The Covid-19 serious chat thread

[RDW]

First topic message reminder :

A thread set up to house the more serious chat relating to the global pandemic.

Nothing has changed in what we expect from discussions on here though:

- Please treat each other with respect
- Avoid hyperbole and fake news
- This thread shouldn't be used for a political soapbox, but political discussion will likely happen. See point 1!

A reminder that we have a community thread here for people to vent, look for help and all round support each other. https://www.606v2.com/t69506-the-covid-19-community-thread#3896653

[super_realist]

It might do, but the easiest way to improve the NHS is for Britain to take better collective care of itself. It is currently crippled by issues relating to obesity, a completely preventable condition.
Sadly most Brits are too fat, lazy and feckless to do anything about that.

You could say that and put everything on the idiots who drink and smoke too much and just eat crap. But then we all pay for that too. If they are not educated well enough to look after themselves, don't have opportunities because of less investment then they won'd do as well. The blame doesn't just lie with them.

Smokers and drinkers are already massively taxed. You don't need to be educated to know what bad food is and it is not only the lower classes who are fat. I visited a cardiac specialist a few months back and he was massively overweight.
You cannot blame anyone else for an individual being obese unless it is a child.

[super_realist]

I saw an interesting programme (I think it was presented by Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, randomly) about life in Denmark.  They pay on average around 50% tax.  But, instead of outrage which I was expecting, the programme found people were quite happy to pay because of what it bought.  They felt it was money well spent and that life, society, public facilities, amenities, etc. were all to a high standard and well run.  Interestingly their social welfare system was not so stigmatized as here and people were only on it for an average of 3 months (if memory serves).  People used it as a leg back up on to the employment market - i.e. lose your job, access free housing (very nice looking too!) and money for a while while supported back to work through many schemes, initiatives and training, and off you go.

Not saying we should move to that but I found it quite interesting and poles apart from the perception of tax and the role of the state in this country.

The thing that people forget about places like Denmark, Norway and Sweden is that their base salaries are already considerably higher to begin with. If you are paid more to begin with then paying more tax is fine. Sticking more tax on the same salary ranges is the issue.
I have colleagues in Norway who earn more than their UK counterparts, same as when I worked for a Danish company.

[123456789.]

In more Nordic news. Iceland has tested 17,900 people or 5% of their population. The equivalent of us testing three million people in the UK. They have found that 50% of cases are asymptomatic. On the Cruise Ship the Diamond Princess 18% of people came back asymptomatic. The difference could be explained by age groups, passengers of Cruise Ships are likely to be older. In Iceland 34% of the population is under 24 where in Italy just 23.2% is. In Italy 34% of the population is over 55 where in Iceland only 25% are over 55. It is worth pointing out that just 1% of Iceland's tests came back positive so we are looking at a sample of 179 people, which is just over a quarter of the number that proved to have it on the Cruise ship.
I know of two people who have had it, I believe that one was tested and showed positive. He simply lost his sense of taste and smell. His flatmate has reported a similar experience but feeling fatigued. One other person I know of said she struggled to breathe through it. It seems simply to be pot luck how bad it is. I know on Spanish flu there's a theory that were effectively two mutations, one was more deadly than the other. Theoretically speaking, the less deadly one effectively acted as a vaccine against the more deadly one, because it didn't kill or incapacitate it's host it's spread outpaced that of the Spanish flu.  In some places the death rate for Spanish flu simply dropped overnight. I am not saying that's what has happened here, I'm not a virologist, but it could explain the different experiences.
Equally, Lee Ryan (of the boyband Blue) has theorised that the Devil controls the government, and that they are using this to to introduce a vaccine that will in reality be a microchip to control the people. He has, unfortunately, declined to explain why governments that aspire to control the people took so long to enforce a lockdown.

[JuliusHMarx]

Equally, Lee Ryan (of the boyband Blue) has theorised that the Devil controls the government, and that they are using this to to introduce a vaccine that will in reality be a microchip to control the people. He has, unfortunately, declined to explain why governments that aspire to control the people took so long to enforce a lockdown.

I think you've just outed SecretFly's real name.

