Coronavirus COVID-19 - Global Health Pandemic #49

[MyBelle]

Jobs are about to change. Somehow protestors think that if everything reopened tomorrow, they would immediately get their jobs back. Need to wake up. In almost a flash things changed. Not gonna be the same. With no vaccine in sight for many months, who really wants to sit in a crowded stadium for a concert or a sporting event? Inside a restaurant? At Disney? At a mall? On an international tour? Any flight? Live in a school dorm? Go to school as normal?

So very true. These places can open up but there is no guarantee people will flock to attend. We sure don't intend to do so. Everyone has to use common sense which sometimes is in short supply.

JMO

 

[katydid23]

And how exactly are they planning on re-opening? Proper PPE is nearly impossible to buy. Lysol and chlorox have disappeared. Testing is still very limited. Asymptomatic people can spread it, so taking temperatures will get companies nowhere. How exactly can one be safer under these conditions?

My son has to go back into his office for work starting tomorrow. The email explained the precautions being taken.

They have a new small, dedicated parking area, right outside the main door. They can drive right up the the entrance ands not be around other workers in other buildings from now on. They will be given masks and gloves.

Half of the workers will work M/W/F the first week. And T/TH the next week, and so on.
The days they don't go to work, they will work from home.

Reportedly, there will be testing done on the employees, with the 15 minute tests. But I will be surprised if they actually have those tests yet. It might be the one day tests instead.

We will see how it goes...

 

[Tripod]

It's not that hard, you'll figure it out easily. You put different size guards on the blade to cut the length you want to cut. Just start with longest one, see how you like the length and then you can decrease the length of the guard from there if it's still too long. There has only been once in all these years that the guard slipped off due to my error-- I didn't snap it on correctly and we had to shave my DH's head to hide the bald spot on the side of his head. LOL. Fortunately my DH owns lots of hats and his hair grows fast.

I do believe I'm getting to the point where I will have my husband cut/shave my hair with our trimmers I've had super short hair before and truly enjoy it, but this could "take the cake!"

 

[cass523]

Antibodies, these are the proteins our body makes when we are exposed to an infection.

We make basically two kinds of antibodies in response, we know that people who have been infected with covid-19 can make these antibodies but, we don't know whether that equates to short term or long term protection, immune-wise, we don't know how long that may last and we don't know with all these tests that are flooding the market right now with roughly only four authorized by the FDA, we don't know how accurate they are, so if you get a false positive, because these tests pick up antibodies from other coronaviruses, like the common cold, that could give you a false sense of security and protection that could potentially endanger your health, because it might change your behavior.

There is so much we are still learning about this, in science, it is so important to say what we know and say what we don't know and this virus is teaching us every single day what we don't know.

We don't know how long immunity will last, it could be two weeks, months, some say a year. We also don't know of the people who are asymptomatic, or have shown no symptoms, or very mild symptoms, again, that is the iceberg under the surface of the water, those people have not brought themselves to medical attention, and therefore have been untested largely. We don't know if those people make the same types of antibodies, at the same levels, whether they get any immune protection at all so

This is all being studied in real time and data being collected literally day by day.
We don't know the accuracy of these tests whether they give false negatives or false positives, which is very common whenever you do a test in medicine or science.

And the other important thing about antibodies is, if I test you today, those results when I get them back, let's say in a week, are only valid for today, so I don't know that if it shows that you haven't been exposed that you don't go out right after giving your blood and get exposed the next day, I don't know whether we tested you in the lag period between where your body makes the different classes of antibodies.

Flood of new testing, finger pricks, one drop of blood, 10 minutes

We want to make the tests accessible and affordable as a home pregnancy test and test tens of millions of people. But you shouldn't do a test if you don't know what you are going to do with the results of that test and right now we don't have the answer to that question.

