All the more reason to self isolate……………….. in your workshop , oh and not go shopping with the missus

Roger

Particularly when there is a pandemic in full swing and all the paramedics are off sick.

I would suggest that at least one major reason for doing as much as possible to reduce transmission is the protection of vital services which will cost lives if they are compromised to any great extent. I would expect when all this is over the figures for indirect deaths (not from the virus itself) is going to be high if it really gets into the general population.

regards Martin

The other thing to consider is a Power(s) of Attorney, though it's quite expensive.
Not panicking about the current situation, as I was in the process of setting one up before the present situation arose.

Bill

Have just recently updated our wills & am looking to set up power of attorney ( financial & health /welfare ) for our daughters later on this year.

George.

Power of attorney

Link to government power of attorney site. My wife did both for her mother without using a solicitor and, due to the MILs circumstances, without charge.

Nigel B.

Bill, please read what I actually wrote

"Not panicking about the current situation, as I was in the process of setting one up before the present situation arose."

Bill

Just suppose for a moment that Corona Virus was 100% non fatal (which it isnt) but that 50% of the workforce were off sick at the same time (which they probably will not be). How many would die just down to the non provision of vital services and medicines. Delaying cancer treatment will cost lives, diabetics without insulin supplies will be in real trouble to name but 2 examples. Slowing the spread will ensure that concurrent absentee numbers will be reduced and the support services we all rely on will be maintained as well as possible. I have invented the percentages just to make the point that we may find it's the fall out that hurts us most.

That said I'm sure that the majority of us will just do the best we can.

regards Martin

There are some here who shoot and eat squirrel. Is the wildlife vector known? Some have blamed bats.

TV here said it was traced to Someone ate bat soup that had some bat pee in it. Wifey had to go to Doctors for a routine shot, ALL the Nurses were out sick with the flu, the Doctor had to beg and borrow Nurses from other Doctor's offices to stay open.

Some info on the subject via my doctor’s website.

Patient info

Based on emails I have sent to my own family over the last couple of weeks:

Interesting plots (look at 'rest of world ex. China&#39 on: **LINK** . Click button below graph to change y axis to log scale (but note the last 3 points on the graph are extrapolated figures for next 3 days)

Also, more noddy graph of same data on:

**LINK**

So over most of February, the log graph is a remarkably straight line showing 10 fold increase over any 3 weeks.. Since around 20 February it has increased to a factor of 10 over 12 days.

So allowing maybe 10-fold increase in cases every 2 weeks, if this continues, most of global population could have been exposed to the virus in around 12 weeks::infected then 1 miillion times more numerous than now, nobody left to infect!. I presume this is where the 12 week figure recently quoted by health secretary Matt Hancock comes from.

Expected mortality at minimum estimate of 1% for near 8 billion population gives around 80 million deaths, near double the 1918 flu pandemic. Note typical recent mortality at nearer 2% is much greater than current general flu of around 0.1%, and is also greatly dependant on age But data is still at very preliminary stage.

Notable age dependence of fatality rate, **LINK** , brief summary extract (ages relevant to various generations of my own family):

• 0-9 years: no fatalities yet recorded
• 30-39: 0.2% fatality
• 60-69: 3.6%
• 80+: 14.8%

Hope it does not continue like this, but I would have to have a good reason to believe so. Can the spread be contained? One hears platitudes on the lines of 'it will all die down in the spring, when we open our windows and get out more'.

I was wondering about sending a message about this to my family back in January based on the Chinese data. The prognosis appeared clearly much worse then with a mortality rate of 4%.and projected infection saturation in July, so not so bad now!

So:

• Scenario 1: the infection cannot be contained, leading to global infection and the global death toll of twice that of the 1918 influenza pandemic, when up to 50 million died.
• Scenario 2: the infection is contained through various measures including self isolation, sanitising measures (personal and public), availability of immunisation vaccine, etc. Hoping that this is is how it goes.

Anyway, I am preparing for the worst, but hoping for the best. Good luck to all!

Martin