COVID-19 Coronavirus Containment Efforts

[DennisN]

A large portion of people could be sick and out of work. Those who have more severe symptoms could overflood our hospital capacity and cause a lot more deaths and complications than expected. (my bolding)

And if the healthcare system gets overwhelmed it will have an impact on everybody in need of healthcare. Which could lead to e.g. prolonged health problems and also an increased number of deaths due to other things than the virus.

 

[DennisN]

Sweden didn't do much so far and their cases are still going up rapidly. What I see: Banning large gatherings, quarantine for some people, better sick leave arrangements, apart from that most things seem to be an advice instead of mandatory.

That is a correct summary of the Swedish situation, but I'd like to add that it is now recomended that all education except elementary school is to be performed at distance via computers. We have now also closed our borders for all non EU members. I do not rule out that many other measures could be taken, including a lockdown.

EDIT: I'd also like to add that I am pretty satisified with the information and leadership here in Sweden during this time of crisis. It has been pretty consistent and straightforward. But if we are doing the right things or not, at the right time or not, only time will tell.

I am also very satisified that our two main political rival coalitions have joined together during this time to fight the virus. All major parties (seven of eight) are now working together (except one) regardless of political differences. This means a lot, I think.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

What concerns me is people who are non-symptomatic

Why does this even happen? How can someone carry it and show no symptoms and another die from it? One simply has a better immune system?

 

[Vanadium 50]

oh, I see that's the thrust of @Vanadium 50's post.

No real thrust. Mostly arithmetic in response to a statement of the form "I didn't do the calculation, but if I did the result would be this".

 

[kadiot]

List of ibruprofen-based medication (anti-inflamation pills) issued by French health authorities through French major ddailies but with a a caveat: DO NOT STOP TAKING your ibruprofen-based medication for chronic illnesses if your doctor prescribed it.

- acéclofénac (Cartrex)

- acide méfénamique (Ponstyl)

- acide niflumique (Nifluril)

- acide tiaprofénique (Flanid, Surgam) - alminoprofène (Minalfène)

- célécoxib (Celebrex)

- dexkétoprofène (Enantyum)

- diclofénac (Flector, Voltarène)

- étodolac (Lodine)

- étoricoxib (Arcoxia)

- fénoprofène (Nalgésic)

- flurbiprofène (Antadys, Cebutid)

- ibuprofène (Advil, Antarène, Brufen, Hémagène, Ibupradoll, Intralgis, Nurofen, Nureflex, Spedifen, Spifen, Upfen)

- indométacine (Indocid)

- kétoprofène (Profénid, Ketum, Toprec)

- méloxicam (Mobic)

- nabumétone (Nabucox)

- naproxène (Alevetabs, Antalnox, Apranax, Naprosyne)

- piroxicam (Brexin, Cycladol, Feldène, Zofora)

- sulindac (Arthrocine)

- ténoxicam (Tilcotil)

 

[kadiot]

Why does this even happen? How can someone carry it and show no symptoms and another die from it? One simply has a better immune system?

There are asymptomatic carriers. Very difficult and without real access to doctors because they are in the front line, no way of knowing really...

 

[Rive]

List of ibruprofen-based medication...

I wonder if the warning is valid for other NSAIDs too?
...Aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid)??!

One simply has a better immune system?

Sometimes it is the opposite: a less trained immune system just does not overreact... I don't know which is relevant for this disease.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I wonder if the warning is valid for other NSAIDs too?

https://www.bbc.com/news/51929628

 

[chirhone]

For Wuhan, there are a lot of check points limiting where people can or cannot drive to. There are also shuttles arranged for people who wants to buy food

Did you edit the above? I spent half an hour searching for that message where you or another mentioned that guards are posted in each street and they can track if the same person has already go out? If you wrote the message elsewhere, can you help me find it?

How can the guards remember all the faces? Maybe they use face recognition monitors and AI software in every street to see you go out 2 times or more than 2 hours?

The problem in my country now is even though there is 1 person who can go out to buy groceries. That one person can drive around the city and go places to places to visit friends.

 

[nsaspook]

On this planet. Watch the world in lockdown.
live

 

[PeroK]

Why does this even happen? How can someone carry it and show no symptoms and another die from it? One simply has a better immune system?

One aspect is, of course, the good or bad luck of having a strong or weak resistance to disease. But, Western societies have been sitting on an increasing pandemic of chronic ill health, caused mainly by obesity. The issues with obesity are well-known, but under normal circumstances the chronic ill-health (including poor cardiovascular health) is managed under the health systems - and people live relatively normal lives, thanks to motorised transport and modern medicine. Now, however, we have a potential viral pandemic and the number of people needing hospital treatment is essentially proportional to the number of people who have chronic conditions.

