New Coronavirus in China

[Angela]

Effect of climate, i.e. humid heat on Covid. It reduces transmissability by about 25%. They have maps by area and month.
https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/covid19

Vaccine for tuberculosis doesn't help.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...rticle/2766182

The germany sample had a, huge error bars, b, was done in the community with lowest cfr in heinsberg district (gangelt) and misreported the number of dead there (9 people died, not 7).

Mail forwarding requests extremely high in Manhattan and the "gentrified" parts of Brooklyn. The former went to their vacation homes, and the latter went home to their parents, like my son. :)

The poorer people, much more often black and Hispanic, had to stay. They never catch a break.

There's a map showing where they went.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...mid=tw-nytimes


While the Belgian Prime Minister @Sophie_Wilmes
was visiting a hospital in Brussels today, hospital staff turned their backs to her car. Belgium has the highest per capita Covid death toll. The government failed completely.

[Dagne]

"Sweden has now the highest #covid19 fatality rate per million population of the world."

Regardless of their public pronouncements it seems that Sweden is following the "herd immunity" approach. I think that's also evidenced by the fact that parents are reporting that they are being threatened with fines and removal of their children if they don't send them to school.

Perhaps they find it acceptable because the people severely ill or dying are concentrated among the elderly and the migrant communities.

I personally find it heartless, but it's their government, their choice.

Well, according to statistics Swedish deaths are high, but not the highest

	Confirmed deaths (absolute)	Population (in millions)	Deaths per million
Belgium	9,052	11.42	792.5
Spain	27,563	46.72	589.91
Italy	31,908	60.43	528
United Kingdom	34,636	66.49	520.93
France	28,075	66.99	419.11
Sweden	3,679	10.18	361.28
Netherlands	5,680	17.23	329.64
Ireland	1,543	4.85	317.91
United States	89,428	327.17	273.34
Switzerland	1,881	8.52	220.86
Ecuador	2,736	17.08	160.15
Canada	5,903	37.06	159.29
Portugal	1,218	10.28	118.46

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...n-inhabitants/

[Angela]

Well, according to statistics Swedish deaths are high, but not the highest

	Confirmed deaths (absolute)	Population (in millions)	Deaths per million
Belgium	9,052	11.42	792.5
Spain	27,563	46.72	589.91
Italy	31,908	60.43	528
United Kingdom	34,636	66.49	520.93
France	28,075	66.99	419.11
Sweden	3,679	10.18	361.28
Netherlands	5,680	17.23	329.64
Ireland	1,543	4.85	317.91
United States	89,428	327.17	273.34
Switzerland	1,881	8.52	220.86
Ecuador	2,736	17.08	160.15
Canada	5,903	37.06	159.29
Portugal	1,218	10.28	118.46

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...n-inhabitants/

I was going by the following, which relies on One World Data. Perhaps it's less reliable? I don't know.
https://twitter.com/epsilon3141/stat...87762107322369

[johen]

[Angela]

Johen, is the point how many have died daily, or how many "would" have died daily if we had let it rip through the whole population?

Let's say that warm weather helps, and only 40-50% of the population got infected by July. The latest IFR is 1%. It's easy to do the math on a population of 324 Million people. Now, the majority might have been over 50. Would that be ok?

[Duarte]

Le Monde editorial about Brazil: Bolsonaro's dangerous dark flight

May 19, 2020, 8:54 AM

There is no doubt that there is something rotten in the kingdom of Brazil, where President Jair Bolsonaro, manages to affirm, without hesitation, that the coronavirus is a "simple flu" or a "hysteria" born from the "imagination" of the media.

Something rotten when he meets agglomerations of his supporters, when he urges local authorities to lift restrictions, when he wants the epidemic to "start to disappear" while cemeteries across the country set an unprecedented burial record . When his foreign minister, Ernesto Araújo, defends the "comunavirus", claiming that the pandemic is the result of a communist conspiracy. When Health Minister Nelson Teich resigned on May 15, four weeks after his appointment to that crucial ministry, for "differences of opinion", just on the day when the country reached 240,000 confirmed cases and more than 16,000 dead.

