Coronavirus

It`s a shame they took the Martini Henry off you, when you left the army.  You could have shot some of them.

Unfortunately there are thousands of these people spouting absolute garbage and wasting everyone's time while the scientists, healthcare workers, shop assistants, delivery drivers etc etc get on with actually dealing with it.
The reality about these people are if we had a vaccine, not only would the virus disappear, but so would they. Although it is certain they would resurface giving their useless, timewasting, self indulgent, unproductive words about something else which for the moment we don't understand.

An irrelevant, self promoting dickhead, ignore.

Ha ha.

This is a report I received from Singapore. Interesting read.

From a staff at Nomura

Yesterday I tested positive for Covid 19.

I thought its maybe worth sharing some information given what I’ve learnt over the past 24 hours.

So, on Monday evening I noticed I had completely lost my sense of smell.
No fever, no cough, no blocked nose or cold- just simply the loss of the ability to smell.

At this point I didn’t think much of it.

The next evening I looked up on the internet ‘loss of sense of smell’ and it came up that this can be a symptom of Covid 19 - so I went to see the doctor the following morning.

After checking temperature, lungs etc everything was completely normal - he reluctantly agreed to send me for testing based on the loss of smell.

So, in Singapore for the test you get sent to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) - it’s a large facility that underwent extensive development after the SARS crisis in 2003.

Coming here for the test was a bit of an eye opener. Very heavy security - all staff in the full bio-hazardous gear. You get taken to a large room full of people who look very sick - all waiting to get tested.

My initial thought was ‘well if I didn’t have it, I’ve definitely got it now’. Although to be fair the chairs are all a few metres apart.

First thing they do at the facility is give you a very long list of places and ask you to tick next to the ones you have been in. It consists of retail outlets, offices, condo’s F and B places etc They’ve obviously compiled the list from tracing back infected people.

Having gone through the list very carefully there were only two places I had been in - a SingTel showroom and Marina One.

My best guess is I picked it up touching a surface in Marina One.

The test itself is a nose swap ( pretty unpleasant). They tell you that if you are positive you will get a call soon after - and if hear nothing within 24 hours you are in the clear.

The following morning at about 10 am (Thursday) 18 hours after test they phoned
and said the test is positive - ‘pack a bag for a few weeks the ambulance will be there shortly to take you to isolation.’

So I arrived at the unit in NCID Thursday lunchtime. You are placed in an isolation room and can not leave it until you have given two virus negative swabs 24 hours apart. The median amount of time is 11-14 days.

I am on a floor where the mild symptom cases are. Below are the high dependency / ICU cases.

You share a room with one other person - in my case a 53 year old Scotsman who has been in the room 9 days so far.

His case is interesting.
He’s a very senior guy at Coca Cola who caught the virus back in the UK. Having flown back to SG Sunday before last, he felt unwell with temperature the following day, tested positive and was sent straight here.

He said the doctors told him 50pct of people just back from UK have been positive and the UK is a complete disaster.

The other interesting thing is they won’t test his family despite him being with them while he was infected. Instead the MOH issue a quarantine enforcement order whereby they face-time the family 3x a day to make sure they are inside.

So here are my takeaways....

Firstly, unless everyone stays indoors, the spread of this virus will be impossible to control.

I have none of the symptoms the authorities tell you to look out for - and very nearly didn’t get tested.

Had I not have been tested I would have carried on as normal, come to work none the wiser and spread it everywhere.

This situation must be happening across the globe.

In terms of Singapore itself, I guess because of its size and the nature of its government its approach to the virus will be very different to larger countries.

It should be easier to trace and get the things under control.

Being carted off to an isolation facility may seem a bit severe, but it’s a completely understandable course of action to take.

The care here at NCID is first class and the staff are very kind. The room itself is probably better than a private hospital room in the UK, and it’s free. I couldn’t find fault in anything in terms of the response.

I really dont like to hear heard immunity as a solution. It's not a solution, it's the final consequence of a failed strategy. It requires the virus to have swept through the nation and taken what it will with it.

There are a lot of good reactionary measures going on right now in the UK but I agree it is a mess. The decisions from the government and national healthcare body have been misinformed, late and apathetic. They were and are totally unprepared for this and are changing direction on a constant basis as a result. They have at best been unprepared and at worse have willfully ignored WHO advice. Trends in Asia and Germany show what success looks like so far. We abandoned the effort to contain with surprising ease.

I'm shocked and saddened frankly in the national response and I'm not even really talking about the government but rather NHSE who are making it up as they go along.

Theres still a lot of promising signs though such as the antigen test and the SARs amino strain they identified which brings us leaping towards a possible progression disabling treatment. All good things.

I dont know why. Perhaps the government failed to take the advice. Perhaps they were misinformed by the scientists. Perhaps the scientists were misinformed by the modelling. I suspect the modelling was wrong at least to begin with but it was complacency and arrogance which caused our 'best in the world' scientific and medical advisors not to question the model quickly enough or act conservatively enough when everyone elses 'best in the world' experts were saying something different and the visible evidence was before us for all to see. Perhaps, they realised that our health's service was simply unable to continue to extensive testing required due to its capacity. Perhaps it was about supply.

Italy and Spain arguably messed up worse than we did. We arent alone for sure. But either way the WHO advice was test test test. Trace and isolate. And this advice followed by Germany, Singapore, South Korea and others has undoubtedly proven to be far more effective than ours, at least at this stage. We have now entirely lost our grip and couldbt revert if we wanted to. This antigen test may help to mitigate the disastrous effect of abandoning the test and contain strategy as we did but nothing is certain. Let's hope so.

I would agree with you it is probably a combination of issues,I have a certain sympathy with all of them dealing with a once in 100 yr pandemic and I am very sceptical of the data that came early doors from China which didn't help,my guess is we realised pretty early that we wouldnt have the test capacity and reverted to plans B and C.
My real surprise is the response in the US,I think at least we are trying to save lives with a limited tool set whereas Trump is pricing in how many deaths V damage to the economy shocking.
Goodluck to you and all your colleagues a massive thank you for all you continue to do
My Dad was in the NHS all his life working finally for 20 plus years as Senior Nurse Tutor at Frenchay so I have nothing but respect for all who work in the NHS.

Take care

Not good. Apparantly keeping total deaths to below 20,000 will be achievement.

"Another 207 people have died in the UK after testing positive for coronavirus, taking the total to 1,235.

The number counts those who died in the 24 hours up to 5pm on Saturday.

In England, 190 more people have died in that time after testing positive for coronavirus.

NHS England said they were aged between 39 and 105 and all but four patients - aged between 57 and 87 - had underlying health conditions."
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Here here totally agree with your last paragraph, we owe a massive debt of gratitude to all concerned.
Also agree with your comments re the media ,watched the briefing today and the questions are puerile,asking the same question from the day before to see if there's a different answer,then dull questions like " what does it say to the NHS when the Consultant died"in mean really.
There will be mistakes made during this crisis however,it ain't done deliberately,all I hope post this there is a calm refleClive honest review,no witchunt no blame just what can we learn to be better prepared in the future.