Coronavirus - worldwide spread and control

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spinoza577 said:
and most of the people dying have more than one critical illness and are old enough that one can expect that they can die,
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I am NOT okay with this. Nobody is expendable. It wouldn't be okay even if it were true. But it isn't. The truth is that many previously fit, healthy and productive people have died or become chronically ill from covid.

Everyone here has had their lives ruined by ME, and we (rightly) expect society to do something. We (rightly) object when others try to minimse the seriousness of our condition by saying we're just a bit depressed or need to get out more. We should be the LAST people to be minimising the health problems of others, covid-related or non-covid related. Otherwise it makes us no better than the people we criticise on this forum.

I'm fine with people arguing the case for or against restrictions, but I am totally NOT okay with saying that those whose lives or health has been ruined by covid don't matter because most were on the way out anyway.
 
@Woolie

I am again sorry to say this, but the discussion is not about single cases, but on numbers, and you can only work to minimize damage. In this sense it´s a statistical problem. You can of course wish for golden societies (though I see it mere that our societies are still at risk, and this is not restricted to covid, if I am allowed to say my opinion as a citizen).
 
It is interesting that some people are still making this comparison between Covid and flu when there is none. When Patrick Vallance and Chris Whitty initially suggested that the pandemic might not be so different from flu and that 20,000 deaths would not be too bad it confirmed my thought that a number of my colleagues have very little insight into reality.

Over the years I have been involved in medical wards taking emergency cases. I do not remember a single case of flu being admitted and given emergency care. A number of old people were admitted with pneumonia but not that I remember with any particular link to flu. If cases were genuinely though to be flu we would have had facilities for isolation and we never did. In fact the old fever hospitals would have stayed open. They didn't.

In comparison UK hospitals in April were overrun with emergency Covid cases.

Yes, there are figures for increased deaths in winter months but I am not sure that anyone actually has figures for the number of deaths from flu. If it is really true that 10,000 people die each year from fluid the UK (for instance) then I think we have to assume that pretty much ALL of these cases are people who are already considered to be terminally ill or have no realistic hope of survival of more than a few months. Maybe flu goes round care homes and kills the terminally frail - of which of course there are many. But even there I wonder because I have not heard of any such cases in may mother's care home.

To suggest that an illness that has a significant mortality rate for people like me at 70 with about 20 years life expectancy is similar to an illness that has a vanishingly small chance o f killing anyone who is not already terminally ill is ridiculous. I realise that people with immunodeficiency are different but even for them I was never aware that flu was a particular fear.
 
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Anybody wondering why the UK test and trace system isn't as effective as it might be this might explain, to some extent, why (assuming it's accurate).

How teenagers ended up operating crucial parts of England’s test and trace system
But that isn’t even the half of it. I’ve been talking to someone working on test and trace in a call centre subcontracted to Serco. I’ve confirmed their identity and job, but to protect their position, the worker wants to remain anonymous. Here’s what this person told me.

Until last week, the workers at the call centre were doing the simplest job in the tracing chain, calling those who have been identified as contacts of infected people and telling them to isolate themselves for 14 days, giving them some scripted advice and collecting a small amount of data. But last week, the call centre announced that all the workers on this contract were being “upskilled”. Instead of making these simple calls, they would now be calling infected patients and discovering all their contacts over the past fortnight. To use the official terms, they have suddenly been promoted from level 3 call handlers to level 2 clinical contact caseworkers.
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https://www.theguardian.com/comment...nd-coronavirus-covid-test-and-trace-teenagers
 
Woolie said:
I am NOT okay with this. Nobody is expendable. It wouldn't be okay even if it were true. But it isn't. The truth is that many previously fit, healthy and productive people have died or become chronically ill from covid.

Everyone here has had their lives ruined by ME, and we (rightly) expect society to do something. We (rightly) object when others try to minimse the seriousness of our condition by saying we're just a bit depressed or need to get out more. We should be the LAST people to be minimising the health problems of others, covid-related or non-covid related. Otherwise it makes us no better than the people we criticise on this forum.

I'm fine with people arguing the case for or against restrictions, but I am totally NOT okay with saying that those whose lives or health has been ruined by covid don't matter because most were on the way out anyway.
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Couldn't agree more.
 
