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

I got used to the idea of life not returning to normal this year and perhaps not even all of next year. I’m a bit concerned about being out of work at some point but it’s not a real concern now as I can work remotely and even if there are job cuts my role will probably not be very high on the list. But there will be thousands of people who will be left without income during this time and I fear for them.
 
TMDaines said:
I don't work for the WHO. I work for the NHS in Population Health commissioning. I'm going to bed now, but I'll say this:

Ultimately, our perspectives are going to differ based on whether you think the UK has any realistic prospect of greatly limiting the number of COVID-19 cases over the next year. In my opinion, we've got no chance, as this is completely national, likely north of 20,000 true cases at this stage. I don't think we have any hope of preventing it running into the many millions in the next weeks and months. Therefore the only thing you can possibly prioritise is trying to distribute the spread in such a way that the health services can help as many of those most vulnerable as possible when they need. Thousands of deaths will be inevitable. There is life beyond COVID-19 however. Taking measures that harm the economy, whilst only delaying the unpreventable in the spread of the coronavirus, would lead to greater costs and health detriments. The legacy of COVID-19 will have far greater negative effects long term for many, than the couple of weeks of mild-to-no illness that they experienced at the time.
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What will be the effect to the economy of the psychological blow of losing thousands and thousands of people's loved ones?
 
Schmeichel's Cartwheel said:
Is it just me, or is this herd immunity plan from the UK a bit bonkers?
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51892402

"Prof van Schaik noted that the UK is the only country in Europe that is following what he described as its "laissez-faire attitude to the virus".

But A Department of Health and Social care spokesperson said that Sir Patrick's comments had been misinterpreted.

"Herd immunity is not part of our action plan, but is a natural by-product of an epidemic. Our aims are to save lives, protect the most vulnerable, and relieve pressure on our NHS,@ he said.

"We have now moved out of the contain phase and into delay, and we have experts working round the clock. Every measure that we have or will introduce will be based on the best scientific evidence."

Would be bonkers if true. If we come out of this with substantially more deaths than Italy France and Spain then the Tory party will be hanged.

Think it will be more optimally timed lockdowns and such
 
redshaw said:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51892402

"Prof van Schaik noted that the UK is the only country in Europe that is following what he described as its "laissez-faire attitude to the virus".

But A Department of Health and Social care spokesperson said that Sir Patrick's comments had been misinterpreted.

"Herd immunity is not part of our action plan, but is a natural by-product of an epidemic. Our aims are to save lives, protect the most vulnerable, and relieve pressure on our NHS,@ he said.

"We have now moved out of the contain phase and into delay, and we have experts working round the clock. Every measure that we have or will introduce will be based on the best scientific evidence."

Would be bonkers if true. If we come out of this with sunstantially more deaths than Italy France and Spain then the Tory party will be hanged.
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No they won't
 
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Both tragic and funny at the same time. This is from Munich.
 
At this point I don't see any scenario in which UK gets out of the this without thousands and thousands of deaths. It's going to be a brutal few months coming up and this might be the last relatively 'calm' weekend for a while
 
A very good post that is circulating on Facebook right now (I don't agree with hoarding food for 2 months but everything else is spot on):

This is a long post addressing two underlying issues with the current response to the pandemic that leave me concerned. It’s the longest post I’ve ever written.

