Coronavirus

[Mister Lorenzo]

Something to ponder;

Shops have been open since June - where’s the explosion in cases?

Demonstrations took place in London in June - where’s the explosions in cases?

The beaches were ram-packed a month ago - where’s the explosion in cases?

People generally going about their business over their last 8 weeks - where’s the explosion in cases?

There is one fact that remains, more tests which means more positives however only 1 or 2 deaths a day.

Where’s the deadly virus?

[Valid Pint]

Exactly.

NHS workers twiddling their thumbs in empty hospital (source: personal accounts from workers in two large NHS hospitals).

Next time some little Hitler demands that you stand two yards away from someone else, call them out with:
 "COVID cop-out!"!

[Saxondale]

Im not sure.  But one thing to note is there was some great drug announced a while ago that helped in the treatment of the virus.  It was said that

'It cut the risk of death by a third for patients on ventilators. For those on oxygen, it cut deaths by a fifth.'

'Had the drug had been used to treat patients in the UK from the start of the pandemic, up to 5,000 lives could have been saved.'

So cases have gone down, still at around 1000 a day, treatment has got better, testing has got better.

So many things that we don't know.  It's better than it was.  Could be that the virus is in retreat.  March April and May were the peak.  At that point I was working a job where I saw the bodies.  So any bullshit hoax theories are just that.

[Matchworn Shirts]

"Where’s the deadly virus?"
I'd suggest looking at the excess mortality rates for the last number of months

[4D]

Maybe the virus strain is not as strong now? Been "watered down"?

[Mister Lorenzo]

"Where’s the deadly virus?"
I'd suggest looking at the excess mortality rates for the last number of months

I think the bit you missed was "now"....

[BambooToTheFuture]

As deadly as it has been, the main concern has been more surrounding the contagion being as rapid as herpes and how to stem said contagion (hence social distancing, isolation, quarantine "enforcements" and so on). Especially since this is a novel virus.

Don't really need to tell anyone on here (possibly one or two) that whilst deaths are incredibly awful, if you can prevent or even figure out a solution to contagion pathways and somehow stem the (the government may call this "flatten the curve") contagion of said novel virus...you prevent deaths.

Possibly a combining factor that it has weakened too. We've (scientists and researchers) found out much more about it, some of that has become available to us. Bleach (no not injecting) and warm water has been seen to be a great divider of the protein and lipid of which the virus is made up of. The temperature may well have had an effect here in weakening it too, since it's main binding agent is a lipid (as mentioned above), externally this is likely to make it not last as long on surfaces (also depends on material and porosity). It doesn't naturally carry very far (despite some confusion between what an airborne aerosol is) so unless projected via human saliva, close contact for a while or you're touching surfaces that has been coughed all over or not washing your hands, then you lower your risk.

Also, it might not be the biggest stretch of imagination that we also know so far, that in the most part this virus does tend to kill more people with underlying conditions, these tend to be older people or people with long term illness. Possible that the virus has already killed off as many of those people who are bracketed as high risk, so is naturally running out of hosts (to "kill", even though it has no intention to kill, it has no thought process other than attaching itself to a host, it is a virus. It just happens to be quite harmful to a good chunk of people. It has no true nucleus).

This doesn't mean if you go into a shop or place where there are several people you can be a Billy big cunt and act all blasé. Because the very likelihood is that many of us could be carrying the little cunt and passing it around. If this blasé approach is replicated, less people will think about going and getting a test because "I'm alright Jack" mentality has set in. A common denominator in much of this species we call humans.

It is then fairly obvious that the virus contagion is probably still very effective and if you are playing the game of Billy big cunt and being blasé then I fear for anyone you know (or not) that may come into contact with you, who could be at risk.

I would rather like to see someone like Valid Pint go and have a conversation (at distance) with Normy and his wife. Someone, we know on here and thankfully survived; others have not been so lucky.

tl;dr - Basically, just don't be a cunt when it comes to this.

[RobertT]

It’s over here having a party.  3rd biggest killer of 2020 using just the reported number of deaths and likely more than that as excess deaths shows a higher number, like the UK.

New Zealand has been a great example.  They first showed that you can essentially starve the virus.  However they have also shown it doesn’t take much for an imported case to start the whole gig off again.  Be interesting to see if they attack it successfully again.

The USA showed that a few weeks of ignoring it when it is not completely gone can prove very costly.  It took a while, maybe 6 weeks or so, but then it exploded again and we are sat with 4 weeks of 1k a day deaths as a result.

[horlock07]

How much have people used this scheme, we haven't mainly because the only pub I have been is so popular they have no need to do it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53894998

[Nemo]

We went for breakfast once and got the discount, we'd probably have gone anyway. I do know people who have been basically every day though.

[Batch]

A few times Horlock. Most welcome it was too.

Problem is, its so popular you need to plan in advance and reserve a table in many places. I'm not that organised,

[pauld]

How much have people used this scheme, we haven't mainly because the only pub I have been is so popular they have no need to do it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53894998

FWIW, we went for a curry last night because of this and Old Town seemed pretty busy, esp for midweek. Given no other obvious reason for it to be so, I'd assume the Eat Out thingy was a big part of that. Problem is that all these stimulus things are coming to an end around the same time, so unless at least some of them are extended, which of course they may well be, the hangover could be a massive cliff-edge. Two key milestone dates coming up: from Sept 30th, the protection against winding up orders ends and from end of October, furlough ends. We could see a lot of companies go to the wall in Oct/Nov.

[horlock07]

Thing is with Furlough, how many unsustainable jobs are being presently carried by furlough, which is just carrying unemployment forward and keeping people off WS?

[Batch]

Also the EOTHO has in some cases just shifted trade from Thurs-Sat to Mon-Weds. It is a good idea, but its not benefited everyone.
----
On that note, what p*sses me off is the numerous reports of "no show" reservations. I know the restaurants could charge a non refundable deposit, but that's not the point. How hard is it to ring and cancel FFS.

[pauld]

Thing is with Furlough, how many unsustainable jobs are being presently carried by furlough, which is just carrying unemployment forward and keeping people off WS?

Exactly, that was kind of my point in pointing out those two milestones - there's a whole load of zombie jobs and zombie companies out there that just don't realise they're dead yet. When they finally get killed off, that is when the recession will bite. You have to imagine Sunak will put some kind of mitigation in place to soften the landing or it's going to be quite some cliff edge to fall over, with a hard Brexit following soon after to kill off those still clinging on.