Coronavirus Impact

[Lightning]

Village idiots.

The note at Bex's house left her shocked

Nurse Bex Williams says she was already finding life difficult and is upset by the note.

www.huntspost.co.uk

 

[Velma's Dad]

Village idiots.

The note at Bex's house left her shocked

Nurse Bex Williams says she was already finding life difficult and is upset by the note.

www.huntspost.co.uk

Maybe we should make allowances for the fact that some people are worried and tending to over-react. But really, cretins.

 

[SimonC]

Perhaps some light entertainment needed to show absurdity of current situation. I have taken a leaf out of the BBC programming and will give a 'thought(s) for the day' courtesy of Radio 4 news

'An MPand Policemen were arrested in a bar in Kenya breaking the lockdown where they have had 9 Covid deaths'
Population Kenya 53 million, daily murder rate 9! no wonder they went down the pub.Hardly world news!!!!!

As Trump says about America getting back to work, Italy and Austria opening some shops WHO are to 'recommend we wear face masks in public'
They must think their pandemic isn't been taken seriously enough.
Size of Corona 0.000,000,030m (thirty nanometers) If you want to filter out viruses even High Efficiency Particulate Filters struggle (HEPA)
Try putting one of those on your face!!
As you breathe around the paper masks not through them as there is no face seal you now need to put it in a respirator. Oh, and as Corona like many viruses access through the surface of eye and down tear duct a pair of googles also!!
I guess WHO used the same researchers as they did for Tamiflu

Regarding masks, is it really that simple to dismiss their potential for transmission-risk reduction when worn by an infected person?

Presumably the airflow’s momentum is considerably reduced by a mask, whether the flow is through, or around the sides of, the mask. That would presumably reduce some nominal hazard radius around an infected person.

Do the virus particles exist independently in the exhaled airstream or are they predominantly contained in aerosol droplets? If so then quantifying the potential risk reduction requires quantifying the proportion of droplets captured or ameliorated by the mask rather than a simple comparison of pore size and virus diameter.

 

[Lightning]

The government are starting to amend their travel guidance to take account of individual circumstances.

UK coronavirus rules relaxed for people with autism and learning disabilities

Policy updated after lawyers challenge ‘discriminatory’ lockdown measures

www.theguardian.com

 

[T6 CFO]

Village idiots.

The note at Bex's house left her shocked

Nurse Bex Williams says she was already finding life difficult and is upset by the note.

www.huntspost.co.uk

Sadly there will never be a shortage of idiots. Outnumbered by the sensible.


Mike

 

[willwander]

Fear thy neighbour

For me, one of the scariest things about the virus has been the willingness and zeal with which many have taken to denouncing their fellow citizens.

God help us if we ever lived in a Police state.

 

[Amarillo]

Fear thy neighbour

For me, one of the scariest things about the virus has been the willingness and zeal with which many have taken to denouncing their fellow citizens.

God help us if we ever lived in a Police state.

It doesn’t help with some individual police forces acting as if they are a county border control force. From what I have read, Devon and Cornwall are the very worst with Dorset Police a close second. But perhaps the press is giving a slanted view of things.

'We're closed': Police escort drivers out of Dorset and issue fines as they enforce lockdown rules

Police have escorted visiting drivers out of Dorset and have been issuing fines as they clamp down on non-essential journeys amid the coronavirus…

www.dorsetecho.co.uk

 

[Jay gas]

Fear thy neighbour

For me, one of the scariest things about the virus has been the willingness and zeal with which many have taken to denouncing their fellow citizens.

God help us if we ever lived in a Police state.

Fear thy neighbour was exactly how I felt when I found out he went to court 2 years ago and became a convicted peadophile

 

[T6 CFO]

It doesn’t help with some individual police forces acting as if they are a county border control force. From what I have read, Devon and Cornwall are the very worst with Dorset Police a close second. But perhaps the press is giving a slanted view of things.

'We're closed': Police escort drivers out of Dorset and issue fines as they enforce lockdown rules

Police have escorted visiting drivers out of Dorset and have been issuing fines as they clamp down on non-essential journeys amid the coronavirus…

www.dorsetecho.co.uk

It is.


Mike

 

[docbob1]

Regarding masks, is it really that simple to dismiss their potential for transmission-risk reduction when worn by an infected person?

Presumably the airflow’s momentum is considerably reduced by a mask, whether the flow is through, or around the sides of, the mask. That would presumably reduce some nominal hazard radius around an infected person.

Do the virus particles exist independently in the exhaled airstream or are they predominantly contained in aerosol droplets? If so then quantifying the potential risk reduction requires quantifying the proportion of droplets captured or ameliorated by the mask rather than a simple comparison of pore size and virus diameter.

