Annual Seasonal Corona Virus

[alloutoffucks]

The corona virus has already mutated once like flu does. This means that you cannot build immunity to it. So every year some of the population get flu, and some people die. That is in spite of the fact that we have a vaccination programme.

The Chief Medical Officer has this morning said the corona virus will be caught by 60% of the population with a 1% mortality rate. Plus it will be an annual seasonal virus. This means that healthy people who get it this year, could in the future die from it.

Isn't it about time we followed WHO's advice to try and eradicate this virus rather than just accepting a lot of people dying this year from the virus, and a smaller amount of people dying every year from it?
Or do we not even try, say it is too hard to try to do this, and accept that lots of people will die? Just too hard?

You are right it does mutate.

We need to slow it so the NHS can give the elderly and the sick humane treatment.

It's too late to eradicate it, that opportunity realistically bolted when China didn't want to put any measures in place when they were first aware. That's why lockdown will be effective in slowing the numbers, but it will appear again once it is relaxed, globally there needs to be a long term plan; it just buys you time.

I think that if this becomes something that drags on and on, no matter what measures are taken, we are going to see slowly growing rage towards China. I am feeling it already. The CCP had 17 years to sort out the live animal market issue. They didn't. Now we could well be stuck with this *#&%$ing virus for the long term.

Let's hope that containment measures put evolutionary pressure on the virus to become less virulent, so that it ends up becoming something more like seasonal flu. That's still not great and will still cost many lives every year though.

Hopefully by delaying the spread as much as possibly it will give epidemiologists a chance to get a handle on the situation going forward - and the opportunity for a vaccination to be created. It's too late to eradicate it now though OP.

Except WHO are saying it is not too late to eradicate it. And other countries are trying to eradicate it.
It is only our country that has given up.

We also, as a society, need to think hard about what we can do to make people less vulnerable to this virus, if it turns out that we are stuck with the bloody thing long-term. We need to pull out every stop that we have to stop people smoking. We need to be ban-hammering absolutely everything that results in people being exposed to passive smoking. We need to improve air quality a LOT (electric vehicles, traffic calming, pedestrianization, much much stricter controls on a whole bunch of things), so that people's lungs are less vulnerable. There needs to be more urgency about these issues.

I think that if this becomes something that drags on and on, no matter what measures are taken, we are going to see slowly growing rage towards China. I am feeling it already. The CCP had 17 years to sort out the live animal market issue.

^^ This

I feel our Government have collectively shrugged their shoulders and went - too hard. Lets just give up.

Other countries and WHO are saying this can be eradicated. Viruses have emerged before and disappeared.

Only the UK is saying nope, we give up.

So you are encouraging xenophobia? You do know that this will result in racism to Chinese people here? That is already happening. Seriously that is not okay. Fell whatever you want, but don't encourage this in others.

OP I know that you have absolute faith in the infallibility of WHO & their unique role in saving humanity from inevitable doom but they fuck up just as often as any other political organisation. Their handling of Ebola was shockingly incompetent. Maybe people would be more willing to engage with you if you had some argument other than "but WHO say ..."

UK is wrong the whole world and WHO are right.

I’ve no time for people who indulge in xenophobia against China using Coronavirus as an excuse. Yes, the wet markets are abhorrent and should be banned immediately but I doubt there is one nation on earth whose animal feeding/transport/husbandry etc hasn’t brought us dangerously close to a transferable pathogen at some time. We’ve no moral high ground on this one.

I don't think anyone in their right mind thinks this can be eradicated, it's just that GB have a different view on the best way to manage the transition from pandemic to seasonal recurring endemic disease. In the end we will all have to rely on herd immunity and vaccination, the question is how we get there and which option involves the fewest deaths.

Highly advanced nations that feed animal products to animals are similarly risking problems.

It's not any nation's 'fault' as such. In fact it's been inevitable for a while- we are vulnerable because of the spread and motility of people across the world.

We've had warnings- Ebola, sars, etc.

We have to stop swarming all over the planet, polluting and destroying as we go.

I feel our Government have collectively shrugged their shoulders and went - too hard. Lets just give up.
You are probably right OP - the morons who voted Johnson's government in on such a majority have a lot to answer for 🤷‍♀️

@Booboostwo Yes lots of scientists think this virus can be eradicated. That is what is frustrating. These are people who understand pandemics. It is only our government saying it is too hard so they are doing nothing.
And why wouldn't you at least try to eradicate it if many many experts round the world are saying it is possible?

You never know maybe this will be part of the vaccine in the future. maybe at some point we will be getting a flu / coronavirus vaccine in the Autumn

I don't feel it is so much shrugging shoulders as accepting the situation and managing it in the best way they can, instead of reactionary measures to be honest.

There's too much "science" being touted that isn't correct.

COVID viruses are more stable than typical flu, yes they can mutate but not in the same way.

Even where a virus does mutate, there is still some immunity when a population has experienced the original. This is the reason the 1918 flu didn't kill old people in the numbers you'd expect. It was different but similar to something they'd already experienced.

@orangeblossom Yes after lots more people have died in the UK than other countries.
And every other country, WHO and multiple scientists are saying that the British approach is wrong.
Why would Britain have it right and every where else have it wrong?

I feel its like on those thread on AIBU where someone asks AIBU and every single person says yes, and the OP is still - no I am not. If everyone is telling you your approach is wrong, why would you ignore that?

@doubleaction I have watched virologists being interviewed who say that too much is unknown about this virus to state that. They say the research simply is not there yet. Yes I know that is what the British Government is assuming. But nobody knows yet.
Maybe Boris should get infected and recover and then expose himself to the virus to test it out?

We don't even know if the mutated virus - there are 2 kinds now, have different mortality rates. That is how much in the dark things are at the moment. I work in a science company and if we pursued a large policy for our scientific work on the basis of basically not knowing, then we would be sacked. You can't just make assumptions. You test and research.

I don't understand why the government think it's acceptable to think just get it over with by sacrificing people because this method is essentially doing that. 60% of population will need to get sick for herd immunity, based on WHOs numbers that means 1.9 million will need hospital treatment, and around 400,000 will die. But more will die because if you're sick from something else or have accident you're competing against the 1.9 million that need hospital treatment. It will be front line drs and nurses that will die too so even more pressure

alloutoffucks I am not seeing anyone who still thinks it can be eradicated. Whom did you have in mind?

60% of the population will get an illness that doesn't do them any harm.

That then protects the vulnerable. In the meantime we do all we can to protect the vulnerable.