COVID-19 - Wuhan Coronavirus (a non-political thread, see pg. 36 #1778)

[ISiddiqui]

The politicizing of the entire pandemic led to this sort of failure to learn from other places. Because those were Democrats who screwed up and wanted to kill the economy to hurt Trump, so why should we listen to them?

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[RainMaker]

New York Is Still Owed Millions From The Man It Paid $69 Million After He Tweeted At Trump

[JPhillips]

There's going to be so much corruption and criminal activity exposed next year.

[tarcone]

Cori tested positive today. Her room mate tested positive earlier today. My wife went to see her at her sisters and is now exposed and off work until Oct. 26 on quarantine.

I am not quarantined, but am staying away. Cori came home from college. Not sure why.

[JPhillips]

Take care for all of you.

[GrantDawg]

Sorry to hear, tarcone.

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[MIJB#19]

We're rapidly racing back into lockdown in the Netherlands.
Toning back two weeks ago and more measures announced today. Next evaluation moment: 2 weeks from now. People were acting like back to normal.

The current peak of positive test results is way behind on the actual situation. From my close family example earlier, we're convinced my brother got infected (typical symptoms, girlfriend was already confirmed 8 days ago, our dad confirmed today, mom still pending but only logical she has it as well), but he couldn't get a test arranged prior to next Thursday, with results to be expected in the weekend. He'll be a "confirmed" statistic at least 2 1/2 weeks after getting infected.

Just saying: testing capacity and speed of results combined with the incubation time, it takes more than 3 weeks to see any effect on "lockdown" measures flattening the curve. Evening out with the same day testing numbers, It's more like 4 weeks to see a possible effect.

Just venting, barking up the wrong tree, I guess.

[ISiddiqui]

Stay safe tarcone and MIJB. Hope and pray everyone infected comes out with a mild case!

Sorry to hear about both stories. Sometimes it just feels like it's holding back against a hurricane.

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[Lathum]

Originally Posted by tarcone

Cori tested positive today. Her room mate tested positive earlier today. My wife went to see her at her sisters and is now exposed and off work until Oct. 26 on quarantine.

I am not quarantined, but am staying away. Cori came home from college. Not sure why.

Wishing all the best for your family

[Thomkal]

Very sad to hear family members getting sick. I hope that they only get mild effects from it. Stay strong and please keep us updated.

[Thomkal]

Golfer Dustin Johnson has tested positive for the virus-he is the 15th golfer to test positive so far

[spleen1015]

Best wishes to both of you guys!!

[thesloppy]

Best wishes to you guys and your fams.

[Kodos]

Best wishes to everyone who has a loved one that's been affected.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by tarcone

Cori tested positive today. Her room mate tested positive earlier today. My wife went to see her at her sisters and is now exposed and off work until Oct. 26 on quarantine.

I am not quarantined, but am staying away. Cori came home from college. Not sure why.

Best wishes to daughter, wife and everyone else affected.

[Edward64]

Interesting notes about covid and susceptibility & severity.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/14/healt...ess/index.html

A Danish study found that among 473,654 people who were tested for Covid-19, only 38.4% with blood type O tested positive -- even though, among a group of 2.2 million people who were not tested, that blood type made up 41.7% of the population.

In the other study, researchers in Canada found that among 95 patients critically ill with Covid-19, a higher proportion with blood type A or AB -- 84% -- required mechanical ventilation compared with patients with blood group O or B, which was 61%.

The Canadian study also found those with blood type A or AB had a longer stay in the intensive care unit, a median of 13.5 days, compared with those with blood group O or B, who had a median of nine days.
:
"I don't think this supersedes other risk factors of severity like age and co-morbities and so forth," added Sekhon, who is also a clinical assistant professor in the Division of Critical Care Medicine and Department of Medicine at the University of British Columbia.

[albionmoonlight]

This gets political with people's comments after the initial posts, but the three step plan shows how easy* it could be to get this under control.

https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/stat...96584650547200

*"Easy" meaning pays for itself and not difficult to implement. The political will part of it is, of course, the problem and is far from easy.

[stevew]

nobody is going to go 9 months without restaurants. They can't even go 9 days.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

This gets political with people's comments after the initial posts, but the three step plan shows how easy* it could be to get this under control.

https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/stat...96584650547200

*"Easy" meaning pays for itself and not difficult to implement. The political will part of it is, of course, the problem and is far from easy.

