Coronavirus - those in China, and general discussion

[Flickserve]

7 hours ago, 889 said:

A thin sheet of plastic more easily scratched than the buttons, the scratches -- which may not be visible -- then offering sanctuary to the virus. The sheets are wiped with some sort of spray hourly but I have no idea how often they're replaced

 

Here's some examples today when I walked through to my home after work today.

 

The other pictures showed the plastic sheets being intact and in good condition though I did find a couple of places where the plastic was worn through as shown. Not sure if the damaged plastic was due to wear and tear or keys. Personally, I don't use a key to press the button though I have seen a few people do it. I use my finger and then rub my hand with some sanitiser.

 

From what I see, the plastic sheet coverings must be replaced fairly regularly.

 

[Flickserve]

2 hours ago, Tomsima said:

Majority of people in the UK need to get a mild dose of coronavirus for 'herd immunity', chief scientific adviser says"

 

sounds like a massive gamble to me. dammit 2020, two months of isolation, then the govt here is just like, yeah just get infected actually…

 

It's not exactly as if we voluntarily control the amount of virus going into our bodies......

 

Sounds like they will go down the letting everyone get infected (the weak and some previously healthy will die as collateral damage). Where does that leave the rest of the world trying to control outbreaks then? All a wasted effort?

[889]

So long as you're not using a key . . .

 

As an aside, it's interesting that the up/down buttons have braille -- even though the positioning is probably intuitive -- but the floor buttons don't, making braille on the up/down buttons a bit senseless.

 

[889]

"Where does that leave the rest of the world trying to control outbreaks then? All a wasted effort?"

 

See my earlier post. Flattening out the peak will save lives if the peak would otherwise exhaust available medical resources, as is starting to happen in Italy.

 

And politicians find it easier to sell containment when packaged as "stopping" the virus when it's actually a means of flattening out the peak.

 

[杰.克]

UK is following the 4 stage strategy

 

[mkmyers45]

On 3/12/2020 at 11:17 PM, Ruben von Zwack said:

Oh, that was the state of information in Germany all along. But other scientists criticized that the scientists from this paper had not spoken with the Chinese lady who was the carrier. They just assumed that she was fine, when in fact she told other scientists that  she did feel unwell at the time her colleagues caught the infection from her.

There is sustained evidence for asymptomatic transmission. See below

 

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762028

 

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.03.20029983v1.full.pdf

 

https://cmmid.github.io/topics/covid19/control-measures/pre-symptomatic-transmission.html

[Ruben von Zwack]

3 hours ago, roddy said:

has anyone else discovered they're an inveterate face-toucher? I can't keep my hands off myself, it seems

Yes, but wearing mascara and make up helps   ?  let me know if you want product recommendations.

[杰.克]

3 hours ago, roddy said:

also, has anyone else discovered they're an inveterate face-toucher? I can't keep my hands off myself, it seems

 

Cant stop myself. I even touched my face today whilst chiding myself for touching my face.

[Flickserve]

7 hours ago, 889 said:

See my earlier post. Flattening out the peak will save lives if the peak would otherwise exhaust available medical resources, as is starting to happen in Italy.

 

And politicians find it easier to sell containment when packaged as "stopping" the virus when it's actually a means of flattening out the peak.

if they really want to flatten the peak, mass events would have been stopped earlier! 
 

you need a proactive approach with COVID 19, not a reactive approach. The evidence was there to see from other countries but the economy was prioritised, the gamble failed and some stupid BS excuse about letting people get mild doses of virus (how can we control what’s mild dose is anyway? - virus is not a frigging petrol pump). 
 

As noted earlier, this virus is infectious before symptoms start. It is really sneaky as it doesn’t kill people immediately. It kills more than flu but not quite enough to make people sit up and notice. 

[Tomsima]

From a moral standpoint, the let everyone get infected approach just doesn't sit right. My sister is heavily pregnant right now and her due date is only a few weeks away. Does the category of 'everyone' include people with special health conditions like pregnancies, the elderly, etc.? If so, youre basically telling an at-risk group to expose themselves to the virus for some greater (economic?) good. If it doesnt include them, then how does the gov propose to control who is or isnt exposed? The strategy makes no sense, and people will die when they wouldn't have of they were in China. And most importantly, the virus won't die, it will just 'be here' for good apparently.

 

Seems like noone over here took anything from the important lessons on sars that many Asian countries learnt the hard way

 

 

[imron]

10 hours ago, Jan Finster said:

most health care workers are told to wear them.

