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

Belgium were early to react to this whole thing & it's starting to show results. I think you guys will have best outcome in Europe if you can manage the transition into "life as usual"


I recognise it’s not a charitable thought but I cannot help but be thankful that we will not be amongst the first countries to ease the lockdown. If second spikes do occur we will have prior warning. After all the whole world is guessing at present.
 
And how are you going to pay for the administration of that? What about those who have recently found themselves impoverished? What about the increase of serious cases because people put off seeking help due to cost?

There's a very good reason we've maintained free at the point of use for several decades. How about we just fund it adequately through taxation eh?
If you read my first post I’m merely suggesting opening it up to public debate.

secondly I’m not saying making it semi private im saying keep it the same but ask people to make a nominal payment for some things. This will add extra money to the coffers. There are too manywho burden the a&e for example with stuff that they should go to a gp with

anyways this should prob all go in a seperate thread
 
Belgium were early to react to this whole thing & it's starting to show results. I think you guys will have best outcome in Europe if you can manage the transition into "life as usual"
I think we were not among the first countries but certainly early-ish yeah, March 14th. I think the transition will be in several phases - there's talk of a gradual return to school (kindergarten first, then elementary school, then high school), then business and shops to re-open again and then last of all the hotels, restaurants and pubs. If I had to guess at a timeline right now, I'd say schools early May, shops/businesses mid-May and pubs end of May, but I'd rather they err on the side of caution in this case. Will probably also depend on the amount of tests available to detect immunity and antibodies, stuff like that.

Would be delighted if life more or less has returned to "normal" by summer. Social distancing will be here for the long run until we have a vaccine though, I'd think.
 
I recognise it’s not a charitable thought but I cannot help but be thankful that we will not be amongst the first countries to ease the lockdown. If second spikes do occur we will have prior warning. After all the whole world is guessing at present.

A second spike to me is a failure of managing the community spread. The entire point of a lockdown for me is helping us return the situation to a manageable state, and putting in place measures to manage the spread within the community. So still heavy social distancing, high testing capacity and still closing off non-esssntial travel.

Funnily enough, the later you are to react in the first place the more likely it is that you will need a longer lockdown, for this exact reason. It'll take longer for you to get the situation back to a manageable level.
 
With the curves seemingly flattening across countries i just hope nations are ready with their testing.

You ideally want to end up in a situation where you can test to identify and contact trace as many as possible. That will be the key factor in determining how long the majority can have relaxed rules.

Unfortunately i can't see it being too long before stricter measures are necessary again. I can see us making the mistake of opening pubs and everyone flooding to them.
 
I recognise it’s not a charitable thought but I cannot help but be thankful that we will not be amongst the first countries to ease the lockdown. If second spikes do occur we will have prior warning. After all the whole world is guessing at present.

With wide spread testing there should be a lot more to it than guess work, especially if the return to normal is done in waves.
 
Excellent news. How strict are your social distancing regulations?
WFH in every business where it's possible. Only essential trips allowed (work, gas stations, pharmacy, supermarkets). Still allowed to go out for walks / runs / cycling tours with people from your household or one friend (same friend all the time though, sort of a "corona buddy"), keeping in mind social distancing rules. Police are out in big numbers to oversee everything, especially with the sunny weather right now. So not too different from other EU countries I'd say?

It's been more than 3 weeks of "lockdown light" right now though so good that we start to see the results. We also get reminded daily to still follow the rules, even though a decline is starting to show. Government has also made use of celebrities on social media to keep the public informed and engaged, with stuff like #SaveTheSummer and things like that. I genuinely think that it helps, especially to make the younger people adhere to the rules for as long as need be.
 
People who want or hope Boris dies are very strange. Say what you want about the bloke but he's going to be a father. That will be a kid left without a dad. I don't like him or his values but to wish that he dies says a lot about you.
 
People who want or hope Boris dies are very strange. Say what you want about the bloke but he's going to be a father. That will be a kid left without a dad. I don't like him or his values but to wish that he dies says a lot about you.
there's good statistical reasons to assume boris wasn't going to raise this kid, just say "he's a human you cnuts" don't try to appeal to an aspect of his humanity that's just a black fecking hole
 
I'm sure Boris with be fine. He'll have the best care, and DRs will be receiving international specialist advice I'm sure.
Speedy recovery to the guy, I like him. Hope he drops the whole HS2 thing however, in flavor of better funding for the NHS. He's now understanding how much it's needed.
 
I keep hearing that he runs often and plays tennis. He hasn't the motor skills for tennis. He doesn't look fit at all.
 
