please empty your brain below
What no one I've seen comment on was that whilst everyone else was moving stuff back by a few weeks at a time, the local elections were delayed by a year straight away, now we're getting the messages about the restrictions lasting longer and longer, it kind of suggests that 'the powers that be' knew this would be a long haul, even though the PM is still talking about 12 weeks to reach the peak.

Supermarket update - spaces now appearing in the wine aisles, with the closure of pubs alcohol may become as rare as toilet paper.

Still Anon | 21.03.20 - 7:56 a.m. | #

The challenge is getting over the psychological damage of having a year of our lives stolen from us, just as spring and summer is approaching. You wait five months for winter and less daylight to pass and then this ...

Geofftech | 21.03.20 - 8:03 a.m. | #

The problem with self isolation is coping mentaly with the lack of social interaction.

My daughter is pregnant but a very sociable person by nature. She does not want to be cut off from her friends and family.

Jon Jones | 21.03.20 - 8:20 a.m. | #

A fact of life is that people die. Current policies promote more people having poor health and weak immune systems needing ever more costly intervention. The media have a frenzy reporting every death, but don’t report on many orders of magnitude more deaths due to poverty and pollution.

Time to get real and let Nature take it’s course and only provide palliative care. What are we going to do next year when it mutates?

Tony | 21.03.20 - 9:07 a.m. | #

Another problem with self isolation of the vulnerable is the degree of compulsion. I am over 70, but feel that I might prefer to take the risk of catching it. However, I must be discouraged (or forcibly prevented ) from taking that risk, because of the consequences for other people, those who might catch it from me, those who might have to care for me, and those who might need a crucial care resource but fail to get it because it went to me.

Malcolm | 21.03.20 - 9:21 a.m. | #

I realise I have enough alcohol in the cupboard for self-embalming. I'm going to start, tonight and every night, one glass at a time. Why didn't I get lemons, limes and olives from the supermarket - now on the list for next time.

Brightside | 21.03.20 - 9:22 a.m. | #

The anti-vaxxers have gone very quiet !

Gerry | 21.03.20 - 10:17 a.m. | #

I suppose you could add a subset of the “had it”, which would be “died” and perhaps not coloured green.

Richard | 21.03.20 - 10:23 a.m. | #

Brilliantly explained.

Sarah | Homepage | 21.03.20 - 10:26 a.m. | #

There are also the subsets of
- those who have it without realising (who will be passing it on inadvertently),
- those who have had it without realising and are now socially isolating unnecessarily,
- those who are not taking any precautions because they think they have had it but actually had something else, and are thus most at risk of catching it and passing it on.

timbo | 21.03.20 - 10:32 a.m. | #

Excellent explanation.

I'm not seeing any element of 'normal death rates from flu/winter ailments + vulnerable people' in all the stats being bandied around. Baselines, we need baselines, for any of this mortality rate stuff to make sense.

Blue Witch | Homepage | 21.03.20 - 10:34 a.m. | #

At blue witch. A recent BBC article starts unpicking: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51979654

Flare | 21.03.20 - 10:48 a.m. | #

I got swiftly shot down by some friends by suggesting survival of the fittest and actually 500,000 dying would ease the strain on the NHS in the years to come.

I guess the unknown is if this virus will have long term health implications on those that have had COVID-19.

Flare | 21.03.20 - 10:50 a.m. | #

I just want to come and express my support. Stay vigilant and healthy.

Patrickov | 21.03.20 - 10:59 a.m. | #

BW, there are typically somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000 deaths from flu in England each year, depending on whether it is a good year or a bad year. Some stats here. For comparison, 20,000 were killed and another 40,000 wounded on the first day of the Somme. Total deaths in the UK are about 600,000 per year (figures for 2018 here and here). And then there are about 10 million people in the UK aged 65 or over.

I wonder if the people callously saying that we should just let others die would be quite so sanguine if it were them or their families that were culled. Even letting 500,000 die would not make much of a dent in the total population of the UK. To look on the bright side, it does not look like this is going to kill millions or tens of millions of us.

In other cheerful news, the Spanish flu had three peaks in the UK - a relatively small one in mid 1918; a vicious one in the winter - weekly mortality rates of 2 people in a hundred (with the illness) for a couple of months; and then a medium peak in early 1919. It killed 250,000 people in the UK. So this one could mutate and come back even worse. But perhaps more likely it could mutate and become less virulent.

Andrew | 21.03.20 - 11:56 a.m. | #

The 'survival of the fittest' arguments don't take into account that a lot of young and healthy people also require hospital treatment. And we are talking ICU for 2-3 weeks, not just rest. They have higher chances than older frail people of getting through *if they get treated*. But as hospitals get saturated and treatment less likely, these people become at risk too.

Whatever the mortality rate is, it is non-linear. The more people get the virus, the higher the mortality. And the increase comes more and more from people who would not have died otherwise.

Should we not try to reduce these deaths at least?

Concerned | 21.03.20 - 12:13 p.m. | #

Keep Calm, but Don't Carry On.

Stay home as much as you can and be sensible when you do have to go out.

Cornish Cockney | 21.03.20 - 1:29 p.m. | #

I follow "Informed" sources, i.e. New Scientist, but nowhere has there been mention of how the virus is passed. Without the sneezes of normal colds etc, can we catch it just from someone else's normal breath? We're told to wash hands. I'm guessing the real reason for this is that a lot of transmission comes by people having virus-laden hands, then rubbing eyes which then drains the virus into the nose.

So keep your hands away from eyes and nose!

NickK | 21.03.20 - 2:45 p.m. | #

I suspect some 'self-isolating' people have been busy editing for Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus_disease_2019

should anyone have unanswered questions.

B | 21.03.20 - 6:45 p.m. | #

As I understand it, most of the spread is from aspirated droplets from an infected person (mostly coughs and sneezes). But this coronavirus (like others) can remain viable on surfaces for hours to days, so a secondary means of transmission is touching something that has been touched (or sneezed on, etc) by an infected person, and then rubbing the eyes, nose or mouth.

Andrew | 22.03.20 - 5:21 p.m. | #

Eventually the public will rebel against the authorities if the current regime is seen to not be working and they will start to socialise secretly at each others homes. The slow down of infection rates will do nothing to stop the weak and old from dying - eventually. Its all about making sure the NHS continues to function and we dont end up with thousands of dead bodies hidden away in homes undiscovered.

Andrew Jarman | 28.03.20 - 1:42 p.m. | #











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