Then the conversation goes on to talk about opening up the country, the resurgence of the virus, the curve, nursing home residents, contact tracing

Third video down, if anyone wants to watch the end

Bill Ritter speaks on restarting the economy, FEMA's efforts with COVID-19

 

[Seattle1]

Less than half of L.A. County residents still have jobs amid coronavirus crisis

APRIL 17, 2020
7 AM UPDATED 10:48 AM

Because of the colossal impact that the coronavirus outbreak has had on the U.S. economy, less than half of Los Angeles County residents — 45% compared with 61% in mid-March — still hold a job, a decline of 16 percentage points, or an estimated 1.3 million jobs, according to findings from a national survey released Friday.

The survey also suggests that 25.5 million jobs have been potentially lost across the U.S. since mid-March, and that people of color, especially black Americans, are more likely to have lost their jobs since mid-March.

Nationally, 15% of white people said they had lost their jobs, while 18% of Latinos and 21% of black people reported job losses.

ETA: delete comment about protesters

 

[Lilibet]

Bumping Sillybilly’s post #437.

Hey everyone,

Please just move on from the discussion about the protesters and who's right or who's wrong. It's resulting in nothing but back and forth bickering that is going nowhere and is not productive.

Thanks.

Coronavirus COVID-19 - Global Health Pandemic #49

 

[cass523]

Thanks, I'll check it out.

Home Depot, Sears and Walmart also carry Wahl products

 

[cass523]

Paris, France - Some type of anti-lockdown rioting is going on in Arab-Muslim neighborhoods right now, according to TV News Reports starting to come out.....moo

Coronavirus France: Anti-lockdown riots break out in Paris | Daily Mail Online

 

[tresir2012]

Regarding "Spo0ns" (as it is called by many in UK newspaper comments). Wetherspoons. Where to begin.

Wetherspoons owner vows to keep pubs open during CoVid Crisis (after the government said to shut them down):

Wetherspoon vows to keep pubs open during coronavirus crisis | Metro News

Wetherspoons owner becomes an expert on pandemics:

JD Wetherspoon boss says closing UK pubs will not stop coronavirus

Then of course, people rallied around him and others with the same views- and are defying social distancing in general as you can see in this picture:

Clap for carers: UK pays tribute to NHS and key workers

There are many other pictures. Every major bridge in London had unmasked people on them, clapping at whatever time it was supposed to be. Organized by Tim Martin (Spoons owner) and his friends, IMO.

Meanwhile, UK is already at nearly 16,o00 dead (mainly in England, hardly any Scotland). And it is way earlier in the process than Italy.

UK is at the bottom of Europe's list for testing:

https://i.redd.it/0ynuq02lott41.png

You can see where UK stands in terms of its relationship to its first cases here:

https://i.redd.it/3ug523gpskt41.png

Many pub owners followed Spoons and stayed open. I hear that some are still open. This would help account for why 16,000 people have died since March 16. Germany, which had its first reported deaths on March 20, sits at only 45,000. Its population density is greater than UK's and they have about the same number of people.

UK is only 50% bigger than California, population wise and has similar pattern of high and low density areas. Almost 16,000 dead in one month, California reported its first deaths a bit earlier - and we sit at just over 1000.

Then, Tim Martin (Wetherspoons owner) did shut down when it got back and abandoned his employees.

JD Wetherspoon denies ‘abandoning’ staff in coronavirus crisis

Then he walked that back and may or may not be paying some of them. As people build CoVid boycott lists, Wetherspoons is at the top of many Brit's list:

Flop of the Month: Wetherspoons boss Tim Martin sends wrong messages

What Tim and his Spoons companions don't realize, is that they are just prolonging the shutdown (just like the people in Huntington Beach - where, interestingly, people are also resisting getting the homeless into monitored and structured settings). Just like those people in Michigan. They want what they want, but they're only pushing back the date for reopening:

Some of this is not accurate. AFAIK there are no pubs flouting the rules. Masks are not presently mandatory or even recommended so people make up their own minds. The bridges clap for carers was organised by police and emergency services. The Mayor of London is addressing the social distancing with the Met police so not sure where the connection with Wetherspoons comes into it. There is noone boycotting Wetherspoons as they are not open at the moment. When they are open they are a very popular chain with regular and GF menus and special prices on meals and drinks. His Brexit support made him a big target for MSM unfortunately but did not dent the popularity of the high street chain. AJMO.

