Generic Virus Thread

[ml1dch]

2 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

Yep, I mean it’s all well and good freaking out about the number of positive tests being returned but if 90% (for example) of those positive tests are asymptomatic then how much of a problem actually is it - I understand the need to still control the spread but what is the actual risk to life?

That those 90% aren't going to separate themselves from the other 10%.

[desensitized43]

2 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

On that one:

 

But they haven't modelled the political effect of doing something like this that reinforces the false narrative that this is all being caused by youths not following the guidance.

Divide and Rule

[HanoiVillan]

I think the basis of my opinions on this whole situation, is that until they either extend furlough, or make statutory sick pay and Universal Credit massively more generous, and therefore give people the tools they need to isolate as and when necessary, that all their measures are fundamentally just for show and are more about reacting to what the public are doing anyway.

[Davkaus]

5 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I think the basis of my opinions on this whole situation, is that until they either extend furlough, or make statutory sick pay and Universal Credit massively more generous, and therefore give people the tools they need to isolate as and when necessary, that all their measures are fundamentally just for show and are more about reacting to what the public are doing anyway.

The problem they've got with this is they've spent a decade demonising people on benefits, keeping them as low as possible, and making them as hard to claim as possible. They're not going to willingly admit it's not enough to live on. 

[snowychap]

9 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

or make statutory sick pay and Universal Credit massively more generous

I'm sure I saw a newspaper story (obvious caveats) suggesting that Mr Sunak was considering a(nother) benefits freeze as something to help 'balance the books' ().

[StefanAVFC]

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

THIS **** GUY, HONESTLY

 

He goes to something called 'Prime Minister's Questions' expecting to be told how great he is by his political rival. It''s Trumpian, honestly.

[PaulC]

3 hours ago, bannedfromHandV said:

It seems there is no right solution for dealing with the situation.

Perhaps it’s time to just accept that it exists, do what you can as an individual to avoid catching/spreading it but to get on with life again as ‘normal’, accepting that sadly some people will die because of it (as we do for a range of other illnesses and ailments).

A working test and trace system is one thing they should have got right this summer and now because of that we are in for a very tough winter. 

[Davkaus]

Talking about how we minimise the impact of covid after the mess of the last 6 months reminds me of that old joke about asking for directions in Ireland. How do we minimise the impact of Covid? Well, I wouldn't start from here. 

[HanoiVillan]

14 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

The problem they've got with this is they've spent a decade demonising people on benefits, keeping them as low as possible, and making them as hard to claim as possible. They're not going to willingly admit it's not enough to live on. 

Doubtless hard for them to admit that the things they pretend are intractable problems are in fact not particularly difficult to solve, just require money.

Rachel Sylvester's column in the Times on Sept 15th (behind a paywall obvs) had a quite remarkable paragraph in it, which luckily is contained in this tweet:

 

[blandy]

24 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

Yep, I mean it’s all well and good freaking out about the number of positive tests being returned but if 90% (for example) of those positive tests are asymptomatic then how much of a problem actually is it - I understand the need to still control the spread but what is the actual risk to life?

Definitely agree. One of the things that seems to be overlooked is the lethality/serious illness factor of this disease. The first time round, as @HanoiVillan said it was clear that the aim was to protect the NHS, as there was a massive influx of people needing hospital treatment. This time (so far) there isn't. Now it might happen, of course, but....

Because 5 months on we now know, for the UK, that sadly people in care homes are at significant risk./danger of severe illness. As are the very elderly and those with underlying health issues. Bit everyone else, pretty much not. Hardly anyone, statistically, has died from covi who is under 60 and in reasonable health. 300 odd people from what 403,000 cases confirmed by tests, and probably 2 or 3 times that actually - so 300 in over a million, or 0.03%  or 3 in 10,000 healthy people (very roughly). Currently there are around 20 people a day (from all parts of society) dying from it in the UK and it's not ramping up the same way as before (so far). And Hospital admissions, similarly are not rocketing.