Woolie said:
I'm fine with people arguing the case for or against restrictions, but I am totally NOT okay with saying that those whose lives or health has been ruined by covid don't matter because most were on the way out anyway.
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I've said it before, but I don't understand why people with a chronic condition such as ME argue that it's OK if people with a chronic condition, whether ME or not, die due to Covid-19 - don't they see that we here are all in that same group of people?
 
Record 200 days with no local cases makes Taiwan envy of world
While many places around the world are hitting new highs in coronavirus cases, Taiwan has achieved a different kind of record - 200 days without a locally transmitted case.

Taiwan holds the world's best virus record by far and reached the new landmark on Thursday (Oct 29), even as the pathogen explodes anew in Europe and the United States.

Taiwan's last local case came on April 12; there has been no second wave.
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"Taiwan is the only major country that has so far been able to keep community transmission of Covid eliminated," said Dr Peter Collignon, an infectious disease physician and professor at the Australian National University Medical School.

Taiwan "probably had the best result around the world", he said, and it's "even more impressive" for an economy with a population about the same size as Australia's, with many people living close to one another in apartments.

Taiwan will be among the few economies to grow this year, with the government in August forecasting that the gross domestic product will expand 1.56 per cent in 2020.
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https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/e...ith-no-local-cases-makes-taiwan-envy-of-world
 
Jonathan Edwards said:
There is absolutely no way that it would be safe for cancer patients to be treated at the moment. It would be insane to go to a hospital.
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I keep getting requests (or rather appointments I didn't ask for) from the NHS for various cancer screening. I don't see the point when there is such a back log of people with cancer unable to get treatment.
(The added irony of course is that as an ME patient I have had 'problems' (to put it mildly) getting any other illness taken seriously let alone treated.)
 
There has been a surge in cases in daughter's very large primary school in a deprived tier 1 area with a lower covid rate than national average. They did well until the middle of the week before half term but since then, she with the rest of the senior management team has been working flat out to gather information, numbers, liaise with appropriate bodies etc and a decision has now been taken for the school building to remain closed in the week after half term.

Distress all round but as things stand now, 14 out of the 28 classes in the school would be unable to return. The school is being fogged ??? this week, deep cleaned next week prior to children's return. Staff are really distressed that they haven't been able to prevent this by their carefully designed and followed protocols.

Granddaughter's secondary school in that area also has several classes out.

Am beginning to wonder if the local numbers are wrong or if there has been a sudden surge not yet reflected in the statistics.

What will happen to levels in school when they return? Will this just be repeated? In view of France and Germany's decision, are we going to be later rather than sooner again?
 
Andy said:
I've said it before, but I don't understand why people with a chronic condition such as ME argue that it's OK if people with a chronic condition, whether ME or not, die due to Covid-19 - don't they see that we here are all in that same group of people?
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Because of responsibility for the whole?

The damage from short sighted views might extend the damage from long sighted view.
If you look at single cases and how bad it is, you miss your responsibility for the majority which one´s people you cannot all visit with your compassion.
 
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spinoza577 said:
@Woolie

I am again sorry to say this, but the discussion is not about single cases, but on numbers, and you can only work to minimize damage. In this sense it´s a statistical problem. You can of course wish for golden societies (though I see it mere that our societies are still at risk, and this is not restricted to covid, if I am allowed to say my opinion as a citizen).
Click to expand...

spinoza577 said:
Because of responsibility for the whole?

The damage from short sighted views might extend the damage from long sighted view.
If you look at single cases and how bad it is, you miss your responsibility for the majority which one´s people you cannot all visit with your compassion.
Click to expand...

I am having trouble understanding the points being made here. The idea that only those on the brink of death anyway are dying from covid is simply incorrect. In the UK a lot of people have been misled by the reporting in the early stages that those who died had 'underlying conditions'. This was taken by some to mean that they were about to die anyway, when all it actually meant was that they had risk factors such as asthma, obesity, diabetes, etc. Some were simply over 60. Sure some were very old, and caught the virus, because of the problem of living close together in care homes, and some were very sick with other conditions, but many were health workers and others working in environments with high levels of social contact. Many would have expected to have decades of productive life if covid hadn't killed them.

