BBC not reporting Northampton yet. Is there a D notice? Perhaps the place is being overrun with zombies.

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Northampton information:

https://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/health/potential-coronavirus-incident-causes-closure-northamptonshire-surgery-1396472

R.

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Not yet confirmed. Closed for deep cleaning. 

https://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/health/northamptonshire-surgery-says-no-confirmed-cases-coronavirus-after-closure-alert-1397559

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Tbf there have been incidents like this all over the place.
The overwhelming majority have come back negative. So I'm not all that worried about 'suspected coronavirus' until it has been confirmed given there are likely dozens of these every day.

However it seems clear that it is capable of transmitting by aerosol which makes it potentially alot more infective than originally thought.

Another thing that is interesting is the extremely high SD for the incubation period. The medium has actually been recalculated to only be 3 days (even lower than the 5 days originally thought). But while 3-5 days is the most common incubation period, some people incubate for more than 40 days!

It would go someway to explain why a single chain can cause so many problems without it exploding everywhere.

 

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Oh btw turns out China has stopped counting asymptomatic +ve cases in their statistics.

That's the reason there was a rather large drop in cases on the 7th.

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Anyone else listen to the Prof on Radio 4 just now? 

I've had to re-evaluate my sense of worry.

He said in the event of the virus spreading in the UK we would be looking at 60 -80% of the population becoming infected. 

 

Indeed.

A thought experiment. 

My sister had contact with a group of visitors from China (no idea what part) early in Jan.  She subsequently went down with something that  loosely fitted the mild symptoms, by which time we had a family event - 10 days later I suffer the same mild  symptoms and recover.  Neither of us sought medical attention as it simply wasn't required.

Not saying   we have contacted the thing,  (the symptoms are much in line with what very many people  go through each year with various cold viruses) but it's  possible and we could well have both passed the thing on  to a  lot of other people, and those loads of people  could each have passed it on to loads of others  - as the original  Chinese visitors would have done.  

Multiply by  a considerable number of others that have come into the country from infected parts of the world and  there could be  hundreds of thousands of people with it already in the UK.  Today's news from GP's surgeries  isn't exactly going to encourage people to rock up to their local GP unless they are at deaths door.

 

 

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Then that will  (statistically)  boost their %  death rate.

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Yes, although this happened on the 7th so only applies to the most recent data.

 

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Regarding mortality rates, D/D+R actually converges to the mortality rate faster than D/C. It's now down to 20% which sets an upper bound (assuming the data is reliable). Based on this 10% is still looking fairly reasonable.

 

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Good article on the Beeb, How worried should we be? 18% of cases end up either seriously or critically ill.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51048366

 

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How worried should we be? Probably about as worried as we should be about the flu I would guess.

Trying to contain any virus that spreads the way this one does is nigh on impossible. All we can do is try to minimise the risks and be prepared for a widespread outbreak. The (self)isolation/quarantine approach may work but if some people are asymptomatic it may not. Either way there is no need to panic at all.

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Sounds about right to me

And, yes, its going to spread, people (all of us) just aren't careful enough for it not to spread.

 

Yes,  given the  reports of the ease with which  this is being transmitted,  it seems unlikely that it can be contained.  I guess   they will get an inoculation for it at some point but by then I suspect that  the water will be well under the bridge.

 

 

 

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That's you banned from this thread. 

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Why would China quarantine 100 million plus people for something no worse than flu though makes no sense ? China has pretty much come to a stand still losing billions and billions of dollars from its economy.  It just wouldn't do that for something no worse than the flu.

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It wants to stop the spread of a novel pathogen? It makes perfect sense.

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It makes sense if its worse than the flu which clearly is. Imagine if they  and everybody else did nothing it would be carnage. 

 

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It's a good question, Ally Pally, but it does not necessarily require a medical answer.

Put yourself in the place of a Chinese political leader. Then ask "Who benefits?" from a strategy that makes no real epidemiological difference but which highlights the distance you have been prepared to go to protect the "broad masses", the comrades for whom you are responsible. No one will say you did not do your best - because clearly you did. It was the backsliders and enemies of the people who did not have the discipline to make it work. Or some such excuse.

[Naturally we shall have no such nonsense here in the UK.]

The latest figures suggest the risks are less than 'flu. That's how I shall view the disease unless and until other information becomes available.

R.

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Why would they do nothing? 

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Ok if there response was if it was a normal flu . Still carnage.

 

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I work from home when in the UK, so my exposure here is minimal, unless my wife picks up the virus at Tesco

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First bit makes sense.  But the latest figures suggest 18% of cases become seriously ill or critically ill and a 2% death rate that's much worse than flu.

 

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If it slows the spread, buys time to learn more about the disease and does not make matters worse it is worth a shot if you can do it. It is hard to imagine what other practicable options are open to them, DrM. Trouble is they can't keep a lid on it for long [or can they?] and the system is already "leaky".

Roger

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