How big should that gap be?
The WHO recommends “3 feet”, the CDC recommends 6 feet, but new research shows they got the model wrong and we might need to be 30 feet apart. Not to mention that the cloud of aerosols can wander suspended for hours. So we may need to be 30 feet and three hours apart.
No wonder churches and places where people sing are such high risk events, and why an astonishing 12,000 health workers are infected with coronavirus in Spain.
They aren’t sure if their new findings have clinical implications, which says a lot about how much we don’t know. The 27 ft distance applies to sneezes, so if the other party isn’t sneezing you might not have to be so far. Lucky sneezing isn’t that common, though the dry cough is. Personal trainers at 27 feet is going to be tricky.
UPDATE: Some readers ask whether one new study is even worth reporting, accusing me of “scare tactics”. I’ve been reading medical papers now for over 20 years, so forgive me if I found the results here so banal that I didn’t mention that this result is barely new, and very well corroborated. Indeed it is not at all surprising to me that in some circumstances (right temp, humidity and airdraft) these viral particles would stay suspended for hours and travel much more than “6 feet”. In the last two months I’ve seen the same essential results posted by the CDC, Korean Profs, Chinese doctors and for anyone trained in microbiology, this is hardly news. I remain surprised that after ten years of being data driven in a field outside my training and primary interest, readers leap to declare astrological or political when I return to a field I got my degree in. I am still the same skeptic I always was. Stick with the data.
Coronavirus could travel 27 feet
NY Post
MIT associate professor Lydia Bourouiba, who has researched the dynamics of coughs and sneezes for years, warns in newly published research that the current guidelines are based on outdated models from the 1930s.
Rather than the assumed safety of 6 foot, Bourouiba warns that “pathogen-bearing droplets of all sizes can travel 23 to 27 feet.”
Her research, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, also warns that “droplets that settle along the trajectory can contaminate surfaces” — and “residues or droplet nuclei” may “stay suspended in the air for hours.”
…
Droplets that settle along the trajectory can contaminate surfaces, while the rest remain trapped and clustered in the moving cloud. Eventually the cloud and its droplet payload lose momentum and coherence, and the remaining droplets within the cloud evaporate, producing residues or droplet nuclei that may stay suspended in the air for hours, following airflow patterns imposed by ventilation or climate-control systems.
In the latest World Health Organization recommendations for COVID-19, health care personnel and other staff are advised to maintain a 3-foot (1-m)6 distance away from a person showing symptoms of disease, such as coughing and sneezing. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends a 6-foot (2-m) separation.7,8 However, these distances are based on estimates of range that have not considered the possible presence of a high-momentum cloud carrying the droplets long distances.
“Things seemed more ominous by early July. On July 9, The Seattle Times reported that the influenza in Spain had “spread over other parts of Europe” (“A Puzzling Epidemic”). On July 28 the newspaper noted that Camp Lewis had 327 cases of flu, but a week later the number had fallen to below 100. As late as mid-August there were reassuring reports that the count of flu cases at the army base continued to decrease, and no indication of any special concern. Even into September, the general mood was one of confidence. An optimistic commentator enthused, “It is a marvel, due to the perfection of our medical science, that there has been no widespread epidemic this summer of a more serious character than ‘flu,’ as the Spanish influenza and other allied fevers are called” (“Heavy Rain and Mud … “).”
https://www.historylink.org/File/20300
40
Mind the gap should be everybody’s train of thought.
70
Have a care . Don’t Share. TM(farmerbraun)
50
A sneeze is a pathogen cannon…..
This thing stays aerosolized for 3 hours, stays on surfaces for 2 weeks and is highly infectious…..
40
This supports the argument everyone needs to wear masks so that those with the virus won’t spray the infected aerosols anywhere near as much and as far as without having a mask. The problem though is we don’t have anywhere near enough of the number of masks to distribute to everyone. Poor vision on the part of our government, past and resent. Hopefully that and many aspects of managing this nation will change as we come out of this crisis. A lot has to change and I’m not sure our government or any other government has the will to do it. This is very likely our final opportunity to avoid a crash and burn scenario. I look forward to PM Morrison over the next few months coming up with a major recovery plan for Australia. Clearly it will have to include the scrapping of the emissions reduction nonsense. If it doesn’t then he must go and be replaced with someone else who will. This is no time to muck around with silly and useless policies.
250
As of yesterday, or thereabouts, a number of Australian companies are ramping up the production of masks. Until then, if the 27 feet distance is necessary, supermarket shopping has just become more fraught than ever.
I don’t have masks, but do wear latex gloves when forced to visit a supermarket.
30
Adelaide business Demtold, which usually makes packaging for fast-food giants including McDonald’s and KFC, will soon start pumping out surgical masks for front-line health workers.
Medcon, a Victorian company is also ramping up production of face masks.
80
Apologies for the really bad linking.
10
ah, it’s just practice, GD 😀
40
A sneeze can hang in the air for up to ten minutes, easily, in calm conditions.
I saw it back when I was seventeen: I was sitting on a bench in the Auckland CBD at the intersection of Bowen Ave and Kitchener St overlooking Queen St. The sun had just risen over the hill behind me and was shining down into Queen St. It was cold and the air was absolutely still. A man walked across Queen St and halfway across, he sneezed. The sun illuminated the droplets expelled by the sneeze. They were in a sphere nearly 1m in diameter, centered at head height, and they hung there for over ten minutes before final dispersal. That’s how Coughs Colds and Flus get around so easily. The source of them was long gone by then.
I’ve never forgotten that and have always carried a handkerchief since then. I admit I haven’t always been able to have it out in time … but I keep practising.
190
It’s really interesting re-reading the actual words of Pasteur and Bouchet as they debate the preposterous notion of germs of life, hanging like a thick fog in the air.
If only they had known of nucleic acids and virus.
By the way , what’s the half life of a fart?
71
The odious gas kept in a sealed glass jar may survive indefinitely, but in the atmosphere its uncertain. I’ll need a grant to test the hypothesis.
91
el gordo:
Why waste glass jars? Have the gas piped direct to a power station.
The restriction of being attached to a rubber hose will soon become acceptable once the other restrictions planned by the Greenies, the bureaucrats etc. are implemented.
40
But if no one smells it, did it happen?
Its a bit like just being an observer, may affect the actual experiment….
40
It’s the time in seconds for the population in the room to diminish to half what it was. It’s usually notably short …
00
What you saw may have been more than the sneeze. Humid breath expelled into cold air condenses as a visible fog of very small aerosol droplets, much smaller than most of the sneeze droplets. That fog could remain in the air much longer than the sneeze and eventually evaporate rather than fall to ground like most of the sneeze droplets. No viral particles should be in the fog that formed from H2O vapour.
10
Don’t worry Peter S !
The government has organised for a new company here in SA
To make millions more masks by May !
They will be good for the survivors !
But till then ?
“Sauvent qui Peut !”
41
I suppose it’s better late than never. Let’s hope they start making other things that we stopped over the past few decades. We now have to in order to revive our economy. We can start building new coal fired power stations to provide more affordable, reliable and sustainable power. Now that our total government debt is over a trillion, another say $50 billion or so won’t mater at all yet the benefits would be enormous.
170
A report I saw yesterday said they won’t even start mask production for another 2 months. They still have to wait for the mask-making machinery to arrive from China, get it set up and sort out the usual teething problems.
40
Not good enough. Many of us know what needs to be done. Face masks, gloves, wash hands, hand sanitisers for people on the go, surface sanitising, and the like. It all can’t be done overnight, but it has to be done nevertheless so we can get back to some sort of normality for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is our economy and our sanity. To achieve this aim we must ramp up the local manufacture of all the necessary items and tools, not just for the short term but for the longer term in case this pandemic goes on for months. It would also serve as a pre-emptive strike against future pandemics. Governments should not wait for business to do all the heavy lifting. Governments must fork out billions to get business to carry out the jobs. We don’t have the luxury to sit back and wait to see if such work needs to be done, or wait for a vaccine/cure to become available to all. If we did wait it might be too late and things really get out of control.
30
Beowulf:
…the mask-making machinery to arrive from China…
Pretty sure that is what we refer to as ‘irony’.
Also, Bill, from earlier in the thread:
The government has organised for a new company…
sigh.
Earlier in this Apocalypse it was suggested that the absolute no brainer solution involved, among other things, building new factories to produce masks and ventilators and I made the comment that in context Engineering didn’t work that way.
We can have all these happy calls to ‘ramp up’ and ‘start producing’ as much as we like and can put all the Australian pollicals, both State and Federal, in a nice 1.5m socially distanced circle to talk about plans but you can’t ramp up production in a manufacturing industry that doesn’t currently exist. There is a thing called Lead Time and all the important phone calls and public statements in the world cannot magically reduce it to zero.
So, for those who missed it earlier, in context, Engineering doesn’t work that way.
90
Thanks to those two Chinese owned companies operating out of Sydney who sent all the Masks, gloves, overshoes, hazmat suits they could lay their hands on off to China late February/early March.
Nothing like making a quick killing when there is a good crisis and of-course they probably had inside knowledge of how bad it could get and the CCP dictates what all loyal Chinese should always do.
A woolen scarf will do almost as good as a mask. I saw a table of the effectiveness of various materials somewhere.
Linen was high on the list but knitted woolens were best.
Balaclava’s going out the shops like toilet paper…
What??? All the clothing shops are shut!!!!!
How can that happen?
70
Vacuum cleaner bags apparently are the best in lieu of the real things.
https://smartairfilters.com/en/blog/best-materials-make-diy-face-mask-virus/
20
has there been any reaction locally against these two Sydney based companies?
20
What do you reckon?
00
On masks:
…
Australian expat’s push for universal mask-wearing catches fire in the US
When Melbourne expat Jeremy Howard called on all Americans to wear masks three days ago it was a fringe idea. Now US President Donald Trump is considering it.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/australian-expat-s-push-for-universal-mask-wearing-catches-fire-in-the-us-20200331-p54fu2.html?btis
…
This quite a powerful statement:
” Howard’s data research institute fast.ai found 34 scientific papers indicating that even rudimentary masks can be effective in reducing virus transmission in public – and none showing clear evidence that they do not.
He said masks are particularly useful in helping asymptomatic carriers from spreading COVID-19, as long as they wash their mask after use and practise good hygiene. ”
…
I wonder if this is one of those cases where you can get 80% of the benefit for 20% pf the cost, by using a home made, washable and hence re-useable one. Tea towels have been mentioned elsewhere, and Howard mentions a shirt. And hand washing it with soap and water should clobber the virus if the recommended procedure is followed.
I recommend using one of your free SMH accesses on this one.
Cheers
Dave B
40
The most sensible and economically viable suggestion I have seen that simply requires people to buy readily available and effective masks to wear during ‘flu season whenever going outside and especially where large numbers of people are congregating for whatever reason. I still worry about things like our ability to build natural immunity or resistance to infection in the longer term but at least the mask wearing will reduce spread from infected individuals.
