Coronavirus Part IV - 19 cases in ROI, 7 in NI (as of 7 March) *Read warnings in OP*

deathbomber

joe40 wrote: »

Technical question: How can a virus die down? I understand severe restrictions on movement stop the immediate spread but the actual virus still exists, lying dormant, so I would have thought as soon as normal service returns the virus will just start up again.

Basically will short term drastic measures have significant long term benefits. I know things like banning the parades would probably have some benefit, but things like school closures for a few weeks, would the benefit match the disruption. Schools will eventually start up again and we will be back to square one.

It seems to me until a vaccine is discovered (and people take it) we will just have to cope with this infection.

Again I'm not an expert, just posing a question.

Herd immunity will kick in- would be a while yet though and obviously many people would need to have recovered

Nijmegen

https://www.economist.com/briefing/2020/03/05/what-the-world-has-learned-about-facing-covid-19

Really interesting and balanced piece in this weeks edition of The Economist (if you have used your free articles with them just open in an incognito window). Couple of things that keep arising as discussion points in this thread:

-What you test you find. South Korea is testing 10,000 cases per day. As of March 1, the US had tested fewer than 500 - and some of the tests were faulty. Reported numbers there are going to soar and in any country really that isn’t testing widely, ala drive thru tests and what have you.

-Transparency in information contains the spread. In South Korea details released have led to at least one extra marital affair being revealed. But people know where not to go and they know that if they spread it, they’ll suffer a personal consequence. So don’t go somewhere there has been transmission and drive social isolation. Sounds harsh, but the virus doesn’t care about social morals.

SeaBreezes

SeaBreezes wrote: »

Ahhh much better to not get it..
Its a combo of HIV and SARS as the first paper that was rubbished suggested:
I was wondering why they called the virus SARS-COV-2 and the disease it causes COVID19. Like HIV and AIDS.

When I linked to their paper in Jan I was rubbished as scarmongering..
But it seems autopsies agree with their finding.

Now I wonder if it can hide in the immune system like HIV, if you get it are you ever really free of it?

The good news is, with advances in HIV it seems this virus responds to HIV drugs... but prevention is WAY better than cure.

Chinese doctors say autopsies of coronavirus victims suggest the deadly illness is “like a combination of SARS and AIDS” that can cause “irreversible” lung damage even if the patient recovers.

The grim finding was reported on by Communist Party mouthpiece the Global Times on Friday, after a paper by Wuhan doctors published in the Journal of Forensic Medicine earlier in the week went viral on Chinese social media.

“The influence of COVID-19 on the human body is like a combination of SARS and AIDS as it damages both the lungs and immune systems,” Peng Zhiyong, director of the intensive care unit of the Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University in Wuhan, told the Global Times.

Dr Peng was commenting on the paper by Liu Liang, a forensic specialist from the Tongji Medical College at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, whose team had conducted nine autopsies of coronavirus patients as of February 24.

“The autopsy results Liu shared inspired me a lot. Based on the results, I think the most important thing now is to take measures at an early stage of the disease to protect patients’ lungs from irreversible fibrosis,” Dr Peng told the outlet.

Full article here:
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/chinese-doctors-say-coronavirus-like-a-combination-of-sars-and-aids-can-cause-irreversible-lung-damage/news-story/f58f19c5eeae99b845c54e2d2b9305ca

I think you are misunderstanding what they are saying. They are not sugggesting that once you have COVID-19, that it enters latent resevoirs stores in the body. They are suggesting that the pulmonary fibrosis will be a chronic health issue for some patients for their rest of their lives.

There isn't a huge amount of evidence for this at the moment (especially as it is such an acute picture at the moment, although I think it could be possibly true).

There was some evidence of Keletra been used to treat COVID-19 but they are really only case reports and I don't think it was particularly effective.

dan786

All geared up...

dan786

Vatican joins the party.

https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1235859262850523136?s=20

tillyfilly

dan786 wrote: »

All geared up...

it's a bit gimpy

YFlyer

Pseudonym121 wrote: »

It is simply sensible to get more young doctors into the system ASAP.

A. They’ll need bodies to replace SHOs/interns etc who get sick or are self-isolating by then. People seem to think there will always be enough doctors and nurses to provide proper care. We have an overstretched system as it is with very little spare capacity and redundancy. Even moderate levels of self-isolation and illness among staff will have significant impacts.

