Uk hospital now saying covid patients don’t seem as sick as they did at beginning of epidemic

[Blueberryham]

Just saw on yahoo news

"A good virus doesn't want to kill its host" - that is a fallacy it is what the leading scientists/epidemiologists say.

"A good virus doesn't want to kill its host" - that is a fallacy it is what the leading scientists/epidemiologists say - so not a fallacy as such

It may have mutated into a weaker version?

oops I meant "A good virus doesn't want to kill its host" - that is a fallacy it is what the leading scientists/epidemiologists say - so not a fallacy as such, third time lucky I hope

@PolkaDot89

It may have mutated into a weaker version?

Impossible! The Dementors want it to get more virulent and kill more people so we can all stay locked up forever cowering in our homes not going to work or school and washing our shopping.

People really do want this virus to stay

I find the opposite - lots of people using magic thinking because they want the threat to go away.

It would be nice to think it had weakened but what is happening in India, Pakistan, USA, Latin America doesnt seem to suggest that.

Viruses killing their hosts, as long as they dont do it so quickly that the host doesnt have a chance to infect others, is not a problem, given that there isnt exactly a shortage of humans.

Re vitamin D deficencies, this has been talked about since the early days of the pandemic. The government is now backing official research into it. I can see mass prescribing vit D supplements as a back up strategy in case the vaccine trials fail or aren't as effective as hoped for.

@GPwife2411 - that’s a horrific article

Great if true but I’d need more than yahoo news

Err because the whole thing was a joke. The amount of numpties that still are self isolating is funny as hell. If your old sure, if not get out and meet people. The Government, media, mumsnet got it all wrong. It was Fairly obvious the virus was not a killer.

Still the majority seem to think isolating did something good. It didn’t, the lockdown was an awful decision made by people who good it wrong but will never admit it.

So the WHOLE WORLD had a collective fit of mass hysteria and @User the shining bastion of epidemiological expertise - knows better tha the world’s leading experts. Oh, she is a joker

Still the majority seem to think isolating did something good. It didn’t, the lockdown was an awful decision made by people who good it wrong but will never admit it.

Brazil is in line with your thinking.

Honestly some people on here just can't deal with a bit of hope. Seriously I bet if some of you won the lottery you'd moan that it wasn't a rollover jackpot.

My SIL icu nurse said they have a better understanding on how to treat it now

It certainly does feel like some people don't want this to be true, or that they want the explanation to be anything other than that the virus has mutated into a less virulent strain!

Good news is always great, eg better treatment mentioned at briefing - brilliant, however I do think Derby is on to something with numbers now v earlier.

@Enderthedragon

It certainly does feel like some people don't want this to be true, or that they want the explanation to be anything other than that the virus has mutated into a less virulent strain!

Indeed.

There isn't evidence of significant variation in the virus

Better treatment may be helping , I think we get people on oxygen quicker now, but it's highly unlikely that it's suddenly no worse than flu

Your average dementor is probably just concerned that people take a bit of hope to mean everything is now ok , and perhaps some people prefer to not have hopes dashed whilst others prefer to always see a sunny side. You know, people are different

It certainly does feel like some people don't want this to be true, or that they want the explanation to be anything other than that the virus has mutated into a less virulent strain!

You don't want to hear reasonable suggestions as to why the number of serious cases will change over time?

As a biochemist I can tell you that a markedly different second strain with much less harm is unlikely so quickly. If that is so it will initially be localised to the uk and we will find out fairly quickly from genome analysis.

There are slightly different strains of the virus but not different enough to have a major effect on its behaviour.

The darker the skin the more likely you are to be Vitamin D deficient hence the BAME deaths

That's one theory. Completely unproven as yet. So certainly too early to say with any certainty that the virus is making people less ill now that the weather is a bit sunnier and people are going outside a bit more.

Can we stop with this dementor/anti-dementor bullshit? I’ll never understand why people feel such a need to tribalise themselves just to feel superior. We get it, your echo chamber is just as loud as the other other end which is just as shrill and bonkers as the one you’re at.

Actual facts lie somewhere in the middle where people know that they don’t know everything.

It would be nice to think it had weakened but what is happening in India, Pakistan, USA, Latin America doesnt seem to suggest that.

Doctors in the US have also said that patients aren't as sick as previously. Deaths in the US have been trending down, despite cases remaining steady and even increasing in some places. I think there are some encouraging signs that the virus is weakening. If it isn't, treatment has imoroved greatly which is also good news and could be responsible for less deaths 👍

The people that caught it at lockdown may have spent the whole 5 day incubation with the sick/asymptomatic person. Inside.
There would also have been more covid in all environment.s
It also makes sense why in all locations it takes a while to be noticed.
The people needing o2 now are getting it preventing maybe the ards from developing. (Maybe why Germany did so well).
Plus with less of them in hospitals there is less virus in the air and many fewer staff with it.
Also a lot of original people like with pp below caught it in hospital so were already likely to get more ill.
We are trying to stay 2m apart.
Taxi drivers bus drivers etc getting protected so less virus.

I dont think virus weakening
It's distance and masks.
Plus obviously people tested so more with less symptoms actually know they have it. And then they do stay in but probably more likely to be further from housemates as you know they have it.
It could be because they think elderly and people that are more ill may shed more so the cycle of fewer of them and fewer of them in houses with others.

It is not unproven that the darker your skin the more likely you are to be vitamin D deficient if you live in the UK. NICE guidelines make it clear that BAMEs should supplement more vit D. There is plenty of research showing links with percentages dying/recovering with vitamin D deficiency and sufficiency for covid 19. Just not from the UK yet. Also plenty of research prior to covid available showing how vitamin D helps with other illnesses that portray like kawasaki type seen in children etc.

I think lower viral load due to social distancing, people being outdoors more and vitamin D. There now seems quite a bit of evidence that Covid was in Europe by November/December yet the crisis point came several months later. Maybe people who were exposed to it earlier on had more vitamin D in their system and as the winter went on vitamin D was depleted and it became a more severe illness.

I don't think antibody tests are going to give all the answers. I have hear of people who had definite covid symptoms in March/April have had negative antibody tests.

Can we stop with this dementor/anti-dementor bullshit? I’ll never understand why people feel such a need to tribalise themselves just to feel superior.

It bemuses me that people think the perfectly sensible discussion on this thread is 'being a dementor'. The nutters who don't think the virus is real or will be over next week are at least as bad as the nutters who complain their neighbour went out for a jog twice.