COVID-19

[TopBadger]

Have started looking into home office furniture as I can't see restrictions being lifted anytime soon. And even when they are I could continue to work from home.

That COVID-19 is reported to be circulating in cats, and poorer countries are going to be grappling with this for a longer time so international travel is going to be something to avoid for ages. It's hard to see a clear way out of this without a vaccine.

[Gfamily]

Page 5 of this leaflet here : https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... eaflet.pdf

(Sorry. There's probably a way of posting that, but I don't know how.)

It just seems to me that everyone in a household should be quarantined until they're all over it or we can be reasonably sure they're not going to get it. I mean, yeah, people who've recovered may be immune and thus unable to spread it. But that person C hasn't had it. Unless we're assuming they're one of those asymptomatic cases.

I think that's what they are suggesting as being the most likely situation.

[bob sterman]

Page 5 of this leaflet here : https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... eaflet.pdf

(Sorry. There's probably a way of posting that, but I don't know how.)

It just seems to me that everyone in a household should be quarantined until they're all over it or we can be reasonably sure they're not going to get it. I mean, yeah, people who've recovered may be immune and thus unable to spread it. But that person C hasn't had it. Unless we're assuming they're one of those asymptomatic cases.

So the UK strategy is that members of a household should sit at home sequentially infecting each other with a disease that probably has a mortality rate of 3-5% in symptomatic cases.

If we had followed the Chinese strategy - the ExCeL centre (and many other venues), rather than being a giant critical care units, would perhaps have been places with 10,000 basic beds where the symptomatic could be transported to isolate them from their households.

[Grumble]

Have started looking into home office furniture as I can't see restrictions being lifted anytime soon. And even when they are I could continue to work from home.

That COVID-19 is reported to be circulating in cats, and poorer countries are going to be grappling with this for a longer time so international travel is going to be something to avoid for ages. It's hard to see a clear way out of this without a vaccine.

You can spend why you like in home office furniture. I have bought a desk which is far smaller than my office one - I can’t fit a laptop riser on to it - but it does me. My main issue now is that the chair I’m using is just a dining chair. It’s starting to get uncomfortable when I sit for too long.

[lpm]

Page 5 of this leaflet here : https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... eaflet.pdf

(Sorry. There's probably a way of posting that, but I don't know how.)

It just seems to me that everyone in a household should be quarantined until they're all over it or we can be reasonably sure they're not going to get it. I mean, yeah, people who've recovered may be immune and thus unable to spread it. But that person C hasn't had it. Unless we're assuming they're one of those asymptomatic cases.

So the UK strategy is that members of a household should sit at home sequentially infecting each other with a disease that probably has a mortality rate of 3-5% in symptomatic cases.

If we had followed the Chinese strategy - the ExCeL centre (and many other venues), rather than being a giant critical care units, would perhaps have been places with 10,000 basic beds where the symptomatic could be transported to isolate them from their households.

Ah, but that won't get you herd immunity. Infecting your entire family is preferable, all those who don't die can go back into the workforce.

[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?

That's a very kind thing you're doing.
Get well soon.

Thanks. I've not got as far as I'd like with mass production, but I have published a guide to making them on a home sewing machine on its own thread.

My sister is some senior bod in a fashion house (a proper one that does catwalk shows at the fashion weeks and charges thousands for dresses) & she has put all their seamstresses to work making masks which are more comfortable than standard ones so that people who need to wear them for long periods (not cos they have a specific PPE need, but as a precaution, so just a face covering is helpful, even if imperfect), won't get that pressure mark around their ears. They are using buttons and material that can be washed easily.
They have perfected their design and are now bashing out loads of them.

That's fantastic. Speaking of buttons, I note people are making mask adaptors for conventional surgical masks to reduce ear soreness. Some are 3d printed, while others just use two buttons at either end of a length of heavy tape, so the mask can hook onto the buttons and not the wearer's ears.

[Woodchopper]

More info on how the daily UK mortality numbers are seriously under-counting the true figure: https://twitter.com/ChrisGiles_/status/ ... 6300456960

[Trinucleus]

Jet2 will be running flights and holidays from 17th June. I thought it was fake news, but it's on their website.

How much of a calculated risk is that?

[El Pollo Diablo]

There's (at least) a mistake in today's numbers. They say that the new number of people tested is 9,740, but the number they've provided for the total tested is only 4,344 greater than yesterday, with an 84% daily positive test rate, nearly double the last highest daily positive rate.

[tom p]

I have published a guide to making them on a home sewing machine on its own thread.

My sister is some senior bod in a fashion house (a proper one that does catwalk shows at the fashion weeks and charges thousands for dresses) & she has put all their seamstresses to work making masks which are more comfortable than standard ones so that people who need to wear them for long periods (not cos they have a specific PPE need, but as a precaution, so just a face covering is helpful, even if imperfect), won't get that pressure mark around their ears. They are using buttons and material that can be washed easily.
They have perfected their design and are now bashing out loads of them.

That's fantastic. Speaking of buttons, I note people are making mask adaptors for conventional surgical masks to reduce ear soreness. Some are 3d printed, while others just use two buttons at either end of a length of heavy tape, so the mask can hook onto the buttons and not the wearer's ears.

Nice illustrated guide.
And interesting idea about the buttons.
I'll let her know about that idea if she get more take-up on the masks than they can cope with

[shpalman]

Looks like it's lagging 2-3 days behind.

There's a Italian COVID Data and Analysis page which posted earlier some stats on deaths in each month this year compared to the same month last year, in both absolute and relative terms. I barely understand what's going on except that red=bad; this one is the relative variation in March:

march-rel.jpg (86.73 KiB) Viewed 3843 times

In a comment someone linked to this pdf from the ministry of health.

daily-mortality-north-v-south.png (53.07 KiB) Viewed 3843 times

On the left is the north's daily mortality each week and on the right is the south's; there's a baseline for reference.

[shpalman]

Italy has had its lowest number of new cases since the 13th of March, and just about the lowest percentage of swabs being positive since the numbers got statistically relevant.

But then I did see right a bit of traffic around lunchtime because people don't understand that if this is the peak it's the worst time to be outside rather than the point at which we can all relax.

[shpalman]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... y-predicts

I was guessing about a thousand deaths per day, not 3000.

Slow hand clap for Boris.

[Woodchopper]

Covid-19 mortality linked to air pollution
https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/covid-pm/home

[Woodchopper]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... y-predicts

I was guessing about a thousand deaths per day, not 3000.

Slow hand clap for Boris.

Hang on

The same grim picture applies to intensive care beds. At the peak, 24,500 intensive care beds will be needed and 799 are available, the analysts predict.

The 799 is suspiciously close to the situation a month ago and before the new nightingale hospitals were built. Possible the authors didn’t update the data.

[shpalman]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... y-predicts

I was guessing about a thousand deaths per day, not 3000.

Slow hand clap for Boris.

Hang on

The same grim picture applies to intensive care beds. At the peak, 24,500 intensive care beds will be needed and 799 are available, the analysts predict.

The 799 is suspiciously close to the situation a month ago and before the new nightingale hospitals were built. Possible the authors didn’t update the data.

Does it have 23,701 beds in it?

[Grumble]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... y-predicts

I was guessing about a thousand deaths per day, not 3000.

Slow hand clap for Boris.

Hang on

The same grim picture applies to intensive care beds. At the peak, 24,500 intensive care beds will be needed and 799 are available, the analysts predict.

The 799 is suspiciously close to the situation a month ago and before the new nightingale hospitals were built. Possible the authors didn’t update the data.

Does it have 23,701 beds in it?

How sensitive is the model to the data being updated?

[shpalman]

It's here: https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-kingdom

799 feels way to low for the total number of ICU beds in a country anyway though so I'm confused about that number.

[Pucksoppet]

<<lots of good stuff>>

I just want to say thank you to EACL for what he is doing, despite his own health-related challenges. I hope the recipients of your masks appreciate them.

[Pucksoppet]

Covid-19 mortality linked to air pollution
https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/covid-pm/home

Results: We found that an increase of only 1 μg/m3 in PM2.5 is associated with a 15% increase in the COVID-19 death rate, 95% confidence interval (CI) (5%, 25%). Results are statistically significant and robust to secondary and sensitivity analyses.

To my untutored eye, that looks spectacular.

Given I've spent almost my entire life as a city boy, it is also somewhat disturbing.

[Woodchopper]

It's here: https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-kingdom

799 feels way to low for the total number of ICU beds in a country anyway though so I'm confused about that number.

It looks like they’ve applied the same model to 30 different states. They’ve also made a mistake with Norway. Stated there had not been any travel restrictions whereas in fact the ports are closed and there are some controls on internal travel.

[raven]

It's here: https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-kingdom

799 feels way to low for the total number of ICU beds in a country anyway though so I'm confused about that number.

It's possibly unoccupied ICU beds. We have something like 4000, and at the standard 80% occupancy that leaves about 800 free to use.

[Woodchopper]

It's here: https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-kingdom

799 feels way to low for the total number of ICU beds in a country anyway though so I'm confused about that number.

It's possibly unoccupied ICU beds. We have something like 4000, and at the standard 80% occupancy that leaves about 800 free to use.

That’s what I’m assuming. But if so it ignores the capacity that’s been built over the past few weeks.

[shpalman]

Whether that's relevant depends on if their model takes into account the reduced survival chances of severe cases who don't manage to get an ICU bed.

[El Pollo Diablo]

I think their model sees a jump to over a thousand daily deaths by <checks> yesterday, which hasn't really happened. We're still just under 14 days behind Italy. Following that path, we'll be at 10,000 deaths by Sunday