By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions. We in turn value your personal details in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
Please log in or register. Registered visitors get fewer ads.
Ok, so watching the newsnight interview (thx whoever suggested watching it) and it seems we are taking the approach of wanting the population to develop immunity.
A few thoughts / questions.
Is this actually our policy or was it just an opinion from an informed advisor?
If CV could kill you, why does it matter if you get it now or in say the autumn?
If there is an overall benefit from herd immunity, why are we emcouraging people of wash hands etc. We should surely be solely nessaging to isolate the vulnerable and encouraging preventative measures for those in contact with the vulnerable? (If we want herd immunity)
Here's my take, having watched all of Boris' emergency press conference live yesterday, and having had a chat with a member of the House of Lords who has read Department of Health briefings:
They want 60 to 80% of the population to catch the virus, but as gradually as possible.
They want the fittest 60 to 80% of the population to catch the virus, and for the most vulnerable to avoid it altogether.
They don't want to make people make huge changes to their lifestyle if those changes will only have minimal impact.
They don't want to shutdown completely, slow transmission to almost zero, then come out of shutdown with everyone thinking it was a fuss about nothing, then have a second outbreak and people be "precaution fatigued" and no longer follow advice.
So schools are to stay open because, in the main, those children and young people and their parents are best able to catch the disease and recover. So, bit by bit, the 60 to 80% figure required for herd immunity will be built up. As said elsewhere, if schools close and grandparents care for children who may have the early stages of infection, when they are contagious but may not be displaying obvious symptoms, then a higher risk group will be exposed than if schools stayed open.
This is a percentages exercise. Some children and young people, and some parents, will be seriously ill, and some will die. But that would always be the case with a virus which we have no historic immunity to. The hope is that by trying to minimise infection of those in higher risk categories, the number of people who develop severe complications will be minimised, and so the NHS' capacity of ventilator beds and specialist staff will not be overwhelmed, so the number of seriously ill people who die will be minimised.
Now wash your hands.
60 to 80 per cent doesn't give herd immunity.
"They break our legs and tell us to be grateful when they offer us crutches."
This is the thing. If they want herd immunity then they should be actively encouraging healthy people to contract it whilst putting measures in place to protect those who are vulnerable. 60% also isn't enough to create herd immunity, even assuming that immunity is possible given there have been reports of people recontracting it and of there being a few different strands of it. I don't really get our strategy.
Absolutely, it reminds me of chicken pox in young children in a way. Authorities don't encourage you to try and get your young child infected, but it provides them with immunity.
Indeed, that could be down to testing not being 100% accurate.
Once your body has developed an immunity to a strain of a virus, as far as I'm aware, you cannot be reinfected with that same strain.
Now with the cold there can be dozens going around at one time, mutating year on year. So you could catch that same strain the next year if it has mutated far enough.
Most concerning thing for me right now is that they currently think this could be seasonal.
I was listening to a scientist on My Life scientific podcast about 6 months ago and unless I didn't take it in correctly, I believe you're incorrect.
There are about 140 strains of virus that cause the common cold (hence why it's a git to cure or inoculate against). You don't get the same strain twice as your body has the antibodies to fight it off once you get it once.
Getting a bit concerned that the government is losing faith in its strategy, and is not ‘promoting’ the concept of the herd sharing infection across healthy individuals, so openly....
... has the data indicated the Italy approach is essential
Getting a bit concerned that the government is losing faith in its strategy, and is not ‘promoting’ the concept of the herd sharing infection across healthy individuals, so openly....
... has the data indicated the Italy approach is essential
On the C4 Covid-19 prog at 9pm this eve, a poll of "front-line doctors" (I'm not sure whether GPs, hospital docs or a mix) showed 95% of them didn't think the Govt's current measures right now were strong enough or extended far enough (was in next room, so happy to be corrected if I misheard).
I was listening to a scientist on My Life scientific podcast about 6 months ago and unless I didn't take it in correctly, I believe you're incorrect.
There are about 140 strains of virus that cause the common cold (hence why it's a git to cure or inoculate against). You don't get the same strain twice as your body has the antibodies to fight it off once you get it once.
That's what I thought (I also posted on another thread that a few people who'd recovered in China had then apparently gone down with it again, but a couple of people said that was probably just a false reading of the results).
