General Coronavirus chit chat thread - non-travel specific

[drron]

Here in Tassie we often use the rapid test and can have the result in 2-4 hours.necessary in some cases eg those that need urgent surgery.The test has been compared with the previous test and gives very similiar results.

Another interesting development in treatment.two different sorts of monoclonal antibodies have been produced-one from the Covid virus and one from the SARS virus which have been shown to be effective in animal studies against Covid.These antibodies are usually able to be tested and produced a lot faster than new drugs.Used a lot in medicine these days.

NIH Director Says ‘Basic Science Expands Therapeutic Discoveries'

Antibody S309 is effective at neutralizing the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus

www.coronavirustoday.com

And the CDC has issued guidelines for the re opening of churches in the USA.

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a virus (more specifically, a coronavirus) identified as the cause of an outbreak of respiratory illness first detected in Wuhan, China.

www.cdc.gov

 

[blackcat20]

Negative result came through by text at 3am, so 12 hours from testing. Still feel like cough but at least it’s not Covid, most likely Miss TCs daycare germs.

 

[get me outta here]

The current flu vac is between 37% and 50% effective depending on which strain it refers to. Will there be similarities in effectiveness?

CDC Releases Interim Flu Vaccine Effectiveness Report

According to a Feb. 21 <i>Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report</i> from the CDC, the current influenza vaccine has been 45% effective overall against 2019-2020 seasonal influenza A and B viruses.

www.aafp.org

Post automatically merged: May 28, 2020

Do they test to see if it is a flu?

Negative result came through by text at 3am, so 12 hours from testing. Still feel like cough but at least it’s not Covid, most likely Miss TCs daycare germs.

 

[blackcat20]

The current flu vac is between 37% and 50% effective depending on which strain it refers to. Will there be similarities in effectiveness?

CDC Releases Interim Flu Vaccine Effectiveness Report

According to a Feb. 21 <i>Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report</i> from the CDC, the current influenza vaccine has been 45% effective overall against 2019-2020 seasonal influenza A and B viruses.

www.aafp.org

Post automatically merged: May 28, 2020

Do they test to see if it is a flu?

Wouldn’t think so but I don’t think it’s flu. I’ve had flu and this feels nothing like it. Except for the fact I can’t talk, I don’t feel particularly unwell.

 

[Pushka]

It's interesting. On paper, a lot of countries has a pandemic plan. In practice, a lot of countries weren't really prepared. Something that will need to be looked at some point.

There was certainly a plan in Australia. I think JobKeeper was put in place so quickly that this must have been planned for such a time as well.

 

[get me outta here]

That’s good. (I was going on you saying you felt like “cough”.) That’s how I felt when I had flu 2 years ago.

Wouldn’t think so but I don’t think it’s flu. I’ve had flu and this feels nothing like it. Except for the fact I can’t talk, I don’t feel particularly unwell.

 

[oz_mark]

There was certainly a plan in Australia. I think JobKeeper was put in place so quickly that this must have been planned for such a time as well.

Our execution of a plan seems to have been better than other countries - on paper the US was the most prepared.

But I think we need to look at a few things - how come we ran headlong straight into issues of PPE and abilities to test. Some things need a bit of looking at. (IMHO)

 

[Gremlin]

Our execution of a plan seems to have been better than other countries - on paper the US was the most prepared.

But I think we need to look at a few things - how come we ran headlong straight into issues of PPE and abilities to test. Some things need a bit of looking at. (IMHO)

I think we worked well early on to coordinate and de-politicise this.

I also think we should acknowledge the role that our geography has played. We are an island and have roughly 15 entry points to our country. Compare this to the US and most of Europe where there may be hundreds or thousands of entry points into the country. I don't think it's a coincidence that most of "successful" countries in managing coronavirus to date (Australia, NZ, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea - a virtual island given its one land border is impassable) have been island nations who can much more easily close borders than other nations.

There's also a degree of providence. Due, no doubt in part to the bushfires, we had the lowest number of summer international tourists in years. Had those numbers been "normal" we may very well have imported an outbreak well before the right responses could have been put into place.

I also agree that we should, as a nation, ensure we have what we need in times of crisis. Be it through stockpiling or be it through ensuring we continue to have the right manufacturing skillsets to rapidly develop in times of future crises

 

[OZDUCK]

The UK is introducing a new "Test and Trace" system after Covid-19 infections are confirmed. The article seems to me to imply that there was no major attempt to trace close contacts of infected persons before. If this is true no wonder the infection and death rates have been so high.

