The virus. PPE. Part 1

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ancient_mariner said:
I've mentioned a couple of times that there's a worldwide shortage of Taq polymerase that's a key component of the PCR test - why this is not being mentioned I have no idea, but it's likely a key reason we don't have enough kits.

There may also be some high hurdles in the administration to get testing rolled out quickly.
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The shortage of key chemicals (without naming them) for the tests has been mentioned a few times in the daily briefings as being one of the reasons for the delay in rolling them out.
 
Tringa said:
I would like an explanation why places like South Korea and Germany were able to get thousands of testing kits some weeks ago but the UK was not and is now only starting to catch up.

Dave
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S. Korea and Taiwan have been preparing for a Covid 19 type disease for years. They were geared up for mass testing & contact tracing before there was a pandemic.

Germany has the technical and industrial capacity to rapidly scale up production in response to demand.

Source & more detail :-
https://reaction.life/why-is-germany-able-to-test-for-coronavirus-so-much-more-than-the-uk/
 
LongLensPhotography said:
As you wish, just be sure to never blame yourself for anything
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Hoy! None of that.

I am not and never have been god and anyone who claims that I am is going to get such a ding round the ear from my lightning bolt!
 
myotis said:
The shortage of key chemicals (without naming them) for the tests has been mentioned a few times in the daily briefings as being one of the reasons for the delay in rolling them out.
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That's being denied by the Chemical Industries Association. Now, who to believe...As for the testing, what's the point unless everyone is in full lockdown? Seeing images yesterday of commuters disembarking from various underground trains you'd think it was a normal day.
 
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Tringa said:
I would like an explanation why places like South Korea and Germany were able to get thousands of testing kits some weeks ago but the UK was not and is now only starting to catch up.

Dave
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I think “catch up” is a bit of an exaggeration, makes it sound as though we are close behind :(, but I agree with you. It’s a disgrace. Germany were exporting test kits I think because I remember the reports of the US turning down theif offer. we seem to have cut off communications with Continental countries because “we are not in the EU any more”, as in the failure to engage over the ventilators :(.
 
JohnC6 said:
for a long time now LLP has been urging us to pray before I've ever made any comment on that or criticised organised religion. He was just blatantly promoting it and as I stated..quite unambiguously in a provocative manner which I think was his intention, anyway. Light the fire and retreat.
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I see I have committed the mortal sin. Go on light the fire and retreat.
 
sphexx said:
My TV’s not that smart but I do keep a bit of tape over the camera in my monitor :) Shades of Orwell’s 1984 :(.
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That's no good they have way's of seeing through even duck tape
:D

this is not really the right thread, but as a light hearted moment. There was a woman that reportedly took her iPad or some such to the loo with her
in the middle of a very important conference call...
How she missed the fact that they were all on "camera" is anyone's guess :D
 
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myotis said:
Not sure about Germany, but with Soth Korea, after experiencing the problems of dealing with the MERS outbreak in 2015, they had put a lot of effort and money into being extremely well prepared for any future epidemic, such as this one.

It's worth reading about how South Korea have dealt with this, as not only were they better prepared, they also used technology, such as mobile phones n a very effective way.

https://theconversation.com/coronav...-due-to-its-acceptance-of-surveillance-134068
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Thanks for the link, Graham. I knew about SK's highly developed tech but didn't know about their biotech preparations post MERS. Still wonder how Germany were able to do such extensive testing.

This edition of The Inquiry(from the World Service) is interesting - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csythk

Dave
 
Tringa said:
Still wonder how Germany were able to do such extensive testing.

This edition of The Inquiry(from the World Service) is interesting - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csythk

Dave
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Too much short term thinking in UK politics, with the UK Govt too busy focusing on their austerity programme & 'getting Brexit done' to worry about planning for the possibility of a pandemic.
 
broc said:
Too much short term thinking in UK politics, with the UK Govt too busy focusing on their austerity programme & 'getting Brexit done' to worry about planning for the possibility of a pandemic.
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Thats easy to say, but when did we last have a pandemic of this magnitide? 100 years ago?

What about plans for a meteor strike on London, or an earthquake measuring 9 in the UK, or various other things - we cant plan for everything. I am very critical of certain aspects of government for what is happening now, but you cant blame governments for being totally unprepared for a pandemic. It doesnt matter whether Corbyn, Kinnock, Maggie or even David Steel had been in charge for the the last 20 years, we would not have planned any better.
 
cambsno said:
Thats easy to say, but when did we last have a pandemic of this magnitide? 100 years ago?

What about plans for a meteor strike on London, or an earthquake measuring 9 in the UK, or various other things - we cant plan for everything. I am very critical of certain aspects of government for what is happening now, but you cant blame governments for being totally unprepared for a pandemic. It doesnt matter whether Corbyn, Kinnock, Maggie or even David Steel had been in charge for the the last 20 years, we would not have planned any better.
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Other countries managed to plan.......the UK Govt said the NHS failed a 'trial run' 3 years ago, but did nothing & buried the report
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...ers-warned-nhs-could-not-cope-pandemic-three/

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...ress-pandemic-threat-not-properly-implemented

https://www.politicshome.com/news/a...demic-practice-run-unpublished-report-reveals
 
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cambsno said:
Thats easy to say, but when did we last have a pandemic of this magnitide? 100 years ago?

