Robert Inventor

Everyone in the UK - please share this widely, this and other posts that explain what is happening in the UK. We are no longer trying to contain COVID-19 in the UK, only to slow down its spread. Also, we no longer try to keep track of who in our society has the virus, as people with mild symptoms are not tested to see if they have COVID-19. This would be good advice for influenza which is a very different disease. Sadly the Netherlands have also joined us in declaring a similar policy.

Summary (of WHO press briefing on 16th March): We must test every suspected case for COVID-19. We must immediately isolate all cases, even the mild ones. Isolation needs to continue through to 14 days after the symptoms cease to make sure the patients are no longer infectious. The mild cases are best treated in hospitals but when there aren’t the beds for them, they can be treated in stadiums, or gyms, or treated at home. If they are isolated at home, the caregivers must know how to protect themselves or they risk infecting others in the same household.

I often get asked - “How long is this COVID19 pandemic going to last?”. The answer, according to the WHO, is that it is up to us. We can stop this. The only question is whether we will. Most countries in the world are acting vigorously to stop it with rigorous case finding, contact tracing and isolation. But the UK and, sadly, Netherlands have decided to follow another direction.
This can only be stopped if all countries are in it together, and for just one country to depart from this strategy means the virus will continue in that country and reinfect the rest of the world, at least until we have a vaccine, a year to eighteen months from now.

COVID19 can be stopped. China has nearly made it go away completely. China had no new cases even in Hubei yesterday (17th March). It had four cases only on the two previous days - and it's only getting a few cases from other countries.
South Korea has nearly got rid of it, down to less than 100 a day for several days after a peak of over 1000 a day.
China peaked in early February and has been declining ever since.
If you add all cases over the WHO "West Pacific" region of South Korea / Japan / Singapore / Malysia / Indonoesia then it had its peak of cases two weeks ago.

Here is Dr Tedros demonstrating how to wash your hands for COVID-19 protection in the "Safe Hands" challenge

(click to watch on Youtube)

He is challenging others to do the same and upload videos of themselves doing it.

Please share this widely, to put pressure on UK to go back to the contain phase for COVIDー19, and potentially save thousands of lives: Many in the UK have been scared and appalled by Boris Johnson’s statement that “many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time.” Distinguished experts are also shocked and outraged by the UK's decision to stop containing COVID-19, stop detecting mild cases, and just use social distancing to delay it as it spreads through our population.

The WHO have said many times that governments can stop this disease by containing the virus swiftly and aggressively. Their most recent statement was the most blunt yet. They declared a pandemic, but one that we can stop. They said the question is not whether we can, but whether we will. Many governments have demonstrated this by doing it, including China, South Korea and Singapore. As Dr Tedros, Director General of the WHO put it:

The challenge for many countries who are now dealing with large clusters or community transmission is not whether they can do the same – it’s whether they will.  

Summary: This declaration of a pandemic does not mean that we should say the fight is over - that would lead to unnecessary suffering and death.
With every press conference, the WHO have called on countries to take urgent and aggressive action and this hasn’t changed.
More than 90% of the cases are in just four countries (Iran, Italy, SK and China). Two of those four countries have significantly declining cases (South Korea and China)
81 countries have no cases yet, and 57 have 10 or less.
All countries can still turn the tide on this virus, even ones with community transmission or large clusters. Several countries have shown the virus can be suppressed and controlled.

The WHO continue to say that the coronavirus can be controlled, and is being brought under control. The evidence from China is clear - not only from their statistics but also the report of the international team that spend nine days studying the worst hit areas of China in person.
South Korea has the fewest cases today for two weeks at a total of over 7000 cases which proves that it is not just China that is able to contain and stop the virus at thousands of cases. By using the same measures of fast case finding, contact tracing, quarantine and isolation, combined with public awareness and hand hygiene, we can all slow and even reverse and stop this virus.

This is the news that they are not really sharing on mainstream TV: China is containing this outbreak. The screenshot shows figures for one of the other provinces, Henan province, right next to the worst affected province Hubei. Meanwhile China as a whole reported only 329 new cases on thursday, the lowest number for over a month. This would not happen for a pandemic, so it is not a pandemic yet.
The WHO say that if we act promptly it will never be a pandemic. The course of this disease is under our control.
skip to: Why this is not a pandemic

This is puzzling many people. COVID19 is now in every continent. So why don't they call COVID19 a pandemic? You are right, if a flu outbreak got this far, the WHO would say it is a pandemic, for sure, indeed they would have called it a global pandemic weeks ago.

Definition: a pandemic (as the WHO use the word) is a disease that is spreading by community transmission throughout the world with no possibility of stopping it by quarantine. A viral pandemic can only be stopped with vaccines. Meanwhile you do your best to protect the most vulnerable from it.

Short summary: Soleimani is an Iranian leader, who is highly respected in Iran, and played a key role in the fight against ISIS. However, he was classified by the US as terrorist because of his position as leader of the Quds, a numerically small black ops type operations supplying weapons to shia militants and the mastermind of operations targeting US soldiers and civilians.
Here is my short tweet about it