Coronavirus

[nwdiver]

One of these things is not like the others; One of these things is pathetically FUBAR....

 

[SMAlset]

All right then. What is the function of hand sanitizers? Does it kill? if so why not use them to disinfect the masks?

@outdoors - Since you rated my post funny, I am guessing you may be a very smart dude, but help this ignoramus here. What is the function of hand sanitizers?

I'm not sure but I believe hand santiizers have a high percentage of alcohol in them and the alcohol will from what I've read adversely affect the masks, making them less effective. Read a few stories on testing the disinfecting techniques tried of things like concentrated hydrogen peroxide spray on them, UV light etc. From reading the N95 masks are electrically charged which is what traps the smaller particles inside the mask before entering your air passages, reducing that charge would make them similar to cloth masks and not sufficent for hospital settings. Doctors/lab people correct this if I'm mistaken.

 

[outdoors]

@outdoors - Since you rated my post funny, I am guessing you may be a very smart dude, but help this ignoramus here. What is the function of hand sanitizers?

I think you answered the question. Hand Sanitizer is for hands. So I find it funny someone would consider rubbing that with all the lubricants and smells to a mask.

I have seen many of this. Baptist health uses a robot. 5 minutes on each side of mask.

 

[SMAlset]

I think even UV will break the masks down, but slower process in doing so, and enable reuse of a few times.

I've been interested in the results of disinfecting as for a home user and without access to any additional masks that I have and given to my mom to use, it does concern me about reuse. I don't think I've seen any articles with test results for masks put out in the sunlight.

I know there are different wavelengths for UV light bulb/tubes sold and wondering if someone has a UV blacklight (for GID purposes like at halloween time) there would be any benefit to using those type of lamps. Anyone?

I saw this TV Fox61 news story online about a company, Avon, that makes a product called ReadyDock that utilizes UV light to sanitize. Avon company ReadyDock using UV light to sanitize surgical masks amid COVID-19 pandemic (incl. Interview video with CEO/founder and demonstrates how it works).

 

[winfield100]

Addendum:
I tried to understand this. Since you can see yellow, I conclude that you have an approximately equal (but not complete) deficiency in red and green cones. If that is correct then you can see blue, and the color gamut that is a mixture of red and green screen colors that do not have blue admixed. E.g., can you see orange and lime ?

@SageBrush
Orange and lime yes, preferably bright light

 

[Norbert]

I only bothered to start posting here to point out the mortality rate in that original Imperial College was flat out wrong. And it was.

I must have missed that, or not remember. When did we come to that conclusion? Could you link to a specific post, please?

 

[MXLRplus]

I think you answered the question. Hand Sanitizer is for hands. So I find it funny someone would consider rubbing that with all the lubricants and smells to a mask.

I have seen many of this. Baptist health uses a robot. 5 minutes on each side of mask. View attachment 529326

Costco Racks - Is there ANYTHING they cannot accomplish?

 

[Cherry Wine]

California Dept. of Public Health reports that they are down to only 13,000 pending tests (from approximately 60,000 earlier this week).

Great to see the backlog getting cleared.

State Officials Announce Latest COVID-19 Facts

 

[SMAlset]

So a group of doctors have worked out a way to use CPAP machines (like the ones Tesla was told could be donated and did) to use as ventilators in the ICU. Story in TechCrunch (you might have to scroll to see):

Sleep apnea retrofit designed by doctors and engineers could help address ventilator shortage – TechCrunch

Website of company collecting CPAPs for conversion:
VENTILATOR SOS

Forbes had an article today "Health Officials Say 'Ventilators' Donated by Tesla Are Wrong Type and Not Powerful Enough", Bill Roberson, 4/4/20, 3pm EDT That angles to show that what Tesla provided was useless and also goes on to say this type of ventilator may have harmed people in the Washington nursing home situation, which clearly makes Tesla and Elon look bad from a casual uninformed read. The writer contributes stories for Cars & Bikes for Forbes. Someone should educate him about the above. Don't see a comment section to the article. Here's the story.

Health Officials Say ‘Ventilators’ Donated By Tesla Are Wrong Type And Not Powerful Enough

 

[Open Interest]

California Dept. of Public Health reports that they are down to only 13,000 pending tests (from approximately 60,000 earlier this week).

