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

Where has anyone said that? I don't think anyone expects others to have assiduously read every post in this thread. Maybe an exception if someone is spouting utter nonsense or conspiracy stuff though.

No but I think it's slightly unfair to say someone should either take the time to learn something new or not make a comment on it at all, as was suggested on the previous page. Arguing about things is a way of learning, not just a way of showing off what you already know. Plus most of the people posting here don't really know much anyway. Some just know slightly more than others, often simply because they've become engaged in the conversation earlier.

@VintageWhatnots post is what led to him learning more about why they use that particular graph, which is a good thing. Don't see how him not commenting would have been preferable.
 
I can see it's a problem, but I don't think it's a problem a football forum can fix. I don't understand some of the medical information that's posted, but that's ok, some people do - and I can read a summary as well as anyone.

The graph in question is an example of data that will make sense to the people who are using it daily (like the epidemiologists) and to people who understand the maths, and are interested in the core reasoning behind those expert opinions we hear and the actions spinning out from them.

If you try and present the same data on linear scales - every country looks basically the same. A near horizontal line, followed some days later by a near vertical one - which just means no one can get any information from it. In other words a completely redundant graph that does nothing for anyone.

Evidently something can be done, in two minutes, you've gone some way to explain the graph, and it's purpose.

Even just a sentence stating that it isn't linear, would help, so people don't think it is. Anything to draw attention to the fact that there is more to the graph than first meets the eye. I just think people have to be very careful sharing information, particularly diagrams, that on first glance look straight forward, but actual they're is more to it.
 
The problem with the "herd immunity" approach was never that it wouldn't be useful to have a large percentage of the population become immune.

The issues were:

1) We had and maybe still have little reliable information on how likely people are to become infected a second time, which is a pretty huge issue if you're desperately depending on them not doing so.

2) Even countries that were trying their best to suppress the virus were seeing their healthcare systems get overwhelmed, so a more laissez faire approach with the specific aim of building herd immunity would have been a disaster in the short/medium term.

I mean it's fine for whatever scientists to point out that herd immunity would be very useful if immunity works that way in this particular case but I'm not sure what impact that idea is supposed to have on current policy given a health system like the UK's is about to get overrun as is. Of all the problems you're facing right now, a lack of infected patients really isn't one.
The issue in a nutshell. If COVID-19 behaved like conventional influenza for example, you might be able to take the risk. However, it is highly contagious and there are even cases where the infected person/s seem to have picked it up from seats, to give one frightening example. We don't know enough yet about transmission processes. Those are only 2 points out of a number that could be made.

Sweden seems to be taking a fairly relaxed attitude - no wonder their deaths are higher than those of Australia or Israel even given differences in geography, etc. Again there are questions we can raise about real deal lockdowns but from what I have seen in the news, the govt in Sweden seems irresponsible in its attitude. If anybody lives in Sweden could they please repond?
 
The issue in a nutshell. If COVID-19 behaved like conventional influenza for example, you might be able to take the risk. However, it is highly contagious and there are even cases where the infected person/s seem to have picked it up from seats, to give one frightening example. We don't know enough yet about transmission processes. Those are only 2 points out of a number that could be made.

Sweden seems to be taking a fairly relaxed attitude - no wonder their deaths are higher than those of Australia or Israel even given differences in geography, etc. Again there are questions we can raise about real deal lockdowns but from what I have seen in the news, the govt in Sweden seems irresponsible in its attitude. If anybody lives in Sweden could they please repond?

I think @Regulus Arcturus Black was living in Sweden and was at least somewhat in favour of their response so he might have a counter-argument.
 
Ok, first of all, there are massive cultural differences between Western Countries, even those in relatively close geographical proximity like the EU. Secondly, I would define collective wellfare of a society aka its people as a whole with the (albeit unrealistic) goal to care for each of its citizen as best as it can.

