Corona virus general questions mega thread

[iNow]

So basically it’s wasteful?

1 minute ago, CharonY said:

 

Antibacterial and antiviral activity are lower if no water is present. Depending on microbe or virus, maximum effectivity were observed between 60-80%. Standard disinfection in lab is usually carried out with 70%.

 

[CharonY]

3 minutes ago, iNow said:

So basically it’s wasteful?

 

Worse, it is less effective at higher concentrations.

[iNow]

12 minutes ago, CharonY said:

Worse, it is less effective at higher concentrations.

Thx for clarifying. That’s not something I’d have intuited.

[MigL]

6 hours ago, Danijel Gorupec said:

So what is the actual plan?

a) To increase the capacity of hospitals so that the daily limit of new cases can be increased to 50000? Yes, it can be done in less than 11 years, but quite difficult now, under 'fire'.

b) To wait and hope for a vaccine or a cure?  Can this be called a plan at all?

Not everyone who is infected is hospitalized.
Most people who are infected experience mild symptoms and need to self-isolate.

The ones who do get hospitalized are the elderly ( over 70 ) and those with pre-existing medical conditions which have compromised their immune systems. Not all 60 million people need to be cycled through the hospital system.
The problem is, Italy has one of the oldest populations ( more people over 65 yrs ) compared to other countries in Europe.
But other countries are starting to catch up to Italy.
Switzerland and Spain are very close; but for some reason Germany is an outlier of the data set, with much lower infection numbers.

edit: corrected Spain, not France

Edited March 23, 2020 by MigL

[CharonY]

52 minutes ago, MigL said:

The ones who do get hospitalized are the elderly ( over 70 ) and those with pre-existing medical conditions which have compromised their immune systems. Not all 60 million people need to be cycled through the hospital system.

While elderly are hospitalized at a higher frequency, it is a wrong assumption to think that younger ones don't. The US is heavily undersampled, so likely the actual values are lower, but recent reports show that as much as 20% of hospitalizations in the US are 20-44 year olds. It is likely that most of them have some pre-existing conditions, but we cannot be sure just yet.

Also Germany has infection numbers close to Spain, (though Spain is probably more undersampled than Germany), but the deaths are weird.

 

But yes, for now the plan is to keep the number of active cases in a manageable format. Flu, despite the relative high number of fatalities and hospitalization as a whole is manageable as the season is spread out over a longer time.

Ideally the infection will reach mostly young and healthy folks, with more preventative measures for the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions. But since folks cannot behave I am not entirely sure what outside a shutdown will actually work. Sure, some countries did make it work but judging from the behaviour of folks (such as the spring breakers, but also apparently death-defying old folks) I am not entirely how else it can be managed. Some countries implemented measures early on which appeared to be mostly well accepted, but much of the rest of the world apparently are unable to learn from others.

[Danijel Gorupec]

3 hours ago, MigL said:

Not everyone who is infected is hospitalized.
Most people who are infected experience mild symptoms and need to self-isolate.

The ones who do get hospitalized are the elderly ( over 70 ) and those with pre-existing medical conditions which have compromised their immune systems. Not all 60 million people need to be cycled through the hospital system.
The problem is, Italy has one of the oldest populations ( more people over 65 yrs ) compared to other countries in Europe.
But other countries are starting to catch up to Italy.
Switzerland and Spain are very close; but for some reason Germany is an outlier of the data set, with much lower infection numbers.

edit: corrected Spain, not France

I know this... when I said that 5000 new cases per day, I didn't mean that all 5000 will end in hospitals. I meant that from 5000 new cases, the number of hospitalized is already overwhelming the Italian hospital system. (Also, my calculation of 11 years of quarantine is based on 20M people, not all 60M Italians).

Nobody commented how long we can cope with heavy measurements like currently forced in Italy. They show us the first graph, but it seems that reality is more like the second graph.

Hospitals have much lower capacity than I ever thought, so measures must be rigorous to keep such a low number of new cases.

My government forbade me to do my work - I guess they are planning to sell monetary reserves and maybe even print money. But this are all mid-term solutions. The long term solution is to let me work again, but then how they plan to keep the number of new cases low enough for the surprisingly weak hospital system. As I said, I see no actual plan.

[koti]

8 hours ago, StringJunky said:

I hope you are using it topically and not as a throat spray.  

Calm down, our pharmacist said to administer topically in the mornings and orally in the afternoons (true story, he told us that over skype over drinks this weekend) 

[CharonY]

Just don't use the technical ethanol

[Strange]

9 hours ago, koti said:

I hate to barge in on you like this, I just wanted to say that when I have to leave the house I started to carry a full sized window bottle sprinkler 500ml capacity filled with 70% ethanol. I’m officially living in a g damned scifi novel. 

