International COVID-19 Updates & Discussion 2

[pinball wizard]

Fergus Walsh: Was coronavirus here earlier than we thought?

Could Covid-19 have been here earlier than we thought? The BBC’s medical correspondent investigates.

www.bbc.co.uk

I was talking to my wife about this before seeing the article.

In December I had all the symptoms over Christmas, the loss of taste is an extremely vivid memory because I've never had anything like it before and I couldn't taste Christmas lunch.

Yeah, but the know-it-alls here will insist that if you didn't travel internationally it's impossible to have had it in SA before April this year.

 

[Gordon_R]

Fergus Walsh: Was coronavirus here earlier than we thought?

Could Covid-19 have been here earlier than we thought? The BBC’s medical correspondent investigates.

www.bbc.co.uk

I was talking to my wife about this before seeing the article.

In December I had all the symptoms over Christmas, the loss of taste is an extremely vivid memory because I've never had anything like it before and I couldn't taste Christmas lunch.

Yes, there may be a handful of 'early' cases, but from an epidemiological point of view Covid in SA in December is implausible. Lots of people that I know had crappy viruses in December and January. The article gives a more plausible explanation:

But others are more sceptical. David Brown, a retired molecular virologist worked on coronaviruses for 20 years.

His wife got pneumonia over Christmas, with an appalling cough and loss of taste and smell.

He thinks she and many others probably had another coronavirus, OC43, which can also cause respiratory illnesses.

"OC43 can be really severe. It can cause recurring infections in your lifetime like other coronaviruses. There's no surveillance of it, and it's impossible to go back and check," he says.

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_coronavirus_OC43

Along with HCoV-229E, a species in the genus Alphacoronavirus, HCoV-OC43 are among the known viruses that cause the common cold. Both viruses can cause severe lower respiratory tract infections, including pneumonia in infants, the elderly

 

[tetrasect]

Would've worked better if you actually read the numbers, before posting it. That is just typical daily mail click bite head line.

I did read it. Reason I posted it was in context to the explanation of R0 I gave in the post above it, as it shows Germany's strategy and history of R0 over time.

So you think that is a good thing ? .

That country is effectively closed to the rest of the world now .
This virus is not going to go away , we are going to have to live with it until a vaccine comes along .

I get that but all borders are porous even New Zealand's , parcels coming in every thing that comes in to that country is going to go in to quarantine .
Good luck to them .
It will be interesting to see what develops from this .

Are you actually trying to argue that not having coronavirus is worse than having it??? You've seriously lost it.

 

[tetrasect]

Yeah, but the know-it-alls here will insist that if you didn't travel internationally it's impossible to have had it in SA before April this year.

The whole point is that he does not know, so it's pointless telling people he's pretty sure he might have had it. Or is that enough for you to conclude he definitely did have it?
He could have gotten tested any time since the beginning of the outbreak to check if he did actually get it in January. That remains the only way to tell, talking about symptoms won't do anything.

 

[MiW]

I did read it. Reason I posted it was in context to the explanation of R0 I gave in the post above it, as it shows Germany's strategy and history of R0 over time.




Are you actually trying to argue that not having coronavirus is worse than having it??? You've seriously lost it.

Well , if you check a week later, it didn't go up at all, Germany like many other countries , do weekly waves, down on weekends, pick middle of the week going from 20's to 30's next day , is not reflecting any R0 , it reflects badly only for media and crappy journalism.

 

[FNfal]

I did read it. Reason I posted it was in context to the explanation of R0 I gave in the post above it, as it shows Germany's strategy and history of R0 over time.




Are you actually trying to argue that not having coronavirus is worse than having it??? You've seriously lost it.

Why does it sound like that ?
All i am saying the virus is not going away and if the country has no immunity to it, it will always have to be extremely careful who or what comes trough their border until the virus is gone from the rest of the world . .
With all the implications that that brings .

 

[pinball wizard]

Yes, there may be a handful of 'early' cases, but from an epidemiological point of view Covid in SA in December is implausible. Lots of people that I know had crappy viruses in December and January. The article gives a more plausible explanation:

Well, the quoted article based on the UK cases in December are based on actual antibody samples, so the thumbsuck explanation that it must have been another coronavirus in SA at the same time is equally as implausible then.

Only the Article you quote is completely anecdotal (I don't care that the guy is some fancy pants epidemiologist or whatever - his account is not science, it's a story) and the UK one is actually based on evidence.

 

[Verde]

This guy really let rip.

Jeremy Harris: Please Just Stop - Hector Drummond

This is an article by Jeremy Harris. Jeremy is a businessman and investor in New Zealand, one of the few […]

hectordrummond.com

 

[Brian_G]

Wait for the next week.

Jokes aside, you really should wait more than another 3 or 4 months.

 

[pinball wizard]

Jokes aside, you really should wait more than another 3 or 4 months.

Yeah, can't wait for September to look back at the wreckage left by the fear-mongers and weep.

 

[tetrasect]

Well , if you check a week later, it didn't go up at all, Germany like many other countries , do weekly waves, down on weekends, pick middle of the week going from 20's to 30's next day , is not reflecting any R0 , it reflects badly only for media and crappy journalism.

They are quoting Health Senator Dilek Kalayci. Berlin has a "traffic light system" that turns red when the R0 is above 1.2.

Obviously this isn't the first or last time the R0 will go up. They have it set up so that if the R0 drops they lift restrictions, if it goes up they tighten restrictions.

