Coronavirus- new spike coming?

[dickythorpe]

Sorry to hear about your battle Humpty.
Keep fighting

 

[Dr. Winston]

Interesting read

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-54252272

 

[Professor]

Interesting read

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-54252272

I was one of the signatories to the letter!

 

[Professor]

Interesting read

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-54252272

The problem early on was SAGE had a modelling and behaviour-heavy membership. From what I gather is that behaviourists drove there immunity idea forward without understanding the consequence. The lack of virology, clinical infection and immunology expertise early on was staggering. Only really Sharon Peacock had much hands-on recent disease experience and Sharon's expertise is more clinical bacteriology and use of genomics in epidemiology. The latter we have been very good at, but its not much use in a highly transmissible viral infection. Herd immunity is estimated to really kick in at around 65% with an R0 of around 3, but even then there will be some spread. It's a difficult concept to explain in words-visually much easier. It is of course reliant on all exposed becoming immune too and immunity persisting. Vaccines may become a regular annual or even more frequent requirement to get less than perfect protection. It is something we have to learn to live with eventually.

 

[Itchysphincter]

So it gives me no pleasure to be proved right about a second wave. You may have read that the University of Liverpool has 87 cases in staff and students-picked up by our own testing provision which shows the importance of a viable track and trace which is still not there nationally(one of my staff has been awaiting results from testing of her son since Monday morning).

So we see a massive backtrack from UK government on working from home, pubs and restaurants with curfews. I would suggest it is pretty inevitable that a 2 week circuit break of pub and restaurant closures perhaps with a flexible two week school half-term. Mixing of students is leading to new cases nationally. All sadly predictable.

I want to make a few points
1.Doing nothing to reach 'Herd immunity" with shielding the vulnerable. Quite rightly the CMO said this is not achievable. The infection is too transmissible to put what could be 10 million plus in quarantine. Furthermore this would need about 50 million people infected. Tens if not hundreds of thousands will still die and many more be seriously ill. There would be a real threat of not just NHS, but total infrastructure collapse if large numbers are too unwell to work. And to be frank, we don't know to what degree immunity is protective or the length of any protection. No doubt there will be those saying about T cell immunity-well there is no evidence of any protection even if some people have cross-reactive cells. In other respiratory coronaviruses in chickens and pigs (where we already vaccinate) protection is conferred mainly by the antibody response

2. Sweden. Winston made a good point it was too early to tell. Remember Sweden's cases fell much more slowly than elsewhere too. However, the signs of spikes in cases in Stockholm do suggest that the country is nowhere near herd immunity. There are moves to bring in restrictions. It is also not true that Sweden had no restrictions. They were less stringent than ours, but have a population that are both more socially aware and willing to comply for the greater good, have a small population and low population density with few major cities. The best comparisons are with Denmark and Norway, both with substantially fewer cases

3. You can get very sick but not die. I don't know anyone who had died of Covid. This is good. I do know of colleagues who were acutely ill in March and six months later are still struggling. We don't know how this will play out long term, but it's clear than sequelae (or secondary symptoms) are common after the infection. These can be serious including cardiac problems and a huge increase in risk of stroke.


Please take this seriously. I know most of you will. We have to contain until we get towards a viable vaccine, that gives enough control that we learn to live with this like influenza.
Keep safe.

Not trying to be argumentative here as I find your posts generally informative but re Sweden - I don't think the cheerleaders are out because they didn't have infections or a high number of cases - it's because they had figures comparatively in line with other nations but did so without tanking the economy. The population argument doesn't quite stack up either because although they are less populated than us the population density of Stockholm for example is 4,279 per square km, whereas the population density of say Birmingham is 3,649 people per square km so that has to be taken in to account when citing them as being less successful than us, Denmark and Norway in the early stages of this disaster, especially in terms of balancing both health and economic numbers. They have clearly handled things better at this stage.

 

[controversial_jack]

I don't know why Sweden has been lauded as a great example of how to handle this virus.They have a mortality rate , 10 times higher than their neighbours, Norway and Sweden and a much higher rate on infection too.

Sweden decimated it's old peoples homes and many were too scared to leave their homes.Sweden didn't have the strict restrictions that we had, but as someone stated in here, they are more disciplined and socially aware the many countries, including ours.

Sweden hasn't had the inevitable second wave yet, although there are signs it's approaching - hope i'm wrong.

Evidence would suggest, countries who had strict lockdowns, S Korea, NZ , Australia, the Czechs initially, did better than those who didn't, but we shall see.

 

[Darran]

I don't know why Sweden has been lauded as a great example of how to handle this virus.They have a mortality rate , 10 times higher than their neighbours, Norway and Sweden and a much higher rate on infection too.

Sweden decimated it's old peoples homes and many were too scared to leave their homes.Sweden didn't have the strict restrictions that we had, but as someone stated in here, they are more disciplined and socially aware the many countries, including ours.

