Just heard 2 have died in the Barnsley District from coronavirus

Your first paragraph is very true. I have had in my younger days what I THOUGHT. Was flu. Anyone who has had the full blown version will know what i mean. I was hospitalised just after Xmas till after new year. 2019/20. On an oxygen mask feeling pretty *****. Putting it mildly. Thankfully I received total care from our NHS (BDGH) It was diagnosed as Influenza type A. I looked it up and there are literally dozens of subtypes. Bird flu. Swine flu. Spanish flu.
I genuinely don’t know which subtype I had. There’s also Type B and Type C.
Must thank the missus for phoning 911. I didn’t want to bother the NHS as I thought I would sleep it off. Temperature through the roof. Struggling to breathe.
The Coronavirus is NOT FLU. Much more scary.

 

I genuinely believe those who are throwing figures like 1% of the entire UK population dying from Covid which would mean over 600,000 fatalities is wildly inaccurate and alarmist. That is not being complacent on my part but I really dont see where that figure is coming from especially if you see my post re the latest data from our region. For me, the worst case scenario would be about 1 in 10 of the population hospitalised and 3%. (around 180000) of those die. I hope to God I am wrong and the actual figures when it is all over is a fraction of that.

 

I reckon 50k of them could end up being in the USA, given Trump's hugely ineffectual leadership.

The big hit on numbers could be when it takes a hold in Africa and other third world states, where medical facilities are woefully inadequate and the idea of socially isolating people is fanciful. It could be apocalyptic.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...nty-survival-ventilators-London-hospital.html

Boris needs that money mentioned on the side of the Brexit bus so everyone regardless of age or health will have the best chance possible of survival.

 

That’s what would happen if there wasn’t any social distancing measure put in place.

I’m going to say this again, my neighbour is in charge of the COVID department at Doncaster Royal Infirmary. This is definitely not like the common kind of influenza, it is far more contagious and dangerous. Both times I’ve spoken to her she is in tears with what she is seeing and Doncaster hasn’t even been hit hard yet.

The spread of this virus is far more aggressive than any flu. In the UK the recorded numbers of infected are significantly lower than the reality a) because of a lack of testing and b) because of the isolation method of handling it.

We’ve probably got closer to a 250k people either with it or had it, and we don’t know what the potential death toll is going to be yet.

 

I have heard that BDGH has normally 7 ICU beds. They currently have 50 in preparation. These are not full yet, but that is expected to change in the next week or so.

The UK currently has under 200,000 hospital beds. Any situation that sees 10% of the population (10% with a 30% infection rate = ~2m) needing hospital treatment would be catastrophic. Especially after the lack of funding of social care leaving vulnerable older people with nowhere to go (bed blocking).

AIDS was the last epidemic to hit the UK in the 20th Century - although the transmission vector made it nowhere near as infectious as flu (despite the media panic of the 80s). Interestingly, the 1977 Russian Flu was a variant of H1N1, also responsible for Swine Flu (2009) and Spanish flu (1918).