Truedogz wrote: ↑Wed Mar 25, 2020 6:14 pm
Hi People
A number of people I have run into over the past few days have sought from me an explanation of some of the things taking place. One strongly suggested I put a post on FV as he said it helped him to 'get it' and it might help others. I've got nothing against FV but I don't post on social media at all these days due to issues outside of the forum which I know has some fine people who keep in contact. So here goes I will offer some information.
In simple terms there are two paths to dealing with COVID-19 (the diseased condition). One which is the current path is the 'herd immunity' strategy. This has been agreed to by all of the nation's heads of government. The strategy is that over about the next 6 months at least 60% of the population catches SARSCoV-2 (the name of the virus). Once this level of population is exposed transmission becomes more difficult and cases would taper off. 60% of the population has been effectively immunised and carry memory cells to combat future exposure. With this strategy it is definitely not over in 6 months as the rest of the population could still contract the virus but cases would be at a low level and with sporadic outbreaks. So expect isolation strategies for individual cases to remain in place until a vaccine is developed.
The current strategy is a balancing act in getting sufficient numbers of people exposed while keeping those requiring hospitalisation down to manageable levels. You have seen a suggested peak of 100,00 new infections per day. That doesn't mean 100,000 newly sick every day as many will show no symptoms and the majority mild symptoms. Overall the average mortality rate does appear to be about 1% or less though this varies by age group. At this sort of rate based on the time spent by people in ICU to recover the total number of ICUs required is about 5,000. We currently have under 3,000 but time is being bought to get closer to 5,000.
As a simplification with this strategy younger people have the burden of getting exposed and providing herd immunity. The benefit (eventually) is the country's borders open up quicker allowing the economy to recover and a quicker transition back to normality though I think all of us know it will be a new normal. A huge number of people are losing their jobs and I have lost a lot of my income too. But this strategy offers a quicker turn around than the alternative. The negative here is that while young people will curry the burden of getting the disease and will be prioritised if they get very ill, the older part of the population will bare the burden of deaths so that the overall recovery is quicker. Expected deaths are over 100,000 this year, however, if they can be effectively isolated at workplaces, retirement villages, etc, we might get it down to under 30,000.
So be very clear the strategy is not to stop infection by SARSCoV-2 but control the rate of spread. So the reason things aren't being totally shut down is the desire for this to spread - in a controlled manner. With the capacity to proliferate explosively it is a delicate balancing act. For more information these two articles provide useful overviews:
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/lifes ... 11c319295a
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... curve.html
Here is a great interview (you can ignore the fact it is Allan Jones if you wish but the responses are worthwhile):
https://www.2gb.com/coronavirus-strateg ... s-one-out/
Whether you agree with this strategy or not understand this was agreed to by ALL heads of government (both political persuasions) and senior medical officers.
I have created a couple of quick models and can quickly assess how things are going, but I won't explain the maths here. If you want to keep tabs of things a site created by at Ben Phillips at Melbourne University is really good:
https://benflips.shinyapps.io/nCovForecast/
The 10 day forecast provides a good overview but to monitor the success of the strategy click on the Curve flattening tab. Check the box for any nation of interest. If the curve is above the line (+ve) the rate of increase is being suppressed, if under the line it is not. If the curve bends upwards strong pressure is being applied, bends downwards control is being lost. If you have a look we are doing well - which is what is needed for a smaller, later peak in cases.
The alternative strategy is to have a total lockdown and let the virus decline until it disappears. The advantage of this is the number of deaths can be significantly reduced. The disadvantage is after the virus is controlled the nation has to have its borders shut or severely restricted until a vaccine is developed, potentially extending financial hardship for the population for much longer (and this type of hardship kills people too). If you open your borders you strongly risk new 'yo yo' outbreaks. Some Asian countries have had some success with this approach in part due to the fact that they had a lot of equipment/facilities/procedures to roll out to the SARS outbreak a decade ago. We did not have that 'advantage'. Those nations still remain at risk and can't relax until a vaccine becomes available.
As to cure/vaccines there are some issues. Traditional vaccines can take 6-8 years to develop. The experience with the very similar SARS virus was that novel biotech approaches using viral RNA fragments were investigated and proved problematic. A big issue was the vaccine producing hypersensitisation making them potentially dangerous. The research largely ceased when the SARS outbreak was controlled. There is no guarantee of rapid development of a vaccine and 18 months would be a good result. There are some excellent candidate drugs being investigated that could help save lives and protect health workers. For example the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine shows promise but has some issues (eg. not suitable for people with certain heart conditions). They will be useful but are unlikely to provide long term protection and when an individual comes off them they can get reinfected.
So that is where we are at. Hard decisions have been made for us in a time or crisis. The reality is the majority of FV members will be infected in the next 6 months. For older members they have to do their best so they don't become a statistic.
Best Wishes
Truedogz
