Covid-19 #16: Not Waving, Loop-de-Looping

[lessthanluke]

23 minutes ago, maarsen said:

Nose piece has not been sealed properly. Air is leaking out past the mask, probably both ways. 

Well unsurprising as its just a cheap cloth mask to allow me to go in the shop so impossible to seal really. I shall experiment hah as I couldn't really see at all. 

[Prince of the North]

1 minute ago, lessthanluke said:

Well unsurprising as its just a cheap cloth mask to allow me to go in the shop so impossible to seal really. I shall experiment hah. 

I prefer a mask with a metal strip that bends over the bridge of the nose, of course.  But sometimes I haven't had that and I've had some success putting my glasses over the top of the mask on the bridge of my nose.  It's not perfect but it can help keep my breath from steaming up my glasses at least some of the time.   

[lessthanluke]

4 minutes ago, Prince of the North said:

I prefer a mask with a metal strip that bends over the bridge of the nose, of course.  But sometimes I haven't had that and I've had some success putting my glasses over the top of the mask on the bridge of my nose.  It's not perfect but it can help keep my breath from steaming up my glasses at least some of the time.   

The latter is what I'm gonna try next time I have to go out! Should have done that today but got ready in a rush. Lesson learnt. 

[Prince of the North]

28 minutes ago, lessthanluke said:

The latter is what I'm gonna try next time I have to go out! Should have done that today but got ready in a rush. Lesson learnt. 

Yeah, it's not always the best having your glasses riding up a bit higher on top of the mask (especially if, like me, you have progressive lenses).  But, as I said, it usually helps reduce the fogging.  Best of luck!  

[Clueless Northman]

I think that it's quite obvious that there should be several types of masks. Some aren't exactly suited for big-nosed Western barbarians, and some are definitely total shit if you wear glasses. And it's tricky to guess how a mask would fit you if you an't pick and test one but have to get a big boxes full of them first.

[rotting sea cow]

A strange outbreak case has been reported in Argentina. Reportedly most of the sailors of a ship have fallen sick from COVID-19 after 35 days at sea. The sailors were quarantined and tested before sailing and the supplies were brought from the Southern city of Ushuaia.

English link here: https://www.france24.com/en/20200714-mystery-as-argentine-sailors-infected-with-virus-after-35-days-at-sea

 

 

[DireWolfSpirit]

22 hours ago, lessthanluke said:

Anyone got any suggestions on how to stop glasses steaming up while wearing a mask? 

Taking off the glasses works pretty good.

[lessthanluke]

35 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Taking off the glasses works pretty good.

Unfortunately this would probably end with me destroying the shop. 

[A True Kaniggit]

37 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Taking off the glasses works pretty good.

Yeah, but then I’d have to do the thing where I alternate closing either eye to look at things that are close or far away. 

[Werthead]

13 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

A strange outbreak case has been reported in Argentina. Reportedly most of the sailors of a ship have fallen sick from COVID-19 after 35 days at sea. The sailors were quarantined and tested before sailing and the supplies were brought from the Southern city of Ushuaia.

English link here: https://www.france24.com/en/20200714-mystery-as-argentine-sailors-infected-with-virus-after-35-days-at-sea

The longest recorded incubation period in China was, I believe, 37 days, but this was believed to be an extreme outlier. The likelihood here is that someone on the crew had a longer-than-normal incubation period, perhaps displayed no symptoms but was then able to infect others.

[The Anti-Targ]

3 hours ago, Werthead said:

The longest recorded incubation period in China was, I believe, 37 days, but this was believed to be an extreme outlier. The likelihood here is that someone on the crew had a longer-than-normal incubation period, perhaps displayed no symptoms but was then able to infect others.

And this is probably why we'll eventually get the disease back here at some point. With thousands of residents and citizens returning here 14 days quarantine and testing on days 3 and 12 of quarantine is probably about 99% effective at finding people carrying the virus when they come into the country. Eventually one of these outliers will slip through the cracks. The thing that worries me is if no one is really taking account of outliers in managing our control systems. Being that it is possible anyone leaving quarantine can't be 100% sure they are not incubating the disease until about 37 days post arrival, these people should be keeping a detailed record for their movement for at least 3 weeks after leaving quarantine. A person who becomes infectious after leaving quarantine, and who only develops mild symptoms (or none) could end up infecting hundreds of people, and those hundreds could infect many more before anyone gets a serious enough case to cause them to be tested. basically we could have community spread for 2 weeks, possibly more, before it's found. 

Right now I am confident that as of 2 weeks ago we didn't have anyone spreading the virus in the community. But today, who knows? I don't even know the number of people who were released form quarantine in the last 2 weeks.

No one is talking about this small but non-negligible risk, at least not publicly.

[Zorral]

Has anyone commenting here read John Barry's The Great Influenza? 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Influenza

If so, and if you could ask him a question, what would you like to ask him?

 

[The Anti-Targ]

I see North Korea is admitting to its first case someone arriving from overseas. I wonder if this means in a couple of weeks they are going to claim they are overwhelmed because of this one breach in their biosecurity.

[rotting sea cow]

9 hours ago, Werthead said:

The longest recorded incubation period in China was, I believe, 37 days, but this was believed to be an extreme outlier. The likelihood here is that someone on the crew had a longer-than-normal incubation period, perhaps displayed no symptoms but was then able to infect others.

