Coronavirus (OLD)

[joglynne]

In conjunction with Taf's linked site I also use the Worldmeters site to see the figures each day.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

[jfman]

New Zealand ends all restrictions except overseas arrivals having reduced the number of infections to zero.

Their PM sensibly warns to not be complacent and remain vigilant - there will be more cases.

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

Saved lives or delayed deaths? We will know in time.

Originally Posted by jfman

New Zealand ends all restrictions except overseas arrivals having reduced the number of infections to zero.

Their PM sensibly warns to not be complacent and remain vigilant - there will be more cases.

I wonder when their delayed deaths will happen?

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Hugh

I wonder when their delayed deaths will happen?

Probably 13 hours

Originally Posted by Pierre

Probably 13 hours

Nah, they probably happened 11 hours ago...

[Hom3r]

Popped in work for the "meeting", I am at risk of redudancy, as not only the work load plumeted, but the manuals in my department being thinned down, and it has been deemed a part time job.

I said the the top man that I was willing to drop my hours, he made a note of that.

I need to go back next monday to find out my fate.

-------

On top of that my sister has been furloughed until July.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Hugh

Nah, they probably happened 11 hours ago...

or in the future?

[pip08456]

It is possible the virus has died out in New Zealand as there have been no new cases for 17 days.

Luckily for New Zealand it was easier for them having a population of less than 5 million spread over 2 islands.

[jfman]

Originally Posted by pip08456

It is possible the virus has died out in New Zealand as there have been no new cases for 17 days.

Luckily for New Zealand it was easier for them having a population of less than 5 million spread over 2 islands.

They took the "right steps, at the right time, following the science" some might say. And are going to reap the rewards in their economic recovery.

It had little to do with luck - a tiny island state like ours demonstrates the outcomes of bad decision making a route that New Zealand could easily have followed but they dismissed herd immunity off the bat.

[pip08456]

Less than 5 million spread over 2 islands vs more than 66 million spread over 1.25 islands. Of course there's no difference.

Originally Posted by pip08456

Less than 5 million spread over 2 islands vs more than 66 million spread over 1.25 islands. Of course there's no difference.

Also, 5 million tourist arrivals per year, compared to 40 million. And that’s just tourists, not returning nationals or other visitor types. Jacinda Arden is not a miracle worker. She had a good hand that was easily played.

There appears to be an almost pathological need amongst some to characterise every decision of the U.K. gov as necessarily and always wrong, which I’m quite certain has nothing to do with Covid-19 and everything to do with the individual in No.10 and his party affiliation.

There will be a public enquiry once this is over and done with, and doubtless it will identify errors, but I’m sure what it won’t do is draw crass and deliberately misleading parallels with very small countries in isolated corners of the Pacific ocean.

[nomadking]

Originally Posted by jfman

Never heard of international flights?

I think you'll find that Great Britain is an island, off of mainland Europe. Can easily have implemented airport screening.

The point is you wouldn't need to contact trace everyone within that 1.5% if we had the virus under control. Instead we decided to go for herd immunity week. Of course, you are happy to ignore these realities simply to defend the Government at all costs.

Once again - at what point does the death count reach a point where you will accept there has been ANY mismanagement by the Government?

The fact we hadn't confirmed human to human transmission is because we had no routine testing programme. This was "a mild flu".

Nobody had routine testing. Even South Korea was concentrating on testing those with symptoms and brought to their attention. SAME AS THE UK. Even WHO advice has CHANGED over time and with the increased knowledge.



Look at a map of the world. South Korea has North Korea to the north, China to the west, and Japan to the east. How many people would be travelling to/from those countries. The UK not only has visitors, but truck drivers etc, travelling around Europe. The UK had people coming in or returning, from all over the world(8m of them), including China. Most of them wouldn't have had detectable symptoms, not even a high temperature. How many other countries implemented the same regime as in South Korea. If the answer is most or even many(which it's not), then you might have a point. COVID-19 has features well beyond any previous pandemic experience. It is that that has caused the problems, even in South Korea.
30th Jan 2020.

Thermal scanning at airports detects less than 1 in 5 passengers arriving from a 12 hour flight who are infected with the new coronavirus, according to preliminary estimates from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).

Over 80% not detectable.

Meanwhile, she notes that rushing to catch a flight or having an alcoholic drink could raise your external temperature.
...

According to a 2011 study in the journal BMC Infectious Diseases, these machines correctly identify a passenger as febrile or non-febrile less than 70 percent of the time. This means healthy passengers could be stopped unnecessarily, and infected passengers could be getting on a plane.

As the case in Daegu, South Korea showed, just one infected person can be responsible for a huge number of infections before anybody notices. The city of 2.5m million went into voluntary lockdown. Now if instead you have 10 infected people bringing it into 10 UK cities, you should be able to see the difference that would bring in numbers, BEFORE there was anything noticeable going on. That ONE person triggered 61% of their cases. That's how much damage one undetectable person can cause.



The UK Blood Transfusion service identified that around 1.5% of Londoners

had been infected by early March, again before anything was noticeable. The tests were from the week of 23rd March, but the infection would've started 2 weeks earlier.


If you have to base planning everything on the most extreme of what might happen, where does it all end? Lockdown would have to be more severe and never-ending.

[jfman]

Nomadking you are going round in circles. Nobody, anywhere in the world, has claimed airport screening to be 100% effective. Screening in South Korea was also done at transport hubs, creating more opportunities to intervene, earlier, to defeat the virus.

It'd be great if it was, however that doesn't mean it is not effective. Like face masks, it's simply part of the jig saw.

You've coped and pasted more points that have been addressed more times than I can count so will leave it there.

The statistics do not point towards cases of pure bad luck on our part.

[mrmistoffelees]

Originally Posted by Chris

Also, 5 million tourist arrivals per year, compared to 40 million. And that’s just tourists, not returning nationals or other visitor types. Jacinda Arden is not a miracle worker. She had a good hand that was easily played.

There appears to be an almost pathological need amongst some to characterise every decision of the U.K. gov as necessarily and always wrong, which I’m quite certain has nothing to do with Covid-19 and everything to do with the individual in No.10 and his party affiliation.

There will be a public enquiry once this is over and done with, and doubtless it will identify errors, but I’m sure what it won’t do is draw crass and deliberately misleading parallels with very small countries in isolated corners of the Pacific ocean.

Musings

Things that the government deserve credit for.

Implementing lockdown. (the timing however is debatable)
The furlough scheme.
The building of the nighthinggales

I"m genuinely struggling to think of others

Things the government should be held to account and challenged/owes the population a genuine explanation on

Abandoning the testing regime
The failure to force international arrivals to quarantine earlier.
The absolute debacle that has become track and trace
The third highest death rate in the world.
Lifting lockdown too early.


Whilst I don't like Boris one bit, I was quite impressed with the way he initially dealt with the situation. He does however now look like he has no long term plan, and is ignoring the science

[Carth]

Originally Posted by nomadking

The UK Blood Transfusion service identified that around 1.5% of Londoners had been infected by early March, again before anything was noticeable. The tests were from the week of 23rd March, but the infection would've started 2 weeks earlier.

Crikey

I wonder how many infected people gave blood earlier in the year, and which hospitals that blood was used in?