Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

Status
Not open for further replies.
Tipp blue said:
Hardware stores back opened in Ireland, what DIY is so important to do right now today that warrants queuing up in the hundreds in the spilling rain to get into B&Q, just because it's opened doesn't mean you have to go. There's even queues to join the main que.
tps://t.co/jv7nPqwVNb
Click to expand...

Yeah they've kept hardware stores open over here the whole time and they were always packed. Was supposed to be so people could fix essentials like toilets, sinks, etc but most people were going in for DIY/yard work projects
 
A lock down makes sense to decrease case numbers, but evidence is always nice. Population density is different, but does appear they accounted for it.

Comparison of Estimated Rates of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Border Counties in Iowa Without a Stay-at-Home Order and Border Counties in Illinois With a Stay-at-Home Order

Importance Iowa is 1 of 5 states in the US that have not issued a stay-at-home order during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. There is no empirical evidence on whether issuing a stay-at-home order in Iowa could have been associated with a reduced rate of COVID-19 infections in the state.

Objective To compare COVID-19 cases in border counties in Iowa, which did not issue a stay-at-home order, with cases in border counties in Illinois, which did issue a stay-at-home order.

Design, Setting, and Participants This cross-sectional study with a difference-in-differences design compared daily changes in COVID-19 cases per 10 000 residents in 8 Iowa counties bordering Illinois with those in the 7 Illinois counties bordering Iowa before and after Illinois issued a stay-at-home order on March 21, 2020. Additional sensitivity analyses were conducted to account for differences in timing of closing schools and nonessential businesses between the 2 states and differential trends in COVID-19 cases by county population density and poverty rates.

Exposures Issuing a stay-at-home order.

Main Outcomes and Measures Comparison of cumulative cases of COVID-19 per 10 000 residents in border counties in Iowa and Illinois.

Results The total populations were 462 445 in the Iowa border counties and 272 385 in the Illinois border counties. Population density was higher in the Iowa counties (114.2 people per square mile) than in the Illinois counties (78.2 people per square mile). Trends of cumulative COVID-19 cases per 10 000 residents for the Iowa and Illinois border counties were comparable before the Illinois stay-at-home order, which went into effect at 5:00 pm on March 21 (March 15 to March 21: 0.024 per 10 000 residents vs 0.026 per 10 000 residents). After that, cases increased more quickly in Iowa and more slowly in Illinois. Within 10, 20, and 30 days after the enactment of the stay-at-home order in Illinois, the difference in cases was −0.51 per 10 000 residents (SE, 0.09; 95% CI, −0.69 to −0.32; P < .001), −1.15 per 10 000 residents (SE, 0.49; 95% CI, −2.12 to −0.18; P = .02), and −4.71 per 10 000 residents (SE, 1.99; 95% CI, −8.64 to −0.78; P = .02), respectively. The estimates indicate excess cases in the border Iowa counties by as many as 217 cases after 1 month without a stay-at-home order. This estimate of excess cases represents 30.4% of the 716 total cases in those Iowa counties by that date. Sensitivity analyses addressing differences in timing of closing schools and nonessential businesses and differences in county population density and poverty rates between the 2 states supported these findings.

Conclusions and Relevance This cross-sectional study with a difference-in-differences design found an increase in estimated rates of COVID-19 cases per 10 000 residents in the border counties in Iowa compared with the border counties in Illinois following a stay-at-home order that was implemented in Illinois but not in Iowa.
 
Thinking this morning, since the pandemic started there has been a considerable reduction, almost total elimination, of spam mail, email and cold telephone calls. Just as I was ruminating on this the front door bell rang. Most odd, as we don't get any callers either. There was a guy there wanting to know if I needed my drive cleaning!
 
USABlue said:
Yeah they've kept hardware stores open over here the whole time and they were always packed. Was supposed to be so people could fix essentials like toilets, sinks, etc but most people were going in for DIY/yard work projects
Click to expand...

If it's a chance to get some time away from the other half in times of isolation, then any DIY project or yard work could be deemed essential.
 
COYBL25 said:
Reading that you can understand the governments push to try and get the ball rolling with re opening schools.
Click to expand...

As is largely the case with everything during this, it's about trying to find the least bad outcome. Keeping kids out of school for extended periods does, unfortunately, have a lasting impact. People have branded the situation scandalous and so on, but schools shut down two months ago, and that we're in a position now whereby they seem no nearer to opening up again than they were then is the real scandal.
 
NHS England announces 122 more deaths of coronavirus in England.


This brings the total number of confirmed reported deaths in hospitals in England to 24,739.
Of the 122 new deaths announced today:

– 27 occurred on May 17
– 59 occurred on May 16
– 29 occurred on May 15
– six occurred on May 14,
– one occurred on May 13

NHS England said the Covid patient notification system did not operate for a period of time on May 16 and this may have had an impact on the number of deaths reported today, which is lower than would be expected.

The figures published today by NHS England show April 8 continues to have the highest number for the most hospital deaths occurring on a single day, with a current total of 889.
 
LouReedwalkonthewildside said:
Thousands of people with Covid-19 in the UK are being missed – expert

The NHS is grossly underestimating the incidence of Covid-19 and encouraging infected people back to work while ignoring key symptoms, a leading expert has claimed.

Professor Tim Spector, head of the department of genetic epidemiology and leader of the Covid symptom study app at King’s College London, said 50,000 to 70,000 people in the UK with Covid-19 are not being told to self-isolate.

He blamed Public Health England (PHE) and the wider tracking strategy, saying an insistence that only temperature and cough were the major symptoms was missing thousands of cases.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that 1.5 million people were logging onto the King’s app and tracking a wide range of symptoms and changes.

“It tells us that we’ve got at least 100,000 cases at the moment of people who are infected,” he said.

“And this is from our data, although the NHS would underestimate that because they’re not counting all the symptoms.”

He said the NHS was failing to track all symptoms of coronavirus, including loss of taste and smell.

“We list about 14 symptoms which we know are related to having a positive swab test, and these are not being picked up by the NHS.”

He said 17 other countries including the US had altered their list of symptoms, but not the UK.

“At the moment, people are being told to go back to work if they’re a care worker, and they’ve got something like loss of smell or taste or severe muscle pains or fatigue – things that we know and we’ve shown are related to being swabbed positive,” he said.

“This country is missing the ball in underestimated cases but also putting people at risk, and continuing the epidemic.

“So we really do need to tell Public Health England to get in line with the rest of the world, and make people more aware.

“There’s no point telling people to be alert if they don’t know the symptoms.

“At the moment they’re not really being offered tests, and they’re being told not to self isolate if they don’t have the fever and the cough and it’s probably around half of the people in the population who are in that situation.

“We are probably missing at the moment between 50,000 and 70,000 people out there who are infected.

“We know that their swab tests will be positive.

“Someone has got to urgently ask this question of why we’re the only country in this crisis that isn’t really widening our group of symptoms and get on with it and do something.”
Click to expand...
Saw one study that I will try to dig out again that the loss of taste smell was one of the earliest and most reliable symptoms that people reported who later turned out positive in a PCR test.

Given there seems to a narrow range of peak transmission (2 days either side of symptom onset) just telling people who lose their sense of smell/taste to stay home for a couple of days and try to get a test would seem like a low impact but high reward approach.
 
LinekersLegs said:
Saw one study that I will try to dig out again that the loss of taste smell was one of the earliest and most reliable symptoms that people reported who later turned out positive in a PCR test.

Given there seems to a narrow range of peak transmission (2 days either side of symptom onset) just telling people who lose their sense of smell/taste to stay home for a couple of days and try to get a test would seem like a low impact but high reward approach.
Click to expand...

Yeah I remember early on LL people were saying they had lost their taste and smell and a lot of people dismissing them as symptoms over here.
 
LouReedwalkonthewildside said:
Thousands of people with Covid-19 in the UK are being missed – expert

The NHS is grossly underestimating the incidence of Covid-19 and encouraging infected people back to work while ignoring key symptoms, a leading expert has claimed.

Professor Tim Spector, head of the department of genetic epidemiology and leader of the Covid symptom study app at King’s College London, said 50,000 to 70,000 people in the UK with Covid-19 are not being told to self-isolate.

He blamed Public Health England (PHE) and the wider tracking strategy, saying an insistence that only temperature and cough were the major symptoms was missing thousands of cases.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that 1.5 million people were logging onto the King’s app and tracking a wide range of symptoms and changes.

“It tells us that we’ve got at least 100,000 cases at the moment of people who are infected,” he said.

“And this is from our data, although the NHS would underestimate that because they’re not counting all the symptoms.”

He said the NHS was failing to track all symptoms of coronavirus, including loss of taste and smell.

“We list about 14 symptoms which we know are related to having a positive swab test, and these are not being picked up by the NHS.”

He said 17 other countries including the US had altered their list of symptoms, but not the UK.

“At the moment, people are being told to go back to work if they’re a care worker, and they’ve got something like loss of smell or taste or severe muscle pains or fatigue – things that we know and we’ve shown are related to being swabbed positive,” he said.

“This country is missing the ball in underestimated cases but also putting people at risk, and continuing the epidemic.

“So we really do need to tell Public Health England to get in line with the rest of the world, and make people more aware.

“There’s no point telling people to be alert if they don’t know the symptoms.

“At the moment they’re not really being offered tests, and they’re being told not to self isolate if they don’t have the fever and the cough and it’s probably around half of the people in the population who are in that situation.

“We are probably missing at the moment between 50,000 and 70,000 people out there who are infected.

“We know that their swab tests will be positive.

“Someone has got to urgently ask this question of why we’re the only country in this crisis that isn’t really widening our group of symptoms and get on with it and do something.”
Click to expand...
That's just one way this government have manipulated figures concerning infection.

I notice also now the daily cases and fatality updates are in relation to England and not the UK as a whole.

They are nothing but snake oil salesman and butcherers.

No wonder the vast majority of people in this country no longer trust them to get us out of this.
 
davek said:
That's just one way this government have manipulated figures concerning infection.

I notice also now the daily cases and fatality updates are in relation to England and not the UK as a whole.

They are nothing but snake oil skin salesman and butcherers.

No wonder the vast majority of people in this country no longer trust them to get us out of this.
Click to expand...

which has always been the case..
 
davek said:
That's just one way this government have manipulated figures concerning infection.

I notice also now the daily cases and fatality updates are in relation to England and not the UK as a whole.

They are nothing but snake oil salesman and butcherers.

No wonder the vast majority of people in this country no longer trust them to get us out of this.
Click to expand...

Thought they had used the England figures in isolation, and lobbed Scotland etc etc on when they got them.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Welcome

Join the Everton conversation today.
Fewer ads, full access, completely free.

→ Log in 🔑 Register
🛒 Visit Shop

Support Grand Old Team by checking out our latest Everton gear!
Back
Top