worried about coronavirus (covid19) part 14

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Helpful links

WHO media speech for world plan of action

updated data on this page every day at 2pm until further notice.
www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-information-for-the-public#number-of-cases

It's not just like flu www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/01/yes-it-is-worse-than-the-flu-busting-the-coronavirus-myths

Why WHO not declaring a pandemic www.newscientist.com/article/2235342-covid-19-why-wont-the-who-officially-declare-a-coronavirus-pandemic/

Worldometer www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

BNO News bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus-cases/

Link to WHO report www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019

The Lancet coronavirus hub - latest research and comment www.thelancet.com/coronavirus

JAMA coronavirus research centre jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/pages/coronavirus-alert

@GalOopNorth Genuinely interested to know which countries are testing more widely than us?

It's very hard to find data on testing, but everything I have read from other countries, suggest that actually we are testing more widely than others.

I remember reading recently (like last weekend) that the Netherlands had only tested about 200 people. A lot of articles coming out of the US are holding up the UK as an example of how testing should be done.

I think there are lots of things we are doing wrong, but testing we are doing as well as we can given our capacity to test.

Yes Gal - I am sure if they were testing everyone with symptoms we would be following a similar line as Italy

@Meruem well said

Have a look at the table I linked, SansaSnark it’s fascinating.

It shows tests per million of the population. On 2nd March USA was on 1 test per million population. UK on 199. S. Korea over 2000
South Korea have got by far the best coverage.

www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/covid-19-testing/

The testing figures on Worldometers are several days old now.

What is it that limits the number of tests done? Supply of special swabs? Lab capacity to process results? What?

www.barnsley.gov.uk/news/060320-update-on-covid-19-novel-coronavirus-from-julia-burrows-director-of-public-health-barnsley-council/
2 cases in Barnsley

Be realistic.

It doesn't matter where the positive cases are.

You cannot avoid everywhere, forever more.

I don't believe that Italy are testing everyone with symptoms.

From what we are being told, most cases in the UK still have links with known cases or are people returning from abroad. We are not seeing widespread community transmission yet in the UK- and I do believe we are testing enough to spot this.

Of course Italy are testing more people than us- they are in a completely different scenario to us.

We would know if there was a huge spike in people with viral pneumonia being admitted to hospital, as well- things like that hit the news.

I feel like some people on this thread are determined to convince themselves that things are worse than they are!

I guess lab capacity. I think 2k tests per day is about our capacity at the moment.

We are not testing widely. Or not as widely as others

Agree, and it will get less and less as the cases grow. They'll stop testing people and just go straight to treatment for most, and only test critical cases when it becomes a large outbreak.

Happy birthday to you... 🧼 🤚 ✅

People IRL seem absolutely determined to believe this is no big deal and is just "the media" whipping up "hype".

@GalOopNorth I've seen that table, thanks. It's very incomplete. Notable omissions include France and Germany who AFIAK aren't even releasing the numbers of patients they are testing.

Of course South Korea and Italy are prioritising testing for coronavirus above everything else- they are in a very different stage of the outbreak to US.

Ok Sansa, happy to agree to differ.

Hope you are right.

SansaSnark

I have been watching this due to DS being in Japan and thus far Japan have done less than 8000 tests (compared with the uk at 20,000). Despite their close proximity and links with China and South Korea. Also factor in that they had positive cases before we did. The sceptics among us might say the Olympics has something to do with that! But am glad DS will be home here by tomorrow. Things are far from perfect here but I think he’s safer here than in Japan.

What calm plans can you make though apart from hygiene and not travelling much. I have enough food and toilet roll in anyway.

My Husband is not panicking, I am.

I have decided that I'm not coming on this thread for the weekend. It is making me anxious and a bit obsessive. I just want to have a nice weekend.

How do others feel like talking about it all the time is helping? Not being critical, I'm just curious as it's not helping me.

I have the worldometer app on my phone so will be not be in the dark.

Why do people think in Italy it is spreading so fast?
I know they have a older population and higher death rate but I'm interested as to why its spread so fast over there especially as they stopped flights from China
Presumably it came from someone from China landing there and now its spread all over

Tests for the coronavirus I believe are being done by PCR still (polymerase chain reaction). This is a specialist technique which multiplies the amount of DNA/RNA available from a sample until it can be compared to a known example. Often the sample has to be multiplied several times, and each cycle takes a set amount of time- this cannot be set up.

PCR is also very sensitive to contamination- if the samples are contaminated, it doesn't work. This makes it a hard process to speed up.

I believe it's still relatively labour intensive in labs too.

We only have limited capacity in the UK (or any country) to carry out PCR testing, and we do need to use it for other diagnostic tests, too.

Mereum what is the sensible safe stance?

@SansaSnark - I can see what you’re saying but we know from numerous stories on here that if you phone 111, they will only test if you’ve been to certain countries. Even if you have symptoms. So the only way we’ll pick up community transmission is by those testing centres (but I can’t remember the details!)

IMO in Italy the high spread is due to the fact that they missed the early stages of the outbreak, and actually there's a lot of undiagnosed cases walking around in the community. Of the numbers being tested, I think 50-75% of people are being hospitalised, that suggests a lot of people with low level symptoms/no symptoms being missed, and some of these people will be infecting others.

There's a new scientist article about testing here: www.newscientist.com/article/2236610-coronavirus-how-do-i-get-tested-and-how-does-the-test-work/

The UK is testing more than any other country without a major outbreak. It’s not a matter of opinion whether the UK is testing widely. These are literal facts, your opinion doesn’t change them. The government can’t magic testing capacity out of its arse because Sharon has a bit of a cough and thinks she should be tested despite having no risk factors. All you people are doing is flooding 111 so it no longer functions.

We’re also leading the way on a new form of testing.

Why do people think in Italy it is spreading so fast?

Chinese workers making "Made in Italy" textiles/clothes in and around Milan and other northern Italian cities.

You cannot avoid everywhere, forever more.

No, but you can reduce transmission until the NHS stops being overwhelmed. You can flatten the peak and reduce the deaths. This is clear from the science.

I don't get this attitude - why would anyone want to take the course of action where most people die? Just throw up your hands and say 'well it's here to stay let's just have complete mayhem' when the WHO have made clear that the actions China took prevented the death toll and infection rate from being far, far worse.