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katherineharron

What the author of 'The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by katherineharron on 27 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • No. 1, authorities need to tell the truth, even when it's uncomfortable -- especially when it's uncomfortable. This is important for two reasons. First, it lessens fear. People are always more afraid of the unknown. When people don't think they're getting a straight message they feel uncertain. In a horror movie, it's always scariest before the monster appears. Once the fear becomes concrete we can deal with it. We can deal with reality. Second, if you want people to comply with your recommendations -- and compliance is crucial to success -- they have to believe you and trust you. If they doubt you they will ignore you. In Singapore, the Prime Minister told blunt truths at the beginning, ended panic buying and, more importantly, it's one reason Singapore has gotten way ahead of the virus.
  • The 1918 virus was deadlier than Covid-19, but in the West it had about a 2% case mortality rate.
  • There is absolutely no indication -- zero, not the slightest hint anywhere in the world -- that Covid-19 will become more virulent than it is now,
tongoscar

What scientists know so far about the effects of coronavirus on children | Jonathan Bal... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...irus-children-studies-carriers

shared by tongoscar on 24 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • These were the groups initially urged to socially distance themselves. But we’re beginning to see that coronavirus can make some younger people seriously ill.
  • Compared to other European countries, the UK was slow in closing schools – waiting until there had already been 104 deaths due to coronavirus to take action. Studies from China showed children were rarely diagnosed with novel coronavirus, and therefore presumably had little role in the spread of the disease.
  • Like many of my colleagues, I could see no obvious reason why children weren’t being infected: this was a virus spread by the respiratory route, not through a process unique to adults. If significant numbers of children were infected and suffered very minor cold-like symptoms, then their potential to spread the virus was immense.
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  • The current coronavirus is different. In more than 85% of confirmed cases symptoms can go undetected or be easily confused with the common cold of mild flu. Its biggest weapon – the thing that has, according to one study, allowed it to spread so easily – is this ability to cause mild disease in the majority of people it infects. When you can’t easily tell if someone has a cold or coronavirus, case identification and infection control are far more difficult.
  • Judging from past pandemics, school closures can be an effective way to reduce the spread of a virus – particularly when they form part of a larger programme of social distancing measures. Every school day, children congregate en masse, often in close proximity, and then return home, taking with them any new infection they’ve picked up. Intuitively, reducing this cycle should help slow the virus.
tongoscar

Live Updates: Economic Fallout From Coronavirus Grows - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...china-coronavirus.html

shared by tongoscar on 18 Feb 20 - No Cached
  • Reports from manufacturing, banking and other sectors showed the worsening impact of the epidemic, which has brought much of China’s economy to a standstill.
  • Right NowJapan plans to release about 500 cruise ships passengers on Wednesday.
  • Economic fallout from the new coronavirus epidemic continued to spread on Tuesday, with new evidence emerging in manufacturing, financial markets, commodities, banking and other sectors.
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  • U.S. stocks declined on Tuesday, a day after Apple warned that it would miss its sales forecasts due to disruption in China, as concerns about the impact of the outbreak weighed on the outlook for the global economy.
  • Half of China’s population is facing new travel restrictions.Image
  • At least 150 million people in China — over 10 percent of the country’s population — are living under government restrictions on how often they can leave their homes, The New York Times found in examining dozens of local government announcements and reports from state-run news outlets.
  • Japan says 500 people will be released from cruise ship after more cases confirmed.
  • Australia plans to repatriate about 200 of its citizens aboard the ship on Wednesday, and other countries have similar plans, but Japanese officials did not say whether any of those people were among the 500 who would be allowed to disembark.
  • Britain prepares to evacuate citizens from cruise ship.
  • The new virus is deadlier than the one that causes the flu, Chinese figures suggest.Image
  • The director of a hospital in Wuhan has died from the virus.
  • Stigma surrounding virus impacts communities in Europe.
  • Domestic workers from the Philippines will be permitted to return to Hong Kong.Image
  • South Korea’s leader warns of a dire impact on economy.
  • Cruise ship passengers blocked from leaving Cambodia.
katherineharron

Supreme Court justices meet privately amid coronavirus outbreak - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by katherineharron on 28 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • The Supreme Court justices met privately on Friday to discuss pending cases and presumably how they will handle the rest of a blockbuster term as the nation and the world self-quarantine in the midst of a pandemic.
  • At the regularly scheduled conference a "number of justices" participated remotely by phone according to Kathy Arberg, the Court's public information officer. That's because six of them are 65 or older. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer are in their 80s -- well within the government's standard for individuals at a higher risk.
  • The move to postpone is exceedingly rare, but there is precedent. In 1918, arguments were postponed in response to the Spanish flu epidemic. The calendar was shortened in 1793 and 1798 in response to yellow fever outbreaks.
Javier E

Never Had Covid? Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 May End Your Luck - Bloomberg - 0 views

www.bloomberg.com/...a-4-and-ba-5-may-end-your-luck

covid-19 infection research pandemic science

shared by Javier E on 11 Jul 22 - No Cached
  • Covid virginity is becoming more special now that it describes a shrinking minority. The lucky few, like weight-loss gurus, are only too happy to share their secrets to success.
  • Some sound quite reasonable, such as virologist Angela Rasmussen, who tweeted that despite resuming travel to scientific conferences, she’s remained uninfected by wearing high quality masks when warranted, skipping the hotel gym, eating outdoors and walking instead of cabbing if possible.
  • Others are more extreme, such as the expert who Tweeted that, among other measures, he sealed his N95 tightly on his face for the entire trip from the U.S. to Australia. He never removed it even to take a sip of water.
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  • But one piece of advice almost no one is giving? Be lucky. Pediatrician Neil Stone says that there’s no “secret” for staying Covid-19 free because there’s just too much luck involved.
  • As for me, I have some data that can, to an extent, quantify and explain my own good luck in avoiding Covid so far. I’m participating in a study on immunity which allowed me to learn that my blood still carries loads of antibodies induced by my vaccine and December booster shot, and no signs of any prior infection. Not everyone’s antibodies wane at the same rate, and in some people, the antibodies don’t wane much at all. (At some point it should become routine to collect this information to help people decide whether to get additional booster shots.)
  • My high level of vaccine antibodies probably explains my success more than my behavior. I make some effort to avoid Covid, but have been far from perfect. And I’ve been potentially exposed at least twice: Once last December, when someone at a small holiday gathering I’d attended developed symptoms the next day, and more recently, when I shared a large indoor space with two people who later tested positive. But according to my lab work, I’ve never had even a silent infection.
  • It’s possible I was protected by my high antibodies, or that some quirk of air flow meant I never breathed in enough virus to get sick. Or perhaps I benefited from a different form of luck. There’s another facet to immunity called the innate immune system, which acts as a first line of defense and sometimes knocks out a virus or other pathogen before it replicates enough to elicit the production of antibodies. Good innate immunity might help explain something many of us have experienced — not getting a cold or flu even when sleeping in the same bed with the sick person through the whole illness.
  • Stress, diet, general health and even sunlight might all affect innate immunity. So could other factors. There’s so much we still don’t know about the immune system. And that’s one reason we talk about “luck.”
  • understanding how the luck works could help other people avoid Covid, whether for the first time or for the second or third time. Taking a closer look at what passed for luck helped researchers like Gary Taubes discover that public health had obesity all wrong, and the standard high carb/low fat diets were causing people to gain weight.
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