Then, these long incubation period are more common than currently detected because if it's a rare event chances of happening in a ship at the end of the world are slim. It would be a worrying development indeed as @The Anti-Targ states.

I've got another possible explanation. Food contamination. Ushuaia is a small city but it has a small outbreak. What if someone who handled the food was infected. Food was frozen and then the cook got infected as he handled the food?

[Werthead]

5 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

Then, these long incubation period are more common than currently detected because if it's a rare event chances of happening in a ship at the end of the world are slim. It would be a worrying development indeed as @The Anti-Targ states.

I've got another possible explanation. Food contamination. Ushuaia is a small city but it has a small outbreak. What if someone who handled the food was infected. Food was frozen and then the cook got infected as he handled the food?

Cooking food destroys coronaviruses, and they can't infect people through being ingested. The vector being handling food and then touching your face is possible, probably more through the virus being present on packaging than the actual food itself.

So yes, but it would require the cook to completely ignore basic normal food hygiene, let alone the enhanced hygiene methods people should have been employing since he outbreak began.

[rotting sea cow]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Cooking food destroys coronaviruses, and they can't infect people through being ingested. The vector being handling food and then touching your face is possible, probably more through the virus being present on packaging than the actual food itself.

With all these outbreaks being reported at slaughterhouses, I wouldn't be so sure. Argentinians cannot live without their beef.

Also, didn't the chinese reported the virus being present in imported food at the Beijing's market?

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

So yes, but it would require the cook to completely ignore basic normal food hygiene, let alone the enhanced hygiene methods people should have been employing since he outbreak began.

It's a ship, a fishing trawler (earlier it was reported it was a navy ship), I don't think there is much room for much hygiene as we know it. I've seen videos of sailors cooking over the engines, so...

[The Anti-Targ]

7 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

Then, these long incubation period are more common than currently detected because if it's a rare event chances of happening in a ship at the end of the world are slim. It would be a worrying development indeed as @The Anti-Targ states.

I've got another possible explanation. Food contamination. Ushuaia is a small city but it has a small outbreak. What if someone who handled the food was infected. Food was frozen and then the cook got infected as he handled the food?

Highly highly unlikely. A 37 day incubator is more likely, or there was a false negative test. There has been no case of COVID-19 traced to food. It is true that viruses survive in freezing conditions reasonably well, but they don't survive for long at all on food surfaces. Food packaging however is a slightly different matter. Food safety is my professional wheelhouse. There has been enough work done in this area for me to be confident that food isn't an issue. SARS-COV-2 can survive long enough on food packaging that it's a small but non-negligible risk. If people are in supermarkets and cough, sneezing or even breathing on packaging then spread that way is possible. If you are in an area with a reasonable number of ongoing cases and poor mask wearing then sanitising your food packaging when you get home from the supermarket is not a bad idea.

And in a cooking situation it's not likely that a cook is going to be handling raw food then picking their nose.

Outbreaks in slaughterhouses is about proximity of workers to each other passing it from person to person. Cooks on fishing boats will observe reasonable hygiene even if the workers don't. The sailors cooking stuff on the engines is the fish they caught, not food from the galley. Or food they brought from home, which is probably not going to be frozen stuff, but dried / canned stuff / packaged stuff, which by the time they getit on the boat and start using it the any virus on that packaging will almost cerainly be inactive

Also remember that the PCR tests for the presence of viral RNA it does not test for viable virus. You can test a surface and have it come up positive for virus RNA, but the virus is not viable, all you're finding is fragments.

This on Worldometer:

Quote

a case with an incubation period of 19 days was observed in a JAMA study of 5 cases published on Feb. 21.

It's a wee bit worrying that a 19 day incubation was observed in just 5 cases. But maybe they were targeting instances of unusual case patters not just picking 5 random infected people.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

But we're going to open schools:

Quote

Eight more players and two coaches with the Marlins have tested positive for coronavirus, as an outbreak has spread throughout their clubhouse and brought the total of cases in recent days to at least 14, sources familiar with the situation told ESPN.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/29546814/sources-marlins-cancel-game-virus-spreads

The director of our department confidently said everything would be reopened by April 12th (same day Donnie Dipshit said everything would be fine). I haven't been in the office since around that exact time.

I told our bosses they should have sent everyone home weeks before they did. Why do we sustain systems that support the promotion of idiots? 

[Guest]

50 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I told our bosses they should have sent everyone home weeks before they did. Why do we sustain systems that support the promotion of idiots? 

If anything ever convinces people that America isn't a "meritocracy", it should be this. I'm not holding my breath though.

[Zorral]

That's the thing about epidemics and pandemics -- throughout history this is how everyone behaved until it was too late.  Everything that hasn't been done and has been done in this one here in the USA is just what everyone did and did not do as far back as we know, including in the pandemic of the 6th - 7th century, which was Bubonic Plague, despite history calling it Justinian's plague.
 

The only effective action that ultimately really saves the economy! the economy! the economy! people and systems is to take hard action, i.e. shut down and isolate, before it arrives and / or as immediately as possible once it is discerned it has arrived.  But no one ever does.  The economy! economy! economy! which equals recurring devastation for decades if not centuries.  As with Justinians's, which continued / returned throughout much of the 8th century.