What if we had continued as normal?

HeidiHeidi

Lots of posters here saying "just wear a fecking mask, already".


While I agree with that sentiment wholeheartedly, I think that masks are only an add-on to the three basics - distancing, cough/sneeze etiquette and hand hygiene.


In my experience, distancing has more or less completely gone out the window - some people still make a bit of an effort around shops or other indoor areas, but really almost everyone is acting like (our previous) normal.


I suspect that hand washing has to a large extent gone out the window as well, but obviously can't provide evidence for that.


You'd hope that people would at least cough/sneeze into their elbow or a tissue instead of into their hand (or God forbid someone else's face :eek:), but I think we'll have to wait for the cold/flu season to see how that one goes.


But I fear that it's all about masks in most people's heads, and they won't do it alone.


Not quite an answer to the OP's question, but had to get it out there!

Miccoli

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Intrigued to see this study. Have a link handy?

https://www.lboro.ac.uk/news-events/news/2020/july/new-approach-to-recording-covid-deaths/

Bit cynical

Miccoli wrote: »

It's hard to say really, there have been studies from Loughborough University which concluded lockdown has caused more deaths than the virus.

Personally I think we should of gone with a similar approach to Sweden. However if we had done nothing at all it would of been catastrophic for the elderly population.

There was also a lot of panic over the Imperial College model which appears to have over-exaggerated the amount of deaths that would have occurred.

I've been following the Swedish approach since the early days. Their deaths to date are roughly the same as Ireland's when the age profile of the respective countries are taken into account. Although it is still a little early to say, it doesn't look as if they will have much problems with schools as they were open while cases were falling in that country.

The basic philosophy of balancing flattening the curve with an expansion of ICU capacity seems to have worked for them. Although they have had to take more deaths up front than their Scandinavian neighbours, the numbers have been nowhere near as high as the mathematical models, upon which other countries based their strategies, would have predicted.

Tenzor07

Bit cynical wrote: »

I've been following the Swedish approach since the early days. Their deaths to date are roughly the same as Ireland's when the age profile of the respective countries are taken into account. Although it is still a little early to say, it doesn't look as if they will have much problems with schools as they were open while cases were falling in that country..

The joke is that the Swede's can't wait for the 2m distance rule to end so they can go back to their usual 5m distance.....

Irish Steve

Continue as normal.

That's a very thought provoking statement, in that much of what is taken as "normal" in this country is just not normal, but we've been persuaded by all sorts of different influences to see it as normal.

What do I mean?

The Political system is so fundamentally broken, I'm not sure if it can be fixed and made Normal any more. I'm not talking about just the TD's and senators, the underlying problem is that the entire state system is so badly broken, it doesn't matter which party is nominally in power, they can't do what they really want to, or need to, as the people in the State services are very adept at "influencing" their leaders to do what they see as the right direction. For a few examples, look on something like Youtube for some of the old historic episodes of "yes minister", or "yes prime minister". If it wasn't so serious, it would be even funnier, but the tragedy is that Irish State systems have become the real power and they are unapproachable and untouchable. Fail, and the reward will be a promotion to a new role at a higher salary, and with possibly a big "separation bonus" to emphasise how important it is not to rock the boat of the establishment.

I'm not sure how we change it now, other than to completely rethink how it operates, in too many areas of the political arena, there are 100 years of baggage with families that are only still there because of their name, and too many of them are not looking at the future for Ireland, they are only locked into making sure that they remain in office in order to make sure that they get their gold plated pensions at the end of it. Not all of them, we've seen some good people over the last while, and regardless of political affiliations, they did an excellent job in recent months. The whole and strong "parish pump" ethos means that we won't be able to change it any time soon, regardless of how much damage that same parochial attitude is damaging the view and future of Ireland.

The health services are also almost dysfunctional for similar reasons. The front line are amazing people, but too many of the people further up the ladder are not providing the level of service or support that the people at the sharp end need, and the resultant costs are only scary. It was all meant to change when the HSE was set up to merge the old health boards, but a number of flaws in how that was done means that the whole process was broken before it even started.

