coronavirus

[The Hallucinating Goose]

The toilets in a shopping centre here in Hull are apparently going to have to be closed because people are nicking the bog rolls. This just got real! 

[Copa]

19 minutes ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

The toilets in a shopping centre here in Hull are apparently going to have to be closed because people are nicking the bog rolls. This just got real! 

My son’s music teacher has put out a call to his students for toilet paper. He does not have a car and is always teaching when the new stock comes in.

It’s come to this... 

[shrek]

 

[Bedford Roughyed]

As she has had contact with the PM, does this mean he now has to self isolate?

 

[Copa]

My colleagues have just told me there is a run on products as varied as kitty litter to female sanitary stuff. One of woman was horrified to see a guy buy up all the sanitary stuff she needed at the shops. 

[Pen-Y-Bont Crusader]

2 minutes ago, Bedford Roughyed said:

As she has had contact with the PM, does this mean he now has to self isolate?

 

After the other week in Kent would anyone notice ?

[Bedford Roughyed]

1 minute ago, Pen-Y-Bont Crusader said:

After the other week in Kent would anyone notice ?

Good chance to finish that book.

[Bedford Roughyed]

There is a question of why Dorries was tested as it appears that she doesn't meet the criteria? 

[Martyn Sadler]

3 hours 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

You need to learn to read more carefully.

I didn't say anything should be "glibly ignored".

Italy's death rate may or may not be lower than 5.4%, depending on the proportion of the population that has been tested for the virus.

But you are right to point out that Italy has a higher proportion of older people, who are naturally in more danger from this virus, which we all accept.

[YCKonstantine]

My doctors have stopped online appointment booking. Makes sense really, make people ring up and see they're not waiting to be seen for a cough or fever and that they haven't just come back from corona central

[Gray1967]

Saw my Oncologist Mon and apparently for my next appointment in a coupla weeks time, I have to do it via some new app that they have just signed me up for. All well and good and I see the logic but....I physicaly have to vist the hospital anyway, cos I have to have my bloods taken and have a nurse assessment for my chemo the following day

[shaun mc]

8 hours ago, Martyn Sadler said:

You need to learn to read more carefully.

I didn't say anything should be "glibly ignored".

Italy's death rate may or may not be lower than 5.4%, depending on the proportion of the population that has been tested for the virus.

But you are right to point out that Italy has a higher proportion of older people, who are naturally in more danger from this virus, which we all accept.

I can read perfectly well thanks Martyn. Your post, to me, suggested that because S Korea was 0.5% then we shouldn't be worried and was a bit blase. If not, could you be a bit clearer and advise the main point of you post relative to S Korea.

The 0.5% to me seems linked to their high level of testing early on and may have helped

Italy is now over 6% with updated figures last night, which many or may not be age profile related - see my later post re China and Whutan, and they declared very few new cases yesterday. Their lockdown method may have impacted.

Of course, we don't know the exact reasons around every figure we see, for a number of different reasons in every country, and interprete them differently

[Martyn Sadler]

2 minutes ago, shaun mc said:

I can read perfectly well thanks Martyn. Your post, to me, suggested that because S Korea was 0.5% then we shouldn't be worried and was a bit blase. If not, could you be a bit clearer and advise the main point of you post relative to S Korea.

The 0.5% to me seems linked to their high level of testing early on and may have helped

Italy is now over 6% with updated figures last night, which many or may not be age profile related - see my later post re China and Whutan, and they declared very few new cases yesterday. Their lockdown method may have impacted.

Of course, we don't know the exact reasons around every figure we see, for a number of different reasons in every country, and interprete them differently

The point I was trying to illustrate quite clearly was that the vast majority of people who contract the virus are likely to survive it.

That doesn't mean that we should be complacent about it - far from it. We should all take the precautions suggested by the Chief Medical Officer.

But the people who need to take the greatest care are the elderly and those with other conditions that might have reduced their capacity to recover from the virus.

[Dave T]

6 minutes ago, Martyn Sadler said:

The point I was trying to illustrate quite clearly was that the vast majority of people who contract the virus are likely to survive it.

That doesn't mean that we should be complacent about it - far from it. We should all take the precautions suggested by the Chief Medical Officer.

But the people who need to take the greatest care are the elderly and those with other conditions that might have reduced their capacity to recover from the virus.

But we all know that. That message has been consistent. 

The problem is we have literally millions and millions of people in those categories. And if not us, we all have relatives and friends who are. 

[Gerrumonside ref]

We’re like an army fighting a rearguard action.

The longer we can stagger the rate of infection in the U.K. then the best chance vulnerable people will have of receiving treatment.

I’m loathe to invoke things like Dunkirk spirit, but we really are all in the same boat vis a vis caring about vulnerable loved ones.

 

[Martyn Sadler]

5 minutes ago, Dave T said:

But we all know that. That message has been consistent. 

The problem is we have literally millions and millions of people in those categories. And if not us, we all have relatives and friends who are. 

The numbers will be significant but, in this country at least, I'm not sure the number of people whose lives are in danger extends to "millions and millions".

As I've said, I'm more inclined to listen to what the Chief Medical Officer has to say about the virus than speculate about how many people could get the virus, as opposed to seeking out factual evidence about how many people are known to have caught it and how many have actually died from it.

[ckn]

7 hours ago, YCKonstantine said:

My doctors have stopped online appointment booking. Makes sense really, make people ring up and see they're not waiting to be seen for a cough or fever and that they haven't just come back from corona central

That’s a national ruling. No appointments without some sort of triage. 

[ckn]

44 minutes ago, Martyn Sadler said:

The point I was trying to illustrate quite clearly was that the vast majority of people who contract the virus are likely to survive it.

That doesn't mean that we should be complacent about it - far from it. We should all take the precautions suggested by the Chief Medical Officer.

But the people who need to take the greatest care are the elderly and those with other conditions that might have reduced their capacity to recover from the virus.

No. EVERYONE needs to take care. Let’s say you catch it, don’t give a damn because you know you’ll be fine and then infect some vulnerable people. They have a far higher chance of dying. 

Flatten the curve, stretch out the problem and far more hospital capacity becomes available because you’re not filling it today. 

[Martyn Sadler]

13 minutes ago, ckn said:

No. EVERYONE needs to take care. Let’s say you catch it, don’t give a damn because you know you’ll be fine and then infect some vulnerable people. They have a far higher chance of dying. 

Flatten the curve, stretch out the problem and far more hospital capacity becomes available because you’re not filling it today. 

It gets slightly annoying to have my posts continually misinterpreted.

I obviously haven't said that we don't all need to take care, nor that we shouldn't give a damn if we catch it.

Clearly we do and we should, and I'm far more conscious of that than most people, because we have a family friend who is particularly vulnerable with a specific medical condition that lowers her resistance to this and other viruses.

In any emergency I would hope that she would be ahead of the queue for treatment as opposed to someone who is otherwise young, fit and healthy.

[ckn]

2 minutes ago, Martyn Sadler said:

It gets slightly annoying to have my posts continually misinterpreted.

I obviously haven't said that we don't all need to take care, nor that we shouldn't give a damn if we catch it.

Clearly we do and we should, and I'm far more conscious of that than most people, because we have a family friend who is particularly vulnerable with a specific medical condition that lowers her resistance to this and other viruses.

In any emergency I would hope that she would be ahead of the queue for treatment as opposed to someone who is otherwise young, fit and healthy.

You specifically said “those who need to take the greatest care”. I said no, that’s not right. The way vulnerable people get infected is often through active people who take less care. Everyone needs to treat this as a potentially deadly disease. 

[JohnM]

Good grief. It is reported (caution!) That this guy had returned from a skiing trip to Northen Italy and returned to work without saying!  If true, this is criminal.

Concerns have now been raised that the surgeon may have been operating on patients and mixing with staff for as long as a week while having the virus

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/top-surgeon-aintree-staff-member-17895828

[Damien]

7 minutes ago, JohnM said:

Good grief. It is reported (caution!) That this guy had returned from a skiing trip to Northen Italy and returned to work without saying!  If true, this is criminal.

Concerns have now been raised that the surgeon may have been operating on patients and mixing with staff for as long as a week while having the virus

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/top-surgeon-aintree-staff-member-17895828

It would be interesting to know what laws are in place, if any, to deal with incidents like this. If not some sort of emergency legislation is required.

[ckn]

8 minutes ago, JohnM said:

Good grief. It is reported (caution!) That this guy had returned from a skiing trip to Northen Italy and returned to work without saying!  If true, this is criminal.

Concerns have now been raised that the surgeon may have been operating on patients and mixing with staff for as long as a week while having the virus

https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/top-surgeon-aintree-staff-member-17895828

There's lots of those folk out there. There was no filtering of people at UK airports at the massed fleeing from Northern Italy last week, or even this week with people returning from Italy.  They should be coming off the plane and given a mandatory notice to self isolate for two weeks regardless of self-important they feel.

[Martyn Sadler]

20 minutes ago, ckn said:

You specifically said “those who need to take the greatest care”. I said no, that’s not right. The way vulnerable people get infected is often through active people who take less care. Everyone needs to treat this as a potentially deadly disease. 

And you specifically said, in response, "No. EVERYONE needs to take care", implying that I had suggested that not everyone does.

I agree with you that we all need to treat this as a potentially deadly disease. But when you know that you have a condition that could be fatal if you contract the disease, then you will inevitably take the maximum possible care as you see it, going well beyond what the Chief Medical Officer recommends for the rest of us.

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, Martyn Sadler said:

The numbers will be significant but, in this country at least, I'm not sure the number of people whose lives are in danger extends to "millions and millions".

As I've said, I'm more inclined to listen to what the Chief Medical Officer has to say about the virus than speculate about how many people could get the virus, as opposed to seeking out factual evidence about how many people are known to have caught it and how many have actually died from it.

The death rates by age (which is a couple of weeks out of date):

80+ = 14.8% (3.2m UK pop)

70+ = 8.0% (5.5m UK pop)

Total of these = 10.5% (8.7m UK pop)

If we wanted to go down as low as 60+ we add in a further 7m people with a death rate of 3.6%

Now of course there are all sorts of caveats around these numbers, the data is varied by nation etc. but it is not scare-mongering to be looking at the high risk populations of many millions here. 

And your last line is interesting, as you don't seem keen on people using the data that is knocking around, yet that is exactly what you did, but tried to put all sorts of exclusions on the list to bring the number down!

I'm not sure of the benefit of people talking this down. There is the balance so as not to create huge widespread panic, but playing it down too much is dangerous as it can lead to people not isolating themselves, not cleaning their hands, taking risks that are unnecessary.

Carrying out arithmetic gymnastics to artificially lower the numbers is a bizarre approach to take, particularly when we can see other countries implementing all sorts of plans, and our CMO is actually telling us that things will get worse and that we will soon be asked to change our behaviours.