COVID-19 — Coronavirus

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Eds said:
One of the UK’s leading experts in the study of infectious diseases has predicted that the devastating impact of the pandemic will begin to subside “in a couple of months" — but warned we may require tougher lockdown measures to achieve this.

Professor Tom Solomon, director of the University of Liverpool’s Institute of Infection and Global Health and one of a group of scientists currently advising the government over its approach to Covid 19, also said he was confident progress was being made over the mass supply of testing kits that would show whether someone had already had the virus.

Asked if he could offer any optimism in a week in which fatality and infection rates rose dramatically across the UK, Prof Solomon said: “The first thing to say is that it will not last forever. It’s going to be over in a couple of months.

"In a couple of months, we’ll see things coming down. And then probably the lockdown measures will be eased a little bit."

But explaining how this was likely to be achieved, the Director of the National Institute for Health Research’s Health Protection Research Unit in Emerging and Zoonotic Infections warned that the government could introduce further tough measure to ensure that social distancing was observed fully.

“I should warn you that the lockdown measures may strengthen before they ease," said Professor Solomon.

“We’re still only on a soft lockdown. We could do more. And depending on what we see the curve doing over the next couple of weeks, we may have to actually say we are going to go for a hard lockdown."

Asked what that would mean, he pointed to countries such as Italy.

“We’re still letting people out of the house — we’re saying, go for exercise once a day.

"We’re saying, go shopping once a week, whereas we could say all shopping is going to be by home delivery. We’re saying to people work from home, but if you can’t, you can go to work.

“But the next step will be to say no, you cannot go to work unless you are doing an essential function.”

Professor Solomon refused to be drawn on criticism that the British government had also been too slow to introduce testing of the population, in line with countries such as Germany, for the virus.

“I would say the UK response was very good to begin with — it was like a textbook response to containing an outbreak,’’ he said.

“But this virus is one that spread more easily than anyone realised to begin with and therefore this was never going to be about containing it — containing means just stopping the spread. So it’s about minimising that and spreading out the curve.

“Okay. I think it is challenging for us now we don’t have the testing ability that we would like to have, but we are wrapping up the testing."

Professor Solomon is currently involved in research for Public Health England into “care diagnostics so that people can be tested in their own homes.’’

He is part of unit of 50 senior scientists and 250 junior scientists working on testing projects.

“There’s various things happening on the testing front,’’ he said. “One thing is the swab. You can do that at home now and send it in. The problem in this country though is we don’t have capacity to do those tests.

“So we’re testing people in hospital as a priority. And the second thing is we’re testing healthcare workers.

“The other test is a test to see whether you’ve had the virus and cleared it. And that can be done on a blood test and you can do it on saliva.

“One of the things we are doing in Liverpool is testing the kits that people make for sale to see if they are reliable.

“It’s all coming, but nothing is going to happen overnight."

The professor was also keen to point out that the release of shockingly high fatality figures over recent weeks did not come as surprise.

He said: “We are at that stage where the curve takes off, and that means the number of cases is shooting up and the number of deaths is shooting up.”

He added that after the control measures came into force, the number of cases would still rise, but not at the same rate.

“We will see that two weeks after we started the lockdown,’’ he added. “And the deaths will follow two weeks after that.

“For the control measures to impact on deaths, that takes four weeks.’’
Click to expand...

Christ, the only optimism that things should ease off in 2 months, great.

I wonder if a more extreme lockdown will be implemented, if so, when?
 
Eds said:
One of the UK’s leading experts in the study of infectious diseases has predicted that the devastating impact of the pandemic will begin to subside “in a couple of months" — but warned we may require tougher lockdown measures to achieve this.

Professor Tom Solomon, director of the University of Liverpool’s Institute of Infection and Global Health and one of a group of scientists currently advising the government over its approach to Covid 19, also said he was confident progress was being made over the mass supply of testing kits that would show whether someone had already had the virus.

Asked if he could offer any optimism in a week in which fatality and infection rates rose dramatically across the UK, Prof Solomon said: “The first thing to say is that it will not last forever. It’s going to be over in a couple of months.

"In a couple of months, we’ll see things coming down. And then probably the lockdown measures will be eased a little bit."

But explaining how this was likely to be achieved, the Director of the National Institute for Health Research’s Health Protection Research Unit in Emerging and Zoonotic Infections warned that the government could introduce further tough measure to ensure that social distancing was observed fully.

“I should warn you that the lockdown measures may strengthen before they ease," said Professor Solomon.

“We’re still only on a soft lockdown. We could do more. And depending on what we see the curve doing over the next couple of weeks, we may have to actually say we are going to go for a hard lockdown."

