Pandemic
Early impressions March/April
It seems this virus is a new strain of awareness more than an actual new disease, something newly discovered but already present. Is this a base indicator that has been missed before. There is a lot made of underlying health conditions in most cases. This suggests it should not have been missed earlier but it is attacking the ill. Perhaps it has only slightly altered and now is a threat from previously being phenomena. As for the infection statistics, they started with fear and talk of a pandemic but the word flu to describe the rate of spread. We are used to the flu, every single year in fact. Most of us do not catch it but may pass it on as it easily passes between people. Anyone healthy can catch the flu to approximately the same debilitating effect, several days incapacitated with mild medication to recover. Coronovirus had in its sights mostly unwell people. Initial findings were that statistically you find someone with a 5% chance of dying because their body shows the signs of strong fight against illness and the same 5% died but also with cornovirus as the takeover illness of often accelerated last days. Thus you find a sick person likely to die and the percentage does not change. Then you slowly cannot find such high numbers anymore because it is not spreading but you are examining the whole group of sick people now? Then it really arrived here and we stopped looking at how it seemed to have been controlled with a quarantine in China and was currently being treated similarly in Italy. Our sick people now were part of the general population because we had to stop them dying. After all a sick person can get well again and this was not a flu. The shared characteristic was that it is a sneeze or cough shared virus. The rest was still worryingly not resolved in any way. Seasonal or how contagious did not matter as it was here and now dangerous without trusted medicine. The actual figures have prompted blame in some areas but were being dicussed in plain sight for long enough to not effectively be ablt to blame anyone of hiding anything they actually knew.
Could the numbers being made up, how is it spreading. Mistakes could be made by comparing 2 sources inaccurately. The tests were and are too few except for those who wish to take them although they are tens of thousands. The 100,000 target for tests was hit on April 26th for the first time, 200,000 is planned for the end of May. Is it true even? Early figures state it requiring 2 weeks to get a result. Several days later figures showed it could be several days as laboratories speeded up. Antigen tests on examination produce immediate results so what tests are we talking about. Anitgen is the test which searches for the actual coronovirus or virus in a test sample. (note 1) Impressive though they are these tests if accurate and accountable were not proof of needing medical treatment but showed you were infected. It suited key workers or those showing symptoms that warranted hospital treatment but in a way due to isolation we have assumed infection on contact so it is best not to go for a hospital vist unless you are confirmed to have the virus.
so what is the actual threat of this illness?
Perhaps even it is a genetic trait that results from a healthy response as much as an unhealthy one, so care should be taken removing it.( We have our first guinea pigs for the vaccine. note 2 ) Certainly the spread seems hard to comprehend, it seems to have been present already and for a long time. How can Kashmir have it's first case today.(19-05-03 note 3)It is a crossroads to the world. Are a normal number of deaths being found to have been considered something else until now. Surely there would have been several hundred unexplained deaths by now. So is this new then? Covid may not be the disease but a marker, as I say even an immune marker latent, not necessarily good by a long way but sadly lacking in the final analysis being the new kid on the block. hence the concern supressed that this is related to malaria or comtemporary diseases elsewhere The argument could be that it is like a worse strain, thus the infectiousness is very important to understand. Greater concentrations of the virus could be important. It had already got everyone in the area it is found before the first related death based not on exposure but other health factors and older age also was becoming an arguement while we looked at Italies response. Was it in Italy for a while and not a sudden contagiousness. The first death would be among other people with symptoms for a highly infectious virus. For a mutation of an existing one or something else to have spread it was being considered. It was as important as reacting. The concern was what was the vehicle of the spread is the actual problem. It was needed to be known in order for effective control.
The spread of the virus called covid 19 seems out of the question by any of the means described in the media so far except super contagious. Each country with massive escalation controls it when they don't wish to be in the spotlight anymore upon viewing from abroad but at home the reaction is whatever it takes when the emrgency services will be overwhelmed and people start to die untreated. Only a food bug or contamination could be so certain in it’s effect unless this was very infectious. Yet the global find could hardly fit such a meaning. It refused to say it was airbourne but the volume of infections widely differed and jumped and leaped across the world with different start dates. This didn't fit equal high infectiousness in all human environments. This is bacterial rather than viral by my assumption of spread being intermittent. Again could it be an immune response signal. Either this or where it is controlled now ….How does it stop spreading. Food pathogen (note 3) or contamination cannot be ruled out as background and contributory factors
1-05-2020. A bit later and well into national isolation.
