Some New Science on Virus Transmission on Airplanes

[GordMay]

[QUOTE=Dockhead;3286288]

Originally Posted by GordMay

That all sounds right to me, and I guess it's right to underline this to be sure that no one gets a false sense of security and relaxes other measures. But if you really only caught 50% of infected people like that, that's still going to have a massive effect on R0 if you can screen most people entering most venues where they will have close contact with others. Temperature screening, masking, hand hygiene, keeping distance from other people in public places -- none of these is a silver bullet. But I would bet that if you can implement ALL of these to a fairly high degree of compliance, it's going to make an enormous difference in the rate of community spread.

Also I seriously doubt that we're talking about only 50% of infection potential -- even if it's only 50% of infected people -- people who are feverish and coughing are surely 10x or 100x more infectious than asymptomatically infected people. I bet you will catch a lot more than 50% of really infectious people like that.

Indeed.


FWIW: Some time ago, I posted a link to a CBC “Marketplace” (?) Investigation, that revealed the “dirtiest” place in grocery stores, was the credit/debit card pin pad.
Here ➥ https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...ml#post3265455

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Not really all that relevant to the topic, but this is really pleasant to read: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/01/h...ion-first.html

A mass of practical details about distribution of vaccines -- it starts to feel more and more real.

I'm not sure if I agree with their priorities -- I would sure as hell be vaccinating people with a lot of social contacts with at least equal priority to the most vulnerable old people in nursing homes -- that looks like prioritizing statistics over actually breaking the back of the pandemic. But anyway at least "essential workers" are included, so that will mean early vaccination of workers with contact with the public, so that will help a lot.

According to the article it will be May or June at best before the vaccine will be available to healthy adults under 65 who are not "essential workers" or "health care workers". That means I'm last in line, but I'm ok with that.

PERHAPS, slowing/stopping the dying ... then slowing/stopping the disease?

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by GordMay

PERHAPS, slowing/stopping the dying ... then slowing/stopping the disease?

The two are not unrelated!

[Bill O]

A little late to this party, but thermal imaging is possibly no better than staying 6' away from someone.

Studies have shown 40-50% of people testing positive for covid (PCR) were asymptomatic. Therefore taking someone's temp isn't really going to cut it. Will catch some, but not all and its a false sense of security.
They will need to come up w/an instant PCR test (or some other test) before people go thru security in the airports. If they can screen for drug and explosive residue at a high levels of certainty, then they need to do it for covid to give passengers a real sense of security.
IMO they aren't there yet for me to fly. Maybe if you already had covid you'd be "immune", but even that may not be good enough. There have been cases where people had been been sick (again) after coming in contact w/a different strain.
Wearing masks and frequent hand washing will be a norm in the foreseeable future.

[Yihang]

I think the point is a lot of these little things are easy to do anyway so why not just try to catch that extra 10%. Instead of saying nothing works.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Yihang

I think the point is a lot of these little things are easy to do anyway so why not just try to catch that extra 10%. Instead of saying nothing works.

Indeed.

[dannc]

Six years ago, hard to believe it was that long ago, we went to Hong Kong and then traveled by ferry into mainland China.

The ferry terminal was just like being at an airport with security, stores, gates, etc. The only difference was that one got on a boat instead of a plane.

When we returned to Hong Kong from mainland China, there were announcements, and I think signs, saying to remove hats, scarves, etc, that were covering your head. They were screening for fevers with thermal cameras. This was all automagic and the scans were done as the herd of people walked through an area in the terminal. There was no line to get your temperature checked, they had the ability to scan the herd.

An Australian family of four, mother, father, teenage son and teenage daughter were in the herd but they did not hear or read the announcements to take off your head cover. The son was wearing a ball cap. Multiple employees came out of no where to tell him to take off his hat and to stand still while he was scanned.

The employees were not playing.

Later,
Dan

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I'm not sure if I agree with their priorities -- I would sure as hell be vaccinating people with a lot of social contacts with at least equal priority to the most vulnerable old people in nursing homes -- that looks like prioritizing statistics over actually breaking the back of the pandemic. But anyway at least "essential workers" are included, so that will mean early vaccination of workers with contact with the public, so that will help a lot.

In principal, I agree that front line workers contacting dozens or hundreds of people per day (say cashiers as an example) should be a higher priority than old folks with little physical contact with anyone (the staff would be considered medical professionals, so would be vaccinated largely blocking access for the virus from outside old folks homes).

