Italy, Veneto Region: our first delivery of masks for our family (3) just got volun-delivered. They are single-use and it is very emphasised on an accompanying sheet that they will not stop the virus, they are for when you have to absolutely go out, as we are still on lockdown: transgression of which has gone from €260 in fines up to €4000. Of course, when the masks were delivered a whole bunch of people immediately went to the communal post-boxes area to pick them up and talk about it.....oh, well.
How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down
151–160 of 287 posts
Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down
#152Great for them, so far, but let's hope that a vaccine is found and fast. This cannot be maintained for ages. The mask thing, even if not N95 makes sense, you don't touch your face. Go home wash etc etc.
There's no possible hope of a vaccine that comes fast. We already have a 'found' (made) a bunch of candidate vaccines that might work, but there's a huge gap between having a candidate vaccine and something that's available to inject in nearly everyone. It takes a year or so of testing to see what it actually does and if it really makes things better and doesn't hurt healthy people.
So we hope that there's a vaccine coming next year, but we're certain that there will be no vaccine this year. This will definitely be going on for many more months no matter if it "cannot be maintained".
Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
We have face mask mandatory now in Czech Republic, Italy scared us and goverment reacted quickly. Its not over yet but we are on the right track. https://news.expats.cz/health-medical/breaking-face-covering...
How does that work when it's impossible to buy masks anywhere?
They're making their own.
Sometimes, quite stylishly: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/president-slovakia-coronaviru...
Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down
#154So have Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia (440 million people). They've all had fewer cases than Luxembourg so far. I've yet to see a good explanation for it, other than maybe the premise about seasonal temps and humidity (northern vs southern hemisphere). There's no evidence they're massively lying about their numbers (which would show up in the form of a demolished hospital system and thousands dead of pneumo…
What if there are multiple strands of the virus, and Europe is being dominated by the more potent one? We might not even be surprised that the more potent version ended up on the other side of the planet.
Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a small sample, but it's a comprehensive one as everyone was tested. On the Diamond Pricess, it only reached 20% of the people on board, and of those 60% had no medical symptoms. Overall 1% of people catching it died. As a cruise ship the passengers tend to be older, but the crew tend to be younger. Doesn't matter if you test 1 million people or 10,000 people, if you aren't doing statistically significant tests,…
Statistics is not the only purpose of testing! If physical distancing is successful in reducing the reproduction number (R0), you will then want to track, trace and isolate every case to prevent further outbreaks when you relax the rules. That means a lot of testing.
OP said
"better understanding of the virus' properties, like the distribution of symptoms, severities, and mortality rate"
Random and self-selecting testing doesn't seem to offer much in that. Imagine going to a Nics game and asking everyone there who they support, chances are you'll get a lot of Nics fans.
How does that give you a better indication of mortality rate or severity if you have no idea how many people actually have it, because you only have a statistically insignificant tests.
Sure, if you're in the stage where you want to lock down specific people (like South Korea) then random widespread testing works to increase the number of locked down people.
But if you're in a country where you've locked down everyone already, then testing could well be increasing the risk.
If the population assumes they've tested positive, and acts like they are, then what does testing add?
Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
German resident here, our chief virologist that everyone listens to, Christian Drosten, was firmly against mask usage in the common population, until just now, the RKI was similarly unhelpful when communicating advice for the disease. The population is completely confused and feel righteous anger now telling people off when they wear professional (medical disposable, or ffp3/n95) masks to go shopping or elsewhere. It…
I don't know about that expert, but the reason I usually hear about not using masks is so that health professionals could get them - ie, the problem is that supply isn't currently enough for everybody, and we should prioritise those for which it's most helpful.
The problem with using "masks don't work!" to keep the supply available for healthcare is later on, when supply is available for universal mask wearing, they'll have eroded public trust when they do the 180 on the advice.
They should've instead:
* Banned sales of masks to the public until healthcare and other essential workers had enough stock.
* Honestly conveyed the reasons for the above ban, in WWII-style "do your part" advertisements etc.
* Encouraged homemade cloth masks, bandannas, etc. to reduce the spread of droplets.
* Ramped up surgical mask production to get supply to the general public as soon as possible.
Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down
#157Last few days though, more numbers are being reported of new infections in both China and South Korea. Yesterday more than 100+ in SK I think.
Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down
#158Again another article that doesn't even mention the use of masks and hand sanitizer. The cost of the epidemic now goes into the trillions, self-made cotton masks are cheap compared to the economic damage. They can be disinfected in boiling water and if everybody uses them they will help to stop the spreading of the virus. In all the countries mentioned in the article people wear masks when in public, often just again…
There was a study that showed cotton masks can actually be worse. A medical person showed me the other day, I’ll have to ask for the link
This is the only definitive study I've seen, and it recommends cotton masks: https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/c...
Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
You do NOT know if you are infected. Asymptomatic carriers is a major problem for COVID-19. A figure I saw was about 50% of infections come from them. Here's evidence and list of 34 science papers backing up the utility of masks in slowing down a viral epidemic: Thread with charts, articles, link to paper summaries: https://twitter.com/jeremyphoward/status/1242894378441506816 ADDED: Just the list of papers & their br…
Could you post the list here for us who can't use twitter (permanently disabled JS).
Then your browser does a shitty job of telling Twitter that. Properly blocked JS gives you a link to "legacy" Twitter, which works perfectly without JS. At least viewing, which is all I do.
Does this link work for you?
https://mobile.twitter.com/jeremyphoward/status/124289437844...
Re: How South Korea Reined In The Outbreak Without Shutting Everything Down
#160Another effing article that completely ignores Taiwan... I’m no taiwanophile, but why is it that a first-world democracy with a successful strategy against Covid is being completely ignored by media? https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762689 Taiwan has huge flows of Chinese people, yet no outbreak. Maybe it’s a good thing they are not recognised by the WHO?
Perhaps, because the article is about countries who have been able to kind of contain the disease without resorting to drastic measures?