Coronavirus: Test and trace system will start on Thursday

Anyone coming into close contact with infected people in England will be told to isolate.

www.bbc.com

 

[p--and--t]

The UK is introducing a new "Test and Trace" system after Covid-19 infections are confirmed. The article seems to me to imply that there was no major attempt to trace close contacts of infected persons before. If this is true no wonder the infection and death rates have been so high.

Coronavirus: Test and trace system will start on Thursday

Anyone coming into close contact with infected people in England will be told to isolate.

www.bbc.com

Where is the "I can't believe it" button

 

[Flashback]

The UK is introducing a new "Test and Trace" system after Covid-19 infections are confirmed. The article seems to me to imply that there was no major attempt to trace close contacts of infected persons before. If this is true no wonder the infection and death rates have been so high.

Coronavirus: Test and trace system will start on Thursday

Anyone coming into close contact with infected people in England will be told to isolate.

www.bbc.com

That is correct and yes, comes into play from 9am this morning. There's some pretty tight restrictions that have been put in place now, too. If you have *any* symptoms of COVID-19 then you are to self isolate for 7 days and your household, 14 days. If/when a test confirms you are negative then you're free to move about but if it tests positive then you have another period of self-isolation starting from the positive test result for another 14 days.

Also, if via the tracing etc. you're found to have been in contact with someone who did test positive then regardless of whether you have symptoms or not you must self isolate.

Here I was hoping restrictions would be easing..... but no, they're getting worse.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

There was certainly a plan in Australia. I think JobKeeper was put in place so quickly that this must have been planned for such a time as well.

Our execution of a plan seems to have been better than other countries - on paper the US was the most prepared.

But I think we need to look at a few things - how come we ran headlong straight into issues of PPE and abilities to test. Some things need a bit of looking at. (IMHO)

As best as I can determine the Australian plan for a managing the emergence of a novel virus pandemic which was affecting Australia was this:

https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/519F9392797E2DDCCA257D47001B9948/$File/w-AHMPPI-2019.PDF

It is certainly is a very comprehensive plan, but it does seem to be essentially more of an outline of many of the things that could considered IF a novel virus emerged. On the ranking that Oz Mark mentioned the USA and UK ranked highly as did Australia. So being most prepared has also been now been shown as being willing and able to actually act and to do so quickly, decisively and well. The UK and USA both have failed dismally in this. Australia has done very well. Taiwan was a step ahead as for them it was a matter of when it happened rather than if and so were actively waiting for such a virus to emerge.

Recovery measures such as Jobkeeper were not mentioned and I would tend to believe that was very much a measure developed due the rapid and scale of employment shutdown that occurred.

Issues such as PPE were discussed and there is much detail on who is responsible for what. But for example on PPE were were caught should by not enough PPE being in our national stockpile, let alone in our hospitals who in the main were not maintaining stockpile either with the assumption that PPE could be bought as required. Local manufacture of PPE within Australia had almost ceased. So this indicates to me that the granularity was lacking as while the need for PPE was clearly highlighted no steps were taken to ensure adequate supply of PPE in a pandemic. Though some or all of the agencies may have had more detail.

While obviously each new virus will be different it is interesting for example that cruise ships were rated a low risk for infection spread..

To me this is quite different to Taiwan who were more on what they would do WHEN a novel virus emerged, and in particular one from China, and were thus on a more active footing than Australia. They were more active in looking, and had all their steps ready to be rolled out when it happened. Australia was more to flesh out their actions if it happened. Would Taiwan has been as impressive if the virus had emerged in say South America we will never know, but I suspect that they would have.

 

[p--and--t]

As best as I can determine the Australian plan for a managing the emergence of a novel virus pandemic which was affecting Australia was this:

https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/519F9392797E2DDCCA257D47001B9948/$File/w-AHMPPI-2019.PDF

It is certainly is a very comprehensive plan, but it does see to be essentially more of an outline of many of the things that could considered IF a novel virus emerged. On the ranking that Oz Mark mentioned the USA and UK ranked highly as did Australia. So being most prepared has also been now been shown as being willing and able to actually act and to do so quickly, decisively and well. The UK and USA both have failed dismally in this. Australia has done very well. Taiwan was a step ahead as for them it was a matter of when it happened rather than if and so were actively waiting for such a virus to emerge.

Recovery measures such as Jobkeeper were not mentioned and I would tend to believe that was very much a measure developed due the rapid and scale of employment shutdown that occurred.

