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

Arruda said:
A lockdown from day one would have been a lockdown about 2 months ago. It was never into question, even in the best of chances, it wouldn't have been possible, even the Chinese couldn't do that.

What you see in the UK, however, is the exact opposite, not a half-sensible middle ground. News anchors in Portugal are shocked that only today were classes suspended.

Boris Johnson is now no different than that famous Iraqi information minister.
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Portuguese news anchors?!?! Jesus. lf there's one opinion I've always valued above all others its that of Portuguese news channels. We should have listened.

Or maybe we shouldn't be such panic merchants.
 
BeforeKeanetherewasRobson said:
Mother and father in law went to church last Sunday. They do this thing where they take a minute to hug everyone near them each service and despite clear advice on how to engage with other people, still did it this week. Idiots

I told them not to bother asking to come to my house to see kids... if they can't be arsed to avoid dozens of people, don't see why me/my family should increase our risk.

Sure they'll be ok though, their faith will beat Covid 19
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tbh my comment was related to on mass instead of en masse. Poor attempt, I'll admit.

My gang went to church last Saturday too. I doubt they'll be silly enough to go this week.
 
Arruda said:
A lockdown from day one would have been a lockdown about 2 months ago. It was never into question, even in the best of chances, it wouldn't have been possible, even the Chinese couldn't do that.

What you see in the UK, however, is the exact opposite, not a half-sensible middle ground. News anchors in Portugal are shocked that only today were classes suspended.

Boris Johnson is now no different than that famous Iraqi information minister.
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B Johnson is in trouble once this crisis subsides, however long that may be. His terrible choices are going to cost many live in the UK.
 
Foxbatt said:
Now the Lancet medical journal is saying the Chinese doctors and scientists did inform them and even wrote in the journal about this new virus in January this year. At that time they only knew how serious it was and what was the symptoms and how they are trying to isolate it. This was given to the British government by the Journal yet the government did not seem fit to act. In fact the government's policy was to get as many people infected and have a herd mentality. The Chinese and later the Italians were saying this is the wrong approach. The WHO asked for 675M USD to declare a pandemic and was refused.
The whole World has failed and not just China. Others are more culpable because from what happened in China they were able to see beforehand exactly what was going to happen 3 months in advance and yet they did nothing to stop it or to save the lives of so many people.
At least the Chinese are helping other nations to combat this virus. UK government is not doing enough to combat this virus even in the UK. The same in the USA too.
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I couldn't agree more. China informed WHO within four days of the doctors reporting the problem, worked on to figure what the illness is for the next couple of weeks then shut down the whole region within three weeks of informing WHO/doctors reporting the atypical pneumonia. People just love to outsource blame to societies with dissimilar ideals to themselves.
 
Sassy Colin said:
I was talking to a client in Hong Kong this morning, and she says they are starting to get back to normality a little bit now. She said that the supermarket shelf stripping went on for a month though.

I'm at my local Chinese tonight, and they told me that the schools are starting to reopen in China.

A lot of Chinese people from Europe are going back to China, for safety. They are being quarantined for 2 weeks before they can properly enter the country.

Maybe 3 months and things can start to get back to normal.
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Bill Gates who predicted this pandemic said things should resume in that time frame.

Being idealistic, Europe and China could get better. But i think India and Africa will be bad for a while. Not sure about the US. Depends on what Trump does now.
 
Camilo said:
Portuguese news anchors?!?! Jesus. lf there's one opinion I've always valued above all others its that of Portuguese news channels. We should have listened.

Or maybe we shouldn't be such panic merchants.
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I do love it when people go out and find opinions or facts that back up theirs.
Portuguese news anchors :lol:
 
Hugh Jass said:
B Johnson is in trouble once this crisis subsides, however long that may be. His terrible choices are going to cost many live in the UK.
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Sadly, I think it'll be a case of 'I'd like to see ol' Bozza Johnson wriggle his way out of this jam!'
 
SteveJ said:
Sadly, I think it'll be a case of 'I'd like to see ol' Bozza Johnson wriggle his way out of this jam!'
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Sickening really what he is has done or more to the point not done. I hope his political career is over.
 
