Corona-virus - Impact of the Health Situation worldwide

[AY Mod]

16 hours ago, Andy Hayter said:

Corvid19

 

Stone the crows, another bloomin virus to worry about. Things rook worse than I thought.

[Andy Hayter]

OK should have been Covid19.  Blame it on Dyslexic fingers - which by the way makes you a disability hater for pointing out the error.  

[bgman]

Seems this web site has caught "Shortuspageus" too !

 

Will it need any medication to make it whole again ? 

[Mallard60022]

An 'illustration', perhaps, of the quiet and insidious way in which this, and any other contagious condition, can 'spread', goes as follows.

I go to Pilates (no sniggering at the back) on Monday evening, we all are envious of our 'Teacher who has just returned from Northern Italy. Several of us need 'hands on' adjustment whilst attempting certain contortions. I am one of those; hands and head. Enjoy session as always and limp home thinking only of Dinner and a rest and how my son is after a minor heart op. Mrs Mallard has been at son's and Northern general in Sheffield, since the morning.

Wake up on Tuesday morning to hear the news saying that anyone returning (especially by plane), from Northern Italy, needs to beware of feeling flue like symptoms and phone 111 for advice and then almost certainly self isolate.  WTF I think. Oh I think. I contact the Pilates Clinic manager (who is, thankfully, an NHS professional Physio and mention what I've heard. She hasn't heard anything but thanks me and says she will speak with my Teacher, also still working when not teaching, a NHS Physio, and she/they will monitor the situation.

Meanwhile said Teacher continues work and classes all this week and probably next, unless she feels ill! B0####ks to that I think and decide to self isolate, just in case. Mrs Mallard is at sons and will be there till tomorrow, calling back here briefly. I will keep out of her way but suggest she returns to sons.

Son lives in Donny where a school has told its' students that went skiing in Northern Italy, that flew back from Milan and  were home over the weekend possibly going to the Women's International Rugby etc, to self isolate. Pilates Teacher and those Students need ten days of not getting poorly to be declared 'safe'. Meanwhile I am staying put and I don't give a s##t who thinks that's over reacting.  

Thus, the way it spreads and 'turns up' all over the Planet. This is not a 'bit of a problem', this is a real problem and the Government need to get a grip pretty quick.

P

 

 

Edited February 27, 2020 by Mallard60022

[robmcg]

1 hour ago, Andy Hayter said:

Recovery rates are there if you seek them Phil.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

 

Perhaps not as high as we would wish given the virus has been around since December.

As with all of these statistics please take with a good helping of salt.

Asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic people who just stay at home will probably not be recorded.

Equally influenza (and today Corvid19) may not be recorded as cause of death over perhaps heart failure, pulmonary failure etc..

 

Worth repeating, and if you look at known deaths these are overwhelmingly old people who may have other health issues.

 

I think on the basis of what is known so far that this reaction worldwide is mostly fear, very low actual threat.

 

While all death and illness is unpleasant , I am looking forward to headlines which describe the possible pandemic as of no greater consequence than a 'flu strain. And that health people are effectively safe, given normal risks to health and life generally.

[Nearholmer]

Mallard

 

I agree, and sympathise.

 

Kevin

[Wheres_Wally]

1 hour ago, Mallard60022 said:

 This is not a 'bit of a problem', this is a real problem and the Government need to get a grip pretty quick

 

Easy to say, but what can they really do? 

 

Ban everyone from leaving the house for a month? Difficult as someone has to run electric and water supplies. Also, how many people have enough food if the decree was made tomorrow? 

 

On a smaller scale, should we refuse to bring anyone "home" if they are currently stuck in an infected area such as a cruise ship or hotel? 

 

If someone does show symptoms, the fastest and MOST effective way to ensure they don't spread anything would be execution followed by burning the corpse. I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be a popular option though. Even the Chinese didn't opt for that. 

