COVID-19 Coronavirus current events

Here is a bit of local Covid response which I am not sure is bunk or not.

The items requested via inter-library-loan are quarantined for some number of days before they are processed and given to the patrons who've requested them. Supposedly to give any virus which might be on the item more time to "die".

Which has been a whole 'nother layer of bunk (viruses are not living when outside a cell as far as i know) that has gotten my goat this past year...

I don't care to fight this out (bad history between me and the manager at the library as I used to work there and the main reason I left was because of them), but it is something that deserves a bit of UV light of the great DeBunker Superhero to clean it up. :) Well, maybe not, but perhaps a bit of humor at least...
 
if i brought a library book home i would/do leave it in my car trunk for 3 days (or 5 if a glossy cover, because i'm a bit of a germophobe). Technically Covid is only viable on cardboard for 24 hours. so cloth covers should be around that time frame also. but people lick their fingers when turning pages... or read books in the john <which of course 5 days isnt enough but let's not think about that :(
 
The items requested via inter-library-loan are quarantined for some number of days before they are processed and given to the patrons who've requested them. Supposedly to give any virus which might be on the item more time to "die".

Which has been a whole 'nother layer of bunk (viruses are not living when outside a cell as far as i know) that has gotten my goat this past year...
You're of course correct in that a virus has no metabolism, so it could be considered "not alive" by that test. But an intact SARS-NCoV-2 virus can reproduce once it reaches a cell with an ACE2-receptor. To be safe against infection, this capability needs to be destroyed: the virus needs to "die".

Since a virus is a rather large and somewhat unstable molecule, it gets decays over time, depending on environmental conditions (for example, they keep intact longer in a fridge or freezer). The half-life of a coronavirus on organic material (e.g. paper) at room temperature is only a few hours; so that quarantine does reduce the potential infectiousness of books substantially. A 4-day quarantine may be as effective as wearing a properly fitted N95 mask while reading!

Since an infected reader might have sneezed into the book while it was open, UV sterilization would be impractical.
 
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Washing hands and not touching your face are hard things to train yourself to do (especially the not touching your face parts). It is unlikely that I will ever be able to catch myself every time I am reading a book to not touch my face. Still, there are immune system cells that are scanning the crud we get in our eyes, nose, etc and trying to render it uninfectious and to either break it down or get rid of it some other way. The effective infectious dose is likely larger than what remains on many items, a book that has been sneezed in, well gross, but I kinda don't try to think of things like that or the bathroom readers either.

In working at the library there were a few items that came back that we had to destroy and replace but not often, but we had a particular patron that I can only describe as a gross human being who had no concern at all for other people. We ended up cancelling their membership and luckily nobody around them would let them use their card either. Gross however, is a real understatement for what we'd get back and I always dreaded having to help them out or check items back in. :( I try not to judge people but sometimes circumstances would put a big fail on my forehead for that patron and a few others.

Mechanical means and degradation, chemical attack... hmm. When running my finger across a page i'd likely be smushing or degrading viruses that were there if there were any. Same for rubbing fingers on my sleeves or shirts.

I really don't get sick very often, I do wash my hands when I come in the door, I do wear my mask, but that isn't often since I don't get out much. For some items, if they are notably bad when I get them I will clean them up before I read them and also before I return them.

At work though I did not want to be a janitor or disinfecting worker and that was a part of what drove me out of it. Reactive airways to certain chemicals or cold air just make for a miserable day if you are being hit with them every half hour or so.

I would have not been bothered at all had I been able to use a mildly soapy wash cloth and change that out at times as needed - but no, not allowed. I'd washed thousands of books without troubles until certain smelly brands of wipes became the practice. No more after that would I volunteer or spend time doing that. Here at home I now have to avoid smelling bleach. Mom can't even smell it when she uses it and uses way too much. The struggle continues. :( Hahaha, just life... :)
 
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so the bugs got out and about in Melbourne my city in Victoria a state of Australia. Its been doin this every chance it gets and response is fast lockdown to curb spread allow contract tracing to get on top.
This time saying is the more transmissible UK strain with hope we will see if we can control vector in 5 day or so. Im lucky not much planned on to miss this weekend & my work deemed essential,,but many othersnot so happy...

