Coronavirus: General discussion (see opening post for rules)

[smurfomatic]

Also, some good news in the family, eventually...

 

My maternal grandmother (just turned 84, has asthma, diabetes and Parkinson's amongst other health issues) was due to go into a care home on Monday. The pre-admission COVID test was positive, which meant a no-go for the home. As she wasnt symptomatic she couldn't go into hospital, but she was admitted on Monday evening for other reasons. Mum and two of her sisters have been caring for her alongside working full time, and can't cope (hence the care home). Initial admission test for COVID was negative, as well as the follow up, so she's in the clear! Staying in hospital for the meantime as the care home now doesn't have a place, and the "children" have said they can't care for her at home. Hopefully there will be a place at the care home soon, as they have a few people in who are just on respite.

 

Mum was also tested and is clear - so she's back at work tomorrow after a week off!

 

And...we're now worse off than before. Grandmother had her test to ensure she's okay to leave hospital for the care home - and it was positive. That's four tests, two positive and two negative, and not showing any symptoms at any point. In less than two weeks in hospital she has been on three different wards, and is now moving onto a fourth. Won't be retested for at least seven days, so the care home place has gone too.

 

Mum and her sisters are at their wits end with all of this, constant phone calls back and forth to try and sort things out - hospitals, care homes, plus dealing with utilities, council tax, banks etc. for her house as well.

[Andrew_C]

Our chromebooks got delivered today too, DPD have a new method of delivering with zero contact

 

You know, I pretty much called that. Only thing I got wrong was that they stopped after dumping the stuff.

[caffrey]

Pretty much the cherry on top for the week, and still got Friday to pile through

[6Foot2]

Captain America coronavirus conspiracy theory: "In 2011 the film foreshadowed the outbreak that was to come in 2020"

 

Unrolled thread:

 

Link 1: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1271109120997933058.html [Thread Reader: Original Tweet Author: William Mullally, 10 Tweets]

 

Link 2: https://twitter.com/Pandamoanimum/st...96477281161219

[6Foot2]

Link: Beijing district in 'wartime emergency' after virus cluster at major food market [Reuters]

 

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Beijing district put itself on a “wartime” footing and the capital banned tourism and sports events on Saturday after a cluster of novel coronavirus infections centred around a major wholesale market sparked fears of a new wave of COVID-19.

 

Forty-five people out of 517 tested with throat swabs at the Xinfadi market in the city’s southwestern Fengtai district had tested positive for the coronavirus, Chu Junwei, a district official, told a briefing.

 

None were showing symptoms of COVID-19, he said, but added that 11 neighbourhoods in the vicinity of the market, which claims to be the largest agricultural wholesale market in Asia, had been locked down with 24-hour guards put in place.

 

“In accordance with the principle of putting the safety of the masses and health first, we have adopted lockdown measures for the Xinfadi market and surrounding neighbourhoods,” Chu said.

 

The district is in a “wartime emergency mode,” he added...

[6Foot2]

Link: Virtual Boat Race: Cambridge win as teams compete on machines at home [bBC News]

 

 

Cambridge won the virtual Boat Race against Oxford, with both teams competing on rowing machines at home.

 

Each team of eight collectively rowed 6.8km to raise money for Power2Inspire.

 

Three-time Olympic champion Pete Reed, who was paralysed from the chest down after a spinal stroke in 2019, competed for Oxford.

 

Reed was joined by Paralympic champion Grace Clough and world champion Oliver Cook, while Olympic champion Tom Ransley was part of the Cambridge team.

[jmak]

Well I was surprised to find this in the Daily Fail from April 2019:

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-6915619/Air-filter-kill-99-9-deadly-bacteria-viruses-floating-air.html

 

Very prescient. I was ambling around Google looking for articles on how effective air filtration systems are against spread of viruses.

[6Foot2]

Well I was surprised to find this in the Daily Fail from April 2019:

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-6915619/Air-filter-kill-99-9-deadly-bacteria-viruses-floating-air.html

 

Very prescient. I was ambling around Google looking for articles on how effective air filtration systems are against spread of viruses.

 

In the body of the article, line 2:

 

...The device uses 'non-thermal plasma' (NTP), a gas which causes molecules to react with oxygen to create ozone...

