Coronavirus (Covid19) Corner

[plaques]

So far i have had an extra 13 weeks of life on the sofa, hardly the positive contribution to my community I was aiming for after I left hospital a few years back.

Here's something to contemplate on while you lie on your sofa.

Secrets to Inner Peace.

If you can start the day without caffeine,
If you can always be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,
If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles,
If you can eat the same food every day and be grateful for it,
If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time,
If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,
If you can conquer tension without medical help,
If you can relax without alcohol,
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,

Then You Are Probably

The Family Dog!

[Whyperion]

I have virtually given up Coffee- it makes me none too well - like a good tea though, boring people with your troubles, ( i dont mind listening to some of others I tend to keep my own to myself) . If you can eat the same food every day (mum I have worked out has rice crispies, rice cakes, rice pudding - which is probably three meals to the average family in the globe of one ), I do binge on fruit . Too busy to give you any time (well the cat demands more than I do. If you can relax without alcohol ( never bother with it bar rum and raisin ice cream on the odd occasion). If you can sleep - sometimes, I am tending to leave the telly on, its not really good at nights.

[Sue]

If you can start the day without caffeine,
If you can always be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,
If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles,
If you can eat the same food every day and be grateful for it,
If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time,
If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,
If you can conquer tension without medical help,
If you can relax without alcohol,
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,




I start my day with tea, only drink coffee after a meal
I try to always be cheerful its part of my philosophy
I don’t generally chat about my troubles except to Bob, I am much more of a problem solver and try to think positive. I am a good listener though
I have the same breakfast every day, and pretty much the same lunch or similar version of. Home made soup in the winter, salad in the summer, both accompanied by an orange and a yoghurt
I fully i
Understand people are busy with their own lives and don’t always have time for me, but its not an issue. I tend to be the one who is too busy.
I try to take criticism well, but its not my forte when I know I am always right
I am always willing to accept blame if something is my fault, and have been known to do it to keep the peace. I don’t like antagonism , aggression and unfairness
I don’t have either a tension issue, relaxation or sleep issue. Relaxation is the hardest because I am always busy and mentally alert, but do switch off for an hour or so, regularly throughout the day.

I think I am a cat


Perhaps I can add that I don’t have an issue with lockdown because , although I am a social animal, I am happy with my own company , and my own space. I am happy with me! I don’t need pubs, shops, cafes, bars etc but I have to admit to needing wide open empty spaces oh yes I do need modern technology ! I really feel for people who have struggled . Even when in France I applied the above its just I preferred this space to France on a long term basis, and we made that decision long ago when we decided never to move there.


Gosh thats all a deep assessment of me

[Stanley]

More a tiger Sue.....

[Sue]

More a tiger Sue.....

Ha ha, I think you will find I tend to back away if confronted face to face. I am all talk, no action!

[Whyperion]

Cats eiether are totally fussy eaters, has to be the same every time, or they demand constant change ( this is more natural as they seek out the mix of minerals, etc they need particulary if tin or packet fed - in the wild the mix of rodents and birds is a variety) )

[Tizer]

Perhaps I can add that I don’t have an issue with lockdown because , although I am a social animal, I am happy with my own company , and my own space. I am happy with me! I don’t need pubs, shops, cafes, bars etc but I have to admit to needing wide open empty spaces oh yes I do need modern technology!

Snap! Just like me!

Talking of human behaviour, don't miss Chris Packham's 3-part TV series on primates, `Secrets of Survival' LINK It's wonderful to watch superb film of primate behaviour and Packham's voice-over is easy listening.

[plaques]

No sooner have we got familiar with the concept of 'R' values when they slip in another confusing element of 'K' values. In my dark and distant past I can vaguely remember that K was something to do with potassium. What potassium has to do with covid-19 I can't imagine. Alternatively could it possibly be that mythical element Kryptonite that was deadly dangerous to Superman. Has Mat Hancock has found a magic cure for this pandemic. No, it turns out to be a letter code to signify the number of people with active corvid-19 who may be in a position to pass in onto others who haven't got it. Confused? stay with me. We are now considering relatively small communities of people not big populations. For example, if in a local community 100 people have the illness which they could pass on to others but 90 of them lock themselves away then this only leaves 10% active spreaders, or in the scaling used by the K factor = 0.1. The total range being (nobody spreading) = 0, to (100% spreading) = 1. The idea behind the K value is to identify the risk within a small community, a bubble if you like, which can be closed down on a local basis rather than get swamped by massive city numbers. I hope I'm right with this interpretation but always open to correction.

