O/T Covid-19 - Discussion for the duration of this crisis. | Page 37 | Vital Football

O/T Covid-19 - Discussion for the duration of this crisis.

Critical_Spur said:
Some good alternative views. I welcome such challenges.

Like the concluding line from the last contributor:

"But we also need to be sensible. Quarantine belongs back in the Middle Ages. Save your masks for robbing banks. Stay calm and carry on. Let’s not make our attempted cures worse than the disease. "
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i agree on welcoming the challenges on all this Critical. i have found it a super-difficult week in some respects, trying to get some open-mindedness from people i am dealing with - clients, friends, every day people, am in a running battle with Greenpeace San Francisco at the moment, not about truth but about just being open-minded enough to take in and hear other viewpoints, other perspectives, without defending. we almost don't see how much our minds are formed by the media (or the media we trust) - and seemingly the politics, the media, the government-dependent scientists and the independent scientists all have different approaches and agendas at this point. we know from our ongoing attunement to Spurs (remember them?!) what a lot of crap most media talk. they even come on here when short of ideas to get things to fantasize about. none of the media in the US or UK that i can see are currently reflecting the questioning or perspectives coming from eminent and - probably likely - understated scientists.

here's one from Stanford, it's 62 mins long so not expecting you to watch it (!) but i find this kind of input helps to separate out my thinking from BJ, Trump, Greenpeace, nanny US lefties, the Sun, Guardian, Washington Post etc.

 
paddyspur said:
i agree on welcoming the challenges on all this Critical. i have found it a super-difficult week in some respects, trying to get some open-mindedness from people i am dealing with - clients, friends, every day people, am in a running battle with Greenpeace San Francisco at the moment, not about truth but about just being open-minded enough to take in and hear other viewpoints, other perspectives, without defending. we almost don't see how much our minds are formed by the media (or the media we trust) - and seemingly the politics, the media, the government-dependent scientists and the independent scientists all have different approaches and agendas at this point. we know from our ongoing attunement to Spurs (remember them?!) what a lot of crap most media talk. they even come on here when short of ideas to get things to fantasize about. none of the media in the US or UK that i can see are currently reflecting the questioning or perspectives coming from eminent and - probably likely - understated scientists.

here's one from Stanford, it's 62 mins long so not expecting you to watch it (!) but i find this kind of input helps to separate out my thinking from BJ, Trump, Greenpeace, nanny US lefties, the Sun, Guardian, Washington Post etc.

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I listened to most of it and it does reflect the views of many not just on here but in the scientific community as well...in a nutshell he is saying that scientists do not have the data to justify the approaches we are seeing and that data needs to be gathered in the next few weeks before strategies are finally decided.
 
Of course people will challenge this lock down style way of living. Humans don't like being told what to do. We are not used to this way of living.

I personally don't mind it. I don't like many people, I have a very small circle of people in my life, through choice.

Once this dies down I will be looking at buying a cottage or bungalow in the countryside.
 
Harry-Kari said:
I listened to most of it and it does reflect the views of many not just on here but in the scientific community as well...in a nutshell he is saying that scientists do not have the data to justify the approaches we are seeing and that data needs to be gathered in the next few weeks before strategies are finally decided.
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We are taking these measures to protect the NHS. We need to give them some breathing space and get things in order first.

Things might change a bit when all the big arenas open up. Over 600,000 people have volunteered to help the NHS. 20,000 ex NHS staff have came out of retirement.

Once the staff and the new hospital space is there, we should be able to cope with more cases. Then perhaps most people can at least go back to work.

Getting the economy up and running again is very important.
 
Real Deal said:
We are taking these measures to protect the NHS. We need to give them some breathing space and get things in order first.

Things might change a bit when all the big arenas open up. Over 600,000 people have volunteered to help the NHS. 20,000 ex NHS staff have came out of retirement.

Once the staff and the new hospital space is there, we should be able to cope with more cases. Then perhaps most people can at least go back to work.

