Coronavirus

Some info on the subject via my doctor’s website.

Patient info

My Sister and Husband are in Bulgaria at the moment and she received an email today from her work telling her she is to self Isolate for two weeks before returning to work, my daughter and her co workers are going to be issued with laptops to work from home for upto two weeks whilst the company deep cleans the site, nobody in the company has the virus by the way, the world has hit the panic button.

Martin P

Based on emails I have sent to my own family over the last couple of weeks:

Interesting plots (look at 'rest of world ex. China' on: **LINK** . Click button below graph to change y axis to log scale (but note the last 3 points on the graph are extrapolated figures for next 3 days)

Also, more noddy graph of same data on:

**LINK**

So over most of February, the log graph is a remarkably straight line showing 10 fold increase over any 3 weeks.. Since around 20 February it has increased to a factor of 10 over 12 days.

So allowing maybe 10-fold increase in cases every 2 weeks, if this continues, most of global population could have been exposed to the virus in around 12 weeks::infected then 1 miillion times more numerous than now, nobody left to infect!. I presume this is where the 12 week figure recently quoted by health secretary Matt Hancock comes from.

Expected mortality at minimum estimate of 1% for near 8 billion population gives around 80 million deaths, near double the 1918 flu pandemic. Note typical recent mortality at nearer 2% is much greater than current general flu of around 0.1%, and is also greatly dependant on age But data is still at very preliminary stage.

Notable age dependence of fatality rate, **LINK** , brief summary extract (ages relevant to various generations of my own family):

• 0-9 years: no fatalities yet recorded
• 30-39: 0.2% fatality
• 60-69: 3.6%
• 80+: 14.8%

Hope it does not continue like this, but I would have to have a good reason to believe so. Can the spread be contained? One hears platitudes on the lines of 'it will all die down in the spring, when we open our windows and get out more'.

I was wondering about sending a message about this to my family back in January based on the Chinese data. The prognosis appeared clearly much worse then with a mortality rate of 4%.and projected infection saturation in July, so not so bad now!

So:

• Scenario 1: the infection cannot be contained, leading to global infection and the global death toll of twice that of the 1918 influenza pandemic, when up to 50 million died.
• Scenario 2: the infection is contained through various measures including self isolation, sanitising measures (personal and public), availability of immunisation vaccine, etc. Hoping that this is is how it goes.

Anyway, I am preparing for the worst, but hoping for the best. Good luck to all!

Martin

Things are not looking too good up here in Scotland, Was going to go to the Scottish Motorcycle show at the weekend but have decided against it because of the risks and the possibility that I could infect my family.

There is a match on at Murrayfield at the weekend, 60,000 capacity and bound to be packed.

No sign of this containment policy.

.

... or perhaps Gaia, starting to rebalance the system [?] **LINK**

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/146362/airborne-nitrogen-dioxide-plummets-over-china

MichaelG.

As a 75 year old with Asthma I fit into a higher risk category so does my wife on other finely balanced medications.

Knowing what a sloppy country this (England) seems to be I certainly do not feel confident about all this.

Only today I was in a diy store and some guy was coughing away without any attempt to cover his mouth, hopefully he only had a normal type of cough otherwise a lot of people were potentially infected.

It seems quite normal at any time for people to cough and sneeze over other people without any kind of attempt to cover their output, as to hand washing properly an awful lot appear not even to bother washing their hands after using the toilet so what hope that they will bother over the possibility of spreading the Coronavirus?

Edited By V8Eng on 04/03/2020 21:09:17

Edited By V8Eng on 04/03/2020 21:10:49

There has been a bit of a run on toilet paper

Also staples such as flour, rice and pasta are being hit.

Hand sanitising gel is unobtainable locally, but I have plenty of meths and isopropanol . Painkillers such as paracetamol and ibuprofen also going fast but seems plenty of supply.

Local Waitrose seems as good as ever on its fresh bread suppies - if you go before mid morning, they have not put it out yet, if you try in the afternoon it it is all all gone.

There is an obvious lag between diagnosed cases and mortality, hence the jump in Italian deaths reported. If/when it spreads to significant numbers then facilities will run out and mortality will rise. I wouldn't be suprised to find UK fatalities at 3%+ partly from an aging population and because of general dithering.

