Ignore the mixed, junk messaging, if the WHO tells you not to wear a mask, that’s President Xi speaking. It’s a reason to wear one. We should all be wearing masks in public. It may be the cheapest way to reduce the R0, and get us out of coronavirus-jail fast.
- Countries which wear masks have lower transmission. Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea. UPDATE: Australia’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer says Australians shouldn’t use masks because they are not clever enough to use them properly or something like that. Seriously. Don’t wait for bureaucrats to get the message right.
- It protects other people from those who don’t even have symptoms who are shedding virus.
- It protects you: It reduces your chance of breathing in droplets of virus that float in the air. Viruses are tiny, but studies show that masks work, even a thin surgical mask prevented nearly 3 out 4 parents from catching influenza from their infected children. The N95 style are better but any mask is better than nothing.
- There are no guarantees –– the virus can sneak in the side, and still enter through your eyes (wear glasses to reduce at least to stop you touching your eyes). Goggles are better.
- Take it off very carefully. Assume the front is contaminated. Don’t touch the front, hold it by the straps, and take off the bottom strap first. Let the mask fall forward. Be wary of shaking loose particles and then breathing them in. Think about where you will put it before you take it off and do it there. Here are short CDC instructions on mask use. The CDC video on donning and doffing. There are longer CDC instructions on fitting N95 masks. Wash hands before, after, and every ten minutes for the rest of the year. Don’t get OCD. 😉
- To reuse: Boil cloth masks for 5 minutes to sterilize, or steam it. If it can’t be washed, hang outside in the sun for 48 hours, or leave it on a hot car dashboard.
Survival times of Coronavirus are shorter on cardboard and material compared to hard surfaces. I’m guessing porous material (like paper, card or cotton) dry and dehydrate the virus. For masks, the word is that the best material to use (apart from a HEPA filter) is a tight weave cotton sheet (a high thread count) — which might be better than synthetic material because of its ability to absorb water.
DIY: No sewing, disposable paper mask, suggested by Hong Kong’s consumer council
MATERIALS: Paper towels, tissue paper, rubber bands, masking tape, hole punch, binder clips aka “bulldog clips”, (plus glasses, wire and a clear plastic file folder if you want to make a face shield!)
DIY: Five minute masks, no-sew, bed sheet, safety pin style.
Skip to 2:20 for instructions. A paper clip can be threaded into the pre-stitched hems of a bed sheet. Uses 13 inch x 5 inch pieces. Washable as long as the clips don’t rust.
DIY: Just fold it — the ultra simple Japanese style
This Japanese no-sew mask uses something that looks like a tea towel or handkerchief. It can be done with a bandana.
MATERIALS: Cotton tea towel, plus two elastic bands. 2 mins — plus fiddling to get it the right length to fit.
Best quality, sewn mask with HEPA filter
If you can sew, this is what Dr. Ryan Southworth is asking home handy-people to make for use on the front line. If you don’t have a machine, this could still be hand sewn. (It’s not impossible. I still have a hand sewn item my grandmother made which I keep just because of the incredibly fine stitching. Once upon a time, not so long ago, it’s all people could do.)
MATERIALS: Hepa vacuum cleaner bags, Hot glue, pipe cleaners, elastic, thread, scissors.
..
This is another style designed by a lab technician using hot glue, or heat sealing, and good quality filters. These are professional quality disposable masks.
For serious sewing types — the Olsen Mask is designed for hospital use: See the Youtube from UnityPoint Health, Cedar Rapids. The Olsen Mask is meant as a backup for frontline teams, and has complete patterns online. The hospital will provide materials. They will be reusable and washable.
Then there are people who are even using bra cups: Eg this woman.
OK, so we look weird in the shops. Think how relaxing it will be at home for the next two weeks where you don’t have to wonder if every dry cough is the start of something bad.
Related Posts
- Masks do help, even (maybe) stopping 75% of influenza, and you can make them
- Korean professor surprised Western people don’t wear masks which are “very effective”
- Wear masks, flush the air, microdroplets suspend for hours
Saw a beaut mask on Facebook this morning with a hole cut out for the mouth so that a smile isn’t hidden.
40
Crotchless panties page was it?
41
That’s a smile you appreciate.
00
Australia’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly is cautioning against the widespread use of protective face masks by the public, warning those wearing them could inadvertently contract COVID-19.
He said on Saturday there were 5544 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Australia, with 30 deaths as a result of the virus.
“If we had unlimited numbers of masks I think it would be important to have a conversation with the Australian community who, unlike many countries in Asia where it is very commonly used…this is not a way that in general Australians use masks,” Dr Kelly said.
“Using a mask incorrectly can actually make it more dangerous. So for example, if you are not used to wearing a mask, it can become quite uncomfortable, even claustrophobic. And indeed, it can become quite itchy underneath the mask.
“Touching a surface with the virus, scratching yourself underneath the mask, could in fact increase your risk rather than decrease your risk.
“If we got to that point, then certainly there would be a need for a strong conversation about how to fit a mask properly and how to use it.”
Thats from Australian.
52
They need to sack that bloke. His stupid “advice” is flipping dangerous.
182
Depends what he’s trying to achieve, if he wants the infection rate to increase he’s probably doing a pretty good job.
80
If that’s silly, this is madness:
A German scientist says coronavirus has not spread while shopping or at the hairdressers and that it is not a smear infection picked up by touching objects.
Streeck, the director of the Institute of Virology at the University Hospital in Bonnhas, believes the virus is instead spread by very close personal contact such as “close dancing and exuberant celebrations’’.
Research by Professor Streeck in the home of one infected family showed there was no live virus on surfaces. He had not found the virus on door knobs or animal fur.
Page 10, The Weekend Australian. 4 April 2020.
For those who don’t have access here’s the same story:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8182767/Scientist-casts-doubt-coronavirus-spread.html
Best of luck Germany.
110
What is it with people who say that one can’t catch the virus by touching a surface that had the virus deposited on it by any number of means? Have they taken leave of the senses or something? That’s exactly like saying there is no need to wash your hands because no virus can exist on its surface. How dumb is that?