 

[tresir2012]

But they resisted and didn't shut immediately when asked, which is the point. And now, their supporters are spilling out into the streets - not protesting (because it's Britain) but instead defying quarantine and clapping - in FAR greater numbers than the people in Michigan.

And UK news likes to show Michigan - and India - and New York - but not London. The Guardian is keeping perspective, but Brits are pouring onto the streets for those clapping things and still going to pubs (according to what they're posting online).

The increase in cases over the past 10 days are related to the resistance of the Spoons crowd and not social distancing. There is really no other way to transmit this disease except to go out in public. Unknowing, asymptomatic transmitters are the problem, in terms of opening up gradually.

The rest of us should be thinking about how to cope, since it's clear that every place except for a few will be "opening up" in the next little while.

The Guardian was anti Brexit so it was anti Wetherspoons. Some of their Wetherspoon's articles could be biased. The increase is not down to the 'Spoon's crowd but is from before the shutdown due to the lag. The rates have now peaked I believe. MOO.

 

[tresir2012]

I need to be going to sleep but I'm genuinely concerned. What are overseas media saying about the UK to be so misleading?! It's dangerous to mislead people. Any increase in cases here (as you know Cags) is no way related to pubs or public gatherings. People need to know the truth about this thing. The UK has been on full lockdown for weeks. The two 20 somethings in my house go out to walk the dog and buy milk. Even if they wanted to go to a pub (which they would know better), none are open. Our local closed on 16 March. I just checked their facebook page for the date.

I agree and I have answered the post. I think maybe some misinformation somewhere. Our lockdown of my local pubs were all on the 23 March and no sight of any lock ins. Very rural area too so it would be on the grape vine if that happened.

 

[dixiegirl1035]

Maybe “carrier” isn’t the right word.

I mean asymtopmatic people who never knowingly develop the virus. How long can they remain infectious to others?

While asymptomatic transmission may not be the driver in this disease, we know it can happen.

Here's one of today's Dr. Campbell's videos for ya.... ask, and ye shall receive it seems with Dr. Seheult and Dr. Campbell. We talk about an item, they cover the next day! I'll do an ETA after watching to see if your question is answered. (I would expect most immunosufficient folks to clear in the same amount of time of the virus... most under 14 days/quarantine but about UP TO 21-28 days or less? MOO/no links - but these two guys HAVE covered such subject previously but I cannot find the link)

Perhaps WHO will speak to such today as this question is now coming up more often... and goes against their original stance that asymptomatic spread was not a driver. They may want to do a 180 on that now and clarify?

Asymptomatic spread and 2 different ships

 

[tresir2012]

You can buy a book on Amazon or Audible that traces the history of a vaccine (polio or small pox - both have several popular books about them). It's not something that can be explained on WS. It's complex.

There are two main kinds of vaccines, both with (serious/fatal) risks in the testing group. Many doctors are organizing around the web to be those testers (and lots of other academics, nurses and retired nurses, and medical students and many others). But the tests have to include infants, children, etc., eventually.

When the vaccine is tested among adults in consenting groups over 21...then some of those people (usually academics, scientists, doctors, nurses, again) will consent for their kids to try it - because they truly believe they have informed consent. Have you been in such a trial? I have. But I was not able, as a mother, to allow my daughters to be in any.

So, we go to other countries with different standards, where people get a pittance for taking the vaccine and some person who is Bill Gates-like tries to make it work ethically, and well, we test it in India. There are entire books written about just this part - this is the part that fascinates me (that plus all the computer-based models they have to create just to input and then study this data - PM me if you want a short documentary about some aspects of this science).

The vaccine may never be invented - to understand why, you need to learn about basic genetics, mutations and how viral proteins work. The last part is beyond me - and I can PM you an article that I'm struggling to read, f you want to see what the research is like and why it's mindbogglingly complicated.

