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

[redshaw]

From the BBC

Italy's Lombardy residents required to wear masks
"Residents in the northern Italian region of Lombardy will now be required to wear protective masks or cover their faces when they go outside.
The new measure comes into effect on Sunday and will last until 13 April.
The ordinance from the region's President Attilio Fontana follows similar guidelines in other northern regions, Veneto and Alto Adige, where residents must wear masks when shopping in stores and at markets.
The whole of Italy is in lockdown, but Lombardy - the epicentre of the virus in Europe - has passed particularly tight restrictions on movement and business."

 

[SteveJ]

I saw a tweet from Folkestone council saying that they have had to give out many warnings today as the seafront was very busy. A family from Bromley (about 60 miles away from Folkestone) had travelled there.

Just read that Lambeth Council closed a park after 3000 people visited it today.

 

[11101]

I feel a little bit more hopeful with the Italian figures. Worldometer says this about today's numbers:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/

One of the ministers who does the press conferences said it was up at 5.6 at one point. Good that its finally hit 1.

 

[Garethw]

Just read that Lambeth Council closed a park after 3000 people visited it today.

What is wrong with people.

 

[mitChley]

Hardly surprising, our local neighbourhood think it's a good idea to put Easter Eggs in the windows and have kids walk around and spot the eggs. They don't see anything wrong with hundreds of kids all being around each other at the same time as apparently they will all definitely be 2 metres apart at all times.

 

[vodrake]

Just read that Lambeth Council closed a park after 3000 people visited it today.

I live near Finsbury Park, I don't know the numbers but it was very busy today. People sunbathing, hanging around, swarms of runners right next to each other. I'm sure at some point they'll close it as well

You wonder what goes through peoples heads

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

I live near Finsbury Park, I don't know the numbers but it was very busy today. People sunbathing, hanging around, swarms of runners right next to each other. I'm sure at some point they'll close it as well

You wonder what goes through peoples heads

I’ve made the argument since the start that lockdowns don’t work, unless it’s one city and you have the military might of China to enforce it.

You’ll never get enough people all over the country to do it for long enough, the UK is already getting fed up and Southern Italy will be on the verge of anarchy if this continues.

Lockdowns are a decent delaying tactic when required, and if just 50% of people conform and the other 50% are not really doing it but are outdoors, it’ll still be enough to really slow the spread and that’s all we can hope for really.

 

[11101]

From the BBC

Italy's Lombardy residents required to wear masks
"Residents in the northern Italian region of Lombardy will now be required to wear protective masks or cover their faces when they go outside.
The new measure comes into effect on Sunday and will last until 13 April.
The ordinance from the region's President Attilio Fontana follows similar guidelines in other northern regions, Veneto and Alto Adige, where residents must wear masks when shopping in stores and at markets.
The whole of Italy is in lockdown, but Lombardy - the epicentre of the virus in Europe - has passed particularly tight restrictions on movement and business."

Good luck with that considering i haven't been able to buy a mask here for about 2 months now.

 

[NYAS]

I feel a little bit more hopeful with the Italian figures. Worldometer says this about today's numbers:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/

One of the ministers who does the press conferences said it was up at 5.6 at one point. Good that its finally hit 1.

I’m a bit confused here. Doesn’t the R0 of a virus mean the natural reproductive ability a virus has and the number of people one person can infect in one interaction? How does a lockdown change that, or any human intervention?

Lockdowns of course prevent more people getting infected, but if Covid-19 has a natural R0 of 2.5, I take a Covid-19 positive patient out on the street during the 3rd month of a complete lockdown with two non-infected people and the former coughs in front of the latter, surely chances are both will get it? It’s not like the Italian coronavirus is now weaker than the American or French coronavirus, surely?

I get the point of the paragraph in saying lockdowns help but I don’t understand how the R0 in one country can be different than in another. Am I missing something here?

 

[11101]

I’m a bit confused here. Doesn’t the R0 of a virus mean the natural reproductive ability a virus has and the number of people one person can infect in one interaction? How does a lockdown change that, or any human intervention?

Lockdowns of course prevent more people getting infected, but if Covid-19 has a natural R0 of 2.5, I take a Covid-19 positive patient out on the street during the 3rd month of a complete lockdown with two non-infected people and the former coughs in front of the latter, surely chances are both will get it? It’s not like the Italian coronavirus is now weaker than the American or French coronavirus, surely?

I get the point of the paragraph in saying lockdowns help but I don’t understand how the R0 in one country can be different than in another. Am I missing something here?

