Generic Virus Thread

[Kingman]

Otherwise healthy 47 year old paramedic dies of coronavirus at home:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/coronavirus-paramedic-47-becomes-one-21696010

No underlying health condition, no overwhelmed intensive care unit which couldn't treat him because the peak in the number of cases was too sharp. He just went home with a fever and died during the night.

Personally I am still not convinced that just letting this thing rip through the working age population to create herd immunity is such a good idea. 

[Kingman]

Public face £1,000 fine or custody for refusing coronavirus tests and quarantine 

The emergency powers, expected to be announced this week, allow police in England and Wales to use ‘reasonable force’ to detain people who are at risk of infecting others

•  Sarah Knapton, Science Editor 
•  
• Anna Mikhailova, Deputy Political Editor 

15 MARCH 2020 • 9:30 PM

People aged over 70 face up to four months in self-isolation and the public risk being taken into jail or a £1,000 fine if they refuse to be tested or quarantined for suspected coronavirus. 

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/03/15/public-face-prison-1000-fine-refusing-coronavirus-tests/amp/ 

[KentVillan]

I think the government's policy on large gatherings (inc. sporting events) is the thing they have got badly wrong. I don't know why their models are telling them these events aren't high risk, but clearly something has gone slightly wrong in the way the question is being framed.

It seems transparently obvious to me that large events attract people from a wider geographical area, and even if there isn't much transmission inside the event itself, they often involve travelling on cramped public transport, walking through crowded entrance / exit areas, and visiting pubs and restaurants before and after.

There is also the point Nicola Sturgeon made about consistency of messaging: if you allow these events to go ahead, you confuse the public about how serious the problem is.

What bothers me even further is that I don't really think the question of whether or not to allow these events was "scientific". The politicians are hiding behind the scientific advisers on this one, but I suspect the advisers haven't given them a firm answer either way, and are being used as human shields.

The evidence from Iran and Korea seems pretty clear that mass gatherings were a major source of disease spread. **** your modelling when you have empirical evidence like that.

[Kingman]

Fed cuts rates by 100bps to 0-25bps from 1.00 -1.25bps. Restart QE 

SP500 futures down 4.8% today.  Goldman predicts Q2 US GDP -5%. 700bn are peanuts. 

FED 700bn of QE, how bad were the futures looking... and now.

I thought last Monday and all week was bad, regardless of the UK's Baaa herd management the wheels are coming right off the global economy this time.

Edited March 15, 2020 by Kingman

[Kingman]

If this will take a year according to their plans why not suppress it with more aggressive social distancing and save 0.5mln lives.

The coronavirus epidemic in the UK will last until next spring and could lead to 7.9 million people being hospitalised, a secret Public Health England (PHE) briefing for senior NHS officials reveals.

The document says that: “As many as 80% of the population are expected to be infected with Covid-19 in the next 12 months, and up to 15% (7.9 million people) may require hospitalisation.”

A senior NHS figure involved in preparing for the growing “surge” in patients whose lives are being put at risk by Covid-19 said an 80% infection rate could lead to more than half a million people dying.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/15/uk-coronavirus-crisis-to-last-until-spring-2021-and-could-see-79m-hospitalised

[markavfc40]

Says it all about the state our NHS is in. 

 

Edited March 16, 2020 by markavfc40

[KentVillan]

Yep, friends who are doctors and nurses have been telling me about this "work through the illness" advice for a couple of weeks now. It's not a new thing. It seems to be quite common across the NHS.

[HanoiVillan]

Okay, I'm going to stop spamming the thread with Twitter stuff for the night, but one important thread to conclude:

Yes, it's long, but it's worth a read. However, if that's TL/DR, the basic point is that Whitty appears mistaken about why cases declined in Wuhan, and the reason he seems confused is that he thinks a lot more of the population has 'herd immunity' than actually does, and that this confusion is driving a tragic mistake in this country.

