I don't think even the worst hit places have a chance of getting to the HIT without collapsing the health systems on that sort of time scale. I think exact figures are hard to get but the UK has about 8% infected to date although it will be higher than that as not everyone with it will have been tested/diagnosed. Still miles off HIT though. It does gradually reduce Ro though but HIT is where R0 is below 1 which in effect prevents it spreading.
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
I don't think even the worst hit places have a chance of getting to the HIT without collapsing the health systems on that sort of time scale. I think exact figures are hard to get but the UK has about 8% infected to date although it will be higher than that as not everyone with it will have been tested/diagnosed. Still miles off HIT though. It does gradually reduce Ro though but HIT is where R0 is below 1 which in effect prevents it spreading.
Jesus that’s a tragic story. Hard to understand why they can’t let them in. Even if they’re unsure about quarantine at sea, they could let them anchor up offshore, with enough food for a couple of weeks to be 110% sure they won’t bring the virus with them.
I think serology surveys are going to be an enormous underestimate of true exposure , considering we know that the mildest cases often don’t generate any antibody response at all and even severe cases can stop producing antibodies after a few months.
Of course, this might also mean herd immunity is off the table regardless. In which case working out the % previously exposed is just an academic exercise.
Same here. First class passengers are getting home at the expense of economy passengers because the airlines are so restricted in the numbers allowed per flight that they have to try to at least break even. There are 20-30,000 Australians starnded iverseas at the moment but that figure is far higher because most don't bother registering and aren't going to try to get home.
And we also have the Hollywood type exceptions. The again it is hardly a surprise to find out that a government containing Scotty from Marketing and Peter Dutton are evil incompetent clowns.
We are pretty much guessing at the moment. Although I read somewhere this week that antibodies were frequently being detected in asymptomatic/low symptomatic cases. I know we detected an asymptomatic case this way very recently - probably 3 months after infection. Still just a single data point of course.
What did you make of this? https://www.theguardian.com/austral...id-specific-therapy-says-australian-scientist
Barrington Declaration is, not surprisingly, backed by quacks and fake and joke "experts" 
Dr Johnny Bananas
Professor Cominic Dummings
18 self-declared homeopaths
100 therapists whose expertise included massage, hypnotherapy and Mongolian khoomii singing.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...r-signed-fake-experts-dr-johnny-bananas-covid
Dr Johnny Bananas
Professor Cominic Dummings
18 self-declared homeopaths
100 therapists whose expertise included massage, hypnotherapy and Mongolian khoomii singing.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...r-signed-fake-experts-dr-johnny-bananas-covid
I read that a few days ago. Monoclonal antibodies might well have a role to play but they’re expensive and have to be given by injection. It’s also hard to know when to give them. They can mop up viruses in the blood but that’s probably most useful early on, before people get very sick, after which point it seems to be your own immune response that messes you up, rather than the virus itself doing any damage. And giving a very expensive injectable treatment to everyone with early/mild disease is a health economic no no (unless we’re talking about the POTUS, evidently)
If he is suggesting it maybe the cost will be much better on such a big scale. I think read somewhere that they were like digital media. The first one is very expensive but if you sell millions the unit cost is very low.
Can they only be used as a treatment? Or would there be benefit in giving them to everyone at the same time as a vaccine?
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They’re already used long term, to treat chronic illnesses. Stuff like RA and Crohns. An injection or infusion every few months. So I guess they could be used to prevent infection. Cost would be off the charts though. They’re already worried about the cost of a vaccine that needs a booster, versus a single jab. Can’t imagine any government willing to pay for multiple jabs every year for (almost) every citizen.
Our will or at least have said they will. Not that I trust Scotty from Marketing and his evil clown posse.
If the Eli Lilly commentary is right and they can produce 1m of their single antibody monoclonal by year end, and ramp up production of their cocktail mix to similar levels early next year then we're looking at a massive leap in capacity. Who else could do the same (if they had guaranteed sales even if their product wasn't used) I don't know, I do suspect the cost may be a drop in the ocean compared to the broader economic costs (never mind the human ones). I don't think it's unreasonable to think that the cost will rapidly drop below £1000/patient and could hit £100 at volume once we know which product we want. Though boring things like patents and copyright will doubtless intervene when it comes to price.
