God, I felt wheezy last night, and sat there frightened, and then it stopped. Then I remembered I often feel wheezy. I don't know how to get through this. Oh yes, one day at a time. Today, we are back on the food trail. Will there be any spuds today?
The thing is, we have no idea what you've all had/are having (or anyone else who hasn't been tested, of course!). Any other year, you wouldn't give it a second thought. Those symptoms could be for loads of reasons, not necessarily Covid-19.
(I also worry a lot of us are rather optimistically thinking "well, I felt a bit off-colour and coughed a bit, so I must have had it already [i.e. I'm now pretty much immune and have escaped getting a bad version]").
Indeed. Everyone is playing safe, which is right; but I know of two people who are saying they've had it, one of them is going back to work today. Without a test, how do they know? And I haven't heard it officially said that once you've had it you're immune though I guess a second dose is likely to be milder?
To keep things in perspective, according to Public Health England: "As of 9am on 22 March 2020, 78,340 people have been tested in the UK, of which 72,657 were confirmed negative and 5,683 were confirmed positive".
The vast majority of suspected cases are still coming in negative. This is people who are ill enough with symptoms consistent with coronavirus infection to need hospital attention.
We don’t have cold symptoms but we also don’t have typical symptoms of flu - I am a ex-nurse. I’m not saying we definitely have corona virus either but my medical consultant friends working at the hospital don’t seem to doubt it.
I will also be pleased when the antibody tests become available to get clarification.
My 80+ old mother was off to her local Sainsbury's this morning to take advantage of the hour reserved for vulnerable people. She also wants to talk to someone about how to arrange deliveries for when she's unable to do that as she's spent too long on the phone without anyone available to talk to.
The panic buyers have created a range of problems. We've seen the NHS staff distraught that they're unable to get what they need when they visit a shop at the end of a stressful and tiring shift. They've also created situations where people are spending more time in shops when they should be at home keeping their distance from others - I went to the shop three times last week to get some of what I needed to last through the weekend, normally I'd have got all I needed in a single shop, that's two trips out that shouldn't have been needed.
The thing is, we have no idea what you've all had/are having (or anyone else who hasn't been tested, of course!). Any other year, you wouldn't give it a second thought. Those symptoms could be for loads of reasons, not necessarily Covid-19.
(I also worry a lot of us are rather optimistically thinking "well, I felt a bit off-colour and coughed a bit, so I must have had it already [i.e. I'm now pretty much immune and have escaped getting a bad version]").
Indeed. Everyone is playing safe, which is right; but I know of two people who are saying they've had it, one of them is going back to work today. Without a test, how do they know? And I haven't heard it officially said that once you've had it you're immune though I guess a second dose is likely to be milder?
They don't know without a test, and I'd be willing to bet a round of drinks they haven't. Odds are just that way. At the moment.
The numbers look horrible, but populations are large. Even in Italy, though, population 60 million, known cases 60,000. 0.1% of the population. Even imagining real infections rates are twenty times higher, that's 2%. I bet a lot more than 2% of Italians have had a cough since February.
The thing is we can sort of visualise 60,000 people. We can't visualise 60,000,000.
We don’t have cold symptoms but we also don’t have typical symptoms of flu - I am a ex-nurse. I’m not saying we definitely have corona virus either but my medical consultant friends working at the hospital don’t seem to doubt it.
I will also be pleased when the antibody tests become available to get clarification.
Indeed. I didn't mean to single you out, @Heavenlyannie, and I'm sure your diagnostic abilities are way better than mine! We also agree that clarification is good.
All that said, I think even professionals aren't, um, immune from over-diagnosis, because Covid-19 is where everybody's looking, and probably a lot more closely than they ever have at the usual range of symptoms for less malignant coronaviruses.
In the "Rumours" book I referenced upthread, the story is told of psychosis gripping some small US town in the 1950s or thereabouts when somebody notices their windscreen has lots of tiny impact marks in it. Everyone starts looking at their windscreens, and Lo! they have these pockmarks too! What is going on? It must be aliens landing in the town!! On closer analysis, it turns out these pockmarks were universal on US windscreens of the day, just that nobody had ever noticed them before.
On Friday, we spent 3 hours shopping for food, going from shop to shop, and this is west London. A respite at the week-end, but back on it today. Insane. As Alan said, it's increasing exposure to others.
