SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

horsechoker said:
I don't understand people who wear facemasks in their car while driving alone (and they're not delivery men or the like).

Doesn't it get annoying to wear it more than you need to?
Click to expand...
We have to in our Comune, the Mayor has made it compulsory - and everyone's on their own in their cars. It's daft. I even have to put the mask on to walk across the road to the bins, and there's no-one around.
 
11101 said:
I have read quite a bit about masks in the past as i lived in Asia for a few years where they are common and far better understood. The West is just getting to grips with the idea. It's fairly well known over there that they don't do anything to prevent you catching anything, and may even make it more likely because they encourage you to touch your face, but they do help in preventing you spreading what you do have. This is why surgeons wear them.
Click to expand...

TL: DR: Are the general public using PPE to avoid extreme cases which they may find themselves in or are we actually using it because these cases occur quite frequently?

I don't fully understand your comment that masks don't prevent you from catching the disease. Respirators stop both inhalation and exhalation of particles/droplets. Surgical masks prevent exhalation of droplets and yes, they would prevent an infectious people from spreading the disease. I think what you are saying is that if everyone in the general public wore surgical masks, there is no need for respirators because there wouldn't be any droplets in the air to breathe in anyway, which I do agree with. I wasn't trying to dismiss this point in my earlier post and I am sorry if it came across that way.

The first point I tried to make was more about just how necessary is it for the entire general public to wear masks? There is already a wealth of research which shows how droplets disperse and evapourate. It isn't clear to me though why surgical masks are truly necessary in the first place. This is because I do not understand how often conditions occur where the droplets exhaled from an infected person (who is not wearing a mask) remain both suspended in the air and do not evaporate quickly. To avoid this scenario requires the need for a mask, but the effectiveness of the masks worn by the general public then really depends on how often this scenario occurs. If the scenario hardly ever occurs, then one could argue the masks aren't really that effective at all in terms of limiting the overall spread.

As I said above, I do understand the need to err on the side of caution but we shouldn't stop studying or understanding the science.

The second main point I made was that so much emphasis is made on masks and we don't really know if they are significantly better for the general public than wearing gloves, or if it is preferable for the general public to wear both or maybe it is better for the general public to wear just gloves. It broadly follows the same argument as above. In essence are we just using PPE to avoid extreme cases or are we actually using it because these cases occur quite frequently? The science isn't clear to me here. My personal feeling is that the cases tend towards the extreme rather than the norm but its just an opinion.

I don't buy into this argument that just because Asian countries wear masks they have been significantly better off or they "better understand" them. I don't doubt it has helped, but again, there are several factors such as using apps to trace people and forced isolation. My personal opinion is that the significant reasons these countries have been better off is a lot to do with previous experience with dealing with virus outbreaks, the app which tracks users and the lockdown measures. I think in the case of the app and lockdown it has been enforced more strictly than what would probably be allowed in western cultures, I may be wrong though.
 
Alabaster Codify7 said:
I have stopped watching in general to be honest. I just read the summaries online which are basically identical every day, maybe a different helmet's name every other day.

I usually get home from my hike and find my parents looking like they'd like to cry after seeing it. I keep tellign them to stop watching it because there is nothing new to hear, but oh well.
Click to expand...

The graphs are a bit pointless being shown every day, ultimately it's only being used to re-inforce the discipline measure of lockdown.

Anyway today's deaths:

514 in England (Hospitals)

17 in Wales

58 in Scotland.
 
Penna said:
We have to in our Comune, the Mayor has made it compulsory - and everyone's on their own in their cars. It's daft. I even have to put the mask on to walk across the road to the bins, and there's no-one around.
Click to expand...

Seems overkill, I imagine anyone you share a car with would be living with you.
 
sullydnl said:
Click to expand...


Yeah that's got lost in the underlying health issues. These people weren't going to drop dead next week or the week after in most cases. Sad to see 10 years life just been taken away in a week or two.
 
Penna said:
We have to in our Comune, the Mayor has made it compulsory - and everyone's on their own in their cars. It's daft. I even have to put the mask on to walk across the road to the bins, and there's no-one around.
Click to expand...

horsechoker said:
I don't understand people who wear facemasks in their car while driving alone (and they're not delivery men or the like).

Doesn't it get annoying to wear it more than you need to?
Click to expand...