Using it on all 70+ patients with symptoms might have the biggest impact. But in reality that's still one for some mix of clinical trials, statistics, and cost/benefit analysis to prove. I'm hopeful though - I think in the first half of next year, we'll have antibodies for stopping the virus early, vaccines for reducing the numbers of infections and some more treatments for the ones who become seriously ill. Oddly, despite the absolutely miserable numbers of new cases etc, I'm having one of my more optimistic days today.
Heh. Good on you! I have good days and bad days too. Currently VERY worried about next few months but am about as optimistic as you are about next year. We just need one or two really big breakthroughs in vaccine or treatment development to get on top of this fecking thing. And there’s so much money and effort being thrown at this. The breakthroughs should come.
Someone my Mum works with currently has COVID. She’s had a positive test. The interesting thing is that her husband who she lives with had it in April and tested positive at the time. She had a test at the time which was negative.
Either she’s had it twice (worrying) or she somehow managed not to catch it off her husband months ago.
Either she’s had it twice (worrying) or she somehow managed not to catch it off her husband months ago.
My mum tested positive this time last week. She's still not clear yet as her fever is still there and just won't go away. The rest of us are self isolating and not sure if we're out of the woods yet - its been 7 days since we last saw her and haven't had any symptoms yet. If another one of us gets symptoms now, it would suck balls as we'd be in for another 14 days on top.
I'm also starting to see ambulances flash past my window every night again. Hasn't happened for a while. - was a regular thing in the middle of lockdown.
I'm also starting to see ambulances flash past my window every night again. Hasn't happened for a while. - was a regular thing in the middle of lockdown.
Most likely she didn't get it the first time.
Honestly interested to know how it actually transmits most of the time. Do we know anymore than we did in April?
I know a few couples, who've managed to avoid passing it onto each other - when you'd think its almost a given you'd think it's almost a given passing it onto someone you share a bed with?
I'm sure we will get more detail as this progresses but it seems the main transmission method is by virus laden droplets from coughs, sneezes, singing, talking as well as direct contact like kissing which is why it is thought that masks and good ventilation are so important, mainly to limit an infected person's ability to transmit it to others in the cases of masks. It is likely that transmission by touching surfaces with virus laden droplets does occur but i think it is assumed that this is not as important.
Aerosol transmission (airbourne microdroplets) was initially thought to not be significant but we now know it does occur but I'm not sure we know to what extent it occurs or under what circumstances yet.
I'm only going on the things I remember reading so others may well be more informed or up to date.
Also tend to be less compliant towards government directives too.
My step dad's a Derry man and he went up there for a weekend break over the summer and said he was honestly a little embarrassed with how lax everyone was. Similar in Donegal. Didn't think much of it at the time when there were single figure case numbers but surely they'll wise up now.
Still, it's strange how they went from single figure cases for such a long time despite there being no real change in attitudes / approach over that time. Maybe folks moving in from the beer gardens to the pubs has made a big difference with the change in weather? I guess all you need is a couple of big super spreader events to kick things off and that just wasn't possible outdoors.
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The pandemic has decimated elective surgery.
In the UK there are now 2.15 million patients waiting more than 18 weeks for an operation. The current national target is that 92% of patients should be operated within the 18 week target which is currently running at 48%.
There are 83000 waiting more than a year compared with just over a 1000 a year ago. There used to be a penalty of around £5000 for any single breach which I guess has now been scrapped.
Most hospitals only at 50% capacity for elective surgery
An interesting statistic is that there has been a loss of 80000 beds over 20 years and 45000 less beds over last 10 years. Quite rightly there was a move to bring care back into the community but we have clearly gone too far. The "new normal" of less face to face consultations and remote monitoring may help also to reduce the costs in the future.
As the winter season approaches this will put more pressure on the system. This needs a completely different and smarter way of working and planning as I wrote in a blog 5 years ago
With the current model it will take years to get through the massive waiting list.
https://lnkd.in/ddHZSu5
The pandemic has decimated elective surgery.
