coronavirus

[ckn]

I know there's a few folk on here as diabetic and pre-diabetic. Here's the advice from the NHS England Clinical Director for Diabetes Professor Partha Kar. The link's a bit obscured, but here it is separately as well.

 

[ckn]

I mentioned earlier in this thread that we had a holiday in Italy planned for late April. I asked our insurers today the flat question on whether I should pay the final payment on Friday given we'd only paid £300 deposit and then rely on British Airways to refund it if the flights get cancelled.

Their flat answer was "Please do not pay the balance of the holiday as the FCO is advising against travel to Italy, you would be able to submit a claim for the deposit". Apparently as the FCO advice is not time bound, it counts for all holidays there and most insurers will follow that same basis.

I'm going to ask BA to swap the deposit to another holiday and we'll go with them, otherwise we'll just hunt around for an alternative including other providers. I'm fairly sure that BA will be desperate for the business.

[DavidM]

Go anyway , you won’t have to queue to get into all the best spots . 

[Martyn Sadler]

South Korea probably has the highest rate of testing for the coronavirus of any country in the world.

Until today they have reported 7,382 confirmed cases out of more than 189,000 tests and reported 51 deaths, which is a death rate of about 0.69% of those infected. So far, 166 people who contracted the virus have fully recovered from it.

What they don't report, however, is how many of those who died also had other medical conditions that contributed to their death.

I suspect that information, if revealed, would push the death rate down to something less than 0.5%, or one in every two hundred, who have died from the coronavirus with no other contributory factors. That figure suggests we shouldn't be panicking about this virus.

Here are the figures.

[ckn]

It seems you get what you pay for, easyJet are refusing to cancel flights to Milan and refusing to give refunds, except for government tax that's only paid if you actually travel.

[ckn]

1 minute ago, Martyn Sadler said:

South Korea probably has the highest rate of testing for the coronavirus of any country in the world.

Until today they have reported 7,382 confirmed cases out of more than 189,000 tests and reported 51 deaths, which is a death rate of about 0.69% of those infected. So far, 166 people who contracted the virus have fully recovered from it.

What they don't report, however, is how many of those who died also had other medical conditions that contributed to their death.

I suspect that information, if revealed, would push the death rate down to something less than 0.5%, or one in every two hundred, who have died from the coronavirus with no other contributory factors. That figure suggests we shouldn't be panicking about this virus.

Here are the figures.

No...

Simply no... that's billhooks of the highest level order. It's people like you spreading tripe like that that will get people killed.

What do you think Italy is doing? Putting people in the skip at the first sign of a sniffle? Italy's demographics, people and structure are far closer to ours than South Korea, they have a far better healthcare capacity than us and have had robust government interventions to stop the spread yet look what happened.

Here's the CDC analysis of global deaths by this virus. I think I'll trust the CDC and all the specialists on this..

[Martyn Sadler]

6 minutes ago, ckn said:

NIt's people like you spreading tripe like that that will get people killed.

I'm not sure why you want to write such an insulting comment.

You mean that stating scientifically gathered facts will get people killed?

That is clearly ridiculous.

How on earth can one piece of factual information be tripe, as you put it, when you then purport to present another piece of factual information as the real thing?

The information I presented came from South Korea, while yours comes from the CDC and it attempts, as far as I can gather, to cover the world as a whole. I would guess that the chances of information from South Korea being more accurate than information aggregated from China and the rest of the world would be quite considerable.

In any case, the graph you presented doesn't necessarily contradict the information I presented. Whereas the stats I presented were not age-differentiated, your information broke down the deaths into age-groups, not surprisingly showing that for young people the risk is negligible, while for people over 80 it is much more significant. Of course we already knew that. But the average for all age-groups will still be very small.

[Saintslass]

8 hours ago, ckn said:

There's nothing so dangerous to office morale than a middle-manager who wants to be seen to be "doing something" but without the competence to understand what that actually means.

I'd be grateful just for a middle manager who wants to be seen to be doing something.  At my workplace, providing liquid soap in the kitchen area and more bottles of hand sanitiser is all they have done.

Hardly anyone is washing their hands in the kitchen.  Virtually nobody is taking any notice of the growing number of cv casualties locally, never mind nationally.  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, Martyn Sadler said:

South Korea probably has the highest rate of testing for the coronavirus of any country in the world.

Until today they have reported 7,382 confirmed cases out of more than 189,000 tests and reported 51 deaths, which is a death rate of about 0.69% of those infected. So far, 166 people who contracted the virus have fully recovered from it.

What they don't report, however, is how many of those who died also had other medical conditions that contributed to their death.

I suspect that information, if revealed, would push the death rate down to something less than 0.5%, or one in every two hundred, who have died from the coronavirus with no other contributory factors. That figure suggests we shouldn't be panicking about this virus.

Here are the figures.

Why should we exclude the pre-existing conditions from the mortality rate? 

[tonyXIII]

3 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Why should we exclude the pre-existing conditions from the mortality rate? 

When trying to establish the link between one variable and an outcome, it is normal scientific procedure to keep all other variables constant in order to 'prove' the link is solely between the one variable and the outcome. Excluding pre-existing conditions means that your results correctly identify the causal link between cv and death because you eliminate any other causes of death, such as pneumonia.

[ckn]

5 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Why should we exclude the pre-existing conditions from the mortality rate? 

The average age at which a UK male will get a “pre-existing condition” is 63.4 years of age, reducing to 52 years’ old in the most deprived areas, increasing to 71 in the most deprived. Just think of that, 52 years is the average age for someone to get a life-impacting illness and most likely at the highest risk of Coronavirus. But maybe they should just die and decrease the surplus population.

