Big jump again today to 562 deaths

If I catch the train from The Shire towards Mordor, isn't Lagavulin the next stop on from Rivendell?

 

Like taking a number and x by a another number forever and saying by Easter everyone’s dead?

 

There are two assumptions on that.

1). Antibodies confer immunity
2). Immunity is permanent, not temporary

The answer to both is currently unknown. And you know what they say about people who assume - they make an ass of u and me.

Always try to avoid working on assumptions.

 

For my own curiosity and I'm not going to try and change your opinion or views, could you clarify something for me please?

Based on your posts, I'm getting the impression that you don't believe that covid-19 presents a particularly significant threat to the welfare of the UK population and that the global response has been an over-reaction. Am I interpreting your posts correctly? And do you think we should have carried on doing normal activities instead?

 

Of course nothing is certain but experts believe immunity is highly likely especially in the short term and in cases of re infection it's likely to be a lot milder. Now of course this will not be the for 100% of people.
The only way to find out will be to see what happens when restrictions are lifted. But we need the antibody tret widespread so that data can be collected.
So once again that is still the most important test going forward.

 

Yes in the long run things will definitely be OK, in the sense that this crisis will end. People aren't still dying in massive numbers due to the Spanish Flu and even the Black Death only lasted a couple of years, but it's how you get there; losing about 50% of the population in the latter example.

The experts say that for every other coronavirus you tend to get immunity for at least one 'season,' so assuming a vaccine is ready next year that might well be enough if we can get an idea of who has had it. Similarly, the virus can mutate but this usually tends to a virus becoming less, not more, dangerous. This virus would have to be very unusual for these things not to be the case.

It's also important to point out that, at the moment, Italy are still seeing consistent numbers of deaths per day, but the fact they are consistent and not climbing hopefully shows the exponential growth part of the curve is nearing its end. There is at least a 2 week lag between infections and deaths so while we are still seeing deaths of people who were infected before strict social distancing measures were introduced, Italy are now seeing that plateau because, hopefully, each person who catches the virus is now infecting <1 other person on average, rather than the 2.5 under normal circumstances.

 

The Spanish flu was endemic from 1918 until the 1970s, but had mutated into a less nasty form. It is now part of the annual flu vaccination, but was a variant of the same H1N1 strain that formed the Swine Flu pandemic in 2009.
The Black Death peaked in Europe over 6 years (1348-1353) killing between 75m and 200m people, but was still recurring until the 19th century. It then mutated and became the cause of the third plague pandemic killing 10 million people up to the 1960s and still kills around 600 people per year worldwide.

There is no vaccine for SARS (although it could be argued there was no need for one), or the common cold, which can be caused by coronavirii. Although some coronavirii (IIRC in cats) do have vaccines.

 

I'm sure all that is correct and adds welcome detail but I don't think it contradicts what I wrote. In terms of a 'crisis' as most people would understand it the timeframe is unlikely to be more than a couple of years, so the Black Death did indeed peak over several years across Europe but in Britain mainly 1347-9, as I'm sure you know.

Again, with the vaccines, all we can go off is the experts and they think a vaccine is possible; they are beginning trials as we speak. There was an interesting point on BBC news this week around vaccines for other coronaviruses; they are possible to create but there is little incentive for companies to make one for the common cold because you would have to take it each year and it would have to counteract several viruses that cause colds, but the illness itself is so minor for most people as to make the cost prohibitive. This is not the case for Sars Cov 2 as it's one virus causing serious problems, so well worth the investment.

 

I believe that all measures to manage the spread should be deployed up until the damage of those measures outway allowing people to go about their business. An economic recession of 6% fall in GDP will remove 15 months on average from the life of everyone in the country. Let me ask you something, how long should the lock down last? Until there is a cure? Without a cure the majority of us are going to catch it eventually.

 

Why does a recession remove 15 months from the life of everyone in the country? Is that every recession, or just the last one? Is that every country, or just the UK?

Is it the recession that causes it, or is it the government handling of the recession that causes it?

If the government can take action to help people through a pandemic (although there are problems with the methods taken), then they can help people through the recession, but choose whether or not to (like austerity was a political, not economic choice, that lead to over 100,000 deaths in the last decade).

 

The fact that this is a global pandemic affecting every country on the planet means that Economies will bounce back far quicker than the recession of 2008.

In my humble opinion of course.

 

Woteva happens after covid19, the leaders of the World ought to get their heads together and prepare for the next Pandemic.

 

I want to like this more than once. A global problem* requires a global solution (that isn't letting millions die in the poorer countries). When certain triggers are hit, all stock market and currency trading is suspended, all non-essential workers are furloughed, and international travel has mandatory quarantine. All non-essential travel is paused for a few weeks. It would cost a lot less in lives than the country-by-country approach.

*Pandemic, alien invasion, large rocks from space, climate change.

 

I think we should stay in lock down long enough for the hospitals to be able to cope with the second wave of infections which are likely after this lockdown is lifted. I don't have the data or skill set to work out when that is. I'd hope that there are people who can make that prediction and advise accordingly.

Based on my (limited) understanding of hospital capacity if we didn't try to reduce the numbers of people being admitted to hospital within a short space of time then the proportion of the seriously ill who could be effectively treated would go down and the mortality rate would go up, leading to more deaths overall. I'd rather take my chances with an economic hit, hoping that as globally we'd all be in the **** then recovery would be faster, as it's in everybody's interest to make this happen. Major caveat is I'm a scientist not an economist.

 

I wouldn't bat an eye lid if an alien spacecraft landed on Locke Park next summer after what's happened so far. I'd probably give directions to the town hall.

 

Valid point.

 

Just hope it wasn't one landing in Wuhan around November last year...

 

I agree entirely.

 

All his posts are ideologically led so one needs to bear this in mind. If everyone of our 67 million citizens contracted the virus then statistically (at current %rates) there would be around 1.2 million deaths.