General Coronavirus chit chat thread - non-travel specific

[get me outta here]

A favourite monument in Washington DC is the FDR monument and seeing the Centrelink queues today reminded me of it. Here is a part of that monument :

 

[drron]

Of course getting the masks is a huge issue, but if we were doing our absolute best to stop this in its tracks, to me they should be closing take away services as well, or come up with a safe way.
Thank god the school have closed too now

All these social distancing and health measures while having our kids social with hundreds of others seems completely contradictory, reasons aside

Masks are not the major answer unless a person has a cough-and now they should self quarantine anyway.Most people who will develope an infection do so by picking the virus up from a surface where the droplets have landed.The virus can survive for days on many surfaces hence the plea to wash hands.
People who keep a mask on for the whole day are fooling themselves that they are preventing infection.When I see a patient with a possible respiratory virus I put on a gown mask and gloves.After seeing the patient those are discarded and then I wash my hands.Go to the next room,wash my hands,put on the gown,masks and gloves and repeat the proceedure.

 

[Hvr]

The phrase above:

"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." -- FDR, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1937.

Franklin D. Roosevelt - FDR Presidential Library & Museum

Is one that our current government should take heed of. There will be many, many people who will hit financial rock-bottom in the near future. There are no jobs for most of them.

We are entering some very hard times and compassion is essential. Having recently started working in the city again I am amazed by the number of people sleeping in the streets.

I can also see in the last two months just how many people have 'disappeared' from the morning and evening commutes. Previously getting a seat on the inbound train was sheer and quite rare. Now you have a choice of seats with nobody near you.

Entering Flinders St station in the evening peak was hard battling through the huge crowds that came with the pedestrian lights turning green. Now it's near empty. They're not all working from home.

I fear for the future cohesiveness of society.

 

[tgh]

The imagery of the Centrelink queues on tv , the PM's use of the D word, and now gmoh's atmospheric imagery has driven me to a Monday night red.
Never in my whole life have I seen the likes of this, and the consequences will ricochet through our society for a long time.

 

[Antoallison]

For CruiserElite

 

[SOPOOR]

Masks are not the major answer unless a person has a cough-and now they should self quarantine anyway.Most people who will develope an infection do so by picking the virus up from a surface where the droplets have landed.The virus can survive for days on many surfaces hence the plea to wash hands.
People who keep a mask on for the whole day are fooling themselves that they are preventing infection.When I see a patient with a possible respiratory virus I put on a gown mask and gloves.After seeing the patient those are discarded and then I wash my hands.Go to the next room,wash my hands,put on the gown,masks and gloves and repeat the proceedure.

im no doc nor am I an expert, it seems most of hte focus has been on the distancing and less contact so that you dont absord the cough droplets,

however you can also get it from droplets off the surface, I am surprised that all that has been said is to wash your hands thoroguhly,
if a contagious person walks around every where they go they could be leaving germs behind, so we should be wiping absolutely everything down,

thats just from a common sense aspect

 

[Cruiser Elite]

@Antoallison Tks so much for that

 

[MEL_Traveller]

im no doc nor am I an expert, it seems most of hte focus has been on the distancing and less contact so that you dont absord the cough droplets,

however you can also get it from droplets off the surface, I am surprised that all that has been said is to wash your hands thoroguhly,
if a contagious person walks around every where they go they could be leaving germs behind, so we should be wiping absolutely everything down,

thats just from a common sense aspect

There’s lots of information out there for you to read.

Yes, someone infected can leave germs behind. That’s why, unless you are opening doors with your face, you need to wash your hands, and sanitise.

And do it frequently.

Every time you touch a high risk surface (anything shared) you should wash or sanitise your hands.

Disinfecting every single surface every 30 seconds would be impossible. Washing hands or using sanitiser is easy.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

so we should be wiping absolutely everything down,

Yes cleaning is also focus.

On many of the news bulletins I have watched over the last month there is an endless stream of people washing down and disinfecting surfaces in all sorts of way.

Go to the supermarket and the cleaning aisle is almost as picked clean as the toilet paper section.

 

[Flashback]

I'll just leave this one here...........

