Westministenders: Peak something

[BigChocFrenzy]

Westministenders: Peak something

The story so far

COVID has changed the world for the next few years, like a slowly exploding nuke:

• killed well over 100,000 people
• made many people afraid to leave their home
• caused a Global Depression

Countries locked down because they needed the extra time to

Raise the Line while Flattening the Curve:

1. Flatten the curve of the numbers needing healthcare to a level the system can manage

2. Raise the capacity of their health services and public health systems - their testing and tracking process

Also, scientists desperately needed time to find out more about COVID:
how to avoid it, how to treat it

What happens next ?

Research teams around the world are working to produce a vaccine,
will become hopefully available within the next couple of years

In the meantime, treatment procedures are being developed to better treat COVID sufferers.

Also in the meantime, countries will need to gradually exit lockdown to rescue their economies from complete catastrophe.

Timing & measures for each country will be dependent on:

Death rate after peak,
health service capacity,
testing & tracing capacity etc

....and also what their govt and public deem an "acceptable" level of extra deaths & serious illness.

Possibly some countries will need to cycle in and out of lockdown,
whereas others will be able to accept the death toll with lesser social distancing measures.

The first few countries are already relaxing lockdown,
so the UK will watch, wait and hopefully learn what works and what doesn't

..... then copy these the correct way round

OldLace 💐 Any of us could have ended up in your circumstances;
luck - and other people - play such a part in how life turns out.

I don't know where the hell we are going,
but I wish people would just stop picking on others who are poor / disabled / old / lone women / BAME ...

especially writing off people as burdens, as expendable if they can't do paid work.

It doesn't make their own lives any better, to make someone else feel like shit
They rarely pick on well-off blokes who fuck up - those often get worshipped instead.

oldlace💐 feel for you I really do. Xx

Oh sos 💐 I'm so sorry to hear that

I wish it had been possible to keep some hospitals entirely for patients without symptoms of COVID

• obviously there would still have been some risk of infection there, but maybe not to the extent of cancelling so much treatment

Sos

So sorry about your Dd - and your own health issues.
Her work sound awful, of course you will be rightly worried about her. I use crutches too and they are necessary but a jeffing nuisance at the best of times.
Agree, best out of hospital if at all poss atm but if you need care, you cant just 'put that off' either. Pah. It's all crap.
Really AM off to bed now. Thanks for the kind words - it helps! xxx
Night all, lets hope for a better day tomorrow!

Well I only had one treatment left for cancer and am on teblets now so think myself lucky. I have known others who were supposed to start treatment and it's been cancelled and put later.

for everyone who needs them.

I have had two close family members in hospital this week - not coronovirus but equally serious - and my sister is due to give birth. I am saddened and furious in equal turn that staff are bring left to fend for themselves with PPE when we trust them with our lives.

Klaxon:

1,290 deaths added retrospectively to Wuhan !

This changes a lot of comparisons - and assumptions

John Burn-Murdoch@jburnmurdoch (FT stats geek)

The info from Chinese sources today was that this was a retrospective revision, 🤔 not new deaths

Sorry to hear everyone's news

BCF could this be an admission that tests were faulty in part and people dying of it at the start? It's brave of them to admit new retrospective deaths (can't see our lot admitting anything of the sort ever!).

I read that Ireland is quadrupling it's WHO payments in response to Trump

rogue thank you. You expressed yourself far more eloquently than I did.
old and sos I'm so angry and upset for you both. Its just....so WRONG
I was out delivering foodbank parcels to people self isolating yesterday.
Another today.
I'm tired. And scared of what my country has become.
Feeling very low today ;(
Sorry

jesuis
I do think trumps decision re WHO is going to backfire on him badly

yoikes💐

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/millions-of-doses-before-coronavirus-vaccine-has-been-proven-h6ttf8bx9

Oh look! We are buying again something with no idea if they are going to work. After the test for the CV, now we have ... vaccines!!

