Getting information about COVID-19 and how to protect yourself isn’t easy
Have you noticed how many of the sites that purport to give information about how to protect yourself and your family from COVID-19 give contradictory and/or confusing information? My guess is that a lot of the reason is that the available information so far really is confusing and contradictory. But some of the confusion seems to be the usual CYA “on the one hand this and on the other hand that.”
Masks. Yes, no, maybe so. They protect other people. No, they protect you – at least a little bit. Cloth masks are good, or better than nothing, but of course you can’t touch the front, and you need to wash them, and maybe they don’t do much after all. Exercise outdoors is great, but maybe you need to double or triple your social distancing because some study or other said that – although they don’t know if it really matters – people running past you or biking past you can spew out virus for longer distances if they do this or that or if the wind is just right. Wash your groceries, but cold water is good enough for the vegetables, or maybe a little bit of vinegar in the water or perhaps not.
I left out the cites because it would just be too tedious. You probably seen it all yourselves, anyway, and more.
The only real agreement is on this: wash those hands! Wash them and then wash them some more! But even then, when I tried to obtain what I thought would be a basic piece of information – is it better to use pump soap or is bar soap okay, or does it even matter? – I can’t find much of anything about that.
I also have this question that one would think would be pretty standard, too: how long does the virus last under refrigeration? Not a word about it, except that maybe it’s a long long time, whatever that means.
Last night I saw some site (can’t remember which one) that said the virus can last for “many weeks” on clothing, so you should wash everything whenever you use it or touch it or even think about it. Other sites have merely said that we don’t know how long the virus can last on fabric. But if it’s as bad as site number one says, we’re all gonna get it and there’s no escape. And is handwashing with soap in hot water enough, or do you have to keep a washing machine running continually (a neat trick to accomplish if you do your laundry in laundromats)?
Sometimes I think the goal is to get us all to throw up our thoroughly-washed hands in despair. Or, to turn us all into Howard Hughes in the latter part of his life. And that’s not good.
Move to Wyoming where COVID-19 isn’t much of a problem.
Ray, since you asked:
Git along little dogies
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=as+i+was+a+walking+one+morning+for+pleasure&docid=608030977750074247&mid=24212819D94B84FCC75224212819D94B84FCC752&view=detail&FORM=VIRE
For me it was an interesting place to live and work. Self reliant people by and large.
Think about the flu virus. What do we do to protect ourselves from them – there are several varieties, after all – as we are trying to do with the COVID-19? Mostly none of those things, other than during the flu season to wash hands more often, cough and sneeze with a bit more caution about where we’re coughing and a bit more attention to possible fevers, congestion, cold symptoms. This new virus isn’t going away. It is here and here to stay just like the various flu viruses. Yes, it isn’t just like them, but it’s a virus and we have neither vaccine nor cure just as with the flu. Oh, we have two vaccines for the flu, type A and type B. Yes, but more often than not the one the CDC – read “the government health bureaucrats” – chooses for any particular season is the wrong one and/or a different strain of the flu virus comes up or some other thing makes this season’s vaccine not work. We cannot continue to live sequestered lives and the economy is going to crash unless we get out and get back to work. Think about the math of the new virus, shown by actual infection rates, death rates and situations like the Diamond Princess which was as close to a lab study as we’ll get. Of those exposed, 80% get nothing, no infection. Of the 20% who get infected, less than half are ill enough to have symptoms; of those, about half require hospitalization and about 1 – 2% die, mostly elderly and those with serious pre-existing medical conditions. So of the total population, 1/5th get the virus; of that number 4/5th recover and about 2/100ths die (the rest are still hospitalized near as I can find).The numbers don’t add up because I can’t find all the results for the passengers and crews.) Not the Black Death, not polio, not the Spanish Flu, not cholera, not diptheria, not measles; for deadliness to contagiousness. Time to get back to work and take care of the folks who need the hospitals and ventilators and treatments and the rest of us go about restarting our country.
I don’t have good answers to any of your questions, and, as you say, it’s hard to find them. I am wearing a cloth mask in stores, sanitizing my hands on leaving the stores, wiping off grocery packages with disinfectant when I bring them in, and washing my mask and my hands in soap and warm water on return home. I have a feeling the sanitizing of the grocery wrappings is not really necessary, but I’ll keep doing it. Offhand, bar soap might be a risk unless you rinse the bar in that warm water before putting it back on its soap dish.
