CORONAVIRUS

[SuzanneH]

1 minute ago, Derek Hurford said:

Why has London got more Covid Virus than say Cornwall or Midlands than Scotland.

Statistics and Data may not be available but is that a case that density has no baring. 

I understand that Paris and London will have similar figures as will any similar city, but if the population is spread over a bigger area as is the case of France and Germany contact frequency with others will be less.

I drive through Brittany France and see a fewer cars  with houses spaced out.  Logic would indicate less contact less chances of spreading the virus surely therefore density has some baring on the ability to spread and therefore some impact on the figures, perhaps I am being to simplistic or just simple  I am happy for someone to explain in simple terms why it doesn’t .

Of course it does Derek,common sense tells us all so.

[john.r.davies]

I'm sure PeterC will know of this paper,  Petre Cristian Ilie, Simina Stefanescu, Lee Smith, The role of Vitamin D in the prevention of Coronavirus Disease 2019 infection and mortality, 8/4/2020  https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-21211/v1

It's a 'pre-print', not peer-reviewed, and claims to find a "very significant correlation between the mean vitamin D levels (average 56.79 nmol/L, STDEV 10.61) and the number of cases of COVID–19/1M population"

But the figures included don't, to me, substantiate that:

  

 

The paper, as a pre-print, a draft,  is extremely sketchy, and does not explain the two figures.  I assume that the dotted line is a recession line, the nearest to a straight line graph that the dots .could represent, and in both cases it has a negative slope, so if the vertical axis is infected cases and the horizontal VitD, then it would confirm the hypothesis.   But not if it's the other way.

0-90 could be ng/ml of VitD, but where did the data come from for cases?  The reference given (No.4) does not exist.

 

 

[john.r.davies]

London is an international hub for transport, Exeter isnt.

London has a dense and crowded public transport system that every one uses.      Exeter doesn't.

[Misfit]

That’s my point density has an impact and therefore when the media and others relentlessly refer to Uks figures compared to others countries it’s not a fair comparison. 

 

[SuzanneH]

13 minutes ago, Derek Hurford said:

That’s my point density has an impact and therefore when the media and others relentlessly refer to Uks figures compared to others countries it’s not a fair comparison. 

 

Yep.

[stillp]

+1

Pete

[ntc]

3 hours ago, john.r.davies said:

London is an international hub for transport, Exeter isnt.

London has a dense and crowded public transport system that every one uses.      Exeter doesn't.

At what point do you consider the following.

The amount of people living in one house going in and out at will.

Care homes most of the residents are permanently in lockdown by design so others must bring it in and the poor buggers may have sold there home to pay for it.

Why not just wait to see what lessons will be learned ? far better than using google or press that speculate.  

[RogerH]

Hi Neil,

quite so.

The Care home personnel are/were able to come and go as were visitors in the early stages.

The homes didn;t lock down as quick as perhaps they should have. 

The BBC News (in particular) and Press are using this as an exercise on how to find fault.

On the BBC 6-O-clock news Laurs Keunsberg had to get in at least one snide comment about BJ.  It is not reporting but personal repartee.

 

Had the Chinese come clean at the onset of the problem, and not at least a month later, then things may be different.

 

Roger

[john.r.davies]

Some care home staff, no less heroic than NHS workers, elected to sleep in caravans, rather than go to their homes and risk bringing in the virus, or taking it back home.

But that was their idea or that of their managers.     Care homes got no thought from Gov until the cost began to be noted by those pesky journalists.

[ntc]

19 minutes ago, john.r.davies said:

Some care home staff, no less heroic than NHS workers, elected to sleep in caravans, rather than go to their homes and risk bringing in the virus, or taking it back home.

But that was their idea or that of their managers.     Care homes got no thought from Gov until the cost began to be noted by those pesky journalists.

In the end yes some did but very few and far to late, they all must have known those in there paid for car was most at risk.

[Nigel Triumph]

The delay in this country recognising the problems facing care homes and giving any morsel of support are an absolute disgrace. Our government, never mind which political persuasion, hasn't properly considered the needs of an ageing population for several decades. The current crisis brings that into sharp focus.

Care home workers and managers are among the heroes of these awful times. Hancock' s green care badge branding is a sop, an insult. Proper action on PPE and testing was needed weeks ago, not just for hospitals but for care homes too.

I must declare a vested interest... My 89 year old mother has lived in a care home for the last two years. The staff there are wonderful. Fortunately, they are still free from covid but getting PPE is difficult.

Nigel

[Bleednipple]

2 hours ago, RogerH said:

Had the Chinese come clean at the onset of the problem, and not at least a month later, then things may be different.

