My body is attacking itself hence the immune suppressants. Frankly this outbreak scares the poop out of me.

tdgeek:

 

[My query was that over reacting immunity, i.e. cytokine storm, seems to be what kills many people, it overwhelms the lungs. Hence why an immuno suppresant might have been a tool to manage that scenario. It might well be that the virus is very mild, maybe very very mild, but past exposures througthout life may have brought about a situation where the immune system runs amok. Older people have more historical disease exposure. The virus isn't doing a great deal but our bodies are in fact inadvertentky killing us.

 

I think it's still one of the many things that are still being trialled. But it may be more complicated that that.

There are theories that the problem's an immune response over-shoot in older people to a slow immune system start, so suppressing the immune system might not help.

An initially suppressed immune response allows that early inflammation of the lungs in response to virus replication, the immune system says 'hang on – I've seen this before – throw everything you've got at it', and tries play catch-up to contain the pathogen — causing the immune defense to yo-yo out of control.

So now with an uncontrolled immune response, you have an overproduction of immune cells flooding into the lung.

Now's when you actually need the powerful immune response to deal with with severe inflammatory disease conditions like pneumonia that cause mortality.

Marc Lipsitch also wrote in a Scientific American blog piece recently that rushing to conclusions, and forcing fast medical responses to this may be counter-productive.

Particularly he pointed out that rushing a vaccine into production "without as much clinical-trial evidence as is usually the case", may be "not just ineffective, but harmful."
I think he's saying it'd give the nutty anti-vaccers ammunition that would set back science based responses to epidemics.

He also, rather bleakly, expects that 40 to 70 percent of adults worldwide will be infected within a year, when a proven medical solution may be available.
(Edit: He's a vaccine specialist)

tdgeek:

I feel we need an ongoing TV campaign to reinforce this, as it doesnt require time, or money, to make a difference

neb:

tdgeek:

 

I feel we need an ongoing TV campaign to reinforce this, as it doesnt require time, or money, to make a difference

 

Yup, one that (a) trains people on how to wash hands effectively, since for the vast majority of the population what they do is more a rinse than a wash, and (b) teaches them safe hygiene practice, e.g. don't shake hands with someone and then rub mucous membranes. Someone at work reported what's probably a typical scenario with a mask user, heavily redacted: "Cow-orker grabbed her mask with her full hand from the front, right on the filter [...] took the mask off to talk to me [...] then proceeded to use the finger that she'd just held the mask with to push elevator buttons". That isn't helping, it's dangerous, so public-service ads showing these sorts of typical actions and then why they're dangerous would be good.

Or don't wash their hands at all. I staggers me how many folk I see walk out of a public toilet without washing their hands. 

Human to Animal transmission now. A persons dog in Hong Kong has caught it.

https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/world/experts-confirm-human-to-animal-spread-of-coronavirus/ar-BB10Kkia

frednz: Oh yes, that's right, even though it's very important, you can't buy hand sanitiser anywhere so you become reliant on dubious home brews, which may or may not be good for you!! Oh yes, NZ is really well prepared for this event!!!

With the amount of sanitizer, soap and towels disappearing from shelves

You really start to question others actions up till this point and your own exposure to nasties from them as a result :) Some are good, we grew up eating dirt etc. 

But you start to get very aware of an inside out scenario against everyone else you're encountering and go 'so what did you do beforehand...'. 

Fist bumps all round.

neb:

frednz: Oh yes, that's right, even though it's very important, you can't buy hand sanitiser anywhere so you become reliant on dubious home brews, which may or may not be good for you!! Oh yes, NZ is really well prepared for this event!!!

nCov 19 is an enveloped virus isn't it? In that case anything with BZK in it would work, and you can buy that in anything up to 5L containers. So go to Bunnings, Mitre10, whatever, look for anything with benzalkonium chloride (BZK) in it, and get use that, diluted down, as sanitiser if you can't get the standard alcohol/triclosan based stuff.

That is, assuming nCov 19 as actually affected by it, I'm sure someone will tell me if it isn't.

neb:

frednz: Oh yes, that's right, even though it's very important, you can't buy hand sanitiser anywhere so you become reliant on dubious home brews, which may or may not be good for you!! Oh yes, NZ is really well prepared for this event!!!

nCov 19 is an enveloped virus isn't it? In that case anything with BZK in it would work, and you can buy that in anything up to 5L containers. So go to Bunnings, Mitre10, whatever, look for anything with benzalkonium chloride (BZK) in it, and get use that, diluted down, as sanitiser if you can't get the standard alcohol/triclosan based stuff. That is, assuming nCov 19 as actually affected by it, I'm sure someone will tell me if it isn't.

