Pandemic panic

Oh I love that MawB definitely my sense of humour

Please dont follow the "advice" of the expert on BBC's newsnight who thinks all the people who are infected should be sent to the north of Scotland to keep the south "safe"

I DONT THINK SO! I know the WM clownshave no respect for us up here in what they think id the frozen north ,but keep your own sick people and we'll look after ours .Union? What union?

May7 if the school is in Dorset it’s against council rules to take soap into the school - even if the school supply has run out, you can only do so if you have a prescription from a doctor. Unbelievable, but true nevertheless.

1. Soap wise my daughter has giving out a small soap in a plastic bag where she can - she has a lot. I imagine quite a few who travel do so it's a "good citizen" move.

2. As for the lady declaring "it was all about natural immunity which we destroy with our soaps and sanitisers."; she is right of course that gaining immunity is the answer but we can do it "naturally" or by vaccination. What you have to weigh up is what it costs you to get the immunity. Possible death seems a high price to pay to gain it naturally.

3. A very clever and funny piece Maw B.[A feel I should keep the grin down to "upturned corners of lips" after reading it} Do you know who wrote it? I think they should be getting some credit.

4. Listening to why the Irish are doing, it seems we are all doing what we are doing and all aiming at the same thing. That is to spread the load on our various health-care systems and, certainly in our case, not to have a double spike. No health care system has the capacity to deal with the numbers needing intensive care if everyone gets this virus at the same time. So the aim of all government (except perhaps the US) is to spread the inevitable so more people can get the help. The US has no real national system so what can he do. As always Trump appeals to his core voters and doesn't think any further, sadly.

MawB I have seen the full script of that but didn't post it because I thought I would be jumped on for being derogatory about citizens of other countries!
It is very funny.

paddyanne he can't have been serious, surely? Even if not, not very funny.
Don't send them to the Welsh mountains either!

This has made me tidy up my cupboards and drawers in a hunt for soap.

I have made a post of the below I am alternative Coronavirus thread, but as there seem to be a number of virus threads I will also post my remarks here:-

It would seem that there are organisations that are not going to follow government advice in this crisis and "do their own thing"

Here in North Somerset, a neighbour of one of our daughters informed her that while dropping off her children at school this morning the parents were asked to go to the main hall of the school. There the deputy Headmistress informed all assembled of the special measures they are taking to keep the children as safe as possible throughout today. She then went on to inform the parents that they would be informed later today if the school will be open on Monday.

Many parents then stated that closing schools was not the recommendation of the government at the present time. The reply to that remark was, "we are an independent academy and therefore make our own decisions in all matters and in that decision we have to consider the safety of the children AND STAFF".

The above I find totally disgusting as the decision will affect many in preventing them from working due to the requirement of child care. No doubt those teachers and other staff will expect the supermarket's shelves to be fully stocked as they take a prolonged break. Do not these people realise that if everyone adopted the same attitude as they have taken all essential industries such as food, water, electricity etc would be shut down making life in this country impossible.

Of course, those teachers (should this school shut down) could I suppose take themselves off to manually work in one of the many large food distribution centres in the Severnside area, and in that replace those that are genuinely off sick with this virus, but somehow I feel that will not happen.

Decisions about closing schools are made by the governors and not the staff. I have a relative who teaches in a school where TWELVE children from a single class have been off school, all at the same time, due to illness. The school has stayed open, but now some of the staff are sick.

Let’s not forget that many teachers are also parents themselves and will be just as inconvenienced as anyone else if schools shut down. Some have already been told that they will need to continue providing lessons online with paper copies for those children without access to computers, how they are to do this whilst taking care of their own children I don’t know. Lots of teachers have invested in getting pupils ready for exams and some I know are extremely anxious about how any disruption will affect their students.

Paddyanne if anyone comes up here to N Scotland, they’ll be greeted by the stinking colds my Dh and I have currently have!

Och I wish everyone would just 'Keep clean and carry on'!

Yes, grannyactivist, even if schools shut down teachers and other staff will still be 'working from home'.

Y7 pupils onward do their work via laptop and will probably be expected to carry on with some, lessons at least.
Older pupils will have their exams disrupted and future careers and university offers possibly delayed.

It would not be 'a jolly' or an extended holiday; it will be extremely worrying for teachers, pupils as well as all parents.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Europe was reporting more daily cases than China did at the height of the outbreak there. That's because they brought in some very stringent rules which we in Europe will never be able to implement, although Italy is having a good crack at it.

Two thoughts. We need to remember our curve toward the greatest number of people having the virus is behind many continental countries by quite a few weeks.

Perhaps this will push us forward more quickly in our use of technology.

