The reality is.

[UserNeedsGin]

...Coronavirus cases across England appear to be levelling off, despite flare-ups in local hotspots, according to estimates from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

An estimated 1 in 1,900, or 28,300 people in England currently have the virus.

This is from BBC News. Chances of you meeting someone with covid is slim. Some people just seem to think it is everywhere. The constant covid news deluge needs to stop, so people can move on and not fret about something they are unlikely to get.

My Mum is sure my daughter had coronavirus in December. 3 days before Christmas she was very very unwell and struggling to breathe. We rushed her to the gp who diagnosed flu and the gp said to us "there seems a nasty strain of flu around this year, I have had 2 children hospitalised the past 3 days."

She was in a lot of pain with an horrendous cough and her breathing rate and pulse were way above what they should have been.

I would not be at all surprised if March was the second wave.

Anything IS possible.

I don't think that Clive is wrong.

I do think that behaving in a responsible manner and accepting that our freedom to move and behave as 6 months ago is restricted in the medium term.

Surely, there is a way to think about this and behave accordingly that is not running around screaming hysterically and not fingers in my ears lalala-ing?

It is far more that just our individual fates that is at stake. And if the worst case modelling scenarios are wrong, all the better. Does not mean we should not consider the possibility wrt planning. And behaving.

70% of people don't even know they've caught the bloody virus

That's not necessarily accurate though, the most common figure from research tends to be roughly around 40% and the recent large Imperial Ipsos serology survey produced a figure of 32% for the UK, however a figure as low as 16% has also been suggested:
"Meta-analysis of 41 studies concludes 16% of people are asymptomatic -- much lower than the 40% we've been hearing lately.
And it's 28% in kids."
mobile.twitter.com/apoorva_nyc/status/1286407462589997056.

The downside of high % numbers of asymptomatic cases is that if asymptomatic cases are also infectious, it makes it harder to detect and control spread which can then lead to large outbreaks and it also makes it more difficult to protect elderly and other vulnerable groups.

Perhaps the announcements, if they must continue, could give us real information: “There have been 637 new cases today, but happily 480 were young people who had no symptoms and didn’t know they’d been infected. Oh, and only two of today’s cases were serious enough to need to go to hospital.”

The problem with that is that having no symptoms at time of testing does not mean they won't go on to have symptoms, the could be presymptomatic cases rather than asymptomatic cases. And there is also no way of telling how many of today's cases may go on to become serious enough to require hospital admission as that may occur some time after testing positive (apart from those who are already in hospital at the time of testing obviously).

I agree that an age breakdown of cases would be useful though. I think an average age has been given hence we know that across Europe and to some extent in the US, the average age of those testing positive has fallen significantly.

I'm another one would wouldn't be surprised if covid had been around end if last summer and into autumn. I remember when we first heard about thinking that it was similar to an illness I had which started around September time - I had a bit of a cough, but it wasn't horrendous, a high temp but mostly I had pneumonia and pleurisy which didn't respond to antibiotics therefore probably viral. I was off work (rather couldn't work as I'm self employed) for over a month and when I got back I still felt ill up to Feb this year. I also find that even now I get tired quickly, have no stamina, have trouble with my asthma more quickly and generally still don't feel right. I still can't return to working 5 days a week when I'm used to 6 days a week ams 12/16 hour days.

There were a lot of people that I know of who had something similar as well around the end of last year and are now wondering the same as me. We aren't loons or conspiracy theorists - some of us are even HCPs, others politicians or civil servants.....

Are there people saying it could have been around last Autumn? I ask because my youngest was so ill at the end of October that the Dr's told us she might have cancer. Inflamed glands, weird rash all over her body. The Dr's were never sure what it was and suggested hand foot and mouth at first. She didn't really recover until Christmas and we never found out what had been wrong with her.

I am not expecting anyone to retrain as a pathologist now, obviously it take 4 years minimum

Erm, a medical degree is 5 years.
Specialist training in pathology can be up to 10 years.

So, interesting story there.

The WHO has asked countries to look back at X-rays from last year so back through autumn. Make of that what you will

Lots of evidence around increased hospital activity in Wuhan in August. There was a major sporting event in Wuhan in October. Many of the sportsmen and women became ill.

