Basically, the Trump administration is pressuring and bribing German scientists and research companies that are developing the vaccine to agree to give the US sole patent rights to any vaccine developed.

Do you understand what 'herd immunity' is and how it's acquired? I can't see from here that you have the first clue.

The government cherry-picked comments from a limited number of advisers, the world scratched its head (or laughed), the government started to row back.

"The first signs of unease in Number 10 came on Friday night when journalists were briefed that mass gatherings would be banned, just 24 hours after Mr Johnson and his advisers insisted such a move would be of little merit.

Indeed Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser, had announced on Thursday that the first set of measures to be implemented in Britain’s “delay” strategy were “actually rather large”.

He said that advising people with a cough or fever to self-isolate for seven days was “a big change”. But that advice, along with a suggestion that school trips should be stopped and the elderly should avoid cruise ships, fell massively short of what other countries were doing."

Here is a US report about the US attempt to monopolize the vaccine research

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/03/15/...g-vaccine.html

Can't have dirty foreigners have something the US does not. Especially not from the EU.

So you find an article by an expert in one particular field that is relevant and assume that because the UK government has a (slightly) different plan (mostly in timing) that they have cherry-picked advice?

Perhaps a more plausible explanation for the UK's slightly different approach is that the government consulted multiple experts from different relevant branches of science, logistics and economics.

As I write DSP code for a living I'm fairly confident that not only that I understand how here immunity is acquired, but I could write a simulation of a virus passing through a population and show here immunity developing as the distance between susceptible individuals increases.

But if it suits you better to assume I'm ignorant or thick, feel free. ;)

No that is politicians speaking. Vagueness to sound as if they are doing something.

Presumably they just switch the 3D printers they use to produce cars to produce ventilators instead, simple :rolleyes:

Hancock called for the Blitz spirit in a Torygraph article. Maybe he thinks that if car factories produced Spitfires, they can produce ventilators. Of course it did take many months and brilliant leadership to achieve that. Surely Boris Johnson's cabinet of all the talents can do the same in days.

Given the stupidity of the plan, it really doesn't matter.

Bollocks. The "herd immunity" plan has he excoriated by numerous experts.

Other governments aren't taking the 'herd immunity' approach.

But if you want to do some calculations, try this:

Take the UK population as around 60M. Take the infection rate to create herd immunity as 70%. Look at the hospitalisation and intensive-care requirements from other badly-affected countries and apply those to the number of UK victims. Divide the resulting figure by 100, just because we're being insanely optimistic and probably need mental treatment. Compare that final figure to the 4,000 intensive care beds in UK hospitals, 4/5ths of which are already occupied.

Realise that the plan was for this to happen quickly, to prevent a second wave of infections next winter.

Say "******* hell, that's bonkers!"

:thumbsup:

He is a non-medically qualified researcher in bacterial genetics of antibiotic resistance. Not a clinician, not a virologist and certainly not someone who has published on the mathematical modelling of the transmission of infectious diseases. So slightly less well qualified than I am to comment.

But car factories didn't produce Spitfires, Spitfire factories produced them. What they did is build extra factories.

car factories were working full out to build motor vehicles.

Famously Ian Donald the inventor of ultrasound and an obstetrician needed a ventilator for a sick baby, went home and built one in his garden shed over the weekend. Ventilators are not complex they are basically servo controlled fans. I bet Dyson could make excellent ventilators.
https://history.rcplondon.ac.uk/insp...ans/ian-donald

Where?

Republican Lt Governor of Florida whines because Vail Resort has closed while he was driving there, spoiling his vacation. Dem Governor of Colorado rips him a new one.

Hang on a moment - you mean this nonsense applies to one of US!?!?!?!?! That is not the way this is meant to happen.

Trump Tweets

We are doing very precise Medical Screenings at our airports. Pardon the interruptions and delays, we are moving as quickly as possible, but it is very important that we be vigilant and careful. We must get it right. Safety first!

There will be a News Conference by the CoronaVirus Task Force today at the White House, 5 P.M. @VP

We are working closely with the Governors of our Country’s great States, which are a very big factor. They are working hard, along with us, to get the job properly done.....

....The USA was never set up for this, just look at the catastrophe of the H1N1 Swine Flu (Biden in charge, 17,000 people lost, very late response time), but it soon will be. Great decision to close our China, and other, borders early. Saved many lives!

Building one as a hobby decades ago - possible.

Building thousands which comply with all the appropriate legislation is a completely different kettle of fish unless we're going to bet our lives on hobbyists projects.

But it is worse if the epidemic peaks in winter. We have no more ITU beds and also have to cope with the winter surge in other respiratory viruses. Many ITU beds are occupied by high risk elective surgery, this can be delayed to free up beds. Covid 19 has no cure. It is not clear that better ITU would save those who die. ITUs in the UK are quite reluctant to take elderly patients with co-morbidities, I am not sure that if an 80 year old with heart failure and diabetes developed severe pneumonia they would be ventilated at the best of times, SARS CoV 2 may be the cause of pneumonia but if it was flu or legionella it would not make any difference.

