Merged 2019-nCoV / Corona virus

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Skeptic Ginger said:
"Let Mikey do it"

:sdl:

I should add it didn't stop Trump from giving an hour long press conference bragging about how his decision to ban all Chinese nationals from China (as if Americans don't carry disease) has kept the country safe. And of course he added his usual BS that everyone complained but look how smart Trump was.... gag.

Happily the news media didn't fall for it and cover the BS live. They showed snippets then said they'd monitor it if there was anything else newsworthy.
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Some speculation the Donnie been told this is going to get pretty bad, and Mikey is being set up as the fall guy.
 
I have to wonder, seen all the ash-laden Catholics around today, if that tradition is an avenue for transmission? After all, you have one priest grinding his thumb into the forehead of each person in the congregation in turn.

dudalb said:
And why most fire departments don't allow beards.
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Although, mustaches seem to be very popular among American firefighters.
 
angrysoba said:
Yeah, as I said before, this has been the chatter on the TV for some time here in Japan regardless of what the official word has been. In fact, the official word hasn’t changed much like the WHO is insisting that there is no pandemic yet.
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The WHO is trying to do a balancing act, but I think they've missed the boat.

Usually it takes multiple continents to be involved, and since Italy's in Europe, I reckon it fits the bill.

No more than two days is my guess.

alfaniner said:
I have to wonder, seen all the ash-laden Catholics around today, if that tradition is an avenue for transmission? After all, you have one priest grinding his thumb into the forehead of each person in the congregation in turn.
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Almost certainly not a problem, unless the priest is infecting and coughing.
 
So, now our one and only Osaka infectee (?) - a tour guide in her forties - recovered and has been rediagnosed with the illness.

Given that she says she went straight home and stayed in her house from her discharge to her being sick again, it seems unlikely she was exposed to the virus again. So it probably means the virus stayed in her and re-emerged agiain.

Apparently China is seeing something like a 14% reinfection rate. But the Osaka case suggests that they may not have simply contracted another dose (which would be bad/incredibly unlucky), but rather that the virus is very strong and could lie dormant for a while.

There is discussion here about ways of testing for the virus and how some are more reliable than others. Apparently nasal testing is better than mucus testing (apologies, I am trying to make out what is being said on Japanese TV and I might not get all the nuances of what is being said), but that way risks infection of those doing the tests.

Anyway, how “normal” is this for a virus to return after apparently being cured?
 
alfaniner said:
I have to wonder, seen all the ash-laden Catholics around today, if that tradition is an avenue for transmission? After all, you have one priest grinding his thumb into the forehead of each person in the congregation in turn.
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The Catholics have a long list of dangerous practices from refusing condoms until very recently, kissing rings, kissing statues' feet, the priest wiping the communion wine glass around the lip as if that disinfects it, the priest putting the communion wafer directly into people's mouths assuring he spreads germs from one mouth to the next....

I bet other folks have more we can add to the list.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
The Catholics have a long list of dangerous practices from refusing condoms until very recently, kissing rings, kissing statues' feet, the priest wiping the communion wine glass around the lip as if that disinfects it, the priest putting the communion wafer directly into people's mouths assuring he spreads germs from one mouth to the next....

I bet other folks have more we can add to the list.
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Well, that whole child abuse thing was pretty unhealthy although not officially endorsed by the Church.

Maybe the congregation shaking hands and saying “peace be with you”.
 
This virus apparently has a kill rate of 2% - that is a devastating rate - it is disconcerting to see certain politicians and media personalities spinning this and saying "its only 2%". Its irresponsible and dangerous.
 
Meanwhile it seems that test kits in the US aren't reliable

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a...ing-of-diseases-spread/ar-BB10nglx?li=BBnbcA1

But in a news briefing that was going on about the same time, Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said that she was “frustrated” about problems with the test kits and that the CDC hoped to send out a new version to state and local health departments soon.

The nation’s public health laboratories, exasperated by the malfunctioning tests in the face of a global public health emergency, have taken the unusual step of appealing to the Food and Drug Administration for permission to develop and use their own tests. In Hawaii, authorities are so alarmed about the lack of testing ability that they requested permission from the CDC to use tests from Japan.


Sheesh
 
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This looks helpful and has a section on keeping surfaces in your house clean:

NPR: A Guide: How To Prepare Your Home For Coronavirus
We still don't know exactly how long the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 can survive on surfaces. But Stephen Morse, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University Medical Center, says what we know from other coronaviruses is that most household cleansers — such as bleach wipes or alcohol — will kill them.

Even wiping down surfaces with soap and water should do the trick, he says, because this coronavirus has a lipid envelope around it — like a coat that keeps the RNA inside the viral particle. And soap is a detergent that can break down lipids. "We use them to take grease and oil, which is a lipid, off our dishes," he notes.