For those of you not taking action, or believing the pandemic to be “over hyped”, you can make fun of me as much as you want now or when this is over. You can make me the subject of memes and post it everywhere. I will pose for the picture. I am not trying to convince you, but I do feel compelled to share information that I deem critical to all of us, which is why I am posting this at all.
WHY YOU SHOULD TAKE 5 MINUTES TO READ AND CONSIDER THE INFORMATION I AM SHARING:
For those of you who don’t know me well, I am analytical and metered. I don’t freak out nor do I respond emotionally. I also don’t post a bunch of bullshit or political or controversial stuff on Facebook. I founded and am CEO of a successful software company that provides SaaS based data, analytics, and dashboards to recruiting departments at companies we all know. As you would expect, I am data driven and fact based. Before founding my company I held executive roles leading very large recruiting teams at some of the world's fastest growing companies such as Starbucks and Google. At Google I was fortunate enough to report to Sheryl Sandberg before she took the Facebook COO role. I was a Chemical Engineering major in college and have a business degree from a top undergraduate business school. I am not one for hyperbole or histrionics. My bullshit factor is close to zero.
I share all this personal information only to help solidify that this post may be worth reading and sharing with others. I would encourage you to forward or share this post at your discretion. Many people do not understand what is happening with the pandemic to the degree required which is why I took the time to write this and share this on Facebook.
Now that I've gotten the introduction out of the way, here are two issues I want to bring to everyone’s attention.
ISSUE ONE: SOCIAL NORMS ARE POWERFUL MOTIVATORS AND GETTING IN THE WAY OF PEOPLE TAKING THE RIGHT STEPS IN RESPONSE TO THE PANDEMIC:
One of the current problems with addressing the pandemic is the social pressures of taking action today. It's awkward, and feels like an over-reaction. The reason it feels like an overreaction is that most people OVERWEIGHT the currently reported cases and inherently UNDERWEIGHT the mathematics of how the virus is spreading and what will happen in about 30 days time. This is because our brains tend to think linearly as opposed to logarithmically. It’s the same reason many people don’t save for retirement or understand compound interest.
To create a new social norm, human beings like to see behavior modeled. This serves as a signal that says, “oh, someone else is doing it so I should do it also.”
SO HERE IS A SOCIAL BENCHMARK FOR REFERENCE - THIS IS WHAT I’VE DONE FOR MY FAMILY TO DATE:
I have already isolated my family. We have canceled EVERYTHING. We have canceled previously scheduled doctor visits. Social get togethers. Normal routine meetings. Everything has been canceled. It's difficult and socially awkward. Some of you think I’m crazy, but I’m doing it not because I am afraid, but because I am good at math (more on that in part 2). I had to have my 16 year old daughter quit her job coaching junior gymnasts at the local gym, with one day’s notice and also tell my kids they can't attend youth group at church. Both of those were tough discussions. I told a very close friend he shouldn’t stay at my house this weekend even though he was planning to and had booked his flight from the Bay Area. I canceled another dear friend’s visit for later this month to go snowboarding on Mt Bachelor.
We are not eating out. Our kids are already doing online school so we don’t have to make changes there. I would not send my kids to school even if they were in public or private school. We have eliminated all non-essential contact with other people. We will only venture out to grocery shop when required. We will still go outside to parks, go mountain biking, hiking, and recreate to keep ourselves sane and do other things as a family, just not with other people. We have stocked up on food and have a supply for ~2 months. We have stocked up on other goods that if depleted would create hardship, like medicines and feminine hygiene products. We have planned for shortages of essential items.
THE REASON I HAVE CHOSEN THIS ROUTE FOR MY FAMILY IS MULTI FACETED:
1. Although my family is considered low risk (I’m 49 in good health, Angi is 46 and in good health, and our kids are 14 and 16), we must assume that the healthcare system cannot help us, because the hospitals will become overwhelmed very quickly. Most American hospitals will become overwhelmed in approximately 30 days unless something changes. More on this in part 2 below. So although we are in great health and unlikely to become gravely ill, the risk is greater if you do not have access to the medical care that you need. This is something for everyone to consider. As a society we are accustomed to having access to the best medical care available. Our medical system will be overwhelmed unless we practice social distancing at scale. That said, the medical teams in Italy are seeing an alarming number of cases from people in their 40s and 50s.
2. It’s not a matter of if social distancing will take place, it’s a matter of when. This is because social distancing is the only way to stop the virus today. As I will explain in part 2 below, starting now is FAR more effective than starting even 2 days from now or tomorrow. This has been proven by Italy and China (and soon to be France and other European countries who have been slow to respond.). Wuhan went on lockdown after roughly 400 cases were identified (and they had access to testing that America has systematically failed to do well to date). The US already has more than 4 times this number of known infected cases as Wuhan did when it was shut down, and our citizens are far more mobile and therefore spreading the virus more broadly when compared to Wuhan. Yet our response is tepid at best.