20
Lass,
It’s so long ago now, and my current knowledge of infection and viruses and germs is so elementary.
A feeling comes through from the past that I didn’t want to get Polio and that I looked forward to the Polio vaccine injections.
By contrast, Chicken Pox never seemed to induce the same unease or wariness and I can’t even remember if there was a vaccine.
KK
10
I have a technical issue with this story of 7-8m carry of the virus. The lovely pic at the beginning showing a graphic spray from sneezing clearly shows the illuminated droplets only carrying about 30cm from the mouth on the left of the picture and decreasing rapidly in concentration at that distance. I would suggest that the concentration of aerosols drops off rapidly with distance. This is understandable because most of the droplet size in a sneeze would be quite large, 5-30 um diameter, and fall to ground quickly. The smaller 1-2um diameter droplets would remain airborne for much longer but would be prone to drying out quickly (not good for viral viability) and form only a small proportion of the total sneeze mass/volume.
I’m sure that virus particles were detected at 7-8 metres but quantitatively not much was there at that distance. How many of those virus particles were viable? One big problem with sampling airborne micro-organisms has been that if you suck them onto a filter (to collect them)that dries them out and they often are then not viable and wont culture – so that you can count them as CFUs. And that’s for bacteria which are generally more robust than viruses.
Still I will say this. If you had 50 people in a room and 5 of them were infected and symptomatic, the air of the whole room could well be a soup of infectious aerosols. A yukky thought.
20
NSW: Six months in jail, $11,000 fine for leaving home without a “reasonable excuse”. We now effectively live in a police state. Such draconian measures are too harsh. How come spitting isn’t dealt with the same sort of punishment? I would be in favour of that given I consider it as an act of violence with a potentially deadly “weapon”. Walking along the road for whatever reason does not compare. At least now the police can use their discretion to apply such a fine on people who spit. They now have the power to do so if the person in question fails to offer a “reasonable excuse”. Too bad they can’t apply such penalties even if they do have a legitimate excuse to leave their home. This is a perfect example how governments have their priorities all up-side-down and goes to explain why we are in such a mess even before the pandemic.
140
I make this other observation. Even someone spitting onto the footpath or in a rubbish bin, which I have seen at times, should be considered as an offence. The spit might contain the deadly virus and if on the footpath will be spread by others who accidentally walk on it.
41
Spitting is offensive at any time.
At this time, it is positively dangerous, given how long this ugly virus can survive on surfaces.
60
I agree yet for reasons we know the governments have gone to sleep on this disgusting issue. It should come with a heavy on the spot fine. Repeat offenders should be put in prison. It’s not only disgusting it can as we all know lethal. Leaving a loaded handgun on the footpath would be illegal so should be leaving potentially deadly saliva. In fact if tested positive with any deadly virus then the fine should be made 10 times.
60
Fining and worse for spitters would mean most footballers and many other sports-persons would have hefty sums deducted from their playing fees.
Disgusting habit to observe in HD and close-ups.
30
The problem is that the young often copy their sporting heroes. Spitting and sneezing into the air are disgusting habits. We have had a couple of generations taught to do neither, but spitting and air sneezing is not unknown now.
20
… and you feel sorry for such hard done by spittin…. ah sporting heroes?
One warning with an illustrating lecture about how bad it is and then into their pockets.
00
I should think a ‘reasonable excuse’ is far less effective than a simple mask.
00
Face masks have been shown to work in asia
You can make one out of paper towling and rubber bands
Look up u tube
I tried to post it on my facebook page but was deleted
Not sure why
It’s a stop gap measure but it main aim is to capture the sneezer not protect the recipient
40
That won’t work because not many will bother to do it. We need everyone to wear masks, especially the infected ones. The sooner we cna make them in the millions the better.
51
BTW, a vacuum cleaner bag is better. Almost as good as a surgical mask according to tests.
80
A bit cumbersome carrying around that equipment: hose, pipe, head brush, extension cord, motor housing. Might be adaptable for CPAP machine?
80
… would the extension cord be long enough? That’s the big question …
20
You need to disconnect the power cord to the vacuum cleaner before you take tne bag out silly
10
I totally agree. in regions where there are significant virus cases, everyone should be wearing masks.
Austria has the correct approach.
They require everyone to wear a mask in a supermarket and supply free masks outside the supermarket.
Free masks so there is no excuse and it is very easy.
100
Agree 100%. Too late now but we must be prepared for the next pandemic and build up a stock of masks to be given out for free to everyone. Either we get serious or we play dumb and pretend it will never happen again.
50
Perhaps the government and individuals should do some basic preparation for a range of potential calamities? A serious attack on the Straight of Malacca (shipping and associated refineries) would put our country in dire circumstances. At least now the trucks have fuel to deliver groceries.
We have only two weeks’ diesel fuel in reserve.
https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-23/fact-check-jim-molan-fuel-security/9687606?pfmredir=sm
30
I suggested something similar not long ago. Armed forces do practices so I don’t see why the rest of the population can’t so some exercises to prepare for future crises. The alternative, which more practical is to have all the necessary items in store (masks, etc.) and have a process to deploy them quick smart instead of the current Keystone Cops fashion. We will have more pandemics so I just don’t understand why we won’t be doing it. OK, I do know – it’s pure incompetence. Perhaps this time it will be different given the disastrous impact on the economy. The next pandemic might very well be the last straw. So we should prepare ourselves as we come out of the current one. Strike while the iron is hot, so to speak. If we don’t it means our politicians are even more incompetent that we could ever have imagined. Actually, forgo any hope of relying on the governments to do the right thing. I’m going to prepare for the next crisis on my own anyway. I trust them as far as I can throw a large elephant.
20
Yep – refer time 7:32 here: https://youtu.be/vukHzn2juxw?t=7m32s
Quoting:
10
The trick is not to allow a communist dictatorship get all our supplies then fly them out of the country to theirs without any sort of checks.
Australians don’t yet realise just how little their rights and laws are respected by other countries, or its own government as for that matter.
70
But I thought OZ had an even better trade treaty than Godzone.
20
an extract from Professionals Australia by Wen Chen from MIT
Mask or no mask
The transmission rates from wearing masks are approx 1/4 to 1/2 of wearing no masks
I tried to copy and paste the chart but couldn’t do it
40
This is another of those studies of something happening under ideal laboratory conditions a little like the mythical miles per gallon testing of motor vehicles which beats no relationship to the real world
By the criteria used mobile phones must be lethal, constantly in people’s hands exposed to the air, or frequently placed on work tops, bar tops etc then clamped tightly to the users ear who promptly then goes home to embrace their family.
What a scenario that would be in Italy where mobile phones are obsessively used by a young population who then go home to a multi generational apartment and promptly embraces everyone inching highly susceptible grandad.
80
We don’t permit cellphones in our food packing hall. Why would you let them be taken into retirement homes?
30
There are some things I never touch – it was riveted in my brain a long while ago after seeing a man with poo on the back of his trousers meandering through a crowded transit lounge in Thailand. This is a list of 10 things to be wary of:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jennifercohen/2012/06/12/10-worst-germ-hot-spots/#5958c8d5212b
I have stood at a usually busy airport toilet door for more than a minute waiting for someone to enter so I can keep the door open with my leg rather than hand. Upon mentioning this at a dinner meeting, there were two others of the 12 there who had been in the same predicament. The others thought we were anal.
My wife has never obeyed the three-point-of-contact safety rule on escalators. I now consider disobeying that particular rule as the lower risk option and does as she does but I make certain I have one hand free to catch a fall if needed.
50
Same here Rick, a lot of toilets at airports and shops now have a touch free system (except for yourself) where there’s no door to open, automatic sensor taps, automatic hand dryers and no door on the way out, brilliant, but I’ve done the same at Melbourne airport where after a plane landing the toilets get overwhelmed with travellers and is left in absolute filthy condition.
I waited 5 minutes once for someone to come in so I didn’t have to touch the door, if you’d seen the state of the place people would understand.
20
All these touchable metal surfaces should, if possible, be plated in brass, which kills germs shortly after contact. Especially doorknobs, which are often currently made of brass (for this reason?).
10
Its called “Paranoia” i believe .
Exposure helps develop immunity .
00
Fauci now preparing the ground for a mask advice u-turn. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/31/fauci-mask-recommendation-coronavirus-157476
60
Finally the penny begins to drop on mask wearing in the UK as well. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/face-masks-have-asking-wrong-question-along/
60
For those with the courage to use it the see through umbrella on the left is the way to protect yourself against aerosols projected 27 feet. Not sure how popular it would be in a shop though
https://www.parasolumbrellas.com.au/by-styles/clear-pvc-umbrellas/
Far more effective than any mask
42
Impracticable for any number of reasons. As stated by others masks have been shown to work in other nations. Gloves too. Simples.
31
I like the spotted unbrellas,Tony -Yikes!
20
“This virus communicates like nothing else that we have seen,” Cuomo told MSNBC late Monday. “This is like a fire through dry grass with a strong wind behind it. New York is just the test case for this. We’re the canary in the coal mine. There’s nothing unique about New Yorkers’ immune system. There is no American who is immune from the virus.”
40
I’m not sure that a test in a first world shirt-hole is any different from one in a third world shirt-hole.
We’ll see what happens amongst 700,000 people slumming it inside one square mile i.e. 640 acres.
We won’t know how much turmeric they habitually eat though.
00
Absolutely average distance apart across NY City 3.7m day, night x 365
Of course people living 3.7 m apart on average are more exposed.
00
Yes we should be wearing masks, just on the basis that they reduce touching the nose and mouth.
But it is critical to remember that the clear majority spreading the virus are neither coughing or sneezing.
The expression of the ACE2 receptor is up to 100 times greater in the gastrointestinal tract than in the lungs. This is where many seem to get initially infected. So many have reported digestive symptoms that quickly passed well before any respiratory symptoms occurred. (I even have a suspicion that some with gastrointestinal viral load are cross contaminating their own lungs).
Australia needs to move to include gastrointestinal testing in our screening and public surface sterilization in our control measures.
101
Good catch Konrad.
21
By public surface sterilisation I presume you mean cleaning surfaces like hand rails, self-checkout screens, etc.. Yes but it needs to be enforced otherwise it won’t be done. Some might think I’m starting to sound like a socialist but I’m not. It’s common sense.
30
Any data on the prior biomes of those showing GI symptoms ; probiotics , antibiotic usage etc?
10
i don’t think there is a single answer as to how far the gap should be, because the question is incomplete. Do you want to stop 99.999 percent or potential transmissions or 99.9%, or 99%, or 90%. For individual protection you may want a very rigorous standard, for public health you may be much more lax and still slow the wave.
60
If I hear anyone sneezing in a a supermarket I am in, I will be heading for the exit.
