The big Coronavirus thread

focuszing723

Sadly the Neighbour I refereed to has died.

TheBigBean

Some vague positive news. Patients given blood transfusions from people who have recovered from the virus, showed considerable improvement. Small sample size though.

I also posted about the success in lab with an anti-parasite drug.

TheBigBean

Otherwise, it's all just deckchairs on the titanic. Though maybe wearing of masks is like having lifeboats.

kingstongraham

focuszing723 said:

Italians are facing up to yet more stringent measures designed to combat the outbreak after learning on Monday they would be placed in lockdown conditions. The country’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, has now said shops – barring supermarkets, food stores and chemists – will be shut down, while companies must close all their departments that are not essential to production.

Services such as hairdressers and beauty parlours will also be closed, along with bars and restaurants that cannot guarantee they can keep a distance of at least one metre between customers. Referring to the daily bulletins announcing the number of new cases and deaths, Conte said:

We will only be able to see the effects of this great effort in a couple of weeks.

Conte’s office said the new measures would be in force from Thursday until 25 March.

Guardian.

It does make you think we need to be acting sooner rather than later.

You posted this on 11th March. Doesn't seem like hindsight to think a lockdown might have been advisable before 23rd March.

coopster_the_1st

kingstongraham said:

focuszing723 said:

Italians are facing up to yet more stringent measures designed to combat the outbreak after learning on Monday they would be placed in lockdown conditions. The country’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, has now said shops – barring supermarkets, food stores and chemists – will be shut down, while companies must close all their departments that are not essential to production.

Services such as hairdressers and beauty parlours will also be closed, along with bars and restaurants that cannot guarantee they can keep a distance of at least one metre between customers. Referring to the daily bulletins announcing the number of new cases and deaths, Conte said:

We will only be able to see the effects of this great effort in a couple of weeks.

Conte’s office said the new measures would be in force from Thursday until 25 March.

Guardian.

It does make you think we need to be acting sooner rather than later.

You posted this on 11th March. Doesn't seem like hindsight to think a lockdown might have been advisable before 23rd March.

What would have an earlier lockdown have achieved?

Stevo_666

focuszing723 said:

Stevo_666 said:

focuszing723 said:

Can't you start a new thread for yourselves called "Negative Covid19 News I Googled".

Leave it to the rest of us to contribute with current information and positive developments.

Not sure what else you expected from 'the usual suspects'.

Yeah. I'm finished with this. Their agenda is just too damn blatant and shouldn't be pampered too

Every morning "Google UK Negative" it's what brightens their day, just sad really.

It used to be the same in the Brexit and Labour party threads. I suppose on the bright side, this thread is now a sort of quarantine area for all the Cake Stop negativity.

rjsterry

pangolin said:

rick_chasey said:

It is describing an environment where a) the experts don't want to "worsen the fears of the government" and b) the government doesn't trust its own powers and the public to do what needed to be done.

You create an environment where the government actively rubbishes the 'expert advice' on a daily basis and will call you out publicly of you disagree with them and funnily enough the experts on other stuff are frightened to tell the gov't what's going on.

The government not acting on what experts have been saying for months and then doing a last minute turn around in a half arsed attempt that sounds ok but really isn't is exactly the behaviour we have seen with this administration over and over again on important issues.

Alright I don't disagree with that. Maybe it's your language I find odd. Did anything in that article really shock you or are you just hamming it up for effect?

I'm not sure it's shocking at all. The history of pretty much every public health and safety issue runs like this. Mistakes are inevitable.

kingstongraham

coopster_the_1st said:

kingstongraham said:

focuszing723 said:

Italians are facing up to yet more stringent measures designed to combat the outbreak after learning on Monday they would be placed in lockdown conditions. The country’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, has now said shops – barring supermarkets, food stores and chemists – will be shut down, while companies must close all their departments that are not essential to production.