Sweden hasn't had the inevitable second wave yet, although there are signs it's approaching - hope i'm wrong.

Evidence would suggest, countries who had strict lockdowns, S Korea, NZ , Australia, the Czechs initially, did better than those who didn't, but we shall see.

Sweden has a mortality rate ten times higher than their neighbours Sweden?

That’s interesting.

 

[controversial_jack]

Ooops, i meant, Finland, and Denmark too

 

[Professor]

So it gives me no pleasure to be proved right about a second wave. You may have read that the University of Liverpool has 87 cases in staff and students-picked up by our own testing provision which shows the importance of a viable track and trace which is still not there nationally(one of my staff has been awaiting results from testing of her son since Monday morning).

So we see a massive backtrack from UK government on working from home, pubs and restaurants with curfews. I would suggest it is pretty inevitable that a 2 week circuit break of pub and restaurant closures perhaps with a flexible two week school half-term. Mixing of students is leading to new cases nationally. All sadly predictable.

I want to make a few points
1.Doing nothing to reach 'Herd immunity" with shielding the vulnerable. Quite rightly the CMO said this is not achievable. The infection is too transmissible to put what could be 10 million plus in quarantine. Furthermore this would need about 50 million people infected. Tens if not hundreds of thousands will still die and many more be seriously ill. There would be a real threat of not just NHS, but total infrastructure collapse if large numbers are too unwell to work. And to be frank, we don't know to what degree immunity is protective or the length of any protection. No doubt there will be those saying about T cell immunity-well there is no evidence of any protection even if some people have cross-reactive cells. In other respiratory coronaviruses in chickens and pigs (where we already vaccinate) protection is conferred mainly by the antibody response

2. Sweden. Winston made a good point it was too early to tell. Remember Sweden's cases fell much more slowly than elsewhere too. However, the signs of spikes in cases in Stockholm do suggest that the country is nowhere near herd immunity. There are moves to bring in restrictions. It is also not true that Sweden had no restrictions. They were less stringent than ours, but have a population that are both more socially aware and willing to comply for the greater good, have a small population and low population density with few major cities. The best comparisons are with Denmark and Norway, both with substantially fewer cases

3. You can get very sick but not die. I don't know anyone who had died of Covid. This is good. I do know of colleagues who were acutely ill in March and six months later are still struggling. We don't know how this will play out long term, but it's clear than sequelae (or secondary symptoms) are common after the infection. These can be serious including cardiac problems and a huge increase in risk of stroke.


Please take this seriously. I know most of you will. We have to contain until we get towards a viable vaccine, that gives enough control that we learn to live with this like influenza.
Keep safe.

Not trying to be argumentative here as I find your posts generally informative but re Sweden - I don't think the cheerleaders are out because they didn't have infections or a high number of cases - it's because they had figures comparatively in line with other nations but did so without tanking the economy. The population argument doesn't quite stack up either because although they are less populated than us the population density of Stockholm for example is 4,279 per square km, whereas the population density of say Birmingham is 3,649 people per square km so that has to be taken in to account when citing them as being less successful than us, Denmark and Norway in the early stages of this disaster, especially in terms of balancing both health and economic numbers. They have clearly handled things better at this stage.

I tried writing a longer reply -but disappeared somewhere. Compared to the UK , yes it looks good economically. But compared to Norway, Denmark and Finland the Swedish economy has done near the same thing. Marginally better than Denmark, marginally worse than Norway or Finland. So not really much of a success.

Fair point about Stockholm-and has suffered far more than the rest. But Sweden has only two other cities above 250K population less than RCT or Wirral. Population density is important is disease transmission. Low density has fewer contacts and less likely to spread any infection.

 

[Dr. Winston]

Interconnection of economies probably doesn't help. If the Danish, Norwegian and Finnish struggle then the Swedes probably won't get off lightly no matter what they do.

 

[Professor]

Interconnection of economies probably doesn't help. If the Danish, Norwegian and Finnish struggle then the Swedes probably won't get off lightly no matter what they do.

Denmark and Sweden are very close of course economically and across the bridge!

Our problem is too high a reliance on financial and service sectors. Service sector hit the hardest of course.

 

[Jack12345]

So it gives me no pleasure to be proved right about a second wave. You may have read that the University of Liverpool has 87 cases in staff and students-picked up by our own testing provision which shows the importance of a viable track and trace which is still not there nationally(one of my staff has been awaiting results from testing of her son since Monday morning).

So we see a massive backtrack from UK government on working from home, pubs and restaurants with curfews. I would suggest it is pretty inevitable that a 2 week circuit break of pub and restaurant closures perhaps with a flexible two week school half-term. Mixing of students is leading to new cases nationally. All sadly predictable.