If selfish people can’t take this seriously to help protect some of the most vulnerable people in the country then I don’t know what else we can do. Remembering that a not-inconsiderable portion of the folk on this forum may fit into those who’ve “nothing to worry about” despite them fitting into that “pre-existing condition” category.

[ckn]

7 minutes ago, tonyXIII said:

When trying to establish the link between one variable and an outcome, it is normal scientific procedure to keep all other variables constant in order to 'prove' the link is solely between the one variable and the outcome. Excluding pre-existing conditions means that your results correctly identify the causal link between cv and death because you eliminate any other causes of death, such as pneumonia.

Our statistics work on “but for Coronavirus, would this person have died now?” If the answer is “no” then Coronavirus caused it regardless of whether they were on a terminal cancer list or merely had high blood pressure.

[Dave T]

8 minutes ago, tonyXIII said:

When trying to establish the link between one variable and an outcome, it is normal scientific procedure to keep all other variables constant in order to 'prove' the link is solely between the one variable and the outcome. Excluding pre-existing conditions means that your results correctly identify the causal link between cv and death because you eliminate any other causes of death, such as pneumonia.

But we have those stats broken down by pre-existing condition so people can understand where they sit risk wise. People are trying to play down the risk here by stripping out as many cases as possible and normalising this. 

Stripping out pre-existing conditions is flawed as that is often how things like this lead to death. 

[Bedford Roughyed]

20 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Why should we exclude the pre-existing conditions from the mortality rate? 

We don't exclude pre-existing conditions from the flu death stats, or measles, or the plague, or ebola... or traffic accidents.

Yes he had diabetes, a heart condition and a cold when he was run over, so it doesn't count towards the road death figures?

[Damien]

11 minutes ago, tonyXIII said:

When trying to establish the link between one variable and an outcome, it is normal scientific procedure to keep all other variables constant in order to 'prove' the link is solely between the one variable and the outcome. Excluding pre-existing conditions means that your results correctly identify the causal link between cv and death because you eliminate any other causes of death, such as pneumonia.

Its not normal scientific procedure to exclude pre-existing conditions from one particular virus and not the ones it is being compared to, like flu. That is not keeping variables constant.

[Bedford Roughyed]

46 minutes ago, Saintslass said:

I'd be grateful just for a middle manager who wants to be seen to be doing something.  At my workplace, providing liquid soap in the kitchen area and more bottles of hand sanitiser is all they have done.

Hardly anyone is washing their hands in the kitchen.  Virtually nobody is taking any notice of the growing number of cv casualties locally, never mind nationally.  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I'm guessing being told we are over reacting and its nothing to worry about has built a certain level of complacency.  

[Dave T]

Our work are discussing plans to split our areas into two 'teams' and having one at home and one in the office so they never see each other and reduce the likelihood of all becoming infected together. Hardly foolproof as we all see people outside of work, but at least they are thinking about options and trying to keep us at home where they can. 

[Copa]

My employer is offering 2 weeks of additional paid leave for staff required to self isolate.

[shaun mc]

1 hour ago, Martyn Sadler said:

South Korea probably has the highest rate of testing for the coronavirus of any country in the world.

Until today they have reported 7,382 confirmed cases out of more than 189,000 tests and reported 51 deaths, which is a death rate of about 0.69% of those infected. So far, 166 people who contracted the virus have fully recovered from it.

What they don't report, however, is how many of those who died also had other medical conditions that contributed to their death.

I suspect that information, if revealed, would push the death rate down to something less than 0.5%, or one in every two hundred, who have died from the coronavirus with no other contributory factors. That figure suggests we shouldn't be panicking about this virus.

Here are the figures.

Italy's fatality rate works out at 5.04%  - does that change your view a bit?

They have a slightly older population overall, but are much closer to the UK than S Korea in age range & health service

And they went into lockdown quite early in the piece. As Italy's rate is 5.04% its quite worrying at this point IMO and shouldn't be glibly ignored as per your manner

[Saintslass]

9 minutes ago, shaun mc said:

Italy's fatality rate works out at 5.04%  - does that change your view a bit?

They have a slightly older population overall, but are much closer to the UK than S Korea in age range & health service

And they went into lockdown quite early in the piece. As Italy's rate is 5.04% its quite worrying at this point IMO and shouldn't be glibly ignored as per your manner

I heard on the news a couple of nights ago that Italy has the second highest population of elderly folk in the world; second only to Japan.  I was surprised by this because I had no idea that it was so.

[Futtocks]

3 hours ago, graveyard johnny said:

I have been practicing self isolating with a box of tissues and wet wipes for years

It's like Christmas came early! - https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/xgq5ew/coronavirus-porn-going-viral-pornhub-xhamster 

Make sure you panic-buy a lot more tissues.

[shaun mc]

8 minutes ago, Saintslass said:

I heard on the news a couple of nights ago that Italy has the second highest population of elderly folk in the world; second only to Japan.  I was surprised by this because I had no idea that it was so.

Must be the red wine.......

And yes, that ageing population is impacting on the fatality rate in Italy.

However, in China overall its 0.7%, with Wuhan 5.8%, so other factors there as well as the age profile

Italy is only 8th in life expectancy though (WHO 2018 figs). A low fertility rate is impacting on the age profile

[Bedford Roughyed]

There are also differences in how countries have reacted.  S.Korea are testing far more people than anywhere else for example. 

[Bedford Roughyed]

 

[Bob8]

6 hours ago, ckn said:

My very subjective and probably not scientific view is that that's for two reasons:

1. People far more likely to be in contact with international travelers; and

2. People far more tolerant of others in their personal space. It took me years to get over people being huggy and them being so close they're effectively touching me. And then you get the public transport there where it's sardine conditions and they think that's fine. I still don't like it.

Again, from my pandemic work twelve years ago, it is exactly as expected.