Thread: Corona Virus

Originally Posted by BradC

I dunno, I thought the whole place was Muppets..

Great collection. I've got the whole 5 series and have been gradually educating the kids on what entertainment was when you were allowed to make jokes. Between the Muppets and the Goodies I've got it covered.

Dad still has the Statler and Waldorf we bought him for his office shelf back in the early 80's. Firm favourites.

It's a melting pot, Muppets , Goon show, Monty Python, people who can see the ridiculous side of most situations, and laugh about it. HOWEVER, I have found an article that casts doubts on how Australia is managing COVID.

Redfield is convinced that, had C.D.C. specialists visited China in early January, they would have learned exactly what the world was facing. The new pathogen was a coronavirus, and as such it was thought to be only modestly contagious, like its cousin the sars virus. This assumption was wrong. The virus in Wuhan turned out to be far more infectious, and it spread largely by asymptomatic transmission. “That whole idea that you were going to diagnose cases based on symptoms, isolate them, and contact-trace around them was not going to work,” Redfield told me recently. “You’re going to be missing fifty per cent of the cases. We didn’t appreciate that until late February.” The first mistake had been made, and the second was soon to happen.

Armstrong was in Salt Lake City, conducting a training session, when he noticed an article on the Web site of The New England Journal of Medicine: “Early Transmission Dynamics in Wuhan, China, of Novel Coronavirus-Infected Pneumonia.” The article was one of the first to describe the virus’s spread among humans, a development that didn’t surprise Armstrong: “Anybody with any epidemiology experience could tell you it was human-to-human transmission.” Then he noticed Table 1, “Characteristics of Patients,” which noted the original source of their infection. Of the Chinese known to have contracted the virus before January 1st, twenty-six per cent had no exposure either to the Wuhan wet market or to people with apparent respiratory symptoms. In subsequent weeks, the number of people with no obvious source of infection surpassed seventy per cent. Armstrong realized that, unlike with sars or mers—other coronavirus diseases—many infections of sars-CoV-2 were probably asymptomatic or mild. Contact tracing, isolation, and quarantine would likely not be enough. These details were buried in Table 1.
Other reports began to emerge about possible asymptomatic spread. Although sars-CoV-2 was genetically related to the sars and mers viruses, it was apparently unlike them in two key ways: people could be contagious before developing symptoms, and some infected people would never manifest illness. In late February, University of Texas scientists, led by Lauren Ancel Meyers, reported that it could have a “negative serial interval,” meaning that some infected people showed symptoms before the person who had given it to them.

THE Plague year, mistakes and struggles behind America's COVID tragedy.

The Plague Year | The New Yorker

Originally Posted by bob10

It's a melting pot, Muppets , Goon show, Monty Python, people who can see the ridiculous side of most situations, and laugh about it. HOWEVER, I have found an article that casts doubts on how Australia is managing COVID.

Redfield is convinced that, had C.D.C. specialists visited China in early January, they would have learned exactly what the world was facing. The new pathogen was a coronavirus, and as such it was thought to be only modestly contagious, like its cousin the sars virus. This assumption was wrong. The virus in Wuhan turned out to be far more infectious, and it spread largely by asymptomatic transmission. “That whole idea that you were going to diagnose cases based on symptoms, isolate them, and contact-trace around them was not going to work,” Redfield told me recently. “You’re going to be missing fifty per cent of the cases. We didn’t appreciate that until late February.” The first mistake had been made, and the second was soon to happen.

Armstrong was in Salt Lake City, conducting a training session, when he noticed an article on the Web site of The New England Journal of Medicine: “Early Transmission Dynamics in Wuhan, China, of Novel Coronavirus-Infected Pneumonia.” The article was one of the first to describe the virus’s spread among humans, a development that didn’t surprise Armstrong: “Anybody with any epidemiology experience could tell you it was human-to-human transmission.” Then he noticed Table 1, “Characteristics of Patients,” which noted the original source of their infection. Of the Chinese known to have contracted the virus before January 1st, twenty-six per cent had no exposure either to the Wuhan wet market or to people with apparent respiratory symptoms. In subsequent weeks, the number of people with no obvious source of infection surpassed seventy per cent. Armstrong realized that, unlike with sars or mers—other coronavirus diseases—many infections of sars-CoV-2 were probably asymptomatic or mild. Contact tracing, isolation, and quarantine would likely not be enough. These details were buried in Table 1.
Other reports began to emerge about possible asymptomatic spread. Although sars-CoV-2 was genetically related to the sars and mers viruses, it was apparently unlike them in two key ways: people could be contagious before developing symptoms, and some infected people would never manifest illness. In late February, University of Texas scientists, led by Lauren Ancel Meyers, reported that it could have a “negative serial interval,” meaning that some infected people showed symptoms before the person who had given it to them.

THE Plague year, mistakes and struggles behind America's COVID tragedy.

The Plague Year | The New Yorker

Why would you say that? Using tracing and isolation techniques Australia has successfully recovered from the cruise ship outbreak in NSW, The Quarantine outbreak in Victoria an outbreak in South Australia, the Crossroads Hotel outbreak in NSW and we are on the path to recover from the most recent NSW outbreak. Contact tracing clearly works and sewage monitoring between outbreaks proves that the virus has been suppressed, along with genetic testing that proves that the newest outbreak is a different strain. As long as we want to have returning travelers and trade we will always run a risk of outbreaks. That some states have not have outbreaks is a mixture of luck, skill and a lower volumes of incoming travelers.
The post above bears no relevance to Australia's proven response and is simply more hysteria that has no effect except to make everyone miserable. The article appears to reflect on how the US might have done it differently but is behind a paywall so I cant get to it. It does however offer someone signing up a free tote, not sure if that is a good thing

Regards,
Tote

Originally Posted by bob10

HOWEVER, I have found an article that casts doubts on how Australia is managing COVID.

A long read, but I don't think it casts any doubt on how Australia is managing COVID. The difference between here and the US is we never reached tipping point, even in Melbourne and when the authorities put actions in place they were relatively coherent and mostly adhered to.

On the other hand, the US is ****ed.

Originally Posted by BradC

On the other hand, the US is ****ed.

so US is so well connected, and the disease spread undetected for months due to being novel, theUS never had a chance.
on the pluse side, they will reach herd immunity first.

Originally Posted by BradC

A long read, but I don't think it casts any doubt on how Australia is managing COVID. The difference between here and the US is we never reached tipping point, even in Melbourne and when the authorities put actions in place they were relatively coherent and mostly adhered to.

On the other hand, the US is ****ed.

Yes, two different stories. I think one man can carry most of the blame [ for it is the way of the World to find blame] for the tragedy in the USA. I still think we are not out of the woods yet. Interesting that the USA used the phrase " gold standard ".

I hope this is the end of the spread. Sincerely. For all those in the zone.

Wollongong churches new hotspots as cluster escapes Northern Beaches (msn.com)

Unfortunately the 7 day period between Christmas and New Year is also a coronavirus incubation period:


Christmas is already a cocktail of corona risk. People travel across the city or even interstate, before taking any potential infections back to their community — which is how this coronavirus originally spread throughout China during the Lunar New Year holiday period.
People hug and kiss, pass presents and collect plates. They speak louder than usual to be heard in a noisy room, potentially spreading virus particles many metres through the air. There’s intergenerational mingling that doesn't usually take place.
"It's a really unique situation in terms of timing," says MacIntyre, arguing that Sydney's Crossroads Hotel outbreak offered little opportunity to predict how it might play out.
"But in this case we know we have this fixed-date, mass-gathering event exactly one incubation period before New Year's Eve."


With Sydney coronavirus outbreak, experts fear Christmas could lead to '''worst-case scenario''' for New Year'''s Eve - ABC News

Originally Posted by Arapiles

Unfortunately the 7 day period between Christmas and New Year is also a coronavirus incubation period:


Christmas is already a cocktail of corona risk. People travel across the city or even interstate, before taking any potential infections back to their community — which is how this coronavirus originally spread throughout China during the Lunar New Year holiday period.
People hug and kiss, pass presents and collect plates. They speak louder than usual to be heard in a noisy room, potentially spreading virus particles many metres through the air. There’s intergenerational mingling that doesn't usually take place.
"It's a really unique situation in terms of timing," says MacIntyre, arguing that Sydney's Crossroads Hotel outbreak offered little opportunity to predict how it might play out.
"But in this case we know we have this fixed-date, mass-gathering event exactly one incubation period before New Year's Eve."


With Sydney coronavirus outbreak, experts fear Christmas could lead to '''worst-case scenario''' for New Year'''s Eve - ABC News

The fear I have is , you can test 100,000 people, but it means little if they are positive 7 days later.