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

[The utility cyclist]

Those people across the country that applauded the nhs staff, care workers and shop workers. We’re a great country with only a relatively few ‘<FFE>’.

As a key worker I don't need clapping, I just do my job and get on with it like I would do any other day, just like my colleagues do looking after and seeing to the needs of the most vulnerable in our society, a significant portion of whom their relatives have left them to rot in their own homes with virtually no contact.
If you're not self motivated even when the pressure is on, when people are relying on you every day, then you're in the wrong job IMHO
What does clapping actually achieve, a sense of well being and warm fuzzy feeling, who for?

There are some not very nice people out there, sadly just like any other day the police and justice system serves as no deterrent, maybe this is something that should be addressed, like the review on motoring laws that was promised but instead we got cycling laws pushed through at speed instead that simply widens the discrimination compared to motorists in how people on bikes have the law applied to them, in fact different interpretation/unbalanced laws.

[The utility cyclist]

It seems that Italy, Spain, and France appear to be in almost total lockdown, yet still the number of people contracting coronavirus is rising. Could anyone explain this? If more and more people are confined to their homes why are the numbers rising?

I guess some combination of

1. Lag time: takes a week to show symptoms, then another week to get serious enough to get into hospital and show up on the stats

This is the main reason:
Italy locked down 11 March, 2 weeks ago;
Spain 14 March;
France 17 March;
UK 23 March.

We may see bad news for weeks yet.

3. Shutdown isn't total

4. Some people will be flouting it

Fortunately, it doesn't have to be total, but just enough that the infection is below one infection per victim and so it reduces.

you really don't get it do you. C.Viruses, influenza et al will NEVER be eradicated, the data already tells us this, this is data by that there sciencey place in Glasgow that the government are using with rgds C.19. Even with lockdown flu will cme back, C.Viruses will still be around.

Honestly it's no wonder that we have so many die of flu and other transmittable diseases when you have ignorant thinking like that!

[PH]

Average flu deaths a year in the England 17,000, estimated in the UK + 10% - I've already provided the link for it
Estimated Covid 19 deaths in 2020 if no action taken 400,000 - 550,000

This is what the majority of those with the expertise tell us.

[llayercake]

Testing to see who has had it will show one thing, and one thing only, many people have had and have got it, precisely why the initial data re mortality rate was skewed. If you had tested every person in the country last year or any other year when we've had bad influenza, you'd find an exceptionally large % of people having had flu and still have it.

Remember large % of those with influenza show no symptoms but are carriers, large % show very mild symptoms but are carriers, all carry on as normal unless they work with very high risk patients. Those with worse symptoms might but not all stay off work for a couple of days until they feel a bit better but are carriers, some of those might even bother to report to a medical professional, they are carriers. If ANY of these people have children they will likely have passed that on to them and anyone else they'll have come into contact with, child shows no symptoms goes to school, passes it on to other kids, teachers TAs, bus drivers etc.

This is why despite the low mortality rate (which in itself by definition of the above is skewed) influenza kills so many in this country and around the globe every single year, influenza is everywhere, this is impossible to eradicate just like C.19, not by self isolation/social distancing and 'lock down'. And by the time a vaccine comes out it will have been and gone, not that a vaccine would eradicate Corona Viruses as a whole in any case as we've seen in the last 60 years and as explained in the video I linked to earlier. the 7-15% that Corona Viruses will be of all respiratory diseases are from the unit in Glasgow that are currently working on this variant right now, they can't be lying can they?

This year might show lower than normal influenza deaths, in fact I would be surprised if it didn't given the extreme extra care being enforced, but this cannot be maintained, it's impossible to maintain, so what happens next year or the year after when influenza and other respiratory diseases and other CVs kill in the tens of thousands and government bother to test everyone for flu (the most virulent and widespread) and see millions of cases every week, not just per year, lock down and social isolate again and again and again indefinitely?

Because if the lives of those dying from C.19 matter than what about those whom have died from influenza not just this year but all the years before, over a quarter of a million influenza deaths in the last 10 years, where was the lockdown to prevent that? What about all the other RD in the past and each and every day going forward, do we not then do same for that, if not, why not?

I guess that when influenza means that we have to convert ice rinks to mortuaries and that dead people are just left laying in rooms in old people's homes then we'll have to treat influenza in the same way.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... e-analysis


https://english.elpais.com/society/2020 ... ctims.html

[Syd]

One hospital in New York State is using one ventilator on two patients after in got approval! Othere will likely follow.

Unprecedented times.


https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/26/heal ... index.html

[Oldjohnw]

One hospital in New York State is using one ventilator on two patients after in got approval! Othere will likely follow.

Unprecedented times.


https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/26/heal ... index.html

Less than as month after Trump predicted that cases would be down to zero, the US is now the epicentre. But he still wants people back to work by Easter.