Getting the economy up and running again is very important.
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Save the NHS was a politically bullshit campaign slogan and now we are emotionally manipulated to stay home with the exact same line.

When this is gone it would be used as an excuse to raise taxes.

£140 Billion a year and 1.5 Million employees make it the biggest health service in the world. If the NHS cant handle this then it needs a total rebuild.
 
I feel there's an element of no country leader wants to to be seen to not be following the herd mentality and are joining the panic bandwagon. There is no such thing as NHS in many countries and yet the likes of Modi give India a 4 hour notice for a lockdown with migrating labourers trapped, trying to walk 100's miles to their villages and likely to be quarantined. Near enough damn it to holocaust. The exceptions being Brazil and Belarus.

I feel the voice of the contrary view will get louder over time and will become the voice of the opposition parties and we'd be back to political football with human lives. Six months?..... I'd give it 6 weeks before we begin to see some unrest.
 
Pollo said:
Save the NHS was a politically bullshit campaign slogan and now we are emotionally manipulated to stay home with the exact same line.

When this is gone it would be used as an excuse to raise taxes.

£140 Billion a year and 1.5 Million employees make it the biggest health service in the world. If the NHS cant handle this then it needs a total rebuild.
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At the moment , worldwide, the cure IS proving far more harmful than the virus.
 
A positive progress update:

I am told that Oxford think they have it cracked with their candidate, but only start clinical trials now:



How UK universities are contributing to the fight against COVID-19


  • Pavankumar Kamat
  • UK Medical News
  • 23 Mar 2020

First novel COVID-19 vaccine candidate commences animal testing
  • Univadis Medical News
COVID-19: what can the world learn from Italy?



Several universities in the UK have directed their research efforts to help fight the spread of COVID-19. In the midst of the nation facing a lockdown, researchers have been working tirelessly on some of the key initiatives discussed below.

Genome sequencing

Scientists at The University of Sheffield in collaboration with the virology team at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals have successfully sequenced their first two whole genomes of COVID-19 from UK patients. The sequence data, which have been transferred to international viral sequence database GISAID will provide key information to track the spread and evolution of the infection. After their initial success, the team is expected to sequence more samples in the days to come. Dr Thushan de Silva, who is leading the research, said: "Collecting and sharing standardised global clinical data and samples on patients infected with coronavirus is a critical process in how the health research community can contribute to our understanding outbreaks of new infectious diseases."

Rapid testing

Researchers at the University of Oxford’s Engineering Science Department and the Oxford Suzhou Centre for Advanced Research (OSCAR) have developed a rapid testing method for COVID-19. The test uses a viral detection mechanism to specifically recognise SARS-CoV-2 RNA and RNA fragments and can provide results in just 30 minutes. The rapid testing does not require any complicated instruments but only a simple heat-block to maintain a constant temperature for RNA reverse transcription and DNA amplification.

Vaccine development

The Oxford Vaccine Group and Oxford's Jenner Institute have identified a vaccine candidate for COVID-19 and are making swift progress towards the first clinical testing phase. They have chosen the chimpanzee adenovirus vaccine vector (ChAdOx1) as it is capable of eliciting a strong immune response from a single dose and is a non-replicating virus. The team has previously developed a vaccine for the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome using similar technology.

A research team at the University of Cambridge under the leadership of Prof Jonathan Heeney is working towards developing a vaccine candidate against COVID-19. DIOSynVax, Prof Heeney's spin-out company in collaboration with Cambridge Enterprise, the University’s commercialisation arm, is using computer modelling of the virus’s structure to identify vital spike proteins on the virus’s armour that will form a part of the vaccine. Prof Heeney said: "Our vaccine designs are made so that they can be easily integrated into any proprietary vaccine platform that a pharmaceutical company may have ready."

Modelling studies

Modelling of intervention timings by mathematicians at the University of Sussex indicates that in order to stop health services from being overwhelmed, policymakers should implement early interventions and aim for two small peaks in infections, rather than one large peak. Francesco Di Lauro, one of the team members, said: "Our models address the biggest question facing the world right now: what should governments be doing in response to the COVID-19 pandemic? If governments want to make a drastic intervention, they probably only have one chance."

