Today it seems 1/3 of UK numbers are in care homes.
Also it seems that while some 15% of over-80s die if they catch it, in care homes it is a lot more. This is not surprising because care home population is the most frail.
There was an impressive cardiologist on the TV yesterday with some hard-hitting recent info about obesity being a bigger mortality factor than all the other factors put together. This kind of thing could not previously be said on national media because of accusations of “fat shaming” etc. Boris got a fairly bad case; he is 105kg and 1.75m.
What would be very important to know is wheter small children really play a role as vectors of the disease or not, because if they don’t we could at least reopen the Kindergartens, which in turn would be very helpful for many, many families.
One thing that needs to be carefully thought about before reopening childcare and schools is the interaction of parents delivering the children there. From what I see, a lot of children go to school now in their parents vehicles. Certainly outside the schools at opening times here is a major traffic jam. All the parents delivering off their children then hanging around for a chat with the other parents, even if it’s only a brief one. I suppose the same applies for children who are walked to school by their parents.
We could end up with the children not passing anything around, but the socially starved parents getting too close for a brief chat and they passing it around.
I’m sure it could be solved, but needs to be carefully thought through.
Peter wrote:
There was an impressive cardiologist on the TV yesterday with some hard-hitting recent info about obesity being a bigger mortality factor than all the other factors put together. This kind of thing could not previously be said on national media because of accusations of “fat shaming” etc. Boris got a fairly bad case; he is 105kg and 1.75m.
Obesity is indeed a risk factor for any respiratory disease. Physically speaking, the weight of your excess fat is weighting your lungs down, making it harder for them to expand and more likely to create areas of the lung where no ventilation takes place.
In Anaesthesia, we notice this with every single overweight patient. The pressure we need to ventilate these people is significantly increased, which in turn creates more stress on lung tissue. Not good. Obese people are already more difficult to ventilate when otherwise healthy, so if they contract SARS2-CoV or any other respiratory infection, their problems multiply.
I didn’t know Boris was 105 kg for 1.75 m. That is a BMI of 34.3 kg/m^2, nearly grade II adipose (grade two is from 35 to 40). I am 102 kg at 1.92 m and already formally overweight at that, although the BMI scale is arguably biased against very tall people…
the socially starved parents getting too close for a brief chat and they passing it around.
Very much so; the school run is the opportunity for slagging off your husband, and getting expert advice on divorce proceedings 
MedEwok wrote:
That is a BMI of 34.3 kg/m^2, nearly grade II adipose
In plain English, according to the NHS BMI calculator, it counts as “obese” rather than just “overweight”.
Very much so; the school run is the opportunity for slagging off your husband, and getting expert advice on divorce proceedings
A wonderful summary for those of us who have been through the divorce mill.
Peter wrote:
This came out this morning
But such things are problem only when happen in China Everyone else is allowed to correct previously stated numbers while China is “hiding” and “conspiring” – usual world’s hypocrisy. I have no doubts that information coming from China are heavily moderated but jumping in Trump’s wagon is even worse.
BTW here are few graphs showing active cases in different countries which implemented different levels of lockdown – the proof that you can’t simply read the numbers and draw conclusions.
Active cases doesn’t necessarily mean anything. For instance in Norway, there is no one counting the ones who has been well again. Thus the active cases is purely a number for how many have been tested positive.
The problem with active cases is that as you manage to buy up more test kits and test more and more people, the number of “known infected” will keep increasing.
It would be a useful metric only if you had a kit for every person for every day and tested the whole country every day.
Currently all of Europe is desperately trying to buy up test kits and set up facilities for testing people. Both these aspects seem to be equally challenging.
Emir wrote:
But such things are problem only when happen in China Everyone else is allowed to correct previously stated numbers while China is “hiding” and “conspiring” – usual world’s hypocrisy.
No. The problem with Chine is not that they restated the numbers several times, but they tried to hide the whole outbreak, silenced the early warners – the first doctor who sounded the alarm was thrown in jail and then died, several others have disappeared. If the Chinese leadership had been forthcoming about this virus from the start we wouldn’t have the pandemic. I really hope that they – the Chinese leadership – are made to pay for that. Dearly.
