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[bendeus]

Sorry if this has already been done in the thread but is there any indication as to whether it will be possible to catch coronavirus repeatedly as with a cold or flu (which I'm assuming would be the case) and, if so, if there would be the same level of risk in terms of severity/mortality each time it was caught or whether this would reduce with the body having built up some kind of immunity?

 

[SpookyFrank]

Yeah, the point wasnt that people catching it in Singapore was a new revelation, it wasnt. He was pointing it out as a reason not to overhype the potential of the seasons to stop the spread.

Its perfectly possible that seasons do have an impact, but whether that impact is a real difference-maker also depends on other factors unrelated to the seasons.

For example, the first big wave of swine flu in 2009 in the UK came in summer. But since then it has reverted to a seasonal pattern. It might very well be that the sheer quantity of potential candidates for infection was so high during the summer of the first wave (due to no existing immunity or vaccine), that seasonal effects of summer on transmission were not enough to stop widespread infection. But later, when there was more immunity in the population, the virus could only thrive with the help of winter conditions.

The NHS bloke was talking in terms of delaying any possible outbreak until a time when there was more spare capacity in hospitals, rather than any hope that better weather would improve outcomes for those infected. That being said, reports from frontline staff are that the 'winter crisis' is currently a year-round phenomenon. There's some hope for better preparations being made if an outbreak happens later rather than sooner but that will cost money and require political leadership, neither of which seems to be forthcoming.

 

[Supine]

Sorry if this has already been done in the thread but is there any indication as to whether it will be possible to catch coronavirus repeatedly as with a cold or flu (which I'm assuming would be the case) and, if so, if there would be the same level of risk in terms of severity/mortality each time it was caught or whether this would reduce with the body having built up some kind of immunity?

looks like you might be immune for a year or two then back in the firing line.

I’ve had proper flu twice and hope not to experience it again. Luck plays a part unfortunately.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Sorry if this has already been done in the thread but is there any indication as to whether it will be possible to catch coronavirus repeatedly as with a cold or flu (which I'm assuming would be the case) and, if so, if there would be the same level of risk in terms of severity/mortality each time it was caught or whether this would reduce with the body having built up some kind of immunity?

A 'cold' is a type of infection caused by numerous kinds of bugs, including coronaviruses. Influenza mutates a lot more rapidly than other viruses and so is better equipped to outfox acquired immunity, which is why every year the 'flu vaccine contains two or three different strains and is still only really 'effective' when you consider whole populations over a timescale of several years.

The reason this strain of coronavirus is of particular concern is that it's 'new' as far as human immunity is concerned. If it develops into a pandemic then those who are infected and recover should have improved immunity to it, and it'll eventually just be another part of the menagerie of nasty things that are already circulating and causing colds, fevers, pneumonia etc.

 

[elbows]

The NHS bloke was talking in terms of delaying any possible outbreak until a time when there was more spare capacity in hospitals, rather than any hope that better weather would improve outcomes for those infected.

Yes, it has been other sources that have made hopeful noises about the seasons that were all about transmission rather than these other things.

There is one other reason I know of why they would prefer to delay a big outbreak till the summer too. It makes it quite a bit easier to assume that most of the cases you are seeing are this coronavirus, rather than all the other things people will get sick from a lot in winter. This assumption was used during the first swine flu peak in the summer of 2009. Not that those other winter bugs are entirely absent at other times of the year, but they are much reduced and less likely to muddy the waters. (the waters being when you are using symptoms rather than formal tests to diagnose cases).

 

[weltweit]

I wonder what I was up to in 2009 because the swine flue seems to have escaped my notice.

 

[cupid_stunt]

I wonder what I was up to in 2009 because the swine flue seems to have escaped my notice.

Lucky you, I caught that, 3 weeks of hell, sweating like fuck, because it hit the UK in the summer months.

I've had flu a few times over the years, from mild to severe, but that was off the scale.

 

[weltweit]

Lucky you, I caught that, 3 weeks of hell, sweating like fuck, because it hit the UK in the summer months.
..

A bit off topic, but was it spread person to person like this virus?

 

[fishfinger]

A bit off topic, but was it spread person to person like this virus?

cupid_stunt caught it when he was doing his David Cameron impersonation

 

[elbows]

I have no means to judge how many times I've had flu. I can say that I've only had one case of it that affected me really badly as an adult, and that was in 1998 or 99. I could easily have had it dozens of times with minimal symptoms compared to the real bad ones, there is no way for me to know.

