COVID 19 GLOBAL

[Skalliwag]

2 minutes ago, fygjam said:

What about turnips?

 

If by turnips,you mean Russians,then no.

[KWA]

18 hours ago, dcfc2007 said:

There won't be many, if any, flights before July.

I tend to agree.  I'm not concerned about my booking in June as I should be able to re-schedule it for pretty much anytime I want, and hopefully won't feel forced to go the UK or anywhere else while major restrictions are still in place for a lot of destinations.

[code_slayer_bkk]

^^^^  I am curious to see all of the new restrictions at airports, airplane seating, etc ....

[Thai Spice]

2 hours ago, code_slayer_bkk said:

^^^^  I am curious to see all of the new restrictions at airports, airplane seating, etc ....

Yep, because SURE they will come up with something.

Already one had that great idea of keeping every middle seat unoccupied on planes...... Maybe should look into the economics of that, knowing that a flight is not economically under 70% occupation. Or raise the fares significantly.... maybe not a bad idea ? Less cheap charlies and backpackers flying.

What I see coming, in Thailand for example, is a Corona test certificate for visa renewal.... Remember this post !

 

[Zeb]

Make your own mind up -

Herd immunity is a myth, infectious disease experts warn

Professor MacIntyre, who is head of the Biosecurity Research Program at the institute, spoke of the "myth of herd immunity" – exposing a population to the virus for the purposes of building up natural immunity and sacrificing the vulnerable.

"It does have a connotation of eugenics," she said.

"What you will see is a large increase in cases for little gain because probably by the time you get to about 20 to 30 per cent of the population impacted, you'll start putting the brakes on and having more lockdowns because the health system will be too severely impacted.

"We'll have these cycling epidemics, large proportions of absenteeism from work and see the full spectrum of disease – as has been seen in the US, the UK, Europe and China – which is that you are seeing deaths in children, infants and young people," she said.

"You'll start to see healthcare workers dying as they are dying in those countries ... that will impact your capacity to treat other conditions. If half your workforce is off sick or in quarantine because you're having a massive outbreak in your hospital, you may not be able to get treatment if you turn up with your myocardial infarction," she said.

Herd immunity is not a strategy the Australian government is pursuing. Instead all states and territories are on a containment or elimination trajectory.

Professor of Infectious Diseases at Australian National University Peter Collignon said herd immunity in Sweden did not seem to be working, however he did think students should be returning to schools in Australia.

"But I am worried about a second wave of infection in winter: in two months we might be seeing a ripple of new infections, not a tsunami," he said.

Associate Professor Adam Kamradt-Scott, at the University of Sydney's Centre for International Security Studies, agreed herd immunity is a risky strategy.

"At the moment we don't know how long the length of immunity is for SARS-CoV-2 will be. We also don’t know whether there might be very minor mutations that would see a slightly different strain start to circulate. If that was to occur, we don’t know yet whether previous exposure would provide sufficient immunity," he said.

"We are making a lot of educated guesses at the moment based on previous pandemics but the fact is we haven't faced something like this in more than 100 years."

https://www.smh.com.au/national/herd-immunity-is-a-myth-infectious-disease-experts-warn-20200415-p54k0c.html

 

[Zeb]

Killian Plastow explains why the coronavirus ‘health v economy’ debate is a false dichotomy.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has dismissed calls for coronavirus restrictions to be relaxed as the national infection rate begins to slow.

“The draconian approach by governments risks creating a much bigger economic and humanitarian crisis than that caused by the virus itself,” IPA research fellow Morgan Begg cautioned.

But the consensus among world-leading economists, such as the expert panellists who form the renowned Chicago Booth School of Business IGM panel, is that lifting restrictions too quickly would not only endanger people’s health, but also hurt the economy.

 ‘Invest’ in three more months of lockdown

University of New South Wales economics professor Richard Holden said easing restrictions now increases the chances of a “second wave” of infections, as the disease is highly infectious and many people are asymptomatic.

While at its heart that’s a health problem, it would also devastate the economy’s chances of recovery and lead to a longer, deeper downturn than the one already looming.
Fearful consumers would be unlikely to shop under those circumstances, and business owners would stop hiring staff or investing in their shops.

“Just from an economics perspective, there is no trade-off [between health and the economy] until you crush the virus,” Professor Holden said.

 You could undo these rules, and three weeks later you have mass infections on your hands and have to lock it all down again.

“Until you have the virus under control, you’re left with whatever economy you can have.”

The best way forward is to “stay the course” with current restrictions until the disease is genuinely under control.
“The real trade-off is not a static one about health now versus the economy now,” Professor Holden said.

