[LeatherTrumpet]

Originally Posted by Dezzy

Anyone who is minimising it is a fool.

Boris ****ed it all up, he should have wrote measures into law earlier, masks should have been mandatory when it was known that they actually had a positive effect and not weeks/months later. Most countries that have handled it well so far have taken decisive action and have stuck to it. The tory government was wish washy until it was too late and have given out advice that's often proved contradictory ever since. It doesn't help that you have senior members of government openly flouting the rules to absolutely no consequences....

So any member who does not agree with you is a fool.

Sorry but why are you so aggressive??

[bitontheslide]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

I think we had better HOPE it isn't seasonal. I have a strong suspicion that, in fact, it very much is seasonal and the huge drop in cases over summer was because of... summer... more than any other factor. As we go into winter, we'll start to see whether or not it's seasonal. I suspect that we may in for a grim confirmation that it is.

i don't think it is seasonal, it's just that people are outdoors more and that uv levels are higher in summer making the virus less infectious. I also think the next few months are going to be grim. People must social distance when meeting indoors

Having said that, i caught swine flu in the middle of summer in Cyprus, when you are shivering uncontrollably in 35C heat, you know you have a problem

[Kizzy]

Remember the advice when AIDS was discovered? 'Don't die of ignorance'?
Well that slogan needs reviving!

[Rob!]

Where's the option for "The goverment did awfully" amongst the options that are pretty much all the same?

[Ammi]

...I don’t think it was ‘got right’...but then, any new virus couldn’t have ever been ‘got right’ first time because of the unknowns, obviously...and those will be continued into the future as well/it’ll be ever evolving for a while yet, I think...and as sad as it is with so many deaths worldwide and so many families/loved ones grieving...and so many restrictions and adaptions and so many people without incomes etc..?...with something like this..‘getting it wrong’ has to be an essential as well, surely...to be able to advance in knowledge/in medical care/in vaccines and immunities etc...that’s how we and medical science learn and that’s how medical science will overcome/or control, by learning from some wrongs..?...I guess, in how much any individual country got it wrong...it’ll be seeing how wrong, though, each one got it in their own fights against it...and whether ‘all wrongs’ weren’t necessary and some could have been avoided and looking at the reasons they weren’t etc...

[bitontheslide]

the biggest lesson from this is that we could get another virus that could come along at any time and be even more devastating than this one. If we don't learn lessons from this, it genuinely could be the end of humanity. This to me more than anything has been a big wake up call

[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by bitontheslide

i don't think it is seasonal, it's just that people are outdoors more and that uv levels are higher in summer making the virus less infectious.

... But that is (largely) what makes the seasonal flu seasonal. Different human behaviour patterns and different environmental conditions over winter than in summer. As you said, you can get the flu year round; someone, somewhere must have it or else it would be extinct, it just gets a better foothold in winter.

The circumstantial evidence that Covid "isn't seasonal" in mainly based on the fact that it's active and spreading in hotter countries but as above, that's sort of based on a misunderstanding that flu isn't active at all in summery conditions, when it is, just at lower levels.

[bitontheslide]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

... But that is (largely) what makes the seasonal flu seasonal. Different human behaviour patterns and different environmental conditions over winter than in summer. As you said, you can get the flu year round; someone, somewhere must have it or else it would be extinct, it just gets a better foothold in winter.

The circumstantial evidence that Covid "isn't seasonal" in mainly based on the fact that it's active and spreading in hotter countries but as above, that's sort of based on a misunderstanding that flu isn't active at all in summery conditions, when it is, just at lower levels.

it's always winter somewhere in the world which is why it survives. The BLM protests were a good indicator that we were pretty safe outdoors early summer. Equally, the fact that the deep south of the USA was badly affected was largely due to indoor interactions in the height of summer with zero social distancing. I call that an all year round virus. We have never had to social distance in summer with the flu

[LeatherTrumpet]

'There is NO second wave': Oxford expert says rise in UK Covid cases is because of 'increased testing' and those infected are 'young, healthy, symptomless people' who are unlikely to die or be hospitalised

• Mr Hancock spoke to MPs in the House of Commons for the first time since Parliament's summer break
• He said case numbers are rising 'exponentially' in France and Spain, and hospital cases are up, too
• The numbers of people testing positive for the virus in the UK are rising but hospitalisations and deaths aren't
• Experts say case numbers increasing is linked to mass testing and not to a second wave of infections
• Data shows the test positivity rate has remained relatively stable, suggesting more tests are causing rise

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...n-Ireland.html

[MTVN]

There's no doubt imo that it was real bad in late March and April and that it would have been worse if we hadn't locked down, obviously the lockdown came at a massive cost though. I don't know how people can see that there were over 50,000 excess deaths over what is normal and not think the virus was a big danger. Lots of mistakes were made which hopefully wouldn't be made again, and that combined with much greater testing, track and trace, better drugs/knowledge to treat the virus, the means to impose restrictions locally, greater public awareness etc should mean that we don't witness a second wave like the first

[joeysteele]

Originally Posted by Rob!

Where's the option for "The goverment did awfully" amongst the options that are pretty much all the same?

I agree.
There was no option I could vote for in the poll either really.

There was danger realised, however, we as a Country and particularly the government, didn't get it spot on, otherwise we'd have had far less deaths and should have had far less too.

Whatever the current likely manipulated and understated figures presented may look like.

[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by bitontheslide

it's always winter somewhere in the world which is why it survives. The BLM protests were a good indicator that we were pretty safe outdoors early summer. Equally, the fact that the deep south of the USA was badly affected was largely due to indoor interactions in the height of summer with zero social distancing. I call that an all year round virus. We have never had to social distance in summer with the flu

1) Human beings have a high level of population immunity to the various seasonal flu strains which is why we don't have to social distance with flu... we are (as a species) generally quite resistant to it. When "novel" flu strains pop up they become problematic, just like novel coronavirus.

