Worried about coronavirus thread 24

[ofwarren]

Sorry everyone, I was watching that shambles of a press conference

How often are everyone else’s children being made to wash hands at school? My kids’ school make them do it before lunch but that’s it. Not before snacks not after playtimes. Once a day doesn’t seem right to me. I’ve told my kids to wash more but they forget as five year olds will. Wondering what happens elsewhere.

There is a lot of sense in the arguments about timing. The CSO seems to think we are 4 weeks behind Italy so if we locked down now, we could be looking at two to three months of quarantine.

Not everyone is asking for full on locking down. A lot more could be done to get social distancing going, without even getting as far as schools or a more comprehensive lockdown. It feels like we've hardly started in that respect. Self-isolation for coughs and fevers is clearly really good but is it not possible more people would stick to that if they got much less of a 'carry on as normal otherwise' message?

I cannot articulate how shocked I was today by the response from Boris ! I was doing a drug round and had to stop so I could concentrate on the information and avoid a drug error !!

When high profile MP’s and football managers have unfortunately been in contact and have been infected by the 500 diagnosed cases then the true figure must be in the hundreds of thousands. Events will overtake.

@eeyoresmiles
Just telling people to work from home if they can and letting parents who can home school their kids, do so, would have made a huge difference.
There was no emphasis whatsoever on social distancing. Even Scotland is stopping events with over 500.

Trump and Johnson response to coronavirus like 'watching horror film', says Italian doctor. t.co/1sEdPfCPpe
The independent

All this talk of herd immunity that people keep going back to is misguided. I said this on the previous thread but it bears repeating:

1. There is no evidence that having this virus results in immunity, rather the reverse: there are documented examples of repeat infection. Any acquired immunity is shortlived, certainly nowhere near the 18 months or so required to tide the population over to the point where a vaccine is available.

1. Hypothetically, if we say that 80% of the population gets it, and of that pool of people 80% have it mildly and go on to be immune (rather than, say, dying or being in ICU for months), then that would give 64% of the population immunity. For a virus with this level of transmissibility, that's unlikely to be enough for effective herd immunity. Measles, for example, needs about 95% (but measles is super transmissible, like R=15 or something mad), polio about 85%. For Covid-19, 80% or so (that magic number again) is more in the ballpark.

1. But, as I say, see 1.

Whatever you think about the government's position this evening, the idea that the UK population will develop some level of resistence to it if things are just left to play out is almost certainly completely wrong.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nudge-nudge-how-psychology-is-being-used-in-coronavirus-fight-bb6t0hllz
The times

Disneyland Paris, Walt Disney World, and Disneyland in California will all be closed due to coronavirus, company says
BNO NEWSROOM

I don’t get why they say we’re four weeks behind italy when all data consistently shows we are two weeks behind them

I also don’t get why they say the average person infects two people so large gatherings are fine... when super spreaders who are super sociable have been shown to spread it to far more people than average. If you’re more sociable than average you spread it to more than average

^Number of coronavirus cases could have been cut by 66% if China had acted just one WEEK earlier, study claims t.co/M3ccEog50U
Daily mail^

Since when did the DM become a reliable source of reference to you @ofwarren ?

2. Hypothetically, if we say that 80% of the population gets it, and of that pool of people 80% have it mildly and go on to be immune (rather than, say, dying or being in ICU for months), then that would give 64% of the population immunity. For a virus with this level of transmissibility, that's unlikely to be enough for effective herd immunity. Measles, for example, needs about 95% (but measles is super transmissible, like R=15 or something mad), polio about 85%. For Covid-19, 80% or so (that magic number again) is more in the ballpark.

That's a good point. I hadn't realised it would need to be that high. (Do they think there might be any natural immunity due to genetic quirks, so you could add a few of the uninfected 20% to the 64%? That might help.)

The more immunity the better, but if it might not be enough, that rather weakens what justification there might have been for getting to it in a quick and painful way rather than as slowly as possible.

I just want to know why the UK is different to most other countries? Boris is apparently going on scientific evidence. So is there evidence that we're special and different from the rest of the world? His herd immunity thing. As others have said it's not yet known whether you're immune after getting it once. And it could mutate. The plan to speed it up to summer instead of waiting for a possible second wave next winter. Not good. Aside from time possibly bringing us a vaccine and/or known drug treatments, a fever in a summer heatwave? On top of heat exhaustion, and the issue that it might spread in air condition systems. He's not thinking things through is he.

We're all at risk and should all take precautions. Those with preexisting conditions or over 60 might be at higher risk but Italy has lots of younger previously healthy people in ICU. It's also a sign of a civilised society, looking after the most vulnerable.

This thread is good for all sorts of discussion and for sharing links of a wide range of interest and quality that people can form their own opinions of. It's not a Cochrane Review!

I'm going with my pet conspiracy theory that Johnson is being bought off by insurance companies not to test for community cases anymore.

Alberta Health Services in Canada is now saying all events with more than 250 attendees should be cancelled and is not recommending international travel. We have 23 confirmed cases here and 107 across Canada.

I don’t get why they say we’re four weeks behind italy when all data consistently shows we are two weeks behind them

Yes, you're right. And if Italy's statistics are a useful road map, it may become clear over the next few days that doing nothing much isn't good enough. But that depends on a reasonable amount of testing, which I'm concerned isn't really on the agenda anymore (if it ever was).

Interestingly, schools are still open.

Ontario is adding two weeks to their school break, so will be closed March 14-April 5.

Oh, I completely agree @eeeyoresmiles I just find it strange that @ofwarren chose to share a DM link when he/she spent most of Brexit expressing his/her concerns about the validity of the sentiment expressed there.

Not sure whether this has been posted here already.

It's an audio of two Italian doctors describing what we might expect to come.

This made me sit up and take things much more seriously.

www.itv.com/news/2020-03-11/italy-doctors-coronavirus-covid-19-quarantine-milan-health/

@RedLentilYellowLentil Yes I’m concerned that they won’t be testing outside hospitals anymore so we won’t have a true view of cases. Deaths should still be reported though so we can compare those to other countries’ figures. I can’t believe I just typed that. What has the world come to

It looks to me like they are deliberately trying to skewer the figures... why wouldn’t you test? I thought it before but since the press conference I think it even more now.

@confusedandtired99 why would they do that & why would you waste your energy trying to understand it even if they were?
All resources now need to be directed at saving people's lives & I have full confidence that this is what the government are doing.
The best thing we can do rn is take as much responsibility for ourselves & our family as we can. Those who've been following for a few months know what they need to do.

I have no idea why they would do it @raybentos and I have been following for about 8 weeks. I don’t buy what BJ is saying. Not testing unless you are admitted to hospital will (at least in the short term) keep figures artificially low. Why do that when he has admitted that we have under tested and the correct figure is probably closer to 10,000.

Why tell people to only isolate for one week? Especially since it was two weeks before for people who had travelled to affected areas.

I never thought I would ever say it but I actually agree with Jeremy Hunt. What he said sounded a lot more reasonable and plausible to me. If the measures he talked about were being implemented then I would be a lot more reassured than I currently am.

As it is I am not reassured so I am taking measures myself by withdrawing my children from school and trying to practice social distancing.

I’m glad you have full confidence. I wish I had. I hope you are right to have that faith, but meanwhile I will prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

When I agree with Jeremy Hunt I realise that the situation we are in is truly scary.