COVID-19

[Woodchopper]

As of today, to go outside in Lombardy you need either a face mask or at least to cover your nose and mouth with a scarf or something. The official national position continues to be that this isn't necessary. But the Chinese experts who arrived here recently mainly asked two questions: "why are there still so many people outside?" and "why aren't they all wearing masks?"

The CDC now recommends that people wear a cloth mask: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nc ... rings.html

[shpalman]

This is nice from the New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... eopen.html

[Woodchopper]

Are whole-country numbers worthwhile for Italy? Isn't it the sum of flat/declining numbers in the north and exponential growth elsewhere?

I don't think so. I've been following the regional totals here and regions outside Northern Italy don't appear to have been growing exponentially.

It looks like the national shutdown has contained the spread of the infection.

Well, good. I suppose if we haven't seen the outbreaks now, more than two weeks after everyone from the south who lived in the north went back home, then maybe the south has been spared the worst of it. However, the south is far more prone to social unrest and people generally not giving a sh.t and doing what they like. Depends which side the local mafia is on.

Just goes to show that it helps to do the lockdown measures before you suddenly realise what "exponential" means.

Some sub-national data here from the FT. Very small and fiddly graphs but it looks like Puglia is the only Italian region where the curve hasn't flattened. https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status ... 4745551877

[EACLucifer]

Cloth masks seem a very sensible way to get some degree of mass mask wearing without drawing on stocks of PPE needed by healthcare and other key workers. Yes, the government should have prepared, given the warning they had, but they didn't - as citizens, we can complain, or we can complain and also fix the f.cking problem.

I've started work on trying to make masks for everyone on my street. The test example I ran up first seems to work fine, and is comfortable enough. It's based on a design requested by a health provider in the States, although with the elastic patterned after a painter's mask instead, for greater comfort.

Unfortunately, I - unrelatedly - hurt my hip badly enough to leave me stuck in bed, but once I'm back to work, would people here be interested in an illustrated guide to making them?

[badger]

Cloth masks seem a very sensible way to get some degree of mass mask wearing without drawing on stocks of PPE needed by healthcare and other key workers. Yes, the government should have prepared, given the warning they had, but they didn't - as citizens, we can complain, or we can complain and also fix the f.cking problem.

I've started work on trying to make masks for everyone on my street. The test example I ran up first seems to work fine, and is comfortable enough. It's based on a design requested by a health provider in the States, although with the elastic patterned after a painter's mask instead, for greater comfort.

Unfortunately, I - unrelatedly - hurt my hip badly enough to leave me stuck in bed, but once I'm back to work, would people here be interested in an illustrated guide to making them?

Yes please - and get well soon!
(Any specific materials we should get in, or recycle, to prepare? Assuming elastic is at a premium right now?)

[EACLucifer]

Elastic is an option, but so is tape. I had no problem mail ordering elastic. In a pinch, fastening tapes can be made from fabric, but it isn't ideal. I'm using plain cotton fabric (specifically, curtain lining sateen, because I've loads of it), I'm deferring to the guide I found, which is here when it comes to materials.

I've slightly tweaked the design, though, to make it easier to produce quickly, and more comfortable. I've directly compared one made exactly to the instructions with my tweaked design, and my tweaked one seems every bit as good on fit, and actually more secure, at least when I'm wearing it.

Obviously if we end up with mask drives like this one, with people requesting them, make them to the specs requested.

A mask like this is only limited in its effect, obviously, but I - and obviously quite a lot of authorities - think it is still worthwhile. I'm honestly in too much pain/morphine right now to dig up references, but off the top of my head, mass mask wearing was effective against SARS. This isn't really about making personal PPE, it's about trying to reduce transmission from people who don't know they are carrying the disease - as the Czechs are putting it, "my mask protects you, your mask protects me"

[badger]

Elastic is an option, but so is tape. I had no problem mail ordering elastic....

Yep, just seen there's still loads about.
Anyway, rest up and I look forward to your tweaks and improvements when you're good and ready!

[purplehaze]

Cloth masks seem a very sensible way to get some degree of mass mask wearing without drawing on stocks of PPE needed by healthcare and other key workers. Yes, the government should have prepared, given the warning they had, but they didn't - as citizens, we can complain, or we can complain and also fix the f.cking problem.

