Coronavirus COVID-19 - Global Health Emergency #4

[dixiegirl1035]

Is this something that happens with viruses? That they weaken as they are transmitted?

My opinion is that the fatality rate appears smaller in areas outside China due to the fact that the hospitals aren’t overwhelmed and the medical staff know what they set treating vs just treating flu/pneumonia symptoms

WHO said that also.. that many infections are due to medical staff not being trained, they are tired and overwhelmed and MANY hospital acquired infections have been documented, and that was an issue. (see transcript above from yesterday)

Some don't like human hosts and yes, they do die out. And some are halted by efforts by the medical community efforts in containment MOO. Two coronaviruses to compare to are SARS and MERS with outbreaks.

'SARS affected 26 countries and resulted in more than 8000 cases in 2003. Since then, a small number of cases have occurred as a result of laboratory accidents or, possibly, through animal-to-human transmission (Guangdong, China). ..Transmission of SARS-CoV is primarily from person to person. It appears to have occurred mainly during the second week of illness, which corresponds to the peak of virus excretion in respiratory secretions and stool, and when cases with severe disease start to deteriorate clinically. Most cases of human-to-human transmission occurred in the health care setting, in the absence of adequate infection control precautions. Implementation of appropriate infection control practices brought the global outbreak to an end."

WHO | SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome)

What is VERY significant difference MOO is we know many with COVID-19 are contagious prior to symptoms, yet SARS...

"To date, no cases of SARS have been reported among persons who were exposed to a SARS patient before the onset of the patient’s symptoms."

SARS | Frequently Asked Questions | CDC


858 MERS-CoV associated deaths have occurred since September 2012. Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) is a viral respiratory disease caused by a novel coronavirus (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, or MERS‐CoV) that was first identified in Saudi Arabia in 2012. Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that can cause diseases ranging from the common cold to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).Typical MERS symptoms include fever, cough and shortness of breath. Pneumonia is common, but not always present. Gastrointestinal symptoms, including diarrhoea, have also been reported. Some laboratory-confirmed cases of MERS-CoV infection are reported as asymptomatic, meaning that they do not have any clinical symptoms, yet they are positive for MERS-CoV infection following a laboratory test. Most of these asymptomatic cases have been detected following aggressive contact tracing of a laboratory-confirmed case. Approximately 35% of reported patients with MERS-CoV infection have died. Although most of human cases of MERS-CoV infections have been attributed to human-to-human infections in health care settings, current scientific evidence suggests that dromedary camels are a major reservoir host for MERS-CoV and an animal source of MERS infection in humans. However, the exact role of dromedaries in transmission of the virus and the exact route(s) of transmission are unknown.The virus does not seem to pass easily from person to person unless there is close contact, such as occurs when providing unprotected care to a patient.

Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV)

 

[beatrixpotter]

Not everyone can work from home. Restaurant employees, grocery stores, gas stations etc. Etc. Right about now people are out of money. No money equals no food. That's a huge story that I wish the news media would get on the ball and cover.

Everything I've read indicated food was being provided. The places in Wuhan where people were banned from leaving their homes they were arranging food to be sent to communities and how people would come outside to get it.

I'm worried about this playing out in the US. I read a UK article saying people would still be paid if they had to stay home in quarantine. That would not happen here for many or most people. People have no rights to benefits through jobs let alone the right to be paid if they can't come in. Here even people working for the state with paid leave get jerked around a lot.

We would have a ton of people here living paycheck to paycheck who would risk coming out as long as they could. If they don't work they can't get paid. They can't eat. They can't keep the power on or the water running.

We're pretty lucky in that regard in that my dh works from home.

 

[mickey2942]

I was browsing Amazon today, put in an "N" in the search bar, to look for "Nordicware", what came up was "N95 Mask". Looks like Amazon is selling quite a few masks, when an "N" brings that item up instantly.

 

[jjenny]

I was browsing Amazon today, put in an "N" in the search bar, to look for "Nordicware", what came up was "N95 Mask". Looks like Amazon is selling quite a few masks, when an "N" brings that item up instantly.

Do they even have the masks available? When I looked them up they all seemed to have been sold out.

 

[beatrixpotter]

We keep hearing about “asymptotic cases” that just happen to be diagnosed by testing that’s allegedly *not* been done because of symptoms.

I’ve also read that symptoms are mild for approximately 7 days before respiratory distress happens.

What I’m wondering is
-at what point is the viral load *detectible*

-at what point does the viral load begin to show symptoms in the patient.

-when the viral load is still detectible in a clinically recovered patient, is it transmissible?

In other words, how many patients that are asymptotic become symptomatic later?

I think the real key here is that the medical establishment will be unable to keep up with severe cases. Both in terms of medication and bed space.

I have 5 kids in a very rural area with limited healthcare options. I’m real time panicking here. I feel there’s been a lot of misinformation and a lot of unjustified “downplaying” and many governments that aren’t acting as decisively as they should be.

Yes. I'm not worried so much about contracting it as I'm worried that if everyone around us gets sick we won't really have adequate healthcare to treat it. I live right down the street from a hospital. (That doesn't take my insurance. )

Our local hospitals are already constantly overwhelmed with patients this time of year. What plans are there for addressing a new and novel virus on top of the already ill? I have no confidence in how this will be handled. And as you can see from reading the reports coming out in the MSM from people in China this is the same problem.

 

[mickey2942]

Do they even have the masks available? When I looked them up they all seemed to have been sold out.

There are tons available, and definitely some price gouging. Put in an "M", "Masks against germs" comes up immediately as well.

 

[beatrixpotter]

Man. It’s so illogical. That would be like deciding to burn down a room in your house where you have an unwanted tenant- No way to contain the fire and the damage would ruin your house even if you could.

I keep telling people this online. If the Chinese govt is going to create a virus to kill people why the heck would they start with their own people? Of course they did let millions of them starve not all that long ago.

 

[Amonet]

Effect of Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation on Viral Aerosols
Christopher M Walker 1, Gwangpyo Ko
PMID: 29959245 PMCID: PMC6102977 DOI: 10.1128/AEM.00944-18

"Our objectives were to characterize the effect of nebulization and air sampling on the survival of important viral pathogens, quantitatively characterize and estimate the UV susceptibility of pathogenic viral aerosols, and evaluate the effect of relative humidity (RH) on the susceptibility of viral aerosols, to 254 nm UV-C.
The susceptibility of coronavirus aerosols was 7-10 times that of the MS2 and adenovirus aerosols. Unlike bacterial aerosols, there was no significant protective effect of high RH on UV susceptibility of the tested viral aerosols. We confirmed that the UV disinfection rate differs greatly between viral aerosols and viruses suspended in liquid."
BBM

UVC LED Irradiation Effectively Inactivates Aerosolized Viruses, Bacteria, and Fungi in a Chamber-Type Air Disinfection System
Do-Kyun Kim Dong-Hyun Kang PMID: 29959245 PMCID: PMC610297 DOI: 10.1128/AEM.00944-18
UVC LED array treatment effectively inactivated viral infectivity, achieving 5-log reductions within 45 mJ/cm2 for MS2, Qβ, and ϕX174 viruses. (UBM)
The research reported here investigated the inactivation effect of aerosolized microorganisms, including viruses, bacteria, and fungi, with an UVC LED module.
____________
MOO

Fascinating subject the efficacy of UV disinfection on viruses...

UV-C disinfection has proven effective for various viruses, bacteria, and fungi. From what I understand, the known coronavirus strains (2007) were more susceptible to UV-C.
However, the current variant may respond differently.

There's research suggesting that the lifecycle stage/replication stage when the virus is exposed to UV-C impacts the efficacy. So, theoretically early infection versus later infection would make a difference in the filtering system?

Interesting thought about how relative humidity could influence disinfection? Anybody have thoughts about the spread with increased humidity? Pollution levels already filtered through other filters within systems?

Could a too rigorous UV-C disinfection inadvertently cause an overgrowth of of organisms (viral, bacterial, or fungal) less susceptible to UV-C? Could too rigorous disinfection of UV-C cause strains that are resistant to UV-C to have the opportunity to replicate faster?

Admittedly, these scenarios are unlikely. Decreasing the viral load is most likely beneficial.
Just random thoughts and questions for discussion...

Great post, thanks!

I would say that in general it's not being rigorous enough (like not taking the full course of antibiotics) that tends to give the opportunity for resistant strains to develop.

But the UVC should be like boiling water....it's a lot harder for organisms to develop the ability to become extremophiles than to develop the resistance to things like antibiotics.

Without reading the study, I would have thought that inside the body different virus cells are each at different stages of their lifecycle, so they're saying that the efficacy can be greater or lesser depending on the life stage of each in individual virus cell. And I would expect that to mean things like when they go into dormancy prior to replication, during the actual replication process, etc. I would have thought the 'fix' would be to apply the light for longer to catch as many virus units that enter the more vulnerable stage of the lifecycle? But they can't stay forever in the less vulnerable part of their life cycle...they have to replicate or they can't multiply and spread.

I would hypothesise that one of the few things the virus could do, as far as mutation resistance, would be to spend as little time in the more vulnerable stage as possible, but it can't avoid the stages completely.

JMO

 

[Amonet]

We keep hearing about “asymptotic cases” that just happen to be diagnosed by testing that’s allegedly *not* been done because of symptoms.