41
PeterS,
Just to add to the above. Noticed your comment today after posting, directed at me yesterday. Not suggesting hands shouldn’t be washed very regularly. Never have. I’m suggesting face masks greatly reduce the risk of face touch transfer, thereby reducing criticality of washing hands. Also suggesting the main transmission route of the virus is probably micro-droplets.
00
Sceptical Sam and PeterS,
If we can’t rely on good research, what can we rely on? Professor Streeck is literally one of the best in the world in the field of virology research
You’ll note the professor suggested it was being transferred via another means. The japanese research suggests micro-droplets. The japanese research to my mind confirms the Professor’s theory.
Lets open our minds to the thought that we’ve got it wrong. Lets be sceptical.
10
The term is aerosol and it is confirmed
00
“So for example, if you are not used to wearing a mask, it can become quite uncomfortable, even claustrophobic. And indeed, it can become quite itchy underneath the mask.” SOOOO what.
“Touching a surface with the virus, scratching yourself underneath the mask, could in fact increase your risk rather than decrease your risk.”
We already know not to touch our face.
Another example of an academic who knows lots of things but understands none of them.
130
Golly…its almost appears like they *want* it to spread…nah…. surely not. I guess without infections you cant have a lock down….
But I digress….
20
I’ve been wearing a face nask when I go aay from home for weeks.
No itchiness
No problems
He is an old fashioned arrogant doctor who ALWAYS knows he’s right
Bugger !
80
Welcome back Captain.
20
It is truly amazing that Kelly is still saying masks should not be worn. He is literally contributing to the deaths of thousands of people with this advice. He’s saying it because he wants to preserve masks for the health services.
The irony of Kelly’s statement on masks is that if everyone wore a mask, the rate of infection and subsequent deaths would likely decrease dramatically, if the East Asian figures are anything to go by. This raises the question as to whether we have a bed of elitists in the Australian medical establishment as well? Without wanting to denigrate the front line doctors to whom we owe such an enormous debt of gratitude for their courage and fortitude; the mask advisory is starting to look very dubious.
Worse still, if masks are as effective a prophylactic as doctors believe them to be when they use them professionally, why would they not be protective of citizens in the same way? Especially given the risk factors of use by a citizen would be far less than a doctor who is around Covid-19 patients all day.
Worse yet again, the Australian federal health authorities have based their core strategy of isolation and quarantine around the idea of staying home or in a hotel. It’s arguable they are needlessly quarantining citizens who could wear a mask and/or be tested. Its also arguable that mask wearing would allow many people to safely interact in many of the businesses that have been closed i.e. it would reduce the social distance requirement to less than two metres.
Wouldn’t it make sense to mandate masks so people can get back to work? So that those in quarantine can go home to their families?
In Europe we saw people eventually give up on the BS they were being told by their public health authorities and just buy masks. After many weeks it is now mandatory for Italians, Austrians, Czechs and a few others to wear masks. The Spanish, English, Swiss, Germans and French will be next when they notice their numbers are being stubborn. Tens of thousands of lives could have been saved if people had been wearing masks since day one as they were in East Asia.
Should we trust a self-interested health care system or just use our common sense and force the government to return our freedoms. I’d choose the latter any day of the week. The moment we think the government knows what is best for us is the moment we’re doomed.
00
What is the difference between influenza virus and SARS virus? The influenza virus causes bacterial complications, the SARS virus kills on one’s own.
40
Ren, or maybe we don’t know? If azithromycin helps — which is an antibiotic — it’s quite possible that Covid kills by making our lungs vulnerable for secondary germs?
Best treatment so far is Choroquine + Zn + azithromycin
20
Zinc is so critical here. But does anyone know the serum zinc status of infected people? No! Is anyone testing infected people for Zn levels? No! Knowing the Zn levels for low-symptom people, sick people, hospital admitted people and critically ill people would be SO INFORMATIVE. But is any health authority anywhere in the world monitoring Zn status relative to this disease? No, I don’t think so.
10
There is a website, deaconess.com with a couple of simple patterns. Their basic idea is production for medics in urgent need of them.
30
‘Mask wearing ‘may increase infection risk.
‘Deputy Chief Medical Officer cautions against widespread mask wearing in public, as second Canberra death takes national toll to 30.’ Oz
22
So are they dead because they were wearing a mask? No No No No.
50
How many Australians have died because they wore a mask EG ?
40
Bloody Idiot!
50
If you studied the reasons why surgeons wear masks during a surgery you will figure out how silly that notion of mask wearing may increase infection risk is so silly.
60
They should ban masks in operating theatres then?
Masks work both ways, preventing infection either way. For this appalling virus with so many asymptomatic carriers, you would also be protecting others by wearing a mask.
Thinking has to change. As Dr. Birx in the US said, this virus caught everyone because they usually think of the sickest people being the problem when it is the people without symptoms
who are the problem, infecting so many. She also said if the Chinese had bothered to tell anyone, many lives could have been saved and the massive casualties in the US greatly reduced.
That is not xenophobia. It is the truth.
90
A shelf product to treat lice offers hope.
‘A Monash University-led study has shown a single dose of the drug Ivermectin could stop the SARS-CoV-2 virus growing in cell culture.
‘We found that even a single dose could essentially remove all viral RNA (effectively removed all genetic material of the virus) by 48 hours and that even at 24 hours there was a really significant reduction in it,’ Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute’s Dr Kylie Wagstaff said on Friday.’
Daily Mail
40
Translation: “Don’t wear masks, they don’t work, which is why we are worried about health workers not having them, and you are too stupid to put them on and off safely. Remember in a crisis the most important thing is the perception of safety, rather than actual safety”
The guy is an idiot.
180
Perfect summation Ken.
60
It’s hard to believe he’s fair dinkum.
There’s a huge variation in the quality of masks, with corresponding variation in effectiveness. But the reasons being given for not using them are silly.
1. Dont use them because we don’t have enough to go around?
2. Don’t use them because they don’t stop sll the bugs?
Surely any mask will stop some of the bugs both coming in and going out. A good quality mask will stop most of the bugs in and out the mouth and nose.
So it surely is worth wearing a mask when out in a crowd.
60
If initial viral load is a factor in how badly the illness progresses, then surely even an imperfect mask is far better than no mask. A homemade cotton one can be laundered too.
