OT: CEO responses to Covid-19

[Bill Sloman]

On Saturday, March 14, 2020 at 5:17:28 AM UTC+11, John Robertson wrote:

On 2020/03/13 6:46 a.m., Bill Sloman wrote:
On Saturday, March 14, 2020 at 12:30:07 AM UTC+11, Winfield Hill wrote:
Mikko OH2HVJ wrote...

... proper washing is a surprisingly long and boring effort.
And the next thing our teenagers do after washing is to get
the phone back to same hands..

That brings up the issue of decontaminating our phones.

Douglas Adams did have a least one end-of-the-world scenario where the supposedly intelligent part of the population killed themselves off by deporting all the telephone sanitising staff.

His opinions should be mostly taken as gospel, but that particular one probably wasn't intended to be taken seriously.


As I recall the story, didn't the phone sanitizers survive and became
the modern human race...

Them and personnel officers and public relations people. It was clearly satirical, and rather unfair to phone sanitisers.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Saturday, March 14, 2020 at 4:28:25 AM UTC+11, Martin Brown wrote:

On 13/03/2020 15:58, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 13 Mar 2020 15:44:07 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
On 13/03/20 14:51, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On 12 Mar 2020 19:16:05 -0700, Winfield Hill <winfieldhill@yahoo.com
wrote:

Of course Trump destroyed the US ability to deal with infectious
diseases as one of his first actions after taking office. Who needs
experts when you have inane soundbites from Faux News. It would be
helpful if America could provide statistics on its CV-19 test results.

https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/04/experts-use-pictures-explain-coronavirus-vaccine-trump-12346279/

If America had enough Covid-19 test kits to test most of the people who ought to be tested, the statistics might have been worth having.

The smoking wreck of the US Centre for Disease Control did manage to distribute some Covid-19 test kits, but most of them didn't work. At one point only three of the 100 testing centres had working kits.

Everybody else seems to have been able to produce a lot of them over the last couple of weeks, but Trump's cut-backs seem to have been severe enough to have slowed down the US response to something glacially slow.

Who needs scientific and medical experts when you have a Trump?

Better hope that Pence is *really* good at praying...

<snip>

The hope is that they can delay the peak out of winter and avoid totally
saturating the high dependency care hospital systems. Italy is past the
point where some hospitals do not have enough oxygen supply capacity for
all the patients needing it. That is a scary prospect.

The UK government appears to be be doing about the right amount to slow
the spread without shutting everything down. Schools are still open
unless there has been a confirmed case and then they are deep cleaned.

A lot of public events like football, rugby and elections have been
cancelled today. It will certainly get worse before it gets better.

The thing we don't yet have a good feel for is what proportion of the
population have the virus and are infective without showing any
symptoms. Our House of Commons will provide an interesting Petri dish to
study the transmission mechanism in since they are still sitting and a
couple of them have now tested positive (including a health minister).

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-mp-nadine-dorries-health-minister-covid-19-positive-government-a9392941.html

Australia's Minister for Home Affairs has come down with the virus, so we've got our own Petri dish in Canberra. The virus made a popular choice - Dutton is a nasty piece of work.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Clifford Heath]

On 14/3/20 12:19 pm, dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:

Dad thought multiple drug-resistant tuberculosis, common in
less developed countries, was the greatest threat to humanity --
vicious, fatal, readily spread (one sneeze inoculates a crowd),
and becoming almost untreatable.

Wiki says MDR mostly derives from "one strain of TB bacteria
called the Beijing lineage."

2009's H1N1 came from China too, right?

H1N1 was the 1919 Spanish flu. You're thinking of H5N1, "bird flu".

 

On Friday, March 13, 2020 at 9:52:26 PM UTC-4, Clifford Heath wrote:

On 14/3/20 12:19 pm, dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:
Dad thought multiple drug-resistant tuberculosis, common in
less developed countries, was the greatest threat to humanity --
vicious, fatal, readily spread (one sneeze inoculates a crowd),
and becoming almost untreatable.