Coronavirus Australia live news: Victoria plunged into new lockdown​

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02...a-live-news-covid-19-latest-victoria/13146258

Here is a summary of what happened on Friday:

  • Victoria recorded 5 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the Holiday Inn UK strain cluster to 13
  • Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announced a snap 5-day lockdown for the entire state
  • All states and territories have declared travel restrictions from Victoria
  • International flights into Melbourne have been paused
  • Fans have been banned from the Australian Open
Content from External Source
 
I see that New Zealand has recently gone back to a lockdown for a few days to hopefully prevent the community spread. I sure hope they can stamp it out again. They've had a good run so far.

I think they are finally starting to vaccinate the people who work in the quarantine places, but to me, that seems a bit obvious. The explanation for the delay is lack of vaccines and letting others more seriously impacted having access to them first.

My continued best wishes for everyone including NZ and AU...
 

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Made up a list list of current covid vaccine rates from post #529 vs 2014-2015 total flue shots in non asthma populations by state. I rounded all numbers but you can cross check for specifics.
There are charts for earlier year vaccinations but it would take too much math for me, as they dont give state totals aside from by age groups.

I bolded ones, i myself feel, need to work on their outreach programs.

edit: the first number is covid % and second is 2014-2015 flue season %... sorry the format gets messed up by MB software
covidvaccine% vs flue 2015 %(adults non asthma)

BLUE

DC 54 40
VT 54 43
MA 53 43
HI 51.5 41
MD 47 42
CA 46 37
CT 53 45
RI 50 47
NY 46 41
WA 46 42
DE 45 44
OR 44.5 44
ME 51.5 42
NM 49 40
NJ 47 40
IL 43.5 36
CO 46 44
VA 45.5 43
NH 45.5 45
MN 45 46

Purple 47.5-52.5% voted forTrump
MI 42 35
NV 39 32
AZ 40.5 33
GA 34 36
NC 38 48
WI 45.3 37
PA 46 43
FL 42 31
TX 37.5 43

Red 52.5%-65% voted forTrump
IA 43.5 49
AK 42 34
OH 41 38
KS 39 42
MO 37.5 45
SC 36 39
MS 30 40
LA 33 39
IN 36 38
UT 37.5 38.5
MT 39.5 40
NE 42 47
SD 44 54
KY 39.5 44
TN 34.5 42
AR 34 41
AL 30 40

ID 33 35

ND 39.5 43 65%for Trump
OK 37.5 46
WV 36 47

WY 34.5 35 70%for Trump


https://www.cdc.gov/asthma/asthma_stats/flu-vaccine-among-adults-with-current-asthma.html
 
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Downunder Australia my state picked up a outbreak imported via India and escaped hotel quarantine, we are back to wearing mask when under a roof and reduced numbers gathering :(

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05...a-coronavirus-cases-masks-mandatory/100162060

Here are the key COVID-19 updates from Tuesday:

 
I'm glad that my mum already got her first shot of BioNTech/Pfizer at the end of April, since we live door-to-door and are currently sharing my kitchen and have always been going shopping together...

They started opening up the statewide (Upper Austria) vaccination schedule for everyone this past Monday; first to everyone that previously registered for being scheduled (ain't Austrian bureaucracy great?), and from tomorrow on everyone can directly schedule an appointment at one of the ~20 vaccination locations all over the state.

I have been registered for ages, but due to not owning a car I had only two of those locations in range - and the earliest appointment I could get was for the 1st of July, whereas my mum only had to wait less than two weeks...

Thankfully, my employer (the state capital's city administration, which has it's own year-round vaccination service) finally also managed to get vaccines, and I've now got an earlier appointment 10 days from now.

