Main Coronavirus / Covid-19 Discussion Thread

[RossyG]

We can’t live like this for much longer. People will go stir crazy and our economy will crash (at this point, people on Twitter say, oh you’d put money before people dying, would you? To which I’d reply, we need a functioning economy to keep the NHS going.)

I think after this peak they’ll start easing up on restrictions. The pop-up hospitals will be there to cope with bad cases and the vulnerable will have to be shielded as best they can, but for the majority we’ll have to go back to some kind of normality within a couple of months, vaccine or no vaccine.

The only exception to this would be if that vaccine mentioned today works and can be ready by September. But we can’t rest our hopes on that.

 

[Machiavelli]

They are building several nightingale hospitals despite the fact they believe we are near too inflections peak, something doesn’t sit right about that particularly given how they’ve mentioned at times that this lockdown is to give the NHS ‘time to prepare’ and flatten the curve. I wonder if the government are still possibly looking at the herd immunitys/Sweden route, but in order to go down this route they needed time to build the extra emergency buildings for this as had we gone this route initially the NHS would have been overwhelmed.

Is there a way of allowing general healthy young population back out to work to keep the economy going, with social distancing and isolation still in place WHILST still protecting those most at risk? I honestly don’t know.

I think it's more to do with the fact that local peaks emerge at different times, and the Nightingales are being built where the data is indicating these are boiling up. But the rapidity in which the Nightingales have gone up is in stark contrast to the glacial pace that PPE and testing is coming on board.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

We can’t live like this for much longer. People will go stir crazy and our economy will crash (at this point, people on Twitter say, oh you’d put money before people dying, would you? To which I’d reply, we need a functioning economy to keep the NHS going.)

I think after this peak they’ll start easing up on restrictions. The pop-up hospitals will be there to cope with bad cases and the vulnerable will have to be shielded as best they can, but for the majority we’ll have to go back to some kind of normality within a couple of months, vaccine or no vaccine.

The only exception to this would be if that vaccine mentioned today works and can be ready by September. But we can’t rest our hopes on that.

Why are flights still coming into this country and arrivals not going into a 14 day isolation?

 

[CHAPPERS]

Matt Hancock is a disgrace. Clap the NHS then tell them they are to blame for PPE shortages. Urgh.

 

[Bozza]

No. Time for the government to be held to account. Inadequate tests, PPE and ventilators despite all the promises.

Perhaps government efforts were originally focused on flooding as instructed...

It isn't though. There are FIFTEEN cases in the UK. Fifteen. A lot more chance of dying in the flooding. That's where BoJo should be focussed.

I'm not picking on you, as it may appear. I was delving back into this thread to look for something else and just happened across this as I jumped through pages and it highlights, again, just how much changed so quickly.

 

[RossyG]

Why are flights still coming into this country and arrivals not going into a 14 day isolation?

No idea. Are they passenger flights or shipments of food, medicines etc?

If the former, then I’d have stopped them long ago (bar repatriations with quarantine).

 

[Bozza]

Jesus - a lot of posts from late February have not aged well at all.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

27 Health and social care workers have died so far. This is a memorial website to each and everyone of them.

The local one is a nurse, Pooja Sharma, from Eastbourne District General.

https://nursingnotes.co.uk/covid-19-memorial/

 

[Blue Valkyrie]

Locusts in Africa, Krakatoa exploding, Ebola and bird flu making comebacks, as well as Covid-19.

It is all getting a bit biblical.

 

[Bozza]

I think it's more to do with the fact that local peaks emerge at different times, and the Nightingales are being built where the data is indicating these are boiling up. But the rapidity in which the Nightingales have gone up is in stark contrast to the glacial pace that PPE and testing is coming on board.

I'm not defending the government on this, but sn't it the case that almost every country in the world is trying to buy very limited quantities of the same thing, and there's simply nowhere near enough to go round? Demand exceeds supply many times over.

Italy, Spain, France, the US and the UK are at least five wealthy countries where shortages of testing and/or PPE has been highlighted repeatedly.

The case from the US where a state was sending someone to a McDonalds car-park with a cheque for over $3m illustrates the problem.

A handful of countries seem to have been less impacted, and I have better things to do with my time right now than try to identify why. Perhaps they were in the position of having the right in-country supplies/manufacturers to be largely self-sufficient.

 

[Machiavelli]

We can’t live like this for much longer. People will go stir crazy and our economy will crash (at this point, people on Twitter say, oh you’d put money before people dying, would you? To which I’d reply, we need a functioning economy to keep the NHS going.)

I think after this peak they’ll start easing up on restrictions. The pop-up hospitals will be there to cope with bad cases and the vulnerable will have to be shielded as best they can, but for the majority we’ll have to go back to some kind of normality within a couple of months, vaccine or no vaccine.

