Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[welshbairn]

10 minutes ago, dirty dingus said:

Cheers, also states it maybe because it's the younger yins getting it now. though a drop from 18% fatality in April to 1% in August can only be a good thing.

Widespread use of face coverings could be a factor too.

https://theconversation.com/cloth-masks-do-protect-the-wearer-breathing-in-less-coronavirus-means-you-get-less-sick-143726

Edited August 31, 2020 by welshbairn

[vikingTON]

2 hours ago, Beans on Toast said:

I think the issue is any vaccine available in the short term isn't going to be reliable. I'd certainly not want to take a vaccine where the long term impacts are not known. And I won't want my kids, who are likely to avoid the worst of it anyway, to take something thats been rushed through.

What are the specific 'long term impacts' that you worry about? Excluding the always present - but extremely rare - chance of an allergic response or developing Guillain-Barre syndrome from an active vaccination, the only possibly 'negative' long term impact here is of not retaining immunity and being infected anyway. As of now though there is no inherent immunity unless you've already contracted the virus. 

Edited August 31, 2020 by vikingTON

[Todd_is_God]

11 minutes ago, virginton said:

What are the specific 'long term impacts' that you worry about? Excluding the always present - but extremely rare - chance of an allergic response or developing Guillain-Barre syndrome from an active vaccination, the only possibly 'negative' long term impact here is of not retaining immunity and being infected anyway. As of now though there is no inherent immunity unless you've already contracted the virus. 

That just isn't true

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200716-the-people-with-hidden-protection-from-covid-19

https://www.news-medical.net/amp/news/20200810/People-may-have-a-pre-existing-immune-response-to-COVID-19-thanks-to-common-colds.aspx

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-uncover-evidence-that-a-level-of-pre-existing-covid-19-sars-cov-2-immunity-is-present-in-the-general-population/

 

[Guest Bob Mahelp]

Serious question here...does anyone know what the government (UK and Scottish) exit strategy is ?

Are we waiting until there are actually NO coronavirus cases ? Are we meant to self-isolate, distance, wear masks, not travel, not go to sport,work from home and change everything about our lives for say...the next 30 years...until a vaccine is found ?

Or is the strategy to say, this virus is something we're just going to have to live with for the foreseeable future ? We'll try and control it, but we can't eliminate it and we have to get life back to 'normal' to try and avoid an economic disaster such as the world has never seen before ?

Or is the plan to just continue struggling along because governments are scared to make decisions that may well have political ramifications ?

 

[Todd_is_God]

I'd be interested to know what the major contrubuting factor(s) is in England having just 47 more people in hospital than here in Scotland.

Going purely on population proportion, we should be around 30

[welshbairn]

3 minutes ago, Bob Mahelp said:

Serious question here...does anyone know what the government (UK and Scottish) exit strategy is ?

Are we waiting until there are actually NO coronavirus cases ? Are we meant to self-isolate, distance, wear masks, not travel, not go to sport,work from home and change everything about our lives for say...the next 30 years...until a vaccine is found ?

Or is the strategy to say, this virus is something we're just going to have to live with for the foreseeable future ? We'll try and control it, but we can't eliminate it and we have to get life back to 'normal' to try and avoid an economic disaster such as the world has never seen before ?

Or is the plan to just continue struggling along because governments are scared to make decisions that may well have political ramifications ?

 

Bit gloomy mate, you think there won't be a vaccine for 30 years? 

[Billy Jean King]

I'd be interested to know what the major contrubuting factor(s) is in England having just 47 more people in hospital than here in Scotland.
Going purely on population proportion, we should be around 30

We are not known as the sick man of Europe for no reason. It really is no surprise at all given they key factors linked to a severe illness from C19.

[Todd_is_God]

11 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

17 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

I'd be interested to know what the major contrubuting factor(s) is in England having just 47 more people in hospital than here in Scotland.
Going purely on population proportion, we should be around 30

We are not known as the sick man of Europe for no reason. It really is no surprise at all given they key factors linked to a severe illness from C19.

This shows a comparison between the 4 nations of the UK.

Wales is a bit weird but continues downward. NI had a small bump but is downward. England clearly downward. We levelled off about 6 weeks back.

Do we count differently? i.e. you come in for an unrelated reason, are tested as a matter of routine, and then remain on the stats as someone in hospital with comfirmed covid until you recover from what you actually came in for?

Our seriously ill numbers have been single figures for a while, and only two deaths in 7 weeks don't add up to people being stuck in hospital for months.

You get a sense of it daily. Some days it will increase by a few, then it will drop by a few, but there appears to be a core of around 240 that just aren't moving, which is out of step with the rest of the UK.

 

Edited August 31, 2020 by Todd_is_God

[Guest Bob Mahelp]

21 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Bit gloomy mate, you think there won't be a vaccine for 30 years? 

Could be a year, could be 100 years. We still don't have a vaccine for the common cold (also a corona virus). 

I just wondered what the exit strategy here is, or if there's even close to being one. 

People are living with restrictions just now, with the belief that at some point in the short to medium term life will return to something like normal. It's impossible to ask people to keep on living this way indefinitely. 

[Michael W]

50 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

55 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

I'd be interested to know what the major contrubuting factor(s) is in England having just 47 more people in hospital than here in Scotland.
Going purely on population proportion, we should be around 30

We are not known as the sick man of Europe for no reason. It really is no surprise at all given they key factors linked to a severe illness from C19.