[Dava]

5 hours ago, Pandora said:

Agreed , China is still a deeply rooted   Police state

Read about their advanced digital surveillance system being tested and implemented to condition the activities of their population, so close to the George Orwell

book  "1984"

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System

 

But have they cleaned up the appalling animal and food hygiene issues including warm meat markets and adjacent open air slaughter which produced this virus? Any UK environmental health inspector would have closed them on the spot. If not this will happen again.

 

Dava

[Andy Hayter]

Assuming, and it is still an assumption (and one that is being challenged) that the market was indeed ground zero.  It is being suggested in some quarters that the infection ground zero was elsewhere but the market was the incubation area.

[Ravenser]

On 25/02/2020 at 20:11, Andy Hayter said:

 

 

Strictly reefers are refrigerated and not necessarily frozen, so food can rot.

 

Not being able to berth suggests that the berths are already occupied.  This may be a problem in loading - perhaps unlikely since the owner will simply say "s*d it we sail at midnight.  What is loaded is loaded, what isn't will wait for the next ship.  We can always fill up at Singapore, Mubai, Khorfakkan or wherever."  And generally they can. 

 

It sounds to me as if there is a problem unloading in the Chinese ports.  This can be for a number of reasons:

Lack of crane drivers to  unload the containers - or lack of the best trained and fastest drivers.

Lack of internal port handling staff delaying movement of the containers on the quayside

Lack of customs officials to clear imports

Lack of truck drivers to take the containers to their next destination.

 

Any or all of these will rapidly cause port constipation and will result in ships on berth not being unloaded quickly and it is more difficult for the ship owner to say b*@@er this for a game of soldiers, and just sail away, because his ship has a stack of containers at the top and no home if he does.  [Plus of course a contract to deliver to port X and not somewhere else.]

 

I had the pleasure (not the right word) of seeing the Turkish port of Ambali (Istanbul European side) become congested like this at the start of the Libyan war.  Turkey was supplying a lot of building materials to Libya and when the bombing started and the ports were shut, all of the boats in transit turned around.  Containers were stranded in port (with demurrage) for weeks and even months, every inch of warehousing within 50km was booked solid.  The only road into the port looked like a lorry parking lot.  

 

Maybe not sloppy reporting after all.

 

The problem is that reefer containers aren't being delivered from the ports. There are a finite number of reefer points on a container terminal, and eventually you will run out of plugs to keep reefers refrigerated. Which seems to be where several Chinese main  ports now are

 

Yes owners will instruct a vessel to "cut and run" if you can't get everything on board in a reasonable time frame, and that has been the case for many years. You can in principle fill up in Hong Kong or Xingang or Singapore if you have to cut and run at Shanghai or Ningbo

 

The container lines have been pulling sailings on a large scale because of the downturn in the westbound trade - but this is now causing capacity pressure on the Eastbound leg... As for the airlines, air cargo out to China/HK is now an increasingly difficult situation as passenger schedules have been slashed, and no doubt there is a similar situation coming back. Most air cargo flys in the holds of passenger aircraft

 

At present there is no disruption to European road haulage, but rumours about possible disruption to trucks leaving Italy have been in the air. I leave you to imagine where space availability and prices end up if a wave of European freight switching from road to air meets a capacity squeeze as passenger schedules are slashed... 

 

It has been widely reported that new cases in China are dropping steadily, and it's worth pointing out that there are under 80,000 cases worldwide when Wuhan has a population of over 11 million, and that's only one city in the worst affected province. Even in the worst hit areas this is still a tiny fraction of the population - which suggests most people won't ever get this -, and we will have to see how /when the cases in Italy and S Korea peak and begin to decline. 

 

On the flip side, the practical questions arise - do you have enough food in the house to run for a fortnight before you get the all-clear? Do you even have a thermometer to check you are in fact ok...

 

And I really wonder how long we will go before we see the exhibition circuit shut down on quarantine grounds

[jjb1970]

I'm not sure what people want government to do. The key things that will help appear to be related to basic hygene, if people aren't following that hygene advice I really can't see that the government are responsible. As Welly has said, what do people want to do with people in infected areas,  onboard ships and aircraft etc? 