Not in Australia.  Nurses and doctors are being told not to wear them because they might cause panic and anxiety in patients ?‍♂️

[StChris]

This will probably be my last update from Harbin, as things seem to be much more "interesting" in Europe now. 

 

I went outside of my apartment complex on Thursday for the first time in over 2 weeks (not due to being scared about catching the virus, it's just such a hassle signing in and out etc). Harbin finally opened up the big shopping malls, and even some smaller shops have opened too. Hopefully they will begin to do away with the constant temperature checks and name signing over the next couple of weeks.

 

There is a fair bit of traffic now, although still much less than usual. Crossing the road is a little dangerous again:

 

 

I took the opportunity to take a long walk outside. I'm in a modern apartment complex where all they had to do was lock some gates and put extra people on guard duty, but I always wondered what they did about the traditional apartment buildings. As you walk around you begin to realise that you need to stick to the main roads, as the small ones all have makeshift fencing to control the flow of people:

 

 

 

There was quite a long queue outside this supermarket, and I was impressed by the distance being kept between each person (maybe not quite 1.5 m, but much better than usual). The supermarket in the mall next to my apartment didn't have any queues at all, and was just normal busy:

 

 

I finally got to eat a meal not made by my own hands (some jiaozi, which I have never made before). Although the restaurants were open, it was take-out only. All the other stores in the mall seems to be open, but only a handful of customers.

 

I've got another 3-4 weeks before I have to go back to the UK. I hope to be able to get some normal-style living in before jumping into a yet another quarantine-like situation back home.

[ChTTay]

2 hours ago, StChris said:

This will probably be my last update from Harbin, as things seem to be much more "interesting" in Europe now. 

I mean this is “Chinese forums” ?

[roddy]

Have enjoyed the updates, please continue them from whatever post-apocalyptic European location you get quarantined in. 
 

Twitter thread here which seems to explain the UK strategy better - basically turn the infection tap on and off to reach herd immunity at a rate hospitals can manage. This seems ambitious. 

[Jan Finster]

4 hours ago, StChris said:

I hope to be able to get some normal-style living in before jumping into a yet another quarantine-like situation back home.

 

Keep your posts coming. They are great!

 

I would not be surprised at all if there were 2nd, 3rd and 4th waves of coronavirus in China in the upcoming months. The rapid response has contained the disease but it also prevented the development of a herd immunity. So, probably hundreds of millions of Chinese are still naive to the virus and may easily get infected again.

7 hours ago, imron said:

Not in Australia.  Nurses and doctors are being told not to wear them because they might cause panic and anxiety in patients ?‍♂️

It is the same for normal doctors here in Germany, but the ones taking care of corona patients in the hospitals are wearing them. I cannot imagine it is different in Oz, but if it is, then we have our control group  for our observational study... 

 

[js6426]

I haven't been very active in this thread, but have gained a wealth of valuable information from it, and would like to thank everyone for the incredibly helpful contributions that have been made thus far.  Waiting to go back to Harbin, @StChris it's been great to read all the updates from you and get some perspective on what's going on up there.

 

At the moment we are in Cambodia, where there have been a few cases over the last couple of days, bringing the total up to 8.  I managed to do a border run through Thailand and stayed the night there on Sun night so that I could sort my visa out.  I managed to get a business visa which will make it easier to stay here until we are allowed to return to China.  When entering the Thai side of the border my temperature was taken and I had to fill out  health form, on the way back into Cambodia there was absolutely nothing, which didn't surprise me.  I am surprised to have heard that Cambodia will shut it's borders to anyone from the US, Italy, Spain, France and Germany for 30 days, starting on Tuesday.  Although it may be repealed in a couple of weeks, Thailand also just took away their visa on arrival option for foreigners who can just get stamped in.  I fall into that category, and so I was really lucky to have made the border run when I did.

 

Online classes with HIT started last Monday, and so far have actually been quite good.  Our schedule is a bit messed up, and with the slow internet and frequent power cuts here it can be a little challenging, but it's nice that I am actually able to continue studying while being here, and won't have to add an extra year to my degree or anything like that.  We have to sign in for every class we take, and on top of that the university has us sign in via a QR code on wechat every single day of the week.  At the very least this involves us saying whether or not we had a class that day, and whether or not we did the required work for it.  Today added our current location, whether or not we are in one of the top 10 hardest hit countries for the virus, passport no. etc.  Over half my class is South Koreans, and a substantial portion of the international student body at HIT must be too, although I have no exact figure for that.  So far they have been unable to give us any idea of a return date, which I think is fairly understandable.  While things may be returning to normal slowly in China, I imagine the last thing they want is an influx of people from nations where infections are climbing.