Millions of doses of a potential coronavirus vaccine could be produced before they are proven to work under government plans.
Regulations could be streamlined to get results from trials quicker but ministers are wary of the huge risks of giving an untried jab to millions of people.

So... atm the plan is to relax rules to Le a product in the market - rules that have been implemented to protect the public.
And to heavily invest in a vaccine that doesn’t exist an int proven yet. Just as good as investing in a ferry company wo ferry really. Except it’s much more dangerous.

And then the WHI says that actually there is no proof that people who caught the virus are actually immune to it. Which makes me wonder, how the heck is this vaccine suppose to work then?????
metro.co.uk/2020/04/17/says-no-evidence-coronavirus-antibody-tests-can-show-immunity-12573866/

"I do hope there will be some provision giving to those of us who have our entire families overseas"

My entire family is overseas. I would hate to think that I would be allowed to hop on a plane and fly to Dublin and simply disappear into the city and potentially kill my own mother or someone else's. I don't know where people started out from when they get on board a flight to Ireland from a major US airport. It could be literally anywhere in the US or anywhere in the world.

BCF if you think you can throw the MMR in the discussion, please think again.

Having your critical cap on and QUESTIONING things has nothing to do with being against the MMR or being an anti vaxxers
Compulsory vaccinations have been an issue for many people for a long time and have nothing to do with being anti vaxxers.

I am surprised at your attitude I have to say. From all the thousands of posts on brexit I have read from you, I thought you were more open to people being critical and having a different POV than you. Maybe I was wrong.

Why this vaccine might be more tricky to find SAFELY than we would like...
www.sciencealert.com/who-says-a-coronavirus-vaccine-is-18-months-away

Oh and btw, I’ve never had the MMR because it was before my time.. my dcs have had the MMR, both of them. The youngest reacted badly with it. They still both have had the vaccines they ‘were supposed to’ have. But having seen first hand that a vaccine is NOT a neutral medication and can have serious side effects, I am careful. Just like you would be if you had taken some antibiotics and had reacted to it. Or any other medications that is seen as ‘life saving’. Because it isn’t always so for everyone.

A lot of countries don't start formal schooling until the age of six

But often in those countries the children are in full time structured preschools from age 1, or whenever their parents' family leave ends and they return to work.

I am desperate for the economy to restart because only the most selfish of financially insulated people are not.

I think you've got it bass ackwards there.

People who have the luxury of working from home for their full income won't see their health jeopardised. Reopening the economy is no skin off their noses. It's the desperate people who live from paycheque to paycheque who will pay for the reopening of the economy.

As seen in the US, it's the low wage earners - 'the heroes' who keep things ticking over delivering the mail, delivering Amazon packages of toilet paper, working the tills in supermarkets, driving buses and trains, emptying bed pans and delivering hospital meals to patients, the janitors, the waiters and busboys, the students working part time to pay their tuition, and minimum wage care workers - who will be put in harm's way when regulations are eased because they will have no choice but to hang onto their jobs. The alternative is to face the rigours of Universal Credit.

But having seen first hand that a vaccine is NOT a neutral medication and can have serious side effects, I am careful.

Any invasive procedure - even a simple injection - can have a profound if not fatal outcome. Maybe a 1 in a billion or even trillion chance but certainly non-zero. But that has to be balanced against the fact that the disease you are trying to protect against is a known risk.

Which is one reason why I find anti-vaxxers a bit dim. It's not that their "science" is wrong, so much as irrelevant, and it's their risk-reward calculations that really suck. And yet I bet they use seatbelts.

Sostenueto

I wish your poor DD a speedy recovery. She is so lucky not to have hit her head. Hoping you will be able to regain the ground you lost too..

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52335210

Hopes that coronavirus antibody tests could help the UK end its lockdown have been dealt a blow - after the World Health Organization questioned whether they offer any guarantee of immunity.

An ugly crew of often heavily armed demonstrators against lockdown / stay at home orders in Democratic states

And also in states where Republican governors thumbed their noses at Trump, locked down, and took science seriously.