We know it was in France in December. But didn’t get here for a month after that? Seems unlikely.

It was a low flu year I think? So this could have masked the illness until it really took hold in the over 80s. I think young people and international travellers were the first affected.

I was very ill with some strange ‘virus’ in October. I couldn’t breath properly, exhausted, nauseous. Got better then went downhill again. Doctor couldn’t find anything wrong but gave me an inhaler which I’ve never had. It was about 6 weeks until I was better. Yes it could have been a random virus but when I read back my texts to my friends about this ‘strange virus that keeps coming and going’ and a few of them were wiped out for a month time with similar. It makes you wonder. I hope more investigations are done as it would change our understanding of the virus.

Also I was in a room with at least 3 people who subsequently came down with the virus a few days later. Yet I was fine. So either immune or managed to not be exposed.

That will be interesting to look back at x rays.

Yes I think ‘COVID’ lungs are very distinctive on X/rays but back then we didn’t know what to look out for.

*I only know that late last year, can't exactly remember when, my class teacher was ill, when I think back, she had many symptoms, she had almost a week off, whilst off the class TA came down with a 'bug' also.

About a week after, I developed a nasty cough, I remember having a slight temperature but this didn't last long, lost my voice mostly, and was so so tired. I remember thinking I couldn't wait for February half term, to have a good rest.
Only, a few days before half term was due to start, I developed another cough, I lost my voice completely and was so tired, lost my appetite and spent all half term in bed coughing. I went to see my doctor, who seemed to think I had a chest infection and prescribed AntiBs and an inhaler!

6 months later, I still cough (not continuously) throughout the day.*

It will take YEARS to fully understand this pandemic and this particular virus.

A lot of the measure, by the very nature of the problem, have been reactive because nobody knew what to do for the best - this is also why different countries responses have been so different.

Groundglass appearance of chest XRs is the diagnostic sign for Covid but not exclusively Covid - so that sign in combination with a positive test would firm up the diagnosis.

@SecretSpAD

I am not expecting anyone to retrain as a pathologist now, obviously it take 4 years minimum

Erm, a medical degree is 5 years.
Specialist training in pathology can be up to 10 years.

So, interesting story there.

?????

You are confusing pathology with medicine I think? Or confused in another way

@Clive222 I'm fairly sure you do have to have a medical degree to become a pathologist

You are confusing pathology with medicine I think? Or confused in another way

Erm, you definitely need a medical degree.

www.ucas.com/ucas/after-gcses/find-career-ideas/explore-jobs/job-profile/pathologist

Totally agree!

I also had a bad cough, sore throat and just felt generally rough over Christmas. I wasn’t ill to the point that it was debilitating and I was still able to go about my usual business but I remember it well because i rarely get sick and it went on from the kids finishing school right up until New Year’s Day! I put it down to being a bit run down from the stress of Christmas, the cold weather, and all the booze and junk food, but to hear that so many other people were sick around the same time does make me wonder?

I think that's when the peak of the flu outbreak was but tbh you'll probably never know.

And just because it's MN just because you were walking around doesn't mean it couldn't have been flu.

[quote Aposterhasnoname]You are confusing pathology with medicine I think? Or confused in another way

Erm, you definitely need a medical degree.

www.ucas.com/ucas/after-gcses/find-career-ideas/explore-jobs/job-profile/pathologist[/quote]
There are doctors who can train in pathology up to a senior level (hospital consultants , professors etc).

You get pathologists who are doctors examine tissue or blood samples etc in hospital labs to assess for disease.

Forensic pathologists advise the police about evidence at the scene of a crime like this doctor (really good book)

There are also biochemistry graduates who could work in path labs, they could say they work in pathology, but they wouldn't be medical doctors.

So the term pathologist covers a range of people, I agree it's confusing.

@TheMumblesofMumbledom

@Clive222 I'm fairly sure you do have to have a medical degree to become a pathologist

Nonsense. Of course you don’t. Pathology is a far far wider subject than human disease. If you could only study pathology if you had studied medicine there would be no one in the world studying all other area of pathology, would there. Virology, for example. I studied microbiology as an undergraduate and specialised in viral pathology as a post grad. General virology, not the tiny narrow field of human virology.

