Covid-19 Virus

Discussion in 'Taylor's Tittle-Tattle - General Banter' started by Hornet4ever, Jan 30, 2020.

  1. luke_golden

    luke_golden Space Cadet

    Are people still getting sick?

    I can’t speak for the rest of the US, but where I am, it basically doesn’t exist anymore. Nobody who isn’t already vaccinated is going to get one now, and everything has been open without any sort of restrictions on anybody for essentially the last year, and there’s barely been but a handful of people dying from it in months.

    Are we just further down the opening up path, and got over the hump of people still catching it a while ago?

    Sorry, I’m asking from a position of ignorance with how COVID is currently being handled there, but it genuinely shocked me that people were still concerned about not being able to do things because they might test positive. Just isn’t something that’s been on my radar here for a long time.
     
  2. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

    1000 people died of Covid in Texas in the last month, per official stats. Most excess death studies place US deaths at significantly higher than reported counts, so it's probably somewhere in the 1000 to 1500 range. Not sure if that's what you meant by "handful", or if that's a surprise.

    Bear in mind you're living in a US red state, and they've been significantly playing things down ever since Covid first appeared on the horizon. It hasn't really gone anywhere, people just aren't talking about it as much anymore. Vaccinated people have worked out they're wasting their breath on trying to educate the unvaccinated, and most of the unvaccinated don't give a **** and never did. For the most part, people are fatigued and want to go back to normal.

    Realistically there's no much more we can do at this point anyway; barring a miracle vaccine breakthrough that is 100% effective, this is as good as it gets. The unvaccinated are largely the ones getting hospitalized/killed at this point and, as you noted, anyone who isn't vaccinated by now just isn't going to.
     
  3. luke_golden

    luke_golden Space Cadet

    I was going off the average deaths per week, which is at around 35 right now and continues on a downward trend. That feels like a handful to me, particularly given the fact that I’d imagine barely 50% of the population in TX is vaccinated and there haven’t been any restrictions for the past year.

    Is COVID still a story where you are?

    As I say, I was just quite surprised that people are still testing before they do things, even with the laudable vaccination % enjoyed in the UK. Also, having visited in March and not needed to test on arrival, or show a test anywhere I went, I figured testing before events was out of the window too.
     
  4. wfc4ever

    wfc4ever Administrator Staff Member

    Well it’s certainly still an issue as people catch it but no I don’t think thousands are dying and being hospitalised but due to other news COVID has dropped off the radar a bit .

    Well unless you are the Prime Minster and done an Andre Gray - only difference is the latter didn’t create the rules he then broke !!
     
  5. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

    https://ycharts.com/indicators/texas_coronavirus_deaths

    That's what I was looking at.

    We had a big surge with Omicron in December/January. Virtually everyone I know either caught it, or lived with one (or more) people who did.

    It's dropped off from those levels since then, but I suspect that's more to do with the fact that Omicron ran out of people to infect on that scale than anything else. My employer hasn't had anyone test positive in 3 weeks now, though, which is nice. Hopefully it doesn't spike back up again as natural immunity wanes, but I don't think we'll get that lucky.
     
  6. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    It’s worth remembering that until 1 April over here lateral flow tests were doled out for ‘free’ like sweeties on the NHS and so nearly every household will probably have some to hand. I think we’ve got half a pack at the back of the kitchen cupboard, though can’t see any reason they’d ever be used now. Plus a significant minority of worriers will have stockpiled them and have enough to test twice a day for the next 6 months. I think until the ‘free’ tests are exhausted and people have to start paying for them out of their pocket you’ll still hear talk of people in the UK testing themselves. Incidentally it’s almost impossible to get a confirmatory PCR test now.
     
    luke_golden likes this.
  7. miked2006

    miked2006 Premiership Prediction League Proprietor

    It’s basically like the flu here now.

    Nobody wants the flu. Nobody will respect you for going into work with the flu. Good behaviour dictates that you’d test before doing something public if you feel bad.

    The latest strain incapacitates most, but the vast vast majority will be absolutely fine.
     
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  8. a19tgg

    a19tgg First Team

    I think testing is still a force of habit for many, one of my mates Mrs was a teacher (and they have two kids) but has now changed job, but they’d got used to testing pretty much everyday. A couple of days ago he put a picture of a positive lat flow test on our WhatsApp group, he said he didn’t have any symptoms so we asked him why he did the test in the first place and he said they’ve still got tons at home so they still all test regularly, even though it’s the Easter holidays and his wife isn’t even a teacher anymore. I think some people are just in the habit of doing it still and like UEA says, they need to use up all their tests before that habit might change.

    Personally I work from home and don’t have any tests left so I wouldn’t bother anymore under any circumstances, if I end up feeling rough then I just won’t go out because I won’t feel like it anyway.
     
