Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!
-
@Benjamin-Hall
Even if you were right about the biggest risk group (which I'm not sure about), you're assuming that immunity will apply to all new strains of the virus that are currently forming, which is highly unlikely.
-
@dfdub said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Benjamin-Hall
Even if you were right about the biggest risk group (which I'm not sure about), you're assuming that immunity will apply to all new strains of the virus that are currently forming, which is highly unlikely.One of the few good things in this shit-show has been that predictions said it does not seem to be mutating as fast as other virus strains. Of course, you can never know that, but at least there’s some sliver of hope there.
-
@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Second wave? What second wave.
In autumn. When nobody will care about it even though it'll have twice the death toll.
At this point unlikely unless immunity is really really short. For no other reason that that most of the worst of the death toll was concentrated among a very small population. Who are now mostly either exposed or dead. With 80+% of the deaths in people over 65, eventually we'll run out of people in that category who don't have at least some immunity.
Well, yes, but note that most people contracted it in April and May. When the average general resistance to illness is much higher than in fall-winter season.
-
@topspin said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@dfdub said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Benjamin-Hall
Even if you were right about the biggest risk group (which I'm not sure about), you're assuming that immunity will apply to all new strains of the virus that are currently forming, which is highly unlikely.One of the few good things in this shit-show has been that predictions said it does not seem to be mutating as fast as other virus strains. Of course, you can never know that, but at least there’s some sliver of hope there.
Yeah. Everything I've seen says that this one mutates exceptionally slowly (at least where it counts). Basically not at all in functional terms. And even flu strains (which mutate real fast) take a year or two to do so, not a few months. It's just that the flu season usually has bunches of them, most of which are pre-established and just come more or less to the fore.
-
@acrow said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
I would not ban anyone from returning to their own country.
This establishes beyond any doubt that you’re not part of the Moroccan authorities.
-
@PleegWat said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Standing mask rules here:
- Masks are mandatory in certain situations, like public transit.
- It is accepted scientific fact that only FFP2 or better certified masks are effective against coronavirus
- Possession of a mask with any certification whatsoever is prohibited.
I own a military surplus Dutch Army gas mask bag with full contents, including an NBC face mask (two layers of impregnated cloth with probably a filter in-between, and elasticated bands so you can wear it). I suspect this is certified somehow, probably some NATO rating against chemical agents. Damn, I seem to be breaking the law with my militaria collection … again.
-
@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
And there just aren't that many 65+ people.
8.8% of the total population (2018) and increasing. More in the western world (US = 15% for example).Source.
Don't know that makes them "many" or "not many".
-
@Gurth said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@PleegWat said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Standing mask rules here:
- Masks are mandatory in certain situations, like public transit.
- It is accepted scientific fact that only FFP2 or better certified masks are effective against coronavirus
- Possession of a mask with any certification whatsoever is prohibited.
I own a military surplus Dutch Army gas mask bag with full contents, including an NBC face mask (two layers of impregnated cloth with probably a filter in-between, and elasticated bands so you can wear it). I suspect this is certified somehow, probably some NATO rating against chemical agents. Damn, I seem to be breaking the law with my militaria collection … again.
Passengers aged 13 and over will be required to wear a non-medical face mask on trams, buses, water buses, metros and trains. In stations, on platforms and at bus and tram stops face masks are not required. You can buy or make your own non-medical face masks.
...
How much is the fine for not wearing a non-medical face mask on public transport?
The fine can be up to €95.Your mask is military, not medical, so you should be fine according to my Interwebs Law Degree.
-
@PleegWat said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
after we'd sent our back supply to china as medial aid the month before.
at least you once had a supply. Ours was apparently allowed to expire while politicians quabled about who should keep an emergency stock.
-
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2006372
The part that applies to most of us:
We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection. Public health authorities define a significant exposure to Covid-19 as face-to-face contact within 6 feet with a patient with symptomatic Covid-19 that is sustained for at least a few minutes (and some say more than 10 minutes or even 30 minutes). The chance of catching Covid-19 from a passing interaction in a public space is therefore minimal. In many cases, the desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic.
This is interesting, too (I think we've had some mild flaming over this subject):
In our hospitals, we have already seen a number of instances in which staff members either came to work well but developed symptoms of Covid-19 partway through their shifts or worked with mild and ambiguous symptoms that were subsequently diagnosed as Covid-19. These cases have led to large numbers of our patients and staff members being exposed to the virus and a handful of potentially linked infections in health care workers.
-
Although most of Argentina is reopening, Buenos Aires is still in lockdown, and now there are people spreading the word that lockdown in Buenos Aires will continue until at least August. That means five months of lockdown in total. And when I say lockdown, I mean plenty of businesses are not allowed to reopen and people can't move freely (you need a certificate from the government that says why you are leaving your house and where you are going and there are police checkpoints every couple of kilometers), so it's more strict than in USA, though not as strict as in Spain or Italy.
