To be worried about coronavirus part 4

[idontusuallypanic]

I looked and couldn't see another 4th thread.

I'm personally worried this morning as I've heard that two students ds goes to school with have just returned from Milan where cases have just rocketed.

BREAKING: Kuwait bans all flights to and from South Korea, Thailand, and Italy due to coronavirus - KUNA

@BrokenBrit that's awful about your dad. I would advise he (or maybe you on his behalf) phone 111 again out of office hours aiming to speak to the ooh gp for a telephone appointment. Doctors are a bit more able to take a pragmatic view than the call handler on the initial screening, so if you outline the exact symptoms are of CV and that he's back from Northern italy, and that you refuse to end the Conversation without arranging for him to be tested - then you'd have a much better chance of getting a test for him.

I hate the computer says no atiitude! What happened to common sense??

A few more observations I have come to

1. UK and other western countries are reluctant to advise on isolation after travel to Italy, because mentally it just seems too close to home. A kind of racist type thinking ie 'this virus is for foreigners, in their dodgy communist health system. It isn't a virus for Caucasian Europeans with access to Healthcare'. This mental barrier is a massive problem and block to our institutions dealing with it properly. It's a bit like putting your fingers in your ears. Lalalalalalslalalalala no coronavirus in Europe no no no lalalalalala

2)in a similar vein, the Japanese seem experts in fingers in ears. Diamond princess passengers aren't included in our figures so let's not worry too much about it, let's not bother with ppe or isolating people from the dp it will all be fine....

1. Coronavirus pods are springing up at hospitals... They seem a bit small though???

Also

4. Italy will have had it for some time circulating, without medics testing people as their index of suspicion was low. Now they're testing everyone with symptoms they're unmasking all of these minimally symptomatic people. So it's not surprising the cases have jumped in Italy so quickly as they suddenly have started testing. It's not the virus suddenly infecting faster than before, it's us detecting it.

it doesnt seem surprising- tourist destinations will see a lot of spread. Airports need disinfecting and tbh i think planes are hardly cleaned.

Have they traced all the people on flights with infected people? The inaccuracy of this testing is a real issue.
Will being able to test antibodies help?

Can confirm that planes are barely cleaned - i have a friend who is a cleaner of planes at Gatwick and they get 30 mins to turn the plane around!

Why haven't they updated the advice to include Italy??

I get they are trying not panic people but it just seems stupid.

I'm starting to think it's because so many people travel from Italy that the nhs just wouldn't cope with the numbers of people needing to be tested. Most of them would have a regular cold but it would highlight any limitations in testing capacity/logistics.

It's in Tenerife...

BREAKING: #SPAIN-#coronavirus: An Italian doctor who was on vacation in the south of #Tenerife has tested positive for coronavirus after going to a private clinic because he was feeling ill

Please look at the hashtag #wetheiranianpeoplecall_SOS on Twitter. Many people saying lots of people are sick but they aren’t testing. They write that not even relatives living with people sick from COVID19 are tested.

News from Germany: Randomly selected patients with flu-like symptoms are tested for Coronavirus since this Monday. So far they found nothing.
www.mdr.de/nachrichten/panorama/coronavirus-parallel-tests-grippe-100.html

BrokenBrit I would be tempted to tell him to phone 111 again and tell them he went to Thailand if you think it might be coronavirus. Italy has more cases than most countries on their list seems silly to be excluded.

Maybe we should start encouraging doctors to take staycations?

I would like to know how ill you actually feel with this - like, how easy is it to miss it?

My son had a temp, cough, was very tired with a runny nose a week and a half ago and still has a runny nose and cough but if corona wasn’t out there I would dismiss it as nothing.

He plays a sport with a boy who returned from the Philippines (we are in Australia)with the same symptoms. I’ve now caught it too - again, under normal circumstances I would just think it was a bad cold but my husband is flying to the U.K. next week and my two concerns are that we either have it and he passes it on by accident, or (more likely), we don’t have it but he will get this cold and then have trouble travelling as he has a temperature.

How quickly do the test results come back does anyone know?

