Coronavirus outbreak

[srw]

I can't celebrate the persistence of a nasty disease in the middle of the summer holidays with loads of restrictions still in place. It's likely to be a lull - look at the rest of Europe for what could we'll start happening here in September when schools return and offices start reopening, and it becomes too wet and cold to queue outside shops.

 

[Slick]

I can't celebrate the persistence of a nasty disease in the middle of the summer holidays with loads of restrictions still in place. It's likely to be a lull - look at the rest of Europe for what could we'll start happening here in September when schools return and offices start reopening, and it becomes too wet and cold to queue outside shops.

It's already happening up here with the schools with an outbreak on day 1.

 

[marinyork]

End of the day srw whether it is 8 per day in England, or not very many more across the whole of the UK, it is an utterly negligible rate in the grand scheme of things and, imo, amounts to very good News considering where we were not too long ago. Set against a back-drop of de-restrictions over the last couple of months I think it is quite uplifting News in terms of us controlling the virus whilst slowly getting the country back up to speed.

There is a bit in what skipdriverjohn says. The UK reportedly has the lowest number of people physically at work away from home and Spain has a high number of cases with it supposedly belting around the under 30s without getting back in the nursing homes and so far low death rates, but for how long?

Contrary to what ^^ says secondary schools and unis are believed to be a much higher risk than primary schools and it may be the case as the whitty has speculated that rhinovirus and rsz give viral blocking until it picks up significantly in late October. Unfortunately they seem to have decided flu and coronavirus at the same time are possible and nasty.

 

[fossyant]

@marinyork - given all of my teaching until January is online-only I'm not sure who the students will be mixing with?

First year students at my institution are having some face-to-face teaching I believe, but that's all.

We are doing 3 to 4 hours per student per week face to face teaching. 2m social distancing and block teaching for massively reduced class sizes.

 

[midlife]

People die of stuff, that's the way of the world. Get used to it, it's been happening since life appeared on the planet. The current UK death rates are negligible. Even in the US, with a much higher infection rate, the deaths are proportionately not that high in relation to the number of virus cases. It's the same in most of the world. In the early days of the pandemic, the virus took out a lot of already very sick people quickly. The low hanging fruit in mortality terms. Once that cohort was decimated, the remaining population are more resistant to the virus, and the death rate has not tracked the infection rate but remained substantially lower. If we had a full-blown second wave in the UK, and daily infections equalled those in March/April, the death rate would not go up by anything like the increase in cases.

I think there are about 8 million people over 70 in the UK, likely quite a few will have co-morbidities so still plenty of "low hanging fruit" if the virus rampage through the community again....

 

[marinyork]

I think there are about 8 million people over 70 in the UK, likely quite a few will have co-morbidities so still plenty of "low hanging fruit" if the virus rampage through the community again....

Various sources have said 10 million+. It's one of the real challenges for the vaccines. Getting it in the arms of so many people as fast as possible once it's licenced. Beyond the ten million there will still be a small number of those outside with horrid stays in hospital and big life changing symptoms and deaths.

The reality is that in the over 70s some vaccines that may work well in the general population may only give frustrating levels of protection e.g. 50%. That's still a miracle breakthrough.

 

[midlife]

For HepB vaccine where I am meant to keep up to date in my job, the older you get the less the response. By "older" for HepB that starts at 30

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

I'm not convinced there's much probability of a return to high mortality rates, in the developed world at least. The true rate of UK infection must have been dozens of times higher than the official figures by the time the lockdown started. which means that millions had already contracted the virus by that stage. Because awareness of the virus was lower, even high risk individuals may not have taken much in the way of precautions to avoid it. Now, those who know the virus could hit them hard, are tending to be more cautious about mingling with everyone else. The rest of us, are mostly fed up with the lockdown and being told to limit social contact, so it has really gone out of the window for the majority of the population. I socialise several times a week in close proximity to other people, and I work in close proximity to others (albeit usually the same group), and apart from observing the normal polite behaviours like not sneezing and coughing over others it's back to normal as far as I'm concerned, virus or no virus. No-one I associate with has gone down with a nasty dose of anything recently, if they have caught it the symptoms must have been non-existent, because no-one has been knocked out and been unable to go to work or carry out their normal routine.

 

[classic33]

I'm not convinced there's much probability of a return to high mortality rates, in the developed world at least. The true rate of UK infection must have been dozens of times higher than the official figures by the time the lockdown started. which means that millions had already contracted the virus by that stage. Because awareness of the virus was lower, even high risk individuals may not have taken much in the way of precautions to avoid it. Now, those who know the virus could hit them hard, are tending to be more cautious about mingling with everyone else. The rest of us, are mostly fed up with the lockdown and being told to limit social contact, so it has really gone out of the window for the majority of the population. I socialise several times a week in close proximity to other people, and I work in close proximity to others (albeit usually the same group), and apart from observing the normal polite behaviours like not sneezing and coughing over others it's back to normal as far as I'm concerned, virus or no virus. No-one I associate with has gone down with a nasty dose of anything recently, if they have caught it the symptoms must have been non-existent, because no-one has been knocked out and been unable to go to work or carry out their normal routine.

The threat of losing your job if you can't work may be pushing people to work with it.

After all, if you were an employer would you pay someone to stay at home whilst having to pay a second person to do their job. Or would you simply employ someone else, having let the first person go?

After all, what training is required for shelf stacking or simple warehouse work? Anyone can do either with none.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

After all, if you were an employer would you pay someone to stay at home whilst having to pay a second person to do their job. Or would you simply employ someone else, having let the first person go?

That would rather depend on how useful the person was, what their attitude to the job was, whether they were reliable and could be left to get on with it without having to be supervised etc. Even setting aside skill levels, someone that you know can be relied on is worth more than some unknown quantity who might be useless. The people I work with, you could not just get instant replacements for off the street, some have 40+ years experience. There's a ticking skills timebomb and the really experienced staff are like gold dust, they are what keeps the operation running. If you go off sick with the virus, you still get paid no arguments.

 

[classic33]

That would rather depend on how useful the person was, what their attitude to the job was, whether they were reliable and could be left to get on with it without having to be supervised etc. Even setting aside skill levels, someone that you know can be relied on is worth more than some unknown quantity who might be useless. The people I work with, you could not just get instant replacements for off the street, some have 40+ years experience. There's a ticking skills timebomb and the really experienced staff are like gold dust, they are what keeps the operation running. If you go off sick with the virus, you still get paid no arguments.

And doesn't answer the question either.

 

[silva]

Since a week or so, I saw here and there a new word popping up: "twindemic".
One of the original articles referenced is this one: https://www.health.com/condition/infectious-diseases/coronavirus/twindemic
It is about influenza ("common flu") and corona family types virii simultaneously popping up, as in two pandemics, hence "twindemic".

Now I don't get a couple things:

1) why would they now be scared for an influenza spreading? If influenza would be able to spread under the current block conditions forced by government, then corona would smash through these alike a tank.
So, IF there would indeed come an (additional) influenza/flu epidemy, doesn't that prove those corona blocking measures as having made little to no difference on spreading of corona, upto plain ridiculous?
In detail: unless there is already total herd immunity for corona, then the R (reproduction factor) for all corona infected groups/clusters should be higher than for influenza (again - unless corona has finished). So every blocking measure that makes it harder for corona, should totally block influenza spreading.
So if influenza would still be able to propagate, then corona should propagate alike an express train, and the measures against corona would prove themselves as ridiculous and useless (what of course is well possible)

2) corona is a single stranded positive sense (= polarity of coding/decoding) RNA type virus, influenza is negative sense. That means that they cannot use eachothers production machineries so combining impossible or at least very hard (= if any, slower reproduction due to the extra coding required)

So how can they fear a "twindemic"?

 

[srw]

So how can they fear a "twindemic"?

This is an incredibly naive and dangerous set of views to be propounding. Your arguments are pretty incoherent, but insofar as I can make sense of them you seem to be saying that because scientists are concerned about both flu and coronavirus spreading (separately - your point (2) is a complete nonsense) the protection against coronavirus is a waste of time.

Johnson is encouraging children back to school, and office workers back to work. Sunak is withdrawing all the financial support for workers and firms, which will mean a load more people being forced together by economic necessity. And idiots are encouraging a slackening of protection against the transmission of a vicious and highly infectious disease. If we don't end up with a flu outbreak hitting large numbers of already vulnerable people we'll be lucky.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

After all, if you were an employer would you pay someone to stay at home whilst having to pay a second person to do their job. Or would you simply employ someone else, having let the first person go?

Yes, that’s exactly what happens with maternity leave, and the same protections should exist here.


As @SkipdiverJohn said, some employees you really would not be able to replace them and expect the same profit outcomes for your company. They might not be able to come in, but they are still there on a phone with decades of experience knowledge and practical application within that company’s culture and structure .

 

[classic33]

Yes, that’s exactly what happens with maternity leave, and the same protections should exist here.


As @SkipdiverJohn said, some employees you really would not be able to replace them and expect the same profit outcomes for your company. They might not be able to come in, but they are still there on a phone with decades of experience knowledge and practical application within that company’s culture and structure .

But the possibility(threat) that you might lose your job, because you've to go into short term isolation, having caught something may be causing people to work with it. Which is why jobs at the lower end of the scale were chosen for the question.

Pregnancy isn't something that can be caught or transmitted at work.