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Coronavirus

Coronavirus - The Poll

  • Total voters
    97
Tentaclaws said:
I have OCD and have long had a fear of bugs, particularly tummy bugs, and at my worst times I have found myself frantically researching how various things are spread.

Theme parks are a weird one. An enclosed space with others like a queue line is a nightmare for things like colds, flu and of course, this virus, anything airborne. But from what they know of other viruses of this type; it can’t be transmitted through food and lives on surfaces for a short amount of time, so eating from outlets (Hot Dogs, that kind of thing) and eating on the front lawns or quite an open space away from others is quite a safe bet. A place like Towers has so many spaces where you aren’t coming into contact with others. You are more likely to get a bug that can survive well on surfaces, which from what we know, Coronavirus doesn’t live for very long at all outside of a living body.

The biggest problem for Towers would be if there was an outbreak with staff as they would not only be understaffed, but also staff members are touching and checking rides all day.

Of course this is all speculation, but from what I have thought about in the past, queue lines are the only time you really are exposed to many others in a small space (barring things like Fireworks and Scarefest).
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If there is a major outbreak the UK theme parks will get forcibly closed pretty quickly
 
GaryH said:
So the question is

Is a sensible precaution not to go to crowded areas. In which case, does that mean AT? Standing in queue lines next to people... harnesses touched by god knows how many hands and fingers that day.... sitting in restaurants or on the monorail with others?

Is anyone not thinking of going this year because of this?
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Like others here I'm sure British theme parks would close before I would consider not going. If I'm avoiding theme parks I better avoid university and work too.

I'm more worried about catching it and being really sick, than dying from the virus. I've never had the flu before and being ill is horrible. I am concerned about the apparent lack of urgency from the government. They should be taking action now to try and halt the spread, like having a plan in place to compensate people for the time they take off sick.
 
Work and university I would put as essential activities where risks can be minimised.
Theme parks less so.
Done 3 trips to the Beach this year, the last two with a little bottle of hand sanitiser.
Extra hand gel in the toilets, not seen anyone drinking it yet, but give it time.
No masks, no bother, no fuss.

And given the choice of real flu or norovirus, having experienced both, give me flu any day.
 
bluesonichd said:
Do the government have the power to force a private company to close their doors incase of an outbreak
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Not sure about whether they do today, but if businesses act recklessly I hope the government would step in and pass a law to keep them closed!
rob666 said:
Work and university I would put as essential activities where risks can be minimised.
Theme parks less so.
Done 3 trips to the Beach this year, the last two with a little bottle of hand sanitiser.
Extra hand gel in the toilets, not seen anyone drinking it yet, but give it time.
No masks, no bother, no fuss.

And given the choice of real flu or norovirus, having experienced both, give me flu any day.
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Fair, though if the virus is in the area we probably shouldn't be going on days out, to work, or to uni.
 
Here's some interesting quotes I found online from Professor Paul Cosford, a medical director for Public Health England:
Professor Paul Cosford said:
Public urged to wash hands and throw away used tissues

Prof Paul Cosford was also interviewed for Radio 4's Today programme, where he said it was increasingly likely there would be more widespread transmission of Covid-19 in the UK.

Public Health England's emeritus medical director also called on the public to take simple steps such as washing their hands and throwing away used tissues.

He said: "I think the increase in number that we are seeing, coupled with the the increases in countries nearby in Europe and of course in south-east Asia, do make it much more likely we will get more widespread transmission in the UK.

"It's still the case that the vast majority of the cases we've got in the UK, we can trace a link to countries where there's infection and people returning from those countries, but we've not been able to identify that in every single case now, so that's something we are looking at extremely carefully to understand where the source of those infections may be.

"I think we now have to expect there to be more widespread infection in the UK that we will need to deal with. We've got to be prepared for that, we're not there yet but we've got to be prepared for it, and it will give us some challenges."
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Professor Paul Cosford said:
Widespread transmission will see reduction in social contact

Prof Cosford added it was important that people remembered the coronavirus infection was mild in most cases.

"The vast majority of people will make a recovery from it and it is a relatively mild illness," he said.

"Children and otherwise healthy adults seem to be at much lower risk of getting into serious complications you get with this sort of disease.

"It's older people and people with severe underlying conditions that we will be particularly concerned about."

He warned that there will come a point "where we reduce social contact if we see more widespread transmission."

Asked whether it was okay still to offer handshakes, he said he thought so, but added that the next stage of dealing with the outbreak could involve asking "people to isolate themselves at home if there's a member of their family who's infected".

He said: "We may well get to a position where we say carry on going to school, carry on going to work, but if you can work from home that's a very sensible thing to do, and think of all the different ways you can reduce your social contact outside of those activities."
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If like me, you are worrying about the virus, then I hope these provide a little reassurance, especially the second one. This guy is from Public Health England and has no reason to lie, so I personally believe what he's saying and am marginally more reassured.
Source: https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/ukne...s-3000/ar-BB10CsmW?li=BBoPWjQ&ocid=spartanntp
 
They told the public that the Spanish flu wasnt serious and to remain calm, business as usual etc so I dont really believe what the Government and their bods are saying. Reading through experts on Twitter and reports from authorities in other countries is more informative of what is really going on.

China did a double lung transplant today on a 59 year old man whose lungs were so badly damaged by the virus this was his only option. Dont get that with a mild flu like illness. 1 in 7 people will have a serious infection and need to go in to ICU with this illness. Dont get that with a mild flu like illness. Deaths in Italy have jumped by nearly 20 people today and deaths in South Korea are now just 2 less than those who recovered.

There were 2 cases less than 30 minutes from where I live today in Devon. One is a teenager in a school here and the other is her parent. They are in a serious condition and have been sent to a unit in Newcastle. Hope they will be ok. Local health authorities and trusts today have been asked for their bed situation, how many free beds do they have, how many can they open, how many community beds etc. so they are now planning for this to expand soon.

What I dont get is if the government know this will get a lot worse, why not try and stop it NOW. Shut down towns/cities, stop flights in and out of the country, etc. Yes it will be hugely inconvenient and costly in terms of economic impact, but it may save hundreds of thousands of lives. (current estimate is 500,000 in the UK)
 
This is a government that turned hard shoulders on motorways into live lanes which causes death instead of upgrading properly in order to save money. If a few hundred plebs have to die during this crisis to save their precious economy and bull run in the markets then that'll presumably just have to be OK.
 
GaryH said:
They told the public that the Spanish flu wasnt serious and to remain calm, business as usual etc so I dont really believe what the Government and their bods are saying. Reading through experts on Twitter and reports from authorities in other countries is more informative of what is really going on.

China did a double lung transplant today on a 59 year old man whose lungs were so badly damaged by the virus this was his only option. Dont get that with a mild flu like illness. 1 in 7 people will have a serious infection and need to go in to ICU with this illness. Dont get that with a mild flu like illness. Deaths in Italy have jumped by nearly 20 people today and deaths in South Korea are now just 2 less than those who recovered.

There were 2 cases less than 30 minutes from where I live today in Devon. One is a teenager in a school here and the other is her parent. They are in a serious condition and have been sent to a unit in Newcastle. Hope they will be ok. Local health authorities and trusts today have been asked for their bed situation, how many free beds do they have, how many can they open, how many community beds etc. so they are now planning for this to expand soon.

What I dont get is if the government know this will get a lot worse, why not try and stop it NOW. Shut down towns/cities, stop flights in and out of the country, etc. Yes it will be hugely inconvenient and costly in terms of economic impact, but it may save hundreds of thousands of lives. (current estimate is 500,000 in the UK)
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Seriously for your own emotional health you need to relax a little bit, there is no major government conspiracy (I hate this government so trust me I would be the first to shout if there was).

For context every pathogen has in theory the potential to kill you. I have seen a person admitted to ITU due to tonsillitis, you can cut yourself and get necrotising fasciitis and die from bacteria common on the surface of your skin, unusual fungi attack the lungs in the immune compromised.

This virus is a wake up call but it’s not that deadly, baring in mind at the moment it’s likely only moderate and severe cases are getting counted the mortality rate in western countries is 2% (flu sits between 0.9% and 1.4% depending on the strain) this is likely to drop when proper epidemiology studies look at likely unreported cases.

What is interesting is how infectious this virus is, if it had a high fatality rate then we would definitely by up a certain creek sans paddle. The NHS is hyper cautious and we are having daily updates on the situation but as it stands the most contentious issue beyond the ability to deal with the hysteria fallout has been we might have to force men to shave so the masks work....
 
@Dave makes a good point; there could be many unreported cases in this country that have already passed, and people mistook for a particularly bad cough/cold. The apparent mild end of the symptoms that most get is apparently surprisingly similar to a very bad cold (albeit somewhat more deadly; the death rate for the common cold is microscopic).

Also, the current era is arguably the most difficult era in history to plot a conspiracy and hide things, what with social media and all sorts of "internal sources" leaking things online. If this were a conspiracy by the British government, I think we'd probably know by now.
 
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GaryH said:
Just watching the BBC News special. 1 in 6 will have a serious illness..... thats pretty bad news
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This is where media and science don’t mix.

1 in 6 is 16%, so you could say 16 in every 100 people will have a serious illness.

Now define serious (basically it’s hospital admission), so how many of those people end up critical?

Now of the critical how many die?

Now let’s go back to the beginning and ask how many will be infected? If it’s not 100% then the numbers start to drop dramatically.

Now put all that risk and compare it to your background risk of dying anyway. Put that into context and driving should never ever be attempted by anyone.

All any of this confirms is the underfunded NHS is really going to struggle to maintain the status quo and if you ain’t seriously ill you won’t be getting any treatment.
 
1 in 6 serious also roughly aligns with the figures we've been hearing, which say that most only have mild symptoms. The worrying percentage, "critical" is very, very low; I think I saw something like 3% or potentially less than that.
 
Matt N said:
1 in 6 serious also roughly aligns with the figures we've been hearing, which say that most only have mild symptoms. The worrying percentage, "critical" is very, very low; I think I saw something like 3% or potentially less than that.
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In some ways numbers are a bit pointless at the moment and we could all have egg on our face. The early days of any pandemic are the most confused, particularly as this outbreak started in a particularly secretive country.

What I think is clear is we are not many years away from one of these outbreaks being the big one. A virus as infectious as Covid-19 but as deadly as Spanish flu if not worse. Sad thing is many of the protections we have put in place to control such an outbreak are being undone by various political pressures.
 
I know I've already drawn comparisons to past outbreaks before, but for those of you who witnessed the swine flu pandemic of 2009 develop (the most recent major pandemic), did the stats get more severe or less severe as time went on? (i.e. did death rate and critical rate increase or decrease as time went on?)

Also, interesting fact for you all; it's estimated that up to 20% of the world's population could have caught swine flu.
 
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