2020-06-13 Covid-19 Siterep

Like everyone, i got a case of Covid-19 fatigue, it’s a lot to process on a daily basis, so, now i strictly limit myself to 2-3 new article a day to read, check the stats, try to remove most of the political gas lighting about personal liberty (In the context of Covid-19) .

Like predicted, Covid-19 continue to spread like wildfire, in place previously without big community spread, place like Italy, Spain, Belgium, New York, Quebec, France, where some level of lockdown was enacted, are slowing down (Fast in some case) the rate of infection.

Sweden still have a pretty heavy rate of infection, so we could think that at least the lockdown was not completely useless, now it’s reopening in Quebec, we will see in the following weeks/months, the effect of that, and adjust as needed…

Place like California is reopening while their rate is going up sharply, we would see the result of that, California was relatively unaffected by a high rate of infection, now it’s going in the 3K a day, so the potential of growth is high, but we will see, death rate is still not that high, but the lag between infection and death, vary tremendously, so in all logic, the death come quite a while after.

 

Partial Cross immunity:

But still, we learn so many thing about Covid-19 lately, possible cross immunity, with other less lethal coronavirus, is encouraging, it’s not a full immunity (From what i gather, it’s really technical), but a head start for your immune system, to fight Covid-19, now, it’s still early, the 3 little study i saw, are technically limited , so the number of possible candidate is quite small (Ref : https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200515092007.htm )

So people shouldn’t take it to bank yet, there is sign, that if you got one of the Coronavirus causing the cold, your immunitary system can produce helper T Cell that will react early to Covid-19, that would give you a head start ,A.K.A, being less sick, but still being technically sick/infected, and being able to propagate the virus, so beware …. We will surely know more in the upcoming weeks/months (I know science is slow, but this is the reality, and we need fact to evaluate our option), Now those study go wildly between 40 and 70% of the population already have those helper T Cell, with this range, and limited data, it’s basically a guess, but we will see, it could surely help to explain why some place are hit harder/faster than other …

 

Record number of daily new infection

We hit record level of infection, thanks to previously unaffected part of the world, daily number of death is going down, but don’t open the Champagne yet, there’s too many factor in play to really predict what would happen in the following month.

First, a lot of place are on the down slope of the first infection, if we take Quebec as an exemple, at the peak, we had in the 1000 dailly new confirmed case, ~160ish new death per day, now we are respectively in the 180 new case per day, 30-40 new death per day, and our counting is not underestimating case and death, like in some country/state, where only people who died in hospital, with a positive test were added, here, in both case, if you have been in contact with someone infected, and have symptom, you will be counted as a positive (Then been tested), of course there’s a risk of slight overestimation, but underestimation, in this case is worst ….

Quebec economy is reopening, people are highly suggested, to use social distancing, and when not possible, wear a mask (So protest, but with a mask please), some place are still going to be closed for some time, dining in a restaurant setting, got announced, no word for bar/show venue/cinema, but it’s surely the last step…. But it’s going back, slowly, to some kind of new normal .

So record number of infection, mostly in some new place Brazil, Russia, Egypt, and we see sign in Israel (Early stage of a surge), the USA, is a case by itself, the virus is moving in new place, California and Texas are surging, New York, is slowing down slowly, so it’s moving around, like in most country previously affected, but in the case of the USA, testing capability and widely variable mitigation measure, make it hard to follow honestly …

 

Asymptomatic transmission “Rare” ?

So this week was the scene of a Kerfuffle, with DR Maria Van Kerkhove, PhD, and the scientific community , the affirmation of DR Kerkhove “It still appears to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual” , was apparently referring to 3 study, so she was saying that those study, were pointing toward asymptomatic transmission happening less than some suspected… The fact seem to be that very little study exist on asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19, we suspect that Covid-19 asymptomatic/presymptomatic transmission happen, but at what rate, is it significative ? Most scientific suspected a asymptomatic/presymptomatic transmission, mostly by sheer logic, Covid-19 was spreading so fast, that something not seen was probably helping the virus spreading, but who knows, maybe it happen less than previously thought…

Seasonality of Covid-19

in country who had mitigation measure taken to limit transmission, some people are beginning to claim that “Warm weather” is a factor ….

Kind of a weird reaction really, because it was the expected result of the mitigation measure (Or lockdown like some call it), so is it the “Lockdown” or the “Season” ….

Probably both ,at different level, of course social distanciation, is a big part, the “Seasonality” have an effect, probably not for the reason most people think, it’s probably mostly because in region with real “Season”, people change vastly their daily life in winter/summer, we simply don’t live the same way…

Let’s not forget, that there’s no Flu season in intertropical region, it’s there all year around.

So it’s really hard right now to affirm that the weather alone can have a significant impact on the transmission rate. After all, it’s getting hot in Sweden, and the rate is not going down fast, or at all, it’s going up (We will see in the next week is it’s a fluke), but at least it seem not to be going down….

So get real people, and don’t give yourself false hope….

There’s some book i’m currently reading : Plague: A story of smallpox in Montreal, by Micheal Bliss, and Plagues and Epidemics: Infected Spaces Past and Present, so great stuff to read  on the subject.