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General Coronavirus (COVID-19) chat

BigMoaner said:
been trying to find the first ever world news story that broke about the virus. best i can get:

edition.cnn.com

CNN's early reporting on the novel coronavirus: Articles, videos and posts from January and February 2020 | CNN

President Donald Trump on Monday falsely claimed the media had ignored the outbreak of coronavirus in January and February, as he sought to defend his response to the pandemic.
edition.cnn.com edition.cnn.com

creepy the way it was relatively small news for a few days. here we are 10 months or so later.
Click to expand...

BBC had something a few days earlier.

www.bbc.com

China pneumonia outbreak: Mystery virus probed in Wuhan

Some 44 people have been infected in the central city of Wuhan, officials say.
www.bbc.com

And Reuters a few days before that: Chinese officials investigate cause of pneumonia outbreak in Wuhan
 
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Yossarian said:
BBC had something a few days earlier.

www.bbc.com

China pneumonia outbreak: Mystery virus probed in Wuhan

Some 44 people have been infected in the central city of Wuhan, officials say.
www.bbc.com

And Reuters a few days before that: Chinese officials investigate cause of pneumonia outbreak in Wuhan
Click to expand...

The WHO didn’t start issuing reports on it until the 20th of January:

 
The WHO were certainly far less than stellar early on..
Not just them - taking so fecking long to suggest people improvise face coverings ...
I wore one in shops from April and it wasn't mandated until 24th July
 
prunus said:
Why do you think paracetamol is nasty stuff? If you keep to the recommenceded dosage it’s incredibly safe - far safer than aspirin or brufen or indeed codeine.
Click to expand...
codeine is just as safe as heroin if you follow the recommended dosage.
it is a bit habit forming if you don't follow the dosage
 
I had one of those moments of clarity today.

After a video call, I checked my mobile device for alert warnings that I'd been near a contaminated person, pulled on my mask and ventured outside, walking briskly and staying well away from other people. When I got back I casually checked the day's death figures and made some tea.

We're living in a 70s sci-fi dystopia.
 
why wasnt there a bigger swine flu pandemic in the uk?
what squashed the peaks?
en.wikipedia.org

2009 swine flu pandemic in the United Kingdom - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
512px-Swineflu_uk_hpa_model.svg.png
 
wemakeyousoundb said:
codeine is just as safe as heroin if you follow the recommended dosage.
it is a bit habit forming if you don't follow the dosage
Click to expand...
When I had shingles, according to my notes I was taking one Co-codamol nearly every 4 hours for 2 weeks and had to get them from different chemists and I seem to remember a teeny bit of bathroom hesitancy and maybe even interesting dreams by the end ...
"you must only take these for 3 days" they told me (as they always do) ... I don't know what the doctor would have said ...
They meant I could actually wear clothes and get on with my life.

I luckily haven't had full-on sinusitis or cluster headaches for years now which required maxing out - but I have no issues with popping half a co-codamol and single ibuprofen when my sinuses occasionally complain enough to spoil my morning ...

I actually bought some aspirin recently - but those are for stripping enamel off of wire.
 
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Badgers said:
Could be useful

Thermometer for Adults, Non Contact Ear and Forehead Thermometer, Digital Infrared Thermometer for Fever with LCD Screen, Memory Recall, Fever Alarm, Used for Baby, Kids, Children: Amazon.co.uk: Health & Personal Care

Thermometer for Adults, Non Contact Ear and Forehead Thermometer, Digital Infrared Thermometer for Fever with LCD Screen, Memory Recall, Fever Alarm, Used for Baby, Kids, Children: Amazon.co.uk: Health & Personal Care
www.amazon.co.uk
Click to expand...


Be careful, even the high priced Non Contact Thermometers are not as acurate as people think, reflectivity of the surface being measured and even things like humidity can skew results........I wouldnt put too much faith in a cheapo device from Amazon
(I use one for measuring temp of different areas of engines, but its dealing with higher temperatures so the percentage errors are much smaller)
 
ska invita said:
why wasnt there a bigger swine flu pandemic in the uk?
what squashed the peaks?
en.wikipedia.org

2009 swine flu pandemic in the United Kingdom - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
512px-Swineflu_uk_hpa_model.svg.png
Click to expand...

It turned out that the Swine Flu version of H1N1 influenza had enough similarities to some H1N1 strains seen many years before, so people over a certain age tended to have a better immune response. The novel nature of a virus is what gives it pandemic potential, so when it turns out to not be so novel, the results dont resemble the terrible pandemics that really deserve the word pandemic. This is also the reason we didnt see a terrible death toll, and why that pandemic did not really tip people off about what a bad pandemic like the one we have now could be like. It was suggested that the response to that pandemic was an overreaction, and this did not eactly help encourage authorities to come up with more robust plans for future pandemics, or encourage authorities to act quickly with an abundance of caution.

Modelling of epidemic waves and peaks is heavily influenced by what percentage of the population are still susceptible. Things turn around when the pool of susceptible individuals that the virus can actually reach becomes too low to sustain continual growth to new heights.

We may also involve this in the question 'why were there 2 peaks with that timing?'.

To which the answer may very well be that it was a pandemic that largely affected young people, and school summer holidays broke chains of infection in a massive way, only to return when schools returned.

The picture I have described is likely to be incomplete and something of an oversimplification.
 
elbows said:
It turned out that the Swine Flu version of H1N1 influenza had enough similarities to some H1N1 strains seen many years before, so people over a certain age tended to have a better immune response.
Click to expand...
I just looked it up ..
I had a messy flu in 1976 or 77 that dragged on for 2 weeks if I remember correctly - perhaps that explains why my young colleague got swine flu in 2009 but I didn't ...
I used to catch something every year working in that university that would knock me flat...

There were still (empty) gel dispensers and hand washing instructions left from that epidemic when covid came around.
 
elbows said:
It turned out that the Swine Flu version of H1N1 influenza had enough similarities to some H1N1 strains seen many years before, so people over a certain age tended to have a better immune response. The novel nature of a virus is what gives it pandemic potential, so when it turns out to not be so novel, the results dont resemble the terrible pandemics that really deserve the word pandemic. This is also the reason we didnt see a terrible death toll, and why that pandemic did not really tip people off about what a bad pandemic like the one we have now could be like. It was suggested that the response to that pandemic was an overreaction, and this did not eactly help encourage authorities to come up with more robust plans for future pandemics, or encourage authorities to act quickly with an abundance of caution.

Modelling of epidemic waves and peaks is heavily influenced by what percentage of the population are still susceptible. Things turn around when the pool of susceptible individuals that the virus can actually reach becomes too low to sustain continual growth to new heights.

We may also involve this in the question 'why were there 2 peaks with that timing?'.

To which the answer may very well be that it was a pandemic that largely affected young people, and school summer holidays broke chains of infection in a massive way, only to return when schools returned.

The picture I have described is likely to be incomplete and something of an oversimplification.
Click to expand...
sounds like you're suggesting herd immunity after two waves?
 
ska invita said:
sounds like you're suggesting herd immunity after two waves?
Click to expand...

Its rarely that simple. I believe there were other waves beyond the period shown. And there was a vaccination campaign.

I do not recommend thinking in terms of herd immunity as some kind of binary switch. Better to think about levels of population susceptibility and how these levels would be expected to alter over time.

And its not like the swine flu virus went away, its still out there, and its included in the mass vaccination every year.
 
gentlegreen said:
I was taking one Co-Codamol nearly every 4 hours for 2 week
Click to expand...

Two every ten hours for me when my rib was broken, very early 2016 -- and mine were the stronger, prescribed version, not the half-strength OTC version! :eek:

How anyone on Co-Codamol longer-term manages to shit at all, is a mystery -- it might as well be anti-laxative medicine IME ;)

Apologies for continuing the non-Covid remedies chat! ;) :oops:
 
Anyone who knows me knows I eat a lot of chillies so my sense of taste could hardly be described as brilliant. But today I have literally no sense of taste at all. None. Nada. Zip.

So, I've had to book myself a test.

What are the odds that:
  1. I have it
  2. I'll die

The wife's keen to know.
 
a_chap said:
Anyone who knows me knows I eat a lot of chillies so my sense of taste could hardly be described as brilliant. But today I have literally no sense of taste at all. None. Nada. Zip.

So, I've had to book myself a test.

What are the odds that:
  1. I have it
  2. I'll die

The wife's keen to know.
Click to expand...

1. Reasonable. Of the instances of idiopathic anosmia occurring in the UK at the moment the majority will be due to Covid infection.

2. Low to very very low depending mostly on your age but also on other health issues you may have. If you are under 65 and generally healthy then it’s somewhere around very very low. More details can provide more accurate probability assessments of both questions.
 
Those answers to 2. are not the one she's looking for.

Anyway, we've just got back from having a test each so I should know within 24 hours or so whether I'm officially a statistic.

You know there ought to be cameras at these testing centres - it'd make for easy comedy viewing. In our case we were directed to leave but they'd not actually asked for the tests back. So we found ourselves being pursued by a bloke waving what looked like a litter-picker...
 
elbows said:
It turned out that the Swine Flu version of H1N1 influenza had enough similarities to some H1N1 strains seen many years before, so people over a certain age tended to have a better immune response. The novel nature of a virus is what gives it pandemic potential, so when it turns out to not be so novel, the results dont resemble the terrible pandemics that really deserve the word pandemic. This is also the reason we didnt see a terrible death toll, and why that pandemic did not really tip people off about what a bad pandemic like the one we have now could be like. It was suggested that the response to that pandemic was an overreaction, and this did not eactly help encourage authorities to come up with more robust plans for future pandemics, or encourage authorities to act quickly with an abundance of caution.
Click to expand...
I often thought that swine flu gave us a false sense of relative security. I'm sure I wasn't alone in thinking, when I first heard about COVID, 'Ah, it'll probably be like swine flu and not really take hold here', and I reckon sadly our government was holding that thought too. I guess I've kind of forgotten it was quite bad at the time - I didn't know anyone affected by it.
 
Stood outside our village shop today waiting for Mrs BB, I watched a couple of blokes pull up in a van. One offered his mate a mask, but he refused it and marched into the shop - which has "No mask, no service" posters up in the window - with no mask on. wtf is wrong with some people? Did he think all the old ladies in the shop were going to mock him for literally following the law? What a twat.
 
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<Not data alert>
A housemate who had it early on (before testing) and was severely ill, with awful long covid complications, was apparently reinfected over Christmas. He stayed away till he was better. Fortunately he is better. For him, it wasn't as bad.
 
Had a Zoom chat with some mates last night. One of the lads said that if someone had told him at the beginning of this that he'd be getting two lockdown birthdays, he'd have thought they were completely ridiculous. His birthday is at the end of March.
Someone else said that they just hoped they didn't get to have two lockdown birthdays
"When's your birthday, then, Rich?"
"Tomorrow"
:eek:
 
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