COVID-19

Discussions about serious topics, for serious people
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JQH
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Re: COVID-19

Post by JQH » Tue Jun 23, 2020 12:53 pm

shpalman wrote:
Tue Jun 23, 2020 12:11 pm
If you stay 1 metre from me plus I stay 1 metre from you that's 2 metres, right?

Well I assume that's what '1 metre plus' means.
If I understand Johnson's witterings it means 1 metre plus other measures such as mask wearing.


I'm not clear how I drink a pint while wearing a mask.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by Aitch » Tue Jun 23, 2020 1:00 pm

JQH wrote:
Tue Jun 23, 2020 12:53 pm
shpalman wrote:
Tue Jun 23, 2020 12:11 pm
If you stay 1 metre from me plus I stay 1 metre from you that's 2 metres, right?

Well I assume that's what '1 metre plus' means.
If I understand Johnson's witterings it means 1 metre plus other measures such as mask wearing.


I'm not clear how I drink a pint while wearing a mask.
The return of the bendy plastic straw! ;)
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gosling
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Re: COVID-19

Post by gosling » Tue Jun 23, 2020 2:56 pm

If the rest of the country is anything like my corner of that there London, no-one seems to know what 2m looks like anyway. Usually get people standing a metre apart, if lucky. With the reduction to "1m plus", everyone will just be standing next to each other.

On my cycle ride to the supermarket yesterday - a large group of guys playing 5-a-side football, another large group of guys sitting close together on the narrow pavement outside a cafe, and my personal favourite sight: the guy at the pedestrian crossing who took his mask off so he could spit on the ground :roll:

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Re: COVID-19

Post by EllyCat » Tue Jun 23, 2020 5:14 pm

gosling wrote:
Tue Jun 23, 2020 2:56 pm
If the rest of the country is anything like my corner of that there London, no-one seems to know what 2m looks like anyway. Usually get people standing a metre apart, if lucky. With the reduction to "1m plus", everyone will just be standing next to each other.

On my cycle ride to the supermarket yesterday - a large group of guys playing 5-a-side football, another large group of guys sitting close together on the narrow pavement outside a cafe, and my personal favourite sight: the guy at the pedestrian crossing who took his mask off so he could spit on the ground :roll:
People are, generally speaking, rubbish.

Swapping down to 1m means that my toddlers will now see grown ups “standing next to one another” so I no longer have any chance at enforcing “please stay away from other people” because nobody will model what “away” looks like. Ah well, looks like they’ll be back to licking the playground soon enough anyway 🙄

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Re: COVID-19

Post by Zelot » Fri Jun 26, 2020 8:19 am

I have a simple Covid question, but I feel like I should know the answer. My understanding is that there are people who carry the virus but have no visible symptoms, is that right? Are they the super spreaders that could be unknowingly spreading the virus accidentally?

In theory I could be a carrier of the virus, but have no way of knowing unless I get tested, but I don't feel I need to be tested because I have no symptoms.

If this is the case, how many potential super spreaders are there?

Thanks for your help.

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Re: COVID-19

Post by headshot » Fri Jun 26, 2020 9:34 am

I’ve read that there’s some doubt whether completely asymptomatic people are spreading the virus.

Super-spreaders have been people that spread the virus in the first few days of infection before showing symptoms - when they are asymptomatic.

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Re: COVID-19

Post by EACLucifer » Fri Jun 26, 2020 9:47 am

Zelot wrote:
Fri Jun 26, 2020 8:19 am
I have a simple Covid question, but I feel like I should know the answer. My understanding is that there are people who carry the virus but have no visible symptoms, is that right? Are they the super spreaders that could be unknowingly spreading the virus accidentally?

In theory I could be a carrier of the virus, but have no way of knowing unless I get tested, but I don't feel I need to be tested because I have no symptoms.

If this is the case, how many potential super spreaders are there?

Thanks for your help.
People can spread the virus before they develop symptoms, and thus before they know they have the virus*. This is one reason it has spread so quickly. Where people get ill before they become really contagious, they tend to spread it less as they stay at home and go to bed where there are fewer people to infect instead of going about life as normal. There's debate about how much spread happens because of people who never get symptoms*, but spread by people before they get symptoms is a key detail in the spread of this disease.

Superspreaders and superspreading events are colloquial terms for events and people that infect a large number of people. Superspreading events generally involve lots of people gathered together in high risk environments or doing high risk behaviours, eg. in confined spaces where droplets can linger in the air, or singing or chanting, where people emit more droplets. Though superspreaders are not necessarily asymptomatic or presymptomatic, the two often go together as people who have symptoms are less likely likely to go into crowded bars, church services or whatever, either because they feel unwell and want to rest up at home, or because they are worried they will infect other people.

*presymptomatic spread
*asymptomatic spread

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Re: COVID-19

Post by FlammableFlower » Mon Jun 29, 2020 12:03 pm

the Guardian wrote:China's military approves vaccine for use on its soldiers
China’s military has approved a coronavirus vaccine for use within its ranks that has been developed by its research unit and a biotech firm.

