So, “powerful” as Trump’s latest ideas on coronavirus treatment are, there is a surprising nugget of wisdom to the following:
A question that probably some of you are thinking of if you’re totally into that world, which I find to be very interesting. So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it. And then I said supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you said you’re going to test that too. Sounds interesting, right?
Back in March 18, rationalist thinkers Roko Mijic (yes, he of the Basilisk) and Alexey Turchin explored the idea of using “ubiquitous far-ultraviolet light” to “control the spread of COVID-19 and other pandemics” at LessWrong.
Inspired by a related paper from 2018 (Welch, David, Manuela Buonanno, Veljko Grilj, Igor Shuryak, Connor Crickmore, Alan W. Bigelow, Gerhard Randers-Pehrson, Gary W. Johnson, and David J. Brenner. 2018. “Far-UVC Light: A New Tool to Control the Spread of Airborne-Mediated Microbial Diseases.” Scientific Reports 8 (1): 2752), they point out that normal UV light has already long been used for sterilization purposes:
One of the most promising and neglected ideas for combating the spread of covid-19 is the use of ubiquitous ultraviolet light in our built environment (trains, offices, hospitals, etc). Ultraviolet light is already being used as a disinfecting agent across the world; it goes by the acronym UVGI – “Ultraviolet germicidal irradiation”. The energetic photons of UVC light break chemical bonds in DNA and kill/inactivate both viruses and bacteria.
Furthermore, Far-UVC light is highly effective at killing both viruses and bacteria with modest inputs of energy, while humans remain safe since it can’t penetrate the thin layer of dead skin on our bodies.
The amount of Far-UVC energy required to kill 99% of the viral particles is estimated to be around 20J/m^2. With a power of, say 5W/m^2, a system would need 4 seconds to mostly sterilize a viral aerosol that could travel from person to person. However a lower power system would still have some benefits – we know that people can be infected by air that was contaminated 30 minutes earlier. Higher power in these wavelengths could be difficult to achieve with Kr-Cl Excimer Lamps as the overall efficiency from electricity to Far-UVC is ~10%. AlN Far-UVC LEDs would likely have a much higher conversion efficiency.
The obvious locus of usage would be indoors, since the outdoors, by definition, receive some UV light – especially during sunny weather, which may explain why the coronavirus progresses slower in southern countries. Moreover, the indoors are where the vast bulk of infections happen anyway. I would note that according to a recent study, only a single one out of 318 outbreaks in China occurred out-of-doors (Qian, Hua, Te Miao, L. I. U. Li, Xiaohong Zheng, Danting Luo, and Yuguo Li. 2020. “Indoor Transmission of SARS-CoV-2.” medRxiv, April, 2020.04.04.20053058). So making indoor spaces much safer may well lower r0 to substantially less than 1 even with no other mitigating policies.
The authors are skeptical about our capacity to launch Far-UVC lighting projects: “such a project would at best be ready by the start of 2021 (and then only with wartime levels of effort and purpose“. However, via the Pareto Principle, wouldn’t bathing just a few of the most crowded and high passenger load areas in Far-UVC light be sufficient to derive most of the benefits anyway? I am thinking primarily of major public transportation nodes, such as metro systems and bus stations. Further down the line, costs can also be affrayed by making it the responsibility of small businesses, such as shops and restaurants, to install these systems; they would surely prefer that to having to undergo repeated closures from cyclical lockdowns. Meanwhile, the marginal benefits to installing them in places such as elevators would presumably be much smaller. (PS. Though you should avoid using elevators in principle right now – it’s good for you, anyway).
Finally, there is also a great deal of potential for integrating Far-UVC lamps with AI systems to cut down on energy use and make them more safer, such as only having them light up when there are few or no people. Even more ambitious ideas might involve hooking them up to geolocation and CCTV/facial recognition systems, with initially scarce Far-UVC resources being deployed to areas that were recently “polluted” by an identified carrier.
As it becomes increasingly clear that the current lockdowns will fail to contain the epidemic within the modest amount of time left before economic pressure and populist demands force an end to them, it is an idea that we need to start actively exploring and implementing now – if not the day before yesterday.
Please keep off topic posts to the current Open Thread.
If you are new to my work, start here.
UVC systems are in fairly common use in the U.S. to sterilize medical instruments, operating theaters, and medical offices in general. They are, however, damaging to skin and can’t be used in an occupied area.
The authors argue that Far-UVC light is far safer than UVC (dead skin cells protecc), and that risks can be mitigated – not to mention they need to be calculated against the risk of greater coronavirus infections and the economic costs of lockdown, anyway (i.e. just like every other proposal).
Also this is tangential but I believe that radiation risks are hugely overstated anyway, indeed this proposal may even produce a positive net effect on health from hormesis: https://www.unz.com/akarlin/getting-high-is-good-for-you/
Either you or Mr Karlin are in error. I’ll leave that to you two. I await enlightment?
Geeze Anatoliy, doncha read the NYT? Go drink a glass of bleach.
What about determining its lowest resonant frequency and using ultrasound to shake it apart? Possibly might work quite a bit faster, and might be safe as well?
This theme reminds of a story I was reading on the news website a couple of months ago. If I recall, a school teacher in Moscow, burned her students – she was worried about coronavirus in her classroom, and put the children under quartz lamp.
Nope, Trump did suggest the internal application of bleach (via injection lmao) as a potential method for treating COVID. I hate enemy media as much as the next guy, but that is a wholly separate issue to the fact Trump has proven himself to be the worst sort of buffoon time and time again.
I do not actually believe that much in the tip of the iceberg theory that you have 100 asymptomatic cases for every one symptomatic case, otherwise you would see places that have already loosened their lockdowns like China seeing thousands of daily cases all over the country from millions of infectious asymptomatic carriers that were not detected during the lockdown. Also I find it hard to believe that New York already has a fifth infected when Wuhan which also locked down very late in the game has only 2 to 3 percent infected according to the Chinese, I also find it hard to believe that 4% of rural New Yorkers are infected with coronavirus, which would make it twice as widespread as coronavirus is in Wuhan, considering how low the population density of upstate rural New York is. Also if you have massive numbers of asymptomatic carriers you would see coronavirus flaring up again in places like Taiwan and Macau which have loosened their lockdowns for months already but you do not see this. So these antibody tests must somehow be getting 90 to 80 percent false positives. And did not utu say that a Chinese serology test found out only a .5% postive rate for Santa Clara county?