“It’s the trade-off between the economy now and in the future. If we take a hit now to crush the virus, then the economy in the future has a much better chance of being healthy.”

Full article -

https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/finance-news/markets-and-shares/2020/04/16/coronavirus-health-economy-debate/

 

[Zeb]

The moment Norman Swan's world stopped

The doctor-turned-journalist has fielded brickbats and bouquets as Australia's most prominent coronavirus commentator, but a question from an eight-year-old pulled him up short.
 

"I was doing talkback on Melbourne radio, and this little guy named Huck asked me something that really drew me up short," he says.

"He wanted to know if everyone in his family was going to die. The whole world stops for you when an eight-year-old asks you that question

However, the flattening of the Australian case curve has made him a supporter of getting Australian kids back to school some time next term.

"If 80 per cent of Australians keep complying with the current social distancing rules – 70 per cent is not enough – we could be down to complete eradication by mid-May," he says.

"Of course if there's a flare-up before then, all bets should be off."

Swan also welcomes Australia's expansion of testing eligibility to anyone with a cough or sniffle.

But even if Australia achieves eradication, he says Australia won't be able to re-open its borders until a vaccine, or at least a treatment which stops hospitalised COVID-19 patients from needing a ventilator, is found.

"We never got rid of HIV but we have great treatments for it, we never got rid of bacterial infections but we've got antibiotics. So a good treatment can get us out of this

https://www.afr.com/life-and-luxury/health-and-wellness/the-moment-norman-swan-s-world-stopped-20200421-p54lp6

 

[forcebwithu]

This is an excellent article on why so many with C19 are dying of pneumonia.

The Infection That’s Silently Killing Coronavirus Patients

The key point from the article...

We are just beginning to recognize that Covid pneumonia initially causes a form of oxygen deprivation we call “silent hypoxia” — “silent” because of its insidious, hard-to-detect nature.

To my amazement, most patients I saw said they had been sick for a week or so with fever, cough, upset stomach and fatigue, but they only became short of breath the day they came to the hospital. Their pneumonia had clearly been going on for days, but by the time they felt they had to go to the hospital, they were often already in critical condition.

A vast majority of Covid pneumonia patients I met had remarkably low oxygen saturations at triage — seemingly incompatible with life — but they were using their cellphones as we put them on monitors. Although breathing fast, they had relatively minimal apparent distress, despite dangerously low oxygen levels and terrible pneumonia on chest X-rays.
 

So it would seem the advice from the CDC may very well be wrong. If you wait until you're having trouble breathing, or have symptoms of low oxygen levels, it may be already too late to treat the infection with non-invasive procedures. And from some reports, once you're intubated your chances of survival are not good.

 

BTW, an interesting side note. Dr. Levitan who wrote the above article is the same one who was kicked out an apartment over fears of him bringing the virus into the building.

Doctor Kicked Out of Upper West Side Co-op

[Thai Spice]

 

By that time you're 70% f***d already .......

[Thai Spice]

Indonesia Grounds All Commercial Passenger Flights From Today to June 1

https://jakartaglobe.id/news/indonesia-grounds-all-commercial-passenger-flights-from-today-to-june-1

Further to the interprovincial travel ban..

 

[Thai Spice]

Well, feck me...it would seem smokers are less at risk than non smokerz ?  Theory already raised in China.

http://www.rfi.fr/en/science-and-technology/20200423-french-researchers-suggest-nicotine-could-protect-against-covid-19

Or is it that their lungs are in such a bad state that even the virus can't survive there ?

 

[code_slayer_bkk]

5 hours ago, Thai Spice said:

What I see coming, in Thailand for example, is a Corona test certificate for visa renewal.... Remember this post !

 

Well, they make you get a medical exam certificate ( lol ) for a driving license here .... so, no big deal I think ...

The last time I went to a Doctor here to get a medical exam certificate for a driving license ... it was just a waste of time ... he didn't check me at all ... and charged me 100 baht .. lol

[coxyhog]

No surprises here....

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8249709/Area-Cheltenham-Racecourse-shows-Covid-19-spike.html

[Ivan the terrible]

19 hours ago, fygjam said:

Here are the "Active Cases" for three countries. Active cases increase with new cases and decrease with either death or recovery. One would expect if herd immunity was being achieved as we speak, the active cases would be either flattening or decreasing.

One country has achieved or will achieve in several weeks, depending upon which post you read, herd immunity.

Another country was going to go with the herd immunity approach until they saw the projected death toll then changed to a lockdown approach.

The final country declared "pandemic" even before the WHO did and started implementing restrictions.

Can you tell which graph belongs to which country?