Viruses may 'accumulate' in small groups or be attached to water droplets. The 'best case' scenario for filtration takes this into account (worst case at 30 nanometer diameter, no filtration is possible, remember an electron microscope is needed to see this virus). IF I was working in a 'viral Laboratory' such as a biological weapons one, where they replicate ebola/anthrax etc I would want an external filtration unit and pump because they are too cumbersome to wear on the head and provide a low humidity supply to the hood/respirator and an effective HEPA level of protection but not infallable (in truth the military have higher levels than this) There is NO EVIDENCE that wearing a mask decreases likelihood of aquiring infection. There is LIMITED evidence that infected, hospitalised individuals, can protect healthcare workers from their secretions by wearing them. If you want references of various papers substantiating this statement I can provide them.

 

[docbob1]

Fear thy neighbour

For me, one of the scariest things about the virus has been the willingness and zeal with which many have taken to denouncing their fellow citizens.

God help us if we ever lived in a Police state.

I suspect it has already started

 

[Lightning]

Sadly there will never be a shortage of idiots. Outnumbered by the sensible.


Mike

'Shamed' despite sticking to social distancing rules https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-52230081

 

[Moakesy]

Interesting charts in The Times today, comparing the Covid outbreak to flu outbreaks...

 

[HB19]

ONS graph released yesterday adds to this.

 

[docbob1]

I am quite concerned about the above graphs for the simple reason following, which I downloaded from ONS some months ago.
I quote "Deaths peaked on 1 January last winter when daily deaths were 35% higher than the five-year average. The first part of 2015 (5 to 11 January) also saw weekly deaths at 15,000, the highest number in any given week since the last two weeks of December 1999 and first two weeks of January 2000, when flu levels were very high"

The graph does not show a peak on Jan 1st. Also the Influenza epi/pandemic had been running since Nov 2014
Why show a graph excluding the preceeding months? Surely if comparing pandemics you would adjust time scale to allow for this depending on when the episode started and particularly as the flu was now in natural decline.

The other graph compares flu 2020 with Covid but there is no flu epi or pandemic this year. It also shows a FLU averaged over 5 years, why do that, we should be comparing one pandemic figure to another!

I have seen some blogs in the last month that the OCS was if for a rough ride if it did not show what was required to maintain the status quo.
Lies, damned lies and statistics Disrali said.
I reserve judgement on this until the pandemic is in decline and see what the total deaths are and the death certification breakdown. There is a HUGE difference between dying of Covid as the sole cause and it being a contributing factor in someone with significant medical condition(s) For instance if I die of a heart attack from extensive vascular disease, get tested for Covid, found I had it ,was that death due to it? We don't test people for Flu! if we did how would the figures stack up?

 

[SimonC]

Viruses may 'accumulate' in small groups or be attached to water droplets. The 'best case' scenario for filtration takes this into account (worst case at 30 nanometer diameter, no filtration is possible, remember an electron microscope is needed to see this virus). IF I was working in a 'viral Laboratory' such as a biological weapons one, where they replicate ebola/anthrax etc I would want an external filtration unit and pump because they are too cumbersome to wear on the head and provide a low humidity supply to the hood/respirator and an effective HEPA level of protection but not infallable (in truth the military have higher levels than this) There is NO EVIDENCE that wearing a mask decreases likelihood of aquiring infection. There is LIMITED evidence that infected, hospitalised individuals, can protect healthcare workers from their secretions by wearing them. If you want references of various papers substantiating this statement I can provide them.

I think you’ve rather missed my point. I suggested two mechanisms whereby a facemask, if worn by an infected person, might reduce (but not negate) the risk to those around that person. So if infected, or potentially infected people, were in the habit of wearing masks it is arguable that transmission rates in society could decrease.

Details of PPE that might be worn by someone in a biological weapons laboratory are not really relevant. Firstly because they are to protect the wearer and secondly because they are intended for significantly greater risk reduction than is relevant here.

Your penultimate sentence starts to address the issue but I think that results in the close and confined environment of a hospital cannot necessarily be generalised to wider society.

 

[T6 CFO]

'Shamed' despite sticking to social distancing rules https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-52230081

Like I said there will never be a shortage of idiots. You will be able to find articles like this every day.




Mike

 

[docbob1]

I think you’ve rather missed my point. I suggested two mechanisms whereby a facemask, if worn by an infected person, might reduce (but not negate) the risk to those around that person. So if infected, or potentially infected people, were in the habit of wearing masks it is arguable that transmission rates in society could decrease.

Details of PPE that might be worn by someone in a biological weapons laboratory are not really relevant. Firstly because they are to protect the wearer and secondly because they are intended for significantly greater risk reduction than is relevant here.

Your penultimate sentence starts to address the issue but I think that results in the close and confined environment of a hospital cannot necessarily be generalised to wider society.

