 Poster: A snowHead
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@j b, I haven’t seen anything re Cheltenham, conversely there was a Bergamo-Valencia football match that seems to have been pretty catastrophic.
There’s also talk on Quillette iirc of a church event somewhere where there are estimates that one individual infected 250 others on return home. I’ll have a look in the morning.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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@under a new name, just intrigued by Cheltenham since it was the town where I grew up. But the race meeting never seemed anything to do with the town.
I can imagine churches being a risk, lots of singing involving the consonants likely to create aerosols (d, t, ss, etc) with people next to each other indoors. Assuming of course there were infected folk to seed the virus spread; if just one it would seem to imply quite a lot of changes in position to infect different neighbours.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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'while the cure (via hit on the economy) might turn out to be worse than the disease'
I get worried when I hear this statement as really, isn't it a false linkage? It implies that you can 'buy' jobs and GDP by letting people die - but I don't think the connection is that simple. I don't think there's some sliding scale where 100,000 people die and the economy and jobs remain relatively unscathed at one end vs 10,000 people die but we have a crash that lasts a decade at the other.
For me, it's the quality and effectiveness of the financial measures that will have the major say in how soon and how well we recover economically. And that any linkage with medical countermeasures is in terms of making these effective enough to get through the health crisis as soon as we can. So that we can then turn to economic recovery.
In essence, weak health countermeasures won't 'buy' us much in terms of economic recovery i.e. there is no 'is the cure is worse than the disease?' choice to be made.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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@LaForet, I agree insofar as we need a balance. But in all honesty, unless this plague is really going to wipe out half a million, then frankly a full economic lockdown that lasts for over a month will probably result in WW3, and the fallout in coffins will be way more than 1% from the bug, give or take a bit.
For what it's worth I still think we are just about spot on at the moment with our approach. It's borderline genius given where the WHO and the Chinese left us 3 months ago.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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@Bodeswell* Given where we were 3 months ago, yes, agencies, the NHS and forces have done a terrific job. And ordinary people have responded well. But where we were 3 months ago is not where we should have been (of course, the UK is not alone is this). This crisis is by no means as bad as similar threats of similar probability might be. And we all have to appreciate that if we want to be better prepared for next time - and there's every chance there will be a next time - then we have to spend more money on the NHS, agency coordination and planning, getting the food supply chain to be more robust, producing more food in the UK etc. etc. All of this and more, rather than breathing a sigh of relief and carrying on as before.
*Ha, sorry, trypung mistkake ...
Last edited by You'll need to Register first of course. on Sat 4-04-20 8:07; edited 1 time in total
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That's all good pal, except I'm not @borderline
That must have been deliberate, but I'll refrain from responding despite the vast quantities of alcohol telling me otherwise.
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| Bodeswell wrote: |
given where the WHO and the Chinese left us 3 months ago. |
(WHO) “Left us”?
But we ARE the freaking WHO!
Blame an organization that we’re a big part of! Brilliant.
It's like blaming our own government which we elected. “It” left us holing up in our home!
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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@j b, Yep, Quillette,
https://quillette.com/2020/03/30/covid-19-science-update-for-march-29-keep-your-voice-down/
"As with that fateful soccer game in Milan where so many Bergamaschi were infected, Mulhouse’s original outbreak was powered by a one-off event: According to a Radio France investigation, this was a local evangelical gathering from February 17th to 21st attended by up to 2,500 worshipers. According to a local source, “during these five days, the faithful greeted each other, kissed each other and held hands as they prayed.” As many as 1,000 of these people reportedly ended up infected—though estimates vary wildly, suggesting that contact tracing in this part of France remains incomplete. One of the attendees, a nurse from Strasbourg University Hospitals, reportedly infected something like 250 colleagues—astounding if true."
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In retrospect, I suspect we'll see that a lot of gatherings that should have been cancelled, weren't. Picking on any one is pointless and divisive. Getting an email from my local gym telling me that their response to the virus would be 'to limit exercise classes to no more than 20 people' was just one example. That's about 1,000 people a week brought together for sweaty and breathless mingling in a closed room, and then dispersal back into the local community.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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@LaForet, I think Cheltenham was a bit of an egregious mistake...
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| Quote: |
An Egregious Mistake...
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was she your tip for the last race?
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You know it makes sense.
