never more than 18,000 tests a day in south korea with a population of 51 million. 30-40 thousand a day likely to be enough for the uk once lock down brings the numbers infected down. we still have to worry about asymptomatic carriers but testing, isolating and contact tracing is the tried and trusted way to deal with epidemics as south korea, taiwan, singapore and hong kong are showing. even with this approach it isnt easy, singapore has had to introduce a lock down as community transmission has gone up in recent days.

i agree , i have been saying it for a while on here  but doing so is often labelled as after timing or just being anti tory by some on here. i think masks help too, if for no other reason than stopping you spreading it to others. the czech republic moved to lock down a lot quicker than us and made wearing masks in public mandatory, their deaths per million is a fraction of ours.

there are lots of public health inspectors and animal safety inspectors who could be used to do contact tracing as well as using technology.

when i say a lot quicker its actually only around a week or so but even days matter when dealing with this thing.

Good post???

Many (it's been quoted at 50%, and if the study in Germany was last week is correct maybe considerably more) don't show symptoms AND of those that do not all show a fever AND apparently you can be spreading it before you even show symptoms AND it's basically now going to be endemic to the world.

Feck knows how much good contact tracing (that many people won't comply with) is going to do once lockdown comes down a bit when it's so widespread and so easy to catch. "Someone on the tube had it" / "You went to a shop where someone was in it that day".

As an expert said the other day it's more likely we're just going to have to deal with waves of this like the Flu. Or Herd immmunity of course.

just checking contact tracing is used in south korea, taiwan, hong kong and singapore. have they have done better than us?

Well we'll see. I'm sure it'll help a bit. But as I say, if it's endemic, it'll just be a slowing factor and surely not a magic bullet.

I'm guessing any sort of phone app won't have such a massive takeup and attempts to make it compulsory will lead to .. difficulties.

I wrote this in an e-mail to a friend back in February. Nothing I've seen since has changed my mind (or made me any the wiser):

If forced to make a guess, it would be that most of us will get a few extra colds for the rest of our lives, some of which will be nasty and some not. And that people who are weak or ill for whatever reason will get pneumonia the way they do now, perhaps a bit sooner with this new virus being added to the ones currently floating about. I don't see how there can ever be a vaccine if it's the same type of virus as the one which causes the common cold, for the same reason there's no vaccine against the common cold itself. The virus just changes too quickly for any vaccine to be effective in the timescale it takes to bring one safely to the public.

But if there were ever a subject on which everyone, me included, is speculating from a position of ignorance, it's this one. Trying to draw conclusions from data coming out of any country which calls itself a People's Republic is always pretty much pointless.

what about the nhs being overwhelmed if nothing was done to stop the spread screaming?

Do you think that dog food can protect you from the virus

sfbtw, i thought you may have a solution, i havent read the eye in ages but i am sure you mentioned md with a different take.

the nhs is now mainly treating the virus, it would surely be better to have separate facilities to keep all the corona patients away from people in hospitals. there seems little doubt that many people with other problems are too scared to even attend hospital and lots of patients having their treatments put off cant be good.

Oh, absolutely, js.

The weekly excess deaths have suddenly exceeded the number of virus deaths by a huge number. As many more people are dying of other, now untreated causes as are dying with this virus.

MD in the Eye was at first rather sanguine about the virus (or fatalistic, if you like), tending to the view I expressed above in that Feb. email. People do die, specially when they're old and in ill health. And he's always been opposed to using intubation and ventilators on chronically ill, old people. From that perspective, this virus is just another of those thing sent to try us, and we'll have to accept it.

In the last issue he changed tack, and it was all Boris Johnson's fault. And Brexit too. Basically the same stuff he's been filling his column with for the last three years.

I would hope by now we know we will have to bring salt to add to the bar peanuts when the pubs do finally open.

Some people are disgusting pigs. I have heard they teach young children to wash their hands in schools but they must unlearn this from their parents.

If I was on a tube or train and I saw someone sneeze without covering their mouths. I would not longer be polite but disgusted.

Tubes are the aeroplanes and cruise ships of the ground. Even bus drivers are dying. I said this about 5 weeks ago, the last time I travelled on a tube....why aren’t people wearing gloves or masks, why is there no hand sanitizer at stations or on platforms. There was no sanitizer at the entrance to shops and none in the pub I went to. I went to the bog and washed my hands.

I have said we have been let down and I get idiots accusing me of being anti Tory, which, of course I am but my concerns are about Government stupidity and lack of leadership. Leaders from all area’s of the community have been in short supply but those who have lead haves been beacons of hope and inspiration.

I don’t think masks are needed in public but certainly a good idea on transport and even in shops. We are in a whole different ball park about Civil Liberties. Those nutters at Michigan may be crackers but raised an important question.

Incidentally the masks are not much of a help argument doesn’t wash with me. I touch my face all the time and it is hard not to. I find it easier to avoid with latex gloves and a mask on. I am not advocating that  people wear masks at all times but certainly should be encouraged to on public transport.

You do not need to be an expert in medicine or a statto to understand where this virus is currently being spread. My suggestion is Hospitals, Care Homes and public transport oh and planes coming in every day. No proof though!

The lockdown is going to continue because the Government has been shambolic in arranging testing. More people are going to die because of this and more people will loose their jobs, houses and businesses or is that me just being anti Tory because everyone knows it’s Chi- nahhhhhh

Testing isn't the responsibility of ministers. It's the responsibility of that vast army of bureaucrats in the NHS/PHE who are refusing point-blank to

1) Use the nation's vast private lab resources, because that would be privatizing "our" NHS (i.e. "their" NHS), and
2) It's too much like hard work.

Berkshire-based Apacor could supply millions of coronavirus tests, with 150,000 ready for immediate distribution.

It’s a South Korean test, which is also being used in Germany. But Public Health England literally will not return their calls.

The PHE laboratory at Colindale has still not sent for a sample so it can be verified and says it cannot find time to talk to the company until next week.

Anthony Bell of Apacor: “We have been waiting for Colindale for two weeks and it's frustrating because this supplier isn’t some small unknown company.”

Meanwhile, Genetics firm Igenomix have offered a diagnostic lab and highly trained team but have not heard back from the Government.

They have offered to do precisely the same test that PHE is using.

PHE are also failing to provide positive samples from patients to validate tests.

“It was impossible to get hold of anyone at Colindale over Easter. Did they think they could shut for the holidays? Because the virus hasn’t got that memo,” a medic told The Telegraph.

(From the Twitter feed of Matthew Lesh, and reported in the Telegraph, so I suppose it must all be Tory proaganda.)

Starts with the 1.3 million employees of the NHS.

How do they get away with it everywhere in every country? Hundreds of thousands of them, one of him, I suppose.

I was discussing this sort of thing with one of my Ukrainian cousins. Over there they apparently have a saying that every citizen has two 'hetmans' (a traditional rank of military officer).

Incidentally, I notice China have reported 351 new cases today. I don't know if those are anything to do with the new death calculation from Wuhan. If they were, I'd actually expect the new cases to be a much larger number than that.

If they're simply new figures, then that's rather worrying, as that's the first significant dose of new cases since the end of February. (It's still not exactly a big number in a country of 1.4B, but it could be a starting point.) They've started opening up the country again over the last two weeks or so, so that's one to watch in coming days..

Apologies for raising a point already raised. Wrists duly slapped.

If people do regional lockdowns then people will simply move from restricted areas to non restricted areas, wont work

too much...

the commonwealth fund, i did see that report and think it somewhat odd to be rated numero uno given we are very near the bottom for the most important measure. i think the 2017 report was pretty similar.