Coronavirus - worldwide spread and control

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New study on the first German cluster suggests people might go home from hospitals earlier, Edit: no virus isolation in stool and the virus replicates early in the upper respitory tract and later on in the lower tract (which is different from SARS)

"Whereas virus was readily isolated during the first week of symptoms from a significant fraction of samples (16.66% in swabs, 83.33% in sputum samples), no isolates were obtained from samples taken after day 8 in spite of ongoing high viral loads."

"Based on the present findings, early discharge with ensuing home isolation could be chosen for patients who are beyond day 10 of symptoms with less than 100,000 viral RNA copies per ml of sputum. Both criteria predict that there is little residual risk of infectivity, based on cell culture."

"Virus isolation from stool samples was never successful, irrespective of viral RNA concentration, based on a total of 13 samples taken between days six to twelve from four patients.”

"Together, these findings suggest a more efficient transmission of SARS-CoV-2 than SARS-CoV through active pharyngeal viral shedding at a time when symptoms are still mild and typical of upper respiratory tract infection. Later in the disease, COVID-19 then resembles SARS in terms of replication in the lower respiratory tract."
 
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chrisb said:
Amazing, isn't it? Medical staff dying of the virus and, as yet, we have not heard of any outbreaks of mass hysteria. There must clearly be a hidden problem. Perhaps we should send them some of our experts to advise.
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Not so sure. Simon Jenkins in the Guardian says that the current 'fear of illness' may be responsible for another sort of fear that leads to a massive recession. All very unnecessary!
 
What I am not understanding is, why are government officials saying things like “it will spread significantly”, as if it’s a foregone conclusion and there can be no other option? Imagine if South Korea or even China (once they had actually decided not to bury their heads in the sand), had had that sort of thinking? Or even if they had that sort of thinking during SARS or the Ebola outbreak? Am I missing something here?

Is it simply because some countries do not want to bring in measures, such as closing schools, stopping gatherings and urging people to stay at home and not even leave the house, like they did in South Korea? There, they disinfected huge areas and public areas. The No of new cases are coming down for the fourth day in a row in South Korea. I saw a clip from the BBC I think it was from a doctor who got ill in Vietnam and he said there, even when they got to just a handful of cases they started shutting down hotels and they were really on top of it.

But instead the message in general is, it definitely will spread. But even so, we won’t really do anything about it, but don’t worry, it will spread ...

business as usual..

two points from today’s cobra meeting... elderly people do NOT need to stop going out or avoiding crowded areas, they must carry on “business as usual”, and flights from newly fully quarantined areas in Italy haven’t been stopped.
 
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lunarainbows said:
But instead the message in general is, it definitely will spread. But even so, we won’t really do anything about it, but don’t worry, it will spread ...
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The ease and convenience of global travel probably does mean that no matter what we do sooner or later virtually everyone will be exposed. Even if you spend a lot of money stopping the spread and trying to contain it (within the UK), all it will take is a couple of tourists - ours going abroad or someone else's coming here and we're back to square one.

Probably the best thing we can do is manage or slow the spread to ease the pressure on health services and keep things going.

The state of the NHS is part of the problem. You're always going to have a situation where you have to decide how much redundant capacity you can afford - i.e. empty beds, spare kit, staff not at full work capacity - and where both in terms of speciality and geographically you're going to spread that.
 
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“With nearly 10,000 doctor vacancies and 43,000 nurse vacancies [in the NHS in England] the NHS is already understaffed to deal with demand. A&E waiting times are the worst on record. Intensive care units are at capacity and are even struggling to admit patients who are critically unwell or awaiting cancer surgery.

The main concerns doctors had are:

  • The NHS is already struggling to meet the existing need for care and so would not be able to cope with a sudden large increase in demand linked to Covid-19.

  • Hospitals have too few intensive care and high-dependency care beds, those units are understaffed and there are no plans to expand such facilities.

  • GP practices do not have enough appointments to ensure that patients can be seen quickly.

  • Some hospitals are lacking basic equipment including face masks.

