Lockdown’s Last Lingerings - (Covid since L2 ended)

[John M Upton]

4 minutes ago, Reorte said:

One positive that may come out of all of this is a lot more respect for teachers from parents.

 

Sadly I doubt it will last long...

[Nearholmer]

Possibly. My father was a teacher, my bro a headmaster, his wife a teacher, a good friend's wife a teacher, etc., so I've never had a great many illusions.

[Reorte]

9 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Possibly. My father was a teacher, my bro a headmaster, his wife a teacher, a good friend's wife a teacher, etc., so I've never had a great many illusions.

Apologies, my comment was meant as a general one and not directed at you personally.

[caradoc]

21 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Its just that I've heard/read people asserting (very aggressively in one or two cases) that passing cyclists are somehow super-dangerous from a covid viewpoint, based on some poor explanations in newspapers, which when you think it through is a load of old c'bblers.

 

Tuesday was gloriously sunny up here, albeit bitterly cold, so I went out for my first ride of the year. Apart from the first quarter mile leaving my estate the entire journey was on sparsely-populated rural back roads, so no worry passing other people. Except that half the village had decided to go out for a walk, and as there are no pavements, they were all in the road ! I kept as far away as possible, but that was not always easy, taking into account not just them, but vehicles (in both directions), potholes and icy patches. 

 

[Nearholmer]

It can get challenging here in a few places, because to get to the quiet back roads involves "shared use paths" to the edge of the city, in some directions many miles of them, and there have been a lot more strollers using those paths than normal, hence my bi-directional breath-plume concerns.

 

Daughter's revenge for me attempting to teach her maths is to attempt to tech me to skip, which is her indoor exercise, but which I haven't mastered after many decades - lack of coordination!

[EddieB]

7 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

We have the opposite weather risks here. Not covidiots as such , just trying to get from Cairns to Adelaide without going through locked down NSW and I guess  they  just blindly followed the route the  GPS told them...

Shame really, a bit of education in how to drive on sandy surfaces and even the 2WD version of their RAV4 should have got them through.  Tyre inflator, pressure gauge - and take plenty of water.  I would have thought these were "basics" for any journey of distance in Oz.

[PenrithBeacon]

I've just had the first vaccination, very good, extremely efficient set up. Outlook a little more positive this afternoon!

[John M Upton]

Apparently another new variant, from Brazil this time.  Quite a few travellers rushing to return to the UK from Brazil today before new restrictions kick in Friday or possibly Monday.

 

So that's the next outbreak sorted then...

[PaulCheffus]

2 hours ago, Reorte said:

One positive that may come out of all of this is a lot more respect for teachers from parents.

Hi

 

My wife (teacher) hasn’t seen any evidence of that, if anything some parents are becoming more aggressive.

 

Cheers

 

Paul

[vaughan45]

One wonders if this Brazilian variant has contributed to the Chinese vaccination the Brazilians are giving only having around 50.4% effectiveness? - but then again possibly not. 

Edited January 14, 2021 by vaughan45

[Neil]

A few random thoughts and observations.

 

Reported on the BBC news this dinnertime a surge in holiday bookings (both UK and overseas) thought to be due to the over sixties being confident that they will be vaccinated and good to go on holiday by the summer.

 

I've become thoroughly sick of the word 'unprecedented' trotted out by politicians as an excuse to cover their latest inadequacies from slow responses to an inability to arrange decent pack ups. It doesn't hold water when others have demonstrably done better with 'unprecedented' circumstances.

 

I find myself increasingly drawn to TV programmes set in warm and sunny climes. Programmes like A Place in the Sun or Death in Paradise have usurped Scandi noir. A particular treat was the repeat of The Night Manager earlier this week. I suspect that being stuck in a wet and grey UK with no top up of foreign loveliness and sun last year is responsible for the desire to escape via the medium of television.  

[Nearholmer]

1 minute ago, Neil said:

Death in Paradise

 

Going by the title, I'm thinking that may not be all that uplifting itself!

[Neil]

8 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

 

Going by the title, I'm thinking that may not be all that uplifting itself!

 

Apart from the odd murder it's all rather jolly.

[Nearholmer]

Must star John Nettles then.

 

 

[boxbrownie]

4 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Sorry!

 

Its just that I've heard/read people asserting (very aggressively in one or two cases) that passing cyclists are somehow super-dangerous from a covid viewpoint, based on some poor explanations in newspapers, which when you think it through is a load of old c'bblers.

 

And, pondering anything vaguely physics-based relieves the tedium of lockdown, and the frustration of trying to help my youngest with her home-schooling when she is in a non-receptive mood - as she very much has been this morning!