So although the number of positive test cases is as high as it was at the end of march, the number of serious cases is a fraction of what it was.

So the implication is that people catching it now are very largely not those at risk of death or severe illness. And also, so far, there's little evidence of those people spreading it on to more vulnerable folk.

We're at a stage where there are very few current deaths, relatively few hospital admissions. The most important thing they need to sort out (and always have needed to sort out) is the Test and track and Trace  - so that vulnerable people can be properly protected, so local outbreaks can be swiftly managed.

The purpose of first lockdown was to protect the NHS from being flooded with virus patients. It worked. It was too late, but it still did the job of flattening the curve, if not as effectively as an earlier lockdown would have done.

The measures now are not by and large too onerous on people and there seems, currently little medical justification for some of the more severe penalties being mentioned for minor breaches of rules. I guess they want people to adhere to the new rules, but much better to have a clear message than a big stick (no, no Kenny).

[PaulC]

23 minutes ago, blandy said:

Definitely agree. One of the things that seems to be overlooked is the lethality/serious illness factor of this disease. The first time round, as @HanoiVillan said it was clear that the aim was to protect the NHS, as there was a massive influx of people needing hospital treatment. This time (so far) there isn't. Now it might happen, of course, but....Because 5 months on we now know, for the UK, that sadly people in care homes are at significant risk./danger of severe illness. As are the very elderly and those with underlying health issues. Bit everyone else, pretty much not. Hardly anyone, statistically, has died from covi who is under 60 and in reasonable health. 300 odd people from what 403,000 cases confirmed by tests, and probably 2 or 3 times that actually - so 300 in over a million, or 0.03%  or 3 in 10,000 healthy people (very roughly). Currently there are around 20 people a day (from all parts of society) dying from it in the UK and it's not ramping up the same way as before (so far). And Hospital admissions, similarly are not rocketing.

The purpose of first lockdown was to protect the NHS from being flooded with virus patients. It worked. It was too late, but it still did the job of flattening the curve, if not as effectively as an earlier lockdown would have done.

The measures now are not by and large too onerous on people and there seems, currently little medical justification for some of the more severe penalties being mentioned for minor breaches of rules. I guess they want people to adhere to the new rules, but much better to have a clear message than a big stick (no, no Kenny).

We are seeing a rise in hospital cases though and actual deaths. There are now over 1300 patients in hospital with Coronavirus whereas last month it was about 700. If daily infection rates continue to double every 7 days then this will continue to rise and put an extra strain on the NHS. its still the same desease it hasn' t lost its potency.  37 deaths yesterday which is the highest for quite a long time. 

Edited September 23, 2020 by blandy
brevity

[bannedfromHandV]

24 minutes ago, blandy said:

Definitely agree. One of the things that seems to be overlooked is the lethality/serious illness factor of this disease. The first time round, as @HanoiVillan said it was clear that the aim was to protect the NHS, as there was a massive influx of people needing hospital treatment. This time (so far) there isn't. Now it might happen, of course, but....Because 5 months on we now know, for the UK, that sadly people in care homes are at significant risk./danger of severe illness. As are the very elderly and those with underlying health issues. Bit everyone else, pretty much not. Hardly anyone, statistically, has died from covi who is under 60 and in reasonable health. 300 odd people from what 403,000 cases confirmed by tests, and probably 2 or 3 times that actually - so 300 in over a million, or 0.03%  or 3 in 10,000 healthy people (very roughly). Currently there are around 20 people a day (from all parts of society) dying from it in the UK and it's not ramping up the same way as before (so far). And Hospital admissions, similarly are not rocketing.

We're at a stage where there are very few current deaths, relatively few hospital admissions. The most important thing they need to sort out (and always have needed to sort out) is the Test and track and Trace  - so that vulnerable people can be properly protected, so local outbreaks can be swiftly managed.