Meanwhile, I saw this link at the Instapundit, about an automated clinical trial system that “learns” as it goes, to allow real-time results of various COVID-19 treatments rather than waiting for the standard, separate, slow clinical trials. From the article: “The solution is to find an optimal tradeoff between doing something now, such as prescribing a drug off-label, or waiting until traditional clinical trials are complete,” said Derek Angus, M.D., M.P.H., professor and chair, Department of Critical Care Medicine at Pitt and UPMC… We’ve developed a way to do that with an adaptive clinical trial model that relies on a type of artificial intelligence known as reinforcement learning to identify the best, evidence-backed therapy for COVID-19 much faster than using the traditional scientific approach.”
https://www.newswise.com/coronavirus/upmc-leads-global-effort-to-fast-track-testing-of-hydroxychloroquine-and-other-covid-19-therapies-with-learning-while-doing-clinical-trial
Wear a surgical mask when you absolutely must go in to crowded indoor spaces like supermarkets.
Repeat 10 times Daily: “Inhaled Viral Load. Minimize!”
Avoid large gatherings and unnecessary social interactions.
Wash hands regularly, don’t touch face with unwashed hands.
That’s pretty much it, really.
If I were a Physician in family practice (as one family member back home is) then I’d be treating my drive to work vehicle as a hot zone and be stripping clothes immediately on arriving home and throwing them + shoes straight into washing machine. <— very different Area Under the Viral Load vs Time Curve to most people not doctors or working supermarket checkout.
But for most of us who are not required to deal with lots of people, I see little point in being too obsessive. Just simple precautions listed above.
I suppose that if I didn’t already wear spectacles anyway, I’d get some optically neutral ones or 3M protective glasses to wear with face mask in supermarkets.
But best to keep things simple, common sense.
Pareto.
“Wear a surgical mask when you absolutely must go into crowded indoor spaces like supermarkets.” If you can get any! I’m wearing a homemade cloth mask because there are no surgical masks to be had.
Kate:
Indeed.
Also, my post wasn’t really focused on the question of “what should I do?” It was more about the difficulty of obtaining reliable and clear information to help in making the decision.
Fabric is a porous material, so it should be similar to cardboard. I called the state hotline to ask about it. Lots of the facemasks being sewn are made with donated fabric.
Neo, I think a great part of the problem is that the virus is new, and the medical people don’t really know the answers.
My example of Neo’s topic is the question: Are NSAID pain relievers safe to use before or when one contracts COVID-19?
NSAIDS include aspirin, ibuprofen, naproxen, but not Tylenol.
The CDC is quite clear that there is no known study proving that NSAIDS are bad for COVID-19 patients. That’s reassuring, because there are no known studies proving anything about COVID-19 patients.
The French health minister put out a directive that citizens should not use NSAIDS if they have COVID-19. If I recall correctly, they have no specific information on COVID contraindications, but they claim to have enough negative experience with NSAIDS and influenza, that they are using that as a basis for their directive. The French specifically recommend Tylenol for COVID pain relief.
Except, the Canadian Pharmacological Society put out a missive suggesting that neither NSAIDS nor Tylenol should be used for COVID pains. No rationales provided.
I like ibuprofen for joint and muscle pain and use it sparingly. Then I quit based on the French directive. But with more exercise, the pain has increased, and I thought “screw it,” I can take one pill when I need it.
According to Dr. Seheult’s MedCram, NSAIDS have a slight direct anti-viral effect in vitro, but are also known to suppress antibody production in the body. I don’t think he would recommend NSAIDS for COVID patients.
Think of the poor OCD sufferers for whom the relentless barrage of “Wash your hands! Wash your hands! Wash your hands! Nobody does it enough!” is a barrage of “Go insane.”
Kate:
That’s what I meant by that second sentence: “My guess is that a lot of the reason is that the available information so far really is confusing and contradictory.”
However, one thing that annoys me is that many sites give the worst and most extreme scenarios. Wash all your clothes every time you go out? When exercising outside, stay 66 feet from a runner? Wash all your produce in soap, even vegetables – but maybe if you do that, the soap will make you sick?
I have read these things at sites that purport to be about health.
