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Covid

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How long are you expecting this to go on for?

372 replies

DennisReynoldsDuster · 20/03/2020 21:59

Just curious. Friends seem to think it will all be fine again by May, I kind of feel like we will be lucky if we are “back to normal” by Christmas.

And by “this” I mean businesses shut and social distancing etc

OP posts:
UYScuti · 21/03/2020 17:54

loads of people are salivating at the thought of a 'cull' of all the types people that they dont like

buttermilkwaffles · 21/03/2020 18:03

"A policy of alternating between periods of more and less strict social distancing measures could plausibly be effective at keeping the number of critical care cases within capacity. These would need to be in place for at least most of a year. "

buttermilkwaffles · 21/03/2020 18:05

The above is from the UK government website (report on their scientific advice) and there is a link to it in the first post of this Twitter thread (worth reading the whole thread though).
mobile.twitter.com/whippletom/status/1240974464965324800

AgentCooper · 21/03/2020 18:07

Well, as a university administrator I can tell you my uni is aiming for a return to standard teaching in semester one 2020-21 (late September 2020). Academic staff aren’t being asked to prepare for their sem 1 courses to go online. Lots of the material is on the virtual learning environment anyway.

Not sure what uni you work at MMN but that’s the view from mine right now.

Russellbrandshair · 21/03/2020 18:14

“At least most of a year” so, if it lasts from March through to September that’s “most of a year” isnt it? That’s not 18 months and it’s not 2 years. It’s “most of a year”.

BiBiBirdie · 21/03/2020 18:16

I think the worst will be over by Mid May. Virus wise obviously, and I think the sooner they can offer tests that were mentioned to see who has already had it the better as that will aid in people being able to go back to work.
I don't think a vaccine will be available until mid next year, but think the drugs that have been proving successful at treating will be available by the winter. It's like a lot of other illnesses, we can't prevent but we can successfully treat in most cases, even Flu jabs aren't foolproof for all strains.
I think we will be looking at total lockdown soon than we think. Not to China levels as there would be riots, but I think the stockpiling and panic buying will lead to 6pm-8am lock in for some higher case areas, moving towards all areas.
I think the next big issue is when all the Chelsea set start going off to their country homes to party. That will cause it to jump from London.

Frouby · 21/03/2020 18:17

Bloody hope unis are back in September. At the ripe old age of 42 I have a place for a degeee starting in September. Took all my courage to apply let alone interview and it's the only thing keeping me sane at this moment in time.

Science is an amazing thing. They have already had some success with existing drugs, malaria and hiv drugs I believe. It may be possible to tweak them I don't know. Have also read that there may be something that they can do with the antibodies of people who have recovered. It may take time in normal circumstances to develop and license a vaccine but if given a choice now how many of the population would say 'yeah Ill have that vaccine please cos if the alternative is 18 months to 2 years possibly more then I will take my chances'.

And I know there have been reports of people being reinfected with it, but presumably these are pretty rare, like chicken pox. Eventually it will work it's way through the population because I can't see any country accepting 18 months lock down.

I also wonder if we already have the vaccine. Maybe something children are routinely vaccinated with in each country affected is working on covid 19 which is why they aren't getting as ill because they still don't know why. Maybe children hold the key, a quirk in their immune system or something that we can replicate in our own immune systems.

I am just praying that something changes soon. I can't bear the thought of my children missing their friends. If nothing else I hope that with time we can at least see extended family or close friends even if it means doing 7 days isolation again.

Bluntness100 · 21/03/2020 18:20

It was the same on the no deal brexit threads, people stock piling, calling themselves “ preppers” like that made it more normal. predicting famine, death, and nothing could dissuade them as they checked their stock piles and egged each other on..

I’d bet good money that it’s many of the same posters now doing the same for Covid whilst hiding loo rolls under their beds.

Justaboy · 21/03/2020 18:55

There is a link to the full report on this but for those who can't download PDF's the end part is here, looks very promising indeed!

A common anti marlial thats been around for some time and a common antibotic!

For ethical reasons and because our first results are so significant and evident we decide to share our findings with the medical community, given the urgent need for an effective drug against SARS-CoV-2 in the current pandemic context.
We show here that hydroxychloroquine is efficient in clearing viral nasopharyngeal carriage of SARS-CoV-2 in COVID-19 patients in only three to six days, in most patients. A significant difference was observed between hydroxychloroquine-treated patients and controls
starting even on day3 post-inclusion. These results are of great importance because a recent paper has shown that the mean duration of viral shedding in patients suffering from COVID-
19 in China was 20 days (even 37 days for the longest duration) [19]

Very recently, a Chinese team published results of a study demonstrating that chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine inhibit SARS-CoV-2 in vitro with hydroxychloroquine EC50=0.72%µM) found to be more potent than chloroquine (EC50=5.47%µM) [14]. These
in vitro results corroborate our clinical results. The target values indicated in this paper [14] were reached in our experiments. The safer dose-dependent toxicity profile of hydroxychloroquine in humans, compared to that of chloroquine [13] allows using clinical
doses of hydroxychloroquine that will be over its EC50 observed in vitro [14].

Our preliminary results also suggest a synergistic effect of the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin. Azithromycin has been shown to be active in vitro against Zika and Ebola viruses [20-22] and to prevent severe respiratory tract infections when
administrated to patients suffering viral infection [23]. This finding should be further explored to know whether a combination is more effective especially in severe cases. Speculated13

Potential risk of severe QT prolongation induced by the association of the two drugs has not been established yet but should be considered. As for each treatment, the cost benefits of the risk should be evaluated individually. Further studies on this combination are needed, since such combination may both act as an antiviral therapy against SARS-CoV-2 and prevent bacterial super-infections.
The cause of failure for hydroxychloroquine treatment should be investigated by testing the isolated SARS-CoV-2 strains of the non-respondents and analyzing their genome, and by analyzing the host factors that may be associated with the metabolism of hydroxychloroquine.

