emax

Have France cancelled theirs yet?.............

You mean like holding elections?

Our Chuck Norris

That doesnt apply to the UK by the way!

There just isnt the capacity to test everyone. Look at most countries, bar Iceland and maybe S Korea, most likely all their figures will be under reported due to lack of testing. It just isnt worth the extra waste of resources now. Say you find a cluster in a certain area, theres no guarantee that those people will go on to develop serious symptoms, and you've wasted all those resources. Now, it would be great to test everyone obviously, and in the early stages most definitely beneficial, but I would guess that they've decided the resource to benefit ratio now just isnt worth it.

This is a good point. Obviously this is just generally, and not a flat out guarantee by any means, but these underlying health problems do "generally" seem to be more of a factor if they are uncontrolled. For instance, I've seen more mention from doctors/data of uncontrolled diabetes being a factor, rather than controlled diabetes. I should imagine the same could be said for uncontrolled high blood pressure etc. Again, thats just from what I've seen, and thats in no way a binary outcome.

Just a thought about testing, personally I think the testing should change (which it has), but we need a test soon to find out who has already had it. There'll be thousands of thousands of people who have a mild illness, and wont know if they have had it or not. These are the people that would need testing, as if they have already had it, and now fully recovered, they're the ones that can go back to work, and help others out if needed. Its just a fantasy theory though, as testing thousands of people would take months and months, but it would be nice if it was in any way doable.

This cannot be contained indefinitely. Its either get herd immunity as quick as possible at the least damaging time, or quarantine every person on the planet!

I've quietly wondered this myself. Are the government opening themselves up for all this flak for the greater good? Would be a nice thought, but very unusual. Excellent bit of social science if it were true.

I'm assuming thats in reply to me? You said you agree with the question's he asked, but now say you havent read it? I was literally discussing his questions that he asked....confused.com

Feeling guilty, or just trying to help where they can? Either way, its a nice gesture!

So how do you get rid of this virus? Please tell me? For the second point, I dont know, couldnt tell you, but that wasnt being discussed?

I give up lol The point is taking such actions at the correct time. The WHO have literally just said that school closures do have an effect, but a slight effect. They themselves said you cannot stop this, and every country is different in terms of the economic strategy. Just because other countries have closed schools, doesnt mean its the correct decision at the correct time. But its pointless all this now. People will complain or panic no matter what happens.

Its too early to comment on that though. Only time will tell whether it comes back or not

The WHO just said that it makes a slight difference

Right oh lol But on a serious point, without arguing about it, who are you "with"?? So far, every country is going at it alone, bar Italy who have had help from China?

Good luck keeping your schools and events etc closed for months on end, for a slight reduction in cases

God, that thread is the usual Twitter nonsense......some suggesting taking the government to court if a loved one dies, this is why I hate society lol. I mean I dont disbelieve his credentials, and he makes valid points, but one is to suggest the UK should do what others are doing and thereby "snuff" the epidemic out? Surely he realises that just isnt possible unless you keep a nation locked up for months and months?

As been mentioned, there will be a time lag on deaths. However, social factors surely will have an effect (whether major or minor), owing to the fact that, especially this time of year, older people are more segregated compared to, for instance, Italy. As far as I know, Italy are a lot more family orientated in the sense that they have bigger family gatherings, much more so than the UK. I'm not 100% on that, but I'm fairly sure thats an accurate social description.

Exactly. It may be true of course, but social media is rife with this sort of thing. Think how many retweets that person will have had now? A tweet like that will go round the world in no time. And as has been mentioned, we dont know the mitigating circumstances involved. It could well have just been a single occurrence, and the person taken off the ventilator (or whatever it was) could well have been dying long before this outbreak. If this sort of thing starts to happen very regularly, and gets reported from official sources, then people can worry, but most people dont believe a tweet from the President of the USA, so why believe one from some random person?

I mean I might be wrong, but your points dont seem to make much sense to me. 1) Everyone is exposed to the chance of death from this eventually, no matter what you do. Unless you lock people away in a cupboard for 2 years, then theres nothing you can do to reduce the risk of death. All you can do is reduce the strain on the health service (which yes does affect death rate to a point, so maybe thats what you mean?), which in my view is the only thing that can be disputed (ie do you have more people infected, but a stronger health service, vs less infected, but a weaker health service) 2) Surely the chances to mutate are out of anyone's control? The only way to truly stop a mutation is to quarantine everyone on the planet for a month, but thats just fantasy! 3)How is that any different to any other country though? You can't base it all on the "possibility" of a worse mutation, otherwise every country would be locked down for years.

Yeh, and although I have no idea of the governments motives, I should imagine a large part of it is being driven by the virus not going away quickly. Thats why I have reservations about closures and lock downs etc as a pre-emotive move. Yes obviously they want to slow the spread so as not to overwhelm the NHS, but at the same time, you dont want to keep kicking this thing down the road for ever. There's so many variables and factors at play from all aspects, its definitely a difficult decision to make.

Taking Italy as the first example so far, how long can they keep the country locked down for? I totally agree with their actions to let their health system recover, but then what? You have to slowly open up regions month by month, which is effectively creating herd immunity, but in a slow way. Now I'm not saying that isnt the right decision, but I dont see it being a sustainable one. The country would be on its knees before long.

I agree. I must admit, I'm still undecided on the school closure and public gathering side of things, but I'm very happy to let our experts decide for me, seeing as they know more than anyone here does. As for all those who think schools should close...then what? Even the countries (or parts of countries) that are in lockdown, they've done that more as a reactive measure, rather than a proactive measure. Whilst they had no choice, lockdown (as the extreme measure) doesnt really work as a preventative measure, not long term anyway. This virus wont just disappear in a couple of months, so how long do you keep a country locked down for? As I say, I'm still undecided on the schools and public gathering front, as there are equal pros and cons to both sides, however, I'd rather our experts take a decision based on what they think is best, rather than just simply "go with the flow". Whether that ends up as a worse decision, only time will tell, but everyone is going to suffer eventually (one way or another in their own way, more so financially I'd say), and I personally dont see the UK approach making the death rate any worse by taking these actions, but I know plenty here will disagree!

I must admit, despite my feelings about China and their way of life, you have to applaud them for trying to help. Anyone know if any countries closer to Italy, including UK, have sent any help to them? I suspect they probably have and we just havent heard about it, but if they havent, then it flies in the face of the open borders theory. We're all in it together, until you get it, then you're on your own.