The Lemon Fool

Last post from me for a while.
PC infected with corona virus.

Just been told to work from home for the rest of the week. Suits me.

Apparently they want to test their BCP to see if the office can manage with only 50% of staff coming in and the remainder working from home. Nothing wrong with having targets but that's quite a high ratio I think.

HYD

we are retired , so dont need to go out , so we're restricting trips drastically .

in the hope of reducing the risk of infection our weekly shop is being delivered .

we are all at risk due to people unknowingly carrying the virus while having no symptoms , this can be up to 2 weeks i understand.

We are carrying on as normal. My principle is that, if a bullet has your name on it, you can't escape. Much the same with Covid-19. If I felt ill, it would be different.

TJH

Snorvey wrote:I'm actively trying to get it.

I love being ill and making everyone else damn well know that I'm I'll. I'm a total miserable bastard at the best of times but just add Coronavirus for a truly horrendous experience.

I know a guy who knows a guy that can get it for you.

Inbox me.

HYD

tjh290633 wrote:We are carrying on as normal. My principle is that, if a bullet has your name on it, you can't escape. Much the same with Covid-19. If I felt ill, it would be different.

TJH

==========================

many many people think like this .

i do not .

tjh290633 wrote:We are carrying on as normal. My principle is that, if a bullet has your name on it, you can't escape. Much the same with Covid-19. If I felt ill, it would be different.

TJH

https://youtu.be/y8wdynZ0iWg

I'll get me coat

tjh290633 wrote:We are carrying on as normal. My principle is that, if a bullet has your name on it, you can't escape. Much the same with Covid-19. If I felt ill, it would be different.

TJH

We are carrying on as normal - but with a few alterations. I had a retired colleagues' lunch last week (ages 65 to 85), and I'm in charge of organising the next one, probably towards the end of April. Most participants have age related health problems, some quite severe. I suspect, if the disease spreads as predicted, we possibly will skip the next lunch. I'm still meeting, and working, with fellow fishers at the loch, and my wife walks with a group of elderly ladies - with end stops at a local cafe. We are still eating out occasionally - but possibly less frequently. We both have cars, so make little use of public transport. There was some comforting news from our (Scottish) chief medical officer on the routine testing of blood samples taken at a wide spread of GP's' surgeries, and at intensive care wards in our hospitals. These have (at least up to a few days ago) reported no unexpected cases of the Corona Virus - which strongly suggests that it is currently not widespread, but is still localised to (hopefully) known groups.
I also have done nothing about our equity investments - I'm adopting a grin and bear it policy.

And another one on the subject of the bullet with your name on it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THhLMfoQo_4
If our southern brethern have some problems with the language, it should be added that the author and performer of the song was an English teacher.

scotia wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THhLMfoQo_4
If our southern brethern have some problems with the language, it should be added that the author and performer of the song was an English teacher.

No problem here. When I clicked on your link, up came a popup for an "Instant Grammar Checker"

BJ

PC infected with corona virus.

You have a politically correct computer !!?

How bad would it be if we just let it spread, which it will anyway? Get it over instead of prolonging it with all the inconvenience that that involves.

Leothebear wrote:How bad would it be if we just let it spread, which it will anyway? Get it over instead of prolonging it with all the inconvenience that that involves.

Bad.

The NHS has a finite capacity. If we try and get everyone infected nice and quick, then everyone that's badly affected is badly affected at the same time. If we try and slow down the rate of infection, then the peak of those needing hospital treatment is lower and more spread out. I.e. it may well be the difference between the NHS coping just about at an absolute stretch, or having to turn very sick people away.

Leothebear wrote:How bad would it be if we just let it spread, which it will anyway? Get it over instead of prolonging it with all the inconvenience that that involves.

I think the idea is to increase the time period over which the population will become infected. That will reduce the inevitable strain on services, hospitals etc. whose staff will also become ill and consequently unable to work. Better to need medical care when only a small proportion of hospital staff are themselves ill.

RC

Leothebear wrote:How bad would it be if we just let it spread, which it will anyway? Get it over instead of prolonging it with all the inconvenience that that involves.

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a very good question , and will certainly have been in some politicians minds .

conveniently reducing the OAP pension burden and reducing the NHS burden at stroke.

it would then also probably be all over much sooner , and most of us ( the survivors ) will be immune .

dreadful scenario.