B. They’ll want the reserve capacity a few hundred extra doctors give them in May/June.

C. I think it will prove difficult to organise Final Med Exams by May/June. I’ve been involved in organising them and examining a few times and
C1. It takes a lot of time away from clinical work - two consultants examining each long case for half a day over a period of almost a week. That’s a lot of time which they simple won’t have by May/June if this goes the way it could.

C2. Doing them earlier reduces the risk of infection during the exams.

C3. It gives the potential of doubling the number of interns in Hospitals across the country during a period when the stretch on resources will be ramping up. This will help.


It is good to see responsible bodies taking reasonable steps in preparation for likely scenarios. 300 extra bodies with ruthless redeployment to areas hit by illness/self isolation will really help. And they’re interns so they’ll go where told. The few who don’t will be remembered by their seniors and good luck to them making any career progress when we are on the other side of this.

Will they pay the interns? They got to work a ridiculous amount when the nurses went on strike.

Wibbs

BLIZZARD7 wrote: »

Yes people shouldn't panic.
But saying 80% will be mild or no symptoms? Define mild? I've seen multiples of these cases described as being mild and having developed pneumonia in the same sentance. That's anything but mild compared to no symptoms.

Eh you do realise you can have mild pneumonia? People hear "pneumonia" or even "influenza" and assume/believe near death's door. Again for the "you'd know if you really had flu" brigade; one third of people confirmed infected with influenza viruses show no symptoms. The amount of hysteria and lack of basic knowledge on show is nearly as scary as the Covid virus itself. Then again I can near guarantee there are people reading this who believe antibiotics fight viruses.

What Username Guidelines

laurah591 wrote: »

I heard he was tested for virus - false negative, he was in touch with management and ok'd for work. I think we all need to be a little less judgy - locally this guy is identifiable

True - it's also probably a couple of weeks since the trip, which was technically not in an affected area (one of 4 towns considered affected at the time) and displayed no symptoms. All of the HSE advice, whether right or wrong, was followed. In hindsight and in light of current situation, this seems insane to us, but a lot has changed in the last 2 weeks.

tillyfilly

dan786 wrote: »

Vatican joins the party.

https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1235859262850523136?s=20

no old people there, they will be grand

Funsterdelux

dan786 wrote: »

All geared up...

Does the virus cause increased body odour?

And dandruff?

gabeeg

dan786 wrote: »

Vatican joins the party.

https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1235859262850523136?s=20

where's your god now?

SeaBreezes

SeaBreezes wrote: »

It's heartbreaking. Like watching a slow motion car crash. The amount of heartbreak this virus is going to bring with it.
We had an opportunity to stop it but failed at every step.
Didn't want to 'panic the people' or 'crash the economy'
Well, we can all watch it crash and burn now..
I'm disgusted to be honest. Not one official listened to the experts.
WHO have been banging the aggressive containment drum for a long long time now. Not one person in gov or hse listened.
Telling a doctor and teacher carry on? Wtf? How on earth is that aggressive containment? And people on here trying too say it was WHO guidelines. Newsflash: it wasn't. We know cause we were paying attention.
Disgusting. I'm sooooo angry at the it will be grand people. There is now a man I cork fighting for his life, he's in his forties and his crime was trusting those in authority.

It was treated with interest rate cuts. This should tell you enough about their concerns.

Foot and mouth had a better response, again all about business

circadian

circadian wrote: »

I'd like to think that when this is all calmed down that the shortcomings of the HSE, which we have been aware of for decades, is finally addressed. Given how we've behaved since the 2008 crash I have my concerns.

The slow reaction, poor communication(its a fake letter, no wait it's not a fake letter), lack of testing, lack of capacity, staff returning to work when private companies are asking their staff to self isolate in the same situation.

All of this smacks of bureaucracy, top heavy with management and the fact that we're pissing money on consultants, trying and failing to balance private and public care. Will this change? I'd like to think so, there'll certainly be outcry from he public when all is said and done. They managed to plough on supporting financial institutions after the crash despite public opinion there.

Or pitchforks?

Gods Gift

gabeeg wrote: »

where's your god now?

Self isolating.

Knex*

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

And what's worse, he was coughing and spluttering while at work and had obvious symptoms yet never thought maybe that he had the virus and him a friggen doctor!!!

Wilful ignorance.

I posted a week or two ago that most people will try and convince themselves they haven't got it, and that its likely just a regular flu or cold.

Cee-Jay-Cee

stephenjmcd wrote: »

Well in terms of active cases around Europe hopefully we should see some sort of reduction in numbers once those currently active recover in the next week or so given we're less than 2 weeks into this really in Europe.