[Sue]

I was reading about K values last week, I gave up, as I think most of the population will. There is following science and just plain blinding you . To me this is maths and best left to the computer modellers

[Marilyn]

You have “flattened the curve” now, so that is a very positive thing.
Did I read there were no deaths yesterday, or was it that figures were simply not available?
At any rate, things are looking brighter for you.

[Stanley]

Sue, dead right!

[Sue]

You have “flattened the curve” now, so that is a very positive thing.
Did I read there were no deaths yesterday, or was it that figures were simply not available?
At any rate, things are looking brighter for you.

There were 55 on Sunday but weekend figures are always low. They were up again yesterday with the weekend added in , but still averaged lowest since early March. However there are major regional differences in numbers of cases and the NW is one of the highest.

[plaques]

Nothing like being optimistic but the whole point of the lockdown was to take people out of the firing line so that the amount of covid fodder was reduced. In general this approach has worked but there are still areas where we are playing catch up purely because like ripples in a pond the full weight of the infection started later in some areas than others. We are now faced with the dilemma of releasing more covid fodder into areas that don't quite meet the full anti-lockdown criteria. Naturally people are concerned about their livelihoods but equally concerned about their health. The difficulty into moving into partial lockdown is the feeling of being used as guinea pigs like Douglas Adams experimental mice to see what happens. A problem of Gordian Knot proportions to which there is no simple solution and to which will probably cost more lives whichever road we go down.

[Marilyn]

Well we are very disappointed that many thousands here decided to congregate and walk for “Black Lives Matter”.
Normally, I would not give a hoot, but we all suffer if people do risky things.
The next 10 days will show any damage done.
( and as a nation we have worked so damn hard to spare our indigenous people this virus! They are terribly vulnerable. Then they march. Then, no doubt, we will get the blame if they start dropping like flies...we just shake our heads in disbelief. But they will not be told.)

[Tizer]

However there are major regional differences in numbers of cases and the NW is one of the highest.

Todays' BBC web news takes a look... `Coronavirus: Is the North West a virus hotspot?' LINK

I put this here because it's good news for us as well as for pangolins!
`Hope for pangolins as protection boosted in China' LINK

There was a very long and detailed article in The Times on Saturday about traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). It looked back at the history, telling how in the early 1900s the then Chinese leader recognised that modern `Western medicine' was very effective whereas TCM was mostly bluff and he encouraged the use of the former and repression of the latter. Unfortunately, later Chinese leaders have brought back TCM as a way of stressing Chinese nationalism and its traditions.

[Whyperion]

No sooner have we got familiar with the concept of 'R' values when they slip in another confusing element of 'K' values. In my dark and distant past I can vaguely remember that K was something to do with potassium. What potassium has to do with covid-19 I can't imagine. Alternatively could it possibly be that mythical element Kryptonite that was deadly dangerous to Superman. Has Mat Hancock has found a magic cure for this pandemic. No, it turns out to be a letter code to signify the number of people with active corvid-19 who may be in a position to pass in onto others who haven't got it. Confused? stay with me. We are now considering relatively small communities of people not big populations. For example, if in a local community 100 people have the illness which they could pass on to others but 90 of them lock themselves away then this only leaves 10% active spreaders, or in the scaling used by the K factor = 0.1. The total range being (nobody spreading) = 0, to (100% spreading) = 1. The idea behind the K value is to identify the risk within a small community, a bubble if you like, which can be closed down on a local basis rather than get swamped by massive city numbers. I hope I'm right with this interpretation but always open to correction.

even it if it is not right, it makes sense and is easy to understand.
With respect to OC43 was this what some chinese also had in the run-up to Sars2 becoming identified ? Rather asks the question - where do viruses go in the summertime (and why do they come back - I might post my thoughts on OC43 waves later).

