worried about coronavirus (covid19) part 15

[usernameishistory]

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

The reasons such a high percentage of Italian cases are hospitalised is they have stopped testing anyone who isn’t ill enough to be potentially hospitalised. So their actual number of infections will be much higher but the percentage serious cases much lower. There is no point looking at the data if you don’t look at the context.

@Mrshoho June Andrews is probaby just articulating what the government don't want to say themselves. It's dehumanising and very unpleasant.

Naidex event at NEC on 17/18th March is to be postponed for anyone that was going

Closing schools means frontline nurses, doctors, cleaners, researchers etc would suddenly be called home for childcare. Kids from infected schools could be sent to stay with grandparents - possibly increasing spread to vulnerable people. Scientists are driving procedure in this country as far as I can tell and at this point from what I’ve read we need as many people ready to tackle the crisis as possible, not at home looking after kids.

they have stopped testing anyone who isn’t ill enough to be potentially hospitalised.

Do you have a source for this please?

The model

@peridito
Thanks! I did find the comments made by other posters quite rude. These are uncertain times and I am trying to offer some perspective based on my experience. I think it’s useful to have information from a variety of sources so that people can make their own informed decisions about actions they plan to take.

I see a huge amount of older people (grandparents) collecting children from the school and providing childcare. Seems a recipe for disaster.

Yes, I'd say at least 40% of the kids at my DDs school get picked up at least a few days a week by grandparents, many of them over 70.

When their family childcare is sick, how is everyone going to manage going into work? It really seems self evident to me that lockdown with more people healthy is better than just allowing large numbers to be sick at once. But a lot of people disagree with me. That's fine. Rather grimly, we're probably going to find out who's right.

It does seem to me from the data so far that countries with lockdown are doing a lot better than those who left it too late and have breakdown.

Found out earlier this week that an older family friend has effectively been told not to have (start) chemo beacuse of CV. They are otherwise in good health.
This is the second chemo story I have head re: CV - in the other case, they were told to stop mid treatment cycle.
I am not clear whether this is beacuse of reduced immunity from chemo or whether NHS is starting to ration chemo/ triage patients and doesn't want to start people on expensive courses of treatment.

Kids from infected schools could be sent to stay with grandparents - possibly increasing spread to vulnerable people.

Yes - so, will it be better for this to happy before the disease takes off (when fewer kids have it and can pass it on), or when the schools have all been open for another two weeks and we're up to the level of infected in Italy - when many MORE kids will have it?

Would the NHS want me back?

I retired as a midwife a couple of months ago. I am well over sixty and have two underlying health conditions which would put me (and by extension, my DH) at risk. DH has several underlying health conditions.

Since most midwifery work is within hospitals, a good many midwives would catch CV and there would be a need for people like me.

I would actually be willing. But my family is horrified that I am even considering this.

*happen.

I'm not happy about this situation at all, in case that wasn't apparent.....

Something else I found interesting on the BBC. I don't like marginalising people or saying "it's ok, they were old" but if you had genuinley asked me the average age of someone who had died from CV in Italy I would have said late 60s:

The national health institute said the average age of those who have died was 81, with the majority suffering from underlying health problems

@ShanghaiDiva please ignore the tetchy and rude posters. Your contribution to this thread is very informative and it really helps to hear a voice that has experience of the situation from outside the UK.

@ShanghaiDiva I am another one who values your contributions. We are all “internet randomers” to one another on here, whatever we do IRL, and all should be equally welcome to contribute diverse perspectives.

“ they have stopped testing anyone who isn’t ill enough to be potentially hospitalised”

I asked about that on the last thread. At some point it must become inefficient to test everyone thought to have it?

TheMustress - that is really kind of you to even consider it. I have found midwives (through two pregnancies and births) to be some of the best people. I wonder if you think there will be potential for more home births (it seems this would probably be better in this situation) and more midwives in the community rather than hospitals?

Shutting schools works in conjunction with other methods. China shut schools, but a lot of people were not a work so the childcare issues were reduced. There were also movement restrictions so children were staying at home rather than meeting outside school so that also helped. Additionally, work is still being set which also means staying at home to complete school work.

To what extent do people stay in homes?

Eg I take mine straight into our car. We drive to the woods with path. We park and scoot. There are people also walking but we don't get close to them at all. We don't mix with anyone.

Back in car and home. Not cafe.

The only possible transmission point could be the loo if the dc needed it.

Even national trust property.

Very large grounds, plenty of acres to walk around with no close proximity to any one else.....

I can think of lots of walks and stuff where the closest we would get to anyone would be walking past them on wide paths or fields...

I remeber with swine flu my son at the time was on long term steroids for brittle asthma.
I did take him out of school (he was in year 4) a few weeks before the summer holidays with the doctors and schools blessing.
If I remeber right in the summer holidays it did help stop the spread of swine flu.
So hard to juggle the health benefits and trying to keep economy going.
And of course parents of children who can not wfh, damed if you do damed if you dont.

MustressMhor, that's really good of you. Right now, I think we are all worried and being a bit cross with each other, but I hope we will see more selflessness like yours if things get worse.

@RedToothBrush on the masks front. It strikes me that the Governement probably have the authority to ban private sales. (That does raise a question about businesses such as builders and people who work with chemicals that legitimately need them.)

I think the Government have to speak to suppliers and order for all essential PPE and medicines including paracetamol. Only once these orders have been fufilled can suppliers sell to public.

However, as you note, there are supply chain issues. I question wheher any factories in the UK that make different products such as filters for hoovers and cookers or sanpro can switch to making masks and PPE. Otherwise it's going to be a case of speaking to China.

Honestly, I think the Gvt are rather damned if they do and damned if they don't at this stage (and I am not a supporter - I loathe them).

It is also worth remembering that China only went public on the virus on 31st December last year - at that time the claim was there were "dozens" of cases. There seems to be some evidence that the situation had actually been going on for longer, and more people were affected, than the government was admitting to... but for the sake of simplicity lets take them at their word.At that time they had "dozens" of cases - shall we say 60? So a similar number to the number we had midweek (51 on 3rd March).

The Chinese Govt didn't introduce their quarantine of Wuhan until 23rd January - by which time at least 17 people are known to have died of the virus. We have not reached that stage yet - and if we follow a similar trajectory we won't until the end of this month. So it is unfair to say our Govt are obviously treating this lightly. It could well be that they are waiting for things to reach a certain point before the take action - there is a balance between acting too soon and causing unnecessary economic hardship for millions, and acting too late and letting the virus run rampant. I think they are carefully trying to balance this by waiting to introduce measures when they will be most effective (and, incidentally, have more public support than the would currently, when most of the country can't see what the fuss is about).

I can easily imagine that the Gvt may well close schools for Easter a week early - this would limit economic impact by only having one week where there is a surprise school closure (presumably parents have planned for Easter anyway) whilst providing a 3 week gap where children are not at school. What happens after the holidays I suppose then depends on what happens with the virus and case numbers.

Shanghai I find your posts really interesting and informative too. I think we need to hear more about how other countries are handling this, not less. Thank you.

I was at MK hospital on Thursday and Friday. Both times there was only one working Pay station for the car park. The other two were broken.

That means everyone who drove there will have had to use the same machine to exit the car park, same buttons etc. The hospital isn't somewhere anyone walks to really.

Great. Nice to know that we could be at risk now.

(There is a smaller car park by A&E but it's always full and people are directed to use the Multi storey now)