Mutating Corona Virus

[honeybee13]

A group of professors, medics and journalists have grouped together to make The Covid Report on youtube. I don't think I can link to it, but if you can't find it, look at Carole Cadwalladr's Twitter feed for a link. @carolecadwalla

 

They include the chair of the Commons health select committee and an ex-member of the WHO, looking at how the government is handling the epidemic and what we aren't beiing told.

 

 

 

 

[London1971]

8 hours ago, tobyjugg2 said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUp1e-hrzYA

 

 

 

It aint rocket science, and if the Virus is more like flu/the common cold and re-infections occur, as seems possible according to latest reports, or for the next variant outbreak

- this sort of thing may become vital and as normal as facial recognition ...

Note that most experts believe that re infection cases are faulty tests. Plus there are always a small number of people who can get something twice. I can attest to this as I was unfortunate enough to get Chicken Pox again as an adult, something I wouldn’t wish on anybody.

[honeybee13]

New article from Richard Horton of the Lancet on Britain's handling of the epidemic.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/09/deadly-virus-britain-failed-prepare-mers-sars-ebola-coronavirus

[London1971]

This is ridiculous. Nobody could prepare for an event like this on that scale. Maybe after this we will realise that spending 30 billion on being prepared for a pandemic will save maybe a Trillion when the next one hits.

[unclebulgaria67]

No doubt there will be inquiries into this, not just in the UK, but also in many other counties as well as organisations, such as the WHO etc.

 

I think it makes sense to organise pandemic response measures on an International basis.  There should be agreements on what basic measures should be taken, as soon as any dangerous virus outbreak is discovered.  For example, lockdown within a relevant area should be implemented within x amount of time. A ban on international flights to/from the area concerned applied within defined time period.  There is likely to be a long list of contingency measures and wealthier countries are going to have to help support poorer countries, so they have the resources required.

 

It might be the case that we will see draconian measures being implemented as a result of Covid-19 and life will never be quite the same.   I am not a scientist, but it appears to me that we are seeing a start of a period, where the science lags behind the health threats that we will encounter.  

 

And what about the general hygiene rules that Countries have to ensure as minimum standards.  If it is true that live animal markets in China helped cause the virus, then I think the world that trades with China, has a right to expect changes to be implemented in China. And the same for other Countries where the same issues might apply.

[maroondevo52]

 

 

Royal Mail Relay will be delivering Test Kits throughout the uk and collecting Kits and dropping them off at Testing centres.

24 hours per day 7 days per week.

[cjcregg]

5 hours ago, unclebulgaria67 said:

 

I think it makes sense to organise pandemic response measures on an International basis.  There should be agreements on what basic measures should be taken, as soon as any dangerous virus outbreak is discovered.  For example, lockdown within a relevant area should be implemented within x amount of time. A ban on international flights to/from the area concerned applied within defined time period.  There is likely to be a long list of contingency measures and wealthier countries are going to have to help support poorer countries, so they have the resources required.

 

 

 

That all sounds very worthy but it's naïve to think that the world is anywhere near capable of agreeing and implementing a global response to pandemics, or in fact just about anything. The world doesn't work like that.

 

If coronavirus has taught us anything it's that nations will instinctively act independently and regardless of any existing allegiances. Where have the European Union been in all this? Nowhere, and EU nations have been uncompromisingly unilateral in their responses.

 

Your colleagues have been peddling the theory that the UK applied the wrong response to C19 and you're saying we need an enquiry into it. If, as a nation, we aren't capable of agreeing our own response, what chance is there of agreeing an international one?

 

 

[BazzaS]

12 hours ago, maroondevo52 said:

 

 

Royal Mail Relay will be delivering Test Kits throughout the uk and collecting Kits and dropping them off at Testing centres.

24 hours per day 7 days per week.

 

Great!.

 

Umm, what kits are these?. The antibody one's that they haven't yet found a reliable enough platform?, or some other self-test kit?.

[maroondevo52]

1 hour ago, BazzaS said:

 

Great!.

 

Umm, what kits are these?. The antibody one's that they haven't yet found a reliable enough platform?, or some other self-test kit?.

 

BazzaS,

 

Sorry I didn't ask for the exact specifications or functions of the Test Kits, all I know is they are for NHS front line key workers.

Royal Mail Relay drivers are volunteering to deliver and collect these test kits 24/7. They are also out every day providing secure distribution 

of urgent documents and internal mail to Financial institutions, Banks, Building Societies, Insurance companies, HMRC and the DWP.

They also supply parts for every British Gas engineer in the UK.

 

When I find out exactly what type of test Kits they are I'll let you know.

[BazzaS]

40 minutes ago, maroondevo52 said:

 

BazzaS,

 

Sorry I didn't ask for the exact specifications or functions of the Test Kits, all I know is they are for NHS front line key workers.