-
@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Just thank goodness that this thing is so much less nasty than Ebola or even SARS.
Indeed, despite it having a vile sting in the tail for people who go on to the advanced stages of the disease with all the weird systemic problems.
-
@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Everything I've seen says that this one mutates exceptionally slowly (at least where it counts). Basically not at all in functional terms.
Alas, you're not talking about something with nice predictable linear progression, but rather a random (low-frequency) process. If the roll of the dice comes up wrong, the alteration happens and the evidence we've seen so far is that this one spreads fast. And with a lot of people infected, the number of times a minute those dice get rolled is far too high for comfort. (We might be luckier, and have some actively-conserved parts of the virus available for antibody binding; such a thing exists for some viruses, but not others.)
IOW, I wish I had your optimism.
-
@dkf sure. Lots of things could happen. But (I can't believe I'm the one saying this) assuming that the worst will happen when there's no evidence that it's even a decent probability (if this one were prone to functional mutation, we'd have seen it, plus there are mechanisms this one has that the flu lacks to stop mutation) is not a good idea.
"What if it mutated fast/no one gets immunity" is not something we can plan for. Because the only response then is "we're screwed no matter what we do." The current mode (lockdowns, etc) is unsustainable even in the short run, let alone years or indefinitely. And even the strictest places are still seeing deaths. So eradication is impractical as well.
-
-
A single statistic may hold the key to resolving the ongoing debate over COVID-19 lockdowns
In a world where policies are decided based on facts instead of emotions, it could.
-
@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
A single statistic may hold the key to resolving the ongoing debate over COVID-19 lockdowns
In a world where policies are decided based on facts instead of emotions, it could.
Yeah. But it should matter. Sad that it probably won't, however.
-
@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Your mask is military, not medical, so you should be fine according to my Interwebs Law Degree.
I won’t be using it anyway — when I heard about the requirement to wear masks in public transport, I dug it out and tried it on, but quickly decided I wouldn’t want to wear it unless I have to. Not only does it smell of the stuff it’s impregnated with, it’s also made of some synthetic fibre that makes it rather hot to wear.
-
Onebox said:
42% Of U.S. Deaths Are From 0.6% Of The Population
Let me guess: the remaining 58% of deaths came from 0.8% of the population.
-
@Zecc said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Onebox said:
42% Of U.S. Deaths Are From 0.6% Of The Population
Let me guess: the remaining 58% of deaths came from 0.8% of the population.
I’m pretty sure that 100% of deaths came from 0.032% of the population.
-
Not sure if entirely accurate, but it looks nice:
-
@dfdub said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Not sure if entirely accurate
They're applying quite a bit of smoothing to the non-COVID numbers, but it's a good representation of why people are so damn worried about the disease.
-
@dkf The non-COVID numbers seem to be interpolated from yearly statistics.
-
@dfdub Wow, is that an interactive embed? The pause/play button works and you can click (and drag!) on the timeline to seek.
-
@dfdub said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Not sure if entirely accurate, but it looks nice:
I don't see heart disease anywhere on there, so it's definitely not complete. From Worldometer's front page:
24,243,932 Deaths this year
Which tracks with, "Except COVID, causes of death shown account for ~7% of global deaths annually." So I'm not sure why anyone would even bother to make that graph. I can't find the source data (plenty of pages talking about COVID but not about all the other stuff).
@dkf said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
They're applying quite a bit of smoothing to the non-COVID numbers, but it's a good representation of why people are so damn worried about the disease.
Yes, a lot of things have been exaggerated and blown out of proportion.
-
@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
I don't see heart disease anywhere on there
Well, I didn't say it was useful, I just liked the animation.
-
@dfdub said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
I don't see heart disease anywhere on there
Well, I didn't say it was useful, I just liked the animation.
Oh, I like those kinds of animations too. I was just following up on your skepticism about the information.
-
-
@Gąska said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
A single statistic may hold the key to resolving the ongoing debate over COVID-19 lockdowns
In a world where policies are decided based on facts instead of emotions, it could.
*movie trailer voice*
In a world where policies are decided on facts, instead of emotions...One researcher will embark on an epic journey to change the world.
Nursing homes will fall, and an unlikely hero will rise, as a single statistic holds the key to resolving the ongoing lockdown debate.
From the award-winning director of Two Genders and You Can't Fix A Problem By Making It Worse...
TYPHOID GRANNY
Coming soon to theaters everywhere! (As soon as there are theaters to come to again...)
-
@Mason_Wheeler said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
(As soon as there are theaters to come to again...)
Sure there's theaters. Just 1.5m between visitors and max 30 people per viewing.
What do you mean you can't turn a profit that way?
-
@PleegWat said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Mason_Wheeler said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
(As soon as there are theaters to come to again...)
