Coronavirus outbreak

[slowmotion]

It does suggest that the Swedes have an extraordinary faith in their government.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Apologies if asked before, i drop out of this thread for obvious reasons.
But can anyone explain to me the rather different approach being taken by sweden and Japan to lockdowns?
Are they bonkers or do they know something/following some clever strategy?
Ah, just seen post above jumped in.
So two of us intrigued.

Here's a link I posted earlier today:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52076293

 

[tom73]

PHE just published guidance on supporting children and young people’s mental health and well-being during the outbreak.
Also available in easy read via same link

https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...and-young-peoples-mental-health-and-wellbeing

 

[roubaixtuesday]

New paper from the Imperial team that has been influential in govt policy

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/im...urope-estimates-and-NPI-impact-30-03-2020.pdf

My uninformed take homes:

Social distancing has saved about 60,000 lives in Europe already.

Lots of uncertainty, but only Italy and Norway are more likely than not to have sufficient interventions in place to reverse the virus (R0<1)

Sweden has the highest future growth rate projected if current restrictions not changed.

[Edit: so more likely than not we'll have yet stricter controls imposed.]

 

[Johnno260]

Today was the second day in a row the increase rate was down in the U.K. looking at the last few days, the rate is bumping about, on a pretty much straightening line.

View attachment 511514

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Those are both positives. It’s early days, but if it continues like that over the next few days, the goal of slowing the rates down enough to not swamp the NHS, would be looking far more likely. It’s never ‘good’ news when people are still dying, but the powers that be have got to grow a thick skin, and look at the bigger picture, and react to that. That bigger picture is looking far more encouraging than it has been so far. Let’s not forget that no one is reporting the deaths from seasonal flu, which does also put a lot of people in intensive care / carry a mortality rate each and every year, whereas this ‘emergency’ is being reported everywhere. That means Keeping perspective is made more difficult.

even if the rates are down just for a day I will take it, it’s less pressure on vitals services and hopefully helps the morale of our frontline staff, these people should never have to buy a drink again.
It’s also less families in distress for a day

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Meanwhile something amusing amongst the CoronaVirus news.

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...ck-up-nose-while-inventing-coronavirus-device

 

[stowie]

Meanwhile something amusing amongst the CoronaVirus news.

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...ck-up-nose-while-inventing-coronavirus-device

This had me chuckling lots. It is somehow reassuring that someone with a PHD and studying pulsars and gravitational waves can be as stupid as the rest of us! From the description his "face buzzer" was close - the logic was simply inverted. Just needed one transistor and two resistors...

How he managed to get from this to getting magnets stuck up his nose is only something he can answer.

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

A while ago I wrote that the UK was involved in EU joint procurement for ventilators. It was but the UK is now pretending it missed an email.... It's a good job we don't need any more. Lying daffodils.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...o-buy-covid-19-medical-supplies-say-officials

 

[Archie_tect]

Been checking the Covid-19 dashboard- here are yesterday's [bottom] and today's [top] screen shots... if Trump doesn't take immediate and decisive action soon they will be in crisis.
If

 

[Wobblers]

To be honest, my initial reaction to that was one of disappointment and insult, but after taking some time to reflect before replying, I can assume the correct interpretation is a good faith "protect yourself if it's messing you up"

However, I have no issue with being exposed to relevant information or discussion, and I certainly don't think it's good to remove the magnitude of the crisis as a topic worthy of discussion.

My point, I guess, is that there are plenty of scenarios where raising the numbers is informative, relevant and important, such as "the trend is showing that..." or "there's a sudden uptick/downtick, i wonder what caused that" or "I think the effects of measure x in place y are starting to make a difference, because statistics"

This is not a criticism of any poster at all, like I say I've done it myself, it's that the "x people died in y today" where x is yesterday's x multiplied by ~1.4 is starting to feel voyeuristic, and I can't disassociate the fact that these numbers are not some mathematical abstraction but are rather ordinary people many of whom were healthy 3 weeks ago.

Maybe I should ignore this thread.

I for one do not mind the numbers being discussed. It informs me as to what's happening, and helps improve my own efforts to determine what the future might hold. This is not out of any voyeuristic desire, rather it is done to aid my decisions. For instance, it was watching the number of new infections and seeing community infections that made me urge my parents to limit going outside and isolate themselves as much as possible at the start of the month, long before any government pronouncement. They're both in their 80s with at risk medical conditions: I can hope that I was in time, and persuasive enough.

Personally I feel that any edict banning the discussion of the figures, no matter how well meaning, makes it much harder to counter the inevitable misconceptions and rumours. Being informed is an invaluable defence against this epidemic, and reducing the ability to do so is the wrong thing to do. I can't help those poor people in those statistics, but I can use the data to (hopefully) help those that I know.

 

[Pat "5mph"]

Here in Glasgow the Scottish Event Campus is getting converted to a field hospital, with the help of the army.
The back door of the Gartnavel General Hospital has now a long covered outdoor corridor, a blocked off car park: ready for many ambulances to unload out of the public eye, I guess.
Funny story: saw a woman entering the Beatson, mask and gloves.
She was going to put sanitizer on the gloves at the entrance, the person manning the station asked her to take them off.
She does so, puts sanitizer on her hands, picks up the gloves again, trying to put them back on!

 

[Joey Shabadoo]

Has anyone here received any official communication about shielding for the vulnerable? We thought my wife would have heard by now but she phoned her GP this morning and they knew nothing about it.

 

[slowmotion]

Has anyone here received any official communication about shielding for the vulnerable? We thought my wife would have heard by now but she phoned her GP this morning and they knew nothing about it.

Good point. The only person I know who got a communication was a transplant patient. Where do the letters/texts come from? HMG? Health Authority? GP?

 

[PK99]

Has anyone here received any official communication about shielding for the vulnerable? We thought my wife would have heard by now but she phoned her GP this morning and they knew nothabout it.

A friend has.

Check the nhs website for the specific list of co editions requiring shielding

 

[Pale Rider]

Good point. The only person I know who got a communication was a transplant patient. Where do the letters/texts come from? HMG? Health Authority? GP?

The online document is in this link.

Someone on here quoted a paper letter which was not identical, but used many of the same phrases.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...ng-extremely-vulnerable-persons-from-covid-19