COVID-19 — Coronavirus

[AlgarveBlu]

So what is the way forward with this that prevents a complete economic collapse? This is what I think it looks like..

The current lockdown will be extended by say a further three weeks and this will reduce the spread of CV & allow the NHS to be in a better position to cope.

A combination of testing to see if someone has it and potentially a test to see if they have had it will be ramped up. This will enable more frontline NHS staff to work initially but in the medium term more people will will be able to work knowing they have had it.

Treatments that can reduce the severity of CV will be found and utilised.

At this point I think the lockdown will be sufficiently eased to allow businesses to reopen but people will still need to adopt social distancing as much as is practical. A reduced level of CV will still be present for months to come but that will be low enough to cope with.

The end game is when a mass produced vaccine is available maybe late this year / early next year.

April extension of lockdown - May loosening

Testing - On both tests looking to be rolled out I think we will have more problems than people anticipate on antibody tests they are complex and can create significant problems in interpreting the data false positives/negatives/infection window time frames and more importantly making policy decisions on data without having more scientific data on the level of immunity you get from having had the virus (limited data on the original sars immunity period and we know we don't have immunity on the other 4 corona viruses) . It is the end game though so fingers crossed.

Treatments - Not sure which time frame you are indicating but don't underestimate the time trial period for cocktail variations to be deemed effective and safe. Anti-virals have always been the next logical step though in the process to buy time to vaccine rollout.

Time frames for first steps to normality/economic recovery have to be caveated with where everyone else is in this process. Many businesses and services depend on cross border activity so looking at this through the prism of the UK only is incorrect although granted will allow for in-country activities to gingerly start. Have been surprised at the insular view on the fate of the UK on bm . There is heavy reliance on inter connectivity we have for trade on a global scale. If it was 1918 you could safely say get your shit together within your own borders and 'jobs a goodun' not any more.

 

[Eds]

Two friends returned from India a week ago ..... they reported exactly the same scenario at Manchester Airport. No questions at automatic passport control, straight through and into the city as usual.

I live near the airport and see the planes coming in to land and rather than it being a common occurrence it is now a rarity. Not saying checks aren't happening but the volume of planes has diminished to a handful at best.

 

[Lovebitesandeveryfing]

Anybody else find this casual way that we're sometimes seeing of talking about “the Chinese virus” as thoroughly distasteful, and borderline racist? God knows, I have no love for the Chinese authorities, having worked in China for a year and seen close up just how paranoid the authorities are about any circulation of information that they're not totally in control of. But the Chinese didn't invent the bloody thing so as to make the rest of the world ill! If I were ethnically Chinese (or rather, Han), I'd resent it intensely.
But then, history if full of crisis periods when demonisation takes place.

 

[AlgarveBlu]

Anybody else find this casual way that we're sometimes seeing of talking about “the Chinese virus” as thoroughly distasteful, and borderline racist? God knows, I have no love for the Chinese authorities, having worked in China for a year and seen close up just how paranoid the authorities are about any circulation of information that they're not totally in control of. But the Chinese didn't invent the bloody thing so as to make the rest of the world ill! If I were ethnically Chinese (or rather, Han), I'd resent it intensely.
But then, history if full of crisis periods when demonisation takes place.

Now you've gone and done it.....5,4,3,2,1

 

[Deleted member 77198]

So Dominic Cummings has it now.... who’s gonna run the Country ?

Can’t believe the Head of State has come down with this. How careless! He should have been self distancing from his minions, Boris and Hancock.

 

[big phil]

Prof Neil Ferguson has said this morning the the rate of infection may be slowing, apparently new hospital admissions are slowing. Obviously this won’t be reflected in the number of deaths for a couple of weeks though.

Anyone else think this bloke’s a bit of a loose cannon? (Not you claytop)
First he claimed half a million deaths, scaring everybody witless, then 20000, most recently 5700? I appreciate this modelling will change over time when various data is applied, but still...

 

[Deleted member 77198]

Anybody else find this casual way that we're sometimes seeing of talking about “the Chinese virus” as thoroughly distasteful, and borderline racist? God knows, I have no love for the Chinese authorities, having worked in China for a year and seen close up just how paranoid the authorities are about any circulation of information that they're not totally in control of. But the Chinese didn't invent the bloody thing so as to make the rest of the world ill! If I were ethnically Chinese (or rather, Han), I'd resent it intensely.
But then, history if full of crisis periods when demonisation takes place.

Not particularly.

I’ve barely heard anyone call it that anyway.

But even if they have, ‘Chinese’ isn’t a race... and it did come from China.

No different to: African Swine Fever, West African Ebola Virus, Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever (Ebola is a place in Zaire), West Nile Virus, Guinea Worm, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Lyme Disease, Ross River Fever, Omsk Hemorrhagic Fever, Marburg Virus Disease, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, Hong Kong Flu, Norovirus (Norwalk Ohio Virus), Zika Fever, German Measles, Lassa Fever.....

In fact calling this Chinese SARS or Wuhan SARS would make sense because this is not the Coronavirus, this is a type of Coronavirus. Calling this Coronavirus is like calling United “Manchester Football Club”.

 

[twosips]

Anyone else think this bloke’s a bit of a loose cannon? (Not you claytop)
First he claimed half a million deaths, scaring everybody witless, then 20000, most recently 5700? I appreciate this modelling will change over time when various data is applied, but still...

He never claimed half a million deaths at all. That's disingenuous. As you know, he said IF we did nothing, the worst case scenario was that. Given the vast majority of the public now longer goes near anyone, of course its exponentially changed. As you said yourself, the modelling changes over time. What is loose cannon-esque about that? He's just reacting to current trends. I'm glad he scared people witless. We needed the fear factor to take it seriously.

 

[Worzel Gummidge#9]

Anyone else think this bloke’s a bit of a loose cannon? (Not you claytop)
First he claimed half a million deaths, scaring everybody witless, then 20000, most recently 5700? I appreciate this modelling will change over time when various data is applied, but still...

Think he's out of his depth

 

[grunge]

He never claimed half a million deaths at all. That's disingenuous. As you know, he said IF we did nothing, the worst case scenario was that. Given the vast majority of the public now longer goes near anyone, of course its exponentially changed. As you said yourself, the modelling changes over time. What is loose cannon-esque about that? He's just reacting to current trends. I'm glad he scared people witless. We needed the fear factor to take it seriously.

Its not disingenuous at all, he clearly stated 500k deaths if we did nothing, and at the time we were doing pretty much nothing ( wash your hands and sing happy birthday at that point if I recall ). Now we're doing stuff he's changed his modeling.

However I do think the 5700 deaths one is far far to optimistic and he does seem to have been losing a lot of credibility with that one. he predicted a peak of 260 deaths a day on 5th of april which went out the window pretty quickly.