Coronavirus outbreak

[Smudge]

Considering there has always been a lot of food waste from people, I wonder how much more short life food will be wasted by going over its use by date and then thrown out now, by those panic buying.

 

[tom73]

Considering there has always been a lot of food waste from people, I wonder how much more short life food will be wasted by going over its use by date and then thrown out now, by those panic buying.

Sadly a lot and then they go out and do it all over again.

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

The answer is they are performing 160,000 tests a week. we have been performing less than a quarter.

Then there is the difference in hospital facilities. "According to an article in Die Zeit from 13th March, the U.K. has 6.6 beds in ICUs per 100,000 of the population, which is fewer than in France, Italy and Spain. Germany has 29.2 beds per 100,000, the U.S. 34.7."

The reason why the WHO told the world to "Test, test, test" is explained in a comment to the article well:

"Testing is the ONLY credible reason and its simple to understand why, so suggesting that experts are "baffled" is ridiculous.

When you test widely and you make testing available to everyone who has symptoms then follow up testing on anyone whom they have contact with you achieve something very important. You catch asymptomatic carriers.

Most of spreading in such infections is done by asymptomatic carriers. People who get the disease but its so mild they don't realize they have it. Remember the English guy who caught teh disease in singapore infected everyone in a ski resort and then came back? People like him are the real danger.

Germany is catching a lot of them by making testing widespread. In addition we might discover that a lot of the cases they have identified are actually false positives, because they have probably set their sensitive as low as possible. It makes sense to not worry about false positives. No harm done from isolating someone who doesn't have the disease for 14 days.

Any "expert" who says testing is of limiting use, needs to get a clue. Every asymptomatic carrier you identify and remove results in a disproportionate drop in the reproductive number. So widespread testing is cheap, minimally disruptive and makes a very large contribution in reducing the reproductive number. Its easy to illustrate why. Suppose you have a virus with R0 = 2.5 and then with testing alone you can drop it to 2.0. What is the effect on the growth of the infection? Lets assume we start with 1 case and look at what happens for 10 infection cycles (~20 weeks).

R0 = 2.5 -->
Cycle Infected
0 1
1 2.5
2 6.25
3 15.625
4 39.0625
5 97.65625
6 244.1406
7 610.3516
8 1525.879
9 3814.697
10 9536.743

R0 = 2.0 -->
Cycle Infected
0 1
1 2
2 4
3 8
4 16
5 32
6 64
7 128
8 256
9 512
10 1024

The difference is obviously dramatic. This is what we are seeing in germany. They are detecting a lot of cases, but they are probably detect most of what is there, while in other countries like France, Spain and the UK the cases detected are the tip of the iceberg. "



Actually according to the WHO, an infection cycle for COVID-19 is approximately 4 days. Once someone has been tested positive asymptomatic or otherwise, obviously their behaviour can and will change, leading to less risk to others. Here, nobody knows, those with symptoms were just asked to go home and transmit it to everybody else in the family, and their kids still go to school, and transmit it to other families.

There is no way to sugarcoat this - we are where we are, and the real sh*te is yet to hit the fan, because of blatant failures by the Government and their "experts" - they have been asleep at the helm, and many will die as the direct result.

BBC News briefly touched on this yesterday. A lot of what you say above applies but, note of caution, Germany may be at an early stage in the virus' progression, certainly compared to Italy and Spain.

 

[perplexed]

Considering there has always been a lot of food waste from people, I wonder how much more short life food will be wasted by going over its use by date and then thrown out now, by those panic buying.

Friend of mine phoned a little while ago and we had that discussion. Mainly flour. It has a relatively short shelf life and I wonder who is buying it, particularly as bread doesn't seem to be an issue supply-wise at the moment and I don't see the nation turning into bakers overnight.

I think a lot of it will end up in land fill.

 

[tom73]

First British arrest for failing to self-isolate

A man has been arrested for allegedly failing to self-isolate after arriving on the Isle of Man - thought to be the first person held in the British Isles for breaching quarantine rules.
The island passed emergency legislation requiring new arrivals to quarantine themselves for 14 days regardless of symptoms on Tuesday.
(Source bbc)
Update
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-isle-of-man-51974140

 

[numbnuts]

Friend of mine phoned a little while ago and we had that discussion. Mainly flour. It has a relatively short shelf life and I wonder who is buying it, particularly as bread doesn't seem to be an issue supply-wise at the moment and I don't see the nation turning into bakers overnight.

I think a lot of it will end up in land fill.

From Wessex Mills shelf life is one year (bread flour that is) as I bought some the other day as there was none in my supermarkets, but to make it worth my while I had to buy 10KG, sounds a lot but I make a large loaf every 5 days

 

[Pale Rider]

Is a shop manager reserving stock for regular customers acceptable?

The following incident in a convenience store in South Shields, Tyne and Wear, appears to be true.

There is no visible stock of milk or bread.

A customer approaches the till, and a loaf and a pint of milk is produced for him from the storeroom.

The next customer asks for milk and bread, only to be told he could have neither because the stock he saw in the storeroom is being reserved for regular customers.

What to make of it?

Looking after regulars is to be applauded, but I'm not sure it should be done in the way it was in this instance.

A strictly enforced item number limit per customer looks to me to be a better solution.

 

[perplexed]

From Wessex Mills shelf life is one year (bread flour that is) as I bought some the other day as there was none in my supermarkets, but to make it worth my while I had to buy 10KG, sounds a lot but I make a large loaf every 5 days

I made a fennel and raisin loaf yesterday which I was quite pleased with. Did a rosemary one last week which was pretty nice if I do say so myself!

 

[Andy in Germany]

I can't help but wonder if the UK has been a bit complacent over the last few weeks. I hope the thing can be 'sent packing', but the route there is going to be unpleasant to say the least. It really would be folly not to consider the experience of countries like Italy who sadly are in a more advanced stage of the epidemic.

Just watched live that Bavaria is going into virtually complete lockdown now for the next two weeks. Similar to but not quite as extensive as France. Not something the government ever wanted to do. Those who still don't see the need to be sensible and do as requested can from now on reckon with very heavy fines. You can still go walking as individuals or as a family, but mustn't congregate together. I assume cycling remains allowed if done on an individual basis.

I suspect the same or similar policy is already being considered for my (@Andy in Germany our) neck of the woods.

I know Freiburg has gone into full lockdown within the city, Thankfully I'll be living and working a few kilometres away, assuming the job I was offered still exists by next week: apparently the state is considering closing down the protected workshops. I'm glad I'm not making that decision: the clients in protected workshop are likely to be carriers if they don't get sick in the process, but on the other hand it's probably better if they're in the workshop during the day and not in lockdown at a home, assuming there's something for them do do at the workshop of course.

I'll hear about the job on the 24th at the earliest...

 

[ozboz]

Sky News report from Italy , it’s says the virus is more like a very bad pneumonia , the Army there have been employed to enforce lock down,
Germany is having 30% higher cases of infection and higher death rate and have been told to open their eyes to the reality of the what is happening ,
and yet our Gov is going full on like a sloth to contain the virus , it’s Friday , come Monday my guess , they may just start getting their ars•• into gear

 

[Fab Foodie]

From Wessex Mills shelf life is one year (bread flour that is) as I bought some the other day as there was none in my supermarkets, but to make it worth my while I had to buy 10KG, sounds a lot but I make a large loaf every 5 days

Agreed, it will actually keep longer than that if in a well sealed container. If this wasn’t the case, we’d have no flour before the (once a year) harvest!

 

[Joey Shabadoo]

Worth a read - https://www.gov.uk/government/group...mergencies-sage-coronavirus-covid-19-response

 

[Rocky]

This sums it up for me.....my wife is one of those coming out of clinical retirement


View: https://twitter.com/the_chrisshaw/status/1240910558326636544?s=21

 

[marinyork]

The answer is they are performing 160,000 tests a week. we have been performing less than a quarter.

Well that's good, as it hints that 25,000 tests a day is possible (which I have seen from other countries is just possible but the more countries are doing it the better). One of the things Boris and then Vallance said in the press conference. But 25,000 a day later for us is of limited use. I still thinking that the antibody test implemented with patient tracing and isolation and big data implementations at this stage is looking like the most likely way of saving tens of thousands of lives and more importantly in the developing world probably millions of lives.

The antibody test to test who has it lives is believed to be less effective in the asymptotic stages, but it's a lot better than nothing.

 

[Johnno260]

I do but I am itching to get some miles in on my latest Look

View attachment 509315

I still haven't had a chance to use the Merida in anger since I had it strip serviced and rebuilt with R7000, that Look is nice!