The virus. PPE. Part 1

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This may or may not get here but so far looks potentially very scary. Even if it is just the common flu I am still keen to avoid it.

I would consider myself in a fairly low risk ground now considering I don't use public transport, avoid mass meetings, schools and all the populated places. However, I still come into contact with clients, fellow shoppers at supermarkets and they really cough left and right without covering up these days.

Now it seem the common sense is to make everyone coughing to wear surgical masks. In Asia that has been pretty much the norm for ages and rightly so.

I would particularly like to hear from medical professionals and PPE specialists.
 
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Really, how many people do we have in the UK, how many have got it, how many have died. You have more chance of winning the lottery. Stop being a pussy.
 
MatBin said:
Really, how many people do we have in the UK, how many have got it, how many have died. You have more chance of winning the lottery. Stop being a pussy.
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!Very clever. I really hope you don't get anything, I am just so happy you are not in charge of the important things in this country.

Please also show me proper respect, at the end of the day I am standing up for your rights too, but you'd rather get 6 feet under instead.. I am so f*****g fed up with this; maybe the globalists are right in the end. Good luck with everything.
 
Just put it into perspective, your or my chances are very slim of getting this disease/illness, so stop panicking and enjoy your life.
 
MatBin said:
Just put it into perspective, your or my chances are very slim of getting this disease/illness, so stop panicking and enjoy your life.
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Do you have virology degree to back that up? I thought so. Meanwhile you could tell that to fellow Chinese people. Oh and by the way BBC today have articles the virus can be transmitted even before symptoms show up. Now that is a nice touch, isn't it. But I am sure YOU KNOW IT better. I will sleep better now.
 
Lots of viruses are transmittable before they show up in the carrier, this is nothing new. Your original post was about should the UK adopt a policy to make people wear masks if the cough, nothing about the Chinese. If I was in China I would be concerned but neither you nor I are in China so I am not, nor should you be overly concerned in the UK.
I get cheesed off when people come to work in the UK when they know they are unwell, but you really are over worrying.
 
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MatBin said:
Lots of viruses are transmittable before they show up in the carrier, this is nothing new. Your original post was about should the UK adopt a policy to make people wear masjs if the cough, nothing about the Chinese. If I was in China I would be concerned but neither you nor I are in China do I am not, nor should you be overly concerned in the UK.
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Not exactly.... That was a sideline, but a very important one. It is a nice act of courtesy to catch your bugs and stop the transmission to others. Even common flu is not nice and will bare minimum cause some loss of earnings and some extra expenditure for medicines in addition to feeling absolutely awful for a week. So it would be very nice if more people did this when they sick-walk into shops and schools or use public transport. I don't think special law is required and how it would be enforced; it is just basic common sense like taking off dirty shoes at home.

The main point is obviously highlighted in bold. Say it gets very bad, or you know you are coming into contact with sick people (family member?). What do you do then? I guess someone else may come up with well-backed answer.

Yes it is mainly in China, but it has already got out and cases are confirmed as close as Paris. People travel, and if they can spread it before any airport checks flag them as risk, they will eventually infect UK population. Maybe it will be stopped in time, maybe not. Always hope for the best but prepare for the worst.
 
As it stands you are more likely to contract 'seasonal winter flu' or a heavy cold!

In regard to this new virus in China it seems as is common(?) with the flu, that it is most impactful (lethal?) in the infirm and elderly.

If you are fit and generally healthy most infections are not lethal or significantly injurious.
 
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LongLensPhotography said:
I would particularly like to hear from medical professionals .
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The most sensible bit of the post :)

Seriously, what are you doing to stop TB for example ? (Airborne virus that in 2018 alone killed 1.8million people) Unless your plan is to sell face masks and respirators using scaremongers as a marketing tool, then forget about it, you have more chance of getting hit by a bus whilest being chased by a polar bear wearing a dress......in Tesco.
 
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Natures way of keeping the population down, used to be Influenza, but that's been diminished by vaccination.
Way too many people being kept alive well after their sell by date, these types of thing tend to thin the herd of the least healthy specimens
 
There was actually a report on the BBC website saying face masks as shown on most TV reporting are in fact useless, there are gaps where the virus can get in and unless you have full biohazard mask forget it. Placebo only.
 
