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

[TMDaines]

Just 1 confirmed death in the UK today so far. Have to admit I was expecting that to be much higher after the weekend's figures.

Given that Italy's first case was literally the day before the first here in the UK......why haven't we seen the same spread and impact thus far?

Italy's older population means they are a very likely suspect for the highest crude death rate for COVID-19 out of any of the major Western countries. There's a lot more very old (80+) people in Italy and more older women in general. There's some early academic research looking at deaths expected in the UK and they would expect fewer here because of that:

Obviously this assumes the two countries take roughly the same approach in terms of effects on cohorts of the population, smoking prevalence etc.

 

[Berbasbullet]

Seems to be the plan in both the UK and the US. Tell people nothing, do as little testing as possible and then I'm guessing...cover it all up after the smoke has cleared. Either that or we're both being led by idiots incapable of making a coherent plan. Perhaps a little from Column A and a little from Column B?

Aren’t South Korea for example aggressively testing?

 

[Renegade]

So mason mount who was meant to be self isolating decided to go to a football centre in north london. Chelsea had to tell him to get back inside.

Hasn’t he got enough things at home to keep him busy?

Bastard probably has a indoor gym and spa.

 

[Deery]

The first prison officer in the UK has tested positive. I didn’t really consider it getting into the prison environment, it could spread like wildfire in there.

 

[CassiusClaymore]

Aren’t South Korea for example aggressively testing?

Yes. The most outside of China I believe. and second only tp Bahrain for tests per million (people).

 

[Wolverine]

I do not get why we have halted community testing. At all. Even without what the WHO is saying. I get our tactic of delay phase, community testing can be a vital tool to get that done. There are so many ways it would be beneficial.
An accurate estimate of the spread of this thing will get more people taking it seriously. I understand that there is fear of inducing panic but if people aren't vigilant with social isolation then we will not flatten that curve.
Also is helps identify hot spots and resource allocation in terms of mobilising doctors, with increasing trends making it more likely that elective theatres are turned into makeshift ICU beds, rota planning done early with local services including media etc utilised to ensure that we can assist in voluntary services as needed.Rather than that we are just waiting for things to dramatically and exponentially get worse. Telling people to self-isolate we have no idea on demographics and distribution of this thing.

 

[Lynty]

What the hell
Suppose they need to take precautions too

Just 1 confirmed death in the UK today so far. Have to admit I was expecting that to be much higher after the weekend's figures.

Given that Italy's first case was literally the day before the first here in the UK......why haven't we seen the same spread and impact thus far?

UK done a great job in the containment phase. Identified cases quickly and traced all contacts. It was never sustainable but it delayed the inevitable. Italy never had that chance as they struggled to trace contacts.

Now we've stopped testing and still haven't implemented social distancing, I expect us to go full Italy in 2 weeks.

There must be some terrorists who are planning to weaponise the virus, such an easy way to cause serious damage, with minimal effort.

Not sophisticated enough (yet). If they were, I presume the west would have been hit with germ warfare already.

 

[redshaw]

Because we're not testing people.

Can't confirm cases if you ignore them.

Can you please stop with the hysteria

We've tested 44 fecking thousand as of today, it was 40k the other day, we're testing people and the small amount of cases found out of another 4k tested is good news, as is one death. France had tested 6k by March 5 and we'd done about 25k. Spain announced yesterday they have tested 30k with 300 dead and 8000+ cases.

What the hell do you think is going on in other countries with even lower numbers of tests? Most are told to stay home with mild symptoms.

Still even with that, UK has done a further 4k of tests presumably with worse symptoms and not detected much more. No country is able to test millions yet and test labs need to get results to doctors, nurses and patients.

Seems to be the plan in both the UK and the US. Tell people nothing, do as little testing as possible and then I'm guessing...cover it all up after the smoke has cleared. Either that or we're both being led by idiots incapable of making a coherent plan. Perhaps a little from Column A and a little from Column B?

What utter nonsense

And anyone please stop with the stupid US UK Trump Boris bollocks not testing enough, UK is testing more than most. US is the one short of tests per head and I don't really care. Stop trying to group UK and US together like this.

