Prepping for a pandemic 2

[wheresmymojo]

Second thread on prepping for a potential Coronavirus pandemic...following the latest news and information as well as prepping info.

When quoting estimates like mortality rates, replication rates, incubation periods and similar I try to stick to evidence based, scientific studies and will link to sources (unless already linked to them previously).

Generally speaking I use reputable sources of information like well regarded news outlets for other information and will provide links.

Sometimes I may post things outside of this as 'interesting' or such like. I will always caveat these as to be taken with caution.

As much as possible I am attempting not to link to fake news. It's an evolving picture so may not be 100% successful but if something is later shown to be incorrect I will post a correction.

I don’t even think there’s a vast conspiracy. I just think that no one has thought “hey, there’s a lot of fake news and panicked speculation out there, shall we release a statement saying to Chillax and we’re implementing a game plan”. Not even so much of a tweeted photo of Matt Handcock showing up to COBRA meeting, Starbucks in hand, saying “Great session today guys, more to follow”

Why would the government make any announcement when there isn’t really updates to give? Nothing has changed?

I just came here to mention that I got an email from school forwarded from the Dept of Education linking to the gov.uk site about advice about coronavirus. Worrying!
Also dh had to phone hospital to make an appointment and the answering machine said "if you think you have flu symptoms do not come to hospital! "

Parker231 personally, I don’t expect a massive announcement or policy change at this point. But “no news is good news” doesn’t work any more in the age of instant communication around the world. They need to be actively engaging with the public, reassuring, addressing rumours and speculation (in much the same way as we’ve seen bloggers and you tubers making some excellent science based points debunking some of the more wide-ranging rumours).

I don’t expect the actual experts to be doing this, of course, but surely nowadays a key part of a “keep calm” strategy should include a PR and social media strategy that can be rolled out. We’ve got some good stuff about washing hands etc, but they are woefully behind on keeping up with the changing online media landscape.

List of countries will presumably be the same as in the PHE clinical guidance document -

www.gov.uk/government/publications/wuhan-novel-coronavirus-initial-investigation-of-possible-cases/investigation-and-initial-clinical-management-of-possible-cases-of-wuhan-novel-coronavirus-wn-cov-infection#interim-definition-possible-cases

The Mail is reporting that the Doctor who is being reported as dead, is actually alive?

But I never said the army would sort it, I said barracks would seem ideal places to put people. Anyway we’ve moved on (thank goodness).

I’m assuming at this stage that we are going to get clusters of cases and that self isolation is realistically the only way to minimise risk. If the risk becomes significant I’m not going to feel confident letting the dc carry on being out and about even wearing masks.

The doctor Li Wenliang was dead around 8:30 or 9:30pm China eastern time, but they were afraid of anger of the Chinese public, because of his significance as the whistle blower, so kept doing cpr for the next three hours, and put him on ECMO, to give people a sense of (fake) hope. But really he is already dead

Sounds like the worst is over - I heard that it was forecast that 8 February would be the peak date for cases and then start reducing.

China's ambassador to the UK Liu Xiaoming says the number of cured patients is rising and they are fully confident in beating the virus

Dont know about mass hysteria, but today i was teaching a group of adukt students (all managers or supervisors) when a bus liad of Chinese tourists walked past the window. One of the students pulled her tea shirt up over her nose. Not sure how she expected a tee shirt to stop the virus if it managed to get through a double glassed window.

Its this level of fear the goverment needs to work on. Leave a gap in a mind and fear will fill it

That isn't fear, that's racism.

News reports are suggesting that the chap in Brighton caught it at a conference in Singapore.

Yes, the same conference that seems to have been responsible for a number of infections.

Yep just seen Singapore...

Only small and necessary amounts of info are released to news outlets in order to prevent panic.

I'm afraid I believe this may be true still. If the virus starts to take hold in the UK - even say 20 cases, I can see panic buying, food and medicine shortages and economic impact.

Apart from planning for food, I am wondering about emergency medicines that could be helpful and anything else we might need.

If it is that conference then they've been wandering around for days and days...I'll find the conference date...

Is anyone following @IsChinar (Harry Chen) on Twitter? It's disturbing, and a lot of what he posts, including the welding, go mainstream a bit later.

Why would people panic if there were 20 cases in the UK from a population of over 60m - life will continue as usual.

It was at the Grand Hyatt from Jan 20 - Jan 22 so that is 14 days yesterday

Residents banned from leaving their homes and lifts switched off under tightening coronavirus rules in China

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/02/06/residents-banned-leaving-homes-lifts-switched-tightening-coronavirus/