Medical prior use of ultraviolet. UVA is the least powerful, UVB mid power, UVC highest (shortest wavelength).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet_light_therapy
Judging from this, dead skin cells only protect you so far, but UVB, at least, doesn’t seem so bad if you’re sensible with how long and how often you use it and protect yourself.
UVC is more powerful so it would at a minimum need new usage guidelines. (Also unclear how long a treatment you need for this application, but it seems easy enough to test.)
Trump clearly didn’t come out in support of such. Rather, he asked about the possibility. His follow-up claim of being sarcastic in that instance isn’t believable to many. He’s not always so PR savvy.
‘It kills the virus in vivo so lets get it into the blood’ is the basis for all these touted remedies including anti malaria and anti ebola medicines. So Trump’s thinking is not different to scientists. Wide spectrum antivirals do not exist perhaps because the virus cannot really be killed because it is not alive in the first place. It is undead, like a vampire.
A known prophylactic is to draw blood from immune people and inject their antibodies into other people, like in The Omega Man.
Someone relatively young* and in good shape can really only die of COVID-19 (or the flu) by means of a cytokine storm. There are medicines that silence Interleukin-6 which is the immune response amplifier. Bodyfat largely consists of macrophages (the immune system’s Robocops) and even without any infection overweight people will have more cytokines circulating in their blood.
*However we get more inflamed as we age, this is the immune dysregulation like a car that is accelerating as fast as ever but the brakes don’t work in.
As for constant UVC to zap the virus mid aid when its being transmitted between two people in a head to head, that would work but I think it would have to be tuned very carefully to avoid causing damage especially to eyes, especially with prolonged exposure. Coughing must be the primary mode of transmission as that is the symptom. Just ban coughing and have rent a cops authorised to put a bag over the head of and arrest anyone who does in an airport or plane ECT.
Those herd immunity disciples should maybe receive a bullet to the head?
They should be lined up against a wall and shot considering all unnecessary deaths they cause, even after manipulating the fatality numbers, considering that you can get a vaccine by September or early next year. In ancient China if a general or a civil servant seriously screws up or makes a wrong bet, he gets beheaded, so maybe that is what should happen to Teggell? And in Japan if they commit serious strategic errors civil servants fall on their own sword.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3081507/china-could-have-covid-19-vaccine-ready-public-use-early-next
So it looks like the US is going to overshoot 60,000 fatalities and get as many as 100,000? And we do not even know how effective herd immunity is or how long it lasts, or if how many percentage of people who get coronavirus actually get it.
I’ve seen the video of Trump’s gaffe. It’s patently obvious he was being a doofus and speaking in absolute earnest, there wasn’t a nanogram of sarcasm in his delivery.
See for yourself, it takes place in the first minute.
https://youtu.be/33QdTOyXz3w
Outside the UV likely zaps it down to harmless levels and it was never proposed to let anyone go around coughing in others faces in buildings . If viral load is important many people would have had a slight but basically asymptomatic infection by now and have become immune under the moderate distancing without shutting down that was the long standing plan in all countries for a respiratory virus pandemic.
Such a loose minimise-viral-load set of restrictions without an all age lockdown would be a more realistic way of reaching half the population inoculated against COVID-19 than that waiting for a vaccine to pop up to order a couple of months or so like in Hollywood’s Contagion. There is no doable end to this without being seen to be accepting a surge of deaths because no doctor will sign off on anything but a worse case scenario when the experts advise the Government. The politicians in power are not going to carry the can and end their career by exiting the lockdown with the virtual certainty of a surge of deaths will be blamed on them by scientists saying they predicted it. So it’s endless.
I thought that Trump was proposing UVing inside the body from what I understand?
We are not seeing a resurgence in Macau, Korea, and Taiwan despite very high density, so very competent governments can prevent a resurge, although that means cutting themselves off from the world until they can get a vaccine. And the Chinese are optimistic that they can get it by September this year, and they usually get things like this right. Herd immunity advocates just want to sacrifice an x amount of people for the oligarchs.
The Chinese are clearly confident of preventing another significant surge of cases this fall and winter, and considering population densities, if there really will be a second surge we will have seen it by now.
If you’ve had sigmoidoscopy you’ve had a flexible light inserted up your rectum. I do not see why, instead of a breathing tube a flexible UV light device could not be inserted into the lungs but then I’m no doctor.
Of more interest to me was the discussion as to how alcohol basically kills coronavirus on contact. As we all know ingested alcohol is exhaled from the lungs and is the legal basis for prosecuting people for drunken driving. The greater the amount of alcohol you consume the higher the reading on the ‘Breathalyzer’ machine. It seems a reasonable question Trump was posing. If alcohol can be exhaled from the lungs then we know alcohol enters the lungs and may have some therapeutic benefit. Besides being offered some rum or vodka would be preferable to most medical treatments I’ve encountered. Might make the Covid-19 ward a bit unruly but a bottle of booze is cheaper than a ventilator and requires no medical staff to administer.
A lot of the Coronavirus and vaccine conspiracy theories seem very left wing and anti-white. A common anti-vaxxer argument I have seen is that vaccines are a racist plot to sterilise Africans, as if we live in some parallel universe where European leaders don’t literally have open borders from Africa into Europe, and these idiots claim the elites want LESS black people in the world?
There’s far too much leftist bullshit in the anti-vaxxer movement and conspiracy movement generally for me to take it seriously. Most of them seem to be a motley crew malcontents and ne’er-do-wells of various races and backgrounds.
What I said on the matter:
A related piece:
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/486816-trump-injecting-disinfectant-media-fail/
Concerning media hypocrisy on such matter:
https://www.rt.com/usa/486863-cristina-cuomo-bleach-bath/
Schools often have poor environmental controls.
I guess it is different in different countries – the schools I saw in Germany were made up of separate smaller buildings full of windows. But a lot of the post-1950s schools in America, have many classrooms with no windows, or else windows that don’t lead to outside, or that don’t open. The ventilation can be bad, lots of CO_2. I imagine that humidity is also low.
Maybe, changes could be made in the designs to promote the killing of germs? Or maybe, it is better to naturally expose kids to germs…
Trump just forgot the context and the exact object of Milton’s prayer.
My house has a ultraviolet light built into the heat pump system. The air filter is coated with a catalyst that is activated by a set of UV bulbs, both of which are located on the intake side of the indoor fan. The bulbs last for a couple of years, the filter I change yearly. The filters aren’t cheap, $70 or so, but the system seems really well thought out and effective.
Right from the start I commented about how this bug seemed to be spread within closed spaces that recirculate air, like Legionnaire’s disease. Not that it’s related, but that breathing recirculated air seems to be a bad thing. The systems themselves aren’t doing enough to sterilize the air we breathe.
From 4chan:
‘Slavs have strong immunity to the coronavirus
Including in Belarus where President Lukashenko leads the way with
— no lockdown
— recommendation of activity outdoors + sauna + vodka
Concrete science inputs:
Slavs have low rate of G6PD deficiency, which is high in Italy / Spain
“Does G6PD Deficiency Relate to COVID-19 Infection?
There may be a link between glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency and susceptibility to, and virulence of, COVID-19 infection
The primary clinical effects of G6PD deficiency are neonatal jaundice and acute hemolytic anemia
This disorder is commonly found in people from the Mediterranean region, Africa, and Asia.”
https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/85929
Slavic people don’t tend to have the ACE2 receptor gene mutation, also associated with covid
also:
Alcohol is an antiseptic. The average Slav partakes of alcohol….
Slavs Stronk!’
A bronchoscopy involves inserting a thin tube containing a light and camera into the lungs through the nose or mouth.
Roko Mijic? Veljko Grilj?
For people with apparently an average IQ about 95 we certainly keep popping up everywhere
A few year ago, there was this Republican senate candidate in Indiana, or maybe it was Missouri, who said that a woman cannot get pregnant if raped, unless she secretly wanted it. (I was a Rush Limbaugh listener at the time, so I got this piece there.)
I don’t think it is about PR savvy or not, but rather, some of these guys’ general knowledge can be seriously strange.
Is it true that wildlife never gets viral infections? OK, maybe with the exception of the polar bears. All those animals spending all the time outdoors, in beautiful UV light, hoarding antiseptic benefits.
You can’t get down into the smaller airways with that.
If you slice the lung, it might come as a surprise, but it’s not a hollow windbag, but kind of solid, because the bronchus branches like a tree, until the branches are microscopic, therefor the insertion of the light tube probably wont work as hoped …
what I find sad that for a a change Trump wasn’t boasting, bragging, trashing his opponents but earnestly, almost humbly asked questions, hoping that there could be something, adding “i’m not a doctor” … he had totally good, honorable intentions …
And naturally the trumptards tried to present it as a genius move exhibiting superior knowledge and naturally the other side coudn’t let it slip.
If you want to kill coronaviruses with UV, you must kill all of the ones you irradiate. Otherwise, the survivors will proliferate and become a UV-resistant strain.
Of course, the same process of selection happens among coronaviruses that are exposed to natural UV in the external environment, especially during the summer. There is a key difference, however. Those viruses have to cope not only with natural UV but also with higher temperatures and higher humidity. This is why respiratory viruses tend to die off during the summer. If one of those factors doesn’t kill them, the other two will.
Another thing: an office environment will provide a UV-resistant strain with plenty of potential hosts, i.e., office workers. Yum yum!!!
The only way to prevent this kind of pandemic is to contain it ruthlessly. If international travel had been halted back in January, the situation would have been very different today.
If they develop a vaccine by early next year, you’re more than welcome to have my at-risk allocation. They only started trials of a vaccine for MERS recently. I think the only Coronaviradae strains that have vaccines at this point are for animals. I’d rather take my chances with getting a low viral load at the market, assuming I haven’t had it already.
Sure, but wouldn’t you need to do shots of Bacardi 151 or Everclear for it to be effective 😉
“If you want to kill coronaviruses with UV, you must kill all of the ones you irradiate. Otherwise, the survivors will proliferate and become a UV-resistant strain.” – A sad case of being damaged for life by being exposed to one single idea.
Well …
I have been down this track professionally. HVAC (Heating Ventilating and Air Conditioning) systems became subjects of interest after Legionnaires’ Disease became dangerous. I was asked to assess several innovations addresseing this. This was the best. Very powerful UV flashlamps are used to pump solid state lasers, powerful enough to get some useful light through water. killing bugs in the way. However, the real effect was interaction with titanium dioxide (basically white paint). UV on Tioxide generates ozone which kills the remaining bugs. There were some installations but they needed maintenance and landlords aren’t that keen on extra maintenance bills. It was cheaper to design stagnant water pools out of HVAC systems.
This idea does however have legs. Hot moist countries like Singapore, India, Zambia, Malayisa and Australia, NZ have had COVID-19 community transmission but rather weakly. It has not been widespread amongst the poor. But the better off who are often obese, live in air conditioned comfort and shop at the mall have been affected. I hypothesize that the HVAC systems have enabled the virus to acheive a measure of community transmission in climates where it would be killed in the natural environment. UV sterlization in the ducts, and indeed on public transport airconditioning systems, would greatly reduce community transmission in these cases, especially in combination with tioxide. “No bug can settle on this surface and live!”. UV in the form of sunlight has been killing viruses since viruses existed. They still die.
Direct UV at the necessary power has numerous drawbacks which is why it is not in every discotheque in the land. Some people, redheads – welcome to Wales, are paritcularly sensitive to burning and other effects. Almost everyone develops cataracts with repeated exposure. Sensitive types also get welder style headaches. Welders wear those masks for a reason.
At one time, I also worked on a gastrointestinal pill containing a camera and a laser. The patient swallowed it and the pill explored the GI tract. We fantasized about different wavelength lasers powered by ultracapacitors to perform different functions.
MASKS ARE BAD
Changing the subject, my Amazon delivery man today was wearing a mask. As he didn’t get closer than 10 feet and then for 1 or 2 seconds, this wasn’t particularly useful. BUT HE WASN’T WEARING GLOVES. As I could have been handling the parcel immediately (I didn’t, I left it in the sunlight to disinfect) this could have resulted in disease tranmission. He may have been coughing onto surface in his driving cabin all journey. This is the result of wearing masks. They create false confidence and more important factors such as handwashing and glove wearing are ignored. Virus from a cough is gone in a puff of wind. A smear from a surface can last 72 hours.
More bizarre than what Trump actually said.
Trump isn’t a medic. What seems strange at one point can get accepted later and vice versa. Some time ago, taking turpentine extract under certain circumstances was considered more acceptable than it is today. In recent years, elements of the medical profession have used poop pills for some conditions. Just prior to the use of poop pills, feces was injected into select patients.