Royal Mail Relay drivers are volunteering to deliver and collect these test kits 24/7. They are also out every day providing secure distribution 

of urgent documents and internal mail to Financial institutions, Banks, Building Societies, Insurance companies, HMRC and the DWP.

They also supply parts for every British Gas engineer in the UK.

 

When I find out exactly what type of test Kits they are I'll let you know.

It is great that the delivery / collection logistics have been put in place, for when the kits are approved and available, with their processing in the labs set-up.

It’d be a shame if the rest became available and there wasn’t that delivery / collection system ready to go. Kudos to the RM staff supporting the testing, and delivering post & essential documents.

 

It still leaves the promise of “jam tomorrow” for testing NHS staff.

I haven’t seen it made clear what tests, for who (prioritised how, when the tests are first available in limited supply)

 

Is this testing NHS staff off unwell? There is a pitfall here.

Testing NHS staff who are well, but off as “household contacts” of a symptomatic case? Or testing the symptomatic case that is the household contact of the NHS worker.

 

If this is antigen or NAAT testing, I’d suggest the highest priority would be the latter case, and when test supply is most limited, prioritising:

a) staff essential to the supply of

i) critical care and

ii) the lab testing, then prioritising

b) those with the longest remaining of the NHS worker’s 14 days isolation.

 

Use the kits on those with the longest still off work who can supply the most essential work, to maximise their return.

Edited April 10, 2020 by BazzaS

[tobyjugg2]

19 hours ago, London1971 said:

Note that most experts believe that re infection cases are faulty tests. Plus there are always a small number of people who can get something twice.

 

 

Perhaps.

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2020/03/15/can-you-get-infected-by-coronavirus-twice-how-does-covid-19-immunity-work/

 

https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/24912/20200226/covid-19-reinfection-is-possible-experts-say.htm

 

 

 

and I hope cjcregg now realises that even doctors were NOT receiving essential protective equipment as little time ago as last weekend

... now the chair of the BMA has come out and stated it on BBC news.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 10, 2020 by tobyjugg2

[maroondevo52]

It looks like Royal Mail along with Amazon Logistics will deliver Kits to the homes of NHS staff who will post their samples into one of 13,000 priority postboxes. Royal Mail will deliver returned samples to the testing labs using Tracked 24.

 

The first samples to be processed in the labs will be from frontline health workers. As the labs capacity increases, other frontline workers will be tested.

 

Royal Mail Relay will be initially collecting from 12 Testing Stations involving, Epsom, Thurrock, Bristol, Nottingham, Wednesbury, Manchester,

Gateshead, Edinburgh and Belfast, although this is expected to increase very quickly to well over 40 locations involving all Royal Mail depots.

 

The delivery locations will involve Milton Keynes, Manchester, Edinburgh and Belfast.

 

 

 

 

[tobyjugg2]

17 hours ago, London1971 said:

This is ridiculous. Nobody could prepare for an event like this on that scale.

 

Maybe after this we will realise that spending 30 billion on being prepared for a pandemic will save maybe a Trillion when the next one hits.

 

Given (prior) SARS and MERS and Ebola, it was only a matter of time.

 

We could be heading into a world where you need a medical OK to fly it these events become couple of times a decade events - let alone more.

 

At the moment the temperature screen seems vital (IMO) even if it doesn't get every person, and may not trap any of a new mutated outbreak as

1. It should trap quite a few

2. Those it does trap raises the alarm

 

Edited April 10, 2020 by tobyjugg2

[BazzaS]

1 hour ago, maroondevo52 said:

 

Royal Mail will deliver returned samples to the testing labs using Tracked 24.

 

 

Will you be able to tell us when this starts happening ‘at scale’, (rather than just the ‘pilot’ that allows us to be told “it has started”).

 

You’ll notice there hasn’t been a great fanfare about the large scale testing (that was promised) actually happening.

 

Anyone have any figures for numbers of tests (and which tests!) being done per day by UK labs?

I suspect it is still close to the 10-12,000 tests / day mark (excluding non-accredited labs / tests, and tests sent abroad in desperation), and NAATs tests, rather than antigen or antibody .......

Edited April 10, 2020 by BazzaS

[maroondevo52]

As of 9am on 9 April, 298,169 tests have concluded across the UK, with 16,095 tests carried out on 8 April. Some individuals are tested more than once for clinical reasons.

243,421 people have been tested, of whom 65,077 tested positive. The tests concluded figure excludes data from Northern Ireland.

As of 5pm on 8 April, of those hospitalised in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus, 7,978 have died.

	Tests	People tested	Positive	Deaths
Daily	16,095	10,713	4,344	881
Total	298,169	243,421	65,077	7,978

[tobyjugg2]

are those figures just the hospitalised figures?

eg Not including care homes, home deaths etc

 

Let alone all the untested whether with or without symptoms, and isolated or not ...