For many, the dark hours that Brazil - the fifth nation most affected by the pandemic - is going through today, recall those of the military dictatorship, when the country was subjected to fear and arbitrariness. With a significant difference: while the generals of the time claimed the defense of a democracy attacked, according to them, by communism, Bolsonaro's Brazil lives in a parallel world, a theater of the absurd where facts and reality ceased to exist. In this stressed universe, nourished by calumnies, inconsistencies and deadly provocations, opinion is polarized around a fog of simple but false ideas.


Government-driven denial removes half the population from confinement, while requests for social detachment from health professionals, governors and mayors are followed loosely. Bolsonaro, who does not seem to apprehend the real dimension of the pandemic, says that economic activity must continue at any price and in the meantime makes an insane political calculation, hoping that devastating effects of the crisis will be attributed to the opposition.

Sanitary chaos


A subordinate officer expelled from the army and an obscure far-right deputy, mocked by his peers for three decades, Bolsonaro clearly did not have the necessary qualities of a statesman. Once in power, devoured by bitterness and fascist nostalgia, the former captain of the reserve did not cease to accuse the eternally hated "system". Posture that during an acute pandemic causes health chaos and sows death.
From betraying the facts, populist rulers end up believing their own lies. We see this in other parts of the world. But here, in this country that came out of the dictatorship only twenty-five years ago, where democracy remains fragile and even dysfunctional, the fact of politicizing, without limits, a health crisis of this magnitude is something totally irresponsible.
With an electoral base of 25%, Bolsonaro knows that his room for maneuver is narrow. Some today evoke the scenario of an institutional coup. In fact, in the face of the crowd that came to support him in Brasilia, the president made it clear on May 3 that if the Federal Supreme Court investigated him - him or his relatives - he would not respect the judges' decision. After practicing historical negationism while praising the dictatorship, denying the existence of the fires in the Amazon and the seriousness of the Covid-19 pandemic, Bolsonaro and his authoritarian temptation have great chances of plunging the country on a dangerous flight in the dark.

Source: https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article...0012_3232.html

[Jovialis]

Great News:

COVID-19 patients testing positive for second infection not contagious, study shows

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/498516-covid-patients-testing-positive-for-second-infection-not-contagious-study

[Jovialis]

Great News:

COVID-19 patients testing positive for second infection not contagious, study shows

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/498516-covid-patients-testing-positive-for-second-infection-not-contagious-study

Funny, how when I search for this, mostly old articles from April saying the opposite pop-up first. This was a big story on ABC World News with David Muir, last night, and to me, seems pretty significant. Those people in South Korea being "re-infected" were false positives, that detected leftover dead matter from the virus according to the broadcast.

[Angela]

This seems a bit extreme:

"Big call from Cambridge University: all lectures to be online-only until summer of 2021"

They should give a huge reduction in tuition, but of course they won't. What happens with testing? If they let them take tests at home the grades will be fake given human nature.

Just going to the dentist is going to become a nightmare.

"*Going to the dentist*- Covid testing before appointments for *all patients*- Tests for staff every 2 weeks- Screening phone calls"

I totally understand their concern. They get up close and personals with the inside of your mouth and your nose. This isn't going to be foolproof, however; the patient could have been infected in the days before the appointment even if he was negative when he took the Covid test.

They should just wear so much protective gear that it's like a Hazmat suit.

[Carlos]

In Spain, the daily death toll remains below one hundred.

There are more than 150,000 people recovered. The cases accumulate mainly in Madrid (66,860) and Catalonia (55,888)

CORONAVIRUS DATA IN SPAIN

• *Sanidad ya no informa de los positivos en test de anticuerposCifras totales: 232.555 casos de coronavirus diagnosticados por PCR; 27.888 muertos
  
• 66.860 en Madrid (8.912 muertos)
• 55.888 en Cataluña (6.021 muertos)
• 18.586 en Castilla y León (1.960 muertos)
• 16.739 en Castilla-La Mancha (2.913 muertos)
• 13.435 en País Vasco (1.480 muertos)
• 12.502 en Andalucía (1.371 muertos)
• 10.949 en la Comunidad Valenciana (1.378 muertos)
• 9.067 en Galicia (607 muertos)
• 5.551 en Aragón (843 muertos)
• 5.136 en Navarra (503 muertos)
• 4.033 en La Rioja (353 muertos)
• 3.040 en Extremadura (504 muertos)
• 2.374 en Asturias (304 muertos)
• 2.300 en Canarias (155 muertos)
• 2.277 en Cantabria (209 muertos)
• 2.018 en Baleares (221 muertos)
• 1.560 en Murcia (148 muertos)
• 121 en Melilla (2 muertos)
• 119 en Ceuta (4 muertos)

https://www.elmundo.es/ciencia-y-sal...a0f8b45b4.html

[nordicwarrior]

