to do. Also, there may be some differences between Covid19 and other viruses but all epidemics end because of immunity through the creation of resistant antibodies in the recovered population.

Again, just to point out, our Health Secretary was on Marr yesterday saying it wasn't our national policy.

There's a lot of misinformation out there.

If you choose to place your trust in our government, I totally respect that position.

But to misrepresent their position (even if in error) is potentially pretty dangerous.

 

[SB Blue]

I used BA as an example - their cash position isn’t great - largely due to their historic pension liabilities but, the airline industry has needed more consolidation for a long time but governments being protective of flag carriers has distorted the market. I’d guess a third of airlines including VAA will probably disappear and we will see a more balanced and profitable industry in time. There is a point however that UK firms whenever they sell anything always seem to return every penny to shareholders - in fact giving money to shareholders often drives really poor decisions - Cadbury selling Schweppes being a good example of a crazy decision made at the highest levels - motivated by a board trying to head off a shareholder revolt.

Looks like you know more than me on the financial picture overall, I was going mainly off a report I read earlier, maybe I should stick to football posts.

I agree that there will be significant changes to the airline industry, maybe all the extra runways/ capacity won’t be needed after all.

 

[SebastianBlue]

Might be a stupid question but I don't care. What is "flattening the curve"

The dotted line is the capacity of the healthcare system to treat people best.

Flattening the curve is making the pandemic last longer but have fewer people infected at once.

If you go over the dotted line, thats when a lot of people die, because there's not enough doctors/beds/ventilators to treat people above that line.

Here's an article - https://www.sciencealert.com/dragging-out-the-coronavirus-epidemic-is-important-in-saving-lives

Here are several in-depth reviews of this principle for managing epidemics/pandemics that I would definitely encourage everyone to read, if they haven’t already.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/

https://www.vox.com/2020/3/15/21180342/coronavirus-covid-19-us-social-distancing

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/science/coronavirus-math-mitigation-distancing.html

 

[bobmcfc]

My pregnant wife with sciatica was made to go in as other teachers are self isolating.

So my daughter came out with a letter saying a number of staff and students have been identified as in isolation for 7 days meaning they don’t have enough colleagues to maintain a full timetable safely

 

[ManCitizens.]

But haven't they increased the number of tests overall though? Be handy if we had an up to date figure on number of tests but the only figure I can find is from 4 days ago

My mate (25yrs) was denied a test on Friday, he’s had all of the symptoms for the past 10 days and has been coughing up blood. He’s been denied a test and told to self isolate.

I don’t know exactly what’s going on but it’s obvious the current figures are skewed, Boris himself said last week he thinks there could be 10,000 infected at a time the U.K. officially ‘only’ had about 400.

I’ve been in direct contact with him as we shared a snooker cue last week and sat together at Wembley (not knowing how he’d been). I work for the emergency services and rang 111 for advice as advised by my boss. I was told only to self isolate if I have symptoms or have been in direct contact with a confirmed case. How can I know if he’s a confirmed case if they won’t test him?

 

[domalino]

If a government spokesman states that an aim to reduce the peak and in the same sentence runs into the stuff about head immunity and transmission reduction, it's inevitable that people will link the two. It's astonishingly bad wording which creates the image, and one that the government have not (to my knowledge) issued a formal written clarification about. this is the first I've seen of this Medley quote - when was it made (it reads as though it might have been today)?

The two things - an aim, and a longterm aim - should never have been put together. That quote from Klepac is a masterpiece of understatement.

I also still don't see what has been done by the govt to reduce the peak (apart from instruct people on how to wash their hands!) but that's a different matter.

The problem is they didn't link the two, they ignored 99% of the answer and only focused on 2 words.

Also if you can't see how telling anyone with any symptoms whatsoever to isolate for 2 weeks is not something to reduce the peak then I don't know what to tell you, you're being wilfully ignorant.

 

[grunge]

Here are several in-depth reviews of this principle for managing epidemics/pandemics that I would definitely encourage everyone to read, if they haven’t already.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/

https://www.vox.com/2020/3/15/21180342/coronavirus-covid-19-us-social-distancing

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/science/coronavirus-math-mitigation-distancing.html

I was just coming on to post the Washington post one.

 

[Cheesy]

Why the fuck are all the teachers off already?

They're teachers.

They don't need much of an excuse to have even more time off.

 

[M18CTID]

My mate (25yrs) was denied a test on Friday, he’s had all of the symptoms for the past 10 days and has been coughing up blood. He’s been denied a test and told to self isolate.

I don’t know exactly what’s going on but it’s obvious the current figures are skewed, Boris himself said last week he thinks there could be 10,000 infected at a time the U.K. officially ‘only’ had about 400.

Yeah, I know a lot of people are now being told to self isolate without even taking a test but I did hear somewhere they were upping the numbers being tested from 1500 to 10000 a day

With regards to the bolded bit, I think the skewed figures apply to pretty much all countries. Loads of people will be walking around with it who don't even know they've got it and have never even phoned 111 so I think that's how they arrived at the 5k-10k figure. Personally I'd be inclined to multiply that by another 10 to get the true amount

 

[George Hannah]

Again, just to point out, our Health Secretary was on Marr yesterday saying it wasn't our national policy.

There's a lot of misinformation out there.

If you choose to place your trust in our government, I totally respect that position.

But to misrepresent their position (even if in error) is potentially pretty dangerous.

I hope I haven't done so, be grateful if you could point out where

Here are several in-depth reviews of this principle for managing epidemics/pandemics that I would definitely encourage everyone to read, if they haven’t already.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/

https://www.vox.com/2020/3/15/21180342/coronavirus-covid-19-us-social-distancing

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/science/coronavirus-math-mitigation-distancing.html

Thanks, I am also looking forward to seeing our modelling data which is due to be published today after the CHA briefing.