    The Voice of Reason likes this.
  9. The undeniable truth

    The undeniable truth First Team Captain

    Flying to Hungary on Friday and then travelling to Czech before coming home. Wife off work sick and I’m now going down with it. Tests still negative but will have to cancel holiday if tests come back positive tomorrow / Friday. Originally booked for 2020 and cancelled last 2 years due to covid restrictions. Would be typical….
     
  10. luke_golden

    luke_golden Space Cadet

    In my spare time at work, I started reading this thread from the start, yesterday. I’ve just reached the part when TuT tested positive.

    It’s been a riveting read so far. Wild projections, Moose and ZZ in all their pomp, a few calls to sacrifice the olds, and a healthy dose of “it’ll be done in a couple weeks if we lockdown”.

    Would highly recommend.
     
    Moose likes this.
  11. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    When you get to the end you've got to tell us who you'll be asking to choose your lottery numbers!
     
  12. The undeniable truth

    The undeniable truth First Team Captain

    Can you update after the next read please ? I really want to know if I pull through.
     
  13. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

    You don't.

    Sorry.
     
  14. The undeniable truth

    The undeniable truth First Team Captain

    Damn. At least I can assume we avoided relegation after that morale boosting victory over Liverpool.
     
  15. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

    https://www.bbc.com/news/health-61327778

    WHO reckons global Covid death toll is about 3 times what has been officially reported, India a particular outlier (something I think a few people on here suspected).

    Unsurprisingly the UK doesn't look great in terms of excess deaths per 100,000. Above average and compared to other developed nations based on islands a poor performance.
     
  16. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    It doesn't look as bad as some shouted about either though. Above average but not the worst in the world, the developed world, the West, the EU, Europe...
     
  17. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

    I suppose that depends on your expectations.

    Given the UK's relative development, economic status and the fact we're an island, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect us to be well below average (especially given that we're "competing" with the poorest and least developed countries in the world). I think we could have been significantly closer to Australia's figures, albeit I'd expect us to be worse due to a higher population density.

    The fact that some other developed countries of similar status (sans island) did worse than us doesn't mitigate the government's performance for me.
     
  18. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Bad news I’m afraid. You are having a touch of the Bruce Willises if you can read this.
     
  19. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    There are some serious ‘let the oldies die’ posts and some horrific bean counting as to what would be an acceptable outcome. And some very amusing posts.
     
  20. The undeniable truth

    The undeniable truth First Team Captain

    Like a kind of sixth sense ?
    ps Your great great great grandfather says “Hi”.
     
    Moose likes this.
  21. AndrewH63

    AndrewH63 Reservist

    I read the report; made the point that outcomes very much determined by the demographics (younger population poor countries have been impacted less than older middle income nations). The next factor was the health systems of the richer nations. So ironically while you expect the richest nations as expected rode out the waves relatively well. Middle income nations had worse outcomes than the poor ones. This reinforces the point that the disease disproportionately impacted older adults.

    Of course the report makes it clear that due to poor and variable recording of deaths, these are estimates, based though on a robust methodology.

    An interesting point (to other world news) was the very poor outcomes in Russia. The Chinese approach of aggressive isolation is likely to lead to a load of cases once they relax.

    The virus is now fully seeded throughout the globe now. The hope is that new mutations do not lead to worse outcomes. And of course that they have ramped up bio security at that Wuhan lab researching SARS and the common cold,
     
    Last edited: May 6, 2022
    lowerrous likes this.
  22. Bwood_Horn

    Bwood_Horn Squad Player

    Keep repeating a narrative and it suddenly becomes true?

    We were theoretically in a very strong position to deal with a respiratory disease pandemic from governmental & oversight/implementation positions. Firstly, we had the extensive results from a war-gamed exercises (Cygnus and Alice) of areas in which government should focus its efforts - unfortunately we don't know exactly what areas these were as the full reports on the exercises have never been released.

    Secondly we were (are) uniquely in a position to target/micro-manage any pandemic response due to our NHS - namely using the unique expert knowledge of the local populations (demographics and etiology etc) and their requirements/effects of responses from the various NHS Trusts, Clinical Commissioning Groups and Area Teams which make up our NHS. These were criminally (negligently?) sacrificed in the name of out-sourcing.
     
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  23. a19tgg

    a19tgg First Team

    I think the UK being an island is a bit of a red herring, Heathrow is the 7th busiest airport in the world and the busiest in Europe, plus it then feeds people straight into a city with a population of 9m which is double the population of a an island like NZ. Plus as we’ve found to our cost recently we import an awful lot of stuff. So yes we’re an island, but thats kind of irrelevant when you’ve got millions of people from all over the world funnelling in and out every day. If we were in the middle of nowhere and were largely self sufficient then it might be a different story, but we’re only really an Island when viewed on a map.
     
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  24. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    We made terrible decisions though. We simply allowed travellers to walk away from airports, even when the volume of traffic had hugely reduced. The attitude towards borders will be one for the public inquiry when it reports in about a decade.
     