30
It might just be hay fever, I’d continue shopping at a safe distance.
20
Sneezing is not a typical symptom of COVID 19
40
Correct, a dry cough is an obvious sign, along with fever and tiredness.
20
Not totally OT .
China will now count all positive cases , in the past they have only counted positive cases where the person both tested positive and had symptoms.
Possibly too little too late .
50
This is a video of UK medic who has just recovered from CV19:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ts8X3HDtPE&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR0BOJhMvto8QpFjbu14IjOxr9zfFZvdNpmtQ5-_Spk202aydWYLxEw_oq8
It provides some statistics on the treated cases in UK.
20
Presumably take this with some caveats…its a model after all.
The other issue is that information, or withholding of information, can also potentially be used to shape public behaviour, some of which may also not be in the publics’ best interest.
Democracy requires eternal vigilance.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nz-s-coronavirus-modelling-offers-clues-to-australia-s-confidential-plans-20200331-p54fmv.html
“In a worst-case scenario – if not enough had been done to slow the virus – more than two-thirds of New Zealand’s population would get sick, 146,000 would be hospitalised, 36,600 would need an ICU bed and 27,600 people would die.
“The six declassified modelling reports released on Tuesday offer clues about Australia’s simulated scenarios, with the modellers in New Zealand thanking their Australian counterparts for providing their “valuable work” and including a reference to one of the federal government’s key advisers.
“The Morrison government has resisted calls from journalists, academics and healthcare workers to publicly share the pandemic modelling the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee has used to recommend its increasingly tough measures.
“But on Monday Deputy Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly said he would “unlock” the modelling this week. It is unclear whether the government will release the modelling in full.
“One New Zealand report outlines the potential worse case health impacts of COVID-19 if eradication fails and confirmed cases weren’t isolated, social distancing measures were only in place for two months and winter accelerated the spread of the virus by 50 per cent.
“It assumes the epidemic would peak in early July and the virus would have an R0 of 3.5 (for every case it could spread to 3.5 more people on average). NZ’s R0 will likely be lower than the World Health Organisation’s R0 range of 2-2.5 because of its relatively low population density and low smoking rates, the authors say.
“In worse-case modelling, New Zealand’s ICUs would become overwhelmed and only 25 per cent of critical care patients would be saved.
““This death toll would far exceed the death toll for NZ from World War One (18,000 deaths) and from the 1918 influenza pandemic (9000 deaths),” the report found.
10
No, I have significant doubts about this. I work in close proximity to sick people all the time, day in, day out and have done so for years. I maintain 1.5m face to face separation most of the time. The ONLY time I get sick is when I happen to be up close and a kid coughs in my face. I get a flu vacc every year and have done so since 1995. I have never had influenza. I practice about the best hand hygiene I know but it’s not perfect but still I NEVER contaminate myself from a surface.
There is something VERY fishy about the “risks” being described about Covid-19. Stinks. A virus that can infect 27 feet away? Survive for days on a dry surface? Or what was it 11-16 days on a cruise ship?
Nope. Sorry, but this is starting to sound like CO2 and global warming.
191
Antoine, some people — like yourself — just don’t seem to show major symptoms of Flu. Count yourself lucky, you either have great genes, a high level of Vit D, or you caught major flu strains as a kid etc, but I bet if we tested you for antibodies you would have some to various flu strains.
A sample of one is not the way to run the country, and we already know that copying your behaviour won’t prevent influenza spread.
Vulnerable people need to understand that shopping is a risk. MAsks are useful, and mail order is even better.
71
Moving affected people 50km outside the city works too. Proper isolation. Even if you don’t like my view that this virus is temperature sensitive, isolating affected people into quarantine zones does pass the sniff test. You said it yourself
22
Ok bob so we move those we belive to be infected somewhere then a week later we find we miss one and so move them annd all those tney infected somewhere and we miss one etc etc etc see the flaw in your plan?
00
On the question of masks, here’s an idea that doesn’t require a sewing machine. I dare you. ToM
https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/11289817/steph-mcgovern-anton-du-beke-thong-face-mask/
20
There was an earlier cartoon I saw around something like that. Along the lines of
“Another corona casualty. He wore the wrong mask home and his wife killed him”
30
It is unfathomable that this haven’t been studied a thousand times before. An easy thing ,by medical standards, to test. A vrus is pretty like any other virus for gross transmission analysis- coughing, sneezing, dribbling and how much virus
You have wonder the quality of medical schools to not have undergraduates study (with help of virus analysis technicians) things like this.
30
It has been studied. See my post on masks last week.
They won’t do comparisons of mask v no mask in medical settings for the ethical dilemma that it is not fair to ask staff not to wear a mask. Ponder that!
But they did it with parents at home and prevented 75% of influenza spread.
60
Do you have a link Jo ?
10
Aerosol antivirals, or even just putting a 0.1 micron filter or a UV steriliser on the air-con air intake would do wonders. Setting temp to 25 would be better …. IMHO.
20
It is unfathomable that this haven’t been studied a thousand times before. An easy thing ,by medical standards, to test. A vrus is pretty like any other virus for gross transmission analysis- coughing, sneezing, dribbling and how much virus
You have wonder the quality of medical schools to not have undergraduates study (with help of virus analysis technicians) things like this.
00
This is a short link to the video in moderation above:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ts8X3HDtPE
A young doctor in the UK looks at UK CV19 statistics.
10
On current trajectories, USA will lead the world in daily deaths from CV19 by 2nd April.
It is “for is for real”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxguV0KXbEc
30
No, China leads, and they are still not on top of the virus.
Their claims of under 4000 are simply ludicrous. The crematoriums in Wuhan were working at 5 times normal 24/7. They even trucked in 40 mobile furnaces built in 20′ shipping containers. Just the toll for Wuhan alone would have been over 40,000. That’s what those SO2 spikes the satellites saw over a city industry shut down were about.
71
You can only go on the official figures. The US figures will be doubtful soon as many will not make it to testing. Once the medical system is overwhelmed, the figures are increasingly meaningless. It becomes a case of ability to determine cause of death, ability to compile the numbers and then willingness to release the numbers. China probably gave up when their military started collecting bodies, which was well reported months ago now.
A convoy of freezer trucks has been arranged for New York dead. It is unlikely their cause of death of many will be actually known. At this stage New York has not enlisted the military to seek out dead from homes as they have done in Spain and Italy. I doubt those deceased are being counted in the CV19 statistics.
12
NOT the Chinese ones
The CCP attempted to CONCEAL what was happening in Wuhan.
ROGUE STATE in action.
30
Bill , forget about the models. Study the clinical notes for all those who have had it and recovered. Even anecdotal stuff.
But if you haven’t had it yourself and recovered then you are not in a position to offer an opinion.
Of course , if your number’s up ….
02
Bill,
copied this article linked below across to my home site from ‘The Daily Signal’.
Eye opening to say the least.
Surprising really how little that the bulk of Americans know. Wuhan is made up of three towns/cities all now blended together, Wuchang, Hankou, and Hanyang. In 1954, Hubei province had a major 100 year flood, maybe thousand year flood. Wuhan was flooded out completely and the 8 million occupants at the time were evacuated, and the city was almost totally covered by 80 feet of water, and in some areas, flooded out for up to 3 Months. All up, 75,000 square miles were flooded and almost 19 million people were forced to move, including the total population of Wuhan. 30,000 lives were lost in the flood and the following famine. This was the major spur in the final construction of the Three Gorges Dam, whose sole purpose was for flood mitigation, and the hydro was just the added extra. So since 1954 Wuhan has built up from the 8 million prior to the flood to the now 11 million.
Link to article – What’s Really Happening In China With Coronavirus? 4 Things To Know
Tony.
80
Thanks Tony !
A well researched excellent report !
10
Also, Michael Osterholm says that the evidence for transmission by touch is very weak – most of the transmission is through breathing.
02
No, breathing doesn’t match the empirical evidence. There are a number of studies from China showing viral load in the gastrointestinal tract before it manifests in the lungs.
Some of those studied had respiratory only infections, but these were the minority.
51
Ok. FWIW, here is my reference:
Time 43:10 here https://youtu.be/E3URhJx0NSw?t=43m10s
01
Michael Osterholm has just done another podcast, and again mentions aerosol transmission:
13:20 https://youtu.be/caaY-NixY3s?t13m20s
1:03:20 https://youtu.be/caaY-NixY3s?t=1h3m20s
00
Typo in first link – here are both links again:
13:20 https://youtu.be/caaY-NixY3s?t=13m20s
1:03:20 https://youtu.be/caaY-NixY3s?t=1h3m20s
00
Total brain fade – I’ll have another go:
30:20 https://youtu.be/caaY-NixY3s?t=30m20s
1:03:20 https://youtu.be/caaY-NixY3s?t=1h3m20s
00
Maybe the gut virus in China came from eating whatever the animal is said to be the reason
for the virus crossing species.
20
The point being, gastric acidity generally knocks off most bugs passing through it. It
can’t if the virus is contained inside food that crosses the stomach before it is fully
subject to the stomach environment.
40
Baggage handlers could easily pick up the virus from the baggage. We have the duration
it can survive on various materials and I would imagine throwing baggage onto carousels
would yield plenty of viral contaminated aerosol. Alternatively of course, apart from
infected passengers contaminating their cases, inside and out, and having their baggage act like a bellows, there is always the chance of a source amongst these workers or wherever they go to attend to their sanitary and nutritional needs.
80
So how does he account for the baggage handlers getting infected in Adelaide ?
And there was a similar incident at Heathrow airport a month ago.
The evidence is against him.
10
97% percent of climate scientists believe breathing is essential for living.
41
I don’t think that can be right.
I think that 97% of Climate Scientists TM (Michael Mann) believe that ALL CO2 emissions are non-essential.
40
Remember how I said the recycling plan should be pushed back last week? I was thinking exactly for the same reasons that have now dawned on the Government:
https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/coronavirus/coronavirus-crisis-mcgowan-governments-containers-for-change-recycling-scheme-postponed-amid-covid-19-pandemic-ng-b881505957z
Good to see that common sense is having a resurgence amid this crisis.
20
I hope there are many more changes made due to the pandameic crisis. For example, single use bags at shops should be re-introduced for obvious reasons. Alternatively the existing re-usable bags should be made available at no cost.
30
Hi Bulldust. I wonder if people still think the so-called “reusable” shopping bags are such a good idea now? I know they’re not your favourite “initiative” from our gubbermint.
Cheers,
Mike
20
Have we passed the peak of daily infections in Australia?
Daily average smoothing over 3 days going backwards from March 29-31: 307: 403; 359; 214; 111; 59
From March 13 when the number of new cases was doubling every 3 days, the last 9 days has seen a clear flattening.