If hand washing and “being smart” were sufficient Italy would not be in crisis. So I pray the draconian measures are coming from our government, because they are required to stop the spread of the virus. It’s better to start sooner than later as the cost is actually far greater if we wait. I pray they close all schools and non-essential services the way that Italy and China have done.
3. Spreading the virus puts those in the high-risk category at much greater risk. This is the moral argument. It’s a strong argument because there are only two ways, as of today, that the virus can be stopped: let it run its course and infect 100s of millions of people, or social distancing. There is no other way today. If you don’t practice social distancing, people downstream from you that you transmit the virus to will die, and many will suffer.
4. The risk of infection is increasing exponentially, because the quantity of infected people, most who will not show symptoms, is doubling every three days. So the longer you wait to self-isolate, the greater the chance of you or someone you love becoming infected and then you infecting others because more of the population is becoming infected. There are twice as many infected people today as there was on Tuesday.
5. The virus is already in your town. It’s everywhere. Cases are typically only discovered when someone gets sick enough to seek medical attention. This is important as it typically takes ~5 days to START showing ANY symptoms. Here’s the math: For every known case there are approximately 50 unknown cases. This is because if I become sick, I infect several people today, and they infect a few people each tomorrow (as do I), and the total count of infected people doubles every 3 days until I get so sick I get hospitalized or get tested and become a “known case”. But in the time it takes me to figure out I am sick 50 others downline from me now have the virus. So every third day the infection rate doubles until I get so sick that I realize I have the virus an am hospitalized or otherwise tested. Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital estimate that there are 50x more infections than known infections as reported (citation below). The implication of this is that the virus is already “everywhere” and spreading regardless if your city has zero, few or many reported cases. So instead of the 1573 reported known cases today there are likely 78,650 cases, at least, in the United States. Which will double to 157,300 by this Sunday. And this will double to 314,600 cases by this coming Wednesday. So in less than 1 week the number of total infected in the United States will quadruple. This is the nature of exponential math. It’s actually unfortunate that we are publishing the figures for known cases as it diverts attention away from more important numbers (like the range of estimated actual cases).
6. Some people cannot, or will not, practice social distancing for a variety of reasons and will continue to spread the virus to many people. So everyone else must start today.
The reasons above are why I have begun to practice social distancing. It’s not easy. But you should do it too.
The hospitals will be at capacity and there are not enough ventilators. You will hear a lot about this issue in the coming few weeks... the shortage of ventilators.
ISSUE TWO: MANY PEOPLE ARE FOCUSED ON THE WRONG NUMBERS:
Yes, the virus only kills a small percentage of those afflicted. Yes, the flu kills 10s of thousands of people annually. Yes, 80% of people will experience lightweight symptoms with COVID19. Yes the mortality rate of COVID19 is relatively low (1-2%). All of this true, but is immaterial. They are the wrong numbers to focus on...
The nature of exponential math is that the infection rates start slowly, and then goes off like a bomb and overwhelms the hospitals. You will understand this math clearly in the next section if you do the short math exercise. Evergreen hospital in Seattle is already in triage. I have heard credible reports from people on the ground that they are already becoming overwhelmed. And the bomb won't really go off for a few more days. Probably by Wednesday, March 18th (next week). In just a few days from now we will hear grave reports from Seattle hospitals.
You should assume the virus is everywhere at this point, even if you have no confirmed cases in your area.
YOU SHOULD DO THIS SIMPLE 2 MINUTE MATH EXERCISE (NO REALLY TAKE TWO MINUTES AND DO IT):
To further understand exponential growth, take the number of confirmed cases in your area and multiply by 10 (or 50 if you believe Harvard and Massachusetts General estimations) to account for the cases that are not yet confirmed. If you have no confirmed cases choose a small number. I’d suggest 10 cases in your city, if no cases are yet reported. But you can use whatever number you like. This number of infected people doubles every ~3 days as the infection spreads. So literally take your number, and multiply by 2. Then do it again. Then do it again. Then do it again. Do this multiplication exercise 10 times in total.
2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x (the number of estimated infections in your city today (not just the reported cases)).
This result is the estimate for the actual cases in your area 30 days from now. The math will take 30 seconds to complete with a calculator and it’s worth doing the math to see how it grows. This end number is the number of cases in your city 30 days from today if a large percentage of the population do not practice social distancing.
2 to the 10th power is 1024. When something doubles 10 times, it's the same as multiplying by 1024. The infection rate of the virus doubles every 3 days. In thirty days there will be 1,024 times the number of infected people in your area as there is today if your community does not immediately put social distancing into practice. One thousand and twenty four times as many infected people as there is today, in just 30 days.
Next, divide the final number (the scary big one) you just calculated by the current population of your city and you will be able to get the percentage of people THAT YOU KNOW PERSONALLY who will be infected 30 days from now.