As far as i know there are two ways of expressing it. There's the natural reproduction number if it were allowed to go unchecked, and the actual reproduction number which is what actually happens in reality.

 

[The Firestarter]

Oslo, Norway; today :

Unbelievable.

What the feck ? Where is the foking police at?

 

[NYAS]

As far as i know there are two ways of expressing it. There's the natural reproduction number if it were allowed to go unchecked, and the actual reproduction number which is what actually happens in reality.

Thanks but I still don’t quite understand how reproductive ability of a virus is something humans can change (other than immunity). Wouldn’t the coronavirus still have the ability to infect an average of X number of people (by way of how contagious it is) regardless of how many people are in lockdown? How does that get suppressed?

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

As far as i know there are two ways of expressing it. There's the natural reproduction number if it were allowed to go unchecked, and the actual reproduction number which is what actually happens in reality.

So in lockdown you can get it below 1? And then how long lockdown before it, as they say “disappears”. Because didn’t this come from one market in China and has now infected millions?
I don’t understand how it will just disappear unless they mean months and months of lockdown and zero transmission outside the home?

 

[Penna]

Good luck with that considering i haven't been able to buy a mask here for about 2 months now.

You can use a scarf or something else evidently, you just have to have your mouth and nose covered. It'll soon be required in other regions no doubt, but everyone's doing it here anyway.

I’ve made the argument since the start that lockdowns don’t work, unless it’s one city and you have the military might of China to enforce it.

You’ll never get enough people all over the country to do it for long enough, the UK is already getting fed up and Southern Italy will be on the verge of anarchy if this continues.

Lockdowns are a decent delaying tactic when required, and if just 50% of people conform and the other 50% are not really doing it but are outdoors, it’ll still be enough to really slow the spread and that’s all we can hope for really.

The lockdown is a half-lockdown in the UK. There's too much leeway for people to go outside for long periods and to go to any supermarket they want, plus it's not being well-enforced. No-one's been going anywhere here for weeks, it's been that way for even longer where @11101 lives and in the south, loads of people are starving and penniless which is a large part of why there's so much unrest (plus, organised crime).

 

[fergieisold]

Good luck with that considering i haven't been able to buy a mask here for about 2 months now.

Exactly...I don't imagine the government is going to give them the masks...so how will they get them?!

 

[Penna]

Exactly...I don't imagine the government is going to give them the masks...so how will they get them?!

You can just cover your nose and mouth with a scarf, according to the President of the region.

 

[fergieisold]

You can just cover your nose and mouth with a scarf, according to the President of the region.

well, needs must.

 

[Cardboard elk]

There should be something akin to the Nuremberg Trials after this is all over, to convict certain leaders in the world for mass death due to negligence.

 

[Fully Fledged]

Just read that Lambeth Council closed a park after 3000 people visited it today.

I live near Finsbury Park, I don't know the numbers but it was very busy today. People sunbathing, hanging around, swarms of runners right next to each other. I'm sure at some point they'll close it as well

You wonder what goes through peoples heads

The human race is doomed.

 

[Heardy]

Whilst the government only advise / recommend staying at home and allow people out for exercise etc people will abuse it.

 

[Bebestation]

If a lockdown was going to happen then they should have done a full lock down early.

No excuses like allowing exercise and just allow pharmacy and supermarkets to be open.

People have too many excuses to go out and just do their own thing at the moment.

 

[horsechoker]

From the BBC

Italy's Lombardy residents required to wear masks
"Residents in the northern Italian region of Lombardy will now be required to wear protective masks or cover their faces when they go outside.
The new measure comes into effect on Sunday and will last until 13 April.
The ordinance from the region's President Attilio Fontana follows similar guidelines in other northern regions, Veneto and Alto Adige, where residents must wear masks when shopping in stores and at markets.
The whole of Italy is in lockdown, but Lombardy - the epicentre of the virus in Europe - has passed particularly tight restrictions on movement and business."

I don't get this measure, why not enact it when the numbers were climbing rapidly a week or so ago? It seems like they're just trying to appear to do something.

All I sense is more face touching and difficulty breathing. Maybe it will further put people off going out unless vital.

 

[Penna]

Whilst the government only advise / recommend staying at home and allow people out for exercise etc people will abuse it.

Yes, an hour of exercise is a lot for most people, considering millions won’t have been doing a minute a day before now. You can walk around for an hour, then get in your car and browse around a big supermarket with your shopping bag. You could go to another one in the evening, if you felt like it.

Basically, you can be out and about a lot more than’s strictly necessary.

