Coronavirus outbreak

[SkipdiverJohn]

1. We still don't know if this virus can "burn itself out" rather than keep recirculating, maybe with slight mutations.
2. Back of an envelope sums make me think we cannot now infect most of the population before autumn without overwhelming the NHS. How do you think we can?
3. As time goes on, more treatments and maybe preventives will be discovered or developed. Surely a sane country aims to be last off the cliff, rather than bonkers Boris vowing to lead the rebound back in Feb?

1) Previous disease outbreaks have ended up fizzling out with far less cases than could theoretically have occurred. Quite possibly, a substantial part of any population has a high resistance to becoming ill. For example it is very rare for me to catch anything that makes me feel ill. I last got the (real) flu over 20 years ago that put me on my back, and I was pretty rough in early March this year, I suspect with the virus, as a colleague returned from Thailand and was really rough for a week with virus symptoms immediately afterwards.
2) If the NHS gets overwhelmed later on now, it will be because the lockdown went on too long. It was only ever rational to do it for a couple of weeks to allow the overspill field hospitals to be put in place. Then it should have been scrapped totally and the virus allowed to run. You need the highest possible infection rate short of totally overwhelming the intensive care capacity.
3) Waiting for vaccines and other treatments is a massive gamble, and time is not on our side. We really can't afford to have loads of coronavirus still around in winter or even more lockdown economic carnage. This pandemic needs to be brought to a swift end as quickly possible, not kicking the death toll can down the road and hoping that something may turn up next year, which is a normal vaccine timeframe.

 

[MntnMan62]

I doubt you'll find many people who claim the virus is "fake". I'm well aware the virus is very real and is contagious. However, I do not believe that wrecking the economy, throwing millions of people out of work, destroying peoples businesses, and having a huge rise in deaths from other causes instead such as undiagnosed/untreated cancer, heart disease etc, is a price worth paying just to make the headline virus numbers look more palatable.
The mask wearing thing is just a joke. The only type of masks that could actually meaningfully reduce coronavirus transmission are proper medical/industrial grade ones for hazardous environments, and they are NOT comfortable to wear just for show, because they have to fit tightly and not leak. The sort of face coverings being promoted are nothing more than stage props and are ineffective against minute droplets. Wearing a coarse weave decorators dust mask or a bit of bedsheet tied over your mouth like a bandana is going to achieve nothing. Worse still, when people wear masks they irritate the face, so they fiddle about with them. They touch the mask and adjust it's position, they touch their nose. They rub their eyes. I see all this going on in public every day. All the wearers are doing is touching their faces with hands that might be pre-contaminated from a surface or from the outside of their own mask. They've got more chance of actually infecting themselves with either the coronavirus or any number of other nasties than preventing it!
As far as allowing businesses to make money, you aren't going to do that unless you abolish social distancing and allow normal customer densities in hospitality venues. No pub or restaurant is going to make a profit if only half the normal amount of customers are allowed in and the atmosphere is also spoiled by being told where and how to sit and to wear a mask. That isn't my idea of an enjoyable evening out, and nor I suspect will it appeal to the majority of drinkers and diners. I won't be spending any of my money in such venues until I can sit exactly how and where I want and can socialise normally. If I ran such a business I would stay shut, keep my staff on furlough, and let the government carry on picking up the bill until I could get enough customers in to justify all the staffing costs and electricity bills etc. Most such businesses have a lot of loss-making hours in the week and only make their money during the busy periods when they are full up. If you prevent a business running at full capacity you take away their ability to be profitable.

Interesting that you just responded to a redacted version of my post. Strike one. You say mask wearing is a joke. You attempt to state which masks provide a meaningful reduction in coronavirus transmission. Have you done studies to back up your fictitious comments? I think not. Are you in the field of immunology? I don't think so. Are you even in a field remotely related to the medical profession? All you can do is state which masks are ineffective. Yet you give no credit to the ones that are effective. To that point, the vast majority of people are wearing masks that stop the passag of droplets that carry the virus. If that was not true then we would not have seen such a large drop in the number of cases while social distancing and mask wearing protocols were still in place. So, you've ignored the facts and the statistics. Your comment saying businesses can't make money unless you abolish social distancing and normal customer interaction, which means without masks to you, that says you deny there is even an issue. Stike 2 and 3. You're out.