But I think it's simple logistics.
- It's easy to go around to the local old folks home and give everyone present a jab. Likewise you could go around medical centers jabbing thru the staff.
- For those outside concentrated groups, it's easy to check the age to identify elderly and most health care professionals have a license or other ID clearly identifying them as such. It makes it easy to identify and limit people trying to queue jump.
- Not many cashiers have a cashier license, so who decides if they qualify and how is it proven.

Realistically, if they produce the vaccine in anything close to the numbers projected, it's really not going to make a big difference. They are suggesting as many as 40 million doses by the end of the year and it will only ramp up from there. So by late January, they could have the entire health care sector vaccinated (at least the first dose) along with a large percentage of the elderly. There will probably be some hiccups but if we have 3 vaccines being distributed as fast as possible, it will go quick and once added to the those who already had it and gained immunity naturally (estimated to be 50-100mil in the USA), we likely will see a quick drop off in spread due to herd immunity while the rest are vaccinated.

[Mike OReilly]

My thermal scan took about as long as it takes for me to take off my glasses. Seconds. Not sure how efficacious it was, but it sure was fast.

Distancing IS a useful countermeasure to the Covid-19 virus. The science is still evolving, but it's clear the majority of viruses are attached to particles larger than aerosol level. Much like the inverse-square law, the majority of this stuff falls to the ground quickly. The further you are away from the source, the better. Two metres has been rather arbitrarily chosen, but does represent a distance where the majority of viral particles will have hit the ground.

It's all about risk mitigation. Nothing is 100%.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I wonder if this is going to change air travel forever? Screening people for symptoms of ANY disease? I guess that would be a good thing. The world after this pandemic is going to be a very different place, methinks.

I'm sure some aspects will stay in place.

Once the airport buys a thermal camera, it's easy enough to turn it on and it has minimal impact on operations...and as you say, many diseases present as a fever. The only question will be how disruptive will it be when someone with a relatively harmless issue presents with a fever and is pulled out and not allowed to fly. There will probably be some silly stories like after 9/11 when grandmas were strip searched because they had to be impartial in their random searches...but then it will settle out into something more reasonable.

More intrusive screening will probably fade away unless there is a credible threat that can be tied to it.

I think vaccination cards may be required for a short period of time but I see that dying off once things are under control with little risk to the local community because they are already vaccinated. This is consistent with our experience where countries technically require vaccinations now but don't check them in practice because it's an out of date requirement.

[dannc]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

...
I'm not sure if I agree with their priorities -- I would sure as hell be vaccinating people with a lot of social contacts with at least equal priority to the most vulnerable old people in nursing homes -- that looks like prioritizing statistics over actually breaking the back of the pandemic. But anyway at least "essential workers" are included, so that will mean early vaccination of workers with contact with the public, so that will help a lot.
...

No, one should be vaccinating the people most likely to die. The vast majority of people dying from COVID are the elderly and especially those in nursing homes. They should get the vaccine since they are most likely to die from the virus.

But health care workers and other first responders HAVE to get the vaccine first since they are more likely to be exposed, are more likely to be taken out of service and spread the virus. If there are no first responders and health care workers, then the death rate will soar.

After the health care workers and first responders get the vaccine then it should be the must vulnerable group who are dying. Which means the elderly.

One of the two failures in this whole mess is not being able to keep the virus out of nursing homes, which may be all but impossible, and not providing N95 or surgical masks to the general population. Nine months into this mess, and no country that I am aware, has made the effort to increase production of N95 or surgical masks for everyone to use.

Later,
Dan

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

In principal, I agree that front line workers contacting dozens or hundreds of people per day (say cashiers as an example) should be a higher priority than old folks with little physical contact with anyone (the staff would be considered medical professionals, so would be vaccinated largely blocking access for the virus from outside old folks homes).

But I think it's simple logistics.
- It's easy to go around to the local old folks home and give everyone present a jab. Likewise you could go around medical centers jabbing thru the staff.
- For those outside concentrated groups, it's easy to check the age to identify elderly and most health care professionals have a license or other ID clearly identifying them as such. It makes it easy to identify and limit people trying to queue jump.
- Not many cashiers have a cashier license, so who decides if they qualify and how is it proven.

