SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

prateik said:
What exactly is the worst case scenario? No vaccine for a while.. eventually infects 60%+ of the population.. kills several million. and then goes away..

Or keeps coming back with different strains, making no one immune and vaccines ineffective?
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Worst case scenario involves no vaccine ever and no long term immunity after infection (or even no short term immunity) combined with more severe disease with each second and subsequent infection (which is what happens with Dengue Fever).

I said yesterday that this would wipe us off the face of the earth in that scenario. I was probably exaggerating. There would come a point where it would get too lethal to be able to keep spreading. Mankind would be basically fecked though. End of days. The Dengue fever thing would be unbelievably bad luck but no vaccine/no long-term immunity is not all that unlikely.
 
11101 said:
I could see it being here for a long time but we learn to live with it until it dwindles away.

At the moment it strikes the balance of lethality and ability to spread. As more people get it and become immune, the ability to spread will naturally reduce, so it either weakens to adapt or it dies out.

I'm quite confident you can get at least some immunity from it too. After 2,000,000 infected, ~500k recoveries, if you didn't I'm sure we would have been able confirm at least one reinfection by now.
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Duration of immunity the key here. Anything less than 12 months and we’ll get annual cycles of this, like seasonal flu. We haven’t followed up anyone who’s recovered for more than a couple of months.
 
SportingCP96 said:
I just want to own up and say how terribly wrong I was. I massively underestimated something I knew nothing about and I was beyond ignorant in assumptions and claims I made when this was all beginning.

I have no problem admitting I was wrong and using this as a lesson. I was wrong. I am sorry.

I hope somehow things return back to normality sooner rather then later but I just dont see it at the moment. Stay safe everyone.
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It takes courage to admit to our mistakes, kudos. I'm sure if I ever make a mistake in my lifetime I'll admit to it as well.
 
prateik said:
What exactly is the worst case scenario? No vaccine for a while.. eventually infects 60%+ of the population.. kills several million. and then goes away..

Or keeps coming back with different strains, making no one immune and vaccines ineffective?
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The end of humanity would be my guess.
 
870 is a big number, compared to the last few days but that could well be the bank holiday weekend lag. Expecting a big number tomorrow, too, unfortunately. Still optimistic though that we're seeing the peak.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Duration of immunity the key here. Anything less than 12 months and we’ll get annual cycles of this, like seasonal flu. We haven’t followed up anyone who’s recovered for more than a couple of months.
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Do you know roughly what proportion of other infections confer such short term active immunity? It would be quite unusual no?
 
Dancfc said:
If those are England's figures then that would be 1 in 500 positive tests, ala 1 in 500 who need hospital treatment.

Also if the testing of the Valencia squad was anything to go by (35% tested positive despite not a single member displaying symptoms) then a lot more people just have it without even knowing than people think.

Maybe I overshoot it a bit by comparing the odds to a plane crash but the chances of a young person dying even if they get the virus (getting the virus in anyway not just hospital admissions) is beyond miniscule and it's only a matter of time before they start playing percentages, even the elderly will eventually as a fair number I imagine would prefer one month of freedom as opposed to potentially their last months/years in sevee restrictions if it ultimately came down to Hobson's choice. For another example a freind of mine has cystic fibrosis but despite that has acted like the rest of us for years, his logic is he'd rather die in a blaze of glory then fizzle out (which in itself will almost certainly be a reliteve young age if not earlier) restricting himself, he's being sensible right now but if it ultimately came to a decent amount of freedom at the risk of it being short term or long term restrictions at this level (which will take sizeable chunk of what life he has left anyway) I know exactly what he will choose and I'll take a stab in the dark and say that he's very much not an outliner.

The government need to be working night and day to work out a sustainable strategy that can allow for something of a functioning society at worst, this is truly the part where they earn their money. That's mainly why restrictions will be gradually eased, that way we will get some sort of idea at just what wriggle room we have (ie we may be managing well after stage 1 and 2 but when it gets to stage 3 there's a concerning spike so we need to revert back to stage 2 for now).
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I think the 1 in 500 odd wasn't based on UK hospitalisations, but it may have been for the under 40 whereas you were talking about people who are under 30. The actual break-down by age is somewhere in the famous imperial paper that I can't be arsed to find again. Regarding the percentage of people not showing symptoms, the best estimates say about 20%. Note that a lot of people test positive symptomless but then later on develop symptoms. If I recall that's what they observed from the cruiseship data, as well as the data from Japanese citizens flying from Wuhan. In South Korea, they reckon it's 20%. So the UK data is missing 1/5 to 1/3 who are asymptomatic plus actual sick people who aren't tested. That's why the numbers from the guardian article posted earlier that started this discussion was adjusted accordingly.

I agree with your second paragraph. Perhaps they will also try track, trace, and isolate the vulnerable approach.
 
