Coronavirus: General discussion (see opening post for rules)

[mavhc]

No, we're listening to the politicians, don't do that. Stay at home, keep your kids at home, work from home. Go shopping once a week, don't go anywhere else indoors.

[Duranis]

No, we're listening to the politicians, don't do that. Stay at home, keep your kids at home, work from home. Go shopping once a week, don't go anywhere else indoors.

That's what I have been saying all along. Had family members doing stupid stuff because "well your allowed to now". They just don't get that the Government isn't putting down guidelines to keep as many people safe as possible, they are putting down guidelines to keep the economy running with minimal "acceptable losses". Unfortunately I'm not in a position to not be working and I can't afford to pay fines to schools or for my son who is in Year 11 too lose a school place or I would be keeping everyone home.

 

My MIL has really bad COPD, is over 65 and has a number of other health issues. We have gone to see her a few times but she has stood at the door while we stayed at the other end of the drive way. SIL however has gone in her house multiple times, despite that she also goes in other peoples houses and refuses to wear a mask because it makes her "feel panicky". BIL that lives with her is regularly eating out at restaurants and going shopping. It drives me insane but I keep my mouth shut because the Mrs doesn't want to cause an argument.

[6Foot2]

Link: https://twitter.com/emmajd81/status/1315721948874276868 [Picture Tweet]

 

Throw some Maltesers in the air

 

Take an aerial shot of Prince Charles

 

For the love of god avoid the opposite sex

 

[StevieM]

Apparently, the safest place to be is in Penrhyn Bay, just off the coast of Llandudno.

[Ditto]

Apparently, the safest place to be is in Penrhyn Bay, just off the coast of Llandudno.

Don't be so sure - you're about to be wiped out

 

*** EDIT *** For the doubters - Zoom out a little from the original link and click the Earth image.

Edited October 13, 2020 by Ditto

[mavhc]

I can't afford to pay fines to schools or for my son who is in Year 11 to lose a school place or I would be keeping everyone home.

 

Is this still happening?

[mikeprice]

Apparently, the safest place to be is in Penrhyn Bay, just off the coast of Llandudno.

 

Ironic - I used to live in Bangor - which is quite close

 

I was reading the news from that area yesterday and Bangor's virus rates have rocketed - the Welsh Government have imposed the strictest lockdown of anywhere

People from the area should not leave - and even should shop within the lockdown area

People from outside the area are not allowed to come into the area, even just to go to Tesco

 

In case people are wondering - Bangor has a University - the virus spread has been put down to the students coming from all over and ignoring the social distancing etc - then wandering round the town shopping and drinking etc - as students tend to do

[Ditto]

Is this still happening?

 

Fines are definitely an option for schools. Losing places - well, at an all-through school I worked at, they had entrance requirements to attended 6th form, so I guess if home education impacts your results, I guess yes it's possible. However, I'm sure someone from within a 6th form can provide more details on admissions criteria.

[MrFlibble]

Two good articles:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54442386

Thousands of scientists and health experts have joined a global movement warning of "grave concerns" about Covid-19 lockdown policies.

 

Nearly 6,000 experts, including dozens from the UK, say the approach is having a devastating impact on physical and mental health as well as society.

Sixty-six GPs, including TV doctors Dr Phil Hammond and Dr Rosemary Leonard and a number of medics who have held senior roles at the British Medical Association, have written to the health secretary, saying there is insufficient emphasis on "non-Covid harms" in the decision-making.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54228649

Prof Mark Woolhouse, an expert in infectious disease at Edinburgh University, agrees this is a risk. But he argues the government must carefully "balance the harms" of Covid with the consequences that come from trying to contain it. He says there is already growing evidence the "cure has been worse than the disease" because of the wider societal costs.

 

And if you look at the age-adjusted mortality rates, which take into account the size and age of the population, you can see that while 2020 has undoubtedly been a bad year compared to recent years, what has been seen in terms of people dying is not completely out of sync with recent history. It is actually comparable with what happened in the 2000s.

Prof Sunetra Gupta, of Oxford University, believes there may well be more immunity already than we think because of a combination of natural immunity and more exposure than screening suggests - she says the antibody markers that are relied on to identify previous exposure are not so reliable for this particular virus.

 

She says allowing young and healthy people to be exposed over the winter will be of benefit in the years to come. "This is how we have always managed viruses. Why is this so different? If we keep introducing restrictions and lockdowns while we wait for a vaccine it will be the young that suffer the most, particularly those from more deprived backgrounds. We can't keep doing this - it would be an injustice."

We clearly need to change our approach; the virus cannot be eliminated.

 

We are creating a huge burden on the younger generation, who are likely not to even be eligible for a vaccine, when one eventually starts to be rolled out.

