COVID-19 — Coronavirus

[Chippy_boy]

So our numbers are worse than Italy two weeks ago and they’ve been in lockdown for about 10 or 11 days? Yet it’s still horrific there.

Im not sure what we think makes us different. As soon as our capacity is breached, and we half half the capacity of Italy per capita, our death rate moves closer to Italy’s day by day. Yet it feels like we are sleepwalking into it. And I don’t just mean the leaders, I mean the public too.

Agreed.

Today I hear that the train operating companies are from Monday cutting back on services "to prevent the spread of the virus". SURELY, for the love of God, that is the government's responsibility to be making such policy decisions, not leaving it up to the whims of the train companies?

For me there is a very simple moral point here. This virus kills people, full stop. We can debate how many and whether some might be old and might have died from something else soon anyway etc. But the fact is, it kills people. The more people who get infected, the more people die. It's as simple as that.

And we are allowing more people than necessary to be infected, more people to die, simply because we are not clamping down as much as we could. Perhaps this is in the name of "freedoms"? if so, I say that is bollocks. This is a time of crisis and at such times we have to temporarily sacrifice our "freedoms". Like when people get conscripted, for example! Or even like making people wear a crash helmet! Sometimes you have to require people to do things, to save lives. If ever there was a time, it is now.

 

[gazinho]

I'm glad someone recognizes there is far more to balance here, while at the same time juggling across a tightrope.

i for one welcome the approach, right or wrong, i see it better for us all and for society long term, than the extremities many are calling for.

Sure, it is a risk trusting the public to follow advice, and a gamble leaving them with choices to make. But the full lockdown martial law scenario that many are calling for is a terrible situation to be in, horrible for morale, stress and anxiety, not to mention the economy.

I have no intention of ignoring the advice, of course im disappointed that some/many will still go to pubs and places, but thats a choice they still have as grown up human beings, many likewise won't. People here calling for it all to be shut, but then talking abou having lots of friends over, like theres a fucking difference!

that time and those measures are ptobably coming, i am surprised to see how many are so eager for them. They wont be pleasant, nor short, this is a long haul, and i welcome the gradual loss of normality boris is trying to softly bring.

Probably the most balanced, sensible post ive seen on here for days

 

[Marvin]

There was some very good news last night. In the excitement I probably over-egged it but I am posting it again because it could easily get lost in the deluge of information.

There is a vaccine that is going into mass trial by May in the UK (thousands). Importantly it is subject to success in the initial tests underway now. I missed that aspect in my initial excitement. We are yet to know if it will be effective.

“If this looks good at protecting and we see no safety issues at all then, theoretically, after April, going into May or June, they could expand the number of people they are vaccinating and that could be into the thousands.

“Then, several months later, if it’s working, I imagine there will be a process to massively ramp up manufacture.”

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/19/uk-drive-develop-coronavirus-vaccine-science

This is surely the most hopeful development to date. Now thousands wont stop this, but it will protect health workers and it could be very useful.

 

[BlueAnorak]

I think testing is far more important than fractional differences between a total lockdown and a 90% lockdown. I think the government wants to retain a bit of goodwill and keep something back for pyschological reasons.

I was thinking Italy would turn in about 5 day based solely on what we saw in Wuhan. In China the inflexion point came at around the 4th Feb, and they went into lockdown on the 23rd January, so roughly two weeks after lockdown. Yet Boris reckons 12 weeks. He probably was just talking vaguely but he must be informed by some sort of discussion. If it surges for just 3-4 weeks that's a nightmare and far worse than anyone feared. We need some good news out of Italy.

Do you think it's reasonable to think it should follow the same path as China? The government doesn't seem to think so.

The key is the transmission factor. I guess we don't really know what was decisive in turning the epidemic in Wuhan. We focus on the lockdown but they were also testing / tracing and we are not doing the forensic bit. All the European countries seem overwhelmed. An awful lot of resource in society is not being used. We're just looking on traumatised.

If you follow the bouncing ball virology simulations that the Washington post published a few days ago, social distancing leads to slightly less spread than taking people and putting them in isolation. I guess we shall see over the comming weeks.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/

 

[Shaelumstash]

Sure you can wait one day.

What you on about?

 

[Marvin]

Yeah, I don't think Italy's figures are anything worth celebrating to be honest. The numbers coming out of Italy are utterly heartbreaking and show no sign of abating. I see posters saying Italy are where we were 2 weeks ago so in 2 weeks time we'll be where they are now but I'm not so sure it's as simple as that. As you said, a lot of it is to do with their health service being totally overwhelmed which could of course happen here too but I think there are other factors too which might not necessarily apply as much over here.

All that said, I do agree with others that we should be in full lockdown now. I'm surprised Germany isn't to be honest - they have 12000+ more confirmed cases than us, though admittedly not as many deaths but there was a 50% jump in deaths over there yesterday.

We're looking for the inflexion point in the epidemic when the growth in new cases start to slow. It's new cases today / new cases yesterday. When its trend goes below one, that's the moment.

You don't need to do any math or data analysis because sites like worldometer are graphing new cases against time. We just look for dips.

 

[Marvin]

If you follow the bouncing ball virology simulations that the Washington post published a few days ago, social distancing leads to slightly less spread than taking people and putting them in isolation. I guess we shall see over the comming weeks.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/

Thanks I'll read that.

 

[feedmpenzaandhewillscore]

Agreed.

Today I hear that the train operating companies are from Monday cutting back on services "to prevent the spread of the virus". SURELY, for the love of God, that is the government's responsibility to be making such policy decisions, not leaving it up to the whims of the train companies?

For me there is a very simple moral point here. This virus kills people, full stop. We can debate how many and whether some might be old and might have died from something else soon anyway etc. But the fact is, it kills people. The more people who get infected, the more people die. It's as simple as that.

And we are allowing more people than necessary to be infected, more people to die, simply because we are not clamping down as much as we could. Perhaps this is in the name of "freedoms"? if so, I say that is bollocks. This is a time of crisis and at such times we have to temporarily sacrifice our "freedoms". Like when people get conscripted, for example! Or even like making people wear a crash helmet! Sometimes you have to require people to do things, to save lives. If ever there was a time, it is now.

People trot out the tired cliche of how many people die of cancer, heart disease and even seasonal flu each day to play this situation down. They are clearing the decks in the nhs for coronavirus, people who need surgery for cancer or a vital organ transplant, they will be affected by this. All those deaths that happen every day but people shrug their shoulders too will see a spike over the coming months due to what’s unfolding.

 

[cibaman]

How will schools know what job the parents do and if they qualify or not?

My daughter was chatting to one of her kids teachers yesterday. The subject of who is on the list cropped up. At the time my daughter wasn’t sure if she would be classed as an essential worker (she is). The teacher told her that they already had a list of pupils who they expected to be at school, “for planning purposes”. Obviously they would know which pupils would be classed as vulnerable but I was surprised that they seemed to have some knowledge of parents occupations.

I suspect that schools will use some discretion as to which kids they’ll let in. My daughter was told “don’t worry, you’re a single mother, you’re on our list”


Edit: the school emailed parents yesterday and asked them to fill in a questionnaire, including details of their occupation. I wonder how truthful the answers were.

 

[Blue Hefner]

The little ones nursery is now closed as of Monday, she goes Tues-Thurs

Just had one of my biggest customers but things on hold from Monday for at least 2 or 3 weeks whilst the business ‘reassess’ - unfortunately I can’t see an IT project being the priority but we’ll see what happens

We’ve still got money owed and the other big one hasn’t pulled out(yet). We’ve got money in the business but will look into those government loans next week