Coronavirus - sick and tired of the hysterical scaremongering

[Ashtower]

I work in an office and I've overheard a number of people blowing the outbreak all out of proportion. One colleague has ordered facemasks off Amazon - we're in SE England ffs. I wish people would educate themselves (from reputable sources) and stop winding everyone up.

Of course, a healthy amount of caution is important but it's made me aware of how mass hysteria ie witch trials occurred in the past. Just takes one ignorant person with a massive mouth (yes I'm talking about you Sue in budgeting).

However, those who are in favour of aggressive lockdown do need to propose with an exit strategy.

Yes, this.

I haven't come across any hysterical scaremongering, not even on the fail

MN is rife with hysterical scaremongering. Unfortunately.

However, those who are in favour of aggressive lockdown do need to propose with an exit strategy

The aggressive lock down is to try and contain an exponential growth in the number of infected.
Whatever measures are taken now, will only have a measurable effect in at least 2 weeks.
So, picture today's numbers with a daily increase of 25-35% every day, on the numbers of the previous day, for 14 days. That's doubling every 2-3 days.

The measures will need to continue until theres a small enough number of people still infected, so that transmission is very low.
Then the exit strategy is to keep social distancing and personal protection measures as much as possible, and to keep testing everyone in contact with every infected person and to keep them as isolated as possible.

My educated guess is resuming restaurants and shops, with increased distance and enforcement of numbers of people inside. Same for pubs and clubs.
No arena concerts. No festivals with basic hygiene.
Most people still working from home as much as possible.
I'd split school timetables so that there would be less pupils in the school at any time. And reduce class sizes as much as possible. At least next year, until there's a vaccine.

Other lockdowns may be necessary.

Whether governments will implement these measures or not, is another problem, but in my opinion it's possible to keep it in reasonable numbers to keep the health system from collapsing, and to protect the vulnerable.

There is NO immunity for this. It mutated from an animal virus and our human systems have no way to recognise it and create immunity - hence the govt "herd immunity" strategy was claptrap

It wasn’t “claptrap”. It’s just that the number of people (mostly elderly &/or sick) would have to die in order to get to a point where herd immunity is of any significant benefit.

You don’t seem to understand how immunity works.

You/we are not immune to colds or the flu. You may be immune to certain strains but not all. If we all had natural immunity to colds, none of us would ever get them. Same with flu.

This current problem isn’t happening because it’s a brand new virus and “no one has immunity”. You could say the same about every mutated flu virus that appears every year.

This could be a flu strain instead of a coronavirus. In 1918, it was flu. All that needs to happen is for a flu virus to mutate and become more deadly and we’d be in exactly the same boat. So “none of us have natural immunity” isn’t really the issue.

No, COVID - 19 is a problem because it has a very, very high death rate and actual medical intervention is required to save those most affected. It’s also happening on top of all the other deadly illnesses human beings fight all the time. Our NHS was already working at capacity so it’s in danger of buckling altogether.

I say “very, very high death rate” but that’s based on current data which is limited to say the very least. The only people being tested anywhere are those that there’s reason to test. Either they are presenting as sick or they’re known to have been in contact with a person who has the virus.

It is highly likely to be the case that many, many people have/had the virus, never knew and are now effectively immune. That will bring the overall death rate down considerably - maybe as low as that seen with seasonal flu.

This doesn’t help the NHS though who will still be inundated with vulnerable people needing ventilation - but it would be extremely helpful in allaying panic and anxiety.

The virus has to mutate to increase its effectiveness which means its mortality has to decrease not increase yes, it wants to spread, not kill people

No, COVID - 19 is a problem because it has a very, very high death rate and actual medical intervention is required to save those most affected

How would you then describe the death rate of small pox (very, very, very , very very, very high?) or ebola (very, very, very, very, very very, very, very, very, very high?)

I should have added that while the possibility that the mortality rates are likely to come down, that shouldn’t alter anyone’s behaviour.

Assume the worst. Break the chains of transmission to slow the spread down. Whether you are individually in a high-risk group or not is irrelevant. Don’t be a link in the chain of transmission that gives it to a person who could die.

Stay home unless you simply have no other option.

The virus has to mutate to increase its effectiveness which means its mortality has to decrease not increase

Not true in this case, unfortunately. Humans are not the natural hosts for this virus. It doesn’t give a shit whether humans live or die.

That said, it’s more likely to mutate to become less deadly than more.

Not sure what relevance that has @MarginalGain. We’re not fighting an ebola or small pox pandemic currently.

