The next 18 months for all of us - here is the science

[EasterEggz]

If you haven't read this, now is the time. It explains exactly what the next 18 months are going to look like, why the government has switched from 'mitigation' to 'suppression', and what it means for all of us.

www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3PQSzpObyq-ULWzwsNKvDHwPhri47wEsJSDqEJYX0dTzIw1JQc6wVSGCE

To crudely summarise... Be prepared for a long term change in our lifestyles, lasting until Summer 2021. The first wave will be suppression until July 2020, including school and university closures after Easter. There will then be a brief respite over late July / August to allow people a few more freedoms before the suppress measures come back in the Autumn. The suppress measures will be implemented thereafter on a rolling basis for shorter intense periods throughout the following year, all in a bid to keep the ICU need below the maximum capacity. It is all explained here.

@fogginghell
The uk is not taking the same action that China did.
There was no debate in China over should I go to the pub or not. The govt shut the pubs as you could not open without govt permission.
The regulations were clear.
Whether China is known for its honesty is not relevant. Whether the numbers they have now are accurate or not is not relevant. They have moved to a second stage in managing this outbreak. That is clear to see from what is happening now in China,

@AgentCooper I understand and I’m the same, my mental health is already going down...

I want to send a message to some posters and maybe lurkers who are worrying about their children’s childhoods and their own mental health.

I want to speak quite personally so I expect some people to think I’m talking rubbish. I don’t mean to offend, this is about how I’m coping.

It’s completely reasonable to feel grief and sadness for the way of life we are losing. I’m finding myself feeling quite tearful every so often and when there’s a step change of one sort or another it’s taking me about a day to process it. Most of the rest of the time I’m feeling positive, looking for silver linings and, in a very small way, trying to support extended family by phone.

My chief job is keeping home going for my 6 year old. He has SEN and last week, after years of battling we heard his EHCP had been agreed in principle. I wonder if it will ever be implemented.

Fortunately I have some difficult life experiences to draw on. If you have ever had severe illness, depression, faced your own death or lost a loved one you may have learned things which can help you now.

I know any contact with a loved one might turn out to be the last, usually I don’t dwell on this but generally if there’s a disagreement or if I don’t have enough time and energy to meet a high standard of eg daughterly perfection I check I with myself and consider whether I’m doing the best I can. If I am I think I can live with that.

This situation has sent me back to my spiritual practice and community. That’s a help for me.

I’m also using all my mathematical ability and lay medical knowledge to read and understand the current research and be as informed as possible.

I think of people in history or in fiction who have lived through really difficult times. I try to take comfort and inspiration from their stories.

I remember GoJetterGirl who lost her beloved son so very recently.

If I survive this I want to help in the rebuilding and recovery of our lives and happiness. If I am fortunate enough to be mildly ill and become immune I hope I can be of practical help. The truth is I’m at higher risk so I need to do all I can to avoid but that’s not guaranteed to work.

Sometimes leaders have arisen, people with feet of clay, who have been able to inspire or comfort people in very tough times. Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela. Who is carrying a message of hope and service now? Can we support them? Can we follow their lead?

You are enough. You can find inner strength you didn’t know you had. You can be a wonderful role model for your children showing them how to face adversity, accept your own difficult feelings and find meaning in life.

What you are doing is making a difference. Take care 🌿

As a wise friend says, take what you like and leave the rest.

The thing with a lockdown though, presumably, is not just that it stops people catching it during the lockdown; but - if it is a genuine lockdown and mostly well adhered to - that OUGHT to mean that when you lift the restrictions, there should be far fewer infectious people on the streets again than before, right? As anyone who had it or was "brewing" it at the start of the lockdown will have gone through it, maybe passed it on to family/household members who would also then go through it, but after that there would be no more people for that family to infect, and they themselves would no longer be infectious a few weeks later - and same for all the other households around them, as long as they have also been distancing/isolating (unlike if it had kept circulating in the community without a lockdown, continually infecting new people and keeping the disease going). Plus of course anyone who'd already had it would hopefully have some immunity too.

