A few videos on the graphs and mathematical models of epidemic spread:






It helps with understanding some of this, but it doesn't give me much reassurance. I still encounter people who think it a hoax or overblown.

I just got my letter from NHS England today, telling me I am in the 1.5 million who are likely to get seriously ill of they catch Covid-19. It was supposed to arrive by the weekend at the latest, so I was just beginning to hope that I wasn’t in the most vulnerable group, and was just a bit vulnerable. Oh, well. Thank you, NHS England, for giving me the web address for a site that will help me out with food, etc., the same place where we filled in a form for said help over a week ago and have yet to hear a thing back, despite mouthing off on Twitter, etc. We’re being studiously ignored. Luckily US is able to spend large amounts of his time hanging about online grocery delivery sites like a prawn round a sewage pipe, waiting for a slot to open up, or there’d be nothing to eat. No sign of the fabled food package that is supposed to arrive for cripples such as myself. If this is how they treat the most vulnerable, heaven help everyone else. Thanks, government.

Just stay at home, Fall. Bleach everything, even the food boxes. It'll pass.

I can’t ‘stay at home’, I have to go and get my next lot of treatment on Monday.

Fallible wrote:No sign of the fabled food package that is supposed to arrive for cripples such as myself. If this is how they treat the most vulnerable, heaven help everyone else. Thanks, government.

that's crap. Everything about this seems so half-arsed.
Where are you? maybe one us can get you some supplies.

My SO has to go for her weekly testing. Thankfully a friend can drive her.

GrahamH wrote:

Fallible wrote:No sign of the fabled food package that is supposed to arrive for cripples such as myself. If this is how they treat the most vulnerable, heaven help everyone else. Thanks, government.

that's crap. Everything about this seems so half-arsed.
Where are you? maybe one us can get you some supplies.

Graham, thank you, that’s very kind. We should be ok, we are managing to jump on slots when they become free. It sometimes takes a few days, but we do have some tins we can fall back on. I appreciate your support.

felltoearth wrote:My SO has to go for her weekly testing. Thankfully a friend can drive her.

Ugh...yeah, I’m supposed to have weekly bloods to check liver function. The current drug raises enzymes, and we are engaged in a balancing act to try to prevent me having to stop the medication due to levels that are too high.

Fallible wrote:

felltoearth wrote:My SO has to go for her weekly testing. Thankfully a friend can drive her.

Ugh...yeah, I’m supposed to have weekly bloods to check liver function. The current drug raises enzymes, and we are engaged in a balancing act to try to prevent me having to stop the medication due to levels that are too high.

That’s what this is for from when when contracted mono last year and was actually close to death. Her liver still isn’t quite right.

Are you skipping it then or can you risk going for the test?


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Sent to somewhere using a shitty app. Sorry for the tags and/or dupe posts.

I'm 83 with prostate cancer (slow growing) and T2DM (not insulin dependent). Heard nothing from anyone. I don't think they know I exist.
At the moment these conditions have little effect on my daily life. Time will tell.

felltoearth wrote:

Fallible wrote:

felltoearth wrote:My SO has to go for her weekly testing. Thankfully a friend can drive her.

Ugh...yeah, I’m supposed to have weekly bloods to check liver function. The current drug raises enzymes, and we are engaged in a balancing act to try to prevent me having to stop the medication due to levels that are too high.

That’s what this is for from when when contracted mono last year and was actually close to death. Her liver still isn’t quite right.

Are you skipping it then or can you risk going for the test?


______________________________________
Sent to somewhere using a shitty app. Sorry for the tags and/or dupe posts.

I’ll have to go. They won’t release my next cycle of treatment until they have the results of my blood tests. I was meant to have gone already for a test and my next cycle, but we had coughs, so it was postponed for 2 weeks and I was told to take a tablet every other day rather than every day. I’ve still got a cough, so...I don’t know what they’ll think of that. Hope your partner is ok.

Here's a thought. In the UK we have just had news of the COVID-19 deaths for the last day. These included 28 with no underlying health conditions.
Does anyone know of any research why these healthy victims have died (about 10% of all deaths)? There was no indication of age in the figures.

3 years ago almost to the day, I was in intensive care after I’d had my nephrectomy, and I was chatting to one of the nurses there. For some reason we were discussing flu. I remember him saying that a couple of weeks before, they had had two patients with flu in intensive care, both in their early 30s, no other health problems, a couple of strapping lads. He said it had been touch and go for them for quite a while. I don’t think they know why some healthy people get seriously ill or die from these viruses.

Fallible wrote:

I’ll have to go. They won’t release my next cycle of treatment until they have the results of my blood tests. I was meant to have gone already for a test and my next cycle, but we had coughs, so it was postponed for 2 weeks and I was told to take a tablet every other day rather than every day. I’ve still got a cough, so...I don’t know what they’ll think of that. Hope your partner is ok.

She’s fine. This is week 3 of isolation/distancing for us. Any outside contact or activity is a source of acute anxiety for her and somewhat less for me which, for me, translates as hyper vigilance and edginess and for her as night terrors.
I’m sure you can relate somewhat.

ETA jesus fuck commas.

Absolutely. I’ve tried so hard to eliminate all dangers, and now I’m literally required to take a risk. Not a good feeling.

Just had a message from my son whose UK company has a branch in Oz. It's the approaching flu season there and there is a huge drive for flu jabs. The idea being that if one catches flu it will weaken the immune system thereby making any COVID-19 infection worse. Obviously, a flu jab wont stop the virus but it may alleviate the symptoms and illness.

If so, this leads me to wonder if any study has been done wrt flu jabs and resulting severity of illness (even death) due to COVID-19?

It's a new virus so likely no. It's related to SARS however so maybe a study has been conducted with that virus.

It makes intuitive sense that if COVID-19 mortality is higher in those with pre-existing respiratory conditions, you want to keep down other causes of respiratory conditions. Likewise you want to keep down anything that might take up hospital resources at a time when hospitals are operating at or over capacity.

Don't know of any studies specifically wrt COVID-19 mortality (it seems a bit soon for publication of something that specific), but I'd guess someone out there is collecting data.

Fallible wrote:3 years ago almost to the day, I was in intensive care after I’d had my nephrectomy, and I was chatting to one of the nurses there. For some reason we were discussing flu. I remember him saying that a couple of weeks before, they had had two patients with flu in intensive care, both in their early 30s, no other health problems, a couple of strapping lads. He said it had been touch and go for them for quite a while. I don’t think they know why some healthy people get seriously ill or die from these viruses.

In the case of the Spanish 'flu of 1918 to 1920...

Most influenza outbreaks disproportionately kill the very young and the very old, with a higher survival rate for those in between, but the Spanish flu pandemic resulted in a higher than expected mortality rate for young adults. Scientists offer several possible explanations for the high mortality rate of the 1918 influenza pandemic. Some analyses have shown the virus to be particularly deadly because it triggers a cytokine storm, which ravages the stronger immune system of young adults.

-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu

Essentially, the immune response to the virus does more damage than the infection itself. (Not all analysts agree that 'cytokine storm' accounts for the high mortality rate among youngsters in the case of Spanish 'flu a century ago. Similarly, it's not certain that it's applicable in more recent strains, but it is one theory that seems rather plausible).

Mike_L wrote:it is one theory that seems rather plausible).

Three cheers for theories which "seem plausible". It's like selective plausibility, or plausibly deniable selectability or something.