Eurozone Sovereign Debt Crisis part 2 - Ireland

[g0nz0]

The problem is, all government testing around the world has been case led. And indeed, severe case led. In the UK testing used to be concentrated in hospitals, where obviously all the very sick people were taken. Cases in hospitals were the largest proportion for months, although alternative measures of cases such as the KIng's phone app were reporting millions more cases in the UK than officialy counted bu government. At the peak of the epidemic King's has somthing like x70 more cases than government. King's was measuring the real national epidemic, whereas government was measuing what was happening in hospitals, and then a bit later it added care homes.

We know from most studies of infections that the infection rate has always been fairly even across the population. Lower for kids and for pensioners, with most cases amongst adults. But the hospital cases have massively been amongst the oldest, steady rise with hardly any kids and many in the oldest age groups.

All across Europe deaths have disappeared and hospital cases too. Testing has changed, trying to identify where there are most cases to be found. It is now measuring community infections, where the profile has always been most cases as working adults, with a bias towards the younger end. That hasnt changed T.here are no more severe case, so the detected cases is no longer following that profile of the older then the more cases.

It isnt a change to more cases amongst the young. Its a change away from deaths amongst the old, and away from deaths amongst anyone. Its dying out as a dangerous disease.

Testing here is based on symptoms and contact tracing. This is because the initial surge was successfully suppressed, and we're now seeing the lingering embers of the disease within the community. We've seen recently that teens/early 20s have been having house parties and large gathering in seaside towns and villages, and this has lead to our uptick.

Whereas the more senior members of our society appear to have been playing ball, wearing their masks, and mostly keeping indoors.

"There are no more severe case, so the detected cases is no longer following that profile of the older then the more cases" - wow, that's a statement. Why are we still seeing deaths then?

Nor is there any evidence SAGE changed its advice. What seems to have happened is a political decision to abandone herd immunity and go for suppression.

Perhaps I am conflating SAGE's nuttiness with Professor Neil Ferguson, of Imperial College London, who authored a paper that prompted the UK to scrap its coronavirus strategy... I thought SAGE came in line with that subsequently - certain Sir Patrick and Chris did in their new line of rhetoric -- and I definitely heard members of SAGE complain on public media (BBC, SKY News) that the government was ignoring their more hawkish advice.

Closing down a nations economy is not compatible with 'do no harm'. Moreover, it is an active decision to deliberately do something rather than a passive decision to withold intervention. Its an awfully big harm.

You're again entirely missing the point. I'm not even saying your proposed strategy is sub-optimal, I'm saying that there is absolutely no moral way of knowing if it is a superior approach, and so now is not the time to implement it.

Many of the promising vaccines are likely to fall away and fail over the coming months. It may be that we don't end up with any viable vaccine... in which case a different approach will be required. If we don't have a promising vaccine or therapeutic, it may very well be that the best course of action is to carefully try to achieve herd immunity through managed exposure.

But we do not have scientific evidence to prove this yet. And without it, the only moral approach is to be careful.

As a species, we know the maths and medical science behind pandemics. We understand the epidemiology of contagion. The best way of proceeding given our current knowledge is known - just follow the scientific advice!!

We don't have to second guess this now based on unproven "hunches".

Once more is known, science evolves and we might have a new path to follow. That is just the normal course of improvement of scientific knowledge and understanding!!

Any hunch could be right. It could also cause serious consequences. And so by following the best scientific advice, we can minimize the risk of adverse consequences.

Similarly, It may be that the so-called Russian vaccine works. It may also be that it kills you. Nobody knows, because they didn't follow the regular scientific methods of validating it - publishing their test evidence for scrutiny and review, and having phase 3 trials. As soon as the evidence backing that vaccine is published and peer reviewed, and as soon as it is proven to be safe and effective, then go nuts with it. But for now, it is unproven and it might kill you, so wise to be cautious.

By trying to run the virus through as fast as possible, we risk overwhelming health services. We cannot run at or near max capacity of the health services for a number of reasons:
1. fatigue and stress of the front line staff, and risk to their health and their families;
2. it is impossible to accurately control the spread of the virus in the population when it picks up speed - and so it is not realistic to try to keep levels at just below the capacity of health services.
3. changes in behaviour take a number of weeks to be reflected in the R number and number of new cases -- they take even longer to be reflected in subsequent mortality figures.

Far safer to suppress as much as possible, to buy time for vaccines or therapeutics given our current state of knowledge.

