Coronavirus

[Rick Sanchez C-137]

Someone who believes in healing crystals and star signs lecturing "otherwise intelligent people" who are falling for this "PLANdemic"

 

Un-fucking-believable

[Sugar Ape]

Any twitter thread on Covid - whether it’s something good like vaccine news or something bad like rising cases - is just fucking mental. I don’t even know what half of them are on about. 

Loads have got #KBF in their names whatever that means and they say shit about ‘Agenda 21’ and the ‘77 Brigade’ as well as stuff like Casedemic and Plandemic and moaning about being muzzled. Genuinely got no idea what they’re going on about most of the time. 
 

You’ve got to think what effect this is going to have on uptake of vaccines we already give our kids in the future when dickheads like Ian Brown are saying anti vax stuff. 

[Barrington Womble]

From today's guardian/observer. Nothing new or tremendously interesting. 

Why is it that while Covid-19 cases are rising, deaths continue to fall?

There is speculation that the age of those infected is playing a part, while social distancing is also having an impact

• Coronavirus – latest updates
• See all our coronavirus coverage

 

James Tapper

Published:09:20 Sun 6 September 2020

 Follow James Tapper

 

The government’s Covid-19 dashboard shows cases have risen steadily from their lowest point on 1 July when the rolling seven-day average was down to 574. By 30 August it had more than doubled, to 1,402 a day. Yet the death rate has declined steadily over the same period: from a rolling average of 37.4 per day to 4.6 per day. No one is sure why. But here are some explanations researchers are examining:

Are new patients less likely to die because they are younger?

More than two-thirds of new cases in the last week of August were people under 40, according to Public Health England, a figure which is likely to be linked to looser rules on socialising. At the peak of the pandemic, only 28% of cases were younger than 40.

The risk of dying from Covid-19 doubles at roughly every six years of age, according to professor David Spiegelhalter, so the 2,042 people in their 20s who caught Covid-19 in the last week of August were unlikely to need treatment.

Are vulnerable people still shielding?

Far fewer people over 70 tested positive for Covid-19, according to the PHE data – 374 in the last week of August, compared with 10,770 in the first week of April.

People in this age group are likely to remain at risk of becoming seriously ill if they become infected.

However, most of them are taking care not to, or are being protected, according to Dr Veena Raleigh, a senior fellow at the King’s Fund, an independent charitable healthcare body.

Do hospitals have better treatments?

Researchers at Oxford have published analysis showing that people with the virus in June were four times less likely to die in hospital than in April.

There are several factors playing a part: doctors switched from ventilators, which pump oxygen directly into the lungs with a tube, to using non-invasive devices such as CPAP. Infection control improved as hospitals created Covid-19 wards, and hospitals are quieter, reducing pressure on clinicians. The steroids dexamethasone and hydrocortisone both also improve chances of recovery by calming the body’s immune response.

Does more testing mean more mild cases are discovered?

In March and April, testing was limited almost entirely to hospital patients and staff. The lacuna of community transmission has slowly been filled by an increase in “Pillar Two” drive-through and walk-in testing sites, and nearly 90% of new cases are identified this way, PHE figures show.

Prof Carl Heneghan at Oxford’s Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine also says tests may be too sensitive and detect small amounts of virus in those who recovered weeks before.

Do social distancing measures mean viral loads are lower?

There may be a link between social distancing and viral load – the amount of virus present in a body. Some research shows that wearing masks and keeping away from other people reduces the amount of virus they are exposed to. And a Lancet study found that the amount of virus present when a patient was tested did predict how likely patients were to die.

Has vitamin D from sunshine helped?

Some researchers have suggested a link between vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 death rates, and people have advocated the vitamin as a treatment for respiratory diseases for nearly a century. A study by the University of Chicago last week showed people with vitamin D deficiency were almost twice as likely to test positive for the virus as those with healthy levels. However, transmission rates soared during summer in the US, so any broader health impact seems limited.

Are there fewer vulnerable people left?

So far at least 21,775 of those who died in the UK were care home residents. Yet the total care home population alone is 330,000 and another 350,000 receive care at home. So there are still large numbers at a higher risk of serious illness.

Are we starting to see herd immunity?

Antibody testing studies have estimated that about 13% to 17% of Londoners have had the virus, a much higher figure than seen elsewhere in the UK, but much lower than the 70% that is assumed as the lowest level to be needed to achieve herd immunity. Immunity for other respiratory coronaviruses such as the common cold can last for months but then fades, so there is no guarantee that those who have been infected can brush off Covid-19 for ever. Herd immunity ought to lead to fewer people becoming infected, rather than less serious effects of infection.

Is Covid-19 getting weaker?

Geneticists have discovered that there is some evidence Covid-19 is evolving, but so far there does not seem to be any solid evidence that it is becoming less dangerous – or, thankfully, more deadly either.

[Sugar Ape]

14 hours ago, Captain Turdseye said:

Kids went back last week. The boy started 6th form on Thursday, middle child on Friday, same school. 
 

It’s closed again already after five staff members tested positive. No school tomorrow while they establish which students need to isolate for 14 days. We’ll be kept up to date as and when things happen apparently.  
 

FUCK OFF. 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/07/teachers-at-suffolk-school-test-positive-for-coronavirus?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

[johnsusername]

A kid in my eldest's school has a confirmed case. This is in the secondary (my girl's in the primary). The bubble has been told to self isolate. They only went back middle of last week. 

[Guest]

Schools are safe, they said. Get them all back in September, they said.

 

[Mudface]

11 minutes ago, Sugar Ape said:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/07/teachers-at-suffolk-school-test-positive-for-coronavirus?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

That's what really pissed me off about schools re-opening- 'kids don't really spread it, and even if they do, they only get mild cases'. Completely ignoring the poor cunts who have to teach them.

