Weston Super Saint

Your figures are incorrect egg. Today, in the region of 1400 people will die, the same as they do day in and day out - seasonal variances aside. My point was that for someone in my age group, if I catch the virus - and there's a 20% chance that I won't - I have in the region of 0.4% chance of dying. Which gives me a 99.6% chance of surviving. I'm pretty happy with those odds to be fair. Certainly not enough there for me to disinfect the street outside my house, where I've probably got a higher chance of being run over, even with less traffic!

Alarmist and sensationalist responses! Why not consider the facts? Right now, there is no known cure and no known vaccine - fact. Scientists have calculated that 80% of the population will catch the virus, based on the fact that there is no known cure or vaccine and studies of how viruses transmit - fact (although potentially dubious as 80% seems too round, but I guess statistical modelling is about as accurate as 99% of economists!) Four out of Five people who catch the virus (i.e. 80% of 80% of the population) will have only mild symptoms - fact Some people will catch the virus and have no symptoms at all - fact Death rate for someone in my age bracket is 0.4% - fact (however, that is based on the number of people dying versus the number of people who have been tested and we know that testing has been particularly poor in pretty much every country once the virus has been established to be present, so that is likely to be a figure on the high side) Forgive me, as I must have missed the 'Gavyn does maths' series, but my crude calculations work out my chances of dying to be 0.00256%, or a 99.9974% chance of survival. I don't know about you, but I will happily take those odds - especially given that, statistically, the chances of someone dying in my age group, in any given year is 0.00237%, the chance of dying from Covid-19 isn't exactly a huge leap. (yes, I understand that people in different age brackets and those with underlying health problems have a higher risk, some even a 15% chance of dying, but that will tend to be the 80+ year old category, who, statistically have a 14% chance of dying in any given year!) So, yes, people are dying who are infected with the virus, some are even dying as a direct result of the infection, but some of your responses are a little bit mental! For the record - aintforever - I've never stated that I 'want' to catch the virus, merely pointed out that the best time to have done so (given the statistical chances of dying from it), would have been last week when the hospitals were largely empty and the medical care would have been prevalent, should it have been needed at all....

How is it odd? It is estimated that 80% will catch the virus. The hospitals were virtually empty last week - only just filling up this week. Ergo, there wasn't a peak last week, so the best time (even according to you!!) to have been in hospital was last week.

Then surely you would have wanted to catch it about 2 weeks ago, thus ensuring the hospitals were all but empty 7-10 days ago should you have needed them?

Egg, you strike me as someone who worries an awful lot about an awful lot of things! If, as is expected, 80% of the population will be infected at some point, are you not just delaying the inevitable - or are you hoping to hold out for another year or so whilst a vaccine is created?

Phew. Lucky those formula one teams aren't bothering to make those non-invasive breathing masks that we've apparently got way too many of already.... oh....

It's definitely in Bristol - unless there's another interpretation of 'implemented'? https://www.commsplus.co.uk/blog/bristols-5g-coverage-2019

Phew, lucky they're not funding (and intending to finish building) a Nuclear Power Station on our shores.... Oh...

Isn't it predominantly freight carrying essential goods?

He had a guitar - pretty sure he can work from home with that

To be fair, the busker is properly taking the ****. Everyone else appears to be keeping a safe distance apart. Yes, there was a bloke drinking beer (Corona?), but how can we judge their situations? They may live in a flat with no access to a garden and this is the only way they can get out and escape the confines of their home... At the moment, that is still allowed (although not sure about the sunbathing!).

We've got both bathrooms due to be started on tomorrow - it's been a complete nightmare trying to get all the bits needed to finish the work, but provided the shower screen arrives as promised on Thursday, then we should be able to finish them. Builder had a temperature for four days from last Saturday but has said he is good to go tomorrow!

Try it, i've got lighter fuel and a pyre ready and waiting....

You can believe those lies if you want. We all know it's the badgers, don't try and get them off the hook.

Yep, definitely me - put me down for the one in Merseyside about 200 miles from my house (ignore the fact that the ones in Bristol are much, much closer). I've always been a firm believer that radio waves cause viruses. This week I'll be setting fire to badgers because they, without a shadow of a doubt, are responsible for dolphins being caught in fishing nets.

I get it, I really do, it's really not that difficult a concept to grasp. However, as LD, Batman and I have tried to point out, you cannot just test someone once and accept a negative result especially given the nature of the work of the frontline NHS. Therefore, in order to ensure continued safety, you have to continually test the workforce - at least until a reliable antibody test has been developed and even then the results are only accurate around 28 days following infection. Being conservative, you would need to test NHS workers every three days (allowing for incubation times). Currently the only test we have availabe takes 24 hours to return a reliable result (I'm aware that more are being developed that could give a 90-120 minute turnaround time, but we don't have them yet). So even testing every 3 days, you still only have each NHS worker available for 1 day out of 3, so are we not better off isolating them for 7 days given the current situation? Further down the line, once the quicker tests are in operation, you would still need to test every 3 days, so taking a figure of 500,000 front line NHS staff, in order to be effective you would need to test 166,000 workers every day, which doesn't exactly seem feasible. Even if it were possible and the tests were instantaneous the minute they walked through the door, you would still lose in the region of 250,000 man hours per day whilst waiting for the test results to be confirmed (and that's just the staff being tested and doesn't include those doing the testing) - those numbers would of course be ever decreasing as more workers gain immunity from the virus, but again, knowing who they are would still depend on an antibody test.

Since when was that your point - that has always been the advice from the NHS! But well done for backing up my point that if you have symptoms you need to self isolate for seven days

That has never been debated, nor denied. It was only brought up by Sherlock to try and prove some dopey point of his. The discussion has been about people self isolating who have symptoms - which is seven days (longer if the symptoms persist or get worse).

Jesus wept, you're all over the place pal. This is what the NHS 111 says here : https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/self-isolation-advice/ Obviously if you still have a high temperature after 7 days, you stay isolated - it even says it right there on the NHS111 website. How on earth will testing get someone back to work sooner as you claim in the scenario where an NHS worker is isolation because they have symptoms? Not sure why you've brought up living with other people who have the symptoms as the claim was that 125,000 NHS workers are isolating because THEY have symptoms. The rules are quite clearly different if someone you live with has the symptoms, but you're the only person debating that point!

Like I said, I hadn't noticed it reported, I wasn't denying it and claiming it was wrong. I didn't watch the daily briefing yesterday because I was working.

Jesus wept, talk anout making up scenarios to suit your agenda. The original post regarding this stated that 125,000 NHS were self isolating BECAUSE THEY WERE SHOWING SYMPTOMS! To recap, the symptoms can be found here : https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/symptoms-and-what-to-do/ The original post was NOT claiming that 125,000 NHS had a bit of a cough, but had either a temperature - indicative of an infection - or a new persistant cough, coughing a LOT FOR MORE THAN AN HOUR. (For the record, I'm not entirely sure where the 125k came from and haven't noticed it reported anywhere). I'm fairly sure those that work for the NHS and are trained medical professionals will know the difference between a bit of hayfever and Covid-19 symptoms, unless you think they are all just taking the **** and having some extra time off?

The current test takes 24 hours for the result to be confirmed. A new test that has been developed that will deliver the results in just 90 minutes - but that is still 90 minutes that someone in the NHS cannot work whilst waiting for the result, unless you take a risk based approach and allow them to go straight to work in the hope they are negative. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52130230

Do you mean, apart from the ones calling for an antibody test - which was exactly the point I was making?

Then the only way to ensure that is to test all key / NHS workers every day (or at least every other day, depending on the incubation rate of the virus) - that's assuming the results come back instantly, rather than having to wait for cultures to be grown.

She would isolate for SEVEN days if she had symptoms, NOT FOURTEEN. It's really not difficult to understand.