Coronavirus

[DracoM]

[Dave2002]

However, one thing I have also stopped listening to is the wretched / one bl.... track-obsession - The Archers. Blimey!

I lost patience with the Archers several years ago. A great time saver! Unfortunately the rest of my family still want to listen to it - but I don't.

[LMcD]

I lost patience with the Archers several years ago. A great time saver! Unfortunately the rest of my family still want to listen to it - but I don't.

I believe the virus won't reach Ambridge until May.

[Bryn]

Did I just hear correctly that Trump is now pushing the 'Zinc as a SARS-CoV-2 blocker' nonsense?

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/medical/zinc-will-not-block-coronavirus-the-internets-covid-19-myths-busted/ar-BB10XnxJ

[LMcD]

Did I just hear correctly that Trump is now pushing the 'Zinc as a SARS-CoV-2 blocker' nonsense?

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/med...ed/ar-BB10XnxJ

Everything that Boris says is clever and true - perhaps your TV, tablet, radio or other device has been got at by aliens?

[Dave2002]

I believe the virus won't reach Ambridge until May.

I liked that Hancock episode in which he was involved with a very similar radio programme, and in the final scenes all the cast walked across a field and fell down a disused mineshaft, IIRC.

[LMcD]

I liked that Hancock episode in which he was involved with a very similar radio programme, and in the final scenes all the cast walked across a field and fell down a disused mineshaft, IIRC.

If you google 'Hancock The Bowmans' .......

[Count Boso]

If you google 'Hancock The Bowmans' .......

And more topically (was he in a surgery waiting room?), to the tune of Deutschland, Deutschland über alles -

"Coughs and sneezes spread disea-ea-ses,
Trap them in your handker-er-chief."

[Dave2002]

Now some scientists are saying what I have suspected - https://apple.news/AQeoz7_lnTNyJ1pArATf4ag

If I can detect someone smoking on a railway platform on the other side of the line, and maybe 100 or more feet away (OK - I know people aren’t supposed to do that, but some still do..), which I can, then it’s not completely implausible that if someone were to sneeze and spread an aerosol containing CB-19 virus, that it could spread further than 2 metres, and linger for some time.

https://youtu.be/WZSKoNGTR6Q

[richardfinegold]

I was off Wednesday. It was a warm glorious day. Our neighbor has a basketball hoop and three young daughters. There were six girls playing—I am guessing that each girl had a friend over—with the mother standing there watching. I yelled over in a jovial tone “How is the Social Distancing going?” the mother shot me a look as if I had just barbecued the Easter Bunny. My wife (an Oncology Nurse who was pulled that day to work in a newly created Covid Unit), who is normally the most mild mannered of souls, told me that she would have called the Police on the mother. “Why are we risking our lives daily and these idiots can’t follow the guidelines?”
Interesting times.

[Dave2002]

Very glad to see you checking back in here Richard. I think medics and a few other people (bus drivers have been mentioned) have the worst of it, because of the high number of close proximity contacts.

What I'd now like to know is whether there is any critical number of virus particles which will trigger a full blown CV-19 response, possibly leading to an emergency admission, or whether most people can tolerate a small number, with their bodies able to mount an attack against them. I'm sure that there must be ongoing research on this. Workers in health related fields are, by the very nature of their work, likely to meet many people, and many of them will have, or have had, a significant viral load.

Also herd immunity has been mentioned a few times, but noting the recent observation that the outbreak in NY appears to be a spreading of viral particles originating from Europe, I wonder if the virus adapts, and if in any way a herd effect can reduce its strength. If the virus is adapting in human populations it may, of course become even more deadly, but viruses which are highly deadly tend (so I've heard) to die out because of the lack of hosts to infect, whereas a virus which is mild in its effects can exist and spread very widely. What we seem to have at the present is a virus (or form of virus - if it's adapting fast) which is deadly, relatively long lived, and spreads rapidly and very widely.

Best wishes to you in the USA.

