COVID-19 Coronavirus Containment Efforts

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Ygggdrasil said:
The major advantage of a vaccine over a prophylactic nasal spray would be that a vaccine would give lasting protection after 1-2 doses whereas the prophylactic nasal spray would likely have to be re-applied frequently to offer protection throughout the periods where the viruses are being transmitted.
Might still be interesting if you need to go to a high risk area temporarily - or if you want to stop the spread of a new disease before it becomes a pandemic.
 
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Biology news on Phys.org
The number of virus-related deaths reported in the United States reached 2,216 — the equivalent of one death every 39 seconds, and the highest single-day death count since June 26. The figure has been climbing relentlessly, and health experts expect it to soon approach or exceed the single-day peak from early in the pandemic: 2,752 on April 15.
The number of cases is going up dramatically, and we may see over 200K new cases per day soon, but . . .
A far smaller proportion of people who catch the virus are dying from it than were in the spring
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/11/25/world/covid-19-coronavirus
 
nsaspook said:
Is there a general consensus on what is driving the increasing numbers of cases even in locations with high conformance to control measures? Is the weather, virus mutations, or what?
I heard a couple of discussions that small group gatherings of people (and some larger gathers at bars or clubs or religions establishments) who relax indoors without masks are passing along the virus. I'm looking at two areas with comparable populations, one in NY state and the other in Washington state. The one in Washington state has twice the number of cases as the one in NY, and it appears to be related to the proportion of the population which decides not to observe precautions such as wearing masks and socially distancing. I have a colleague who has participated in gatherings without a mask, and he feels he's not at risk. Others he knows have had positive tests and not become seriously ill, and he's had to get tested at least one due to possible exposure. I am much more cautious, and I wear a mask in public, maintain distance to the extent possible and minimize my time around others outside of the home.
 
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There is some confusion about the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine trial. Apparently some people got a lower first dose than planned (50%), and now the question is how to analyze that data.
Going by raw numbers a lower first dose seems to lead to a better protection - but that group has a younger average age, and it's unclear how that comparison would be once corrected for age.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...ne-hit-90-success-rate-thanks-to-dosing-error
https://www.twincities.com/2020/11/25/astrazeneca-manufacturing-error-clouds-vaccine-study-results/
 
A strange victim of the pandemic: Scented candles. Since the beginning of the year Amazon reviews complaining about a lack of smell have gone up and average ratings have gone down. A lack of smell is a typical COVID-19 symptom.
Not a scientific study, but nevertheless an interesting data analysis.
 
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The graph of reviews mentioning lack of smell by month seems pretty unconvincing to me.

I would guess the real problem is either a new customer base trying the candles, or a decrease in manufacturing quality because of supply chain issues.

The graph also suggests that maybe 3% additional customers complaining of lack of smell. If you think they went from a 5 to 1 star review, 4 stars * 3 percent of people is 0.12 stars, not a full star.
 
Office_Shredder said:
The graph of reviews mentioning lack of smell by month seems pretty unconvincing to me.
It is quite closely matching the trend of COVID-19 in the US. A first peak in April, and then another big peak in October/November.

I don't see how manufacturing problems could explain that (a lack of quantity doesn't lead to bad ratings), especially as unscented candles didn't drop that much in their rating.
Office_Shredder said:
The graph also suggests that maybe 3% additional customers complaining of lack of smell. If you think they went from a 5 to 1 star review, 4 stars * 3 percent of people is 0.12 stars, not a full star.
As discussed in the tweets, many reviews don't give a reason.
 
mfb said:
It is quite closely matching the trend of COVID-19 in the US. A first peak in April, and then another big peak in October/November.

What about the second peak in July that was bigger than the April one? And why are the cases per day supposed to be so b temporally correlated with lack of scent complaints, but the actual average review doesn't go up and down?

I don't see how manufacturing problems could explain that (a lack of quantity doesn't lead to bad ratings), especially as unscented candles didn't drop that much in their rating.
As discussed in the tweets, many reviews don't give a reason.

Manufacturing problems can result in your primary supply chain shutting down, so you go to a back up manufacturer whose stuff isn't as good.
 