My other slight concern is that 1/2 my son’s class are from China and although they all had to self isolate when they returned in January, the incubation period does seem to be variable.

The good news is, if I do have it, it really is pretty mild.

@Ozgirl75: It depends. Some do not have any symptoms but test positive nevertheless. Some have cold-like or flu-like symptoms. In some cases they get worse. That typically does not happen before the third week of illness. 20 percent end up very seriously ill.
According to this study 4,8% die: www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.18.20024539v1

Fever and a cough are the most common symptoms.

Broken brit it's probably simply an ill informed call handler.

I'd definitely call back and say returned from China or somewhere on the list.

That sounds like a regular cold to me but I am worried about travelling with a temperature and being refused. I think I would test temp at home before you travel, maybe take paracetamol before and drink water. Ask your doctor if you are worried. On Diamond Princess tests were anything from same day to three days for results.

I’m guessing it is just a normal cold then as my DS is certainly getting better, he’s basically fine now apart from the ongoing sniffles and cough.

I’m not travelling, thank goodness, only DH who isn’t actually ill yet.

It's all worrying. Yemen prospect v bad as millions at risk of starvation already. Also Afghanistan is a challenging healthcare environment; did I read they have a case?

Re the pods in hospitals, they are for the immediate isolation of high risk patients who turn up in A&E. they are isolated there and swabbed. They are not where patients are then looked after if positive. Currently positive patients are being transferred to high consequence infections disease units in big hospitals.

People worry too much.

Yes there is an Afghan case

The US isn't testing as much as it should be. I think that will come out in the wash eventually. Part of the problem with the US is who pays for the test. People don't go to the doctors if they don't have health insurance. Thus the chances of detection are much lower in any country which doesn't have a universal health system. That's also why you are getting south Korea and Italy having a lot of reports. It's because they have a good health care system - and it seems they are almost getting punished for it now with bans.

The reality is that other countries are more liable to have undetected outbreaks.

The US also have a very low number of testing facilities.

South Korea is doing more tests per day than the UK has done in total too.

The Germans doing random tests is a good idea. I also think regularly testing a and e staff or paramedics at random wouldn't be a bad call given how the disease is manifesting itself in outbreaks.

The international response to the whole thing is pretty farcical when you consider how different systems are responding so differently.

Politically for some countries it's preferable not to test and to bury heads in the sand. Iran and China being the best examples but other countries we almost 'expect to do better' certainly aren't.

I think we are probably mid table on that score tbh.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/02/24/british-tourists-italy-face-coronavirus-quarantine-fears-grow/
British tourists in Italy face coronavirus quarantine as fears grow over outbreaks in Europe
Holidaymakers will be told to 'self-isolate' on return from areas hit by coronavirus

Until now, Italy has not been added to the Government’s list of “high-risk” countries, despite the fact it has the most coronavirus cases of any country outside Asia.

The inaction has prompted criticism from medics amid concern people potentially carrying the disease are not being put in isolation.

On Tuesday the country’s chief medical officer is expected to add the affected regions to that list, with anyone returning from them asked to “self-isolate” for 14 days if they show possible symptoms of the virus....

So from tomorrow I assume if you telephone 111 you'd be taken seriously and might get tested. But not today cos officials were too busy working out the difference between arses and elbows...

Also see

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8039775/amp/UK-tourists-Italy-blast-pitiful-UK-government-coronavirus-advice-SEVEN-die-there.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ito=1490&ns_campaign=1490&__twitter_impression=true
UK tourists in Italy blast 'pitiful' UK government coronavirus advice after seven die there, as health chiefs 'draw up plans for travellers to SELF-quarantine when they come home'

Britons returning from the worst-affected northern regions of Lombardy and Veneto are expected to be told to self-quarantine at home

The chief medical officer will tomorrow add these virus hotbeds to a list of places where a visit warrants isolation once back on UK soil, according to the Daily Telegraph.

Currently, Britons returning from these affected areas were told to 'continue as normal' after calling 111 for advice.

An antiviral called remdesivir is apparently showing some encouraging results against Covid-19.

Very short report here - it was also mentioned briefly on ITV News at Ten.