Then we have the wonderful historic spectre of local authorities, built and operated around feudal boundaries that were established centuries ago. Each one of them has a management structure that's only frightening in terms of cost and duplication, so we have nearly 40 parallel organisations for a population of as near as makes no difference 5 million.

Then we move on to the way that people in the state relate to those state services, and that's our next problem.

There are a number of groups, which I'm not going to name for fear of stirring up off topic nonsense, and those groups have no will or desire to properly engage with or respect the state system, and no willingness to contribute a fair share to the costs of providing state services.

At this stage, part of me is thinking that Covid may actually force change in a number of areas that otherwise would have remained fossilised for perpetuity, and if we are lucky, those changes will start to make the new "normal" more acceptable and suitable for the type of society that we want to live in.

So, maybe the Normal that we had before Covid is something that we shouldn't be looking to return to, and we should be using this time of fundamental upheaval to rethink and restructure what we do and how we do it so that Ireland is truly ready to take full advantage of the opportunities that will present themselves when things start to recover.

Richard Hillman

Sweden have had 571 deaths per million
We have had 378 deaths per million.
One of the first country's to shut up shop was Slovenia. They had 62 deaths per million (and next door to Italy BTW)

The Swedish approach means roughly an extra 1000 deaths.
The Slovenian approach would have meant roughly 1500 less Irish deaths.

It's hard to know though if the inevitable is being delayed or not. Maybe the deaths will come for Slovenia and ourselves and level off with Sweden.

We won't know until 3-4 years on who eventually had the right approach. One thing is for sure though, you can't shut up shop forever.

bodhrandude

I'm trying to imagine what it would be like if all the music festivals and gigs went ahead, there is a good chance I wouldn't be typing this at the moment.

Wanderer78

A hell of a lot more dead and dying people, more extremely ill, more with serious life long illness, and probably a global depression, we re not doing too bad considering

mcmoustache

Italy provided a pretty good example of what would happen if people continued on as normal. It actually happened and is well documented and it's not even that long ago.

It was pretty bad.

Basically, loads of people get sick, overwhelm the health service with their numbers and in a double-whammy, deplete the health service of staff by making them sick. Hospitals crawl with covid and people avoid them for all but the worst emergencies.

And that's without getting into the long-term effects or the psychological and economic problems brought about by changes in peoples' behaviour as they deal with a world where catching this thing is a daily risk.

growleaves

Results won't be surprising I think, but we need only wait a few more weeks to see the result.

We hear that every few weeks yet some states never locked down in the first place and had less bad results than the states that did. But hey keep giving it a few more weeks.

The_Brood

100% we could have introduced strict measures, including masks, social distancing etc but without locking down, stopping travel etc. 100%. Anyone who doesn't see this is well off and hasn't suffered nearly as bad as those who have lost their livelihoods and whose mental health has deteriorated.

World leaders have ruined us and need to be held accountable for this.

Beasty

The_Brood wrote: »

100% we could have introduced strict measures, including masks, social distancing etc but without locking down, stopping travel etc. 100%. Anyone who doesn't see this is well off and hasn't suffered nearly as bad as those who have lost their livelihoods and whose mental health has deteriorated.

World leaders have ruined us and need to be held accountable for this.

I acknowledge I am well off but that does not diminish my views on the issue

6 months ago no-one had much of an idea about this virus. All countries were pretty much in the dark about it and its potential outcome. Even now we are not that much further down the line in understanding it, although dealing with it's consequences has improved as we've gone along

I would though challenge your comments about masks. PPE and masks were in very short supply for a long time. Front line staff were the priority but even they had to make do with re-using stuff. It would have been completely inappropriate to divert any of those masks to the general public. Indeed even Amazon were stopping people purchasing this sort of stuff as they were prioritising health workers (mainly UK ones on the .co.uk site)