Leothebear wrote:How bad would it be if we just let it spread, which it will anyway? Get it over instead of prolonging it with all the inconvenience that that involves.

Slowing down the spread will save lives and likely reduce the economic impact, ie. lead to better outcomes:

- a lower number of simultaneous cases means that the highest levels of care (eg. hospital beds, ventilators & staff to care for them), which have limited supply, will be less likely to be overwhelmed by the "demand" from sick patients. For vulnerable people, access to this highest level of care could be key to them surviving.

- in the northern hemisphere, lighter days (the coming "summer") are likely to reduce the transmissibility of the virus, as is the case for other similar viruses (the reason we get fewer colds in summer than winter), which again will buy time.

- the slower the spread, the greater the time window for knowledge of the virus and its transmission to be increased, for treatments to be developed and practices improved, vaccines developed, etc.

- the more that life can carry on "reasonably" normally, the lesser the economic shock or social/social-order impacts compared to an abrupt highly destabilising step-change downwards in which much of the population simultaneously falls sick and our social systems collapse under the strain.

etc.

Buying time is highly rational, hence the steps being taken. It's not a solution, but it helps.

…had a retired colleagues' lunch last week (ages 65 to 85), and I'm in charge of organising the next one, probably towards the end of April. Most participants have age related health problems, some quite severe. I suspect,

I have always preferred the company of younger people (except when I was younger when I preferred people in the same age range) so, apart from Mrs Bnc ailments (challenging), I am relieved to say that. now that I am just over 70 and a half, amongst my friends and regular acquaintances only a couple are slightly older than me and most are 20-40 years younger.

However, age and state of health are not correlated - as most of my friends etc are sports-oriented minor injuries are common. I make a practical distinction between physical injury and illness. To my way of thinking, most illnesses and ailments are self-inflicted, and in elderly folk often caused by the cumulative effect of poor diet over a long period of time. Having given up long ago on any desire to help promote the benefits of healthy eating to all and sundry, (not to mention tired of being the brunt of ridicule whenever I dared suggest that, as well as sugar and salt, the two stimulants coffee and chocolate have a lot to answer for), I am content that having opted for the 'road less travelled' (despite the potholes) my daily diet is far removed from the prevailing mainstream norm. It helps too that I don't get emotionally involved with the weather, and as for getting outraged what is that all about?

it would then also probably be all over much sooner , and most of us ( the survivors ) will be immune .

As I understand. immunity' comes from two directions: outside help in the form of cures/medication; inside help from boosting one's own immunity through healthy diet ad life-style generally.

According to the figures, the majority of people recover from the virus after a couple of weeks. those that die have pre-existing underlying health problems. When I was in Turkey in about 1968? during the cholera outbreak when Turkey closed its borders, we were told that cholera doesn't kill you, but having a cold and getting cholera will.

As the majority of those positive, whether tested or not) recover then presumably their immune system are strong enough to defeat the virus before it can do any damage for the time being. Or to put it another way, it's not that their immunity is strong enough, but that the immune systems amongst those with underlying health problems are too weak from trying to cope with those particular problems to have any strength to ward off another virulent.

Whether most of us (the survivors) will be immune, yes for the time being, but long term somehow I doubt it. At least not without a radical shift in attitude towards what constitutes a healthy immune system.

jackdaww wrote:it would then also probably be all over much sooner , and most of us ( the survivors ) will be immune .

dreadful scenario.

Not so fast. The emerging view is that you can catch coronavirus multiple times, because it mutates rapidly, and because there's no backup reservoir" of resistance to it.

The govt expert Whitty (I think it was him?) was saying on the BBC news the other might that mortalities among the over-eighties might possibly reach 15%. I have no idea whether that's right or wrong - but what seems likely is that once the virus has picked off the elderly, it'll turn its attention to younger and less vulnerable people.

That Chinese doctor who first flagged up the virus was barely out of his forties, by the look of him, but it didn't help him. I would hate to see anybody smugging about how it's only the OAPs who'll get hit. For more reasons than one.

BJ

That Chinese doctor who first flagged up the virus was barely out of his forties, by the look of him, but it didn't help him.

His death was rather fortunate for the Chinese authorities wasn't it.