Coronavirus - worldwide spread and control

Status
Not open for further replies.
chrisb said:
There seems to be little hope for effective preventative action. It is reported this morning by Sky News that the British passengers on the cruise ship who were flown home were told that all had tested negative before being allowed onto the flight. There was some surprise at the speed of the announcement that four were subsequently found to be positive within a fairly short time of arrival. It now appears that the results of the tests were not known upon being allowed on. There were strange delays with the departure of the flight. Perhaps this is why. It seems that officialdom simply cannot be trusted. The other passengers are reported to be somewhat vexed.
Click to expand...

I think you have to take into account that to know each persons status you really need to test every day and at some point decisions have to be made without perfect information. It may be that the officialdom is incompetent but on the other hand it may be that medical staff are just trying to achieve a damage limitation exercise without having all the information - that is usually the way medicine works even in the best of situations.
 
chrisb said:
There seems to be little hope for effective preventative action. It is reported this morning by Sky News that the British passengers on the cruise ship who were flown home were told that all had tested negative before being allowed onto the flight. There was some surprise at the speed of the announcement that four were subsequently found to be positive within a fairly short time of arrival. It now appears that the results of the tests were not known upon being allowed on. There were strange delays with the departure of the flight. Perhaps this is why. It seems that officialdom simply cannot be trusted. The other passengers are reported to be somewhat vexed.
Click to expand...

I am genuinely worried that the UK govt are not taking it seriously in any way. I have not seen any notices in newspapers nor on TV about importance of prevention or the fact people should stay at home and call 111 instead of just going to their A&E or doctors surgeries. There’s no information campaign. I was telling my boyfriend about it and he still thinks it’s just like a flu, because if it was serious the govt would have said or done something.

then the fact that I really cannot see the UK govt putting entire towns into lockdown, the way Italy has rightly done. I think complacency may be the norm here. I’ve read reports in newspapers from doctors/nurses who work on the NHS saying the govt and central information is being really complacent about the outbreak and things aren’t put into place that should have been when they’ve been on the frontline. I hope, I really hope I will be proven wrong though if things get worse.
 
Jonathan Edwards said:
If the curve has dropped off from an exponential upsweep then at least measure are having some impact. The curve seems not only to have straightened but bent down the other way. That for me is as good as one could expect. The fact that most of the European cases so far seem to have fizzled out is also encouraging. The French focus seems to have died off, and the German focus. We will not know about the London situation for about another week but it looks as if it may not have taken off since the first case was diagnosed over 2 weeks ago.
Click to expand...

Yes - I thought afterwards that’s what you meant. Yes I’m glad about that too.
 
There is this scene from the movie "Contagion" going around:

"We need to make sure nobody knows until everybody knows"

I'm not saying health officials are doing this on purpose but at least here in Germany the public statements don't match the situation as many people perceive it at all.

Everything seems slowly and reluctant.
 
Jonathan Edwards said:
I think you have to take into account that to know each persons status you really need to test every day and at some point decisions have to be made without perfect information
Click to expand...

Yes, but there are dangers in taking pragmatic decisions if one conceals information from, or misleads, others who might be affected. You have to hope that all turns out well.
 
The statements that face masks are ineffective don't ring true to me. Insufficient, perhaps. Of no effect, not true.

That's preemptive panic reduction PR IMO. People running around with masks reduces the 'feel food factor' economically, with timing that doesn't bode well for economic pressures already impinging on some states.
 
Here's what PROMed mail has to say about the Diamond Princess people in UK:
--
3) UK
Date: 23 Feb 2020
Source: UK Government Department of Health and Social Care [edited]
<https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cmo-for-england-announces-four-new-cases-of-novel-coronavirus>


Four further patients in England have tested positive for COVID-19,
bringing the total number of cases in the UK to 13. The virus was
passed on in the Diamond Princess cruise ship, and the patients are
being transferred from Arrowe Park to specialist NHS infection
centres.

--
Communicated by:
ProMED-mail
<promed@promedmail.org>

[The saga of the boat continues: 9 additional evacuees from the
Diamond Princess returning to 3 locations -- Hong Kong, Israel and the
UK -- have tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 after leaving the boat
and returning to their country of residence. - Mod.MPP
Click to expand...

Arrowe Park Hospital is a large hospital on the edge of a public open space (Arrowe Park), and just across from lots of housing. The people who live near by were freaked out enough by the first 2 lots of people who arrived there. I imagine they'll be even more worried now. Anyone who gets sick will be taken to Royal Liverpool University Hospital to a high level infectious diseases unit.
 
InfiniteRubix said:
The statements that face masks are ineffective don't ring true to me. Insufficient, perhaps. Of no effect, not true.

That's preemptive panic reduction PR IMO. People running around with masks reduces the 'feel food factor' economically, with timing that doesn't bode well for economic pressures already impinging on some states.
Click to expand...

The effect of seeing hospital staff with face masks was that of making me very aware of a risk of infection. So I kept a distance to other people and washed my hands. In that sense face masks work. They might also work by making people not touch their face. Limit droplet spread is probably useful even if it's not perfect.
 
Last edited:
So the WHO still doesn't want to call it "pandemic" stressing that every country has to do their own risk assessment.

I understand the word can cause panic.

But does anybody know what else comes with it? Can there be provided more international funding, can state officials impose more draconian measures etc.? Or does it really not matter what the WHO calls it?
 
Leila said:
So the WHO still doesn't want to call it "pandemic" stressing that every country has to do their own risk assessment.

I understand the word can cause panic.

But does anybody know what else comes with it? Can there be provided more international funding, can state officials impose more draconian measures etc.? Or does it really not matter what the WHO calls it?
Click to expand...

According to the telegraph: https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www....mic-coronavirus-outbreak-economic-impact/amp/

“Is the coronavirus a pandemic? Given that the virus has now spread to 31 countries, across multiple continents, it satisfies the World Health Organisation’s definition of a pandemic. At the moment, WHO has only declared the outbreak to be a public health emergency.


What happens if WHO declares a pandemic?
If WHO declares a pandemic, it could have serious consequences.

According to WHO’s pandemic preparedness plan, a response to a pandemic would require national governments to action the “full mobilisation of health systems, facilities, and workers at national and subnational levels”, to “distribute personal protective equipment” and to “distribute antivirals, and other medical supplies in accordance with national plans

As such, a pandemic designation can be a significant challenge to some countries. When the WHO declared a pandemic for the H1N1 influenza outbreak in 2009, the decision was criticised by some countries who felt that it caused unnecessary panic. Furthermore, the declaration forced many countries to spend a fortune on H1N1 vaccines but the strain of flu proved to be mild and relatively easy to contain. The language from WHO has been darker in recent days. On Friday, the director-general said that the “window of opportunity is narrowing” to contain the coronavirus.“
 
Really interesting dive into some of the earliest cases:



What it seems is that in some cases other organs are affected, including attacking the heart. It could be entirely unrelated and pure chance with those specific cases. This is a seriously weird virus. Most people are fine, barely a mild cold. Some people are severely affected but end up fine as long as they are medically monitored. A small fraction seem to go completely sideways. And there's no way of telling, so far.

It's weird how so much of the focus is still on "getting" the virus, when by far the major impacts will be economic and political. It's starting to unravel but large areas of what is basically the manufacturing center of the world have stopped operating for weeks and supply chains impacts are slow to propagate but once the flow stops it just shuts down. The mediocre leadership of some countries will cause them to not prepare and overreact the worst possible way when things tip over, itself making the problem far worst than the disease itself.
 
rvallee said:
by far the major impacts will be economic and political.
Click to expand...

You might find this interesting - stock markets down already.
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2020/02/24/the-chance-of-a-global-downturn-is-growing/

Further to my previous post, the 4 people ill from the latest repatriation from the Diamond Princess have been sent to Royal Liverpool University Hospital (1), Royal Hallamshire in Sheffield (2) and Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle (1). (Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51606368)

Forgot to say in my previous post, I know Arrowe Park quite well. It was my parents' main hospital, and they both died there. We spent a lot of time visiting there.
 
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp....-schools-if-there-was-uk-coronavirus-outbreak

According to the Guardian, the UK govt may potentially close schools if needed but would *not* close travel routes or cut towns off like Italy did, as “Shutting down movement within the UK is seen as counterproductive, according to the official plan being followed by the department.“

Also..”Public gatherings are also unlikely to be restricted because there is “very limited evidence that restrictions on mass gatherings will have any significant effect on influenza virus transmission”. Crowded places “are an important indicator of ‘normality’ and may help maintain public morale during a pandemic”.” :banghead:

So.. yeah..:(
I’m pretty much terrified. So crowds and mass gatherings don’t have an effect on virus transmission? Are they joking? :/

According to the WHO’s own recommendations on coronavirus:
https://apps.who.int/iris/rest/bitstreams/1269109/retrieve

Introduction
Mass gatherings are highly visible events with the potential for serious public health consequences if they are not planned and managed carefully. There is ample evidence that mass gatherings can amplify the spread of infectious diseases. The transmission of respiratory infections, including influenza, has been frequently associated with mass gatherings.1 Such infections can be transmitted during a mass gathering, during transit to and from the event, and in participants’ home communities upon their return.

.... So what “evidence” is the UK govt basing this on? According to the WHO, it’s not “very limited evidence”, there is “ample evidence”. It’s not cool for the UK to say something is based on evidence when it’s basically based on the opposite of that.. Judging by this, I don’t feel like the UK govt is going to take steps needed to keep people safe or infact do any of the measures other countries are doing. I’m horrified and it’s worrying.
 
Last edited:
rvallee said:
Given findings of the virus in fecal matter, the poop mist hypothesis makes a lot of sense and if it actually made people properly use a toilet for a change it could actually be a good thing for humanity. Most people don't seem to and public toilets don't have lids so public bathrooms are a closed environment with likely lots of tiny floating feces and nasty microbes.

The toilet lid isn't just to sit on it, folks, it's the poop mist shield. Yes, poop mist is a thing, if a family member of yours flushes the toilet without the lid down, well, I'll let your imagination run wild about aerosols and how tiny particles can float around.
Click to expand...
Oh my god... I've been flushing the toilet wrong my whole life :eek:
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom