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Author Topic: The Coronavirus (COVID-19)  (Read 35111 times)

sevenlayermuddle

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Re: The Coronavirus (COVID-19)
« Reply #330 on: April 08, 2020, 08:28:07 AM »

Interesting, but hasn't it already been suggested that protective masks are useless?

It would also mean restaurants and coffee shops can't re-open, as you'd have to remove your mask.  Plus it doesn't exactly reduce the risks at work, where I can't see people wearing a mask all day, plus what to do when you need to eat or drink there too?

Masks seem to be just one aspect the supposed German plans, not sure they are a major aspect.   But scientific opinion does seem to be shifting, such that there are benefits if infected people , especially those who don’t know they are infected, wear masks.   The theory seems to be that even fairly basic masks cut down on you infecting other people, as you don’t sneeze or cough for as far.

I think that certified (FFP2/N95 I think are the terms) masks and respirators, when used correctly, must also help to avoid becoming infected.  Health staff seem to depend upon them, after all.  There’s a shortage of course but I’m sure manufacturers will be working hard to increase production.
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Ronski

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Re: The Coronavirus (COVID-19)
« Reply #331 on: April 08, 2020, 10:18:29 AM »

I was going to say the same as 7LM about the masks when infected people sneeze or cough, but he beat me to it.

Quote
An update from Sainsbury's Chief Executive Mike CoupeDear

Ron,

I wrote to you last week to update you on how we are supporting elderly and vulnerable customers with access to groceries online. I wanted to share some progress we have made on this over the past few days.

When I wrote last, we had offered 450,000 elderly and vulnerable customers priority booking to online delivery. At the end of last week we received the government database, which includes details of all the people in England who have registered with the government to say that they are vulnerable and need help getting a food shop. Since then we have been able to match almost 150,000 additional customers against our database. We have already contacted almost 30,000 of those and so we are now contacting almost 120,000 additional customers to offer them a priority delivery slot.

We are waiting for the databases for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and will contact vulnerable customers in those areas as soon as we are able.

We know many elderly and vulnerable people who need to self-isolate are relying on the kindness of family, friends and local communities to shop on their behalf and we encourage this.

You wrote to tell me that product limits were a barrier to being able to shop for other people. We understand that it can be difficult to buy what you need and shop for someone else with the 3 item product limit. We have now lifted buying restrictions on thousands of products and hope that this will help more of you to shop for others. I also want to reassure you that stock levels are now much better right across the store. We are keeping limits on the most popular items for now, including pasta, UHT milk, antibacterial products and some tinned and frozen foods. But you can now feel confident in shopping in our stores at any time of day and being able to find most of what you need.

To help people shop for others easily, we will be introducing a new volunteer gift card and online voucher in the next week or two. I will share more information on this soon.

Many of you have also written to me to tell me about food banks and community groups near you that are struggling in this crisis. We know from our ongoing support of food banks that this is a particularly tough time for them right across the country. To help with this, we have donated £3 million to Fareshare, who will use that money to distribute donated food to the people who need it the most. We are also partnering with Comic Relief and the BBC on The Big Night In which aims to raise money for people impacted by COVID 19. We'll be sharing more information on this in stores and online.

Best wishes

Mike
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niemand

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Re: The Coronavirus (COVID-19)
« Reply #332 on: April 08, 2020, 10:26:15 AM »

Surely you can't say the lockdown "has worked" until you stop getting new cases and/or have a vaccine?

The second you end the lockdown, cases will just go up again, its only logical.

The lockdown cannot carry on for that long. Callous as it may seem keeping it going until there are zero new cases isn't an option.

We wouldn't be able to fund this. What would be left after the lockdown is opened would be unrecognisable. I need a job to pay taxes to fund healthcare, welfare and other public services. While I can work from home a number of our customers cannot and would close, in turn impacting us.

South Korea levels would be okay. Everything is a balancing act and carries some risk. A cautious and staggered reopening could and should commence if the numbers permit this month.
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meritez

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Re: The Coronavirus (COVID-19)
« Reply #333 on: April 08, 2020, 10:45:35 AM »

Interesting, but hasn't it already been suggested that protective masks are useless?

