Off Topic SARS-CoV-2 Covid-19

I'd say, at this point, perhaps a human lifetime - without any scientific backing !

 

Which is weird, because India recently jumped into the top 5 worldwide for obesity so you'd think they'd be worse hit.

It could perhaps be that their history of disease in the poorer areas has somehow built up a better immunity to disease in general.

Spurious claim, that. But I have no idea why they haven't had nearly as many as a lot of others, given their population.

 

Thank you prime minister, but what are your plans for enforcing "strict social distancing measures"?

 

Shut everything non-essential. Drink cans.

People are allowed out to exercise for an hour as a family, pets included.

Shopping for household items, medicines and food is fine, but non-essential items will only be available online for delivery, at an inflated cost. If you want Frozen on DVD, swivel.

Those found to be breaking these rules will be arrested and fined an amount most would deem unfair. A second transgression will result in your doors and windows being welded shut and lambs blood being painted above your front door to mark you as unclean in the eyes of society.

Armed patrols will be assigned to postcodes. Curfew will be in effect from 9pm onwards (switching to 10pm in Summer.). Break curfew, get ****ed up.

Sensible policies for a safer Britain.

 

It was reported a few days ago that the strain of this virus that has ravaged Europe might well be a more sinister version of that which originated in Asia... for the more learned here a question, is it possible that the death toll throughout Asia and South Korea and Japan in particular, could well have been significantly higher (probably/ likely much higher than reported anyway) had they not been exposed to SARS... Is it possible that antibodies to that virus might still have been effective in offsetting this current virus. A genuine question...

 

If I was the Prime Minister of Sweden, I'd never get out of bed.

 

Yep, I went a couple of years ago - to Krakow and a day trip down to Zakopane. Loved it - picturesque, chilled out, some great restaurants and the locals were mostly very welcoming.

 

I think there are a few factors that contribute to our death toll:

We have just had an incredibly mild winter. Looking at the death toll for the months preceding covid it was substantially down on the average. Could the reaper perhaps have had many of these victims long since marked?

We are one of the worlds largest economies. I know it’s popular to bemoan our lack of testing but the fact is we have performed the 6th most tests in the world. Maybe elsewhere some/a lot of deaths just haven’t been tested at all? We have performed a test for every 45 people in the country. Compared to India who have performed less than 1 test per every 1000 people.

As mentioned. Density of population. And that doesn’t mean per square KM. Case in point Australia that has a rather large land mass but a population that by and large lives in a handful of cities. But we are very, very tightly packed with cities towns and villages squashed together and a lot of people constantly moving around from one to the other. It would be very easy for a virus to move quickly around the country compared to somewhere like Slovakia where the closest place to Zilina is an hour on the train.

Also, as mentioned, the sheer amount of travel. Not only in terms of Brits going abroad but people coming here, whether business or tourism. I have absolutely no idea what the figures are but I wouldn’t not be at all surprised if Britain saw 10,000 international travellers (either incoming or outgoing) for every 1 in Latvia.

A population with many more people living with underlying conditions? Again no idea about this. But maybe our healthcare system keeps people alive better than those in less wealthy countries. People who the virus would take here maybe already dead elsewhere?

And these are just a few points in what must be a massive and hugely complex list of reasons.

But when all’s said and done. We didn’t have the terrible scenes that were seen in Italy and Spain. Our hospitals haven’t burst to breaking point. We haven’t had thousands of patients dying on the floors of corridors like they did in China. The reality is we look to have coped a lot better than those places so how can we have done so much worse? Something doesn’t add up, the picture painted by looking at death tolls is obviously far from complete.

 

Wrong question
You already knew that a global pandemic was the highest risk for the country...you’d even published that regularly
The question is what should you have done before there was a virus out of control in China

 

They’re lying in other countries
The krauts have already been found out and that was in the grauniad so must be true!

 

Haven't read the guardian document link yet - but a quick response would be his (Cummings) removal from influence would suggest the government recognised his negative impact, perhaps a little late, but have rectified the situation. My recall ( admitedly from a distance) was that was at least a month ago. Fine margins as I said. Not a cock up, given the uncertainty & fast moving dilemma of this crisis.

And, as I believe, the availability of quality intelligence early on, since it was known, most countries didn't have all the facts, hence took slightly nuanced strategic directions in their approach. None should be blamed for their decisions. Flexibility subsequently should be admired.
Post mortems are by definition held once the situation is over. Not blame & bickering mid term. Questioning & modification yes. That seems to be happening everywhere now. Healthy, but let's not dilute the effort to solve the problems by attributing blame now.

 

Spoke to a friend of mine today who runs a hospice. As anyone in there hasn’t long and will have various illnesses that will see them pass, if they caught Covid while in the hospice and died, even if the underlying issue was the reason they died, it is being recorded as death from Covid

 

This makes no sense.

The figures are quite clear. If you are under 65, you're unlikely to be hospitalised and die. If you're over 65 and in a nursing home, the virus is lethal and you're screwed. Countries which kept infected over-65s in hospital have low death rates, such as Germany. Countries which sent sick, elderly people back to nursing homes accelerated the virus spread and have killed 4 times as many. The UK was put in a full lockdown so the virus would be blamed as endangering the entire population, rather than bad preparation and governmental policy. Why do you need to wait until the virus disappears and anger subsides to see the obvious.

 

Bit naive TC?
It’s not binary.
Should there be blame regarding not ensuring supplies of PPE are secure given a pandemic is the highest risk for the country...according to the Govt, and they’d ran an exercise 4 years ago that said that PPE security of supply was a huge issue? Yes, you don’t need to wait, that is fact now, and challenge won’t increase PPE issues.
Should there be blame now about exactly what lockdown measures have been put in place? I don’t think so. There’s been lots of tactics round the world, and in truth we won’t know what worked until much later.
Should there be blame for Cheltenham and LFC v Athletico Madrid. Probably. In hindsight certainly, but if it was that black and white no sensible person would have gone to either.
Should there be blame for building hospitals that aren’t needed? Well I don’t think so, but who knows what facts we’ll have later to judge that on.

So in summary, some things should wait, some things should be criticised now...and the Allams should sell up

 

Why is this thread suddenly comparing ourselves to India?

 

Not sure at all what you are criticising in my quoted post. Please elaborate.

Were you not the one who suggested "isolate the over 65's" and allow everyone else to continue with their economic contribution to the wealth of nations ? Or words to that effect ?. Shelter the vulnerable, but allow others to freely wander around, carrying the plague and spread it around.
Prior to quality, failsafe testing of the rest of the world's < 65 year old popuation ?
I would suggest that makes far less sense than whatever ( & I'm obviously not clear what it is) than your implied criticism of the content of my post.

 

I wonder if Not 606 could design a 'Tory Voter' emoji? '

 

No guesses there I think ?
You forgot Flags btw

 

I imagine the questions they’re asked during these daily briefings are pre-agreed, aren’t they? Wonder if, by that assumption, any get filtered out.