Second Wave - Yes or No?

[MysticMeghan]

So the papers are now full of warnings about a "deadly second wave" but if you ditch the articles and look at the comments 99% of people don't agree. People want lockdown over, they want to get out, they want things back how they were. Look at the beaches today.

Most people I know think it's going to peter out in the next few weeks. The tabloids seem to be going with this, but then they print whatever sensationalist crap sells newspapers, it's not necessarily true. Even my own friends think that in a worst case scenario few people might have mild flu like symptoms, it's not worth going crazy over, we're all over reacting and we've stuffed the economy and everyone's businesses and jobs for nothing. Just so the government can flex its muscles and control us. Many even think it's a conspiracy.

Justification for the "overreaction" theory seems to be that the Nordic countries haven't really locked down and only a few have died. Many European countries now opening up again with few ill effects and many tourist destinations in Spain etc.now looking to have a late tourist season.

In the UK we are constantly being reminded that deaths are going DOWN. Therefore it's ok.. "It's over" seems to be the prevailing theme. McDonalds and Burger King open again, people in England allowed to travel and taking full advantage, going to the beach, the park, hanging out with their mates. Prevailing theory seems to be that the experts over reacted and got it wrong, we all self isolated for nothing and the same experts warning of a second wave just want their 5 minutes of fame. Ignore them and lock them up. Most people don't know anyone who has had it or died of it and therefore the risk is small, it's just a bit of flu and people die of flu all the time.

Or....there might be a very deadly second wave after all, this is being glimpsed in China but is being covered up. Governments and companies are desperate to re-start economies so are taking the view that if a few more die who cares, they were probably old people who would have died anyway. And young people aren't affected so just put things back the way they were and if a few oldies die then just collateral damage.Oldies can stay at home if they're worried.

Which is it? I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. It IS a deadly disease, it's being desperately underplayed now in the interests of preventing economic ruin. I certainly think the British Media is being manipulated and that's why we have one story one day and a completely different one the next.

Am I the only person in the world who thinks that pubs and restaurants re-opening and global travel re-starting for the sake of keeping a tourist industry alive is a really bad idea?

@Drivingdownthe101 hi, hope you're well. I wouldn't have the kids queueing inside a shop. Whenever I go shopping my husband has the youngest 3 whilst me and my eldest go together. And yes , I would love to go to an outdoor attraction and outdoors is better
However, everyone is touching everything and touching handrails and gates and so on, that also concerns me

I think also that many people just need to change their attitude towards their own health and take a more proactive approach to it. I appreciate this is far easier said than done in some cases. Get fit, get outside, eat better and lose weight (Health conditions and disabilities aside.) There was a poster yesterday who was in despair about her mother's passive attitudes towards her own diabetes.

Oh no I didn’t expect that you’d have the children with you shopping, I just personally feel that getting some outdoor places open for kids is more of a priority than clothes shops. But we all have different views! Our local farm parks are really hot in hygiene anyway with hand washing stations/anti bac gel etc so I’d generally consider them low risk.

My impression is that many people have been incentivised to improve their health, in particular by taking regular exercise
Whether any of this will stick if/when we go back to normal I couldn't say!

@ssd Thank you and I am sorry that you too are feeling the same, it's totally crap.

I have been fine all week but this morning it has hit me like tonne of bricks. It actually feels like a physical weight.

Just about to start kneading some dough to punch it out! :)

I was talking to a friend who works in a hospital in a holiday resort and she said this morning that they are seeing numbers increase ‘massively ‘.

Looking at their local paper social distancing just not happening and I’m struggling not to seems second wave coming.

Massively
Buckle up for the ride then 😳

some dough
Yay verily
🥖🍞🥖
bread is our new religion
🙏

I think there will be a second peak. If the Spanish flu is anything to go by, the second peak was more deadly and more people died as the virus mutated. I don't believe more people will die but I think the virus will mutate and with the flu season, I reckon we could face another lockdown to ease the pressure on the NHS over winter.

