Feeling a bit duped about the seriousness of Covid....

[mostwonderfultime]

Found out my district of 55,000 people there have been 156 confirmed covid cases since March. Now I hear there is an enquiry into the over reporting of Covid deaths in England. Average death rate has now lower than average indicating many people who died from Covid would probably died in the next month or so. No surge in Covid cases or deaths since relaxing lockdown measures (I know about Leicester, but we all know reasons why they have more cases and again they haven't had a spike in deaths).
In the meantime, the economy is screwed, Kids have been off school for months, best friends business has gone bust.

@SengaStrawberry

I’m not talking about blind optimism. But there are experts who have said they don’t think there will be a second wave because that is based on how Spanish flu spread which is not a CV and people have pooh poohed them. Eg Hugh Pennington has said this and on STV news pages he was slagged off, his politics brought into it, people saying “he didn’t know what he was talking about” despite the fact he studied viruses for several years before moving into bacteriology.

Australia currently is in a 'second wave' if that helps. BTW, no-one "salivates" at the prospect of a second wave. Such an odd thing to say.

@Mrsfussypants1 I'm sorry to hear all of that about your family losing jobs. You must be really worried.

I had not heard about Boots at the Metrocentre but I think the Metrocentre has struggled for a while - the rents are very high apparently. Intu itself is in difficulty - as well as places like Debenhams, House of Fraser, and it has always had areas that haven't managed to establish themselves. I could see the Metrocentre closing and the site being re-developed which might help Newcastle survive. I think we just have too many shops now and many were heading for closure anyway and the pandemic has accelerated that. I suppose if a big shop closes it has impact on many more jobs than those who work there directly. So Boots closing, for example, would affect the people who work on the shop floor but also in the warehouse, in cleaning, in transport of goods, in admin, in things like Human Resources, site management. There is a big knock-on effect of businesses closing.
I hope Newcastle comes out of this ok. It's such a lovely city. But we need to get back there and spend money for our cities to survive or we are in for decades of boarded up shops, unused streets and urban decay.
If you look at the amazing buildings in Newcastle's Graingertown, I just wonder what would happen to them. Who owns them? Could the council buy them and make them into residential buildings again? Would the city be more viable if the shopping and business areas were more condensed and there were more residential areas in the centre? Newcastle council own half of Eldon Square don't they? So I can't see that closing but I can see Northumberland St, Blackett St, Grainger St and Clayton St being badly affected.
M and S , Fenwicks, John Lewis might survive in some form but others will close. Charles Clinkard was just about empty yesterday and the shop was full of sale racks. M and S was full of sale racks and not many people- and oddly empty shelves that just had no goods displayed on them which looked strange.

With reference to ADE (Antibody Dependent Enhancement) mentioned by ClimbDad (I've only skimmed this thread but am interested in this particular topic). I can provide some links. It can happen when you are given a vaccine for one virus (e.g.Influenza) and then when you encounter another virus (e.g. SARS-CoV-2 ) your immune system reacts even more strongly and that make you more ill than you would have been.

None of this is written in stone, but it's something to think further about, I believe.

www.pnas.org/content/117/15/8218

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7161485/

Also do listen to the excellent Dr John Campbell, who is talking about the same topic.

I think the folks developing the Oxford vaccine will know about this.

@KayEngel

I think the folks developing the Oxford vaccine will know about this.

Since no-one knows definitively (that I can discover), then even the Oxford team can't rule it out.

Australia currently is in a 'second wave' if that helps. BTW, no-one "salivates" at the prospect of a second wave. Such an odd thing to say.

No they aren’t. Australia are still in the first wave. A spike in numbers after relaxing restrictions is not a “wave”.

You clearly haven’t been on here very long if you haven’t seen the salivating threads. Like the cackling women sitting knitting at the steps of the guillotine. There is certainly an element on here of the more misery and the longer it goes on the better.

Since no-one knows definitively (that I can discover), then even the Oxford team can't rule it out.

Well they’ll at least know about the prospect of it. I doubt they need the wisdom of ClimbDad and Mumnet to help them.