The purpose of first lockdown was to protect the NHS from being flooded with virus patients. It worked. It was too late, but it still did the job of flattening the curve, if not as effectively as an earlier lockdown would have done.

The measures now are not by and large too onerous on people and there seems, currently little medical justification for some of the more severe penalties being mentioned for minor breaches of rules. I guess they want people to adhere to the new rules, but much better to have a clear message than a big stick (no, no Kenny).

Being horribly blunt too, you'd have to think that not only are the NHS not dealing with a large influx of virus related admissions but actually, they probably have additional capacity across the board given that the first wave of the virus took out many people who were of ill health and would be requiring hospitalisation and care right now on a regular basis.

It just doesn't add up, or at least, doesn't appear to.

I have to temper it all with the fact that I really have little or no understanding of how this all works.

[blandy]

5 minutes ago, PaulC said:

We are seeing a rise in hospital cases though and actual deaths. There are now over 1300 patients in hospital with Coronavirus whereas last month it was about 700. If daily infection rates continue to double every 7 days then this will continue to rise and put an extra strain on the NHS. its still the same desease it hasn' t lost its potency.  37 deaths yesterday which is the highest for quite a long time. 

Sure, we are. Yet it's not the same pattern as previously (yet). You're dead right the virus hasn't gone away and there's no vaccine. There is better treatment, thankfully, but it remains a potent danger for the elderly or unwell. It is not a potent danger for the young and healthy. There's a microscopic chance of dying from it for the young. The important thing is to protect the vulnerable. Largely (outside care homes) those people are adopting strong precautions. Care homes too are better placed and the Government mostly isn't seeding people from hospital with virus into care homes, or untested people into care homes.

In other words, we know more about the virus and treatment and management of it medically.

Also on the stats, given the virus hasn't gone away or got less potent, the death figures from April time suggest that the prevalence of the virus in society was very wide. I mean now with many more tests being done, and a similar number of recorded positive tests, but a fraction of the deaths - 8 April 1000+ deaths, 4000+ cases - compare that with  14 Sept 18 deaths and 3400 cases - so this suggests that probably in April there were maybe towards 400,000 actual current cases at the time, lockdown was introduced - taking into account the time lag between confirmation and death (all an approximation, I accept, using the number of cases around 2-3 weeks prior to the deaths giving a factor of 50 for known cases from deaths and then doubling it for untested cases). That stresses why we have to sort out test track and isolate. With comprehensive, quick reliable testing widely available it can be managed with minimal harm to the economy and education etc. Without it, you will get repeated, clunky lockdown type situations.

[Chindie]

Theres more to a virus than just it's lethality.

It appears that it seems to have longer lasting effects in some people that are otherwise healthy. I'm not sure you can just ignore that.

[blandy]

46 minutes ago, Chindie said:

Theres more to a virus than just it's lethality.

It appears that it seems to have longer lasting effects in some people that are otherwise healthy. I'm not sure you can just ignore that.

Of course.

What I'm thinking about is the proportionality of the actions against the overall risks and problems. We were seeing up to and around a thousand deaths a day in April, from the virus - essentially lockdown was a no brainer. Hypothetically, now we're seeing a similar number of reported cases, but a fraction of the number of deaths. Of course, they will rise again (not from the dead, like some viral zombie army, but in numbers...obviously) so er, the measures taken need to be appropriate for the risks and the danger.  Simplistically, you don't take the same measures to protect largely non-vulnerable teenagers as against highly vulnerable elderly people. Somewhere on the spectrum of "no vaccine, no way to get rid of it, lots of deaths and illnesses in the elderly - vaccine, almost no deaths or serious problems for the young" there is a close to optimal set of actions and measures. I fear that the government is playing a blame game and a propaganda game, rather than a pure response to the virus and infections. I think they're basically incompetent in most aspects and are arse covering.

