Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
March 28, 2024, 11:41:22 pm

Login with username, password and session length

Links


FSA logo

Author Topic: Coronavirus  (Read 860597 times)

0 Members and 8 Guests are viewing this topic.

Copps is Magic

  • Forum Member
  • Posts: 8661
Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #60 on February 26, 2020, 10:42:45 am by Copps is Magic »
Nothing is going to stop this thing but we could have done more to slow it down.

The other side (i.e. the non-panic side) is that cases are going down in China.

Even those who've speculated the Chinese state has dramatically underestimated the number cases, still say the number of new cases is going down. So there isn't 'nothing' we can do, clearly.

https://www.ft.com/content/d3d41c7c-56db-11ea-a528-dd0f971febbc



(want to hide these ads? Join the VSC today!)

SydneyRover

  • VSC Member
  • Posts: 13581
Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #61 on February 26, 2020, 11:09:21 am by SydneyRover »
I don't think the EU has the power to close a countries border RD, it would surely would be up to each individual coutry to make that move if required.

River Don

  • Forum Member
  • Posts: 8190
Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #62 on February 26, 2020, 11:38:07 am by River Don »
I don't think the EU has the power to close a countries border RD, it would surely would be up to each individual coutry to make that move if required.

National governments have the power to implement border controls, Italy, France and Germany have declined to do so. I just think that is irresponsible.

Greece has just announced its first case. A woman travelling from Northern Italy.

BillyStubbsTears

  • VSC Member
  • Posts: 36604
Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #63 on February 26, 2020, 11:44:20 am by BillyStubbsTears »
Coops.

Yes but China had pretty much shut itself down to get the virus under control. Did you see the link I posted last night? Only 50% of workers are actually at their workplaces.

So yeah, you can control it. But at an eye-watering economic and social cost.

RD. Ditto. You close down borders in an economy as integrated as Europe's and there's an astronomical economic cost. Chances are, that would lead to more deaths in the long run. As we are seeing in this country, when you under perform economically, your life expectancy goes down. 

River Don

  • Forum Member
  • Posts: 8190
Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #64 on February 26, 2020, 12:21:26 pm by River Don »
BST

The idea isn't to close things down in the long run. If they could slow its progress until the weather warms up it might have a tremendous benefit.

There is hope that like the winter flu this thing doesn't like sunlight and so will subside during the summer months.

Slow it down till then and it might give us some breathing space to get a vaccine underway.

adamtherover

  • Forum Member
  • Posts: 2835
Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #65 on February 26, 2020, 12:28:18 pm by adamtherover »
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/coronavirus-news-%e2%80%93-live-outbreak-spreads-in-europe-as-major-us-city-declares-emergency-amid-warning-pandemic-a-question-of-when-not-if/ar-BB10pT19?li=BBoPWjQ

if you havnt seen it,  try and get hold of a copy of Contagion,   the matt damon flick from 2012.  It opens your eyes about the ease of how these things spread, plus the sheer panic once folk realise things are out of control. 

if you want to see the last 2 minutes, which is actually the first two minutes, showing how the virus started, here you go.  Probably not a million miles away from whats going on here??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1HH1-ozS_A

BillyStubbsTears

  • VSC Member
  • Posts: 36604
Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #66 on February 26, 2020, 01:18:52 pm by BillyStubbsTears »
BST

The idea isn't to close things down in the long run. If they could slow its progress until the weather warms up it might have a tremendous benefit.

There is hope that like the winter flu this thing doesn't like sunlight and so will subside during the summer months.

Slow it down till then and it might give us some breathing space to get a vaccine underway.

Doesn't have to be a long-run thing to cause massive economic damage. If you close borders for a fortnight, there'll be economic carnage.

River Don

  • Forum Member
  • Posts: 8190
Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #67 on February 26, 2020, 02:57:15 pm by River Don »
Economic carnage is already underway. It's inevitable.

River Don

  • Forum Member
  • Posts: 8190
Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #68 on February 26, 2020, 03:33:01 pm by River Don »
To be honest right from the outset this outbreak has been characterised by delay and obfuscation. A single unwillingness to accept what is infront of our eyes for fear of what the immediate economic impact might be. Right from the first doctor who flagged up the issue and was silenced by the authorities. There have been opportunities to either stop or slow down the spread and delay has prevented it everytime.