 

1. A plasma is not a gas.
   
2. Ozone is an allotrope of oxygen: It contains ONLY oxygen. Not sure which additional molecules might be required to react WITH oxygen (other than oxygen) to make ozone.

[jmak]

In the body of the article, line 2:

 

 

 

1. A plasma is not a gas.
   
2. Ozone is an allotrope of oxygen: It contains ONLY oxygen. Not sure which additional molecules might be required to react WITH oxygen (other than oxygen) to make ozone.

[emoji38]

True, it was when I got to these bits that I was surprised:

 

'For humans, when we shake hands or when we kiss, or when someone sneezes around you, all those are different routes of transmission for a virus or bacteria.'

 

"And ventilation systems, such as air-conditioning units, allow the pathogens behind these deadly outbreaks to spread easily between humans and animals."

 

"The researchers are first testing the device at a pig farm to determine if it could prevent the spread of pathogens between livestock, which sometimes go on to infect humans."

 

Maybe I don't read the site often enough, but I was surprised that over a year ago they were reporting the need for technology to reduce the spread of a virus that had originated in livestock.

[6Foot2]

True, it was when I got to these bits that I was surprised:

 

'For humans, when we shake hands or when we kiss, or when someone sneezes around you, all those are different routes of transmission for a virus or bacteria.'

 

"And ventilation systems, such as air-conditioning units, allow the pathogens behind these deadly outbreaks to spread easily between humans and animals."

 

"The researchers are first testing the device at a pig farm to determine if it could prevent the spread of pathogens between livestock, which sometimes go on to infect humans."

 

Maybe I don't read the site often enough, but I was surprised that over a year ago they were reporting the need for technology to reduce the spread of a virus that had originated in livestock.

I didn't get that far into the article. I was irritated by two obvious errors so early in the piece I stopped right there in the expectation of encountering more and becoming even more irritated![/Rant]

 

[StevieM]

"The researchers are first testing the device at a pig farm to determine if it could prevent the spread of pathogens between livestock, which sometimes go on to infect humans."

 

Maybe I don't read the site often enough, but I was surprised that over a year ago they were reporting the need for technology to reduce the spread of a virus that had originated in livestock.

 

A mere 10 years after H1N1 (aka ‘swine flu’). Who’da thunk it?!

[the_quick]

So, would typical air filtration on the airplane, kill and stop virus particles? Really interested, as they think they will start regular flights next month.

[Andrew_C]

I read that they recirculate some air via HEPA filters. The rest is bled from the engines.

 

I don't know if the filters will genuinly catch the virus.

[6Foot2]

...I don't know if the filters will genuinly catch the virus.

What? Filters are catching the virus too now?

 

[VeryPC]

Has anyone been purchasing social distancing floor stickers?

 

We've seen companies charging through the roof so our Marketing team have put their in-house resources to good use and with us, you won't pay more than £8.99 for an individual sticker. Our custom branding (which we're pretty famous for!) uses the same durable and long lasting material as floor stickers, so it's a win win!

 

More details can be found here

 

- Ryan

[LeMarchand]

Has anyone been purchasing social distancing floor stickers?

 

We've seen companies charging through the roof so our Marketing team have put their in-house resources to good use and with us, you won't pay more than £8.99 for an individual sticker. Our custom branding (which we're pretty famous for!) uses the same durable and long lasting material as floor stickers, so it's a win win!

 

More details can be found here

 

- Ryan

 

Just checked a friend who does printing - £8.99 for a 300mm circle is a great price! Let's just say that his price for one is a fair bit more. (Don't want to encourage you to put the price up, though).

[VeryPC]

Just checked a friend who does printing - £8.99 for a 300mm circle is a great price! Let's just say that his price for one is a fair bit more. (Don't want to encourage you to put the price up, though).

Oh don't worry, the price will remain £8.99 for the 300mm circle! No more. That's a VeryPC promise.

 

- Ryan

[jmak]

So, would typical air filtration on the airplane, kill and stop virus particles? Really interested, as they think they will start regular flights next month.

I read that they recirculate some air via HEPA filters. The rest is bled from the engines.

 

I don't know if the filters will genuinly catch the virus.

