Corona-virus - Impact of the Health Situation worldwide

[Andy Hayter]

While a country has individual cases, it becomes relatively easy to isolate the virus; test contacts and where necessary isolate them.

 

If, as has happened in many countries in Europe you have a high number of victims spread around the country (rather than concentrated in so called hot spots), then it becomes a much more difficult problem to isolate and test.  It also becomes a bigger problem where the population lives in concentrated groups - large towns and cities rather than more spread out habitations.  

 

With a victim becoming infectious several days before showing symptoms, it becomes a real task to identify all of the people you came into close contact with by the time you are diagnosed (a couple of days after showing symptoms).  You try listing all the people you came into contact with 4-8 days ago.  Did you go to the supermarket?  Did you cough over the handle of the trolley?  Did you use contactless or the pin pad on the card-reader and which till was it? 

[Ozexpatriate]

25 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

With a victim becoming infectious several days before showing symptoms

It is the asymptomatic, community transmission that makes this particular epidemic so problematic.

[monkeysarefun]

Seems  less We Will Fight Them On Tht Beaches and more We will let them get on the beaches where they can shoot enough of us until their ammunition runs out..

[pgcroc]

I'm in Cyprus, arrived a week ago.

The Government has just announced that all bars, restaurants, Malls, department stores etc will be closed from 06.00 today for 4 weeks.

I am here until the end of May so I am self isolated!

Stocking up with essentials, beer, vodka, tonic.

Luckily I have a full TV service and plenty of books.

May even finally finish my track layout design!

Keep safe everybody.

[jjb1970]

I know this is evil and not at all commendable but at the end of last week I had all sorts of angry European colleagues ranting about being shut out of America,  when I pointed out they had not long before been demanding closed borders to keep plague carrying Asians out of Europe so they couldn't complain it wasn't well recieved, I just couldn't help laughing at the madness of it all. One of the interesting things about it all is observing just how thin is the veneer of rationality and decency in many. Try being Asian, and some of the behaviours in supermarkets, panic etc. Not very edifying.  However on the upside a clear majority of those I observe and know are behaving remarkably normally given the fear feeding media frenzy.

[Hal Nail]

2 hours ago, robmcg said:

Well it looks like the UK is aiming at herd immunity in the medium-long term. With isolation in the meantime for the most vulnerable.

 

Much of the rest of the world, Australia, NZ, Poland and others are going for total attempted isolation from exposure.

 

I have no idea which is the better course, but I am assuming that I will be exposed to covid-19 or a variant of it in my future, being 69 yrs but healthy it is no great comfort either way.

 

The economic costs are already huge, and I do rather admire the UK approach.

It is based on where the country is in the cycle, how many cases etc. Still pretty low in UK and since, as many have suggested, you cant totally stop the spread and we are thought to be more that 12 weeks from the peak, it is too early to try mass isolation. You can only keep that up for a limited period.

 

We got sent home very early* so I've just had to ring friends to find out what they are doing (mostly much the same as normal, eg kids still at school etc but avoiding mass gatherings and vulnerable parents) as have no frame of reference now hardly seeing anyone day to day.

 

I appreciate without stereotyping, probably generally an older population on a model forum so attitudes may be a bit different. 

 

*I suspect as a trial to see if we could cope working remotely and therefore cut office space going forward

Edited March 16, 2020 by Hal Nail

[JSpencer]

9 hours ago, Reorte said:

 

Looking at the number of cases vs recoveries it seems to be rather longer than 7 days to recover.

 

I suspect the stats for recovered cases to come through is even longer than those for confirmed cases. The latter is already long anyway, I mean the number of confirmed cases reflects results from tests done 3 days ago. 

[Oldddudders]

A little light relief - if that is permitted?

 

The BBC News website has a Live theme on CV going most days. Look under World. On Page 2, timed at 5.45, is a Twitter video message from Arnold Schwarzenegger exhorting people to stay indoors. Great - but it is filmed in his kitchen. and he is accompanied by two donkeys happily eating carrots from his hand. 

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-51903319/page/2

[JSpencer]

2 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

I undertand the herd immunity concept when it comes to vaccinations - enough  people are immunised against something so that the pathogen has trouble finding a victim, but in this case, the immunity seems to be based upon enough people catching Covid 19  that eventually the pathogen cannot find new subjects. 

