[News] The Coronavirus Good News thread

[Mellotron]

He doesn’t agree with you. You think he does because you clearly don’t understand the difference between infection and case numbers, as was proved when you said people die three days after infection.

Literally no one thinks the day before lockdown was the peak infection day. Not a single doctor, scientist, epidemiologist, mathematician or statistician has even remotely suggested this. You are completely on your own with this belief.

I may have mixed up my wording between infections and cases but if you continue to believe the 22nd was the peak day it means you think the average time between infection and a case testing positive is 16 days, which is obviously a long way out.

Also, you are twisting my words, making out like I’m saying everyone who gets infected dies within 3 days. That’s obviously nonsense and if you’re going to use that level of disingenuousness there is no point even trying to debate. Some die within a few days - those who are already severely ill. For some it takes weeks.

Anyways this isn’t the thread for arguing. Let’s move on.

 

[Triggaaar]

Cool. Prof Karol Sikora agrees with me so I just don’t know who to believe out of him and you.

It's all well and good just quoting a tweet, but you really should put more thought into it. As badger says, it makes no sense that the highest number of infections is happening right now. How on earth are these people all getting infected, when we're all isolating/social distancing?

There is no way on earth our infection peak was the day of lockdown. That makes no logical sense whatsoever.

Of course it makes logical sense. People were out in pubs etc, catching the virus from other people. That's not to say I'm sure the peak was then, but there's certainly logic to the argument.

If you look at testing and cases since you can immediately see that’s bollocks.

No. The people who caught it a couple of weeks ago took a while before they were showing symptoms, and a bit longer before they needed hospital treatment, and longer still before they had the results back from tests.

You are of course aware that huge amounts of the country didn’t lock down at that point, right? i.e. the millions of key workers who have all been FAR more likely to get it in the last couple of weeks than they did before lockdown.

The millions of key workers are still a small percentage of the country overall, so while they may be at higher risk now, overall the amount of people becoming infected should be falling. Indeed the numbers appear to back this up (bearing in mind that positive tests will be way behind the date of infection).

 

[SK1NT]

less pollution to see the supermoon tonight: https://www.space.com/super-pink-full-moon-2020-teach-your-kids.html

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

The world has been forced to reset to " factory mode " Let's see if we have learned any lessons when this is all over

 

[Mellotron]

The millions of key workers are still a small percentage of the country overall, so while they may be at higher risk now, overall the amount of people becoming infected should be falling. Indeed the numbers appear to back this up (bearing in mind that positive tests will be way behind the date of infection).

I agree that it will be falling by now, probably has been for a few days. But a peak infection date of 22nd March doesn’t make sense, and no one of any repute has said this, to my knowledge.

We didn’t change the R value from 2.6 to under 1 within 24 hours. That’s not how it works.

 

[Triggaaar]

I agree that it will be falling by now, probably has been for a few days. But a peak infection date of 22nd March doesn’t make sense, and no one of any repute has said this, to my knowledge.

The leading figures are (obviously) hoping that the number of cases and deaths fall, but they will be cautious about calling a peak too early. They are still commenting on the current daily increases (cases and deaths), but there's just no need for them to discuss what day these cases actually became infected.

The recent graphs have the peak new cases reported on April 5th. The number might be skewed a little by the fact that not all cases are reported promptly, but it could have been our peak. That's for the results between 5pm on the April 3rd, and 5pm April 4th. The test results are taking between 2 and 3 days, so that would mean the tests were done on about April 1st. Then we need to allow time from when the virus first enters someone's body, to them getting some symptoms, to them needing to go to hospital (and then get tested). I just grabbed this from the WHO:
"The “incubation period” means the time between catching the virus and beginning to have symptoms of the disease. Most estimates of the incubation period for COVID-19 range from 1-14 days, most commonly around five days."
That's 5 days until the beginning of symptoms. 10 days until hospitalisation seems like a conservative guess. So that would mean the people who got tested on April 1st, caught the virus on March 22nd (it's coincidence that the date matched exactly, I was just typing my best guesses for how long these things take).

Maybe we haven't reached the peak of recorded cases yet, but maybe we have, and the idea that peak infections was at the time of lockdown seems reasonable to me.

But as I said above, this is just not something our government and their advisors need to be discussing. For a start, they don't want to assume we've had the peak in case they're wrong. Secondly, they don't want people to be complacent, they want people to keep going with social distancing.

We didn’t change the R value from 2.6 to under 1 within 24 hours. That’s not how it works.

Why doesn't it? If you've got the virus and you're in a busy pub, you can easily infect a few people. If you're not seeing anyone the next day, then you're unlikely to infect anyone.

 

[Mackenzie]

Exactly. That’s what I wanted to type but lost the will to. I’ve read some very loose timelines that look something like this for the worst cases:

Day 1 - infection
Day 5 - symptoms show
Day 10-12: hospitalisation
Day 12-15: intensive care
Day 18-21: death

It’s obviously incredibly vague and every case is totally different, but let’s run with it. It’s also why Boris, far from being an “outlier”, is actually bang on track to be a serious case based on the little info we have about him.

Bringing it back to the point, the UK locked down 14 days ago. Around that point you have to assume infection rates peaked. I get that some people flouted the rules and others like key workers still had to go out, but tens of millions of people were taken off the streets, off public transport, out of offices and shops, out of pubs and restaurants etc. Therefore I suggest the infection rate peaked around the time of lockdown.

Based on the timeline above, you’d expect the consequences of lockdown to be:

1) The number of people hospitalised (new cases) peaks at about Day 10-12 post-lockdown before falling. So far so good as Sunday (Day 12 post-lockdown) saw the highest number of new cases so far at almost 6,000, but there have been large decreases in the last two days. Today, we had 3,600 new cases which is lower than any day since last Tuesday.