If I compare the general culture of the US with the one of Nordic and Central European countries like for example Germany the differences are in parts massive. This starts with Universal Healthcare, free education, far stricter labour laws (some of the strictest worldwide), a still imperfect but far stronger social safety net in cases of illness. debt, loss of home or unemployment and the list goes on and on. How can the German state afford all of this? Some of the highest employment costs in the world and taxes. Despite being an ecomonic powerhouse the average German citizen while enjoying a high standart of living is actually non that wealthy, because a lot of his/her income is used to finance the Social state. Programs like "Kurzarbeit" which protect people working in struggling companies/branches from unemployment in times of crisis are accepted by the vast majority of the population eventhough it costs billions of tax payer money. The entire retirement system is based on solidarity for people they will probably never meet which puts it in stark contrast to mid eastern countries like Turkey where the care of the elderly is put far more in the hands of the families or Asian countries like Japan where a lot of the money for the retirement comes directly from the companies they worked for.

Why is all of this largely accepted by the German public? Because culturally it values things the most in difference to other countries.According to studies the one thing that is valued the most in the US is the freedom or liberty to build your own life like you want to do. In Germany? It is safety. This is to a large part historically originated, especially from the first years post WWII, which were plagued by shortages and poverty. Eventhough many actually did not live in that time, it is still an integral part of the education and upbringing. The thought in the back of your mind that you want to be cared for if you fall in hard times and need help. This need for your own safety breeds solidarity for others, to help them in times of need so you might receive help yourself if needed.

It is by no means a more noble cultural outlook than for example the American way of life because it is ultimately motivated by a individual desire for safety, but it leads to a more society orientated thinking.

So which way is now the Western culture? There is none IMO, it is just a buzz word.


To come back to the actual topic of the thread, the desire for safety is one of the reasons why Germany has been less shaken by the virus than other countries. Besides an obvious luck factor especially the younger average age of infected people in the first wave, the German heath system runs nowhere near maximum capacity in normal times, which leaves a lot of reserves in times of crisis. The very high number of ICU beds for example in relation to other countries is simply the desire to prepare for hard times. It is normally nowhere near cost effecitve but if something really bad happens, it can save lifes-
Well said. I commend your effort in educating the plebs on here.
 
The issue with herd immunity is that a country like Italy has 100k reported cases which represents 0.17% of their population. Even if we assume that cases are under reported and are 5 times that, it's still well below 1% of population. You need at least 60% to be able to talk about herd immunity at all, and maybe even 70%+. It'll be 2023 or something before that happens and we can open Europe for travel etc., considering many countries are in lockdowns and are only getting < 500 cases per day.

I think there's no chance of opening things up before vaccine is found. Even if it means lockdown continues for 12+ months from now. Obviously you will have population resist to it so I'm not sure how this gets resolved. I'm not scared of the virus personally nearly as much as I'm scared about consequences of what is happening now.
 
The issue with herd immunity is that a country like Italy has 100k reported cases which represents 0.17% of their population. Even if we assume that cases are under reported and are 5 times that, it's still well below 1% of population. You need at least 60% to be able to talk about herd immunity at all, and maybe even 70%+. It'll be 2023 or something before that happens and we can open Europe for travel etc., considering many countries are in lockdowns and are only getting < 500 cases per day.

I think there's no chance of opening things up before vaccine is found. Even if it means lockdown continues for 12+ months from now. Obviously you will have population resist to it so I'm not sure how this gets resolved. I'm not scared of the virus personally nearly as much as I'm scared about consequences of what is happening now.

I'm not so sure.

I mean South Korea have thus far avoided a severe lockdown at all, let alone been unable to lift it. It's not like it's literally impossible to manage without lockdown.

Obviously countries coming out of lockdown will still have a lot of restrictions in place but with a lot of testing and very targeted measures it should be possible for many of them to get things moving again. Which is the point the WHO have been re-emphasising recently, that lockdown is a second chance to attack the virus with testing and tracing.

More to the point, the more severe lockdowns would be literally impossible to keep in place for 12 months. Aside from the unprecedented damage to the world economy that would cause, social unrest and non-compliance would reach breaking point long before the 12 months was up. Keeping things shut down for 12 months is much more unrealistic than finding a way to start opening things up again, I think.
 
Thank you. I'd like to learn more. Hopefully he will post about it again.

