Chat about Novel Coronavirus - 2019-nCoV - COVID-19

Chris Whitty, currently our Chief Medical Officer, is definitely not a Tory.

BBC 4 broadcast a Profile by Mark Coles on the man yesterday: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000gd7v

For those interested, the FT recently did a profile on Piot as well: https://www.ft.com/content/de0a7c9e-56ff-11ea-a528-dd0f971febbc

Obs not insightful, but the FT bit includes some interesting stuff on his shitload of titles and decorations. I like the motto on his baronal crest or whatever the fuck you call it. Also nice how he shuns his many monikers (Mick Jagger of microbiology, virus hunter, rock star of MB, Indy Jones of MB etc): "Shit happens. It’s more understanding what’s going on" and adds he prefers to call himself a detective instead.

Whitty is a very decent man. Can't comment on Piot.

A very quick search shows it was used explicitly by Patrick Valance, government scientific advisor, in multiple interviews. Don't think there's any ambiguity there or much nuance.

“Our aim is to try and reduce the peak [of the infections], broaden the peak, not suppress it completely,” Patrick Vallance, chief scientific advisor to the U.K. government, told BBC Radio 4’s Today program on Friday. “Also, because the vast majority of people get a mild illness, to build up some kind of herd immunity so more people are immune to this disease and we reduce the transmission.”

“Communities will become immune to it and that’s going to be an important part of controlling this longer term,” he said. “About 60 per cent is the sort of figure you need to get herd immunity.” https://fortune.com/2020/03/14/coronavirus-uk-cases-herd-immunity-covid-19/

"In another interview with the BBC, Sir Patrick said: “If you suppress something very, very hard, when you release those measures it bounces back and it bounces back at the wrong time.” https://amp.ft.com/content/38a81588-6508-11ea-b3f3-fe4680ea68b5

Thanks for finding this.
It looks like it's gone from "this is some kind of herd immunity" as a consequence of our actions to "we are planning on herd immunity as our only plan".

Which is a bit like viral replication.

Dare you to go on the Play Store and leave a negative review because it didn't stop covid.

All credit to @Fyoosh

For the record, my wife wasn't arguing in favour of one method or another (though she understands the logic of the current one), she was merely dispelling the idiotic, yet often-mentoned notion that our virus response is being handled like Brexit and managed by donkeys.

I know I'm a dick, but I have limits...

Asking for a friend.
Immunosuppressed patients and covid.
Is there any easy to understand guidance somewhere?

And care homes and the elderly.

Where can I get infected with Covid 19?

Am really concerned about my dad and parents in law. If they get ill I assume there is a reasonable chance they’d be declined care. At least if I had already been infected and got better I might then be able to help care for them.

Provided you can be sure that catching and recovering from it delivers immunity.

I've been reading a lot of what the experts have to say, but I still feel very short of an approach to understanding what the best method of tackling this might be

Imagine how people with 20+ years in the field feel.

But otherwise just watch a couple of youtube videos to supplement your knowledge. It's called research, it's how you become an expert.

Is there a company that's legit that could determine accurately if I've already had covid19? Obvs NHS can't do it because of resource limitations (understandably).

I'm genuinely curious if I've had it as I was properly ill with flu type symptoms in February. Would make life easier over the next few months if I knew I'd already had it.

Thanks. As stated- I couldn't find it in the mire of twitter posts and articles.
As @Chalfie says, it still represents a possible misunderstanding of causality- ie- herd immunity is a potential outcome of the policy, not the policy itself.
Vallance's response to Hancock's article will be interesting reading...

I do think we need to step back a bit from demanding unproven strategies, and yes- this means potentially trusting our total omnishambles of a government.

Neither Taiwan nor Singapore shut schools or workplaces (though Taiwan kept schools closed following Lunar New year for 2 weeks).
Hong Kong- which has been seemingly similarly successful- shut everything.
Countries that have shut everything down have had mixed responses, with predominantly worse outcomes than Singapore, say.

Nothing is proven to work- arguments against Taiwan, Singapore and HK may include the fact that there could be undertesting, they could be early in the viral spread, etc, etc.

Retrospectively- we can assess.
Proactively- we can plan based on best evidence. This brings the unpalatable possibility that the decision made was incorrect.

I imagine the tories didn’t want him to come out and actually say it with the consequences associated with that plan.

this from a nation who thinks you take drugs up your arse

Lots of other countries, including Germany, are up for some arse drugs as well.

The new advice that over 70s will need to self quarantine makes the uk strategy seems to make more sense to me. I don’t think they did anybody any favours with drip feeding the information, made a lot of people worry.

List of all Covid-19 mutual aid groups

https://freedomnews.org.uk/covid-19-uk-mutual-aid-groups-a-list/

Conversely, I think drip feed works best. Otherwise it's too much information and it's all noise then.

That’s the big question

Removed.
I would read the Emcrit article, and PHE's latest statement.
Advice generically (for not-covid infections) is that we would likely have low threshold for treatment early for both groups.

The what now?!

This is particularly interesting

https://twitter.com/mikeisaac/status/123­8604080571772928?s=21

Yes. The description of the Chinese testing and isolation process... Just, wow. Population-level CT scans. The mind boggles. Also, 75-80 per cent of spread in family units...

anyone recommend an internet bicycle forum for bespoke personal advice during a global viral pandemic?

Bike radar