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BREAKING: All games suspended until 3 April "at the earliest" [Update: full EFL statement in OP]


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1 hour ago, sherlyegg said:

 Wish they did fight a virus, cos it would be reletively easy to control. Anyone at risk due to age, underlying health conditions etc could be sent an emergency pack to use if they become ill immediately, much less strain on the NHS.

Unfortunately, they are no help for this and could make it worse.

I could do with reading what I write before posting I suppose to put wouldn't not would . anti biotics they have said constantly wouldn't have any effect ,and have been warning about an event like this for some time . its time that china gets its act together ,are they actively trying to finish us all off with there disgusting hygiene practices . this corona virus might be a fairly mild virus the next one could kill 20% of us not under 1% . been reading that someone in Holland might have found a way of stopping this but will take many months to test on humans and then years to develop it. in other words we aint going to saved by medicine. 

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44 minutes ago, swfc-dan said:

Agreed. Just bin off cup competitions next season and make it a shorter season. Could even reduce fixtures next season, up to half.

So we could even start next season in the new year if needed and make it an abbreviated one. This one has gone much too far to cancel it, would be an insult to clubs battling for promotions and Liverpool obviously. It must be completed first before anything else. 

 

Obviously I'd much prefer it to be cancelled, due to our predicament. But I think the fair and right thing to do is ensure it gets played out to completion.

 

 

What about the players whose contracts are up end of June?

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6 minutes ago, FreshOwl said:

Like all flu-like illnesses then, the old are always the most vulnerable, nothings changed there, like all the other epidemics of the past. The media are going on like it’ll wipe the human race.

 

if the older generation have any sense they’ll stay indoors, but even today I’ve caught  a train and most bloody people on it are senior 

a lot of old people are plain stupid, my mother wont take any advise and is constantly going on bus to town when she hasn't anything to go there for, wont use hand sanitiser and her friends are saying same to her on phone. if they want to die quick this isn't the way ,struggling to breath and dying suffering aint the way to go. but if they wont listen what can you do. 

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The virus will not be effected by cancellations of matches. Both the P/L and EFL have made errors here in my opinion and should have listened to the advice being given. The virus will not be stopped now until its run its course and people's immunities build. The people at risk are the very elderly and already poorly individuals, both which should not have been effected by having the sports programmes continued. 

Can't see any competitive football happening now till next season unless its behind closed doors, which is not ideal.

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4 minutes ago, handworth52 said:

a lot of old people are plain stupid, my mother wont take any advise and is constantly going on bus to town when she hasn't anything to go there for, wont use hand sanitiser and her friends are saying same to her on phone. if they want to die quick this isn't the way ,struggling to breath and dying suffering aint the way to go. but if they wont listen what can you do. 

Yep no sympathy unfortunately for people who won’t follow the rules. They can’t obviously value their health that much 

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3 minutes ago, scram said:

 

 

What about the players whose contracts are up end of June?

Who are they going to move to? Which club in their right mind would take on new players when they have no income coming in if they are not playing? 

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11 minutes ago, handworth52 said:

I could do with reading what I write before posting I suppose to put wouldn't not would . anti biotics they have said constantly wouldn't have any effect ,and have been warning about an event like this for some time . its time that china gets its act together ,are they actively trying to finish us all off with there disgusting hygiene practices . this corona virus might be a fairly mild virus the next one could kill 20% of us not under 1% . been reading that someone in Holland might have found a way of stopping this but will take many months to test on humans and then years to develop it. in other words we aint going to saved by medicine. 

There's a chinese female scientist who warned of this 2 years ago. She actually identified 20 serious viruses amongst a colony of bats. Of course the chinese authorities ignored her and the population continued to eat bats the consequences of which we are facing now. 

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2 minutes ago, Mountain Owl said:

There's a chinese female scientist who warned of this 2 years ago. She actually identified 20 serious viruses amongst a colony of bats. Of course the chinese authorities ignored her and the population continued to eat bats the consequences of which we are facing now. 


 

Is that confirmed as the absolute truth (the eating bats thing) ???

 


Owlstalk Shop

 

 

 

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3 minutes ago, @owlstalk said:


 

Is that confirmed as the absolute truth (the eating bats thing) ???

I for one know they do it. I have visited China and basically anything that breathes can be served up for dinner. Everything is fair game and animals, bats, whatever are killed inhumanely, sometimes just bludgeoned to death.