90
That’s the perfect summary Annie.
20
In the Infectious Diseases Clinic of Clinical Hospital No. 1 in Lublin, an innovative method of treating coronavirus-infected patients is being tested, which aims to prevent the development of respiratory failure. The treatment uses drugs that are used in rheumatology and hematology. Their implementation is carried out at the second – third stage of infection.
The drug blocks the mechanisms of inflammatory reactions
– This is not strictly an antiviral treatment, but we are trying to turn off the inflammatory response that is responsible for serious complications. By blocking the receptor of one of interleukins – a substance secreted by our immune system, we do not get to the so-called cytokine storm, which results in respiratory failure – said dr hab. Krzysztof Tomasiewicz.
50
ren
I believe that this is the source document
Recommendations of management in SARS-CoV-2 infection of the Polish Association of Epidemiologists and Infectiologists
Authors: Robert Flisiak, Andrzej Horban, Jerzy Jaroszewicz, Dorota Kozielewicz, Małgorzata Pawłowska, Miłosz Parczewski, Anna Piekarska, Krzysztof Tomasiewicz, Dorota Zarębska-Michaluk
Article type: Special article
Received: March 30, 2020.
Accepted: March 31, 2020.
Published online: March 31, 2020.
ISSN: 1897-9483
20
Yes, thank you.
20
Beijing is behaving badly, again.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3078427/coronavirus-chinas-new-export-restrictions-medical-supplies
20
Nawh, the world needs to man up and do their own manufacturing rather than offshore it to make profit for some CEO over the local populace.
The excuse that it is cheaper that was only goes so far. The hidden and accrued costs of doing it elsewhere are not revealed.
By all means gorge on cheap imported products, offshored servicesand cut rate vacations. The hidden costs and defeicit of offloading the industry to elsewhere must eventually be met
00
Sorry, no controlled scientific experiment, no conclusion.
I have seen no convincing, hard science on masks, so would appreciate references I might have missed.
I used to work in analytical chemistry. It was essential, when measuring ppm and lower conentrations, for example, to be acutely aware of contamination. You can’t see or feel a ppm, but you can curse when your analyses are contaminated.
You learn that unwanted contamination is sometimes by paths you never expected. Analysts have reported gold analysis in rocks and soils contaminated from wearing wedding rings. It is all around you, even where you were sure it was not.
So it is with these viruses. They get to be suspended in your supermarket air, contaminating your clothing and exposed skin, like your forehead. Where is the logic in careful removal of a used mask, when the virus is on your forehead already? What is the gain?
What is the benefit of a mask that filters 90% of particles when the other 10% is 100 times more than safe?
This approaching winter season calls for porridge and cream for breakfast. Thickened cream is one of the harder foods to decontamnate from your kitchen utensils, your hands, your clothes. In the lab, Vaseline was a pest. How often have you finally got all clean after a small spill of cream, only to find some specks in your hair? Those specks are hugely greater than the ppm contamination of which I speak. It’s not easy being clean. To lab standards.
I am not a crank, but a careful scientist who sees no reason to drop standards of scientific investigation because there is a pandemic. Show me the science to change my view and I will change it. Geoff S
33
Hi Geoff,
You seem to have gotten this one backasswards.
Anything, like masks or handwringing reduces the “concentration” of the active virus so that you are progressively safer.
Everything helps!
KK
61
Read Jo’s last two posts.
31
TedM,
I already did.
Geoff S
00
Can you point me to any controlled experiment that demonstrates that wearing masks increases the risk of contracting covid-19. “Sorry, no controlled scientific experiment, no conclusion.”
70
I was once asked why I hadn’t written up conclusions with regard to an extremely obvious environmental process. The answer was given by someone else, and that was that no one would be stupid enough to waste time and resources to write a paper on something that was as obvious as the fact that gravity existed.
Someone may wish to write a paper using extra acquired data to provide quantification on the issue. But that is another matter, do not conflate the two.
41
Geoff I have this very strong feeling that less bug floating free in the air has got to be better. I know it doesn’t guarantee, but it surely helps.
40
TOB,
What is gainful is bug safely taken out of harm’s way.
Do masks really reduce the amount of bug floating free in the Ir? Proof?
Geoff S
10
Do Corona19 viruses float free in the air ?
I’ve read that they increase in numbers in humans
And are shed by infected humans via breathing & coughing.
And maybe in faeces..
But in the open air the survival rate is low….
Hence masks are a good way of preventing infection.
00
Geoff, if the person with mask is infected then they may be putting some CV19 out around them but they would be recycling most of it.
That’s not good for them but it is better for those nearby.
A trade-off.
00
I should add in this series of comments, that I understand the reason we have protocols that are required to be followed in the area of scientific research. I understand the importance of replication. (hope Michael Mann reads this). However with regard to the wearing of masks, Jo’s previous posts indicate what are effectively unplanned studies, where certain groups of people have used, or do use masks and some that don’t.
While a planned study, which may mean some people suffer or die unnecessarily, would provide quantification. That masks reduce cross infection can be understood by empirical observation.
My fear is that while there are many doctors and hospitals that are using hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin and are observing huge improvements in their outcomes, our TGA may not allow it until they conduct their own study. I hope I’m wrong.
Now is the time to save lives. Working out just how many have been saved by whatever therapy can be done later.
10
My post also contained the placebo controlled study where parents were randomized into mask wearing v not wearing to look after kids at home who were diagnosed with influenza.
Doing this experiment in hospital is not possible *** because it would be unethical to ask doctors or nurses to not wear masks ***.
In parents 3 out 4 avoided getting influenza if they wore masks for 5 days.
Any mask — surgical or full N95 reduced the rate of infection by about 75%.
There are literally scores of proper studies listed in PudMed on mask use and variations in hospital, and “the more the better” is the general rule of the results. Wearing masks only during high risk situations helped, but not as much as wearing masks all the time. Wearing a surgical mask was surprisingly useful, but wearing an N95 was even better.
As the docs how they feel about not being able to wear masks to fight Covid. The stress this causes is dreadful. Some are quitting over this point.
30
Jo,
I am not suggesting people should not wear masks. I am saying that I have not seen strong evidence of benefit.
