Generic Virus Thread

[Genie]

2 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

If you think our understanding of the virus has not changed since March, you are mistaken. The WHO have changed advice on several points (even massive ones, like wearing masks).

Have the WHO said we no longer need to worry about droplets exhaled from infected people falling into surfaces like desks, tables and telephones?

Is this part of the learning made since March? 
 

[Demitri_C]

38 minutes ago, snowychap said:

No, no and no.

I agree. I dont want it. It would be the end if any form of privacy you have left

59 minutes ago, bickster said:

The only physical money I've touched since March has been out of my change jar for pumping up tyres and pay and display machines

It's not even news, iirc this was known before we even went into lockdown the first time

What was known that they qant cashless society? If thats what your referring to i agree.  This whole shit about money haveing covd on it for 4 weeks is utter nonsense.  Just away to put the argument through for a  cashless society.

Its more spying and more control

[Xann]

Plastic notes and coins are alcohol gel proof.

[blandy]

On 10/10/2020 at 01:29, HanoiVillan said:

The Labour party are very clearly attempting to distance themselves from left-wing positions - as stated above, they have defined themselves *against* teachers unions all year, and are mostly refusing to oppose Conservative policy on tackling the virus for tactical reasons - so if anything they help prove the point; the 'left' position LL is claiming in the quote is the one Labour are defining themselves against, not the one they are taking.

This is vastly different to how I perceive their approach to the corollafungus.

Being deliberately simplistic in my explanation, I see it like this.

1. When it started scientists provided data and analysis to the Gov't. The national mood was of "OK, we need to follow the advice from the scientists and Gov't". Labour said very little, other than to broadly support the steps being taken - after all that was the science advice. It was also tactically correct.

2. The next stage from Labour was to ask for information from the Government - questions. Questions about PPE, Care homes and so on.

3. As it's gone on Labour has started more and more to criticise and expose Government and individual incompetence, inconsistency, hypocrisy and so on, while still accepting that the response and actions need to take into account the science, but they've also pushed for more economic help for those hit by it.

I don't see labour's response as ideological - either centrist or leftist - just as pragmatist, if you like. There is this virus and it's leading to a need for [these] things to happen. Other than not being critical enough of Cronyism, power grabbing and all the shenanigans and incompetence for my personal liking I don't fault Labour's overall response and don't see it as a left/right thing anyway. It's kind of the role of the opposition to hold the government to account on this, not to attempt to force a "left wing" alternative philosophy.

But I guess we all see things differently.

[HanoiVillan]

9 minutes ago, Genie said:

Have the WHO said we no longer need to worry about droplets exhaled from infected people falling into surfaces like desks, tables and telephones?

Is this part of the learning made since March? 
 

No, the WHO have not said that, but many scientists now believe the WHO's advice is out-of-date (they are not infallible). In answer to your second question, yes, the reduced role of fomites is very much something that has been learned since March. You can find lots on this if you want to search, but for now an article (from a week ago) summarising these points:

Did early focus on hand washing and not masks aid spread of Covid-19?

'From the moment coronavirus reached UK shores, public health advice stressed the importance of washing hands and deep-cleaning surfaces to reduce the risk of becoming infected.

The advice was informed by mountains of research into the transmission of other respiratory viruses: it was the best scientists could do with such a new pathogen.

But as the pandemic spread and data rolled in, some scientists began to question whether the focus on hand hygiene was as crucial as it seemed. Contaminated surfaces, such as doorknobs and light switches – “fomites”, to use the scientific terminology – may not be such a big deal, they claimed.

The issue has resurfaced after Monica Gandhi, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, told the US science magazine Nautilus that the easiest way to catch the virus was through droplets and aerosols sprayed from an infected person’s mouth or nose.

“It’s not through surfaces,” she said. “We now know the root of the spread is not from touching surfaces and touching your eye. It’s from being close to someone spewing virus from their nose and mouth, without in most cases knowing they are doing so.”

