O/T:- Are we over-reacting to COVD19?

[Lullapie]

We go into full lockdown in NZ as from Wednesday 25th March. Level 4 as they call it here. Only Essential Services can go to work. However it is still a long way from what would be a proper lockdown, when only the police and military can be on the streets.

Our Government have announced that there have been 155 cases in all, but 12 of these have fully recovered, making 143 active cases. None are critical, no deaths, 6 of those 143 are in hospital.

The press are reporting that we are tracking the same way as Italy and it could only be a matter of time before we have the same death rate as Italy - similar to what you guys are being told in the UK.

[Lullapie]

If Covid had the same mortality rate as SARS-1 and affected younger people in the same way. it doesn't bear thinking about.

SARS-1 didn't carry the same 'load' when people sneezed, coughed or breathed out and they couldn't infect other people until after they had symptoms. The biggest problem with Covid is how fast it spreads, faster than flu.

I'd be interested to know if there is a correlation between how fast a corona can spread and its' mortality rate. Would it be possible to have a fast spreading corona variant that kills a lot more people? A high load implies that it concentrates less deeply within the lungs, so hopefully not.

Is the mortality rate that much different - only asking the question before the Usual Suspects pipe up? I mean if Covid-19 had a high mortality rate, but very low transmission, would we be closing everything down?

I think the current variant probably has a higher transmission rate than previous corona, but a similar death rate.

Could the problem in Italy and the other European Countries that are heavily affected be that their air is cleaner? Looking at those with a high mortality rate, they seem to be in areas with better/cleaner air than elsewhere. Countries with a High Infection Rate per million of population are:

Italy
Switzerland
Luxembourg
Iceland
San Marino
Andorra
Faroe Islands
Liechtenstein

Perhaps people living there have less 'scarred' lungs than elsewhere and can't fight the virus off as easily. Yes I know some are small countries/principalities, but an interesting fact all the same.

[the_anticlough]

From a totally unbiased source.

It's from the chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh.

[BanjoPie]

Is the mortality rate that much different - only asking the question before the Usual Suspects pipe up? I mean if Covid-19 had a high mortality rate, but very low transmission, would we be closing everything down?

I think the current variant probably has a higher transmission rate than previous corona, but a similar death rate.

Could the problem in Italy and the other European Countries that are heavily affected be that their air is cleaner? Looking at those with a high mortality rate, they seem to be in areas with better/cleaner air than elsewhere. Countries with a High Infection Rate per million of population are:

Italy
Switzerland
Luxembourg
Iceland
San Marino
Andorra
Faroe Islands
Liechtenstein

Perhaps people living there have less 'scarred' lungs than elsewhere and can't fight the virus off as easily. Yes I know some are small countries/principalities, but an interesting fact all the same.

Interesting theory however, China has one of the most polluted atmospheres on the planet but then again, 1.4 billion population but only 88k confirmed cases of CV-19. I’m hoping that the numbers in Italy are now starting to fall fingers x’d.

[BigFatPie]

Is the mortality rate that much different - only asking the question before the Usual Suspects pipe up? I mean if Covid-19 had a high mortality rate, but very low transmission, would we be closing everything down?

I think the current variant probably has a higher transmission rate than previous corona, but a similar death rate.

Could the problem in Italy and the other European Countries that are heavily affected be that their air is cleaner? Looking at those with a high mortality rate, they seem to be in areas with better/cleaner air than elsewhere. Countries with a High Infection Rate per million of population are:

Italy
Switzerland
Luxembourg
Iceland
San Marino
Andorra
Faroe Islands
Liechtenstein

Perhaps people living there have less 'scarred' lungs than elsewhere and can't fight the virus off as easily. Yes I know some are small countries/principalities, but an interesting fact all the same.

You reckon you might have a better chance of fighting off this virus if your lungs are ‘scarred’.
Sounds a great theory, I hope the experts are looking into it.

[Elite_Pie]

It's from the chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh.

It's becoming a common tactic on here. A few just don't want to hear any criticism of the government, so they completely ignore what's actually being said and discredit the source instead.

[upthemaggies]

Is the mortality rate that much different - only asking the question before the Usual Suspects pipe up? I mean if Covid-19 had a high mortality rate, but very low transmission, would we be closing everything down?

MERS is around 35% fatality rate, hard to catch unless you're living or caring for a carrier
SARS was 11%, harder to spread but you can get it out in public
COVID, hard to say right now but we're probably looking at 1% globally. I think half of the world is expected to get it at some point, so 1% of those would be an enormous number of people.

If we had something like MERS in the UK instead of COVID then we wouldn't need to shut down, the advice would be to avoid whichever animal was passing it on.

Another SARS-1 level of mortality and spread probably would result in a shutdown now that we've had COVID, but it would be much easier to bring under control so restrictions might be more localised and wouldn't take as long.

[forwardmagpie]

It's becoming a common tactic on here. A few just don't want to hear any criticism of the government, so they completely ignore what's actually being said and discredit the source instead.

I come from a different angle Elite I am sure a lot of the articles by respected health professionals have merit and may be correct but do they have all the information that the government have?

I am however choosing to follow the advice that the Chief Medical Officer and staff who have all the possible information from home and abroad. They brief the Cobra committee including the Prime Minister and the leaders of the other three devolved governments. They then make the decisions, I’m not sure all of them have been proved to be 100% correct but if any contravened advice given we would quite rightly have heard from Ms Sturgeon and others.

[i961pie]

Dr Hilary on ITV said something similar, the experts working for the government have all the relative data, these other people don't and are only offering opinions. Which can be misleading and dangerous.

[the_anticlough]

It's becoming a common tactic on here. A few just don't want to hear any criticism of the government, so they completely ignore what's actually being said and discredit the source instead.

Yes, easy to spot but I think everyone can see that and they only discredit themselves.

Picking up on what you said about the jury being out on the Govt's handling of the catastrophe ('crisis' just won't cut it as a descriptor any more) I think there's a compelling case already as set out in the article and the disbelief in other countries at the UK's approach. As you say, the final reckoning will be in the raw figures when this is all over. But it sure isn't looking too good right now - a jump of 1,427 in a single day and London alone looks catastrophic. Each and every borough has masses of cases and we know how Londoners live and travel right up until yesterday really, more or less unchecked.