Coronavirus - UK250,000 deaths if course not changed - watch the BBC - Page 2

Haven't got a clue where your going with this?  For god sake calm down and stop causing worried and vulnerable people distress.  They get it without the claptrap and drivel of your theatrics,  they get it. And it ain't War. For one, I'm blocking your reports. 

Me too.

I'm out.....,

Roberto

Thank you so much for posting the link to the report.

It is important for me to be able to read what the professionals have to say so that I can make my own mind up and not be taken in by media hype.

Once again, thanks.

Do we have any figures on how many people die from passive smoke, how many people die from Flu? or deaths on the road etc, all non self inflicted  or other

Yes this is a different strain, but let’s all be sensible about it, I’m sorry but I think country lockdown ain’t going to solve the problem, as soon as we come back out of the woods it will probably flare up again.

Without the world wide news there wouldn’t be as much panic.

The world can’t  come to a standstill for a long period of time, more people will end up dying of stress.

A vaccine is possibly the only true answer, but if that is rushed through how many deaths could that cause?

Remember thalidomide (Still used in cancer patients) stunts the growth off rapidly growing cells

Worldwide flu deaths EVERY year 650 000..................

There are some hundred or so different drug trials going on, some of them started in very early February with a mixture of old already approved drugs, like the antimalarial Choroquine and some with unapproved new molecules.

If an approved drug, already being made by many manufacturers around the world was found to reduce the severity when used from day one, then that could change the sitiation world-wide. If not, but a new drug, that could take six months.

A Japanese-made flu drug favipiravir (sold as Avigan) has been shown to be effective  in one trial of 340 patients in both reducing the duration of the COVID-19 virus in patients and to have improved the lung conditions of those who received treatment with the drug, based on results of clinical trials conducted with affected patients in both Wuhan and Shenzhen by Chinese medical authorities. There are more trials now being done with this drug in China and Japan. 

However, this drug which has been approved for influenza in Japan and now for Covid-19 in China will have to go through approval processes in other countries, although governments may choose to accelerate this process.

Fingers crossed!!

Thanks for that Roland.

There we go! 

Where is the vaccine for that?

A percentage of all this (My opinion) is to cause disruption in the world economy and scale it back, yes I do really do feel for those who have lost their lives,  and my heart goes out to the people who have lost friends and loved ones.

Why is a question that needs to be asked about a lot of things in life, ie why war, why water shortage in certain parts of the world, still never been solved from the attempts in the 80s.

Humans will destroy earth one day, so how clever are we really? 

View fom the UK (I own a holiday home in Murcia, but live in UK).

My view - and it's only my considered view, I'm not claiming to be correct about all of this, is...

The virus is now almost under control in China. They had 4 new cases on Monday from residents and 20 among citizens who had returned from abroad. This is due to their (some would say, extreme) approach to lockdown / self-isolation - an approach that is being mostly mirrored in Spain & France, for example.

There is a really good academic paper on Medium.com which examines the statistics from China and back-calculates the likely volumes of perople infected, from when people were first tested. This also highlights a general issue in that we only know if people do or do not have the virus if they are tested - and very few people are tested unless they are in hospital - which in most cases is due to existing underlying health issues, which can further skew stats.

This paper then forecasts spread in other countries based on uncontrolled -v- China model. this demonstartes that if we don't take urgent, strong actions, the spread and consequences could be very bad.

The UK government, as you may know, has now advised everyone to work from home, where possible; and to stay at home (not quite self-isolate), particularly those who are 70+ years old, pregnant women and those with chronic underlying health conditions and/or compromised immune systems (e.g. those whose medication includes immuno-suppressants). They have also advised aginst public gathering and not to visit bars, restaurants, cinemas, etc. - a significant number of which are closing, with is leading to temporary job losses for many. Schools have remained open as, thenkfully, children appear to be only slightly affected by the virus - but they can spread it - and we don't want schools to close and children to be commonly cared for by grandparents, who are at higher risk from the virus. That said, many schools are now closing in parts due to teacher absences, so this will have helped a little and now many parents will not be at work, mitigating the grandparents issue.

The approach is aimed at 'flattening the curve', so that people who are at less risk of serious complications (the vast majority of the poulation) will slowly catch the virus, which will feel like a mild dose of flu, and then recover, having built up a degree of resistance. This is called 'herd immunity'. During this time, the NHS is cancelling non-urgent appointments and aiming to free up extra hospital beds, particularly Intensive Care beds. This will also allow healthcare staff to, probably, catch & recover from the virus. Several large companies - e.g. JCB, have been asked to build ventilators, as the main impact of the flu is on lung conditions and these are desperately needed.

The government has publicly floated the proposal that 'from this weekend, it is likely that the elderly and those with chronic undelying health conditions will be asked to stay at home for 12 - 14 weeks.'

Thi sounds terrible, but the aim of this is to buy time for the above referred hospital beds, ventilators, healthcare staff, etc. to be prepared for an increase in admissions in 12-14 weeks' time, when these constraints are lifted and, unfortunately, a proportion of those people will suffer a more serious response to the virus. If these delaying measures were not put in place, then a high number of these people becoming infected within a short timeframe would overwhelm the NHS and lead to many more deaths (500,000) than should occur if these actions weren't taken.

'War' is clearly an emotive term, but maybe it is used to amplify the serious nature of the virus; and it also relates to measures being atken - restriction on movement of populations, asking companies to produce different products that are urgently needed - and maybe to engender a wartime spirit of not being beaten, all pulling together, helping each other...

Well said RichieT,  the entire community has to work together to try and slow the spread of the virus to prevent a wave of seriously ill people overwhelming the medical system as happened in China and Italy.  When that happens, large numbers of  people are unable to be treated adequately and the mortality rises.

The  various social distancing measures are designed as you say are to flatten the curve, not to magically make the virus disappear.

I note the posting of 650,000 annual death numbers for influenza. There are vaccines for the rapidly mutating strains of influenza, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical expert in the USA. suggests the mortality rate for Covid-19 is ten times that of influenza.

Can you please post the link to the mediium.com academic paper, so people can take the time to inform themselves.

Thanks Roberto30710. The title was obviously to grab attention...

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca

...although the intention is to educate and inform in the hope that the public will comply with the proposed measures.

The government has just announced that all schools in Wales & Scotland will close by Friday, with a decision on England expected imminently.

And, in related news..

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51941987

Also Sainsburys & Asda (and probably more) are limiting the amount of items that people can buy due to panic buying. Several supermarkets are introducing dedicated hours when elderly & people with health condition only can buy goods, to minimise their exposure to others; and they are being prioritised in home delivery services.