Hence the need for all the vulnerable people - the over '70's etc - to lock themselves away for months cos if they get it the NHS will be filled with all the young. so they will probably be left to die. . 

 

Brave call by the UK government, personally I prefer the Aust NZ etc  approach and am glad I live way down here.

 

We also led the world in toilet paper hoarding!

 

 

The problem is that the virus has already mutated twice. We don't know how lethal one is vs another. But assuming they are the same, you could immune to A variant, then B hits you and you start all over again. China had the best strategy in the end by shutting down an entire province of 60 million. I regret that they did not shut down their own borders though to stop it from getting out. We would be talking about the end of this virus now.

 

Edited March 16, 2020 by JSpencer

[eastglosmog]

7 hours ago, Lantavian said:

 

WRONG WRONG WRONG

FALSE INFORMATION

PLEASE DO NOT SPREAD

 

https://www.thejournal.ie/ibuprofen-cuh-coronavirus-whatsapp-5047311-Mar2020/

 

Debunked: No, four young people are not in a serious condition in CUH after taking non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drugs

The clinical lead for the HSE told TheJournal.ie that such false stories harm our collective action to fight this virus.

 

 

 

A WHATSAPP MESSAGE has been shared across the country today claiming that there are ‘four young people with non underlying conditions’ in a serious condition at Cork University Hospital with Covid-19, associated with the use of ibuprofen.

This is not true. 

Dr Colm Henry, the HSE’s Chief Clinical Officer, told TheJournal.ie this evening that the message has “no basis in fact”.  

Dr Henry, who was in the hospital today, said the description does not match any patients. 

“It is complete lies and totally untrue,” he said, before urging people to not share, forward or circulate such false stories.  

“It is distressing to families and harmful,” he continued. 

“False messaging like this greatly harms our collective ability to fight this virus.”

 

 

 

Thanks for that. I will let our H&S dept know.

[jjb1970]

This story summed up the irrational nature of the debate for me:

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51900405

 

Homeless people are already at massively heightened risk to health from any number of potential ailments and the main problem is that they are homeless and destitute with all that entails. And it isn't a small problem. I live in Milton Keynes, an affluent place yet you see people living in tents in under passes and lots of people living rough outside stores. And there has been a handful of people outside MK Central Station for years. The principal threat these people face isn't coronavirus, it's the fact they're homeless and most of society really doesn't give a toss. Personally I find some of the emergency powers the government may introduce really rather chilling and more worrying than the virus. But that's just me.

[John Tomlinson]

As an example of the panic inducing headlines I referred to yesterday, I would offer today's Daily Express "Virus will put 8m in hospital".

 

If you read on it says "could" rather than "will" in much smaller print in the text, and is according so they say, to a leaked NHS England document. I don't buy the Express, and thus is just taken from the "Papers" section of the BBC website, but I'd make a large bet that there isn't much if any analysis of the assumptions and caveats to these numbers inside.

 

I'm in favour of freedom of the press as much as the next person, but this is irresponsible moronitude of the first order, and someone in authority needs to have a word, particularly when the demographic of this rag is known to be the elderly.

 

John.

Edited March 16, 2020 by John Tomlinson
typo

[Ian Hargrave]

The Express....and I wholeheartedly agree with your opinion of it.....is not alone a blatant attempt to boost its circulation figures by terrifying those unfortunate enough to read it.Scares sell....

[spikey]

4 minutes ago, Lantavian said:

 

Given the plunge in Express circulation in recent years, perhaps they don't.

 

Permit me to take this opportunity of saying how much I appreciate your contributions to this thread.  Thank you.

[black and decker boy]

30 minutes ago, John Tomlinson said:

As an example of the panic inducing headlines I referred to yesterday, I would offer today's Daily Express "Virus will put 8m in hospital".

 

If you read on it says "could" rather than "will" in much smaller print in the text, and is according so they say, to a leaked NHS England document. I don't buy the Express, and thus is just taken from the "Papers" section of the BBC website, but I'd make a large bet that there isn't much if any analysis of the assumptions and caveats to these numbers inside.

