2019-nCoV / Corona virus Pt 2

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Among the first infected here in Norway was a group of health-care workers who returned from a skiing holiday in Italy, so yeah...

(Reading about that was one of those times I felt like shouting at someone "why must you be such idiots?!?")
 
marting said:
Most restrictions like that that have been lifted as China has cut new coronavirus infections to a small fraction of that in Feb. or even most much smaller countries in Europe currently. Shops have re-opened and most travel restrictions ended. Really remarkable job. They will have to now maintain a balance watching out for local breakouts and stopping them early. I suspect they will be a model of what can be done to corral an initially large epidemic.

https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news...0-intl-hnk/h_00633a0135cea337eda02ce7e6c854e3
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Having a single model would be a mistake. How you deal with an outbreak will depend on the characteristics of the virus itself.
 
Belz... said:
According to your wiki link, there is no solid evidence that Osteopathy works at all, so I'd call it woo like the rest of alt.med.
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Osteopathy is weird. On it’s own it’s clearly woo, but in the US at least it looks like Osteopaths receive enough real medical training that they can function as GP’s. I can't say I'm an expert though, there may be details in the coursework itself that could make all the difference.
 
Malaysia just announced a soft shut down from tomorrow night. The vast majority of businesses (except essential services), all places of worship, schools and universities will close until 31st March.

Not requiring people to stay in their homes (but prohibiting mass gatherings); just making sure all the fun stuff they would do will be closed. Supermarkets, public markets (I assume including wet markets), and local 'runcit' shops will stay open to provide essentials.

The curious thing for us is that the essential industries includes my wife's (though she is not front line), while I work on diplomatic premises so protected under the Vienna conventions. Academic in a way, as our daughter's nursery will shut, so we'll have to work out someone staying at home.
 
hmm, about 1/2% fatalities*, mostly in the very old (Italy and Denmark avg 80 years old) . Is that about the percentage of people on hospice? Looks to me that "High Risk" is not "over 60 with some health probs", but "Over 75 with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel".

* the 1/2% is based on South Korea, with the biggest testing program, but it it suffers from selection bias- people still need to suspect an infection before going to the drive-through test. What with immunity either genetic or acquired, or sub-clinical cases, many don't bother getting tested. Don't I here something like "60% might get it", so 60% of the reported .6% in South Korea, is only .036% death rate of the whole population. These maths are from the Johns Hopkins blog up-thread.

So, I'm 67yo, heart disease, T2 diabetes, water pressure on my brain, the worst thing is probably the side effects of the meds I take. And my personal view point? Tempest in a test tube.
 
Thanks.

casebro said:
hmm, about 1/2% fatalities*, mostly in the very old (Italy and Denmark avg 80 years old) . Is that about the percentage of people on hospice? Looks to me that "High Risk" is not "over 60 with some health probs", but "Over 75 with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel".

* the 1/2% is based on South Korea, with the biggest testing program, but it it suffers from selection bias- people still need to suspect an infection before going to the drive-through test. What with immunity either genetic or acquired, or sub-clinical cases, many don't bother getting tested. Don't I here something like "60% might get it", so 60% of the reported .6% in South Korea, is only .036% death rate of the whole population. These maths are from the Johns Hopkins blog up-thread.
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For my OOM estimate, I used 40-80%. This encompassed all the credible posts in this thread at the time. The big, immediate, caveat is no significant containment, for ~a year; longer term no widespread deployment of a highly effective vaccine for at least 18 months.

May I ask, what do you consider to be realistic lower and upper bounds?

For the US or UK, not Singapore or S Korea. Or Italy or Iran.

So, I'm 67yo, heart disease, T2 diabetes, water pressure on my brain, the worst thing is probably the side effects of the meds I take. And my personal view point? Tempest in a test tube.
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No one who is near and dear to you who is older and/or sicker than you (especially chronic lung conditions, or compromised immune systems)?
 
The Atheist said:
NZ continues to lead the world in rules for dealing with Covid-19.

Leading by showing what not to do, that is.

Gatherings of over 500 people are banned.

But all schools, some of which have 2500 pupils, stay open...
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If only the kids who get it would develop white eye irises as a side effect of the infection, we'd all be a lot better off.
 
pipelineaudio said:
Darat said:
Read report about how other countries are dealing with this, this is from South Korea

.....

. “There are signs everywhere reminding us to wear masks, wash our hands and use sanitisers,” she said. “There are even some places, like pharmacies, where you cannot enter without wearing a mask. Buying them is also limited to two per person to ensure there’s enough for everyone.” ...

UK, USA, Australia, most EU countries could have been doing all that now. Instead we sit on our hands waiting for... does anyone know what we are waiting for before we take any actual action?
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No we can't, we gave all our manufacturing to China so we have had no hand sanitizer for 7 weeks now, and certainly no masks for the last 3-4 weeks. You can wash your hands at home, but very few restrooms anywhere else
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In Western countries, governments could make it mandatory to wear a face mask in public spaces, as is done in some regions of China (pictures from China show frequently people wearing masks, in factories, in schools and so on, even politicians). The best face masks for ordinary citizens (not health professionals) are perhaps those that are washable and reusable.

This of course requires that enough face masks are available for sale. Perhaps we could import from China not just millions of face masks, but also equipment to manufacture them, and ask for some advice on the technology (if needed).