Services such as hairdressers and beauty parlours will also be closed, along with bars and restaurants that cannot guarantee they can keep a distance of at least one metre between customers. Referring to the daily bulletins announcing the number of new cases and deaths, Conte said:

We will only be able to see the effects of this great effort in a couple of weeks.

Conte’s office said the new measures would be in force from Thursday until 25 March.

Guardian.

It does make you think we need to be acting sooner rather than later.

You posted this on 11th March. Doesn't seem like hindsight to think a lockdown might have been advisable before 23rd March.

What would have an earlier lockdown have achieved?

Probably saved some lives. Less so because people took it into their own hands. My office had pretty much everyone working from home from the 13th.

rick_chasey

Are you lot all so mentally fragile that you can't encounter and discuss bad news without having some mental breakdown or something?

When things are bad they ought to be considered in such terms. I don't know what positive thinking is supposed to do in a situation like this, unless you do fear for your own mental health.

kingstongraham

Which reminds me, I was going to go back to the numbers behind that misleading graph. Has your source posted an updated version to save me the effort?

Stevo_666

rick_chasey said:

Are you lot all so mentally fragile that you can't encounter and discuss bad news without having some mental breakdown or something?

When things are bad they ought to be considered in such terms. I don't know what positive thinking is supposed to do in a situation like this, unless you do fear for your own mental health.

I don't think that is is the case for most people, but bit of balance would be good. You are clearly not capable of that so some of us have to help

What I'm trying to work out now is the underlying reasons for the relentless negativity of some.

pangolin

rick_chasey said:

Are you lot all so mentally fragile that you can't encounter and discuss bad news without having some mental breakdown or something?

When things are bad they ought to be considered in such terms. I don't know what positive thinking is supposed to do in a situation like this, unless you do fear for your own mental health.

I think only 1 person has said we should all be really positive so saying "you lot" is a tad unhelpful.

There's a big difference between accepting the situation is bad and having an interesting / somewhat informed discussion about measures, impacts etc - and just sitting about shouting "the end is nigh!".

rick_chasey

I think anyone who bothers to read what I write can see that for the most part, on this anyway,I've been more or less around half a week ahead of what gets reported in the papers.

Presumably this is because I have friends etc who are journos.

rjsterry

rick_chasey said:

Are you lot all so mentally fragile that you can't encounter and discuss bad news without having some mental breakdown or something?

When things are bad they ought to be considered in such terms. I don't know what positive thinking is supposed to do in a situation like this, unless you do fear for your own mental health.

As I said, mistakes are inevitable and it is not shocking that people have behaved in the way they have. It's a recognised pattern that you can see in any number of examples. That's not to say we should just shrug and move on, but until all this is over we will only be able to draw provisional conclusions, which may also be inaccurate. For the time being I think the best most of us can do is follow the rules and think of new ways that we can keep working.

pblakeney

It’s great on here isn’t it?
Historical evidence is a waste of time. I was a lion yesterday. There is no point in arguing.
I am a male human today.
There future is unknown. I think I’ll be a penguin tomorrow and you can’t prove otherwise.

Yes. Being flippant.

surrey_commuter

rick_chasey said:

I think anyone who bothers to read what I write can see that for the most part, on this anyway,I've been more or less around half a week ahead of what gets reported in the papers.

Presumably this is because I have friends etc who are journos.

TBB and I have televisions which allow us to see two weeks into the future.

Can you ask your journo friends why the media report number of deaths without noticing they trend down at the weekend?

ddraver

You're bloody weird you lot...

rick_chasey

surrey_commuter said:

rick_chasey said:

I think anyone who bothers to read what I write can see that for the most part, on this anyway,I've been more or less around half a week ahead of what gets reported in the papers.

Presumably this is because I have friends etc who are journos.

TBB and I have televisions which allow us to see two weeks into the future.

Can you ask your journo friends why the media report number of deaths without noticing they trend down at the weekend?

