Coronavirus (aka COVID-19) - just how serious?

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pwa
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Joined: 2 Oct 2011, 8:55pm

Re: Coronavirus (aka COVID-19) - just how serious?

Post by pwa »

roubaixtuesday wrote:
pwa wrote:
roubaixtuesday wrote:
The same exponential increase with a doubling time of three days or so has been observed everywhere in the world without stringent distancing measures in place.

You can expect the same rise everywhere in the UK.

I've been banging on about this for weeks, I'm sure it's really dull.

It may be worse in London due to so many people living so close together and using the tube.


Or it may be that we're all really good at convincing ourselves that somehow it doesn't apply to us, and we're different. Witness the various people here justifying how social distancing shouldn't apply to them, pollution makes Italy special, etc etc etc.

Yet.

China saw the same rate of rise.
Italy saw the same rate of rise.
USA is seeing the same rate of rise.
France is seeing the same rate of rise.

It's coming for all of us, unless we take the measures necessary to stop it.

etc

I just wouldn't extrapolate for the whole UK based on London. London has less chance of containing it than less densely populated parts. How on earth can it be dealt with when people are using congested public transport? The tube always feels insanitary to me even in normal times.
carpetcleaner
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Joined: 14 Nov 2019, 1:25pm

Re: Coronavirus (aka COVID-19) - just how serious?

Post by carpetcleaner »

Many youngsters these days are used to having everything done for them by doting parents and some of them don't realise how the world works as a consequence.

A woman I worked with told me her mother had driven her to university in Liverpool each morning from Stockport and then went to bring her home in the evening.
roubaixtuesday
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Joined: 18 Aug 2015, 7:05pm

Re: Coronavirus (aka COVID-19) - just how serious?

Post by roubaixtuesday »

pwa wrote:
roubaixtuesday wrote:
pwa wrote:It may be worse in London due to so many people living so close together and using the tube.


Or it may be that we're all really good at convincing ourselves that somehow it doesn't apply to us, and we're different. Witness the various people here justifying how social distancing shouldn't apply to them, pollution makes Italy special, etc etc etc.

Yet.

China saw the same rate of rise.
Italy saw the same rate of rise.
USA is seeing the same rate of rise.
France is seeing the same rate of rise.

It's coming for all of us, unless we take the measures necessary to stop it.

etc

I just wouldn't extrapolate for the whole UK based on London. London has less chance of containing it than less densely populated parts. How on earth can it be dealt with when people are using congested public transport? The tube always feels insanitary to me even in normal times.


Sure, social distancing may be harder to enact in a city.

On the other hand, as evidenced here, elsewhere people may feel it's unnecessary and get around it.

But the evidence from everywhere seems to be that until you put that distancing in place, and rigorously, cases and deaths rise exponentially at a similar rate.
merseymouth
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Joined: 23 Jan 2011, 11:16am

Re: Coronavirus (aka COVID-19) - just how serious?

Post by merseymouth »

Hi all, Could it be reduced by Microwaving all as they came off a plane? :shock: Now you're cooking :lol: :lol: :lol: MM
roubaixtuesday
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Joined: 18 Aug 2015, 7:05pm

Re: Coronavirus (aka COVID-19) - just how serious?

Post by roubaixtuesday »

carpetcleaner wrote:Many youngsters these days are used to having everything done for them by doting parents and some of them don't realise how the world works as a consequence.


Many oldsters these days are used to pontificating about the shortcomings of younger generations oblivious to the irony that they are directly responsible for the environment the youngsters find themselves in.
Syd
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Joined: 23 Sep 2018, 2:27pm

Re: Coronavirus (aka COVID-19) - just how serious?

Post by Syd »

Well this has been a work day full of conversations I never thought I would have as an NHS staff member.

Talked with a veterinary school regarding borrowing their medical equipment to be used within the hospital!
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Morzedec
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Location: Cornwall/Deux-Sevres

Re: Coronavirus (aka COVID-19) - just how serious?

Post by Morzedec »

The London breakdown: may we now be told the ages of those infected, the ethnic origins of those affected, the previous illnesses of those affected, an average for how many usually die from flu in those areas, and the football teams that those infected support (mass gatherings, etc.).

The first set of figures is pointless without the second: bald statistics never do tell the whole story nor compensate for any variables: every businessman knows that (or ought to).
Marcus Aurelius
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Re: Coronavirus (aka COVID-19) - just how serious?

