The Coronavirus thread.

[GerritT]

Well done Captain Sir Tom

COLONEL now.

 

[MyQul]

COLONEL now.

Quite soon Sir Colonel

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I did state there were differences between us and NZ but my point being why did we not implement restrictions on people coming from known hot spots.

Travel bans are one of those seductive "common sense" things that don't make much difference in practice, at least not unless you're the first country to get the virus. See Chinazzi et al analysing the epidemiology of the Chinese outbreak :
"They concluded that the travel quarantine introduced in Wuhan on 23 January 2020 only delayed epidemic progression by 3 to 5 days within China, but international travel restrictions did help to slow spread elsewhere in the world until mid-February. Their results suggest that early detection, hand washing, self-isolation, and household quarantine will likely be more effective than travel restrictions at mitigating this pandemic."

Or see this chart comparing the progress of Covid in countries with travel bans with those that didn't (at the time of the article a few weeks ago)

The real problem is that if you're not careful, a mishandled travel ban makes things far, far worse as people get stuck at airports etc which turn into superspreader events (which seems to be a big reason why the US is struggling at the moment despite their travel ban)
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/canada/2020-05-15/why-travel-bans-fail-stop-pandemics
Again it's a lot easier when you just have a few flights to worry about and don't have high throughput land/sea borders like we have with the Channel tunnel, Dover-Calais and NI/Ireland.

Never done a day's graft in his life, let alone get his hands dirty.

I've got some sympathy for Charles - it's weird when your job is to wait for your mum to die, even weirder when you're 71 and you haven't been able to start that job. That's got to make you a bit strange. At least he's used his profile to do things like the Prince's Trust which has done a lot of good - helped nearly a million people and helped set up 90,000 businesses. Put it another way - he's not Andrew...

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Here's a nice graph of cases per capita, by Conrad Edwards (who is a Kiwi so has normalised to the population of NZ). Note the exponential axes, but the UK is in the middle of the European cluster, after a slow start which allowed the virus to build up a head of steam, we're actually a good example of flattening the curve compared to the likes of Spain, Ireland and Singapore.

 

[kelper]

A graph here that is easy to customise to your exact interest.

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavi...oothing=7&country=USA+GBR+ESP+DEU+FRA+ITA+SWE

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Actuaries are the experts on death statistics and their professional organisation have been giving a weekly commentary on UK deaths, in particular the comparison of "official" Covid-19 deaths versus the excess deaths over what might be expected, to get an idea of how many deaths the epidemic might really be causing (not just a question of Covid deaths not being identified, but also "collateral" deaths like cancer patients who don't get treatment due to the virus). This is the first week where the excess deaths is less than the official Covid tally.

That doesn't mean that we're reporting all Covid deaths correctly; before Covid struck it has been a low-death year by normal standards, and this nice weather and low pollution should mean that deaths are below average, all other factors being the same.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Glasgow researchers analysed data from UK Biobank to conclude :

Complete data were available for 348,598 UK Biobank participants. Of these, 449 had confirmed COVID-19 infection. Vitamin D was associated with COVID-19 infection univariably (OR = 0.99; 95% CI 0.99-0.999; p = 0.013), but not after adjustment for confounders (OR = 1.00; 95% CI = 0.998-1.01; p = 0.208). Ethnicity was associated with COVID-19 infection univariably (blacks versus whites OR = 5.32, 95% CI = 3.68-7.70, p-value<0.001; South Asians versus whites OR = 2.65, 95% CI = 1.65-4.25, p-value<0.001). Adjustment for [blood 25-hydroxyvitamin D] concentration made little difference to the magnitude of the association...

Our findings do not support a potential link between vitamin D concentrations and risk of COVID-19 infection, nor that vitamin D concentration may explain ethnic differences in COVID-19 infection.

In other words, at first sight there seems to be a link with Covid infection and low vitamin D, but that disappears once you adjust for gender, health, diabetes etc. And they found a link to ethnicity, but that link doesn't seem to be operating via vitamin D, and economic/lifestyle factors don't seem to make much difference either.

 

[Covrich]

Looks like the Oxford Vaccine which they were hoping for 30 million doses for UK by September is going to be a fail

I shoudl edit no nesscarily a fail but trials on animals have been diappointing so far but its early days I guess

 

[Chippy_Tea]

 

[Cheshire Cat]

See the government has done a U turn regards making overseas NHS and care workers pay a supplement to use NHS. It shows that public pressure is the only way to make them do the right thing.

 

[Wynott]

Rowley Birkin lookalike in the Grauniad yesterday!

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I posted this early on in the thread when lockdown started, i am glad they have come down hard on them, why should they be any different to all other pub landlords/ladies.

A pub has had its licence revoked for serving alcohol in defiance of the coronavirus lockdown measures.

The Pendulum, in Pendeford, Wolverhampton, had its licence suspended after police found evidence after being tipped off.

The licence holder was in "deliberate defiance" of the lockdown, West Midlands Police said.

Allowing him to continue would be "like leaving Ronnie Biggs in charge of Network Rail", a hearing was told.