Sadly this is what I feared. Wearing masks needlessly for situations that don't warrant them. I agree with both of you, in the situations you describe there doesn't appear to be any need to wear them.

What I suspect has happened is the governments issued a blanket law which just made them compulsory to wear everywhere, to avoid the alternative scenario where they list each and every situation where they are necessary. It is understandable why they have done the former and not the latter.
 
A pathologist who announced Covid19 to be serious way before our politicians and WHO admitted it was going to be went into detail about the flaws of the current Hydroxychloroquine studies.

Interesting listen actually.

 
Balljy said:
I think it's an issue with the guidelines from WHO as well. They will be underpinned by scientists who will be giving the best scientifically backed advice they can as of the time. As the science and knowledge of the virus improves this advice will change.

In the 24 hour news cycle this has got translated as being incorrect information and being slow, but it is just the way science works using the information available at the time. WHO were never going to tell the world to stop in December / January based on snippets of information and with lab results being investigated but hindsight is now being used to say this was wrong.

The media is so black and white with their reporting but something like this will always be progressive advice as the knowledge of the virus builds over months and the years to come.
Click to expand...

Yes I agree, the story is unfolding only as fast as the science can be developed, which is not fast enough for the 24/7 news cycle. Its the same with procurement of PPE and other matters where there were no mass production lines already in place, or the logistics of procurement that can keep up with the demands of a pandemic. The ability to provide our own PPE and similar needs is something the Government will have to face afterwards, as unfortunately this is not the last pandemic we can expect.

However the need to 'feed the cycle' means that broadcasters, presenters, news type media formats are all trying to find a different angle to play up and grab the viewing stats. Unfortunately this seems to always be from a hindsight perspective and is at times unjust on people under pressure on their watch who for the most part cannot spin the wheel any faster.
 
0le said:
Sadly this is what I feared. Wearing masks needlessly for situations that don't warrant them. I agree with both of you, in the situations you describe there doesn't appear to be any need to wear them.

What I suspect has happened is the governments issued a blanket law which just made them compulsory to wear everywhere, to avoid the alternative scenario where they list each and every situation where they are necessary. It is understandable why they have done the former and not the latter.
Click to expand...
On the subject of masks...i have seen some pretty appalling behaviour by men of a certain age wearing masks in the supermarket.

One was wearing a full acrylic face mask with side filters - straight out of "contagion" film - and he was literally just barging people out of the way so he could get his few items and leave.

I've also lost count of the number of men I've seen wandering aimlessly through the shops wearing a mask but whistling at the top of their vocal strength - spraying the inside of their mask with sputum and god knows what. So I'm concerned about some people seeming to get a false sense of security behind a mask. Then again, plenty of people seem to be able to wear a mask and NOT be a massive idiot.
 
I’ve just seen on the BBC that Sweden have announced a much bigger increase in cases than normal and also withdrew speculation about how many people have got the disease after admitting they made mistakes with the science
 
Wumminator said:
I’ve just seen on the BBC that Sweden have announced a much bigger increase in cases than normal and also withdrew speculation about how many people have got the disease after admitting they made mistakes with the science
Click to expand...
They already have higher per capita numbers than all other Scandinavian countries. Was only a matter of time until this would come out.
 


Edit: The official totals are messed up.

Yesterday, 18,100
Today, 18,738 but +616 should make 18,716.

Not sure if this happened before and they just add in some other deaths from nurses or is Patel doing the adding up today?
 
Last edited:
Atze-Peng said:
A pathologist who announced Covid19 to be serious way before our politicians and WHO admitted it was going to be went into detail about the flaws of the current Hydroxychloroquine studies.

Interesting listen actually.

Click to expand...


Could you summarize what he is saying?
 
Wumminator said:
I’ve just seen on the BBC that Sweden have announced a much bigger increase in cases than normal and also withdrew speculation about how many people have got the disease after admitting they made mistakes with the science
Click to expand...

Here is the article and further links:

Sweden has seen its confirmed cases of Covid-19 jump from 16,004 to 16,755. The rise was much larger than in recent days, during which Sweden’s Public Health Agency had been cautiously celebrating a flattening of cases.

The agency's deputy state epidemiologist Anders Wallensten said the majority of the new cases were in Stockholm. Increased testing of healthcare workers could be a factor, he said, but scientists were looking into other potential reasons.

