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1 minute ago, Teemu’s right foot said:

“ Based on the available data, the briefing paper says, “There is little to suggest that Sweden’s strategy is better than its Nordic neighbours (particularly Norway and Finland) and a lot to suggest that it is worse, with a much larger burden of disease over spring and summer.“


But will they have a much less of the disease now over the winter months? Have they got the majority of the suffering out of the way over the summer. Until this winter and so called second wave is over we can’t judge their overall strategy. 

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Sweden is a fascinating example and I've read a huge amount on what they have done. 

As I think is acknowledged above, they have a population a fraction the size of ours in a country many times the size of ours. Their social demographic is massively different. They have a lot of single occupancy housing. Finally, unlike here, they have a population who has voluntarily adhered to advice, rather than rebelled against instruction. 

Look behind the stats and you see a high death rate, much higher than those of their neighbours who have taken a more stringent approach. They have often been accused of sacrificing their elderly. 

Japan are another interesting example. They conducted a campaign similar to Sweden in so far as they asked rather than mandated a response. They are now suffering a resurgence of the virus much like everyone else. But their society wore masks for fashion even prior to the virus are believed to have greatly benefitted from it. Hence why their death rate is not that bad, despite their population being rather critical of their government for not taking a firmer view. 

I suspect only when a vaccine has been created and distributed, will we have the chance to look back on this and decide X was effective, Y was not.

Edited by Terminally Yellow
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With the greatest of respect you have just wiped the report of facts and kept the possibility.

I have just seen that woman’s twitter account omg the doctor was when she was a military doctor and a couple of her tweets include

I'm very glad to see President Trump is gaining in the polls. He will win and send Sleepy Joe Biden into a coma!

If you need a food bank to feed your child, you have failed as a parent.

 

 

 

 

 

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10 minutes ago, Well b back said:

With the greatest of respect you have just wiped the report of facts and kept the possibility.

I have just seen that woman’s twitter account omg the doctor was when she was a military doctor and a couple of her tweets include

I'm very glad to see President Trump is gaining in the polls. He will win and send Sleepy Joe Biden into a coma!

If you need a food bank to feed your child, you have failed as a parent.

 

 

 

 

 

Everything we are dealing with from here on is possibilities is it not? I’m reading posts on here saying this second wave will be worse than the first. That isn’t fact, it’s currently opinions and possibility. So it’s possible that had we have had a larger proportion of our younger and healthy population infected over the summer months, then the possibility of an atrocious winter may not have happened 

Edited by Teemu’s right foot

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3 minutes ago, Terminally Yellow said:

Sweden is a fascinating example and I've read a huge amount on what they have done. 

As I think is acknowledged above, they have a population a fraction the size of ours in a country many times the size of ours. Their social demographic is massively different. They have a lot of single occupancy housing. Finally, unlike here, they have a population who has voluntarily adhered to advice, rather than rebelled against instruction. 

Look behind the stats and you see a high death rate, much higher than those of their neighbours who have taken a more stringent approach. They have often been accused of sacrificing their elderly. 

Japan are another interesting example. They conducted a campaign similar to Sweden in so far as they asked rather than mandated a response. They are now suffering a resurgence of the virus much like everyone else. But their society wore masks for fashion even prior to the virus are believed to have greatly benefitted from it. Hence why their death rate is not that bad, despite their population being rather critical of their government for not taking a firmer view. 

I suspect only when a vaccine has been created and distributed, will we have the chance to look back on this and decide X was effective, Y was not.

Thanks for the insight YF

Thats interesting re the masks as well, am I correct in saying the reports showing masks are ineffective should be more that they are ineffective if you wear them wrong or don’t wash them, rather than they are ineffective if worn properly ?

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1 minute ago, Terminally Yellow said:

Sweden is a fascinating example and I've read a huge amount on what they have done. 

As I think is acknowledged above, they have a population a fraction the size of ours in a country many times the size of ours. Their social demographic is massively different. They have a lot of single occupancy housing. Finally, unlike here, they have a population who has voluntarily adhered to advice, rather than rebelled against instruction. 

