Discussion thread IV - COVID-19 (new coronavirus)

[Treyfish]

Coronavirus: Evidence of airborne transmission detected in Wuhan hospitals


Scientists now trying to determine whether droplets remain infectious

• Kenneth Chang
• 7 hours ago

Adding to growing evidence that the coronavirus can spread through the air, scientists have identified genetic markers of the virus in airborne droplets, many with diameters smaller than one-ten-thousandth of an inch.

That had been previously demonstrated in laboratory experiments, but now Chinese scientists studying real-world conditions report that they captured tiny droplets containing the genetic markers of the virus from the air in two hospitals in Wuhan, China, where the outbreak started.

Their findings were published on Monday in Nature, the journal​.

It remains unknown if the virus in the samples they collected was infectious, but droplets that small, which are expelled by breathing and talking, can remain aloft and be inhaled by others.
“Those are going to stay in the air floating around for at least two hours,” said Linsey Marr, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech who was not involved with the Nature paper. “It strongly suggests that there is potential for airborne transmission.”...

Even with the new findings, the issue is not settled. Although the coronavirus RNA — the genetic blueprint of the virus — was present in the aerosols, scientists do not know yet is whether the viruses remain infectious or whether the tests just detected harmless virus fragments.....:tiphat:https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-a9489596.html

 

[alert]

Even if China's numbers are lies, which they probably are, don't you think it's strange that Beijing, Shanghai, Hanoi, Hong Kong, and NYC are all the same order of magnitude in terms of population, but the first four have a COMBINED total of 20 Covid-19 deaths, whereas NYC has over 20,000?

Better isolation or treatment might cut your case count or death count in half or so, but how do we explain this difference by over a factor of 1000? I trust the numbers out of Hong Kong and Hanoi, even if the Chinese government is lying about what is going on in mainland China.

It's not clear how SARS-1 experience would help here, as Covid-19 cannot be contained by quarantines as SARS-1 was. And with the notable exceptions of Hong Kong, Guangzhou, and Beijing, none of the places that are doing really well handling Covid-19 had much SARS experience. South Korea and Japan had only imported cases. Vietnam had 62 cases in several generations. The rest of China combined had fewer than 1,000 total SARS cases. If the benefit of SARS-1 experience was simply to teach doctors how to treat severe respiratory illness, you would expect the places hit hard by 2009 H1N1 (India, Mexico, Ukraine) to also have that benefit. And we're not seeing that either.

Something about what we're seeing just doesn't add up.

 

[tetano]

I agree with JJackson arguments.There are no scientific reasons to doubt chinese numbers. This study on the Lancet shows how they have done meticulous work to trace and isolate and how this has produced excellent results. I believe that western countries should have taken an example from the strategies implemented in China and it is only their fault that they did not.

 

[sharon sanders]

Sharon "We all know what happened." To what are you referring? You and I have very different ideas about what has happened I am basing mine on the WHO data and statements. I do not use, and have not looked at, Twitter, Facebook or similar. I also do not read many newspaper reports or watch television. I read all the published data I can lay my hands on and as many of the most interesting scientific papers as I have time for.

Your rough calculation shows what happens in some West European countries if you apply the tools and measures they had and used. Claiming that the same outbreak trajectory must have occurred in China and that they had millions of cases that they made disappear is illogical, as is saying that you are not holding S Korea to the same standard. China and S Korea have a surveillance system that allows them to look at exactly where an individual is and where they have been. S Korea can also look at your bank statement and see where you used your credit card and who else used their card in the same area at the time. In short they can test and contact trace in a way we can not. They also had SARS-1 and took the lessons learnt to heart. The laws S Korea put on the books to spy on their citizens were introduced post SARS-1 for exactly this eventuality. In China they completely revamped their pneumonia reporting system so they could pick up small changes in atypical case numbers in real time. There is no reason to assume China should have the same number of cases as any other country as it is unique in the way it has attempted to control the epidemic and if we had had their ability to control our populations we would probably have done as well or better.
The difference in the quality of healthcare systems is totally irrelevant to your argument as it relates to clinical outcomes and has no bearing on the number of infections per head of population. Are our healthcare systems better at treating COVID patients and if so why? China shipped 40,000 HCWs into the epicenter and Bruce Aylward's team were shocked by how well equipped the hospitals were in terms of Ventilators, ECMO and CT scanners. Neither I or China or WHO are claiming TCM prevented, or had any impact on spread, they did not have our numbers because they tested, contact traced and isolated positives and all their contacts.

I have not tried to deflect your issues with China, I do not have any, by comparison with the US, they are in no way comparable and are not my problem. I think China and S Korea's numbers are a lot more comparable to those from Europe although they have used different tools to solve the same problem.

