CoVid19 Part XIV - 8,089 in ROI (288 deaths) 1,589 in NI (92 deaths) (10/04) Read OP

Xertz

mandrake04 wrote: »

Thats true, there believed to be several strains there were a small proportion of original Wuhan Chinese cases that passed with out much problem, the European strain that was behind the cruise ship cases was far more aggressive. I think Australia fairly lucky 2/3 of the cases were from overseas, and were picked up quickly by quick turnaround in testing. Then enforced army guarded isolation in hotels. The was one cluster at an aged care home early on, couple of deaths but lucky it could been worse.

I've been tracking the scientific discussion of this the last while and SARS-CoV-2 has probably spun up 4 or 5 strains so far, although they're not all that different.

There are roughly 10 high frequency mutations going on and in one strain it's definitely become more effective at interacting with the ACE2 receptors, which is how it gets into your lungs.

It's all a bit pot luck - RNA viruses aren't great at copying code, which is how they mutate and evolve - basically they've no spellcheckers so code gets random errors far more than in our cells.

So, it's possible it could become more virulent, or it could actually go the other way too and become less of a problematic infection.

It's likely though that viruses with mutations that lead to the best transmissibility are the ones that are being caught and copied most.

If you think about it, that could mean that a more transmissible, but possibly less deadly version becomes the established strain over time. This is because the strains that produce moderate symptoms don't take people out of circulation, so they spread more rapidly and effectively. If you've dramatic symptoms, you'll typically end up in self-isolation or hospital, so the spread is dramatically reduced.

It's all just speculation though. We won't really know much until there have been studies over a few years and it's likely that multiple and probably very deadly strains will be knocking around until we get a working vaccine.

However, it does show the importance of self-isolating and quarantining when someone does get dramatic symptoms, as those are the characteristics of potential strains you definitely do not want to see proliferating across the human population.

If we end up with a COVID-19 variant that causes few or no symptoms in general, it will just end up as an endemic annoyance over time. Nobody really knows if that's very probable or how long it might take if it is.

But just remember if you do have symptoms, by containing the virus and avoiding spread until you're non-contagious, you're not only preventing spread, but also possibly impacting its evolution, albeit in a small way.

Strumms

Muahahaha wrote: »

Seems to be Trumps strategy, spend 20 minutes telling the media how he is doing a great job then do a runner and leave Pence to deliver deaths and new cases

Why ? Because he is as the commander and chief looking to protect his own reputation and ability to achieve a second term. If all people remember is him wheeling out numbers of dead and hundreds or thousands newly diagnosed, it’s a bad association... ultimately he will be judged by his handling of this, so far not so good, I’d be willing already to say he’s probably going to become unelectable.

forgodssake

Lwaker. wrote: »

What's happening with all the carers that do all the home visits all over the place

They are still doing their job. Albeit wearing some form of PPE that they wouldn't have before.

forgodssake

MipMap wrote: »

And how could you get someone with Dementia or Alzheimer's to follow the rules for social distancing, hand washing etc.,

Its impossible. Nursing home residents need to be taken care of , but social distancing cannot be adhered to . Its horrific what's about to happen but without the care residents receive in the NH they would have probably died at home anyway. Awful way to look at it I know. God help them.

firemansam4

Strumms wrote:

Why ? Because he is as the commander and chief looking to protect his own reputation and ability to achieve a second term. If all people remember is him wheeling out numbers of dead and hundreds or thousands newly diagnosed, it’s a bad association... ultimately he will be judged by his handling of this, so far not so good, I’d be willing already to say he’s probably going to become unelectable.

Not according to most recent opinion polls there.
Seems people in the US think he is doing a very good job handling the situation at the moment.

Will that last when things really start to get bad over there in the next week or two, we will have to wait and see.

techdiver

Strumms wrote: »

Why ? Because he is as the commander and chief looking to protect his own reputation and ability to achieve a second term. If all people remember is him wheeling out numbers of dead and hundreds or thousands newly diagnosed, it’s a bad association... ultimately he will be judged by his handling of this, so far not so good, I’d be willing already to say he’s probably going to become unelectable.

