Response to Coronavirus

C

cremeegg

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The government should cancel all pre-emptive measures relating to the coronavirus. The health system should stick with treating sick people and giving public health advice.

The coronavirus is twice as contagious and twice as deadly as the flu, left unchecked it would kill about 2,000 people per annum in Ireland. That is not additional people, that includes many people who would die of other causes within the year.

Case study. My mother is in a nursing home, she is well over 90. No one can visit her. She does not understand why her relatives have stopped coming to see her. Her ability to communicate will decline with the lack of daily visits. (When she was left unvisited for 6 days before Christmas there was a marked decline). There is no indication how long this will continue.

If Coronavirus got into the nursing home maybe 30% of the residents would die, my mother likely among them. But her last months would be as happy as they could be made, now she probably feels abandoned.
 
For some of the residents, they have years not months at stake. And no one knows what the death toll would be... it could be 200, 2000, 20000...

But could the nursing home set up video call slots? Would that help at all? Could they read out letters from relatives to patients?
Speaker phone slots if she is unable to operate a mobile phone herself?

If the nursing home are going to put in visitor restrictions which may run for considerable period, there is an onus on them to facilitate special measures for the patients.
 
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I'm no expert on the Coronavirus (Covid-19). I understand the new government is not yet nearly formed. I don't see how our schools can still be left open in the current situation. It's crazy that sporting events (including GAA important league games) are allowed to go ahead. We allowed some of our people gather in Cheltenham (and I wonder could it have been stopped?). Is it time to ban attendance at funerals? Should wedding celebrations be banned? Should our night clubs and pubs and restaurants be forced to close? I don't have the answers. But, if Ireland Ltd doesn't go into some form of shut-down quickly (as in the next few days), I fear what might happen. I reckon we have been too slow to see the obvious.
 
I despair!

Today I suggested that there was no need for students to be on top of each other. I had a small group. Loads of empty desks. (Students not attending). I suggested to students that they might give space to each other in light of coronavirus.

WW3 erupted! “Why? Why should I move? I’m not moving.“ These are adult students.

My nearest toilets are student toilets. I have seen so many leave without washing their hands.

Cleaning of overflowing open bins in the college is sporadic - only every few days. No gels provided. No cleaning wipes for computer rooms. More than one hundred people sharing the same keyboards and mouse daily in the room that I use. There are 4 computer rooms in the college!

I brought in wipes for my students to clean their mouse and keyboards for my classes. Computer Rooms and classrooms are shared with other teachers and students.

The mind boggles. We can only keep trying. But ...

Marion
 
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The economic impact of closing everything down for weeks or months will be devastating for the economy. And before anyone starts bleating on about people being more important than the economy we need to remember that the economy is the people; it is their income and their ability to buy food and pay bills and pay taxes that fund the healthcare system. Without those taxes how do we pay out medical professionals and nurses? They need to eat too.

We need to take reasonable measures like stopping sporting events and concerts . We need to self isolate. We need to provide appropriate cleaning equipment for our employees and students but most of all we need to wash our hands, not touch our face and cough into out elbows and not our hands. What we don’t need is to close down the country and cause another recession.
 
Possible Solution:-
This is a small extract from the Spanish equivalent of our Met Office:-

"THE State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) is forecasting a significant rise in temperatures in much of the interior of the peninsula as of today.
From today, thermometers will rise “exceptionally”, according to the AEMET. The weather over the next few days will be more typical of May than March, with temperatures forecast to reach 34ºC in areas of the Guadalquivir.
The question is, will the heat become an ally in the fight against coronavirus?
For the moment, it’s not clear. There is no evidence of a relationship between heat and this new coronavirus.
Spanish epidemiologist Juan Gestal, an expert in preventive medicine is optimistic. In a recent interview with NIUS, he said: “With the arrival of the heat, the coronavirus is expected to disappear.” He explained that all respiratory transmission diseases, such as colds or flu, are more frequent in the cold seasons, one of the reasons being is that in the winter people gather in closed places more often, where transmission is always easier.
Luis Enjuanes, a researcher at the National Biotechnology Centre who leads the team that is researching the coronavirus vaccine in Spain, is also optimistic, saying that “the heat is positive because it inactivates the virus.”
This is an opinion shared by Spanish biologist Daniel Gomez who explains that as temperatures rise, the stability of the virus in the environment decreases. According to Gomez, viruses have optimal temperature ranges, typically below 20 ºC and when they rise above this temperature, the chances of survival decrease."

Time for an early holiday, I think. But, avoid Madrid and Barcelona. Head south.
 
Madrid has half the cases in Spain and it's temperature today is 14 - 24 degrees.
[broken link removed]

I'm not sure we can rely on the weather - but it will be watched closely over the next month. Maybe we will catch a break... we won't have the heat but at least it would mean southern europe not a reservoir for it.
 
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Given the number of cases in Northern Ireland should we be looking for a hard border with the UK?
Is it too late to renegotiate that with the Brits?
 
Purple said:
Given the number of cases in Northern Ireland should we be looking for a hard border with the UK?
Is it too late to renegotiate that with the Brits?
Click to expand...
Whatever about NI, let's ask Boris to put a hard border around Cheltenham and keep them all in there until this thing blows over!
 
I can't help but thinking that if this virus hit in the 1930s, the young and hit would all be called up to a form of national service.
Sent to virus boot camps for a month for them to get mostly mildly sick, recover, and come back to the 'herd' with immunity.

I could see somewhere today like North Korea trying something along those lines.
 
odyssey06 said:
I can't help but thinking that if this virus hit in the 1930s, the young and hit would all be called up to a form of national service.
Sent to virus boot camps for a month for them to get mostly mildly sick, recover, and come back to the 'herd' with immunity.

I could see somewhere today like North Korea trying something along those lines.
Click to expand...
Thankfully we've evolved beyond that in the last 90 years.
 
Boris & Co certainly haven't, which is hardly surprising given his ancestors' roles in the Ottoman Empire and his predecessors genocidal activities.
 
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