[Stanfordian]

I was off Wednesday. It was a warm glorious day. Our neighbor has a basketball hoop and three young daughters. There were six girls playing—I am guessing that each girl had a friend over—with the mother standing there watching. I yelled over in a jovial tone “How is the Social Distancing going?” the mother shot me a look as if I had just barbecued the Easter Bunny. My wife (an Oncology Nurse who was pulled that day to work in a newly created Covid Unit), who is normally the most mild mannered of souls, told me that she would have called the Police on the mother. “Why are we risking our lives daily and these idiots can’t follow the guidelines?”
Interesting times.

Sadly not an uncommon situation.

[LHC]

Now some scientists are saying what I have suspected - https://apple.news/AQeoz7_lnTNyJ1pArATf4ag

If I can detect someone smoking on a railway platform on the other side of the line, and maybe 100 or more feet away (OK - I know people aren’t supposed to do that, but some still do..), which I can, then it’s not completely implausible that if someone were to sneeze and spread an aerosol containing CB-19 virus, that it could spread further than 2 metres, and linger for some time.

https://youtu.be/WZSKoNGTR6Q

The Guardian reported yesterday on preliminary results of research into infections in Heinsberg (the epicentre of the German outbreak of CV19). This suggests that the primary route for infection is prolonged and close contact with others:

“Most infections didn’t take place in supermarkets or restaurants,” Streeck said of his preliminary findings. In Heinsberg, his team of coronavirus detectives could find scant evidence of the virus being transmitted via the surfaces of door handles, smart phones or other objects.

Early theories that the virus at the carnival party in Gangelt could have been transmitted through the dishwater in the kitchen turned out to be a red herring: most guests drank their beer from bottles.

Instead, he said, transmission took place at “events where people spent a length of time in each others’ close company”, such as apres ski parties in the Austrian resort of Ischgl, the Trompete nightclub in Berlin and a football match in northern Italy.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/09/the-cluster-effect-how-social-gatherings-were-rocket-fuel-for-coronavirus

[johnb]

I'm curious about the official figures included in the "xx,xxx people have been tested, of whom xx,xxx tested positive" statements in the daily releases.

The daily releases also state "Some individuals are tested more than once for clinical reasons" which implies that if a person is tested multiple times it is only counted as one person tested and one confirmed case (if any of those tests are positive).

I am wondering how far that is actually the case. Say if someone is admitted to hospital, they have a test, it comes back negative, the following day they have a second test, etc, etc. ...... then as they recover they are likely to have many more tests spread out over a number of days. As far as the "people testd" and "confirmed cases" are concerned would all those tests, spread out over many days, be included as just 1 person tested and 1 confirmed case?

The reason I started to wonder about this is that the daily number of confirmed cases and the figures for the Covid-19 hospital beds don't seem to stack up - though that could very well be due to my limited understanding and feeble brain.

If, for the sake of argument, the daily increases in the number of confirmed cases are all new cases and, once again for the sake of argument, that a Covid-19 patient stays in hospital for an average of 8 days (as Chris Whitty has claimed) then the Covid-19 hospital beds would need to be around 80% higher than those quoted in the daily press briefings.

If, though, the daily increases in confirmed cases are not 100% new cases then the figure is of little use in assessing the spread of the virus.

I'm very happy to be told I am talking b*llocks.

Later edit:

The above assumes that all confirmed cases are hospitalised. This was the case up to recently as only the hospital cases were being tested. However testing has been spread somewhat wider during the last week. A percentage of those additional tests will have been positive for Covid-19 when the people had only mild or no symptoms and those will probably have resulted in self-isolation rather than hospitalisation.

That would reduce the discrepancy somewhat, but not eliminate it.

[muzzer]

Thank you for the Hancock reference, I shall look them out. I found myself watching a Bob Monkhouse, Leslie Philips, Sid James film the other day. Pure escapism from an era before I was born. I’ve had enough of the bad news, but my admiration for health workers knows no bounds, mealsforthenhs.com and the nhs charities page on virgin giving, if one is allowed to say so, apols if not.