Coronavirus Pandemic

[zip accident]

I think the UK plan is to cull the pensioners. I wouldn't be surprised if the USA plan turns out to be the same.

[PFVA]

We are still an unusual country. I go to the store today. Fresh vegetables sold out, carrots, cabbages, lettuce, tomatoes all gone. Fruit almost all gone, i took 4 out of the 12 bananas left. Frozen food no problem. Plenty of it. Ice cream no problem. I have been seing reports of people complaining all over Europe and even in the US of frozen food sold out, not here, the fresh one sells out. We are normal though when it comes to toilette paper, that has been sold out here too.

[Harlequin]

Its an odd one though in that have any previous viruses been so age specific ? Below 30 in China rate of death was less than 0.1%

I think older people are generally more susceptible to respiratory illnesses, due to such factors as weaker immune systems and preexisting respiratory problems. For example:

(Histograms of pneumonia and influenza (ICD 10 J10–J18) [U.S.] deaths by age, 2010 vs. 1999–2008.
Year 2010 is solid; 1999–2008 average is cross-hatched.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0064198.g003 – via https://journals.plos.org/plosone/artic ... ne.0064198)

[tufty]

The argument against this seems to be "but it'll re-emerge next Winter".

There's cases everywhere, including countries where it's not winter. People talking about it dying out in the summer are guessing that it will do the same thing as Flu. It's not Flu. Summer may calm down the spread somewhat. Or it may not.

Then we directly give everyone on the planet "herd immunity" through a harmless jab,

OMG you want the children to catch autism you MONSTER! Won't somebody think of the children?

<coff>

Here, we're obliged to stay at home for 2 weeks. Offenders will be fined, not shot, at least for the moment.

[PFVA]

Amazing what can happen. Cruise ships have been forbidden from disembarking passengers in our harbours. This weekend one of them returning to wherever, harbours in Cadiz (Spain) herds the passengers in tourism buses, 47 of them, and brings them to Lisbon airport so they can fly to wherever is their residence country. Our government said that as of last night 3/4 of them were gone. And they weren't tested for the virus of course.


As of this morning 331 infected, and the first death, a 81 years old man that used to be a sports massage therapist for a football team in Lisbon. Three people have recovered.

And a couple of pics from this afternoon:

Line outside pharmacy. People are now served only thru the window

Waiting Outside

People waiting outside the supermarket for their turn to go in

Waiting Outside

[Ollie]

We are still an unusual country. I go to the store today. Fresh vegetables sold out, carrots, cabbages, lettuce, tomatoes all gone. Fruit almost all gone, i took 4 out of the 12 bananas left. Frozen food no problem. Plenty of it. Ice cream no problem. I have been seing reports of people complaining all over Europe and even in the US of frozen food sold out, not here, the fresh one sells out. We are normal though when it comes to toilette paper, that has been sold out here too.

Plenty of bananas at my local Tesco this morning, but hardly any bread, which presumably is restocked daily.

[Barney]

https://twitter.com/RTUKnews/status/1239584711346769920

[KlaxonCow]

Its an odd one though in that have any previous viruses been so age specific ? Below 30 in China rate of death was less than 0.1%

Oh, it's even more age-specific than even that.

Under the age of 10, there have been, so far, no fatalities at all. Not a single one.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir ... ographics/

So the mystery deepens, as with such a wide spread, there's no possible way that children of that age range have not been exposed. But, so far, it literally has a mortality rate of zero point zero zero recurring, in that age range.

More over, observations coming from experts globally is that they're seeing young children being completely asymptomatic - it's not only not killing them, but it's apparently not even phasing them (now, I'll caveat and qualify this one that I don't know how universal this is - whether it's some, most or all children of this age range - but only that known instances of this have been reported from multiple countries. That there are kids who're getting it and recovering, showing absolutely no symptoms at all - and, hey, kids that young are the least likely to lie about how they feel, as they have no sense of "stiff upper lip" and would wail to their parents at any upset or discomfort or confusion about what's going on).

Though no-one can definitely tell you why - because this is too brand new and unknown, in so many regards, for us to say anything in particular beyond field observations of what's actually happening - there's a potential hint towards explanation of what is technically actually causing the fatalities.