I personally think Ireland is somewhere near the top of the class in the way it has handled this. Has it got every decision right? Absolutely not, but no-one has. It has done very well with limited resources. It may have seemed that some of the measures were OTT, but we will probably never know how much worse things could have been based on different decisions being made. And yes they could have improved things, but that is only with hindsight. There are few decisions taken that could be considered as inappropriate with the intelligence they had at the time

Harry Palmr

The estimated death toll of uncontrolled spread in Ireland was put at 25,000 as far as I recall.

foozzybear61

Why do China not get more anger than they appear to ..in public at least

If practices in the Wet markets were the source of the Virus ..do they still operate in China and other places . is it just a matter of time before another disease is created..or was this the one in a Billion freak outcome that "Just Happened "

c.p.w.g.w

If we continued without restrictions, Paddy's Day alone could have potentially added another 5,000 deaths...

pauldavis123

But what have we achieved by having a lockdown?

If it's lower deaths by fewer people contracting the virus, that just means they are still susceptible when things reopen.

Basically we are still at stage one and have achieved nothing.

Sweden, on the other hand, have exposed most people to it.

We will be dealing with it for substantially longer with our approach with probably a similar outcome.

The hope of it "going away" is zero in a global world.

New Zealand found that out this week :rolleyes:

NoviGlitzko

joseywhales wrote: »

We are still waiting on that big first piece to be resolved , rapid and broad testing of the population. If we had 24 hour results and enough capacity, it could be as effective as a vaccine(assuming correctly not everyone would be willing to take). We would break the chains as soon as or before they form, in such a scenario zero cases is achievable.

Good point. I wonder how far away are we from reaching this? There has been talk of 3 day and 3 hour results. Mandatory testing for the nation and for airport passenger arrivals should be the upmost importance.

Irish Steve

pauldavis123 wrote: »

But what have we achieved by having a lockdown?

If it's lower deaths by fewer people contracting the virus, that just means they are still susceptible when things reopen.

Basically we are still at stage one and have achieved nothing.

Sweden, on the other hand, have exposed most people to it.

We will be dealing with it for substantially longer with our approach with probably a similar outcome.

The hope of it "going away" is zero in a global world.

New Zealand found that out this week :rolleyes:

They're not saying it out loud, but for me, it looks like they achieved a number of successes, albeit with some failures at the same time.

They managed to prevent the massive spikes that were seen with Italy and Spain, which with the way the health service was would have been a nightmare, they were not ready, and didn't have anything like the number of beds available to cope with the possible surge, and didn't have the specialist equipment or PPE that would have made it possible to better manage things, the lockdown meant that the curve was flattened, and that was a major factor.

Yes, partly because there wasn't enough PPE to go round, and partly because there were too many agency staff moving around the nursing homes, they didn't keep it out of the nursing homes.

Since then, the specialist equipment situation has improved, the PPE supply situation has been massively improved, they've managed to get the nursing homes back under control, and although they're not shouting this out loud, I suspect that the front line people have learnt what treatment options work, and what options don't work when dealing with people who are more seriously affected, so the numbers in ICU or needing ventilation are now lower than they were or could have been if things had been worse at the outset.

Going forward, we desperately need to get on top of testing and reporting, ideally with a simpler and quicker test process, so that the people that are positive can be identified more quickly.

We need to get on top of the high risk situations like meat factories, and direct provision accomodation, each is a high risk scenario, and together, they are a massive problem.

We need to be sure that we're not importing new clusters as a result of people coming in to the country with Covid, or bringing Covid with them when the return from other countries, and have a way to ensure isolation for people that present as a real risk.

We need to find a way to break the "entitlement" attitude, particularly towards overseas travel and alcohol. and get it into people's heads that a "wet" pub is probably one of the highest risk locations in the country, due to the way that alcohol reduces or subdues peoples awareness of their actions, and "forgetting" things like hand washing and sanitising on a regular basis will be a significant factor in spreading this evil virus in an environment where people are also at risk of becoming less aware of the importance of social separation and social responsibility.

