Generic Virus Thread

[terrytini]

5 hours ago, DCJonah said:

Is that true? 

That seems a crazy thing to do

No. It’s bollocks.

Im sick of seeing ill uninformed stuff posted as fact on here.

The UK death stats most people refer to only include people tested for, and admitted to, Hospital with the virus, and who die there.

They don’t include anyone who dies at home or in a Care Home for example - although Care Home stats are now being compiled and announced elsewhere, and on at least one occasion were later added to the Headline figure.

You won’t be tested for the virus if you die in a car crash. Coroners are being swamped. The greater likelihood is that people dying due to the effect of virus are being missed as there are many existing conditions which cause the death.

 

[terrytini]

5 hours ago, LondonLax said:

Anyone who carries the virus at the time of death has that information listed on their death certificate.

Just not true.

[bickster]

1 hour ago, andyjsg said:

So with JL they are putting staff on furlough and making up the difference but waitrose staff sometimes from the same building are continuing to work - that must be tough to swallow.

Up here, the Waitrose is being partly staffed by JL Staff to cover the extra work required

[mikeyp102]

I’m lucky my job is unaffected. Friend of mine though works in a factory. They been told they have to take 2 weeks holiday as the factory is shutting. After that they will be furloughed. Seems very unfair way of doing it. I know they have a factory shutdown over Christmas as well, but this basically means when all this passes and the factory reopens, all staff won’t have any holiday to take. Yes it’s better than being made redundant but still doesn’t seem right 

[LondonLax]

46 minutes ago, terrytini said:

Just not true.

Thanks, I’ve been trying to remember where I had read it and I think I picked it up here (I’m sure I’ve read it somewhere else as well) but it could just have been a quirk of Italy’s reporting.  

Quote

 

Prof Ricciardi added that Italy’s death rate may also appear high because of how doctors record fatalities. 

“The way in which we code deaths in our country is very generous in the sense that all the people who die in hospitals with the coronavirus are deemed to be dying of the coronavirus.

 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/have-many-coronavirus-patients-died-italy/?fbclid=IwAR392Vb6-Q-_97sphDaqpWIogBDI7F_Z1PTh0vqrminL95xU1_XbobdGRBM

[Lichfield Dean]

1 hour ago, sidcow said:

This genuinely is my personal fridge.

 

I had a zoom meeting with my band mates at 8pm. At 7:55pm 24 beers from Two Towers brewery arrived on my doorstep. Perfect timing.

[Kingman]

Philippines President vows to ‘shoot dead’ anyone caught violating lockdown

Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2020/04/02/philippines-president-vows-shoot-dead-anyone-caught-violating-lockdown-12496821/?ito=cbshare&fbclid=IwAR0HoYVsdGN0omOtQSVEdRe-6u1fZVlX0KCwCceHGv8yycJ9OHYmVvI_X6U?ito=cbshare

[jackbauer24]

2 hours ago, terrytini said:

Just not true.

According to the BBC article it is true;

The death figures being reported daily are hospital cases where a person dies with the coronavirus infection in their body - because it is a notifiable disease cases have to be reported.

But what the figures do not tell us is to what extent the virus is causing the death.

It could be the major cause, a contributory factor or simply present when they are dying of something else.

[terrytini]

46 minutes ago, jackbauer24 said:

According to the BBC article it is true;

The death figures being reported daily are hospital cases where a person dies with the coronavirus infection in their body - because it is a notifiable disease cases have to be reported.

But what the figures do not tell us is to what extent the virus is causing the death.

It could be the major cause, a contributory factor or simply present when they are dying of something else.

 

You misunderstand.

“Anyone who carries the virus at the time of death has that information listed on their death certificate.”

Thats the comment in question....

the bit you’ve quoted is true to a point “ where a person dies with the virus in their body”....But.....

Not everyone who dies in Hospital is tested for Coronavirus.....
Much more importantly....Not everyone who dies is in a Hospital.

( for - one particularly galling - example residents of Care Homes receiving Hospital treatment for non- virus causes have been returned to Care Homes, without being tested, and have  died having contracted the disease in hospital)

Its not worth devoting much time to the debate.( I won’t anyway I’ve said my bit)...because..

...Any debate about figures is fraught with danger. For many reasons. There is merit to the notion that in some cases death from the virus is replacing death from something else. But there’s cases where the “ something else” was treatable. There’s cases where the “ something else’s “ are turned away. 
 

This article is very informative as to some of the problems with the statistics.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200401-coronavirus-why-death-and-mortality-rates-differ

The safest bet with the stats is to look at curves from many countries, each of whom compile in different ways, yet each of which correlate for the most part.

And for anyone who IS debating the numbers, to always remember that the deaths are just a horrible fraction of the appalling true cost to human health.

There are tens of thousands not dying but who are appallingly ill, who wouldn’t have otherwise been. 

 

 

Edited April 2, 2020 by terrytini
Added link to article

[HanoiVillan]

More Tory-supporting newspaper grumbles tomorrow as well:

[Xann]

The Sun and the Mail are poison.

The Tories weren't to know they were going to have to run services rather than sell them.

