US demand for firearms surges amid pandemic

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52163523

"Weapons stores have been included as non-essential businesses and ordered to shut in some states, though this has resulted in legal challenges over whether this contravenes the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms."

The collective insanity of the US of A knows no bounds.

Originally Posted by: RobN 

What we're dealing with. Some very good points here.

Originally Posted by: Hungry Tiger 

​Birmingham Nightingale hospital 'accelerated' as midlands coronavirus death toll rises

Quote

 

Originally Posted by: Gavin D 

Yes she does and so does our son-in-law.

Problem is that we won't be able to afford universal healthcare if the economy is totally trashed.

We should have done what Taiwan did - closed borders to infected countries with full screening at ports - that is what I wrote to my MP in February to urge, but they would not listen. Therefore, the only realistic alternative is to move towards herd immunity - the best way to achieve that is to shield the most vulnerable groups and then to relax the lockdown. In my opinion, we should relax the lockdown by the end of this week, allow healthy people to enjoy Easter, gets the pubs and restaurants open again (but with internal distancing) and do everything we can to protect those most at risk from the virus.

Most healthy, younger people catch the virus and then recover.

Originally Posted by: Maunder Minimum 

The NHS would quickly be overwhelmed with critical cases. And so more people would die. That is why it frightened the bejesus out of HMG three weeks ago. It’s a non-starter. We have to reduce the amount of infection first and then relax the restrictions.

Originally Posted by: Justin W 

It wasn't Covid-19.

I've had the flu exactly once in my life - at Christmas 2009. It sucked.

Symptoms wise, it was very similar to Covid-19. Fever (shivers and shakes, night sweats) and a racking cough - the only time (apart from the past couple of weeks) that I've ever had a cough. It was much worse than the one I've had recently and it made me cough so much it really hurt - and that cough lingered for a few weeks even after the flu had gone. The other symptoms were a sore throat (which I always get before a regular cold, I had one before this recent cough too) and extreme tiredness - I just wanted to sleep, which wasn't terribly easy with that cough.

The saving grace was that I didn't have any snottiness whatsoever.

What I'm getting at is that regular flu is perfectly capable of causing the symptoms you described. As I said before, regular colds and flu haven't gone anywhere and yes, thousands - tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands - will have had regular flu this winter.

EDIT: And of all places, the Daily Mail's report from mid-December shows this up well, remarking that far more people than usual had been hospitalised with the flu.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7810129/Flu-cases-EIGHT-TIMES-higher-point-UK-winter.html 

Originally Posted by: Retron 

If we shield the most vulnerable, which is what we should do, that might not be the case.

Sweden will be an interesting case study.

However, if we had acted promptly - cancelling flights to and from infected regions, cancelling people's half-term breaks in the Alps or Spanish resorts, plus port screening combined with testing, quarantine and contact tracing for all suspected cases, that would have been far less costly to the economy than what is now being imposed.

So again, use the coming week to keep the lockdown, ensure the vulnerable are properly shielded and then relax - this lockdown cannot be kept in place indefinitely and with warmer weather coming, perhaps the strain on the health service could be manageable, since the vast majority of younger people without underlying conditions do come through an infection without requiring hospitalisation.

Originally Posted by: Maunder Minimum 

Darren - how many times to I have to say I'm not saying it is Corona virus before you stop telling me that !! Glad you have been able to assess these people so well and that you have been tested and shown not to have had Corona.. Also you then go on to describe flu symptoms!! It is odd that suddenly (before they'd heard of Corona) decided that they had something that they never described as flu, had never had the like of before. Why wouldn't they have said I think I had flu? And and as I recall I never got a cough before at the beginning of a cold before the sore throat, the runny nose , the sneezing, none of which they had anyway. If you look at the official table for the difference between flu, a cold and Corona there is some overlap but the main ones are clear. Again, without suggesting this was Corvid they were more of that nature than the others listed. That is evidence.. (remember everyone is always keen to say their cold is flu) This was a terrible dry cough, a short fever, nothing else. No stomach problems, sickness shakes. Not flu, not a cold and probably not Corvid-19. I'm trying to establish if anybody has any factual information, based on research preferably, to what this was! It is interesting, nothing more.

Clearly nobody has heard of anything so I will move on.

Originally Posted by: fairweather 

a dry cough and a fever are symptoms of flu so it sounds like you had the flu. You don’t need to have all the symptoms associated with flu.

Originally Posted by: speckledjim 

a dry cough and a fever are symptoms of flu so it sounds like you had the flu. You don’t need to have all the symptoms associated with flu.

Originally Posted by: speckledjim 

To be fair, the list of symptoms of Covid-19 are pretty extensive and not dissimilar. But the guidance does say that the key ones are a dry cough and fever.

I've had flu three times and never had a dry cough with any of them.

Originally Posted by: Gandalf The White 

Fair enough but a dry cough is a flu symptom. This is from NHS website

Flu symptoms come on very quickly and can include:

• a sudden fever – a temperature of 38C or above


• an aching body


• feeling tired or exhausted


• a dry cough


• a sore throat


• a headache


• difficulty sleeping


• loss of appetite


• diarrhoea or tummy pain


• feeling sick and being sick

Originally Posted by: speckledjim 

Exactly, which has been the government policy since they realised that their ill-conceived 'Plan A' was a disaster in the making.

As I've said before, we need to get the cases down significantly to give the overstretched NHS staff a chance to recover, never mind relaxing the restrictions.

Originally Posted by: Gandalf The White 

Darren - how many times to I have to say I'm not saying it is Corona virus before you stop telling me that !! Glad you have been able to assess these people so well and that you have been tested and shown not to have had Corona.. Also you then go on to describe flu symptoms!! It is odd that suddenly (before they'd heard of Corona) decided that they had something that they never described as flu, had never had the like of before. Why wouldn't they have said I think I had flu? And and as I recall I never got a cough before at the beginning of a cold before the sore throat, the runny nose , the sneezing, none of which they had anyway. If you look at the official table for the difference between flu, a cold and Corona there is some overlap but the main ones are clear. Again, without suggesting this was Corvid they were more of that nature than the others listed. That is evidence.. (remember everyone is always keen to say their cold is flu) This was a terrible dry cough, a short fever, nothing else. No stomach problems, sickness shakes. Not flu, not a cold and probably not Corvid-19. I'm trying to establish if anybody has any factual information, based on research preferably, to what this was! It is interesting, nothing more.

Clearly nobody has heard of anything so I will move on.

Originally Posted by: fairweather 

You were Dr Pangloss in the early days when I was trying to raise the alarm. I never wanted us to end up here. But here we are and there are only bad options now.

Originally Posted by: Maunder Minimum 

We don’t know for sure it was smoked over in January

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51221915

Originally Posted by: Polar Low