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

I wonder if there is anything to be gained from looking back into history over the ways we've previously dealt with contagious diseases we couldn't cure ? Leprosy springs to mind.

Form Leper’s colonies?

For the moment all we really have is the experience of China, Korea, Taiwan - test, track, trace and shield the vulnerable.

The stuff from vets is useful: 4 pillars of disease control: biosecurity (cutting risk of disease entering population), biocontainment (curbing the spread) surveillance (testing) and resilience (managed exposure).

it's pretty anti-vax to suggest that corners are deliberately being cut in such a way as to create a dodgy vaccine

Well I haven’t said that. Unless you interpret highlighting the problems of having to run human and animal trials simultaneously as ‘cutting corners’ ‘to create a dodgy vaccine’??

In which case that’s not what I was saying at all.

the fact that there are at least a dozen candidate vaccines already is promising although it's much to early to claim victory.

Whether it’s promising entirely depends how long the pandemic lasts. If it’s all over within 2 years like Spanish flu then the vaccine will be rolled out around the time the pandemic peters out.

As a general comment not aimed at any specific post it's pretty anti-vax to suggest that corners are deliberately being cut in such a way as to create a dodgy vaccine.

But is asking a question "suggesting" ?

Meanwhile ...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/health-52344676/coronavirus-possible-to-be-infected-with-covid-19-more-than-once
...
The leader of a team working on a vaccine, Professor Sarah Gilbert, from Oxford University said scientists believed it was possible to become infected with Covid-19 more than once.
...

If that does turn out to be true (and I repeat my question of yesterday about the severity of a second infection compared to the initial infection ...) then what does it mean for lockdown ?

I guess it means lockdown isn't about getting a steady number of people infected until herd immunity is achieved

Leprosy springs to mind.

Quarantine. It's not a new idea at all. Think of the lepers in the bible having to shout out "unclean, unclean."

Laws must go, but which ones? We will soon find out.

Food safety regs. General Health and Safety regs. - although the calls for these to be abolished have gone a bit quiet since Grenfell.

I guess it means lockdown isn't about getting a steady number of people infected until herd immunity is achieved

How does "herd immunity" square with a virus that can reinfect you ?

Past lessons

My history lessons at school were almost 50 years ago (!)
but iirc in the Middle Ages Venice and some other ports avoided plague by ordering infected sailors to stay on a ship far out at sea for 40 days
Those that survived were allowed back into port

The word "quarantine" was derived from the Italian for 40 days or something like that

(I also remember useless details of Cardwell's army reforms in the 1860s-1870s
... need a brain clearout)

Lockdown is the modern equivalent, but much less effective than everyone in an infected population being sent out to sea
..... maybe that will be stage 3 after the next 3 weeks

Think of the lepers in the bible having to shout out "unclean, unclean."

I think of:

‘Penny for the ex leper’
‘Did you say ex leper?’
‘Bloke called Jesus came along and cured me, not so much as a by your leave.‘

"How does "herd immunity" square with a virus that can reinfect you ?"

As a good way of getting rid of all those over 70 or those of any age with chronic conditions,
e.g.
damage to lungs, CVD, high BP, kidney disease, T2, T1, Cystic fibrosis, asthma, cancer survivor, ex-transplant, premature babies, BMI 40+ ....

plus the occasional unlucky fit & health young'un

"Vulnerable" seems to be the 25 million entited to a free flu jab
Removing the 8 million aged 10 and under still leaves 17 million

Social Darwinism at its finest

Finest are on MN too:
A poster on a CV thread did say that the UK would be better off financially if all those aged 70+ died
and that however regrettable, the economy and those of working age must be prioritised

Well, I might be a worker now, but I would quite like to be an over seventy one day...

Aside from the eugenics aspect.

