Off Topic Thread 4.0

The manager of the US fruit stall is some wanker

b.gud

It was nice while it lasted

The people revelling in panic porn out there is disgusting.

What puts it onto people's head to put out misleading and utterly false stuff out on social media and dress it up as if its official.

Embarrassed to say I think for about an hour I might have fell for some of the fake news bull**** circulating last night. Won't be doing that again.

Have also decided to take social isolation pretty seriously from here on for a few weeks.

sydthebeat wrote: »

The people revelling in panic porn out there is disgusting.

What puts it onto people's head to put out misleading and utterly false stuff out on social media and dress it up as if its official.

The father in law has my head f*cking melted with the forwards. He has been warned and told to stop sending rubbish on even if it's with the best of intentions. Last night, he sent on the one about anti-inflammatories which was twisted out of context but said it's genuine as there was an article in the link. Unfortunately, the article was twisted to be deliberately misleading.

I'm grand but he will send this on to 10 others who are in his own demographic i.e. 60 years of age and above. Many of them will take it as truth.

If WhatsApp messages can be traced to source, there should be criminal proceedings for those creating these.

stephen_n

Buer wrote: »

The father in law has my head f*cking melted with the forwards. He has been warned and told to stop sending rubbish on even if it's with the best of intentions. Last night, he sent on the one about anti-inflammatories which was twisted out of context but said it's genuine as there was an article in the link. Unfortunately, the article was twisted to be deliberately misleading.

I'm grand but he will send this on to 10 others who are in his own demographic i.e. 60 years of age and above. Many of them will take it as truth.

If WhatsApp messages can be traced to source, there should be criminal proceedings for those creating these.

The Irish Times published an article it later deleted, saying that French Doctors had suggested stopping taking anti inflammatory medicine. If newspapers are getting caught out spreading this stuff, you can understand how ordinary people do.

Podge_irl

stephen_n wrote: »

The Irish Times published an article it later deleted, saying that French Doctors had suggested stopping taking anti inflammatory medicine. If newspapers are getting caught out spreading this stuff, you can understand how ordinary people do.

Did the French health minister not saying something about it? Thought I saw that on twitter. Which at least gave the whole thing a veneer of truth.

mfceiling

I've a friend who is a top cancer specialist here and he sent a group message last night about the ibuprofen/nurofen story.
Apparently there is a small risk with taking these if you have the virus and he recommended paracetamol should be taken instead.

If i get one more message about the army bringing in marshall law or the supermarkets only letting in 10 people at a time I'm going to delete WhatsApp.

mfceiling wrote: »

If i get one more message about the army bringing in marshall law or the supermarkets only letting in 10 people at a time I'm going to delete WhatsApp.

Talking to supermarket staff this morning who are sure that that is going to happen.... And judging by the busyness of my local supervalu this morning its probably worth doing

mfceiling wrote: »

I've a friend who is a top cancer specialist here and he sent a group message last night about the ibuprofen/nurofen story.
Apparently there is a small risk with taking these if you have the virus and he recommended paracetamol should be taken instead.

Yeah my mate works in James' and he also got this, but he then got a follow up email from James' admitting they'd been hoaxed. It seems that anti-inflammatories are fine. But maybe check back with him.

Podge_irl wrote: »

Did the French health minister not saying something about it? Thought I saw that on twitter. Which at least gave the whole thing a veneer of truth.

He did. The issue was the WhatsApp message was implying people should stop taking all anti-inflammatories as of now which is misrepresenting what was said. Not as blatant as previous lies but more dangerous in many ways as it's using genuine information out there and putting an alternative slant on it.

Anyone with small children who have had croup, asthma etc. will be aware that you don't give them Neurofen when it's acting up as it can potentially exacerbate the issue. It's grand to give it to them normally though.

sydthebeat wrote: »

Talking to supermarket staff this morning who are sure that that is going to happen.... And judging by the busyness of my local supervalu this morning its probably worth doing

I am not confident in our strategy. I really struggle to understand it.

As far as I can make out, it is this.

We only have around 300 ICU beds / ventillators (I think we may have more of the latter, but they are being used interchangebly)
5% of people will need a ventillator - and will need it for between 1 week and 3 weeks.
So if there are 300 ventillators being used 2 weeks at a time, on average there will be 20ish "made available" per day.
That twenty is 5% of the maximum daily infection rate we can have (20 *0.05 = 400) so our daily rate has to be 400
For us to naturally get "herd immunity" we have to wait till half the population - around 2.2 million of us get it.
2.2m / 400 = 5,500 days or 15 years of isolation.

So at the moment, our strategy seems to be - keep everyone at home until someone invents a vaccine? I am beginning to wonder (quietly) should a few of us be "chicken poxxing it". Getting it intentionally. You don't get lifetime immunity, but in almost all cases you seem to get strong short term immunity.

mfceiling

errlloyd wrote: »

Yeah my mate works in James' and he also got this, but he then got a follow up email from James' admitting they'd been hoaxed. It seems that anti-inflammatories are fine. But maybe check back with him.

Yeah he explained that the risk was very minor and to treat WhatsApp/Fakebook messages with less than a pinch of salt.
Interesting that he said paracetamol is probably the best form of medicine to take for practically anything.
Little to no side effects for the majority of the public - a wonder drug!!

If we take the "chickenpox" approach, will it not lead to far, far greater numbers becoming infected in a shorter space of time and the paucity of equipment/facilities becoming overwhelmed instantly i.e. greater numbers are likely to die? Is this not what Britain are attempting and are discussing asking anyone over 70 to put themselves into self isolation long term to protect themselves?

