Coronavirus

[G STAR RAM]

9 minutes ago, Eddie said:

Their testing and tracing was from the outset, the same as South Korea. Two months on when an epidemic has become a pandemic, testing is largely an irrelevance and tracing a pointless exercise, relatively speaking.

How's the old Tory policy of "Herd immunity" going now, eh? The genie is out of the bottle.

Not being a scientist I have no idea how these things work.

With a vaccine supposedly not being available for over a year, isnt achieving herd immunity in a controlled manner the only way out of this now?

[Angry Ram]

36 minutes ago, BaaLocks said:

It's not Captain Hindsight though is it?

You can go back on this forum - a load of football fans shooting the poo - and see that there were questions asked about why Cheltenham was being allowed to go ahead while France was in lockdown, why Liverpool were allowed to play when PSG and others were behind closed doors, why the pubs were allowed to remain open when we had seen what had happened in Italy and other countries.

This is not hindsight, people were shouting it from the rooftops but Boris knew best, Daniel Hannin in the Telegraph knew best, the Sun knew best.

And, as a result of that people are dead today. When a forum that can't even agree if Chris Martin deserves a starting place can raise an opinion like that and the government cannot, when even Piers freaking Morgan can see it, even @G STAR RAM can see it and I've got him on block then you can't say it's a bunch of after timers calling it.

It is not Captain Hindsight and don't even try to gaslight people into believing it is.

A vast raft of people knew best but nobody knew for sure. He acted on the information and advice at the time. Who knows if Cheltenham made the situation worse.. What exactly where the outcomes from those events?

I am sure mistakes have been made, Cheltenham a good example but do you really think Boris makes these decisions on his own? Always easy when it’s not your responsibility.. Everyone will be an expert after I am sure.

[TramRam]

43 minutes ago, SchtivePesley said:

Thanks - saved me a job typing that response ?

It's not even about hindsight anyway - it's about an official enquiry into what advice was received and when, what decisions were taken and when/who by, and whether those decisions caused needless loss of life. The fact Boris sat on TV and nonchalantly talked about taking it on the chin and letting it run through the community suggests he made a very bad choice somewhere along the line

An investigation there will surely be, Mistakes have surely happened, Lessons MUST be learned, BJ is the head of Government, His advisors, His expert medical team and others will be put in the dock if this Disaster turns into a Catastrophe.

[BaaLocks]

25 minutes ago, Tamworthram said:

I wonder if you can really compare the UK to Sweden though. Maybe it is valid.

However, perhaps Norway is more similar to Sweden in terms of many things including population density (although I do accept that large areas of Sweden and Norway are probably very sparsely populated).

Population per square mile are: UK 710 whereas Sweden and Norway are only 60 and 44 respectively.

Reported deaths per million of population are: UK 178 and Sweden 102 Whereas, in Norway where I think the lock down is much stricter than Sweden the rate is 26. 

I summary, I think there are far too many variables to draw any definite conclusions when comparing different countries.

I think we can compare to Ireland and, while it is fair (I think, I actually haven't checked) to say they have a higher percentage of people living in rural communities than in the UK you can say that we had similar opportunities to act and did differently. It was a statement of the way that we were handling the crisis when we decided to cancel the Birmingham St Patrick's Day celebrations four days after they had been cancelled in Dublin.

To see what that mentality has had on the subsequent impact of the virus read here but if it's a bit TLDR for you the punchline is - less people dead.

 

[therealhantsram]

30 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

With a vaccine supposedly not being available for over a year, isnt achieving herd immunity in a controlled manner the only way out of this now?

Look for my post earlier today. The article describes a way out of lockdown that experts are settling on. Short version: herd immunity not possible because 1. we're not even sure yet that people who have recovered are immune. 2. It would take about 18 months in lockdown, which just isn't feasible for the economy or people's mental health.

So we are likely to have widespread testing, with 'clean' certificates that allow some people out more while others have to stay locked down, coupled with location tracking apps on all our phones to allow recent contacts to be notified in the case that a test proves positive.

[BaaLocks]

40 minutes ago, Angry Ram said:

A vast raft of people knew best but nobody knew for sure. He acted on the information and advice at the time. Who knows if Cheltenham made the situation worse.. What exactly where the outcomes from those events?

I am sure mistakes have been made, Cheltenham a good example but do you really think Boris makes these decisions on his own? Always easy when it’s not your responsibility.. Everyone will be an expert after I am sure.

I'm not looking for a row (we can have that over whether or not Tom Lawrence is worth his place when we get over this) but I did just want to answer the questions raised.

Cheltenham: In a world first I shall quote the Daily Mail here though pretty much every paper has articles of the same ilk. Number of people that dies as a result, impossible to say but put 60,000 people in a confined space at the same time a highly infectious virus is about and you shouldn't be surprised it doesn't help things. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8179369/How-Cheltenham-Festival-hotspot-coronavirus-cases.html

Infectious: Watch the Horizon special with Hannah Fry, she does a really interesting piece on the R0 of an infectious virus. It's basically that old thing where you put one grain of rice on the first square of a chess board and then double it. Well, it makes the point and we (well, those who should have known knew) all knew that point, just some chose to ignore it.

 

[Gritstone Ram]

I see we have plenty of Coronavirus experts on here who obviously are wasted in whatever they do and should be advising the Government and saving lives.

From what I can see and from how things are run the government would have experts and advisers giving them both advice on the effects on the economy and the effects to life. I suspect these same people would also advise a Labour Government or what ever Government is running the country. 
The virus is still in its infancy and various countries have handled it in different ways. I am not entirely sure the information coming from China was what was happening in other countries even though China had a head start.

The last outbreak of anything in this country to my knowledge was Swine Flu where we didn’t need to lockdown we didn’t cancel football etc. 
The Coronavirus experts on here are quick to criticise the mistakes that have been made before the pandemic is even over. We are in the middle of it for gods sake. How does anyone know how this will pan out yet.

One think I can’t get my head around is the number of confirmed cases to the number of tests carried out in Germany. It may be Germany can hold out for a vaccine but I think they have contained it but they’re no way over it. Sweden’s confirmed cases are starting to rise. 
Come on experts what’s going to happen next?

[Gritstone Ram]

1 hour ago, Eddie said:

Their testing and tracing was from the outset, the same as South Korea. Two months on when an epidemic has become a pandemic, testing is largely an irrelevance and tracing a pointless exercise, relatively speaking.

How's the old Tory policy of "Herd immunity" going now, eh? The genie is out of the bottle.

Just tell me Covid expert if you have had the Coronavirus are you immune?

[Rev]

1 hour ago, Tamworthram said:

I wonder if you can really compare the UK to Sweden though. Maybe it is valid.

However, perhaps Norway is more similar to Sweden in terms of many things including population density (although I do accept that large areas of Sweden and Norway are probably very sparsely populated).

Population per square mile are: UK 710 whereas Sweden and Norway are only 60 and 44 respectively.

Reported deaths per million of population are: UK 178 and Sweden 102 Whereas, in Norway where I think the lock down is much stricter than Sweden the rate is 26. 

I summary, I think there are far too many variables to draw any definite conclusions when comparing different countries.

It's worth bearing in mind that 35% of the Swedish adult population live alone, which I'd assume is far higher than the UK.

[Highgate]

Allowing the Cheltenham festival to go ahead was a spectacular error. The danger posed by Covid-19 was well known at that stage and it was time for the government to step in if the organizers themselves weren't going to call it off.  Both the UK and Ireland are paying the consequences for that shortsightedness now.  To what extent, we'll never know for sure.   Those attending didn't cover themselves in glory either. 

[BaaLocks]

4 minutes ago, Van Gritters said:

Just tell me Covid expert if you have had the Coronavirus are you immune?

Well, there is no virus in the history of evolution that you can have and not be immune to it. It's just not how immune systems work so it would be something beyond amazing to suggest it would happen now. What may happen, and this certainly would happen if 'herd immunity' were allowed to be something more than loopy ramblings of a select few, is that we would be faced with Covid-20, Covid-21 and so on. And then we are in real trouble, although tbf viruses do tend to become less severe (eventually) on mutation - they need the host to stay alive as long as possible otherwise they lose the way in which they get passed on.

[Tamworthram]

29 minutes ago, BaaLocks said:

I think we can compare to Ireland and, while it is fair (I think, I actually haven't checked) to say they have a higher percentage of people living in rural communities than in the UK you can say that we had similar opportunities to act and did differently. It was a statement of the way that we were handling the crisis when we decided to cancel the Birmingham St Patrick's Day celebrations four days after they had been cancelled in Dublin.

To see what that mentality has had on the subsequent impact of the virus read here but if it's a bit TLDR for you the punchline is - less people dead.

 

Population per square mile in Ireland is 181 compared with the UK 710.

I don't know if the UK government acted fast enough or if population density is a relevant factor (although I suspect it is). There are just to many variables to draw conclusions. The two most densely populated countries in Europe (with a population in excess of 1 and therefore excluding the likes of Vatican City and Monaco) are The Netherlands and Belgium. Both of these have higher or comparable reported death rates per million of population compared to the UK (Netherlands = 172, Belgium = 359, UK = 178). 

[BaaLocks]

36 minutes ago, Van Gritters said:

I see we have plenty of Coronavirus experts on here who obviously are wasted in whatever they do and should be advising the Government and saving lives.

From what I can see and from how things are run the government would have experts and advisers giving them both advice on the effects on the economy and the effects to life. I suspect these same people would also advise a Labour Government or what ever Government is running the country. 
The virus is still in its infancy and various countries have handled it in different ways. I am not entirely sure the information coming from China was what was happening in other countries even though China had a head start.

The last outbreak of anything in this country to my knowledge was Swine Flu where we didn’t need to lockdown we didn’t cancel football etc. 
The Coronavirus experts on here are quick to criticise the mistakes that have been made before the pandemic is even over. We are in the middle of it for gods sake. How does anyone know how this will pan out yet.

One think I can’t get my head around is the number of confirmed cases to the number of tests carried out in Germany. It may be Germany can hold out for a vaccine but I think they have contained it but they’re no way over it. Sweden’s confirmed cases are starting to rise. 
Come on experts what’s going to happen next?

1: You can't save lives now, the damage is done and was done at Cheltenham, in the pubs on the Friday nights, on Brighton beach on the Sunday. It's done. All we can do is enforce lockdown till a time when the NHS can cope with the rise in cases that will occur when we all get let out again.

2: Yes, advice would have been the same to any government - this isn't a political rooster up this is a humanitarian one.

3: Virus is not in it's infancy, we have seen at least three countries go through the curve before it came here. We have had coronavirus on our radar for many years and we have been warned of pandemics for years - Bill Gates is enjoying every moment of his five year old Ted talk being shown, even Dubya is on record as warning of it and he wasn't famed for his prescience.

4: Swine flu is actually the same H1N1 virus that caused Spanish 'flu and we didn't go into lockdown because it didn't kill people to anywhere near the same degree as coronavirus.

5: Hold out for a vaccine? Are you aware how many anti-viral vaccines have ever been developed? Less than 50, ever. And about 20 of those are for the 'flu. I don't say it is impossible but this isn't just 'hang on while I pop down to Boots'.

 

What's next? What should be something like.

1: Preparation of the NHS for future waves. PPE, ventilators, Nightingale hospitals. We need them for now, and for the future.

2: Eventual release of lock down on a phased level. Use of app or certificate for people who have had the illness, allowing them to return to work.

3: Preparation for a society that moves in and out of lockdown as needed.

4: Restriction, not ban, on international travel. Only essential travel allowed (and going to the company Christmas party in Brussels is not that).

5: A full enquiry into the shambles of a mess that ran this country in the run in to the crisis. To include review of media, opposition and lobbying groups to ensure that we never, ever find ourselves in a position where we are utterly blind sided like we were in the run in to this.

6: With apologies to @Paul71 for a little bit of politics (as Ben Elton would say) cancel Brexit, for review in five years. Anyone who thinks we need to worrying about that at this time needs to give their head a wobble, no matter what your position on it.

[Eddie]

At the end of the day, any recriminations are with the benefit of hindsight. All we can do is look at our response, compare it to that of other countries - and use the information gained  in order to engineer a better response next time - because there WILL be a next time.

