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

Revan said:
100 million already? No way. If that would have been the case, then we would be talking for a mortality rate significantly lower than that of the flu, and we would have just continued with normal life. It might be that the number of infections is double that we think of, or even a few times higher, but not 100 times higher.
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The British were pretty open about considering the number of infections to be 10x the confirmed cases a few weeks ago.


100 times higher is a stretch, but, given how tough it is to get tested, the actual number of cases is easily at least an order of magnitude higher than the confirmed number of cases.
 
Heardy said:
I don’t buy into the whole conspiracy stuff but I think there’s a genuine concern that China have misled / lied about it as part of a cover up.

If that’s ever proven, surely that’s equitable to war crimes?! You’d imagine there would be international condemnation! Could get very messy
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It is standard practice in China to cover things up until they get out of hand and then backtrack on everything. This is far from the first time they have done it.
 
sun_tzu said:
pangolin seems to be mentioned a lot.
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Only because they are known to get bat viruses. However, they are rarely sold in wet markets. They also know that this isn't the bat originated virus pangolins often carry or SARS. It is however very similar to the original bat virus only changed enough to be c peasily passed to/between humans, unlike the original bat virus.

The most likely origin is that an intermediate host caught the bat virus and that host had or got another virus and the bat virus then recombined with it to produce the Covid-19 virus. The host then was caught and ended up in the Wuhan wet market.
 
For anyone looking for some live sport, the 'Virtual' Grand National will be shown live on ITV this Saturday, max £10 win or £10 ew bet, all betting profits going to NHS charities.

Given the desperation for anything sport related, and everyone locked in, it could end been record viewing figures for the race.
 
Buzzfeed on the Daily Telegraph being willing to publish China’s propaganda:

 
Hound Dog said:
The British were pretty open about considering the number of infections to be 10x the confirmed cases a few weeks ago.


100 times higher is a stretch, but, given how tough it is to get tested, the actual number of cases is easily at least an order of magnitude higher than the confirmed number of cases.
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Yeah, 10 times could be. Which would be wonderful news, would make the death ratio 10 times lower than the current one.

100 is too good to be true.
 
TheGame said:
If this is true then it’s amazing work by South Korea.
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It's almost like they learned from past mistakes with MERS and implemented a proper procedure for pandemics due to it. They have gone on record as saying that the MERS outbreak there led to them drawing up plans for this sort of eventuality. Luckily the rest of the world noticed this and implemented similar plans :(

Hopefully next time everybody else learns from their mistakes.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-51836898
 
Revan said:
Yeah, 10 times could be. Which would be wonderful news, would make the death ratio 10 times lower than the current one.

100 is too good to be true.
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100 times is nonsense. 10 times is a stretch but possible. 2-3 times is most likely I guess.
 
Pagh Wraith said:
There is an interesting study being conducted in Germany at the moment. Led by Hendrik Streeck (chief virologist at the University Hospital Bonn), supported by 70 colleagues and funded by the state of North-Rhine Westphalia, they are trying to find out more about how the virus spreads.

Streeck has been critical of the Robert Koch Institute (the country's federal agency responsible for disease control) which, according to him, missed the chance to collect reliable data. So with the help of the local registration office, 500 representative families from one town were selected to fill that gap. The same town in which the first infection in NRW occured. They are now being studied which includes blood sampling, taking throat swaps and a comprehensive questionnaire. The researchers know exactly when the virus hit the town, on 15 February during a carnival session. The assumption is that many of the local outbreaks around Europe are directly connected to big celebrations or gatherings - carnival in Germany, après-ski in Tyrol or football matches in Bergamo. Or in simple words, a lot of people in tight spaces. They have a list of attendees for said carnival meeting and are working their way from there.

Interestingly, the research team could not detect traces the virus on any of the tested surfaces, even in highly contaminated households. Not on phones, door handles, washbasins or cats. Streeck stressed that as of now there was no danger of infecting anyone while shopping and is highly doubtful if transmission could happen at restaurants or the hairdresser's. He didn't go as far as criticising the current measures but called them drastic and said many of the decisions have been made based on speculation and hopes this study can shed some light on the path of infection to make better decisions going forward.
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OK I think we need a source for this. Where did you get this from because it's potentially huge if true.
 
Cases have jumped from 51 to 79 in a day round here after generally being around 5-6 a day for the past few days and 3-4 before that. Don't know if that's just an anomoly or have they ramped up testing in UK?
 
Raoul said:
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So under the most conservative model estimate, where we're on lockdown about 3/4 of the time up until December 2021, we're still going to require more ICU beds (5,000) than we have (4,562). The grey blocks are periods of intermittent lockdowns, pink blocks are when intensive interventions* are ongoing, blue blocks are intermittent school closures.

