Covid-19 discussion thread

[AntsyVee]

I think maybe grandpa needs more grandkids to keep him busy!

[Lencoboy]

Isn't that based on the Oxford evidence based medicine prof?

I would have thought increased testing leads to increased cases. The important number is the % rates now to before testing increased (some caveat needed for targeted testing being less a scattergun approach). Trump himself alluded to this by wanting to reduce testing to reduce positive cases, doing an ostrich impression.

I'm inclined to agree with you there Terry, as surely the logic is that if we seek out more cases through increased testing, we're likely to find more cases.

Ironically, earlier on in the pandemic, when the UK seemed to be at the height of the outbreak (around late March-mid-April), there were far, far more daily confirmed cases (and deaths) than there seem to be right now, but with only a handful of people being tested on a daily basis, unlike now with more than 3k tests per day on average, plus it's recently been speculated that the daily confirmed case count can often also include outstanding cases from several days, weeks, or even months ago, in addition to those recorded during the previous 24 hours, so therefore due to under-recording earlier on we're now essentially playing catch-up and might inadvertently be overcounting the cases, even if the persons who are the subject of the 'latent' additions might actually have fully recovered by now.

Same with England's daily death stats, which are also just as hodge-podge as the daily confirmed case count, as they in turn often count those who had the virus several weeks or months ago, fully recovered, but died from other (often unrelated) causes, but still registered as a CV death nevertheless.
That has also proved controversial over recent weeks.

Though I'm not naming any names on here, I do find it a bit demoralising whenever anyone finds a bit of more hopeful news, there's always the odd person that seems to dismiss it. The same thing has often been known to happen in the past whenever say, the latest stats for crime and unemployment showed a downward trend, but many people were quick to rubbish it and say 'it's actually far worse now than ever before, especially in my area'!! And this has been under both the Tories and Labour.

I think some people (again not naming any names) sadly just seem to revel in out-and-out pessimism and the so-called 'confirmation bias'!!

[Pamplemousse]

So it's all out-and-out lies then?

We might just as well say that CV is going from bad to even worse in this country right now then!!

Seems like I can't win.

I would like to be optimistic (heaven knows, the impact this damned virus is having on me both mentally and financially is getting dangerous) but these days I see so much 'spin' applied to stuff, a Government that lies through its teeth and repeatedly gets away with it and an increasingly-compliant BBC (it's hard to believe this is the same organisation that metaphorically told Churchill to 'get stuffed' during the General Strike and produced programmes that firmly rattled the establishment cage in the 70s and 80s) but increasingly, I see little cause to be.

And in case you hadn't noticed, we've still got 5,000+ new cases a week, 400+ deaths a week from Covid-19. The "test more, see more" line is straight out of the Trump playbook - surely you can't tell me that's a good thing?

[Pamplemousse]

Though I'm not naming any names on here, I do find it a bit demoralising whenever anyone finds a bit of more hopeful news, there's always the odd person that seems to dismiss it. The same thing has often been known to happen in the past whenever say, the latest stats for crime and unemployment showed a downward trend, but many people were quick to rubbish it and say 'it's actually far worse now than ever before, especially in my area'!! And this has been under both the Tories and Labour.

You can name me if you wish Lencoboy, I won't be offended as I'm certain I'm one of those to whom you refer.

But I've always been a pessimist: the one time I was practically forced into being optimistic I ended up seeing my wife receiving CPR as she died so you'll forgive me if I see optimism merely as false hope.

And on that note, I'm off to pick up a soldering iron and try to do something productive with my day.

[Gary A]

You can name me if you wish Lencoboy, I won't be offended as I'm certain I'm one of those to whom you refer.

But I've always been a pessimist: the one time I was practically forced into being optimistic I ended up seeing my wife receiving CPR as she died so you'll forgive me if I see optimism merely as false hope.

And on that note, I'm off to pick up a soldering iron and try to do something productive with my day.

I don’t think it’s at all unreasonable to feel in any way optimistic about the fact that there’s “only” around 400 deaths a week from this virus in this country.

However, trying to look on the bright side, it does show that it is controllable depending on which measures we take. I’ve got to be honest, for the first few weeks of reading about this virus and listening to a whole host of infectious disease experts, I truly thought that this virus was out with our control. It clearly isn’t so that has to be a positive, if nothing else.

