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

sammsky1 said:
Here is what I know:

- I've had flu several times in my life, all which felt similar

- between 15-27 December, what started with a dry cough and fever, also included periods of deep sleep, loss of smell/taste, felt like I had glass shreds in throat when I coughed which was often, sometimes felt I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs, deep and prolonged abdominal pain, traumatic mental depression, total loss of energy and constant fatigue.

- I took various OTC medicines like day/Night nurse, benilyn flu cough syrup, paracetamol. None seemed to provide any relief.

- It was the most horrifying ‘at home’ illness and certainly unlike any ‘flu’ I’ve ever had.

If I’d have these symptoms today, I’d almost certainly get admitted into hospital as a suspected covid19 patient. Instead I just assumed it was ‘flu’ and so toughed it out at home.

Anecdotally, I now know many others had same symptoms at same time. How many who knows.

If it was covid19, and some people died of it, I’m assuming those would have been recorded as simply death by flu. And as the media reports show, people died of flu in record numbers during December/January. And majority of others would have just roughed it out at home like I did, unlike many now who are going into hospital or being tested as positive cases.

I think the Government should ask a sample of those who suffered in December to volunteer for the antibody test to get the bottom of this. But they won’t, because if it proves that we did have it in December, all hell would break lose in terms of Government incompetence.
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I started a thread on this. Long story short, during the last week of January I went down with with the nastiest 'flu' you could imagine: a persistent fever ranging at 39C, constant shivering, night sweats, severe body aches, a bad headache and a slight dry cough. I wasn't out of breath but a quick trip to the toilet or kitchen would leave me fatigued. Those symptoms went away within one week fatigue aside, but for around a couple of weeks after I had trouble with dizziness and confusion and that was really unsettling.

Four days prior to me developing those symptoms, I had dined with a good friend of mine who was visiting Jakarta from Paris via Singapore. She, too, developed the same thing the same day as I did but without the dizziness part afterwards. My partner had a dry cough, low-grade fever and a slight shortness of breath (though she does suffer from asthma) soon after, and I also learned that another mutual friend caught pneumonia about a week after seeing her.

It's just too much of a coincidence.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
Just had a virus expert on the morning news here, he reckons Stockholm is “likely” up to 30-40% infected already.
Crazy numbers if so, 30% would mean almost 700,000 people.
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If he is right AND the percentage of ICU beds needed per infected is nearly as high as reported from other countries, then Stockholm and the health system is fecked.
Lets just hope one of the numbers is wrong.
 
Tucholsky said:
If he is right AND the percentage of ICU beds needed per infected is nearly as high as reported from other countries, then Stockholm and the health system is fecked.
Lets just hope one of the numbers is wrong.
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His point was that the ICU beds per infected is looking much much lower.
Or well, that’s you can keep it miles lower the better you are at keeping it away from your 70+ population.
So yeah, let’s hope that number is way out, which is what we’ve all been hoping for since the start.
 
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Revan said:
Yeah, it looks extrmely unlikely to me. We saw how fast it spread in March if it was since November in Europe then why it waited so long to spread?
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Simplest explanation is often the correct one.

The virus simply waited for Liverpool to get closer to winning the title.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Did you or anyone around you completely lose your sense of taste and smell?
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My brother had this, the most unusual thing I had was eye ball pain on the left when I moved it, which lasted about 2 days.

To be clear as some other poster said this isn't about 'bragging rights'. or convincing yourself of anything, hearing about other people's illnesses is extremely tiresome, it was just what I think is an unusual illness to have had, and others around me to have had just before this thing kicked off, I could be miles off the mark.
 
C'est Moi Cantona said:
My brother had this, the most unusual thing I had was eye ball pain on the left when I moved it, which lasted about 2 days.

To be clear as some other poster said this isn't about 'bragging rights'. or convincing yourself of anything, hearing about other people's illnesses is extremely tiresome, it was just what I think is an unusual illness to have had, and others around me to have had just before this thing kicked off, I could be miles off the mark.
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Really?! Wow. That might have been covid so. When was this? Had any of ye travelled recently?
 
Heardy said:
Is that a socio-economic thing or a difference in levels of immunity between races?
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Definitely socio-economic (will rip through high population density communities much quicker and lack of free healthcare means poor people more likely to die) but hypertension, cv disease and renal failure is more predominant in black people (because of genetic differences) which will cause a higher mortality rate.
 
sammsky1 said:
As you've lived there, you'll know China has been building itself into a dominant global power since 30+ years ago, to the point where it now has the world by the balls: geo-politically, economically, militarily.
If USA or EU wants to aggressively respond, it will take time and require accepting a lower living standard. And they will most likely lose. Again, am sure you know this.
Good luck untangling that in a hurry.
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I also know China is as concerned with it's world image as it is with any military or economic power it has. The world doesn't need to get into an open fight for it to hurt them.
 