That will never happen here. Freedom and all that stuff...

[whomario]

Germany update: still determined to stay on top of things with no waiting around for shit to hit the fan. Not exactly proactive (i am pissed at some things not being hashed out over the summer) but at least not being apathetic until the screaming starts, so to speak ... Our good structures and Public Health Ressources (+ masks) are giving us an extra 2-4 weeks and a lower level starting off.
Just now set up new measures which are less strict than elsewhere but also earlier (essentially rolling limits on private Events, public gatherings and no alcohol anywhere after 11pm, so a soft ban on nightlife).

I think the Netherlands were part of why everybody got their shit together once more, for some reason those news reasonated more than the ones coming out of Spain/France.

Still not anywhere near those levels, neither cases nor hospitalisations adjusted for population, but going up rapidly and the same warning signs elsewhere (average age going up from 32 to 40, more patients with symptoms, less successfull contact tracing, overburdened labs and PH workers)

Overall i gotta say: Wait, who could have predicted Things to start accelerating 3-4 weeks after the weather turning ? What a weird coincidence that people spend time indoors and more transmission happens *sarcasm*.

Also, my cousin might have it. Her BF has it, she's not been tested because she's been mostly home with a broken ankle anyway. When it rains ... Otherwise a picture of health, so not too worried.

[molson]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

This gets political with people's comments after the initial posts, but the three step plan shows how easy* it could be to get this under control.

https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/stat...96584650547200

*"Easy" meaning pays for itself and not difficult to implement. The political will part of it is, of course, the problem and is far from easy.

But just a few weeks ago posters were telling me that if we just "shut everything down" (which was then revealed to be just to the extent Europe did), this would all be over by now.

If this was easy, why hasn't it worked for enlightened Europe who aren't bogged down with Trumpers and such?

Restrictions slow virus spread, but when they're inevitably loosened and people act more normally, the virus surges again. We're seeing that in Europe. The virus doesn't get bored and go away. The most realistic mitigation measures to me seem more things that people will be willing to do longer-term while still being able t engage in their lives and communities to some extent. Precautions and mitigation and an acceptance of human needs and human nature rather than sweeping temporary shut-downs that disproportionally impact certain groups of people. These little bullet-points about what 320 million people all need to do at the same time and how "easy" that is just bewildering to me.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by molson

But just a few weeks ago posters were telling me that if we just "shut everything down" (which was then revealed to be just to the extent Europe did), this would all be over by now.

If this was easy, why hasn't it worked for enlightened Europe who aren't bogged down with Trumpers and such?

Restrictions slow virus spread, but when they're inevitably loosened and people act more normally, the virus surges again. We're seeing that in Europe. The virus doesn't get bored and go away. The most realistic mitigation measures to me seem more things that people will be willing to do longer-term while still being able t engage in their lives and communities to some extent. Precautions and mitigation and an acceptance of human needs and human nature rather than sweeping temporary shut-downs that disproportionally impact certain groups of people. These little bullet-points about what 320 million people all need to do at the same time and how "easy" that is just bewildering to me.

No one has ever said it would be over by now, but keep using that strawman.

(Never mind the significant differences in fatalities, but how about this)

For instance:

Originally Posted by whomario

Germany update: still determined to stay on top of things with no waiting around for shit to hit the fan. Not exactly proactive (i am pissed at some things not being hashed out over the summer) but at least not being apathetic until the screaming starts, so to speak ... Our good structures and Public Health Ressources (+ masks) are giving us an extra 2-4 weeks and a lower level starting off.
Just now set up new measures which are less strict than elsewhere but also earlier (essentially rolling limits on private Events, public gatherings and no alcohol anywhere after 11pm, so a soft ban on nightlife).

I think the Netherlands were part of why everybody got their shit together once more, for some reason those news reasonated more than the ones coming out of Spain/France.

Still not anywhere near those levels, neither cases nor hospitalisations adjusted for population, but going up rapidly and the same warning signs elsewhere (average age going up from 32 to 40, more patients with symptoms, less successfull contact tracing, overburdened labs and PH workers)

Overall i gotta say: Wait, who could have predicted Things to start accelerating 3-4 weeks after the weather turning ? What a weird coincidence that people spend time indoors and more transmission happens *sarcasm*.

