Generic Virus Thread

[KentVillan]

4 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I don't disagree with any of what you're saying. Flattening the curve is really important, and we will need to move to tougher distancing measures soon, as I mentioned above. In no way am I suggesting we just wait around for the inflection point and do nothing!

Yep was just adding to your posts, not disagreeing!

I am starting to shit my pants tbh.

I’d like to see the govt do what the Australians did during the 07/08 crisis - a cash handout to every household to weather the storm and stimulate the economy. They could also make a similar payment to every business (on a per employee basis) to incentivise doing the right thing, rather than trying to carry on with business as usual.

Pumping money into the financial system only serves to protect the banks. Need to do something with more immediate, tangible impact on households.

[KentVillan]

4 minutes ago, tinker said:

How do we treat it if hospitals become full. Painkillers for the pain, drink water, purchase our own oxygen concentrators , use inhalers/ steroids . Think we have to move onto to the assumption we are going to get it and prepare to home treatment. 

Unfortunately i can see a situation were people die from the lack of a ventilator, oxygen ...

They have to start triaging - ie selecting patients on the basis of likelihood of survival, importance to society, etc. You can imagine how that might work out... not good. But Italy are already living through this reality.

[StefanAVFC]

Oopsie-daisie with Dorries. She will have met literally hundreds of people whilst infected and asymptomatic.

UK response is about to get pressed I think.

In Poland, schools are closed, public events cancelled, libraries closed, pools closed and we only have 21 cases.

I think in my heart of hearts I know cancelling this holiday is the right move but it's still shit.

[snowychap]

5 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

selecting patients on the basis of likelihood of survival, importance to society, etc.

Who is going to be determining this 'importance to society'?

Making some kind of clinical decision on likelihood of survival & so on - fine.

'Importance to society' - wtf?

Edited March 10, 2020 by snowychap

[kiltorken]

4 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

Oopsie-daisie with Dorries. She will have met literally hundreds of people whilst infected and asymptomatic.

UK response is about to get pressed I think.

In Poland, schools are closed, public events cancelled, libraries closed, pools closed and we only have 21 cases.

I think in my heart of hearts I know cancelling this holiday is the right move but it's still shit.

When and where is the holiday? 

[wazzap24]

Italian doctor on Newsnight just said they are seeing a fair number of ‘younger people’ being hospitalised with the virus. 

Younger people being 25-59. 

 

[HanoiVillan]

12 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

Yep was just adding to your posts, not disagreeing!

I am starting to shit my pants tbh.

I’d like to see the govt do what the Australians did during the 07/08 crisis - a cash handout to every household to weather the storm and stimulate the economy. They could also make a similar payment to every business (on a per employee basis) to incentivise doing the right thing, rather than trying to carry on with business as usual.

Pumping money into the financial system only serves to protect the banks. Need to do something with more immediate, tangible impact on households.

I think that's an excellent idea. I didn't know the Australians did it, but I know something similar has been proposed in America by Claudia Sahm, where these cash payments would be automatically triggered if the unemployment rate of the last three months rises at least 0.5% over the average of the past 12 months. Automatic stabilisers are definitely worth exploring IMO.

[HanoiVillan]

Interesting factoid:

Two airport screening contractors have tested positive; having tested more than 53,000 incoming passengers, only one positive case was found amongst them.

[Kingman]

So the Health minister Nadine Dorries tests positive for Coronavirus - and she attended a Downing St reception in the last few days where Boris was present.

Does this mean our PM and the Cabinet all have to self isolate for 2 weeks - plus possibly loads of MPs and the Royal family?

Who is running the country?

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/coronavirus-infected-minster-nadine-dorries-had-been-in-no-10-c3sjs5kmp

[StefanAVFC]

24 minutes ago, kiltorken said:

When and where is the holiday? 

Gran Canaria on Sunday -> Sunday

But via Birmingham on Friday then back to Poland from Stansted in 2 weeks.

[kiltorken]

3 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

Gran Canaria on Sunday -> Sunday

But via Birmingham on Friday then back to Poland from Stansted in 2 weeks.

Could see why you'd be wary considering thats a lot of terminals to be traveling through. 

[KentVillan]

32 minutes ago, snowychap said:

Who is going to be determining this 'importance to society'?

Making some kind of clinical decision on likelihood of survival & so on - fine.

'Importance to society' - wtf?

That was my point ffs

[LakotaDakota]

16 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

Gran Canaria on Sunday -> Sunday

But via Birmingham on Friday then back to Poland from Stansted in 2 weeks.

Just take the time off anyway & do what you can to have a nice relaxing time at home.

The best holiday i have every single year is the week i book off for my birthday, Most years i don't end up actually doing anything other than catching up with some tv shows/movies/books & a bit of general tidying around the house but the 9/10 days off is by far the best part of any holiday

[StefanAVFC]

Just now, LakotaDakota said:

Just take the time off anyway & do what you can to have a nice relaxing time at home.

The best holiday i have every single year is the week i book off for my birthday, Most years i don't end up actually doing anything other than catching up with some tv shows/movies/books & a bit of general tidying around the house but the 9/10 days off is by far the best part of any holiday

We had 2 weeks off planned, 1 week away and 1 week split across both sets of family.

Instead we'll go to our lakehouse down south for 5 days and just get away from the world for a bit.

[mikeyp102]

13 minutes ago, LakotaDakota said:

Just take the time off anyway & do what you can to have a nice relaxing time at home.