Wiki says MDR mostly derives from "one strain of TB bacteria
called the Beijing lineage."

2009's H1N1 came from China too, right?

H1N1 was the 1919 Spanish flu. You're thinking of H5N1, "bird flu".

No, I'm thinking of the swine flu, which IIRC was designated H1N1 'a',
or some such.

Whoops, I've got it backwards. H1N1 is an influenza A subtype / variant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus_subtype_H1N1

The CDC link I posted speculates the 2009 pandemic version arose
from the intermixing of Asian and North American swine flu varieties,
inside a single host.

Cheers,
James Arthur

 

On 12 Mar 2020 19:16:05 -0700, Winfield Hill <winfieldhill@yahoo.com>
wrote:

Today I got emails from the CEOs of three companies
about their actions to protect us against Covid-19.
Walmart said their stores are cleaned daily, with
sanitizing solutions. Subway said they're cleaning
most-touched surfaces once per hour. A local pub-
restaurant, Tavern in the Square, uses disinfectant
wipes to clean and sanitize all tables, phones, POS-
screens, check presenters, booths, chairs and menus
in between guest's seatings. Plus five other items.

It is the dawning of the Age of Hysteria,

the Age of Hysteriahhhh,

the Age of Hysteria!





--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

The cork popped merrily, and Lord Peter rose to his feet.
"Bunter", he said, "I give you a toast. The triumph of Instinct over Reason"

 

[Rick C]

On Friday, March 13, 2020 at 10:15:29 PM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:

On Saturday, March 14, 2020 at 6:03:03 AM UTC+11, Rick C wrote:
On Friday, March 13, 2020 at 2:41:28 PM UTC-4, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 13/03/20 17:57, Rick C wrote:
On Friday, March 13, 2020 at 5:47:00 AM UTC-4, Tom Gardner wrote:
I am expecting my 98yo mother to catch it sometime. She will, rightly, not
be a priority, and it will kill her. Her grandmother survived the 1919 flu
and significantly influenced my mother. She died in her mid 90s, having
been born in the mid 30s. 1830s, that is. 100 years is not a long time

Why is it right that your mother's health "not be a priority"??? I guess I
shouldn't ask that. It's not likely I'll appreciate the answer.

Triage dear boy, triage.

Given limited and insufficient resources, you put your efforts
where they will do the most good.

So why is saving the life of a grandparent not "good"?

The UK national health service computes the value delivered by particular treatments in quality adjusted years of life.

A 98-year old female has an expectation of life of 2.67 years, and their quality isn't all that high.

Treating somebody younger with a longer expectation of life pays off better.

That's the trouble with such a limited, single data point. I have a 93 year old friend who, according to the statistics has a similarly short expected life span. But he is strong, healthy, takes no medicine other than for glaucoma and has no health issues. Included in that statistic are no small number of people with numerous health issues, are bed ridden and/or on active medical support. So clearly trying to apply such a simple minded estimate of utility of offering a treatment is of little value.

There are many other aspects of medicine that are equally absurd, but the medical community is largely self regulating so it is very hard to take them to task for their absurdities.

--

Rick C.

-+-+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+-+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Rick C]

On Friday, March 13, 2020 at 9:52:26 PM UTC-4, Clifford Heath wrote:

On 14/3/20 12:19 pm, dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:
Dad thought multiple drug-resistant tuberculosis, common in
less developed countries, was the greatest threat to humanity --
vicious, fatal, readily spread (one sneeze inoculates a crowd),
and becoming almost untreatable.

Wiki says MDR mostly derives from "one strain of TB bacteria
called the Beijing lineage."

2009's H1N1 came from China too, right?

H1N1 was the 1919 Spanish flu. You're thinking of H5N1, "bird flu".

