Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

[ramacca]

Article in the BMJ.

UK's response to covid-19 "too little, too late, too flawed" | BMJ
www.bmj.com › BMJ - Company Homepage › Newsroom

 

[bullybeef]

Hearing about the vaccine trials by Oxford Uni.

It wouldn’t surprise me at all if they were successful and the UK were able to take some positives out of what has been a truly awful period in its recent history.

 

[Tubey]

Hearing about the vaccine trials by Oxford Uni.

It wouldn’t surprise me at all if they were successful and the UK were able to take some positives out of what has been a truly awful period in its recent history.

I'm going to make a bold prediction that in absolute certain will be true.

Even if the vaccine is successful, there's no chance whatsoever 30m doses of it will be available in September.

 

[Barnfred 55]

I’d have just lobbed a water bomb on their BBQ tbh

I hope you make sure you piss in it first

 

[Barnfred 55]

I don't understand the "test test test" theory. It really feels like something thrown out there too much by people who want to have a say and sound like they know what they're doing. (Not you Legs lol I mean people like officials). Surely the plan should be to test for immunity and developing a damn good accurate testing process to go alongside it. You can't test everyone every day. I could get tested tomorrow and catch corona 2 days later then not test again for another 2 weeks by which stage I won't show as positive. Testing for the virus should be for people feeling sick or showing symptoms only. Immunity testing is key to figuring out who's had it (no longer needing testing) and who hasn't (continued testing during and or after any illness or symtoms). I don't get the idea of testing healthy people and it seems a huge waste of resources and time considering it's impossible to test everyone every day mixed in with a fairly high % of false positives from those current tests.

I'd agree with that. With the exception that I'd say there is an argument for care workers to have regular tests, maybe once weekly. They are working with the most vulnerable and detecting the virus before they get symptoms will literally save lives. The issue with this is there are around 1.8m care workers in the UK. Just testing them alone on a weekly basis will take over 200,000 tests a day and will undoubtedly impact our ability to run an effective TTI system alongside it.

 

[LinekersLegs]

I don't understand the "test test test" theory. It really feels like something thrown out there too much by people who want to have a say and sound like they know what they're doing. (Not you Legs lol I mean people like officials). Surely the plan should be to test for immunity and developing a damn good accurate testing process to go alongside it. You can't test everyone every day. I could get tested tomorrow and catch corona 2 days later then not test again for another 2 weeks by which stage I won't show as positive. Testing for the virus should be for people feeling sick or showing symptoms only. Immunity testing is key to figuring out who's had it (no longer needing testing) and who hasn't (continued testing during and or after any illness or symtoms). I don't get the idea of testing healthy people and it seems a huge waste of resources and time considering it's impossible to test everyone every day mixed in with a fairly high % of false positives from those current tests.

I feel there is real value in PCR testing even those that don’t have symptoms in three particular scenarios.

1) During test/track/trace to tamp down a new cluster to stop it from spreading. S Korea recently did this for instance

45,000 tests is a huge amount but pretty good cost benefit to stop an outbreak early in a high density city of 10 million if it means lockdowns can be avoided which S Korea has generally.

2) High transmission workplaces like meat packing plants, nursing homes and healthcare workers generally as @Barnfred 55 mentions above

3) Short duration/high volume testing of a specific geographic area for data to inform research and public policy. UCSF recently did this study in the high density Mission district of San Francisco. The results were pretty eye popping and lead to an expansion of free testing in the city to those who could not work from home and financial/food resources for those that tested positive so they could self isolate. For an American city SF is pretty dense but despite early cases has managed to avoid New York’s fate, hopefully these sort of proactive policies keep it that way.
https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/05/417356/initial-results-mission-district-covid-19-testing-announced
More than half of those who tested positive (53 percent) reported experiencing no symptoms of COVID-19. Three quarters were men and an overwhelming number (95 percent) were Hispanic or Latinx. The majority of those who tested positive (82 percent) reported having been financially affected by economic fallout of the pandemic and only 10 percent reported being able to work from home.

 

[BrendanGOT]

I'd agree with that. With the exception that I'd say there is an argument for care workers to have regular tests, maybe once weekly. They are working with the most vulnerable and detecting the virus before they get symptoms will literally save lives. The issue with this is there are around 1.8m care workers in the UK. Just testing them alone on a weekly basis will take over 200,000 tests a day and will undoubtedly impact our ability to run an effective TTI system alongside it.

Can't argue with that idea mate

 

[BrendanGOT]

I feel there is real value in PCR testing even those that don’t have symptoms in three particular scenarios.

1) During test/track/trace to tamp down a new cluster to stop it from spreading. S Korea recently did this for instance

45,000 tests is a huge amount but pretty good cost benefit to stop an outbreak early in a high density city of 10 million if it means lockdowns can be avoided which S Korea has generally.

2) High transmission workplaces like meat packing plants, nursing homes and healthcare workers generally as @Barnfred 55 mentions above

3) Short duration/high volume testing of a specific geographic area for data to inform research and public policy. UCSF recently did this study in the high density Mission district of San Francisco. The results were pretty eye popping and lead to an expansion of free testing in the city to those who could not work from home and financial/food resources for those that tested positive so they could self isolate. For an American city SF is pretty dense but despite early cases has managed to avoid New York’s fate, hopefully these sort of proactive policies keep it that way.
https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/05/417356/initial-results-mission-district-covid-19-testing-announced
More than half of those who tested positive (53 percent) reported experiencing no symptoms of COVID-19. Three quarters were men and an overwhelming number (95 percent) were Hispanic or Latinx. The majority of those who tested positive (82 percent) reported having been financially affected by economic fallout of the pandemic and only 10 percent reported being able to work from home.

1 and 2 I agree with completely. I think that's resources well used and wisely. 3, I can see the benefits of smaller studies like that ofc. I just don't see the benefits of aiming to test a random 100k of the general public every day, seems a massive waste, ignoring false positives etc most will test negative anyways and can't help but think it'd be better focusing that man power on testing health care staff etc every day rather than Joe blogs on his way to work. I think that mixed with immunity testing and testing for the sick with tracing and we'd be laughing.

 

[Paris]

Coronavirus football: FC Seoul apologises for 'sex dolls' in stands

A company that produces sex toys gave the club 30 mannequins to fill some of their empty seats.

www.bbc.com

 

[USABlue]

Wouldn't schools be wrapping up soon anyways?

 

[Walken]

I'm going to make a bold prediction that in absolute certain will be true.

Even if the vaccine is successful, there's no chance whatsoever 30m doses of it will be available in September.

I mean the progress they have made is fantastic enough without this government throwing out a nice round arbitrary figure that they later will insist on lying about. It's a time of crisis where leaders generally get a bump in public confidence and even the vast majority who don't support them would should patience, if they just operated with a bit of honesty for once.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Given that there is some confusion around the number of 'excess' deaths that are caused by the virus itself, and how many are caused by the lockdown measures, I wonder given the willingness of many to toss around murderer statements, whether they would be happy to countenance the number of deaths their hyperbole might have caused?

Listening to the radio this morning and they spoke about a survey looking at the impact of the lockdown on schooling of children, and middle class kids are studying far more than working class kids at the moment, for various factors. Despite this, middle class parents were happier for their kids to go back to school than working class parents. There have been numerous studies showing that lower-educated folk are more susceptible to fake news, conspiracy theories, and the like, so what responsibility do those crying murderers wolf take?

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Wouldn't schools be wrapping up soon anyways?

You would hope the summer holiday would be scrapped, or at the least shortened considerably.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

I mean the progress they have made is fantastic enough without this government throwing out a nice round arbitrary figure that they later will insist on lying about. It's a time of crisis where leaders generally get a bump in public confidence and even the vast majority who don't support them would should patience, if they just operated with a bit of honesty for once.

It's estimated that around 160 million flu vaccines are produced each year. Whether that number reflects manufacturing capacity or market demand, I couldn't say. NHS England do state, however, that 25 million people are offered it for free each year, so a figure of 30 million is perhaps not 'that' unreasonable. It would also seem sensible if at all possible to get vaccines distributed as quickly as possible, if for no other reason than to stop this blurring into flu season, where identifying what's what would become harder.

 

[blue1948]

The kids went back to school in one town in Finland on Thursday ,now one pupil has tested positive and seven and kids and four teachers are in quarantine !
Yet they are doing their utmost to get the Premier league going again .At the moment that is insane .