Something doesn't add up to me

[Greysparkles]

If the virus is as contagious as claimed by some, as in you'll catch it from sitting on the same patch of grass someone else has, or just walking through where someone sneezed earlier.

Why haven't more of us got it??

I don't think anyone has suggested you'll get it from sitting on a patch of grass - and yes, you might if someone coughed (it's not likely to be a sneeze) close to you.

More of us haven't got it because we've socially distanced for three weeks so we're not touching tube seats/doors/being in closed spaces with coughing people. They still reckon 1-2million people might have it/have had it at the moment, although that's still a tiny % of the population, and obviously it's not evenly spread - London is naturally worst hit right now and will peak first. The Scottish Highlands will be later.

And easily caught isn't the same as automatically caught - my brother went over to my parents just before lockdown and developed Covid mildly 4 days later but two weeks later there's no sign he passed it onto my parents, I guess he was being careful washing his hands, but it does show being near someone with it isn't instant infection.

@Runmybathforme How was your sister tested? They are only testing people who have symptoms.

It doesn’t add up because we don’t have all the data yet.

They think that the RO is 2.6 (higher than the flu)

And the death rate is 2% overall ( higher than the flu)

We also don’t have a vaccine for it yet (which we do for the flu, although that is based on prevalent strains).

Essentially, we don’t really know much about it yet and probably won’t until it is all over. This is a new situation for the entire world.

What doesn’t add up for me -
At work (1.5 wks ago - have been off so it’s possible there’s been updated guidance) we were told if we are visiting people in their homes with suspected Covid19 or that have even tested positive for the virus, if we are not providing hands on care, we don’t need any PPE. Just stay 1m away and wash your hands....
That doesn’t add up for me with other advice, contact tracing, and I wonder if the average mnetter would be comfortable following that official advice.

"They think flu is more contagious op"

No, bluntness COVID was always thought to be more contagious than flu
and COVID is contagious for several days before symptoms appear

R0 for flu is about 1.3

The CDC recently published a paper saying
the R0 of COVID is about 5.7,
which would require 85% herd immunity

wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0282_article

I understand that most of the new infections now are coming from within hospitals and care homes rather than elsewhere in the community. Would be good if there could be some clarification on that and also on recoveries.

I think you have misunderstood OP about the patch of grass idea.

The reason not to use parks and sit down and picnic is it encourages people to congregate. The more people there are close to each other, the higher the risk of transmission.

They simply do not know exactly how it spreads from a sneeze or a cough. The 2 mtr rule is a guess. Some experts say it could travel as far as 20 ft. Other experts say it can hang in the air for a long time if there is no wind. So walking into someone's 'slip stream' after they have breathed out could in theory infect you.

There won't be clarity on any of this for a while. Situation is too new for reliable statistics. We shouldn't expect it to 'add up', we are not scientists. And even scientists don't have sufficient data to make it 'add up'.

Imperial College: Percentage of total population infected

They estimate about 4.4% of the UK has been infected so far

This Imperial group are in the government's advisory SAGE (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies)

https://imperialcollegelondon.github.io/covid19estimates/#/totalinfected

What doesn't add up is the ridiculous story cooked up by the chinese government about how it started.

Yes, Wuhan's Institute of Virology could bear a little more scrutiny. It was there in 2015 that experiments were successfully undertaken to see if the bat corona virus could be transmitted to human cells.

I wonder whether severity of COVID-19 illness reflects general health and susceptibility to viral/bacterial infections generally? You can be robust of health without being super fit. Some people seem to get every infection going whereas others can soldier on not regardless. I would like to know whether the supposedly younger and healthier victims of Coronavirus generally seem to have weaker immune systems?

There are three separate versions of it now too. Referred to as type A, B and C. There will be variability in how each one effects people and in the transmissability etc.

^Belgian-Dutch Study: Micro-droplets that may carry the coronavirus will flow behind a walker, runner or cyclist
^
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/09/stay-20-metres-apart-exercising-scientist-warns-fears-runnerss^/??^^
^
^If you walk/run/bike outside:
Droplets in your slipstream travel much further behind you than 2m

So stay out in your 2m lane for longer when you pass someone.^
[[https://medium.com/@jurgenthoelen/belgian-dutch-study-why-in-times-of-covid-19-you-can-not-walk-run-bike-close-to-each-other-a5df19c77d08
medium.com/@jurgenthoelen/belgian-dutch-study-why-in-times-of-covid-19-you-can-not-walk-run-bike-close-to-each-other-a5df19c77d08]]8^
^
When someone during a run breathes, sneezes or coughs, those particles stay behind in the air.
^
The person running behind you in the so-called slip-stream goes through this cloud of droplets.^

"Out of the simulations, it appears that social distancing plays less of a role for 2 people in a low wind environment when running/walking next to each other.
The droplets land behind the duo.
^
The risk of contamination is the biggest when people are just^ behind^ each other, in each other’s slipstream.