Governments lack the will to take serious measures that intefer with the economy and just hope the problem goes away. It's the downside of globalisation and freedom of movement. We see tthe same thng with pet passports - yes, a rabies vaccine exists and has prevented a UK outbreak but we now have tick borne disease we were clear of before. We also import plant diseases that would have been prevented before EU rules applied.

Depending on a vaccine for coronavirus is a false hope. It'd take many months to go through trials and production and can only be of benefit if recovered patients lack long term immunity and need to be boosted.

Interesting times ahead.

pgk

Ironically, a doctor was on TV today saying soap and water is a better thing than hand sanitizer. The soap removes a fatty layer on the skin that the bacteria lives in. Sanitizer does not.

Hard to say what the mortality rate is because the number of infected persons could easily be double the official figure with many suffering only minor symptoms and unaware they have Coronavirus. So it could easily be only 1 per cent. But that is still 10 to 100 times that of the regular flu, depending on age.

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Planning a holiday? The Amazon is looking good.

**LINK**

The map apears to be updated at the begining of each week. NZ now have 3 cases and the run on toilet paper has hit the masses here.

Pete

My wife went to Screwfix for some gutter parts for my wood store rebuild and they have a notice up stating that a maximum of 5 masks for each customer. Is it panic buying or is there a shortage as they are made in China and no more being imported i don't know.

Strange. Is this nasty virus so terrifying that people all around the world are losing control of their bowels? I put it down to Lack of Moral Fibre...

Dave

I'm fed up to the back teeth constantly hearing about Covid 19 or whatever it's now called.

Brian

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' Is this nasty virus so terrifying that people all around the world are losing control of their bowels?'

I think there may be an element of that, but the real fear is of the end of civilization as we know it. Toilet paper is ultimately what distinguishes mankind from animals*. We are rather aware of the fragility of the supply chain of this commodity, here in NZ, with earthquakes, etc., so keep a stockpile routinely...

It's pretty clear that the virus has escaped the futile and inadequate attempts at containment. Politicians seem unable to make important decisions. China, possibly uniquely able to exert iron-fist control over its population, tried hard, but, with the rest of the world's blinkered governments considering that commerce is paramount, borders could not be closed, and the game was lost. We are therefore facing a pandemic and, at this early stage, all bets are off regarding what proportion of the world's population will become infected, and what proportion of that will become seriously ill or die. All one can do is to take reasonable steps to avoid infection, so that the rate of transmission can be minimized. Be careful, and good health!

[edit - added lest anyone take offence] * Yes, I know not all humans use toilet paper: they are not therefore sub-human. And I know all humans are animals. You know what I meant. It was supposed to be an attempt at humour.

Edited By Kiwi Bloke on 05/03/2020 11:13:07

It sounds much better if you think of a 98% survival rate, my doctor quoted a 20% chance of stroke or heart attack for me, it sounds much better if you think of 80% chance of not having one. I am hoping that at 63 I will survive.

Mike

It's all very well saying don't panic, but similar to V8Eng above, I'm 76, had a mild heart attack 5 years ago and so am under pills for that, and am currently being treated by a form of chemotherapy for lung cancer hence my immune system is somewhat compromised. So what am I to do? Sit back and enjoy it? Of course I'm going to worry about it.

I'm well aware that my time is running out, indeed a few years ago I looked at our wills & codicil (satisfactory) and set up EPA's some years ago when they were still allowable. I've even produced a set of notes for our children to assist them in sorting out our affairs (I have memories of doing my fathers probate and receiving a letter from the Halifax containing a reference to what thankfully turned out to be a long closed account) and, on the assumption that I will go first, how I envisage what my wife's income will be, and how to manage it. Our children have been advised by email about the existence of these notes and their location (a number of copies on the various computers I have) along with a recommendation that they don't lose that particular email. The reason for the notes being on the computer is so that a) I can update them without having to bother about sending out copies to each of our three children, and b) they do contain personal financial information of which our children are unaware, and do not need to know until we become dead or incapacitated.

Nevertheless, it is a worrying time. Whether or not I, in particular, can weather the storm, only time will tell. Needless to say, I've still got too much to do!

Peter G. Shaw

Edited for spelling correction.

Edited By Peter G. Shaw on 05/03/2020 11:33:47