Think this way. Here we are seeing relatively thoughtless application of the precautionary principle, which many bloggers here objected to if applied to climate change policy.
I agree that surgeons should wear masks in operations, but note there was a lot of prior research and now, quite careful management of such masks.
Many of the cited studies recommending masks have very loose input data, such as national differences in data collection such as, for this virus, different definitions of death “from” or “with”. This shows a lack of scientific rigour, the point of my objections. Don’t use an emergency to get sloppy with numbers. That’s all. Geoff S
11
Geoff ,
Research & then peer reviewing take months if not years
That is NOT feasible with an infectious global pandemic.
Waiting for Godot is NOT an option.
Masks Work mate
They worked last year for you when you were in hospital as well.
00
Sorry I overlooked the placebo controlled study Jo.
00
That doctor video on sowing together your own masks from HEPA vacuum bag was a real worry. Not only would it take at least 1/2 an hour per mask, if you had a sewing machine, there were technical errors from the good doctor. HEPA filters vary. The most common used in vac cleaners is HEPA-13. That’s a pore size of 13 microns. That’s big enough to allow much of the smaller (<10um) sneeze/cough aerosols, still airborne, to go straight through. The greatest problem with face-masks is facial-fit. Poor facial-fit will allow considerable air-leakage around the edges. Face-masks have to be carefully designed and tested to get good facial-fit. Even then, putting them on properly and doing a fit-check is required. The good doctor even had a beard which reduces face-fit.
Am I allowed to say that Dr Paul Kelly is looking like an idiot? Because he is, and an arrogant one as well. There is evidence from around the world that countries where most people wear masks in public have lower infection rates (eg Taiwan). Declaring that he doesn't recommend that Australians wear clinical masks on the same day that 10 million of them came into the country? Hospitals will get first crack at them even though most hospitals already keep a large store of the things as a standard medical item. They don't have to line up at Bunnings like we do to get them. Any doctor or nurse working with specifically COVID-19 ill patients in hospital should be wearing P2 (or N95) respirator masks and NOT clinical masks which provide only limited personal protection. When I still worked in the hospital system I often had frustrating discussions with medical staff about proper respirator selection/use. I came away at times thinking some medical staff were brain dead. But they were probably just arrogant.
10
Monash University finds cheap common anti parasite kills Covid19 virus in 48 hours, in vitro
Ivermectin is already used to treat the tropical disease River Blindness in humans. I’ve bought it to treat the increasingly daunting travellers pest, bed bugs. Only 0.25% is effective if ingested by that awful pest. In the US, one can buy 1.7% Ivermectin with Apple flavour as horse dewormer for less than shipping cost from EBay.
Buy before the inevitable price rise (with dosing to be determined in weeks to come)! Ivermectin is, I guess safer than HCQ. Why? It does not pass the blood brain barrier in mammals (certain breeds of dogs excepted). Ivermectin was discovered in soil by a Japanese scientist in the 1970s. Then went into widespread use on pets and livestock during the 1980s, earning its discoverer the Nobel Prize in medicine in 2015.
From what I’ve read, it is as important a discovery for nonhuman animal health as penicillin was for human health. How does it work? For parasites, it is called xeno-intoxication SEE Wikipedia on that topic and Ivermectin).
This true wonderdrug, how does it kill the novel corona virus? What is it’s proper doing? Buy before this is determined. The dirt cheap price, a gift from Japanese soil, will double or triple shortly.
Of course, I’m no doctor. But if this medicine works as well in humans as in vitro, this could mark The Turning Point in the War on The Novel Corona Virus. And while this is too early to be sure, let me be the first to say it: Thank You, Australia!
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/world/australian-study-finds-common-anti-parasitic-drug-kills-covid-19-cells-within-48-hours
70
I thought invermectin was a sheep drench for parasites?
10
It is. And it is used on cattle, too.In sheep it kils most internal parasites and some external ones too.
Administered orally for sheep, it is administered either orally or in a different preparation as a “backliner” pour on for cattle. It goes in through the skin and into the bloodstream.
I do wonder about this story though.
I hope I haven’t confused my chemicals on the backliner. I gave up cattle ten years ago when I got kicked by a cow. Nothing unusual about getting kicked by a cow, but I had been put on Warfarin. A kick on the thigh bruised me from the hip to the ankle. Can’t afford that, so I retreated to sheep only.. They don’t kick so hard.
70
That’s Awesom.
🙂 always good to have good news.
20
Does it kill the ordinary flu virus? Might make flu shots obsolete.
00
Interesting
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/the-puzzle-of-coronavirus-a-huge-variation-in-rates-of-death-and-severe-disease-across-the-globe-20200402-p54gkr.html
“Yet Allen Cheng, professor of infectious diseases at Monash university and an expert adviser to the federal government, warns against drawing too much comfort from our early figures. “The key is to keep an eye on the unlinked cases, the cases where you can’t work out where they’ve come from,” he says. “If we start picking up a lot of [those], then there is a big iceberg there and we need to work out how big it is.”
“One of the most striking features of the pandemic is the huge variation in rates of death and severe disease across the globe. Countries doing better than most include the East Asian grouping of Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and South Korea. Germany has also kept a firmer lid on its death rate (around 1 per cent of its reported cases thus far).
“Italy and Spain, however, are undergoing horrors familiar to anyone following the nightly news: many thousands of dead in each country, makeshift morgues in churches and ice rinks, hospitals overrun, even reports in parts of Spain that the elderly have been left to perish in their beds. Italy’s death rate is 12 per cent, Spain’s 9 per cent.
40
Steve, there’s nothing mysterious about those differences in mortality rates.
The “ground” in which the CV19 is sewn has a rather large effect on the death rate.
KK
10
Sounds like speculation which is ok, which is ok….being wrong is not a crime.
00
Experts are wrong sometimes. It is not a crime.
02
That depends.
40
The idiot who allowed the passengers off the Cruise ship in Sydney made a major major blunder.
Should be sacked.
But she is still there
Dopey minister defending her !
40
The Minister should also resign.
That’s the way the Westminster system is supposed to work.
What’s wrong with the NSW Liberals? What’s wrong with Premier Berejiklian?
