Seconded.

Pretty sure it also said some studies have shown that those with low vitamin d are more prone to getting respiratory infections. Seems reasonable to infer that you're at a greater risk of catching covid-19 too if you have low vitamin d levels, although I guess that's not the same as saying normal levels give you extra protection - more that having normal levels may be required to have a healthy and normally functioning immune system.

It was also suggested that vitamin d plays a role in helping to regulate the immune system making it less likely to go in to overdrive. Again if true it makes sense that this would mean those with very low levels are more likely to suffer the serious complications that can occur and potentially more likely to die as a result.

Anecdotally I suffer from low vitamin d levels, which I found out a few years back after I was persistently ill for about 3 months one winter and went to the docs assuming I'd picked up a virus and couldn't shake it off. After they did bloods the only thing noticeable was I had very low vitamin D. I've taken supplements ever since and haven't had the same levels of winter illness, although I am still prone to getting run down from time to time, which I take as a sign to up my dosage for a few weeks. The docs seem a little 'meh' about the whole thing, as I like to have a blood test done to check vit D levels so I can adjust the amount I'm taking and they generally make me feel like I'm being a pain and wasting their time. Given how infrequently I visit the docs seems a shame that what could be a preventative action is discouraged and they'd rather wait until I get ill to decide maybe something should be done

Originally Posted by: Hippydave 

Well, a good news story in The Times:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/hospital-admissions-fall-to-lowest-level-of-coronavirus-crisis-f06w0rlt6

"The number of people seriously ill with coronavirus has dropped below 10,000 for the first time since the start of the lockdown.

...

Stephen Powis, NHS England’s medical director, pointed to figures showing 9,953 people in hospital with coronavirus on Tuesday, the first time this had been below 10,000 since March 29, the week the lockdown began. In mid-April more than 20,000 people were in hospital with coronavirus.

He said that hospitals were “seeing fewer and fewer daily admissions, showing the benefits of social distancing”, with 637 people admitted on Monday with coronavirus, down from more than 3,000 at the start of April.

Professor Powis said that the trend on deaths was “consistently downwards, and that will continue to fall as long as we all continue to comply with the instructions that we’ve been given around social distancing”.

..."

Relax, get the schools back, get back to normal.

Originally Posted by: Maunder Minimum 

But I was told by someone it was "world beating" 

Originally Posted by: fairweather 

A lot of government reports from European countries on seroprevalence to SARS-CoV-2 this week and they all show the same - it's low.

Spain ~5%
Italy ~5%
Sweden ~5%
Denmark ~1%
Norway < 1%

Let's end the discussion about miracles and natural herd immunity? The data is in.

— Kristian G. Andersen (@K_G_Andersen) May 20, 2020

Originally Posted by: The Beast from the East 

I think there is a different plausible reason to this. The Zoe app has been showing a plateau and slight increase in the number of people with symptoms for 10 days now. A steady quarter of a million with symptoms.  This ties up to some extent with Government data and is completely logical. This could be because the vulnerable and elderly are either dead and/or adhering well to the lock down still. The number of fitter and younger people are mixing more and going to work. So they are catching it but by nature of the disease they will be less severe so not needing hospital admission or dying. So we have to be very careful - the admissions and deaths are clearly falling but even the government data shows infection rates are high so it is not safe for the elderly and compromised to drop their guard and the government needs to emphasise this.

Originally Posted by: fairweather 

  I can only assume it's a combination of useless journalists and the nodding dog syndrome.  

Originally Posted by: Brian Gaze 

  Yes that’s plausible and the way I’m thinking.  So the logical approach is not only to take great caution with vulnerable groups but to be mindful that it’s still the invisible enemy!  

Originally Posted by: Caz 

On the 18th May Phil G said:-

"Let's cut to the chase here, there must be stats on white english dying from this. I was travelling along a packed Southend sea front yesterday where SD had gone out the window and I can tell you most people there weren't white english."

Video of said day:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD9jnsUjaOk

I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

Originally Posted by: fairweather 

On the 18th May Phil G said:-

"Let's cut to the chase here, there must be stats on white english dying from this. I was travelling along a packed Southend sea front yesterday where SD had gone out the window and I can tell you most people there weren't white english."

Video of said day:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD9jnsUjaOk

I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

Originally Posted by: fairweather 

Agree, Caz. I am still of the mind that regrettably we missed a vital trick with care homes. Here we have a known sample made up of our most vulnerable citizens - vulnerable for a variety of reasons: age, infirmity, disability etc. They are spread across the country; large, small and variously managed. They would have made an ideal first step for launching surveillance through testing and tracking of staff and inmates. This would have made a great project for our Public Health teams - a perfect model for informing our policies, and leading seamlessly into a mature national program of data collection. I don't like double guessing the experts, but IMO this is a shameful oversight that might well have avoided thousands of avoidable deaths and brought forward our countermeasures by weeks if not months. Best of all - we would have been putting the people in most immediate danger, including carers, to the front of the queue, highlighting their difficulties!

R.

Originally Posted by: Roger Parsons 

Throughout April I was saying that reliable antigen mass testing studies (Austria, Iceland, Germany etc.) were showing tiny percentages of their populations to be infected. There were at the time some early antibody testing studies which were showing much larger percentages, but those were unreliable tests with low specificity  (too many false positives).

It was dismaying to hear at the time pundits and even some scientists speculating about 20% or even 30% etc. Once again this shows that any notion of herd immunity without a vaccination was a catastrophic misjudgment and the correct approach all along was early and aggressive intervention in order to contain the epidemic and buy time until the possible vaccination.

Originally Posted by: xioni2