There are a number of countries and localities where Covid is starting to rise again, and that should be telling us that we can't afford to relax our guard, or listen to the people that are trying to tell us that this virus is not significant or dangerous.

MadYaker

pauldavis123 wrote: »

But what have we achieved by having a lockdown?

If it's lower deaths by fewer people contracting the virus, that just means they are still susceptible when things reopen.

Basically we are still at stage one and have achieved nothing.

Sweden, on the other hand, have exposed most people to it.

We will be dealing with it for substantially longer with our approach with probably a similar outcome.

The hope of it "going away" is zero in a global world.

New Zealand found that out this week :rolleyes:

How do you know most of Sweden's population has been exposed to it? Id wager thats not true at all. In New York City which had a huge outbreak subsequent antibody testing found that about 20% had been infected and Sweden never really had an outbreak like that. It was around 20% or 25% in Madrid as well and since the Swedes never had an outbreak like that I would think its a much lower % there. Also, we have no idea what level off immunity recovered people have or hgow long it lasts. So at this point all I can see they have acheived is more deaths and maybe a smaller % increase of their national debt. They may not have called it a lockdown but they followed almost the same rules we did.

i_surge

Bit cynical wrote: »

We would have always had to have some sort of shutdown initially just to get things organised and make some sort of a plan. During this time the questions would have been concerning the extent to which hospital and ICU capacity could be expanded and what what level of infections could be coped with.

I think we went from "flattening the curve" to a sort of eradication strategy where getting cases down to close to zero as quickly as possible became the priority. This would make a lot of sense if we were New Zealand where the whole country can be isolated once cases are eliminated but may prove to be a mistake in our case. We did quite well with this. Having had quite high deaths, we managed to bring it down to the extent that we had no reported deaths for a period of about 10 days. However, with all eradication strategies, once you have the numbers down, then what? Unless you can isolate the country, you have to keep most of the restrictions in place until the vaccine.

You have to isolate the country from external cases and go hard on suppression to the highest degree practicable or choose to live a half life for the many years it will take for a vaccine to be safe and widely available, if it ever gets discovered.

No other options

i_surge

Miccoli wrote: »

https://www.lboro.ac.uk/news-events/news/2020/july/new-approach-to-recording-covid-deaths/

I read it and found it weak, some basic errors in their writing, premise of the paper seemed to be of the "seeking to find" aka biased variety, lots of guesstimation in the numerical methods. There is no actual evidence of what they stated outside of their own doctored models.

I don't get the whole point as baseline deaths drop in a recession...less driving, less stress...see USA great depression, spain GFC thus the excess deaths method will underestimate rather than over estimate (allowing some room for the few misdiagnoses or bandwagon cause of death assignments that will occur).

Most importantly, not yet peer reviewed, at least the PDF version I could access.

i_surge

Beasty wrote: »

I acknowledge I am well off but that does not diminish my views on the issue

6 months ago no-one had much of an idea about this virus. All countries were pretty much in the dark about it and its potential outcome. Even now we are not that much further down the line in understanding it, although dealing with it's consequences has improved as we've gone along

I would though challenge your comments about masks. PPE and masks were in very short supply for a long time. Front line staff were the priority but even they had to make do with re-using stuff. It would have been completely inappropriate to divert any of those masks to the general public. Indeed even Amazon were stopping people purchasing this sort of stuff as they were prioritising health workers (mainly UK ones on the .co.uk site)

I personally think Ireland is somewhere near the top of the class in the way it has handled this. Has it got every decision right? Absolutely not, but no-one has. It has done very well with limited resources. It may have seemed that some of the measures were OTT, but we will probably never know how much worse things could have been based on different decisions being made. And yes they could have improved things, but that is only with hindsight. There are few decisions taken that could be considered as inappropriate with the intelligence they had at the time

Good points but the way masks was handled was negligent, lying to the public because of supply concerns, ridiculous!

Other countries didn't do that and promoted the use of homemade alternatives as better than nothing. Most of the fashion masks I see people with are just flimsy pieces of cloth you could make yourself anyway.

SAXA

The fatality rate has fallen compared to diagnosed in most countries. This is because doctors did not know how to treat it at the start..However long term we do not not how it will effect people..

Ave Sodalis

The_Brood wrote:

100% we could have introduced strict measures, including masks, social distancing etc but without locking down, stopping travel etc. 100%. Anyone who doesn't see this is well off and hasn't suffered nearly as bad as those who have lost their livelihoods and whose mental health has deteriorated.

I am not well off. Not at all. The resulting recession from this may end the career I've been working to all my life, before it ever really began. I've have multiple physical health problems that have been put on the long finger because of Covid and that has had an effect on me. I suffer from mental health issues too.

However, I'm looking at the bigger picture and not just selfishly looking at myself. Covid is a much more novel, unstable and deadly problem. It's a contagious disease that spreads very fast and kills a lot of people, with seemingly no cure in sight (despite what the Russians are claiming). Lockdown was completely the right measure. The only thing I would have done differently regarding easement, was open up more facilities for regular hospital activities to resume.

Squiggle

Ave Sodalis wrote: »

However, I'm looking at the bigger picture and not just selfishly looking at myself. Covid is a much more novel, unstable and deadly problem. It's a contagious disease that spreads very fast and kills a lot of people, with seemingly no cure in sight (despite what the Russians are claiming). Lockdown was completely the right measure. The only thing I would have done differently regarding easement, was open up more facilities for regular hospital activities to resume.

The risk of dying from Covid in Ireland is about 0.035%, and even less if you are healthy. You are about 1000 times more likely to die of cancer. We cancelled cancer screening so just taking breast and cervical cancer over a three month period form March 15th there are about 740 women walking around with undiagnosed cancer ! Some of those will undoubtedly die as will others from other forms of cancer . You will also have deaths because of the economic fallout of the lockdown.

I don't think continuing as normal would have been the right approach but I can't help wondering how many "net deaths" we would have if just the vulnerable were protected and the rest of us had gotten on with it.

3DataModem

Sesshoumaru wrote: »

II expect overflowing ICU wards and hospital panels deciding who gets treatment and who doesn't.

This would have been the biggest impact.

Literally feild hospitals in the car parks of regular hospitals. A&E cases turned away. Heart attack victims left to die. COVID cases lying on corridors.

This, but a lot worse:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGmPAsp7-ek&feature=youtu.be

Then health service staff would get sick, and it would amplify the problem.

HeidiHeidi

Squiggle wrote: »

The risk of dying from Covid in Ireland is about 0.035%, and even less if you are healthy. You are about 1000 times more likely to die of cancer. We cancelled cancer screening so just taking breast and cervical cancer over a three month period form March 15th there are about 740 women walking around with undiagnosed cancer ! Some of those will undoubtedly die as will others from other forms of cancer . You will also have deaths because of the economic fallout of the lockdown.

I don't think continuing as normal would have been the right approach but I can't help wondering how many "net deaths" we would have if just the vulnerable were protected and the rest of us had gotten on with it.

Because most of the people who look after, and interact with, and are related to the "vulnerable" are "the rest of us". You can't just lock a whole section of society up somewhere and send food parcels.

SeaBreezes

NoviGlitzko wrote: »

Good point. I wonder how far away are we from reaching this? There has been talk of 3 day and 3 hour results. Mandatory testing for the nation and for airport passenger arrivals should be the upmost importance.

The trained sniffer dogs at airports have a 96% accuracy in virus dectection.

Eradicate the virus internally sniffer dogs for all entry/exit passengers.

I bet NZ will be first to take this route too.

rob316

The health service would of collapsed fairly quickly that much I know. No way could we cope with something like the UK, Italy and Spain had.

pauldavis123

SeaBreezes wrote: »

The trained sniffer dogs at airports have a 96% accuracy in virus dectection.