(I'll still hold on to the other appointment in case this somehow falls through, but I'll make sure to cancel once it turns out I don't need it any longer, which is another problem we're currently dealing with - people getting multiple appointments, and then not cancelling them once they don't need them any longer... :()
 
Is the end in sight?
no. the end of crazy high numbers might be in sight, but between the half population coverage of vaccine and the natural summer lull of such viruses driving numbers down, I think it will make people afraid of the vaccine think they don't need it after all. and they do.

I dont think we'll know much really until November or so.
 
The UK just recorded the first day without a single Covid-related death since March last year. But there is still much concern about the spread of the 'Indian' variant, which is thought to be more transmissible than even the 'UK' variant. It's difficult to be sure of this, because in the UK the Indian variant is spreading (so far) mainly in areas with a high population of Indian ethnicity, who may have different R-rates due to multigenerational households, etc.

There seems to be very little vaccine-resistance in the UK, perhaps because the second wave of infections late last year was so bad. Yesterday vaccines were offered at short notice to 18+ year-olds in West London, and thousands of them arrived, as reported here:

https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/twickenham-stadium-vaccination-centre-walk-in-booking/

Vaccines have also been made available to illegal immigrants with no questions asked, and had a good take-up.
 
I'm swaying between moments of relief and confidence on the one hand, and deep misgivings on the other.

So far, the UK's vaccination programme has been a great success (albeit not without some controversies), but it is also leading to a (predictable) change in people's behaviours and perceptions.

Although pubs where I am (Glasgow) are still not allowed to serve alcohol indoors until this Friday, other places like restaurants, cafes and beer gardens are rammed already. There's no doubt in my mind that there is going to be another 'wave', and if current estimates of the increased transmissibility of the B.1.617.2 variant (Delta, or whatever it's called today) are anywhere near accurate, then this wave will dwarf what has been seen already.

The hope is that this predicted massive surge in cases will not translate into anything like the same number of hospitalisations, illnesses and deaths, but that hope is also tempered by the knowledge that it will obviously still hurt - the question is how much...?

One gets the feeling that the UK Government has painted itself into a corner by saying that the current lifting of lockdown restrictions will not be reversed, and that the UK is entering a phase of 'living with COVID' (which, sadly, is something of a brutal misnomer for a very large number of people already).
 
There is a huge world out there that has not advanced much in terms of vaccinations, and isn't quite as organized in terms of test&contain as some of the most industrialized countries. Just watch the surge in all of Latin America and plenty of countries in Asia. Africa? We don't even know what's going on.

Chile has vaccinated a similar percentage of its population as the UK, and more than the the US, and yet new cases per million are the 11th-most in the world, and trending upwards (+14% compared to the week before). Uruguay has vaccinated more than almost all EU countries, and yet they are 4th-worst in terms of new cases. So this tells us that 30%, 40%, not even more than 50% vaccinated is nowhere near enough to put a lid on the pandemic without other measures competently implemented.

This pandemic will easily make it well into 2022. We in Europe and North America will live with some level of infections for quite a while, and go through at least one new, full round of additional vaccinations before we can think of eradicating the virus. Plenty of mutations will have emerged by then.
 
I am getting 1st shot on Monday. The vaccination programme over here in The Netherlands took off quite well recently, increasing in speed.
 
before we can think of eradicating the virus
I think the Vatican would designate an eradication of this as an actual legit miracle. it just spreads too quickly and the incubation period is too long (with modern travel habits) to eradicate. In my humble layman opinion.
 
There is a huge world out there that has not advanced much in terms of vaccinations, and isn't quite as organized in terms of test&contain as some of the most industrialized countries. Just watch the surge in all of Latin America and plenty of countries in Asia. Africa? We don't even know what's going on.

Chile has vaccinated a similar percentage of its population as the UK, and more than the the US, and yet new cases per million are the 11th-most in the world, and trending upwards (+14% compared to the week before). Uruguay has vaccinated more than almost all EU countries, and yet they are 4th-worst in terms of new cases. So this tells us that 30%, 40%, not even more than 50% vaccinated is nowhere near enough to put a lid on the pandemic without other measures competently implemented.

