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

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.

Don’t worry man I know you’re busy right now, to say the least!

This just came up on my twitter feed btw:

 
It's risk that might have to be taken I suppose. They could save multiple lives but risking their own.

I don’t think that’s what NHS staff signed up for though is it? Helping people yes, but putting your own life at significant risk- not so sure. It’s important that as this progresses that this is not automatically assumed and almost forced upon NHS frontline staff.

Young and fit healthcare professionals have actually died from this virus, as they are exposed to high viral counts- especially those who are performing intubation.
 
Is there any particular reason to take note of Portugese news anchors - and is it acceptable for Portugese news anchors to offer an opinion on something? Strange comment.
I meant it as an (admiteddly poor) illustration that the general opinion around here is that things in the UK are a far greater mess than here and your government is acting slower.
 
Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance
What the Next 18 Months Can Look Like, if Leaders Buy Us Time

Very good article on comparative policies, choices and decisions. Governments need to be held accountable -- its not like there wasn't any advance warnings or even a pandemic playbook.

Containment and Communication/Education is standard fare for anyone with an MPH/MPA degree and yet... some political leaders decided to do a light touch on containment --- and then went straight into mitigation, a choice that has multiplier costs effects.
 
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OK, so my country (SA) will probably go into lockdown mode within a couple of weeks. At the moment just the hand sanitizer, masks and vitamin C are sold out. We have stocked up on a few things, but to those already in lockdown:

What do you wish you bought when you had the chance?
 
OK, so my country (SA) will probably go into lockdown mode within a couple of weeks. At the moment just the hand sanitizer, masks and vitamin C are sold out. We have stocked up on a few things, but to those already in lockdown:

What do you wish you bought when you had the chance?
If you are a gym person, get gym gear. It's selling out here.
 
The side effects of this are going to be insane. Isolation and economic issues are necessary/unavoidable at this point. It will cause so many problems with mental health (I was already at a low point but now even worse) and suicides.

Also the people who can no longer get medical help because their issues are no longer priority/as important. But those could lead to deaths. A lack of medical equipment means there genuinely may be a point where doctor's have to choose who to save.

The geopolitical fallout could be huge as well. Finger pointing maybe down the line, some countries failing economically etc.

To get the economy back up and running to the levels we need I imagine will be tough (I don't know much about how it works so could be wrong)

Either way, I can't now see this being blown over and be nothing more than a pub quiz question in 2 years like hoped.
 
Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. - Yoda

I'm now turning to the philosophies of Buddhism. I will aim to let go of all my desires and attachments. That is how I will remain calm. I won't always be able to do it, but so far it has brought me some peace.
 
Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. - Yoda

I'm now turning to the philosophies of Buddhism. I will aim to let go of all my desires and attachments. That is how I will remain calm. I won't always be able to do it, but so far it has brought me some peace.
Ah, yes. Yoda. The famous Buddhist ***********.
 
Looks like a crucial moment for Ireland, whether we rapidly increase numbers or keep the increase steady. The graphs are eerily similar.

Screenshot-20200321-045124.png
 
And Italy are a country who kiss each other if they pass them in the street and live with elderly relatives in the same home. We can all skew arguments to our own narrative but sometimes people just want to look in on a thread and not feel they are on death row by people scaremongering.

Apologies I am probably going a bit over the top but whatever the government does(not saying they are right) there will always be half the country believing it is the wrong way.

That will be some of the reasons the cases exploded there and Spain. Italy had tested about 30k tested early March with 3k-4k cases and 100-200 deaths. We have that rate out of 66k tested

The UK death toll is worrying and stacking up the same. We don't have the explosion of cases per tested but have worse healthcare, near bottom out of 40 countries for beds and possibly poorer health. I'd hope the deaths level off but it seems despite the different culture, less old people and less living with the family the virus will reach them in other ways in care homes and family visits to grandparent homes and older people just going out. Most European countries have a dismissive nature of this virus and won't wear masks, something that is greatly helping other Asian countries not even have an outbreak or greatly contained it.

