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

jymufc20 said:
Hope it's nothing more than a cough mate.
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Cheers mate.

I’m reasonably relaxed about it as I think if there was anything sinister it would have escalated by now, and even if the test comes back positive it’ll be a minor case.

Don’t get me wrong I’m fully aware it needs to be taken seriously, but they’re already isolating etc and literally haven’t left the house since early March.

It’s been weird not being able to see them properly for so long, just doing shopping runs for them and leaving stuff on the doorstep waving through the window :lol:
 
golden_blunder said:
I fear for sparkys sanity if pubs don’t reopen soon. He mentions pubs in almost every 2nd post so he must be bored shitless.

Like you, I can’t see how pubs come out of this. They won’t get licensed if they can’t come up with a physical distancing plan. That’s before you think of the additional costs of plastic glasses, increased cleaning costs and perhaps having to totally redo toilets.
Then throw in money losses from having to limit patrons.

I think a lot of pubs are fcuked
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Even if things eventually go back to normal, pubs won't have the custom they once did, people will realise they didn't need the pubs and probably frequent less.

I personally love the pub though, the locals, the bar staff, I know a lot of people from the local. Alot of people who live alone or retired just go in for something to do and to socialise. Hope my local pulls through. Should do hopefully though.
 
One Night Only said:
Even if things eventually go back to normal, pubs won't have the custom they once did, people will realise they didn't need the pubs and probably frequent less.

I personally love the pub though, the locals, the bar staff, I know a lot of people from the local. Alot of people who live alone or retired just go in for something to do and to socialise. Hope my local pulls through. Should do hopefully though.
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I know what you’re saying but I think the social aspect of the pub might be appreciated a whole lot more after this.
 
One Night Only said:
Even if things eventually go back to normal, pubs won't have the custom they once did, people will realise they didn't need the pubs and probably frequent less.

I personally love the pub though, the locals, the bar staff, I know a lot of people from the local. Alot of people who live alone or retired just go in for something to do and to socialise. Hope my local pulls through. Should do hopefully though.
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Don't agree with your first paragraph at all. Funnily enough for the reason you state in your second.

For the people that live alone, might not have friends, the pub is one of the only places in which they can have a conversation.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
The lower r0 is the longer it takes to develop a vaccine. How’s that for a catch 22!
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Yeah that's going to be a huge challenge. Really wished they had started human trials earlier!

I think it'll come down to sample size, incredibly high efficacy rate (in terms of v low infection rates), good safety profile (hopefully just the usual pyrexia, headache post-shot) and maybe if we can see this thing in action during the ease of lockdown measures we will see

Why I am somewhat more hopeful now is the building consensus on possible immunity with the re-infections now attributed to faulty tests that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

I think it'll be a huge challenge to walk the tightrope with regards to declaring a vaccine as effectively the cure for this due to the financial incentives of getting their first. But also messing this up would have enormous risks of losing public confidence in the scientific community with regards to tackling this disease.
 
Penna said:
I have a few friends in England who fall into the "elderly but really healthy and active" group. I think there could have been some gradual differentiation when it comes to older people. I've mentioned before my friend who's over 70 but runs a 5k every single morning, and I have another friend in her late 70s who cycles, swims and plays badminton every day. They're both slim with no health conditions.

It's illogical to be telling them to stay inside all the time, it's worse for their mental health than their physical health.
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Yeah it is a really strange one. Both my remaining grandparents are stuck inside, but in all fairness they should be as they are both in poor health.

I myself am on the vulnerable list so work have given me the 12 weeks off, luckily my wife works for the same company and they've given her the same time period off so that she isn't putting me at more risk. If the lock down for the vulnerable gets extended beyond these 12 weeks though I'm not sure if work will allow her to have another 12 weeks off, and the thought of not going outside at all for 6 months is really tough to take. It's been 6 weeks now and I've gone from working, training, playing rugby and nights with friends to not leaving the house once since March.

I could actually deal with it if they extended the lock down, but made it so it was the same as what most peoples lock down is now, so I can go for a walk or a run rather than having to stroll around my garden.
 
As I’m in lockdown it’s been a bit like one of those old Hitchcock movies, just being able to look out the window.

It’s like there is no restrictions, loads of people walking around, some pushing peaks, loads of kids, no physical distancing in sight. Not a mask to be seen
 
golden_blunder said:
As I’m in lockdown it’s been a bit like one of those old Hitchcock movies, just being able to look out the window.

It’s like there is no restrictions, loads of people walking around, some pushing peaks, loads of kids, no physical distancing in sight. Not a mask to be seen
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Have you taken to spying on your neighbours yet?
 
SalfordRed18 said:
Don't agree with your first paragraph at all. Funnily enough for the reason you state in your second.

