Coronavirus

[Jonny]

California's doing pretty well; we have 164 new cases; New York has 5429 new cases. Maybe President Trump should think about quarantining the entire state - no interstate travel into or out of New York.

Have you considered that New York is simply doing more testing?

 

[Tellenbach]

Have you considered that New York is simply doing more testing?

Sure, but we're also hearing tales of overcrowded hospitals and lack of ventilators in New York. The statistic to really pay attention to are the "New Death" counts. New York leads with 58 deaths. California only has 5.

Kudos to Colorado, Illinois, and Washington; they have ZERO new coronavirus cases.

 

[FemMecha]

Complete article here.
How long does coronavirus last on surfaces? - Science - ABC News

Quote:
One good thing about viruses is that they can only reproduce when they're inside another cell.

So without a host to live in, this new coronavirus that causes COVID-19 will eventually just peter out because it can't copy itself to survive, said immunologist Stuart Tangye of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research.

"We're very lucky in the fact that the virus is pretty lousy at surviving on its own."

But research published this week in The New England Journal of Medicine found that SARS-CoV-2 can still survive for hours and in some cases days, outside a host, depending on the type of surface it's on.

Coronavirus update: Follow all the latest news in our daily wrap

The study looked at the stability of the virus in air and on plastic, stainless steel, copper, and cardboard surfaces.

Under experimental conditions, it found that the virus remained viable in air for the entire three-hour experiment.

On surfaces it was more stable on plastic and stainless steel, than it was on either copper or cardboard.

No viable SARS-CoV-2 was detected on the copper surface after four hours, and on the cardboard surface after 24 hours.

Whereas it was still able to be detected up to 72 hours later on the stainless steel and plastic surfaces.

 

[cascadeco]

Did New York / NYC close all restaurants, bars, etc over a week ago like some states did? If so, I imagine their density and sheer number of people is what's not helping them. Too, lots of dependence on public transport vs other locations which don't have that level of public transport infrastructure and cultural use.

 

[Tellenbach]

Shredded T-Shirts Used as Toilet Paper Are Backing Up Sewer Systems

Thanks to all of you numbskulls who bought a million rolls of toilet paper in the last few weeks, some California towns are experiencing sewer problems because people are using disinfectant wipes, paper towels, and even shredded T-shirts and then flushing them.

“COR Wastewater Management responded to a sewer backup from shredded t-shirts being used in place of toilet paper,” the City of Redding tweeted Thursday. “Remember, if you use anything other than toilet paper, Bag it. Don’t flush it.”

Come on people; you know better than to flush t-shirts down the toilet. Just put the waste into a large plastic bag and discard later.

 

[cascadeco]

Sure, but we're also hearing tales of overcrowded hospitals and lack of ventilators in New York. The statistic to really pay attention to are the "New Death" counts. New York leads with 58 deaths. California only has 5.

Kudos to Colorado, Illinois, and Washington; they have ZERO new coronavirus cases.

Nah, it's up to 591 in CO. This has a ways to go.

 

[Lexicon]

This is how it works, though a bit less lethal.

 

[Grand Admiral Crunch]

Looking forward to warmer weather.

Warmer Weather May Slow, but Not Halt Coronavirus - The New York Times

Communities living in warmer places appear to have a comparative advantage to slow the transmission of coronavirus infections, according to an early analysis by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The researchers found that most coronavirus transmissions had occurred in regions with low temperatures, between 37.4 and 62.6 degrees Fahrenheit (or 3 and 17 degrees Celsius).

While countries with equatorial climates and those in the Southern Hemisphere, currently in the middle of summer, have reported coronavirus cases, regions with average temperatures above 64.4 degrees Fahrenheit (or 18 degrees Celsius) account for fewer than 6 percent of global cases so far.

“Wherever the temperatures were colder, the number of the cases started increasing quickly,” said Qasim Bukhari, a computational scientist at M.I.T. who is a co-author of the study. “You see this in Europe, even though the health care there is among the world’s best.”

The temperature dependency is also clear within the United States, Dr. Bukhari said. Southern states, like Arizona, Florida and Texas, have seen slower outbreak growth compared with states like Washington, New York and Colorado. Coronavirus cases in California have grown at a rate that falls somewhere in between.

