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guruilla » Fri Mar 27, 2020 9:09 pm wrote:

Grizzly » Fri Mar 27, 2020 8:28 pm wrote:With regards to Mac's locked fear-porn thread...
What do you guys make of this???

Council workers lying to tenants.
https://youtu.be/OjkPkec820Y

Outtake from the updated 2020 remake of Terry Gilliam's Brazil?

guruilla » Fri Mar 27, 2020 8:17 pm wrote:Few thoughts I posted today, as a general invitation to brainstorm.
That we are being rapidly corralled into a pre-planned new economic (probably techno-socialist) landscape of totalitarian biometric control is something I have zero doubts about [I know, I know: stay liminal!], though I suspect it will ease off soon for a while before round two commences. Hollywood types do love their twist-endings and sequels.

8bitagent » 28 Mar 2020 20:02 wrote:Was thinking, how much of a loss of time sense-wise, as well as cyber-security vulnerabilities will come from all this(even if it all magically goes away in a few months) Billions of people's routines have been completely up-ended as the planet has been transformed into a prison overnight. The other day a lady in front of me at the store half jokingly said "I dont even know what day it is" and the cashier said "no worries, me neither". Even tho everyone has their airpod buds in their ears, smart watches and smart phones around me, there seems to be a distinct loss of time.

And a week ago all the news sites were abuzz about how insanely vulnerable virtually every company/bank/digital security is to hackers since most employees are working from home on their laptops worldwide.
https://www.wired.com/story/coronavirus ... -phishing/

I remember the summer 2003 North East blackout that reached from New York well into Canada for a few days. Any sort of cyber-grid shutdown during the hotter months is enough to setoff all sorts of hell. I already forgot this is the dreaded 2020 ELECTION year that will be insanely polarizing...if the election even happens.

MacCruiskeen » 28 Mar 2020 21:13 wrote:Wise words, Gnomad. We are weirdly fortunate to be living through all this. A change is gonna come, inevitably, because it has to. We might even shape that change sanely, together. May all of us keep breathing.

Oh please leave us something to breathe.

"Let there be no strife, for we be brethren."

I'm not advocating uncontrolled panicking. If you panic for more than a couple of hours, you will exhaust yourself and
you may well not have to energy to panic later, when you really feel you have to

So try about 20 minutes panicking at 11.00 am, and then another spell at 6.00pm

Coronavirus may have infected half of UK population — Oxford study
New epidemiological model shows urgent need for large-scale testing


Clive Cookson, Science Editor March 24 2020

The new coronavirus may already have infected far more people in the UK than scientists had previously estimated — perhaps as much as half the population — according to modelling by researchers at the University of Oxford.

If the results are confirmed, they imply that fewer than one in a thousand of those infected with Covid-19 become ill enough to need hospital treatment, said Sunetra Gupta, professor of theoretical epidemiology, who led the study. The vast majority develop very mild symptoms or none at all.

However, the modelling by Oxford’s Evolutionary Ecology of Infectious Disease group has been challenged by other scientists. They have pointed out that the study presents possible scenarios — based on assumptions about the nature of the virus, its virulence and its arrival from China — that contradict those supported by most epidemiologists.

The Oxford research suggests that Covid-19 reached the UK by mid-January at the latest and perhaps as early as December. It spread invisibly for a month or more before the first transmissions within the UK were officially recorded at the end of February and the epidemic started to grow exponentially.

“We need immediately to begin large-scale serological surveys — antibody testing — to assess what stage of the epidemic we are in now,” Prof Gupta said.

The research presents a very different view of the epidemic to the modelling at Imperial College London, which has strongly influenced government policy. “I am surprised that there has been such unqualified acceptance of the Imperial model,” said Prof Gupta.

However, she was reluctant to criticise the government for shutting down the country to suppress viral spread, because the accuracy of the Oxford model has not yet been confirmed and, even if it is correct, social distancing will reduce the number of people becoming seriously ill and relieve severe pressure on the NHS during the peak of the epidemic.

The Oxford study is based on what is known as a “susceptibility-infected-recovered model” of Covid-19, built up from case and death reports from the UK and Italy. The researchers made what they regard as the most plausible assumptions about the behaviour of the virus.

The modelling brings back into focus “herd immunity”, the idea that the virus will stop spreading when enough people have become resistant to it because they have already been infected. The government abandoned its unofficial herd immunity strategy — allowing controlled spread of infection — after its scientific advisers said this would swamp the National Health Service with critically ill patients.

But the Oxford results would mean the country had already acquired substantial herd immunity through the unrecognised spread of Covid-19 over more than two months. If the findings are confirmed by testing, then the current restrictions could be removed much sooner than ministers have indicated.