The numbers look horrible, but populations are large. Even in Italy, though, population 60 million, known cases 60,000. 0.1% of the population. Even imagining real infections rates are twenty times higher, that's 2%.
It's statistics like that which destroy the "herd immunity" theory. If the idea is that you slow rates of infection because a significant portion of the population are immune because they've already been infected then that needs to be far more than 2% of the population, "herd immunity" doesn't start to kick in until that immune portion of the population reaches 50%, ideally you need over 80%. We've seen how many people have died in Italy, and many more will survive with long term respiratory problems. That's with less than 5% of the population who have contracted the disease, how many will need to die or suffer long term health conditions before even 50% of the population have contracted the disease and are thus immune? A lot more than any civilised nation would permit if there was any way to avoid it ... and there is a way to avoid it (social distancing and personal hygiene).
The only way to reach the levels of immunity within the population needed is vaccination, and that vaccine needs to be given to 90%+ of the population (logistically you start with those who are at greatest risk - health care professionals and vulnerable groups, followed by other key workers).
I am a paediatric surgeon. (Also doing research). I was on-call on Friday - so from 5pm to 8am Saturday. Where I work things are calm but the storm is coming.
We think Child Health will be relatively spared but none of us know what we will be asked to do and when - all of us may have to significantly step out of our normal roles to help. We will all have to somehow make sure our normal roles are covered too.
Mrs Dr Alienfromzog is asthmatic (mild-moderate). Our Children (The Zoglets) are 2 years old and 3 months old. I worry about what I might be asked to do in work; beyond my skills and training, I worry about infecting my family.
I am not a worrier but this shit just got real.
I have colleagues and friends all over the country. My colleagues have the same. We are hearing what is happening; London is really bad.
This is not a drill.
I know this is Purg rather than All Saints but this I shared on my Church FB over the weekend. It seems appropriate here. Most of us will survive. Many healthcare workers will be seriously damaged by the process and need help, love, care and attention.
Hi all. Please pray for the NHS staff. Locally things are under control but in other parts of the country (especially London) it has got very intense. Not to mention other parts of the world.
Healthcare staff desperately need your prayers right now. Remember, Nurses are angels in comfortable shoes.
Here are some prayers (written for St Luke's Day in 2017) from the Diocess of Worcester for our health service and those who serve in it.
Prayers – For the Health Service O God, we thank you for our healthcare systems and those who work in them. We pray for healthcare workers known to us that through their love and compassion, those who are vulnerable and needy might come to know healing and peace in their lives. We pray for those who have to make difficult decisions about resources or treatments that they will do so with care and integrity. Lord, continue your ministry of healing in the lives of those who are broken, vulnerable and in need. We pray this in Jesus’ name.
Amen.
A Prayer for Carers, Nurses and Doctors Lord Jesus, who healed the sick and gave them new life, be with doctors, nurses and carers, as they act as agents of your healing touch. In desperate times, keep them strong yet loving; and when their work is done, be with them in their weariness and in their tears.
Amen.
Prayers – Responsive Intercessions
Liberating God,you call your church to the service of your Son, in bringing good news to the poor, health to the sick, and reconciliation to the sinful. Hear our prayers especially today for all who offer chaplaincy in the Health Service, that they may support the stressed, comfort the suffering, and speak up for those whose voices are unheard.
Lord, in your mercy ...
Giver of Wisdom, pour out your gifts on the decision makers of our society, and especially on the politicians, civil servants and managers of the health service. May they be imaginative in their thinking, creative in their planning,and compassionate in their administration and care,nurturing the talents and well-being of NHS staff, and serving the needs of NHS patients.
Lord, in your mercy ...
Lover of humanity,you call your people to be their brother’s and sister’s keepers. Hear us as we pray for our local hospitals, care homes and community services. We give you thanks for all who serve in them. Help those who can to take responsibility for their own and their neighbour’s needs, and bless all who harness the good will and help of volunteers.
Lord, in your mercy ...
Good Physician, we thank you for all whom you bless with your gifts of compassion, knowledge and healing skills, especially the doctors, nurses, therapists, and support staff of the health service. Be with them in all that they do, that they may be your channels of healing to those who suffer, in body, mind and spirit, and themselves find strength, support and encouragement from those they serve.
Lord, in your mercy ...