I've started work on trying to make masks for everyone on my street. The test example I ran up first seems to work fine, and is comfortable enough. It's based on a design requested by a health provider in the States, although with the elastic patterned after a painter's mask instead, for greater comfort.

Unfortunately, I - unrelatedly - hurt my hip badly enough to leave me stuck in bed, but once I'm back to work, would people here be interested in an illustrated guide to making them?

I think I know the one you are alluding to. Please do share, I'd be really interested in it I've made a mask of my own and for some reason unbeknown to mankind or myself I bought tumble dryer sheets. I made the mask with this and cotton though my son said why is it covering my neck as well. I wanted to ensure it was snug and fitted on the edge of the cheeks near the ear. You can also use elastic hair ties for the attachment. I do also have a glut of binding. Now if you want a mask that has a clean edge and an inner lining look up how to machine sew a tea cosy as your starter for ten.

I'm loving the colours and it also smells nice and can wash extremely well. Did a test with three.

[EACLucifer]

The link's already in my post. I'll post it again, though.

https://www.deaconess.com/How-to-make-a-Face-Mask

[shpalman]

I don't think so. I've been following the regional totals here and regions outside Northern Italy don't appear to have been growing exponentially.

It looks like the national shutdown has contained the spread of the infection.

Well, good. I suppose if we haven't seen the outbreaks now, more than two weeks after everyone from the south who lived in the north went back home, then maybe the south has been spared the worst of it. However, the south is far more prone to social unrest and people generally not giving a sh.t and doing what they like. Depends which side the local mafia is on.

Just goes to show that it helps to do the lockdown measures before you suddenly realise what "exponential" means.

Some sub-national data here from the FT. Very small and fiddly graphs but it looks like Puglia is the only Italian region where the curve hasn't flattened. https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status ... 4745551877

There's an Italian covid data analysis Facebook group which published this:

FB_IMG_1586096147353.jpg (47.52 KiB) Viewed 4905 times

[Bird on a Fire]

MD in Private Eye

Good piece, thanks.

[Woodchopper]

There's an Italian covid data analysis Facebook group which published this:

FB_IMG_1586096147353.jpg

Thanks, looks like its flattening everywhere, though not yet flat.

[Cardinal Fang]

The link's already in my post. I'll post it again, though.

https://www.deaconess.com/How-to-make-a-Face-Mask

Don't have space or facilities to make own masks (temp moved out of home into NHS digs, as person I live with has health issues that make them very high risk. Not going to risk coming and going and bringing virus back with me. Just brought essentials to new digs like clothing, computer etc. No sewing kit or machine).

But if anyone's selling any, wouldn't mind a couple

CF

[jimbob]

Should this bad graph be here?

EUw49UTXgAE9YUT.jpg (77.14 KiB) Viewed 4811 times

[jimbob]

As of today, to go outside in Lombardy you need either a face mask or at least to cover your nose and mouth with a scarf or something. The official national position continues to be that this isn't necessary. But the Chinese experts who arrived here recently mainly asked two questions: "why are there still so many people outside?" and "why aren't they all wearing masks?"

In a similar vein, and consistent with the evidence for asymptomatic transmission (after all, you tend to not cough if you're asymptomatic).

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04 ... port-finds

Science’s COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center.

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has given a boost to an unsettling idea: that the novel coronavirus can spread through the air—not just through the large droplets emitted in a cough or sneeze. Though current studies aren’t conclusive, “the results of available studies are consistent with aerosolization of virus from normal breathing,” Harvey Fineberg, who heads a standing committee on Emerging Infectious Diseases and 21st Century Health Threats, wrote in a 1 April letter to Kelvin Droegemeier, head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Continues...

[shpalman]

Well it would certainly be a disaster here to try to relax the restrictions in mid April: the 25th of April and the 1st of May are public holidays and if everyone decides to do two month's worth of clogging up the touristy places in the one week bridge between them, then the whole thing will blow up again.

We will need to let people get slowly back to work but the "unnecessary" stuff has to wait.

No big yay-the-pandemic-is-over party or else it will be very not over at all.

Which is basically what this says: https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... m-lockdown

There's also a link to an important new paper which talks about the uncertainties in what parameters go into your SIR model but not that the UK had two weeks' worth of data from Italy to look at and when it didn't fit the model, chose to give less credence to the data.

