Emergence of a Deadly Coronavirus

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Apparently the 79,000+ estimate of American deaths during the 2017 - 2018 season (rounded to 80,000 by media) was based on preliminary data.

CDC explains the discrepancy on this page. It does make me question if the Covid-19 numbers we're seeing now will be updated to much different numbers by next year.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2017-2018.htm

"Can you explain why the estimates on this page are different from previously published and reported estimates for 2017-2018? (For example, total flu-related deaths during 2017-2018 was previously estimated to be 79,000, but the current estimate is 61,000)?

The estimates on this page have been updated from an earlier report published in December 2018 based on more recently available information. There is a trade-off between timeliness and accuracy of the burden estimates. To provide timely burden estimates to the public, clinicians, and public health decision-makers, we use preliminary data that may lead to over- or under-estimates of the true burden. However, each season’s estimates will be finalized when data on testing practices and deaths for that season are available."

The concentration in New York aside, that still leaves 45,000,000 vs 600,000 cases and 79,000 vs 24,000 deaths.

And how many of those 24,000 can realistically be attributed to covid9 as the main cause of death is being questioned by medical professionals.

A detailed commentary from a medical journal:

Coronavirus disease 2019: The harms of exaggerated information and non‐evidence‐based measures

Dr. John P. A. Ioannidis

The evolving coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic1 is certainly cause for concern. Proper communication and optimal decision‐making are an ongoing challenge, as data evolve. The challenge is compounded, however, by exaggerated information. This can lead to inappropriate actions. It is important to differentiate promptly the true epidemic from an epidemic of false claims and potentially harmful actions....

If COVID‐19 is indeed the pandemic of the century, we need the most accurate evidence to handle it. Open data sharing of scientific information is a minimum requirement. This should include data on the number and demographics of tested individuals per day in each country and the demographics and background diseases of patients requiring hospital care and intensive care and those who die. Proper prevalence studies and trials are also indispensable.

If COVID‐19 is not as grave as it is depicted, high evidence standards are equally relevant. Exaggeration and overreaction may seriously damage the reputation of science, public health, media and policymakers. It may foster disbelief that will jeopardize the prospects of an appropriately strong response if and when a more major pandemic strikes in the future.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/ful ... /eci.13222

Has any COVID19 locked down region in the world successfully re-opened?

If he has any sort of police record, he would have bail set on him, or he might even be remanded to custody with no bail.

His crime might be considered a “violent felony,” anyway.

The “no bail” provisions apply to the entire state of New York.

The World Health Organization is under fire after Taiwan released the contents of a December email inquiring about the person -to-person spread of COVID-19, which it says was ignored by the organization and further denied to provide adequate information about how to fight the virus.

Taiwan is accusing the WHO of downplaying the severity and spread of the coronavirus in an attempt to pander to China, even after Taiwan sounded the alarm about at least seven cases of atypical pneumonia that they were aware of in Wuhan, where the virus originated.

When asked about the cases by the media, Taiwan said China's health authorities said, "The cases were believed not SARS; however samples are still under examination, and cases have been isolated for treatment," according to the contents of an email sent by Taiwan's Center for Disease Control and Prevention to the WHO on Dec. 31.



The WHO denied that Taiwan ever alerted them to the potential person-to-person spread of the virus, but Taiwan's CDC said that because they specifically mentioned "atypical pneumonia" – reminiscent of SARS, which is transmitted via human contact – "public health professionals could discern from this wording that there was a real possibility of human-to-human transmission of the disease," they said in a press release.

"However, because at the time there were as yet no cases of the disease in Taiwan, we could not state directly and conclusively that there had been human-to-human transmission," Taiwan's CDC said.

Taiwan said that the WHO and the Chinese CDC both refused to provide adequate information that could have potentially prepared the government for the impact of the virus sooner.

The WHO ignored warnings from Taiwan and continued to reiterate China's false talking points — that "there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission" of the novel pathogen even as late as Jan 14.

In addition, the WHO failed to mandate that Chinese officials share the viral strains that would have allowed diagnostic tests to have been produced significantly earlier worldwide.

Source: Taiwan releases December email to WHO showing unheeded warning about coronavirus

WHY DID WE RUN OUT OF TOILET PAPER?

Did you wonder why toilet paper was swept off store shelves in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic?

Jim Luke, an economics professor at Lansing Community College in Michigan and a strategist for a toilet paper distribution company, said, "We have this illusion as consumers that we go to the store and the shelves always are stocked. There's always stuff there," Luke told host Dave Anthony. "So we tend to think there's always backup; there's always a bunch there. We don't see that it's actually so highly tuned, there really is no backup in the channel."

"If you get just a small increase in that, the volume that people want to purchase at once, that really hits the store shelves pretty big," Luke went on. "We think the store shelves are always full, but they're not. They're just constantly being replenished, or they are in normal times. So if you just increase demand a little bit, all of a sudden that shelf looks a lot more empty.

"And that's what sends a message to people," Luke said. "It's like, 'Oh, my gosh, this, this is not normal.'"

Luke added that the surge in people working from home last month also contributed to the run on toilet paper.

"The factories, the mills, run 24/7 already because demand is so predictable, there is no slack. So they just run all the time," he said. "Now, when that big surge happened in mid-March, and that was because all of a sudden now, we're starting to get into 'stay-at-home' orders and you're getting ... the entire country going, 'Oh, I need to stock up.'"

Luke went on to explain that there are two types of toilet paper: what people use in their homes and what's used by offices and other public places.

