What does the PM mean by “tide turning” or whatever in JUNE?

[R2221]

We are in MARCH!! 3 more months of what??? We ONLY had less than 2 weeks of cases going up. Will they continue to go up for 3 months???

We are looking at 18 months, realistically, before a vaccine gets to the public.
I don't claim to be an expert, but if people are walking around & spreading it now, it's going to take that long to work through all the cases and resulting sickness. That's if everyone goes home and self isolates: no more infections.

The fact that 20,000 UK dead is considered a good outcome at the end of this by our chief scientists should make us stop and think.

'We should have always been in contact with places like Taiwan and Singapore... They have incredible pandemic teams.'

Sadly the UK population don't behave in the same way as those in Taiwan and Singapore.

It means the peak is in June, which means cases will keep rising until then.
The uk is only a couple of weeks behind Italy.

He was clearer yesterday.

Squash the spread (if the fucking idiots of this country would just adhere to advice) slow down spread as much as we can. He said when the lid is lifted they would have to see how it spread but hopefully we'd have data from other countries who've previously done this at that time.

They are hoping by the time it picks up again in winter they will have treatments, more data on how this behaves, better resources and testing etc and hopefully some kind of vaccine.

Today he was dire!

I didn't hear that at all - I think he meant it will be returning to normality in June.

It will definitely not be normal in June. No way. The are hoping to have had the peak in June.

The fact is they just don’t know do they? I really think they are trying not to cause panic at the moment and are just making it up as they go along! Boris is just the puppet being told what to say.

I was just saying to DH how this time last week we were wondering whether we’d still be able to go away at Easter. Seems laughable now..

I just started another thread with this username with some links to what is happening in Italy. What Boris is saying, I think, is that we can stop the spread by learning by Italy's experience, ie total cessation of any nonessential contact with others. And he means, I truly hope, buying up more ventilators and med equipment, from china, and allocating icu beds, again like other european countries. Last week he was saying "lots of you will die" and this week i think he is saying "ok, we are going to copy our european counterparts and try to conquer the virus, learning from Italy's experience" ie social distancing and sorting out what is required from a medical point of view.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/3854225-For-anyone-still-cavalier-about-social-distancing

Why wouldn’t the U.K. population behave the same was as those in Taiwan? Taiwan is a democracy where people are used to having plenty of freedom. Singapore and China are both pretty authoritarian places but Taiwan isn’t.

Italy is meant to peak end of March/start of April. So if the UK is a couple of weeks behind it should peak in late April? But the current advice falls a long way short of full lockdown so not sure how that affects timing of the peak...

A vaccine supposedly takes at least a year, treatments could be a lot sooner there are already reports and trials of various drugs with positive effects.

A long period of this or lockdown plus rising death rate peaking at around June

Taiwan learnt from SARS and put in central services before this happened. Spent money got prepared. Which of course there’s no way we’d have done a year into Brexit mess for no reason we could foresee.

I understood turn the tide to be the point when numbers start to slow from the exponential rise eg nearing the top of the peak.

@wecanturnthetide the problem is that he doesn't seem to be learning, seen from Italy the British approach looks very half-hearted, with all this voluntary distancing that lots of people are ignoring, and people crammed into supermarkets. Much stronger measures are needed to avoid the same fate.

It's utter bollocks and will kill more people because people won't take it seriously now. "Oh, it'll all blow over in a few months, what an over reaction!".

Criminally irresponsible, as ever.

Gosh so much scare mongering on here.

Clearly a vaccine is the ultimate aim. Prevention is always better than cure, but the first step is to find a treatment to cure it. Which they may already have, the first patient in the uk is being trialed on it now, no the same drug is being used in America nd made available on prescription.

If they can cure it, and have enough drugs, then you can release the population and lift the restrictions.

Honestly I get this is a scarey time, but spreading false information that it will go on for ever or a year and a half is pointless.

If the cure trials are successful then they will mass manufacture rhe drugs, likely doing it now, and then lift the restrictions. It’s also likely a vaccine will be ready this year, as they are moving into compassionate use for trials.

Sorry that should be human trials for vaccines, compassionate use is for the cure.

How long does it take to create a vaccine? Anyone know?

Has China got rid of it ? will it just start up again as soon as they go back to normal?

We live in a globalised world and had access to all the same information about SARS that Taiwan and Singapore did. Ok, we didn’t have the same direct experience, but it’s been more than 15 years since SARS. Plenty of time for us to learn from other countries.

There is no excuse for us (and I mean Europe as much as the U.K.) being so slow in taking action and so half-arsed in the actions we took.

Basically we can have a short, sharp hit with more cases than we can cope with and an astronomical body count, or we can have a prolonged time of social distancing resulting in a much lower infection rate and hence death rate. The NHS is also more likely to cope with this too. We need to choose the latter and completely socially isolate ourselves or we'll suffer like Italy has. It may already be too late.

@daisypond why are you posting your unsubstantiated opinion as if it's fact?

UK not a priority for the vaccine?

There is a live test going on right now with a U.K. developed vaccine. If this one works what are you thinking is going to happen? We instantly give it away to another country?

Direct experience from the threat is key. Otherwise no impetus.

U.K. not the only ones. All of the West too.

They are trying to manipulate the rate of transmission by social distancing, but unfortunately the British public is not cooperating as we should be. Italy's peak will presumably be faster but worse than ours. I think they're intending for ours to be steadier but longer lasting.

Remdesivir ...

This is trhe promising one its a broad spectrum anti viral there have been some sucess stories about a very good cure outcome in a 50 odd year old man in Italy its also in reserch and field trials in China but a bit more time is needed yet.

It works by prebenting the Virus taking hold and reproducing thats to say before it gets a hold of a person, its not an antiboidy it sods up the Virsus's breeding plan as it were!

However thats the main problem it needs to be given quite early on in an infection, its no use to someone who is already in intensive care.

Around 40 vaccines are under way plus some other combinations of drugs and this lot are on the go!.

Synairgen Starting trial of SNG001 (inhaled interferon-beta-1a)

Mateon To develop OT-101 (TGF-β2 inhibitor)

Mallinckrodt Evaluates inhaled nitric oxide for associated lung

complications

Emergent Biosolutions Starts development of 2 plasma-derived projects

Mesoblast To evaluate remestemcel-L in ARDS caused by Covid-19

Nascent Biotech To study pritumumab (anti-IgG MAb)

Evelo Considers developing EDP1815 (anti-IL-6/IL-8)

Cytodyn Considers developing leronlimab (CCR5 antagonist)