I am too old for all of this bull shit, I stay at home and from time to time I have gone to Tractor Supply, Home Depot and our wonderful giant HEB grocery store and when I am in the stores I wear a mask that I use when I run my belt sander and I don’t touch my face, at all. I keep some disinfectant wipes in my truck on the floor in the back seat, I can take one in with me to wipe stuff and pull a new one out to wipe my truck where I touch it when I come back. I am careful with stuff that comes into my home but not too worried about it, I wipe things down and set them aside for a bit or put them in the fridge. As far as I know this third hand object to person stuff is not really occurring and most all of the virus stuff is person to person. We, my wife and I, do change clothes in the utility room putting our clothing right into the washing machine and as we come back from being in stores and we leave our shoes in the garage for a few days.
Once the common sense stuff has been done then we have done our bit and if the worst happens and we come down with this stuff we will handle whatever comes our way, good or bad. We have been through stuff before and we will either be all right or we won’t but why worry about stuff that has not happened.
Should COVID-19 patients use NSAID pain relievers?
I like to sparingly use ibuprofen (an NSAID) for muscle and joint pain.
So the French health minister puts out a directive that NSAIDS should not be used for COVID patients. Use Tylenol (not an NSAID) instead. They don’t have specific contraindications evidence for COVID, but they claim to have negative experience with NSAIDS and influenza.
I respond poorly to Tylenol, so I quit using ibuprofen or anything.
The CDC says that there are no proven studies suggesting that NSAIDS should not be used by COVID patients. That’s great, because there are no proven studies about anything concerning COVID patients.
The Canadian Pharmacological Society puts out a missive that neither NSAIDS nor Tylenol should be used by COVID patients. No rationale provided.
So now, if the pain gets a little worse, I take only one ibuprofen pill.
People are writing a lot of speculative articles these days with the theme, “The way we do ‘this’ or the way we look at ‘this’ is going to change after this current debacle is over.”
Here’s my contribution on that front: One group of people that is going to directly benefit from all this going forward are the chronic malingerers. As someone who used to do it rarely while in school to get out of tests or when I first started my job in order to avoid contentious meetings, a part of me worried each time I did it whether I really sold my given story or if anyone suspected. I’m sure there are ample others out there who do this a lot more frequently than I ever did and without a shred of guilt.
But now, if a person casts doubt on whether another is malingering by saying they have “a cold” in order to get out of work or school, it is the one doing the doubting that is going to get castigated by others, especially by those who had the virus or knew people who struggled with it or died from it. The ones pulling the con will now get believed without question, as most people now associate a simple cold virus with serious consequences.
It will be like in the episode of “South Park” where the conniving Cartman suddenly claims to have Tourette’s syndrome in order to swear, insult, and cast racial slurs unabashedly at everyone he dislikes. One of his classmates knows for certain he is faking it, but is shamed into apologizing to Cartman when confronted by angry kids who actually have the condition who are shocked to hear someone question the veracity of his symptoms.
Well here is a report that suggests the current understanding of how the Wuhan virus spreads is not “entirely” correct; that prolonged close contact is necessary. Also that the fatality rate is 0.037%. Study is from Germany BTW.
https://www.redstate.com/slee/2020/04/13/some-nations-challenge-notion-covid-19-spreads-through-casual-contact/
“Wash all your produce in soap, even vegetables ” – Neo
There are special cleaners, courtesy of the environmentalists concerned about polluted apple skins, and I have started using one that I got at our grocery. My vegetable guy had to dig under the banana display box to find it, so I got two.
OldTexan and I are on the same page. Drop the bags in the garage for a couple of days (it’s cold enough here to leave produce as well). I wear leggings and a t-shirt under my outdoor clothes, which go into a hamper next to the bags for a couple of day before they come inside to be washed, and the store-trompin’ shoes stay outside permanently.
metaps is on target, IMO. My mail carrier told me last week that half our local PO presented doctors’ notes to get off work for the “free” 2-weeks leave, and that they are probably out skiing. He’s saving his 2 weeks because he is on chemo and figures he will need it eventually.
“The ones pulling the con will now get believed without question, as most people now associate a simple cold virus with serious consequences.”
Well, I suspect that belief will have a partisan cast to it, just as #MeToo’s alwasy- believe-the-woman only applies to conservatives.
NEO: when I tried to obtain what I thought would be a basic piece of information – is it better to use pump soap or is bar soap okay, or does it even matter? – I can’t find much of anything about that.
i can answer this… Covid is actually an easy virus to kill… CDC pointed out that dilute houshold bleach can work… washing with soap is more deadly to bacteria, given they are lipid bubbles… detergent makes them go pop… virus are generally stronger, but covid is weak… not hard to kill..