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Pogue Mahone said:
Worst case scenario involves no vaccine ever and no long term immunity after infection (or even no short term immunity) combined with more severe disease with each second and subsequent infection (which is what happens with Dengue Fever).

I said yesterday that this would wipe us off the face of the earth in that scenario. I was probably exaggerating. There would come a point where it would get too lethal to be able to keep spreading. Mankind would be basically fecked though. End of days. The Dengue fever thing would be unbelievably bad luck but no vaccine/no long-term immunity is not all that unlikely.
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If all of that was confirmed to be true, there would certainly be a complete global 14-day lockdown. And some countries would actually be able to enforce it (shoot on sight when seen on the street).
 
11101 said:
Do you know roughly what proportion of other infections confer such short term active immunity? It would be quite unusual no?
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Quick google reveals that an example of a virus known to generate only short-term immunity would be the coronavirus (i.e. the one that causes the common cold). So that's not ideal :(

EDIT: Short term immunity only with SARS (the original) and MERS too. So I'd say it looks pretty unlikely we'll get long-term immunity after infection with SARS-CoV2. Feck knows we could do with catching a break though!
 
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I have a question for all like-minded people drowning in affluence.

Since my family hardly gets out these days, from what diseases are we now being protected in our hygienic paradise? Can we get the cold? The flu? Can we get any viral disease whatsoever? Can flies, mosquitoes or cockroaches spread viral infections?

Do we now turn our attention to those pesky bacteria?
 
FootballHQ said:
15k daily tests at this stage is pretty bad. Can see Hancock doing a final press conference on April 29th and then being locked away for a month like Priti Patel has been.

He'll find some small print that said he really meant end of May when he said end of April for 100k tests a day.
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It's not even 15k people yet, which is the worrying element. Which is meaning some people are getting tested twice a day & they're counting that as a test. It's been at the 13-14k people for the last 7 days, no sign of improvement or that moving forward.
 
Leroy The Red said:
As above, completely missing the point, complete inability to recognise the use of common sense in these times. The journalist was following the officers, your behaviour effects others behaviour, that didn't need to become an incident.
And how exactly were the officers supposed to know he was a journalist? when they were in the vehicle. And even if he is one as claimed, the likelyhood of him carrying around his work ID whilst jogging is extremely low, how can this be verified by the officers.
Maybe i'm wrong but leaving your house during lockdown should be for exercise, buying food etc, no?. I dont remember the bit where you're meant to follow officers around recording them for merely a routine arrest. Where do you draw the line? Presumably by the logic youre inferring because its technically legal, people should basically be out and about following and filming officers carrying out their duties just because they can and officers should not say anything and let it continue. All massively helpful during this time of a global pandemic.
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About 2 meters away(Something the police fail to do).

What law was broken by the person filming ? There was no need to for the police to get out of their vehicle and stop him filming. You're talking about common sense yet you're defending a group of people breaking social distance because someone had their phone out.

Also as for how exactly were the officers supposed to know he was a journalist ? I'm pretty sure you don't need to be journalist in order film in public spaces

Freedom to photograph and film
Members of the public and the media do not need a permit to film or photograph in public places and police have no power to stop them filming or photographing incidents or police personnel

https://www.met.police.uk/advice/advice-and-information/ph/photography-advice/
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stepic said:
standing still doesn't sound like exercising to me. standing and filming definitely not. are you saying we should all just ignore the government advice in the middle of this pandemic?
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You are advocating the police and the government penalise people for standing still ? And our weekly shopping trips turns into super market sweep ?
 
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Shakesey said:
I have a question for all like-minded people drowning in affluence.

Since my family hardly gets out these days, from what diseases are we now being protected in our hygienic paradise? Can we get the cold? The flu? Can we get any viral disease whatsoever? Can flies, mosquitoes or cockroaches spread viral infections?

Do we now turn our attention to those pesky bacteria?
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There's a gazillion non-pathogenic microorganisms living inside your body that can cause disease if your immune status changes. There really is no perfect isolation from infectious diseases. People born with Severe Combined Immunodeficiency or other similar diseases need marrow transfusions and/or living in plastic sterile bubbles to survive.

From long stays at home, remember to watch out for fungus, though these are more likely to cause allergies than severe infection in a non-immunocompromised host.
 
Shakesey said:
I have a question for all like-minded people drowning in affluence.

Since my family hardly gets out these days, from what diseases are we now being protected in our hygienic paradise? Can we get the cold? The flu? Can we get any viral disease whatsoever? Can flies, mosquitoes or cockroaches spread viral infections?