If COVID-19 does start circulating in your community or there's someone sick at home, plan on cleaning surfaces that get touched frequently — such as kitchen counters and bathroom faucets — several times a day, says Dr. Trish Perl, chief of the infectious disease division at UT Southwestern Medical Center. That advice, she says, comes from studies on other diseases "where they've shown that if you do clean up the environment, you can actually decrease the amount of virus that is on hard surfaces significantly."
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I guess someone was thinking ahead...
23:22
Philippines observes 'no contact' Ash Wednesday

The usual practice of rubbing ash on foreheads for Ash Wednesday was eschewed by the Philippines this year.

Leaders of the Philippine Catholic church instead recommended for ash to be sprinkled on people's heads to avoid physical contact as a precaution against the virus.

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, the run-up to Easter.
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Here's more information about that case in Osaka:

A woman working as a tour bus guide in Japan has tested positive for coronavirus for a second time, in what authorities say is the first such case.

The woman, in her 40s and a resident of Osaka in western Japan, tested positive on Wednesday after developing a sore throat and chest pains, the prefectural government said. She first tested positive on 29 January and was discharged from the hospital after recovering on 1 February, before testing negative on 6 February.
The health ministry confirmed the case was the first in Japan where a patient tested positive for coronavirus for a second time after being discharged from hospital, Japanese media said.

Though a first in Japan, cases of second positive tests have been reported in China. The outbreak has spread rapidly and widely, infecting about 80,000 people globally and killing nearly 2,800, the vast majority in mainland China.

“Once you have the infection, it could remain dormant and with minimal symptoms, and then you can get an exacerbation if it finds its way into the lungs,” said Professor Philip Tierno at New York University’s school of medicine.

He said much remained unknown about the virus: “I’m not certain that this is not bi-phasic, like anthrax,” he said, meaning the disease might appear to go away before recurring.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ests-positive-for-coronavirus-for-second-time

This will really be a problem if it turns out to be bi-phasic. It means discharged patients could be spreading the disease again, or we might not even be sure about whether someone is cured of the virus.

Also, although I generally pooh-pooh the claims that this is man-made, it seems to me that the comparisons to anthrax might be the type of thing a bio-weapon is engineered to have...:eek:
 
angrysoba said:
There is concern that the reason why South Korea has such high numbers is simply a reflection of the fact that they have had more extensive testing than a lot of other places.
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These two things do not necessarily follow...

On the local news tonight, it was revealed that Pathology SA (the Government Pathology lab) is currently processing 250 tests for COVID-19 per day, and ramping up to be able to perform at a much higher rate.

So far we've had three cases, one from the Diamond Princess, and two who flew directly here from China.
 
angrysoba said:
Here's more information about that case in Osaka:



https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ests-positive-for-coronavirus-for-second-time

This will really be a problem if it turns out to be bi-phasic. It means discharged patients could be spreading the disease again, or we might not even be sure about whether someone is cured of the virus.

Also, although I generally pooh-pooh the claims that this is man-made, it seems to me that the comparisons to anthrax might be the type of thing a bio-weapon is engineered to have...:eek:
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If you were designing a bioweapon the first thing you would do is limit its transmissibility, you don't want bioweapons infecting your troops. You don't want a weapon with a long asymptomatic incubation, that is mostly mild in its effects. A biphasic weapon would be especially bad as it could then recur in captured troops or areas requiring the occupying forces to divert resources and being a risk to occupying forces. Ebola might be a good weapon, minimal person to person transmission other than by direct contact, rapidly fatal, with a low case of asymptomatic shedding. Organism causing D&V that aren't fatal might also be good, norovirus has rapid onset and can be disabling and is very infectious. In addition most attempts at bio-engineering leave obvious evidence. There are the insertion sequences left behind if you insert genes. Viruses that are cultured for any length of time tend to become attenuated.

The idea this is a bio-weapon is just silly. It is not as if the emergence of yet another zoonotic coronavirus was not expected, really there is nothing about this outbreak that was not foreseen as being likely. I think it is worth remembering how unlikely the emergence of HIV was since it required genetic reassortment between a monkey and a chimpanzee virus then for that virus to infect a human and then be onwardly transmitted. But with billions of people and many years, unusual events do occur.
 
Planigale said:
If you were designing a bioweapon the first thing you would do is limit its transmissibility, you don't want bioweapons infecting your troops. You don't want a weapon with a long asymptomatic incubation, that is mostly mild in its effects. A biphasic weapon would be especially bad as it could then recur in captured troops or areas requiring the occupying forces to divert resources and being a risk to occupying forces. Ebola might be a good weapon, minimal person to person transmission other than by direct contact, rapidly fatal, with a low case of asymptomatic shedding. Organism causing D&V that aren't fatal might also be good, norovirus has rapid onset and can be disabling and is very infectious. In addition most attempts at bio-engineering leave obvious evidence. There are the insertion sequences left behind if you insert genes. Viruses that are cultured for any length of time tend to become attenuated.

The idea this is a bio-weapon is just silly. It is not as if the emergence of yet another zoonotic coronavirus was not expected, really there is nothing about this outbreak that was not foreseen as being likely. I think it is worth remembering how unlikely the emergence of HIV was since it required genetic reassortment between a monkey and a chimpanzee virus then for that virus to infect a human and then be onwardly transmitted. But with billions of people and many years, unusual events do occur.
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True, true. I agree.
 
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