[jjb1970]

11 hours ago, Phil Parker said:

 

If you have a mild sniffle or even flu, how many people ring the doctor? I suspect that the number of cases is much larger than the official numbers. This might change in the UK after several weeks of hysterical coverage from the media. We hear how many people have been infected, never how many recovered. Read the tabloids and interweb and you think we are facing the end of the world. However, even China is starting to get back to normal life. Assuming things work for other illnesses, those who recover will have some immunity.

 

I remember, when working for MAFF, reading the official rabies plans. At the time, the idea was to hype the disease (which is admittedly, horrible) to ensure people obeyed the 6 month quarantine rules for pets at the time. If it came to the UK, this was to go into reverse to avoid panic. Once we get Coronavirus in the UK, I suspect a similar about-face will take place. Look out for "It's no worse than flu" appearing everywhere.

 

Although they don't want to say so in public the message I seem to be getting from medical people is that yes there is a risk, yes those with pre-existing health problems are vulnerable (in the same way as with seasonal flu) but overall the general reaction and near panic is way OTT and unnecessary. 

[Chamby]

It is interesting that the UK government has announced a national sampling exercise to see if the Coronavirus is already present in the general population.  With a two week incubation period, and most infected people having only mild symptoms similar to the flu, they clearly suspect that it may now be more widespread, but symptomatically indistinguishable from the various other strains of colds and flu afflicting the nation at this time of year.  Remember that the number of people dying from ‘normal’ flu is already in the tens of thousands each year.

 

Already the DoH is advising that it is unnecessary to close schools and offices if a case is suspected.  It is only a matter of time before the management of Coronavirus is played down, fully integrated with the treatment of normal colds and flu, out of necessity.  We can’t all rush down to A and E for a test every time we get a sniffle, clogging up the system.  It will be the minority of Coronavirus cases that go on to develop pneumonia, and ‘high risk’ patients where the health management effort will be targeted - exactly as happens now with the ‘regular’ strains of flu.  Secondary pneumonia appears to be the real killer, not the infection itself.  But yes, hospitals will be undoubtedly come under pressure with a surge in cases of pneumonia until the wider population develops immunity and a national vaccination programme can take effect.  I am sure that contingency planning is already under way, to help manage this need.

 

Whatever, it is something that we will just have to live with, but only for a while.

 

 

[spikey]

9 hours ago, Ravenser said:

 ... the practical questions arise - do you have enough food in the house to run for a fortnight before you get the all-clear?

 

Hah!  Next door but one has just admitted that he and his missus both thought we were daft when we mentioned over Christmas that we'd finally achieved an objective we set ourselves a year or so ago i.e. to have at least 3 weeks' supply of food and other essentials in stock.

 

And if you're thinking of getting in a decent stock yourself, FWIW our starting point was to determine how long things do actually last us.  The results were generally a revelation.  Funnily enough, some things we'd assumed lasted far longer than they actually do, but others we get through far quicker than we thought.  If nothing else, at least our shopping's a lot more efficient nowadays ...

[Oldddudders]

Taken from the BBC Coronavirus page - it does say share! The caption is mine. 

 

 

"I'm actually only feeling brassed-off - but you can't be too careful!"

[ejstubbs]

18 hours ago, Pandora said:

Bath time with carbolic soap  halted the bacteria of  the deadly 1920s smallpox epidemic in Britain

 

Smallpox was a viral disease, not bacterial.  Vaccination had been compulsory in the UK since 1853 but vaccination rates had declined since the turn of the century.  Phenol-based soaps like carbolic can be effective antibacterials but are unlikely to be any more effective than ordinary soap at removing viral pathogens from human skin - ordinary soap is pretty effective if proper, thorough handwashing protocols such as this one: https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-body/best-way-to-wash-your-hands/ are observed.

 

I suspect that the main benefit from encouraging people to use carbolic soap was probably that more people used soap at all and/or more often.

 

True carbolic soap is known to be a skin irritant, and its sale is banned in some jurisdictions for this reason.  Many of what look and smell like 'carbolic' soaps are simply coloured and fragranced to resemble the real thing in order to appeal to traditionalists.  Modern disinfectant skin cleansers such as are used in hospitals are just as effective as carbolic soap and less aggressive on the skin.  (FWIW some studies also indicate that modern 'antibacterial' soaps are no more effective than ordinary soap at removing all types of pathogens.)

 

I wouldn't rely on that old bar of Lifebuoy to protect you from covid-19.

Edited February 27, 2020 by ejstubbs

[Ron Ron Ron]

Wednesday night’s edition of BBC2’s Newsnight, was entirely devoted to the Coronavirus issue.

Lots of useful snippets of information came out of that program.

e.g. Plans to prevent overload of the funeral system, include the provision for mass graves.

 

Worth a look on iPlayer.

 

.

[TheQ]

24 minutes ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

Wednesday night’s edition of BBC2’s Newsnight, was entirely devoted to the Coronavirus issue.

Lots of useful snippets of information came out of that program.

e.g. Plans to prevent overload of the funeral system, include the provision for mass graves.

 

Worth a look on iPlayer.

 

.

did anyone else read that as I Prayer..

[Gibbo675]

37 minutes ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

Wednesday night’s edition of BBC2’s Newsnight, was entirely devoted to the Coronavirus issue.

Lots of useful snippets of information came out of that program.

e.g. Plans to prevent overload of the funeral system, include the provision for mass graves.

 

Worth a look on iPlayer.

 

.

Hi Ron,

 

Would that be the BBC telling you not to panic by invoking panic through an "informative" program that mentions mass graves ?

 

Gibbo.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

14 hours ago, Dava said:

But have they cleaned up the appalling animal and food hygiene issues including warm meat markets and adjacent open air slaughter which produced this virus? Any UK environmental health inspector would have closed them on the spot...

The 'wet markets' which (whether source or incubator in this outbreak, it matters not) have operated on a large scale throughout much of China - and beyond -  for millennia. This is a culturally embedded activity. It would a need a very large scale and very sympathetic operation of long duration to modify into something 'hygienic', to avoid simply pushing this activity 'underground'.

 

And after all that, it could prove to be very bad news. We share this planet with coronavirus, and its various hosts, those we eat and their wild forebears and relatives. It will still be here and able to produce cross-species mutations. Possibly exposure to such mutations on a fairly regular basis pushes up our herd immunity. Significantly reducing incidence of such mutation, and also the regular exposure of the bulk of the population; may lead to a killer outbreak when a novel mutation occasionally gets into a human population with very little acquired immunity.

 

3 hours ago, spikey said:

... finally achieved an objective we set ourselves a year or so ago i.e. to have at least 3 weeks' supply of food and other essentials in stock ...

Such planning certainly does make shopping far more efficient, especially as purchases need only be made when an 'offer' applies.

 

Sadly the truly essential most of us cannot in any way stockpile is foul waste disposal. Those with septic tanks/cess pits/reed bed filters will rule the earth...

 

1 hour ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

... Plans to prevent overload of the funeral system, include the provision for mass graves...

Good. In our comfortable developed world there's a temptation to think that 'even in life we are in the midst of death' no longer applies. Sorry folks.

[spikey]

47 minutes ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

Sadly the truly essential most of us cannot in any way stockpile is foul waste disposal. Those with septic tanks/cess pits/reed bed filters will rule the earth...

 Verily, you never really appreciate what a wonderful thing mains drainage is until you've spent many a year with a cess pit (emptied regularly in our case by the wonderfully-named Bill Brown, who was blessed with no sense of smell).

 

True you can't stockpile waste disposal, but as long as you have a bucket and a plentiful supply of newspaper if you have a garden or plastic bags if you don't, the lack of mains drainage should be but a relatively minor inconvenience for most.

