Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

[Hickson9]

NHS offers 25 million vaccines per year to those at risk, with around 10m having a vaccine last winter.

So we do take quite a lot of precautions.

I'm young (reasonably), fit and healthy and I paid for the flu jab this winter after getting a form of it last winter, which was a terrible experience.

Bare in mind the flu jab only protects you from certain strains, based on what was most prevalent in the previous Aussie winter.

 

[Toast]

I'm not saying he should have been sent home but just giving an idea of why the staff shortages are happening. When you've got teachers and office staff being asked to make decisions that medical professionals should really be making in the circumstances they currently are operating in, its not surprise a they are overly cautious.

And to personalise this again, I've mentioned my father in law who's got Leukemia and his lungs are shot from Asbestosis (from working on submarines.. ) We just can't keep him from going out. It's getting right on my tits and it will end up getting him.
But how do you stop people going out ?

Sake.

 

[bignev23]

They were projecting that with the "delay" measures of convincing people to wash their hands all the time etc. 250K were still going to die.

It will take these hugely impactful, drastic measures to hold the death rate down to below 20K.

It simply isnt comparable to flu.

Excuse me for thinking their projections could quite possibly but by no means certainly, be absolute tosh. How many projected Trump to become president. (nothing to do with Covid19 I know).

 

[Amw79]

I'm young (reasonably), fit and healthy and I paid for the flu jab this winter after getting a form of it last winter, which was a terrible experience.

Bare in mind the flu jab only protects you from certain strains, based on what was most prevalent in the previous Aussie winter.

Oh aye, doesn’t catch the mutated strains, which is why a lot still get it, hence why they cast a wide net on vaccination.

 

[Zezti]

I'm sure this has been asked but if infuenza kills so many people especially old and sick I wonder why don't we take similar precautions? seems a bit absurd to approach them so differently to me.(and the media reporting on each virus differs so vastly) UK has plans to deal with pandemic causing up to 315,000 …https://fullfact.org/health/coronavirus-compare-influenza/
Public Health England estimates that on average 17,000 people have died from the flu in England annually between 2014/15 and 2018/19.

Just a thought.

I'm still not sure why you brought Brexit into this?

Anyway, seasonal flu has vaccines. This does not, yet (estimated 12-18 months).
Last years' flu vaccine was offered to 25 million people on the NHS (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/25-million-to-be-offered-free-nhs-flu-jab-this-winter). I don't know how much the NHS pays per vaccine, but if you were to get one normally in pharmacy, its around £10. So roughly speaking, many, many millions of pounds every year is spent on seasonal flu vaccines.
If the vaccine didn't exist, then yes - similar precautions would have to be taken because even the common seasonal flu, which is less dangerous covid-19 - as your own link says, is dangerous to the vulnerable.

 

[Armchair Blue]

Some baby milk available on Amazon,2 days for delivery,bought some for my daughter earlier.

 

[Harryflashman]

Provided the restrictions have done what we all hope they do, ie bring the exponential spread down, and provided we have the testing capacity, we can put in place efforts like Singapore and S Korea where they focus on rapidly controlling small clusters.

They trace where the infected person has been and test everyone who has come into contact(even those not showing symptoms) and then try to get them into a hospital so they don’t spread it on to family. It is pretty resource intensive but it is at the front end which you can ramp up easier rather than the back end which is ICU staff that are much harder to train.

An analogy I saw was with fire - if you have limited numbers of isolated fires then you can send a load of firefighters to put out single blazes quickly and make sure you have a quick response to other flare ups from floating embers. However once a tinder-rich area is out of control the best you can do is try to control it in that one area with fire breaks.

I think that’s an excellent answer .

however currently in the uk we aren’t testing anyone that hasn’t been admitted to hospital , that was a major part of my poorly made point . As I said if we combine vigorously testing with social distancing or lockdown then yeah I get it but we aren’t so what’s the plan ? Johnson spoke today about increasing testing but apparently that’s some significant time away so I struggle to see how it’s any kind of a plan to potentially lockdown the capital whilst you wait to develop testing kits for a month then roll out testing . surely you’re in April or May before you’re even close to your analogy and potentially complete Socio-economic collapse which is if anything just as damaging as the pandemic.

I’m not being conspiratorial or second guessing the experts but we’ve gone from doing nothing, to then accelerating our position but still not marrying it with testing . I’m just finding it hard to see the logic , again it’s probably my own ignorance but I can’t see how that works , certainly not in the short term .

 

[Hickson9]

Excuse me for thinking their projections could quite possibly but by no means certainly, be absolute tosh. How many projected Trump to become president. (nothing to do with Covid19 I know).

Er mate, in a few months time when thousands have still died despite society being locked down, you might want to revisit this.