[Xela]

20 hours ago, Genie said:

Pick me up a couple of 15 packs of cushelle  will ya

Supermarket feedback

- Busier than last time

- Toilet roll in stock but a few empty shelves which suggest heavier than usual demand

- Everyone wearing masks

- I treated myself to some strawberry laces

[blandy]

Just now, Xela said:

- Toilet roll in stock but a few empty shelves which suggest heavier than usual demand

I thought there were 4 rolls in the loo, but there weren't. They were kitchen roll in the wrong place. At least there was something there!. Anyway loads in the supermarket, on offer even. I can "rest" easy again.

[HanoiVillan]

2 hours ago, blandy said:

Sure, we are. Yet it's not the same pattern as previously (yet). You're dead right the virus hasn't gone away and there's no vaccine. There is better treatment, thankfully, but it remains a potent danger for the elderly or unwell. It is not a potent danger for the young and healthy. There's a microscopic chance of dying from it for the young. The important thing is to protect the vulnerable. Largely (outside care homes) those people are adopting strong precautions. Care homes too are better placed and the Government mostly isn't seeding people from hospital with virus into care homes, or untested people into care homes.

In other words, we know more about the virus and treatment and management of it medically.

Also on the stats, given the virus hasn't gone away or got less potent, the death figures from April time suggest that the prevalence of the virus in society was very wide. I mean now with many more tests being done, and a similar number of recorded positive tests, but a fraction of the deaths - 8 April 1000+ deaths, 4000+ cases - compare that with  14 Sept 18 deaths and 3400 cases - so this suggests that probably in April there were maybe towards 400,000 actual current cases at the time, lockdown was introduced - taking into account the time lag between confirmation and death (all an approximation, I accept, using the number of cases around 2-3 weeks prior to the deaths giving a factor of 50 for known cases from deaths and then doubling it for untested cases). That stresses why we have to sort out test track and isolate. With comprehensive, quick reliable testing widely available it can be managed with minimal harm to the economy and education etc. Without it, you will get repeated, clunky lockdown type situations.

Good post IMO, and not much I don't agree with, but I think with regard to your final lines, I think the stress needs to be that financial support is significantly > testing, both in the sense that it's even more important , and that it needs to be sorted first. And I say that not because I'm a leftie who wants to hand out cash all over the place - although I am that, obviously - but because people will only seek out testing when needed and respond in the way desired if it isn't going to hurt their financial interests.

A good example of the problem is illustrated by this exchange with Dominic Raab, and the tweets around it:

Obviously Raab may have pulled the 7% figure here out of his ass - or he might not - but there are false positives in testing, and as the government commit to ramping up testing even further that number is guaranteed to rise. People may come to regard the chances of a positive test result being a 'true positive' as quite small, and act accordingly (by carrying on their normal lives). This is of course just one reason why people may not react to a positive result in the desired fashion, but it's clearly going to be true that the best way we have of trying to get people to act responsibly even if they don't feel sick, even if they may not actually *be* sick, is to ensure that they don't lose out financially by doing so.

[blandy]

58 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Good post IMO, and not much I don't agree with, but I think with regard to your final lines, I think the stress needs to be that financial support is significantly > testing, both in the sense that it's even more important , and that it needs to be sorted first. And I say that not because I'm a leftie who wants to hand out cash all over the place - although I am that, obviously - but because people will only seek out testing when needed and respond in the way desired if it isn't going to hurt their financial interests.

A good example of the problem is illustrated by this exchange with Dominic Raab, and the tweets around it:

Thank you. FWIW I think both testing and financial support go hand in hand. If they get the testing right - effective, fast turn round, accurate results  - then the financial support can be better targeted and be lost costly as it will (and should) only go to those who need it. I see testing as the absolute imperative to get right, and have all along. If you know who's got it, where it is and so on then you can help those people medically and finically and minimise further contagion via supported isolation. Neither is any good without the other, really. Sure the support during lockdown was necessary, but another lockdown really should be avoided.

[darrenm]

I don't understand why no-one else is mentioning that this will probably be a non issue by the new year because of at least one of the vaccines.