MedEwok wrote:
I begin to wonder whether a better strategy to combat Covid-19 would have been to simply shut down all public live, all economic activity, all travel for four weeks, over a huge area (in Europe: all of EU + EFTA + UK, for example). Thereafter, no external travel (exceptions only in high-security quarantine).Yes, it would have completely eliminated at least a month worth of GDP, and provision of food, water, electricity and medical care would still have opened avenues for infection, but at least the continent would afterwards have been “clean” enough of the disease to forfeit other limitations on public life and economic activities, which we are now upholding for more than half a year.
That is exactly what I have been saying since the very beginning. Of course this would have been the better strategy. 4-5 weeks of shutdown, quantifyable damage to the economy, but then to have it over with. Now, we will have this think for years to come.
MedEwok wrote:
In the winter, people will inevitably meet indoors much more than now, and resistance to or non-compliance with possible lockdown measures will be much stronger than in spring. Thus more people will get infected and more of them will die.
Compliance even now is absymal. More and more people get the idiotic idea that this is all a government scam to chip us and heaven knows what not. Every time I go outside, I see people behaving totally irresponsibly, like yesterday when I saw a bunch of folks doing line dancing in a park, without any precautions whatsoever and shouting their lungs out. Well, one spreader in that group would have been enough to infect them all, and via them all their families.
Humans once again have proven that they are unsuitable to follow “recommendations” or even less so pleas for reason. The only thing which does kind of work are absolute strict rules which are enforced ruthlessly. Unfortunately none of our governments have the balls to do this. Therefore, I agree, this winter we will loose a lot of people to this disease and create a lot of handicaped and permanently damaged people in the process. Obviously, the same idiots who now go out and party their lifes away will then be the one shouting for the government for help.
Unfortunately, out of my own experience I have to say it is very hard to stay clean in these days, when everyone around you ignores the disease and will simply behave as before. Apart, with kids back in school the biggest mass spreading is now institutionalized. I wonder whether anyone will ever have to answer for the unspeakable political crimes being comitted here.
Rwy20 wrote:
What do you think of this @MedEwok? Looks very promising to me. If we have good treatment options, this could finally lose its scariness even before vaccines may or may not be available.
The obvious question is about the other long term negative effects and how common they are, and whether they justify a lockdown.
Paper: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3665228
Summary blog post: https://medium.com/@alexschroeti/a-promising-anti-covid-drug-you-have-probably-never-heard-of-d6cae8072da6
@Rwy20
From a strictly scientific point of view, the data is of relatively low quality. One cannot draw very definite conclusions from it. But yes, it is somewhat promising and merits more widespread use, in a larger trial of the substance, which I would not have imagined would help with Covid-19 (it is one of many signal proteins that occur naturally in the body)
News conference with President @realDonaldTrump at 6 pm tomorrow concerning a major therapeutic breakthrough on the China Virus. Secretary Azar and Dr. Hahn will be in attendance.
— Kayleigh McEnany (@PressSec) August 23, 2020
Most reactions seem to be negative, but I am hopeful when the FDA Chief and US Secretary of Health are there to announce a “major therapeutic breakthrough”… let’s wait and see. It is mind-boggling how even after the word “therapeutic” being explicitly stated, the discussion is about vaccines or tests. The media seem really biased I have to say.
Der Spiegel just reported the first case of someone getting SARS-CoV2 again, after an initial infection in March. Apparently two different mutations of the virus. article in German
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IMHO, 1 person, this is not significant. Could be a dodgy original test, etc. And humans vary (anatomically).
On a different angle, I am getting a very strong impression that this has destroyed the livelihoods of a lot of private pilots. A lot of people have simply dropped out. Not selling up (yet) – just dropped out.
Peter wrote:
IMHO, 1 person, this is not significant. Could be a dodgy original test, etc. And humans vary (anatomically).
I agree that it isn’t significant in a way that should inform policies, but it might have huge impact if more confirmed cases like this pop up. It would render vaccines only temporarily useful, like the Influenza vaccine, where you have to receive a new shot each year, a combination of different strains of the virus.
It could be one sign of SARS-CoV2 becoming a seasonal disease like the flu. We might never get rid of it.
Peter wrote:
On a different angle, I am getting a very strong impression that this has destroyed the livelihoods of a lot of private pilots. A lot of people have simply dropped out. Not selling up (yet) – just dropped out.
I cannot confirm on a personal basis, as most of the pilots I personally know are fellow doctors whose livelihood has been unaffected, but I certainly expect you to be right. Entire sectors of economic activity have been more or less shut down for months. It would be surprising if private pilots were unaffected. Indeed, I imagine them being more affected than “normal” employees, because those were rather well protected under Kurzarbeit or furlough schemes. Judging by EuroGA, many PPLs are not employees.
but it might have huge impact if more confirmed cases like this pop up. It would render vaccines only temporarily useful, like the Influenza vaccine, where you have to receive a new shot each year, a combination of different strains of the virus.
Presumably it depends on how many people don’t get immunity. Currently the stats on anti-vaxxers suggest they might account for ~20% of the population, anyway. 30% for the younger, 10% for the older. So “perfection” will never be achieved.
The only reason we don’t have polio etc is because it was eliminated totally at one point. It would not be eliminated today – due to the anti-vaxxers.
because those were rather well protected under Kurzarbeit or furlough schemes
Yes; here, if you have your own Ltd company, you get nothing. You may get a one-off grant; for example small companies which pay rates get £10k, with bigger ones getting 25k. The dentist I go to is a Director of a Ltd Co so he didn’t get a penny himself, but his business disappeared totally for some months.
Apparently two more patients have been confirmed to be re-infected, one in Belgium and one in the Netherlands, the Guardian reports in its “Coronavirus live” ticker coverage.
