Is anyone confident that, after this virus, we'll be fully prepared for the next one ... ------------ We will be so busy cleaning up the suicides & clambering out of the ten year recession that no one will give it a second thought.
The suggestion is that it's not reinfection or reactivation but that the test to clear them was a false negative which is great news if true. The bad news is that it's most likely a false test to clear them because the Coronavirus test seems to be inaccurate in up to 30% of the time which is absolutely shocking. If 1 out of every 4 tests is wrong, then we've no hope of reducing the spread of this through testing. If anything, we could just complicate things further with a misplaced confidence.
Probably not, nobody knows what the next one will be, but some folk think we should be prepared for everything, whatever the cost or availability. Hindsight is a wonderful thing
This is a cracking documentary on money and how money enters the world as we know it. And it's a big stitch. The power is in the hands of the money people. Not sure what you mean mate.
It is like being in a walking dead episode, people looking at each other trying not to breath much when you walk past them, christ this and 2009 all over again, the question is where did this come from ? it is not flu they say bats and i say take a flame thrower to all these caves and most wild life if that is the case. and shut the airports down pronto when/if this happens again.
Not a cat in hells chance We were warned in 2006 something like this was going to happen but Tory party decided to bury the report Stead of acting on it they didn't want to scare the public I'd rather be scared medicated from a deadly virus rather than 6 foot under or under house arrest fir 16hrs a day
Excuse the long post. The under funding of the NHS has been there for years and years, sadly it's taken this virus to really make it front page news and rightly so people are annoyed. I can remember when my dad was still working (over 25 years ago) and the NHS Trust he worked for were on permanent yellow alert for beds and more often than not on red alert with no beds available in the entire trust. The government at the time built a lovely shiny new hospital for the trust and all was rosy to the general public in the area, expect they the realised 3 existing hospitals were closed and the land sold off to pay for the new hospital so capacity was actually reduced. They put in a brilliant CT department, yet had to rely on fundraising to buy the actual CT scanner! My mam worked on the cancer unit and there wasn't the money to redecorate the wards, so the staff donated money and materials to redecorate as they were so frustrated at how shabby the wards were. Roll forward to last year and my dad had open heart surgery which has to work on 100% occupancy. You go in the night before your op, given your time slot and hope there isnt an emergency before your op starts. They work on 2 days in itu, 2 days in medium dependant, 2 days back on the ward then home. If an emergency comes in your op is cancelled and you wait as they have no capacity. If your op does go ahead, your space in itu is taken within an hour of you moving. It's a constant cycle with no let up for the staff. Dad ****ed all that up by having major complications and having to be in for 2 weeks, including a week in ITU, this meant other patients had to delay their operations until they could shift him through the system. The fact we only have 10k ITU beds in all of England for a population of 60odd million shows how badly prepared we are for most things let alone a global pandemic. I hope that when we come out the other side of this the general public remember the sacrifices our NHS staff are making and hold which ever government is in power to account and never let them get away with pretending to support the NHS.
If we're a couple of weeks behind Italy & there on about relaxing there lockdown I can still see my forecast of June for least a partial easing coming true for us
Good post that Chunk. I'm over 60 and in all my time the NHS has never really been properly funded, that said, the UK system for welfare etc is the envy of the world, to such an extent that refugees are willing to make their way through the full length of Europe to get to the UK and all the goodies that brings them. I hope.....no, not hope, I expect this crisis will now send a message to every politician of every political party that we must look after UK citizens first and foremost. No more freebies. Cancel every penny of foreign aid to counties such as India, Pakistan and China who actually have their own nuclear and space program ffs. I would also ring fence a huge percentage of lottery money to get what the NHS needs to be fit for purpose. I may be an idealist, but really, is it so hard to achieve what we all want.
The lottery idea is a great one, most people are rightly proud of the NHS and we as a nation need to make sure what every single person in the NHS is doing now is never forgotten. The NHS staff have to a man, gone to work and continue to go to work without a thought for their own safety, thousands of recently retired NHS staff have returned to work again without a thought. Social media has been full of "not all super hero's wear capes photos" I pray that when this starts to calm down that this is remembered.
