Coronavirus good news thread

bear66 said:
There were no new cases in New Zealand today. First time this has happened since mid-March. The strict lockdown when they only had a few cases per day seems to have got them through this first wave well.
Click to expand...
It does, but is there a chance that lack of any 'herd immunity' may be a problem further down the road? Have they just delayed the inevitable? Not that that's worse than the other way round.
 
atypical_boro said:
It does, but is there a chance that lack of any 'herd immunity' may be a problem further down the road? Have they just delayed the inevitable? Not that that's worse than the other way round.
Click to expand...

I guess if successful vaccines and treatments come out before they get another wave, herd immunity won’t be so important. Quite how they keep it at bay between now and the time vaccines and treatments are readily available is a different matter.
 
atypical_boro said:
It does, but is there a chance that lack of any 'herd immunity' may be a problem further down the road? Have they just delayed the inevitable? Not that that's worse than the other way round.
Click to expand...
The latest study from Germany from the Dutch border hotspot has concluded that about 2.2% of the population has had the disease, 20% of those infected were asymptomatic. Herd immunity won't happen till there's a vaccine. Escaping large excess death rates are the only measure of success till then.
About 1.8 million people living in Germany must have been infected, more than 10 times the number of about 160,000 confirmed cases so far, the team led by medical researchers Hendrik Streeck and Gunther Hartmann concluded.

“The results can help to further improve the models to calculate how the virus spreads. So far the underlying data has been relatively weak,” Hartmann said in a statement.

The team analysed blood and nasal swabs from a random sample of 919 people living in a town in the municipality of Heinsberg on the Dutch border, which had among the highest death tolls in Germany.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
FabioPorkpie said:
I guess if successful vaccines and treatments come out before they get another wave, herd immunity won’t be so important. Quite how they keep it at bay between now and the time vaccines and treatments are readily available is a different matter.
Click to expand...
bear66 said:
The latest study from Germany from the Dutch border hotspot has concluded that about 2.2% of the population has had the disease, 20% of whom were asymptomatic. Herd immunity won't happen till there's a vaccine. Escaping large excess death rates are the only measure of success till then.
Click to expand...
Fair enough.

I suppose the issue is that if a vaccine isn't anywhere close yet, how the hell are they going to keep people indoors for months and possibly years? Don't they already have a terrible suicide rate?
 
atypical_boro said:
Fair enough.

I suppose the issue is that if a vaccine isn't anywhere close yet, how the hell are they going to keep people indoors for months and possibly years? Don't they already have a terrible suicide rate?
Click to expand...
The countries that did this well, and even some like Germany not so well, are getting back to some normality, although it's going to be a long haul.
 
bear66 said:
The countries that did this well, and even some like Germany not so well, are getting back to some normality, although it's going to be a long haul.
Click to expand...
You'd have to assume a higher proportion of Brits have had it then I guess? And therefore have developed a higher level of collective immunity?
 
atypical_boro said:
You'd have to assume a higher proportion of Brits have had it then I guess? And therefore have developed a higher level of collective immunity?
Click to expand...
Until we actually do the testing we won't know. I think some random testing has started but no results have been shared as yet. One thing that was said of Germany was that they had a large number of young people getting the virus after returning from Italy; this may have led to a lower death rate across the population.
 
atypical_boro said:
You'd have to assume a higher proportion of Brits have had it then I guess? And therefore have developed a higher level of collective immunity?
Click to expand...
FabioPorkpie said:
Antibody test progress being made, and hopefully will be rolled out in the U.K. in the coming weeks -
‘Roche diagnostics is currently in dialogue with the NHS and the UK government about a phased roll-out of the test from mid-May, with the company saying it will be able to provide hundreds of thousands tests per week’

https://www.med-technews.com/news/roche-s-covid-19-antibody-test-approved-for-use-in-the-uk/
Click to expand...


Hopefully that Roche antibody test will be able to shed some light on the picture here in the not-too-distant future 🤞🏻
I’ve got everything crossed that far far more people have already had it than we think.
 
FabioPorkpie said:
Hopefully that Roche antibody test will be able to shed some light on the picture here in the not-too-distant future 🤞🏻
I’ve got everything crossed that far far more people have already had it than we think.
Click to expand...
Especially if this stuff about false second positives in South Korea is real.
 
Porton down is doing an antibody test on UK general population.
A few countries have got it down to zero internal transmission following a limited outbreak. The key to maintaing it is facemasks being worn by everyone, contact tracing apps linked to well resourced contact tracing teams, testing being available where needed, access to public places only being allowed following temperature checks and people coming into the country from places where there is an outbreak being quaranteened for 14 days.
The issue we have is getting it down to a level where this strategy works and getting a high take-up of the app.
 
FabioPorkpie said:
Somebody from WHO was explaining how the falso positives came about on Marr yesterday. It’s basically dead virus from the initial infection that was causing the positive tests, rather than anything malicious,
Click to expand...
So as far as we know, everyone whose had it won't get it again for quite some time.

Can we send Boris out to do our shopping then?
 
atypical_boro said:
You'd have to assume a higher proportion of Brits have had it then I guess? And therefore have developed a higher level of collective immunity?
Click to expand...
Looking on twitter for example as a quick snapshot thousands of people are convinced they've had it already, myself and my family members included.
I had a horrible illness in January for around a week which I managed with paracetamol, water and bed rest.
If I rang 111 or my GP now and told them the symptoms I had they would most likely tell me it was covid-19 and to self isolate for 7 days.
 
RandySavage said:
Looking on twitter for example as a quick snapshot thousands of people are convinced they've had it already, myself and my family members included.
I had a horrible illness in January for around a week which I managed with paracetamol, water and bed rest.
If I rang 111 or my GP now and told them the symptoms I had they would most likely tell me it was covid-19 and to self isolate for 7 days.
Click to expand...
There have been 1.2 million tests carried out on people presenting themselves with symptoms. Only 186,000 were found to have the virus.
 
bear66 said:
There have been 1.2 million tests carried out on people presenting themselves with symptoms. Only 186,000 were found to have the virus.
Click to expand...
Yes that is a test for a live virus though isn't it? It doesn't tell you whether you have had it and recovered from it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top