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

Regulus Arcturus Black said:
Which makes sense, but how long does it have to be below 1.0 to as they say "disappear".
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Thats where extensive testing and "detective" work to locate and isolate all new infections comes into play. Like what South Korea did, and also what Germany is pushing for now acc. to some articles at least.
This requires testing capacity that most countries do not have though. In Norway the government wants to do this, so they are now talking to many companys within various sectors to be able to increase testing capacity. We are already among the best at this but we need to increase to test much much more. All of this would make us able to gradually open up society. And then continue the test and search operation until a vaccine is available.

Btw, I see that today there is news in Norway that Sweden might have twice as many dead as have been reported? Is that correct? I don't understand how the reporting can be so off and the swedish press so late at discovering this :rolleyes: Maybe swedish press is finally awakening. You guys really need to toughen up restrictions now to avoid complete chaos in Stockholm at least.
 
A few? W
Dans said:
And so what in effect is happening, is that, and this is obviously a very cold way of looking at things, but what's happening is that the economy is potentially being destroyed to prolong the lives of a few by months.
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Without the lockdown imperial forecast 510,000 deaths in the Uk. You want to defend that?
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
No.

The death rate goes up and lots of people who normally wouldn't die this year will due to not being able to receive the correct treatment. This includes plenty of people between 40-60. All this social distancing is about allowing the health services time to give everyone the chance they deserve.

I do agree on lockdown though, as much as I'm hated in here for it. As far as I'm aware Denmark and Germany have flattened the curve without telling people to stay inside their homes.
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Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government has agreed with regional states to extend the nationwide lockdown aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus for another two weeks until April 19.

A little over a week after banning gatherings of more than two people, the government continues to ask Germans to avoid contact with people outside their own household, the chancellor said in a statement on Wednesday after speaking with the premiers of the country’s 16 states. The government wants to revisit those measures after Easter.
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Germany are still on their own form of lockdown and 80% of people in Denmark are avoiding crowded public places, which is what people are criticising folks in the UK for not doing at the parks this weekend.

If you look at Google's mobility figures the numbers in Germany and the UK are very similar. 75-85% less time at retail and recreation locations, 75-80% less time in transit stations, 50% less time in parks.
 
Dans said:
Yep, appreciate that, but I have seen daily death counts in the last 3 years for NL in the month of March and so far there's no difference. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next two weeks and how the numbers are then.
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What about the knock-on effect of all the other healthcare put on hold because hospitals are overrun with Covid cases? There's an enormous health cost to people there too that would only be even worse without lockdown.
 
UK will probably relax the lockdown in June if not before but all we can do is look at the numbers and how many are in hospital but there's also the bigger picture to balance. I think with a different mindset, keeping distance, cleaning surfaces, large scale testing, antibody tests, maybe having masks available can help a lot in not having a huge second wave when back to work and more a manageable one for NHS. Still it's playing russian roulette for some out there of all age groups but lockdowns for 6-12 months I don't feel can happen.

horsechoker said:
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.
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Maybe they're looking for some data on it
 
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Cardboard elk said:
Btw, I see that today there is news in Norway that Sweden might have twice as many dead as have been reported? Is that correct? I don't understand how the reporting can be so off and the swedish press so late at discovering this :rolleyes: Maybe swedish press is finally awakening. You guys really need to toughen up restrictions now to avoid complete chaos in Stockholm at least.
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I would guess it’s due to autopsy right? Most countries are struggling reporting numbers on home deaths and elderly nursing home deaths.

ICU per day in Stockholm has actually dropped the past couple of days so Älvsjö is not in use yet. Still think we’re at least another week away from stricter measures in Stockholm, and only if the ICU curve starts to look alarming.
ICU entry curve has been flat for some time, until that starts increasing I’d imagine they are pleased with the curve.
 