[lostinwales]

In more Nordic news. Iceland has tested 17,900 people or 5% of their population. The equivalent of us testing three million people in the UK. They have found that 50% of cases are asymptomatic. On the Cruise Ship the Diamond Princess 18% of people came back asymptomatic. The difference could be explained by age groups, passengers of Cruise Ships are likely to be older. In Iceland 34% of the population is under 24 where in Italy just 23.2% is. In Italy 34% of the population is over 55 where in Iceland only 25% are over 55. It is worth pointing out that just 1% of Iceland's tests came back positive so we are looking at a sample of 179 people, which is just over a quarter of the number that proved to have it on the Cruise ship.
I know of two people who have had it, I believe that one was tested and showed positive. He simply lost his sense of taste and smell. His flatmate has reported a similar experience but feeling fatigued. One other person I know of said she struggled to breathe through it. It seems simply to be pot luck how bad it is. I know on Spanish flu there's a theory that were effectively two mutations, one was more deadly than the other. Theoretically speaking, the less deadly one effectively acted as a vaccine against the more deadly one, because it didn't kill or incapacitate it's host it's spread outpaced that of the Spanish flu.  In some places the death rate for Spanish flu simply dropped overnight. I am not saying that's what has happened here, I'm not a virologist, but it could explain the different experiences.
Equally, Lee Ryan (of the boyband Blue) has theorised that the Devil controls the government, and that they are using this to to introduce a vaccine that will in reality be a microchip to control the people. He has, unfortunately, declined to explain why governments that aspire to control the people took so long to enforce a lockdown.

That would explain the one going around BoJo and his pals - mild symptoms and a few days holiday and back to it - as opposed to the one the doctors get.

[super_realist]

Or depending on the level of immunity you have you could just be better at dealing with it.

[lostinwales]

Or depending on the level of immunity you have you could just be better at dealing with it.

Truth be told the majority of the population will get mild symptoms at most. It is a numbers game and most of us will be fine. Not all though - and sadly the medics are the ones most likely to be exposed.

[123456789.]

What, as of yet, I haven't been able to understand is what it means by mild symptoms. When people describe it as bad flu but not enough to hospitalise them is that considered mild in this case? Or is it that most people who have it will have something not much worse than a cold if any symptoms at all?

[Davie]

Or depending on the level of immunity you have you could just be better at dealing with it.

Truth be told the majority of the population will get mild symptoms at most. It is a numbers game and most of us will be fine. Not all though - and sadly the medics are the ones most likely to be exposed.

The latest theory seems to involve the buzz words "viral load" - i.e. how MUCH of the virus you've been exposed to.

So theoretically, if you just brushed past an infected person you have been exposed to a small amount - and so the symptoms *could* be mild.

Those exposed more severely (healthcare workers?) take on much more of the virus so it is worse.

I'm no virologist so cannot vouch for this theory but it seems to make some sense

[RDW]

Equally, Lee Ryan (of the boyband Blue) has theorised that the Devil controls the government, and that they are using this to to introduce a vaccine that will in reality be a microchip to control the people. He has, unfortunately, declined to explain why governments that aspire to control the people took so long to enforce a lockdown.

I think you've just outed SecretFly's real name.

I have seen this view start to become more prominent on social media - the tin foil hat brigade saying it's all part of a government plan to control us, and it's amazing how people are falling into line so quickly. That when the 'cure' comes it will be implanted with biotech to be able to spy on us.

[tigertattie]

Let the government bio tech me as much as they like.

What gems of information they shall find in the interest of national
Security.

Day 1
Subject TT:
Subject woke up and ate cornflakes before having a shower
Subject went to work while listening to boogie in the morning
Subject stared at various spreadsheets throughout the working day, only stopping midway through to consume some questionable looking chicken
Subject drove home from work while muttering “I hate spreadsheets”
Subject ate some form of meat dish accompanied with various vegetables
Subject went an hour long walk before spending the evening half watching tele, half dozing on the sofa
Subject went to bed some time around 11:30 where subject at no time watched anything online that Mary Whitehouse would find rude

Day 2
See above and read again.

[123456789.]

Equally, Lee Ryan (of the boyband Blue) has theorised that the Devil controls the government, and that they are using this to to introduce a vaccine that will in reality be a microchip to control the people. He has, unfortunately, declined to explain why governments that aspire to control the people took so long to enforce a lockdown.

I think you've just outed SecretFly's real name.

I have seen this view start to become more prominent on social media - the tin foil hat brigade saying it's all part of a government plan to control us, and it's amazing how people are falling into line so quickly. That when the 'cure' comes it will be implanted with biotech to be able to spy on us.

Suppose it's human nature. A really scary virus is difficult to get your head around, it's much easier to think that here's an escape route around the corner. It's the reason why everyone is pinning hopes on miracle drugs. The idea that "breaking news" will flash up on the screen, on walks *literally anybody* and says "We've found a way out" is something we are all going to be clinging onto in the weeks and months ahead. I wouldn't be surprised if a big spike in cases comes when they announce that a vaccine works.

[RDW]

It's also worth noting how the whole world is reliant on the scientific community now, given there's been a growing 'anti-science' sentiment developing over the last few years (especially from the orange pensioner across the pond).

[123456789.]

Unfortunately the experts will still get it in the neck after this. Trump will claim credit for any good that comes out of it, and blame the bad on poor advice and/or Democrat governers. If a vaccine comes through Trump will announce he slashed the red tape and that the checks usual in science are simply a hindrance and he knows that because he is a businessman. In the meantime Democrat states will probably post worse results because they're more urbanised and more populous. Trump will point the finger at them.