Belgium were early to react to this whole thing & it's starting to show results. I think you guys will have best outcome in Europe if you can manage the transition into "life as usual"

Just out of curiosity, why would that be and what can we learn from that for the rest of Europe? Earlier in the week it seemed like Germany was lightyears ahead of all other European countries, so my guess would've been that they would have the 'best' outcome.
 
I watched the 2011 film Contagion last night. Scary how similar a lot of the plot points are to what’s happening with this pandemic.

Terms like “social distancing” wouldn’t have meant anything to me had I watched this film even six months ago. How times have changed:(
 
I'm sure Boris with be fine. He'll have the best care, and DRs will be receiving international specialist advice I'm sure.
Speedy recovery to the guy, I like him. Hope he drops the whole HS2 thing however, in flavor of better funding for the NHS. He's now understanding how much it's needed.

I'm not sure "best care" assures anything in this case. If he's put on a ventalator its 50/50.
 
I think we were not among the first countries but certainly early-ish yeah, March 14th. I think the transition will be in several phases - there's talk of a gradual return to school (kindergarten first, then elementary school, then high school), then business and shops to re-open again and then last of all the hotels, restaurants and pubs. If I had to guess at a timeline right now, I'd say schools early May, shops/businesses mid-May and pubs end of May, but I'd rather they err on the side of caution in this case. Will probably also depend on the amount of tests available to detect immunity and antibodies, stuff like that.

Would be delighted if life more or less has returned to "normal" by summer. Social distancing will be here for the long run until we have a vaccine though, I'd think.
Flattening the curve obviously means extending it as well. So... May might be optimistic imo... Let's hope you're right.

Oh, and in China schools are some of the last phases to "normalize".
 
I keep hearing that he runs often and plays tennis. He hasn't the motor skills for tennis. He doesn't look fit at all.

:lol: If all these tories radio 5 keep bringing on air were to be believed, you'd think he looked like Ronaldo or something.
 
I watched the 2011 film Contagion last night. Scary how similar a lot of the plot points are to what’s happening with this pandemic.

Terms like “social distancing” wouldn’t have meant anything to me had I watched this film even six months ago. How times have changed:(
Scary how they talk about bats too, and you see the chain of how it began.
 
My Sister has just sent me screenshots of messages between her and other nurses in North West hospitals that are having their social media stuff censored or threatened with discipline. Any comments about PPE, difficulty of shift or what they’re going through and they’re being pulled aside for it.

When I think of the company I work for, they would probably do the same but it still feels wrong.
 
Just out of curiosity, why would that be and what can we learn from that for the rest of Europe? Earlier in the week it seemed like Germany was lightyears ahead of all other European countries, so my guess would've been that they would have the 'best' outcome.

Lowest number of total deaths. It seems like I'm wrong though as Germany's total deaths are lower than Belgium, so they are doing better than everyone else.

I've talked about this before, but to me success is managing the spread within the community. The blue print is the one SK have provided, which is to test and trace. To successfully do that you need your testing capacity to be big enough to manage it within your country.

The lockdown isn't there to shut you up inside until there is a vaccine, and opening up restrictions doesn't mean we want people to get it to "build herd immunity. You just want to buy enough time so that you can increase your capacity to successfully test and trace and couple it with a few of the more effective restrictions (ban on large gatherings, restrict travel etc).

The other thing a lockdown does is, it provides you with quite useful data on the "real" number of people who have it. When the growth of cases is exponential, the number of people you diagnose (which is constant) is limited by the number of people you can test - thus the models you're using to determine community spread are quite wild (because the growth of cases is constantly outstripping your testing capacity). When you flatten the curve (i.e. the new number of new diagnosed cases is constant) you have a much better idea of the "real" number of cases.

That's my thinking behind it anyways, I could be talking shit.
 
I watched the 2011 film Contagion last night. Scary how similar a lot of the plot points are to what’s happening with this pandemic.

Terms like “social distancing” wouldn’t have meant anything to me had I watched this film even six months ago. How times have changed:(
Aye,very good film. Soderbergh continues to be one of the more underrated Directors in Hollywood.
 
This is going off topic but just want to correct some misinformation for anyone reading



The only source I can find for this is a report funded by a private health care company and free market lobbyists.

It’s hard to rank healthcare systems and there’s no agreed way to do so. Rankings typically reflect political agendas (e.g giving something a high ranking because of ‘choice’ or ‘efficiency’)

Which report did you find?

France is rated by the WHO as the best in the world and they pay fees upfront for various treatments which are reimbursed generally between 70-100%. The idea that such schemes cannot be part of world leading healthcare systems is bollocks.

We even have such schemes already, namely prescriptions and dental care. There are exemptions for many disadvantaged groups who get the services free.

https://www.nhs.uk/using-the-nhs/help-with-health-costs/get-help-with-prescription-costs/
 
Lowest number of total deaths. It seems like I'm wrong though as Germany's total deaths are lower than Belgium, so they are doing better than everyone else.

