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#842
I tend to avoid old "Pink Panther" movies. Portsmouth's finest son Peter Sellers gets under my skin beyond a certain point. I make no apology for coming from the "POSH" end of the spectrum. Vilify me if you will! 😀

We were taught to wash our hands after using the bathroom. And never touch your face.

All sound advice in our current crisis!

This Covid-19 thing is a bit of a worry. Stock Market down 25%. £ crashed 10% even against the wretched Euro. Which I plain don't understand.

As a retired 65-y-o "Old Boy" with a 2% potential death rate due to coronavirus, I couldn't care less about the economy any more. I've paid my dues. But for you youngies, "It's the Economy, Stupid!"

If you think about all the potential scenarios of "The End of the World", this one is quite mild. Certainly less than Meteor Impact. Stay Healthy! 🙂
 
#843
Sean, maybe you could further explain something. It seems many persons here are under the impression that bleach, alcohol and other products are killing the virus. As I understand it, there is nothing to kill as viruses aren't alive to begin with. They are the equivalent of a seed. They are inert until planted. They are not organisms, they are viruses. RNA surrounded by a protein and protected by a lipid layer. Bleach and alcohol kill organisms whereby soaps and detergent break down the lipid layer, thereby exposing to protein to begin the degradation. Am I on the right track?
 
#844
economy will bounce after the confinment, people applaud everywhere at 20 pm to thanks people that works for food, medical, supplychain, public transport to allow these people to work in the serious lock downed countries. Notice the poorest that work are the most exposed as the retired people indeed, I assume after being in jail for few weeks one want to purchase things, travel again, have projects. Danger is more for the little enterprises or individual workers. But firstly one hs to stay alive first as repeat and repeat the people in the middle of the crisis.


Tank you number 7, stay healthy as well 🙂
 
#845
Charles Darwin said:
You didn't watch it did you?

It'll remain anecdotal until there are double blind tests and he does mention that but as good as leads to treatment are these days this is it. No time to peer-review papers and double blind tests but first do no harm.
And that is the stage at which they are: Making sure of no harm before trials proper commence.
However Germany published a list of drugs that are in low supply and hydroxychloroquin was one of them. One could speculate that for some reason they are using a lot of it...
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Assumptions, the mother of all f??? ups?
 
#846
Cal Weldon said:
As I understand it, there is nothing to kill as viruses aren't alive to begin with.
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The minimum definition if something is alive or not is: Does it replicate?

If it does it can be considered 'alive'.


There was some arguing back and forth if the prion which caused Mad Cow Disease was alive or not since it did replicate in some way. Was never really answered or I missed it.

Anyway with regards to viruses destroying = killing it.
If it can be killed or not is not a useful discussion really. We must stop it replicating and it makes no difference if you call that process killing or destroying it or anything else.
 
#847
it's not a suitable definition. Try to persist, survive is nearer but doesn't suffice yet.

Look at blobs for instance. Perhaps the word "active" would be more acurate for virus, but a virus is also a parasit form... so still alive as he is till active ?


@ System7 you mean raw with ketchup ? Cause bats, frogs, snails, insects are ok in many culture when coocked with heat, boiled, etc : we come from that ! But raw fisch, meat, oysters can be dangerous indeed (too bad, we like sashimi, thin beef layets with olive oil and lemon, etc ! )... but take care about faeces and droppings in the jungle on vegetables, fruts
 
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#848
Bonsai said:
Be nice if someone could develop a spit test for this. ‘Spit in the jar wait 10 minutes, if it goes purple you have it’ kind of thing.

The immunology/virology guys will be laughing at my naïveté. . .
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Actually, the antibodies that they are developing to bind to the viral proteins will be used for applications like this. Less accurate technically, much much faster though.
 
#850
These are extraordinary times, my friends! 🙂

We have no horse-racing, no Soccer or Baseball or drinkin' in pubs to distract us, 😕

We are just stuck with this dreary Covid-19 Virus. 🙁

TBH, I want to break out. We can't even officially give a Friend a hug.

My only plan to build a great speaker in these frazzled times.

Big Shout Out to my friend Bill Bryson. A Short History Of Nearly Everything (Bryson): Amazon.co.uk: Bryson, Bill: 9780552997041: Books

He came from Des Moines to us. So far, so good. 🙂
 
#851
In my non-medical-educated mind, I'd think that something that would be really valuable would be to have a test that could show if someone already has already had Covid-19, but has recovered (with immunity). So people could know if they are safe to go help people who are or might be infected with it. Give a little more distance for people who might still be susceptible to it. Or is that not possible, or maybe not all that useful?
 
#853
bwaslo said:
In my non-medical-educated mind, I'd think that something that would be really valuable would be to have a test that could show if someone already has already had Covid-19, but has recovered (with immunity). So people could know if they are safe to go help people who are or might be infected with it. Give a little more distance for people who might still be susceptible to it. Or is that not possible, or maybe not all that useful?
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It’s difficult imagine anything more useful short of an actual vaccine or medication. These immune people could be pressed into service and trained to perform all manner of essential services. Ambulance drivers, hospital workers and just about any job that requires close contact with the public.
 
#854
DPH said:
Yeah strong UV (sunlight like you get in Phoenix) is a pretty effective way to broadly damage DNA/RNA, beyond a point which repair mechanisms can fix. That said, I'd be reluctant to treat a box left out in the sun as disinfected, as you're not getting 100% coverage (illumination). It helps for sure, but please open outdoors/gloves (or wash hands immediately after removing objects).

As far as raw produce, a thorough rinse wash will remove a lot, especially if you can use a mild soap. Cook as much of it as you can rather than raw. I don't know of any numbers published about SARS-COV-2 life time on surface other than copper/plastic/stainless/cardboard to give you a better idea. I haven't read any stories suggesting that fruit/vegetables themselves have been attributed to transmission, but that's hardly definitive as this diseases case load explodes globally and would be nigh impossible to do that kind of investigation.

This is the best info I can give to this end:
Food Safety and the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) | FDA
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Thanks for that link. It is, unfortunately, on par with most of the guidance from the US federal government; either conflicted or quick to pass the buck on to the local level.
 
#855
Cal Weldon said:
Sean, maybe you could further explain something. It seems many persons here are under the impression that bleach, alcohol and other products are killing the virus. As I understand it, there is nothing to kill as viruses aren't alive to begin with. They are the equivalent of a seed. They are inert until planted. They are not organisms, they are viruses. RNA surrounded by a protein and protected by a lipid layer. Bleach and alcohol kill organisms whereby soaps and detergent break down the lipid layer, thereby exposing to protein to begin the degradation. Am I on the right track?
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The answer is all about semantics. What is alive? Hard line biologists give all sorts of answers that get more and more complicated as we learn more. Great article on the madness by the BBC.
BBC - Earth - There are over 100 definitions for 'life' and all are wrong
Here's my answer, it doesn't matter. They say viruses are not living because they aren't cells, they can't replicate on their own, they can't make any of their own molecules. But again, I say to my biologist colleagues, so what? They are made of all the same things. They are little von Neumann machines, just like us. The only real difference is that we can make more of ourselves from raw materials, they need a host as a factory.

That said, what you said is almost entirely correct. They could be thought of like seeds, although they don't grow. Thy just make lots of other seeds. But they are completely inert unless they come into contact with their necessary environment. In this case, that's us.

Bleach oxidizes things to oblivion, soaps (surfactants) destroy lipid membranes and denature proteins, alcohols do a little of both. But that's how you kill all Earth life. So why not say, "kill the virus"? There is no clear definition of death once you get down cellularly. Loss of lipid layer? Degradation of proteins? Which proteins, they all last way differently. The DNA and RNA can last long after the cell itself is gone. Life is weird when you really look. We often refer to viruses as active or viable, and inactive or dead depending on how colloquial we are being.
 
#856
Engineered virus.

I'd stated earlier that I didn't think a virus could be engineered. I'd forgotten an article I'd read about 20 years ago. It came back to me today as I'm reading a science fiction novel about a apocalyptic future after a genetically engineered paramyxovirus that wipes out 96% of people (of course there are aliens and ecoterrorists and spaceflight etc...)

Ok, this one is my gift to the tinfoil hat brigade! 😉

An Australian research team has accidentally created a lethal mousepox virus, and it is feared the technology could be used in biowarfare. Ron Jackson of CSIRO's wildlife division and Ian Ramshaw at the Australian National University, both in Canberra, were trying to make a mouse contraceptive vaccine for pest control. They inserted a gene for IL-4 into the mousepox virus, which was used to infect mouse eggs. The aim was to boost the antibody response against the mouse eggs, but in fact it totally suppressed the cell-mediated immune response, killing the mice within nine days. Normally, the mousepox virus would cause only mild symptoms, but with the IL-4 gene inserted, it was deadly. Furthermore, in mice that had been vaccinated, only half survived injection of the manipulated mousepox. This has raised fears that new vaccines produced by genetic manipulation of viruses, with the aim of treating disease, could potentially create lethal human viruses. J. Virol. (2001) 75, 1205–1210. HM
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Have fun with it guys.
 
#857
Captn Dave said:
Or die with. Seriously, think about what you are saying. There are four of us in the room with a pistol and one bullet. I tell you the rules: First we will draw straws. The unlucky one with the short straw picks up the gun, places the end of the barrel to his temple and pulls the trigger. Do you care to play?

If not, why not? That’s a 24-1 chance.
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Unfortunately, it's these sorts of questions that make circumstances so difficult. It's made even worse by the severe age dependency on illness severity. It's less, "how much do you care about 1/50 people", but more "how much do you care about about 1/10 people over 50".
 
#859
Just heard that there is a test that doesn't need to go off to a lab, and will give back results in 45 mins that has been approved for use in hospitals etc.. Good news and a step forward at least.

I work in an essential service part of the medical system, dealing with all the medical waste that hospitals, clinics, dental, veterinary, medical research, fishery and wildlife etc produce. So I guess even with all our protocol there is a chance I could get it. I'm not worried as much as I am about the ramifications of a potential long term food supply and fuel shortage. Dunno I probably shouldn't have posted as I've been purposely avoiding these sorts of threads.. Mostly wanted to share the news of the 45 min testing.
 
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