Coronavirus

[Causalien]

Since the virus doesn't seem to last more than 3 days on cardboard and plastic why not just let a mask sit for 3 days after use? Assuming you aren't going out more than once every 3 days.

Here are some of the precautions I've taken with my masks.

N95 masks: Rotation of 9 masks. One per day. Bake on 170 degree F upon returning for 1 hour or more with the oven door slightly open. Then spray 75% alcohool and left to dry by the window. Reuse until 8 hours is up or 4 hours if used in heavy duty job where it gets really moist.

Surgical mask. Same procedure, but without the oven baking. Mostly for going to places that are not very crowded. Discard after 2 uses. Also as a second layer outside n95 if going into very contaminated places.( discard if this is the case). I have a steady supply of these from family members so I am more liberal in using these.

But most of the time now I just stay home and not use them.

 

[Causalien]

Because this is a new threat, we are combatting it more aggressively than we do all existing threats of a similar morbidity. We don’t lock down the country for the flu, we don’t restrict alcohol more, even though it is directly responsible for so many deaths, etc

What would a policy look like if our goal was just to keep the morbidity in line with other causes?

Rather than lock down whole states, we might lock down only cities where there are fast spreading cases. And put reasonable travel restrictions between places. For sure, this less aggressive policy would mean that the virus would spread to a lot more places, and the overall death rate would be much higher, but not higher than other causes.

The economic and social toll of a less aggressive policy would be massively less destructive than what we are heading towards with state-wide shelter-in-place orders.

In the end, a society needs to balance harm vs cost of cure. In this case we’ve decided to solve for minimum deaths, but that is contrary to the way we solve for every other threat to human life.

We claim we are taking the more aggressive policies to “flatten the curve”, but locking down huge swaths of regions where there are few cases goes beyond flattening the curve. It is really a policy to minimize total deaths from this one cause of death, at whatever the cost to the economy and the human condition generally.

I'd look towards Japan. Low death rate. No draconian lockdown in place.

Masks is the answer.

China's spread was probably also exacerbated by the fact that the Chinese do not like to wear masks when compared to the rest of the SE asia. It is seen as "weak".

 

[Causalien]

These 2 charts are both scary:
the logarithmic scale allegedly shows how the rate of the spread is increasing/stable in US and slowing in Italy.
Still, I don't really trust Italian data, so take with a grain of salt.
On the other hand, if data from US are reliable they are worrying.

View attachment 523966


Source: A Different Way to Chart the Spread of Coronavirus

I read somewhere that the Italian medical staffs have almost stopped counting the dead cause it is too many. I am pretty sure many slipped by because of how exhausted they are.

 

[bkp_duke]

2 Things happen;

1) You reduce the rate of infection giving healthcare infrastructure a chance to catchup (flatten the curve)

2) You may reduce the number of infections to a low enough level that contact tracing and individual quarantine is effective. This appears to be the case in Wuhan now since they've gone 3 days with no new infections.

The leaks in social media out of China do not fit the party line of no infections. Take everything China, Russia, and North Korea says about this outbreak with a boulder-sized grain of salt.

 

[BornToFly]

I just heard this morning that the death rate for health care workers in Italy is now 8%. A very scary number.

 

[bkp_duke]

That's literally how every other pandemic has ended. SARS and MERS weren't declared gone after they had tested millions of people. They were declared gone after a period of time had elapsed since the last confirmed case. Far longer than 14 days but not with testing.

Testing has a role.... it's just not in testing an entire city to see if anyone is still sick.

This is not REMOTELY comparable to SARS and MERS, aside from them being coronaviruses.

The R0 is different, VERY different.

Those viruses were so deadly in combination with containment they viruses literally burned themselves out.

SARS-CoV-2 is not as lethal, and now that it has shown to have asymptomatic viral shedding, is a VERY different beast.

The closest valid comparison would be a pandemic influenza strain, not SARS and MERS.

 

[bkp_duke]

Elon Musk: Should Have 1000 Ventilators Next Week, + 250,000 N95 Masks For Hospitals Tomorrow — CleanTechnica Exclusive | CleanTechnica

A thousand ventilators next week? I think Elon's forgotten the underpromise, overdeliver thing again.

That's a lot of masks to just have lying around, isn't it?

Erm, where are the people that were criticizing me when I said Tesla could ramp up ventilator production quickly?

 

[Dash-8]

How many of you wash your fresh fruit and vegetables with soap and water before eating ?

We do - Vegi Wash, which has soap in it, so hopefully of some benefit. Unfortunately also now hard to get.

Greatly appreciate the reasonable signal to noise ratio on this discussion, and thanks to the folks providing real science, insight, and ideas.

From my MIT alumni discussion, the following seems like good home/essential outing best practices (written by PhD microbiologist) - https://bewitchingkitchen.com/2020/03/16/covid19-keeping-yourself-safe/

 

[tinm]

I'd look towards Japan. Low death rate. No draconian lockdown in place.

Masks is the answer.

China's spread was probably also exacerbated by the fact that the Chinese do not like to wear masks when compared to the rest of the SE asia. It is seen as "weak".

This Twitter thread below doesn’t jibe with your observation about Chinese perception of weakness re wearing masks. I highly recommend reading this short thread: it’s a first-hand account of an Oxford postdoc and (I believe) his Chinese wife flying from Heathrow in UK to Beijing. Really illuminating esp re masks in China. Stark diff with attitudes in, say, in US.

Lukas Hensel on Twitter

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Erm, where are the people that were criticizing me when I said Tesla could ramp up ventilator production quickly?

Um, I don't believe they're being manufactured by Tesla. Elon just sourced them from China

 

[bkp_duke]

We should all be concerned that the spring breakers, cruse ship passengers are heading home ( some escorted by the National Guard ) . A local report said that Dobbins AFB had to take in 500 passengers from that cruse ship instead of the earlier reported 34. Time to move them on to make room for the new cases.

A family member who is in the medical profession reminded us that the 'regular sanitizers' that are sold in stores when they have supplies , are not capable of killing viruses only bacteria.

You should not take advice from that family "medical profession" - they are wrong.

Both soap and water, and alcohol-based hand sanitizers will kill SARS-CoV-2 nicely.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

The leaks in social media out of China do not fit the party line of no infections. Take everything China, Russia, and North Korea says about this outbreak with a boulder-sized grain of salt.

Korea exists. It's a large nation 1/6 the size of the US that was hit hard and essentially stopped CV without lockdowns.

Why does everyone insist on glossing over this clear example of how it's done?

 

[bkp_duke]

Because this is a new threat, we are combatting it more aggressively than we do all existing threats of a similar morbidity. We don’t lock down the country for the flu, we don’t restrict alcohol more, even though it is directly responsible for so many deaths, etc

What would a policy look like if our goal was just to keep the morbidity in line with other causes?

Rather than lock down whole states, we might lock down only cities where there are fast spreading cases. And put reasonable travel restrictions between places. For sure, this less aggressive policy would mean that the virus would spread to a lot more places, and the overall death rate would be much higher, but not higher than other causes.

The economic and social toll of a less aggressive policy would be massively less destructive than what we are heading towards with state-wide shelter-in-place orders.

In the end, a society needs to balance harm vs cost of cure. In this case we’ve decided to solve for minimum deaths, but that is contrary to the way we solve for every other threat to human life.

We claim we are taking the more aggressive policies to “flatten the curve”, but locking down huge swaths of regions where there are few cases goes beyond flattening the curve. It is really a policy to minimize total deaths from this one cause of death, at whatever the cost to the economy and the human condition generally.

This is simple math. Sorry, but your entire premise is wrong.

The flu when left to run rampant kills 50-100,000 people per year in the US.

ALL statistical models show that if SARS-CoV-2 is allowed to run rampant in the US, we are looking at 2+ million deaths.

This virus is at least an order of magnitude more lethal than influenza, and should be treated as such.

Also - with influenza we have antivirals that can reduce the morbidity and mortality of the virus, and we have a vaccine that unless you are some nutjob anti-vaxer you can take that will reduce transmission. Neither of those options exist with SARS-CoV-2.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Erm, where are the people that were criticizing me when I said Tesla could ramp up ventilator production quickly?

Here! Show me some proof that this is actual production of masks and not imported or made elsewhere and I'll eat my words.

And as far as ventilators go, same thing, and if they really make them in house, will/can any hospital use them since they haven't been tested properly for such critical care?

 

[Open Interest]

[

How hard have you looked ?
Given a choice, N95 is preferred but a simple surgical mask is a massive improvement over wearing nothing

If this is true, would a homemade mask with several layers of cotton treated with, say, bleach spray or alcohol, provide any sort of increased protection for a quick grocery run?

Edited to get comment out of quote box

 

[deonb]

Italy:
6557 new cases (13.94%)
793 new deaths

 

[X Fan]

Latest Florida Stats:
Case load hasn't exploded yet (and number of deaths is still low which is encouraging given the aged impacted) but the number of hospitalizations is worrisome. Please note age distribution; high number of 20-50 case being uncovered.

btw: NY State is now over 10,000 cases with around 75% from NYC alone.

Gov, Cuomo comment: "The state has now performed 45,437 tests, more than the 23,200 done in California and the 23,343 in Washington State, where the nation’s initial outbreak was identified."

 

[byeLT4]

How about a spritz of alcohol?

I try, but I always end up finishing off the bottle......

 

[CSFTN]

..... if a population goes 14 days without a new infection it's gone from that population....

Assuming there's no reservoir maybe that's true. We will find out

 

[bhzmark]

would a homemade mask with several layers of cotton treated with, say, bleach spray or alcohol, provide any sort of increased protection for a quick grocery run?

Simple Respiratory Mask: Simple Respiratory Mask

This is recommended by WHO for use when commercial respirators aren't available and people have to make intelligent informed decisions with the limited information or materials that they have available to try to save lives now versus sitting on their hands looking up SOC.

But there are no RCTs in Nature on this, so it is probably another bitcoin scam.