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

SARS-Cov-2 will probably have a vaccine sooner or later. Stupidity will continue continue forever with an R0 and R well over 1.
 
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Virgil said:
Trouble is a good proportion of the ‘sensible ones’ are not resident in the U.K. There were more than one or two posts in March complaining that the authorities were acting stupidly instructing the police to put dye into a Derbyshire lake in an attempt to prevent gatherings at the spot. Personally I reckon it’s something in the U.K. psyche. Would not matter who was in power or what the message was we would still have more than our fair share of idiots who refused to obey. Sadly my take is that we will only convince folks to obey the advice if we enforce the message rather than continuing to appeal to common sense.
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I think Nigel Farage was the one complaining about it and his gripe was more about priorities.

Focusing on shaming peak District walkers sticking to social distancing and sticking dye in a lagoon where it's harder not to socially distance while flights were coming in unchecked for Milan and NYC, he's kind of had a point.
 
Dancfc said:
I think Nigel Farage was the one complaining about it and his gripe was more about priorities.

Focusing on shaming peak District walkers sticking to social distancing and sticking dye in a lagoon where it's harder not to socially distance while flights were coming in unchecked for Milan and NYC, he's kind of had a point.
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Oh dear......that illustrates my point. There is much worse going on so what the heck a little jaunt out to the Peak District along with umpteen others is nothing to worry about. That’s our typically English response. No wonder we were fecked. IMHO all of it mattered.
 
Virgil said:
Oh dear......that illustrates my point. There is much worse going on
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Exactly, like flights coming in from Milan and NYC unchecked, something the police and people like you don't/didn't seem to be worried about.
 
If ye're on about the lake in the quarry in Darbyshire, they were trying to keep people away because the water's high PH level causes skin complaints and stomach problems. Caustic chemicals are what made it so blue in the first place. Also, it was full of dead animals, vehicles and rubbish. Their attempts to keep people away had long-predated the coronavirus and had nothing to do with social distancing. The lagoon is literally toxic.

So no, Farage didn't have a point when he brought that up. He was being stupid.
 
Dancfc said:
Exactly, like flights coming in from Milan and NYC unchecked, something the police and people like you don't/didn't seem to be worried about.
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I would rather you actually read my post. My point was that it ALL mattered Unlike yourself who it would seem is quite happy to determine which parts of the guidance should be followed. Just out of interest your lineage would not be part of the Cummings tribe would it.
 
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Virgil said:
I would rather you actually read my post. My point was that it ALL mattered Unlike yourself who it would seem is quite happy to determine for yourself which parts of the guidance should be followed. Just out of interest your lineage would not be part of the Cummings tribe would it.
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To a degree everyone is going to have to determine which guidance to follow and when at some point. I’ve had to do things against the guidance in recent weeks that I would rather not do but it has to be done. Doesn’t make me a pro Cummings freak
 
Brwned said:
I'm looking at the public health measures as we relax the lockdown, rather than the immediate response to the crisis. I think the vast majority of people agree the lockdown was necessary, and the UK did it too late. At this stage there isn't much evidence that relaxing the measures quickly - while general principles of social distancing, good hygiene and reduced travel remain - will lead to us losing control of the virus. There's growing evidence that relaxing many of the measures has had a relatively small impact, much to the surprise of key experts in the various countries going through that process now.

When the crisis hit and there was so much uncertainty about how the virus spreads, the only sensible thing to do was act ultra-conversatively. At this stage I think there is much more leeway for policymakers to choose how conservative to be given we have a clearer understanding of the virus and much more evidence about the impact of certain policies. As that becomes more of a choice, it's reasonable for people to question whether that's the right choice, and what the adverse impacts of it might be.

It's possible that we could re-open the economy quickly and significantly reduce the economic damage without significantly increasing the risk of another spike. It's possible that re-opening the economy slowly and steadily will have a much smaller impact on the spread of the virus than we thought, while it might create a sense of prolonged hesitance and fear that wasn't expected. It doesn't naturally follow that because the public health measures to date have been necessary, that the public health measures that follow will be too. It's all just speculation at this stage.
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But nothing we have learned about the virus since lockdown started justifies an accelerated return to normal. The consensus on IFR is higher now than it was a month or two ago (best estimate currently = 1%). Asymptomatic spread is more widespread than we thought. We know kids shed lots of virus despite rarely getting ill. The only ray of light seems to be that it’s a bit crap at infecting people outdoors. Not that this has any bearing on indoor spread, where we know for a fact that it’s incredibly contagious.

So we have a virus that is at least 10 times more lethal than flu (which puts the health service on its knees every winter - despite a vaccine being available - and hasn’t gone away) and considerably more contagious (thanks to long incubation period and asymptomatic spread). South Korea is the poster boy for containment and they’ve just, this week, had to shut their schools again!