40
Yes whoever was responsible must be sacked but that’s not enough. That person should also be put in prison if an investigation finds negligence on the part of that person, which it should. How about the multi-billion dollar law suits that might come about as a result of the stupid blunder?
10
Can someone tell me the exact dates though and what else was happening in Sydney the same day. Were people able to fly in and be told to “self isolate” without being medically checked? If so weren’t they potentially almost as much of a problem?
They reported last night that only 11 cases in the pop had subsequently grown from the ones released from the Ruby Princess.
Obviously it was a terrible mistake, but I suspect there were many just as bad that are being ignored too.
All our Depts of health should have been checking up on those told to “self isolate”.
20
Jo I read somewhere that the Health Dpt. had to give consideration to the fact that the passengers had been on board the Ruby Princess for a week before hand
And that they therefore had to be allowed to go on Compassionate grounds
EVEN though they were a direct threat to the entire Australian community.
Now that type of thinking is plain NUTS
Sack her – the head of the health Dpt.
T’was her who authorised this crazy decision.
00
Jo, thanks for the videos on DIY masks.
Stay safe and healthy, all,
Bob
70
You too Bob! Best wishes to you and all readers. We can stay out of trouble — we are the lucky ones. Unlike my friends who work in hospitals.
20
Ever wondered why men have beards? Its very hard to find any infos on the evolutionary origin of beards. Why do women not have beards? Anyway, I’m letting my beard grow long. Charles Darwin had the mother of all beards. I’m sure he’d worked it out but never got around to publishing. Anyway, one thing I’ve found is that when I touch my face my fingers no longer touch my lips.
21
I went shopping during seniors’ hour at my local Woolworths yesterday – 7-8am. It was busier than I expected, maybe 70-80 others in there with me, all clearly 65+.
I was wearing disposable gloves and a mask that my wife made for me.
I was the only person wearing either. I was really surprised, having thought that older folks like me, were taking this a lot more seriously than young people. Seems that, even if that is true, their caution does not extend to the wearing of gloves or masks when out in public.
50
But we now have plexiglass sneeze shields at checkouts ….surely even the ordinary flu numbers have crashed into oblivion.
20
I was speculating several weeks ago that the higher vigilance and hand sanitisation might lead to far lower flu deaths this year, which could off-set the higher count from CCP virus.
70
Even the ordinary flu will be driven into the extinction category with current flu avoidance practices adopted for the corona variety…
30
The ordinary flu wants to be heard…is it still surviving?
20
Surgical and medical patients who were in hospitals 3 weeks ago have recovered and have been discharged. The empty beds in surgical wards are probably due to elective surgery being banned. However, the medical patients have miraculously recovered and been discharged and no new medical patients are appearing, which is also a miracle.
The people being tested in hospitals for the virus are also invisible.
AND what’s say the people who have recovered from the virus are deducted from the statistics of cumulative infections.
So instead of Australia having 6,000 or so with the virus, we really only have 3,000 or 4,000 with the virus.
The figures are not being homogenised, but they are not telling a true story.
We must be approaching the stage where we have more people recovering each day than people who are contracting the virus.
Tell me I am wrong Jo – again.
01
Yes tooright, exactly what I predicted would happen if we took serious measures to stop importing this virus, and we stopped mass events and closed schools. However we still don’t know if we were too late.
If there is community spread, say, among the 20 year old group (thanks to imported students or trips to Bali) then we may still get an exponential rise in the next month.
I’m hopeful that at least some states of Australia may even dare to think we could wipe this out before winter. If we mass test now and chase up every case, perhaps we can. If we get off at such low cost it will be through sheer luck that the season this hit us in was ideal, and we were able to watch disasters unfold and prepare barely in time.
30
5,569 total cases
5,016 active
171 new cases
585 recoveries and 34 deaths
The recovery data is being released in 3 day batches and the last 3 day recovery total was 240 cases, or about 80 people per day. The previous highest recovery 3 day total was 101 people. We’re due for more recovery data by this evening.
Australia may see a small drop in active cases a week from now.
00
Trying to strike a bslance….sensible…
https://townhall.com/columnists/larryoconnor/2020/04/03/trump-is-right-economic-shutdown-will-result-in-deadly-health-crisis-scientists-say-n2566296
“But, is it really “ignoring science” to say that an economic shutdown “causes other problems… much bigger problems” than the problems associated with the COVID-19 virus?
“Actually, it’s a scientific fact that a drastic collapse of the economy has enormous health ramifications. The economic despair Americans are now feeling is quite literally a matter of life and death.
“According to an exhaustive study and analysis from Lancet
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(16)30018-4/fulltext
you remember them, they’re the folks we’re relying on for the catastrophic COVID-19 predictions), the 2008 economic shutdown had devastating health implications.
“The London Telegraph wrote about the study in 2016. “From our analysis, we estimate that the economic crisis was associated with over 260,000 excess cancer deaths in the OECD (34-member Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) alone, between 2008-2010,” said Mahiben Maruthappu of Imperial College London. “This suggests that there could have been well over 500,000 excess cancer deaths worldwide during this time.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/25/financial-crisis-caused-500000-extra-cancer-death-according-to-l/
“The report also found that every 1% increase in unemployment was associated with 0.37 additional cancer deaths per 100,000 people.
42
Yes but the problem is finding the right balance, which happens to be different for different nations. Sorry but we need to take the precautionary principle to heart on this one. We might over due it but we don’t really have a choice.
10
I think a phased return to work is going to be necessary after 3 months, or the chances of having an economy to return to is slim.
No solution is perfect and with people basically caged like animals for 3 months if they havent got it worked out by then, well…
10
What people need is a realistic hope that life will return to normal sometime soon. That only comes through massive early action and a determination to beat this virus.
The worse thing for mental health is pointless fatalistic defeatism, with late quarantine, economic scaremongers, and doomer talk of how it’s inevitable, will take months, and can’t be beaten.
The harder we hit now, the sooner we get back to work.
The economy will be fine* if we get rid of the virus.
If we still have the virus we can’t order the economy to recover, no matter how draconian we are in forcing people back to work and lying to them that the virus is “the flu”.
*Fine = just the usual debt ridden bubble we call normal.
