Corona-virus - Impact of the Health Situation worldwide

[woodenhead]

1 hour ago, Lantavian said:

I actually wrote the past tense of "bully", but it this forum seems to auto-correct it to Bulleid.

I think whichever one you use, the site swaps to the other 

[sharris]

1 hour ago, Lantavian said:

I actually wrote the past tense of "bully", but it this forum seems to auto-correct it to Bulleid.

 

I suppose it also makes you colour timber with Wood Stanier. 

 

[chrisf]

I've just heard that Trinity College Dublin is infected.  Guess where I booked accommodation at the end of June?

 

Chris 

[Ron Ron Ron]

On 04/03/2020 at 00:19, Ron Ron Ron said:

....and still no Foreign Office advice against travelling into the European epicentre of the virus.

 

The British Foreign Office have still not changed or upgraded their travel advice, regarding travelling to northern Italy.

Some European and other worldwide countries have issued advice not to travel to northern Italy, or the whole of Italy.

As this is the epicentre of the problem in Europe, I find it astounding that the FO is letting UK citizens down to this degree.

 

 

On 02/03/2020 at 09:46, Ron Ron Ron said:

We have decided not to travel to northern Italy this week.

There is too much risk, especially for my elderly mother, who is 90 in a couple of days time.....

 

......The FO are not helping one little bit and those who have booked flights are left with the dilemma of travelling into a high risk area, or losing their money.

We’re now hoping British Airways will cancel our flight, in order that we can get a refund.

Although they’ve cancelled some flights, they are relying on the Foreign Office’s bl@@dy useless advise.
 

 

Thankfully, British Airways finally cancelled our return flights and offered us a refund on the whole trip.

A full refund is in process with no charges or costs incurred.

 

Ryanair did not cancel the flight that my mother had been booked on.

She has written off the cost. No chance of any refund from Michael "why don't you just F O" O'Leary.

 

We are in daily contact with my sister and her family in Italy.

The epidemic is spreading all around the region and most people are taking it really seriously.

All public buildings and many other places where groups of people mingle such as libraries, community centres, leisure centres, sports clubs, gyms and exercise studios, museums, theatres, cinemas, night clubs etc are closed, as are the schools and colleges.

Most clubs and associations have suspended activities.

Nethertheless, she says most people are going about their daily business, or going to work and being careful. Then they go home and stay there.

 

.

[Andy Hayter]

59 minutes ago, chrisf said:

I've just heard that Trinity College Dublin is infected.  Guess where I booked accommodation at the end of June?

 

Chris 

 

That is of course three and a half months away.   Three and a half months ago no one who was not a virologist had even heard of Coronavirus.

[sharris]

5 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

 

That is of course three and a half months away.   Three and a half months ago no one who was not a virologist had even heard of Coronavirus.

 

Well, maybe not this one - but SARS, which reared its head (if viruses can claim to have heads) in 2003 is also a Coronavirus. 

 

[Andy Hayter]

I know now, but I didn't 3.5 months ago.  I had of course heard of SARS but not coronaviruses.  I doubt that many people were any different.  

[jjb1970]

5 hours ago, Reorte said:

 

My view on it is that I look at it from an individual perspective - "Is this a hazard I'm OK with living with?" It's easy to dismiss that as selfish, but on the other hand I often feel that appealing to the "this affects lots of others" approach is just trying to use other people to try to push your (generic "your", not you personally) opinion anyway. And it's not saying "you should put up with things I'm not prepared to put up with." With so many people in the world even very low risks will regularly affect fairly large numbers.

 

At the end of the day I often find that I'd rather take my chances than live in a world with a lot of the solutions to those risks that are proposed. Not always of course. But often.

 

I agree, my post wasn't intended to signal any virtue or push a particular societal view (although I will admit to being a tree hugging environmental type) but rather the irrational hysteria I see. Poor air quality in the UK is estimated to be responsible for 25k - 40k premature deaths a year. And that is annually, not an outbreak event. And that is after several decades of concerted policy effort to improve air quality (I grew up in an era of leaded petrol, coal power plants without FGD etc). Society, despite an abundance of evidence over many decades, has decided millions of deaths every year as a result of combusting oil, coal etc is a price worth paying for the economic and lifestyle benefits we have accrued from low cost and abundant energy. Whether that is right or wrong isn't the point in this context but that society has made a choice based on cost benefit which has resulted in a vast number of avoidable deaths and which continues to kill millions. Because we think the morbidity and mortality consequences are worth it. And that is just one example, and that is just considering local air quality, not climate change (one of my pet hates is that air quality is seemingly much less fashionable than climate change). If we really wanted to save life we could have transitioned to zero and ultra-low alternatives decades ago, but ultimatelywe have consistentlydecidedthedeaths are worth it. I find it bizarre that there is hysteria about this virus outbreak alongside utter apathy with respect to things killing millions year on year. I have had briefings from various health and government agencies and they are all rather bemused by much of the reaction. We are now looking at significant delays to a number of diplomatic and UN agency meetings that risks delaying decisions that could well be a bigger risk in terms of deaths than the virus (although the health benefits resulting from a period of economic inactivity may trump all the negatives and the virus).