Unfortunately there are too many uneducated and/or ignorant Trump supporters out there. The USA as a nation has been on the slide for some time now but it seems to have accelerated recently. Division is stark and bitter and I can't see that changing. I don't see the virus changing these people's minds either.

Strumms

firemansam4 wrote: »

Not according to most recent opinion polls there.
Seems people in the US think he is doing a very good job handling the situation at the moment.

Will that last when things really start to get bad over there in the next week or two, we will have to wait and see.

Well, his approval rating stood at 44.5 percent a month ago, on March 8. By last week, it had risen up to 47.4 percent, but as of Today, including the new polls, it was back down to 45.2 percent.

Nollog

techdiver wrote: »

Unfortunately there are too many uneducated and/or ignorant Trump supporters out there. The USA as a nation has been on the slide for some time now but it seems to have accelerated recently. Division is stark and bitter and I can't see that changing. I don't see the virus changing these people's minds either.

Let's be honest here, Americans aren't the most healthy people on earth. Huge numbers overweight, a culture reliant on eating out, mainly for cheap, little accountability for when companies kill people or soak up all their water leaving a drought behind, etc.

Strumms

techdiver wrote: »

Unfortunately there are too many uneducated and/or ignorant Trump supporters out there. The USA as a nation has been on the slide for some time now but it seems to have accelerated recently. Division is stark and bitter and I can't see that changing. I don't see the virus changing these people's minds either.

Yes, the US isn’t exactly topping the brain charts, hence he was elected, ok the Democrats royally fücking up by trying to get Hilary in the gate was a big massive fûck off help too...

Quantum Erasure

Xertz wrote: »

I've been tracking the scientific discussion of this the last while and SARS-CoV-2 has probably spun up 4 or 5 strains so far, although they're not all that different.
...
It's all a bit pot luck - RNA viruses aren't great at copying code, which is how they mutate and evolve - basically they've no spellcheckers so code gets random errors far more than in our cells.

I heard that this one doesn't mutate as much, for some reason

just from a quick google

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/what-to-know-about-mutation-and-covid-19#The-new-coronavirus-is-mutating,-but-very-slowly

We expect RNA viruses to change frequently. That’s just their nature, SARS-CoV-2 is no exception, and over the past few months it has been mutating.

But the virus has mutated at a very slow pace. And when it does mutate, the new copies aren’t far off from the original virus.

the slow and mild nature of the mutations is good news for a vaccine.

“The virus is still so similar now to the initial sequence that there isn’t really much reason to think the differences will matter in terms of vaccine,”

Xertz

He is only on 44% approval as at April 1st and things have been declining. There was an initial bounce when he seemed for a while to be handling things but then it got into all the strange stuff of the last few weeks. I think it will be very interesting to see where he’s at in a few days time as there’s a palpable tension over there about how this is being handled.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts

beolight wrote: »

Yeah air traffic has fallen significantly but daily non cargo flghts are still coming in from UK,France etcetc

I didn’t say it was only cargo flights coming into the country. In the post of mine you quoted, I said “pretty much” any plane I honed in on on Flightradar was a cargo plane. So that’s me saying not every plane I highlighted was a cargo plane and also I’m not checking every plane that’s landing.

“Immediately defending Fine Gael”? I only brought them up because the forum member I replied to did. It was reactive.

The whole idea of social distancing, flight reduction etc. is to massively cut down on the amount of interactions but it will never be 100% and it’s unrealistic to expect that. There are still a small number of reasons why people should be allowed to travel into the country, IMO. I would love to see you tell somebody to their face whose parent has just died suddenly that they should not be allowed to come home to attend the funeral (immediate family are still allowed). You wouldn’t do it, would you? I’m one of the immunocompromised you all are supposedly defending and I’d think it really sad if somebody was blocked from doing that.