The 2009 H1N1 flu was called the swine flu and seems to be a USA domestic product that was exported globally. Maybe that's why China now raises their own pigs buying the soybeans from us? They got tired of us infecting them.

Is that what Trump means about Make America Great Again? Making it a great pandemic originator?

--

Rick C.

-+-- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+-- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in news:27c2e6c7-2fd2-475b-
9053-fc66c8a4b190@googlegroups.com:

The "hobby horse" here

Nice try, retarded punk.

 

Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in news:27c2e6c7-2fd2-475b-
9053-fc66c8a4b190@googlegroups.com:

Which has nothing to do with coping with virus infections.

One's body's immune response is indeed one step at a time.
The statement is right and absolutely pertinent.

Fuck you, Sloman.

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Saturday, March 14, 2020 at 1:48:47 PM UTC+11, DecadentLinux...@decadence.org wrote:

Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in news:27c2e6c7-2fd2-475b-
9053-fc66c8a4b190@googlegroups.com:

Which has nothing to do with coping with virus infections.

One's body's immune response is indeed one step at a time.
The statement is right and absolutely pertinent.

Your statement was "Nobody said anything about options and humankind has ALWAYS trudged through ALL of life ONE STEP AT A TIME."

Nothing about the body's immune response in that. It was a fatuous generalisation.

The body's immune response is indeed a multi-stage process - first the immune system generates antibodies to the foreign proteins on the surface of the infections agents. These antibodies then latch onto the infectious agents, labelling them as foreign to killer T cells which then chew them up.

This is - of course - a gross over-simplification

https://www.immunology.org/public-information/bitesized-immunology/cells/cd8-t-cells

> Fuck you, Sloman.

A constructive response - for you. You don't like being labelled as pig-ignorant, and pigs would probably resent it as well. Most of them call learn when they are getting something wrong, which does seem to be beyond you.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Saturday, March 14, 2020 at 2:31:49 PM UTC+11, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On 12 Mar 2020 19:16:05 -0700, Winfield Hill <winfieldhill@yahoo.com
wrote:

<snip>

It is the dawning of the Age of Hysteria,

the Age of Hysteriahhhh,

the Age of Hysteria!

John Larkin characterises any response that he can't understand as hysterical, and he doesn't know much about science, to the extent that he hasn't got a clue how pig-ignorant he actually is.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Michael Terrell]

On Thursday, March 12, 2020 at 10:17:54 PM UTC-4, Winfield Hill wrote:

Today I got emails from the CEOs of three companies
about their actions to protect us against Covid-19.
Walmart said their stores are cleaned daily, with
sanitizing solutions. Subway said they're cleaning
most-touched surfaces once per hour. A local pub-
restaurant, Tavern in the Square, uses disinfectant
wipes to clean and sanitize all tables, phones, POS-
screens, check presenters, booths, chairs and menus
in between guest's seatings. Plus five other items.

I had lab work at the VA, Friday morning. They had nurses and orderlies outside the entrance to ask a lot of questions, along with an armed security guard. They stuck an adhesive label to my shirt saying that I was screened 03/13/2020 for Covid-19.

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Saturday, March 14, 2020 at 2:06:28 PM UTC+11, Rick C wrote:

On Friday, March 13, 2020 at 10:15:29 PM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:
On Saturday, March 14, 2020 at 6:03:03 AM UTC+11, Rick C wrote:
On Friday, March 13, 2020 at 2:41:28 PM UTC-4, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 13/03/20 17:57, Rick C wrote:
On Friday, March 13, 2020 at 5:47:00 AM UTC-4, Tom Gardner wrote:
I am expecting my 98yo mother to catch it sometime. She will, rightly, not
be a priority, and it will kill her. Her grandmother survived the 1919 flu
and significantly influenced my mother. She died in her mid 90s, having
been born in the mid 30s. 1830s, that is. 100 years is not a long time

Why is it right that your mother's health "not be a priority"??? I guess I
shouldn't ask that. It's not likely I'll appreciate the answer.

Triage dear boy, triage.

Given limited and insufficient resources, you put your efforts
where they will do the most good.

So why is saving the life of a grandparent not "good"?

The UK national health service computes the value delivered by particular treatments in quality adjusted years of life.

A 98-year old female has an expectation of life of 2.67 years, and their quality isn't all that high.

Treating somebody younger with a longer expectation of life pays off better.

That's the trouble with such a limited, single data point. I have a 93 year old friend who, according to the statistics has a similarly short expected life span. But he is strong, healthy, takes no medicine other than for glaucoma and has no health issues. Included in that statistic are no small number of people with numerous health issues, are bed ridden and/or on active medical support. So clearly trying to apply such a simple minded estimate of utility of offering a treatment is of little value.

Obviously true, and to some extent actual doctor's decisions will reflect the actual characteristics of the patient in question.

I did go into this when Tom Gardner adduced his mother as a example, and his response characterised her as a crumbly, where your friend would still be a wrinkly.

Computations about where effort should be put are rather more broad-brush.

> There are many other aspects of medicine that are equally absurd, but the medical community is largely self regulating so it is very hard to take them to task for their absurdities.

You can nail individual doctors for getting it wrong. Harold Shipman is a case in point - self regulation didn't work too well there

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Shipman

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Robert Baer]

Rick C wrote:

On Friday, March 13, 2020 at 12:46:28 AM UTC-4, Robert Baer wrote:
Rick C wrote:
On Thursday, March 12, 2020 at 10:17:54 PM UTC-4, Winfield Hill wrote:
Today I got emails from the CEOs of three companies
about their actions to protect us against Covid-19.
Walmart said their stores are cleaned daily, with
sanitizing solutions. Subway said they're cleaning
most-touched surfaces once per hour. A local pub-
restaurant, Tavern in the Square, uses disinfectant
wipes to clean and sanitize all tables, phones, POS-
screens, check presenters, booths, chairs and menus
in between guest's seatings. Plus five other items.

While this may or may not have an impact on the transmission of the COVID-19 disease (hereafter refered to as "the disease"), it is not likely to have much impact on people's willingness to go out and expose themselves to the disease.

You only need to look at the extreme measures they had to take in China to put a dent in the transmission rate to see that we are not going to be able to slow this disease without extreme measures... far beyond wiping and disinfecting surfaces in restaurants. I don't recall all the details of what I've read about disinfecting, but using simple wipes and such aren't really going to do much anyway. For example, disinfecting your hands with an alcohol wipe requires wiping for a fairly long amount of time, minutes I believe. This was from an article that explained how much more effective simple soap and water was than nearly any other agent. Even then it requires rigorous soapy washing for some amount of time longer than we are accustomed to.
* Excuse me, but doesn't it spread in the air?

You are excused.

While droplets containing the virus can be spread through the air, the means of picking up the droplets is most often by touching something and then touching your mucous membranes, eyes, nose, mouth. The droplets can remain airborne for some time, but on a surface the virus can live for many hours or even some days. Droplets aren't going to remain airborne nearly that long.

There isn't much you can do about breathing. But you can wash your hands and try not to touch your face until you have washed. There are no guarantees in life, but you can play the smart odds.

How about an electronic solution?
An accelerator that launches sized alcohol droplets into the air with
an electron charge?
The droplets will not collect due to repulsion, and might stay in the
air for similar reasons.

 

[Rick C]

On Saturday, March 14, 2020 at 3:44:14 AM UTC-4, Robert Baer wrote:

Rick C wrote:

There isn't much you can do about breathing. But you can wash your hands and try not to touch your face until you have washed. There are no guarantees in life, but you can play the smart odds.

How about an electronic solution?
An accelerator that launches sized alcohol droplets into the air with
an electron charge?
The droplets will not collect due to repulsion, and might stay in the
air for similar reasons.