  • NHS 111 is still telling some people who appear to have symptoms of Covid-19 to go to A&E or an urgent care centre, even though official advice warns against anyone with suspected coronavirus going to A&E or a GP practice. “
https://www.theguardian.com/society...-out-of-1600-doctors-in-poll-say-nhs-is-ready
 
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I'm with you @lunarainbows

iyam it's this

lunarainbows said:
Is it simply because some countries do not want to bring in measures, such as closing schools, stopping gatherings and urging people to stay at home and not even leave the house, like they did in South Korea? There, they disinfected huge areas and public areas. The No of new cases are coming down for the fourth day in a row in South Korea. I saw a clip from the BBC I think it was from a doctor who got ill in Vietnam and he said there, even when they got to just a handful of cases they started shutting down hotels and they were really on top of it.
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Mithriel said:
Like others, I am grateful to Jonathan Edwards for the advice on buying some stuff in advance. I have a shopping bag full of tins I can eat cold if my carers are affected.

One thing I have not seen mentioned that may be important for us is to have a bag packed in case we have to go to hospital. If my husband takes bad I will never be able to get things together for him.

For each of us, we have a carrier bag with nightwear, a list of medication and things like eye drops which are essential but not likely to be available on the ward and some of my supplements like Coenzyme Q10 and magnesium. Also some money including enough for a taxi home.

It occurs to me it would be a good thing to keep handy anyway.
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yes I keep one of those anyway as i'm on my own. Will be checking it's all in order thought as it was packed a few yrs ago
​

Does anyone happen to know whether China during worst phase had any issues with power? ie power cuts due to workers not being on post or fuel shortages etc?

Wondering about possible power cuts? Should I be stocking up on batteries/candles?
 
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lunarainbows said:
Does it even make sense? I feel so baffled
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You're not alone, I feel the same about the current situation in Sweden :( 253 people infected so far, and the numbers are quickly rising.

Lots and lots of Swedish people went to Italy, Germany and Austria etc during the schools' so called "sports break" the last few weeks, and they have obviously brought the virus with them when returning home. Some people are returning from Iran as well. Still, the official advice is that schools should stay open, people should go back to school/work as usual (unless they have symptoms), it's ok to travel, no need to cancel big events, just keep on going about your life as usual...

No sense of urgency at all :( The government's overall message seems to be focused on giving the impression that they have everything under control, they are really well prepared, nothing unexpected has happened so far etc. Their main (only?) strategy seems to be rapid identification and follow up of the contacts of confirmed cases.

I saw this tweet:


...and couldn't help thinking of Melodifestivalen (the Swedish part of the Eurovision Song Contest) that took place in Stockholm this weekend, with 23 000 people in the audience o_O

Earlier today the two first officially acknowledged potential cases of community spread happened. But they are still claiming that everything is under control, saying that the number of new cases "have plateaued" (whatever that means? a steady increase maybe?) etc... The official line is that the risk of community spread is currently "moderate" (3 on a scale of 5).

I had to go to the hospital today for a CT scan, and it felt really weird/sad/scary to see people coughing and sneezing freely, even some of the nurses and other staff, none of them even using the inside of their elbows :( So I can definitely relate to what you said, Luna, about feeling as if living in some alternate reality...
 
lunarainbows said:
Wait.. what?

“The scientific advice is clear: acting too early creates its own risk. So we will do what is right to keep people safe. Guided by the science, we will act at the right time.” - Matt Hancock

?? Acting too early creates its own risk???
What science is this?

for the sake of my sanity now I may have to stay clear of anything govt officials are saying until they actually decide to do something

https://www.theguardian.com/world/l...-australia-recession-fears-update-latest-news
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He's waiting for an app for that....

Edit - managed to mix.my text into quote.
 
A friend living in Ireland was telling me that despite people testing positive for corona virus they still.plan to go ahead with the big St Patrick's Day parade in Dublin.

Her local town, where there were confirmed cases, went ahead with a music festival over the weekend and the town was full of visitors. No precautions at all.
 
The WHO in today's briefing said it definetely is time to start social distancing for the elderly as well as for everyone else where community transmission is happening.

They called it "moral decay" to think it only affects the elderly and therefore not care.