[markavfc40]

1 hour ago, Kingman said:

Otherwise healthy 47 year old paramedic dies of coronavirus at home:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/coronavirus-paramedic-47-becomes-one-21696010

No underlying health condition, no overwhelmed intensive care unit which couldn't treat him because the peak in the number of cases was too sharp. He just went home with a fever and died during the night.

Personally I am still not convinced that just letting this thing rip through the working age population to create herd immunity is such a good idea. 

The suggestion seems to be that he was frequently exposed to the virus. I have zero clue but is this likely to make a difference? 

It is bad enough knowing this is only likely to affect older people, in terms of dying, but I think if more cases of younger apparently fit people come out then this will get scarier than it already is.

 

Edited March 16, 2020 by markavfc40

[KentVillan]

22 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Okay, I'm going to stop spamming the thread with Twitter stuff for the night, but one important thread to conclude:

Yes, it's long, but it's worth a read. However, if that's TL/DR, the basic point is that Whitty appears mistaken about why cases declined in Wuhan, and the reason he seems confused is that he thinks a lot more of the population has 'herd immunity' than actually does, and that this confusion is driving a tragic mistake in this country.

This is hands down the most important, illuminating thing I have read on Covid-19 since the outbreak began.

Deserves to be very widely shared.

Edit: although @HanoiVillan I'm not sure it's fair to say that Whitty has based his decision on the incorrect assumption about herd immunity in Wuhan. Also, it's possible that Whitty meant 20% immunity in a particular area of Wuhan (since obviously there will be concentrations of infection in different parts of Wuhan province). It's easy to misspeak in a radio interview, when back at HQ you are dealing with the correct stats. But I agree with the author of the thread that it's concerning if he is wrong and this has fed into decision-making.

Edited March 16, 2020 by KentVillan

[maqroll]

1 hour ago, Kingman said:

Otherwise healthy 47 year old paramedic dies of coronavirus at home:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/coronavirus-paramedic-47-becomes-one-21696010

No underlying health condition, no overwhelmed intensive care unit which couldn't treat him because the peak in the number of cases was too sharp. He just went home with a fever and died during the night.

Personally I am still not convinced that just letting this thing rip through the working age population to create herd immunity is such a good idea. 

The Italians have been saying they're seeing younger people die now too. 

[KentVillan]

Footage of that Stereophonics gig.

I'm just at a loss now to explain how the govt's modelling says this isn't dangerous. Someone has made a mistake in the way they've framed the problem, surely? Just seems utterly implausible that events like this don't increase the spread of the virus through more communities.

[Daweii]

1 hour ago, KentVillan said:

Footage of that Stereophonics gig.

I'm just at a loss now to explain how the govt's modelling says this isn't dangerous. Someone has made a mistake in the way they've framed the problem, surely? Just seems utterly implausible that events like this don't increase the spread of the virus through more communities.

The Government need to step in about mass gatherings. They can say that people need to self-police and isolate if they feel ill, but I guarantee tickets to that show were likely £100+ a ticket. The only way people aren't going to that show despite the risks is if the Government cancel everything.

[KentVillan]

https://www.endcoronavirus.org/

Quote

The key to stopping the spread of the virus is to lower connectivity

Every time the virus does not infect another person, it has a massive impact on reducing the growth of overall infections. The better informed we all are on the actions we can take, the better we will serve our most vulnerable loved ones and our healthcare infrastructure at large.

Without intervention, it is estimated that an individual with the virus will infect on average 3-4 other people, resulting in an exponential increase in the number of cases over time. If social connectivity can be lowered such that the average number of people that an individual with the virus infects is less than one other person, the number of cases will exponentially decrease over time instead.

Highly recommend watching the video on that website:

 

[Awol]

On 06/03/2020 at 20:08, Awol said:

It’s strange how different the figures in Italy are. If you look at today’s totals there, it’s 4636 infected and 197 deaths. A straightforward comparison gives you a case fatality rate (CFR) of 4.25%. 

