Squeaky bum time!

k6chris

m_c_s said:

Something to keep an eye on although a bit speculative.
Oxford University has now published their initial modelling and they say that the virus could have been circulating widely in the UK back in January. They say it is possible that already 50% of the population has had it and immunity is being built up. Seems like the Imperial College modelling has some competition and a somewhat different assessment of outcomes:
"The modelling by Oxford’s Evolutionary Ecology of Infectious Disease group indicates that Covid-19 reached the UK by mid-January at the latest. Like many emerging infections, it spread invisibly for more than a month before the first transmissions within the UK were officially recorded at the end of February."
Also :
"But the Oxford results would mean the country had already acquired substantial herd immunity through the unrecognised spread of Covid-19 over more than two months. If the findings are confirmed by testing, then the current restrictions could be removed much sooner than ministers have indicated.".

They hope to confirm their assumptions in the next few days.
"To provide the necessary evidence, the Oxford group is working with colleagues at the Universities of Cambridge and Kent to start antibody testing on the general population as soon as possible, using specialised “neutralisation assays which provide reliable readout of protective immunity,” Prof Gupta said. They hope to start testing later this week and obtain preliminary results within a few days."

Article in the FT:

https://t.co/97Jnwk3Aq2?amp=1

That's really interesting.  I had a very curious "thing" in January, like a normal winter cold but for a day I found it difficult to breath when swallowing liquids (if that makes sense?)   No idea what it was, but wonder if it might have been the mild strain of the virus?  All hope welcome!

SeeMe

justme111 said:

Yes but why would our death count be so much lower than Italian or Chinese then ?🤔

Good Point.

swindiff

justme111 said:

Yes but why would our death count be so much lower than Italian or Chinese then ?🤔

Because we are still behind them? They also would have had cases much earlier than recorded?

justme111

So then why there are no death while the virus spends a couple.of months circulating and population gets it and recovers from it but then a few months later deaths start coming at a rate of 800 in a day ?

Paul_Herring

but then a few months later deaths start coming at a rate of 800 in a day ?

They've found  a named-something-else to put on the death certificate for those that did succumb to it?

Likely, if - and that 'if' is doing a lot of work here - there were deaths beforehand due to it, it would have likely have been put down to <pre-existing condition> or pneumonia.

Fair_Flummoxed

Much is, understandably, being done by Government to support businesses and charities and the people employed by them to minimise the impact on them at this particularly difficult time since the restrictions have been Government imposed and peoples' livelihoods are at risk through no fault of their own.

I have heard nothing, so far, regarding helping people with private pensions who may have been saving for decades, who are about to retire and who - again through no fault of their own - have seen the values of their hard saved for pensions fall sharply.  In my case, the value of my fairly modest pension fell by £15K over a 12 day period at the start of this crisis (some four weeks ago).  I haven't dared look online again to see its value.  I have been contributing to a pension for 32 years and planned (past tense!) to begin drawing down on it in less than three years.  

OldMusicGuy

Fair_Flummoxed said:

I have heard nothing, so far, regarding helping people with private pensions who may have been saving for decades, who are about to retire and who - again through no fault of their own - have seen the values of their hard saved for pensions fall sharply.  In my case, the value of my fairly modest pension fell by £15K over a 12 day period at the start of this crisis (some four weeks ago).  I haven't dared look online again to see its value.  I have been contributing to a pension for 32 years and planned (past tense!) to begin drawing down on it in less than three years.  

Because people with private pensions do not need help, nor should they be helped. They should have planned for it and derisked their investments leading up to retirement so they did not suffer sequence of returns loss. It sounds harsh to say it but that's the reality of the pension system for most people these days. I learned how to do that by reading a lot of helpful information on here as I came up to retirement, and also by reading a lot of the information suggested by the people on this site. 

That's also where IFAs can be helpful if people do not have the knowledge to do this themselves. But everybody with a DC pension must know that they can go down as well as up. Too many people assume these things always go up, or will go up when they need them to.

Also, don't forget that we happily took all the gains over many years and did not pay anything like capital gains tax on them. We've done well out of the good times, we need to accept responsibility for ourselves when thing s like this happen.

Thrugelmir

justme111 said:

Yes but why would our death count be so much lower than Italian or Chinese then ?🤔

Direct comparisons are meaningless for many reasons. 
Italy has the second oldest population in the world after Japan. In northern Italy over 23% are over 65. Then there's family living, families under one roof. Then religon i.e. regular church going. May explain rates in Spain and Iran. 
Probable also that people have died without being recorded in the official statistics. For example. Germany does not carry post mortems. France only records hospital deaths. China has to be viewed with suspicion, the State Party controls public information. 
Diabetes also ranks high amongst existing conditions. The UK is far from healthy in this regard. 

Prism

Fair_Flummoxed said:

I have heard nothing, so far, regarding helping people with private pensions who may have been saving for decades, who are about to retire and who - again through no fault of their own - have seen the values of their hard saved for pensions fall sharply. .  

If their pensions have fallen to a level which significantly affects their ability to retire with their desired amount of income then it is very much their own fault. What we have seen recently should have almost no effect on someone's 20-30 year retirement plans. If their chosen allocation and plan can't cope with this minor blip then its unlikely to last through their retirement. Maybe this could be seen to be a chance to re-evaluate.

nicknameless

Lol re 50% of population already having had this.  Do the maths.  With the most conservative estimate of current mortality rate from COVID-19 being 0.6% (from South Korea) a 50% prevalence would have resulted in approx.  200k deaths.  200k deaths with bilateral pneumonia going unnoticed - how likely?

Straws - graspy, graspy.