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May have said earlier. Dr was an lbc the other day saying anyone with symptoms of a cold should now self isolate. But official advice is still self isolate if you have cough and or fever. So could there be a few folk with cold symptoms who actually have CV19 if that Dr is correct.
'Only happy when you've got it often makes you miss the journey'
Would hope this is old breaking news in that it was a few days after feeling ill before the diagnosis was confirmed. Other wise it was a minimum of twelve days from contact with an infected person at the racecourse to getting it. I think most people are assuming a much shorter time from contact to falling ill.
I was at Cheltenham and self isolating as a precaution afterwards. I sorted started think well I must be ok after 8 days. That thought at that time looks premature now.
The races were right on the cusp of the governments change of policy. Traveling down their on the Monday I was half expecting the government to pull the plug.. but at that stage businesses were still running normally and they were reluctant to pull the plug on the economy. Difficult decisions at the time can easily be shown as wrong with hindsight.
381 deaths announced today. Testing 25,000/day here may not happen until end of April. Germany currently testing 250k/week.
Why can the Jormans test more in a week now than we might be able to test at the end of next month over a longer 10 day period? We are throwing money at this but does anyone know why we seem to be so far behind in this area?
From what i can gather, it's a shortage in the chemical reagents labs need to ensure accuracy of results
There's also the issue, highlighted (for the first time, i might add) by the deputy CMO at today's briefing of who is being tested. For instance, in South Korea, their outbreak occurred in two quite concentrated areas which made testing and contact tracing within those areas somewhat easier. In Germany, a significant proportion of those tested have been in younger age groups, whilst in the UK our resources have been targeted at those presenting with symptoms
It goes without saying that the ideal would be for everyone to he tested regularly throughout, but failing that, extrapolated figures based on epidemiological principles, which includes targeting those most vulnerable
Contrasting attitudes of football clubs in the light of the current epidemic... Barcelona- players take a 70% pay cut to keep paying non playing staff Newcastle- non playing staff “furloughed”, that charming American esque phrase that means fook off, we might ring you if we need you but don’t count on it... Spurs- 550 non playing staff to take 20% pay cut to keep Kane, Ali et al in designer clobber. Barcelona- owned by 100000 members who elect a president to run the club Newcastle- owned by a cockney spiv who thinks jogging pants are essential items in a pandemic Spurs- owned by a guy worth £4 billion who lives in the Bahamas cos he likes the weather (honest guv, those tax breaks are pure coincidence)...
Excellent post Pwn, i agree very much with the thought process behind it
I sincerely hope that when it's safe for football to return, people's attitudes towards those "earning" £XXX,XXX's per week will be changed; and their agents, and all the other hangers-on
My suspicion is that EFL thinking behind the apparent decision-making on whether the current season should finish or not is being based on maintaining the top-end financial cash flows, and to hell with clubs, their non-footballing employees and their fans at the lower end of the pyramid. It's the financial tap that keeps the EFL & Premier League executives in their position of power. There's plenty of water to travel under this particular bridge yet
So why have the South Koreans and Germans been able to get hold of those chemicals at a scale to do vastly more testing than us? This is something that needs addressing and not a question for another time
'Only happy when you've got it often makes you miss the journey'
At a guess, they started off with greater stockpiles and have greater access to international supply chains, and/or they may produce them themselves? Did Germany offer to help Italy and Spain when their outbreaks took hold? I suspect that will be exercising the thoughts of the governments and populations of those two countries when this is done more than why Germany was able to test so many so early
And my point was that whilst no one would dispute that early and greater testing is desirable, there are other factors in play which might make the numbers less advantageous. The bottom line is always going to be relative mortality rates, and the German rate is starting to rise, so we shall see
The German reagents market is big (I have a couple of customers in it), but so too are others. I'm not trying to make political points out of this nor am I pointing fingers, but we seem to have done some things well/other countries not so well and vice versa. It will all come out in the wash one day, but I have the impression that the "world" has not tackled this issue and the WHO seem to be toothless. It's to be hoped that if or when something like this happens again, there is a much better, quicker and more effective response, less lives lost and less disruption to everything.
Absolutely Dalei, and i don't think anyone was thinking you were trying to make political points; rather to just highlight the concerns and questions we're all grappling with
As you so rightly point out - from a position of knowledge of the German reagents market rather than my guesswork - different countries have started from different places. The UK also has many advantages over other nations, not least our scientific base, but that's not something that easily translates at the forefront of a very human crisis. Communication has been lacking, especially, and maybe the population's capacity for understanding some of the finer but vital points has been underestimated. I also suspect the machinery of government (i.e., the civil departments responsible for distribution networks) has been exposed as wholly inadequate
Nicely put DL. I spent some time in the alumina industry in Germany and you can whack a golf ball in any direction and hit an office or plant of a global chemical company, BASF, AGFA, Bayer etc. - they are a global chemicals powerhouse. Not at all surprising that they would have better access to reagents. If a pandemic comes along that requires access to a bookie, iPhone repair shop or vape emporium, it will be our turn to lead!
I go on Youtube most days. There`s an Indian woman on a program called Gravitas that says it as it is,day by day. She says China just reopened the Wuhan market selling all sorts of disgusting things,but still trying to keep it out of sight. Her voice gets a bit monotonous,but she`s on to it and I`d believe what she comes up with more than our pathetic politicians who all seem loath to criticise these Chinese poker faced pricks.
