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

This is the internet so is a place for it but if you're sat there thinking that you can internet doctor this then you're a fucking fool.

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Without seeing all the medical notes and having the experience and training you can't make a judgement so it is better to say nothing than set a narrative based on your own biases. So low rent questions like 'only 5l of oxygen, does this mean that a more needy has been bumped?' is less helpful than nothing.

This. Stoking animosity and division, pitching the health of one against another, spreads anger and panic and does have an effect on behaviour in the real world. Imagine if this was a Sun headline: "Is Boris taking a bed away from more needy patients?" people would rightly call it out.

It's toxic because it is politically weaponising the ill health of a now vulnerable man.

It's unhelpful because there is no answer to the question. It plays on fears and a politically convenient distortion of reality. We will never know if the saintly and deserving archetype blue collar working man / women who didn't get treatment because Boris did exists and we'll never know if they were deserving enough, either. (in reality, they probably didn't exist, but theoretically, maybe they did? There is always someone more deserving than insert person here). But it opens up all kinds of pandoras boxes that we cannot hope to resolve here whilst potenitally stoking the rumour mill. That sounds like a net loss to me.

It's also disingenuous and displays a remarkable lack of (or perhaps wilful?) understanding of the reality on the ground - these kinds of decisions about who receives what kind of treatment are made all the time and will continue to be made all the time. Our society is not a classless one of infinite time and resources.

All reports show an ICU bed being prepared for him from Thursday. So it was not going to be available for anyone else whether he's sitting there in it or not. He's the PM, it's fine.

Maybe we should have a separate thread for forum etiquette during a pandemic where all of these endlessly fascinating posts about other posts about other posts about other posts etc. ad infinitum can go.

^^^ and ^^^^: agreed. I'm not particularly convinced BoJo is super essential to keeping things together and while I do hope he survives, I won't be sending him too many thoughts and prayers, BUT I do think this whole "oh is he taking away a bed from someone more needy" is just appealing to the lowests possible instincts.

Why limit it to a thread? We could probably populate a whole forum.

Maybe we should have a separate thread for forum etiquette during a pandemic where all of these endlessly fascinating posts about other posts about other posts about other posts etc. ad infinitum can go.

Yo dawg

I could park Gruber’s high horse there it’s getting exhausting

Say what you want but don't moan when you get called a fool or told to fuck off

sounds like fun, don't forget to invite @andyp and @Aroogah.

I find trying to comprehend what is happening at the cellular level mindbogglingly impenetrable.

Just thinking about the random mutations that gave rise to such a complex and precisely malicious piece of RNA is enough to tip me into existential crisis. As I understand it, the virus doesn't have any objective at all (it has no consciousness), but it's characteristics have been selected for by its evolutionary environment, and now it is wildly successful? Successful enough to put a highly evolved species and civilization into crisis. It is fucking bonkers.

And on the physical level the idea that this weird bit of random stuff (most likely originating from bats) invades and corrupts cells, makes my skin crawl.

So yeah #fuckcovid

Of course, you would also be welcome now. #meta

His son's crying.
Wait.

Reading things like your response to finding out about what goes on at the molecular level in biology reminds me how lucky I was to spend YEARS in science. And also how fucking stupid I was in not working harder.
The realisation microorganisms are the real owners of this planet is a big one.

https://www.met.police.uk/tua/tell-us-about/c19/tell-us-about-possible-breach-coronavirus-measures/ Not sure if this has been shared, one for the curtain twitchers.

Ha! I have probably completely misunderstood it on even the most simple level. I stopped science at GCSE.

Going to post this here and in the science thread.
https://unherd.com/2020/04/how-far-away-are-immunity-passports/

It's just faulty replication systems....

As in the faulty replication systems give rise to the mutations that enable the leap to humans?

so tempted to set up the "manbags at dawn/ elevated pony / bickering etiquette" thread now

ffs of course people are allowed opinions, but only if they are the same as mine. anything that doesn't match with my world view is fake news or abhorrent. and now is not the time for people to try and be fucking funny. despite a lack of training in medicine, logistics or epidemiology my natural genius means i know all the answers

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronavirustheukeconomyandsocietyfasterindicators/dataasat2april2020

And on the physical level the idea that this weird bit of random stuff (most likely originating from bats) invades and corrupts cells, makes my skin crawl.

If you don't like the sound of that, you'd hate knowing about how and why almost all your cells contain mitochondria. Dare you...

Wow someone really likes explicit titles with no underscores.