Belief is for the religious. Now, Wuhan did not react “late in the game” at all; they woke up to the fact that this was a new disease pretty early; they did all the things that we Americans did not do: widespread testing, immediately if any symptoms; 15,000 teams of 5 technicians each, to trace every single case and his/her contacts for the past xx days and test all; isolating each case (not “quarantine”, isolation in a single room, generally requisitioned from hotels, schools, barracks, what will you); providing each with medical follow-up, food and assistance; hospital ready (also one built in 10 days!) for all who needed it; wage loss compensation to encourage people to comply; finally also lockdown — but lockdown is only one, and the least important, of the necessary steps. Lockdown was decided IMHO because they expected biowarfare (and there is no proof one way or another if it was.)
Compare this to New f*kng York and the rest of God’s Own, headless chicken and Mafia country.
As for “according to the Chinese”, they managed to stop the epidemic, they could reopen the economy, and more importantly they told us every step they were taking in real time to give us time to learn and prepare. Who do you want me to follow? Goddam Fauci who pretends he doesn’t know his ass from his elbow so the politicians will have their cake and eat it, too? The drafters of the so-called relief package for the oligarchs?
Yeah. Its called sunlight. Its what people normally do when they arent locked down and its why respiratory diseases end each spring.
https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/where-is-orania-is-there-coronavirus-how-many-cases/
It just suddenly occurred to me how Orania is doing in the middle of all this mess.
Is it even possible? UV resistance seems impossible for small virus particles, especially retroviruses with their unstable RNA. I might be wrong, but my understanding is that being afraid of a UV resistant retrovirus is like killing enemy humans by burning them alive, but then being afraid of some of them surviving and becoming fire resistant.
The funny thing about Anglo lack of discipline is that Germany is usually included in the Anglo cultures and German discipline and organization was famous in WW2.
And the Brits were known for their sheep-like discipline hence the well known queing jokes.
About low quality or low human capital right wingers, English speaking countries seem to produce more lower quality right wingers compared to continental European countries. If we judge by Marion Marechal, the French right seem to produce the highest quality right wingers compared to other countries like the US and the UK.
I didn’t think Germany is usually considered “Anglo”? Normally England is considered separate from the Germanic countries despite being a Germanic country.
Does the term WASP in the US include Germans? I didn’t think it did traditionally.
John Jacob Astor was considered a WASP and he was German.
Has anybody raised this topic? Would there be a reason why a vaccine would be more effective against coronavirus than natural herd immunity?
Natural herd immunity would mean getting the disease, whose long term implications are poorly understood, and in the short term hospitalizes and even kills quite a few people. The long term implications could be just as bad or worse. Here’s one thing which is poorly understood and could be way more significant than the acute disease:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/04/24/strokes-coronavirus-young-patients/
How much faith do you have that the data China is releasing are accurate?
I am checking them against Korea and Taiwan, and the data they are releasing seems to be fairly accurate.
I might be wrong, but my understanding is that being afraid of a UV resistant retrovirus is like killing enemy humans by burning them alive, but then being afraid of some of them surviving and becoming fire resistant.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0144860905000683
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0043135487900807
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es070056u
Aren’t the Astors an aristocratic English family? They may have German roots but then again so do the British royals, but most people don’t consider them German these days.
Other prominent families, like the Rothschilds as a famous example, are German in origin but heavily Anglicised. I don’t think calling them “Anglos” is the same as saying the average German person is an “Anglo”.
“Anglo lack of discipline”
I think you’ll find that the lack of discipline is mostly from New Britons (or Irish travellers).
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8252923/Traveller-funeral-broken-police-mourners-seize-body-morgue.html
One should be careful about conflating Trump’s unscientific musings with actual science just because of some word matching.
Firstly the findings of the WH Science & Technology team were old hat. It seemed primarily to impress Trump. That UVC and various disinfectants kill various viruses when applied to surfaces is known. The mechanisms by which they act is known: UVC degrades the RNA bonds – especially single stranded RNA which is less stable than the double-stranded DNA (which is why the latter survived as the main information transmitting mechanism of evolution and RNA used for temporarily shuttling info around in the cell) – and is widely used to disinfect masks and so on especially when supplies are low. Disinfectants degrade the envelope surrounding the RNA. The rates at which they do that depend on a variety of parameters and the WH briefing seemed more like a middle school science presentation – how do different filters impact smoke inhalation – than some breakthrough science. (This is not to say the knowledge is unimportant: it is but not only is it known but not worthy of a breathless announcement. Next will be why N99 masks work better than N95).
Trump of course misunderstood all this. He had just seen this presentation minutes before the briefing and conflated surfaces with the human body not understanding that the same processes by which UVC/disinfectants can kill/degrade viruses will impact human cells. Indeed a key challenge of medicines to degrade specific viruses or bacteria (apart from triggering the body’s immune system to do the job) is how to do this without significantly degrading human cells.
For example a very high dose of UVC aimed at the entire body will certainly kill the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the body…both directly and indirectly by killing the host. No host, no virus – problem solved! (This principle also works for every disease including cancer for example: a 100% cure rate for cancer is cyanide. It will certainly cause cancer cells to die…by the same mechanism it also annihilates human cells by disrupting the electron chain).
Having said all that, and away from the circus of the WH briefings, warmer, drier, longer daylight weather can degrade viruses of all kinds on fomites (ie surfaces that pathogens can be transmitted on) faster than colder, more humid, less daylight weather and also less likely to be suspended in the air for a significant amount of time, leading to a lower level of infectiousness – tho by how much is uncertain given for example the cases of Singapore (quite humid tho) and increasingly Saudi Arabia (hot and dry) since other mechanisms of transmission remain.
Finally: direct sunlight is good by increasing Vitamin D production which boosts the immune system. While more attention has been paid on how to kill/prevent getting infected by the virus, less has been paid as how to boost one’s immune system. Far from being hokey, various studies over the decades have shown for example, the benefits of fasting (even intermittent fasting) to get the immune system in gear along with various natural supplements. It seems clear that COVID-19 overwhelmingly severely impacts those with weaker immune systems or those which react too strongly with cytokine storms. Ensuring one’s immune system as well as general robustness is kept in top shape is a way to reduce the risk of severe complications (obviously no 100% guarantee) as well as more prevalent health issues (from diabetes to coronary diseases).