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nickm said:
A few? W

Without the lockdown imperial forecast 510,000 deaths in the Uk. You want to defend that?
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That strikes me as an unlikely worst case scenario. But, look, I agree with the lockdown, but for how long can any country keep it up? I have left my house once, yesterday, for more than just walk in 3 weeks. I am lucky that I have a job which I can do in home office and is still needed, but thousands upon thousands do not. Even that worst case scenario could look acceptable if a lockdown continues and more and more people lose their jobs and the economy goes into a deep recession which necessitates years of recovery and all that comes with that scenario. In the end, the choice is going to come down to let people die or save people's livelihoods and not destroy lives the world over for years to come.
 
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Dans said:
That strikes me as an unlikely worst case scenario. But, look, I agree with the lockdown, but for how long can any country keep it up? I have left my house once, yesterday, for more than just walk in 3 weeks. I am lucky that I have a job which I can do in home office and is still needed, but thousands upon thousands do not. Even that worst case scenario could look acceptable if a lockdown continues and more and more people lose their jobs and the economy goes into a deep recession which necessitates years of recovery and all that comes with that scenario. In the end, the choice is going to come down to let people die or save people's livelihoods and not destroy lives the world over for years to come.
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I really don't think I've understood the plans after lockdown. Are people now saying that countries can chase it down after lockdown by tracking/tracing? How?

And if so, do countries then keep their borders shut for a year?

I thought there were only two ways out of this, a vaccine, or enough people being infected to build up a herd immunity. In the case of building it up, the most important thing is simply to ensure your health service doesn't get overwhelmed, but people are still focusing on total deaths, which in this case is completely irrelevant here.

And now I'm hearing about getting the R0 below 1 and then chasing it down. It that feasible? Can the UK for example lockdown for 6 weeks and then chase it down? I was under the impression that was completely impossible to due exponential growth, all you need is a few cases to slip the net and you're in the same situation again?

Anyone?
 
FireballXL5 said:
Seriously, wtf? This isn't about 'embracing authoritarianism' , it's about staying alive.
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you are right. its simple. you close borders and then their is no pandemic......it would be that simple and should be but we will lose freedom. Maybe if people were not so dumb. The truth is money has humanity by the nuts and is the biggest threat because there is no common sense. That is why nation states must make their own money, destroy the current system which has overridden common sense but also those responsible will meet justice for their crimes against humanity. A pandemic is here because there is no defence against stupidity. You stop travel but it was allowed ....to spread. So lets deal with it but understand the failure is those in power who have dumbed people down and those who sold us out

It is up to the people....for once...to look at this objectively and to say we dont have to lose freedom and know what that means.This pandemic will be ridden for a good length of time yet. Lets see, what it costs people...
 
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Striker10 said:
you are right. its simple. you close borders and then their is no pandemic......it would be that simple and should be but we will lose freedom. Maybe if people were not so dumb. the truth is money has humanity by the nuts and is the biggest threat because there is no common sense. That is why nation states must make their own money, destroy the current system which has overridden common sense but also those responsible will meet justice for their crimes against humanity.
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Not sure if serious?

Not quite sure what you're suggesting either.
 
Dans said:
That strikes me as an unlikely worst case scenario. But, look, I agree with the lockdown, but for how long can any country keep it up? I have left my house once, yesterday, for more than just walk in 3 weeks. I am lucky that I have a job which I can do in home office and is still needed, but thousands upon thousands do not. Even that worst case scenario could look acceptable if a lockdown continues and more and more people lose their jobs and the economy goes into a deep recession which necessitates years of recovery and all that comes with that scenario. In the end, the choice is going to come down to let people die or save people livelihoods and not destroy lives the world over for years to come.
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You're looking at it from the German perspective, but in reality the UK is in a different world on this.

The major concern is about overloading the healthcare system past its breaking point. The UK has 4,500 ICU beds, Germany has 24,500 beds. Based on a study in Wuhan, about 5% of cases require ICU beds, so Germany has the capacity to manage 490,000 typical cases (50x what they currently have) while the UK has the capacity to manage 90,000 typical cases (a little over double what they currently have). On top of that the UK has a shortage of PPE and testing capacity, leading to many more doctors ill or self-isolating and reducing the peak demand they can manage. The UK had no alternative because the infrastructure in place was dramatically inferior to Germany.