Well @ryansgirl, the first thing to understand is that all of the deaths happening now are from cases that happened three weeks ago before any country was locking down, in that sense these were inevitable deaths even if we locked down when England or France did.
The Swedish experts are doing a press conference every day at 2 PM and they seem still fairly happy that the responses they put in place are having an effect because the amount of people going into ICU every day is a very stable level and has been now for quite a while.

For all countries, we will only really know how well they are doing in another two weeks or so, but trust me on the fact that Sweden does not have such a lax attitude as many people think; we have put lots and lots of precautions in place and everyone I know and see everywhere is social distancing.


Add to that we have the most single households in the world at almost 50%, we have the youngest moving out age in the world at just over 18 and people very rarely live in large families with grandparents etc. This means Sweden is a little bit more unique compared to France Spain Italy and even the UK.
Denmark for its population has a similar number of deaths to Sweden and they locked down so that should show you that you can’t draw any conclusions at this point.

Comparing to Australia is daft considering when Australia were getting it’s first 10 deaths. The next couple of weeks will be very telling in Aus.
 
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Should be less "learn or don't comment" and more learn through commenting. Not much point having a discussion thread if we expect everyone to know as much as everyone else before they post.
I previously said learn first or don’t comment but that was directed at people posting ‘safety’ advice that’s conflicting or just reading something once and running to this thread and stating as fact without even checking if there’s any truth to what they read
 
Are there any figures on length of time between diagnosis and death? We've all seen reports of unfortunates who've gone from fine to dead in two days but it appears that most victims are in critical for a number of days before succumbing. Is there enough data yet for any meaningful figures?
 
Are there any figures on length of time between diagnosis and death? We've all seen reports of unfortunates who've gone from fine to dead in two days but it appears that most victims are in critical for a number of days before succumbing. Is there enough data yet for any meaningful figures?

In the UK it seems pretty pointless because it seems they're only testing once they're in hospital so im guessing there's no accurate way of knowing.
 
I'm not so sure.

I mean South Korea have thus far avoided a severe lockdown at all, let alone been unable to lift it. It's not like it's literally impossible to manage without lockdown.

Obviously countries coming out of lockdown will still have a lot of restrictions in place but with a lot of testing and very targeted measures it should be possible for many of them to get things moving again. Which is the point the WHO have been re-emphasising recently, that lockdown is a second chance to attack the virus with testing and tracing.

More to the point, the more severe lockdowns would be literally impossible to keep in place for 12 months. Aside from the unprecedented damage to the world economy that would cause, social unrest and non-compliance would reach breaking point long before the 12 months was up. Keeping things shut down for 12 months is much more unrealistic than finding a way to start opening things up again, I think.

I'm not sure Korean ways of dealing with this would be possible to replicate in Europe. Certainly not in Poland.
 
Are there any figures on length of time between diagnosis and death? We've all seen reports of unfortunates who've gone from fine to dead in two days but it appears that most victims are in critical for a number of days before succumbing. Is there enough data yet for any meaningful figures?
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-rate/#days

I saw the same figures in medical papers but it was a couple of weeks ago so I don't know if they are still relevant, it's supposed to be a dozen of days for older people and it varies greatly for the younger ones from a handful of days to more than a month.
 
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Are there any figures on length of time between diagnosis and death? We've all seen reports of unfortunates who've gone from fine to dead in two days but it appears that most victims are in critical for a number of days before succumbing. Is there enough data yet for any meaningful figures?

9 days from symptom onset to death. This has increased slightly, it was 8 days last week, possibly as the weaker patients died quickly early on. Also remember the more advanced age of Italian victims.

Section 7:
https://www.epicentro.iss.it/coronavirus/bollettino/Report-COVID-2019_26_marzo_eng.pdf
 
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8 days means each patient is a massive use of resources if they are critical the whole time. That's got to be really hard on the families too.
 
8 days means each patient is a massive use of resources if they are critical the whole time. That's got to be really hard on the families too.

8 days is from symptom onset, ascertained when they are admitted to hospital and diagnosed (they're not generally being tested until then). Hospitalisation to death is 5 days.
 
Try reading the posts you’re responding to. I‘ve been talking about the % hospitalised from the beginning of this conversation.

Believe me, you do NOT want to be hospitalised right now. And it’s going to get a lot worse in the coming weeks.

