Thread: CoronaVirus ==> Empty Shelves

Welcome Fencing dude!

It was a good question. I always assumed I knew the answer, but BobL has put me on my ass so often that I now question everything!


Speaking of questioning and knowing.... can anyone spot the one outlier in this screen grab from Worldometers just now?

Hint: ITS CHINA

Screenshot_2020-04-01 Coronavirus Update (Live) 934,668 Cases and 47,181 Deaths from COVID-19 Vi.png

Ev, can I draw your attention to post #1145?

Originally Posted by woodPixel

Hint: ITS CHINA

Pffft! Just all part of their quest for world dominance, but they having been leading the world in the bullsh stakes for a couple of decades.

Originally Posted by BobL

Warning about some hands sanitisers and the importance of using added water ie raw method is not an affective hand sanitiser.

Many hand sanitisers are ineffective against coronavirus, experts warn - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

I used this formula from the WHO webpage (I think Bob originally posted that) to make up my hand sanitiser mix. It adds just under 20% by volume of water.

I think (but do not know) that the issue with too higher a proportion of alcohol mixtures is that it evaporates off the hands too quickly to provide the required 10-15 seconds exposure time to denature the virus proteins.

Originally Posted by woodPixel

Welcome Fencing dude!

It was a good question. I always assumed I knew the answer, but BobL has put me on my ass so often that I now question everything!


Speaking of questioning and knowing.... can anyone spot the one outlier in this screen grab from Worldometers just now?

Apart from a bit of hand waving I would be very wary of using this data to compare countries at this stage
For a start not all countries are on the same part of the pandemic curve.

Then, for large countries like China,, AUS and USA especially in (semi) lock down situations the variability in the country itself can be very large.

Perhaps a more reliable way come to grips with what is going on is by region or state. In this case the 60 odd million inhabitants in Hubei have had about 3000 deaths so their death rate is more like 500 - this has nothing to do with the Chinese govt but more to do with whoever is drawing up those tables.

Even in a relatively small, highly infected country like Italy (current death rate of 218 per million) the death rates across regions are quite large
eg Lombardy has a death rate of about 700/million whereas in the very adjacent region of Veneto their date rate is about 1/7th of this.
800 km away in the southern Apuglia regional of Italy the death rate is about 1/23rd that of Lombardy

Remember it's the regional or even local town/suburb death rates that matters more to an individuals risk. What goes on elsewhere in locked down situations has a much reduced impact on their risks.

We can't really do AUS state by state comparisons yet because the death rates are too low - which I guess itself says something. Maybe something to do with seniors being more careful and the 20-40 age group being the more careless ones?

Originally Posted by woodPixel

Attachment 470780

And the WHO are now also doing an hmmmmm... on that too.

WHO considers changing guidance on wearing face masks | World news | The Guardian


I have a few spare in my workshop, but they are not going to last long if this goes on as long as they are suggesting.

Might have to resort to my 3M respirator... that's going to scatter the other shoppers in the Woolworth aisles!

3M Versaflo.jpg

The face mask wearing advice was IMHO 99% founded on preventing vital limited supplies of masks being hoarded by the community over the needs of medical people that really need them. Once masks are readily available I reckon everyone should be using them - they might only be a 1/2% factor but at this stage in the battle we need every 1/2% we can t get.

This vid shows that just talking loudly generates lots of droplets in the air.
Microdroplets pose coronavirus risk | NHK WORLD-JAPAN News

Originally Posted by BobL

Apart from a bit of hand waving I would be very wary of using this data to compare countries at this stage
For a start not all countries are on the same part of the pandemic curve.

Then, for large countries like China,, AUS and USA especially in (semi) lock down situations the variability in the country itself can be very large......

Very informative article on the BBC discussing the many causes of the apparent variances in fatality rates between countries.
Coronavirus: Why death and mortality rates differ - BBC Future

They explicitly compared Italy and China.
The crude fatality rate in Italy is 7.2%.
The crude death rate in China is 2.3%, less than a third that of Italy.
"... But from the ages of zero to 69, the two country’s case fatality rates are comparable, note researchers from the Istituto Superiore di Sanità in Rome....".
The difference in fatality rates occurs almost totally in those over 70 years of age.
China has comparatively few older people. "...In 2019, nearly a quarter of the Italian population was 65 years or older, compared to only 11% in China....".

A seventy year old today would have been born c.1950. The life expectancy at birth for someone born 1950-55 was:

• Australia - 69.37 years,
• China - 43.83 years,
• Italy - 66.52 years.

Essentially this is suggesting that the most vulnerable Chinese would have already died before they could be a victim of the coronavirus.
[Source: UN figures quoted in ]Bad title - Wikipedia

Another major difference between Italy and Oz is that many Italian seniors live with their extended family. My Italian mum (has moderate dementia, also thinks she still lives in Italy) was aghast when we set her up in in a Dementia care facility. "Whats the point of having 10 kids when then send you off to go a live with strangers etc etc. . . . ."

But it's not just about losing seniors, losing half a hundred specialist doctors and scores of nurses from just one hospital, is dare I say more significant - these people will cost a fortune and a decade to replace. It's like losing pilots during the battle of Britain - these people are true heroes. "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few"

Originally Posted by BobL

.... "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few"

...

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

A seventy year old today would have been born c.1950. The life expectancy at birth for someone born 1950-55 was:

• Australia - 69.37 years,
• China - 43.83 years,
• Italy - 66.52 years.

Essentially this is suggesting that the most vulnerable Chinese would have already died before they could be a victim of the coronavirus.
[Source: UN figures quoted in ]Bad title - Wikipedia

Not quite, longevity is a complex thing and early removal from the gene pool could be due to many factors; famine, displeasing the political masters, playing with too many crackers, diet, lifestyle, being in the way of a large village cart, helping out in the vietnamese war etc. The seniors that get towards the end of their life could be just as fragile and health compromised as any other seniors population.

OTOH my limited experience of travelling in China was that I did not see anywhere near as many obese and overweight people as I did in Italy, Oz or USA. Lots of seniors also outside doing organised exercises in public spaces (or I assume working manually on small farms etc).

The average senior Italian that lives in cities would live a life of minimal exercise not unlike AUS/Oz. Those that live in the countryside are probably fitter, they live in multi-storey houses so have to climb multiple flights of stairs. Many are gardeners and walkers and those that live anywhere near mountains often have an interest in walking/hiking even climbing.

Originally Posted by BobL

Not quite, longevity is a complex thing and early removal from the gene pool could be due to many factors; famine, displeasing the political masters, playing with too many crackers, diet, lifestyle, being in the way of a large village cart, helping out in the vietnamese war etc. The seniors that get towards the end of their life could be just as fragile and health compromised as any other seniors population.

BobL you've left out the possible major variable -- exposure to communicable diseases like polio, measles, mumps, whooping cough, etc -- these are largely childhood killers get infected early in live and either die or survive with compromised immune systems.

VACCINES were the longevity enhances in the west well before they were available in places like China.

Originally Posted by BobL

....60 odd million inhabitants in Hubei have had about 3000 deaths so their death rate is more like 500

Less one zero.

And, if you compare that with other regions with populations of about 60m then Hubei Provence did OK as a first responder without the benefit of learning from the experience of others, although China did experience some of the earlier epidemics.

Not that I'm a great fan of China's political system, but what I think is impressive is that they have kept the epidemic to a very low level in their other provinces which when combined have a population of 1.4bn people, twice that of Europe. Had Europe and the US (our main sources of infection) paid closer attention to how China was handling the epidemic the world would be in a much better place now.

Here's another interesting Graph with a 5 day average
From Is Australia flattening the coronavirus curve? Look at the charts ... | Australia news | The Guardian

Screen Shot 2020-04-02 at 3.21.43 pm.jpg

Here's another interesting Graph with a 5 day average
From Is Australia flattening the coronavirus curve? Look at the charts ... | Australia news | The Guardian

Screen Shot 2020-04-02 at 3.21.43 pm.jpg