Sad, bordering on tragic - Stranded sailors

[Kukri]

Heard from my Bro today, at least hes got internet thinks he will dock in 2 weeks .. but then he has to fly to Australia and Quarantine for 14 days , then when he crosses the state line he needs to quarantine for another 14 days
What a shambles, another month even of the ship , bet he's not signing up for the next crew change

Yes - we got that « 14 days each time you cross a state line » nonsense. It’s absurd. But there is no mileage in telling the Aussies that!

 

[Frank Holden]

The NSW/Victoria border is open.... the rest are of no consequence... NT/WA/SA have their borders closed not that anyone has noticed...

Mind you Australia and NZ do seem to be doing a rather good job at keeping old pharts like me out of harm's way.....

PS I go from my home in NE Vic once a week to shop in NSW ...

 

[Kukri]

The NSW/Victoria border is open.... the rest are of no consequence... NT/WA/SA have their borders closed not that anyone has noticed...

Mind you Australia and NZ do seem to be doing a rather good job at keeping old pharts like me out of harm's way.....

PS I go from my home in NE Vic once a week to shop in NSW ...

I had an AB who wanted to get off in Melbourne and be repatriated to China on medical grounds. Agent said 14 days in Melbourne, 14 days in Sydney, 14 days in Shanghai. Doctor came on board and said
« bollocks - you are not ill enough anyway. » So he stayed on board.

That particular ship is not a happy one, which was probably behind all the nonsense.

 

[michael_w]

Seems a good argument for having an SSB onboard. Every ocean passage I've done there's been an informal radio schedule with other boats, if only to chat about the weather and how badly the fishing is going. It would become a regular highlight of the day, apart from one boat who could chat for the USA and we would have to charge the batteries afterwards.

 

[Kukri]

Seems a good argument for having an SSB onboard. Every ocean passage I've done there's been an informal radio schedule with other boats, if only to chat about the weather and how badly the fishing is going. It would become a regular highlight of the day, apart from one boat who could chat for the USA and we would have to charge the batteries afterwards.

The OCC have been quite hyper active on this and seem to have done an amazing job. A good reason to be a member... with SSB...

 

[Barnacle Bill]

Thank god this didn't happen on my 1-year Atlantic circuit, it would have utterly ruined it.

I'm really sorry for anyone out there who's just had their carefully planned and prepared trip pretty well destroyed, it must be heartbreaking.

 

[Catalina36]

Perspective time. There's probably a wide population on here, geographically and numerically.

Anyone here had the virus?

Anyone here know personally anyone who's had the virus?

Anyone here know personally anyone who knows personally anyone who's had the virus?

Apparently France and Spain record 4% infected, so 96% not.

It's just that I'm starting to think we might have been involved in the biggest con in human history, for which we'll be paying for decades.

 

[Rappey]

It's just that I'm starting to think we might have been involved in the biggest con in human history, for which we'll be paying for decades

What advantage and to who would there be if it were a con ?

I might have had the virus because a household member was very ill with the correct symptoms but its still a fiasco to find out.

 

[Alfie168]

Perspective time. There's probably a wide population on here, geographically and numerically.

Anyone here had the virus?

Anyone here know personally anyone who's had the virus?

Anyone here know personally anyone who knows personally anyone who's had the virus?

Apparently France and Spain record 4% infected, so 96% not.

It's just that I'm starting to think we might have been involved in the biggest con in human history, for which we'll be paying for decades.

I was talking to a friend who has had the virus on tuesday..suitably distanced. He is a research scientist so he is pretty sure he has had the virus, but has no way of confirming it as he was never tested, nor can he get one done. His best diagnosis was 1) with his son over the phone. His son is a doctor at St Thomas's and 2) his Step daughter......who is a doctor doing her hospital training (House doctor ?)

So he's had it and yet appears on no statistics. How many more are like that ? I think what shoots your goose is the number of deaths in care homes. These being the care homes that Boris said as recently as March were 'unlikely to be affected' by Covid-19. Maybe we have just got lucky with 36,000 recorded deaths ( and who knows how many actual deaths) because measures were implemented. The increased deaths amongst NHS and care workers exposed to the virus would also seem to undermine your case.

Finally, who actually knows how far we are through the pandemic and if there could be a resurgance of infection and deaths once lockdown is relaxed. Well nobody knows, but time will tell.

Either way the words "biggest con in human history" probably sound a bit ironic to a family that has just buried somebody unexpectedly. I know two such families.

 

[Frank Holden]

I had an AB who wanted to get off in Melbourne and be repatriated to China on medical grounds. Agent said 14 days in Melbourne, 14 days in Sydney, 14 days in Shanghai. Doctor came on board and said
« bollocks - you are not ill enough anyway. » So he stayed on board.

That particular ship is not a happy one, which was probably behind all the nonsense.

The 14 days bit in Sydney doesn't sound right... if I fly from Vic to Tas..yes.... I have to do 14 days in quarantine and I can't say I am doing it on a boat. (Tasmania is only letting residents back in).

Sydney I can go to tomorrow... no drama...

However... my #2 son is currently working in a hospital in Canberra... if he leaves the ACT ( not NSW... the ACT !) and comes to do some work for his poor old dad for the weekend he is not allowed back into the hospital for 14 days....

 

[JumbleDuck]

So he's had it and yet appears on no statistics. How many more are like that ? I think what shoots your goose is the number of deaths in care homes. These being the care homes that Boris said as recently as March were 'unlikely to be affected' by Covid-19. Maybe we have just got lucky with 36,000 recorded deaths ( and who knows how many actual deaths) because measures were implemented. The increased deaths amongst NHS and care workers exposed to the virus would also seem to undermine your case.

The current best estimates seem to be that about 1 in 400 people in the UK have it, that about 1 in 3 people have had it and that around 50,000 more people have died this year than would normally be expected ... though it seems likely that many woul dhave died later anyway, so the 12-month excess may not be as high.

 

[Stemar]

Perspective time. There's probably a wide population on here, geographically and numerically.

Anyone here had the virus?

Anyone here know personally anyone who's had the virus?

Anyone here know personally anyone who knows personally anyone who's had the virus?

Apparently France and Spain record 4% infected, so 96% not.

It's just that I'm starting to think we might have been involved in the biggest con in human history, for which we'll be paying for decades.

A friend of my wife and her husband had it. She was pretty sick and he died. Also my cousin and our window cleaner. Both rough for a week or two, but no long-term effects.

A Con? No. The mortality rate's around 3 times that of a bad winter flu - for the unvaccinated, and plenty of the survivors who had it badly are likely to have long-term effects. Yes, most of those who have died were likely to die in the next year anyway, but far from all. Granted, it's not Ebola, but still plenty nasty enough.

 

[steve yates]

Perspective time. There's probably a wide population on here, geographically and numerically.

Anyone here had the virus?

Anyone here know personally anyone who's had the virus?

Anyone here know personally anyone who knows personally anyone who's had the virus?

Apparently France and Spain record 4% infected, so 96% not.

It's just that I'm starting to think we might have been involved in the biggest con in human history, for which we'll be paying for decades.

You might be thinking it wrong way round then. If that's the fatality rate with only 4% of the population infected, can you imagine the results of the "herd immunity" strategy?

And also, my wife's cancer nurse has it and is very sick right now, plus a photographer friend and his partner had it, they went skiing in Italy at half term, they are both fine now, one had mild symptoms, the other was really rough with it. Both in their early forties and super fit.

 

[steve yates]

A friend of my wife and her husband had it. She was pretty sick and he died. Also my cousin and our window cleaner. Both rough for a week or two, but no long-term effects.

A Con? No. The mortality rate's around 3 times that of a bad winter flu - for the unvaccinated, and plenty of the survivors who had it badly are likely to have long-term effects. Yes, most of those who have died were likely to die in the next year anyway, but far from all. Granted, it's not Ebola, but still plenty nasty enough.

You know that statistic that they were probably going to die next year is nonsense don't you? It's not possible to determine that, unless they already had a terminal illness diagnosis. Incurable is not terminal. Asthma is incurable, doesn't mean you are on your death bed!

 

[JumbleDuck]

You know that statistic that they were probably going to die next year is nonsense don't you? It's not possible to determine that, unless they already had a terminal illness diagnosis. Incurable is not terminal. Asthma is incurable, doesn't mean you are on your death bed!

This is true, but younger (under 65) people with long-termm conditions like asthma make up a very small proportion of COVID deaths. The current ONS data is a couple of weeks old, but although the numbers are much higher it seems probable that the proportions are much the same:

Here's more recent information from Italy

Given that life expectancy in Italy is 83.5, it's clear that a significant proportion of those who have died there (and by implication here) would have done so in the next year. Whether that's as high as "probably" will only be known after some time has passed and a lot of statisticians have argued with each other.

It's interesting that although there have officially only been around 30k CV deaths in the UK, there have been 50k more deaths over the past two months than in a normal year. That suggests that a lot of CV deaths are being missed ... perhaps because they are happening among people who were expected to die anyway?

 

[Stemar]

You know that statistic that they were probably going to die next year is nonsense don't you? It's not possible to determine that, unless they already had a terminal illness diagnosis. Incurable is not terminal. Asthma is incurable, doesn't mean you are on your death bed!

it's true that it's impossible to determine specifics; it's a matter of probability. Anyone who is old and in fragile health has a greater likelihood of dying in any given year and, if they get CV, it's more likely to carry them off than a young, fit person. It's the same with seasonable illnesses, flu, norovirus and the like, they carry off a lot of fragile people every year, but few of the otherwise healthy.

However, using it to pretend CV is a con is certainly nonsense.

 

[dom]

Given that life expectancy in Italy is 83.5, it's clear that a significant proportion of those who have died there (and by implication here) would have done so in the next year. Whether that's as high as "probably" will only be known after some time has passed and a lot of statisticians have argued with each other.

Agree that the data will take quite some time to scrunch. E.g. 'life expectancy at birth' is probably less relevant here than 'life expectancy at 80' which I think is about 7.5 and 9.5 years respectively for men and women in the UK. Then there's the problem of the winter flu season, as a mild 2019/20 flu possibly left many people who might have otherwise succumbed. Not to mention the lack of critical care in hospitals which have restricted or at least seen a dramatic drop in urgent care requests for cardiac, cancer, kidney problems amongst other serious illnesses. Not to mention the age old problem of 'died with' as opposed to 'died from'. It's not going to be easy to unravel this little lot.

 

[Quandary]

I recall a discussion with our financial adviser about the high cost of annuities etc. and why the terms were less favourable as you got old, his explanation was that the industry views folk who made it in to their seventies as lower risk of death than younger, the term was 'mortality drag'? The theory seemed to be that if you survived that long you tended to be part of the healthier segment of the population. Of course you would still expect to go by your mid eighties.

 

[steve yates]

Doesn't bear analysis JD. Given that 12k died between ages of 80-89, and that almost 5k died over the age of 90. Add the two together and at least 40% of them were way beyond the average life span.

 

[steve yates]

it's true that it's impossible to determine specifics; it's a matter of probability. Anyone who is old and in fragile health has a greater likelihood of dying in any given year and, if they get CV, it's more likely to carry them off than a young, fit person. It's the same with seasonable illnesses, flu, norovirus and the like, they carry off a lot of fragile people every year, but few of the otherwise healthy.

However, using it to pretend CV is a con is certainly nonsense.

I understand that, its this daft assumption that 90% of them would have died naturally WITHIN 12 months anyway. Its nonsense.