It’s just the CG I saw showed a trail of the aerosol up to 30 metres behind a cyclist, of course it will not spread much at all to the side and even less forward but anyone following behind or crossing the path directly after could be at risk.

 

The direct opposite to the CG images of somebody sneezing without covering their face......and people do.....ugh!

[boxbrownie]

34 minutes ago, Neil said:

 

Apart from the odd murder it's all rather jolly.

And some lovely views.....and not always the countryside 

[spikey]

29 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

... a trail of the aerosol up to 30 metres behind a cyclist ...

In a word, that is pure bullsh1t. 

Edited January 14, 2021 by spikey
Clarity

[Pete the Elaner]

3 hours ago, John M Upton said:

Apparently another new variant, from Brazil this time.  Quite a few travellers rushing to return to the UK from Brazil today before new restrictions kick in Friday or possibly Monday.

 

So that's the next outbreak sorted then...

 

I guess there are not enough cruise ships left to move them by sea rather than air. The journey would take care of the incubation period.

[boxbrownie]

27 minutes ago, spikey said:

In a word, that is pure bullsh1t. 

Oh really?  Glad your expertise is so well thought out.....

 

No where was it stated it is medical study just a computer generated image showing some aerosol dynamics, whether it will be peer reviewed and substantiated I have no idea, it was just a news report I saw last year.

 

Oddly every single cycling based web site claims it is what you said, which is no surprise of course. 
 

Better just to keep being careful and respecting others.

Edited January 14, 2021 by boxbrownie

[monkeysarefun]

5 hours ago, EddieB said:

Shame really, a bit of education in how to drive on sandy surfaces and even the 2WD version of their RAV4 should have got them through.  Tyre inflator, pressure gauge - and take plenty of water.  I would have thought these were "basics" for any journey of distance in Oz.

Having worked in the Cooper basin oil fields , it sounds like they were really off the beaten track so to speak because the main ' road'  there although unsealed would definitely get more than one car down it in two days.

 

I assume their GPS found a 'shorter' route at some point and led them off the main road and  down one of the mining company tracks.  Not an issue when it does that kind of thing in The Cotswolds or whatever, but can be deadly out there. The early version of Apple Maps was notorious for pulling that crap out here, to the point that police in the NT and SA begged people not to use it.

 

Definitely is brutal country, even that main road is almost 500km of corrugations that shake your teeth out and drive you nuts. The minor roads are often sand drifts and gibber, which tear through your tyres like knives.

 

In the old days when you had actual paper maps to check first to compare routes the obvious NSW-free route that would jump out at you is west to Mt Isa, turn left to Birdsville , then straight down  to Adelaide. Its a bit of a jaunt at almost 3800km, but you stick to the major roads such as they are at least. Innamincka which is near where they were found is in the  Strzeleki Desert,  a couple of hundred km east of that route.

Edited January 14, 2021 by monkeysarefun

[Nearholmer]

3 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

anyone following behind or crossing the path directly after could be at risk.

 

Following close behind, very definitely, which, as I say, is why club group and competitive rides are banned.  One is breathing the person in front's exhaust, and even big droplets can get several riders back in a pack, which is why spitting or blowing your nose if you're at the front is bad form.

 

As to crossing the path, or riding or walking at a distance behind, I'm very sceptical indeed that being passed by a cyclist represents any greater risk than crossing the path of a walker, walking along behind someone, or even walking past someone standing still.

 

Here's why:

 

Think about it in terms of volume of exhalation per unit distance moved. Making some stuff up, lets say a person walking exhales one standard lungs-worth every five steps, each step being a metre, we get a distribution of  exhalent of 0.2 lungs per metre travelled. If our cyclist is travelling four times as fast, while breathing at twice the rate*, we get a distribution of exhalent of 0.01 lungs per metre travelled. The cyclist leaves a less dense, breath trail.

 

But, the risk of taking in infected particles isn't only about the density of the breath trail, it depends on how much the breath trail has dissipated before one is exposed to it. Assuming the same rate of dissipation in each case (doesn't matter what that rate is, provided its the same for both breath trails), if I stroll along, say, 5m behind a pedestrian, both of us going at 5kph, I am about 3.5s behind them, so 3.5s of dissipation has occurred, and I'm in that concentration of exhalent for however long I walk behind them. If I enter the cyclist's breath plume, immediately after he passes me, then follow him on foot, we are moving apart at 15kph, c4m/s, the time for dissipation of exhalent before I reach the spot where he exhaled, is ever increasing - about a second and a quarter after he passes me, its already reached the dissipation time of the exhalent of the pedestrian I'm following, and it just keeps getting longer.