Good luck with trying to bring any country before a court as none will submit themselves. Neither China or the US are state parties to the ICC.

Shiloh the WHO were on the ground before, during and are still no the ground there is a permanent office in country. They were not escorted and chaperoned I suggest you listen to Bruce Aylward's press conference which should clear up that false assumption. There was a lot of US press chatter about why China did not invite in a US CDC team but why would they? The US was obviously not a friendly state to China and the expertise in dealing with SARS-1 was not in the US but in China, S Korea and Canada. Unlike Sharon you seem to think that "draconian measures worked there" and as I stated earlier I think this is why they did not have the case numbers Sharon is accusing them of hiding. No I have also made it clear I would not want to live under their system but that is quite different to saying it is an almost ideal system for controlling an epidemic because of the draconian measures it allows you to take to control the viral vectors (your human population).

Oh, yes. There will be a world court whether or not any country submits themselves. You can count on it.

I am not arguing with you any more. Like I said - we all have eyes. We saw what happened in China. And the W.H.O.? They will have to live with their decisions and actions too. Like every leadership body in the world. There will be a reckoning on behalf of the hundreds of thousands who have already died. There is no way the world's citizens are just going to forget about this.

For once in history - the various governments can not cover up what has happened. There is too much already recorded. I personally know that China is trying to scrub the internet of references that they don't like because FluTrackers was contacted several times to change the name of a paper. This is a fact. Period.

Good luck to all you governments out there trying to re-write history. We aren't stupid.

 

[curiosity]

Attached are pictographs from the data for 1999 thru 2019.

Looking at average of specifically coded influenza deaths 2019/20, there are clearly less influenza coded deaths and higher pneumonia deaths starting at Week 9 (February 22-29) and Week 10 (March 1-March7) when the epidemic effects begin to be noted.


A few thoughts for consideration - please let me know what you think:

*The highest PI deaths available to view before this year are in 2000 AND just a squeeze above 11%.

*It took about (best guess looking at the data) 14 to 21 days post approximate stay at home orders (March 23) for the PI deaths to begin dropping.

*Now, the question is, of all these deaths, how many in total have been infected? This will help us understand the potential for the next wave. If 80% of the population remain susceptible, eegads.

*In this wave, we had isolated and few introductions, with outcomes clearly beginning to show in P&I mortality in early March. The assumption can be made the virus became more widespread about 2 weeks prior since it takes on average, 2 weeks for many to die from COVID if they receive medical care.

*Genetically, the virus is traceable back to introductions from China on the West Coast during late January. It took one month to present in the P&I mortality chart.

*The next wave will begin with wide spread seeding caused by slow virus movement infiltrated into most communities over the last eight weeks. The next wave may move very fast - as an example, from Week 9 to Week 13, with isolated virus introduction, the growth was impressive. We sheltered in place and the numbers continued to grow for two more weeks after that.

*When does that next wave start? When we open up? When fall comes around? I did read a publication that said COVID demonstrates increased transmission potential with cooler temps, wider diurnal temps, and lower humidity. Time will tell.

*The P&I mortality growth is also a late sign of an epidemic.

 

[Treyfish]

Yeah thanks China, I better run get a few more shields and masks..

Photos: Chinese schools reopen, see how students dress to prevent COVID-19

April 23, 2020
As the rest of the world remains under lockdown with schools months away from reopening, schools in China have reopened and learners have started adapting to a new life after COVID-19, OYOGist.com reports.

In new images circulating online, the pupils of schools in China – the country where the COVID-19 epidemic started – are preventing the spread of the disease with the use of face shields and masks while in school.

See photos of how Chinese schools are preventing the spread of the Coronavirus among their pupils below:

zayn_bellz@RonaldosCrush
The world Is still battling to fight coronavirus but China schools are reopening;

Just have a look at their new uniform and mode of receiving lectures, guess we need to emulate this.

560
12:08 PM - Apr 23, 2020​​​​​​​

​:tiphat:https://oyogist.com/2020/04/photos-c...vent-covid-19/​

 

[sharon sanders]

I agree with JJackson arguments.There are no scientific reasons to doubt chinese numbers. This study on the Lancet shows how they have done meticulous work to trace and isolate and how this has produced excellent results. I believe that western countries should have taken an example from the strategies implemented in China and it is only their fault that they did not.

We will never see a study that does not support excellence in the way that China has handled this situation. The Chinese government controls all of the source data. I expect a lot more studies like this one. We will never see a study where all the participants are independent of China $ and have unfettered access to Chinese data, experts, and citizens.