It still seems a contamination to me now from my personal avoidance yet feeling the suddeness of the virus but I am trying hard to learn about Ro=1-5 or so infection rates and how it is purely a virus. A dowsing is it, it seems to miss certain areas, were some people just less infectious so the virus was spread in a less virulent form? The transmission by carriers does not seem to explain the where it surges. Despite lockdown why did it take so long to show the illness. The incubation period seems longer than explained at 2-3 days and then also the onset seems slower and coordinated by general mild early symptoms is it? Instead to me it seems in the very dust, developing by an environment more than human touch. Hence how there is an animal link in early and continual theories. This fits more easily if it is environmental. But common sense does not prevail here, experience shows rarely do cross species diseases exist. This would hint at environment general genetic attack on breathing organisms. The insidious, gradual but total capture of the environment.
So where is the virus going to take us
Remaining that it is a coughing spread virus, ( Ro=1.4 to 5.4 note 4 ) despite widely different spreading patterns across the globe might it be winter flu like the highly quoted and challenged Dr Didier Raoult claims. He is a very experienced doctor and lab worker too, publisher of many papers and seems very sure this is the seasonal flu which would run it’s course. So a controversial but establishment expert claims these 2 main points (additionally he is treating it with conventional existing medicine note 5):-
- 1- It is seasonla like flu (It will end by summer)
- 2- There will not be a second wave as it is winter flu which infects most people then stops at its own limit of infection and does not become a second wave.
I have been considering from my knowledge and intuition, keeping up with reports (not that they are consolidated and verified in a proper library) if there will be a second wave. It does seem to me this is not seasonal. It arrived late for the winter and is global. Of course seasonal does't actually mean that in this instance but implies it will run it's course once, habitually this is quite fast, thus a season. Also it tends here in Britain to be in winter, ditto in France where they call flu grippe and the season is winter. It seems to me the assumption is safely challenged by governments that there will be a second wave. We are flattening the curve since this outbreak has patients dying in numbers that will swamp hospitals but we do not expect a second wave of a comparable virus. This virus will die out either after having crossed the population or by control. The policy of control however only exists to isolate the potential victims from each other without medicine( challenged by this Marseilles doctor. ) This really does raise the spectre of needing to eliminate the virus or isolation may only delay catching the disease for many
Testing can enable society to function at the best level possible. A carrier will have to stop carrying the disease, (in a form that is contagious note 5) or have beaten it. Whether someone once had the virus is important and an antibody test (note 2) is being promoted as more useful for going back to work than a test during shutdown for those who are not key working but is not available as requires more information about the virus but is being developped. However, those who isolated and we hope did not catch the virus will not show this. It seems those of us not at work may have tourble getting back without contracting the virus until it is gone.
- 1- Either we stay at home until it is gone plus a vaccine is made since catching it is possibly still a significant risk.
- 2- We introduce a second peak (not a second wave which is a new disease) the keystone of the strategy of flattening the curve and at risk groups remain at home. They have to wait for the vaccine.
- 3- We introduce a second peak and at risk groups now can suffer the disease in hospitals which can now cope with their arrival.
What is this virus
This bug arrived and spread before being picked up on, hence I would say contamination seems possible. We could even have upset a food chain relationship in a bizarre way and ignored the early signs. Some people discuss the use of antibiotics as potentially overused today and they are prevalent in farming too. Also We could have an unnoticed host, catalyst or carrier and several activation or a biological spread methods outside of human or animal contact. This is a political field, highly controversial to blame anything bigger than an invisible virus.
It attacks human organs because of biology. By isolation we remove ourselves from a consolidation of the volume of virus particles but they are widespread still it seems nigh feels so to me like many other people who pass at 2m, wear PPE and isolate willingly. When we go out we do not know if there is a virus that is decreasing but since there is so little human activity it should have been but that depends on the number of infectious cases and the rate of spread to new cases. The 2m rule seems a practicle tool but ineffective beyond promoting social distancing, not enough in itself but we have shut down society so need to have some leeway. Do we feel okay at home ,I do and feel many do and they flock out at the opportunity as representing well people. The spread maybe was and remains outside of human interaction. Laced, possibly introduced this way too. Of course this does not mean sabotage but certainly means we could be cleaning surfaces, washing them to get overall ontrol of our environment If it was food chain or the environment and treating it as a person to person pathogen how potent is it like that and how serious an error are we making. So the half life (the speed it dies) on a door, packaging is significant. Is it as significant as breathing? I wager it does not need a human organism to thrive due to lockdown not reducing the cases very fast but so far the strategy is to not get herd immunity and to not suffer a second spike (peak) by coming out of isolation early.
the isolation strategy will prevent the virus spreading
- before everyone has joined the herd
- to the "at risk category" until they emerge from isolation if this is not seasonal or has not got a vaccine
- without cleaning or addressing environmental health concerns. It is happening I know but seems to not need recruits who are there and need work opportunities like me and feel we should be used and are capable of helping.
Is cleaning dangerous?
Practiced excessively the use of herbicides and pesticides, where do they go, reservoirs, the sea. We have not seen a second peak in the far East. There have been reports of a return of the virus but in each case the stringent controls that have been lifted have not been put back in place. It is true that travel and work is variously widely disrupted still but in a massively different manner according to where you live by reports. I saw a lot of cleaning going on in these countries so we will approach an end to lockdown without having copied this and cannot rely on no second spike by their example.
We are flattening the curve, rejecting the medicine advice of Dr Didier Raoult who wanted to use Chloroquine but taking on the theory that the disease will not take off again when we return to work due to diligent processes which are only gradually coming into action and necessite a long semi-quarantine of the majority of economic persons. Instead of acting socially we are very slowly separating workers into squads with full responsibility as if the rest of the popluation do not exist. Operations are being carried out trade by trade and require much less new micro-organisation (organisation at the local level) than at government level. Carers have not really been considered the carriers despite the obvious fact that they must be. Other workers could on this example have non contact roles in environmental services. Today for the first time (04-04-2020) I saw a carer in full PPE for protecting others and herself. I suppose if we are going into a last phase of lockdown then it is important to not pass the virus on for those who access the neighbourhood but they have been 50/50 from all photos all thge time and also in hospitals like this. Hence in part the argument about a shortage of PPE. But the worst of this spread was done before lockdown could stop anything except untouched communities being reached so many workers could continue based upon geographical restrictions.
The theory that the virus spreads from droplets or airbourne at further distance is enough to make you obey isolation rules but what is keeping it spreading? If one person could bring it we will cross the herd stage, it was that contagious. That one person is still out there if 624 cases still occured just 2 days ago (06-05-2020). For there to be new cases there is a significant delay for some people not related to isolation so therefore the new cases are related to the environment as they have all been shopping at least 4 times now and should not be meeting new cases. The isolation strategy is keeping alive the bug which sounds good for flattening the curve but does mean we have not utilised many people in work related to testing. Those who are not vulnerable can remain out of contact with vulnerable people and get the town clean and scrubbed.
Is is highly likely we will have to have achieved herd infection for most active working people before a vaccine. It does not seem necessary to wait for an antibody test as most of the NHS and carers have worked without one. It seems wise however assuming it will arrive soon. It will not tell us about reinfection but currently that is outside the parameters globally too so not worth jumping the gun, more appropriately in fact to call it "staying out of range". It is puzzling that we have health worker deaths here but not as high profile as in China.
Mingling the infectious dose elevates it so this effectively is a hygeine issue and we can and should address how with decontamination or cleaning we should proceed. Many workers are in the front line and many more could do this decontamination task too. Whatever binds to the virus in the environment can be cleaned. We say we do not know how to kill the virus but we crtainly know that a surface can be cleaned, in certain case it can be sterilised. So cleaning fluids can be used and most binding agents tht might extend the life of the virus can be made less effective.