Cleaning and Disinfection for Households
Interim Recommendations for U.S. Households with Suspected or Confirmed Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/cleaning-disinfection.html
transmission of novel coronavirus to persons from surfaces contaminated with the virus has not been documented.
[maybe untrue given a woman that recently been reported in the news as seriously shutting herself in… her only means of catching it was touching the groceries left on the doorstep – artfldgr]
[snip]
Current evidence suggests that SARS-CoV-2 may remain viable for hours to days on surfaces made from a variety of materials. Cleaning of visibly dirty surfaces followed by disinfection is a best practice measure for prevention of COVID-19 and other viral respiratory illnesses in households and community settings.
[snip]
It is unknown how long the air inside a room occupied by someone with confirmed COVID-19 remains potentially infectious.
[snip]
Household members should clean hands often, including immediately after removing gloves and after contact with an ill person, by washing hands with soap and water for 20 seconds. If soap and water are not available and hands are not visibly dirty, an alcohol-based hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol may be used. However, if hands are visibly dirty, always wash hands with soap and water.
Household members should follow normal preventive actions while at work and home including recommended hand hygiene and avoiding touching eyes, nose, or mouth with unwashed hands.
Additional key times to clean hands include:
After blowing one’s nose, coughing, or sneezing
After using the restroom
Before eating or preparing food
After contact with animals or pets
Before and after providing routine care for another person who needs assistance (e.g. a child)
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/cleaning-disinfection.html
I saw a short video about why soap and water and alcohol destroy the virus. Seems straightforward. The virus is surrounded by a fatty membrane. Soap makes fat soluble in water. So, you use any kind of soap, and to make sure you get all the virus, you wash for 20 seconds or more. The alcohol also breaks down the fat molecules that protect the virus. They recommend 60% or greater isopropyl alcohol.
I clean my hands whenever I’ve been out of the house, before every meal, after I use the toilet, and any other time when my hands may have touched something that might be contaminated. Not so much different than I ever did, but I’m much more conscious of it now.
I also watched a video by a doctor in New York who says he is treating Covid-19 patients daily. His rule of thumb: NEVER touch your face with UNWASHED hands. He claims that is the way most people get infected. The masks protect others from your droplets (If you happen to be infected but with no symptoms) and also help remind you to not touch your face.
COVID19, a crisis too good to waste. Kill the economy, make the sheeple cowering in fear, and destroy orangemanbad. That is the agenda.wake me up when we are all dead from net neutrality.
I live by myself and have 50% custody of my daughter. If we don’t leave the house, and don’t bring anything into the house, why the hell should we wash our hands all the time? Are we going to reinfect ourselves?
If I go to the store, I wear a Home Depot N95 mask left over from remodeling, mostly so I don’t get scolded or not allowed to enter. When I get home I wash my hands and then I wash my face. Because if I touched my cheek, is the virus going to crawl two inches to my mouth? Really?
I’m 54 with no health issues. If I didn’t get it in February when I had that “bad cold”, I’m not that afraid of getting it.
The touch transmission to face and spittle, I mean droplet, haven’t been “proven” in the strictest sense at all. They are “plausible”. It is the go to reasoning when they have community spread and in hospitals when they can’t tie it to contact with a person. And for some weird reason the CDC and the task force ignore the close-range aerosol transmission (requires 10s of minutes in a poorly ventilated space that has virus nuclei), which has been indicated in studies for SARS 2.0 and shown for Influenza. Nor do we have any information about how much virus you have to get before you get mildly, moderately, or seriously sick.
This is from a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine March 17,
“Our results indicate that aerosol and fomite transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is plausible, since the virus can remain viable and infectious in aerosols for hours and on surfaces up to days (depending on the inoculum shed). These findings echo those with SARS-CoV-1, in which these forms of transmission were associated with nosocomial spread and super-spreading events,5 and they provide information for pandemic mitigation efforts.”
What I haven’t seen it any scientific source about the virus survival on cloth. They do theorize that the longer life on stainless steel and plastic is because those materials do not soak in water thus protecting the virus. On danger with cloth is, fluffing virus off when removing it. This was speculated as the reason for high virus count in a Chinese temp hospital staff changing area. But note, this area had people with high virus load on their clothing.