21
I suspect it’s too early to tell. I like to see at least another couple of weeks of stats with an overall down trend to get a reasonably good idea we’ve turned the corner. Even then we have to keep our restrictions in play for much longer to avoid it turning back up again, at least until we all have the gloves, masks, etc.., which is probably never given by the lack of interest by governments to be part of the team and assist business to ramp up big time the local manufacture of all the necessary items. Thee is some interest but it’s just a token one.
40
Absolutely.
There is also growing evidence that in real terms the medical profession are no longer overly concerned.
Reports suggest that a trail is set to begin in Australia where they will test 2400 subjects with hydroxychloroquine, an HIV drug or a placebo.
A few take aways from this.
First, ‘Set to begin’. Not ‘Has already begun, be ‘Set to’. Although given they plan to test 2400 (worldmeters suggest current Australia infections are just above 4700 at the moment) maybe they are waiting for enough subjects to be available.
Second is the fact they are doing a trail. Trails are what you do in order to get valid data to support your theories. By establishing what is actually happening with a large degree of confidence allows an increase in overall knowledge and should be considered a ‘Good Thing’.
However in a seriously life threatening situation knowing exactly what is happening is less important than the hear and now task of saving lives. If A and B work – like you suspect – but placebo C doesn’t then you will only risk giving a subject C if you fully believed their lives were not in danger.
In short, if there is time to conduct trials then you no longer believe lives are in immediate danger.
21
Robber — the percent of community transmission appears to be still growing. This plateau may be temporary until the community spread takes over.
Lives are in immediate danger but we are in a much better position than our winter friends.
60
Adding to this … the Government just said only a quarter of a million tests have been performed. At best that is circa 1% of the population. WA is saying they are ramping up to 10k tests per day capacity. I expect the numbers to escalate rapidly once we allow people to be tested.
10
General community testing will be available in WA – Health Minister Cook said today:
‘Mr Cook (the WA Health Minister) said the testing criteria was being expanded at all seven metropolitan COVID-19 testing clinics as well as the regional clinic in Bunbury and other regional testing sites.
“All members of the community who have a fever of 38 degrees or above and an acute respiratory illness, will now be eligible for testing,” Mr Cook said.’ Para 7.
From their ABC today:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-01/coronavirus-testing-expanded-in-wa-as-28-new-cases-confirmed/12109266
00
“Estimating the optimal lockdown time”
Links at
http://catallaxyfiles.com/2020/04/01/estimating-the-optimal-lockdown-time/
20
Scary stuff from Catallaxy: “Using the assumption that the suppression policy can achieve R0 = 1, we assess that it should be kept in place between 30 and 34 weeks. If suppression can achieve a lower R0 = 0.7, the policy should be in place between 11 and 12 weeks. Finally, for the most optimistic assumption that the suppression policy can achieve an even lower R0 of 0.5, we estimate that it should last between seven and eight weeks. We further show that stopping the suppression policy before six weeks does not produce any meaningful improvements in the pandemic outcome. (R0 indicates the number of people an infected person infects on average at the start of the outbreak).”
20
It’s only scary if you are using Ro as a proxy for virulence or expected mortality , which of course is pure nonsense.
20
The relationship between the figures and the results appear contradictory.
Perhaps you could have another look?
10
Reported in SMH: “Anyone in NSW who leaves their house without a “reasonable excuse” could spend up to six months in prison and face an $11,000 fine under an emergency ministerial directive gazetted overnight.”
Happy now, Jo?
66
Why would I be happy? If we’d done what I suggested none of this would be necessary.
I tried to save the nation from this. What did you do?
80
If Jo Nova was head of WHO instead of that dingbat Tedros the western world would have avoided loss of thousands of lives and a comprehensive economic mess.
In Jo’s current role, the bushfires in Australia were the hot topic during January; no pun intended. Imagine if Jo was getting updates from China in January and required to make policy calls based on them. China would have been completely isolated in January.
I wonder if this blog has any influence. There are a few notable Aussie CV19 dingbats. To name 2 – Cory Bernadi and Andrew Bolt. These dingbats do not see the bleeding obvious.
Thailand implemented thermal scans on 3rd January – we know not completely effective but way better than nothing.
Taiwan was controlling entry in the first week of February, requiring all incoming to quarantine for 14 days and with ability to track them. Another key factor for Taiwan was a very healthy dose of scepticism for any information released from China and any of China’s paid-for WHO puppets.
70
A month ago one of your posts said:
“The only way to reduce the R0 to zer0 is to “Stop The Flights”. The next best option (far distant second) are mass lockdowns, closure of factories, schools, offices, etc. As a reader wrote to me yesterday: It’s not practical to close the borders. My reply: It’s not practical to kill 100,000 people either but one or the other may happen. Do the maths, WHO estimates 1% CFR (Case Fatality Rate. Let’s be optimistic, call it 0.5%. Deaths in the next six months: Australia, 125,000; Canada, 175,000; New Zealand, 25,000, USA, 1.6m; UK, 300,000. Geddit?”
Your reader was correct. Borders can’t be shut. Given that, you called for mass lockdowns. Then used the smug ‘Geddit?’ Inherent intellectual superiority, I presume. Your prediction of 125,000 deaths in Australia in next 6 months is noted. One month in and we are at about 21.
You ask what did I do? Well, I have started writing to my local MPs and the PM pointing out that the policy response is wholly unjustified given the data. It is already the cause of serious trouble for many people in the community. It is getting dramatically worse every day. Excess deaths are not emerging. Reclassified deaths (as C19) are becoming apparent. This is looking increasingly like an exercise in reclassifying deaths, not additional deaths. Exponential modelling is notoriously difficult, even for inherently superior intellects, because the behavioural adjustments that people make in risk mitigation are not captured. I’m pointing out that the consequences of the lockdown are worse than the virus.
56
David,
Read what you quoted — I predicted that IF they didn’t stop the flights, the government would HAVE to do mass lockdowns, and close schools or 100,000+ may die. I forecast all the lockdowns a full month before they happened. I correctly said “International Quarantine is so much cheaper than Domestic Quarantine”.
The borders that “can’t be shut” – are shut.
The mass deaths that may have happened won’t happen.
Everything is panning out exactly as I said.
We may be able to let up on quarantine soon if we get mass testing and we keep regions separate.
The economy will bounce back as soon as the virus is gone.
Sorry to see you are working against that.
On Feb 9th I said stop the flights, and if we had, there’d be only a minor problem to our economy. All domestic business, schools, flights would still be running as per normal. I earned the right to say “Geddit”.
21
Australian ports and airports remain open for inbound and outbound freight. That means people are moving in and out of Australia. In my view, that means the borders are not shut.
00
David go back & check Jo’s posts from early February.
Her suggestions were ignored by the powers that be.
The current situation is a result of their incompetence !
And you dare suggest that it is Jo’s fault !
Utter bloody rubbish un-thinking !
You owe an apology !
32
Calm down Bill. Silly old bugger.
33
David,
You owe two aplogies now.
Get on with it, and stop being a snowflake.
23
The other factor is the air conditioning system in a given room. You’d hope the air turnover in (say) a shopping centre would be a lot less than once per three hours?
Cheers,
Mike
20
Latest rendition of the Mewcastle song?
“Obama Ties the Covid-19 Pandemic to Trump’s Rollback of His Climate Change Initiatives”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/03/31/obama-ties-the-covid-19-pandemic-to-trumps-rollback-of-his-climate-change-initiatives/
20
“WHOhan Flu”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/index.php/2020/03/31/whohan-flu/#comments
20
This is getting bad. Time to face facts.
It’s a beautiful sunny day with just a zephyr of a breeze.
There are two six- mix packs of craft beer in the cool store.
And I’m working in the milk processing factory.
“It’s appalling. ; absolutely appalling” TM (William Barr)
What’s even worse, I’ve got a severe case of [Covid19 Derangement Syndrome] Derangement Syndrome.
I may just go and check the cool store temperature.
30
I may be some time.
10
It’s probably as cold as a blizzard in there FB. Do you keep Oats in there as well?
20
It’s grueling all right , but we still have some brioche.
10
I really meant Oates.
00
Maybe to reduce aerosol survival, stores that run on large numbers of buyers on their
premises need to look at the operation of their airconditioning so they blow down from
above and suck out from ground level. A review for the future? It’s sort of the way operating theatres for joint surgery operate. Maybe that’s already how they work.
20
Nah. We just don’t want people going to shops. Better to ramp up mail delivery and car park contact free pick ups. Test the packers at coles and woolies. Test em again. Test Test Test.
Anyone walking through a shop without a mask, gloves and goggles, is taking more risk than necessary.
I’m mail ordering. I can’t get deliveries or car park pick ups from Coles or Woolies, so I’m not shopping with them.
I’m sure even a paper mask with staples and string would help.
Jo
60
Probably a HEPA vacuum cleaner filter would be good source of filter media, HEPA filters should be good down to sub micron levels. The VAC filter probably won’t catch virii at 0.1 micron but they should be good for droplets.
10
Nah. I want to pick my own fruit, vegies and meat. Leave it up to the store people and they will deliver you small, rock-hard green bananas, unripe other fruit, rotten vegies and other bad food choices. They will then charge you $15 to deliver the groceries 3km away from the store and you better be home when they call or they will dump it at your front door. They will tell you that they deliver to your area “on Tuesdays” and wont be able to give you a time of day for delivery. A recent ABC story covered a charitable organisation packing food parcels for people in isolation or the elderly. It cost $80 and I estimated it would cost me <$30 at Aldi and included hardly anything I would want. Chemist Warehouse charge $3 per face-mask over the counter only at the prescription-desk. Those clinical masks can be used over and over again BUT keep the inside of the mask meticulously clean.
20
Rock hard small unripe bananas still look better than two weeks with Coronavirus.
00
In the U.S. Whole Foods waived its delivery charge a month ago for Prime members. There is a minimum order, but it’s not high.
00
Nah! Uber eats. It’s quicker. No mask, no gown, a single glove and spray.
(nudge,,,. Say no more!)
00
WILL SEASONAL WEATHER MAKE A DIFFERENCE?
I tabulated the quantitative differences in died and spread between cooler and warmer countries for the past three days, to define these global trends (see link).
Warm v Cool Countries % Died Covid-19 29th March to 31st March
https://i.ibb.co/bv1kW4X/Warm-v-Cool-Countries-Percent-Died-Covid-19-29th-March-to-31st-March.png
The case totals in several colder countries are an order of magnitude higher (this we knew), but that is true only for cold countries which have a particularly strong trade and cross-cultural linkage with China. There are actually plenty of colder countries which have similar total case numbers as the hotter countries. The following colder countries on the table are good examples of having lower case totals than hot countries:
Iraq, Sweden, Greece, Romania, Denmark, Japan, Ukraine and Serbia.
All of those countries have less cases than Brazil @ 5,717 cases. And mostly those countries have far fewer cases than Australia as well. And about the same case numbers as around half the hot countries.