 

[Old Blue 2]

I really don’t get this school closure action. This will drag the economy into the gutter. They are also saying don’t leave children with aged parents, well I am an aged parent and I will be looking after my granddaughter no matter what they say. We have been bounced into this with the panic from the EU, Wales and Scotland. It is the final lunacy that will break our back........

Read all of this thread, but this is my first post here.

Re the above in bold. Son divorced years ago. Children with the mother. Son doesn't have his own accommodation. Because of certain circumstances relating to the mother and her new partner, 13 months ago the Crown Court placed our grandson (now aged 15) with myself and my wife, both pensioners. We love our grandson to bits, and do everything for him. All we can do is to ride this out, come what may. We will go out once a week now, to shop. Grandson can go out to see his friends, but none come into our house. He's a good lad and understands, but it scares the crap out of him that I'm almost certainly in a very high risk category having suffered a heart attack 19 years ago and had a triple bypass...

 

[Neiler]

"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function."

Do you not understand how limiting the exposure to infected individuals saves lives over the long term? This disease can kill. It is killing. Most people will not die, but some will. The more people who are exposed to an infected person, will in turn expose more. Eventually, the vulnerable - the elderly, the diabetic, the asthmatics, etc - are exposed and those are the ones who have a much greater risk of dying.

The fatality rate from confirmed cases is currently sitting at 4.05%. Roughly speaking, if one infected person comes into transmissable contact range with let's say 100 other people over the period they carry it, that's 4 people dead, while all of them who catch it can each then pass it on to another 100, at which point that's 10,000 people exposed.

Going into lockdown turns that 100 figure, into 10.

The government themselves have said the best case scenario is for the total number of deaths to be under 20,000. That's if everything goes to plan and these social distancing measures are carried out from right now -- You don't wait until a disease has killed that many people before taking action to stop the spread ffs!

 

[Toast]

Read all of this thread, but this is my first post here.

Re the above in bold. Son divorced years ago. Children with the mother. Son doesn't have his own accommodation. Because of certain circumstances relating to the mother and her new partner, 13 months ago the Crown Court placed our grandson (now aged 15) with myself and my wife, both pensioners. We love our grandson to bits, and do everything for him. All we can do is to ride this out, come what may. We will go out once a week now, to shop. Grandson can go out to see his friends, but none come into our house. He's a good lad and understands, but it scares the crap out of him that I'm almost certainly in a very high risk category having suffered a heart attack 19 years ago and had a triple bypass...

My lad is also 15.
Although it's a ball ache to listen to him screaming on his PS4 headset with his mates, at least he's having some interaction.

 

[bignev23]

NHS offers 25 million flu vaccines per year to those at risk, with around 10m having a vaccine last winter.

So we do take quite a lot of precautions.

Of course we take precautions like we should with Covid19 but there are still many deaths and illnesses yet the country doesn't shut down, again going back to my point that it seems to me we're taking a very extreme response to this. A response which seems to be creating it's own chaos and could end in misery (if this drags on long enough)for lots of people who might be otherwise unefected.

 

[sdk]

And to personalise this again, I've mentioned my father in law who's got Leukemia and his lungs are shot from Asbestosis (from working on submarines.. ) We just can't keep him from going out. It's getting right on my tits and it will end up getting him.
But how do you stop people going out ?

Sake.

Maddening. My septuagenarian in-laws aren't content to stay at home either and are carrying on as usual. My mother-in-law is very involved with her church and works closely with several priests, all of them in their 90s. She doesn't seem able to make the connection that if they contract the disease, there's a good chance she'll be the one passing it on to them.

Meanwhile, my octogenarian father's main pastime these days is going to the supermarket and talking to anyone who's up for conversation. Makes me very nervous. Why can't these people be introverted recluses like me?

 

[verreauxi]

View attachment 81403

Love good succinct graphics!

 

[LinekersLegs]

I think that’s an excellent answer .

however currently in the uk we aren’t testing anyone that hasn’t been admitted to hospital , that was a major part of my poorly made point . As I said if we combine vigorously testing with social distancing or lockdown then yeah I get it but we aren’t so what’s the plan ? Johnson spoke today about increasing testing but apparently that’s some significant time away so I struggle to see how it’s any kind of a plan to potentially lockdown the capital whilst you wait to develop testing kits for a month then roll out testing . surely you’re in April or May before you’re even close to your analogy and potentially complete Socio-economic collapse which is if anything just as damaging as the pandemic.

I’m not being conspiratorial or second guessing the experts but we’ve gone from doing nothing, to then accelerating our position but still not marrying it with testing . I’m just finding it hard to see the logic , again it’s probably my own ignorance but I can’t see how that works , certainly not in the short term .

I’m with you on the barricades yelling “get your act together on testing” for both US and UK governments ( or rather words to that effect that I can’t post here!)