Why don't people listen? Quarantine is what controlled it in China and Korea. Quarantine is what will control it anywhere else too.
Yes testing too. But testing everyone is impossible in most countries. Anyone with the symptoms were tested. Then they know to isolate them. Either collectively or in isolation.
All this public gatherings and congregation and hugging is just making it worse.
In the Muslim countries they have already banned going to the mosques.
 
Id be worried if I was in UK.
Boris the executioner has led the UK into the abyss here.

Absolute oaf of the highest order.
The British Trump.
 
Foxbatt said:
Why don't people listen? Quarantine is what controlled it in China and Korea. Quarantine is what will control it anywhere else too.
Yes testing too. But testing everyone is impossible in most countries. Anyone with the symptoms were tested. Then they know to isolate them. Either collectively or in isolation.
All this public gatherings and congregation and hugging is just making it worse.
In the Muslim countries they have already banned going to the mosques.
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I agree.
 
Foxbatt said:
Why don't people listen? Quarantine is what controlled it in China and Korea. Quarantine is what will control it anywhere else too.
Yes testing too. But testing everyone is impossible in most countries. Anyone with the symptoms were tested. Then they know to isolate them. Either collectively or in isolation.
All this public gatherings and congregation and hugging is just making it worse.
In the Muslim countries they have already banned going to the mosques.
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Quarantine would take months though before it gets all right because a lot of people can’t just stay at home all the time. To be fair nobody seems to have any clear idea how to deal with this outbreak.
 
SteveJ said:
Sadly, I think it'll be a case of 'I'd like to see ol' Bozza Johnson wriggle his way out of this jam!'
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Not sure about this. Having a subordinate standing next to him who at least gives the impression of being knowledgeable, decisive and statesmanlike has not helped his reputation at all.
 
I've just been looking at our region's website, where the dead are listed by sex, age, where they died, their Comune of residence and any underlying health conditions. It's interesting data - lots of very old folk (one old dear of 99, shame she didn't get to her century), a handful of women in their 40s who all had serious health issues and one person with Down's Syndrome.

Men outnumber women 2 to 1, and the vast majority are in their late 70s or older - we have a lot of nonagenarians in this part of the world.

edit - 98.7% had pre-existing pathologies.
 
These pandemic like crisises will more than likely become more common. The Guardian said there is a good chance of another one in a couple of decades time. We cannot just say "let it infect everyone and then go from there." We already have had close calls with SARS, MERS and Ebola. There are only going to be more. So we have to effectively try to contain them.

We go the way of "herd immunity" every time something like this happens, economies wont function at all. You will have a ten year recession and then by the time the country and globalized economy picks up again, we will then have another pandemic again.
 
Revaulx said:
Not sure about this. Having a subordinate standing next to him who at least gives the impression of being knowledgeable, decisive and statesmanlike has not helped his reputation at all.
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There’s five years to the next election. Lot of water to go under a lot of bridges, to say the least. I wouldn’t want to call anything right now.
 
Revaulx said:
Not sure about this. Having a subordinate standing next to him who at least gives the impression of being knowledgeable, decisive and statesmanlike has not helped his reputation at all.
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Not at all. The two countries that have dealt with it has done thru quarantine and other measures. China, Korea and Taiwan did it basically thru quarantine and testing. They have said it all along and have sent their experts to Europe where they are being welcomed.
I guess the British or should I say the British government thinks they know too much about it. Look at the Lancet medical journal, where they accuse the government on not accepting the views of the experts. The British government knew from about the 20th of January what was happening in China. That's almost 3 months notice yet they ignored the advice.
In all honesty there should be a public inquiry on the failures of the government once this pandemic is over.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
@11101

News out of Italy is horrific. Any sign of new cases slowing down after lockdown? Should be starting to have an effect by now, surely?
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Not really. It did look like the rise of new cases was slowing down but the last couple of days has seen massive increases again. I live in a mid size town and the wife and I have also noticed a lot more ambulance sirens around the last day or two. The only silver lining is that all the equipment orders made at the onset are now coming through, ICU places have gone from 5000 to 8000 and are rising quickly.

The law for the lockdown measures needs renewing this weekend anyway and I can see them tightening things further, theres a constant stream of complaints from government that people are not staying at home enough.



I have a statistician contact who is modelling the outbreak with his company. Hes been publishing it for a few days now and has been fairly spot on with numbers so far. He predicts R0 under 1 on April 1 or 2 and a total of 220k cases in Italy.
 
