Corona virus part 2

[bowl]

Need to go into full lockdown asap

[bowl]

Idiots at tarneit today

[Robbie1950]

The outcome from this pandemic is going to be pretty bad we all know it. You cannot solely blame the government for what supposedly will happen.

Be glad your not in a 3rd world country where you get fkall incentives from the government, they are the people that are going to be absolutely decimated!!!
People take everything for granted here!!!!

Maybe my concept and ideas surrounding somewhat preventable but inevitable death is completely different to 99.99% of everyone else. As sad as it is, I'd rather let the bell curve happen, and happen fast. Lose a portion of the population while the majority will be left relatively unscathed, and greatly reduce the after affects on that majority both personally and publicly.

On paper not a bad idea, in reality something else.

If it were your wife, mum or dad on that hospital bed and a doctor told you they had someone else more important to attend to and left them to die literally choking to death we would see how you would feel.

So not to dissimilar to an unforeseen fatal stroke or complete and systemic organ shutdown likely due to chemical contamination from defence force practices in the 60s and 70s. Or repeated concussions and limb displacements from shaking like an old 2 cylinder 2 stroke engine for over a decade even after the million and one pills consumed... Been there done that.

And objectively, given they'd actually lived a decent chunk of life, it sure as **** beats finding out someone who otherwise would barely be affected by this mutation and has lived completely stuff all compared to them is currently taking up one of those hospital beds after being found by his missus and almost his kids trying to neck himself since in all likelihood he will lose everything.

I feel for the life struggles you've encountered with your loved ones but more so feel sorry for you that you've lost your empathy for others.

Everyone that is infected by this virus deserves the same chance to have there treatment, no one has the right to play 'God's' role in this. There is a difference between letting the virus spread like wild fire to kill off all the weak and another prioritising treatment to patients once the virus is uncontainable.

How do you think that same man wanting to 'neck himself' would feel if doctors left his missus to die leaving him on this planet to fend for himself and his 3 kids? He wouldn't be feeling much better, let me tell you.

[Mong]

I thought I'd chip in my two cents based upon conversations that I've had with two friends this week, both mid-level doctors specialising in cardiac and respiratory health at the Alfred Hospital. Both are currently working in the fever clinic, and fully expect to get the virus as an inevitability. Both have conveyed that major hospitals are actively working to prepare for the large scale of infection, and ward transformations are underway to boost near-future capacity as much as possible. Staff are being cross-trained to operate ventilators and other equipments, doctors are re-skilling to undertake procedures required for basic care outside of their specialities. Their view is generally that medication availability will not be a problem if current measures to curb stockpiling are effective, and despite a high likelihood of staff shortages in the future, tangible steps are being taken to mitigate the risk of less-trained staff working in critical areas.

They're preparing as best-as-possible - but the issue is this: pretty much all modelling indicates that the capacity of the system will be exhausted quickly. There will reach a peak-point in which the quality of medical intervention and care begins to deteriorate due to lack of beds, equipment and staff. This is why it is so critical to self-isolate now, because it is the only defence against systemic overload in 3-6 weeks time. It's important to realise that we will reach that overload point, and as a result, people will die. This is about taking firm, individual action to play your roles in minimising that overload as much as possible.

They are both stark in their assessments. Thousands will die, and this action is being taken to prevent tens of thousands from dying when there should have been a chance to intervene. I don't want to preach at anyone, so I'm going to leave it there - but I will sign off with something that one of my mates said:

"Everyone will know someone who dies from coronavirus. We're just trying to make sure people don't need fingers to count the dead."

Wishing everyone safety and good health. Hope this gives everyone some encouragement that our health professionals are well-prepared and set up for a good fight for all of us, and hope it encourages everyone to do our bit and stay home.

[Aimless]

Just watching the Vic Health announcements now. Interesting modelling. If everyone does their bit and keeps the distancing and isolation up, they are expecting peaks in May of June with cases in the 100,000s just in the state. 80% will recover at home, 20% will need hospital beds. Wild stuff.

Cancelling my plans to go fishing this weekend, for sure.

[Truedogz]

Hi People

A number of people I have run into over the past few days have sought from me an explanation of some of the things taking place. One strongly suggested I put a post on FV as he said it helped him to 'get it' and it might help others. I've got nothing against FV but I don't post on social media at all these days due to issues outside of the forum which I know has some fine people who keep in contact. So here goes I will offer some information.

In simple terms there are two paths to dealing with COVID-19 (the diseased condition). One which is the current path is the 'herd immunity' strategy. This has been agreed to by all of the nation's heads of government. The strategy is that over about the next 6 months at least 60% of the population catches SARSCoV-2 (the name of the virus). Once this level of population is exposed transmission becomes more difficult and cases would taper off. 60% of the population has been effectively immunised and carry memory cells to combat future exposure. With this strategy it is definitely not over in 6 months as the rest of the population could still contract the virus but cases would be at a low level and with sporadic outbreaks. So expect isolation strategies for individual cases to remain in place until a vaccine is developed.

