My name's Alex and this is my website all about Los Alcázares in Spain. Register now for free to talk about Healthcare and medical advice in Los Alcázares and much more!
RichT wrote on Wed Mar 18, 2020 1:53pm:
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...
Read more...
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...
Thanks. This is what Borris said yesterday and is available in real time on both BBC and SKY News channels.
