SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

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mdd2
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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by mdd2 » Tue Oct 27, 2020 4:21 pm

Lowbankclaret wrote:
Tue Oct 27, 2020 3:36 pm
So can I ask a question of you guys.

How is this virus Covid, different from your flu virus we get each year.

How is it it’s thought our bodies can maintain immune reactions to Covid when it does not with Flu.

Honest questions, that why I am sceptical but that might be because of a lack of knowledge.
Different virus which mutates less often than flu and we do maintain some immunity to flu which is why we only have flu pandemics when the circulating virus is very different from previous strains we have been exposed to eg Spanish flu of 1919, Asian flu of 1957, HongKong flu of 1968 and these have been H1N1, H2N2 and H2N3 with present strains being either H1N1 or H3N2 and until we get a new strain unknown to our immune system we will continue with endemic flu a mild illness to most and reduced prevalence provided we get vaccinated against the strains in circulation. We do not have a vaccine for influenza b which is a milder illness. This Covid 19 is a new kid on the block which is not recognised by a large percentage of the population and can produce a life threatening illness and as yet we have no idea when it will mutate to produce a more or less severe illness nor how long we could be immune from re-infection or how long any vaccine will be effective for. As posted before unknown unknowns

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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by mdd2 » Tue Oct 27, 2020 4:28 pm

Undersiege the test using a swab looks for virus particles using primers and the sensitivity is around 80% and specificity about 95% but the lower the pre-test probability of a person having the virus the less reliable it becomes. Have a look at this-I think it will surprise you-hope the link works 10.1136/eb-2013-101243

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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by FactualFrank » Tue Oct 27, 2020 4:32 pm

Another random thought on these viruses, is Virtual Reality and online communication as a whole. We know that they spread from a person-to-person touch.

As time moves, people are physically seeing each other less as they once was, with people preferring to chat online, Zoom, playing online computer games and the like. I think it's only a matter of time before there's hardly any person-to-person touch, and we're all wearing VR glasses and seeing each other in a virtual world.

At that point, you'd think even the cold virus could die out, as not enough people are going near enough other people.

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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by cricketfieldclarets » Tue Oct 27, 2020 4:36 pm

FactualFrank wrote:
Tue Oct 27, 2020 4:32 pm
Another random thought on these viruses, is Virtual Reality and online communication as a whole. We know that they spread from a person-to-person touch.

As time moves, people are physically seeing each other less as they once was, with people preferring to chat online, Zoom, playing online computer games and the like. I think it's only a matter of time before there's hardly any person-to-person touch, and we're all wearing VR glasses and seeing each other in a virtual world.

At that point, you'd think even the cold virus could die out, as not enough people are going near enough other people.
I think thats unlikely really. We NEED physical contact. We are a social species. And while many are going down this route it will never replace the norm.

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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by CombatClaret » Tue Oct 27, 2020 4:40 pm

UnderSeige wrote:
Tue Oct 27, 2020 3:51 pm
If you look at the case rates in the UK for March and early April, the peak for cases (7 day average) was April the 14th. They than flattened off and started falling in May. The peak for deaths was also April 14th. There was no lag. The deadly virus was sweeping through the most susceptible people in the population (particularly care homes).
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/

Here is another one that compares 'case rates' (top right corner) with deaths (main graph). Deaths rise very steeply in March/April as do cases. Compare with now. The cases are skyrocketing but the deaths are rising relatively slowly.

Image
I won't comment on all your graphs coming pre-potted from 'Lockdown Skeptics'

That data you present is borderline worthless as a comparison of then and now, of course cases and deaths are going to align almost exactly in the first wave because we were only testing those entering hospital with serious symptoms and doing absolutely zero testing in the community.
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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by mdd2 » Tue Oct 27, 2020 4:44 pm

FF just look how there was a bounce back after lock down was eased-sadly with a bounce back in cases. It should be possible to have 1 metre+ contact with mask or 2 metre+ without mask and contain the spread without these restraints of Tier 3 and more, but sadly as a species we find it impossible to adhere to these apparent simple things because there are so alien to our behaviour. So I think your tongue in cheek post will not come to pass-well not just yet although once we have to start repaying for all this excess Government spending-we wont have the money to get out and about!!!!! :( :( :(

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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by mdd2 » Tue Oct 27, 2020 4:49 pm

Additionally Combat looking at deaths now and making comparisons with the Spring is also not sensible as more people are surviving due to steroids and less invasive ventilation until much later in the illness, but there will be an as yet hidden cost to those who now survive who six months ago may have died and that is how much additional morbidity there will be in survivors-not a time to be getting overconfident about this until cases start to fall.

