Coronavirus

[Fidget]

This seems to be a good article about the situation, albeit with a strong American bias.

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavi ... d3d9cd99ca

 

[Deadeye]

Well, I'm an utter newbie at woodwork.
But I was originally a virologist, and am a NED at a teaching hospital, so might as well chuck in my tuppence.

I very much hope I am wrong (and I'll come back to that in a moment) but, as it stands, I think it's going to be bad and a lot of people are going to die.
The idea that it's "only like 'flu" is unhelpful.
Firstly, have you actually had 'flu? I mean real 'flu not just a cold. It's properly horrible. Most people go from thinking they might die to wishing they had for a while; and some do.
Secondly, Covid-19 appears to differ in some important ways - in particular it seems to persist on surfaces longer than 'flu and there are signs that the infective dose is smaller.
Thirdly, the bilateral interstitial pneumonia that gets presented in serious cases requires different treatment to 'flu, and that treatment (supported breathing) is in short supply - there are only around 6000 ITU beds in England.
Fourthly, the doubling time is approximately 2-3 days - which is much swifter than 'flu. That suggests that there will be a rapid spike (mathematically, that progression would infect the whole UK in around 3 weeks).
That means a spike of very sick people will flood a scarce resource, which may also be under-staffed. Protocols are (very sensibly) being drawn up to determine the priority order - i.e. who gets taken off a ventilator to enable someone else to live.
Take a close look at Italy - because we are matching there trajectory almost exactly (the time form case 1 to case 400 is the same). Their hospitals are becoming overwhelmed an the staff exhausted. There is a very poignant crie de coeur from an italian doctor on one of the news sites today that describes this.

The contain/delay strategy is for two purposes - it attempts to reduce the size of spike by taking the problem over a longer period and so give support services the best chance to stay functional, and it limps us towards warmer, drier weather when transmission *may* be lower.

What can you do? Wash your hands with soap (soap may lyse the surface proteins of the virus an so be more effective than just washing it off). Try to avoid touching your face (the virus enters through mucous membranes, as do colds and 'flu). Be careful what you touch. Face masks are better for ?infected people to avoid spreading; they're less use use for uninfected people.

If you are immuno-compromised I'd strongly suggest you stay out of circulation for the next few weeks as much as possible. Oh, and "healthy" people can easily immuno-compromise themselves by getting run-down or other infections; so rest well and try to avoid stress (!)

Wuhan is now coming back under control because there was high compliance to the lock down. Italy does not yet appear to be. The gloomy part of me feels that the cat is out of the bag globally. However, minimising close interaction is useful. If you know people that live alone, call them and make sure they're ok.

If you become infected don't go to your GP or hospital; self isolate. You can call 111 and they will tell you to isolate and treat symptoms - fever with paracetemol - and stay hydrated. If you are asthmatic be sure to have salbutamol (or salmeterol/equivalent) available.

Where the run on bog roll fits with all this, I have no idea.

As I said, I hope I'm wrong. If people start to reduce interaction and are diligent about precautionary measures, then I could well be.

 

[Just4Fun]

Firstly, have you actually had 'flu? I mean real 'flu not just a cold.

How would I know? I suspect most people are unable to tell the difference. I'm sure I couldn't. I just work on the basis that if I have cold symptoms and feel a bit off then I say I have a cold, but if I feel bad then I say I have flu. Not exactly scientific but I bet most people are the same.

 

[lurker]

You will know when you get flu believe me!!!
For at least 24 hours I wanted to die.
I have only had it once and there were repercussions (with hindsight).
My heart was effected (I thought for life) but after six months was well again.

 

[Deadeye]

Generally if you can stand up unaided, it's not 'flu

 

[lurker]

Generally if you can stand up unaided, it's not 'flu

=D>

Unless it’s man flu and you are drunk as well.

 

[Bm101]

Fits with everything I've heard from sensible people.
My mrs works for a big pharma company. You all know them. They are about to start a rotational 1 day week on site. Rest of the time they are lap topping where possible.
When the big pharmacy companies are that worried you might want to start washing your hands more and worry about toilet paper less.

It's still containable in the uk given the right moves by Government so oh well.
My first ever political post on ukw is sadly just despairingly generic.

 

[doctor Bob]

I making my chaps wash their hands after any delivery and on a regular basis. Have sprays, paper hand towels and wipes avaliable.
wipe down handles, paint can deliveries, etc
Asking reps not to call in and no unnessesary visitors.
No handshakes.

As a small business I think the budget was as good as I could expect. I personally think it's doing a good job. Still think big events should be cancelled but understand some of the reasoning behind it.

I think it's going to be bad.

 

[Trevanion]

Just been to the local Aldi to look for bog roll of all things (Didn't find any, nor Tescos :evil, they've all got hand sanitiser chained up at each of the tills and are cleaning their hands after every customer.

 

[Chris152]

Take a close look at Italy - because we are matching there trajectory almost exactly (the time form case 1 to case 400 is the same).