Same with swine flu in 2009 (or any time since as it is now one of the seasonal strains). I've no idea whether I had it, if I did then my symptoms were minimal.

 

[weltweit]

It was a bad case of flu that killed my mother.

 

[elbows]

It was a bad case of flu that killed my mother.

Sorry to hear that. Do you mind if I ask what year?

 

[cupid_stunt]

A bit off topic, but was it spread person to person like this virus?

TBH I have no idea of how I caught it, I hadn't been following the news, so wasn't aware it was a 'thing', it just hit me out of the blue, I was floored & couldn't believe I had what seemed like flu, but so much worst, in the middle of the summer.

I called the GP surgery, and was basically told to keep the fuck away, there was nowt they could do & it would pass in time.

It was the most ill I've ever been in all my life, I seriously thought I was going to die.

 

[elbows]

A bit off topic, but was it spread person to person like this virus?

Person to person and human to human are very general terms, really just meant to distinguish from other stuff like animal to human, food to human.

When it comes to discussing the details of different transmission possibilities, its different terminology. Stuff about droplets and fomites, surface contamination, particular risks for healthcare workers (including 'mundane' stuff such as when changing patients bedding, not just operations and examinations etc), sewage and other faecal pathways. And whether coughs and sneezes are required, or whether normal human tidal breathing can still cause infection.

 

[weltweit]

Sorry to hear that. Do you mind if I ask what year?

Of course I should know the date, but I don't. It was sometime between Oct 1991 and November 1996. Probably around the middle of those dates.

 

[cupid_stunt]

cupid_stunt caught it when he was doing his David Cameron impersonation

You cunt.

 

[elbows]

Of course I should know the date, but I don't. It was sometime between Oct 1991 and November 1996. Probably around the middle of those dates.

Thanks. I always think of my grandad when I talk about the 1998,99,2000 flu epidemic of H3N2. Pneumonia killed him, and I could not attend his funeral because this was the time I got real sick with the flu, and could not get out of bed. Even if I had been able to get up on the day, I would have been true afraid of passing it on to other people attending the funeral. Whether or not that particular flu epidemic was also responsible for his pneumonia and death I cannot say, but its plausible.

The 1980's and 1990's certainly had their fair share of flu epidemics, and I probably experienced at least one of the 1980's or early 90's ones while still a child at school. And if some of the things that I coughed up in my late teenage and early 20's years came out of me these days, I would assume I had a bit of pneumonia myself. I dont think I've actually had really bad flu since I became aware of all this medical and disease stuff, things that seemed quite normal when I was young and ignorant might cause more health alarm to me if I experience them in future!

I do not want to reduce your mum to a statistic on a graph, but the way my own mind worked I actually found it helpful to be able to place deaths in my own family into some kind of larger context, like an influenza epidemic. I havent looked for numbers covering that full date range you provided, but I will post this one that covers the final part of your date range and many years afterwards.


( from Highest number of excess winter deaths since 1999/2000 - Office for National Statistics )

 

[MrCurry]

Let’s hope the speedy-fast vaccine they come up with doesn’t cause narcolepsy (as the swine flu vaccine did), or have other bad side effects. Doing these things fast can be dangerous.

 

[elbows]

That may be in part because we arent looking for any cases that dont have such links, so we wont find any. That will only change by accident, ie stumbling into such a case, or because they change the criteria for suspecting Corvid-19.

I wonder how many times I am accidentally going to call this Corvid-19.

By the way some people are disgruntled by the way the COVID-19 name is used by the media. Because this name is supposed to refer to the disease. The actual classification used for the virus itself, still involves a different name (I'm not saying what right now because I dont want to mess up and get it wrong and I read too many confusing discussions about names recently on twitter and it scrambled my brain). So anyway they groan when the media call the virus COVID-19.

 

[elbows]

Let’s hope the speedy-fast vaccine they come up with doesn’t cause narcolepsy (as the swine flu vaccine did), or have other bad side effects. Doing these things fast can be dangerous.

Its certainly a lot better when there is a suitable amount of time to do the right trials to hopefully pick this sort of thing up before its given to a much wider population. Or when the extra time allows other methods of vaccine design or production to be used, ones that carry less known theoretical risk.

