Novel Coronavirus

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Annamie Paul, the new Green leader, has spoken out, calling for a national blue-ribbon panel on Covid-19 similar to what Joe Biden is putting together in the US. Her call to put aside regional squabbling over powers and jurisdiction to create a national strategy resonates with me, but will it resonate where it matters In provincial and territorial capitals.

 
Being so close to Toronto/Peel, our incident rates are pretty high, especially in the south part of the county.

The Simcoe-Muskoka Health Unit has a pretty good COVID page, detailing threat levels and, to some extent, what it means.
 
Mrs.Anteater said:
What a mess. Nova Scotians have been wearing masks all though the summer, even when there wasn’t any Covid case. Wondering why NS did so well with low infections?
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Actually BC has been doing very well up until recently. Also, most of the cases are in one area of the province, the Lower Mainland, specifically Fraser Health region which is east of Vancouver. Most people here have been wearing masks for some time now. They don't need to be mandated. The issues are more about social gatherings of different sizes and some work places like meat processing plants where it is difficult to follow the safety guidelines.
 
As of yesterday we had three cases in the hospital. 11 new positive cases in the local area. New rules include indoor masks for communities of 5,000 or more plus us who have less than that magic number. Sask is divided into broad areas with different rules for each it seems plus yesterday's rules. It is confusing and ineffective. People are speaking up. What point is there in my town masking when the surrounding villages can move freely without any protection. Of course, they then come here to shop etc.

My personal view is - ideally the rules should be Federal but that is unlikely. Next best would be the same rules in each province.
 
Northwind said:
Actually BC has been doing very well up until recently. Also, most of the cases are in one area of the province, the Lower Mainland, specifically Fraser Health region which is east of Vancouver. Most people here have been wearing masks for some time now. They don't need to be mandated. The issues are more about social gatherings of different sizes and some work places like meat processing plants where it is difficult to follow the safety guidelines.
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Meat processing plants were a problem in Germany, too. They had mostly Eastern European workers they housed all together and I wonder if the cool temperature in the plant also played a role in the virus traveling further and keeping longer ( that’s what they are saying now about the winter time)
 
BetteTheRed said:
The Simcoe-Muskoka Health Unit has a pretty good COVID page, detailing threat levels and, to some extent, what it means.
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I did find the page on MLHU's site that details current measures. We are in Yellow and this actually spells out pretty well what that means. Health unit mandated additional measures are highlighted in yellow at the end of each section, mostly just mandating that businesses serving the public have hand sanitizer available.

Prevent the Spread — Middlesex-London Health Unit

Learn how to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
www.healthunit.com
 
Mrs.Anteater said:
Meat processing plants were a problem in Germany, too. They had mostly Eastern European workers they housed all together and I wonder if the cool temperature in the plant also played a role in the virus traveling further and keeping longer ( that’s what they are saying now about the winter time)
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Yes, that's a big issue. People are making lower wages and are living more communally. Many are immigrants who don't have the same freedom to change jobs eyc.
 
Mrs.Anteater said:
What a mess. Nova Scotians have been wearing masks all though the summer, even when there wasn’t any Covid case. Wondering why NS did so well with low infections?
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I think one of the big problems here with masks is Dr. Hinshaw did have concerns that it may make the wearer more at risk of contracting SARS-CoV2, plus she had concerns about them contributing to spread if related protocols not followed (and I actually still have concerns that way too, in specific circumstances like with people setting down used masks in a communal area and then wearing them again without cleaning of the area between people). Understandable at the time, but I think it's hard to regain trust and get people to wear masks after that.
Demographics also have to be considered. Rural areas with long term, residents, older age is going to be different than those who get sent for work, primarily younger age, and people who don't really have strong ties beyond work to where they reside.
 
ChemGal said:
people who don't really have strong ties beyond work to where they reside
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Huge part of my calculations. I live where I work, and where I worship (all within a 3 km radius). I am frightened of spreading this. Many of my friends are quite elderly.
 

By now it's no news to anyone that ICU's are becoming filled with COVID 19 cases in the more populated cities and there is a fear of lack of beds eventually. Even now they are triaging people in their cars and only accepting the most compromised, sometimes just to put them in the halls for lack of space. Another problem will be to have enough staff that can monitor and treat these patients on ventilators etc.....
This article mentions using convention centres (I'm thinking arenas too) to set up beds if the hospitals get overrun and calling in retired nurses and student nurses to help.
I'm wondering why they don't start this now and have it in place and start moving the COVID patients out of the hospitals now rather than dedicate whole hospitals to only COVID patients. Why wait?
 