It seems logical to try to imitate and learn from countries which have had some success in dealing with this epidemic (China, perhaps South Korea ...). This is just common sense.
 
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Michel H said:
In Western countries, governments could make it mandatory to wear a face mask in public spaces, as is done in some regions of China (pictures from China show frequently people wearing masks, in factories, in schools and so on, even politicians). Good face masks for ordinary citizens (not health professionals) are perhaps cotton-made, washable ones.

This of course requires that enough face masks are available for sale. Perhaps we could import from China not just millions of face masks, but also equipment to manufacture them, and ask for some advice on the technology (if needed).

It seems logical to try to imitate and learn from countries which have had some success in dealing with this epidemic (China, perhaps South Korea ...). This is just common sense.
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Add: Macau, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore. More?

It’s not as if we’re flying blind, with nothing to guide us or learn from ...
 
angrysoba said:
My money is on South Korea.
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A lot of good info out of South Korea. Also Japan which has the oldest population. They got a lot of info from the Diamond Princess.

Given the rapid increase in death rates in Italy compared to others I suspect there may be a dose sensitivity. It may decrease time from exposure to symptoms as well as exacerbate fatalities. If so then it may also be that reasonable social distancing reduces fatalities and increases infection to symptom times. Haven't run across any hard data on coronavirus but there is published evidence that flu works that way.
 
dann said:
Last night on Danish TV, a doctor recommended going outside - also when meeting people. If you don't stand or sit too close to anybody, it's much less likely to transfer any infections. And viruses don't like the sun.
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Exactly. Walking around outside. Even hiking. Driving in one's own car or motorcycle. Etc. Often one would not come within 20 feet of another person, let alone 6 feet. And transmission would be much harder than in a confined space. The risk of passing on or catching the virus under these conditions must be virtually zero.

But I can see government authorities "for simplicity" simply banning people from all public spaces unless they had documented reasons to be there. And to tell the truth many people appear stupid enough that a total ban might be the best way to do it. Based on what I've seen some people do already, a "Feel free to walk around outside if you stay 6 feet from other people" edict could easily encourage some folks into kissing water fountains in the park.
 
Giordano said:
There is a plausible argument that Chamberlain’s “appeasement” bought the U.K. enough time to defend themselves when Poland was invaded and war was actually declared, whereas going to war earlier with an ill prepared U.K. would have been a disaster.

In many ways flattening the curve is a similar concept.
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Except that a year earlier Germany was in no position to fight France and Britain.
We had an entire thread on this very subject recently.
 
Problem is people are right out stupid. Here they closed the restaurants. Except when they sell over the counter. So many restaurants made a counter in their main door, and are selling like that. Mainly food. Fine.
But also beer. So people buy beer, and stand in groups in front of the restaurant, socializing as usual. Without masks, because you can't drink beer with masks, right ?
Same thing with shots. Group of 8 seniors outside the shop, chatting happily how terrible the situation is, and which herb tea they should buy. Masks ? Don't wanna look like idiot, much less ruin my make-up, right ?
You ban one place where people group, they will group somewhere else.
Parks, jogging and nature is still OK here, and they should be.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
A bit more on the administration's attempt to get exclusive access to a vaccine developed by a German company:

The company is called Curevac, and they specialize in mRNA therapies.
Specifically, they claim to have a system with which to deliver even small amounts of mRNA into cells to trigger an effective immuno-response with little side effects.

Because of this, potentially, a vaccine could created quickly, tested on a large scale and production could be scaled quickly.
It is understandable that people would offer the moon to get exclusive rights for something like this.
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And all this sounds way to optimistic and goes against what every expret I have seen interviewed says about how fast a vaccine could be developed.
So I am calling Curevac's claims very questinable.
 
dudalb said:
And all this sounds way to optimistic and goes against what every expret I have seen interviewed says about how fast a vaccine could be developed.
So I am calling Curevac's claims very questinable.
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There is a huge difference between the way vaccines are usually made and this method.
So in theory this could work.
But I agree that skepticism is warranted.
 
casebro said:
hmm, about 1/2% fatalities*, mostly in the very old (Italy and Denmark avg 80 years old) . Is that about the percentage of people on hospice? Looks to me that "High Risk" is not "over 60 with some health probs", but "Over 75 with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel".

* the 1/2% is based on South Korea, with the biggest testing program, but it it suffers from selection bias- people still need to suspect an infection before going to the drive-through test. What with immunity either genetic or acquired, or sub-clinical cases, many don't bother getting tested. Don't I here something like "60% might get it", so 60% of the reported .6% in South Korea, is only .036% death rate of the whole population. These maths are from the Johns Hopkins blog up-thread.

So, I'm 67yo, heart disease, T2 diabetes, water pressure on my brain, the worst thing is probably the side effects of the meds I take. And my personal view point? Tempest in a test tube.
Click to expand...

South Korea is below 1%. IMO they will have the most accurate numbers on mortality because they have the most comprehensive testing, but there were likely sill a lot of people who had it and were never tested. My WAG is that when all is said and done the final mortality rate will be in the 0.5% range.
 
IN the UK, Boris had his big news confeence and did nothng.
The UK is totally scewed worse then the US is.
 
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