Median time for full recovery is 32 days.

igCorcaigh

Hamsterchops wrote: »

UK & Ireland, Covid-19 cases as of 9:30am Friday 6th March .....

UK = 116 cases
IRELAND = 13 cases

Scary to think what these figures might look like come this evening, and I guess even as I post this the above numbers have changed

It's not scary though, expect these figures to go up until they're not counted any more.

We can expect this to go through the population like any other illness.

I'm not dismissing the concern, just that focusing on climbing numbers can make people anxious.

New Home

One thing they did say yesterday during the press conference is that a test can be positive, but it cannot be negative, it can only say that the virus has not been detected (as in, it can't confirm that you definitely don't have it, only that it wasn't able to find it).

Kermit.de.frog

Straffan1979 wrote: »

We can’t go on like what?


80% of people infected with this will have mild symptoms or will have no symptoms.

Do you realise a conservative estimate of deaths from influenza in North America alone this winter 19/20 is 30,000 +... and it’s all unreported and accepted.

Whats going to make this worse is hype,fear and anxiety- the mental health effects from threads like this will have much greater far reaching consequences than this virus and may well catapult us into recession if people don’t get a grip- this phenomenon is well studied internationally.

The most dangerous thing here is this creeping doubt and paranoia about what the medical experts are telling you to do.

The public consulting google and social media... the net result of this could be society becoming resigned to their ‘fate’ -oh we’re going to die ...they stop heeding medical advice or going to work and we could have social breakdown.

We’d really need to grow up here. You’ll get this virus possibly and no you won’t die. It’s very concerning for older people and those immuno compromised and there needs to be calm restored to protect these people.

You clearly don't understand the gravity of the situation if you think there is fear mongering here.

Where is the fear mongering?

We are facing a serious situation. There is no getting around that and honest commentary is only fear mongering to a generation whose biggest concern until now has probably been what to wear to a party.

Fear mongering?

Give me a break.

timmyntc

Wibbs wrote: »

Eh you do realise you can have mild pneumonia? People hear "pneumonia" or even "influenza" and assume/believe near death's door. Again for the "you'd know if you really had flu" brigade; one third of people confirmed infected with influenza viruses show no symptoms. The amount of hysteria and lack of basic knowledge on show is nearly as scary as the Covid virus itself. Then again I can near guarantee there are people reading this who believe antibiotics fight viruses.

The idea that anyone with Covid19 is near deaths door is false.
The idea that most of the people with Covid19 are so mild its like a cold/they dont even realise they have it, is also, false.

The WHO report clearly outlined that the myth of loads of undetected mild cases is exactly that - a myth. Widespread testing in China didnt uncover these mild cases, because they dont exist.
When they use "mild" as in 80% of all cases are mild, they just mean that its not severe enough to include ARDS, Dyspnea, >30 breaths per minute, etc.

Read the WHO report, it clearly defines the criteria for mild vs severe. Its not as grand as you seem to think. This mentality of 80% mild, be grand, take no precautions has got to stop.

Wibbs

SeaBreezes wrote: »

It's heartbreaking. Like watching a slow motion car crash. The amount of heartbreak this virus is going to bring with it.
We had an opportunity to stop it but failed at every step.
Didn't want to 'panic the people' or 'crash the economy'
Well, we can all watch it crash and burn now..
I'm disgusted to be honest. Not one official listened to the experts.
WHO have been banging the aggressive containment drum for a long long time now. Not one person in gov or hse listened.
Telling a doctor and teacher carry on? Wtf? How on earth is that aggressive containment? And people on here trying too say it was WHO guidelines. Newsflash: it wasn't. We know cause we were paying attention.
Disgusting. I'm sooooo angry at the it will be grand people. There is now a man I cork fighting for his life, he's in his forties and his crime was trusting those in authority.

To be fair SB, we're talking about the Irish civil service here. Having dealt with various arms of same down the years, I have found those nearer the front lines to be mostly good, even exceptional, when you get further up the chain the level of jobsworths and actual dribbling morons on display is both scary and a scandal. Then you have the quality of our politicians. Politics the world over tends to attract power mongers and often moronic ones, but our particular variety are often in a league of their own for gombeenism.

caveat emptor

caveat emptor wrote: »

Right few things from this.

• Italians are testing a lot in most regions. Hence picking up community transmission. They are testing anyone with connections to infected regardless of symptoms. Fair play.
• roughly 50 % of people who tested positive in the affected region are in hospital. Could be due to isolation could be due to needing care. Don't know.
• ~7% in main affected regions are in intensive care.
• What's interesting is you can see the testing base on which cases are detected so you can't dismiss this by saying sampling bias. i.e you are only looking at sick people.