The economy will recover, the dead will not. Governments should be providing social supports and assistance, and following the scientific advice. Not following unproven hunches. By suppressing the illness, managing the outbreaks, we don't need economies closed completely indefinitely while we await scientific advance.

 

[dandelion]

(I'm going to venture a guess and say that you don't know how any government testing program works except, possibly, the UK)

I know that no country in the world has enough testing capacity to track all the cases in this epidemic. Even though world capacity is now at a record high and was much much worse at the start. So it has never been able to keep up with cases. Everywhere in the world it has been rationed initially just to hospitals. (exception perhaps in places eg korea where they have had very few cases total, so limited capacity could saturate a small area)

In the UK cases found by testng is maybe x100-x1000 lower than actual cases. Contemplate how the maths works for the US where similar huge multipliers will apply.

 

[dandelion]

Testing here is based on symptoms and contact tracing. This is because the initial surge was successfully suppressed, and we're now seeing the lingering embers of the disease within the community.

I have not studied it. In the UK we only know realistic numbers because King's college organised a phone app which worked, where people could report when they are ill. The UK government even tried to stop them doing it. Finally it gave in after its own app collapsed and are now working with them. Thus we know it recorded 2 million cases at peak with symptoms in the age range 20-70.

The UK offical case total is only 300,000 or so. Ridiculously too small.

You're again entirely missing the point. I'm not even saying your proposed strategy is sub-optimal, I'm saying that there is absolutely no moral way of knowing if it is a superior approach, and so now is not the time to implement it.

Er, try turning that the other way about. There is no moral way of saying that forcibly closing down businesses is a superior approach. It is an outrageous suspension of civil rights and needs a very hefty justification...which it has not got. (maybe at the start, but it is clear now this was wrong)

 

[Jason]

I've had a personal encounter with the UK system. Got home and found a letter on the doormat with NHS on the envelope. It turns out I've been randomly selected to take part in a Coronavirus test as part of the statistics gathering exercise.

I've been coping with the pandemic by getting on with my life as best I am able, and actual wasn't thrilled about this as it cuts across my coping strategy. However there's also the idea of civic duty so I went to the website to sign up for delivery of the testing kit. But it gets worse. I've been told that the kit will be sent in the week starting 21st Aug. It's not even quick!

Having experienced receipt of one if these letters my thought is that very few people who feel A1 will actually volunteer to do the test. It will therefore be skewed towards people who feel unwell or who think they have not been keeping social distancing. The sample isn't going to be representative so the figures for average numbers of cases in the community will be too high.

 

[Jason]

Er, try turning that the other way about. There is no moral way of saying that forcibly closing down businesses is a superior approach. It is an outrageous suspension of civil rights and needs a very hefty justification...which it has not got. (maybe at the start, but it is clear now this was wrong)

The justification in every western nation is in part epidemiological, in part political.

Had the UK not locked,down and had IDENTICAL death figures to what we have had the government would have fallen. There would have been protests at an unprecedented level, some court process against the government, and enough Conservative MPs willing to vote against the government to bring them down. I suppose we would have had a temporary administration in effect led by technocrats, the scientists.

Set aside the epidemiological argument. On political grounds alone the UK had no choice but to lock down. It may be that the epidemiological argument supports this, or it may not, but in a sense it is irrelevant. The government had no choice.

There is now a huge problem of perception. If Sweden got it right then the UK got it wrong. Ouch! This goes for most western nations. I think the narrative will be that Sweden was wrong even if we all emulate Sweden in finding ways of keeping our society going despite coronavirus.

In the UK we have a wrecked economy, as everywhere. This gives an enormous political opportunity. In effect the government can now do just about anything it wants as long as it provides some circuses. The £10 off a meal is a clear circus. Meanwhile the UK government gets on with the Brexit transition with minimal media interest.

 

[Drifterwood]

Meanwhile the UK government gets on with the Brexit transition with minimal media interest.

From the media that owns your party.

The UK's Covid performance has been so poor that the sharks are circling. The angry mob is only an event away.

 

[dandelion]

On political grounds alone the UK had no choice but to lock down.

Events up to lockdown were more or less to plan for a policy of herd immunity. SAGE over estimated the total of serious cases at the start of March, and/or over estimated how fast it was growing, which meant they predicted a huge overload of the NHS with 2 million hospitalisations and 500,000 deaths by end of March. Peak number of patients was only about 25,000 with something like 25,000 deaths in care homes and maybe a few smaller in hospitals. A few in the community. What they predicted never came near happening. They massively over reacted for fear of this prediction, and in the end it became a self fulfilling one because they failed to safeguard those people in care homes while worrying about hospital overload which never happened.

After lockdown the policy changed at some point from herd immunity (aka 'flaten the peak'), to eradication. I have not seen anything from SAGE recommending this, but rather it sort of happened by accident, because the cross infection in hospitals was out of controll, and likewise infection in care homes. I recall at the time government stated there were three separate epidemics, and it would not stop lockdown untill all were under control. It is likely this was the key political decision point, which let to the change from herd immunity to suppression. As you say, led by fear of public reaction if deaths continued to rise.

And so 'flatten the peak' turned into permanent lockdown by accident not design.

It is entirely possible that the community epidemic was under control and even falling before lockdown. Deaths peaked shortly after lockdown, and extrapolating backwards to when those people were infected, the peak was before lockdown. We may all have been locked down for nothing. Deaths from infections started in the community may have been only a small fractions of the final total.

As measures have been removed, thus far there has been essentially no resurgence of the disease. We definitely now have more immunity than at the start, maybe a lot more. Partly this depends how much we had at the start, which could be as much as 1/3 before any of this began through cross immnity, which on a small scale has been confirmed by analysis of old blood samples. Antibody testing is maybe interesting, but will not tell us how many are immune, because most people use t cell immunity against covid - not antibody. (whetever the reasons for that might be, thats what the scientists are saying)

It may be that we should have released lockdown partially within weeks, and the case numbers would still have fallen. There isnt much evidence right now to suggest there was any point to those months of lockdown. Most deaths did not start in the community, and the surge of them there may have already been over before lockdown, never to resume.

Despite the propaganda we are getting now, it may be government understands the epidemic is well under control, and we ought to be releasing more and faster, and allowing cases to burn out by themselves. But if we did that it would ebcome clear to everyine we could have done just the same thing three months ago. Three months lockdown for nothing. That is political dynamite, which a government could not face.

So government's safest course is to get a vaccine, give it to everyone and claim that cured the epidemic. They darent risk finding out it is over before they have a vaccine.

 

[Jason]

Despite the propaganda we are getting now, it may be government understands the epidemic is well under control, and we ought to be releasing more and faster, and allowing cases to burn out by themselves. But if we did that it would ebcome clear to everyine we could have done just the same thing three months ago. Three months lockdown for nothing. That is political dynamite, which a government could not face.

So government's safest course is to get a vaccine, give it to everyone and claim that cured the epidemic. They darent risk finding out it is over before they have a vaccine.

In the last 24hrs there were in the UK 5 new deaths attributed to Coronavirus. This does suggest the epidemic is well under control in the UK.

Deaths per million indicates the UK has fared as badly as Spain, Italy and Sweden (and quite a bit better than Belgium). There is growing realisation that we are still over-stating our death figure (so we count everyone who had coronavirus in last 28 days, even if they recovered, and coronavirus in early cases was diagnosed solely by symptoms so over counted). The UK figure should come down somewhat. Probably quite a few nations should go up.

The UK's performance has certainly not been good. The decision to discharge patients with coronavirus from hospitals into care homes seems very hard to justify (PHE is being disbanded, which suggests fault has been found.) It hasn't been all that bad either. There is now a strong sense that coronavirus has been controlled.

I know there's plenty of worry and all sorts of things can go wrong, but right now we are seeing an epidemic under control. What we do have in the UK is a traumatised population. People are frightened. Our economy just isn't functioning properly, and we're presumably looking at some huge recession. We need a change of tone. Right now we need to get the economy moving.

 

[dandelion]

(PHE is being disbanded, which suggests fault has been found.)

I imagine the fault will have been in the national flu epidemic plan. That very likely says get rid of anyone you can from hospitals.

What we do have in the UK is a traumatised population. People are frightened.

I'm not sure about this. It is entirely possible the people worried are all staying a home, but people on the streest or inside shops have given up worrying about social distancing. People will remember all WHO/SAGE advice has been this is much more important than wearing masks, and masks are not a subsitute for other measures. Yet that is exactly how they have been sold by the government.

 

[Jason]

I'm not sure about this. It is entirely possible the people worried are all staying a home, but people on the streest or inside shops have given up worrying about social distancing. People will remember all advice has been this is much more important than wearing masks, and masks are not a subsitute for other measures.

I suggest the population is polarised. Yes there are plenty getting on with life, on trains and in shops and indeed getting on with their jobs. However there are plenty who are still terrified to open a window. That's not a metaphor. There are people who won't go to shops and who are in effect refusing to work.

We need social distancing and we need hand washing. The stupidity of the situation we now have is that these are thrown out because we have the high visibility face coverings. The big group meeting without social distancing thinks they are safe because they are wearing chin warmers. Sooner or later some psychiatrist is going to quantify the reduced social distancing caused by chin warmers and how many deaths this has caused.

 

[Freddie53]

The English are a strange case. I will be interested to see what @Freddie53 has to say. In historical times, Britain was ruled as a Roman province for 400 years and then spent a long time being overrun by Picts, Irish and various Germanic tribes before the Saxons won a kind of hegemony constantly challenged by Vikings and Danes, but soon lost utterly to the Normans. Edward the Elder was the first real Saxon king of England from around 900, thereby giving the Saxons some 160 years to claim the country as their own.

The Normans utterly destroyed anglo saxon rule. A handful of the 20,000 saxon nobles were left with landholdings twenty years after the invasion and the people were reduced to the slave position of serfdom. England was a Norman province and exploited thoroughly. Essentially England is that same country, given the glorious revolution and Dutch rule followed by a German royal line.

The British Empire was a remarkable period for this Norman province, and perhaps it is the Norman spirit of exploitative conquest that is found in the Empire making rather than the more humble Germanic culture. It is this that interests me in the English psyche, they are proud of their Empire, now long gone, but equally of being German tribes. The Englishness of England was destroyed nearly 1000 years ago, yet they like to think of themselves as independent, exclusively independent, but they are not, the English, most of them, have been ruled by foreign powers for most of their recorded history and are a mishmash of European tribes and dynasties.

;-)

I was away for a bit from LPSG and am just reading this thread. I noticed that Freddie opinion was requested.

So here goes. Two totally different histories can be written coving a thousand years and both be 100 % accurate.

The thirteen original colonies were English colonies, not British.

All these various groups of people did conquer and rule at least parts of England over time as Drifterwood has written.

What shines through in as the centuries go by is how the Angle/Saxon culture survived.

Today, it is English, not French that is the national language.

The Norman nation that invaded England ins 1066 is no more an independent nation and is part of France.

It is English Common Law from the Angles and the Saxons that is the common law of not only England, but all of the United States except for Louisiana which was settled by the French and follows French law.

Some time ago a posted here in this thread I think gives an example how a common law ruling in England sometime after the American Independence was used to make a ruling here in the US even later in time.

I read a historian's viewpoint about the development of nations. That is, that there is this group that becomes dominant in a particular becomes to some degree the heart and soul of that area for ages to come even though many other groups have come and stayed.

We are seeing this happen here in the US. The 13 original colonies became the basis of the United States.

Immigrants have been coming into the US since 1607 when the first English colony was established.

Every new ethnic group has learned English, learned about English norms and laws and have adapted them as their own. Each group as added their flavor or two to the nation, but the US is as much tied to the Angles and Saxons as is England itself.

There are not enough births in England to maintain the population. Immigrants from around the world are coming to England and for the most part are accepting English law and culture as their own.

The Muslim immigrants are not converting to Christianity, but they are accepting English traditions, laws and customs.

We are seeing the same trends here in the US.

This is why I have written so much about England, not the UK, is the Mother Country of the United States.

My great great grandparents came to the US from Ireland in the 1840s. They did not know a word of the English language. Their granddaughter, my grandmother did not know a word of the Irish language.

I talked with my grandmother. My great great grandparents were Protestant and would not even reheat the food to eat on Sunday. This is it from that Irish linage. The food to eat on Sunday was prepared on Saturday. This is it!

My surname is a name that one of my cousins traced to Northern Ireland. This is all I know from that Irish heritage. I looked up that town in Northern Ireland and there are still about 12 families with that surname.

But starting school at age five, school emphasized English culture.
As a youngster, I remember learning to sing London Bridge is Falling Down. American nursery rhymes come mainly from England. Big Ben was mentioned enough that I remember it well from childhood.

In the late 19th century it was decided that the US needed to have a large church that belonged to everyone. Land was set aside. The Episcopal Church was given the responsibility to do this.

The National Cathedral, the fifth largest Gothic church was begun. When it was finished, the Queen was invited and came to the dedication services. The Episcopal Church is part of the Anglican Communion.

Muslim groups, evangelical Christian groups and others have used the National Cathedral. All Protestant State funerals are held there. The Catholics use their own basilica.

Google National Cathedral, Washington DC and you can view and watch and listen to podcasts from your own computer. I watch many of their services.

The largest Gothic Cathedral in the world will be St John, the Devine in New York City if it is ever finished. It is also part of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion.

Americans with Irish heritage often are more allied with English culture than Irish culture.

I have Irish, Scottish and Welch all in my genealogy. My heritage is English/American.

Back to England. Somehow the Angles and Saxons persevered even though many others came and tried to change England.

Before the Angles and Saxons were the Celts and the Romans. The Romans left. The history books that I studied identified the Celts with the people who lived in Wales and Scotland.

I was lead to believe from what I read that the Celts that were in England retreated to Wales and Scotland. Keep in mind that my being lead to believe this happened several decades ago!

One reason I was for the UK to stay in the EU was that Europe was set have English language and to some degree English culture to blossom all across the continent of Europe.

It is my belief that in the coming decades that Europe needs to become one independent nation. There has to be a first language and common set of laws for a nation to survive.

France doesn't want German and Germany doesn't want French. Somehow English would have come out on top.

English may still win out in Europe. I don't know.

Consider that the Roman Empire fell to the barbarians who were Germanic. Today Rome speaks a version of German! Well no. The people of Rome speak a language directly tied back to Latin. Those who can speak both Latin and Italian tell me that a person only knowing Latin could speak to Italians that do not speak Latin.

The Roman Empire may have fallen, but its effects are all over Italy and points beyond!

The basic soul of the Angles and Saxons is still in Merry Ole England. While the British monarchy can trace itself to the Normans in 1066, Queen Elizabeth is 100 % English. She can also be 100 % Scottish when she is in Scotland.

Off topic for sure, but the UK will not really realize what a great monarch the Queen has been until she is gone. At 94 she is still in charge of herself and royal duties. What a wonderful leader for the UK she has been.

The Angles and Saxons gave to modern day England its language, culture, nursery rhymes, and common law.

The Angles and Saxons gave a language that Shakespeare would use to be one of the greatest authors over time.

Don't sell the Angles and Saxons short!

 

[Jason]

Interesting that @Freddie53 has drawn attention to England. Something is shifting in England. At the time of the Scottish independence referendum most in England wanted Scotland to stay part of the UK. Now there has been a shift. Polls are based on small samples, but probably a majority in England back Scottish independence.

I'm a unionist. However I think it quite possible that attitudes in England have changed so much that in the event of another independence referendum English politicians would not campaign for the union. It would be seen as a matter for Scotland, and many in England would celebrate if Scotland left. It may be that England would prompt a hard-ball referendum where the choice for Scotland is full independence or a loss of Devo-Max, not the continuation of the awful Devo-Max we now have.

I think it is all to play for in the next couple of years. Quite where Brexit and the pandemic will leave nationalist sentiment I don't think anyone knows.

Many in England are calculating "would we be better off without Scotland?" The financial answer is almost certainly yes. The withdrawal of Scottish MPs from Westminster would shift rUK politics a long way to the right. Culturally an English identity is swamped by a UK identity: we can't sing about fighting marauding Scots (a line in the national anthem, not sung today) while Scotland is part of the UK.

 

[Freddie53]

I am a retired school teacher. I can remember students who got the Perfect Attendance Award year after year while other students couldn't even have one year of Perfect Attendance.

I taught in a rural school so I knew the community well. Some families caught ever thing that came around. Students from those families would miss several days of school several times a year.

My point here is the human defense system varies greatly from person to person and groups to groups.

I've wondered about the virus that causes colds and how this might be related to COVID 19.

Why do some people have several colds every year while other people have none or just one every so often.

Also the severity of colds makes a difference. There have been deaths of people of all ages that were complications of the common cold.

i suspect that some people do catch the COVID 19, but have symptoms so mild, they aren't even aware that they have it.

When English settlers came to America, European diseases wiped out much of the Native Population.

We know that COVID 19 ix a very bad actor in the "Common Cold Family. I'ive read that once we have a particular form of it we have lifetime protection from that one particular cold strain.

According to what I read years ago, this is why children have so many colds while their grandparents seem to never have a cold.

How all this translate to the COVID 19 is yet to be set in stone.

Dandelion mentions the parties etc. The one consistent factor seems to be population density.

Perhaps we all have some natural immunity if we are in good heath so we are able to sustain that first attack by COVID 19. Is it the second, third, etc. even tenth attack by COVID 19 virus when we develop the symptoms?

My answer is that we should do our best to follow a very good diet that helps keep us as healthy as possible.

There are documented cases of people 100 or more years old that recover from this virus. Then a star player who appears to be the picture of health and age 18 to 30 dies from this virus.

It is like any theory anyone comes up with, there is another theory that shoots the first theory down!

The experts are not in agreement. Somehow I don't believe that we here at the LPSG Estates will all agree to any of the suggestions so far given.

I don't know. I suspect most of us don't really know. We each have our own guesses as to how it happens.

I am thankful that I can still write about it not have people saying, Wasn't Freddie a great person! Shame this COVID Virus took him out!"

I'm still hoping for just a grave side service with just the grandchildren, great grand children, and great great grandchildren present!

 

[dandelion]

Now there has been a shift. Polls are based on small samples, but probably a majority in England back Scottish independence.

Probably remainers who think at least Scotland should escape from our self imposed economic crash. If Scotland becomes independent and rejoins the EU,maybe we can all escape to there.

Perhaps we all have some natural immunity if we are in good heath so we are able to sustain that first attack by COVID 19. Is it the second, third, etc. even tenth attack by COVID 19 virus when we develop the symptoms?

The evidence seems to be that you will get a worse outcome if your immune system is in bad shape. If you have some other condition which makes the virus task easier, such as being over weight (fat cells are easier to infect I read). If you are ill with something which means it adds to the symptoms of covid so they are worse. You will get a worse outcome if you get a big infecting dose instead of a small one. You will get a worse case if you have had no exposure beforehand to this or something else which generates cross immunity.

Some people may get all those things, and the most likely place to find people who get all at once is in a hospital or care home. And thats the pople who have died most.

From the start WHO has said that there is a threshold dose below which you dont catch it and above which you do. How big that is, is unclear, but it also likely varies from person to person. If you get a dose below this then it is likely to build your immunity towards the next time you get a dose. But it will be dose per unit of time, so maybe so much virus per day which you are able to manage safely.

If you look at this statistically, people will be exposed to a range of bigger and smaller doses. All the people who have the least resistance will get infected first, because a larger percentage of infecting doses will be big enough to infect them. It seems likely the way to look at this is that covid is now all around us in the environmnt. At low levels all it will do is boost our immunity, but if it gets above this there will be infections. The most susceptible people will be picked off first. These are likely to have the most severe cases, because they are least protected. But this imples as time goes on a bigger proportion will be people who had more or better immunity and just happened to finally get a big dose. BUt the case they get is still likely to be less severe. So as the epidemic goes on, we would expect cases to get milder and milder.

The bad cases probably come from the highest infecting doses, and from those special situations where spread is very easy. (kissing in a club?). In a club likely it is young people who have good resistance, but a few people there will be these unlucky ones who have poor resistance or do not have a head start with some low level immunity already. But since these are precisely the ones who will have been catching it first anyway, there will be fewer and fewer as time goes on.

So while maybe at the start of the epidemic people were getting bad cases from a club or a church. But by the end of four mnths of not very effective lockdown after a peak, when that lockdown finally happens, then cases do not resume as before. There will be a bigger proportion asymptomatic and fewer severe leading to deaths. There will be more completely immune who dont get anything.

 

[g0nz0]

We know that COVID 19 ix a very bad actor in the "Common Cold Family. I'ive read that once we have a particular form of it we have lifetime protection from that one particular cold strain.

Covid19 is a coronavirus but that's where its relationship to the common cold ends, and it is potentially misleading to draw parallels between the two.

False claim: The new coronavirus (COVID-19) is a common cold

Typically immunity to coronavirii is not lifetime - it can range from a year or two to a decade. It is unknown what long term immunity will be given to COVID-19.

The main damage wrought by Covid-19 is in fact the body's over-exuberant inflammatory response - the so-called cytokine storm - that happens relatively late in the infection. In other words, disease severity in patients is a function not only of the viral infection, but also the host response.

So the severest cases and mortality are linked to a dysfunctional immune response, and it is not clear whether this only occurs in those with the highest viral load.

Again, there is no conclusive evidence yet that successful recovery from one bout offers guaranteed protection against a cytokine storm from a subsequent reinfection.

 

[Drifterwood]

@Freddie53, people speak English because it is simple. It is a great language for everyday things. When English requires something more complicated, it borrows from other languages, notably Latin/French and Greek. Norman French and Anglo Norman were the languages of the ruling class, less than 5% of the population, and Latin that of their religious enforcers. Neither were interested in making these languages accessible to the peasants.

Our history tends to concentrate on the ruling classes being displaced. The common people stayed put and lived side by side with Saxons, Angles, Jutes, Danes and even Vikings, of course, they all became serf slaves to the Normans. Thus many English are original Britons, just like the Scots and Welsh.

 

[Drifterwood]

Interesting that @Freddie53 has drawn attention to England. Something is shifting in England. At the time of the Scottish independence referendum most in England wanted Scotland to stay part of the UK. Now there has been a shift. Polls are based on small samples, but probably a majority in England back Scottish independence.

I'm a unionist. However I think it quite possible that attitudes in England have changed so much that in the event of another independence referendum English politicians would not campaign for the union. It would be seen as a matter for Scotland, and many in England would celebrate if Scotland left. It may be that England would prompt a hard-ball referendum where the choice for Scotland is full independence or a loss of Devo-Max, not the continuation of the awful Devo-Max we now have.

I think it is all to play for in the next couple of years. Quite where Brexit and the pandemic will leave nationalist sentiment I don't think anyone knows.

Many in England are calculating "would we be better off without Scotland?" The financial answer is almost certainly yes. The withdrawal of Scottish MPs from Westminster would shift rUK politics a long way to the right. Culturally an English identity is swamped by a UK identity: we can't sing about fighting marauding Scots (a line in the national anthem, not sung today) while Scotland is part of the UK.

English exceptionalism (it's mainly why the rest of us don't like you very much). It will be very interesting to see the Celtic nations re-orientate themselves away from London again. Interestingly though this time, it will be towards Europe with England left in this strange place that they seem to want for themselves.

I appreciate that there isn't much of the British Navy left, but I do wonder where it will go and what it will do without the other Nations. Belfast perhaps? Gibraltar and the other old outposts? Will England and the US split from NATO? Will NATO reform as the latter and a new EU military?

You may find it useful to update your 19th century views on Common Law, Jase, Common law - Wikipedia

 

[Jason]

English exceptionalism (it's mainly why the rest of us don't like you very much).

This is the sort of divisiveness that is coming out of the nationalist debate in Scotland and Wales.

It is fine for Scots and Welsh to be proud of their heritage - but unacceptable for the English to be proud of their heritage.

In Scotland, Robert the Bruce is idolised, with a huge statue of him outside Stirling. He was a man of his day, a murderer, an opportunist, a French-speaking Norman who was in his youth no friend of Scots, yet he is idolised. No-one dare say anything bad about Robert the Bruce. By contrast English Edward I is demonised. I'm sure he wasn't any nicer than Robert the Bruce, yet popular accounts remember only his bad qualities. We forget his enormous achievements in developing the English nation.

The nascent idea is an English nationalism that would see England have an independence referendum to leave the UK. In effect this would be the end of the UK. Right now no-one believes this is in any way likely but it has become a remote possibility. It is technically possible. It is because an increasing number of English people feel not liked by others within the UK.

 

[dandelion]

Covid19 is a coronavirus but that's where its relationship to the common cold ends, and it is potentially misleading to draw parallels between the two.

Testing has found 35% of blood samples from people not exposed to covid have nonetheless shown immunity to it. This is considered due to exposure to other cirulating corona viruses. I take it these are cold viruses. Whatever you call them, they cause a cold.

Again, there is no conclusive evidence yet that successful recovery from one bout offers guaranteed protection against a cytokine storm from a subsequent reinfection.

If it was going to happen, it is very surprising it has not happened yet. The way you express that, it is impossible to guarantee there will never be just on case where someone gets ill twice. But in reality millions of people have recovered from covid and not become ill again. Something in excess of 20 million pople in the Uk alone.

 

[Industrialsize]

Testing has found 35% of blood samples from people not exposed to covid have nonetheless shown immunity to it. This is considered due to exposure to other cirulating corona viruses. I take it these are cold viruses. Whatever you call them, they cause a cold.

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More Scientific nonsense.