Edited October 13, 2020 by elsiegee40

[jthompson]

It's a virus that's proven to consume massive amounts of health system resources. I think it's vital to not lose sight of that central aspect of this whole thing.

[mikeprice]

Just deleted a response to this stuff

 

Damn it is difficult to keep this non political

 

 

but the most important thing is to prevent the hospitals getting overloaded

 

anything else has to come second

 

and the number of Covid patients in the local hospitals is growing

 

fast

[StevieM]

Two good articles:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54442386

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54228649

 

 

We clearly need to change our approach; the virus cannot be eliminated.

 

We are creating a huge burden on the younger generation, who are likely not to even be eligible for a vaccine, when one eventually starts to be rolled out.

 

While I understand the point you are trying to make (and sympathise to an extent)

And if you look at the age-adjusted mortality rates, which take into account the size and age of the population, you can see that while 2020 has undoubtedly been a bad year compared to recent years, what has been seen in terms of people dying is not completely out of sync with recent history. It is actually comparable with what happened in the 2000s.

 

...and that is with 6 months of lockdown measures! Can you imagine how devastating the death-toll would have been (or could still be) if we all just carried on as normal?!

 

She says allowing young and healthy people to be exposed over the winter will be of benefit in the years to come. "This is how we have always managed viruses. Why is this so different?

 

Will it, though? The reason this is being treated differently to other viruses is that it is new. While there is more understanding of it now than there was 6 months ago, we still don’t even know if we become immune after we have contracted it. Nor do we know the extent of the long-term effects of the virus. Further research is required before we just let it run wild.

 

 

[mikeprice]

This concept of - let the young get the virus and lock 'the old' in their houses

 

is fine

 

except that 'the young' have an annoying habit of wanting to see Mummy and Daddy -

 

who have an annoying habit of wanting to see their own Mummy and Daddy

 

illogical I know but

 

and some of 'the young' actually seem to get Covid - sometimes quite badly

 

so then the hospitals get full up - like totally full

 

so when the invulnerable young get injured in an 'incident' outside a pub -

turns out A&E is closed as the hospital is full

 

and, funnily enough, other things don't stop

so inconsiderate people get cancer and need treatment

but the hospital is full of Covid people

 

so who do we designate as not worth saving even though we can

 

 

which is why lockdown

 

and masks

 

and social distancing

 

and why people need to listen to reputable news sources

 

 

and my stepson's mother-in-law needs to realise that the wonderful facemask she found via Facebook is NOT a substitute for a mask

 

relatives are difficult

[sonofsanta]

The idea of herd immunity (which is becoming a politically tainted phrase...) only works for something like measles or smallpox where immunity is long-lasting. Coronaviruses as a family do not usually confer immunity beyond two or three years, in my understanding (though I'm buggered if I can find a search result referring to the coronavirus family in general--everything is buried under pages of COVID-19 specific hypothesising now).

 

The flu is dangerous enough that we have an annual vaccination program and a team of dedicated scientists monitoring strains to keep it in check. COVID-19 is ten times as deadly and we don't have a vaccine yet. Whilst the mental health and social concerns are absolutely valid, we can't just carry on as normal.

[witch]

You are right, we can't carry on as normal, but neither can we lockdown again and risk thousands of jobs and cause mental issues for years and years to come.

I think it was fairly obvious that once the universities went back there would be a huge spike, because young people, and there is an argument that the cases at universities should be taken out of the area they are in as they are having a disproportionate effect on the R number - a friend lives just outside Nottingham and because of the two unis there they are going to end up being locked down when their own area is almost infection free.

The closing of pubs early won't work - another friend was talking about something and she said "it was around 6pm but my son had already gone to meet his friends in the pub because they have be out at 10" So that measure isn't going to work.

I feel that masks should be mandatory if you are within 3 metres of a person or a building and the vulnerable should take extra care (at least they can get food and medicine delivered without leaving their houses)

Snap lockdowns will help reduce the strain on the NHS, it's true, but they won't really affect the final tally very much imho

[LeMarchand]

You are right, we can't carry on as normal, but neither can we lockdown again and risk thousands of jobs and cause mental issues for years and years to come.

 

I don't know what the answer is, and can certainly see the argument about jobs*. Less understanding about mental issues (apologies to anyone affected!) as I don't know the figures (though I guess we won't really know then for years); however, what is the "break even" point? Better for one person to die than 5 get stressed? 10? 100? 1000? I wouldn't like to be the person having to make that call.

 

*I thought we would be safe, though - the future is cyber, apparently.

[jmak]

The basic statistic is that around 1% of people who catch Covid-19 die. If we don't have a way of stopping people catching it, we don't change the number who end up dying. That could be over a short period or a long period.

