To be worried about Coronavirus - Part 8

[KenAdams]

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[Post edited by MNHQ at OP's request]

I think travel bans are largely pointless at this point, because people don't want to go to the worst affected areas and FCO advice is off putting enough.

The issue is finding a flight still going and hasn't been cancelled due to lack of demand, insurance and quarantine issues both domestically and abroad.

Number of cases isn't relevant here. Insurance companies will look at that but will also take into consideration the health care system of the country. The US with low testing and poor universal health care coupled with high health care costs is going to look a lot more risky than a lot of places. That includes places with poor health care systems. It'll probably be easier to get insurance for Vietnam for this reason.

Insurance companies will not want to take a hit on coronavirus related costs - especially if other health care systems are struggling.

Also insurance would cover your costs if you are involuntarily quarantined. This could be basic hotel costs but it could be much more expensive hotel, ambulance and health care costs as the US has been doing and then billing people for the privilege of this. Not all countries will go this far but its important to have an idea of which might be dodgy in this respect (clue: anywhere with universal health care is a much better bet).

A lot of policies do not cover you as it is. Some do but these will be harder to get hold of going forward.

So in terms of holidays and school trips that's where the rub is going to be. And many airlines / holiday providers won't offer refunds if your reason for not travelling is your inability to get insurance if your destination isn't on the FCO list of off limits places.

This is what people should be looking at.

Not the number of cases.

Can someone quickly remind me what number we are on in the uk?

23

Hugglespuffed

Officially 23

However, we know it's at least 24, as a man from Ireland was announced last night.

Watersheep The Republic of Ireland is not part of the UK. It is a separate country!

mrshoho

Apologies.

@YoursTunbridgeWells I am not sure what I think at the moment. DD will be so disappointed though, but agree it's not worth endangering them.

I used to work as a gp receptionist, I have a horrible feeling I may be asked back. I've been thinking for a while that my skill set would be utilised.

Dd(15) asked how homeless people are supposed to quarantine themselves, does anyone have any idea of plans for this?

Dh has stopped rolling his eyes at me for stocking up and added his items yesterday. I can't get hand gel so we are using the last of what we had- dd has been using it in school since before Christmas and I have some on order.

I'm feeling relatively calm now that I know we are as ready as we can be.

Steala in a word no. It would take weeks to train someone to do my admin role and from there weeks to train me into a clinical one. If it weren't for my skill set my trust wouldn't have the ppe equipment ready, we can't just bring in volunteers to take on our jobs and keep things running

@LarkDescending I think we have to try and take some comfort in the fact that at least the UK has done pandemic modelling (and it was run far more recently than 2011). Many countries will not have undertaken such detailed exercises and will not be anywhere as near prepared as we are.
I think we could be so so much better though and that is what I am angry about and disappointed with. They should have planned for 10% of people with a virus to be in hospital - not 10% of the population simultaneously but 10% of the current infected population - a figure that shifts daily.
Cobra should have conviened on Saturday and should be meeting daily - like a war council.
There should be public information broadcasts at 3 set times a day on all channels and radio stations - interuupting normal broadcasting.
There should be preparation in place to ration food and supplies.

At the same time people do still need to work - we need HCPS, utilities, supplies (shop workers, processing plants, farmers etc etc.)

The schools point is difficult as we need workers and many families have 2 workers. This made me quetsion how does a lockdown work with regards to essential workers - we know food shops are still open for example. But what about the factory workers who process the food? I assume that they are in a different area? But where is the food coming from. The whole world can't shut down as otherwise we'd all starve.
The thing about China is that it is a huge country, they locked down a Great Britain sized chunk but they a vast amount of China still running.
I can certainly see localised and regional lockdowns in the UK like Italy. But if the lockdown is nationwide then they will have to permit key workers out -and that means many more people to keep the logistics of the country going. We will need tanker drivers for fuel - those of us that live rurally need fuel to go to a doctor for example - I can' walk 10 miles if I'm ill. What about ambulances, police cars, the army to quell civil unrest so fuel and food are key.

