General / Off-Topic The safest place

[ianw]

He was already forced to clarify that he was wrong, but fell short of apologising for going directly against the governments own instructions.

You can't expect honesty or accuracy from a man like Gove, he was heavily involved in the dishonesty .

This wasn't Gove actually - some other bod. But yeah, same difference.

It's inarguable.

They're telling people not to be outside in groups of more than two unless same family under same roof.

Then they standby and watch the scenes on the tube.

A metal container jammed full of people where each station has a re-assuring wind of air blasting through as each train arrives just to make sure everyone gets an opportunity to share in any shed virus that may be flying around.

In London that already has the highest concentration of infection.

 

[jasonbarron]

That’s why we keep the compound in a lockdown, no one goes out and no one come in. This is not a time where we want to gamble.

When this first showed up in Wuhan I remember talking on the forum about the feasibility of stocking up and pulling up the draw bridge behind me. As we've learned more about the virus, my perspective has changed considerably.

Unless it just magically goes away on its own, or we find a cure, it will be waiting for us whenever we finally come out of or bunker(s). Isolating buys time, but how long is it practical to isolate for? For you the answer might be a year. For an entire country it isn't practical for even a month. Whether a month or a year, it'll still be waiting to pounce in all likelihood.

This looks to me like something that we're going to wind up coexisting with, unfortunately.

 

[ianw]

When this first showed up in Wuhan I remember talking on the forum about the feasibility of stocking up and pulling up the draw bridge behind me. As we've learned more about the virus, my perspective has changed considerably.

Unless it just magically goes away on its own, or we find a cure, it will be waiting for us whenever we finally come out of or bunker(s). Isolating buys time, but how long is it practical to isolate for? For you the answer might be a year. For an entire country it isn't practical for even a month. Whether a month or a year, it'll still be waiting to pounce in all likelihood.

This looks to me like something that we're going to wind up coexisting with, unfortunately.

I guess the hope is kicking it down the road as long as poss will give time for some herd immunity to kick in and there may be some more effective treatments/vaccine by then.

But yes, it's not going away completely.

 

[Stigbob]

This wasn't Gove actually - some other bod. But yeah, same difference.

It's inarguable.

They're telling people not to be outside in groups of more than two unless same family under same roof.

Then they standby and watch the scenes on the tube.

A metal container jammed full of people where each station has a re-assuring wind of air blasting through as each train arrives just to make sure everyone gets an opportunity to share in any shed virus that may be flying around.

In London that already has the highest concentration of infection.

It was both Gove and Jenrick I think.

 

[jasonbarron]

I guess the hope is kicking it down the road as long as poss will give time for some herd immunity to kick in and there may be some more effective treatments/vaccine by then.

But yes, it's not going away completely.

Which is why we're seeing the leaders of various nation's struggle with the equation: we won't achieve herd immunity by bunkering up. It's just not realistic for a country to bunker up for a period of time long enough to make a difference. So many people talk about locking things down as if it's a panacea, it's like they don't consider what happens after you lift the lock down.

My perspective is that by buying time we can build field hospitals, PPE, ventilators and treatments, but that's not going to happen in any big way without mobilization, so how do you mobilize with a lock down? How do you achieve herd immunity with a lock down? The answer to both is that you don't.

 

[OnePercent]

Strange times indeed Obsidian Ant

 

[askavir]

Which is why we're seeing the leaders of various nation's struggle with the equation: we won't achieve herd immunity by bunkering up. It's just not realistic for a country to bunker up for a period of time long enough to make a difference. So many people talk about locking things down as if it's a panacea, it's like they don't consider what happens after you lift the lock down.

My perspective is that by buying time we can build field hospitals, PPE, ventilators and treatments, but that's not going to happen in any big way without mobilization, so how do you mobilize with a lock down? How do you achieve herd immunity with a lock down? The answer to both is that you don't.

True, but the current alternative would be letting those old/sick people suffocate to death due to lack of ventilators and ICUs while the rest of us build herd immunity, and that is not acceptable (in my opinion).