So the general belief/myth that the colder conditions are the reason for the greater numbers within the most affected northern-hemisphere Western countries does not stand up, the numbers within the last 3 days of data show that it’s not true.
What does adequately explain the difference is not weather, but the amount of DIRECT industrial and commercial interaction with members of China’s population from the most COVID-19 affected parts of China. That’s what is really going on in Western Europe and USA right now.
The bigger surprise though is that the daily percentage of growth in the hotter countries is over DOUBLE what it is for the cooler countries—this is new information.
In hot countries the virus case growth is about 2.5 times faster in both cases and death percentage. This more rapid ID of new symptomatic cases is more than double cold countries over the past 3 days, where the disease is seen to be really blooming now. But on the face of the tables linked you could say that the virus appears to be even more severe and contagious within hot countries. Though that’s probably due to lower medical treatment available, and people suddenly presenting already very ill and getting tested.
But it also indicates these hospitals can’t cope with even a modest number of COVID-19 cases. So in real-world terms, the effect is severe, people die sooner with fewer cases even being present. This quickly developing situation must be a terrible shock for these hospitals.
The rapid increase in detection in the hotter countries is dramatically stepped-up testing as warmer countries suddenly realize that they already have a major problem ramping in their hospitals with hot weather. Specialist advice probably led them to presume the spread would not be as rapid or severe within their countries, but the virus is not cooperating with that narrative.
The daily new case discovery percentage is horrible for many of these very hot and humid countries. Compare it to the cold countries
Not only does the heat not seem to suppress the virus, nor does a high humidity level.
These trends are at odds with what almost everyone is expecting to happen.
The reason why this disease is slower to develop in most (not all) of the hotter countries, is because their economies are smaller, and less developed countries had lower DIRECT industrial and commercial interaction with infected members of China’s population from the most COVID-19 affected highly industrialized parts of China.
But the INDIRECT spread created this time lag in their case development within the indirectly interacting hot countries.
Australia’s DIRECT exposure to China was curtailed early by closing flights off, but we then had a very strong INDIRECT exposure to China’s disease via secondary infections from infected USA and northern Italian cities plus large cruise ships, which resulted in hot post-Summer Australia reaching 5,000 cases today.
And Brazil is only 1,000 cases in front of us, but no doubt has a larger underlying infection.
Unfortunately the current indications of the prior three days of data are that this virus is only weakly affected by warmth and humidity, if it’s being suppressed by heat and humidity it at all. There appears to be no upside from increasing seasonal heat and moisture on offer with this virus. We need to stop kidding ourselves about this pattern in the hotter countries, and increase our awareness of their experiences of the virus in hot and humid conditions.
Many of these hotter countries are going to explode with COVID-19 cases during the next 7 days but that reality will be eclipsed and distracted from by the horrible situation developing in the northern hemisphere. So most people still won’t notice it, still won’t register that the hot countries have the same level of disease that many countries in Europe had a week prior.
Indeed, many of them have more virus than those cold countries, right now!
Just ask yourself why the several cold countries in Europe which do have much lower numbers than hot countries, are much more like the hotter countries? Why are they less affected? The answer is the same, they also had lower DIRECT connection and interaction with the most infected industrialized parts of China.
It’s the same reason for both hemispheres – cold is not the factor that pushed up the early western European numbers. Forget the weather, that’s not the dominant cause.
It’s the linkages.
All countries need to recognize this and not make medium-term decisions based on an unfounded presumption that weather will ameliorate this virus’s effects because all the indications I’m seeing suggest it most probably won’t ameliorate the spread, nor the severity of COVID-19 at all. If cold does affect spread and severity there’s no sign of it in the current global data.
The colder winter countries need realize that late Spring and Summer weather will not be their ally. And hotter countries need to realize the disease’s rush to a crescendo is closer. We’re only a couple of weeks behind Europe and the USA, and better connected hotter countries are not behind them at all. The effect of COVID-19 at the equator appears to be the same as in the mid-latitudes. They are not expecting this.
We must not focus only on cold countries with huge and climbing numbers during April, as they are only half the developing global pattern. Those numbers will be present in many hot countries just 7 to 10 days later. Then everyone will realize that heat and humidity are not a safe harbor.
A ‘second wave’ of spread could come in late Summer, not in the following late Winter, if we make the error of presuming too much about the affect of weather on this virus.
In Australia we may have got lucky, bought ourselves enough time to manage it, we’ll see from the end of April.
120
Good work, its a scoop.
50
WXY, please repost this on Musings from Chiefio.
I’m sure it will have an audience there as well
Bill
Or I could do it for you. But better you do it.
40
I read it sometimes Bill but haven’t commented there before. Go ahead and repost it if you wish, the more people aware of it the better. Cheers.
20
Maybe, in hot countries one doesn’t need heavy loads of virus to spread. Hot Climates? Just look at Bondi beach and St Kilda. Lots of nice, close
friendly targets all out swimming against the rules. Partying in warm climates; even closer contacts with those trying to be bogans, stupidly
challenging the virus with their so called health stamina and youth. In poorer, warmer countries one has the millions in the dust filled streets
out to just get food – and water in some cases. Great for the virus.
In cold countries, people are primarily forced to remain inside. Little contact in big groups as the snow piles up outside. The virus needs the numbers
or even the surfaces in these places, even if it is more plentiful in its targets. But normality isn’t present now. No big, packed in, crowd gatherings.
We often see in blogs that correlation isn’t proof. I don’t think anyone would argue about close two way ties with China and travelling Chinese people, or
with cruise ships is a big source of infectivity. The amount of infections here, associated with North Americans is a surprise (to me anyway). Everybody would realise
that hot or cold, a lot of the disease depends on how early, and how governments and people react. eg Gov + People were quick and of one mind to act in Taiwan,
Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore. They had had prior experiences. Brazil has a crazy President who believes in doing nothing. Iran seems to have left it to God. Italy was too slow – and probably the northern areas are a bit too remote from government.
In Australia the government has been reasonably quick but stepwise slowed the deal; a few of our people are demonstrating they are idiots. The same in the US where the
Federal Government was quick to block Chinese contact but the States seemed very slow to take action against the disease and some, like California and NYC were in the worst
possible social conditions on the streets they could have set up to handle an epidemic. Hot and cold climate effects are now subjugated to antivirus actions.
Then of course, all the western nations except Germany are short of the essential supplies showing just how slack they were in preparing for the unknown calamity they
are supposed to always be prepared for. It seems to me that so many other matters and conditions have overwhelmed the effect of climates.For us, winter will come but without
the AFL and NRL crowds and cinemas and any other events that gather crowds. That will impact both the Flu and no doubt COVID-19, as well as the economies…..
70
Great post – I doubt the medical profession is looking at information in this detail. The vast majority around the world do not have the time now.
30
Try checking the testing rates… that will tell you all you need to know.
Japan is a prime example..check it out before yo post more misleading conclusions.!
13
Chad. If we had no contact with China, no tourism to and from China (nor cruise ships) we would probably have had less problem with COVID-19.
What you are saying is unremarkable, whether you talk about hot or cold or medium climate. We imported the virus one way or another and travel
seems to be the reason. As Jo said, we imported 30,000 or more students.
Anyway, stay happy! Mark it up as a win or whatever. Whatever makes you happy.
40
?? Doc ?
That is irrelevent.
Total disconnect from a country is impossible in reality, and the difference between importing 1000 carriers, ..or only one, is just a matter of days on that magic exponential curve.!
EG: Spain.. no unusually big link to china, buy one known carrierwho had visited Wuhan.
……and look at the mess there ?
But my point was many of those countries with low case counts, also have very low testing rates. So their data is totally unrepresentitive.
22
duh ?..”buy one”. = but only one.
00
Chad,
Spain is No 24 in the world as a recipient of exports from China at some US$26,825,957,000 in 2019. That’s US$26.8 billion. Huge.
Of course there’s a big link to China. It’s a very big link. Two way trade means people travel to make sales. Both ways.
http://www.worldstopexports.com/chinas-top-import-partners/
You’ll need to scroll down and adjust the “Show’ —- “entries” number to see all the rest.
Stay safe as you virtually visit the real world.
00
Sam,
Really,.. Number 24 eh?
I think you just substantiated MY point
……”no unusually big linkage to China “…
How do you reconcile that position relative to others with much closer trade links..Taiwan, singapore, Germany, AUSTRALIA, etc, etc.. but with far lower CV19 statistics ??
Answer…Trade links have little bearing on the rate of the virus infiltration.
If they did we here should all be dead.
There is something very different happening in Italy, Spain , France,..etc
01
Prophylaxis. Testing. Early action.
And distrust of anything the Chinese Communist Party says.
That’s how I reconcile the “others with much closer trade links”.
But in any case Chad, we are about to find out whether “cold” or “warm” has anything to do with it as the USA moves towards summer and Australia moves towards winter.
00
Jo get a life
About 170000 people die every day from normal flu cancer ect! so far about 42000 old people have died from this flu over 4 months so calculate about ~400/day! world wake up this is totally normal but your stupid quarantines will cause millions of unrelated deaths these are the same people who push the global warming agenda they want everybody to die to save the world!
https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/world-rankings-total-deaths also Fauci is the worst guy Trump has kept from the swamp no wonder ther are 50000000 unemployed in USA how many in Australia due to idiot Morrison???
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/03/anthony_fauci_the_nihs_face_of_the_coronavirus_is_a_deepstate_hillary_clintonloving_stooge.html
00
Eliza,
It would have saved us billions of dollars if we shut the borders when I suggested it. But I’m still here telling you how to get out of this situation at cheapest cost. Solve the virus and we solve the viral damage to the economy.
You think letting it rip now will save the economy? When people are too afraid to send their kids to school because 12 and 13 year olds are dying or adults refuse to work for fear of getting permanent lung damage or bringing the virus home and killing their wife / parents/ anyone.
Your lack of concern for the old and the vulnerable is surprising.
Jo
00
Re Fauci, this is the first I’d ever heard of him – I really don’t like the way he dismissed this study so readily and aggressively – very bad impression.
00
They might have got the date wrong and thought it was April fools day . . . . .
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/03/cbs-news-caught-using-footage-from-an-italian-hospital-to-describe-conditions-in-new-york-city-video/
20
Hi Jo
“New research suggests” really? Has this experiment been repeated by other researchers who have confirmed the results? If not then it is not scientifically valid and the release of the results is nothing more than scare mongering!
What were the air temperatures, humidity, UV light exposure? Did they repeat the experiment with variations of these crucial factors or was experiment only done at optimum conditions for airborne virus spread? We wouldn’t accept this level of “evidence” from a climate scientist so why are medical researches exempt from the scientific method? Or is it just that the results of this experiment conform to the Jo Nova view of the dangers of this virus?
We have a big enough problem without scientist running out of their labs waving scary results around which the dumb ass media will accept without proper scrutiny. The world is a big place with vastly variable local climate conditions and we need better quality research than this.
For instance why was the virus until recently not being detected in eastern Europe and across Russia? Was it due to daytime temperatures of -15C freezing airborne droplets in seconds thus killing or deactivating the viral particles? Why are Australian politicians running around claiming their actions are saving us when we are not doing much better than South Africa, Indonesia and a bunch of South American states? Could it be because daytime temperatures in the southern hemisphere are only starting to fall below 24C?
Wait until winter hits and we see what happens in the townships of S.Africa and the slums of Rio. Then we will be able to tell how well we have done. There are too many people around claiming either victory over this outbreak or that we are not doing enough. Only properly conducted, and validated, scientific experimentation can answer the question.
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DonS, I majored in microbiology more than a couple of decades ago. This “new study” is not an outlier. IF this was radically different to my long time observer understanding I would have said so. Instead this fits with what we know and see — especially in large church groups, and super spreader events in choirs and other “singing” gatherings.
The last time I shopped — over a week ago — was with a mask and goggles because I already knew this pattern of transmission was likely.
The CDC itself said a similar thing a few weeks ago.
Chinese docs warned of this in early Feb.
The Korean prof mentioned this in the post I put up Monday.
Funny how I can be data driven on a different topic for ten years, but people assume I’ve gone astrological when I report things that don’t fit with their ideology. And please don’t take that personally, I know many of my normal readers are really struggling. But I’ve always found disease and medicine to be far more interesting that solar panels and tropospheric convection.
PS: The Jo Nova view was right on Feb 1, Feb 9, Feb 14 and Feb 16 and so far has an impeccable record.
PPS: If I don’t post enough corroborating evidence, just ask, but life is short, and on some things the result is so banal and obvious I don’t even think it needs corroboration. But all polite requests are fair.
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Russia closed borders with China very early in the game. That’s why they delayed things running wild. We could have done that (as I suggested). STupidly we flew in 20,000 chinese students and that’s why our 20 something cohort has a lot of infections.
100
The politics of race are vicious in this country. Any early ‘closed borders’ would be immediately slammed as ‘racist’. As happened to Scomo when he closed borders to China. I see it daily on ABC TV. Italy was closed off from Australia far, far too late.
50
No doubt it could also have magnified the flood of our PPE, gloves, bleach and toilet paper out of the country.
The law must have changed recently because the Minister for Health was warning today that further such actions
risked gaol!
20
Latest Hunter/New England Covid-9 data
Released 8pm 31st March
Third table is those currently in hospital.
20
That should, of course, be Covid-19, not Covid-9 !
10
For some reason my Norton blocked the recommended site as being known to be malicious.
Apologies if it’s wrong, but just the warning I got.
10
Its just a standard image posting site., Norton just being picky again, maybe?
Maybe someone else can grab it and re-post it.
00
We have definitely passed the peak of new infections. I was puzzled as to the shape on the other side. If we had found everyone, it would be a steep cliff. However now we have a fast drop competing with ongoing growth and the result seems to be a straight line dropping about 25 people at day. That would be two weeks
to extinction. Either way, by the end of April, we should be down to under 100 new infections a day, even as far as zero. Then with strict checking of every arriving passenger, we can resume normal life. And clean every surface. It will be nice to go out for coffee again.
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I suppose the real concern is another Typhoid Mary, someone carrying the disease permanently without showing any symptoms. But that was a case of salmonella typhi, a bacterium. It is not clear whether such a super spreader is possible with this virus. If not, when everyone is cured, the virus is no more unless imported. Personally I believe the most likely carriers are asymptomatic children, as with the flu which ravages Australia and America every year. My great hope is that once testing is quick and cheap, everyone entering the country is tested before transmission. And this casual disaster of flu also stops or at least becomes rare.
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I think the greatest task will come trying to lift restrictions in a safe and orderly manner. There will be
people straining at the bit to get out of hibernation. The same with businesses. The epidemiologists will be
very cautious going slowly slowly two paces forward, one pace (or three) back. That will be the time of greatest
risk for social disobedience and Christmas for virus looking to survive and no doubt mutated. It will be
tough for the government with no playbook for this while all the time the borders will probably have to be kept
closed until the people have been released. We have no idea what the state of the World relative to this virus
will look like at that stage. Maybe those successful little Asian units will have the book published for us by then.
40
TdeF I’ve been wondering if the semi lockdown we have now will eliminate the Flu season as well
Sort of accidentally !
And yes screening everyone coming into Australia with a quick & east test, will acheive that outcome here in the future…
41
Exactly!
20
I hope you’re right TdeF, but as “Medical Data Guy” pointed out yesterday, we’re almost not even testing for community spreading today. There’s still room here for a second peak to form. But I really hope not.
20
Love to have a coffee with you but I think it is a while away.
I wonder when Jo will sanction another JoNovian gathering.
71
Agreed. Except make it a good lunch. We’ll need it. Mid winter skeptics lunch.
40
I’m not quite with you on the ‘steep cliff’ idea. In theory yes, but not enough time has elapsed from first entry for the whole Australian population to contract the CV-19 infection, given the R0 value assigned to it. There will still be variably sized clusters of untouched folk amongst the nodes of the infection matrix, and the fall off rate is more likely that which would be predicted due to more rigorous isolation practice, which lowers the R0 to a lesser R effective, than the virus encountering large numbers of already immune people. The downward change in R eff. obviously manifests as an increase in doubling time, which we can check. Based on the last four data points for cumulative new cases, the doubling time is currently about 10 days, but the ‘known new cases’ data are pretty useless to derive any meaningful conclusion from. And those last four points only cover 2 days. But it does confirm your observation that their rate appears to be decreasing (yay), and it most likely is, even if all new cases were actually known.
40
I do not know where the new infections are. However I have read that 2/3 are from overseas. However if existing infections can be traced, locked down, the virus has nowhere to go and it will stop. The idea that it has escaped lockdown means that infected people are mobile, which needs explanation. The more likely one is that they are confined to family groups, geographic cells and that growth in these will self terminate. So I cannot predict the shape of the fall in new infections but we are talking 50 per state say over a period of 7 days, 8 per day. That could be down to 8 individuals.
When these infected cells are isolated, there is growth but it is self terminating. I would expect infections stop suddenly. So while growth is a standard exponential, I am surprised that the slope down is closer to a straight line where I would expect a series of stoppages which formed a steep cliff. It may in fact be a staircase which approximates a straight line, which is what we are seeing.
10
There is still plenty of scope to be infected at a supermarket, even just by a trolley or checkout person. They’d run out of plastic gloves at the supermarket today, no masks on any staff, no hand sanitizer anywhere either, for staff or shoppers. It would make a huge difference if it was present for all. A couple of shoppers had masks, 99% didn’t. God help us if our infection had been more ubiquitous.
30
I doubt that the authorities can be that sure about where new infections originate. Do we have evidence that the new infections are mostly linked to say, people off a flight or a ship? If infected travelers were whisked off to isolation immediately and kept in perfect confinement, then sure; the virus will run out of hosts and fall on its sword. But isolation is never perfect. A small leak is likely to occur from people in transit via gangways, air-bridges, terminals,vehicles with drivers, spaces with lots of gusty air around car parks and outside homes etc. Viruses could potentially be blown from an infectee’s face right across the street and land on a passer-by. Once asymptomatic infection occurs like this, the progress of this part of the infection matrix could be well nigh impossible to trace. The villain molecule is always several steps ahead in the chain, like an agile crim. So this is where the mobility comes from; those tiny leaks, which then asymptomatically affect one or two unrelated folk. It is only by community adherence to distancing principles overall that mitigates by effectively increasing doubling time, so I suspect that community cooperation is likely to be more responsible overall for the fall in new cases, which results in the gradual fall observed, rather than semi-isolated geographical clusters en-route to self termination. The latter would assume perfect containment, which we are never going to achieve.
I decided to wait until this morning to see what the info-histogram is doing. I’d say that it’s too difficult to tell whether the fall in tested new cases follows a linear or exponential decay or something else. The step down is rather jerky.
00
TdeF, past the peak? Maybe not. Community spread is growing is it not?
That mass testing is supposed to come tomorrow. If it does it may stop that exponential rise. But if we don’t find or cordon off the areas with community transmission we will get the rising curve again.
20
I suspect community spread is not growing unless someone has evidence? With numbers of new infections dropping, I cannot see how this can be happening. You would have exponential growth.
As the recovery is at least three weeks but the time to infect a day or two, the key is the rate of new infection. Without new infections, the virus dies.
The problem with monitoring this virus is the week between infection and reported infection and what happened in that week. We are measuring the new infections of a week ago. I would suggest a lot of those infections occurred in other countries or on boats or in transit on planes before people arrived in this country. Isolation after arrival is essential and yes, there is anecdotal evidence in Victoria of people arriving in Australia and refusing to self isolate. Off to the golf club or the party or the pub. They do not believe in it or see it as a restriction on their freedoms. We have a name for such people.
Once foreign and transit infections stop, we will be measuring community transmission on this island. My hope is that with the almost extreme isolation practiced now and accepted by new arrivals, this is close to zero. This is scary stuff, so most people are concerned not to possibly infect friends and family and happily oblige. Groups of asymptomatic young people are another matter. Especially the million backpackers reported.
So I am watching the new infections daily, a figure I am sure is distorted by infected arrivals, especially now by plane from places such including Italy. It is still thousands of people a day.
Even so, the number is dropping daily and steadily. There could not be better news given we have no prevention except isolation. Once we have immunization we can ring fence but isolation is working. Once virus immigration stops, I would suggest we have stopped community spread. It has to come from somewhere outside Australia and that is preventable.
I have no idea why they do not test every new arrival. I read of 500,000 test kits arriving. People might be asymptomatic, but they should all be tested. Perhaps it is happening?
00
We need representative screening before making predictions about death rates and exposer.
Link to Article from Germany.
https://kenfm.de/tagesdosis-31-3-2020-zahlenkonfetti-die-desolate-datenbasis-der-corona-prognosen/
Translated by Deepl.com
Number confetti: the desolate database of corona prognoses
((Author))
A commentary by Mathias Bröckers.
It’s been a long time since I learned about statistics and the significance of samples and surveys as a sociology student, but I remembered the basics. Above all, that samples are only meaningful if they are taken from a representative cross-section of the group about which a statement is to be made. If only male car owners in the countryside or only female cyclists from large cities are questioned on the question of speed limits on motorways, these samples say little about the attitude of the overall population – they are not representative. Which is why it is quite absurd to make projections on the basis of such a sample as to what the result of the referendum on the speed limit will be on election day.
But we have had to live with such nonsense for months, namely with projections of infection and lethality rates by “Covid-19”, which have no representative basis at all. Because if I only test people who come into hospital with symptoms, I cannot gain any information about the spread of the virus in the whole population. This would require regular testing of a representative cross-section of the population, say 5000 healthy people, for infection and the presence of antibodies. This is the only way to make valid projections about the spread of the virus and to gain knowledge about its dangerousness.
So far, only two such halfway representative screenings have been carried out. The first is in Iceland, where 6143 tests were carried out up to last Wednesday, i.e. just under 5% of the population was screened. Fifty-two people tested positive, half of whom had no symptoms and the other half who had a cold.
Stanford professor John Ioannidis, who examined the data of almost 3000 passengers of the cruise ship “Diamond Princess” quarantined off Yokohama, most of whom were senior citizens, came to a similar conclusion. After an age correction of the data, the general lethality rate of Covid 19 was found to be 0.025% to 0.625% – in the range of a severe cold or flu. Of the 700 passengers who tested positive, almost half remained symptom-free, even the 80-89 year olds showed no symptoms at all (48%) and the 70-79 year olds (60%). Prof. Ioannidis therefore calls for representative samples of healthy people, because: “We do not know whether we are three times or 300 times wrong about the infections.
Until recently, the Robert Koch Institute also published only the case numbers of infected persons, but not the number of tests carried out. This has created the false impression of a rapid spread of the virus and the panic that has led the government to take drastic measures to restrict fundamental rights. In fact, however, there was no question of the number of cases tripling in March, as about three times as many tests were carried out in the same period. As Mr Schreyer has shown, the actual increase was only 1%: in calendar week 11, 6% of those tested were positive, and in calendar week 12, 7%. An “extreme increase”, as reported everywhere in mid-March, looks different. And they don’t have to fear that their friend Hein will knock on the door of those who tested positive:
“According to the current data of the RKI (27.3.) the percentage of deceased among those who tested positive is 0.6%. According to RKI boss Wieler, their average age (!) is 81 years. From this, it is hardly possible to deduce an extreme risk for the entire population – especially since it is still completely unclear whether the death in the majority of these cases is actually caused by the detected viral DNA material, or by other previous diseases.
That on the basis of such ignorance – with 50,000 confirmed infections at present, are 150,000 or already 15 million people in Germany infected? – The fact that reliable prognoses and appropriate measures cannot be made is immediately obvious to non-mathematicians and non-virologists. As useful as it may make sense to stop the spread of the virus in the first step with quarantines and contact blocks, it is imperative to clear the fog of this ignorance with representative samples in the second step. Only in this way can the danger of the virus and the proportionality of the measures be assessed at all. The daily confetti of figures with horror reports – on Thursday 1000 corona deaths in Italy! – are only of limited use and are pure scaremongering if it is not at the same time stated that, purely statistically, 2000 people die every day in Italy. Since everyone is now reported as a corona death where the virus is found, the number of victims must always be viewed with great caution. To make matters worse, Italy is by far the European leader in terms of deaths from hospital germs. The fact that corona-positive patients have been infected with a multi-resistant germ during hospital treatment and have died from it (on average 10,000 per year in Italy) would have to be included in any extrapolation of the Italian corona victims, as well as two other dangerous “top positions”: the region of Lombardy with the highest air pollution in Europe and with a very high resistance to antibiotics. Although antibiotics are not available in Italy without a prescription, they are very generously prescribed, consumed at every little thing and then simply no longer work when infected with a hospital germ. All these factors would have to be taken into account if, on the basis of developments in Italy, useful prognoses on the course of the epidemic in other countries were to be made. But this does not happen; instead, the media only provide new horror figures about mountains of corpses every day – which do not really say anything, neither about the spread of the virus nor about its dangerousness.
Therefore, the only thing that can be demanded of governments and crisis teams now is that they immediately provide meaningful figures to substantiate their dictatorial measures in the context of infection control. It cannot and must not be allowed that the most severe restrictions on fundamental rights since the Federal Republic of Germany was founded continue to be carried out on the basis of misleading data material. Incidentally, this would also apply if the state of emergency were to be aggravated because the new corona virus should actually prove to be as dangerous as the worst-case scenarios with many millions of deaths forecast. And it is all the more true if the now numerous critics of these forecasts, which are not based on clean data, are right. Like the renowned microbiologist Professor Sucharit Bhakdi in his open letter to Chancellor Merkel, they demand clarification and correction of the desolate database. And it is important for all media and journalists, who are especially in such times of crisis, not to be propaganda soldiers and copy official announcements, but to critically question the statements and actions of the ruling class.
52
There is no trampling on people’s rights. Almost everyone agrees isolation is necessary and almost all of it is voluntary. No one is being herded by police into their homes and locked up, not in democratic countries. There however always those who believe their rights are more important than anyone else’s rights. They are not.
As for ‘lethality’, the core problem is the speed of spread of this virus because people can be asymptomatic. It is an invisible menace. So until we have a vaccine, the only solution is isolation.
Even at your very low quoted rates, say 0.5% means 1.5 Million Americans would die soon without lock down. Why would anyone agree to that in the name of freedom? MERS and SARS are much more lethal, as with EBOLA, but it is the combination of lethality and rate of infections which has made COVID-19 a declared pandemic. In Germany, 0.5% is still 400,000 people very soon without isolation. Sweden is an experiment in progress.
Italy is in desperate straits with 12,000 dead with total lockdown but numbers of new infections are finally dropping. Left unchecked, they were looking at 300,000 dead. No one doubts this.
So your rights do not include the right to kill others by virus. No one has that right. The largely voluntary self isolation will be over soon enough even by holiday standards.
63
TdF
………….I for one doubt tyour conclusion,..hence, ..you are wrong !
You seem to have developed an unshakable belief in anything that pops into your head, and wan everyone else to agree with you.
Try to keep an open mind and think before you put you opinion into print.
00
No we don’t. The ONLY thing we need is to do everything humanly possible to avoid hosting this deadly virus.
That became apparent when we saw the measures China was taking. You know that building a massive field hospital in 2 weeks to cope with the dying and dead is not done without cause. You know that crematoriums cranking night and day to dispose of bodies is a tad unusual. Then we saw concrete evidence of the medical system in Italy under duress, then Spain, then UK and now New York. All now resorting to military assistance to cope with the extraordinary death rate.
Even the POTUS is making excuses for his lack of fast and decisive action on CV19 – being focused on impeachment rather than CV19 in January. A few days ago he was claiming it would be behind them by Easter. Now he is saying it is a grave situation with the peak yet to come.
The aircraft carrier USS Roosevelt is currently disabled and seeking help to treat its crew infected with CV19.
Only a DINGBAT would be seeking more data under these circumstances.
21
Rick W…..”everything humanly possible”…..??
So would that include euthanasia for everyone tested positive ????
..of course not !! We have to be realistic and practical in our efforts to eliminate the virus.
..And in order to do that intelegently , as VR said, decisions should be made based on data and facts,. Rather than someones “good idea”.
The only way to gather reliable data , it needs to be generated by proven statistical techniques, not just the “hotch potch” of inaccurate “case numbers” from unknown numbers of selective testing !
00
The way the numbers of confirmed cases are being counted is very sketchy. Italy is proving to be very sloppy at this.
There hasn’t been any full scale representative screening of the general population.
To make sound decisions, you need sound information.
Hopefully you won’t be shutdown for three months, that seems extrem.
00
There’s already an expiry date on some of the limitations introduced to save us and the world from us I guess. It was mentioned
on Sky news around the middle of the day, but I didn’t pay enough attention about what laws it applied to.
There are a few Libertarians around, including in the commentary sections of the daily papers, that are stirring this stuff up.
I think most Australians currently just want to be saved from this virus. Measures have to be taken to force the more stupid,
dull witted citizens we’ve seen on TV and heard about, to forgo their preferred lifestyles for a while as arrangements are put in
place to save as many other Australians as possible – even including them. Australians would be more worried by lack of PPE masks and gloves etc
to protect those who protect them, than they are about the laws introduced to guide them through this mess from China.
At the end of this viral challenge, all of us will be demanding the return of all our civil liberties and, from my point of view, a hell of
a lot of others as well that have been taken from us about how we speak and act. A lot of this mess could be put down to those infractions built up
over the years where we are not allowed to call a spade a spade.
60
NSW police Commissioner has just confirmed on a news conference that the current restrictions will remain in place for 3 MONTHS… IE until JULY !
10
Thank you Chad.
00
Bobl must still be crunching the numbers, shouldnt be too long now with another rendition of over reaction.
FYI to children in Belguim (10 year olds) have died from somerhing no worse than tne flu
51
You bet I am, because it’s the math that tells the real story, and as for Over Reaction , wasn’t it me advocating for removing the ill from the general population and releasing our economy from it’s current chains…. Err yes, perhaps that because I’ve NOT overreacted and can see a way to manage the virus AND have a functioning economy.
5000 infections 15269 towns. Stop the virus moving town to town, quarantine the ill away from other people.
82
You could do that if it was possible to test everyone daily. So far Australia cannot even test medical staff once unless they show symptoms. There is no way of knowing who has the virus. We have to treat everyone, including oneself, as having the virus. There is not enough PPE to prevent spread from individuals in close proximity and not enough sanitiser to disinfect every surface we touch.
And it appears there are plenty of dingbats who think it is OK to give the virus a home because they are being misinformed about the risk. The only choice is to enforce distancing.
60
Agreed. If most coronovirus infected people had symptoms, it would be easy. That is why more deadly SARS and MERS and EBOLA did not get a foothold. You knew who was infected.
60
This is the ridiculous situation we are in.
We all have Schrödinger’s Virus.
https://imgur.com/gallery/XHr58wB
30
There are 23+million people. The disease is infectious in the latent period and not all infectious people have symptoms.
Open economy equals large gatherings – shopping, theatres, cinemas, sports etc etc. So many sick creates more sick and sick
don’t go to work. The virus is highly contagious. The length of time to recovery looks very long to me. People on cruises should
teach us a little about a free ranging virus. In towns with a virus like that you would end up with the entire town in quarantine.
ie no economy and such medical demand as to be untreatable.
Your scenario is what we face as we come out of this epidemic. We will see what is possible then. I suggest it will be very slow, and
that’s before we can reopen our borders both internal and external. We don’t even yet know what sort of immunity we develop after
being infected. Influenza mutates so rapidly that we require new vaccines covering multiple strains every year. We need to hope we
can get a vaccine to this agent and can keep up with its mutations, or, will we ever get a good range of antiviral drugs?. One of the biggest
deficits currently is what isn’t known because this is a novel agent.
40
Re mutation, there is evidence that it will not mutate as rapidly as influenza:
https://www.foxnews.com/media/scientists-offer-hopeful-news-coronavirus-vaccine-mutation-rate
20
Thanks Greg. Good news. It’s in very short supply lately.
10
I still believe the best approach is the total elimination of this virus from Australia. And prohibition of reentry by testing. The foothold of 5,000-7,000 people in Australia is tiny. Isolate, deny, eliminate.
It might be asymptomatic, but we are now talking five minutes now for a positive test for incoming visitors to our island. Like its cousin rabies, we do not want it nor any of its cousins. Ever. It is, in my belief, a man made virus, a weapon of war accidentally released.
Worldwide, like smallpox, with testing, it can be isolated and eliminated by denying it the opportunity to infect more people. A UN independent WHO could do this. Like the IPCC, the WHO has become a political body and could not function to save anyone. It is utterly compromised.
50
This chap thinks it will eventually become endemic, and at the collective level, we’ll achieve herd immunity. Time 15:55 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuqHik3gBYc&t=15m55s
10
I think the politicians in Sweden and the Nederlands agree. It is an experiment with millions of lives at stake. Either way, you have to think people from those countries where everyone is infected may have real trouble getting a visa to Australia in future.
00
“this is a novel agent”
i.e. does not exist in nature.
How do you know that?
10
If we start applying definitional language where one has to pars every word before
entering it on screen then blogs are going to get very tedious.
‘Novel’ is by your definition ‘ does not exist in nature’. ‘Novel’ in my dictionary is’new, recent, strange’. Ergo, my use of the term fits with ‘recent’. Novel is also used colloquially as something different to the usual. Until this virus is fully described, neither you nor I know what it really will turn out to be. The fact it has crossed species lines is a rarity despite recent history and as such the entire group of viruses that have jumped species, even back to Ebola, could be described as a novel group of agents.
Things are really getting touchy when the best criticism one can make is word
definitions. We could all be doing this all day. I’m sure it would make an
exhilarating addition to any topic. But, be happy. If that’s your thing, go for it.
00
novel in the context of covid-19 means previously unknown
00
Bobl,
Most of your comments have personal barbs which by the rules shou6kd be deleted but for some unknown reason they are not so i dont bother to read them in detail.
What i can say is math is not the answer here, the transmission characteristics of a virus cannot be reduced to a mathematical equation unlike climate change of course LOL.
Therefore if you cannot predict or model the transmission of a very yiu plan would fail inside a week.
34
Life can at times be so unfair.
30
Have you got anything apart from ad hominem?
20
That’s not a mask. This is a mask!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/149157242@N05/49722336758/in/dateposted-public/
Here’s someones’ fifteen minutes of fame. Get filmed doing the shopping in all the gear. You shouldn’t need the flippers? Then you’d need to do it all backwards.
20
This strengthens the case for some form of disinfection in aircon systems in planes, ships, hotels, etc.. A strong UV lamp covering the appropriate wavelengths would be a good option.
Jo, on another thread someone suggested that masks could be sterilised for re-use by a quick blast in a microwave (after removing any metal!).
Is that viable?
50
I conducted a trial on this today. I used a Smith & Arrow P2 rated mask, that meets Aus. Std. The 4 staples securing the thin rubber holding straps were removed prior. Proper elastic straps were sown on in the same positions. The rubber straps soon break at the connection points with repeated use. There is a plastic strap used to modify the shape, that is heat welded onto the mask on the outside of the nose position. On this particular mask, there is a fine wire rib, encased in the plastic on either side of this strap. I was concerned how that would react in the microwave. Gave it some thought and didn’t come up with a substitute that suited the purpose. Didn’t anticipate much drama if I was doing the wrong thing, so in it went. Tested at full revs for 20 secs with no adverse response. All good!
30
Covid 9 could be Covid 19 without any
ballsfangs …20
Phenergan is one of a few other drugs that inhibit the virus by the looks of things
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.25.008482v1?fbclid=IwAR1Sqb479LtmSBVTdeR-6B-7ULk8brv5i9F-uSCidIYBwgnyluVDH1dhCAc
20
Austria Declares Wearing Masks Mandatory in Supermarkets
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/03/31/austria-declares-wearing-masks-mandatory-supermarkets/
Nice if we could do that in Australia but our masks are in China.
Dr. Anthony Fauci Cautions Jim Acosta for Taking ‘Soundbite’ Out of Context
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/03/31/dr-anthony-fauci-cautions-jim-acosta-for-taking-soundbite-out-of-context/
20
It also inhibits people by sedating. That means less activity of the host.
20
The ‘Australian’ can reveal the 16,000 citizens went overseas by plane between March 19 and 30 even though the Prime Minister gave a very clear instruction to “not travel abroad” on March 18.
Places including Bali, where now even the Indonesian government has banned incoming flights.
A real part of the problem are people utterly ignoring the do not fly order. And we are still getting 2,000 people a day arriving. That’s more than enough to keep this thing going indefinitely, though a big drop on the normal 60,000 people a day.
30
Why were Air Services Australia providing out going clearances? Why were the flights not grounded? Why were foreign airlines allowed to enter the ADIZ? In-bound foreign flight plans should have been refused as lodged. The air borders are entirely controllable.
40
Weather Cycles — a dead giveaway to any pilot that you probably work in aviation in some capacity. How close is my guess?
20
Just GA Roy.
Hope things are going well with you.
00
So you’re another one of that fraternity who goes out on a weekend for that $100 hamburger then? When you knew about ADIZ and generally spoke the lingo better than a layman could I had you figured for probably somewhere in the aviation weather service.
Goes to show you never to jump to unsubstantiated conclusions.
Happy flying or whatever it is that you do.
00
Wo pays attention to authority these days? The entre left has worked for years to submarine legitimate authority.
30
But you can’t smell any rats. Covid 19 does that to you , apparently.
10
My Dream…
00
How come I can make this work but can’t post a short story without being told, “this site can’t be reached”
40
Roy there has been something seriously wrong with this site for some time. And it’s just this site for me.
No idea why.
20
Yes same here ..only this site
..page loads are painfully slow, and uploads are far worse !
Its almost becoming unuseable !!
00
Now if someone with the right skills could step in and help. Remember, Jo runs her whole shop alone, no help except the moderators. When you’re on the inside as I was for a while it begins to look like a miracle that she gets it all done. And she finances everything on donations, including the server to run it all on.
Consider the amount of work involved in this sequence of threads on CV alone. I couldn’t do it.
10
The word is out in South East Asia !
One and a half meter “Social Distancing” does not work !
https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/breaking-news-covid-19-prevention-new-study-proves-that-social-distancing-of-1-to-3-meters-is-nothing-but-fake-news-and-misinformation
11
São Paulo reports 136 deaths and Rio de Janeiro has 23 fatal cases.
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“São Paulo reports 136 deaths and Rio de Janeiro has 23 fatal cases.”
What are you trying to say?
Sao Paulo never had 136 deaths before?
Rio has 23 fatal cases of death?
Looks like pure garbage to me.
01
Sorry.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/brazil/
10
Don’t forget to correct your post at WUWT. You wrote the same nonsense there too.
01
Joke further.
10
I agree . Most cases of death are fatal.
11
Far-UVC light at 222-nm was shown to inactivate virus within a matter of seconds without causing harm to exposed skin and eyes in research published two years ago. https://www.photonics.com/Articles/Far-UVC_Light_Could_Safely_Limit_Spread_of_Flu/a63116
Lamps have already been on the market https://sterilray.com/ but I see no mention of any large scale adoption in the field perhaps due to a lack of engineering perspective in the political and medical care personnel?
Good explanation of real world aerosol behavior. https://sterilray.com/2020/02/26/covid-19-shows-disconnect-between-scientific-and-medical-professions/
00
Oh noes . green party take note . Public transport is OVER :-
In order to prepare and prevent potential pandemics, we must look to the Achilles heel of our society and how diseases spread so rapidly.
Global public transportation6 (PT) in 2017 carried 53 billion passengers for an increase of 9 billion in 5 years. In the US, APTA (American Public Transportation Association) says it transported 38 million per week or 10.1 billion in 2017.
At a 2% infection rate, Americans would get sick at almost 4 million per week or over 32 million is just two months! Health care facilities would be overwhelmed. All forms of PT move people in tight quarters locally and around the world in times short enough for bacterial and viral incubation without detection or symptoms.
10
Some carriers who show no symptoms can still infect others. Photo: AFPSome carriers who show no symptoms can still infect others. Photo: AFP
Some carriers who show no symptoms can still infect others. Photo: AFP
China will include asymptomatic coronavirus carriers in its daily figures from Wednesday, its National Health Commission said on Tuesday.
Officials said the new measures would help to address growing public concerns about the risks of infection with Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, brought about by these silent carriers.
The commission added that it already required local health workers to report these cases through the central communicable disease report system.
The commission also revealed for the first time that as of Monday, there were 1,541 asymptomatic carriers under medical observation in mainland China, including 205 imported cases.
That compared with 2,161 Covid-19 patients who are still hospitalised and another 183 suspected cases.
The announcement follows Monday’s meeting of the central government’s Covid-19 leading group chaired by Premier Li Keqiang, who instructed officials to be more proactive in investigating the extent of these silent carriers.
Classified Chinese government data previously seen by the South China Morning Post suggested that the proportion of silent carriers could be as high as one-third of those who test positive.
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The data suggested that by the end of February more than 43,000 people in mainland China had tested positive for the coronavirus but had no immediate symptoms. They were not included in the official tally of confirmed cases.
Chang Jile, director of the commission’s Disease Prevention and Control Bureau, said on Tuesday that the government would step up screening and investigation of asymptomatic cases.
“With effect from April 1, we will include reports of asymptomatic cases, any status change and how they are being handled, as part of our daily outbreak updates to address public concern,” Chang said. “We will strengthen our work in monitoring, surveillance, quarantine and the treatment of asymptomatic carriers, and do sampling in key areas to investigate and analyse these carriers.”
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3077753/china-include-symptom-free-coronavirus-carriers-national-figures
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Our “leaders” already understand that and is one reason why they have been rolling out more and more restrictions. As has been stated before though another approach that might be as good if not better is for everyone to have on a mask and gloves when outside. It is clear it’s working in some countries. Unfortunately, as we all know there are not enough masks and gloves to go around, thanks to our ignorance and our lack of preparedness for inevitable crises like the current pandemic. Hence the restrictions. Obviously the best approach to flatten the curve is to do both. Hopefully we have now been taught that lesson for the next time and stop being so ignorant and lazy. We as a nation need to be far more self-sufficient. We can start by increasing significantly the amount of medical supplies, etc.. we manufacture.
10
Yes , it has been stated before, but that does not make it a fact.
It is at best speculation, or just rumour !
Some countries (Singapore) have officially advocated not to wear masks unles you have symptoms….and they have a pretty good record to date.
00
Relax Jo. I’m copping it from my 26YO daughter for sharing on our messenger group the Lydia Bourouiba paper. It seems we as a global population are settling into two opposites. One that applauds the microbiology papers and the other that puts finance above society. Notable exceptions to the rule Twiggy Forest.
00
Wash your hands don’t touch your face.
Dr David Price Abbreviated call on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwx3JMRTz8U
01
At time 3:50 he says:
So once all the other doctors watch this video, they’ll all stop being infected. So simple.
00