COVID-19

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Gfamily
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by Gfamily » Wed Feb 12, 2020 5:15 pm

basementer wrote:
Wed Feb 12, 2020 2:10 pm
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Wed Feb 12, 2020 11:52 am
How are you going to prepare the corvids for eating?
In a humble pie.
Better than 2 doz turdidae.
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ETA 5/8/20: I've been advised that the result was correct, it was the initial interpretation that needed to be withdrawn
Meta? I'd say so!

mikeh
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by mikeh » Wed Feb 12, 2020 6:21 pm

sTeamTraen wrote:
Wed Feb 12, 2020 7:51 am
I've seen some interesting online discussions where people are talking about keeping their kids home from school. Apart from the issue of when to let them return (the media are going to cover every individual case as if it's a terrorist attack, ironically perhaps even more if it *doesn't* become a pandemic), there have also been suggestions that children may deal quite well with the infection. Do any of the public health watchers here have data for that?

(We spent a year in the Gulf when our son was a baby. Mum and Dad got hepatitis A jabs, but we were told that infants who catch it have hardly any symptoms and get lifelong immunity for free.)
Have been too busy to really absorb the new and a multitude of new findings over the last couple of days, so there may be new stuff out that adds to or contradicts this. But I guess it may run along the lines of hep A or chicken pox, often mild in children.

The innate immune response of children differs from that seen in adults, Innate refers to the primary response when the body detects an invading pathogen, it sends out a stream of white blood different cells (phagocytes and macrophages being a couple of examples). Distinct from the adaptive immune system, which is what is generated when administered with a vaccine, more long-term and specialised to specific invaders.

Children seem to have a better innate response than adults, so can often handle some infections better. Children will likely be infected with coronavirus, but potentially handling it better, and thus remaining 'subclinical'. Their ability to transmit is therefore likely to be less, so they're probably not driving the outbreak, but may be contributing to it with low-level symptoms.

Have seen chat in various places about the impact of pollution, which is of course typically very bad in China (though unsure how seasonal that is and thus what its like in Jan and Feb). Children will have less exposure to pollution, adults will have more exposure and that may in turn have an impact on the immune system and how it handles infections. Probably a contributory factor to the epidemiology we see here, but not sure if anyone has written about the possible extent.
Not sure also what the data says on severity and co-morbidity with asthma, COPD, emphysema etc. But plausible/likely that severity and incidence are higher in those patients.

Meanwhile, in related news, peaking soon, say London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine modellers (not yet peer-reviewed though they are an excellent group, done plenty of flu and ebola outbreaks for example).
Plausible findings, but as the authors acknowledge, who knows?

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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by plodder » Wed Feb 12, 2020 7:29 pm

That would be great.

I've started seeing nutritionist fb posts warning everyone not to trust big pharma.

Brighton is exactly the kind of place where parents will arrange coronovirus parties too.

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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by mikeh » Wed Feb 12, 2020 7:45 pm

plodder wrote:
Wed Feb 12, 2020 7:29 pm
I've started seeing nutritionist fb posts warning everyone not to trust big pharma.
Well, in 18 months time, you'll be nearer the front of the queue for the coronavirus vaccine.

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Woodchopper
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by Woodchopper » Wed Feb 12, 2020 8:44 pm

plodder wrote:
Wed Feb 12, 2020 7:29 pm

Brighton is exactly the kind of place where parents will arrange coronovirus parties too.
Here’s a fun game for the children to play at the virus party.
https://youtu.be/aZdPCCKPDBY

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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by nefibach » Wed Feb 12, 2020 10:50 pm

Good piece from the BBC on how this unfolded and the challenges faced by China's ruling party:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51449675

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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by nefibach » Thu Feb 13, 2020 2:38 am

mikeh wrote:
Wed Feb 12, 2020 6:21 pm
Meanwhile, in related news, peaking soon, say London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine modellers (not yet peer-reviewed though they are an excellent group, done plenty of flu and ebola outbreaks for example).
Plausible findings, but as the authors acknowledge, who knows?
It ain't peaking.

