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China coronavirus spread is accelerating, Xi Jinping warns.

Discussion in 'News from the UK, Europe and the rest of the World' started by aposhark, Jan 25, 2020.

  1. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    You have to wait for a publicly available reliable antibody test and they don't exist yet once they do it will tell people if they had it or not in the past.

    If your wife thinks she had it as far back as mid February, while it is not impossible it is highly unlikely, there just were not that many individuals with actual infection in the UK at that time, in mid to late February there would have been no more than a couple of hundred people infected in the whole of the UK.

    And to be clear I am not talking about tested people I am talking about all infections known and unknown.
  2. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    Extremely unlikely John, my sister, her husband my eldest daughter, my friend in Cumbria, and me we all had something that fitted the exact description of this illness in late January, it's just not possible that what we had was in any way related to this virus, it was far to early to have that geographical spread in people who had not been in contact with each other for months and months.
  3. Anon220806
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    Anon220806 Well-Known Member

    I know what you are saying, Oss. In our case my wife works with people who went on vacation to Southern Asia earlier in the year. We saw that as a possible route for the virus to be passed onto us, upon their return, for example (various airports, aircraft and air terminals etc etc).

    Did you by chance have a read of the results coming back on testing in prisons in the USA?
  4. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    I hadn't but I have now, a prison is a petri dish, the R0 will likely be far higher remember it is not an inherent feature of the virus but a combination of features of the virus and the density of the population amongst other factors.

    They need to follow this up with case outcomes for everyone in that petri dish and that is going to take weeks.

    It will not be that widespread in the community already as that would show up in any random testing anywhere, in other words you would almost always get positive results for any test conducted no matter who you tested and I don't believe that is what they are seeing.
  5. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    How much earlier in the year was that John?

    As I said before, I travelled through Singapore Changi airport on 1st of January, at that point it had probably had a month to spread in SE Asia but for me to get ill in the last week of January that would mean an incubation period of 21 days and while scientists are not discounting that as a possibility it is incredibly unlikely that I would happen to differ that much from the norm.
  6. Anon220806
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    Anon220806 Well-Known Member

    Well, the actual dates are a little fuzzy now. But we were all on holiday over Christmas in Portugal. We got back just before New Year. That point was possibly too early but the dates during which my wife’s work colleagues were away were in the time frame before lockdown earlier in the year. Actual dates we cannot recall but were in the ballpark, shall we say. The prison Petri dish appears to confirm how likely it is that people can have the virus without knowing it. Our hunch is that we all had it but with symptoms so relatively minor that they could have been classed as asymptotic at that time.

    We may never know I guess.
  7. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    The reason I don't really believe that this is accurate is that Germany's 2 million tests so far should have shown up such a trend, out of their 2 million tests they only got about 160,000 positives, their tests were not just people presenting with symptoms and even if it had been you would expect more positives.

    Likewise Iceland, tiny population of less than 400,000, 46,000 tests performed and less than 2000 positive.

    UAE 1 million tests, 10,000 positive.

    And there are plenty more countries with very high tests per capita that show the same pattern.

    But lets do some numbers on the assumption that 94% to 96% are asymptomatic.

    65,000,000 Brits roughly.
    lets say 5% are symptomatic and 95% are asymptomatic that's
    3,250,000 who show symptoms eventually
    of those who display symptoms 20% go on to have serious symptoms that's
    650,000
    of that number half have severe symptoms which need some level of hospital care that's
    325,000
    of that number half need ICU
    162,500
    half or more of Covid 19 patients in intensive care for Covid 19 in the UK die.

    So that is some 80,000 deaths we can expect if the entire population is already infected which would be the case by now if the R0 had been even as high as 3 by the start of February.