 

 

 

Re :Australia...I don't think you should be so sanguine ,as per the press conference today..24/04...when you take out the automatically quarantined returnees from ships/overseas(transmission is near zero now due to enforced quarantine in hotels)  our R0 in the community  is still perilously close to 1..if it drifts above 1 we are in trouble...due to non imported community transmission

More suppression  needed me thinks..another couple of weeks at least

Edited April 24, 2020 by Ivan the terrible

[fygjam]

13 minutes ago, Ivan the terrible said:

Re :Australia...I don't think you should be so sanguine ,as per the press conference today..24/04...when you take out the automatically quarantined returnees from ships/overseas(transmission is near zero now due to enforced quarantine in hotels)  our R0 in the community  is still perilously close to 1..if it drifts above 1 we are in trouble...due to non imported community transmission

More suppression  needed me thinks..another couple of weeks at least

I think you may have misunderstood the purpose of my post. It was merely to demonstrate, lockdowns work, letting the herd run riot doesn't.

 

[Ivan the terrible]

10 minutes ago, fygjam said:

I think you may have misunderstood the purpose of my post. It was merely to demonstrate, lockdowns work, letting the herd run riot doesn't.

 

no I didnt...i understood the context in which you made it,and that was highly appropriate ...however

It would be premature imo,at this present moment in Australia , to open a vein of complacency, we have not beaten this little fucker yet

[fygjam]

11 minutes ago, Ivan the terrible said:

no I didnt...i understood the context in which you made it,and that was highly appropriate ...however

It would be premature imo,at this present moment in Australia , to open a vein of complacency, we have not beaten this little fucker yet

I am certainly NOT advocating any easing of the current restrictions.

 

[fygjam]

Hopes dashed as coronavirus drug remdesivir 'fails first trial'

There had been widespread hope that remdesivir could treat Covid-19.

But a Chinese trial showed that the drug had not been successful, according to draft documents
accidentally published by the World Health Organization.

The drug did not improve patients' condition or reduce the pathogen's presence in the bloodstream, it
said.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-52406261

 

[Ivan the terrible]

30 minutes ago, fygjam said:

Hopes dashed as coronavirus drug remdesivir 'fails first trial'

There had been widespread hope that remdesivir could treat Covid-19.

But a Chinese trial showed that the drug had not been successful, according to draft documents
accidentally published by the World Health Organization.

The drug did not improve patients' condition or reduce the pathogen's presence in the bloodstream, it
said.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-52406261

 

premature

 

[Ivan the terrible]

34 minutes ago, fygjam said:

I am certainly NOT advocating any easing of the current restrictions.

 

pleased to hear

[fforest]

https://www.the-sun.com/news/615296/ndian-police-wear-coronavirus-helmets-to-warn-drivers-as-1-3billion-people-are-put-under-the-worlds-biggest-lockdown/

INDIAN cops are wearing special coronavirus helmets to warn the country's 1.3 billion people to stay inside during the world's biggest lockdown.

 

 

 

 

 

[dcfc2007]

One minister estimates that two thirds of the cabinet favour a significant easing of the lockdown at the next review in just under three weeks’ time. These ministers are aware that the real decision to extend the lockdown had been taken before last week’s cabinet meeting.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/boriss-difficult-decision-when-should-lockdown-be-lifted/amp?__twitter_impression=true

[fygjam]

28 minutes ago, fforest said:

https://www.the-sun.com/news/615296/ndian-police-wear-coronavirus-helmets-to-warn-drivers-as-1-3billion-people-are-put-under-the-worlds-biggest-lockdown/

INDIAN cops are wearing special coronavirus helmets to warn the country's 1.3 billion people to stay inside during the world's biggest lockdown.

 

 

 

 

 

They're 5G headsets!

 

[code_slayer_bkk]

1 hour ago, fforest said:

https://www.the-sun.com/news/615296/ndian-police-wear-coronavirus-helmets-to-warn-drivers-as-1-3billion-people-are-put-under-the-worlds-biggest-lockdown/

INDIAN cops are wearing special coronavirus helmets to warn the country's 1.3 billion people to stay inside during the world's biggest lockdown.

 

 

 

 

 

LOL ... pretty cool ....

[dcfc2007]

At 16-24 months after COVID-19 is considered under control (the end of 2022, if COVID-19 is under control by the end of this year), it's time for leisure travellers to return en masse as the industry reaches "80-90% of pre-virus leisure volume", while at 24+ months (2023) Atmosphere expects travel to be "at or above pre-virus traffic".

 

https://www.executivetraveller.com/news/post-coronavirus-normal-travel-may-not-resume-until-2023