5th May
Immune or not carriers the carers and NHS workers do not know. The antibody test is not yet available for use. I checked the application yesterday on the government website. The quota for the day was used up by specifically the antibody test is not ready yet, only the swab for current infection.(note 7) The mask I saw yesterday was a sign that health care professionals are in deeper than they were with worry. The isolated vulnerable people being visted now are still not known in many cases to have or not have had the disease yet. As with workers this knowledge will help a lot. That would be key to a vaccine as well of course. If there is no reinfection, with knowledge or not of past infection we can monitor the destruction of the disease in our communities.
Progress
We intervened as soon as possible to stop the virus, some countries having succeeded completely it seems. We now flatten the curve as we are too late to contain the virus and we need to balance this with the prospect of herd immunity. Ideally we do not reach herd immunity but destroy the disease first. Once this process has started there is no going back or all the gains of isolation can be lost by a second or series of further peaks. It seems on examination herd immunity and flattening the curve are opposites that were spoken simultaneously as part of the same strategy. If the incubation, infectious and illness period are passed in isolation we hope to have protected those who are not sick and neither reach herd immunity or flatten the curve.
Slowing the spread, flattening the curve, these are terms that spelled action by the public to assist the health service but really isolation has only one way to succeed and that is to serve the vulnerable. With ingenuity and openness we could have addressed this from the start as a need to protect the vulnerable. Was it necessary in hindsight to thank the NHS by protecting the NHS. We have endangered the workers by putting them in contact with the disease which is 50 times more likely to kill and older person (note 9) but is still dangerous to them. We would be thanking them anyway but seem to have needed our hands held to do this and stumbled into a lockdown that was enforced not to care but to praise.
It was utilised thus for this once initiated as the spread could not be contained by medicine, or the disease treated barring a controversial premise in the name of a drug called Chloroquine. Not only Professor Dider Raoult however as I think the use was prevalent in China (note 8). It has been taken on board by African countries too in part due to the cost being much lower so silly to ingnore if it does work for even some cases. If this is not working we would expect to hear about this but have not heard except that it is almost illegal here. Certainly I went to ask at a LLoyds pharmacy about buying this non-prescription drug and they refused it.
Some countries where there is no virus depend on us to fully quarantine or they will have to refuse entry. In the end we will not succed by herd immunity or flattening the curve but quarantine. The curve is a calculation based upon what point you entered lockdown. After that we don't come out until the Ro (rate of infection) is less than 1 so that it will not increase again but a society with no cases will not have the same scale if the virus does arrive later by any solo traveller. It was highly contagious but I am not sure it spread by one infected contact to another as was both too quick and at the same time too patchy.
I think mingling which is obviously discouraged may signify that a big enough dose of the virus could occur in one day due to the fact it must have spread significantly beforehand as well as by a cough. You need to get not a dose but a bad one, not a cough with some virus but with bad some. Is this cumulative, environmental? Contamination remains my main worry as the elephant in the room
Results of political response to coronavirus
We have had to sit this out most of us. Industries that have failed I have little sympathy for as if they could not take a holiday when everybody else too was taking one were perhaps pulling us along. Vast sums of money have changed hands and investors have stayed in control while industries have ceased all meaningful connection with the real world. Public order has been scrutinised globally and only those in uniforms have been allowed to work. Many of these are in care professions but still they wear a uniform and have allegiance to the law, ultimately also for who they will treat for illness and how. We have not been trusted to care but to support our uniformed guards and guardians and the reason while not a hoax is innacurate. I have used references to bear out my points but do not believe there is true knowledge of the 50 times more likely to die if old figure. That could cover the other underlying health conditions too, we just do not know what reporting is going on. The maxim is that some other countries are using different figures. Inaccuracy could make the medicine controversially not used worthwhile. If it is death or medicine then I would choose medicine. What is the bill?