What about plans for a meteor strike on London, or an earthquake measuring 9 in the UK, or various other things - we cant plan for everything. I am very critical of certain aspects of government for what is happening now, but you cant blame governments for being totally unprepared for a pandemic. It doesnt matter whether Corbyn, Kinnock, Maggie or even David Steel had been in charge for the the last 20 years, we would not have planned any better.
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Ummmmm other than Operation / Excercise Cygnus???
 
cambsno said:
Thats easy to say, but when did we last have a pandemic of this magnitide? 100 years ago?

What about plans for a meteor strike on London, or an earthquake measuring 9 in the UK, or various other things - we cant plan for everything. I am very critical of certain aspects of government for what is happening now, but you cant blame governments for being totally unprepared for a pandemic. It doesnt matter whether Corbyn, Kinnock, Maggie or even David Steel had been in charge for the the last 20 years, we would not have planned any better.
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I partially agree with you. No government can be fully prepared for every imaginable and unimaginable emergency. I also don’t think that any government could stockpile tens of thousands of ventilators if they’re going to remain unused in the normal course of life.

But if you go through a Pandemic planning excercise which specifically highlights the lack of ventilators you have two options:

A: You could be proactive and contact industry about the theoretical need to produce ventilators at short notice. The design, prototyping and test manufacture could be done, so in the event of ventilators being needed for emergency use, production could be begin very quickly. No wasted weeks (and possibly lives) designing, testing and approving a new design because that work had already been done.

B: Do nothing and hope that we never suffer a Pandemic.

You don’t always need to spend and stockpile to be better prepared for disasters. Sometimes it just takes the application of a little intelligence and common sense.
 
Tringa said:
Thanks for the link, Graham. I knew about SK's highly developed tech but didn't know about their biotech preparations post MERS. Still wonder how Germany were able to do such extensive testing.
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I will try and give the link a listen, thanks, but I'm already spending too much of my day reading the articles in the web page I gave you the link to, and daily briefing from Nature.
 
NeilA1975 said:
That's being denied by the Chemical Industries Association. Now, who to believe...As for the testing, what's the point unless everyone is in full lockdown? Seeing images yesterday of commuters disembarking from various underground trains you'd think it was a normal day.
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I was responding to Ancient_Mariner, who seems to work in the field, to the comment that no one had mentioned the shortage of chemicals.

In lockdown or not, testing is absolutely crucial for the epidemiological modelling and broader understanding of what is happening. Without that information, it's impossible to make any reasoned decision on what our next move should be, including the effectiveness of the lockdown.

Additionally, it would let key workers back to work, who are self isolating but don't have the disease and with the antibody, test identify the people who have had it, and therefore assess how quickly we are building up "herd immunity" even without the vaccine.

But, I agree at the moment, social distancing is the key and only weapon we have against stopping the epidemic getting worse.
 
Tringa said:
Thanks for the link, Graham. I knew about SK's highly developed tech but didn't know about their biotech preparations post MERS. Still wonder how Germany were able to do such extensive testing.

This edition of The Inquiry(from the World Service) is interesting - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csythk

Dave
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Thanks for the link, added to my podcast list.
 
cambsno said:
Thats easy to say, but when did we last have a pandemic of this magnitide? 100 years ago?

What about plans for a meteor strike on London, or an earthquake measuring 9 in the UK, or various other things - we cant plan for everything. I am very critical of certain aspects of government for what is happening now, but you cant blame governments for being totally unprepared for a pandemic. It doesnt matter whether Corbyn, Kinnock, Maggie or even David Steel had been in charge for the the last 20 years, we would not have planned any better.
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Just not true, a pandemic was more or less inevitable sometime soon but we are lucky with this one that it is comparatively non infectious and comparatively non-lethal. There have been a recent succession of possible ones, Ebola, SARS, MERS etc and in any case NHS being prepared for a pandemic would mean it was prepared for other major events such as the coming climate war. NHS, and our other infrastructure, was in any case just limping along before this happened. We used to talk about private affluence and public squalor being a bad thing but now it’s become accepted.
 
sphexx said:
We used to talk about private affluence and public squalor being a bad thing but now it’s become accepted.
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Perhaps not so much after this. I think restarting "Austerity" will be a hard sell even among the committed conservative voters.
 
myotis said:
In lockdown or not, testing is absolutely crucial for the epidemiological modelling and broader understanding of what is happening. Without that information, it's impossible to make any reasoned decision on what our next move should be, including the effectiveness of the lockdown.
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How can you make decisions based on a moving target? I may test negative this week, but could be positive next week - how does that fit in with the modelling?
 
NeilA1975 said:
How can you make decisions based on a moving target? I may test negative this week, but could be positive next week - how does that fit in with the modelling?
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Modelling only ever makes generalisations, it doesn't really matter what happens to you at an individual level, its how things are changing at a population level. They just need a big enough data set to try and narrow the range of uncertainty produced by the model.
 
myotis said:
Modelling only ever makes generalisations, it doesn't really matter what happens to you at an individual level, its how things are changing at a population level. They just need a big enough data set to try and narrow the range of uncertainty produced by the model.
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Seems to me unless you're able to fully lock down the population, stop flights coming in from COVID hotzones and further restrict people's movements, the whole testing issue (other than key workers) would seem to be a complete waste of time.
 
