Is the Coronavirus threat being overegged?

[Venturi Swirl]

Scotland decided last week..UK govt has-been slow. The order is quite clear...all routine dentistry cancelled.

Damn.  Dunno why they sent me a reminder about it on Friday then, must have forgotten to switch off the automated reminders service.

[Mr Gray]

Agree. Though not easy for anyone with a raging toothache or even a broken arm, let alone anything else requiring hospitalisation that is non-COVID19-related.

Raging toothache would count as an emergency and be treated

[Mr Gray]

I saw the following post on FB

I’m a consultant anaesthetist working in Frimley Park Hospital and this week all anaesthetists are being re-roled as intensive care doctors. We will be tasked with putting the sickest patients under anaesthetic and onto ventilators/life support machines. Each patient will require 10 days+ on a ventilator then may need a temporary tracheostomy to get them off the ventilator.

The intensive care unit is already full of COVID-19 patients on ventilators (12) with more requiring ventilation every day. My hospital usually has 4-10 patients on ventilators and is planning and EXPECTING 80 patients to require ventilation.

It seems the public health message is not getting through. Let me be clear. A lot of people are going to die. They will mainly be 70 years plus but be in no doubt, 30-40 year olds will die too.

Pubs have been busy, offices open, social events happening, kids parties etc. It all needs to stop. Infected people shed virus and it must be everywhere by now. It is your social responsibility to engage in social distancing. Actions NOW can prevent further disease transmission, ICU admissions and deaths in 10-20 days.

Two of my anaesthetic/ICU colleagues in other hospitals are off work due to being infected (doing ok). As health care workers, we are now EXPECTING to catch it despite PPE. This virus has been transmitted around the globe unchecked and will not stop until it has no where to go - social distancing/isolation Or patient death.

Here ends my public health message.

On a more personal level, my son turned three years old last week and is six weeks into a three year chemotherapy program for lymphoma. This virus is a big threat to his life and as I am going to be exposed this week doing my job, I can no longer live at home.

I have had to make the difficult choice: to do my job and save lives of people I don’t know, or to be with my son whilst he battles cancer. Alfie hopefully will survive his cancer and chemo, but many people will die from flu. My heart is broken making this decision, but I choose to save the lives of strangers and leave him in the care of my beautiful wife and family.

Later this week I’ll be moving into a motor home and will not be able to take any further part in his care for the next 6 months.

Bottom line. SOCIALLY ISOLATE or people die in two weeks.

[Eleanor]

Or maybe they remain chronically ill.

From the CT scans the disease reminded me of enzootic pneumonia in lambs with the severe consolidation of the lobes of the lungs.   In my experience, there was a definite weight reduction in those cases of lambs that were affected by the pneumonia.  Older animals had got over the pneumonia but there was always evidence of scarring on the lungs and possible pleuritic adhesions.

I doubt that you are wrong about this.  Should we be eating this meat?

[Carana]

I saw the following post on FB

I’m a consultant anaesthetist working in Frimley Park Hospital and this week all anaesthetists are being re-roled as intensive care doctors. We will be tasked with putting the sickest patients under anaesthetic and onto ventilators/life support machines. Each patient will require 10 days+ on a ventilator then may need a temporary tracheostomy to get them off the ventilator.

The intensive care unit is already full of COVID-19 patients on ventilators (12) with more requiring ventilation every day. My hospital usually has 4-10 patients on ventilators and is planning and EXPECTING 80 patients to require ventilation.

It seems the public health message is not getting through. Let me be clear. A lot of people are going to die. They will mainly be 70 years plus but be in no doubt, 30-40 year olds will die too.

Pubs have been busy, offices open, social events happening, kids parties etc. It all needs to stop. Infected people shed virus and it must be everywhere by now. It is your social responsibility to engage in social distancing. Actions NOW can prevent further disease transmission, ICU admissions and deaths in 10-20 days.

Two of my anaesthetic/ICU colleagues in other hospitals are off work due to being infected (doing ok). As health care workers, we are now EXPECTING to catch it despite PPE. This virus has been transmitted around the globe unchecked and will not stop until it has no where to go - social distancing/isolation Or patient death.

Here ends my public health message.

On a more personal level, my son turned three years old last week and is six weeks into a three year chemotherapy program for lymphoma. This virus is a big threat to his life and as I am going to be exposed this week doing my job, I can no longer live at home.

I have had to make the difficult choice: to do my job and save lives of people I don’t know, or to be with my son whilst he battles cancer. Alfie hopefully will survive his cancer and chemo, but many people will die from flu. My heart is broken making this decision, but I choose to save the lives of strangers and leave him in the care of my beautiful wife and family.

