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Discussion > Covid 19 stuff

Despite that, the tail is worrying, if not yet a cause for alarm, IMO, though I do agree with Phil that we'll have a clearer picture in two or three weeks' time......

Aug 3, 2020 at 8:12 PM Mark Hodgson

If the UK has no vaccine, our only hope is that herd immunity is acquired without excessive death toll. Physical treatment and drugs (including Hydroxychloroquine) have improved the odds for those hospitalised.

The first person to bring Coronavirus into the UK may have been identified, but the UK's epidemic started with multiple Patient Zeros and spread rapidly. We don't know how many others one person can infect from leaving home to returning from work in a single day.

I am unclear about the uncertainty concerning immunity after recovery. Herd Immunity is normally the limiting factor for viruses

Aug 3, 2020 at 10:38 PM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53638083

"Researchers from UCL and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine used computer models to see how the virus might spread in the UK as pupils returned to the classroom and their parents were more able to go back to work or resume other activities."

" The study assumes children are less likely to catch - and therefore spread - coronavirus and that some parents would continue to work from home."

Aug 4, 2020 at 7:24 AM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

Nine Covid-19 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours. However, the figure for the same day a week earlier was seven. I think this is the first time the number of deaths has been higher than on the same day a week earlier since we reached the top of the curve. I hope this doesn't represent the start of an uptick in deaths in line with the uptick in cases.

Aug 4, 2020 at 8:40 AM | Unregistered CommenterMark Hodgson
Aug 4, 2020 at 9:16 AM | Unregistered Commenterfred
Aug 4, 2020 at 9:19 AM | Unregistered Commenterfred

DM folk cranking the alarmism handle hard this morning....

Tanks on the M25

Aug 4, 2020 at 9:39 AM | Registered Commentertomo

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/07/why-arent-we-talking-more-about-airborne-transmission/614737/

A long but interesting article on covid airborne transmission.

Aug 5, 2020 at 8:21 AM | Unregistered CommenterTinyCO2

The BBC is making the sorts of points that the Lockdown Sceptics website has been making, much to my surprise:

"Coronavirus: Is the UK in a better position than we think?"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53656852

"...But is the situation really as bad as it seems?

Infection rates 'not rising in any significant sense'
It was one of the more curious aspects of last week's warnings that the government seemed so ready to embrace the concept that infection rates were on the up.

This is a government that all along the way has been trying to mount a vigorous defence of its record.

The surveillance programme - run by the Office for National Statistics - did suggest they were rising.

But there has to be heavy caveats around these findings - they are based on just 24 positive cases among nearly 30,000 people over the course of two weeks. Drawing conclusions from such smaller numbers is fraught with difficulties.

The other key source of data - the cases found by testing - shows numbers have started going up. They are now more than 40% higher than they were in the second week of July on a rolling-seven day average.

But that masks the fact the number of tests being carried out is increasing and being targeted at areas where infection rates are highest.

If you test more, you are likely to find more.

So if you look at the percentage of tests that are positive, the rise is marginal once you iron out the daily fluctuations.This is a point made by Prof Carl Heneghan, who heads the centre for evidence-based medicine at Oxford University.

He says it is essential to adjust for tests being done and is concerned about what he calls "poor interpretation" of data.

Covid cases, he says, simply aren't rising in any meaningful sense.....".

Aug 5, 2020 at 8:28 AM | Unregistered CommenterMark Hodgson

Bat virus triggers batshit bureaucrats?

Aug 5, 2020 at 10:28 AM | Registered Commentertomo

Aug 5, 2020 at 8:21 AM TinyCO2
Excellent, thank you!
Written to be understood by non Medics, with real examples and real data.

"People don’t emit an equal amount of aerosols during every activity: Singing emits more than talking, which emits more than breathing. And some people could be super-emitters of aerosols. But that’s not all. The super-spreader–event triad seems to rely on three V’s: venue, ventilation, and vocalization. Most super-spreader events occur at an indoor venue, especially a poorly ventilated one (meaning air is not being exchanged, diluted, or filtered), where lots of people are talking, chanting, or singing. Some examples of where super-spreader events have taken place are restaurants, bars, clubs, choir practices, weddings, funerals, cruise ships, nursing homes, prisons, and meatpacking plants."

Aug 5, 2020 at 10:31 AM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie
Aug 5, 2020 at 6:27 PM | Registered Commentertomo

"The Lancet's Richard Horton has a Covid-19 book out....
Aug 5, 2020 at 6:27 PM tomo"

Is it as full of incompetence as his role in the MMR Autism farce?

Aug 6, 2020 at 12:24 AM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie

UK Covid-19 Death figures adjusted.....

Will we see a commensurate reduction in salaries and benefits at PHE?

It is not difficult to see the overcounting as deliberate manipulation of the official record for nefarious bureaucratic purpose - as opposed to simple fuck-up / incompetence.

Aug 6, 2020 at 10:46 AM | Registered Commentertomo

I see that "Good Morning Britain" TV show is suggesting oestrogen as a Covid-19 cure for "at risk" groups....