70% isopropyl is the go to virus killer in virology labs. Been shown even at 60+%, as well has 60+% ethanol (see sanitizer) to denature the virus in 30 seconds. Get a spray bottle and uses it liberally. Could soak your mask in it then let it dry losing only that alcohol that evaporated. But this will damage the electrostatic charge on N95 masks but shouldn’t hurt cloth masks.
I saw a study a few months back that looked at soap, antibacterial soap, and ethanol hand sanitizer for the best sanitizing of hands. Study found type of soap didn’t really matter (they were looking at bacteria as well) but the combination soap washing followed by hand sanitizer was the best. Bar or bottled soap shouldn’t matter assuming the bar soap is kept free from debris.
SARS 2.0 is more stable on surfaces and in the air at lower temperatures. It is similar to SARS 1.0, MERS and Influenza in this. It is most long lived at 5C (41 F) AT and 20% RH. It is less stable as temperature rises. I found one study from 2007 on influenza that found the guinea pigs shed more virus at AT 5C. I would like to know if that is true for SARS 2.0.
Cloth masks do not do much filtering. They would catch the big spittle (droplets). I would suggest inserting a disposable bit of gauze as the Japanese do when you are coughing or sneezing to impede direct ejection. Having read about the ambient temp/relative humidity for both SARS 2.0, SARS 1.0 and influenza and how they thrive better at lower ambient temp and humidities, I wonder if the cloth mask, especially in the cold dry winter, doesn’t help move/keep your own defenses closer to your lips and nose warm and moist reducing how far the virus can get in before it has to fight. So they are likely more than just a placebo.
It’s simple. When you are out of the house, Don’t. Touch. Your. Face.
Everything else is probably overkill.
I think the Japanese experience suggests that masks, portable sanitizer, general mindfulness, and (on occasion) gloves are crucial. These need to be ubiquitously available and required in certain settings. Also, there has to be a moratorium on mass gatherings where people are exhaling a great deal. That’ll be hard on people whose avocations include choral singing.
When you are out of the house, Don’t. Touch. Your. Face.
No one’s going to remember that with requisite consistency. That’s bad advice. You need the mask between your fingers and your face, and between other people’s exhales and your face.
Well here is a report that suggests the current understanding of how the Wuhan virus spreads is not “entirely” correct; that prolonged close contact is necessary. Also that the fatality rate is 0.037%. Study is from Germany BTW.
The Diamond Princess experience suggests that for people over 60 with a symptomatic illness, the mortality rate is about 4.5%.
I work in a grocery store, and the information/resources we’ve been given are a bit maddening. One week ago, we weren’t allowed to wear masks, so as not to worry the public. Now masks are required, and every employee is given two reusable cloth ones, plus one disposable one per day. The cloth ones, though, are one flimsy layer of cheap cotton that hangs loose off your chin, which goes against every mask specification I’ve read, so I’ve been using the disposable ones–which still aren’t as thick as people recommend, but which are plenty thick enough to make me feel occasionally dizzy when re-breathing my own hot air.
(Turns out wearing a mask for eight hours a day is HARD, and not touching your face is nigh-impossible when those things are creeping up and touching your eyelashes.)
We’ve been instructed to have customers hold up their IDs or rewards cards so we can just visually scan them without touching them, but then those very same customers hand us cash, which makes the whole thing seem pointless. (And you CAN’T sanitize your hands between every single customer if you’re in a checkstand. Your hands wouldn’t survive.)
This last weekend I got my first two days off in a row since this whole virus thing started. Hearing people complain about quarantine still feels a bit strange to me, even though I know I’d probably be going crazy too if I did have to stay home. The whole mess is just very wearing, and the convoluted instructions for dealing with it end up making it seem a bit futile sometimes. I’m still following the instructions! But goshdarn it, things touch other things, and we have to breathe, and you just can’t FIX that.
We’ve been instructed to have customers hold up their IDs or rewards cards so we can just visually scan them without touching them, but then those very same customers hand us cash, which makes the whole thing seem pointless.
It’s not pointless. You’re reducing the probability of exposure as best you can. Why do you want all or nothing?