I’ve also read that symptoms are mild for approximately 7 days before respiratory distress happens.

What I’m wondering is
-at what point is the viral load *detectible*

-at what point does the viral load begin to show symptoms in the patient.

-when the viral load is still detectible in a clinically recovered patient, is it transmissible?

In other words, how many patients that are asymptotic become symptomatic later?

I think the real key here is that the medical establishment will be unable to keep up with severe cases. Both in terms of medication and bed space.

I have 5 kids in a very rural area with limited healthcare options. I’m real time panicking here. I feel there’s been a lot of misinformation and a lot of unjustified “downplaying” and many governments that aren’t acting as decisively as they should be.

I honestly believe that our governments are trying to take the more 'decisive' actions in the background instead of plastering everything they do in the front pages where it risks causing more panic than a feeling of "thank God they are doing stuff".

We can see already that the virus doesn't have to come direct from China. We're going to get cases now no matter what. So it's got to be about focusing on the suspected cases, getting the confirmed cases into quarantine and into hospital/ICU where needed. And alongside that, keeping an eye on whether some cases have been missed and have started some small outbreaks and make sure those outbreaks don't go undetected for too long.

Before the confirmation tests were designed and developed, and then production of them ramped up, health authorities couldn't do the testing of flu-like cases that didn't come back positive for flu. Now they're starting to ramp up that production, and the training of lab workers to run the tests properly, and they're focusing on first getting the tests out to the cities where there's greater risk of a case going unnoticed and causing a small local outbreak. If you catch one of those outbreaks, then you can work from those cases to do contact-checking, and again try and put that ring around the cases to try and limit the size of the outbreak and hopefully bring it under control.

 

[dixiegirl1035]

Munich Security Conference

I guess this is why no WHO meeting today as some were at the Munich Security Conference. This was WHO head speech, and too much to just do 10% to relay his words Munich Security Conference

(And oh my gosh.. what a cluster this security conference is, but I digress and will just give link to see as this is too political to discuss here at WS, and not posting for discussion but is on-topic for the environment he is giving the speech.. egads... Munich Security Conference - Day #1)

 

[beatrixpotter]

I'll have to read that Munich Security Conference later. I'm very curious about your thoughts on it. I'm surprised it's too political for this thread.

 

[Amonet]

I’m going on a plane and staying in a hotel over next several days. I’m taking: N95 mask, Clorox wipes, travel size Lysol spray, and pocket Purell bottle.

Planning on using wipes on plane surfaces and spraying hotel room surfaces. Plan to use Purell as much as I can. Was only planning on using mask in case of sudden new cases in area I’m headed.

I plan to decline help with luggage from taxi/Uber drivers, decline food or beverages on flight, and not eat in airports. I plan to stay as far away from others in airport as well (yeah, that will be a piece of cake ).

Any other advice? (Heaven help us that right now I trust WS more than the CDC for medical advice )

Try not to touch your eyes/mouth/nose/face. I'd avoid wearing makeup on the plane and wash your face now and then as well as your hands?

What about some throwaway plastic gloves, do you have some of those to put in your handbag/carry on?

 

[MJPeony]

Try not to touch your eyes/mouth/nose/face. I'd avoid wearing makeup on the plane and wash your face now and then as well as your hands?

What about some throwaway plastic gloves, do you have some of those to put in your handbag/carry on?

Yes, that might be a good idea- I was thinking about getting some of the gloves. Maybe I can find some clear ones so I don’t look too ridiculous.

 

[RobinCAL]

Sixth British national who also stayed at the chalet in Les Contamines-Montjoie is confirmed to have coronavirus covid-19 in France

 

[Amonet]

Is this something that happens with viruses? That they weaken as they are transmitted?

My opinion is that the fatality rate appears smaller in areas outside China due to the fact that the hospitals aren’t overwhelmed and the medical staff know what they set treating vs just treating flu/pneumonia symptoms

BBM. I would agree with that. Even in China there will have been tens of thousands of people who just had a slight fever and cough for a few days. In Hubei province (where Wuhan is) the health services seem so overwhelmed that I think the death rate will be a lot higher there than anywhere else.

But, I would caution that for the outside China figures, we really need to go back about ten days in confirmed case figures to compare to current mortality figures to get a better idea of the mortality rate. And that gives me pause when I do that and see how relatively few cases (compared to today) were confirmed a week or two weeks ago.... It's also worth cautioning that those who sadly don't make it, might be in hospital/ICU for longer than it takes those lighter cases to finish up their illness and pass two negative tests.

