Covid19 Part XVII-24,841 in ROI (1,639 deaths) 4,679 in NI (518 deaths)(28/05)Read OP

wakka12 wrote: »

Global cases and deaths are certainly growing a lot more slowly thana few weeks ago. But it is largely because the virus has been halted in Europe. Many countries outside of Europe are now in the early stages of large epidemics

The other problem with interpreting the graphs is that they are almost all underestimates of the total number of infected people.

This problem is now being compounded further when countries with less developed health services and therefore less testing, in Africa and South America, start their pandemic.

The graphs are, at best, a crude estimate of the trend of the pandemic and that trend is still definitely upwards.

The emerging long-term complications of Covid-19, explained

A review of the evidence for possible long term complications associated with Covid-19, with some references to the long term effects of SARS, MERS and ARDS and also many good links. There is increasing evidence that severe complications can also occur even in the so called ‘mild’ cases.

Because Covid-19 is a new disease, there are no studies about its long-term trajectory but it is known that the novel coronavirus can attach to human cells with ACE2 receptors in many parts of the body. It can penetrate many major organs, including the heart, kidneys, brain, and even blood vessels and the inflammation produced can result in ongoing morbidity and even mortality.

It can affect the lungs… Studies from China suggest that scarring of the lungs may occur not just in critically ill patients; in asymptomatic patients, 95 percent had evidence of ground-glass opacities in their lungs.

It can affect the cardiovascular system… with stroke, heart attack, deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary and other embolisms, and blood clotting disorders. In younger people who have strokes, mortality rates are relatively low compared to those who are older, and many people recover. But studies show only between 42 and 53 percent are able to return to work.

It can affect the kidneys… Renal failure has been a common challenge in many severe Covid-19 patients, and patients’ clotted blood has been clogging dialysis machines. Some of these acute kidney injuries may be permanent, requiring ongoing dialysis.

It can affect the heart…. Inflamation of the heart muscle may lead to cardiomyopathy and heart failure later.

It can affect the nervous system….With neurocognitive and mental health impacts. In one study from China, more than a third of 214 people hospitalized with confirmed Covid-19 had neurological symptoms, including dizziness, headaches, impaired consciousness, vision, taste/smell impairment, and nerve pain while they were ill.

Childhood inflammation, male infertility, and other possible lasting effects... A Kawasaki-like illness is being well documented in children; the long term effects are unknown but concerning.

Another recent study also showed that in 81 men with Covid-19, male hormone ratios were off, which could signal trouble for fertility down the line. The authors called for more attention to be paid, particularly on “reproductive-aged men.” An April 20 paper published in Nature went so far as to suggest, “After recovery from COVID-19, young men who are interested in having children should receive a consultation regarding their fertility.”

These findings are just the very beginnings of our understanding of this very nasty disease.

But even the above does not appear to dissuade those lunatic fringe, market worshiping, right wing sociopaths who are intent on infecting a large proportion of the population… in order to achieve this mythical ‘Herd Immunity*’

(* BTW I hate the term ‘Herd Immunity’, we are talking about people here, not livestock)

As of 8pm last night there are 72 patients in ICU with confirmed covid.
Likewise as of 8pm there are 543 confirmed cases in acute hospitals in Ireland.

Compare this to last Sunday morning when there were 93 in ICU and 665 in acute hospitals.

How accurate is our testing?

https://twitter.com/PriscillaLynch/status/1259429259787096064?s=19

Blanco100 wrote: »

We took our time getting there in fairness. We only seem to have that capability when it's possible that demand isn't high. if numbers spiked worldwide again we'd be going cap in hand to ask Germany to sort us out again no doubt.

it's not that much of an achievement but no doubt the HSE and government will applaud themselves.

We have a contract with the lab in Germany for the foreseeable future.
It is part of our testing now.

Rob A. Bank wrote: »

So the 'Day Trippers' from Northern Ireland are still free to roam far and wide.

Bloody marvelous !

All the builders and trades from the north will be back down next week when the sites open.

