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Coronavirus lockdown

Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2020 1:35am
9 replies662 views4 members subscribed
Knitwhizz

Posts: 49

25 helpful points

Location: Roquetas de Mar

Joined: 18 Sep 2018

Just had an email from Leroy Merlin, all stores are closed from 15 March.  We have just returned from Roquetas having been there for five weeks.  Even at the airport on Friday 13 March there didn’t seem to be any panic, only saw three people in masks, and no one on the plane so much as sneezed or coughed.  Regrettably, a lot of smaller business will suffer.  Still don’t know whether it is an overreaction or not, I suppose only time will tell.  Hopefully, people will be able to get through this.

Matthew

Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2020 8:27am

Matthew

Legendary helpful member

Posts: 2236

3339 helpful points

Location: Mojacar

Joined: 16 May 2018

Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2020 8:27am

"Still don’t know whether it is an overreaction or not, I suppose only time will tell.  Hopefully, people will be able to get through this." Thanks for that Knitwhiz

1. How long do you think it will take you to realise that it is not an overreaction? 

2. Common Sense and a little bit of care will ensure most can handle the situation easily.

PCB

Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2020 4:55pm

PCB

Posts: 6

Location: Roquetas de Mar

Joined: 8 Dec 2019

Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2020 4:55pm

Matthew wrote on Sun Mar 15, 2020 8:27am:

"Still don’t know whether it is an overreaction or not, I suppose only time will tell.  Hopefully, people will be able to get through this." Thanks for that Knitwhiz

1. How long do you think it will take you to realise that it is not an overreaction? 

2. Common Sense and a little bit of care will ensure most can handle the situation easily.

He has a point. On average 17,000 people die from influenza each year in the UK worst year in the last six was just over 28,000 best year was just below 2,000. WHO figures.

chrisso50

Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2020 5:32pm

chrisso50

Super helpful member

Posts: 1106

1334 helpful points

Location: Roquetas de Mar

Joined: 23 Jul 2018

Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2020 5:32pm

PCB wrote on Mon Mar 16, 2020 4:55pm:

He has a point. On average 17,000 people die from influenza each year in the UK worst year in the last six was just over 28,000 best year was just below 2,000. WHO figures.

The leaked Public Health England report today says that Britain’s approach “is expected” to see up to 80% of its citizens contract the virus, with almost 8 million people hospitalised. “If the mortality rate turns out to be the 1 percent many experts are using as their working assumption, then that would mean 531,000 deaths. But if Whitty’s insistence that the rate will be closer to 0.6 percent proves accurate, then that would involve 319,000 people dying.” 

It's time to realise that C19 is not flu. And that this is a pandemic.

Almost as striking is the document’s stark warning that this crisis is likely to run until the spring next year, with serious cases dropping down during the warmest months of summer, but returning with a vengeance next winter. A whole year of coronavirus in the UK … Remember when we thought Brexit was a big deal?

Chris


DarioMartin

Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2020 7:28pm

DarioMartin

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Posts: 5342

6308 helpful points

Location: Vera

Joined: 16 Aug 2017

Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2020 7:28pm

PCB wrote on Mon Mar 16, 2020 4:55pm:

He has a point. On average 17,000 people die from influenza each year in the UK worst year in the last six was just over 28,000 best year was just below 2,000. WHO figures.

Posted on another thread, by and with thanks to Andymac1951 :-

Thanks to my respected friend and colleague Dr. Julie Silver for sharing this— please read the whole thing, it is an important summary

From Julie —“It has been years since I have posted anything on this page. As a physician at Harvard Medical School, I have amazing access to the best information and resources for #Covid19. I know people are getting a lot of information, and not all of it is accurate. My friend Dr. Reem Ghalib summarized the situation in one of the best social media posts to date on this topic (copied/pasted below). Please read what she has to say and share with your loved ones, friends, and colleagues. Urge people to be calm and logical in their decision making. Err on the side of caution. Re the info below--note that "coronavirus" is used generically to mean the specific strain Covid 19. I will apologize in advance for not responding to comments as work is very hectic right now:                                             

Dear Friends,

So much confusion, misinformation and denial is bouncing around on social media about the coronavirus that I thought I would try to explain, in plain language, why the experts see this as such an emergency.

You will see the claim online that this virus is a lot like the viruses that cause colds, and that if you get it, it will probably just seem like a bad cold and you are very unlikely to die. Depending on who you are, these statements are probably true. But they are incomplete, and the missing information is the key to understanding the problem.