 

 

PLUS - Last figures i saw was that in excess of 99.5% of even frontline NHS staff remain untested, let alone shop assistants or anyone else.

So who has actually been tested, apart from Johnson and his pals? Doesn't seem to be nurses as yet.

 

Plus, as of last week apparently around 50% of doctors didn't have access to even basic protection equipment, with hospitals relying on local businesses to make some.

 

 

Just a little thought

@16,000 tests a day it'll take over 10 years to test everyone just once won't it?

Which means at 160,000 tests a day - its still over a year ..

Someone check my rough calc... looks crazy to me.

 

and possibly with:

'SARS-CoV-2 is mutating 1,000x faster than influenza viruses and 36,000x faster than measles'

 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yKVsKQMaPyC7I7caorMPkzFa0SxYZFirRrQ4qbiBnJ4/edit#

Edited April 10, 2020 by tobyjugg2

[BazzaS]

10,713 people tested, 16,095 tests.

 

so that’s 5382 repeats, or about 1/2 again for each person tested. I can’t see why it should need to be that high?

[cjcregg]

8 minutes ago, BazzaS said:

10,713 people tested, 16,095 tests.

 

so that’s 5382 repeats, or about 1/2 again for each person tested. I can’t see why it should need to be that high?

That's just one day though for whatever reason. The totals figures tell the overall story. Maybe they're ramping up repeat testing.

[BazzaS]

Why ramp up repeats?

 

I’ve checked (with a contact for a District General Hospital) : 2-5 day turn around for testing from “swab to result”, and they have repeat tested ONE patient (not one per day, but one since early February).

 

So, unless the labs are doing repeat tests on one same, or e.g. London / Birmingham are doing masses of repeat testing (& if so, why?), those figures don’t make sense .

 

looking at the totals, 298k tests from

243k patients is still 56k repeats, a 23% repeat rate .....

Edited April 10, 2020 by BazzaS

[cjcregg]

15 minutes ago, BazzaS said:

Why ramp up repeats?

 

 

 

I don't know it's just what the numbers suggested. There are good reasons for repeat tests off the top of my head ie clinical staff showing symptoms on several occasions etc

 

I was swab tested last week at Stoke Mandeville hospital, it was couriered to a lab in Portsmouth and the result took 42 hours from memory. 

[unclebulgaria67]

The cases in South Korea must be concerning, where people have tested positive, have recovered ( so it was thought) and the virus has then somehow reactivated in their systems.  They have apparently ruled out being reinfected and think the virus remained. 

 

Seems a bit of a tricky virus, which may be difficult to get a grip on.  At the daily press conference the Doctor advising Government stated that even when there are reduced numbers of people in Hospital, he expected people would continue to become infected with the virus throughout the country for many months. So this lock down might be eased in say a month, but there may still need to be measures taken perhaps on a local level, depending on numbers of cases verified

[tobyjugg2]

17 hours ago, BazzaS said:

10,713 people tested, 16,095 tests.

 

so that’s 5382 repeats, or about 1/2 again for each person tested. I can’t see why it should need to be that high?

 

Only reason I can think of is that they aren't accurately reporting all the people being tested

 

Perhaps people like Dalglish who was apparently tested 'just in case' when he went in for something else not being included.

 

"Dalglish was admitted to hospital on Wednesday for treatment of an infection which required intravenous antibiotics.

The 69-year-old former Celtic and Scotland forward was routinely tested for coronavirus after being admitted."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/52250176

 

 

The 'official' reported figures for deaths would seem to be - low - only hospital deaths - and many of those figures 'slow to be reported'

 

https://www.ft.com/content/c07e267b-7bca-418f-ad9e-8631a29854cb

 

Edited April 11, 2020 by tobyjugg2

[cjcregg]

35 minutes ago, tobyjugg2 said:

 

Perhaps people like Dalglish who was apparently tested 'just in case' when he went in for something else not being included.

 

"Dalglish was admitted to hospital on Wednesday for treatment of an infection which required intravenous antibiotics.

The 69-year-old former Celtic and Scotland forward was routinely tested for coronavirus after being admitted."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/52250176

 

 

Lots of hospitals are testing every admission regardless of showing no symptoms for C19, like Dalglish.

 

Lucky that the hospital weren't relying on temperature screening guns eh?

 

 

[tobyjugg2]

2 minutes ago, cjcregg said:

 

Lucky that the hospital weren't relying on temperature screening guns eh?

 

 

To help them target those who might urgently need testing and isolating making optimum use of the highly limited testing facilities ?

... Whether admissions, staff or delivery men ...

 

 

[honeybee13]

I'm very sad to hear that two comedians, Tim Brooke-Taylor of the Goodies and I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue and Eddie Large of Little and Large have both succumbed to Covid.

 

Plus of course all the less well known people who should also be mentioned and remembered every day.