Essentially we are trying to control numbers and allow more people to develop immunity until a vaccine becomes available from what I can see. But this is far more sensible than accepting the health system is going to be overrun and potentially thousands die as the system collapses. If we protect ourselves as a society, we'll hopefully be able to manage the numbers a lot more efficiently and limit the mortality rate.

Obvious big difference between chicken pox and covid is the fatality rate.

1 in 60000 versus 1 in 100

aloooof

Never thought I'd say this, but I'm looking forward to when we can all go back to arguing about POM...

aloooof wrote: »

Never thought I'd say this, but I'm looking forward to when we can all go back to arguing about POM...

The key to beating coronavirus is not being visible, not getting involved and as little interaction with others around as possible.

POM, this is your time to shine.

Very easy to digest and clear visual representation of how the various approaches to fighting coronavirus work:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/

awec

On the number of ventilators thing, over 50% of ventilators used worldwide are made in Ireland. We’re also the second largest exporter of medical technology in Europe.

errlloyd wrote: »

So at the moment, our strategy seems to be - keep everyone at home until someone invents a vaccine? I am beginning to wonder (quietly) should a few of us be "chicken poxxing it". Getting it intentionally. You don't get lifetime immunity, but in almost all cases you seem to get strong short term immunity.

People are getting it. The rate at which people get it is almost certainly going to increase quite a lot. The approach you suggest will almost certainly kill people, I don't see how any Govt can propose it wilfully.

Buer wrote: »

Very easy to digest and clear visual representation of how the various approaches to fighting coronavirus work:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/

thats excellent

aloooof

awec wrote: »

On the number of ventilators thing, over 50% of ventilators used worldwide are made in Ireland. We’re also the second largest exporter of medical technology in Europe.

Wow, wasn't aware of this. You'd imagine production will have ramped up weeks ago.

Interested Observer wrote: »

People are getting it. The rate at which people get it is almost certainly going to increase quite a lot. The approach you suggest will almost certainly kill people, I don't see how any Govt can propose it wilfully.

If we take the "chickenpox" approach, will it not lead to far, far greater numbers becoming infected in a shorter space of time and the paucity of equipment/facilities becoming overwhelmed instantly i.e. greater numbers are likely to die? Is this not what Britain are attempting and are discussing asking anyone over 70 to put themselves into self isolation long term to protect themselves?

Thanks for the responses guys. I do appreciate you both being reasonable and considerate, because I think what I am posting is a little bit radical (although it is just the UKs approach).

Option A (Ire approach)

If we didn't know who was at risk I think our approach would be the only option. (This is important). In that case we would treat all of the population equally, impose an isolation that would only result in 400 cases per day, of which 20 would need ICU, and we would do that till there was a vaccine. This could take months or years, and the main risk is actually econoic collapse, societal collapse, or just widespread lapse in the publics self isolation once the crazy bit is passed.

Option B (UK approach).

But we DO KNOW who is at risk. There are very specific and well understood criteria for what makes a person "at risk". So the second option is to strongly quarantine the at risk people, but literally just allow the not at risk people to get it. I know this sounds crazy, but it is what we do with vaccines (we do not vaccinate at risk people), and in a way it is what we do with Chicken Pox - for Children to get it young so they don't accidentally pass it on to the at risk adults. The advantage of this approach is that we might actually be able to get it done in a known amount of time.

We are not going to destroy this virus. That option is gone.

errlloyd wrote: »

Option B (UK approach).

But we DO KNOW who is at risk. There are very specific and well understood criteria for what makes a person "at risk". So the second option is to strongly quarantine the at risk people, but literally just allow the not at risk people to get it. I know this sounds crazy, but it is what we do with vaccines (we do not vaccinate at risk people), and in a way it is what we do with Chicken Pox - for Children to get it young so they don't accidentally pass it on to the at risk adults. The advantage of this approach is that we might actually be able to get it done in a known amount of time.

We are not going to destroy this virus. That option is gone.

option B is too simplistic

there are immunocompromised people out there who dont know they are.
there are thousands of people in ireland with heart disease who also dont know they have it.
there are "at risk" parents of children who simply cannot be quarantined away from them.
Logically it may make sense, practically it doesnt.

That is a good point I largely agree about the quarantine. Family groups that one one at risk individual should all avoid contracting it initially.

I want you (and everyone) to know. That I am not underestimating this thing. I had to uninvite my grandmother from dinner yesterday because I had been out on Friday for my sisters birthday. She's already scared about this virus, it's even scarier for her when he grandkids are worried about her. She gets visited by about 6 different home care nurses each week, 3 times per day, 7 days a week.

There is no way for us to know if those nurses are carrying Covid 19 - unless they have already had it. Maybe my initial strategy of "just let young people get it" is over simplistic, but maybe we should start off with a cohort of very health people to get purposely infected, serve very strong quarantines and recover. With that baseline test we could develop a model or how many of the "healthy" cohort required further assistance and work from there.

You do not have to be "pro business" to be worried about the economy right now. Thousands of people are going to lose jobs. Mortgage repayments will be missed. Thousands of other people are going to take a huge mental and physical health hit serving a several week lockdown. I think it is quite reasonable to ask "do we actually have a plan for when or how this lockdown ends"? Because, as far as I can tell, we don't.

Is there a reason beyond Trump being completely unhinged that he would want to try and buy that in-development coronavirus vaccine exclusively for use in the US?

Bazzo

Interested Observer wrote: »

Is there a reason beyond Trump being completely unhinged that he would want to try and buy that in-development coronavirus vaccine exclusively for use in the US?

Because he's the biggest ****bag on the planet and saw an opportunity to make money?

On the UK approach being viable: while there are some experts saying it's a logical approach the vast majority of them seem to think it's a crazy idea. My godmother is an infectious diseases consultant and said it seemed like revisionist nonsense to her.