A 3% mortality rate for any virus can be considered “very high”. Seasonal flu is 0.01%.

A 3% mortality rate for any virus can be considered “very high”. Seasonal flu is 0.01%.

It does not have a 3% death rate. This is understood to be overstated by every single medical expert I've seen write or speak on the subject on the basis that it is amongst the documented cases and there are likely to be more unreported cases than reported.

Not sure what relevance that has @MarginalGain.

That 'very very high' and .005 and .01 do not go together.

MarginalGain Yes. Exactly as I said, dear. Read my post.

If you have certain knowledge of the actual mortality rate, perhaps you could write a paper and submit it. Quickly.

If not, stop annoying me with irrelevant, ill-informed crap.

I say “very, very high death rate” but that’s based on current data which is limited to say the very least. The only people being tested anywhere are those that there’s reason to test. Either they are presenting as sick or they’re known to have been in contact with a person who has the virus

It is highly likely to be the case that many, many people have/had the virus, never knew and are now effectively immune. That will bring the overall death rate down considerably - maybe as low as that seen with seasonal flu

Repeated - for those with reading comprehension difficulties.

Forza, you are straightforwardly wrong to say that covid19 has a 'very very high death rate' with whatever qualifiers you choose to tag onto it.

Where did you find the info about a person being more likely to die of a cow falling on their head than coronavirus? If it’s true, it does help to ease my mind a little

Just to add, the difference between a mortality rate of 1% and 0.01% is massive.

I suspect your maths is as bad as your reasoning MarginalGain.

Yeah - health care professionals drowning in their own mucus is hilarious, idiot.

If you read my post carefully, Forza, you will see there is no %.

Forza the figures speak for themselves. I'm certainly not trying to minimise risk but getting hysterical isn't going to help anyone.

"No, COVID - 19 is a problem because it has a very, very high death rate and actual medical intervention is required to save those most affected. It’s also happening on top of all the other deadly illnesses human beings fight all the time. Our NHS was already working at capacity so it’s in danger of buckling altogether."

"I say “very, very high death rate” but that’s based on current data which is limited to say the very least. The only people being tested anywhere are those that there’s reason to test. Either they are presenting as sick or they’re known to have been in contact with a person who has the virus."

"It is highly likely to be the case that many, many people have/had the virus, never knew and are now effectively immune. That will bring the overall death rate down considerably - maybe as low as that seen with seasonal flu."

"This doesn’t help the NHS though who will still be inundated with vulnerable people needing ventilation - but it would be extremely helpful in allaying panic and anxiety."

I have to say this is a very good post, except for the very, very high mortality rate. It's not Ebola, as pointed out, but it's certainly high enough to cause problems for health systems.

However, in addition to the death rate, there's the transmission rate, which is quite high, by comparison, AND the fact that people are transmitting it without showing symptoms, which wasn't known at first and it's fairly unusual for this type of disease.
This is why it's spreading very fast.
So fast and silent spreading + mortality rate = big problem.

I also disagree that there will be many people already immune. Not enough to ease the burden, as seen in countries where restrictions are being lifted. It remains to be seen, but we might have had residual immunity if SARS had become a pandemic. This happens with the new strains of flu. Many people will have some immunity to previous, similar virus, and there's a vaccine that helps keep numbers down, even when not working well.

Lweji,

Is it a very high transmission rate, though. It seems very variable.

The Diamond Princess has a massive population density and shared dining and air con and yet only 20% tested positive.

Also, the current social distancing already seems to be having a positive effect. Although the absolute amount of infections are going up daily, the number of new cases relative to those infected 5 days ago seems to me to have started to decrease.

I am hopeful that reasonable social distancing may be enough.

Having said that, the data is still very noisy and some areas (Northern Italy and New York for example) seem very badly hit,

I wish people would educate themselves (from reputable sources) and stop winding everyone up.

I'm intrigued as to which reputable sources the OP used to educate herself. #teamSue

I agree that there has probably been a surge in name changes on MN in the last week!

Quick google

"Data from China show that each coronavirus case seems to infect about 2 to 2.5 additional people. That's higher than the flu. The average patient spreads the flu virus to about 1.3 others."

So, transmission is much more efficient than for the flu.
People don't transmit it to everyone they come in contact with. But it's still high.
It means that even with a relatively low mortality rate, many people can get infected very quickly and more will die.

Which means that strict social distancing is very important.

In cruises, and despite close proximity, most people are strangers, so there will be a lower likelihood of hugs and kisses, or intimate chats, even sharing tools. Community networks may mean that it spreads more quickly and further.