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*a significant programme of social distancing, with a particular impact on leisure activities; workers being asked to work from home where possible; shielding of both elderly (70+) individuals and people in high-risk-groups of all ages; and self-isolation of symptomatic individuals

Worth noting that they estimate the number of infections to be 2.5-3 times the number of confirmed cases, albeit that may have been based on a different testing protocol back in early March.
 
For South Korea they had an outbreak from a cult and also the preparedness from past experiences help them to target this small area and almost wrap it up. They have about 100 cases per day for a long time after that initial concentrated wave.

Simply saying UK and South Korea in a tweet isn't really helpful. I looked at her profile and while I would love more testing, Japan haven't done much and they aren't hiding a huge amount of deaths, if testing testing testing was the absolute key then Japan's health service would be overrun for all to see, it's not behind some iron curtain, east Asian countries and regions in general have low amounts. Europe as a whole has been hit very hard and testing testing testing Germany are on a slightly later path of thousands dead and are close to a thousand now with huge social and economic costs while South Korea has 154 dead.

Having seen the spread early on I don't think South Korea is applicable. Of course looking at every country is worth doing, more interesting is Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong but there's so many more factors.

The Germany test that's been posted might be very interesting to reveal about spread in Europe.
 
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NinjaFletch said:
It made the Guardian yesterday:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...orst-hit-district-into-coronavirus-laboratory
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Pagh Wraith said:
Oh thanks, I couldn't find any English-language sources. Streeck was also on national TV last night and talked about his research. For anyone who speaks German:

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Think the Guardian article is only about the planned study but not the actual interview as it's older than the interview. This is a short summary but in German language: https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/covi...oberflaechen.2850.de.html?drn:news_id=1116563
 
redshaw said:
For South Korea they had an outbreak from a cult and also the preparedness from past experiences help them to target this small area.

Simply saying UK and South Korea in a tweet isn't really helpful. I looked at her profile and while I would love more testing, Japan haven't done much and they aren't hiding a huge amount of deaths, if testing testing testing was the absolute key then Japan's health service would be overrun for all to see, it's not behind some iron curtain, east Asian countries and regions in general have low amounts. Europe as a whole has been hit very hard and testing testing testing Germany are on a slightly later path of thousands dead and are close to a thousand now with huge social and economic costs while South Korea has 154 dead.

Having seen the spread early on I don't think South Korea is applicable. Of course looking at every country is worth doing, more interesting is Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong but there's so many more factors.
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Most European countries chose to ignore it. The growth of this thread is an example of that - it only gained traction when the issue was widespread around us.
 
Apologies for the question but i want to understand if and how measures are showing results.

Out of ROI, NI, Wales, Scotland and England, which has most disciplined general public ?

And does the numbers (infections and deceased) match that discipline? Or is it having little effect?
 
Th
Grinner said:
OK I think we need a source for this. Where did you get this from because it's potentially huge if true.
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There is an article about it published in the Guardian. Not much information and no mention of any findings yet.
 
How does warm weather affect this virus then? Is it a myth or is the flu pretty much non existent in the summer?
Are scientists still unsure?
 
predator said:
How does warm weather affect this virus then? Is it a myth or is the flu pretty much non existent in the summer?
Are scientists still unsure?
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They're unsure as far as I know.

Thought I heard some suggestion that sunlight will be more damaging to the virus than warmer temperatures in general.
 


Market thwarted etc etc.

Also the comments are pretty disgustingly full of anti-semitism including holocaust jokes.
 
Moiraine said:
Apologies for the question but i want to understand if and how measures are showing results.

Out of ROI, NI, Wales, Scotland and England, which has most disciplined general public ?

And does the numbers (infections and deceased) match that discipline? Or is it having little effect?
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Difficult to draw that comparison from the data, the geography and population density of cities/towns differs significantly.
 


Have the UK's media generally been taking this tone or is it a new development? Much more accusatory than I would have expected.
 
Denis79 said:
Sadly I think you're right.
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Why sadly? If this was true then it’d mean the virus would be less lethal than seasonal flu and we could potentially go back to normal in a couple of months. It’s not very probable though. While there are certainly more cases than reported it won’t be by that much.
 
Sarni said:
Why sadly? If this was true then it’d mean the virus would be less lethal than seasonal flu and we could potentially go back to normal in a couple of months. It’s not very probable though. While there are certainly more cases than reported it won’t be by that much.
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You're right at that but It's easier spread to people who won't survive it.
 
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