COVID-19

[lpm]

I'm wondering if private medicine insurance covers anything. Is BUPA about to go bust?

Whodda thunk, they won't pay a penny.

"We do not pay for treatment for or arising from any pandemic disease and/or epidemic disease."

[shpalman]

The hope here is that we'll start to see the infection rate going down over the next few days, which would be a sign that the containment measures have worked to reduce the number of infections currently incubating.

If not, well, the current exponential growth will keep going until the beginning of April according to the very simple model I was playing with earlier...

[Stephanie]

Meanwhile, sad news in Chesham:

IMG_20200302_202535.png (147.08 KiB) Viewed 89518 times

[bmforre]

The hope here is that we'll start to see the infection rate going down over the next few days, which would be a sign that the containment measures have worked to reduce the number of infections currently incubating.

If not, well, the current exponential growth will keep going until the beginning of April according to the very simple model I was playing with earlier...

Do big cats have BIG sneezes making them particularly dangerous these days?

Are zoos and other employers taking adequate protective measures?

[Tepid Water]

Talk of the effectiveness of hand sanitizers and them selling out....

Why isn’t soap selling out when it’s the better solution?

[AMS]

Talk of the effectiveness of hand sanitizers and them selling out....

Why isn’t soap selling out when it’s the better solution?

Maybe because the average person already has soap in their house, but not alcohol hand gel?

[FlammableFlower]

MrsFF has been engaged in something of an argument with another parent on the school Facebook page for parents. He's said that hand sanitiser is better than hand washing. She disagreed. He then came back with "well my kids would be more likely to use hand sanitiser than wash their hands". To which she said, it'd be better if they learnt... to which he decided he couldn't not have the last word and posted a link to a CDC page about hand sanitisers, claiming it vindicated his view. Except the opening line basically says that hand washing is the best measure, but here's info on hand sanitisers and how to use them...

[lpm]

I wonder what will happen with divorce rates. Imagine being stuck at home for weeks with a legally pair bonded partner. Christmas or 2 weeks holiday is bad enough for blazing rows.

[lpm]

Whoooaah. I just found out, having got back home, that the Wuhan football team came to train just down the road from us in late December. I can't help but think that the 'flu' that I had in January might have been something else. Particularly as I passed through Malaga airport at the same time as them.
Perhaps it wasn't flu? Am I being completely off base here? mikeh?

There are about 2 or 3 million cases of flu every month, worldwide.

Outside China there's been around 2 or 3 thousand Covid cases.

The maths says by 1000-1 you had the flu.

[bob sterman]

MrsFF has been engaged in something of an argument with another parent on the school Facebook page for parents. He's said that hand sanitiser is better than hand washing. She disagreed. He then came back with "well my kids would be more likely to use hand sanitiser than wash their hands". To which she said, it'd be better if they learnt... to which he decided he couldn't not have the last word and posted a link to a CDC page about hand sanitisers, claiming it vindicated his view. Except the opening line basically says that hand washing is the best measure, but here's info on hand sanitisers and how to use them...

Hand washing in the US is great - you'll often find lever operated mixer taps and paper towels. Hand washing in the UK is a completely different story!

In order of effectiveness I'd probably rank things (from most to least effective)..

1) Handwashing with soap in a good US "washroom" and drying with paper towels which you can throw into a foot operated bin.
2) Using hand sanitiser
3) Dunking your hands in public toilet.
4) Fiddling with rusty Victorian taps, then darting your hands back and forth between scorching hot and ice cold water streams, after unsuccessfully trying to get the last drops of liquid soap out of a broken dispenser. Then fiddling with the rusty Victorian taps again with your now "clean" hands, then using a hand dryer to blow the remaining bacteria and viruses from your hands into aerosolized droplets ready to inhale. Before finally wrestling with the filthy brass door handle to exit.

[Pucksoppet]

MrsFF has been engaged in something of an argument with another parent on the school Facebook page for parents. He's said that hand sanitiser is better than hand washing. She disagreed. He then came back with "well my kids would be more likely to use hand sanitiser than wash their hands". To which she said, it'd be better if they learnt... to which he decided he couldn't not have the last word and posted a link to a CDC page about hand sanitisers, claiming it vindicated his view. Except the opening line basically says that hand washing is the best measure, but here's info on hand sanitisers and how to use them...