  25. a19tgg

    a19tgg First Team

    We certainly could and probably should have done things very differently. But to have been properly effective we probably would’ve needed to have closed our borders well before we had our first confirmed case, and like China did with Hubei, walled off London from the rest of the country.
     
  26. reg_varney

    reg_varney Squad Player

    Dithering over when to lockdown, allowing the Cheltenham Festival, discharging untested OAPs straight back to Care Homes, that essential half-term skiing holiday in the Italian resorts, not allowing Public Health England to lead testing and tracing the virus ....... So many headshaking decisions which went against the grain of "good British common sense" at the time.
     
  27. hornmeister

    hornmeister Tired

    Undoubtedly we could have handled it better. However a lot of it is hindsight. There are a few glaring errors like the untested releases into care homes.
    Excess deaths is what you need to look at when comparing countries otherwise you're comparing apples and oranges. Then you need to factor in population density, age and also how early in the pandemic we started to get it. Taking that into account I think we did OK, could have done better.

    With respect to support during lockdown, researching and deploying vaccines we're up there with the best.
     
    HappyHornet24 likes this.
  28. miked2006

    miked2006 Premiership Prediction League Proprietor

    Absolutely. No one was going to get everything right.
    Density and population age is very important.

    Many mistakes were understandable and didn’t make much difference in the end, although not locking down earlier pre-Christmas when we knew how spreadable the strain was meant we had a far longer lockdown post Christmas than was necessary.

    Sending untested people from hospitals, where it was rife, to care homes was a dreadful decision that cost a huge amount of lives. Perhaps a criminal amount of negligence.

    Subsequently banning people from attending those funerals was also cruel in my opinion.

    Our vaccine roll out and decisions were good, and saved us about a month on the EUs decisions. We were perfectly set up for the roll out, with a very centralised health system and perhaps the best pharma/ medicine R&D in the world.

    We were also perhaps aides by how bad Covid was allowed to get at times and the length of lockdowns, which meant people were also more desperate for the jab, so take up was high.

    I know Big Pharma consists of almost entirely American companies, but nearly all of the ideas are bought and trademarked from UK labs and Universities. So it’s absolutely no surprise whatsoever that we were the one of the first to develop and circulate a vaccine.

    The government however did offer the right level of funding and set up the correct regulatory environment to let the private sector do what it does best.

    Edit: also Boris’ actions at the beginning of the pandemic set the scene for our poor first few months. Dismissing masks, shaking hands of people in hospital and minimalising its severity meant that the government had to work really hard to get people back on board. But he should also be credited for getting people from that point to then take it seriously.
     
    Last edited: May 7, 2022
  29. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    It would be nice to be reassured that a strategy is in place for next autumn/winter. There is no reason to suppose that Covid won’t return and while it could be like the recent omicron wave, it could be more serious. The capacity to quickly produce a vaccine, distribute it and to put in place other measures needs to be there and will be received better if debated ahead of time.
     
  30. hornmeister

    hornmeister Tired

    You're right, there's no guarentee that future variants won't be more dangerous however as I understand it, It's not in a viruses interest to be more deadly as it makes it less likely to be passed on.

    I think in the end we'll get annual shots added to the flu regime. Whether younger and less vulnerable people get added to that schedule we'll have to see.
     
  31. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Yep, this is the most likely scenario, but not the only one. It would be a shame to be unprepared if this isn’t the outcome.
     
    hornmeister likes this.
  32. domthehornet

    domthehornet Moderator Staff Member

    It's finally got me, it's a bit crap to have isn't it?
     
  33. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

    This bit is often discussed online in the context of viruses being less likely to mutate into more deadly variants as a result, but that idea isn't actually correct. Viruses don't engineer themselves based on what's "best" for them. The mutations are essentially random, not a form of self-intelligent design. While it would be correct to say that mutating into e.g. a strain that rapidly kills/is detectable long before it is able to spread would not be in the best interest of a virus (example: Ebola), it doesn't mean it's less likely to happen. This is, in fact, the reason so many ancient viruses vanished long before the modern era: they can and do mutate into dead ends.

    This is part of why trying to avoid creating variants through bad practices is desirable. You have no idea how it might shake out.

    I suspect there will eventually be some kind of super-Covid strain that will appear (it's so contagious it gets many, many chances to mutate in a bad way), but hopefully that won't be for a long time and we'll have a good grasp on how to effectively treat by then.
     
    hornmeister likes this.
  34. hornmeister

    hornmeister Tired

    Agreed, basically if it kills people quickly there's less chance of it being passed on because the infections period is shorter before they peg out. Survival of the fittest and all that. So yes you're right it's not a concious decision by the virus to create less fatal strains, just probability that the less fatal strains will over time dominate, added to the fact that less fatal strain infection will probably create antibodies that help resist the more fatal strains.

    It's all maffs innit.:p
     
    Last edited: May 10, 2022
  35. HappyHornet24

    HappyHornet24 Crapster Staff Member

    Hope you feel better soon.
     
    domthehornet likes this.

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