Police barrister Gary Grant made the comment at a meeting of Wolverhampton City Council licensing sub-committee this week, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

The pub's licensee is yet to comment on the case.

Licence holder Mr Soran Rostam had "deliberately and knowingly" broken the government's lockdown restrictions, Mr Grant explained.

The committee heard how police received an anonymous call on 28 March stating the pub had been open the day before, with up to 10 people drinking inside.

Officers visited the pub on 6 April and spotted three people inside, the committee was told, including a man who paid for two drinks at the bar and a woman who followed shortly after.

CCTV footage later obtained by police showed when officers had arrived, the man and woman had been let out the back door, police said.

Mr Rostam was issued with a coronavirus prohibition notice on 17 April and his licence was revoked on Wednesday.

Committee chairman councillor Alan Bolshaw, said he was "emphatic" that "the behaviour displayed was totally unacceptable".

Pubs were told to close by the government on 20 March.



https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-52769223

 

[DavidHatton]

Prince Charles isnt the only one telling the peasants to get into the fields

MP Therese Coffey said people who have lost their jobs in the coronavirus crisis could find roles in the agricultural sector this summer.

The number of people claiming unemployment benefit in the UK soared last month, the first full month of the coronavirus lockdown.
The Suffolk Coastal MP and Work and Pensions Secretary told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I think we should be prepared for the unemployment rate to increase significantly."
But, after insisting "there are a substantial number of vacancies already", she was pressed on where the vacant roles are.
"There's an aspect of retail," she said. "There are quite a lot of vacancies or employment wanted in our agricultural sector to help in our near future.
"Those very much need to be filled as well."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-cambridgeshire-52713584[/QUOTE

 

[Richie_asg1]

Saw a TV advert I think sponsored by waitrose that was trying to glorify farm working and picking today and some scheme they are a part of.
I realise many office workers are out of a job right now, but what has happened to all the people who normally work in the farming industry - or have they all vanished overnight? And didn't we just import a load of cheap labour to do this?
In the UK were are at a time where the planting has been done, and most of the crops are in the ground growing so is the "Hungry Gap" where all the winter roots are almost at an end and nothing much is ready to come out. So I'm not sure where all these jobs are exactly.
We may have radish and early salad now, but that is about it till the first early spuds are ready.

I think it may be a diversion to get people doing something productive - and paying tax rather than sitting back claiming benefits. OR it could be a warning bell that food shortages are on the way and we need more people in the fields planting.- In which case - get in your garden planting!

 

[Brew_DD2]

Saw a TV advert I think sponsored by waitrose that was trying to glorify farm working and picking today and some scheme they are a part of.
I realise many office workers are out of a job right now, but what has happened to all the people who normally work in the farming industry - or have they all vanished overnight? And didn't we just import a load of cheap labour to do this?
In the UK were are at a time where the planting has been done, and most of the crops are in the ground growing so is the "Hungry Gap" where all the winter roots are almost at an end and nothing much is ready to come out. So I'm not sure where all these jobs are exactly.
We may have radish and early salad now, but that is about it till the first early spuds are ready.

I think it may be a diversion to get people doing something productive - and paying tax rather than sitting back claiming benefits. OR it could be a warning bell that food shortages are on the way and we need more people in the fields planting.- In which case - get in your garden planting!

Soft fruits is a very long season due to polytunnels.

 

[Covrich]

So Scientists working on Oxford Vaccine are now warning it will only have a 50% chance of working becvause Coronavirus is simply "dissapearing too fast" and cases are dropping too fast..

It will be interesting to see how London stats go in the next few weeks with the tube being packed as this past few weeks the number of cases dropped off the cliff.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

So Scientists working on Oxford Vaccine are now warning it will only have a 50% chance of working

No - Adrian Hill said there's a 50% chance they don't get a result from the trial because you need to trial it on a population with a decent chance of catching it.

If you have only 2 people without the vaccine catching it, and 1 person with the vaccine catching it, you can't say that the vaccine works, it might just mean the person was protected because they have the magic immunity that comes from being a government advisor. Whereas if you have 200 cases without a vaccine and 1 case with the vaccine then you can be pretty sure it's having an effect, and it's worth spending £100m's on rolling out the vaccine.

 

[Leon103]

Perhaps they is why they are trying to recruit Welsh nhs staff for trials

 

[Richie_asg1]

Or you just vaccinate the house of Lords and see what happens.
Are they saying they have completely forgotten how to test the viability of vaccines now, and they need a fully vulnerable population to run the test?
They could just get 100 people who tested negative for the antibodies and vaccinate them, then deliberately infect them with a measured low dose.......like any other vaccine test.

The main problem seems to be that viral load is such a variable that can lead to a larger infection too quickly.
Perhaps what is needed is to infect people with a very small quantity of live virus, keep their vit D levels up and keep them monitored throughout the process. If they start to go downhill give them IV plasma from someone with antibodies to boost their own. If they get better by themselves - they donate blood for plasma for the next people.