Australia currently is in a 'second wave' if that helps

Australia is not experiencing a second wave. There are issues in two states, but mostly just one, and it is a continuation of the first wave.

My friend is taking a year out travelling atm (good timing). She managed to get into australia at the last minute from thailand. She is loving life and her photos are totally normal - bars, parties, days out! Doesn't seem like a second wave...

@Jrobhatch29

My friend is taking a year out travelling atm (good timing). She managed to get into australia at the last minute from thailand. She is loving life and her photos are totally normal - bars, parties, days out! Doesn't seem like a second wave...

It isn't anything like the UK - our numbers are vastly lower. There is some contention as to whether it is still the first wave or it is the second - but there was a significant gap between both breakouts.

Re: Social activity - many of Australia's internal State borders are shut. Depending on the State, what you can do is limited - eg. I can't go to the cinema or a bar, but in another State I might. No live music/shows etc. anywhere. Masks are compulsory in Melbourne.

Yeah she is in sydney. She is doing supply teaching at the min. Her photos make me so jealous ha!

There are probably as many people wanting to believe it was all a hoax as there are delighting in the idea of a second wave. They look for any hint of optimism and dont care whether it come from a reliable source or some random teenager posting junk on mumsnet. That isnt balance, it's confirmation bias.

The problem with the over optimistic is that they could spark a second wave. The evidence from other countries is that relaxing quickly can produce another spike in infections - call it a second wave or a continuation of the first but you still get rapid growth in infection. Israel may be heading for a second lockdown.

The overly nervous may need a bit of encouragement but the best way to do that is not to mock their fears but to ensure that infections drop below current levels. The further we can get infections down before winter drives us all indoors the better. The virus doesnt survive long on surfaces in this weather so if we can stop infection spreading between people it is possible to eradicate it, although we'd need to ensure travellers didnt bring it back.

The death count is for the deaths OVER & ABOVE expected death rates normally expected.

The question mark isn't about people not having had Covid, it's the question mark relating to some people's deaths being reported by Covid caused as opposed to for example, a blood clot to the lung 29 days after contracting Covid.

To simplify, X has Covid 19, & is hospitalised requiring a ventilator for 5 days. He is discharged from hospital on day 21 requiring oxygen, weak but no longer needing hospital treatment. X is still very weak, and this, combined with the oxygen tank makes getting around very difficult. On day 28 he starts to feel severe pain in his leg, but puts it down to cramp. Mrs X takes X a cuppa on day 29, only to find him dead. The GP attends and states the cause of death to be Covid related as had X not had Covid, he wouldn't have been weak or on oxygen so would not have developed the blood clot and subsequent embolism which was the cause of death.

Had X died on day 27, his death would have correctly been identified as a direct result of Covid19, but although the scenario is identical, for statistical purposes his death on day 29 should not have been reported as a Covid related death. You need to make up your own mind as to whether it was or not. (This may not be accurate text but i have used it for example purposes).

Hmmm. I needed emergency medical treatment (non covid)in April and was rushed to A and E.

Luckily I could be seen straight away or I would have possibly died. I do wonder how I'd have fared had there been no lockdown at all.

@CloudsCanLookLikeSheep

The effects of Covid on the NHS through people not seeking treatment through fear, and the NHS cancelling certain work to cope with the influx of patients (which appears to have been in excess of the actual need in some parts like the South-West) is completely different to “lockdown”.

There are arguments against lockdown, but confounding this with the impact on non-Covid healthcare doesn’t make any sense. How would not locking down have possibly made the situation for the NHS any better?

@SallyB392

This explanation from the ONS is helpful. About 7% of those with Covid identified on their death certificates were judged to have died “with” Covid rather than “of” Covid. So, it’s not a negligible number, but not the majority that some people wrongly suggest.

“Between 1 March and 30 June 2020, there were 218,837 deaths that occurred in England and Wales and that were registered by 4 July 2020. Over a fifth of these deaths (23.0%) involved the coronavirus (COVID-19) (50,335 deaths). The doctor certifying a death can list all causes in the chain of events that led to the death and pre-existing conditions that may have contributed to the death. Using this information, we determine an underlying cause of death. More information on this process can be found in our user guide. In the majority of cases (46,736 deaths, 92.8%) where COVID-19 was mentioned on the death certificate, it was found to be the underlying cause of death.”