In that particular case it sounds like it was a combination of one particular make of swine flu vaccine, and genetic susceptibility to narcolepsy, probably plus some additional unknown factors that meant some people who met all the other criteria still didnt end up with narcolepsy. Not good anyway, and I think the UKs own estimate of risk was that about 1 in 55,000 people who had that vaccine would develop narcolepsy as a result. I think that figure is some years old though, I havent looked at subsequent studies.

 

[two sheds]

People who get it in the US are going to be financially fucked too aren't they if they have to go to hospital?

 

[SpookyFrank]

People who get it in the US are going to be financially fucked too aren't they if they have to go to hospital?

I was thinking about this too. Must be hard for the authorities to track or contain cases when there's such a powerful deterrent against going to hospital for so many people.

 

[elbows]

If the WHO keep getting and sharing this 'lab confirmed' number, then we will still be able to see the trends in the 'old type' of numbers for China, in addition to the new ones.

 

[elbows]

And another consequence of that is that the Johns Hopkins dashboard no longer shows similar numbers to the WHO one. Whether this will remain the case I cannot say.

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[spring-peeper]

Televangelist sells $125 'Silver Solution' as cure for Coronavirus

"Well, let's say 'Silver Solution" hasn't been tested on this strain of the coronavirus, but it's been tested on other strains of the coronavirus and has been able to eliminate it within 12 hours," she said. "Totally eliminate it. Kills it, deactivates it. And then it boosts your immune system so then you can support the recovery, because when you kill the virus, then the immune system comes into action to clear it out. So you want a vibrant immune system as well as an ability to deactivate these viruses."

 

[Miss-Shelf]

Let's work at home

 

[Combustible]

Most of the new cases are in Wuhan, so assuming this method is rolled out across the rest of Hubei province, and indeed across China, I guess we can expect some more big leaps in the official figures over the next few days.

From what I can tell other provinces are also using the new criteria, but other provinces didn't have the same massive backlog of tests, which was previously limiting the number of new cases. The city I'm in now has gone from around 10 new cases a day around a week ago to 2 or 3 a day over the last few days.

 

[RedRedRose]

Can anyone comment on the difference between government response to H1N1 and the corona? Complaints of racism are doing the rounds.

 

[cupid_stunt]

I've spoken to 2 people that work at Worthing Hospital, they are not concerned, this was a locum doctor that has only done 2 shifts in A&E at the hospital, on the 4th & 5th Feb.

What they are pissed off about is the media circus that has set-up on the pavement outside the grounds, having been refused permission to come onto the site - BBC, Sky & ITV news are all there, together with some newspaper reporters too, and that's spreading fear amongst some patients & staff.

That was Wednesday, they disappeared that evening & didn't return yesterday. Basically, they turned-up, did a few live 'reports' where they didn't add anything to the story, realised there was nothing to report, so fucked off again, having added to the fear amongst patients, staff & the wider community, the clowns.

I almost posted this last night, after speaking to my SiS to find out if she had heard anything at the hospital, she hadn't, but held off to see if it was confirmed by the hospital/media overnight, it hasn't been.

Someone told me yesterday afternoon that two new cases had been discovered at Worthing hospital, I did ask if they were confirmed cases or if just people being tested, she said they were definitely confirmed cases. She is someone that should know better than to spread rumours, as she works at a children's nursery, and it wouldn't surprise if this became the main topic amongst staff & parents picking-up their children, causing widespread fear.

What was her source for this information? A fucking post on Facebook!

A total of over 2,500 people have been tested in the UK, many that had been in contact with the various confirmed cases, and the number of positive cases remain just 9. Meanwhile out of the 6 cases in Sussex, one has fully recovered, and the other 5 are described as 'doing well', which is good news.

 

[cupid_stunt]

A major shortage of face masks, because China is the world's major manufacturer, means dentists are running out of them & will be unable to treat patients, some could run out of supplies from next week.

Some UK dentists may have to "down drills" if the shortage of face masks caused by the coronavirus outbreak continues, according to the British Dental Association.

All practices are now restricted to ordering 100 masks a day, leaving larger ones with several dentists running out of supplies.

Even NHS practices with just two dentists are "now likely to use up their allocation completely", the BDA says.

Dentists threatened by coronavirus face-mask shortage

Some may have to "down drills" following curbs on how many they can order, the dentists' union says.

www.bbc.co.uk

I assume dentists will hold back limited supplies for urgent/emergency cases, but this could cause a major backlog of other cases.

It also begs the question as to if hospitals will be able to source enough supplies to keep functioning as normal, I guess probably not.