Dwazza Gunnar Solskjær said:
I think all this Germany talk is a myth.

They are managing treatment well, it seems, because they have a low death rate.

They still have 113k cases. Nothing to be proud of. Their containment is as shitty as anyone's in Europe.
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It's the deaths which are in relation to other large European countries much lower so far, it's a good western example of how numbers can be low for now even here alongside the other Asian countries that have heavily controlled it. People keep flagging up China saying a huge amount more died but 80k cases and 3k deaths while Germany sit at 113k cases, million tested with 2k dead shows the numbers can be real or close. Add in the strict lockdown of China, testing/tracing, removing infected from their families and large capacity and top healthcare in China with some of the best equipment only they have, similar numbers can be real and really you just have to look at other Asian countries to see the preparedness. Europe is damage control at best.

Germany could well slowly amount to 5-15k deaths and more, it's not a direct comparison and I don't see European countries carrying on with these softer lockdowns long enough so Germany and elsewhere will see more deaths.
 
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Pogue Mahone said:
Really?! Wow. That might have been covid so. When was this? Had any of ye travelled recently?
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Around the time of the last kids half term, so late Feb, my sister had been to Portugal, but that barely had any reported infections at the time.

She did get ill though, and rang 111 as she had just returned from said trip, but they wouldn't test her, she's a big gig/concert goer so likely picked up what ever she got from mixing there.

Like I say every symptom can be attributed to loads of other things, loss of taste & smell can happen with other viruses, as can dry coughs, etc, and my mum who would be classed as at risk never got anything, but it's only fair to wonder,
 
Dwazza Gunnar Solskjær said:
I think all this Germany talk is a myth.

They are managing treatment well, it seems, because they have a low death rate.

They still have 113k cases. Nothing to be proud of. Their containment is as shitty as anyone's in Europe.
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The main reason they have such large number of cases is because they’re testing so many more people than every other country in Europe. 10 times as many tests as France, for example.
 
C'est Moi Cantona said:
Around the time of the last kids half term, so late Feb, my sister had been to Portugal, but that barely had any reported infections at the time.

She did get ill though, and rang 111 as she had just returned from said trip, but they wouldn't test her, she's a big gig/concert goer so likely picked up what ever she got from mixing there.

Like I say every symptom can be attributed to loads of other things, loss of taste & smell can happen with other viruses, as can dry coughs, etc, and my mum who would be classed as at risk never got anything, but it's only fair to wonder,
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Ah. Ok. Late Feb makes covid more likely. Especially after recent travel (might not have been high risk area but airports will have been full of virus around that time) Thought you were one of those people who got a dose in December/January and thought they had the virus already. That’s what I think is extremely unlikely.
 
One Night Only said:
I wasn't agreeing with the initial post, but I wasn't disagreeing, was just pointing out how poorly the reply came across. Anyone can talk shit and make it sound good.

Do we actually know what percentage of people show no symptoms? Or low symptoms? That's a key thing we need to find out, but it'll be nearly impossible won't it?

Are you numbers there to do with our massive flu season just before Christmas where there was an unexpected amount of flu cases compare to normal? To me that is something out of the ordinary. (@Fiskey) is currently providing the thread with info on that.

Whatever the case, it's all mental and doesn't really look like slowing down tbh, lockdown will end somewhere and they'll get a 2nd hit of it. (Think I read somewhere already has, Singapore maybe? Unless I dreamt it).
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Flu seasons vary. This winter was supposedly quite a bad one with more cases than usual, up to twice as many according to some media sources. Maybe there is something new out there or a resurgence of another flu virus like swine flu. It's not Covid-19 though. These two charts should explain why (and consider things got considerably worse after the date on this first one):

Coronavirus-ENG-1024x771.png



Then there is this, which provides a trend line of the average of daily deaths of over 65s for any reason (green line), compared with what is actually being seen this year (red and orange line).

91499412_2995234617164854_5043143117130170368_o.png



There is absolutely no way this circulates for a significant period of time without us knowing about it.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Ah. Ok. Late Feb makes covid more likely. Especially after recent travel (might not have been high risk area but airports will have been full of virus around that time) Thought you were one of those people who got a dose in December/January and thought they had the virus already. That’s what I think is extremely unlikely.
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But if it’s so contagious wouldn’t it have spread like wild fire from feb and we wouldn’t be waiting untill March/April to lock down.