    This would suggest that the illness was about 7 or 8 times less dangerous than it appears to be, and I am not sure that is the case.
  8. Anon220806
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    Anon220806 Well-Known Member

    Yes. I thought maybe the testing was suspect. But assuming not then of course a prison is likely to be a closed and close knit environment where spreading is rife. But if true would underline how it can move through people without them even knowing.
  9. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    Prison Demographics might not reflect wider society so health outcomes might be different and while prisoners are confined many of them try to keep themselves fit because being inside is such a dangerous environment so they might be healthier than many outside.

    The communal environment will certainly push up the R0 so it would spread through a population very quickly and more might actually be positive at the same time but it also depends on the period over which the tests were conducted, if they did them all in the same day then it would be a surprise if almost every single one of them was infected.

    Dr John Campbell has long been stating that he thought that the numbers were even up to a hundred times the numbers what we were seeing in testing but if you think about it if it were that widespread most people would have it already so this is one thing from him I have always doubted, I think that there could be 10 times to 20 the cases in the population compared to identified tested cases.
  10. Anon220806
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    Anon220806 Well-Known Member

    Probably not too far removed from a care home but with differences in health and fitness levels. :D
  11. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    Exactly, although we shouldn't really laugh :)
    • Agree Agree x 1
  12. Anon220806
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    Anon220806 Well-Known Member

  13. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    Which is why I write myself off in this epidemic :) I'm more overweight than Boris.

    There are some very obese people who have recovered from this illness, I saw an article about a couple recently who were very obese and who both survived, but I agree that it would appear that this is a major factor in this illness.
  14. Anon220806
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    Anon220806 Well-Known Member

    No. You have already had it Oss and pulled through it. :D
  15. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    Nah no vector to explain it at end of March :D
  16. aposhark
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    aposhark Well-Known Member Lifetime Member

    Have you been tested yet, Jim?
  17. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    The tests they are doing will not tell them or you if you had the virus in the past Mike, so it would be a waste of resources to test me given the degree of isolation I have imposed on myself for the last five weeks, I have been outside this flat for a total of 4.5 hours in the last 40 days, I've had no exposure apart from that so the result would be negative, I should only be tested if I have new symptoms.

    I know I am advocating random testing but it would be better to test random people who are forced to be in contact with others through their work as they are far more representative of the majority of the population than I am.

    If tests had been available at the end of March I would have had myself tested as it had only been 7 days since I had been at risk at work, if an antibody test was available now I would have myself tested to see if I had antibodies but there is no point doing an antigen test on me as I'm really not very at risk right now.

    I wash any bottles or cans brought back from a supermarket that I need to touch in the next 3 days and then wash my hands, if I have bought something further in the past than that I will happily touch those surfaces but still wash my hands after, when I get in from the supermarket the first thing I do is wash my hands, my keys are in the door and won't be touched again for 6 or 7 days, I'm generally careful and I can keep this up for months.
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  18. aposhark
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    aposhark Well-Known Member Lifetime Member

    It is very stressful to have to do all of these precautionary measures for all of us, Jim.
    I was chatting with my sister (an ex-lead health visitor).
    My finances have dictated that I have gone back to work and she said we will all have to "brave it" as time goes on.
    I agreed with her.
    It was great to drive again this week. It gave me a wonderful feeling of self-worth again after a month off.

    There was one agency driver who walked over for a chat and was a couple of feet away before I even realised - I was wearing a mask but he was not. Many people do not wear masks still.
    It is so hard for people to change the habits of a lifetime and hard to keep a safe distance like it is in the supermarkets for example.
    Overall, I will continue to be as safe as I can but I was finding that my mental health wasn't good being cooped up every day and worrying about the silent killer being everywhere, being out to get me :eek:

    I am looking forward to driving at work again.
    • Like Like x 1
  19. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    Yeah I know it is stressful for people Mike, for me it is an annoying modification to the usual processes of living but for me it is far easier because I live alone and I was pretty isolated anyway, this would be really hard if I were living with family.

    Glad you are working again but just take care as much as you can.
  20. Jim
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    Jim Well-Known Member Trusted Member

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