The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 10/04/2020 21:38, Vir Campestris wrote:
On 10/04/2020 00:11, Fredxx wrote:
They will only know that when they have tested sufficient of the
population for numbers of those infected. We have no idea what
proportion of the population are infected or the rate of new infections.

The real question is when will we know the NHS can cope?

Lets be optimistic, lets assume 2% of the population will need
admission to a hospital before herd immunity kicks in sufficiently.
That's 1 million patients. Each one that survives, probably 1/2, will
need a bed for 1 or 2 weeks. That's a lot of beds, or a very long time
to reach herd immunity.

My numbers may be off, but that should paint a picture of how this
might pan out.

I went and looked at the South Korea figures earlier.

They've been carrying out extremely widespread contact tracing and
testing, and seem to have the epidemic under control. Unlike some
countries I have some faith in their numbers.

Let me merely say that if you are of a nervous disposition don't look
them up. My wife, for example, wouldn't benefit from knowing their figures.

We've been in lockdown now for three weeks, comfortably over the
incubation period; if lockdown is working we should be seeing a massive
drop in hospital admissions.


in Suffolk there have hardly BEEN any admissions. 300 cases in total.
Its working HERE.


They gave the National number of admissions today, it was about 19k for 70k
confirmed cases, under 1/3. Obviously there are unconfirmed cases and some
who arent yet in hospital may yet need to attend but, overall, the
snapshot lines up with other countries- most people recover without even
going to hospital, let alone complex intervention. Those requiring
invasive ventilation represent a much smaller group- not only admitted to
hospital but also very ill. Not those like Boris who had a bit of O2 and,
Im pleased to say, seems to be recovering well.