The best option is to allow the epidemic to proceed but to slow its advance. But not too slowly. You don't want to stop it. Protect the vulnerable as best as you can and try to ensure the herd immunity rises to a point where SARS CoV 2 ceases to circulate. Stopping the epidemic will just result in a recurrence when people come out of lock down.

The danger is the government will lose its nerve under public pressure from the ill-informed commentators like the associate professor of epidemiology quoted above who is not an actual epidemiologist (nor virologist).

On the lighter side, in the Netherlands the government just closed a lot of public places, including coffeeshops. The lines pre-closure were WAY longer than anything else :)

Manley ventilator.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...1995.tb04517.x
Not modern, not sophisticated, easy to use. It will ventilate. It needs no electricity. As a back up or for the less complex patient it will do the job. More sophisticated servo controlled fan ventilators would be better, but I guess these could be produced quickly, and the more sophisticated in due course.

i suspect some people here could make a manley ventilator.

ETA this was also made over the weekend by a doctor!

of course a manual ventilator needs someone to operate it. IMO not a good use of scarce resources, unless the people laid off from the restaurant, bar, travel and retail industries are retrained. :rolleyes:

As with most of this government's proposals, car plants suddenly making ventilators is ridiculous and based on magical thinking.

Manley not manual. Robert Manley designed it!

Unless I misread the paper, it's a manual ventilator designed and built by Dr (or Mr) Marley.

No manual ventilation means you hand power the ventilation - 'hand bagging'. The great thing about the Manley is it runs off the gas pressure, so no electricity needed. Up to this time patients were hand ventilated, this was the first mechanical ventilator to replace hand bagging in routine anaesthesia.

(Dr. Robert Manley).

Unfortunately I suspect you're serious. From your link :

"At all times information is immediately available concerning the minute and tidal volumes, the inflation pressure, the compliance and airway resistance during anasthesia. The anesthetist may at any moment change to manual ventilation with a bag to ‘feel’ conditions in the patient."

This ventilator might be (semi) automatic, but it requires constant supervision. Nothing resembling this would be allowed in a modern hospital ICU.

No, actually, you cannot be serious. That only leaves ignorance or trolling.

If you think patients on ITU are not under constant supervision you don't know what happens on an ITU. It is defined by 1:1 nursing. The biggest risk is a disconnection or blockage this remains the same not matter how sophisticated your ventilator.

No one wouldn't choose to use it on modern ITU, but in a crisis a Manley is easy to use reliable and independent of electricity. If you have a better ventilator use it.

The point of the discussion originally before getting bogged down in details is that ventilators don't have to be highly sophisticated to do the job. If you can make a car engine you can certainly make a ventilator. Yes modern ventilators measure more parameters are patient triggered (perhaps the most important difference) and tend to be pressure rather than volume cycled. But if the choice is no ventilator or a Manley I'd take a Manley. Manleys were stalwarts of ventilation for many years. A Series 2 Land Rover may not be modern, it may not meet modern standards but it go the job done.

In the US we have one advantage: Local and State govenemnts have more power and autonomy then do similiar jurisdictions in most countries, which meand they can act even if the feds won't. In the UK. you are stuck with the what the central government decides.

Trump Tweets

The individual Governors of States, and local officials, must step up their efforts on drive up testing and testing sights, working in conjunction with @CDCgov and the Federal Government!

"Sites", you idiot.

CureVac, a company based in Tubingen (Germany), is working with two other institutions there on a vaccine for Covid19. Apparently Trump has tried to get them to make it for USA, and only USA. German authorities up in arms about it.

(Personally, I'm not convinced about this story.)

Best Healthcare Systems
 

I didn't start paying any serious attention to the coronavirus until late February and early March. At the time roughly 97% of the confirmed cases were still in China, now it is ~ 50%. China and South Korea seem to have got the virus under control (R0 to under 1.0 ), while it has exploded outside of the Orient.

As this is a global pandemic it will be interesting to see how the various countries respond. Which countries really do have the best healthcare system, or which nations can best deal with a sucker punch like Corona?

The World Health Organization (WHO) ranks the countries with the best health systems. France is ranked number one, while Italy is second. South Korea ranks 58th??? Something tells me these international rankings are a bunch of BS.

It's the Governors fault now.

wrong thread

Passing the Buck on a truly massive scale.

Healthcare is about caring for those that are sick. It says nothing about government control and how effective isolation controls are.

S Korea for instance is a nation that has far greater control over it's population then Italy. It also had experience with the SARS outbreak and it's under constant threat of an insane dictator who can throw poison gas, bio weapons or even Nukes across the border at any time, so they have a protocol for that and the population is trained to respond.

Italy and France have none of these things. For instance, when the government in Italy started considering locking down the north there was a mass exodus to the south, helping the spread.

It appears to be true: http://www.internationalskeptics.com...3#post13020813

Yes, The Guardian has the story, too, now:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...s-vaccine-deal

In my state, long-term scammer and now leading Republican candidate for governor Tim Eyman is planning a rally hoping 251 people will attend to "stick a finger in Inslee's eye", referring to the current governor.