Deleted User wrote: »

The reporting of Covid 19 has been an absolute disgrace. You have to really go out of your way to find the stats on the deaths. Tony had to be pushed to give a breakdown of the deaths.

To this day, from talking to my family and friends, most people still don’t seem to be aware that the risk is so low.

I keep hearing people in their 30s claiming to be at high risk because they have a touch of asthma. Or people worrying because their blood pressure is slightly high etc.

Covid 19 mainly kills people over 80. This is a fact. Most of those people also have other serious medical issues. And I don’t mean a touch a asthma. Some will have advanced cancer, heart disease, diabetes and COPD as well as just naturally being at the end of their life.

For whatever reason, this is getting swept under the carpet. People are been led to believe that they are at high risk when it’s simply not true.

We’ve allowed a very mild disease to destroy our country. At some point, the handling of this will need to be investigated to ensure we don’t make the same mistakes again in the future.

There are people who would have us on lockdown until a vaccine is being distributed. The central banks can't print enough money for that, it is just no substitute for the product of peoples labour. If we wait a bit longer until most companies are literally destroyed through bankruptcy, the only people left with jobs will be the public sector. they will have pocket fulls of hyper inflated euros and nothing to spend them on because the other 80% are all out of work producing nothing.

There is talk of imminent famine that will kill many time the virus' toll.
There are other medical issues that kill people and governments and virus panicers are ignoring that issue and it's consequences.

Some people, including governments, seem to have forgotten the basics: lockdown was to flatten the curve, not erase of it, because you can't once a virus reaches pandemic levels, that's why every easing of restrictions, in places like Korea and Germany and Singapore, sees sudden outbreaks again.

At some point, you just have to face reality and let nature take it's course, and we are about there. There will be worse consequences from trying to outlast the virus than getting back to the curve flattening and attempting to restart what's left of the world's economies.

podgeandrodge wrote: »

But there are conflicting views out there in relation to the Lockdown being overkill.

New York study shows workers 'no more likely to be hospitalised by Covid than those who stayed home'
Doctors say important to protect the elderly, sick and vulnerable, but more people could be allowed to return to normal

One of Britain’s leading doctors has said a New York study showing more than half of coronavirus patients in hospital had been staying at home suggests the UK should relax its lockdown more quickly.

Cancer specialist Professor Karol Sikora said the study appeared to show that while it was important to protect the elderly, already sick and vulnerable, far more people could be allowed to return to normal.

The survey of 1,269 patients admitted to 113 hospitals over three recent days - the first such look at people getting seriously ill despite six weeks of severe social distancing - confounded expectations.

It found that the majority of people hospitalized with the coronavirus across the state of New York had been staying at home and were not essential workers, prompting the questions of whether or not lockdowns work or for how long they are necessary.

Of those surveyed 66 percent were staying at home and 18 percent had come from nursing homes, suggesting they either became infected by going out for shopping, or from seeing people outside of work.

Retirees accounted for 37 per cent of the people hospitalised. Another 46 percent were unemployed. Only 17 per cent were working.

Just four per cent were still using public transport, though it also noted that information on transit use was only available for about half the people surveyed.

Of all the new hospitalizations, 73 percent were over the age of 51, with the worst affected group aged 61 to 70. Crucially, almost all - 96 percent - had underlying conditions.

Prof. Sikora, Dean of the University of Buckingham's medical school said the study appeared to show that lockdowns were only “of limited use”.


He said: “It is fascinating that it doesn’t seem to matter if you’re locked down or not. These people were locked down, but have a high rate of hospital admissions.

“Lock down is only of limited use. The risk factors for Covid are age, illness and ethnicity. These have more impact on what you’re going to get and if you’re going to be hospitalised than if you are out and about as normal.

“Covid is targeting obese people and people with lung conditions. If we shelter those people who are vulnerable and ill then we can get more people back to normal.”