It would also mean restaurants and coffee shops can't re-open, as you'd have to remove your mask.  Plus it doesn't exactly reduce the risks at work, where I can't see people wearing a mask all day, plus what to do when you need to eat or drink there too?

Yes protective masks are useless, unless you are also protecting your eyes.

New Zealand is doing exceptionally well: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/new-zealand-isnt-just-flattening-the-curve-its-squashing-it/ar-BB12gstI

The Level 4 lockdown they are under is detailed here: https://covid19.govt.nz/alert-system/covid-19-alert-system/

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Chrysalis

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Re: The Coronavirus (COVID-19)
« Reply #334 on: April 08, 2020, 10:48:25 AM »

Carl I think the way forward is immunity pass's, so as people are determined it to be immune, they become exempt from the lockdown, which is kind of a gradual phasing of returning to normality.

The problem is with just cancelling it for economic reasons, is firstly its counter productive if it just makes the virus explode, and secondaly as much as everyone wants it, you cannot run an economy normally when everyone is in fear of the virus.  It just wouldnt work.  But I do agree we wont be waiting until the thing is 100% gone.

The reality is that covid 19 will probably stay around for a long while, so we will have to learn to manage it, I think what the governments are waiting for is enough people to get immunity which slows the spread and eases burden on health services, and for any type of treatment/vaccine which will help survival rates.  Once the risk level is closer to normal flu, then I think people can start to return to normal ways of living.

I think certain parts of society will stay changed though e.g. I think food deliveries will in the long term have higher demand than before the virus.  I think we also are going to see a shift left in politics.  Kind of like after ww2 but less extreme.
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Alex Atkin UK

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Re: The Coronavirus (COVID-19)
« Reply #335 on: April 08, 2020, 11:05:14 AM »

Masks seem to be just one aspect the supposed German plans, not sure they are a major aspect.   But scientific opinion does seem to be shifting, such that there are benefits if infected people , especially those who don’t know they are infected, wear masks.   The theory seems to be that even fairly basic masks cut down on you infecting other people, as you don’t sneeze or cough for as far.

I think that certified (FFP2/N95 I think are the terms) masks and respirators, when used correctly, must also help to avoid becoming infected.  Health staff seem to depend upon them, after all.  There’s a shortage of course but I’m sure manufacturers will be working hard to increase production.

I can understand the masks helping prevent you infecting to some degree, but I just don't see how you would convince people to wear them consistently, especially as the weather gets warmer.

As for the certified ones, the problem seems to be for how long they are effective.

It seems incredibly ambitious of them to suggest they can get enough masks for their entire population.
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Weaver

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Re: The Coronavirus (COVID-19)
« Reply #336 on: April 08, 2020, 01:34:09 PM »

I agree with Chrys about the shift to the left. The NHS may have secured some long term protection now.
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c6em

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Re: The Coronavirus (COVID-19)
« Reply #337 on: April 08, 2020, 04:49:32 PM »

I'd reckon on a hard shift to the right.
Start with ID card to enable tracing of everyone, NHS to cease treating those without unless paid upfront.
All mobile PAYG sim cards to be registered to a person - any not by certain date to be cut off immediately
We cannot have illegal immigration bringing back in CV19 - so any found will be deported the next day - no appeals no discussion.
Cash to be effectively banned
NHS needs a total overhaul - along S.Korean lines which has proved itself far better and handling the situation so privatise the lot - as indeed the health service is out there
Those who work in the NHS tell me there is no shortage of money - its all just wasted.
Today for example there is an advert for a diversity manager in Bristol at a cost of two nurses' salaries -this the sort of drivel we get from the NHS today and it needs to change pronto.
https://www.jobs.nhs.uk/xi/vacancy/916004843
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sevenlayermuddle

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Re: The Coronavirus (COVID-19)
« Reply #338 on: April 08, 2020, 05:37:01 PM »

I can understand the masks helping prevent you infecting to some degree, but I just don't see how you would convince people to wear them consistently, especially as the weather gets warmer.

As for the certified ones, the problem seems to be for how long they are effective.