Hand washing in the US is great - you'll often find lever operated mixer taps and paper towels. Hand washing in the UK is a completely different story!

In order of effectiveness I'd probably rank things (from most to least effective)..

1) Handwashing with soap in a good US "washroom" and drying with paper towels which you can throw into a foot operated bin.
2) Using hand sanitiser
3) Dunking your hands in public toilet.
4) Fiddling with rusty Victorian taps, then darting your hands back and forth between scorching hot and ice cold water streams, after unsuccessfully trying to get the last drops of liquid soap out of a broken dispenser. Then fiddling with the rusty Victorian taps again with your now "clean" hands, then using a hand dryer to blow the remaining bacteria and viruses from your hands into aerosolized droplets ready to inhale. Before finally wrestling with the filthy brass door handle to exit.

Regarding point (4). Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc; and copper has decent anti-microbial properties, so using brass for door furniture is not a bad idea. That by no means negates your other well-made points.

[Martin_B]

My old school went on a skiing trip to Northern Italy (not the whole school!). Apparently they have not self-quarantined when they returned home, mostly because the part of Northern Italy they went to have not had any cases. The other parents are up in arms about this and the local paper has got involved.

[Gfamily]

Do we know the incidence of false positives in the tests, and whether they are followed up with secondary testing?

Apparently, one of the UK 40 cases has been unconfirmed on the basis of the secondary test
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... ain-on-nhs

[dyqik]

The US has tested 472 people. And now stopped announcing new results.

Also, the mortality rate in the US is 12%, which suggests there's at least 6 times as many people with it than have been tested.

[Martin_B]

The US has tested 472 people. And now stopped announcing new results.

Also, the mortality rate in the US is 12%, which suggests there's at least 6 times as many people with it than have been tested.

Or that US healthcare for those with the virus is 6 times worse than China's.

Or that USAians only present at hospital for screening once they are too sick not to.

The high price of healthcare in the USA compared to, well, pretty much anywhere else on the planet, means much Dr. Googling, self-medication, and only turning up at ER/A&E if you absolutely have to

[shpalman]

Whoooaah. I just found out, having got back home, that the Wuhan football team came to train just down the road from us in late December. I can't help but think that the 'flu' that I had in January might have been something else. Particularly as I passed through Malaga airport at the same time as them.
Perhaps it wasn't flu? Am I being completely off base here? mikeh?

There are about 2 or 3 million cases of flu every month, worldwide.

Outside China there's been around 2 or 3 thousand Covid cases.

The maths says by 1000-1 you had the flu.

I've had the flu vaccine this year. If Opti and I both had Covid at some point before the Italian nexus came to light then there are likely to be a lot more than 2 or 3 thousand cases outside China by now.

However only about 5% of the swabs taken from Italians with symptoms bad enough to suspect Covid have tested positive for Covid so maybe your odds were closer to that.

Like I said, we should find out over the next few days if containment measures have worked to slow the rate of new infections.

[Stephanie]

I wonder what will happen with divorce rates. Imagine being stuck at home for weeks with a legally pair bonded partner. Christmas or 2 weeks holiday is bad enough for blazing rows.

Ha, this came up on twitter. Apparently, rich folk should be very worried

https://time.com/5793806/wealthy-rich-p ... ronavirus/

Wealthy couples who aren’t used to actually spending time together are in for trouble, according to Mitchell Moss, who studies urban policy and planning at New York University. “This is going to destroy the marriages of the rich,” said Moss. “All these husbands and wives who travel will now have to spend time with the person they’re married to.”

[Gentleman Jim]

one of our students has been within the vicinity of a child, outside of school, whose parent has been diagnosed with Coronavirus.

From a letter sent home from this school, last night

Cue parents ringing up this morning, asking if the school was open. I also expect a fairly large number of absentees over the next few days

[shpalman]

If you take the number of confirmed infections over time, it's growing exponentially, but crucially it's not growing exponentially from day zero (the 20th of February) when there were 3 cases in Italy (two Chinese tourists in Rome and 'patient 1' in Codogno); extrapolating the more recent data back to that day means there must have already been about 60 cases.