I've talked about this before, but to me success is managing the spread within the community. The blue print is the one SK have provided, which is to test and trace. To successfully do that you need your testing capacity to be big enough to manage it within your country.

The lockdown isn't there to shut you up inside until there is a vaccine, and opening up restrictions doesn't mean we want people to get it to "build herd immunity. You just want to buy enough time so that you can increase your capacity to successfully test and trace and couple it with a few of the more effective restrictions (ban on large gatherings, restrict travel etc).

The other thing a lockdown does is, it provides you with quite useful data on the "real" number of people who have it. When the growth of cases is exponential, the number of people you diagnose (which is constant) is limited by the number of people you can test - thus the models you're using to determine community spread are quite wild (because the growth of cases is constantly outstripping your testing capacity). When you flatten the curve (i.e. the new number of new diagnosed cases is constant) you have a much better idea of the "real" number of cases.

That's my thinking behind it anyways, I could be talking shit.

It also provides much more reliable data about how effective these interventions are. What we had before were models estimating how much it can slow the spread based on assumptions about adherence and limited data on its reproduction rate in varying conditions. So if the conditions arise again where interventions are needed, they can apply them more judiciously.

The primary reason countries went into lockdown was to prevent the healthcare system from being overloaded, ultimately. Giving people more time to develop the tools to identify the main sources of the fires and to produce more fire extinguishers to put them out were essential, but the key was to make sure enough fires didn't develop so rapidly that our resources where overwhelmed even in the best scenarios.
 
Lowest number of total deaths. It seems like I'm wrong though as Germany's total deaths are lower than Belgium, so they are doing better than everyone else.

I've talked about this before, but to me success is managing the spread within the community. The blue print is the one SK have provided, which is to test and trace. To successfully do that you need your testing capacity to be big enough to manage it within your country.

The lockdown isn't there to shut you up inside until there is a vaccine, and opening up restrictions doesn't mean we want people to get it to "build herd immunity. You just want to buy enough time so that you can increase your capacity to successfully test and trace and couple it with a few of the more effective restrictions (ban on large gatherings, restrict travel etc).

The other thing a lockdown does is, it provides you with quite useful data on the "real" number of people who have it. When the growth of cases is exponential, the number of people you diagnose (which is constant) is limited by the number of people you can test - thus the models you're using to determine community spread are quite wild (because the growth of cases is constantly outstripping your testing capacity). When you flatten the curve (i.e. the new number of new diagnosed cases is constant) you have a much better idea of the "real" number of cases.

That's my thinking behind it anyways, I could be talking shit.

Yeah, the bolded in combination with the fact that Germany has over 7 times the population of Belgium. There's loads of factors why things are looking 'good' over there.

Like you said, the testing. From what I've read the Germans were the first in Europe to test so extensively, simply because they had the expertise to quickly develop tests (they were extra prepared since some incident with rotten vegetables brought into supermarkets caused a minor health crisis a couple of years back, killing dozens of people).

Other countries would've liked or would like to do similar testing but they haven't got the infrastructure in place to develop and implement the testing in a similar way while panic was breaking out. Germans were able to test a ridiculous amount from the beginning compared to other countries, even younger people with mild symptoms were tested extensively and they traced back every contact moment as far as they could for everyone.

The average age of infected patients was around 45 years vs 65+ years in countries like Italy and France. On top of that they have by far the most ICU beds with 30/100.000 inhabitants, whereas most other countries have less than 10/100.000 which obviously saves a lot of mass panick and creates calmness. They're also still expanding the ICU capacity.

I would also say that having rational politcal leadership from top to lower level surely must be a positive factor. They definitely have competent people in place at the most important positions, which is not exactly a given elsewhere.

It's a big country in terms of surface so maybe there are also quite a few areas that are not densely populated which could help.

Of course there's always a big question mark because I guess you can't 100% ensure there won't be some dramatic surge over the next months due to something unforseen.
 
Lowest number of total deaths. It seems like I'm wrong though as Germany's total deaths are lower than Belgium, so they are doing better than everyone else.

I've talked about this before, but to me success is managing the spread within the community. The blue print is the one SK have provided, which is to test and trace. To successfully do that you need your testing capacity to be big enough to manage it within your country.

The lockdown isn't there to shut you up inside until there is a vaccine, and opening up restrictions doesn't mean we want people to get it to "build herd immunity. You just want to buy enough time so that you can increase your capacity to successfully test and trace and couple it with a few of the more effective restrictions (ban on large gatherings, restrict travel etc).