Also, my cousin might have it. Her BF has it, she's not been tested because she's been mostly home with a broken ankle anyway. When it rains ... Otherwise a picture of health, so not too worried.

It's a lot safer, to, say start schools if you're not drowning in 30K new (undercounted) cases at the "bottoming out" nation-wide and we instead had 5K cases. Germany was in the hundreds /for months/ despite having only 1/4 of our population.

SI

[molson]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

No one has ever said it would be over by now, but keep using that strawman.

(Never mind the significant differences in fatalities, but how about this)

For instance:

It's a lot safer, to, say start schools if you're not drowning in 30K new (undercounted) cases at the "bottoming out" nation-wide and we instead had 5K cases. Germany was in the hundreds /for months/ despite having only 1/4 of our population.

SI

After I was kind of venting about some of the cultural losses, you basically chided me and told me that those losses were only because we didn't "shut everything down", and that "if we had actually really shut down, we could be contact tracing and trying to get back to some semblance of normal like most of the rest of the world".

So maybe I misunderstood again, but my point was that Europe lockdowns wouldn't get us back to normal (or 90% normal like the tweets promised), and my evidence for that is that Europe has more new cases now than they did in April. And my broader point was that this was certainly a lot more difficult than people were saying would it be, particularly in the country as massive and diverse and polarized and with the economic disparities as we have in the U.S. And my evidence for that is that even Europe, with all their advantages, didn't just "shut everything down" for longer despite having more political and economic opportunities to do that than the U.S. did.

[sterlingice]

Except much of Europe has been mostly able to live life in some semblance of normal for the last few months without their case rate going higher until recently. Meanwhile, we've never gotten our case numbers anywhere near that and we're just pretending that everything's normal.

SI

[sterlingice]

But I do agree that they had more political (and perhaps social) will/(opportunity?) to make some changes early on so that it wouldn't be as bad.

SI

[PilotMan]

Nice to see KY actually one of the 3 states that is down week over week.

...yet so many here want the governor thrown in jail for some reason or another.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Except much of Europe has been mostly able to live life in some semblance of normal for the last few months without their case rate going higher until recently. Meanwhile, we've never gotten our case numbers anywhere near that and we're just pretending that everything's normal.

SI

Has Europe lived "normally"? It seems like almost everywhere cracked down heavily in April, they had more stringent restrictions for awhile, because they had better political leaders, and when given a chance the populace acted the same as us ignorant Americans.

If anything I'd go the opposite way & say it was more rational for an average American to say I can rationalize risk & long term health effects when there was no hope or timetable for a vaccine rather then now when vaccines are in the pipeline. (Their efficacy, questionable, but still something.)

[molson]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Except much of Europe has been mostly able to live life in some semblance of normal for the last few months without their case rate going higher until recently. Meanwhile, we've never gotten our case numbers anywhere near that and we're just pretending that everything's normal.

SI

Why doesn't Europe just stay locked down if that's so easy?

I'm starting to think that just like "shut everything down" doesn't really mean shut everything down, "easy" doesn't really mean easy, or as simple as that solution is sometimes set forth. It's a really awful thing to have to do. So awful that European countries are avoiding it even though they have the political will to truly just pay everyone to stay home for a year or longer.

By the end of that last discussion, I realized that we actually did have a "full lockdown" in Idaho. I think it hurt more than it helped. We had about 0 cases at the start of it, and slightly more by the end. But we used that bullet up. We now have many fewer restrictions, with way more cases. With no will to reload that bullet.

Things could be much worse. We have a mask tolerant culture here for the most part. And it's a healthy population to start with. But I wonder if moderate restrictions the whole time would have been better for heath, culture, and the economy than full lockdown and then almost nothing. There is a limit to what people and communities are able to do longer term. (And it's easier for some people than others). As we head into year 2 of this, adapting and living feels so much more productive and realistic than "shutting it all down". And I think we're starting to do that in areas and countries which have low deaths and hospitalizations, even if cases are rising.

[JPhillips]

How about we do masks and test/trace and see how much better we do? NY has been very good for months and the current explosion in cases is driven in great part by religious communities that refused to mask and still gathered in large numbers.

