WHY do people keep saying we all need to get it...

[nellodee]

When Matt Hancock is clearly saying that we need to get cases right down, so we can move into the next stage, which is contact tracing?

From Guardian updates:

Easing lockdown depends on fall in number of new infections, says Hancock
Easing the lockdown depends on the speed at which the number of new cases of Covid-19 falls and that is as yet “unknown”, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, has said.

The number of new cases is being tracked through hospital admissions, through a new testing study in the community announced on Wednesday, and data that will be gathered from people coming forward for tests under an expansion of the programme.

However, he added that there was no prospect of easing the lockdown yet, and that cases needed to drop substantially before the next phase of isolating infected people and their contacts could be truly effective.

@The80sweregreat In some places during the polio epidemic in the 50s. My grandmother told me this, and how people stopped going to shops except for essential things. She told me how terrified people were of polio.
Before then 1920s are earlier with diseases like smallpox, diptheria and spinal meningitis.

I think that's what we're looking at then power optimistically with a lower mortality rate as treatment improves.

Even more optimistic is the hope that more of us have had it than we know. Asymptomatically. Another thing we dont know yet as our government has failed to test adequately.

If this becomes endemic it may shorten life expectancy permanently and become what most of us die of.

Ahh yes, I was just surprised as I'd not heard of this happening before. My brothers went to school in the 1950 s and I don't recall my mum telling me they had been quarantined.
They are older than me.

Is that 70% never had fever as that isnt what ive seen or at time of hospitalisation they dont?

Anyway they need to nail down hiw long people are actually contagious for and that probably involves testing those confirmed to be sure they are clear.
There is a big difference between 500 hospitalised cases though and 500 confirmed including contacts and many of these asymptomatic.
500 hospital is probably at least 2500 ill/asymptomatic. And finding all their contacts.

We have no idea how many have had it and neither does the government because they declared early on that there was no point in testing.

Why would I voluntarily download an app that would then mean I could, on no notice, be expected to isolate my whole family for two weeks? Probably multiple times over several months. Just in case that person who was in Tesco at the same time as me and now has a fever a) actually has Corona and b) gave it to me? I wouldn’t comply, I suspect many people wouldn’t. Unless you make it compulsory, and then physically lock up the contacts, it won’t work. Lockdown is one thing. Being one of a few locked down, just in case, while everyone else carries on? Just in case it hypothetically stops someone I don’t know getting a virus with a fatality rate of circa 1%?

This contact tracing thing will work as well as ' mockdown' has! People won't do it.
Or some will and some won't.

@The80sweregreat It probably was not everywhere. Polio epidemics I think had local outbreaks. I am not an expert on it by any means though.
But I am guessing that was easier to do when people did not travel much. It would be the equivalent of lock down in London when it was clear there was an issue there, but nowhere else in the country.

I do recall hearing about polio. Terrible disease.

@Sunshinegirl82 that could have been it, thanks! I don't usually totally make things up, and normally have quite a good memory for where I've heard things, but that one just escaped me.

I agree about the app. If it was based on testing fine. But I have seen people convinced the have covid 19 because they have hayfever symptoms. A lot of people who are registering will not have covid 19, I suspect it will be very inaccurate.

I can't see the contact tracing thing working that well. I'm not optimistic!

@The80sweregreat I am old enough to remember meeting adults who had clearly had it. They had a withered hand for example. My mum was a child at the time so my grandparents were scared for her.

Has there been actual, conclusive proof that the virus can be transmitted via surfaces? I thought that German tests only proved that the virus could live on surfaces but that there were no cases that could be proven to have been transmitted this way?

Because if it really CAN be transmitted via touch - with a time lag of up to 72 hours - then how the hell would contact tracing ever work?

Ooh ooh I wanted to ask this question! I.e. with contact tracing are we trying to go back to contain rather than delay, and are we all expected to get it?

I'm pretty sure we can't contain it completely i.e. eliminate it, now it's spread round the world. But I guess what contact tracing (and social distancing) will do is to slow the spread.

Whether we all end up getting it or not depends on a) how much these measures manage to slow the spread and b) how soon there is a vaccine.

If these measures slow it a lot, and we get a vaccine in 18 months, then only a proportion of us might expect to get it.

Whereas if it spreads faster, and if a vaccine takes a long time or we never get one, then we'd "all" (or maybe 60%) have to get it, but over a long period. I'm not sure in this case how long we'd continue with social distancing, contact tracing etc, or whether we'd give up at some point!

@Zaphodsotherhead As I understand there are no confirmed cases. But that is not the same as saying it could not have happened. We don't know.

If people have given up on this they won't bother with apps and whatnot either.

It surely would be better to slow the spread a lot until there is a vaccine.
I know my friend would prefer her 9 year old not to go to school for a year, but then have a normal life, than to die.

Contact tracing should have been done as an initial response

It was - this was the whole aim of the 'contain' phase which lasted until 12 March before the sheer impossibility of testing the number of contacts (when the transmission number was high - over 2?) overwhelmed the capability and we had to move to delay.

If we can get the transmission number down to less than one, and have more testing availability, then perhaps we can rely on testing to break transmission chains

And the testing needs to be accurate also, I've been unwell this week (hospital based physiotherapist), new persistent dry cough, sore throat, hot aching lungs and increasing shortness of breath walking round the house (I normally run 8km regularly).
I was tested on Wednesday and today heard it is negative.
Whether I am further on dates wise than the 5 day effectiveness of the test or the swab was incorrectly taken (through the car window), but my husband has started with symptoms, so I'm 99.99% sure this is covid.
There clinically obvious false negative results are occurring in ITU also.

Well if you wont comply then
Fines
Prison terms
Quarantine centres
Calling daily to check you are home

All cheaper than everyone on lockdown and fairer too.

So you prefer 1 in 100 people you know to die?
And it is protecting you too. As even if you ate young you can still die from covid (heart attacks or needing oxygen which at peaks there wouldnt be enough).
Or if you are pregnant being able to give birth safely and have and have antinatal checks.
Or cancer checks
Your dc be able to go to hospital if they break a bone.

However it is all impossible unless they sort put flights as you could easily get thousands of infected people a day in on flights.

Do people not realise how dangerous this would be if it becomes endemic? Although hopefully a vaccine will prevent that.
Because everyone ends up in the vulnerable group at some point.

@Four4me Is your DH being tested? That should give you a pretty definitive answer.

And the current coronaviruses in circulation can be fatal to a small percentage.