This was the programme that originally prompted me to look at air filtration efficacy:

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000jxvp

(Radio 4 Inside Science)

 

Other interesting bits about transmission too, including building design.

 

 

Edit: Spoiler for those who haven't got half an hour to spare - they say it does filter out the virus.

Edited June 15, 2020 by jmak

[jthompson]

I seem to remember Tesla announcing a while back that their cars came with a "Bioweapon Defense" mode. The name is typically tongue-in-cheek, but the principle was that the car's interior would be at a higher air pressure than the outside, so that any air coming into the cabin was having to pass through a HEPA filter. Lots of comments at the time that a HEPA filter wouldn't actually filter airborne viruses, as such virus particles would be orders of magnitude smaller than the particles that a HEPA filter is designed to catch.

 

I don't think SARS-Cov-2 is technically an airborne virus, it's just carried a short way through the air by much larger respiratory particles. (Pretty much all cars will be able to defend people against that).

[LeMarchand]

Ikea to pay back Euro governmental Covid wage payments (didn't use the UK scheme) and Games Workshop hoping to repay UK govt. Toilet paper manufacturer The Spectator ditto. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53047895

[6Foot2]

Link: A Visual Guide to the SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus [scientific American]

 

For all the mysteries that remain about the novel coronavirus and the COVID-19 disease it causes, scientists have generated an incredible amount of fine-grained knowledge in a surprisingly short time.

 

Thousands of different coronaviruses may inhabit the planet. Four of them are responsible for many of our common colds. Two others have already triggered alarming outbreaks of disease: in 2002 a coronavirus caused severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which killed more than 770 people worldwide, and in 2012 a different strain started Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), taking more than 800 lives. SARS burned out within a year; MERS still lingers.

 

The newest coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, has created a far deadlier pandemic in part because once it infects a person it can lie undetected for a long time. An individual who had the SARS coronavirus did not transmit it until 24 to 36 hours after displaying symptoms such as fever and dry cough; people feeling ill could be isolated before they made others sick. But people with COVID-19 can transmit the virus before they show clear symptoms. Not feeling ill, infected men and women work, commute, shop, eat out and attend parties, all the while exhaling coronavirus into the airspace of people around them. The virus can remain undetected inside the human body for so long partly because its genome produces proteins that delay our immune system from sounding an alarm. Meanwhile lung cells die as the virus secretly reproduces. When the immune system does hear the call, it can go into overdrive, suffocating the very cells it is trying to save...

[Garacesh]

They break out, leaving the cell for dead, and penetrate other cells. Infected cells send out alarms to the immune system to try to neutralize or destroy the pathogens, but the viruses can prevent or intercept the signals, buying time to replicate widely before a person shows symptoms.

Because the genome is so large, many mutations could occur during replication that would cripple the virus, but SARS-CoV-2 can proofread and correct copies. This quality control is common in human cells and in DNA viruses but highly unusual in RNA viruses.

 

I think Family Guy said it best:

Damn, Nature! You scary!

[Dos_Box]

Just found out my neighbours have had it several weeks ago (they got it bad) and have been self isolating since. As she works shifts as a prison warder and he's a long distance van driver I rarely see them, and the times I did (usually one of them at the front door) I didn't take it as out of the ordinary.

They are the first people I know directly that have had it (apart from members on here that have that is - hope that makes sense!).

They suspect she got it from other prison workers as she tells me that no prisoners have had it where she works. Kinda brings it home.

[6Foot2]

NOTE: Although this news does have political overtones, this is not a political post: No political replies are expected, nor are they invited.

 

Link: UK coronavirus tracing app switched to Google-Apple system in latest government U-turn [iTV News]

 

The UK government has announced it is abandoning plans to set up its own coronavirus tracing app and will be switching to technology used by Apple and Google.

 

It marks another major U-turn by the government in recent days, following major policy changes on free school meals, surplus charges for overseas NHS workers and MPs voting in the House of Commons.

 

The government had been testing its own app on the Isle of Wight from May 5 in anticipation for UK-wide launch at a later date.

 

No date was being set for the roll-out, however, despite health secretary Matt Hancock having previously said the key app would be available in mid-May...

[6Foot2]

When it comes to advertising no opportunity should be overlooked, apparently.