Cont: 2019-nCoV / Corona virus Pt 3

[Ulf Nereng]

I wouldn't have thought that "Data protection rules" are about protecting data from being put in a national statistic, but I guess data have feelings, too.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

UK figures for deaths is lower than it should be because the Govt are saying they can't release information about deaths without permission from next of kin because of 'Data protection rules'

Do we believe them?

Source for this claim? Searched online and can't find anything.

 

[catsmate]

I wonder if they can actually keep the plague out. I'm going with: No. It will come on on fomites.

Isolation works, right back to Eyam.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Isolation works, right back to Eyam.

That was the other way round though.

 

[Pixel42]

After over 50 years Ralph McTell has finally written another verse to Streets of London.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-52046893

 

[catsmate]

No alcy in Lysol. It's not lye, but it's close.

No. Lysol contains cresols (where not banned), chlorophenol (where not banned) or benzalkonium chloride. Some professional products contain potassium hydroxide or hydrogen peroxide.

 

[catsmate]

That was the other way round though.

True. Plenty of examples from 1918-19 of towns isolating themselves to stay safe.

 

[wea]

http://www.rai.it/dl/RaiTV/programmi/media/ContentItem-5e3275ba-475c-4cf4-b402-1e27dc47565b.html

In this 2015 Italian tv program they spoke of a synthetic virus that the Chinese were experimenting with, a type of coronavirus, that attacked the lungs and... Something about bats... Perhaps Giordano can translate for us...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26552008

"A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence.", Nat Med. 2015 Dec, Menachery ...Baric


The published genome is different from the Sars-CoV-2

 

[Andy_Ross]

Source for this claim? Searched online and can't find anything.

BBC Newsnight did a whole piece on it last night.

 

[angrysoba]

After over 50 years Ralph McTell has finally written another verse to Streets of London.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-52046893

There's a good reason for that...

 

[Ethan Thane Athen]

UK figures for deaths is lower than it should be because the Govt are saying they can't release information about deaths without permission from next of kin because of 'Data protection rules'

Do we believe them?

Data Protection only applies to information that could be personally identifiable ie attributed to a specific individual. It would not apply to quoting numbers of deaths surely?

 

[casebro]

I had previously posted about excess attributable mortality, and that not all patients dying from covid will be excess mortality because they will be 'expected' deaths.



Prof Fergusson newly recovered from covid himself has estimated expected mortality at about 2/3. So the excess mortality directly attributable to covid will be 1/3 of total deaths.

End of year stats will tell, just look at the totals. But they won't be available for a couple/three years.

But that is exactly hie Italy is expressing their numbers "People who died after testing positive"

 

[angrysoba]

And does Japan already know something but just not saying it?

https://www.theguardian.com/global-...s-to-stay-home-to-avoid-coronavirus-explosion

It also yet again raises the question of if it's rampant, why aren't they weeing the deaths & severe cases at levels in Italy & Spain?

My interpretation of the article is that they're trying to avoid it becoming as rampant as it is in Italy and Spain (and increasingly the UK and US) - because there are fears of a second wave of infection.

Yes, I think they are probably thinking of getting further ahead of the virus than a lot of countries in Europe. I think they have a bit more freedom to do it now without the distraction of wishful thinking over the Olympics (apparently tens of thousands of people went to watch the torch relay even though officials had politely asked that spectators stay away), and K1 matches were going ahead in crowded stadiums as well.

Anyway, they explained that numbers in Tokyo were going up at an alarming rate. Yesterday there were supposed to have been 41 new cases in Tokyo, and today another 47. Before that it had been rising in the tens.

Maybe more concerning, and maybe the most important factor in the decision, is that whereas in the past, it had been easier to identify the clusters and where the new infections were coming from, it seems now that the clusters have become invisible. It's no longer clear how new infections are starting.


Anyway, as news has broken, it was met by some supermarket clearouts. Familiar images of empty shelves...

I'm in Tokyo, and I can confirm this.

I commute every day by train for an hour and a half each way. Life in Tokyo goes on pretty much as normal. More people are wearing masks than usual (myself included), but that's about the only noticeable difference. Any different in Osaka? The cherry blossoms are blooming now.

