Any medics here?

I'm not a medic, but I have a good friend who is a GP. She's quite fearful of the people who come to her surgery, despite advice, and thinks it's inevitable she will catch it at some some stage. She's discussed it with her family and they've made contingency plans.

She's very cautious about avoiding risk. For example, she had to go to a meeting in London last week and planned her journey, so that she avoided the tube.

Off hand I can think of Galen and I think Mumofmadboys who are doctors. Janeainsworth is a dentist and Craftyone seems to have a professional background in epidemiology or something similar, if I am not mistaken.

You are not alone Greymar. DH asked a friend, former GP and in his nineties what he thought of it and he was told that man did not know what to think. Almost 60 years of medical practice and he could not remember the like of the current crisis. ?

I was a nurse and have never experienced anything as severe as this. In the 60s I was on a ward that had a gastric infection and we barrier nursed every patient and did not allow people on or off the ward. Staff were fed in a room that was apart from all other facilities and utensils and cutlery were all disposable. We had the infection under control quite quickly and I think containment depends on isolating people.
People are able to get on a plane and within hours can be spreading germs anywhere in the world.
My days of sitting in a tube of recycled air are over now.

My own doctor stumped me this week when she refused to create a medical form for me to submit to the courts to release me from jury service-

As a retired nurse, use your best judgement. Hand washing with soap and water. Use a dry or paper towel. Moist towels can hold bacteria and viruses..not necessarily corona. Stay out of crowds. Get someone to deliver your groceries if possible. Church counts...it is a crowd. Watching GC may not be in your or their best interest for a while. Panic comes when you do not have hard facts. Listen to the medical community for advice. Just because something is reported on the news does not make it factual. Remember, corona is being reported on like no disease before in part due to social media. Start a journal...see how each day you are safe and being wise. Chat here. This is a great place to exchange ideas and experiences.

I would like to know whether, and if so how, this is worse than previous pandemics, such as swine flu.

It's difficult to remember, (but maybe that speaks for itself) wheat the coverage of that was. I do remember people living alone being advised to ensure that someone had a key to their house in case they needed help, but more than that I've forgotten.

If this is worse, why is that?

Doodledog according to the NHS’s own website, many older people already had immunity against swine flu so it didn’t spread like this virus ispribably going to. No one has immunity against coronavirus unless they’ve had the illness in the past few weeks.

I see. Thanks, SueDonim - that makes sense.

I’m wondering if I should pop out for fruit and veg whilst I am fit and well or get a delivery. Although all slots are full until Sunday....

DH was refused a ‘not fit to fly’ form yesterday, he has a chest infection and it has aggravated his Asthma. He is coughing most of the day, is clearly unwell and we were due to fly out this morning, but have cancelled our trip.

I thought they wanted people to stay away from others if they have chest problems? Not sit in a crowded cramped aircraft.

Just heard that the nursing home where MIL is staying is in Lock down, will find out why later.
Worrying That anyone of our age who has other health problems probably won’t get the Intensive Care treatment if they need it, let’s hope that sickness rates stay low and that we all stay well.

Oopsadaisy, my doctor is the opposite.

A few years ago, I had a chest infection and was on steroids and my doctor told me to cancel a weekend in Berlin.
He said if I went, he would not be prepared to see me when I came back!

If you have insurance, can you not claim on that? You do need a doctor's letter though for the claim.

You must be so disappointed, it has happened to me a few times recently . However, better safe than sorry. With a chest infection, your husband is already vulnerable.

I was a trainee nurse ( cadet ) on a ward in 1956/7 when we had Asian 'flu. There were a lot of deaths then and because I was working in the thick of it I ended up in one of the beds. A young 19 year old girl died in the night in the next bed to me and it scared me at the time. She'd been in an oxygen tent as this 'flu also caused breathing problems and pneumonia.

This originated in China and killed thousands globally with around 4,000 deaths in England and Wales at the time. The population wasn't as it is now either. This was also described as a Cat 2 pandemic then. I remember it well.