Post by Marcus Aurelius »

The scenes on the tubes in London today were totally beyond belief. We know that elderly / infirm / both, are more susceptible to it giving them more severe symptoms, we know that younger fitter people get more severe symptoms with a bigger ‘dose’ those idiots on the tubes today are going to cause a huge spike in cases. And we have to ‘lock down’ to stop stuff like that :roll: :evil:
pwa
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Joined: 2 Oct 2011, 8:55pm

Re: Coronavirus (aka COVID-19) - just how serious?

Post by pwa »

roubaixtuesday wrote:Sure, social distancing may be harder to enact in a city.

On the other hand, as evidenced here, elsewhere people may feel it's unnecessary and get around it.

But the evidence from everywhere seems to be that until you put that distancing in place, and rigorously, cases and deaths rise exponentially at a similar rate.

I'm sure there is work, and enforcement, to be done everywhere. But the most difficult terrain will be big cities and of those London looks particularly difficult. Nowhere in my locality, including several towns, have I seen people crammed together like we have seen on images of the tube over the last two days. And that alone must promote the spread of the virus. I hate to say it, but in this unusual situation I can't see how public transport can co-exist with efforts to enforce social distancing. How can that work? How can you use the tube or a bus and not get within two metres of someone else? And in big cities public transport is even more important than elsewhere. More cycling and walking could be part of the answer.
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Cugel
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Re: Coronavirus (aka COVID-19) - just how serious?

Post by Cugel »

roubaixtuesday wrote:
pwa wrote:
roubaixtuesday wrote:
How so?

Previous pandemics spread very well prior to the invention of the jet engine, and the fundamental mortality and infectiousness of the virus suggest the same would be true for this one.

This one came from China directly, and also via the ski slopes of Italy. It came primarily through our airports. It came by foreign travel. As someone who doesn't do much foreign travel I feel that I have been gifted this by those who do. There is no chance of bio-security while people travel so freely and so often.


Sure, but it would have got here regardless, and would still have expanded exponentially once it did.


Hmmm.

So "it would have got here regardless.... ". This seems to contradict your notion that various curbs on normal behaviours, such as going for a bike ride for more than half an hour or so, will make some sort of difference. If it's going to "get here regardless" then are any of the social distancing measures of use? I hope so and will keep following them. Presumably you yourself think it OK to take a plane flight or two, though, as the virus will "get there regardless"?

So, the virus "would still have expanded exponentially once it did [get here]". If this is so, what are all these social distancing measures for?

In short, you seem to be saying two contradictory things.

Myself I feel the only certainties are:

* It's a pandemic and there is no preventative measure or "herd immunity" so most of us will get it at some time.

* Transmission rates can be slowed by behaviours such as social distancing.

* The death rate may be reduced if the transmission rate can be slowed enough to spread the load on hospital and other health facilities that can reduce the ill effects in those most affected and/or vulnerable to the effects of the virus.

* Hysteria, panic and other mind-states wrought in the general population by mass media sensationalism and government inability to make and speak sensible policy will cause additional harm over and above that caused by the virus.

* In addition, ineptitude and irrelevancies emitted by the government will bring them and any good recommendations they make into disrepute. People will be (already are) ignoring the advice in toto, which will then increase transmission rates.

Cugel
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
roubaixtuesday
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Re: Coronavirus (aka COVID-19) - just how serious?

Post by roubaixtuesday »

pwa wrote:
roubaixtuesday wrote:Sure, social distancing may be harder to enact in a city.

On the other hand, as evidenced here, elsewhere people may feel it's unnecessary and get around it.

But the evidence from everywhere seems to be that until you put that distancing in place, and rigorously, cases and deaths rise exponentially at a similar rate.

I'm sure there is work, and enforcement, to be done everywhere. But the most difficult terrain will be big cities and of those London looks particularly difficult. Nowhere in my locality, including several towns, have I seen people crammed together like we have seen on images of the tube over the last two days. And that alone must promote the spread of the virus. I hate to say it, but in this unusual situation I can't see how public transport can co-exist with efforts to enforce social distancing. How can that work? How can you use the tube or a bus and not get within two metres of someone else? And in big cities public transport is even more important than elsewhere. More cycling and walking could be part of the answer.