England is full of people who aren’t English, and I don’t just mean the obvious like Muslims and blacks. Frankly the cities of Northern England are half Irish and have been for a long time. This is in addition to a multitude of European immigrants who live in English cities.
I would argue that stereotypical “chav” culture is basically lower class Irish culture. People see white people in England or white “English” people behaving badly and automatically assume that they are native English, perhaps understandably, but that often isn’t the case in reality.
The ideological losers of this crisis will be the right, the “conservatives”. This lock down is increasingly perceived as right wing, if anything it is bizarrely having the effect of rallying the left into taking on the role as defenders of civil liberties.
In Britain most of the busybodies snitching on people for having two walks a day, etc, are “Conservative” supporting types. Conservative outlet the Daily Mail is among the most vocal supporters of the lock down.
Yesterday Piers Corbyn, Jeremy Corbyn’s brother, lead a protest against the lock down which was shut down by the police. The Daily Mail and other Tory supporting outlets predictably criticised him for this. New Labour leader Keir Starmer has also spoken out against the ongoing suppression of civil liberties by the Conservative party, perhaps opportunistically you might argue.
I don’t think this is doing the Conservative party any good at all, people have increasingly had enough of them and their supporters.
Before 1914, the Dutch, Germans and Scandinavians were considered Anglo-Saxon. They contributed a major component of English identity.
It was noticeable, when I lived in Merthyr Tydfil, how disproportionately Irish surnames were represented in the lists of those convicted in the magistrates court that was published by the local paper. The Irish in Merthyr go back to the 1840s. They are still distinct, as are the Spanish and later arriving Italians probably due to Catholicism. Merthyr, surrounded by rugby playing South Wales, has a soccer team.
Do you know what S stands for in WASP? Saxon. Now, where this Saxony place? It’s very White, with very little miscegenation. More WASP than United States of Mongrels.
https://waterfordwhispersnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/shutterstock_461800897.jpg
https://akm-img-a-in.tosshub.com/indiatoday/images/story/201806/RTX5NHOY.jpeg
Some of those guys have refused to culturally assimilate too. You have a point.
You draw completely wrong conclusion from the papers you have linked. That for a give radiation dose not all viruses were destroyed/inactivated is not because some were more resistant to radiation. It was the experiment setup. Viruses are in 1 cm deep suspension. (*) The ones that are deeper get less radiation. That’s all to it. Furthermore it is possible that viruses are not isotropic and hitting them with photons from one side is not the same as hitting them from the opposite side.
(*) ULTRAVIOLET INACTIVATION OF SELECTED BACTERIA AND VIRUSES WITH PHOTOREACTIVATION OF THE BACTERIA, GEORGED. HARRIS et al.
Once again: “A sad case of being damaged for life by being exposed to one single idea.” Everything looks like a nail to you.
There is something to it what you say. The explanation why is probably simple. My take: English liberalism leaves no room for narratives with “We” pronoun but only with “I” pronoun. To think in terms of “We” requires more complex cognitive abilities and higher level of empathy that can incorporate complex socio-economy determinants while the “I” narrative is oblivious to socio-economic determinants as the socio-economic status quo is reified in “the end of history” sense and the only outlet left for frustration goes into a crude racism even if dressed up in more respectable HBDism.
You draw completely wrong conclusion from the papers you have linked.
The papers state that certain viruses are more UV-resistant because of their biological properties. For example, viruses with two strands of DNA are more resistant than those with a single strand.
You’re right when you say that not all viruses get equally exposed to UV, and this is one of two flaws in Anatoly’s proposal. If you install a UV lamp in an office, it will not kill all of the viruses in the room. Some will survive, and a process of selection will begin.
This is not a serious problem over the short term. Coronaviruses have a low mutation rate, and many mutations are needed to achieve UV resistance. Unfortunately, this is a long-term proposal, and UV-resistant strains will inevitably evolve. Please don’t tell me it’s impossible. Anything that reproduces can evolve, and viruses are no exception.
Everything looks like a nail to you.
In the dark, and without my glasses.
The Rothschilds. German in origin, but heavily Anglicized. I guess that’s a way to put it.
Unfortunately in most countries it’s the new right who predominate among corona hoaxers.
What seems increasingly likely is that lockdowns are not the most important part of the winning strategy. Basically contact tracing and extensive testing, along with social distancing and mask wearing, are in principle always enough, with the caveat that contact tracing is impossible if there are too many cases, and a strict lockdown (which Europe is not doing) significantly help reduce the number of cases so that contact tracing becomes possible.
“You’re right when you say that not all viruses get equally exposed to UV, and this is one of two flaws in Anatoly’s proposal.” – You are shifting the blame. No, it is not a flaw in Anatoly’s proposal; it is a flaw in your objection to it by bringing up a red herring of viruses having varying susceptibility to UV within one type of viruses and then linking several papers that did not support your claim. But obviously you won’t admit to it.
“…in most countries it’s the new right who predominate among corona hoaxers.” – Libertarians who never disappoint to make a bad call.
Are strict lockdowns even socially possible in countries west of the Urals?
Since I can’t read articles that are not in English is that also the way in the continent? Marion Marechal seems to be buying into the corona.
That which you don’t want, nor do you try, is impossible. If there were a political will, there’d be a way.
The vanquished epidemic in the far North (0-2 new cases per day in Alaska, all 11 recovered in Greenland, 16 total and 13 recovered in the Canadian Territories) may contradict the sunlight/hot weather theory.
I was a bit too strong with “predominate,” but in Germany it may even be true, based on comments or idiotic articles like this: https://sezession.de/62511/mundschutzbefehl
In Hungary fortunately lots of corona hoaxers on the left, probably more than on the right, but Hungary is a special case with a more right wing government than basically any other country, and it’s in a lockdown. In Switzerland the SVP came out against the lockdown (though they supported mask wearing earlier than any other party I believe).
What is sure is that it’s certainly not the left which is opposed to lockdowns. But it’s not clearly political, often cuts across political lines.
While we’re in lockdown hoarding dust particles and God knows what else.
Well from pictures it looks like HK and China are recovering from the coronovarus without fully implementing social distancing, and in the case of HK, without going full lockdown, with only 1038 cases and 5 deaths out of a population of 7 million, all the while sharing a land border with China, and Macao only had 45 cases, compared to Sweden with 18500 cases and 2200 deaths out of the population of 9 million, what say you Swedish Family and Mike Whitney?
Take your pills before you post, plox.
Where did the Anglo Saxons come from? And where is Saxony located?