If the Spanish flu is anything to go by
But why would the Spanish flu be anything to go by it's a different virus, we constantly refer to the Spanish flu but this is not flu
Yes the virus will mutate but what will be the consequence of that mutation ....no one can say

Flu viruses and coronaviruses are different.
The mutation and recombination levels are different.
There's no indication that this virus will suffer enough mutations to suddenly get worse.
And worse, how?

I'm not particularly concerned about a new supervirulent strain, but then again, I wasn't expecting such high rates of asymptomatic spread.

My point is just that there's no reliable point of reference.

I don't think the government will want another lock down, they didn't anticipate that they would have such a struggle to get us to unlock
If there is a second wave people might panic and lock down much harder than the government wants them to.
Ultimately the government wants to keep the country as a whole running so that its rich friends can keep making a profit out of us, they do not care about us as individual people what they care about is steering us into doing what is good for them.

As soon as anyone mentions covid and flu in the same sentence they get shot down with THIS IS NOT THE FLU, but it seems to be ok to compare the pandemic with the Spanish flu pandemic.
This is completely different. When Spanish flu hit, scientists didn’t even know it was a virus! We had a population of exhausted, malnourished, ravaged young adults. We had a huge amount of migration from people going back to their own countries after the war. We had no technology.

I think it's understandable because we don't have a lot of pandemics to compare with
But the virus and the conditions under which it was operating were so different that it doesn't feel like a useful analogy to me

@B1rdbra1n Amen Sister! The Father, Son and Holy Toast.

Holy Toast Batman😊

The problem Iran have had is that Ramadan started at the end of a April.

Lots of Muslim countries have tightened their lockdowns specifically for EID this weekend.

None of the European countries who are releasing have shown signs of a second wave yet.

A second wave will take time because the key worker population is likely to have higher incidences of antibodies as they have been working through the lockdown.

So currently it's harder for the virus to infect others because they are more likely to come into contact with people who are immune.

So if the vulnerable continue to stay home and shield, and social distancing is maintained by the majority, then the virus can't spread as rapidly and those infected are less likely to get seriously sick and die.

The problem comes in six weeks or so, when everything is back open, with social distancing, and the numbers haven't spiked.

Those who are vulnerable/shielding will feel (rightly) left out and forgotten about, and will begin to rejoin the population.

That increases non immune people for the virus to spread too, and they are the category most likely to need hospital care.

So the second wave is unlikely to occur until winter, when we all head inside and into closer proximity.

Which coincides with the flu season, and probably cause chaos.

So fingers crossed for a vaccine/treatment or that it mutates into something less deadly.

Flu viruses and coronaviruses are different. The mutation and recombination levels are different.
There's no indication that this virus will suffer enough mutations to suddenly get worse.

There are, I’m afraid, indications that the virus mutations. Los Alamos released a yellow paper (research not yet peer reviewed) indicating there was already mutations that made the virus more deadly, but it yet to be seen how “much more” deadly it will be.

I noticed that since this information was released the government has moved from talking about a vaccine as if it is something that we may have soon enough to be something we may not even get to have.

Details of the Los Alamos findings were linked from an article in the BBC, if I come across it again, I’ll come back to post the link.

Here’s the article linked by the BBC (coronavirus mutations) I mentioned in my previous message. As I said, it is not yet peer reviewed but it shows the emergence of mutations that make the virus more infectious:
here

Since this study was released, the government has changed their communications from “when we have a vaccine” to “if a vaccine is found”

In theory- if it mutates (into something more sinister) would those who have had the original milder version be protected against the new strain?

It would depend on the mutation and whether that meant that the immune system was no longer able to recognise it, I presume

Just spoke with a nurse earlier who says they are barely coping now but she’s dreading what awaits 2 weeks from now

DahliaDay where are you? My next door neighbour is a senior nurse in ICU. She says they’re really really quiet (we were a hard hit hospital early on), and they are starting to get those who were redeployed back into their old jobs so they can start treating all the non Covid patients who are currently being neglected.

Coronavirus is fundamentally different from flu and the chances that it will mutate sufficiently to be able to evade a vaccine are slim.

This article provides a good explanation:

www.city-journal.org/coronavirus-vaccine

No scientist or the government will guarantee that a vaccine will be found because that would be foolish. I think it is more likely than not however.

There will be a wave after each restriction is lifted