Gandhi’s is not a lone voice. Her comments follow a prominent paper in the Lancet from Emanuel Goldman, a professor of microbiology at Rutgers University in New Jersey. He was sceptical about the relevance of scientific studies that showed the virus could survive on surfaces for days at a time.

“In my opinion,” he wrote, “the chance of transmission through inanimate surfaces is very small, and only in instances where an infected person coughs or sneezes on the surface, and someone else touches that surface soon after the cough or sneeze.” He defined soon as within one to two hours.

Dr Julian Tang, an honorary associate professor of respiratory sciences at the University of Leicester, thinks hand washing should stay but agrees the risk from fomites has been overplayed.

He points to documents from the UK government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) that estimate hand washing can reduce acute respiratory infections by only 16%. Meanwhile, he adds, the World Health Organization has warned about surfaces being a likely route of transmission while conceding there are no reports demonstrating infection this way.

Tang believes that a preoccupation with contaminated surfaces distracted countries from taking airborne transmission seriously and played down the necessity of wearing masks. “What we’ve always said is that the virus transmits by all routes. There might be some transmission by hand and fomites and we’re not opposed to hand washing, but the emphasis is wrong,” he told the Guardian.

“A lot of money has been spent, and time has been spent, deep-cleaning surfaces, when the main risk is probably people talking to each other,” he said. “If we had put that investment into masks earlier on, if we had put all the effort on hand washing and deep-cleaning into universal mask-wearing early on, we’d almost certainly not have such a massive epidemic in Europe and North America.”'

more on link: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/05/did-early-focus-on-hand-washing-and-not-masks-aid-spread-of-covid-19-coronavirus

 

[Genie]

compare to the UK...

Quote

The Chinese city of Qingdao is testing its entire population of nine million people for Covid-19 over a period of five days. 

The mass testing comes after the discovery of a dozen cases linked to a hospital treating coronavirus patients arriving from abroad.

In May, China tested the entire city of Wuhan - home to 11 million people and the epicentre of the global pandemic.

The country has largely brought the virus under control.

That is in stark contrast to other parts of the world, where there are still high case numbers and lockdown restrictions of varying severity.

In a statement posted to Chinese social media site Weibo, Qingdao's Municipal Health Commission said six new cases and six asymptomatic cases had been discovered.

All the cases were linked to the same hospital, said the state-run Global Times. 

The Chinese authorities now have a strategy of mass testing even when a new coronavirus cluster appears to be relatively minor, correspondents say.

BBC

[mjmooney]

Trouble is, we've been advised to use 'common sense'. And that's what everybody is doing - but all having different definitions of it. 

[HanoiVillan]

20 minutes ago, blandy said:

I don't see labour's response as ideological - either centrist or leftist - just as pragmatist, if you like.

As you say, we just aren't going to agree on this (and that's fine), but just on the quoted - of course their response is ideological, they are politicians. It is very easy - and I am as guilty of this as anyone, but everyone can do this - to assume that something is simply 'pragmatic', when what one is actually doing (and what I would argue you are doing here) is simply saying 'I agree with what they are doing, so it doesn't seem ideological'.

If there are other possible arguments they could be making instead - and clearly there are - then their choice of *this* framing (competence, and little else) must be ideological.

[Genie]

46 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Too much focus in this thread on fomites (surfaces) in general the last few days tbh imoI

This is how you started, I don’t think you can really have too much focus on cleanliness during a pandemic can you?

The linked report you quoted says

Quote

Respiratory secretions or droplets expelled by infected individuals can contaminate surfaces and objects, creating fomites (contaminated surfaces). Viable SARS-CoV-2 virus and/or RNA detected by RT-PCR can be found on those surfaces for periods ranging from hours to days, depending on the ambient environment (including temperature and humidity) and the type of surface, in particular at high concentration in health care facilities where COVID-19 patients were being treated.(21, 23, 24, 26, 28, 31-33, 36, 44, 45)  Therefore, transmission may also occur indirectly through touching surfaces in the immediate environment or objects contaminated with virus from an infected person (e.g. stethoscope or thermometer), followed by touching the mouth, nose, or eyes. 
........

Despite consistent evidence as to SARS-CoV-2 contamination of surfaces and the survival of the virus on certain surfaces, there are no specific reports which have directly demonstrated fomite transmission. People who come into contact with potentially infectious surfaces often also have close contact with the infectious person, making the distinction between respiratory droplet and fomite transmission difficult to discern. However, fomite transmission is considered a likely mode of transmission for SARS-CoV-2, given consistent findings about environmental contamination in the vicinity of infected cases and the fact that other coronaviruses and respiratory viruses can transmit this way.

It’s a fact that viruses live on surfaces from hours to days. It’s a fact that you can get the virus from touching these contaminated surfaces and then touching your face, mouth or eyes.

Mask wearing should have been made compulsory earlier for sure but I think the delay was at least partly down to our governments PPE crisis and not wanting the public sector buying up the supplies. This is a separate discussion.

I’ll be over here putting too much focus on cleaning my hands and surfaces until the highly contagious disease is gone.

[HanoiVillan]

Just now, Genie said:

This is how you started, I don’t think you can really have too much focus on cleanliness during a pandemic can you?

...

I’ll be over here putting too much focus on cleaning my hands and surfaces until the highly contagious disease is gone.

Well it depends whether it is to the exclusion of time and effort spent focusing on the vastly more significant problem of indoor aerosol spread. It is true that you could reduce your chances of picking up any virus from a surface by using disinfect on every surface you touch for the next several months or years, but you will probably get tired of doing so. I'm not mocking; I also spent the first few weeks of this crisis wiping down my shopping and throwing my clothes straight in the washing when I reentered the house. But it makes sense to change your behaviour according to what you learn.

To give you a practical example of where focus on fomites is crowding out focus on aerosols: my wife teaches at a further education college that I had better leave nameless, but in the West Mids. She teaches English. Her department have provided her with a visor, not masks (visors appear to provide roughly no protection whatsoever to aerosol transmission). However, they are also having lengthy team meetings in which everyone in the department is arguing about whether or not they should use paper handouts in class. This is an absurd debate for them to be having. The danger of face-to-face classes is not catching the virus from a piece of A4 paper, it is being in the same poorly-ventilated room as multiple other people for an extended period.

8 minutes ago, Genie said:

It’s a fact that viruses live on surfaces from hours to days. It’s a fact that you can get the virus from touching these contaminated surfaces and then touching your face, mouth or eyes.

It is also a fact - as the section you have quoted makes clear - that by July 9th, several months into the pandemic, the WHO had not found a single instance of the virus being transmitted by a fomite.

Nobody is saying it isn't *possible*. What I am saying is it isn't worth your while worrying about. It's also *possible* that the next time you leave your house, an object falling from a passing plane will land on your head and kill you,  but what can you do.

[blandy]

11 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

of course their response is ideological, they are politicians. It is very easy - and I am as guilty of this as anyone, but everyone can do this - to assume that something is simply 'pragmatic', when what one is actually doing (and what I would argue you are doing here) is simply saying 'I agree with what they are doing, so it doesn't seem ideological'.

I don't accept that is the case. Again being simplistic, if a politician gets ill and seeks medical attention, then their response is not "ideological", it is...pragmatic. As it happens I don't "agree with much of what the Government are doing, or indeed some of what Labour is doing. My perception, perhaps mistakenly, is that some people are very much responding ideologically - for example those libertarians who value "freedom" over other factors and think their should be no restrictions on people, or who think "herd immunity" is the way. I'm not sure, genuinely, how Labour's response can be seen as "ideological" or somehow "not left wing enough" or whatever. I'd love to be able to understand what a "left wing" response to the virus would look like, so I can compare that with Starmer & Co.s response and see how his response has distanced himself from the left. 