"The stuff you get for the home is what's called virgin fiber, meaning it's made from fiber that was made directly from wood pulp and highly processed to be comfortable," Luke said. "Stuff for commercial [use] will contain recycled paper. So it's got old office papers and all kinds of other fiber in it, not as well processed."

"So they can't do much with that," Anthony said. "Like, they can't shift that in the production from business to the home, because it's such a different product."

Source: Why stores ran out of toilet paper early in coronavirus pandemic

You could probably sum this up as panic buying in a just-in-time supply system.

INTERESTING ARTICLE ON FACE MASK DESIGN



For the first time, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended that even seemingly healthy people wear masks over their mouths and noses when venturing out of their homes into places where it is difficult to maintain distance from other people. But there is still major debate over how much masks — particularly the homemade fabric masks that the CDC recommends for the public — can slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

N-95 Mask
Recommendations about masks can easily get confusing, because all masks are not made equal. The N95 mask effectively prevents viral spread. These masks, when properly fitted, seal closely to the face and filter out 95% of particles 0.3 microns or larger. But N95 masks are in serious shortage even for medical professionals, who are exposed to the highest levels of SARS-CoV-2 and are most in need of the strongest protection against the virus.

Surgical Mask and Cloth Face Mask
Due to shortages, the CDC also does not recommend surgical masks for the general public. These masks don't seal against the face but do include non-woven polypropylene layers that are moisture resistant. In a surgical mask, about 70% of the outside air moves through the mask and about 30% travels around the sides, Chu told Live Science. For that reason, they don't offer as much protection as N95s.

That leaves fabric masks, which currently are recommended for general use by the CDC. Fabric masks also allow air in around the sides, but lack non-woven, moisture-repelling layers. They impede only about 2% of airflow in, Chu said.

So surgical mask have include non-woven polypropylene layer that are moisture resistant. But a cloth mask can also include this feature because you can insert a non-woven polypropylene layer between the inner and outer layer of the cloth mask by using a third layer of interfacing in-between. This layer is medium weight fusible non-woven polypropylene interfacing. Fusible means that the material can be ironed onto one of the layers of fabric. Polypropylene will also give the mask anti-bacterial properties. Medium weight is better than light weight. Assembling the mask with this construction will control the exhaust flow. It will stop you from blowing out a candle with the mask on.

A cloth mask is also has the weakness of airflow. It impedes only about 2% of the airflow in. Much of this leakage is around the nose. Therefore if you incorporate a feature found in N95 mask, the metal bendable strap, into the cloth mask design, one can dramatically minimize the airflow problem.

All of this leakage in surgical and fabric masks are why public health officials generally don't believe that wearing a mask prevents anyone from catching a virus that is already floating around in the environment. Airflow follows the path of least resistance, said Rachael Jones, an associate professor of family and preventive medicine at the University of Utah who was not involved in the new research. If viral particles are nearby, they have an easy path around a surgical or fabric mask. And in the case of a fabric mask, wearers may well be wafting in particles small enough to flow right through the fabric.

A study, published April 3 in the journal Nature Medicine, used a more sophisticated method of collecting the virus particles that sick people emit. The researchers asked 426 volunteers to breathe for 30 minutes into a cone-like device that captures everything exhaled. Of these, 43 patients had influenza, 54 patients had rhinoviruses and 17 patients had seasonal coronaviruses (the kinds that cause colds, not the kind that causes COVID-19). This method allowed the researchers to quantify how much virus was found in droplet particles, which are greater than 0.0002 inches (5 microns) in diameter, versus aerosol particles, which are 5 microns or smaller. The participants were randomized to either wear a surgical mask or not wear a mask during the study.

The first key finding was that the researchers detected virus in tiny aerosol particles in all cases: influenza, rhinoviruses and coronaviruses. In the case of influenza, they cultured the captured particles and discovered that they were infectious. That's important, said study author Ben Cowling, head of the Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at The Hong Kong University, because there is a long-running debate among health professionals about whether influenza can spread via aerosols. The study suggests that it likely can, and that colds probably can too.

And as for masks? Surgical masks reduced the amount of virus released from a sick person in the form of droplets but not aerosols for influenza; the masks reduced coronavirus in both droplets and aerosols; and they didn't reduce either in rhinovirus. For the seasonal coronavirus, researchers found the virus in droplets in 3 out of 10 samples from participants not wearing masks and in aerosols in 4 out of 10 samples taken without masks. In samples taken with masks, no virus was detected in either droplets or aerosols.

The difference between viruses could have something to do with where in the respiratory tract these infectious invaders make their homes, said Cowling, who is also co-director of the WHO Collaborating Center for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Control. For example, a virus that reproduces deep in the lungs might need to travel in smaller particles to make it all the way out into the world, while one that reproduces mostly in the nose and throat may be more easily mobilized in bigger droplets.

The results from influenza and seasonal coronaviruses suggest that surgical masks can help keep people with COVID-19 from spreading the virus, Cowling said. SARS-CoV-2 probably behaves similarly to the viruses he and his team studied, he said, and the fact that people can spread the virus before they experience symptoms is an argument for recommending masks for everyone.

Source: Do face masks really reduce coronavirus spread? Experts have mixed answers

While I'm sad that my father passed a couple of years ago, I'm glad he never saw the coronavirus. He was an insufferable conspiracy theorist and if he was alive today he would be going absolutely feral with talk about how the coronavirus was created by the NWO in their plan to reduce the earth's population down to 600 million.