[Gritstone Ram]

19 minutes ago, BaaLocks said:

Well, there is no virus in the history of evolution that you can have and not be immune to it. It's just not how immune systems work so it would be something beyond amazing to suggest it would happen now. What may happen, and this certainly would happen if 'herd immunity' were allowed to be something more than loopy ramblings of a select few, is that we would be faced with Covid-20, Covid-21 and so on. And then we are in real trouble, although tbf viruses do tend to become less severe (eventually) on mutation - they need the host to stay alive as long as possible otherwise they lose the way in which they get passed on.

There are reports from Korea that people have become reinfected but no one can confirm this one way or the other. There is not enough knowledge about this virus. Also would a vaccine work if there are chances of a mutation? 
What is the next move? How far do you go down one avenue if it is at best an educated guess? 
I and may be most people want to see an end to this I am not bothered whether someone should have gone to the horse races or a game of football should have been played I need to know if antibodies are going to work and do they work better in some than others?  

[Uptherams]

49 minutes ago, Van Gritters said:

I see we have plenty of Coronavirus experts on here who obviously are wasted in whatever they do and should be advising the Government and saving lives.

From what I can see and from how things are run the government would have experts and advisers giving them both advice on the effects on the economy and the effects to life. I suspect these same people would also advise a Labour Government or what ever Government is running the country. 
The virus is still in its infancy and various countries have handled it in different ways. I am not entirely sure the information coming from China was what was happening in other countries even though China had a head start.

The last outbreak of anything in this country to my knowledge was Swine Flu where we didn’t need to lockdown we didn’t cancel football etc. 
The Coronavirus experts on here are quick to criticise the mistakes that have been made before the pandemic is even over. We are in the middle of it for gods sake. How does anyone know how this will pan out yet.

One think I can’t get my head around is the number of confirmed cases to the number of tests carried out in Germany. It may be Germany can hold out for a vaccine but I think they have contained it but they’re no way over it. Sweden’s confirmed cases are starting to rise. 
Come on experts what’s going to happen next?

The CMO or CSO stated he expected around 20,000 deaths, before we went into lockdown, if i remember correctly. Based on their approach to flatten the curve and what they have been saying recently about how they'll know in a few more days if we have passed the peak, if that is the case, then this prediction is looking fairly accurate. 

We haven't seen or heard of hospitals overcrowding or a lack of beds or ventalators. The biggest criticism is lack of PPE, but there is a world wide shortage. 

I think that when the dust settles and we are out of this first wave, the attention of the critics will shift to the government overreacted, look at the damage they have done to the economy, etc.

 

 

[therealhantsram]

42 minutes ago, BaaLocks said:

Well, there is no virus in the history of evolution that you can have and not be immune to it

It's more complex than that. There are two factors to consider. 

1. The length of time antibodies stay in the body. Often you can get immunity to a virus, but it only lasts for around 12 to 18 months. 

2. Viruses mutate. Regular flu for instance, has different strains circulating each year. 

Which mean that having survived the virus in no way means you can't get it again. 

[Ewe Ram]

I’ll tell you what. Go educate yourself with what the WHO are saying because they are the experts that all countries are acting upon. 
I sat through their press conference yesterday. I’ll listen to them, some of the ‘experts’ on this forum are laughable. 

[Comrade 86]

Quick word to say thanks to those who have posted and sent DMs during my brief absence. GF is now hopefully on the mend and assuming improvement is maintained should be out of the ICU tomorrow or the following day. Suffice to say while I'm taking nothing for granted as yet, my stress levels are dropping rapidly and I've not destroyed any further fixtures and fittings as a consequence.

Thanks again chaps and chapettes. Much obliged. Hope all of you lot and your kin are safe and healthy and coping with lockdown OK. Perhaps in a month or so we'll see things slowly returning to normal and we can get back to moaning about the footy instead of this hateful ducking virus.

COYR

[G STAR RAM]

3 minutes ago, Ewe Ram said:

I’ll tell you what. Go educate yourself with what the WHO are saying because they are the experts that all countries are acting upon. 
I sat through their press conference yesterday. I’ll listen to them, some of the ‘experts’ on this forum are laughable. 

Have they decided whether wearing masks or not is a good idea yet?