Later this week I’ll be moving into a motor home and will not be able to take any further part in his care for the next 6 months.

Bottom line. SOCIALLY ISOLATE or people die in two weeks.

Heart-breaking decision to make.

We can now keep in touch via so many more means via Skype or Whatsapp or the plain old phones. Twenty-something years ago, feeling a virtual presence would have been even harder.

[Carana]

If a mod is online, could you please authorise my little anxiety-reduction thread, please? TIA.

[Robittybob1]

I doubt that you are wrong about this.  Should we be eating this meat?

They don't use the lungs.   Rest of the carcase is fine. 

[Carana]

How the virus spread in Korea.
https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-HEALTH-SOUTHKOREA-CLUSTERS/0100B5G33SB/index.html

[Brietta]

How the virus spread in Korea.
https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-HEALTH-SOUTHKOREA-CLUSTERS/0100B5G33SB/index.html

I won't have a chance to study this in depth till later tonight.  But a quick glance would seem to indicate that in Korea there was sufficient data to enable tracing the progress of the virus, probably as a result of what they had learned from outbreaks of SARS etc.

I don't think we could replicate that here - in fact I don't think we have - and I think initial adherence to the 'herd' theory will prove to be the most disastrous course of action that could have been taken.

We have been long overdue a pandemic of some sort yet already we have shortages of protective gear for our front line troops the NHS operatives.  We have a shortage of necessary life saving equipment for our population and the country is in virtual shutdown.

[Miss Taken Identity]

How the virus spread in Korea.
https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-HEALTH-SOUTHKOREA-CLUSTERS/0100B5G33SB/index.html

... and hre we are in the UK still allowing people to come in. Crazy. London is the epicentre of the UK. that shuold have been locked down ASAP.

[Wonderfulspam]

3 weeks lock down.
Probably more than that.

I'd just like to thank the Chinese & over 60's for ruining 2020 for everyone else.
Great job.

[Carana]

I won't have a chance to study this in depth till later tonight.  But a quick glance would seem to indicate that in Korea there was sufficient data to enable tracing the progress of the virus, probably as a result of what they had learned from outbreaks of SARS etc.

I don't think we could replicate that here - in fact I don't think we have - and I think initial adherence to the 'herd' theory will prove to be the most disastrous course of action that could have been taken.

We have been long overdue a pandemic of some sort yet already we have shortages of protective gear for our front line troops the NHS operatives.  We have a shortage of necessary life saving equipment for our population and the country is in virtual shutdown.

Intense contact-tracking right at the beginning (reminds me of a Holmes2-type of approach) almost nipped it in the bud. From memory, via other reading, they were missing one "person of interest", who then went to a massive church service (over 1000 people), and that was it. It spiralled out of control.

Some Asian countries had gained quite a bit of experience via having had to deal with previous epidemeics (e.g., SARS) which gave them a head start in how to deal with it, and the public were primed to heed social distancing measures.

A documentary on how the Chinese have lived through it so far. Obviously, being cooped up at home hasn't been fun, but (to my admittedly untrained eye) they seem to have it under control now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycrqXJYf1SU

[Carana]

Interesting article on the UK's "herd immunity" saga. https://bylinetimes.com/2020/03/17/the-herd-instinct-and-herd-immunity-the-etiology-of-a-bad-idea/

I know that since the publication date, the Netherlands have also been entertaining the idea, and I haven't checked whether they've back-tracked on that yet or not.

The concept, promoted by BoJo's advisors, appears to have been based on standard viral pneumonia - which the woefully under-resourced NHS could have just about coped with (albeit still with a relatively high risk of fatalities).

AFAIK, the article is correct to say that the idea that "the science has changed" isn't true: it hasn't, they just didn't analyse the data that was being made available by the WHO, in particular from China and Italy. I have the Imperial College report somewhere, if I can find it again.

BoJo's blasé attitude until very recently hasn't helped. His "take it on the chin" comments, plus stating elsewhere on TV that he'd visited a hospital (which he had) in which he believed there were a few COVID-19 patients (there weren't) and that he was fine to carry on shaking hands with everyone, has been irresponsible, IMO.

I won't even get onto the topic of Trump for the moment...

[Carana]

A Twitter feed from the UK Department of Health and Social Care is providing regular updates:

https://twitter.com/DHSCgovuk

[Carana]

The FT has kindly decided to take its COVID-19 coverage out of the paywall.

https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1242048518908502016

Some interesting reading and graphics.