This is a coronavirus that is new to the human population, jumping into people late last year from some kind of animal, probably at a wildlife market in Wuhan, China. It is related to the viruses that cause colds, and acts a lot like them in many ways. It is very easy to transmit through the respiratory droplets that all of us give off. But nobody has ever been exposed to this before, which means nobody has any immunity to it.

The virus is now moving explosively through the human population. While most people will recover, about 20 percent of the people who catch it will wind up with a serious disease. They will get pneumonia that causes shortness of breath, and they may need hospitalization.

Some of those people will get so sick that they cannot be saved and will die of the pneumonia. The overall death rate for people who develop symptoms seems to be 2 or 3 percent. Once we have enough testing to find out how many people caught the virus but did not develop symptoms, that might come down to about 1 percent, optimistically.

This is a large number. It is at least 10 times higher than the mortality rate for the seasonal flu, for instance, which in some years kills 60,000 or 70,000 Americans. So just on that math, we could be looking at 600,000 or 700,000 dead in the United States. But it gets worse.

Older people with existing health problems are much more vulnerable, on average. The mortality rate of coronavirus among people over age 80 may be 15 or 20 percent. It appears to have 7 or 8 percent mortality for people aged 70 to 79. Here is the terrible part: If you are a healthy younger person, you can catch the virus and, without developing serious symptoms yourself, you can pass it along to older people. In other words, as the virus spreads, it is going to be very easy to go out and catch it, give it to your grandmother and kill her, even though you will not die yourself. You can catch it by touching a door knob or an elevator button.

Scientists measure the spread of an epidemic by a number called R0, or “R naught.” That number is calculated this way: for every person who develops the illness, how many other people do they give it to before they are cured (or dead) and no longer infectious? The R0 for coronavirus, in the absence of a control strategy, appears to be a number close to 3 – maybe a bit higher or lower, but in that ballpark. This is an extremely frightening number for such a deadly disease.

Suppose you catch the virus. You will give it to 3 other people, and they will each give it to three others, and so forth. Here is how the math works, where you, the “index case,” are the first line:

1

3

9

27

81

243

729

2,187

6,561

19,683

59,046

177,147

531,441

1,594,323

4,782,969

14,348,907

So, in just 15 steps of transmission, the virus has gone from just one index case to 14.3 million other people. Those 15 steps might take only a few weeks. The index person may be young and healthy, but many of those 14 million people will be old and sick, and they will likely die because they got a virus that started in one person's throat.

The United States is not at this point yet, with millions infected, as best we can tell. We don’t really know, because our government has failed us. We are many, many weeks behind other countries in rolling out widespread testing, so we don’t really have a clue how far the thing has spread. We do know that cases are starting to pop up all over the place, with many of the people having no known exposure to travelers from China, so that means this virus has escaped into our communities.

We do not have approved treatments, yet. We do not have a vaccine. The only tool we really have now is to try to slow down the chain of transmission.

This can be done. In other words, R0 is not fixed – it can be lowered by control measures. If we can get the number below 1, the epidemic will die out. This is the point of the quarantines and the contact-tracing that you are hearing so much about in the news. But the virus is exploding so fast that we will not have the labor available to trace contacts for much longer, so we have to shift strategies. This has already begun, but we are not doing it fast enough.

It is now likely that the majority of Americans will get this virus. But slowing it down is still crucial. Why? Because the healthcare system has limited resources. We only have about a million hospital beds in America. We have well under a million ventilators. If millions of Americans get sick enough to need treatment, we will have a calamity on our hands. What will happen is a form of battlefield triage, where the doctors focus on trying to treat the young and allow the older people to die.

This is not theoretical. It is already happening in Italy, where people over 65 are being left alone on hospital gurneys to suffocate to death from pneumonia. They basically drown in their own sputum. There is simply not enough medical capacity to take care of them. The United States appears to be about two weeks behind Italy on the epidemic growth curve.

What do we need to do now? We need to cancel all large gatherings – all of them. You have probably seen that the N.B.A. has postponed the rest of its season. Other sporting events, concerts, plays and everything else involving large audiences in a small space – all of it needs to be canceled. Even if these events take place, do not go to them. No lectures, no plays, no movies, no cruises – nothing.

Stay at home as much as possible.Stay out of restaurants. I would cancel any travel that is not absolutely essential. Work from home if you possibly can. You may have to go buy groceries and medicine, of course, but make the trips quick and purposeful. Wash your hands assiduously after you have been in public places, for a full 20 seconds, soaping up thoroughly and being sure to get between the fingers. Sunlight and alcohol will kill the virus.

And please stop passing around statements on social media claiming that the situation is not serious or is being exaggerated. This is a national crisis, and conveying misinformation to your friends and family may put their lives in danger”I 

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chrisso50

Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2020 8:11pm

chrisso50

Super helpful member

Posts: 1106

1334 helpful points

Location: Roquetas de Mar

Joined: 23 Jul 2018

Posted: Mon Mar 16, 2020 8:11pm

DarioMartin wrote on Mon Mar 16, 2020 7:28pm:

Posted on another thread, by and with thanks to Andymac1951 :-

Thanks to my respected friend and colleague Dr. Julie Silver for sharing this— please read the whole thing, it is an important summary

From Julie —“It has been years since I have posted anything on this page. As a physician at Harvard Medical School, I have amazing access to the best information and resources for #Covid19. I know people are getting a lot of information, and not all of it is accurate. My friend Dr. Reem Ghalib summarized the situation in one of the best social media posts to date on this topic (copied/pasted below). Please read what she has to say and share with your loved ones, friends, and colleagues. Urge people to be calm and logical in their decision making. Err on the side of caution. Re the info below--note that "coronavirus" is used generically to mean the specific strain Covid 19. I will apologize in advance for not responding to comments as work is very hectic right now:                                             

Dear Friends,

So much confusion, misinformation and denial is bouncing around on social media about the coronavirus that I thought I would try to explain, in plain language, why the experts see this as such an emergency.

You will see the claim online that this virus is a lot like the viruses that cause colds, and that if you get it, it will probably just seem like a bad cold and you are very unlikely to die. Depending on who you are, these statements are probably true. But they are incomplete, and the missing information is the key to understanding the problem.

This is a coronavirus that is new to the human population, jumping into people late last year from some kind of animal, probably at a wildlife market in Wuhan, China. It is related to the viruses that cause colds, and acts a lot like them in many ways. It is very easy to transmit through the respiratory droplets that all of us give off. But nobody has ever been exposed to this before, which means nobody has any immunity to it.

The virus is now moving explosively through the human population. While most people will recover, about 20 percent of the people who catch it will wind up with a serious disease. They will get pneumonia that causes shortness of breath, and they may need hospitalization.

Some of those people will get so sick that they cannot be saved and will die of the pneumonia. The overall death rate for people who develop symptoms seems to be 2 or 3 percent. Once we have enough testing to find out how many people caught the virus but did not develop symptoms, that might come down to about 1 percent, optimistically.

This is a large number. It is at least 10 times higher than the mortality rate for the seasonal flu, for instance, which in some years kills 60,000 or 70,000 Americans. So just on that math, we could be looking at 600,000 or 700,000 dead in the United States. But it gets worse.

Older people with existing health problems are much more vulnerable, on average. The mortality rate of coronavirus among people over age 80 may be 15 or 20 percent. It appears to have 7 or 8 percent mortality for people aged 70 to 79. Here is the terrible part: If you are a healthy younger person, you can catch the virus and, without developing serious symptoms yourself, you can pass it along to older people. In other words, as the virus spreads, it is going to be very easy to go out and catch it, give it to your grandmother and kill her, even though you will not die yourself. You can catch it by touching a door knob or an elevator button.

Scientists measure the spread of an epidemic by a number called R0, or “R naught.” That number is calculated this way: for every person who develops the illness, how many other people do they give it to before they are cured (or dead) and no longer infectious? The R0 for coronavirus, in the absence of a control strategy, appears to be a number close to 3 – maybe a bit higher or lower, but in that ballpark. This is an extremely frightening number for such a deadly disease.

Suppose you catch the virus. You will give it to 3 other people, and they will each give it to three others, and so forth. Here is how the math works, where you, the “index case,” are the first line:

1

3

9

27

81

243

729

2,187

6,561

19,683

59,046

177,147

531,441

1,594,323

4,782,969

14,348,907

So, in just 15 steps of transmission, the virus has gone from just one index case to 14.3 million other people. Those 15 steps might take only a few weeks. The index person may be young and healthy, but many of those 14 million people will be old and sick, and they will likely die because they got a virus that started in one person's throat.

The United States is not at this point yet, with millions infected, as best we can tell. We don’t really know, because our government has failed us. We are many, many weeks behind other countries in rolling out widespread testing, so we don’t really have a clue how far the thing has spread. We do know that cases are starting to pop up all over the place, with many of the people having no known exposure to travelers from China, so that means this virus has escaped into our communities.

We do not have approved treatments, yet. We do not have a vaccine. The only tool we really have now is to try to slow down the chain of transmission.

This can be done. In other words, R0 is not fixed – it can be lowered by control measures. If we can get the number below 1, the epidemic will die out. This is the point of the quarantines and the contact-tracing that you are hearing so much about in the news. But the virus is exploding so fast that we will not have the labor available to trace contacts for much longer, so we have to shift strategies. This has already begun, but we are not doing it fast enough.

