The virus. PPE. Part 1

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cambsno said:
We will know in time if the criticism of the governments actions is justified or not, and while this is a global pandemic with big risks for those over 70 with health issues, anyone else think the media is causing far worse issues, encouraging people to panic buy and raising they alarm levels. Lets be clear, those under 50/60 in decent health have very little to fear from this. The public seem to be acting like idiots so far!
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Totally agree. The media should be enforcing the government message. They're spending too much time giving a platform for the "yeah but" brigade.
Totally irresponsible in my view.
The govt could improve the situation by giving daily broadcast updates though.
 
Do we think this all happened sooner than we think? My wife had read something that suggested Corona could have been with us longer, and both of us had a spell in December where we were ill - breathless (certainly for me), dry cough, feeling lousy but not ill of that makes sense - sort of functioning around 80%. Seemed to last for 2-3 weeks. Of course this is similar to a cold or other virus but maybe its not as recent as we think?
 
Retune said:
It turned out that the infamous bat eating videos were shot on the Pacific island of Palau, where apparently a bat dish is a delicacy. But the closest relative of the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) is a bat virus isolated in China. A bit of the SARS-CoV-2 genome is closer to a virus found in pangolins, so maybe related viruses are 'recombining' (swapping pieces of their genomes) when infecting the same 'intermediate host' (which might be the pangolin). This would be similar to the situation in the original SARS outbreak, where the intermediate host was a civet.
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My understanding was that covid19 was part bat part pangolin.
 
cambsno said:
Do we think this all happened sooner than we think? My wife had read something that suggested Corona could have been with us longer, and both of us had a spell in December where we were ill - breathless (certainly for me), dry cough, feeling lousy but not ill of that makes sense - sort of functioning around 80%. Seemed to last for 2-3 weeks. Of course this is similar to a cold or other virus but maybe its not as recent as we think?
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We had that. Statements like " i thought i was going down with something but it never materialised"
 
Retune said:
Why? A global pandemic is a global problem. Some approaches are going to be much more successful than others, and when one country appears to be doing something right, the others should pay attention. He's not a fan of Trump's 'stumbling response' either.
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True, so he shouldn't be taking our actions in jest when no one actually knows what the answer is.
 
cambsno said:
Do we think this all happened sooner than we think? My wife had read something that suggested Corona could have been with us longer, and both of us had a spell in December where we were ill - breathless (certainly for me), dry cough, feeling lousy but not ill of that makes sense - sort of functioning around 80%. Seemed to last for 2-3 weeks. Of course this is similar to a cold or other virus but maybe its not as recent as we think?
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Cockney said:
We had that. Statements like " i thought i was going down with something but it never materialised"
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Step 2 (if you answer you have a new cough or temperature) is
"We are checking to see if you feel so ill that you can't do anything you usually would, such as watch TV, use your phone, read or get out of bed."

I'd say even at 80% people wouldn't be that bad.?
 
Retune said:
Another deeply sceptical view of the UK strategy from William Hanage, professor of the evolution and epidemiology of infectious disease at Harvard :

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...st-britain-herd-immunity-coronavirus-covid-19

I’m an epidemiologist. When I heard about Britain’s ‘herd immunity’ coronavirus plan, I thought it was satire

'Your house is on fire, and the people whom you have trusted with your care are not trying to put it out. Even though they knew it was coming, and could see what happened to the neighbours as they were overwhelmed with terrifying speed, the UK government has inexplicably chosen to encourage the flames, in the misguided notion that somehow they will be able to control them. When I first heard about this, I could not believe it. I research and teach the evolution and epidemiology of infectious disease at Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health. My colleagues here in the US, even as they are reeling from the stumbling response of the Donald Trump administration to the crisis, assumed that reports of the UK policy were satire – an example of the wry humour for which the country is famed. But they are all too real.
...
This virus is capable of shutting down countries. You should not want to be the next after Wuhan, Iran, Italy or Spain. In those places, the healthcare systems have broken down. In Italy, the choices of whom to save and whom to allow to die are real. You should instead look to the example of South Korea, which, through a combination of intense surveillance and social distancing, appears to have gained some semblance of control over the virus. We can learn from South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan, all of which have so far done a good job mitigating the worst outcomes despite having reported cases early in the pandemic, and in the case of South Korea, suffering a substantial outbreak. The UK should not be trying to create herd immunity, that will take care of itself. Policy should be directed at slowing the outbreak to a (more) manageable rate. What this looks like is strong social distancing. Anyone who can work from home, should. People who do not yet work from home should be encouraged to do so. Employers should guarantee sick pay, including for contacts of known cases, and do everything they can to discourage the practice of “presenteeism”. You should not shake hands. Not with anyone. You should wash your hands for 20 seconds several times a day and whenever you enter your home (or someone else’s home). Call a halt to large gatherings. Educate people about masks and how they should be reserved for the medical professionals who need them. All this and more should have started weeks ago. Deciding whether to close schools is hard; they do so much more than just education. But this is a pandemic, and so you should expect they will be shut sooner or later. In Hong Kong, they have been shut for weeks. If you hear any talking head on TV explain that kids don’t get sick, remember that doesn’t mean kids cannot be infected and transmit. It’s probably a good idea to hold off on visits to Nana and Grandpa. The most fundamental function of a government is to keep its people safe. It is from this that it derives its authority, the confidence of the people and its legitimacy. Nobody should be under the illusion that this is something that can be dodged through somehow manipulating a virus that we are only beginning to understand. This will not pass you by; this is not a tornado, it is a hurricane. Don’t panic, but do prepare. If your government won’t help you, do it yourself.'
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Where he’s wrong I think is in implying we should follow S Korea — great but it’s too late for that here or in US (I know he actually says “learn from” which fair for next time :(‘ Isn’t also strictly speaking wrong that ‘heard immunity’ is the central reason for HMGs plan rather than a hoped for additional benefit?
 