I have not been commuting almost at all recently, and stay at home for most of the day every day. The exception is to go out to the park with my son.

The cherry blossoms are not really out yet, according to the sakura front, full bloom is supposed to be from March 29th to April 6th. Tokyo's usually ahead of Osaka.

https://www.japan-guide.com/sakura/

I did take the subway for the first time in about a month today so I could attend a meeting at my university. The subways are not as heaving as they usually are, but there are still quite a few people going, almost everyone with a mask on and quite a few with bottles of alcohol. I was surprised that the gym at my uni is still open and they haven't even made any restrictions. I am suppressing the urge to go back into the university a couple of times a week to use it as my local municipal gym has closed down. I know I shouldn't though.

 

[angrysoba]

We'll know soon enough anyway, but don't forget to factor in the lives saved through less pollution, so you get a fair picture.

I doubt the 2/3, but I'll wait to see.

Will we know soon enough?

I would think that there will be a lot of people who end up with a bad case of pneumonia caused by the virus who limp on for another few months or half a year after "recovering" who end up dying of a heart attack or stroke. I think these are the kinds of deaths that are considered "excess deaths". It will probably be difficult to count them until quite a while after.

 

[Kings Full]

The scary thing is that that’s where rich New Yorkers go to retire isn’t it?

Are they going to stay with their elderly relatives?

I'm sure some are staying with relatives while others have their winter homes there.

 

[Pixel42]

There's a good reason for that...

Hadn't seen that before.

My favourite McTell song is Naomi, which I consider the best love song ever written. I won't embed it because I'm way off topic but you can find it here.

 

[Meridian]

Random Testing

Does anyone know of any country that's tested a random sample of the population? I can't seem to find any examples, though Iceland *may* be one. (It's not clear; they've certainly done some `anyone can be tested' testing, but I don't know whether they actually sampled randomly.)

This arises in the context of a draft paper from a group in Oxford (I'm not sure I want to link to it, as I think it is essentially misinformation) saying that perhaps (but they put it a bit stronger) 50% of the UK population was already infected by 19/3/2020. I think this is likely very far from the truth, and a dangerous claim to spread (it might cause people to think there is no longer any point in reducing contacts). I'm sure there are arguments against it (based on analysis form China, South Korea, Diamond Princess etc), but the very simplest and easiest to get across would be "We've just tested a random sample, and <x% currently have the disease."

If you suspect there may be a very high infection rate, even a small random sample is useful, as it can quickly rule this out. But I can't find an account of this having been done anywhere.

There's plenty of plans to do large scale antibody testing, but it seems this isn't quite ready and there are concerns about the false positive rate. But to rule out the `we are already at the peak of infections' hypothesis, one could do PCR testing *now*. So I don't really understand why this hasn't been done.

 

[Abooga]

Does anyone know of any country that's tested a random sample of the population? [...]

I Italy they tested everyone in a town of 3000: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/18/scientists-say-mass-tests-in-italian-town-have-halted-covid-19

 

[William Parcher]

New scientific paper...


Identifying SARS-CoV-2 related coronaviruses in Malayan pangolins

Although bats are likely reservoir hosts for SARS-CoV-2, the identity of any intermediate host that might have facilitated transfer to humans is unknown. Here, we report the identification of SARS-CoV-2-related coronaviruses in Malayan pangolins (Manis javanica) seized in anti-smuggling operations in southern China. Metagenomic sequencing identified pangolin-associated coronaviruses that belong to two sub-lineages of SARS-CoV-2-related coronaviruses, including one that exhibits strong similarity to SARS-CoV-2 in the receptor-binding domain. The discovery of multiple lineages of pangolin coronavirus and their similarity to SARS-CoV-2 suggests that pangolins should be considered as possible hosts in the emergence of novel coronaviruses and should be removed from wet markets to prevent zoonotic transmission...

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2169-0

 

[Meridian]

I Italy they tested everyone in a town of 3000: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/18/scientists-say-mass-tests-in-italian-town-have-halted-covid-19

Thanks! I'd seen that but forgotten it; it's certainly highly relevant. Unfortunately to be really useful one would also need to know how many people from Vò were hospitalized/died. Someone knows that, but is the information publicly available? I've not manged to find it. It's not the best name for searching!