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

Regulus Arcturus Black said:
Bypassed? Surely that’s just a can of worms we don’t want to open on 7.5bn people.
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I think there are some phase III things with regards to a vaccine that can be shortened, for example the efficacy and safety profile checked for at 6 months rather than 12 months
With a large sample size to extrapolate clinical findings from for testing I think it would be worth doing
 
0le said:
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I don't see why deaths are on course to double every few days now, Spain and Italy have never topped 1000 per day, I see no reason why we will.
 
Adisa said:
How the feck are we still testing <10k per day...what the feck is going on?
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Because up to the 16th of March, the UK's strategy was essentially to let the virus spread around the community so that long-term there'd be herd immunity similar to measles etc. There were no plans for wide-spread testing to track the virus, similar to say Korea or Germany.

Then on March 16th the Imperial report said something like 250k people (or was it 1m?) would die under the govs current plans as the NHS would be overwhelmed, they backtracked and since have wanted to test more, saying they wanted 10k+ tests a day by the end of March, and 100k a day by end of April. The problem is because they left it so late, they can't get the equipment for testing as every other country in the world has long before ramped up testing. You need both labs and the chemical reagents to run tests - the labs part should be easier as we have a lot of universities and private labs, but the chemical part is probably harder given we don't really manufacture much these days.
 
C'est Moi Cantona said:
I don't see why deaths are on course to double every few days now, Spain and Italy have never topped 1000 per day, I see no reason why we will.
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It depends on when the lockdown was implemented really. UK deaths are doubling every 3-4 days. Just 7 days ago we were at 150-200 deaths a day. Italy locked down on the 8th March - it took around 14 days for the deaths to stop increasing and plateau at around 800 a day. Which makes sense given the incubation period for the disease is around 2 to 12 days, and deaths occur around 21 days after infection on average, so there'd be some lag from initially imposing a lockdown to seeing those affects come through.

The UK locked down on the 24th - 14 days after would be the 7th of April - so all things going well we should see deaths plateau in rises early next week. Without the lockdown, like basically the last two weeks, we'd probably see deaths continue to increase every 3-4 days, perhaps even faster given the NHS would start to get overwhelmed.

How long before deaths start to actually go down is another question - probably around 20-25 days after the lockdown given that's the average time for death from infection, and new infections should decrease a lot from the start of the lockdown.

A bit grim but hypothetically I wonder how many people would die if we didn't lockdown for another month? Assuming a doubling every 4 days, that would be around 8 doublings in 30 days, so the 600 deaths a day would go to 9600 deaths a day by the end of the month. Crazy.
 
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marktan said:
Because up to the 16th of March, the UK's strategy was essentially to let the virus spread around the community so that long-term there'd be herd immunity similar to measles etc. There were no plans for wide-spread testing to track the virus, similar to say Korea or Germany.

Then on March 16th the Imperial report said something like 250k people (or was it 1m?) would die under the govs current plans as the NHS would be overwhelmed, they backtracked and since have wanted to test more, saying they wanted 10k+ tests a day by the end of March, and 100k a day by end of April. The problem is because they left it so late, they can't get the equipment for testing as every other country in the world has long before ramped up testing. You need both labs and the chemical reagents to run tests - the labs part should be easier as we have a lot of universities and private labs, but the chemical part is probably harder given we don't really manufacture much these days.
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Genuine question how many tests do France, Italy, and Spain carry out per day, I can only seem to find confirmed cases, not test carried out.
 
C'est Moi Cantona said:
Genuine question how many tests do France, Italy, and Spain carry out per day, I can only seem to find confirmed cases, not test carried out.
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Worldometer gives you the numbers, not sure from where they're sourced though - the uk ones seem accurate. We are not in an admirable position.
 