The media are certainly fuelling PANIC BUYING. How many people would have hoarded 6 months supply of toilet rolls if they hadn't seen others PANIC BUYING and read articles about how terrible it was that everyone was PANIC BUYING and how the last thing thing we should do at this time of crisis is to indulge in PANIC BUYING because PANIC BUYING creates the very problem that people try to solve by PANIC BUYING?
 
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Cockney said:
Totally agree. The media should be enforcing the government message. They're spending too much time giving a platform for the "yeah but" brigade.
Totally irresponsible in my view.
The govt could improve the situation by giving daily broadcast updates though.
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Funny that ... given that only a few days ago HMG’s policy was to ban ministers etc from appearing on TV or Radio ;).
 
Despite the FCO advice, easyJet is still operating flights to Milan, Bologna and Venice, only offering passengers a refund on any government tax they paid if they cancel.
 
Donnie said:
Step 2 (if you answer you have a new cough or temperature) is
"We are checking to see if you feel so ill that you can't do anything you usually would, such as watch TV, use your phone, read or get out of bed."

I'd say even at 80% people wouldn't be that bad.?
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Yeah but apparently some kids get it with negligible effects. It's not going to be the same for everyone.
 
sphexx said:
Funny that ... given that only a few days ago HMG’s policy was to ban ministers etc from appearing on TV or Radio ;).
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The odd minister piping up for a few minutes air time is a but different than a official govt statement/press conference.
I take your point though. Information needs tight control.
 
Cockney said:
Yeah but apparently some kids get it with negligible effects. It's not going to be the same for everyone.
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Yes, theres always going to be some that lie outside the bell curve, the aims to tackle the biggest number likely to have the best effect.
 
Donnie said:
Funny I thought part of the plan was to develop a vaccine to combat it and tackle that later reemergence. As for herd immunity being natural? Of those that have already recovered have you seen any reports or data to show they are now immune from reinfection? I was under the impression it's too new a virus to know exactly whats going to happen from an immunity point of view?
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That isn't THE plan, although it's a plan.

As for infection generating immunity, we can tell that it does if victims manage to clear their infection - which it seems they do. We also know the spike 2 protein shares some antigenic homology with SARS (possibly spike 1 does too, but I've not had materials to test this) so if infection with that gave protective immunity there's a fair chance this will as well.
 
ancient_mariner said:
That isn't THE plan, although it's a plan.

As for infection generating immunity, we can tell that it does if victims manage to clear their infection - which it seems they do. We also know the spike 2 protein shares some antigenic homology with SARS (possibly spike 1 does too, but I've not had materials to test this) so if infection with that gave protective immunity there's a fair chance this will as well.
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I never said it was THE plan, nor that it was A plan, I specifically said PART of the plan. As for your herd immunity statement, it's not evidence of anything one way or another when you say "there's a fair chance this will as well" :-/
 
cambsno said:
Do we think this all happened sooner than we think? My wife had read something that suggested Corona could have been with us longer, and both of us had a spell in December where we were ill - breathless (certainly for me), dry cough, feeling lousy but not ill of that makes sense - sort of functioning around 80%. Seemed to last for 2-3 weeks. Of course this is similar to a cold or other virus but maybe its not as recent as we think?
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Yep your not alone there .I had it bad over the Xmas period lasted through till the end of January ,xmas morning I woke up at 4am and could not catch my breath .and the wife and kids had it to
 
Cockney said:
My understanding was that covid19 was part bat part pangolin.
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It's closest to a bat virus overall, but in some regions is closer to the pangolin virus. So it's reasonable to suggest that some relative of the known bat virus and some relative of the known pangolin virus got together at some point, but there are lots of unknowns - e.g., there might well be bat viruses even closer to SARS-CoV-2 than the one we know that just haven't been sampled yet.
 