Another modelling study from the Imperial College London suggests two possible scenarios based on the intensity of different interventions. In the first scenario, interventions could retard but not completely interrupt the spread of infection. This would substantially reduce the burden on health services and protect the most vulnerable population. In the second scenario, more intensive interventions could interrupt transmission and bring down cases to low levels; however, cases are likely to rise once the interventions are relaxed.

Contact tracing

A team of infectious disease and bioethics experts at the University of Oxford is working closely with the UK and other European governments to explore the feasibility of developing an instant contact tracing mobile application which can be quickly and widely deployed, while maintaining necessary ethical considerations. The application works on a simple concept that individuals who have come into contact with a person diagnosed with COVID-19 will be alerted through the application and advised to isolate themselves. Dr David Bonsall from the team at Oxford said: "If we can securely deploy this technology, the more people that opt-in, the faster the epidemic will stop, and the more lives can be saved."

While the contribution of the frontline health care workers remains invaluable, the efforts of these researchers also deserve loud applause!
 
Pollo said:
Save the NHS was a politically bullshit campaign slogan and now we are emotionally manipulated to stay home with the exact same line.

When this is gone it would be used as an excuse to raise taxes.

£140 Billion a year and 1.5 Million employees make it the biggest health service in the world. If the NHS cant handle this then it needs a total rebuild.
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Agree completely....it’s a great service to have but we have to find a better way of financing it and also organise and control it...it’s becoming the same as owning a boat...it’s just a black hole that keeps sucking money out of every other service needed to keep the country moving forward.
 
Pollo said:
Save the NHS was a politically bullshit campaign slogan and now we are emotionally manipulated to stay home with the exact same line.

When this is gone it would be used as an excuse to raise taxes.

£140 Billion a year and 1.5 Million employees make it the biggest health service in the world. If the NHS cant handle this then it needs a total rebuild.
Click to expand...

It does need a total rebuild.

Believe me there are some very very well off GP's, and there are consultants in the NHS who work minimal contract hours (30 hours) - contrary to much of the propaganda you see and read., they don't even work them at times but report that they do and simply make their money from private work. My knee surgeon/consultant who has a foot in each camp has just bought a helicopter - I don't begrudge him it, he's worked hard for it, but there has to be a balance between the NHS paying around #1-1.5 millon to train him and getting the bare minimum back.

Gp's/Consultant love the NHS as they get the best training around for free - whereas in many countries you can only fund yourself through it by debt and then spend the next 10-12 years paying it off.

Worse still there are agents from abroad who literally chase down newly qualified doctors with forward offers of employment that makes them do the bare minimum for the NHS and then jump off abroad, their salaries when they get there is two, three, up to five times more if you get the right offer from North America - it's a form of bloodletting for the NHS that in its current legal form it cannot stem.

I know many agency nurses from my time as an advisor to a trust, and the system allows them to work, 3 days a week and make a very good living. Agency nurses often are nurses who resign from the trust and then do the same job at agency rate contracting either directly or via an employment agency for two - tree time the equivelent hourly rate.

Heads of regional trusts believe that medical contracts have to be completely rewritten as they are now a recipe for ripping off the NHS, I have sympathy with that view. There are simply vast sums of money being wasted and it's impossible to make a stand against it as the moment you try, you'll have them all out on strike and worse.
The NHS is a frauds charter now, which is why there are so many within the service who believe the only way to take this embedded cultural approach on, is by privatising non-core operations and then take on core services sometime in the future.

It cannot be carrying on being the bottomless pit it is, it needs wholesale reform.
 
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Spursex said:
It does need a total rebuild.