Any other analysis welcome?

Mic 1972 wrote: »

The unrecorded cases is a bit of an urban legend really. Italy has taken thousands of swats and most of them returned negative results, the positive ones may have mild symptoms, but even then they could get worse over time. I think it's time accept reality about the death rate at this point

That's 50% of people who have it in hospital.
in most affected region.

I'm sure it'll be grand but stop spreading false information in the hope it'll be grand.

Pseudonym121

BLIZZARD7 wrote: »

Yes people shouldn't panic.
But saying 80% will be mild or no symptoms? Define mild? I've seen multiples of these cases described as being mild and having developed pneumonia in the same sentance. That's anything but mild compared to no symptoms.

Mild meaning they won’t die and won’t need hospital admission to treat the complications of infection.

Iow a patient with COVID19 with underlying asthma who gets antibiotics to prevent/treat a superimposed bacterial pneumonia but who doesn’t need supplementary oxygen etc.

Sure that isn’t nothing but it doesn’t need hospitalisation and their life won’t be in danger. The general public often feels any illness they have is severe for understandable reasons but medical professionals do need to categorise things as mild to severe in order to ensure we allocate resources appropriately for the greater good of the greatest number of people.

So, not a walk in the park but the other 15 to 20% will be much sicker and will need support / treatment in hospital.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts

Mic 1972 wrote: »

The unrecorded cases is a bit of an urban legend really. Italy has taken thousands of swats and most of them returned negative results, the positive ones may have mild symptoms, but even then they could get worse over time. I think it's time accept reality about the death rate at this point

We simply don’t have enough information to call it reality at this stage.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts

Nijmegen wrote: »

https://www.economist.com/briefing/2020/03/05/what-the-world-has-learned-about-facing-covid-19M

Really interesting and balanced piece in this weeks edition of The Economist (if you have used your free articles with them just open in an incognito window). Couple of things that keep arising as discussion points in this thread:

-What you test you find. South Korea is testing 10,000 cases per day. As of March 1, the US had tested fewer than 500 - and some of the tests were faulty. Reported numbers there are going to soar and in any country really that isn’t testing widely, ala drive thru tests and what have you.

-Transparency in information contains the spread. In South Korea details released have led to at least one extra marital affair being revealed. But people know where not to go and they know that if they spread it, they’ll suffer a personal consequence. So don’t go somewhere there has been transmission and drive social isolation. Sounds harsh, but the virus doesn’t care about social morals.

Boo, 404 error.

gabeeg

Christian Drosten, the head of the virology department at Berlin’s Charité clinics told the ‘Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung’ daily, up to a quarter million Germans would possibly die from the virus. In order for the Coronavirus to stop spreading, two thirds of all Germans needed to be immune, at least temporarily, meaning more than 55 million people would have to be infected first for that to happen.

https://berlinspectator.com/2020/03/06/coronavirus-in-germany-number-of-cases-triples-in-48-hours/

Comhrá

Just wondering....could anyone hazard a guess as to how many Irish people have returned from holidays in Northern Italy in the last two or three weeks?

I haven't heard anyone in the media mention numbers who have recently returned or even how many are currently there?

It gives cause for concern if people are still travelling freely between Italy and Ireland.

eviltimeban

But didn't a Chinese doctor state that a mild case "It could be just as small as a sore throat. Then one day, two days, it’s gone"?

In this New York Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/world/asia/coronavirus-treament-recovery.html

caveat emptor

caveat emptor wrote: »

Italy playing out slightly differently regarding numbers.

• First column = recovering in hospital
• Second = Intensive care
• Third = home isolation
• Fourth = recovered
• 5th = dead
• 6th = Tested

Large variation by region but figures are frightening.



Source(Civil protection ITtaly https://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2020/03/03/news/coronavirus_mattarella_firma_decreto_legge-250077895/?ref=RHPPTP-BH-I250147512-C12-P2-S7.3-T1)


https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/OZR7G/1/#embed

Mic 1972 wrote: »

The unrecorded cases is a bit of an urban legend really. Italy has taken thousands of swats and most of them returned negative results, the positive ones may have mild symptoms, but even then they could get worse over time. I think it's time accept reality about the death rate at this point

This has since been updated and the number of people in intensive care in Lombardy alone is 243 which is roughly equal to our total ICU capacity.

Don't panic, nothing to see here.