 

I'm in favour of freedom of the press as much as the next person, but this is irresponsible moronitude of the first order, and someone in authority needs to have a word, particularly when the demographic of this rag is known to be the elderly.

 

John.

the same leaked NHS report was being debated by ITN on main channel 4 news last night. A few million in hospital was the highlight (seemingly based on 80% infection rate) and half a million or more dead. CH4 news did make clear it was a worst case report whereas NHS England refused to comment on a leaked report ........

[Gilbert]

8 minutes ago, Lantavian said:

 

Given the plunge in Express circulation in recent years, perhaps they don't.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_United_Kingdom_by_circulation#2010_to_present

[beast66606]

4 minutes ago, Gilbert said:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_United_Kingdom_by_circulation#2010_to_present

 

Quite scary that people still buy The Sun - mind you with the toilet paper shortage I can understand why.

[Allegheny1600]

47 minutes ago, John Tomlinson said:

As an example of the panic inducing headlines I referred to yesterday, I would offer today's Daily Express "Virus will put 8m in hospital".

More and more, items and headlines like this confirm my decision, years ago to ignore anything put out by the gutter press - I consider ALL so-called "newspapers" to be nothing other than tp, which gives them some value in the current climate, I suppose!

Thank goodness for the ability to filter out almost all the carp, these days.

[melmerby]

Me and SWMBO are off to do the weekly shop.

Unfortunately some things we don't keep more than two or three weeks stock of were out of stock 2 weeks ago so we are running low on Rice, Pasta & UHT milk and will need bog roll in a couple of weeks.

I don't have much faith in there being any there today either.

So I hope the stockpilers are proud of what they have done.

 

[Ron Ron Ron]

The report that the Daily Express are referring to was also the subject of an article in the Guardian.

So not just “the gutter press”.

They gave roughly the same figures... up to 7.9 million hospitalised.

I should stress they used the words “up to” and the fact it covers a period spread out between now and Spring 2021.
They say this reflects the worst case scenario of 80% infection and 15% of those requiring hospitalisation.

The Guardian says it has seen a copy of the official report, which comes from Public Health England and has been distributed to senior NHS officials.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/15/uk-coronavirus-crisis-to-last-until-spring-2021-and-could-see-79m-hospitalised
 

 

.

[runs as required]

It is interesting that it is not Immigrants or Asylum Seekers, but the Rich who introduced the Virus to the UK (via Alpine skiing holidays or flying back from places in denial like the US) .

Would that have been true of the Black Death - or the Plague of 1665 ?

[AY Mod]

6 minutes ago, runs as required said:

It is interesting that it is not Immigrants or Asylum Seekers, but the Rich who introduced the Virus to the UK (via Alpine skiing holidays or flying back from places in denial like the US) .

 

Let's not start another Coronaballs subject off.

[woodenhead]

Just like the viruses are not 'foreign' (as used by President T in his addresses) they are not partial to poor or rich people.  They are quite fair actually, they will accept anyone as a host as long as they are welcoming.

[Hal Nail]

54 minutes ago, beast66606 said:

 

Quite scary that people still buy The Sun

A friend of mine swears by it. Hes made a fortune* trading shares based on what line the most read paper is peddling,  which is of course based on what its readers, (who are all allowed to vote) most want to read.

 

 

(*on paper, which as we all know is currently in short supply!)

Edited March 16, 2020 by Hal Nail

[beast66606]

5 minutes ago, runs as required said:

flying back from places in denial like the US

 

Only a few weeks ago my Mrs and I were concerned about her son as he is not too far from the centre of the outbreak in China - now he's more concerned about us, and he's still out there. It's only recently that the true extent of this virus has become known, lots of places were in denial (or more accurately were not bothered as it seemed to be a China only thing) - I must admit I become exasperated at the political digs that people can't seem to resist making, in fact I had a real go at one poster but reported myself and Andy and Co removed my post (quite rightly). Trust me, the virus isn't going to check if you're a Trump fan, hater, left wing, right wing, the Pope (other religions and figureheads are available) or indeed anyone before it infects you - so I really wish people would leave their political views out of the discussion, especially as they are probably based on echo chambers rather than facts.