Corona Virus Thoughts
 

Mass hysteria over the Corona virus.

It seems to have escaped the medical advisors to the governments around the world what we are dealing with.
The common cold and the flue are corona virus's and we are familiar with the symptoms.
Covid 19 is a corona virus with the same symptoms and all those who have fully recovered from it ( approaching 100,000 people now) have reported a raised temperature, a cough, fatigue and a shortness of breath at its peak.

Whilst the figures for mortality rates appear high between 2 - 4%, those figures were gleaned from the early outbreak in China. China has appalling air quality in the industrial areas and the population doesn't have access to good health care that we enjoy in the West.

There should be some common sense being applied to the response to what appears to be a case of Cold / Flue. The advice to wash our hands is good and so is to self isolate when we are ill. Indeed this is what we already do when we are suffering with a heavy cold or the flue.

The rapid spread of the virus around the world isn't surprising with modern travel. If you were to try and track a cold or flue bug this is exactly what you would expect to see.

The comparisons need to be urgently high lighted at government level. The whole episode is simply out of all proportion to the reality in my opinion.

The common cold is a coronavirus (so called because the virus resembles a crown).

The influenza virus is a different virus "family", but causes very similar symptoms to COVID-19.

The main issue is that we, as a herd, do not have an acquired immunity to the novel virus whereas many of us have some immunity to influenza. Hence influenza does not spread as quickly (and have the high number of simultaneous cases) and put health services under huge strain.

100 people die in a month in the USA after contracting corona virus and the country shuts out all foreign visitors.

85 people every day die in the USA from gunshot wounds and everything's just hunky-dory.

You're absolutely right, if you're particularly vulnerable because you have a serious underlying health condition you should probably lock yourself away from the rest of humanity.

Otherwise, it's probably really no biggy.

We’ll be in lock down from the weekend ....watch this space

Going to be an odd few weeks

Army already on the move !!!

The UK typically has around 13,000 - 15,000 deaths a year from Flu. Whilst the figures do get published rarely do the alarm bells ring. I recall that the winter of 2017 -18 was a bad year. That was put down to an ineffective flu jab vaccine.

Take care and we can get through this.

Dammit, I hope not - I've got a Spitfire Mk2 hard-top, a Triumph six-pot motor & gearbox and a full set of Vitesse Rotoflex suspension to collect over the weekend. I'll wear a mask, promise... :madgrin:

Yep, sadly people die of something every day.

I had access to the Office for National Statistics UK deaths by cause analysis while researching how to reduce young driver and passenger fatalities on our roads a few years back - I'm now a big advocate of 'black box' trackers for newly licenced youngsters.

What surprised me though was the number of people who die from inhaling toxic fumes, which was about one a day at around 300 to 400 per year in the years I was looking at.

Some of those are suicides, but far more are accidental. Believe it or not, in the UK around one home mechanic per week is found face-down in their garage having shuffled off this mortal coil while wielding a spraygun full of two-pack and wearing a dust mask.

Stupid deaths, stupid deaths, hope next time it's not you...

I think this will be the last weekend we can do anything before a lockdown

Fingers crossed it isnt that bad

Less panic around town today, panic buying has eased right off. The local shops have restocked most items and everyone has calmed down a bit !

I think if people had been told that the symptoms for most were that of a heavy cold or dose of the flu then the panic wouldn't have set in.

The wife managed to get a home delivery of food by Asda. I took the delivery into the house and decided to wipe every item down with Detox before putting it away. Home delivery is great if you can get one but you don't know who has handled your goods so be extra careful.
A lot has changed even in the short time since I started this thread, keep up to date with the advice and stay well.