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@under a new name, there were a couple of confirmed cases in Briancon who had attended the Mulhouse gathering. I believe a funeral director who then infected the mayor of Briancon. When we were there in March, just as everything escalated, there were several other local politicians in isolation and the Mairie in Le Monetier-les-Bains was closed as well as the Police Municipale.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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| snowdave wrote: |
| abc wrote: |
I came across a report on a medical journal. They studied ONE patient whose test show such a high virus count he should have been dead long ago. Yet he's just "moderately" sick for a very long time. They finally cured him with injection of antigen from another cured patient. They theorize there's a milder mutation of the virus which can still infect people. But as it was only one case, they call for more study of any similar cases.
I'll see if I find the link again.
In China, they've been seeing some small percentage of people showing no symptoms but testing positive for many weeks. They're starting to focus on those cases now the peak rush of the endemic appears to be under control. |
Are you sure this is COVID you're talking about? I've not seen anything in any journal at all relating to this (and bear in mind that a lot of the papers we're seeing on COVID are direct-published; timelines to get into a journal and go through peer review are typically weeks not days) and it would be major headline news.
I'd also be astonished if an antigen is being injected into anybody for treatment in this way - that's not a conventional treatment approach, more a vaccination approach, and if somebody had demonstrated a successful vaccine, we'd know about it. |
Think these are the cases being referred to:
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3077747/rare-coronavirus-patients-mild-symptoms-long-illness-may-point
Took a plasma transfusion (with COVID antibodies presumably, not antigens) to cure.
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Poster: A snowHead
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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@DidierCouch, Raises a few questions:
1. "patients were confirmed by viral detections using quantitative RT-PCR, which ruled out infection by other respiratory viruses" - is it an exclusive test?
2. "highest body temperature was 38.1 °C" - that's not a fever by French criteria ...
3. "After taking antipyretics*, Chinese traditional medicine** and anti-viral medicine*** by himself" - * it's nothing, go home and take a couple of paracetamol, ** are these guys really doctors, *** huh?
4. Page 5, "thereafter... " except +ve RNA on RT-PCR. Oh and some "infective signs" on CT.
Does this really illustrate a patient with a 7 week infection? Did they culture the swabs for viable virions?
More research needed.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| Quote: |
I get worried when I hear this statement as really, isn't it a false linkage? It implies that you can 'buy' jobs and GDP by letting people die
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The analysis was comparing lost years:
"If the coronavirus lockdown leads to a fall in GDP of more than 6.4%, more years of life will be lost due to the subsequent recession than will be gained through beating the virus."
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Data coming out of France over the last two days absolutely horrific. Far more deaths yesterday than any day in Italy or Spain and a massive spike in new cases. I'm reading that medical staff are needing to security guards to travel home as they are being mugged after late shifts. Also stories of a big racism row over suggestions to run tests in Africa and a conspiracy theory being put out by the Anti-Semites.
Anyone there? it sounds bloody awful
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@cameronphillips2000, I think there’s an explanation above why there was a jump in deaths over the last couple of days. I think it is accounted for by adding in a number of deaths from care homes.
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oops.
Last edited by Then you can post your own questions or snow reports... on Sat 4-04-20 21:07; edited 1 time in total
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@cameronphillips2000, the data is not being presented correctly. And this is not being made obvious in all outlets.
What's happened (I gather) is that the care home deaths were being collected separately and had not been added into the daily totals (who knows why) and have all of a sudden been added in as the numbers come in.
France deaths net of care home data (which wil need to be added in and all of it restated to make any sort of sense) show slowing growth rates, which is exactly what you'd want to see at this stage of confinement.
I don't think any tales of medical staff needing security are necessarily limited to France...
It's not bloody awful in Chamonix.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| rob@rar wrote: |
| @cameronphillips2000, I think there’s an explanation above why there was a jump in deaths over the last couple of days. I think it is accounted for by adding in a number of deaths from care homes. |
Thank you for clearing that up. I had only seen the raw stats and not seen the reason behind it. That now makes sense, but you could see how the data on its own looked very alarming.
Is interesting the region with the highest number of cases borders NordRheinland which is the highest concentration, by some measure in Germany. I guess there are just so many crossings between the two countries whereas the links with Northern italy in winter really just a couple of tunnels.
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| Gerry wrote: |
| LaForet wrote: |
| Gerry wrote: |
| the remoan is strong in this one. |
Well, that's a really mature and useful response to the deaths of your fellow-citizens due to an unprecedented global pandemic highlighting the incompetence of Government policy over NHS funding.