Probably the most simplistic answer to your query is that of Dr Van Tam, Deputy Chief Medical officer and virologist/epidemiologist
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-52153145
The virologist he spoke to, did the evidence based research for WHO and the conclusion is that masks are ineffective. Why would WHO now want us to wear them in public knowing their ineffectiveness if not to re-enforce the fear element???

 

[Moakesy]

The right hand graph of the two I posted this morning compares all deaths, regardless of reason. This removes any ambiguity as to which deaths are included in the figures...it is simply showing all deaths.



Without lockdown, is the feeling still that the red line would still look the same. Do people maintain that all this is just a scam by big drug companies and power hungry despots?

If we'd kept the country open and the economy going, I get a feeling that red line would look very different, and not in a good way.

 

[Amarillo]

The right hand graph of the two I posted this morning compares all deaths, regardless of reason. This removes any ambiguity as to which deaths are included in the figures...it is simply showing all deaths.

View attachment 57546

Without lockdown, is the feeling still that the red line would still look the same. Do people maintain that all this is just a scam by big drug companies and power hungry despots?

If we'd kept the country open and the economy going, I get a feeling that red line would look very different, and not in a good way.

I read somewhere that the only Chinese deaths recorded as CV19 were those who had CV19 confirmed by CT scan, and those were just a subset of hospital deaths in the CV19 wards.

Sorry - I don’t have a link to the article. If I find it I’ll either edit this post or reply to it with the link.

 

[SimonC]

Probably the most simplistic answer to your query is that of Dr Van Tam, Deputy Chief Medical officer and virologist/epidemiologist
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-52153145
The virologist he spoke to, did the evidence based research for WHO and the conclusion is that masks are ineffective. Why would WHO now want us to wear them in public knowing their ineffectiveness if not to re-enforce the fear element???

Probably too simplistic. Again, I am talking about a face mask ‘worn by an infected person’. In your clip Dr Van Tam said that he and the expert agreed that there is no evidence that ‘general wearing of facemarks by the public who are well affects the spread of the disease’.

It might be the case that, all other things being equal and if used properly, face masks worn by infected people would reduce infection rates. However there is probably a concern that face masks might be counter productive if they adversely affect people’s behaviour, such as compromising social distancing. I suppose we'll just have to wait and see, which is essentially what I think Sir Patrick Vallance said in the press conference a few days ago.

Meanwhile, looking at the other extreme, Shinzo Abe has announced that every household in Japan will receive two face masks. There is some confusion over how two face masks might be of use:

 

[pjm-84]

https://www.college.police.uk/What-we-do/COVID-19/Documents/What-constitutes-a-reasonable-excuse.pdf

Logical .......

 

[Joker 1299]

Keep fighting the virus, not each other.

 

[Amarillo]

https://www.college.police.uk/What-we-do/COVID-19/Documents/What-constitutes-a-reasonable-excuse.pdf

Logical .......

Yes - I think that is very good and common sense.

I would be very interested to know what the law would have to say about hunting, fishing or foraging if for food. Much has been made of the clueless family driving from London to Torbay to go fishing. I doubt anyone would bat an eyelid if a local went off fishing. Pick your own strawberry season will be upon us next month. Will that be outlawed?

On Friday I'm off on my longest car journey since the lockdown to buy six chickens for our new chicken coop. Just under 40 miles each way, 90% on the A20/M20. I have an appointment time to collect the chickens, and the seller has given me a contact free procedure they would like me to follow when collecting. I don't suppose my journey is illegal as I have a "reasonable excuse" to leave the home, but it is still not covered by one of the thirteen the automatically acceptable excuses listed in the legislation.

I also think that what they say about moving home is interesting. From reading that, moving into a second home for the duration of the lockdown would be fine. Travelling to and fro for weekends not. Good common sense.

 

[Joker 1299]

Yes - I think that is very good and common sense.

I would be very interested to know what the law would have to say about hunting, fishing or foraging if for food. Much has been made of the clueless family driving from London to Torbay to go fishing. I doubt anyone would bat an eyelid if a local went off fishing. Pick your own strawberry season will be upon us next month. Will that be outlawed?

On Friday I'm off on my longest car journey since the lockdown to buy six chickens for our new chicken coop. Just under 40 miles each way, 90% on the A20/M20. I have an appointment time to collect the chickens, and the seller has given me a contact free procedure they would like me to follow when collecting. I don't suppose my journey is illegal as I have a "reasonable excuse" to leave the home, but it is still not covered by one of the thirteen the automatically acceptable excuses listed in the legislation.

I also think that what they say about moving home is interesting. From reading that, moving into a second home for the duration of the lockdown would be fine. Travelling to and fro for weekends not. Good common sense.

Shopping for food Tom, chickens equals eggs equals food, no?