General Chat

I thought the tests would show if someone had been infected

Once infected then they have to go through the healing process,hopefully as many don’t make it

What difference does it make to test people with no symptoms especially as there’s no cure only support so the body can fight it off

I really don’t understand how mass testing will help overcome the virus

Am I being a bit thick here?
:-(

Have a look at JoyLouises recent post on the coping with lockdown thread. It might help a bit.

Shirley .................

testing would show if the virus was present in someone who had not yet shown symptoms ......... it's a bit like some of the childhood diseases where the child is infectious for several days before the rash or whatever appears.

It also seems that some people can be infected and never show symptoms ..... they probably only have a mild case, but they are still able to infect others.

Some people can have very mild symptoms that they shrug off and assume it was hay fever or a little cold or tickle cough. If you asked, they would say they had been lucky.

Testing would catch all of those.


Then there is the serology test, which scientists are still trying to develop to get a high percentage of correct results.

That tests the blood to see if there are antibodies to covid-19 present. That shows if the person has had the disease and recovered. Just a small drop of blood would be taken from a finger tip for testing.

That is probably a better test of how much of the population has been infected but is now protected.

The problem with that test is that a) the tests currently in use still have a high percentage of false negative or false positive; and b) no-one knows how long the antibodies will be effective. But this information is needed to help scientists understand whether a vaccine will be effective and for how long.


Does this help you?

Thanks Sylvia.

Glad it helped, TessA

Thanks

So it’s more to understand the virus than to treat people then ?

Shirley, did you take a look at my comments on the 'Coping with lockdown' thread (30 April at 15:12) referred to above by nameslessone?

It not only mentions the restrictions of the current testing in the UK but it gives (in my opinion) the only reason for carrying out this particular test - contact tracing, if carried out comprehensively.

It also mentions the antibody test too (serological - referred to above by Sylvia).

I also wrote that neither of these tests is failsafe and I'd put my money first behind the search for a vaccine and secondly an antibody test.

You are right in thinking that the virus will either kill you or you will survive it but no one knows whether it can be caught a second time, especially if it mutates as the flu virus does.

When you see mortality figures bandied about they are better understood by using comparisons and statistics - so, for instance, per capita, at 30 April here are a few figures to compare (bear in mind there other things to be taken into account which I mention later):

Belgium - 656.71 deaths per million population;
Spain - 519.54 per million
Italy - 458.07
UK - 392.50
USA - 186.17
Canada - 85.13
Mexico - 13.73
Russia - 6.73
Australia - 3.64
Kazakhstan - 1.27
India - 0.8
Nigeria - 0.26
Ethiopia - 0.03

From these statistics it would seem as though people are right when they say Boris did not bring in lockdown quickly enough (we isolated a week beforehand as we felt he reacted too slowly) - but see below.

Some things to be taken into account include;

the spread of population, eg UK does not have the outlying areas of, say, Australia;
the accuracy of reporting;
comprehensive reporting;
truthful reporting, eg how many causes of death have been given erroneously;
how good the contact with outlying areas - and these could be immense distances;
the timing of the virus hitting the country.

There are more to be factored into the equation too.

The UK rate is high which again, in my opinion, is a result of a slow reaction by our government - particularly, I think, the advice of senior medical officials which, however, Boris may or may not have overridden. I hope the officials were not 'yes' men so did not go down without a fight.

My initial reactions to everything above would be that lockdown as well as distancing are the routes to take. Distances between places, say in Australia and Canada, for instance, are vast when compared to those in the UK or Belgium. Closer proximity, person to person, would seem to breed.

Although Boris is usually a 'hail-fellow, well-met' type of person, I believe having the virus may have changed his attitude somewhat. I certainly hope the medical staff treating him will have taken their chance and spoken with him about it, especially about reinforcing lockdown and social distancing.

We can only hope.

Edit: new tests are upcoming, by the way.