Japan are another interesting example. They conducted a campaign similar to Sweden in so far as they asked rather than mandated a response. They are now suffering a resurgence of the virus much like everyone else. But their society wore masks for fashion even prior to the virus are believed to have greatly benefitted from it. Hence why their death rate is not that bad, despite their population being rather critical of their government for not taking a firmer view. 

I suspect only when a vaccine has been created and distributed, will we have the chance to look back on this and decide X was effective, Y was not.

Indeed. I think with Sweden two other factors, not so sgnificant but which have played a part, are that a higher proportion of people than in the UK already worked from home, and that there is quite a high proportion of holiday second-home ownership, so families could self-isolate in the countryside (even if they didn't need an urgent an eye test...) or on the islands of the Stockholm archipelago.

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1 hour ago, Well b back said:

With the greatest of respect you have just wiped the report of facts and kept the possibility.

I have just seen that woman’s twitter account omg the doctor was when she was a military doctor and a couple of her tweets include

I'm very glad to see President Trump is gaining in the polls. He will win and send Sleepy Joe Biden into a coma!

If you need a food bank to feed your child, you have failed as a parent.

 

 

 

 

 

I think after a few years of practice I can spot a fake twitter account and hers looks dodgy as ****. It has all the hallmarks of a bot account.

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7 minutes ago, Herman said:

I think after a few years of practice I can spot a fake twitter account and hers looks dodgy as ****. It has all the hallmarks of a bot account.

Brazil let rip, I was going to ask if she could do a report on how that went tomorrow. I hope she doesn’t have elderly parents, let it rip because I want to spend Christmas with my family. 
I really enjoy the discussions and the debate on here and how we all move our thoughts, but I just can’t take it serious when we are asked to believe this above the scientists.

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Professor Robert West (University College London) now on Newsnight. Says no choice but to lockdown as a whole nation as there is no other way to get some control (not to solve it) or hospitals will struggle. Says it's inevitable what will happen. Has advised government but states decisions are political. Very serious bloke and no inkling of over statement. Anyone else seen this?

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Just now, sonyc said:

Professor Robert West (University College London) now on Newsnight. Says no choice but to lockdown as a whole nation as there is no other way to get some control (not to solve it) or hospitals will struggle. Says it's inevitable what will happen. Has advised government but states decisions are political. Very serious bloke and no inkling of over statement. Anyone else seen this?

I’m watching Peston.

Even the government side are saying communication disaster. 

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6 minutes ago, sonyc said:

Professor Robert West (University College London) now on Newsnight. Says no choice but to lockdown as a whole nation as there is no other way to get some control (not to solve it) or hospitals will struggle. Says it's inevitable what will happen. Has advised government but states decisions are political. Very serious bloke and no inkling of over statement. Anyone else seen this?

Has Ex Military Doctor Alice Jones KBF been on yet to tell us all how to sort this pandemic out ?

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8 hours ago, Barbe bleu said:

I am on here as a massive advocate of contact tracing.  I thought reliance on the pre-existing system to be the number one ir two cause of our problems.

I am a lot more sceptical now though. The numbers are too big,  its too widely spread and we are too mobile for me to think this makes a big contribution to suppression anymore.  

A guy walks across the south bank to get on a tube at Waterloo, goes to kings Cross and gets the inter city to Newcastle where he walks to the office via Gregg's.   We are not tracking all of that.  Even North Korean levels of surveillance couldn't track that. Maybe we could get a quite a few but the tide is inevitable without a vaccine.

 

 

Absolutely not - we have had extremely successful contract tracing systems in our public health authorities for many years. Right at the start of getting test, track and trace set up the government were advised by local Directors of Public Health & other public health experts that the tracing should be done locally - the government totally disregarded this advice.

I know that in our authority the Director of Public Health made a fully costed offer to the government to ramp up the existing capacity to cope with the expected additional demands of Covid, as I believe did many other local Directors. The Government declined and provided zero resources to local tracing out of the £12 billion allocated. 