Couple points:

In the U.S. our Center for Disease Control came out either today or yesterday with a statement saying they had been over-emphasizing the significance of viral transfer through surface contact. Knew it! I was going to make a comment on this thread about this very subject but I didn't want to get dinged for "non-scientific" contribution. In fact I had even finished typing it out but did not post because I didn't want to raise a ruckus. I won't do that again. My observational skills are solid enough that I will put them out in the future... they have value and might even help people.

Covid 19 is primarily a respiratory disease and the most common vector of transfer will be shown to be shared breathing areas. It's common sense. I encourage everyone to continue to wash hands, spray bottom of shoes, spritz groceries when bringing them into the house... BUT this is a breathing thing. What do airplanes, passenger ships, jails, old folks homes have in common?-- SHARED AIR.

Wish we would have been told this minor tidbit (sarcasm) earlier by the authorities. I guess I can't blame them because releasing such grim news initially could have caused real panic, on a global scale even-- and this obviously would be more deadly than the virus. Herds of people moving out of their apartment buildings in Chicago, London, Moscow, etc.-- in February-- and then sleeping in a van... down by the river... not good.

Anyway, we all know now. For weeks if not months I have been opening every door and uncovering all through building portals at work (I'm usually one of the first on site) because I figured intuitively fresh air circulation would be kryptonite to Corona. To date, we've had no Covid spread through our project. Of note though is that project Superintendent also provided 10 gallons of industrial sanitizer/hand soap (73% alcohol ) for all to use and this probably helped too.

-----------------------------------------------------------
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Secondly, I heard a young doctor being interviewed on the radio when I was flipping through the channels. I will try to include his name on an edit, but his insight is brilliant so I will go with what I have now... he is on the front lines and he and his teams are starting to have huge success because they realized you have to separate Covid the disease from the body's natural response.

Mystery doctor said the first week of a patient's stay is all about helping the patient breath successfully. Focus on the lungs. get them past crucial infection. However, during the second week of the patient's fight... all gears must switches over to knocking down patient's immune system, because invariable it will be out -of -whack. He said it is completely counter-intuitive, but week two is spent shutting down immune system because of the resulting cytokine storm left behind by the initial viral hordes.

As soon as I heard this, it instantly made sense. This is why CQ would be helpful to patients who take it EARLY. CQ is used in Lupus because Lupus is basically an auto-immunity thing... body attacking itself... and CQ (when paired with zinc) for whatever reason knocks down immune system glitches. Especially helps with inflammation. Also, when someone has Lupus, they are looking at talking 400 mg. of CQ a day, then when Lupus is stable (usually after a number of years) it can drop to 200 mg. a day. With Covid, the first day on CQ is a "Loading Day" and you take 60 mg. After that, the typical dose drops to 40 mg. a day. This is a small fraction of what someone on Lupus takes.

[Carlos]

Starting today, Thursday, what are we doing, 28, can it be? The use of the mask in closed places and on the street will be mandatory if you are less than two meters from anyone. In all of Spain, whether it is a small, medium or large region, whether the region is in the north, south or east or west, everyone wearing a mask.

https://www.elconfidencial.com/espan...iones_2600695/


A child protected with a mask goes for a walk in Valladolid (EFE)

[Angela]

^^Good for Spain.

In the U.S. two Protestant churches which reopened are closing again due to an outbreak of Covid 19. This is despite the fact that they say they maintained social distancing rules.
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-brief...er-leaders-and

It's like the outbreak in nightclubs in South Korea.

Large gatherings indoors are just a no-no.

I personally think these people rushing to get to gyms and bars are nuts.

It might work out for a while if you're in an area where there wasn't much seeding of the virus in the first place, but if all areas are doing it won't it inevitably migrate in?

Denmark introduces drive-in concerts. Well, it's better than nothing.