Some kind of balance must be struck somehow.

 

[jasonbarron]

True, but the current alternative would be letting old those old/sick people suffocate to death due to lack of ventilators and ICUs while the rest of us build herd immunity, and that is not acceptable (in my opinion).

Some kind of balance must be struck somehow.

Don't make the mistake of thinking I'm insensitive. I'm just pointing out an unfortunate reality: what happens on the other side of the lock down? It's unlikely that we're going to have ICU beds for everyone who needs one (by a vast margin), or a vaccine. Our various takes nation by nation on what a quarantine looks like seem unlikely to do more than prolong an agonizing process with a small chance of solving anything.

The things that people are counting on to help in the crisis won't be possible without many of us putting our personal safety aside and throwing ourselves into the meat grinder.

 

[Gully Foyle]

If you're an obese smoker than you have plenty of blame. Feeling like we can't say that is an aspect of what I meant by "political correctness kills."

Of course you are to blame if you are an obese smoker and that's not being unpolitically correct IMO.

 

[Oldviboy]

Which is why we're seeing the leaders of various nation's struggle with the equation: we won't achieve herd immunity by bunkering up. It's just not realistic for a country to bunker up for a period of time long enough to make a difference. So many people talk about locking things down as if it's a panacea, it's like they don't consider what happens after you lift the lock down.

My perspective is that by buying time we can build field hospitals, PPE, ventilators and treatments, but that's not going to happen in any big way without mobilization, so how do you mobilize with a lock down? How do you achieve herd immunity with a lock down? The answer to both is that you don't.

clearly you are speaking through the mouth of your leaders and you do not realize the situation .... first it was china, nobody believed it, then italy, and in my country they did not believe it when it arrived .... i am spanish, and in a week We have gone from being the fourth country to the second most contagious .... The US is next, other stupid leaders who do not take action until the evil comes home.
Trust me, you will have a hard time, in Spain it was cut in healthcare and we are noticing it, collapsed hospitals, at first it was only an inhospitable but simple quarantine, now they have lengthened it, tightened the sanctions, separate lines of one person in supermarkets, controls on roads, blocked roads, field hospitals, requests for material from companies and their logistics, deaths of health personnel and doctors ... and the situation does not improve, it worsens every day ... I live in the Canary Islands and we have not yet Noticing the brutality of Madrid, for example, but it is growing, that thing does not seem to be spread only by physical or material contact, some doctors believe that it is too aggressive and that it may spread through the air.

Protect yourself, keep your family safe, this is serious, no country has taken it seriously with its first infections, last week there were almost no infections in the US, now you are the third in the world, in Africa more of the same. ... If in a week I have collected this data, in a year it can be overwhelming. the first rows are world infections and deaths, the other 2 in my country, Spain.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Don't make the mistake of thinking I'm insensitive. I'm just pointing out an unfortunate reality: what happens on the other side of the lock down? It's unlikely that we're going to have ICU beds for everyone who needs one (by a vast margin), or a vaccine. Our various takes nation by nation on what a quarantine looks like seem unlikely to do more than prolong an agonizing process with a small chance of solving anything.

That is a bit lacking in nuance.

1) A vaccine is hoped for within 12-18 months. So that is an upper limit of how long any measure is expected to last.
2) Medication is a different story, and while it is difficult to make any solid predictions it is likely to start having a positive effect sooner.
3) Everything short of a china-style lockdown will still have a seizable spread. Manageable by ICU, but still a spread.
4) Each infected that survive will be able to get back to 'normal', and tests for antibodies are in the very near term.
5) Provided ICU is not overloaded, the young & healthy have really a very, very low chance of mortality.
6) 'Staggered quarantine' is very much an option; where regions are temporarily 'unlocked' for a amount of time in a series.

So, in other words, the plan is to start with quarantine to prevent the immediate collapse of the healthcare infrastructure, followed by an ever increasing number of immune people going back to normal. The rest will face intermittent lockdowns to keep the infrastructure from being overwhelmed. The more progress is made with respects to medication and the more immune people there are, the more the periods between local lockdowns. This process lasts until a vaccine is found and rolled out.