Worst case scenario, well, anything up to and including an extinction level event within 3 generations. And yes, species do go extinct because of viruses. And yes, human populations have done so in the past too

I think if you're going to post stuff like that on the internet, you need to give more detail. Thank you for 24 hours of crippling, intense anxiety, though, which has triggered dreadful feelings of hopelessness and a lot of very bleak thoughts. You never know who is reading your words on the internet do you? I shouldn't have read them at all but I'm largely alone each day at the moment and do wander on here and read these posts to try to reassure myself.

And I would genuinely like you to explain, if you come back. I get that some viruses mutate (although since the early days of this virus most scientists have said it's highly unlikely this one will turn into anything more deadly). I get that if we had something on a level of the Spanish flu then things could get much more serious in terms of how society functions. But is what you're talking about really a possibility? I can't possibly see how given a) we are throwing massive amounts of money and clever brains at this virus in a bid to get a vaccine and come up with treatment options which is already proving fruitful, b) if a virus is very deadly it goes extinct pretty quickly as it runs out of hosts, c) we're months into this virus and most people who have had it have come out the other side just fine and d) if people started dying in far larger numbers, the population would comply with further lockdowns which would limit its spread.

Thanks.

If we're still in this position at Christmas, then that will be the time to breathe out a bit.

I agree

The fact is that we still have a lot to learn about the virus and the first winter since it arrived is approaching.

While it makes no sense to become consumed with anxiety it does make sense to hope for the best but plan for the worst and to be as careful as possible.

Personally, because teens and young adults have been suffering so badly from lack of social interaction and because our entertainment industry is on its knees I would suggest that it might be a good idea to have some Glasto / Carnival style giant music festivals where only younger people with no known underlying health conditions were obliged to attend and to party like mad and stay on site for say a month.

It would keep the younger people away from the older at risk people, would give them all a great, much needed time to let off steam and party, it would help the entertainment industry and it would hopefully generate some herd immunity at a much lower level of risk than people of all ages going to the pub or the beach together in vast numbers.

I am not a doctor and would be pleased to be told if this is a silly idea. Would have been better over the summer but maybe not too late?

It's one of the things I haven't quite understood about lockdown. At the beginning of this I read an article on the Spanish flu and it was clear that one of the best ways of dealing with a pandemic is to keep the vulnerable locked away, let young health people out and have the virus circulate as much as possible among them. They do then ideally build up some herd immunity meaning the more vulnerable have an extra level of protection with any vaccine helping on top of that. But I can't remember where the article was and I'm not knowledgeable enough to know if that's a good strategy. It sounds like it to me.

Worst case scenario, well, anything up to and including an extinction level event within 3 generations. And yes, species do go extinct because of viruses. And yes, human populations have done so in the past too

Another scenario...

some animal species that were once infected with viruses eveolved to use the same viruses as weaponry

This happened with parasitoid wasps and polydnaviruses. Millions of years ago the wasps were infected with the viruses. They evolved to use the viruses to suppress an immune response from their hosts so that they could lay an egg on a host species and the egg would not be ejected.

So, if we are still a species in millions of years we could get invaded by aliens and slay them with our mutated coronavirus weaponry.

There is always a silver lining, we might just have to wait around for a while for it to evolve :)

@hoodathunkit I love you.

@TheAdventuresoftheWishingChair

It's one of the things I haven't quite understood about lockdown. At the beginning of this I read an article on the Spanish flu and it was clear that one of the best ways of dealing with a pandemic is to keep the vulnerable locked away, let young health people out and have the virus circulate as much as possible among them. They do then ideally build up some herd immunity meaning the more vulnerable have an extra level of protection with any vaccine helping on top of that. But I can't remember where the article was and I'm not knowledgeable enough to know if that's a good strategy. It sounds like it to me.

An article about the Spanish Flu said that? The flu that very famously largely affected young people in its second wave. And the places that did best economically after the Spanish flu were the places that locked down hardest and earliest.