Guardian wrote a piece explaining why they don't think the numbers are right, and the guys at the FT have been saying that forever.

The guys I know are too junior to really have decision over that stuff. They do recognise their role in helping the gov't get through this though, and there is definitely a reticence to stoke the fire too much as that isn't helpful.

DeVlaeminck

A couple of days ago I did search back on these forums to see when Corona started being talked about - it's easy to lose track of just how long this has been going on. I think it was something like early to mid Feb that people started to mention it and from the comments it should have been clear what was coming.

The reuters article is certainly right to raise the slow response from the uk govt - in terms of preparations it doesn't seem unreasonable to suggest we lost 2-3 weeks where we should, not might, have been preparing for the situation we have now.

tailwindhome

I think the issue with deaths at the weekend is as straightforward as not having enough senior people on site on a Sunday to sign stuff.

I recall when my father was in his last days the consultant explaining on the Friday that they expected him to die over the weekend but not be 'processed' until Monday
Can't remember the exact detail though

kingstongraham

coopster_the_1st said:

I know I'm the only one that cares, but based on exactly the same data, now updated with more accurate numbers as more deaths have been reported. Basically, that massive drop off in pneumonia deaths that you were presumably using to imply that Covid19 deaths are just being moved from one place to another, and it's really not a problem - it doesn't exist.

surrey_commuter

ddraver said:

You're bloody weird you lot...

We can’t all be weird.

You need to chose a side.

You can be a Boris Trumpian who thinks that all will be OK if we all cheer up a bit and rally behind them as they are a great leader.

Alternatively you can believe that the Govt response has not been 100% perfect, they continue to make mistakes and as such you have opinions on what they should do.

rick_chasey

Between February 13 and March 30, Britain missed a total of eight conference calls or meetings about the coronavirus between EU heads of state or health ministers - meetings that Britain was still entitled to join.

How does this not show how pigheaded the whole Brexit mentality is.

I mean FFS

TheBigBean

rick_chasey said:

Between February 13 and March 30, Britain missed a total of eight conference calls or meetings about the coronavirus between EU heads of state or health ministers - meetings that Britain was still entitled to join.

How does this not show how pigheaded the whole Brexit mentality is.

I mean FFS

Might have been more productive to have been to talking to some East Asian countries, but I suspect that wasn't happening either.

rick_chasey

TheBigBean said:

rick_chasey said:

Between February 13 and March 30, Britain missed a total of eight conference calls or meetings about the coronavirus between EU heads of state or health ministers - meetings that Britain was still entitled to join.

How does this not show how pigheaded the whole Brexit mentality is.

I mean FFS

Might have been more productive to have been to talking to some East Asian countries, but I suspect that wasn't happening either.

I hadn’t realised the U.K. had been invited to those calls and meetings. Which ones were they?

mrfpb

surrey_commuter said:

kingstongraham said:

pangolin said:

surrey_commuter said:

pangolin said:

rick_chasey said:

Absolutely loaded with shocking detail after shocking detail.

Like what? I'm halfway through and it seems to be mostly telling us things we knew or had made an educated guess at based on the Government's behaviour. It's a well written interesting article but I wouldn't describe it as absolutely loaded with shocking details.

It is a well written summary but the only revelation to me was that scientists were making decisions on whether lockdown was feasible, which seems utterly bizarre.

I sort of agree. They have to be realistic with their recommendations though don't you think? They could have looked at the evidence in late Jan and said - right if we want to really protect the UK we are shutting down the borders now. No-one comes in or out. We will test and trace any patients that are here already. But it was too soon and the scientists (I assume) would have thought - a) the Gov won't go for this and b) even if they did, the people wouldn't go for this.

That's a political decision though. If the politicians reject that advice on political grounds, then that's different to it not even being an option that is modelled and presented to them. Which it eventually was.