I'm not going to defend or condone in any way the CCP's obfuscation of the early stages of the outbreak, but I think it will prove to be a red herring in understanding the chain of events leading to the UK's response actions and the consequent outcomes.

I say that because, whatever the Chinese govt was or wasn't saying through the first part of January, it became blindly obvious to the world that they were dealing with something gruesome on 23 January, the date they imposed the Wuhan lockdown. Throughout February the UK and the rest of the world then watched as the outbreak spread to northern Italy, where it was obvious that it was out of control by about 10 March and that substantial transmission to the UK was virtually inevitable (I recall the dates well, as I was myself travelling at that point). But the UKG was still ensnared in the mitigation/herd immunity doctrine, until eventually the UK lockdown was imposed on 26 March.

Nigel

Edited May 6, 2020 by Bleednipple

[barkerwilliams]

What are members ideas for a strategy to deal with Covid now?

Starting position:

The lockdown has bought valuable time to build infrastructure and hardware needed to cope with large numbers of patients – notice that today’s (Wednesday) briefing that Nightingales not been used yet?

NHS has had exposure to virus and must have a large number of staff who have exposure to virus and now have antibodies thus future waves of patients should not disable the NHS totally. (Flock immunity?)

Necessity to resume economic activity for most sectors soon.

Vaccines availability on too distant a horizon.

Speculative course of action?

Remove lockdown in a phased way to allow infection run its course with a limited number of economically active people at any one time. Limiting numbers released to the capacity of Nightingales to cope in the full knowledge and anticipation of the consequential casualties. Allowing lockdown to continue for at risk groups as political fallout too great at this time, hope for vaccine to resolve situation for these groups in near future?

Any other readings of the tea leaves?

[JohnG]

3 hours ago, RogerH said:

Hi Neil,

quite so.

The Care home personnel are/were able to come and go as were visitors in the early stages.

The homes didn;t lock down as quick as perhaps they should have. 

The BBC News (in particular) and Press are using this as an exercise on how to find fault.

On the BBC 6-O-clock news Laurs Keunsberg had to get in at least one snide comment about BJ.  It is not reporting but personal repartee.

 

Had the Chinese come clean at the onset of the problem, and not at least a month later, then things may be different.

 

Roger

 

2 hours ago, john.r.davies said:

Some care home staff, no less heroic than NHS workers, elected to sleep in caravans, rather than go to their homes and risk bringing in the virus, or taking it back home.

But that was their idea or that of their managers.     Care homes got no thought from Gov until the cost began to be noted by those pesky journalists.

 

We are seeing the best and the worst of people, which usually happens in an emergency

The information dissemination organisations (BBC / ITV et al) are only interested in creating stress, so that they can report on it

'The News' is no longer news, but propaganda 

Meanwhile the front line workers . . . .uniformed or otherwise, medical or otherwise, go about their work.

How about we replace our politicians (Note: for the excitable amongst us, politicians in total, not any particular govt), with front line workers

As this would only add 650 odd people to the unemployment list, there is little to argue against

[foster461]

49 minutes ago, barkerwilliams said:

What are members ideas for a strategy to deal with Covid now?

Starting position:

The lockdown has bought valuable time to build infrastructure and hardware needed to cope with large numbers of patients – notice that today’s (Wednesday) briefing that Nightingales not been used yet?

NHS has had exposure to virus and must have a large number of staff who have exposure to virus and now have antibodies thus future waves of patients should not disable the NHS totally. (Flock immunity?)

Necessity to resume economic activity for most sectors soon.

Vaccines availability on too distant a horizon.

Speculative course of action?

Remove lockdown in a phased way to allow infection run its course with a limited number of economically active people at any one time. Limiting numbers released to the capacity of Nightingales to cope in the full knowledge and anticipation of the consequential casualties. Allowing lockdown to continue for at risk groups as political fallout too great at this time, hope for vaccine to resolve situation for these groups in near future?

Any other readings of the tea leaves?

The lockdown was a blunt instrument and mostly achieved the goal of not overwhelming the healthcare systems, especially the limited resources of ICU's and ventilators. We cannot shut down the global economy for the several years that a vaccine may take, if a vaccine is even an option and that is not certain. Here in the US, states are making the move, likely prematurely in some cases, to open things up with some precautions. I guess the plan is to see how these early phases go and decide if we have to continue, hold or throttle back. It is a novel virus, nobody has any immunity, anyone getting exposed will get infected, a small percentage of those infected will die. A lot of people will die. We know who the vulnerable people are so keep them at home and slowly let the less vulnerable go back to work with precautions knowing that some will get very sick.  Hope that antibodies protect those infected and recover and that we achieve herd immunity. Basically Sweden only slower.