There’s so many unknowns still, we desperately need antibody testing
 
Part of the UK death rate will be to do with the health of the average person, which is shocking compared to a lot of other countries, binge drinking, chain smoking and obesity can't be helping
 
11101 said:
Flu seasons vary. This winter was supposedly quite a bad one with more cases than usual, up to twice as many according to some media sources. Maybe there is something new out there or a resurgence of another flu virus like swine flu. It's not Covid-19 though. These two charts should explain why (and consider things got considerably worse after the date on this first one):

Coronavirus-ENG-1024x771.png



Then there is this, which provides a trend line of the average of daily deaths of over 65s for any reason (green line), compared with what is actually being seen this year (red and orange line).

91499412_2995234617164854_5043143117130170368_o.png



There is absolutely no way this circulates for a significant period of time without us knowing about it.
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Again, and I’m not absolutely disagreeing with you but if this virus is as contagious as been said, as soon as the first few thousand leave China in December it would start being passed around wouldn’t it? If it’s left on door handles etc for days, elevators, taxis, buses, shopping trolleys, events. All this happening with such a contagious virus going around and people leaving China since December with it, I find it strange it takes 3 months for it to hit countries if it is that contagious, you can’t convince me not enough people travelled here from China in that first month or the next three!

It just doesn’t make sense to me
 
Pogue Mahone said:
They’ve had tests for flu for ages though. Apparently there were a lot of cases of swine flu hospitalising people in Uk/Ireland in December/January. Which more than likely is the reason for so many people (who weren’t tested) thinking they might have had COVID-19.

I’ve talked to GP friends and they don’t remember a single case of someone losing their sense of smell when they saw the flu surge earlier in the year. That means they almost certainly didn’t see anyone with COVID-19.
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Both my father (tested and hospitalised) and fiancee (untested as no severe symptoms) have had Covid 19 without losing sense of smell.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
The main reason they have such large number of cases is because they’re testing so many more people than every other country in Europe. 10 times as many tests as France, for example.
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Per capita they're testing close to a number of other countries, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Portugal, Norway for example. They're doing well at containing it but not really any better than some others like Austria and Portugal with a similar number of cases and deaths per capita. We just focus on Germany because they have a large population and the numbers stand out further, and comparable countries size wise are faring badly. It took Italy by surprise, Spain a little too, and France seems content to pretend it's not there.
 
Dwazza Gunnar Solskjær said:
I think all this Germany talk is a myth.

They are managing treatment well, it seems, because they have a low death rate.

They still have 113k cases. Nothing to be proud of. Their containment is as shitty as anyone's in Europe.
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Germany's goverment actually isn't exhausting all options in that regard. Schools and non essential businesses have closed down, but people are still allowed to leave their flats and houses as they please, as long as no more than two peole who don't share a household meet; playgrounds are closed, but parks are open. Everyone is aware that other countries have decided to use stricter measures, but thus far that knowledge is only used as a warning threat towards people not following guidelines. I guess since currently there seems no way of neutralizing the virus the level of shutdown is dictated by (projected) healthcare system load.
 
sammsky1 said:
Maitlis nails it. Respect

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Bang on. The fear is that those putting themselves is harm’s way during this crisis will be shafted once more after it’s all over. I really hope that we’ve hit an inflection point, following which our society changes for the better. I won’t hold my breath though because human beings have consistently shown an ability to learn from seismic events.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
Aye, if anything it’s just proof that many many more are infected than some think. Which, in itself is good news.
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I got a PM from someone called @fellwin re an interesting bit of research in Denmark. They tested everyone who donated blood and found 1.5% of them were producing antibodies. So they can extrapolate from that a similar % of the overall population is probably positive. Which is many more times higher than the official number of cases. Obviously, a long way short of herd immunity though, unfortunately.
 
Grinner said:
I think the underlying health of African-Americans is worse than other groups. We all know why that is but it means they will suffer.
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It’s underpinned by the deprivation over a prolonged period suffered by that cross section of the population. Don’t believe all this bollocks about Covid-19 being a great leveller. I’d love to see Boris’s treatment compared to a rank and file member of the population.
 
11101 said:
Per capita they're testing close to a number of other countries, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Portugal, Norway for example. They're doing well at containing it but not really any better than some others like Austria and Portugal with a similar number of cases and deaths per capita. We just focus on Germany because they have a large population and the numbers stand out further, and comparable countries size wise are faring badly. It took Italy by surprise, Spain a little too, and France seems content to pretend it's not there.
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I’m not trying to argue that they’re the one and only country in Europe who is dealing with this well.

Re Portugal etc there’s a few people getting quite excited about BCG vaccination programmes being somehow protective, based on the countries with the lowest death rates. I’m not convinced, personally.
 
Feed Me said:
It’s underpinned by the deprivation over a prolonged period suffered by that cross section of the population. Don’t believe all this bollocks about Covid-19 being a great leveller. I’d love to see Boris’s treatment compared to a rank and file member of the population.
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Well the treatment can't be upgraded can it? There isn't really treatment per se.
 
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