Emergence of a Deadly Coronavirus

Post Reply New Topic

If 2% mortality turns out to be true, I would call this a serious situation.

ANOTHER ARTICLE ON FACE MASK

I have been concerned that face masks for non-first-responders would shift vital protective resources away from first-responders and that would give some people a false sense of security. As a physician, I think the time has come to put those concerns aside.

The writing team at ACSH has spent a great deal of time discussing masks and COVID-19.

As Dr. Berezow has said, when the information changes we reconsider. While I have always felt that treating everyone as if they were infected, a kind of universal precaution, was not unreasonable, I have been reluctant to recommend the use of masks by non-first-responders, the civilians in this war because I was concerned that it would shift resources from first-responders and that it might give some people a false sense of security.

However, as a physician, I think the time has come to put those concerns aside because everything we do to reduce our risk and that of the people around us, is the best means we have of really supporting the frontline troops.

There are a number of factors that went into my thinking including discussions with physicians I know and whose views I respect.

There is data to suggest that social distancing at six feet may at times not be adequate. The tiny particles, the aerosols, produced by coughing, sneezing, and talking can travel further, some studies suggest up to 27 feet. My own readings on air pollution have taught me that particles can not only travel variable distances, but can linger in the atmosphere for some time. COVID-19 is not an exception.

While the numbers are not fully established, many infected individuals are asymptomatic or so early in their course that their symptoms are not yet present or ambiguous. These are sources of unintentional community spread.

As the caseload at our hospitals rises, health systems are adopting similar universal “precautions,” requiring everyone to wear masks. Let me pause, to make it clear that when I speak of masks I am not necessarily referring to N95s which are more protective than what we normally consider “surgical” masks. N95s are far more effective in filtering out viral particles, but we need to restrict their use, until more adequate supplies are available, to health professionals who are within an intimate distance with a patient’s airway and secretions.

I believe at this point, that the use of masks by everyone venturing out of doors would serve as an additional protective layer for them and the community. It is not a replacement for hand hygiene or physical distancing. A Cochrane meta-analysis found that “masks were the best performing intervention across populations, settings and threats,” and “limited evidence of the superior effectiveness of devices such as the N95 respirator over simple surgical masks.” As my colleague, Dr. Berezow recently summarized, the data on masks, especially in the face of COVID-19, is unknown.

Masks that we can make ourselves, are an additional means of protecting your lungs from the environment and more importantly, protecting the community from virus particles that you may unknowingly be sharing. It can be as simple as a bandana, or as nice as a hand sown mask.

A homemade mask or a surgical mask is not as protective as an N95, but it can serve two important purposes. It can reduce the R0, how many people are infected by another individual. If the mask reduces the viral particles being dispersed by the asymptomatic or the not-quite symptomatic by one or two persons, the R0 is reduced by a third or more. Second, it may reduce the amount of virus transmitted, and there is some evidence, although speculative, that a reduction in viral load is associated with a more benign course. There is little downside to wearing a mask when you venture out of your home, and there is the real possibility of an upside benefit, to you and your neighbors.

The American people are resourceful. In response to food shortages during World Wars I and II, citizens grew Liberty and then Victory Gardens. It is our turn to take action in support of our first-responders. We needn't disrupt the flow of masks and other personal protection equipment, we can -- like the liberty gardens of WWII -- take control of the situation that most affects us. The time has come for us to begin wearing masks when out in public and that is in addition to hand hygiene and physical distancing, not in replacement. And this should apply universally, to us all, from the streets of Manhattan to the parks in New Jersey, to the beaches in Florida.

Source: Coronavirus: It Is Time To Consider Face Masks For Civilians?

At the end of this article was a link to a New York Times article the described how to make a home-made face mask.

It’s Time to Make Your Own Face Mask: Here’s how to do it.

I finally found an English version. This news came out a few days ago.



Some highlights:
(1) This device does not detect the virus. It detects excess fluid in lungs. It can detect early signs of COVID-19, when the patient is still asymptomatic.
(2) Marginal cost of each test is essentially zero.
(3) The device can be produced at a cost of US$25 (plus you need a laptop, but nowadays laptops are everywhere).
(4) No harm to human body, you can test as many times as you want.