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Boris will probably sack the Chancellor. :D
 
2cents said:
@africanspur @Avatar you know anything about the situation in Egypt? Starting to see it mentioned more and more as a possible bad spot, despite official government denials.
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Sorry buddy, haven't been logged in for a while.

Seems to mostly be cases from tourists over there as far as I can see, though the PH infrastructure there is of course not particularly good. ,

It is also very difficult to take any figures the government releases over there seriously.

My in laws seem relatively happy with the measures taken so far, even as a group generally very critical of the government. We'll have to see how effective it is though.
 
In twenty years time we will be talking about Boris Johnson in the same vein as Neville Chamberlain with his "peace in our time."

Terrible terrible terrible. People who shouldnt die are now going to die. And B Johnson wont be held accountable at all.
 
ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg said:
what a pathetic statement. Are you going to explain and give any context?
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Ok just some quick examples.

  • Policies made by other countries before Britain

France
The French government is expanding its “partial unemployment” scheme. It means employees can apply for state benefits during an economic crisis and that employers are banned from firing them.
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Spain
The Spanish government will subsidise workers who have been temporarily laid off by giving them access to the benefits system. A range of loans and grants is also being made available to businesses
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Denmark
The Danish government has said it will subsidise 75 per cent of workers’ salaries (up to a maximum of 23,000 kroner or roughly £2,840 a month) if firms promise not to fire employees.
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Sweden
The Swedish government will heavily subsidise workers’ salaries. Employees will collect 90 per cent of their wages and will work reduced hours.
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Why has it took Britain so long ? Another example, Germany closed it's bars, pubs etc on Monday why did Britain need until today to do the same ?

  • Lack of planning


Government documents show no planning for ventilators in the event of a pandemic

In October 2016 the UK government ran a national pandemic flu exercise, codenamed Exercise Cygnus. The report of its findings was not made publicly available, but the then chief medical officer Sally Davies commented on what she had learnt from it in December 2016.

“We’ve just had in the UK a three-day exercise on flu, on a pandemic that killed a lot of people,” she told the World Innovation Summit for Health at the time. “It became clear that we could not cope with the excess bodies,” Davies said. One conclusion was that Britain, as Davies put it, faced the threat of “inadequate ventilation” in a future pandemic. She was referring to the need for ventilation machines, which keep oxygen pumping in patients critically ill with a respiratory disease such as coronavirus.


Despite the severe failings exposed by Exercise Cygnus, the government’s planning for a future pandemic did not change after December 2016 – at least not formally. The government’s roadmap for how to respond to a coronavirus-like pandemic has long been available online, and the three key documents – the 70-page “Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Strategy”, 78-page “Health and Social Care Influenza Pandemic Preparedness and Response” and 88-page “Pandemic Influenza Response Plan” – were published in 2011, 2012 and 2014 respectively. These plans were tested and failed, yet these documents were not rewritten or revised.


They share a glaring shortcoming: not one of them mentions ventilators, which are now in such high demand that Matthew Hancock, the Health Secretary, told British manufacturers on 14 March, “If you produce a ventilator, we will buy it. No number [you produce] is too high.” He urged firms from Rolls-Royce to JCB to stop what they do and to begin making ventilators.

https://www.newstatesman.com/politi...s-show-no-planning-ventilators-event-pandemic
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Lack of policy for Renters, self employed and unemployed





And just look at some of the responses by people on here, who have just been fecked over by the latest government statement.


NHS Workers



Testing, Testing Testing



and

Coronavirus: WHO calls for countries to test every case after British government says move 'no longer necessary

The World Health Organisation has repeated calls for all countries to find and test every coronavirus case after the British government claimed the practice was “no longer necessary”. Announcing the next stage of the UK’s strategy, the chief medical officer for England said on Thursday that only hospital patients would now be formally checked for the virus. “It is no longer necessary for us to identify every case and we will move from having testing mainly done in homes and outpatients and walk-in centres, to a situation where people who are remaining at home do not need testing,” Professor Chris Whitty added. The plan puts Britain at odds with international advice issued by WHO, which repeated appeals for efforts to track and trace all coronavirus cases on Friday.

