Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

[peteblue]

Well I'm glad to have addressed your misconception.

He does that a lot....tbf.....

 

[DrEFC]

Well first of all, I’d be careful with whom you wish to practice condescension. But tell me, a mere engineering sort, are you an epidemiologist or a virologist ?....

Apologies, have just seen your other post saying that you were not an epidemiologist.....

You are aware that those 'advising' government aren't virologists or epidemiologists?

 

[Catfish Blues]

That’s something that only this antibody test would help with; the obvious reason for that being enough of the London population is now immune to it for it to struggle finding new people to infect.

I don't think that's the reason. That's basically what herd immunity would be and I just don't think enough people have caught it for that to be happening.

That said there's no easy alternative answer as to why either, except to point out that the virus works in hotspots and clusters, so it's possible that the "easy" targets in London have been burned out and the north east/north west are a few weeks behind and are therefore in a different stage in terms of the virus being able to grow exponentially.

Purely to illustrate a possibility, so don't get hung up on the actual numbers, and it's very crude analysis anyway ...

If 10% of Londoners had been infected and are currently immune.
On it's own, that drops R0 down from 3 to an R of 2.7

If social contacts in London are down by, say, 80%, that would drop R0 down from 3 to an R of 0.6, or, taking into account the 10% infected, drop 2.7 to a bit over 0.5.

At an R of 0.5, new infections would drop pretty quickly.

I'm not sure if people saw today's briefing, but it was announced that antibody tests on the population showed that 17% of Londoners tested positive, which, combined with social distancing, explains why transmissions have dropped off a cliff there.

The average across the country was 5%, which is a staggering difference and shows just how much quicker the virus was spreading in London pre-lockdown.

 

[Barnfred 55]

Presume that depends on who their advisors were. Is Whitty etc a political appointee?

Tbh think personality could make just as much difference as party affiliation - for instance I think any other Republican president would have handled things differently than Trump has.

You'll know better than me being in the industry LL, but are these PHE senior people and the CMO and CSO political appointees? I thought they were just career people who had worked their way to the top.

I'm not saying a Labour government would have done exactly the same as the Tories have done. God knows there are a few obvious things I would have done different at the time such as quarantine flights coming in from China once we became aware of the epidemic, stopping mass gatherings and things like sporting events once we became aware that the virus had a foothold here, and maybe shut down the economy a little bit earlier than we did. But they'd still have the same team of people around them, giving the same advice, trying to keep things in house as much as possible (specifically talking about the testing capabilities here) and relying on the same antiquated stocks of PPE. Plus I don't recall any opposition MPs, or indeed anybody in the media, calling on the government to be buying in PPE, increasing ICU capacity, sourcing ventilators and testing capacity in January and February. Everybody was too busy slagging Boris off for avoiding the flood crisis.

The government's (and I mean the whole government not just the politicians) handling of this epidemic has been poor overall, but I'm just not convinced Labour would have been a great deal better. The one thing I'm really critical of the Tory politicians for, apart from making the obvious mistakes, is the lack of detail and transparency in their daily briefings. Hiding behind science whilst not telling us what the science is, for example, and paying more attention to deadlines when really it's the underlying science that matters. Maybe Labour politicians would be more up front and transparent but I guess that's something we'll never know.

It's a different ball game over your side. Trump has shown himself to be a total liability who will blame anybody but himself. He really is a loose cannon. Do you really think the American people will vote him in again after the way he's handled this crisis?

 

[peteblue]

You are aware that those 'advising' government aren't virologists or epidemiologists?

I don’t know who is advising the government tbh. At the beginning it seemed to be the CMO and CSA, that quickly turned after the Imperial College forecast. SAGE appears to be a changing group of departmental CMO’s and CSA’s , and PHE is keeping its head down. At the beginning of this, like millions of others, I put my trust and the lives of my family into the hands of the Medical and Scientific experts. Now anyone who knows me on here will know that I have little regard for certain ‘experts’ who are looking at the same data that I am, but coming up with the wrong conclusions. So if you are now saying that the government are listening to the wrong people, or that the people are not qualified to give an opinion, then you should tell the appropriate people.....

 

[ramacca]

See Johnson was out tonight on his todd, clapping himself for a job well done at PMQs yesterday for pushing NHS staff under the bus. Informing anyone who wants to know who's to blame for the concentration of the elderly in ring fenced death traps - clinicians.

"No-one was discharged into a care home this year without the express authorisation of a clinician" The bare brass neck of Johnson who'll blame all and sundry bar himself, who is in overall charge.

 

[peteblue]

See Johnson was out tonight on his todd, clapping himself for a job well done at PMQs yesterday for pushing NHS staff under the bus. Informing anyone who wants to know who's to blame for the concentration of the elderly in ring fenced death traps - clinicians.

"No-one was discharged into a care home this year without the express authorisation of a clinician" The bare brass neck of Johnson who'll blame all and sundry bar himself, who is in overall charge.

Wow, you got all that from a tv shot of a man clapping.......impressive, even by Russian standards......

 

[Barnfred 55]

The others currently take 72hrs. False negative rates are pretty appalling for a screening test.

Well he went in on the Tuesday and they started the chemo on the Thursday so he must have had the quick one. You say false negative rates are appalling? That's scary, especially for somebody like my brother who was having 5 days of intensive chemo when his own immune system would be completely wiped out. Anyway he's out now so everything must have been OK, but I'm glad we weren't having this conversation last week.

 

[LinekersLegs]

You'll know better than me being in the industry LL, but are these PHE senior people and the CMO and CSO political appointees? I thought they were just career people who had worked their way to the top.

I'm not saying a Labour government would have done exactly the same as the Tories have done. God knows there are a few obvious things I would have done different at the time such as quarantine flights coming in from China once we became aware of the epidemic, stopping mass gatherings and things like sporting events once we became aware that the virus had a foothold here, and maybe shut down the economy a little bit earlier than we did. But they'd still have the same team of people around them, giving the same advice, trying to keep things in house as much as possible (specifically talking about the testing capabilities here) and relying on the same antiquated stocks of PPE. Plus I don't recall any opposition MPs, or indeed anybody in the media, calling on the government to be buying in PPE, increasing ICU capacity, sourcing ventilators and testing capacity in January and February. Everybody was too busy slagging Boris off for avoiding the flood crisis.

The government's (and I mean the whole government not just the politicians) handling of this epidemic has been poor overall, but I'm just not convinced Labour would have been a great deal better. The one thing I'm really critical of the Tory politicians for, apart from making the obvious mistakes, is the lack of detail and transparency in their daily briefings. Hiding behind science whilst not telling us what the science is, for example, and paying more attention to deadlines when really it's the underlying science that matters. Maybe Labour politicians would be more up front and transparent but I guess that's something we'll never know.

It's a different ball game over your side. Trump has shown himself to be a total liability who will blame anybody but himself. He really is a loose cannon. Do you really think the American people will vote him in again after the way he's handled this crisis?

Not in the industry - just know that here in the US the head of FDA and CDC are appointed by the president so likely to get people who generally fit the same politics. Not sure if Dr Fauci‘s position is the same but he’s been head of the NIH for years which has probably been a factor in his different approach to Trump. So at least here in the US it would have been a different team of people so wondered if same in UK.

The two parties here also have vastly different donor bases so would have likely had different outside factors pressuring them - am guessing in the UK a labour government would have had nurses union reps on the phone more often for instance.

I didn’t think Americans would vote Trump in the first time so I’m a very poor judge of whether they will a second time!

 

[peteblue]

So, I wonder what tomorrow will bring. The graphs are showing that the deaths will be down into the 10’s within 3-4 weeks, if they continue the fall over the similar period just gone. I suppose we should get a view by the middle of next week whether or not the relaxation of lockdown is affecting the numbers......

 

[ramacca]

Interesting article of tracing and some of the barriers tracers will face.

UK's first contact-tracing group warns of difficulties

 

[LinekersLegs]

I hope that this rise in cases is due to expanded testing

 

[peteblue]

I hope that this rise in cases is due to expanded testing

Too soon to tell I would think. The 30 day period looks pretty flat for the last 3 weeks on an average basis.....

 

[Barnfred 55]

I'm not sure if people saw today's briefing, but it was announced that antibody tests on the population showed that 17% of Londoners tested positive, which, combined with social distancing, explains why transmissions have dropped off a cliff there.

The average across the country was 5%, which is a staggering difference and shows just how much quicker the virus was spreading in London pre-lockdown.

Down in Cornwall less than 600 have tested positive, and only 178 in total have died, with roughly one third of those being in care homes. Yesterday there were 4 new cases in the county and 3 the day before.

If you did an antibodies test in Cornwall I wouldn't be surprised if less than 1% have had it, which makes us pretty vulnerable to a second outbreak.

I'm not unduly concerned about the current loosening of the guidelines. Cornwall is so remote few will travel here for the day apart from Devon, who's figures are almost as low as ours. But so many of our small business's rely on tourism and literally tens of thousands of jobs will go if we don't open up this summer. It really is a quandary for the county and it's inhabitants, who so far have had it pretty easy by comparison to the rest of the country.

 

[mill]

So, I wonder what tomorrow will bring. The graphs are showing that the deaths will be down into the 10’s within 3-4 weeks, if they continue the fall over the similar period just gone. I suppose we should get a view by the middle of next week whether or not the relaxation of lockdown is affecting the numbers......

Only thing is the lockdown measures have been relaxed a bit. I’m wondering whether you’ll see a spike in a couple of weeks.