Coronavirus.

Mathew S · 17 Mar 2020

ABB125 said:
Apparently, in Taiwan, they've been using people's phone location data to find out who's been in contact with whoever else (or rather, who's phone has been near someone else's!), and so can see how the virus has spread.
I'm not sure how doing this would work in Britain, if it's even possible (data privacy etc).

Whilst it's possible, it would set a horrible precedent if it was done as anything other than an opt-in.

RailUK Forums

Mathew S · 17 Mar 2020

Mogster said:
It all depends how useful the serology for this virus is. If you’re going to pick up any old coranovirus for a proportion of the time then it’s hardly worth doing. I’ve no idea how useful serology is for these virus’s.

S Korea are mass screening by swabbing and PCR for RNA which maybe indicates something. Although their primary purpose is to identify infectious individuals for quarantine. PCR takes a few hours and requires expensive, complex equipment to automate though.

It's too long since I did any virology/microbiology, but my limited understanding is that serology should be fairly reliable provided you can nail down the right antibodies. I guess that's the challenge.

ed1971 · 17 Mar 2020

It needs further testing, but researchers in Queensland, Australia are confident that they have found a cure for the Coronavirus. Here is the link:

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/h...l/news-story/93e7656da0cff4fc4d2c5e51706accb5

Peter Kelford · 18 Mar 2020

ABB125 said:
Apparently, in Taiwan, they've been using people's phone location data to find out who's been in contact with whoever else (or rather, who's phone has been near someone else's!), and so can see how the virus has spread.
I'm not sure how doing this would work in Britain, if it's even possible (data privacy etc).

We don't even have the technology in the UK.

Mogster · 18 Mar 2020

Peter Kelford said:
We don't even have the technology in the UK.

I’d like to know how it actually works in S Korea.

As I understand it’s a modern high tech society where people tend to live close together in the large cities. In the UK a good proportion of people wouldn’t even have a compatible device, what about areas with poor phone signal? Then there’s the civil liberties angle, as well as infected people’s location being forwarded to the authorities, with fines or imprisonment if you don’t do as you’re told, it’s also displayed to others via the app so they can take appropriate action to avoid you... I can’t see much/any of this being viewed as acceptable in the a Western democracy. Also while the NHS is very good at some things, notably critical care, the NHS is woeful at IT...

JonathanH · 18 Mar 2020

Mathew S said:
Whilst it's possible, it would set a horrible precedent if it was done as anything other than an opt-in.

Most people have already opted in to using Google maps which uses anonymised location data to, among other things, indicate how busy roads are, how busy shops and attractions are and when people go to them.

How else do you think that data is collected?

One of the things Public Health England uses to monitor flu outbreaks is the number of searches on Google for flu and whether that is going up or down.

There are data protections which mean that an individual will not be identified but some indication of how many phones stayed in one location yesterday is perfectly reasonable data to collate.

edwin_m · 18 Mar 2020

ed1971 said:
It needs further testing, but researchers in Queensland, Australia are confident that they have found a cure for the Coronavirus. Here is the link:

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/h...l/news-story/93e7656da0cff4fc4d2c5e51706accb5

Quote in accordance with Forum rules:

A team of Australian researchers say they’ve found a cure for the novel coronavirus and hope to have patients enrolled in a nationwide trial by the end of the month.

University of Queensland Centre for Clinical Research director Professor David Paterson told news.com.au today they have seen two drugs used to treat other conditions wipe out the virus in test tubes.

He said one of the medications, given to some of the first people to test positive for COVID-19 in Australia, had already resulted in “disappearance of the virus” and complete recovery from the infection.
...
One of the two medications is a HIV drug, which has been superseded by “newer generation” HIV drugs, and the other is an anti-malaria drug called chloroquine which is rarely used and “kept on the shelf now” due to resistance to malaria.

I'm a bit suspicious of this as it doesn't name the other drug and it seems a bit odd that one completely wipes out the virus, so why are they talking about a second one?

However there's another possible ray of hope here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-effective-in-treating-coronavirus-says-china

Medical authorities in China have said a drug used in Japan to treat new strains of influenza appeared to be effective in coronavirus patients, Japanese media said on Wednesday.

Zhang Xinmin, an official at China’s science and technology ministry, said favipiravir, developed by a subsidiary of Fujifilm, had produced encouraging outcomes in clinical trials in Wuhan and Shenzhen involving 340 patients.

“It has a high degree of safety and is clearly effective in treatment,” Zhang told reporters on Tuesday.

Patients who were given the medicine in Shenzhen turned negative for the virus after a median of four days after becoming positive, compared with a median of 11 days for those who were not treated with the drug, public broadcaster NHK said.

In addition, X-rays confirmed improvements in lung condition in about 91% of the patients who were treated with favipiravir, compared to 62% or those without the drug.

Bayum · 18 Mar 2020

edwin_m said:
Quote in accordance with Forum rules:

I'm a bit suspicious of this as it doesn't name the other drug and it seems a bit odd that one completely wipes out the virus, so why are they talking about a second one?

However there's another possible ray of hope here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-effective-in-treating-coronavirus-says-china

Ritonavir, Lopinavir and Chloroquine

westv · 18 Mar 2020

ABB125 said:
Apparently, in Taiwan, they've been using people's phone location data to find out who's been in contact with whoever else (or rather, who's phone has been near someone else's!), and so can see how the virus has spread.
I'm not sure how doing this would work in Britain, if it's even possible (data privacy etc).

The news report I saw about it showed it being used in China - with the information also being sent to the police.

Bayum · 18 Mar 2020

edwin_m said:
Quote in accordance with Forum rules:

I'm a bit suspicious of this as it doesn't name the other drug and it seems a bit odd that one completely wipes out the virus, so why are they talking about a second one?

However there's another possible ray of hope here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-effective-in-treating-coronavirus-says-china

People are also looking at an anti IL6 drug called Tocilizumab used in rheumatoid and various other autoimmune diseases problems

Bletchleyite · 18 Mar 2020

This is all very useful, because if you can find an "off label use" for an already approved drug it can be brought into use much quicker as you already know it doesn't kill people.

Discovering off-label uses happens all the time - famously Viagra (sidenafil) has several and I half recall the most famous use actually is one!

edwin_m · 18 Mar 2020

Bletchleyite said:
This is all very useful, because if you can find an "off label use" for an already approved drug it can be brought into use much quicker as you already know it doesn't kill people.

Discovering off-label uses happens all the time - famously Viagra (sidenafil) has several and I half recall the most famous use actually is one!

Indeed, I think something like this is our best hope of getting out of this reasonably quickly. If you do the math on the current strategy, then if it works it takes at least a decade to confer herd immunity and if it doesn't it leads to the sort of situation we see in Italy. Unless there is an effective antiviral in the meantime, we may be stuck with restrictions on activity for at least a year, as it's likely to take that long to produce a vaccine.

Peter Kelford · 18 Mar 2020

Mogster said:
I’d like to know how it actually works in S Korea.

As I understand it’s a modern high tech society where people tend to live close together in the large cities. In the UK a good proportion of people wouldn’t even have a compatible device, what about areas with poor phone signal? Then there’s the civil liberties angle, as well as infected people’s location being forwarded to the authorities, with fines or imprisonment if you don’t do as you’re told, it’s also displayed to others via the app so they can take appropriate action to avoid you... I can’t see much/any of this being viewed as acceptable in the a Western democracy. Also while the NHS is very good at some things, notably critical care, the NHS is woeful at IT...

In Asia, there is a very high dependency on phones. I.e a smartphone is a primary work device, social device, learning tool, shopping mall and wallet for a very large proportion of the population, thus as people use phones everywhere data tracking is reliable. Secondly, the technology they use is more advanced. There is also a data issue, but apart from where it is being used against the will of the patient (quite rare one imagines), then the data has been used legally.

Bletchleyite · 18 Mar 2020

Peter Kelford said:
In Asia, there is a very high dependency on phones. I.e a smartphone is a primary work device, social device, learning tool, shopping mall and wallet for a very large proportion of the population

Which is probably true for under-35ish people in the UK too...

Pakenhamtrain · 18 Mar 2020

It was announced tonight the AFL season will be going ahead tomorrow night.
At least there will be some live sport.

nidave · 18 Mar 2020

Thats quite an announcement and quite a high number of deaths - not sure how many people live in Iran
Iran study: 3.5m Iranians could die if government guidelines are not followed

Sune Engel Rasmussen, middle east corespondent for the Wall Street Journal and formally of this parish, has tweeted the results of a study from Iran’s Sharif University which reveal

If Iranians cooperate with government guidelines now, 12,000 are likely to die

If they cooperate in a limited way, 110,000 are likely to die

If there is no cooperation the outbreak is likely to peak in June and cause 3.5m deaths.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/l...rope-eu-self-isolation-lockdown-latest-update

Bletchleyite · 18 Mar 2020

81.6 million, so that's 4%. Wow.

scotrail158713 · 18 Mar 2020

All UK parkruns are now off. In the grand scheme of things it’s not hugely important but I always enjoyed the social gathering as much as the 5k run. I’ll just have to motivate myself to do it on my own instead now.

Bletchleyite · 18 Mar 2020

scotrail158713 said:
All UK parkruns are now off. In the grand scheme of things it’s not hugely important but I always enjoyed the social gathering as much as the 5k run. I’ll just have to motivate myself to do it on my own instead now.

This makes sense. I can barely think of something that fits the description of "large social gathering" better.

Peter Kelford · 18 Mar 2020

Bletchleyite said:
Which is probably true for under-35ish people in the UK too...

It's slowly increasing, but then the under 35s are the people who show little to no symptoms and therefore don't flag up in the system.

westv · 18 Mar 2020

Is the tube any quieter? I saw a pic on Twitter earlier today showing the usual packed platform on the Victoria line - no idea where it was though.

Mogster · 18 Mar 2020

Bayum said:
People are also looking at an anti IL6 drug called Tocilizumab used in rheumatoid and various other autoimmune diseases problems

That approach does make a lot of sense as people with the worst symptoms apparently have autoimmune lung damage.

Islineclear3_1 · 18 Mar 2020

ABB125 said:
Apparently, in Taiwan, they've been using people's phone location data to find out who's been in contact with whoever else (or rather, who's phone has been near someone else's!), and so can see how the virus has spread.

Peter Kelford said:
We don't even have the technology in the UK.

We do!

When I did jury service at the Old Bailey a few years ago, we had a 25 page Size A3 booklet showing the details of every mobile number called or received, and time, using data from phone masts and unique IMEI or ISMI numbers. The data was in many cases, accurate to within a few metres.

Peter Kelford · 18 Mar 2020

Islineclear3_1 said:
We do!

When I did jury service at the Old Bailey a few years ago, we had a 25 page Size A3 booklet showing the details of every mobile number called or received, and time, using data from phone masts and unique ISMI numbers. The data was in many cases, accurate to within a few metres.

It works on the basis of call sent or received rather than GPS tracking. In other words, it uses phone mast geofencing. Secondly, it takes a large team of officers a long time to do this, thus not appropriate in the UK's technological circumstances and policing resources for a large outbreak of Covid19

Islineclear3_1 · 18 Mar 2020

Peter Kelford said:
It works on the basis of call sent or received rather than GPS tracking. In other words, it uses phone mast geofencing. Secondly, it takes a large team of officers a long time to do this, thus not appropriate in the UK's technological circumstances and policing resources for a large outbreak of Covid19

Indeed. But I was just saying that the technology is there (ableit basic).

I know it takes up a lot of time and resources and wouldn't necessarily work in real-time tracking of people.

DarloRich · 18 Mar 2020

Christ Johnson looks shattered and out of his depth. His scientific people look much calmer

Meerkat · 18 Mar 2020

DarloRich said:
Christ Johnson looks shattered and out of his depth. His scientific people look much calmer

He doesn’t look that all! Hell of a lot of bias here. We are just not used to his serious face.
Now Trump - he is acting like his batteries are going.

DarloRich · 18 Mar 2020

Meerkat said:
He doesn’t look that all! Hell of a lot of bias here. We are just not used to his serious face.
Now Trump - he is acting like his batteries are going.

That is his serious face is it? Right.

I dislike johsnon and think he is a bluffer and a chancer but we need him on top of his game. I dont think he is.

Meerkat · 18 Mar 2020

DarloRich said:
That is his serious face is it? Right.

I dislike johsnon and think he is a bluffer and a chancer but we need him on top of his game. I dont think he is.

Top of Boris’ game is bluster, bluff and charm. He’s had to change the act but he seems pretty lively in this press conference

Bletchleyite · 18 Mar 2020

Meerkat said:
Top of Boris’ game is bluster, bluff and charm. He’s had to change the act but he seems pretty lively in this press conference

I was quite amused by how the Brexit question threw him

He does seem very much to be deferring to experts on Coronavirus, though, which means I do have confidence even if I don't in him.

Coronavirus.

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