[EddieB]

4 hours ago, runs as required said:

You could create a fair bit of moral panic spreading Fake News around about another cross-over virus named 

OVS-BULLEID 

Just popping out to bulk buy cans of Spam in case I need to self isolate...

[EddieB]

4 hours ago, Lantavian said:

 

But China suppressed early reports, and so the virus wasn't contained quickly enough. Police Bulleid* the doctor who first raised the issue into a retraction. He later died of Covid-19. 

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51364382

Therein is one of the roots of the rumours that have spread as fast as the virus.  Of course, only officials had access to accurate statistics in China, but there was widespread perception among the people that warnings were slow to be issued and the number of infections under-reported.  Such rumours have increased with a widely held view that the WHO was complicit in the suppression of true figures.

 

*I pass no comment on the Great Central rumour that the Pollitt Bureau was implicated in this spelling correction.

[Gwiwer]

It looks as though our Silver Wedding trip to northern Italy is off.  That would have been in October but it's not worth the risk of booking now for then given current advice and the potential to lose the money rather than get a refund.  

 

In other news there is no reason at all for anyone in the UK to hoard toilet paper or pasta.  I found none of the former in Waitrose today but instead they had part-filled the empty shelves with kitchen rolls.  Those would cause more harm if flushed than anything COVID-19 might produce.  Curiously there was no pasta shortage and indeed no shortage of anything else at all.  

 

To repeat - there is no need to stockpile toilet rolls.  Doing so only deprives your fellow humans of an important hygiene measure at a time when normal and additional hygiene measures are being stressed.  

[APOLLO]

 

Brit15

[87023Velocity]

I went into our local Asda and Aldi earlier and was disappointed that I saw no headless chickens running around, it was quite normal for a Friday evening. 

Plenty of toilet roll available, however I did wonder if Aldi would allow customers into the store with their own pallet truck as there was 3 nearly full pallets in their usual isle location.

I thought some wag may have changed the audible warning on the escalator to the carpark at Asda to say 'caution you are now approaching the end of the world.....'.

 

 

Simon

[Chamby]

4 hours ago, adb968008 said:

other countries could well put the UK into quarantine and people may find themselves unable to return to the UK for a number of months, such as the case in Wuhan, very soon. I’m already seeing such comments about France, Germany.. and they are only 300 or so cases greater than the UK. Europe,inc UK could soon be paralysed, before months end.

 

Quarantining only works in the early stages of the virus spreading.  When a country has the virus already rampaging through its own population, the time to quarantine incomers has passed. 

[Ravenser]

On 01/03/2020 at 19:02, adb968008 said:

Went out did a bit of shopping this weekend, I can see mass panic has hit Sainsburys, costco and boots...

 

no disinfectant wipes or gels at any we tried, zilch anywhere.

 

As for costco, I saw people taking out van fulls of toilet rolls and water... clearly carpet baggers are stocking up to take advantage, and I mean literally hundreds at a time yesterday.

 

I was in London on saturday, quite a number of mask wearers (lets face reality these 30 odd cases in the Home counties this weekend are London workers who waited till weekend to goto the Doctors).. I suspect next week Londons going to have to face reality... am I wrong.. in 7 days we will see,

 

But still, toilets of the various london pubs.. just cold water, no soap but most blokes come and go without washing hands.. I saw Asia in 2003 and the huge efforts it took to kill it, and reading the stats you can see places like Hong Kong have learned lessons, theres a rapid wake up call coming here....

 

if you look at the spread pattern elsewhere, it doubles daily every day for approx 10 days until containment starts, and the slow extends to double every two days etc there after until the halfway recovery mark... so its not inconceivable that by next weekend were looking at 800-1000 cases, a city like London could be much more like Wuhan very quickly... London aint Lombardy... Wuhan spread by 1million leaving for CNY, 8 million Londoners commute every day.