Xertz

Quantum Erasure wrote: »

I heard that this one doesn't mutate as much, for some reason

just from a quick google

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/what-to-know-about-mutation-and-covid-19#The-new-coronavirus-is-mutating,-but-very-slowly

We expect RNA viruses to change frequently. That’s just their nature, SARS-CoV-2 is no exception, and over the past few months it has been mutating.

But the virus has mutated at a very slow pace. And when it does mutate, the new copies aren’t far off from the original virus.

the slow and mild nature of the mutations is good news for a vaccine.

“The virus is still so similar now to the initial sequence that there isn’t really much reason to think the differences will matter in terms of vaccine,”

The hope is that a vaccine will be able to trigger a broad enough immune response to cover it. All still remains to be seen.

There’s some interesting research going on about the BCG vaccine, a fairly old vaccine that’s used for protection against TB, as there appears to be a correlation between widespread BCG usage and Coronavirus death rates.

However it’s just a correlation and it could be coincidental. It’s still early days and there’s an on going trial involving health workers in Australia volunteering to get the BCG.

So I guess we will know in a few months.

Also the mechanism for the BCG giving protection is unknown. Although older research shows that it did seem to prevent or reduce upper respiratory infections, it wasn’t quite clear why.

BCG uptake in Ireland is high but it wasn’t given in Cork and Kerry (old Southern Health Board) from 1971 until 2008 due to funding but also because TB rates were so low it was considered to be outdated. It wasn’t given in a lot of EU countries and as far as I know it wasn’t common in the US in recent years.

We started giving it again due to a slight uptick in TB rates, although I’m hearing it was paused due to a lack of supply in recent years. This was probably because it’s not that common a vaccine in modern times in Western Europe.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts

tobefrank321 wrote: »

Tell me specifically where I said flights into Ireland haven't reduced?

I have made it clear if there was only one flight into Ireland from a hotspot then anyone on that flight is at risk of being cv19 infected.

As for flight radar, do you watch it 24/7. Or like me do you check the Aer Lingus website for civilian passenger flights into Ireland? I know which is easier!

Do you think it’s feasible or reasonable to completely halt civilian air travel into the country? Or any other mode of transport, for that matter? Like for example, immediate relatives are still allowed at funerals. Somebody’s parent dies suddenly (of anything, not necessarily covid) and they’re living abroad - they shouldn’t be allowed into the country to attend? Just screw ‘em?

I’m deeply uncomfortable with the thought of people being judged for something like that. I’m one of the immunocompromised people people are supposed to be defending. But that also means that I’ve given my funeral a lot of thought in the last few years. I’d hate the thought of my family not being there. Or of anybody not being able to attend the funeral of a very close loved one and busybodies thinking it’s their business.

We could ban travel for frivolous reasons. Cutting down greatly will still help a lot just like social distancing will never happen 100% of the time but doing it as much as possible will help. But there are still good reasons why some people need to come home and they should be allowed.

splinter65

MipMap wrote: »

Hope a responsible person will look after the three kids

I doubt if they were in her care recently at all reading the report in the paper.

dacogawa

Pintman Paddy Losty wrote: »

My sister is a doctor working in Vincent's. Has the cheek to live is greystones. Had to sit in traffic for an hour after shift. Them people on here saying they hope the guards make them sit there for hours.

Lots of that traffic looked like vans and trucks to me. I'm sure doing essential deliveries.

Your sister is a god send, I wish her everything good and thank her from the bottom of my heart!

You complaining about restrictions? I'll just leave this here...

marilynrr

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts wrote: »

Do you think it’s feasible or reasonable to completely halt civilian air travel into the country? Or any other mode of transport, for that matter? Like for example, immediate relatives are still allowed at funerals. Somebody’s parent dies suddenly (of anything, not necessarily covid) and they’re living abroad - they shouldn’t be allowed into the country to attend? Just screw ‘em?

I’m deeply uncomfortable with the thought of people being judged for something like that. I’m one of the immunocompromised people people are supposed to be defending. But that also means that I’ve given my funeral a lot of thought in the last few years. I’d hate the thought of my family not being there. Or of anybody not being able to attend the funeral of a very close loved one and busybodies thinking it’s their business.