I'm picturing this like a Western: you standing on a deserted street with the spray clipped to your belt. Arms by your side, fingers twitching slightly. Suddenly a figure emerges from a bar and prepares to spit on the floor. Before he can move you have drawn and fired sprayed.

Nice animation showing the how big the effect of reducing contact is: 

This also applies to increasing herd immunity (because that also breaks the chain of transmission). So as herd immunity increases, the limitations on social contact can be reduced.

[koti]

2 hours ago, CharonY said:

Just don't use the technical ethanol

Good point, some people might actually do that. Like @dimreepr. 

2 hours ago, Strange said:

I'm picturing this like a Western: you standing on a deserted street with the spray clipped to your belt. Arms by your side, fingers twitching slightly. Suddenly a figure emerges from a bar and prepares to spit on the floor. Before he can move you have drawn and fired sprayed.

Nice animation showing the how big the effect of reducing contact is: 

This also applies to increasing herd immunity (because that also breaks the chain of transmission). So as herd immunity increases, the limitations on social contact can be reduced.

This is exactly why my eyes were bleeding when I was seeing full playgrounds just this past weekend. Fortunately the quarantine here got tighter since Monday morning but theres still a lot of people who make nothing of this whole thing. One could do an animation the other way around on how much more people get infected when a single person does not comply. And that is what I’m afraid of hence I will practice drawing my bottle. 

[dimreepr]

3 hours ago, koti said:

Good point, some people might actually do that. Like @dimreepr. 

I enjoy good banter, but that just seems like an insult (not a fan).

3 hours ago, koti said:

This is exactly why my eyes were bleeding when I was seeing full playgrounds just this past weekend. Fortunately the quarantine here got tighter since Monday morning but theres still a lot of people who make nothing of this whole thing. One could do an animation the other way around on how much more people get infected when a single person does not comply. And that is what I’m afraid of hence I will practice drawing my bottle. 

 

[StringJunky]

11 hours ago, iNow said:

Thx for clarifying. That’s not something I’d have intuited.

It's not intuitive. Another one not intuitive to me is cold bleach, it seems, bleaches better than warm or hot bleach.

Edit: Lower concentration increases contact time so that the surface of the microorganisms protein coat is not denatured too quickly such that it prevents more of the alcohol penetrating deeper into them. Superficial denaturing may just initiate dormancy.

Edited March 23, 2020 by StringJunky

[Strange]

On 3/22/2020 at 10:35 PM, Danijel Gorupec said:

So what is the actual plan?

Good article here:

Quote

It is clear the current strategy of shutting down large parts of society is not sustainable in the long-term. The social and economic damage would be catastrophic.

What countries need is an "exit strategy" - a way of lifting the restrictions and getting back to normal.

But the coronavirus is not going to disappear.

If you lift the restrictions that are holding the virus back, then cases will inevitably soar.

"We do have a big problem in what the exit strategy is and how we get out of this," says Mark Woolhouse, a professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh.

"It's not just the UK, no country has an exit strategy."

It is a massive scientific and societal challenge.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51963486

[Danijel Gorupec]

24 minutes ago, Strange said:

Good article here:

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51963486

Thank you very much, Strange. Finally a discussion I was looking for (funny, but I find it to be a relief - At least I know that other people are aware of the issue, I felt alone until now).

[koti]

18 hours ago, dimreepr said:

I enjoy good banter, but that just seems like an insult (not a fan).

Intended as a harmless joke, I appologize that it made you feel bad, I assure you, you shouldn’t. Peace.

[Curious layman]

'Trump says he may soon push businesses to reopen, defying the advice of coronavirus experts'

Quote

“You look at automobile accidents, which are far greater than any numbers we’re talking about,” Trump said. “That doesn’t mean we’re going to tell everybody no more driving of cars.”

Sure glad I don't live in America right now. This guys an idiot.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavirus/trump-says-he-may-soon-push-businesses-to-reopen-defying-the-advice-of-coronavirus-experts/ar-BB11BYiB?li=BBoPWjQ

On 3/23/2020 at 2:57 AM, CharonY said:

 

Antibacterial and antiviral activity are lower if no water is present. Depending on microbe or virus, maximum effectivity were observed between 60-80%. Standard disinfection in lab is usually carried out with 70%.

What should you use to dilute it instead of water?

Edited March 24, 2020 by Curious layman

[Dagl1]

20 minutes ago, Curious layman said:

What should you use to dilute it instead of water?

