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Off Topic Thread 4.0

Zzippy

Thread continued from here

The usual rules apply. Non-rugby talk here. Consider this a social place, but like a pub, things like religion and politics can be divisive, so don't say things here you wouldn't say to someone's face in the pub. Sober

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molloyjh

Former Former wrote: »

Technically, no, you just need people to be immune.

However, you need 80-90% of the population to be immune to protect the rest of the herd.

There's 60 million people in Britain so they need 50 million cases to reach herd immunity. How many deaths will that be? Jesus.

The UK are saying 60%, which is basically 40m. They are then assuming a very conservative 0.7% mortality rate. Meaning about 275-280k dead. Basically a bare minimum of a quarter of a million dead to the virus, but in reality likely to be a lot more if they see this nonsense through. And that doesnt count those who die of preventable causes because of an overwhelmed NHS.

Clegg

Think we've all seen the videos and pictures of Temple Bar being rammed with punters. It's irresponsible and reckless to their health and the health of others.

But I'm heartened by the growing number of pubs and restaurants that have already closed their doors for the foreseeable future or are about to. It shows a level of respect and responsibility that other establishments will hopefully follow. When this is over I hope the public take note of those who led the way.

prawnsambo

Deleted User wrote: »

Seems like the world is going into lock down. Will be interesting to see what data this produces in relation to climate change.

In three months a virus has brought human civilisation to a stand still.

There was a video on Twitter yesterday showing the difference in nitrogen output in Northern Italy between January and now. Big difference.

Clegg

I was out today doing a 'big shop'. It was utterly necessary, but I now regret doing it. Loads of ppl in an enclosed areas and I couldn't help but brush off some. I might sound paranoid, but at this stage I can't know if I've now been infected or, indeed, if I was infected before that and have now spread it to others

Lads, this is no way to live.

[Deleted User]

Seems like the world is going into lock down. Will be interesting to see what data this produces in relation to climate change.

In three months a virus has brought human civilisation to a stand still.

sydthebeat

swiwi_ wrote: »

I’ve discovered quite a good pastime. It’s called a “book”. Apparently been around for centuries. You have this person called an “author” who writes down a story on paper, divided into what’s called “chapters”. Seems like there’s actually quite a few books already out there. I can recommend.

Wish I had the time to read one of these "books".... They sound very interesting

:P

swiwi_

I’ve discovered quite a good pastime. It’s called a “book”. Apparently been around for centuries. You have this person called an “author” who writes down a story on paper, divided into what’s called “chapters”. Seems like there’s actually quite a few books already out there. I can recommend.

prawnsambo

stephen_n wrote: »

Also herd immunity requires that you can’t be a carrier while immune doesn’t it? Yet it seems children can carry this and be asymptomatic, which I know doesn’t mean they are immune. If people can be carriers and transmitters, then surely those that are not immune will still catch it.

Afaik, being symptomatic is the only way to transmit effectively. You have the virus in your respiratory system, then the sneeze/cough process will transmit it to the open air and onto other people. That's my understanding of it anyway.

stephen_n

Also herd immunity requires that you can’t be a carrier while immune doesn’t it? Yet it seems children can carry this and be asymptomatic, which I know doesn’t mean they are immune. If people can be carriers and transmitters, then surely those that are not immune will still catch it.

sydthebeat

We don’t think of ourselves as a herd. The idea of the needs of the collective subsuming those of the individual is antithetical to much of western culture. According to the government’s chief scientific adviser, we might have to reacquaint ourselves with the concept.

Because to control coronavirus, says Patrick Vallance, will require something called “herd immunity”. It will also require controlling who in the herd it is who gains that immunity.

Herd immunity does not require everyone in Britain’s “herd” to be infected. It happens before that, when just a proportion of them have. That proportion is the second most important number in epidemic modelling. To see how it is calculated — and perhaps even changed — requires, however, understanding the most important number in epidemic modelling: R0.

R0 is a measure of how infectious a disease is. If R0 is 2, say, then it means that every person infected goes on, on average, to infect two others. If it is 20, as is the case for measles, then each person infects 20 others.

R0 is important because so long as it is more than 1 — even if it is 1.000001 — a disease proliferates exponentially. If it is less than 1 — even if it is 0.9999999 — the disease is doomed.

Infection rates, though, are not fixed for eternity. Imagine a disease with an R0 of 2, which spreads through a single sneeze. At the start of an outbreak of this disease, you sneeze on two people and infect them. In the middle of an outbreak, it is different. Infected people still sneeze the same amount, but some of those downwind of the sneeze will have had the disease already and be immune.

Until the point comes where 50 per cent of the population have been infected. Then if you sneeze on two people on average only one will be susceptible. The infection rate has now dropped from 2 to 1 — and the disease dies out. Herd immunity has been achieved.

For coronavirus, R0 is 2.5. That means, in this simplified example, that for every 2.5 people you sneeze on you want 1.5 to already be immune. Herd immunity for coronavirus, then, is 1.5 divided by 2.5, or 60 per cent.

If indeed it is the government’s belief that the coronavirus cannot be stopped until we gain herd immunity, then that seems at least superficially to be an astonishing admission: an acceptance that more than 40 million people will get the disease. With even a 1 per cent fatality rate, that is 400,000 deaths.

There are good reasons to think it will be nowhere near that bad, and there is one good reason to think it could be worse.

One reason it will not be so bad is that the 60 per cent who get it need not be a random sample of the population. Instead, with sensible measures and “cocooning” of those most at risk, it may be possible to protect the elderly and sick even as the virus sweeps through the healthy.

The second reason is that the number R0 is just that — a number.

People are not equations and cannot be reduced to a single figure. It may well be the case that in 2019 Britain coronavirus had an R0 of 2.5. But in 2020 Britain, a Britain that has reacquainted itself with handwashing and deacquainted itself with air kissing, R0 could well be very different.

So what is the reason it could be worse? The entire calculation rests on the idea that people maintain their immunity, that once infected they cannot be reinfected for a long period of time. The problem is, as with so much about the virus, we don’t know enough to be absolutely certain that that is true.

What we do know though, is that individualism only goes so far. Coronavirus has reminded us we are indeed a herd — bonded by common obligations. For all the vagaries of disease modelling and complexities of viral mutation, scientists are unanimous on one piece of advice, among the most well-validated in modern medicine. To protect everyone, wash your hands

sydthebeat

pickarooney wrote: »

I don't understand the logic. How does me being immune protect you?

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/coronavirus-how-herd-instincts-can-help-to-limit-the-damage-kb6wpcbhd

This explains it, but there are major holes in the theory

Edit : article below

prawnsambo

pickarooney wrote: »

I don't understand the logic. How does me being immune protect you?

You are not going to be carrying the virus. So you can't transmit it. Being immune means your immune system 'kills' it.

pickarooney

Former Former wrote: »

Technically, no, you just need people to be immune.

However, you need 80-90% of the population to be immune to protect the rest of the herd.

There's 60 million people in Britain so they need 50 million cases to reach herd immunity. How many deaths will that be? Jesus.

I don't understand the logic. How does me being immune protect you?

sydthebeat

Former Former wrote: »

What's happening now is that Person A has it, gives it Person B, who gives it to Person C.

If Person B is immune, Person C doesn't get it even if he has no immunity.

If enough people are immune, it becomes less and less likely that Person C meets someone who is a carrier.

This is why Chicken Pox outbreaks are so localised and short lived. Enough adults are immune that even if their kids get it, they don't transfer it on

and have they tested the immunity factor of SARS-CoV-2?

this virus is tearing through the population showing that the immunity levels are pathetically low... and that the UKs approach is naive at best and genocidal at worst.

Former Former

pickarooney wrote: »

I don't understand the logic. How does me being immune protect you?

What's happening now is that Person A has it, gives it Person B, who gives it to Person C.

If Person B is immune, Person C doesn't get it even if he has no immunity.

If enough people are immune, it becomes less and less likely that Person C meets someone who is a carrier.

This is why Chicken Pox outbreaks are so localised and short lived. Enough adults are immune that even if their kids get it, they don't transfer it on

pickarooney

Former Former wrote: »

Technically, no, you just need people to be immune.

However, you need 80-90% of the population to be immune to protect the rest of the herd.

There's 60 million people in Britain so they need 50 million cases to reach herd immunity. How many deaths will that be? Jesus.

I don't understand the logic. How does me being immune protect you?

Former Former

Interested Observer wrote: »

Herd immunity requires one key ingredient which is vaccines. There is no vaccine for this.

Technically, no, you just need people to be immune.

However, you need 80-90% of the population to be immune to protect the rest of the herd.