For the people that live alone, might not have friends, the pub is one of the only places in which they can have a conversation.
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Good luck having proper conversation when you’re 2 metres apart.

“What did you say Roger?”
“WHAT??”
“WAIT A MINUTE ILL TURN THIS HEARING AID UP”
 
golden_blunder said:
Good luck having proper conversation when you’re 2 metres apart.

“What did you say Roger?”
“WHAT??”
“WAIT A MINUTE ILL TURN THIS HEARING AID UP”
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They reduced it to 1 metre in Norway now, so we're pretty much all set.

horsechoker said:
Have you taken to spying on your neighbours yet?
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Apropos spying on your neighbours, I wonder how WeasteDevil is getting along in all this.
 
cyberman said:
Boris was advising away until his heart was content, he was telling the public not go to to clubs etc for a while before they closed it down. The advice was there, its the actions that count.
I just have an overall problem with how this was handled from the start. There were calls for special protection of care homes that were ignored, there had to be a public outcry to cancel Paddys Day and the pubs themselves etc etc. Leo was even out in America in anticipation of it. We thundered ahead with closures and speeches while in discussion with NI, not informing them about our actions and pissing them off to the point an all island plan was abandoned and proclaiming our pokiticians to be grandstanding
We arent even performing that well per capita, we just spent the first few months condescendingly laughing at Boris and Trump while doing little ourselves to the point we were blaming nurses for not washing their hands for the entire spread and the UK even went into lockdown before us. Our early assessment has as many goof soundbites as the other countries that are so called struggling.
Our governent, by and large, doesnt act until theres a demand for it. Face masks is the next demand that theyll give in to.
I just think its all a bit of a myth and im rambling a bit but the difference between us and UK is their government were voted into power and ours want to work their way back in. Thats why they give into public outcries which seems proactive on the surface but thats all it is.
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This is accurate. There's been little to no difference between Ireland and the UK in all of this.
 
Atze-Peng said:
Sweden still with increasing cases - especially compared to Norway and Finland. They are also testing less by quite the margin. We will see how it is going to develop, but as of now it seems like the gamble didn't pay off in absolute numbers - but depending on the growth of the virus it may pay off economically.
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With all due respect @Atze-Peng, that's just more utterly unscientific nonsense. Sweden's cases aren't increasing for what that's worth. See: https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/09f821667ce64bf7be6f9f87457ed9aa

Or, I can play along and say that Germany is no success, just look at it compared to it's neighbours Austria, Poland and Czech.

790017143ac16346959a66a7b733ddb4cd0776c33bc752756fef53f5e539421c12b22fc8.jpg


Unless anyone can tell us with any degree of certainly what "dose" of the virus each individual country had in mid-March, these comparisons are utterly pointless and being a "neighbour" means pretty much ziltch as shown in the case of New York State and New Jersey, in the same fecking country.

Oh and can someone with twitter tell the daft doctor that the currency is the weirdest comparison I've ever heard and that Finland in fact, has the fecking Euro.
 
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I lived in Hong Kong for about 5-6 years through SARS and then the bird flu scare

Not at all surprised to see how well they are crushing it there. Putting aside the proximity and inflow of people from Mainland China, population of nearly 7.5 million in an area roughly the size of London, high population density, many people jam packed into skyscrapers and now no new cases for 5 consecutive days, no local cases for about 10 days. Total number at 1040 infected with 4 deaths.

Threats of strikes from healthcare staff unions forced border closures (although not all and incremental) but significant quarantine measures, testing and tracing, provision of masks, not complete lockdown level but strict social policies on gatherings etc in addition to testing and tracing aggressively early. Sure its not perfect (they've had shortages, issues with PPE, hoarding).

Makes a lot of countries look inept.
 
Wolverine said:
I lived in Hong Kong for about 5-6 years through SARS and then the bird flu scare

Not at all surprised to see how well they are crushing it there. Putting aside the proximity and inflow of people from Mainland China, population of nearly 7.5 million in an area roughly the size of London, high population density, many people jam packed into skyscrapers and now no new cases for 5 consecutive days, no local cases for about 10 days. Total number at 1040 infected with 4 deaths.

Threats of strikes from healthcare staff unions forced border closures (although not all and incremental) but significant quarantine measures, testing and tracing, provision of masks, not complete lockdown level but strict social policies on gatherings etc in addition to testing and tracing aggressively early. Sure its not perfect (they've had shortages, issues with PPE, hoarding).

Makes a lot of countries look inept.
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Am I safe in saying they all have a facemask culture?
 
cyberman said:
Am I safe in saying they all have a facemask culture?
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Yes, but they've been difficult to acquire I think compared to when it was SARS. There is still a ban as far as I know on public wearing masks in the context of protests but otherwise public use is fairly ubiquitous.
 
