Coronavirus

[Anastasius]

The latest WHO advice on masks also advises against their use in public settings:

"the wide use of masks by healthy people in the community setting is not supported by current evidence and carries uncertainties and critical risks."

https://www.who.int/publications-det...ncov)-outbreak

Maybe English is not your first language and if so then my apologies but that sentence does not 'ADVISE'..vt to counsel, to recommend. It simply states that there is no evidence either way. I also question the hidden agenda because later on in the document it says that the wearing of masks by healthy people will take them away from health care staff.

Nowhere in the document does it address the issue of asymptomatic people not wearing masks wandering about spraying out a viral aerosol. Never forget that the WHO do have some serious hidden agendas.

[Count Boso]

No-one is saying that wearing masks is mandatory. This particular line of discussion was spawned by JohnB's assertion that wearing masks to protect yourself was pointless. Which is just plain wrong.

How might you replace the word 'pointless"? With advisable? Essential? Better than nothing? Being now in my 38th day of isolation and having no immediate intention of venturing out anywhere, I don't have to bother about how I would make a mask, whether it will fit properly, where I could buy one, whether I need to have a new one each time I go out, how to clean it if necessary, how I put it on and take it off, and so on.

The programme is very well presented.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cszh06

I shall listen to this. Thank you for the link.

[Dave2002]

No-one is saying that wearing masks is mandatory. This particular line of discussion was spawned by JohnB's assertion that wearing masks to protect yourself was pointless. Which is just plain wrong.

The whole point is that we don't know whether it's pointless or not. Evidence is by no means certain. There are some problems with wearing masks generally as it labels people who may or may not want to be so labelled. There can be very undesirable social consequences of labelling people in that way. Also, different types of mask may have considerably differing effectiveness, depending on the environment they're used in. Lastly, a poorly used mask might actually spread the virus if used carelessly.

PS: I note that the emphasis in your quote was to "protect yourself", whereas some others are concerned about protecting other people

[Bryn]

"Maybe English is not your first language and if so then my apologies but":

"This document provides advice on the use of masks in communities . . . " is the opening clause of the document in question (my emphasis). Indeed, the very title is "Advice on the use of masks in the context of COVID-19".

[johnb]

This particular line of discussion was spawned by JohnB's assertion that wearing masks to protect yourself was pointless. Which is just plain wrong.

Errr .... forgive me if I am mistaken but I can't find any post in which I ever said that wearing masks to protest yourself is pointless. What I have said is that the main benefit of wearing masks is to reduce transmission of the virus by lowering risk of the wearer spreading the infection to other people, especially in relatively crowded environments such as buses, trains and shops, and especially as people can spread the virus when they are asymptomatic.

If you can point to articles that reach a different conclusion I would be very interested to read them.

No-one is saying that wearing masks is mandatory.

Well, for the wearing of masks to be effective in reducing the transmission they would have to worn by the great majority of people in, say, buses, trains, shops, etc. That can only come about by the government making it compulsory or at least very strongly recommending their use. Which is why all the German states are introducing the compulsory wearing of face masks on public transport and (for most states) when shopping.

(There is so much that is unknown with Covid-19. People, governments, academics and health bodies are feeling their way through the pandemic as best they can.)

[johnb]

No. Firstly the proportion of asymptomatic people is possibly low, though we don’t know.

... or possibly high, or at least substantial.

Iceland has had a policy of widespread testing and they found that 50% of cases were asymptomatic. Austrian data suggested that 50% of cases were undiagnosed (i.e. mild or asymptomatic). In New York 88% or pregnant women who tested positive were asymptomatic. In the Italian village of Vo there was mass testing of the 3,000 inhabitants which found that 50%-75% of cases were asymptomatic.

OK, I have chosen examples that show a high percentage of asymptomatic people but there are other examples that show lower rates. We don't know how reliable the data from various examples are but it is surely wise to err on the side of caution and, at this stage, assume that a significant proportion of the people infected with the virus are asymptomatic.

