C- 19 Blue pill or red pill

[Eagleye]

Not sure why it's taken me so long to arrive at this conclusion. I am a bit slow.

Apologies for stating the obvious but I need to so you can follow my thinking.

Obviously, with C- 19, we have no current cure, medication or vaccine.

At the moment, all we can do is try to avoid catching it then spreading it and if we do get it, we just have to hope for the best.

Most who get it will fight it off over a few weeks, some will react badly to it and will need medical intervention to help their bodies fight it off.

A small amount of those, are not going to make it.

There seems to be no practical way to eradicate it as to achieve that, we'd need the world to stand still for about 3 weeks whilst the virus died off. There is probably greater chance of getting us all to jump at the same time.

There is no vaccine for it so that's not an option and if there was one tomorrow, it would have been rushed through with some educated shortcuts but shortcuts they would be and it would be up to the developers to make sure it's safe. We have no way of knowing when this will be.

So the conclusion is that at this moment, we are all going to have to contract this sooner or later.

I don't want to make this sound like another internet scare story as most who get it don't seem to be badly affected but right now, the only option is to keep isolated or catch it. Oh dear!

[NNH]

You've hit the nail on the head. There's a good article in the Atlantic that looks at different timelines for getting back to normal, but basically it's going to take months of on-again/off-again restrictions to keep the infection rate down to a rate that hospitals can manage. Eventually, either a vaccination is developed, or enough of the population (maybe 60-80%) has had it and developed immunity. Either of those milestones is unlikely this year.

To be honest, I find this analysis reasonably comforting, in that it puts a limit on how long this can last.

Edited by NNH on Sunday 5th April 06:55

[DanL]

There is a third option, which is fairly obvious if you think about it, but also wildly impractical. If you could, somehow, get everyone to self isolate for two weeks and also close the boarder, then anyone who already has it would come out the other side and not be infectious, and anyone who hasn’t had it would have no one to catch if from.

It wouldn’t work in the UK, but this may be how or why China is able to ease restrictions now.

[Mr Whippy]

NNH said:

You've hit the nail on the head. There's a good article in the Atlantic that looks at different timelines for getting back to normal, but basically it's going to take months of on-again/off-again restrictions to keep the infection rate down to a rate that hospitals can manage. Eventually, either a vaccination is developed, or enough of the population (maybe 60-80%) has had it and developed immunity. Either of those milestones is unlikely this year.

To be honest, I find this analysis reasonably comforting, in that it puts a limit on how long this can last.

Edited by NNH on Sunday 5th April 06:55

But we still don’t know the death rate.

Some numbers suggest higher, others lower.

To get an accurate rate you need more testing.

Those who do more testing suggest death rate nearer seasonal flu.

So this is a similar risk for most across the demographic spread, of getting flu.

Obviously those who had an immunisation got flu don’t have it for this, so it’s worse.
Also as there is no herd immunity then it’ll spread to more people and there will be more fatalities than with flu.


Also as we don’t know the death rate we don’t know how many may have had it.

We might have had literally only as many cases as have been confirmed, and a very high death rate... or we may be seeing the peak as the whole country caught it in the final weeks of the spread, and the death rate is very low.


It could take a decade of and off off lockdowns, or it could all be done in a few months, based on that sliding scale.

Even within the currently accepted bounds of death rate, we could be looking at months or years.


Until we do a random sample test we won’t know.

[egomeister]

DanL said:

There is a third option, which is fairly obvious if you think about it, but also wildly impractical. If you could, somehow, get everyone to self isolate for two weeks and also close the boarder, then anyone who already has it would come out the other side and not be infectious, and anyone who hasn’t had it would have no one to catch if from.

It wouldn’t work in the UK, but this may be how or why China is able to ease restrictions now.

It wouldn't work anywhere because a country is not a closed system. As soon as you come out of your lockdown you have the risk of infection brought in from outside, unless you are planning to isolate anyone entering the country. North Korea could give it a go, but even they have visitors...

[monkfish1]

You should this over to the "CV19 cure worse than the disease" thread. Much debate about exactly this.

[Eagleye]

There's just too many topics in that one - this seems more focused but the question is answered anyway. It's pretty clear, we all need to get it, we'll just have to hope for the best.

[anonymous-user]

DanL said:

There is a third option, which is fairly obvious if you think about it, but also wildly impractical. If you could, somehow, get everyone to self isolate for two weeks and also close the boarder, then anyone who already has it would come out the other side and not be infectious, and anyone who hasn’t had it would have no one to catch if from.

It wouldn’t work in the UK, but this may be how or why China is able to ease restrictions now.

There are people driving 100 odd miles during this to visit the beach and some are even visiting their second homes (twice). Do you really think your suggestion is going to happen? There are far too many (self)important people that can't be told, so that idea is never going to materialise.

[DanL]

Aaa. said:

There are people driving 100 odd miles during this to visit the beach and some are even visiting their second homes (twice). Do you really think your suggestion is going to happen? There are far too many (self)important people that can't be told, so that idea is never going to materialise.

I did say it was wildly impractical.

[Eagleye]

I'm hearing more and more people saying that whilst they don't want to get it now - unless a viable vaccine turns up, they don't see an option but accept they will be getting it.

[Riley Blue]

Eagleye said:

I'm hearing more and more people saying that whilst they don't want to get it now - unless a viable vaccine turns up, they don't see an option but accept they will be getting it.

Really? What age group are they?

[Eagleye]

Riley Blue said:

Really? What age group are they?

I'm only talking about a dozen friends, family and colleagues so hardly representative of the world but what are the options?

Put life on hold until a vaccine turns up or what? Not much of a choice really is it?

You can isolate for a year and a careless ill judged visit to the shops would still see you in the same position as in 3 months from now. You can only hope that the best medical care is available for you should you take a turn for the worse.

In the meantime, all we can do is do whatever we can to get our respiratory systems into the best shape we can.

[Stuart70]

Eagleye said:

Riley Blue said:

Really? What age group are they?

I'm only talking about a dozen friends, family and colleagues so hardly representative of the world but what are the options?

Put life on hold until a vaccine turns up or what? Not much of a choice really is it?

You can isolate for a year and a careless ill judged visit to the shops would still see you in the same position as in 3 months from now. You can only hope that the best medical care is available for you should you take a turn for the worse.

In the meantime, all we can do is do whatever we can to get our respiratory systems into the best shape we can.

But if the peak is managed; then if you do get it - you have a fighting chance of getting medical care that is not swamped by the volume of demand.

[Eagleye]

Stuart70 said:

But if the peak is managed; then if you do get it - you have a fighting chance of getting medical care that is not swamped by the volume of demand.

Apologies, I can see how badly I wrote my previous point now. Yes - I agree with you completely.