Main Coronavirus / Covid-19 Discussion Thread

[A1X]

Can you imagine if you'd said on NYE in the final hours of 2019 that by the end of March 2020 we'd have people panic-buying bog roll and pasta, international air travel grinding to a halt, people being advised not to go on cruises, people sitting around waiting to be sent home from work or the schools shut down, pretty much every major sporting fixture being postponed or cancelled and the PM appearing on TV saying effectively "many people will die in the coming months"? Imagine how mad that would have actually seemed.

Most of us would have probably thought "blimey, Brexit really did go badly, didn't it?"

 

[Triggaaar]

So have I.
I have had a flu jab and Pneumonia jab, as I had Pneumonia last February. Also had a precautionary course of antibiotics earlier on this year in January.
Haven't felt 100% for a long time and at 71 with slightly dodgy 'bronchials', I am a wee bit concerned, but not overly.

Hopefully you've got a good number of years left, but I think it'll be worth you making a lot of effort not to catch this.

 

[Nobby]

The ex health secretary believes in homeopathy and was known by his rhyming slang nickname to most in the NHS.

Actually that’s an idea. Let’s get the Coronavirus, dilute it in water while shaking it and give it to everyone. Back to normal next week


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I would rather have it early to be honest

 

[Nobby]

I'm not saying it's necessarily wrong to do so.
It may prove to be hugely beneficial in the future, it may equally backfire and be seen to be a disastrous.

I was just countering the view that he has listened to his experts view solely. His experts will have been set the parameters on which to advise.
Had it been solely on the health of the population they would have advised differently.

I don’t think that would have advised differently.

They are of the opinion that as our NHS is already at near capacity, then delaying the virus a little longer means that a few more critical care beds will be available.

They would possibly have advised differently, if our NHS was not already near breaking point anyway.

With one of the lowest critical care beds ratios in the developed world, they probably couldn’t do much different, unfortunately

Another fine mess......

 

[SK1NT]

There was a time when i use to have cover a fart up with a cough.... now i have to cover a cough up with a fart...

 

[pb21]

I would rather have it early to be honest

Same. Get some herd immunity.

I think old/at risk people should self isolate as far as they can. Young/low risk people carry on as normal, get the virus, in theory not too badly.

 

[Wozza]

Just 8 new cases in China now.

We might have this thing under control by May.

8 new cases (supposedly) because the country is in lockdown.

What do they do next?!

 

[Nobby]

Entire Everton squad now in self isolation

 

[herecomesaregular]

Same. Get some herd immunity.

I think old/at risk people should self isolate as far as they can. Young/low risk people carry on as normal, get the virus, in theory not too badly.

Part of me thinks this is stupid you selfish barsteward, other part of me thinks this may be sensible! So hard to tell and no one really can say because the outcome of doing the wrong thing could well be the death of someone..... difficult times.

 

[pb21]

Part of me thinks this is stupid you selfish barsteward, other part of me thinks this may be sensible! So hard to tell and no one really can say because the outcome of doing the wrong thing could well be the death of someone..... difficult times.

I agree, no easy/obvious decisions.

 

[pasty]

All Europa and Champions League matches next week postponed as well now.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/51870540

 

[Withdean11]

8 new cases (supposedly) because the country is in lockdown.

What do they do next?!

This is the problem right? As soon as they re-open, the cases will continue to rise. They'd have to wait until there were no cases in the country, and maybe even the world, for them to resume normal service without this picking back up.

 

[Bozza]

Part of me thinks this is stupid you selfish barsteward, other part of me thinks this may be sensible! So hard to tell and no one really can say because the outcome of doing the wrong thing could well be the death of someone..... difficult times.

They will have numerous complex models that factor in a huge number of variables.

Unfortunately, it's not a matter of:

Option A: No one dies
Option B: Some people die

There's probably a list of hundreds of options and each will have a large number of eventual deaths. They'll be trying to find the one where, at some point in the future, that number is as low as possible.