We already have hospitals urging people not to go there because they have severe resource shortages. On lockdown. Surely everyone could see that would be happening on a much wider scale if not for the lockdown. It wouldn't simply have been a few old people losing a few months of their lives. It's the healthcare system that's at risk.

If we had 25,000 ICU beds then we would be able to cope without a lockdown, as per this graph on the top-left from Imperial's modelling. Instead, because the ICU capacity is 5x lower, even with the most risky approach to suppression we will need to be in intermittent lockdown for 6 of the next 18 months, 1 month on, 2 months off.

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Germany does have 25,000 ICU beds so they have more choice in that regard.
 
JMack1234 said:
The most concerning thing about this pandemic is how readily people will embrace authoritarianism.

As long as they feel good about themselves.
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People will embrace it if they feel it’s for the greater good, and clearly that’s the case.

I take it you don’t agree with lockdowns?
 
Dans said:
I wonder what percentage of deaths reported as being due to Corona virus are in fact deaths that would have happened anyway, but which Corona has "merely sped up".
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Sky were doing a comparison of average daily deaths from previous years compared to this year and UK uptill yesterday was within the average daily death graphs. Spain was exceeding their daily death graphs. It would be interesting to do this for every country.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
As I say, if you avoid Italy and Spain situations, however you manage it then your are saving as many lives as possible. That’s surely the only important thing here.

What I find disturbing is the amount of people delighted for Derbyshire police trying to drone shame people for being out in the Peak District or getting angry about seeing people outside. It appears to be losing sight of what we are trying to achieve here.
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I’m actually with you on the outdoors thing. I honestly think that the chances of being infected by someone else walking nearby in a park are miniscule. And there’s a lot of hysteria on social media about people spending time outdoors that irritates me.

That said, you could argue that it’s a slippery slope. The more people continue hanging around in groups outdoors the less diligent they will get about the basics. Washing hands, being careful about sneezing etc Having this weird, shitty situation where you might get dirty looks for not crossing the road for avoiding someone helps keep the important stuff front and centre in everyone’s mind. So it’s a price worth paying.
 
Dans said:
And so what in effect is happening, is that, and this is obviously a very cold way of looking at things, but what's happening is that the economy is potentially being destroyed to prolong the lives of a few by months.
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You're shrugging your shoulders and going "ah well" to millions of people. By giving up on them we've lost our humanity but it's all good because we'd still be rich. Pretty disgraceful attitude to have in my opinion.
 
Dans said:
And so what in effect is happening, is that, and this is obviously a very cold way of looking at things, but what's happening is that the economy is potentially being destroyed to prolong the lives of a few by months.
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Eugh, what a mindset. feck them they’re ill anyway. Tell that to not only people with underlying issues but the seemingly healthy people who are suffocating to death too. Take a feckin look at yourself and think how lucky you are that you’re not one of the statistics
 
JMack1234 said:
The most concerning thing about this pandemic is how readily people will embrace authoritarianism.

As long as they feel good about themselves.
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I too find it shocking that the majority of people are actively acting in other people's interest.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I’m actually with you on the outdoors thing. I honestly think that the chances of being infected by someone else walking nearby in a park are miniscule. And there’s a lot of hysteria on social media about people spending time outdoors that irritates me.

That said, you could argue that it’s a slippery slope. The more people continue hanging around in groups outdoors the less diligent they will get about the basics. Washing hands, being careful about sneezing etc Having this weird, shitty situation where you might get dirty looks for not crossing the road for avoiding someone helps keep the important stuff front and centre in everyone’s mind. So it’s a price worth paying.
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Absolutely, I buy that argument, and maybe you cannot trust in humanity.

But still, things like this leave a sour taste for me:

"Asked whether sunbathing in public spaces was against the law, Matt Hancock said: "Sunbathing is against the rules that have been set out for important public health reasons."

He warned those who are flouting the guidance: "You are putting others' lives at risk and you are putting yourself in harm's way."
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and then threatening:

"I don't want to have to take away exercise as a reason to leave home... if too many people are not following the rules.
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I dun know man, I think it's going too far and verges on wankerish, it's losing sight of what you're trying to achieve and what you will need to do for month after month in order to save lives.

