Yacht rescue off Littlehampton.

[FlyingGoose]

Mumsnet makes the lounge look like the goodlife , do not enter the whole place is on a menstrual cycle

 

[Daydream believer]

by what we then called "small round structured virus" (SRSV) but now call norovirus.
As the doctor we called in foresaw, the severity of the effects was proportional to youth; most of the children present were laid up for 48 hours, about half those in their twenties were fine and the older people were almost unaffected, though I had a spectacular episode of farting one evening.

Somehow I do not think the wife would accept "Norovirus " as a justifiable excuse- nice try though

 

[Buck Turgidson]

Covid-19 has mutated but not in a clinically significant way.

It is unlikely to mutate particularly fast in a bad way.

Flu contains 8 packets of information. When two different flu infect the same cell you can end up with mixed up packets and an entirely new flu strain. Hence we get bird flu etc.

Coronavirus has just 1 packet. So you need a copying error to make a change in the code. That happens (think there has been 4 detected so far) but the change would also need to leave a viable virus AND change how it behaves. We would likely have a vaccine before then. Once we have a vaccine we will dramatically reduce amount of copying and so opportunity for copying errors.

HIV, one of the challenges is it disables your immune system. Vaccines probably only work once a small amount of cells are infected and then the immune system kicks in, well before symptoms. A small amount of HIV may still.be enough to disable the immune response.

There are HIV mutations, but I don't think it mutates that fast, but being immune to one strain may increase risky behaviour.

Mutation you say!
Here is the map

 

[Triassic]

Meanwhile an utterly shattered ambulance crew told me today:

1. That they are rushed off their feet with Covid-19 responses
2. Waiting held outside hospitals which now specify Covid-19 segregated admittance
3. Forced to replenish oxygen throughout the day
4. Losing patients in situ where late arrival my have been a factor - some shockingly young
5. Short on N-95 masks, so making do
6. Given no CV-19 tests themselves
7. Mandated to physically attend very ill GP patients for doctors who won’t face-to-face
8. Triaging hospital A&E patients
9. And welling up with tears recalling having to tell a mum that she can’t go in the ambulance with her very ill young child - for the child’s sake. And worse, “not even able to give the shocked mum a hug as usual “

This is a shit show and these folk are angels sent from heaven.

This is no time to be a smart-arsed plonker.

Be careful where you go with point number 7 Dom. There are some very good reasons behind the decision for some doctors not to have any contact with potential Covid-19 carriers, and implying it's because they "won't" does you no favours.