[tigertattie]

I'm not saying this is one of the reasons why the US is seeing a huge jump in cases, it just might be

'Merica


Meanwhile in the UK

[RDW]

I'm not saying this is one of the reasons why the US is seeing a huge jump in cases, it just might be

'Merica


Meanwhile in the UK

Worth noting the UK is much, much smaller than USA so that's not overly comparable! Compared to normal air traffic that's probably a huge reduction in USA.

There was controversy in Aus today as it was reported that over 3000 Australians still travelled abroad despite the PM saying all travel should be cancelled. When they come back they'll be put up in a hotel for 2 weeks paid for by taxpayers.

Unless they had a really good reason for the travel they should be paying it themselves! Lots of reports of people just wanting to go on their holiday

[kwinigolfer]

I'm not saying this is one of the reasons why the US is seeing a huge jump in cases, it just might be

'Merica


Meanwhile in the UK

Everything's relative though.
Most American airlines cancelled 70% of passenger service last week, 80% this.
At any one time, a portion of air traffic in the US is shifting essential freight around (UPS, FedEX, Prime and many others), not people.

[Soul Requiem]

The major trade countries of the world seem to be the ones most highly affected now. If we discount China for the obvious massaging they're doing with their figures and look at the those most affected it becomes clear to me at least that trade is probably a big reason why the virus is spreading so quickly.

Iran appears to be an outlier for me, I can't quite get my head around why they have been so badly affected.

[super_realist]

The major trade countries of the world seem to be the ones most highly affected now. If we discount China for the obvious massaging they're doing with their figures and look at the those most affected it becomes clear to me at least that trade is probably a big reason why the virus is spreading so quickly.

Iran appears to be an outlier for me, I can't quite get my head around why they have been so badly affected.

They travel more than most other middle Eastern countries.

[navyblueshorts]

Equally, Lee Ryan (of the boyband Blue) has theorised that the Devil controls the government, and that they are using this to to introduce a vaccine that will in reality be a microchip to control the people. He has, unfortunately, declined to explain why governments that aspire to control the people took so long to enforce a lockdown.

I think you've just outed SecretFly's real name.

I have seen this view start to become more prominent on social media - the tin foil hat brigade saying it's all part of a government plan to control us, and it's amazing how people are falling into line so quickly. That when the 'cure' comes it will be implanted with biotech to be able to spy on us.

Suppose it's human nature. A really scary virus is difficult to get your head around, it's much easier to think that here's an escape route around the corner. It's the reason why everyone is pinning hopes on miracle drugs. The idea that "breaking news" will flash up on the screen, on walks *literally anybody* and says "We've found a way out" is something we are all going to be clinging onto in the weeks and months ahead. I wouldn't be surprised if a big spike in cases comes when they announce that a vaccine works.

Wonder what the anti-vaxxers will do then?

[123456789.]

British American Tobacco reckon they might have a vaccine ready to go by June. I highly doubt anybody saw Big Tobacco being the hero in a pandemic for respiratory conditions.

[WELL-PAST-IT]

Just watching Hancock saying that NHS front line staff are not the priority for testing, priority had to be given to patients, thus taking large numbers of NHS staff out of the front line, increasing pressure on the NHS and possibly causing preventable deaths due to insufficient staff.

Also 45M pieces of PPE delivered today, BoJo was saying that 9M had been delivered last week and that was sufficient. Obviously not, are any of the NHS staff that have died or caught the disease down to a lack of the correct PPE?

Has anyone also noticed that BoJo has stopped his online interviews, one yesterday is all I can remember this week.

[123456789.]

My take on the government is that they got this hopelessly wrong to begin with. We should have had more ventilators earlier in the year, they should have got more tests in, they should have got more PPE. The herd immunity debacle was a classic example of government miscommunication. From what I understand until we have a vaccine or medication there is now real way out of our current situation other than herd immunity. It may have been a consequence of Dominic Cummings' obsessive misunderstanding of science. He heard a way out of this and he announced it, then the real scientists did the numbers.
Since then they've been up against it and have done no better or worse (Trump aside) than any other western government. They seem to have bet largely on these antibody tests and that seems a smart idea. If they can get hold of and distribute 3.5 million antibody tests to start with then they have an enormous sample from which to assess the true extent that this has spread through the population already and who has a degree of immunity. If it turns out to be a reasonable percentage of people that have had it then they can start to relieve the lockdown. To be fair, it is becoming more and more apparent as this goes on that the Chinese have been fundamentally dishonest about the whole thing. It seems likely that more people than we realised died in Wuhan and most initial predictions were based on Wuhan.
I don't think Dominic Cummings is the genius people think he is. Children know that if you lie about something you can get somewhere temporarily. Putting lies on a bus is not clever it is just dishonest. The campaign in December was like shooting fish in the barrel. This has tested his limits. In his defence, and if he came up with it to begin with, 'Stay home, save lives, protect the NHS' is getting through to people. But I am not sure if it's the actual message or the gravity of the situation coupled with a general sense of morality across the population. After all, most people thought that their should be a lockdown before it was announced.

