I hate to say it but the disease cannot be controlled outside of lockdown. I never sneezed (and coughed very little only at the end when I was probably no
longer contagious) Other people who came down with it also had no symptoms. I caught it through conversation and dancing. We were not wearing masks. No one in that context had a fever or any sign of respiratory illness. Our temperatures were taken at the entrance. (Anyone with a cold stayed away.) It was never respiratory for me. Furthermore, I went for tests when I heard that my teacher had been in contact with someone who tested positive. Early tests all came up negative for all of us and we had no symptoms; but it became evident several days later that we were sick.
How do you control that? You can’t. It is very contagious; you are infectious without symptoms; and early on your tests have a high likelihood of giving a false negative.
New Zealand has gotten itself some new Covid cases
Most likely on frozen food packaging, from what I read. A whole family got it in one go.
At work we assume everything is infected, but fortunately a lot of stuff spends way too long in shipping for the content of boxes to have anything. The outside of boxes is something else…
but schools still aren’t back to 100%
There seem to be issues with some % of parents saying they will refuse to send their kids to school. It’s like the anti vaxxers. Under-25, reportedly 25%. Over 60, down to 10%… Normally the local council will prosecute parents doing that but in these times…? It does get tricky if the kids are in a family with some older people around, or with health issues.
This is an interesting product: a mask which kills the virus on the way through.
Yes, there is the anti-vaxer brigade, but they then only kill themselves.
Finally, someone gets it.
There’s no need to hate the antivaxers, they are the control group (for medical purposes).
Indeed. Now if we can only bend the rules of GDPR a little so that we can pinpoint them..
This article about Greece is worrying, though not unexpected.
Peter wrote:
This article about Greece is worrying, though not unexpected.
Read the article. Too bad that the Greeks seem to have squandered their initial successes, and it doesn’t even seem to be due to opening up to tourists, more like due to behaviour of the locals.
After reading an article about the “G614” Covid-19 mutation in the Guardian which quoted Reuters: More infectious coronavirus mutation may be a good thing, I noticed a high incidence of “may” and “appears” and “suggests” and so I googled a little further.
In Cell I found a significantly more cautious article
From the half I understood, it seems that this new mutation has indeed out-competed (or out-lucked) the original, but that’s where the hard evidence stops.
Alternatively, for newspaper sub-editors, that’s where the speculation starts …
WhiskeyPapa wrote:
I hate to say it but the disease cannot be controlled outside of lockdown.
You are very right here, only it won’t do any good. Lockdowns are hugely unpopular and therefore way too many decision makers have long decided that they would rather take a couple of million deaths and a billion or more long term cripples than to annoy their political sponsors or sweat re-election.
Europe is on the verge of the 2nd wave if it is not on already yet politicians still shy away from lockdown measures as they are in force e.g. in NZ or Australia. The lot of them should be arrested and tried for negligently or intentionally spreading a dangerous disease.
Alternatively, for newspaper sub-editors, that’s where the speculation starts …
Thanks for finding that, David. I did read the Cell article now and it is good to know this is speculation, because it would be potentially bad news for a vaccine.
If anything I think this is good news. It has been thought for some time that COVID is remarkably stable; the evolution of only two distinct variants supoorts this view and the view generally that this group of viruses is far more stable than influenza. It also makes it far more likely a vaccine will confer good immunity, although how long the immunity lasts is still in doubt, not because the virus mutates, but because the bodies “memory” may not last all that long, as for some other viruses. I think this is a lesser concern, because the consequence may only be we need to be immunised regularly, very good news for the pharmas. Doubtless those who win the race will jack up their prices as time progresses.
Body memory lasts longer than it is given credit for by the press desperately looking for “antibody response” and using that to measure “immunity time”.
The body can mount a credible antiviral defense via T-cell activity even without prior exposure to this specific virus (but prior exposure to other corona viri). Post exposure the response will be even stronger.
