Coronavirus - will we survive?

Sluffy wrote:

xmiles wrote:You are quite right that if people were better educated they might vote differently. This survey by YouGov of the 2019 general election voters is very interesting. The worse your education the more likely you are to vote Tory.

GSCE or below: 25% voted Labour; 58% voted Tory
Degree or above: 43% voted Labour; 29% voted Tory.

I don't see much prospect of things changing for the better however.

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/12/17/how-britain-voted-2019-general-election

To be fair I think you also need to corollate this information with age profiles of voters too.

I strongly suspect that most Conservative voters are of an age were higher/university education wasn't an option that many really had back then - myself for one (not that I vote for anyone, anyway).

I had to hold down a job and do all my further education and professional qualifications at night school or day release from work (on the understanding that I had to work extra hours without pay to make up the time lost whilst studying).

It's just how it was back then.

Undoubtedly there is a degree of correlation [note the correct spelling ] but the divergence is significantly higher based just on age.

18-24: 56% voted Labour; 21% voted Tory
70+ : 14% voted Labour; 67% voted Tory

How many people were quizzed on this poll?

I voted Tory and im not 70+ and I have been in higher education etc.

Whilst it can give an idea how people voted but it is not a true way to get the results unless you polled everyone.

Edit: Just seen the link above stating 40,000 people were quizzed on it.

Sluffy wrote:Thanks Obs, I was aware of some of that such as Trump not actually winning the combined popular total vote and Clinton being seen to be not that much better to him as a choice to vote for but that's the rules of the game and could equally have worked in Hilary's favour too.

There's all sorts of discussions that can be made about electoral reform - should it be mandatory for everybody to vote, should seats be awarded on proportional representation, even should voters be made to under go tests to see if they actually understand what they are voting for!

The bottom line, whether we like it or not, was that the rules were exactly the same for Clinton as it was for Trump, Corbyn as it was for Boris and Remain as it was from Brexit (Leave).

You simply can't moan that much if the one you wanted to win didn't, it simply is that for a number of reasons (and not all of them honourable by any means) that the electorate has spoken - they may even live to regret it but they have spoken non the less.

In my view it all revolves around knowledge being power.

If everyone had the same level of education, training and knowledge that you and I have, then would they have voted in the same way that they did?  

I somehow doubt it for the majority of them.

If we only received the same level of education, training and knowledge that most of those who voted for Trump etc, would we have done the same thing too...?

It is what it is I guess.

First rule of politics is to gain power, second rule of politics is retain power - Trump, Boris, Brexit played better/dirtier/smarter/more manipulative/call it what you will, than their opponents and that's why they are in power and the others are not.

If the Democrats had picked Sanders, if Labour hadn't elected Corbyn as leader, if Cameron hadn't called an unnecessary referendum, then things would possibly be a great deal differently but those things didn't happen.

The winners won, the losers lost, we've got to accept that and hope the right people win next time.

Keep safe yourself Obs, hope everything turns out fine for you and yours.

Same for everyone else in the 'Nuts' family too.

Very true... but when you dig deeper, you find disturbing evidence of voter suppression (a key Republican ingredient in retaining power) and lack of responsible citizens going to the polls.  Only 61.4% of eligible voters went to the polls in 2016... and only 59.6% of blacks went to the polls.  During the current pandemic, Wisconsin for example, had a primary.  The Republican led state legislature made people wait for hours in lines instead of allowing mail-in ballots.  In 2016, Wisconsin required voters to have an ID (driver's license, passport or state or national ID) to vote.  Wisconsin had their lowest turnout since 2000... a net loss of 41,000 voters.  Trump went on to win the state by 23,000 votes.  A federal judge said Wisconsin's law was unconstitutional since blacks were 50% likelier than whites to lack these ID's.  When a Republican led legislature takes control of a state, it is more likely to pass laws that make it harder to vote.  To further add to his, Trump has admitted a few weeks ago, that making it easier to vote would hurt the Republican party.  The Republicans are now making it harder to have mail-in ballots, same-day registration, and early voting.  As you astutely said Sluffy, the party in power's job is to retain power.  

As the U.S. Post Office continues to lose money, Trump last week said he would not fund it... an obvious reference to killing off mail-in balloting.  In fact many expect Trump to try and delay the election because of the pandemic.  