The figures are that nearly 30% of adults in the UK (over the age of 16 years) are obese. That has doubled since 1993.

The UK government advice is that obese people are in the at risk group.

 

[wukunlin]

How can the guards remember all the faces? Maybe they use face recognition monitors and AI software in every street to see you go out 2 times or more than 2 hours?

The problem in my country now is even though there is 1 person who can go out to buy groceries. That one person can drive around the city and go places to places to visit friends.

Guards' don't need to remember faces, all residents are managed by either a QR code or some sort of pass that is linked to their national ID number. You will leave records of going ins and outs with it.
All areas are subdiveded into "communities," the QR code or pass I mentioned above will also be a proof that you live there. If you don't live there, they won't let you in.

 

[chirhone]

Guards' don't need to remember faces, all residents are managed by either a QR code or some sort of pass that is linked to their national ID number. You will leave records of going ins and outs with it.
All areas are subdiveded into "communities," the QR code or pass I mentioned above will also be a proof that you live there. If you don't live there, they won't let you in.

We don't have national ID number yet (it just started this year and only less than 10% registered).

How do you monitor without any national ID? And the troops or police don't have mobile computer system to do it. They don't even have enough thermal forehead pointers.

Any ideas how to implement monitoring in every place. Today I tried going out from one end to another and can do it at will. Presently we only put checkpoints in 3 locations out of a thousand locations. We call it "Extreme Enhanced Community Quarantine" if there is confirmed 3 or more cases. In Wuhan, it is the normal everywhere.

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/03/18/20/quezon-city-lockdown-extreme-enhanced-community-quarantine-due-to-covid-19-coronavirus

 

[wukunlin]

We don't have national ID number yet (it just started this year and only less than 10% registered).

How do you monitor without any national ID? And the troops or police don't have mobile computer system to do it. They don't even have enough thermal forehead pointers.

Any ideas how to implement monitoring in every place. Today I tried going out from one end to another and can do it at will. Presently we only put checkpoints in 3 locations out of a thousand locations. We call it "Extreme Enhanced Community Quarantine" if there is confirmed 3 or more cases. In Wuhan, it is the normal everywhere.

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/03/18/20/quezon-city-lockdown-extreme-enhanced-community-quarantine-due-to-covid-19-coronavirus

If you don't have the infrastructure set up for it or people to force you to do it, then I'm afraid you have to do it through your own discipline.

 

[DennisN]

If you don't have the infrastructure set up for it or people to force you to do it, then I'm afraid you have to do it through your own discipline.

A few words from Clint Eastwood:

Heartbreak Ridge: You Improvise, You Overcome, You Adapt

 

[anorlunda]

One simply has a better immune system?

Precisely.

Related is the estimated 40-70% of those exposed who get infected. Or the increased risk for seniors and those with underlying health problems What else other than the individual immune system to account for those differences?

 

[kadiot]

Getting closer. But not out of the woods just yet. Good onya, Australia! This is great news.

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/lifestyle/health/coronavirus-australia-queensland-researchers-find-cure-want-drug-trial/news-story/93e7656da0cff4fc4d2c5e51706accb5?fbclid=IwAR2aRzgviKmf1kNBoEXyCX2nwVxHq3JoJ4g28advkESEnp3ThqHE_S3tUgk

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Getting closer. But not out of the woods just yet. Good onya, Australia! This is great news.

From what I've heard any vaccine will still take a year to develop and produce.

 

[kadiot]

From what I've heard any vaccine will still take a year to develop and produce.

That was covered in the article.

 

[kadiot]

"One of the two medications is a HIV drug, which has been superseded by “newer generation” HIV drugs, and the other is an anti-malaria drug called chloroquine which is rarely used and “kept on the shelf now” due to resistance to malaria."
These are currently registered and available drugs..so testing would only be to verify their efficiency at combating Covid-19. Testing for side effects would already have been completed.

 

[nsaspook]

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/im...-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf

Whilst our understanding of infectious diseases and their prevention is now very different compared to in 1918, most of the countries across the world face the same challenge today with COVID-19, a virus with comparable lethality to H1N1 influenza in 1918. Two fundamental strategies are possible2 :

(a) Suppression. Here the aim is to reduce the reproduction number (the average number of secondary cases each case generates), R, to below 1 and hence to reduce case numbers to low levels or (as for SARS or Ebola) eliminate human-to-human transmission. The main challenge of this approach is that NPIs (and drugs, if available) need to be maintained – at least intermittently - for as long as the virus is circulating in the human population, or until a vaccine becomes available. In the case of COVID-19, it will be at least a 12-18 months before a vaccine is available3 . Furthermore, there is no guarantee that initial vaccines will have high efficacy.

b) Mitigation. Here the aim is to use NPIs (and vaccines or drugs, if available) not to interrupt transmission completely, but to reduce the health impact of an epidemic, akin to the strategy adopted by some US cities in 1918, and by the world more generally in the 1957, 1968 and 2009 influenza pandemics. In the 2009 pandemic, for instance, early supplies of vaccine were targeted at individuals with pre-existing medical conditions which put them at risk of more severe disease4 . In this scenario, population immunity builds up through the epidemic, leading to an eventual rapid decline in case numbers and transmission dropping to low levels. The strategies differ in whether they aim to reduce the reproduction number, R, to below 1 (suppression) – and thus cause case numbers to decline – or to merely slow spread by reducing R, but not to below 1.

 

[nsaspook]

This is not good news.
https://www.ft.com/content/859e9336-68db-11ea-a3c9-1fe6fedcca75

The number of Coronavirus cases has spiked across Asia, crushing hopes that the region had contained the outbreak. Officials in South Korea, Taiwan and parts of China and south-east Asia are rushing through new measures after a second wave of new infections following weeks of declines.

 

[Astronuc]

For those tracking the numbers - https://ncov2019.live/data

Be careful of unfamiliar sites. I've heard of at least one site that will put malware on one's computer if one clicks on the site url. Visit trusted sites only.

 

[mfb]

Coronavirus: Experiment in northern Italian town halts all new infections after trial
They tested all 3300 people and isolated people who tested positive. A second round of testing found only a small number of new cases, and the last round of testing found no new cases.

This doesn't scale, at least not at the moment* - but the study demonstrates how powerful testing is. Not just of people who have symptoms, but also their contacts, because that way you catch the people with no or very subtle symptoms that would otherwise spread the disease further.
This is not coming from me, obviously, I'm just reporting what the experts say.

The World Heath Organisation this week called on all countries to ramp up testing programmes as the best way to slow the advance of the pandemic.

WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: "We have a simple message to all countries - test, test, test.

*It's possible that tests for everyone become available in the future. This small German company can produce a million per week now, after just two months. Multiply it by the number of companies with that capability and expect future improvements in the rate.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

Would local law enforcement be enough to enforce those quarantines?

I doubt it. The local law wasn't willing to close a church that defied a closure order from the Louisiana Governor. Ability requires willingness. Local law realizes there are both constitutional and public relations issues in play, and that "following orders" is no excuse for violating constitutional rights. The local police in East Baton Rouge Parish (my primary residence) kicked it to the National Guard for enforcement.

https://www.wafb.com/2020/03/18/bat...RXmBxTPbn6PNA2USZ50g10tw8Y7nDnhBfXJnQt2yIkwsY

An email from a 1st Amendment attorney explained yesterday that the most likely response of local law is to ask you to stop and then seek a court order if you don't. With a court order in hand, they are enforcing an order of the court which protects them from legal retribution if the executive branch emergency orders are later held to be illegal.

 

[Evo]

I doubt it. The local law wasn't willing to close a church that defied a closure order from the Louisiana Governor. Ability requires willingness. Local law realizes there are both constitutional and public relations issues in play, and that "following orders" is no excuse for violating constitutional rights. The local police in East Baton Rouge Parish (my primary residence) kicked it to the National Guard for enforcement.

https://www.wafb.com/2020/03/18/bat...RXmBxTPbn6PNA2USZ50g10tw8Y7nDnhBfXJnQt2yIkwsY

I can't tell you how disturbing it is to hear that large groups of people have gathered against the common sense not to, regardless of being asked not to in order to try and contain the spread of this virus. While others are giving up the things they enjoy for the good of the many, some people couldn't give a damn about the health of others. SHAMEFUL!

 

[russ_watters]

I doubt it. The local law wasn't willing to close a church that defied a closure order from the Louisiana Governor. Ability requires willingness. Local law realizes there are both constitutional and public relations issues in play, and that "following orders" is no excuse for violating constitutional rights. The local police in East Baton Rouge Parish (my primary residence) kicked it to the National Guard for enforcement.

https://www.wafb.com/2020/03/18/bat...RXmBxTPbn6PNA2USZ50g10tw8Y7nDnhBfXJnQt2yIkwsY

An email from a 1st Amendment attorney explained yesterday that the most likely response of local law is to ask you to stop and then seek a court order if you don't. With a court order in hand, they are enforcing an order of the court which protects them from legal retribution if the executive branch emergency orders are later held to be illegal.

Oy. I was expecting this, but they should ask the South Koreans if faith protects one from coronavirus.

 

[Astronuc]

Coronavirus: Experiment in northern Italian town halts all new infections after trial
They tested all 3300 people and isolated people who tested positive. A second round of testing found only a small number of new cases, and the last round of testing found no new cases.