Although I knew about the anosmia, I never delved further into how long it lasted, nor thought about some serious implications:

Mysteries of COVID Smell Loss Finally Yield Some Answers
Explanations begin to arise at the molecular level for this vexing but commonplace symptom
By Stephani Sutherland on November 18, 2020
Scientific American

...
“The majority of patients lose smell like a light switch going off and recover it rapidly,” Datta says. “There’s a fraction of patients that have much more persistent anosmia and recover on longer time scales.”
...
“If the house were on fire, I wouldn’t know it. It’s very concerning.”
...
Carol Yan, a rhinologist at the University of California, San Diego, says that anosmia poses a real health risk. “It actually increases mortality. If you can’t smell and taste food, it can predispose you to harm, like rotten food or a gas leak,”

Smoke detector battery: √
 
Office_Shredder said:
What about the second peak in July that was bigger than the April one?
It was bigger by confirmed cases but clearly not by actual spread of the disease.
The average review is a long-term average, it went down continuously over 2020.
Office_Shredder said:
Manufacturing problems can result in your primary supply chain shutting down, so you go to a back up manufacturer whose stuff isn't as good.
Doesn't explain the difference between scented candles and unscented candles, and why everyone selling scented candles would suddenly have the same problem.
 
mfb said:
A strange victim of the pandemic: Scented candles. Since the beginning of the year Amazon reviews complaining about a lack of smell have gone up and average ratings have gone down. A lack of smell is a typical COVID-19 symptom.
Not a scientific study, but nevertheless an interesting data analysis.

I wonder to what degree odor desensitization plays a role, due to wfh causing longer exposure time
 
nsaspook said:
Is there a general consensus on what is driving the increasing numbers of cases even in locations with high conformance to control measures? Is the weather, virus mutations, or what?

Look at a map of infection rates by State. You tell me if you see a pattern. It isn't rocket science.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109004/coronavirus-covid19-cases-rate-us-americans-by-state/

Compare for example the infection rates in Idaho, North or South Dakota, to Washington, Oregon, or California.
 
Ivan Seeking said:
Look at a map of infection rates by State. You tell me if you see a pattern. It isn't rocket science.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109004/coronavirus-covid19-cases-rate-us-americans-by-state/

Compare for example the infection rates in Idaho, North or South Dakota, to Washington, Oregon, or California.

My question was really about locations with high conformance to control measures like Washington, Oregon or California. For locations with low conformance to control measures it's not rocket science. Those people should be #2 on the list for emergency vaccination using the first doses because inoculation of the super-spreaders IMO will have the most bang for buck for reducing cases.

https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavi...1599-new-cases-and-9-deaths-are-reported.html
The Oregon Health Authority on Sunday announced a near-record 1,599 new positive or presumed positive Coronavirus cases as the state’s caseload remained high despite Gov. Kate Brown’s ongoing freeze.

https://projects.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/
 
Last edited:
New cases peaked earlier in November for many European countries, since then they have dropped again. New deaths begin to drop now.
Didn't check every single country, but that's the trend in Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Spain and Austria.

New restrictions contributed to that - we'll see how the situation evolves once they get loosened again. If it's linked to the outside temperatures then the winter will get ... interesting.
 
mfb said:
New restrictions contributed to that - we'll see how the situation evolves once they get loosened again. If it's linked to the outside temperatures then the winter will get ... interesting.
We've also got Covidmas to get through!
 
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The Coronavirus was present in the U.S. weeks earlier than scientists and public health officials previously thought, and before cases in China were publicly identified, according to a new government study published Monday. . . . "SARS-CoV-2 infections may have been present in the U.S. in December 2019, earlier than previously recognized," the authors said.
https://www.npr.org/sections/corona...eeks-earlier-than-previously-known-study-says
Researchers found Coronavirus antibodies in 39 samples from California, Oregon, and Washington as early as Dec. 13 to Dec. 16. They also discovered antibodies in 67 samples from Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin in early January — before widespread outbreaks in those states.

Despite the findings, widespread community transmission in the U.S. was unlikely until late February, the authors said.
 
Covid Pfizer vaccine approved for use next week in UK
Top [priority] are care home residents and staff, people over 80 and other health and social care workers.
800,000 doses arrive in the next days. That's enough for the first dose for a bit over 1% of the population. The 10 million doses that should arrive "soon" could cover the healthcare sector and probably more beyond that.
 
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Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine judged safe for use in UK

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55145696
The doses will be rolled out as quickly as they can be made by Pfizer in Belgium, Mr Hancock said, with the first load next week and then "several millions" throughout December.
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the first people in Scotland will be immunised on Tuesday.
 