As described above there were significant numbers of deaths in the early stages of the pandemic that were recorded as "heart attack" or "stroke" when they were most probably caused by the impact of Covid-19 on the blood. At that stage it was still being regarded as a lung disease rather than a peculiarly nasty illness that affects many parts of the body. It causes blood clots.

Deaths from Alzheimers are also probably being affected because a genetic pre-disposition to Alzheimers is also linked to a higher risk of contracting Covid-19. But there are probably still gps who dont know that and it would be really difficult to know what to put on those death certificates.

A severe infection can damage the liver, the kidneys, the intestine. Some people are developing diabetes after infection. When you die after 28 days from something related to the coronavirus damage it probably wont be counted going forward as due to the virus.

A severe infection can damage the liver, the kidneys, the intestine. Some people are developing diabetes after infection. When you die after 28 days from something related to the coronavirus damage it probably wont be counted going forward as due to the virus.

That seems wrong to me because how will we keep track of the long term effects of Covid if the effects are not recorded?

If someone catches covid and then develops organ damage as a result the on going effects and possible death wouldn't have happened without Covid so why wouldn't it be listed as at least a contributing factor?

It would be recorded in ONS statistics, not in the initial reports of coronavirus deaths that the government issues. Most people dont know the difference and focus solely on the quick figures.

There have been posts over the weeks and months salivating at the prospect

I don't think it's people wanting a second wave. It's people realising that a second wave is pretty inevitable and wanting it over with. A bit like when you are not looking forward to the summons to the headmaster's office and you'd rather go straight away than wait until lunch time.

I'd rather be facing an enemy and than be waiting knowing it will come but not how and when.
Of course, you'd rather the enemy doesn't attack at all, but if you know it is likely to, then the waiting can be worse than the actual battle.

I'd rather it went away, mutated out of sight. But I very much doubt it will until we have a vaccine. I don't think there's much hope in not getting a second wave, but I hope to get a vaccine before a third wave hits.
In a lot of ways I'd like a second wave now, August and September. It would spoil my plans for the summer, and I wouldn't like it at the time, but if it meant we get a chance of not having a wave in November/December/January when flu and other winter illnesses are also playing havoc with the NHS, then it might well be worth it.

If you feel duped, have a look at what is happening in the US now and how they compare with Europe (link below).

They have over 2mio people currently affected and about 75,000 new cases every day.

Hospitals in several states are overwhelmed and they are having to triage patients, allowing some to die.

Corona kind of sits at an awkward point, bad enough to take serious measures but not quite bad enough for everyone to agree with them.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.statista.com/chart/amp/22102/daily-covid-19-cases-in-the-us-and-the-eu/

There have been posts over the weeks and months salivating at the prospect

Bollocks. Your post says more about you than anyone else.

I hope you haven't really got yourself into a place where you believe such utter shite. It sounds like a dark and twisted place to live. Stop playing silly games. People can't be both hysterically terrified and vindictively hoping for the worst all at once. And most of the time they are neither. They just evaluate risk differently to you. So stop villifying and othering. You're like a one person DM comments section and it's not a good look.

Foreign Office have tonight stopped all non essential travel to mainland Spain and imposed a two week quarantine on people returning from Spain, Balearics and Canaries - do you still all feel duped?

Scotland is opening up cautiously and aiming for elimination.

Yeah good luck with that, Scotland

www.scmp.com/news/world/americas/article/3093102/57-sailors-argentina-get-coronavirus-after-weeks-sea-despite

Ar entina is trying to solve a medical mystery after 57 sailors were infected with the coronavirus after 35 days at sea, despite the entire crew testing negative before leaving port.
The Echizen Maru fishing trawler returned to port after some of its crew began exhibiting symptoms typical of Covid-19, the health ministry for the southern Tierra del Fuego province said on Monday.
According to the ministry, 57 sailors, out of 61 crew members, were diagnosed with the virus after undergoing a new test.