I’ve shown you mine so let’s see yours.
I agree with the comments above we are bombarded by so many “facts “ by ill informed people on social media just because Henry’s aunts heard it in the bakery it is not true.
I also agree with some of Mark’s original figures the stats are very low compared to flu but it is the wave effect that will overwhelm the healthcare providers. There does need to be a balanced with how much social disruption society can stand very soon a balance will have to be reached.
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I give it until the end of April at the latest before pressure grows to lift any restrictions purely on economic grounds, China has already ordered factories to open even though the virus hasn’t completely gone away there.
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My what?
I gave you my link. It’s the UK government’s publichealthmatters blog.
All you have offered are-
- Look up the word exponential.
- A conjected figure of 500,000 deaths in Britain from a “secret report” leaked to a newspaper.
- Personal insults.
- A demand for an apology
I posted a question but you have not provided any facts to help me answer them.
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You are of course correct we are facing a very serious situation. Snide comments are not going to persuade anyone of that though.
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Ah yes, a government blog. We can choose where to get statistics from & this shows just how widely the figures bandied about can vary. The National Statistics Office should be the most accurate source but may be not. This is partly why I asked the question in the first place!
Lies, damned lies & statistics!
Scared? Yes, I am. I am in the high risk group with regard to health issues & work so a good bout of flu or this virus could see the end of me.
You’re right of course, none of us knows the figures for sure and the people who do know, are often selective in what they tell us.
I’m not saying that you’re not right to question what we’re told. I was sceptical myself at first. But there comes a point when the precise details and the precise figures don’t matter; what matters is that there’s a problem that’s grown too big to be ignored, so something has to be done.
It was seeing the situation unfold in Italy that ended my scepticism. Those deaths and that many people in intensive care are all too real, they’re not smoke and mirrors and statistics. It’s happening again in the US. You don’t need to see statistics to realise that health services can’t cope. So I ask you again, what different measures can you suggest to try to stop the spread without damaging economies? I’m sure governments would be delighted to know what ideas you have.
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My OP poses questions, not answers. Your post made good sense until the last two sentences. Why would I have any kind of answer to the questions I posed? I am just a member of the public who is concerned about the future.
You ruined a good reply by adding a bit of unnecessary sarcasm at the end.
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CAT 5 Laboratory in Wuhan - Mutated influenza virus - The one that got away or was helped along the way.
How does Biological warfare test gone wrong sound to the sceptics.
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Not intentionally sarcastic, Mark. Trying to make a point.
I think our leaders are in the dark just as much as us. They also see contradictory reports and models and theories. They also have more questions than answers. But, they are on the spot, they have to do something and this is their best shot.
So the point I was trying to make is that I think posing questions but not being interested in the answers is a cop out because right now we urgently need an answer. Governments across the world have presumably asked themselves those same questions, and responded. You’re saying the response is inappropriate to the facts, the result of a conspiracy theory. Hence I am asking you, what do you think a more appropriate response would be?
Because if you can’t see a better response to the situation facing us, then your conspiracy theory argument, ie they know things we don’t know and are working to a different agenda, falls down.
The answer to your questions is there. I have expanded on it
in earlier posts. Your subsequent posts show that you haven’t taken any of the facts or background information on board. Your problem not mine. Do you realise how you come across repeating questions that have be answered by several people?
“They know” that SARS-Cov-2 is a novel virus to which the population has no immunity, that the number of cases is on an exponential track and has the potential to not slow down until 80% of the population has been infected (about 54 million individuals) with a 1-3% mortality overall - i.e 500,000 to 1.5 million deaths
Flu, on the other hand annually causes about 17,000 deaths (though with a wide variation year to year).
Can you see the difference yet?
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Italy’s history is the UK’s future. Be very careful, you don’t want to end up in hospital for any reason for a long time to come.
In the UK they’ve decided to turn London’s ExCel centre into a hospital.
It’s things like this that clearly illustrate to me why this is very different from a flu outbreak.
We can cope with flu. We can’t cope with this.
In Mulhouse, which is on my side of France, they have set up intensive care beds in the car park. I will make extra efforts not to get this virus!
The facts are being presented by scientific and medical experts from all around the world. Mark and others are refusing to understand that their conspiracy theory about Coronavirus not being as dangerous as flu has been disproved time and time again.
People who ask questions should listen to the answers.
Sometimes it goes beyond being polite. In my opinion his blinkered approach and scaremongering is pretty rude.
One could arguably make the case in favour of obligatory flu vaccination IMO.
I merely asked a question. I did not say that the measures should be ignored or that the situation is not serious. I am not being subversive, nor have I indulged in scaremongering - did you actually read my post or just the title?
As for being blinkered…
We are currently being bombarded with information from everywhere & numbers from similar sources can differ widely. We are being given all kinds of predictions from different experts which seem to contradict patterns already established. You yourself quote a predicted death rate in the UK alone of over half a million, while in China, the ground zero of this virus, reports no new cases other than “imports” & deaths reached 3280, nowhere near the predicted figure that you quote for the UK.
I am currently listening to Radio 4 who played an interview from Sir David Spiegelhalter who actually explains the figures quite well without sensationalising.
My question is concerned not so much with how the virus spreads (I once went to an Amway meeting so am familiar with the term exponential growth) but why, when cases were still quite small compared to the numbers related to 'flu, governments started to take serious measures when previous viruses with a proven & at that time a far higher mortality rate, did not. This does not mean that I think that today’s measures are unnecessary, more that why weren’t similar measures put in place in previous years?
You seem to think that I am wrong to ask such questions & that I should blindly accept every piece of information thrown at me from the governments & media without question.
Of course, governments never lie, distort, mislead or omit anything, do they?
Media never exaggerate, lie, twist or follow their own agenda, do they?
Me? I will continue to think for myself & question what I am told & if that makes me a dangerous b… then so be it.
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