Taken from Twitter long read but says a lot of thing's how this was mishandled here from the start please log in to view this image Lainey Doyle @laineydoyle please log in to view this image 8 hours ago, 49 tweets, 9 min read Bookmark Save as PDF My Authors I don't understand the British media. I really, really don't. Basic things: Ireland and the UK started this pandemic with roughly the same number of ICU beds (6.5 per 100,000 for Ireland, 6.6 per 100,000 in the UK). If anything, the UK was slightly better off. please log in to view this image As of today, there have been 320 deaths from the coronavirus in Ireland, and 9,875 deaths in the UK. Ok, ok, but the UK has a ginormous population, right? Especially compared to Ireland. So we adjust per capita - how many deaths per 100,000 people? As of Saturday 11 April, there have been 6.5 deaths per 100,000 people in Ireland. There have been 14.81 deaths per 100,000 people in the UK. Guys, people have been dying at more than *twice the rate* in the UK. You'd think, given the long *handwaves towards a complicated mess*... shared history... between the two regions, that this would be a massive news story, right? I mean, it'd be a huge angle for the UK media, surely? *crickets* That the UK's closest neighbour, with almost the *exact* same starting line in terms of its health system, is having a wildly different outcome? Not saying Ireland's a paragon of virtue! Loads to discuss & critique & make better! And. Nothing. At least, not much that I can see. But wait, it's worse! Because if you compare the per capita death rate between Ireland and *England*, rather than the UK as a whole, England has almost *2.5* times the number of deaths as Ireland (14.81 deaths per 100,000 vs 6.5 deaths per 100,000) So you have two English-speaking countries, with close cultural and historical associations, both with underfunded health systems, & comparable levels of ICU beds (almost half the EU average) going into the pandemic. But England has more than 2.5 times the deaths? Why? If you're arguing over whether Boris & Co's 'herd immunity' policy (& the resulting delay in lockdown) had any effect on death rates - here's your angle, lads. You have a real-time A/B test happening *right in front of you*. Because Ireland closed down earlier. Much earlier. While Boris was telling the British people to wash their hands, our Taoiseach was closing the schools. While Cheltenham was going ahead, and over 250,000 people were gathering in what would have been a massive super-spreader event, Ireland had *cancelled St Patrick's Day*. In Ireland, we watch a lot of British media and news, and let me tell you, it was like living in bizarro-world. Because our Irish TV news was filled with very direct, serious pronouncements about what was coming. But when we switched to the British TV channels... *crickets*. Particularly vivid for the weekend before Paddy's Day. Rolling restrictions in Ireland, so no groups > 100, but pubs not yet closed. Video emerged of people singing in a pub in Temple Bar => public outcry, #shutthepubs trended, Health Minister comments, voluntary closure ensued. Again, take a beat. There was a public outcry to close the pubs *the weekend before St Patrick's Day*. The seriousness of the situation was very, very clear in Ireland, and there was massive public buy-in. That same weekend, this was happening in Cardiff: please log in to view this image HYC@HYC63257976 Lets blame China - UK version Mar 16th# confirmed case 1372 # UK-Cardiff -Motorpoint Arena - Stereophonics please log in to view this image 13 1:48 PM - Apr 5, 2020 Twitter Ads info and privacy See HYC's other Tweets I remember watching that video being posted on Twitter that Saturday night, and feeling sick to my stomach. How many people were being infected, at that very moment, singing along to the Stereophonics? It was such a huge crowd. I assume there were people in Cardiff who felt the same way I did. But the difference was: I was supported by my government. You weren't. And that cost lives. The Stereophonics gig was on the 14 March. Median 5-7 days to get sick, and let's allow another 14 days to get seriously ill. The people infected at the Stereophonics gig were in hospital last week. The people *they* infected will start dying next week. Pandemics roll along exponential curves. The NYT (using @brittajewell's calculations) showed it beautifully here: please log in to view this image The Exponential Power of NowThe explosive spread of coronavirus can be turned to our advantage, two infectious disease experts argue: “But only if we intervene early. That means now.”https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/science/coronavirus-math-mitigation-distancing.html .@brittajewell used US figures, & showed that if you started to stay home *this week* (March 13, at the time of publication), you could prevent 2400 infections. But if you started to home *next week* instead, you prevented 600 infections. It's weird, right? Exponential curves are really counter-intuitive. When they go up, they go up FAST. Timing matters, a lot. By staying home *this week* rather than *next week*, one person could prevent an extra 1800 infections. One person! And as @jkottke pointed out, assuming a 1% death rate, that's 18 lives saved. 18 lives saved, by the choices of one person to stay home for the week starting 13 March, rather than the following week. That Stereophonics gig? Was on 14 March. I'm not singling them out, honestly I'm not. They're a great band, I really like them! I'm not tagging them, because what use would that do? And I'll say again: those figures were based on US infection numbers at that point, with 30% growth rate per day. It's not the UK. And. In a pandemic, every day counts. Every *hour* counts. And the UK government wasted two whole weeks. Which weeks? Ireland cancelled Paddy's Day on 9 March, initiating a series of rolling, controlled restrictions, from school closures & large group bans (12 March), to closure of non-essential businesses & social distancing, to full lockdown. It was precise, clearly communicated, controlled. The UK closed their schools on 20 March, a full week after we closed ours. Full lockdown came to the UK on 23 March. And while there was some muddied, confused advice in the UK between times (avoid non-essential travel from 16 March? don't go to the pub, but then again, they're still open, so maybe do?) - there was an abrupt about-turn, after the Imperial College report