As for traditional medicines there are some herbal mixes that indeed will help with the allieviation of some illnesses (one in England involved dried mould spores for a bacterialogical disease - not far off penicillin), the balance of chemicals in plants is close to assisting in the control of fungal, bacterial or virus attacks, maybe more investigations of nicotines and caniboids ( as examples their must be loads more in plant greenery flowers or seeds) needs to be done, and some of Chinese traditions too could be of benifit even if many are none, or dangerous

[Tizer]

`Coronavirus came to UK 'on at least 1,300 separate occasions'' LINK
`Coronavirus was brought into the UK on at least 1,300 separate occasions, a major analysis of the genetics of the virus shows. The study, by the Covid-19 Genomics UK consortium (Cog-UK), completely quashes the idea that a single "patient zero" started the whole UK outbreak. The analysis also finds China, where the pandemic started, had a negligible impact on cases in the UK. Instead those initial cases came mostly from European countries. The researchers analysed the genetic code of viral samples taken from more than 20,000 people infected with coronavirus in the UK. Then, like a gigantic version of a paternity test, the geneticists attempted to piece together the virus's massive family tree. This was combined with data on international travel to get to the origins of the UK epidemic. ..'.

[Sue]

Yes I read that article Tizer, it implied most came from Italy and Spain. Many of the latter will have been UK nationals coming back home I should think.

[Stanley]

All amazing work by the geneticists but what counts with me is the estimated 50,000+ unexpected deaths and any evidence there is of competence in fighting the pandemic. Two things strike me, the failures of centralising the systems and the growing recognition of this and that the best base is local, in other words the underfunded Councils.
Second the entirely predictable attempt yesterday on very slim data in the first real week of track and trace to reassure the public that our 'world class' track and trace system is just that. What evidence we have suggests it is nowhere near world class and the stumbling attempts of Dido didn't help. (A woman who admits that she has no knowledge of computers or their systems.) Johnson inspires no confidence in me. Even if he was capable of uttering a fluent complete sentence he would fail to impress.
Like it or not, somewhere in the far reaches of government I suspect that the strategy is to let Covid burn itself out to the point of herd immunity. Up to now we have seen a cull of the most vulnerable and in some quarters I suspect this is seen as a bonus. This bonus of less weight on the NHS and therefore less expense is already ongoing. Look at the reduction in cancer and other referrals from GPs.
You may not like these suspicions but there is more evidence for them than a 'world class system'.

[PanBiker]

It was reported on the news last night that when contacted, those with a positive result reported on average 1.5 persons who they had been in contact with. this is totally unreal and actually useless information.

We as a couple are quite careful in our movements but if I was asked how may folk I have been in contact with, without racking my brain too much it would have to be about twelve at least. All done within the rules as well but nevertheless somewhat more than one and a half.

[Tizer]

Although the traffic on the roads still isn't back to the normal density, we are seeing more cyclists than in the past. Unfortunately, since the lockdown on public transport there are now more adults who ride their bikes on the pavement rather than the roads, even though there are fewer road vehicles and even when there is a grass verge that they could use. The government and local authorities are going to step up their efforts to encourage cycling so I hope they will make sure people understand the law on where it's OK to cycle.

[plaques]

Received as part of Aldi's internet adverts. Well done Aldi.

Aldi has donated over one thousand bundles of fabric, also known as fat quarters, to Scrub Hub organisations across the UK.
Scrub Hub is a network of volunteers who are putting their sewing skills to good use to support local NHS and care home workers during the coronavirus outbreak.
To help further, Aldi has worked with The Big Community Sew, an initiative that is encouraging people to make their own face coverings for friends, family and neighbours at home, to offer a handy how-to guide.

[Sue]

It was reported on the news last night that when contacted, those with a positive result reported on average 1.5 persons who they had been in contact with. this is totally unreal and actually useless information.

We as a couple are quite careful in our movements but if I was asked how may folk I have been in contact with, without racking my brain too much it would have to be about twelve at least. All done within the rules as well but nevertheless somewhat more than one and a half.

Hmm, I doubt I am in contact with anyone most days, perhaps the Hermes delivery man or the post man The other days when we walk it could be 5-20 but I don’t know who they are. We step to the side and pass and say thank you.

[plaques]

I get the impression that we are entering a free for all phase. The government will gradually nibble away at all the lockdown restrictions and at the same time remove any financial support for individuals and firms. Any second peak figures will be explained way as local aberrations that will be rectified by using our world beating tracing system. Meanwhile infection rates will climb, people will die, but they will be able to hide behind the necessity of recovering the economy. By moving the discussions to the economy and blaming the covid for all job losses whether they were covid related or not the general emphasis will be placed on putting the UK in a strong position to meet the EU withdrawal pressures.

Its being so cheerful that keeps me going.

[Stanley]

That's realistic Ian.... They'll cite the science and the economy.