England isn't renowned for its health either tbh. Granted Scotland does seem to be particularly unhealthy, it surely isn't THAT unhealthy in comparison to England. 

There must be a problem with the stats somewhere because it just doesn't make sense. 

[welshbairn]

17 minutes ago, Bob Mahelp said:

Could be a year, could be 100 years. We still don't have a vaccine for the common cold (also a corona virus). 

I just wondered what the exit strategy here is, or if there's even close to being one. 

People are living with restrictions just now, with the belief that at some point in the short to medium term life will return to something like normal. It's impossible to ask people to keep on living this way indefinitely. 

Most people are back at work, the pubs are open, and I'm going on holiday in a couple of weeks, pretty confident that the Highland League will be back on in October. It's not like we're all trapped in bunkers for a nuclear winter. There's no such thing as THE common cold, there's loads of them, and they don't kill hundreds of thousands of people, so making a new vaccine for each variety wouldn't be viable.

Edited August 31, 2020 by welshbairn

[Todd_is_God]

https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-08-31/who-special-envoy-heaps-praise-on-sweden-s-covid-strategy?__twitter_impression=true

Interesting piece of praise from WHO...

[Guest Bob Mahelp]

10 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Most people are back at work, the pubs are open, and I'm going on holiday in a couple of weeks, pretty confident that the Highland League will be back on in October. It's not like we're all trapped in bunkers for a nuclear winter. There's no such thing as THE common cold, there's loads of them, and they don't kill hundreds of thousands of people, so making a new vaccine for each variety wouldn't be viable.

All very interesting and patronising, but it still doesn't answer my question regarding an exit strategy. 

[Todd_is_God]

14 minutes ago, Michael W said:

England isn't renowned for its health either tbh. Granted Scotland does seem to be particularly unhealthy, it surely isn't THAT unhealthy in comparison to England. 

There must be a problem with the stats somewhere because it just doesn't make sense. 

For the UK as a whole, the %age of patients in ICU is 7.9%

Which breaks down to:

England: 10.8%

Wales: 7.3%

N.I.: 11.7%

In Scotland it is just 1.9%

Something must be wrong somewhere as you wouldn't expect such a varience.

 

[vikingTON]

40 minutes ago, Bob Mahelp said:

Could be a year, could be 100 years. We still don't have a vaccine for the common cold (also a corona virus). 

The common cold isn't caused by 'a corona virus' but is caused by 'one of hundreds of viruses, including some coronaviruses'. There's no pressing incentive to devise an entire set of vaccines to cure it because it is not a significant illness anyway and carries little economic/social cost per individual infection.

This isn't even a remotely equivalent situation: the only question is how many weeks/months will it takes for successful vaccines to be completed and how quickly production can then be scaled up for general use.

Edited August 31, 2020 by vikingTON

[Todd_is_God]

11 minutes ago, Snafu said:

No its from the envoy not the WHO and from the other side of the world.

Given the person in question previously held this role

He was appointed, by the Director-General of WHO, as chair of the expert group on the reform of WHO’s work on outbreaks and emergencies in 2015.

I'd say it was fairly significant to come from him. Where he happened to be when he said it is irrelevant.

Edited August 31, 2020 by Todd_is_God

[welshbairn]

20 minutes ago, Bob Mahelp said:

All very interesting and patronising, but it still doesn't answer my question regarding an exit strategy. 

Ok, I expect a vaccine to be available within 6 months. In the meantime faster and more accurate testing will be available to free us up a bit more, and possibly more effective treatments for those with a serious dose, which is becoming increasingly rare as we adopt the the Far Eastern habit of wearing face masks occasionally, something they've handled for decades without inducing any noticeable Helen Lovejoy moments. 

Edited August 31, 2020 by welshbairn

[madwullie]

1 hour ago, Todd_is_God said:

https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-08-31/who-special-envoy-heaps-praise-on-sweden-s-covid-strategy?__twitter_impression=true

Interesting piece of praise from WHO...

We were talking about this in here in April. Our govt rightly or wrongly didn't trust the people to undertake measures without the force of the law. 

Iirc we asked nicely at first and people just did what they wanted. Definitely part of the blame lies with the govt for not underlining how serious things were (I know it's an English man's god given right to drink in the pub etc) but people in the UK in general (sweeping statement I know) seem to view guidance and rules as something that we should try to outwit and get around if we can, and they are mainly for other people to follow. 

 

Edited August 31, 2020 by madwullie

[Donathan]

Could be a year, could be 100 years. We still don't have a vaccine for the common cold (also a corona virus). 
I just wondered what the exit strategy here is, or if there's even close to being one. 
People are living with restrictions just now, with the belief that at some point in the short to medium term life will return to something like normal. It's impossible to ask people to keep on living this way indefinitely. 

They’d find a vaccine for the common cold if it was serious enough for governments to be ploughing money into scientific research for one. The reason we don’t have a vaccine for the cold is because there’s no real demand for one, not because it’s scientifically impossible

[Steven W]

6 hours ago, effeffsee_the2nd said:

I doubt it can really be affordable, no one - business or personal would have any confidence in making bookings, plans etc when there is such a high chance of it being cancelled. We can’t just stay in lockdown and hope the virus goes away before we run out of money. The lockdown was part of the uk government’s “delay” phase ie to buy time till we figure out how to manage this. Life simply has to go on

Ah. C'mon! Just think, in a couple of months we could be banging pots and pans on a Thursday at 8pm