Compassionate God, we hold before you all those in need of healing, comfort and encouragement, especially those who have asked for our prayers ...calm the anxious mind, bring balm to the depressed spirit, and strengthen the weakened body, that all who suffer in body mind and spirit, may know your healing presence surrounding and holding them.
Lord, in your mercy ...
Living God, teach us to know and accept the limitations of our mortality, that we do not burden others with unreasonable expectations, but live content with the many gifts we have received, and come at last to greet sister death as the companion who leads us into your greater life through him who died for us that we might live with you.
Merciful Father ...
The trick is the IF. IF one kid comes to school with something.
That's kind of the point of trying to minimise the contact of kids with other groups. It actually lowers the chances of any kid coming to school with something.
So far in this country, and I believe in Singapore, don't know about anywhere else, children that have been infected haven't got it from school. They've got it from somewhere else.
Of course, if you simply don't have school then you reduce the risk of children getting it at school to zero. But then you create other problems. So it's very much a weighing exercise.
It is, as you say, a weighing exercise. But I suspect that school in Singapore is not directly comparable with school in Australia, New Zealand, and large swathes of the UK and USA, in that everyone exists on top of everyone else anyway in Singapore. The town in which I live is very much a town, rather than a city, but it's only 30 miles from NZ's capital, and I would guess that less than a quarter of its full-time employed population works locally. My partner works from home and I am, for the last few years, a mere picker-up of socks and such, and not a naturally social type - BUT - we have two small disease vectors who (until today) were expected to go and hang out five days a week with four hundred other small disease vectors, many of whom will spend the rest of their time with parents who work in public facing jobs in an (on our scale) major city, and who are compelled by a crippling lack of car parking to make that hour long journey on a standing-room-only train. School is definitely a weak point for an otherwise spread-out satellite community, but I can see that it makes no odds either way in a place where crowds and mingling are an entirely unavoidable phenomenon.
Yes, my students (mostly health care workers) are feeling very stressed at present. Thank you for sharing the prayer with us.
I teach a module on death and dying and I think it will be an intense few months supporting students on that module, as well as others I teach.
the problem is that to people who have just spent much of the week commuting to work on very crowded public transport, going to the park must seem like the lesser of the two evils - similarly until Friday hundreds of school children were regularly mixing with each other.
Part of the problem is that people also reason wrongly about the risk factors. You don't interact with people or your environment in the same way on public transport. If people just sit on public transport and don't DO anything other than get on and off it, the risk is relatively low.
That's possible, assuming they can get on and off without touching anything and each other and can sit -- though I suspect that when people are packed in like this things become different.
Eutychus' is spot on in his observation. Differential testing from country to country is skewing the figures, not helping the development of our understanding of the virus.
Re keeping schools open it closed. I know two head teachers very well. Both describe their schools as 'virus factories' and a consequential built in exposure risk to staff. Precautions make a difference; how much depends on the virus.
The absence of a clear understanding of the real infection rate of the virus and the related consequences makes all policy making a matter of judgment, based on the known and the unknown.
That's the Central Line @chrisstiles and that commute I am not missing currently. But that line is often like that outside the rush hours it's so well used, and the necessity of travelling that way is why we're waiting for a hospital appointment for next week to be cancelled or postponed as we'd have to travel on the tube and trains to get to it. (The other much better consultant at the other hospital my daughter attends postponed the March 18 appointment to July at the end of February, well before everything took off.)
It is possible I have picked up Corona virus - like @anoesis I live in the commuter belt of a bigger hub, in my case London, in the countryside, but I have been working with the little disease vectors (Guides and youth work in an after school club) and some at least of those youngsters have commuting parents. I wanted us to shut our Guides unit the week before we did as we have girls from 5 primary schools and 3, maybe more, secondary schools attending (it's gone down from when I ask ed a few months ago, then we had 5 of each). But the leader wouldn't listen to me. In the event we put the notice out just before the official notice.
When I'm talking about getting out for a walk it's out into the fields, 10 mins on foot from home, avoiding the busier footpaths and routes. Mostly we're waving to other (dog) walkers from beyond hailing distance. I deliberately avoided the most well known walking area over the weekend as I expected it to be busy, it usually is over holidays.
That's the Central Line @chrisstiles and that commute I am not missing currently. But that line is often like that outside the rush hours it's so well used
Sure - and on that point reducing services on the Tube prior to both putting in economic safeguards for individuals and giving guidance to businesses was a mistake.