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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by CombatClaret » Tue Oct 27, 2020 4:53 pm

Chief Scientific Advisor Patrick Vallance confessed the current situation ‘is not under control’ at a Government press conference today – but warned it is impossible to compare infection rates to March as testing is now more widely available. He said figures reported earlier in the year were ‘almost certainly a very big underestimate of the total’ and the real figure would probably be around 100,000 new cases on some days in March and April.


Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2020/09/30/uk-was-h ... to=cbshare

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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by Inchy » Tue Oct 27, 2020 4:59 pm

Update from Leeds hospitals posted on F@cebook...


Today we have 263 patients in our beds who have tested positive for COVID-19, including 22 in intensive care. This means we have more COVID-19 patients in our hospitals now than at the peak of the pandemic in mid-April. Over the next 48 hours we expect the number of people in critical care to increase.

On Tuesday last week there were 148 patients who tested positive for COVID which demonstrates how quickly the virus is spreading. Not only is the number of COVID cases increasing but so is the rate of increase.

The majority of admissions over the weekend has been older people with respiratory conditions. The infection rate for over-59s has increased from 165 per 100,000 last Saturday to 269 per 100,000.

Please follow the local rules and restrictions to help reduce the spread of the virus and protect our NHS staff so that we can care for others.

Please read and share this important update: https://www.leedsth.nhs.uk/about-us/new ... vid-status
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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by mdd2 » Tue Oct 27, 2020 5:01 pm

And that is reflected in today's figures Combat
Something of the order of 350 deaths reported today showing the jump after the weekend but that is about 50% more than last Tuesday.New cases 21,000+ Deaths likely to continue rising until after we see the number of new cases falling, hopefully by the end of November if not before provided we heed the advice.

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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by CombatClaret » Tue Oct 27, 2020 5:03 pm

adjusted for our best calculation of reality not available tests at the time.
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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by mdd2 » Tue Oct 27, 2020 5:06 pm

Sadly not surprising news Inchy is it? Ignore the recommendations and back into the mire we go. Hopefully you will have fewer deaths but the pressure on the NHS is going to be even greater IMO as we are not intending to cut back on other services as much as before. Our ICU is less affected but there are now 4 wards of Covid patients and we have more staff going down with it

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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by cricketfieldclarets » Tue Oct 27, 2020 5:11 pm

Latest stats in Sweden.

Deaths remain very very low. (2 yesterday for example). Which continues to suggest that they haven't delayed the problem as most others have.

I suspect they will be back to normal before anyone else. Surely if reinfection was such a big issue (if it happens at all so quickly) they would have been worse hit than anyone?!
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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by FactualFrank » Tue Oct 27, 2020 5:21 pm

I see that the cases in Liverpool are now falling. I expect there will be a delay before hospital cases follow suit.

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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by CombatClaret » Tue Oct 27, 2020 5:23 pm

cricketfieldclarets wrote:
Tue Oct 27, 2020 5:11 pm
Latest stats in Sweden.

Deaths remain very very low. (2 yesterday for example). Which continues to suggest that they haven't delayed the problem as most others have.

I suspect they will be back to normal before anyone else. Surely if reinfection was such a big issue (if it happens at all so quickly) they would have been worse hit than anyone?!
Reinfection is not the main problem for most countries, it's the 95% of the country that didn't get it the first time around.
They will not be back to normal soon, those rising cases will become deaths again, those two deaths today were infections caught a month ago.
Same mistake as UnderSeige, the cases they reported in first wave will be nowhere close to accurate, in reality they will be minimum 10x higher. Now we are seeing a more accurate picture with community testing those rising cases will today will become deaths in the coming months. The low deaths we see today are from the low infections in August, not the higher cases today. They're in the same boat as the rest of us.
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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by mdd2 » Tue Oct 27, 2020 5:24 pm

Big country small population (10 million) and apparently more compliant with advise. Also they have an excellent health care system.That their infection rates of say 2000/day would be 13000 for 65 million that we have over 20,000 and assuming we have the same testing regimes suggest they do things better than us. Is it population density? (64/sq.mile v UK 727/sq.mile) or do they obey rules better than us. If we had the same population density our population would be less than 6 million and infectious diseases do like to be near people, it is how they thrive.
Chinese is about 400/sqmile but of course they like us have high density areas with Sweden having a smaller number of big city areas although Stockholm is as dense as London, population wise not IQ!!!