Some major vaccine experts, geneticists and virologists are hopeful though. If not a vaccine, perhaps some other semi-lasting method of mitigating symptoms in the ones who get symptoms.

Otherwise, we go to herd immunity and to be frank, that's what's causing the argument/discussion over 'opening.'

Thanks for the offer but it would probably be all over my head. I would never put myself or relatives in a vaccine trial but if very sick or serious then who knows what I would take or authorise for my relatives. If this is in the same group as the common cold then that is why I don't think they will find a vaccine as they have never done that with the common cold. With CV19 it looks like it is constantly adapting with all the strains so I think that may delay any vaccine. I just hope the strains get less serious and natural immunity prevents any future pandemic. MOO.

 

[tresir2012]

Common sense and rigid adherence is my first guess. But there are other reasons, too (rapidity of response is probably the big one).

In China, severity and rigidity of lockdown was key. In Japan, people locked themselves down with haste - they have a different history than the US, the reasons are many. Japan was fast (like the Republic of Georgia - which also remembers its history), Japan had voluntary compliance and knew what to do. Contact testing fully operational in China, Japan and Germany.

It IS skyrocketing in Sweden - where are you hearing otherwise? They just decided to do it that way. They aren't a very big country, but their curve was exponential (skyrocketing) until at least yesterday. For the first 11 days it was steep and is now leveling off:

Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) – Statistics and Research

Sweden and China are really two extremes, with different outcomes in terms of who is dying and how fast.

Germany is very interesting and closer to our culture in the US, much to be learned there. But apparently social distancing is built into the German culture in some ways (same with all the Northern European nations...)

Just saw Japan appear to be having a resurgence. Will have to watch for that in US and UK. Sweden and Belgium watching ATM.

 

[tresir2012]

I don't know about the others, but I think I can see what's happened in China.

Unlike countries like the UK and USA, China's outbreak was mostly limited to one province, which was closed off from the rest of the country, so most cases were in that single province and that's where they had to build the extra hospitals etc. They had the ability to send in hospital staff and ventilators etc from the rest of the massive country to that single province.

Then, they were able to achieve excellent contact tracing, so that when cases turned up in other provinces, they did contact tracing along with the social distancing in order to keep the R0 low in those regions and give them the potential to eradicate outbreaks in places where there was seeding from people who'd traveled out of Hubei.

What's happening in places like London and New York is more akin to what happened in Wuhan. But due to Wuhan being the epicentre and most cases still in that area even when they realised and acknowledged the seriousness of the virus, they could mostly keep the virus from spreading out of that region.

I followed the cases growing in the UK more than in the USA, but we had so many seeding events that we gave up and let it grow. We didn't yet have the ability to test enough people. I fear that some people returning from holidays in countries like Italy and Spain might not have taken the disease seriously enough and not isolated properly (the government wasn't ordering them to, and most people will stick to what the orders are).

So there's a huge difference between how China went about restricting the spread of the virus and the way we effectively allowed it to spread through the community and become what it is today (UK). I'm not saying this to attack anyone, it's just observation/analysis.

You could see on some of the sites, I forget the names of them, that have reporting the statistics, that in China each case was labeled with tracking, so at the beginning almost all cases tracked to Wuhan (which was the same thing in the rest of the world when the first cases were identified outside China, and this can act as a verifier to what the Chinese were reporting in their cases due to the consistency).

Even now it appears China is closely following up anyone who enters the country from outside, the Chinese returnees, and they're reporting cases in those people who are bringing the virus back with them as opposed to contracting it in China. We're not doing that in the UK, and we haven't been doing that .... I was going to say for weeks, but it's almost fair to say that we haven't done that at all!

So, I've seen an image that has the cases per so many thousand population in various countries and it's noted that China's is so much lower than Italy or Spain...There's a reason for that, and it's not lying, it's because China did an amazing job of locking down that province where the outbreak started and keeping it mostly restricted there, and then doing 'spot' cleaning up of cases that came out of the province in the way you do the spot cleaning of smaller fires that emanate from humongous wildfires.

