COVID-19 - So what would you do in the current situation?

[Pathetic Shark]

Every country is trying to handle the pandemic in different ways. What works in one country may not work in another because of demographics, population, borders etc. So without being any kind of expert, this is what I see as the future:-
1. The virus is not going away - there is no magical vaccine coming over the horizon in the next 12-18 months.
2. We cannot remain in the current form of lockdown - the country would be bankrupt before any kind of vaccine arrived.
3. So we have to return to as much normality as possible but whilst keeping as many restrictions as possible to prevent a complete outbreak with 10,000s of deaths.
4. We maintain the social distancing we have in place now - but we re-open as many shops and businesses as possible. Do what we can using common sense. We cannot sterilise every part of the community so unfortunately we have to take our chances that we may contract it in some way.
5. Self-quarantine for 14 days with any kind of symptoms. Same for people coming into the country. The problem with the latter is what is the first thing you do when you come back from holiday? Go straight down to Tesco's for milk, bread etc.
It is not ideal but this is a far from ideal situation. We have to do the best we can with the options open to us.

 

[Lord Tyrion]

You mean follow Sweden?

I agree that we can not remain locked up forever, we have to start ot come out of our caves. I agree that we have to do it gently though rather than a free of all tomorrow. It is the pace of opening that will be so tricky to manage.

 

[bobmac]

Every country is trying to handle the pandemic in different ways. What works in one country may not work in another because of demographics, population, borders etc. So without being any kind of expert, this is what I see as the future:-
1. The virus is not going away - there is no magical vaccine coming over the horizon in the next 12-18 months.

Good news
One million doses of the vaccine could be available by September

 

[jim8flog]

Good news
One million doses of the vaccine could be available by September

Who would you prioritise those for?

Ramping up any production to have enough for even country wide island such as ours will take a lot longer. Worldwide you are talking billions of doses.

 

[Rooter]

Who would you prioritise those for?

Doctors, nurses, NHS staff, care home workers. Then on to the most needy (old, ill etc)

 

[HomerJSimpson]

My biggest concern would be the influx of travellers. How many of those are really going to self-isolate for 14 days and who is going to check anyway. Plenty of potential to bring the virus back in abd create at best localised flair ups of new infections. The more travellers come in and disperse the bigger the are of infection becomes to the point we're back to near square one. What then? Back into lockdown

 

[jim8flog]

I think what I will do is pretty much what I am doing now. Except that it will be nice to go to the golf course, local gardens and eventually get to see my children and grand children if they are happy to see me visit even if it does pose a risk to myself.


Realistically for me I want two things - a test to see if I have had it and if not a vaccine to stop me getting it.

 

[Lord Tyrion]

Who would you prioritise those for?

Ramping up any production to have enough for even country wide island such as ours will take a lot longer. Worldwide you are talking billions of doses.

You have to hope that this is one of those moments where the vaccine is shared between pharma companies so all can knock them out across the globe. If you get the mass of the worlds production making this then it starts to become more achievable in terms of how much can be produced and applied.

What would help, I agree with Rooter's priority list by the way, is if we combine a vaccine with testing for those who already have had the virus and so have a level of immunity. By not having to vaccinate those people we will be able to vaccinate the others much more quickly. I do appreciate the test is not quite there yet but then neither is the vaccine. Hopefully they will come together.

 

[Deleted member 21258]

Good news
One million doses of the vaccine could be available by September

yet to read if the UK is priority in those initial doses or not, I would imagine not?

One million doesn't go a long way really, but would be great news if the vaccine works or at least helps to fight some of the effects of the virus.

Doctors, nurses, NHS staff, care home workers. Then on to the most needy (old, ill etc)

Completely agree. The people at the coalface first, to keep them well to keep the services going and help stop 'them' spreading it to even more people(who do not currently have it).

 

[bobmac]

Who would you prioritise those for?

Ramping up any production to have enough for even country wide island such as ours will take a lot longer. Worldwide you are talking billions of doses.

^Really? I had no idea.^

Maybe the clever people at Oxford have thought of that and are working with other medical teams all over the world to produce the vaccine.

 

[Swinglowandslow]

You have to hope that this is one of those moments where the vaccine is shared between pharma companies so all can knock them out across the globe. If you get the mass of the worlds production making this then it starts to become more achievable in terms of how much can be produced and applied.

