COVID-19 could affect more races this year.

[Restomaniac]

This could also be true. I was just highlighting this piece and the assumptions laid out in it. If they ARE right then herd mentality and antibody tests are useless as defences which is a truly frightening thought.

It is, but equally mass hysteria can too be an issue. Without downplaying the serious effects of the virus, because it is a deadly virus!, equally taking lockdown measures can cause people to go on hamstering sprees, to go en masse to parties one last time, to go shopping all at once. There's a distinct possibility the lockdown measurements initially helped the virus spread due to society acting in a reverse way. In Belgium, we saw a lot of people just packing together at grocery stores, bars, at container parks,... the day before things got closed, or when something reopens. The Netherlands learned from this by announcing the measures half a hour before things effectively got closed.

I didn't believe myself in the approach of Sweden at first, but granted their numbers are accurate, they are not worse off than countries like France and Belgium. Perhaps science did not factor in sociology when taking the measures.

Herd mentality is a difficult thing when only a very small percentage that breaks the rules is tolerable for the virus not to spread. If too many people break the rules, even if the vast vast majority still abides to them, lockdown rules can become undermined. To make it work the most efficient, you need a lockdown model like Italy or China, where you essentially rob people of their freedom. That will work.

Note what I am saying here, is not a push towards lockdown relaxation or people stopping to abide the rules. Far from it. Please hold yourself to the rules set by your country, and if needed be yourself more stringent than those rules! Be rational and logical, keep distance, wash your hands often and thoroughly, and avoid unnecessary trips. Human kind hasn't had to act responsible since WW2; now we have to.

I agree.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/tota ... EL+FRA+SWE

However just for balance compared to the rest of the Scandinavian countries.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/tota ... NK+FIN+NOR

[izzy]

logically, eventually everybody is going to get it, up until there's a vaccine. So the only difference between countries will be where it's go to at the point we can all get a jab and my betting is there won't be much difference, among similar cultures like among western democracies

and afaik the stats for intensive care and ventilation are not huge, like 66% of those patients will die within a year anyway, for example, and 50% are dying in intensive care, some of those would've recovered anyway and it's a very small proportion to start with. So lockdown is essential but it's not actually a solution

for me and my family and friends, the idea is to be fit and lean, do something aerobic every day, eat fruit and veg, and if we do get it lie on our front. And try to avoid places where you might get a big viral load like the doctors

And wait patiently for some F1 . On racefans they're reporting there's a plan to have Austria then possibly 3 races at Silverstone, all closed doors all clockwise but using at least two track layouts. These thoughts are good for our mental health

[turbof1]

However just for balance compared to the rest of the Scandinavian countries.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/tota ... NK+FIN+NOR

The death per million number is often cited, although I do feel some nuance has to be put to that number as well. Your population density plays a huge, huge part in that. So it's not a total surprise Finland is at the bottom, with 19 people pr square mile. The further people generally live from one another, the less risk on infection.

The real outlier on that curve is Denmark, with 347 people per square mile, vs sweden 64 people per square mile. If you take deaths per population density, I'd say Denmark is doing really, really well. And they took similar actions like Belgium at around the same time, although I do believe they had a lot less tourism towards Italy compared to Belgium.

Just so you know, Belgium has 993 people per square mile. In Belgium we also have a large outbreak of the virus in our elderly homes. At this moment 54% of the deaths are from inhabitants living in elderly homes; the daily death numbers currently are roughly 2/3 consisting of them. There's a lot nuances involved, different for each country.

[Restomaniac]

However just for balance compared to the rest of the Scandinavian countries.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/tota ... NK+FIN+NOR

The death per million number is often cited, although I do feel some nuance has to be put to that number as well. Your population density plays a huge, huge part in that. So it's not a total surprise Finland is at the bottom, with 19 people pr square mile. The further people generally live from one another, the less risk on infection.

The real outlier on that curve is Denmark, with 347 people per square mile, vs sweden 64 people per square mile. If you take deaths per population density, I'd say Denmark is doing really, really well. And they took similar actions like Belgium at around the same time, although I do believe they had a lot less tourism towards Italy compared to Belgium.

Just so you know, Belgium has 993 people per square mile. In Belgium we also have a large outbreak of the virus in our elderly homes. At this moment 54% of the deaths are from inhabitants living in elderly homes; the daily death numbers currently are roughly 2/3 consisting of them. There's a lot nuances involved, different for each country.

Oh I agree. It’s why London is being so hard hit as it’s like a rabbit Warren.

[3jawchuck]

I agree.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/tota ... EL+FRA+SWE
However just for balance compared to the rest of the Scandinavian countries.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/tota ... NK+FIN+NOR

Finnish data comes from here: https://korona.kans.io/?language=en

For a large portion of the time the virus was mainly isolated to Helsinki, however it is now gaining a foothold in the Turku and Tampere areas (Varsinais-Suomi and Pirkanmaa). Finland has a small population density and a population more willing to do as they are told by the government, although by no means completely obedient.