An excellent article on the Italian (Bergarmo, Lombardy) experience.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/every-...ons-from-italys-hospital-meltdown-11584455470

They found high rates of infection in first responders, who are being exposed to many ill folks.

From WSJ: Many of the lessons relate to public health, to avoid overwhelming hospitals. “Mild-to-moderate cases should be managed at home, not in the hospital, and with massive deployment of outreach services and telemedicine,” he wrote. Some therapies could be delivered at home, he said, via mobile clinics.

Another lesson: Italian emergency-medical technicians have experienced a high rate of infection, Dr. Cereda said, spreading the disease as they travel around the community.

Calls to 112, Europe’s equivalent of 911, are answered within 15 to 20 seconds. Ambulances from the hospital’s fleet of more than 200 are dispatched within 60 to 90 seconds. Two helicopters stand by at all times. . . . Now, people wait an hour on the phone to report heart attacks, Dr. Giupponi said, because all the lines are busy.

Best course of action is to stay home, if possible, and telework. Practice social distancing if one has to go out in public or to work.

 

[Klystron]

Yesterday they announced our gyms and association swimming pools will remain closed. Today the county closed public libraries indefinitely. No swimming and no new books. Clean pools and libraries are my church, no offence intended to believers.

Adaptations: floor exercises and Yoga; purchase a Kindle. Not remotely the same.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

I can't tell you how disturbing it is to hear that large groups of people have gathered against the common sense not to, regardless of being asked not to in order to try and contain the spread of this virus. While others are giving up the things they enjoy for the good of the many, some people couldn't give a damn about the health of others. SHAMEFUL!

Science is about data, not authoritative decrees.

Where is the convincing scientific data that a group of more than 50 people is more dangerous than a smaller group as long as all the other precautions are taken? If the sick people stay home, everyone washes their hands early and often, avoids touching common surfaces, and practices other procedures relative to the spread of respiratory illnesses, what is the problem?

Until I see the data, I'm going to church. Because my faith tells me I should, and the 1st Amendment tells me I can.

Show me the data, or keep your shame to yourself.

 

[BillTre]

Science is about data, not authoritative decrees.

Where is the convincing scientific data that a group of more than 50 people is more dangerous than a smaller group as long as all the other precautions are taken? If the sick people stay home, everyone washes their hands early and often, avoids touching common surfaces, and practices other procedures relative to the spread of respiratory illnesses, what is the problem?

Until I see the data, I'm going to church. Because my faith tells me I should, and the 1st Amendment tells me I can.

Show me the data, or keep your shame to yourself.

Well, you don't seem to need "the facts" to recommend that: "sick people stay home, everyone washes their hands early and often, avoids touching common surfaces, and practices other procedures relative to the spread of respiratory illnesses".
So what is the problem with not getting together in large groups of people (where statistically it is more likely (just because it has a larger sample size) a not yet diagnosed but infected person will be spewing on infections particles for others to get and spread around the community.

To me this is just another sad case of its OK for others but not my group.
This is just like one of the factors in Iran's rapid increase of Corona virus (people continuing their normal religious practices and licking religious relics or whatever).

Some of the shame will be on people using these lame kind of excuses!
Adapt to the demands of the times.

 

[DennisN]

Another chilling, sobering report from the frontline in Italy.
(Note: I would suggest those who are feeling particularly worried/anxious at this moment maybe should not read it)

Special Report: 'All is well'. In Italy, triage and lies for virus patients (Reuters, March 16, 2020)
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-h...age-and-lies-for-virus-patients-idUSKBN2133KG

One quote:

What struck her most about her father’s last week of anguish was the look on the doctor’s face when she met him.

“I couldn’t tell whether it was worry or sadness,” she said.

“All he said to us was, ‘Stay home.’”

 

[Astronuc]

Coronavirus can persist in air for hours and on surfaces for days: study
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-and-on-surfaces-for-days-study-idUSKBN2143QP

On plastic and stainless steel, viable virus could be detected after three days. On cardboard, the virus was not viable after 24 hours. On copper, it took 4 hours for the virus to become inactivated.

I wonder about wood. And does plastic apply to all plastics?

Think about high contact surfaces with which one comes in contact. Wash hands and use alcohol based hand sanitizers periodically.

 

[Evo]

Science is about data, not authoritative decrees.

And why do you think people are asked to limit social contact? Some whim? Are you saying that there is no evidence that the Coronavirus can be transmitted through airborn bodily fluids like a sneeze or cough, which is why people have been asked not to gather and maintain social distancing if there is a need to go out, like a need to buy food and medicine, most of which I'm trying to do online.

 

[russ_watters]

Science is about data, not authoritative decrees.

Public health policy is authoritative decrees, not [directly] science.