This is also why it was said ages ago by epidemiological modelers that China was at risk of a second wave of the virus later in the year that would likely affect the whole country and have much bigger implications than what was effectively the Hubei outbreak rather than the China outbreak.

Even within the Hubei outbreak, China reached a point where they were using those arena 'hospitals' to put people in quarantine from their families, but those weren't people suffering from the most serious cases on ventilators like in the UK "Nightingale" hospitals. So that was another way to restrict the spread. The lockdown in Hubei seemed more severe than the UK lockdown, at one point they were only allowing one person per household out about twice a week to do shopping, and the only businesses open were supermarkets and pharmacies (along with hospitals) and public transport was totally shut down.

They didn't have enough tests to go around in Hubei while this was all happening! That's another big thing to note, they did it without enough tests to go around, but they reached a point where they were actively searching for cases, looking for them, x-raying chests for signs of the Covid-19 pneumonia in order to diagnose by clinical signs even when they didn't have enough tests.

My hope is that we in the UK will end up with far more options if we can take the best parts of the various strategies from other countries, like China and South Korea and mould them to fit for our country. I believe if we combined the two strategies we could virtually zero the cases here before there is a widely-available vaccine.

TY for explaining Amonet. I know you followed this right from the beginning which I did not do. I wonder if China could have a resurgence like what appears to be happening in Japan?

 

[tresir2012]

I would not want to be in France right now. For reasons that are too politically incorrect to post here. Moo

an Astra

@janastranewseng
·
20h

#Paris, joggers and walkers get a last bit of daytime exercise in before a curfew on sport between the hours of 0800 and 1700 GMT goes into effect



Watch again

0:00
11.6K views


From
AFP news agency

This is news to me. No exercising outside in the daytime allowed.

I have this link which reminds me now about the daytime exercise ban. Hmmm.

Paris bans daytime outdoor exercise

Re the rioting - I don't think it is lockdown related but will check. Link below.

Coronavirus France: Anti-lockdown riots break out in Paris | Daily Mail Online


Found this link re China

McDonald's apologises after China store bans black people - France 24

 

[Alyce]

I need to be going to sleep but I'm genuinely concerned. What are overseas media saying about the UK to be so misleading?! It's dangerous to mislead people. Any increase in cases here (as you know Cags) is no way related to pubs or public gatherings. People need to know the truth about this thing. The UK has been on full lockdown for weeks. The two 20 somethings in my house go out to walk the dog and buy milk. Even if they wanted to go to a pub (which they would know better), none are open. Our local closed on 16 March. I just checked their facebook page for the date.

Exactly this.... There is nothing open and nowhere to go. Yesterday evening, on my daily allotted walk, I ventured down to the high street of my local town. Not been there since lockdown began. It was a ghost town, nothing open and I saw maybe another 6 people walking along the street.. very easy for each of us to keep our distance.
The only restaurants open / working in town are the ones offering takeaways and they do deliveries rather than pick ups... pubs and bars are all locked up.

 

[tresir2012]

The 'last cruise ship on Earth' finally comes home

Finally a good news story about a cruise ship.

 

[dixiegirl1035]

I don't know about the others, but I think I can see what's happened in China.

Unlike countries like the UK and USA, China's outbreak was mostly limited to one province, which was closed off from the rest of the country, so most cases were in that single province and that's where they had to build the extra hospitals etc. They had the ability to send in hospital staff and ventilators etc from the rest of the massive country to that single province.

Then, they were able to achieve excellent contact tracing, so that when cases turned up in other provinces, they did contact tracing along with the social distancing in order to keep the R0 low in those regions and give them the potential to eradicate outbreaks in places where there was seeding from people who'd traveled out of Hubei.

What's happening in places like London and New York is more akin to what happened in Wuhan. But due to Wuhan being the epicentre and most cases still in that area even when they realised and acknowledged the seriousness of the virus, they could mostly keep the virus from spreading out of that region.

