The main thing I took from Heneghan today was the amplification of the pcr test. I knew already that the test, as being used is purely qualitative, either positive or negative. He said though that it can be used to distinguish between dead and alive viral RNA (I know dead and alive are not the correct terms), and therefore those who are infectious or not.
Yep, I've noticed this too.
Being 59 (stage age 45), it's all a little close to home.
Just seen the BBC news report from Liverpool hospitals which is pretty scary. Liverpool seems to be in the worst position at the moment. The staff were begging for people to follow the rules. The positive test numbers might indeed be very misleading if they include non infectious people, and if these make up a large proportion of the total. But it is hard to deny that there is a rise in hospital admissions, and admissions to ICU and ultimately deaths as well, but the deaths aren’t actually what is driving the government response, it’s managing NHS capacity. The COVID patients admitted are genuinely sick, they need treating, along with all the other people with various debilitating and life threatening illnesses. They estimate that without action hospitals will be refusing to admit patients, no matter what they are ill with.
I don’t really get this, and I think it’s where some of the stuff that Woody has posted from Heneghan comes into play. If you test positive but are asymptomatic what do you get but a possibly unnecessary spell of isolation? I’m assuming that asymptomatic people aren’t infectious as they aren’t coughing on other people and have a low ‘viral load’ or whatever anyway.
Be nice if a scientist could tell us one way or another, and for other scientists to agree with the first scientist. Having, reluctantly, put a bit of effort in, I think I was wrong, asymptomatic (or sometimes pre symptomatic) people can and do infect others, and could account for 40% of all infections.
I said at the beginning when the experts were bitching about that race meeting for causing all the Covid cases...that we should have shut our borders.
People need to remember that flights were coming in everyday from China/US/Europe and those arriving didn't all obey the quarantine rules. We must also not forget the amount of EU lorry drivers that were going from country to country with goods. This is how these things spread around.
You will only defeat this by all countries working together... which won't happen because for whatever we say some nutcase will be in the US saying Covid doesn't exist.