Sure there's theaters. Just 1.5m between visitors and max 30 people per viewing.
What do you mean you can't turn a profit that way?
It's simple economics. Just do it more often!
:politician: We make up for losses with quantity!
-
@PleegWat said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
the severe mask shortage at the start of the epidemic,
Walmart actually had masks on the shelf today. Ordinary, surgical-type masks, that limit the spread of droplets from the wearer's coughs and sneezes, not masks that protect the wearer from virus-contaminated aerosols. But it's the first time since this started I've seen any kind of masks in stock at all.
-
@dfdub said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
But homemade masks still reduce the potential pollution of the surrounding air by you, thereby reducing the likelihood of unknowingly infecting strangers.
But only if you actually cover your mouth and nose with them. Roughly 50% of the people I see wearing masks are wearing them completely ineffectively, not covering their nose, or even not covering anything — over their chin, or just looped over one ear — or are wearing "masks" that are nothing more than a bandana, open at the bottom, that at best kinda directs the pollution downward instead of outward.
-
@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
I don't see heart disease anywhere on there,
Heart disease, cancer, auto accidents, old age are four major causes of death that are notably missing. It makes COVID-19 look scary, but it's hard to put it into perspective without the other 93% of deaths.
-
@HardwareGeek said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
I don't see heart disease anywhere on there,
Heart disease, cancer, auto accidents, old age are four major causes of death that are notably missing. It makes COVID-19 look scary, but it's hard to put it into perspective without the other 93% of deaths.
Old age usually isn't an official death cause, as those tend to be more specific (at least round here). Heart disease and cancer though, they'd be relevant inclusions. Given that these are global figures though, I'm not sure where they'd stack up. Malaria is a fearsome mark to beat in itself, even if largely banished from both the US and Western Europe.
-
@HardwareGeek said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
I don't see heart disease anywhere on there,
Heart disease, cancer, auto accidents, old age are four major causes of death that are notably missing. It makes COVID-19 look scary, but it's hard to put it into perspective without the other 93% of deaths.
The problem with including them, though, is that it makes everything else look marginal. The graph wouldn’t exactly work well anymore to illustrate how bad COVID is compared to other causes of death, nor how rapidly it overtakes some other common causes:
-
@Gurth said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
The problem with including them, though, is that it makes everything else look marginal.
That might be because, compared to these, everything else is marginal...
And in terms of infectious diseases, I'm missing what's supposedly "the leading cause [of death] from a single infectious agent". (1.5M deaths from TB in 2018 according to WHO)
Yeah, if you only include causes of death with a lower death toll, COVID-19 will look particularly deadly.
-
@ixvedeusi said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Gurth said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
The problem with including them, though, is that it makes everything else look marginal.
That might be because, compared to these, everything else is marginal...
And in terms of infectious diseases, I'm missing what's supposedly "the leading cause [of death] from a single infectious agent". (1.5M deaths from TB in 2018 according to WHO)
Yeah, if you only include causes of death with a lower death toll, COVID-19 will look particularly deadly.
Which is why those graphs, although pretty, are deceptive. And I'd say intentionally so. They're pushing the narrative (by selective omission) that COVID-19 is UNUSUALLY BAD and justifies any measures. When, as it goes, it's moderately bad if you're one of the vulnerable populations, and pretty mild otherwise.
-
@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Which is why those graphs, although pretty, are deceptive. And I'd say intentionally so. They're pushing the narrative (by selective omission) that COVID-19 is UNUSUALLY BAD and justifies any measures. When, as it goes, it's moderately bad if you're one of the vulnerable populations, and pretty mild otherwise.
What that interactive graph does show very well, though, is how quickly COVID has overtaken others causes of death with similar numbers. Whereas if you include things like heart disease, that part is nowhere near as obvious because it’ll hardly be visible at all on the graph I posted above. I think that may actually be the point of it: not to show how deadly it is in absolute terms, but to show that its death toll rises far more quickly than any of the others that it started behind.
-
@Gurth But if you de-annualized the flu in a bad year (minus this one), you'd see the same--when one thing has a constant slope and the other an exponential one, graphing the derivatives is going to be scary. Or any other non-endemic virus/infection.
Let's assume (facts not in evidence, and I'm not saying this is true, but just for argument sake) that COVID burns out this summer and doesn't reappear until at least next January. Then taken annually and linearized (like they've done with most of the rest, since we don't collect data frequently enough to actually produce the smooth curves they're giving), you'd get something much less scary. But that's an artifact of the presentation, not truth.
-
@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Gurth But if you de-annualized the flu in a bad year (minus this one), you'd see the same--when one thing has a constant slope and the other an exponential one, graphing the derivatives is going to be scary. Or any other non-endemic virus/infection.
Which really just means that it’s too early to produce a graph like that — do it early next year instead.