Over 3100 Covid deaths reported in the US yesterday. That's the highest we've seen.
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

We are expecting to see over 4000 deaths per day before we're out of this. If we surpass the 400,000 dead mark in Feb as expected, then Covid will have killed as many American in a year as did WWII in four.
 
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Ivan Seeking said:
We are expecting to see over 4000 deaths per day before we're out of this. If we surpass the 400,000 dead mark in Feb as expected, then Covid will have killed as many American in a year as did WWII in four.

This is not really a valid comparison. The US is a country of 330 million people and has, therefore, about 3 million deaths per year. Is that really the equivalent of seven WWII's every year?

The difference is that the WWII deaths were predominantly young men with their whole lives ahead of them, dying before their parents, and/or leaving wives and young families. This leaves an impossible comparison with Covid deaths (or annual cancer deaths). They are two incomparable sets of deaths.

The Covid death toll in most of Europe and North and South America is getting towards 0.1%. The US in that respect is no different from many other countries (better than some, worse than others).

What's also not clear is how many of the Covid deaths were/are truly avoidable. If take Australia or Japan or South Korea as a benchmark, then almost every one of the 1.5 million deaths globally was avoidable. Is that really the case? That seems to me an almost impossible question.
 
PeroK said:
This is not really a valid comparison. The US is a country of 330 million people and has, therefore, about 3 million deaths per year. Is that really the equivalent of seven WWII's every year?

I'm sorry, I think 400,000 is still equal to 400,000. ;)
 
Ivan Seeking said:
I'm sorry, I think 400,000 is still equal to 400,000. ;)
When Covid is over, what are you going to do about the annual 3 million deaths in the US? You could save 40,000 lives a year by banning road transportation, for example. Why wouldn't you do that if it would save 40,000 lives and half a million serious injuries a year?
 
PeroK said:
The difference is that the WWII deaths were predominantly young men with their whole lives ahead of them, dying before their parents, and/or leaving wives and young families. This leaves an impossible comparison with Covid deaths (or annual cancer deaths). They are two incomparable sets of deaths.

If you die of Covid, your average age is 83. If you reach 83, you have statistically about 7.5 years of life left, so it's 2 million years of life lost.

That's about 1/3 the number from accidents. I am not saying 1/3 is big or 1/3 is small. Just that it's 1/3. (And it's about 1/5 the number from cancer)
 
https://www.lamayor.org/sites/g/files/wph446/f/page/file/20201202%20Mayor%20Public%20Order%20Targeted%20SAH%20Order_1.pdf
Subject only to the exceptions outlined in this Order, all persons living within the City of Los Angeles are hereby ordered to remain in their homes. Residents of the City of Los Angeles who are experiencing homelessness are exempt from this requirement.
IV. All travel, including, without limitation, travel on foot, bicycle, scooter, motorcycle, automobile, or public transit is prohibited, subject to the exceptions in Paragraph V. V. Exceptions. People may lawfully leave their residences while this Order is in effect only to engage in the following activities. All businesses operating under any of the following exemptions must comply with all applicable protocols set forth by the State of California and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.
Is this a lockdown?:wink:

https://abc7.com/mayor-eric-garcetti-coronavirus-covid-19-los-angeles-stay-at-home/8455720/

Garcetti issues stronger warning to Angelenos: 'Hunker down ... cancel everything'
 
PeroK said:
What's also not clear is how many of the Covid deaths were/are truly avoidable. If take Australia or Japan or South Korea as a benchmark, then almost every one of the 1.5 million deaths globally was avoidable. Is that really the case? That seems to me an almost impossible question.
Island countries (true and effective) are probably not the best comparison. Two of these countries also have a very different culture than Europe/North America.
But we do have another comparison nearby: Germany is at 0.020% deaths overall, far below the numbers of most of its neighbors. Denmark is lower at 0.014%. Austria at 0.035% is the next lowest.
If everyone would be at 0.020% then the US would have avoided 200,000 deaths, the UK and Italy would have avoided 45,000 each, Spain 35,000. India would have had 140,000 additional deaths if their counts are accurate.

What did Germany do better? In March/April the more aggressive testing was certainly a contribution, but now test rates are high everywhere. More effective restrictions? A higher compliance with advice/restrictions? I don't know. Here is an interesting news about the recent surge:
Germany says it dealt with COVID-19 so well that some people doubted the virus' existence, and broke the rules. It just reported its highest daily death toll, at 487.
It still looks good in the international comparison.
 
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