The R0 of COVID-19 is barely around 3. That means each patient on the average only infects 3 people. Frankly, this device, plus masks, hand sanitizers and social distancing, plus the usage of biochemical rapid test kits for suspected cases, would be enough to knock R0 below 1, and would thus allow everyone to go back to work and go back to school. It's doable. It's not a comfortable lifestyle (masks plus daily screening), but the economy can keep going until the arrival of vaccines and better treatments.

In my opinion, we ALREADY have the solution. It's now up to each government to decide whether to give this solution a green light.

There’s an article in Vox which speaks about “how COVID-19 immunity tests can help people get back to work.”

Published March 30th, 2020.

Dreadful news about the panic driven tragedy unfolding around Europe because of crazy reactions to the virus. It is all worth reading.

From the latest entry in a running blog/journal by a doctor on the highly respected research and analytics site, "Swiss Propaganda Research":

https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/#latest

"April 1, 2020
On the situation in Italy

Italian doctors reported that they had already observed severe cases of pneumonia in northern Italy at the end of last year. However, genetic analyses now show that the Covid19 virus only appeared in Italy in January of this year. „The severe pneumonia diagnosed in Italy in November and December must therefore be due to a different pathogen,“ a virologist noted. This once again raises the question what role the Covid19 virus, or other factors, actually play in the Italian situation.

On March 30, we mentioned the list of Italian doctors who died „during the Corona crisis“, many of whom were up to 90 years old and didn’t actively participate in the crisis at all. Today, all years of birth on the list have been removed (see however the last archive version). A strange procedure.

We have also received the following message from an observer in Italy, who gives further details about the dramatic situation there, which is obviously due to far more than a virus:

„In recent weeks, most of the Eastern European nurses who worked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week supporting people in need of care in Italy have left the country in a hurry. This is not least because of the panic-mongering and the curfews and border closures threatened by the „emergency governments“. As a result, old people in need of care and disabled people, some without relatives, were left helpless by their carers.

Many of these abandoned people then ended up after a few days in the hospitals, which had been permanently overloaded for years, because they were dehydrated, among other things.

Unfortunately, the hospitals lacked many personnel who had to look after their children locked up in their apartments because schools and kindergartens had been closed. This then led to the complete collapse of the care for the disabled and the elderly, especially in those areas where even harder „measures“ were ordered, and to chaotic conditions.

The nursing emergency, which was caused by the panic, temporarily led to many deaths among those in need of care and increasingly among younger patients in the hospitals. These fatalities then served to cause even more panic among those in charge and the media, who reported, for example, „another 475 fatalities“, „The dead are being removed from hospitals by the army“, accompanied by pictures of coffins and army trucks lined up.

However, this was the result of the funeral directors‘ fear of the „killer virus“, who therefore refused their services. Moreover, on the one hand there were too many deaths at once and on the other hand the government passed a law that the corpses carrying the coronavirus had to be cremated. In Catholic Italy, few cremations had been carried out in the past. Therefore there were only a few small crematoria, which very quickly reached their limits. Therefore the deceased had to be laid out in different churches.

In principle, this development is the same in all countries. However, the quality of the health system has a considerable influence on the effects. Therefore, there are fewer problems in Germany, Austria or Switzerland than in Italy, Spain or the USA. However, as can be seen in the official figures, there is no significant increase in the mortality rate. Just a small mountain that came from this tragedy.“

Hospital situation in the US, Germany and Switzerland

The US television station CBS was caught using footage from an Italian intensive care unit in a piece on the current situation in New York. In fact, dozens of recordings by citizen journalists show that it is currently very quiet in the hospitals on the US East and West Coast. Even the „corpse refrigerator trucks“ prominently shown in the media are unused and empty.

Contrary to media reports, the register of German intensive care units also shows no increased occupancy. Citizen journalists visited completely abandoned Covid19 admission centres in Berlin clinics. An employee of a Munich clinic explained that they had been „waiting for weeks for the wave to hit“, but that there was „no increase in patient numbers“. He said that the politicians‘ statements did not correspond with their own experience, and that the „myth of the killer virus“ could „not be confirmed“.

