I'm wondering if that has happened in my county as well. Our (hospitalized) numbers have been rising daily for around a month and as of Wednesday hospitalized numbers dropped @20%. People were assuming these were recoveries although mum is the official word.
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Coronavirus
- Thread starter Wenche
- Start date
I'm wondering if that has happened in my county as well. Our (hospitalized) numbers have been rising daily for around a month and as of Wednesday hospitalized numbers dropped @20%. People were assuming these were recoveries although mum is the official word.
Dr. J
Active Member
Make that one of two OECD countries without a recognized authority....
The CDC Has Been on a Steady Decline. We’re Just Finally Noticing.
Regulatory agencies can be annoying sometimes, but bad things happen when they are crippled. The Deep Water Horizon happened a couple of years after the agency that is supposed to regulate the oil industry was slashed.
There is a book that came out about a year ago called It's Worse Than You Think about the damage done to the regulatory agencies just since Trump came to power. I haven't read it, but heard an interview on the radio with the authors. It was chilling. And a lot of this damage has been going on for almost 40 years. Budgets get cut, idiots get put in charge who drive off the competent people, other people try to hamstring the agencies at every turn.
bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
Testicles Can Suffer Damage From Coronavirus Without Actual Infection, Study Says
As if us guys need MORE bad news during the pandemic . . .
As if us guys need MORE bad news during the pandemic . . .
Germany has had several relatively large outbreaks in meat processing plants.
A study of one superspreading event (Preprint, not peer reviewed):
Investigation of a superspreading event preceding the largest meat processing plant-related SARS-Coronavirus 2 outbreak in Germany by Thomas Guenther, Manja Czech-Sioli, Daniela Indenbirken, Alexis Robitailles, Peter Tenhaken, Martin Exner, Matthias Ottinger, Nicole Fischer, Adam Grundhoff, Melanie Brinkmann :: SSRN
"Findings
Transmissions occurred in a confined area of a meat processing plant in which air is constantly re-circulated and cooled to 10°C. Index case B1 transmitted the virus to co-workers in a radius of more than 8 meters during work-shifts on 3 consecutive days. Assessment of viral sequences shows that all cases share a set of eight single nucleotide mutations representing a novel sub-branch in the SARS-CoV-2 C20 clade. We identified the same set of mutations in samples collected in the time period between the initial infection cluster and a subsequent outbreak in the following month, with the largest number of confirmed SARS-CoV-2 positive cases in a meat processing facility reported so far.
Interpretation
Our results indicate climate conditions and airflow as factors that can promote efficient spread of SARS-CoV-2 via distances of more than 8 meters and provide insights into possible requirements for pandemic mitigation strategies in industrial workplace settings."
Article accompanying the paper:
SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in German meat processing plant: Transmissions took place over long distances in air-conditioned working areas
"Our results indicate that the conditions within the deboning work area of the meat processing plant - namely the low temperature, low fresh air supply and constant air circulation through the air-conditioning system in the hall, together with hard physical work - promoted the aerosol transmission of SARS-CoV-2 particles over greater distances,” says Prof Adam Grundhoff, co-author of the study and research group leader at the HPI. “It is very likely that these factors in general play a significant role in the globally occurring outbreaks in meat or fish processing plants. Under these conditions, a distance of 1.5 to 3 meters alone is obviously not sufficient to prevent transmission."
A study of one superspreading event (Preprint, not peer reviewed):
Investigation of a superspreading event preceding the largest meat processing plant-related SARS-Coronavirus 2 outbreak in Germany by Thomas Guenther, Manja Czech-Sioli, Daniela Indenbirken, Alexis Robitailles, Peter Tenhaken, Martin Exner, Matthias Ottinger, Nicole Fischer, Adam Grundhoff, Melanie Brinkmann :: SSRN
"Findings
Transmissions occurred in a confined area of a meat processing plant in which air is constantly re-circulated and cooled to 10°C. Index case B1 transmitted the virus to co-workers in a radius of more than 8 meters during work-shifts on 3 consecutive days. Assessment of viral sequences shows that all cases share a set of eight single nucleotide mutations representing a novel sub-branch in the SARS-CoV-2 C20 clade. We identified the same set of mutations in samples collected in the time period between the initial infection cluster and a subsequent outbreak in the following month, with the largest number of confirmed SARS-CoV-2 positive cases in a meat processing facility reported so far.
Interpretation
Our results indicate climate conditions and airflow as factors that can promote efficient spread of SARS-CoV-2 via distances of more than 8 meters and provide insights into possible requirements for pandemic mitigation strategies in industrial workplace settings."