Although some experts have shed doubt on the strength and length of the human immune response to the virus, Prof Gupta said the emerging evidence made her confident that humanity would build up herd immunity against Covid-19.

To provide the necessary evidence, the Oxford group is working with colleagues at the Universities of Cambridge and Kent to start antibody testing on the general population as soon as possible, using specialised “neutralisation assays which provide reliable readout of protective immunity,” Prof Gupta said. They hope to start testing later this week and obtain preliminary results within a few days.

This article has been amended since original publication to clarify the fact that the modelling is controversial and its assumptions have been contested by other scientists.

A Berkshire coroner said the death was related to Covid-19 after being told Middleton had a cough, the source said. But this surprised medics at the hospital, who have not recorded it as a coronavirus incident.

Last Sunday the NHS suggested an 18-year-old male had died from coronavirus, but it has since emerged the teenager had tested positive for the disease in a hospital in Coventry but died from an unrelated condition.

A spokeswoman for the hospital confirmed that a 28-year-old man had died on 24 March after testing positive for the virus. “He died with Covid-19. I cannot tell you whether that was the reason he died,” she said.

Removed: article

Sat 28 Mar 2020 14.47 GMT

This article was removed on 28 March 2020 pending review.

Chloe Middleton: death of 21-year-old not recorded as Covid-19

Source says coroner linked death to coronavirus but hospital took different view

Coronavirus – latest updates
See all our coronavirus coverage

Matthew Weaver

Fri 27 Mar 2020 22.16 GMT
First published on Fri 27 Mar 2020 14.59 GMT
Chloe Middleton
Chloe Middleton was taken to hospital after a heart attack, but attempts to resuscitate her failed. Photograph: Facebook

The death of 21-year-old Chloe Middleton – the UK’s youngest coronavirus victim, her family believe – has not been recorded in the official toll because of confusion about how she died, the Guardian can reveal.

Middleton was taken to Wexham Park hospital in Slough last Thursday after having a heart attack. Attempts to resuscitate her failed and she was pronounced dead soon after arriving, a source said.

A Berkshire coroner said the death was related to Covid-19 after being told Middleton had a cough, the source said. But this surprised medics at the hospital, who have not recorded it as a coronavirus incident.

As a result of the hospital’s view, the death has not been recorded among the NHS tally of UK coronavirus fatalities.

A Facebook post by Middleton’s aunt claiming she had no underlying health issues is no longer available. Her family has been subjected to online abuse and accusations of spreading alarmist news about her death.

An NHS source said this was unfair. “They have been given the information officially from the coroner that this is [a] Covid death,” they said. “And that’s their understanding of it.” But the source said the coroner’s move “raised eyebrows” at the hospital because she had not tested positive for the disease.

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Middleton’s mother, aunt and boyfriend have not responded to the Guardian’s requests for an interview. Berkshire’s three coroners have also not responded to requests for comment.

But later, a spokesman for Reading council issued a statement on behalf of the coroner’s office, which said: “Chloe died at Wexham Park Hospital on the 19 March 2020. The case was reported to the Berkshire coroner’s office. Her death was very sad but as she had a natural cause of death, involvement by the coroner was not required and the hospital issued a death certificate.

“There was no postmortem examination or inquest. We must now respect the privacy of her family and cannot provide any further information.”

The youngest official victim in the UK is thought to be 28-year-old Adam Harkins Sullivan, a painter and decorator from Camden, north London, who died at University College hospital in London on Tuesday.

A spokeswoman for the hospital confirmed that a 28-year-old man had died on 24 March after testing positive for the virus. “He died with Covid-19. I cannot tell you whether that was the reason he died,” she said.

Harkins Sullivan was being treated in an isolation ward with other patients who had also tested positive for the virus. Speaking to the Camden New Journal, his mother, Jackie Harkins, said: “We are all just in shock because he was only a young man. He was healthy – you didn’t have to tell him to eat his greens. He was always like that.

“He went into hospital with viral pneumonia, but other than that he was healthy. People have got to start taking this seriously.”

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She said her son was taken to hospital in an ambulance last week after he reported breathing difficulties and a temperature of 39.9C.

She said: “He was ringing us that day and at night. Then he rang at 1.15am and said [they] wanted to put him into an induced coma, they wanted to help him breathe.”

She added: “Before Adam died, I did get to see him, because it was the end and his last moment. He was in a room with other people with coronavirus. They come and put gloves and an apron on you. He was virtually dead and it was just a machine keeping him alive. I was talking to him, telling him: ‘You’re at UCH. You need to fight.’ He flatlined. He flatlined again, and then again. And I knew there was no coming back.”

Last Sunday the NHS suggested an 18-year-old male had died from coronavirus, but it has since emerged the teenager had tested positive for the disease in a hospital in Coventry but died from an unrelated condition.