Coronavirus - worldwide spread and control

https://www.scientificamerican.com/...ghetto-holds-lifesaving-lessons-for-covid-19/

 

No teleportation needed, apparently! The infection is already inside your house, errr...?

In an interview today (about the evidence for face masks), Tegnell said:

 

I know, I know, the virus particles are using a portkey to travel imperceptibly from house to house!

 

I said I wasn't going to keep posting depressing Florida numbers unless they served some other purpose. Here are two such numbers: yesterday the state reported a record 186 deaths due to COVID-19. Today we broke that record with 216. Our 7-day average for new cases is still over 10,000 per day.

At this point I feel the need to correct a misunderstanding about mortality rates, which have become a political issue. Comparing case numbers to deaths during a surge yields misleadingly low case mortality rates. You really need to compare recoveries and deaths in resolved cases. When new cases are reported they are naturally unresolved.

People who die of COVID-19 are typically infected some time earlier, and this could be weeks. We already have examples of cases which have not resolved after 100 days. A better estimate of mortality rates would be to compare newly reported deaths with case numbers about three weeks earlier. In a situation like we have in Florida that would push case mortality rates above 1%, or about 10 times the rate for influenza.

This is not the end of misinterpretation. We have people implicitly using an infection mortality rate which depends on a major extrapolation to guess the number infected without being tested. By pushing infection rates way up, this pushes mortality rates down. This could be meaningful, if the infection rate were based on true random samples. Work on developing such estimates remains fragmentary.

We also need to track morbidity rates, to cover those who neither die nor recover. Most news takes a binary view of outcomes. I've read some rather grim pathologist's reports indicating that even survivors may suffer life-long impairment.

This is not a subject to be approached with the tools of polemical politics. Here's an example of just how low that can go. Demons and space aliens?

 

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...-overseas-travel-coronavirus-spanish-covid-19

 

Well, I may have been overoptimistic saying that the UK government would fall in line with sensible policy by July but this from the Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...ernment-to-seek-total-elimination-of-covid-19) suggests that at least the medical community and the bits of UK other than England are agreed on it. The setbacks in other countries came a bit later than I expected. And there is still one more day of July...

 

I avoided visiting the doctor to get an antibiotic during the initial COVID peak and was rewarded with persistent otitis media in both ears, labyrinthitis and later leading to an infection of my gums.

Unless someone actually measured the unmet health needs, it is extremely ignorant to conclude that those absent consultations were not medically necessary.

 

Florida has again served as a cautionary example. Today the State DoH reported 253 deaths, yet another one-day record. We also have 9,956 new cases. If case numbers have really plateaued I would like to know why. The best explanation is that people are responding to news to protect themselves, no matter what the administration is doing.

This being 2020 there is also a more sinister explanation, the numbers plateaued at the same time control of data was shifted from CDC to HHS. It is possible some case numbers are simply being dropped. A wide range of medical organizations are calling the data situation catastrophic.

Friends are still involved in the dispute over reopening schools, and some are claiming children don't get the infection, or don't suffer serious consequences. Research in South Korea shows that children do transmit the infection, and those older than 10 at about the same rate as adults. Those under that age have lower rates of infection, but this is not zero. Here in Florida we are seeing about 1,000 new cases in children every day, and child hospitalization rates are rising.

Oh, BTW, did I mention a tropical storm is on the way?

 

Yup, same here. It's been bothering me for over one month and the symptoms associated with it has taken on a whole life of their own. I had a telephone consult with my GP last week, she didn't order blood work and wasn't too concerned. I need some relief from this! I've read that taking an OTC antihistamine could help but I haven't tried it yet.

 

Today's New York Times has an article written by Linsey C. Marr, an engineering professor. It's about growing evidence of COVID airborne transmission. The article endorses improving ventilation with functioning windows and updated filters.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/...l?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

We recently had some work done on our AC at our house in Austin, Texas, and I asked the AC guy a few questions about commercial HVAC systems such as whether most commercial systems are configured to bring in some outside air. That is a requirement in Austin although he said that the dampers that control bringing in outside air frequently aren't functioning in some buildings. He said a lot of commercial customers here are interested in installing UV in their systems to help kill viruses, but there can be a slight odor like freshly mown grass that bothers some people.

 

Hmm. I just found this:
"New type of corona virus induced acute otitis media in adult"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7161479/

Could be a coincidence?

While I'm at it,
"Incidental lowering of otitis-media complaints in otitis-prone children during COVID-19 pandemic: not all evil comes to hurt" (presumably less infections due to lockdown)
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00431-020-03747-9

"Importance of Respiratory Viruses in Acute Otitis Media"
https://cmr.asm.org/content/16/2/230

"Acute otitis media and respiratory viruses"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7086696/

 

Behavioural fatigue .... wonder who coined that one?

https://twitter.com/user/status/1288930252329189376

 

I was very relieved to hear it: I never understood why some people were able to isolate for only 7 days while others had to do 14 ...

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world...tudy-finds/ar-BB17oe3A?li=AAnZ9Ug&ocid=ASUDHP

 

Ran across this by chance.

Physical exercise as a tool to help the immune system against COVID-19: an integrative review of the current literature
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32728975/

 

Reminds me of what a former colleague said of a writer in residence at a local university i.e. "I though he was there to write about bright young up and coming researchers ----".
Looks like this writer managed to write something based on pretty thin gruel --- mind you, I don't think they quite pulled it off --- but a pretty good attempt based on unimpressive material.

 

Florida set another grim record today with 257 more reported deaths, but *only* 9,007 new cases.

What is going on now, with more deaths in long-term care, is a continuation of the problem that developed early in the pandemic, and was hidden for a month or so. To avoid having infected workers in these places you need to test people, even asymptomatic ones, twice a week. This was considered too costly. Cases among such workers increased by 4,000 before the surge in patient deaths showed up.

Florida has twice failed those at special risk.

Sources I trust more than official numbers on testing put the percentage testing positive at 19%, which indicates the epidemic is outpacing testing. The administration tolerates this, and tries to spin numbers, because they don't want to know how bad the situation is. This is much harder to avoid when people actually die.

 

The estimated deaths in long term care homes in Canada makes up 81% of total deaths. It is the HIGHEST rate of any country worldwide. Canada, a country that prides itself on its progressive health policies.

 

Florida is closing some outdoor coronavirus testing sites in preparation for Hurricane Isaias.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/f...ting-as-it-prepares-for-hurricane/ar-BB17qil4

Edit:

Edit: Basically, don't trust covid numbers coming out of Florida until the testing centers are back up following the storm. According to news reports, testing centers should be back to normal on Wednesday.

 

Over the last week we have learned of 2 cases where they have left New Zealand and arrived in another country and tested positive for the corona virus. These cases could mean that there is some community transmission. It doesn't help that our community testing is down, people are not going to get tested and GP's are getting a lot of refusals from patients to be tested.

I think it would be naïve to think that we don't have the odd person in the community with the virus - just very lucky that they haven't passed it on to the more vulnerable?

I hope New Zealand doesn't have a blow up of cases again in the community. A reassuring thought is knowing that our Prime Minister and Director General of Health would put us back into a severe lockdown to save lives again and not let the virus rip through the country.

I heard on the news this morning that one of the cases above was in the same area and hour as I was on the 16 of July before they flew out of the country. Just as well I am still keeping up with sanitising my hands while out but I am not wearing a mask. Hardly any one is which bothers me.

I think we should all be wearing masks still, especially in the cities with quarantine hotels.