[Pamplemousse]

However, trying to look on the bright side, it does show that it is controllable depending on which measures we take. I’ve got to be honest, for the first few weeks of reading about this virus and listening to a whole host of infectious disease experts, I truly thought that this virus was out with our control. It clearly isn’t so that has to be a positive, if nothing else.

On that I agree. For a while I wasn't bothered... then I looked upon Italy and Spain with horror, thinking "surely we'll do better than this?" But silly me - I forgot we're run by a bunch of amoral cretins with an unelected psychopath in charge and it was indeed worse than the two countries I mentioned. I once slightly mocked a poster on another forum I read for his thinking this was our "extinction event" and saying "It ain't Survivors." But we've also seen it takes little to cause spikes that get towns and cities locked down the minute people start behaving like it's gone away. I'm in a mild state of panic last night over talking to an unmasked delivery driver last night for over five minutes at less than 2m. Okay, I know my area hasn't seen any infections since early June, but what about where he comes from? And yes, I imagine when the currently denied "personal assessments" come along, Yours Truly will be told "shield until further notice".

But when even the WHO are saying "there's no silver bullet" for it, how am I meant to be optimistic about that? Never mind the North Korea-style messages coming out of HMG at the moment - "Eat Out To Help Out!" "Lose weight and get fit so you don't die!" etc. etc.

Take this for example: https://twitter.com/Telegraph/status...02652357652480

So no, I see little reason to be optimistic. Not so much as "glass half empty" but "glass half-empty and some git gobbed in it whilst I went to the bog."

[Gary A]

I suppose it just depends on how you look at things. Me, I see local lockdowns after small spikes in the tens and I personally find it quite encouraging. It at least shows that when it rears it’s ugly head we can and do take action.

As hard as it is, the economy simply has to play a part in this. Economies can bounce back but the pain and suffering that would be endured by constant national lockdowns, in my opinion, would end up completely outweighing the adverse affects of Covid-19.

Unfortunately, at a certain point I feel you need to make peace with the fact that you can only do your best to avoid this virus. We can’t account for other folk, we can only account for ourselves.

[Lencoboy]

You can name me if you wish Lencoboy, I won't be offended as I'm certain I'm one of those to whom you refer.

But I've always been a pessimist: the one time I was practically forced into being optimistic I ended up seeing my wife receiving CPR as she died so you'll forgive me if I see optimism merely as false hope.

And on that note, I'm off to pick up a soldering iron and try to do something productive with my day.

No hard feelings, Pamplemousse.

As much as I despise BoJo (and the current Tory govt in general), I personally don't believe that he is quite in 'psychopath' territory, though you're perfectly entitled to your own opinions, of course.

And good luck with your soldering project.

[Lencoboy]

I suppose it just depends on how you look at things. Me, I see local lockdowns after small spikes in the tens and I personally find it quite encouraging. It at least shows that when it rears it’s ugly head we can and do take action.

As hard as it is, the economy simply has to play a part in this. Economies can bounce back but the pain and suffering that would be endured by constant national lockdowns, in my opinion, would end up completely outweighing the adverse affects of Covid-19.

Unfortunately, at a certain point I feel you need to make peace with the fact that you can only do your best to avoid this virus. We can’t account for other folk, we can only account for ourselves.

You're right, Gary. The current CV flare-ups in certain parts of Scotland, northern England and tiny pockets of the Midlands, though very concerning, is still (at least at this stage) quite a way off what we had in this country earlier in the year.

The only real ways we can account for other folk during all of this is to stick to the ongoing social distancing rules and to keep following all of the other guidelines.

Then, before we know it, some kind of treatment will probably be available.

[Pamplemousse]

No hard feelings, Pamplemousse.

As much as I despise BoJo (and the current Tory govt in general), I personally don't believe that he is quite in 'psychopath' territory, though you're perfectly entitled to your own opinions, of course.

And good luck with your soldering project.

I had Cummings in mind for the psychopath - I did say 'unelected' !! Johnson's just a lazy *******.

In the end, I tried rehabilitating an old computer to work with my negative scanner instead. It didn't go well.

Thank you, Windows XP.