Coronavirus/COVID-19

[Sarah]

If a small positive of the current situation brings any comfort, last week on 19 March 2020 the government actually downgraded COVID-19 so that it's no longer classified a High Consequence Infectious Disease (HCID) in the UK. This of course takes nothing away from how awful it is, yet nevertheless indicates their advisory group no longer believes it's as consequential to catch COVID-19 as their initial assessment and perhaps reminds us there are entire categories of worse diseases (all being rare in the UK):

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/high-conseq ... f-covid-19

[macliam]

If a small positive of the current situation brings any comfort, last week on 19 March 2020 the government actually downgraded COVID-19 so that it's no longer classified a High Consequence Infectious Disease (HCID) in the UK. This of course takes nothing away from how awful it is, yet nevertheless indicates they no longer believe it's as consequential as their initial assessment and perhaps reminds us there are entire categories of worse diseases (all being rare in the UK):

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/high-conseq ... f-covid-19

At best, too early to call, at worst self delusion and semantics....... there is no vaccine or treatment, the number of fatalities amongst the affected population is high and the total penetration within the general population is unknown. What's not to love when the deckchairs get reorganized?

[Sarah]

Those are all good points. Their criteria are published on that page and of course they could reclassify it again if appropriate:

In the UK, a high consequence infectious disease (HCID) is defined according to the following criteria:

acute infectious disease
typically has a high case-fatality rate
may not have effective prophylaxis or treatment
often difficult to recognise and detect rapidly
ability to spread in the community and within healthcare settings
requires an enhanced individual, population and system response to ensure it is managed effectively, efficiently and safely

[Sarah]

90% of republicans still trusted their president to give them accurate information about the outbreak, compared to 14 percent of democrats and 43 percent of independents!

https://today.yougov.com/topics/politic ... rust-covid

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... oronavirus

The data was gathered 21st-23rd March. They should run that again, it's been a terrible week over there, not just with dreadful COVID-19 escalation but also shocking unemployment figures too.

[macliam]

Some people are talking about us being controlled by out lizard masters..... but have you noticed that Chris Witty, UK Chief medical Officer looks suspiciously like a tortoise

Witty.jpg (25.26 KiB) Viewed 692 times

[expressman33]

Who remembers when we were Kids, we used to play pretend Russian roulette, with a toy gun and just one cap in it . Well we are not daft enough to do that for real. Or are we , every time we leave our homes that just what we are doing , but this time it not a toy gun.
STAY SAFE + STAY HOME = STAY ALIVE.

[blythburgh]

Some people are talking about us being controlled by out lizard masters..... but have you noticed that Chris Witty, UK Chief medical Officer looks suspiciously like a tortoise Witty.jpg

I thought he could have been replaced by a robot on the TV ads. The mouth moves but the face remains motionless

[expressman33]

Coronavirus patients in UK intensive care have 50% survival rate
https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... vival-rate

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/ - If these stats are right ,why are so few recovering ?

30/3 On the Newly Infected vs. Newly Recovered in the United Kingdom graph if you hover over the recovered Geen line it shows no one has recovered for 6 days . The figures are not up to date

[Richard Frost]

Coronavirus patients in UK intensive care have 50% survival rate
https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... vival-rate

Alarmist headline from the Guardian. When you read the article and take into account the fact that the majority of people included in the survey were over 70 and had other major risk factors to take into account.

Data from the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre (ICNARC) showed that of 165 patients treated in critical care in England, Wales and Northern Ireland since the end of February, 79 died, while 86 survived and were discharged. The figures were taken from an audit of 775 people who have been or are in critical care with the disease, across 285 intensive care units. The remaining 610 patients continue to receive intensive care.

The high death rate raises questions about how effective critical care will be in saving the lives of people struck down by the disease. As a top priority, the NHS is opening field hospitals in London, Birmingham and Manchester, which will incorporate some of the biggest critical care units ever seen in Britain.

“The truth is that quite a lot of these individuals [in critical care] are going to die anyway and there is a fear that we are just ventilating them for the sake of it, for the sake of doing something for them, even though it won’t be effective. That’s a worry,” one doctor said.

The report also found that though the majority of those who have died from coronavirus across the UK were over 70, nine of the 79 who died in intensive care were aged between 16 and 49, as were 28 of the 86 who survived.

The audit suggested that men are at much higher risk from the virus – seven in ten of all ICU patients were male, while 30% of men in critical care were under 60, compared to just 15% of women. Excess weight also appears to be a significant risk factor; over 70% of patients were overweight, obese or clinically obese on the body mass index scale.

[BeautifulSunshine]

Best to stay home, stay safe, keep other people safe and work my way through my stockpile.