Mrs.Anteater said:
Meat processing plants were a problem in Germany, too. They had mostly Eastern European workers they housed all together and I wonder if the cool temperature in the plant also played a role in the virus traveling further and keeping longer ( that’s what they are saying now about the winter time)
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I've been wondering about this hot and cold thing with this virus. We do spend more time indoors in the winter, but we have the heat cranked up so it's actually warm inside and in the summer we crank up the air conditioning so it's cooler inside.
So is it really a hot and cold thing or just an indoor thing? Or something else? Does this virus germinate in corners or dark places? Does it hate light? I don't know, but just putting it out there.....should we get our thinking out of that hot and cold box or not? or maybe add to that?
 
Waterfall said:
Does this virus germinate in corners or dark places?
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No, it's a virus. There is no replication outside of a cell unless counting something like PCR, which doesn't result in active virus, just more genetic material.
 
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Waterfall said:
I've been wondering about this hot and cold thing with this virus. We do spend more time indoors in the winter, but we have the heat cranked up so it's actually warm inside and in the summer we crank up the air conditioning so it's cooler inside.
So is it really a hot and cold thing or just an indoor thing? Or something else? Does this virus germinate in corners or dark places? Does it hate light? I don't know, but just putting it out there.....should we get our thinking out of that hot and cold box or not? or maybe add to that?
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As for the rest of this - UV light has been shown to inactive the virus, although there's the time and intensity to consider. In general, environmental factors will affect how long the virus is viable for outside of cells. Temperature, humidity, etc.
The biggest factor with indoor though as far as we can tell is spread in a direct way, likely not because it's sitting on surfaces for longer periods of time inside than outside. We've seen that with fitness, various indoor facilities have had outbreaks at various times of the year, I haven't heard of one with an outdoor bootcamp or similar group outdoors.
 
ChemGal said:
No, it's a virus. There is no replication outside of a cell unless counting something like PCR, which doesn't result in active virus, just more genetic material.
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Youre the chemist......how does it reproduce or spread or whatever the right word is? :)
 
Waterfall said:
Youre the chemist......how does it reproduce or spread or whatever the right word is? :)
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Replication only happens within a cell.

Here's a situation - A building has no virus to start with, someone who is sick and enters the building, leaves 500,000 active virus particles (small number, but taking easy numbers to keep in mind) in the building. Unless they have another host to replicate in, or more virus particles enter the building, that's the most it will have.
Imagine now that there are 5 different places where those virus particles end up. All the environments are a bit different.
100000 in a sink
100000 on the counter
100000 on a computer keyboard
100000 in a room with windows, closed but allow lots of light through.
100000 in a room with no windows

After a day, the number of active virus will have only decreased, but the amounts will vary.
Pretend the bathroom has an automatic sprayer, scrubbing bubbles type of thing that covers the sink.
The counter and keyboard are similar environments, but the keyboard is near a little humidifier.
24 hours after the person left the building there is now:
100 in the sink
50000 on the counter
30000 on the keyboard
20000 in the room with windows
60000 in the room with no windows.

It will have decreased everywhere, some places just have had a faster decline than others.

I'm not totally sure what environments are the best and worst, very much made up situations, but gives an idea.
 
I am very frustrated by the logic of things and I wonder about who is actually making the decisions and what it's based on.
Ie. Spin classes - those have seem to be an issue. Not hard evidence, but it's what we got. Here group indoor fitness classes are cancelled (although some team stuff is still allowed) - exercise bikes in a gym though, those are a go. Does it really matter if it's not a class?
 
ChemGal said:
I am very frustrated by the logic of things and I wonder about who is actually making the decisions and what it's based on.
Ie. Spin classes - those have seem to be an issue. Not hard evidence, but it's what we got. Here group indoor fitness classes are cancelled (although some team stuff is still allowed) - exercise bikes in a gym though, those are a go. Does it really matter if it's not a class?
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I imagine it's a balancing act of providing what's most popular, so as to not to loose too much money and patronage and /or keep a few staff employed - and trying to stay safe.
 
Kimmio Laughterlove said:
First I've heard of this:

vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca

'It does kill COVID': Vancouver Island grocery chain first in Canada to install UV cart cleaner

When the front doors of the Quality Foods location in View Royal slide open, customers are greeted with something new and illuminating, literally.
vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca
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I've heard of it, but didn't really know of anyone really putting it into practice. I actually prefer the cleaning aspect, although it is probably more labour intensive. Not sure what's better environmentally, the UV bulbs tend to drift over time so have to be replaced often, before they burn out. I've used biosafety cabinets where the UV light protocol is dropped. Typically the protocol is turn on fan, spray disinfectant, turn on light, leave and do other things for a bit while it runs, turn off light do work, spray down, turn on light, turn off everything (I think that's right it's been a while). We would just use the fan and cleaning protocols in some labs.
 
Ugh, a bit off topic but there's a relationship. There's been a push lately with some into farming to allow for raw milk sales. This is not the time to be pushing for something than can contribute to food poisoning! The healthcare system is struggling.
 
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