Nothing like indulging in unfounded gross exaggeration.

 

It has been suggested, as I noted last night, that Covid-19 has most likely been circulating in the affected area of northern Italy for several weeks undetected. That would mean the number of catching it is not that surprising. Plus, it does support the argument that in many cases it produces a very mild illness that is indistinguishable from other Coronavirus illnesses. Obviously it's also been circulating in Iran.

We have to recognise that there's still a huge amount to learn about Covid-19, to understand better why there's such an extreme range of responses amongst those infected. I was reading about immunities across the population to the differing variants of influenza and how there is a correlation to the strain which was prevalent when people were young. I wonder if Covid-19, although a 'novel' strain, might just have some similarities at a molecular level to another variant?

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An estimated 15,000 Londoners have travelled back from Italy in the last fortnight.

London has 9m people, a large public transport network, sports arenas, concert halls etc.

Yet when City Hall asked if Mayor @SadiqKhan could attend coronavirus Cobra, I'm told No 10 said no.

— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) March 2, 2020

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Mild cases may be less infectious also (they could also be more infectious in some cases).

Millions of people potentially being infected is not an exaggeration, in fact it's not even a worst case scenario of some of the contingency estimates.

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Yes, Dr Pangloss, I mean Gandalf, continues in complacent vein. Personally, I think it is no exaggeration whatsoever to suspect that Iran has millions of infected people - it is a big place and it allowed the infection to rampage for weeks prior to taking any action - a couple of million out of a population of 80 million is only 2.5% of the total in any case.

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WHO suggesting the attack rate is quite low for this type of virus.

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😆😆😅😅😂

You mean the mob attack rate?

 

This is what I was told in the chemistry labs, and I don't see any reason to believe this is any different. I have used gloves recently when handeling surfaces but I still use alcohol disinfectants (and soap/water when I have a sink).

Technique is always use the left hand to open doors. Then turn left glove inside out with right hand and dispose. Repeat with left hand and right glove, then alcohol wash.

 

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WHO sounding pretty optimistic. I expect some people here will sniff a conspiracy. 

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A biologist's eye view: Only an insanely badly evolved species would kill off its means of survival.

School science will have told us that predators, parasites and pathogens get no advantage by annihilating their food sources or hosts. They will strike a balance, sooner or later, where their populations can ebb and flow as Gandalf neatly puts it.

Mortality/predation can be thought of as VAT on survival!

Advice from government tomorrow will be very interesting as it will have to cover issues such as how not to catch the virus; how not to pass it on to others if you do; how to seek help; how treat your symptoms; and what you can do to help others in your community.

The BBC page ahead of The Plan:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51708550 


Roger

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The present Everton 'keeper has a far greater claim to not be able to catch than the great Big Nev did, who for a few years in the 80's was arguably the best goalie in the world. Pickford is a short-armed liability.

 

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Whereas Mr "I see conspiracies around every corner, the WHO is incompetent and it's going to be a disaster on a biblical scale", i.e. you, continue to post unfounded nonsense.

I have said nothing that the experts have not said. If this Clovis-19 has been circulating in Italy for weeks why are there not more serious cases and deaths? 

You've been exaggerating this outbreak for over a month now. It's absurd to suggest I'm being complacent when you have been behaving like a headless chicken.

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Autocorrect being over-zealous? Or are we blaming the French for this as well?

 

 

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My friend/work colleague's partner started showing Covid-19 symptoms last week, starting with a fever, progressing to a dry cough and headache and general aches. A week on he's still got the cough, but has been going into work (in Maidstone council) throughout. He'd thought of it as a weird sort of cold (no congestion at all) and my friend thought nothing more of it.

Today a case of Covid-19 (from Italy) was announced in a building adjacent to where he was working last week.

So, how good is the prevention stuff going on? We mentioned it to the school headmistress and to her credit, she came over straight away (holding some paper with lots of stuff on it); she kept her distance too!

The outcome was my friend's partner was advised to call 111 and report the symptoms. 1 hour on hold later, they said because he hadn't been to Italy or the other areas there was nothing to worry about! We were all surprised at that.

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  Thanks for the link Brian.  

That was interesting!  The message they ended with is,  “It’s understandable that people are worried but we must calm down and do the right thing because panic is very dangerous.”

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Come on MM!  Nobody is being complacent.  Nobody thinks this isn’t concerning but some think panic is just not the answer!   

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The self-styled voices of reason/anxiety police are out in force today. The condescension meter in this thread is off the scale.

I don't think Richard (MM) is in a panic. His posts seem reasoned enough to me.

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I don't think anyone is panicking on here. Over-cautious perhaps....

Big relief rally in the Dow today. Interesting that FTSE / DAX hasn't quite responded in the same manner.

Too much tinned food Justin? Or some unknown and scary symptom of the virus? 

Who is panicking? I am just making a reasoned assumption about Iran based on the way they have mishandled the epidemic there.

 

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I said - nobody is being complacent!

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As we have discussed on many occasions in this thread, the evidence suggests that the infection can pass almost unnoticed in some people, which means they end up being asymptomatic spreaders. The point about Italy is the number of cases where people have simply visited Milan for a couple of days and then shown up positive when returning home or going to a third country. Suggests the level of infection is an order of magnitude higher than test results would indicate. After all, they are not testing everybody. Compare that to SK where the headline rate of infection is higher than is the case in Italy, but there are not as many cases of visitors to SK coming back infected.

Iran is a special case, since nobody trusts their authorities or their statistics, but anecdotal evidence demonstrates a massive rate of infection there.

 

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I see the mocking posters have nothing different to contribute today! 

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...and nobody returns from there?

 

 

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It seems the govt has decided on the laissez faire approach, if we end up like Italy or Iran, Boris is toast

 

 

 

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