Thank you

Makes interesting reading

I took to self isolated after doing a weekly shop for seniors that was chaotic In the beginning of the crisis

Was only because I needed food and couldn’t get an online shop delivery

That was sorted pretty quickly by Sainsbury’s from their records of very senior citizens and I have been indoors ever since

Am at the stage now of even if lockdown is eased I still don’t want to chance it

You were lucky with Sainsburys, Shirley.

It is my main shopping place, being within walking distance, but I was a bit miffed when the store emailed my younger sis, my neighbour and my bestie - all over 70 - but not me and I am over 75. It took them over a week before they checked government lists and I was able to get a spot.

Iceland and Waitrose came through well for me. I had forgotten how good they were at deliveries.

Iceland still recognised the password I used when I used to order online deliveries during the 1990s. It was, at that time, the only online delivery grocery store in this area.

Waitrose emailed me because it had recognised that I was over 70. Even better, the Waitrose delivery guy gave me an alternative way of ordering online.

Before lockdown our coffee group people realised what was going to happen (it's our age, I think) and bought extra during the two weeks before lockdown. I am pleased we did because our deliveries were missing a few things - you'll know the items I mean - loo rolls, antibacterial wipes, antibac soap, etc. and a few food lines, that were either hard to get or flying off the shelves like there was no tomorrow.

Everything is better now though most stores have set limits on purchases.

Multiple-item limits make it harder to share deliveries which I do with my daughter, her two neighbours and my neighbours but we manage.

For your info if it is of interest...

June Almedia a Scottish virologist was the first
to discover the human coronavirus.

More info if you google her. :-)

just wondering if a person is tested but shows negative and then catches the virus a few hours later they could potentially infect others because of the negative test
so how often should those people be tested

I expect that is one of those unanswerable questions Maddie. But someone will!

Vallance and his merry men were fighting the wrong war.
Though I am neither a Tory nor Boris supporter he is not responsible for the current pickle though that may change if he fails to rotate some of the faces at PHE and SAGE.

Planning and EPP stockpiles (no gowns) was all for a flu epidemic. Like most generals they were set up for the wrong war. Ceasing track n trace was a huge wrong move. Vallance and Whitti followed this up with classic empire building:
forcing all DNA testing to two or three central bases esp Milton Keyenes creating serious delays and loss of scope. It has also had a -ve knock on for other NHS needs.
shutting out local public health ( still applies )
ignoring care homes
not using the Valentine Hospitals as isolation hospitals but attempting the impossible in General Hospitals. There are recent signs that this is now beginning to happen.
not understanding that C-19 is not the flu and the much vanted ventilators as likely to kill as cure. Luckily for Johnson this knowledge had become approved method by the time he was in St Thomas.

The main event which saved the UK was Ferguson's modelling at Imperial College which suggested a butchers bill in the hundreds of thousands. (fwiw when I posted this back in the day I received total flak. )
Johnson saw the political downside and there was a screeching u-turn in policy (2 weeks is quick at Cabinet level.)

The testing now going on falls into two groups: (a) trargetted at medical staff to see if they are currently infectious and (b) the general public to see to what extent they have had C-19 and where. As has been posted (b) are not very accurate away from labs. The aggregate results can be helpful for decision makers but should not be relied on by the over 65s.

The chaos at Milton Keynes was such that a lot of the staff tests will have to be redone. Even now the NHS is way off getting all staff tests and even moe so for Care Homes. It looks rather like Vallance & Hancock intend to implement track and trace as largely a desk project with the famous SmartApp at the centre. Every country which has made this apporach work, notably Germany and S Korea, has had people with local health care knowledge at the centre of the effort, smart phones were a photogenic add on not the main show.

Unless Hancock moves away from a desk bound operation which insistes on treating the whole country as a single zone of infection then the current lockdown will go on indefinitely with a series of sawtooth mini peaks. That would knock the stuffing out of a country facing the coup de grace of brexit.