[lostinwales]

Just watching Hancock saying that NHS front line staff are not the priority for testing, priority had to be given to patients, thus taking large numbers of NHS staff out of the front line, increasing pressure on the NHS and possibly causing preventable deaths due to insufficient staff.

Also 45M pieces of PPE delivered today, BoJo was saying that 9M had been delivered last week and that was sufficient. Obviously not, are any of the NHS staff that have died or caught the disease down to a lack of the correct PPE?

Has anyone also noticed that BoJo has stopped his online interviews, one yesterday is all I can remember this week.

There was that porter who died (at home)- supposed to have moved a patient without having PPE.

[lostinwales]

British American Tobacco reckon they might have a vaccine ready to go by June. I highly doubt anybody saw Big Tobacco being the hero in a pandemic for respiratory conditions.

I think it is supposed to be some kind of therapy/drug based on, funnily enough, tobacco leaves. Probably not the most stupid idea to have come out of all of this.

[lostinwales]

My take on the government is that they got this hopelessly wrong to begin with. We should have had more ventilators earlier in the year, they should have got more tests in, they should have got more PPE. The herd immunity debacle was a classic example of government miscommunication. From what I understand until we have a vaccine or medication there is now real way out of our current situation other than herd immunity. It may have been a consequence of Dominic Cummings' obsessive misunderstanding of science. He heard a way out of this and he announced it, then the real scientists did the numbers.
Since then they've been up against it and have done no better or worse (Trump aside) than any other western government. They seem to have bet largely on these antibody tests and that seems a smart idea. If they can get hold of and distribute 3.5 million antibody tests to start with then they have an enormous sample from which to assess the true extent that this has spread through the population already and who has a degree of immunity. If it turns out to be a reasonable percentage of people that have had it then they can start to relieve the lockdown. To be fair, it is becoming more and more apparent as this goes on that the Chinese have been fundamentally dishonest about the whole thing. It seems likely that more people than we realised died in Wuhan and most initial predictions were based on Wuhan.
I don't think Dominic Cummings is the genius people think he is. Children know that if you lie about something you can get somewhere temporarily. Putting lies on a bus is not clever it is just dishonest. The campaign in December was like shooting fish in the barrel. This has tested his limits. In his defence, and if he came up with it to begin with, 'Stay home, save lives, protect the NHS' is getting through to people. But I am not sure if it's the actual message or the gravity of the situation coupled with a general sense of morality across the population. After all, most people thought that their should be a lockdown before it was announced.

I read one piece which said that you can estimate the number of real deaths in Wuhan from the sale of funeral urns. It was claimed that something like 40K were sold in the last couple of months. By extracting the number of expected deaths for the same period they got a figure of around 20K (from memory - could have been worse). But that is for Wuhan only. Lot of deaths at home which have taken time to come to light too.

[123456789.]

From what I can gather the Chinese government fiddled it’s definitions throughout. So they didn’t count asymptomatic people. Like us they didn’t have a chance to test everybody. So if someone caught coronavirus and died at home then they wouldn’t be on the official statistics either. They also cancelled funerals from the 10th January in Wuhan which could explain why there was a build up of urns.

[SecretFly]

The world right now is a sea of confusion.  None of us can get our head around where exactly truth lies.  So so many versions.  

Sickening tension for older people - and I know how deep that goes.  I'm looking at one day in day out sink into depression and absolutely tightened up bodily with fear of the unknown.  In a very real sense, I think this damn virus is a war on the elderly... a cruel psychological war on the best of us in a time and century when such pain and anxiety should be alien to them.

But tonight I was shocked by some things I've seen that may be related and may not.  And I cried.
My heart is full of hate right now if what I've seen turns out to be what I think it is.  There appears to be an evil in this world right now that couldn't even have been imagined from the Nazi era.  A dirty evil underbelly hidden from sight; disguised, protected.

But first things first.  The 'virus'.  Whatever it is, however potent, whatever the purpose ( to kill, to terrorise or to destroy certain economies) it was planned.  It was no diseased bat eaten by an unwary peasant.  And such being my strong opinion - then I also believe it's an act of war.  An act of war that requires the capture and severe punishment of any individuals, groups, entities or Government controllers that unleashed it onto the world.

Perhaps there is too much fear right now where fury should be.