Believe me there are some very very well off GP's, and there are consultants in the NHS who work minimal contract hours (30 hours) - contrary to much of the propaganda you see and read., they don't even work them at times but report that they do and simply make their money from private work. My knee surgeon/consultant who has a foot in each camp has just bought a helicopter - I don't begrudge him it, he's worked hard for it, but there has to be a balance between the NHS paying around #1-1.5 millon to train him and getting the bar minimum back.

Gp's/Consultant love the NHS as they get the best training around for free - whereas in many countries you can only fund yourself through it by debt and then spend the next 10-12 years paying it off.

Worse still there are agents from abroad who literally chase down newly qualified doctors with forward offers of employment that makes them do the bare minimum for the NHS and then jump off abroad, their salaries when they get there as two, three, up to five times more if you get the right offer from North America - it's a form of bloodletting for the NHS that in its current legal form cannot stem.

I know many agency nurses from my time as an advisor to trust, and the system allows them to work, 3 days a week and make a very good living. Agency nurses often are nurses who resign from the trust and then do the same job at agency rate contracting either directly or via an employment agency.

Heads of regional trusts believe that medical contracts have to be completely rewritten as they are now a recipe for ripping off the NHS, I have sympathy with that view. There are simply cast sums of money being wasted and it's impossible to make a stand against it as the moment you try, you'll have them all out on strike and worse.
The NHS is a frauds charter now, which is why there are so many within the service who believe the only way to take this embedded cultural approach on, is by privatising non-core operations and then take on core services sometime in the future.

It cannot be carrying on being the bottomless pit it is, it needs wholesale reform.
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All of the above is true, but they also conduct themselves in the worst financial manner - renting spaces for sums larger the the property value, outsourcing procedures to the private industry (72% of abortions are outsourced) and many other examples.

Strict laws should come in place which require an X years of service in the NHS after receiving training, or one would have to pay back the tax payer.
 
Big Chiv said:
Pollo and Ex , you do realise that in current dumbed down Britain , any criticism of the NHS is tantamount to heresy !
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It's why I stepped away from taking up an almost full-time (if I allowed it to be) local voluntary advisory role, the Unions that represent the people who work in it, including the BMA are tantamount to closed-minded Marxists as far I could tell and are wholeheartedly supported by a propaganda machine that makes reform impossible.

Reforms are constantly being tried, but the internal opposition to them is just incredible and you can't make anything happen if the unions don't want it to, so the trade-off in terms of indirect bribes etc is just too much to bear for a capitalist like me.

The blanket excuse is always 'not enough money' - its a simple unthinking mantra that the vast majority of the public accept without question - despite the mounting evidence (such as claims against the NHS continuing to grow) rather than questioning the competence of the people who run/and work in it - as one consultant said to me 'we teach and practice incompetence and actually get paid for doing it'.

There are of course lots of really smart intelligent thinkers and doers in the NHS, but generally in my experience, they're in the minority.
 
Spursex said:
It's why I stepped away from taking up an almost full-time (if I allowed it to be) local voluntary advisory role, the Unions that represent the people who work in it, including the BMA are tantamount to closed-minded Marxists as far I could tell and are wholeheartedly supported by a propaganda machine that makes reform impossible.

Reforms are constantly being tried, but the internal opposition to them is just incredible and you can't make anything happen if the unions don't want it to, so the trade-off in terms of indirect bribes etc is just too much to bear for a capitalist like me.

The blanket excuse is always 'not enough money' - its a simple unthinking mantra that the vast majority of the public accept without question - despite the mounting evidence (such as claims against the NHS continuing to grow) rather than questioning the competence of the people who run/and work in it - as one consultant said to me 'we teach and practice incompetence and actually get paid for doing it'.

There are of course lots of really smart intelligent thinkers and doers in the NHS, but generally in my experience, they're in the minority.
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Spot on.
 
https://resolution.nhs.uk/2019/07/1...ers-steady-but-rising-costs-remain-a-concern/

It looks like we've stemmed the flow of claims - but what the report doesn't tell you is what gets reported - if you head a claim off early and you pay off early - the real trend by trusts, the headlines increases even look respectable.