Retune said:
It's closest to a bat virus overall, but in some regions is closer to the pangolin virus. So it's reasonable to suggest that some relative of the known bat virus and some relative of the known pangolin virus got together at some point, but there are lots of unknowns - e.g., there might well be bat viruses even closer to SARS-CoV-2 than the one we know that just haven't been sampled yet.
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I'm just going by some virologist on the radio. He said the unusual thing about this was that in analysis it showed both bat and pangolin dna/strains.
 
Cockney said:
The odd minister piping up for a few minutes air time is a but different than a official govt statement/press conference.
I take your point though. Information needs tight control.
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This is also in marked contrast to the South Korean approach, which makes much of 'full transparency'. Here the attitude is 'trust the experts', though their models aren't available for peer review and the public is being drip-fed details of the plan in carefully managed stages.
 
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Retune said:
There's a decent summary of what is known here if you're interested:
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-02-...s-of-novel-coronavirus--OiqNfdHh4I/index.html
Also:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00548-w
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I had read about that theory a week or so ago.
I expect there will eventually be some very exhaustive forensic examination of what has lead the world into such a disaster. That will be interesting reading for the survivors and a probably a trigger for recrimination.
 
My wife got a call this evening from her brother in Calgary and he and his wife have the virus. They had both been in Portugal for a month and flew back on Wednesday. My wife went over to see them for a few days when they were in Albufeira ..saved us travelling to Canada in the near future .They'd been there for several days already.So far so good. Then her brother/sister-in-law travelled to Lisbon (Friday 7th by my reckoning) and stayed there for 4 days and then flew back to Calgary last Wednesday. Yesterday paramedics attended at their home and he's not all well,my wife said they both sounded awful. They're staying in their home not hospital. They have adult children and grandchildren so I assume they will help out re shopping.

Portugal only saw it's first two cases on March 2nd and in Porto not Lisbon so my guess is they caught it on the way home. They flew from Lisbon > Amsterdam > Vancouver > Calgary.

My wife was going on a professional workshop knitting weekend in a hotel Devon on Friday and got an Email earlier stating it's been cancelled and a refund or re-booking has been offered.

A friend of a friend has told us that her friends, a couple, were on a 100-day world cruise which left Soputhampton on January 6th and the ship had left Freenmantle, Western Australia en-route to Mauritius and it's been cancelled and passengers flown home to wherever. Unfortunarely,for them that's Spain. They're considering going to family in Ireland.

Also, a friend here in Gloucester tells us that there are wards..empty wards, prepared for virus patients.
 
Alaska now has it's first case.
It is flaring up in Australia where temperatures are warm. That does not bode well for a summer respite here.
 
Retune said:
Terribly sad:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/coronavirus-italian-paramedic-47-died-21696483
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Very sad and I suspect he isn't going to be the last one outside China.. As far as I am aware, reading reports regarding health workers in China, six have died and 1716 have contracted the virus.

The more I read about it the more I think countries, other than Italy, initially underestimated it's potency and Italy was the wake-up call but even then authorities in other countries (including the US) were saying it was down to the high number of elderly people whilst overlooking the rapid contagion aspect. Now Spain has compounded that. Well, that's my observation. I just think we haven't seen the half of it here.

We're thinking of getting our shopping online but whilst that avoids the supermarkets it still has to be packed bt backroom staff. .One suggestion made to us was that we go at 11.00pm at night.

We also had a call from a friend in Cornwall who is a great organiser and has vison. If it gets so bad that it causes a reduction of staff at power stations we could have power cuts. It hasn't happened anywhere else as far as I know but there's the potential I suppose so as a precaution we've bought half a dozen battery operated candles. Our friends suggested the regular candles and my wife thought it safer..and cleaner re wax dripping, to get the electric ones. Morrisons had no eggs left this afternoon. I think this clearing of shelves is unwarranted.
 
arclight said:
Alaska now has it's first case.
It is flaring up in Australia where temperatures are warm. That does not bode well for a summer respite here.
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No,it doesn't,does it. The authorities here were relying on summer to slow it down at least.

