Coronavirus - worldwide spread and control

This is what happens when the govt has no rules about people travelling anywhere they please, going where they want outside, and being outside for unlimited times.

Major incident declared as people flock to England's south coast

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/25/major-incident-declared-as-people-flock-to-england-south-coast?

“A major incident has been declared after thousands of people flocked to beaches on the south coast of England during this week’s hot weather.

Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council said services were “completely overstretched” as huge numbers of visitors defied advice to stay away.

The council leader, Vikki Slade, said: “We are absolutely appalled at the scenes witnessed on our beaches, particularly at Bournemouth and Sandbanks, in the last 24-48 hours.

“The irresponsible behaviour and actions of so many people is just shocking and our services are stretched to the absolute hilt trying to keep everyone safe. We have had no choice now but to declare a major incident and initiate an emergency response.”

 

Also, the govt are still heavily pushing antibody tests;

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavi...-tests-given-to-nhs-and-care-workers-12014343

Coronavirus: Warning over COVID-19 antibody tests given to NHS and care workers

“The government purchased 10 million test kitsfrom pharmaceutical giant Abbott and Roche last month, with the first phase of the testing programme assessing NHS and care workers.

But in a letter published by the British Medical Journal, a group of academics and clinicians have voiced concerns about the performance of the tests and warned they risk "inefficient use of scarce resources".

They said that a positive or negative test result would not alter the management of a patient and added that a positive result "does not indicate immunity”

....

The experts say the tests are being rolled out "at an unprecedented pace and scale without adequate assessment".

There is also currently no data showing the performance of tests in people at high risk including the elderly and those in black and minority ethnic groups, they add.

NHS England requires the results of antibody tests to be available within 24 hours.

But the academics warn: "Given that routine testing of patients is neither clinically urgent nor meets a clear public health need, this push to introduce a non-evidence based test for uncertain gains risks inefficient use of scarce resources."“

 

Today the U.K. had 1,118 new cases (officially). We still don’t know how many people have been tested though - so how can we put that figure into context? If they’re testing a tiny amount of people, then that figure wont be accurate. Number of people tested has been unavailable for..how long now? Over a month or more?

The U.K. had 154 coronavirus deaths yesterday. Today the U.K. had 149 deaths. We are still having over a hundred deaths a day from coronavirus.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-information-for-the-public

 

A couple of weeks or so ago we were inundated with day trippers who were parking all over the place on verges, in front of peoples houses etc. Access to the beach is only on foot and through small private estates which have entrance barriers that are usually left open and un-manned, but on this occasion they were closed. People were getting really nasty about not being allowed to take their cars thro, and there were several police officers trying to keep the peace and asking the daytrippers to respect the residents. I've never seen anything like it.

 

Ah, yes, Dorset. That region which did have one of the lowest rates of coronavirus in the entire country. Did ...

 

CDC estimates that Covid-19 cases in the US may be 10 times higher than officially confirmed:

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/polit...d-19-cases/ar-BB15YbIZ?li=AAnZ9Ug&ocid=ASUDHP

 

A spike in cases in the Australian state of Victoria:

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...-cases-for-two-months/ar-BB15YAac?ocid=ASUDHP

 

The public health messaging has been dire in UK. Reactive, confusing and transferring responsibility from the state onto individual.
If messages are not concise, simple to understand and readily communicable then individuals cannot make informed decisions.

I am.old enough to remember the AIDS campaign in the 1980s , with tv adverts, newspaper ads, radio ads and posters everywhere. It was taken seriously.
It's a telling comparison, particularly when social media campaigns can be effective at using targeted demographics to ensure messages get across.

 

Given the inevitability of being out of control in the US and the likelihood of persistent symptoms, I think we are already at the point at which it will simply not be possible to refuse to tackle ME at a level comparable to AIDS. The economic costs will be devastating. The human costs too, but in the US system this matters little.