30
Jo as I said in Unthreaded
Ivermectin offers a way through this before the vaccine arrives.
Universal annual dose of it for all Australians
And compulsory dose for ALL arrivals or all type – even in transit arrivals !
No visa to arrive without proof of medication with Ivermectin.
00
That is all livestock farmers’s traditional strategy
For parasite control in sheep, horses, cattle, goats, alpacas etc.
🙂
00
From: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acsami.7b18732
“Abstract
“The physical filtration mechanism of a traditional face mask has a low removal efficiency of ultrafine particulates in the size range of 10–1000 nm, which are badly harmful to human health. “Herein, a novel self-powered electrostatic adsorption face mask (SEA-FM) based on the poly(vinylidene fluoride) electrospun nanofiber film (PVDF-ESNF) and a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) “driven by respiration (R-TENG) is developed. The ultrafine particulates are electrostatically adsorbed
https://pubs.acs.org/na101/home/literatum/publisher/achs/journals/content/aamick/2018/aamick.2018.10.issue-8/acsami.7b18732/20180222/images/medium/am-2017-18732x_0005.gif …..
Human air filters need not be so primitive. A well designed air cleaner employing electrostatic filtration can last a lifetime. The filters are made of stainless steel usually and endlessly dish washer proof and easy to clean. ….not as far fetched as it sounds..
Thanks!
40
🙂
00
The number of new infections per day is going down steadily. A doctor friend said their hospital is planning on a peak in ten weeks. In ten days, there will be almost no new cases. And we are really measuring the new infections from a week ago, which means infections started stopping a week ago. Three cheers for isolation!
You cannot get a problem if there a no new infections. Better still, the virus is dead. We hope. Before winter too.
What is worrying though is that while it has all grown so quickly and there are nearly 5,000 people sick, only 1/7th of those are classed as ‘cured’. That’s 2-3 weeks with people not cured. This is a very long lived illness. Even if people do not die, you have to wonder at the time of recovery and whether there is ever a full recovery from lung, heart, kidney damage and stress. It is clearly a very nasty illness.
So while people are not happy with the lock down, their choice was fundamentally much more time very sick with a real risk of dying or permanent disablement or a really long recovery.
Better to be safe and bored than sick to death on a respirator or in bed for weeks.
As expected though, total lockdown kills the virus by denying it new victims. And it goes down as fast as it went up.
So cheap and simple, despite the moaning economists. As if killing millions of people costs society nothing and production would not be crippled anyway.
If we in Western societies can afford annual holidays, 2 weeks in Japan and America, 4 weeks in Australia and a whopping 6 weeks in Europe, we can afford this.
And we don’t have to pay for the olympics this year, or the Grand Prix or …
Give me boredom and give me life. Not a bad deal.
91
Are we doing widespread random testing?
I want to believe…
10
And it is appalling in the US, how the Democratic governors blame Trump for everything when they have both control and responsibility. The governor of Mississippi says that Trump should have cancelled the Mardi Gras, something she could and should have done. And the Super Bowl. The governor of Michigan wants Trump to get hdyroxyquinone for Michigan, after she made it illegal for doctors to prescribe it. And geriatric Biden now approves of the ban on massive tourism, 750,000 people from China before Trump slammed the door shut, something Biden labelled ‘extreme Xenophobia’.
And the press attack him for not doing more, when everything he did was criticized, including his press conferences. Perhaps the most egregious is Pelosi, Schiff and Schumer setting up a committee to examine Trump’s failings when they were too busy trying to impeach him while Trump was busy saving millions. And the stunt trying to hijack the Senate bill to add in all their favorite leftist demands was just appalling.
Trump has a massive of work to do. This congress seems incapable of doing anything. The bipartisan rescue bill came from the Republican controlled Senate.
And Democratic voters can see who is saving them. It’s not Congress and the Democrats.
120
Meanwhile, in that other Leftist paradise otherwise known as Australia, our own ‘Democrats’ are hard at work.
In the midst of this pandemic, with hospitals short of supplies and old folks terrified of catching C-19 but being refused a ventilator, the QLD Government’s Health Committee decided this was a good time to:
… draft a set of recommendations, passed to the government, for the introduction of voluntary euthanasia.
A sick joke or just a plain old case of zero empathy? Or, perish the thought, they genuinely saw a need to expedite this legislation in the nick of time …
10
And a hopefully good sign as so many totals are starting to roll over to flat. Rapidly dropping new infections. The last report from Iran shows a flat line, for the last day! It could be a lack of data, but we can hope.
There are still apologists for the virus who think ‘herd immunity’ is the way. With only 1/7th of people showing as ‘cured’ so far, I cannot understand this attitude. Even if everyone lived, the cost of millions of sick people, unable to function is not a great look for herd immunity or productivity. For far less loss of work, we can stop it completely. Millions off work for weeks is the same thing economically. It’s not as if there is a choice really.
Unfortunately some of those people advise people like Boris Johnson with their ‘what’s the point’ fatalism. Millions of lives. What else?
And this idea that the over 70’s can die, who needs them? So the next virus it is the over 60’s. Then the over 50’s?
Logan’s Run was a sci-fi movie where people were exterminated at 40. That is where the let the older people die logic ends. Planned extermination.
What’s the point of working for retirement if it is arbitrarily made into a death sentence through inaction? Luckily, the whole world is fighting this monster.
And we will wipe it out. Then perhaps the Wuhan Institute of Virology can destroy their copies, or explain why they have created it?
That’s like creating Sarin gas for fun.
73
Then Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi did that. And Hussein’s supplies went to Syria. The remnants were only destroyed by Trump when he directed at least 25 cruise missiles onto a single reinforced hangar at the airport. Very primitive but effective high temperature incineration, Trump style. They saw where the planes loaded the sarin gas used on civilians. Again Trump fixing Obama’s mess.
60
“It’s not as if there is a choice really.”
I couldn’t agree less. There are always choices to be made and the actions we take have costs and benefits which must be evaluated, and balanced. It is conceivable that the measures adopted will ultimately cost the community (in the very broad sense of the word “cost”) more than they achieve.
While many will say that one can’t put a value on human life, the reality is that in a world of scarce resources Governments are implicitly putting a value on human life all the time.
For example, a major killer throughout the world is motor vehicle accidents. Around 1.35 million die world-wide while up to 50 million are injured, many resulting in long term disabilities. Governments could put an end to this carnage by banning private motor vehicles from the road, but they don’t.
Is it that they are indifferent to the carnage ? No, I’m sure they are concerned, but the cost of taking drastic action completely to eliminate deaths on the roads is considered too great. So they take other measures to ameliorate the cost in lives and disabilities. It is accepted that some loss of life is inevitable. It is regarded by society as “the cost of doing business”.
For the time being I support the Government’s actions to control covid19. But I do believe that the jury is still out on whether the Government has got the balance right. Time will tell. Sadly, in cases like these, we can only know after the event.
41
Jeffrey Dun, the jury is in on the Government response, it should have stopped the flights in February and schools would be open and domestic flights and business would be untouched, apart from people who serve foreign students and foreign tourists. (Who could serve domestic tourists instead and losses would be minor).
Health Depts and our Chief Medical Officer failed us dismally — which has cost us hundreds of billions. It is the biggest failure of government possibly ever.
Given what Australia is going through, compared to Italy and New York — through sheer luck, our incompetent slow government looks like achieving a far better outcome. We are The Lucky Country…
40
Millions of people each from loads of countries travel the globe now. Surely that also includes a few hundred thousand Australians?
The failure is not in closing the borders but rather failing to effectively test trace and isolate and lock down persons who are entering or returning to a country
10
For example, certain types of zinc lozenges can stop a cold dead in its
tracks, and everything we know so far suggests that zinc offers strong protection against the
coronavirus too. Elderberry is very effective against the flu, and it’s probably just as effective
against the coronavirus.
20
President of the Polish Society of Cardiology and Director of the Warsaw Course on Cardiovascvular Interventions, prof. Adam Witkowski, draws attention to the dangers of the heart associated with the coronavirus pandemic not only to cardiological patients, but also to young and healthy people.
Many factors contribute to the severe course of coronavirus infection. On the one hand, in most cases, patients who suffer from cardiovascular disease are elderly people, therefore they have worse functioning of the immune system, which is able to fight infections, but it is also caused by the fact that the virus itself can attack heart cells. – explains prof. Witkowski. – because the receptors through which the virus enters the lung cells – ACE2 receptors – are also found in the cells of the heart muscle, as well as in the cells of the kidneys or vascular endothelium. SARS-Cov-2 virus can also damage myocardial cells by causing so-called cytokine storm caused by a corrupted T-helper lymphocyte response to infection.
40
$12 made from a plastic drink bottle and as useful as a flywire water bag.
00
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/231941244843988/
Slips try that!
00
OK, good looking solution. Nice! :- )
Obviously to be worn with a mask underneath to stop breathing in virus.
My concern with these face shields is that airborne particles can still get in under the shield. I know medical staff wear them to stop “splash” and direct cough impact, but the shields will not stop floating particles. I bought goggles at Bunnings — which is what docs in China were wearing in January.
20
Did coronavirus leak from a research lab in Wuhan? Startling new theory is ‘no longer being discounted’ amid claims staff ‘got infected after being sprayed with blood’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8188159/Did-coronavirus-leak-research-lab-Wuhan-Startling-new-theory-no-longer-discounted.html
Conspiracists where right?
00
Hot verses cold countries update.
https://i.ibb.co/gy1Kc04/Warm-v-Cool-Countries-Percent-Died-Covid-19-29th-March-to-4th-April.png
USA cases added two days made a huge difference to the cold country trend, which now expands a bit faster than the hot countries.
The average of daily growth of cases in cold countries has gone from +7.8% 6 days ago to +8.7% today
The average of daily growth of cases in hot countries has gone from +8.1% 6 days ago to +10.9% today
Overall case growth has slightly accelerated global in this group of countries with more than 500 cases and more than 2.5% deaths.
Today’s list of above 250 cases with deaths above 2.5%”
% Died | Country | Total Cases | % New v Active
12.36 … San Marino … 259 … 4.0
12.33 … Italy … 124,632 … 5.4
10.39 … Algeria … 1,251 … 7.8
10.29 … UK … 41,903 … 10.0
9.93 … Netherlands … 16,627 … 6.1
9.47 … Spain … 126,168 … 8.7
9.13 … Indonesia … 2,092 … 6.1
8.40 … France … 89,953 … 11.6
6.96 … Belgium … 18,431 … 11.9
6.64 … Egypt … 1,070 … 11.2
6.42 … Morocco … 919 … 16.1
6.38 … Iraq … 878 … 10.3
6.19 … Iran … 55,743 … 7.9
6.01 … Albania … 333 … 13.6
5.79 … Sweden … 6,443 … 5.3
5.68 … Honduras … 264 … 17.1
5.03 … Burkina Faso … 318 … 6.8
4.96 … Ecuador … 3,465 … 3.0
4.88 … Dominican Rep … 1,578 … 6.1
4.72 … Hungary … 678 … 9.4
4.65 … Philippines … 3,094 … 2.6
4.30 … Brazil … 10,360 … 11.9
4.18 … Peru … 1,746 … 19.9
4.06 … Greece … 1,673 … 3.9
4.04 … Romania … 3,613 … 13.7
3.95 … Denmark … 4,077 … 12.2
3.65 … Andorra … 466 … 6.3
3.55 … Mexico … 1,688 … 17.9
3.52 … N. Macedonia … 483 … 11.9
3.38 … Bulgaria … 503 … 4.0
3.37 … Bosnia Herz … 624 … 7.9
3.27 … Lebanon … 520 … 2.7
3.25 … Tunisia … 553 … 10.9
3.25 … Switzerland … 20,505 … 6.7
2.98 … Ireland … 4,604 … 7.5
2.96 … Argentina … 1,451 … 8.7
2.71 … USA … 311,357 … 11.9
2.71 … Serbia … 1,624 … 9.7
2.61 … Ukraine … 1,225 … 13.1
2.55 … Panama … 1,801 … 7.3
2.53 … Portugal … 10,524 … 6.3
10
Noise within global daily deaths graphed:
https://i.ibb.co/vYNLtQy/Deaths-daily-4th-April.png
So an initial ‘flattening’ curve may not be due to slowing deaths. Sudden plateaus or drops are almost certainly lags in reporting due to a break day, else the need to generate more capacity to accelerate the processing again.
20
There is a big problem with coronavirus reporting – data quality. It has been reported that people who die and that have coronavirus are being counted as deaths from coronavirus even though it may not have been coronavirus that killed them. Additionally, the number of cases of coronavirus that have been reported may be at least 5 times understated, which if true would mean the death is lower than being reported. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any data standards for how coronavirus cases are counted and reported. Poor data quality paints an unreliable picture.
11
MIKe, FALSE NEWS mate !
The Main cause of death with Corona Virus 19
Is inability to breath because the lungs are flooded with fluid.
That is a direct result of Corona 19 virus infection.
Capacity to withstand the infection is reduced by other medical issues.
But those medical conditions do NOT cause these deaths .
01
Data is indeed poor, but the death rate is not the main point here. What matters are whether hospitals are overwhelmed, and freezer trucks are carting dead bodies to ice rinks, and there are mass burials. On that the data is devastating and photos incontravertible.
We have a crisis that looks, acts, and behaves exactly like a deadly viral pandemic.
40
What has become clear is how reliant we are on other countries for medications. Over 90 per cent come from overseas, predominantly from China. We are totally exposed to the risk of supply chain failure. We need to address this risk.
30
It’s suggested to boil the masks. Is that to kill bacteria? I thought washing would be sufficient for the virus, because I have read that soap actually breaks down the lipid membrane after 20 seconds.
00
Yes, detergent breaks up the virus. but if for some reason the virus is surrounded by too much dirt, or in a bigger cluster, perhaps detergent won’t kill every one.
Heat also breaks up the virus, and also breaks up the RNA strand. There will be a thin tail on both curves. Best method may be heat and detergent.
The only reason not to wash is if the detergent alters or damages the mask material — and I did read that some N95 masks have electrostatic charges when new that also help trap the virus. This may be lost with detergent. (See SmartAir filter site.).
30
Wouldn’t steaming in say a veggie steamer do less mechanical damage to the mask?
20
If Ivermectin kills parasites why can’t we use it on pollies?
Naah… we’ll just regularly change the driver of a broken car. That’ll fix everything.
Double our debt rather than just keep the pollies the hell out of everything and let the free markets, capitalism and entrepreneurism do it by default as was the case with the post WW1 crash 1920-1921.
Now what is VERY interesting is the statement by Fauci back in 2017 that the Trump administration will face a surprise disease outbreak. Sorta like right now in fact.
Interesting too how India us taking China to the international court for $20T for orchestrating the CV crisis.
Create a global pandemic, collapse economies then China buys foreign resources for cents on the dollar, making them the #1 economy by 2032.
Naaahhh…that’s not like China. Yeah…
Couple of weeks left for this puppy to strut its stuff.
00
Trend of global total cases and total died curves (graphed):
https://i.ibb.co/Hz3rtxW/Case-and-died-curves-4th-April.png
If the total cases detected via accruing tests within each country were not representing the disease’s progression reasonably accurately the two trend lines would not be paralleling each other like this.
20
WX — that’s very interesting. The true cases could be much higher, but despite all the different testing regeimes the ratio is so close.
Could it be that countries which are not even counting the dead accurately as also not counting infections accurately?
30
Good question.
10
Covid19 is not influenza. It is much more dangerous to many and most of the world has chosen to impose strong measures to encourage social distancing.
Given that social distancing is already imposed, a face mask might not make much difference. In other words a mask has better effect in crowded situations with a lot of mixing. When we are already discouraged from meeting, and if that than further than 2 meters and to wash our hands fastiduously and never touch our faces … the maskmay not be so relevent
Its hard to see an overwll where social distancing is relaxed but it remains important to wear a maskin the context of out and about in general in public
00
P..S. the is the standard argument given now not to bother wearing masks whioe imposing supposedly stronger and more effective blocking manouver of avoiding social contact.
Riding a modestly filled bus or subway car risks violating the 2 meter distance rule. Masks would be effective in that type of situation.
My gripe is that if things are that bad, people should avoid transport ifat all possible!
10
Same thing here in France, people were supposed not to be clever enough to use a mask properly…
00
WHO says wear Face masks !
At last
Maybe now they will sack Tedros next !
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3078437/mask-or-not-mask-who-makes-u-turn-while-us
10
Could get super cynical about this. Stuff such as ‘competition from home made cloth masks threatens manufacturers’.
Expect it is caving into pressure of abundance of caution. Icing on the cake. Vigorous social distancing, hand washing, testing tracing and individual isolation are the strongest breaks to transmission.
Wearing a mask in crowds in the absence of social distancing is sort of a cultural fasion statement. Thats okay too
00
An update on countries and organisations now recommending and/or mandating mask use in public.
– World Health Organisation
– United States
– China
– Singapore
– Hong Kong
– Japan
– South Korea
– Spain – about to announce
– Italy – Lombardy only
– Czech Republic
– Austria
– Slovakia
– Bosnia-Herzegovina
– Israel
– Germany – about to announce
So Australia believes it is justified in going against the recommendation of the World Health Organisation in not mandating mask wearing. Unique is a word that comes to mind, but not in the way it was originally intended!
Is someone in the Australian media going to eviscerate these utter *$£%^@& fools who are running Australia’s Coronavirus strategy? They are literally orchestrating a death march.
10
Basically we have a very low inventory of masks, so that’s why the government does not mention wearing masks because we don’t have enough.
The government would look stupid if people started asking where are all the masks? So we just don’t wear them and just wash hands instead?
90 tonnes of medical supplies shipped to China.
Exclusive video taken at Perth airport shows bulk surgical masks being airfreighted to China last month as it is revealed a Chinese company sent 90 tonnes of Australian supplies to Wuhan.
https://www.dailyexaminer.com.au/news/90-tonnes-of-supplies-shipped-to-china/3983282/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8159175/Shocking-footage-shows-90-TONNES-medical-supplies-sent-China-Australia.html
00
perhaps carrying a powered up cell phone with anonymous tracking app should also be included in emergency measures. Contact tracing is a big part of the prevention process
00