This pandemic will easily make it well into 2022. We in Europe and North America will live with some level of infections for quite a while, and go through at least one new, full round of additional vaccinations before we can think of eradicating the virus. Plenty of mutations will have emerged by then.
What are they vaccinating with? Chile is using CoronaVac which according to one study is 56% effective after 2 shots and only 3% between the first and second shots. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-56731801.amp
 
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What are they vaccinating with? Chile is using CoronaVac which according to one study is 56% effective after 2 shots and only 3% between the first and second shots. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-56731801.amp

And 56% efficacy is very bad, it's not enough to achieve herd immunity by itself, even with 100% of the population vaccinated.

[COVID-19 R0 is estimated to be ~3, at least (1-1/R0) =~ 67% of the population must be immune to achieve herd immunity]
 
All the coronavirus in the world could fit inside a Coke can, with plenty of room to spare
https://theconversation.com/all-the...-coke-can-with-plenty-of-room-to-spare-154226

When I was asked to calculate the total volume of SARS-CoV-2 in the world for the BBC Radio 4 show More or Less, I will admit I had no idea what the answer would be. My wife suggested it would be the size of an Olympic swimming pool. “Either that or a teaspoon,” she said. “It’s usually one or the other with these sorts of questions.”

So how to set about calculating an approximation of what the total volume really is? Fortunately, I have some form with these sorts of large-scale back-of-the-envelope estimations, having carried out a number of them for my boo
Content from External Source
k
 
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All the coronavirus in the world could fit inside a Coke can, with plenty of room to spare
https://theconversation.com/all-the...-coke-can-with-plenty-of-room-to-spare-154226

When I was asked to calculate the total volume of SARS-CoV-2 in the world for the BBC Radio 4 show More or Less, I will admit I had no idea what the answer would be. My wife suggested it would be the size of an Olympic swimming pool. “Either that or a teaspoon,” she said. “It’s usually one or the other with these sorts of questions.”

So how to set about calculating an approximation of what the total volume really is? Fortunately, I have some form with these sorts of large-scale back-of-the-envelope estimations, having carried out a number of them for my boo
Content from External Source
k
Similar estimates have been made in a recent PNAS paper

The total number and mass of SARS-CoV-2 virions​


Knowing the absolute numbers of virions in an infection promotes better understanding of disease dynamics and response of the immune system. Here we use current knowledge on the concentrations of virions in infected individuals to estimate the total number and mass of SARS-CoV-2 virions in an infected person. Although each infected person carries an estimated 1 billion to 100 billion virions during peak infection, their total mass is no more than 0.1 mg. This curiously implies that all SARS-CoV-2 virions currently in all human hosts have a mass of between 100 g and 10 kg. Combining the known mutation rate and our estimate of the number of infectious virions, we quantify the formation rate of genetic variants.
Content from External Source
 
Am I reading this correctly: so far in Peru, 1/178 have died from Covid? That seems incredible/terrifying.

1623280038898.png
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
It's got the highest cumulative deaths per million, and a very high current death rate. By quite a bit.

Eastern European countries are next closest.

India had it rough with its poor health care system, but it does not seem that bad in context - although official numbers might not be entirely accurate.

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus
2021-06-09_16-20-03.jpg
 
It's got the highest cumulative deaths per million, and a very high current death rate. By quite a bit.

Eastern European countries are next closest.

India had it rough with its poor health care system, but it does not seem that bad in context - although official numbers might not be entirely accurate.

Things can *only* be taken in context, without context things can be meaningless. India did *not* have it rough. That was just a story the BBC, and presumably other sites, seemed desperate to push, because all they could see were absolute case or death counts, and were not looking at the per-capita numbers. Whilst there was a new BBC story on India several times a week for a couple of months, there were consistently higher rates in about a *dozen* eastern european countries by a factor of 2-10. And no mention of any of them on the BBC. Similarly, South America was being ignored. It's pure distortion. Ignore the headlines, just look at the data.

