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

My post is somewhat related to yours.

But has anyone else been flabbergasted at just how bad science has been during all this?

I know that sounds ridiculous, but I think I've lived in a bubble for so long that I am shocked things got this bad.

In my head if there was ever a disease like this that was having a massive impact on the world, I thought we'd at least be able to mass produce tests for it easily enough. And mass produce tests that fecking worked.

Stuff like ventilator shortages. I literally thought it would be as easy as just flipping a switch in a factory to double setting and we'd be sorted. We have fecking doctors wearing bin bags FFS. I thought the world was better than this.

:lol: It’s actually kind of fascinating.

It’s incredible how rarely we have supply shortages of important supplies, when we’re on a constant knife-edge in terms of getting the stuff we need, in the right quantities, to the place where it’s needed most, in time to meet demand.

Global crises like this really highlight what an incredible job mankind is doing keeping everything ticking over when life is “normal”.
 
I agree! That's why I'm saying we need to come up with a strategy very soon to allow this to pass through more of the population, with young people and women at the forefront.
Women and children first? How chivalrous.
 
Which is very close to the % quoted in a Danish study looking at blood donors. They came up with 1.5%.

My understanding is that this current wave is likely to end with 6.5% of the population infected (in the UK). Which means another 5-10 waves needed before herd immunity achieved without a vaccine.

And that’s only if immunity persists for a long time after infection. Which is a huge bloody “if” If not, we’re looking at cycles repeating once or twice per year, forever. Unless an effective long-lasting vaccine can be developed (another huge “if”)
Jesus. This really could get much worse. Imagine having to live with knowing it’s going to keep coming back. Life as we know it will be utterly changed. I hope that you’re wrong.

sigh. “It’s just another flu“
 
My post is somewhat related to yours.

But has anyone else been flabbergasted at just how bad science has been during all this?

I know that sounds ridiculous, but I think I've lived in a bubble for so long that I am shocked things got this bad.

In my head if there was ever a disease like this that was having a massive impact on the world, I thought we'd at least be able to mass produce tests for it easily enough. And mass produce tests that fecking worked.

Stuff like ventilator shortages. I literally thought it would be as easy as just flipping a switch in a factory to double setting and we'd be sorted. We have fecking doctors wearing bin bags FFS. I thought the world was better than this.

Tbf that's not sciences fault. That's a business decision. I work in production and all the principles we follow are to reducing waste & maximising profit (waste as in time, machines, production space etc). That's why you can't just double your capacity.

Then there's stuff like Health & Safety mean that you can't just drop a new machine in the middle of your factory. Even changing shift patterns to get sites working 24 hours involves a lot of negotiation.
 
Eight to 10 years for a vaccine? Maybe we should globally fund research into molecular nanotechnology. The nanobot could be COVID's worst nightmare. It could hunt it down and then ruthlessly terminate it.

"Come with me if you want to live!"
 
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800 deaths today, with somewhat normal reporting... Good signs me thinks. Not getting too optimistic just yet though
 
Take away restaurants maybe. I feel sit in restaurants may take a long time to come back

I wonder what plan they have for public transport. Can you open restaurants or cinemas who could sit customers a metre away from each other yet let millions of workers sit close for hours on buses and trains. I use 2 buses and a train every day to get my hospital I work at. No chance of social distancing, it's difficult to do that now even with so few passengers on the bus. How would they even achieve this, have more buses/trains and have more staff delegating a certain amount of passengers per bus/train.
 
800 deaths today, with somewhat normal reporting... Good signs me thinks. Not getting too optimistic just yet though

The peak date for deaths in English hospitals is still currently the 8th April. I expect that to change eventually, but glad it's not been quickly overtaken.
 
The peak date for deaths in English hospitals is still currently the 8th April. I expect that to change eventually, but glad it's not been quickly overtaken.
I don't know if there will still be some lag with the easter holidays (Fri/Sat/Sun/Mon) and it'll take a couple of days to catch up, but it's been stableish for the past few days now.
 
800 deaths today, with somewhat normal reporting... Good signs me thinks. Not getting too optimistic just yet though


Trying to not be too optimistic but yeah, as awful as it sounds to say, 800 deaths is slightly promising. If it can ever be promising to report so many people dying, I know. Not a huge increase on yesterday. Let's keep an eye on the numbers as we approach the weekend. 17th is Friday, which many felt would be our real peak date......we'll see. Fingers crossed.
 
