OT: Corona virus

[Canoerebel]

Great article and a noble, worthy idea to pursue.

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Here is another Stat article, a good one for all I think.

Scientists who express different views on Covid-19 should be heard, not demonized

https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/27/hea ... tack-them/

[MakeeLearn]

Virus is expected to reduce meat selection and raise prices
Monday, April 27th 2020

https://news4sanantonio.com/news/corona ... ise-prices



"DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Meat isn't going to disappear from supermarkets because of outbreaks of the coronavirus among workers at U.S. slaughterhouses. But as the meat plants struggle to remain open, consumers could face less selection and slightly higher prices.

Industry leaders acknowledge that the U.S. food chain has rarely been so stressed and that no one is sure about the future, even as they try to dispel concerns about shortages."

[Cap Mandrake]

Toddler presents to the office with Bell's Palsy but no fever or cough. 1 week later has COVID. Coincidence? I doubt it. Possibly COVID might have uncovered latent HSV via some immune mechanism or perhaps the nasty bugger has some affinity for nerve cells?

[Alpha77]

Who can read German or has a good translator, cause here is one good article...

It has some Schiller, philosophy and psychology also thrown in:

"Die Gehorsams-Probe
Maskenzwang, Impfpflicht und Co. ermöglichen es dem Staat in bisher unvorstellbarem Ausmaß, die Bürger zur Unterwerfung zu nötigen.....":

https://www.rubikon.news/artikel/die-gehorsams-probe

[MakeeLearn]

Interesting, easy to read

The full coronavirus genome and the proteins it encodes are shown below.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... otein.html

[Cap Mandrake]

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

Interesting, easy to read

The full coronavirus genome and the proteins it encodes are shown below.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... otein.html

Fascinating article...although the headline is technically incorrect. Some viruses have full protein envelopes. The Corona viruses have a lipid bilayer envelope with some proteins "floating" in the lipid sea. It's basically a beach ball of fat with the water-loving surfaces pointing inside and out. Probably a hearkening back to the first organisms on the planet except that the first organisms had to have the additional cellular machinery that the virus lacks. You can't have a virus unless you first have a more complete host. The God-damned thing is so ruthlessly efficient it is hard not to evoke the concept of evil.

The virus has 30K nucleotides. Mammalian genomes have 3 billion base pairs. That is 3x10**4 vs 3x10**9. We have a 100,000 x "advantage" in nuclear material IN EVERY CELL and the damned thing has provoked a global recession.

[Cap Mandrake]

Also, from what I understand, the virus DOES NOT attach to the ACE-2 protein like SARS-1

[geofflambert]

It's a wonderful day in the neighborhood ...

[geofflambert]

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[geofflambert]

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[Canoerebel]

[&:]

[CaptBeefheart]

Chickenboy: Restaurants here are more or less back to full operation. The missus tells me that she still eats lunch by herself at her desk at the hospital, which has been encouraged by management. She's not going to the employee cafeteria or any of the multitude of restaurants there. I'd say that's prudent for hospital workers. For white collar workers downtown, it seems that everyone's back to eating lunch at restaurants. I don't know what's going on at factories.

I've noticed restaurant, bar, coffee shop, delivery, transportation (taxi, bus driver, motorcycle delivery), barber, etc. workers have been wearing masks since I think early February (they were definitely early adopters of mask wearing). Also, pretty much every business has hand sanitizer near the cash register or somewhere else prominent. Heck, the cabbie of the taxi I took to work this morning had hand sanitizer in the back pouch of the shotgun seat.

As far as I can tell, Starbucks is the only chain which has reduced the number of tables and seats in its outlets (maybe by 30%). Of all the restaurants and bars which I frequent, and I have been frequenting them throughout this situation, I haven't noticed anything done to reduce the proximity of one customer to another (except at Starbux). Another thing is masks come off once you sit down in such an establishment--otherwise you can't eat or drink. I haven't noticed anything different at stores, either, other than the bigger ones usually require masks to enter. Costco was business as usual expect for masks. I don't see "X" marks anywhere where you might have to queue, for instance, like the ATM picture above. People queue with maybe a bit more distance in between than normal, but not much.

We had a nationwide election on April 15, and I haven't heard of one case attributed to it. They did institute special measures at the polling stations.