Big jump in cases as they change the diagnostic criteria.
1. There's a lot of buzz on the astronomical jump in cases from Hubei on Wednesday -- 14,840 new confirmed cases, almost 10 x compared to a day earlier. New deaths rose to 242, more than double fr day b4. The govt has changed the diagnostic criteria used to confirm cases. More ...

2. Effectively, this means the govt is giving doctors greater discretion to clinically diagnose patients. Previously, they could only confirm cases with the nucleic acid test kits. But a govt expert said recently these were only 30-40 percent accurate.

3. More crucially, we were interviewing patients, who were showing all the symptoms of the new coronavirus, who said they were tested four to five times before they got a positive result. Li Wenliang, the whistleblower doctor, was one of them.

4. Chinese health experts say this is why there's a change: they now realize that there's a group of patients who only test positive very late with the nucleic acid testing. Because of how transmissible the disease is, they want to include these people as confirmed cases.

5. The point is to isolate these patients quickly and treat them. Doctors are now clinically diagnosing these people with CT scans. The advantage of these scans are they are immediate. Previously, patients had to wait at least two days for their results.

6. Samples had to be transported for hours to the province's relatively few labs. The nucleic acid tests are also dependent on the people sampling these patients. There's room for error. But the disadvantage of using CT scans is that they might not catch people w mild symptoms.

7. I wrote about all these issues last week: As Deaths Mount, China Tries to Speed Up Coronavirus Testing https://nyti.ms/38dFtzZ
https://twitter.com/suilee/status/1227764679813951489

We're now at 60k cases and 1,368 deaths.

It's also very worrying that there's literally no cases in the stats from Africa. Given the close ties between China and parts of Africa, I find it hard to believe that there have literally been no cases diagnosed at all. Indeed:
Ethiopian Airlines continues its China service, and some 1,500 passengers arrive in Addis from China every day, many of whom transit to other African destinations. Yet, as of February 12, there have been no reported cased of the disease in Africa.
https://www.cfr.org/blog/potential-coronavirus-africa

Sense. It makes none.

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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by Herainestold » Thu Feb 13, 2020 2:40 am

15 000 new cases added in Hubei, because they are using different diagnostic criteria.
1. There's a lot of buzz on the astronomical jump in cases from Hubei on Wednesday -- 14,840 new confirmed cases, almost 10 x compared to a day earlier. New deaths rose to 242, more than double fr day b4. The govt has changed the diagnostic criteria used to confirm cases. More ..

Effectively, this means the govt is giving doctors greater discretion to clinically diagnose patients. Previously, they could only confirm cases with the nucleic acid test kits. But a govt expert said recently these were only 30-40 percent accurate

3. More crucially, we were interviewing patients, who were showing all the symptoms of the new coronavirus, who said they were tested four to five times before they got a positive result. Li Wenliang, the whistleblower doctor, was one of them.

4. Chinese health experts say this is why there's a change: they now realize that there's a group of patients who only test positive very late with the nucleic acid testing. Because of how transmissible the disease is, they want to include these people as confirmed cases.
https://twitter.com/suilee/status/1227764679813951489


Many challenges for the Chinese health authorities trying desperately to contain this pathogen. Good to see them revising their procedures and explaining it to the world.
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bob sterman
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by bob sterman » Thu Feb 13, 2020 7:58 am

Anyone know if the big jump in cases is newly presenting cases diagnosed yesterday using the new criteria, or a backlog of cases from the past couple of weeks that have been moved into the COVID-19 category because of the new criteria? Same for the deaths?

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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by Ladysavage » Thu Feb 13, 2020 11:03 am

My son has.been changing the lyrics to "break my stride" so is bouncing round the house singing

Last night I had the strangest dream
I sailed away to China
And caught coronavirus
And now I'm being stuck in quarantine

He's a bit creepy for a 9 year old

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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by mikeh » Thu Feb 13, 2020 1:05 pm

nefibach wrote:
Thu Feb 13, 2020 2:38 am
mikeh wrote:
Wed Feb 12, 2020 6:21 pm
Meanwhile, in related news, peaking soon, say London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine modellers (not yet peer-reviewed though they are an excellent group, done plenty of flu and ebola outbreaks for example).
Plausible findings, but as the authors acknowledge, who knows?
It ain't peaking.

Big jump in cases as they change the diagnostic criteria.
Peaking towards end of Feb was the suggestion, not right now. I think the lack of person to person transmission outside of China, plus the fact that kids don't appear to be spreading it like wildfire, are reassuring, and makes those estimates a pragmatic assumption right now.
Though the change in diagnostic criteria will make things interesting and volatile (in terms of numbers) over the next few days until everyone works out what's going on.

And agree about Africa. Though one would assume any actual cases are in sufficiently small numbers and localised thus far. Again, the low person to person transmission might be what allows this to be contained sooner rather than later.

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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by Woodchopper » Thu Feb 13, 2020 1:12 pm

nefibach wrote:
Thu Feb 13, 2020 2:38 am

It's also very worrying that there's literally no cases in the stats from Africa. Given the close ties between China and parts of Africa, I find it hard to believe that there have literally been no cases diagnosed at all. Indeed:
Ethiopian Airlines continues its China service, and some 1,500 passengers arrive in Addis from China every day, many of whom transit to other African destinations. Yet, as of February 12, there have been no reported cased of the disease in Africa.
https://www.cfr.org/blog/potential-coronavirus-africa

Sense. It makes none.
See my earlier post: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=747&p=18203&hilit= ... gal#p18203

As of last week only six labs on the whole continent were able to test for it.

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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by plodder » Thu Feb 13, 2020 1:17 pm

Apparently one of the UK cases arrived in hospital in an Uber. Bit silly, that.

nefibach
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by nefibach » Thu Feb 13, 2020 1:41 pm

mikeh wrote:
Thu Feb 13, 2020 1:05 pm
nefibach wrote:
Thu Feb 13, 2020 2:38 am
mikeh wrote:
Wed Feb 12, 2020 6:21 pm
Meanwhile, in related news, peaking soon, say London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine modellers (not yet peer-reviewed though they are an excellent group, done plenty of flu and ebola outbreaks for example).
Plausible findings, but as the authors acknowledge, who knows?
It ain't peaking.

Big jump in cases as they change the diagnostic criteria.
Peaking towards end of Feb was the suggestion, not right now. I think the lack of person to person transmission outside of China, plus the fact that kids don't appear to be spreading it like wildfire, are reassuring, and makes those estimates a pragmatic assumption right now.
Though the change in diagnostic criteria will make things interesting and volatile (in terms of numbers) over the next few days until everyone works out what's going on.

And agree about Africa. Though one would assume any actual cases are in sufficiently small numbers and localised thus far. Again, the low person to person transmission might be what allows this to be contained sooner rather than later.
The WHO are saying it's not possible to predict if it's peaked

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2020/02 ... s-ireland/

and my worry is that if we start talking about it having peaked or maybe peaking soon, it'll erode people's trust if it doesn't (which it might not). It is great that it seems to be either giving the kids a miss or they are subclinical, and also that in places like Singapore the new cases are linked to previous travel to China, rather than popping up as isolated clusters. So outside of China risk is still very low, but if you just paid attention to the general media you wouldn't know it.

But then... you get stuff like this:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... -uber-taxi

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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by nefibach » Thu Feb 13, 2020 1:44 pm

Woodchopper wrote:
Thu Feb 13, 2020 1:12 pm
nefibach wrote:
Thu Feb 13, 2020 2:38 am

It's also very worrying that there's literally no cases in the stats from Africa. Given the close ties between China and parts of Africa, I find it hard to believe that there have literally been no cases diagnosed at all. Indeed:
Ethiopian Airlines continues its China service, and some 1,500 passengers arrive in Addis from China every day, many of whom transit to other African destinations. Yet, as of February 12, there have been no reported cased of the disease in Africa.
https://www.cfr.org/blog/potential-coronavirus-africa

Sense. It makes none.
See my earlier post: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=747&p=18203&hilit= ... gal#p18203