As written in the Daily Kos, "Though the novel coronavirus has Americans more reliant on package delivery than ever—including for prescription medications—it has put the future of the U.S. Postal Service in danger. Not distant, far-in-the-future danger, but could-stop-operating-in-June danger. And the Trump administration, which wants to bail out foreign-flagged cruise lines, is saying the postal service is on its own.
“I spoke with the Postmaster General again today,” Rep. Gerry Connolly tweeted Thursday afternoon. “She could not have been more clear: The Postal Service will collapse without urgent intervention, and it will happen soon. We’ve pleaded with the White House to help. @realDonaldTrump personally directed his staff not to do so.”
Neither Democrat or Republican is much different in their grab for power.  But Trump is an animal who has been a career con man, and is showing a lack of leadership during this crisis.  Trump has given PPE supplies in multiples as to how each state voted.  Florida received 200% of their request.  New York received under 20%.  We can deduce from that fact, that a democratic life is not worth much to Trump... a former New Yorker himself.
This is an era of a quid pro quo becoming a quid pro Trump.  If you support him, you get federal money and supplies.  Likewise, if you badmouth him, you get very little.  This is a government ill prepared for a pandemic, with Trump disbanding anything that Obama put in place.
Building on the Ebola experience, the Obama administration set up a permanent epidemic monitoring and command group inside the White House National Security Council (NSC) and another in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—both of which followed the scientific and public health leads of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the diplomatic advice of the State Department. In May 2018, Trump ordered the NSC’s entire global health security unit shut down, calling for reassignment of Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer and dissolution of his team inside the agency. The month before, then-White House National Security Advisor John Bolton pressured Ziemer’s DHS counterpart, Tom Bossert, to resign along with his team. Neither the NSC nor DHS epidemic teams have been replaced. The global health section of the CDC was so drastically cut in 2018 that much of its staff was laid off and the number of countries it was working in was reduced from 49 to merely 10. (FP Insider, 1/31/20)

In February of this year, 17-18 tons of PPE equipment was sent to China... at a time when Trump was calling the pandemic a Democratic hoax.  Hence, there was a limited supply in the American warehouses and no national pandemic team to take charge of this crisis.
It is now not about winning or losing, but about survival... on both sides of the pond.
Please stay home, and stay safe and healthy (to you and the entire Nuts blog). Until happier times!

Things seem to be easing off slightly where i work, it has been manic but we seem to have reached the peak and are hopefully coming down the other side now.

Still have issues getting hold of drugs needed for ventilated patients such as anaesthetics and muscle relaxants. Making sure we have enough of them has been a full time job this last few weeks.

Norpig wrote:Things seem to be easing off slightly where i work, it has been manic but we seem to have reached the peak and are hopefully coming down the other side now.

Still have issues getting hold of drugs needed for ventilated patients such as anaesthetics and muscle relaxants. Making sure we have enough of them has been a full time job this last few weeks.

I've said it already on this thread but hats off to you and all your colleagues throughout the country for all the wonderful stuff you've been doing.

Thought this was an interesting article about the 2m distance rule.

As I suspected it's really more a rule of thumb - clearly when you get joggers and cyclists wheezing and blowing when they pass you, 2m distance is not as safe as if a pensioner with a walking stick was the same 2m away.

A lot of stuff unknown yet but using your common sense is probably the wise thing to do in every circumstance until this thing is beaten.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52522460

Sluffy wrote:not as safe as if a pensioner with a walking stick was the same 2m away.

I'm a pensioner, but I don't have a stick. Where do,(or how), I stand ? 

gloswhite wrote:

Sluffy wrote:not as safe as if a pensioner with a walking stick was the same 2m away.

I'm a pensioner, but I don't have a stick. Where do,(or how), I stand ? 

 

I wasn't meaning to be disrespectful, I am of that age myself after all but I was trying to show a comparison that 2m is probably fine in some instances and possibly not in others.

Tbh I can't recall seeing anybody being out with a stick for ages, I guess if you did require a stick that under the present circumstances it's probably better that you are not out anyway!

I deliberately took it out of context Sluffy. I took no offence whatsoever. Just pulling your leg.
I've been in for the full lockdown, and a few days more, and my legs are getting painful. Even though were not supposed to, my wife and I just went out for the first time, for a walk around the block.
I'm knackered and my chest is killing me. Not one person did we see, so it looks as though its another walk tomorrow night. I didn't realise doing jigsaws could take so much out of you 

Can Vitamin D help against coronavirus?

To be honest I'm very sceptical about almost everything I see and read on social media but I've put up the video below for others to see if they wish and think about.

The bloke doing the video is a Dr John Campbell and this is how he describes himself on his YouTube biography - being on YouTube since 2007 -

Description
Hello Everyone,
My name is John Campbell and I am a retired Nurse Teacher and A and E nurse based in England. I also do some teaching in Asia and Africa when time permits. These videos are to help students to learn the background to all forms of health care. My PhD focused on the development of open learning resources for nurses nationally and internationally.

You can also download my books in high resolution PDF format, many videos, a 64 gig stick with the current range of videos, talking PowerPoints and podcasts preloaded from my website, campbellteaching.co.uk

My books, 'Campbell`s Physiology Notes' and 'Campbell's Pathophysiology Notes' can also be ordered or downloaded via my website.  They are also available as Kindle editions from Amazon.co.uk or from amazon.com

LinkedIn profile, https://uk.linkedin.com/in/dr-john-campbell-5256223b

Anyway this is what he says about vitamin D - make of it what you want -




Fwiw this is an article did on the doctor a couple of months ago -

British doctor giving coronavirus advice becomes unlikely YouTube star with 30m views

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/british-doctor-giving-coronavirus-advice-21682633

Sluffy wrote:Can Vitamin D help against coronavirus?

To be honest I'm very sceptical about almost everything I see and read on social media but I've put up the video below for others to see if they wish and think about.

The bloke doing the video is a Dr John Campbell and this is how he describes himself on his YouTube biography - being on YouTube since 2007 -

Description
Hello Everyone,
My name is John Campbell and I am a retired Nurse Teacher and A and E nurse based in England. I also do some teaching in Asia and Africa when time permits. These videos are to help students to learn the background to all forms of health care. My PhD focused on the development of open learning resources for nurses nationally and internationally.

You can also download my books in high resolution PDF format, many videos, a 64 gig stick with the current range of videos, talking PowerPoints and podcasts preloaded from my website, campbellteaching.co.uk

My books, 'Campbell`s Physiology Notes' and 'Campbell's Pathophysiology Notes' can also be ordered or downloaded via my website.  They are also available as Kindle editions from Amazon.co.uk or from amazon.com

LinkedIn profile, https://uk.linkedin.com/in/dr-john-campbell-5256223b

Anyway this is what he says about vitamin D - make of it what you want -




Fwiw this is an article did on the doctor a couple of months ago -

British doctor giving coronavirus advice becomes unlikely YouTube star with 30m views

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/british-doctor-giving-coronavirus-advice-21682633

Thanks for this posting Sluffy. I've  read a lot on this subject of Vitamin D  in the last few weeks from various sources.   Apart from getting out into the garden when the sun shines I started taking 25 micrograms per day of Vitamin D3 about 10 days ago, so I  found this video very interesting. ( all 30 minutes of it).

I hope the government stand firm and keep us on full lockdown for another 3 weeks, unfortunately I fear they will lose their bottle and start to ease things.

Guaranteed that within a few hours of Boris relaxing things slightly the usual bellends will have half their street in the back garden for a party.

I think you're right Nat, but I also think the government haven't been explicit enough on some important points. Unfortunately, many people seem to think that they don't actually have to use their own common sense as the situation requires. 
I think everyone needs to consider that were still looking at about 4000 new cases each day. We should be asking ourselves, 'where are they coming from', and stop thinking everything is in the clear.

Natasha Whittam wrote:I hope the government stand firm and keep us on full lockdown for another 3 weeks, unfortunately I fear they will lose their bottle and start to ease things.

Guaranteed that within a few hours of Boris relaxing things slightly the usual bellends will have half their street in the back garden for a party.

Totally agree with you... as opposed to the Bozo with orange hair across the pond, who is telling his followers to rise up and get out.  Believe in the scientists, not the politicians!

Don't know if the following may be a crumb of comfort during these times but I've just been having a look at the NHS Daily Deaths stats - yes I know a bit macabre of me but better to know your enemy than not, I guess.

The thing that caught my eye though was the following -

From this link you can click on to the NHS daily spread sheets, I simply clicked on for the stats for today - 8th May.

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-daily-deaths/

From the spreadsheet you will note that there are some 'tab' headings at the bottom of the spreadsheet.  

At the bottom left of the screen you will see two arrows, which if you click on them will take you through a number of screens - the one that caught my eye was the last one - the furthest right you can 'click' to, entitled Covid19 All Deaths by Condition.

What it shows is that the latest death total for hospitals is 22,049 BUT a massive 20,924 of the deaths had a Pre existing condition.

In fact only 1,125 people have died from Covid19 in hospital who haven't been classed as having no known pre-existing condition!

Ok this is probably not great news for those of us who have existing issues but for the vast majority who haven't the odds of not being taken by Covid19 are heavily stacked on your side!