We could ban travel for frivolous reasons. Cutting down greatly will still help a lot just like social distancing will never happen 100% of the time but doing it as much as possible will help. But there are still good reasons why some people need to come home and they should be allowed.

Irish funerals happen so quickly after someone dies that anyone flying in for a funeral wouldn't even be able to choose to self isolate for the required time that they should self isolate for.
I'm sure there have already been people in this situation already in the past few weeks who have made the decision not to fly home to Ireland because they don't want to fly home from the UK or wherever and risk the chances of possibly passing the virus on to the rest of the immediate family members.

The way it is at the moment I believe only 10 immediate family members are allowed to attend a funeral. Some people have big families. That means that as it stands even some of the immediate family members living in Ireland right now wouldn't even be able to attend the funeral!

sudzs

Xertz wrote: »

The hope is that a vaccine will be able to trigger a broad enough immune response to cover it. All still remains to be seen.

There’s some interesting research going on about the BCG vaccine, a fairly old vaccine that’s used for protection against TB, as there appears to be a correlation between widespread BCG usage and Coronavirus death rates.

However it’s just a correlation and it could be coincidental. It’s still early days and there’s an on going trial involving health workers in Australia volunteering to get the BCG.

So I guess we will know in a few months.

Also the mechanism for the BCG giving protection is unknown. Although older research shows that it did seem to prevent or reduce upper respiratory infections, it wasn’t quite clear why.

BCG uptake in Ireland is high but it wasn’t given in Cork and Kerry (old Southern Health Board) from 1971 until 2008 due to funding but also because TB rates were so low it was considered to be outdated. It wasn’t given in a lot of EU countries and as far as I know it wasn’t common in the US in recent years.

We started giving it again due to a slight uptick in TB rates, although I’m hearing it was paused due to a lack of supply in recent years. This was probably because it’s not that common a vaccine in modern times in Western Europe.

It is thought that following the BCG vaccination the innate immune system is stimulated. As the covid19 virus downregulates the innate immune system the reaction to the BCG helps to deal with the infection in the early stages.

Italy has not routinely vaccinated with BCG as far as I know.

jill_valentine

Xertz wrote: »

He is only on 44% approval as at April 1st and things have been declining. There was an initial bounce when he seemed for a while to be handling things but then it got into all the strange stuff of the last few weeks. I think it will be very interesting to see where he’s at in a few days time as there’s a palpable tension over there about how this is being handled.

There's speculation that the PPE the feds keep seizing is intended to be a "gift" to Red States to compensate for that effect, in line with how Ventilators have been prioritised. I'm not sure how well that would even work in reality anyway though - an awful lot of rural Red State areas have no hospitals or medical outposts within many hours driving distance, not least because they keep cutting anything to do with Planned Parenthood. All the PPE in the world won't make a difference if there's nobody and nowhere to use it.

Whether that will translate into an electoral effect either way is hard to say. Tbh I'm beyond thinking about that too much - what this is going to do to Florida (poor and young/wealthy and elderly) and Louisiana (various extremely poor and underserved communities) in particular should represent a criminal conviction for someone. Spring Break and Mardi Gras should never, ever have gone ahead, and they're the big no brainer obvious ones.

Gynoid

I know, I know, it's a crazy ol twitter account but feck me if people are waiting for the US to be saved from Trump by this blubbering, kid-sniffing mess.

I do not understand how in a country with so many brilliant people the choice is between Trump and this man...

https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1247333355416219649?s=19

beolight

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts wrote: »

I didn’t say it was only cargo flights coming into the country. In the post of mine you quoted, I said “pretty much” any plane I honed in on on Flightradar was a cargo plane. So that’s me saying not every plane I highlighted was a cargo plane and also I’m not checking every plane that’s landing.

“Immediately defending Fine Gael”? I only brought them up because the forum member I replied to did. It was reactive.

