New coronavirus in/from China

[clv101]

This cartoon is a few weeks old now. Many people are now adopting the blue narrative.

[UndercoverElephant]

This cartoon is a few weeks old now. Many people are now adopting the blue narrative.

Indeed. Right now there is relatively little risk of people catching this virus, because there isn't much community spread. Most of the situations where viruses spread most effectively are still not taking place, and most people are still social distancing to a large degree. The epidemic only really continues in hospitals, care homes and other places where social distancing is impossible.

But that could lull us into a false sense of security. If we just go back to pre-pandemic normal, the epidemic will take off again. There's plenty of things that could re-open though. My own foraging courses are a good example. The chance of people catching the virus outdoors is very small.

Could all change if the schools go back, and mass-attendance events restart.

[fuzzy]

But the point is that a normal healthy person getting a dose won't be fatal so why are we all so terrified?

We aren't all terrified, but some of us live with others in a high risk category and do not feel inclined to take risks that will potentially kill them.

You may be justified. The gov has got us all to sit around for weeks, instead of upsetting migrants and bothering to test people, which might have plugged the leaks faster. They have also willfully ignored the 'at risk' group, when they should have been announcing a strategy to help them, for when everyone else starts moving about. It is madness that the hospitals are now underused and we are all stuck in. I can only assume that the useless civil servants still haven't found any PPE yet for the higher caseload when we resume normal life.

[kenneal - lagger]

I'm not a great fan of civil servants but they can't source something that doesn't exist. The whole world is trying to get hold of PPE and production has been ramped up but if there is still not enough it is a failure of the capitalist system to respond to demand. The increase in demand is more than a bit extreme though and hopefully the suppliers will respond to the new level of demand but many may be reluctant to increase production capacity in case they end up with surplus capacity in the long term.

[fuzzy]

I'm not a great fan of civil servants but they can't source something that doesn't exist. The whole world is trying to get hold of PPE and production has been ramped up but if there is still not enough it is a failure of the capitalist system to respond to demand. The increase in demand is more than a bit extreme though and hopefully the suppliers will respond to the new level of demand but many may be reluctant to increase production capacity in case they end up with surplus capacity in the long term.

Well I had 150 masks in my garage, but I guess that's just the wisdom of the minimum wage worker.

[clv101]

I'm not a great fan of civil servants but they can't source something that doesn't exist. The whole world is trying to get hold of PPE and production has been ramped up but if there is still not enough it is a failure of the capitalist system to respond to demand. The increase in demand is more than a bit extreme though and hopefully the suppliers will respond to the new level of demand but many may be reluctant to increase production capacity in case they end up with surplus capacity in the long term.

The failure isn't current (well it is as well) but historic. There was no excuse not to have warehouses (large amounts, six months supply of dealing with pandemic volumes) full. Viral pandemic has literally been at the top of the National Risk Register for years. Most PPE has long storage lives and shorter lived stuff could be reasonably rotated. It would not a been prohibitively expensive.

The PPE crisis was predicted, was understood and was largely avoidable, but somewhere along the line our politicians and civil servants screwed up.

[raspberry-blower]

Now reported that there appears to be a Covid-19 case in France in mid - November:

French doctors may have made a breakthrough in the race to establish where and when the coronavirus pandemic first hit Europe, by establishing that the virus may have been in France much earlier than anyone thought.

A team of researchers in the city of Colmar in northeastern France announced in a release last week that it had identified two X-rays, from Nov 16 and Nov 18, showing symptoms consistent with the novel coronavirus.

Source

[clv101]

I think we can be fairly confident that there won't be a second peak significantly higher than the first peak. At least not unless we (politically) choose to accept it.

If, following relaxation of the lockdown cases and hospital admissions start to rise rapidly, informing us of elevated R and a return to exponential grown - tight restrictions will be reimposed.

The idea that we would fail to contain (keep cases below acceptable level) a 2nd wave seems unlikely.

[fuzzy]

UK cases still increase by 1000s a day. How many are in hospital long term?. If 10s a day don't recover for months/ever, then hospitals will clog up. Especially if they are an infection risk.

[clv101]

UK cases still increase by 1000s a day. How many are in hospital long term?. If 10s a day don't recover for months/ever, then hospitals will clog up. Especially if they are an infection risk.

We hear about the Nightingale hospitals not being used and the NHS under capacity, but there are still a lot of COVID patients in there. Some hospitals are at capacity - WITHOUT - any elective surgery taking place. Operating theatres being used as COVID wards, anaesthetic machines used in regular surgery being used for COVID ventilation etc.

We can't cope with more inpatients than last month (even with many being sent back to care homes) and we can't delay/cancel elective surgery forever! The NHS needs a few months without significant COVID to catch up. The current situation isn't sustainable.

[vtsnowedin]

My youngest daughter who is a middle school teacher trying to teach her students on line lost one of her students to suicide today, age fourteen.
She of course is devastated.

[ReserveGrowthRulz]

My youngest daughter who is a middle school teacher trying to teach her students on line lost one of her students to suicide today, age fourteen.
She of course is devastated.

Related to the coronavirus lock down?

[clv101]

From the BMJ: https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1932

The UK’s public health response to covid-19


Too little, too late, too flawed

The UK government and its advisers were confident that they were “well prepared� when covid-19 swept East Asia. The four-pronged plan of 3 March to contain, delay, research, and mitigate was supported by all UK countries and backed, they claimed, by science.1 With over 30 000 hospital and community deaths by 12 May, where did the plan go wrong?2 What was the role of public health in the biggest public health crisis since the Spanish flu of 1918? And what now needs to be done?

What is clear is that the UK’s response so far has neither been well prepared nor remotely adequate (see infographic). The weakness of the preparations was exposed in 2016 by Exercise Cygnus, a pandemic simulation, and the necessary remedial steps were not taken.3 On 30 January, the World Health Organization declared a public health emergency of international concern and governments were urged to prepare for global spread of covid-19 from East Asia.4 Detailed case studies followed showing the need for high levels of mechanical ventilation and high death rates.56 But the UK ignored these warnings.

...

An effective pandemic response requires not only speed and clarity but also a willingness to accept mistakes and a commitment to international cooperation. Sharing the science and the uncertainties that inform political decisions will help rebuild lost public trust. Politicians and their advisers cannot hide behind science to avoid responsibility for making difficult decisions in a global crisis or merely repeat that they are following the science.

[clv101]

IMF chief says full economic recovery unlikely in 2021. The global economy will take much longer to recover fully from the shock caused by the new coronavirus than initially expected, the head of the International Monetary Fund said, and she stressed the danger of protectionism.

'than initially expected', by whom? It was always obvious to many than the v-shaped recovery was nonsense.

[UndercoverElephant]

Makes no sense at all. Same number of people in Europe, yet loads of different food producers are throwing away food "because demand has fallen through the floor". The piece simply fails to explain where the extra food is coming from.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-eur ... -in-europe