Eradicate the virus internally sniffer dogs for all entry/exit passengers.

I bet NZ will be first to take this route too.

No offence but 96% accuracy on this is terrible. We had 30 million thru Dublin airport last year, that's 1.2 million cases being missed.

lee_baby_simms

pauldavis123 wrote: »

We will be dealing with it for substantially longer with our approach with probably a similar outcome.

The fact that 6 weeks after creches, pub/restaurants, shops have opened with no corresponding increase in ICU admissions/deaths leads me to believe that the virus is running out of people to infect and the worst has passed...similar to almost every other country that experienced a significant wave in March/April.

yosemitesam1

rob316 wrote: »

The health service would of collapsed fairly quickly that much I know. No way could we cope with something like the UK, Italy and Spain had.

The health service didn't collapse in the UK and in Italy/Spain, the reaction likely put more pressure on the health service than covid itself.
When localised lockdowns started in Italy, migrant workers started returning home abandoning their jobs in the health service. On top of that, forcing asymptomatic workers to isolate put more strain on the system.
Loss of workers due to the need to stay home and mind children also happened.
If those staff shortages were induced in a flu season there would be carnage.

Similar pressures were put on nursing homes in other countries. Even here nursing homes were under pressure and there was little help from the HSE to deploy available staff to help

shootermacg

One other thing to maybe consider. The more bodies you throw at a virus, the more chance you are giving that virus to mutate into possibly a deadlier virus.

3DataModem

pauldavis123 wrote: »

No offence but 96% accuracy on this is terrible. We had 30 million thru Dublin airport last year, that's 1.2 million cases being missed.

It's even more terrible than that.

Assuming 1% of travellers actually have it.

300,000 infected people will travel
- 12,000 infected cases will be missed
- 288,000 infected people will be identified

29,700,000 non-infected people will travel
- 1,188,000 non-infected people will test positive
- 28,512,000 non-infected people will text negative

So that means 80% of the people testing positive would be incorrectly identified!

"96% accurate" can actually mean a lot less than that, depending on the actual incidence.

rob316

yosemitesam1 wrote: »

The health service didn't collapse in the UK and in Italy/Spain, the reaction likely put more pressure on the health service than covid itself.
When localised lockdowns started in Italy, migrant workers started returning home abandoning their jobs in the health service. On top of that, forcing asymptomatic workers to isolate put more strain on the system.
Loss of workers due to the need to stay home and mind children also happened.
If those staff shortages were induced in a flu season there would be carnage.

Similar pressures were put on nursing homes in other countries. Even here nursing homes were under pressure and there was little help from the HSE to deploy available staff to help

Exactly the likes of the NHS were never under pressure, they had temporary hospitals built that they never even used. We had to go into a lockdown or ours would of collapsed, we only had 250 ICU beds with ventilators at the start.
Germany had 25,000 for a population of 80 million. 100 x times as many as us, we didn't stand a chance with a controlled spread.

Tenzor07

lee_baby_simms wrote: »

The fact that 6 weeks after creches, pub/restaurants, shops have opened with no corresponding increase in ICU admissions/deaths leads me to believe that the virus is running out of people to infect and the worst has passed...similar to almost every other country that experienced a significant wave in March/April.

Well of course, it's a Virus, like a Fire it spreads through a forest rapidly at first however as the amount of fuel runs out so do the flames, you may get isolated fires popping up here and there, but the forest has been through it's initial wave, maybe you've managed to protect parts of the forest from burning like New Zealand, but if a spark gets back in it will burn down those trees and spread to that part of the forest you protected..

A Virus like a fire runs it's course, as it always has done, it's not going to destroy the same forest of trees again as it did the first time..

lee_baby_simms

Tenzor07 wrote: »

Well of course, it's a Virus, like a Fire it spreads through a forest rapidly at first however as the amount of fuel runs out so do the flames, you may get isolated fires popping up here and there, but the forest has been through it's initial wave, maybe you've managed to protect parts of the forest from burning like New Zealand, but if a spark gets back in it will burn down those trees and spread to that part of the forest you prtected..