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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by mdd2 » Tue Oct 27, 2020 5:27 pm

FactualFrank wrote:
Tue Oct 27, 2020 5:21 pm
I see that the cases in Liverpool are now falling. I expect there will be a delay before hospital cases follow suit.
I think it is about two to three weeks and then deaths start to fall too.
If we behave ourselves we could yet have some close contact over Xmas but not for the 12 days!!!!!!
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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by dsr » Tue Oct 27, 2020 5:33 pm

mdd2 wrote:
Tue Oct 27, 2020 5:24 pm
Big country small population (10 million) and apparently more compliant with advise. Also they have an excellent health care system.That their infection rates of say 2000/day would be 13000 for 65 million that we have over 20,000 and assuming we have the same testing regimes suggest they do things better than us. Is it population density? (64/sq.mile v UK 727/sq.mile) or do they obey rules better than us. If we had the same population density our population would be less than 6 million and infectious diseases do like to be near people, it is how they thrive.
Chinese is about 400/sqmile but of course they like us have high density areas with Sweden having a smaller number of big city areas although Stockholm is as dense as London, population wise not IQ!!!
Population density is a red herring. If the top half of Sweden declared UDI and became Lapland, the population density of Sweden would almost double and it would make not a blind bit of difference to the total deaths. Having a low population density by and large doesn't mean that people live further apart, just that there are more spaces where no-one lives.

England population density 1,100 per square mile, Scotland 165. The coronavirus rates are similar because lal those empty highlands do not affect transmission.

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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by mdd2 » Tue Oct 27, 2020 5:37 pm

And so we then return to why with no lock down do Sweden have fewer cases? If not population density, population behaviour? And your statement is supported by the similar densities in Stockholm and London but with far fewer cases in Stockholm
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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by Devils_Advocate » Tue Oct 27, 2020 5:40 pm

mdd2 wrote:
Tue Oct 27, 2020 5:37 pm
And so we then return to why with no lock down do Sweden have fewer cases? If not population density, population behaviour?
And Norway and Finland too

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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by mdd2 » Tue Oct 27, 2020 5:40 pm

But havent both those had lockdowns?

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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by cricketfieldclarets » Tue Oct 27, 2020 5:42 pm

CombatClaret wrote:
Tue Oct 27, 2020 5:23 pm
Reinfection is not the main problem for most countries, it's the 95% of the country that didn't get it the first time around.
They will not be back to normal soon, those rising cases will become deaths again, those two deaths today were infections caught a month ago.
Same mistake as UnderSeige, the cases they reported in first wave will be nowhere close to accurate, in reality they will be minimum 10x higher. Now we are seeing a more accurate picture with community testing those rising cases will today will become deaths in the coming months. The low deaths we see today are from the low infections in August, not the higher cases today. They're in the same boat as the rest of us.
sorry i get most of that the reinfection reference was tongue in cheek towards suggestion its common.

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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by Devils_Advocate » Tue Oct 27, 2020 5:49 pm

mdd2 wrote:
Tue Oct 27, 2020 5:40 pm
But havent both those had lockdowns?
Yes was including them as a more general point as to why any of the Scandinavian countrys have done better than us if its not to do with population density

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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by dsr » Tue Oct 27, 2020 5:54 pm

mdd2 wrote:
Tue Oct 27, 2020 5:37 pm
And so we then return to why with no lock down do Sweden have fewer cases? If not population density, population behaviour? And your statement is supported by the similar densities in Stockholm and London but with far fewer cases in Stockholm
No diseases in history kills everyone. The Black Death killed a third, but two thirds survived. My opinion is that a full, early lockdown like Australia can suppress the disease, or like in Norway and Denmark can reduce its impact, but a lockdown like ours basically made little difference. The disease ran and is still running its course and our lockdown wasn't enough to stop it. It created a small delay, perhaps. It may even have made things worse for coronavirus - Peru, for example, had a really strict lockdown followed by a really deadly release of coronavirus from May when lockdown had to stop.

I reckon the virus would have had a similar effect whether we did what Sweden did or not. What our government did was not enough to affect coronavirus very much. While being plenty to affect our day to day lives.

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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by cricketfieldclarets » Tue Oct 27, 2020 6:01 pm

dsr wrote:
Tue Oct 27, 2020 5:54 pm
No diseases in history kills everyone. The Black Death killed a third, but two thirds survived. My opinion is that a full, early lockdown like Australia can suppress the disease, or like in Norway and Denmark can reduce its impact, but a lockdown like ours basically made little difference. The disease ran and is still running its course and our lockdown wasn't enough to stop it. It created a small delay, perhaps. It may even have made things worse for coronavirus - Peru, for example, had a really strict lockdown followed by a really deadly release of coronavirus from May when lockdown had to stop.

