Just a quick question - I can see and listen to daily updates and press conferences from many countries on TV and the internet giving me factual accounts of what is happening, in their part of the world, but l appear to be given little or no continuous or accurate updates here in France. For example here in the Nouvelle Aquitaine L’Agence Regionale de Santé does not specify where the new cases are and does not include deaths outwith the hospital system.
Can anyone point me to a reliable source?
Thanks Chris
Fine.
I hope you’re right and it turns out that we over-reacted.
I’m out.
No, that’s the thing - and this has been said more than once - seasonal 'flu does not “spread exponentially” - it meets resistance as the population has some natural immunity and a good %age have the vaccination which provides more.
Pandemic 'flu - utterly different beast, that spreads exponentially and can kill millions, the last pandemic flu (H1N1 in 2009) also produced a robust response from the world’s heath organisations.
It’s not simply a case of the number of available hospital beds it’s the number of ICU beds and ventilators that matters. The Coronavirus coming on top of the annual flu and other seasonal illness numbers meant that some drastic measures had to be taken.
I’m following Anna’s lead.
And the staff to care for the patients in those beds and on those ventilators
In particular : Il apparaissait ainsi d’après ces données que les départements où la mortalité avait le plus augmenté sur cette période étaient Mayotte (+40%), le Haut-Rhin (+38%), la Corse-de-Sud (+31%), et les Deux-Sèvres (+27%). Dans l’Oise, où est apparu en février le premier groupement de cas importants en France, cette hausse s’établit à 14%.
Not everyone wants a flu vaccination. Plenty of anti vaxxers out there… or the 'it won’t affect me brigade.
At least one of those trains has been seen unloading here on the west coast at Fontenay-le-Comte, Vendee.
Yes, they said they were heading to Vendee as one of the places which has been little affected.
Same at the CHU in Clermont Ferrand, see here
Can you imagine…being ill, stuck on a respirator and then transferred on a bumpy flight / train to somewhere miles from your home. Logistical and emotional nightmare…
Are you actually even conscious during resuscitation?
I guess that depends on the level of sedation that the doctors put you under. In some cases of assisted respiration, sedation to the point of coma is considered necessary, to prevent people’s bodies from fighting against the respirators.
That’s what I imagined. I doubt they actually know what’s happening.
A great worry for their near ones though.
I wonder though if there are not some elements of ‘conspiracy’ in the current situation. Interesting discussion of Raoult etc in the blog linked below, including…
Raoult noted caustically that it was not impossible that the discovery of a new therapeutic utility for a drug that had fallen into the public domain long ago would be disappointing for all those hoping to win a Nobel Prize thanks to the breakthrough discovery of a new molecule or vaccine… Not to mention the prospect of tens of billions of dollars in revenue to be made, whereas chloroquine costs literally nothing.
Hi Mark
I had the same question rolling around my head and after looking at what’s going on around the world I’ve decided the unprecedented response is because governments realise their health systems won’t be able to cope. Way back at the start of this thread someone said corona is highly contagious, much more so than flu, but failed to say the result of that, is that large numbers of people will get really ill all at the same time and need hospitalisation. The fatality or recovery rates aren’t actually important, what’s driving governments’ responses is how many people will need beds, equipment and staff to look after them. That’s why governments are talking about slowing the curve. The measures they’re all introducing is about reducing the number of infected people so that hospitals will be able to cope.
Or it could be a conspiracy. Apparently years ago there was a Chinese soap opera about a biological attack with a virus called…corona! I’m just saying.
Latest is from Russia where they are blaming the Americans, saying that they had already taken out a patent on the virus before the present outbreak.
Seems that nutty conspiracy theories are not exclusive to the USA!