England is considered a Germanic/Nordic country by many. Germany and Germanic people are not Anglo except the English. Subset vs Superset.
Peace.
It’s actually being done by a biotech startup now. Some Trump supporters passed around a video describing the process, and an NYT reporter got both Twitter and YouTube to suspend the company’s accounts (it looks like Twitter at least has reversed its suspension).
https://twitter.com/MichaelCoudrey/status/1254255771774119936?s=20
I’ve read that the word ‘chav’ comes from an Irish gypsy word, more support for your thesis.
bringing up a red herring of viruses having varying susceptibility to UV within one type of viruses and then linking several papers that did not support your claim. But obviously you won’t admit to it.
Do you always talk aggressively when you disagree with someone? Is this the new normal in academia? (I’m assuming you’re an academic.)
Genetic variation exists within a “type” of virus just as it exists between “types.” Please note the quotation marks. The difference between a “type” and a “strain” is one of degree. “Strains” evolve into “types.”
I think the reason for Greenland, will be the low population density.
But this is also not necessarily for temperature – the view which was proposed was optimal temperature range (therefore absolute humidity) for infectivity of the virus.
This was the proposal of the paper in 8 March:
I am not any expert or knowledgeable about this topic, but I assume the mechanisms for why could be overdetermined.
1. From little I have read – lipid enveloped viruses are more survivable at the lower temperature (apparently the lipid layer is more effective at low temperature in gel form, than as liquid at higher temperatures).
2. Water droplets also are airborne less in space and time, when absolute humidity is higher (i.e. in warmer air). So airborne infectivity should fall above certain temperature ranges (if I recall above 25 degrees celsius).
3. UV radiation levels in different climates.
And then there are also seasonable changes in human activity, and possible effects of the climate on organisms’ immunity.
Another correlation was the relation of the epidemic to air pollution. Originally people proposed this might be to the lung’s susceptibility. But now some people seem to be proposing whether the virus could travel on particulates in the air.
What I seem to read is that “chav” has a Romani origin, so probably non-Irish, as Irish Travelers aren’t related to Gypsies, and Gypsies in Ireland are likely a more recent arrival.
Hard to believe though – do extremely low-status Gypsies influence the English language? Especially language relating to class? I was curious about this, so I looked up Gypsy loan words into English. I couldn’t recognize most of them (maybe, some are British slang?), but there were a few interesting ones: shiv, drag (both drag queens and races (?)), cushy, lollipop, narc, pal.
I’m not sure how to count the word “chav”, as it might impel people to better behavior, but it is tempting to take it as the majority relating to degeneracy. [chav, narc, shiv, drag] Quite interesting. I wonder what a comparison/analysis of loanwords from other people would bring.
Again you fail to admit that you have no evidence that exposure to UV light can select viruses that are less susceptible to the UV light within the same type/strain. All you have is your belief that it must be so.
An acquaintance produced his own home-made anti-COVID inhalator. He fills it up with absinthe.
What about the social distancing?
https://cdni.rbth.com/rbthmedia/images/2019.02/original/5c6fefb285600a179f360168.jpg
There is some curious empirical data to suggest that alcohol does protect its users. Homeless people in Boston were tested for Covid virus and, no surprise, many if not most had been infected but none needed hospitalization… at least for the virus.
Results of the suicidal stupidity in the leadership of the church in Russia – more and more clergy now infected, in a very disproportionate way.
(Although really the problem is more the government, which only provided some “advisory” to religious leaders that they “should close” as part of the self-isolation regime – when they should have simply legally required closing of them).
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1475834705931146&id=100005138914714
Utu,
You’re talking like someone who is deeply hurt … and angry.
Do you want evidence that exposure to UV light can select for UV resistance? Fine. Just ask me. And don’t talk as if I told your mom that you were wearing her underwear.
Blormpf should take some advice from the real adults in the room, New Zealand officials, don’t you remember when their PM was crying because some kebabs were removed?
That’s real LEADERSHIP!
From The Guardian:
I’m dissapointed to see Russian agents pushing disinformation here. My three year old daughter drank some drain cleaner because I said it was okay and now she’s dead? When do I get reparations?
https://twitter.com/chowleen/status/1254590781446410240?s=20
He killed two birds with one stone – he achieved social distancing by badly stinking.
He could have achieved social distancing without courting disaster in the embrace of the green fairy and led a healthful lifestyle.
https://miro.medium.com/max/8064/1*VwmN6lD0MmL5_TGVsJwF6A.jpeg
So true. Strong takes like this seem to come nearly exclusively from the right.
https://www.barnhardt.biz/2020/04/25/facemasks-are-useless-luciferian-bee-ess-but-this-one-wins-like-secretariat-at-the-belmont/
Facemasks are a luciferian device to convince people that every other human being is POISON and therefore draining people of FRATERNAL CHARITY (Fruit of the Second Joyful Mystery of the Rosary – the Visitation). Folks, MISANTHROPY IS NOT A VIRTUE. IT IS SATANIC.
https://www.barnhardt.biz/2020/04/23/coronacold-as-perfect-cover-for-murdering-nursing-home-residents-opioids-plus-valium-or-xanax-yields-respiratory-failure/
CoronaCold as perfect cover for murdering nursing home residents: Opioids plus Valium or Xanax yields respiratory failure.
https://www.barnhardt.biz/2020/04/20/question-what-does-bill-gates-want-answer-bill-gates-wants-to-be-god/
Question: What does Bill Gates WANT? Answer: Bill Gates wants to be God
Heh, it’s the opposite in the USA.
The “S” stands for part of “Anglo-Saxon.” It isn’t about Saxons from Germany, or Transylvania.
In Israel, they had to start to end the lockdown 10 days ago already, due to the financial situation of the country, means they could not pay for it to any longer. They know the epidemic will restart, but they cannot afford to continue the lockdown. An economic bankruptcy could be a greater security threat to Israel, than an epidemic that mainly kills old people (Israel like all Middle Eastern countries has a younger population than average in Europe).
Now it looks almost like a normal street life in Israel, there from videos, except a high proportion of people are trying to cover their face (although in an ineffective and lazy way, which probably will not be completely helpful).
Perhaps they can gamble that rising UV levels and temperatures next month, will slow development of the epidemic. However, the opening of malls and religious schools next week, will allow mass indoor transmission.