Edited May 6, 2020 by foster461

[foster461]

Vaccine and theraputics tracker https://biorender.com/covid-vaccine-tracker

[Misfit]

The Government has the ability to procure PPE and therefore has a responsibility to its citizens, to acquiring it and distributing to where needed. However care home are a business and they have the responsibility too for those they care for and paid to. It not just the responsibility of governments.

Like Nigel I have had members of my family staying in residential and care homes, standards vary. In my Grandfathers and wife case it was like a hotel, they were there for years, even when taken ill my grandfather was nursed back to health while in his room. In my mother’s case it was just weeks and we removed her, mum had Alzheimer’s, my father had been advised that would be the best place for her. Within days she started deteriorating, reduced to sitting in a chair in a communal area looking lost with little reaction. She returned home and while she lived in the past was soon walking, talking and smiling again.

The Guests in residential and care homes mainly spend their time inside, the staff on the other hand do not.  The Government can’t  be at every home they issue  guidelines the homes interpret them and put them in practice and should then rigorously follow them. . We need to stop just blaming governments. Pigeon holes, hero’s and villains so often portrayed is to readily banded about perhaps. Sometimes by those with an agenda?

[RogerH]

A great deal has been said about PPE.

PPE comes in many many varieties. Single use, multiple use etc etc.

The NHS gets through 100,000's  disposable items each day.

The Procuring and storing logistics is not a small concern.

This is echo in the private care home arena but on a smaller scale.

The PPE would be ordered on a 'Just In Time' process to keep storage to a minimum

 

In the event of a Pandemic the whole world is grabbing the output of those few suppliers. The consequence is the price goes up and there are shortages.

Perhaps what we need in the UK is a central 'store' for ALL of the UK needs (NHS & Private).

The store would hold nominally a 3 month supply of everything needed

Everybody obtains their PPE from this one store (split all over the UK). The contents of the store are used in order of their use by date .

 

The advantage is that you get items at the lowest price and you have a workable buffer for everybody.  Simple really

I have space in my shed at very good rates.

 

Roger

[JohnG]

39 minutes ago, RogerH said:

A great deal has been said about PPE.

PPE comes in many many varieties. Single use, multiple use etc etc.

The NHS gets through 100,000's  disposable items each day.

The Procuring and storing logistics is not a small concern.

This is echo in the private care home arena but on a smaller scale.

The PPE would be ordered on a 'Just In Time' process to keep storage to a minimum

 

In the event of a Pandemic the whole world is grabbing the output of those few suppliers. The consequence is the price goes up and there are shortages.

Perhaps what we need in the UK is a central 'store' for ALL of the UK needs (NHS & Private).

The store would hold nominally a 3 month supply of everything needed

Everybody obtains their PPE from this one store (split all over the UK). The contents of the store are used in order of their use by date .

 

The advantage is that you get items at the lowest price and you have a workable buffer for everybody.  Simple really

I have space in my shed at very good rates.

 

Roger

 

Some wise thoughts Roger, just one additional thought;

3 months supply . . . .92 days

How much is needed each day?

4 months ago, say . . .2 sets per day per person

Today . . . .5, 6, 7 sets per person per day

4 months ago, there were X doctor and nurses working in th sector

Today . . . . 100,000 more? All recently retired

A normal 3 months stock of PPE would probably last 2 to 3 weeks, we would still be in the same boat.

Your comments about demand are the real problem, everyone, worldwide, wants everything, now.

[john.r.davies]

11 hours ago, barkerwilliams said:

What are members ideas for a strategy to deal with Covid now?

Starting position:

The lockdown has bought valuable time to build infrastructure and hardware needed to cope with large numbers of patients – notice that today’s (Wednesday) briefing that Nightingales not been used yet?

NHS has had exposure to virus and must have a large number of staff who have exposure to virus and now have antibodies thus future waves of patients should not disable the NHS totally. (Flock immunity?)

 

Thanks, barkerwilliams, thanks a bunch.      As a time-expired NHS worker, retired from the frontline, but with a whole family of my children there, your brutal prescription is most unwelcome.  Over 100 of their colleagues are DEAD from Covid, in pursuit of your objective (and it apears the Government's) of Herd Immunity, a misused concept from the study of vaccination, not purposeful exposure.

Anyway, we have no idea, none at all about immunity after exposure, how long it takes, how long it lasts or if it occurs at all in everybody.      And we have no useful antibody tests of immunity, so if it does we can't tell!

John

[john.r.davies]

1 hour ago, RogerH said:

A great deal has been said about PPE.

PPE comes in many many varieties. Single use, multiple use etc etc.

The NHS gets through 100,000's  disposable items each day.

The Procuring and storing logistics is not a small concern.

This is echo in the private care home arena but on a smaller scale.