I’m not seeing a shred of evidence that we can get schools, offices, shops, gyms museums etc all open again quickly without another spike. What evidence have you seen?
 
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Steven Seagull said:
To a degree everyone is going to have to determine which guidance to follow and when at some point. I’ve had to do things against the guidance in recent weeks that I would rather not do but it has to be done. Doesn’t make me a pro Cummings freak
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The difficulty I have with that view is that once the premise is conceded then its open season for everyone as long as you can self justify breaking the guidance. Surely that’s exactly what Cummings and others have done. No wonder we still have a high incidence whilst countries such as Spain, Italy and France etc seem to be getting things under control. Will we never learn.
 
Virgil said:
The difficulty I have with that view is that once the premise is conceded then its open season for everyone as long as you can self justify breaking the guidance. Surely that’s exactly what Cummings and others have done. No wonder we still have a high incidence whilst countries such as Spain, Italy and France etc seem to be getting things under control. Will we never learn.
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cummings drove around the country with an illness. Thats clearly stupid. What I’m talking about is people going in somebody else’s garden for an hour because they live alone and need some help/company. People going outside of their locality for a walk. People going to the beach and having a dip in the sea. The most stupid people wont abide by even the most sensible rules but you have to allow some people to take personal responsibility because this could be around for a long time
 
TheGame said:
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Well maybe after being stuck in traffic for hours in the sweltering heat they might think twice the next time they have a brain fart about going to the beach or wherever they’re going in their droves
 
Virgil said:
The difficulty I have with that view is that once the premise is conceded then its open season for everyone as long as you can self justify breaking the guidance. Surely that’s exactly what Cummings and others have done. No wonder we still have a high incidence whilst countries such as Spain, Italy and France etc seem to be getting things under control. Will we never learn.
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Clearly not. Everyone in the U.K. is far too selfish and only concerns themselves with what is happening in their own little world.
 
Steven Seagull said:
cummings drove around the country with an illness. Thats clearly stupid. What I’m talking about is people going in somebody else’s garden for an hour because they live alone and need some help/company. People going outside of their locality for a walk. People going to the beach and having a dip in the sea. The most stupid people wont abide by even the most sensible rules but you have to allow some people to take personal responsibility because this could be around for a long time
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Then we must agree to disagree.
 
Steven Seagull said:
cummings drove around the country with an illness. Thats clearly stupid. What I’m talking about is people going in somebody else’s garden for an hour because they live alone and need some help/company. People going outside of their locality for a walk. People going to the beach and having a dip in the sea. The most stupid people wont abide by even the most sensible rules but you have to allow some people to take personal responsibility because this could be around for a long time
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I’m with you on this. I know many disagree but I don’t think sensible people taking sensible risks is the slippery slope it’s portrayed as.
 
BluesJr said:
Clearly not. Everyone in the U.K. is far too selfish and only concerns themselves with what is happening in their own little world.
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That’s what’s going to have to happen. The virus is rife in the UK and unless you want to live under blanket rules for the next X amount of years people are going to have to take some personal responsibility. We fecked it up at the start and we’ll have to pay for it for longer than a lot of other countries. You won’t control a pandemic from Westminster, which ironically is run by Cummings
 
Virgil said:
No wonder we still have a high incidence whilst countries such as Spain, Italy and France etc seem to be getting things under control. Will we never learn.
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Confirmation bias at its finest, the social unrest that's hit down Southern Italy is insane, people breaking into shops, people begging for free shops to be able to feed their kids, firms using the situation to become prevelvant again etc....

Seems you want to run with the narrative of everything the UK do are shit while all the other countries have done amazing.
 
Steven Seagull said:
cummings drove around the country with an illness. Thats clearly stupid. What I’m talking about is people going in somebody else’s garden for an hour because they live alone and need some help/company. People going outside of their locality for a walk. People going to the beach and having a dip in the sea. The most stupid people wont abide by even the most sensible rules but you have to allow some people to take personal responsibility because this could be around for a long time
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The point here is that the idea that just because Boris said we can have a BBQ with a few family, the vast majority of the country are now going to rush out and ignore all guidelines is patently nonsense. People will, I suspect generally behave sensibly. Those that don't probably won't have been previously.

I've also lost count of the number of articles shared on social media over numerous bank holiday weekends about the incoming spike in cases which subsequently didn't arrive.
 
amolbhatia50k said:
Cases in India really on the rise now.
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Given India is behind Europe in its curve, no of cases looks very scary, but how come relatively less are dead? Please can you provide some more insights and details on overall situation in big cities and country?
 
Sarni said:
That will kill off any tourism though, which is probably the price to pay to save lives.
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It doesn’t truly kill tourism spend. Many Kiwis are affluent. Some even have like minded friends.

They can’t travel out. New Zealand is kicking off a huge ‘Holiday in your Country’ scheme.