The agency also adjusted an earlier estimation that one-third of Stockholm residents will have been infected by the virus by 1 May, which was featured in a report released by the agency earlier this week and withdrawn after officials admitted errors in calculations.

“I don’t think this should be looked upon as something that is representative of Swedish statistics in general,” Wallensten told the BBC from the news conference via video link. “It was a mistake, I think many people understand that we are working hard these days... unfortunately this was not spotted before it went out.”

He said it was “too early to say” how much of an impact asymptomatic infection rates and the subsequent potential for immunity would have on the potential to lift social-distancing recommendations in Sweden in the near future, in comparison to places which have endured stricter measures.
Click to expand...
[source]
 
0le said:
TL: DR: Are the general public using PPE to avoid extreme cases which they may find themselves in or are we actually using it because these cases occur quite frequently?

I don't fully understand your comment that masks don't prevent you from catching the disease. Respirators stop both inhalation and exhalation of particles/droplets. Surgical masks prevent exhalation of droplets and yes, they would prevent an infectious people from spreading the disease. I think what you are saying is that if everyone in the general public wore surgical masks, there is no need for respirators because there wouldn't be any droplets in the air to breathe in anyway, which I do agree with. I wasn't trying to dismiss this point in my earlier post and I am sorry if it came across that way.

The first point I tried to make was more about just how necessary is it for the entire general public to wear masks? There is already a wealth of research which shows how droplets disperse and evapourate. It isn't clear to me though why surgical masks are truly necessary in the first place. This is because I do not understand how often conditions occur where the droplets exhaled from an infected person (who is not wearing a mask) remain both suspended in the air and do not evaporate quickly. To avoid this scenario requires the need for a mask, but the effectiveness of the masks worn by the general public then really depends on how often this scenario occurs. If the scenario hardly ever occurs, then one could argue the masks aren't really that effective at all in terms of limiting the overall spread.

As I said above, I do understand the need to err on the side of caution but we shouldn't stop studying or understanding the science.

The second main point I made was that so much emphasis is made on masks and we don't really know if they are significantly better for the general public than wearing gloves, or if it is preferable for the general public to wear both or maybe it is better for the general public to wear just gloves. It broadly follows the same argument as above. In essence are we just using PPE to avoid extreme cases or are we actually using it because these cases occur quite frequently? The science isn't clear to me here. My personal feeling is that the cases tend towards the extreme rather than the norm but its just an opinion.

I don't buy into this argument that just because Asian countries wear masks they have been significantly better off or they "better understand" them. I don't doubt it has helped, but again, there are several factors such as using apps to trace people and forced isolation. My personal opinion is that the significant reasons these countries have been better off is a lot to do with previous experience with dealing with virus outbreaks, the app which tracks users and the lockdown measures. I think in the case of the app and lockdown it has been enforced more strictly than what would probably be allowed in western cultures, I may be wrong though.
Click to expand...

When i refer to masks i mean surgical masks. Respirators are something we should keep aside for the people who actually need them.

Asian countries understand masks in that they know how to use them properly and what they are good for. In the West everybody is still arguing over whether they help and if we should use them at all. We have already seen how sensitive the R0 is with this virus so every little bit extra to reduce it will help.
 
Hugh Jass said:
Could you summarize what he is saying?
Click to expand...

tl;dw is that no zync was used and no random samples counter-balanced with placebos. Also that it was more often than not used as a late hellmary rather than early on. Then the same UVA who conducted this study - does all these things when it comes to remdisivir.

Essentially the study (and others he goes into detail in previous videos) are just horrible from a medical and scientific PoV. And he implies a potential conflict of interest - either political or because Hydroxychloroquine is a lot cheaper than remdisivir.
 
11101 said:
Asian countries understand masks in that they know how to use them properly and what they are good for. In the West everybody is still arguing over whether they help and if we should use them at all.
Click to expand...

With respect we will have to agree to disagree.

The general public in countries in Asia may know how to wear masks properly, but maybe they do not. We had someone living in one of the Asian countries post earlier in the thread that a lot of people don't wear them properly there either. I do agree partally here though, it seems likely people are more knowledgable to wear them properly because it is the norm there. But this is not the point I am making.

I don't think the general public in Asia really knows in what situations it is necessary to wear them. I think they just wear them because they are told to and also because it has become part of normal life there. It seems there is an assumption that it is necessary in all situations when going outside but the debate is whether this is supported by any science.