Yes, the Western countries could have done some of China's strategies besides contact tracing like: cremation required for all bodies, locking people in their apartments and houses with irons bars, physically dragging people into vans destined for camps, separating families by requiring that test positive people be sent to dormitories with outside bathrooms, & isolating the city of New York like Wuhan - for example - for 2+ months (pop. 8.4 million).

 

[sharon sanders]

Thanks for this work. Interesting. I think your conclusion of "time will tell" is the only thing we know for sure. For me personally, I am assuming a continuous infectious situation with some peaks and valleys.

 

[bertrand789]

"En Occident, nous l'appelons la phytoth?rapie et c'est une industrie de 100 milliards de dollars dans le monde." la m?decine traditionnelle , c'est bien plus que cela . Je r?p?te ma question: quand ils vont int?grer cela dans les donn?es O.M.S , il est pr?vu quoi exactement. On sait, ? ce stade, ou pas ?

des nouvelles du jour :
"Une ?tude g?n?tique men?e par l'Institut Pasteur laisse entendre que la diffusion de l'?pid?mie dans l'Hexagone serait pour tr?s peu li?e ? des cas import?s de Chine ou d'Italie. Une troisi?me souche ? l'origine pour l'instant inconnue expliquerait la forte diffusion de l'?pid?mie dans l'Hexagone."
https://www.lesechos.fr/economie-fra...italie-1199167

 

[sharon sanders]

des nouvelles du jour :
"Une ?tude g?n?tique men?e par l'Institut Pasteur laisse entendre que la diffusion de l'?pid?mie dans l'Hexagone serait pour tr?s peu li?e ? des cas import?s de Chine ou d'Italie. Une troisi?me souche ? l'origine pour l'instant inconnue expliquerait la forte diffusion de l'?pid?mie dans l'Hexagone."
https://www.lesechos.fr/economie-fra...italie-1199167

Introductions and early spread of SARS-CoV-2 in France

Fabiana G?mbaro, Sylvie Behillil, Artem Baidaliuk, Flora Donati, M?lanie Albert, Andreea Alexandru, Maud Vanpeene, M?line Bizard, Angela Brisebarre, M arion Barbet, Fawzi Derrar, Sylvie van der Werf, Vincent Enouf, View ORCID ProfileEtienne Simon-Loriere
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.24.059576
This article is a preprint and has not been certified by peer review [what does this mean?].

• Abstract
• Full Text
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Abstract


Following the emergence of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Wuhan, China in December 2019, specific COVID-19 surveillance was launched in France on January 10, 2020. Two weeks later, the first three imported cases of COVID-19 into Europe were diagnosed in France. We sequenced 97 severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) genomes from samples collected between January 24 and March 24, 2020 from infected patients in France. Phylogenetic analysis identified several early independent SARS-CoV-2 introductions without local transmission, highlighting the efficacy of the measures taken to prevent virus spread from symptomatic cases. In parallel, our genomic data reveals the later predominant circulation of a major clade in many French regions, and implies local circulation of the virus in undocumented infections prior to the wave of COVID-19 cases. This study emphasizes the importance continuous and geographically broad genomic sequencing and calls for further efforts with inclusion of asymptomatic infections.


https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...04.24.059576v1

 

[Emily]

I don't think the Stanford study has been withdrawn, though it sparked an almost nasty feud, but Dr. Bhattacharya seems to have a very classy response to it all. I really like him. The link below covers the study challenges and an L.A. public health study that agrees with Stanford's even though they used more conventional recruitment techniques. It was a small study and they used the same test kit as Stanford. They were pleased with the results, though, since to them it justified further sheltering due to all those mild infections out there.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/04...irus-study-the-authors-owe-us-all-an-apology/

 

[gsgs]

> "Une ?tude g?n?tique men?e par l'Institut Pasteur laisse entendre que la diffusion de l'?pid?mie dans l'Hexagone serait pour tr?s
> peu li?e ? des cas import?s de Chine ou d'Italie. Une troisi?me souche ? l'origine pour l'instant inconnue expliquerait la forte
> diffusion de l'?pid?mie dans l'Hexagone."

a 3rd strain (other than the (known?) introductions from China,Italy) is mainly responsible for the spread in France

----------------edit-------------------
OK, they call it " strain G " , {C241T,C3037T,A23403G=D641G(spike)}+{C14408T} , the Wuhan--> Shanghai-->Webasto-Jan21 strain (contained) , {so these 3 mutations were probably in Wuhan already ~Jan10)
in England sampled Feb14,15,16, , presumably in Vo in Jan, Milan in Jan., then all over Italy -->Spain,UK,US-East-Coast

there was also a regular train-ferry Wuhan-->France,(Le Havre ?) stopped on ??