–
The main demographic of disease transmission in Israel is the religious population. They estimate that 38% of Bnei Brak (Haredi city with 200000 people) was infected with coronavirus. However median age is only 18 years old in Bnei Brak, so probably most of the ultra-orthodox Jews did not develop symptoms – but can be “superspreaders”.
Jerusalem has a median age of 23, so is still relatively “African” age profile (younger than Botswana). Tel Aviv, on the other hand, has median age of 35 and could have a far higher ratio of victims, as it is a city which is closer to demographics of modern developed countries (same median age as Singapore and Chile).
The Saxons were a tribe that disappeared from the world scene a thousand years ago, back when the Roman Empire was still kinda a thing.
Saying that Germans are Anglo because mumble-mumble Saxons is like saying that Koreans are European because something-something Attila and Hungary.
People who support policies that result in their own demographics being decimated are traitors and deserve to be done away with.
Place names often long pre-date the present day inhabitants. I have noticed quite a few place names in Germany that sounds like they could be place names in England, but I think that points to a far more ancient connection than the two countries having much in common in present day terms.
What do you think caused the shift away from Anglos identifying as part of the Germanic group to identifying as a separate group in their own right?
I would guess the World Wars were the main reason? Both England and Germany I think went from seeing each other as almost brother nations to being bitter adversaries who couldn’t be more different.
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/disney/images/7/7b/Profile_-_Pocahontas.jpeg
I am disappointed that Karlin says he agrees with 70% of the alt-right. I am reporting Karlin’s racism to the Moscow police.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Anatoly_Karlin
https://youtu.be/V_KKuy5A9CA
https://youtu.be/1k72YxpbgHQ
https://youtu.be/dfgCp3TNbqg
Israel has no lock down while the goyim do, now there’s a surprise. I think many people will see that as confirmation that it is all bullshit.
If this site offered a block list you’d be the first on mine, I find your snotty, obnoxious posts so annoying.
Israel had a shorter lockdown, but started to end restrictions from 19 April. They know the epidemic will re-start now, but they believe the economic financial disaster is a greater security threat (Israel does not have financial security for multi-month lockdown of EU members, or large countries like Russia, and is starting to become rapidly bankrupt this year), and they can also expect the summer weather will slow the spread of the infection in the next few months.
Highest intensity of infection was in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish and Bedouin areas of the country. These do not have social distancing, but also have African gypsy demographic profiles (median age below 20) which increases the ratio of asymptomatic cases.
Infection rates were so high in ultra-Orthodox Jewish areas in Israel, that they were invaded by the army or military police, who supplied food, and evacuated the small number of old people in those communities.
So entry/exit points to Haredi city of Bnei Brak (population 200,000; median age 18-19) were sealed by the army, so they can’t infect Tel Aviv (median age 35).
–
In South Tel Aviv, also African illegal immigrants didn’t understand social distancing and fight with police.
In Mea Shearim – the most extremist anti-Israel Haredi ghetto in Jerusalem. Police reportedly fighting them to enforce quarantine. Even though army was supplying all food to the area.
https://twitter.com/SuleimanMas1/status/1251967513958723590
It’s possible some of Haredi ghettos attained “herd immunity”. It was reported that 38% of Bnei Brak in Israel was infected with coronavirus (if true, this could attain herd immunity if rate/reproduction of virus is ≤ 1,613).
Summer weather will also significantly lower the rate of infection, although re-opening malls and religious schools next week could surely result in a mass indoor transmission.
Median age in Gaza is 17 years old.
If this pandemic was Spanish flu (which mainly killed young people), then they could worry about it massacring them. But their demographic profile means that a far larger majority of the population will not have very severe effects from COVID-19, compared to almost any places in the world other than a places in Sub Saharan Africa.
Unlike Sub Saharan Africa, in Gaza they also have a good nutritional status and no HIV epidemic.
They are one of the people who (unlike Swedes – median age 41), could sensibly aim for a herd immunity strategy.
Nice strategy of killing off his own voters continued as blue states will ignore this, red states gladly will get lots of free… body bags:
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/trump-says-us-not-extend-005407673.html
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-buys-more-body-bags-preparing-for-worst-case-cornavirus-scenario-11588172780
Meanwhile, RF also doesn’t stop being entertaining country lately, as BoJo’s example was seemingly too tempting:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-30/russian-prime-minister-mishustin-tests-positive-for-coronavirus?utm_source=google&utm_medium=bd&cmpId=google
Yes because I am sure Russia has 15 percent CFR.
Why did the 1918 flu mutate and kill young people? Will this one do the same? What is the rate of diabetes, high blood pressure, and overweight or obese people in Gaza?
At least for Moscow there is good news that the new infections are now looking like a stable plateau. (Problem is that Moscow was allowed to fuck all the rest of the country by spreading its infection, when it should have been quarantined and sealed from the country).
Here are new infections for Moscow. Around 10 days of plateau now.
https://i.imgur.com/71HfDu0.png
One of the more problematic things in the pandemic situation in Russia at the moment, might be still inadequate PPE for medical staff.
70 doctors and nurses by yesterday had died with coronavirus, even though total deaths were under slightly 1000 at the time across Russia. Over 7% of coronavirus deaths being medical professionals sounds quite high and I assume it might be evidence of inadequate PPE in hospitals.
Oops I accidentally posted the wrong link above ^ this picture is Moscow region.
Here are daily new infections for Moscow – the same kind of plateau, without such a significant jump today.
https://i.imgur.com/2FI5EhB.png
Are those two last things truthful – doctor suicides and spread in the military? Haven’t been following RU sources very closely last week, but China did not release a single peep about medical staff suicides/military cases during all the time, did RF announce it officially?
https://twitter.com/NorbertElekes/status/1255928505889628160
Fantastic idea! Would certainly work. It’s in the same line as guillotine being the best cure for headaches.
You should keep an open mind.
The post up at #82 leads to more detail, which I have copied below. Admittedly to me, the idea looks less promising than the CQ/AZ/ZN combo treatment. However, some patients with heart conditions will not be able to take CQ due to the risk of arrhythmia.
Discarding the idea of “Anti-viral UVA” without any consideration is anti-scientific and academically dishonest.
PEACE
https://mobile.twitter.com/JavierZ_O/status/1254272013516124160?s=20
It is funny that all the freedom loving right wingers are turning out to be prostitutes of the capitalist class.
Plateau not yet in Russia.
