I have not really looked into myself, even tho I guess I should as it is believed that the first 2 UK patients are being treated 5 miles away.

but the WHO have offered guidance to protect yourself, so may be a nice place to start.

https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019

Captain - me too.

All the evidence to date is that for most people it is quite mild. It's a problem for those who are already vulnerable - exactly the same people for whom e.g. flu is a significant risk. 

Somebody from WHO yesterday said words to the effect that the global emergency has not been pronounced to protect people in places like the UK, but for those in countries with less high quality healthcare systems.

What's perhaps the no 1 reason why there are that population who are already vulnerable? - air quality (linked closely to climate change). 

I checked the recorded air quality in Wuhan the other day. It was dangerous for the vulnerable - that was in the middle of the most important holiday in the Chinese calendar AND with an almost complete shut down on traffic - i.e. when industry and motor vehicles werem't belching out fumes. On a normal work day the air quality is very, very poor.  making e.g. Hope Street in Glasgow look almost healthy.

So rather than a coordinated global effort to do something about climate change we have big media coverage of fires in Australia and now a corona virus. 

....and, amazingly, the NHS has managed to find some available accommodation to house and treat those being put into quarantine, rpresumably diverting some staff resources to do this.

I notice the North / South divide has emerged once again

Flown in to Brize Norton then driven 172 miles to Arrowe Park

Aldermaston 41 miles

London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine 71 miles 

Porton Down 75 miles

Edited by user 31 January 2020 13:44:06(UTC)  | Reason: ffs

Originally Posted by: Roundtuit

I notice the North / South divide has emerged once again

Flown in to Brize Norton then driven 172 miles to Arrowe Park

Aldermaston 41 miles

London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine 71 miles 

Porton Down 75 miles

Adding to that. 2 suspected cases have been transported to the RVI in Newcastle Upon Tyne (just 5 miles away from me)

Warton 41 miles or Hawarden 18 miles to keep it away from the public

Edited by user 01 February 2020 21:05:01(UTC)  | Reason: ffs

Roundtuit, that bit was explained.

Apparently the passengers were at the back of each bus and more than 2m from the driver. 

We used to have a 2m rule for working at height. It's been replaced with a 2m rule for coughs and splutters.

I had failed to notice how many Horsemen there were.

Thanks Peter - was watching the pictures not listening to the commentary.

The cynical me still had further niggles with the scene:

1) The passenger access door is usually at the front where the official was sat - these aren't quite 2m (or did they access from the mid-door / rear door?). Apparently passengers accessed before the driver. They will still have passed within 2m.

2) In an enclosed environment studies have show the human sneeze droplets can carry for 8m and stay airborne for quite some time so depositing along the entire length of the coach? five rows were left empty to the driver. Is 5 rows equal to 8m?

3) Most drivers I have seen typically "clean" the bus between journies - we all know from the adverts commercial cleansers only kill 99.9% of surface germs. Coaches going to be quarantined for 10 days after a "military grade clean"

4) That "official" would have the potential to be at both ends of the coach. No one fell ill on the journey, drivers sent home on a ten day quarantine with full pay. and those they subsequently come in to contact with? Spouse, wife, child, partner, delivery driver, meter reader, post man, milkman, door to door salesman, the shop keeper on their way home?

Blue font from the explanation on their web site: https://www.horsemancoaches.co.uk/

Edited by user 02 February 2020 13:27:23(UTC)  | Reason: post, post research

Sorry been busy discussing the grassy knowl in 1960's Texas with friends who happen to live on the same road as our Metro Mayor - no lichen covered signs, no shrubs or bushes overgrowing street furniture, all street lamps working (not switched off to save the council money) road markings clear and recently painted on a smooth pot-hole free tarmacadam. Just imagine if this was the road to a cabinet minister house a.k.a. "All animals are equal" as stated by the pigs?

A deep military clean brings to mind Ripley and her flame thrower in the alien films or the nuclear device at the end of Predator (but not the napalm from Evolution where dandruff shampoo was the eventual answer afetr the military got it wrong - again).

Just trying to locate a nice get away property in those remote valleys seen in the original Survivors series and similar apocalyptic dramas.

Originally Posted by: Mersey

Does anyone have examples of what sites can do during a pandemic?

Alcohol gels

Posters infection awareness 

Work from home

Any links ro procedures

Thanks

Mersey.  We have significant operations in affected areas, so this is a real issue for us at the moment.

In brief, here are some things we've put in place.

------------------------------------

Background preparation

• Identify key stakeholders in your leadership team who will be the policy / decision makers.  Make a whatsapp group as the situation is fluid
• If you are a subcontractor, examine your contracts with clients to see the impact of work postponement or cancellation – liability clauses
• If you are a client, examine your contracts with subcontractors in case you need to postpone or cancel work
• IT department to make ready VPN access from work computers in case you need staff to work from home.  Install any applicable software in advance
• Recall all overseas employees in affected areas, and monitor where outbreaks are occurring.  If they become stuck at the location you’ve got a serious problem.
• Any employees returning from affected areas or suspected areas to not come to work for 14 days
• Reduce international travel until risks become clearer
• Cancel mass company gatherings

Operations

• Identify non-essential workers or workers who are capable of working from home, you may need to announce measures at short notice so have this list ready.
• All non-site workers to take their work laptop home every day. (in case of the above)
• After the CNY holiday we asked staff to declare if they had been to affected areas – required their honesty as we were not going to examine passports.  People who had been to mainland china to stay at home 14 days.
• Conduct daily thermometer scans of people entering site, highlights people who are already sick but not those who are still incubating.  Have a procedure for what to do if someone has a temperature. (we’ve found 3).  Act of scanning provides some visual reassurance
• Require all employees to wear a mask during commute on company transport,  strongly recommend it on public transport. (becoming difficult due to mask shortage)
• Reduce meetings to minimum
• Rework the planned schedule to see what work could be postponed in case there is a minimum site staff.
• Allow staff to travel off peak hours

Daily

• Communication is key, monitor national news , WHO, international SOS
• Expect disruption in staffing levels, transport
• Update staff on the situation, ensure leaders are visible at sites where operations continue and are not hidden away in head office.
• Continue pushing the message about hygiene, sanitisers.
• Improve cleaning disinfection of areas with high footfall  

Non work-related issues which are having an effect:

• Overloaded medical sector
• Shortages of medical supplies
• Disruption to food supplies in the supermarket
• Schools are closed so a parent need to stay at home

Originally Posted by: peter gotch

No, I don't know what a "military grade clean" is either. Perhaps that's even better than you would expect in a Class A (or whatever the top classification is - I can't remember) path lab, perhaps not.

Maybe they will fumigate with formaldehyde vapour, that's what I used to do in our CL3 lab.

Personally if a pandemic did take hold I would be investing in lots of bleach.

 Mersey, If you are in a "hot desk" workplace, can i suggest you remind staff about keeping workstations clean and ready for next user- extra cleaning products for phones and keyboards may help re-assure people that this is being taken seriously.

Originally Posted by: Roundtuit

And if you look closely none of the Horseman drivers were wearing PPE unlike the single "official" escort

At least one driver will be safe. He was wearing his HI Vis Vest.

Originally Posted by: inspector Gadget

Lots of public health experts and conspiracy theorists here...

I guess this is where society is heading... I have no doubt in 20 - 50 years time the history books will say that Kim Kardashian was a hugely talented woman who made a positive difference to the world and so is a role model, and the moon landing was a hoax. 

Indeed, I have no time for all these conspiracy theories - I believe they are circulated to distract us from what the government are really up to.....

....I have tried to stay away from this thread but ...moth to a light....I have had everything in the last 2 weeks from can I use garlic to prevent it...(my response was not unless they come from transylvania..the PT didn't laugh!) to how long is it safe to hold my breath around chinese workers (who incidentally were born in the UK and work in South Africa)...we have done pandemic planning before with SARS and MERS it really just boils down to good hygiene and infection control...the problem as always is behaviour...some people don't wash thier hands, they pick thier noses and chew thier nails...to name but a few..it is suspected to be zoonoses...teach the correct method for hand washing (which incidentally is where the gels actually do some good work) and enforce it...look at your business continuity plans and shift rotations for workers being off or suggsted quarantine time (which ECDC suggests a little longer that for SARS or MERS of 3-14 days), especially those who are working in close proximity to each other...

Hi Chris

I think there it is inevitable that with the way the statistics are counted there will be overreporting AND underreporting.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/908781/Technical_Summary_PHE_Data_Series_COVID-19_Deaths_20200812.pdf

“The PHE data series does not include deaths in people where COVID-19 is suspected but not confirmed by testing (SARS-CoV-2 PCR either negative or not done).

Furthermore, the PHE data series does not report cause of death, and as such represents deaths in people with COVID-19 and not necessarily caused by COVID-19.”

Personally, if I had drafted this I would have written “In contrast” instead of “Furthermore”, since the first of these paragraphs in the Public Health England text

1. does not count deaths where COVID is a suspected cause but has not been confirmed by laboratory test [so probably indicative of underreporting – and given the shortcomings in arranging tests in the UK, particularly in the early months of the pandemic, possibly indicative of very significant underreporting] 
2. but does include deaths where COVID has been confirmed but may not be the cause [so probably indicative of overreporting, though it must be very difficult for clinicians to exclude COVID as a cause if someone has been in intensive care for say 21 days, and seems to have recovered for the initial reason for being there]

In ye olden days, if you could show that something could be shown to have caused death that occurred with a year and a day, this counted as a fatality in British law, subject to the expert opinion that there is a causal chain all along that time period.

So, as example, if someone sustained an amputation in an accident at work, then an issue in hospital resulted in blood poisoning, and then may be a stroke, you might be able to connect the death from stroke to the initial amputation.

Given the incredible levels of improvements in healthcare, I find the 28 (or 60 day) threshold somewhat arbitrary. Hospitals put people into medically induced comas for well over 28 days when the circumstances dictate.

The good news in the PHE paper (yet to be peer reviewed) is that they quote very high percentages of direct links to back up their statistical approach.

However, I was quite cynical when the method of counting was changed to enable the official total number of COVID deaths in the UK to be slashed – the “precautionary approach” might have suggested changing the approach taken in Scotland, England and Wales to up the numbers, rather than reducing the numbers in England to be compatible with the method of counting elsewhere in the UK.

What will happen when Public Health England is axed?

REPORTED - links have been added and modified as commercial click bait

Roundtuit - well spotted.

Looks like Claire65 at #36 which you reported on 31 August (with no subsequent moderation) has changed their name to Maria85. Link to same commercial website.

Will it be Georg45 in another 10 days?