Indeed as we all are aware Covid is hitting the old heavily (with the greatest respect to the BAME group the really story is protect everyone 60 or over irrespective of ethnicity and you are looking at saving a hell of a lot more lives!  In fact the stats show that out of the 22,049 deaths just 1,927 are 59 years old or younger - and if we just look at the 59 year olds or younger just 238 of them died without having any known pre-existing condition!).

(I'll spell that number out just so you know I haven't missed a number out - just two hundred and thirty eight people out of 22,049 deaths!!!).

Obviously every death is a tragedy but looking at the NHS own stats published by them into the public domain seems to show that almost everyone who is 59 or under with no pre-existing health conditions  will (based on these stats) survive this as long as they continue to be sensible and do the hand washing, social distancing stuff that we are getting used to.

For anyone who might not be overly computer confident I list the numbers out below as age group, deaths with pre-conditions, deaths without pre-conditions and total for age group

0-19  yes 8   no 3 total 11
20-39 yes 127 no 28 total 155
40 -59 yes 1,554 no 207 total 1,761
60 -79 yes 8.066 no 481 total 8,547
80+ yes 11,169 no 406 total 11,575

Total yes - 20,924 no - 1,125 total - 22,049.


The big question now though is what do the NHS stats consider pre-existing conditions?

Up to now I've not found the definition on their site but this is what the BBC reported as such on the 7th April -

Coronavirus can affect anyone, but people with pre-existing health problems and older people are thought to be at greater risk of developing severe symptoms.
If you have a long-term health condition you may be feeling anxious. So here's what experts are advising.

Who is at risk?

Having a health condition does not make you more likely than anyone else to come into contact with coronavirus.
But it appears people who are older, those with weakened immune systems and people who have underlying chronic conditions, including heart disease, diabetes, or asthma, are more at risk of severe effects if they do catch it.

People at higher risk include those who are over 70, regardless of whether they have a medical condition or not, and people under 70 with any of the following underlying health conditions:
chronic (long-term) respiratory diseases, such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema or bronchitis
chronic heart disease, such as heart failure
chronic kidney disease
chronic liver disease, such as hepatitis
chronic neurological conditions, such as Parkinson's disease, motor neurone disease, multiple sclerosis (MS), a learning disability or cerebral palsy
diabetes
problems with your spleen - for example, sickle cell disease or if you have had your spleen removed
a weakened immune system as the result of conditions such as HIV and AIDS, or medicines such as steroid tablets or chemotherapy
being seriously overweight (a BMI of 40 or above)
those who are pregnant

Around 1.5m people at the greatest risk of complications, such as patients having treatment for cancer or people on immunosuppressant therapy, are being asked to isolate at home for 12 weeks to protect themselves

I've edited the article a little bit to just show the main relevant things but you can read the article in full here -

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51703892


Seems on the face of it then that maybe this isn't as scary for some of us as it may seem and possibly it hasn't been reported this way as such in order for the majority to continue to act in a way to protect those of us who are at very real risk from catching it - in which case the chances for us really aren't the best!


Maybe I'm interpreting things wrongly, maybe the pre-existing conditions are far more embracing than those I've listed - but on the face of it if you are under 60 and in good health the odds are very much on your side of getting through this if you continue to take care of yourself and your love ones whilst the virus is still about.

Very useful post sluffy.

I think the key message is exactly as you say: "maybe this isn't as scary for some of us as it may seem and possibly it hasn't been reported this way as such in order for the majority to continue to act in a way to protect those of us who are at very real risk from catching it".

If you are under 70 and have no underlying medical condition you are probably OK.

Nice work, Sluffy. Reassuring.

Do you know if there are any such figures for deaths in care homes and deaths suffered at home?

And what are fellow-Nutters thinking about this?....
"UK airlines say they have been told the government will bring in a 14-day quarantine for anyone arriving in the UK from any country apart from the Republic of Ireland in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
The new restriction is expected to take effect at the end of this month."  (BBC website)

I went for a long walk at about 8pm last night.

It quickly became clear that lockdown is over. People in groups everywhere. Street parties, house parties, BBQs etc.

People don't give a fuck. Until it kills them or someone they love.

I agree with Nat,certain people in this country think they know best and just go about their business as if nothing has happened.

I go past a park on the way to and from work and is pisses me right off when i see loads of people congregating in the park when i'm going to work in a Hospital and putting my own health at risk.

I went past the park last week and there was a cricket match going on! Luckily a Police van came past and noticed and pulled in to break it up but what goes on in their minds in the first place to think this is ok?