[kwackers]

Aren't you the guy that nearly had kittens when I started suggesting I would make my ebike bigger and faster?
IIRC I made it more and more ludicrous well past the point of stupidity and you were so wound up you didn't even spot what I was doing...

Nope not me. I was the bloke who thought he had a bit in common with you because we were both once motorbike couriers. Seems a crisis has brought out a side in you that wasn't evident from most of your earlier posts. sad

I've never been a motorcycle courier so you have me confused.

It's pretty simple really, I expect folk particularly when sat in front of a keyboard to be able to have a balanced and reasoned discussion.
They have time to ponder what's been said.
When folk resort to some kind of emotionally driven nonsense instead then I kick back and treat them like the children they are.

I love reasoned discussion.
In a world where off licenses provide essential services the idea that you can't ride a bicycle somewhere quiet and then go for a run is frankly nonsense.
If we want a lock down then lets have a lock down and stop fannying about.

[kwackers]

What I admit to is winding up folk who are incapable of independent thought,

however clever you think you are at it, maybe this isn't the right thread to gloat about it.

I don't think I'm clever at all, simply not swept up in the hysteria.

It's like a jungle out there! The police are showing pictures of someone walking their dog on their Facebook page and the comments section is reminiscent of the Daily Mail.
When police switchboards are inundated with folk ringing up because they thought they saw a neighbour go out twice in one day you know the asylums are out.
Madness.

And IMO some of the comments in these pages aren't that much better.

[mercalia]

What I admit to is winding up folk who are incapable of independent thought,

however clever you think you are at it, maybe this isn't the right thread to gloat about it.

I don't think I'm clever at all, simply not swept up in the hysteria.

It's like a jungle out there! The police are showing pictures of someone walking their dog on their Facebook page and the comments section is reminiscent of the Daily Mail.
When police switchboards are inundated with folk ringing up because they thought they saw a neighbour go out twice in one day you know the asylums are out.
Madness.

And IMO some of the comments in these pages aren't that much better.

neighbours spying on neighbours? the busyboddy old maid at her front window??

[Cugel]

I realize that my sentiments are rather quaint and somewhat eccentric round here but I think it's pretty tragic that over 100 people have died in the last 24 hours that would not have - at least just yet - were it not for this virus. Some might otherwise have reasonably expected to live for several more decades.

Well .... those sentiments are not so much quaint as disconnected from the reality of life, which is that we all die, some of us sooner rather than later, for all sorts of reasons due to all sorts of factors, many of which can't be controlled by humans, even those stuffed with hubris who believe that, "We are in control"; or that, "We are the top species who own everything"; or even that "We are the stewards of The Earth"; or that , "We should aim to achieve immortality".

It's certainly a tragedy when someone dies unexpectedly, earlier than the norm and due to a cruel & unexpected blow from an uncaring world. But the tragedy, in reality, is for those loving ones left behind, not the dead one. The dead one cannot feel tragic or any other emotion; or feeling at all.

Moreover, in a Malthusian world, the horrible fact is that a death rate greater than a birth rate might well be the only factor that will save the whole lot of us - alive now and in the future - from "a fate worse than death" ... well, until the overpopulation does kill us all off. Then no one will feel anything as there'll be no one to feel it. But if there are lucky survivors of population explosion, their luck will consist of most other humans having died.

That's not a nice thought but it's the awful reality. And there's plenty of evolutionary theory that suggests that pandemics are a natural and inevitable response of "nature" or an ecological "system" for saving a species (and perhaps many others) from itself when it's "exploding". Another response to such a situation is the internecine war that arises because of competition for dwindling and ever more scarce resources. That one might be rather worse than a pandemic - the trigger that eventually overcomes the nuclear policy of MAD.

Cugel

[nsew]

The wisest amongst us will strive to avoid becoming infected until after this first wave we’re experiencing. I’m encouraged by the now rapid response from our industries. The facilities for the sick will be excellent in a month or two, comfort levels and survival rates will be much greater.

The government is pursuing a three-pronged strategy to source 30,000 ventilators for the NHS to treat Covid-19 patients, ordering newly designed models, scaling up production of existing ones and importing machines from overseas.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... oronavirus

[nsew]

Nurses will be transferred to London from other parts of England under NHS plans to help hospitals in the capital facing a “tsunami” of Covid-19 patients within days.

A lack of ventilators has forced NHS planners to explore whether one machine could be used to keep two patients alive, drastically increasing capacity at a stroke.

London will have 7,500 critical care beds by the end of next week – 27 times more than the 275 it had before the epidemic began in January.

There are fears that a lack of oxygen could hamper the drive to save lives through the massive expansion of critical care capacity – hospitals will need daily deliveries to service all the extra ventilators.

Doctors at the newly-created Nightingale hospital at London’s ExCel centre looking after thousands of patients receiving life-or-death care will work there for at least six weeks, working five days in a row before having a break – and sleep on site.

