Coronavirus outbreak

[roubaixtuesday]

The only justification I see for any form of coronavirus restrictions to normal life, is to try to keep the amount of infection cases just below the point at which the local services would be overwhelmed

Yeah. Easy to control that and of course doesn't matter how many corpses litter the path.

 

[marinyork]

No, that's the whole point. All the students need to catch the virus as soon as possible, so that by the time they break up for Christmas, they will have already had it and be clear of it. All the attempts to prevent it spreading in places like universities is doing is meaning there will be more potentially infectious students around at the end of the term. A concerted "catch the virus now, and protect your granny for Christmas" campaign could go a long way to neutralising the threat to elderly family members.

There needs to be a plan for the end of term as discussed in many spheres. Mass testing and more support than there is, perhaps pool testing on a regular basis such as a week for all uni students in halls, staff etc to try and pick up cases a bit faster. Then at the end of term some quiet time before the mass migration which will happen even if they make it illegal for students to leave (because it happened in March/April/May).

The unis and government mostly seem bothered about quoting headline figures in an entire university. This sort of nonsense needs to stop as it doesn't really help anyone. There need to be detailed breakdown of figures.

Although problematic the authorities and unis do need to keep tabs on percentages in this dense accommodotion on a very small unit extended flat by extended flat and block level and when they have caught it, as it will be invaluable later in the year/studies.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

There needs to be a plan for the end of term as discussed in many spheres. Mass testing and more support than there is, perhaps pool testing on a regular basis such as a week for all uni students in halls, staff etc to try and pick up cases a bit faster.

You're still working under the premis that it's actually desirable to identify and try to isolate university infections. But what's the point? The vast majority of the student population are at very low risk from the virus, so why bother even testing them at the point of infection? A more rational approach would be to make no attempt whatsoever to prevent the virus spreading within university accommodation, then give all the students antibody tests just before the end of term so they would know if they had already been exposed to the virus or not. That would empower each student to decide for themselves whether they were safe to mix with high risk family members over Christmas or whether they should keep away from them.

 

[bitsandbobs]

Whitty not Whitton. Bit of attention to detail, please!

They're probably a bit busy but I expect they may publish later. Whitty has quite some publication history on other diseases, especially malaria.

We still don't know who all of SAGE are, but some of them are definitely publishing about this already and stuff is now reaching the peer-reviewed journals. Here's two recent journal papers, for example: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0141076820956824 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S003335062030319X?via=ihub

Now I'm cross that I spent time fact-checking another throwaway slur.

It wasn't intended as a slur, although it was a throw-away remark. Perhaps not well put, but the post I was replying to seemed to suggest we shouldn't take into account views of those who haven't published on COVID. That seems implausible in the context of a disease which has been known for less than a year. None of which is to say that Mike Yeadon (ex-CEO of Pfizer) has anything interesting to say about COVID!

Not that it's especially relevant, but I'm reasonably familiar with Vallance' research career prior to his move GSK and did some work for him (related to his research) when he was still at UCL. He'd previously worked with Salvador Moncada who infamously got stiffed out of a Lasker and a Nobel.

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

No, that's the whole point. All the students need to catch the virus as soon as possible, so that by the time they break up for Christmas, they will have already had it and be clear of it. All the attempts to prevent it spreading in places like universities is doing is meaning there will be more potentially infectious students around at the end of the term. A concerted "catch the virus now, and protect your granny for Christmas" campaign could go a long way to neutralising the threat to elderly family members.

Ah, a campaign of deliberate infection whether the subjects are consenting or not! It might qualify you for a Mengele medal but I'm not sure ethics is your strongest suit.

 

[marinyork]

You're still working under the premis that it's actually desirable to identify and try to isolate university infections. But what's the point? The vast majority of the student population are at very low risk from the virus, so why bother even testing them at the point of infection? A more rational approach would be to make no attempt whatsoever to prevent the virus spreading within university accommodation, then give all the students antibody tests just before the end of term so they would know if they had already been exposed to the virus or not. That would empower each student to decide for themselves whether they were safe to mix with high risk family members over Christmas or whether they should keep away from them.

Whether you let it rip through or try and surpress it it's useful to have mass testing and what's going on. The antibody test may only pick up around half of people who've had the virus and those who are asymptomatic tend to have lower antibody levels.