The alternative is to let more people die than the losses suffered during WW2.

 

[Gully Foyle]

I'm not an anti-vaxxer, I'm just a guy with lots of responsibilities and grave concerns about the pharmaceutical industry and medical complex as a whole. Of course you can't even say that without being accused of being a flat Earther, but I'm waaaaay past caring what anyone thinks.

I will tell you that I have extensive experience with vaccines in the animal husbandry field and have many truly chilling stories about the consequences of various viruses (conronavirus among them) left to run amok without a vaccination program specifically to target them. Think hundreds of puppies dying to the canine equivalent of Ebola, truly scary, gruesome stuff. In my old career (over a span of about 37 years) I was operating closely with veterinarians from all over the world, as well as nutritionists and other sports medicine related disciplines, while trying to run a world class training and breeding program, so don't think for a second that the acceptance of science didn't play a significant role in our operations. With all that said, our health care and vaccination protocols looked a lot different than the "lets throw a hundred shots at your kid before he's even eighteen months old" approach shoved down the throats of western civ.

You exaggerate the amount of vaccines needed. It's six
Hepatitis B (2nd dose)
Diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough (pertussis) (DTaP)
Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib)
Polio (IPV)
Pneumococcal (PCV)
Rotavirus (RV)

 

[Oldviboy]

That is a bit lacking in nuance.

1) A vaccine is hoped for within 12-18 months. So that is an upper limit of how long any measure is expected to last.
2) Medication is a different story, and while it is difficult to make any solid predictions it is likely to start having a positive effect sooner.
3) Everything short of a china-style lockdown will still have a seizable spread. Manageable by ICU, but still a spread.
4) Each infected that survive will be able to get back to 'normal', and tests for antibodies are in the very near term.
5) Provided ICU is not overloaded, the young & healthy have really a very, very low chance of mortality.
6) 'Staggered quarantine' is very much an option; where regions are temporarily 'unlocked' for a amount of time in a series.

So, in other words, the plan is to start with quarantine to prevent the immediate collapse of the healthcare infrastructure, followed by an ever increasing number of immune people going back to normal. The rest will face intermittent lockdowns to keep the infrastructure from being overwhelmed. The more progress is made with respects to medication and the more immune people there are, the more the periods between local lockdowns. This process lasts until a vaccine is found and rolled out.

The alternative is to let more people die than the losses suffered during WW2.

not to mention that cases are beginning to be known of people who become infected again, of human-to-dog infections (in China), of young people who are also dying ... and I think the data is not even half of the real .

 

[jasonbarron]

clearly you are speaking through the mouth of your leaders and you do not realize the situation .... first it was china, nobody believed it, then italy, and in my country they did not believe it when it arrived .... i am spanish, and in a week We have gone from being the fourth country to the second most contagious .... The US is next, other stupid leaders who do not take action until the evil comes home.
Trust me, you will have a hard time, in Spain it was cut in healthcare and we are noticing it, collapsed hospitals, at first it was only an inhospitable but simple quarantine, now they have lengthened it, tightened the sanctions, separate lines of one person in supermarkets, controls on roads, blocked roads, field hospitals, requests for material from companies and their logistics, deaths of health personnel and doctors ... and the situation does not improve, it worsens every day ... I live in the Canary Islands and we have not yet Noticing the brutality of Madrid, for example, but it is growing, that thing does not seem to be spread only by physical or material contact, some doctors believe that it is too aggressive and that it may spread through the air.

Protect yourself, keep your family safe, this is serious, no country has taken it seriously with its first infections, last week there were almost no infections in the US, now you are the third in the world, in Africa more of the same. ... If in a week I have collected this data, in a year it can be overwhelming. the first rows are world infections and deaths, the other 2 in my country, Spain.

Your response would totally make sense if any way shape or form I implied that this wasn't serious.