 

[MntnMan62]

1) Previous disease outbreaks have ended up fizzling out with far less cases than could theoretically have occurred. Quite possibly, a substantial part of any population has a high resistance to becoming ill. For example it is very rare for me to catch anything that makes me feel ill. I last got the (real) flu over 20 years ago that put me on my back, and I was pretty rough in early March this year, I suspect with the virus, as a colleague returned from Thailand and was really rough for a week with virus symptoms immediately afterwards.
2) If the NHS gets overwhelmed later on now, it will be because the lockdown went on too long. It was only ever rational to do it for a couple of weeks to allow the overspill field hospitals to be put in place. Then it should have been scrapped totally and the virus allowed to run. You need the highest possible infection rate short of totally overwhelming the intensive care capacity.
3) Waiting for vaccines and other treatments is a massive gamble, and time is not on our side. We really can't afford to have loads of coronavirus still around in winter or even more lockdown economic carnage. This pandemic needs to be brought to a swift end as quickly possible, not kicking the death toll can down the road and hoping that something may turn up next year, which is a normal vaccine timeframe.

1) Really? What's your source for such a statement? It's rare for you to get sick? What will you say if tomorrow you come down with it, end up on a ventilator, survive but have permanent lung, kidney and heart damage? Will you stand by your existing position? I'm sure you will. Hah.
2) What a ridiculous thing to say. If the NHS gets overwhelmed it will be simply because the volume of patients has gone through the roof. That's already happened in many parts of the US. Hospitals are at maximum capacity in areas that opened.
3) So, what is your answer to bring this pandemic under control and a "swift" end? Enlighten us.

 

[mjr]

1) Previous disease outbreaks have ended up fizzling out with far less cases than could theoretically have occurred. Quite possibly, a substantial part of any population has a high resistance to becoming ill. For example it is very rare for me to catch anything that makes me feel ill. I last got the (real) flu over 20 years ago that put me on my back, and I was pretty rough in early March this year, I suspect with the virus, as a colleague returned from Thailand and was really rough for a week with virus symptoms immediately afterwards.

Past performance is not a guarantee of future events.

I hope that they hurry up with antibody testing and it debunks most of these "ya I had covid before it was fashionable" cases as manflu.

2) If the NHS gets overwhelmed later on now, it will be because the lockdown went on too long. It was only ever rational to do it for a couple of weeks to allow the overspill field hospitals to be put in place. Then it should have been scrapped totally and the virus allowed to run. You need the highest possible infection rate short of totally overwhelming the intensive care capacity.

23 March: lockdown starts;
24 March: temporary hospitals announced;
3 April: first temporary hospital opens;
5 May: temporary hospitals placed on standby;
13 May: unlocking starts;
25 May: remaining locks collapse.

So basically you agree that lockdown was the right length or maybe one week too much or what?

3) Waiting for vaccines and other treatments is a massive gamble, and time is not on our side. We really can't afford to have loads of coronavirus still around in winter or even more lockdown economic carnage. This pandemic needs to be brought to a swift end as quickly possible, not kicking the death toll can down the road and hoping that something may turn up next year, which is a normal vaccine timeframe.

Yes, it's a gamble, but less so than crossing our fingers and holding plague parties sacrificing hundreds of thousands in the hope there's immunity. It's not simply kicking the death toll down the road. It's cutting its size, too.

The way to end the pandemic is to starve it out, not feed it.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

Everyone or no-one, no special treatment.

Masks, like everything else, are not an absolute guarantee, all or nothing cure to transmission.

They probably reduce the risk, perhaps by quite a lot.

Accordingly, compulsion should to be judged against potential downsides. In the same way that 2m distance is ideal, but not absolute.

Your continued attempts to put up ridiculous straw men is noted. It does you no favours.

 

[Rocky]

I just want to remind people - my mask protects you, yours protects me. The virus is exhaled in droplets which are large enough to be caught by most face coverings. That is sufficient to slow the transmission in public.

On the economics of Covid, you can’t simply ignore it and carry on as normal. People get sick, they can’t do their jobs, hospitals get overwhelmed, many people die, borders get closed. The economy would grind to a halt under those conditions. All of this is mighty inconvenient for those who think we should ignore it......we can’t, it’s there. Look at the tragedy that’s unfolding in Florida at the moment.

