International Coronavirus Breaking News, v13: Over 21,000 Healthcare Workers From Around The U.S Heading To N.Y

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Thanks, she's alright. She's still in Bali and can't come here now, so that's not ideal, obviously. And she had a big tour around Europe in April canceled last week, which sucks, of course, but we knew it was coming anyway. She tailors these tours for largish groups of well off people and takes them on trips that sometimes lasts for weeks. I think this one was a three-week thing. And she spends months putting them together. So this cancellation alone means a decent chunk of money and a lot of work down the drain.

And the outlook for her going forward isn't great either, obviously. Running a travel business / tour operator at this time is... well, no need to say how much that sucks haha. She's basically out of work. We're fine with money and everything, though, so it's not the end of the world, but she's obviously not happy about it. And right now we don't know how long it will be until we even see each other. This virus sure is fucking up a lot of things already. Our worries are obviously quite insignificant considering what's happening to the world right now, though. We'll cope. I'm not sure about everything else. So many things could go wrong because of what's happening at the moment. Who knows how this will end.

Tour operators are my biggest customers, I really feel for the smaller businesses without resources to carry them through this. It's going to be a months with no income, plus a bunch of refunds. Brutal stuff.
 
I had pretty bad asthma when I was a kid. Pretty non existant now but when I get sick it always seems to attack my lungs. I don't get sick often at all but this kind of virus scares me. My daughter also has mild breathing issues so double that.

Anyway, sorry about the ramble. The blatant disregard many seem to have about the old and compromised is sickening to me.
Yeah mine is pretty much gone, until i get something like a chest infection.
 
So the U.K's strategy is letting everyone be infected and build up immunity for the next wave.

Quite a gambit, and I wish them the best of luck. Have those ventilators and ICUs ready, chaps.






Everyone else: please add the U.K to your travel ban list during their grand nation-wide petri dish experiment.

<JerryWWF>
 
"The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it"
–Joseph Mengele

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Herd immunity: will the UK’s coronavirus strategy work?
Ministers look to have given up on containment in favour of a novel approach some experts are wary of



Herd immunity is a phrase normally used when large numbers of children have been vaccinated against a disease like measles, reducing the chances that others will get it. As a tactic in fighting a pandemic for which there is no vaccine, it is novel – and some say alarming.

It relies on people getting the disease – in this case Covid-19 – and becoming immune as a result. Generally it is thought that those who recover will be immune, at least for now, so they won’t get it twice.

But allowing the population to build up immunity in this way – rather than through widespread testing, tracking down the contacts of every case and isolating them, as many other countries in Asia and Europe have chosen to do – could increase the risk to the most vulnerable: older people with underlying health problems.

To reach herd immunity, about 60% of the population would need to get ill and become immune, according to Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser. Though it could need as much as 70% or more. Even scientists who understand the strategy are anxious. “I do worry that making plans that assume such a large proportion of the population will become infected (and hopefully recovered and immune) may not be the very best that we can do,” said Martin Hibberd, professor of emerging infectious disease at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

“Another strategy might be to try to contain [it] longer and perhaps long enough for a therapy to emerge that might allow some kind of treatment. This seems to be the strategy of countries such as Singapore. While this containment approach is clearly difficult (and may be impossible for many countries), it does seem a worthy goal; and those countries that can should aim to do.”

The government’s “nudge unit” seems to favour this strategy. Dr David Halpern, a psychologist who heads the Behavioural Insights Team, said on BBC News: “There’s going to be a point, assuming the epidemic flows and grows, as we think it probably will do, where you’ll want to cocoon, you’ll want to protect those at-risk groups so that they basically don’t catch the disease and by the time they come out of their cocooning, herd immunity’s been achieved in the rest of the population.”

But Anthony Costello, a paediatrician and former World Health Organization director, said that the UK government was out of kilter with other countries in looking to herd immunity as the answer. It could conflict with WHO policy, he said in a series of Twitter posts, which is to contain the virus by tracking and tracing all cases. He quoted Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director general, who said: “The idea that countries should shift from containment to mitigation is wrong and dangerous.”

Herd immunity might not even last, Costello said. “Does coronavirus cause strong herd immunity or is it like flu where new strains emerge each year needing repeat vaccines? We have much to learn about Co-V immune responses.” Vaccines, he said, were a much safer way of bringing it about.

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/13/herd-immunity-will-the-uks-coronavirus-strategy-work

So quick math about 66.5 million people.
60% to reach herd immunity. 39.9 million people, 20% hospitalization rate, means 7.98 would need to be in the hospital thought the timeline of reaching herd immunity.

So because of that they would have a higher then average mortality rate.
Think they will need a travel ban asap.
 
What UK has decided to do terrifies me more than anything else that has happened so far
 
So quick math about 66.5 million people.
60% to reach herd immunity. 39.9 million people, 20% hospitalization rate, means 7.98 would need to be in the hospital thought the timeline of reaching herd immunity.

So because of that they would have a higher then average mortality rate...

Slight understatement, IMO :cool:
 
Crazy news from UK. I'm slowly becoming a pandemic expert following this thread and God bless all you guys, especially up there on the island. That decision could be disastrous, I don't even know if any nation can endure not taking serious measures against this.
 
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This is a joke right, right?
Successful or not, hundreds of thousands of people will die. England (like Italy) has an aging population, the average brit is 48. The majority of old people have underlying health problems.
Yeah, it's absolutely fucking unbelievable.

An uprising is needed. Quickly.
 
Boriqua joins the party.



Somalia still undefeated

Zero cases, an old man returned from China and they arrested him at the airport and placed him in solitary confinement, they don't even know if he even has the virus but they're not risking it. That's what true leadership looks like.

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<36>
 
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Crazy news from UK. I'm slowly becoming a pandemic expert following this thread and God bless all you guys, especially up there on the island. That decision could be disastrous, I don't even know if any nation can endure not taking serious measures against this.
Reminds me of how I became a demolitions and structural engineering expert while 9/11 unfolded.
 
I watched a few videos to try wrapping my head around the UK "strategy". They're explaining their reasoning very poorly, but let's say we take their words at face value and read between the lines. The plan basically hinges upon completely isolating old people from the general population. Let everyone else get contaminated, gain immunity, then return to normal with the herd immunity now protecting the vulnerable. However if executed poorly in any way, for instance if the virus manages to spread in retirement homes, the strategy is a complete failure and countless die.
Considering a lot of old people need assistance from personnel and are in close proximity to each other, realistically how much could you protect them from infection? It's an idea in theory, but in practice I don't believe imperfect human execution could pull it off. I watch people in public constantly touching their faces after having touched objects in public and playing with their phone full of germs, they have no discipline. The caretakers will bring the virus in. Maybe if you outfitted them in suits, but I don't think they have that equipment. Not to mention all the 50s+ that are not old, but have conditions.
Also a problem for seniors living with their family. If the idea to allow the virus to spread freely, the healthy family members will bring the virus inside the home.
 
What UK has decided to do terrifies me more than anything else that has happened so far

People in this series were talking about the hypothetical scenario of 2% mortality rate on the entire population to fend off the stupid "just the flu" bros since v1.

No one ever thought somebody would actually put it to the test.
 
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