A lot of faith is being put into the Cavalry riding over the hill from Oxford or Singapore with a vaccine sooner rather than later. Much of it is based on research done for SARS. People The science is certainly attractive but the needful research is massive. Moreover the C-19 virus has the capability of incorporating human antibodies into its RNA so that it appears as one of the good guys a truly nightmare prospect.
"softly, softyl, catchee monkey"

Science has never been able to defeat the Corona virus. THe most serious, if most ignored, is the common cold. No cure.
Next one up flu - at best 2 years protection with the kicker that those taking it every year can get a specially nasty dose.
SERS - science and funding gave up
Bird flue H5N1 - no fix

If the boffins don't succeed this time we will be living in a very different world indeed.

Asia and Africa already are as they have other pandemics as well as C-19 and endemic cholera.

Here's where I agree with Rollo -

I believe that some of the top dogs at PHE, SAGE and hospitals are empire builders and sycophants of the first order .....

also with much else (though not all) he has written too.

I do, however, set great store in medical and genetic research. One only has to compare the lives of our great grandparents and ourselves to see what medical strides have been made as well as lower mortality rates through a variety of interventions.

Unlike Rollo, I have always been a swinging voter - no heart on sleeve nor axe to grind.

what a country of wingers we live in
i feel sorry for the poiticans, scientists etc, what ever they do someone puts the boot in.
Mistakes may have been made but who would swap shoes with them, let those who can do better step forward. but i suppose theyfeel suggestions are better and let someone else take the flack

These men and women will have to live with their decisions for the rest of their lives knowing had they done things differently deaths wouldn't be on their conscience. Who wants a future like that
No one will thank them for trying

It is a horrific diease that may be with the world for a long time to come. It will only take one undetected person to start it off again

just be thankful we don't live in Brazil, brushed off by the president as flu, with little or no medical euipment available

PHE CORBA and the govt ignored the basic principles of using isolation to defeat a plague going back thousands of years and England 1341 , 1665 and 1918. They also ignored the need for fast action with any kind of coronavirus outbreak which has been well established. They did this because they had a fixed mindset of a flu plan and refused to accept Coronoa maybe because thay knew full well that neither the NHS nor the the govt nor Care Homes were prepared for it. It is easy to see the outcomes in terms of "excess deaths" and results in New Zealand, Germany and S Korea.

So why should anybody be sorry for them?

Certainly not the NHS Hundred (and rising) who did not want to be heroes, just the kit needed to do their jobs properly and safely. Nor the tens of thousands whose lives have been cut off so suddenly.

PHE is an essentially terrible idea. Its reason to exist is to screw down the budgets of the spendthrifts that run our hospitals and medical research where it cannot sell them off piecemeal to American health case companies. PHE is good at that and so the door has always open at the Treausury. OTOH it has failed to deliver health time and again when it mattered.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S93lvQ4Ukg8

Not sure whether you mean wingers (those who wing it) or whingers (those who whine on), Maddie.

Politicians are adept at both, as well as passing the buck. It is always wonderful when one accepts responsibility.

In my opinion the buck stops at Boris but in this instance, not being a medical man, he must rely on the medical and clinical hierarchy that surround him.

Keeping an eye on news, one of those sharing the podiums with Matt Hancock today spoke about a particular firm and the benefits of shared private-public enterprise when speaking of tests.

Surprise, our news tonight made us aware that tests from a fairly local testing centre are being sent 200 miles away to Milton Keynes (known to me as the roundabout town) for processing. This, when one of the early biggest-capacity test centres is at a hospital about seven miles down the road from that particular test centre.

Apparently it's something to do with comparisons but the name of a well-known private company was mentioned. I wonder why selecting a few tests from all test centres would not be comparison enough for control purposes or whatever they are doing. I am going to ask my go-to genetics researcher what he thinks.

Has anyone else come across this? I know Rollo mentioned Milton Keynes today. - his 13:07 post on here.