Coronavirus (Covid19) Corner

[Stanley]

It's not a question of self worth if you are poor Maz, it's survival.
Don't get depressed David I'm quite happy to be 'locked down' if it means I haven't to go in noisy rooms with lots of people. I like my life and my own company!

[Marilyn]

Coronavirus doesn’t care how poor you are!
And you can still social distance and wash your hands if you are poor ( as my Mum said - soap doesn’t cost much)
Harder if you are living shoulder to shoulder in a squat situation, granted. Especially if it is all males ( and we know how mucky they can get).

[Tizer]

There have been reports from other countries of testing for, and detecting, covid-19 virus in sewage water. We heard about a claim from Italy that they detected it samples from last December but that seems to be an error. Meanwhile this UK work is in progress....
`Coronavirus: Testing sewage an 'easy win' LINK
`A sewage-based coronavirus test could be an "easy win" that would pick up infection spikes up to 10 days earlier than with existing medical-based tests. Scientists led by UK's Centre for Ecology and Hydrology are working on a standardised test to "count" the amount of coronavirus in a wastewater sample. "The earlier you find [a signal], the earlier an intervention can happen," says lead researcher Dr Andrew Singer. "That means lives will be made much more liveable in the current crisis"..'.

[Marilyn]

Just more ( s**t) they can hide doing it that way, Tiz. Why test poop, when you can test real people?

[Tizer]

Because you can detect outbreaks much faster than by the usual tests. It's not a replacement for the usual tests. One tests individuals, the other tests populations. Both types of test are useful.

[Marilyn]

I know it tests “trends” in a population or neighbourhood Tiz ( they drug test our sewage here all the time), and I am sure they do yours as well. But they are better off testing above ground rather than below ground, with an active Pandemic.

[plaques]

There have been reports from other countries of testing for, and detecting, covid-19 virus in sewage water.

Those of a mature age will remember this song by Ian Wallace, Down Below. Although I wouldn't advocate walking the sewers to do a dipstick test.

[Tizer]

I know it tests “trends” in a population or neighbourhood Tiz ( they drug test our sewage here all the time), and I am sure they do yours as well. But they are better off testing above ground rather than below ground, with an active Pandemic.

But Maz, it's better to do both! They're not mutually exclusive. We need as much information on the virus and its distribution as we can get.

[Marilyn]

Do they look for the common cold or influenza in sewage?

[Sue]

But WHY in that area? Is it wayward youths wandering the streets and refusing to stay home, a pub culture, small crowded households, small crowded shops? I don’t really understand. How is living in these areas contributing to the spread of disease?

Pub culture, pubs aren’t open yet. All shops seem to gave a distancing policy and all the small ones near us limit the number in the shop tom3. In Rochdale it is dense streets of terraced housing, and the highest area have a high Asian community. This has two effects, the first being that there are now known genetic underlying health issues and the second is that apparently within their own locality they have been carrying on as normal, or so it has been reported. I don’t know. The real reason is the increased testing in the centre of Rochdale which is actually near these densely populated areas . There is a pilot walkin scheme for people who do not drive. Other schemes are drive in. This means more cases have been confirmed .

[Sue]

And someone said in Tizer's science News, who shall remain nameless....Ye gods, have you lot nothing better to do with your time, back to my patchwork.

Ha ha , just read this, I wonder who you meant

[Stanley]

I saw the reports about testing sewage Tiz and thought it was a brilliant idea. It will show up there before any other method and give an advance warning. As you say, that and other methods aren't mutually exclusive and it is so cheap to do. It should be a default test like all the other tests water companies do.

[Tizer]

Here's a useful news report from the BBC man in Tokyo, Rupert Wingfield-Hayes. We would expect the Japanese, with an aged population, to have a high covid-19 death rate but they've had very few deaths from the virus. Several possible reasons are mentioned and it might be due to a combination of them. Note the mention of no, or very little, hugging and kissing when people meet. In the West many people took up the habit in recent decades of hugging and kissing when meeting. I wonder if this has made us more vulnerable to infections? Also note something that isn't mentioned in the report - the Japanese don't shake hands on meeting, they bow (at least when in their own country). Another factor in their favour is that they have much lower levels of heart disease, obesity and diabetes than we do in the West (they eat smaller amounts of food and eat fish instead of meat) and this means they will be less severely affected by the virus. There are lessons for us here...

`Coronavirus: Japan's mysteriously low virus death rate' LINK

[Sue]

I saw the reports about testing sewage Tiz and thought it was a brilliant idea. It will show up there before any other method and give an advance warning. As you say, that and other methods aren't mutually exclusive and it is so cheap to do. It should be a default test like all the other tests water companies do.

I read an article about this way back in March, has it surfaced again , is it a new slant

[Big Kev]

There was also an article about waste water testing, in the Netherlands, at the beginning of April
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00973-x

[Tizer]

Here's my original post from Friday and I've highlighted the first sentences.

There have been reports from other countries of testing for, and detecting, covid-19 virus in sewage water. We heard about a claim from Italy that they detected it in samples from last December but that seems to be an error. Meanwhile this UK work is in progress....
`Coronavirus: Testing sewage an 'easy win' LINK
`A sewage-based coronavirus test could be an "easy win" that would pick up infection spikes up to 10 days earlier than with existing medical-based tests. Scientists led by UK's Centre for Ecology and Hydrology are working on a standardised test to "count" the amount of coronavirus in a wastewater sample. "The earlier you find [a signal], the earlier an intervention can happen," says lead researcher Dr Andrew Singer. "That means lives will be made much more liveable in the current crisis"..'.

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We've now reached a point where more meaningful comparisons can be made of the response to covid-19 by different countries. Previous attempts where invalid due to lack of comparable data - for example, too many differences in the way data was collected and interpreted, confusion between total deaths and excess deaths, lack of reliable data etc. Here's the latest summary from the BBC..
`Coronavirus: What do global death patterns reveal about the UK?' LINK

[Sue]

Do they look for the common cold or influenza in sewage?

In the case of the common cold the virus is not excreted with faeces, flu can be, it depends on the strain. With Covid it is only a very very small percentage. In the article I read in March it was something like 2% and they said it was only a good indicator as a locator of a large source of the virus. Sewage is tested anyway for all sorts of things on a regular basis to monitor any changes and thus changes needed at tge treatment plant, so it would just be one more fairly routine test. I don’ t think they were going to make huge investments in sewage testing for Covid as a key test for the disease.

[Sue]

Tiz, I don’t think the report I read was for Italy. I did a fair bit of research on it when my friend was panicking about catching it like food poisoning from workers in restaurants and contaminated food.

[Sue]

https://www.aquatechtrade.com/news/wast ... -sampling/



This was the beginning of April and was one of the articles I found, it was Holland

[Big Kev]

https://www.aquatechtrade.com/news/wast ... -sampling/



This was the beginning of April and was one of the articles I found, it was Holland

Same people, different article https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00973-x

[Stanley]

News coming in that the border between Victoria and NSW has been closed following the continuing spike in cases in Melbourne.

[Marilyn]

Correct Stanley. ( ‘cos we can’t trust them). 9 apartment blocks ( housing 3000 people) are in total lockdown also In Melbourne.

[Stanley]

Or is it that NSW doesn't trust you Victorians?

[Marilyn]

I am South Australian. I’m not Victorian.

[Stanley]

Sorry Maz my lack of geographical skills poking up! Or my memory, I thought you lived in Melbourne....