China Coronavirus

[sid waddell]

Can I ask, who considers lockdown to be a "utopia", as is being claimed?

And how would even more widespread virus spread help people with non-Covid medical problems?

Because this seems to be the implication

[Milltown Row2]

Ministers meeting today to decided what to do here... Medical advisers looking/advising for a 4-6 week lockdown, the minsters will probably go for a tier system rather than full lock down, or a full lockdown for 3/4 weeks ..

Either way it will be great from a admissions and dealing with the current influx of Covid patients point of view, but a body blow to some business that have just opened..

The financial package offered may help but we could be doing this till at the very least till June next year, judging by the state of the vaccine trials

[GetOverTheBar]

Can I ask, who considers lockdown to be a "utopia", as is being claimed?

And how would even more widespread virus spread help people with non-Covid medical problems?

Because this seems to be the implication

Nobody is saying that.

The point was made that lockdown benefits people with other illnesses.

That is certainly not the experiences of others that I have bore witness to.

[imtommygunn]

Aren't you saying that Covid is bad for people with other illnesses rather than lockdown is bad for people with other illnesses though?

It's kind of both tbh.

Mr is there a financial package though? The health service in the north is going to be at creaking point very soon with the numbers growing as they are. I thought it would have been full lockdown last week and tbh thought the only reason was due to a lack of financial package.

[sid waddell]

Can I ask, who considers lockdown to be a "utopia", as is being claimed?

And how would even more widespread virus spread help people with non-Covid medical problems?

Because this seems to be the implication

Nobody is saying that.

The point was made that lockdown benefits people with other illnesses.

That is certainly not the experiences of others that I have bore witness to.

How in your utopia of lockdown, do you think that is a better service? Also consider, the knock on effect from all these cancellations and now the backlog.

Ahem

[Milltown Row2]

Aren't you saying that Covid is bad for people with other illnesses rather than lockdown is bad for people with other illnesses though?

It's kind of both tbh.

Mr is there a financial package though? The health service in the north is going to be at creaking point very soon with the numbers growing as they are. I thought it would have been full lockdown last week and tbh thought the only reason was due to a lack of financial package.

Was there mention of 3/4 of your salary?

[GetOverTheBar]

Can I ask, who considers lockdown to be a "utopia", as is being claimed?

And how would even more widespread virus spread help people with non-Covid medical problems?

Because this seems to be the implication

Nobody is saying that.

The point was made that lockdown benefits people with other illnesses.

That is certainly not the experiences of others that I have bore witness to.

How in your utopia of lockdown, do you think that is a better service? Also consider, the knock on effect from all these cancellations and now the backlog.

Ahem

My reference was to your point of -

And how would even more widespread virus spread help people with non-Covid medical problems?

There is nobody of sound mind that can really be saying that lockdown and everything that came with it was beneficial to others with illnesses. I understand their points about how it should have helped, but it most certainly did not help, in reality.

[imtommygunn]

Aren't you saying that Covid is bad for people with other illnesses rather than lockdown is bad for people with other illnesses though?

It's kind of both tbh.

Mr is there a financial package though? The health service in the north is going to be at creaking point very soon with the numbers growing as they are. I thought it would have been full lockdown last week and tbh thought the only reason was due to a lack of financial package.

Was there mention of 3/4 of your salary?

Maybe and I missed it.

[Angelo]

When people chat about about services for other illnesses taking a back seat because of COVID - this is why. It's not any lockdown cancelling operations or hoarding resources - it's the fact that all focus has to turn to keeping COVID patients alive when they land in big numbers.

Yet those who mention people with other illnesses are generally using them as a justification for keeping things open and so having more Covid, the exact opposite of the truth. The lockdown benefits people with other illnesses , whatever about its other effects.

It is disgraceful how people are misusing ill people to make their case.

Honestly, that is just not true. In any way.

Yes it is and obviously so, an overcrowded health service cannot  properly treat everyone.

meanwhile, the New York Times does not agree with Angelo, science is coming to the rescue.

The worst-case scenario — in which some 2.2 million Americans die from the virus — has not come to pass. Around the world, hundreds of millions of people have made huge sacrifices in shutting down parts of the economy, maintaining social distance and wearing masks.

Those sacrifices have made the possibility of a "twindemic" of coronavirus and influenza infections seem far less likely now, too. The flu season is typically seeded each year in the Northern Hemisphere by travelers from the Southern Hemisphere. But this year the flu season there was almost nonexistent because of anti-coronavirus measures.

Donald also noted that the percentage of infected people who are dying from the virus has been falling because of all of the lessons we've learned during the last few months. Nursing homes have gotten better at protecting their residents, steroids like dexamethasone have lowered the number of deaths, and tactics like rolling patients onto their stomachs and delaying ventilator use have also been shown to help. Pharmaceutical interventions like monoclonal antibodies, still in the early stages of availability, are likely to become even more effective.

Vaccine development has been moving much faster than anticipated in part because the Trump administration's Operation Warp Speed appears to be working. It has put more than $11 billion into seven vaccine candidates, and Moncef Slaoui, the chief scientific adviser on the program, said he expected two to be approved by January, with an efficacy of 75 to 90 percent. Mr. Slaoui also said that factories would produce enough doses for all 330 million Americans to be vaccinated by next June. That all suggests the pandemic in the United States may be over far sooner than expected, possibly by the middle of next year.