I see some of the Queen's visits have been cancelled. If anyone needs to self isolate it's her and Philip considering their age. I wonder if we will see her out and about again because it will be some time before all this is over.

Do you remember what we are told about how the native peoples of the Americas died of infections introduced by Spanish and other invaders and conquerors?

This happened because the native peoples had no immunity whatsoever to pathogens that were not lethal to the invaders.

Coronavirus is as new to all of us as syphilis and measles were to the native Americans. Fortunately the Covid 19 is not usually lethal.

Indeed Alexa we are fortunate that this virus isn't fatal to everyone it touches. It could be a lot worse.

We should be very thankful that medicine and society has moved on since the 19th century, Alexa.

However, it may be fatal for some of us. .

The science advice to the government is very good. I 100% agree with it and as I said weeks ago, we need in the uk, to enable the younger people to get this and recover to get immunity. It will give the nhs and scientists time. In the meantime, those over 60 and/or with the underlying conditions and esp if taking heart ACE drugs and /or diabetes drugs, hunker down at home while this first wave sweeps in

I only mention ACE now because what I wrote about weeks ago, high bp, ACE is now in public domain and I can say it. ACE2 provides a pathway for the virus to go to target deep in the lungs and kidneys. We can stay safe, up to us. You will find the info via the lancet. I cannot give links

Personally I have brought forward all I needed to buy to get my new garden going, parcel after parcel, part of new house costings. I have made sure I will not be bored and have things to do outside in my fully enclosed garden. I am hunkering down from today. Luckily not on any drugs

I should have said diabetes 2

For those kicking against the traces, simply study the gov graphs, the red one with the superimposed green one.

www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lanres/PIIS2213-2600(20)30116-8.pdf

Was this the link you mentioned Craftyone?

Surely people taking themselves off lifesaving medication will only make the situation worse; ditto clogging up the health service by asking for alternatives [if they switched they would have to visit surgeries for b/p checks etc and risk infection]. Better to self isolate as much as possible.

I'll never forget that, whenever there was no new news to put on the front page, even The Observer would dig up an old article from the Lancet to put on the front page and on Monday morning the surgery would be inundated with phone calls from terrified patients.

From facebook; so true...….'Coronavirus has revealed painful political truths in a way that nothing in our lifetimes has done before.
We were told that care workers were ‘unskilled’, that we didn’t need them in the way we need bankers or doctors.
Now we see that they are one of our most important lines of defence in a global health crisis.
We were told we could divide our country from other countries and thrive in splendid isolation.
Now we discover that we are intrinsically connected to our neighbours, and that if a vaccination is developed we will need the cooperation of other countries to access it as quickly as possible.
We were told that a zero hours, gig-based economy where workers must continue to be productive even if they are ill would be to the benefit of all of us.
Now we see that putting work before health costs lives.
We were told that refugees and migrants would bring disease into our country.
Now we discover that wealthy travellers are much more mobile, and therefore much more likely to fuel epidemics.
We were told that our National Health Service could be whittled away and dismantled in the name of money.
Now we discover that without the NHS, we will have no money.
Nothing reveals truth as powerfully as vulnerability.
Whereas the right likes to think that we can build elaborate ivory towers and separate ourselves from others, the left has now been proven correct in its belief that - whether we like it or not - our fate is always bound up in the fate of other people, even if they live on the other side of the world.
Human beings are not separate from each other, we ARE each other.
Human beings are not separate from the economy, we ARE the economy.
A robust public health service is not a luxury that we pay for if we can, it is the very foundation of wealth and security.
Unfortunately, these lessons may have come too late to save us".

The World Health Organisation has repeated calls for all countries to find and test every coronavirus case after the British government claimed the practice was “no longer necessary”.

Announcing the next stage of the UK’s strategy, the chief medical officer for England said on Thursday that only hospital patients would now be formally checked for the virus.

“It is no longer necessary for us to identify every case and we will move from having testing mainly done in homes and outpatients and walk-in centres, to a situation where people who are remaining at home do not need testing,” Professor Chris Whitty added.

The plan puts Britain at odds with international advice issued by WHO, which repeated appeals for efforts to track and trace all coronavirus cases on Friday.

www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-update-testing-news-herd-immunity-who-uk-cases-map-a9402051.html

If we do not have a reasonably accurate count of cases, how can we possibly rely on the science?

There is an basic rule in statistical analysis - rubbish in, rubbish out. If your data is unreliable, you can learn nothing.

I was thinking about the not testing policy. Those who may develop symptoms, self isolate and recover, may erroneously think themselves immune when in fact its a normal winter cold/chest infection or flu?
No way of tracking how the epidemic is progressing.