How will Covid 19 end (A positive thread)

trapp

Amidst all the negativity I think this deserves a new thread.

Like many others I have a limited understanding of the current situation.

We've all seen the graph outlining why we're trying to flatten the curve with restrictions, social distancing etc.

My question is what happens once cases are brought down to lowish numbers, hopefully by mid April or early May perhaps?

If restrictions are lifted, schools back, pubs open, matches on and so on, would the cases not just shoot back up again?

Yet most events are being rescheduled for later in the year, UEFA expect to get the football season finished, Boris mentioned 12 weeks, we're planning on the leaving going ahead etc so perhaps the endgame is more complicated than cases just rising again.

Any posters care to explain what happens and what the plan is.

Do we expect treatments to improve, the virus to just burn out etc.

Give us hope please. Intelligent positive outlooks only if possible.

Kermit.de.frog

How will Covid 19 end (A positive thread)

Planet of the apes?

ceadaoin.

Seems like these are the options right now

A.we all die
B.we dont all die but society collapses leading to even more deaths
C.it burns itself out
D.we find an effective treatment
E.a vaccine is created
F.it just becomes a normal part of life and everything resumes. In time enough people will have had it to give us herd immunity.

I feel like some combination of D-F is likely. We will probably have to resume normal life before a vaccine or treatment otherwise B will happen. "Normal life" during that time will probably look a bit different though. For example, all sports are played behind closed doors with testing for the players. I can tell you there is literally no way the likes of the NBA/NFL will not play for longer than a couple of months. And people will be a lot more mindful of hygiene and social distancing still but not stuck at home

China estimates that at the start of Wuhan, 86% of people who had it carried it without realising. Either no symptoms or not bad enough to be really restricting anyone, the same way most of us would go to work if our chest was sore or we had a cough or temperature.

My prediction is that when everything opens up again, a big bunch of the population will already have had it. Not to the "herd immunity" levels that was talked about so much a while back because of the UK, but enough that the spread will be far slower.

The opposite could happen and a worse strain that no one is immune to could start but worrying about that is pointless. It's more likely that we just get smaller and smaller outbreaks.

Kermit.de.frog

This has not even started yet in my opinion.

Kermit.de.frog

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

This has not even started yet in my opinion.

That doesn't even make sense. Of course it's started.

joeguevara

I think it all depends on how we want it to end and what is more important to people -economy or people. I have only in the last 4 or 5 days started to inform myself on the virus and approaches being taken.

Firstly I have no faith in what China are reporting. I believe they are going to face a boomerang and will be hit by more and more infections as it hasn’t been eradicated there.

The lockdown approach will work and it will save thousands of people but what then. Without any real immunity this will keep coming back every season. Also, even if we do lockdown, when cases are in decline there will be pressure to lift it which will put us back at square one.

So unless someone comes up with a vaccine or an effective way to treat we are putting everything on the long finger. In the last while I have completely changed what is important to me and work and possessions are irrelevant so I have no problem in continuing in a lockdown of it means my family, especially my parents are safe. But I also understand that we cannot isolate and have no contact with the outside world so hopefully we get a vaccine soon.

Or else people will bite the bullet and try herd immunity knowing that a huge percentage won’t make it but the economy goes back to normal. I have not thought about how it will end and take it day by day. But a large proportion of people think staying inside for a few weeks will be all it entails. People talking about going on holidays in May and saying they are sure it will be fine by then.

I’m hoping it will end with Bobby Ewing turning around in the shower saying that was some dream.

https://youtu.be/nCEjeTb1rrs

darjeeling

I don't believe that cases will be brought down to low numbers by April / May.
That doesn't seem to be the aim.

In the UK, the CMO Chris Whitty yesterday reiterated that the govt is not trying to reduce numbers below current levels.
He explicitly rejected the suggestion of one journalist that the numbers could be reduced sufficiently to go back to controlling the epidemic at a low level using contact tracing.

Instead they are trying just to curb growth enough to make the coming crisis in the NHS more manageable.
The aim is to delay and reduce the peak of the epidemic until the summer.
The end of the winter illness peak and the hoped-for reduction in covid-19 peak cases will mean that more people will get the treatment they will need.
There will also be some more precious time to acquire O2 equipment and ventilators, and to learn which drugs and treatment procedures work best.

Full press conference here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9jJz00szgU

So the epidemic will run its course eventually.
Restrictions on movement and assembly will, I think, probably remain in place beyond the peak, which should come in a few months.
That's the reality behind Boris Johnson's bombast about 'turning the tide in 12 weeks' and 'sending coronavirus packing'.

Here, Tony Holohan said something that to me sounds like the same approach:

“We obviously hope and anticipate that some of the social-distancing measures will flatten this growth but we expect to continue to see growth in the numbers.”

With care, we should avoid the worst-case projections under which 70-80% catch the virus, but, ultimately the epidemic will end with enough having caught it to ensure herd immunity.

The UK scientific advice has been that fatality rate will be around 1%. Whitty said yesterday he is now confident of their figures, but says the UK govt is aiming to prevent excess mortality due to overloading the NHS. That will be needed here too.

While there's been progress in understanding which drugs might work best, I don't see that the time scale allows for sourcing and distributing large quantities to patients in the community.
During the 2009 swine flu pandemic the UK used a national phone service to get antiviral drugs to large numbers of patients quickly, but the appropriate drugs were already known and stockpiled.
This time that may not be possible. That could blunt the effectiveness of antivirals (at least two of which look promising), because they often work less well when given after 24-48 hours from symptom onset.
Still, we can hope that patients in hospital may get some benefit from some of the treatments being trialled.

Sorry, I doubt any of that sounds very optimistic.

As for next time this comes around, there should be a vaccine and quite a lot of people will still have immunity, so the severity should be nothing like this time.
But the virus will likely become another and potentially more virulent member of the family of seasonal coronaviruses.


I hope we will learn from this in the way that countries affected by SARS in 2003-4 learned.
Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong have been doing remarkably well.
Singapore has had cases for 2 months, but has used a wide range of public health measures to stop the virus spreading.
There have been no fatalities, and the schools have remained open.
But how long these places, and mainland China, can keep the disease out as the pandemic takes off globally remains to be seen.

utmbuilder

Here's mine

1. China swoop in , in September with a Vaccine after working scientists around the clock to rebuild their reputation.

2. The UK get a vaccine and we get supplies for elderly in 2020

3. We get rest bite in Summer , and Winter appears easier and get a vaccine in 2021

Whats your thoughts on positive outcomes, forgetting about the Economy

punisher5112

China can't be trusted at all.....


If this happened 20 years ago or more this would most likely have started an actual war.....


I do hope someone comes up with a fix but as scientists have been doing tests and never got a break through this could well go on for quite some time.....


I do hope there is one thing learnt and that life is precious and work should be there to help and fund happiness and not live to work..... We should work to live....



Way too many making billions of the backs of others....