came out. The comparisons aren't neat between the two countries, because the processes (and nomenclature) were different. Technically, the UK went into lockdown *before* Ireland; but that's not a fair comparison, as we were already operating our 'Delay Phase' from 12-27 March. But I would argue the crucial difference lies in that two-week period: from 9 March, when we cancelled Paddy's Day, to 23 March, when the UK govt finally (and abruptly) wheeled about, and went into lockdown. Two weeks. And because the UK government delayed, distorted and distracted for those two weeks, the UK people ended up on the wrong part of an exponential curve, when lockdown started. And now, the UK has over twice the number of deaths per capita than Ireland. But wait, it's worse! HOW how HOW can it be worse. Because: testing. Because the UK figures only include deaths, in hospitals, from people who had already been tested positive for COVID-19. That sentence has a whole pile of clauses and commas, doesn't it? Let's break it down. It means that a person could die *in a UK hospital* of the coronavirus; and all their doctors could agree that yes, they definitely died of coronavirus; and their *death cert* says that yes, they did, in fact, die of coronavirus - ... and they wouldn't be included in UK figures Because they weren't tested. And you have to have a positive test, before death, to be counted in the UK deaths. The UK isn't testing nearly as much as it needs to. And Ireland is testing a *lot* more. We have a drive-through testing centre in the sacred sporting grounds of Croke Park - think turning Wembley Station into a testing centre, and you get somewhere close. Ireland is still building its testing capacity, but we've been explicitly following the South Korean model of test, test, test (and contact trace). And we're using our time in lockdown to build our testing network. The aim is to have 15,000 tests per day, or 105,000 tests per week - that is, testing 2% of the population a week. 15,000 tests is about 7 months of flu testing for Ireland – and we're planning this, every day, for months and months. We're not there! We had to grab Germany for a dig-out, we fell so far behind! There's loads of teething problems! Like I said at the top of the thread: I'm not saying that Ireland is a paragon of virtue here. And: we ARE building this testing network. And to date, Ireland has performed 8.69 tests per 1,000 people. please log in to view this image To understand the global pandemic, we need global testing – the Our World in Data COVID-19 Testing datasetWithout testing for COVID-19 we cannot know how many people are infected with the disease. And without this data we cannot know what is happening. That is why we are bringing together the available d…https://ourworldindata.org/covid-testing#ireland The UK has performed 4 tests per 1,000 people. please log in to view this image To understand the global pandemic, we need global testing – the Our World in Data COVID-19 Testing datasetWithout testing for COVID-19 we cannot know how many people are infected with the disease. And without this data we cannot know what is happening. That is why we are bringing together the available d…https://ourworldindata.org/covid-testing#united-kingdom So: to my UK friends, let's lay it out there. You're testing at half the rate that Ireland is, and your loved ones, your family, your friends are dying over twice as fast. And that's still a wild underestimate of how bad things are, because your low testing rates are artificially depressing your death figures; whereas Ireland's high testing rate is (comparatively) inflating ours (or, more fairly, accurately recording them in our figures). I say this not in some kind of coronavirus Olympics. I say this with a knot in my stomach. I lived for long periods of time in the UK, and I have loved ones still living there, people whose safety I'm desperately afraid for. I say this because: you are being failed. Failed by your government, and failed by your media. Failed, by news reports that (correctly!) talk about how horrific the death toll is in NYC, while eliding the horrors of nearly 1000 people dying in a single day at home. Failed, because it didn't have to be like this. Failed, because there are lessons and exchanges to be found here, but in those 2 weeks when so much could have been done, your media didn't pay any heed to what was happening beside it. Because your media didn't report on the contrast between Boris' choices and ours. Failed, because your media STILL isn't reporting on the contrasts in death rates between us, and why that might be the case. Failed, because in this long-standing, complicated, skewed relationship between us, we can see you clearly, and you seem to barely see us at all. And it breaks my heart. But there's still time. Time to flatten your curve. Time to build testing. Time to develop a robust contact tracing system. Time to *use* your lockdown as it should be used, while we do the same. Time to be our partners in this, as we all must be, in a globalised pandemic. The best time to plant an oak tree was 20 years ago; the second-best time is now. The best time to stop this pandemic was last January. The second-best time is now. And while we're working this ground together, remember that over the fence, in your neighbouring allotment, we're tackling the same tasks as you. It might be worth taking a peek over the fence sometime, to see what we can share.
That's a very interesting article that I'll read again. I fully expected the UK would lead the way with this crisis and 'show the world' how to do things ... ... sadly, we look shambolic. I tried, for weeks, to 'pull together' and avoid criticism but I don't like what I'm seeing. My first raised eyebrow was that we were allowing tourist flights to Spain, a country with an obvious problem and on the verge of a major lockdown. The fact that it was the airlines, not the government, who turned flights around in mid-air then stopped them altogether made me feel quite uneasy tbh.
I thought the flights got turned back because the country's were put into lockdown while they were still in the air
It was a decision by the airlines in the middle of March ... ... by which time 200 in Spain had died. I just find it amazing the government should allow tourists to go then return possibly infected.
Germany seem to be managing, maybe we should have a look at that and wonder why, nothing to do with government policy of course.