I do think it's a double standard though letting antibody tests be available for taxi drivers, pharmacists and cleaners and not say uni students in halls. The likelyhood is by the end of term many will have never had a test, or if they did have a PCR test it was around now, so they won't know whether they've had the virus between now and the end of term (and an antibody test may not even pick it up if they had it in september or a small response).

 

[PK99]

There a few people I know who are very strong on "Blitz spirit" and "pulling together for Great Britain" who just can't quite wear a mask, stay away from the pub or be considerate of more vulnerable people.

Dammit man, I have a right to enjoy starlight - I'm leaving my curtains open!

 

[nickyboy]

But they'll kill their teachers and the researchers and techs and other academic workers sooner - but that's OK because "people have had enough of experts" and it's not like we need research labs to develop treatments, preventatives or vaccines

That's easily fixed. You keep the study aspect of university life online and let the students mix amongst themselves as much as they like. Skipdriver is right on this matter. Let the virus rip through the student population. There will be virtually zero hospitalisations as a result. Let them all catch it and develop some element of immunity before it's time to return to families in December
The alternative is that you try to isolate and lock down infectious students and conduct compulsory mass testing before they return to families in December. The problem is that most students live in private rental housing and university has no control over the students here. So it won't work. It's this methodology that kills Nan after Xmas Day, not what Skipdriver is suggesting

 

[roubaixtuesday]

There a few people I know who are very strong on "Blitz spirit" and "pulling together for Great Britain" who just can't quite wear a mask, stay away from the pub or be considerate of more vulnerable people.

It is worth noting that Covid has already killed more people than the blitz did.

 

[nickyboy]

You're still working under the premis that it's actually desirable to identify and try to isolate university infections. But what's the point? The vast majority of the student population are at very low risk from the virus, so why bother even testing them at the point of infection? A more rational approach would be to make no attempt whatsoever to prevent the virus spreading within university accommodation, then give all the students antibody tests just before the end of term so they would know if they had already been exposed to the virus or not. That would empower each student to decide for themselves whether they were safe to mix with high risk family members over Christmas or whether they should keep away from them.

As I posted elsewhere, US study of college students found that 70,000 infections resulted in 3 hospitalisations and zero deaths

 

[marinyork]

Most students living in private rental accomodation was always the problem with this and at the start of term.

However, if an attempt was made to offer tests at the end of term to all students, I think takeup would be decent. It's easily forgotten that many tests have been bunged to groups of the population that are more valuable politically than students, alongside those that have had it for medical need or might be wise to.

 

[PK99]

TBH following the advice hasn't really made much of a difference to my life. Pubs have been shite since the smoking ban and the 'opinion poll' 4 years ago made them worse, Restuarants well I can cook better food at home than the microwaved pap they sell, I could go on but I won't. You go on about people's right to go about their business as they see fit well my rights to live in other countries has been forcibly removed as has my 'right' to smoke wherever I like.

You drink in the wrong pubs and eat in the wrong restaurants.

Pubs are lightyears better since the smoking ban and the quality of restaurant food is often outstanding.

Your right to smoke wherever you like.

 

[classic33]

Trying to intervene in the virus pandemic is just making things worse if anything. If we had not had a lockdown earlier in the year there would have been a lot more cases during the summer and quite possibly lower levels of transmission going towards the winter.
Trying to prevent an infectious disease transmitting is futile, as the current situation shows. There are going to be a global total of X number of cases of the coronavirus no matter what, and trying to squeeze down the numbers earlier in the year has simply delayed the virus by a few months, but with huge collateral damage.
If you look at cases in those countries where the lockdown measures were only half-hearted, cases peaked and are now just rumbling along at a roughly constant rate - a "controlled burn". The countries that tried early on to have strict lockdown measures in many cases are the ones who are now experiencing the worst of the second waves.
There is a natural limit to the rate at which the virus can transmit, which is due to a mixture of the amount of population immunity and the degree of social interaction.
On the current case numbers, the virus is spreading faster per head of population in the UK than it is in either the USA or Brazil, despite how critics have enjoyed slating those two countries response. They have levelled off whilst we are now going through the roof.

You keep on going on about immunity to this, but how do you know there is any when the experts are uncertain on the matter.

 

[raleighnut]

You drink in the wrong pubs and eat in the wrong restaurants.

Pubs are lightyears better since the smoking ban and the quality of restaurant food is often outstanding.

Your right to smoke wherever you like.

Well I don't drive but I'm forced to breathe in exhaust fumes when I'm on the bike.

 

[Rezillo]

What's an AFI in this context?

A typo by me!