That's rather worrying. From what I've seen, the mainstream media here, in their assessments of the potential efficacy of what's being done to protect us, aren't calling attention to this.

the bilateral interstitial pneumonia that gets presented in serious cases requires different treatment to 'flu, and that treatment (supported breathing) is in short supply - there are only around 6000 ITU beds in England.

Apparently significantly fewer than in Germany, and there are far fewer here in Wales per capita than in England.

The budget announced whatever funds are needed will be available to help the NHS deal with the virus, but my guess is that the things needed most - presumably staff and equipment/ space - simply aren't available.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

Interesting article here, looking at the Chinese experience and retrospectively calculating the actual numbers, as opposed to those the authorities knew about at any given time: https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavi ... d3d9cd99ca It also shows that the reported numbers in every other country must, by definition, be an underestimate.

This is one of the most important charts.
It shows in orange bars the daily official number of cases in the Hubei province: How many people were diagnosed that day.
The grey bars show the true daily coronavirus cases. The Chinese CDC found these by asking patients during the diagnostic when their symptoms started.
Crucially, these true cases weren’t known at the time. We can only figure them out looking backwards: The authorities don’t know that somebody just started having symptoms. They know when somebody goes to the doctor and gets diagnosed.
What this means is that the orange bars show you what authorities knew, and the grey ones what was really happening.
On January 21st, the number of new diagnosed cases (orange) is exploding: there are around 100 new cases. In reality, there were 1,500 new cases that day, growing exponentially. But the authorities didn’t know that. What they knew was that suddenly there were 100 new cases of this new illness.
Two days later, authorities shut down Wuhan. At that point, the number of diagnosed daily new cases was ~400. Note that number: they made a decision to close the city with just 400 new cases in a day. In reality, there were 2,500 new cases that day, but they didn’t know that.

No need to panic...

(Edit: if you do plow through the article, you may want to read the comments, too. Anyone on the internet can claim expertise, so do your own diligence, as it were.)

 

[Chris152]

The four stage strategy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSXIetP ... We0jwcmjvc

 

[eezageeza]

Interesting article here, looking at the Chinese experience and retrospectively calculating the actual numbers, as opposed to those the authorities knew about at any given time: https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavi ... d3d9cd99ca It also shows that the reported numbers in every other country must, by definition, be an underestimate.

This is one of the most important charts.
It shows in orange bars the daily official number of cases in the Hubei province: How many people were diagnosed that day.
The grey bars show the true daily coronavirus cases. The Chinese CDC found these by asking patients during the diagnostic when their symptoms started.
Crucially, these true cases weren’t known at the time. We can only figure them out looking backwards: The authorities don’t know that somebody just started having symptoms. They know when somebody goes to the doctor and gets diagnosed.
What this means is that the orange bars show you what authorities knew, and the grey ones what was really happening.
On January 21st, the number of new diagnosed cases (orange) is exploding: there are around 100 new cases. In reality, there were 1,500 new cases that day, growing exponentially. But the authorities didn’t know that. What they knew was that suddenly there were 100 new cases of this new illness.
Two days later, authorities shut down Wuhan. At that point, the number of diagnosed daily new cases was ~400. Note that number: they made a decision to close the city with just 400 new cases in a day. In reality, there were 2,500 new cases that day, but they didn’t know that.

No need to panic...

(Edit: if you do plow through the article, you may want to read the comments, too. Anyone on the internet can claim expertise, so do your own diligence, as it were.)

Note that this guy has previously written about how to write a blog post that will go viral, and that the expert sources he cites are much more cautious and equivocal than he is, on the same data.

 

[Rorschach]

I am a member of several forums and some of them have a large "prepper" community. In the last few weeks these people have been practically salivating at the thought of a pandemic. I don't know if it's the excitement of potentially being proved right and vindicated for their years of preparation or what but it's rather disturbing and rather sad to watch.

Also what's with the whole toilet paper thing? I can sort of understand buying tinned food etc but the toilet paper seems very odd, how much do they think they are going to need and have they no imagination about what to do if it ran out? Out of everything that I could run out of I think probably toilet paper is right at the bottom of my list.

 

[Noho12C]

Agree for the toilet paper. I read that you may experience"runny nose", so better stock tissues.

Though it would make sense if they are also stocking cans of baked beans.

Ok, I'm out -_-

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[Droogs]

Perhaps they are all thinking about the pandemic of amebic dysentry that will wipe out all the coronavirus survivours

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Someone commented on the radio that his local supermarket had been stripped of all pasta ............ but all the tinned tomatoes and pasta sauces were still there. He wondered what people ate pasta with.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

The story of the bog paper shortage was that it was reported that there is a shortage of bog paper in Australia, as their bog paper is made in China and isn't being shipped. The great unwashed presumed this to be affecting us despite ours not coming from there.

 

[Gerry]

Down south their panicked buying all the toilet rolls and hand sanitizer. Up north we're going round licking door handles trying to get a fortnight off work.

Gerry

 

[flying haggis]

Agree for the toilet paper. I read that you may experience"runny nose", so better stock tissues.

Though it would make sense if they are also stocking cans of baked beans.


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but if you stock up on baked beans you are going to need loo roll............