The other thing a lockdown does is, it provides you with quite useful data on the "real" number of people who have it. When the growth of cases is exponential, the number of people you diagnose (which is constant) is limited by the number of people you can test - thus the models you're using to determine community spread are quite wild (because the growth of cases is constantly outstripping your testing capacity). When you flatten the curve (i.e. the new number of new diagnosed cases is constant) you have a much better idea of the "real" number of cases.

That's my thinking behind it anyways, I could be talking shit.

Surely you'd have to have Norway at the top of the list so far for Europe, way ahead of Belgium? Just 83 deaths and 111,000 tests done?

I think Norway actually have an incredible opportunity to go to test and trace level with this. Austria too, amazing job there it seems.

Interested in your thinking regarding your thoughts on lockdown giving countries an opportunity to go to test and trace with this, from everything I'd heard so far I'd been made to believe it was way too widespread in Europe to get there in most countries and that the only ways out were vaccine or herd immunity. Hope what you say is the case.
 
Surely you'd have to have Norway at the top of the list so far for Europe, way ahead of Belgium? Just 83 deaths and 111,000 tests done?

I think Norway actually have an incredible opportunity to go to track and trace level with this.

You are probably right. I don't know much about the individual cases in a lot of the different countries - though I did live in Belgium, so I am paying a bit more interest in their fortunes. From the communication I've got from my friends still there, they're fairly confident its under control & whatever they're doing is working.
 
You are probably right. I don't know much about the individual cases in a lot of the different countries - though I did live in Belgium, so I am paying a bit more interest in their fortunes. From the communication I've got from my friends still there, they're fairly confident its under control & whatever they're doing is working.

There are lots of countries "doing well" in fairness, the stats in Austria, Portugal, Ireland, Germany and plenty of others look promising after the initial mistake in Europe of thinking "Ah, it'll be like SARS and won't make it here", lots of European countries have done themselves proud, so far.

I say so far because I'm certain we have a long long road ahead of us. If people believe this can be brought down to test and trace level in Europe then I'm blown away, everything I'd read and heard has made out that it takes just a few infected to "slip the net" as such and bring everything crumbling back down again. I have 100% been of the mindset that vaccine or herd immunity were the only two ways out of this.
 
I think Norway actually have an incredible opportunity to go to track and trace level with this.

I read an article the other day which speculated that they might not have enough equipment (yet) to really test and trace everything. However, the way forward after Easter will be revealed this afternoon in a presser. Some have called for even tighter measures, while others want to follow Sweden's take on things. Will be very interesting to see if the government has a clever strategy which the people can buy into and be upheld in the long term.
 
Yeah, the bolded in combination with the fact that Germany has over 7 times the population of Belgium. There's loads of factors why things are looking 'good' over there.

Like you said, the testing. From what I've read the Germans were the first in Europe to test so extensively, simply because they had the expertise to quickly develop tests (they were extra prepared since some incident with rotten vegetables brought into supermarkets caused a minor health crisis a couple of years back, killing dozens of people).

Other countries would've liked or would like to do similar testing but they haven't got the infrastructure in place to develop and implement the testing in a similar way while panic was breaking out. Germans were able to test a ridiculous amount from the beginning compared to other countries, even younger people with mild symptoms were tested extensively and they traced back every contact moment as far as they could for everyone.

The average age of infected patients was around 45 years vs 65+ years in countries like Italy and France. On top of that they have by far the most ICU beds with 30/100.000 inhabitants, whereas most other countries have less than 10/100.000 which obviously saves a lot of mass panick and creates calmness. They're also still expanding the ICU capacity.

I would also say that having rational politcal leadership from top to lower level surely must be a positive factor. They definitely have competent people in place at the most important positions, which is not exactly a given elsewhere.

It's a big country in terms of surface so maybe there are also quite a few areas that are not densely populated which could help.

Of course there's always a big question mark because I guess you can't 100% ensure there won't be some dramatic surge over the next months due to something unforseen.

I think if there is anything positive to come out of all this it is likely to be much more robust systems to be in place throughout the world to ensure that if and when another pandemic hits we are all in a much stronger position to react appropriately re: testing, PPE, etc. and it will hopefully avoid this situation occuring to the same degree.
 
Surely you'd have to have Norway at the top of the list so far for Europe, way ahead of Belgium? Just 83 deaths and 111,000 tests done?

I think Norway actually have an incredible opportunity to go to test and trace level with this. Austria too, amazing job there it seems.

Interested in your thinking regarding your thoughts on lockdown giving countries an opportunity to go to test and trace with this, from everything I'd heard so far I'd been made to believe it was way too widespread in Europe to get there in most countries and that the only ways out were vaccine or herd immunity. Hope what you say is the case.

I think the number of available tests is a bigger bottleneck here. Otherwise a country like Iceland or a region like the Faroe Islands could test everyone.