Getting a bit concerned that the government is losing faith in its strategy, and is not ‘promoting’ the concept of the herd sharing infection across healthy individuals, so openly....
... has the data indicated the Italy approach is essential
My cousin shared this from one of his Italian friends on FB.
Dear friends around the world, I know information about the outbreak is super confusing, so I wanted to share what I have learned in the past few weeks living in Milan, the capital of Lombardy, the worst affected region by Covid-19 outside of China. Please read & share if you think it’s helpful.
At the beginning of this crisis, I was one of those who shrugged this disease off as “just a bad flu”, and I was WRONG. At the time a much more intelligent man than I, my quantum physicist friend Nathan Shammah, scolded and schooled me from Tokyo with some hard facts, but still I didn’t fully get the scale of this situation: it’s genuinely hard to come to grips with, it’s so surreal. Now the stories from the hospitals in Milan and other Lombard cities leave no room for doubt: they depict a scenario that those of us who have lived in peacetime can’t even imagine. Lombardy is one of the richest regions in Europe, with a lot of resources and a high functioning universal healthcare system. Since the onset of this emergency, every OT, every room and every corridor has been turned into additional ICUs. Thousands of extra machines have been ordered (from the few companies that make them). Every doctor and every ward commandeered for Covid-19 (meaning other emergencies can’t be tended to in a timely manner, further endangering lives). Non Covid-19 ICU patients were airlifted to other regions. Hospitals overrun with critically ill patients. By many accounts, aged 70+ don’t get reanimated due to insufficient survival rates vs limited resources. This is a very solid health system brought to its knees in the space of 2 weeks, with the doctors equating it to a warzone. If it’s happening here, it stands to reason that it can happen anywhere. Us citizens must do what we can to stop this, or the system will collapse, and it will be a tragedy of epoch-defining proportions, if it isn’t already.
Here are 20 things I have learnt since the beginning of the crisis (if you find any inaccuracies, please point them out so I can correct):
1. The disease is called Covid-19, the virus that causes it is called SARS-CoV-2. Clue is in the title: genetically speaking, it is closely related to the virus that caused the SARS epidemic 17 years ago (SARS-CoV). This new coronavirus is less deadly, but extremely easy to spread. SARS stands for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. It’s NOT. THE. FLU.
2. Some people are asymptomatic carriers and spread the virus unknowingly
3. Roughly 80% of the infected get mild symptoms, survive with no lingering consequences.
4. HOWEVER roughly 20% of the infected get a severe form of pneumonia and MOST need assisted breathing in ICU via a respirator - potentially for weeks.
5. The central point: ANY HEALTH CARE SYSTEM WORLDWIDE HAS A LIMITED NUMBER OF RESPIRATORS AND ICUs. 1,000,000 infected would require 200,000 ICU beds. No country on Earth has that (for reference, the USA had a total of 94,837 ICU beds according to the AHA 2015 annual survey, for a population of 327.2mln as of 2018. If just 1% of the American population became infected IN A SHORT TIME SPAN, they would need 654,400 ICU beds to be properly cared for - that’s 559,563 short).
6. Older people are more at risk, but the risk is not zero if you are young. Anyone with the virus can develop severe pneumonia even with no co-factors at almost any age, with the widest demographic bulge at the top of older age tapering as age decreases, seemingly reaching zero, thankfully, in children. This means that you can’t be sure you’re going to shrug this off even if you are younger and in perfect health.
7. The very old are the most likely to die from the critical complications of Covid-19: this is because they are already frail, so once they are hit by severe pneumonia intensive care might not be able to save them. Medicine doesn’t do miracles. But even a 20 something with severe bilateral pneumonia and respiratory failure will need a respirator in ICU for a chance of survival.
8. If we get to the point where there are more critically ill than there are respirators, death rates will rise and spread more widely across age groups.
9. The problem therefore is LIMITING THE NUMBER OF TOTAL VIRAL TRANSMISSIONS to avoid having more critical patients than there are ICU beds: we must ensure that there are enough resources to care for ALL the critically ill.
10. Because the virus is highly transmissible, the only way to effectively prevent spread is to AVOID CONTACT BETWEEN PEOPLE.