Even at the most pessimistic estimates of current infection rates (about 50,000 IIRC) the chances of any specific individual with a cough and temperature having Covid-19 is actually quite low. A good proportion of the population coughing their way through late Winter is situation normal, and we don't give it a second thought.
But some will have it. And we can't tell who.
Which is why we must stay home *as if* we have it.
God, I felt wheezy last night, and sat there frightened, and then it stopped. Then I remembered I often feel wheezy. I don't know how to get through this. Oh yes, one day at a time. Today, we are back on the food trail. Will there be any spuds today?
If you feel wheezy, you're vulnerable or you have it. In neither case going to a store is responsible behaviour.
Italy got to where it is because people thought it wasn't them.
Testing is being used to track contacts of confirmed positive people. Testing is not being used to randomly track the entire population.
Even at the most pessimistic estimates of current infection rates (about 50,000 IIRC) the chances of any specific individual with a cough and temperature having Covid-19 is actually quite low. A good proportion of the population coughing their way through late Winter is situation normal, and we don't give it a second thought.
But some will have it. And we can't tell who.
Which is why we must stay home *as if* we have it.
God, I felt wheezy last night, and sat there frightened, and then it stopped. Then I remembered I often feel wheezy. I don't know how to get through this. Oh yes, one day at a time. Today, we are back on the food trail. Will there be any spuds today?
If you feel wheezy, you're vulnerable or you have it. In neither case going to a store is responsible behaviour.
Italy got to where it is because people thought it wasn't them.
Testing is being used to track contacts of confirmed positive people. Testing is not being used to randomly track the entire population.
If you don't absolutely have to go out. Don't.
No, he said he often feels wheezy, so he's comparing current symptoms with previous normality.
I’ve just got back from Iceland. It was excellent. Only about 20 people there. A large notice saying ‘please keep two metres apart’ and everyone was doing just that.
No fresh veg at all, but plenty of frozen fruit and veg.
I was really pleased as it’s just down the road from me.
Get off my case, no prophet, live your own life. Back off.
No. You can take me to hell if you want. But this is far far too serious in the general case for any backing off. You saying it's just a wheeze and moving off to go shopping is what for me. Dangerous. How does anyone really know they're not carrying it?
Your post is a microcosm of the wrong thinking. Yes my response singled out you. But the point really is that individuals deciding for themselves is wrong. You're at risk, I'm at risk, we're at risk from one another.
I’ve just got back from Iceland. It was excellent.
My bad, Boogie! After reading the first two sentences, I thought you meant the country. (I have visited the country and it is an excellent place to visit). The 'only about 20 people' comment woke up my brain!
Just back from a big Sainsbury's. Got everything we wanted, bar 3 items - cornflour, red wine and cheap gin.
They had no flour of any sort - not plain, not bread, nothing. Wine - bare shelves with just a thin rank of the £20 a bottle stuff at the top. Expensive gin, flavoured gin - but your common or garden mixing spirit, half bottles only.
It'll be the middle class, a-swigging of their cocktails while the coq au vin simmers and the bread machine rumbles in the background..
Just back from a big Sainsbury's. Got everything we wanted, bar 3 items - cornflour, red wine and cheap gin.
They had no flour of any sort - not plain, not bread, nothing. Wine - bare shelves with just a thin rank of the £20 a bottle stuff at the top. Expensive gin, flavoured gin - but your common or garden mixing spirit, half bottles only.
It'll be the middle class, a-swigging of their cocktails while the coq au vin simmers and the bread machine rumbles in the background..
No. It will be all the mothers stuck at home trying to work and make their kids do school work at the same time. "Mother's Ruin" and all that.
Yes, I thought at first she meant that rather attractive, and interesting, island somewhere north of here...
Meanwhile, Tesco's this morning (well, midday) wasn't too bad. Some empty shelves, but I got everything I was after, though I forgot yet again about a pie or two.
The Incontinent Multitude clearly have NOT stockpiled enough loo rolls, as the shelves of washing-powder etc. have been pillaged. Still not much in the way of soup, but plenty of bread, fresh fruit, veg, etc. No beer, either, doubtless because of the closure of the pubs...
Some daft old sod was boasting about how many loo rolls he'd hoarded. I felt like telling him that he should have gone to his GP earlier...