[Duarte]

Meet the Anti-Mask League, formed in the USA during the Spanish Flu




The world was taken by a pandemic, with thousands of deaths and millions of infected. But while scientists, authorities and health professionals recommend the use of protective equipment and social detachment, a group of people begins to deny the efficiency of these measures, and acts against all indications.This paragraph would serve to describe the current covid-19 pandemic - and the various denialist groups in the USA, Brazil and so many other countries that refuse to follow the guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the respective local health agencies. . But it also summarizes the case of the Anti-Mask League, which was formed in the city of San Francisco in the middle of Spanish Flu.

This story begins in October 1918. The first flu cases in San Francisco had appeared in the previous month, and the city, which had 500,000 inhabitants, quickly reached 2,000 infected. It wasn't long before the authorities recommended that people stay at home and avoid crowds.

Over time, businesses closed and the use of the mask became mandatory - the campaigns were incisive. The United States fought in the First World War, and the government associated the masks with a patriotic, defensive attitude towards the country. One of the Red Cross posters at the time said: "Coughing and sneezing spread disease, something as dangerous as poisonous gas: the spread of Spanish flu threatens our war production."

Although some people complained about wearing masks to take to the streets, the authorities did not turn a blind eye: the fine for those who were unprotected ranged from US $ 5 to US $ 10 (US $ 85 to US $ 170, in current values). Not even the mayor, James Rolph, escaped: in a photo published in the newspaper, he and other public officials appeared without the masks, and the police chief fined Rolph $ 50.

The rigid measures worked: it is estimated that 80% of the residents wore masks. Shortly thereafter, on November 21, San Francisco revoked the mandatory protection. People went back to their routines of going to work, to parks, to cinemas - and there came the second wave of the epidemic.



The League is born

The Spanish Flu - which, despite its name, probably appeared in the USA - happened in three waves, and the second was the most severe. In total, the pandemic has killed at least 50 million people (some estimate twice as much), as well as infecting a third of the global population. It claimed more victims than the two World Wars, the Vietnam War and the Korean War - together.

With the situation getting worse, in January, the city of San Francisco went back and forced, again, the use of masks - which left some residents dissatisfied.
Here, contextualization is worthwhile. In addition to the First World War and the pandemic, San Francisco was also recovering from another catastrophe: the historic 1906 earthquake, which happened in the San Andreas fault. The earthquake, which became known as the Great San Francisco Earthquake, was devastating. It reached eight degrees on the Richter scale (the highest ever in the country) and killed thousands of people.

With so many misfortunes happening in succession, it is easy to understand the discontent and lack of faith on the part of the population. When the mask rule came back, some people immediately thought, "Why, if it didn't work the first time, why are they going to force us to wear it again?" The Anti-Mask League was born there.

The group's first meeting brought together more than two thousand people. It was chaired by Emma Harrington, a deputy who, in 1911, was the first woman in town to vote. The meetings continued throughout the month - in one, more than 4,500 people gathered to protest the mayor and the secretary of health, Dr. William C. Hassler.

They argued that wearing masks was a burden, and questioned science about their effectiveness. In addition, they said that there were other more serious problems, such as the unemployment of soldiers who returned from the war, and that deserved more attention.

According to The Guardian, they even sent a bomb to Hassler. The address, fortunately, was wrong, and no one was hurt.

Despite this, the authorities chose to ignore the movement. The League, after all, never managed to define its bases - some wanted to create a petition for the masks to be revoked; others just called for Hassler's resignation.

In the end, they did not achieve any of this. Records show that on January 15, 1919 - the day before the second mask decree, - San Francisco recorded 510 new cases of flu and 50 deaths. Eleven days later, those numbers had dropped to 12 cases and four deaths. Harrington soon left the League command, and the new commander dissolved her. Point to science.

http://a.msn.com/01/pt-br/BB14tzqu?ocid=sw

[Jovialis]

New daily coronavirus cases in New York are now lower than at the beginning of the outbreak, Gov. Cuomo says

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/22/new-...uomo-says.html

[Angela]

Two new clusters in Germany: a church and a restaurant.

Does anyone know more about the church outbreak? Were they wearing masks? If they were that's a very bad sign that they're not completely protecting people. Maybe if you're singing the virus leaks out?

What a horror; no more singing together for the foreseeable future?

The three C's to preventing infection:
https://twitter.com/nataliexdean/sta...762113/photo/1


What on earth is going to happen to restaurants and all the waiters, bartenders etc. who used to work in them.