[Luke]

Whilst I don't agree with alot of your post fly. And we will never actually know the truth.

I do agree, in a time where honesty was needed, that the lies and so many different theories and lack of one voice. Has caused all the confusion. Lack of leadership around the world, stupid statements by leaders etc. Has caused a far worse effect.
In a time like this, we all needed to all be reading off the same page in the world, the discrepancys and different approaches have helped no one.

[No 7&1/2]

After years of reading fly as comedy I assume its the same with that.

[123456789.]

I hope that's a bit of a laugh, I think it is.

On a serious point. Viruses spread from bats to human beings, that's a definite fact. They think Ebola, SARS and MERS originated with Bats. The theory being that, as rodents, Bats were not meant to fly. The high temperature triggered within a bat simply by the act of flying means that any virus that survives is gonna need a pretty severe immune response to kill it off. The frustrating this is that we know that. Or at least the scientists knew that. It's crazy to think that the Chinese would have done this deliberately, they've buggered their own economy in the process. They are connected to the global economy as much as anybody else and their economy won't start firing until the West does as well. If you wanted to devise a virus to weaken the West militarily or economically long term you wouldn't attempt to wipe out their elderly. The West has an ageing population that ultimately, currently, take less from the economy than it puts in. Take out pension contributions and health care and you have more to spend on weapons and soldiers. This crisis may be the first time ever that Earth's people have felt the same anxiety and hoped for the same outcome.
Now you can rage at the Chinese for their cultural standards. But to quote Malcolm Tucker "you can't arrest a landmass, you can't cuff a country". It's worth a bit of perspective - I knew an Arabic guy who grew up using a bidet. He once turned to me and asked if I'd ever considered how disgusting our toilet paper was in comparison. The Chinese government reacted as totalitarian governments do. They tried to hush it up. Ultimately dictators exist to preserve themselves and nothing more. At best they twist their logic until they believe that to protect their people they must remain in power and therefore any measure they utilise to protect themselves up to and including oppressing and harming their own people is in the interest of the people.
The Chinese government tried to hush it up and failed because, well, it's a virus. The Chinese government is not one primarily concerned about the sanctity of life. The Uighur people and the Tibetan people are subject to concentration camps and worse because they aren't the right ethnic group. It's completely fair to say that standards of hygiene in Chinese markets have to improve markedly. It's fair to say that the practice of eating wild animals is dangerous. As the world population increases and spreads to parts of nature we've not been before and as global warming comes in and food resources grow scarcer it is probably a good time to establish new food standards to prevent something worse arriving. But if you want to attack Chinese peasants then we should go for the Mexican people for Swine flu while we're at it.
The Chinese government has done lots and lots that would warrant an invasion and an inquest in any other period. Ultimately, China is central to the world economy, has a massive military and a large number of nuclear weapons. Any retribution will likely result in a war more destructive than any that's been before, that outlasts any pandemic in Modern History. The lesson from this should be that globalisation is inevitable. Modern technology means it happens much faster and there are benefits from that. But it has always happened. Paper came from China and so did the Black Death. Coronavirus came from China and so may the cure. It's clear that the anti-globalisation, nationalist rhetoric that dominated Farage's Brexit campaign, Trump's election, Orban's Hungary, Xi's China, Modi's India and elsewhere is not fit for purpose in an increasingly interactive world. The issues we face will be increasingly global and the answers have to be as well.

[lostinwales]

The only thing I am cynical about with China in all this is that as the first country to be hit by CV19 they also stand to be one of the first major economies to come out of CV19 restrictions. This may give them a further boost in the post virus age.

Can't help thinking of the USA post WWII with an untouched infrastructure at home. Their successful transition from making weapons to consumer goods lead to a massive increase in wealth and influence on the world stage.

I do think that CV19 will accelerate the decline of the USA as the preeminent world power (helped of course by their bestest leader ever).

[WELL-PAST-IT]

I have just got off the phone to my son, he has a friend who is a teacher, who is working teaching the kids of the essential workers. He did not feel very well on Thursday, thought he had a cold but he also had a high temperature and had lost his sense of taste and smell, just to be safe he phoned into say he would not be in as as a precaution he was self isolating. He was basically told that he had to come in as they were already short of teachers!

Do these idiots that administer our schools and education system have a brain in their heads?

I am informed that he not so politely told them that they should remove their heads from their arses and try and watch the news every now and again.