I saw people with trollies laden with booze, don't know whether it's to drown it all out, or stockpiling,or their normal ration. We got our normal Cordoniu Vintage, sláinte.
We are waiting for payday at the end of the week to improve the booze selection, having rather hammered the bank account last week to make sure I can feed 4 of us (and getting off-sales from some local brewery pubs).
I favour lockdown. I favour mandatory stay at home. I favour no going out and full suppression of individual freedom so as to control this. I think it's the right approach, and the slowly gradual approach will lead to the predicted nightmare. Which centralized and lock down has been shown to control.
I’ve just got back from Iceland. It was excellent.
My bad, Boogie! After reading the first two sentences, I thought you meant the country. (I have visited the country and it is an excellent place to visit). The 'only about 20 people' comment woke up my brain!
I let the 20 people comment pass. It was the "it's just down the road from me" that had me perplexed....
You have to have a level of public consent, which may take time to build, because there are 65 million people in the country and less than half a million security personnel of any type.
Gradual implementation give people sometime to adjust their expectations, measures they would have thought unthinkable a month ago are now considered reasonable etc.
I tend to agree (sort of) with what @NOprophet_NØprofit says, because it makes sense - but how, indeed, is a complete lockdown to be enforced, when those afflicted with terminal dumbf**kery wander about in hordes?
Also I am sure lock down looks a lot more palatable living in an isolated cabin with land around than it does in crowded tiny flats without any outdoor facilities and which are so badly built that most of the exercise programmes suggested can't be done without driving all the neighbours mad.
It's complicated and I suspects depends mostly on the people involved and the town. I am finding being quarantined in the city much easier than I would in my mom's small town because I have a jillion neighbors who are very happy to go pick up groceries for us. Many have offered. On the other hand, if Mom couldn't leave the house, she doesn't have anyone she would want to ask to run groceries for her.
Also I am sure lock down looks a lot more palatable living in an isolated cabin with land around than it does in crowded tiny flats without any outdoor facilities and which are so badly built that most of the exercise programmes suggested can't be done without driving all the neighbours mad.
Indeed. I'm very lucky in that, although I live in a small space, it's in effect a detached residence. I also have room to move around outside in the fresh air (there has been a huge drop in air pollution, apparently).
For those in tiny flats - especially if they have children at home - it must be a nightmare already...
Also I am sure lock down looks a lot more palatable living in an isolated cabin with land around than it does in crowded tiny flats without any outdoor facilities and which are so badly built that most of the exercise programmes suggested can't be done without driving all the neighbours mad.
Notwithstanding that your comment is spuriously ad hominem (directed at me personally versus the principle of lockdown versus grandualism), Canada is primarily urban country. And here's what a compilation of Italian mayors have to say to us about it: https://twitter.com/protectheflames/status/1241403715036291072?s=20
I favour lockdown. I favour mandatory stay at home. I favour no going out and full suppression of individual freedom so as to control this. I think it's the right approach, and the slowly gradual approach will lead to the predicted nightmare. Which centralized and lock down has been shown to control.
If you disagree, please say why.
I agree and I'm afraid the permission to go to the store whenever you feel like it is the permissive approach's biggest flaw. I went to the store two weeks ago when my president still thought it was no biggie but the shipmates thought different. I had my pantry and freezer organized and stocked with about 6 weeks worth of well planned meals. Now my son and husband, who never went shopping from one year to the next for anything more involved than a family size bag of cheese curls are going on shopping sprees every other day just as an excuse to get out of the house. They're bringing in things I have no space for, most of it perishable goods, so that I'm lying away at night thinking about having to bake a cake to use up the eggs even though I just made two pies to use up the apples. They have managed to completely stress me out!
Thank God I can get some mental relief thinking about Boogie going to Iceland to see her sons and pick-up a new puppy.
This is a rant, and a blast. Why is this so hard to understand?
Because you're incoherent. You're not talking about the car as a transmission vector at all. You're talking about people coming into contact with other people outside their social group, or outside their home.
It's got nothing to do with the car - it's got to do with people going where other people are, and coming into contact with them, touching surfaces that they've touched, breathing their exhalations, and so on.
This is why the 700+% increase happened in America. Because they don't stay at home like they should.