Also in Swiss clinics, no increased occupancy has been observed so far. A visitor to the cantonal hospital in Lucerne reports that there is „less activity than in normal times“. Entire floors have been closed for Covid19, but staff „are still waiting for patients“. The hospitals in Bern, Basel, Zug and Zurich have also been „cleaned out“. Even in Ticino, the intensive care units are not working to capacity, but patients are now being transferred to the empty German-Swiss departments. From a purely medical point of view, this makes little sense.

Other medical notes

The director of the University Medical Center Hamburg, Dr. Ansgar Lohse, demands a quick end to curfews and contact bans. He argues that more people should be infected with corona. Kitas and schools should be reopened as soon as possible so that children and their parents can become immune through infection with the corona virus. The continuation of the strict measures would lead to an economic crisis, which would also cost lives, said the physician.

In Spain, 15% of test-positives are doctors and nurses. Although many of them show no symptoms, they have to go into quarantine, causing the Spanish healthcare system to collapse.

Dr. John Lee, professor emeritus of pathology, is writing about the highly misleading definition and communication of „corona deaths“ in the British Spectator.

The latest data from Norway, evaluated by a PhD in environmental toxicology, again show that the rate of test-positives does not increase – as would be expected in the case of an epidemic – but fluctuates in the normal range for coronaviruses between 2 and 10%. The average age of the test-positive deceased is 84 years, the causes of death are not publicly reported, and there is no excess mortality.

Sweden, which has so far managed without radical measures and has not reported increased mortality (similar to Asian countries such as Japan or South Korea), is remarkably put under pressure from the international media to change its strategy.

Data from New York State show that the hospitalization rate of test-positive individuals could be more than twenty times lower than originally assumed.

An article on the specialist portal DocCheck deals with the problem of ventilating test-positive patients. In test-positive patients, simple ventilation through a mask is officially advised against, among other things to prevent the coronavirus from spreading through aerosols. Therefore, test positive intensive care patients are often intubated directly. However, intubation has poor chances of success and often leads to additional damage to the lungs (so-called ventilator-induced lung damage). As with medication, the question arises as to whether a more gentle treatment of patients would not be medically more sensible.

Reports on political developments

A German state minister has called on the population to „be vigilant and report violations of the rules for containing the corona epidemic to the police“. „Eagerly reported“ are, for example, „prohibited group formation, children in playgrounds, parties“ and hikers.

German constitutional law experts are raising the alarm for „serious encroachments on fundamental rights“. Constitutional law expert Hans Michael Heinig warns that the „democratic constitutional state could turn into a fascist-hysterical hygiene state in no time“. Professor Christoph Möllers of Berlin’s Humboldt University explains that the infection protection law „cannot serve as a basis for such far-reaching restrictions of citizens‘ rights of freedom“. According to the former president of the German Federal Constitutional Court, Hans Jürgen Papier, „emergency measures do not justify the suspension of civil liberties in favour of an authoritarian and surveillance state“.

Online petitions have been launched in several countries to end curfews and other encroachments on basic rights. At the same time, critical video contributions, even by doctors, are increasingly being deleted. In Berlin, a registered event on fundamental rights, at which the German constitution was distributed, was terminated by the police."

......

Predicting behavior of any system complex enough always needs huge uncertainity margins.
Selling exaggerated worst case scenario as "the scientific prediction" is another problem, though.

An Icelandic study suggests that 25 to 50 percent of CV carriers have no symptoms,and are quietly spreading the virus.
CNN.com

This sort of reminds me of silent Mono carriers, except CV is way more contagious.

I mentioned earlier in this thread that I thought Spring Break might dramatically spread the coronavirus. It seems like the headlines tell the story:

28 of 70 University of Texas at Austin ‘Spring Breakers’ test positive for COVID-19

Wisconsin college students return home from spring break with coronavirus

Florida college students test positive for coronavirus after spring break trip University of Tampa

‘The only corona here is the one I’m drinking’ - Spring break kids mob Alabama beaches despite fears



New York man refuses to let son back in house after taking spring break trip amid coronavirus outbreak