Here are daily new infections – today was 7933.
https://i.imgur.com/SGkZsQO.png
Daily new infections – here it is easier to see that Moscow is probably at a plateau.
https://i.imgur.com/rxCktKG.png
However, a more positive sign – is that testing has increased in the last week significantly.
So here are the number of coronavirus positive results, relative to number of tests. (It is actually past the peak in this measurement).
https://i.imgur.com/ieW4756.png
Lockdown will continue for another 12 days, and it is recommended that there should at least be a definite plateau before it ends – this is true in Moscow already, but not other regions.
In Sverdlovsk region, there is now mandatory mask mode beginning today. Everyone has to wear a medical mask outside of the home, according to the decree.
If such masks are actually effective, then Ekaterinburg might be able to slow the rate of infection – reporters say most people comply in the city.
https://static.ngs.ru/news/2020/99/preview/7045efd6a3e7d9ecc73316a8e7bc329121b05d119_711.JPG
https://static.ngs.ru/news/2020/99/preview/bd3b8bd0aede9ba79c9bed106e919a86213f2ba79_711.JPG
https://static.ngs.ru/news/2020/99/preview/db9aa798afd0e41c9dd73f2086016c6a21ca4553b_711.JPG
You noticed it for the first time in your life?
Well, better late than never.
Are such regulations legally binding?
LOL. This is Russia, not United States of Lawyers.
During the mask mode, police are supposed to check documents and issue fines for residents who do not wear masks in public. This will be until 11 May in Sverdlovsk region.
https://static.ngs.ru/news/2020/99/preview/06a3a25d0984eaebf755407b9ef2c5212136b6723_711.JPG
The problem with the establishment propaganda is that it is so full of crap that trying to find something that is of value is like trying to find 5 grams of solid gold flakes in a barrel of sewage.
Why are they not 2.2 metres apart in the line? The problem is that wearing masks is will just make people act more recklessly than if they are not wearing them, thus negating their benefit.
Yes that’s a good point, although it could be fixed if there was just better education about this topic.
I was comparing photos I saw of teenagers volunteers in Tagil who volunteer to carry food and prescriptions to low mobility demographics.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B-6aYA7Jfp3
https://www.instagram.com/p/B-pZdR3peEX
Nice kids! The problem in the photo above, is that they give the packages directly to the person – instead of leaving it outside of the doors.
Is this because of “false sense of security” from wearing such a mask?
I saw a video of the equivalent volunteer teenagers in Israel – those teenagers don’t use masks or gloves, so their airborne infectivity is at maximum. But they probably also have less false sense of security, as they leave the bags outside of doors.
–
That said, looking at more recent photos, volunteer kids in Tagil seem to be upgrading PPE quite well.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_jn7SCpdKF/
Well since this is an HDB blog, has it not occured to you that maybe, just maybe White people are not capable of acting in a disciplined and pro-social manner in an epidemic short of something like the black death, and this is something that all the educational campaign on this planet can not fix, because of innate characteristics of white people as being too ornery to live in such a situation, as opposed to East Asians? I mean people here seem to have to trouble accepting the fact that Negros just can not function in a disciplined and pro-social manner in a Western society, and no amount of educational campaigns can fix this, also due to innate racial characteristics of black people.
Maybe due the innate racial characteristics of white people, and an inherent lack of racial discipline, a lot more of them are really predestined to die in an epidemic like this, especially one that is serious but not in the cataclysmic category like this, after all it is unreasonable a Giant Panda to have the same behavior as a Grizzly, or a Labrador Retriever to behave in the same way as a pit bull. Compared to an epidemic like this taking place in East Asia, whose people are always easier to herd to behave in a desired manner in an emergency. But still white people are expected to respond better than black people in the same situation simply due to higher IQ, although the innate racial characteristics of whites and white societies mean that they will still perform worse than East Asians in the same situation. Maybe East Asians are Labrador Retrievers or Border Colliers and White people are pit bulls?
Maybe due to better innate racial discipline, East Asians can do 4 to 6 months of lockdown, Caucasians can do only a few weeks, while black people can only do a few days of lockdown which requires a lot of mental discipline that certain races are just racially incapable of achieving, which all of the education in the world can not fix? Has there not been experiments that East Asian kids can sit still for a lot longer than White or Black kids?
White people can be soldiers at the front in two world wars, survive under years of rationing, but wearing gloves is beyond them. I wouldn’t bet the farm on your theory.
I didn’t find all the behaviour in the pandemic matched so well to my pre-existing racial stereotypes.
There are ultra-wealthy and successful “aryan” countries like Great Britain (where you can experience exceptionally high standards of living, high personal safety, little corruption, educated citizens, etc), yet the people are not behaving well, and disobey terribly the lockdown regime. How bourgeois English are behaving is the opposite of what I would have imagine before this nightmare began.
On the other hand, in Russia – let’s say despite traditional “doesn’t give a fuckism” – people are relatively behaving better and in an ordered way, or at least without the complete lawlessness you see in the UK.
And then, there are third world countries like Ukraine, Morocco, Argentina – where according to all reports they lockdown very early and population seem to obey with the correct behaviour for pandemic mitigation.
Situation in China was a bit of a chaos (collapse of the health system, videos of piles of dead, all night burning of bodies, arrest of journalists reporting about the disaster), and then rescued by interregional lockdown.
Germany and Japan seemed to be relatively less effected by the pandemic, which matches to our stereotypes of easy Axis victories, at least in the early stage. But then look at videos in Tokyo – Japanese are not behaving so well, and will have had low index of self-isolation even for March.
Hi Oliver D. Smith.
Masks have even more pitfalls than the false sense of security. For them to be a blessing, rather than a bane, you need to change them every two hours (maybe even more often in hot weather). When you take a mask off, you have to do it carefully, w/o touching the outside. You also must wash your hands with soap after taking the mask off or changing it. Very few people wearing masks follow all these rules.
Besides, masks are extremely uncomfortable. I wear a mask only once a week on my visit to two grocery stores, keep it on less than two hours total, and even during this short time I have to consciously suppress the temptation to touch it to adjust, scratch an itch, etc.
So Lukashenka might be on to something in extolling the protective properties of vodka?
When working on The African Queen, Bogart avoided all manner of illness by forsaking water and imbibing whisky.
The British tend to be individualist and not overly well-organised, so from that point of view it is not so surprising.
He was a prolific smoker too, and didn’t make it to a very advanced age, dying at 57. Perhaps the baked beans and canned asparagus that he ate had something to do with him lasting past his oscar winning performance in this film, where he stated: