Keeping the coronavirus from infecting healthcare workers • Hacker News Board

Re: Keeping the coronavirus from infecting healthcare workers

#81

Post by makomk » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 4:11 PM UTC

wbl wrote: post #43

makomk wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Something ridiculous like 95% of surgical masks and 75% of N95 masks are normally imported from China, because theirs were slightly cheaper. Almost all of them have been diverted to domestic use. Now the US, with almost no manufacturing capabilities, has doctors and nurses who are forced to use dubious improvised masks whilst China increases its international influence by selling a small fraction of its output…

3M is in Minnesota. There was no effort to make more masks in the months we had. This is entirely a failure of government at all levels.

3M and the various US surgical mask manufacturers have been ramping up production since, if I remember rightly, January, but that's not enough to cope with even the normal demand for them let alone the extra supplies needed due to the coronavirus.

Re: Keeping the coronavirus from infecting healthcare workers

#82

Post by DoreenMichele » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 4:15 PM UTC

staticautomatic wrote: post #74

konamicode wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They just need to be put into boiling water for a few minutes to kill sars-cov-2 at 100%. I was looking for information on (high) heat killing viruses such as sars-cov-2. Are you able to point to a reliable source on this?

Are you aware of any viruses not killed by high heat?

I imagine viruses from underwater volcanic plumes would be pretty heat tolerant. But I don't know if they are a danger to humans or if we are too cold to host them.

Re: Keeping the coronavirus from infecting healthcare workers

#83

Post by the8472 » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 4:15 PM UTC

jtdev wrote: post #4

Can we all agree that outsourcing the production of critical medical supplies to China over recent decades was a bad idea? I understand the “golden arches” theory, and the intent if globalism, but I feel that COVID19 has revealed what a short sighted, deeply flawed view the globalists have.

Not just that, global air travel has enabled the rapid spread of the virus in the first place.

Re: Keeping the coronavirus from infecting healthcare workers

#84

Post by gnusty_gnurc » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 4:18 PM UTC

hatenberg wrote: post #50

gnusty_gnurc wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as they’re operating concentration camps, it’s the duty of the rest of the free world to oppose them. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-concentrationca...

This mindset and the ideological blinders it introduces is a huge problem. When china went aggressive on the virus people looked at it as draconian measures because of the ideological lens, not looking further to see the measures were absolutely necessary by scientific fact. When Singapore started to spring into action, the western press was musing about election posturing all the while nobody prepared. Ideology kill…

> When china went aggressive on the virus people looked at it as draconian measures because of the ideological lens, not looking further to see the measures were absolutely necessary by scientific fact.

None of this would have been necessary if the doctors reporting the Wuhan virus weren’t killed for presenting bad news. There’s clear evidence that the Chinese waited far too long to start acting and alerting others. Also there’s absolutely no reason to believe the Chinese are reporting accurate numbers.

The ideology that’s dangerous is authoritarian government. It happened in Chernobyl and it’s been repeated time and again with China and their respiratory illnesses from easily preventable sources.

Re: Keeping the coronavirus from infecting healthcare workers

#85

Post by wbl » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 4:20 PM UTC

makomk wrote: post #81

wbl wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3M is in Minnesota. There was no effort to make more masks in the months we had. This is entirely a failure of government at all levels.

3M and the various US surgical mask manufacturers have been ramping up production since, if I remember rightly, January, but that's not enough to cope with even the normal demand for them let alone the extra supplies needed due to the coronavirus.

With the Feds helping and mandating setup of new lines and paying for them so much more could have happened.

Re: Keeping the coronavirus from infecting healthcare workers

#86

Post by pas » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 4:25 PM UTC

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #66

gnusty_gnurc wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as they’re operating concentration camps, it’s the duty of the rest of the free world to oppose them. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-concentrationca...

You talking about the Chinese, or the US with for profit prisons and slavery enshrined in the US constitution (slavery allowed in punishment of a crime deemed guilty by 12 white men).

Do you have numbers on the composition of juries nowadays? How representative the are of their communities?

Re: Keeping the coronavirus from infecting healthcare workers

#87

Post by pas » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 4:31 PM UTC

hatenberg wrote: post #50

gnusty_gnurc wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as they’re operating concentration camps, it’s the duty of the rest of the free world to oppose them. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-concentrationca...

This mindset and the ideological blinders it introduces is a huge problem. When china went aggressive on the virus people looked at it as draconian measures because of the ideological lens, not looking further to see the measures were absolutely necessary by scientific fact. When Singapore started to spring into action, the western press was musing about election posturing all the while nobody prepared. Ideology kill…

Small city-states (Singapore, Hong Kong) with dense urban populations were always more cautious about epidemics.

And it's not like no one was speaking about how unprepared the 'West' has been for years. (Bill Gates' TED talk is making the rounds now that talks exactly about this.)

It's not ideology. Not morality. It's simply a matter of cost-benefit analysis. Public health has been put on the backburner for decades, life expectancy was slowly creeping up, people were getting lazy, and the biggest problem was obesity.

And even though experts were constantly recommending more spending, more stockpiles, etc. it found no traction in politics. And here we are.

Re: Keeping the coronavirus from infecting healthcare workers

#88

Post by brigandish » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 4:37 PM UTC

taeric wrote: post #39

brigandish wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How widespread is widespread? Japan, South Korea, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan… these are countries in which people wear masks in large numbers on a normal day. They all still have an R0 above 1.

Does Japan? Last I saw, they had an inexplicably low curve. Despite not really testing or doing other measures.

Well, I live in Japan and went out properly today for the first time in days, and I can tell you that the R0 is above 1 by eye simply by the way people are behaving.

Social distancing isn't happening much at all, and unless the population is magically becoming immune then there's no way R0 is less than 1. The real questions are whether that will translate into symptomatic and serious cases, and when.

Re: Keeping the coronavirus from infecting healthcare workers

#89

Post by undersuit » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 4:40 PM UTC

staticautomatic wrote: post #74

konamicode wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They just need to be put into boiling water for a few minutes to kill sars-cov-2 at 100%. I was looking for information on (high) heat killing viruses such as sars-cov-2. Are you able to point to a reliable source on this?

Are you aware of any viruses not killed by high heat?

How hot is high heat? There are viruses that infect archaea that live in extreme conditions including near-boiling water.

Re: Keeping the coronavirus from infecting healthcare workers

#90

Post by zeroonetwothree » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 4:43 PM UTC

chmod775 wrote: post #46

konamicode wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They just need to be put into boiling water for a few minutes to kill sars-cov-2 at 100%. I was looking for information on (high) heat killing viruses such as sars-cov-2. Are you able to point to a reliable source on this?

> I was looking for information on (high) killing viruses They're not really alive, so they can't be killed. But you can destroy vital parts of them and make them unable to reproduce. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denaturation_%28biochemistry%2...

It’s controversial. Some would characterize viruses as alive (because they replicate and evolve). So it’s fair to say that you can kill them (prevent from replicating). Debating the semantics of this is not helpful.