Do we now turn our attention to those pesky bacteria?
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By all accounts, GPs are seeing a huge reduction in the sort of "normal" infections that keep them busy ever year. Strep throat, vomiting bug, pneumonias, impetigo, colds, flu etc etc So this lockdown does seem to be having a significant affect on pretty much every infection you can think of. The ones that are passed from person to person, anyway.
 
Hound Dog said:
If all of that was confirmed to be true, there would certainly be a complete global 14-day lockdown. And some countries would actually be able to enforce it (shoot on sight when seen on the street).
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14 days wouldn't be nearly enough. But say you did one for two months... Unless you can guarantee that 1) there are no latent forms of infection and 2) humans are the only hosts it still wouldn't be an effective strategy to wipe out the virus.
 
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https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/im...-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf
@Dancfc Hospitalisation/ICU/IFR break-down across age groups.
 
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Sweet Square said:
About 2 meters away(Something the police fail to do).

What law was broken by the person filming ? There was no need to for the police to get out of their vehicle and stop him filming. You're talking about common sense yet you're defending a group of people breaking social distance because someone had their phone out.

Also as for how exactly were the officers supposed to know he was a journalist ? I'm pretty sure you don't need to be journalist in order film in public spaces







You are advocating the police and the government penalise people for standing still ? And our weekly shopping trips turns into super market sweep ?
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I’m not gonna bother anymore. Clearly you are incapable of grasping what it is I’m trying to say. Either through ignorance or maybe you just don’t like police. Doesn’t matter either way....

carry on....
 
Pogue Mahone said:
By all accounts, GPs are seeing a huge reduction in the sort of "normal" infections that keep them busy ever year. Strep throat, vomiting bug, pneumonias, impetigo, colds, flu etc etc So this lockdown does seem to be having a significant affect on pretty much every infection you can think of. The ones that are passed from person to person, anyway.
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I was literally just thinking about this.

Am I being completely simple or is there a chance the whole lockdown thing kill off some of these infections completely, if not globally even locally within a small country, say?

Or is this completely fanciful?
 
Shakesey said:
I have a question for all like-minded people drowning in affluence.

Since my family hardly gets out these days, from what diseases are we now being protected in our hygienic paradise? Can we get the cold? The flu? Can we get any viral disease whatsoever? Can flies, mosquitoes or cockroaches spread viral infections?

Do we now turn our attention to those pesky bacteria?
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That’s what I was wondering the other day since I seem to have picked up the common cold. How did it get into my cocoon? The responses were that it must be hay fever, but I regularly get hay fever and I know it’s not
 
golden_blunder said:
You can of course but it’s something to be aware off when everyone starts to cycle to work in cities. The cycle lanes will be busier
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Ye mate sorry I posted something similar when replying to Wibble. I think new approaches will need to be made and folk just need to slow down a bit and give everyone some space in the short term. If that means me cycling slowly to work with a 10 metre distance from everyone then I can do that. Other thing is the roads are quite free with folk working from home so some could be opened up for quick bike commutes. If you're comfortable going fast and keeping a safe distance then use the road but otherwise leave the relaxed cycling to the cycle paths.
 
Withnail said:
I was literally just thinking about this.

Am I being completely simple or is there a chance the whole lockdown thing kill off some of these infections completely, if not globally even locally within a small country, say?

Or is this completely fanciful?
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It’s an interesting idea but I’d say it’s unlikely. We know covid spread hasn’t stopped completely during lockdown, just reduced dramatically. So it’s the same with all these others.

What’s kind of fascinating is that if we could somehow keep absolutely everyone inside their own home 24/7 for just a few weeks then that would be the end of the coronavirus, permanently.
 
New York updated previous days deaths. adding 4.000 today
 
Pogue Mahone said:
It’s an interesting idea but I’d say it’s unlikely. We know covid spread hasn’t stopped completely during lockdown, just reduced dramatically. So it’s the same with all these others.

What’s kind of fascinating is that if we could somehow keep absolutely everyone inside their own home 24/7 for just a few weeks then that would be the end of the coronavirus, permanently.
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We'd have to do that for the entire world though or just keep the borders closed... Easy peasy :lol:
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Quick google reveals that an example of a virus known to generate only short-term immunity would be the coronavirus (i.e. the one that causes the common cold). So that's not ideal :(

EDIT: Short term immunity only with SARS (the original) and MERS too. So I'd say it looks pretty unlikely we'll get long-term immunity after infection with SARS-CoV2. Feck knows we could do with catching a break though!
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I had though the common cold might be one. Isn't that something to do with it's ability to disguise it's real identity, rather than the body 'forgetting' it? I wonder if it has weakened over time to achieve that level of adaptability.

SARS and MERS they don't really know, as nobody has ever been exposed to either a second time. Some people have been found to still have SARS antibodies even today.
 
Sweet Square said:
About 2 meters away(Something the police fail to do).

What law was broken by the person filming ?

