COVID-19

[Gfamily]

An inappropriate thought pops up about whether non-Uyghur Chinese women might start wearing the niqab.

[mediocrity511]

An inappropriate thought pops up about whether non-Uyghur Chinese women might start wearing the niqab.

Honestly, you say that, but it's something that has crossed my mind. I live in an area with quite a high Muslim community and so there'd be no one freaking out if those worried about coronavirus started veiling instead of donning face masks. It would certainly stop you touching your face so much!

[Pucksoppet]

Aren't masks mainly meant to be worn by people showing symptoms to limit the spread of infected secretions? Medical personnel treating patients need high quality (N95?) well fitting masks replaced regularly, but the general population don't need that - is that not correct?

If you want to limit how much you touch your own face, wearing sunglasses and a large bandanna worm over the nose and mouth Saturday-afternoon Western style, tucked into the collar of your shirt or blouse would probably work.

[shpalman]

Seems like all the universities around here are going to suspend/postpone teaching for a week.

In fact everything in Lombardy which involves gatherings of people - this includes dance lessons and the gym for example as well as schools and universities and sports fixtures - has been suspended for a week.

The people in my lab who've come to work from Milan today are really happy about how empty the trains were and/or how little traffic there was. We should do something like this more often, it would improve air quality and limit whatever seasonal 'flu and colds were going around generally.

current totals are 229 cases of which 172 in Lombardy, and 7 deaths in all of Italy, but they mostly seem to be older people who were already in hospital for something serious.

[bob sterman]

The World Health Organisation have just tweeted that...

"They found that the #COVID19 epidemic peaked & plateaued between the 23rd of January & the 2nd of February & has been declining steadily since then.

They have found that there has been no significant change in the DNA of the #coronavirus"

https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1231958906739548163?s=20

Doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the WHO does it!

[lpm]

It's got DNA. Or RNA, it's all the same stuff end of the day. The coronavirus is just a really small little creature, size of a grain of rice. Smaller, maybe. Gets in your lungs and nests in there, so take antibiotics to kill the eggs.

[lpm]

Stock market has taken a bit of tumble. Quarantines in random places around the world will have some odd impacts on trade, company bankruptcies and consumer spending.

In a pandemic I wouldn't want to be on a pathetic island that has alienated all its former friends and neighbours and needs to import half its food. The profit motive for trade only goes so far - if you're a peasant with eggs to sell at market you're not going to travel to the local town where plague is running rampant. I learned that the hard way in 1348.

[dyqik]

Stock market has taken a bit of tumble. Quarantines in random places around the world will have some odd impacts on trade, company bankruptcies and consumer spending.

Fox News insists that that's because Bernie "won" the Nevada Caucuses.

[Boustrophedon]

The World Health Organisation have just tweeted that...

"They found that the #COVID19 epidemic peaked & plateaued between the 23rd of January & the 2nd of February & has been declining steadily since then.

They have found that there has been no significant change in the DNA of the #coronavirus"

https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1231958906739548163?s=20

Doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the WHO does it!

Chocolate teapots come to mind.

[jimbob]

Seems like all the universities around here are going to suspend/postpone teaching for a week.

In fact everything in Lombardy which involves gatherings of people - this includes dance lessons and the gym for example as well as schools and universities and sports fixtures - has been suspended for a week.

The people in my lab who've come to work from Milan today are really happy about how empty the trains were and/or how little traffic there was. We should do something like this more often, it would improve air quality and limit whatever seasonal 'flu and colds were going around generally.

current totals are 229 cases of which 172 in Lombardy, and 7 deaths in all of Italy, but they mostly seem to be older people who were already in hospital for something serious.

I hope it puts paid to the "flu remedy" adverts.

Oh noes you have a bad cold*
You feel rotten
You can take this tablet and feel better
You can go to work and infect the rest of the office
Some of those will also buy our product too.