Leave it to the French to try to come up with a solution, but believe me, much as I miss my lunches with friends, or a Saturday night out with another couple, honestly I'd rather stay home. Plus, where is the "dirty" air going, and how often do they clean down the insides of those plastic shields?



High level British official broke stay at home rules. This is the kind of thing which infuriates me: people who feel so entitled, so special, that they can break the rules and endanger other people.

Just saw something on the net about a New York City college student doing a semester abroad in Spain who got it, running a 104 temp, whose parents wired him money to fly home, and apparently because he took aspirin to knock down the screeners the airport people didn't detect a temp. He was on a plane with recycled air, waiting around on crowded lines and crowded spaces in the airport.

JUST AWFUL. What, his parents thought Spain was incompetent to treat him. He had to come home even if he infected hundreds of people???

[bicicleur]

Two new clusters in Germany: a church and a restaurant.
Does anyone know more about the church outbreak? Were they wearing masks? If they were that's a very bad sign that they're not completely protecting people. Maybe if you're singing the virus leaks out?

the German authorities are investigating this
they suspect the rules were broken, especially in the restaurant

when more activities are allowed, this kind of detecting and screening is essential

[bicicleur]

What on earth is going to happen to restaurants and all the waiters, bartenders etc. who used to work in them.

Leave it to the French to try to come up with a solution, but believe me, much as I miss my lunches with friends, or a Saturday night out with another couple, honestly I'd rather stay home. Plus, where is the "dirty" air going, and how often do they clean down the insides of those plastic shields?

very cosy, very romantic ..

[torzio]

the German authorities are investigating this
they suspect the rules were broken, especially in the restaurant
when more activities are allowed, this kind of detecting and screening is essential

do not people realise that religious gathering are far worse than eating in a restaurant ................religious gatherings are still banned in Australia

[Angela]

do not people realise that religious gathering are far worse than eating in a restaurant ................religious gatherings are still banned in Australia

We know you hate religion. Do you have to drag it into every freaking discussion on this thread????

Who the hell says it's worse than eating in a restaurant? You? There's a cluster in both places. What about gyms. Are they open? They shouldn't be. What about nail salons. That's how the northern west coast cluster started.

How about a sporting event, a chorale society practice, a crowded office? All sites, btw, of major clusters around the world.

Why not focus on something that's actually helpful, like were people wearing masks in the church; were waiters wearing masks? Was distancing appropriate in both the restaurant and the church. Had the ducts been sanitized?

This is the problem with people with agendas no matter the topic. Useful information is not followed up because people are content to trumpet their biases.

[Angela]

^^You keep posting information which is patently false and also incendiary and provocative against other groups and you're out of here.

Take it to heart because this is your last warning.

[bigsnake49]

The US has banned all flights to and from Brazil. Sorry @Duarte, you can't come and visit.

[Duarte]

The US has banned all flights to and from Brazil. Sorry @Duarte, you can't come and visit.

Unfortunately, Bigsnake. I have a close friend in Florida. I can’t visit him and he can’t visit me. But Trump is right. One of his missions is to protect the health of Americans. We have a crazy President that don’t worry with our health. If our destiny is die alone under a crazy leader, so be it. I have lost my hopes.
Cheers dear friend

[Salento]

Unfortunately, Bigsnake. I have a close friend in Florida. I can’t visit him and he can’t visit me. But Trump is right. One of his missions is to protect the health of Americans. We have a crazy President that don’t worry with our health. If our destiny is die alone under a crazy leader, so be it. I have lost my hopes.
Cheers dear friend

... maybe you’re better off in Brazil, coming to the US right now is Insane,

in a few hours the US will reach the 100.000 Covid-19 related deaths terrible milestone.

... it’s not over yet ...

[Duarte]

... maybe you’re better off in Brazil, coming to the US right now is Insane,

in a few hours the US will reach the 100.000 Covid-19 related deaths terrible milestone.

... it’s not over yet ...

Dear friend Salento.
Everything seems insane to me right now. I believe that I am living a nightmare. Sometimes I see in Eupedia an escape valve that makes me forget these difficult days a little. Maybe I was already a little crazy if I couldn't come here read the posts on the threads. But my days have been so, alternating between hope and sadness. I wish I had inherited my mother's faith and and be able to believe that better days will come.
Big hug dear friend.