I followed the cases growing in the UK more than in the USA, but we had so many seeding events that we gave up and let it grow. We didn't yet have the ability to test enough people. I fear that some people returning from holidays in countries like Italy and Spain might not have taken the disease seriously enough and not isolated properly (the government wasn't ordering them to, and most people will stick to what the orders are).

So there's a huge difference between how China went about restricting the spread of the virus and the way we effectively allowed it to spread through the community and become what it is today (UK). I'm not saying this to attack anyone, it's just observation/analysis.

You could see on some of the sites, I forget the names of them, that have reporting the statistics, that in China each case was labeled with tracking, so at the beginning almost all cases tracked to Wuhan (which was the same thing in the rest of the world when the first cases were identified outside China, and this can act as a verifier to what the Chinese were reporting in their cases due to the consistency).

Even now it appears China is closely following up anyone who enters the country from outside, the Chinese returnees, and they're reporting cases in those people who are bringing the virus back with them as opposed to contracting it in China. We're not doing that in the UK, and we haven't been doing that .... I was going to say for weeks, but it's almost fair to say that we haven't done that at all!

So, I've seen an image that has the cases per so many thousand population in various countries and it's noted that China's is so much lower than Italy or Spain...There's a reason for that, and it's not lying, it's because China did an amazing job of locking down that province where the outbreak started and keeping it mostly restricted there, and then doing 'spot' cleaning up of cases that came out of the province in the way you do the spot cleaning of smaller fires that emanate from humongous wildfires.

This is also why it was said ages ago by epidemiological modelers that China was at risk of a second wave of the virus later in the year that would likely affect the whole country and have much bigger implications than what was effectively the Hubei outbreak rather than the China outbreak.

Even within the Hubei outbreak, China reached a point where they were using those arena 'hospitals' to put people in quarantine from their families, but those weren't people suffering from the most serious cases on ventilators like in the UK "Nightingale" hospitals. So that was another way to restrict the spread. The lockdown in Hubei seemed more severe than the UK lockdown, at one point they were only allowing one person per household out about twice a week to do shopping, and the only businesses open were supermarkets and pharmacies (along with hospitals) and public transport was totally shut down.

They didn't have enough tests to go around in Hubei while this was all happening! That's another big thing to note, they did it without enough tests to go around, but they reached a point where they were actively searching for cases, looking for them, x-raying chests for signs of the Covid-19 pneumonia in order to diagnose by clinical signs even when they didn't have enough tests.

My hope is that we in the UK will end up with far more options if we can take the best parts of the various strategies from other countries, like China and South Korea and mould them to fit for our country. I believe if we combined the two strategies we could virtually zero the cases here before there is a widely-available vaccine.

Amonet, Thanks for outlining so well why Wuhan worked, and elsewhere has not. Although most of us here do understand, so many folks cannot understand/don't or refuse to believe it unfortunately.

It's really amazing what they did.

 

[dixiegirl1035]

Something that is bothering me is that the death rate for hospitalised cases seems to be very, very high, much higher than I had anticipated from the China data.

I haven't got facts to back up that feeling at the moment as most places are just reporting the deaths per total confirmed infections. But when you look, instead of deaths per confirmed infections at the deaths per recoveries (recoveries might be slightly faster than average death time) the death rate seems really high.

It's awkward really as the UK figures were mostly hospitalisations until the past week or two when the testing started being expanded more into healthcare workers and their families/living companions.

I worry that when the death to hospitalisations data comes out it's going to be horrific and look more like SARS death rates. I know it's different in that SARS rates for for all cases and not just hospitalisations, but there are so many hospitalisations in some countries' outbreaks that it still leads to horrific numbers. And those numbers are people.

Perhaps skewed due to US and UK are asking folks to stay at home, and only go to hospital when they are in the phase of having low oxygen/difficulty breathing vs. Wuhan "hospital" stats included the isolation "hospitals"?