Coronavirus thread 12

[VivaLeBeaver]

Can’t see one? Sorry if there is one.

Handwashing it far more effective at cleansing hands of bugs than hand sanitiser, which is supposed to only be a back up to hand washing anyway.

Particular attention to nail beds, where staining has shown up the area mostly missed!

Its truly unhelpful to be almost running a book on the predictions of new cases, and a bit

The results will be the sad results.

Yes, that's right, no one has died in the country of it yet. It's not too surprising really. Most are the 'seeders' and have just returned from holiday and so were unlikely to be significantly vulnerable we are only just beginning to see community transmission where the most elderly and poorly are at risk.

Out of all the deaths there is only one recent case of a baby losing their life (despite all the obvious desperate attempts that babies commonly make to catch everything they can!).

Is there a source for this please. Worldometers are still reporting no deaths in youngest age bracket.
For those who aren't follwing their stats already, this is the death rate by age.

80+ years old
14.8%

70-79 years old
8.0%

60-69 years old
3.6%

50-59 years old
1.3%

40-49 years old
0.4%

30-39 years old
0.2%

20-29 years old
0.2%

10-19 years old
0.2%

0-9 years old
no fatalities

So whoever was concerned about children losing their parents to covid-19 if schools weren't closed down - not many pupils have parents in the age groups likely to be affected. Grandparents are the much bigger issue, and by closing schools down grandparents will potentially step in to look after children. Especially where parents do an essential job or are self employed/low paid and can't afford time off. Plus government needs to consider the other negative affects on the population - eg yong teens left home alone to fend for themselves will increase the rate of household accidents; more firefighters at home looking after their own kids will exacerabate how many of these accidents are lethal, etc.

On an individual level we all need to assess our own risks as best we can, given the limited data at this point. In my case I have an immunosupressed relative in my household, and I can work from home and therefore supervise my own DC. So I'll be fine with school closures on a personal level - and as I said upthread, if the risk is such that the government don't work then I will be hoisting my DC out. But I can see that schools closing instantly is not a panacea. It could end up causing more problems than it solves - or perhaps not, but with everything moving so fast it is not a straightforward decision.

What are peoples thoughts re the 2pm update

Are they only updating it at 2pm daily? I haven’t heard about any new infections online this morning, so it’ll just be one morning’s worth, won’t it?

I can see 2pm being low but tomorrow being much higher.

Well yes I think there would be orphans as 0.2% of 40 year olds and I think teens?? May not seem a lot but scaling it up!! Plus wuhan built all those hospitals... Here the rates would be higher. And that's only dead not still ventilated maybe etc. Under 50 years will be kids or have kids, did China priorities certain groups.

Is it really going to hit every country or might some avoid it?? To hide you would have to wait until it had gone right round and if people are testing positive later are they contagious again.

Q- if they shut down cities would they even try to ambulance seriously ill to the hospitals?

I think 150-200?

usernameishistory Yep agree. Why don't those of you wondering what the numbers might be go to the bookies and place a bet?

I am not sure we should extrapolate from current family contagion rates in the US. Many of their cases so far have been in quarantine following evacuation from China or the Diamond Princess, or long-term residents of care facilities. The numbers are unlikely to be there for a reliable assessment of infective potential in a normal domestic setting.

As far as bed occupancy and isolation in hospital, if/when the outbreak becomes bigger they will probably cohort patients with the virus, so a whole ward will be designated for those with the virus, probably more than one ward if it takes off. All non essential surgery (non-life threatening) would be cancelled so that would free up quite a bit of capacity.
There doesn't appear to many treatment options other than supportive therapies at the moment , although the Dr Campbell mentioned an old anti malarial that might have some benefit ?

@NK346f2849X127d8bca260 I've got an adult child living, working and at university in London. She is on and off the tube all the time although has been walking a lot more lately to avoid. I do worry. Her job is also beauty industry based with direct customer contact (make up artist) and I consider that to be high risk. She's a sensible girl, following all guidelines and is living near to our family so she's not on her own as such but I can't help feeling she's in the line of fire! I continue to hope that it will all be OK! I hope your boy is too.

If I was a student, I'd be looking at the government to come up with a solution.

As much as anything I think it will be the exam boards and universities themselves that will come up with the solutions. I rather suspect it will involve taking exams a bit later, but not actually next year. And universities may look at other things to decide which students to take - they certainly won't want to miss out on bums on seats.

This thread is going rapidly downhill.

The baby recently quoted on a previous thread, was disccussed at length, as was the reasons for low infection and impact rates on infants

Teens and uni students, under discussion, are the ones most likely to have parents in the 50+ age bracket, but regardless, that still doesn't exclude the many over 50s with much younger dc.

What is it with all the predictions?
What is the point of it?
Do you want to be applauded for being right?
It almost comes across as though you’re excited about it.
Perhaps start a different thread for ‘guess the number of new cases’ ?
It’s not productive or in any way helpful.

Eypt has declared its first coronavirus infection of an Egyptian national. The country’s Ministry of Health and Population said a 44-year-old Egyptian citizen showed symptoms after returning from Serbia via 12-hour transit in France.

It's not about betting, it's about the increase in numbers causing us to officially move to the delay phase, at which point further measures will be put into place. I'm thinking that a more significant increase than 140 will surely force the goverment to stop pretending that we're still in the contain phase.

Cases are a product of numbers tested. My understanding is that you are extremely unlikely to get a Covid 19 test even if you have Covid like symptoms unless you have travelled, been in contact with a known positive or in one of the Sentinel areas.

Remember when Italy had around 500 cases, Prof Neil Ferguson said 80-100k infected.

Whatever the number, it is much lower than the actual number infected.

The newborn was born, prematurely, to a mother who had CV. No suggestion that the baby had it, just that they were preterm which increases the possibility of many complications.

Surely most students will have done mocks by now, they could just use results from mocks. Before I get flammed, I know this isn't ideal (my own DD vastly improved her gcse grades from mock to final exam) however they will have to do something and this seems an obvious solution. Those with offered places just get to go no questions asked.

Chap on the BBC quoted as saying his symptoms went from feeling much like a cold, to much like the flu, to being unable to breathe. Poor bloke. Sounds horrendous, and I am glad he is better now.

I'm community pharmacist and one of my concerns is bringing it home to my asthmatic partner and dc1(was hospitalised last by a simple cold). We haven't been given much information ecept to isolate any suspected cases in an area of the pharmacy, not many pharmacies have an area that can be easily isolated. The problem is that some people who only have mild symptoms are probably going to come to pharmacy

@KenAdams so just wait for the numbers, no point speculating . In any case I thought Chris Witty said today that we have now moved into the delay phase?

Chris Whitty

'Even in the most vulnerable, oldest groups, in the very stressed health service which Hubei was at the point when most of the data come out of, the great majority of people who caught this virus - and not everybody will - survived it, the great majority, over 90 per cent.'

I agree Lark

Extrapolation from any other countries figures wont match our demographic or key cultural differences. Social greetings/social control from govt/treatments.

Treatment here and now is superior to when results were initially coming through.

The virus in the main, is different to the wuhan virus.

Spread rates are clearly not what was initially experienced.

I'm genuinely interested in what people think the numbers may be. Of course we aren't excited or wanting to place bets for goodness sake.