Good post mate. Hopefully whatever measures taken will have a positive impact for the UK but I can’t help but think the government have dropped the ball in their early approach to this. It’s only two days since pubs closed, now it’s lockdown.
The practical result of both ends of the spectrum of that approach for the public has been 1. panic - hoarding etc. 2. Ignoring - scenes in pubs on Friday and over the weekend with mass gatherings or just carrying on as normal etc.The Goverment approach and message has been so inconsistent it’s just created mass confusion.
Even the restrictions tonight left people with questions - that should not be the case - the governments message is very ambiguous and a few seem out of their depth.
The situation is getting more fluid and the virus seems to be taking hold in Western Europe. I think we are going to see a surge in the next two weeks in Western Europe, it took 67 days from the first reported case to reach the first 100,000 cases of Covid-19, it took only 11 days for the second 100,000 cases, and just four days for the third 100,000 cases. Tomorrow there will be 400k cases.
I think we might just be ending the beginning of this, in the week ahead new cases of 1000-5000k and north are going to become the norm in Western Europe. Think the states particularly New York and other US big cities will see a huge surge to, hopefully I’m wrong mind.
Against this increase you do of course have to take account of the increase in the number of tests being carried out over the same periods - test more and you'll find more.
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Absolutely mate, its why we should all take the daily figures with a pinch of salt, there are far far more people out there with the virus then daily numbers show.
Problem with the test is:
1. Incubation period of the virus, the virus can incubate without symptoms for 7-14 days. You can be infectious with the virus without symptoms.
2. It’s taking 4/5 days at moment minimum to be tested, if you take in a minimum of 7 days to show symptoms, 4 days to be tested and another 4 days to get the results (If not taken to hospital) that’s 15 days from incubation to a positive result. Infecting others as you go particularly before you show symptoms. Its why there is a race on for personalised quick home testing - would be a huge break through. Because of this time lag daily numbers often reflect the cases in the county 7/14 days ago not on the day they are made known. For example today’s UK figures are likely from tests done a week ago if not longer ago. It’s only now we are seeing a flattening of Italy’s curve over two weeks after restriction we’re put in place for example.
3. Your approach to testing. Western European countries don’t have an infinite number of tests, both the UK and Ireland are waiting on orders for more, thus only priorities are being tested right now (those showing symptoms) the UK Goverment aren’t testing health care workers for example. The more we test definitely there will be more cases then the daily numbers suggest. Iceland, with such a small population decided to test its whole population, of those found positive over 50% had no symptoms and didn’t know they were ill.
While testing isn’t perfect, testing, tracing contacts and isolating - defence, is one of the only weapons we have again’t the virus. Social distancing - attack is the other.
Sounds mad when I put it like that in my last paragraph, how vulnerable we really are to this virus.