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You actually want this to be a catastrophe so you can whine about Brexit and the government. |
@Gerry I really don't want to see thousands of people dead. Particularly since I'm in the high-risk age group myself. And I'm sad that you should think that I do, just because I make an observation about NHS underfunding.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| under a new name wrote: |
@DidierCouch, Raises a few questions:
1. "patients were confirmed by viral detections using quantitative RT-PCR, which ruled out infection by other respiratory viruses" - is it an exclusive test?
2. "highest body temperature was 38.1 °C" - that's not a fever by French criteria ...
3. "After taking antipyretics*, Chinese traditional medicine** and anti-viral medicine*** by himself" - * it's nothing, go home and take a couple of paracetamol, ** are these guys really doctors, *** huh?
4. Page 5, "thereafter... " except +ve RNA on RT-PCR. Oh and some "infective signs" on CT.
Does this really illustrate a patient with a 7 week infection? Did they culture the swabs for viable virions?
More research needed. |
What is RT-PCR? (For us non-medical professionals)
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction
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You know it makes sense.
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There was an interesting programme on the World Service this morning:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cszl35
It explored why it takes so long to make a vaccine. 10-20 years is the norm and 18 months will be a record. And then they’ll have to manufacture and distribute billions of doses. Currently, there are only 4 vaccine manufacturers.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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| Quote: |
10-20 years is the norm
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@altis, We'll have nuclear fusion by then!
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Poster: A snowHead
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| boarder2020 wrote: |
| Quote: |
I get worried when I hear this statement as really, isn't it a false linkage? It implies that you can 'buy' jobs and GDP by letting people die
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The analysis was comparing lost years:
"If the coronavirus lockdown leads to a fall in GDP of more than 6.4%, more years of life will be lost due to the subsequent recession than will be gained through beating the virus." |
Well, my first objection is that I don't like the way the 'cure worse than the disease' false proposition always elicits a i.e. "Well that's not what I meant' Trump-type response whenever it's challenged - It's a meaningless catch phrase which doesn't bear scrutiny, as with your definition:
'more years of life will be lost due to the subsequent recession' - well, perhaps, in another Tory Austerity free-market decade, yes, a recession will mean premature deaths (for the socially inferior). But we should not accept this as inevitable because it isn't. Just inevitable if we take the same approach to a financial crisis as we did after 2008.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| Quote: |
Well, my first objection is that I don't like the way the 'cure worse than the disease' false proposition always elicits a i.e. "Well that's not what I meant' Trump-type response whenever it's challenged - It's a meaningless catch phrase which doesn't bear scrutiny, as with your definition:
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It's not my definition, it's simply what the paper published by some experts suggests. We know then lockdown is saving lives, but there's no doubt it's also having negative effects too. I don't think it's hard to understand how the "cure could be worse than a disease". Of course some of it depends on your ethical beliefs, see any story about NHS refusing to pay for certain drugs because of the high cost (and usually limited evidenced), and you will see huge differences in opinion. These things are also highly emotive, so people often think with their heart rather than their head.
We will only know for sure in hindsight.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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'I don't think it's hard to understand how the "cure could be worse than a disease".'
As a medical phrase, yes, it's obvious.
But as used by the likes of Trump it's a classic apples-and-oranges false alternative. It tries to say that pandemic deaths are somehow 'tradeable' agains economic metrics like jobs and GDP.
'people often think with their heart rather than their head'
But my argument is perfectly reasoned. It's not emotional. By all means disagree, but what I'm saying is that the term is meaningless and misleading in the context of a global pandemic vs a global economy. Because it is balancing deaths on the one side with jobs and GDP on the other, as if there was some trade-off to be had.
I entirely understand the concept. But I think it's meaningless and worse, misleading. But I suspect that we'll just have to disagree.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Because it is balancing deaths on the one side with jobs and GDP on the other, as if there was some trade-off to be had.
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But NICE makes these trade-offs all the time - they are the stuff of health economics. Some new drugs are deemed just too expensive, given the amount of morbidity/mortality they will prevent. Often the cost of hospital stays is factored in - thus the new heart failure drug I am taking, though more expensive than longer-established alternatives, is made available - though only for people in certain categories - because trials suggest it will prevent quite a lot of hospital re-admissions by reducing morbidity. Screening for some key diseases is not supported for people over a certain age - not because it won't save lives, but because the costs are too high measured against the benefits. How else can finite resources be rationed? And if you were to cast your analytical net more widely, how could you measure the benefits of, say, expenditure on improving dangerous road junctions versus providing more special-care baby units?