Tonight President Trump is going to address the American nation to tell us all that Coronavirus is just fake news, America is in great shape and generally not to worry. Well, I think we should be worried.

The UK chief medical officer says we should be making efforts to contain and slow the virus because it can't be stopped now, in the hope the change in the seasons will come to our aid. It would be better if governments were taking that advice more seriously.

Everyone is so busy trying to keep calm that I wonder if it hasn't lead to a kind of complacency.

BillyStubbsTears

  • VSC Member
  • Posts: 36604
Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #69 on February 26, 2020, 04:14:46 pm by BillyStubbsTears »
According to this expert, border closures don't typically work anyway.
https://twitter.com/BBCWorldatOne/status/1232688430255149057?s=20

You have to factor in that we have different societal standards in the West. A couple of years after the SARS outbreak, I was at a conference where the keynote address was given by the Singaporean Health Minister. He set out how they'd controlled SARS when it reached Singapore. They imposed a curfew and required everyone to record their temperature and log it online every day. Anyone with a fever was instructed to stay at home on pain of arrest if they didn't.

He finished off the presentation with a twinkle in his eye and a smirk on his face. He said these measures were very effective and he couldn't see any reason why every country country implement them in future outbreaks. Knowing damn well of course that it would be impossible to do so in the West because we value freedom above collective responsibility.

But yes, if Trump is going to say that tonight, he's even more of a danger to the world than I thought he was.

I too think we should be worried. This is now looking like its not containable and we are going to have a global pandemic. The only question now is, can it be controlled so it's a long, slow thing that doesn't overwhelm health services. I do understand the official advice to stay calm though. If people start realising that we might be facing 1-2% of the population corking it over the next few months, there could be mass panic.

Copps is Magic

  • Forum Member
  • Posts: 8661
Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #70 on February 26, 2020, 04:18:50 pm by Copps is Magic »
The UK chief medical officer says we should be making efforts to contain and slow the virus because it can't be stopped now.

Is he? I can't find that anywhere. What he is presenting seems to be a far more reasonable assessmen than you suggest

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51635901

if people start realising that we might be facing 1-2% of the population corking it over the next few months, there could be mass panic.

That would presume 100% of the population are going to get the virus! Which is not what the evidence is showing whatsoever.

River Don

  • Forum Member
  • Posts: 8190
Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #71 on February 26, 2020, 04:25:52 pm by River Don »
Alright Copps, he may not have put it so bluntly but this amounts to the same thing:


Whitty said the alternative scenario was that it was not possible to contain coronairus in China.

“It then starts to spread – possibly initially quite slowly – around the world,” he said.

“Then, at that point, unless the seasons come to our rescue, it’s going to come to a situation where we have it in Europe and in the UK in due course.”

Whitty said the government was currently working to a four-point strategy to deal with the unfolding threat.

“The first one is to contain; the second of these is to delay; the third of these is to do the science and the research; and the fourth is to mitigate so that we can actually brace the NHS,” he said.

The chief medical officer said the government now needed to do “a lot of planning” for its delay tactics.

“If we are going to get an outbreak here in the UK, and this is an ‘if’ not a ‘when’, but if we do, pushing it back into the summer period, away from the winter pressures on the NHS could buy us a bit more time to understand the virus better,” he said.

BillyStubbsTears

  • VSC Member
  • Posts: 36604
Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #72 on February 26, 2020, 04:32:38 pm by BillyStubbsTears »
The UK chief medical officer says we should be making efforts to contain and slow the virus because it can't be stopped now.

Is he? I can't find that anywhere. What he is presenting seems to be a far more reasonable assessmen than you suggest

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51635901

if people start realising that we might be facing 1-2% of the population corking it over the next few months, there could be mass panic.

That would presume 100% of the population are going to get the virus! Which is not what the evidence is showing whatsoever.

I'm quoting a professor of epidemiology at Imperial College who was on Radio 4 PM programme a couple of weeks back. He said that if the disease takes hold, he'd expect 60-70% of the population to be infected, and death rates of maybe 2%. So somewhere between 1-2% of the population dying.

He might be wrong, but you can't assume that he is just because we haven't got mass infections yet. We are in the very early stages of the spread of the disease. So of course, you haven't got mass infection. Yet.

The case of the Diamond Princess is telling. even though they have tried to quarantine everyone by keeping people in their berths, there's still something like 20% of the people on board who have come down with the virus. The death rate hasn't been high, but I'd guess that's because there aren't so many really old people on board, who appear to be the ones particularly vulnerable.

I can imagine that there's going to be some grim calculations going on in the upper echelons of power. Since the fatality rate among under-50s appears to be very low, and only becomes really high when you get into the 70s and 80s, it's not a disease which is likley to severely affect the most economically productive age groups. Does that affect the trade-off between controlling the disease and causing economic damage by imposing lock-downs? In other words, do you accept that the disease isn't controllable, and accept serious numbers of very old people being left exposed by not taking decisions that will badly harm the economy and cause other major problems. Sounds almost sick to be thinking like that, but those in charge of Government policy are weighing up the cost-benefit issues of deciding to save lives or not every day. That's why we don't buy every single drug that is available, or install every imaginable safety system on railways.

The Red Baron

  • VSC Member
  • Posts: 16119
Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #73 on February 26, 2020, 04:55:14 pm by The Red Baron »
I've always thought of cruises as an old person thing, so I'd be surprised if there weren't quite a lot of over-60s on the Diamond Princess.

Copps is Magic

  • Forum Member
  • Posts: 8661
Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #74 on February 26, 2020, 04:56:01 pm by Copps is Magic »
I always thought of cruises as hell on earth, and recent events have comfirmed my theory.

BillyStubbsTears

  • VSC Member
  • Posts: 36604
Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #75 on February 26, 2020, 05:09:34 pm by BillyStubbsTears »
TRB.

The latest figures are that ~3.5% of 60-70 year olds who get Coronavirus die from it.

There's 700 people on that boat who have come down with the virus. 7 have died. 36 are still in a critical or serious condition. So the fatality rate looks to be somewhere a bit north of 1% - possibly as high as 6% if all those who are in a critical/serious condition fail to pull through.

BillyStubbsTears

  • VSC Member
  • Posts: 36604
Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #76 on February 26, 2020, 05:09:58 pm by BillyStubbsTears »
I always thought of cruises as hell on earth, and recent events have comfirmed my theory.

I think we've found summat we agree on. It was only a matter of time.

albie

  • Forum Member
  • Posts: 3611
Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #77 on February 26, 2020, 05:53:23 pm by albie »
I can see the rationale of slowing it down.

Smear the early peak, then regroup for the second wave, when new interventions might be available.

The big question is whether getting infected gives a degree of immunity, or if a second infection becomes more powerful. this is what happened with Spanish Flu, I believe.

Then there is the possibility of mutation...either to weaken or strengthen the virus.

Still, we have the capable Matt Hancock in charge!
That is not cockney rhyming slang btw.

BillyStubbsTears

  • VSC Member
  • Posts: 36604
Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #78 on February 26, 2020, 06:35:57 pm by BillyStubbsTears »
Matt Hancock was a junior Treasury minister (Correction: he was chosen by George Osborne as an expert advisor on economics,!) at the time that Austerity started. He used to give speeches about the wonders of Expansionary Fiscal Contraction. The idea that cutting Govt spending would cause the economy to roar into life because everyone would feel more confident that the debt was under control.

It was absolute bullshit. No theoretical or empirical evidence to support it at all. But he believed it with a passion.

If he's not changed, I'm expecting him to be ordering a few hundredweight of leeches to cure us of Covid-19. That is not me being silly. It's literally the equivalent.
« Last Edit: February 26, 2020, 06:39:43 pm by BillyStubbsTears »

idler

  • VSC Member
  • Posts: 10681
Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #79 on February 26, 2020, 07:58:41 pm by idler »
I always thought of cruises as hell on earth, and recent events have comfirmed my theory.
You don't know until you have tried it. I never thought that we would but have enjoyed them all.

SydneyRover

  • VSC Member
  • Posts: 13581
Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #80 on February 26, 2020, 08:13:03 pm by SydneyRover »
Apparently one is not a real 'cruiser' until you can name all the boats, packages and costs off the top of ones head according to a rel that can? Idler.

idler

  • VSC Member
  • Posts: 10681
Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #81 on February 26, 2020, 08:57:47 pm by idler »
I've a long way to go yet then Sydney. I was fancying the Baltic and St. Petersburg in June. Not so sure with this Coronavirus now in the mix.

SydneyRover

  • VSC Member
  • Posts: 13581
Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #82 on February 26, 2020, 09:13:58 pm by SydneyRover »
Got the ferry from Stockholm to Helsinki another from there to Tallin last year which we enjoyed, missed St Petersburg due to big visa cost.

Have never cruised and would be an unlikely starter at this point in time Idler.

norovirus coronovirus possibly monotovirus.

idler

  • VSC Member
  • Posts: 10681
Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #83 on February 26, 2020, 10:22:07 pm by idler »
Always plenty to do on a ship Sydney although I must admit P & O is far better than the one we did on a TUI ship.
If you go ashore in Russia and use a Russian Travel tour you don't need a visa.

River Don

  • Forum Member
  • Posts: 8190
Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #84 on February 26, 2020, 11:37:19 pm by River Don »


This graph tells you all you need to know about the state of the economy in China. There are lots of other measures people are using to decipher what is going on, there's still a massive drop in traffic levels for instance as measured by TomTom.

It's safe to say, they still aren't able to get people back to work yet.

drfchound

  • Forum Member
  • Posts: 29201
Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #85 on February 27, 2020, 08:53:58 am by drfchound »
I see that the people confined to the hotel in Tenerife are complaining about the lack of good food they have access to.
One woman phoned the BBC and said that for breakfast the hotel gave them jam on toast, for lunch it was cheese on toast and in the evening it was peanut butter on toast.
In its defence a hotel spokesman said that was the only food they could get under the guest room doors.

Copps is Magic

  • Forum Member
  • Posts: 8661
Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #86 on February 27, 2020, 10:08:00 am by Copps is Magic »
I see that the people confined to the hotel in Tenerife are complaining about the lack of good food they have access to.
One woman phoned the BBC and said that for breakfast the hotel gave them jam on toast, for lunch it was cheese on toast and in the evening it was peanut butter on toast.
In its defence a hotel spokesman said that was the only food they could get under the guest room doors.

I think that should be the 'Dark Humour' thread I posted earlier.

The Red Baron

  • VSC Member
  • Posts: 16119
Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #87 on February 27, 2020, 10:31:29 am by The Red Baron »
Matt Hancock was a junior Treasury minister (Correction: he was chosen by George Osborne as an expert advisor on economics,!) at the time that Austerity started. He used to give speeches about the wonders of Expansionary Fiscal Contraction. The idea that cutting Govt spending would cause the economy to roar into life because everyone would feel more confident that the debt was under control.

It was absolute bullshit. No theoretical or empirical evidence to support it at all. But he believed it with a passion.

If he's not changed, I'm expecting him to be ordering a few hundredweight of leeches to cure us of Covid-19. That is not me being silly. It's literally the equivalent.

"A course of leeches"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3D6Ecs7VhQ

Blackadder at his finest.

Copps is Magic

  • Forum Member
  • Posts: 8661
Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #88 on February 27, 2020, 10:47:17 am by Copps is Magic »
BBC reporting 14% of people with Corona in China become re-infected. Now thats a worrying one.

River Don

  • Forum Member
  • Posts: 8190
Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #89 on February 27, 2020, 11:03:27 am by River Don »
BBC reporting 14% of people with Corona in China become re-infected. Now thats a worrying one.

There had to be some reason fit 30 year old doctors in China have been dying. I suspect they must have been victims of a reinfection.

The question is how serious is reinfection and what are the chances of it being fatal?

 

TinyPortal © 2005-2012