This is complete bollocks. The 700+% increase was baked in before people were told to stay home. Yes, I agree with you that people are idiots - kids gathering on beaches because they think they're invincible, people crowding into the bars on the night before the bars close, because they want to get a last night's drinking in, and so on.
We're a week after people were told to start social isolation in my area. Given the incubation period for SARS-CoV-2, we'd start seeing the effects (if any) of the social isolation no earlier than now.
Everyone going out is a potential disease carrier. Who needs to think like they are already infected and don't want to infect other people. Why is this so goddamned hard to understand? Don't leave home.
If you'll stop your incoherent ranting for a moment, consider this:
People are still going to grocery stores to buy groceries. People are still going to work in grocery stores. We have chosen not to alter the normal way that people acquire food beyond putting duct tape marks on the floor 6 feet apart at cash registers.
People will continue to purchase food, and to work in grocery stores, food distribution, and so on. Otherwise we all die of starvation. Very few people have sufficient stores of food to be able to batten down the hatches and not leave their home for a week, let alone longer.
This provides an unavoidable source of transmission. People are going to spread the virus at the grocery store. It will happen. We're not trying to stop it - we're trying to make it happen less often.
So if you're going to the grocery store 2 or 3 times a week to buy food, you've got some base level of human contact that might transmit the virus (from you to them, or from them to you). Increasing that risk of transmission by 1% is irrelevant. Doubling it is relevant. If you're thinking about doing something with very much less human contact than your grocery store trip, it's not actually going to make a difference whether you do it or not.
Comments
Indeed. Everyone is playing safe, which is right; but I know of two people who are saying they've had it, one of them is going back to work today. Without a test, how do they know? And I haven't heard it officially said that once you've had it you're immune though I guess a second dose is likely to be milder?
The vast majority of suspected cases are still coming in negative. This is people who are ill enough with symptoms consistent with coronavirus infection to need hospital attention.
I will also be pleased when the antibody tests become available to get clarification.
The panic buyers have created a range of problems. We've seen the NHS staff distraught that they're unable to get what they need when they visit a shop at the end of a stressful and tiring shift. They've also created situations where people are spending more time in shops when they should be at home keeping their distance from others - I went to the shop three times last week to get some of what I needed to last through the weekend, normally I'd have got all I needed in a single shop, that's two trips out that shouldn't have been needed.
They don't know without a test, and I'd be willing to bet a round of drinks they haven't. Odds are just that way. At the moment.
The numbers look horrible, but populations are large. Even in Italy, though, population 60 million, known cases 60,000. 0.1% of the population. Even imagining real infections rates are twenty times higher, that's 2%. I bet a lot more than 2% of Italians have had a cough since February.
The thing is we can sort of visualise 60,000 people. We can't visualise 60,000,000.
It's still rare. The task is keeping it that way.
Indeed. I didn't mean to single you out, @Heavenlyannie, and I'm sure your diagnostic abilities are way better than mine! We also agree that clarification is good.
All that said, I think even professionals aren't, um, immune from over-diagnosis, because Covid-19 is where everybody's looking, and probably a lot more closely than they ever have at the usual range of symptoms for less malignant coronaviruses.
In the "Rumours" book I referenced upthread, the story is told of psychosis gripping some small US town in the 1950s or thereabouts when somebody notices their windscreen has lots of tiny impact marks in it. Everyone starts looking at their windscreens, and Lo! they have these pockmarks too! What is going on? It must be aliens landing in the town!! On closer analysis, it turns out these pockmarks were universal on US windscreens of the day, just that nobody had ever noticed them before.
The only way to reach the levels of immunity within the population needed is vaccination, and that vaccine needs to be given to 90%+ of the population (logistically you start with those who are at greatest risk - health care professionals and vulnerable groups, followed by other key workers).
We think Child Health will be relatively spared but none of us know what we will be asked to do and when - all of us may have to significantly step out of our normal roles to help. We will all have to somehow make sure our normal roles are covered too.
Mrs Dr Alienfromzog is asthmatic (mild-moderate). Our Children (The Zoglets) are 2 years old and 3 months old. I worry about what I might be asked to do in work; beyond my skills and training, I worry about infecting my family.
I am not a worrier but this shit just got real.
I have colleagues and friends all over the country. My colleagues have the same. We are hearing what is happening; London is really bad.
This is not a drill.
I know this is Purg rather than All Saints but this I shared on my Church FB over the weekend. It seems appropriate here. Most of us will survive. Many healthcare workers will be seriously damaged by the process and need help, love, care and attention.
