Coronavirus (OLD)

Viruses go though minor mutations all the time is my understanding

[nomadking]

Originally Posted by Damien

Viruses go though minor mutations all the time is my understanding

But if the changes are internal to the virus particle, then it will appear to be the same thing to the immune system.

[daveeb]

Originally Posted by nomadking

But if the changes are internal to the virus particle, then it will appear to be the same thing to the immune system.

The mutations that mainly concern us are the external ones, the "surface pattern" that the virus uses to get in to the cell and that the immune system recognises after infection.


We don't fully understand the antibody response over time yet, which is one of the issues being looked at in the national survey of 20,000 households that started last week and one reason why there isn't currently a totally reliable test to confirm if people have previously had the disease.

[RichardCoulter]

'People aged over 50 should remain under lockdown for longer than younger Brits and fined if they can't prove their age when they are out, experts claim.

Researchers at the University of Warwick believe a "rolling age-release strategy" to let younger people out earlier combined with social distancing is the safest way out of the UK's lockdown':

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/115138...gn=sharebarweb

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

'People aged over 50 should remain under lockdown for longer than younger Brits and fined if they can't prove their age when they are out, experts claim.

Researchers at the University of Warwick believe a "rolling age-release strategy" to let younger people out earlier combined with social distancing is the safest way out of the UK's lockdown':

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/115138...gn=sharebarweb

Here’s the summary(without the Sun’s inflammatory interpretation), and the actual paper.

https://warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/..._young_adults/

https://www.andrewoswald.com/docs/ne...vee2020(1).pdf

Not all 20-30 year olds...

To minimize that risk, we could restrict the release to those young people who do not live with parents. Those released would presumably also have to give a strict undertaking, upheld by the law, that they would avoid all other older adults...

... Therefore, of the 20-30 years old, 7,836,394 x 0.47 = 3,683,105 lived with parents in 2018. Hence 4,175,428 were not living with parents in 2018.

So nearly half of all 20-30 year olds couldn’t go out, while their friends could.

Yeh, I can see that working...

[RichardCoulter]

You can now put a question about the pandemic to the Government who may reply:

https://www.gov.uk/ask

[Carth]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

'People aged over 50 should remain under lockdown for longer than younger Brits and fined if they can't prove their age when they are out, experts claim.

I'd gladly go for that . . as long as it meant I had to stop going to work during the 'lock down' and got paid 80% of my wage

[1andrew1]

UK offices set to remain closed for months
Working at home to become the norm as government lays out plan for easing lockdown
The business department, which has been working closely with unions and company leaders to draw up plans for best-practice working in seven different types of workspace, will publish the recommendations next week.
Companies urged to restart operations relatively quickly will include non-food retailers, factories and warehouses, while offices will be encouraged to stay closed for longer. “If you are in an office space, then there is likely to be guidance that says continue working from home,” said one person involved in the planning.
Even when offices start to reopen en masse many will be expected to operate “red-blue” systems — with two teams alternating weekly in the office. But ministers are reluctant to forcibly close all offices because of the risk of some workers being exposed to domestic abuse if they have to stay at home all the time.

https://www.ft.com/content/1a9a0e61-...1-987ee223c4a9

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

https://www.ft.com/content/1a9a0e61-...1-987ee223c4a9

It's either that or they are going to have to ban offices with "hot desking", workers take whatever desk is available, which would just spread infection, my younger brother has had to work from home, they have provided a special computer, that allows him to carry out his work from home, but he told me the work stations are shared, he still lives at home with mum and dad and they are in the vulnerable group so he's been allowed to work from home.

But I notice routinely, he's always caught a cold, cough etc because of "hot desking".

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/h...box=1588406084

London’s Nightingale Hospital is effectively being wound down after taking no new patients in the past week.

Staff were told today that a decision on its future would be made within days.

The field hospital, built in just 10 days at the start of April, had only 19 patients on Friday, down from a peak of around 35 earlier in the month.

London hospitals are increasingly choosing to keep patients in their own intensive care units.

One source said London’s Nightingale was in effect being “wound down”, with staff from the Royal London Hospital, who were due to be seconded to work there, told they were no longer needed on Friday due to the small numbers of patients...

..,It is thought the field hospital may be either repurposed for use as a step-down facility for recovering patients or mothballed but retained for any potential second waves of infection after the UK’s lockdown is lifted.

At the Downing Street press conference today, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, said the Nightingale hospitals were specifically designed for ventilated patients. NHS England medical director Steve Powis suggested the hospital would not be suitable for other uses.

He added: “We need to keep them as an insurance policy for the next month or so.”

Better to have had them, and not needed them (as much as initially thought), than need them and not have them.

Originally Posted by Hugh

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/h...box=1588406084

Better to have had them, and not needed them (as much as initially thought), than need them and not have them.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/c...cab2daaf67bff0

(Should be readable, as subscribers can use a Times-provided link for sharing)

On Monday Matt Hancock, the health secretary, will announce that 141,000 residents of the Isle of Wight will become the first people in the country to test the new NHS Coronavirus detector app.

Two to three weeks later we are all going to be asked to download it.

The principle of contact tracing is centuries old but the addition of the app is designed to automate much of the basic work and make it feasible to track and trace infections across a whole country.

Senior government officials and scientists are frank that its success or failure will determine how far and how fast we can ease the current stringent lockdown measures.

“This is completely critical to the success of the next stage,” said one senior government official. “We really need it to work.”

Good approach - simulation, then beta testing, then general release.

[Russ]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

https://www.ft.com/content/1a9a0e61-...1-987ee223c4a9

The company I work for has several thousand employees over 3 cities with the vast, vast majority able to work from home.

We’ve been told that regardless of the government’s recommendations we should not expect to see the office this side of summer.

Two to three weeks later we are all going to be asked to download it.

Yep, I look forward to the smart phone they will be providing.

Originally Posted by Russ

The company I work for has several thousand employees over 3 cities with the vast, vast majority able to work from home.

We’ve been told that regardless of the government’s recommendations we should not expect to see the office this side of summer.

I expect they're anticipating a long list of preconditions for reopening offices that will be more trouble than they're worth if you can all work from home.