Mike DeWine (GOP) in Ohio is feeling the heat. Andy Beshear (D) Kentucky won a bruiser of an election last year and is under serious attack from Confederate/ right wing nutjob elements in Kentucky. Gretchen Whitmer (D) Michigan is likewise a target. Ohio, Kentucky and Michigan are states Trump has to carry in November. Kentucky is showing signs of leaving the Southern fold. The faithful in those three states are being whipped into a frenzy right now.

Meanwhile, regional groupings of US states are getting together and deciding on reopening in a coordinated way as regions rather than as individual states. Some of these groupings are bipartisan - the midwest includes Ohio, and de Wine will not be forgiven for this. Reopening as regions makes a lot of sense from the pov of monitoring the spread of the virus.

www.cnn.com/2020/04/16/politics/midwest-governors-reopening-pact/index.html

"Our number one priority when analyzing when best to reopen our economy is the health and safety of our citizens," the governors said in a joint statement.
"We will make decisions based on facts, science, and recommendations from experts in health care, business, labor, and education," the statement added.

The governors said they will focus on at least four factors in determining the ideal time to reopen their states' economies: sustained control of new infection and hospitalization rates, enhanced testing and tracing capabilities, adequate health care capacity to respond to a resurgence and best workplace social distancing techniques.
("In your face, Mr President.")

I honestly fear an open civil war in the US at the end of this year. It's simmering right now, and the president himself is fanning the flames.

"Millions of doses of a potential coronavirus vaccine could be produced before they are proven to work under government plans."

That is actually a very sensible plan, announced weeks ago,
to save months of waiting for enough vaccine to be produced

If the tests don't pan out, then all that is lost is money

In an emergency, you don't worry about money

Telling someone they are dim isn’t going to help DGR no more than telling brexiters they are dim.
I’m pretty there has been many discussions in here on how treating brexiters that way only made things worse! Attacks and insults do not help make things better.

Once again it’s not about being anti vaccine. It’s about evidence based medicine.
And yes ANY procedure has side effects and dangers. Which is why it should be left to individuals to take the decision of taking said medicine or not. And why it’s essential to get informed consent. But to get informed consent you need to know the facts. (Same than with cancer treatment, taking ADs etc....)

Personally I have never been told what were the risks associated with giving a vaccine to my kids. Have you?? Bar the ‘oh there might be a bit a fever’.

What I am saying and will say again is:
We need to know that that vaccine is safe. We need to go through the NORMAL checks, not speed up everything and take the risk of major issues for millions of people. We need to know if it’s safe to give people a vaccine when they’ve already had the virus and to have a system to check if they’ve had said virus.

Accepting to get ANY medication wo proper testing/safety insurance would be foolish of anyone.

And if wanting some evidence based medicine makes me ‘dim’ than so be it.

"one reason why I find anti-vaxxers a bit dim."

Yep, their cost / benefit analysis is shit

and their tinfoil hattery endangers that small % of the population who cannot have vaccines but have weak immune systems etc

They are the ultimate selfish freeloaders, who reduce herd immunity

COVID has killed nearly 15,000 in UK hospitals, thousands more in care homes and homes
It has resulted in an a Global Depression

In what tinfoil flat-earth is a vaccine anywhere near as dangerous as COVID ?

"a vaccine is NOT a neutral medication and can have serious side effects"

....like every medication and surgical procedure that exists

If we stopped everything that had more risk than vaccination, then we'd be relying on prayer / wishful thinking to combat disease or injury

Where are the millions coming from BCF?
Who is going to pay for all the vaccines that were useless (and the tests etc...) when the economy has crashed, millions are unemployed and getting hungry?
Would that money not be better spent trying to feed those people?

It's betting what for a govt is a trivial cost and would save months sitting waiting to produce vaccine for the whole country

All the trials and tests that would normally be done in sequence are being done in parallel
That will cost millions, maybe billions extra around the world, but it massively shortens the development process

I'd gladly gamble billions of quid on saving tens of thousands of lives - and shortening a Depresssion