[Barrington Womble]

12 minutes ago, johnsusername said:

A kid in my eldest's school has a confirmed case. This is in the secondary (my girl's in the primary). The bubble has been told to self isolate. They only went back middle of last week. 

So these kids that have the bubble sent home what about their siblings? Do they just keep going to school, potentially catch it and taking it in? 

[Sugar Ape]

That article says five staff have tested positive and another two are awaiting results yet the school is reopening tomorrow. How can they reopen with seven staff missing?

 

And that public heath prick from Suffolk council doesn’t seem at all arsed that teachers have got infected, just wants to push the notion that kids catch it at home but are magically immune to catching it in school. 

[Guest]

The great thing about the lockdown was that they could co-ordinate a plan to find out where are the most significant spreads.

 

Pubs open? A few cases but where social distancing measures are in place, not many.

 

Restaurants open? Ditto.

 

Shops open? Same.

 

Schools open? Cases jump.

 

So much for staggering school times. All schools seem to be opening at the same time and closing at the same time in my area. Hardly any masks. It was obvious it was going to happen. It's obvious now what has to happen. It's also obvious that it can't happen under the current farcical government which pays no attention to local councils.

[skend04]

I might be being a bit dense here so please let me know, but where did governments get the data from for kids not spreading the virus in schools when they weren't in schools in any large numbers since the lockdown started?

 

I must be missing something for declarations like this to have been made.

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, skend04 said:

I might be being a bit dense here so please let me know, but where did governments get the data from for kids not spreading the virus in schools when they weren't in schools in any large numbers since the lockdown started?

 

I must be missing something for declarations like this to have been made.

They were 'following the science', they said.

 

In other words, they made it up.

[Captain Turdseye]

45 minutes ago, Sugar Ape said:

That article says five staff have tested positive and another two are awaiting results yet the school is reopening tomorrow. How can they reopen with seven staff missing?

 

And that public heath prick from Suffolk council doesn’t seem at all arsed that teachers have got infected, just wants to push the notion that kids catch it at home but are magically immune to catching it in school. 

It’s a pretty big school. I think they could cope with a handful of teachers missing. As far as I know one of the teachers tested positive before the phased return of the kids started on Thursday and four have subsequently had positive results since then. 
 

Even the advice given to parents of kids that have been in contact with said teachers is bullshit. They’ve said that the child should stay home for a fortnight but all other members of that household should go about their daily lives as normal, including siblings who also go to that school. 

[Moo]

50 minutes ago, skend04 said:

I might be being a bit dense here so please let me know, but where did governments get the data from for kids not spreading the virus in schools when they weren't in schools in any large numbers since the lockdown started?

 

I must be missing something for declarations like this to have been made.

I think the advice changed a couple of weeks ago to "kids should go back to school because there is only the teeniest of tiny chances that a school age child will die from Covid".  Literally it went from kids won't spread it to kids won't die from it.  They left out the second part of that assertion "kids will spread it to people who will die from it".

[Karl_b]

My wife went back to school last week, having had to self-isolate with me from March. I have a cold (hopefully) already, no doubt from those poxy, germ-ridden small humans. 

[Jenson]

My boss lives on the Wirral and her husband, who is in his 80s, is currently ill with symptoms of covid. She phoned 119 to book a test and was told the nearest drive in centre available was in Nelson, Lancs, a good 65 miles away!

This Government is farcical.

[Section_31]

23 minutes ago, Jenson said:

My boss lives on the Wirral and her husband, who is in his 80s, is currently ill with symptoms of covid. She phoned 119 to book a test and was told the nearest drive in centre available was in Nelson, Lancs, a good 65 miles away!

This Government is farcical.

Mad, don't they post them out too?

 

There was a bizarre pop up testing station in Morrisons car park by ours the other week, it was there for the weekend and then disappeared. 

[Sugar Ape]

5 minutes ago, Section_31 said:

Mad, don't they post them out too?

 

There was a bizarre pop up testing station in Morrisons car park by ours the other week, it was there for the weekend and then disappeared. 

I seen this on Twitter this morning. Weird because they supposedly have a shit ton of unused testing capacity every day yet they ran out of tests in the North East and now this. 
 

Seen someone referred to a testing station in Birmingham the other day from Dorset as well. 
 

 

[Sugar Ape]

Got a text as I was sending that post from my sister. She’s just phoned up as she needs a test and they said her nearest one is Llandudno. She’s in Gateacre. 

[Section_31]

Shady as fuck that - surely that's one way of reducing cases?? 

[Sugar Ape]

2 minutes ago, Section_31 said:

Shady as fuck that - surely that's one way of reducing cases?? 

Trump tactic isn’t it - if you don’t test people you don’t find cases. 

[Section_31]

2 minutes ago, Sugar Ape said:

Trump tactic isn’t it - if you don’t test people you don’t find cases. 

 

To coincide with the 'everyone go back to work in town centres' message. 

[Sugar Ape]

I actually can’t believe he had the balls to say this today after the rise in cases yesterday. Though he does at least acknowledge it’s up to your employer if they want you back and not Boris Johnson. 
 

 

[Strontium]

1 hour ago, Jenson said:

My boss lives on the Wirral and her husband, who is in his 80s, is currently ill with symptoms of covid. She phoned 119 to book a test and was told the nearest drive in centre available was in Nelson, Lancs, a good 65 miles away!

This Government is farcical.

 

We drove past one on Saturday behind the museum, where the flyover used to be.

[Section_31]

7 minutes ago, Stront19m Dog™ said:

 

We drove past one on Saturday behind the museum, where the flyover used to be.

They shift periodically, like the castle in Krull.