BF2S Forums Pandemic thread

The prospect of a second wave of coronavirus infection across Europe is no longer a distant theory, according to the director of the EU agency responsible for advising governments – including the UK – on disease control.

“The question is when and how big, that is the question in my view,” said Dr Andrea Ammon, director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

It has been the unenviable task of scientists to tell it as it is through the coronavirus pandemic. While politicians have been caught offering empty reassurances, the epidemiologists, a job title new to many, have emerged as the straight shooters of the crisis, sometimes to their detriment.

And Ammon, a former adviser to the German government, speaks frankly in her first interview with a UK newspaper since the crisis began.

“Looking at the characteristics of the virus, looking at what now emerges from the different countries in terms of population immunity – which isn’t all that exciting, between 2% and 14%, that leaves still 85% to 90% of the population susceptible – the virus is around us, circulating much more than January and February … I don’t want to draw a doomsday picture but I think we have to be realistic. That it’s not the time now to completely relax.”

But despite the privations of recent months, Ammon expresses little sympathy for the argument put forward by some, including the former supreme court judge Jonathan Sumption that merely shielding the elderly would have been sufficient.

“People who are perfectly healthy are also getting severe illness and they die. Knowing what we have seen in Europe with approximately 10% of the population [infected] I think there is for me not an option to let this go. If the the other 90% would have come as well, I think we don’t want to think of this.”

Last edited by uziq (2020-05-20 08:53:11)

SuperJail Warden wrote:

I blame the media. They didn't do enough to show overwhelmed hospitals and staff. I saw more videos from hospitals in Italy than I did in the U.S. Maybe that was for the best though. I think showing overwhelmed hospitals in the ghetto might have had the opposite intended effect.

uziq wrote:

overflow hospitals have been at 30-40% capacity. you do know what an overflow hospital is, right?

it sounds like some of the hospitals in the bronx and similar areas were whacked fairly hard.

you do understand the very basic modelling that shows the number of ICU beds/ventilators quickly gets overwhelmed, right?

uziq wrote:

what does a hospital's preparations have to do with the burst of cases? the lockdown eased the incoming cases, not the hospital capacity available.

regardless of your own theories, the epidemiologists and virologists estimate that 5-15% of people have had covid. spain did the largest study of its kind for antibodies and found 5-10% of people in heavily hit regions such as madrid had signs of post-infection antibodies. even being generous and saying 20% have had it (they haven't), that still leaves the vast majority of the population susceptible.

so if 20% of the population have had it, and hospitals are at 40% capacity ... ???

you do understand that the lockdown measures have helped to relax pressure on the hospitals right? no lockdown measures, overwhelmed hospitals. what about this hasn't got through throughout the course of this thread?

Jay wrote:

SuperJail Warden wrote:

I blame the media. They didn't do enough to show overwhelmed hospitals and staff. I saw more videos from hospitals in Italy than I did in the U.S. Maybe that was for the best though. I think showing overwhelmed hospitals in the ghetto might have had the opposite intended effect.

They couldn't, because after the initial burst in NYC, the hospitals have been at around 30-40% of capacity.

Can you please just admit that you're not actually scared, and that your calls for continued quarantine and UBI have more to do with the fact you hate your job and life and would happily spend your days painting toys rather than working?

The results show that as states reopen, outbreaks can easily get out of control unless officials closely monitor infections and immediately clamp down on new flare-ups. And they show that each day that officials waited to impose restrictions in early March came at a great cost.

After Italy and South Korea had started aggressively responding to the virus, President Trump resisted canceling campaign rallies or telling people to stay home or avoid crowds. The risk of the virus to most Americans was very low, he said.

“Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on,” Mr. Trump tweeted on March 9, suggesting that the flu was worse than the coronavirus. “At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!”

In fact, tens of thousands of people had already been infected by that point, researchers later estimated. But a lack of widespread testing allowed those infections to go undetected, hiding the urgency of an outbreak that most Americans still identified as a foreign threat.

Last edited by uziq (2020-05-21 00:55:25)

Wilson Roosevelt Jerman, a former White House butler who worked under 11 US Presidents, has died after contracting coronavirus. He was 91 years old.

His granddaughter, Shanta Taylor Gay, told CNN on Thursday Jerman died on May 16.
"He was authentic. He was a quiet but stern man. Very giving, never fussed or complained. Always said he lived a blessed life," she said in an interview