A Virus like a fire runs it's course, as it always has done, it's not going to destroy the same forest of trees again as it did the first time..

Which makes eradication/zero covid strategy this late in the day via punitive lockdowns totally pointless.

Tenzor07

lee_baby_simms wrote: »

Which makes eradication/zero covid strategy this late in the day via punitive lockdowns totally pointless.

It's done for politics and appearance, the new Govt. have been a sh*tshow since Day 1 and what they are doing now has more to do with peoples perceptions and opinions than actual real science..

Oranage2

Except viruses and fires are two completely separate things

Tenzor07

Oranage2 wrote: »

Except viruses and fires are two completely separate things

And I wouldn't like to die due to either of them.

Capt'n Midnight

JDD wrote: »

What this will all come down to is the vaccine. If we get a working vaccine in H1 2021, then the lockdowns will have been worth it. If we don't, then those who let the virus run free may come out of it in a better position than the rest of us.

If there's no vaccine then only those who had enough equipment and hospital space would have come out ahead.

Even then the death rate for people on ventilators has dropped by a third already thanks to off the shelf steroids so lots of people would have died needlessly.

yosemitesam1 wrote: »

Maybe 1000-2000 more deaths in the country and overall things would be much better than they currently are.

We've already had nearly 2,000 deaths. And the antibody study suggests only 5% exposure. So minimum 30,000 deaths to get "herd immunity." And it might not last. Flu vaccines only provide immunity for a year.



It's not just deaths. We know the short term effects on survivors can be bad. We don't know what the long term health effects are yet. Chickenpox is a childhood disease that for 30% comes back as Shingles in later life. It's unlikely to be the same with Covid but ?


This is one way coronavirus can change your life and it didn't involve damage to internal organs which a log of people get.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-53551673

A woman who had a quadruple amputation has said "it makes no sense" she will have to wait three months before being paid disability allowance.

Caroline Coster, 58, caught coronavirus in March but had her hands and feet amputated after getting sepsis.

She questioned whether the wait to get her Personal Independence Payment (PIP) was "just in case they grow back".

Capt'n Midnight

Tenzor07 wrote: »

A Virus like a fire runs it's course, as it always has done, it's not going to destroy the same forest of trees again as it did the first time..

If you ignore the science it's not going to end well. A virus isn't going to be swayed by public opinion.

Not every virus or infection provides lifetime immunity. Covid isn't measles. Looked at my yellow booklet a while back, lots of expired vaccinations.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02278-5

If immunity to the virus lasts less than a year, for example, similar to other human coronaviruses in circulation, there could be annual surges in COVID-19 infections through to 2025 and beyond.

Tenzor07

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

If you ignore the science it's not going to end well. A virus isn't going to be swayed by public opinion.
Not every virus or infection provides lifetime immunity. Covid isn't measles. Looked at my yellow booklet a while back, lots of expired vaccinations.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02278-5

I'm not a scientist but from what I read every virus has a lifecycle once it gets into the population.
Even if as some studies say you only get 3 months immunity it would be enough to almost eliminate the virus if the majority of people had it.

yosemitesam1

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

If there's no vaccine then only those who had enough equipment and hospital space would have come out ahead.

Even then the death rate for people on ventilators has dropped by a third already thanks to off the shelf steroids so lots of people would have died needlessly.


We've already had nearly 2,000 deaths. And the antibody study suggests only 5% exposure. So minimum 30,000 deaths to get "herd immunity." And it might not last. Flu vaccines only provide immunity for a year.



It's not just deaths. We know the short term effects on survivors can be bad. We don't know what the long term health effects are yet. Chickenpox is a childhood disease that for 30% comes back as Shingles in later life. It's unlikely to be the same with Covid but ?