Article accompanying the paper:
SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in German meat processing plant: Transmissions took place over long distances in air-conditioned working areas
"Our results indicate that the conditions within the deboning work area of the meat processing plant - namely the low temperature, low fresh air supply and constant air circulation through the air-conditioning system in the hall, together with hard physical work - promoted the aerosol transmission of SARS-CoV-2 particles over greater distances,” says Prof Adam Grundhoff, co-author of the study and research group leader at the HPI. “It is very likely that these factors in general play a significant role in the globally occurring outbreaks in meat or fish processing plants. Under these conditions, a distance of 1.5 to 3 meters alone is obviously not sufficient to prevent transmission."
Dr. J
Active Member
We have a major political party devoted to the idea that government is the enemy and is thoroughly incompetent, and they try to prove it every time they are put in power. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Anyone who studied sociopathy or done any research on it or treated it clinically (I'm probably the only person on the forum who can say yes to all three of those things) who spent any time watching Trump's behavior could tell you that he is clearly and unequivocally a sociopath. Bear with me - this will be a longer post, but where the relevance to the COVID-19 crisis becomes clear.
First of all here are the criteria from the Mayo Clinic website - it should be obvious to anyone watching Trump, Putin, Balsonaro, Duterte, Erdoğan et al. that there is a very high overlap between authoritarian/autocratic leaders and sociopathy. Trump has frequently expressed his affection, admiration and preference for these types of 'strong' leaders, who, like himself, and his father presumably, were quite sociopathic. He trusts sociopaths, because he understands how they work, and he doesn't have to worry about any departure from transactional approaches, like, caring about what is right or wrong, that might make someone less predictable in a you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours deal. Those transactional types can be counted on to do unethical things, if that's part of the deal. Other less corrupt leaders cannot.
Overview
'Antisocial personality disorder', sometimes called sociopathy, is a disorder in which a person consistently shows no regard for right and wrong and ignores the rights and feelings of others. People with antisocial personality disorder tend to antagonize, manipulate or treat others harshly or with callous indifference. They show no guilt or remorse for their behavior. Individuals with antisocial personality disorder often violate the law. They may lie, behave violently or impulsively, and can have more frequent problems with drug and alcohol use.
Symptoms
Antisocial personality disorder signs and symptoms may include:
- Disregard for right and wrong
- Persistent lying or deceit to exploit others
- Being callous, cynical and disrespectful of others
- Using charm or wit to manipulate others for personal gain or personal pleasure
- Arrogance, a sense of superiority and being extremely opinionated
- Recurring problems with the law, including criminal behavior
- Repeatedly violating the rights of others through intimidation and dishonesty
- Impulsiveness or failure to plan ahead
- Hostility, significant irritability, agitation, aggression or violence
- Lack of empathy for others and lack of remorse about harming others
- Unnecessary risk-taking or dangerous behavior with no regard for the safety of self or others
- Poor or abusive relationships
- Failure to consider the negative consequences of behavior or learn from them
- Being consistently irresponsible and repeatedly failing to fulfill work or financial obligations
OK, so what does that have to do with COVID-19? Wouldn't strong authoritarian leadership make for a better public health response? One might think that (and China is a counter example of an authoritarian regime that has been on top of their response after a dismal start) but then that would require genuinely caring about people's suffering and death, not the strong suite of sociopaths, most of whom have taken a stance similar to Trump's position of poo-pooing the virus, and even suggesting that its a hoax, aimed at him.
Mexico, India, Russia, Brazil, and of course the US all suffer from poorly controlled outbreaks, mixed messaging, and even a real lack of interest on the part of their chief executives in containing COVID-19. Autocrats generally speaking also don't like the hard work involved in coordinating and leading a central/cohesive PH response because oftentimes they are easily bored with actual management work, feel highly entitled to the privileges of office without any sense of reciprocal obligation, and distrust scientists and experts as threats to their bully pulpit, and as less corruptible and less manipulable. Last but not least, they have a tendency to poor reality testing about threats, and as we see in Trump, heavy reliance on magical thinking that threats are simply going to disappear.
The results have been deadly. We are on course to have ~300,000 deaths by the end of 2020 - roughly .1% of the US population. We have only ourselves to blame. It's an open question whether we will throw Trump out, or whether he will steal, or simply invalidate, any election that might go against him. We are only about two feet from a full transition into an autocratic regime, if he succeeds in cancelling out the results of the election through the corrupt use of his office and the many levers of power, including now controlling the DOJ, the State Dept, and the Senate. Anyone who thinks that is only a remote risk is simply not seeing what is unfolding in public view, and has been for 3+ years. If Trump is allowed to remain in power, it is not impossible that the US would cross the threshold of 500,000 to 800,000 deaths sometime in 2021. If there is no cohesive PH approach to COVID-19 informed by real science, it is hard to see how we don't remain in a recession/depression for however long it might take us to generate an effective vaccine.
