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

We have a FACTS alert, I repeat, a FACTS alert. This is not a drill.

Back in the land of the sane, I'm assuming there are various factors other than the genetics of ethnicity which may be a factor in the apparent discrepancies in fatality figures. Multi-generational households, language comprehension, tendency to employment in customer service roles etc. As with many things at the moment, there are trends in the data, but distinguishing correlation from causation is difficult.

After all, the genetic differences relating to race and ethnicity are relatively minor. And if it's not genetic differences which cause the disparity in the fatality rates, that really only leaves lifestyle factors.

Sure. I was thinking about things like sickle cell anaemia, which are more prevalent in certain sections of the population, and more dangerous to those. I'm perfectly open to the possibility (and obviously not trying to draw any conclusions) that with COVID-19 it is mainly roles and social factors, but it is still so difficult to get a handle on things like living in larger households and the likely impact they might have.

Starting from the premise that no one is a See You Next Tuesday of course.

Does Not Compute.

Just in case you don't know this initialism and assuming you weren't making a joke, it's more clearly written as C U Next Tuesday.

Sure lock down half of the population indefinitely so we can experiment herd immunity on the other half. Sound plan.

I got that. I was challenging the validity of the premise.

And shorthand for CUNT

Is this not what is happening anyway? #SorryifImissedsomething

Running down to the postbox to post letters to family is a good little independent journey we've found.

Unfortunately that's only about 20 yards for us.

Not really, we have some kind of half arsed lockdown to everyone but manual labour, because kitchen extensions and car valeting are vital to society.

Not forgetting tyre fitters and roofers Plus a lot of the print trade.

So about half? 😊

That was me giving the person now revealed as a sleeper-troll-cell-bot the benefit of the doubt.

Yeah, around here I guess the kids are mostly quite young so they're probably like "whatever bro, no skool!"

I used to hoon around on my bike when I was a kid. Nothing has really changed.

I'd have thought modern children would be quite happy to just sit in a corner staring at an ipad, get fed, stare at an ipad, get fed, stare at an ipad, get fed, sleep repeat.

Unfortunately that's only about 20 yards for us.

Send her on a mission to find the next one?

What problem do you think you're solving by deliberately allowing all the under 50s to get infected?

Goes up to c 2.5% looking at Spain, and may also vary by ethnicity.

If the UK were 2.5% mortality for under 50's, that would equate to 16250 people under 50 (going by 1% mortality, for 65 million pop.)

Still a steep price to pay.

They all get it, they (almost) all recover, they are then no longer carriers of it and can go and help the over-50s. I'm not saying that's a workable plan, but I think that's the logic.

And all the over 50s in multi-generational households then get it too. It's a very stupid and callous 'plan', so I'm sticking to only pointing out the most glaring problems with it.

Making sure the boomers with their triple-lock pensions aren't affected by the economic cost of a full lockdown, at the cost of the lives of a few tens of thousands of under 50s, seems to be the general gist of it.

Just enough asymptotic carriers to spread the virus, not anything like enough for herd immunity without crippling healthcare. Feels like lockdown until we have a vaccine to me.

I know anecdote is not the singular of data, but as far as I can tell I spent 4 hours in a car on March 14th sitting next to a guy who went symptomatic the next day, on the way back from a ski holiday where I was eating, drinking, car-sharing, bubble-lift sharing and lift queuing with 100 people at least 4 of whom reported symptoms over the next two weeks, and one of whom had a horrible cough that he'd picked up in an Austrian ski resort but insisted he didn;t have CV and coughed all over us for a week.

So I spent the next 3 weeks convinced I was about to get C19. But it never showed up. So from my sample of 100, either it's much less infectious than we've been lead to believe or a lot of us were asymptomatic.

either it's much less infectious than we've been lead to believe or a lot of us were asymptomatic.

That's the thing though, right - it does seem like a lot of people are asymptomatic, and even more so if you're reasonably healthy and broadly speaking young.

even more so if you're reasonably healthy and broadly speaking young.

Unless you're not asymptomatic at all and get papped into a ventilator, or, are like my cycle-fit mid 30's manager who is still breathless a month later.

About half of Iceland who tested positive were asymptomatic FYI.

My anecdote was in reply to

Herd immunity hopes hit by WHO report suggesting only 2%-3% infected without realising it