Coronavirus

The interesting thing is most of the workforce of the country have now become time rich. Something they have never had before.

It's like being retired or only a part time or non worker.

There will inevitably be consequences for all to come through.

I'm still working from home, full time, full pay.

Can't see it lasting more than a fortnight though...

Problems of working at home: thinking I could sit in the garden to work, but finding the sunshine too bright to see my computer screen. :o

:D

I've set up office in the conservatory. It's bloomin' freezing in the morning, lovely late morning, by mid afternoon it's like a sauna.

That cytokine angle was flagged up by OH who was science director of a substantial biotech company, till recently retired, so it is a qualified view, although it is only one possibility.

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Originally Posted by Wheeze

Like, love or loath him, Boris is a capable leader and has had to steer this ship through uncharted waters with siren calls of experts to the left and to the right. That he has done so in a forthright manner, not ducking the painful calls when they had to be made, is typical of him and just what we need. The cytokine angle is very interesting and chimes in with the disease course seen in many hospitalised cases.
Some of the left wing spouting on Facebook has been hideous and I had to unfriend a pal of 30 years standing because he kept on sharing it.

We need togetherness more than ever right now.

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Local police have received information that there is a rave planned here for this weekend, always an illegal one somewhere in the forestry over Easter.

Beggars belief if it goes ahead :mad:

I will vent my Ire here. Public health england are useless, like most career civil servants.
Given access to the 300 strong staff and facilities of one of Britians leading professional (rather than academic) biotech labs, that handles and manipulates genetics of virus, for drug development and validation:

ALL they wanted was to take away PCR machines to their own test centres for which they have no validated test so compromising the abilty of a qualified lab to respond to the greater need in development. They didnt want staff help who know ten times more than they do. I suspect they would have done it pro bono.

I hope if one thing comes out of the call with Hancock is that PHE are hiding their utter incompetence in harnessing private sector resources, and sadly the government are being blamed by a bunch of idiots. It is time to sideline PHE, if Germany has succeeded it is because it uses more private sector, and doesnt channel the resources through the narrow channel guidance of civil servants. Sack the lot of them and farm the responsibilties out to the private sector. Twice the perfomance. Half the price. I am sure PHE is well up on "diversity officers", and it has state of the art husband "marital leave" and a 21st century creche. The pensions will be outrageous. What it actually needs is the help of professional biotechnologists with their nose to the grindstone, whose methods are sharpened by having to succeed in an economic world, instead of just stealing their tools so neither use them effectively

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Originally Posted by Oracle

That cytokine angle was flagged up by OH who was science director of a substantial biotech company, till recently retired, so it is a qualified view, although it is only one possibility.

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I'd love the cytokine theory to be true in this instance but it is far, far to early to speculate on that. The main reason coronavirus is not yet ripping through many poorer countires, at least those in Africa, si simply that it arrived here about 4-6 weeks later than in Euope. We're simply behind the curve. And when it did arrive, it was among the elite - those who can afford to travel to Europe. And they live in similar conditions to people in much of Europe - clean, healthy. It's not yet hitting poorer areas in significant ways. And yet, even in the elitie communities, the mortality rate is far higher than in Europe.
Of course, that may be skewed by testing and reporting problems. If European countries can't do it adequately, what hope in countries lacking resources, infrastructure, etc? The flip side of that is that there may already be thousands of cases, even deaths, simply going unnoticed and unreported, especially in poorer communities.

As I say, I really hope the cytokine theory kicks in because otherwise there may be something resembling carnage in the communities around me, but we won't know for at least another month.

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Originally Posted by Latege

I'd love the cytokine theory to be true in this instance but it is far, far to early to speculate on that. The main reason coronavirus is not yet ripping through many poorer countires, at least those in Africa, si simply that it arrived here about 4-6 weeks later than in Euope. We're simply behind the curve. And when it did arrive, it was among the elite - those who can afford to travel to Europe. And they live in similar conditions to people in much of Europe - clean, healthy. It's not yet hitting poorer areas in significant ways. And yet, even in the elitie communities, the mortality rate is far higher than in Europe.
Of course, that may be skewed by testing and reporting problems. If European countries can't do it adequately, what hope in countries lacking resources, infrastructure, etc? The flip side of that is that there may already be thousands of cases, even deaths, simply going unnoticed and unreported, especially in poorer communities.

As I say, I really hope the cytokine theory kicks in because otherwise there may be something resembling carnage in the communities around me, but we won't know for at least another month.

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Thanks for the info.
It’s only a possibility. As you say, too early to say.

One problem of course is trustworthiness of sources.
But whilst China now has a substantial new middle class born of globalised manufacturing success, it also has a far bigger but desperately poor subsistence level population too.

Since China didn’t lock down early enough it must have spread to those communities, but we don’t hear of mass deaths in them. But does anyone trust their media?

If anyone wants to see fiction in stats, just look at the Iranian figures. Perfectly smooth curves unlike anywhere else. Methinks the mullahs are composing next months figures as we speak! They store them in the safe with next years election results.

Does anyone trust ANY media??