Next take 15% (multiply by 0.15) of that final 30 day number of total infected people. This will provide an estimate of the serious cases which will require acute medical care, and compare it to the number of beds and ventilators available at your local hospital. Google the "number of beds" and the name of your local hospital now. It takes 2 seconds and the number of beds is easy to find. 65% of beds are already occupied by patients unrelated to the coronavirus. St Charles in Bend, Oregon where I live, has 226 beds and the town is roughly 100,000 people. Most hospitals have on average, 40 or fewer ventilators.
These numbers you just calculated are the problem: Too many patients, not enough beds, and a serious shortage of ventilators (the biggest problem) if we don't immediately begint social distancing. More on this biggest problem related to the insufficient quantity of ventilators is below.
COUNTRIES THAT GET OVERWHELMED WILL HAVE A MUCH GREATER MORTALITY RATE BECAUSE THEY WON’T BE ABLE TO ADEQUATELY CARE FOR THE SICK.
And by sick I mean not just coronavirus patients. Your son or daughter that needs acute care surgery this May for his badly broken leg will be attended to by an orthopedic doctor that has been working at maximum capacity and working 18 hour shifts for 7 days every week for 6 weeks because it was required to care for all the coronavirus patients at her hospital. Or the orthopedic surgeon will be sick with the virus and your son or daughter will be operated on by a non-expert or a member of the National Guard. Your elderly Mom that has diabetes and goes into acute distress next month may not receive ANY care because the doctors are consumed and have to prioritize patients based on triage handbooks filled with success rate probabilities. Your sibling’s family that are all injured in a terrible car crash in June will have diminished care. If one of them needs a ventilator there will be none available because all of them will be in use by critical coronavirus patients. Your young friend with cancer and a compromised immune system from treatment will succumb even though the cancer was curable and the treatment was working, because their body was too fragile to combat the coronavirus due to the chemotherapy and they couldn't receive the customized, acute care required due to the hospital being overwhelmed. All of the above is currently happening in Italy, who had the same number of infections we have today just 2 weeks ago. You must start today.
The count of actual virus infections doubles every ~3 days. The news and government agencies are lagging in their response. So we hear that the US only has 1573 cases today (3/12/20), ( see https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/) and it doesn't seem like a lot. It would be better to report the estimated actual cases, since reported cases don’t tell us much. However, we know from China that the actual number of cases are at least an order of magnitude greater than the reported cases, because people get infected and do not display symptoms. In math, an "order of magnitude" means ten times difference, or put another way, a factor of 10. 100 is 10 times greater than 10, so it's an order of magnitude greater.
Harvard Medical School / Massachusetts General Hospital just released their estimate (recording is here: https://externalmediasite.partners.org/…/53a4003de5ab4b4da5…) that the actual cases are 50x greater than the reported cases. So we likely have 75,000 cases in the United States already. The number of reported cases is not that important.
But let’s assume the current number of cases is only 10,000 ACTUAL cases in the United States just to be conservative and model out what will happen:
If we don’t stop the virus from spreading, in 30 days we will have 2 to the 10th power more cases of infected people because the infection count doubles every 3 days (the virus doubles every 3 days and there are 10, 3 day periods in 30 days).
The math: 2 to the 10th power means 1,024 times as many cases as we have today (2 times 2 repeated 10 times).
This number is a catastrophically big problem for all of us: We will have 10 million+ actual cases (10,000 actual cases today x 1,024) in the United States in just 30 days’ time if we continue without extreme social distancing. 10 million people with the virus. And it will keep doubling every 3 days unless we practice social distancing.
15% of cases require significant medical attention, which means that 1.5 million people will require significant medical attention if 10 million people get infected (15% of 10 Million total infections = 1.5 million people requiring hospitalization).
1.5 million hospitalizations is about 50% more than we have beds for at hospitals in the United States. And 65% of all beds are already occupied in our hospitals. But patients with the virus need ICU beds, not just any old hospital bed. Only about 10% of hospital beds are considered intensive care. So we will have a huge bed shortage, but that is not the biggest problem, as we can erect temporary ICU shelters and bring in more temporary beds, as Italy has already done, and California and Washington hospitals have already done. Evergreen Hospital in Seattle has already erected temporary triage tents in the parking lot as of 3/13/20. All regular beds are full at Evergreen Hospital as of yesterday.
Once the government of China, Norway, and Italy came to understand this math, they reacted accordingly and shut EVERYTHING down. Extreme social distancing is the only response available to stop the virus today. The United States is not responding well nor are other countries like France or the UK. Countries that do not respond well will pay a much larger, catastrophic price.
But hospital beds are not the big problem. The lack of ventilators is the big problem. Most estimates peg the ventilators in the United States at roughly 100,000 to 150,000 units. See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21149215 (admittedly dated) and https://theweek.com/…/doesnt-have-enough-icu-beds-ventilato…
The primary and most serious comorbid (comorbid is a medical term that means co-existing or happening at the same time) condition brought on by the Coronavirus is something called bilateral interstitial pneumonia which requires ventilators for treatment of seriously ill patients. So if 1.5M people of the 10 million infected 30 days from now require acute care (15% of the 10M estimated total infections), 1.3M may not get the care that they need because we don’t have enough ventilators in the United States. And remember, this is only if ALL OF US EFFECTIVELY start social distancing by April 11th (30 days from today).
BUT IF WE START EXTREME SOCIAL DISTANCING BY MARCH 23 (12 days from this writing), WE AVOID OVER 1.4 MILLION PEOPLE GETTING CRITICALLY ILL AND OVERWHELMING THE HOSPITALS:
If everyone takes extreme measures to social distance, and the United States can dramatically reduce the spread of the virus 12 days from now, the math is very different, as the exponential growth will only be 2 to the 4th power (12 days divided by the doubling rate of every 3 days equals the exponent of 4):
2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 16
So instead of 10 Million cases in the United States if we wait 30 days, if we act 18 days sooner, we will have only 160,000 cases (16 times the estimated 10,000 actual cases as of today), of which 15% are likely to require critical care. This is 24,000 critical patients (a huge difference compared to 1.5 million acute patients). The difference between taking extreme measures now, versus waiting even a few days, is very large due to how exponents work in math.
THE OUTCOME IS EVEN BETTER IF WE TAKE ACTION IN THE NEXT 6 DAYS: If the vast majority of the population self isolates and implements social distancing in only 6 days from now the exponential math is 2 to the 2nd power (6 days divided by the 3 days it takes the virus to double means the exponent is only 2). In math this is "two squared".
2 x 2 = 4
Multiplied by the estimated 10,000 ACTUAL cases as of today (3/12/20) that means only 40,000 total cases will develop, 15% of which may be critical which is 6,000 critical patients.
This is why you should share this post broadly. If people begin social distancing in the next 6 days it will greatly reduce the impact on all of us. It's why they say a "post goes viral".
SOCIAL DISTANCING WILL REDUCE THE FINANCIAL IMPACT TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILY:
Finally, the longer everyone waits to practice significant social distancing the greater the economic hardship will be on all of us. Lost jobs. Mortgage defaults. Closed businesses. Bankruptcies. All will be minimized if you start social distancing today.
Some of the reasons the economic impacts will be reduced are worth mentioning: If we stop the virus now the overall duration of the outbreak will be far shorter. The stock market will normalize more quickly and recover more quickly. Businesses and people will be able to survive a shorter duration outbreak vs a longer duration outbreak. More companies will avoid bankruptcy if we begin to practice social distancing now.
This is a big financial reason to begin social distancing if you are employed by any company: if companies see that the virus is being slowed, they will be less likely to conduct layoffs. You will be more likely to be laid off or experience a job-related event if we don’t practice social distancing immediately. As an HR executive, I’ve been involved in many, many layoffs. It’s the last thing companies want to do. But if they see that the pandemic will be shorter lived vs long and drawn out, they are less likely to make the permanent decision of laying off staff.
The overall economic impact that hits your bank account will be greater if you wait or you don’t practice social distancing. This is why Norway acted now, because it’s less economic impact to take drastic measures early than to do them later, and it saves a lot of lives and suffering by doing so. And Norway has only one confirmed death as of this writing.
START TODAY. I CAN’T STRESS THIS ENOUGH. YOU MUST START TODAY.
Finally, the article that I posted yesterday written by Tomas Pueyo has been read 7M times in the last 24 hours and has been updated with new information. It’s worth reading again.
Here’s that link.
https://medium.com/…/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-d…
Other up to date data I frequently consult regarding the pandemic is here:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
I hope this is helpful and useful. My brain focuses on the math and I try and be fact based in my analysis and interpretation of how I should respond.
THERE IS MORE INFORMATION IN THE COMMENTS BELOW WORTH READING AND I WILL BE UPDATING THIS POST, AND THE COMMENTS, WITH MORE INFORMATION, (AS OPPOSED TO CREATING NEW POSTS).
MY FINAL PARTING THOUGHT: Please share or forward this post at your discretion. If everyone shares this post and two of your friends share this post and so on, we use the power of exponential math to work in our favor, which seems appropriate given the virus is using that same exponential math against us.
HOW YOU CAN REALLY HELP: If you know people who have large numbers of followers, or people in the media, please leverage your personal relationship with them and ask them to amplify this post by sharing it.
For people not on Facebook you can email or text the link. If you know people in government this fact-based post may help inform them to make the best decisions.
It's time for us humans to go on the offensive against the virus. We must fight back.
There is only one way to do so: Social Distancing.
Do it today.
NOTE: Anyone, including the media, is free to use this post, any related content, in all or in part, for any purpose, in any format, with no attribution required. Please direct message me if you have other ideas for how to raise awareness.
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When I listened to Boris' speech I was actually pretty impressed. It was better than I thought him capable off.

