2019-nCoV / Corona virus Pt 2

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Ryokan said:
A personal note.

I've been laid off because of a lack of customers during lockdown. Luckily, the Norwegian government has quickly passed very good compensations. And it was needed, as tens of thousands of people are being laid off.

I was originally quarantined last week, because I came in contact with someone that tested positive for corona through work. However, I was let out of quarantine because the person wasn't showing symptoms, and therefore, most likely, wasn't very infectious.
But even so, I have tried to isolate myself as well as possible. I've only gone to the supermarket once, to get some non-essentials. I saw where this possibly lead a week before lockdown, and I built up a small store of non-perishable foodstuffs and simple medicines.

I'm more worried about my mother. My mother is blind, a bowel cancer survivor and a stroke survivor. She never really recovered from her stroke, so she's in a nursing home. That nursing home has been in a complete lockdown for a week now, so I can't visit her.

They called from the nursing home today, and said there's a confirmed case of corona in one of the other patients. They're taking measures, of course, but I'm still worried. My mother doesn't have very good odds at surviving this disease.
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not to alarm you unduly, but virus shedding occurs early without symptoms. People in early stages, asymptomatic, may be very infectious.

also, incubation period 2-14 days, usually, with outliers. You won't know for certain for some time whether you got infected.

And, my sense is that if they've confirmed it in a patient in close quarters with others, then all those others are going to get it too.
 
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calebprime said:
not to alarm you unduly, but virus shedding occurs early without symptoms. People in early stages, asymptomatic, may be very infectious.

also, incubation period 2-14 days, usually, with outliers. You won't know for certain for some time whether you got infected.

And, my sense is that if they've confirmed it in a patient in close quarters with others, then all those others are going to get it too.
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I'm well aware, which is why I have self isolated. It wasn't my decision to let me out of quarantine, it was the local hospital.
 
My understanding is that "flatten the curve" social distancing will be needed until perhaps June at the earliest.

I get the impression that, for the moment, many people think this is only going to last a few weeks.

That brings on a lot of concerns if society in general can stay disciplined for that long. It cuts both ways. If not, more deaths, if so, more economic impacts.
 
Ryokan said:
I'm well aware, which is why I have self isolated. It wasn't my decision to let me out of quarantine, it was the local hospital.
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How widely available is testing in Norway? A big problem in the U.S. is that the tests are hard to get.
 
Ryokan said:
There was no general thread on Covid-19, and I feel one is needed. He we can follow the pandemic as it continues to develop.
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That is already happening in the virus thread in the Medicine Forum. I'm going to request a merge as forum housekeeping.
 
casebro said:
Particles is particles. The filer don't know the difference,

Do the filters we see floor people wear filer out viruses?You know, the ones that tie to the face? How? It must be a cheap improvement over the nuisance dust mask, they are disposable.
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Particles is particles?! Blue Mountain has the patience of a saint, for addressing this spectacularly ignorant comment with a particle of seriousness.
 
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Bob001 said:
How widely available is testing in Norway? A big problem in the U.S. is that the tests are hard to get.
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It was good in the beginning, but it has since broken down. Only health care workers and people who are so sick that they require hospital are being tested.

sackett said:
Ryokan, I'm very sorry.
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calebprime said:
Yeah, what sackett said and what I should have said also.
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Thanks. Take care of yourselves, too. This will affect us all before it's over.
 
Suddenly said:
There are non-medical social issues at play here as well and should be a thread for that.
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We already have threads discussing the social issues. It is inherent in the thread in Medicine. Nearly everything about this issue is already being discussed in existing threads.
 
GraculusTheGreenBird said:
True about the home infection, but the droplets from breathing or sneezing can spread quite far, and the masks definitely help there when not in the home.

That is why we in Hong Kong have been wearing them since the outbreak, and have 280 cases compared to 4000 in the UK, despite having had initial HK cases since the beginning.

One Chinese study on a bus case showed an initial infected person actually infected other people sitting over 4 metres away from her, much longer distance than was previously thought.
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Of course, buses have forced circulation of the air. Even outside it's impossible to set fixed safe distance. Somebody coughs, and you walk through the same spot several seconds later. You may be 10m from the person. But not from his droplets.

And that is why everybody should wear mask outside, all the time. And not be outside in the first place.
 
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As has been discussed upthread the size of the coronavirus itself is not as important as the size of the droplets in which it is transmitted. Droplet size in a sneeze is actually complicated. Did you know some people sneeze two very different size classes of droplets?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3785820/

Nonetheless the same publication reveals that even the smaller droplet sneezes average 75 um, which is much, much larger than the virus itself (150 nm, or 0.15 um) and much, much larger than the filter in virtually any of the masks described.

Therefore many masks would screen out the droplets. They would even help with the smaller aerosols that some studies suggest may also transmit Covid-19 (though that hasn’t been proven).

But the real limitation of masks is if they are fitted, worn, and removed properly. And in fact mo st people should not be getting close enough to anyone else to benefit from a mask, whereas health workers who do need them are running short.
 
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