Assuming people wear, handle and dispose of masks correctly, what then needs to be known is:
1) What conditions are necessary for droplets to remain both suspended and fail to evaporate.
2) How often do those conditions occur.

If we can understand these questions, we can quickly determine which situations masks are necessary and begin to better understand how effective they are when worn by the general public. We can then say with more confidence they do help or alternatively they do not.

I haven't seen any recent news or interviews which really addresses these points specifically in any meaningful detail. I am surprised you also do not seem to want to discuss this part, yet I think it is crucial to actually understanding what situations are necessary to wear masks. It is crucial in my opinion because what if in most situations when people go outside, droplets either settle quickly or evaporate quickly - then what purpose does the mask serve in that case? Virtually no purpose at all.

You also didn't address anything about my concerns about not wearing gloves, which has similar issues. Why go to all the effort to wear masks and completely neglect any discussion on gloves? It just seems counter-intuitive to me.
 
Wumminator said:
I’ve just seen on the BBC that Sweden have announced a much bigger increase in cases than normal and also withdrew speculation about how many people have got the disease after admitting they made mistakes with the science
Click to expand...

It’s going to be so depressing if things really go south in Sweden. Not surprising, if I’m honest, but they were a great test case to see if lighter touch social isolation might be able to keep a lid on things. Will fecking suck if/when it’s proven not to be a workable strategy. Also huge implications for other countries thinking about trying to ease off.
 
Atze-Peng said:
tl;dw is that no zync was used and no random samples counter-balanced with placebos. Also that it was more often than not used as a late hellmary rather than early on. Then the same UVA who conducted this study - does all these things when it comes to remdisivir.

Essentially the study (and others he goes into detail in previous videos) are just horrible from a medical and scientific PoV. And he implies a potential conflict of interest - either political or because Hydroxychloroquine is a lot cheaper than remdisivir.
Click to expand...

Seems to bring up remdisivir a lot. I wonder if he has any conflicts from working with/for Gilead?
 
Pogue Mahone said:


@Suedesi
@Revan

So my “kills 1 in 100” comment might be on the money. Small numbers (768) but proper random household sampling. Which is the gold standard in studies like this.
Click to expand...


I was expecting 2-3% too, with heavy hit areas around 10%.

Still think that the mortality rate would be around 0.5%. 1% looks too much when you consider small states with a lot of testing a.
 
redshaw said:


Edit: The official totals are messed up.

Yesterday, 18,100
Today, 18,738 but +616 should make 18,716.

Not sure if this happened before and they just add in some other deaths from nurses or is Patel doing the adding up today?
Click to expand...

They are missing out Northern Ireland's numbers.
 
sullydnl said:
Click to expand...


Having been to cheltenham in the past its pretty small and those postcodes would also be the most populated ones of the built up areas so cases per capita would be better as at the moment that pretty much shows population density of cheltenham and gloucester and that the countryside around those areas with half decent road links is a bit more densely populated than the countryside that is less accessible

Not to say that holding cheltenham wasnt a monumentally stupid idea - just that that graph showing total cases rather than cases per capita does not prove it
 
Wibble said:
Not sure. Currently everyone is taken to a hotel for a 14 day quarantine under police guard - paid for by the government. Until very reliable testing for live infections and antibodies are available I doubt we will move to certification. Quarantine could become self funded in due course.
Click to expand...

I’m guessing that would have to be norm for allowing non-resident or foreign visitors
 
sun_tzu said:
Having been to cheltenham in the past its pretty small and those postcodes would also be the most populated ones of the built up areas so cases per capita would be better as at the moment that pretty much shows population density of cheltenham and gloucester and that the countryside around those areas with half decent road links is a bit more densely populated than the countryside that is less accessible

Not to say that holding cheltenham wasnt a monumentally stupid idea - just that that graph showing total cases rather than cases per capita does not prove it
Click to expand...
A newly-discovered symptom of COVID-19 is decent journalists turning into crap data analysts. It's starting to wind me up a bit.
I'm not ruling out that the festival caused a spike in cases, but those charts are a long way from proving anything interesting.
As a wider point, the potential consequences of misinformation at the moment are worrying.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Seems to bring up remdisivir a lot. I wonder if he has any conflicts from working with/for Gilead?
Click to expand...