I reckon the virus would have had a similar effect whether we did what Sweden did or not. What our government did was not enough to affect coronavirus very much. While being plenty to affect our day to day lives.
Our strategy was so Ill planned we’ve just ended up with a halfway house with the worse of both worlds.
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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by Lowbankclaret » Tue Oct 27, 2020 6:03 pm

Thanks for the replies gents.

In summary I think I think I can remain sceptical because there are unknown unknowns.

So I will continue with my mask my hand sanitizer and checking my temp occasionally.

I also got some vit D after MDD comments.
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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by CombatClaret » Tue Oct 27, 2020 6:37 pm

cricketfieldclarets wrote:
Tue Oct 27, 2020 6:01 pm
Our strategy was so Ill planned we’ve just ended up with a halfway house with the worse of both worlds.
There was no good world which we could have had more of though. Not locking down would have seen infections and deaths rise to catastrophic levels. Just because gyms and pubs would have still been open does not mean people would have used them and saved the economy. The only reason the lockdown was adhered to was because people feared for their own safety, so a totally unchecked virus would have seen mass panic as hospitals became overrun. The idea that just keeping business open means people would use them is totally bogus. Cinemas re-opened, no one went.

The government acted far too late so by the time we actually locked down the virus was endemic across all parts of the country, as the Chief Scientific Advisor suggests we were likely seeing infections peaking at 100k a day. We did not take it seriously, even the demeanor of the PM in the early stages was shockingly jovial and dismissive
Starting from a huge number of infections the lockdown had be both long and hard, first just to get the R under one and then slowly reduce overall infection. Apparently we got R down to 0.6, a good effort but not even halving the number week on week.

The second part we've still not managed is once we have infections at a low level keep them there with effective restrictions, public communication, track & trace and support.
Countries who've managed this not only implemented very effective tracking and tracing quickly and efficiently they also provided very good support for people asked to isolate. So not only were they reaching the people they needed to, those people they're asking to isolate are doing so, providing community support and checking in regularly, not just to check compliance but also for assistance.

Only around 10% of UK people contacted by track and trace are isolating for 14 days. Only 18% are isolating when they have actual symptoms.
For all the furlough and support the government has provided I think it's very naïve to expect people at this stage to self isolate for two weeks when 40% of working age population have less than £100 saved for a rainy day. It's no wonder people are not self isolating when the alternative is to be unable to feed & keep your family warm.

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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by PeterWilton » Tue Oct 27, 2020 7:08 pm

America is in such bad shape with this. Its exploding everywhere but a few places and their health care system, such as it is, is on the brink.

El Paso (population ~700k) is at 100% hospital and ICU capacity, Utah is talking about having to ration/triage health care based factors like age and likeliness to survive. North Dakota is also on the brink of a total collapse to the point where a kid even almost died at home because there was no beds in the local hospitals.

Their disaster should be used as a warning to anti-maskers here.

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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by Inchy » Tue Oct 27, 2020 7:30 pm

The vast majority of people admitted to ICU for Covid symptoms are on day 10 since symptoms started.

The length of stay on ICU until outcome (discharge/death) seems to be far longer than normal. This also has to be taken into account

The ICUs in Leeds are busy as posted by the Trust on facebook but realistically we probably wont start seeing a significant rise in ICU deaths for a good few days.


All hospitals have finite capacity. Creating the beds is the easy bit, finding trained ICU nurses and Doctors is the hard bit. ICUs being full effects everyone. There are a multitude of reasons someone may require ICU and type one respiratory failure caused by Covid is only one (albeit the main reason at present).


There are no easy answers and I and not going to voice my opinion on what we should do because my opinion is based on what I am seeing, not the whole picture.

What I am finding increasing frustrating is the distrust the public have in the NHS. Doctors and Nurses are being accused of lying and scaremongering by simply stating the numbers of people in ICU. Nurses and Doctors have no axe to grind and would much rather not be dealing with this virus. 940 healthcare workers have died of this virus, many of those work in hospital, some in my hospital.
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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by mdd2 » Tue Oct 27, 2020 8:06 pm

What I am finding increasing frustrating is the distrust the public have in the NHS. Doctors and Nurses are being accused of lying and scaremongering by simply stating the numbers of people in ICU. Nurses and Doctors have no axe to grind and would much rather not be dealing with this virus. 940 healthcare workers have died of this virus, many of those work in hospital, some in my hospital.

