Cont: 2019-nCoV / Corona virus Pt 3

[Solitaire]

The IFR (infected fatality rate) of a disease is the proportion of people with a disease who die because of it.

16,267 deaths and 25,119 recovered in the United States works out to 39.3% IFR.

Uhm. Surely not.

 

[novaphile]

I'm still concerned about the food thing. What do you guys think is a safe way to disinfect plastic gatorade bottles? I was washing them by hand with dishsoap, but I figure I'm probably missing a lot of micro-spots. Would soaking them in soapy water be effective?

Ultra violet light.

Stand them outside in the sun for a day.

You can also sterilise things with hand held UV lights, or hand-held halogen lights that have no glass diffuser.

Be a little bit careful if you start using UV in this way, wear UV proof glasses to protect your eyes, and avoid putting the light on your own skin.

(I've had bad sunburns from UV emitted by halogen lamps before)

 

[EHocking]

I'm still concerned about the food thing. What do you guys think is a safe way to disinfect plastic gatorade bottles? I was washing them by hand with dishsoap, but I figure I'm probably missing a lot of micro-spots. Would soaking them in soapy water be effective?

You could try a dilute bleach solution and soak for a while then rinse? Obviously wash your hands before you rehandle the bottles.
I admit that with my food shopping, when I get it back home I discard outer packaging if possible and rebag if necessary, e.g., packaged meat will get unwrapped and rebadged. Bottles and plastic wrapped I wipe down with disinfectant wipes and then wash/rinse and leave to dry.
Wash my hands before unpacking and again when rebagging/wrapping.

The CDC and other authorities seem to indicate that transmission via food packaging is minuscule. While the virus can survive for 24 hours on porous material e.g., cardboard, or 72hrs on non porous e.g., your Gatorade bottles, the concentrationof virii declines fairly rapidly outside of a host, so CDC etc are suggesting infection from these sources is likely to be very unlikely.

Washing your own hands is more important.

 

[WhatRoughBeast]

16,267 deaths and 25,119 recovered in the United States works out to 39.3% IFR.

Uhm. Surely not.

Indeed not. You need to wait until all of the infected have either died or recovered.

Those who have recovered represent the earliest cases, and they don't represent those with no symptoms, either. At present, the standards call for being fever-free for 3 days, reduction in other symptoms such as shortness of breath, and testing negative twice with 24 hours or more between tests.

With a rapidly-increasing case rate, you get many deaths after relatively short periods, but it takes much longer for recovery to be declared. So you get a much higher IFR than is true in the long run.

The best country to look at is China, which (assuming you believe their numbers, and that's an entirely different question) has had an extremely low case rate for a month or more. At this time, according to Worldometer, total cases is about 82,000, and 3300 deaths. That's an IFR of about 4 %. This represents an upper bound, since the number of total infections must be higher when asymptomatic cases are counted.

We'll be able to get a better handle on things when the test situation ramps up to the point that a significant fraction of the population can be tested regardless of symptoms (or lack thereof).

 

[TellyKNeasuss]

The CDC and other authorities seem to indicate that transmission via food packaging is minuscule. While the virus can survive for 24 hours on porous material e.g., cardboard, or 72hrs on non porous e.g., your Gatorade bottles, the concentrationof virii declines fairly rapidly outside of a host, so CDC etc are suggesting infection from these sources is likely to be very unlikely.

I still quarantine everything that I bring in from outside my apartment overnight and plastic bottles get quarantined for at least 2 days.

 

[Matthew Best]

16,267 deaths and 25,119 recovered in the United States works out to 39.3% IFR.

Uhm. Surely not.

You seem to have excluded all the people who have the disease, but haven't died or recovered.

 

[PhantomWolf]

I have a coworker who doesn't stop at crosswalks. It's hard for me to understand the mindset, but clearly there's a type.

It's all very dependent. Would you stop and put on a T-Shirt with "Bullet Proof Vest" printed on it before getting into a gun fight? Because that's about the effectiveness of most masks at stopping SARS-CoV-2.

IIF you have a properly professionally fitted filter mask and, if you are a guy, are totally clean shaven with zero stubble, then you're good, anyone else... all their masks are doing is stopping them from infecting others if they have the virus themselves. Also unless you are taking the right precautions with your mask (changing/washing it after every use, not touching it with unwashed/sanitized hands) then you can actually be increasing your chances of getting infected.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Yesterday, here in NZ, our number of active cases dropped for the first time since we had out first case. Down 6 with just 29 new confirmed and suspected cases, and with 35 recoveries. Death toll still stands at 1.

The major issue I see coming from all this is claims that the precautions weren't really needed because it wasn't as bad as it was claimed it could be, all while ignoring the huge effort that has gone in to keep the virus from spreading and doing its worst.

 

[PhantomWolf]

I still quarantine everything that I bring in from outside my apartment overnight and plastic bottles get quarantined for at least 2 days.

Just wash them with soapy water for 20 seconds. NOTE! Do not wash your fruit and veggies with soapy water, just use running water for 30-45 seconds and that will remove 99.5% of any virus and bacteria from their surfaces.

 

[Ulf Nereng]

Indeed not. You need to wait until all of the infected have either died or recovered.

Those who have recovered represent the earliest cases, and they don't represent those with no symptoms, either. At present, the standards call for being fever-free for 3 days, reduction in other symptoms such as shortness of breath, and testing negative twice with 24 hours or more between tests.

With a rapidly-increasing case rate, you get many deaths after relatively short periods, but it takes much longer for recovery to be declared. So you get a much higher IFR than is true in the long run.

The best country to look at is China, which (assuming you believe their numbers, and that's an entirely different question) has had an extremely low case rate for a month or more. At this time, according to Worldometer, total cases is about 82,000, and 3300 deaths. That's an IFR of about 4 %. This represents an upper bound, since the number of total infections must be higher when asymptomatic cases are counted.