Our health minister today "adviced" to stop mass gatherings >1000 people and "encouraged" common sense, e.g. rather walking/riding the bike instead of using crowded public transport when possible.

That's all nice but I'm wondering if a country really can change the people's very personal behaviour by calling their ethical/moral concious rather than applying top down measurements. On the other hand - maybe that actually IS the only way, I don't know.

This feels like a split reality - Northern Italy is not that far away but here we're disussing soccer games.

Someting very interesting was said today in the WHO's briefing that I didn't know before: These "80% mild cases" already include pneumonia, just not the kind that needs hospital care.
 
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mango said:
You're not alone, I feel the same about the current situation in Sweden :( 253 people infected so far, and the numbers are quickly rising.

Lots and lots of Swedish people went to Italy, Germany and Austria etc during the schools' so called "sports break" the last few weeks, and they have obviously brought the virus with them when returning home. Some people are returning from Iran as well. Still, the official advice is that schools should stay open, people should go back to school/work as usual (unless they have symptoms), it's ok to travel, no need to cancel big events, just keep on going about your life as usual...

No sense of urgency at all :( The government's overall message seems to be focused on giving the impression that they have everything under control, they are really well prepared, nothing unexpected has happened so far etc. Their main (only?) strategy seems to be rapid identification and follow up of the contacts of confirmed cases.

I saw this tweet:


...and couldn't help thinking of Melodifestivalen (the Swedish part of the Eurovision Song Contest) that took place in Stockholm this weekend, with 23 000 people in the audience o_O

Earlier today the two first officially acknowledged potential cases of community spread happened. But they are still claiming that everything is under control, saying that the number of new cases "have plateaued" (whatever that means? a steady increase maybe?) etc... The official line is that the risk of community spread is currently "moderate" (3 on a scale of 5).

I had to go to the hospital today for a CT scan, and it felt really weird/sad/scary to see people coughing and sneezing freely, even some of the nurses and other staff, none of them even using the inside of their elbows :( So I can definitely relate to what you said, Luna, about feeling as if living in some alternate reality...
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That’s so scary @mango :(

Here also, we have a big event taking place from tomorrow up till Friday.. the Cheltenham Festival..around 250,000 people attend this festival.
 
I was just watching the press conference with Boris Johnson and the chief medical & scientific officers.

I came away with the impression that they don't think they can stop the virus eventually sweeping through most of the population whatever they do and that their main aim is to squash and spread the peak so that it's happening over the summer when the NHS is most likely to be able to deal with it. So if they lock down now, they only postpone a high peak later.

Did I misunderstand?
 
Given the sort of work that Ron Davis has been doing, I was wondering why we don't have the ability to rapidly mass-produce testing-chips for this virus that we can just spit on and get a positive or negative diagnosis for this virus in 20 minutes. Near-instant diagnosis would be a game-changer.

I wonder if anyone is working on that and if so, how near they are to mass production?
 
Leila said:
That's all nice but I'm wondering if a country really can change the people's very personal behaviour by calling their ethical/moral concious rather than applying top down measurements. On the other hand - maybe that actually IS the only way, I don't know.

This feels like a split reality - Northern Italy is not that far away but here we're disussing soccer games..
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I’ve been thinking about this. And perhaps why I find it so hard to understand things that people do, such as break their self isolation, or get angry about the fact they’ve been put in quarantine, or hold parties to rebel against it .. to me, doing that is just cruel and selfish.

Yes they themselves may think it doesn’t matter to them as they may not end up in hospital. But each and everyone one of us has a responsibility to those around us, the sick and elderly and vulnerable, and really those who will suffer are depending on those “healthier” people to keep them safe. That’s how society functions doesn’t it? When I make decisions in life, I always worry and think about how it will impact others and how much responsibility I have to keep others happy and safe.

I was interested to see what the Italian officials said today, or was it yesterday, about sacrificing their lifestyle to help others.

I think it perhaps does need to come from the top down, because lots of people perhaps may not care about ethics, but also appeal to ethical/moral concerns because some people will take that on board, but it really makes me sad how many people actually need to be told these things.
 
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