Generic Virus Thread

[Davkaus]

Just now, DCJonah said:

He did it earlier this year when he refused to condemn what Cummings did. 

I have little respect for the man. 

I think there's a big leap form refusing to comment on the actions of one individual, and misrepresenting the science because it's convenient for the government - if that is what he has done. I'm sure we'll find out soon enough.

[sidcow]

47 minutes ago, Morley_crosses_to_Withe said:

I still don’t understand your thinking.
Not enough people having family or friends who haven’t been seriously ill (or died) is surely an extremely good thing and the absolute desired outcome from someone being infected.
Why would you want more people to have gravely suffered just so other people have the opinion it’s a big deal? 

 

What? I don't want anyone to get ill.  You really are confused. 

The conversation was about human reaction.  The theory was that people were not taking the disease seriously because not many people personally know someone who has got properly ill from it so they are detached from it's seriousness and capacity to do proper harm. 

I agreed with that and suggested it was probably actually exasperated because quite a lot of people will have known someone who has been ill but not very therefore IN THEIR MINDS reinforcing that it's not a big problem. 

 

In their minds:

I don't know anyone who has got really ill. 

I do know a few people who have had it and not been very ill. 

Ergo it's not a very serious thing. 

[sidcow]

1 hour ago, mjmooney said:

Why on earth would anyone want to go abroad, anyway? Abroad is bloody. All that filthy foreign food. All garlic and frogs' legs. Can't even get a decent cup of tea and a toasted teacake. And they don't seem to understand what you say to them, even when you speak VERY SLOWLY AND VERY LOUDLY. Rude, the lot of them. No, it's Herne Bay for me, just like every year.

Cold beer as well. Not gods own cellar temperature. 

Edited December 21, 2020 by sidcow

[blandy]

12 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Cold beer as well. Not gods own cellar temperature. 

And they drink that really flat stuff from small glasses (the soft gets) that tastes of (yuk!) grapes. Char-dunny or summat.

[mjmooney]

38 minutes ago, sidcow said:

What? I don't want anyone to get ill.  You really are confused. 

The conversation was about human reaction.  The theory was that people were not taking the disease seriously because not many people personally know someone who has got properly ill from it so they are detached from it's seriousness and capacity to do proper harm. 

I agreed with that and suggested it was probably actually exasperated because quite a lot of people will have known someone who has been ill but not very therefore IN THEIR MINDS reinforcing that it's not a big problem. 

 

In their minds:

I don't know anyone who has got really ill. 

I do know a few people who have had it and not been very ill. 

Ergo it's not a very serious thing. 

Exactly. My original suggestion was that we need more hard-hitting depictions in the media of what it's actually like in our hospitals. 

[chrisp65]

17 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

Exactly. My original suggestion was that we need more hard-hitting depictions in the media of what it's actually like in our hospitals. 

[sidcow]

3 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Top quality use of a Kenneth there. Well done sir. 

[PaulC]

4 hours ago, DCJonah said:

Interesting interview on Sky news. Scientist from Oxford has said that the data isn't clear that this new strain spreads easier. You can't rule out that people in the SE just weren't following guidelines..

conflicts withy this then 

Quote

“We now have high confidence that this variant does have a transmission advantage over other virus variants that are currently in the UK,” said Peter Horby, a professor of emerging infectious diseases at Oxford University and chair of NERVTAG.

 

[Stevo985]

4 hours ago, DCJonah said:

Interesting interview on Sky news. Scientist from Oxford has said that the data isn't clear that this new strain spreads easier. You can't rule out that people in the SE just weren't following guidelines..

I would bet a lot of money that this is exactly what it is.

They knew they had to cancel christmas and leaked this new strain stuff so they could blame the cancellation on that. Bloody new strain, what a tough decision Boris has had to make. Poor guy.

When in reality it was most likely their refusal to tighten measures in the southeast that made everything spiral out of control.

Like I said earlier, short term thinking with no comprehension of the long term damage. 

 

I desperately hope people start to wake up to what an utter shambles our handling of this has been. We are an utter laughing stock.

[ml1dch]

But of course she is.

 

 

[StefanAVFC]

10 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

I desperately hope people start to wake up to what an utter shambles our handling of this has been. We are an utter laughing stock.

On the other hand...

 

[mjmooney]

Test came back negative, as I suspected it would. I still feel a bit shit, but that's manflu for you. 

[darrenm]

23 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

Test came back negative, as I suspected it would. I still feel a bit shit, but that's manflu for you. 