This BBC article attempts to explain what the coronavirus does:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51214864

And the thing to note is that, in and of itself, the virus is mild. It causes "mild flu-like symptoms" for the majority. What's technically causing the fatalities is an immune system over-reaction to it.

I guess the analogy I'd make is to those with a nut allergy going into anaphylactic shock. To most people, a nut is perfectly harmless and even a bit tasty. It's food. But, for those with a nut allergy, their immune systems over-react - misidentifying it as a major threat - and their throats swell up in over-reaction (as the nut comes into contact with their esophagus, as they swallow it) and this is potentially deadly because it can prevent them from breathing.

Except here, we're talking about that immune system over-reaction happening inside the lungs themselves - massive inflammation - which prevents breathing on a much more fundamental level. And, unlike a nut allergy, we don't currently have anything equivalent to an epi-pen, to quickly jab them with, to attempt to bring this deadly over-reaction under control.

So the lack of fatalities in the lowest age group, and the relatively low fatalities in the young in general, is because they're just not getting this immune system over-reaction, which is what's technically causing all the fatalities. That, to them, a nut is just a nut, so to speak.

Moving a bit towards speculation here, what we do know is that a child's immune system is still very much in "learning mode". That is, for them, every infection is brand new. None of us have encountered coronavirus before but, for the youngest children, their immune systems haven't encountered much of anything and pretty much everything is brand new.

(So the speculative explanation - and it is moving into speculation here - is that older "trained" immune systems are more likely to make this deadly misidentification and over-react to what's otherwise a "mild" threat (because without any immune over-reaction, this would be "mild symptoms" then you recover and not a big deal to anyone but the most vulnerable, much like the flu which we regularly get every year or so and just sniffle our way through, not requiring medical attention at all, just a bunch of tissues - which, by the way, is what it has been for the vast majority of people who get it and for the vast majority of people who will eventually get it). But younger immune systems are, if you like, seeing it for what it is - can't misidentify it as something else because whatever this "something else" is, they've equally never had that either - but older immune systems seem more likely to make that misidentification and erroneously over-react to potentially fatal levels. Okay, speculative paragraph over.)

The take-away is that the fatalities are actually coming from an immune system over-reaction (like folks with a nut allergy going into anaphylactic shock) but, otherwise, if that wasn't there, the virus, in and of itself, is just "mild symptoms" and then you recover. Which is how the clear majority of people will experience it.

[KlaxonCow]

The argument against this seems to be "but it'll re-emerge next Winter".

There's cases everywhere, including countries where it's not winter. People talking about it dying out in the summer are guessing that it will do the same thing as Flu. It's not Flu. Summer may calm down the spread somewhat. Or it may not.

Well, to be clear, what I was getting at - potential repeat outbreaks, as controls are loosened - was not dependent on the season. Hence the quotation marks, as I'm just quoting the typical argument being made against a more rigorous policy of suppression.

Indeed, the actual argument is that repeated, but controlled, outbreaks is a better price to pay overall, than letting it just run riot, to be in some kind of rush to get it all over and done with by the Summer (which is what the "but it'll re-emerge next Winter" argument is implicitly getting at, to be done and dusted before Winter - and what I'm essentially getting at is "sorry, it's going to take longer than that, I'm afraid. We're in for a longer haul, not a quick flash in the pan. And rash action is not advised"). As we don't, indeed, know that Summer will make any useful difference at all.

Mind you, we might be arguing over a moot point, if this article is correct:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... as-changed

That new data and modelling coming to the UK government is telling them we need tighter controls, pronto, bringing the UK more in line with the consensus "suppression" policy everywhere else and recommended by WHO.

Which is why Boris is now telling us all to avoid social contact as much as possible (granted, by consent, rather than enforcement, but that would naturally be "the British way" - mother of democracies and all that - but I was never convinced by the "nudge" unit's notion that people would "get bored" of not being ill, as surely nothing trumps "self-preservation" in any human's psychology), and it's moving towards falling in line with everyone else on this.