It is now likely that the majority of Americans will get this virus. But slowing it down is still crucial. Why? Because the healthcare system has limited resources. We only have about a million hospital beds in America. We have well under a million ventilators. If millions of Americans get sick enough to need treatment, we will have a calamity on our hands. What will happen is a form of battlefield triage, where the doctors focus on trying to treat the young and allow the older people to die.

This is not theoretical. It is already happening in Italy, where people over 65 are being left alone on hospital gurneys to suffocate to death from pneumonia. They basically drown in their own sputum. There is simply not enough medical capacity to take care of them. The United States appears to be about two weeks behind Italy on the epidemic growth curve.

What do we need to do now? We need to cancel all large gatherings – all of them. You have probably seen that the N.B.A. has postponed the rest of its season. Other sporting events, concerts, plays and everything else involving large audiences in a small space – all of it needs to be canceled. Even if these events take place, do not go to them. No lectures, no plays, no movies, no cruises – nothing.

Stay at home as much as possible.Stay out of restaurants. I would cancel any travel that is not absolutely essential. Work from home if you possibly can. You may have to go buy groceries and medicine, of course, but make the trips quick and purposeful. Wash your hands assiduously after you have been in public places, for a full 20 seconds, soaping up thoroughly and being sure to get between the fingers. Sunlight and alcohol will kill the virus.

And please stop passing around statements on social media claiming that the situation is not serious or is being exaggerated. This is a national crisis, and conveying misinformation to your friends and family may put their lives in danger”I 

A very long but necessary explanation! The key point was:

“The only tool we really have now is to try to slow down the chain of transmission. This can be done. In other words, R0 is not fixed – it can be lowered by control measures. If we can get the number below 1, the epidemic will die out. This is the point of the quarantines and the contact-tracing that you are hearing so much about in the news. But the virus is exploding so fast that we will not have the labour available to trace contacts for much longer, so we have to shift strategies. This has already begun, but we are not doing it fast enough...”

Chris


Matthew

Posted: Sun Feb 21, 2021 9:55am

Matthew

Legendary helpful member

Posts: 2236

3339 helpful points

Location: Mojacar

Joined: 16 May 2018

Posted: Sun Feb 21, 2021 9:55am

This thread will be a year in existence in about 3 weeks time. The Knitwhizz and PCB posts are worth reading again. Modesty prevents me from saying who predicted the future of the Coronavirus along with Chrisso and Dario. 

Currently, we're in Vaccine mode but I bet our thoughts have changed in a year.

Matthew

Posted: Sun Feb 21, 2021 10:31am

Matthew

Legendary helpful member

Posts: 2236

3339 helpful points

Location: Mojacar

Joined: 16 May 2018

Posted: Sun Feb 21, 2021 10:31am

PCB wrote on Mon Mar 16, 2020 4:55pm:

He has a point. On average 17,000 people die from influenza each year in the UK worst year in the last six was just over 28,000 best year was just below 2,000. WHO figures.

The death figures in the UK for Covid-19 published yesterday were:- 120,365 - not good reading and worse predicting!

Knitwhizz

Posted: Sun Feb 21, 2021 11:22am

Knitwhizz

Original Poster

Posts: 49

25 helpful points

Location: Roquetas de Mar

Joined: 18 Sep 2018

Posted: Sun Feb 21, 2021 11:22am

Matthew wrote on Sun Mar 15, 2020 8:27am:

"Still don’t know whether it is an overreaction or not, I suppose only time will tell.  Hopefully, people will be able to get through this." Thanks for that Knitwhiz

1. How long do you think it will take you to realise that it is not an overreaction? 

2. Common Sense and a little bit of care will ensure most can handle the situation easily.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.  No one would have believed that we would be living in a Stephen King novel this time last year.

chrisso50

Posted: Sun Feb 21, 2021 11:40am

chrisso50

Super helpful member

Posts: 1106

1334 helpful points

Location: Roquetas de Mar

Joined: 23 Jul 2018

Posted: Sun Feb 21, 2021 11:40am

Matthew wrote on Sun Feb 21, 2021 10:31am:

The death figures in the UK for Covid-19 published yesterday were:- 120,365 - not good reading and worse predicting!

And Dr Whitty pointed out yesterday that the average number of deaths in the U.K. related to ‘flu’ from respiratory conditions in the U.K. is usually 7000. Fewer in the last 12 months due to Covid ‘Stay Safe’ restrictions...

Chris

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