The sheer number of patients falling ill will see the usual staffing ratios in intensive care units scrapped temporarily so that one intensive care nurse is looking after six patients rather than one – in what doctors privately warned was an “unbelievable” relaxation that would hit care standards.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... us-tsunami

[Cugel]

What I admit to is winding up folk who are incapable of independent thought,

however clever you think you are at it, maybe this isn't the right thread to gloat about it.

I don't think I'm clever at all, simply not swept up in the hysteria.

It's like a jungle out there! The police are showing pictures of someone walking their dog on their Facebook page and the comments section is reminiscent of the Daily Mail.
When police switchboards are inundated with folk ringing up because they thought they saw a neighbour go out twice in one day you know the asylums are out.
Madness.

And IMO some of the comments in these pages aren't that much better.

This is my worry too - that people normally reasonable and balanced are being driven to be irrational and hysterical by this situation and the stoking of fear and loathing by the mass media, in their usual fashion. It makes me both laugh and cry to read some of the hysterical prattles here, a place normally far from the sort of faeces-book ordure and fishwife twittering that goes on elsewhere.

Why people who are normally sensible read mass media and then not only believe it but reiterate it as though they now "know something" is beyond me.

Today me and t'ladywife are planning an hours bike ride together in the deserted lanes of West Wales. The hysteria now amplified by the stasi-police of The Peak District, with their drone-spies and hysterical social media posts about non-existent lock-down rules, has me worried that some vigilante nutter, perhaps even an official vigilante in a police car, will chase us down with extreme prejudice!

Humans! A very stupid animal sometimes.

[Oldjohnw]

I realize that my sentiments are rather quaint and somewhat eccentric round here but I think it's pretty tragic that over 100 people have died in the last 24 hours that would not have - at least just yet - were it not for this virus. Some might otherwise have reasonably expected to live for several more decades.

Well .... those sentiments are not so much quaint as disconnected from the reality of life, which is that we all die, some of us sooner rather than later, for all sorts of reasons due to all sorts of factors, many of which can't be controlled by humans, even those stuffed with hubris who believe that, "We are in control"; or that, "We are the top species who own everything"; or even that "We are the stewards of The Earth"; or that , "We should aim to achieve immortality".

It's certainly a tragedy when someone dies unexpectedly, earlier than the norm and due to a cruel & unexpected blow from an uncaring world. But the tragedy, in reality, is for those loving ones left behind, not the dead one. The dead one cannot feel tragic or any other emotion; or feeling at all.

Moreover, in a Malthusian world, the horrible fact is that a death rate greater than a birth rate might well be the only factor that will save the whole lot of us - alive now and in the future - from "a fate worse than death" ... well, until the overpopulation does kill us all off. Then no one will feel anything as there'll be no one to feel it. But if there are lucky survivors of population explosion, their luck will consist of most other humans having died.

That's not a nice thought but it's the awful reality. And there's plenty of evolutionary theory that suggests that pandemics are a natural and inevitable response of "nature" or an ecological "system" for saving a species (and perhaps many others) from itself when it's "exploding". Another response to such a situation is the internecine war that arises because of competition for dwindling and ever more scarce resources. That one might be rather worse than a pandemic - the trigger that eventually overcomes the nuclear policy of MAD.

Cugel

While we're at it, why not scrap all medical care? Everybody dies sooner or later.

[Oldjohnw]

Well .... those sentiments are not so much quaint as disconnected from the reality of life, which is that we all die, some of us sooner rather than later, for all sorts of reasons due to all sorts of factors, many of which can't be controlled by humans, even those stuffed with hubris who believe that, "We are in control"; or that, "We are the top species who own everything"; or even that "We are the stewards of The Earth"; or that , "We should aim to achieve immortality".

It's certainly a tragedy when someone dies unexpectedly, earlier than the norm and due to a cruel & unexpected blow from an uncaring world. But the tragedy, in reality, is for those loving ones left behind, not the dead one. The dead one cannot feel tragic or any other emotion; or feeling at all.

Moreover, in a Malthusian world, the horrible fact is that a death rate greater than a birth rate might well be the only factor that will save the whole lot of us - alive now and in the future - from "a fate worse than death" ... well, until the overpopulation does kill us all off. Then no one will feel anything as there'll be no one to feel it. But if there are lucky survivors of population explosion, their luck will consist of most other humans having died.

That's not a nice thought but it's the awful reality. And there's plenty of evolutionary theory that suggests that pandemics are a natural and inevitable response of "nature" or an ecological "system" for saving a species (and perhaps many others) from itself when it's "exploding". Another response to such a situation is the internecine war that arises because of competition for dwindling and ever more scarce resources. That one might be rather worse than a pandemic - the trigger that eventually overcomes the nuclear policy of MAD.

Cugel

While we're at it, why not scrap all medical care? Everybody dies sooner or later.

I expected a better response than that from you.

Cugel

Ditto, I fear.