Figure_1.png (30.72 KiB) Viewed 89354 times

The time constant in the exponential is 3.08 days and the time it takes the number of cases to double is 2 days, 3 hours.

This is actually a SIR model, in which I have a population of 60 million, an initial number of 60 infected individuals (and 0 "recovered").

To get the right exponential growth I need a β of 0.35, which corresponds to a typical time between contacts of 2.86 days. But there's a long lag between the growth of infections and the growth of recovered patients so γ needs to be 1/(30 days) to fit that. This ends up giving a very high R_0 of 10.5.

So we should really be hoping that we've missed a lot of people previously infected and already recovered, because otherwise it's going to end up looking like this:

Figure_1_full.png (35.48 KiB) Viewed 89354 times

Note that if the containment measures have worked and the β parameter has been reduced the peak will be broader and later. This is helpful if it means fewer people need to be in hospital at once, or if it gives us time to develop and administer a vaccine.

[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?

Well Ryanair have made our minds up for us by cancelling our flights from Manchester to Bergamo. In theory we should be able to get a refund but the Ryanair refund web page is not working at the moment.

[Woodchopper]

Note that if the containment measures have worked and the β parameter has been reduced the peak will be broader and later. This is helpful if it means fewer people need to be in hospital at once, or if it gives us time to develop and administer a vaccine.

Indeed, the data from Hubei suggests that about 20% of patients need medical treatment, and if there are too many of them they can overwhelm the healthcare system.

[Stephanie]

The hope here is that we'll start to see the infection rate going down over the next few days, which would be a sign that the containment measures have worked to reduce the number of infections currently incubating.

If not, well, the current exponential growth will keep going until the beginning of April according to the very simple model I was playing with earlier...

Do big cats have BIG sneezes making them particularly dangerous these days?

Are zoos and other employers taking adequate protective measures?

What does this mean?

[Woodchopper]

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?

Well Ryanair have made our minds up for us by cancelling our flights from Manchester to Bergamo. In theory we should be able to get a refund but the Ryanair refund web page is not working at the moment.

A long time ago, but I actually got a full Ryanair refund after a flight was cancelled due to Eyjafjallajökull.

[El Pollo Diablo]

I wonder what will happen with divorce rates. Imagine being stuck at home for weeks with a legally pair bonded partner. Christmas or 2 weeks holiday is bad enough for blazing rows.

Ha, this came up on twitter. Apparently, rich folk should be very worried

https://time.com/5793806/wealthy-rich-p ... ronavirus/

Wealthy couples who aren’t used to actually spending time together are in for trouble, according to Mitchell Moss, who studies urban policy and planning at New York University. “This is going to destroy the marriages of the rich,” said Moss. “All these husbands and wives who travel will now have to spend time with the person they’re married to.”

Well, you say that, but Public Health England have advised:

I live with other people, how do I self-isolate?
It is important that you separate yourself from other people in your home and if you share facilities like toilets and bathrooms, regular cleaning will be required.

You should stay in a well-ventilated room with a window that can be opened, separate from other people in your home.

In the advice sheet, there are specific recommendations in the case that a separate bathroom is not available, if you live in shared accommodation, and if you share a kitchen with others, and these should be followed closely.

So, key points:

• It's winter - freeze your bollocks off
• Do as they do in one of those divorce comedies - put duck tape down throughout the house separating it into the "contaminated" half and the "uncontaminated" half. The virus will not cross the line. One half should have access to the TV and the other to the kettle.
• You can entertain yourself by cleaning.
• Buy a can of red paint and put a cross on your front door
• If you do have deliveries, shout through the door, "PLEASE LEAVE THE STUFF ON THE DOORSTEP. I MAY HAVE CORONAVIRUS AND CANNOT OPEN THE DOOR UNTIL YOU LEAVE. THANK YOU KIND SIR/MADAM"

[Gentleman Jim]

one of our students has been within the vicinity of a child, outside of school, whose parent has been diagnosed with Coronavirus.

From a letter sent home from this school, last night

Cue parents ringing up this morning, asking if the school was open. I also expect a fairly large number of absentees over the next few days

Update

student mentioned has been given the all clear.

Still have some parents who are refusing to send their child in