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In Europe the second wave is setting new records for daily cases but not for deaths so far (thankfully). So the big question is whether this will stay the same or follow the case tally up.
It’s probably not an accident that infections are spreading fast in mid October. Not only was it late summer in Europe, but the virus has been spreading mostly through 15 to 24 year old healthy young people and when Vitamin D levels were high. But as the Northern Hemisphere tracks away from the Sun, vitamin D levels are falling, temperatures are dropping, and the sterilizing rays of ultra violet grow weak. And, as the days grow colder people gather indoors too. Viral doses are rising.
The enduring scandal of the epidemic is that there are so many ways to treat this virus but they’re not expensive enough for the TGA to recommend them. ;- )
Lots more cases but not many deaths
Exhibit One: The United Kingdom
Some people have used this graph to claim the virus poses no threat. But it isn’t that simple.
UK New cases and Worldometer Deaths graph. (Click to enlarge)
Ten reasons death rates were lower in Europe’s […]
It appears people who wear masks are much less likely to get severe infections
This will make some heads spin.
Child Wearing a a Mask. Author vperemen.com
Not only do masks reduce the odds of getting infected, but if people do get infected while wearing a mask — the severity of Covid is so much milder. With masks on, the odds of getting an asymptomatic infection improve. Masks don’t stop all viral particles but they stop the large droplet clusters, and thus reduce the viral load. If asymptomatic people get some protection (and we still don’t know for sure) it could solve so much.
Consider the two cruise ships where the asymptomatic rate varied from 18 to 81%:
One used masks and one didn’t:
In February, one of the first outbreaks of COVID-19 outside of China occurred on the Diamond Princess cruise ship docked in Yokohama, Japan. Of the 634 people on board who tested positive, about 18 percent of infections were asymptomatic. In March, an Argentinian cruise ship found itself in a similar predicament, but of the 128 people on board who eventually tested positive, 81 percent were asymptomatic— Ghandi et al.
Nations that use […]
One good thing about Coronavirus is that people are suddenly paying attention to all the cheap easy ways to slow viruses. Hopefully we will get a bit better at preventing other respiratory infections too.
As I’ve mentioned before, masks stop as much as 75% of influenza, and now we know the number is similar with Coronavirus. If any drug was this effective, it would be hailed as a Gamechanging Breakthrough (!).
Indeed, just yesterday Anthony Fauci said he’d settle for 70%, 75% effective vaccine, but masks are here already. And we don’t have to wear them forever, just til we starve the virus, set up border checks, and get the cases to zero. Then we wait for a long term solution. 2020 is going to be the year of the mask.
With Coronavirus cases ramping up again all over the world, people like Mike Pence, and Australia’s Health Minister are talking about them. If we add Vitamin D at 5c a dose (which can reduce the spread of influenza by 40%) perhaps some states could avoid a repeat mass lockdown?
Given the cost in deaths and dollars of the spread of this virus, it would be cheaper to […]
The price for the coverup will be huge
Donald Trump crossed the Rubicon by pulling funding from the WHO and asking China to ‘fess up’. Now no respectable politician wants to be left out in the race to demand answers and the WHO is an open target too. The UN agency helped China hide the severity of this disease and advised nations not to stop flights with China. The World Health Organisation failed in the one job they were designed for.
DailyMail.co.uk
Australia’s Foreign Minister will demand a global inquiry into the spread of COVID-19 – and says the World Health Organisation should play no part in it.
China told her the disease was both ‘preventable and curable’ during a conversation in late January.
As diplomatic faux pas go, it doesn’t get much worse than bringing a deadly disease to a party and telling everyone “it’s just the flu”. But China was scalping the medical gear too. Not only did China hide the true nature of the virus even as it shared the virus around. It harvested all the protective gear it knew the world would need, then held the world hostage. It even took donations from Italy, […]
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). […]
Closed rooms with many people talking are hot-beds of infection. Invisible clouds of virus hang suspended in the air. Open the windows. Turn up the airflow. Wear masks. (Wear goggles too, if you are high risk, the virus can get in through the wet surface of your eyes).
Blow that virus outdoors where the sun will fry it. We need to change the way we handle air in planes and on cruise ships, and public transport — even when there is no pandemic.
This is why I am not shopping without PPE. Make a mask. Mail order and delivery is so much safer. Do carpark pick ups. It’s also why eating uncooked fruit and vege that people may have breathed on is still a risk. The virus will likely survive 28 days in the fridge at 4 degrees C and even longer in the freezer. At 40 degrees it will last about 6 hours. Time will not protect you unless things are warm.
When I did research in a lab, if we wanted to save viruses we’d put them in a freezer (minus 70C).
A virus is more like a chemical than a living thing.
Thanks to MichaelSmithNews.
[…]
Professor Kim Woo-Ju, Professor Infectious Diseases, Korea, says that masks are “definitely effective”. “I find it quite odd” that the west people don’t wear masks.” “People wearing a mask have a significantly lower chance of getting infected than those who don’t.” WHO says not to wear masks, he says “I disagree.”
Around the middle of the interview he says that one of the reasons Korea has low rate of infection is because they wear masks — as good as N95 (P2) — this is the same type as what the doctors wear.
He says Korea, and all the South East Asian countries are also experienced because they went through the SARS and MERS outbreaks. They knew what to do, they knew they needed tests fast.
He speaks well. h/t MichaelSmithNews. (via Annie ) and Chiefio somewhere (via Bill in Oz)
“In 30 years of pandemics, Ebola, MERS, Swine Flu … the Covid-19 epidemic is the most challenging”.
In the 80+ age group the death rate is 11% With the largest number of tests anywhere, they find 20% have no symptoms. But it is still not random testing. And the number may be different in other countries due […]
Asleep at the wheel.
The Lucky Country wakes up to the cost of globalization. There are only 3,000 Covid cases here, we have barely begun, yet we’re already running out of protective gear. The lives of our doctors and nurses are at risk because bureaucrats were too slow to see the obvious, blindly unaware of foreign allegiances, and they kept using the old Influenza plan when this wasn’t influenza.
The media, led by the bloated ABC, reinforced all the incompetence, more worried that we might made bad jokes about shaking hands in hospital.
Meanwhile, below, China now has excess masks which it is donating to Belt and Road Slaves in Europe and to nations where it wants access to 5G network deals. Our masks, used as levers for China to gain power.
50 shades of incompetance
Chinese-backed company’s mission to send Australian medical supplies to China, by Kate McClymont.
According to a company newsletter, the Greenland Group sourced 3 million protective masks, 700,000 hazmat suits and 500,000 pairs of protective gloves from “Australia, Canada, Turkey and other countries.”
This is the free market at work — to some extent, those supplies were more needed in Wuhan […]
In the West the public have been discouraged from wearing face masks, and told they aren’t much help. This is mostly because they are “much help” and the front line docs and nurses really need them but no one in charge ordered enough in advance, and none of them had the honesty to say so. The daft push-me-pull-you messaging of how the useless masks are needed on the front line will go down as a case study in how not to communicate (or build trust). The truth is we do want people to wear masks in the street, because it almost certainly does slow transmission. (These Lancet authors think so too).
In high density East Asian nations, face masks are common. (And viral growth curves are generally slower, though for lots of reasons.) Possibly after Coronavirus has gone, masks in winter might be more common here too.
Things can change fast:
Kamil Chudačík, twitter:
In Czech Republic we went from: “Look at the idiot wearing a mask!” to “Look at the idiot not wearing a mask!” in 2 days. I can say the czechs are very conservative in terms of changes so I’m surprised by this behavior. The […]
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