Several states are already on a track surpassing NYC's curve. Most of those states have very sub-par health care systems compared to NY, especially in rural communities. It's hard to put into perspective just how spread out the US population is outside of New England and some of the metro areas. There is simply no capacity to do what NYC did, and it will happen near simultaneously, stressing the entire capacity to respond.

A best case scenario is probably on the order of 10-20M infected in the US, possibly much higher if the underestimates are that significant. That could lead over 1M long-term disabled. Possibly more, it's possible the rates could go as high as 50M infected in the next year.

The confluence of factors that lead to this are mind-boggling, but I don't think it will be possible to ignore this. What an incredible mess. Had ME not been ignored by medicine things would have been very different, the politics would not have played out the same.

We freaking told you so...

 

Let it be recorded that the current number of infections in Dorset is 372. I'm waiting in trepidation to see what happens.


USA breaks record:

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/med...-is-headed/ar-BB160Srx?li=BBoPWjQ&ocid=ASUDHP

France has a major spike:

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/newso...ce-end-may/ar-BB160OE1?li=BBoPWjQ&ocid=ASUDHP

And the WHO warns that the resurgence in Europe has already started ...


@Amw66: yes, I too am old enough to remember the AIDS campaign. No mixed messages there ...

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1276527130285875202

 

I’m afraid @Jonathan Edwards it doesn’t look like the govt will get its act together by the end of July

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1275512266306265098

 

Texas warns outbreak has taken very swift and very dangerous turn (plus news of elsewhere in the US)

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...erous-turn/ar-BB164XB8?li=AAnZ9Ug&ocid=ASUDHP

US states race to reimpose lockdowns as Covid infections pass 2.5m

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...olf-course/ar-BB164OVf?li=BBoPRmx&ocid=ASUDHP

Of course, bars haven't reopened in the UK yet ...


Meat processing plants seem to be frequent centres of infection:

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...arch-finds/ar-BB164nEe?li=AAnZ9Ug&ocid=ASUDHP

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...-us-covid-19-peak-boris-johnson-a9584186.html

 

We have another month to go!
I had assumed that other European countries would make more costly mistakes by now but it seems that the virus is actually quite easy to control with reasonably non-draconian measures as long as you keep away from air transport, meat processing and night clubs. It may be that the UK will have to learn from its own costly mistakes. These may still occur in the next two weeks - after all the partying. I wouldn't be surprised if lockdown had to be re-imposed.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/27/...Nj48SOtJSQnkpgaPA5tO5fSXR1MsT-xzOXkvf_GcJxA_I
Very interesting article on early evidence of asymptomatic contagion and how that information was downplayed and ignored by Who etc.

How the World Missed Covid-19’s Silent Spread

Symptomless transmission makes the coronavirus far harder to fight. But health officials dismissed the risk for months, pushing misleading and contradictory claims in the face of mounting evidence.[...]


Dr. Rothe and her colleagues were among the first to warn the world. But even as evidence accumulated from other scientists, leading health officials expressed unwavering confidence that symptomless spreading was not important.[...]


Interviews with doctors and public health officials in more than a dozen countries show that for two crucial months — and in the face of mounting genetic evidence — Western health officials and political leaders played down or denied the risk of symptomless spreading. Leading health agencies including the World Health Organization and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control provided contradictory and sometimes misleading advice. A crucial public health discussion devolved into a semantic debate over what to call infected people without clear symptoms.[...]

Sweden’s public health agency declared that Dr. Rothe’s report had contained major errors. The agency’s website said, unequivocally, that “there is no evidence that people are infectious during the incubation period” — an assertion that would remain online in some form for months.

French health officials, too, left no room for debate: “A person is contagious only when symptoms appear,” a government flyer read. “No symptoms = no risk of being contagious.”[...]

 

Leicester lockdown: Coronavirus restrictions could be extended, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-53217095

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1277688895027720193

 

Interesting article in NY Times re T cell impacts and mechanisms similar to HIV.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/...te=1&user_id=c8db79a15a64bfaffdab4e20772b60ec