Day of Chaos 2: a.Covid-19 thread.

[sheridan]

Hah hah, one of my main Iads from work just texted me to say he's in quarantine - a friend he hung out with the weekend before last was on holiday with a confirmed victim, and is now sick as a dog with fever/cough and queued up for a test. Luckily he still has no symptoms himself, and I haven't seen him since Friday - and rumour has it it's the last few asymptomatic days that the most shedding takes place.

Rumour?  You should stop listening to rumours.


Incubation period   5·8 days (2·6)


Symptoms of COVID-19 appear within two to 14 days after exposure and include fever, cough, runny nose and difficulty breathing.

[Tjm86]

The Tory policy of austerity has created a real "Sophie's Choice" here, eh? 

"Hobson's Choice" ...

[TordelBack]

Rumour?  You should stop listening to rumours.

Well I say 'rumour' precisely because I don't want to be asserting as facts things I don't fully understand, but that was the best understanding from the WHO when last I looked, which admittedly was last week - it's not like I was hearing it from a lad down the pub and reporting it on here as fact.

Feck all I can do about it anyway, just trying to give myself  a wee shred of hope! 

[Lorenzo]

Way to pick out one word from my reply. I have done my research try this:
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf

The conclusion of that study was that we need to practice suppression (which you labelled "hibernation", and were arguing against.) Not sure why you're arguing against your own research but there's nowt as queer as folk.

Sorry if my reaction to your comparing Covid-19 to flu didn't sit well with you: but I'm flabbergasted as to how anyone can make that sort of "bah - tis just a flu" comparison with a straight face (and without a clearly worn, and worn, tin foil hat). Like the WHO and the rest of the world are all shitting themselves for no reason. Italy's just exaggerating etc. I know you didn't say all that exactly, but it seemed like an analogy, and if it wasn't intended as such then what did you mean by the comparison?

I have no idea why you are being quite so patronizing and passive-aggressive towards me. I think you need to re-read my post and understand I'm asking a question.

I didn't say 'bah - tis just a flu' read my sentence again, don't parse it and don't reinterpret it.

Suppression is elastically defined as 'social distancing of the population + home isolation of cases + (possibly) school and university closures'. I don't consider that 'hibernation' which the French and Italians are practising. This involves banning people from leaving home at all and closing all businesses. The Dutch are attempting 'social distancing' whilst allowing some business to continue where home working is not an option. This could mitigate total economic collapse with only a minimal increase in risk.

That was the reason I asked my question to IndigoPrime, but you can answer if you want.
If you are advocating a total lock-down, like the French, where businesses are closed and freedom of movement is removed totally. How long will the economy last before total collapse and how does the state then pay for UBI? What happens to society if everyone's job goes down the sh*tter? Total lock-down will only work if it can be maintained until a vaccine has been produced. Otherwise as soon as the lock-down ends the virus will still be out there waiting.

[JOE SOAP]

The scientific advice here seems to be let everyone that is young and fit get the virus, spread out the infection rate over the next couple of months, and protect the elderly and sick from infection in the mean time. Protecting everyone isn't going to solve the problem. It seems to be an odd virus - most people barely notice they are ill, whilst the very old are very vulnerable, but seasonal flu is a bit like that as well...

There is no scientific advice that says that. 'Herd Immunity' has not been proven with COVID-19 because it hasn't been around long enough and even if it does develop it might not stick. Herd Immunity is usually developed in tandem with a vaccine, which we don't have.

[TordelBack]

The economy of the whole world is going down the shitter on this one, no matter what any one country does. All we can do is follow the best advice of epidemiological and crisis experts and save as many lives as we can. Ultimately that's what the economy is for, sustaining life, not creating wealth to be hoarded. It will have to change.

[Mister Pops]

That's very interesting.

I don't have a clue how this will all work out, nor would I even try to pretend to.

[TordelBack]

I don't have a clue how this will all work out, nor would I even try to pretend to.

Wise words, Mr P.

[Funt Solo]

Lorenzo: I think there's a confusion over terms, honestly.

You're differentiating the French/Spanish/Italian response from suppression and I'm not. You have called it "hibernation", whereas I'd just describe it as sensible suppression. So, we disagree there.

---

As for your not liking my way of expressing myself toward you: you compared Covid-19 to flu in an ambiguous way that seemed (to me) to downplay the dangers of the former, and that triggered me. I got salty. I still think that's pretty fair. Happy to eat my hat (metaphorically: things haven't gotten that desperate yet) if you tell me that's not what you were doing.

[shaolin_monkey]

The Tory policy of austerity has created a real "Sophie's Choice" here, eh? 

"Hobson's Choice" ...

Sophie’s, surely?

“Sophie's choice refers to an extremely difficult decision a person has to make. It describes a situation where no outcome is preferable over the other. This can be either because both outcomes are equally desirable or both are equally undesirable.”

Keep schools open - infect everyone
or
Close schools - starve 1 in 3 kids

Both are equally undesirable.

[TordelBack]

It's a digression, but how the fuck does one of the richest countries in the world get to the point where so many kids depend on school meals for survival? Whenis shit is over, it seems like there are some very serious questions to be addressed about how we do things.

[gurnard]

Close schools - starve 1 in 3 kids

This should not be on the list in a civilized nation.

[Rately]

It's a digression, but how the fuck does one of the richest countries in the world get to the point where so many kids depend on school meals for survival? Whenis shit is over, it seems like there are some very serious questions to be addressed about how we do things.

It really is disgusting.

Blue in the face at this point asking how the tories got in, and somehow remain in power. As much as the right wing media are at fault, you have to question the morals and empathy of a hell of a lot of voters.

[Jim_Campbell]

Blue in the face at this point asking how the tories got in, and somehow remain in power. As much as the right wing media are at fault, you have to question the morals and empathy of a hell of a lot of voters.

I'd never truly appreciated the power of the media until the last couple of years, having had multiple conversations with people I would otherwise have thought politically fairly sensible, or at least moderately savvy, absolutely convinced that Corbyn was more or less literally Satan. The sheer volume of demonstrable lies that have passed into 'common knowledge' as things 'everyone knows' is simply overwhelming.

You have to strip every political conversation back to first principles and work from the ground up, refuting every lie one by one and, even then, most of the time the other person doesn't believe you. You can see a shutter come down behind their eyse and suddenly you're a "cultist". It's exhausting, which was probably the point.

(Apologies for the derail.)

[IndigoPrime]

Mrs IP still at work, because her company is still figuring out how to get fucking Slack working (their PCs still mostly run Internet Explorer, and they are admin-locked, with only one part-time tech support guy who works nights barely available to make changes), let alone remote access to their systems. But, hey, all’s good, because they’ve put in place a stringent set of requirements, including:

- Removing all filing from desks (in what’s principally a paper-based org)
- Forcing everyone to eat lunch IN THEIR CARS (and closing the kitchen facilities)
- Having all meetings outside, in the cold
- Denying anyone the means to move between the two buildings
- Cleaning every three hours
- Regular temperature checks

Now, I’d broadly on board with about one and a half of those. My wife notes: “Nobody is getting any work done.”

ARGH. Meanwhile, at mini-IP’s school, they are now down SIX staff and an increasing number of students, whose families are self-isolating. But they pretty much have to stay open, for various reasons. YAY, UK! We’re doing so well!