I agree with the new labour deputy leader who responded "It's alright for people who have got big houses and huge back gardens to say that.

"But actually if you're stuck in inadequate accommodation, you've got no back garden, you've got nowhere to go and you're all on top of each other, quite literally, then I think people should do social distancing and should keep their distance but also be reasonable and proportionate about that."
 
Just been to get shopping for myself and mum in the UK. Utilised the early access for emergency workers for the first time which was great and let me get essential things I had been struggling to find in stock. Everyone inside was orderly, relaxed and keen to observe the rules. The staff were brilliant too and opened every single checkout to get us through quickly. One thing I couldn't get was small hand sanitiser though which was frustrating. Hopefully can find some this week.

One thing I did notice though was not one emergency worker was walking around wearing gloves, masks and whatever else whilst the queue outside of the general public had people kitted up like the were going in an ICU. Quite interesting really.
 
RedSky said:
You're shrugging your shoulders and going "ah well" to millions of people. By giving up on them we've lost our humanity but it's all good because we'd still be rich. Pretty disgraceful attitude to have in my opinion.
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I did say it was a cold way of looking at things, but in the back of mind I am looking more to the future that might become considerably more dimmer than it was before this for millions of children, of which I have two. I am thinking aloud, not necessarily advocating what I have hypothesized. It needs to be thought about in my opinion. It's got nothing to do with being rich, I am not rich, but has everything to do with hope for those who have only just started their lives.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
@Brwned in the Imperial modelling, what percentage of infected do they imagine require hospital attention and ICU attention?
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They don't specify ICU attention but these are the figures for hospitalisation:

gCkXrVw.png


I'd imagine if they're using the early Chinese figures then they'd be using the same 5% ICU figure from this.
 
Dr. StrangeHate said:
Sky were doing a comparison of average daily deaths from previous years compared to this year and UK uptill yesterday was within the average daily death graphs. Spain was exceeding their daily death graphs. It would be interesting to do this for every country.
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Even the daily death numbers in the UK are misleading.
Because they only count deaths in hospitals.
 
Buster15 said:
Even the daily death numbers in the UK are misleading.
Because they only count deaths in hospitals.
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Aye, @Cardboard elk asked me earlier why the Swedish might be almost doubling their figures now and it’s because of that. If people die quickly at homes or nursing homes before getting diagnosed or receiving medical attention, the daily numbers are bound to be out and will require correction later.
I’m also sure some countries are counting deaths differently as to what constitutes death by covid-19 or death with covid-19.
 
Dancfc said:
I totally agree that any death is a tragedy and we should do our utmost to preserve life. This is also not about wanting to go back to the pub or go to the cinema. I could quite easily shelve all those unimportant things.

This is about having a life to lead after this (which in turn will save thousands of lives in itself due to significantly more people being able to feed their kids) 60% of business will fail if this goes on longer than short term. Do you even consider what world that would leave us with?

I have 2 neices who will miss out on a significant part of their education. Do you understand the implications of this further down the line?

Does anyone really understand the mental health aspect?

It's all very well talking about funding an NHS, but if no one can pay tax then who is going to fund it? Another country who has the same problem?

People seem to think that without lockdown until there is a vaccine that this disease is going to kill millions. It's simply not true and never has been. Yes, you get isolated sad cases and I feel the greatest sympathy

At some point caution becomes counter productive and won't only fail to protect the NHS and save lives, but do the total opposite.
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You're describing it as a choice with misplaced priorities. If you put aside the evidence that suggests it is not a choice, I can't quite understand the idea of misplaced priorities. Do you think the people in government now have typically put healthcare above the economy? Do you think they put people ahead of businesses more than previous governments?
 
Brwned said:
They don't specify ICU attention but these are the figures for hospitalisation:

gCkXrVw.png


I'd imagine if they're using the early Chinese figures then they'd be using the same 5% ICU figure from this.
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That’s not perfect data though is it?

I mean, I get why the are going on it as any data is often better than none.

Will they be updating that information soon with information from Europe?
 
Brwned said:
You're looking at it from the German perspective, but in reality the UK is in a different world on this.