It would also be better if Indian stats were split per state or region, as they have different healthcare systems, different policies, different preparedness, and different results. Some bought the Ivermectin narrative, while others bought the Remdesivir narrative, for example. That's aspect's turning *very* interesting right now - it's even hit the courts, and the WHO's even being brought into the fray.
 
Some bought the Ivermectin narrative, while others bought the Remdesivir narrative, for example.
not sure why you are referring to these as "narratives"

- the evidence for Ivermectin isn't solid yet, but at least it has some indications going for it (can kill SARS-CoV-2 in the lab, reduces inflammation in animals)
- Ivermectin was pushed by Surgisphere, a US company that I recall as having been criticized for other doubtful studies
- Remdesivir reduces the length of the illness and is approved in Europe for certain scenarios
- reserach is trying to find ways to amplify the effect of Remdesivir

- none of these are as bad as Hydroyxchloroquine
- for my untrained eye, they compare to reconvalescent plasma therapy

- you need to consider at what date these medications were used, knowledge is developing

what did "India" (i.e. these provinces) do with these medications?

(my source is https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ...Therapieuebersicht.pdf?__blob=publicationFile , an overview of existing Covid-19 medications by the RKI = the "German CDC")
 
Am I reading this correctly: so far in Peru, 1/178 have died from Covid? That seems incredible/terrifying.

1623280038898.png
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Peru recently re-evaluated what constitutes a COVID death which practically doubled the number of deaths they've attributed to COVID.

But while their total cases per 1M population is roughly in line with other countries, their deaths per 1M is now way higher than anywhere else (or at least a country with a sizeable population).

Attributing a death as a COVID death is not as easy as it sounds - most countries probably undercount their COVID deaths (India being a good example of somewhere that is massively undercounting COVID deaths), but there will also be some countries whose threshold for counting a death as a COVID death is lower than average, and I'm assuming Peru may fall into the category.

A mortality rate of ~1% is about normal, but that is among the infected population, not the entire population. Peru is currently reporting a case mortality rate of almost 10%, and an overall COVID mortality rate of almost 0.6% of the entire population, which seems high to me. (though please note that I am by no means wishing to understate the seriousness of the situation in Peru, as even a case mortality rate of 1% is high).
 
not sure why you are referring to these as "narratives"

- the evidence for Ivermectin isn't solid yet, but at least it has some indications going for it (can kill SARS-CoV-2 in the lab, reduces inflammation in animals)
...
- Remdesivir reduces the length of the illness and is approved in Europe for certain scenarios
...
what did "India" (i.e. these provinces) do with these medications?

Some states bought only one of the available medications. Others bought only a different one. Neither of those two groups were using a balanced strategy, but betting the farm on one thing before sufficient data was in to be sure that one thing was the thing they should go all in on. What did they know? Who told them what they know? Was any of it bullshit, who knows? Was there some bribary involved, who knows? The fact that bullshit and bribary can't be ruled out as being bigger inputs into their decision-making processes than the science is what permits me to describe the goings on as being associated with a "narrative", that's all. A guiding force, we know not what, seems to have persuaded them to make the decisions that they've made.
 
India did *not* have it rough.
That's bit of an odd take, as they were running out of oxygen and beds in many places. They are also generally agreed to be largely undercounting the death rate - in part due to lack of diagnosis in rural areas.
 
That's bit of an odd take, as they were running out of oxygen and beds in many places. They are also generally agreed to be largely undercounting the death rate - in part due to lack of diagnosis in rural areas.

Not really, it's a balanced take that takes "India" literally. If you're going to talk about the country as a whole, I'm going to take the country's statistics as a whole. The stories in the media are of course cherry picked for impact, death sells. I know people in several countries who have recounted stories as bad as anything I've read about India, and those weren't cherry picked, those were just from the friends I chat to every day and who work in hospitals. Mismanagement can happen anywhere, and sure, the worst in India will rival the worst in New York or Prague, but the stories about India always seem to extrapolate one region or one city to the whole country, and the statistics simply don't bear that out. Deaths in Hungary, Czechia, and Belgium just aren't sexy, and don't sell copy it appears. Don't get me wrong, this isn't some uncaring "it's nothing, ignore it" stance, it's quite the opposite - India has the potential to be an absolute disaster *because* the disease has had relatively little penetration in the country so far, there's no herd immunity from either angle. I just think we should be reserving the disaster nomenclature for the times when it actually is.
 