The local tracing option would not only have provided staff with local knowledge, experience and a track record of doing the job successfully but they were already equipped with functioning IT systems which were already interfaced into NHS systems.

Despite all this the government has spent billions with accountancy firms and consultants who have no knowledge or experience of this field and by any reasonable criteria they have failed miserably. We now also know that they have spent millions developing software which is incapable of interfacing with NHS systems and utterly unbeliveably revolves around a bundle of b****y Excel spreadsheets!!!!! As someone who has spent virtually all my working life in IT, I find it literally incomprehensible that in 2020 anybody, never mind extremely highly paid consultants, could be as stupid as that.

This project hasn't just suffered from a few poor decisions or the odd mistake, it has been an exercise in incompetence on an epic scale which has wasted taxpayers' money on an equally epic scale.

Now I realise that you are never going accept or acknowledge the gross incompetence of this government but some of us were pointing this out in the very early stages of this project. Unfortunately for you it has now become common knowledge and we have had months of actual operation which have highlighted just how badly the system is performing. This was inevitable - the system design is just plain wrong, the implementation shambolic, and from everything we heard the training of huge numbers of inexperienced staff was woeful.

Even many of the backbench Tory MPs now seem to be realising that they've been sold a very expensive pup, so that just leaves you and cabinet thinking that they've done a good job - actually I guess the Cabinet must really know that its been a complete shambles but they haven't got the b***s to acknowledge it either.

 

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9 minutes ago, Well b back said:

I’m watching Peston.

Even the government side are saying communication disaster. 

It's a 10 second video clip only but the gist is here

Edited by sonyc

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On a lighter note regarding Swedish attitudes, apparently a common joke there is that they are relieved that the 2 metre social-distancing rule has been relaxed as they can now return to the normal 5 metres.

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I’m sure I just heard on the radio that Macron has said that the resurgence of the virus in Europe “ has taken everyone by surprise”.....unbelievable!!

Edited by Van wink

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1 hour ago, Van wink said:

I’m sure I just heard on the radio that Macron has said that the resurgence of the virus in Europe “ has taken everyone by surprise”.....unbelievable!!

More concerned with his fishing probably.

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1 hour ago, Van wink said:

I’m sure I just heard on the radio that Macron has said that the resurgence of the virus in Europe “ has taken everyone by surprise”.....unbelievable!!

There is very little more to say VW.

It was as sure as night follows day given the base facts and our lived experience.

I do feel for some politicians in the the West - and Europe in particular. Generally they've been found wanting.

Macron had tried escalating  local local lockdowns - clearly little effect. He has to act.

Merkel was going the same route.

Difference is Merkel (rates in Germany 1/2 what they are here apparently) looked dispassionately at the problem. Even German TTI has lost control / been overwhelmed - German hospitals will reach capacity in weeks. She looks at France and then acts decisively.

Meanwhile Johnson, politically boxed in and not man enough to say 'I go it wrong to Sage', ineffective as ever bumbles along with cases rising as we follow the French route with ever escalating local 'Tiers'. Bite the bullet Johnson and deal with the problem. Get a grip.

 

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Being widely reported that 1 in 78 are infectious and R is almost 3 in London (expected cases doubling every 9 days). The tiers haven't worked. A lot of grief for very little benefit?

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6 minutes ago, sonyc said:

Being widely reported that 1 in 78 are infectious and R is almost 3 in London (expected cases doubling every 9 days). The tiers haven't worked. A lot of grief for very little benefit?

I can understand why the tier system was tried, why wouldn't we want to minimise economic damage,  but if you go down this experimental road it has to be sadly much more draconian and as a bare minimum you have to restrict movement from high to low areas, even then its going to be very difficult to enforce. Norfolk has loads of half term holiday makers mingling around this week, how on earth can anyone think this wont spread infection.

 

 

Edited by Van wink

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4 minutes ago, Van wink said:

I can understand why the tier system was tried, why wouldn't we want to minimise economic damage,  but if you go down this experimental road it has to be sadly much more draconian and as a bare minimum you have to restrict movement from high to low areas, even then its going to be very difficult to enforce. Norfolk has loads of half term holiday makers mingling around this week, how on earth can anyone thing this wont spread infection.