Instead of water? Not sure, water seems the easiest to dilute alcohol or isopropanol with

[Curious layman]

28 minutes ago, Dagl1 said:

Instead of water? Not sure, water seems the easiest to dilute alcohol or isopropanol with

'Antibacterial and antiviral activity are lower if no water is present'.

Sorry, i misinterpreted the above statement, thought it meant more water made it less effective. 

[J.C.MacSwell]

Maybe Trump's right...I just missed the news about car fatalities going up exponentially...

...but that's just me...when more and more buses start driving off cliffs I'll probably wonder why I'm the only passenger...and why my ticket was such a bargain.

 

[dimreepr]

1 hour ago, J.C.MacSwell said:

Maybe Trump's right...I just missed the news about car fatalities going up exponentially...

...but that's just me...when more and more buses start driving off cliffs I'll probably wonder why I'm the only passenger...and why my ticket was such a bargain.

 

Time will tell, any number of things could lead to our downfall; even this post. 

But the probability that it's me vanishes, significantly, when one ponders "Maybe Trump's right..." 

2 hours ago, Curious layman said:

'Antibacterial and antiviral activity are lower if no water is present'.

Sorry, i misinterpreted the above statement, thought it meant more water made it less effective

I think you're confused. 

 

Edited March 24, 2020 by dimreepr

[13mh13]

I haven't seen much discussion on COVID-19 vs. race. 

Africans (and African-Americans) should be a genetic group to watch given their general robustness to diseases like malaria. (A primary reason Europeans used Africans for slave export to the New World). 

On that note, indigenous racial groups (vs COVID-19), should also prove interesting. E.g., how the newest races  fare (such as indigenous groups in the New World; many of which were wiped out by 15th cent. European colonizers-- Columbus, et. al))

Refs:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4067985/

[CharonY]

38 minutes ago, 13mh13 said:

I haven't seen much discussion on COVID-19 vs. race. 

Africans (and African-Americans) should be a genetic group to watch given their general robustness to diseases like malaria. (A primary reason Europeans used Africans for slave export to the New World). 

On that note, indigenous racial groups (vs COVID-19), should also prove interesting. E.g., how the newest races  fare (such as indigenous groups in the New World; many of which were wiped out by 15th cent. European colonizers-- Columbus, et. al))

Refs:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4067985/

Basically because there is not enough data to make any meaningful inferences.

There is a bigger chance that some more resistant alleles will be found in Africa, but so far no dice. I have no idea what a "new" race is.

[13mh13]

1 hour ago, CharonY said:

Basically because there is not enough data to make any meaningful inference...

 I have no idea what a "new" race is.

Yeah ... I am seeing no Africa stats on popular apps and COVID-19 tracking sites like: https://ncov2019.live/

That site is supposed to add Africa soon, as it states.

 

About newer races.. Africa (black Africans) has the oldest gene pool, the Americas ("native Americans"), have the newest. Euros and Asians are somewhere in the middle. Hence, IIRC, why European colonizers' communicable diseases decimated pre-colonial Americans.

Also, somewhere I recall reading that Euro colonizers in Africa were themselves decimated (but not the other way around). Instead, post-Colonial diseases in Africa (among blacks) were amplified because Euros forced CITIES onto the blacks. As nomads, their normal lifestyle was more, to coin a phrase, socially distant. 

Edited March 24, 2020 by 13mh13

[CharonY]

6 minutes ago, 13mh13 said:

Yeah ... I am seeing no Africa stats on popular apps and COVID-19 tracking sites like: https://ncov2019.live/

That site is supposed to add Africa soon, as it states.

There are cases reported there. South Africa is at 554 cases, Nigeria at 44 for example. There are more, but there are not enough tests in a number of countries.

[StringJunky]

18 minutes ago, 13mh13 said:

Yeah ... I am seeing no Africa stats on popular apps and COVID-19 tracking sites like: https://ncov2019.live/

That site is supposed to add Africa soon, as it states.

 

About newer races.. Africa (black Africans) has the oldest gene pool, the Americas ("native Americans"), have the newest. Euros and Asians are somewhere in the middle. Hence, IIRC, why European colonizers' communicable diseases decimated pre-colonial Americans.

Also, somewhere I recall reading that Euro colonizers in Africa were themselves decimated (but not the other way around). Instead, post-Colonial diseases in Africa (among blacks) were amplified because Euros forced CITIES onto the blacks. As nomads, their normal lifestyle was more, to coin a phrase, socially distant. 

Here you are: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6