The other hope is antiviral meds come in to play soon but all the testing and success in treatment is outside Europe. Seems to be ventilator and death in Italy/Europe from what the doctors have said at the hospitals.
 
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OK, so my country (SA) will probably go into lockdown mode within a couple of weeks. At the moment just the hand sanitizer, masks and vitamin C are sold out. We have stocked up on a few things, but to those already in lockdown:

What do you wish you bought when you had the chance?
Potatoes.

More non-perishable (frozen) proteins.
 


This makes sense. There has been widespread complacency about a virus that is known to be highly contagious in a global economy that sees millions of people passing through airports every day. The best question all along would have been "How can it not spread?" instead of "Will it spread?", and the virus did have a lot of time to spread before countries even considered the possibility of its arrival.

Testing itself was very inadequate because it not only failed to give a good representation of the number of people who were infected but continued to give a false sense of security to populations in the meantime, allowing the virus even more precious time to spread even further.
 
We decided to leave Ethiopia for Denmark very quickly the other day and are now quarantined in some friends' summer house. So that's pretty good.
Basically we were strongly encouraged to apply for telecommuting from our home country, furthermore the internet is more stable here, so it should be more productive.
The thing is now we don't know when we'll get back to Ethiopia.

Anyway, I spoke to my brother yesterday, who's a medical doctor. We have it under control so far, we've set up a number of emergency intensive care units and are educating 240 med students and nurses in treating ventilator patients before Easter. Usually ~40 are educated in a year. My brother has gotten some time off from his ER posting to help with the education of these students.
He said a crucial difference between e.g. Italy and Denmark is that we've been fairly lucky so far with who's been infected, i.e. patients have been younger and we've managed to hide some of the vulnerable away before it got to them.
I asked him about whether anyone has looked at our ventilator capacity and estimated whether we have enough. He said we should have but if push comes to shove we train our personnel in manually ventilating people, which they apparently don't always do in e.g. Italy. So he thinks we have it under control so far.
 
Ok just some quick examples.

  • Policies made by other countries before Britain

France

Spain

Denmark


Sweden



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



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



  • 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.


See above.


well I’m impressed by the effort of this post.

what I take offence at was your original post “I feel sorry for people like you”, it’s utterly misguided, argumentative and pointless.

The challenge we have with all of this is that there a counter argument for everything, amd which can be found on mainstream as well as other media.

for example:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51979654

Have we over egged the response?

no one is going to know with any sort of clarity what strategy would have/ could have/ was the most appropriate action until way after this and we can take stock and analyse it.

it’s a little futile to be dishing out criticism left right and centre.

also interesting is the demographics on the site. It can feel like a big echo chamber - which we saw with Brexit, and unreflective of the wider society. An a direct example, I am a member of several business forums, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive to the actions that the government has taken, from owners of business of all sizes. The concern at the moment is for the self employed/ sole trader/ businesses without premises (I.e e-commerce).But I expect further support for these groups to announced in the near future.

I don’t understand why you need to use rhetoric like fecking/arse/paddle - it derails what should be a useful point of view and perspective. It’s unnecessary.

You have made false assumptions that I am ignorant of what’s going on/ unaware of how this will affect my businesses/ future revenue streams/ ability to conduct my business and relationships with my customers.
 
OK, so my country (SA) will probably go into lockdown mode within a couple of weeks. At the moment just the hand sanitizer, masks and vitamin C are sold out. We have stocked up on a few things, but to those already in lockdown:

What do you wish you bought when you had the chance?
Get boxes/packs of tissues, hand soap, disinfectant and/or bleach for your home (you'll find you're cleaning more often). For vitamins, anything that boosts your immune system, such as vitamin D3 and Echinacea. If you home-bake, stock up on flour - it was one of the few things that sold out here in Italy at the beginning.

