I wasn't, was just passing on my experience. And watch for splinters, I made a right mess of the holes I drilled
For now and the immediate future, sure, I agree completely. I don't think we should be social distancing in four years time if a vaccine hasn't been found though.
Probably not, though it will really depend on the big unknown: how people recover over time. I know a couple who were in their mid 40s, quite healthy and active before they caught COVID. Both had moderate cases (neither hospitalized). More than three months later, he effectively has exercise-induced asthma, and she can't walk up stairs without being winded. If a year passes and there's no horizon for a vaccine and people like that show little sign of improvement, then we might need to go in the opposite direction: a campaign of eradication rather than one of containment. Maybe a rolling 100% lockdown where people literally go nowhere for a week and take multiple self-administered tests, after which it becomes a bubble, followed by its neighbouring region doing the same, and expanding out. Because a situation where we just shrug and accept that 1% of the population will die and several percent will have lifelong organ damage simply cannot be an option.
I honestly think the time has passed for eradication, well here at least. You can't close Pandoras box so to speak and you'd never get 100% compliance for your suggestion unfortunately. Just don't think it's realistic. I agree that after effects are the biggest concern at present, and the issue there is that we won't truly know the true scale of that for years to come. Hopefully it's all moot and a vaccine arrives but it might end up being treatment is the best we get and is the way to control it. I do understand your final point but we were more than happy for tens of thousands of cancer diagnoses to be missed cos of lockdown, and thousands more to die due to knock on effects of lockdown, having vital surgery cancelled and so on. Ultimately there's no simple answer here and no matter what we do people are sadly going to die. As I said last night the damage was done early this year and the virus is here to stay now. At some point we'll have to accept that if a vaccine doesn't arrive, same as we do with other viruses.
I suppose what I was trying to say last night, and after a few beers obviously failing, was that the old normal has pretty much gone forever now. I’m pretty sure that you weren’t around before HIV and AIDS appeared, but that was, eventually, a complete game-changer as far as casual sexual encounters were concerned, and lifestyle choices which had been the norm among the majority of younger people since the advent of the Pill in the 60’s had to be revised radically. So a new normal eventually appeared, where taking the sexual health of the person you just met for granted was no longer possible. Different from COVID? Yes, but the principles are similar. In the absence of a vaccine, testing has to become more universal, quicker, and more reliable. As a retired NHS scientist with some experience in immunology and serology, it’s been clear to me that antibody testing has to be the way forward, if only because it only takes a few minutes to run the test, so getting a result while you wait is feasible. Once you establish some kind of regular testing pattern for everybody, then working and social life can return to being nearly the same as before, but it won’t ever be exactly the same. There will always be the elephant in the room that someone you have been in contact with recently tests positive, and you then have to wait and see what happens to you. Without a vaccine, that won’t ever go away.
I don’t understand why you are comparing the number of deaths, from a contagious and avoidable virus, with those caused by non contagious illnesses, but there is a likelihood that the cancer death rate will be higher, in the short term future, as a result of treatment being delayed by the coronavirus. Reference ICU’s being empty now, this is probably due to the fact that the lockdown did slow the infection rate down, allowing for serious cases to be dealt with and wards emptied. The increase in infections now, probably won’t start impacting on ICUs for a couple of weeks. France are 2-3 weeks further down the road with new infections and I read, only this morning, that their ICUs are only now starting to refill to close to capacity.
Good post, agree with pretty much every word of that. I should probably clarify by normal I don't mean exactly how things were, I just mean that we can't stop people contact/socialising forever whilst it's undoubtedly the right thing to do at present. Agree that testing needs to be improved, I must admit that I didn't realise the issues a lot of people were having and assumed everyone could get one within 30 miles. Suppose that's taking for granted living in a city with a large trust, and therefore large lab, based in it. One thing I will say though is that the accuracy of tests (both swab and antibody) needs to improve if possible. Seen recently that there's a lot of concerns over swabs picking up dead cells so falsely identifying cases. Also the antibody is bringing back a fair amount of false positives which could be dangerous as I think those who get them will relax a bit, even subconsciously. Either way, I think we'll know a lot more about where we are at come Spring next year.
I mean, no. For one, their authorities now admit that they are nowhere near 'herd immunity'. For another, it took them 10x the deaths and cases to get to the same point their neighbours reached. If I drive down the road at 80 kph and get home in 10 minutes without a scratch, and you drive through every ditch and get home in two hours with every piece of metal bent to hell, that is not a vindication of your decision to drive through the ditch.