These decisions are not just the stuff of health economics, they are the stuff of politics.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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I think in the current situation, there have been commentators pointing out that recessions (and worse, depressions) have a track record of leading to excess deaths. Obviously it isn't something that would appear on a death certificate but I think what they are trying to say is that, in theory at any rate, there must be a trade-off points where the number of excess deaths from the economic effects will outbalance the number of excess* deaths due to Covid-19.
(*i.e. not the deaths currently being reported daily, but the number above the normal population death rate)
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@Gerry,
How many "extra" deaths, (presumably excluding yourself) would you be prepared to accept in order to avoid a recession, and keep your living standards? and in what section of our society would you prefer them to be from?
What would be the economic consequences of losing, say, 10% of our medical staff, teachers or engineers, let alone the other key workers?
Many of the above are already retiring at a higher rate than they can be replaced!
You would probably be quite vocal, blaming anyone but yourself, if too many drivers succumbed to the virus, and the Companies had the gall to cancel your trains! (a very large percentage of these are already over 50, and in the "at risk category").
How would you get to your ski holidays it there was a world shortage of Pilots?
Also, how would you avoid the UK going into recession if the rest of the World went into meltdown?
Love to hear a good economic argument.
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| brianatab wrote: |
@Gerry,
How many "extra" deaths, (presumably excluding yourself) would you be prepared to accept in order to avoid a recession, and keep your living standards? and in what section of our society would you prefer them to be from?
What would be the economic consequences of losing, say, 10% of our medical staff, teachers or engineers, let alone the other key workers?
Many of the above are already retiring at a higher rate than they can be replaced!
You would probably be quite vocal, blaming anyone but yourself, if too many drivers succumbed to the virus, and the Companies had the gall to cancel your trains! (a very large percentage of these are already over 50, and in the "at risk category").
How would you get to your ski holidays it there was a world shortage of Pilots?
Also, how would you avoid the UK going into recession if the rest of the World went into meltdown?
Love to hear a good economic argument. |
Interesting questions but why are they directed at me?
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| Quote: |
How many "extra" deaths, (presumably excluding yourself) would you be prepared to accept in order to avoid a recession, and keep your living standards? and in what section of our society would you prefer them to be from?
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I wouldn't expect anyone can put exact numbers on it. I suspect none of us would be willing to lose 90% of the economy to save a single life, just as none of us would be happy to lose a million lives to save 0.01% of the economy. Everyone is on a different place within that spectrum, depending on their personal ethics. As said, health economists do this kind of cost/benefit analysis for a living and are in the best place to advise on policy, but you don't like their prediction.
The disease appears to be much higher risk of killing elderly and sick people. I heard (but have not seen the facts so take it with a pinch of salt) that over half of deaths in UK so far have been 80+ years old. While I would rather nobody died, if I was told a section of society HAD to die, they would probably be my choice. They have been fortunate to already live a long life,most of them are now retired so not integral to society, most of them are a "burden" in terms of cost (increased cost to NHS, tax payers etc.). It's a harsh view and i stress I am not saying I want them to die, that we shouldn't try to protect them or anything like that, but that's my brutally honest answer to your question.
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How would you get to your ski holidays it there was a world shortage of Pilots?
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Train, bus, car. Where there's money to be made I'm sure a solution would happen. Perhaps retraining military pilots?
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They have been fortunate to already live a long life,most of them are now retired so not integral to society
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I found that line of reasoning despicable!
The retirees had been “fortunate” to have contributed their most productive years to build what we now have. They saved, instead of spent every penny of their net worth the moment they received it. So they can enjoy it when they retire.
If society is so cavalier to consider them disposable “burden”, the next generations will take note and spent rather than save, for they have nothing to look forward to.
Remove to motivation of delayed gratification, there will be no long term investment. And the economy will slowly wither...
Wait, isn’t that what’s been happening???
Never mind then. Let the elderly die. And don’t bother planning for your retirement because you won’t live to have one. And if do retire, be a “burden” of society whatever you do, because that’s how your generation define it.
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FAQ