If you have pets, get plenty of pet food in so you don't have to worry about that - I only realised the other day that I was low on both the dried foods our dogs have. If there's anything you particularly like to eat that can be frozen or is tinned, get it now. I'm running out of strawberry Cornettos. :lol:
 
OK, so my country (SA) will probably go into lockdown mode within a couple of weeks. At the moment just the hand sanitizer, masks and vitamin C are sold out. We have stocked up on a few things, but to those already in lockdown:

What do you wish you bought when you had the chance?

nothing.

We have bought just what we needed, we have approximately 13 toilet rolls in the house and all the normal stuff, in normal quantities.

if everyone acted like this, rather than the selfish, small minded tools that raided the supermarkets, then there would be no (or very limited) supply issues
 
nothing.

We have bought just what we needed, we have approximately 13 toilet rolls in the house and all the normal stuff, in normal quantities.

if everyone acted like this, rather than the selfish, small minded tools that raided the supermarkets, then there would be no (or very limited) supply issues
There's a difference between hoarding huge quantities, and buying a bit more of things you always use because you don't want to have to go to the shops too often. The latter is quite sensible from a health point of view.

I've always done a weekly shop at a bigger supermarket here and also bought things from the village shop. Now I can't go to the bigger supermarket, so I'm having to shop in a different way.
 
There's a difference between hoarding huge quantities, and buying a bit more of things you always use because you don't want to have to go to the shops too often. The latter is quite sensible from a health point of view.

I've always done a weekly shop at a bigger supermarket here and also bought things from the village shop. Now I can't go to the bigger supermarket, so I'm having to shop in a different way.

I agree to an extent, but also we have a baby, so already buy things like hand sanitiser etc. So we’ve done noting different. Supermarkets are open here (in London) and if everyone shopped normally there would be no (or limited) issues.

shop in Waitrose and your much more likely to have analtercation over pesto, in Asda it will be over a jumbo pack of doughnuts.
 
I agree to an extent, but also we have a baby, so already buy things like hand sanitiser etc. So we’ve done noting different. Supermarkets are open here (in London) and if everyone shopped normally there would be no (or limited) issues.

shop in Waitrose and your much more likely to have analtercation over pesto, in Asda it will be over a jumbo pack of doughnuts.
It's going to vary locally - if you're in London, you have loads of shops. Imagine only having one small shop like the ones at petrol stations, and having to get absolutely everything there (as we're doing). It's not so easy. It never has a lot of anything, even in normal times.
 
Complete bans on going out now in certain German cities as well as Bavaria. Not everyone is supporting it and German media's response has been mixed. Numerous virologists have come out against it saying it is not justified, has little effect and could lead to a social catastrophe. Notable politicians from Social Democrats and Greens have criticised it and in Berlin the Left Party has blocked a similar proposal. The Federal Government wants to wait until Sunday before making a decision for the whole country.
 
Has anyone got any information about UK government policy in respect of how the homeless population is being protected?

Before this whole health crisis erupted, it was clear that homelessness was a major issue, not least because of crippling austerity measures.

Is this most vulnerable section of the population being forgotten about once more?

I ask genuinely because have seen barely any coverage on the matter.
 
I don’t think that’s what NHS staff signed up for though is it? Helping people yes, but putting your own life at significant risk- not so sure. It’s important that as this progresses that this is not automatically assumed and almost forced upon NHS frontline staff.

Young and fit healthcare professionals have actually died from this virus, as they are exposed to high viral counts- especially those who are performing intubation.

I wonder whether Boris will give the front line staff a well deserved pay rise after all this?
 
Looks like a crucial moment for Ireland, whether we rapidly increase numbers or keep the increase steady. The graphs are eerily similar.

Screenshot-20200321-045124.png

I would have thought we should definitely see a huge increase in numbers as we're ramping up testing quite a bit. We'll supposedly be hiiting 10-12k tests daily in the coming days, which is quite a lot for a country of our size. De Gascun also said that could hopefully subsequently increase further to 15k a day. All of which means a dramatic spike in cases is to be expected. Especially as it will be another 5 or so days before we see the impact of the measures we've already taken on the stats.