It seems incredibly ambitious of them to suggest they can get enough masks for their entire population.

1.  I’m quite sure, with their ruthless efficiency, German scientists would have included estimates for non compliance, when calculating the benefits of any single strategy.

2.  FFP2/N95 masks and respirators are usually meant to be single use, that does not make them ‘useless’.

3. The recent CDC advice for mask wearing in the USA is basically ‘make your own, from fabric’.  They’ve even published a pattern and sewing instructions.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/diy-cloth-face-coverings.html

... Wish my Grandmother was still alive.  She died in 1990 but seemed to spend the last 30 years of her life simply sewing and embroidering. :D

Yes protective masks are useless, unless you are also protecting your eyes.

So you cough through your eyes?   That’s unusual.  For the rest of us, latest evidence seems to be that masks contribute to slowing the spread.
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sevenlayermuddle

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Re: The Coronavirus (COVID-19)
« Reply #339 on: April 09, 2020, 09:51:21 AM »

Interesting data from IHME, predicting course of pandemic in the UK.  A lot more pessimistic than the current Imperial College predictions of <20k deaths during the lockdown, IHME showing NHS massively overwhelmed and > 60k deaths by early May.

https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-kingdom

Consensus of academic opinion seems to be that IHME might be getting it quite wildly wrong for UK, missing a number of factors.  So far as I understand they make their predictions mainly from extrapolating the curves, rather than Imperial College’s models of spread and infection rates.  But IHME does appear to be a respected institution, and not to be sneezed at.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Health_Metrics_and_Evaluation



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meritez

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Re: The Coronavirus (COVID-19)
« Reply #340 on: April 09, 2020, 10:19:42 AM »

Interesting data from IHME, predicting course of pandemic in the UK.  A lot more pessimistic than the current Imperial College predictions of <20k deaths during the lockdown, IHME showing NHS massively overwhelmed and > 60k deaths by early May.

https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-kingdom


But America is only estimated at 60k deaths by the same data, which is 6k less than the UK?

https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america
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Weaver

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Re: The Coronavirus (COVID-19)
« Reply #341 on: April 09, 2020, 10:30:04 AM »

I don’t understand the data there. The error bars are so enormous that the results come out as ‘we have no clue’ - daily deaths peak is at min 1k, max 9k. I suppose it is what it is. Someone has a lot of further work to do to make those numbers tight enough to be really useful.
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sevenlayermuddle

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Re: The Coronavirus (COVID-19)
« Reply #342 on: April 09, 2020, 11:44:59 AM »

I don't think anybody can pretend the error bars don't exist. 

Imperial College also issue an ongoing forecast of daily death rates for the week ahead, updated each week by the reality of what happened the previous week.   I'm not pretending to understand all the data, but I think the error margins are slightly tighter.  And actually, are they that different from IHME?

Viewed on an iPad, I had to turn it to portrait to render this page correctly and expose the 'Access forecast full report' link.  Then to see the graphs within the report, click on 'Projections and estimates' then 'Projections'.

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-global-infectious-disease-analysis/covid-19/covid-19-weekly-forecasts/week-07-04-2020/

Interesting to see that Spain and Italy, if I understand the graphs correctly, have been less bad than the models predicted in recent weeks.

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sevenlayermuddle

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Re: The Coronavirus (COVID-19)
« Reply #343 on: April 11, 2020, 10:24:46 AM »

I missed the fact that last week, Andrew Marr interviewed Imperial’s Neil Fergusson, aka Professor Lockdown.   It’s a good interview that puts a lot of things in context, why did we act when we did, etc.   Fergusson gives convincing and neutral answers about how and why we are where we are, and how the lockdown might end and allow us to move on.

And - quite rightly - the interview, whilst deadly serious,  is not entirely without humour.  I liked that Marr asks “I just wondered how you cope, looking in the mirror in the morning”, quickly adding “not the shaving mirror, clearly”.  :)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p088qgkl
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Chrysalis

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Re: The Coronavirus (COVID-19)
« Reply #344 on: April 12, 2020, 01:27:27 AM »

I got a text from the gov saying I am been passed onto the supermarkets even without been on the list.

My GP intervened last week.
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