Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Billy Jean King]

This may have been discussed to death already, but I'm lazy:
Are they just going to go with the status quo until cases are down to zero (which is somewhat ambitious to say the least), or do they have a magic R-type number target that allows officials to say "f*** the measures, this will be as good as we'll get, keep calm and carry on, fingers-crossed"?

It's over already. The announcement came from our resident PnB CMO over the weekend, surprised you missed it.

[coprolite]

22 minutes ago, MixuFruit said:

They load a company with debt so as not to have to pay corporation tax, which is the least of the bad things associated with it imo. 

The corporate interest restriction and hybrid rules have pretty much ended the happy time of the debt tax shelter. 

PE is a type of ownership rather than a business model. There is a range of strategies and approaches much like under any other ownership structure. 

[tamthebam]

4 hours ago, dirty dingus said:

Stop the Covid challange now.

Worst Gravedigger ever. 

[effeffsee_the2nd]

31 minutes ago, Steven W said:

Good question. I've no idea what we're aiming for any more. NZ has proved that "Zero Covid" is impossible.

The restrictions can't last forever

1 death in 6 weeks! you can't buy those figures for other commonplace diseases or conditions ( of which covid is now one) it will go up as cases go up with loosening of restriction but on the whole you'd have to say it's not bad just now, even englands deathrate isn't terrible. even clusterfuck countrys like the usa and brazil are beginning to flatline now , can't go on forever

[mizfit]

I don’t see a change at this review.

In 3 weeks I can see them about opening everything up.

[DiegoDiego]

NZ has proved that "Zero Covid" is impossible.

Tell that to North Korea.

[Fullerene]

10 minutes ago, DiegoDiego said:

Tell that to North Korea.

I mentioned it to their Eternal Leader but, for some reason, he did not respond.  His son didn't say much either.

[Marshmallo]

Leitch giving it the Barry McGuigan about phoning head teachers personally to say kids who have been in France or Spain need to isolate for 2 weeks, while allowing full classrooms of kids who spent an hour sitting next to a positive covid case. 

[doulikefish]

Greece and Croatia looking like to be next on the quarintine list if you are heading that way 

[engelbert_humperdink]

Becoming a bit of a piss take now. 1 death in a month and a half and yet still restrictions. As has been mentioned to death, covid isn't going away but the longer restrictions last the more people will end up a statistic and not through covid19. 

[Detournement]

As predicted yesterday day the Care home fiasco will be looked into by a trademark SNP public inquiry to be announced at later date. 

Total hubris from Sturgeon today. I saw her friend Val McDermid claiming that Sturgeon has handled the pandemic well because she reads fiction. We have the third worst excess deaths in Europe FFS!

[D.A.F.C]

Greece and Croatia looking like to be next on the quarintine list if you are heading that way 

Thats interesting because greece had one of the lowest rates in Europe.
I think its fair to say that whatever any country does international travel or releasing social distancing measures will just cause numbers to spike back up rapidly.
Reckon the only realistic way out is to either let things go unchecked or ramp up testing to near 100%. A daily test for everyone or a vaccine. Both of which seem a long way off.
At some point people will just ignore advice and do what they want, some are doing this already.

Schools and workplaces need to stay open along with health and recreation thats done in a safe way.
Cant see social distancing stopping until theres full test or vaccine/amazing treatment.

[DiegoDiego]

We have the third worst excess deaths in Europe FFS!

Not if you break the other countries down into their regions as well.

[Todd_is_God]

36 minutes ago, D.A.F.C said:

Thats interesting because greece had one of the lowest rates in Europe.
I think its fair to say that whatever any country does international travel or releasing social distancing measures will just cause numbers to spike back up rapidly.
Reckon the only realistic way out is to either let things go unchecked or ramp up testing to near 100%. A daily test for everyone or a vaccine. Both of which seem a long way off.
At some point people will just ignore advice and do what they want, some are doing this already.

Schools and workplaces need to stay open along with health and recreation thats done in a safe way.
Cant see social distancing stopping until theres full test or vaccine/amazing treatment.

Even if the specificity of the PCR test for SARS-Cov-2 was as high as 99.99% (there are so many different test kits it is hard to find out the precise specificity of the kit or kits used in the UK), testing the entire population each day would return at least 545 positives, with no way of knowing how many were false positives. It could never be zero, and would be largely useless.