Vaccines were started pretty well immediately and were free to everyone at the time. There were actually 2 jabs given at 2/3 week intervals.

I know hand washing with hot water and soap, and drying, are the key to prevention but could anyone tell me if washing with cold water and soap is effective. The water in our bathroom takes ages to run hot and, having to pay for water which goes down the drain grieves me. The soap lathers up just as well.

I have just seen some of a Q and A session on BBC one. I think more of this would help. I missed the answer to the question about washing clothes at 30 degrees.

rubysong Maybe you could boil up enough water in the kettle to put in the sink to wash properly your hands (cooled a bit with cold water!) then rinse them under the cold tap? The hot wash would do the cleaning, and the cold water would be Ok for the rinse.

I didn't see the BBC 1 Q and A, but a bit of Googling brought up the info that 30 degrees isn't enough to kill the virus, you need to go hotter than that - like 60 degrees for things others may have touched, like towels etc. The Sun has an article on laundry and CoVid19 www.thesun.co.uk/news/11149204/washing-clothes-kill-coronavirus-tips/ which at a quick glance looks sensible, and it also has a neat chart comparing symptoms of CoVid19, colds and flu. Diarrhoea isn't among the CoVid symptoms, so all those people with hundreds of toilet rolls must be planning to use them instead of tissues.

In the late 40s early 50s I was a nurse in a hospital for acute infectious fevers. I was especially interested in bacteriology. Unfortunately viruses are not bacteria. As far as I can remember mutations of viruses was not taught to student nurses, although during our first year we all had learned the new antibiotics were ineffective against viruses.

The way we isolated patients with viral infections was to nurse them in spaces, actually glass cubicles built within old Nightingale wards, where the glass partitions almost reached ceiling height but allowed sufficient air exchange high enough above patients where it was thought droplets would not be a consideration. Each glass cubicle was equipped with a basin with hot and cold running water, lever taps, soap, nail brush, cotton isolation gowns, clean masks for one use only, and containers for used contaminated stuff, and immediate needs of the patient such as thermometers and drinking utensils. There were also of course spaces within the cubicles for steam tents and oxygen cylinders.

In that hospital cross infection was a no-no and modern techniques have not basically changed. Medical and nursing staff were well cared for as it was recognised general non-specific natural immunity would protect to some extent even where it was not possible to immunise staff artificially by vaccination or similar.

And domestic staff too.
Visitors were not permitted into the ward. As far as I remember only the TB wards and maybe the open barrier nursing ward, no droplet infections or very infective diseases, allowed visitors. (At that time nearly everybody had natural acquired immunity to lung TB).

Marydoll doc says that DH is fit to fly, so Insurance won’t pay out. I had an Asthma problem last year, Doc gave me a letter after a lot of hassle and we had a refund for that.

Ordinarily we would probably have gone and taken a chance that we could have got medical treatment for a chest infection in our resort, but as we were self catering, we didn’t even know if we would be able to get the basics delivered if he became more unwell.

Alternatively I could have dragged him to the airport, made him have a coughing attack and let the airline tell us we couldn’t board. THEN I could, with a supporting letter , get the Insurance Company to reimburse us, but TBH he isn’t well enough to get to the airport and life’s too short.

Never mind, there are always others in a worse position than us, we are at home in the warm, with a Doctor 20 minutes drive away, plus DD2 is also close by.

I’ll whack the heating up, put him under bright light with a G and T and he’ll think he’s on holiday!

Oopsadaisy, and your DH, ?

Our GP is triaging patients before they will see them and online booking has been suspended.

A friend informed me that Vitamin D helps to protect against infections related to the common cold - ie corona viruses. I have read an article about this. It's quite cautious in recommending Vit D supplements but I think the conclusion is that it might help and it certainly wouldn't do any harm to take a moderate dose especially as we don't get it in sunlight at this time of year.