In the UK there are now 2.15 million patients waiting more than 18 weeks for an operation. The current national target is that 92% of patients should be operated within the 18 week target which is currently running at 48%.
There are 83000 waiting more than a year compared with just over a 1000 a year ago. There used to be a penalty of around £5000 for any single breach which I guess has now been scrapped.
Most hospitals only at 50% capacity for elective surgery
An interesting statistic is that there has been a loss of 80000 beds over 20 years and 45000 less beds over last 10 years. Quite rightly there was a move to bring care back into the community but we have clearly gone too far. The "new normal" of less face to face consultations and remote monitoring may help also to reduce the costs in the future.
As the winter season approaches this will put more pressure on the system. This needs a completely different and smarter way of working and planning as I wrote in a blog 5 years ago
With the current model it will take years to get through the massive waiting list.
https://lnkd.in/ddHZSu5
Big study in India shows that there’s only a 9% chance of catching it from someone in your household and 78% of people who catch it don’t infect anyone else. I’ve seen similar numbers from studies in other countries. However it gets passed on, it seems as though some people are a hell of a lot more infective than others. Either that or susceptibility is extremely variable.
Hard to work out what’s the most important factor but there’s been loads of super spreader events, so former more likely than latter.
Ha! I always thought that you are English for some reason.
yeah they don’t like taking directions from government here, a fallout from history.
Derry people are very sociable, they like to go and meet others and they all have an attitude that it would never happen to them. they need to stop and think because Altnagelvin hospital will not have the capacity to ramp up too much for hospitalisations
You know who will be here to argue the tweet very soon
Shame he never agreed to give me free money for that: "Stockholm with 26% infected on 1.5." nonsense.
I freeze when I read stuff like this. Makes me think this could go on for 10+ years.
I think there is a very good chance we will have one or more vaccines soon that will be widely rolled out during 2021.
Yeah that is the hope. Although in countries such as mine or @Sarni 's, I am not sure that will do much good as most people will refuse to get vaccinated as the virus is one big hoax.
Do you have any idea on how the trials are going? Apart from news about the one case of side effects foe the Oxford one, news seem to have gone silent on that front.
Doubt we’ll hear anything useful for another month or two. Although the one and only upside of the current surge is that it should mean we see results sooner. The more virus in the community the quicker they can see results.
I still can't get my head around the 10pm pub closure thing. How did they think this was ever going to work? If you didn't want to close the hospitality sector down, which I can understand, then you had to ban people mixing in households outside of their support bubble for there to be any chance of making an impact. Just seemed like a no brainer to me. Closing a pub an hour earlier...I mean how can you dress that up in any way that explains how it would stop a virus spreading?
I keep trying to convince myself that whoever is making these decisions is informed and going purely off science/data, but then I remember that the likes of Boris, Gove, Mogg and eyetest man are definitely going to be wading their opinions in on any decisions being made, and I actually feel my heart sink. This lot were doing a great job of fecking up millions of people's lives before covid was even a thing.
I'm sceptical of anything I see about Sweden now. I know a few people who live in Stockholm and they all seem very happy with how Sweden has handled things and say things are basically back to normal there.
The situation is too complex to look at one stream of data and draw conclusions. It doesn't show you the positive effects of not reducing people's quality of life, or how many people haven't died from issues other than covid due to not diverting so much resource. Also ignores the fact that Sweden has a different population density to most of Europe and that their healthcare system is so much better than ours for example that it isn't even comparable....they have never been in danger of hospitals being overun.
Although I also think the "everything's great here" mantra seems a bit wide of the mark given their economy is taking a massive hit and they've still had quite a significant death rate...but again that figure only really gives you any meaningful data once you look at overall death numbers, age range, etc. and compare it to before covid.
That's weird as we keep being told that our track and trace data shows people are mainly catching it from people in their household, but it does kind of make sense.
I caught it back at the begining of March while at Uni. Literally over half of the people on my course managed to catch it at the same time, and that's just going by people who had symptoms. I'm not aware of anyone I passed it on to (symptoms wise)...and at the time it was supposedly impossible to have it unless you'd flown directly back from China, and the symptoms I had (mainly loss of smell) weren't being linked with it, so it's not like I spent 2 weeks locked in a room.