More than half of 17 candidate vaccines identified by the World Health Organization that are in clinical evaluation involve Chinese companies or institutes.

Hong Kong-listed CanSino Biologics said in a filing to the stock exchange that data from clinical trials showed the Chinese military vaccine had a “good safety profile” and potential to prevent disease caused by the coronavirus.

CanSino said China’s central military commission approved the use of the vaccine on 25 June for one year.

The vaccine was jointly developed by CanSino and the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology, part of the Academy of Military Medical Sciences.

Its use cannot be expanded without further approvals, the listing said.

It was not clear how widely it would be used within China’s enormous military forces, and the ministry of defence did not reply to an AFP request for further information.

CanSino added that it cannot guarantee the vaccine – which had its phase one and two clinical trials done in China – will ultimately be commercialised. Another 131 candidate vaccines listed by the WHO are in the pre-clinical phase.

None have yet been approved for commercial use against the coronavirus.

According to medical journal the Lancet there have already been more than 1,000 clinical trials on dozens of pharmaceutical treatments for the virus but no totally effective medical intervention has been found.

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Re: COVID-19

Post by shpalman » Mon Jun 29, 2020 12:07 pm

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/sp ... n-tracing/
• Failure to build up capacity to perform mass tests for COVID-19.

• Deciding on a narrower definition of COVID-19 than used by the World Health Organization and other countries.

• A decision to abandon testing of most people who didn't require hospitalization, and failure, early on, to create any way to track infection.

• A decision to abandon a programme of widespread “contact tracing,” in which people in contact with an infected person were traced and told to isolate to stop the outbreak spreading.

• Deciding to share almost no details about the location of infections with local public health officials or the public.

• Fragmenting local responsibility for public health.

“Every mistake that was made did, unfortunately, cost lives,” said Professor Tim Spector, an epidemiologist at King’s College London.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by raven » Mon Jun 29, 2020 2:39 pm

Yeah, lots of mistakes there.

Is it also a mistake to wait for a positive test to trigger contract tracing?

I mean, if tests are taking more than 24hrs to come back, maybe it would be better to act on a symptomatic disgnosis alone. Then if there's a negative test later (or perhaps two negative tests in a row given test accuracy) you can phone everybody up and make them very happy by releasing them from self-isolation.

Although that might make people think it's all a bit cry wolf and then they'll take being asked to isolate less seriously. And you'll get more false alarms in the autumn when there's more sniffles about. So maybe that's not such a great idea.

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Re: COVID-19

Post by Squeak » Mon Jun 29, 2020 11:27 pm

Australia, after doing a frankly amazing job of controlling covid is now showing a nasty little warning. Victoria, by early June, had a few days with zero new cases but some people got complacent and they got 75 be cases yesterday, out of 469 for June, with just about all of those cases in the last ten days. And, for the first time, we're seeing uncontrolled community spread, with the majority of these cases coming from unknown sources.

Obviously, <500 cases in a month is tiny, compared with most other places, but it's really disappointing in a place that did have the virus under almost complete control.

Sadly, the hotspot suburbs have highly diverse populations too, so there's lots of lovely racist journalism and social media flinging blame about. :(

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Re: COVID-19

Post by shpalman » Tue Jun 30, 2020 4:54 pm

Today and yesterday we've had no new cases in Como.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by shpalman » Thu Jul 02, 2020 6:44 pm

shpalman wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 4:54 pm
Today and yesterday we've had no new cases in Como.
One case yesterday, four cases today.

Meanwhile https://twitter.com/DHSCgovuk seems very late publishing today's numbers.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by jimbob » Thu Jul 02, 2020 7:42 pm

Have you considered stupidity as an explanation

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Re: COVID-19

Post by discovolante » Thu Jul 02, 2020 8:38 pm

jimbob wrote:
Thu Jul 02, 2020 7:42 pm
Blog by Mikeh

https://medium.com/@michael.g.head/ther ... e3cfffdd95
I feel like he was in a bad mood when he wrote that.

I guess it will be 'interesting' to see how perceptions of Covid shift as it spreads and retreats throughout different parts of the world...
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Re: COVID-19

Post by sTeamTraen » Thu Jul 02, 2020 9:46 pm

Here in the Balearic Islands (population 1.2m, of which Mallorca represents 70%), we have had 89 cases in the last 28 days, i.e., 3 per day. People are starting to wonder if they can take their masks off soon, as it's pretty sweaty behind one of those things. But we have just opened up to tourists, and as they found out at the airport yesterday, it is simply not possible to do proper checks on 180 people getting off a Eurowings A320 when there is a Ryanair 737 landing 5 minutes later. (On a Saturday in July or August in a normal season, a plane lands every 2 minutes, from 0630 to 2359.) So we are bracing ourselves for many small outbreaks, in the hope that they can be contained. But with 45% of our GDP coming from tourism, closing for the summer is not really an option. As it is, the authorities are forecasting 40% of the normal number of visitors, implying "only" a drop of 27% in our regional GDP. Ouch.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by shpalman » Fri Jul 03, 2020 5:41 am

shpalman wrote:
Thu Jul 02, 2020 6:44 pm
shpalman wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 4:54 pm
Today and yesterday we've had no new cases in Como.
One case yesterday, four cases today.

Meanwhile https://twitter.com/DHSCgovuk seems very late publishing today's numbers.
They eventually got published. Pillar 2 data is now in the local totals* apparently but the national total has been revised down by about 30,000.

https://thelincolnite.co.uk/2020/07/new ... colnshire/
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Re: COVID-19

Post by JQH » Fri Jul 03, 2020 7:54 am

According to the in-laws it's getting pretty bad in South Africa. Doesn't help that conspiracy theories abound: Covid is caused by 5G etc

The worst of it is is that the government tried an early lockdown and was roundly ignored. You'd think the HIV epidemic would be a warning about what an incurable viral disease can do but it would appear not.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by sTeamTraen » Fri Jul 03, 2020 8:54 am

JQH wrote:
Fri Jul 03, 2020 7:54 am
According to the in-laws it's getting pretty bad in South Africa. Doesn't help that conspiracy theories abound: Covid is caused by 5G etc

The worst of it is is that the government tried an early lockdown and was roundly ignored. You'd think the HIV epidemic would be a warning about what an incurable viral disease can do but it would appear not.
I thought SA had a good start to the pandemic (once the black market got going so people could at least get booze and fags). Did they drop the ball over time, or was it never as not-too-bad as they made out?
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Re: COVID-19

Post by JQH » Fri Jul 03, 2020 12:12 pm

It was worse than people thought, I think. A lot of people in the townships live in crowded conditions; entire families in one bedroom houses. And in the squatter camps informal settlements you have the Third World problem of lack of running water or proper sewerage disposal as well.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by JQH » Fri Jul 03, 2020 8:45 pm

A friend of MrsH's in South Africa has died of covid-19. She was 53.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by Bird on a Fire » Fri Jul 03, 2020 10:51 pm

Sorry to hear that, JQH.

I think globally we're in for a really rough ride. Social distancing is pretty much impossible in so much of the world. Funding to push hygiene infrastructute into under-resourced areas would be very welcome, though.
We have the right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment.

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Re: COVID-19

Post by jimbob » Tue Jul 07, 2020 11:57 am

JQH wrote:
Fri Jul 03, 2020 8:45 pm
A friend of MrsH's in South Africa has died of covid-19. She was 53.
Sorry to hear that.
And yes, South Africa is looking bad
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation

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Re: COVID-19

Post by Woodchopper » Tue Jul 07, 2020 1:35 pm

For months, scientists have debated whether a variant of the coronavirus that has come to predominate in much of the world did so partly because it is more transmissible than other viruses.

On Thursday, a team of researchers reported new evidence that is likely to deepen the debate rather than settle it, experts said; too many uncertainties remain, in a pandemic that changes shape by the day.

The new report, posted by the journal Cell and led by investigators at Los Alamos National Laboratory, suggested that the variant did have such an advantage. Other researchers said the findings were not yet definitive.

[...]

The underlying question is as important as ever, both for understanding the early phases of the pandemic and anticipating how it will progress in the coming months. If the genetic glitch that defines the variant, known as D614G, imparted even a slight increase in transmissibility, it would help explain why infections exploded in some regions and not in others with similar density and other attributes. Others experts argue that it is far more likely that the variation spread widely by chance, multiplying outward from explosive outbreaks in Europe.

Last month, virologists at Scripps Research, Florida, found that viruses with the D614G mutation were far more infectious than those without it, at least in cell culture. Those differences are necessary for higher transmission to occur in the real world, but hardly sufficient; there is no evidence that the D614G variant makes people sicker.

The new paper, led by Bette Korber, a theoretical biologist, presents evidence in the form of lab findings, tests of infected patients and a broad statistical analysis of the pandemic as the D614G variant repeatedly took over in cities, regions and countries. “The consistency of this pattern was highly statistically significant, suggesting that the D614G variant may have a fitness advantage,” the authors concluded.

In an interview, Dr. Korber said that the three lines of evidence “all support the idea this is quite likely to be a more transmissible virus” than other variants. She added: “It is the dominant virus in the world, it only took about a month for that to happen, and it’s now the one we should be looking at.”

The report also acknowledged that other alternate explanations were possible, including so-called founder effects — an advantage rooted in chance, and in the dynamics of transmission in regions where the variant first took off. Other research has found no evidence of increased transmissibility for D614G, and for many scientists the question remains an open one.
Here's a link to the article: https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(20)30820-5.pdf

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Re: COVID-19

Post by jimbob » Wed Jul 08, 2020 11:30 am

The 7-day averages for Australia are looking concerning:

Data from https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publicati ... -worldwide
Australia ECDC 20200708.PNG
Australia ECDC 20200708.PNG (29.06 KiB) Viewed 4503 times
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation

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