Prof. Sikora, who is Medical Director of Rutherford Health, added: “Our 200 staff have come to work as normal and been out and about on public transport, but none have been hospitalised, though some have contracted coronavirus and self-isolated for 14 days.

“We have to look at what is happening in the UK. The street cleaners are working, the bin men are collecting. Though most shops are shut a lot of workplaces are open and there’s no evidence here of what we saw in New York, with its dramatic infection rates.”

New York state Governor Andrew Cuomo said that while the study suggested the number of new infections is being caused by 'personal behaviour' and not the lockdown, the stay-at-home order had generally thwarted the virus.

He said: “The numbers in the rest of the nation are going up. To me that vindicates what we are doing here. What we're doing here shows results.”

New York has dramatically decreased the infection and death count following eight weeks of a total shutdown of the state.

The governor’s three-phase plan to end the lockdown will see the city begin this week to slowly ease restrictions which have paralysed the Big Apple for months.

Mr Cuomo said the state can only progress to “Phase One” once seven requirements were met, including recording a 14-day decline in hospitalisations; an availability rate for intensive care unit beds of at least 30 per cent; and at least 30 working contact tracers per 100,000 residents.

So far it has only met three and is some way off meeting the other four, raising the prospect it could be under severe restrictions for weeks, if not months, to come.

But now even some New York doctors believe the city should reopen without delay.

Dr Samir Farhat, who runs the emergency room at New York Community Hospital, which had been at the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak in the US, said “It’s not often I agree with Trump, but I think that we should open up on May 15.

“Hospital census is right down, admissions are too. Opening up now is a calculated risk we need to take.”

Dr Farhat, who specialises in pulmonology and also works as a physician at Mount Sinai Brooklyn, worries that as a consequence of the stay-at-home strategy he has not seen the cases of severe asthma, heart attacks and strokes that usually fill his ER beds.

The lockdown has also decimated the economy, a factor doctors said could hurt both physical and mental health and should not be downplayed.

Dr Daniel Murphy, chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine at St Barnabas Hospital in The Bronx, claims “inordinate fear” has guided the public response.

“While Covid-19 is serious, fear of it is being over-amplified. The public needs to understand that the vast majority of infected people do quite well,” he said.

He said he noticed the “wave had crested” at St Barnabas on April 7 - three weeks after the statewide shutdown was ordered.

“This was striking, because the community I serve is poor. Most work in ‘essential,’ low-paying jobs where distancing isn’t easy. Nevertheless, the wave passed over us, peaked and subsided.

“The way this transpired tells me the ebb and flow had more to do with the natural course of the outbreak than it did with the lockdown,” he said.

Virologists and other health experts, however, are expressing growing dread over what they say is an all-but-certain second wave of deaths and infections that could force states to clamp back down.

The doctors the Telegraph spoke to stressed it was not simply a matter of reopening overnight.

“Life has to change, we don’t just spring back to normal,” Dr Farhat said. “We need to wear masks as a habit, scale up testing, and really consider whether we strictly need to travel.”

He added: “We can’t wait for a vaccine that may not come for two years, if it comes at all. We just have to figure out a way to live with this.”

I dont know what to think of the 'underlying condition' term, it is very vague. Literally a majority of the world's population have some kind of underlying health condition. My mum has hyperthyroidism, she is a perfectly healthy 50 year old, if she was hospitalised she would be considerd as having an underlying condition despite it not having a large impact on her chance of becoming hospitalised with covid

The severity of the virus to young people with mild illnesses such as asthma has been totally blown out of proportion. Anyone under 40 without serious immunocompromisation worrying about dying from this is being extremely irrational. If you are that age the only worries you should have is potentially passing the virus onto older and vulnerable people you come into contact with.

But also, to say it is a very mild illness is equally daft. I think the massive excess death throughout the western world would prove that not to be true. It does almost exclusively kill vulnerable people but nonetheless it is killing them in astonishingly large numbers

podgeandrodge wrote: »

?

Maybe he wasn't wearing a mask.. And obviously no mask is 100% effective. Depends on other people wearing it too.