Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[teuchter]

It's more common to wear masks in East Asia because of pollution than illness

This is not true in Japan, at least.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

This is not true in Japan, at least.

Not true at all in Japan. People wear masks out of politeness when they have a cold in Japan.

 

[elbows]

Regarding masks, sometimes I like to find past moments in time in this thread where a subject came up and got a bit of a conversation going.

Theres a page and a half of conversation about masks that took place around April 7th and looking back at it now I find it a somewhat informative snapshot of feelings at the time. If it looks like I got any predictions about this right during that bit of conversation, its only because this was absolutely one of the easiest things to predict in this pandemic, along with WHO not recommending border closures in the early days and not declaring it a pandemic at the first timely opportunity.

#6,710

 

[elbows]

Oh dear I just remembered Hancocks 'a front door is better than any mask', which I think was just days after that bit of conversation.

 

[Roadkill]

My understanding is the complete opposite, and in fact, the emphasis on hand-sanitizing and hand-washing above face masks and looking at ventilation has been my pet gripe for a while now.
As I have said on several different threads already, the German virologist who has been doing the majority of the science education on this matter in Germany warned as early as March that he feared that too much attention was being given to wiping down keyboards and lift buttons at the expense of distance (this was pre-lockdown).

I am happy to stand corrected but in my understanding there are no proven cases of transmission via touching objects, at least in every day life/in the community (though of course absence of proof does not prove that it is impossible). High risk environments like hospitals might be a different matter.
The experiments that have shown the virus to survive for x hours on y surface were done under lab conditions and with huge amounts of virus, not replicating every day situations.

What was underestimated initially, was the aerosol transmission. Iirc initially it was assumed that you'd have to catch a larger droplet from an infected person (when speaking or sneezing), but since then, the aerosol transmission via build up over a prolonged period has become more of a focus. Which I believe is now also thought to be behind some of the "super-spreader" events like the choir rehearsal in Berlin in March when 60 out 80 people are thought to have become infected at one rehearsal. Hugging and chatting there may of course also have been factors, as well as the aerosol build up.

AFAIK fomite transmission happens with other coronaviruses, so it's highly likely it will with covid-19. I'd agree that there's probably been too much emphasis on it as opposed to aerosol transmission, which is the main route, but it probably is a risk nevertheless.

 

[Mation]

Its on my quite long list of things I would have hoped humanity would have a good handle on long before this pandemic started, but we just dont. For a whole multitude of reasons it seems, including the difficulty in really discovering the answers to everyones satisfaction, but probably also a variety of avoidable crapness including crap priorities and a preference for lazily relying on existing dogma rather than inquisitiveness at all times on all matters.

Here is another recent example. I expected some greater attention to this aspect due to some of the tentative lessons from a few specific SARS outbreaks and the mode of transmission, but even when I was disturbing people by mentioning anal swabs I expected to see a sort of half-baked answer revealing itself in really frustrating slow motion. Constipation of the knowledge accrual bowels perhaps.

Flushing 'can propel viral infection 3ft into air'

Flushing the toilet with the lid up creates a cloud of spray that may spread infection, study finds.

www.bbc.co.uk

Isn't that the whole - or at least main - purpose of having a lid on toilets?

If ever you see me running out of the loo in a pub or restaurant, it'll be because it doesn't have a lid. Granted it'll be my own 'toning mist', but I still don't want to be covered in it, and nor do I want to leave my produce unflushed

 

[Supine]

Some interesting research into the significance of masks in stopping transmission.

Identifying airborne transmission as the dominant route for the spread of COVID-19

We have elucidated the transmission pathways of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) by analyzing the trend and mitigation measures in the three epicenters. Our results show that the airborne transmission route is highly virulent and dominant for the spread of COVID-19. The mitigation measures...

www.pnas.org

edited to add - nice article from a Nobel laureates research team but it is getting a lot of criticism. That’s fast moving science for you.

 

[Roadkill]

Here is another recent example. I expected some greater attention to this aspect due to some of the tentative lessons from a few specific SARS outbreaks and the mode of transmission, but even when I was disturbing people by mentioning anal swabs I expected to see a sort of half-baked answer revealing itself in really frustrating slow motion. Constipation of the knowledge accrual bowels perhaps.

Flushing 'can propel viral infection 3ft into air'

Flushing the toilet with the lid up creates a cloud of spray that may spread infection, study finds.

www.bbc.co.uk

I really wish I hadn't read this post just after a trip to the toilet.

 

[Artaxerxes]

Isn't that the whole - or at least main - purpose of having a lid on toilets?

If ever you see me running out of the loo in a pub or restaurant, it'll be because it doesn't have a lid. Granted it'll be my own 'toning mist', but I still don't want to be covered in it, and nor do I want to leave my produce unflushed

Work is annoying because none of the toilets have lids and the urinals been broken for months

 

[teuchter]

I really wish I hadn't read this post just after a trip to the toilet.

I believe this subject was covered on this excellent thread.

 

[Orang Utan]

I believe this subject was covered on this excellent thread.

Wasn’t excellent though, apart from the proposal in the OP. Some disgraceful childish behaviour from people who really ought to know better

 

[Roadkill]

I believe this subject was covered on this excellent thread.

Thanks, but I'm about to cook dinner.

 

[teuchter]

Thanks, but I'm about to cook dinner.

It's perfect after-dinner relaxation reading.

 

[Roadkill]

It's perfect after-dinner relaxation reading.

I'll take your word for that!