Yes it is a worry, but China are experts when it comes to this like building hospitals in 7 days to help. Taken off the BBC.

What is the situation internationally?
According to the World Health Organization and national authorities, there have been at least 44 confirmed cases outside China.
  • Eight cases: Thailand
  • Five: USA, Australia
  • Four: Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, South Korea
  • Three: France, Japan
  • Two: Vietnam
  • One: Nepal, Canada
Almost all had recently been to Wuhan or had been in close contact with someone who had.
 
The sky's falling. Buy my Aluminium lined umbrella to orotect yourself today!!! :naughty: :naughty: :naughty:
 
its a lot worse than china is admitting and a lot worse than any news agency here either knows or is admitting.

even in Shanghai they have stopped all public transport, people are not allowed in our out the city and in one province of the city 6 have died already, even though the reports are only saying 1.
my wife family are there and have said the shops are already starting to go bare after only two days.

there are also plenty of videos of people in many cities just collapsing and being taken away by people in suits.
the government has been arresting scientists and people speaking out regarding how bad it is how badly its been handled, using a law they brought in about spreading rumours.

None of the above is being reported on the news..... my wife finds a lot more news posted on Chinese forums and unofficial news pages than is being in mainstream news.

as many experts have said to quarantine over 50million people and build two emergency hospitals over only 80 dead is a bit extreme.. so I would think a lot more is going on than is being admitted.

I suspect the only reason WHO haven't declared it a world epidemic is due to the fact that china would be shut down with no people or goods being allowed out. which would have a world wide affect on the stock markets and economy.
 
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The odds at the moment are incredibly low, but do we not want to keep it that way; or do we wait until it becomes an epidemic in the UK before taking it seriously?

But what can we do other than rely on people using common sense when unwell and not being complete idiots and travelling to and from any of the highly infected cities in China? We can't lock down all the borders as I don't think the UK can even feed itself and the economy would be in tatters. I'm not sure how effective these face masks are and I'm sure I read that as they absorb moisture from your mouth it actually aids with transmission. I'm not sure on this though.

I'm not really decided on whether or not we should be allowing flights in from China though, even though people could still come here indirectly. When you consider that over 390 thousand Chinese tourists visited the UK in 2018, which is over one thousand per day, well the odds of it pouring in here go up considerably.

I think the odds being played are with finding a vaccine, it's probably the most sensible thing at the moment because it's probably already here.
 
In 1919 (or thereabouts) Spanish Flue (which they now think emanated from Spain) killed millions, in reality between 5 and 10 percent of the then population, so you still only had a 1/10 or 1/20 chance of dying (even then it was largely healthy adults oddly). So with medical advances etc in reality what are the chances?
 
Perhaps I'm an optimist, but I won't put my life on hold because of something that might happen
I've never had a flu jab despite getting them free at work and this year I was reminded incessantly that I hadn't had one,
not had flu for a long time either, just colds
 
The people at my Dad's church were getting all anxious about it, FFS most of them are well over 90.
In all honesty if it gets me, or my family and kills one of us I'll just look at it as one of those things that happen in life (well death actually).
It could be Flu, cancer, a bus, anything.
We had the IRA bombing London when I was a young man, did it affect our lives - no.
There's one thing that is sure, at some point we all die, no point in behaving recklessly and no point in being sh1t scared to move outside the house.
 
According to the BBC there are currently...
  1. 2,827 confirmed cases;
  2. 5,794 suspected cases;
  3. 461 critical condition cases (the reporting does not state whether these are included under (1);
  4. 51 complete recoveries (also not stated if included in the above figures);
  5. 81 known deaths where the infection is known to be a cause.
Taking the assumption that only counts (1) and (2) reflect the total infections we have a mortality rate of (81 / 8,621) * 100 = 0.94%. The actual mortality rate could of course be far lower as we have no way of knowing how many people have contracted the disease but not reported their symptoms.

We should be cautious about any new infection but scaremongering (such as claiming the mortality figure is 15% in the original posting) is really of no help to anyone.
 
When Ebola was doing the rounds a few years back, a British comedian (Paul Chowdry) made a joke that when Dave (a white male) got it they all rejoiced in Africa and exclaimed, "Thank God Dave has Ebola, we are saved".
Same this time maybe?
 
My toddler son had fever on Friday. We went to the NHS walk-in centre on Saturday, they asked a few questions related to the virus, such as "have you been to China recently". We didn't and laughed it off, but was told there were 1 suspected case a few days ago and they had to disinfect the whole area. Looks like NHS are taking this very seriously.

The UK govt are searching for ~2000 people who recently came from Wuhan.

But there's zero reason to panic. There's no confirmed cases here, and looks like govt are on the case.
 
Have to keep this Coronavirus in perspective.
Relatively, only a tiny number of people have died.
In the UK about 600 people die from flu every winter. In bad years thousands can succuumb.
EVERY YEAR about 3500 people die from Hippopotamus attacks.

I have got my priorities sorted out. I am keeping an eagle eye open for bloody Hippos !
 
SARS was another corona virus. It killed 774 apparently. Statistically that's about 0.00001% of the population of the world. Decent odds?
 
MatBin said:
The people at my Dad's church were getting all anxious about it, FFS most of them are well over 90.
In all honesty if it gets me, or my family and kills one of us I'll just look at it as one of those things that happen in life (well death actually).
It could be Flu, cancer, a bus, anything.
We had the IRA bombing London when I was a young man, did it affect our lives - no.
There's one thing that is sure, at some point we all die, no point in behaving recklessly and no point in being sh1t scared to move outside the house.
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Very true, my old ma survived the Blitz, TB and Cancer then got killed hit by a car crossing the road
Get on with life and enjoy it because you never know when the curtain will come down
 
Studio488commercial said:
The most sensible bit of the post :)

Seriously, what are you doing to stop TB for example ? (Airborne virus that in 2018 alone killed 1.8million people) Unless your plan is to sell face masks and respirators using scaremongers as a marketing tool, then forget about it, you have more chance of getting hit by a bus whilest being chased by a polar bear wearing a dress......in Tesco.
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When will folk stop confusing the infectious 'agent'!!!!
TB is a bacterial infection that is not that easily caught and Influenza & the Common Cold are viral infections. Yes, you can get an underlying bacterial infection when the immune system is weakened by a viral infection but please don't confuse one prime cause with another.

Such confusion is what overloads the GP service (and A&E departments?) with those who have a cold or flu wanting anitbiotics (with no symptoms of an underlying bacterial infection)..........................they don't work for viral infections!

Dave70D said:
Yes it is a worry, but China are experts when it comes to this like building hospitals in 7 days to help. Taken off the BBC.

What is the situation internationally?
According to the World Health Organization and national authorities, there have been at least 44 confirmed cases outside China.
  • Eight cases: Thailand
  • Five: USA, Australia
  • Four: Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, South Korea
  • Three: France, Japan
  • Two: Vietnam
  • One: Nepal, Canada
Almost all had recently been to Wuhan or had been in close contact with someone who had.
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The numbers so far are low to statistically insignificantly low and the countries named in the main are more open societies for information ;)

pmac said:
its a lot worse than china is admitting and a lot worse than any news agency here either knows or is admitting.

even in Shanghai they have stopped all public transport, people are not allowed in our out the city and in one province of the city 6 have died already, even though the reports are only saying 1.
my wife family are there and have said the shops are already starting to go bare after only two days.

there are also plenty of videos of people in many cities just collapsing and being taken away by people in suits.
the government has been arresting scientists and people speaking out regarding how bad it is how badly its been handled, using a law they brought in about spreading rumours.

None of the above is being reported on the news..... my wife finds a lot more news posted on Chinese forums and unofficial news pages than is being in mainstream news.

as many experts have said to quarantine over 50million people and build two emergency hospitals over only 80 dead is a bit extreme.. so I would think a lot more is going on than is being admitted.

I suspect the only reason WHO haven't declared it a world epidemic is due to the fact that china would be shut down with no people or goods being allowed out. which would have a world wide affect on the stock markets and economy.
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Yes, China has 'form' in non disclosure.....though this time they appear(?) to be that bit more public! As for their knee-jerk reactions in shutting down the mass transit of people, for whatever conspiracy theorist 'chatter' then maybe it could be the best way to slow its spread within China and thus its international dispersal.

But either way having seen the camera phone videos of folk queuing & on the floors (now how familiar is that to UK viewers.... ;) )compared to more intensive treatment 'official' videos, it is no surprise that only in China would we see such rapid response of creating a treatment/triage unit that might or might not be needed.

If the Chinese action can slow the dispersal of potentially infectious people to the point where the infection/infectious time-frame period peters out, then all to the good ~ no?
 
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Box Brownie said:
As for their knee-jerk reactions in shutting down the mass transit of people, for whatever conspiracy theorist 'chatter' then maybe it could be the best way to slow its spread within China and thus its international dispersal.
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Indeed.

@pmac, you've got to remember the discovery and critical period of the virus was JUST before Chinese new year. During this time, HUGE percentage of population travel to be with their family, similar to Christmas here. So without direct government action, we could see this virus spread to remote villages that doen't have any infrastructure to deal with outbreak.


The speed at which this spreads across China is because of the festive season. I think if the outbreak had happened a few months ago, we would not have seen so many confirmed cases so quickly. If you look at cases outside of areas celebrating the Chinese new year and don't have far East population centres (US and Australia are popular immigration destinations), you'll see only very isolated cases.
 
the first cases were actually the 8th of December, but the wuhan government played it down for over month, even days after the first few deaths they organised the worlds largest banquet miles from the area these deaths occurred. its only now had such a spotlight as there was a first case out with china.

the biggest worry within the Chinese community's, is they know fully how well the government can and will cover it up to make it look far less severe, as they don't want to look bad in the worlds eye's. they have the reminder of how the handled the SARS outbreak.

as for the hospitals I can only see these making it worse, having had the joy of visiting what was classed as one off the better ones in Shanghai two years ago when my daughters all came down with sickness and diarrhoea. it was far from nice, very dirty, bad sanitation practices, no toilet roll or even soap in there and there terrible queuing system where you have to queue in a million places just to see one person or get one piece of medicine.

don't get me wrong I hope this all isn't the case and it is only as bad as we see on our news, I love china and had I not had kids would have moved there years ago, and likely will in the future but theres a lot that they need to improve in regards to health and hygiene.
 
The hospital system in China is truely broken, I whole heartedly agree. If you don't have family by your side, getting ill is like a death sentence because there's no support structure at all.

On your visit to hospital, you must:
1. queue for a number to be seen as out-patient
2. wait in waiting room to be seen
3. queue outside doctor's door to be seen (why not just call when ready?)
4. get seen
5. queue for prescription
6. queue to pay for prescription
7. queue to get the actual medicine
Whole thing is set up like nagivating bureaucracy, you get bounced from one operator to the next. A queue each time, with people pushing in and stand so close, they are breathing down your neck.

Whereas even in slower NHS walk-in centre:
1. talk to receptionist
2. wait in waiting room for a few hours
3. get seen
4. go to pharmacy to get prescription
GP appointments shortens #2 significantly.
 
LongLensPhotography said:
Now what about the healthy like me and you, particularly if you are from a higher exposure group? Is surgical mask enough? Does one need a special respirator, and if so what kind?
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The BBC asked several medical experts about this, as did the Straits Times in Singapore:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51205344
https://www.straitstimes.com/singap...n95-masks-to-guard-against-wuhan-virus-spread

You can also read a comprehensive 2007 review of the available evidence here:

https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006207.pub2/full

My reading of these articles is that ordinary surgical masks may provide some degree of protection against respiratory viruses, but it's far from complete, and the evidence for them being effective as a public health measure is rather weak. They may block larger droplets but not fine aerosols of virus particles. They prevent you touching your mouth with your (potentially contaminated) hands, but they leave your eyes exposed. They also have to be properly fitted, worn consistently, changed frequently, combined with good hand hygiene (regular washing, or sanitising gel where this isn't possible, avoid touching your face), and disposed of carefully. Although more substantial 'N95' filter masks are available, in real world use they may be no more effective and to work properly need to be fitted very tightly. This probably makes them impractical for use outside a medical environment, so standard surgical masks are recommended for general use by the public.
 