Coronavirus disease 2019: The harms of exaggerated information and non?evidence?based measures
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/eci.13222
1 FAKE NEWS AND WITHDRAWN PAPERS
Based on Altmetric scores, the most discussed and most visible scientific paper across all 20+ million papers published in the last 8 years across all science is a preprint claiming that the new coronavirus’ spike protein bears “uncanny similarity” with HIV?1 proteins.2 The Altmetric score of this work has reached an astronomical level of 13 725 points as of 5 March 2020. The paper was rapidly criticized as highly flawed, and the authors withdrew it within days. Regardless, major harm was already done. The preprint fuelled conspiracy theories of scientists manufacturing dangerous viruses and offered ammunition to vaccine deniers. Refutation will probably not stop dispersion of weird inferences.
2 EXAGGERATED PANDEMIC ESTIMATES
3 EXAGGERATED CASE FATALITY RATE (CFR)
4 EXAGGERATED EXPONENTIAL COMMUNITY SPREAD
5 EXTREME MEASURES
6 HARMS FROM NONEVIDENCE?BASED MEASURES
7 MISALLOCATION OF RESOURCES
8 LOCKDOWNS—FOR HOW LONG?
9 ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DISRUPTION
10 CLAIMS FOR ONCE?IN?A?CENTURY PANDEMIC
11 COMPARISONS WITH 1918
Morning update: same ol’ same ol’. Active cases added another 21,000; serious cases increased by 8%. Both increasing linearly. Cuomo said the worst has past (https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2020/04/14/gov-cuomo-says-the-worst-is-over-n2566861) yet NY is chugging along on the linear portion adding about 10,000 per day. Political statements and the numbers being published don’t match in any fashion. If it was so terrible 2 weeks ago, and not so bad now, why has the overall trajectory of the data not changed??? If someone dropped me into this and showed me the data I have in front of me now with all the past data, I would say this will probably go on for at least another month and maybe more. The one spot that continues to not make any sense is the “recoveries” data. It was listed yesterday as 37,000. Based on the numbers from two weeks ago, there should be about 151,000 recoveries. Subtracting out the recoveries from active cases shows a very definite flattening over the last five days. I’m going to start fitting that data rather than just tracking to see what happens. Something is very fishy.
On topic: the best advice I’ve ever seen for had washing comes from mythbusters. Though the quantitative analysis was based on bacteria, it’s a really good conclusion. And mythbusters is always fun to watch: https://go.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/videos/bathroom-hygiene
Second thought on today’s data. I was also working on some state data (NC and NH) which I do for friends. It suddenly occurred to me why possibly the active cases keep rising and the “recoveries” are low. First, they are obviously way under counting the recoveries. Second, and most important, maybe the “active cases” is cumulative? If so, it will NEVER flatten. If they never remove the recovered cases from the active cases, nothing changes. Either they are woefully ignorant in handling the data, or are playing games. I give each choice about equal probability.
I just added a new analysis where I take 97% of the active cases from two weeks ago and subtract that from the current active cases. I use 97% as the data is consistent that about 3% of the cases are “serious” and their recovery is going to be uncertain. Subtracting out the expected recoveries show a definite flattening over the last 6 days, and an expected plateau of around 370,000 cases. We will see…..
I pointed out that working with cumulative numbers is problematic…
the longer the term the higher the number needed to flatten
which is why i pointed to using the grainier daily numbers..
after all… the 10 people that died in january are still counted
so you have months of deaths to be countered.
when the deaths reach 20k, how much reduction is needed and how long before you see the curve change? however if the data was plotted as daily data not cumulative, you would see the drop almost instantly..
want to guess which data which group is looking at to say what they say?
In case you’re not watching the NEJM, this appeared yesterday:
—————————–
Between March 22 and April 4, 2020, a total of 215 pregnant women delivered infants at the New York–Presbyterian Allen Hospital and Columbia University Irving Medical Center . All the women were screened on admission for symptoms of Covid-19. Four women (1.9%) had fever or other symptoms of Covid-19 on admission, and all 4 women tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 (Figure 1). Of the 211 women without symptoms, all were afebrile on admission. Nasopharyngeal swabs were obtained from 210 of the 211 women (99.5%) who did not have symptoms of Covid-19; of these women, 29 (13.7%) were positive for SARS-CoV-2. Thus, 29 of the 33 patients who were positive for SARS-CoV-2 at admission (87.9%) had no symptoms of Covid-19 at presentation.