Well said Inchy-it is as if we created this disease; the anger and hostility shown at times when we ask folk to wear a mask properly, gel hands and more recently "anyone found stealing hand gel off the ward will be discharged" beggars belief.
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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by CombatClaret » Tue Oct 27, 2020 8:16 pm

Inchy wrote:
Tue Oct 27, 2020 7:30 pm
What I am finding increasing frustrating is the distrust the public have in the NHS. Doctors and Nurses are being accused of lying and scaremongering by simply stating the numbers of people in ICU. Nurses and Doctors have no axe to grind and would much rather not be dealing with this virus. 940 healthcare workers have died of this virus, many of those work in hospital, some in my hospital.
It's the doctors and nurses who are the ones to have to administer reality to the public, up until then all they've had is bluster and obfuscation from the government.
It is any wonder that a public who's been lied to and spun more times than the stock of a second hand vinyl store now don't recognise the truth when it's presented to them.

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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by mdd2 » Tue Oct 27, 2020 8:38 pm

Well Combat as a member of both whilst the Government have not been open about a lot of this what has been crystal clear before the lockdown and since has been the three messages of SD hand, washing, isolating if ill and more recently as the evidence has evolved-wear face mask to which I would add PROPERLY.
I do not think people's behaviour can be justified by any confusion caused by Government either by its statements or the actions of MP's advisers etc who have flouted the advice, because the three tenets of dealing with the virus have hardly wavered since March.

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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by UnderSeige » Tue Oct 27, 2020 9:38 pm

cricketfieldclarets wrote:
Tue Oct 27, 2020 5:11 pm
Latest stats in Sweden.

Deaths remain very very low. (2 yesterday for example). Which continues to suggest that they haven't delayed the problem as most others have.

I suspect they will be back to normal before anyone else. Surely if reinfection was such a big issue (if it happens at all so quickly) they would have been worse hit than anyone?!
Covid Mortalities normalised in Sweden at the beginning of August. They get three or four a day most days now that things have settled down. Like Cricketfield says it looks like the virus has spread through the population in the way that all respiratory illnesses do unhindered and now Sweden can get back to normal. Apparently, virologists model the 'path of virus's through a population using the 'Gompertz curve'. This explains how every new respiratory virus moves through a population.

The 'Gompertz curve' is used in 'growth analysis' to model all sorts of things from the 'growth of cancer cells' to predicting the 'growth of markets' in economics. All new virus's follow this same path. I am sure that everyone is familiar with the following pattern in the Covid graphs:

Image

The upward part of the curve is where there are a lot of susceptible people in the proximity of those who have the virus. The virus is then spreading exponentially. However, there reaches a point at which there are less susceptible people for it to infect. The obvious reason for this is that most develop immunity and recover whilst a proportion die.

Once the point has been reached at which there are less susceptible people the graph slopes downwards for a few months as the number of the susceptible group declines. The illness then becomes just another of those 'winter season virus's' that float around causing a nuisance to some but unfortunately death to a number of others.

According to Dr mike Yeadon there are around sixty of these new viruses that move through the UK population every winter. The SARS-COV2 virus was a bad one due to it being very infective towards a substantial proportion of the population. It also moved at a speed that would likely cause hospital resources to be overwhelmed.

It is looking like Sweden has been through the cycle and is now at the other end.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir ... ry/sweden/

Other countries, fearing the overwhelming of hospitals, locked down when the virus was in full flow. When they released the lockdown the remainder of the susceptible group came back into contact with the virus. This resulted in what looks like a very slow and weak second spike that took around two months to take off. It has been given a boost by the start of the 'annual season for respiratory diseases' (look at the bend in the curve at the beginning of October).

We can now lockdown and wait for a vaccine; remove restrictions and let it run it's course; or do what the government are currently doing. I guess there are costs with all three of these options but the virus will continue until the the population is mainly immune however that is achieved.

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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by UnderSeige » Tue Oct 27, 2020 9:45 pm

Inchy wrote:
Tue Oct 27, 2020 4:59 pm
Update from Leeds hospitals posted on F@cebook...


Today we have 263 patients in our beds who have tested positive for COVID-19, including 22 in intensive care. This means we have more COVID-19 patients in our hospitals now than at the peak of the pandemic in mid-April. Over the next 48 hours we expect the number of people in critical care to increase.

On Tuesday last week there were 148 patients who tested positive for COVID which demonstrates how quickly the virus is spreading. Not only is the number of COVID cases increasing but so is the rate of increase.

The majority of admissions over the weekend has been older people with respiratory conditions. The infection rate for over-59s has increased from 165 per 100,000 last Saturday to 269 per 100,000.

Please follow the local rules and restrictions to help reduce the spread of the virus and protect our NHS staff so that we can care for others.