One piece of Covid theater I've noticed is plastic sheets with "Cu+" stickers (i.e. copper ion) have gone up to cover elevator buttons and door handles. I have no idea if this has any positive effect. I also once saw a couple of city employees doing some sort of desultory spraying on business fronts along a sidewalk. A lot of big buildings have people who will take your temperature, either with a handheld device or a thermal imager. When I want a temp check I can visit my nearby ATM.

I saw pictures of churches on Sunday with people pretty well spread out among the pews. Our church hasn't gone back yet, probably because services were pretty packed before. I haven't talked to the pastor so I'm not sure what he has in mind. The video services are working for the time being. My daughter started pre-school a week ago. There are eight kids in her class. They all wear masks.

I believe the main reason people are pretty much back to normal in their routines is there is confidence in the contact tracing system and a belief that people who should be quarantining are quarantining. You also don't see people making a show of avoiding others on the sidewalks or in other situations. At the end of the day, the number of cases here in Seoul is minuscule on a per capita basis and people seem to have internalized that.

Sorry to hear about Singapore, but the way they cram their "guest" workers in the dormitories was asking for trouble. Taiwan is doing very, very well, and should be a beacon for the world. Too bad they're not a member of WHO. I also read the 'Nam is doing well. Japan, for all it's bad press, still has better per capita numbers than Korea. A buddy of mine who works for FedEx over there says he's been working from home for a month, but business is booming for the firm. He said their biggest problem is juggling crew schedules what with different requirements in all countries. He said pilots cannot overnight in China, for instance, or they'll get stuck, so they have to make sure they overnight at Narita.

Cheers,
CB

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: CaptBeefheart


One piece of Covid theater I've noticed is plastic sheets with "Cu+" stickers (i.e. copper ion) have gone up to cover elevator buttons and door handles. I have no idea if this has any positive effect. I also once saw a couple of city employees doing some sort of desultory spraying on business fronts along a sidewalk. A lot of big buildings have people who will take your temperature, either with a handheld device or a thermal imager. When I want a temp check I can visit my nearby ATM.

Cheers,
CB

Copper material does kill the virus. Our entire Design and Engineering course is now shifting to designing products and devices or add-ons that could use this to kill the virus in general heavy use areas or devices.

They've designed phone cases, door openers, water bottles, button covers, reusable masks, eye shields, etc.

This is an article about the unique properties of copper to kill microbes.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science- ... 180974655/

Keevil, a microbiology researcher at the University of Southampton (U.K.), has studied the antimicrobial effects of copper for more than two decades. He has watched in his laboratory as the simple metal slew one bad bug after another. He began with the bacteria that causes Legionnaire's Disease and then turned to drug-resistant killer infections like Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). He tested viruses that caused worldwide health scares such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and the Swine Flu (H1N1) pandemic of 2009. In each case, copper contact killed the pathogen within minutes. "It just blew it apart," he says.

The first recorded use of copper as an infection-killing agent comes from Smith's Papyrus, the oldest-known medical document in history. The information therein has been ascribed to an Egyptian doctor circa 1700 B.C. but is based on information that dates back as far as 3200 B.C. Egyptians designated the ankh symbol, representing eternal life, to denote copper in hieroglyphs.

As far back as 1,600 B.C., the Chinese used copper coins as medication to treat heart and stomach pain as well as bladder diseases. The sea-faring Phoenicians inserted shavings from their bronze swords into battle wounds to prevent infection. For thousands of years, women have known that their children didn't get diarrhea as frequently when they drank from copper vessels and passed on this knowledge to subsequent generations. "You don't need a medical degree to diagnose diarrhea," Schmidt says.

And copper’s power lasts. Keevil’s team checked the old railings at New York City’s Grand Central Terminal a few years ago. "The copper is still working just like it did the day it was put in over 100 years ago," he says. "This stuff is durable and the anti-microbial effect doesn't go away."

[fcooke]

whoever came up with the term 'excess deaths' should not ever go into a marketing or communications job. crikey.

[Orm]

ORIGINAL: obvert


This is an article about the unique properties of copper to kill microbes.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science- ... 180974655/

Thank you, Obvert, for sharing.