Wolverine said:
Yeah that's going to be a huge challenge. Really wished they had started human trials earlier!

I think it'll come down to sample size, incredibly high efficacy rate (in terms of v low infection rates), good safety profile (hopefully just the usual pyrexia, headache post-shot) and maybe if we can see this thing in action during the ease of lockdown measures we will see

Why I am somewhat more hopeful now is the building consensus on possible immunity with the re-infections now attributed to faulty tests that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

I think it'll be a huge challenge to walk the tightrope with regards to declaring a vaccine as effectively the cure for this due to the financial incentives of getting their first. But also messing this up would have enormous risks of losing public confidence in the scientific community with regards to tackling this disease.
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Did you watch the video in my post? Loads of food for thought that hadn’t occurred to me before. As well as the low r0 headfeck, there’s the challenge of demonstrating efficacy in kids and elderly, in separate studies to the primary phase IIIs in adults.

And you’re spot on about public confidence. They’re not used to the attrition rates that are normal in drug developed. The inevitable failed trials and dead ends cause a lot of upset, no doubt.
 
They are saying that outdoor events are safer. Have they never been on a football ground concourse trying to get a drink, go to the toilet or leaving the ground?
 
cyberman said:
Boris was advising away until his heart was content, he was telling the public not go to to clubs etc for a while before they closed it down. The advice was there, its the actions that count.
I just have an overall problem with how this was handled from the start. There were calls for special protection of care homes that were ignored, there had to be a public outcry to cancel Paddys Day and the pubs themselves etc etc. Leo was even out in America in anticipation of it. We thundered ahead with closures and speeches while in discussion with NI, not informing them about our actions and pissing them off to the point an all island plan was abandoned and proclaiming our pokiticians to be grandstanding
We arent even performing that well per capita, we just spent the first few months condescendingly laughing at Boris and Trump while doing little ourselves to the point we were blaming nurses for not washing their hands for the entire spread and the UK even went into lockdown before us. Our early assessment has as many goof soundbites as the other countries that are so called struggling.
Our governent, by and large, doesnt act until theres a demand for it. Face masks is the next demand that theyll give in to.
I just think its all a bit of a myth and im rambling a bit but the difference between us and UK is their government were voted into power and ours want to work their way back in. Thats why they give into public outcries which seems proactive on the surface but thats all it is.
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Disagree with many things in that post. If they were constantly giving in to public outcry why push the lockdown out another fortnight? That was exactly the opposite of the populist tactics you’re accusing them of. Like them or hate them, our government have been pretty good about going along with the expert advice they’ve been getting. Which has saved a lot of lives.
 
192 deaths in the last 24 hours in Italy (474 deaths reported as there were 282 community deaths from April that hadn't been included previously).

This is the first time since 14 March that daily deaths have fallen below 200.

There've been 28, 710 deaths in total in Italy to date, so as @horsechoker says, the UK and Italian numbers are close.
 
I’m actually going to try not to get sucked into the whole country comparison thing. It’s human nature to get tribal, especially when there’s a football sized hole in our lives, but it’s probably a bit mean-spirited. Plus accurate comparisons are incredibly difficult to get right.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I’m actually going to try not to get sucked into the whole country comparison thing. It’s human nature to get tribal, especially when there’s a football sized hole in our lives, but it’s probably a bit mean-spirited. Plus accurate comparisons are incredibly difficult to get right.
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Ah I know.

It was an Irish person I took issue with in the first place over it but it's probably best left there.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I’m actually going to try not to get sucked into the whole country comparison thing. It’s human nature to get tribal, especially when there’s a football sized hole in our lives, but it’s probably a bit mean-spirited. Plus accurate comparisons are incredibly difficult to get right.
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Yeah agreed. Ive already commented there's an undercurrent of slagging the UK here in literally everything. And alot of competitiveness from some Irish posters.
 
Withnail said:
Ah I know.

It was an Irish person I took issue with in the first place over it but it's probably best left there.
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I’m not having a go at anyone here. Was more of a note to self. I’m stupidly argumentative/competitive at the best of times. So it’s not ideal when I bring that same energy to slagging off other countries death tolls :(
 
Penna said:
192 deaths in the last 24 hours in Italy (474 deaths reported as there were 282 community deaths from April that hadn't been included previously).

This is the first time since 14 March that daily deaths have fallen below 200.

There've been 28, 710 deaths in total in Italy to date, so as @horsechoker says, the UK and Italian numbers are close.
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As Pogue mentioned, it’s hard to compare right now, this study into excess deaths by the FT says that both the UK and Italy‘s official figures are both well under reality. It’s the same in most countries. I’d guess the truth will officially come out when we’re further down the road.

https://www.ft.com/content/6bd88b7d-3386-4543-b2e9-0d5c6fac846c
 
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