Jump to content

Menu

wuhan - coronavirus


gardenmom5

Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, Ausmumof3 said:

All the epidemiologists etc have said that the measures are the same social distancing masking etc.  it’s just that to achieve the same slow down we need more people to be doing the measures better.  If it’s 50pc more contagious I guess that maybe means people need to reduce exposure by that much to get the same effect?  Basically the spike is now better at hooking on to human cells (?) so you don’t need to be exposed to as much to get an infectious dose.  (From my very much non expert translation of what I read so take that for what it’s worth)

I did read some hamster research today that said tentatively surface transmission may be causing less severe disease than breathing it in which was interesting.

Great.  We're completely unable to get people to mask and social distance here even before.  

Will masks provide less protection now?  Like, if before my Happy Mask provided 15 minutes or so of protection in a store, will that now be five minutes or something?  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I thought this Johns Hopkins mortality analysis was interesting (case-fatality ratio of the 20 most affected countries). United States is 18th out of 20 in observed case-fatality ratio (1.7%): https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality

For some reason, when my cousin posted the link on Facebook it was taken down as spam.

I just noticed the tab for deaths per 100,000, and the US is 4th out of 20 in that category.

Edited by iamonlyone
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Terabith said:

Great.  We're completely unable to get people to mask and social distance here even before.  

Will masks provide less protection now?  Like, if before my Happy Mask provided 15 minutes or so of protection in a store, will that now be five minutes or something?  

Maybe?  Because you won’t need as many virus particles (? Is that the right word?) to get infected so you need to figure out how to reduce the dose.  But I think the science is still a bit fuzzy - they only have the one analysis on the percentage increase in transmission and the thing about the mechanism as to why.  It might still turn out that some of the increase was just luck with the new variant turning up during the Christmas sales or something.  Although that’s seeming less likely.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Laura Corin said:

Any idea what people who doubt the existence or importance of Covid are saying about the death of Luke Letlow? Do they think he died of something else? Or.....

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-us-canada-55481711

From what I've seen so far, while most news stories are saying he died of covid, RW media (Fox, NY Post, Daily Mail, etc.) are saying he "died of a heart attack after a procedure related to covid." So maybe the deniers will write it off as yet another person who died "with covid" but not "of covid"?

The photos of him with his little boy and baby girl, who will now grow up without their father, are just heartbreaking. 😥  By all accounts he was young, fit, and healthy, with no underlying conditions, and yet he went downhill so fast. 

  • Sad 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 new cases in Vic

 all connected to NSW

 We are expecting the numbers to go up as the Vic / NSW border is totally closed now ( hard closure, even Vic people will no longer be able to return even if they do hotel quarantine except special circumstances) and thousand s and thousands of Victorians  on summer holidays had to rush home to avoid getting stuck in NSW for who knows how long. These thousands of people were (suppose) to travel non stop without stopping to their homes then get tested and isolate for 14 days. the reality is that lots of them were camping, and had to drive up to 2000 km. meaning they had to stop on the way, get food, take their kids to toilets etc on the way. Now there are small towns having panic attacks and mass testing requested as there is traces in sewage etc

  • Sad 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 cases in NSW and 3 in Vic.  They are concerned about the number of exposures in NSW linked to a BWS (beer wine spirits store). 

our borders are still open to Vic for now but advice is to reconsider travel. 
 

Here in SA we’ve had another case in quarantine of the new UK strain.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/30/2020 at 8:38 AM, iamonlyone said:

I thought this Johns Hopkins mortality analysis was interesting (case-fatality ratio of the 20 most affected countries). United States is 18th out of 20 in observed case-fatality ratio (1.7%): https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality

For some reason, when my cousin posted the link on Facebook it was taken down as spam.

I just noticed the tab for deaths per 100,000, and the US is 4th out of 20 in that category.

Nm

Edited by Frances
Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

PA Republican State Representative Mike Reese died of a brain aneurysm after contracting COVID 19 at age 42.  https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/532378-pennsylvania-state-rep-mike-reese-dies-at-42

That’s the first mention I’ve seen that he had Covid. Ugh. We are an aneurysm-y family (multiple kinds, multiple sides of my family). Aneurysms are already something thought to be unusual, but aren’t really. I wish we had better data on the Covid aneurysm connection. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 cases in Vic, 0 for NSW but two that came in after the cut off time.  Back to the roller coaster of wondering if we’re going back to lockdowns or we’ll get back to zero Covid again.  Genomic testing showed the Benalla cluster isn’t linked to the Avalon cluster so there’s two separate break out events it seems.

Edited by Ausmumof3
  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Starr said:

Are you able to work from home? That's a lockdown.

Yes. I've been mostly home since March last year. I went into the largely-empty office one day a week from summer until the end of November.  It's easy to work from home, thank goodness, but I  miss the students dropping by and I  worry about their isolation. 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Laura Corin said:

Yes. I've been mostly home since March last year. I went into the largely-empty office one day a week from summer until the end of November.  It's easy to work from home, thank goodness, but I  miss the students dropping by and I  worry about their isolation. 

I'm sure having the students drop by was a bonus to your job. It's nice to be around young people. Hopefully this will get sorted before everyone goes crazy.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/30/2020 at 5:47 AM, Terabith said:

Great.  We're completely unable to get people to mask and social distance here even before.  

Will masks provide less protection now?  Like, if before my Happy Mask provided 15 minutes or so of protection in a store, will that now be five minutes or something?  

@Terabith
I don't think of it has less protection...I think it is more like thinking about your risk budget and how much you are willing to expend. Masking doesn't eliminate all risk of exposure. It just reduces your overall risk exposure. Of course, when there is a lot of community spread...then doing what you can to minimize how much your expose yourself is a good thing to at least lower the amount of virus you are exposed to which means if you do get sick, you will likely have a milder illness.

I use that map from GA Tech to think about when and how often anyone in my household needs to go anywhere right now. Looking at that helps me decide based on the number of people indoors the likelihood someone is infected.  In San Diego, the health department started testing for the UK strain and all the cases are popping up with no travel history so they have concluded that it is wide spread throughout the community right now. AFAIK in the anecdotal stories I am hearing, the people who are contracting it where not adhering to social distancing and masking. And there was lots of large gatherings for all the various holidays. 

Here's the tool if you want to use it: https://covid19risk.biosci.gatech.edu/

 

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, TCB said:

This is just so incomprehensible. After reading about the situation in TN hospitals here,  I just saw a report that they are opening up movie theaters to 100% occupancy. It’s beyond belief.

And people will justify it as "mental health" as if movie theater attendance was a basic necessity of life. 

We'v lost all track of needs vs wants in this country. 

  • Like 3
  • Thanks 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bno

BREAKING: San Diego County reports 28 new cases with coronavirus mutation first found in the UK, raising county's total to 32

All of the new UK variant cases in San Diego are from specimens collected last week and come from 19 different households

San Diego County's health officer on new cases with UK variant: "The fact that these cases have been identified in multiple parts of the region shows that this strain of the virus could be rapidly spreading"

  • Sad 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

26 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Bno

BREAKING: San Diego County reports 28 new cases with coronavirus mutation first found in the UK, raising county's total to 32

All of the new UK variant cases in San Diego are from specimens collected last week and come from 19 different households

San Diego County's health officer on new cases with UK variant: "The fact that these cases have been identified in multiple parts of the region shows that this strain of the virus could be rapidly spreading"

This is frightening. I really hope that some of the rapid spread we have experienced recently is due to this strain and this isn’t newly arrived. Things don’t need to get any worse here. 😞

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

from BNO
Details on new coronavirus lockdowns in China:
- Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei province, bans 11 million residents from leaving city
- Nearby Gaocheng District, with nearly 800K residents, put on total lockdown. 1 person per family can buy essential items every 2 days

  • Like 1
  • Sad 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

49 minutes ago, Elfknitter.# said:

This is the kind of news I've been wanting to hear more of.

I hate to be a pessimist but I can tell you that, when you’re working in ICU with these Covid patients, it really feels like these meds hardly do anything. We were just talking about it at work yesterday. It’s really hard to maintain too much optimism about the patients who end up sick enough to be in ICU. I’m not saying they don’t help, but the effect does not seem to be enough to feel like it’s helping much. That’s why we need studies not anecdotes, of course. Also, I haven’t used those mentioned in the study, but have seen all the others used regularly.

  • Like 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

New England Journal of Medicine just published a small (n=160) but solid RCT indicating that plasma can be helpful — but only if given within 3 days of symptom onset. Only 16% of the treatment group developed severe respiratory disease versus 31% of the placebo group. All participants were over 65 and many had one or more underlying conditions. The fact that the treatment needs to be given by IV so early in the progression of symptoms (likely before the patient is hospitalized or may even have seen a doctor) makes it somewhat impractical for most cases, but it has been suggested as a possible treatment in care facilities, where cases can be caught very early and patients can get IV treatments in situ. 

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2033700

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So we are having some changes around borders etc

Pre flight testing for all international arrivals

mandatory masking on domestic and international flights 

lots of local internal border changes etc

several states cutting international arrivals in half 

looks like they are fairly concerned about the Models of the more transmissible variant.  

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks Ausmum, I saw Scomo for 2 secs on TV and thought something was up. I am glad they're doing something. I'm quite concerned that this new strain could overwhelm contract tracing here. There are people streaming out of the cities into country towns for camping and so on - it could cause serious issues. I wish they'd lock down Sydney to be honest, or at least say stay within Greater Sydney - it's big enough, after all! 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...