 

[Cutch]

 

[Berbasbullet]

Did Boris just say work from home if you can?

 

[Ady87]

Anyone watching the Boris statement? Now saying 14 days self isolation.

I’m on Day 7 of self isolation and was going to go back in to work tomorrow. Not sure what to do. Cough has almost gone.

 

[One Night Only]

Anyone watching the Boris statement? Now saying 14 days self isolation.

I’m on Day 7 of self isolation and was going to go back in to work tomorrow. Not sure what to do. Cough has almost gone.

It's 14 days if you ring 111 and they think you've got it, it's 7 if they don't think it's the virus?

 

[CassiusClaymore]

He's a feckin awful speaker I'm sorry. Just waffling.

 

[Offside]

Anyone watching the Boris statement? Now saying 14 days self isolation.

I’m on Day 7 of self isolation and was going to go back in to work tomorrow. Not sure what to do. Cough has almost gone.

Sounds like take another week.

 

[Pexbo]

Anyone watching the Boris statement? Now saying 14 days self isolation.

I’m on Day 7 of self isolation and was going to go back in to work tomorrow. Not sure what to do. Cough has almost gone.

Self-isolate for another 7 days. It's not a difficult decision. Just consider whether any of your co-workers might have elderly or vulnerable loved ones that are dependent on them.

 

[TMDaines]

Anyone watching the Boris statement? Now saying 14 days self isolation.

I’m on Day 7 of self isolation and was going to go back in to work tomorrow. Not sure what to do. Cough has almost gone.

NHS and GOV.UK guidance will likely be updated in next hour. You'll be home for another week.

 

[11101]

Lombardy had 1367 new cases today, a relatively low number compared to the last week. Lockdown is 7 days old now so hoping this is the start of a trend in the right direction rather than an anomaly.

202 dead as the spike in cases last week translates into deaths.

And a little bit of positivity in the press conference, some areas are beginning to see an easing in patient inflows, and all the equipment ordered when the outbreak started is beginning to arrive.

 

[TMDaines]

14 days for all households when anyone has symptoms now. Ramping up time.

 

[CassiusClaymore]

Ok so whole household is advised to isolate for 14 days if someone exhibits symptons. So we can take kids out of school I assume?

 

[Offside]

No chance you stop English people going to the pub unless they are all closed.

 

[Hammerfell]

The facial expressions of the sign language woman are adding a comical edge to the briefing.

 

[Phil]

Recommendations, not rule enforcement.

 

[The Firestarter]

The first prison officer in the UK has tested positive. I didn’t really consider it getting into the prison environment, it could spread like wildfire in there.

I can tell you what the north koreans would do in such situation.

 

[Red Pavan]

Don't understand their stance on non-essential gatherings but keeping educational facilities open - very contradictory. The virus will keep spreading as the chances remain high for Kids being able to pass it onto parents without even showing symptoms.

 

[Vitro]

How many different teams in the world are working on a vaccine? Is there any information sharing going on?

There will be dozens of individual groups working on a vaccine worldwide. These are the sorts of numbers which are needed if we want one quickly, considering the difficulty in vaccine development.

I personally know of 2 groups in London which are making some progress, and we’ll likely be collaborating in the future if our vaccine shows potential as we don’t have facilities for Covid animal challenge models (class 3 bio safety amongst other things).

Most journals have fast tracked publications relating to Covid so data can be shared as fast as possible. Centralised information sharing agencies have been setup which try to collate data etc.

The idea for our vaccine comes from our previous work, but incorporates data from the 2003 SARS outbreak, is heavily reliant on the recently published Covid genome sequence, and lends from recent studies on immunogenic viral surface proteins. This allows us to synthesise genes of interest in about 2-3 weeks. Even 10 years ago this work would have taken a dedicated team at least months to do so at the very least we have that to be thankful for.

 

[TMDaines]

Recommendations, not rule enforcement.

Well, yeah. There's no way the police could completely manage this and we don't bring the Army onto the streets traditionally.

