Coronavirus outbreak

[nickyboy]

There is a fascinating metric of how cities are reacting to the virus in terms of social distancing: traffic congestion

Tom Tom provides real time information

https://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/traffic-index/

Here is Milan

So you can see the traffic levels are way down as you'd expect

Here's Paris

No significant change there

Here's Madrid

Look at what's happened today. Congestion levels down massively. Looks like the people of Madrid are staying at home

BTW, all UK cities are at normal levels, like Paris

 

[Milkfloat]

But even if that is true - what action is being taken to smooth out the peaks ? - Apart from telling everyone to wash their hands what has the UK govt done ?

We are not near a peak yet, my guess is that when the numbers start to massively rise then we close schools, ban mass gathering etc.

 

[glasgowcyclist]

We are not near a peak yet, my guess is that when the numbers start to massively rise then we close schools, ban mass gathering etc.

Why wait?

The number of official diagnoses will always be considerably behind the true infection status.

 

[kingrollo]

Why does it peak ?
Does there come a point when too many people are ill to go out infecting others ?

 

[kingrollo]

Why wait?

The number of official diagnoses will always be considerably behind the true infection status.

Yes if you very crudely re engineer the fatality rate - at best case scenario (1%) - that still gives 700 infections - factor in a transmission rate of 2.5 - you see we probably have 2500 infections with a lot of those people feeling ok - so still passing it on.

Our approach doesn't seem to be that different from the USA to be honest.

 

[MarkF]

https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/covid-19-coronavirus-infographic-datapack/

 

[lazybloke]

'Sakes. Just been into Asda in Gala and they've absolutely no pasta or loo roll. Lassie at the checkout said yesterday was chaos, with people piling trolleys high.

I bet there are still plenty of Pot Noodles

 

[MichaelO]

456 UK cases as of this morning

 

[Milkfloat]

Why wait?

The number of official diagnoses will always be considerably behind the true infection status.

Because we are not fully utilizing all our resources yet, the aim should be to run at just under breaking point. If you lock people up for 2 weeks, then all that happens is that you simply delay the inevitable as after 2 weeks everyone just goes back to normality and then the number of cases explodes.

 

[glasgowcyclist]

Because we are not fully utilizing all our resources yet, the aim should be to run at just under breaking point. If you lock people up for 2 weeks, then all that happens is that you simply delay the inevitable as after 2 weeks everyone just goes back to normality and then the number of cases explodes.

Did you read how Taiwan managed the crisis?

They are bang on the doorstep of the virus's origin yet have managed to limit the number of cases to 49 and just a single death to date in a population of ~24 million. Here in Scotland we're already at 36 cases in a population about one quarter of Taiwan's.

Taiwan used early containment and it has worked.

 

[Milkfloat]

Did you read how Taiwan managed the crisis?

They are bang on the doorstep of the virus's origin yet have managed to limit the number of cases to 49 and just a single death to date in a population of ~24 million. Here in Scotland we're already at 36 cases in a population about one quarter of Taiwan's.

Taiwan used early containment and it has worked.

It has worked for now, but what happens when they relax their controls? They cannot stay hidden forever.

The only way this gets resolved is if enough people get infected and build immunity or a vaccine is given to the whole world. Give it a few years and this will just be another strain of flu added to the yearly jab.

 

[fossyant]

Why let them run around potentially infecting the rest of government while they remain asymptomatic?

There must be a plan to get rid of the current waste of time MP's

I wonder if their chief adviser is called Mr G Faulks. He failed last time.

 

[Joey Shabadoo]

Just got this in an email from work:

The World Health Organisation has declared Coronavirus a public health emergency of international concern. Currently the risk to the public in the UK remains at a 'moderate' level. Despite this, the government has announced that in accordance with regulation 3 of the Health Protection (Coronavirus) Regulations 2020, the threat from the transmission of coronavirus constitutes a 'serious and imminent threat to public health' so measures have been implemented to forcibly quarantine anyone with coronavirus, preventing them from leaving a facility and also giving them the power to forcibly send someone to isolation if they pose a threat to public health. This development comes after it was reported that a British patient at an isolation facility was threatening to leave.

 

[BoldonLad]

You do know that many of the undersea telegraph cables were in place by then? Communication of messages from America or India or even Australia etc. was measured in minutes.

Below a map of the British network in 1901

View attachment 507892

No doubt, that is true, but, they didnt have 24/7 news to be filled, Social Media, mobile phones etc etc

 

[kingrollo]

It has worked for now, but what happens when they relax their controls? They cannot stay hidden forever.

The only way this gets resolved is if enough people get infected and build immunity or a vaccine is given to the whole world. Give it a few years and this will just be another strain of flu added to the yearly jab.

You have covered two points there in answer to one question

1.So lets we wait until like Italy we have around 100 people per day dying - so then we implement lock down - when we release it - do the numbers not go back up ? (as you said they would if we implemented lock down to soon)

2.This probably will just be another strain of the flu jab in due course - but in the interim should we not employ the methods that have worked in other countries?