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vidic blood & sand said:
The QE2 hospital that was based in Welwyn Garden City closed a few years ago, and would have relieved a lot of pressure on Watford General and the Lister in Stevenage.
It was a terrible decision to close the QE2. Instead they recently completed a modern day-center in Welwyn, and now theyre even wanting to close that down already. Terrible.
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My dad was a consultant haematologist/pathologist there. He's spinning in his grave right now.
 
C'est Moi Cantona said:
Genuine question how many tests do France, Italy, and Spain carry out per day, I can only seem to find confirmed cases, not test carried out.
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For France it's currently 20000 per day and by the end of the month-early May the goal is to do 50000 classic tests and 30000 rapid tests per day.
 
I've started displaying one of the symptoms since yesterday (periods/waves of feeling a bit short of breath with heart palpitations, at times). Nothing too bad at the moment, fingers crossed, but still - I live at home at the moment with my parents so am not taking the risk. Sealing myself in my bedroom from this morning onwards - we share a bathroom unfortunately, but I'll be disinfecting whenever I visit it.

None of the other symtoms at present, touch wood. Hoping it passes as quickly as possible.
 
C'est Moi Cantona said:
Genuine question how many tests do France, Italy, and Spain carry out per day, I can only seem to find confirmed cases, not test carried out.
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Italy's breakdown can be seen in more detail here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Italy#Statistics
They've been doing around 40k tests a day for the last 10 days.

For Spain not sure, but Worldometer shows they've done 350k tests total compared to Italy's 600k, so they're probably doing around 20k tests a day.
 
Ekkie Thump said:
Worldometer gives you the numbers, not sure from where they're sourced though - the uk ones seem accurate. We are not in an admirable position.
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The UK number for serious / Critical I'll seems way lower than other countries... Presumably a difference in reporting? As it currently implies more people Die each day than were seriously ill the day before... And we seem to be thinly country with a large Number of deaths where this is true?
 
sun_tzu said:
The UK number for serious / Critical I'll seems way lower than other countries... Presumably a difference in reporting? As it currently implies more people Die each day than were seriously ill the day before... And we seem to be thinly country with a large Number of deaths where this is true?
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Yeah, I think we're just not keeping an up to date account of the seriously ill. We've also only got 135 recoveries which seems a bit....strange. Would be nice to see that figure rising regularly.
 
JPRouve said:
For France it's currently 20000 per day and by the end of the month-early May the goal is to do 50000 classic tests and 30000 rapid tests per day.
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Thanks, Uk is definitely struggling here then.

Basic question, but antibody testing aside, at 80,000 per day, and the Uk's 100,000 target, who are they aiming to test, there surely can't be this number displaying symptoms on a daily basis?
 
Ekkie Thump said:
That's good news. Why on earth would Denmark refuse the grant? Seems like it would be an excellent study to have. Glad your local government is keeping on top of this thing.
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As I understand it, we seem to be very much in control of the situation at the moment. And since Denmark is still catching up, they figured the money is better spent there.
 
C'est Moi Cantona said:
I don't see why deaths are on course to double every few days now, Spain and Italy have never topped 1000 per day, I see no reason why we will.
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It's just a raw analysis of the facts. Today there's been 4,313 deaths, on the 1st April there were 2,352 deaths, on 29th March there were 1,228 deaths, on the 26th March there were 578 deaths. At this stage (18 days after 100 deaths were recored) there were more overall deaths in Spain (7,716) and Italy (4,825) but irrespective of the absolute difference, in both countries the expontential growth had slowed in a way it hasn't in the UK. It took Spain 5 days to double from 3,647 (on 25th March) to 7,716 (30th March), and it took 4 days for Italy to double from 2,503 (17th March) to 4,825 (21st March).

It has generally been the case that as the number of new cases has slowed, a similar drop in the number of new cases follows 2-3 days later in Spain and Italy. Though obviously the comparison is limited by the variations driven by testing capacity.
 
Moiraine said:
Thanks guys.
I am still hoping there’s a breakthrough in potential vaccine.