Now I've got confused about what on earth I was talking about - you see there are no easy or obvious solutions. Schools do provide essential childcare for essential workers. Maybe the rest of us who can WFH are asked to keep children at home.

Do we know how many people have been tested in the Uk?

I think people are talking about organisations and how they will react but perhaps forgetting the people behind them.

I’m a teacher. I work in London. I’m worried about contracting the virus as I have asthma. I also worry about contracting and passing onto children I teach (before I have symptoms) or my partner who is an oncology nurse in London, who also has an immune disorder. As far as I understand we are both higher risk but at the moment just have to keep working and hope for the best.

In terms of contingency - my school (like lots of others) had a half term Italian ski trip. We are still open.

The hospital my partner works in hasn’t restricted visiting as yet. My partner also said that yesterday lots of the hand sanitizers in the hospital were empty - guess they are being used faster than they can refil them.

I think things are going to start changing rapidly in the next few weeks and different decisions will have to be made.

As of 29 February at 9am, a total of 10,483 people have been tested in the UK, of which 10,460 were confirmed negative and 23 positive.

Any suggestions for general immunity boosting recipes

sleep
nutrition
exercise (preferably outside in daylight)

possibly vit d3
apparently showering cold after shower/bath helps as well.

We'll get another update on cases and the amount tested at 2pm today.

I think in the UK around 10000 so far have been tested and almost all negative which is very hopeful.

I love the idea of redeploying medics. It's really not that simple.

I'm a front line medic, but if they redeployed me to ITU for example, I'd be waaaay more likely to kill people than the coronavirus because I'd be completely out of my knowledge base!

I have just left a medical secretary job in a hospital due to bad health and am recovering from an operation, hope they dont want me back, because there is no way I am going

The sell out of all Hand sanitiser is worrying. I wanted a bottle, just one for normal use, but its sold out everywhere. I work in a health care environment & I know there is some at work, but will their supply be also affected. The information we are told is how prepared we are, so how come the supply of something so obviously required to help prevent the illness is already sold out.

Ok. I'm just trying to think outside the box, beyond forcing HCP to overwork to a dangerous extent, when bringing in additional HCP from elsewhere or retirement is unfeasible, unpopular or dangerous. I also think, if we assume that HCP should put everything on the line for us, there is some merit in expecting the rest of us (assuming in good health and without caring responsibilities) particularly those with transferable skills - eg in admin to do our bit. -

tbh I'm astounded that paramedics or other frontline staff had not been fitted with something as basic as a face mask.

@EnidBlyton
There is no real yardstick, flu kills anywhere between 250,000 to 500,000 people each year from the hundreds of millions who contract it, upwards of 200 million people. If you look at the stats the death rate is less than 0.5% of those who catch it, coronovirus death rate is estimated at 2%, which is probably inaccurate because we know there's lots of under reporting going on, in Iran and China especially. Some believe the death rate could be as high as 10%. It's also much easier to catch and spread than the flu and unlike the flu more people require medical intervention/hospital treatment. Hoping it doesn't spiral out of control or we could see a difficult few months ahead.

I would have thought the Government have powers to secure the supply of essential medicines and supplies (including handgel) - inother words if they approach a manufacturer the get first dibs on what is being manufactured.
Where is hand gel made? I expect some is made in the UK - in which case the manufacturers are not keeping up with a ridiculous demand spike. Governement/ health care commissioning bodies get first dibs of supply and anything left over can be sold

yoursTunbridgeWells that would make sense, but I wonder how many employees will consider taking a bottle or two of the hand gel at work for home use if there is none available for the general public

Does anyone know if the scented curex hand gels are effective - you know, the love hearts and strawberry laces ones? I can't find the information on alcohol percentage anywhere to know whether they're over 60% (but alcohol is the first ingredient at least).