 

[Yossarian]

Hmmm. People in East Asia have worn masks when ill for years. But in a normal year, you still see a rather large number of people around the place in masks. It clearly doesn't work that well.

In Hong Kong, it wasn't all that routine for people with colds etc. to wear masks - some did, some didn't. What seems to have spared the place a widespread coronavirus outbreak was the adoption of near-universal mask-wearing early on, which apparently stopped a lot of asymptomatic people infecting others.

 

[Roadkill]

Changing the subject...

 

[littlebabyjesus]

In Hong Kong, it wasn't all that routine for people with colds etc. to wear masks - some did, some didn't. What seems to have spared the place a widespread coronavirus outbreak was the adoption of near-universal mask-wearing early on, which apparently stopped a lot of asymptomatic people infecting others.

Yeah, similar change of behaviour in Japan. In these covid times, they have taken to wearing masks much more quickly and readily than Europeans on public transport, etc. But there is a misconception that in non-covid times loads of people wear masks to protect against infection/pollution. Invariably it's the other way round - done to protect others from their cold. But the prevalence of colds still in normal times certainly shows that it isn't all that effective.

 

[teuchter]

In Hong Kong, it wasn't all that routine for people with colds etc. to wear masks - some did, some didn't. What seems to have spared the place a widespread coronavirus outbreak was the adoption of near-universal mask-wearing early on, which apparently stopped a lot of asymptomatic people infecting others.

What's the evidence of the masks' significance in this?

 

[cupid_stunt]

Changing the subject...

That'll be the next u-turn.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

What's the evidence of the masks' significance in this?

It's all a bit stable door/bolted horse here in any case.

 

[quimcunx]

Get Rashford on it.

 

[Yossarian]

What's the evidence of the masks' significance in this?

I don't know if any study has comprehensively proven that mask-wearing limited the outbreak, but a grand total of 4 coronavirus deaths and around 1,100 infections in an extremely crowded city of more than 7 million people that had several flights arriving from Wuhan daily definitely suggests they did the right thing.

At the time, I thought people were being kind of foolish - I saw pictures of crowds of hundreds of people waiting in lines to get facemasks and thought "they're all going to get infected waiting for masks that aren't going to protect them" - I now realise I was completely wrong.

 

[two sheds]

The WHO advice that halving the 2-metre rule will double the risk looks highly dubious to me. The virus count picked up within the cone of transmission - sort of thing - is hardly just going to double, surely it's going to be eight times (area is proportional to radius squared, volume proportional to radius cubed) as high.

Or not?

 

[Roadkill]

That'll be the next u-turn.

Let's hope so. Needs to get a bit more traction first though. The Graun is reporting it but I don't think anyone else is. Yet.

 

[elbows]

Covid secure, Hancock style



edit - oops I should have checked the Hancock thread.

 

[elbows]

A case has been detected in the intensive care unit at my local hospital (a hospital which often features high on the list of hospitals with serious issues):

Coronavirus patient in intensive care at Nuneaton's hospital

The George Eliot Hospital has issued a statement

www.coventrytelegraph.net

I posted that on March 9th, and then again about that hospital when that case died. Since then deaths at this hospital did have an obvious peak in April, but they have not fallen away to none or hardly any since then, the deaths persist.

Now its in the news because they are seeing plenty of new cases coming in. Apparently it was on the local BBC Midlands today news this evening but I wont have a chance to watch that for some time. And I know I am likely to get wound up by the poor sharing of info between various 'authorities' and management types and the public they are supposed to serve.

Hospital's concern at 'significant' number of Covid-19 patients

Investigations are taking place with Public Health England and NHS England

www.coventrytelegraph.net

CoventryLive and our sister title the Nuneaton News were contacted by separate sources claiming there had been as many as 40 new Covid-19 admissions on Tuesday (June 16) alone. And while the hospital were unable to confirm numbers, Ms Athwal said there were concerns about consistent and significant numbers of patients presenting with Covid-19.

Zoom in during this phase I said, and sadly I cannot say I am shocked that my town and that hospital is one of those proving worthy of zooming in on

Also note that I wouldnt rush to call this a second wave, its more likely the case that the first wave never ended here, but since I dont get local hospital admission data because of the way things are done in this country, I do not feel like I have enough of the picture with which to reach a proper judgement.

 

[MrSki]

Covid secure, Hancock style



edit - oops I should have checked the Hancock thread.

Well worth repeating.

 

[elbows]

Here is my latest attempt to chart the deaths in that hospital. You can probably see why I really need other local data on top of this to get a good idea of the picture, especially when zooming into a location of this size where the number of deaths per day is never that huge, and low numbers make it a bit harder to see trends with much detail. The line on this graph is a 7 day moving average. The admissions graph for this hospital would be of particular interest, but instead I just get clues via frustrated leakers.

 

[MrSki]

Someone needs to look into the multi-million pound contracts that been awarded. It seems to be like the ferry one to a company with no ferries all over again.

It does have a stench of corruption but time will tell & hopefully their still a few proper journalists.

 

[Artaxerxes]

Yeah, similar change of behaviour in Japan. In these covid times, they have taken to wearing masks much more quickly and readily than Europeans on public transport, etc. But there is a misconception that in non-covid times loads of people wear masks to protect against infection/pollution. Invariably it's the other way round - done to protect others from their cold. But the prevalence of colds still in normal times certainly shows that it isn't all that effective.

I think the main factor in its ineffectiveness is critical mass. Only a fraction wore them and came into a lot of different contacts sigh different people.

I also get the impression they aren’t something worn at home or around family.