Coronavirus - Health aspects

[dixonge]

For perspective:

 

[explanade]

This thing seems far more infectious than the common flu.

Remains to be seen if it's more lethal.

 

[Sunset]

One more about hand washing. You gotta actually wash the hands!

Probably worse than the guys skipping the process are those that give their index finger a slight mist of 1/10th of a second under the faucet.

The act of touching the faucet and then not doing any washing probably deposited more fecal matter onto their hands (from the faucet handle) than they started with.

...

So, yeah, in some cases where everything except the hand sink faucets is automatic and I don't even have to touch the door, I may skip the process. I'm not a fan of touching those sink handles unless I can do a proper wash.

The solution is:
Turn on tap, getting who knows what on hands.
Wet hands, get soap, lather hands well, lather that handle.
Rinse hands, push handle shut with back of hand (the soap you put on it earlier will have mostly dripped off).

 

[tmm99]

When traveling, I often see men in the washroom, exit WITHOUT washing their hands . .

It probably makes more sense for them to wash their hands BEFORE they do the deed.

I'm female, so I have no idea what guys do, but if I was a man, I would probably wash hands once before and once after.

 

[Sunset]

What I hate is after washing hands, seeing the only way to dry hands is air dryer (to blow everything all over) and no paper towel which is handy to OPEN the door

 

[tmm99]

So now that we know the coronavirus PCR tests are flawed, we are diagnosing using CT scans of the lungs... Does that mean we cannot diagnose patients with coronavirus until they develop pneumonia, or the CT scans will show something sooner/before then?

 

[11522914]

Lol

 

[Bongleur]

A spreadsheet you can download & enter your own guess as to the R0 value:

followup comment by creator of that chart (dated 27JAN20):
Beyond China
Matt Sterett Feb 10
The model’s early forecasts were, in fact, conservative.
***We actually underestimated the near-term risk***
By a factor of 6x.
Reported figures now tally at >40k infections.
Now, back to our critics.

https://reservereport.substack.com/?no_cover=true

the spreadsheet itself, you can modify presumptions:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet..._o5HzOYT-juqytvomA7f0Qqo8/edit#gid=2146925776

Two recent articles on R0 value etc:

Epidemiological and clinical features of the 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak in China
Yang Yang et al
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.10.20021675v1



This group is affiliated with the Los Alamos lab -- they have really good computers there...
The Novel Coronavirus, 2019-nCoV, is Highly Contagious and More Infectious Than Initially Estimated
Authors: Steven Sanche et al
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.07.20021154v1

Abstract
The novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) is a recently emerged human pathogen that has spread
widely since January 2020. Initially, the basic reproductive number, R0, was estimated to be 2.2
to 2.7. Here we provide a new estimate of this quantity. We collected extensive individual case
reports and estimated key epidemiology parameters, including the incubation period. Integrating
these estimates and high-resolution real-time human travel and infection data with
mathematical models, we estimated that the number of infected individuals during early
epidemic double every 2.4 days, and the R0 value is likely to be between 4.7 and 6.6. We further
show that quarantine and contact tracing of symptomatic individuals alone may not be effective
and early, strong control measures are needed to stop transmission of the virus.

One-sentence summary
By collecting and analyzing spatiotemporal data, we estimated the transmission potential for 2019-nCoV.

 

[copyright1997reloaded]

On the washing hands front, I've been doing the following routine when using the bathroom:
1) Wash hands vigorously when ENTERING the bathroom under the assumption that my hands are already contaminated and I don't want to deposit any germs on my body parts.
2) Wash hands vigorously before EXITING the bathroom.
3) Use paper when touching anything in the bathroom, including the sink handles.

Since I work in a college I had already been pretty attentive to hand cleaning.

One thing that worries me is using the keyboard and mouse (on the instructors console). Are there suggestions for wipes I can use that would provide some level of protection w/o destroying the keyboard/mouse? I guess I could always use disposable gloves, that would give my students something to talk about.

 

[audreyh1]

Alcohol is what our company used to clean electronics/circuit boards in manufacturing, so alcohol wipes could be a good option. It evaporates quickly.

 

[copyright1997reloaded]

It's spreading: Mass quarantine in Vietnam: https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/1856784/vietnam-quarantines-area-with-10-000-residents-over-coronavirus

BINH XUYEN, Vietnam: Villages in Vietnam with 10,000 people close to the nation's capital were placed under quarantine on Thursday after six cases of the deadly new coronavirus were discovered there, authorities said.

 

[NW-Bound]

^^^ Yes, I read about the case above.

