Covid-19 discussion thread

[fishman65]

You been reading the OED again, old kipper?

Oh KKK, really? If you want your dictionary back you only have to ask. Look, no emoji again and I see you've dropped yours too. Mr Pain has started a trend.

[Lencoboy]

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.

There does seem to be a bit of a conundrum, as the daily cases have started to edge up over the past 3 weeks or so, the deaths still appear to be on a downward trend (albeit maybe slower than previously), and the number of hospitalisations in general also seem followed a similar path as the deaths, give or take the odd fluctuations.

Like I've said before, perhaps the still-declining deaths rate might be down to more widespread use of those recently discovered steroids, coupled with more younger people, who are generally assumed to be more resilient and more likely to speedily recover from the virus, becoming infected over recent weeks.

[Pamplemousse]

Putting my eternal pessimist's hat on, maybe it's because those policies of shoving untested elderly patients into care homes because the PR stunts that are the Nightingale Hospitals had no staff resulted in killing many of the elderly Covid patients off and now the remainder are either taking extra care or are shielding themselves from potential harm? Therefore leaving the younger-but-vulnerable to die. Hopefully... it is also for the reasons you suggest, that the steroid treatment is proving effective.

As much effort needs to be put into therapeutics as into vaccines.

Lencoboy, you may find the enhanced data sets on the new government dashboard interesting; at the moment there's a spike in Swindon.

[MyNameIsTerry]

There are going to be more at risk groups out now including the elderly since they have been advised they can venture out. I wonder how much comes down to improvement in care home management compared to early on?

Obviously more testing leads to finding more people with it so that's going to reduce the % death rate. The death rates are a mess for the reasons you have stated (my city is on about a 13% mortality now and it's been around 11% for months).

The deaths coming down despite reducing lockdown is interesting though and something is working for those more at risk. Maybe it's a bit of luck in who is getting infected? It would be interesting to see those figures split by age group to see who is on the rise.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Oh KKK, really? If you want your dictionary back you only have to ask. Look, no emoji again and I see you've dropped yours too. Mr Pain has started a trend.

Sounds like you need this one

(Sorry KK, couldn't resist )

[Gary A]

The deaths coming down despite reducing lockdown is interesting though and something is working for those more at risk. Maybe it's a bit of luck in who is getting infected? It would be interesting to see those figures split by age group to see who is on the rise.

The high death rates, in my opinion, were largely due to poor infection control in care homes and hospital settings. Both have a had a few months now to get their act together and I believe it’s this more than anything that’s having an effect on lowering death tolls.

Of course, a lot of those new infections are younger folk who are venturing out into bars etc. The most vulnerable to this infection won’t be frequenting such places with the regularity of younger people so that’s also going to be a contributing factor.

[Lencoboy]

The high death rates, in my opinion, were largely due to poor infection control in care homes and hospital settings. Both have a had a few months now to get their act together and I believe it’s this more than anything that’s having an effect on lowering death tolls.

Of course, a lot of those new infections are younger folk who are venturing out into bars etc. The most vulnerable to this infection won’t be frequenting such places with the regularity of younger people so that’s also going to be a contributing factor.

Another possible reason for the ongoing general declines in CV death rates (and hospitalisations), could be that the virus might now be starting to mutate into a less lethal strain, which has already been suggested earlier by certain scientists, though still not absolutely proven as yet.

This could very well be reflected in both Scotland and NI up until yesterday having zero recorded CV deaths for over 20 consecutive days, but remember this is merely just my own guess and not gospel ATM.

Surely only time will tell.

[JulieJay92]

i have to disagree gary re the vulnerable venturing out as i know 2 people who have both been an organ donor recently as 5 years ago, 1 of them has been in the bar each day i have rang and returned to work on monday but until the bars opened he mainly stayed in bar shopping as hes not internet connected

[Pamplemousse]

Could this be the future for office workers?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources...3-bb7eda5fff8e

[Gary A]

i have to disagree gary re the vulnerable venturing out as i know 2 people who have both been an organ donor recently as 5 years ago, 1 of them has been in the bar each day i have rang and returned to work on monday but until the bars opened he mainly stayed in bar shopping as hes not internet connected

Obviously there will be exceptions but when it comes to socialising in busier areas I still think that that’s far more likely to come from younger people.