Schools in Ireland are closing, and in parts of Spain. Europe is taking this seriously.
Covid-19 News
- Alan Smith
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More reason to wash hands that have gone through populated indoor areas...
From medrxiv.. 9th March..
https://www.medrxiv.org/conten…03.09.20033217v1.full.pdf
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Given that SARS-CoV-1 superspreading events were linked to aerosol and fomite transmission our finding that HCoV-19
has viability in the environment comparable to that of SARS lends credence to the hypothesis that it too may be associated with superspreading.
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Sunshine uv may be beneficial in reducing Covid-19 halflife.. (according to Dr Nichols but there is little inside a hospital..in winter..or at night
Canada had the most deaths from SARS (2003) than any country outside of China or Hong Kong. It was concentrated in my city of Toronto, which is a very cosmopolitan city with a very busy international airport and crowded subways. There was probably a super spreader involved.
Fast forward : Thus far there are no reported community spread cases of covid19, only imported cases. I figure this will change very quickly in the next couple of weeks. But as of now, people are out and about as per usual. Thankfully the sunlight is increasing at an accelerating rate, making it tougher on the virus and giving the population a needed vitamin D3 influx.
Just to think, perhaps half of us on this board will have had covid19 by years end. Maybe one or two of us will be hospitalized.
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More reason to wash hands that have gone through populated indoor areas...
From medrxiv.. 9th March..
https://www.medrxiv.org/conten…03.09.20033217v1.full.pdf
HCoV-19 and SARS-CoV-1 exhibited similar half-lives in aerosols, with median estimates around 2.7 hours.
Both viruses show relatively long viability on stainless steel and polypropylene compared to copper or cardboard: the median half-life estimate for
HCoV-19 is around 13 hours on steel and around 16 hours on polypropylene.A notable feature of SARS-CoV-1 was super-spreading events, in which a single infected individual was responsible for a large number of secondary cases,
well above the average number denoted by the reproduction number.
A tendency toward such super-spreading events has two important consequences for the epidemiology of emerging infections:
it makes any given introduction of infection more likely to die out by chance,
but when outbreaks do occur they are explosive and can overwhelm hospital and public health capacity.
A number of hypothesized super-spreading events have been reported for HCoV-19.
Given that SARS-CoV-1 superspreading events were linked to aerosol and fomite transmission our finding that HCoV-19
has viability in the environment comparable to that of SARS lends credence to the hypothesis that it too may be associated with superspreading.
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Sunshine uv may be beneficial in reducing Covid-19 halflife.. (according to Dr Nichols but there is little inside a hospital..in winter..or at night
The problem with this virus is it’s airborne. Someone can give it to you just by breathing the same airspace as they do. And they may not have any symptoms of being sick when you are sharing that airspace. That’s why this one is so much more difficult to contain than SARS. The best thing people can do in this situation is not share airspace with other people. And this may have to be the case for months to come. That’s quite difficult in modern day society. But anything short of that will lead to this virus spreading further. -
Listening to Boris an NHS briefing. The stage 2 strategy is to smoothen the peak to reduce impact on health system while building up capacity.
One important thing that they do want certain exposure of public blow critical level to build up immunity in case virus returns later and also to maintain public enthusiasm for protective measures
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Good stuff that NHS realizes that stopping direct flights from affected areas will not be effective due to indirect flow
That puts US ban on Europe flights into doubts since alternative routes for exist
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In Vitro Antiviral Activity and Projection of Optimized Dosing Design of Hydroxychloroquine for the Treatment of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Hydroxychloroquine (EC50=0.72 μM) was found to be more potent than chloroquine (EC50=5.47 μM) in vitro of Vero cells. Based on PBPK models results, a loading dose of 400 mg twice daily of hydroxychloroquine sulfate given orally, followed by a maintenance dose of 200 mg given twice daily for 4 days is recommended for SARS-CoV-2 infection, as it reached three times the potency of chloroquine phosphate when given 500 mg twice daily 5 days in advance.
This is a good new, as hydroxychloroquine (Plaquenil) is at least twice less toxic than chloroquine (generic Aralen). Phosphate salt of chloroquine, a an aminoquinolone compound with antimalarial and anti-inflammatory properties was discovered by Bayer and introduced into clinical practice in 1947 to treat malaria. It was proven to be effective against SARS in 2005 too. There is theory that mineral zinc supplements could potent its effect a lot.