The economy is valued at 19 billion per week by a debate on radio 5 live this morning (07-05-2020) concerning the furlogh costing 8 billion per week and the NHS costing 11 billion. I do not think the figures were meant to concern me but the need to accept the high NHS bill, more than the whole workforce of the UK seems an excuse to pull the wool over our eyes. Who exactly is drawing a wage here? I feel more unemployed than ever and only hope even more now for a self-employed opportunity, something that I have never earned very well in. The economic controls and the associated home office protection and public order that accompany them seem in remarkable shape. They have purposefully bailed out the entire economy without even asking for public works and administration to be stepped up. We accept the flattening of the curve but knew the virulence of this virus to be so high that one person on a plane could begin a pandemic in each country. We have not been called to clean up in what could only be herd immunity unless
- the infection is not so contagious but a contamination including food poisoning of some sort as a possibility and only military services could manage a clean up.
- we are suffering a social control mechanism above the heads of many of our leaders, effectively either an information coup or global political war
- goodwill finally has made a triumphant appearance on the stage of international politics. This thought tucks me and many others up in bed at night but we still cannot get any answers nor an active role the next day. Puzzling when goodwill is considered the choice of reason.
I would not rule out the second one as it is always going on in finance and politics but cannot be party to to the information. It seems this disease will by testing have been present in many more people than it should have been at a lower dose due to contamination rather than human interaction which is also rather than only a way of catching it. (my arguement throughout) That would not neccessitate a search for a human culprit but certainly raise the need very high of doing some extra tests in the environmental which are not ever going to happen by order of HMG. This could also be in that field of enquiry negligence, accident or evolution. The latter is far preferrable at the moment for the citizen barred from another way of making a living than they currently have and we look to be very stratified here.What motive is there to not having active citizens. Inertia is the answer. It is just too hard to organise and we have enough people in their allocated roles to not need to change places from the emergency services and the government and council environmental services.
A flurry of lay analyses lastly has just suggested we and the U.S.A have a different form of coronovirus to deal with. This has mixed in with racial profiles of the victims being much higher for Afro-Caribbeaan discussed unconvincingly this morning on the radio. The head of the statistic poll responsible merely stated that the survey may have been biased in who was questioned and tested but he does not know. That was ridiculous.
Thursday 07 May 2020
We have still got many new cases, there is however a sense that the debate is now open for if the country to continue without an economic motor. Why are we still experiencing high numbers, this is a flattened curve scenario but by isolation should the rear side of the curve drop more quickly or are we missing something? (524 deaths on 06-05-2020)
associated political discussion topics in the news
Are we right to have shutdown, though it seems correct Sweden did not do this. Some figures show they have higher deaths despite how the population is smaller. Due to statistical uncertainties they are not declaring either more deaths than us or less but have not succeeded in slowing the cases of deaths from covid 19 SARS II yet.
What has happened to the economy. Strangely not very much as I see it. The Bank of England figures on 5 live this morning state a 14% drop in GDP projected and on extension of their forecast by 2 weeks extra another 1.25% which is tiny really. Do we work for nothing and the economy is above our heads. It is looking that way. This raises for me a very large issue of value for money.
other considerations wider than the virus as a pandemic
The global situation is under control and observation but the public situation is cut loose and uninvolved from political duties beyond being quiet. Wherever you are the policing is serious from most places reported on internet media and news and radio. It is a short step form martial law and in quite a few places a state of emergency has been declared. See it how you will the implications are massive and that this is under active observation is bound to be the case. Economies will need to able to function or no national leadership can maintain the right to govern any longer by the basis they were previously elected on. The situation is far bigger than that of single economies and will not any longer be controlled by either our leaders or business and industry without new conflict and further losses than have already occured.
It is easy to discuss for what reasons tourism will start again and judging by Question Time here in the UK to request special support for the industry to start again is appropriate while funds are being handed out to compensate losses. However borders are in question not joined up by each national outcome except in a lack of a cure. Tourism is going to be the hardest discussion without taking in to account that it also is a mixture of marketing and voluntary choices. The payouts from the government need to reflect the cost of living and not the need to cover losses in the meantime. If a tourism area has shutdown nobody can foot the bill for a shortfall on footfall knowing in advance what will happen when it reopens.