Realistically, if they produce the vaccine in anything close to the numbers projected, it's really not going to make a big difference. They are suggesting as many as 40 million doses by the end of the year and it will only ramp up from there. So by late January, they could have the entire health care sector vaccinated (at least the first dose) along with a large percentage of the elderly. There will probably be some hiccups but if we have 3 vaccines being distributed as fast as possible, it will go quick and once added to the those who already had it and gained immunity naturally (estimated to be 50-100mil in the USA), we likely will see a quick drop off in spread due to herd immunity while the rest are vaccinated.

I agree. I was just grumbling a little. I agree for the reasons you say that it's not likely to be a big deal.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by dannc

Nine months into this mess, and no country that I am aware, has made the effort to increase production of N95 or surgical masks for everyone to use.

That's mainly because the average person isn't likely to wear an N95 mask in a way that it will actually protect them. Just look at how poorly many wear the basic cloth ones now. So, it wouldn't be cost-effective. Besides they have barely kept up with producing enough PPE for the front-line health professionals.

[dannc]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

..
Realistically, if they produce the vaccine in anything close to the numbers projected, it's really not going to make a big difference. They are suggesting as many as 40 million doses by the end of the year and it will only ramp up from there. So by late January, they could have the entire health care sector vaccinated (at least the first dose) along with a large percentage of the elderly...

Some/all? of the vaccines require two inoculations, so 40 million shots/jabs is only 20 million people. I just Googled and there are 18 million health care workers in the US. If that is true, 20 million will almost inoculate all health care and first responders. Which is a good start.

At least one of the vaccines uses a chemical "booster" that increases the effectiveness of the shot. "Booster" is my word, there is another word I can't remember that the drug companies use. Anywho, the "booster" minimizes the amount of the active ingredient needed per shot which means they can make more shots with the same amount of drug. No "booster" and they have few shots to give.

At least one of the vaccines is using a "booster" that is derived from sharks. Just hope this means we are not going to be killing a more sharks.

One concern the drug companies have, is will they have enough of the required chemicals to produce the amount of vaccine needed? The drug companies obviously know where the bottle necks will/can be and they say they are working together to solve the supply and IP(Intellectual Property) issues.

Later,
Dan

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by dannc

No, one should be vaccinating the people most likely to die. The vast majority of people dying from COVID are the elderly and especially those in nursing homes. They should get the vaccine since they are most likely to die from the virus.

But health care workers and other first responders HAVE to get the vaccine first since they are more likely to be exposed, are more likely to be taken out of service and spread the virus. If there are no first responders and health care workers, then the death rate will soar.

Well, I think your second paragraph contradicts the first.

Of course you want to prevent death, but you won't do that efficiently if you just reactively vaccinate the last people in the chain and let the epidemic rage among those who are causing community spread. It's not old people in nursing homes who are out spreading the virus. You've got to protect people, but if you're not proactively stopping the epidemic by going after the spreaders, you're going to prolong the pandemic and you will be killing people no matter what. The priority should be stopping the epidemic.

Originally Posted by dannc

After the health care workers and first responders get the vaccine then it should be the must vulnerable group who are dying. Which means the elderly.

The actual policy will be to vaccinate "essential workers" first -- that is, grocery store and shop clerks, restaurant waiters, bus drivers, cleaners, workers in meat factories, all kinds of people who can't work from home and who have a lot of social contacts. These are people disproportionately hard hit and also people who are spreading the virus. This is good policy.

Originally Posted by dannc

. . . One of the two failures in this whole mess is not being able to keep the virus out of nursing homes, which may be all but impossible, and not providing N95 or surgical masks to the general population. Nine months into this mess, and no country that I am aware, has made the effort to increase production of N95 or surgical masks for everyone to use.

Really? There is no shortage of N95 masks here. There are stacks of boxes of N95 masks on tables in every pharmacy in the Nordic region. I buy them one box at a time in order to minimize impact on the supply chain, but I have had no problems buying them. People aren't hoarding them. And they're not that expensive; about €15 for a box of 10 which is pretty much the pre-pandemic price.

Surgical masks (which I wouldn't use) are given away free in a lot of places -- boxes set out for people to take as they like. I'm right now in a hotel in Riga in Latvia and there is a box of surgical masks, and a box of gloves, sitting out in the elevator lobby of every floor.

It's not like that in the U.S.?