Great to see the backlog getting cleared.

State Officials Announce Latest COVID-19 Facts

Wow, that’s good news and pretty amazing. They worked through that backlog fast!

 

[eevee-fan]

Were we warned in 2009 too?

Zombieland - Wikipedia

 

[SageBrush]

Forbes had an article today "Health Officials Say 'Ventilators' Donated by Tesla Are Wrong Type and Not Powerful Enough", Bill Roberson, 4/4/20, 3pm EDT That angles to show that what Tesla provided was useless and also goes on to say this type of ventilator may have harmed people in the Washington nursing home situation, which clearly makes Tesla and Elon look bad from a casual uninformed read. The writer contributes stories for Cars & Bikes for Forbes. Someone should educate him about the above. Don't see a comment section to the article. Here's the story.

Health Officials Say ‘Ventilators’ Donated By Tesla Are Wrong Type And Not Powerful Enough

The website says they are optimistic that their solution will be available in 2 - 4 weeks.

I looked for details of the solution on their website but cannot find it. That is not a good sign but the group is real so it is worth following along. I can imagine using a jerry rigged BiPAP machine for some patients. CPAP no

 

[deonb]

Forbes had an article today "Health Officials Say 'Ventilators' Donated by Tesla Are Wrong Type and Not Powerful Enough", Bill Roberson, 4/4/20, 3pm EDT That angles to show that what Tesla provided was useless and also goes on to say this type of ventilator may have harmed people in the Washington nursing home situation, which clearly makes Tesla and Elon look bad from a casual uninformed read. The writer contributes stories for Cars & Bikes for Forbes. Someone should educate him about the above. Don't see a comment section to the article. Here's the story.

Health Officials Say ‘Ventilators’ Donated By Tesla Are Wrong Type And Not Powerful Enough

This is typical Elon bashery.

Read the comments from NYC health department and Resmed on here:

Elon Musk defends sending "non-invasive" ventilators to hospitals, says criticism is from "bot accounts"

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Here's some background on how the 5-13 minute Abbott RNA isothermal amplification test equipment works. The isothermal nature is apparently important for improving test time (normally temperature cycling would be required):

Isothermal Amplification | NEB

 

[Norbert]

That's a good articulation of the two camps of thought on this issue, but I think it may be in the end a seductive but perhaps ultimately specious achievement to chase down a single number as though that number means a great deal. And I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that that final case fatality rate number varies enormously across societies even when you remove the possibility of cooked data from motivated underreporting, along with all the well-documented uncertainties in determining case fatality numbers at the early end of a pandemic. And I'll tell you why any single number for CFR or IFR is misleading – it may be that there is simply enormous differential vulnerability and what your final case fatality number ends up being in a given population depends on the many and disparate risk variables expressed in that population.

Even at the very incomplete state of our science on this question, I can put many highly plausible and several proven relevant risk variables on the table right now:

1) Demographics of age In your population, and more specifically, the state of the adaptive immune system. See previous posts here and here on this and the relevant concept of 'inflammaging' as a potent mortality risk variable. In aging the innate immune system is disinhibited to partially compensate for declining adaptive immunity.
2) So-called age-related comorbid illnesses which as I have already argued are proxies for or at least express some of the degree of #1 penetrance. Classically of course type II diabetes, coronary artery disease, COPD, recent cancers, and I suspect Alzheimer's disease will prove to be huge although that's not been proven, and there is no data on that.
3) Degree of moderate or worse smoking (or perhaps vaping?) in your demographic.
4) Degree of antibiotic resistance in your demographic – and this, #1 and #3 may explain why Italy has been devastated, As Italians reportedly have relatively high levels of antibiotic resistance presumably from antibiotic overprescription. This may of course index also possible problems with the Demographic microbiome which we now appreciate as a front-line in the immune system. One would think that the Italian diet would mitigate this but perhaps not.
5) Other protective lifestyle variables particularly degree of regular aerobic exercise and presence or absence of sleep disorders as both of these affect immunocompetence directly and potently.
6) Degree of social support versus social stress – people are surprised to hear that immunocompetence is modulated by this but it is. Chronic upregulation of the stress axis subjects us to a daily bath of corticosteroids and upregulation of pro-inflammatory cytokines. See previous discussion on dangers of upregulated innate immunity when facing novel pathogens.
7) The role of gender with significant increased vulnerability in males to bad outcome in respiratory infection.
8) Likely to be dozens of unmapped polymorphisms affecting vulnerability, including ACE2 Polymorphisms (Receptor by which Covid 19 Virus gains entry In the cells).
9) degree to which there is partial recognition by adaptive immune system of this coronavirus by virtue of prior exposure to one of its relatives. This is totally unmapped but it perhaps in combination with other risk reducing issues may explain why some people are completely asymptomatic.