[jimbopip]

Just to back up Mr Past It; on the Monday before Johnson shut schools and colleges (and this was AFTER universities had sent students home for the foreseeable) my Supply Agency called me to ask if I was available. I pointed out that they had me down to start at a local FE college on the Thursday doing Thursday-Friday till the end of the academic year and that I was busy that Monday. They phoned half an hour later to ask if I could work Tuesday and Wednesday that week. When I politely declined they pleaded saying all their other teachers were in schools/colleges already and the shortage was such that schools were so desperate that I could name my fee, within reason. By this time on Monday afternoon I knew we were headed to full lockdown and it was simply a matter of when the schools/colleges would shut. But still the agencies were under pressure to put bodies into classrooms.
Come Tuesday morning I sent my agent a text explaining that I wouldn't be available to take up the post on Thursday. She wasn't very pleased.
I know I'm very fortunate in that, in financial terms, I don't have to work but individuals should not be left to make the decision: a public health crisis needs to be crisis managed and that means clear, concise executive leadership. Which was lacking in the early stages.

[JuliusHMarx]

Anyone set a base station on fire yet (SecretFly)?

[No name Bertie]

Conspiracy theorists may not have studied History nor Biology.

Some reports suggest men are dying about two to one from Covid-19 compared to women.  

Despite the news focus on young people - the people that succumb to it are mainly those with underlying health conditions and the elderly.

If the virus hits the upper respiratory system then you tend to get the mild form of the illness.  If the virus reaches the lower part of the respiratory system then you tend to get the serious form of the illness.

[No name Bertie]

Ps.  I am hearing a figure of 8,000 to 10,000 as the number of annual deaths in the UK due to normal flu.  So that is a comparison point.  Coronavirus is clearly much more serious than normal flu and without isolation / separation much more people will die from it.  Normal flu is seasonal - striking predominantly during autumn and winter.  For Coronavirus there is no evidence yet to suggest that it is more potent in the colder months than the summer months.

[JuliusHMarx]

Conspiracy theorists may not have studied History nor Biology.

Or maybe they have. I just think in general they find a strange comfort in believing that everything is controlled, everything has a plan and a purpose, rather than being a random act of nature (albeit science-based) and beyond our control - even if they believe it to be controlled by bad people.

[WELL-PAST-IT]

Do you think that it is Gaia's way of trying to reduce the worlds population, if so, she has underestimated our ability to adapt and invent when needs must. Mercedes and their "ventilator" being an example, three weeks from making F1 cars to designing with others and then manufacturing a thousand a day

[kwinigolfer]

Did Mercedes really design those ventilators or did they make use of proprietary blueprints that Smith's made available to anyone who asked?


Meanwhile, reassuring that our piddly little state has broken all monthly records for gun and ammo sales, whilst Iowa is closing essential retailers which apparently don't include purveyors of "adult sex toys" - perhaps to distinguish their restriction from teenage sex toys?
MAGA

[dynamark]

Living the dream Kwini.fact is we have around 17500 deaths a WEEK(UK) from normal issues now that's not great in particular if you are one of them.This virus is not going to go away it might fade away as more become immune but at some point maybe 3/4 weeks away we have to get the social and economic picture moving again and accept some serious consequences.Keep the old and sick isolated but the rest of us need to get moving again albeit in a very different way r e contact with others .im not suggesting pubs should reopen at that point but he economy needs to creep back into life or soon there will be very little left .For instance every airline/retail/hospitality/travel/rail will soon be insolvent past repair.there will have to be a point where this awful trade off starts to happen. Gonna be a few big decisions

[Soul Requiem]

For instance every airline/retail/hospitality/travel/rail will soon be insolvent past repair.there will have to be a point where this awful trade off starts to happen. Gonna be a few big decisions  

You'll have phoenix companies rise from the flames there.

[WELL-PAST-IT]

Has anyone else seen the reports that a keeper at the Bronx Zoo has passed the virus on to Tigers. The social distancing and isolation are designed to stop humans from passing it on to each other; now if pets can catch it especially cats who roam about freely, and then potentially wild life, when and how are we going to stop this bug. Scientists are saying there is no evidence that the bug can be caught from contact with domestic animals, however domestic animals are no different to wild ones and that was how the whole thing started.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52177586

[123456789.]

I suppose it doesn't really change much in terms of the actual virus. If it mutates dramatically, either in humans or animals, then we're dealing with a whole different illness I suppose. If it doesn't change then a vaccine will still offer protection whether it's from a tiger, a dog or a person. Most people don't have daily contact with an animal and it's only really cats that operate independently of their owners. In truth, the only ways out of this situation are maintaining the lockdown/social distancing/ isolation measures in place until the illness has run it's course or until enough people have had it that it no longer has as high an infection rate, a vaccination which will be 6 months at the earliest but probably at least a year or just accepting mass death and carrying on as normal.

[Soul Requiem]

Has anyone else seen the reports that a keeper at the Bronx Zoo has passed the virus on to Tigers. The social distancing and isolation are designed to stop humans from passing it on to each other; now if pets can catch it especially cats who roam about freely, and then potentially wild life, when and how are we going to stop this bug. Scientists are saying there is no evidence that the bug can be caught from contact with domestic animals, however domestic animals are no different to wild ones and that was how the whole thing started.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52177586

No evidence that domesticated animals can catch it and if they could it would be common knowledge by now.