 

i’m in London tomorrow, I will be wearing a mask (dont care what you say), I will take hand gel with me, I will clean the desk and chair before I sit at it, I will take my own lunch.  I managed all yesterdays journey from door to door without actually touching anything I didn't own (Wallet, phone and credit card)  .. no buttons, handles, escalator sides etc... its easily possible... trouble is I’m just one a population of 8.9million people, most of whom just dont care, a hospital system that has no chance of handling anything but a minor outbreak.

 

 

 

 

This posting has not aged well. Today's version reads

 

Quote

to me, on that approach the European total is highly probable to be much greater than China.. maybe millions of people in Europe.

 

As its now growing double every two days here, in the UK, as I said last week in a week it could be a 1000 in a week once it starts... and will grow continually until action is taken... Italy learned this at 20 cases, and is now at 3000.... 30k cases in the UK in 2 weeks is very possible, and maybe even unavoidable at this point.

 

other countries could well put the UK into quarantine and people may find themselves unable to return to the UK for a number of months, such as the case in Wuhan, very soon. I’m already seeing such comments about France, Germany.. and they are only 300 or so cases greater than the UK. Europe, inc UK could soon be paralysed, before months end.

 

Now the week is almost up, and total UK cases stand at 163, not 800-1000 as you "promised".

 

I fully intend to compare your prediction of 30,000 UK cases by the time the doors should open at Ally Pally with the actual figures. Nowhere has got that bad, that quick, or anything like it.

 

This is not "Elsewhere Coronovirus is being dubbed a rich white Londoners virus, as they are the only ones who can afford to go to Italy. " The regional breakdown from the Government today showed 29 cases in London, 22 in the South West, and 21 in the North West. Hardly a pattern suggestive of a "a rich white Londoners virus" that doesn't affect the provinces

 

I really don't know where the incredible claim that 8 million Londoners commute every day came from. The city's total population is only 8.9million (Yes, Thameslink is rammed - it's load factor in the peak has been 133% of "full and standing" - the worst in the country. Hence the couple of billion put into Thameslink 2000...)

 

Figures can change, but so far the UK total cases is a fraction of that in France or  Germany, or Spain. (Between a quarter and a half, to be precise). It's not much higher than in the Netherlands or Belgium or Norway , all of which have a fraction of our population. It's less than Switzerland (population 8.6 million)

 

I don't suppose for a moment we can avoid a sizeable outbreak if every other country in Europe has one. And it's still early days. 

 

But the statistics say, very strongly, that so far we are doing at least as well if not a good deal better than any other European country in controlling this.]

 

And it is worth pointing out that Hubei province, centred on Wuhan, has a population of over 59 million against our 65 million. So it's a rough comparison .

 

Hubei has seen 67, 600 confirmed cases in nearly 3 months; the rest of China 13K. The number of daily infections has now dropped to relatively low levels

Johns Hopkins Coronavirus dashboard

 

It could be several times worse than Hubei here and still amount to no more than a quarter of a million cases - say 0.5% of the population catching it

Edited March 6, 2020 by Ravenser

[adb968008]

4 minutes ago, Ravenser said:

 

 

This posting has not aged well. Today's version reads

 

 

Now the week is almost up, and total UK cases stand at 163, not 800-1000 as you "promised".

 

I fully intend to compare your prediction of 30,000 UK cases by the time the doors should open at Ally Pally with the actual figures. Nowhere has got that bad, that quick, or anything like it.

 

This is not "Elsewhere Coronovirus is being dubbed a rich white Londoners virus, as they are the only ones who can afford to go to Italy. " The regional breakdown from the Government today showed 29 cases in London, 22 in the South West, and 21 in the North West. Hardly a pattern suggestive of a "a rich white Londoners virus" that doesn't affect the provinces

 

I really don't know where the incredible claim that 8 million Londoners commute every day came from. The city's total population is only 8.9million 

 

Figures can change, but so far the UK total cases is a fraction of that in France or  Germany, or Spain. (Between a quarter and a half, to be precise). It's not much higher than in the Netherlands or Belgium or Norway , all of which have a fraction of our population. It's less than Switzerland (population 8.6 million)

 

I don't suppose for a moment we can avoid a sizeable outbreak if every other country in Europe has one. And it's still early days. 

 

But the statistics say, very strongly, that so far we are doing at least as well if not a good deal better than any other European country in controlling this.]

