B3 - I don't blame you! Viruses mutate. Why assume that this one will mutate to a more deadly strain? After all, a virus that kills its host (ie us) is doomed.
As I understand it, this was the fear all along. When I was still able to talk to friends, one a GP the other a dentist who really keeps on top of medical findings, both of them said we needed lock down because of this possibility. That's why when people try to play it down and say, "it is not really that serious", or it "only kills people with pre-existing conditions", they really did not see the whole picture. It was found early on that it mutates rapidly. We really don't want huge swathes of the population incubating it in that scenario.
Mutation is the reason we do not have a cure for the common cold. All you can do is boost your immune system if you can. If you can't, then you either risk catching it, or stay in for some time to come.
I've read similar stories and they all turned out to be rather clickbaity, and the mutations being picked up were rather inconsequential (although quite useful for tracking the virus's spread through genetic analysis).
I guess if a super deadly strain did emerge it would quickly hit a dead end; the big problem with C19 seems to be the number of people with mild symptoms or none at all, who go around spreading it. If a new strain made you get really sick really quickly, you will be at home or at the hospital and not spreading the virus.
"What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour".
If you are going to make home made masks from cotton material you need to enclose a HEPA filter inside, I don’t think they are of much use if not.
Then you shouldn’t wear them for long.
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
Is the NHS funded sufficiently well to keep stocks in case of a pandemic? Thought they have to work on the ‘just in time’ principle like car factories and supermarkets do ... except the NHS isn’t a car factory or a supermarket ... that’s why hospitals are built without spare capacity nowadays ...
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
If you are going to make home made masks from cotton material you need to enclose a HEPA filter inside, I don’t think they are of much use if not.
Then you shouldn’t wear them for long.
People are interested in masks in terms of reducing community spread, rather than as protection for an individual. "My mask protects you and your mask protects me" is the general idea. https://www.masks4all.org.uk/science
"What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour".
Is the NHS funded sufficiently well to keep stocks in case of a pandemic? Thought they have to work on the ‘just in time’ principle like car factories and supermarkets do ... except the NHS isn’t a car factory or a supermarket ... that’s why hospitals are built without spare capacity nowadays ...
As I said above though, if the NHS had double the funding, three times the funding, would they have stockpiled PPE? As @Nanny Beach has said, it has a use by date like all medical equipment. It is unlikely it would have ever been high priority before Covid-19 happened. There are plenty of other areas where any additional funding would have been appreciated.
I just see it as the usual UK Press hatchet job. So far the government has supplied over a billion pieces of PPE to the NHS and is orchestrating a huge effort to manufacture and source more. I really don't think the government was responsible for the lack of it in the first place.
The Press though reports a few small companies who have had trouble signing up (national and local news last night). The government has already stated they are concentrating on the large manufacturers of the base materials. Small companies can take their own initiative and supply direct to local NHS or care homes, rather than kick up a fuss.
I can't on the one hand sit here waiting for guidance from the government on what we should all be doing and on the other bash them for things that no government in the world was prepared for.
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I guess if a super deadly strain did emerge it would quickly hit a dead end; the big problem with C19 seems to be the number of people with mild symptoms or none at all, who go around spreading it. If a new strain made you get really sick really quickly, you will be at home or at the hospital and not spreading the virus.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I just see it as the usual UK Press hatchet job. So far the government has supplied over a billion pieces of PPE to the NHS and is orchestrating a huge effort to manufacture and source more. I really don't think the government was responsible for the lack of it in the first place.
The Press though reports a few small companies who have had trouble signing up (national and local news last night). The government has already stated they are concentrating on the large manufacturers of the base materials. Small companies can take their own initiative and supply direct to local NHS or care homes, rather than kick up a fuss.
I can't on the one hand sit here waiting for guidance from the government on what we should all be doing and on the other bash them for things that no government in the world was prepared for.