Thread: Corona Virus

Originally Posted by vnx205

Are you talking about the politicians who are reluctant to change their mind once they have taken a stand or are you talking about the members of the public who are reluctant to follow any direction from anyone in authority, especially the government?

The USA doesn't have a monopoly on those people. We have them in Australia too. I have met at least one person whose attitude is that this whole thing is a hoax concocted by the government to take our freedoms away from us.

In fact he believes every piece of misinformation that supports his view that the government is lying, the virus was created by China to kill us all, that the virus is less harmful than the common cold, that Bill Gates is the devil incarnate, that there is no test for the virus, that everyone who died was about to drop dead from some pre-existing condition, that masks don't stop the virus, that masks stop oxygen, that anyone who Trump thinks has the answer is being silenced by the mainstream media, that since he doesn't know anyone who has died that no-one has died. That is just a small sample of the things he is determined to believe. Unfortunately he is not alone.

His determination to believe all those contradictory things matches the determination of politicians to avoid admitting that they need to change their mind.

What's his user name?

Originally Posted by V8Ian

What's his user name?

Robert Ripley.

Originally Posted by bob10

It's now fact that masks are an essential part of the COVID fight. I can only think that the NSW government's refusal to make them mandatory is the result of pig headed hubris. At the end of this, if not too much collateral damage is done, they will claim a victory. Some victory. Because they didn't go into hard lockdown from the start, the virus spread to greater Sydney, then further afield in NSW, then to Victoria. This resulted in hard lock down for the NSW border [ which we are led to believe will result in untold damage to the Australian economy , if you recall the earlier outcry.] No shrill cries about that now .

So Bob, are you wearing a mask every time you go out? The Victorian experience with an infectious person running around for 10 days undetected means that the risk although small is the same in sunny Queensland.

Regards,
Tote

Originally Posted by Saitch

Robert Ripley.

I'm not sure whether to believe that or not.

Originally Posted by V8Ian

I'm not sure whether to believe that or not.

Well, I don't know him, but I know what he looks like.

Originally Posted by bob10

Okaaaay, and this friend, he/ she is from NSW? Just asking.

Originally Posted by V8Ian

What's his user name?

He is from NSW and drives a Holden Commodore, so not one of us.

It appears that the reported UK variant of the virus may be an actual mutation (rather than just an artefact of poor record keeping or dodgy journalism*) and whilst it isn't more deadly it is more spreadable, and increases R by 0.4 to 0.7. So, it's harder to get the R under 1.0.

More spreadable is a disaster for places where the virus is already spreading widely because it will increase the strain on health services.

It appears that half-hearted restrictions - like the UK's ones - won't prevent it spreading: possibly only a lockdown in the style of NZ or Victoria will work - maybe.

Thankfully it appears that the vaccines will also be effective against this variant.


However, as data on the new variant roll in, there is cause for real concern. Trevor Bedford, a scientist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and a board member for the Covid Tracking Project at The Atlantic, points out that infections from the new variant are increasing very rapidly among the population in the U.K. Bedford also notes that this new variant seems to have a higher secondary-attack rate—meaning the number of people subsequently infected by a known case—compared with “regular” COVID-19. Finally, the new variant seems to result in higher viral loads (though this is harder to be sure about as viral loads can be affected by sampling bias and timing). As Kucharski told me, all of this does not rule out other explanations. This increased transmission could be due to chance or founder effects—meaning one variant just happened to get somewhere before the other variants and then got “lucky”; it was early, rather than more transmissible. It could be due to changed behavior among people—quarantine fatigue, less masking—leading to more rapid spread. However, given the current evidence, along with the specifics of the mutation, it’s getting harder to assume that those other explanations are more likely than the simple proposition that this is truly a more transmissible variant.


Covid-19: New variant '''raises R number by up to 0.7''' - BBC News

The Mutated Coronavirus Is a Ticking Time Bomb - The Atlantic



*The article in the Atlantic mirrored my thoughts:

"I dismissed the news initially because viruses mutate all the time and there have been too many baseless “mutant-ninja virus” doomsaying headlines this year. The exaggerated, clickbaity alarmism makes it harder to discern real threats from sensationalism"

The Atlantic article strongly makes the case that delaying the roll-out of vaccinations is dangerous:

"All this means that the speed of the vaccine rollout is of enormous importance. There are already worrisome indicators of slow rollout. Vaccination of a broad population, not vaccines in and of themselves, saves lives, and epidemics are fought with logistics and infrastructure. We should put every bit of energy, funding, and relentlessness into vaccinating as many people as possible as quickly as possible."


"We are in a race against time, and the virus appears to be gaining an unfortunate ability to sprint just as we get closer to the finish line. Although the initial rollout of the vaccines has been slow, it is expected to increase rapidly. The U.S. may have 50 million to 100 million people vaccinated as early as March."