Issues such as PPE were discussed and there is much detail on who is responsible for what. But for example on PPE were were caught should by not enough PPE being in our national stockpile, let alone in our hospitals who in the main were not maintaining stockpile either with the assumption that PPE could be bought as required. Local manufacture of PPE within Australia had almost ceased. So this indicates to me that the granularity was lacking as while the need for PPE was clearly highlighted no steps were taken to ensure adequate supply of PPE in a pandemic. Though some or all of the agencies may have had more detail.

While obviously each new virus will be different it is interesting for example that cruise ships were rated a low risk for infection spread..

To me this is quite different to Taiwan who were more on what they would do WHEN a novel virus emerged, and in particular one from China, and were thus on a more active footing than Australia. They were more active in looking, and had all their steps ready to be rolled out when it happened. Australia was more to flesh out their actions if it happened. Would Taiwan has been as impressive if the virus had emerged in say South America we will never know, but I suspect that they would have.

The much hailed "National Stockpile", while a good idea, certainly turned out to be a bit of a fizzer with both actual volume requirements underestimated and thin insecure single source supply chains overlooked. Seems the operation and focus of the "National stockpile" needs a major re-think.

Understandably it seems little point and way too expensive to having huge stocks of items with a use by date unless they are being cycled into actual use. That may mean we need to move the stockpile into the supply chain itself as a large buffer to remove the just in time penny pinching in existence in January but avoid wholesale waste.

Also a major review needs to take place into establishing multiple sources of supply/manufacture that are closer to the requirement (i.e. not six weeks away via a slow boat from China, with components of Chinese items with original source India) and are within reach of our jurisdiction to command increase in supply and priority of allotment to the nation's needs in times of emergency.

 

[drron]

Also in February the Chinese buying up supplies of PPE and shipping it back to China didn't help.82 tonnes just from 1 company means a fair bit of PPE no longer available.Who knows what the total amount was.

 

[p--and--t]

Also in February the Chinese buying up supplies of PPE and shipping it back to China didn't help.82 tonnes just from 1 company means a fair bit of PPE no longer available.Who knows what the total amount was.

Maybe we need a KPI on hospital administrators to keep x weeks of stock of PPE at all times and not rely on weekly deliveries with only days of stock on hand.

 

[Princess Fiona]

I’m shocked to find out only today that we’ve been misled and it’s not a virus but 5G that is causing the pandemic.

British 5G towers are being set on fire because of coronavirus conspiracy theories

A growing disinformation campaign is targeting 5G in the UK

www.theverge.com

A little OT but perhaps this device might help ?
Pulling apart a £389 anti 5G USB Stick

“ Through a process of quantum oscillation, the 5GBioShield USB key balances and re-harmonises the disturbing frequencies arising from the electric fog induced by devices, such as laptops, cordless phones, wi-fi, tablets, et cetera," it adds.”

“So what's different between it and a virtually identical 'crystal' USB key available from various suppliers in Shenzhen, China, for around £5 per key?" asks Ken Munro, whose company, Pen Test Partners, specialises in taking apart consumer electronic products to spot security vulnerabilities.

And the answer appears to be a circular sticker”

I thought this must be The Betoota but no it’s BBC dot com .

 

[lovetravellingoz]

A little OT but perhaps this device might help ?
Pulling apart a £389 anti 5G USB Stick

I went with the simpler "One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear"

 

[Pushka]

Some sensible comments from Morrison today where we aren’t aiming for elimination but management. If elimination occurred as a by product then that’s just a bonus.

Also -

‘An infection rate of fewer than 10 new cases each day, which excludes international arrivals in quarantine, is the rough benchmark used by the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee (AHPPC) in its deliberations over further relaxing restrictions, according to The Australian.’

 

[blackcat20]

WFH in Victoria has been extended through June. Traffic has definitely been getting worse so clearly lots of people aren't following the rules.

 

[Denali]

Ive returned to work on Tues only (Sydney) so I can reconnect with my team but my boss said its up to me. Half my team are there 3-5 days per week because theyre not managing at home. My HR Director said once this is "over, whatever and whenever that is", its changed the face of working in the office and she doubts any of us will return to 5 days per week in the office

Weird thing is I go to the office to do a few things on Saturday mornings - like tomorrow, Im delivering hand stanitser towers for the lobby and office because no one else thought of it... and hiding the $4000 worth of hand sanitiser I bought last week