We'll be able to get a better handle on things when the test situation ramps up to the point that a significant fraction of the population can be tested regardless of symptoms (or lack thereof).

A small isolated community like Faroe Islands may be able to answer that soon. They have already tested 10% of their population and appear to be in full control of the disease now. So they could soon give us pretty accurate numbers.

 

[PhantomWolf]

I'm still concerned about the food thing. What do you guys think is a safe way to disinfect plastic gatorade bottles? I was washing them by hand with dishsoap, but I figure I'm probably missing a lot of micro-spots. Would soaking them in soapy water be effective?

The "Crown" around the virus (which is why we call it a Corona Virus) is made from lipids. Soap will attach to these and destroy the virus. Washing your plastics in soapy water for 20-30 seconds is all you need to do.

Don't wash your fruit and veggies in soapy water though as they are porous and the soap can get into them and make you ill. A 30-45 second wash under running water will work for them, removing up to 99.5% of any bacteria and virus on their surface.

I wouldn't worry about "microspots" as even if the soap missed a spot, any micro spot would not have enough viral load to infect you anyways.

 

[JesseCuster]

16,267 deaths and 25,119 recovered in the United States works out to 39.3% IFR.

Uhm. Surely not.

The IFR is the total amount deaths from a disease divided by the total amount infected.

What you've compared is those who have died so far with do who have recovered so far. Right now, that doesn't tell you anything because we don't know the total amount infected. The amount of people recovered is most definitely not the same as or close to the total a mount of people who have been infected. There's still people who have tested positive with COVID-19 who haven't recovered yet (or died) and more importantly, there's a lot more people out there with the virus who haven't being tested at all and thus we don't have the necessary denominator in the equation in order to give an actual figure.

The IFR won't be known until the total deaths is known and the total amount of people infected is known. Until then we're see the case fatality rate being reported for various countries, which is higher the final fatality rate that we'll know in future.

And it will be much higher than 0.01% or 0.004% or any of those figures being mentioned in this thread.

 

[JesseCuster]

You seem to have excluded all the people who have the disease, but haven't died or recovered.

Or haven't even been tested yet so can't be included in the calculations at all because we don't have meaningful
numbers for that yet.

 

[Ulf Nereng]

I still quarantine everything that I bring in from outside my apartment overnight and plastic bottles get quarantined for at least 2 days.

We paranoid shall inherit the world!

I went to the apothecary yesterday to get my prescription medicine. Afterwards I thought I might as well buy some whisky since it's nearby. Twenty people were waiting in line! I backed away slowly...

 

[TellyKNeasuss]

Here's another article on the study of cases in Heinsberg, Germany. It has a little more information, but also has some errors, such as confusing the percentage of the entire population who died with the CFR. The principle investigator was quoted as believing that the spread of covid-19 comes almost exclusively from people being in close proximity to an infected person for a "longer period of time" (but no hint as to what constitutes "longer period of time") and that there is an extremely low possibility of being infected by touching a surface that an infected person has touched (therefore, he thinks that shopping would be a low risk activity). It would be nice to see exactly what the study found rather than some reporter's interpretation.

https://www.businessinsider.com/dea...ory-city-5x-less-than-national-average-2020-4

 

[abaddon]

Crowds throng streets as lockdown in Wuhan ends:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...uhans-coronavirus-lockdown-ends-after-76-days

Curious why they're taking this approach while we're being told we may have to extend lockdowns for months.

Do you understand the concept of "time"? Has that concept evaded you?

 

[Belz...]

It's all very dependent. Would you stop and put on a T-Shirt with "Bullet Proof Vest" printed on it before getting into a gun fight? Because that's about the effectiveness of most masks at stopping SARS-CoV-2.

They must be better than nothing at all, if only because they'll stop most droplets from coming in or out.

The only way they're not is if they are identical to no mask at all, and that makes no sense.

 

[Childlike Empress]

Here's another article on the study of cases in Heinsberg, Germany. It has a little more information, but also has some errors, such as confusing the percentage of the entire population who died with the CFR. The principle investigator was quoted as believing that the spread of covid-19 comes almost exclusively from people being in close proximity to an infected person for a "longer period of time" (but no hint as to what constitutes "longer period of time") and that there is an extremely low possibility of being infected by touching a surface that an infected person has touched (therefore, he thinks that shopping would be a low risk activity). It would be nice to see exactly what the study found rather than some reporter's interpretation.

https://www.businessinsider.com/dea...ory-city-5x-less-than-national-average-2020-4

So far there's only the two pages summary that was linked before. I saw him in a video explaining some things though, and one thing they did is go to homes with several infected people living in and took samples from every significant surface they could think of - didn't find a single living (is that the right word) virus. Here, if you understand German (from around a week ago):

 

[Doghouse Reilly]

Do you understand the concept of "time"? Has that concept evaded you?

Needlessly snarky, sarcastic, and rude. The outbreak still exists and people are traveling into and out of Wuhan. I don't see how the amount of time that's passed so far would make it wise, if lockdowns are indeed wise, to fully open everything up already.

 

[marting]

They must be better than nothing at all, if only because they'll stop most droplets from coming in or out.

The only way they're not is if they are identical to no mask at all, and that makes no sense.

I posted this Nature letter that indicates coronavirus are strongly attenuated by masks. Also, significant emissions of both droplets and aerosols occurred and were attenuated by masks.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13046099#post13046099

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0843-2

Nature article (Apr. 3, 2020) on the presence of various virus types distinguishing between droplets ( > 5um) and aerosols ( < 5um) in breathing collected over 30 minutes. Also examined was a set where surgical masks were worn.

Interesting results.