Covid-19 and purity spirals

Schools will reopen, possibly childcare over summer then at least primary schools after summer (or possibly just before in England/Wales). Lots of parents will not send their children.

It’s different in Australia in that the cases are much fewer and in some areas there’s no community spread at all. Numbers of new cases are low and going down where I live.

Everything is closed, but it’s less restrictive and no one gets cross about people buying wine 🍷 or 🍫 or children riding their bikes.

I think schools will reopen quite soon and I’m comfortable with that. Children generally seem to be less affected and not particularly infectious, the opposite to the usual seasonal ‘flu. Infants can get sicker but that’s true for any respiratory virus and infants won’t be at school. There’s a good study from Wuhan about children under 1 year that’s reassuring. I agree lots of children will be kept home by their parents and schools will have to navigate a hybrid distance Ed/face-to-face learning program.

Day care centres haven’t closed here but lots of children are being kept home. However once schools reopen that helps their parents return to work or enables them to work more efficiently.

I think things will re open cautiously with room to back off of cases escalate.

Honestly you are all being naive.

They've graduated medical students and theirs year nursing students early this year to get troops on the frontline but universities have now closed so 4th year medical students and 2nd year nursing students have had their courses suspended. By the time unis go back September? January? They will be so behind in their training that they won't graduate next summer, let alone early. Where do you think the staff will be coming from to staff all of these temporary hospitals?

They've called retired nurses and doctors back to work, even though they are even more at risk due to age - some of the drs that have died had come out of retirement. There isn't an endless supply of replacement staff. How does "normal" service carry on in the NHS with a depleted staff? You're all busy lecturing me on acceptance, have you all accepted that you and your loved ones will have to accept not having cancer treatment, treatment for heart disease, treatment of strokes, elective surgery, rheumatology, physio, dental treatment?

Ah ok Rufus

I do wonder how many have been set up. There has been one near me, large city. Not the one my friend has gone to

I'm glad you're coping as well as can be expected, MilesJupp. Have some or if either appeals.

Yes, it will run through the hospital staff - in their case, let's be realistic, it already is. I'd expect that within a month or two the levels of positive antibodies in medical staff will be very high. Their PPE isn't adequate and even where they don't catch it from a patient they will catch it from each other, from still being out, from still using public transport.

And psychology is a big component - whilst there will be some who rush to the pub for a very messy session as soon as they open many will continue to live like they are in lockdown, or something close, even after it is lifted. I would expect that my office will remain almost exclusively WFH, for example. DD will go back to school but I can't see us going for a long wander round a big busy shopping centre either.

SImilarly, having seen this, people will be more willing to accept some sort of contact tracing as a way out. But there will still be a sizeable minority who won't and so contact tracing will only be so good. You can't force people to carry a phone/wear a device of some kind. And that's before you consider normal life - my MIL regularly goes out without her phone. I do as well tbh. Thinking about our business the staff come in and put their phones in a cupboard for the duration, even though they will then leave the building and potentially come in to contact with others. So it will not be enough to keep it at ultra low levels.

They don't have tests though do they?

Or the means to trace.

I might have made it up dances

I thought it was a tory ‘promise’ at the last election

BBC interview
"BBC newsreader George Alagiah, who is being treated for bowel cancer, has revealed he's had a mild case of coronavirus.

As a cancer patient, he underwent tests after developing a fever – and a few days later his oncologist rang to say he had tested positive for the virus.

The News at Six on BBC One presenter was first diagnosed with cancer in 2014 but revealed in 2017 that the disease had returned.

"In some ways, I think that those of us living with cancer are stronger because we kind of know what it is like to go into something where the outcomes are uncertain,"

www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-52111754/bbc-s-george-alagiah-on-living-with-coronavirus-and-cancer

MilesJupp Thank you for signposting this. Its worth watching.

My cancer diagnosis was quite a few years ago & Ive been very fortunate to remain NED since. I'm mindful of those going through the trauma of diagnosis & treatments now.

TheProdigalKittensReturn

The scenes in Italy have happened during lockdown though. How bad do you think it will be with no lockdown? When will the hcps get the chance to breakdown? They'll be working even harder if lockdown ends with no controls in place

What was that about 40 extra hospitals Rufus?
I hadn't seen an actual number

Where were you saying that businesses would start back?

Err, where I said when lockdown lifts they will have to implement testing, tracking, tracing and quarantine.