If scientists find a vaccine in next two-three weeks, how long it will take to reach the world, especially densely populated poor countries?
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Several vaccines have already been found, with at least one of them having been administered to a few humans a few weeks ago. Still, the forecast is 12-18 months to be able to start doing mass vaccinations (assuming the testing stage goes well).

And even when vaccination starts, I guess that first there are gonna get vaccinated people in more developed countries, then people in poor countries. At best case the world is gonna get vaccinated by the end of next year, but I wouldn’t be surprised that many countries won’t be able to do it until 2022.

Is your username a Wheel of Time reference?
 
Ekkie Thump said:
Yeah, I think we're just not keeping an up to date account of the seriously ill. We've also only got 135 recoveries which seems a bit....strange. Would be nice to see that figure rising regularly.
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The UK worldometer figures for critical cases and recoveries are completely off. Worldometer have it as 163 critical cases but the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre have produced a report on 2,249 critically ill patients here, from which 346 died, 344 were discharged and 1,559 remained in intensive care. I don't think the UK have the test capacity to confirm recovered cases according to the international standards but in any case, whatever figures worldometer are using are wrong.
 
It seems the facebook karens and sharons are trying to perpetuate some nonsense about the virus being fake and that its 5g causing this pandemic.

Dosebags.
 
DatIrishFella said:
It seems the facebook karens and sharons are trying to perpetuate some nonsense about the virus being fake and that its 5g causing this pandemic.

Dosebags.
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Yep that’s when ya spot which people on your friends list is a nut job, I have one on my list constantly posting videos and I just laugh at every video to let him know I think he’s an idiot.
 
Brwned said:
The UK worldometer figures for critical cases and recoveries are completely off. Worldometer have it as 163 critical cases but the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre have produced a report on 2,249 critically ill patients here, from which 346 died, 344 were discharged and 1,559 remained in intensive care. I don't think the UK have the test capacity to confirm recovered cases according to the international standards but in any case, whatever figures worldometer are using are wrong.
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Cheers. They're reporting an enormous discrepancy between male and female (73-27).
 
Italy's cases are down by around 1100 when compared to last Saturday, there's been a spike at the weekends but this week it's quite level. Hopefully this is the beginning of the end.
 
Maroon Lucifer said:
As I understand it, we seem to be very much in control of the situation at the moment. And since Denmark is still catching up, they figured the money is better spent there.
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That does make sense. Glad the doctor's got the money he needs in any case.
 
horsechoker said:
Italy's cases are down by around 1100 when compared to last Saturday, there's been a spike at the weekends but this week it's quite level. Hopefully this is the beginning of the end.
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The end of the massive onslaught maybe (hopefully), but we’re months and months from the end. Many many more people in Italy will die, there’s no escaping that. :(
 
FireballXL5 said:
My dad was a consultant haematologist/pathologist there. He's spinning in his grave right now.
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Yes indeed.
The QE2 was a bigger and better hospital than Lister in Stevenage, but I believe the government felt that there was greater capacity for expansion in Stevenage.
Now towns in Hertfordshire like Potters Bar, Hatfield Welwyn Garden City, Hertford, Ware, St Albans, Watford, Redbourn, Harpenden, Stevenage, Hitchin, Letchworth, Royston, and all the rural villages all have to cope with one major hospital - Lister hospital in Stevenage, with help from Addenbrooks (Cambridgeshire), and the Princess Alexandra hospital in Harlow (Essex).

In late 2016 I had a major back injury. I was put into a temporary ward in Lister, and told by someone who was supposed to be one of the best spine specialists in Hertfordshire that I would be fine, and that I would need to be instructed in physio exercises, and released to go home. When another specialist saw me the next morning, he told me that I needed surgery to fix a moving vertebrae. They kept changing their mind whether I should be transferred to Addenbrooks in Cambridgeshire, or have the surgery at Lister. The NHS in Hertfordshire is a disaster.
 
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