 

[bertrand789]

https://www.inrae.fr/actualites/face...oordonne-cirad

 

[bertrand789]

Le pharmacien peut se montrer confiant. En 2009, il avait coiff? ses concurrents sur le poteau en devenant le premier au monde ? mettre sur le march? un vaccin contre la grippe porcine H1N1.

Virus: en Chine, un possible vaccin se fabrique d?j? ? grande ?chelle

https://www.lepoint.fr/monde/virus-e...2373572_24.php

 

[bertrand789]

https://www.europol.europa.eu/public...andscape-in-eu

 

[sharon sanders]

See this article:

U.S. Coronavirus Death Toll Is Far Higher Than Reported, C.D.C. Data Suggests


By Josh Katz, Denise Lu and Margot Sanger-Katz

April 28, 2020

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...oll-total.html

------------------------------------------

Interesting analysis using some fuzzy math like I use to get an idea what is going on in China.

There is nothing wrong with going at a situation with some logic to try to understand how good any reported numbers are. Ronan is the first person I believe that publicly started to use CDC ILI data to predict COVID-19 trends in the U.S.

How many deaths are there in the US, or the world? No one knows but there are several ways to begin to understand the true picture when you open your mind to the idea that reported cases and deaths are only minimum numbers at best, and at worst, contrived numbers.

I hope more countries assess their situations using some logic and not just the cases that presented to the hospitals and were confirmed. Evaluating excess deaths is a good way to do this. I hope China releases their excess death numbers in a few provinces soon. Maybe one of their major media comparable to the New York Times will publish an analysis.

 

[gsgs]

yes, I first saw this in tweets from the major of Bergamo. They had ~10 fold increase in deaths from all causes !
Then I found SISMG for Italy, INSEE for France giving more or less actual data for weekly deaths.
I knew ONS for UK, euromomo.eu , CDC-flu-weekly links (USA-MMWR 122 cities was abandonned some years ago)
-- some weeks behind.
There were articles in NYT and a nice overview in ?? recently about deaths from all causes (happening at home) vs. deaths from
COVID (in hospital) .

I estimate it could be 60% in Wuhan, similar to UK. But in China ex Wuhan there was not much, not many infections,
so presumably also not many deaths.
Statistics-China gives deaths from all causes by province, but ~ 2years delayed, not unusual.
We may see some papers, some estimates in the next weeks, months ...
Also, 2020 is a Census-Year in China

------------------------------------------
http://magictour.free.fr/eumo16c.PNG

 

[Treyfish]

China knew they had a communicable disease and let everyone go on new years vacation all around the world.. that doesn't sound like good disease management

BNO Newsroom

@BNODesk
?
Jan 22
At least 96 flights took off from Wuhan's airport before the lockdown took effect, according to local media. The lockdown was announced 8 hours in advance.:tiphat:https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1220193737311227904

 

[tetano]

Sharon, I have an Italian friend who has lived in Shenzhen for several years, who is not a sympathizer of the communist regime and who confirms to me that the situation is absolutely quite. The epidemic has been thoroughly eradicated thanks to TTT

 

[Treyfish]

China on ‘high alert’ as ‘troublemaker’ US patrols South China Sea

• Chinese military takes aim at operations by American warships near the Spratly and Paracel islands
• US says sweeping maritime claims in the area pose a threat to freedom of the seas

Catherine Wong
Published: 10:00pm, 30 Apr, 2020

The Chinese military called the United States a “troublemaker” in
the disputed South China Sea
on Thursday, stressing that China was on “high alert” to safeguard its interests in the contested waters.
The two powers, already mired in a dispute over the
handling of the coronavirus pandemic
, have engaged in tense stand-offs over the South China Sea, with two back-to-back operations by the US to challenge China’s expansive claims in the region in the last few days.

The US’ guided-missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill conducted a “freedom of navigation operation” in the Spratly Islands on Wednesday, a day after the guided-missile destroyer USS Barry conducted a similar operation near the Paracel Islands.

The US 7th Fleet said the operations were in response to “unlawful and sweeping maritime claims in the South China Sea [that] pose a serious threat to the freedom of the seas, including the freedoms of navigation and overflight and the right of innocent passage of all ships”.

And last week, an Australian frigate joined US warships in a joint exercise in the South China Sea after the Chinese research ship Haiyang Dizhi 8, accompanied by a Chinese coastguard vessel, tailed a Malaysian state oil company ship conducting exploration in the area....
...:tiphat: