When will it all end?

Mules

Never, mwahuahua

Bit cynical

aziz wrote: »

As I said,I’ve no idea why there hasn’t been any flu,I’m not a conspiracy theorist so I wouldn’t think of anything sinister happening but I just find it strange that a virus that cripples our hospitals every winter is nowhere to be found this year

Covid more transmissible than flu. Therefore a given level of restrictions might just about keep Covid under control but reduce flu to virtually zero over time.

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aziz wrote: »

As I said,I’ve no idea why there hasn’t been any flu,I’m not a conspiracy theorist so I wouldn’t think of anything sinister happening but I just find it strange that a virus that cripples our hospitals every winter is nowhere to be found this year

It's fairly simple though, flus were only accounted for when tested for and only those hospitalised with the flu would be tested. With every measure that's been put in place, locally and globally, the flu hasn't had a chance to reach those who would eventually be hospitalised but that doesn't mean the flu has just disappeared. Of course people have had the flu, many wouldn't even know and many probably went for a Covid swab because of it but got a negative test. We haven't had anyone test positive for the flu but that doesn't mean there's 0 cases, it just isn't in near as much circulation as it usually would be. The flu is a lot less contagious so these measures are a lot more effective toward it than to Covid.

drunkmonkey

aziz wrote: »

As I said,I’ve no idea why there hasn’t been any flu,I’m not a conspiracy theorist so I wouldn’t think of anything sinister happening but I just find it strange that a virus that cripples our hospitals every winter is nowhere to be found this year

It's usually more than the flu on its own, it wouldn't he uncommon to test positive for the flu and one of the 4 endemic coronaviruses.
It's been proven that people who have had one of the endemic coronaviruses have a way less chance of having bad effects from a Covid 19 infection. We still have HRV's as normal this year none of the measures that prevented flu prevented them.

I don't think it's a conspiracy theory to question where has the flu gone but I can't think of any reasonable excuse based on fact or conspiracy to why it's disappeared completely in some countries.
We've kinda found a cure for the Covid19 a coronavirus but we haven't been able to find the same for the 4 endemic coronaviruses after 70yrs.

Somethings not adding up....if someone could explain it i'm all ears.

Micky 32

drunkmonkey wrote: »

We've kinda found a cure for the Covid19 a coronavirus but we haven't been able to find the same for the 4 endemic coronaviruses after 70yrs.
.

I’d say people wouldn’t bother taking a vaccine for a virus that causes just a sniffle so why waste money on developing and producing those vaccines? I certainly wouldn’t bother but I definately will be taking the Covid 19 vaccine.

drunkmonkey

Micky 32 wrote: »

I’d say people wouldn’t bother taking a vaccine for a virus that causes just a sniffle so why waste money on developing and producing those vaccines? I certainly wouldn’t bother but I definately will be taking the Covid 19 vaccine.

See the rate of hospitalizations testing positive for the endemic coronaviruses is 300 per 100,000 the amount of doctor visits is 700 per 100,000. It costs Billion in health care and missed work days.
They want to find a cure but haven't, yet a new coronavirus comes along and they've got a handle on it in 6mts.
I don't know what's happening but Gaddafi might have been correct.

Micky 32

drunkmonkey wrote: »

See the rate of hospitalizations testing positive for the endemic coronaviruses is 300 per 100,000 the amount of doctor visits is 700 per 100,000. It costs Billion in health care and missed work days.
They want to find a cure but haven't, yet a new coronavirus comes along and they've got a handle on it in 6mts.
I don't know what's happening but Gaddafi might have been correct.

Ah sure you must be correct then it’s all a conspiracy…

Aph2016

GazzaL wrote: »

This guy has some very interesting statistics and facts on COVID https://twitter.com/GrahamNeary

Here's an open letter he wrote to TDs to tackle the misleading COVID death numbers: https://grahamneary.wordpress.com/2021/03/21/letter-to-tds-covid-19-statistics-are-grossly-misleading-it-is-time-to-speak-up/

It's not very surprising, it's been clear for some time that the COVID death numbers have been extremely misleading. Good to see it rationalised in the one place.

drunkmonkey

Micky 32 wrote: »

Ah sure you must be correct then it’s all a conspiracy…

It can't be if you have a test that proves it to be real.

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drunkmonkey wrote: »

See the rate of hospitalizations testing positive for the endemic coronaviruses is 300 per 100,000 the amount of doctor visits is 700 per 100,000. It costs Billion in health care and missed work days.
They want to find a cure but haven't, yet a new coronavirus comes along and they've got a handle on it in 6mts.
I don't know what's happening but Gaddafi might have been correct.

They haven't been trying very hard to find a cure for the other endemic coronavirus, where are you getting the information from? The entire world pooled together to fund research and development across a number of vaccine producers, so that's why we were able to push this vaccine through so fast. The technology was in development years before Covid-19 even existed, they just tailored it for the virus.

There was no appetite to spend that money on a head cold.

hmmm

aziz wrote: »

As I said,I’ve no idea why there hasn’t been any flu,I’m not a conspiracy theorist so I wouldn’t think of anything sinister happening but I just find it strange that a virus that cripples our hospitals every winter is nowhere to be found this year

The R number of Flu is somewhere between 1 and 2. The R number for Covid is much higher. Any measures which suppress Covid are going to have an even more dramatic effect on Flu. It's not a conspiracy, it's just maths.

drunkmonkey

It's more than a head cold. It's upper and lower respiratory tract infections which can be a big problem depending on your underlying condition. I get a few every year even had some in the last 12mts. Echinacea pulls me out of it quickly but i've only figured that out in the last few years.
The fact that covid-19 doesn't effect people who get them regularly as severely means they are very similar.

GooglePlus

drunkmonkey wrote: »

It's more than a head cold. It's upper and lower respiratory tract infections which can be a big problem depending on your underlying condition. I get a few every year even had some in the last 12mts. Echinacea pulls me out of it quickly but i've only figured that out in the last few years.
The fact that covid-19 doesn't effect people who get them regularly as severely means they are very similar.

Your point was that they've somehow managed to find an effective vaccine for Covid but haven't managed for the other coronavirus, with a mention of Gaddafi thrown in for good measure. The fact that you're pulling your way out of these illnesses using Echinacea should really answer your question as to why we don't bother spending billions on vaccines for these, while doing so for Covid-19.

Bobeagleburger

aziz wrote: »

As I said,I’ve no idea why there hasn’t been any flu,I’m not a conspiracy theorist so I wouldn’t think of anything sinister happening but I just find it strange that a virus that cripples our hospitals every winter is nowhere to be found this year

Less mixing of people.
Better hygiene.
People wearing masks.

It's a hard one to figure out alright....

drunkmonkey

GooglePlus wrote: »

Your point was that they've somehow managed to find an effective vaccine for Covid but haven't managed for the other coronavirus, with a mention of Gaddafi thrown in for good measure. The fact that you're pulling your way out of these illnesses using Echinacea should really answer your question as to why we don't bother spending billions on vaccines for these, while doing so for Covid-19.

We had to be working on it, if these vaccines can stop Covid they can stop HRV's well one will shortly if the current ones don't. Echinacea has an effect on covid-19 in very limited studies in much the same way it effects the common colds.
These are very similar and symptoms lessened in much the same way. People were given no advice on how to stop Covid progressing which is one of the great wrongs.

The experimental Flu vaccine was first out of the traps approved for Covid though so that's the way forward for now. Let's just hope it works for what it was originally intended to do and more.

What i'm getting at is (a) restrictions/mandates do little against Covid as they don't have much of an effect on all the other coronaviruses.
(b) anything that stops coronaviruses from progressing should be advised at this stage to prevent severe cases.

drunkmonkey

6 wrote: »

Less mixing of people.
Better hygiene.
People wearing masks.

It's a hard one to figure out alright....

The flu had disappeared before masks, you can't give them any credit. They've been proven useless against it, for every 200,000 people who wear one they prevent one flu infection.

Good old hand washing, people being on guard and restrictions from the southern hemisphere have a lot to do with it, it's still circulating so it will return when travel normalizes.

Beasty

hmmm wrote: »

The R number of Flu is somewhere between 1 and 2. The R number for Covid is much higher. Any measures which suppress Covid are going to have an even more dramatic effect on Flu. It's not a conspiracy, it's just maths.

If the R number for flu is greater than 1 at all times, then everyone would get it (unless people were to get it multiple times)

The only way to curb spread of any infectious disease is to get the R number below 1.

Government buildings

What did the scientists discover that allowed them to proceed with the av vaccine?

Or was it just to give us the impression that they were taking a very serious view of the clots?

SnuggyBear

Mr. Karate wrote: »

According to an Irish Times news update they're claiming that they might not be done vaccinating until November. And ofcourse they included the usual fear mongering of a 4th wave.

Just in time to lockdown for the flu

Beasty

Beasty wrote: »

If the R number for flu is greater than 1 at all times, then everyone would get it (unless people were to get it multiple times)

The only way to curb spread of any infectious disease is to get the R number below 1.

https://www.livescience.com/new-coronavirus-compare-with-flu.html

The flu has an R0 (The measure scientists use to determine how easily a virus spreads is known as the "basic reproduction number," or R0) value of about 1.3, according to The New York Times.

Government buildings

Government buildings wrote: »

What did the scientists discover that allowed them to proceed with the av vaccine?

Or was it just to give us the impression that they were taking a very serious view of the clots?

Number of clots in the numbers vaccinated compared to number of clots in normal (unvaccinated) populations. A deep dive of data....... they discovered nothing of note, ie no difference.

Scotty #

Government buildings wrote: »

What did the scientists discover that allowed them to proceed with the av vaccine?

Or was it just to give us the impression that they were taking a very serious view of the clots?

In my opinion this was political rather than scientific. The EU are still very bitter with AstraZeneca due to AZ reneging on the contracts and leaving the EU short.

70,000,000 jabs, 4 clots. It makes zero sense to suspend it's use.

It's not over yet, some in the EU talking now about prohibiting the export of vaccines. All the AZ vaccines being produced in the EU at the moment are being shipped to the UK. The UK have finished vaccinating their vulnerable and are now vaccinating healthy people while we in the EU are still left waiting despite the contracts. This could turn very sour yet.

patnor1011

Since vaccine is supposed to ease severity of covid infection you can help yourself with other means till you get vaccine - if you want one.
While most studies were focused on vitamins C and D and minerals like zinc and magnesium there is more.
Hiroshima university did study with promising results about vitamin B6. A recent review published in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition suggests that taking vitamin B6 may reduce the severity of COVID-19. According to Asian researchers, vitamin B6 can reduce cardiovascular disease complications, diabetes complications, cytokine storms and blood clots, all of which are linked to worse COVID-19 outcomes.

Mr. Karate

SnuggyBear wrote: »

Just in time to lockdown for the flu

Yep. Its becoming more and more apparent that they have no intention of leaving Level 5 at all this year.

Mr. Karate

Mr. Karate wrote: »

Yep. Its becoming more and more apparent that they have no intention of leaving Level 5 at all this year.

I really dread to think how everyone’s mental state will be come this time next year IF we emerge from L5.
Another year of this absolute BS is not making me feel too good.
Not to mention that no business will survive another year so when we do emerge there won’t be anywhere to go to except the supermarket anyway.

Retr0gamer

With the numbers the way they are what other choice has the government got other than going to martial law which is not going to happen. Cat is out of the bag and too many typhoid marys going about pushing the numbers up and their behaviour won't change. Numbers won't go down until the vaccine starts to roll out to the under 40's who are the main vectors at the moment.

If we come out of lockdown or ease lockdown with the current numbers it will be a less than 2 months before the hospitals are overwhelmed and the bodybags are building up outside the morgue. Not just covid patients but others as well.

It's going to affect mental health but they have to weigh it against the alternative which is way worse.

Other than people changing their behaviours and habits which as I said is not going to happen I think we have to resign ourselves to lockdown for the most of this year.

The Big Easy

And who exactly is going to fill up all these body bags?!

There's a complete willful dishonesty as regards to who is actually dying in this country from Covid.

The vast majority of deaths is form people in their 80s, which whatever way you want to dress it is end-stage life. These people have to die from something in roughly this timeframe. Life expectancy in Ireland is roughly 82. The majority of deaths in the first wave were nursing home deaths - why do people go to nursing homes?

When are people going to realise that people die, it cannot be stopped.

We'll see in 10-15 years the true impact in terms of excess deaths and whether our response has been in any way proportionate or appropriate.

Deeper Blue

Retr0gamer wrote: »

If we come out of lockdown or ease lockdown with the current numbers it will be a less than 2 months before the hospitals are overwhelmed and the bodybags are building up outside the morgue. Not just covid patients but others as well

Just like what happened in January this year and March/April last year so? Oh wait..

Plumbthedepths

You shouldn't worry guys there is quite rumblings of the deepening damage to the economy. Economic reality will open stuff up long before everyone is vaccinated. Although it will be interesting to see where the tax and cuts will manifest themselves when the bill starts to be repaid.

namloc1980

Retr0gamer wrote: »

With the numbers the way they are what other choice has the government got other than going to martial law which is not going to happen. Cat is out of the bag and too many typhoon marys going about pushing the numbers up and their behaviour won't change. Numbers won't go down until the vaccine starts to roll out to the under 40's who are the main vectors at the moment.

If we come out of lockdown or ease lockdown with the current numbers it will be a less than 2 months before the hospitals are overwhelmed and the bodybags are building up outside the morgue. Not just covid patients but others as well.

It's going to affect mental health but they have to weigh it against the alternative which is way worse.

Other than people changing their behaviours and habits which as I said is not going to happen I think we have to resign ourselves to lockdown for the most of this year.

The over 70s will be fully vaccinated by mid to late May. 85% of deaths are in this cohort. Who exactly is going to be filling body bags for the summer?