Yes, I have become an Anglican....
AFZ
It is, as you say, a weighing exercise. But I suspect that school in Singapore is not directly comparable with school in Australia, New Zealand, and large swathes of the UK and USA, in that everyone exists on top of everyone else anyway in Singapore. The town in which I live is very much a town, rather than a city, but it's only 30 miles from NZ's capital, and I would guess that less than a quarter of its full-time employed population works locally. My partner works from home and I am, for the last few years, a mere picker-up of socks and such, and not a naturally social type - BUT - we have two small disease vectors who (until today) were expected to go and hang out five days a week with four hundred other small disease vectors, many of whom will spend the rest of their time with parents who work in public facing jobs in an (on our scale) major city, and who are compelled by a crippling lack of car parking to make that hour long journey on a standing-room-only train. School is definitely a weak point for an otherwise spread-out satellite community, but I can see that it makes no odds either way in a place where crowds and mingling are an entirely unavoidable phenomenon.
Thank you. I feel very strange at the moment. Not really in the front line but knowing many that are.
Me too, including my son, who is a nurse. My niece (ex paramedic) has also been called up.
I teach a module on death and dying and I think it will be an intense few months supporting students on that module, as well as others I teach.
That's possible, assuming they can get on and off without touching anything and each other and can sit -- though I suspect that when people are packed in like this things become different.
Re keeping schools open it closed. I know two head teachers very well. Both describe their schools as 'virus factories' and a consequential built in exposure risk to staff. Precautions make a difference; how much depends on the virus.
The absence of a clear understanding of the real infection rate of the virus and the related consequences makes all policy making a matter of judgment, based on the known and the unknown.
It is possible I have picked up Corona virus - like @anoesis I live in the commuter belt of a bigger hub, in my case London, in the countryside, but I have been working with the little disease vectors (Guides and youth work in an after school club) and some at least of those youngsters have commuting parents. I wanted us to shut our Guides unit the week before we did as we have girls from 5 primary schools and 3, maybe more, secondary schools attending (it's gone down from when I ask ed a few months ago, then we had 5 of each). But the leader wouldn't listen to me. In the event we put the notice out just before the official notice.
When I'm talking about getting out for a walk it's out into the fields, 10 mins on foot from home, avoiding the busier footpaths and routes. Mostly we're waving to other (dog) walkers from beyond hailing distance. I deliberately avoided the most well known walking area over the weekend as I expected it to be busy, it usually is over holidays.
Sure - and on that point reducing services on the Tube prior to both putting in economic safeguards for individuals and giving guidance to businesses was a mistake.
Which is why we must stay home *as if* we have it.
Not like this:
If you feel wheezy, you're vulnerable or you have it. In neither case going to a store is responsible behaviour.
Italy got to where it is because people thought it wasn't them.
Testing is being used to track contacts of confirmed positive people. Testing is not being used to randomly track the entire population.
If you don't absolutely have to go out. Don't.
No, he said he often feels wheezy, so he's comparing current symptoms with previous normality.
No fresh veg at all, but plenty of frozen fruit and veg.
I was really pleased as it’s just down the road from me.
I had to read that twice.
No. You can take me to hell if you want. But this is far far too serious in the general case for any backing off. You saying it's just a wheeze and moving off to go shopping is what for me. Dangerous. How does anyone really know they're not carrying it?
Your post is a microcosm of the wrong thinking. Yes my response singled out you. But the point really is that individuals deciding for themselves is wrong. You're at risk, I'm at risk, we're at risk from one another.
This is nicely done from the UK: https://twitter.com/Alex_Verbeek/status/1242085779989504000?s=20
Why we must be more serious. Why there's no backing down. Infection rates, transmissability, resources.
They had no flour of any sort - not plain, not bread, nothing. Wine - bare shelves with just a thin rank of the £20 a bottle stuff at the top. Expensive gin, flavoured gin - but your common or garden mixing spirit, half bottles only.
It'll be the middle class, a-swigging of their cocktails while the coq au vin simmers and the bread machine rumbles in the background..
No. It will be all the mothers stuck at home trying to work and make their kids do school work at the same time. "Mother's Ruin" and all that.
Meanwhile, Tesco's this morning (well, midday) wasn't too bad. Some empty shelves, but I got everything I was after, though I forgot yet again about a pie or two.