What do you think "lifting lockdown" means?

Where were you saying that businesses would start back?

I think you were mostly ranting about selfish people drinking wine.

I worry for the long term mental health of the HCPs who survive this, the impact of not being able to save people. That's always an issue for people in that field, obviously, but looking at say the worst hit parts of Italy and the interviews with doctors that have come out of that it seems like at the moment they just can't afford to let themselves break down, but at some point they will.

I keep thinking of the artwork that came out of the periods where the plague was sweeping through Europe, and the sort of societal trauma that you can see in some of it.

Who's going to staff these hospitals if the virus is running through the population a lot of hospital staff will be affected too

More makeshift hospitals

I wonder if these will count as part of the 40 extra hospitals

Well, I won't be accepting or "giving up" as I call it.

Living as a prisoner in my home is not how I intend to live

I agree with you Statistically

More makeshift hospitals.

My friend, who does mass catering, has just started work at one of these, to feed the NHS staff.

Oh how hilarious. I've literally been saying exactly that all day yesterday and again today and been argued against. Now someone else has said it and it's "yes, I agree".

I think for some people they didn't quite accept that the virus was going to come to where they live until it did, and that's part of why they're stuck in the denial or bargaining stages. If you were paying attention to the news coming out of Wuhan back in December and filtering it through the knowledge of global supply chains and the movement of people and the way the Chinese government operates and the history of other pandemics then it was clear that it might not be containable, and that it probably wouldn't stay a just-in-China problem for long, and so there was a period of several months in which to accept that it was probably coming and would hit your area sooner or later. We were lucky that SARS didn't spread further and faster than it did, and epidemiologists have been warning that we might not be so lucky next time for quite a while. It seems like the more connections someone has with the parts of Asia that were hit badly by SARS the quicker they realized what this might turn into. For some people though they seem to have either sort of assumed it could be contained in a small geographical area or to have kind of known that it might not be possible to do that but tried to convince themselves that somehow it would be, right up until it was no longer possible to pretend that it would never reach their doorstep.

It's weird, the psychology of all this.

As someone in the shielding group with suspected CV19, I agree that it seems likely that people like me will probably have to lead very limited lives for about a year - nothing else makes any sense. I know it sounds gloomy, but in my personal circumstances I would consider that a win. (I'm feeling much better, if it's of any comfort to any fellow shieldies out there).

MilesJupp Im glad you are feeling much better. Long may that last.

I think you are probably right about a lot of that statistically

StatisticallyChallenged

I broadly agree. The exit plan will be a version of test, track, trace and quarantine with an app used.

I don't think the government will sacrifice the economy long term, and as there is no solution pending, the restrictions will be lifted, and come what may.

Really? You think people will just be left to die wherever they are?

making COVID19 notifiable

It already is - unfortunately that's not enough for many insurance companies who are using their pre covid disease lists to refuse cover but I digress

They can't put us into full lockdown every two months and so another way of doing this has to be found.

I'm personally thinking it's going to be along the lines of (and this is just my view)
-We need to get people back to work because this level of lockdown with furloughing etc just isn't economically viable for long. Horrid, but true.
-most businesses will reopen, probably with some exceptions; maybe travel/hotels will be very restricted, restaurants, large gathering places like cinemas and theatres. The government might continue a furlough scheme but it will be much more targeted to those not permitted to open.

-Schools will reopen, possibly childcare over summer then at least primary schools after summer (or possibly just before in England/Wales). Lots of parents will not send their children.
-Things like festivals will stay cancelled
-people will still be advised to work from home where possible to reduce speed of spread
-household quarantine rules will stay in place, but testing more easily available, mostly to enable...
-contract tracing (probably with the use of an app) will be used to try and slow the speed of the spread as people will be told to quarantine if they're likely to have been infected.
-Vulnerable and elderly will be advised to continue distancing (sorry)
-Temp hospitals will remain open specifically for covid.
-we'll probably get at least one more lockdown, but the time between the lockdowns will gradually increase as with each cycle more people will have already been exposed so the speed of spread will be slower (as some will likely be immune)

I liked the interview with George Alagiah where he said that having had to to deal with recent cancer treatment, it had helped him to accept the current situation more quickly.

I feel like that too. A few years ago I would have wailed "why me?". Now it's "why not me"?

Yes, I can completely relate to that.
I hadn't heard Alagiah's interview.