I don't want to cause panic in anyone, but I don't want to lie to anyone either. I think we still don't know enough about what the ultimate mortality rates might be. And those rates can change for other reasons....maybe one of the antiviral concoctions will turn out to be a massive help in reducing case seriousness and mortality, that is definitely something to hope for. I believe they're also going to start ramping up work on attempting to find serum from recovered patients in order to be able to introduce antibodies for the Covid-19 to confirmed patients and hopefully assist their immune system to fight the virus. So the initial mortality rate might not stay that high for the entirety of the outbreak...and there might end up being pockets of higher mortality in countries where they don't have such good healthcare and/or it gets out of control like in Hubei.

 

[Amonet]

“These aren’t satellite images and they don’t show evidence of mass cremations in Wuhan”

These aren’t satellite images and they don’t show evidence of mass cremations in Wuhan

Seriously? Another one like the 'bat soup video?

Where's the 'slap my head' emoticon?

 

[KALI]

I am so happy to not live in a communist or socialist country. These poor people!

Every single one of those 'numbers' being released has a story like this behind it. Real people, real families, real heartbreak

 

[KALI]

Personally I think it is impossible to deliver food to millions of people on lockdown.
Absolutely impossible. Plus, who is going to prepare and deliver it? They could drop rice from planes, but, then everyone would be running around outside to get it.
I fed 70 people Valentine's dinner last night. I shopped and ordered for 3 days, myself and a crew of 4 cooked for 3 days.
I know they wouldn't be delivering ready made meals, but, even to deliver veggies and rice to this many people would take an army.
I'm really worried about families not having access to food.

Everything I've read indicated food was being provided. The places in Wuhan where people were banned from leaving their homes they were arranging food to be sent to communities and how people would come outside to get it.

I'm worried about this playing out in the US. I read a UK article saying people would still be paid if they had to stay home in quarantine. That would not happen here for many or most people. People have no rights to benefits through jobs let alone the right to be paid if they can't come in. Here even people working for the state with paid leave get jerked around a lot.

We would have a ton of people here living paycheck to paycheck who would risk coming out as long as they could. If they don't work they can't get paid. They can't eat. They can't keep the power on or the water running.

We're pretty lucky in that regard in that my dh works from home.

 

[Simply Southern]

The US Government IMO isn't doing enough to educate the public on the virus. Most people are ignoring the fact that it's coming to the US in a big way. The president saying heat will kill it certainly hasn't helped. The CDC saying wash is not really informing the public about what to expect. Seems those concerned are at city and county levels, and even those do not have coordinated views. Could it be there is more interest in keeping financial organizations stable? This should be the #1 story splashed across the news. It kills. And, it kills all ages.

Totally agree!!!

Our local schools have out of town trios for stuff t-shirt for various state and national competitions, NOT ONE WORD of the virus or any precautions being taken!!!

The next trip is to the DC area, staying in hotels near/at the airport. We can't even find a N95 medicinal grade mask. This is the only approved mask for prevention of infection. I was able to find 2 dust masks at Wal-Mart and they been out of stock for the last 3 weeks. I spent 45years in the medical field. Every "medical"business ...home health, hospice, hospitals, Doctor office are ALL having a difficult time. Those that have mask, have them under lock and key. We have plenty of the flimsy mask which only protect others from your germs.

 

[Simply Southern]

Hi everyone,
I’ve been reading here since the end of January. Long time fan of this site.
We had a 7 day cruise planned on RCCL to the Caribbean on Feb 22 that we’ve cancelled due to the coronavirus. We did buy travel insurance but I don’t know if it will be covered. Many emails to the cruise line with no response back.
I’ve not been in great health lately. Had breast cancer then a slew of other health problems, and can’t take the risk of getting sick with this virus, especially if you become stuck in another country or aboard ship.
I’m amazed at how little news is being put out about this. I would imagine that they don’t want to start a panic, but this just seems so weird.
We have daughters who are nurses (one in the military) and while they are aware of it, I haven’t heard anything from them about local preparedness or otherwise.

Have a group of friends recently trytocancell a cruise and all had trip insurance. The first couple was denied, can't get a refund for "potential or exposure to illness", per trip insurance, they are loosing all their money. The other 3 couples went to their physicians who provided medical reasons related to their current medical problems. One has high blood pressure, Dr wrote and letter and sent results of elevated blood pressure and stated she was at risk for stroke. The second couples husband scheduled a minor surgery "growth" (which he plans to cancel) and the Dr. states it could not be delayed. Third couple, the wife has panic attacks and on the verse of a mental breakdown. She's been to the ER twice, to show proof. If she doesn't get her money back, she WILL have a "breakdown" in the form of a hissy fit.

Good luck on refunds for this viral outbreak and getting refunds, unless you have a medical condition.

These folks have gone to the same doctors for years, can't say for sure the docs know what's up or not ....