Also if you you at the sports bodies and journeys recorded by TFL the country was shutting down without any political direction

This is a point of the "behavioural" element of policy. People on this thread were preparing to or actually working from home at least a week before restrictions were announced. My workplace was busy sourcing laptops and mobiles. If the lockdown was announced two weeks earlier, most of us would have been stranded at home without the ability to work. By the time lockdown was declared we were "primed" for it psychologically, and our employers were more prepared for it.

Pross

surrey_commuter said:

focuszing723 said:

Can't you start a new thread for yourselves called "Negative Covid19 News I Googled".

Leave it to the rest of us to contribute with current information and positive developments.

There are a lot of interesting thoughts on here that are weeks ahead of the media. When do you think they will notice that we don’t count deaths properly at the weekend and that this skews the numbers?

Being positive and getting on the front foot does not work for a global pandemic

That's already being widely reported isn't it? The BBC were making it clear yesterday I thought along with now adding a caveat that it only includes deaths in hospitals. It almost felt like someone had asked them to do it to reduce any complacency with early signs that the rate of spread is slowing.

tailwindhome

It'll be interesting to see how NI compares to the rest of the UK

- a significant proportion of the community followed the ROI into lockdown, took their kids out of school early.

-Flybe went bust at the start of March, drastically reducing connectivity to the rest of the UK at a key time in the spread.......no 'seeding' from people flying to London and bring C19 back

mrfpb

mrfpb said:

A bit more maths, trying to remove the "weekend" factor by looking at growth across a whole week.

9 Mar there were 321 identified cases.

09 Mar - 16 Mar cases multiplied by factor of 4.8 to 1543
16 Mar to 23 Mar cases multiplied by factor of 4.3 to 6,650
23 Mar to 30 Mar cases multiplied by factor of 3.3 to 22,141
30 Mar to 06 Apr cases multiplied by factor of 2.3 to 51,608

So the rate of growth has slowed to less than half where it was 3 weeks ago.

The rate for deaths is less clear as there were only 5 on 9 March, which is a very small number for statistical purposes.

16th March there were 55 known deaths

16 Mar to 23 Mar deaths multiplied by factor of 6.1 to 335
23 Mar to 30 Mar deaths multiplied by factor of 4.2 to 1,408
30 Mar to 06 Apr deaths multiplied by factor of 3.8 to 5,373

Just thought I'd repost this from yesterday. Looked at weekly, there is a definite downward trend in infections (despite progressively higher testing rates). It's less obvious with deaths, but they are talking about a two week lag. We could see 50,000 - 100,000 deaths before the peak. It's not looking great.

Does the forum have a "negative Nancy" badge for me?

Pross

surrey_commuter said:

ddraver said:

You're bloody weird you lot...

We can’t all be weird.

You need to chose a side.

You can be a Boris Trumpian who thinks that all will be OK if we all cheer up a bit and rally behind them as they are a great leader.

Alternatively you can believe that the Govt response has not been 100% perfect, they continue to make mistakes and as such you have opinions on what they should do.

Dammit, I'm going to have to change my view then as my current position is that they've handled it reasonably well but could certainly have done some things better. Testing is biggest area of concern for me whilst on the other hand the speed with which they've created the temporary hospitals and the job protection measures have been plus points (albeit I'm withholding judgement slightly on the latter until seeing how well it works in reality).

That said I am of a view that negativity helps no-one and can create issues of its own in terms of health / well-being when all you here are the bad outcomes. Am I concerned about my own health? Not particularly, I'm following the social distancing guidance. Am I worried about the health of older family and friends? A little but getting less concerned thanks to the measures in place. Am I worried about my family's financial future? Yes, but there's sweet FA I can do about it so it's not keeping me up all night. I'll keep ensuring the work we have at present keeps being delivered and assisting in trying to keep new work coming in and I'm OK for at least the next 3-6 months by which time I'm hoping for things to improve. Beyond that who knows but worrying about it isn't going to help.