The Incontinent Multitude clearly have NOT stockpiled enough loo rolls, as the shelves of washing-powder etc. have been pillaged. Still not much in the way of soup, but plenty of bread, fresh fruit, veg, etc. No beer, either, doubtless because of the closure of the pubs...
Some daft old sod was boasting about how many loo rolls he'd hoarded. I felt like telling him that he should have gone to his GP earlier...
Clearly the Desperate Alcoholics have been on the rampage...what will they do when supplies are no longer available?
Hopefully, your local brewery pubs will still be able to manage off-sales.
This article shows me why I'm clashing rather hard with some of you. https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/opinion/articles/2020-03-21/why-the-u-k-and-u-s-don-t-want-a-coronavirus-lockdown
I favour lockdown. I favour mandatory stay at home. I favour no going out and full suppression of individual freedom so as to control this. I think it's the right approach, and the slowly gradual approach will lead to the predicted nightmare. Which centralized and lock down has been shown to control.
If you disagree, please say why.
Gradual implementation give people sometime to adjust their expectations, measures they would have thought unthinkable a month ago are now considered reasonable etc.
I tend to agree (sort of) with what @NOprophet_NØprofit says, because it makes sense - but how, indeed, is a complete lockdown to be enforced, when those afflicted with terminal dumbf**kery wander about in hordes?
Indeed. I'm very lucky in that, although I live in a small space, it's in effect a detached residence. I also have room to move around outside in the fresh air (there has been a huge drop in air pollution, apparently).
For those in tiny flats - especially if they have children at home - it must be a nightmare already...
Notwithstanding that your comment is spuriously ad hominem (directed at me personally versus the principle of lockdown versus grandualism), Canada is primarily urban country. And here's what a compilation of Italian mayors have to say to us about it: https://twitter.com/protectheflames/status/1241403715036291072?s=20
I agree and I'm afraid the permission to go to the store whenever you feel like it is the permissive approach's biggest flaw. I went to the store two weeks ago when my president still thought it was no biggie but the shipmates thought different. I had my pantry and freezer organized and stocked with about 6 weeks worth of well planned meals. Now my son and husband, who never went shopping from one year to the next for anything more involved than a family size bag of cheese curls are going on shopping sprees every other day just as an excuse to get out of the house. They're bringing in things I have no space for, most of it perishable goods, so that I'm lying away at night thinking about having to bake a cake to use up the eggs even though I just made two pies to use up the apples. They have managed to completely stress me out!
Thank God I can get some mental relief thinking about Boogie going to Iceland to see her sons and pick-up a new puppy.
Because you're incoherent. You're not talking about the car as a transmission vector at all. You're talking about people coming into contact with other people outside their social group, or outside their home.
It's got nothing to do with the car - it's got to do with people going where other people are, and coming into contact with them, touching surfaces that they've touched, breathing their exhalations, and so on.
This is complete bollocks. The 700+% increase was baked in before people were told to stay home. Yes, I agree with you that people are idiots - kids gathering on beaches because they think they're invincible, people crowding into the bars on the night before the bars close, because they want to get a last night's drinking in, and so on.
We're a week after people were told to start social isolation in my area. Given the incubation period for SARS-CoV-2, we'd start seeing the effects (if any) of the social isolation no earlier than now.
If you'll stop your incoherent ranting for a moment, consider this:
People are still going to grocery stores to buy groceries. People are still going to work in grocery stores. We have chosen not to alter the normal way that people acquire food beyond putting duct tape marks on the floor 6 feet apart at cash registers.
People will continue to purchase food, and to work in grocery stores, food distribution, and so on. Otherwise we all die of starvation. Very few people have sufficient stores of food to be able to batten down the hatches and not leave their home for a week, let alone longer.
This provides an unavoidable source of transmission. People are going to spread the virus at the grocery store. It will happen. We're not trying to stop it - we're trying to make it happen less often.
So if you're going to the grocery store 2 or 3 times a week to buy food, you've got some base level of human contact that might transmit the virus (from you to them, or from them to you). Increasing that risk of transmission by 1% is irrelevant. Doubling it is relevant. If you're thinking about doing something with very much less human contact than your grocery store trip, it's not actually going to make a difference whether you do it or not.
We already are. But the telescreens are small and double as phones.