At the moment the virus is most probably manageable, but it's important not to be complacent as I believe it could still mutate into something far more dangerous and deadly. But the impression I certainly get is that this is being treated as very serious but without the unnecessary hysteria which the media are so desperately craving.

To take a positive from this, should it not mutate into something more dangerous, I'm quite sure this has been a valuable situation with testing various response rates, policies etc and help make us all even more prepared for when the inevitable "uber" virus arrives :eek::D
 
gman said:
At the moment the virus is most probably manageable, but it's important not to be complacent as I believe it could still mutate into something far more dangerous and deadly.
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I think this worries the newspapers more than it does the professionals:

View: https://BANNED/arambaut/status/1220771836973264896


But serious epidemiologists and virologists are concerned that the properties of the existing virus might make the epidemic impossible to contain, and we'll have to deal with the consequences globally:

https://www.statnews.com/2020/01/26/containing-new-coronavirus-may-not-be-feasible-experts-say/
 
MatBin said:
In 1919 (or thereabouts) Spanish Flue (which they now think emanated from Spain) killed millions
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Was this an illness that came down the chimney? :p

Spanish flu is actually thought to have originated in France in 1917 but gained the Spanish name because it was one of the few countries where censorship didn't keep it out of the papers.
 
Retune said:
They may block larger droplets but not fine aerosols of virus particles.
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This is the bit I don't fully understand so far. As one coughs do they produce only droplets of saliva with virus particles, or also "dry" virus as well? At least in open or semi-open air situations like large supermarket this simple mask seems to me is enough to stop incidental infection. Or is it not so straightforward?
In a closed smaller space (room, bus) this is probably no good due to loose fitting, unless maybe the mask is worn by the infected person or both. I have close family working in a primary school so certainly this is of great concern.


j crossley said:
The only thing in life that you can actually guarantee is death. So on that cheery note...
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Sure. I think I still have some mission here to carry out so I'd rather catch the ride some good time later :) Most will feel the same.

If there are easy, cheap and simple ways to mitigate it, or at least slow it down till there are better procedures and medicines in place then why not.

In an ideal case we would have this:
... those who are sick to be socially responsible. They should put on a face mask to capture their respiratory droplets, and go to a healthcare facility quickly to get checked.
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from straits times article above.


Cartus said:
I have been wearing this in Sainsbury’s, get some funny looks though ;)

View attachment 266961
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It appears you are better prepared than most including myself. My question would be what is the mask filter capable of? Dust, smoke, certain chemical agents, microbiologicals, etc?
Hopefully you don't have to use, but if you do it is there.
 
LongLensPhotography said:
!

Please also show me proper respect, at the end of the day I am standing up for your rights too, ..
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So please tell me how do we show you proper respect? To me it seems we can't criticise you.

Please tell me how you are standing up for my rights, by asking a question on PPE for a virus on a photography forum? (The fact you asked such a question, does tend to leave you open for a bit of p**s taking.)
 
it is very very scary . in all my 70+ years I dont recall a major country going to the extremes that china has ..its pretty obvious there running scared ,least of all for what it will do to there export markets .. should we be worried well yes I think we should .. its infectious before people show any symptoms ,any one of us might have it already without knowing ..
and in this day and age of air travel it spreads around the world extremely quickly .. the worrying factor is supposedly around 3 million inhabitants of wuhan city left for there new year hols before the s*** hit the fan .
 
Dave1 said:
Was this an illness that came down the chimney? :p

Spanish flu is actually thought to have originated in France in 1917 but gained the Spanish name because it was one of the few countries where censorship didn't keep it out of the papers.
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Probably :)
I read in Wiki that they thought it came from China, went over to the States, mutated and got shipped into Europe by the US soldiers, but I also read that it got its name as you say because the Spanish had less censorship.
Doubt it matters too much where it came from as it certainly ended up in Europe and de-populated a few countries.
 
Why worry about something you can do f all about?
Not as simple as giving the Chinese take away a miss, don't worry you can't catch it off a toilet seat

Barmy thread, see what Dr Google says and have an anxiety attack or just kick back and have a beer
 
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