Please read and share this important update: https://www.leedsth.nhs.uk/about-us/new ... vid-status
I hope that things work out as best as possible for you Inchy given the circumstances. I posted yesterday that the leader of the Oxford Vaccine Project has stated that vaccinations are likely to start in December for Health Care workers and the vulnerable.

I think that there are enough restrictions in place and that the government has got things 'about right' for now in regards to restrictions. It's now up to every one of us to play our part.

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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by UnderSeige » Tue Oct 27, 2020 9:52 pm

FactualFrank wrote:
Tue Oct 27, 2020 4:32 pm
Another random thought on these viruses, is Virtual Reality and online communication as a whole. We know that they spread from a person-to-person touch.

As time moves, people are physically seeing each other less as they once was, with people preferring to chat online, Zoom, playing online computer games and the like. I think it's only a matter of time before there's hardly any person-to-person touch, and we're all wearing VR glasses and seeing each other in a virtual world.

At that point, you'd think even the cold virus could die out, as not enough people are going near enough other people.
A theme song for your brave new world:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy5T6s25XK4

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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by UnderSeige » Tue Oct 27, 2020 10:07 pm

mdd2 wrote:
Tue Oct 27, 2020 5:24 pm
Big country small population (10 million) and apparently more compliant with advise. Also they have an excellent health care system.That their infection rates of say 2000/day would be 13000 for 65 million that we have over 20,000 and assuming we have the same testing regimes suggest they do things better than us. Is it population density? (64/sq.mile v UK 727/sq.mile) or do they obey rules better than us. If we had the same population density our population would be less than 6 million and infectious diseases do like to be near people, it is how they thrive.
Chinese is about 400/sqmile but of course they like us have high density areas with Sweden having a smaller number of big city areas although Stockholm is as dense as London, population wise not IQ!!!
The virus spreads where people live in close proximity to one another. That is in Urban areas.

Sweden Urban population 87.71 %
UK Urban population 83.65 %

It was explained to the Swedish people that there was a bad virus working through that was worst than flu but not as bad as ebola and that they would need to be careful for a few months. It looks like the message was heeded. Little was done in the way of lockdown or restriction even though Sweden is the most socialist inclined country in the EU. People went about their normal business eating in cafe's etc.

The COVID mortality rate is slightly lower than the UK.

They did have a 'UK like care home crises' though as they did in a few countries. We were not the only one.
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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by UnderSeige » Tue Oct 27, 2020 10:20 pm

mdd2 wrote:
Tue Oct 27, 2020 5:27 pm
I think it is about two to three weeks and then deaths start to fall too.
If we behave ourselves we could yet have some close contact over Xmas but not for the 12 days!!!!!!
If the Oxford vaccine starts to be rolled out in December to the elderly, vulnerable and health care workers (as they are claiming) we might be able to have a proper Christmas period.

If the virus hasn't taken off by December it would be good if we could have a 'selective Christmas lockdown holiday' for 3 weeks. Allow family gatherings but restrict public gatherings such as pubs, clubs, non-essential working etc.

Following that a full release from all lockdown measures. Open the pubs, stop the mass testing, return the football etc. Continue social distancing and mask wearing until Easter.

Hang on. Let me just put my helmet on. :D
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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by UnderSeige » Tue Oct 27, 2020 10:25 pm

cricketfieldclarets wrote:
Tue Oct 27, 2020 6:01 pm
Our strategy was so Ill planned we’ve just ended up with a halfway house with the worse of both worlds.
I don't think that people realise the economic consequences of all this for the future.
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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by UnderSeige » Tue Oct 27, 2020 10:26 pm

Lowbankclaret wrote:
Tue Oct 27, 2020 6:03 pm
Thanks for the replies gents.

In summary I think I think I can remain sceptical because there are unknown unknowns.

So I will continue with my mask my hand sanitizer and checking my temp occasionally.

I also got some vit D after MDD comments.
That sounds spot on. Don't believe anything that you hear and only half the things you see.
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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by CombatClaret » Tue Oct 27, 2020 10:34 pm

UnderSeige wrote:
Tue Oct 27, 2020 10:25 pm
I don't think that people realise the economic consequences of all this for the future.
Nor do people the realize the even worse economic consequences had we not taken action and let a virus with no cure or effective treatment run like wildfire through the population, it's not the death that would have done the economic damage but the fear and panic which would have been like the pre-lockdown panic buying x100 with the added horror of people dying untreated in hospital corridors. What does your preferred source lockdownskeptics.org think we should have done?