Still, we're not there yet — and the pandemic has repeatedly taken a turn for the worse just when things were looking better. Cases are still on the rise in most of the United States and across the world, and experts warn that autumn and winter may be grim as indoor dining, in-school instruction, jet travel and family holidays end up increasing infections, hospitalizations and deaths.

"Pandemics don't end abruptly; they decelerate gradually, like supertankers," Donald wrote. "Even by spring, we will not be entirely safe, but we probably will be safer."
But some chaos still lies ahead

Many leaders — most notably President Trump — have described the arrival of a coronavirus vaccine as an off switch that will instantly normalize our lives. But experts are warning of a perplexing and frustrating period that could follow.

Our colleague Carl Zimmer wrote that when the first vaccine arrives, it may not be the most effective vaccine, offering only moderate protection that will make it prudent to keep wearing a mask.

And the first vaccine to reach the finish line may end up hampering the trials of its competitors.

Volunteers in experimental trials may drop out, slowing down research and regulatory approval. And vaccines that are not as far along might have to prove that they are better than the first shot, resulting in trials that are bigger and take more time. That could lead to steep costs that may halt development.

One possibility: By next spring or summer, there could be a number of vaccines on the market without a clear sense of how to choose among them.

Some of this confusion is inevitable, but it's also a result of how the process was designed. Rather than testing a number of vaccines against each other, as the World Health Organization is doing, the United States took a "harmonized approach" that allowed vaccine companies to run their own trials as long as they followed certain guidelines.

Finally, drug companies and regulators will have to monitor patients, even after clinical trials are over, to look for rare but dangerous side effects. Random events — like a group of older people all having strokes shortly after being vaccinated — could raise the possibility that the vaccine was the culprit. The uncertainty may lead some people to avoid vaccines entirely, which would weaken our collective ability to fight Covid-19.

It's all guesswork.

Science are still guessing about the basics of the virus, do people really expect them to create a vaccine when they are so conflicted on the fundamentals?

What we have now in the north is the virus running rampant. The death totals in the next 5/6 weeks is going to be telling, by right with the surge in cases we should be seeing huge rises in deaths. If that rise doesn't happen does it then alter our outlook when it comes to living with the virus? Maybe it does, maybe it relaxes restrictions but because science can't give definitive answers on matters such as immunity, transmission, how potent it is then we are all in the dark and that's why I feel it's more likely the virus will have burned itself before science has got a handle on it.

[Rossfan]

 

[Angelo]

Have you more scaremongering to share with us as you are such an expert?

[sid waddell]

Can I ask, who considers lockdown to be a "utopia", as is being claimed?

And how would even more widespread virus spread help people with non-Covid medical problems?

Because this seems to be the implication

Nobody is saying that.

The point was made that lockdown benefits people with other illnesses.

That is certainly not the experiences of others that I have bore witness to.

How in your utopia of lockdown, do you think that is a better service? Also consider, the knock on effect from all these cancellations and now the backlog.

Ahem

My reference was to your point of -

And how would even more widespread virus spread help people with non-Covid medical problems?

There is nobody of sound mind that can really be saying that lockdown and everything that came with it was beneficial to others with illnesses. I understand their points about how it should have helped, but it most certainly did not help, in reality.

Some posters here have already explained it

It's a very simple point

A situation where Covid is not spreading wildly is clearly a better situation for people with non-Covid medical problems than a situation where Covid is spreading wildly

This is undeniable

[Hound]

The Irish soccer team is very much of minor importance in the whole scheme of things. But it does make you wonder why we still don't seem to have a test that reliably tells you if someone has Covid or not!

[sid waddell]

I find that a good rule of thumb in any discussion about Covid is to ignore anybody who uses the word "scaremongering"

One word, but it says a whole lot about a person's mind

[GetOverTheBar]

Can I ask, who considers lockdown to be a "utopia", as is being claimed?

And how would even more widespread virus spread help people with non-Covid medical problems?

Because this seems to be the implication

Nobody is saying that.

The point was made that lockdown benefits people with other illnesses.

That is certainly not the experiences of others that I have bore witness to.

How in your utopia of lockdown, do you think that is a better service? Also consider, the knock on effect from all these cancellations and now the backlog.

Ahem

My reference was to your point of -

And how would even more widespread virus spread help people with non-Covid medical problems?

There is nobody of sound mind that can really be saying that lockdown and everything that came with it was beneficial to others with illnesses. I understand their points about how it should have helped, but it most certainly did not help, in reality.

Some posters here have already explained it

It's a very simple point

A situation where Covid is not spreading wildly is clearly a better situation for people with non-Covid medical problems than a situation where Covid is spreading wildly

This is undeniable

That would be lovely, except, you know. It has been spreading wildly. for best part of a year now and the more testing we do....the more that becomes obvious despite whatever efforts they do to halt it (that doesn't of course, involve the only sure fire way to actually get a hold of it, in mass testing).

Still doesn't help any poor soul sitting waiting for whatever now due to Covid being the only show in town, a gross injustice of this all.

Not even the most contrarian of our posters here will accept that is right, especially since the survival rate of Covid, is, what it is.