I recall someone here stating that the virus is wrapped inside something, and washing removes the wrapping and the virus dies. Bit vague of me but along those lines

Tell you what this thread is awesome, so much knowledge has been added, so much mis thoughts have been corrected, the few here that have been very active with data and research info, thank you, you know who you are

neb:

frednz: Oh yes, that's right, even though it's very important, you can't buy hand sanitiser anywhere so you become reliant on dubious home brews, which may or may not be good for you!! Oh yes, NZ is really well prepared for this event!!!

nCov 19 is an enveloped virus isn't it? In that case anything with BZK in it would work, and you can buy that in anything up to 5L containers. So go to Bunnings, Mitre10, whatever, look for anything with benzalkonium chloride (BZK) in it, and get use that, diluted down, as sanitiser if you can't get the standard alcohol/triclosan based stuff. That is, assuming nCov 19 as actually affected by it, I'm sure someone will tell me if it isn't.

Wouldn't meths work as well as its 99.5% ethyl alcohol with only bittering agent and dye for coloring? AFAIK meths in NZ contains no methanol

Looks like coronavirus case number 3 has links to iran but did not travel there. Family members did however. Presumably a member of their family bought the infection

back with them & passed it on to patient number 3. Guess they need to find this additional person (case 4) quickly & isolate them fast.

frednz: Thanks, good suggestion, but we have to be careful with home brew sanitisers that they don't harm our skin, particularly if used regularly.

neb:

frednz: Oh yes, that's right, even though it's very important, you can't buy hand sanitiser anywhere so you become reliant on dubious home brews, which may or may not be good for you!! Oh yes, NZ is really well prepared for this event!!!

nCov 19 is an enveloped virus isn't it? In that case anything with BZK in it would work, and you can buy that in anything up to 5L containers. So go to Bunnings, Mitre10, whatever, look for anything with benzalkonium chloride (BZK) in it, and get use that, diluted down, as sanitiser if you can't get the standard alcohol/triclosan based stuff. That is, assuming nCov 19 as actually affected by it, I'm sure someone will tell me if it isn't.

Sorry - but probably not.

The virus capsid envelope is protein / protective lipids.  The bacteria most susceptible to benzalkonium chloride are different (cell walls composed of polysaccharides IIRC), quats are cell wall disruptors and very effective for that - especially as they're cationic surfactants and the cell walls are anionic, but trials using quats on SARS coronavirus shows it's not very effective at all as a hard surface cleaner. Soap and water is more effective for cleaning hands.  I'm not sure about triclosan.  Alcohol works, but kind of dangerous if you were to use it on large areas.  Maybe other detergent surface cleaners are safer and effective, some typically contain solvents and nonionic surfactants etc as "degreaser", maybe that attacks the lipids in the capsid effectively.  Maybe as soap is an anionic surfactant, that explains why it works so well.

Sorry to be not very definite and to use so many "maybes" - but I'm pretty sure about the part where benzalkonium chloride disinfectant at normal dilutions does not work very well at all for disinfecting surfaces for coronaviruses.

dogstar001:

 

Looks like coronavirus case number 3 has links to iran but did not travel there. Family members did however. Presumably a member of their family bought the infection

 

back with them & passed it on to patient number 3. Guess they need to find this additional person (case 4) quickly & isolate them fast.

 

 

 

 

 

Number 2's hubby will no doubt be a case. (That doesnt read particularly well! ) 

so, 3 people, the hubby makes 4 and whoever was in the family on this latest one, makes 5 or 6. I can see 10 by end of next week as possibly existing ones tied to these knowns comes to light. Then it gets very real

frankv:

 

Fred99:

 

Yes.  But CFR is only a very low 0.2% in young adults (ie 20-40YO)

 

 

OT aside: I'm sure that 40yos are pleased to be identified as "young adults" ;)

 

Right now I'd be thrilled to be able to take 30 years off my age, but that much plastic surgery would require a hospital stay - something I'm keen to avoid while this virus is around. 😲