Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Sheilbh]

And of course he was George Osborne's protege (one of the few Cameroons to survive the arrival of May).

For what it's worth I've heard from people in the tech industry that they thought he was pretty good at DCMS and simlarly in the NHS I know a few people who've dealt with him (and work in sort of innovation in the NHS) pre-covid and thought he was the best of recent Health Secretaries. But he's pretty clearly out of his depth now - I think DCMS or Minister of State at Health is about his level.

[viper37]

https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2020283
https://www.covid19hg.org/blog/2020-09-24-freeze-3-results/

Neanderthal is to blame.

A chromosome fragment, present in 16% of Europeans and 50% of Asians increases threefold the risk of developing acute symptoms of covid-19.

IIRC, Africans were the pure race, with 0% Neanderthal DND in them.  Could be why they haven't been that much affected by the disease.

Dude statistically black people are at considerably more risk.

You have few cases in Africa because they lack the means to test. No testing no cases.

AFAIK, black americans are more at risk, not blacks in general, everywhere.  Because they are poorer, because they do not have widespread access to quality healthcare and because they distrust the US healthcare.
Also, if this genetic study is confirmed, it is possible that black Americans are more "mixed" than Africans, and the aggravating gene is less present.

There will be more research into this, but it is intriguing.
As for Africa not reporting cases, there are countries better than others, and even in the poorer countries, there would be people reporting lots of deaths, because that's what happenning without treatments, deaths.

[Valmy]

I find it unlikely that DNA from some ancestor thousands of years ago makes that big of a difference. Neanderthals? Really?

[The Brain]

I find it unlikely that DNA from some ancestor thousands of years ago makes that big of a difference. Neanderthals? Really?

OK Chief Wiggum.

[Sheilbh]

Public Health England have discovered an additional backlog of 15,000 positive test results. Apparently the individuals still received their results and were requested to self-isolate. From the first stories on this, it's mainly about whether cases were being properly logged/reported.

Apparently it's caused by a technical issue - in particular that some data files exceeded the maximum size permitted so were just not accepted

[garbon]

You forgot bit where it means tracing system failed.

[Sheilbh]

Edit: Apparently they were using Excel rather than a proper database for track and trace. Which is incredibly basic and hardly surprising that it fucked up.

[Tamas]

Edit: Apparently they were using Excel rather than a proper database for track and trace. Which is incredibly basic and hardly surprising that it fucked up.

[garbon]

G-A-Y is now entering a legal battle with the Department of Health over the 10pm curfew for bars.

[Agelastus]

We call him Hattie in this house; we are a slightly childish household.

The great Hattie Jaques would not be amused.

[Sheilbh]

G-A-Y is now entering a legal battle with the Department of Health over the 10pm curfew for bars.

They do have a point about how this has basically gone from bars closing at different times through the night, to all bars and restaurants closing at once and everyone having to get home at the same time.

[Agelastus]

G-A-Y is now entering a legal battle with the Department of Health over the 10pm curfew for bars.

They do have a point about how this has basically gone from bars closing at different times through the night, to all bars and restaurants closing at once and everyone having to get home at the same time.

And this is different to when all bars etc. closed at 11pm how? It's not been that many years since this was the norm - I think even some of the local bus-timetables still reflect this state of affairs* (last bus 10 minutes after 11pm closing time.)

*Well, normal bus timetables anyway - not the mishmash we have at the moment thanks to COVID-19

[Duque de Bragança]

Starting tomorrow, bars will be closed in Paris and close suburbs, since the situation has worsened. Before that, they would close at 22.00.
Time for a last drink before a while?

[Sheilbh]

And this is different to when all bars etc. closed at 11pm how? It's not been that many years since this was the norm - I think even some of the local bus-timetables still reflect this state of affairs* (last bus 10 minutes after 11pm closing time.)

*Well, normal bus timetables anyway - not the mishmash we have at the moment thanks to COVID-19

I think that's true in towns (though even there there's normally one or two pubs that stay open later). But in the cities I think the times are far more staggered through the night - 10.30, 11, 12, 1 etc - which distributes people leaving. This is like going back to the old 11pm closing time except instead of fights, it's covid-19 transmission that's the issue.

[Agelastus]

And this is different to when all bars etc. closed at 11pm how? It's not been that many years since this was the norm - I think even some of the local bus-timetables still reflect this state of affairs* (last bus 10 minutes after 11pm closing time.)

*Well, normal bus timetables anyway - not the mishmash we have at the moment thanks to COVID-19

I think that's true in towns (though even there there's normally one or two pubs that stay open later). But in the cities I think the times are far more staggered through the night - 10.30, 11, 12, 1 etc - which distributes people leaving. This is like going back to the old 11pm closing time except instead of fights, it's covid-19 transmission that's the issue.

They're far more varied in towns now due to the Licensing Act of 2003 as well despite the reluctance of some local authorities to extend opening hours; but the point still is that it's not been that many years since everybody piled out of pubs at once. It's something that enough people should still remember and be able to handle.

It shouldn't even be as bad as it was pre-2003 with social distancing and the decline COVID-19 has caused in customer numbers.

Far better everything closes at the same time than the Police have to try and make sure they are they are there at the right time all the time (say a street has establishments closing at 10.00, 10:30, 11,00 11:30 and 12:00, as an example both simplified and extreme, and the police have to check every time one of them closes - that's 5 patrols instead of 1, a waste of resources.)