He mentioned it like 2 or 3 times? Plus he didn't say it was a bad drug or useless. So dunno how you come to this conclusion. His analysis of the study and previous ones were spot on.
 
U.S. numbers approaching 1 Million cases, it’s crazy considering that their test per head rate is nothing special compred to some other countries. Just shows how highly contagious this virus is.
 
0le said:
TL: DR: Are the general public using PPE to avoid extreme cases which they may find themselves in or are we actually using it because these cases occur quite frequently?

I don't fully understand your comment that masks don't prevent you from catching the disease. Respirators stop both inhalation and exhalation of particles/droplets. Surgical masks prevent exhalation of droplets and yes, they would prevent an infectious people from spreading the disease. I think what you are saying is that if everyone in the general public wore surgical masks, there is no need for respirators because there wouldn't be any droplets in the air to breathe in anyway, which I do agree with. I wasn't trying to dismiss this point in my earlier post and I am sorry if it came across that way.

The first point I tried to make was more about just how necessary is it for the entire general public to wear masks? There is already a wealth of research which shows how droplets disperse and evapourate. It isn't clear to me though why surgical masks are truly necessary in the first place. This is because I do not understand how often conditions occur where the droplets exhaled from an infected person (who is not wearing a mask) remain both suspended in the air and do not evaporate quickly. To avoid this scenario requires the need for a mask, but the effectiveness of the masks worn by the general public then really depends on how often this scenario occurs. If the scenario hardly ever occurs, then one could argue the masks aren't really that effective at all in terms of limiting the overall spread.

As I said above, I do understand the need to err on the side of caution but we shouldn't stop studying or understanding the science.

The second main point I made was that so much emphasis is made on masks and we don't really know if they are significantly better for the general public than wearing gloves, or if it is preferable for the general public to wear both or maybe it is better for the general public to wear just gloves. It broadly follows the same argument as above. In essence are we just using PPE to avoid extreme cases or are we actually using it because these cases occur quite frequently? The science isn't clear to me here. My personal feeling is that the cases tend towards the extreme rather than the norm but its just an opinion.

I don't buy into this argument that just because Asian countries wear masks they have been significantly better off or they "better understand" them. I don't doubt it has helped, but again, there are several factors such as using apps to trace people and forced isolation. My personal opinion is that the significant reasons these countries have been better off is a lot to do with previous experience with dealing with virus outbreaks, the app which tracks users and the lockdown measures. I think in the case of the app and lockdown it has been enforced more strictly than what would probably be allowed in western cultures, I may be wrong though.
Click to expand...
Please watch this.
 
BootsyCollins said:
Andrew Coumo just accounted for a antibody test.
3000 test in the state of new York, 13.9% positive for antibodys.
in the city of new York it was 21.2%.

it translate to a death rate to 0.5%.

no link sorry, just saw it in my local newsfeed.
Here is the newsfeed in Swedish :
https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/3Jgxj9/senaste-nytt-om-coronaviruset
Click to expand...
He also said that currently they are undercounting the deaths, which means death rate would be more than 0,5%. But he didn't state when the antibody sample was collected and I don't know how long it takes to develop antibodies on average, anyone have that data?
 
Maagge said:
It doesn't sound reasonable given the whole world has less than 3 million confirmed cases.
Click to expand...
If the 0.5% mortality rate turns out to be true (and there is plenty to suggest that), we are actually talking for 30-40m real infections in the world.

Maagge said:
For sure, but do we think the UK have only caught 4.5 % of their cases?
Click to expand...

Very likely. The UK has done a poor job on testing, only 583k cases in total (Italy has 3 times as many, Germany 4 times as many, the US has 7 times as many).
 
cyberman said:
Great news. Maybe the world should look at our diet for a hidden cure, the starch in spuds being its antidote might be it
Click to expand...

It's at 0.6 in France, both countries like thier potatoes. Coincidence?
 
Atze-Peng said:
tl;dw is that no zync was used and no random samples counter-balanced with placebos. Also that it was more often than not used as a late hellmary rather than early on. Then the same UVA who conducted this study - does all these things when it comes to remdisivir.

Essentially the study (and others he goes into detail in previous videos) are just horrible from a medical and scientific PoV. And he implies a potential conflict of interest - either political or because Hydroxychloroquine is a lot cheaper than remdisivir.
Click to expand...

Ok thanks.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.