Covid-19 Virus

Absolutely heartbreaking.

"Listening to the politicians and journalists talk – loftily, from afar, an Olympian perspective – coronavirus can feel like a mathematical abstraction, an intellectual exercise played out in curves and peaks and troughs and modelling. But here in the hospital, the pandemic is a matter of flesh and blood."

I think many of us are guilty of this. I know I am. I feel almost relief when the daily death total is "only" in the low hundreds now. But every single death has a story behind it like this.

And it must be truly terrifying to face your final moments with people dressed in PPE. No personal contact. No warmth. It's horrible to even imagine it and literally thousands and thousands have gone through it now and there are probably many more still to come.

 

True, but there are 450 cancer deaths per day in the UK and that has been happening forever. Someone dying of Coronovirus is no more tragic on a personal level than any other cause.

I agree with the PPE/cold aspect being miserable though.

 

There have been what, 6 million confirmed cases worldwide, so a conservative estimate would be to multiply that number by 10 which would give 60m cases. Overwhelmingly most of those would have no long term or lasting health implications. That’s not to say there aren’t examples of it and it wouldn’t be a horrible thing for those it does apply to, but it’s not what happens for most people. We aren’t going to hear what happens from the vast majority of that 60m who are fine, but we are generally going to hear about examples when it’s left lasting damage, the same as we all know it killed a 13 year old.

 

https://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/news/18485885.watford-fc-fan-cheered-recovering-coronavirus/

Nice story

 

The risk is clearly not the same for each of us, but being part of a community means you have to share the risk, or at least that’s my belief.

But that’s not even a moral thing first and foremost, it’s a winning strategy taken on by successful and well run countries. Our outcome has given us pain and expense.

I shared the Sky clip, because, aside from the numbers, the actual reality of this as an illness and a social problem is also fascinating. And I’m not sure we can really understand what the numbers signify without understanding the impact.

 

There'll only be 6k of us by then, fighting relegation back in the champ.

 

Except that many, perhaps most, of the Covid deaths could have been avoided with better preparedness and/or swifter and correct actions being taken.

 

That’s a tough read

 

I don’t believe anyone is saying it is. Though sadly coronavirus has been deadly to many individuals with otherwise survivable cancers.

For others, one lesson to learn from this is that ‘protect the NHS’, laudable and necessary as that was, needs to next time mean that more of it needs to keep going.

 

I don't see how "most" of the deaths could have been avoided. Some for sure as the government dithered, but we are a country that has huge connectivity to the rest of the world and have a dense population. Why would we have a hugely different outcome to France/Spain/Italy? I guess Germany would be the benchmark if everything went as good as can be hoped. How many deaths do you think would have happened with a different governement? It's a virus and it's going to kill people whatever you do.

Anyway I'm not sure your point is relevant to what I said in any case. Cancer kills people. Virus kills people. Why would one personal tragedy mean more than another?

 

I agree. Probably with some sort of two-track system to keep Covid sufferers away from ‘regular’ admissions, which I suppose is unfortunately going to be very difficult to design. There are already indications that an abnormal amount of the Covid fatalities have come amongst people admitted to hospital for other reasons who then contracted it on the wards. The R rate is still much higher in hospitals than the wider community too. My mum is waiting on various scans for several ailments and day surgery for something but while she wants them all doing, she’s very conscious at 67 of the risk of going into hospital. Building the confidence of people like her is going to be a big task in the months ahead.

 

I think one thing you can say is that the Government delaying caused a lot of premature deaths, the questions remains whether over the course of time those deaths will happen anyway. Many will still say it was unacceptable to have been denied a few more months with their loved ones regardless.

But unless we have a vaccine in the next few months, or the virus somehow fizzles out then I don’t see how these deaths are avoidable.

A lot of people are angry at the government over the amount of deaths but also angry at the government because they think we’re coming out of lockdown too soon. I don’t really get that because surely thats an acknowledgement that the threat remains, lockdown isn’t just a magic wand that makes the virus disappear for good.

On the basis that we can’t go back in time and change what has happened, our absolute best hope from here is that a lot of those deaths were unavoidable.

 

Ex-student of mine (med) is in the level two triage team of the track and trace system. She says that all that's written here applies to her except that she's "...on well the other side of £10 an hour..."

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...sons-test-and-tracing-system-britain-lockdown

 

How do the levels work out then? Presumably level two requires some medical knowledge? Is there a level above that?

 

I've fallen out with my partner, who I have been with through the entirety of lockdown but who doesn't live with me officially at the moment, because she's gone home today and been hugging family and clearly abandoned the rules.

Apparently her family "don't have it", "if it happens it happens" and she's "going home soon anyway" (going back to work and much closer). To be honest I'm appalled with her and shocked by her ignorance, selfishness and short-sightedness. Very sad to me that she is now someone behaving like so many other idiots and contributing to the problem.

Apparently I'm just "paranoid" and "ridiculous" though... someone tell me I'm the unreasonable one here?

 

You are very very unreasonable. But not in this case.

 

Well I agree with you in principle, but people are missing their family. If you’ve both been isolating and so are they then I guess chances are neither has Covid so I’d be tempted to give her some slack? I mean we are all going to be rammed into tubes in a couple of months.

 

I don’t think you’re paranoid or ridiculous. But equally if all her family are asymptotic what are they supposed to do?

 

Depends really if there is anyone older/vulnerable in either of your families, then yes it would be irresponsible because there is a slim chance somebody has it who is asymptomatic and it gets passed around and ends up with them. Otherwise it’s indirectly irresponsible that it could be passed on to an unknown at risk third party in the same way, but again it’s a very very low risk at the moment.

 

The issue I have is that you are now not even being told you cannot see your family and friends. You can, but just continue to observe the 2m social distancing rule for a little longer. How is that hard? Why do people insist on pushing the boundaries? It's purely selfish, "it won't happen to me" behaviour that completely ignores the bigger picture.

The fact is that this thing clearly spreads extremely easily. If you have it and you're either incubating it for two weeks without knowing or you're asymptomatic, and you're saying b*llocks to the social distancing rules because you can't be bothered any more, then you are potentially putting anyone you come close to at risk and playing a part in continuing the chain of infection and this horrendous situation, rather than helping to break it.

In this case my partner has a nan who is 87 and has cancer, and who receives food and visits from the mum. If it turns out my partner has it, has now given it to her mum, who then manages to pass it to her nan, then I wonder how she'd feel when her nan is very likely in the hospital or worse. Her mum is also working still so is automatically more likely to contract it purely by being someone who is in contact with people more than those who really can just stay home. I don't fancy getting it myself despite being "young and healthy", either.

Too many people are now treating it as if now that some rules have been relaxed that lockdown is completely over, the risk is gone and it's back to normal we go.

 

I *think* there's level 4 which is "admitting" (consultant?) - although I would like to be guided by the medics on here. She mentioned that she advises nursing teams, level three is "basic" medics?

 

Then yes, they are placing their nan at a small but unnecessary risk.

I’d agree that if you extrapolate the same attitude across the country then we’re likely to have a problem.

That said, the government must know that if you allow 6 people together in a garden then people are going to get pissed and social distancing will go out of the window. I would say that’s likely to happen in thousands, or probably millions of situations across the country in any given week going forward. And in that situation if one person has it then they’ll almost certainly pass it on to others.

It doesn’t make it right, however I can’t help thinking as the government surely know this then it must be allowed for in the modelling they do. I don’t think they can seriously expect people to practice social distancing across the board in these circumstances, so I don’t think they’d allow it I’d they needed them to.

 

Unreasonable? You? Never!
I do agree with you on this though

 

Meanwhile....

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www....urdle-door-beach-incident-updates-4178595.amp

 

I'll be back to my old self in a few weeks...

 

I think you’re giving the government too much credit there. The health professionals are clearly, at best, uneasy at lockdown being lifted this early and keep telling us the situation is still fragile with many infections daily.

 

Yes, quite possibly. Although there is a no precedent yet for a second spike or a significant rise in infections in places that are ahead of us with their easing measures.

 

My state's stay at home order was struck down in the courts.

We've set multiple days of record new positive cases in the last week. Next week will undoubtedly be worse.

South Korea also having issues.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/coronavirus-south-korea-closes-schools-093316931.html

 

South Korea is a bit different really, they’re intolerant to having virtually any cases. They’re having the odd very localised breakout which they look to stamp out quickly and decisively. What’s happening in that article isn’t something that’s widespread across the country or remotely related to anything like a second spike, it’s one very small outbreak. Bars restaurants are still open, and the latest restrictions are just in Seoul. They’ve had 11,000 cases total, were still close to that many a day.

 

All that work social distancing and the usual rent a mob idiots decide to crusade and pack into Trafalgar square like sardines

Have people really become that idiotic? Lets hope most of them catch it, die, and do the world a favour

 

What seems weird to me is the instant determination of many to queue to go shopping, for example at IKEA in Edmonton.

We will truly ruin this World given the chance. It’ll be back to traffic jams, air pollution, needless journeys very soon.

There is no Planet B folks.

 

I noticed on the BBC website Primark have been communicating very clearly there will be no special sales or price drops when they reopen. Naturally the message won't get through and there'll be pictures of carnage in Primark stores on 15 June. Then 'sad face' stories on 16 June with people moaning they queued for 10 hours only to find the £5 t-shirt they wanted was still a fiver.

 

Some while ago I wrote in a post that I could not understand why there were so many people on the High Street each day when you can get stuff delivered. I think it was Diamond who mournfully replied that people simply don’t have anything else to do.

I appreciate not everyone wants to ride around the Countryside on a bike marvelling at the beauty of it, the woodpeckers and the buzzards, like I do, but it will be just a bit sad if Covid 19 leaves us completely unchanged consumers.

 

We have gone out to support the local independent cafes (completely hyprocritical by me as I loathe non-homemade coffee and avoid buying it so I don't have to endlessly complain about it) and B'wood's excellent chippie (The Golden Plaice) and the very good Turkish cafe (Divan).

NAH M8 I STEER WELL CLEAR OF BUZZARD AS ITS FULLER PIKEYS

 

Exactly what i will be doing in 41 mins when the 5.30 buzzer goes. One of the benefits of working from home. I may choose to be home based from now on. My CEO has noted that there's no drop in output from me being at home vs being in the office. Fortunately I used to spend 80% of the day on the net when in the office too, assisting that comparison.....