This pandemic may be short

[cornishdreams1]

I wanted to share with you the article published today in the Times. Professor Levit a Nobel prize winner no less, and a mathematical genius has estimated after looking at the numbers that this pandemic will be short, and can be controlled. If we observe the restrictions now we can expect it to be over quickly.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/pandemic-can-be-controlled-says-scientist-michael-levitt-bp7qd39lv

The whole world of medicine is working on an antidote, there have been some very encouraging progress, the vaccine is being tested now (after skipping other stages because it is so urgent)

nypost.com/2020/03/18/japanese-flu-drug-clearly-effective-in-treating-coronavirus-officials-say/

There is every reason to believe that this is not going to be the new normal, but a short blip until we are able to get find a solution. The world economy is banking on a quick fix, so lets hope it will be with us soon.
WE may change in the process, the country may change in many ways after this, but this is not going to be our lives forever.

We should prepare mentally for a long lockdown, but for those that need at least a flicker of hope that we will be peaking soon, and back on the downward trajectory and back to some sort of normal, there is science behind that as well. Look at HK, China and S.Korea.

Pandemics may become regular, or this may never happen again, but the sun is shining this morning and we are all well enough to post on here.

I woke up with severe IBS this morning and a feeling of dread. I’m self employed and feel unbelievably anxious.
Anyway, thank you SO much for this post OP. I feel much better reading it ❤️

Home schooling starting now so must go, I wanted to wish all of you a happy and safe day

Thanks op, a positive thread backed up by science is just what we need.

Hopefully the new lockdown measures will have a real impact very soon. We were on our walk yesterday and saw a group of 15-20 older teens playing football. It made me so mad! Hopefully they'll think twice about doing it today.

I'm definitely rethinking my own behaviour. I'm twitching to get to the shops today because I'm running low on a few things but I'm going to hold off a couple of days until I really need to go instead of topping up more often.

Let's stick to the guidelines, keep our spirits up, go for a walk in the sun and breathe in the less polluted air. This will pass.

Lovely thread amidst all the madness. Thanks, op

Thank you OP.

Thanks for sharing OP.

A good thread OP. I have visualised the pandemic as a Mexican wave going around a stadium ( with the world as the stadium and the wave the peak of infections). It starts with a defined wave but as it reaches its first full stadium rotation, the wave starts to disintegrate and naturally fizzle out.

Thank you so much for this heart warming thread. We have self isolated for the last 2 weeks. Husband is vulnerable and I am really old.

Anyway thank you for this piece of hope

If we observe the restrictions now we can expect it to be over quickly.

but until the governments impose heavy fines and jail term, we don't.

People have been accused of scaremongering, exaggerating and being gleeful about a lockdown. When all they want is for this to be over asap.

But posters want to go for a drive, a walk, a run when they have a garden.. because rules don't apply to them. So there we are. Of course it didn't need to go that way.

should think less about Europe and more about Africa and South America. The virus running amok in the shanty towns is a genuinely horrifying scenario.

I agree. Particularly if you consider how much money we are having to throw at this in order to support people through isolation and lockdown. Secondly, usually in disasters in other countries international help and aid is sent in from other countries - who is going to be able to do this? Every country needs their medical professionals to treat their own populations.

Thanks for this. Was something I really needed to hear this morning

Yes, adding my thanks also OP. We needed this.

I think it's great to have a positive thread,thanks OP!

Things are likely to get worse in April, before they get better, so it's important to give people hope. You can see loads of initiatives all over the world now that people are getting organised.

I saw the US Army Corps of Engineers (the infrastructure and logistics gurus) are starting to convert empty hotels in Manhattan into ICU wards. Apparently it's not that hard, they have the plans and the money, they said: just point us in the right direction.

If we can get new tests and treatments, increase hospital capacity, we will get through this. For most people this is a mild disease, we can be thankful for that.

It's also clear that not every country is as bad as Italy, even ones that have not done very stringent controls. I understand you have to look at the worst case scenario in order to get people to take it seriously, but I think there is some hope in the fact that not every country is being completely devastated.

haven’t various other scientists said that we will continue to get mini-peaks every time restrictions are relaxed

I think that's probably right, but presumably if you can get the numbers under control, you can then do what we should have done in the first place: testing/isolating/contact tracing and stop the mini peaks too or make them more mini.

But posters want to go for a drive, a walk, a run when they have a garden.. because rules don't apply to them. So there we are. Of course it didn't need to go that way

The guidance says explicitly that leaving your house once a day for exercise is allowed. So a run on your own or with family IS allowed. Not sure you need to go every day for a run, I will go once every other day and a short walk otherwise.

I think from what we are seeing in over countries the decrease in deaths after lock down is very positive especially those in China and now Italy’s numbers are dropping. As long as people do as they are told this could pass a lot quicker than we think. Staying in for a few weeks is worth it. Please stay at home and keep people safe, stop this thing so we can return to some kind of normality.

Great will have a look later

The guidance says explicitly that leaving your house once a day for exercise is allowed.

but common sense is not unfortunately.

So push as much as you can, like the fuckers did this weekend, and restrictions will have to come back.

Allowing people stuck in a tower to go outside once a day to spare them from going stir crazy is kind. Shame the entitled selfish idiots who live in houses with big enough gardens will decide to crowd public space and force a ban for everybody.

I have a garden btw, but I feel so sorry for the ones who haven't, who had only the park opposite but parks now closed. Why should you care if they are locked in all day as long as you have your little run, because it's "allowed".

I have a garden and am going to leave parks for people who leave it more. I’d hate for dc not to get fresh air or Vitamin D so I hope it’s used.

If where you are going is empty-ish it doesn’t make a difference but if it’s packed still then could be good to think about it. I don’t want it to be taken away for all.

I have no idea how busy the spaces are now after last night’s announcement btw. Might be ok.

I needed this OP. Thankyou for taking the time to post it

@ravenmum Yes absolutely. Not sure whethrr people think the German system is good by magic. It's an insurance based system full of horrific loopholes and inequities. When my father died we didn't even know exactly which insurance was doing what and had to ask. The ER guy said "oh he didn't have a sticker for the top insurance bracket , but it'll be fine as all the ITU was emergency treatment". Which it obviously was, but he was paying 800 euros a month of his 1500 euro pension and somehow the comment about the sticker never left me.

Thank you for this post, it’s really really helped.

Been rattling on about this for a few days now!

www.mediterranee-infection.com/hydroxychloroquine-and-azithromycin-as-a-treatment-of-covid-19/

Theres a PDF report there for those who can't download it the important part is;

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.

remdesivir another one of the anti virals ithat has shown sucess IF its given early may now become very expensive perherps pres trump will sort it!?.

theintercept.com/2020/03/23/gilead-sciences-coronavirus-treatment-orphan-drug-status/

OP you are lovely for posting that. I’ve been feeling it’s all just so bleak and hopeless. Great to think there may be hope.

That was a good read.

Next I hope they move on to a cure for stupid because the amount of ‘am I allowed to...’ threads and people who think the rules don’t apply to them shows that we’re in desperate need of it.