The current strategy is a balancing act in getting sufficient numbers of people exposed while keeping those requiring hospitalisation down to manageable levels. You have seen a suggested peak of 100,00 new infections per day. That doesn't mean 100,000 newly sick every day as many will show no symptoms and the majority mild symptoms. Overall the average mortality rate does appear to be about 1% or less though this varies by age group. At this sort of rate based on the time spent by people in ICU to recover the total number of ICUs required is about 5,000. We currently have under 3,000 but time is being bought to get closer to 5,000.

As a simplification with this strategy younger people have the burden of getting exposed and providing herd immunity. The benefit (eventually) is the country's borders open up quicker allowing the economy to recover and a quicker transition back to normality though I think all of us know it will be a new normal. A huge number of people are losing their jobs and I have lost a lot of my income too. But this strategy offers a quicker turn around than the alternative. The negative here is that while young people will curry the burden of getting the disease and will be prioritised if they get very ill, the older part of the population will bare the burden of deaths so that the overall recovery is quicker. Expected deaths are over 100,000 this year, however, if they can be effectively isolated at workplaces, retirement villages, etc, we might get it down to under 30,000.

So be very clear the strategy is not to stop infection by SARSCoV-2 but control the rate of spread. So the reason things aren't being totally shut down is the desire for this to spread - in a controlled manner. With the capacity to proliferate explosively it is a delicate balancing act. For more information these two articles provide useful overviews:

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/lifes ... 11c319295a

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... curve.html

Here is a great interview (you can ignore the fact it is Allan Jones if you wish but the responses are worthwhile):

https://www.2gb.com/coronavirus-strateg ... s-one-out/

Whether you agree with this strategy or not understand this was agreed to by ALL heads of government (both political persuasions) and senior medical officers.

I have created a couple of quick models and can quickly assess how things are going, but I won't explain the maths here. If you want to keep tabs of things a site created by at Ben Phillips at Melbourne University is really good:

https://benflips.shinyapps.io/nCovForecast/

The 10 day forecast provides a good overview but to monitor the success of the strategy click on the Curve flattening tab. Check the box for any nation of interest. If the curve is above the line (+ve) the rate of increase is being suppressed, if under the line it is not. If the curve bends upwards strong pressure is being applied, bends downwards control is being lost. If you have a look we are doing well - which is what is needed for a smaller, later peak in cases.

The alternative strategy is to have a total lockdown and let the virus decline until it disappears. The advantage of this is the number of deaths can be significantly reduced. The disadvantage is after the virus is controlled the nation has to have its borders shut or severely restricted until a vaccine is developed, potentially extending financial hardship for the population for much longer (and this type of hardship kills people too). If you open your borders you strongly risk new 'yo yo' outbreaks. Some Asian countries have had some success with this approach in part due to the fact that they had a lot of equipment/facilities/procedures to roll out to the SARS outbreak a decade ago. We did not have that 'advantage'. Those nations still remain at risk and can't relax until a vaccine becomes available.

As to cure/vaccines there are some issues. Traditional vaccines can take 6-8 years to develop. The experience with the very similar SARS virus was that novel biotech approaches using viral RNA fragments were investigated and proved problematic. A big issue was the vaccine producing hypersensitisation making them potentially dangerous. The research largely ceased when the SARS outbreak was controlled. There is no guarantee of rapid development of a vaccine and 18 months would be a good result. There are some excellent candidate drugs being investigated that could help save lives and protect health workers. For example the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine shows promise but has some issues (eg. not suitable for people with certain heart conditions). They will be useful but are unlikely to provide long term protection and when an individual comes off them they can get reinfected.

So that is where we are at. Hard decisions have been made for us in a time or crisis. The reality is the majority of FV members will be infected in the next 6 months. For older members they have to do their best so they don't become a statistic.

Best Wishes

Truedogz

[AE092]

Good input TD - the link to the 10 day forecast is well put too.

[Aimless]

I disagree with the fact that any nations have agreed to the herd immunity path.

UK initially was following this but has completely changed tact in the last week. New Zealand for example, have definitely not taken that path. Australia is kind of one foot in, one foot out currently but I suspect we will be all out against it shortly.

US is, as usual, a total basket case. D Trump wants to open the country again in a few weeks, which will be an utter disaster if it happens with maybe a short term boost to the economy followed by an absolute blood bath.

Herd immunity is simply one possibility, more likely to happen if we don't take any measures, however not the most likely at this point. With protective measures including quarantines and isolation like we currently have, it is unlikely the majority of the population will get it. With extreme suppression it will probably drop to near 0 cases in a month, but I don't think we will do that, and we risk the flare ups from outside population as you noted.

Following the herd immunity tactic also makes it more likely that the disease becomes endemic like the flu which circulates every year. Which would not be ideal.

We also simply don't have the capacity. Like you say, it requires balancing of new cases against hospital capacity. But reports are that approximately 20% of symptomatic cases require hospitalisation, with a smaller % requiring ICU. Without hospitalisation, death rate climbs far above 1%.

Politically, it's a death sentence to allow the amount of people to die required to make that work, so solely for that reason I think the government will act in their interest.

[Kimtown]

Amber alert to my good friend Jasonfish1234

Is my boy still alive?

[purple5ive]

Amber alert to my good friend Jasonfish1234

Is my boy still alive?

where's the god damn report son!!