Coronavirus: The Threat

[steve25805 126,156]

2 hours ago, likesToLick said:

Steve,  since you work in food supplies,  will you be a key worker? 

Yes, if and when I return to work. At the moment I am in 12 week isolation as a diabetic.

[Scot_Lover 1,878]

Its starting to escalate, faster than I ever expected.

100,000 in the USA

15,000 in the UK

3,000 here in Aus

Malign has left her volunteer position, and I'm currently just sitting back, I have no need of work at this time.

Some of the social Distancing is not working, people are still going out, kids are still meeting in shopping centers and congregating on beaches.

Police and Army have now been called in to control this, hammering some sense into brain dead people, talking of an almost $2000 fine for breaking conditions.

Things are unraveling at an alarming rate.

[steve25805 126,156]

1 hour ago, Scot_Lover said:

Its starting to escalate, faster than I ever expected.

100,000 in the USA

15,000 in the UK

3,000 here in Aus

Malign has left her volunteer position, and I'm currently just sitting back, I have no need of work at this time.

Some of the social Distancing is not working, people are still going out, kids are still meeting in shopping centers and congregating on beaches.

Police and Army have now been called in to control this, hammering some sense into brain dead people, talking of an almost $2000 fine for breaking conditions.

Things are unraveling at an alarming rate.

It is indeed worrying. Here in the UK we have police checkpoints stopping people to check they are out for legitimate reasons and fining them if they are not. There is talk of the army being drafted in to help with this, which would mean army checkpoints on the streets of Britain. Airports and other locations are being prepared to be used as makeshift morgues for thousands of bodies. The army is helping with this. New hospitals with thousands of beds are being set up. The morgues and the hospitals are not being set up for nothing. We are heading into deeply stressful times. Many of us will lose loved ones. Some of us risk losing our own lives. There is talk of sedating victims over 60 and letting them die due to a lack of ventilators. Our National Health Service is about to be overwhelmed. Some hospitals are almost at the point of turning new patients away already.

It is going to get worse - a whole lot worse - before it gets better.

This is both terribly sad and terribly worrying. But it is the stark reality as I believe it to be.

[Metalcrue 147]

The Chinese government have a lot to answer for. You can bet anything the minute this is over, Trump is completely going to go in full throttle and sanction the high heavens out of them... Rightfully so. 

It's worrying times and not helped by the amount of numpties in the UK panic buying. 

Luckily where I am working atm, we are all smart. Everything is in stock and the only thing being decimated is the alcohol supplies... Which fair play is being replenished well. 

[steve25805 126,156]

Well the threat of the virus is well and truly with us now.

Situation in the UK.

It appears to be decimating the occupants of elderly care homes, but not all the deaths are even being recorded as due to the virus.

I think we are being misled.

The official figures released every day only include those dying in hospitals.

And still there is zero testing at airports. Planeloads of people are still arriving - often from virus hotspots - and heading off into the general population, unquarantined and untested. Yet no one seems to be making much of an issue out of this gross stupidity. Not the political opposition. Not the media. We just get spoon fed propaganda. I truly despair sometimes.

[likesToLick 10,216]

12 hours ago, steve25805 said:

Planeloads of people are still arriving - often from virus hotspots - and heading off into the general population, unquarantined and untested. Yet no one seems to be making much of an issue out of this gross stupidity.

That is appalling.  Here in Australia we banned all foreign arrivals more than a month ago,  and brought in mandatory 14 day quarantine for all residents returning home.   As a result we are now getting the disease under control with only a handful of new infections each day. 

I can't imagine why the UK government is acting so stupidly.

[steve25805 126,156]

5 hours ago, likesToLick said:

I can't imagine why the UK government is acting so stupidly.

There are two schools of thought as to why.

One is simply gross stupidity and incompetence, which is itself a damning indictment of the people we voted into office if true.

The other school of thought it is that it is quite wilful, the intention being to gradually spread the virus more readily in pursuit of so-called herd immunity. If this is the case they are not being honest about it.

What is doubly baffling is that both the political opposition and most of the media are utterly failing to hold the government to account on this, thereby making themselves de facto complicit.

[Adyguy6970 878]

Although I'm on a different page to Steve politically, healthwise I'm in a similar situation to him as I'm a Type 2 Diabetic, a factor which increases the risks for me - plus being the wrong side of fifty!  Ultimately it will be for the historians to decide how well or badly we dealt with the pandemic as they will have that great thing, the benefit of hindsight, to draw upon.  One of the problems with Covid-19 is that we've not had to deal with anything comparable to it for a hundred years.  It's sobering to remember than during the Spanish flu epidemic there was no NHS, no state of the art technology or ventilators to assist people, just GPs and hospital consultants trying to do their best with pretty basic kit.   