Eliminating the virus is hard, but it really wouldn't be hard to greatly reduce cases if we just wore masks, kept distanced, and had a nationwide test/trace. We won't do those things, but it isn't because we don't know how.

[PilotMan]

Population density has a lot, lot to do with it. Idaho isn't exactly packing them in there (neither is KY), but more dense cities are going to naturally have more issues. It's much easier for midwestern states to decry any efforts, point fingers at 'failing' cities under restrictions and say, "see, we didn't do what they did, we don't have their problems, so therefore x, y, and z are terrible, no good, bad approaches, and because our approaches are best, we should do that everywhere, because...natural extension of whatever argument serves their purpose" instead of trying to see the natural consequences of every action and response, and try to attempt to find a sweet spot that works down to the smallest civil district involved. At some point you can't rely on every smaller governing factions to monitor, mediate and dictate proper response. A top down approach may allow for blanket options, and it may not be the most efficient, but the reverse where the only real decisions are made at every single, different municipal level can't be a good answer either.

What we've had thus far is an attempt to manage things at the state level, with almost zero support or leadership from the federal level of government. One thing that I've seen that I agree with in KY, as an example, was allowing the school district to have jurisdiction over return to school protocols while setting guidelines for them to work within. I think that could have worked at the national/state level had those options been put in place. It could have been extended to the state/county level with good modifications.

There will always need to be some level of 'we just need to deal with this shit' and I don't think that complete and total lockdown is an answer. Part of life simply goes on. Every day we get older, every day we decide what is and isn't worth doing. I said it weeks ago, the US will be totally comfortable with 1000 people a day dying from covid, and they will accept that and it will be what it is. Inside, people understand the natural risks associated with it, and those groups that cannot or will not make the necessary adjustments will suffer the greatest. We cannot expect 100% success. Just like we cannot expect 100% success when it comes to running a business. There will always be some level of loss that the business has to adapt to, some overhead they cannot compensate for. There will always be people who need to be on welfare and government supports, no matter how badly people want them off. 100% is not a realistic option. I simply cannot be.

We see it in football. You work your best plan, and go from there. You accept that things change, you must make adjustments, but in no way, can you expect success from the start through the finish. The plan has to be the plan. All along, there has been no plan. States have tried, some have not. But states cannot control the actions of it's people. You can only set the standard, but it has to start from the top, and without that, there is, and never was any hope for the sort of success that is trying to be attained.

[JPhillips]

The federal governmant has been completely absent in regards to public schools. Most schools have less money and fewer staff than pre-COVID and they are being asked to implement procedures that take more money and more staff. The only way it can work well nation-wide is with federal support, but the GOP won't provide the money and the Dept. of Ed is only concerned with funneling money and resources to private schools and homeschoolers.

[whomario]

It would help to stop treating it as Binary: All closed/open, all great/terrible, all safe/unsafe.

And maybe not ignore a big part of why a hard stop and heavy mitigation was so vital: Allowing time for more and better treatment options (no knockout, but there's about half a dozen significant improvements with medication and procedure), technological leaps (near Instant antigen tests are now available for hospitals and retirement homes here at least) and building up infrastructure in terms of healthcare and Public Health allowing for earlier detection and better monitoring of cases leading to earlier treatment. And educate the public, create awareness (and yes, enforcement groundrules) for mask wearing and other rules, give companies time to come up with systems to spread out employees where possible or set up home office. Come up with better plans and procedures for schools. Governments installing long term aid systems. Systems to help sick/quarantined to stay off work and employees to get reimbursed.

We trained more PH workers, retooled hospitals and heck, even installed a dedicated national digital data transfer/analysis system between all local departments and our version of the CDC. Meanwhile, the UK still uses Excel and has a contractor run testing badly, France installed a Testing strategy late resulting in massive wait times while the CDC ... Was bogged down fighting Trump for every piece of information and guidance they wanted to put out and no aid in sight going into winter. Yay ...

X cases now result in less deaths and damage than it would have 2,3 or 6 months ago. And it takes less measures if you didn't run around with fingers in your ears and eyes closed or sitting on your hands and wait till it's too late and act shocked. If those improvements to 'Infrastrukture' and procedures (also includes how retirement homes or similar act) have not been made, that is the true problem.

