COVID-19 — Coronavirus

[BobKowalski]

Seems really utopian but if true, the herd immunity strategy would look more unnecessary.

Yeah. Big ‘if’ though. Still fingers crossed.

 

[alexmcity]

Seems really utopian but if true, the herd immunity strategy would look more unnecessary.

It's not utopian. The source is pretty serious. This is the company (CureVac) that Trump is desperate to buy. Obviously, they are pretty close to offering a vaccine.

 

[BobKowalski]

Merkel scheduled to be on telly tonight presumably to announce a lockdown. I guess we won’t be far behind which will bring us in line with the rest of Europe.

 

[Super David Silva 21]

Oh.

Scarlet Johansson though!!

 

[Gray]

If they have already developed a vaccine for COVID19 but are testing it on animals first, couldn't they at least try it on the sickest cases - what is there to lose?

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

Merkel scheduled to be on telly tonight presumably to announce a lockdown. I guess we won’t be far behind which will bring us in line with the rest of Europe.

We’ll be in lockdown by the weekend.

 

[Ban-jani]

Merkel scheduled to be on telly tonight presumably to announce a lockdown. I guess we won’t be far behind which will bring us in line with the rest of Europe.

The more our neighbours do it the more we will.

I worry about people actually obeying and our police force being able to cope.

Patrolling hasn’t come natural since 1967 and we’ve got a lot of scrotes.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

Oh.

Scarlet Johansson though!!

I wouldn’t mind self-isolating with her!

 

[Chippy_boy]

Yesterday the question of germany was asked at the select Committee meeting.
The only current theory from Germany is that the initial cohort all got it on skiing holidays. This demographic and their close contacts are considered to be young and physically healthy. So it spread initially through a low risk group. Hence initial low death rates. Only time will tell if this is correct.

Sounds like bollocks to me (not that the skiing bit is untrue, merely that I cannot imagine that would explain a 15x difference, and certainly not when there's now 10k people infected in Germany, who presumably are now across a wide demographic). As you say, time will tell. If the death rate in Germany remains persistently low, we absolutely do need to figure out what they are doing differently.

 

[robbieh]

Have PHE decided on suppression or mitigation?

This is important because barring a significant mutation this defines where we are going with this.

Definitions:

R: The average number of secondary cases each case generates.
Suppression: Reduce R to below 1.
Mitigation: Reduce R but maintain above 1.

The option to take depends on vaccine production and ant-viral treatments. The latest news in that regards seems encouraging so the correct public health response should be to suppress this virus with every single measure available. We are not doing that. The isolation measures are voluntary. Schools remain open. How can they remain open? That's crazy because although it may not have a visible effect on children it spreads the virus through families and renders measures which parents make during their days almost useless. Keeping schools open whilst socially isolating risk groups would be a hallmark strategy for a mitigation effort.

I understand there are some drawbacks to closing schools such as losing key personnel but the bottom line is 'R'. That has to go down to below 1.

Why aren't we testing people with symptoms? The answer is because we do not have testing resources, and we do not have an incentive to do so because there is no forensic system in place to take that testing data and then follow-up contacts. Yet that is the most important defence strategy that a nation has. This is why is is the central WHO theme and yet none of the Western countries are doing this. Not a single one. That's because their health systems do no have the resources. Isn't that why we elect governments to allocate resources?

I concur with this. Here in Spain they are obviously trying the first option, suppression.
As I understand it in maybe a month the numbers will be exponentially lower due to isolation of the entire population. Those who have had it, will no longer be infectious.

There will of course be some infected still in the community but by following the type of policies that Korea have they can be contained. And isolation will end.

International travel would in my opinion be daft as people coming from countries that have still got the disease could restart it.

Britain's approach seems neither one thing not the other. While people still go into work, go to the pub, schools remain open, infection rates will still be high.