Interestingly, the first case of the virus in Finland was in Lapland. The next case not until a month later, half the way down the country (this was a different strain than the one in Lapland).

The government actually restricted movement out of the region in which Helsinki lies (after announcing it a week in advance). This restriction lasted a couple of weeks but was lifted the other day as there was no legally sound way to continue the restriction.

There has also been a similar situation to the UK in that deaths outside of hospital have not been put down to COVID19, this is certainly a problem when taking into account recent (potentially statistically excessive) nursing home deaths. Finland is also not testing extensively outside of hospitals.

It is spreading and likely will continue so, however healthcare facilities are nowhere near overwhelmed and will probably not get into that situation.

[Just_a_fan]

There have been suggestions that the virus is a Chinese construct released on purpose from a lab in Wuhan.

An international team has authored a paper looking at the virus's origins. Note that none of the authors is Chinese or from a Chinese institution - before anyone suggests a "put up job".

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9

SARS-CoV-2 is the seventh coronavirus known to infect humans; SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 can cause severe disease, whereas HKU1, NL63, OC43 and 229E are associated with mild symptoms6. Here we review what can be deduced about the origin of SARS-CoV-2 from comparative analysis of genomic data. We offer a perspective on the notable features of the SARS-CoV-2 genome and discuss scenarios by which they could have arisen. Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus.

It's worth noting that strange, potentially deadly, infections that suddenly infect humans are unlikely to be a new thing, and yet here we are. Indeed, many infectious diseases are likely to have started out as something similar in other animals. Tuberculosis is found in other animals and is caused by different but very similar pathogens. Indeed, humans can and do catch bovine TB. What likelihood that they all came from a common origin? Pretty high, surely.

Our immune systems have developed over the long evolution of humanity (and humanity's antecedents). Our bodies contain the genetic code of many other creatures incorporated in to our own genetic code - several % of your DNA is viral DNA. Our bodies contain something that has its own separate genetic code and without which we can't function (mitochondria) and which is hypothesised to be have started out as a symbiotic relationship way back in the very distant past.

Humanity will evolve to deal with, and survive, SAR-CoV-2. The sad reality, of course, is that process will involve a relatively tiny number of deaths. That's relative to a total population of nearly 8 billion people, of course.

[LM10]

I'm gonna add my own 2 cents for a moment:

In Belgium, we had an interesting case in our elderly homes. The government rolled out swab tests, but they included the wrong waddings. Those were too thick and caused nose bleedings. They deemed all of the positive cases out of those tests not trustworthy and ordered to redo them with the correct waddings.

So it definitely seems a wide margin of error is possible or at least suspected with this test, especially when done improperly. Also due to your nose being a specific organ 'designed' to block out bacteria and viruses, there is always the chance it only ended up in the mucus of the nose, but never in the blood stream. In that case, you will still be a carrier, but without an actual infection, and you will not create anti-bodies. For me personally, only a blood test can be conclusive on that front.

Furthermore with these swab tests is that since they look for the RDNA of the virus, you can actually already be cured of the virus. The virus is dead, but the RDNA strands are still lying around and are readable for the tests.

Viral experts in Belgium came to the conclusion that people who tested positive on an infection -an actual proven infection- and who did not get (a lot of) anti-bodies after a couple of weeks, were actually still having the infection and were not cured. Anti-bodies, however, are eventually being created and you will get immune to it (there will of course always be exceptions, but I can't account for that). The viral experts also agreed immunity does not last forever, with 1 year immunity being fairly certain, 2 years likely, but 3 years of immunity is a stretch.

Finally, there is the possibility -emphasis on possibility- somebody who got infected once can get infected again shortly after. Likely in the case is that there will be anti-bodies present, but not enough. It kind of depends how bad the first infection was. The heavier the infection, the more the body will create anti-bodies.

This could also be true. I was just highlighting this piece and the assumptions laid out in it. If they ARE right then herd mentality and antibody tests are useless as defences which is a truly frightening thought.

I don't understand why media pushes the articles suggesting people don't build immunity/antibodies after an infection. Unless you don't have an issue with your immune system, your plasma cells will build antibodies. Of course you'll have people having problems with building them, but that's not different with vaccines when there also are people who still aren't immune after getting vaccinated.
The disease is still new, so tests will get better and better - same goes for antibody tests which will get more sensitive and show you immunity instead of false negative results.

As for the people getting tested positive again after a negative test. First of all, that's a very small portion and secondly, as I've told, of course there will be people having problems with building immunity. But, in my opinion, the most likely reason for that was either a mistake getting the probe out of patient's nose/pharynx or simply false test results as there is no test which has 100% sesitivity and specificity.

[turbof1]

I don't understand why media pushes the articles suggesting people don't build immunity/antibodies after an infection. Unless you don't have an issue with your immune system, your plasma cells will build antibodies. Of course you'll have people having problems with building them, but that's not different with vaccines when there also are people who still aren't immune after getting vaccinated.
The disease is still new, so tests will get better and better - same goes for antibody tests which will get more sensitive and show you immunity instead of false negative results.

As for the people getting tested positive again after a negative test. First of all, that's a very small portion and secondly, as I've told, of course there will be people having problems with building immunity. But, in my opinion, the most likely reason for that was either a mistake getting the probe out of patient's nose/pharynx or simply false test results as there is no test which has 100% sesitivity and specificity.

Media likes to use eye-catching titles, likes to use sensational bits. Even in my country one main news outlet kept posting about how Belgium is doing so badly in the rankings (in a paid article no less), but when you dig a bit beyond the sausy title, they are talking about deaths per million, which is an arbitrarily number, not to mention each country decides on their own who joins the statistics and who doesn't. I'm not going to claim Belgium didn't make errors; they really did: no strategic stock of medical gear, not early enough restrictions from Italy, not enough care for the elderly homes,... . But, at the same time I'd claim we are doing equally well as France and the Netherlands, a bit less then Germany and way better than Great Britain (not even to mention Spain and Italy).

Second issue is that there's a lot hysteria going on, with humanity knowing little about the virus. That is further compounded by mass misinformation on social media (remember the 10s hold your breath test?).

It is best everybody stays calm, collected and rational. That includes experts and government; lockdowns can only be lifted very gradually, economic losses have to be accepted if the goal is to save lifes. We need to buy enough time to get to a situation where a combination of immunity (either through recovering from infection or vaccination) and the virus dying out. In the meanwhile we'll learn about this virus and weed out the misinformation.

[Zynerji]

The misinformation is the worst part.

No matter your opinion on COVID, it has been co-opted by political positions in the USA , and that has hurt more than anything else. For once, if they all would have pulled together and in the same direction, I believe that we would still be closed for business, but we would have a positive and optimistic outlook of what post-COVID will look like. Now, it's just a partisan mudslinging mess.

As always, when extremists are on both sides, one must determine the line of truth in the middle. And that is difficult, because it is inevitable that bias will be introduced.

[Big Tea]

It is absurd to label yourself as critically thinking and then dismiss everyone who reads those publications outright. It's also amusing that you keep editing in more publications.

No one should ever be afraid or ashamed to read anything (within decency). It is taking things at face value that causes problems. Some articles even use links to their own previous posts to ' prove' what they say was reviewed elsewhere, so if it is not linked, don't believe it. If you do not trust the source, follow the citation and and where the citation from that leads if your suspect it. NO one is always correct, so even trustworthy sites can mislead unintentionally.
( And, I admit I do not always do this myself, its too easy not to)

[izzy]

In Hokkaido they're into the second wave:

The third lesson is that this "new reality" is going to go on a lot longer than most people expect.

Hokkaido has now had to re-impose the restrictions, though Japan's version of a Covid-19 "lockdown" is a rather softer than those imposed elsewhere.

Most people are still going to work. Schools may be closed, but shops and even bars remain open.

Prof Shibuya thinks without tougher measures Japan has little hope of controlling this so called "second wave" of infections now taking place, not just in Hokkaido, but across the country.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-52305055

They're still skiing too.

[strad]

Your population density plays a huge, huge part in that. So it's not a total surprise Finland is at the bottom, with 19 people pr square mile. The further people generally live from one another, the less risk on infection.

Very true and why NYC and NJ were hit so hard.

[hollus]

This topic has been infected with nacional politics. One gets afraid that the whole site could get infected, the I heard that politics are highly contagious.

Seriously people, if you come to F1T, leave the politics at home. It is a simple rule.

I am locking the thread it until it has been disinfected of politics.

So... cleaning done.

This forum is even more globalized than the real world. If your post seems to focus on a particular political party of a particular country, please don’t post it. Unless it affects F1, that is.

[turbof1]

This topic has been infected with nacional politics. One gets afraid that the whole site could get infected, the I heard that politics are highly contagious.

Seriously people, if you come to F1T, leave the politics at home. It is a simple rule.

I am locking the thread it until it has been disinfected of politics.

So... cleaning done.

This forum is even more globalized than the real world. If your post seems to focus on a particular political party of a particular country, please don’t post it. Unless it affects F1, that is.

You did use the 95% alcohol gel for cleaning right? Don't want another outbreak

[nzjrs]

Thanks for cleaning guys!