 

 

I supported them because they simply made good common sense to my non expert mind but 'epidemiologically'  I've  not  been convinced they would work because reading about aerosol spreading and as you've stated such freedom of movement, then it cannot be contained.

Edited by sonyc
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4 minutes ago, Van wink said:

I can understand why the tier system was tried, why wouldn't we want to minimise economic damage,  but if you go down this experimental road it has to be sadly much more draconian and as a bare minimum you have to restrict movement from high to low areas, even then its going to be very difficult to enforce. Norfolk has loads of half term holiday makers mingling around this week, how on earth can anyone think this wont spread infection.

 

 

I think you touch on why I have said only a 'full strength' lockdown works in the UK  - if you leave any 'social' meetings open it undermines it and people find excuses. You may be able to get away with weaker lockdowns in other more responsible societies but not here.

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1 minute ago, Yellow Fever said:

I think you touch on why I have said only a 'full strength' lockdown works in the UK  - if you leave any 'social' meetings open it undermines it and people find excuses. You may be able to get away with weaker lockdowns in other more responsible societies but not here.

Yep, and we will do it but too late. Just to cheer things up......

Covid-19 variant from Spain accounts for more than 80% of UK cases

A coronavirus variant that originated in Spanish farm workers now accounts for the majority of new Covid-19 cases in several countries — and more than 80 per cent in the UK.

An international team of scientists that has been tracking the virus through its genetic mutations has described the extraordinary spread of the variant, called 20A.EU1, in a research paper to be published on Thursday.

It suggests that people returning from holiday in Spain played a key role in transmitting the virus across Europe.

Holidaymakers in Spain
Holidaymakers in Spain CREDIT: BORJA SUAREZ/REUTERS

The new variant emerged among agricultural workers in north-east Spain in June and moved quickly through the local population, according to the study.

It accounted for more than eight out of 10 cases in the UK, 80 per cent of cases in Spain, 60 per cent in Ireland and up to 40 per cent in Switzerland and France.

 The researchers concluded that the “risky behaviour” of holidaymakers in Spain — such as ignoring social distancing guidelines — who “continue to engage in such behaviour at home” helped the spread of the new variant.

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1 hour ago, Van wink said:

I’m sure I just heard on the radio that Macron has said that the resurgence of the virus in Europe “ has taken everyone by surprise”.....unbelievable!!

Morning all

I don’t think it’s in that context I think if you listen to Macron yesterday he said ‘ even taking the worst modelling scenario that was miles out ‘. That report yesterday if true, and the Goverment have not denied states they are looking at something that is far worse than the least promising modelling.

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14 minutes ago, sonyc said:

Being widely reported that 1 in 78 are infectious and R is almost 3 in London (expected cases doubling every 9 days). The tiers haven't worked. A lot of grief for very little benefit?

With a R of 3 in London surely that must finally nail forever the idea of any significant herd immunity type argument (I'll happily accept say 20% in London have had it it already and even another 10 or 20% may have some genetic or other immunity - but an R of three simply says there are a great many who lack immunity. Its obvious from Europe as as well.

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1 minute ago, Well b back said:

Morning all

I don’t think it’s in that context I think if you listen to Macron yesterday he said ‘ even taking the worst modelling scenario that was miles out ‘. That report yesterday if true, and the Goverment have not denied states they are looking at something that is far worse than the least promising modelling.

Fair comment - I don't 'blame' Macron - but he's now had to act. I give Johnson a month.

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I understand from our friend on the frontline that the problem in the hospitals is not ( at the moment ) the beds but the staffing. This time round all those that had it but then get symptoms have to isolate as they are certain it’s acting like a cold ( but at least they get tested quick now ). They are now working 12 hour shifts 5 days per week, no week off in some areas. I suspect the next step will be to start moving patients around the country ( I said that not her ).

This 3 weeks ago was not even into the older groups. 

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