 

[17 Van der Gouw]

Good luck, it's going to be a difficult situation for a lot of people.

Thank you! Yes, it's been a tough couple of weeks already. Not expecting things to go back to normal for a long time. But I'd imagine much worse for the likes of pub and restaurant staff, who could be out of a job altogether soon.

Difficult times.

 

[Berbaclass]

Recommendations, not rule enforcement.

That will be the next stage I assume. In a few days/a week

 

[17 Van der Gouw]

No chance you stop English people going to the pub unless they are all closed.

Exactly.

We need enforcments not recommendations.

Expecting people to socially distance by themselves is insane.

 

[Jacko21]

12 weeks at home for me.

 

[Deery]

I can tell you what the north koreans would do in such situation.

That’s horrible isn’t it, can’t believe they shot the poor man that had it cruel bastard the Kim Jong Un.

 

[dwd]

12 weeks at home for me.

Why?

 

[The Firestarter]

That’s horrible isn’t it, can’t believe they shot the poor man that had it cruel bastard the Kim Jong Un.

In case of a prison they wont waste bullets. They'd just weld it shut. And come ack after a month.

 

[Sarni]

Because we're not testing people.

Can't confirm cases if you ignore them.

Yeah but if someone dies you'd know it's from coronavirus. I can buy argument for fewer cases because of limited testing but not deaths.

 

[Phil]

Well, yeah. There's no way the police could completely manage this and we don't bring the Army onto the streets traditionally.

The police couldn't manage closing pubs, stopping big social gatherings or specifically allowing for older or more at risk people to Work from Home?

 

[Revan]

How many different teams in the world are working on a vaccine? Is there any information sharing going on?

Many. A few have already a candidate vaccine (Moderna in Boston, a company in Israel, a company in Canada, and probably the German company Trump wanted to buy).

 

[LawCharltonBest]

Excuse my ignorance

But China are saying they’re well past the peak of Coronavirus, and it’s starting to slowly die out there day by day.

So, why are Europe still in “OMG we’re going to get worse over the next few months” mode?

If the country where it originated, the least prepared country and one of the most overcrowded countries has almost killed off the disease in 3 months, why are we all expecting it to be much worse here? We were more prepared and further from the source

 

[horsechoker]

In case of a prison they wont waste bullets. They'd just weld it shut. And come ack after a month.

What if the prisoners develop herd immunity survive while the rest of the population doesn't?

Also would that make a good movie?

 

[Sarni]

I do not get why we have halted community testing. At all. Even without what the WHO is saying. I get our tactic of delay phase, community testing can be a vital tool to get that done. There are so many ways it would be beneficial.
An accurate estimate of the spread of this thing will get more people taking it seriously. I understand that there is fear of inducing panic but if people aren't vigilant with social isolation then we will not flatten that curve.
Also is helps identify hot spots and resource allocation in terms of mobilising doctors, with increasing trends making it more likely that elective theatres are turned into makeshift ICU beds, rota planning done early with local services including media etc utilised to ensure that we can assist in voluntary services as needed.Rather than that we are just waiting for things to dramatically and exponentially get worse. Telling people to self-isolate we have no idea on demographics and distribution of this thing.

Cost

 

[Sarni]

Excuse my ignorance

But China are saying they’re well past the peak of Coronavirus, and it’s starting to die out there.

So, why are Europe still in “OMG we’re going to get worse over the next few months” mode?

If the country where it originated, the least prepared country and one of the most overcrowded countries has almost killed off the disease in 3 months, why are we all expecting it to be much worse here? We were more prepared and further from the source

China started isolating people earlier and have used measures which will probably not work as well in Europe. Also, cases were largely limited to one region while in Europe it's all over the place with countries using different approaches. I don't think we were prepared at all to be honest.

For instance, UK's approach of allowing it to spread basically means that we can't have Europe open for a while because it'll be coming back. What China have done is basically lock people at home, test extensively and limit social contacts as much as they could, across the country. We already know we won't do that in Europe.