Asked what that would mean, he pointed to countries such as Italy.

“We’re still letting people out of the house — we’re saying, go for exercise once a day.

"We’re saying, go shopping once a week, whereas we could say all shopping is going to be by home delivery. We’re saying to people work from home, but if you can’t, you can go to work.

“But the next step will be to say no, you cannot go to work unless you are doing an essential function.”

Professor Solomon refused to be drawn on criticism that the British government had also been too slow to introduce testing of the population, in line with countries such as Germany, for the virus.

“I would say the UK response was very good to begin with — it was like a textbook response to containing an outbreak,’’ he said.

“But this virus is one that spread more easily than anyone realised to begin with and therefore this was never going to be about containing it — containing means just stopping the spread. So it’s about minimising that and spreading out the curve.

“Okay. I think it is challenging for us now we don’t have the testing ability that we would like to have, but we are wrapping up the testing."

Professor Solomon is currently involved in research for Public Health England into “care diagnostics so that people can be tested in their own homes.’’

He is part of unit of 50 senior scientists and 250 junior scientists working on testing projects.

“There’s various things happening on the testing front,’’ he said. “One thing is the swab. You can do that at home now and send it in. The problem in this country though is we don’t have capacity to do those tests.

“So we’re testing people in hospital as a priority. And the second thing is we’re testing healthcare workers.

“The other test is a test to see whether you’ve had the virus and cleared it. And that can be done on a blood test and you can do it on saliva.

“One of the things we are doing in Liverpool is testing the kits that people make for sale to see if they are reliable.

“It’s all coming, but nothing is going to happen overnight."

The professor was also keen to point out that the release of shockingly high fatality figures over recent weeks did not come as surprise.

He said: “We are at that stage where the curve takes off, and that means the number of cases is shooting up and the number of deaths is shooting up.”

He added that after the control measures came into force, the number of cases would still rise, but not at the same rate.

“We will see that two weeks after we started the lockdown,’’ he added. “And the deaths will follow two weeks after that.

“For the control measures to impact on deaths, that takes four weeks.’’
Click to expand...

Good luck with home delivery for food prof, especially if the people going out to food shops have to stay at home as well. If you could get a home delivery I think many more would do so, myself included.
 
Eds said:
One of the UK’s leading experts in the study of infectious diseases has predicted that the devastating impact of the pandemic will begin to subside “in a couple of months" — but warned we may require tougher lockdown measures to achieve this.

Professor Tom Solomon, director of the University of Liverpool’s Institute of Infection and Global Health and one of a group of scientists currently advising the government over its approach to Covid 19, also said he was confident progress was being made over the mass supply of testing kits that would show whether someone had already had the virus.

Asked if he could offer any optimism in a week in which fatality and infection rates rose dramatically across the UK, Prof Solomon said: “The first thing to say is that it will not last forever. It’s going to be over in a couple of months.

"In a couple of months, we’ll see things coming down. And then probably the lockdown measures will be eased a little bit."

But explaining how this was likely to be achieved, the Director of the National Institute for Health Research’s Health Protection Research Unit in Emerging and Zoonotic Infections warned that the government could introduce further tough measure to ensure that social distancing was observed fully.

“I should warn you that the lockdown measures may strengthen before they ease," said Professor Solomon.

“We’re still only on a soft lockdown. We could do more. And depending on what we see the curve doing over the next couple of weeks, we may have to actually say we are going to go for a hard lockdown."

Asked what that would mean, he pointed to countries such as Italy.

“We’re still letting people out of the house — we’re saying, go for exercise once a day.

"We’re saying, go shopping once a week, whereas we could say all shopping is going to be by home delivery. We’re saying to people work from home, but if you can’t, you can go to work.

“But the next step will be to say no, you cannot go to work unless you are doing an essential function.”

Professor Solomon refused to be drawn on criticism that the British government had also been too slow to introduce testing of the population, in line with countries such as Germany, for the virus.

“I would say the UK response was very good to begin with — it was like a textbook response to containing an outbreak,’’ he said.

“But this virus is one that spread more easily than anyone realised to begin with and therefore this was never going to be about containing it — containing means just stopping the spread. So it’s about minimising that and spreading out the curve.

“Okay. I think it is challenging for us now we don’t have the testing ability that we would like to have, but we are wrapping up the testing."

Professor Solomon is currently involved in research for Public Health England into “care diagnostics so that people can be tested in their own homes.’’

He is part of unit of 50 senior scientists and 250 junior scientists working on testing projects.