Updated graph of deaths in England by day of death. 744 new deaths as of 5pm yesterday. Orange is a 5 day trailing average (last 5-7 days will see large to moderate upward changes):
P2itu0i.jpg

Updated graph of deaths in England by day of death. Decent news from NHS England today. Due to the long weekend I thought there'd be a big rise in reported deaths, instead the opposite happened and they fell to 651 (-93) by 5pm yesterday. Gives some hope that we may well be just around or just past the peak. Let's hope tomorrow is similar.
Orange is a 5 day trailing average (last 5-7 days will see large to moderate upward changes):
LTDHwdQ.jpg
 
So you’re arguing that the the virus does show up in lab results after 5 days in mild cases @Prometheus? If you say her quote makes sense in that it can’t be grown in the lab after 5 days in mild cases, how the feck are you expecting to get a positive test result after 5 days?
Tell me the science in your thinking there fella?

You don't need to grow a virus (something which is quite difficult) to detect its genetic material.
 
I wonder what plan they have for public transport. Can you open restaurants or cinemas who could sit customers a metre away from each other yet let millions of workers sit close for hours on buses and trains. I use 2 buses and a train every day to get my hospital I work at. No chance of social distancing, it's difficult to do that now even with so few passengers on the bus. How would they even achieve this, have more buses/trains and have more staff delegating a certain amount of passengers per bus/train.

I guess it's impossible to implement effectively in public transport when everyone is out of lockdown. It might take a while to have enough trains and buses to mitigate the spread. It's just a matter of how much of the spread of the virus can be attributed to the use of public transport which I think is quite high unfortunately.
 
Updated graph of deaths in England by day of death. Decent news from NHS England today. Due to the long weekend I thought there'd be a big rise in reported deaths, instead the opposite happened and they fell to 651 (-93) by 5pm yesterday. Gives some hope that we may well be just around or just past the peak. Let's hope tomorrow is similar.
Orange is a 5 day trailing average (last 5-7 days will see large to moderate upward changes):
LTDHwdQ.jpg
As I've mentioned though, what worries me is the long weekend, if there's been a lack of reporting for 4 days, it might take a couple of days after the holidays to catch up. If the trend continues downwards for the rest of the week, we may have hit peak thankfully
 
I wonder what plan they have for public transport. Can you open restaurants or cinemas who could sit customers a metre away from each other yet let millions of workers sit close for hours on buses and trains. I use 2 buses and a train every day to get my hospital I work at. No chance of social distancing, it's difficult to do that now even with so few passengers on the bus. How would they even achieve this, have more buses/trains and have more staff delegating a certain amount of passengers per bus/train.

i'd imagine there will be multiple things considered, two things that seem easy wins would be continued working from home for anyone who can do so; and if you do have to go into the office or workplace, greater staggered start and finish times to avoid the commuter rush. maybe more closures to stations if the network is getting too busy each morning. won't be perfect but in London anyway it will help easing that morning rush as everyone tries to start work at 9am.
 
Does anyone know where I can get # of tests carried out in the UK per day? Tabulated preferably.

It'll be laborious but if you scroll to the "latest updates" section of this page on Worldometers and follow the source it'll link you to each DHSC update. Contained within that update is a breakdown of the tests per day for that individual day. I don't know of any page where these are collated into a readily digestible format though.
 
As I've mentioned though, what worries me is the long weekend, if there's been a lack of reporting for 4 days, it might take a couple of days after the holidays to catch up. If the trend continues downwards for the rest of the week, we may have hit peak thankfully

Yeah, I expected there'd be a bump but today was the first day that backlog was likely to show itself. The fact it hasn't yet is grounds for hope at least.
 
That’s another unknown. It’s actually much more likely that second and subsequent infections are less serious than the first. Although it’s not impossible that they get worse each time (which happens with Dengue fever).

If that does turn out to be the case - and we can’t develop an effective vaccine (which is not an unlikely outcome) - then we’re probably looking at humanity being wiped out completely.
This is a ridiculous take. So if we are not able to develop a vaccine, despite their being an unprecedented amount of attention, work and money pumped in the efforts to develop one, and if there's no immunity, despite this not being necessarily likely, and if it turns out that the subsequent infections are significantly worse each time, which again is not necessarily likely, then we are looking at the extinction of the human race. Of course that's only if there aren't any advancements in treatments (again unprecedented amount attention, work etc. and so forth), general virology, education and the behaviour of the general public or any extreme measures that would surely be taken if there would be a world ending virus on the loose.