I want to make a few points
1.Doing nothing to reach 'Herd immunity" with shielding the vulnerable. Quite rightly the CMO said this is not achievable. The infection is too transmissible to put what could be 10 million plus in quarantine. Furthermore this would need about 50 million people infected. Tens if not hundreds of thousands will still die and many more be seriously ill. There would be a real threat of not just NHS, but total infrastructure collapse if large numbers are too unwell to work. And to be frank, we don't know to what degree immunity is protective or the length of any protection. No doubt there will be those saying about T cell immunity-well there is no evidence of any protection even if some people have cross-reactive cells. In other respiratory coronaviruses in chickens and pigs (where we already vaccinate) protection is conferred mainly by the antibody response

2. Sweden. Winston made a good point it was too early to tell. Remember Sweden's cases fell much more slowly than elsewhere too. However, the signs of spikes in cases in Stockholm do suggest that the country is nowhere near herd immunity. There are moves to bring in restrictions. It is also not true that Sweden had no restrictions. They were less stringent than ours, but have a population that are both more socially aware and willing to comply for the greater good, have a small population and low population density with few major cities. The best comparisons are with Denmark and Norway, both with substantially fewer cases

3. You can get very sick but not die. I don't know anyone who had died of Covid. This is good. I do know of colleagues who were acutely ill in March and six months later are still struggling. We don't know how this will play out long term, but it's clear than sequelae (or secondary symptoms) are common after the infection. These can be serious including cardiac problems and a huge increase in risk of stroke.


Please take this seriously. I know most of you will. We have to contain until we get towards a viable vaccine, that gives enough control that we learn to live with this like influenza.
Keep safe.

Not trying to be argumentative here as I find your posts generally informative but re Sweden - I don't think the cheerleaders are out because they didn't have infections or a high number of cases - it's because they had figures comparatively in line with other nations but did so without tanking the economy. The population argument doesn't quite stack up either because although they are less populated than us the population density of Stockholm for example is 4,279 per square km, whereas the population density of say Birmingham is 3,649 people per square km so that has to be taken in to account when citing them as being less successful than us, Denmark and Norway in the early stages of this disaster, especially in terms of balancing both health and economic numbers. They have clearly handled things better at this stage.

By all accounts they have saved god knows how many lives by continuing normal routine health care, and god knows how many UK lives are going to be lost because of not continuing routine health care.

 

[Jack12345]

What an ignorant statement, if you were already receiving treatment before they stopped doing many check up procedures then maybe so, the people who get symptoms now are referred to a specialist, how ever when they get to see that specialist is another matter, procedures such as Endoscopy's have more or less ceased, what the ones in this predicament must feel when they see idiots like you saying stuff like that must be pretty distressing.

I'm giving my personal experiences on the matter, rather than quoting a load of made-up statistics. If someone is in the situation you describe above, then I would have sympathy for them. As for you, go stick your head back up your ass where it belongs.

If you believe that the stopping of medical procedures etc is a made up statistic then i do not know what to say, :roll:

 

[Jack12345]

And that is the tip of the iceberg, the Covid will be by far the less of the 2 evils probably over a million deaths in the not to distant future mainly due to the stopping of routine procedures and not being able to see a specialist for god knows how long, yet most people do not realize this, they are way to preoccupied with the Covid which could be due to the Covid media brainwashing or quite simply they are to dumb to realize that there is a far bigger ticking timebomb out there.

'Probably over a million deaths'
'Covid media brainwashing'

The fact you call another person an idiot is hilarious.

Before they stopped doing many routine procedures and going by the number of lives saved daily from Cancer alone due to early diagnosis when they were doing these procedures, and along with the other illnesses they are not now diagnosing yes i would say a million maybe even more lives lost in the long run and you think that is an idiotic statement, the guy who i believe to be a idiot was clearly insinuating that he believes they are carrying on with normal Cancer care and diagnosis because he knows of a couple who are receiving treatment which started before they stopped many the services needed for the likes of Cancer, to put all the resources into the Covid.

 

[Humpty]

Thanks for the kind words guys, it really is appreciated.

I don't want to derail the thread so just a quick explanation, I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer about 16 months ago. I was told from the start that it was incurable and to think in months rather than years. A massive shock for me and my family but I've been determined from the off to enjoy what little time I have left. I could scream and cry and rail against the world but it wouldn't change anything, just make things miserable for everyone around me. Sod that.

I've been having chemo. The first type came with horrible side effects and I wondered whether it was worth continuing as I had very little quality of life. That stopped working and I started a new type with very few effects and it's obviously working as I'm still here. I don't bother asking my team how long I have left as they can't be that accurate, I just go by whether the scans are good or bad. The last two have been good, actually showing improvements so fingers crossed that continues.

I'm absolutely fine mentally and pretty good physically though this bastard virus limit's what I can do. It may sound odd but I'm actually happy and content in myself. Not happy with my situation obviously but I've enjoyed my life. Gutted it's going to end at 50 but there you go. I've been luckier than many. The only thing that does upset me is what it's doing to my family, my wife especially.

Anyway, hopefully I'll be around a bit longer. It's not a taboo subject for me in anyway so if anyone has questions, want's advice etc feel free to ask.

All the best.