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NeilA1975 said:
Seems to me unless you're able to fully lock down the population, stop flights coming in from COVID hotzones and further restrict people's movements, the whole testing issue (other than key workers) would seem to be a waste of time.
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I guess we will have to just disagree, I see the modelling as an essential decision-making tool, to help decide what, and what is not, a waste of time.
 
NeilA1975 said:
Seems to me unless you're able to fully lock down the population, stop flights coming in from COVID hotzones and further restrict people's movements, the whole testing issue (other than key workers) would seem to be a complete waste of time.
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We certainly could stop flights coming in from hotzones, we've chosen not to. Also no containment measures at airports.
 
Uncle Fester said:
I partially agree with you. No government can be fully prepared for every imaginable and unimaginable emergency. I also don’t think that any government could stockpile tens of thousands of ventilators if they’re going to remain unused in the normal course of life.

But if you go through a Pandemic planning excercise which specifically highlights the lack of ventilators you have two options:

A: You could be proactive and contact industry about the theoretical need to produce ventilators at short notice. The design, prototyping and test manufacture could be done, so in the event of ventilators being needed for emergency use, production could be begin very quickly. No wasted weeks (and possibly lives) designing, testing and approving a new design because that work had already been done.

B: Do nothing and hope that we never suffer a Pandemic.

You don’t always need to spend and stockpile to be better prepared for disasters. Sometimes it just takes the application of a little intelligence and common sense.
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In this case all the governments had to do was close the borders with China in full cooperation early on. Ideally this should have been done by Chicoms themselves. With failure to do so this has become the idiotic horror show it is now.
 
cambsno said:
Thats easy to say, but when did we last have a pandemic of this magnitide? 100 years ago?

What about plans for a meteor strike on London, or an earthquake measuring 9 in the UK, or various other things - we cant plan for everything. I am very critical of certain aspects of government for what is happening now, but you cant blame governments for being totally unprepared for a pandemic. It doesnt matter whether Corbyn, Kinnock, Maggie or even David Steel had been in charge for the the last 20 years, we would not have planned any better.
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We cannot plan for any indivdual instance, however we should be prepared for any instance, the NHS is in no way in any state to cope for it as it is now. The last 10 years has seen our NHS stripped back to the bone ,proof of that is happening right before your eyes even if you don't want to acknowledge it.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
Perhaps not so much after this. I think restarting "Austerity" will be a hard sell even among the committed conservative voters.
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We will be told from "left" and "right" that austerity will be unavoidable. Prepare to give as much as 40-50% away in income taxes, VAT rises and all the rest meaning you only really earn a single digit % of the advertised total.
 
From the news today US. Governor Andrew Cuomo is saying that only 20% of people on ventilators will survive. That seems really low, does anyone know if those figures are similar in the UK?
 
jakeblu said:
From the news today US. Governor Andrew Cuomo is saying that only 20% of people on ventilators will survive. That seems really low, does anyone know if those figures are similar in the UK?
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Volunteers for the Nightingale hospital have been told that 50-80% of patients on ventilators are likely to die.
 
nilagin said:
Volunteers for the Nightingale hospital have been told that 50-80% of patients on ventilators are likely to die.
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So do we still insist that experimental, repurposed drugs that haven't yet undergone full phase 3 trials against coronavirus should not be used and anyone discussing these banned on social media?!
 
So, if operating at full capacity (4000 patients) the new NHS Nightingale Hospital in London will require 16 000 staff:

https://www.itv.com/news/2020-04-01...to-run-nightingale-hospital-at-full-capacity/

Just where are these staff members coming from? I guess some will be army medics and volunteers, but presumably the bulk of
the staff will have to come from other hospitals. Surely there simply isn't the numbers to spare anyone or are all London COVID-19 cases being sent to NHS Nightingale?
 
Uncle Fester said:
So, if operating at full capacity (4000 patients) the new NHS Nightingale Hospital in London will require 16 000 staff:

https://www.itv.com/news/2020-04-01...to-run-nightingale-hospital-at-full-capacity/

Just where are these staff members coming from? I guess some will be army medics and volunteers, but presumably the bulk of
the staff will have to come from other hospitals. Surely there simply isn't the numbers to spare anyone or are all London COVID-19 cases being sent to NHS Nightingale?
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A percentage will be cleaners, food prep and other ancillary staff so won’t need to be nhs staff.

It will be harrowing for any involved through so I hope there is thought to counselling afterwards.
 
NeilA1975 said:
Seems to me unless you're able to fully lock down the population, stop flights coming in from COVID hotzones and further restrict people's movements, the whole testing issue (other than key workers) would seem to be a complete waste of time.
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Can people transmit the disease if immune? Maybe if I tested that I have had it and unlikely to get it I could move more freely and we could get back to some normality. Would be peace of mind for millions.
 
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