The big Coronavirus thread

Fenix mate; it's all pretty bad but don't stress out too much about it.

Focus on what you can control and recognise if it is serious you don't want to start doing the extreme stuff before it's necessary because, when things are more critical, you're more likely to make a bad decision if you've been at red alert for ages.

rick_chasey said:

Focus on what you can control

I think I'll be writing a list of everything we'd need if my family were to be self isolated for 2 weeks.

I don't think there's any need to go mental - but it's starting to seem like a responsible precaution.

I heard the Italian lockdown wasn't effective for some time. Milan airport still ran when they were in lockdown one radio 4 report said. Easily believed with Italy I think.

coopster_the_1st said:

john80 said:

On a lighter note the reason why so much toilet roll has been sold is because every time someone coughs a thousand people censored themselves.

Unfortunately there is no lighter note for those fully infected by the media hysteria and that will do more damage than C19

Yeah, it's really the media that led to policy makers in various parts of China (who control the media themselves) and the whole of italy being put under quarantine.

How are your crack supplies holding up in the crisis? Don't share the pipe would be my advice.

coopster_the_1st said:

kingstongraham said:

coopster_the_1st said:

fenix said:

Pross said:

I still haven't seen / heard one expert on mainstream TV or radio say anything similar to some of the quotes in print or online media. They are still very much in the nothing to be overly concerned about unless you're elderly and / or have underlying health issues. Is this that TV / radio are toeing the official line or that the wider media are using hyperbole to get hits? I guess we'll find out within a month.

Doctor in Italy on breakfast TV today saying their health system is almost at breaking point. They're just a couple of weeks ahead.

Countries who prepare well - death rate might be 1%. Countries with poor plans - 5%.

We need to flatten the infection curve. Do what the Italians have announced now.

We are not 2 weeks behind Italy. It's rubbish to look at their numbers and then find the UK equivalent of positives and say that is how far behind we are. Both countries had patient zero at a similar time however Italy went weeks before catching up with contact tracing this patient. We knew all patient zero contacts (Brighton) very quickly.

WE CAUGHT THAT ONE PATIENT EARLY AND THAT'S WHY WE DON'T HAVE ANY CASES IN THE UK NOW.

Your post just makes you look more stupid because that is not what I said

You assumed that we should start the timeline for comparison with Italy from the moment we saw the first patient, who was probably relatively successfully contained, and that because the UK cases have not risen at the same rate from that point, there cannot be any correlation. Even though they have been rising at a similar rate if you rebase the start point by about two weeks.

Pross said:

TheBigBean said:

Pross said:

So with the US travel ban does that mean all people from mainland Europe needing to get to the US will just stage through the UK or are they not quite that dumb?

No. It's based on whether you have been to mainland Europe in the last two weeks. They could quarantine themselves in the UK which isn't good news for the UK.

Can they tell that for EU citizens though? Couldn't they still travel visa free to the UK and jump on a plane here? Likewise, Brits may have been to Europe, gone home and then fly to the States or is there some system that picks up travel history even if no visa has been required?

Probably not, but it is the same as if you have been to Iran, Syria etc. in the last five years.

I was recalling the 2009 with 'swine flu' pandemic and wondering why, although a huge thing, it was nowhere near as disruptive.

'Swine flu' is the H1N1 influenza virus. It came to UK in April (from Mexico), but the first death was not until June. Huge infection rate in June/July then again in the autumn. Graphic shows infection rate per week - ie new cases.



Unusual because young were affected more than old (see below), and the summer dip was attributed to school summer holiday. 128 England deaths directly attributed up to 9th November 2009, from around 540,000 cases i.e. around 0.03% (different sources give different numbers, depending on region).

Because it was similar to previous influenza strains, most older people already had partial immunity (through previous infections or vaccines) so it was no-where near as dangerous to older people. It is still potentially around but is now just another 'ordinary' flu virus.

The two previous SARS outbreaks in 2002 and 2004 (which are a different coronavirus strain) did not get the same traction in human populations, only infected a few thousand worldwide and were contained. (edit: Although it had very high death rates in those infected) SARS did not have anything like the same transmission.

I've flipped from 'meh' to realising that Covid-19 is VERY different.

mrfpb said:

The travel ban is from Shengen area, so Stevo needs to import his EU chart! It's an odd decisio given the established links between USA and far east. Trump has also backtracked already due to outcry about imports and trade.

Your wish is my command, mrfpb...

focuszing723 said:

coopster_the_1st said:

Unfortunately we are now going to see what goes wrong when our economy has too much debt built up in the system and there is no spare capacity for more debt. Without another debt bailout (ironically with more debt) it is going to be a house of cards.

This is where the bigger long term risk is with this C19

True, but most other countries will be in the same cruise ship too.

you know that will make the problem worse?

Pross said:

pblakeney said:

focuszing723 said:

Pross said:

So with the US travel ban does that mean all people from mainland Europe needing to get to the US will just stage through the UK or are they not quite that dumb?

Good point, Ireland too. They can't exactly reject them once they have landed in the US, will it be something we have to enforce through passport checks?

U.S. border control begins in the country of departure. So anybody without a UK or Irish passport will be refused. Not that a virus respects passports, obviously.

So a British or Irish citizen who has been living in Northern Italy and has just returned home could fly whilst a Polish person who hasn't left the UK for 10 years wouldn't be able to? If it hadn't come from the Trump administration I might think it was a knee jerk policy made on the hoof with no real thought process.

I'm guessing that most of the countries who are affected by the ban are electronic visa ESTA countries where you have to apply in advance and supply both your nationality and country of residence. Therefore when they do the pre-boarding check at your departure airport which is a real-time OK/not OK to board check I would imagine anyone who put their residency as one of the affected countries will be refused boarding. So for the above examples it would depend where both people put as their country of residence rather than just their nationality.

ddraver said:

So there's basically very little to help determine if it's Coronavirus or flu other than you might get a shortness of breath with the former.

Pross said:

ddraver said:

So there's basically very little to help determine if it's Coronavirus or flu other than you might get a shortness of breath with the former.

Well, generally a snotty nose is not a symptom of Covid 19. If you have a snotty nose, its probably cold or flu.