So I would expect that post-lockdown, it would take a while before it started circulating again at anywhere near similar rates, as there would only be the smaller number of people who ignored the lockdown or who couldn't follow it (e.g. medics and other essential workers maybe), plus people travelling in from other areas perhaps, who might have been infected more recently and still be contagious, so it ought to spread more slowly. Also it would be another opportunity potentially to start using test-and-trace properly again, if more testing was available by then, due to the reduced numbers of people likely to have it.
Am I right?

That's lovely Neome, thank you.

Yes, this is the Chinese approach.
Mgt now focuses on those bringing the virus back in. Same in HK.

@Shangai but I'm afraid it is very relevant whether China is honest or not. The world is looking to them for what will happen next/what to do next. They owe it to the world to be honest.

Honesty is always relevant , in any given situation.

UK devloped vacc!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-cambridgeshire-51937608/coronavirus-cambridge-scientists-race-for-a-vaccine

I’m sorry but it’s outrageous to call that document “science.” That is mathematical modelling and it is full of assumptions based on nothing. The assumptions are literally hypothetical, plucked out of air

They are not assumptions based on nothing or plucked out of the air @Nekoness. They are based on analysis of data and scientific knowledge. If you look at the references (the little numbers in the text that refer to the list of references at the end of the paper) you can see what research they have based each assumption on.

Why are our predicted deaths so much more than China ???? shock😣😣😣 I don't get it ! Isn't China on something like 3000+ deaths At the moment and they're past their peak, so why is our peak estimated at 12,000 deaths per day????

@fogginghell The epidemic in China has had a peak but the reason transmission has slowed is because of restrictions. Once restrictions are lifted, if there is one single person still infectious in China or somebody with the virus comes into the population from outside of China, then the virus will start to spread again. It doesn't mean that this is the end of the epidemic in China.

Apparantly there is approx seventy treatments and vaccines being developed across the world and many moving into human trial.

There is a good chance that a treatment may be available sooner rather than later, from drugs that already exist. Ie in weeks rather than months. Clearly though prevention is better than cure, so a vaccine is required to prevent it in the first place.

The global scientific community is running very fast to be able to both cure and prevent this..

There is an interview with one scientist in the mail and he is saying effectively authorities are shortly going to have to decide that if something seems to be treating it successfully and no adverse effects, do they just give it to patients who would die otherwise, rather than wait to go through all the trials.

The answer to that needs to be yes, it can hardly make it worse. We all just need to comply with the requests governments are making to stop the spread, whilst the scientists do their jobs.

@Neome

Thank you. That is beautiful! You have helped me today by posting it.

@goingoverground
Yes, this is why the focus in my city is on people returning to China and bringing the virus back with them. There are very strict quarantine rules in place regardless of whether you have any symptoms of the virus.

Thank you @Neome, that was lovely, and just what I needed to hear this morning!

@helpmeandmybrokenbum well most of us are going to have a lot more time on our hands now!