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Time to rename this thread to 'covid self medication '
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Patrick Vallence, the chief scientific adviser, said the true number of infections was “likely” to be between 5,000 and 10,000 – many times higher than the current figure of 590.
If they have done extensive testing of the general population that appears to be healthy, and they have not found many "hidden" cases, then I think 5,000 to 10,000 is too high. That is my understanding of the W.H.O. report on China, where hundreds of thousands of apparently healthy people were tested, and very few hidden cases have been found. That is also the situation in Korea, I believe. This is not my opinion. The experts seem to disagree about the likely number of hidden cases.
On the other hand, if they have not tested the general population in the UK, I don't see how they can estimate how many hidden cases there are.
In the U.S. I am sure there are hundreds of hidden cases -- probably thousands. I have read about entire groups of people such as dozens of firemen in Seattle who are sick with the coronavirus but have not been tested. A few days ago in the New York Times, doctors said they did not even have enough test kits to test people in the Life Care Center where several patients have died. Until there is extensive testing our "hidden cases" are not hidden at all. They right out in public, with both patients and doctors complaining to the press. The are also being treated by doctors who don't even use gloves or other protection in New York City, left to wait in waiting rooms, and repeatedly sent home. If you deliberately set up a system to spread an epidemic, this is what you would do.
By the way, all coronavirus articles in the New York Times are now free, without a paywall: https://www.nytimes.com/news-event/coronavirus
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Alan Smith if you listened NHS briefing, they said the major unknown is a.number of.asymptomatic people.
Any talk about total number of infected is pure speculation then.
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The U.S. is now undergoing exponential increases in coronavirus cases, similar to Italy. The epidemic began in Italy 3 weeks ago. Yesterday the number of new cases in Italy reached 2,641, despite drastic efforts to limit the disease. Perhaps the new efforts have not yet had effect.
In the U.S. the total number of cases from March 1 to March 12 was:
Date Cases 1 75 2 100 3 124 4 158 5 221 6 319 7 435 8 541 9 704 10 994 11 1301 12 1573 The last number may increase before the end of this day. Here is a graph of these numbers with the Excel trend line set to "exponential." As you see, it is a close fit to the curve. The second graph projects this exponential growth for another 12 days. As you see, if the present trend continues there will be 50,000 cases. This will soon result in roughly 350 deaths per day if the rate is the same as Korea (0.7%, the lowest in the world), or 3,500 at the rate in Italy (7%, the highest). At present, Federal and local governments are doing nothing to prevent this. They have not even distributed a significant number of test kits. As of a few days ago, only 8,500 tests had been performed, according to the CDC.
Data from: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/
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Quote
Very prudent. Sartans vs prils is a complex issue... even for the BMJ editors.
Yup. I under-estimated it so thanks for that article. Disregard what I wrote before. Neither ARB's nor ACE inhibitors seem indicated. Too bad.
from robert bryant
Quote"The notion that angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) like Losartan can prevent COVID-2019 infection has started to circulate,
and in some cases we also witnessed its prescription for this reason, although no basis of evidence is available to date."
...the practice of prescribing ARBs or ACE-inhibitors for the prevention of COVID-2019 infection should be discouraged.
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I under-estimated it
Not just you..
The BMJ editors should have picked it up when the first spurious claim was made by Phadke on the 4th of February
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Major teams in Europe football are locked out due to corona. May be end or delay of season from next Monday. Ice Hockey did already end for 3 countries.
This is the origin of the US forecast: Interview on Youtube (from vortex): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3URhJx0NSw
After 50' it shifts to other diseases last 5' there isa kind of summary.
Only small critics: Origin of virus must be "bats" - according expert .. albeit we know all 300'000 potential bat virus and none of them does match... (but this is a highly political issue.)
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Alan Smithif you listened NHS briefing, they said the major unknown is a.number of.asymptomatic people.
Any talk about total number of infected is pure speculation then.
It is not speculation if tests have been administered to a statistically significant fraction of the healthy population. I do not know if such tests have been done in the UK, but they have in China. As reported by the W.H.O. they looked for both current cases (symptomatic and asymptomatic) and cases in people who recovered completely (antibody tests). They found very few in samples of hundreds of thousands. If there are not many hidden cases in China, there are probably not many in the UK, human biology being the same in both places.
These notions that you cannot measure hidden cases or asymptomatic cases is weird. Have you people never heard of statistics, or population sampling? Of course you can measure such things!
I should add that no such measurements have been made in the U.S., because essentially zero test kits have been distributed. (Zero in comparison to the needs.) We have not even tried to measure people who have the symptoms and who the doctors have diagnosed with coronavirus, never mind a sample of the healthy population. Based on the studies in China, I do not think it is likely the UK has as many as 5,000 hidden or asymptomatic cases. But no one can have even the slightest idea how many there may be in the U.S. We have no data. We are flailing around in the dark. The only data we have is the actual number of sick people. That is, the new cases per day shown above. Projected from those numbers alone, without knowing how many hidden or asymptomatic cases there may be, anyone can see there will be ~50,000 cases in another 12 days if the trend continues. And anyone can see from the events in China and Italy that nothing is being done in the U.S., and the trend will continue. What will stop it? Nothing stopped it in China and Italy until drastic measures were taken. Closing down flights to Europe is useless. It is purely for show, done by people who have no understanding of disease or epidemiology. You might as well delay the next launch of a rocket explorer to Mars and expect that to have an effect.
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It is not speculation if tests have been administered to a statistically significant fraction of the healthy population. I do not know if such tests have been done in the UK, but they have in China. As reported by the W.H.O. they looked for both current cases (symptomatic and asymptomatic) and cases in people who recovered completely (antibody tests). They found very few in samples of hundreds of thousands. If there are not many hidden cases in China, there are probably not many in the UK, human biology being the same in both places.
These notions that you cannot measure hidden cases or asymptomatic cases is weird. Have you people never heard of statistics, or population sampling? Of course you can measure such things!
I should add that no such measurements have been made in the U.S., because essentially zero test kits have been distributed. (Zero in comparison to the needs.) We have not even tried to measure people who have the symptoms and who the doctors have diagnosed with coronavirus, never mind a sample of the healthy population. Based on the studies in China, I do not think it is likely the UK has as many as 5,000 hidden or asymptomatic cases. But no one can have even the slightest idea how many there may be in the U.S. We have no data. We are flailing around in the dark. The only data we have is the actual number of sick people. That is, the new cases per day shown above. Projected from those numbers alone, without knowing how many hidden or asymptomatic cases there may be, anyone can see there will be ~50,000 cases in another 12 days if the trend continues. And anyone can see from the events in China and Italy that nothing is being done in the U.S., and the trend will continue. What will stop it? Nothing stopped it in China and Italy until drastic measures were taken. Closing down flights to Europe is useless. It is purely for show, done by people who have no understanding of disease or epidemiology. You might as well delay the next launch of a rocket explorer to Mars and expect that to have an effect.
It sounds dramatic to say it, but for Germany, Spain, France and the U.S. it's too late to really do anything but shut the country down similar to Italy and China. Today's cases in Germany are +779, Spain +782, and France +592. The U.S. is much lower than that, but our numbers are bogus since our government is basically not testing anyone - which is horrific.
All four countries are essentially a week behind Italy. So something miraculous would have to happen to not be where they are in 7-10 days from now. Yes, major events are being shut down, which helps I guess. Banning flights from Europe does nothing. But where I live I still see people in groups all over the place. People aren't in isolation in the U.S. anymore than they were in Italy a week ago. As long as people are in physical contact with strangers the numbers should grow at an increasing daily compounding rate.
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Well back from my cruise around Spain without managing to catch anything nasty.
Lots of stress at work as NHS shifts into a high rate of preparations. Lots of staff are putting in long hours.
Shortage of alcohol hand wash and when they are put out in clinics the patients nick them.
This week we are seeing areas of clinics being prepped as isolation zones for potential corona patients.
Not a fan of Boris but at least he seems to be listening to the science and the UK strategy seems logical and measured. Lets hope not too measured.
The US on the other hand looks like it might have dropped the ball, we shall see.
Meanwhile - here in Yorkshire things are getting serious and the status has been raised to "put the kettle on".
On the topic of doctors colluding to make as much money as possible from their mistreated patients I would like to start a conspiracy theory that dentists invented meusli since my wife broke a tooth eating hers today.
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Max Nozin, JedRothwell. I think the UK has a pretty food statistical basis for the suggested 10,000 cases. Something like 20,000 people have been tested, and they are accelerating the program as reported by the BBC -
In that case, I believe them! If they have measured a sample as large as 20,000, and they extrapolated 10,000 cases, I believe them.