The seasonal pattern is similar to what epidemiologists have observed with other viruses. Dr. Deborah Birx, the global AIDS coordinator in the United States and also a member of the Trump administration’s coronavirus task force, said during a recent briefing that the flu, in the Northern Hemisphere, generally follows a November to April trend.

The four types of coronavirus that cause the common cold every year also wane in warmer weather.

Dr. Birx also noted that the pattern was similar with the SARS epidemic in 2003. But she stressed that because the virus outbreaks in China and South Korea began later, it was difficult to determine whether the new coronavirus would take the same course.

At least two other studies published on public repositories have drawn similar conclusions for the coronavirus. One analysis by researchers in Spain and Finland found that the virus seemed to have found a niche in dry conditions and temperatures between 28.3 degrees and 49 degrees Fahrenheit (or minus 2 and 10 degrees Celsius). Another group found that before the Chinese government started imposing aggressive containment measures, cities with higher temperatures and more humid environments reported a slower rate of infection transmission early in the outbreak.

But none of the studies have been peer-reviewed by other scientists, and Dr. Bukhari acknowledged that factors such as travel restrictions, social distancing measures, variations in the availability of tests and hospital burdens might have affected the number of cases in different countries.

The possible correlation between coronaviruses cases and climate should not lead policymakers and the public to complacency.

“We still need to take strong precautions,” Dr. Bukhari said. “Warmer temperatures may make this virus less effective, but less effective transmission does not mean that there is no transmission.”

Warmer temperatures might make it harder for the coronavirus to survive in the air or on surfaces for long periods of time, but it could still be contagious for hours, if not days, Dr. Bukhari said.

Even seasonal viruses like influenza and the viruses that cause the common cold don’t completely disappear during summer. They are still present at low levels in many people’s bodies and in other parts of the world, biding their time until conditions are suitable for infections to spread again.

Some viruses have the opposite pattern. Polio and tuberculosis, for example, tend to spread faster in warmer climes. And some viruses may have no seasonal variation at all.

It will take another four to six weeks before health officials will have a clearer picture of how weather patterns shape the trajectory of the coronavirus, said Jarbas Barbosa, the assistant director at the Pan American Health Organization, the regional office of the World Health Organization that focuses on the Americas.

The fact that local transmission is happening across the global south signals that this virus may be more resilient to warmer temperatures than the flu and other respiratory viruses that spread across borders in the past. That is why W.H.O. officials still urge countries to act urgently and aggressively to try and contain the virus while case numbers are relatively low and close contacts can easily be traced and quarantined.

“One of the big perils in assuming that the virus is less dangerous in warmer temperatures, among particular ages or for any specific group is complacency,” said Julio Frenk, a physician who served as health minister in Mexico and is now president of the University of Miami. “If people fail to heed the warnings and recommendations of public health professionals, the results will be disastrous.”

But because high humidity and heat only align perfectly during mainly July and August in some parts of the Northern Hemisphere, Dr. Bukhari cautioned that the effects of warmer weather on reducing transmissions might only last for a brief period in some regions.

“This suggests that even if the spread of the coronavirus decreases at higher humidity, its effect would be limited for regions above 40 degrees North, which includes most of the Europe and North America,” he said.

And because so much is unknown, no one can predict whether the virus will return with such ferocity in the fall.

 

[Jonny]

 

[Vendrah]

Keep plotting, please! You have my attention to these graphs.

 

[21%]

Not sure if this has been posted, but I think this is the best argument I've found about what should be done at the moment -- as it considers both the cost of human life *and* the economic impact.

TL;DR version: the strategy is 'the hammer and the dance'. You 'hammer' down the curve with aggressive swiftness (strict do-not-leave-home orders), then you use that time to educate the public, prepare your health system, then you slowly let 'let go' cautiously. Drastic measures only need to last for weeks, not months, and you slowly ramp the economy back up. You also avoid mass death and health system crash.

Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance - Tomas Pueyo - Medium

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I hope this isn't turning into a fucking Cannon movie. Surely we could do better with our apocalypse than Golan-Globus.

 

[Red Herring]

Not sure if this has been posted, but I think this is the best argument I've found about what should be done at the moment -- as it considers both the cost of human life *and* the economic impact.