A Vietnamese woman was sent to Wuhan for job training, along with two other coworkers. She went back to Vietnam on Jan 17, and infected her family. Her coworkers also got sick and infected others.

A total of 249 who were in contact with the above persons were under quarantine. I guess Vietnam now decided to quarantine the whole area of 10,000 people to be safe.

The good news is that the 3 workers who brought back the virus from Wuhan have recovered and been discharged from the hospital. They are all under 30 of age.


PS. It seems to me this virus is highly contagious. If you go to Wuhan, you will get it. No wonder China put 11 million people under lock down. The whole province may be infected, whether a person shows symptoms or not.

 

[brewer12345]

The cruise ship that was circling around the south China Sea was allowed to land in Cambodia and the head of state greeted disembarking passengers with flowers. With no apparent testing they were allowed off the ship and travelled to the capital to go home. Hope for the Cambodian people that nobody on the ship was infected.

 

[NW-Bound]

Regarding the death rate, the numbers reported are as follows by John Hopkins CSSE on 2/13/2020:

Confirmed cases 60331 / Death 1369 / Recovered 6055

It's now 2/14/2020 in Asia. The new numbers are:

Confirmed cases 64,429 / Death 1383 / Recovered 6811

More sick people, but not proportionally more dead. I guess there's a silver lining.

 

[explanade]

There may be vast under-detection in SE Asia and Africa, unless the heat is slowing down the virus in those areas.

 

[robnplunder]

Death 1383

I have been following the "unofficial" reports by the mass (funeral home worker interview, video of dead bodies piled up in a van parked in a hospital, ...). I didn't want to believe the claims that reported 10 times the official death toll number. I am now convinced. The death toll as of today may be closer to 14000 than 1400 if not higher.

 

[brewer12345]

It is hard not to assume that Indonesia, Africa, Cambodia, etc. are accumulating cases.

 

[NW-Bound]

I have been following the "unofficial" reports by the mass (funeral home worker interview, video of dead bodies piled up in a van parked in a hospital, ...). I didn't want to believe the claims that reported 10 times the official death toll number. I am now convinced. The death toll as of today may be closer to 14000 than 1400 if not higher.

Well, only 1400 deaths are "confirmed cases". All the rest are "unconfirmed". That's the official line.

As I mentioned, they should report another number, that is the total number of dead bodies that have been cremated since December 2019 till now, no matter what the cause is.

Then, they should also have the number of deaths in the same period last year. Let the world see the difference between last year and now. Maybe this year, many more people die of indigestion, or heart attack, etc..., compared to last year.

Maybe "unconfirmed" also means "uncounted" or "disregarded". Maybe they don't even bother to count. Nah, just another life among the 1.4 billion people they have.

 

[explanade]

The thing is, the death rate or even the percentage of serious cases outside China are nothing like they are in Wuhan/Hubei.

In fact other Chinese cities it may not be anything like that particular province.

That is one of the mysteries about this virus.

 

[robnplunder]

As I mentioned, they should report another number, that is the total number of dead bodies that have been cremated since December 2019 till now, no matter what the cause is.

There seems to be a sudden increase in people dying of pneumonia .

 

[NW-Bound]

^^^ Could be just old age.

 

[robnplunder]

The thing is, the death rate or even the percentage of serious cases outside China are nothing like they are in Wuhan/Hubei.

In fact other Chinese cities it may not be anything like that particular province.

That is one of the mysteries about this virus.

The only explanation I can come up with is that in Wuhan the virus spread beyond the existing medical facilities can handle. The other provinces had time to react after seeing what is going on in Wuhan.

 

[Bongleur]

Alcohol is what our company used to clean electronics/circuit boards in manufacturing, so alcohol wipes could be a good option. It evaporates quickly.

We know that it takes upwards of 70% - I wonder if the "industrial" wipes have more than the "medical prep" type?

 

[audreyh1]

We know that it takes upwards of 70% - I wonder if the "industrial" wipes have more than the "medical prep" type?

They didn’t use wipes but a spray bottle of alcohol on the circuit boards.

Those alcohol pads are 70% isopropyl alcohol. The main challenge is that they are quite small, so a bit tricky to clean a public keyboard.

Too bad to be in a situation where you have to use a public keyboard. You can always wear disposable gloves.

 

[Nemo2]

Don't know if this article from The Lancet has already been linked to, but there are a lot of "Seems to" and "We don't know(s)" relative to the transmission/effects of Covid-19:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30374-3/fulltext

The standard recommendations of "Avoid this" and "Don't do that" may, or may not, be sufficient.