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Not necessarily true, as A/C removes a lot of particulate matter via trapping it with water vapor on the condenser (which then heads into a drain), and through any HEPA filtration that might be part of the air handler. Depends on the system, the flow rates relatively to total volume, a lot of variables.
linux-works
Active Member
for those that are looking for a nice pulse oximeter, here's one with bluetooth and it actually works:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B082WVBFGQ
cheap, as well! $25
look for the app called 'oxycare' Pulse Oximeter-Berry Electronic
I suspect this is using standard heart-rate monitor profile (I could pick it up with lightblue BLE scanner, etc).
I was going to hack one of these for its serial out, but hey, onboard BLE and it works. next, to try to configure a rasp pi system to listen to these broadcasts and datalog them locally, without the phone app.
the color display is also nice; not sure if true color oled or just filtered areas, but its nice and readable.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B082WVBFGQ
cheap, as well! $25
look for the app called 'oxycare' Pulse Oximeter-Berry Electronic
I suspect this is using standard heart-rate monitor profile (I could pick it up with lightblue BLE scanner, etc).
I was going to hack one of these for its serial out, but hey, onboard BLE and it works. next, to try to configure a rasp pi system to listen to these broadcasts and datalog them locally, without the phone app.
the color display is also nice; not sure if true color oled or just filtered areas, but its nice and readable.
scottf200
Well-Known Member
This RadioLab podcast 'Dispatches from 1918' covered a lot of ground and history (Pres. Wilson, war, etc, at the time) and only probably 1/2 of it was about the 1918 flu. It was excellent.
radiolab dispatches from 1918 - Google Search
Dispatches from 1918 | Radiolab | WNYC Studios
It’s hard to imagine what the world will look like when COVID-19 has passed. So in this episode, we look back to the years after 1918, at the political, artistic, and viral aftermath of the flu pandemic that killed between 50 and 100 million people and left our world permanently transformed.
radiolab dispatches from 1918 - Google Search
Dispatches from 1918 | Radiolab | WNYC Studios
It’s hard to imagine what the world will look like when COVID-19 has passed. So in this episode, we look back to the years after 1918, at the political, artistic, and viral aftermath of the flu pandemic that killed between 50 and 100 million people and left our world permanently transformed.
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bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
I would not limit that statement to the Senate . . . politicians as a whole. They simply vary by degrees.
Convincing the American public of that has become their one goal in office since about the mid-90s. Rick Wilson has pointed out that Democrats are good at policy and governing, but terrible at politics, and the Republicans are only good at politics and terrible at everything else.
My partner has never tried to treat people with personality disorders, but she has a masters in Psych and both her mother and her ex's brother had personality disorders (BPD mother and antisocial BIL). She saw Trump coming a million miles away. Her opinions are in line with yours. In the first chapter of her book Mary Trump (PhD Psych, experience working in a NY mental hospital, and first hand observation of Donald Trump) diagnoses her uncle with a Narcissistic PD, Antisocial PD, and Dependent PD. His NPD is so full blown he checks every box for diagnosis.
I've also observed that an authoritarian government is the worst possible government in a pandemic. The countries that have fared the best are those with fully functioning liberal democracies with leaders that know that their #1 job is the benefit of the people. The authoritarian leaders have fared the worst.
Depending on how much control the government has over the media controls how much information we know about their outbreaks. In the US most of the media is independent of government influence so we know quite a bit about how bad it is here. The US probably does have the worst outbreak in the world, but some of the other countries with controlled media still have bad outbreaks, they are controlling the media messaging, so we don't see the full picture. Additionally and leader, even an authoritarian mindset, with any modicum of competence is going to realize that just ignoring the outbreak leads to disaster and try to take measures to mitigate its spread within the limits of their healthcare system (some countries have primitive healthcare systems that are not up to the job of even a moderate outbreak). They may not talk about it in the media, but they do take measures.
For example the UK got bad because Boris Johnson wanted to ignore the problem, but once he and his cronies realized that hiding the ball wasn't going to work, they took measures to bring things under control and while their outbreak was one of the worst in Europe, they have brought the outbreak under control.
Germany on the other hand, while they have had problems here and there, have fared better than most countries. They have a literal scientist at the helm and a government that knows it exists for the benefit of the people.
This is what's going on in China. There are parts of China under lockdown now. If the government says anything about it, they claim it's for something other than COVID-19. Officially the only cases in the country are coming from people who are outsiders visiting China, but most people know the government is lying.
Another authoritarian move is to distract people with something else when they don't want people talking about a particular crisis. In China the government decided to crack down on Hong Kong, which will ultimately hurt them technologically and financially. They also have a banking crisis. They had a run on some banks a few weeks ago and the weather since June 1 has been very bad.
China usually gets a fringe of the Indian monsoon season. The wettest part of the year is usually mid-July to mid-August. This year the rains came early and came hard. They are seeing the worst flooding in modern times. They had bad floods in 1940, 1948, and 1998, but the floods have already exceeded all records from those years. the Three Gorges Dam is built for a normal water level of 145 meters, last week it hit 164 meters and the water goes over the top of the dam at 175 meters. Water inflow has been exceeding their max discharge rate for several weeks.
And to add insult to injury, the parts of China that aren't getting deluged with rain are getting none. People are concerned about massive crop failures this year. A large swath of farmland is under flood water and other farm land is producing nothing for lack of water.
In China there is an ancient belief that the leaders rule by the Mandate of Heaven. When the spirits decide that the current leadership is not up to the task, they withdraw their favor and there is a time of turmoil until the regime is replaced with someone new. There is a lot of talk about that in China right now. Posters appeared around Hong Kong referring to the Mandate of Heaven a few weeks ago, but those posters were declared illegal by the government.
But back to COVID, the Chinese have never done as well as they claim they did (it's estimated the real death toll in Wuhan was a few times higher than official numbers) and they still have active virus in the population now. But they are taking measures to try and control it, even if they aren't publicizing it. They also have other issues to fill headlines, both natural disasters and self inflicted ones.
The mark left from COVID-19 on the world will probably be more profound than the 1918 flu epidemic. COVID is a more dangerous infectious disease than the flu, most people in the developed world have never lived in a time when an infectious disease was killing large numbers of people, and the media is spreading the news far more than possible in 1918.
AlanSubie4Life
Efficiency Obsessed Member
While Trump is now going through the motions of saying the right things, it's pretty clear his heart is not in it. He just can't be sincere about it, and he has still has to get his digs in on the "China Virus."
Would have been nice to have this a few months ago, when we already knew pretty much everything we know now (at least the important stuff). Must be one of the biggest "own goals" in political history - Trump had a chance to cruise to re-election when the pandemic hit, but he decided not to do anything to counter the virus and ensure his re-election. I think it's too little too late now, though I suppose if things really get turned around in the next couple months he still has a chance. People have short memories I suppose.
What a total disaster. Another $2 trillion "down the drain" (it's essential, but was not inevitable for it to be essential).
Would have been nice to have this a few months ago, when we already knew pretty much everything we know now (at least the important stuff). Must be one of the biggest "own goals" in political history - Trump had a chance to cruise to re-election when the pandemic hit, but he decided not to do anything to counter the virus and ensure his re-election. I think it's too little too late now, though I suppose if things really get turned around in the next couple months he still has a chance. People have short memories I suppose.
What a total disaster. Another $2 trillion "down the drain" (it's essential, but was not inevitable for it to be essential).
Right now, in Hong Kong, even a blank piece of paper is deemed illegal and result in arrest.
There were no slogans and no words, only blank white sheets of paper, quivering in the hands of a few dozen Hong Kong residents standing in a shopping mall, saying nothing at all.
The police arrived in full riot gear, waving a flag that read: “You are in breach of the law.” They arrested eight people, searched others and dispersed the rest.
Respirators (masks) are designed to stop the particulates that can accumulate in the air sacs in the lung. From memory there is a minimum diameter users don't worry about because its too small to accumulate in the aveoli.
Back when this was discussed in class at uni (engineering), the class asked what about if the particulate were too small to accumulate in the lung, the lecturer responded something to effect that they would pass through the lung and not be our responsibility (workplace health) anymore. (Class focus was asbestos and silica)
Point is, generally respirators are designed to stop particulate pollutants from killing us via lung damage, which will be demonstrated upon autopsy. They are not intended to stop stuff that can pass through to the blood stream like paint fumes (that uses different tech like activated carbon etc).
Airconditioning drys and preserves the virus, drying evaporates the moisture away reducing particle diameter, changing it from droplet form to aerosol.
Aerosol are much harder to filter, the finer they are, the deeper into the lungs they flow. When they are fine enough, they will go straight through the mask no problem.
Perhaps disposable masks with some funky electro-static may help, but generally, in aircon, masks are highly insufficient, and dilution/filtration is the only effective solution. Which means the NO to air recirulation.
These type of masks were popular at work. (Eye safety is compulsory to wear, lung safety is primarily by non PPE means, but respiratory PPE is freely supplied and encouraged and must be on the body whilst tagged on.)
Anyway, this mask's key competitive feature is that its the easiest respirator to leave in the pocket.....
(Eye safety PPE trumps respirator, and masks do fog up glasses in humid environments where people do manual work, workers could be sacked if they were not wearing safety glasses.)
scottf200
Well-Known Member
Haven't had a chance, but probably will before bed tonight.
Ughh. Our county of 92k lost 5 more people yesterday. Sooo many people are still masking at the last second walking into stores, I'm sure only because they have to. And 2020 won't quit, she's added a possible hurricane just south of us. Time to mask up and go to work, you know, being 'essential' and all....
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