TL;DR version: the strategy is 'the hammer and the dance'. You 'hammer' down the curve with aggressive swiftness (strict do-not-leave-home orders), then you use that time to educate the public, prepare your health system, then you slowly let 'let go' cautiously. Drastic measures only need to last for weeks, not months, and you slowly ramp the economy back up. You also avoid mass death and health system crash.

Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance - Tomas Pueyo - Medium

Yes. I read that as well and think it is basically what they are trying to implement over here right now. There are relatively strict shutdown measures (though less than Italy now has) but they are likely to only last a few weeks (and the government has announced ample financial help - I might be eligible to get a few thousand Euros myself as a struggling solo freelancer)

 

[Virtual ghost]

Looking forward to warmer weather.

Warmer Weather May Slow, but Not Halt Coronavirus - The New York Times

While countries with equatorial climates and those in the Southern Hemisphere, currently in the middle of summer, have reported coronavirus cases, regions with average temperatures above 64.4 degrees Fahrenheit (or 18 degrees Celsius) account for fewer than 6 percent of global cases so far.

“Wherever the temperatures were colder, the number of the cases started increasing quickly,” said Qasim Bukhari, a computational scientist at M.I.T. who is a co-author of the study. “You see this in Europe, even though the health care there is among the world’s best.”

The temperature dependency is also clear within the United States, Dr. Bukhari said. Southern states, like Arizona, Florida and Texas, have seen slower outbreak growth compared with states like Washington, New York and Colorado. Coronavirus cases in California have grown at a rate that falls somewhere in between.

This could be questionable logic since in all of these examples generally have less developed healthcare system and often are much poorer. The fact is that if you have more developed healthcare system that basically means that more cases will be detected. While in fact you could have more cases in the warmer climate.



This is 3 hours old and in my book correlation between the stages of social development is the key factor. Where there are no real outbreaks ? Warzones and the poorest of the poor.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Yes. I read that as well and think it is basically what they are trying to implement over here right now. There are relatively strict shutdown measures (though less than Italy now has) but they are likely to only last a few weeks (and the government has announced ample financial help - I might be eligible to get a few thousand Euros myself as a struggling solo freelancer)

Same here, but perhaps somewhat stricter. Traveling between cities was suspended and into public transportation can enter only those who work in essential jobs that have to work (they got special ID). I mean the economy can wait for a month or two since at this point the most important priority is to contain this at low number of cases. Since the spread of pandemic is what we can't really afford.



Thus far there is only one official death and even for that one it is questionable what was the real cause of death, even if person was positive. Therefore the system holds very well based on all data presented. Especially if we count in strong earthquake in the capital (currently we don't even have a functional parliament building).



However what is somewhat funny is that we had a health minister that got into so many scandals that he had to leave. Therefore the current one had to step in and the media were like "Why are you even doing this ? The 85% of the mandate is over" or " Do you think there will be any time to implement any of your ideas?. While now the guy is basically our head of state.

 

[Grand Admiral Crunch]

This could be questionable logic since in all of these examples generally have less developed healthcare system and often are much poorer. The fact is that if you have more developed healthcare system that basically means that more cases will be detected. While in fact you could have more cases in the warmer climate.



This is 3 hours old and in my book correlation between the stages of social development is the key factor. Where there are no real outbreaks ? Warzones and the poorest of the poor.

Yeah, but what about within the United States? The Southern states have been doing better.....I believe that, this being a respiratory disease, would probably be in there with cold and flu season, which goes away to an extent with warmer weather.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Yeah, but what about within the United States? The Southern states have been doing better.....I believe that, this being a respiratory disease, would probably be in there with cold and flu season, which goes away to an extent with warmer weather.

That was exactly my point, south of US is generally less developed than the north. Of course there are number of other factors such how much cosmopolitan the place is, how much of a transportation hub, how private is the culture ... etc.


However based on everything I have seen the temperature isn't that much a factor, especially on the long run.

 

[SearchingforPeace]

Smoking or Vaping May Increase the Risk of a Severe Coronavirus Infection - Scientific American

 

[21%]

Smoking or Vaping May Increase the Risk of a Severe Coronavirus Infection - Scientific American

Yes, and this is worrying because so many teenagers vape now

 

[21%]

However based on everything I have seen the temperature isn't that much a factor, especially on the long run.

I agree. Hot weather might help 'slow' it, but it's not going to make that much of a difference. If the authorities keep dilly-dallying with the response it's not going to help whether your cases grow by 10% or 13%.