Re mental health, I hear those fears. This is very real for many of us, and may hit many others who have never experienced poor mental health. Eg I'm pregnant and have a great number of worries going on in my head at any time, about my wellbeing, my baby, what the birth will be like, the potential trauma, isolation and so on, plus my husbands job and fear over our future. I think we all have an opportunity here, in this unwanted situation, to reset our lives to some degree by focusing on what matters and letting go of the extraneous stuff that is a distraction. For me, this is the ultimate exercise in managing my thoughts. It's been forced upon us all, so we can either resist (which won't work) or we can find a way to go with it and keep mentally healthy. There are simply things we cannot control, the virus being the obvious one of them. Therefore we have to manage our thoughts in such a way that we can learn to let go and not fuel worries about the things we cannot control. For me, it's a similar experience (but worse & more extreme) to being pregnant. Eg being pregnant my body is out of my control. Nature has taken over and I can't control what happens, whether my baby is well and healthy, whether my birth will go as planned etc etc. All I can do is focus on the things I can control, such as what I eat, how I exercise, staying calm, being grateful etc etc. I guess the way I'm attempting to view the virus is the same, but it affects the whole world and not just me. So I can't control the pandemic, or the economy, or my workplace, or whether I end up being ill, or the health of my loved ones, or the stock available in my local supermarket. I could spend all day focussing one those worries thinking over and over, and ruminating and feeling worse, but that won't help me. I think it's okay to acknowledge these worries are there, and share them from time to time, and write them down. But then at some point I need to consciously choose to think differently, otherwise the worries will consume me and affect my health and my baby. So instead, I am trying to focus on the things I can control, like what I eat, my home exercise routine, doing yoga and looking after my health physically. I can control my hygiene and social contact. I can choose to speak on the phone to friends each day. I can choose to gather a pile of books I've always meant to read. I can crack on with that list of DIY / decorating I wanted to do. I can start that free online course that looked interesting. I can spend quality time with my partner, and as we are not so overloaded with work we can really talk and listen to each other.

I'm also trying to find rational counter statements for each negative worry. And for each negative "what if" I try to find the positive "what if". For example, "what if" the UK / world learns from this and we are better protected in future. What if the enforced working from home / lack of work supports me to develop a better work life balance in the future. What if this enforced time at home is actually beneficial in the end and helps me to develop calming / mindfulness skills. What if I learn a new skill or hobby in the next few weeks. What if coming off social media and only contacting real friends on the phone helps me remember the important things in life. What if I use this time to get fit and healthy... for example.

This is the absolute test for all of us. We have been thrust into circumstances we can't control that we never would have chosen for ourselves. We can choose to invest all our energy into our worries, and bring those worries to the centre of our minds all day and night, or we can choose to gather all our inner strength to manage the way we think about this experience, to be kind to ourselves and to consciously think rational counter thoughts, and to pull together (virtually) with our loved ones and friends to get through this.

@EasterEggz I would love to take up new hobbies, no more exercise, mindfulness, reading etc but I have a full on two year old. I go to the gym during my lunch hour at work. I read on the bus to and from work. Being at home with my toddler is going to take these things away from me, not give me new opportunities to do them.

agent

I hear you!

Have you tried cosmic kids yoga- you tube? Great channel for kids yoga!

Also relax your expectations- screen time might be just what you and your 2 year old need. They can watch 2/3 episodes of paw patrol or whatever while you do a quick hiit workout.

If they are still in a pushchair- and your pushchairs can take it- use it for a strenuous walk/exercise.

Park- go together. While you are catching them from the slide. Do 5 squats. When you’re pushing them on the swing do 5 star jacks.

It’s SHIT. I’m a glad half empty person and find the whole positive metal attitude so irritating, but this is where we are, carve out some bits of time for you too.

I used to let mine “cook” with a big bowl of flour and water with some newspaper underneath. I’d cook too- real food!

Good luck

Have you tried cosmic kids yoga- you tube? Great channel for kids yoga!

This. Me, my 21 month old and my 5 year old have spent a large chuck of the morning doing yoga. Ds is particularly fond of the Frozen one.

I’ve not read it. Let me guess: all eyes on China?

Oops. Wrong thread :(

Ooo no, it’s the right thread. From Imperial College to Cosmic Kids Yoga. Only on MN ;)

@Atalune is right @AgentCooper. We can sit here wringing our hands and saying it's shit but it won't help us. (Sometimes we need to give ourselves the space to sit there and have a cry, but in general we can't live 24 hours a day like that). The ideas Atalune came up with are great. Everyone in the whole country is going to have to adapt beyond what they ever thoughts they would.

Intresting result of drug trial:)

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/18/coronavirus-cure-hope-79-year-old-italian-man-successfully-treated/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr