Tag: virus

COVID – 19 part 2

This whole story is starting to dominate the news.
I have two thoughts.
First, shortages in the shops demonstrate how fragile modern society is.
Let’s say I buy one particular thing every weekly shop at the supermarket.
Panicked by the newspaper headlines, it is quite rational of me to buy two of them when I shop.
However if everybody does that a  variant of that hundred per cent increase in demand will inevitably cause shortages.

The story of the shortage causes further panic and people start buying more things.
Then there is a shortage.
Then people start profiteering.
The moral of this is to be sensible though I am  not sure everybody will be.

A second thought is one of puzzlement. It is quite clear how the virus originated, it is a zoonotic infection.
But a surprising number of people fuel the Internet with strange conspiracy theories.
This leads to more panic and more worry.
Therefore, what puzzles me, is why so many people are prepared to believe anything but the ordinary mundane truth.
Here are a couple of links for some simple debunking.

Independent

Telegraph

At least here is a kitten to cheer you up.

 

Kitten

The Corona virus-COVID-19

This whole story is quite scary as one begins to wonder whether it will be the event at the beginning of the end, a precursor of it or just another bad thing.

Those of us who watch post apocalyptic movies particularly, will be struck by the similarities to a zombie movie. Over the opening credits you see newspaper headlines and ticker-tape under the news; it starts with a case or two here or there, there is the first death, it spreads to other countries and then quarantine kicks in.
Then tipping point is when the infected break out of quarantine and start to rampage. I believe the government are, or probably should be, making plans to cut off the Wirral Peninsula.

However the most serious point and the one we would all like to know, is what chance one has of dying if one contracts the virus.

The winter flu, with which we are all familiar, has a death rate of roughly one in 10,000 cases. This figure came from a serious and impenetrable American website; it does the calculations and is useful if you understand statistics. American Statistics
Public Health England also publish an annual lengthy report which you might find interesting though it does not seem to spell out the odds of dying from Flu. http://Flu Report 18-19

Of course, for the winter flu many people are vaccinated which is not the case in the current situation, so crudely, with around 60% of over 60s vaccinated we could double the rate to two in 10,000 cases.

So to repeat what are the odds of dying from COVID-19?

The BBC, helpfully, have this information in a drop-down menu at the bottom of the page below, (the bit people don’t usually scroll down to) BBC story
If you are healthy then they quote 0.9% or crudely 90 in 10,000 cases but for the elderly, vulnerable or ill it rises to 11% or roughly one 1,100 in 10,000 cases.
So it seems we should not ignore it, take the sensible hygiene precautions and, in my view, ensure you have enough food at home to ensure you for can self isolate for up to three weeks.
Bit grim but here’s a picture of a kitten to cheer you up.