Science-based, no politics COVID-19 thread

[Sangram]

I agree that a lot of people are not considerate and hygenic, but this is a highly infectious virus. I will assume if I am in the same room with an infected person just breathing then I have a good chance of getting it.

That depends on the viral load of the infected patient and your proximity and duration of proximity to them. It's not guaranteed but likely.

Talking of GI tract, there is some logical merit in testing sewage water as the US is planning. It can help identifying clusters and possibly even early asymptomatic patients, if we can scale it down to some sort of personal test.

Since the virus binds to the ACE-2 receptor in the ovuli, there is a faint possibility of using a receptor on some sort of stable substrate, but I fear the kind of viral load required to activate such a test is significantly higher than would be present in a stage 1 patient.

Vomit is less of an issue than expulsion during intubation. Vomit is still liquid suspension, which means tendency to spread is low. The most dangerous is thought to be aerosol, where the residue becomes small enough to penetrate masks.

Ferret, I suspect the social situation is similar in most places around the world. One can only hope that the circumstances forcing a change in behaviour are not needed long-term for people to retain that good behaviour, which is wishful thinking but one can hope.

The crook of the elbow can be used as an alternative when a handkerchief is too soggy to cough into, or simply not available. Coughing into a soggy paper or cloth will release a large viral load anyway.

 

[chris719]

That depends on the viral load of the infected patient and your proximity and duration of proximity to them. It's not guaranteed but likely.

Talking of GI tract, there is some logical merit in testing sewage water as the US is planning. It can help identifying clusters and possibly even early asymptomatic patients, if we can scale it down to some sort of personal test.

Since the virus binds to the ACE-2 receptor in the ovuli, there is a faint possibility of using a receptor on some sort of stable substrate, but I fear the kind of viral load required to activate such a test is significantly higher than would be present in a stage 1 patient.

Vomit is less of an issue than expulsion during intubation. Vomit is still liquid suspension, which means tendency to spread is low. The most dangerous is thought to be aerosol, where the residue becomes small enough to penetrate masks.

Ferret, I suspect the social situation is similar in most places around the world. One can only hope that the circumstances forcing a change in behaviour are not needed long-term for people to retain that good behaviour, which is wishful thinking but one can hope.

The crook of the elbow can be used as an alternative when a handkerchief is too soggy to cough into, or simply not available. Coughing into a soggy paper or cloth will release a large viral load anyway.

I'll defer to any clinical experience you have, but we know from studies involving norovirus that vomit is actually really good at transmitting it via fomites and does create aerosol droplets.

Norovirus Can Go Airborne When Infected Person Vomits: Study – WebMD

Airborne or Fomite Transmission for Norovirus? A Case Study Revisited

 

[ferret]

I grew up in your beautiful country. And in certain aspects of life there. I just love the respect that there is for others. I find people generally courteous and friendly in South Africa compared to Europe. Anyway...its not that I disagree with your statement...Just wanted to add my own experience.

Hi Bas,
Indeed a beautiful country, thank you. Unfortunately times have changed (don't know when you were here) but the population has grown immensely the last 20 years. The younger generation, but specifically some of the political groups, are the ones who have the "FU, I don't care and I'm entitled because I was previously disadvantaged" attitude. Sad but unfortunately happens.


But back to the science... We can only hope that there is a break-point somewhere along the road. There are many scientists doing a lot of work on this, we can only hope that they are successful. I can only wish the best for all health care people around the world.

 

[Bas Horneman]

don't know when you were here)

January this year. And I'm aware of the demographics of those with troublesome (and counterproductive) attitudes.

We can only hope that there is a break-point somewhere along the road

For now we can mostly help by flattening the curve. Referring to South Africa and Italy. I can't help but think that the way Italian cities are built.... With many narrow streets without sunlight (I.e. uv that kills virusses)..must have exarecebated or helped the spread. South Africa has much stronger UV in their sunlight...and even in townships no high buildings/houses with long narrow streets funneling and shielding the virus in the breath droplets.

 

[chris719]

But back to the science... We can only hope that there is a break-point somewhere along the road. There are many scientists doing a lot of work on this, we can only hope that they are successful. I can only wish the best for all health care people around the world.

Yes, I really do not envy healthcare workers right now. If there are any silver linings to come out of this disaster, hopefully one will be greater appreciation for those that do the dirty work every day.

 

[DMLBES]

Yes, I really do not envy healthcare workers right now. If there are any silver linings to come out of this disaster, hopefully one will be greater appreciation for those that do the dirty work every day.

Although they do the dirty work at least they are employed. Many people are unemployed with business shutting down bankruptcy and struggling to pay the rent/mortgage and utilities its almost world record.

 

[sottomano]

The spanish center of epidemiology has made very interesting statistics available.
https://www.isciii.es/QueHacemos/Se...oMo2020/MoMo_Situación a 30 de marzo_CNE.pdf

It displays the "excess deaths" vs the estimated deaths (from statistical data), and there are some really high spikes, especially in some regions.

The following has been translated by DeepL (first two pages of the document)

Monitoring of excess mortality from all causes. MoMo
Situation at 30 March 2020
The Daily Mortality Monitoring System (MoMo) in Spain uses the information from All-cause mortality is obtained daily from 3929 computerized civil registries of the Ministry of Justice, corresponding to 92% of the Spanish population and including all provinces.
Estimates of expected mortality are made using restrictive models of historical means based on observed mortality from 1 January 2008 to one year prior to the current date.
Deaths observed in the last 28 days are corrected for delayed reporting, taking into account three factors:
the number of deaths reported daily, the distribution of deaths
reported daily and the average number of deaths per day, applying a regularization to the estimation by maximum likelihood.

Results at national level

At the national level, a period of excess is estimated by the MoMo system from 18 to 29 March 2020. The results are described below.

Figure 1. Mortality from all causes observed and expected Spain, December 2019 to 30 March 2020
Observed deaths (black) and estimated deaths (blue), with the confidence interval at 99% (blue band)
Daily Mortality Surveillance. National Centre for Epidemiology (ISCIII) 2
Table 1 shows the estimates of excess mortality during the period of excess.

Table 1. Observed, estimated and excess deaths from all causes, for the entire population, by sex and by
age groups.
Spain, 18-29 March 2020.

population obs N est N exc N exc %
all 17613 13576 4037 29.7
men 9317 6788 2530 37.3
women 7799 6488 1311 20.2
age < 65 1947 1862 84 4.5
age 65-74 2463 1880 584 31.0
age > 74 13209 9846 3363 34.2

obs N: number of deaths observed in the period between the start and end date of excess
est N: number of estimated deaths, in the period between the start and end date of the excess
exc N: number of excess deaths (observed above estimates)
exc %: percentage of excess deaths

Translated with DeepL Translator (free version)

 

[Sangram]

The statistics for age-related mortality for our country is significantly more skewed. IIRC the excess deaths in the >65 age category account for over 80% of COVID-related deaths so far.

Given the low infection numbers observed at this point, it is not possible to make any meaningful analysis of all-cause mortality in any age bracket (we have less than 40 deaths as of today and some of those are foreign citizens).

 

[wintermute]

There is a very good reason why the rules say:

Some threads become repetitive or conflict prone. The moderation team will, at its discretion, close these threads. Starting a new thread to discuss the same topic is prohibited. Posting material from or about a closed thread is also prohibited.

At times like this we want to see the best of people not the worst. This thread is now closed.

 

[anatech]

Major cleanup of this thread has been done.

 

[Pano]

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