It’s probably the most beautiful country on earth. All of the places that are normally busy with tourists they get to themselves. Everyone owns a car, flights are reasonable. They’ll keep lots of the money in their own economy.

Great Covid measures. Even better big picture steps.
 
Virgil said:
Trouble is a good proportion of the ‘sensible ones’ are not resident in the U.K. There were more than one or two posts in March complaining that the authorities were acting stupidly instructing the police to put dye into a Derbyshire lake in an attempt to prevent gatherings at the spot. Personally I reckon it’s something in the U.K. psyche. Would not matter who was in power or what the message was we would still have more than our fair share of idiots who refused to obey. Sadly my take is that we will only convince folks to obey the advice if we enforce the message rather than continuing to appeal to common sense.
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For me, this is the thing that underpins the point you make about the 'uk psyche'. Everybody's proverbial common sense is different to another's and in effect becomes meaningless.
 
UnrelatedPsuedo said:
It doesn’t truly kill tourism spend. Many Kiwis are affluent. Some even have like minded friends.

They can’t travel out. New Zealand is kicking off a huge ‘Holiday in your Country’ scheme.

It’s probably the most beautiful country on earth. All of the places that are normally busy with tourists they get to themselves. Everyone owns a car, flights are reasonable. They’ll keep lots of the money in their own economy.

Great Covid measures. Even better big picture steps.
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I don’t think there’s a country in the world that can sustain its tourism industry based on domestic tourism alone. Certainly not countries as sparsely populated as NZ/Aus.

The whole point of tourism - in terms of boosting the national economy - is to cause a flow of money into the country from abroad. If the only money being spent on tourism comes out of other domestic industries that won’t be sustainable.
 
Dancfc said:
Confirmation bias at its finest, the social unrest that's hit down Southern Italy is insane, people breaking into shops, people begging for free shops to be able to feed their kids, firms using the situation to become prevelvant again etc....

Seems you want to run with the narrative of everything the UK do are shit while all the other countries have done amazing.
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Is that what they're saying in the UK press? Its nonsense. There was a handful of incidents early on but it soon stopped once cases started to really crank up and people understood the seriousness of it. People are struggling for food but that's not unusual for the South, its third world poor in parts.

I have never once heard of, read about or seen anybody questioning the seriousness of the virus in Italy, but I know plenty in the UK who do.
 
Dancfc said:
Seems you want to run with the narrative of everything the UK do are shit while all the other countries have done amazing.
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Well i hate to be captain obvious, the narrative is accurate when we look at the death rate.
 
Dancfc said:
Confirmation bias at its finest, the social unrest that's hit down Southern Italy is insane, people breaking into shops, people begging for free shops to be able to feed their kids, firms using the situation to become prevelvant again etc....

Seems you want to run with the narrative of everything the UK do are shit while all the other countries have done amazing.
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I'd say that Italy's done better than the UK, particularly in the south. The early unrest didn't last long and was caused by the fact that so many people work in the grey economy, living hand-to-mouth - and there isn't the same benefit system here that exists in the UK. The Mafia have always been active in the south, it's nothing new - they exploit crises very effectively.

You can't compare the UK with large parts of southern Italy in terms of socioeconomic deprivation, and yet the south has had far fewer cases of Covid and hasn't had high numbers of deaths, either. Basilicata has a population of well over half a million, but has only had just over 400 cases and under 30 deaths.
 
Fully suspect the gov is gearing up to open things as soon as poss and twist everything they can to make it look like they did a great job getting the country back up and running quickly.

They’ll be more than prepared to accept a decent amount of deaths going forward as they already know their supporters are accepting the current ridiculous death rate, so they’ll still be prepared to overlook it.
 
VeevaVee said:
Fully suspect the gov is gearing up to open things as soon as poss and twist everything they can to make it look like they did a great job getting the country back up and running quickly.

They’ll be more than prepared to accept a decent amount of deaths going forward as they already know their supporters are accepting the current ridiculous death rate, so they’ll still be prepared to overlook it.
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I struggle with making this party political from the perspective of who is and who is not in favour of easing the lockdown. IMHO most of the U.K. seems quite willing to overlook the death rate irrespective of their political outlook.
 
Virgil said:
I struggle with making this party political from the perspective of who is and who is not in favour of easing the lockdown. IMHO most of the U.K. seems quite willing to overlook the death rate irrespective of their political outlook.
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The SNP are probably the party least in favour of relaxing lockdown, or at least are the party who want to ease back on measures at the slowest pace.

On the other hand they've also done just as bad as the Tories on testing and care homes.
 
If anyone needs and proof that we are easing things up WAY too fast, consider the case of Campbelltown in New Brunswick. The province of NB was Covid free for a while, no new cases for weeks, no deaths, and they locked down their borders entirely except for a very few amount of healthcare workers and even when they came back into the province, they had a mandatory 14 day isolation period with no exception.

They divided the province into zones, easing things in each zone only when they had two weeks of 0 new cases. The province as a whole was due to open up restaurants, bars etc and had authorized gatherings of 50+ people. Their plan was science backed, and they really have been as strict as anywhere I’ve seen. The premier (government leader) for the region is notorious for putting the interests of his province above everything.

Campbelltown is in zone 5, and has a population of around 7000. It’s in northern New Brunswick and is mostly empty space.

a doctor from the campbeltown hospital had been in the province of Quebec (the worst hit province in Canada) and when he came back into NB he went back to work and didn’t self isolate. So far, this week there have been 8 new cases in NB and contact tracing shows that several people who have come into contact with those 8 have travelled to different zones. Now NB is canceling gathering of 50 people and not opening up as much as they planned.

Thats ONE Person who did that, by not following the rules. The virus had been eradicated in the province and he has been rightfully fired and will likely face criminal charges.
 
DVG7 said:
If anyone needs and proof that we are easing things up WAY too fast, consider the case of Campbelltown in New Brunswick. The province of NB was Covid free for a while, no new cases for weeks, no deaths, and they locked down their borders entirely except for a very few amount of healthcare workers and even when they came back into the province, they had a mandatory 14 day isolation period with no exception.

They divided the province into zones, easing things in each zone only when they had two weeks of 0 new cases. The province as a whole was due to open up restaurants, bars etc and had authorized gatherings of 50+ people. Their plan was science backed, and they really have been as strict as anywhere I’ve seen. The premier (government leader) for the region is notorious for putting the interests of his province above everything.

Campbelltown is in zone 5, and has a population of around 7000. It’s in northern New Brunswick and is mostly empty space.

a doctor from the campbeltown hospital had been in the province of Quebec (the worst hit province in Canada) and when he came back into NB he went back to work and didn’t self isolate. So far, this week there have been 8 new cases in NB and contact tracing shows that several people who have come into contact with those 8 have travelled to different zones. Now NB is canceling gathering of 50 people and not opening up as much as they planned.

Thats ONE Person who did that, by not following the rules. The virus had been eradicated in the province and he has been rightfully fired and will likely face criminal charges.
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Surely this just proves long term that herd immunity is the only way forward? You can‘t keep having strict measures in place if only one case can make it spiral out of control again. Protect the most vulnerable and let everything get on with our lives with sensible measures in place.
 
Josep Dowling said:
Surely this just proves long term that herd immunity is the only way forward? You can‘t keep having strict measures in place if only one case can make it spiral out of control again. Protect the most vulnerable and let everything get on with our lives with sensible measures in place.
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Doctors and nurses are supposed to be the most protective but when they make decisions like this, makes keeping the vulnerable safe impossible.
 
Josep Dowling said:
Surely this just proves long term that herd immunity is the only way forward? You can‘t keep having strict measures in place if only one case can make it spiral out of control again. Protect the most vulnerable and let everything get on with our lives with sensible measures in place.
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You mean isolate the most vulnerable, for years possibly.

Immunity may not even last long at all, we simpy don't know yet. Better to be safe and risk over reacting now, than doom millions around the world to an early death.
 
Virgil said:
I struggle with making this party political from the perspective of who is and who is not in favour of easing the lockdown. IMHO most of the U.K. seems quite willing to overlook the death rate irrespective of their political outlook.
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Yeah very true to be fair. I think because the deaths haven’t hit most people it’s become quite a casual attitude now.
 
UK 215 deaths and 2445 cases

This week Sun-Fri 1701 deaths
Last week Sun-Fri 2209 deaths

So 500 less than last week so far
 
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Flying high said:
You mean isolate the most vulnerable, for years possibly.

Immunity may not even last long at all, we simpy don't know yet. Better to be safe and risk over reacting now, than doom millions around the world to an early death.
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What are you suggesting? We can’t be in lockdown for 12 months. I think the lifting of measures is too early but at what point it is it acceptable to go back to some form of normality?

As I said protect the most vulnerable where possible and put safer measures in place for everyone else. There isn’t much else we can do. The government doesn’t have an infinite supply of money to pay for people to stay home.
 
Josep Dowling said:
What are you suggesting? We can’t be in lockdown for 12 months. I think the lifting of measures is too early but at what point it is it acceptable to go back to some form of normality?

As I said protect the most vulnerable where possible and put safer measures in place for everyone else. There isn’t much else we can do. The government doesn’t have an infinite supply of money to pay for people to stay home.
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At least wait until the numbers have dropped significantly. Then, a properly effective track and trace system.
Of course this government have messed up so badly it would take a huge effort to get everyone to lock down properly now. But given that it has been done successfully in other countries, I don't see why we should just abandon all hope here.
 
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