The economic argument seems to be labouring under the misapprehension that things can carry on as normal whilst a pandemic rages on in the background...

tatania

Exactly DG

"How does "herd immunity" square with a virus that can reinfect you ?"
I think it means Boris might be a bit buggered if he continues to shake hands and declares business as usual in true Boris fashion. There would be a very un-Marvelesque irony if he popped his clogs when he was meant to be developing his "super powers"

If you estimate that between 5 and 10% of the population will be immune or dead by the end of the first wave, and 60% of us need to be immune for herd immunity to be possible, then saying the "vaccine will be too late" implies that you think we are going to have second and third waves at least twice as high as the first over the next 18 months
Que?
Bandying about 5-10% immune or dead as if the two are comparable is scare mongering extraordinaire

Covid seems to kill around 3% of those who get it, predominantly the old and the ill
By definition there will be less of those available for each wave the exact opposite of spanish flu
and immunity will build in the fit and the young
so the waves will be like sars and mers
ripples

PS Boris is still an arse
and Brexit is still a shite idea

People keep getting old and ill, unfortunately.

morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/sinn-fein-demands-date-set-for-irish-unity-referendum

SINN FEIN is urging its members and supporters to press the case for Irish unity, demanding that a date is set for a referendum as set out in the Good Friday Agreement.

The party said its “message of change resonates with all those who want to see a new Ireland” with discussions on all aspects of unity taking place across the country.

It reminded supporters of the historical significance of the current period for Irish republicans with the forthcoming anniversary of the 1916 Easter rising and the proclamation of independence.

This saw “the coming together of the great national movements of the time, feminists, trade unionists, language and cultural activists” to proclaim an Irish republic.

“A revolutionary Irish republic based on the enduring principals of religious and civil liberty, equal rights, equal opportunities, happiness and prosperity for all its citizens and

the unfettered control of our own destiny.

“The broad group of individuals demonstrated unity of purpose and commitment to a national idea,” Sinn Fein said in a statement.

The party insisted that the current situation presented an opportunity like no other since 1916 with the chance to “peacefully achieve Irish unity in the years to come.”

Sinn Fein stunned the political elite in February’s snap general election, winning the popular vote and finishing with 37 seats despite only standing 43 candidates.

Months of political wrangling lie ahead with prime minister Leo Varadkar’s Fine Gael and Michael Martin’s Fianna Fail desperate to stop the republicans forming a government.

The pair were accused of “hoodwinking the public” by Sinn Fein spokesman Pearse Doherty on Thursday after it appeared that the pair had prepared to enter a coalition

government together, despite being rejected by the public.

Along with Brexit, the election results have put the issue of Irish unity firmly at the centre of the political agenda.

Provisions for a referendum on the issue are contained in the Good Friday Agreement which states that the “secretary of state” should call such a poll “if at any time it appears

likely to him that a majority of those voting would express a wish that Northern Ireland should cease to be part of the United Kingdom and form part of a united Ireland.”

Sinn Fein insist that a referendum should be set within the next five years and want to see an Ireland that is inclusive, respectful, uniting all who live on this island in the common

cause of “cherishing all the children of the nation equally.”

The Department of Health and Social Care has issued a "Response to Sunday Times Insight" here healthmedia.blog.gov.uk/2020/04/19/response-to-sunday-times-insight-article/.

Wow - are they rattled

Bandying about 5-10% immune or dead as if the two are comparable is scare mongering extraordinaire

You've misunderstood what I was saying (which wasn't very well expressed to be fair).

Estimates of how many people have had the virus seem mainly to be below 5% of the population, though I've seen figures up to 10%. Let's say 5% of the population have had it: some of those people are dead, some are now immune (at least temporarily), some have been ill but have not created enough antibodies to be fully protected.

Herd immunity requires over 50% (bare minimum) to be immune. How do we get there without a vaccine?

so the waves will be like sars and mers

Quite honestly this is complete nonsense. SARS infected 8000 people over 2 years, before disappearing. MERS has infected 2500 people in 8 years.

Florence Ader, who is coordinating the Discovery programme (every time I see that name, I imagine a space shuttle...), said this evening that they would start testing one of the vaccines developed by the Institut Pasteur on humans in the summer.