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Coronavirus (COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2) outbreak discussion

Will the "Corona Virus" turn into a worldwide epidemic or fizzle out?

  • Yes

    Votes: 37 49.3%

  • No

    Votes: 9 12.0%

  • Bigger than SARS, but not worldwide epidemic (Black Death/bubonic plague)

    Votes: 25 33.3%

  • Undecided

    Votes: 4 5.3%
  • Total voters
    75
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macca said:
I found it again, this is the Guardian version

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/20/will-there-be-second-wave-of-coronavirus-
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I like the article @macca . Things like Complacency Boredom and Frustration could make us loosen our stance wrt lockdowns. If we don't manage our exits exceptionally well the second wave of infections will undo the good work and flood our poor health workers again. It was interesting to read that history of the big flue outbreaks had multiple waves.
Are we in Australia on our way to potentially proving a best practice, particularly in some states?
 
Well things must be improving, elective surgery is back on the menu.
Two months ago, it was forecast we would have run out of hospital beds by now, what a great job by all concerned.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04...binet-elective-surgery-ivf-to-resume/12168770

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced elective surgery restrictions will start to be eased after this weekend.
National Cabinet, which includes Mr Morrison, premiers and chief ministers, has decided to lift the restrictions, imposed last month, following a briefing from health officials.

IVF, joint replacement, cataracts, breast reconstruction and dental procedures are among those that will be able to take place following the Anzac Day long weekend.
 
Dona Ferentes said:
Sleepwalking through a Crisis

The coronavirus didn’t break America. It revealed what was already broken.


https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/underlying-conditions/610261/
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The thing is it has been broken for a long, long time, America has been about money, money ,money, for living memory.
It takes a crisis like this that money can't fix, to show how little use money is, when what you need to buy isn't in the shops and you don't make it.
You can throw money at movies to make America look great, but it hasn't looked great since the early 1970's.
Since then IMO it has been about the rich getting richer, the manufacturing jobs being offshored and their gig economy getting bigger.
As the guy said, it revealed what was already broken, the U.S always thinks all you need to fix something, is to throw more money at it.

The smattering of individual results did nothing to protect public health. Meanwhile, ordinary people with fevers and chills had to wait in long and possibly infectious lines, only to be turned away because they weren’t actually suffocating. An internet joke proposed that the only way to find out whether you had the virus was to sneeze in a rich person’s face.

That will always be the case, if what is required is in short supply, if the manufactured the product in the U.S, it would just be a case of upping the output.
 
Last edited:
ABC radio saying two different vaccine human trials in the UK from this week.

If successful, potential mass production by September
 
Troubling story on how New Mexico hospitals were throwing out scads of N95 masks and gloves and safety gear as the COVID virus was unfolding.

How could this happen ? Opens up many questions to address when this all passes..

New Mexico hospitals junked essential protective gear just as Covid-19 began
Revealed: facing routine inspection, an Albuquerque hospital disposed of expired or soon-to-expire masks and hand sanitizer, items now badly needed
Nick Pachelli and Ike Swetlitz of Searchlight New Mexico

In late January and early February, American public health experts warned about a possible Covid-19 epidemic that would almost certainly require a massive supply of hospital masks, gloves and hand sanitizer.

At the same time, at least two major New Mexico hospitals were throwing those very items into the trash.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/21/new-mexico-hospitals-coronavirus-ppe-presbyterian
 
I am noticing a huge uptick in traffic in Brisbane in the last few days. Couldn't get a park in the Samford shops as per normal.

In fact the morning peak hour today was almost like normal.
 
wayneL said:
I am noticing a huge uptick in traffic in Brisbane in the last few days. Couldn't get a park in the Samford shops as per normal...
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The key issue is Physical Separation (aka Social Distancing). It's so easy to slip back to the old ways, and crowds, by definition, make it hard to maintain what has been shown to be the BEST dampener on the spread. But when we get to pinch points - doors, lifts, ingress, egress - then it doesn't work. And young people are unaware (thoughtless, pig ignorant) to an alarming extent.

So we get to the same problem of the altruism of the carrot or sting of the stick, again.
 
