SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

Give us the link for the cat?

Not a separate article but:

https://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20200327_04904149

Virologist Yves Stevens also reported an initial confirmed case of an infected cat. The pet lives with someone who is infected with the virus. It is an isolated case and there is no evidence that the phenomenon is widespread. It is also a contamination from human to animal, not the other way around. The risk to people is therefore very limited.
 
It seems like hospitals are not really well designed for infectious disease care. Is that why they are putting together that London facility at Excel? I'm sure being able to control the movements of staff is better when you have a giant dedicated facility. Hospital ships and maybe requisitioned cruise liners would be ideal.

I thought that I had read somewhere but have not the foggiest where that one of the reasons why China, South Korea etc appear to have gotten a faster handle on this disease is that they invested heavily in infectious disease clinics during the SARS outbreak and mothballed the facilities afterwards......which if true was more than any western country did.
 
Bad news from Belgium, 69 new fatalities and 1.049 new cases.

And weirdest news: a cat has been confirmed with Covid-19 in Liège...
Peak expected for the beginning of April so not that surprising. Touching wood, but I still only know 1 person who had the symptoms so far (but wasn't tested).

Hopefully they don't push through with that 1km-rule they are talking about.
 
It seems like hospitals are not really well designed for infectious disease care. Is that why they are putting together that London facility at Excel? I'm sure being able to control the movements of staff is better when you have a giant dedicated facility. Hospital ships and maybe requisitioned cruise liners would be ideal.

Most hospital buildings are old, but the design and proximity of areas is where they’ve been addressed over the past two decades or so. Infection control is paramount with all NHS staff and briefed regularly. The only challenge is that the NHS can cope with a volume of cases, but when we’re in a situation of a mass of cases then even the best designed hospitals will struggle with capacity.

I think the facility at the ExCel arena is merely to deliver capacity, having it focused on an infectious disease obviously will deliver some benefits both for infection control and tracing.
 
I thought that I had read somewhere but have not the foggiest where that one of the reasons why China, South Korea etc appear to have gotten a faster handle on this disease is that they invested heavily in infectious disease clinics during the SARS outbreak and mothballed the facilities afterwards......which if true was more than any western country did.

South Korea’s is all down to testing & contact tracing.
 
Most hospital buildings are old, but the design and proximity of areas is where they’ve been addressed over the past two decades or so. Infection control is paramount with all NHS staff and briefed regularly. The only challenge is that the NHS can cope with a volume of cases, but when we’re in a situation of a mass of cases then even the best designed hospitals will struggle with capacity.

I think the facility at the ExCel arena is merely to deliver capacity, having it focused on an infectious disease obviously will deliver some benefits both for infection control and tracing.


Cool, thanks.

It seems like field hospitals close to main hospitals where triage can occur is a good way to go. Didn't I see some Chinese invention where a person walks through a tunnel of disinfectant? Seems like a good idea for health workers who go on and off shift.
 
Seriously? That's bad.

We don’t have the testing kits or the process to deliver mass testing yet. I imagine over the coming weeks we’ll start to have a wider scheme implemented to understand where people are with regards to their immunity to it.
 
Labour being unelectable in 2019 is for another thread.

In fact, you seem less intent on discussing Coronavirus - and more intent on constant politicking. It's tiresome.

Exactly.

Let's be clear here. Labour from 2000 to 2010 oversaw a 24% reduction in acute care beds. From 2010 to 2018 there was a 12% decrease. Every party has been picking the bones of the NHS, because it's been such a money pit. It's not exclusive to the Conservatives by any stretch, or the UK. It's an international trend.
 
Cool, thanks.

It seems like field hospitals close to main hospitals where triage can occur is a good way to go. Didn't I see some Chinese invention where a person walks through a tunnel of disinfectant? Seems like a good idea for health workers who go on and off shift.

I think field hospitals is a great way to approach it, as a temporary measure, but it’ll all come down to availability of equipment to make them a useful asset.

I think there’s things we can learn from China and protection for the health workers. The wider personal worry i have is that my other half is out treating normal patients on home visits currently, they had patients lying about their condition (ie. they have symptoms of Covid19, but not telling them) and then turning up at the door and having to back off quickly. There is a high risk of those out in the community that haven’t really got the PPE, being exposed and potentially carrying the virus unintentionally.

It does come back to testing priority and those with patient interaction need it super quick.
 
I found one thing super entertaining about it, winding up conspiracy freaks. Beautiful stuff.
 
Hopefully they don't push through with that 1km-rule they are talking about.

The feck is that? You can't go further than 1 km from where you live?
 
The feck is that? You can't go further than 1 km from where you live?

You can, to go to work or to buy groceries, but not if you go out for a walk for instance. It was suggested by someone, but I'm sure it won't happen.
 