The bugs got out from OZ hotel quarantine and OS aircrews via chauffeur driver and kicked off pretty much all OZ states into lock downs of variable forms.. Ha but not my long suffering state,, well not yet at least
Its a mixture of Covid strains and a mixture of local responses.



https://www.news.com.au/world/coron...ive-coverage/9a211af1f83926b3bfe96b862eddf136

Around half of the Australian population is in lockdown, as multiple states and territories battle rising Covid-19 cases.
From 6pm tonight, a 3-day snap lockdown to begin from 6pm for South East Queensland, Townsville (including Magnetic Island) and Palm Island. These areas will join NSW’s Greater Sydney area, the Northern Territory’s Greater Darwin area and the Perth and Peel regions of Western Australia under tough lockdown restrictions.
This adds up to more than 12 million Aussies living under stay-at-home orders as concern grows over Australia’s Covid-19 situation.
 
Ha but not my long suffering state,, well not yet at least

You "Mexicans"** have had more than your fair share of the lock downs. Time for the rest of us to carry some of the load.

More seriously the current AU situation, whilst the immediate result of the causes you identify it is also somewhat due to a few "big picture" - more strategic - factors. Success in shutting the doors to keep "it" out. Effective contact tracing mechanisms >> tho how proof they are against exponential overload is yet to be seen. Slowness of vaccine rollout. Whatever the factors causing it. Hesitations around AstraZeneca >> epidemiological probability realities seem to be over-ridden by political pragmatism. Ironically in both directions given recent changes in age limitations on use of AZ. Plus a significant level of "it cannot happen to me" apathy. All hard to quantify...

** Aussie "in joke". derwoodii is from the state of Victoria - southernmost of the east coast mainland states. I'm from New South Wales ["NSW"] - next northern state. So he comes from "south of the border".
 
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The bugs got out from OZ hotel quarantine and OS aircrews via chauffeur driver and kicked off pretty much all OZ states into lock downs of variable forms.. Ha but not my long suffering state,, well not yet at least
Its a mixture of Covid strains and a mixture of local responses.



https://www.news.com.au/world/coron...ive-coverage/9a211af1f83926b3bfe96b862eddf136

did they not get people vaccinated? that's what they should have been doing during this temporary round of isolation. both New Zealand and Aussieland would squander their past success if they didn't get people vaccinated ASAP.
 
did they not get people vaccinated? that's what they should have been doing during this temporary round of isolation. both New Zealand and Aussieland would squander their past success if they didn't get people vaccinated ASAP.
You picked it. The vaccine deployment is far too slow. I'm not sure of the causes. Bureaucratic and political bungling? Apathy at several levels given the success of "lock out and lock down"?? Procrastination and changes of advice over AstraZenec (re the "blood clots" issues) has concerned some conservative and cautious mainstream community folk. Interesting overall - the impact of anti-vax terrorists has been minimal. And they are not leveraging the AZ doubts.... Overall the COVID case numbers are still low BUT there must be concerns over exponential growth overloading the contract tracing mechanisms.
 
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did they not get people vaccinated? that's what they should have been doing during this temporary round of isolation. both New Zealand and Aussieland would squander their past success if they didn't get people vaccinated ASAP.


yes thats it and even the front line player were missing out and neglecting basic vector controls the chap in chauffeur car no mask no vax transporting aircrew made him obvious as bug hitchhiker
 
Here in South Africa, as a 50+er, I got my first Pfizer shot today :) . The vax is also being rolled out to teachers and the police services (but not my younger academic colleagues). 60+ and health workers are already vaccinated by now.

Our third wave has just surpassed our second (our population size being 60 million).

1625499750076.png
 
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