Addressing a press briefing, director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: “You can’t fight a virus if you don’t know where it is. Find, isolate, test and treat every case, to break the chains of transmission. “Every case we find and treat limits the expansion of the disease.
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  • Boris



And I haven't even talked about the decade long effect of austerity which has made it extremely difficult to tackle a virus like covid19. But whatever I'm sure you've got a empty reply about how Britain is somehow different from the rest of the world and some meaningless sound bite about how the government is simply following ''the science''. Which is why I feel sorry for people like yourself, it's not because we don't agree politically(Who actual gives a shit about that during a crisis like this)it's that the tories are fecking you up the arse and you don't even know it or if you do know you're just glad they aren't using the wooden paddle.

17 Van der Gouw said:
WTF? You feel sorry for him for actually having a grasp of how things work?
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See above.
 
Hugh Jass said:
These pandemic like crisises will more than likely become more common. The Guardian said there is a good chance of another one in a couple of decades time. We cannot just say "let it infect everyone and then go from there." We already have had close calls with SARS, MERS and Ebola. There are only going to be more. So we have to effectively try to contain them.

We go the way of "herd immunity" every time something like this happens, economies wont function at all. You will have a ten year recession and then by the time the country and globalized economy picks up again, we will then have another pandemic again.
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I think the Chinese did take their eye off the ball on this but I don't think it's going to happen again. The world stopped research on the SARS vaccine once it got under control. If they didn't we would probably have had a vaccine for this much quicker.
I don't think the Chinese will do it again.

But what gets my gall is the Americans refusing to ease the economic sanctions on Iran. They have a person dying every 10 mins and they can't buy any imported goods because of the sanctions. For the sake of humanity at least for now stop the sanctions on non military stuff.
 
Hugh Jass said:
In twenty years time we will be talking about Boris Johnson in the same vein as Neville Chamberlain with his "peace in our time."

Terrible terrible terrible. People who shouldnt die are now going to die. And B Johnson wont be held accountable at all.
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Not sure if Boris is better compared to Chamberlain or Anthony Eden, same goes for May.
 
Foxbatt said:
I think the Chinese did take their eye off the ball on this but I don't think it's going to happen again. The world stopped research on the SARS vaccine once it got under control. If they didn't we would probably have had a vaccine for this much quicker.
I don't think the Chinese will do it again.

But what gets my gall is the Americans refusing to ease the economic sanctions on Iran. They have a person dying every 10 mins and they can't buy any imported goods because of the sanctions. For the sake of humanity at least for now stop the sanctions on non military stuff.
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Agreed.
 
I think Jezza would be very happy now to have lost the election. At least he can't be blamed for the deaths of so many people. His conscience will be clear. That said Bojo won't accept the responsibility for this anyway.
 
I am just trying to imagine how different the world will be after this. Somehow I recalled the tv series "The Leftovers"
 
Surely all these like for like comparisons with other European countries is off the mark because we’re not at the same stages of the epidemic? No?
 
stepic said:
Surely all these like for like comparisons with other European countries is off the mark because we’re not at the same stages of the epidemic? No?
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No I don't think it has hit the UK yet as in Europe. That's why everyone is worried that the government has lost the plot. UK should be in quarantine by now. And do much more and a lot more testing too.
 
Penna said:
I've just been looking at our region's website, where the dead are listed by sex, age, where they died, their Comune of residence and any underlying health conditions. It's interesting data - lots of very old folk (one old dear of 99, shame she didn't get to her century), a handful of women in their 40s who all had serious health issues and one person with Down's Syndrome.

Men outnumber women 2 to 1, and the vast majority are in their late 70s or older - we have a lot of nonagenarians in this part of the world.

edit - 98.7% had pre-existing pathologies.
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I’m assuming you live in one of the more rural parts of Italy? How do your numbers look against, say, Lombardy’s?
 
Ladbrokes closing it's shops, I don't know about the other bookies. I believe it's until the end of April at the moment.
 
Heardy said:
If you say that you may as well tell us!
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I'm not sure it's appropriate. It's all worst case scenario of course but they're expecting this surge to arrive by next Sunday/Monday.

By North, I mean NI btw.
 
Israel reports its first death, of 705 cases.
An 88 year-old with many background illnesses.
Suffered a heart-attack a few days ago.
Czechia is the country with the most cases (833) without any deaths.
 
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