The whole idea of social distancing, flight reduction etc. is to massively cut down on the amount of interactions but it will never be 100% and it’s unrealistic to expect that. There are still a small number of reasons why people should be allowed to travel into the country, IMO. I would love to see you tell somebody to their face whose parent has just died suddenly that they should not be allowed to come home to attend the funeral (immediate family are still allowed). You wouldn’t do it, would you? I’m one of the immunocompromised you all are supposedly defending and I’d think it really sad if somebody was blocked from doing that.

Thanks for replying I understand what your saying about flight reduction. The flight reduction came about for commercial reasons and not Government action Paschal and Simon told us they couldn’t because of the EU days later and our EU partners were in fact quite rightly acting in their own people’s best interest and closing their borders despite EU consternation. So it can be done with the right political will, Trump for all his faults did call this part of the American response right

What I would propose in the absence of a vaccine is to borrow a leaf from US Immigration and insist on medical preclearance ( negative test) carried out the day before departure from everybody travelling into the country on planes and on the plane everybody giving card to fill which will require details of their travel plans and a contact number then upon arrival everybody is screened and card handed to immigration/ health officials. Nobody in their right mind will want to travel now so the people who do have to travel might be inconvenienced but reassured at the same time that they are entering a country that is taking the threat seriously.

The border will not be easy I admit .... checkpoints reinstated...:::: trains will require personnel on every train ..... Ports we already have infrastructure in place just a lot more personnel .... shipping ports will be the weakness

You ask whether I would tell a person to is face he can’t travel to his Parents funeral the answer is yes and I doubt very much that anybody could argue with the logic of this. Can I ask you if it was explained to you that this action is necessary to prevent a Doctor/Surgeon further down the line having to triage who is the best candidate to be put on a ventilator?

Asian countries have all introduced restrictions on entry and screen all visitors , some even quarantine ....so if our politicians are looking for leadership this is where they should be looking to nbe t the EU or WHO

Hard times require hard decisions sadly we lack the political courage to make these decision and defer to the fig leaf 🂠of cover offered by WHO.EUDC and our own medical experts need I catalog the dithering on key decisions ?
Parades
Close the schools
Pubs
Masks
Telling Nursing Homes to allow visitors
Contact tracing
First case school closed pupil isolate parent ok to go to work!
15 minutes close contact with someone
1 metre distance
2 metre distance
Kids can still go out play with friends
Rugby match Italian fans
Cheltenham
Testing
PPE
Lockdown
Construction sites
Borders
Flights

beolight

beolight wrote: »

Thanks for replying I understand what your saying about flight reduction. The flight reduction came about for commercial reasons and not Government action Paschal and Simon told us they couldn’t because of the EU days later and our EU partners were in fact quite rightly acting in their own people’s best interest and closing their borders despite EU consternation. So it can be done with the right political will, Trump for all his faults did call this part of the American response right

What I would propose in the absence of a vaccine is to borrow a leaf from US Immigration and insist on medical preclearance ( negative test) carried out the day before departure from everybody travelling into the country on planes and on the plane everybody giving card to fill which will require details of their travel plans and a contact number then upon arrival everybody is screened and card handed to immigration/ health officials. Nobody in their right mind will want to travel now so the people who do have to travel might be inconvenienced but reassured at the same time that they are entering a country that is taking the threat seriously.

The border will not be easy I admit .... checkpoints reinstated...:::: trains will require personnel on every train ..... Ports we already have infrastructure in place just a lot more personnel .... shipping ports will be the weakness

You ask whether I would tell a person to is face he can’t travel to his Parents funeral the answer is yes and I doubt very much that anybody could argue with the logic of this. Can I ask you if it was explained to you that this action is necessary to prevent a Doctor/Surgeon further down the line having to triage who is the best candidate to be put on a ventilator?

