COVID-19

[living sounds]

That is news....  ( I am not going to turn off my air conditioner without compelling justification.)

What I meant was that air conditioning provides closed-loop cooling, too. I have no idea if an actual correlation to Covid-19 incidence has been measured.

The high incidence in meat processing plants has been blamed on, not shutting them down when pandemic arose because they are considered a vital industry for food supply.

https://www.thelocal.de/20200624/german-slaughterhouses-cooling-system-helped-spread-virus

 

[Script]

What I meant was that air conditioning provides closed-loop cooling, too. I have no idea if an actual correlation to Covid-19 incidence has been measured.

Not quantified but observed and closely looked into in Japan. I think I had posted a link to a video either in this or the 'politics' thread.

CASE: group infection in a restaurant.
OBSERVATION:  seemingly random pattern, as people not sitting at same table got infected, while some others did not catch it despite sitting at the same table as the spreader.
SOLVED: people sitting directly in the stream the Aircon made air continuously flow are much more likely to get infected. Meaning: through airborne particles.
RECOMMENDATION: avoid  aircons in closed spaces, instead open all windows and adjust seating layout / chair and table arrangement (e.g. in restaurants).

 

[JohnRoberts]

I am still optimistic about and impatiently waiting for far UVc (222nm or less) disinfectant lighting.... Until then, for inside closed loop air handling, normal UVc can be used, in addition to hepa filters.

The health official(?) blamed the slaughterhouse infection outbreak to aerosols spread through the closed air handling system. Aerosols are more difficult to filter out than droplets and there are economic cost benefits from recirculating the room air. Not trivial but air to air heat exchangers could pre-cool outside air with the cool exhaust air. I suspect these would be large and not cheap/easy to incorporate into existing systems, UVc disinfection inside air ducts is more practical.

Another common theme is that these relatively low income meat cutters jobs are usually filled by immigrant workers (in US too) who live in crowded conditions while not on the job, that can contribute to community spread, within their community . 

JR 

PS: I have thought about this in the context of aircraft air circulation systems. I could imagine it being safer to have clean, filtered, disinfected air blown directly at your head/face.  To make this more effective they would need to expand cabin air collection to grab air right by every seat (unlikely). 

 

[scott2000]

I'm still trying to make sense why the positive/neg ratio of non-residents here keeps getting larger.... .... Miami-Dade has every other non resident  with it.... as do other places.... 1 out of every 4 is average??...  Osceola is funny....Disney???

I listed some counties along the coast and a few others....  Escambia at the border has been climbing very fast.....

 

[living sounds]

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/covid-19-and-excess-deaths/

 

[scott2000]

Florida has had an increase in expected deaths from any cause as the weeks go by...about 400 the week before the 4th....little over 600 the week of the 4th...almost 500 the week after... Disturbing.....

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm


Miami Dade has had 14397 positives out of 53323 tests in the last 5 days.....  27% ?

Every day since July 1st has been around 25% positive tests for all residents in Dade.......  10 to 12000 tests per day....1 out of every 4 test positive....

they will have tested as much as a quarter of their 2.5 million population in another week or so at this rate.....

 

[scott2000]

So I've been interested in the Miami Dade area since it seems to be the new epicenter from what I can tell....

March really didn't report but a handful of deaths . Looks like they weren't reporting at all until the last few days of March....

April 345 deaths reported
May 348 deaths reported
June 291 deaths reported
July looks like it's on track to be bigger than April and May... I counted 324 from July 1 to july 21....the last couple of weeks are the largest numbers of deaths reported out of all the weeks since this started...

So far there are 1342 deaths reported for Miami Dade

585 of these are from nursing homes...


I've been checking the data explorer on this CDC page out...Pretty cool.....

https://ephtracking.cdc.gov/

 

[JohnRoberts]

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/covid-19-and-excess-deaths/

Ohhh "science based medicine"..as compared to unscientific medicine?

It appears they are suggesting that covid deaths are likely under reported. This can vary with how we define a covid death.

Indeed it is instructive to compare "all death" trends from this year to past years. It is fair to ASSume that covid is a likely explanation for significant differences (either increases or decreases). I noted recently about a sizable bump (something like +15k) in Alzheimer's deaths for a few months earlier this year.

Likewise I have heard anecdotal suggestions that hospitals and medical systems are declaring even unrelated deaths as covid because they receive more compensation that way. Reportedly one motorcycle accident death was declared covid related.  I don't know about overt fraud occurring, but when you reward "kitchen sinking" all deaths as covid it can happen more frequently.

JR

PS: Try not to lose too much sleep over the drumbeat of daily increasing covid numbers, that's how these things play out, until they run their course. I don't know that the experts always have a firm grasp of these numbers and I am reluctant to make personal changes based on news reports that are not rewarded for giving us calming news. 

 

[living sounds]

Ohhh "science based medicine"..as compared to unscientific medicine?