We'd all love for this to be done and dusted straight away, but there's no way anything - not just health services, though they are the primary thing to worry about, but also businesses and supply chains and everything else - could cope with a massive rush to get it "out of the way" quickly.

We're in for a longer haul - where re-emergence of outbreaks will doubtlessly happen, and we'll just have to stamp out those fires as they happen - so strap yourselves in.

(Talking to a friend on the phone, I don't think there's anyone who hasn't had the passing thought - the temptation - of thinking "let's just get it, take our chances, hopefully recover and move on". Such darkness calls to us all, on occasion. Me included. But the numbers really don't bear it out - only 0.002% of China's population actually got it, and that's the worst instance of any country - and, for the sake of others, we all collectively have to keep this away from the vulnerable. Yes, everyone wants it out of the way as soon as possible, as being stuck in a permanent anxiety ain't great for anyone's mental health - see this for WHO recommendations on that - but "fools rush in where angels fear to tread" and all that jazz.)

[Little stoned kiwi]

NZ's Education Minister says there is 'no scientific reason for school closures'.

So there.

[KlaxonCow]

only 0.002% of China's population actually got it, and that's the worst instance of any country

Sorry, that's the wrong number.

Only 0.006% of China's population (80K / 1.3 billion) actually got it so far.

Plugged in the wrong number to my calculator app there. Apologies.

[gravy]

only 0.002% of China's population actually got it, and that's the worst instance of any country

Sorry, that's the wrong number.

Only 0.006% of China's population (80K / 1.3 billion) actually got it so far.

Plugged in the wrong number to my calculator app there. Apologies.

The amount of cases in Wuhan as a % of population would be a better metric.

[tufty]

NZ's Education Minister says there is 'no scientific reason for school closures'.

Fuck me. We lost the empire, we're no longer a superpower, and now, despite a sterling effort at kicking our neighbours in the bollocks and a government trying to kill as many of its voter base as possible, we've lost the title of "most stupiderist cunts in the world".

Still, I suppose we can have some pride in that stupiderpitude being originally exported from here.

[KlaxonCow]

The amount of cases in Wuhan as a % of population would be a better metric.

I don't disagree. That would be more precise.

But I don't have those numbers to hand, so the cruder metric is all I can offer from the sources I'm looking at.

Though South Korea comes out at 0.015% of their total population, which I've also previously mentioned. Which is roughly in the same ball park.

Then again, for what I'm getting at here, focusing in on just the Wuhan numbers - to make them comparatively bigger - actually helps to prove my wider point about containment, if you think about it. If we're focusing on Wuhan because the rest of the country was comparatively less affected, then that's my wider point - the rest of the country was comparatively less affected.

Don't get me wrong. The numbers can most definitely spiral out of control - I've earlier talked about and posted videos on exponential growth - but China and South Korea stopped their spirals (and, yes, this doesn't mean it can't start up again).

What I'm saying is before we go to "plan B", let's at least try "plan A" first. The numbers currently don't justify abandoning "plan A" yet, and we can always fall back on "plan B" if they do get that bad.


Also, there's a real big problem with "plan B". We don't know how long-lasting the antibodies to this coronavirus are. But, going by other coronaviruses, they actually tend not to be that long-lasting - less long-lasting than influenza antibodies tend to be. Natural "herd immunity" might not actually last all that long. But a vaccine "herd immunity" will be designed to be long-lasting - that's actually, coming from those who're developing a vaccine, one of the things they're explicitly trying to deal with in their designs.

And they are very much fast-tracking the vaccine everywhere, as there are already some human trials of a potential vaccine about to begin in the US very soon:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... derna-dose

They've basically waived some of the regulations on this and it's skipping over the initial animal testing completely, straight to human testing, with volunteers who're okay with that additional risk. And I think, due to the nature of this, all regulations - that aren't specifically there to make sure that this is safe for humans and not potentially worse than the disease itself - will evaporate (and more willing volunteers who'll accept all the risks of doing that will step forward).

[Little stoned kiwi]

The child of someone who tested positive is also positive. His school has been closed for 48 hours to be cleaned. Because they have to be seen as doing something.