With few active cases a rise in R0 will not make much of a difference. With cases in the 20's the R0 can rise quite high without casing a massive increase in cases, that's why they just monitor the situation for a while before making any decisions.

The same happened last month when restrictions were lifted. The R0 rose to 1.37 then went back to below 1 over the next week or two.

 

[Geoff.D]

Yeah, but the know-it-alls here will insist that if you didn't travel internationally it's impossible to have had it in SA before April this year.

The point is we are ALL very suspicious of the WHO and its key conspirator in all of this, China. ( Not the SA meaning of the word "China", but the country).

There is NO guarantee that they will ever reveal when the virus was first spotted. I am personally convinced that it was early in November and that it arrived in many countries including our own sometime in November. No one can prove otherwise and neither can I prove that it is so. It is my opinion that is it.

Some key points in the article that are food for thought:

"The key question is, could this have been the coronavirus Covid-19?" asks Prof Tom Solomon, director of the UK Emerging Infections Research Unit at the University of Liverpool. "I think the simple answer is yes, it could have been. We now know the virus was around longer - new viruses are always around before you spot them."

I subscribe to the above views. So in our case, the virus was around BEFORE it was officially spotted.

But others are more sceptical. David Brown, a retired molecular virologist worked on coronaviruses for 20 years.

"OC43 can be really severe. It can cause recurring infections in your lifetime like other coronaviruses. There's no surveillance of it, and it's impossible to go back and check," he says.

So again no one can confirm those early cases were actually this virus and not Covid 19, only experience can suggest it may have been OC43, but that does NOT exclude the possibility that it was Covid 19.

The journalist views are also very relevant and cannot be ruled out:

Epidemics start small, but without social distancing cases can double every two to three days.

If you mistake the start date of an epidemic, your estimates of how many people are infected at any given point can be wildly inaccurate.

This is further complicated by the unknown proportion of people who've had the virus without displaying any symptoms.

But then again, unless your swab, blood or tissue samples are sitting in a pathology department somewhere awaiting re-analysis, we will probably never know.

 

[pinball wizard]

The point is we are ALL very suspicious of the WHO and its key conspirator in all of this, China. ( Not the SA meaning of the word "China", but the country.

There is NO guarantee that they will ever reveal when the virus was first spotted. I am personally convinced that it was early in November and that it arrived in many countries including our own sometime in November. No one can prove otherwise and neither can I prove that it is so. It is my opinion that is it.

I read somewhere a group of scientists tracked this in China based on reported illnesses and came back with a first presumed covid-19 case in China around September last year. If I can remember the article I'll link it here.

I will put my cock on a block and say we definitely had coronachan here from February this year, what with travel by Chinese citizens between mainland and everywhere for new year celebrations (Chinese new year). I can suggest that leading up to the Christmas period, a lot of Chinese business travel would have happened as retailers travelled to China to make final preparations for what they need to sell over Christmas. I don't mean (although they could have been) the big retail chains, but for sure all the China-mall places would have had direct contact with mainland before Christmas.

 

[Brian_G]

Let's consider that certain for argument's sake - so then why did it take so long to get noticed? 'Cos it's just a bad case of the sniffles?

 

[pinball wizard]

Let's consider that certain for argument's sake - so then why did it take so long to get noticed? 'Cos it's just a bad case of the sniffles?

Cause it would have arrived in the height of our summer, and largely resulted in mild symptoms, and with it being summer, people naturally didn't congregate on top of each other (the opposite of what the crackdown forced on them) - so no real chance of rapid spread from person to person. And those that had summer flu (they thought) simply treated the symptoms and stayed home/in bed and naturally avoided people. Remember, the original skiing enthusiast recovered and said it was like the flu, a mild one.

In the UK and the north, it would have gone as regular seasonal flu with or without complications like pneumonia.

 

[tetrasect]

Why does it sound like that ?
All i am saying the virus is not going away and if the country has no immunity to it, it will always have to be extremely careful who or what comes trough their border until the virus is gone from the rest of the world . .
With all the implications that that brings .

The virus has gone away in NZ and they can carry on like normal without social distancing. It's not their fault the rest of the world hasn't been able to crack it. If they had followed NZ's example everyone would be able to open their borders now and this pandemic would be over.

And the rest of the world doesn't have immunity either BTW.
NZ have shown that we can extinguish the virus and save lives without exposing everyone to the virus to build up some kind of immunity which we don't even know exists.

 

[Lupus]

Wait till it gets into the townships, then you'll see.
I think the next month will be crucial.

I keep saying wait till tomorrow, yet no one listens, the poo will hit the spinning disc tomorrow.

 

[Lupus]

I don't think I fit into either camp. I've been vehemently anti-crackdown since March.

You've had your fluctuations .

 

[Lupus]

Fergus Walsh: Was coronavirus here earlier than we thought?

Could Covid-19 have been here earlier than we thought? The BBC’s medical correspondent investigates.

www.bbc.co.uk

I was talking to my wife about this before seeing the article.

In December I had all the symptoms over Christmas, the loss of taste is an extremely vivid memory because I've never had anything like it before and I couldn't taste Christmas lunch.

That might not be a bad thing, I've had some pretty horendous Xmas lunches.

 

[Verde]

Spain’s macro study shows just 5.2% of population has contracted the coronavirus

The results of the second round of testing suggest the deescalation of confinement measures has not so far caused a significant resurgence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus

english.elpais.com

This is bad news. After a month of testing for antibodies involving more than 130000 people, the results still point to an overall IFR of more than 1% in Spain. (About 5/10000 for under 65's and 5/100 for over 65's)