DIYbanter - Corona - why believe them now?

"Martin Brown" wrote in message
...
On 01/04/2020 08:05, Bob Eager wrote:
On Wed, 01 Apr 2020 06:19:01 +0000, Bob Martin wrote:

On 31 Mar 2020 at 14:31:23, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:
In article ,
Gareth Evans wrote:
So why give them any credibility now, especially as Boris talked for
at least 7 minutes solid without any trace of a dry cough? Is Boris's
claim of self isolation just a device of the continuing use of
improperganda in Brit?

Do try and keep up. The symptoms - and the severity of them - vary by
person. Some, apparently, can be infected without knowing.

It is thought that the vast majority - something like 80% show no
appreciable symptoms but are still infective.

Thats bull**** with the 80%

This is what makes the coronavirus so effective at spreading in the
population.

Nope, its more infectious than most flus.

Hence the strict social distancing rules - you cannot tell that someone
has it.

The social distancing rules are because its so infectious.

Could number of virus particles ingested be a factor in severity of
infection?

There have been statements that the viral load makes a big difference.
Can't remember where, though, except it was a medical source.

The main thing is whether or not your immune system responds effectively
to the infection early on before it starts to do serious damage to the
lungs.

Thats not clear yet either.

The other risk is that if your immune response is *too* vigorous that can
also lead to serious problems so it is tricky to predict.

It is certainly true for medics where if they get exposed to a large dose
from a highly infective patient at close quarters the virus gets so much
of a head start in their bodies that the immune system struggles.

But some people are more susceptible to it. The correlation with age, sex
being particularly obvious. Slight dependence on blood group with A most
at risk and O the safest. B and AB approximately neutral.

https://www.worldometers.info/corona...-demographics/

If you compare that with the odds of dying annually with age given he

http://www.bandolier.org.uk/booth/Risk/dyingage.html
(unchecked)

It looks like coronavirus approximately results in a 300x increase in your
annual risk of death if you get it at pretty much any age. I didn't spot
this - I heard it on the radio and thought I would check it out.
Seems to be approximately true. Basically it is a lethal stress test.

https://medium.com/wintoncentre/how-...t-4539118e1196
(the graphs do not display on IE11)

Broken down to risk factors it would be something like:

x250 for catching covid-19

(4x more likely to die the week you catch it than in the entire year)

x2 for being male
x1.3 for blood group A
x0.8 for blood group O

Those at present appear to be the rough numbers from published data.

I suspect that we have overreacted and that whilst total lockdown might
well be needed in London it is irrelevant in the Scottish Highlands and
borderline in sparsely populated rural counties like North Yorkshire.

Sheffield is having a bad time of it apparently.

I am inclined to agree with Professor Thomas of Bristol University risk
management research that the damage to the economy inflicted to save lives
now will kill more people in the longer term than the virus.

Dont buy that either particularly in the first world.