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2 minutes ago, Mountain Owl said:

The virus will not be effected by cancellations of matches. Both the P/L and EFL have made errors here in my opinion and should have listened to the advice being given. The virus will not be stopped now until its run its course and people's immunities build. The people at risk are the very elderly and already poorly individuals, both which should not have been effected by having the sports programmes continued. 

Can't see any competitive football happening now till next season unless its behind closed doors, which is not ideal.

 

That's the problem - they've set a unilateral precedent, which was rushed through because Arteta and a Chelsea player had the virus - they'll be ok early next week. If the clubs are saying isolating players would have been impossible, then this ain't going to change over the next few months.

 

The infection rates are still at a very low level, and within the government's managed projection. Cancelling games now with the current infection rates, will mean games should be cancelled into the Autumn at least, if the government's projections are correct. Of course, the football authorities may change their minds, and re-commence games in the Summer, but this would be when rates are higher than they are now?

 

 

 

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Just now, Mountain Owl said:

I for one know they do it. I have visited China and basically anything that breathes can be served up for dinner. Everything is fair game and animals, bats, whatever are killed inhumanely, sometimes just bludgeoned to death.


 

Yeah have seen that myself

 

My point is has it been confirmed that this was definitely the cause of the Coronavirus outbreak?

 


Owlstalk Shop

 

 

 

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4 minutes ago, Animis said:

 

That's the problem - they've set a unilateral precedent, which was rushed through because Arteta and a Chelsea player had the virus - they'll be ok early next week. If the clubs are saying isolating players would have been impossible, then this ain't going to change over the next few months.

 

The infection rates are still at a very low level, and within the government's managed projection. Cancelling games now with the current infection rates, will mean games should be cancelled into the Autumn at least, if the government's projections are correct. Of course, the football authorities may change their minds, and re-commence games in the Summer, but this would be when rates are higher than they are now?

 

 

 

I agree, not thinking it through comes to mind.

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4 minutes ago, @owlstalk said:


 

Yeah have seen that myself

 

My point is has it been confirmed that this was definitely the cause of the Coronavirus outbreak?

There was a scientist of excellent repute on a chat show last week actually saying it could only have come from bats due to the contents of the virus. Can't explain more than that as I'm like you just average man in the street who listens to what these so called experts have to say.

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Just now, Mountain Owl said:

There was a scientist of excellent repute on a chat show last week actually saying it could only have come from bats due to the contents of the virus. Can't explain more than that as I'm like you just average man in the street who listens to what these so called experts have to say.


 

Yeah have heard/read the same 

 

Just curious to see if what we have both understood turns out to be actual facts 

 

(especially given Asian people are currently getting abuse/attacked over it)

 


Owlstalk Shop

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, @owlstalk said:


 

Anyone thinking this season will be finished later on isnt thinking it through

 

The first expected peak of Coronavirus is May 

 

Players contracting it won’t be able to get fit enough to play, contracts are up, and again the general public needs to be well enough to staff the matches and that’s not even before things like attendances, public transport etc etc

 

Not a chance this season will get finished even in June or July 

 

No chance whatsoever 

 

Every chance you might be right with that. 

However, for the vast majority of people who contract it, the illness lasts a few days with most people non-contagious after 7 days. This is especially the case with fit athletes as has been seen with the likes of Arteta and Hudson-Odoi and if they isolate properly during this 3-week period of no games then there could be a chance of them being able to play behind closed doors. This wouldn't be ideal but would surely be better than cancelling the season, finishing the season with current standings or carrying over into next season. Problems may arise from fans gathering outside stadiums like PSG fans did recently.

 

As things stand offices aren't closing en masse (though this could well change) but it is far morel likely that the virus will be spread in an office environment than by footballers playing in open spaces without spectators.      

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5 minutes ago, Animis said:

 

That's the problem - they've set a unilateral precedent, which was rushed through because Arteta and a Chelsea player had the virus - they'll be ok early next week. If the clubs are saying isolating players would have been impossible, then this ain't going to change over the next few months.

 

The infection rates are still at a very low level, and within the government's managed projection. Cancelling games now with the current infection rates, will mean games should be cancelled into the Autumn at least, if the government's projections are correct. Of course, the football authorities may change their minds, and re-commence games in the Summer, but this would be when rates are higher than they are now?

 

 

 

I agree with this. It was too soon. However authorities would have banned the matches because they cannot afford to spare medical cover anyhow. 

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2 minutes ago, Mountain Owl said:

There was a scientist of excellent repute on a chat show last week actually saying it could only have come from bats due to the contents of the virus. Can't explain more than that as I'm like you just average man in the street who listens to what these so called experts have to say.

 

1 minute ago, @owlstalk said:


 

Yeah have heard/read the same 

 

Just curious to see if what we have both understood turns out to be actual facts 

 

(especially given Asian people are currently getting abuse/attacked over it)

 

This article was from Nature magazine, which identifies the import of traditionally African based Pangolins, which the Chinese eat and use their scales used for Chinese 'medicine'. This trade is wiping out the numbers of this peaceful and ancient animal. 

 

Mystery deepens over animal source of coronavirus

Pangolins are a prime suspect, but a slew of genetic analyses has yet to find conclusive proof.
 
Close-up of a pangolin hunting for ants.

Pangolins are often smuggled into China, where there is demand for their meat and scales.Credit: Shutterstock

Scientists are racing to identify the source of the coronavirus that is causing havoc around the world. Three weeks ago, Chinese scientists suggested, on the basis of genetic analyses, that the scaly, ant-eating pangolin was the prime suspect. But scientists have now examined those data — along with three other pangolin coronavirus genome studies released last week — and say that although the animal is still a contender, the mystery is far from solved.

Public-health officials want to pin down the virus’s source so they can prevent new outbreaks. Scientists assume that the pathogen jumped to people from an animal, as has been seen with other coronaviruses; for example, the virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is thought to have jumped to humans from civets in 2002. Dozens of people infected early in the current outbreak worked in a live-animal market in the Chinese city of Wuhan, but tests of coronavirus samples found at the market have yet to identify a source.

Three separate Chinese teams are trying to trace the origin of the coronavirus, including a group from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and one from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Miscommunication

Researchers at the South China Agricultural University in Guangzhou suggested pangolins as the animal source at a press conference on 7 February. Pangolins are highly sought-after in China for their meat and their scales; the latter are used in traditional medicine. Although sales of the animal are forbidden in China as part of a worldwide ban, they are still smuggled in from a handful of southeast Asian and African countries. The researchers said they had found a coronavirus in smuggled pangolins that was a 99% genetic match to the virus circulating in people.

But the result did not actually refer to the entire genome. In fact, it related to a specific site known as the receptor-binding domain (RBD), say the study’s authors, who posted their analysis1 on the biomedical preprint server bioRxiv on 20 February. The press-conference report was the result of an “embarrassing miscommunication between the bioinformatics group and the lab group of the study”, explains Xiao Lihua, a parasitologist at the South China Agricultural University and a co-author of the paper. A whole-genome comparison found that the pangolin and human viruses share 90.3% of their DNA.

The RBD is a crucial part of coronaviruses, which allows them to latch on to and enter a cell. Even a 99% similarity between the RBDs of the two viruses is not necessarily enough to link them, says Linfa Wang, a virologist at Duke–National University of Singapore Medical School who was part of the team that found the origin of the SARS virus.

Not close enough

Three similar comparison studies were posted on bioRxiv last week. One of those papers — by an international research group , posted on 18 February — found2 that coronaviruses in frozen cell samples from illegally trafficked pangolins shared between 85.5% and 92.4% of their DNA with the virus found in humans.

Two other papers published on 20 February, from groups in China, also studied coronaviruses from smuggled pangolins. The viruses were 90.23%3 and 91.02%4 similar, respectively, to the virus that causes COVID-19.

The genetic similarity should be higher than reported in these studies before the host can be identified, says Arinjay Banerjee, who studies coronaviruses at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada. He notes that the SARS virus shared 99.8% of its genome with a civet coronavirus, which is why civets were considered the source. If pangolins are the origin of the current outbreak, says Banerjee, it is not the pangolins in these studies.

Key differences

So far, the closest match to the human coronavirus has been found in a bat in China’s Yunnan province. A study5 published on 3 February found that the bat coronavirus shared 96% of its genetic material with the virus that causes COVID-19. Bats could have passed the virus to humans, but there are key differences between the RBD sites in the two viruses. This suggests that this specific bat coronavirus did not directly infect people, but could have been transmitted it to people through an intermediate host, say researchers.

The papers raise more questions than they answer, says Jiang Zhigang, an ecologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Zoology in Beijing. He asks, if pangolins are the source of the virus, and they came from another country, why haven’t there been reports of people being infected in that location?

Sara Platto, who studies animal behaviour at Jianghan University in Wuhan, worries that all the speculation about pangolins being the source could drive people to kill them. Civets were killed en masse after the SARS outbreak. “The problem is not the animals, it’s that we get in contact with them,” says Platto.

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