Also as for how exactly were the officers supposed to know he was a journalist ? I'm pretty sure you don't need to be journalist in order film in public spaces
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seeing you seem to not get it, we're in the middle of a pandemic. government state:

Stay at home
  • Only go outside for food, health reasons or work (but only if you cannot work from home)
  • If you go out, stay 2 metres (6ft) away from other people at all times
  • Wash your hands as soon as you get home

Do not meet others, even friends or family.

You can spread the virus even if you don’t have symptoms.

so, please tell me where it says one can stand around filming stuff on their phone?

Sweet Square said:
You are advocating the police and the government penalise people for standing still ? And our weekly shopping trips turns into super market sweep ?
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ignoring the second statement because it's ludicrous. as to the first sentence, yes. you aren't meant to go out and stand around. read the advice i just posted again. it's really not difficult.
 
Withnail said:
We'd have to do that for the entire world though or just keep the borders closed... Easy peasy :lol:
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And it would have to apply to NHS staff, police, everyone.
Every single line of transmission would need to be quarantined, which means every single human on earth. I agree though that it's very fascinating to think that if we could somehow lock this virus down 100% for 2-3 weeks, it would no longer exist, ever again. It is definitely a crazy, interesting concept.
 
Arruda said:
There's a gazillion non-pathogenic microorganisms living inside your body that can cause disease if your immune status changes. There really is no perfect isolation from infectious diseases. People born with Severe Combined Immunodeficiency or other similar diseases need marrow transfusions and/or living in plastic sterile bubbles to survive.

From long stays at home, remember to watch out for fungus, though these are more likely to cause allergies than severe infection in a non-immunocompromised host.
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This sits uneasy with me.
 
11101 said:
I'm quite confident you can get at least some immunity from it too. After 2,000,000 infected, ~500k recoveries, if you didn't I'm sure we would have been able confirm at least one reinfection by now.
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Havent there been several cases? We probably dont know unless we test for antibodies.. find it in someone and then have them get infected again.. Till then, I guess any reinfection could just be a case of someone not recovering and just having a false negative.

That said, I searched for Covid reinfection and saw these two articles from yesterday..
https://qz.com/1837798/why-some-covid-19-patients-might-have-tested-positive-twice/
and more importantly
https://www.thelcn.com/news/local/l...cle_f4255ff3-71df-572a-af8a-23785a8eeffb.html
This first case of reinfection had been reported as a positive and then a recovered before the individual tested positive a second time. There was two weeks between the time the person was deemed recovered and then tested positive, Rodriguez told The Livingston County News.

A person is considered recovered when they have gone seven days without symptoms of COVID-19 and be free of symptoms without the aid of a fever reducer, Rodriguez said.
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So the person tested positive 3 weeks after he/she initially stopped showing symptoms.. Probably 2+ of those weeks symptom free as well.
 
blue blue said:
Yet you fail to substantiate your claims.

Why are you wary if you have no proof? It is possible that China is partly to blame for the spread of this deadly virus, is it not?
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What do I need proof of?

I've posted links various times in this thread to the reports issued by the Chinese medical community. By 14th Jan they'd told the world pretty much everything we needed to know, just 2 weeks after first concerns were raised in a few hospitals in Wuhan about a few cases of pneumonia. Given the scale we're talking about with a country that large and everything else they've got going on, I don't think realistically that they could have done much better, no.

Once they identified it they managed to trace the first case back to 1st Dec (it didn't start in the wet market), but that is retrospective analysis. It'll likely be traced back further after more work is done, that don't mean 'China' knew about it and covered it up from these dates, as some people seem to think.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
By all accounts, GPs are seeing a huge reduction in the sort of "normal" infections that keep them busy ever year. Strep throat, vomiting bug, pneumonias, impetigo, colds, flu etc etc So this lockdown does seem to be having a significant affect on pretty much every infection you can think of. The ones that are passed from person to person, anyway.
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Ah! That sounds wonderful! Die streptococcus!
 
Pogue Mahone said:
They’re already working on a similar app to be rolled out across the EU. GDPR will be a pain in the arse to get round but exceptional times call for exceptional measures.
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We have ours in Italy now, i got a text message to download it today. All data is anonymous and results are not public, they go straight to the government, so i suppose that's how they get around GDPR. It is optional and they ask you to fill in a short questionnaire about various symptoms each day and submit a temperature reading.
 
Arruda said:
14 days wouldn't be nearly enough. But say you did one for two months... Unless you can guarantee that 1) there are no latent forms of infection and 2) humans are the only hosts it still wouldn't be an effective strategy to wipe out the virus.
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I haven't actually given the details a lot of thought; my point was that people seem unaware just how far away we are from the most drastic measures imaginable. If this virus actually had humanity-ending potential if left unchecked, such measures would be taken.
 
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