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: CaptBeefheart


One piece of Covid theater I've noticed is plastic sheets with "Cu+" stickers (i.e. copper ion) have gone up to cover elevator buttons and door handles. I have no idea if this has any positive effect. I also once saw a couple of city employees doing some sort of desultory spraying on business fronts along a sidewalk. A lot of big buildings have people who will take your temperature, either with a handheld device or a thermal imager. When I want a temp check I can visit my nearby ATM.

Cheers,
CB

Copper material does kill the virus. Our entire Design and Engineering course is now shifting to designing products and devices or add-ons that could use this to kill the virus in general heavy use areas or devices.

They've designed phone cases, door openers, water bottles, button covers, reusable masks, eye shields, etc.

This is an article about the unique properties of copper to kill microbes.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science- ... 180974655/

Keevil, a microbiology researcher at the University of Southampton (U.K.), has studied the antimicrobial effects of copper for more than two decades. He has watched in his laboratory as the simple metal slew one bad bug after another. He began with the bacteria that causes Legionnaire's Disease and then turned to drug-resistant killer infections like Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). He tested viruses that caused worldwide health scares such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and the Swine Flu (H1N1) pandemic of 2009. In each case, copper contact killed the pathogen within minutes. "It just blew it apart," he says.

The first recorded use of copper as an infection-killing agent comes from Smith's Papyrus, the oldest-known medical document in history. The information therein has been ascribed to an Egyptian doctor circa 1700 B.C. but is based on information that dates back as far as 3200 B.C. Egyptians designated the ankh symbol, representing eternal life, to denote copper in hieroglyphs.

As far back as 1,600 B.C., the Chinese used copper coins as medication to treat heart and stomach pain as well as bladder diseases. The sea-faring Phoenicians inserted shavings from their bronze swords into battle wounds to prevent infection. For thousands of years, women have known that their children didn't get diarrhea as frequently when they drank from copper vessels and passed on this knowledge to subsequent generations. "You don't need a medical degree to diagnose diarrhea," Schmidt says.

And copper’s power lasts. Keevil’s team checked the old railings at New York City’s Grand Central Terminal a few years ago. "The copper is still working just like it did the day it was put in over 100 years ago," he says. "This stuff is durable and the anti-microbial effect doesn't go away."

Copper can also prevent the Egyptian flu. It can work (depending upon the style) for up to 5 days after the vector is introduced.

[HansBolter]

Guess I need to start wearing my Copper Fit compression gloves to the grocery store now.

Here comes the run on Copper Fit and Tommy Copper compression wear.

Better get your orders in now folks!

Just like all forms of long term storage survivalist food this stuff will be back ordered for a year before we know it.

[Alfred]

ORIGINAL: fcooke

whoever came up with the term 'excess deaths' should not ever go into a marketing or communications job. crikey.

Would

"Pearly Gate tickets"

appeal more?

Alfred

[RangerJoe]

One Hundred Years After Influenza Killed His Twin Brother, WWII Veteran Dies of COVID-19
In the days before his death, the New York man spoke often of his lost twin and the lessons humanity seemed not to have learned
100-Year-Old WWII Vet Dies of COVID-19
April 27, 2020 11:23AM

New Yorker and 100-year-old World War II veteran Philip Kahn died of COVID-19 on April 17, just over a century after his twin brother, Samuel, succumbed to the 1918 influenza pandemic, reports Carolyn Gusoff for CBS New York.

“My grandfather Phil and his brother were pandemic bookends,” grandson Warren Zysman tells Natalie O’Neill of the New York Post. “He knew the devastation of the first one—and he told me, ‘Warren, my boy, history repeats itself.'”

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-ne ... 180974752/

[MakeeLearn]

Coronavirus triggered a 'ruptured heart' in first reported US COVID-19 death
19 hours ago


https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus ... heart.html


"An autopsy of the remains from the first known COVID-19 death in the U.S. has revealed that the person died from a ruptured heart triggered by the virus's attack, according to news reports.

The 57-year-old woman, Patricia Dowd of San Jose, California, died at home on Feb. 6 after experiencing flu-like symptoms, according to The Mercury News. Recently, an investigation into her death found that Dowd was actually infected with the new coronavirus, meaning that U.S. COVID-19 deaths had occurred weeks earlier than thought.

Dowd's death was initially thought to be the result of a heart attack. But now, an autopsy report shows that the virus had spread to Dowd's heart muscle, and the viral infection caused a valve in her heart to rupture, The Mercury News reported."