Daily new infections

[BamboozledandBefuddled]

The ONS are estimating that daily new infections are down from 8,000 to 5,600. Nice to have some good news Rather strange though, as surely the VE Day spike should be well and truly on top us by now? Maybe we'll have to wait for the 'IKEA spike' or the 'crammed-on-beaches spike' instead.

Ooh that's interesting Scottishgirl85 . Can you expand please?

Second wave theory is based on the fact that many such infections mutate into a stronger version. So the first wave is suppose by some to have been with us late last year in a less virulent form.

There is some evidence for this in French resampling from the end of December and possibly in November. They have asked other governments to do the same .

But we don't know any details yet!

My Gp mentioned a case of a 90 year old with fibrosis who was fine with it. She said it's a very weird disease.

Maybe a less virulent strain was circulating and that built up immunity in some people?

As COVID-19 is a coronavirus, from what I read, there was a recent strain that obviously wasn’t COVID but had some similarities to the SARS family but was very mild. It triggered a similar t-cell response to which is required with this virus.

So one theory is some of us will have had another, very mild strain of a similar virus and that has afforded us some immunity. That could also explain why lots of people claimed to have had the virus back in Nov/Dec. Maybe they had something similar that triggered a similar immune response but it wasn’t COVID-19.

This could explain why some people like the older lady with fibrosis should be suffering badly with this virus and they are either asymptomatic or get it very mildly?

Interesting article on the BBC today looking at whether covid arrived earlier than believed www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52935644

Part of the article talks about random sampling of donated blood to check for antibodies. I would have thought that testing donated blood from Jan/Feb would be a priority, as if it was established that covid was here earlier, it changes many things. Perhaps the government won't allow that to happen, as the results might dampen the wave of hysteria that they're riding the crest of so smoothly.

@Bamboozled are we thinking this theory we're musing over is starting to gain traction!

I'd say more people are open to seriously considering it than was previously the case. It only crossed my mind last night to wonder if DH had it in January. If he did, it would explain why he didn't get it when I think I had it at the end of March. He had a COPD flare up and the GP put him on AB's as a precaution, although he said he though it was a virus triggering the flare. The cough was certainly awful. I had it very mildly and the only reason it might have been covid was because I lost my sense of smell.

Dad had a chest infection caused by a virus (according to the Dr), in early January.We now wonder if it was a milder form of C-19 that he had.. Mum was able to take care of herself then and dad stayed away from her in order that she didn't catch it so as not to put her cancer treatment at risk. When Mum died at the end of March from C-19 dad, despite being her sole carer, due to the effects of her treatment and the only person in the house from 3 weeks before she got ill), has not had so much as a sniffle since.

Thank goodness there was no VE day spike, or beach users spike or spikes of all the other changes made where people were predicting (hoping?) for a spike.

I very much hope that we are through the worst of this and gradually we can start doing things we took for granted again....

I very much hope that we are through the worst of this and gradually we can start doing things we took for granted again....

I hope so too but I think there's going to be massive resistance from the government and a large number of the public.

For a virus to be really successful it has to NOT kill its victims.

If a virus kills all its victims then the virus dies out. For this reason the milder version gets to reproduce as people people with a severe infection stay in bed (mostly isolated) and sometimes die - taking the virus with them.

The whole purpose of the virus is survival, so it makes sense for it not to kill the victims.

It is likely the the milder strains will continue to infect people and that CV19 will be an ongoing infectious disease that will rarely kill.

However, as with the flu, norovirus and even a cold, sometimes, someone whose immune system is compromised either due to medical conditions or age, will die. In the UK, around 10,000 people die each year from flu and in 2014 it was 28,000 deaths.

It's good to see numbers of new cases are coming down despite lockdown easing/VE day/beaches etc. Lets hope it stays that way. I ak being hopeful it will.

I'm not keen on how the 'daily deaths' is reported as it gives the impression that it's that number of deaths in the last 24 hours which is not the case. Of course, it ultimately doesn't matter when a death occurs, it's still tragic, but for the purposes of comparing/looking at trends it isn't terribly helpful.

I am trying to remain hopeful that we are over the worst now and things will continue to improve.

I know it's in the DM, I was looking for today's figures, but there's another story of someone very unwell over new year after going skiing and she's tested positive for antibodies.

There's definitely more and more anecdata coming out. I suppose the issue is getting the authorities to invest the time and money in investigating how much actual evidence there is.

Part of that BBC article also says:

"David Brown, a retired molecular virologist worked on coronaviruses for 20 years. His wife got pneumonia over Christmas, with an appalling cough and loss of taste and smell. He thinks she and many others probably had another coronavirus, OC43, which can also cause respiratory illnesses:

"OC43 can be really severe. It can cause recurring infections in your lifetime like other coronaviruses. There's no surveillance of it, and it's impossible to go back and check," he says."

Does anyone have access to the Telegraph?

There's a story on there of a study of satellite images of hospital car parks in Wuhan showing a spike in October last year and a study of a Chinese search engine shows an increase in searches for cough and diahorrea. Thus suggesting it was around earlier.

Just thought I'd ask because if I signup for the free trial I know I'll forget.

I believe the April thing too! I was so ill on xmas day, it ruined it. And my sister in law who lived 4 hours away was aswell, she ended up staying in bed all over Xmas.

@Thighmageddon Found the story on CNN edition.cnn.com/2020/06/08/health/satellite-pics-coronavirus-spread/index.html Don't think I've seen it suggested before that it might have started as early as August!

Thanks @BamboozledandBefuddled not entirely too sure why I didn't think of googling the story myself 🙄 My brain is no longer working.

My brain had just been topped up with strong black coffee Some days I honestly wonder if I'll ever get back to concentrating on things for any length of time - putting a shopping list together now takes more effort than writing an essay!