What is clear is that a subset of the population is extremely vulnerable. And as I indicated before, whether that ultimate case lethality is under 1%, if we bust our healthcare capacity, our case lethality becomes the percentage of folks that need ICU level care that can't be cared for in ICUs on respiratory support. And that's going to be way more than 1%. Possibly 5%. And that's a terrifying number.

That's a great list, and for a moment I thought you are going to lift this discussion to a scientific level. Like when kids are having a pillow fight in the living room and then the parents come home.

And then you are talking about a CFR below 1%, and only in the case of busting our healthcare system, you talk about "way more than 1%". Possibly 5%.

Most of the countries we look at for comparison have a CFR higher than 1%, many much higher. Italy has a CFR above 10% country-wide.

The CFR is even more dependent on variable numbers than the IFR. Which number isn't?

The number of deaths? That's the number when everything is literally too late.

 

[omgwtfbyobbq]

I'm not sure but I believe hand santiizers have a high percentage of alcohol in them and the alcohol will from what I've read adversely affect the masks, making them less effective. Read a few stories on testing the disinfecting techniques tried of things like concentrated hydrogen peroxide spray on them, UV light etc. From reading the N95 masks are electrically charged which is what traps the smaller particles inside the mask before entering your air passages, reducing that charge would make them similar to cloth masks and not sufficent for hospital settings. Doctors/lab people correct this if I'm mistaken.

Alcohol will "discharge" the filter media of N95 respirators with electrostatic filters.

Information and FAQs on the Performance, Protection, and Sterilization of Face Mask Materials | University of Tennessee Research Foundation

Placing them on/near metal surfaces can do the same, so if they're heated up in an oven to disinfect them, make sure they're suspend away from any metal surfaces.

 

[omgwtfbyobbq]

This is typical Elon bashery.

Read the comments from NYC health department and Resmed on here:

Elon Musk defends sending "non-invasive" ventilators to hospitals, says criticism is from "bot accounts"

Yup. Cuomo's talk today covered using modified CPAP versus modified BiPAP versus ventilators.

Yes, ventilators can do things modified CPAP/BiPAP can't do, but they can be used in a pinch for someone who doesn't need a ventilator but also isn't able to get by with just supplemental oxygen.

 

[MXLRplus]

California Dept. of Public Health reports that they are down to only 13,000 pending tests (from approximately 60,000 earlier this week).

Great to see the backlog getting cleared.

State Officials Announce Latest COVID-19 Facts

I find it interesting that only about 1 out of 10 Calif tests is showing a positive, when in theory, nearly all tests should be limited to those showing symptoms.

 

[SMAlset]

The website says they are optimistic that their solution will be available in 2 - 4 weeks.

I looked for details of the solution on their website but cannot find it. That is not a good sign but the group is real so it is worth following along. I can imagine using a jerry rigged BiPAP machine for some patients. CPAP no

I think you meant to quote the Techcrunch article and the Ventilator SOS site instead of the Forbes article (maybe you can still go in and change that?). The Ventilator SOS site under the "Our Solution" does have a few diagrams of how it would be set up. And yes, their "About Us" seems like they have medical backing here.

 

[Daniel in SD]

And then you are talking about a CFR below 1%, and only in the case of busting our healthcare system, you talk about "way more than 1%". Possibly 5%.

The number of people who die is dependent on the quality of medical care they receive. I think that should be uncontroversial.