French Resistance and Roman Fiction
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Thank you for your business!You should receive an order confirmation from Paypal shortly.Exit Shopping BasketA World War 2 Trilogy
By FRED NATH (Novelist and Neurosurgeon)
Fred's Blog
Fred's Blog
Blog
Covid-19 [3]
| Posted on 29 March, 2020 at 5:54 |
So, we’ve hit the 1K mark for
deaths. The PM says it’s going to get worse. We know this already. If we all
behave and don’t touch anyone else, we may keep the deaths to a minimum but not
before the death rate peaks. Seems to me there is some pretty
flawed thinking about who is at risk. Front-line NHS workers I suspect are among
those who are most exposed to the Covid-19 virus. The Government is wanting to
test them because… because what? The average doctor in ITU whether
he has PPE or not, may or may not have the virus at any one point in time. If
he tests negative, he might become positive later today or tomorrow or the day
after. Testing him now tells you nothing. A front-line nurse in ITU may
test positive – she drops out for 2 weeks. On her return we cannot know whether she is
still infectious unless she is tested again. It represents the pitfall of epidemiological
statistical thinking. It doesn’t matter how many people have the virus what
matters to the NHS staff is if they have had the virus or not. Once you
have established who is immune, you have a workforce who can rest assured they
are much less likely to get the illness again. This why testing for the antigen
isn’t much help unless you keep testing the same individuals. We have moved beyond
the stage of contact tracing to try to confine the disease. We are now on
damage limitation to limit the spread and the pressure on our 8000 ITU beds
with ventilators. Antibody testing may well be
helpful but that is in any case, not completely reliable, since serum titres of
the antibody are highest around 2 weeks after infection. So, if you return to
work after a week’s isolation it is probably better to do the antibody test a
week later – after the horse has bolted. The WHO say test, test, test, but
the timing is important and much depends on what stage we are at in the
epidemic. For us now in the damage limitation phase, antibody testing is
probably the most important. There is a lot we still don’t
know about this virus. From one description I read by someone who had the virus
badly and survived, there is a an ‘allergic’ response after the initial temperature/cough
phase and it is this which causes the severe form which starts days after the
initial symptoms. To quote a character in Full
Metal Jacket: ‘It’s a big s**t sandwich and we all just gotta take a bite’. I hope that no one who reads this
gets the damn illness. Stay home, stay safe. |
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