Covid-19 Virus

I think that this an interesting point.

It's like the "seatbelt" effect. People tend to more reckless when they have a sense of security.

If the masks are of limited effectiveness, they may make the the R() rate worse if people incorrectly believe the masks make them immune to infection and they no longer respect the social distancing rules.

 

I thought they whole point of masks was not to protect the wearer anyway?

Do they not help to contain asymptomatic spread in enclosed spaces by containing infected water droplets?

 

Any country in the world would accept your doctors apart from the worst affected country.

 

That's right, but no matter how many times people are told this, I'm convinced they think the primary reason is to protect themselves. For many years we've seen people from East Asian countries wear masks in London to protect themselves against smog because that's what they routinely do in their cities. When the virus hit it was the natural thing for them to wear masks but it was not in British culture until now. Unfortunately the default setting for many in this country is to be selfish, so if they think they are protecting themselves they are likely to be more reckless about the other restrictive measures and put others at risk.

 

I think, in this case, they have the opposite effect. They are so 'alien' in our culture that, for the time being, they serve as a reminder to observe social distancing.

 

I hope so!

 

Not only was it not in the British culture, it was actually discouraged. Anyone covering their face has often been seen as suspicious, certain establishments banned it altogether and there are actually laws against it in some circumstances.

 

So I see one possible vaccine is going into mass production already as the company is "confident" it works, if not yet 100% certain.

It's funny how these sort of things seem to completely fly under the radar a bit. I suppose if you look at it in a positive light it may be to avoid people assuming we're all saved and completely giving up on the current rules.

 

Haven’t people done that already?

 

True. Unfortunately we are a country of morons.

 

Yes, I think it is just that. The signs are very hopeful, (an acquaintance of mine is working with the company involved and is very bullish) but if it doesn’t work out we will need to carry on with all the measures to avoid the second, winter wave. Wouldn’t be the first time these sort of hopes fall flat.

 

I would say it makes sense all things considered to start making the vaccine before they’re sure it’s 100% effective. There is a lot at stake for many reasons, not least the fact that there are about 70 others on the works. It’s a gamble but so is missing out to one of the others, or the virus eventually dying out naturally.

 

Friend of mine works at a company making UV masks where incoming air is hit with massive UV to kill virus, but dead virus cells continue into lungs; apparently body starts to build an immunity.
He sounded optimistic.

 

It will be interesting to see whether people take the vaccine when it’s available. Speaking to someone very senior in the healthcare sector,who knows about the history of vaccines, said they probably wouldn’t take the vaccine due to the likely side effects v benefits. I guess if you are high risk category you would take a punt on a vaccine, but if you young and healthy you may think twice.

 

Do they come with a free backpack for the giant battery?

 

Just out of interest this person, what's their speciality? Chakra re-alignments, aura reading, homeopathy or crystal healing?

 

For use in clinical settings.

 

Yes. Without doubt cases will go up. With the majority of demonstrators worldwide being black, and BAME being at greater risk from the virus, ironically the death of George Floyd is likely to result in the death of hundreds/thousands more black people around the world.

 

I think there has to be some doubt. Or rather, some doubt it'll meaningfully go up.

The same was said after the beaches were packed and after the 5G nutters gathered in Hyde Park and after VE Day and low and behold, not a murmur on the graphs which keep going downwards. It'll be very interesting to see what they look like in 3-4 weeks time.

 

It depends what you mean by "meaningful". I'm talking about the demonstrations worldwide not just a few hundred/thousands on a few British beaches.
If there aren't many extra deaths caused by these demonstrations worldwide, frankly we can all forget about social distancing and just get on with normal life.

 

By meaningful I'm thinking of people needing hospital treatment or who die. Adding to the asymptomatic group has much less impact. But yes, fair point about the worldwide aspect of this rather than localised in the UK. That said, if the government thinks the Cummings thing was challenging for the public attitude to lockdown, just wait and see what happens in 3-4 weeks if there's no uptick in deaths to correspond with these protests.

 

Look at the pictures of the beaches last weekend. Probably thousands more d*ckheads on the sand than were protesting.

 

Even in the photos taken with telephoto lenses to make it look worse than it actually was, the overriding majority of people sitting on the beaches were social distancing. I really don’t see the problem with that or for that matter the risk. Actual live camera footage (difficult to manipulate) showed many of the protestors yesterday a long way from being socially distanced from each other.

 

Lucky New Zealand. Took decisive action and for the time being it’s over.

 

There first case was 28th Feb and they didn’t close their borders until 19th March, so they weren’t as decisive as many think, but they had the absolute perfect circumstances to be able to achieve the result they have now.

 

Three idiots jumping off a cliff caused that problem, you can’t blame the people on the beach for that, they were a victim of the circumstances.

There are a number of studies that provide estimates of the R produced by different organisations. One of them put the R in the north west at 1.01. All of the others had it below 1 everywhere.

So there is a chance the R might be above 1 in one region, but equally it might not.

A similar thing happened in Brighton a few weeks before, a few anecdotal reports saying the R might be 1.7. The reality is they have so few cases a slight deviation can cause the R to go above 1, it was back down again soon after.

The long and the short of it is it’s too soon to tell and one single piece of info is not enough to determine anything one way or the other.

 

I don't think it's helpful to have a debate about which group of people breaking the lockdown regulations are breaking them in a worse way.

 

It’s not a debate, we’re allowed to go to beaches.

 

I think the point was that the media will be blaming any new spike on the George Floyd protesters and not the beach/park/other social breakers, thus proving a racist bias.

 

But the data will prove that or otherwise. Up to now the infection rate has continued to fall, so far people going to the beach has not yet had an impact. With the weather taking a turn for the worse this week, if the decline in infections suddenly reverses in two/three weeks then it’s going to be pretty clear why.

 

The WHO reckons asymptomatic transmission is ‘very rare’

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/08/asymptomatic-coronavirus-patients-arent-spreading-new-infections-who-says.html

 

If that is actually true, then based on the sample testing that suggests only 0.1% of the population is infected, given that a lot of that 0.1 are asymptomatic it should be a doddle to keep under control.

I guess the problem might come with the mild cases, if they’re more infectious those people will still be out and about coming into contact with people.