[Galted]

Has anyone else seen the reports that a keeper at the Bronx Zoo has passed the virus on to Tigers. The social distancing and isolation are designed to stop humans from passing it on to each other; now if pets can catch it especially cats who roam about freely, and then potentially wild life, when and how are we going to stop this bug. Scientists are saying there is no evidence that the bug can be caught from contact with domestic animals, however domestic animals are no different to wild ones and that was how the whole thing started.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52177586

No evidence that domesticated animals can catch it and if they could it would be common knowledge by now.

I'm going to drown my ar$ehole of a cat just to be on the safe side.

[dyrewolfe]

Just heard this gem on the radio...and naturally went straight to YouTube...

WARNING: DEFINITELY NSFW!

[Duty281]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52192604

PM in a very bad way. Dominic Raab set to step in.

[123456789.]

This was in the Times on Saturday, it seems to explain things pretty well:

CORONAVIRUS
How coronavirus affects the body, spreads and kills
It comes as a wolf in sheep’s clothing: once in the body, it tricks cells into replicating itself. For a minority this means a hospital stay or worse. Tom Whipple traces the viral journey

Tom Whipple
, Science Editor
Saturday April 04 2020, 12.01am, The Times
Share
Save
Day 0: Infection
You will never know the particular virus that gets you. It may come from someone who knows they are infectious. It may come from someone who has yet to have had even a cough. It may be blown in the air, hitching a ride on a tiny droplet of exhaled breath. It may be propelled by a sneeze, a free-rider on a turbo-charged splatter of mucus. Or it may come from a surface that you idly touch and then not long after, perhaps with an absent-minded scratch, idly spread to your face. All it needs is a way in.

Viruses are unimaginably small — quite literally. They are smaller than the human brain is built to conceive. We think of cells as small. A virus that infects a cell is a millionth its volume. These are packets of protein — not exactly live but not exactly dead — that exist at the threshold between the atomic world and the world of the animal. At 90 nanometres long, if you laid 1,000 coronaviruses end to end they would span a human hair. If you packed a couple of trillion together, they would fill a pinhead.

A virus is not a bacterium. It is far smaller, for a start. But the crucial difference is that, more than any parasite or microbe, it needs you.

Bacteria can survive outside you. They can multiply in the warmth and wet. Viruses need cells to propagate. Without the truly living, they are nothing.

So the instant they leave a body, the clock is ticking. The World Health Organisation advises that they are unlikely to last long in the air. Stay two metres from someone and you are probably safe. The emphasis, though, is “probably”. US scientists deliberately sprayed an aerosol of the virus into the air and found that it was infectious three hours later.


On surfaces it could last longer. The same scientists applied viruses to a variety of different materials. On all of them the half life — the time for half the viruses to degrade — was measured in hours. On plastic and stainless steel, of the kind that looks so hygienic in public lavatories, viable virus was still found three days later. On cardboard, nothing lasted a day. Newspapers should be fine because the ink kills the virus.

Most things, in fact, kill the virus. If it were not for the fact that we shed so many of them, they would never spread at all — the delicate fatty layer surrounding the protein degrades so easily. But viruses know this and they go for quantity over quality.


Quite how much quantity was clear when scientists from the University of Nebraska Medical Centre decided to study a Covid-19 ward. They sampled the air and swabbed the surfaces.

Even here, with hygiene a priority, coronavirus was everywhere. On iPads and reading glasses, books and exercise equipment, it was ubiquitous — 80 per cent of personal items tested positive. The same was true of surfaces in the rooms, from bedrails to bedside tables. Wafting and floating, the virus had invisibly occupied the whole floor — and could be found in two thirds of air samples taken in the hallway outside.


Day 1: Replication
The virus is nothing without you. From the moment it enters your body it must infect to survive. It must find a cell, fool it and then hijack its genetic apparatus for its own ends. And from the point of view of a virus, only one end matters: it needs to copy itself. It needs to make so many copies of itself so fast that it can evade your immune system and spread to someone else.

Because, eventually, its time in your body will end. It will end because you kill it or because it kills you. Both results are equally bad for a virus that needs the living to survive.

Coronaviruses are so named because, at least when first observed, they look a bit like a crown. Around the sphere at its centre are spiky bits of protein, poking out in a corona. These spikes are what, eventually, your immune system will learn to spot. Until that happens, one of them is the virus’s entree to your cells.

At the point of entry, perhaps in your nostril, one of those spikes fits inside a receptor on a cell, like a lock in a key. And, just like a key, it opens the door. The virus is inside and it is about to take control.