Coronavirus: Harvey Weinstein tests positive

The former producer was convicted of rape and sexual assault last month and is now in a New York prison.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[SOPOOR]

Yes cleaning is also focus.

On many of the news bulletins I have watched over the last month there is an endless stream of people washing down and disinfecting surfaces in all sorts of way.

Go to the supermarket and the cleaning aisle is almost as picked clean as the toilet paper section.

I had already started wiping things down a few days ago when at the gym , and I saw the staff wiping and spraying every bit of equipment,

but I realised they missed the door handle, the reception desk were you swipe your card, the toilet door handles, the weights themselves,

and then I realised that I had missed probably 100 things I had touched (if I had the virus) and not wiped
such as my car door, my car steering wheel, my car handbrake (family car), Eftpos terminal at Post office, door handle of post office, ATM machine, all cash I gave shop attendants, eftpos machine at super market, trolley/basket handle

and now I can understand why this seems to be spreading exponentially

 

[lovetravellingoz]

About halfway down the page there's a graph with different surfaces and covid-19 presence: What to know about the coronavirus outbreak in 19 charts and maps

The 'air' bit I'm not so sure about, given the majority opinion - at the moment - is that the virus doesn't do well airborne. But the rest of the figures I've seen on different charts in various publications.

While there is a fair bit of knowledge about how long it can live of various surfaces, the jury seems to still be out on how long it can live on a surface and still be able to infect a person.


I don't have the link at hand but I remember reading that while aerosol transmission was initially feared that they now believe airborne transmission it is more likely just to be when the virus is attached to a droplet which does not stay in the air as long as an aerosol due the weight (ie droplet falls, aerosol can be more buoyant and float).


And as already mention when that virus and droplet lands on a surface and then is touched and transmitted to the mouth of another person is in particular a key transmission path. Eyes have been mentioned too, but I think that there are more doubts on that but eye protection is worn by medical staff just in case.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

One of the problems with closing schools is that (IIRC) up to 30% are children of essential workers. If nurses have to take leave to look after their kids, then the hospitals will be really stretched.

In the Respiratory Ward where my daughter works (and where there is already one Covid 19 patient) she estimates 80% of the nurses there have children. Some of the nurses are married to other nurses. My daughter is expecting little rest if things escalate as she is one of the few sans-kids there..

 

[p--and--t]

There are various tables around that confuse the issue for me of COVID-19 lifetime on surfaces. To be ultra-conservative, I don't trust any of them and no longer trust any surface in the public arena as being safe.....

 

[Pushka]

In the Respiratory Ward where my daughter works (and where there is already one Covid 19 patient) she estimates 80% of the nurses there have children. Some of the nurses are married to other nurses. My daughter is expecting little rest if things escalate as she is one of the few sans-kids there..

Somewhere - Singapore? - I read that schools were kept open for children of medical workers.

 

[Cruiser Elite]

There are various tables around that confuse the issue for me of COVID-19 lifetime on surfaces. To be ultra-conservative, I don't trust any of them and no longer trust any surface in the public arena as being safe.....

Ultra confusing for writing of workplace Protocols to protect Staff and Customers - no 2 work places or locations the same so need to be site / location specific.

 

[SOPOOR]

"While the official advice from the government is that face masks are not necessary, Professor Peter White, virologist at the University of NSW, said they can be useful, but hand hygiene is most effective. "

find it odd how hand hygiene>wearing masks,

but im washing hands every few hours even if im at home now

 

[tgh]

I work with a medically untreatable bug every single day…. endless hand washing is a way of life

 

[drron]

"While the official advice from the government is that face masks are not necessary, Professor Peter White, virologist at the University of NSW, said they can be useful, but hand hygiene is most effective. "

find it odd how hand hygiene>wearing masks,

but im washing hands every few hours even if im at home now

It is because the most common way of picking up this virus is from surfaces where the virus remains for hours-days.

 

[jeza]

SevenZeroEight Gin Distillery in WA has switched to producing Hand Sanitiser for a couple of WA Hospitals. Sounds like a few others around the country may follow suit.