What exactly will that accomplish? Alcohol is much more volatile than water. The droplets will accomplish pretty much nothing while in the air but will quickly evaporate.

--

Rick C.

-++- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-++- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 13/03/20 23:50, Rick C wrote:

On Friday, March 13, 2020 at 7:47:04 PM UTC-4, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 13/03/20 19:02, Rick C wrote:
On Friday, March 13, 2020 at 2:41:28 PM UTC-4, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 13/03/20 17:57, Rick C wrote:
On Friday, March 13, 2020 at 5:47:00 AM UTC-4, Tom Gardner wrote:
I am expecting my 98yo mother to catch it sometime. She will, rightly, not
be a priority, and it will kill her. Her grandmother survived the 1919 flu
and significantly influenced my mother. She died in her mid 90s, having
been born in the mid 30s. 1830s, that is. 100 years is not a long time

Why is it right that your mother's health "not be a priority"??? I guess I
shouldn't ask that. It's not likely I'll appreciate the answer.

Triage dear boy, triage.

Given limited and insufficient resources, you put your efforts
where they will do the most good.

So why is saving the life of a grandparent not "good"?

Sigh; that's a strawman argument.
The key words are "limited", "insufficent" and "most".

If you /still/ can't grasp the point, consider that
saving the life of a parent with 30 good years ahead
of them is more important than someone with maybe
a couple of poor years ahead of them.

You have made no justification for not treating anyone.

You have two people that need treatment.
You can only treat one due to lack of time/material/personnel.
What do you do?
Is that "justification"?

Those are real-world dilemmas.
You can't escape them by wishing you were in an ideal world.

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 14/03/20 02:09, Bill Sloman wrote:

China has cut it's new case rate down to ten a day, and is starting to unlock
the lock-down in selected areas.

It will be *very* interesting to see what happens.

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 14/03/20 08:43, Tom Gardner wrote:

On 13/03/20 23:50, Rick C wrote:
On Friday, March 13, 2020 at 7:47:04 PM UTC-4, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 13/03/20 19:02, Rick C wrote:
On Friday, March 13, 2020 at 2:41:28 PM UTC-4, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 13/03/20 17:57, Rick C wrote:
On Friday, March 13, 2020 at 5:47:00 AM UTC-4, Tom Gardner wrote:
I am expecting my 98yo mother to catch it sometime. She will, rightly, not
be a priority, and it will kill her. Her grandmother survived the 1919 flu
and significantly influenced my mother. She died in her mid 90s, having
been born in the mid 30s. 1830s, that is. 100 years is not a long time

Why is it right that your mother's health "not be a priority"???  I guess I
shouldn't ask that.  It's not likely I'll appreciate the answer.

Triage dear boy, triage.

Given limited and insufficient resources, you put your efforts
where they will do the most good.

So why is saving the life of a grandparent not "good"?

Sigh; that's a strawman argument.
The key words are "limited", "insufficent" and "most".

If you /still/ can't grasp the point, consider that
saving the life of a parent with 30 good years ahead
of them is more important than someone with maybe
a couple of poor years ahead of them.

You have made no justification for not treating anyone.

You have two people that need treatment.
You can only treat one due to lack of time/material/personnel.
What do you do?
Is that "justification"?

Those are real-world dilemmas.
You can't escape them by wishing you were in an ideal world.

Just in case you still cling to your illusions....

The Extraordinary Decisions Facing Italian Doctors. There
are now simply too many patients for each one of them to
receive adequate care. Instead of providing intensive care
to all patients who need it, the authors suggest, it may
become necessary to follow “the most widely shared criteria
regarding distributive justice and the appropriate
allocation of limited health resources.” Those who are too
old to have a high likelihood of recovery, or who have too
low a number of “life-years” left even if they should
survive, would be left to die. This sounds cruel, but
the alternative, the document argues, is no better.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/who-gets-hospital-bed/607807/

 

[Michael Terrell]

On Saturday, March 14, 2020 at 6:49:14 AM UTC-4, Tom Gardner wrote:

On 14/03/20 08:43, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 13/03/20 23:50, Rick C wrote:
On Friday, March 13, 2020 at 7:47:04 PM UTC-4, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 13/03/20 19:02, Rick C wrote:
On Friday, March 13, 2020 at 2:41:28 PM UTC-4, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 13/03/20 17:57, Rick C wrote:
On Friday, March 13, 2020 at 5:47:00 AM UTC-4, Tom Gardner wrote:
I am expecting my 98yo mother to catch it sometime. She will, rightly, not
be a priority, and it will kill her. Her grandmother survived the 1919 flu
and significantly influenced my mother. She died in her mid 90s, having
been born in the mid 30s. 1830s, that is. 100 years is not a long time

Why is it right that your mother's health "not be a priority"???  I guess I
shouldn't ask that.  It's not likely I'll appreciate the answer.

Triage dear boy, triage.

Given limited and insufficient resources, you put your efforts
where they will do the most good.

So why is saving the life of a grandparent not "good"?

Sigh; that's a strawman argument.
The key words are "limited", "insufficent" and "most".

If you /still/ can't grasp the point, consider that
saving the life of a parent with 30 good years ahead
of them is more important than someone with maybe
a couple of poor years ahead of them.

You have made no justification for not treating anyone.

You have two people that need treatment.
You can only treat one due to lack of time/material/personnel.
What do you do?
Is that "justification"?

Those are real-world dilemmas.
You can't escape them by wishing you were in an ideal world.

Just in case you still cling to your illusions....

The Extraordinary Decisions Facing Italian Doctors. There
are now simply too many patients for each one of them to
receive adequate care. Instead of providing intensive care
to all patients who need it, the authors suggest, it may
become necessary to follow “the most widely shared criteria
regarding distributive justice and the appropriate
allocation of limited health resources.” Those who are too
old to have a high likelihood of recovery, or who have too
low a number of “life-years” left even if they should
survive, would be left to die. This sounds cruel, but
the alternative, the document argues, is no better.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/who-gets-hospital-bed/607807/

That sounds like the Obamacare 'Death Panels'.

 

[John S]

On 3/13/2020 8:54 AM, David Brown wrote:

On 13/03/2020 06:45, Rick C wrote:
On Friday, March 13, 2020 at 12:46:28 AM UTC-4, Robert Baer wrote:

* Excuse me, but doesn't it spread in the air?

You are excused.

While droplets containing the virus can be spread through the air,
the means of picking up the droplets is most often by touching
something and then touching your mucous membranes, eyes, nose, mouth.
The droplets can remain airborne for some time, but on a surface the
virus can live for many hours or even some days. Droplets aren't
going to remain airborne nearly that long.

There isn't much you can do about breathing. But you can wash your
hands and try not to touch your face until you have washed. There
are no guarantees in life, but you can play the smart odds.


That is all good advice.

It applies equally to normal flu, and most other viruses - the path is
mainly cough/sneeze droplets to surface, then surface to face.

It's worth noting that most people don't know how to wash their hands
properly to minimise the risk of giving or getting an infection.

And as you noted, an alcohol wipe is of little use - you want 30 seconds
of wet alcohol to deactivate the virus. (If the virus is protected by
sneeze droplets or other mucus, it takes minutes - but one would hope it
is obvious that you should at least wipe globs of phlegm from your hands
if you can't wash them.) Washing is more effective than alcohol
sanitizers for your hands, when possible.

Disinfectant on surfaces is fine.


(Some viruses, such as noroviruses, are almost completely unaffected by
alcohol, so washing is good general practice.)

What about hydrogen peroxide rather than alcohol?

Also, I have a germicidal UV-C lamp which I use on certain items (mail,
for example). Comment?