[Ms. Tito 2,396]

On 4/22/2020 at 5:46 AM, steve25805 said:

There are two schools of thought as to why.

One is simply gross stupidity and incompetence, which is itself a damning indictment of the people we voted into office if true.

The other school of thought it is that it is quite wilful, the intention being to gradually spread the virus more readily in pursuit of so-called herd immunity. If this is the case they are not being honest about it.

What is doubly baffling is that both the political opposition and most of the media are utterly failing to hold the government to account on this, thereby making themselves de facto complicit.

At least it's better than the United States trying to get people to sacrifice their lives to the almighty stock market. 

[steve25805 126,156]

23 minutes ago, Adyguy6970 said:

I'm in a similar situation to him as I'm a Type 2 Diabetic, a factor which increases the risks for me - plus being the wrong side of fifty!

Same for me as you said. Type 2 diabetic on the wrong side of 50.

And do you know a worrying statistic? 1 in 4 registered covid deaths in the UK so far have been diabetics!

We might be living on borrowed time.

[Adyguy6970 878]

1 minute ago, steve25805 said:

Same for me as you said. Type 2 diabetic on the wrong side of 50.

And do you know a worrying statistic? 1 in 4 registered covid deaths in the UK so far have been diabetics!

We might be living on borrowed time.

That is certainly a possibility and sounds like a good argument for making the most of it if we can.  

[likesToLick 10,216]

[Alfresco 11,639]

I've just read this thread for the first time and it is spooky how @steve25805 was so accurate in his predictions way before the government started saying anything.   If it had been clamped down right back in January then the world would be a much less affected place now.

What worries me is that a very small number of cases in the UK spread very quickly, therefore, unless we get back to NO cases, then as soon as we relax social distancing and other restrictions, then it is just going to escalate again.  Yet, the government is saying to open schools and people are meeting up in groups.  Totally nuts.

 

[steve25805 126,156]

7 hours ago, Alfresco said:

I've just read this thread for the first time and it is spooky how @steve25805 was so accurate in his predictions way before the government started saying anything.  

 

Thing is, I am not clairvoyant. This virus shit was utterly predictable from the start, knowing what we already knew from China in January. Yet apparently our useless government had no clue. That is damning.

[Alfresco 11,639]

17 hours ago, steve25805 said:

Thing is, I am not clairvoyant. This virus shit was utterly predictable from the start, knowing what we already knew from China in January. Yet apparently our useless government had no clue. That is damning.

Totally agree.  They didn't want to believe it so they didn't act quickly enough and now the obvious has happened.

[steve25805 126,156]

One thing I didn't get right.

Based upon the death rates in China, I said that if only one in five of us in the UK caught it we could see 27,000 deaths. But currently there appear to be over 50,000 excess deaths, yet far fewer than one in five of us have as yet caught it - unless many more have been infected than we know about.

This suggests - for whatever reason - a death rate far higher than the one that was reported in China.

[oliver2 4,421]

4 hours ago, steve25805 said:

One thing I didn't get right.

Based upon the death rates in China, I said that if only one in five of us in the UK caught it we could see 27,000 deaths.

(Curiosity piqued)
I think you dropped a zero somewhere - 60 million people, 1 in 5 of which is 12 million. 1 in 45 of that would have been, I make it, 267,000! So your original prediction was 10x more optimistic than it should have been.

It’s a horrible disease. I’m thankful we have modern technology to sequence it and study it, and keep everyone half sane while quarantined. But what I wouldn’t give for better political leadership...

[steve25805 126,156]

1 hour ago, oliver2 said:

(Curiosity piqued)
I think you dropped a zero somewhere - 60 million people, 1 in 5 of which is 12 million. 1 in 45 of that would have been, I make it, 267,000! So your original prediction was 10x more optimistic than it should have been.

It’s a horrible disease. I’m thankful we have modern technology to sequence it and study it, and keep everyone half sane while quarantined. But what I wouldn’t give for better political leadership...

You are quite right. Thanks for your correction. the 50,000+ excess deaths make more statistical sense now with current infection rates.

Appalling though that still is.

[FlyingthedreamUK 248]

The best ever explanation of why you should wear a mask.....

[Adyguy6970 878]

1 hour ago, FlyingthedreamUK said:

The best ever explanation of why you should wear a mask.....

This is very good indeed.  Can I have permission to reuse it?

[FlyingthedreamUK 248]

No permission needed, go ahead 🙂