Coronavirus
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AlJo asks:
And my problem is that I don’t understand what is now become hysteria about it from the normally conservative scientific community and governments who primary care is usually solely about the health of their economy than with the health of their citizens. What is the threat that has got the callous capitalist class so concerned, very much more so than ever before?
Perhaps yesterday’s steepest one day drop in the stock market since 1987 might be a good reason why governments are making a fuss about the Corona. Focusing on disease, even on the perceived deficiencies of the response, deflects attention from economic problems. Health of the economy comes first.
Reported today, divorce rates in China have spiked after the lock down there.
I also wondered about the way in which some people are panic buying toilet roll. In my local supermarket all of the shelves were cleared.
I took a slightly different view and loaded my trolley with spirits, wine, cider and beer. let’s face it you can always wipe your arse on the curtains, but how would I manage 4 weeks locked in with my beloved, without some gargle.
To be fair she seemed to share the same sentiment and ensured there were several litres of vodka and brandy purchased. Must be my scintillating conversation. 😥
Matt, I read the article and again it is not satisfying me that the effects of covid19 justifies the extreme responses of various governments to stem its spread.
Well, when they have now cancelled the Old Firm game and Scottish fitba’ in general here in Scotland and I can’t get my regular high strength coffee, because of panic buying, I have got to take it seriously.
I am already self isolated, but that is normal for me.
Just been reading the chancellor’s budget speech (as you do) and at one point he says “if we expect 20 per cent of the workforce to be unable to work at any one time.” There are 34.5 million in the UK workforce, so the government is apparently anticipating that some 6.5 million workers could be off work during the peak of the epidemic.This would only be temporary but would translate as a significant drop in production — and so the flow of profits. It seems that have calculated that this can’t be avoided and have resigned themselves just to trying to limit the damage; which would be more if they did nothing.It is true they could be exaggerating or panicking but we’ll know in two or three months.Sent from my iPhone(1) Exponential growth and epidemics
Note the innocuous appearance at the start of the epidemic.
For naysayers. It took just 2 rabbits—at the start of the spread—to overrun a continent. ‘Innocuous‘ linguistically relates to ‘inoculation‘, which for COVID-19 is many, many, months off!)
(2) How serious is corona virus (COVID-19)
A doctor on what to expect in the coming days and weeks
“How can you deny that the pandemic is having a negative effect on production?”
Whoever denied that? What I have said is it appears that it is the containment policies are a self-inflicted wound upon the economy. I said the cure is proving more painful than the sickness to the economy and it was something I found hard to understand about the ruling class response.
I have highlighted the policies are particularly damaging to the poor economically and for many the covid19 threat is less than the harm of poverty upon them.
ALB does that stat include the recommended self-enforced quarantine or actual employees falling sick?
The exponential risk video is useful.
The contagious rate drops if travel is locked-down or social distancing or we clean our hands more. What should have been the most cost-effective policy implemented, one that can be sustained for a long time?
TWC, Michael Osterholm makes a very good case to treat the illness as a matter of urgency. His own view has changed from January.
He says Americans should be aware of the situation, but not worried.
“Public health around the world is on alert for this. They’re monitoring it closely and intervening quickly when cases are identified,” Osterholm says.Like all good scientists his opinions change with improved information.
He has a respected history of analysis which widens the debate. He was the messenger that nobody listened to. So I appreciate that you drew my attention to the interview
“We have the ability to make a very effective vaccine for yellow fever. The problem is no one wants to spend the money to make it because you can’t make money on it… And even though we have a vaccine for it today, we can’t get it to people because nobody will make it. If yellow fever comes back, it will make dengue and Zika seem like [much lesser] public health problems…And even though we have a vaccine for it today, we can’t get it to people because nobody will make it. If yellow fever comes back, it will make dengue and Zika seem like [much lesser] public health problems…We published a paper in 2011 in the Lancet about how flu vaccines don’t work nearly as well as the public health community has led the public to believe. In some cases, they don’t work at all, and their ability to be available for a pandemic is extremely limited worldwide because of the time period it takes to make them and the amount of vaccine we can make. During a pandemic, we’ll be lucky if a few percent of the world would even get a vaccine by the time the pandemic has wiped through the population. And then on top of that we don’t even know how well it would work, and it could be very poor.”
Why we can’t be complacent about the threat of infectious disease: a Q&A with Michael Osterholm
“We don’t want to do things that are counterproductive if there’s not a benefit,” he said.
I referred to the closing of the Irish schools as an example.
This virus is often talked about in terms of two modes: containment — preventing spread — and mitigation — trying to minimize harm — Osterholm said. But there’s a middle ground: suppression, or flattening the timeline of the epidemic so it’s not, for example, 100 people getting admitted to the hospital one week, but maybe 10 cases a week for 10 weeks.
Reading his other articles, his priority is protecting the healthcare workers who would treat coronavirus patients – suppression.
Bijou – “On a serious note I do think we need to consider postponing annual conference, we have a number of members who have health vulnerabilities and we don’t want to endanger any members.”
