A lot of stories about on FB that there was an immunity test at X or Y (Los Angeles was the last one I saw) which found 50% had antibodies.
Never from a credible source, however.
One day we will know for sure, but currently I am not buying the stories about half the people having been infected.
Something weird is happening with the hospital numbers (being treated, and dead) not dropping much even after 4 weeks. It’s pretty obvious (a) there is very little immunity around and (b) lots of people are (or were a week after the lockdown started) still catching it quite easily somehow.
The govt will have some data on where people likely got it, but if say it is going to a supermarket, they won’t be telling because there would be panic. If say 50% of those who died got it at Tesco, that cannot come out, until much later…
Peter wrote:
The govt will have some data on where people likely got it, but if say it is going to a supermarket, they won’t be telling because there would be panic.
My gut feeling is that only a small % of the people currently catching Covid-19 are catching it at a supermarket. Perhaps a few weeks ago when people were massing outside the doors to buy pasta/toilet roll, and queuing 6 inches from each other the length of the aisles, but not recently.
I’d expect it’s more likely to be people in close proximity on buses and tubes, which are still running, and friends/families who aren’t abiding by the guidelines. Every day there’s a story about a house party being broken up, a BBQ or even a pub in the Midlands still open. Roll that out across England and I’d guess that these are the current new figures.
You may well be right, but I think research is needed. We seem to know, from countless “scientific studies”, that the stuff survives on smooth plastic or metal for days, so supermarket trolley handles should work quite well. The underground trains must tick all the boxes superbly.
Few travel on buses now. The ones which go past when I cycle to work carry maybe 1 person. Bulk travel is 95% down. Commuter-time trains, I don’t know, since I haven’t been near one in many years.
It’s very frustrating. The news coverage is totally geared at an absolutely thick audience. Endless “human stories” on the main news channels (however it is classified, it’s not news), endless “shortage of PPE” stories, but zero analysis. I am sure people arriving at hospitals are asked where they have been, etc. If not universally then surely as a sample. None of this info ever comes out. And all the reporters (the top-drawer point-scoring tiresome/obnoxious ones, as well as those who might have some sense) are asking the same totally stupid brainless questions, to politicians who everyone can see cannot possibly answer them honestly:
“Yes we f******d up, but hindsight is always 20/20, and everybody else, except possibly Germany which moved a month earlier, and S Korea which was primed by earlier epidemics, is in the same mess, and we can’t get PPE because everybody else is trying to buy it, and we can’t buy it from the many UK firms because the NHS Approved Supplier List is run by a load of thick corporate types each guarding their empire, and virus test kits are not 100% because they were developed only a couple of months ago so of course there will be f**k-ups, and antibody test kits of the sort which can be mass deployed are even worse, and the Turks are taking the p1ss out of us “clearing the PPE through customs” because they know we are desperate for it so the RAF cargo plane sat on the tarmac for days while they were wasting time".
Peter wrote:
Something weird is happening with the hospital numbers (being treated, and dead) not dropping much even after 4 weeks. It’s pretty obvious (a) there is very little immunity around and (b) lots of people are (or were a week after the lockdown started) still catching it quite easily somehow.
The number on the BBC each day show that the daily reported deaths are how many are reported that day. The actual deaths in each day are clearly going down dramatically.
Peter wrote:
We seem to know, from countless “scientific studies”, that the stuff survives on smooth plastic or metal for days
Well, it’s chaos theory, isn’t it. Whilst we know that it survives on supermarket trolleys we have no real explanation for why out of two people touching the handle, one person will get sick and one won’t.
What we have learnt relatively recently is that the quantity of the virus one is exposed to is far more important than in say, a flu virus.
A friend is a GP. She’s been exposed to just about everything, but has tested negative for Covid. Unlike her daughter and husband, who despite working/studying from home and maintaining super low-risk lifestyles, eat/sleep/live with her and have tested positive.
but has tested negative for Covid.
Bad test?
The actual deaths in each day are clearly going down dramatically.
Is there a similar chart for the numbers entering hospital each day?
Peter wrote:
“Yes we f******d up, but hindsight is always 20/20, and everybody else, except possibly Germany which moved a month earlier, and S Korea which was primed by earlier epidemics, is in the same mess, and we can’t get PPE because everybody else is trying to buy it, and we can’t buy it from the many UK firms because the NHS Approved Supplier List is run by a load of thick corporate types each guarding their empire, and virus test kits are not 100% because they were developed only a couple of months ago so of course there will be f**k-ups, and antibody test kits of the sort which can be mass deployed are even worse, and the Turks are taking the p1ss out of us “clearing the PPE through customs” because they know we are desperate for it so the RAF cargo plane sat on the tarmac for days while they were wasting time".
There is a way to dumb this down and remain honest…
“Remember how you couldn’t get loo roll a few weeks ago, not for love nor money? Buying PPE is exactly the same right now.
And yes, we went to our usual suppliers first in the same way you always shop at ASDA, and by the time you realised that Waitrose still had loo roll, it had sold out there, too."
Peter wrote:
A lot of stories about on FB that there was an immunity test at X or Y (Los Angeles was the last one I saw) which found 50% had antibodies.
The two studies (and sorry, can’t find them right now) turned up an infection rate of about 3% across the population. The L.A. one being more informative, as the testees were randomly selected, whereas the Stanford one was self-selected through FB ads. What both tuned up was a much lower mortality rate than expected.
DavidJ wrote:
A friend is a GP. She’s been exposed to just about everything, but has tested negative for Covid. Unlike her daughter and husband, who despite working/studying from home and maintaining super low-risk lifestyles, eat/sleep/live with her and have tested positive.
There may actually be an explanation for that. It’s called something like cross-immunity. If as a GP she’s – obviously – exposed to the flu virus and all sort of other nasties, her immune system may be able to deal with the SAR-CoV2 virus easily while her family, leading a sheltered lifestyle, are exposed.
