Coronavirus - worldwide spread and control

Presumably this would improve if, as seems possible, the virus escapes control measures and becomes pandemic? It's the containment effort rather than the virus itself that's currently causing the disruptions. I suppose if it's no longer worthwhile trying to prevent it, it becomes like a winter 'flu bug – some disruption as it goes around a workplace, but most people are back to productivity fairly quickly?

Health services would be hit hard, of course, as some people become seriously ill and a few even die from it, but that's similar to a 'flu bug that's managed to dodge the annual vaccine.

 

Given findings of the virus in fecal matter, the poop mist hypothesis makes a lot of sense and if it actually made people properly use a toilet for a change it could actually be a good thing for humanity. Most people don't seem to and public toilets don't have lids so public bathrooms are a closed environment with likely lots of tiny floating feces and nasty microbes.

The toilet lid isn't just to sit on it, folks, it's the poop mist shield. Yes, poop mist is a thing, if a family member of yours flushes the toilet without the lid down, well, I'll let your imagination run wild about aerosols and how tiny particles can float around.

Hopefully this leads to rediscovering the germ theory of disease and how it would be worth trying to fill in the gaps, rather than just hoping they hide nothing interesting.

 

I think it is becoming clear that it is no way as simple as that. The problem in practical (rather than ethical) terms is the number of people who need specialised hospital care with isolation and perhaps ventilation. It may be as high as 5% of people infected. In China that is 50million hospital beds on top of normal requirements. It doesn't bear thinking about unless it is staggered over months. It looks as if once ill people may need to stay in hospital for several weeks.

So my impression at present is that no country can afford to not lock down. The mayhem would just be colossal. The cost of building extra hospitals overnight (as in China) would break the government budget. How does one find 10,000 extra respirators and specialist nurses all at one go. We are talking billions to pay for something no longer needed six months later.

At the moment we are not hearing the real story from China. I think things will be different if cases in Italy get into several hundred. We will hear what it is actually like to live through and the strains on the health care system involved.

 

Harmful microbes can linger in the air after each flush, and can disperse matter up to a couple of metres away. So don't store your toothbrushes in the bathroom.

 

Many of these new cases being reported outside of China are as a result of people finally being able to travel from China and as such should not be assumed to be indicative of transmission rates outside China.

The initial 'exponential' increase in China was due to two factors, underreporting/cover up and exposing well over 100,000 people to the virus in a relatively confined space (communal banquet). The latter will hopefully not be repeated again, and as such, the virus is hopefully now under control in the sense that the rate of new cases is slowing down substantially.

 

Given the state of hospitals in Liverpool if I get it I'm f***ed. (just been watching Hospital on iPlayer this afternoon with the state of the Royal Liverpool University Hospital getting some publicity). Heaven only knows when our new RLUH will open after the complete mess Carillion made of it, lots of it needs re-building. Sorry, off topic, but it's not off topic for Liverpool residents who need hospitalising.

 

Animation of infection rate from Dr Ding

https://twitter.com/user/status/1230959093172535296

 

TV news from Italy this morning: some smaller towns are in lockdown. 4 deaths so far. The authorities are trying to limit the spread by canceling sports, religious and other social events. Schools and universities are closed. They showed a tent set up for examining infecteded cases, prepared in advance. It was still not being used.

I was in the local hospital this morning and the staff are wearing face masks. One person was going around disinfecting things.

This is all happening (edited) in the same province as I live, but as far as I know coronavirus hasn't arrived here yet.

 

Also this

https://twitter.com/user/status/1231653034545098753

 

If there have been four deaths it seems likely that the virus has been around in the are for about a fortnight - presumably it went undetected during early spreading.

I remain optimistic that if individuals like ourselves are careful we can avoid getting infected living in Western Europe but the level of disorganisation of ordinary life may be quite severe. Even in China they seem to have been able to slow down spread very considerably so I guess it is likely that once people take full precautions the spread can be stopped in its tracks until those infected become free of virus. The situation in less developed countries may be very different though.

All best wishes @strategist

 

Close family were there and left early. Some people from locked down towns escaped on the trains and were found deep in the south and arrested.

Doesn't help that their main intercity trains have been upgraded from 300kph to 500kph. Ours in the UK get upgraded from not moving to stopping, so at least we don't have that problem... Not as beneficial as horse and cart limits, but some benefit in not realising how backward somethings are here.

 

But people are now worried about who was on that train, family included. Timelines crossed.

 

The situation in Iran seems to be very serious already and other countries in the Middle East have cases, too.

The before mentioned Dr John Campbell said that Doctors from Iran are telling him they have many cases of myocarditis from COVID19 - so pneumonia doesn't seem to be the only complication.

I'm curious if the WHO today will call it a pandemic.

 

Family back home in Lazio now from Lombardy. They were saying that even central Milan had many people with masks going about their lives. One of them normally goes to Milan weekly for work, but they are re-evaluating....

In bocca al lupo @strategist

 

Didn't realise this. Made me think of the extremely dangerous sewer oil to food recycling industry there in Chinese cities

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrv78nG9R04

I also worry about India if that fecal issue is true. If you plot a scatter chart of poverty vs outdoor defecation, there is a massive correlation between getting richer and not pooping outdoors. But because of the caste system history, India is a massive outlier with a huge number of people pooping outdoors for the level of wealth. Giving rainfall, evaporation cycles etc., the Delhi Belly phenomenon does have some public health roots beyond vanilla socioeconomics, as I understand it.

 

@Jonathan Edwards why do you say China has been able to slow down spread considerably? It is still increasing quite a lot day by day (as per official figures). But some others like from Imperial College (I think?) have said China is only picking up 1 in 19 cases, so the total number of cases would be many times what they are reporting. But even then, what they are reporting doesn’t seem to be decreasing. (See attached picture). Or am I missing something?

 

Oh.. actually the logarithmic graph does Tell a different tale. Is this kind of what you were talking about?

I really hope you’re right @Jonathan Edwards, that it can be stopped in it’s tracks.

but I’m still worried about significant underreporting.

 

I am sure that I read of local Chinese officials who later withdrew false reporting statistics, that misrepresented their outbreaks in a positive light to look good to central authorities.

Classic behaviour that will hopefully be disciplined out of practice due to the global spotlight on China...

 

There seems to be little hope for effective preventative action. It is reported this morning by Sky News that the British passengers on the cruise ship who were flown home were told that all had tested negative before being allowed onto the flight. There was some surprise at the speed of the announcement that four were subsequently found to be positive within a fairly short time of arrival. It now appears that the results of the tests were not known upon being allowed on. There were strange delays with the departure of the flight. Perhaps this is why. It seems that officialdom simply cannot be trusted. The other passengers are reported to be somewhat vexed.

 

If the curve has dropped off from an exponential upsweep then at least measure are having some impact. The curve seems not only to have straightened but bent down the other way. That for me is as good as one could expect. The fact that most of the European cases so far seem to have fizzled out is also encouraging. The French focus seems to have died off, and the German focus. We will not know about the London situation for about another week but it looks as if it may not have taken off since the first case was diagnosed over 2 weeks ago.