Look, we all know that these are difficult times for everyone, we don't need it constantly pushed in our faces by the self appointed experts on here, or those selectively posting the most "bad news" tweets they can find

There are loads of positives coming out of this, if people on here are too wrapped up in their conspiracy theories to see them then that's their problem

People are looking out for each other more, especially the old and vunerable
People volunteering more
People connecting more with their families through being together or home schooling
People realising that money is not the be all and end all
People realising what is really important
People realising that the people whose jobs are really important are actually those in food production, logistics, delivery, the care system and, of course, the NHS - often those who are paid the least
People seeing the benefits of socialism rather than capitalism and greed
Benefits for the environment
More awareness of mental health
People out exercising or walking as families that would never normally do so
The acceleration of a move towards remote working and the flexibility that this brings
The time to reflect or read or whatever
Plans to reduce homelessness have been drastically brought forward. Amazingly it can be done with a little effort

The NHS has probably been saved as well. Nobody will now vote for anyone who has plans to scale it down.

Also, once this is over, people will appreciate normal life and freedom much more.
 
It seems like hospitals are not really well designed for infectious disease care. Is that why they are putting together that London facility at Excel? I'm sure being able to control the movements of staff is better when you have a giant dedicated facility. Hospital ships and maybe requisitioned cruise liners would be ideal.
Nearly every town in the UK used to have a dedicated and purpose-built “Isolation Hospital”. They were all closed decades ago as infectious diseases had pretty much been eliminated and they were thought to be no longer needed.
 
The feck is that? You can't go further than 1 km from where you live?
Those of us in small Comunes in Italy are in that situation, we have to stay within the village boundary at all times (including for shopping). It's been the worst part of the latest restrictions.
 
Plans to reduce homelessness have been drastically brought forward. Amazingly it can be done with a little effort

The NHS has probably been saved as well. Nobody will now vote for anyone who has plans to scale it down.

Also, once this is over, people will appreciate normal life and freedom much more.

And with the money needed for above, hopefully a reduction in political and pointless wars. Thus a reduction in scenes like Syria, Iraq, etc. And therefore less asylum migrations.
 
Very interesting video. Using location data on mobiles, it chooses one beach in Florida during spring break and then tracks where all those people went after.

 
Starting to second guess myself, round mid to late February I had a bad cough like I'd never had before. Like waking up in the night with coughing fits. Probably nothing but making me consider did I have it. In Ireland by the way.
 
The feck is that? You can't go further than 1 km from where you live?

In theory in France, you can't go further than one or two kilometers from home. And we now have to precise the time we intend to be out.
 
 
And his partner's pregnant.
 
Plans to reduce homelessness have been drastically brought forward. Amazingly it can be done with a little effort

The NHS has probably been saved as well. Nobody will now vote for anyone who has plans to scale it down.

Also, once this is over, people will appreciate normal life and freedom much more.

The plans are for temporary accommodation, putting people in B&Bs or short term lets on student accommodation for example. That will drop the number of rough sleepers temporarily, but won't make much impact on homelessness more generally. You're right on the NHS though, its already a sacred cow in this country and will be more so.
 
I said he looked ill last week at the things.

For the record, Raab takes over if hes too unwell to work.

And you all thought it couldn't get worse.
 
Best of health to him and his family.

Hopefully he can still do everything via video call, apparently the intolerable Raab is next in line apparently.


EDIT - @Nogbadthebad Great minds.
 
These articles, models and opinions popping up suggesting that it might have been here much longer than we thought and far more widespread than estimated seem a bit strange. Were there a bunch of unexplained deaths in europe over the last few months which no one was focused on? or is what we are seeing now a more deadly mutation? and why have health services in Europe seemingly only become stretched to breaking within the last month or so? and why did the tests from two weeks ago show a low confirmation.

Everything I read and see suggests that this situation in Europe is much more severe than a month ago and the severity seemed to balloon suddenly. These are all layman observations of something I don't know enough about though and am happy to be put right.
 
Exactly.

Let's be clear here. Labour from 2000 to 2010 oversaw a 24% reduction in acute care beds. From 2010 to 2018 there was a 12% decrease. Every party has been picking the bones of the NHS, because it's been such a money pit. It's not exclusive to the Conservatives by any stretch, or the UK. It's an international trend.

Not in England they didn't. Acute beds fell from 108k to 101k during that period (-7%). Geriatric and acute fell from 136k to 122k (-10%). From 2010 to now geriatric and acute (there are no individual figures) have fallen from 122k to 101k (-17%).

You can find the exact info here: https://www.england.nhs.uk/statisti...vailability-and-occupancy/bed-data-overnight/
 
I'm sure Boris's affluent and likeminded colleagues will be able to cover for him.