 

[AkenBosch]

So, in other words, the plan is to start with quarantine to prevent the immediate collapse of the healthcare infrastructure, followed by an ever increasing number of immune people going back to normal. The rest will face intermittent lockdowns to keep the infrastructure from being overwhelmed. The more progress is made with respects to medication and the more immune people there are, the more the periods between local lockdowns. This process lasts until a vaccine is found and rolled out.

The alternative is to let more people die than the losses suffered during WW2.

The thing literally every person even remotely competent in virology and medical science at large have tried to shout everywhere around the world so far, with no national or cultural borders, but with various degrees of "not actually being listened to".

 

[Robin of Spiritwood]

Pandemic “will last 18 months or longer,” leaked US gov’t report warns

Gov’t report warns of medical-supply shortages and “multiple waves” in pandemic.

arstechnica.com

Old article, about a leaked US Gov report suggesting an 18 month timeline.
This is in keeping with the estimated vaccine deployment in a best case scenario where the first vaccine proves effective and safe.

It is eventually going to pass. Lets keep that thought.

I do not have the food resources to make 18 months though. We shall have to resupply in 3 to 4. How long is your reserve going to last?

We are not rich, but we are independent, for now. Still have a small backup income trickle.
I don't need to apply for Govt. assistance, let those who need mine get it.

First power cut last night. Private security is working out.

 

[askavir]

Don't make the mistake of thinking I'm insensitive. I'm just pointing out an unfortunate reality: what happens on the other side of the lock down? It's unlikely that we're going to have ICU beds for everyone who needs one (by a vast margin), or a vaccine. Our various takes nation by nation on what a quarantine looks like seem unlikely to do more than prolong an agonizing process with a small chance of solving anything.

The things that people are counting on to help in the crisis won't be possible without many of us putting our personal safety aside and throwing ourselves into the meat grinder.

I wasn't implying you were insensitive, I took your post as simply cold facts.

I think when/if we get the number of severe cases / number of ICUs and respirators ratio under control, and get the number of infected people down a tad(*) so that the rate tends to diminish and not increase, we will slowly start lifting the lockdown, even because we cannot stay on lockdown forever, or risk going back to complete economic breakdown that might be even far worse in number of victims than the virus itself.

Another hope is that our most brilliant minds can come up with efficient treatment for the most severe symptoms, as a vaccine seems to be far into the future.

(*) - Exactly how much is this "tad", is the difficult part to estimate. I for sure can't.

 

[Ian Skippy]

I do not have the food resources to make 18 months though. We shall have to resupply in 3 to 4. How long is your reserve going to last?

I have a massive freezer and there is about 900lbs of meat shuffling around in my building.

 

[Robin of Spiritwood]

I have a massive freezer and there is about 900lbs of meat shuffling around in my building.

Thats a lot of rats...

 

[Rubbernuke]

I wasn't implying you were insensitive, I took your post as simply cold facts.

I think when/if we get the number of severe cases / number of ICUs and respirators ratio under control, and get the number of infected people down a tad(*) so that the rate tends to diminish and not increase, we will slowly start lifting the lockdown, even because we cannot stay on lockdown forever, or risk going back to complete economic breakdown that might be even far worse in number of victims than the virus itself.

Another hope is that our most brilliant minds can come up with efficient treatment for the most severe symptoms, as a vaccine seems to be far into the future.

(*) - Exactly how much is this "tad", is the difficult part to estimate. I for sure can't.

I think the problem is that only testing people can really make a difference. Similar drugs like Oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and the controversial chloroquine (if proven) have to be taken ideally when you are asymptomatic (i.e. in the first days of infection), almost prophylactically to have any benefit- other drugs that are nebulised may also be effective but these need a clinical setting to be administered. Only testing, tracing and isolating/ treating will have a dramatic effect on curbing the problem. Hopefully the vaccine will have few problems in its development, and hopefully this strain does not have significant genetic drift over time otherwise its back to square one. This too is a gamble, it may mutate into something milder to spread better (or it may not).

One thing that is clear, the world has changed- the unthinkable has happened and now there will be a public clamour for lessons to be learned.