 

[fergosaurus]

Grim, grim, grim. Poor kid.

What a horrible situation.

 

[Cardboard elk]

I don't get this measure, why not enact it when the numbers were climbing rapidly a week or so ago? It seems like they're just trying to appear to do something.

All I sense is more face touching and difficulty breathing. Maybe it will further put people off going out unless vital.

I have no doubt myself that the reason is that governments is starting to understand that masks are vital in the fight vs the virus, in combination with testing and isolation of cases, to be able to go back to a more open society, like South Korea for instance.

Like it was said by Jeremy Howard on Washington Post :

"At the height of the HIV crisis, Authorities did not tell people to put away condoms. As fatalities from car crashes mounted, no one recommended avoiding seat belts."

It should be bloody easy to understand the importance of masks imo. Of course it helps. WHO is as usual slowly turning on this as well and I doubt asian nations that have succeded controling the virus is doing it for fun. The only reason the governments were advocating against it was to ensure the supply of PPE masks to healthcare first. The virus also spreads through more than a sneeze and a cough. Studies have showed it to spread through just talking and breathing also, albeit how much and how effectively can be debated.

 

[Port Vale Devil]

Fecking JTF is opening again tomorrow near me. Be hundreds of thick Stokies trying to get their plants etc.

Open them up but just for food and cleaning products.

 

[horsechoker]

I have no doubt myself that the reason is that governments is starting to understand that masks are vital in the fight vs the virus, in combination with testing and isolation of cases, to be able to go back to a more open society, like South Korea for instance.

Like it was said by Jeremy Howard on Washington Post :

"At the height of the HIV crisis, Authorities did not tell people to put away condoms. As fatalities from car crashes mounted, no one recommended avoiding seat belts."

It should be bloody easy to understand the importance of masks imo. Of course it helps. WHO is as usual slowly turning on this as well and I doubt asian nations that have succeded controling the virus is doing it for fun. The only reason the governments were advocating against it was to ensure the supply of PPE masks to healthcare first. The virus also spreads through more than a sneeze and a cough. Studies have showed it to spread through just talking and breathing also.

I've been sceptical of masks because I think people don't use them correctly but if it's the next step we all must take then so be it.

 

[Smores]

I live near Finsbury Park, I don't know the numbers but it was very busy today. People sunbathing, hanging around, swarms of runners right next to each other. I'm sure at some point they'll close it as well

You wonder what goes through peoples heads

The media and even politicians need to stop undermining the police and allow them to do their job and fine people. Not a pathetic £50 or whatever it was either, make it hurt.

I will say despite the last decade really causing me to lose belief in the british public that on the whole people have been selfless. The minority ignoring the rules are just scum, ignorance isn't an excuse.

 

[sammsky1]

If a lockdown was going to happen then they should have done a full lock down early.

No excuses like allowing exercise and just allow pharmacy and supermarkets to be open.

People have too many excuses to go out and just do their own thing at the moment.

I don't know if China's numbers are genuine, but there 'lockdown' was on a different level to what Europe's version looks like.

This is what a proper lockdown looks like (Beijing); perhaps China's numbers are real, because their lockdown was real too.

 

[Rado_N]

Grim, grim, grim. Poor kid.

fecking hell thats horrifying

 

[Bebestation]

I don't know if China's numbers are genuine, but there 'lockdown' was on a different level to what Europe's version looks like.

This is what a proper lockdown looks like (Beijing); perhaps China's numbers are real, because their lockdown was real too.

I've heard of countries that have fully locked down early, close their borders - stopped people completely leaving their house even for food and have essential food like meats/vegetables/fish delivered to them by certain people covering certain postcodes daily.(Sri lanka)

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ne...l-goods-to-homes-as-cases-rise-to-2121793.amp

Whilst it may obviously be hard in the UK - it shows how layed back it's been taken in my opinion. Took ages for the airports and the schools to close and arguably the lockdown is more a personal decision you make than anything strict imposed on you.

 

[Green_Red]

Seems the age groups being affected in New York are different than elsewhere. 1 in 5 under the age of 44.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ze_GUTGgLuly8ephe1D42ncZDf-vfdI&sref=RBKnTL07

 

[Pogue Mahone]

I’ve made the argument since the start that lockdowns don’t work, unless it’s one city and you have the military might of China to enforce it.

You’ll never get enough people all over the country to do it for long enough, the UK is already getting fed up and Southern Italy will be on the verge of anarchy if this continues.