[Ron Ron Ron]

1 hour ago, spikey said:

....until you've spent many a year with a cess pit (emptied regularly in our case by the wonderfully-named Bill Brown, who was blessed with no sense of smell).....

 

 

Such a cr*p job too.

He must have been well p***ed off with his bog roll in life.

 

 

.

Edited February 27, 2020 by Ron Ron Ron

[spikey]

2 minutes ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

 

Such a cr*p job too.

He must have been well p***ed off with his job in life.

 Au contraire, rarely have I known a man so happy with his lot in life.  Or, come to that, a man who could stand alongside an open cesspit manhole cover and scoff a pork pie while the pump on his wagon did its thing.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

1 hour ago, spikey said:

 ... as long as you have a bucket and a plentiful supply of newspaper if you have a garden or plastic bags if you don't, the lack of mains drainage should be but a relatively minor inconvenience for most.

Unfortunately a relatively small proportion of the population without the sense to organise themselves and tolerate the inconvenience is all that is required for problems to emerge. In this matter, can we trust the dog owners incapable of preventing their animals from randomly depositing excrement, to achieve mastery of such a tricky procedure?

53 minutes ago, spikey said:

 Au contraire, rarely have I known a man so happy with his lot in life.  Or, come to that, a man who could stand alongside an open cesspit manhole cover and scoff a pork pie while the pump on his wagon did its thing.

I may have met this very man, now some ten years past! He was a contractor who drove from Croydon to do a job I 'inherited' in central Herts, for a third the rate any local contractor would offer. Endlessly cheerful and came out with the classic "It may be crap to you, but it's bread and butter to me".

[Pandora]

7 hours ago, ejstubbs said:

 

Smallpox was a viral disease, not bacterial.  Vaccination had been compulsory in the UK since 1853 but vaccination rates had declined since the turn of the century.  Phenol-based soaps like carbolic can be effective antibacterials but are unlikely to be any more effective than ordinary soap at removing viral pathogens from human skin - ordinary soap is pretty effective if proper, thorough handwashing protocols such as this one: https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-body/best-way-to-wash-your-hands/ are observed.

 

I suspect that the main benefit from encouraging people to use carbolic soap was probably that more people used soap at all and/or more often.

 

True carbolic soap is known to be a skin irritant, and its sale is banned in some jurisdictions for this reason.  Many of what look and smell like 'carbolic' soaps are simply coloured and fragranced to resemble the real thing in order to appeal to traditionalists.  Modern disinfectant skin cleansers such as are used in hospitals are just as effective as carbolic soap and less aggressive on the skin.  (FWIW some studies also indicate that modern 'antibacterial' soaps are no more effective than ordinary soap at removing all types of pathogens.)

 

I wouldn't rely on that old bar of Lifebuoy to protect you from covid-19.

 

The Smallpox virus mutated and to become far   less dangerous to humans, but it was a major killer in the recent past

One of the reasons smallpox was so dangerous and deadly is because it’s an airborne disease. Airborne diseases tend to spread fast.

Coughing, sneezing, or direct contact with any bodily fluids could spread the smallpox virus. In addition, sharing contaminated clothing or bedding could lead to infection.

 

in my locality, there was a smallpox treatment and isoltaion centre ,according to the archivist/ historian  those diagnosed with smallpox were transferred from the land based centre to hospital ships moored in the Thames near Gravesend for nursing, all nursing staff were confined to the land based entre for duty periods of 2 weeks in duration, at the end of a duty period  , along with those diagnosed as not infected  were washed 3  times in carbolic soap baths before discharge    to public life,  the centre was designed along prison lines, a high walled enclosure  for security within and without.  according to the achivist , there were several cases of trespassers who climbed the walls and caught the deadly smallpox and paid the price.  I am  therefore  still an advocate for carbolic soap as a disinfecting agent, point taken as to the number of bogus carbolic soaps for sale.

Edited February 27, 2020 by Pandora