Sure, if all of those conditions are met then humanity might be wiped out, it's a possibility. But it's not likely now, is it? There's also a possibility that another completely unrelated and far deadlier virus might emerge or an asteroid could hit Earth or a gamma ray burst could happen or Yellowstone might erupt or one of the current dumb world leaders could trigger a nuclear war or any one of the other million doomsday scenarios might happen. They're all possible, but none of them are likely and unless your intention is to fear monger they have no real place in any reasonable argument, point or prediction.
 
Yeah, I expected there'd be a bump but today was the first day that backlog was likely to show itself. The fact it hasn't yet is grounds for hope at least.

I like your graphs, thanks for posting them, very interesting to see it from "day of death" perspective.
 
761 deaths reported.

Not the totally grim number that had been predicted. Still a lag from the bank holiday or a sign of turning the corner?

 
Yeah, I expected there'd be a bump but today was the first day that backlog was likely to show itself. The fact it hasn't yet is grounds for hope at least.
Thats a good point. I was expecting today or tomorrow, as a normal weekend (Sat/Sun) would show on Tuesday, this week we've had Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Monday, so i was expecting a lag Tuesday/Weds, then true numbers Thursday or Friday. Just my thought based on the amount of days theres been a lack of reporting and the size of the backlog, but as you say, today was a possiblility of true numbers and as of yet, it's holding stable. Reasons for hope there i'd say... fingers crossed!

761 deaths reported.

Not the totally grim number that had been predicted. Still a lag from the bank holiday or a sign of turning the corner?


My head says it's still a lag from Easter, with it being a long weekend, but my heart says i hope to god that we're turning the corner and this is the beginning of the plateau. I've got my fingers crossed that my heart is right... tomorrow and Friday will confirm i think.
 
That’s another unknown. It’s actually much more likely that second and subsequent infections are less serious than the first. Although it’s not impossible that they get worse each time (which happens with Dengue fever).

If that does turn out to be the case - and we can’t develop an effective vaccine (which is not an unlikely outcome) - then we’re probably looking at humanity being wiped out completely.

There have been some indications of antibody-dependent enhancement (as is seen in Dengue) with Covid-19. A couple of papers have found that patients with severe disease frequently had an increased IgG response and a higher titre of total antibodies.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.12.20035048v1
https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.03.20030437


This also correlates with earlier reporting on SARS. A study in 2019 found that IgG antibodies targeting the SARS binding protein can result in more severe disease due to immune modulation.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7108264/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30830861
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21937658

This may mean that a lot of vaccine approaches will encounter pretty serious issues. There are other, less optimal routes for vaccine development including the targeting of different viral proteins or eliciting different antibody responses such as mucosal IgA responses (which is what my group is trying to do).
 
761 deaths reported.

Not the totally grim number that had been predicted. Still a lag from the bank holiday or a sign of turning the corner?



Only 15000 odd tests still for the middle of April? 100000 tests a day by the end of April seems more like a pipe dream at this point
 
So young and relatively fit people will still be required to get on with their everyday lives as much as possible. We are not going to see an 18month worldwide quarantine or dystopian perverse fantasy that some people seem desperate to see happen.

The attempts at moral judgement in your posts are shameful.

Yesterday you went on a rant about how some posters want chaos to ensue in Sweden so they can relish in schadenfreude. You are absolutely sure of that, yet were not brave enough to name them.

A few minutes later you implied I'm some wanna be dictator just because I said I think oppression is a far more likely response to riots than anarchy. By your style of writing I'm assuming you are intelligent enough to reach the low bar necessary to distinguish, in written word, an opinion from a desire, so I'm going to assume you just have an uncontrolable wish to see bad intentions on the posts of others so you can moralize about it.

Now you go on again, equating the fact that some people (rightly or wrongly) think long lockdowns will be necessary (an opinion) with some perverted fantasy.

I think the perverted fantasiser in here is you. You are desperate to find evil on others where no evidence of it exists.
 
This is a ridiculous take. So if we are not able to develop a vaccine, despite their being an unprecedented amount of attention, work and money pumped in the efforts to develop one, and if there's no immunity, despite this not being necessarily likely, and if it turns out that the subsequent infections are significantly worse each time, which again is not necessarily likely, then we are looking at the extinction of the human race. Of course that's only if there aren't any advancements in treatments (again unprecedented amount attention, work etc. and so forth), general virology, education and the behaviour of the general public or any extreme measures that would surely be taken if there would be a world ending virus on the loose.