EDIT: Also, while lockdowns in any shape (again, not the same everywhere) are indeed a stopgap and best used to quickly decelerate out of Holy Shit territory, one thing people have forgotten: People deciding did not know a lot we do now re: modes of transmission or seasonality or quite frankly how close to "Holy Shit" any given place was due to a lack of surveillance. The UK or Northern Italy thought it was fine a few days before hospitals were flooded and 2/3 to peak deaths numbers, meaning in reality they were in "holy shit" territory weeks earlier. And in the US early testing and surveillance was worse than that even.

[Edward64]

I'll wait for the pundits to discuss the study more but it's surprising and very disappointing.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/15/healt...ity/index.html

In a study it described as both conclusive and disappointing, the World Health Organization said the antiviral drug remdesivir has "little or no effect on mortality" for patients hospitalized with coronavirus and it doesn't seem to help patients recover any faster, either.

Until now, remdesivir has been the only drug that appeared to have specific effects for coronavirus. It was the only drug with an Emergency Use Authorization for Covid-19 from the US Food and Drug Administration.

Results of the WHO study have not been published in a peer-reviewed medical journal. But WHO posted them to a pre-print server.

The WHO study reviewed remdesivir and three other repurposed drugs: hydroxychloroquine, the HIV combination of lopinavir and ritonavir and interferon. None of them helped patients live any longer or get out of the hospital any sooner, WHO said.

[tarcone]

Cori has mild symptoms. Thank goodness. I have not talked to her much. Staying as far away as possible.

Wife showing no symptoms. Im around her about 30 minutes a day at most.

This virus is hanging tough and hitting more people now than ever around here. And with flu season coming, its going to get ugly.

[NobodyHere]

Well a co-worker of mine gots the covid.

Nice knowing y'all.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by NobodyHere

Well a co-worker of mine gots the covid.

Nice knowing y'all.

Get some extra Vitamin C & D in you. Good luck.

And don't forget to mix some bleach in with your coffee

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Get some extra Vitamin C & D in you. Good luck.

And don't forget to mix some bleach in with your coffee

Zinc is the key!

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Atocep

Zinc is the key!

True, my multivitamin gives me more than 100+% daily dose for all 3.

[spleen1015]

Inject some Lysol. Ya'll be a'ight!

[NobodyHere]

Thanks for the advice, but the only person I trust in a situation like this is the My Pillow guy.

[sterlingice]

SI

[JPhillips]

I hear that getting the virus is the way to go. Just be sure not to die or suffer long term consequences.

[cuervo72]

The pillow is to smother Grandma after she gets the COVID.

[MIJB#19]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Except much of Europe has been mostly able to live life in some semblance of normal for the last few months without their case rate going higher until recently. Meanwhile, we've never gotten our case numbers anywhere near that and we're just pretending that everything's normal.

SI

A. There is no Europe in this context.

B. That's just not true for me personally. My life didn't start feeling as "some semblance of normal" until mid-September and only for 3 or so weeks. Caveat when beach volleyball was coming back in mid-May (low profile) and sort of 'normal' in mid-July, at least Wednesday nights and a four tournament days each a month apart, those felt almost like 'normal', within boundaries of distancing.

But I think a lot of people felt like we were getting "back to normal" in August. The second wave became visible in mid-September. Now, mid-October, we're back into semi-lockdown for at least 4 weeks. We, the Dutch don't have the discipline the Germans have (wait, did I to just generalize millions of people?)

Also, there's no Europe in this context. But maybe I mentioned this before?

[PilotMan]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

The pillow is to smother Grandma after she gets the COVID.

DOESN'T COUNT AS A COVID RELATED DEATH!!!

FAKE NUMBERS!!!

[AlexB]

Originally Posted by MIJB#19

A. There is no Europe in this context.

B. That's just not true for me personally. My life didn't start feeling as "some semblance of normal" until mid-September and only for 3 or so weeks. Caveat when beach volleyball was coming back in mid-May (low profile) and sort of 'normal' in mid-July, at least Wednesday nights and a four tournament days each a month apart, those felt almost like 'normal', within boundaries of distancing.