As of last week only six labs on the whole continent were able to test for it.
Aye, this is true... but they are expanding capacity:
Similar questions loom elsewhere. No cases have been confirmed in Africa, but there has been little testing. Initially, only two African labs were capable of detecting the virus, says John Nkengasong, who heads the African Centres for Disease Control and Prevention: “If this virus had shown up in Africa in December, or early January, it would have been devastating.” The continent is better prepared since a workshop in Dakar, Senegal, last week where lab workers from 15 African countries were taught how to use one of the new viral tests, which are based on the polymerase chain reaction assay, Nkengasong says. (Another workshop will follow next week.) Given that the virus has spread so widely, however, Farrar says he would be “very surprised” if it isn’t already in Africa.
Though there are also issues with shortages of diagnostics in China too.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02 ... infections

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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by OneOffDave » Thu Feb 13, 2020 2:15 pm

plodder wrote:
Thu Feb 13, 2020 1:17 pm
Apparently one of the UK cases arrived in hospital in an Uber. Bit silly, that.
If they don't have access to their own vehicle, how else should they get to hospital?

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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by mikeh » Thu Feb 13, 2020 2:23 pm

Latest dept of health email
2500 tests, still 9 cases.

And Quarantined-on-the-wirral is 14 days old, so they are I presume being released into the wild soon.

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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by plodder » Thu Feb 13, 2020 2:31 pm

OneOffDave wrote:
Thu Feb 13, 2020 2:15 pm
plodder wrote:
Thu Feb 13, 2020 1:17 pm
Apparently one of the UK cases arrived in hospital in an Uber. Bit silly, that.
If they don't have access to their own vehicle, how else should they get to hospital?
sh.t. Great idea. Someone ought to invent some sort of specialist transportation vehicle for people who need to get to hospital.

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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by OneOffDave » Thu Feb 13, 2020 2:42 pm

plodder wrote:
Thu Feb 13, 2020 2:31 pm
OneOffDave wrote:
Thu Feb 13, 2020 2:15 pm
plodder wrote:
Thu Feb 13, 2020 1:17 pm
Apparently one of the UK cases arrived in hospital in an Uber. Bit silly, that.
If they don't have access to their own vehicle, how else should they get to hospital?
sh.t. Great idea. Someone ought to invent some sort of specialist transportation vehicle for people who need to get to hospital.
So someone who is basically healthy overall ties up an ambulance and specialist crew for several hours meaning people who are in acute need don't get one. You burn through your PPE and HART crews pretty quickly that way.

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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by plodder » Thu Feb 13, 2020 3:17 pm

Fair enough - depends on whether they presented with a bad cold, or "I think I might have Coronavirus"

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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by lpm » Thu Feb 13, 2020 3:25 pm

This person was given instructions over the phone on exactly what to do - but ignored them, showed up at the hospital reception desk and told them she was the coronavirus case. Which led to a scramble that would have been entertaining to watch.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by OneOffDave » Thu Feb 13, 2020 3:27 pm

The BBC are reporting that the Uber driver has been contacted and is not at risk as he doesn't count as a close contact as the journey took less than 15 minutes (the contact criteria from PHE)

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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by OneOffDave » Thu Feb 13, 2020 3:29 pm

lpm wrote:
Thu Feb 13, 2020 3:25 pm
This person was given instructions over the phone on exactly what to do - but ignored them, showed up at the hospital reception desk and told them she was the coronavirus case. Which led to a scramble that would have been entertaining to watch.
Have we got a good source for this? Who gave her the instructions?

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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by lpm » Thu Feb 13, 2020 3:39 pm

111 gave the instructions.

Two hospital staff had to be sent home to self-isolate for a quarantine period. As always, the fatality rate for hospital workers will be higher than the average if this becomes a pandemic.
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by OneOffDave » Thu Feb 13, 2020 4:15 pm

lpm wrote:
Thu Feb 13, 2020 3:39 pm
111 gave the instructions.

Two hospital staff had to be sent home to self-isolate for a quarantine period. As always, the fatality rate for hospital workers will be higher than the average if this becomes a pandemic.
And we know what 111 said to her how? The quality of service delivered by 111 varies massively across the country.
There's an automatic assumption that it's the patient's fault. In my experience of healthcare workers encountering infectious disease there are a lot of errors with them not bothering to follow basic precautions or failing to use PPE correctly. The trust I worked for had processes in place to minimise the impact of self presenters with either chemical, radiological or biological contamination.

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