-
@Gurth said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Benjamin-Hall said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Gurth But if you de-annualized the flu in a bad year (minus this one), you'd see the same--when one thing has a constant slope and the other an exponential one, graphing the derivatives is going to be scary. Or any other non-endemic virus/infection.
Which really just means that it’s too early to produce a graph like that — do it early next year instead.
Sure. But then you lose the scare value. Which is a big chunk of why those graphs (and similar ones, especially those based on models) are being spread around. To keep the populace in line and "obeying science".
-
@dkf said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@HardwareGeek said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
I don't see heart disease anywhere on there,
Heart disease, cancer, auto accidents, old age are four major causes of death that are notably missing. It makes COVID-19 look scary, but it's hard to put it into perspective without the other 93% of deaths.
Old age usually isn't an official death cause, as those tend to be more specific (at least round here). Heart disease and cancer though, they'd be relevant inclusions. Given that these are global figures though, I'm not sure where they'd stack up. Malaria is a fearsome mark to beat in itself, even if largely banished from both the US and Western Europe.
2018 is the latest year where the CDC had finalized statistics for the US. There were over 100,000 deaths due to heart disease in just New York and Florida that year. Granted, that was the whole year, but it's only two states and the lowest bar on there is natural disasters at about 3K.
The chart itself admits that all the other bars only amount to 7% of deaths.
-
@HardwareGeek said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
I don't see heart disease anywhere on there,
Heart disease, cancer, auto accidents, old age are four major causes of death that are notably missing. It makes COVID-19 look scary, but it's hard to put it into perspective without the other 93% of deaths.
Not to mention abortion!
-
@Mason_Wheeler said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@HardwareGeek said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@boomzilla said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
I don't see heart disease anywhere on there,
Heart disease, cancer, auto accidents, old age are four major causes of death that are notably missing. It makes COVID-19 look scary, but it's hard to put it into perspective without the other 93% of deaths.
Not to mention abortion!
Or masturbation!
-
@PleegWat said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@topspin said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@PleegWat said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
- Possession of a mask with any certification whatsoever is prohibited.
Surely, you must have left out something there, right?!Only homemade and uncertified masks are allowed to be owned or used by the general public. Dates from the severe mask shortage at the start of the epidemic, after we'd sent our back supply to china as medial aid the month before.
What's the exact wording on that rule? There's several types of mask that are practically more effective at personal protection than the surgical ones.
Namely:
- Spray-painter's mask (a good one)
- Home renovation mold-filter mask
- Gas mask with FFP3 particle filter instaled (hardware stores carry these)
I highly doubt anyone will stop you for wearing one of these.
-
@acrow said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
What's the exact wording on that rule? There's several types of mask that are practically more effective at personal protection than the surgical ones.
Namely:
- Spray-painter's mask (a good one)
- Home renovation mold-filter mask
- Gas mask with FFP3 particle filter instaled (hardware stores carry these)
I highly doubt anyone will stop you for wearing one of these.
At least around here¹ they certainly could stop you with most examples of these. Because these masks usually have an outflow valve, meaning they only filter the air that you inhale, but not the air you exhale. But here the explicit purpose for mandatory covering your face is reducing the amount of droplets you spit out in case you have staring infection and didn't yet realize it, so masks with outflow valve don't count.
Note that that is also the purpose of surgical masks. Surgeons are not usually concerned about getting infected by the patient as they don't operate on patients with infectious diseases except in rare cases of injuries. What they are concerned with is infecting the patient as even small amount of bacteria that would otherwise be completely harmless may be dangerous on the open wound.
But also, here the masks are mandatory. They were mandatory outside your home everywhere all the time since mid-March, since last week relaxed to indoors only. Since most surrounding countries later introduced that requirement for indoors as well, apparently they do believe it makes some difference.
¹ A very different here from the one @topspin was talking about.
-
@Bulb said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
these masks usually have an outflow valve
Which I don't expect the general populace to figure out.
the explicit purpose for mandatory covering your face is reducing the amount of droplets you spit out
True.
Well... the way air has to take turns to get out through the outflow valve, so it'll stop ballistic spittle. But not aerosols.
-
@acrow said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
@Bulb said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
these masks usually have an outflow valve
Which I don't expect the general populace to figure out.
the explicit purpose for mandatory covering your face is reducing the amount of droplets you spit out
True.
Well... the way air has to take turns to get out through the outflow valve, so it'll stop ballistic spittle. But not aerosols.Just grab something like this.
Powered breathing protection with swappable filters. Made to work in, so it wont fog up, and you wont have to work harder to breathe, the fans take care of that. I've been considering getting something similar.
-
@acrow said in Tales from Coronavee-rooss Italy, mamma mia!:
Which I don't expect the general populace to figure out.
Around here it has been part of the official communication about what are good masks and what not