Lockdowns are a decent delaying tactic when required, and if just 50% of people conform and the other 50% are not really doing it but are outdoors, it’ll still be enough to really slow the spread and that’s all we can hope for really.

Paragraph 1.

Repeat your argument that lockdowns don’t work.

Paragraph 3.

Give a decent explanation about why lockdowns can work.

Come on, dude. You need to back down on this one. Lockdowns can and do work because the alternative is too horrific to even think about. That’s as clear as day at this point.

 

[Garethw]

https://www.kentonline.co.uk/folkestone/news/family-travels-122-miles-on-beach-trip-225146/

Idiots!

 

[Ady87]

There is a Coronavirus stat bot on Twitter that says the average death in the UK figures reported today was infected 22 days ago, which put the infected population estimates for 14th March at 125,000-500,000 I think it said.

If true, and I’m still assessing that, it would suggest as some have predicted that we have another week of growth before a potential plateau.

 

[Winrar]

I don't know if China's numbers are genuine, but there 'lockdown' was on a different level to what Europe's version looks like.

This is what a proper lockdown looks like (Beijing); perhaps China's numbers are real, because their lockdown was real too.

I don't believe in their numbers because 1. their numbers are reported by the Chinese state media who wants to propagandize their "progress" and "victory" over the virus to the world and 2. they have responded really late to containing the virus, however strict their current measures are - Wuhan wasn't locked down until at least a month after first cases were reported there around Nov-Dec 19.

Hell, I don't even know if OUR numbers are all that accurate due to unreported cases that might've been passed off as common flu.

Despite that, however, I do believe their number of active cases, whatever it might be, have peaked and they've mitigated the worst of the crisis for now, strictly because of their draconian measures to keep people inside (e.g. welding people in their homes, something that would never happen in western countries)

 

[LordNinio]

Thanks but I still don’t quite understand how reproductive ability of a virus is something humans can change (other than immunity). Wouldn’t the coronavirus still have the ability to infect an average of X number of people (by way of how contagious it is) regardless of how many people are in lockdown? How does that get suppressed?

I think it's simply the case, that if you isolate the infected (which is what the lock down should do) then that individual can't infect anyone.

If you, isolate enough infected persons, then the average number of reinfected is falling. Eventually the virus dies in each patient without being passed on.

 

[Foxbatt]

I don't believe in their numbers because 1. their numbers are reported by the Chinese state media who wants to propagandize their "progress" and "victory" over the virus to the world and 2. they have responded really late to containing the virus, however strict their current measures are - Wuhan wasn't locked down until at least a month after first cases were reported there around Nov-Dec 19.

Hell, I don't even know if OUR numbers are all that accurate due to unreported cases that might've been passed off as common flu.

Despite that, however, I do believe their number of active cases, whatever it might be, have peaked and they've mitigated the worst of the crisis for now, strictly because of their draconian measures to keep people inside (e.g. welding people in their homes, something that would never happen in western countries)

It is mostly the American and the British press who are trying to create news about China. There is a good article about two days back in the New York Times about the timeline in China and it does agree to what the Chinese government is saying and also more importantly what happened actually. How the system failed. There is no logical way they could lock down a city in that short time. UK has still not locked down and now it is April and all the world knew about this at least from January.

 

[sammsky1]

Researchers of Monash university have found FDA approved drug Ivermectin seems to kill COVID19 within 48 hours (in lab conditions).
Next step is to figure out now whether the dosage you can use it at in humans will be effective.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

Paragraph 1.

Repeat your argument that lockdowns don’t work.

Paragraph 3.

Give a decent explanation about why lockdowns can work.

Come on, dude. You need to back down on this one. Lockdowns can and do work because the alternative is too horrific to even think about. That’s as clear as day at this point.

I clearly mean you can’t get rid of this with a lockdown. Nothing more. Although China maybe can/did in different circumstances. You’ll see I made this point many times that China can lock it’s people down because it was one City and my feck, could they enforce it, a military of nearly 3 million can definitely get the job done. I’ll repeat, that will never work in the UK when it’s countrywide.

You can absolutely slow the spread though. Even if it’s a half arsed lockdown it’ll do that it appears.
I think just 50% taking it seriously will have a big enough effect so I wouldn’t personally be too worried about seeing too many people outdoors. I was responding to some post with posters being angry/frustrated that they are seeing plenty of people outdoors in the sunshine.

What's "clear as day" so far is that the curve can be flattened without locking people in their houses, Germany & Denmark are testament to this. I haven't heard many experts claiming that outdoor activities are a hot spot for transmission, quite the opposite right? Unless I've missed something?