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-what-proportion-are-asymptomatic/

[oddoneout]

Is the asymptomatic infection a feature of other covid viruses as well, or unique to this one? Or particularly bad with Covid19?

[Dave2002]

Is the asymptomatic infection a feature of other covid viruses as well, or unique to this one? Or particularly bad with Covid19?

I'm guessing that it may well be, or rather that the symptoms are considered so mild as to not be worth worrying about. Which is not the case with this particular nasty disease. My understanding this time is that asymptomatic may mean virtually no symptoms at all, or also very mild symptoms which could be mistaken for other commonly occurring diseases. Now that this is of interest, other classifications might be developed.

[johnb]

Some good news: Dr Tim Spector's team at King's College, London have used the data from their Covid-19 tracker app to estimate that the number people aged between 20 and 69 in the UK who have symptomatic Covid-19 infections has dropped from a peak of 2.1 million on the 1st April to 399 thousand yesterday.

https://covid.joinzoe.com/data

And

This is an update of the chart that I previously posted. It includes today's data from NHS England:



I haven't included the last five days of deaths by date of death because the numbers will be significantly revised upwards over the coming days. Even so there is a clear trend in the deaths by date of death. Let's hope it continues.

The chart is for England only because the information for that part of the UK is readily available.

[Cockney Sparrow]

To remark on another aspect of Covid 19, which may be of interest - certainly I found it of (self) interest…. Listening to PM on Wednesday 22 April (at 1hr 17mins, 50 seconds ) Evan Davies interviewed Dr Richard Levitan (described as a professor of Emergency Medicine) who served for 10 days at a New York Hospital at the height of the epidemic.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000hfrz

He describes how patients not complaining of respiratory distress (and no obvious Covid 19 symptoms) but attending for other reasons (e.g. stab wound) were found to have low levels of oxygen and on investigation, to have a developed Covid 19 infection. He suggests that the very sudden onset of distress can occur late(r) in the stage of infection, and by then the chance of a successful recovery are much slimmer - hence the modest success of patients after being ventilated. And earlier admission and oxygen provision would avert the onset of the critical phase for many patients.

He therefore suggest it would be a good idea for people in the community to buy a Pulse Oximeter - searching on the usual sites will bring up plenty of models. No doubt the Prime Minister's oxygen levels were monitored by his doctor, and as we know he wasn't intubated…….
I had no trouble accessing on my web browser* the NY times article written by Dr Levitan "The Infection That’s Silently Killing Coronavirus Patients"

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/opinion/coronavirus-testing-pneumonia.html?searchResultPosition=1

* If any reader has trouble, I can point you to another source of the text - PM me.

[johnb]

I listened to that programme too ... and my newly ordered pulse oximeter is on its way.

[Pulcinella]

What next?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/24/revealed-dominic-cummings-on-secret-scientific-advisory-group-for-covid-19

[Beresford]

I listened to that programme too ... and my newly ordered pulse oximeter is on its way.

For a few pounds extra you can get one like mine which draws a continually recycling 5 second graph of your pulse pressure, rather than just giving two numbers (oxygen and pulse rate).
I find it very useful for monitoring AF (atrial fibrillation).
The oxygen measurement is just a number. Mine has never been below 96%, but now at least I have found a potential use for that measurement.

[MrGongGong]

What next?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...p-for-covid-19

FFS
Can't he go back under the stone he crawled out from?

[Count Boso]

FFS
Can't he go back under the stone he crawled out from?

Well he discusses matters with the scientists, processes what was said, and then tells the government what they should do. What could possibly be wrong with that?

I liked this bit about the need for secrecy - "This contributes towards safeguarding individual members’ personal security and protects them from lobbying and other forms of unwanted influence which may hinder their ability to give impartial advice.”

So you allow the lobbyists actually to participate on the committee and exert unwanted influence? Good thinking, Pike.