But there is a provision, that is £84 BILLION - does that sound like an organisation that know what it's doing and a cash outflow of 2.5 Billion in early settlements every year!!!

It's hiding a stunning level of incompetence.

I should say I'm proud of how teh NHS and everyone in it has rallied under the current conditions and we have to do everything we can to help - but after this is all over, there must be a public inquiry into how the NHS is managed, run and performs, we have to be in a better position that we are now.

All credit to staff, they deserve it, but they also deserve working for an orgnisation that's run far better than this.
 
Herd immunity is the only way out of this impasse

29 March 2020 • 4:00pm


TELEMMGLPICT000228614307_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpVlberWd9EgFPZtcLiMQfyf2A9a6I9YchsjMeADBa08.jpeg
Sweden has taken the herd immunity approach to dealing with Covid-19
Just over two weeks ago Patrick Vallance told the Today programme that the government’s strategy for fighting the Covid-19 outbreak was built around herd immunity. This is a tried and tested method for managing outbreaks of infectious disease: once a sufficiently large proportion of the population has some form of immunity, acquired either through vaccination or surviving a disease, it becomes impossible for it to spread. Herd immunity worked for smallpox and it worked for measles - or at least it did until the anti-vaxxers decided that they would exercise their freedom of choice by refusing to immunise themselves or their children.
The problem with herd immunity acquired through infection is that it comes at a price: namely that, in this first epidemic (and be in no doubt that this is not the only outbreak of Covid-19 that we will endure), the disease runs riot and the mortality is substantial. A large number of at-risk people will die while the rest of the population is acquiring immunity. This is likely why, once the reality of what herd immunity implies had started to dawn on the population at large, we have heard no more about it.

The alternative strategy is to do what China and, to a lesser extent, Israel have done. In China the state knows where you are, or more specifically, where your mobile phone is at any given time. It can prevent you attending subversive events, it can tell whether you really are off sick or have just decided to spend a lazy day in bed. It can tell immediately if you have decided to breach the curfew, send a drone to tell you off and deliver an on-the-spot fine.
In 1948, the government of Israel declared a state of emergency to enable it to manage the war that followed the founding of the nation; that state of emergency has been in place ever since. History has shown repeatedly that liberties surrendered, however noble the cause, may be a long time returning.
So there is both a medical and a philosophical reason why the authoritarian approach is not necessarily the answer.
Medically, fighting an epidemic by suppressing it through draconian restrictions of liberty achieves the opposite of herd immunity. It ensures that the majority of survivors have no immunity and so are at just as much risk next time around. Of course, the advocates of this approach are banking on the development of vaccines and other therapies for the management of the next epidemic. But a usable vaccine will almost certainly not be available by the time this disease comes back for an encore. Novel treatments based on anti-malarial drugs and antibiotics will also need to be evaluated in proper clinical trials. So, we will have to do the same again next time with the attendant risks to the economy and the fabric of society.
The philosophical question therefore is, in fighting this disease, what kind of society and economy do we want to leave to our children and grandchildren? To what extent are we prepared to throw the baby out with the bathwater?
Much has been written and said about how this is the greatest emergency facing our nation – indeed, the world – since the Second World War. Then, more than 30 million people died fighting fascist ideology. There are few who question the justness of that struggle.
For centuries we have found no difficulty in asking young men and women to put their lives at risk in defence of our democracy, to say nothing of asking them to do so in pursuit of some often questionable economic and colonial aims. The difference this time is that it would be those of us in the last third of our lives being asked to bear the greatest risk as opposed to those who should still have decades of life ahead of them.
I strongly suspect that herd immunity has not disappeared from the agenda of the Cobra committee. I certainly hope that is the case because, when our children and grandchildren emerge blinking into the post-apocalyptic dawn I, for one, hope that the society into which they emerge is broadly-speaking the same as the one in which I have lived my life – not one that resembles the People’s Republic of China.

Jullien Gaer is a consultant cardiac surgeon
 
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