One of the earlier videos Dr John Campbell did on YouTube said to get a more accurate CFR you needed to compare data points differently, because the severe complications leading to death occurred 7-21 days after infection. 

Looking again at the Italy figures, on Thursday 27th of Feb the total number of detected infections was 655. Seven days later on Thursday 5th of March, the total number of deaths was 148. Using those figures produces a CFR of 22.59%. 

Whether that’s the correct methodology or not, there does seem to be something qualitatively different about the virus in Italy. It can’t simply be down to demographic profile as the causal factor. 

@terrytini As you say, introducing a time lag when calculating CFRs makes quite a difference. 
 

Edit: just looked at that again using more recent numbers. 

As at 8th March Italy had following totals: 7375 cases, 366 dead.

As at 15th March Italy had following totals: 24,747 cases, 1809 dead. 

Using the same method of calculating CFR with a seven day lag between total deaths and total cases, that still gives us a CFR of 24.52%. Not dissimilar to the calculation between 27th Feb and 5th March at 22.59%.

I know it’s not that simple, that there are other variables involved and lots of complex modeling to get the right answer. But still. Wow. 

Edit 2: thinking about it logically, they means the total case numbers are under recorded by an order of magnitude. Ten times the actual number of cases gives you a CFR of between 2-2.5%, which seems much more realistic. So Italy’s total cases today are nearer to 250,000 than 24,700. 
 

So fag packet figures again, we could expect about 8,000 deaths per million cases, and 52 million of us (UK) are expected to get infected. So total deaths in the order of 550,000, if we’re anything like Italy over time. And the NHS holds together.

Sorry, this is all over the place... 

Edited March 16, 2020 by Awol
More sums

[leighavfc]

4 hours ago, KentVillan said:

Footage of that Stereophonics gig.

I'm just at a loss now to explain how the govt's modelling says this isn't dangerous. Someone has made a mistake in the way they've framed the problem, surely? Just seems utterly implausible that events like this don't increase the spread of the virus through more communities.

Exactly and what the f*****g hell do all those people inside that gig think they are doing? Have they heard or read the news in the past 3 months or so? 

This decision to attend concerts etc has to be taken out of these morons hands. People will have paid good money for stuff like this and are not likely to make the right decision with money involved. For me it's the same with religious gatherings too, its just not worth the risk at all, these are the things that will undo the mostly good work that many of us up and down the country will be doing minute by minute of each day. I'm supposed to be going to Glastonbury, I can tell you now I'd rather throw the couple hundred quid away and keep well away from there. It will be a breeding ground for it..... 

It's got to stop and now. If we dont prevent it will circumvent...

Edited March 16, 2020 by leighavfc

[leighavfc]

NYC, Vegas and LA all shutting bars and restaurants etc now too.

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

18 minutes ago, leighavfc said:

NYC, Vegas and LA all shutting bars and restaurants etc now too.

Coffee Shops in Holland shut for 3 weeks 

[Awol]

5 hours ago, KentVillan said:

This is hands down the most important, illuminating thing I have read on Covid-19 since the outbreak began.

Deserves to be very widely shared.

Edit: although @HanoiVillan I'm not sure it's fair to say that Whitty has based his decision on the incorrect assumption about herd immunity in Wuhan. Also, it's possible that Whitty meant 20% immunity in a particular area of Wuhan (since obviously there will be concentrations of infection in different parts of Wuhan province). It's easy to misspeak in a radio interview, when back at HQ you are dealing with the correct stats. But I agree with the author of the thread that it's concerning if he is wrong and this has fed into decision-making.

The thread author is basing his conclusions on indefinite restrictions of movement on the population (internally and externally) until such time as a vaccine is available - realistic consensus seems to be around 12 months. That’s a formula for economic devastation on a global scale. 

[maqroll]

better buy your booze at stores while you can