When I think about it now the amount of fecking damage we did and lives we cost during that period of pretending it wasn't in circulation is mad. They must have known that hospital admissions were abnormally high by that point.
I keep trying to convince myself that whoever is making these decisions is informed and going purely off science/data, but then I remember that the likes of Boris, Gove, Mogg and eyetest man are definitely going to be wading their opinions in on any decisions being made, and I actually feel my heart sink. This lot were doing a great job of fecking up millions of people's lives before covid was even a thing.
I'm sceptical of anything I see about Sweden now. I know a few people who live in Stockholm and they all seem very happy with how Sweden has handled things and say things are basically back to normal there.
The situation is too complex to look at one stream of data and draw conclusions. It doesn't show you the positive effects of not reducing people's quality of life, or how many people haven't died from issues other than covid due to not diverting so much resource. Also ignores the fact that Sweden has a different population density to most of Europe and that their healthcare system is so much better than ours for example that it isn't even comparable....they have never been in danger of hospitals being overun.
Although I also think the "everything's great here" mantra seems a bit wide of the mark given their economy is taking a massive hit and they've still had quite a significant death rate...but again that figure only really gives you any meaningful data once you look at overall death numbers, age range, etc. and compare it to before covid.
That's weird as we keep being told that our track and trace data shows people are mainly catching it from people in their household, but it does kind of make sense.
I caught it back at the begining of March while at Uni. Literally over half of the people on my course managed to catch it at the same time, and that's just going by people who had symptoms. I'm not aware of anyone I passed it on to (symptoms wise)...and at the time it was supposedly impossible to have it unless you'd flown directly back from China, and the symptoms I had (mainly loss of smell) weren't being linked with it, so it's not like I spent 2 weeks locked in a room.
When I think about it now the amount of fecking damage we did and lives we cost during that period of pretending it wasn't in circulation is mad. They must have known that hospital admissions were abnormally high by that point.
Hopefully people will forget their scepticism when a vaccine arrives.
As for vaccine progress I'd say no news is good news and fingers crossed that means we may have one or more vaccines to distribute soon.
Where are you in the world?
I do know that. And that's all fine as long as they can ensure they have no further outbreaks, which clearly, with a virus that is so easily spread and with many showing no symptoms whatsoever, is going to be extremely difficult. It means limiting travel (a massive part of the economy) and still needing the ability to be able to lock down at extremely short notice, and to track and trace in the event of infections being identified.
They have, arguably done a good job. But it's not over by a long stretch.
Serbia. Most of the Slavic countries seem to share this attitude.
Yes. I've always found that a bit weird as people from that region are often very straightforward in other respects - no bullshit.
I really enjoyed Belgrade and the Serbian people when I was there and I really hope vaccine resistance doesn't prevent the country from recovering from the pandemic.
I saw a graph yesterday that showed that the hospitality sector only accounted for 4% of COVID infections in the UK. Nursing homes, schools and offices were the main contributors.
If these figures are accurate (supposedly they were from the governments website) then closing pubs and restaurants is going to make almost no difference. Thoughts?
If these figures are accurate (supposedly they were from the governments website) then closing pubs and restaurants is going to make almost no difference. Thoughts?
The counter balance to that us the UK were neither the first to close pubs a little early, nor the last. Believing just the UK government are idiots is one thing but it's more than a stretch to say all of these big European countries are. It is a normal policy, with obvious imperfections.
Just reading social media these past few weeks and the tide is definitely turning from most being very responsible and keeping themselves and others safe to people having had enough with no end in sight.
A couple of friends on Facebook are proper anti-vaxxers and pro Trump even though they are from the UK They seem to be getting more and more people agreeing with them and their comments whereas a few months ago there was hardly anyone.
The Cummings episode really didn’t help in the early days.
A couple of friends on Facebook are proper anti-vaxxers and pro Trump even though they are from the UK They seem to be getting more and more people agreeing with them and their comments whereas a few months ago there was hardly anyone.
The Cummings episode really didn’t help in the early days.
So you're happy to ignore actual statistical facts, in favour of a minute amount of anecdotal evidence? Very normal.