But one thing stuck out. He said many people were going to die. But he also said it's too early for a lot of actions because people might get fed up with them. Wouldn't it be his (the state more broadly) responsibility to enforce these policies even if people get bored of them. Telling your country that many will die but it's too early to do the significant stuff seems a bit off.
 
Countries are already going down the "herd immunity" route but they just don't realize it. The virus is way ahead of them and it's only the insufficient testing that makes it look like it's still picking up momentum now in terms of spreading. I think it's been present for much longer than we think.
 
Fener1907 said:
Countries are already going down the "herd immunity" route but they just don't realize it. The virus is way ahead of them and it's only the insufficient testing that makes it look like it's still picking up momentum now in terms of spreading. I think it's been present for much longer than we think.
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I disagree. There is a lot of data coming from China and South Korea (and confirmed from WHU) that shows that it is not the case. There are not many people who have it but just don't know it. The vast majority who will have it will know that, and 10% or so will need to be hospitalized.

Europe and the US are already in a worse situation than China ever was (Wuhan started the lockdown when there were 400 cases, Italy started it when there were a few thousand cases), so I expect that the number of infected people will reach in several hundred thousand to millions in big European countries and the US, but it might stop (or the function becomes linear) at that stage. Which is much better than it happening when there are tens of millions of sick people.

The genie is out of the bottle, but there is still some hope that the genie can still be tricked. If everyone starts acting rationally, and try to understand some basic math.

If not, the Spanish flu will look cute in comparison.
 