No hint that they might test on themselves first though, which is a real disappointment.

Aug 6, 2020 at 12:50 PM | Registered Commentertomo

I'm hearing that Dr. Fauci cited this paper

#awkward - or fake news .... over to Clarky.

Aug 6, 2020 at 6:19 PM | Registered Commentertomo

That's a paper published several years before COVID-19 even existed showing chloroquine was effective against a different coronavirus (there are hundreds of the things) when tested in vitro on infected monkey cells.

If Dr Fauci had cited it, it would be a complete irrelevance to the current pandemic. Different virus, different drug.

But there's no evidence he did cite or approve it, the 'reasoning' seems to run - it was published by a Journal published by the NIH, Fauci heads the NIH, he must have approved the paper. QED.

Well it does not quite work that way, and even if it did the journal is not published by the NIH.

Wrong on all counts. Just a monumentally lame/fake attempt to pin something on the scientist who refuses to endorse Trump's lies, seems to me.

I know fact-checking is not your thing, but you could avoid a lot of wasted time with a cursory check. ;-)

Aug 7, 2020 at 4:12 PM | Unregistered CommenterPhil Clarke

I see Snopes have had a makeover and 3/4 of the page is Chinese adverts..... here anyway.

If HCQ works - as I've said repeatedly here - it has a very limited window of therapeutic opportunity akin it would seem in "best case" outcomes to Remdesevir - it is though - a highly reliable and proven trigger to those who view the whole virus debacle through DNC supplied TDS goggles - and that includes Snopes stooping to quote CNN....

HCQ has been left behind somewhat by advances in treatment of acute cases (where it was not afaics posited as a cure anyway) - as partially laid out by Beelzebub in the virus presser last week

- which of course elicited little comment from the screeching MSM baboons - as did the drops in the Texas and Florida numbers....

anyway - you took the bait again ....

Aug 8, 2020 at 4:33 PM | Registered Commentertomo

Looks interesting.

Chloroquine/ hydroxychloroquine prevention of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the healthcare setting; a randomised, placebo-controlled prophylaxis study (COPCOV)

The COPCOV trial will determine whether a daily prophylactic dose of chloroquine / hydroxychloroquine can protect healthcare workers from catching COVID-19 infection

Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine have been used for over 50 years to prevent and treat malaria and to treat rheumatoid arthritis. They have an excellent safety profile making them potentially suitable for mass use as prophylaxis and in many laboratory studies they have antiviral activity.

https://www.copcov.org/?fbclid=IwAR1rsk2mYyOXKgV6X4Tw1CUclhYRXVY8gkMLwVl6tgvPzd4z_3fB_31fYx4

Aug 8, 2020 at 6:34 PM | Unregistered Commenterhusq

HCQ has been shown as an effective prophylactic. RCT in India.

When PPE is lacking, why not?

More money in remdesivir, I suppose.

Aug 8, 2020 at 7:25 PM | Unregistered CommenterCharly

"The Turkish approach is at odds with most countries, such as the UK, where symptomatic patients are asked to stay home, wait, until the symptoms essentially become unbearable, and then serious complications and hospitalization become very likely.

Such reporting about early treatment is typically absent from mainstream media coverage, so this coverage needs to be celebrated. The pictures are also remarkable.

“As soon as a patient has symptoms, they are treated with hydroxychloroquine tablets and/or favipiravir at home. Follow-up calls quickly spot if the symptoms worsen, and then they will be admitted to hospital.”

http://covexit.com/turkeys-covid-19-early-hydroxychloroquine-treatment-strategy-featured-by-sky-news/

Aug 8, 2020 at 7:30 PM | Unregistered CommenterCharly

More "loonies" using HCQ, in various protocols:

http://covexit.com/dutch-belgian-medical-professionals-recommend-prophylaxis-early-treatment-protocols/

After a while, you have to wonder whether there might be something in this use of HCQ.

In the UK, it is "stay home, paracetamol if you have pain, honey for a sore throat, and if you get really sick, we'll put you on a machine and watch you die".

Remember, "there is no cure".

"Orange Man Bad".

Aug 8, 2020 at 7:39 PM | Unregistered CommenterCharly

anyway - you took the bait again ....

Maturity personified. Bye, troll.

Aug 8, 2020 at 9:35 PM | Unregistered CommenterPhil Clarke

"Maturity personified. Bye, troll.

Aug 8, 2020 at 9:35 PM Phil Clarke"

You keep promising that. Are you paid too much to give up?

Aug 8, 2020 at 11:24 PM | Unregistered Commentergolf charlie
Aug 12, 2020 at 7:43 PM | Registered Commentertomo

Thread

1/ There is growing evidence that T-cell immunity allows populations to reach herd immunity once only 10-20% are infected with SARS-CoV-2.

This would explain why a highly transmissible virus in densely populated areas peaked at 10-20% infected regardless of lockdowns or masks.

https://twitter.com/JamesTodaroMD/status/1292873236716433416

Aug 12, 2020 at 10:39 PM | Unregistered Commenterclipe