*which we're calling flu

[plodder]

Apologies if we've already had this visualisation of the data, equally apologies if it's conspiratorial bollocks

https://mobile.twitter.com/NJ_Joel/stat ... 1241666562

[shpalman]

"if you've ever wondered what life in the 14th century was like, well now you've got two popes and a plague"

[Gfamily]

Apologies if we've already had this visualisation of the data, equally apologies if it's conspiratorial bollocks

https://mobile.twitter.com/NJ_Joel/stat ... 1241666562

Reading the tweeted responses is really disheartening.

[nefibach]

Aren't masks mainly meant to be worn by people showing symptoms to limit the spread of infected secretions? Medical personnel treating patients need high quality (N95?) well fitting masks replaced regularly, but the general population don't need that - is that not correct?

If you want to limit how much you touch your own face, wearing sunglasses and a large bandanna worm over the nose and mouth Saturday-afternoon Western style, tucked into the collar of your shirt or blouse would probably work.

You are correct. Masks show some usefulness when worn buy people who are ill and symptomatic, with properly fitted respirators for medical personnel. The general population do not benefit from wearing masks when out and about.

If you want to limit your chances of getting sick then:

• Learn how to wash your hands effectively from this NHS guide. https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-bo ... our-hands/
• Wash your hands frequently, especially before eating and after touching door handles or other hard surfaces that may harbour the virus.
• Use hand sanitiser with at least 60% alcohol if handwashing facilities are unavailable.
• Cough or sneeze into a tissue and immediately throw it away.
• If you do not have a tissue, cough/sneeze into your elbow.
• Practice touching your face less.
• Do not shake hands or kiss cheeks when greeting others - use an elbow-bump or avoid contact completely.
• Push lift buttons with a knuckle instead of a fingertip.

[nefibach]

Apologies if we've already had this visualisation of the data, equally apologies if it's conspiratorial bollocks

https://mobile.twitter.com/NJ_Joel/stat ... 1241666562

This is very misleading. Epidemics don't take the same amount of time to play out, so stopping at a set number of days is ridiculous. Swine flu is thought to have killed 200k people overall. Seasonal flu kills 290 000 to 650 000 people annually. 2,626 deaths is f.ck all in comparison.

[Herainestold]

Apologies if we've already had this visualisation of the data, equally apologies if it's conspiratorial bollocks

https://mobile.twitter.com/NJ_Joel/stat ... 1241666562

This is very misleading. Epidemics don't take the same amount of time to play out, so stopping at a set number of days is ridiculous. Swine flu is thought to have killed 200k people overall. Seasonal flu kills 290 000 to 650 000 people annually. 2,626 deaths is f.ck all in comparison.

Swine flu killed 200 000 over what time period? How many of those flu deaths-or in this case coronavirus-just displace deaths from other causes?
They seem to disproportionally affect older people and people in already poor health. How many of the deaths are "excess" to what would hav e ocurred by other means, and how much is just hastening by a few months what would have happened anyway?

I'm not trying to make light of this situation, I realize it is very serious, it does kill younger healthier people, and we are ill prepared for it.

[lpm]

I'd be interested to see a split between smokers and non-smokers. Seems like elderly smokers with existing lung or heart problems are f.cked. But it could just be that smoking is a good indicator of being poor and uneducated.

Smoking could account for male/female differences as well, plus regional differences. The smoking rate for men in China is 74%, women 8%. The death rate statistics currently seems to be 2.8% men, 1.7% women.

Would imply death rate would be higher in smoky countries - Russia and Indonesia notably, in Europe Greece and the Balkans. In England the smoking rate is 14%, vs 24% in Italy.

[lpm]

If you're going to get a pandemic with 20 million deaths, this is the death rate profile you want:

80+ years old = 14.8%
70-79 years old = 8.0%
60-69 years old = 3.6%
50-59 years old = 1.3%
40-49 years old = 0.4%
30-39 years old = 0.2%
20-29 years old = 0.2%
10-19 years old = 0.2%
0-9 years old = no fatalities

Life expectancy in China is 5 years lower than the UK, so a 75 year old UK person should be compared to a 70 year old Chinese person?