Sure, if all of those conditions are met then humanity might be wiped out, it's a possibility. But it's not likely now, is it? There's also a possibility that another completely unrelated and far deadlier virus might emerge or an asteroid could hit Earth or a gamma ray burst could happen or Yellowstone might erupt or one of the current dumb world leaders could trigger a nuclear war or any one of the other million doomsday scenarios might happen. They're all possible, but none of them are likely and unless your intention is to fear monger they have no real place in any reasonable argument, point or prediction.

You seem to have completely misunderstood my post if you inferred from what I said that the worst possible case scenario is likely to play out.
 
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There have been some indications of antibody-dependent enhancement (as is seen in Dengue) with Covid-19. A couple of papers have found that patients with severe disease frequently had an increased IgG response and a higher titre of total antibodies.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.12.20035048v1
https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.03.20030437


This also correlates with earlier reporting on SARS. A study in 2019 found that IgG antibodies targeting the SARS binding protein can result in more severe disease due to immune modulation.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7108264/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30830861
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21937658

This may mean that a lot of vaccine approaches will encounter pretty serious issues. There are other, less optimal routes for vaccine development including the targeting of different viral proteins or eliciting different antibody responses such as mucosal IgA responses (which is what my group is trying to do).

Yes, I had heard about some of that. Which is why I’m not feeling massively confident about a highly effective and (crucially) safe vaccine being developed at any point. Never mind in 18 months time.

It’s obviously great to see so many novel approaches being tried out but, equally, the more novel the approach the higher the chance of failure. The antibody-dependant enhancement stuff is VERY scary. Where is your group based? Are you looking at intranasal administration for the vaccine?
 
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The attempts at moral judgement in your posts are shameful.

Yesterday you went on a rant about how some posters want chaos to ensue in Sweden so they can relish in schadenfreude. You are absolutely sure of that, yet were not brave enough to name them.

A few minutes later you implied I'm some wanna be dictator just because I said I think oppression is a far more likely response to riots than anarchy. By your style of writing I'm assuming you are intelligent enough to reach the low bar necessary to distinguish, in written word, an opinion from a desire, so I'm going to assume you just have an uncontrolable wish to see bad intentions on the posts of others so you can moralize about it.

Now you go on again, equating the fact that some people (rightly or wrongly) think long lockdowns will be necessary (an opinion) with some perverted fantasy.

I think the perverted fantasiser in here is you. You are desperate to find evil on others where no evidence of it exists.


I'm not here to fight with anyone man. I do stand by my thoughts on Sweden, though. We'll see how that pans out and we'll see the tone of the responses should the worst happen, in that country. Not every single person claiming long lockdowns will be necessary are (in my opinion) fantasising about it. Some definitely are, it's easy to see when you read into the tone and overall vibe of the post in question. Anyway, I'm going to continue to err on the optimistic side and will continue to be frustrated by those constantly banging the worst case scenario drum.

On the 'dictator' thing yeah I think I misread or misunderstood your wording in that case. It wasn't intended in the way I interpreted it, I'll apologise for that.
 
As I've mentioned though, what worries me is the long weekend, if there's been a lack of reporting for 4 days, it might take a couple of days after the holidays to catch up. If the trend continues downwards for the rest of the week, we may have hit peak thankfully

If you look at the number of deaths on the 9th, the number being reported each day is trailing off now. I'm fairly optimistic that these numbers aren't going to take off toward the end of the week. Even for weekends, the vast majority of the reports tend to be in after 4-5 days.

pubchart
 
Eight to 10 years for a vaccine? Maybe we should globally fund research into molecular nanotechnology. The nanobot could be COVID's worst nightmare. It could hunt it down and then ruthlessly terminate it.

"Come with me if you want to live!"

There is no fate but what we make of ourselves.
 
You seem to have completely misunderstood my post if you inferred from what I said that the worst possible case scenario is likely to play out.

it doesn't matter. there's just no need to even be discussing the end of humanity ffs. there are a lot of people who are already stressed and worried out about things, alarmist views like that (even if they are qualified by 'it's unlikely') just serve no use at all.
 
Keep getting funny looks when me and my flatmate sit downstairs in our pub.

Even had pictures taken without consent. Quite annoying.