———————
It goes on to note that the women averaged 2-day stays. Three women developed a fever, but only one of those was ascribed to COVID-19. An additional person who originally tested negative was positive on a retest. This was a PCR test so it is only catching current and recently resolved infections – there’s no telling how many more of these women had been infected and got over it; it’s been circulating in NYC for weeks. I’m reading that PCR tests usually don’t catch positives on Day 1, and incubation median is 4-5 days, so the majority of women in the original 33 who are going to show symptoms had during the course of this study.
In this two-week sample of women coming to deliver babies at these locations, 34 of 215 walked through the door with current infections and almost none had symptoms. That almost 16% of these people, which, if it’s representative of the population of NYC, that’s 1.3 million people who had current infections during that span of time. Not counting those infected since. Not counting those infected and since recovered. And almost none of them had symptoms.
The count of NYC deaths in the age groups from which pregnant women are likely to fall are small.
Any virus lasts longer when it’s colder.
That’s why places like USAMRIID and CDC store virus samples in large industrial freezers at very low temperatures (think liquid nitrogen cold).
That’s also a big reason why it’s so bloody hard to make a reliable distributrion system for bioweapons, you’d need to keep the virus (or bacteria) cultures you’re going to disperse over your enemy frozen at -200C or so until hours (at best) before you release them, and that’s not exactly easy to do with large quantities under battlefield conditions.
The Soviets tried and got some systems working, but it was extremely cumbersome and expensive, and of course bloody dangerous for those filling the bombs and missile warheads on airbases and frontline army bases.
The Americans and British figured that out decades earlier and that was one of the reasons they gave up on the idea as being largely impractical once nuclear warheads became reliable and stable enough to store long term under battlefield conditions.
This new site might be just the place…
https://covid19policywatch.org/
metaps,
Fascinating theory. Unfortunately I think you’re right. This will be like celiacs disease. One day no one had ever heard of it, the next day you couldn’t have a meal in a restaurant without listening to at least one diner subject the poor waiter or waitress to a 15 minute interrogation about the gluten content of every item on the menu.
Gloves are just another layer of skin. If people do the things they normally do but with gloves on, it’s just safety theater. And my observation is that they do. Example: the guy directing traffic in the Chick-Fil-A drive through yesterday, scratching his nose with his gloved hands. My daughter who made herself a mask wears it sometimes, then casually slings it on the counter when she’s done with it. I doubt she’s ever washed it.
It’s this kind of thing that makes me doubt the virus is as dangerous and spready as some claim. Sure, if you can introduce some friction in the form of mitigation strategies it can maybe prevent some infections, but so many people are doing the things we’re told to do so very badly that if it were so so contagious we’d all have it and a significant number of us would be hospitalized since a small percentage of a big number is a lot of people. But my county of 360,000 souls has 4 hospitalizations.
I mentioned the role of Insulin Resistance (Metabolic Syndrome) in reducing immunity on the Boris Johnson illness thread.
This is the best fact-based presentation I have seen on this topic, even though it is from an Australian doctor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lJPjsuftmQ
Act now and lower your insulin levels and inflammation :
1. Stop eating processed foods – processed/refined carbs and refined vegetable oils; Eat real foods
2. Move
3. Sleep to rejuvenate
4. Meditate to reduce stress
Tara,
That sounds gosh awful! I imagine a lot of grocery employees don’t make a lot of money, yet you are all on the front lines. I have been avoiding paying in cash so cashiers don’t have to handle as much money.
You are on the front lines of this battle.
Rufus T. Firefly, metaps —
I think “I’m immunocompromised” is the new “I’m gluten sensitive”.
Yes, basic info can be hard to find. I have heard about soap and water just like everyone else, but I usually wash my hands in Dawn dishwashing detergent because we have a pump dispenser of that at the kitchen sink. Now, is detergent worse than soap to de-activate/rinse away this virus? If so, why? The virus has a fat layer that makes it vulnerable, and nothing cuts grease like Dawn, so….??
Also, I dump mail, packages, and non-refrigerated goods in the garage for several days before touching them again, so I don’t worry about washing down packages. As far as washing shoes, do most of us not have more than one pair of shoes? I have a pair of beat-up sneakers that are my “going out to the store” shoes; they get taken off at the door and left there. No need to wash them at all.
Finally, I haven’t found any info on frozen foods. I got a lot of grocery shopping done about 5 weeks ago and put frozen food away without washing it first, knowing that this was a stockpile I wouldn’t be using for many days or weeks. But is this virus preserved now in a frozen state, ready to come at me the minute I take it out and handle it again?