About 2 weeks after the kids went back to school in September I had the worst cold I've ever had. It properly knocked me for 6 for a few days. I knew it was a cold and not COVID because I had the snot, blocked nose, all the symptoms of rhinovirus. But also with a high temperature and fever. And I never lost my sense of taste and smell.

I did wonder if less exposure to bits of virus floating around everywhere caused my immune system to not be ready for it. My sister then had the same thing and tested positive for COVID. So who knows.

[mjmooney]

27 minutes ago, darrenm said:

About 2 weeks after the kids went back to school in September I had the worst cold I've ever had. It properly knocked me for 6 for a few days. I knew it was a cold and not COVID because I had the snot, blocked nose, all the symptoms of rhinovirus. But also with a high temperature and fever. And I never lost my sense of taste and smell.

I did wonder if less exposure to bits of virus floating around everywhere caused my immune system to not be ready for it. My sister then had the same thing and tested positive for COVID. So who knows.

As I've mentioned before, exactly one year ago we were absolutely poleaxed with... something. I didn't lose taste/smell, but the missus did. She's convinced we had covid. I just don't know. 

[StefanAVFC]

6 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

As I've mentioned before, exactly one year ago we were absolutely poleaxed with... something. I didn't lose taste/smell, but the missus did. She's convinced we had covid. I just don't know. 

Us too! But a little bit later, January time. Very similar symptoms to Darren too.

[ml1dch]

 

 

[Genie]

Hancock and Johnson wanted to light a little fire in the UK but unfortunately Europe has caught light 

Edited December 22, 2020 by Genie

[sidcow]

1 hour ago, mjmooney said:

Test came back negative, as I suspected it would. I still feel a bit shit, but that's manflu for you. 

 

[Genie]

Is it just a coincidence that Wuhan is now the worlds leading research centre for coronavirus? Do they have some advantage?
 

Quote

A Chinese scientist at the centre of unsubstantiated claims that the coronavirus leaked from her laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan has told the BBC she is open to "any kind of visit" to rule it out. The surprise statement from Prof Shi Zhengli comes as a World Health Organization team prepares to travel to Wuhan next month to begin its investigation into the origins of Covid-19. 

The remote district of Tongguan, in China's south-western province of Yunnan, is hard to reach at the best of times. But when a BBC team tried to visit recently, it was impossible. 

Plain-clothes police officers and other officials in unmarked cars followed us for miles along the narrow, bumpy roads, stopping when we did, backtracking with us when we were forced to turn around.

We found obstacles in our way, including a "broken-down" lorry, which locals confirmed had been placed across the road a few minutes before we arrived.

And we ran into checkpoints at which unidentified men told us their job was to keep us out. 

At first sight, all of this might seem like a disproportionate effort given our intended destination, a nondescript, abandoned copper mine in which, back in 2012, six workers succumbed to a mystery illness that eventually claimed the lives of three of them.

But their tragedy, which would otherwise almost certainly have been largely forgotten, has been given new meaning by the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Those three deaths are now at the centre of a major scientific controversy about the origins of the virus and the question of whether it came from nature, or from a laboratory.

And the attempts of Chinese authorities to stop us reaching the site are a sign of how hard they're working to control the narrative.

• WHO to investigate Covid origins in China's Wuhan
• China and the virus that threatens everything
• Wuhan city of silence

For more than a decade, the rolling, jungle-covered hills in Yunnan - and the cave systems within - have been the focus of a giant scientific field study.

IMAGE COPYRIGHTGETTY IMAGES

image captionChinese virologist Shi Zhengli is seen here inside the laboratory in Wuhan

It has been led by Prof Shi Zhengli from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). 

Prof Shi won international acclaim for her discovery that the illness known as Sars, which killed more than 700 people in 2003, was caused by a virus that probably came from a species of bat in a Yunnan cave. 

Ever since, Prof Shi - often referred to as "China's Batwoman" - has been in the vanguard of a project to try to predict and prevent further such outbreaks.

By trapping bats, taking faecal samples from them, and then carrying those samples back to the lab in Wuhan, 1,600km (1,000 miles) away, the team behind the project has identified hundreds of new bat coronaviruses.

But the fact that Wuhan is now home to the world's leading coronavirus research facility, as well as the first city to be ravaged by a pandemic outbreak of a deadly new one, has fuelled suspicion that the two things are connected.

Link

[Davkaus]

I imagine the fact that they were investigating it for what, 2-3 months before the rest of the world was taking it seriously might have helped.