RossyG
Well-known member
- Dec 20, 2014
- 2,630
Yes. Germs go around; it’s a fact of life, but life has to go on.
And people who disagree presumably self isolate every flu season.
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[Albion] When will we, and when should we next play at the Amex in front of a full house?
- Thread starter Deadly Danson
- Start date
Yes. Germs go around; it’s a fact of life, but life has to go on.
And people who disagree presumably self isolate every flu season.
What evidence is there that it is "on its way out"?
I can only really believe that the declines we have seen are due to the somewhat extreme virus transmission suppression tactics deployed in most countries. ONS sampling suggests that only relatively few people have had the virus to date, leaving most of the population still vulnerable to catching and spreading it.
The South Korea nightclub case illustrates how quickly just an isolated case or two can quickly create a hotpot for community spread - I believe c160 positive cases were identified from that one incident - and that without a highly effective track, trace and isolate regime in place, the virus will be very much on the move again.
The "immune due to prior exposures to other coronaviruses" theory could be fantastic if it proves to be true.
Overall, I am feeling quite positive about things. I now feel quite optimistic that we may actually make the October half-term holiday we have booked and I even found mycself checking out flight prices for August the other day. However, this is tempered by a belief that we'll be living "a new normal" for some time, and that doesn't include cramming hundreds and thousands of people into poorly-ventilated confined indoor spaces.
The "ignoring" that I personally observe and catch sight of on news sites and the like are still relatively small numbers of people who are congregating outdoors where risk of transmission is significantly reduced.
A group made up of mixed households going for a walk in the country or having a picnic on the beach is a world apart from a 2pm Brighton to Falmer train on a Saturday matchday, the WSU concourse at half-time, and the gents after the final whistle.
LamieRobertson
Not awoke
Emphasises that very thing ...as you say an effective track n trace ....and the South Koreans dealt with that incident brilliantly ...and with one in place it allows a country to move forward and not be paralysed with fear....the outlook seems much brighter than it did mid April when you look around and see what is happening in Europe...it’s perhaps only when you turn to Russia..Brazil and to a certain extent USA that that you see a much bleaker picture
South Korea closed, and continues to close, nightclubs, bars and karaoke rooms - again reinforcing the view that lots of people + indoors = increased virus transmission.
As per another thread I know of two intelligent, law abiding people who have to date followed the rules to the letter who are this weekend travelling hundreds of miles to stay with family, one with a parent who's a nurse.
With regard to the Korean example that's surely because they clamped down so hard in the first place so there were lots of vulnerable people there?
Perhaps most importantly the curve of infections and deaths has been the same in all countries no matter what measures were implemented.
There are lots of vulnerable people here, according to nearly every model and study. As much as I'd like to pin my hopes on any "we've nearly all had it" outlier, I'm struggling to believe that is the case.
The study results this week suggested that around 5% of the UK population may have Coronavirus antibodies. It was higher in London at 17%.
I'm not saying we've nearly all had it at all, just that we're not all vulnerable. The antibody thing seems to be a red herring anyway though as we keep hearing that only relatively severe cases seem to develop significant antibodies.
Blue Valkyrie
Not seen such Bravery!
'Superspreader events' are starting to be viewed as key to the spread of this virus.
Which possibly means that the majority of individual lockdown measures potentially could be lifted...
... but not big events.
I can't see crowds above a few hundred allowed anywhere for a while.
Which possibly means that the majority of individual lockdown measures potentially could be lifted...
... but not big events.
I can't see crowds above a few hundred allowed anywhere for a while.
It’s not really an outlier now though, is it? About a month ago the “no antibodies” was, but there is now quite a lot of noise around it, in respected journals and in a peer-reviewed article also.
Also, London cases plummeting at 17% infected makes no sense whatsoever, in a city that is so hard to socially distance within, and people starting to disobey rules at higher and higher frequencies.
We know almost for definite that some infected people do not produce antibodies. Numerous studies of children bear this out.
The antibody studies in and of themselves are pretty much meaningless and not a helpful barometer, if this is the case.
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What he says makes sense. Places that clamped down hard and early have a massively susceptible population still, so outbreaks will grow much quicker than places that have seen far higher infection and death rates.
At the risk of replicating the main CV thread 5% would be circa 3.5 million. Taking the official death figures that would mean, if 50% of the population eventually ended up getting "it" the final death toll would be somewhere near 350K. That's way above any of the modelling at outset. Extrapolation is not to be trusted though, said a wise man.
Nevertheless, if we cannot extrapolate the current figures in a straight line then we can look at that unlikely toll and say it will not be reached for a number of reasons:
a) We will never get to 50% infection because the virus will be less prevalent in summer and a vaccine will be found
b) We will never get to 50% because lockdown conditions will be tweaked continually until the world is "safe"
c) Those who are more likely to die from the virus are also far more likely to catch it, meaning we are well past the possible peak
d) We will never get to 50% because many are naturally immune or asymptomatic
Only under a) will we get back to the Amex in autumn (if there is a remarkably quick vaccine breakthrough). b) is where I think you and I are at, give or take. c) and d) would be very difficult to prove. So, despite there being three "positive" options to one "realistic" one, I would reluctantly still agree with your likely outcome. Still, given the scientific efforts going on, the other three are not impossible.
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It does for me. For two months (or is it even longer now?) almost all indoor venues where people may gather have been closed - offices, pubs, restaurants, cinemas, theatres, gyms and most shops. The examples go on and on.
Beyond that, the entire population are aware that they need to stay the **** away from everyone else as best they can, and most people have been, and continue, to do just that.
The virus has had very limited chains of transmission to move down.
However, despite that, estimates still put R at close to 1.0, so we're still believed to be on the cusp of where things could make a turn for the worse again.
Anyway, I'm going to duck out of this one now. I've given my answer to the original question. Like everyone else, I'd love to be at the Amex sooner rather than later, both because I love being at the Amex but also because it would signal that we are back to, or close to, "old normal". Fingers crossed.
What I'm saying, and this is a hypothesis, clearly I don't know, is that there is likely a large proportion of the population that isn't vulnerable (for whatever reason). Let's say 50%. Then you only need circa 20% of the population (I.e. 40% of those that are vulnerable) to be infected before you start heading towards herd immunity.
I appreciate there are a lot of unknowns on this but I can't see any other reasonable explanation as to why R0 has fallen to 0.4 in London when crowds are still by all accounts more common there than anywhere else (largely due to the reliance on public transport, people living in flats, and population density.)
So why do we have all these mysteriously invulnerable people but South Korea do not?
I was talking about London (as you well know), where the R is 0.4, in a city where it is MUCH harder to socially distance than in remote places. It looks likely the virus will be gone from London pretty soon. It makes zero sense. Why would we be close to a localised herd immunity at 17% infected?
Not that limited. Millions of key workers are still going about their daily business, and almost all of us are still going to centres of possible infection every week.
Good science is acknowledging new evidence as it is presented and altering our views accordingly to accommodate - like I did after making very daft comments at the start of all of this.
Not all people produce antibodies. I don’t understand why some are refusing to acknowledge this.
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Eh? Infections rates have been far higher here - thus there is a lower percentage of potentially susceptible people left to infect moving forward, regardless of levels of vulnerability in any one country.
LamieRobertson
Not awoke
But it hasn’t clamped down elsewhere since that outbreak and by reports they’ve been very successful in tracking and the overall infection rate despite that outbreak