The major concern is about overloading the healthcare system past its breaking point. The UK has 4,500 ICU beds, Germany has 24,500 beds. Based on a study in Wuhan, about 5% of cases require ICU beds, so Germany has the capacity to manage 490,000 typical cases (50x what they currently have) while the UK has the capacity to manage 90,000 typical cases (a little over double what they currently have). On top of that the UK has a shortage of PPE and testing capacity, leading to many more doctors ill or self-isolating and reducing the peak demand they can manage. The UK had no alternative because the infrastructure in place was dramatically inferior to Germany.

We already have hospitals urging people not to go there because they have severe resource shortages. On lockdown. Surely everyone could see that would be happening on a much wider scale if not for the lockdown. It wouldn't simply have been a few old people losing a few months of their lives. It's the healthcare system that's at risk.

If we had 25,000 ICU beds then we would be able to cope without a lockdown, as per this graph on the top-left from Imperial's modelling. Instead, because the ICU capacity is 5x lower, even with the most risky approach to suppression we will need to be in intermittent lockdown for 6 of the next 18 months, 1 month on, 2 months off.

D7rNRTk.png


Germany does have 25,000 ICU beds so they have more choice in that regard.
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That number is up to 40,000 now.

Austria's curves look very promising. Higher number of recoveries than new infections for the first time yesterday: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/austria/
 
Garethw said:
https://www.kentonline.co.uk/folkestone/news/family-travels-122-miles-on-beach-trip-225146/

Idiots!
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Selfish, heartless bastards.
They don't give a feck about 5 year old kids dying on their own and having to be buried the same way or about nurses and doctors risking their lives in apocalyptic conditions. As long as they can have a day at the beach then all's fine in the world.
Calling them idiots is giving them an out. They aren't too thick to understand what is going on they just don't care. As long as it doesn't affect them personally why should their lives be disrupted.
 
Dans said:
That strikes me as an unlikely worst case scenario. But, look, I agree with the lockdown, but for how long can any country keep it up? I have left my house once, yesterday, for more than just walk in 3 weeks. I am lucky that I have a job which I can do in home office and is still needed, but thousands upon thousands do not. Even that worst case scenario could look acceptable if a lockdown continues and more and more people lose their jobs and the economy goes into a deep recession which necessitates years of recovery and all that comes with that scenario. In the end, the choice is going to come down to let people die or save people's livelihoods and not destroy lives the world over for years to come.
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It was the imperial model without any of the distancing strategies to reduce infection rates so I’m not sure on what grounds of expertise you can call it an unlikely worst case scenario.

It’s also worth noting that based on Spanish flu data from 1918 I think, cities that locked down recovered faster economically than cities that did not so it suggests that the current lockdown approach is economically the best approach anyway.
 
Dans said:
I did say it was a cold way of looking at things, but in the back of mind I am looking more to the future that might become considerably more dimmer than it was before this for millions of children, of which I have two. I am thinking aloud, not necessarily advocating what I have hypothesized. It needs to be thought about in my opinion. It's got nothing to do with being rich, I am not rich, but has everything to do with hope for those who have only just started their lives.
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Feel free to march over to your nearest hospital and tell the NHS staff and patients your perspective. Sorry, but that's a shocking attitude to have, like inherently selfish and despicable. I'm actually a bit astounded that you're rationlising your kids future as a reason to accept millions of people dying.
 
nickm said:
It’s also worth noting that based on Spanish flu data from 1918 I think, cities that locked down recovered faster economically than cities that did not so it suggests that the current lockdown approach is economically the best approach anyway.
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Which cities locked down during the Spanish flu? I was under the impression that there were bans on some gatherings and some public places were closed; but it was nothing like the current coronavirus lockdowns as the focus everywhere was on the war effort.
 
nickm said:
It was the imperial model without any of the distancing strategies to reduce infection rates so I’m not sure on what grounds of expertise you can call it an unlikely worst case scenario.
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"Unlikely worst case" is fair I'd say, and there's nothing wrong in going on worst case scenarios and then scaling back. Plenty of European data so far might be pointing to the amount of hospitalisations required for those infected with Covid-19 is much lower than those Chinese figures in the Imperial model.
 
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