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I don't think anyone is banking on a vaccine. It is not predictable. I would rather they kept us all shut down as well, but why not try to do what other countries are trying to do with shutdown - terminate the epidemic. We are planning to be left as the one country shut off from the world still...

What hits me starkly about today's press conference is that although the impression is given that we are catching up with other countries in the UK we are still unique (maybe with the US although I am not sure there is a plan there) in assuming that the epidemic will play out and infect most of...

Mr Johnson slipped in 14 days at the press conference instead of 7 - hoping nobody would notice they had changed things, I assume.

No, because there is no such thing as an immune boosting supplement as far as I know. Even if supplements helped immunity, which I doubt, they are not going to make it more than normal. The immune system is not like a thermostat that can be turned up or down. It is much more complicated than...

I am not sure that there is proof of that but it seems sensible to assume it is a major hazard.

My understanding is that the risk would be minimal if they are not coughing, you keep 3 feet away and try not to breathe just as you pass them. I am significantly concerned about dogs since they are likely to be able to carry the virus on a wet nose and if not on a lead to tend rub up against...

I don't think there is much in the way of real life evidence on this. The assumption is that if you breath in a million virus particles then it has a head start relative to breathing in one viable particle. A replication cycle probably takes a few hours and multiplies a thousand fold or more so...

Only to the extent that your confusion is well founded. Since we do not understand exactly what they chain of events is in these illnesses it is hard to be sure we know what is due to up and what due to down. There are some clear cases where we know what matters. So if you have AIDS and it...

I am afraid it is. I have. done my own mathematical modelling and my calculation is that an infection rate that the NHS could just about cope with in the way that Italy has (i.e. not really coping and utter misery) would take about ten years to play out. Anything shorter and thousands of...

Properly controlled trials should be set up but I suspect that bureaucracy will get in the way. The real problem is that the service is so flat on its back that nobody will have time to even think of setting up trials. If the policy had been to lock down and slow things down realistically then...

One of the leading authorities on IL-6 and tocilizumab in the UK had herself treated with it for a condition off label and she very nearly died, I think from acute respiratory distress. It might work but it might make things much worse. We need trials other than off label usage.

People go on flogging a dead horse in science for decades.

I think that is a bit misleading These are just drugs being investigated. Nobody nows if they have any value at all. They are not for clinical use.

I have only looked at the bits cited above but I am quite clear this is pernicious tripe. It follows the popular trend of 'be nice to everyone because that way someone will pay me to bullshit and play act'. The same attitude is the reason why my daughter has TB because being nice to each other...

My investigations into Red Labs in the past suggest that their tests may be unreliable and not properly validated. I would personally recommend having nothing to do with them.

A lot of staple foods are fortified with vitamins. I very much doubt there is any need. I used to look after many people with arthritis who had pretty limited diets and vitamin deficiency was not an issue. I think it is much more sensible to eat a bit of fruit and veg now and again to be honest.

Yes. These illnesses are not hard to spot when serious cases occur.

Specific antivirals can disable viruses. There are not many of them and they are mostly nit very effective but those for HIV are pretty good. An antibiotic will kill a bacterium by, for instance giving it false material for building a cell wall (penicillin). An antiviral can do something...

That's right. Supplements are not generally useful. Unless there is a very specific medical condition or the sort of diet prisoners of war had in Japan in 1945.

No I don't think that applies. SARS stands for severe acute respiratory syndrome if I remember rightly. Until Nov 2019 nobody much had a severe acute respiratory syndrome. Then a cluster of people did and some died. The illness seems to have a typical pattern in a lot of cases - acute fever and...