I still think we should have introduced lockdown much earlier DA - numbers would have been much lower then, but that stable door is banging in the breeze on it's hinges now. The point I made about sharing info and acting quicker is even more acute in the US. Everyone could see NY coming weeks away, but staggeringly, only 42 States currently have stay at home policies and in some places, folk are wandering around if nothing is happening. Car sales have increased because people are not at work, so have more time to go shopping.
And just like many of our frontline workers, American's are going unprotected too. This is heartbreaking.
I was reading last night about someone taking the virus into a care home in New Orleans and now 50 residents have died. Testing could have prevented this and could allow a lot more medical staff got back to work.
This article suggest it isn't "reagents or equipment" that is delaying things either?
I know we'll never get even close to success in prevention of spread of deadly viruses like this and the scale of Covid-19 is off the charts, but it would be some consolation at least that there were some really serious lessons learned from all this in future.
If you like conspiracy theories NigeriaMark, go on twitter and search for World Health Organisation. It's like an open honey pot for attracting them.
Small world JD. I work in that industry partially too! I also worked at Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik many moons ago. The plant at Ludwigshafen is a monster. >2.7km long, 10 km2 with 2 railway stations and employing >50k people back in the day. Vast doesn't do it justice.
You missed pound shops, tattoo and nail parlours off your list
An article in the Daily Mail, which is normally very supportive of the government, is reporting that there is no such shortages of reagents but rather it is government itself that is holding testing up. I sincerely hope nobody is telling porky pies here. Whether from industry or government.
Dalei, there's a million stories out there around the virus outbreak, some of them inspiring but the majority sad or downright disgusting. We'll soon reach the point where there are too many to evaluate, and stark figures like the daily death toll - which it was known would increase to it's current levels, and beyond, before plateauing and tailing off with the right initiatives - are available for all to see. Each one is a tragedy for the individual and their loved ones, but we see it on the news and while the initial reaction is to express outrage and want to apportion blame, a very human reaction i might add, there are just far too many complicating factors to easily do so, or with any degree of certainty
The government followed the scientific advice, and when further information/advice came along which altered it's perception (from Prof Neil Ferguson of ICL) it changed direction. Are you annoyed with the experts, or the government? I ask that question, because there seems to be an implicit accusation that the government is/was somehow being lax in it's attitude and approach. And as you know, i ask that question as a friend, not in any spirit of seeking to take issue for the sake it
As for the logistics and distribution of testing and ppe, first of all i have to say i'm primarily interested in what's happening in the UK. Whilst there does seem to be an unconscionable time lag between the rhetoric and the frontline, the facts will out but until they do, we have only opinions. The media stories being quoted in this thread today are just that. I'd have to ask the question, not of you but in general: if the UK had the capacity and equipment to hand, and the government wanted to increase the supply of both to the frontline, why would it cause a potentially huge problem by not making every possible effort to do so? My take (for what it's worth), is that it found the logistical supply chains, for instance in the NHS, woefully inadequate for the crisis situation. Supply chains are normally geared towards maximum efficiency in the usual run of things, of course, which leaves them with a potential shortfall in a time of crisis. It has since taken steps to rectify that, including introducing the army into the process and setting up a healthcare staff hotline to identify the biggest shortfalls. I won't comment on why NHS management wasn't able to do that itself, except i have direct experience of the incompetencies in that area (especially at local level) so it would come as no surprise to me
Thanks for your comments DA and as I know you have knowledge of some of the issues from your career they are invaluable in trying to understand what's going on.
As a scientist, I fully accept the notion of following scientific advice as it takes emotion out of the situation. What I find particularly discouraging is that the "scientific advice" in the early days seemed to fly in the face of what Italians the length and breadth of the country (many including my colleagues) were advising - shut everything down; stop the spread. It works (seemingly the only thing that does) and I still remain to be convinced that had this been done earlier, more lives could have been saved. I will listen to all the evidence when it all finally comes out, but this remains my gut feeling. I hope to be proven wrong eventually.
I am not bashing politicians for the sake of it. Targeting and keeping the most vulnerable indoors is something we seem to have done better than most. Getting nightingale 1, 2 and 3 in place + other anciliary sites ahead of the curve is absolutely superb and should save many, many lives. We seem to be leaders in this respect (although I am in touch with several Jormans and they already have an all singing-all dancing health service which has an unbelievable number of ICU beds to start with anyway).
My main interest from all this, as a humanitarian, is to hope that best practices are available everywhere, to everyone, when this happens again. Because it will, one day.
With regards to your third paragraph, you seem to be arguing that it just wouldn’t be the intention of the government to limit testing? That’s a, if I may, incredibly naive viewpoint and if taken to its logical conclusion essentially leads to the argument that governments shouldn’t be scrutinised as they would surely always act in the best interest. Maybe, but it’s how they go about doing that. The situation is that our testing is lagging behind certain countries and, perhaps more importantly, the government’s own targets. The government yesterday said this failure was down to a lack of supplies of certain chemicals. Since then, this claim has been denied by the very producers/suppliers of those chemicals and the counterclaim that the issue is getting them out to the test centres. The government could be right or the representatives of those industries could be right. However, it would, at this point, surely be foolish to keep anything but an open mind in respect of this question pending more evidence. To make up your mind at the outset, rigidly adhere to it and speculate as to the reasons why you have formed that opinion is not the approach anybody should be taking to this. Whilst I can understand that you want to give the government the benefit of doubt, I would advise that you keep an open mind about certain claims.
Blimey indeed - I spent about 2 years at a specialty alumina manufacturer based in Frankfurt, but we had a plant in Ludwigshafen. Much smaller than the one you mention as they were more in the specialty stuff. Sales meetings were interesting - carrying bags and jars of white powder through customs is always fun.
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