Certainly not under today’s circumstances but confirmation for those of us who have been saying for a long time that we should be making conference a virtual video interactive event.
Too late in the day to do it now, though. Or am i wrong?
“ALB does that stat include the recommended self-enforced quarantine or actual employees falling sick?”
Yes I think so. So the estimated 6.5 million to be off work during the peak period would include those advised to self-isolate as well as those too sick to work.
The stated policy of the UK government is, as the doctor you quote put it, “flattening the timeline of the epidemic so it’s not, for example, 100 people getting admitted to the hospital one week, but maybe 10 cases a week for 10 weeks.” Which of course prolongs the epidemic and the disruption to everyday life even if it would make it easier for the NHS to cope.
I’m a strong believer that when you have dug yourself into a hole, the first thing you do is stop digging yourself any deeper. So no more challenging the medical seriousness of the pandemic.
From now on my focus will be on the damaging impacts of covid19 on those who are not being effectively protected and that is widespread both in the developed world and the less developed.
President Rodrigo Duterte issue a lockdown order for Metro Manila. This has already happened in Quezon City, which has so far reported six of the country’s 64 confirmed coronavirus cases. Quezon City has a population of more than three million.
The Manila lockdown, which takes effect between March 15 and April 14, will bar domestic travel in and out of the capital and confine more than 12 million people to the area. Duterte vowed to deploy police and military to instil “peace and order” during the lockdown, which was recommended earlier that day by an interagency committee. He insisted the measure is “not martial law”.
Philippine National Police chief Debold Sinas said that violators of the lockdown would be subject to arrest.
Dr Joshua San Pedro, co-convener of the Coalition for People’s Right to Health said, “It seemed mostly like a military and police solution rather than a health intervention.”
Duterte said authorities would enforce social distancing measures in public areas, including mass transportation. This may be impossible in densely populated, impoverished communities where families live in one or two-room dwellings and share bathrooms with neighbours.
The lack of running water, access to nutritious food and dilapidated housing conditions in poor communities makes “advice such as handwashing, maintaining good nutrition, and self-quarantine matters of privilege,” San Pedro said.
There is a severe shortage of COVID-19 tests in the Philippines and the country’s health workers are overburdened. Last autumn, it was reported the health department’s budget was cut by 10 billion Philippine pesos ($195.8m).
This is a typical situation for low-income countries with very poor safety-nets and where many live in overcrowded shanty-towns with little or no sanitation.
Its getting a lot worse in Europe – and so suddenly! Be prepared. We are at the start of a very bumpy journey in the weeks and months ahead
Latest figures today from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
72,550 (93%)
Recovered / Discharged5,438 (7%)
DeathsThe real death rate is undoubtedly much lower because the real number of cases is undoubtedly much high than the official or confirmed cases. In the UK confirmed cases to date is 798 with 11 confirmed deaths but the real number of people infected is estimated to be between 5000 and 10,000, mostly asymptotic or with mild symptoms
The media are reporting that one of the strategic aims of the government’s policy is to achieve “herd immunity” so that the next time the virus comes around, like next year, it won’t be so bad as enough people will be inoculated against it. Since there is as yet no vaccination against it, this means that the only way to inoculate people will be for them to have contacted the virus and recovered.
According to an item in today’s I paper:
” for the UK population to gain herd immunity, a large enough number of people — 60 per cent of the country, 40 million people, in the words of the chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance — will need to contract the virus and then recover.”
But not everyone will recover. If the death rate is 3% then 1.2 million won’t. Even if it is only 1 percent some 400,000 won’t. These will be the number of us herd who will have be sacrificed to achieve “herd immunity”.
I don’t know if achieving herd immunity is the government’s aim or if the figure of 6 out of every 10 people having to get the virus and recover is valid, but if so it appears that the government is being advised by a mad professor.
” for the UK population to gain herd immunity, a large enough number of people — 60 per cent of the country, 40 million people, in the words of the chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance — will need to contract the virus and then recover.”
But not everyone will recover. If the death rate is 3% then 1.2 million won’t. Even if it is only 1 percent some 400,000 won’t. These will be the number of us herd who will have be sacrificed to achieve “herd immunity”.
“I don’t know if achieving herd immunity is the government’s aim or if the figure of 6 out of every 10 people having to get the virus and recover is valid, but if so it appears that the government is being advised by a mad professor.”
I think I smell the influence of Dominic Cummings and his fruitcake mates.
Missed this from yesterday’s Times:
“At the core of policy decisions, argues Roy Anderson, from Imperial College London, there is a dilemma. ‘The simple epidemiological rule is the earlier you intervene the better. Weighed against this is the economic impact. Governments cannot minimise mortality and economic impact.’”
If this is the dilemma, in deciding to delay the peak the British government appears to have decided to minimise the economic impact rather the number who will die.
Which might explain why the Prime Minister went out of his way to warn that “many more families are going to lose loved ones” — many more than strictly necessary?
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