This is one way coronavirus can change your life and it didn't involve damage to internal organs which a log of people get.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-53551673

Covid hit our most at risk population disproportionately to the rest of the population.
A significant amount of the recorded covid deaths were deaths with a positive or assumed covid positive and not actually due to covid.
We would have rapidly ran out of highly susceptible people to die had the spread continued unabated

Capt'n Midnight

Tenzor07 wrote: »

I'm not a scientist but from what I read every virus has a lifecycle once it gets into the population.
Even if as some studies say you only get 3 months immunity it would be enough to almost eliminate the virus if the majority of people had it.

It would have to be the majority of people world wide at the same time. Otherwise there would be pockets to re-infect. And that's not counting the bats or pangolins or pigs or birds or squirrels or whatnot.

A coronavirus vaccine that killed one person in a thousand would be safer than trying to get herd immunity.

Without full population testing I can't confirm but it looks like a vaccine that provided lifetime immunity but killed one in a hundred would be safer than trying to get herd immunity.


It would overwhelm the health systems in OECD countries. Without ventilators and ICU the prognosis for severe cases would be extremely bleak. If you don't fully recover you won't get proper treatment either for organ damage or sepsis. And that will have knock on effects on cancer patients and elective surgery and A&E.

In non-OECD countries it will be worse.
That's why places like Vietnam said "screw this" and hit the big red button. Or look at the countries that had MERS or SARS.


So far of 21M reported cases only 13M have recovered. (and there's been three quarters of a million deaths) So one third of cases still have the disease. And the non-reported figures are worse



You've never had real flu unless you were worried you weren't going to make it. Covid-19 is worse.

GT89

Thought the original idea of lockdown was about stopping society falling apart but clearly was never going to happen. So they shifted goalposts for it to be about saving as many lives as possible destrying livelihoods and likely causing people to die indirectly as a result. It went on far too long it only should have been 2-3 weeks max.

Squiggle

HeidiHeidi wrote: »

Because most of the people who look after, and interact with, and are related to the "vulnerable" are "the rest of us". You can't just lock a whole section of society up somewhere and send food parcels.

Indeed but you don't need to lock them up and throw away the key. Just keep 2m away from them at all times along with gold standard respiratory etiquette etc. in their company. We need to learn to live with this virus.

HeidiHeidi

Squiggle wrote: »

Indeed but you don't need to lock them up and throw away the key. Just keep 2m away from them at all times along with gold standard respiratory etiquette etc. in their company. We need to learn to live with this virus.

And how does that work if you're administering medical or physical care to someone?

They need to hammer home the basics, hand hygiene / respiratory etiquette / distancing for EVERYONE. Then exceptions will be less risky where they cant be avoided.

And I have come to the conclusion (as we were warned by many) that the masks have become a false panacea - people are finally getting around to getting used to using them, and all other measures have gone straight out the window. I don't know how you solve that one, though, except as I say keep hammering the basics.

Apparently it's pretty much back to normal in Sweden..no masks..no lockdowns..no piles of bodies..

AdamD

Beasty wrote: »

I acknowledge I am well off but that does not diminish my views on the issue

6 months ago no-one had much of an idea about this virus. All countries were pretty much in the dark about it and its potential outcome. Even now we are not that much further down the line in understanding it, although dealing with it's consequences has improved as we've gone along

I would though challenge your comments about masks. PPE and masks were in very short supply for a long time. Front line staff were the priority but even they had to make do with re-using stuff. It would have been completely inappropriate to divert any of those masks to the general public. Indeed even Amazon were stopping people purchasing this sort of stuff as they were prioritising health workers (mainly UK ones on the .co.uk site)

I personally think Ireland is somewhere near the top of the class in the way it has handled this. Has it got every decision right? Absolutely not, but no-one has. It has done very well with limited resources. It may have seemed that some of the measures were OTT, but we will probably never know how much worse things could have been based on different decisions being made. And yes they could have improved things, but that is only with hindsight. There are few decisions taken that could be considered as inappropriate with the intelligence they had at the time

I don't think Ireland is even close to top of the class in virtually any Covid-related metric