I'm reading conflicting advice on whether to treat fever with paracetamol or not. The NHS website recommendations it as a treatment method. However that Dr. John Campbell dude said in one of his videos that he doesn't recommend it as it works against the body's natural defense mechanism to raise the temperature and kill the virus (or something along those lines). I'm not currently sick, just trying to be prepared for when the time comes. :nervous:

What are your thoughts @Arruda @Pogue Mahone if you don't mind me asking?
 
Revan said:
I disagree. There is a lot of data coming from China and South Korea (and confirmed from WHU) that shows that it is not the case. There are not many people who have it but just don't know it. The vast majority who will have it will know that, and 10% or so will need to be hospitalized.
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Can you share some of that data?

Since 80% of cases are mild, I'm not sure that many people who will have it will know it, not when they weren't aware of its existence up until quite recently and wouldn't be able to differentiate between another type of flu and this one.
 
fergosaurus said:
I'm reading conflicting advice on whether to treat fever with paracetamol or not. The NHS website recommendations it as a treatment method. However that Dr. John Campbell dude said in one of his videos that he doesn't recommend it as it works against the body's natural defense mechanism to raise the temperature and kill the virus (or something along those lines). I'm not currently sick, just trying to be prepared for when the time comes. :nervous:

What are your thoughts @Arruda @Pogue Mahone if you don't mind me asking?
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Dr John Campbell has a PHD but is a retired nurse. Paracetamol is fine. It will help you feel better symptomatically. There is no correlation between paracetamol use and worse prognosis in any disease.
Some advice from French health minister to avoid ibuprofen (precedent is that its tended to be avoid in certain viral infections e.g. chickenpox) but no evidence base cited
 
Abizzz said:
When I listened to Boris' speech I was actually pretty impressed. It was better than I thought him capable off.

But one thing stuck out. He said many people were going to die. But he also said it's too early for a lot of actions because people might get fed up with them. Wouldn't it be his (the state more broadly) responsibility to enforce these policies even if people get bored of them. Telling your country that many will die but it's too early to do the significant stuff seems a bit off.
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The measures that they'll be talking about soon are things like telling families not to go to a funeral. Telling people not to visit a loved one in a hospice or a care home, not to visit patients at hospitals or go with friends/family as support when they've got difficult appointments. Telling grandparents they won't be able to see their grandkids (or anyone else) face to face for months.

Friends of mine are about to sell their house and buying a bungalow because their current house is too big for them, it needs repairs and their health/age means they don't want to use the stairs anymore. Do they keep preparing to move, or will they be in enforced "quarantine for the over 70s" in a month's time - which is when they are due to move?

Social distancing is easy (though it potentially has significant medium term mental and long-term physical implications). Actual home isolation is easy for a couple of weeks (provided they aren't the wrong couple of weeks in your life). It's not just people getting bored with Netflix, it's that life really does have to go on.
 
I don't fully agree with governmental policy but this is as best a defense/rationale for it as I have seen so far regarding key points (divergence from other countries etc)
 
Fener1907 said:
Can you share some of that data?

Since 80% of cases are mild, I'm not sure that many people who will have it will know it, not when they weren't aware of its existence up until quite recently and wouldn't be able to differentiate between another type of flu and this one.
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What I meant is that WHU confirmed that China has not been underestimating the number of infected people, as many people thought.

'Mild' does not mean having a headache for half an hour. Mild essentially means as bad as flu or as a bad cold. People under 'mild' conditions can actually have some sort of pneumonia.

China was in lockdown since January, with most cases being in February. People were aware of it.
 