[blandy]

5 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

It is also a fact - as the section you have quoted makes clear - that by July 9th, several months into the pandemic, the WHO had not found a single instance of the virus being transmitted by a fomite.

If they are claiming that, it's utterly ludicrous. The reasons should be blindingly obvious.

[HanoiVillan]

1 minute ago, blandy said:

If they are claiming that, it's utterly ludicrous. The reasons should be blindingly obvious.

'Despite consistent evidence as to SARS-CoV-2 contamination of surfaces and the survival of the virus on certain surfaces, there are no specific reports which have directly demonstrated fomite transmission.'

[blandy]

1 minute ago, HanoiVillan said:

'Despite consistent evidence as to SARS-CoV-2 contamination of surfaces and the survival of the virus on certain surfaces, there are no specific reports which have directly demonstrated fomite transmission.'

That's better.

It's impossible to tell how (by what transmission) many people contracted the fungus. People in close contact in a house or factory, sloppy cleaning regime...surfaces with fungus on them - contamination spreads. Did they catch it from Fred breathing on them, or because Fred coughed on the kettle that they used? The fungus is being detected on surfaces and people are coming into contact with those surfaces. It's got to be highly probable that people are being infected via that method. The absence of reports of anyone "proving"  it happens that way is more about the absence of a controlled trial to see if it's possible (it is, I would wager) than "it can't happen, or it is unlikely to happen, or ...."

[Genie]

16 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

It is also a fact - as the section you have quoted makes clear - that by July 9th, several months into the pandemic, the WHO had not found a single instance of the virus being transmitted by a fomite.

... because it’s not possible to determine if the infected person got it from being airborne or from a surface. That’s the important part of that fact.

 

[Genie]

19 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Nobody is saying it isn't *possible*. What I am saying is it isn't worth your while worrying about. It's also *possible* that the next time you leave your house, an object falling from a passing plane will land on your head and kill you,  but what can you do.

You’re comparing something which people can quite easily do to reduce the risk of getting the rapidly spreading disease with a one in a trillion event that it’s impossible to mitigate against.

[HanoiVillan]

4 minutes ago, blandy said:

That's better.

It's impossible to tell how (by what transmission) many people contracted the fungus. People in close contact in a house or factory, sloppy cleaning regime...surfaces with fungus on them - contamination spreads. Did they catch it from Fred breathing on them, or because Fred coughed on the kettle that they used? The fungus is being detected on surfaces and people are coming into contact with those surfaces. It's got to be highly probable that people are being infected via that method. The absence of reports of anyone "proving"  it happens that way is more about the absence of a controlled trial to see if it's possible (it is, I would wager) than "it can't happen, or it is unlikely to happen, or ...."

 

1 minute ago, Genie said:

... because it’s not possible to determine if the infected person got it from being airborne or from a surface. That’s the important part of that fact.

 

Please see:

20 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Nobody is saying it isn't *possible*.

 

[HanoiVillan]

1 minute ago, Genie said:

You’re comparing something which people can quite easily do to reduce the risk of getting the rapidly spreading disease with a one in a trillion event that it’s impossible to mitigate against.

It is not in fact possible, let alone 'quite easy', for everybody to disinfect every surface they touch.

[Genie]

1 minute ago, HanoiVillan said:

It is not in fact possible, let alone 'quite easy', for everybody to disinfect every surface they touch.

That’s why there are germ killing hand washes everywhere.

 

[blandy]

1 minute ago, HanoiVillan said:

23 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Please see: Nobody is saying it isn't *possible*.

Yeah, I know - my point was about the words " the WHO had not found a single instance of the virus being transmitted by a fomite" - clearly that's tosh on multiple levels - the WHO isn't looking for evidence, evidence can only really be gathered by a clinical trial and so on. I don't think the initial wording you used is of any value to the discussion, because it neither re-enforces, expands upon nor contradicts anything being said. Accepting you were just relaying in brief something you'd heard or read - it's not a dig at you, HV.