11. The only way to completely avoid all human contact is to STAY HOME, and to make sacrifices that mean not being around people for work and play as much as possible. That is how we fight this.
13. Even when you know it's the right thing to do, dropping everything and staying in while stopping all but essential contact with other people is hard to do, and even harder to willingly do.
14. That is one big difference between China and Europe or America. China is an authoritarian state: when the government says you need to stay home, you do, or else. In western democracies, our personal freedoms are the foundation of our ways of life. This makes containing this outbreak on our side of the world more dependent on our willingness to take responsibility and make sacrifices, because law enforcement is - thankfully - not set up for total population control.
15. The typical reactions to the news of this epidemic are panic or dismissal (I was the latter): both I think understandable in the sea of confusing and frequently inaccurate (if not fabricated) information that is circulating, given that the media and politicians are our main sources, and we all know how untrustworthy they are; on top of that social media is the usual cesspit (the irony of making this statement in a facebook post isn’t lost on me). Neither reaction is terribly helpful, but as much as I hate to admit it, dismissal is worse, because by defying the rules you might help the virus spread.
16. DOCTORS KNOW BEST. They are the ones on the frontlines, risking their lives. They know the science, they see the reality on the ground. When the media has decency to make their voices heard, that’s the info you need. Scientists in general are doing their best to inform us, analysing data and trends also outside of the medical sciences: it seems to me their contributions are vital to understanding the situation. There are many great scientists on facebook and twitter to follow for accurate information. All the rest is faff.
17. A lot of bad info and conspiracy theories surround this, which is maybe a way to cope with the unavoidable uncertainty of this situation, given the fact that the official response from governments can be confusing and underwhelming (if not, let’s say, outright Trumpian). It’s important to look closely at sources even when they seem legit, because they often aren’t: some even take the form of audio messages on whatsapp from self-professing doctors.
18. The economic impact is incalculable, many business are going down and us freelancers are all by and large screwed, hence it’s important to think about integrating our income with any sort of remote work we can think of, if possible, asap. IF WE DO IT SOON, AS COORDINATED AS POSSIBLE, WE CAN LIMIT HOW LONG WE WILL HAVE TO CHANGE OUR LIFESTYLE.
19. Isolation in 2020 is not all bad: there are all kinds of ways in which we can communicate, collaborate, be together remotely. Even still, human contact is so essential to our well being, it’s tough. It’s good to keep busy. For us musicians, it’s a great opportunity to practice more, or finish that EP that’s been sitting there for years.
20. Here the shops have been closed as a measure to contain transmission, but supermarkets and grocery stores are open, subsistence supply lines 100% intact. There is no need for panic buying, this isn’t a great meteor about to wipe out civilisation. You can buy more bog roll next week when you go buy more food. (Seriously people, what’s with the bog roll?)
I’m gonna finish this ebook of a post on a positive note: in the last few days I have seen wonderful, responsible and empathic behaviours all around me. People in shops wearing latex gloves and smiling at each other while keeping at safe distance. Younger folk organising neighbourhood grocery supply lines for the elderly (delivery systems are overloaded). Kids writing sweet messages like “everything is going to be alright” with chalk on the pavement outside my building, complete with rainbows and hearts. Giving rules to Italians is very much like herding cats, but a sense of civic duty and personal responsibility is taking root in a way I have never seen before. Since the scale of this phenomenon has become apparent, the collective response has been by and large commendable imho. Our doctors, some of whom I count proudly among my friends, are rising to the challenge selflessly, going above and beyond in every possible way. I am proud of what we are doing in this country, and if we can do it the rest of you can do the same - or hopefully much much better, with the benefit of our experience.
If you end up with a situation where the vast majority of the frail, elderly and sickest in society die, of course the number of victims will decrease the next time it hits, because all the vulnerable are already dead!
I'd be amazed if someone in government doesn't see this as an opportunity to help resolve social care issue, even if they don't actually go down that road and intend to do it. I just wouldn't put it past some people who are in the government.
I strongly suspect that they've decided to choose the economy as being more important than the death toll and lets be blunt, the elderly and the sick are a drain on government finances so if they take a short term pain of a high death number, the long term it will benefit the country from all the money they save. Sorry if this seems harsh and particularly blunt, but keeping elderly and seriously ill people alive is expensive.
Personally I think this country has got it very wrong and in years to come if they really do go down this road, it will be seen as a black mark in our history. When someone writes the history books about Brexit and coronavirus it will show a country that has pretty much gone off the rails and took leave of it's senses.
[Post edited 13 Mar 2020 18:21]
Hmmm...
With visitors probably being banned from care homes this does not bode well...
"the measures will also let councils lower standards in care homes."
This is the thing. If they want herd immunity then they should be actively encouraging healthy people to contract it whilst putting measures in place to protect those who are vulnerable. 60% also isn't enough to create herd immunity, even assuming that immunity is possible given there have been reports of people recontracting it and of there being a few different strands of it. I don't really get our strategy.
Avoid crowds but go to school with hundreds of other people is a supremely contradictory approach.
If Herd Immunity is the plan then sport should be back on.
Avoid crowds but go to school with hundreds of other people is a supremely contradictory approach.
If Herd Immunity is the plan then sport should be back on.
This is the confusing thing. If the approach is herd immunity to protect the vulnerable, they should be encouraging herd behaviour and protecting the vulnerable. But they’re not doing either. What am I missing?
Indeed, that could be down to testing not being 100% accurate.
Once your body has developed an immunity to a strain of a virus, as far as I'm aware, you cannot be reinfected with that same strain.
Now with the cold there can be dozens going around at one time, mutating year on year. So you could catch that same strain the next year if it has mutated far enough.
Most concerning thing for me right now is that they currently think this could be seasonal.
"A small study out of China suggests that the new coronavirus can persist in the body for at least two weeks after symptoms of the disease clear up.
This sort of persistence isn't unheard of among viruses, experts told Live Science, and thankfully, the patients are most likely not very contagious in the post-symptom period. The findings may even be good news, said Krys Johnson, an epidemiologist at Temple University's College of Public Health. The viruses that tend to hang around in people's systems also tend to be the viruses that the body develops a strong immune response against.
"If the virus is staying in people's systems, then they may not be able to be reinfected," Johnson told Live Science.
After coronavirus The new study, published in the journal JAMA on Thursday (Feb. 27), followed four medical professionals ages 30 to 36 years old who developed COVID-19 (the disease caused by the new coronavirus) and were treated at Wuhan University's Zhongnan Hospital in China between Jan. 1 and Feb. 15. All of the individuals recovered, and only one was hospitalized during the illness. The patients were treated with oseltamivir, better known under the brand name of Tamiflu, an antiviral drug.
The patients were considered recovered after their symptoms resolved and after they tested negative for COVID-19 twice (on two consecutive days). After recovery, the patients were asked to quarantine themselves at home for five days. They continued to undergo throat swabs for the coronavirus after five days for up to 13 days post-recovery.
The results showed that every test between Day 5 and Day 13 was positive for the virus.
"These findings suggest that at least a proportion of recovered patients still may be virus carriers," the researchers wrote.
The findings come as Japan reported its first case of an individual who recovered from coronavirus and then became ill with the disease for a second time, according to Reuters. Given the new results on post-coronavirus persistence from China, it's not clear what happened with the Japanese patient, Johnson said. One possibility is that she caught a new version of the virus from another person; another possibility is that her own system did not fight off the virus completely and as it began to replicate inside her lungs again, she experienced a resurgence of symptoms. "
This is the confusing thing. If the approach is herd immunity to protect the vulnerable, they should be encouraging herd behaviour and protecting the vulnerable. But they’re not doing either. What am I missing?
Is the idea to try to allow kids and parents to catch it, and begin recovery process, at different times?
Worse case scenario has to be both parents and children being ill at the same time.
Is the idea to try to allow kids and parents to catch it, and begin recovery process, at different times?
Worse case scenario has to be both parents and children being ill at the same time.
I'm fully aware that might be made up.
[Post edited 14 Mar 2020 20:36]
I’ve no idea. Not sure anyone has as the government haven’t released their data so their assumptions aren’t known.
This has just come out from Harvard (well respected group). Don’t read if you’re easily scared.
We did some calculations about what we would expect in the best case scenario for the @GOVUK#COVIDー19 plan to obtain 'herd immunity'. We've just submitted them as a preprint but in the meantime, you can read them via this dropbox link. They're soberinghttps://t.co/aFkQ83snJr
Is the idea to try to allow kids and parents to catch it, and begin recovery process, at different times?
Worse case scenario has to be both parents and children being ill at the same time.
I'm fully aware that might be made up.
[Post edited 14 Mar 2020 20:36]
Luckily, kids don't seem to be badly affected.
The problem is that try as you might, unforeseen things happen - it's now out there, therefore it's out of control really.
Common cold is a coronavirus, people don't stop getting colds every year just because they had one once - the virus mutates, so most people get at least one a year.
As you (& others) have said, it all seems to be about the timing, and all those in the highest risk groups not all getting it at the same time which would lead to the NHS being overwhelmed & "ordinary" medical emergency cases not receiving proper treatment.
The problem is that try as you might, unforeseen things happen - it's now out there, therefore it's out of control really.
Common cold is a coronavirus, people don't stop getting colds every year just because they had one once - the virus mutates, so most people get at least one a year.
As you (& others) have said, it all seems to be about the timing, and all those in the highest risk groups not all getting it at the same time which would lead to the NHS being overwhelmed & "ordinary" medical emergency cases not receiving proper treatment.
Well, yes, kids don't get so badly affected. Quite.
But an unwell child is an unwell child, facing death or a snotty nose and feeling crap or otherwise, it needs to be looked after.
There are always unforeseen, yes. So the best you can do is play your odds.
Gets kids sick, protect some of the adult population for as long as possible.
Kids are in recovery when the parents are now not feeling so great.
I make no claims and am just thinking out loud.
It's hardly a revelation any more that our government are thinking along the lines of stages.
Rightly or wrongly, it makes some kind of sense I suppose. But all rather cold.
I did not like Johnson's, "people are gonna die - just accept it", speech.
Well, yes, kids don't get so badly affected. Quite.
But an unwell child is an unwell child, facing death or a snotty nose and feeling crap or otherwise, it needs to be looked after.
There are always unforeseen, yes. So the best you can do is play your odds.
Gets kids sick, protect some of the adult population for as long as possible.
Kids are in recovery when the parents are now not feeling so great.
I make no claims and am just thinking out loud.
It's hardly a revelation any more that our government are thinking along the lines of stages.
Rightly or wrongly, it makes some kind of sense I suppose. But all rather cold.
I did not like Johnson's, "people are gonna die - just accept it", speech.
Look on the bright side - at the end of the year, if Johnson's made the wrong call on this, it could be the political end of him. Silver linings & all that.
Rightly or wrongly, have come to the conclusion that probably 80% of us at least are going to get it, therefore it's a question of trying to time it right & avoid the peak if you're in the high risk groups. That includes starting to try & increase personal health - make more time for sleep, healthy diet with more veg, cooking properly etc.
Look on the bright side - at the end of the year, if Johnson's made the wrong call on this, it could be the political end of him. Silver linings & all that.
Rightly or wrongly, have come to the conclusion that probably 80% of us at least are going to get it, therefore it's a question of trying to time it right & avoid the peak if you're in the high risk groups. That includes starting to try & increase personal health - make more time for sleep, healthy diet with more veg, cooking properly etc.
No. You're missing the point.
The high risk groups need to stay the heck out of the way.
Stock-up, isolate.
Let the mainstay of the population take the hit and create a [relatively] safe environment by mass immunity.
The last thing anyone in a high-risk group wants to do is catch this.
The high risk groups need to stay the heck out of the way.
Stock-up, isolate.
Let the mainstay of the population take the hit and create a [relatively] safe environment by mass immunity.
The last thing anyone in a high-risk group wants to do is catch this.
It's unavoidable though. Eg early middle-aged neighbour came over this afternoon to discuss party wall, outside in light rain & moderate breeze therefore safe - but as he left through picket gate where it's a small confined space between 2 angles of house wall, he stopped to chat 2 feet away from me & said he'd been in a post office 2 days ago where people had been sneezing & coughing away!
See also Tangled's (?) thread where he said he was sitting chatting in rellie's house when some loon burst in uninvited & started sneezing & coughing all over the place.
By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions.