The only exception to this would be if that vaccine mentioned today works and can be ready by September. But we can’t rest our hopes on that.

The economy has crashed already. Once the data emerges, that will be revealed, but this is the sharpest historical fall the economy has ever suffered. With a bit of luck, it won't be too protracted which means it won't prove to be as severe as the Great Depression or 2008, but that's hoping.

 

[Rugrat]

Why are flights still coming into this country and arrivals not going into a 14 day isolation?

It's the one thing that really irks ....there is no need and if people want to return then they should be prepared to and forced to quarantine

We can’t live like this for much longer. People will go stir crazy and our economy will crash (at this point, people on Twitter say, oh you’d put money before people dying, would you? To which I’d reply, we need a functioning economy to keep the NHS going.)

I think after this peak they’ll start easing up on restrictions. The pop-up hospitals will be there to cope with bad cases and the vulnerable will have to be shielded as best they can, but for the majority we’ll have to go back to some kind of normality within a couple of months, vaccine or no vaccine.

The only exception to this would be if that vaccine mentioned today works and can be ready by September. But we can’t rest our hopes on that.

I suspect you are correct and those feeling invincible (which will be the majority of working population) will 'demand' it as well as the need for the economy to resume will force a gradual relaxation in the next 2/3 weeks.

As a vulnerable (self inflicted unfortunately) it's pretty scary but I'm pragmatic. I guess it will mean continuing a high degree of self isolation until a vaccine or effective treatment available. Not an attractive prospect but better than the alternative

 

[Machiavelli]

I'm not defending the government on this, but sn't it the case that almost every country in the world is trying to buy very limited quantities of the same thing, and there's simply nowhere near enough to go round? Demand exceeds supply many times over.

Italy, Spain, France, the US and the UK are at least five wealthy countries where shortages of testing and/or PPE has been highlighted repeatedly.

The case from the US where a state was sending someone to a McDonalds car-park with a cheque for over $3m illustrates the problem.

A handful of countries seem to have been less impacted, and I have better things to do with my time right now than try to identify why. Perhaps they were in the position of having the right in-country supplies/manufacturers to be largely self-sufficient.

I'm not trying to claim that this is easy in this situation but, unfortunately, there wasn't a sufficient plan to deal with it in the first place. Contrast with South Korea, which learnt from SARS, etc, and prepared appropriately. But even then, we (and, yes, other countries too) have been very slow off the mark. What South Korea have done is not to buy up lots of tests, but they've manufactured them at large scale. It's the failure on both fronts that is proving catastrophic, I suspect, but we'll have to wait for an enquiry after all this calms down before we really know.
In terms of PPE, for me at least (who has next to no knowledge of production processes, distribution logistics, etc) this just seems baffling. It's not exactly high-tech equipment. There was a piece on C4 News last night in which a family (engineering based) have bought a whole host of 3D printers and are producing PPE masks in their front room.
To repeat what I said in the previous post, the first Nightingale (I don't know about the progress of later ones) was refurbished at rapid speed, and that is impressive, and credit to the government on that, but the tragedy will be if we don't need the Nightingales, while the paucity of tests and PPE causes multiple more deaths.

 

[ManOfSussex]

27 Health and social care workers have died so far. This is a memorial website to each and everyone of them.

The local one is a nurse, Pooja Sharma, from Eastbourne District General.

https://nursingnotes.co.uk/covid-19-memorial/

There's a tribute here on the East Sussex Healthcare Trust website too, if you haven't seen it - https://www.esht.nhs.uk/2020/04/08/pooja-sharma-trust-pharmacist/

Very sad.

 

[Bozza]

I'm not trying to claim that this is easy in this situation but, unfortunately, there wasn't a sufficient plan to deal with it in the first place. Contrast with South Korea, which learnt from SARS, etc, and prepared appropriately. But even then, we (and, yes, other countries too) have been very slow off the mark. What South Korea have done is not to buy up lots of tests, but they've manufactured them at large scale. It's the failure on both fronts that is proving catastrophic, I suspect, but we'll have to wait for an enquiry after all this calms down before we really know.
In terms of PPE, for me at least (who has next to no knowledge of production processes, distribution logistics, etc) this just seems baffling. It's not exactly high-tech equipment. There was a piece on C4 News last night in which a family (engineering based) have bought a whole host of 3D printers and are producing PPE masks in their front room.
To repeat what I said in the previous post, the first Nightingale (I don't know about the progress of later ones) was refurbished at rapid speed, and that is impressive, and credit to the government on that, but the tragedy will be if we don't need the Nightingales, while the paucity of tests and PPE causes multiple more deaths.