This is a useful chart. I'm not too good on computer technology but it's being revised all the time so maybe saving it and refreshing it will keep us informed.As you said in your previous post this virus is an enigma..it's a new strain. I do wonder how much we're told is to keep the nation calm. I don't think the government has been that forthcoming and open.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Retune mentioned South Korea and its openness in ensuring the public are kept well informed and I was very impressed with an interview that the foreigm Minister..a lady.. Kang Kyung-wha gave to Andrew Marr today.Perfect english too.

Infact it's here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p086q4fx
 
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Retune said:
There's a decent summary of what is known here if you're interested:
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-02-...s-of-novel-coronavirus--OiqNfdHh4I/index.html
Also:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00548-w
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The second link shows 'Page not found' but you must have read it so I don't know why it's showing that to me.. The first message is about this website (TP) using cookies so I clicked 'Accept' then got the other message.

I read the first link which is interesting. The Pangolin is endangered as you probably know.
 
By holding people crowded together while waiting for ”screening” US is doing a good job of making sure as many incoming people as possible get infected at airports before sending them off around the country to propagate the virus :(

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-51895246
 
Donnie said:
I never said it was THE plan, nor that it was A plan, I specifically said PART of the plan. As for your herd immunity statement, it's not evidence of anything one way or another when you say "there's a fair chance this will as well" :-/
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I'm not being dogmatic about the herd immunity because making absolute statements is foolish and it doesn't matter if I fail to convince you through making cautious statements. However it would be very surprising if things did not work that way - consensus among the virologists I've talked with has been that the spike proteins are likely best vaccine candidates. I know of at least one company that's taking a different approach in their vaccine development, so we'll have to wait & see what makes it through development and trials.
 
JohnC6 said:
No,it doesn't,does it. The authorities here were relying on summer to slow it down at least.
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I think they were trying to slow it until the summer, then there would be less pressure on the NHS as the usual flu victims would be out of hospital etc rather than relying on tgd actual summer weather to slow it.
 
Bobsyeruncle said:
I think they were trying to slow it until the summer, then there would be less pressure on the NHS as the usual flu victims would be out of hospital etc rather than relying on tgd actual summer weather to slow it.
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Ah..yes. You're right. It probably likes the sunny, warm weather as much as we do.:)
 
arclight said:
Alaska now has it's first case.
It is flaring up in Australia where temperatures are warm. That does not bode well for a summer respite here.
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Hmm interesting. I think hotter temps was a banker expectation to kill it.
 
Cockney said:
Hmm interesting. I think hotter temps was a banker expectation to kill it.
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I don’t think so, it has been repeatedly denied. The reduction in summer is said to be due to other factors. Also if, as has been said, Australia get flu type infections in their winter it may be for the same reasons — like they stay indoors more and complain of the cold — because, depending on the region, their winters are not dissimilar to our summers ;)
 
JohnC6 said:
The second link shows 'Page not found' but you must have read it so I don't know why it's showing that to me.. The first message is about this website (TP) using cookies so I clicked 'Accept' then got the other message.

I read the first link which is interesting. The Pangolin is endangered as you probably know.
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The second one is still working for me (and I'm on a home network at the moment, so it's not one of Nature's paywalled articles). You could try copying and pasting the link rather than clicking it, or googling 'Mystery deepens over animal source of coronavirus'. Just noticed they've said DNA rather than RNA for the virus - should send them errata!
 
Your stats are wrong and overstate the figure by about 92%. The figure given by Theresa May on 22 February 2017 was 25,000 but the actual number was about 26,000 between 2003/04 and 2009/10.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/473264/number-of-hospital-beds-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/

That doesn't give any numbers other than to say that the number reduced by over 70 thousand beds in the UK NHS in the 10 years before 2009 and doesn't give any source for the numbers. According to FullFact, a UK based independent charity checking a variety of facts, the numbers are as I gave (https://fullfact.org/health/number-hospital-beds-falling/). Their numbers are sourced from the NHS themselves and should therefore be accurate. They even quote Theresa May as giving those numbers, giving a link to the live TV feed of her saying this at Prime Minister's Questions! The only difference seems to be that your source talks about UK beds and mine about English beds, perhaps the other 24 thousand were in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland but that doesn't seem likely as Scotland only had 13,246 in 2017/18. According to the same site the basis of collection of the data changed in 2010 so the numbers are not comparable. Even the American website you are using notes that there was a break in reporting in 2010.

Sorry but I don't accept your original claim of over 50 thousand hospital beds lost under Labour in a 10 year period. The total number of overnight hospital beds in the English NHS has actually been falling almost constantly since the 1980s. This means that hospital beds have been reduced under both Labour and Conservative governments, in response to declining lengths of stay.
 
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