Unfortunately, as we see here, some people can't resist trying to score political points. I really don't know how, at the end of all this, we accurately assess the effectiveness of the approach taken. Some countries will have lost more people (higher %age) and some less. All countries will have taken different options at different times for reasons they believed to be correct at the time.

I've never been a Boris Johnson fan, and many of his detractors in the past complain he just says what he thinks people want to hear. In this case he's not doing that - it feels like it would be "easier" to follow the route that other countries are doing as, when this eventually plays out, he surely couldn't be criticised for taking us down the same path as everyone else.

He's going to be the PM who oversees the loss of many of his people. If I were him, I'd be following those who know far more about this than me, and I can;'t see any indication that he's not doing that. What a job to have.

 

[Bozza]

This is the problem right? As soon as they re-open, the cases will continue to rise. They'd have to wait until there were no cases in the country, and maybe even the world, for them to resume normal service without this picking back up.

Again, something I've been saying for weeks to all those who say "China have got it under control - this ain't so bad."

They've got 1.4bn people with no immunity to the disease - how do they move forward?

 

[dingodan]

This is the problem right? As soon as they re-open, the cases will continue to rise. They'd have to wait until there were no cases in the country, and maybe even the world, for them to resume normal service without this picking back up.

In some respects I guess this is why part of our outlook involves accepting that people will get this thing, and this should happen in a managed (and managable) way.

It may be that we have two choices, neither of them very appealing.

1. We allow a controlled and managed process, where we do our best to control the numbers at any given time, and give our health service the best chance of helping as many of the seriously ill as we possibly can, and we gradually benefit from the community immunity which develops. As more people recover and develop immunity, the ability of the illness to spread weakens.

2. We run and hide from this hoping it goes away, we stay susceptable with little to no immunity, any small cluster of cases can explode at any moment in the population now, or into the future, because we cannot avoid the inevitable spread forever, and trying to avoid it only prolongs the agony. The longer this goes on for the harder it will get.

In some sense it is a case of biting the bullet. I can imagine a situation where countries who try to avoid as many infections as possible for as long as possible also struggle to ever get over this with it returning again and again everytime they try to return to normal. Perhaps with our approach we will get through the worst of it sooner, with the peak remaining managable in terms of health resources, after which it isn't able to get a foothold again.

In some sense China was an example of what happens when you don't try to flatten the peak, they did nothing for a long time, then they threw everything at it all at once. Italy, on the flip side, took lots of strong measures early on. Probably felt pretty reassuring at the time, maybe as a result they let their guard down slightly at the wrong time.

I can't say that I know any of the above for sure, It seems like nobody really knows anything for sure. At this point I would rather we look at this with a cool head and taking a scientific approach.

There are plenty of well meaning ways to get things wrong, more ways to get it wrong than to get it right, and there are no easy answers.

 

[peterward]

Part of me thinks this is stupid you selfish barsteward, other part of me thinks this may be sensible! So hard to tell and no one really can say because the outcome of doing the wrong thing could well be the death of someone..... difficult times.

Made similar, probably not possible, comment 2 days ago.

There are 2 strains of covid 19 floating around, the original Wuhan one which is nastier and more aggressive, and a milder strain.

One scientist reckoned if you caught either it would give you some immunity from both strains and further mutations.

So if it were possible and could be ascertained that a certain person was infected with the milder varient. I'd actually be game to give them a good lick..... Or some more normal means to catch it. Volunteer for the mild strain early, do my week in bed and then get on with life again.

 

[Wrong-Direction]

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[Wrong-Direction]

The cynic in me thinks this will be the beginning of privatised health care.

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[dwayne]

The cynic in me thinks this will be the beginning of privatised health care.

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Can't even get a Corona test on Harley st at the moment !!

 

[Dave the OAP]

Have I heard this right...for a “ herd” to become immune there needs to be 60% coverage of people getting it. ( chief medical officer last night). They are also predicting 3% mortality rate.

That is a death rate of 1,1 million people.

Now that cannot be right as presumably the 66 million should discount children possibly?

These are astronomical rates .

Of course no one knows, but Johnson’s theme seemed to be...people will die..shit happens.