 

And it is worth pointing out that Hubei province, centred on Wuhan, has a population of over 59 million against our 65 million. So it's a rough comparison .

 

Hubei has seen 67, 600 confirmed cases in nearly 3 months; the rest of China 13K. The number of daily infections has now dropped to relatively low levels

Johns Hopkins Coronavirus dashboard

 

It could be several times worse than Hubei here and still amount to no more than a quarter of a million cases - say 0.5% of the population catching it

I’m glad you are right.

I there submit to you the virus has ended, that UK cases wont reach 1000 ?

i bet you don't take that bet, will you ?

 

The rise has been slow, that down to panic, fear, self preservation leading to most cases turning themselves in.. rather than continuing to walk the streets.

 

However.. the %’s are growing...

 

[Ron Ron Ron]

5 minutes ago, Ravenser said:

....has a population of over 59 million against our 65 million. .....

 

Hardly relevant to your point I know, but the UK population has already exceeded 67 million.

It was 66.5 million nearly 2 years ago.

 

Sorry for the pointless pedantry.....

 

 

 

.

[Ravenser]

Just now, adb968008 said:

I’m glad you are right.

I there submit to you the virus has ended, that UK cases wont reach 1000 ?

i bet you don't take that bet, will you ?

 

The rise has been slow, that down to panic, fear, self preservation leading to most cases turning themselves in.. rather than continuing to walk the streets.

 

However.. the %’s are growing...

 

 

There is a very large gulf between 1000 cases and several million. Or even - as some of the "worst case scenarios" have suggested , 52 million (80% infection rate)

 

But it is not "doubling daily", or even every 2 days.

 

I didn't suggest the cases would stop at 1000. It's entirely possible they could ultimately get into the tens of thousands . But not in a fortnight's time - that's alarmist.

 

And the key point about Hubei is that they sealed off a province of 59 million - and not quite 68K cases in 2.5 months is a tiny fraction of the total population. Even there, this thing hasn't spread like wildfire. Why should it here??

[jjb1970]

Mrs JJB isn't quite sure whether to be pee'd off that so many people appear to think she is an evil plague carrying Asiatic who should be returned to China forthwith or whether to enjoy the fact she suddenly has far more space on public transport,  queues suddenly get a lot shorter as people bale out and she has plenty of space wherever she goes. My good friends from Singapore assured me they have never enjoyed so much space on the underground.

[Oldddudders]

17 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

Mrs JJB isn't quite sure whether to be pee'd off that so many people appear to think she is an evil plague carrying Asiatic who should be returned to China forthwith or whether to enjoy the fact she suddenly has far more space on public transport,  queues suddenly get a lot shorter as people bale out and she has plenty of space wherever she goes. My good friends from Singapore assured me they have never enjoyed so much space on the underground.

It's an ill wind. Oh, hang on...

[trustytrev]

Hello,

        I have only read a "few" posts  before it became clear "Hysteria" is rife and out of control. Before the days if the internet things would be almost over before the general population where aware something was happening.

I do hope the wonderful Shiraz from Australia continues to be available. Spring is just in the process and things will look better once we get into summer.

trustytrev.

[SHMD]

..I've started shouting "a A Aaaagh choo-Covid19" but I still havn't got two weeks off work in the modelling room yet!.

 

 

Kev.

 

[Gwiwer]

There doesn't seem to have been any change in the commuting habits of London's rail and tube passengers thus far.  On the other hand SWMBO reported this morning that there was obvious spacing-out occurring in the bus queue but that the same people who tried to distance themselves from each other were still in very close quarters once aboard the bus.  Very few masks are in evidence.  Most mask-wearers so far seen appear to be of Chinese ethnicity though among the Chinese it is perfectly normal to wear a mask to prevent spread of any illness and to reduce the risk from atmospheric pollution.  

[rab]

9 hours ago, Lantavian said:

I actually wrote the past tense of "bully", but it this forum seems to auto-correct it to Bulleid.

Well he did use 'pox'bok wheels!

[EddieB]

1 hour ago, Ravenser said:

Now the week is almost up, and total UK cases stand at 163, not 800-1000 as you "promised".

 

I fully intend to compare your prediction of 30,000 UK cases by the time the doors should open at Ally Pally with the actual figures. Nowhere has got that bad, that quick, or anything like it.

 

Thank goodness the current number is lower than the “prediction” quoted, but the delay before symptoms develop and high contagion rate means that the growth in numbers infected is not linear.  I hope I’m wrong, but there could be a delayed upsurge wherever we fail to adequately contain transmission.