There's 60 million people in Britain so they need 50 million cases to reach herd immunity. How many deaths will that be? Jesus.

stephen_n

molloyjh wrote: »

I think from a healthcare perspective the thought process is that greater exposure means less risk into the future, whereas the wisdom in the UK is that the rest of us run the risk of outbreaks next year and the year after. How true that is I've no clue. How far off a vaccine is I couldnt say. But it does seem utterly bonkers on the surface of it.

They have trialed a vaccine on mice that has been effective, trials on primates the next phase and they are hoping for human testing by June.

Given the data so far they are completely unsure how long we remain immune for. So chances are even if you get it now, you could still catch it again next year without a vaccine.

prawnsambo

Bazzo wrote: »

Was chatting to an infectious disease consultant who told me the headlines about that were extremely misleading, likely the patients who were reported as having "re-caught it" had never full recovered in the first place.

Yep, this.

prawnsambo

Best piece of advice I heard all week was from a British epidemiologist who said: "Don't behave as if you're afraid of catching it, behave as if you have it and are afraid of passing it on".

Bazzo

sydthebeat wrote: »

Isn't it re-catchable

Was chatting to an infectious disease consultant who told me the headlines about that were extremely misleading, likely the patients who were reported as having "re-caught it" had never full recovered in the first place.

DGRulz

Reading some of the stories going around, if even some of them are true I'm embarrassed to be Irish right now.

[Deleted User]

sydthebeat wrote: »

Is the uks "herd immunity" tactic not completely and utterly mental??

Herd immunity requires one key ingredient which is vaccines. There is no vaccine for this.

Buer

Unfortunately, it's going to take deaths to focus the minds and even then people will continue to suit themselves. It's not just Cheltenham, there's racing today in several locations in England and a full card in Navan today also.

As long as pubs are open in Ireland, people will attend. There are webcams online of public areas. I could see Temple Bar was quieter than usual last night but still steady. Plenty of people outside in a smoking area with pints. We had someone phone in sick yesterday admitting they were hungover. They were out in Ranelagh and plenty of people on the lash because they'd been told to work from home.

People are treating it in the same way they treated the snow. It's a novelty and it's mad craic altogether. That's genuinely the mentality of some. Go out to a coffee shop or pub in your nearest large town. You'll see the places doing a solid business everywhere. There's a bar in Limerick that was advertising drink deals around Corona for tonight. Madness.

Squidgy Black

Synode wrote: »

You'd think closing all schools and colleges and every sporting event in Europe (bar Cheltenham the clowns) would be enough to convince people to have a bit of cop on

Definitely not. I got a couple of texts yesterday afternoon asking was I going over to the local because we were all working from home. Plenty of people with the "ah sure it won't affect me" mentality. Even my auld lad who was over in Cheltenham keeps saying "there's more chance I would've caught it here in the local with people sitting all around me than over there in the open". There was people in our office going mad because we were all told to work from home because they wouldn't be able to send their kids to creche too.

People just refuse to accept that they shouldn't just be going about their life as they usually would to try and stop this thing from spreading and potentially saving lives of elderly and at risk.

Synode

You'd think closing all schools and colleges and every sporting event in Europe (bar Cheltenham the clowns) would be enough to convince people to have a bit of cop on

Zzippy

I won't lie, I find this thing terrifying. I'm in an at-risk group with a compromised immune system. If our hospitals can't cope, I fear being denied treatment in favour of someone more likely to survive, as is happening in Italy. The reports of pubs being packed last night and people ignoring all pleas to act responsibly are so infuriating. The "I'm alright Jack" mentality and complete disregard for vulnerable people is disgusting. 10 deaths announced just now in the UK. People need to wake the #£%# up.

Former Former

sydthebeat wrote: »

Is the uks "herd immunity" tactic not completely and utterly mental??

Honestly, I think they realised they acted too late and are trying to retrospectively justify it.

molloyjh

Zzippy wrote: »

Yes. It is basically asking for an Italy situation and many more deaths than necessary, with the aim of shortening the duration of the epidemic and getting the economy back on track sooner.

I think from a healthcare perspective the thought process is that greater exposure means less risk into the future, whereas the wisdom in the UK is that the rest of us run the risk of outbreaks next year and the year after. How true that is I've no clue. How far off a vaccine is I couldnt say. But it does seem utterly bonkers on the surface of it.

Zzippy

sydthebeat wrote: »

Is the uks "herd immunity" tactic not completely and utterly mental??

Yes. It is basically asking for an Italy situation and many more deaths than necessary, with the aim of shortening the duration of the epidemic and getting the economy back on track sooner.