But I think a lot of people felt like we were getting "back to normal" in August. The second wave became visible in mid-September. Now, mid-October, we're back into semi-lockdown for at least 4 weeks. We, the Dutch don't have the discipline the Germans have (wait, did I to just generalize millions of people?)

Also, there's no Europe in this context. But maybe I mentioned this before?

Genuine question, as we are always slightly outside Europe, and obviously more so now: what do you mean by ‘There is no Europe’? Separation of experience of the virus, or is the EU infrastructure breaking down?

[ISiddiqui]

I think he's mentioning that every country is handling this very differently. So you can't say "Europe" when France is doing things differently than Italy and when the Czech Republic is in a massive rise in cases, which does not exactly equate to what is happening in Germany.

[AlexB]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

I think he's mentioning that every country is handling this very differently. So you can't say "Europe" when France is doing things differently than Italy and when the Czech Republic is in a massive rise in cases, which does not exactly equate to what is happening in Germany.

That was my initial thought, but i feltt ‘There is no Europe’, stressed twice, needed clarification

[MIJB#19]

Originally Posted by AlexB

Genuine question, as we are always slightly outside Europe, and obviously more so now: what do you mean by ‘There is no Europe’? Separation of experience of the virus, or is the EU infrastructure breaking down?

Still the same thing as earlier in this thread. Some governments exchange suggestions for the approach, but (even within the EU) solidarity is spotty. Compassion with the next door neighbour? Sure. But when it really matters, it's every country for itself in the battle against COVID-19. 50 governments, 50 approaches. Even within countries, at least here, local approaches, public mentality, it seriously varies. The arrogant back to normal attitude by the public in (North and South) Holland is surely frowned upon in other provinces. This virus isn't just making people physically ill, a lot of are breaking down mentally, doing silly things, saying weird stuff, some even acting like it's all a conspiracy theory and what not.

You could say it's a big test for how the EU works, but it feels like "EU" is a secondary topic this year. Maybe it'll be back on topic if this virus ever flies over. But that's moot anyway, "EU" and "Europe" are not synonymous, regardless of brexit.

Not quite the same, from this thread, I'm sensing that within the USA states are doing their own thing. Probably to protect their own, governors picking up where some guy higher up in the tree is proclaiming to be immune.


Fwiw, for me personally, the UK isn't "slightly outside" at all. From where I live, it's practically the closest neighbor, despite the North Sea in between. Interestingly enough though, I've yet to visit the UK...

[AlexB]

Originally Posted by MIJB#19

Still the same thing as earlier in this thread. Some governments exchange suggestions for the approach, but (even within the EU) solidarity is spotty. Compassion with the next door neighbour? Sure. But when it really matters, it's every country for itself in the battle against COVID-19. 50 governments, 50 approaches. Even within countries, at least here, local approaches, public mentality, it seriously varies. The arrogant back to normal attitude by the public in (North and South) Holland is surely frowned upon in other provinces. This virus isn't just making people physically ill, a lot of are breaking down mentally, doing silly things, saying weird stuff, some even acting like it's all a conspiracy theory and what not.

You could say it's a big test for how the EU works, but it feels like "EU" is a secondary topic this year. Maybe it'll be back on topic if this virus ever flies over. But that's moot anyway, "EU" and "Europe" are not synonymous, regardless of brexit.

Not quite the same, from this thread, I'm sensing that within the USA states are doing their own thing. Probably to protect their own, governors picking up where some guy higher up in the tree is proclaiming to be immune.


Fwiw, for me personally, the UK isn't "slightly outside" at all. From where I live, it's practically the closest neighbor, despite the North Sea in between. Interestingly enough though, I've yet to visit the UK...

Thanks for the clarification - ‘There is no Europe’ had so many possibilities. We’re impotent atm unfortunately, hamstrung by our government and the EU desire to stay strong, but come on over, we’re not so bad

FWIW (and I might have mentioned this before) one of my best memories is on a stag weekend in Amsterdam (stay with me) on the last day we played football on a park somewhere in the city, and a proper crowd gathered around us - literally must have been 100 or more.

Now I doubt that was because of our skill, but there was something there that people wanted to watch us play because of our passion, commitment, or just were confused by a group of hungover Brits wanting to win at all costs, but I genuinely felt a little love from the Dutch that morning