[Xann]

   Have you been mis-sold PPE . . ?

[terrytini]

It occurs to me there may be someone who would like to know what’s what with this Hospital Testing malarkey.

(WARNING - I’m not a medical professional this is just stuff I’ve learnt myself in the last few weeks)

So here I go..

This is a link to the Government guidance to Health professionals for the criteria re investigation and management of possible corona cases....

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/wuhan-novel-coronavirus-initial-investigation-of-possible-cases/investigation-and-initial-clinical-management-of-possible-cases-of-wuhan-novel-coronavirus-wn-cov-infection#interim-definition-possible-cases

So that’s the criteria for admission/ testing etc.

Heres a link to the Form used in Hospitals which makes direct reference to that guidance

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/875209/COVID19_E28_form_V4_24-03-2020.pdf

 

Heres a link to a BMJ article re guidelines discussed by Royal College Of Pathologists ( coz I can only find the article...I did read the original but can’t find it)

https://jcp.bmj.com/content/jclinpath/early/2020/03/20/jclinpath-2020-206522.full.pdf#page4

Here’s the most relevant bit....

 

“These criteria ( ie the guidelines I’ve linked above) are the same when the patient is deceased with the exception that the timelines given in the guidance refer to the time prior death or onset of relevant symptoms before death where known (outlined in Box 1).
If it is considered that COVID-19 may have been related to death by these criteria, the choice of either to perform a full postmortem or an examination is limited only to retrieving the samples required to verify COVID-19 infection.”

Hence....Testing for the virus is not carried out on every death in hospital as a matter of course, and therefore the stats relate to where infection is known only.

[Withnail]

11 hours ago, wazzap24 said:

What’s the VT moral stance on ordering ‘non-essential’ items online for home delivery? 

Twitter seems split 50/50 between - it’s helping keep some people in work and parts of the economy going, or anybody who orders anything that isn’t food/medicine is a mass murdering scumbag? 
 

I’ve ordered quite a bit of stuff recently, majority essential, but a fair amount that isn’t. 
 

 

There is ordering from Amazon and ordering through Amazon.  If it is fulfilled by Amazon, yes it is done in a huge warehouse by folk that are stressed, overwhelmed, overworked, not protected and paid poorly.  If it is not processed by Amazon but by a independent store for example the bookstore I work at. I will go in tomorrow and process any orders that we have.  Hopefully that will keep our heads above water and we can come out of this somewhat intact. Now adding volume to the postal service is another conundrum that is beyond pay grade. But books are a good thing.  More reading, less nonsense would be a good thing.

[bickster]

I'd suggest the ordering of "non-essential items" online is what is likely to keep most of us sane. We've ordered a lead to connect the daughters laptop to the telly, a couple of games and a few other odds and sods

[KenjiOgiwara]

Stupid question time. 

Would be it a better solution to isolate those who are in risk groups, i.e. elderly, asthmatics, those with diabetes etc. then shutting down everything? If it's the risk groups that's the key in terms of avoiding hospitals to reach capacities, wouldn't everyone be better off if society went on as normal and at the same time build a herd immunity?  

[LondonLax]

34 minutes ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

Stupid question time. 

Would be it a better solution to isolate those who are in risk groups, i.e. elderly, asthmatics, those with diabetes etc. then shutting down everything? If it's the risk groups that's the key in terms of avoiding hospitals to reach capacities, wouldn't everyone be better off if society went on as normal and at the same time build a herd immunity?  

Well roughly that is what Sweden is doing. 

[bickster]

And what we were going to do until Domo and Bojo took their clown make-up off and looked at the figures

[markavfc40]

1 hour ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

Stupid question time. 

Would be it a better solution to isolate those who are in risk groups, i.e. elderly, asthmatics, those with diabetes etc. then shutting down everything? If it's the risk groups that's the key in terms of avoiding hospitals to reach capacities, wouldn't everyone be better off if society went on as normal and at the same time build a herd immunity?  

The issue is that whilst younger relatively healthy people aren't dying in large numbers if we just let the vast majority of the population go on as normal there is a risk that tens of thousands of younger relatively healthy people will need ICU care/ventilation and the hospitals would quickly become overwhelmed. You would then have thousands of people who would otherwise live  if they can get the right care dying as they couldn't access a ventilator etc.

Edited April 3, 2020 by markavfc40

[sidcow]

1 hour ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

Stupid question time. 

Would be it a better solution to isolate those who are in risk groups, i.e. elderly, asthmatics, those with diabetes etc. then shutting down everything? If it's the risk groups that's the key in terms of avoiding hospitals to reach capacities, wouldn't everyone be better off if society went on as normal and at the same time build a herd immunity?  

Because tens of thousands of people with unknown health conditions would die unnecessarily along with hundreds of other otherwise healthy people who would also die because it will kill even some young and healthy people too. 

And Hospitals would be utterly overwhelmed by hundreds of thousands of people needing treatment. 

People need to get away from this attitude that unless you have a health condition you just drop a couple of paracetamol and get on with it. 

Even young healthy people will become gravely ill. 

Edited April 3, 2020 by sidcow