The more telling figures will be the number of cases that make it to ICU (currently just over 2%) and the mortality rate, I think.

For example, we're about 14 days behind Italy in terms of that graph you posted. Yet crucially Italy had approx. 100 deaths at that point, we've had three. Even once you adjust for population sizes, that's a key difference.
 
Has anyone got any information about UK government policy in respect of how the homeless population is being protected?

Before this whole health crisis erupted, it was clear that homelessness was a major issue, not least because of crippling austerity measures.

Is this most vulnerable section of the population being forgotten about once more?

I ask genuinely because have seen barely any coverage on the matter.
As far as I can see, most of it is still being left to the voluntary sector. As the voluntary sector usually contains a lot of oldies and people who've had some kind of health crisis themself, I'm guessing that manpower is going to be thin on the ground.

Fewer opportunities to earn/get money as well. It's not a great combination - and with the pressure the health and social services and the police will be under, it's not obvious who'll pick up the slack.
 
Has anyone got any information about UK government policy in respect of how the homeless population is being protected?

Before this whole health crisis erupted, it was clear that homelessness was a major issue, not least because of crippling austerity measures.

Is this most vulnerable section of the population being forgotten about once more?

I ask genuinely because have seen barely any coverage on the matter.

Not very well.

Homeless shelters and hostels are being told to stay open during the coronavirus pandemic. The Government’s new guidance on rough sleeping during the outbreak says they do not need to close unless directed to by Public Health England, but they should ‘frequently clean and disinfect regularly touched objects and surfaces’. The guidance warns rough sleepers may be more vulnerable to viruses because of poor existing health or drug and alcohol misuse. Shelters and hostels are being told warned to make contingency plans in case they experience a reduced or interrupted supply of medicines, and reduced access to drugs or alcohol.

If a hostel resident develops coronavirus symptoms, they should stay in their room and ‘minimise visiting shared spaces such as kitchens, bathrooms and sitting areas as much as possible’. If this is not possible, they should be moved to an area which is at least two metres away from other people. Any member of staff who becomes unwell should go home, the Government document advises.

But the new guidance has been criticised as ‘inadequate’ by homeless charities, who say the measures do not go far enough to help people on the streets or living in shelters and hostels to self-isolate. National homelessness charity Crisis is calling on the Government to arrange hotel-style accommodation to meet the increased need. Crisis chief executive Jon Sparkes said: ‘The guidance we have received to date is inadequate. It fails to set out a plan for how people experiencing homelessness can self-isolate in this outbreak. ‘We need emergency action to protect people in this very vulnerable situation – this must include testing and access to housing.

‘Let’s not forget that the average age of death of someone who is homeless is 45, substantially lower than the general population. ‘Given the obvious vulnerability, the only answer can be to provide housing that allows people to self-isolate.’ Lucy Abraham, chief operating officer of the homeless charity Glass Door, said the guidance was ‘welcome’, but it does not specify what individuals should do if they have nowhere to self-isolate.
 
Currently the UK case trendline is below Italy. Thats a fact and better to remember that when people are getting hyped up by political nonsense. I dont know enough about respective demographics and health facilities to talk about death rates.

Italy went into lockdown at 9000 cases, so following that the UK should do the same by the middle of next week.

Given the state Italy's in with this thing, isn't that the strongest argument for locking down asap?

I don't understand the reasoning behind waiting.
 


The replies :lol:


Worth remembering that this guy is 70.

That is, he was born 5 years after the war ended and 9 years after the blitz.

The 'we' is very rhetorical.

My grandad didn't experience the blitz, he was in North Africa fighting Rommel, and then through Italy and into Germany.

And if he were still alive, he'd happily punch that ukip turd square in the face for this crap.