Asian countries have all introduced restrictions on entry and screen all visitors , some even quarantine ....so if our politicians are looking for leadership this is where they should be looking to nbe t the EU or WHO

Hard times require hard decisions sadly we lack the political courage to make these decision and defer to the fig leaf 🂠of cover offered by WHO.EUDC and our own medical experts need I catalog the dithering on key decisions ?
Parades
Close the schools
Pubs
Masks
Telling Nursing Homes to allow visitors
Contact tracing
First case school closed pupil isolate parent ok to go to work!
15 minutes close contact with someone
1 metre distance
2 metre distance
Kids can still go out play with friends
Rugby match Italian fans
Cheltenham
Testing
PPE
Lockdown
Construction sites
Borders
Flights

Its working out so well for the US too.
Flights are an absolute red herring at this stage. Yes it came in originally from Italy/UK/Netherlands/Austria..., however at this stage it is everywhere. If 1 hundred people come in on a flight, and 5 are ill, and 1 of those chooses not to self isolate, it is not going to make a difference as there are probably thousands of people who have it and dont know.
What people dont understand is that the restrictions are not designed to stop transmission, just reduce the opportunity for transmission. If 90% + of the population adhere to the restrictions, the virus in those that dont will very quickly run out of people to infect. When those monitoring the data notice that reduction they will likely leave an additional 2 weeks to confirm that it is holding, and then ease restrictions to pre March 28th levels and monitor. It will then be a continuous cycle of monitor and revise with easing and tightening as the data shifts until this is beaten / vaccine deployed.
And no one except the most essential will be flying anywhere for close to 6 months i'd imagine

forgodssake

forgodssake wrote: »

They are still doing their job. Albeit wearing some form of PPE that they wouldn't have before.

Any PPE that home carers are wearing is what they have sourced and purchased themselves. Or the house they are going to has provided some.

Neither the HSE nor the agency they work for has provided any. Well, not in my location anyway.

Ficheall

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Flights are an absolute red herring at this stage. Yes it came in originally from Italy/UK/Netherlands/Austria..., however at this stage it is everywhere. If 1 hundred people come in on a flight, and 5 are ill, and 1 of those chooses not to self isolate...

How do the other four people manage to self-isolate on the plane?

Danzy

Gynoid wrote: »

I know, I know, it's a crazy ol twitter account but feck me if people are waiting for the US to be saved from Trump by this blubbering, kid-sniffing mess.

I do not understand how in a country with so many brilliant people the choice is between Trump and this man...

https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1247333355416219649?s=19

At least he had a point and flitted around it that time.

Increasingly it is disjointed and incoherent.

speckle

wakka12 wrote: »

https://www.wionews.com/world/at-least-51-recovered-coronavirus-patients-test-positive-again-in-south-korea-291389
51 recovered patients in South Korea test positive again. But itsthought that reinfecion is unlikely, and probably a case of the virus lying dormant or else a false positive test

or maybe a different strain of the virus?

beggars_bush

Where are the main places people can get infected?

Supermarket?

Ficheall

Ficheall wrote: »

How do the other four people manage to self-isolate on the plane?

Still a red herring as whether its 1 or 5 or 20 or 100 people who return on a plane, are infected and don't self isolate, its still only a fraction of the transmission going on in the community. Anyone who returns and doesn't isolate is an a**hole by the way, but its not going to make a material difference to the current situation. When its under control here and we have testing capacity freed up, testing the couple of hundred people a day who will be arriving at our airports would be appropriate and i hope its something they are planning, but right now our priorities are where the risk is greatest.
Arguing about whether we should have closed the airports a month ago is of no benefit now, and likely would have changed very little. Who else had closed their borders a month ago?

speckle

Lwaker. wrote: »

What's happening with all the carers that do all the home visits all over the place

Our family pooled together in early feb and got masks gloves hand santiser and gave it out to our carers and others that we could for free. But we sre in the minority. we have a family friend who stayed and worked with an aid organisation during the ebola breakout in freetown. So we were more highly sensitised to what might happen. My heart goes out to those with no family who are dependant on carers (hopefully a minority) who arent being careful enough.

tigger123

This mornings Irish Times is saying the Leaving and Junior Cert will most probably be delayed.

Really feel for those kids, whole thing is stressful enough without this added uncertainty and it all dragging out for months.