Indeed, it's explained in more detail here:

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/about-science-based-medicine/

As far as trustworthyness goes, you'll be hard pressed to find a better source than these guys. They are also major figures in the skeptical community. Don't take my word for it - look at their record.

 

[living sounds]

Likewise I have heard anecdotal suggestions that hospitals and medical systems are declaring even unrelated deaths as covid because they receive more compensation that way. Reportedly one motorcycle accident death was declared covid related.  I don't know about overt fraud occurring, but when you reward "kitchen sinking" all deaths as covid it can happen more frequently.

And at the same time, it's likely that people also are incentivised to hide it in some instances. And it may simply go unnoticed - diagnostics, especially in the earlier stages of the pandemic, often show false negatives and the infection can take many different shapes. Excess mortality data is the best tool availible to get a better picture, but we're still in the middle of it all...

 

[JohnRoberts]

Indeed, it's explained in more detail here:

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/about-science-based-medicine/

As far as trustworthyness goes, you'll be hard pressed to find a better source than these guys. They are also major figures in the skeptical community. Don't take my word for it - look at their record.

I just found humor in the name as if the rest of the medical community did not use science.

And at the same time, it's likely that people also are incentivised to hide it in some instances. And it may simply go unnoticed - diagnostics, especially in the earlier stages of the pandemic, often show false negatives and the infection can take many different shapes. Excess mortality data is the best tool availible to get a better picture, but we're still in the middle of it all...

Agreed as I have posted before about excess Alzheimer's deaths.

But since we are in the middle of this (at least the middle I hope) it is hard to put too much trust in the short term data... while for those in charge they must make decisions based on the only data they have.

JR

 

[cyrano]

Some insights about the genetic factor, from The Netherlands:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2768926

 

[scott2000]

Some insights about the genetic factor, from The Netherlands:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2768926

Interesting read....

Seems like a pretty rare deficiency....

 

[JohnRoberts]

I saw an interview of Bill Gates (on CNBC) and he shared an interesting observation. He said any Covid tests that take more than 24 hours for results should not be paid for because they are worthless to inform the test subjects quickly enough change their behavior, and prevent community spread.

He also said the number of cases were too many for contact tracing to work now, maybe after it slows down.

JR

PS: Gates is a target for numerous conspiracy theories but his comments sounded reasonable to me.

 

[Script]

I saw an interview of Bill Gates (on CNBC) and he shared an interesting observation. He said any Covid tests that take more than 24 hours for results should not be paid for because they are worthless to inform the test subjects quickly enough change their behavior, and prevent community spread.

He also said the number of cases were too many for contact tracing to work now, maybe after it slows down.

24 hours is a lot of time. Yes, I think Gates has a point there.

And once contact tracing is no longer feasible, lockdown is one of the two only sensible options. The other being doing nothing and letting it spread...

 

[Script]

Just read (again) that the UK will extend virus isolation period from seven to ten days.

10 days, yeah, I've heard that. It was
revised from still 14 days not too long ago, based on some studies from France, Germany, Iceland, Japan -- can't remember.

But 7 days ?? .Where did who get that from? Sounds bonkers. Is that real news or fake ? (Article source says BBC.)

Just asking, cos news from AstraZeneca reg. vaccine candidate sounded rather promising as of late...

 

[Script]

Infection spread continues in Tokyo through group dinners, karaoke bars and drinking parties. -- Confirmed, so there we go.

 

[Tubetec]

We just had a small spike in the number of confirmed cases here today (85), seems to have centered around a dog food processing factory staffed by asylum seekers who typically are housed in very cramped conditions . We knew all along the 'Direct Provision' system where these people are housed could easily turn out to be a vector for transmission but no one did anything about it.Vested interests and friends of people in power make a packet from these quangoes. 

 

[JohnRoberts]

I read a newspaper article that COVID affects multiple body systems.

Current treatment focuses on blood thinners to prevent blood clots, monitoring blood oxygen levels, and inflammation. 

Ventilators (mechanical assisted breathing)  that were an early go-to treatment for Covid have pretty much been relegated to last chance efforts because now so many people recover without using them. 

Caveat I am not a heath professional, but beer is a blood thinner.  8)

JR

 

[crazydoc]

Some interesting news regarding the possibility of  some degree of immunity to SARS-CoV-2 in unexposed individuals, with unknown, as yet, protective or even adverse effects. It might help to explain why some people don't get sick, some do, and some get very sick and die:

"In conclusion, it is now established that SARS-CoV-2 pre-existing immune reactivity exists to some degree in the general population. It is hypothesized, but not yet proven, that this might be due to immunity to CCCs. This might have implications for COVID-19 disease severity, herd immunity and vaccine development, which still await to be addressed with actual data."

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-020-0389-z

Easier reading here:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/do-some-people-have-protection-against-the-coronavirus/ar-BB17tqGX?ocid=bingcovid

More here:
https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(20)30610-3.pdf