 

Who presents the greater risk to me, the chap I walk along 5m behind for five minutes, or the cyclist who zipped past, assuming they are both breathing-out a trail of infected exhalent?

 

Quicker way to think of it: two blokes are smoking stinky pipes, one is walking, the other is on a bike. You are walking along 5m behind the pedestrian smoker, when the cycling smoker pedals past and disappears up the road. You carry on following the pedestrian smoker for five minutes. From which smoker do you cop most smoke?

 

To me the CG of breath plume is one of those things that is simultaneously correct (for the modelled conditions) and utterly useless in isolation for judging risk.

 

 

*Seems about right, given that walking at 5kph on level ground uses c200 calories per hour, while cycling at 20kph on level ground uses about c400 calories per hour.

Edited January 14, 2021 by Nearholmer

[hayfield]

2 hours ago, Neil said:

A few random thoughts and observations.

 

Reported on the BBC news this dinnertime a surge in holiday bookings (both UK and overseas) thought to be due to the over sixties being confident that they will be vaccinated and good to go on holiday by the summer.

 

I've become thoroughly sick of the word 'unprecedented' trotted out by politicians as an excuse to cover their latest inadequacies from slow responses to an inability to arrange decent pack ups. It doesn't hold water when others have demonstrably done better with 'unprecedented' circumstances.

 

I find myself increasingly drawn to TV programmes set in warm and sunny climes. Programmes like A Place in the Sun or Death in Paradise have usurped Scandi noir. A particular treat was the repeat of The Night Manager earlier this week. I suspect that being stuck in a wet and grey UK with no top up of foreign loveliness and sun last year is responsible for the desire to escape via the medium of television.  

 

What ever side of the political divide they are I think the latest bunch of ministers had landed themselves into a no win situation. To be quite honest I think they are doing a very good job in an impossible situation. Plus look what they inherited systems which could not cope with a disastrous situation we have been in. 10 months ago we had no PPE industry, we had no ventilator manufacturers. Limited testing ability, no vaccinations    We have too many back seat experts/commentators all to willing to put people down. Look at California today, hospitals full, medics told only bring in patients who could be saved, they are overwhelmed 

 

We are more vaccinating more people that any comparable country 

We are testing more than any European country

We have a thriving PPE industry

A world beating medical researchers who are being funded

Our NHS has not been overwhelmed

Millions supported by the state, no government has ever done so much in living memory

 

Hindsight is such a thing, yes things could have been done better, they always can be. WE are being compared with Germany, look at their latest set of figures, less testing, less vaccinating, 1000+ deaths a day. Unlike the UK they had a head start certainly on the UK if not most European countries. I think for once we should congratulate everybody including the politicians for hard work all these key workers/people have done over the past year in putting us in the position we are in.

 

We are in unpresented times, as they have said there is light at the end of the tunnel. History will look back at these times and seen the mountains some have moved to protect us all. Look at how the EU has struggled and are still struggling at getting their populations vaccinated, our government is doing much better. 

[Jonboy]

Just a minor rivet, my wife has been building the ventilators (a more complex version for icu) for the last 6 years here in Oxfordshire, some staff there for 40 years plus.....most were made for export.

the big change is that they were never designed for mass production with a lot of bits made/finished by hand, so the government backed scale up to build 13500 in 14 weeks was very impressive.

[Neil]

18 minutes ago, hayfield said:

 

What ever side of the political divide they are I think the latest bunch of ministers had landed themselves into a no win situation. To be quite honest I think they are doing a very good job in an impossible situation. .....

 

Take a look at the statistics and tell me that the government are doing a good job. Hint - look at the deaths per million column where it appears we really are world-beating, just not in the way we would want. (From the Staista website)

 

 

All countries around the world are facing the same virus yet our outcome is significantly worse than others. Yes we're doing a good job of stating to vaccinate the population but the virus has caused a collapse of the NHS in some regions with urgent treatments such as cancer surgery being cancelled. Our utter shambles of a government either ignore or only implement at the last possible moment the advice of their scientific advisors. Even tonight, with the NHS expecting to be under more pressure from a fortnights worth of increasing hospitalisations some libertarian, halfwit * Tory MP's are chafing at the bit to have the current lockdown lifted. 

 

* by halfwit I really mean something else.

[Dagworth]

44 minutes ago, hayfield said:

Plus look what they inherited

Thus didn’t inherit it. They created it. Ten years of austerity 

 

Andi