The best holiday i have every single year is the week i book off for my birthday, Most years i don't end up actually doing anything other than catching up with some tv shows/movies/books & a bit of general tidying around the house but the 9/10 days off is by far the best part of any holiday

I’d hate that. If I take a couple of days off and just potter round the house I get bored. I put in weight as just eating crap, back starts to hurt as slouch when watching loads of telly and I get cabin fever. But each to their own 

[snowychap]

38 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

That was my point ffs

I didn't put my point across clearly (I've looked back at my post and it wasn't clear at all).

I didn't just mean to question the validity of any such 'importance to society' criterion (a point you made) but to question the notion of including one as part of 'triaging', i.e. who is proposing this and where?

Edited March 10, 2020 by snowychap

[KentVillan]

14 minutes ago, snowychap said:

I didn't put my point across clearly (I've looked back at my post and it wasn't clear at all).

I didn't just mean to question the validity of any such 'importance to society' criterion (a point you made) but to question the notion of including one as part of 'triaging', i.e. who is proposing this and where?

The point is that the health service will be so stretched that just following the usual triage process of (a) how serious, (b) how likely to benefit from treatment, will still leave far too many people in the top category for urgent treatment.

So in Italy they've started making fairly harsh decisions on the basis of age (which is what I meant by "importance to society" - i.e. economic importance of working age adults vs retired adults). I didn't mean it as my own judgment of that person's importance, but you get what I mean.

But clearly on top of that they will be prioritising treatment for the Royal Family, government ministers, etc. I would imagine. I'm not saying that I agree with that, necessarily, but I'm sure that's what will happen.

So my point was simply that the further they stretch the health service, the more of these very difficult value judgments they'll have to make - judgments that will divide people and society if they don't get them absolutely right.

Edit: contrast with normal A&E triage which is much simpler https://www.datadictionary.nhs.uk/data_dictionary/attributes/a/a_and_e_initial_assessment_triage_category_de.asp?shownav=1

Quote

The category assigned to a PATIENT as a result of an initial assessment by medical or nursing staff in an Accident and Emergency Department.

The triage category is used to determine the PATIENT's priority for treatment, and to inform the PATIENT of their waiting time.

National Codes:

1	Immediate resuscitation. PATIENTS in need of immediate treatment for preservation of life.
2	Very urgent. Seriously ill or injured PATIENTS whose lives are not in immediate danger.
3	Urgent. PATIENTS with serious problems, but apparently stable condition.
4	Standard. Standard A&E cases without immediate danger or distress.
5	Non-urgent. PATIENTS whose conditions are not true accidents or emergencies.

I'm not a medical professional, so just sharing this from stuff I've found - if anyone knows more, please correct me.

But I remember reading about that horrific mass shooting in Las Vegas in 2017, where they had way too many patients to deal with, and they had to make some very harsh triage decisions, that involved leaving patients to bleed out who ordinarily might have been saved. That's the kind of horrendous decision that will have to be taken if we allow this to peak sharply. It's very clear that that is what is happening in Italy at the moment. People are dying who would ordinarily not have died if there were more hospital capacity.

Edited March 11, 2020 by KentVillan

[Johnnyp]

1 hour ago, kiltorken said:

Travelling from Dublin to Birmingham on Friday through to Sunday for the Chelsea game with the old man, while I'm not normally a worrier I'm a bit concerned about his wellbeing seeing as hes in his 70s bit worried about him picking something up. Should we give this one a miss? 

Personally, i would. I know it's extraordinary measures to take but these are extraordinary circumstances. Unprecedented.

[snowychap]

14 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

The point is that the health service will be so stretched that just following the usual triage process of (a) how serious, (b) how likely to benefit from treatment, will still leave far too many people in the top category for urgent treatment.

So in Italy they've started making fairly harsh decisions on the basis of age (which is what I meant by "importance to society" - i.e. economic importance of working age adults vs retired adults). I didn't mean it as my own judgment of that person's importance, but you get what I mean.

But clearly on top of that they will be prioritising treatment for the Royal Family, government ministers, etc. I would imagine. I'm not saying that I agree with that, necessarily, but I'm sure that's what will happen.

So my point was simply that the further they stretch the health service, the more of these very difficult value judgments they'll have to make - judgments that will divide people and society if they don't get them absolutely right.

Have you any evidence that decisions in Italy being made on the basis of age are officially about 'importance to society' rather than one part of a clinical assessment of treatment priorities? There may well be such evidence but might it also be that you're reading something in to it which isn't there?

Sure, some people may well find themselves in medical situations that are dissimilar to the vast majority of the population, i.e. I doubt those kinds of people to whom you refer are going to be rocking up at A&E and looking to be placed in the converted OR, on the whole.

There are some really quite bizarre leaps here. You appear to have decided upon a (potential though likely) problem - that simple clinical assessment won't be sufficient to properly distribute the available resources - and thought that they then absolutely must find a further way of restricting those resources, taken what may happen to a very small section of the population (i.e. VVIPs) and jumped to the idea that this is what is or would happen across the board in the public health service.

[maqroll]

1 hour ago, wazzap24 said:

Italian doctor on Newsnight just said they are seeing a fair number of ‘younger people’ being hospitalised with the virus. 

Younger people being 25-59. 

 

I'm 49 and I've had pneumonia twice. I live and work in a port city. I'm paying attention right now.