Corona Virus

Received my NHS Covid19 test kit today
I was selected at random as part of a nationwide test, will do the prick test and send it back in the post tomorrow
Pretty sure it will come back positive as had cough, mild fever in late January

Will see

 

Are the Covid19 tests accurate? I was talking to a fellow online a couple of months ago who is a scientist with one of the major drug companies. He was due to go back off furlough and he was telling me that his company had said that none of the staff would be tested as the company considered the tests to be inaccurate to the extent that they were pointless.

As far as I know and according to my local health centre we haven't had a single diagnosed case of the virus in my village but whether it will stay that way now that the holiday park around the loch has re-opened is another question. I've practiced Social Distancing for most of the last 48 years (because I don't like people much) so I suspect I will be just fine.

 

The "prick test"? Really? There must be a better name for that COVID test, @Red Thunder.

 

Sounds like this social distancing thing is right up your alley, Marty.

Re. the accuracy of COVID tests, there are a number of different tests in the U.S. and the reliability of the the different tests varies. This is quite problematic and if I were to get tested I'd want to take several and see whether the results converge or diverge. The other problem is that you can test negative one day, be exposed the next, and then contract the virus. The number of tests per day in the U.S. is very low relative to our population and it takes a long time to receive results. Hence my general assessment under the current circumstances is that, to some degree, testing is a "feel good" response because it's essentially a crap shoot. I'm listening to the news as I type this and the topic is testing (and schools which is the environment in which I work). A comment was made that for testing to be an effective proactive effort here we'd need to do 20 million tests PER DAY. We're not even at 1 million.

 

Here are two more articles that I read today discussing airborne transmission and related considerations based what we now know. The photo under the header of the second article is something that cannot be unseen.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/...king-more-about-airborne-transmission/614737/

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/opinion/coronavirus-aerosols.html

 

Hah! You want to see the spray patterns of a fellow taking what you folks on the other side of the pond refer to as a 'Whizz'. I recall a TV series many years ago where a chap called John Harvey-Jones went into failing businesses, including Norton and MZ to try and give them advice and assistance to avoid going down the tubes. One of the companies was a manufacturer of 'Porcelain sanitary ware' called Armitage Shanks and he was trying to persuade them to go down the route of all singing, all dancing toilets (doesn't that create a lovely mental image?) in the Japanese style and there were black and white photographic studies of 'male splashback' shown which really did make you think!

 

Oooh, this also creates a "lovely" visual and mental image, Marty. And it ain't whizz, unfortunately....

https://www.fastcompany.com/9051683...rticles-do-you-create-when-you-flush-a-toilet

 

No wonder I get this thread mixed up with the “this made me laugh” thread.

 

I hope it’s blood your sending in, not your old fella @Red Thunder

 

Gotta laugh sometimes through a frickin' pandemic or I'd just cry, JtC.

 

The BBC is currently bleating about the number of 'excess deaths'; we will not know for a year (or two) what the true excess death rate is as the effect of the virus is to bring forward deaths of those that were likely to die soon anyway.

Just keep in mind the ratio of deaths to population; circa 50,000 to 70M....(in the UK)..that helps keep it in perspective. Practise safe distancing, wash your hands, drink loads, ignore the politicized scare mongering and you will likely be fine.

 

This scare mongering keeps me amused for 10 minutes when I watch the news every day. We now put 50p in a pot who gets closest to the new scare of the day takes the pot.

 

Agree Steve. The BBC is now so obviously putting a negative spin on, not only Corona Virus but all stories it has become wholly discredited. Another branch of the Fabian Society.

 

This, together with shafting the over 75s for a licence fee again, is the sound of a dying entity.

 

Interactive map of UK cases. Zoom and click to see the data for your area.

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=47574f7a6e454dc6a42c5f6912ed7076


Coronavirus (COVID-19) positive cases by Middle Super Output Area (MSOA) in England
Latest time period: Week 30 (Monday 20 July to Sunday 26 July). Data will be updated weekly on a Thursday.
Source: Public Health England Second Generation Surveillance System (SGSS).
Data extraction: Data includes lab confirmed positive cases of Coronavirus (COVID-19) reported by 29th July with specimen dates between 20th July to 26th July 2020. Cases from pillar 1 and pillar 2 of the Government's testing programme are included.
Suppression: Numbers from 0 to 2 (inclusive) are suppressed.
Further information: For full details regarding lab confirmed cases of Coronavirus (COVID-19), see the "About the data" section of the Coronavirus data dashboard:
https://coronavirus-staging.data.gov.uk/about-data


It's a pity we can't see the areas with 1 or 2 cases.

 

It would appear that,we in the good old USA, have taken the stance that the sooner every last person here is infected, the better. If you live, you live, if not, well it's been nice to have known you. That is the way it looks to me! Just my opinion!

Meanwhile, American Flat Track has resumed racing and Lucas Oil Pro Motocross season will kick off Aug. 15. I guess life goes on, for some!

 

@mpllineman

Yes, you could argue that. At some point in the future, each and every one of us is going to come into contact with the virus. The point of social distancing etc is to manage the size of the infection hump at any one time so that the hospital services stand a chance of treating those infected successfully. From what I can see, the biggest problem are the mono-cellists who arrange to meet together (either because they are young and believe it will not touch them....look at the statue tipplers or because of religious righteousness reasons). They then cheerfully spread their new viral load to their/other people's elderly relatives and blame everybody else but themselves. Have a look at the newly imposed lock down towns in the UK......notice anything about the population mix? There is your answer.

 

I am in no way racist but whilst sat in traffic this morning I watched and counted 28 men of mixed ages all in sparking white clothing coming out of a small inner terrace house in a West Yorkshire town which is not, as yet, on the lockdown list. They were obviously celebrating Eid but as someone has already pointed out they must think that the virus does not apply to them.

 

And I respect your views SmiliJack

 

The infection hump, in the sense of the number of people in hospital, is almost non-existent.