Thank you Barry.
I think we do certainly need to take all the advice being offered.
Boris Johnson didn't pull any punches with his stark warnings in the official announcement last week.
Self isolation for up to 4 months for the elderly may seem drastic, but this extract from an email I received yesterday from a friend made it clear to me why we need to follow these precautions.
At this stage I had heard very little about the actual effects of the virus.
To help our members and visitors stay focused, I've asked permission to post this anonymously on the forum.
It started with a real bad cough and cold like symptoms for 2-3 days then got worse with a real hacking cough that made her ribs hurt, she went to doc’s who tested her - two days later she was sent to one of the Hospitals set up for the crisis.
She is home now but still not too good and still with a chest infection but with meds too counteract the secondary infections that Coronavirus leaves you with. So overall she was not long with the virus 14-20 days from start to finish of that time 7 days in hospital but the after affects will be another 10- 14 days maybe but is recovering slow and steady.
Also why she was sent home not fully recovered but clear of the Virus makes you sit up and take notice as well.
She was sent home simply because the beds and ventilators may be needed to be freed up quickly in anticipation for the next critical patients. So you can see why they are trying to slow it down, if we overwhelm the hospitals then they cannot cope.
We were in Italy when the Coronavirus kicked of big time earlier this week and the virus infection rate increased incredibly quickly seeming to double overnight.
This is why the death rate was high in Milan Lombardy region they faced a double problem, they have largest population of over 70’s in Europe and they just could not cope with demand they ran out of critical bed space ventilators and gases used for the recovery from severe pneumonia that Coronavirus causes they call it Covid-19 pneumonia.
The death rate jumped from 233 people who had died to 1266, in the 4 days we were there
That is my concern for the elderly especially, those that may not taking it too seriously, that is until you get it then you become very focused.
The media are not helping they need to promote the hygiene side.
Which at the moment is recommending the use of tissues if you sneeze or cough and regular hand washing.
Rather than hyping it up they need push the hygiene message and that for 80% of cases the virus will pass through with just a cold like symptoms but for some it will be more serious and that is why we need to slow the passage of the virus
By far the biggest issue we have to be alert to and concerned with, is slowing down the transmission of the virus as the NHS only has a finite resource.
But from what we experience coming thru Birmingham airport there was no sign of any common sense nor hygiene. People coughed and sneezed over you whilst in passport queue and baggage collection most leaving the toilets never washed their hands. You just wonder at their intelligence!