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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by cricketfieldclarets » Tue Oct 27, 2020 10:44 pm

UnderSeige wrote:
Tue Oct 27, 2020 9:38 pm
Covid Mortalities normalised in Sweden at the beginning of August. They get three or four a day most days now that things have settled down. Like Cricketfield says it looks like the virus has spread through the population in the way that all respiratory illnesses do unhindered and now Sweden can get back to normal. Apparently, virologists model the 'path of virus's through a population using the 'Gompertz curve'. This explains how every new respiratory virus moves through a population.

The 'Gompertz curve' is used in 'growth analysis' to model all sorts of things from the 'growth of cancer cells' to predicting the 'growth of markets' in economics. All new virus's follow this same path. I am sure that everyone is familiar with the following pattern in the Covid graphs:

Image

The upward part of the curve is where there are a lot of susceptible people in the proximity of those who have the virus. The virus is then spreading exponentially. However, there reaches a point at which there are less susceptible people for it to infect. The obvious reason for this is that most develop immunity and recover whilst a proportion die.

Once the point has been reached at which there are less susceptible people the graph slopes downwards for a few months as the number of the susceptible group declines. The illness then becomes just another of those 'winter season virus's' that float around causing a nuisance to some but unfortunately death to a number of others.

According to Dr mike Yeadon there are around sixty of these new viruses that move through the UK population every winter. The SARS-COV2 virus was a bad one due to it being very infective towards a substantial proportion of the population. It also moved at a speed that would likely cause hospital resources to be overwhelmed.

It is looking like Sweden has been through the cycle and is now at the other end.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir ... ry/sweden/

Other countries, fearing the overwhelming of hospitals, locked down when the virus was in full flow. When they released the lockdown the remainder of the susceptible group came back into contact with the virus. This resulted in what looks like a very slow and weak second spike that took around two months to take off. It has been given a boost by the start of the 'annual season for respiratory diseases' (look at the bend in the curve at the beginning of October).

We can now lockdown and wait for a vaccine; remove restrictions and let it run it's course; or do what the government are currently doing. I guess there are costs with all three of these options but the virus will continue until the the population is mainly immune however that is achieved.
Spot on. And yes Ivor Cummins has been peddling that curve for some time.

I do believe that had we been stricter earlier the results could’ve been much better.

I also believe had we let it run a bit looser but in a controlled way (which let’s not forget was the original plan) we would have also faired better in the grand scheme. I.e. longer term and economically. Sure the immediate results as with Sweden could’ve looked bad. But Sweden is effectively now performing ‘better’ than normal years.

There is also evidence to suggest that while things are getting busier it’s no busier than usual this time of year. The people who would ordinarily be hospitalised with flu are probably the ones hospitalised with Covid and obviously they can only take one bed up regardless.

I don’t want to dismiss the effects.
I don’t want to get complacent.
I personally remain vigilant and follow good practice.
I certainly dont want to catch it.
And I definitely don’t want to pass it on two my two babies. My parents. Or other family members.

But I also don’t want to live in fear forever. Don’t want to live in isolation.

My grandma was 90 a few months ago. It pains me that I’ve only seen her twice this year. Once in January and once in September for her birthday when measures were eased and virus was less widespread.

Again. I don’t want her to get it. But equally how damaging is it psychologically for people of that age. Many of whom live alone and rely on family for every day things as well as company?

Luckily my grandma is mentally and physically well for such an age. But not all are. And it must be a terrible way to die of loneliness.

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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by cricketfieldclarets » Tue Oct 27, 2020 10:46 pm

UnderSeige wrote:
Tue Oct 27, 2020 10:25 pm
I don't think that people realise the economic consequences of all this for the future.
The worrying thing is many do but don’t care about the long term. Everything’s about here and now. Hence when Sweden looked bad at the start there were daily we can’t do what they’re doing posts.

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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by cricketfieldclarets » Tue Oct 27, 2020 10:47 pm

CombatClaret wrote:
Tue Oct 27, 2020 10:34 pm
Nor do people the realize the even worse economic consequences had we not taken action and let a virus with no cure or effective treatment run like wildfire through the population, it's not the death that would have done the economic damage but the fear and panic which would have been like the pre-lockdown panic buying x100 with the added horror of people dying untreated in hospital corridors. What does your preferred source lockdownskeptics.org think we should have done?
But that’s not exactly how Sweden managed things. For example stadiums were banned. They’ve let people be free but in a managed way. And because the measures were sensible the general public have been more respectful of the rules.