On the basis of these results the scientist advises that
for walking the distance of people moving in the same direction in 1 line should be at least 4–5 meter,
for running and slow biking it should be 10 meters
and for hard biking at least 20 meters.

Also, when passing someone it is advised to already be in different lane at a considerable distance e.g. 20 meters for biking"

Lots of people have it mildly enough to get over it at home - it's unlikely we'll ever know how many people have had asymptomatically.

Most people who have it will only on average give it to one or two people. I think that one reason that they're very careful is the so called 'superspreaders' who can infect large numbers of people before they even know they've got it. It's still a very new virus so we just don't know that much about how it spreads, things will become clearer with more research.

The time just before people become symptomatic is when they're at their most infectious, and you never know how the next person to be infected will react. The time between catching the disease and showing symptoms averages as 5 days, so that's 5 days of walking around spreading active virus around.

For the person saying there's a mild version of diptheria - well, yes, but we almost never actually see Corynebacterium diphtheriae (a bacterium by the way, not a virus) in the lab. I always assumed that was mainly because it was vaccinated against, as even a mild sort would grow well on culture (other diptheroid species grow as normal flora on your skin and do grow well).

The reason not to use parks and sit down and picnic is it encourages people to congregate. The more people there are close to each other, the higher the risk of transmission.

That's what I thought as well.

Though I've heard on radio people being moved on doing yoga by themselves in band stands in a park as it might encourage others which I did think was odd.

Benches being tapped off so old people and young children or less mobile who might need a rest during their exercise outside also seems a bit petty.

Many analysts are saying that the Chinese dictatorship has lied its head off about the number of deaths
and it is unlikely they shut off an important region of their country and hammered their whole economy, after just the few deaths they admitted at the time.
Unless they knew much more

Could be 20 x the deaths they admitted to.
Or more.

Hard censorship ongoing there of any doctors whistleblowing, or publishing medical papers on COVID

I dont know but we all caught something despite
Quaranting mail
Deliveries of food the last one we quarantined and wiped down.
Me and dp got sore throat and cough about 4 days after delivery. The kids are starting to feel ill today about 10d after we did.
Now it's probably not cv but it certainly makes you realise how contagious some things are.
I had originally thought we'd finally caught what dc2 had weeks ago-but shesstarted with a runny nose today too.
Weve been in at least 4w.

I think cv dpes pass in the air a little as they showed on a bus people not on at the same time got it. I imagine that is worse enclosed in small spaces like buses or in hospitals.

Im surprised it wasnt found in peoples homes
Here alone at least 80k people have caught it in 4-5w.

@DearGodHopeYouGotMyLetter whilst she had symptoms did she isolate from her family within her home or just stay at home and have normal contact with them?

50% of people have no or barely any symptoms
30% have it badly and take weeks to recover
20% have to be hospitalised

The biggest outbreak in NZ was at a wedding. One guest had it, he was a member of the wedding party so met everyone there. Every single other guest (85 people) later tested positive from exposure to that one person.

So there you have it, it is extremely infectious and 20% of people who get it need hospital care. Many many more of us have had it & do have it and are spreading it than is known. Hence the advice of every other country in the world: test test test.

@DearGodHopeYouGotMyLetter whilst she had symptoms did she isolate from her family within her home or just stay at home and have normal contact with them?

Normal contact.

@Spied

Re the having it already. It does look like sw or bristol had a high number of respiratory deaths jan this year. It's higher than london.

I think china found the secondary attack rate within a house was low 10%? But they wear masks so who knows.

This thread is interesting because although nobody is lessening the effect of Covid-19 on some people most people seen to agree that so much stuff that is spouted is false, feeds into some people's panic and is often myth based. It staggers me the vast swathes of people on here who claim to be quaranting their mail and washing their food...None of my family or friends are doing that. Surely if they were genuine risks then government advice would be:
Wash all food and packaging thoroughly
Leave your mail.unopened for x amount of hours/days??

OP - Everyone has a different immune system which is why it will affect people differently. It's the same with all viruses. Also Covid 19 is just one of many coronaviruses. The common cold is from the coronavirus group and viruses can mutate so you get different strains which is why some people catch a cold every year, because you can become immune to one strain but then a new strain comes along. They have already found 3 different strains of this virus.

This is a new virus so scientists are still learning about it, but I am hopeful that there will be a vaccine for it soon as there are trials already going on.

I guess weddings they shake hands?
Im surprised everyone got it.
Though i did see a thing about a choir with them all singing.
Or the person in Skorea who infected 3k people. Again how could you possibly be within 2m of that many people so it has to be traveling further.
If so most people will still be getting infected at supermarkets or just walking along or even on their own gardens

Well posted BigChoc.
DailyCarbuncle, Take note!