Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

[COYBL25]

But why would we see a huge spike especially early on? Like I said after 2 and a bit months of lockdown things won't immediately go from a dwindling number of cases to a mass problem as in that crowd there will only be a handful of infected people at most and at least back then there were still less interactions once they got back home.

This rings true when you look at the probable dates when the virus first came into Europe, Italy believe they had it before Christmas. It's that tipping point when enough people are infected does it then spiral out of control very quickly, the question is can they catch this before you get the on rush of hospitalisations which is by then already a couple of weeks too late.

I would like nothing more to be proven wrong and the virus just disappears but unfortunately it's still around, our starting point is worse than March and too many overly confident people and lack of controls does not equate to a happy ending.

We are now much better prepared for a " second wave " though, so hopefully if it does start going back up, we can deal with it much more quickly and efficiently.

Unfortunately the Cummins affair, seemed to be the tipping point for a lot of people and they decided that if it no longer applies to him, it no longer applies to me.

 

[witchdoc187]

Exact same by me and what`s making worse ( depending on how you look at it ) there`s a row of benches in the square facing the restaurants that are serving the takeaway ale. So in effect what you`ve got is a massive beer garden !

Sounds good. Not sure paying £6.50 a pint to sit on the pavement is that appealing to me. Could buy 8 cans and sit in the park instead

 

[Harryflashman]

They've been serving cocktails and pints in plastic glasses in a few pubs round East London for a while now. People just stand outside in the street or sit on the pavement

which is probably why if they’re going to do it they should Have looked at opening beer gardens and letting them control it , rather than the wild west which is what we’ve had . I’m not saying I was advocating for it but it feels like the better choice compared to what we had .

 

[JimmyJeffers]

We are now much better prepared for a " second wave " though, so hopefully if it does start going back up, we can deal with it much more quickly and efficiently.

Unfortunately the Cummins affair, seemed to be the tipping point for a lot of people and they decided that if it no longer applies to him, it no longer applies to me.

Yeah think people were looking for any excuse to be able to justify a trip out and the government duly provided.

 

[Harryflashman]

Sounds good. Not sure paying £6.50 a pint to sit on the pavement is that appealing to me. Could buy 8 cans and sit in the park instead

I think people just wanted to feel human ,i understand all the criticism of that but I think people crave normality

 

[witchdoc187]

I think people just wanted to feel human ,i understand all the criticism of that but I think people crave normality

Yeah that's why I don't begrudge people going to the beach in the sun.

 

[coollino]

Pubs are not ‘open’. Pubs, like restaurants are allowed ‘off sales’, which is what many have done to stay in business.....

Still blows my mind that people are content with filing up their ale in bloody milk bottles. Must be grim an hour later.

 

[Jebus_lives]

You may be right but judging by the UK government's performance so far and the fact there has been a second wave in some places I wouldn't hold your breath .

I'm not guessing, they are the actually models being prepared for.

 

[Catfish Blues]

Looks pretty inevitable to me! After months of lockdown the numbers who have/had this will be pretty small, so when we had these BLM protests a few weeks back in that large crowd you are probably talking a couple at most per thousand. Then those small number of newly infected people from that event will go off and infect a couple of others each as it seems social distancing is pretty much being ignored at this stage by many. This is helped by people seeing that there have been large gatherings and the general picture still appears to be decreasing, the government relaxing rules and everyone is just being a little bit more lax with handwashing and who they see.

So now a couple of weeks later we see the huge crowds on the beaches probably that figure will be around 5 infected people per thousand and so on and so forth as the weeks go by. It is how fast the seesaw flips to the other side to how many people will die. The people need saving from themselves at this point as it is obviously clear they are not practicing social distancing and the government have already said there would not be a second furlough period in the event of another lockdown, just how many lives will be left devastated if this does take off again?

So far, there's no clear evidence to indicate that infections are rising. If they were going to feed through to increased cases, I'd have expected the BLM protests from two or three weeks ago to have done so by now.

The local councils estimated something like half a million people descended on Bournemouth, Poole and Sandbanks yesterday. Assuming no-one with symptoms travelled, then there were probably about 300 to 400 infected people in that half million.

The pictures look shocking, but local council officers were more worried about the infrastructure not being able to cope rather than COVID and, the chances are, although it looked like everyone was cheek by jowl, the majority were probably a metre or more apart, so the infected people there were probably physically close to people they'd have met, or lived with, anyway

Having said all that, I'd say it's more likely than not that we'll see increased cases sooner or later and it's just a matter of time.

edit : To add to that, if cases start to rise out of control, then it would be political suicide for the govt to not react and reintroduce some type of lockdown.

 

[Jebus_lives]

Not necessarily, there was no spike following the last flocking to the beaches during the Bank Holiday in late May and then we had VE Day, with street parties etc and there was no spike after that either.

@Catfish Blues is good at explaining why it may or may not happen.

Much of the evidence around lack of spike following those events is:

• Because most people weren't doing it
• BLM lots of people wore masks
• BLM protests seemed to encourage more people to stay at home
• Generally younger people
• Outdoor events.

So in isolation these types of 1 off seemingly don't really translate to super spreader type events (although they could be). But, they happened at a time when, by and large the majority weren't out and about and mixing. It may be a different story where these events are taking place and you couple it with pub openings, shops opening, workplaces opening etc and you reduce the distancing to 1m+ (which people interpret as 0m).

Key thing is good TTI and management of local lockdown.

 

[Barnfred 55]

There`s four restaurants by me who`ve been serving "takeaway " ale for a few weeks now mate.

All of them have been selling takeaway food too, but they`re allowed to sell ale separate from the food - which has been abused over the past couple of weekends.

Where are they drinking it? In the streets?

 

[Bruce Wayne]

I think people just wanted to feel human ,i understand all the criticism of that but I think people crave normality

Facebook don't help with their lovely reminders of things you've done on this day in the past. It's summer so I'm sure there will be lots of "look at this nice time you had on holiday 2 years ago..." type reminders. Today I had a video of riding in the Dolomites. Haven't been outside the M25 all year.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Q&A: ‘We are only at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic’ – Prof. Peter Piot

We’re only at the start of the coronavirus pandemic although the second wave may take a different form to the first one, says veteran virologist Professor Peter Piot, who has spent the past 40 years tracking down and fighting viruses.

horizon-magazine.eu

 

[Barnfred 55]

The latest ONS surveillance report came out yesterday.

Because the number of positive cases the report is based on is low, it's hard to read too much into it, but it does seem that the drop in infection rates has levelled off.

View attachment 92104

It's possible the overall trend is down. But for that to be the case, the best estimate number for the two weeks starting 25th May would have had to be an underestimate and the equivalent number for the two weeks starting 8th June be an overestimate.

It will hopefully be clearer one way or the other when we see next weeks report.

But, given we're opening up against a backdrop of what looks like a fairly static infection rate, it seems likely that, unless test, trace and isolate is effective, we'll end up with a general tick up of cases across the country.

Do the ONS give regional figures for this survey or just national?

 

[Jebus_lives]

Facebook don't help with their lovely reminders of things you've done on this day in the past. It's summer so I'm sure there will be lots of "look at this nice time you had on holiday 2 years ago..." type reminders. Today I had a video of riding in the Dolomites. Haven't been outside the M25 all year.

Today I had an 'on this day' picture from last year; that my other half took of me and my daughter, at the precise moment she decided to be sick on my head.

Sometimes reminders of the past can be cruel.