I'd never heard of the term "N95 mask" before a few weeks ago and, again, I don't have the time to research this in depth, but the US requirement alone is 6 times what 3M (seemingly the main manufacturer of these) and a few others can make. And then there's the rest of the world who need more than a few too...

American manufacturers say it will be months before they meet demand for high-quality masks, part of a broader breakdown in the effort to supply enough protective gear and lifesaving equipment to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

"3M Co. MMM, -0.81% and a half dozen smaller competitors are making about 50 million of N95 masks—which block 95% of very small particles—in the U.S. each month. That is far short of the 300 million N95 masks the Department of Health and Human Services estimated in March that U.S. health-care workers would need monthly to fight a pandemic. U.S. hospitals that previously purchased masks from abroad have turned to overburdened domestic suppliers after many countries blocked exports to fight the virus within their own borders.

“The demand we have exceeds our production capacity,” 3M Chief Executive Mike Roman said in an interview.

3M has doubled mask production since January. President Trump on Thursday invoked the Defense Production Act against 3M, which gives the federal government more control over a company’s operations. 3M didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the move."​

 

[LlcoolJ]

I'd never heard of the term "N95 mask" before a few weeks ago and, again, I don't have the time to research this in depth, but the US requirement alone is 6 times what 3M (seemingly the main manufacturer of these) and a few others can make. And then there's the rest of the world who need more than a few too...

American manufacturers say it will be months before they meet demand for high-quality masks, part of a broader breakdown in the effort to supply enough protective gear and lifesaving equipment to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

"3M Co. MMM, -0.81% and a half dozen smaller competitors are making about 50 million of N95 masks—which block 95% of very small particles—in the U.S. each month. That is far short of the 300 million N95 masks the Department of Health and Human Services estimated in March that U.S. health-care workers would need monthly to fight a pandemic. U.S. hospitals that previously purchased masks from abroad have turned to overburdened domestic suppliers after many countries blocked exports to fight the virus within their own borders.

“The demand we have exceeds our production capacity,” 3M Chief Executive Mike Roman said in an interview.

3M has doubled mask production since January. President Trump on Thursday invoked the Defense Production Act against 3M, which gives the federal government more control over a company’s operations. 3M didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the move."​

This can't be correct because Trump said that they are getting 500m masks ("300 meillion and then 200 more, this is probably, and tremendous...") in the next few days.

 

[Icy Gull]

It's the one thing that really irks ....there is no need and if people want to return then they should be prepared to and forced to quarantine



I suspect you are correct and those feeling invincible (which will be the majority of working population) will 'demand' it as well as the need for the economy to resume will force a gradual relaxation in the next 2/3 weeks.

As a vulnerable (self inflicted unfortunately) it's pretty scary but I'm pragmatic. I guess it will mean continuing a high degree of self isolation until a vaccine or effective treatment available. Not an attractive prospect but better than the alternative

I normally watch the BBC news but last night I watched Channel 4, wow so much more hard hitting than the BBC. I get the impression that until everyone has had it this virus is not going to go away. Like you I reckon, the vulnerable could be trying to avoid it for many months yet, or until a vaccine is found. That could be next year

 

[Guinness Boy]

Perhaps government efforts were originally focused on flooding as instructed...



I'm not picking on you, as it may appear. I was delving back into this thread to look for something else and just happened across this as I jumped through pages and it highlights, again, just how much changed so quickly.

Online newspaper articles from today won't age well in two months. Take the Mail. Yesterday "vaccine may be ready by September". Today "restrictions may last for 18 months". They're all guessing and these are supposedly journalists with sources and access to the government and medical staff. It's absolutely pointless raking over the past, the virus and our reaction to it will likely have changed again by June.

Nevertheless, on the day I posted that, there was a red flood warning across much of the west of the country. Red. Immediate risk of death.

 

[beorhthelm]

I'd never heard of the term "N95 mask" before a few weeks ago and, again, I don't have the time to research this in depth, but the US requirement alone is 6 times what 3M (seemingly the main manufacturer of these) and a few others can make. And then there's the rest of the world who need more than a few too...

this is the problem. the requirement to change PPE frequently dramatically increases the volume of equipment needed, and some early advice was overcautious (changing between each patient). equipment is going out, i read near 400 million units of equipment in two weeks. i expect individual wards or sites run low where equipment hasnt worked through to end point, no one reports on such detail.

 

[Bakero]

I normally watch the BBC news but last night I watched Channel 4, wow so much more hard hitting than the BBC. I get the impression that until everyone has had it this virus is not going to go away. Like you I reckon, the vulnerable could be trying to avoid it for many months yet, or until a vaccine is found. That could be next year

Channel 4 News has always been the one to watch.