[StChris]

A very interesting twitter thread. I've been gradually piecing together their strategy over the past couple of days, but that explains it very clearly. The problem is, after delaying shutting schools and big events etc, any shifts towards doing any of these results in "government U-turn" or "government backtrack" headlines from certain newspapers (despite the fact that Johnson already said it was being considered during the press conference). As that professor later said, it is unknown whether or not the predicted ban on large gatherings next week is a result of the strategy he laid out (i.e. the government wanting to "turn off the tap" a little to temporarily slow the rate of new infections) or merely the result of political pressures (i.e. the please the "something must be done" crowd). 

 

It seems that Johnson has two choices now: follow this herd immunity strategy or follow a herd mentality strategy (i.e. institute a Chinese/Italian style lock-down).The former is definitely the most risky strategy (both politically and in practically). If the British government just follows other western countries then they will be pretty much free from blame, no matter how bad the result. 

 

I see that many western experts are predicting a new breakout of the virus in China once the controls on people's movements are relaxed, especially when winter comes around again. It will be interesting to see the response if/when that occurs. From the people I know in China, people generally took this lock-down in good spirits, but how would a second round be received? From what I've heard, a vaccine will be at least 18 months away, so a second round of this sounds plausible.

 

It's really strange to me to hear this new new strategy. In China I thought "ok, even though I'm in a low risk group I need to refrain from being infected so as to protect others". But once I get to the  UK, it seems I should want to get infected and then self-isolate, so as to contribute to the herd immunity". Maybe I should start licking the handles and poles on the Tube on my way home from the airport!

[roddy]

15 hours ago, 杰.克 said:

Cant stop myself. I even touched my face today whilst chiding myself for touching my face.

Must *slap* stop *slap* touching *slap* fa....wait,  damnit!

 

While I'd like to see the UK at the cutting edge of scientific research, I do wonder if a deadly epidemic is the right time. And I'm not sure the population is fully on board with the 'just get it over with' approach. 

[StChris]

1 hour ago, Jan Finster said:

Keep your posts coming. They are great!

 

If you liked my original work, "Quarantined in the City of Snow and Ice", then you'll love the upcoming sequel in the Coronavirus trilogy, "Infected with the London Herd"

 

1 hour ago, js6426 said:

Over half my class is South Koreans, and a substantial portion of the international student body at HIT must be too, although I have no exact figure for that.  So far they have been unable to give us any idea of a return date, which I think is fairly understandable. 

 

Although I haven't got any info about HiT specifically, I did watch an interview with someone at the Education Department yesterday, who said that the top priority for going back to school are 中三 and 高三 students (due to their upcoming exams), and the last to be allowed back to school will be the university students (due to the fact that so many of them study in cities away from their hometowns, raising the risk of cross-province infections). He didn't give a timescale, but at least it will give you an idea of the process.

 

1 hour ago, Jan Finster said:

It is the same for normal doctors here in Germany, but the ones taking care of corona patients in the hospitals are wearing them. I cannot imagine it is different in Oz, but if it is, then we have our control group  for our observational study...

 

Speaking of Germany, I read that Merkel mentioned a 70% infection rate too. Is their any indication that the German government is pursuing a strategy similar to the British one?

 

3 minutes ago, roddy said:

While I'd like to see the UK at the cutting edge of scientific research, I do wonder if a deadly epidemic is the right time. And I'm not sure the population is fully on board with the 'just get it over with' approach. 

 

I'm fascinated by it on an intellectual level too, and would be fully in favour if I wasn't due back in the UK early next month ?

[Flickserve]

4 hours ago, roddy said:

basically turn the infection tap on and off to reach herd immunity at a rate hospitals can manage. This seems ambitious. 

 

It's easier to turn on a tap gradually. 

 

Turning off a tap in a torrent - that must be harder to control given a seven to ten day lag period to see the effect

 

 

 

4 minutes ago, StChris said:

I'm fascinated by it on an intellectual level too, and would be fully in favour if I wasn't due back in the UK early next month 

 

Not sure if you will make it back to the UK...

 

Situation may change very quickly