The existence of hydroxychloroquine failure in two patients (mother and son) is more suggestive of the last mechanism of resistance.
Such results are promising and open the possibility of an international strategy to decisionmakers to fight this emerging viral infection in real-time even if other strategies and research including vaccine development could be also effective, but only future. We therefore
recommend that COVID-19 patients be treated with hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin to cure their infection and to limit the transmission of the virus to other people in order to curb
the spread of COVID-19 in the world. Further works are also warranted to determine if these compounds could be useful as chemoprophylaxis to prevent the transmission of the virus,
especially for healthcare workers. Our study has some limitations including a small sample size, limited long-term outcome follow-up, and dropout of six patients from the study, however in the current context, we believe that our results should be shared with the scientific community.

MMN123 · 21/03/2020 19:03

Perhaps it depends on your definition of back to normal.

I also have no idea why there would be war. And I haven’t stockpiled food because the country is perfectly capable of supplying us with enough. But I appreciate that means in a week maybe I’ll have to buy what’s available rather than what I might fancy - and as long as it’s not Easter eggs which is all the shops seem to have not, I’ll make do.

But as I said before I personally prefer to mentally prepare for the upper end of disruption and be pleasantly surprised if things go better. Others prefer to work the other way around. But important people know which they are and accept there are folk who think like me - because that should be reassuring.

Absolutely not suggesting any mystical knowledge. But businesses and government are preparing for both best and worst case, as they should!

ChipotleBlessing · 21/03/2020 19:06

@Justaboy Those results were great, but what they were great at was quickly reducing viral load in patients with moderate symptoms. Patients who needed to go to ICU were removed from the trial and there didn’t seem to be a reduction in cases needing to be transferred to ICU. They’re really great results for one aspect though.

ChipotleBlessing · 21/03/2020 19:13

@Bluntness100 Just randomly saying there will be a cure within weeks, as you seem to be doing, is the opposite of science. I don’t particularly feel pessimistic about it. There will be solutions and fairly rapidly. 18 months is rapid for a vaccine. We can live with disruption for 18 months. The disruption will lessen over that time as we can monitor recovery rates with the antibody test and as we expand healthcare capacity and as we get more data and understanding about the disease and infection rates. For example, the China WHO report suggests children may not infect adults. If we get solid data showing that then the schools can reopen quickly.

MMN123 · 21/03/2020 19:31

It’s not been helped by Donald Trump saying there would be a vaccine in months. People hear him - and then don’t hear his own health experts contradicting him and saying it will be at least 12 and possibly more than 18 months for a vaccine.

LaurieFairyCake · 21/03/2020 19:49

I have no idea why anyone is saying there would be a vaccine AT ALL Confused - it makes no sense

We don't have a vaccine for SARS 1 in 2003

This virus is another SARS virus - so why would we get this one now but not be able to crack one from 17 YEARS AGO ?

Quartz2208 · 21/03/2020 19:57

I think there was never a real need for it once it disappeared so it went on the backburner. Technology has come on immensely since then and also if you look at the sheer amount of money now being poured into getting one.

HonestlyItsFine · 21/03/2020 20:02

SARS-1 just kind of disappeared (luckily- I think the CFR was around 11%), but they had already started researching treatments and vaccines. I read somewhere that the two viruses are similar, and so the research already done has helped to speed things up.

MMN123 · 21/03/2020 20:15

SARS had a higher mortality rate but lower transmission rate so it was surmountable. The concern is that covid has a long symptom free incubation, higher transmission rate and while mortality is lower than SARS, when applied to large volumes of people it’s more lethal. If it won’t burn itself out without killing huge numbers we need to aim for a vaccine or to slowly build immunity. Assuming immunity is achieved once you’ve had it - still being established. But hopefully that will be the case.

MMN123 · 21/03/2020 20:17

I won’t get into my worst case scenario if immunity isn’t achieved - would just make me look like a dreadful pessimist! Lol!

Bluntness100 · 21/03/2020 20:25

They didn’t need a Sars one, it wasn’t they couldn’t develop it.

Bluntness100 · 21/03/2020 20:27

won’t get into my worst case scenario if immunity isn’t achieved - would just make me look like a dreadful pessimist

I guess you mean immunity, a vaccine and or a cure?

I’d not worry about being seen as a pessimist. We’ve had people product life will never be the same again and world war. It doesn’t get much worse than that.

Quartz2208 · 21/03/2020 20:28

chances are it could become endemic hopefully though the severe cases will be less

respiratory viruses though are all can be lethal

MMN123 · 21/03/2020 21:13

No I just meant immunity following infection - ie it’s likely once you’ve had it you will have immunity and don’t get it again but that isn’t absolutely certain yet. Vaccine and treatment are separate - the hunt will go in for both.

Smithy01 · 21/03/2020 21:23

War, 10,000 people dying a day. Unbelievable, concentrate on what we need to do today and the coming weeks. No one knows where this is going but wild statements (and they are wild and based on no facts whatsoever) do not help people who are worried, anxious and have poor mental health. That’s me done on Mumsnet I can’t listen to this kind of stuff, we need to come together and support each other not destroy each other with scaremongering.

Quartz2208 · 21/03/2020 21:37

www.statnews.com/2020/02/04/two-scenarios-if-new-coronavirus-isnt-contained/

its Feb but assume the science is still the same - its interesting to note how actually the other coronaviruses work

It does seem to think that reinfection means its milder. One can only hope after this initial horrific outbreak the 80% becomes a lot more. So it really does just become a flu (even though that isnt that great either). I guess the worry though is how this would be handled adding an extra layer of patients each year

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