Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[bendan]

22 minutes ago, Gordon EF said:

Lifting lockdown for low-risk groups is still a sensible option. The figures suggest that the death rates are likely to be extremely low for under 75s without underlying health conditions.

I've no idea why this doesn't seem to be discussed as a serious option. Get the majority of the population back to normal and divert all efforts into protecting high risk groups instead of spreading all the resources too thinly and wrecking the economy.

It is strange that such an obvious thing seems off limits without any discussion of how we could do it. Universities seem perfect for this - lecturers who are over 55/60 could do them online, and any staff in that age range can either work from home or continue with furlough, but everything else can go back to normal.

[Gordon EF]

1 minute ago, bendan said:

It is strange that such an obvious thing seems off limits without any discussion of how we could do it. Universities seem perfect for this - lecturers who are over 55/60 could do them online, and any staff in that age range can either work from home or continue with furlough, but everything else can go back to normal.

Yep, in the long run if will be far better for high-risk groups. Shorter lockdown and lower risk. Let's build up herd immunity whilst shielding the vulnerable. It was always the most sensible course.

[bendan]

I think we should be planning for how to deal with a possible second wave in winter. Schools (or at least secondary schools - I know there are childcare issues) could start earlier than normal in August, break in late November and do online learning for two or three weeks, then have a long winter holiday of 4 to 6 weeks. Even without Covid, I think that would be a good thing to do.

[bendan]

There's been a couple of interesting papers that hypothesise that because the more susceptible part of the population gets infected earlier, a greater degree of herd immunity can be acquired at lower levels in infection than previously expected.

There's one here:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.27.20081893v2.full.pdf

I could be interpreting this completely wrongly, but I think the idea is that the people who have large social networks are much more likely to have been infected in the early stages of the pandemic, leaving those with much smaller networks as the susceptible population, and so R will fall naturally and herd immunity could be achieved at a lower level than the previously reported 60 to 80%.

 

[Theroadlesstravelled]

Thousands took to the streets in Germany in a growing wave of demonstrations that has alarmed even Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Huge numbers of anti-lockdown protesters, conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers or extremists massed across Germany, with more than 5,000 gathering in Stuttgart, at least 1,500 in Frankfurt and around 1,000 in Munich.
"Corona is fake", claimed one poster held aloft in Stuttgart, "Isolation, Masks, Tracking, Vaccine - that's a no go", cried another.
Police in Berlin made 200 arrests as scuffles broke out, while in Hamburg, conspiracy theorists clashed with anti-lockdown protesters.
A recent poll commissioned by the Spiegel news magazine found that almost one in four Germans surveyed voiced "understanding" for the demonstrations.

They have dealt with the virus pretty well IMO.
British people are fat and stupid and far too willing to take Government's boaby of lies IMO.

[welshbairn]

27 minutes ago, Gordon EF said:

Yep, in the long run if will be far better for high-risk groups. Shorter lockdown and lower risk. Let's build up herd immunity whilst shielding the vulnerable. It was always the most sensible course.

We still don't know if there is any post infection immunity or if there is, how long it lasts. I'm putting my money on mutation, vaccine or antivirals, in that order.

[Gaz]

56 minutes ago, Forest_Fifer said:

Are you aware that the original blue marble image taken from Apollo 17 had the south at the "top" of the frame?

I can mind the first time I taught trigonometry and how a good chunk of my class could not grasp that concepts like "North", "South", "left", "right", "up", "in front" were human constructs.

[Gaz]

16 minutes ago, bendan said:

I think we should be planning for how to deal with a possible second wave in winter. Schools (or at least secondary schools - I know there are childcare issues) could start earlier than normal in August, break in late November and do online learning for two or three weeks, then have a long winter holiday of 4 to 6 weeks. Even without Covid, I think that would be a good thing to do.

The problem is that with secondary schools you have the issue of school transport. Local authorities have contracts with bus companies for specific times of the year. These contracts aren't easily changed.

[Granny Danger]

56 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

Sorry I understand your point now.

As Bendan and Gordon have said I think its unlikely we can't protect the most vulnerable. If we can do that we'd reduce any additional deaths by around 90%

It's also unlikely we'd get anywhere near 100% of the population infected

That’s very blasé; maybe having an abstract theoretical discussion about such an important subject has that effect.

 

[bendan]

2 minutes ago, Gaz said:

The problem is that with secondary schools you have the issue of school transport. Local authorities have contracts with bus companies for specific times of the year. These contracts aren't easily changed.

True, but how many bus companies are going to be overrun with business in the summer holidays of 2020? You would think they'd prefer to be driving in August than in December.

[Gordon EF]

6 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

We still don't know if there is any post infection immunity or if there is, how long it lasts. I'm putting my money on mutation, vaccine or antivirals, in that order.

That's true but given that (I think) mutations are likely to produce less, not more, deadly strains I still think herd immunity is the best bet. if herd immunity can be reached quickly for this strain, the more the chance of knocking it out before it mutates. If herd immunity takes a year to reach, much more likely we'll see a new strain and be back to teh beginning.

[Gordon EF]

6 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

That’s very blasé; maybe having an abstract theoretical discussion about such an important subject has that effect.

 

I don't see what's blasé about it. It's extremely simplistic to think that the tighter the lockdown, the more lives are saved, the better the outcome.

We know a lot more about the virus than we did 2 months ago and we know a lot more about the effects of lockdown than we did two months ago. People who never had covid 19 have died because of the lockdown and it's likely that many more early deaths will be caused by the ripples it will cause down the line for years to come. Not to mention the destructive financial effects it will have on millions of people's lives.

Look at the figures. the death rate is extremely low for the working age population who don't have underlying health conditions. if we put all our resources into shielding the vulnerable, it's likely we could actually lower the death rate amongst that group, compared to what we've seen so far.

Good solutions to these kinds of problems never come from feelings, they'll come from pretty cold evaluation of the facts.

[Todd_is_God]

19 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

That’s very blasé; maybe having an abstract theoretical discussion about such an important subject has that effect.

 

I don't think it's blasé at all to suggest that we will not get near 100% of the population infected but ok

[madwullie]

It's not an insurmountable problem but mixture between what we consider low risk and high risk groups is going to be difficult to avoid at some level. Not sure what we can do about that. 60+ working public, grandparents looking after children, etc etc

[madwullie]

Most staff in schools for eg are 55+ outwith teachers in my experience for eg. Technicians, dinner ladies, a lot of support etc. Head teachers and school management tend to be older too 

[Gordon EF]

2 minutes ago, madwullie said:

It's not an insurmountable problem but mixture between what we consider low risk and high risk groups is going to be difficult to avoid at some level. Not sure what we can do about that. 60+ working public, grandparents looking after children, etc etc

Nobody is suggesting more mixing than we're having right now.

[Gordon EF]

4 minutes ago, madwullie said:

Most staff in schools for eg are 55+ outwith teachers in my experience for eg. Technicians, dinner ladies, a lot of support etc. Head teachers and school management tend to be older too 

It's definitely worth looking into the figures more but my understanding is that age itself is not the main factor, it's likelihood of having some underlying condition. The 55-65 group has higher levels of underlying conditions than younger age groups, that's primarily why we're seeing more deaths there.. Everyone with an underlying condition should be shielded. I'm not sure there's any good reason to say a healthy 60 year old shouldn't be working.

Edited May 16, 2020 by Gordon EF

[Todd_is_God]

1 minute ago, madwullie said:

It's not an insurmountable problem but mixture between what we consider low risk and high risk groups is going to be difficult to avoid at some level. Not sure what we can do about that. 60+ working public, grandparents looking after children, etc etc

I agree it will be difficult to avoid but there is risk involved with everything in life.

It's not even close to being an option to keep locking down time and time again, or to prevent businesses etc operating, employing and catering to those who wish to use them.

Once the healthcare capacity is in place to ensure we can cope with any future outbreaks then the at risk group will be given information on how best to minimise their risk and be left to follow it or ignore it as they see fit.

[Todd_is_God]

2 minutes ago, Gordon EF said:

It's definitely worth looking into the figures more but my understanding is that age itself is not the main factor

Age and a pre-existing condition combined is the main factor

At all age groups, having no underlying condition greatly reduces your chances of dying.

Younger people with underlying conditions appear less vulnerable.

[expatowner]

Can anybody post a graph of global deaths that might, or might not, show a Corona virus blip?