2) The observed drop in cases being associated with social distancing measures is correlational; we implemented social distancing and cases began to drop. We were also entering summer. We ASSUME that social distancing was the cause of the drop in cases because there is also fairly robust lab science behind social distancing effectiveness, but because there are confounding variables, we actually have no solid idea of whether the drop is mostly down to social distancing, or mostly because of changes in conditions. If cases shoot up over winter with no changes to social distancing, we'll be able to say with some certainty that there is a seasonal element. The likely scenario, then, in let's say a decade (assuming no effective vaccine) when the general human population has a much higher resistance to Covid-19 (no longer novel) is that it will become - predominantly - a seasonal thing with cyclical outbreaks that affect mainly the elderly.

[thesheriff443]

Originally Posted by MTVN

There's no doubt imo that it was real bad in late March and April and that it would have been worse if we hadn't locked down, obviously the lockdown came at a massive cost though. I don't know how people can see that there were over 50,000 excess deaths over what is normal and not think the virus was a big danger. Lots of mistakes were made which hopefully wouldn't be made again, and that combined with much greater testing, track and trace, better drugs/knowledge to treat the virus, the means to impose restrictions locally, greater public awareness etc should mean that we don't witness a second wave like the first

Most of those that died had under lying issues and elderly.

If the flue kills roughly 24 thousand people each winter and every winter it puts Covid into perspective

[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by thesheriff443

Most of those that died had under lying issues and elderly.

If the flue kills roughly 24 thousand people each winter and every winter it puts Covid into perspective

I mean, we know the mortality rate of both quite conclusively now - seasonal flu is 0.1% and Covid-19 is 0.7%. So it's 7x worse than flu for the time being (that number is likely to drop as healthcare professionals get better at treating it) which isn't apocalyptic, but it isn't "nothing", it is significantly worse than flu.

[MTVN]

Originally Posted by thesheriff443

Most of those that died had under lying issues and elderly.

If the flue kills roughly 24 thousand people each winter and every winter it puts Covid into perspective

And Covid killed more than twice that in basically two months with the strictest controls ever imposed in this country so yes that does put into perspective how bad it was

[Ammi]

...things that are specific to COVID...certain ethnic groups more vulnerable and also males more vulnerable than females..?....that wouldn’t seem to apply to things like seasonal flu...

[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by MTVN

And Covid killed more than twice that in basically two months with the strictest controls ever imposed in this country so yes that does put into perspective how bad it was

To be frrrrrrr

The majority of those who died (when it was peaking at 800+/day) would have caught it before the lockdown was imposed, also a flu season (excluding the head and tail) lasts about 3 months, so you're not comparing 2 months of Covid to a whole year of Flu, Flu deaths are very clustered in December - February.

[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by Ammi

...things that are specific to COVID...certain ethnic groups more vulnerable and also males more vulnerable than females..?....that wouldn’t seem to apply to things like seasonal flu...

On the more positive side though, the very young (babies and toddlers, even healthy ones) are very vulnerable to complications from flu but are almost entirely asymptomatic with Covid unless they have other conditions.

In short, I guess, it's just important to say that they're totally different illnesses and there's not really much point comparing the two at all.

[Strictly Jake]

I think it is too early to tell. But I do think they didnt act as fast as they should have done

What I do find interesting is with all the social distancing, masks etc etc in place whether things like other colds, flu, sickness bugs can be passed around, certainly in schools it will

And if those things can still be passed around then of course so can coronavirus

Hopefully we may be in for a winter where non of us get as ill as we usually do

[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by Strictly Jake

What I do find interesting is with all the social distancing, masks etc etc in place whether things like other colds, flu, sickness bugs can be passed around, certainly in schools it will

There's a cold going around here (my wife and both kids have had it) so apparently it doesn't do **** .

Then again we know where it came from - my eldest daughter was off playing merrily with a friend a few weeks ago on a Saturday, then her friend's mum casually messages us on the Monday to say that she got her kid tested for Covid on the Friday as she had a sore throat, and the result came back (negative) on the Monday. She was letting her play with my kid on the Saturday! .

[AnnieK]

I think we are in for a winter where we will all get more regular illnesses than normal simply because our immunity will have been affected by social distancing. I have cleaned and bleached everything that doesn't move (and a lot of things that do), kids haven't mixed the same and so now they are doing they will pick up things from each other that they wouldn't necessarily have done before because they develop an immunity to each other under normal circumstances

[Cherie]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

There's a cold going around here (my wife and both kids have had it) so apparently it doesn't do **** .

Then again we know where it came from - my eldest daughter was off playing merrily with a friend a few weeks ago on a Saturday, then her friend's mum casually messages us on the Monday to say that she got her kid tested for Covid on the Friday as she had a sore throat, and the result came back (negative) on the Monday. She was letting her play with my kid on the Saturday! :facepalm:.

don't let your kid play with kids with stupid parents is the moral of the story

[bitontheslide]

there are 100k children off school in Scotland with only a small % covid related. So, either the kids are sick or parents are keeping them away ....

[AnnieK]

Originally Posted by bitontheslide

there are 100k children off school in Scotland with only a small % covid related. So, either the kids are sick or parents are keeping them away ....

Mine has gone back in today.....they lined them up and marched them off like they were on some kind of chain gang. I'll bet my house that social distancing lasted about 10 minutes

[armand.kay]

well everyone in my house got it and my uncle died