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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by CombatClaret » Tue Oct 27, 2020 10:59 pm

cricketfieldclarets wrote:
Tue Oct 27, 2020 10:47 pm
But that’s not exactly how Sweden managed things. For example stadiums were banned. They’ve let people be free but in a managed way. And because the measures were sensible the general public have been more respectful of the rules.
https___d6c748xw2pzm8.cloudfront.net_prod_da3999e0-f28d-11ea-83cb-17d40278ce0c-standard (1).png
https___d6c748xw2pzm8.cloudfront.net_prod_da3999e0-f28d-11ea-83cb-17d40278ce0c-standard (1).png (46.69 KiB) Viewed 2839 times
Not only have thousands more people died than in neighbouring countries that imposed lockdowns, but Sweden’s economy has fared little better. “They literally gained nothing,” said Jacob F. Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.
“It’s a self-inflicted wound, and they have no economic gains.”

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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by cricketfieldclarets » Tue Oct 27, 2020 11:14 pm

CombatClaret wrote:
Tue Oct 27, 2020 10:59 pm
https___d6c748xw2pzm8.cloudfront.net_prod_da3999e0-f28d-11ea-83cb-17d40278ce0c-standard (1).png

Not only have thousands more people died than in neighbouring countries that imposed lockdowns, but Sweden’s economy has fared little better. “They literally gained nothing,” said Jacob F. Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.
“It’s a self-inflicted wound, and they have no economic gains.”
As above that’s a very shortsighted way of looking at it. Unless the other nordics remain locked down they have far more susceptible people than Sweden. Which means they will have a resurgence when things are loosened. Theoretically Sweden won’t.

I accept that there are lots of ifs buts and maybes. But the evidence suggests Sweden has high degrees of immunity and anecdotally I would say they have had far less impact on mental health.

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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by cricketfieldclarets » Tue Oct 27, 2020 11:15 pm

The old saying it’s a marathon not a sprint is likely true for Sweden. I would put money on them being over the worse of it. Whereas many other countries unless a vaccine arrives that works then there’s a long way to go.

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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by dsr » Tue Oct 27, 2020 11:44 pm

CombatClaret wrote:
Tue Oct 27, 2020 6:37 pm
There was no good world which we could have had more of though. Not locking down would have seen infections and deaths rise to catastrophic levels.
Where is the evidence for this? One of the main planks of the lockdown argument is that if we hadn't locked down, there would have been vastly more deaths. Where is the evidence? We already had close to the worst death rate per head of population. The only reasonably reliable countries with substantially worse records are Peru and Belgium, and Peru at least had a stricter lockdown than we did. Why would our death rate, if we hadn't had such a lockdown, have been catastophically worse than either Sweden's or Brazil's? I'm not saying it wouldn't have been - I'm saying where is the evidence?

The pattern was broadly the same in all countries that didn't get a strict handle on it early on. Italy, France, Spain, Sweden, USA, Brazil, UK - all had the same shaped graph. I do not see evidence that things would have been vastly worse if we had had a more lenient set of rules.
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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by Lowbankclaret » Wed Oct 28, 2020 8:26 am

Speaking to my mother by phone last night, she told me about the principal of the college where she is chair of governors.

He felt ill a couple of weeks ago, got tested, positive for Covid. Was ill enough he had to be in bed for 3 days but thankfully no worse. Obviously they self isolated, followed the rules etc. However the main point is his wife got no symptoms and was tested and was negative. So even living together in the same house does not mean you will get it.

Just like other viruses I suppose.

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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by mdd2 » Wed Oct 28, 2020 8:40 am

The stats are interesting but I cannot give you the source but am aware of a situation as posted by you Lowbank.
Wife/partner has CV19 then husband/partner has a 1 in 3 chance of contracting it
Family member in same household 1 in 5
45 minute car drive with someone who is infected-4 in 5.
Two situations I know of personally, colleague got Covid got better ,wife was fine three months later a colleague at her work gets Covid and she then goes down with it
Husband and wife (NHS) tested for antibodies in May-he is negative, she is positive but never been ill. In September she goes down with Covid
Posted before but too many unknown unknowns about this but years ago all by 3 children played with the other children in the street to get chicken pox done and dusted-two got the pox but the 3rd was fine until his 20's when he went down with it.
How. why?
Answers on no more than one side of A4 :D :D

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Re: SARS-COV2 could cease to be a pandemic in the near future

Post by mdd2 » Wed Oct 28, 2020 9:03 am

As I have been saying about the NW and the hit being taken by Covid-today the Nightingale "hospital" is open to take non-Covid patients who need to complete their rehab to free up hospital beds in the main hospitals which have been under inordinate pressure despite protestations that they were coping. The only bit that is coping is ITU where capacity has not been reached but elsewhere it is extremely busy.

Locked