Unfortunately I've been checking on my boss who's late 60s as he's had symptoms. Couldn't contact him today and just got a call from another colleague to say he's being taken to hospital. 87% sats, temperature. They say his chest sounds ok though which is odd.
 
No but I think it's slightly unfair to say someone should either take the time to learn something new or not make a comment on it at all, as was suggested on the previous page. Arguing about things is a way of learning, not just a way of showing off what you already know. Plus most of the people posting here don't really know much anyway. Some just know slightly more than others, often simply because they've become engaged in the conversation earlier.

@VintageWhatnots post is what led to him learning more about why they use that particular graph, which is a good thing. Don't see how him not commenting would have been preferable.
I agree no-one likes a show off or know it all. Or just a rude idiot.
 
Remember herd mentality, that thing the government went for, then denied going for.

At its heart is both johnson and cimmunig's obsession with eugenics.

And here is their mate toby young saying the quiet bit loudly.

Just remember, its not 18 months ago Johnson pushed this this man to have a role in government education oversight.



What a cnut.
 
Unfortunately I've been checking on my boss who's late 60s as he's had symptoms. Couldn't contact him today and just got a call from another colleague to say he's being taken to hospital. 87% sats, temperature. They say his chest sounds ok though which is odd.

Sorry to hear that. Those are very low sats. Hope he’s ok.
 
Some updated stats from Norway

Tested: over 90 000(almost 2% of the entire population)
Infected: roughly 4500
Hospitalized: 319
Died: 34

We're soon 5 weeks in, so I think we're doing quite well, thankfully. It's surprising that the death rate is far below 1%, though I expect it to rise a little.

Germany seems to be doing really well. I'm impressed by their response.

The best way to keep death rate low in the initial weeks of the epidemic is by really aggressive, extensive community testing. That way you pick up all the milder cases. Theoretically, that information can also be used in contact tracing to limit community spread. Unfortunately, it seems not many countries have the resources to test as extensively as Germany, South Korea or Norway. I know Ireland wanted to take the same approach but almost immediately ran out of testing capacity so had to drastically cut back on eligibility for testing.

Once the epidemic gets properly established, the more ITU beds per capita the lower the mortality rate. Although only 50% of people admitted to ITU will survive. So the impact of those extra beds is limited.
 
The stats regarding male:female deaths (2 fig2) are startling.

It is but remember it's Italy. More men are catching it as they refuse to stay indoors (there are plenty of old men walking up and down my street all day pretending to go grocery shopping) and dying from it as they smoke like chimneys.
 
just been on the bbc that 393 people have sadly died in the uk in the last 24 hrs . Very sad news and a significant rise from yesterday . Hopefully this is not the start of a steep increase in numbers . The report didnt say what the new confirmed cases were .
 
Reading now. Out of interest, are doctors able to tell that hypertension exists when a patient is admitted, or is it all down to what's in their medical record?

Medical record. You can’t diagnose hypertension based on blood pressure when a patient first presents. It’s something that is monitored/treated over a period of time.
 
I previously said learn first or don’t comment but that was directed at people posting ‘safety’ advice that’s conflicting or just reading something once and running to this thread and stating as fact without even checking if there’s any truth to what they read

Aye, that's different. If we're posting information we should do our best to make sure it's legit. Same thing with whatsapp rumours, there's no need to blindly spread nonsense just because it happens to have come across your path, especially if you're clued in enough to really know better.

If someone genuinely doesn't know or understand something though then that's alright. None of us are experts and a lot of people are gonna be worried enough by all of this without people impolitely jumping on them for not grasping how a log scale graph works or whatever.
 
It is but remember it's Italy. More men are catching it as they refuse to stay indoors (there are plenty of old men walking up and down my street all day pretending to go grocery shopping) and dying from it as they smoke like chimneys.
Are lots of people still flouting the regulations then @11101 ? I thought that by now the whole of Italy is very tightly locked down
 
I'm not sure Korean ways of dealing with this would be possible to replicate in Europe. Certainly not in Poland.

No, I wouldn't have thought so either. Ireland explicitly said they were trying to follow the South Korean model but still had to go into lockdown anyway, as it's not quite replicable here. Most countries will be trying to find a middle ground, I guess.