Well, even the most well-intentioned and draconian of distancing procedures in some institutions and businesses create ridiculous pinch points.

I actually lost my shxt at Bundamba Bunnings last week for this very reason. it was not that I was particularly concerned about getting close to people, but the procedures made people feel like lepers on one hand but on the other hand forced people in close proximity at those pinch points.

Total lack of consistency via profound stupidity.
 
First confirmed detection of SARS-CoV-2 in untreated wastewater in Australia: A proof of concept for the wastewater surveillance of COVID-19 in the community
​
First confirmed detection of SARS-CoV-2 in untreated wastewater: Study of SARSCoV2 RNA in wastewater treatment plants in Brisbane suggests 0.1% of population in catchment infected during sampling period = 450 COVID19 cases, but potentially up to 764, meaning 7 undetected cases for every 10 detected.​
​

Highlights
•First study that reports the detection of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater in Australia.
•The presence of SARS-CoV-2 was confirmed by sequencing.
•A median range of 171 to 1090 infected persons was identified in the catchment.
•Further methodological and molecular assay validation will be required.

Abstract
Infection with SARS-CoV-2, the etiologic agent of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, is accompanied by the shedding of the virus in stool. Therefore, the quantification of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater affords the ability to monitor the prevalence of infections among the population via wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE). In the current work, SARS-CoV-2 RNA was concentrated from wastewater in a catchment in Australia and viral RNA copies were enumerated using reverse transcriptase quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) resulting in two positive detections within a six day period from the same wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). The estimated RNA copy numbers observed in the wastewater were then used to estimate the number of infected individuals in the catchment via Monte Carlo simulation. Given the uncertainty and variation in the input parameters, the model estimated a median range of 171 to 1090 infected persons in the catchment, which is in reasonable agreement with clinical observations. This work highlights the viability of WBE for monitoring infectious diseases, such as COVID-19, in communities. The work also draws attention to the need for further methodological and molecular assay validation for enveloped viruses in wastewater.
​
 
What are 'COVID toes'? Doctors discover symptom of coronavirus mostly seen in kids
​
Doctors identified a new symptom of COVID-19, caused by the novel coronavirus, informally dubbed “COVID toes.”

The presence of purple or blue lesions on a patient’s feet and toes puzzles infectious disease experts.

“They’re typically painful to touch and could have a hot burning sensation,” said Dr. Ebbing Lautenbach, chief of infectious disease at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Medicine.

What doctors said is most interesting about "COVID toes" is that they appear in COVID-19 patients who don’t exhibit any other symptoms. Similarly, the loss of taste and smell was found to be associated with COVID-19 among otherwise asymptomatic patients by the American Academy of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery and ENT UK in late March.

“This is a manifestation that occurs early on in the disease, meaning you have this first, then you progress,” Lautenbach said. “Sometimes this might be your first clue that they have COVID when they don’t have any other symptoms.”

“COVID toes” in some people can disappear in the course of a week to 10 days, but others progress to respiratory symptoms, he said.​


 
bellenuit said:
With Selective Coronavirus Coverage, China Sinophobes Builds a Culture of Hate
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Trump's rhetoric about a China virus has carried through to PM Morrison who now calls for a shake-up of the WHO based on sheer ignorance of its role. It's classic dog whistling.
The "W" in WHO stand for world and relies on members nations from within the United Nations to decide its role rather than sycophants.
Whichever way much of the western world wants to cut it, they failed to take the harsh measures China took wrt to Wuhan and now want to indulge in a blame game so they can hide their failings.
 
Why do you think the Italians copped it so hard so early?
 
Humid said:
Why do you think the Italians copped it so hard so early?
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Italy is not much different to many other European nations and it's all relative to the R0 number which is estimated at 2.2 versus the common flu at 1.3.
Even Trump in the early days disregarded how the infection rate worked logarithmically and now the USA leads in numbers infected and dead.
No doubt there will be thousands of studies throwing up all kinds of data, but the early experience is definitive in terms of comorbidities affecting hospitalisation and, ultimately, death rates.
 
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