“There’s various things happening on the testing front,’’ he said. “One thing is the swab. You can do that at home now and send it in. The problem in this country though is we don’t have capacity to do those tests.

“So we’re testing people in hospital as a priority. And the second thing is we’re testing healthcare workers.

“The other test is a test to see whether you’ve had the virus and cleared it. And that can be done on a blood test and you can do it on saliva.

“One of the things we are doing in Liverpool is testing the kits that people make for sale to see if they are reliable.

“It’s all coming, but nothing is going to happen overnight."

The professor was also keen to point out that the release of shockingly high fatality figures over recent weeks did not come as surprise.

He said: “We are at that stage where the curve takes off, and that means the number of cases is shooting up and the number of deaths is shooting up.”

He added that after the control measures came into force, the number of cases would still rise, but not at the same rate.

“We will see that two weeks after we started the lockdown,’’ he added. “And the deaths will follow two weeks after that.

“For the control measures to impact on deaths, that takes four weeks.’’
Click to expand...
Haha “we could say all shopping is going to be by home delivery”. Yeah fantastic idea, we’d all starve to death.
 
George Hannah said:
Hoorah! @domalino 0 - Experts 1
Click to expand...

Ha! We shall see. I expet within a week they will be using it for mass testing. The trial results speak for themselves and it sounds like they just jumped the gun on the announcement rather than getting denied authorisation.

By the way it's not me vs. the experts - it's experts vs. experts. I just posted what other countries are doing/preparing to do that ours refuses to.
 
First personal knowledge. Couple we know quite well, in their 80s. Wife died suddenly, funeral with just close family members 10 days ago, he's now in ICU with pneumonia and on a CPAP (not yet confirmed as Covid but worrying for the rest of the family on top of bereavement).
 
squirtyflower said:
Good luck mate.
Which part of China are you holed up in?
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In Dongguan, Guangdong. It didn't have too many cases, 101. One death. Everyone else has recovered. Hearing that the long damage to some is lifelong and others serious. Hoping, really hoping the UK gets its act together. This is far worse than I thought possible a month ago.

kippax4ever said:
How's the bat soup going down. & the puppy blamange desert..
Click to expand...

This is obviously linked to wet markets and wildlife trade. China is pushing through some serious laws. They've lost so much face, and many lives, many. The world is suffering too. If it wasn't here, it could have started in Vietnam, Korea, a whole list of countries. The thing is, it is too late to laugh at it all, because its on our doorsteps, everywhere, knocking and pushing its way through. We'll all suffer for this. It is too sad for me to laugh at. Especially, seeing as bear bile is classed as a TCM (traditional Chinese med)... and is sanctioned to treat COVID19.

Sorry, I can't joke anymore about this. Over here, in China, foreigners are experiencing xenphobia for importing cases into the country, jobs are going for fellow teachers and workers who were needed here. Gallow's humour is all well and good but there is a time and place. The blancmange is to die for.
 
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I'm still loving the idea that this virus can be controlled by current measures.

- At least 20% of those infected are asymptomatic. So they never show any symptoms at all, yet can still infect others. Worse still, evidence is starting to suggest that this figure may be much higher.

- it's looking like the virus can be passed to others up to 18 feet away! So the 6 foot exclusion range is only about 90% effective.

- Thanks to the great and the good in PHE and NHS, the UK has a doctrine of not wearing facemasks. (Apparantly in the immediate response to a possible outbreak of SARS it would have cost the UK too much to keep a stock of them.) So we dont protect those people we meet by wearing one. They only give the wearer 80% protection, but that's not the point - THEY PROTECT OTHERS FROM YOU. There is a reason surgical teams wear them to protect the patient! From the lunchtime news, I also see the BBC is still trying to keep the doctrine going - it is truely pathetic.

And they think testing can control it? Maybe iin a country like China where human rights dont exit, it is an aid. But it won't do much here (except for health service staff of course). To stand a chance you would have to quintruple the level of testing in Germany! The country lauded as doing very well.

The sooner they extract blood plasma from blood donated from survivors and inject it into people at risk the better. Until we get a vacine this is the only way it an be contained and it's effect minimised.
 
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BlueAnorak said:
I'm still loving the idea that this virus can be controlled.

- At least 20% of those infected are asymptomatic. So they never show any symptoms at all, yet can still infect others. Worse still, evidence is starting to suggest that this figure may be much higher.
Click to expand...

That's an amazingly good thing, not a bad thing.
 
Just listening to Sky News an they have a story on US having 6.6m people applying for unemployment benefit. The person they had on said the figures are looking towards 15% unemployment which is around the same numbers as the great depression, mad.
 
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