 

The issue with a short period is that thousands more will die because the health service will collapse, meaning that 1) the Covid-19 death rate goes up because people don't receive the treatments we've found to be effective and 2) people will die of other things due to lack of capacity in the health system.

3) It will also cause economic carnage because so many people will be ill at the same time that industry and business will collapse.

 

Remaining options are

 

1) decide what an acceptable rate is and keep a partial lockdown so that we don't change the final death toll, but we avoid collapse of the health service and the economy. To consider: the level of lockdown we've had over the summer has not been enough to achieve this, hence an exponential rise in cases now.

 

2) hedge your bets. You could hope to keep the exponential rise slow enough to avoid societal collapse until we have a vaccine. Issues with that approach are a) we don't yet have a vaccine and b) the level of lockdown we've had over the summer has not been enough even to maintain a sufficiently low exponential rate to keep us out of health system and economic collapse until the earliest conceivable date a vaccine might be ready.

 

3) have a test, track and trace system that keeps the level of transmission at an either constant or decreasing level. The up side of this is that it's shown to work - see South Korea, Taiwan, New Zealand. It also allows normal social and economic activity. The down side is that it is more intrusive to personal freedom: South Korea uses GPS tracking to identify potential spread and there is very strict enforcement of quarantine. It also relies on a low level of infection in the community. New Zealand's system is less intrusive, but they locked down until cases were effectively zero - the upside is that they can now hold sports events with stadiums full to capacity. They have isolated themselves from international travel though.

 

At the minute, we're on our way to option one. The scientists from SAGE recommended a full lockdown three weeks ago based on a reasonable worst case scenario based on their modelling. The current situation is worse than their worst case estimate from three weeks ago. If we don't want option one, the longer we leave the lockdown, the longer the lockdown will need to be, the death rate in the mean time will be higher and the economic impact will be worse.

 

Germany appears to have been more successful in achieving a compromise than we have; somewhere between the Draconian measures taken in the countries where there have been almost zero cases, while preventing unmanageable infection rates. This seems to be down to their test and trace working better, which has allowed more freedom with fewer deaths. However their cases are now increasing at a concerning rate. It will be interesting to see what they do next.

 

The decision is political. It is reasonable for politicians to follow public opinion, but public opinion should be properly informed.

Edited October 14, 2020 by jmak

[Andrew_C]

I think you are close - however, the spring lock down worked (if too late) in keeping the Health Service's head above water, and allowing a relaxation of measures during the summer.

 

Where the failure lies (again) is that the autumn tightening of controls is "too little, too late". My cat could have predicted the spike once schools, and even more so, Unis restarted. Shame Dido Harding couldn't despite having £12B and an Excel speadsheet.

[mavhc]

Why have people gone to university? Just learn from home, not like you need your parents to stay home with you, perfect people to do it.

[mikeprice]

Why have people gone to university? Just learn from home, not like you need your parents to stay home with you, perfect people to do it.

 

Some of the students I have seen seem to think the whole 'University Experience' has been destroyed because they can't have sex with random people and go to loads of parties

I actually saw one students saying he was being deprived of his right to do this

 

no mention of education and learning

 

so it is not the learning part that is being complained about - but the sex and parties

and, at the time, takeaways being closed - which was unacceptable

[mavhc]

Well you can't now, because you're dead.

[Ditto]

Why have people gone to university? Just learn from home, not like you need your parents to stay home with you, perfect people to do it.

In current circumstances, I think it should have been given more serious thought! However, going to University for young people is so much more than purely the academic/vocational experience. On top of which, the vast majority are building up a significant debt for an experience that is massively different to what they signed up to. Very little in life (and death) is simple enough to condense to singular perspectives - which is both the sadness and joy of life. (Ooooo, 'ark at him getting all philosophical!)

[Ditto]

Some of the students I have seen seem to think the whole 'University Experience' has been destroyed because they can't have sex with random people and go to loads of parties

I actually saw one students saying he was being deprived of his right to do this

 

no mention of education and learning

 

so it is not the learning part that is being complained about - but the sex and parties

and, at the time, takeaways being closed - which was unacceptable

 

- I think we have expressed very similar views, in very different ways.

[Andrew_C]

Why have people gone to university?

Because they were told they had too. The U's didn't want to loose all the rent on their accommodation.

[jmak]

This is the clearest risk guide I've found:

 

 

It's from July and it is American, but it was produced by medical professionals and it's easy to understand. I think something similar (potentially with the option to drill down further) would be really useful to allow politicians explain to the public what the options are and what the impact is likely to be. Even if there isn't any further lockdown, it would allow people to make better informed decisions on their personal choices.