I'm not sure. The pictures look bad, certainly, but as a proportion of the population (10 million or so), are they worse than, say, a few pissed up locals having an illegal lock in out in the sticks?

I don't have the knowledge to say.

I *do* know that the rate of rise reported has been remarkably similar across all geographies, and that social distancing/isolation/quarantine have been proven to work.
sjs
Posts: 1306
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Location: Hitchin

Re: Coronavirus (aka COVID-19) - just how serious?

Post by sjs »

roubaixtuesday wrote:
China saw the same rate of rise.
Italy saw the same rate of rise.
USA is seeing the same rate of rise.
France is seeing the same rate of rise.

It's coming for all of us, unless we take the measures necessary to stop it.

etc


What do you think those measures would be, given that China, Italy, France and Spain have implemented quite stringent measures, without much success? Honest question.
roubaixtuesday
Posts: 5815
Joined: 18 Aug 2015, 7:05pm

Re: Coronavirus (aka COVID-19) - just how serious?

Post by roubaixtuesday »

Cugel wrote:
roubaixtuesday wrote:
pwa wrote:This one came from China directly, and also via the ski slopes of Italy. It came primarily through our airports. It came by foreign travel. As someone who doesn't do much foreign travel I feel that I have been gifted this by those who do. There is no chance of bio-security while people travel so freely and so often.


Sure, but it would have got here regardless, and would still have expanded exponentially once it did.


Hmmm.

So "it would have got here regardless.... ". This seems to contradict your notion that various curbs on normal behaviours, such as going for a bike ride for more than half an hour or so, will make some sort of difference. If it's going to "get here regardless" then are any of the social distancing measures of use? I hope so and will keep following them. Presumably you yourself think it OK to take a plane flight or two, though, as the virus will "get there regardless"?

So, the virus "would still have expanded exponentially once it did [get here]". If this is so, what are all these social distancing measures for?

In short, you seem to be saying two contradictory things.

I was trying to express what would happen without the social distancing. With it, the virus would not ever have spread regardless of air travel.

Myself I feel the only certainties are:

* It's a pandemic and there is no preventative measure or "herd immunity" so most of us will get it at some time.

We don't know yet. It may well be possible to slow sufficiently that a vaccine is in place before most people get it. Testing and cutting off contacts seems to have been very effective in Korea, for instance

* Transmission rates can be slowed by behaviours such as social distancing.

* The death rate may be reduced if the transmission rate can be slowed enough to spread the load on hospital and other health facilities that can reduce the ill effects in those most affected and/or vulnerable to the effects of the virus.

Yes, and also: (1) limit knock on effects to others who will die of unrelated conditions due to hospital overload, and (2) modeling also shows lower total final infection totals if slower rather than one bolus.

* Hysteria, panic and other mind-states wrought in the general population by mass media sensationalism and government inability to make and speak sensible policy will cause additional harm over and above that caused by the virus.

I think you may need to be more specific, that's a bit of a ramble. I have seen no evidence of hysteria, or panic.
Quite surprisingly, given what's coming.


* In addition, ineptitude and irrelevancies emitted by the government will bring them and any good recommendations they make into disrepute. People will be (already are) ignoring the advice in toto, which will then increase transmission rates.

I agree the government's communication strategy and delivery has been truly dire
.

Cugel


Thoughts interspersed above in italic if my formatting skillz have been adequate.

Overall, I think your certainties are certainly nowhere near as certain as you claim!
roubaixtuesday
Posts: 5815
Joined: 18 Aug 2015, 7:05pm

Re: Coronavirus (aka COVID-19) - just how serious?

Post by roubaixtuesday »

sjs wrote:
roubaixtuesday wrote:
China saw the same rate of rise.
Italy saw the same rate of rise.
USA is seeing the same rate of rise.
France is seeing the same rate of rise.

It's coming for all of us, unless we take the measures necessary to stop it.

etc


What do you think those measures would be, given that China, Italy, France and Spain have implemented quite stringent measures, without much success? Honest question.


Without success? China have stopped it dead.
PH
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Contact:

Re: Coronavirus (aka COVID-19) - just how serious?

Post by PH »

London's ExCell centre is to open as a field hospital, initially with 500 beds but an expectation that will increase. It's expected to be the first of several regional field hospitals, though no doubt some will still be telling me it's just like flu.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52018477
Locked