The PPE would be ordered on a 'Just In Time' process to keep storage to a minimum

 

In the event of a Pandemic the whole world is grabbing the output of those few suppliers. The consequence is the price goes up and there are shortages.

Perhaps what we need in the UK is a central 'store' for ALL of the UK needs (NHS & Private).

The store would hold nominally a 3 month supply of everything needed

Everybody obtains their PPE from this one store (split all over the UK). The contents of the store are used in order of their use by date .

 

The advantage is that you get items at the lowest price and you have a workable buffer for everybody.  Simple really

I have space in my shed at very good rates.

 

Roger

Gosh, Roger, I thought of you as well informed.  Maybe not about how the health service is run.

Yes, PPE, and all supplies, are kept in local stores in quantities that will meet the expected demand.      Those supplies are provided in general by the specialist arm of the NHS "NHS Supply", set up as any massive organisation will do to gain the advantages of bulk purchase.

And yes, we should have a "central store", a strategic reserve of essential items, like PPE,  and we do!  Or we did, until the Tories ran it down over the last ten years, letting amounts be reduced as items went out of date and were not replaced.      This was not just neglect.    Operation Cygnus in 2017 was a national exercise that examined how the nation would respond to a pandemic.   It supposed a flu pandemic but same difference, and involved NHS Trusts, Hospital and Community, local and national government.    It revealed gaping holes in organisation and in particular in the strategic reserves of equipment.      But nothing - NOTHING! - was done.    The Tory Gov was totally fixated on Brexit, no action was taken and the report on Cygnus was suppressed.  It has never been published.

Now this Gov is trumpeting its 'acheivements' in catching up.    Buying ventilators from China that don't work, buying surgical gowns from Turkey that the RAF went and collected, the urgency was so great, that are so inferior that they have never been issued, and are still in the strategic store.     By counting sets of test kits sent out by mail, without instructions, in the toatl of "tests done per day" so that Hancock could say that he had achieved the 100,000 tests he ahd so precipitately promised.  Yes, they are doing their best - at catching up when they were warned and did nothing before they absolutely had to.

[john.r.davies]

12 hours ago, wjgco said:

 

 

We are seeing the best and the worst of people, which usually happens in an emergency

The information dissemination organisations (BBC / ITV et al) are only interested in creating stress, so that they can report on it

'The News' is no longer news, but propaganda 

Meanwhile the front line workers . . . .uniformed or otherwise, medical or otherwise, go about their work.

How about we replace our politicians (Note: for the excitable amongst us, politicians in total, not any particular govt), with front line workers

As this would only add 650 odd people to the unemployment list, there is little to argue against

Propaganda?   from the BBC?    Have you ever seen a Russia Today broadcast?    Or the "news" given in North Korean style?

I'm not falling into the Godwin's law trap, but accusations of bias in the Media and a desire to remove the derided politicians has been the mark of  extreme, revolutionary politics since before the Russian Revolution.

Edited May 7, 2020 by john.r.davies

[Rod1883]

I don't think anyone is suggesting the BBC are anything like the examples given John, but you have to admit - they prefer the sound of their own voice to any answer that a Politician, Scientist, or anyone is trying to give, and they constantly seek to inflame with speculation, rather than just report the news.

[john.r.davies]

Rod, did you read John's post?  Quote, "The information dissemination organisations (BBC / ITV et al) are only interested in creating stress, so that they can report on it.  'The News' is no longer news, but propaganda."

"Propaganda" is information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view.   Not just a point of view different to yours, and not asking awkward and searching questions.

[Ian Vincent]

2 hours ago, john.r.davies said:

Thanks, barkerwilliams, thanks a bunch.      As a time-expired NHS worker, retired from the frontline, but with a whole family of my children there, your brutal prescription is most unwelcome.  Over 100 of their colleagues are DEAD from Covid, in pursuit of your objective (and it apears the Government's) of Herd Immunity, a misused concept from the study of vaccination, not purposeful exposure.

Anyway, we have no idea, none at all about immunity after exposure, how long it takes, how long it lasts or if it occurs at all in everybody.      And we have no useful antibody tests of immunity, so if it does we can't tell!

John

John,

I think we have to accept that the Government is pursuing a Herd Immunity agenda but is doing it on the quiet after the furore that it originally aroused, (and trying not to overwhelm the NHS at the same time).  The problem is that there would appear to be little real alternative.  Any vaccine is still a long way off and it would seem to be so embedded in the population that lockdown is only having a limited effect.  We are still getting nearly 700 deaths a day even though we are nearly 50 days into lockdown and the number of deaths is not dropping significantly.  One would have thought that if lockdown was really effective, anyone who was infected at the start would have either died or got better by now - that doesn't appear to be the case.

Rgds Ian

PS I have a daughter in law who is currently working in an ICU unit so have some skin in the game.