Covid-19 Diary : Thursday 13 August, 2020

Some of you (who get realtime “express” updates of new articles) may have received multiple messages about a new post online, the one “All About Covid-19…”, a few hours ago.  Some of you may not have received that message at all.  Apologies in both cases.

Mr Murphy always knows when to strike, and this was no exception.  I’m in the process of condensing the most important and helpful elements of what I estimate to be over a quarter million words of writing about the virus into a single PDF document, and if there was any message I didn’t want you to miss, it would be that one.  The new page and link to the document is currently working, but the url might change.  You can find it though from the home page of the blog.

As a consequence of the unexpected struggle with the blog, I’m running a bit behind the 8-ball with the rest of my day, and am cutting this diary update down to its bare essentials.  I’m moving the rest of the good stuff over to Sunday’s diary entry instead.

Current Numbers

Some interesting changes in ranking today, with Colombia shooting up the list of major country case rates, and UK falling down the list of death rates.

Top Case Rates Minor Countries

Top Case Rates Major Countries

Top Death Rate Major Countries

I Am Not a Doctor, But….

I’m seeing quite a few articles about vaccines at present.  Sure, it is something ever more front and center in our thoughts and hopes, so I can’t help noticing the tone of the articles is moving from excited and positive, anticipating a vaccine “any day now” to more guarded and balanced.  Heck, this article even trespasses into wondering and worrying about the cost of the vaccine – that’s an issue that surely will always be massively over-balanced by the cost of not having a vaccine.  Yes, please, get us a vaccine at any cost, but only if the vaccine is safe and effective.

Those two caveats bring us to Russia.  The big news this week was Russia announcing it has developed and is now distributing a vaccine.  Nothing is known about it, and remarkably, it seems to have only been tested on 76 people in total, and for less than two months.  We don’t know the outcome of that extraordinarily limited trial, and the Russian government is telling its citizens to simply trust it.  A major vaccination campaign is scheduled for October.

This article quotes various scientists as worrying that Russia has “jumped the gun”.  Somewhat alarmingly, it seems that a gentleman described as “Russia’s top doctor” – a slightly ridiculous label, but clearly the man is prominent in the field – has resigned in protest over the speed of the evaluation process.

We have to say we have similar worries about the speed with which the various different trials in the US and other western countries are being rushed through, too.

Timings And Numbers

The excellent rt.live site shows some further signs of encouragement, and indeed, the growth in new case numbers in the US seems to have stalled, albeit at a way too elevated rate of about 55,000 new cases every day.

As you can see, daily new case numbers in the US have retreated somewhat from their late July second peak.  But it is a strange world where a reduction down to the low 50-thousands is considered a victory, isn’t it.

Rt.live reported 25 states with declining rates of infection on Sunday, 27 on Monday and Tuesday, and then 31 on Wednesday – although that leaves a very unfortunate 20 states (including DC in the count) with growing numbers.  Today the numbers slightly backed off again, down to 28 states with declining rates.

The very big news in the last few days has been New Zealand, which discovered four new cases of the virus on Tuesday, after 102 days with no new cases.  Another 13 were discovered on Wednesday, and another 13 today (Thursday), meaning 30 new cases have suddenly appeared from nowhere.

The first four cases were in NZ’s largest city of Auckland, but now there are cases in multiple locations around the North Island.  This provides vivid proof of how the virus can so vigorously reappear and reassert itself.

The puzzling thing is no-one knows how this new outbreak started.  They think they know who the first patient is, but there is no linkage between him and any possible source of the virus.  Well, no linkage, except one possible vulnerability that no-one had ever considered might be a possibility.  There is some thought the virus might have come back in to New Zealand on the surface of frozen food items – the first new victim being an employee of a cold store operation in Auckland.  That would be very interesting, because in general terms, the early obsession that public health authorities had with always washing our hands and being careful not to touch anything has faded, it appearing that while in theory that could be a means of transmission, in practice it absolutely was not.

Will NZ now halt all frozen food imports if this proves to be so?  Or require individual pack by pack disinfecting?  Neither thought is very appetizing or unobtrusive.

Literally within hours of the outbreak’s discovery, the entire country went into a general lockdown and the Auckland area into a much more restrictive lockdown.  In a few hours, we’ll know if the country will move even further into extreme lockdown territory – at present it seems to be inspired by its previous success and determined to triumph over the virus a second time.

It is an interesting coincidence that China is now claiming that it has been getting new infections from imported frozen food too.

I’ve resumed a practice I’d largely discontinued – I spray all received packages and mail and packaged food with super-strong disinfectant and if possible leave them outside for a few days before bringing them in.

Talking about new infections, 600,000 US veterans received a message advising/implying that they had the coronavirus.  The message was sent in error.  Ooops.

Logic?  What Logic?

We’ve seen some convoluted logic and craziness already, but perhaps the most crazy thing yet is this Florida Sheriff who forbids his deputies from wearing masks.

Potentially his deputies might have to arrest each other for not wearing masks in some situations, or risk being fired if they do wear masks.

Talking about masks, the increasingly strange John McAfee, once well known for his anti-virus software, first claimed he was arrested in Norway for wearing a mask that was, in truth, a woman’s thong, and then subsequently admitted it to be a hoax.

Are there no limits to the strange things once B-listed people will do in a desperate attempt to return back to the B-list of mini-celebs?

Please stay happy and healthy; all going well, I’ll be back again soon.

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