 

[srw]

Protect lives vs tank the economy. Risk lives vs rescue the economy.

As @Brompton Bruce has just reminded us, that's a false dichotomy. The economy is people. The best way to protect it is to keep people healthy. Which means snuffing out the pandemic like New Zealand or Germany, not letting it run.

The government are only making things worse and more drawn out.

Yes. But that's because they're rushing into opening up.

Compare and contrast two US states. One has taken the virus seriously and kept restrictions in place for longer. The other hasn't.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

Compare and contrast two US states. One has taken the virus seriously and kept restrictions in place for longer. The other hasn't.

Yup. Guess who's going to take the biggest hit to their economy and face restrictions for longest.

Germany or Sweden (UK added for perspective):

 

[Johnno260]

if people think masks are pointless, then don't get mad next time someone coughs and doesn't cover their mouth, same with sneezing.

 

[marinyork]

if people think masks are pointless, then don't get mad next time someone coughs and doesn't cover their mouth, same with sneezing.

SAGE thinks a cough spreads the virus 20 to 50 times more than talking and a sneeze around 1500 times.

 

[Johnno260]

SAGE thinks a cough spreads the virus 20 to 50 times more than talking and a sneeze around 1500 times.

Yes the point I was making was I'm sure people who think masks are pointless, don't like people with common colds and coughs not covering their mouth when the cough/sneeze.

A mask is about protecting others, in short it's being socially responsible is it perfect? no but it helps, like I said before many people could learn a lot from an ant..

Also if people moan about wearing one for a short trip to a store, or some other place sorry no sympathy as NHS workers manage it for 13hr shifts.

 

[tom73]

If only i'd have known that public health was so simple and all you do is simply out run infectious disease.The hours of study time that would have saved me.Let's keep it simple as some really don't wish to understand this. Public health is complex and you can't out run it. You find out what's wrong , who it effects, put measures in place to control it , treat it and find way's to eliminate it.
So let's take Covid we know what's wrong, who it effects though work is on going , we know what measures to use but again that still needs work. Treatment now that's a real problem we don't have a many options. As for eliminating it the only option we can use at the moment is to virtually do it by keeping numbers low. The Uk is still working it's way though the control bit. Other counties like New Zealand are well into the last bit. Which beings us back to the start and with it learning, reviewing , refining all the time moving to effectively eliminating it.
Or we can just leave it and walk around with fingers in our ears and say it will be all over my Christmas.
Just think the the money we can save the next time someone runs a mock with a knife or a gun. Just leave them to it once they've killed everyone in sight problem solved.

 

[marinyork]

Yes the point I was making was I'm sure people who think masks are pointless, don't like people with common colds and coughs not covering their mouth when the cough/sneeze.

A mask is about protecting others, in short it's being socially responsible is it perfect? no but it helps, like I said before many people could learn a lot from an ant..

Also if people moan about wearing one for a short trip to a store, or some other place sorry no sympathy as NHS workers manage it for 13hr shifts.

It's not been talked about much recently, but in the winter, the fewer other diseases people are carrying around flu and cold the better for stronger immune systems the virus may have less of a chance of penetrating. Or just flu circulating at the same time putting a double strain on workplaces and the NHS.

I do think some of the mask commentary is getting a bit silly on here. Masks are not pleasant to wear particularly, not horrifically so but can be worn in shops or public transport for 30 mins/1 hour etc. When I go around the shops virtually no one else is though. It's then dealing with the higher risk situations and many of the rest of us are furloughed or working at home so indoors at home or outside where the risk to others is very low. So it's some minutes per day/week which is not much.

 

[Tanis8472]

Anything useful on the covid show either day?

 

[marinyork]

Boris hints everything else may be able to open

He added that gyms would be able to reopen in a “couple of weeks”, and vowed to try to get theatres going “as fast as we possibly can”.
The Prime Minister told the radio station: “The best way forward for the country is to get the economy moving again ... We want to get every part of our industry, including theatres, that are so vital.”
On gyms, he added: “We are going to reopen gyms as soon as we can do it in a Covid-secure way and I think that the date for reopening gyms at the moment, if we can do it, is in just a couple of weeks’ time.”