[jimbob]

Well it would certainly be a disaster here to try to relax the restrictions in mid April: the 25th of April and the 1st of May are public holidays and if everyone decides to do two month's worth of clogging up the touristy places in the one week bridge between them, then the whole thing will blow up again.

We will need to let people get slowly back to work but the "unnecessary" stuff has to wait.

No big yay-the-pandemic-is-over party or else it will be very not over at all.

Which is basically what this says: https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... m-lockdown

There's also a link to an important new paper which talks about the uncertainties in what parameters go into your SIR model but not that the UK had two weeks' worth of data from Italy to look at and when it didn't fit the model, chose to give less credence to the data.

Fixed your link - spurious URL tag.

And a great reminder of the 4-weeks behind Italy line, which has been rubbish from the start.

[jimbob]

And Johnson is admitted to hospital:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52177125

[JQH]

f.ck. That means Raab's in charge.

[Woodchopper]

scientists involved in validating home testing kits have told the Guardian that no test on the market has yet been shown to be sufficiently reliable. Some kits, which claim a more than 90% rate of accuracy, appear to have been tested only in hospital on patients with very significant symptoms.

One expert told the Guardian that in reality the sensitivity of the tests was likely to be relatively low and more likely to detect 50%-60% of those with milder symptoms – the group for whom the tests were intended.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... ntists-say

[shpalman]

This morning I tried setting up a SEIQR model in a spreadsheet. (Susceptible - Exposed - Infectious - Quarantined - Recovered, in which I'm assuming a certain probability of an infection getting detected and quarantined, alternatively it could recover without being detected).

I've realized a thing: if the number of new infections per day is going down, it does not mean that the reproduction number has dropped below 1 and that the infections are tending to zero. It just means you reduced the contagion parameter β. If the number of infectious people (I) is climbing anyway, then once the product βI reaches the value it had before, you'll get the same infection rate you had before. This seems to have happened a few times in Italy already: "yay it's going down no wait it's gone up again".

This will carry on until a substantial fraction of the susceptible population has been infected. Or you really do manage to get the reproduction number to below 1. But if it's not below 1 now in Italy I struggle to think of what more can be done.

[Woodchopper]

This morning I tried setting up a SEIQR model in a spreadsheet. (Susceptible - Exposed - Infectious - Quarantined - Recovered, in which I'm assuming a certain probability of an infection getting detected and quarantined, alternatively it could recover without being detected).

I've realized a thing: if the number of new infections per day is going down, it does not mean that the reproduction number has dropped below 1 and that the infections are tending to zero. It just means you reduced the contagion parameter β. If the number of infectious people (I) is climbing anyway, then once the product βI reaches the value it had before, you'll get the same infection rate you had before. This seems to have happened a few times in Italy already: "yay it's going down no wait it's gone up again".

This will carry on until a substantial fraction of the susceptible population has been infected. Or you really do manage to get the reproduction number to below 1. But if it's not below 1 now in Italy I struggle to think of what more can be done.

It looks like mortality is declining now in Italy, Spain, Belgium, Austria. So it looks like the lockdown measures implemented there about 3-4 weeks ago are having an effect. So either the lockdowns have got R to below 1 on average at a national level, or at least the lockdowns have protected the most vulnerable members of society.

[TopBadger]

Should this bad graph be here?

Argh - that Y axis! Why did you post that... why!?

[EACLucifer]

The link's already in my post. I'll post it again, though.

https://www.deaconess.com/How-to-make-a-Face-Mask

Don't have space or facilities to make own masks (temp moved out of home into NHS digs, as person I live with has health issues that make them very high risk. Not going to risk coming and going and bringing virus back with me. Just brought essentials to new digs like clothing, computer etc. No sewing kit or machine).

But if anyone's selling any, wouldn't mind a couple

CF

Sell? There's no way I'll be selling any.

But once I've got some made, I'll drop you a PM. Unfortunately, today is a totally non-functional, can't sit up kind of day, so if anyone else here is making them, then they may be able to get you sorted faster than I can.

[El Pollo Diablo]

Today's new numbers will be a bit lower than yesterdays. Not in yet, but England is down a bit. Apparently there's a weekend factor because they can't get the deaths verified then. Who'd've thought? Apart from everyone, I mean.