A coronavirus does not have DNA, it has RNA — a different, but closely related, genetic material. In our bodies, RNA transfers instructions from DNA, to make the proteins that keep us going. That is what this RNA is about to do. Except what it is going to make is more virus.

Once inside the cell, the RNA confuses the cell. All its apparatus, its molecular machines, are set up to assume that RNA is a message from the DNA at its core, telling it what to do. So this cellular production line obeys instructions and starts churning out bits of virus. The cell has become a workshop for spreading the infection that could become its undoing.

Day 5: Incubation
Average incubation period, the time taken from infection to showing symptoms, is five days. It can, however, be as little as two or as long as 14.


A coronavirus comes as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Some deadly viruses are easy to spot. Ebola is rightly feared, in part because the symptoms are so horrific. In extremis, people bleed from their eyes. But that horror is also its undoing. A virus that is so visible cannot stay hidden for long.

Coronaviruses, though, are different. All of us have had the cousin of this particular virus in the past. A third of common colds are caused by one coronavirus or another. And, for a while, that is how this new virus appears. We all know the symptoms. A cough, a fever, tiredness, headache, shortness of breath. Most — unlike with colds — won’t get a runny nose.

But even then, some will. Many will lose their sense of smell and taste entirely. For 80 per cent of people, that will be it. Coronavirus, for them, will be a bad cold. For about 20 per cent, though, it will get a lot worse.

Day 14: Admitted to hospital
About a week after symptoms begin, most people are over the illness. For some, though, this is when they reach the point that they need to go to hospital.


There is a physiological reason why you cough when you have a cold. It is because you need to bring up phlegm. There is another reason though, not contradictory to the first. It is because the virus wants you to cough.

Viruses that learnt, by chance, how to make animals cough were more likely to spread than other viruses. So that talent was conserved by evolution, and incorporated into their suite of behaviour.

When you cough you are also doing something else: you are raising the virus’s reproduction number, R0. The reproduction number is the crucial determinant of its success. It is the number of extra people each newly infected person passes it on to. If it is more than 1, a virus proliferates.

If you had been infected before the lockdown measures came into place, then R0 will have been about 3. During the time you were infectious, through a mixture of coughing and carelessness, you would have on average infected three other people.

Today, in every country in the world, public health measures are now being enacted with one goal, the only goal that matters in quashing a pandemic: bringing the reproduction number below 1.

Day 14 onwards: Infection ends
The symptoms have stopped and, probably, you are no longer infectious. Within your body there is probably a strong cohort of antibodies, each with a structure that automatically latches on to coronavirus, flagging it for destruction.

Probably, these antibodies will stay in your immune system for many months, and ideally years, to come.

For now, though, as more of us move from — to use the epidemiological modelling terms — “susceptible” to “recovered”, all we have is “probably”. And given how much rides on it, we should all hope those “probablies” end up being certainties.

Day 27: Deaths
At the very end, the enemy may not be the virus but yourself. Your immune system is a powerful and complex machine. The product of billions of years of evolution, of an invisible arms race with unseen and unseeable enemies, it can adapt, in theory, to any pathogen.


This time last year, no human on Earth had been exposed to this coronavirus — no antibody had been built to latch on to it. This time next year hundreds of millions, possibly billions, of people’s immune systems will have independently developed a response. In the blood of humans around the world there will be antibodies, Y-shaped bits of protein, circulating and waiting. On the end of each “Y” will be a template, a negative 3D image of a corresponding protein on the coronavirus. They will lie dormant, ready to leap on anything that looks like Covid-19 and flag it for destruction.


But, sometimes, complex systems go wrong. In the miraculous process of developing these antibodies, and fielding the first, cruder, defences, there are feedback loops. There are first-line responders, there are — to extend the metaphor — overzealous troops.

When your body spies an infection, it releases chemical messengers called cytokines which call in reinforcements and co-ordinate a response.

Sometimes it overreacts. In the body’s rush to send in defensive cells, blood vessels can overload. Fluid can leak into the lungs. Pneumonia develops: people stop being able to breathe for themselves.


Elsewhere, with the immune system going into overdrive, it can start attacking the wrong things. Bacteria can find their way in and secondary infections result. The body starts to break down. If it was already weakened — if other organs were already in trouble — then there are more places where that breakdown can become a total failure.

This response is called a cytokine storm, and it is almost certainly behind the most severe cases. It is also the reason why, in what was once a conference centre in London’s Docklands, 4,000 beds lie ready and waiting.

[WELL-PAST-IT]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52192604

PM in a very bad way. Dominic Raab set to step in.

I didn't think I would ever say this, but I wish BoJo well and a speedy recovery.

Raab, is the idiot ex-Trade Secretary who didn't realise that the Dover - France crossing was massively important to our trade with Europe. What hope have we got with him running the show.

[Sponsored content]