Wolverine said:
Dr John Campbell has a PHD but is a retired nurse. Paracetamol is fine. It will help you feel better symptomatically. There is no correlation between paracetamol use and worse prognosis in any disease.
Some advice from French health minister to avoid ibuprofen (precedent is that its tended to be avoid in certain viral infections e.g. chickenpox) but no evidence base cited
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Ok. Cheers for the reply mate.
 
fergosaurus said:
I'm reading conflicting advice on whether to treat fever with paracetamol or not. The NHS website recommendations it as a treatment method. However that Dr. John Campbell dude said in one of his videos that he doesn't recommend it as it works against the body's natural defense mechanism to raise the temperature and kill the virus (or something along those lines). I'm not currently sick, just trying to be prepared for when the time comes. :nervous:

What are your thoughts @Arruda @Pogue Mahone if you don't mind me asking?
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France is saying ibuprofen no, paracetamol yes. I think everything is still quite unknown, so take everything with a pinch of salt.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ory-drugs-may-aggravate-coronavirus-infection
 
Grinner said:
How does isolating old people work then? I'm with my mother currently so would I have to stay quarantined from her?
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If you're going out often (grocery shopping etc), minimize the contact with her. It is gonna be hard to get totally quarantined with the people living in the same house, but keeping the distance might help a bit too.
 
Fener1907 said:
Countries are already going down the "herd immunity" route but they just don't realize it. The virus is way ahead of them and it's only the insufficient testing that makes it look like it's still picking up momentum now in terms of spreading. I think it's been present for much longer than we think.
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Particularly in France, only 6k tested by 5th of March.
 
Just saw a Snapchat story of people out in town drinking from each other's drinks... fecking hell, I wish the virus was a risk for these idiots and not the elderly and sick
 
Wolverine said:
I don't fully agree with governmental policy but this is as best a defense/rationale for it as I have seen so far regarding key points (divergence from other countries etc)
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It's everywhere this virus. Israel is gonna have to keep itself quarantined for a couple of years at this rate.

As @Fener1907 posted, the majority of countries are heading down the herd immunity route whether they know it or not. Best if we instead on concentrate on isolating risk-zone people and doing everything we can to protect them and pander to their needs.

I'm personally pleased that my two countries (UK / Sweden) are following the scientific advice of their experts. The Swedish experts (through Anders Tegnell) have slated Denmark for closing their borders and declared it utterly pointless, the Danish experts actually came on Air last night and agreed with Anders, saying the Danish government have made a political decision and haven't followed their advice.

The Danes interviewed though... still delighted that the government put the country in lockdown. Pure proof that politics is playing a huge part in the drastic decisions not just the USA are taking.
 
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fergosaurus said:
I'm reading conflicting advice on whether to treat fever with paracetamol or not. The NHS website recommendations it as a treatment method. However that Dr. John Campbell dude said in one of his videos that he doesn't recommend it as it works against the body's natural defense mechanism to raise the temperature and kill the virus (or something along those lines). I'm not currently sick, just trying to be prepared for when the time comes. :nervous:

What are your thoughts @Arruda @Pogue Mahone if you don't mind me asking?
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That guy is not a doctor and we should really stop posting his videos in here. Hes got a lot of things wrong and is not qualified to be dishing out advice.
 
There's more to the UK's herd immunity strategy than just having a lot of people get sick. The UK's strategy in terms of the WHO's key pillars (testing, contact tracing, quarantine and social distancing) is different and will lead to entirely different outcomes, even if other countries also have very high rates of infection.
 
And now, as I've been arguing all week it appears the UK is about to make another sound, scientific based request:

Elderly will be asked to stay at home for four months

Sophy Ridge asks the health secretary to confirm that those over-70 will be asked to self-isolate and stay at home - for up to four months.

He says "that is the plan" but "not yet".

Asked when the advice will officially change, Hancock reveals "in the coming weeks".

He admits it's "not an easy thing for people to do, not an easy thing for people to sustain".
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Much better we do everything possible to isolate those with the highest risk, those with medical conditions should be allowed to be off work on full pay and we should pander to their every need. No point all of us going into isolation at this point.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
And now, as I've been arguing all week it appears the UK is about to make another sound, scientific based request:



Much better we do everything possible to isolate those at the highest risk, those with conditions should be allowed to be off work on full pay and we should pander to their every need. No point all of us going into isolation at this point.
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So on the one hand their plan is based on the premise that people can only reasonably sustain harder measures for a limited period of time, on the other it also depends on old people isolating themselves for four whole months while the rest of the country is becoming infected? Hmmm.
 
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