2) Next you’d expect to see the number of people in ICU peak at about Day 15 post-lockdown. That’s where we are right about now so let’s see what happens in the next couple of days. This would mean the pressure on the NHS is about as bad right now as it’s going to get.

3) Finally, you’d expect to see the death rate peak about 18-21 days post-lockdown, as those infected on the peak infection day are due to die at this point. That means our peak number of deaths per day is coming at the end of this week or early next week. Let’s see.

I could be wrong, of course I could. I’m just a nobody sitting in my living room watching the news. There are actual experts out there who still don’t know what’s going to happen so none of us have anything of value to say. But that’s my logic.

That all seems about right. Hopefully the numbers will back it up.

 

[Mellotron]

Exactly. That’s what I wanted to type but lost the will to. I’ve read some very loose timelines that look something like this for the worst cases:

Day 1 - infection
Day 5 - symptoms show
Day 10-12: hospitalisation
Day 12-15: intensive care
Day 18-21: death

It’s obviously incredibly vague and every case is totally different, but let’s run with it. It’s also why Boris, far from being an “outlier”, is actually bang on track to be a serious case based on the little info we have about him.

Bringing it back to the point, the UK locked down 14 days ago. Around that point you have to assume infection rates peaked. I get that some people flouted the rules and others like key workers still had to go out, but tens of millions of people were taken off the streets, off public transport, out of offices and shops, out of pubs and restaurants etc. Therefore I suggest the infection rate peaked around the time of lockdown.

Based on the timeline above, you’d expect the consequences of lockdown to be:

1) The number of people hospitalised (new cases) peaks at about Day 10-12 post-lockdown before falling. So far so good as Sunday (Day 12 post-lockdown) saw the highest number of new cases so far at almost 6,000, but there have been large decreases in the last two days. Today, we had 3,600 new cases which is lower than any day since last Tuesday.

2) Next you’d expect to see the number of people in ICU peak at about Day 15 post-lockdown. That’s where we are right about now so let’s see what happens in the next couple of days. This would mean the pressure on the NHS is about as bad right now as it’s going to get.

3) Finally, you’d expect to see the death rate peak about 18-21 days post-lockdown, as those infected on the peak infection day are due to die at this point. That means our peak number of deaths per day is coming at the end of this week or early next week. Let’s see.

I could be wrong, of course I could. I’m just a nobody sitting in my living room watching the news. There are actual experts out there who still don’t know what’s going to happen so none of us have anything of value to say. But that’s my logic.

Fair enough. Apologies. I understand the logic. I did infact mean peak hospitalisations/recognised cases originally, and rather than acknowledge that error doubled down. I still think the peak infections would’ve been at least a few days after the 22nd, but I now understand the logic of time lag.

Apologies.

 

[Bozza]

Fair enough, let’s face it none of us had ever considered an ‘infection date’ or a ‘hospitalisation rate’ until a few weeks ago so we’re just the blind leading the blind. But that’s the reasoning behind my reading of the situation.

I hope what I’ve said turns out to be somewhere near the truth simply because it would mean peak deaths are almost upon us and there might be better news from next week. If we get to the end of next week and the numbers are still rising then everything I’ve just said was wrong, peak infections must have been later than lockdown and the final result could be even worse than expected.

No, my understanding is aligned with your own. Vallance mentioned the numbers a week from now being our guide as to the effectiveness of current actions several times in today's press conference.

 

[Sue1983]

I heard from a paramedic that they are expecting the peak is likely to be the middle of next week.

 

[Mr Banana]

Maybe I'm biased cos Sikora has actively campaigned against the NHS in the past but I don't think he's a great source of information. I'm not sure his hope-for-the-masses schtick is gonna look wise in hindsight, long-term.

 

[A1X]

The world has been forced to reset to " factory mode " Let's see if we have learned any lessons when this is all over

Given every other time humankind has had the chance to learn lessons and change their ways on the back of massive events (1918, 1945, 1991) it's royally ballsed it up I'm not holding out a great deal of hope somehow.

 

[Raphael Meade]

In today's good news I managed to get some lysol wipes when they appeared in-stock on amazon for about 90 seconds

 

[jimhigham]

Given every other time humankind has had the chance to learn lessons and change their ways on the back of massive events (1918, 1945, 1991) it's royally ballsed it up I'm not holding out a great deal of hope somehow.

To be fair, shortly after 1945 we created the welfare state and National Health Service. We were still pillaging the environment but at least we learned to think of others. For a bit.

 

[Norman Potting]

BBC News - Coronavirus: Pandas in lockdown mate at Hong Kong zoo after ten years trying
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-52204078

 

[PeterOut]

BBC News - Coronavirus: Pandas in lockdown mate at Hong Kong zoo after ten years trying
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-52204078

I suspect it won't just be pandas - won't somebody think of our poor midwives 9 months from now?
They will be rushed off their feet

 

[pearl]

I guess it depends what you mean by over...... I remain cautiously optimistic about some relaxation of current restrictions first of all...when is anyone’s guess....Beginning of May?...last on first off....first on last off....one step at a time ..but we have hope.

I know you mean well and I admire your positivity, but for many of the 1.5 million very vulnerable this will be far from over... At least if the morons behave they may have a bed to die in and not get turned away...

Not sure what I mean tbh
.... facing the right way perhaps.

 

[Medwayseagull]

BBC News - Coronavirus: Pandas in lockdown mate at Hong Kong zoo after ten years trying
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-52204078

Future bamboo shoots shortage in China.