Covid-19 Virus

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-52115265

Bit cheeky of Italy this one. 1 of their citizens dies of Covid-19 here and they're demanding inquiries and all sorts.

 

I think your analogy is getting a bit stretched. I think it’s much more like our town has been overrun by zombie tigers.

We can’t beat the tigers right now, but they will wander away. When they do we will be able to set up tiger warnings to let us know when they return. Eventually we will design a massive zombie tiger bat and swat them out of existence.

When we emerge we’ll find some bread has gone off and a few houseplants have died, but that’s about it. If we all have a whip round we can replace them and actually get much nicer things if we want in a much nicer town.

 

I think that’s natural though. First and foremost people will want to know if something is going to kill them or not. Secondly the mortality rate of an illness is normally directly linked to how likely you are to need hospitalising anyway. Ebola has a 40-50% mortality rate, I’d imagine everyone who gets it needs hospitalisation. Sarrs had a 10% morality rate, so probably at least 50% of people required hospitalisation. I think most people get that this is about not overwhelming the NHS, but most people’s primary concern will be their own risk.

 

But isn't the point the period in which the treatment is required.
I think the whole idea is to stretch the infections out.
Then it will be similar to a flu season, but at the moment its ahead of the screeners and cant be detected until it has mutated to disease, so the answer is to stop spread by avoiding contact.
There will be a percentage of deaths due to this virus but if its slowed it will prevent people dying of survival issues due to an overwhelmed NHS

 

Which again is fine for Sweden who did a form of this already. The Brits can't even be relied upon to stay indoors when it's imperative they do. Suddenly everyone is a jogger, dogwalker or mountain climber.

I can't see the restaurant or pub thing working well here. Especially when areas of the population spit at emergency service people in 'defiance'.

 

Absolutely. But in a way it doesn't matter if you concentrate on deaths caused directly by the virus, or deaths caused by our (in)ability to respond to the demand it puts on our health service. Either way we're left as a society having to face up to the need to have unnatural conversations about what amount is acceptable and at what cost to those who survive. The avoidance of that sort of talk is another form of the hiding I alluded to earlier. We'll all have to face it eventually - it's just whether we're brave enough to do it now or want to wait until it's all over and do it in the inquiry phase.

 

Well my understanding is that Korea and Singapore are also using apps that track people following testing, I'm not convinced that the UK population would put up with that but I have heard that we are looking into that sort of thing. I wonder how many "tracers" would be needed if we test 70,000 a day. Everyone is moaning that we are not testing enough right now, but what use would it be?

 

563 new deaths UK wide.

 

It would be down to the establishments to enforce it and organise it, not the punters. You’d assume it would be in their interests to do so if they wanted to stay open.

 

I wonder if the governments of the world had their time again they'd still commit to announcing daily death tolls for this pandemic?

I know they can't stop now but the numbers are compromised so many which ways as to have lost almost all their meaning.

 

Their significance (as in how unusual, what are the best measures etc) can be debated, but the meaning is pretty clear surely?

 

Whichever way you phrase it, we know 563 is not the real number as the real number is impossible to count. We're only counting a specific group of people who die. There's the whole 'died with/died of' debate. And the number can't be compared with any other country really as everyone is counting according to different rules. In fact it can't even be compared with how we were counting a week ago.

For avoidance of doubt I'm not making a tin foil hat conspiracy point about the validity of the figures. I like data in situations like this but I'm not sure it's proving to be particularly helpful. And I suspect governments have realised that too but know it's too late to reverse course.

 

If people were told 'There's a virus around and we need to stop it but we're not saying how many people it's infected or killed' that would be a recipe for mass panic. Everyone has heard of someone who has got or had it so people will overestimate. Either that or governments don't tell anyone there is a virus, just say there's a flu going around so 'Be careful folks!' and keep their fingers crossed that it'll pass. Of course there's always the chance every government is lying about the figures anyway - surely not!

 

Yes the use of the app was implied when I said look at China and Singapore. I believe that there will be an NHS one that will of course be optional, but hopefully as many of us as possible download it. An app would certainly make life easier, you could then either self isolate to be on the safe side or go to a drive through testing centre and of positive the app alerts who you’ve been in contact with.

 

In five years we'll all be wearing these.

 

Been a bit quiet today, TuT, how's day 10 been?

I've been very lucky, I only have a cough now, fever has gone I think.

 

After his partner sadly succumbed to the coronavirus, the remaining member of Daft Punk decided to continue as a solo act.

 

Is there anything more sickeningly American than that story?

 

I am actually in the high risk section of the population on two counts, my age and I have an illness as well, so I might just get what you are wishing on me.

I am not trying to belittle the fact that people are suffering and even dying either directly or indirectly because of the Cvirus, I am just questioning why this particular disease has brought the world into, IMO, an OTT MELTDOWN, as we have had plenty of other worldwide illnesses in the past that have not created such an HIATUS, so why has this one?

I could be, and possibly might be wrong, but I think we have all basically talked ourselves into this crisis because of the constant 24 hour over forensic reporting of Covid19 and therefore it is becoming a self fulfilling prophecy. So far in the overall scheme of things the deaths etc. are NOT a massive number worldwide, and I think without all the constant MEDIA OTT REPORTING we might not be reacting in the way we are, and life would probably be carrying on as normal.

I am not unsympathetic with the people who have died or who have been very ill with the disease, but lets face the VAST MAJORITY of people who are known to have had the disease, have had little more than a cold.

SO THAT IS WHY IMO WE MIGHT JUST ALL BE OVERREACTING TO THIS AND I HOPE AND PRAY THAT I AM RIGHT.

 

At 38 you've still got another thirty years of youngness in my opinion

 

I hope you are too. But this is a highly infectious disease, you can pass it on to a lot of people before you know you've got it, and as yet there's no defence against it other than isolation. It's a new disease and the danger is infinite. If it comes back next year we might know how to deal with it, as with polio etc.

 

I don't think you can question that this is a killer.

I think you have to take the numbers from places like China and the Middle East with a very large dose of salt. If you look at what has happened in Italy and Spain, and now in New York, the China figures look totally out of step. I think it's plausible China has deliberately omitted at least a zero off their numbers and then halved it. As for the Middle East and India I doubt they even have the ability to estimate let alone publish their numbers. It's reasonable to suspect this virus has already taken lives in 6 figures and isn't ready to stop any day soon.

What I think is legitimate is to question the approach taken to fighting it.

 

I'm not questioning that it is a killer, I'm questioning if it's a big a killer as the worlds, IMO, OVERREACTION is making it out to be, and I'm saying that as one of the people who are in the high risk category over catching it.

 

Just wait two weeks. I'm sure you won't get calm answers to your questioning then.

Or you could ask the Italians now.

 

I’ve said this a few times, no basis for it other than logic mind. China may well have lied about their figures, but as the source of the outbreak how long would it have been running wild there before they realised? We know the Dr who conveniently died tried to blow the whistle about these mysterious pneumonia like deaths that had been turning up. The virus would’ve made the leap to humans, it would’ve then been spreading unchecked and then eventually people would’ve been dying in the hospitals there before they would’ve twigged and worked out what was happening. The point of this observation is that although they might have lied, this will be offset to an extent by the fact that they wouldn’t have know about it for a while. We at least knew about it, knew what to expect what to look out for and what to test for etc.

 

You have a valid point, we didn't have this level of panic during the swine flu or bird flu epidemics. Were they any worse or as contagious as this?

 

A bit morbid but here's a tracker.

US is over 200k cases and 4.5k deaths.

UK is at 30k cases and 2.3k deaths

Germany is leading the way in terms death/recovery rate.

 

That you consider it an overreaction pretty much settles the debate.

 

Would be interested to know people thoughts in terms of if/when there's a C-19 vaccination & you haven't yet had it at that point, would you take it or not?

 

I don't know who that is, but I know from social media, that most americans are so conditioned by nearly 80 years of demonized communism that they believe that taxing billionaires like Bezos or corporations like Apple is socialism and unamerican. They fear that somehow stopping the too 0.01% from hoarding billions will stop them from enjoying their middle management salary.

Nice schools, healthcare for all, minimum wage for workers etc. Scares the hell out of them.

 

I’m not sure I get your question, if it was freely available then it stands to reason I’d take it, why wouldn’t you? It would help the general population to not be on a position to be able to catch it and spread it to those that haven’t had it.

If it was available in limited numbers (which it almost certainly will be at the start) I wouldn’t be at all interested in having it and would rather it went to the most vulnerable first.