Routinely testing asymptomatic people is not the way out of this. It's all very well being cautious and asking asymptomatic contacts of symptomatic positives to isolate, but really we need to think about not testing people who show no symptoms as the tests are not designed for identifying infectious people on their own.

It would be interesting to see how many of the daily cases in Scotland were actually symptomatic.

Edited August 17, 2020 by Todd_is_God

[D.A.F.C]

Even if the specificity of the PCR test for SARS-Cov-2 was as high as 99.99% (there are so many different test kits it is hard to find out the precise specificity of the kit or kits used in the UK), testing the entire population each day would return at least 545 positives, with no way of knowing how many were false positives. It could never be zero, and would be largely useless.
Routinely testing asymptomatic people is not the way out of this. It's all very well being cautious and asking asymptomatic contacts of symptomatic positives to isolate, but really we need to think about not testing people who show no symptoms as the tests are not designed for identifying infectious people on their own.
It would be interesting to see how many of the daily cases in Scotland were actually symptomatic.

Well if we just say go back to normal then thats no answer either.
I believe, as seen in europe, that this is just like a leaking tap. You can only suppress it so much but it will always be there until full testing or vaccine.
Go back to normal will equal an overun nhs especially in winter where normal flu is present.
I dont see why a reliable test can be developed and people test nearly every day. This happens for diabetes and other diseases for millions of people.
Sadly there's no easy way out of this and it could be years until its sorted.

[Todd_is_God]

37 minutes ago, D.A.F.C said:

Well if we just say go back to normal then thats no answer either.
I believe, as seen in europe, that this is just like a leaking tap. You can only suppress it so much but it will always be there until full testing or vaccine.
Go back to normal will equal an overun nhs especially in winter where normal flu is present.
I dont see why a reliable test can be developed and people test nearly every day. This happens for diabetes and other diseases for millions of people.
Sadly there's no easy way out of this and it could be years until its sorted.

The test is not 100% specific. This means false positives. Full testing is not the answer. What are you hoping to achieve by doing this?

Testing asymptomatic people for the presence of a string of virus RNA is not standard behaviour, nor is a positive result for said string, in the absence of symptoms, used in isolation to confirm a positive diagnosis. For SARS-Cov-19 a positive result ≠ infected or infectious.

No one is suggesting we go back to normal tomorrow (Why do people always go for this argument?), the suggestion is that we retain a certain amount of restrictions for now, but continue easing these, and save the testing for those that show symptoms.

That way the number of cases will fall over time, as will the numbers in hospital.

The apparent willingness of people to seek the indefinite continuation of restrictions on life as a result of a virus that can now be directly attributed to zero deaths in the last 32 days is absolutely insane.

I said a few weeks back that, once a few of these "clusters" and "spikes" pass with minimal (if any) harm done, people will slowly relax about it, and i've seen nothing since to change my mind.

Edited August 17, 2020 by Todd_is_God

[Alert Mongoose]

Can’t they just line up everyone in the world and test simultaneously (via hot robot nurses). Everyone positive moves to somewhere (let’s say England for arguments sake) and everyone else’s goes home. Give it a few weeks and we’re sorted.

[D.A.F.C]

Can’t they just line up everyone in the world and test simultaneously (via hot robot nurses). Everyone positive moves to somewhere (let’s say England for arguments sake) and everyone else’s goes home. Give it a few weeks and we’re sorted.

Building seven billion hot robot nurses could be a challenge.

[Detournement]

1 minute ago, D.A.F.C said:

9 minutes ago, Alert Mongoose said:

Can’t they just line up everyone in the world and test simultaneously (via hot robot nurses). Everyone positive moves to somewhere (let’s say England for arguments sake) and everyone else’s goes home. Give it a few weeks and we’re sorted.

Building seven billion hot robot nurses could be a challenge.

Ask Elon Musk on Twitter and he'll probably claim he's already doing it. 

[Steven W]

1 hour ago, engelbert_humperdink said:

Becoming a bit of a piss take now. 1 death in a month and a half and yet still restrictions. As has been mentioned to death, covid isn't going away but the longer restrictions last the more people will end up a statistic and not through covid19. 

Agreed.

Imagine in April you were told that by mid August we'll have went six weeks with one death, BUT you still can't attend a football match (even with limited numbers), nor go to the gym.

Somewhere along the line she's going have to press the button on it and let us do these things. If the numbers we have now aren't good enough, then when?