What would help, I agree with Rooter's priority list by the way, is if we combine a vaccine with testing for those who already have had the virus and so have a level of immunity. By not having to vaccinate those people we will be able to vaccinate the others much more quickly. I do appreciate the test is not quite there yet but then neither is the vaccine. Hopefully they will come together.

I agree. However, the antibody test is completed. Producing and distributing it are what's needed now. I forget the pharma company that have developed this test but it is a 99% certainty rate , I understand.

Edit. From Med-tech news
The test is currently being evaluated by Public Health England at Porton Down with first results of this evaluation expected at the end of this week.

Roche diagnostics is currently in dialogue with the NHS and the UK government about a phased roll-out of the test from mid-May, with the company saying it will be able to provide hundreds of thousands tests per week - with results from tests expected to be provided within 18 minutes.

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Not sure what I'd do - but my wife has applied to be one of the 18,000 contact tracers on the basis that she's still NMC registered; has an Advanced Comms nursing qualification; and did family history mapping as a key part of her NHS role.

She's decided that it's likely that her charity employer won't be able to afford to keep her on her current number of hours; but rather than make her redundant (she's zero hours in any case) she'll probably be asked to go onto a bank of Helpline nurses providing sickness and holiday cover for a small core retained team.

 

[Blue in Munich]

Personally I'd try & ramp up testing to see the actual extent of the spread because I'm convinced that the virus is far more widespread already than the experts believe; to the extent that there may be a degree of locking down the stable door after the horse has bolted.

 

[bobmac]

Personally I'd try & ramp up testing to see the actual extent of the spread because I'm convinced that the virus is far more widespread already than the experts believe; to the extent that there may be a degree of locking down the stable door after the horse has bolted.

Is this belief based on on any evidence or just a hunch?

 

[HomerJSimpson]

Personally I'd try & ramp up testing to see the actual extent of the spread because I'm convinced that the virus is far more widespread already than the experts believe; to the extent that there may be a degree of locking down the stable door after the horse has bolted.

I agree and it has been prevalent for a lot longer than March time when we started getting our act together which I think you may have mentioned elsewhere recently. The testing needs to give a detailed picture of who has had it and how it's still spreading

 

[Blue in Munich]

It's based upon personal knowledge of friends' circumstances, a number of whom had symptoms that matched those of Corona Virus back in December, the fact that the first Briton to catch it did so in Wuhan in November last year (link below), the BBC article yesterday that I posted elsewhere about a choir all suffering the symptoms in January (link reposted below) and most pertinently to me, the death of a family member last December who was admitted to hospital with "virus like symptoms" that were unexplained at the time of death but sound more and more like a Covid 19 related death the more that becomes known about the disease (link below). You can decide whether you think that's evidence or a hunch; I'm convinced that this was in the country well before March 23rd, and there is nothing that anybody can say that will change that.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52589449

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8075633/First-British-victim-25-describes-coronavirus.html

https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/sport/natalie-harrowell-dead-family-support-3654402

 

[GB72]

Is this belief based on on any evidence or just a hunch?

A case in France has been shown to go back to 27th December and there is more anecdotal evidence of people suffering Covid-19 symptoms going back to December but who knows. We were not looking for it then and so a number of cases, ignoring those who were asymptomatic were potentially being noted as flu and respiratory infections. I remain of the strong opinion that it has been through our village with people showing all of the symptoms over Xmas and new year including my wife.

 

[GB72]

It's based upon personal knowledge of friends' circumstances, a number of whom had symptoms that matched those of Corona Virus back in December, the fact that the first Briton to catch it did so in Wuhan in November last year (link below), the BBC article yesterday that I posted elsewhere about a choir all suffering the symptoms in January (link reposted below) and most pertinently to me, the death of a family member last December who was admitted to hospital with "virus like symptoms" that were unexplained at the time of death but sound more and more like a Covid 19 related death the more that becomes known about the disease (link below). You can decide whether you think that's evidence or a hunch; I'm convinced that this was in the country well before March 23rd, and there is nothing that anybody can say that will change that.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52589449

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8075633/First-British-victim-25-describes-coronavirus.html

https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/sport/natalie-harrowell-dead-family-support-3654402

I fully agree with you and believe it has been around since December at least.

 

[bobmac]

Apologies, I didn't know about the death in your family.
But surely we are talking about how widespread it is, not how long it's been here.

 

[bobmac]

In any case, whether its been here since last year on not, the only question we need to be asking is how do we stop it before others suffer.
The answer to that question for me is staying away from people as much as you can until the vaccine is ready.