What are limited health services supposed to do if they are overwhelmed with covid patients? Tell them to go home and die? We have to be realistic. If lockdowns are not brought in when cases are rising rapidly, as they are in the UK at the moment, the alternative is that millions get covid, the NHS collapses under the strain, and nobody with other health conditions gets treated anyway. It's not a case of a choice between treating covid or treating other conditions. An overstretched health service has to treat whoever it can who is in the most urgent need.

Numbers catching covid in the UK are rising very rapidly at the moment. Once again hospitals will have to cancel other less immediately urgent care, though the are trying very hard to keep some of those other services going. With more rapid testing becoming available it will be more possible to keep the covid and non covid patients separate in hospitals, which will help, but staff will increasingly need to be redeployed to covid care as cases rise.

Even though they have better treatments now that are saving some lives, death rates from covid in the UK are rising steeply week on week. Test, track, trace and isolate is a complete shambles.

I think we need a total lockdown again. The only way I can see to minimise deaths from all causes including covid is to lock down hard to try to reduce covid and get the test track and isolate system functioning properly at local level.
 
[UK] Covid-19: Nearly 100,000 catching virus every day - study
Nearly 100,000 people are catching coronavirus every day in England, a major analysis suggests.

The study, by Imperial College London, says the pace of the epidemic is accelerating and estimates the number of people infected is now doubling every nine days.

The authors say we are at a "critical stage" and "something has to change".

France and Germany have turned to forms of lockdown to control the virus.

Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick told BBC Breakfast the government wanted to "try to avoid having a national blanket approach" to coronavirus restrictions in England, where a regional three-tier alert system is in place.
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54723962
 
Jonathan Edwards said:
I do not remember a single case of flu being admitted and given emergency care.
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I am astonished to read this, although I am not an expert.

https://www.springermedizin.de/preparing-intensive-care-for-the-next-pandemic-influenza/17331718 (first side google gave)

Yes, there are figures for increased deaths in winter months but I am not sure that anyone actually has figures for the number of deaths from flu. If it is really true that 10,000 people die each year from fluid the UK (for instance) then I think we have to assume that pretty much ALL of these cases are people who are already considered to be terminally ill or have no realistic hope of survival of more than a few months.
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And this is then is not the case with covid, which was said several times that it especially affects ppl with more than one serious morbidity? Also the age is more advanced in covid deaths than in flu deaths, when also young ppl occasionally die from flu, if I havn´t dreamed the information. I admit that the situation may not already have been evaluated throughout. Being carefully, I say again that I don´t say that we wouldn´t have a problem or that one should ignore the virus.


To say it again, one may think wishfully, but it´s also one´s responsiblity, when then the damage gets bigger.
 
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Jonathan Edwards said:
There is absolutely no way that it would be safe for cancer patients to be treated at the moment. It would be insane to go to a hospital.
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Trying not to break forum rules, my wife is expecting to have an early detected, small and non spread breast cancer removed in the next 18 days here in Essex. Is your 'insane' due to post surgery radiotherapy issues? Or just presenting at hospital at present? I have yet to find any information on how effective NHS PPE has been or otherwise so do you have any anecdotal opinions on how your relatives became positive?
 
The long winter – why Covid restrictions could last until April
That’s why The Spectator is publishing a document which the government has not until now acknowledged the existence of: the ‘reasonable worst-case scenario’ for this coming winter. The document is on our website and makes for grim reading: 85,000 dead from a new Covid wave, about a third more than have died so far. It envisages 356,000 heading for hospital. Deaths are expected to peak at a lower rate than the first wave — but what is very different, this time, is the duration. The second wave is expected to get steadily worse until March.

The Sage document starts with an important caveat: it’s a hypothesis, not a prediction. The clue is in the name: a ‘worst-case planning scenario’ is not the most likely outcome. But as it says, under the UK system, this is the basis on which plans are being made. The document, published on 30 July, explains why lockdown measures were never properly relaxed. It also explains why ministers are so worried. If its forecasts are even half-right, we’re not remotely close to the end of the Covid story. While Swedes regard Covid as a near-exhausted enemy, the Brits see a monster ready to strike even harder as soon as normal life resumes. Which is why there’s no rush to resume normal life.
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https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-long-winter-why-covid-restrictions-could-last-until-april
 
Moderation note:

Moderators have decided to make this thread fully moderated for a while, as there has been an increase in rule breaches. We appreciate that this is an emotive subject with strong views on how the covid pandemic is best handled.
 
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