[Lydia Gwilt]

• Learn how to wash your hands effectively from this NHS guide. https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-bo ... our-hands/
• Wash your hands frequently, especially before eating and after touching door handles or other hard surfaces that may harbour the virus.
• Use hand sanitiser with at least 60% alcohol if handwashing facilities are unavailable.
  
• Cough or sneeze into a tissue and immediately throw it away.
• If you do not have a tissue, cough/sneeze into your elbow.
• Practice touching your face less.
• Do not shake hands or kiss cheeks when greeting others - use an elbow-bump or avoid contact completely.
• Push lift buttons with a knuckle instead of a fingertip.

I have issues with the "immediately throw it away" advice. "Immediately dispose of it safely" might be more sensible. The last time there was a flu epidemic (Swine Flu IIRC) the hills of Switzerland were covered in discarded tissues, as people were too bl..dy lazy to carry a small bin bag or to think about what the advice actually meant.

[Woodchopper]

How many of those flu deaths-or in this case coronavirus-just displace deaths from other causes?
They seem to disproportionally affect older people and people in already poor health. How many of the deaths are "excess" to what would hav e ocurred by other means, and how much is just hastening by a few months what would have happened anyway?

Discussions elsewhere with WHO personnel suggest that COVID-19 infections result in a much higher rate of people needing hospital treatment than are usually found with winter influenza epidemics. This has the effect, as seen in Hubei province, of much higher mortality if a) the healthcare system becomes overwhelmed by the number of people needing intensive care, and b) if doctors and nurses providing that care become infected and need long stays in hospital (further undermining the ability of the healthcare system to care for seriously ill patients).

A pandemic wouldn't just kill people who would likely have died of other causes.

[OneOffDave]

Fluid repellent surgical masks are good for preventing you spreading your virus-laden droplets to others and also discourage you from touching your face holes. A properly fitted FFP3/N95 mask is good fo stopping you getting things but regular changing is vital and doffing PPE properly is critical. Ill people wearing valved FFP3 masks is a very bad idea as it gives a totally false sense of security.

The guidance at GOV.UK its pretty good and more guidance for different sectors will be going up today.

I would suggest making sure you've got extra stocks of staples just in case there's a move to isolation as in Italy which might cause a run on the shops but no need to stockpile really. There might be short term very localised shortages of specific items.

[jimbob]

I'd be interested to see a split between smokers and non-smokers. Seems like elderly smokers with existing lung or heart problems are f.cked. But it could just be that smoking is a good indicator of being poor and uneducated.

Smoking could account for male/female differences as well, plus regional differences. The smoking rate for men in China is 74%, women 8%. The death rate statistics currently seems to be 2.8% men, 1.7% women.

Would imply death rate would be higher in smoky countries - Russia and Indonesia notably, in Europe Greece and the Balkans. In England the smoking rate is 14%, vs 24% in Italy.

I suspect that in China, in the over 30s at least, smoking isn't much of an indicator of education or poverty - judging by my colleagues from mainland China

[MartinDurkin]

My wife has a somewhat compromised immune system after a bone marrow transplant in 2011 and has just about survived swine flu a couple of times in the past.

We have a holiday / visit to friends booked for the first week in April to the Como region. Should we be thinking about cancelling?

[gosling]

I would suggest making sure you've got extra stocks of staples just in case there's a move to isolation as in Italy which might cause a run on the shops but no need to stockpile really. There might be short term very localised shortages of specific items.

Just topping up the Brexit stash with UHT milk and butter.

[OneOffDave]

My wife has a somewhat compromised immune system after a bone marrow transplant in 2011 and has just about survived swine flu a couple of times in the past.

We have a holiday / visit to friends booked for the first week in April to the Como region. Should we be thinking about cancelling?

I'd hang fire for a week or two before deciding. If the FCO change their travel advice it makes it much easier claiming against travel insurance. There'll be a better picture of the situation in Italy by then