Colombia / Travel Coronavirus Updates

[Lou32]

I understand what you are saying, there has been rapid spreading of this virus that cannot be explained by "droplet" contamination because many of the people who contract the disease are not around people who are showing symptoms.

Research suggests it lives for up to 72 hours on hard, shiny surfaces. Also, the scientists have said that "droplets" include microscopic fluids we exhale just from talking that can carry in the air for up to nearly 8 meters.

[JjBee62]

They know it survives on surfaces. Especially smooth surfaces like stainless steel, ceramics, etc. For up to 3 days. And through droplets. Hence the 2 meter distance thing. They know the structure of the virus. They know the way it hooks onto "host" cells. They know lots about it. And it can be stopped by not letting it get on your nose, mouth, or eyes (mucous membranes).

What they are not sure of yet is how weather might affect it. There is evidence that warmer and or more humid conditions do not favor it. May reduce the spread on surfaces for example. But if someone is infected and you get it directly (sneeze, cough, touching) then climate probably won't do anything to slow it.

This all has been determined for many months.

The controversy over how deadly it is is a bit misleading. If we assume there are many undiagnosed cases out there. And that seems to be true most places, then the fatality for it is a lower percentage. But there are a corresponding higher number of people. So. 5% of 100,000 is 500. Or 5% of 10,000 is 500. Either way 500 dead. But if the real number is 100,000 or 10,000 what can and should be done might be a bit different. Once we get to 50 to 70 percent of the total population infected then it starts to go away because the virus doesn't find many victims to keep infecting. But saying that mean we still have a long long way to go. New York city and surrounding greater New York have perhaps 20 million people.

The other side of the controversy over mortality rate, are deaths which are not attributed to the virus. It's not a complete offset, but it shows the inaccuracy isn't entirely one-sided.

Yep. Canada is being fanatical about it. Even Tim Hortons is empty.

[JjBee62]

I understand what you are saying, there has been rapid spreading of this virus that cannot be explained by "droplet" contamination because many of the people who contract the disease are not around people who are showing symptoms.

Can't remember where I saw it, but saw some report that some country was finding half of the people testing positive were asymptomatic.

[Nounce]

I post these numbers with a caveat; as most people know there are nowhere near enough people getting tested to know actual numbers.

This article title says it all "Coronavirus Is Hiding in Plain Sight" In it is this statement: "If we have 3,500 confirmed cases in the USA, you might be looking at 35,000 in reality," said Jeffrey Shaman, an epidemiologist at Columbia University and the senior author of the new report, which was posted by the journal Science. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/h...ndetected.html.

I received a message the other day that someone went to the same school as me died from the virus. He and his wife went to a class reunion last month with classmates from different states and different counties. Some of them went to Europe after the reunion. Late last month he went to see his doctor because of a fever. The doctor told him it was a flu. He went on his daily life as usual, went to church and did all the things he normally do. He was told a few days later to get a test by his classmate oversea who was tested positive for the coronavirus. He and his wife both tested positive and now he is dead.

CDC has an important job to do and they failed this time. If they had delivered test kits that worked or try to get it from elsewhere after the failure quickly , I think it would have given us a few weeks head start.

[Mojo Bandit]

I post these numbers with a caveat; as most people know there are nowhere near enough people getting tested to know actual numbers.

This article title says it all "Coronavirus Is Hiding in Plain Sight" In it is this statement: "If we have 3,500 confirmed cases in the USA, you might be looking at 35,000 in reality," said Jeffrey Shaman, an epidemiologist at Columbia University and the senior author of the new report, which was posted by the journal Science. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/h...ndetected.html.

Because I have a horrible memory I started taking screen shots of the John Hopkins University to compare days, today I saw the most relevant thing to how the numbers are growing. The screen shot I took on five days ago on 3/23 shows just under 44,000 cases. I took another screen shot in 3/26 that showed This morning I took a screen shot that showed over 62,000 around an 18,000 increase in about 43 hours. Flash forward 3/28 I took a screen shot at 5 am and it said 104,837 - I took another on 3/28 at 9:30 pm and it said 122,666 that is an almost 18,000 increase in the span of 16 hours.

[Elvis 2008]

Once we get to 50 to 70 percent of the total population infected then it starts to go away because the virus doesn't find many victims to keep infecting.

I thought that too, but that is not what has happened. Look at the Johns Hopkins map: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html.

You look at the misleading red and you would think everyone in America has the virus but that is not the case.

The more interesting and relevant data is in the bottom right corner. Click on new cases and you will see graphs in yellow. Look at the shapes on the graph of new cases, and you can see what happened in places that have recovered: South Korea, China, Thailand, Taiwan.

In all those countries, you seek peak cases and then a downward sloping of new cases. You are actually seeing the downward sloping already in Colombia and Peru and peaking in Brazil, Panama, and Ecuador. The exponential growth phase is not happening anymore in South America. Even in the USA, the exponential growth is not happening if you look at the graphs.

It looks like the virus is going to burn itself out in May or April. Whether it comes back this fall though is up in the air.

[Big Boss Man]

We're going to see most all the densely populated cities be hit with this virus over the next couple of months, then move on to rural cities. The only way we slow it down is a nationwide lock down coupled with mass testing. Otherwise, it's just going to move from one community to the next and continue to disrupt our lives til there's a vaccine. We lost a lot of time down playing the severity of this virus. Like you said, there will be no reason to risk exposing a countries population to this virus by allowing Americans to enter until you can document you don't have it.

I read this morning that several small ski resort towns in the USA have been hit fairly hard on a per capita basis. It appears that places that have higher than average transient populations and greater wealth are the most at risk.

[Zeos1]

Apparently speaking spreads droplets as well.

They know it survives on surfaces. Especially smooth surfaces like stainless steel, ceramics, etc. For up to 3 days. And through droplets. Hence the 2 meter distance thing. They know the structure of the virus. They know the way it hooks onto "host" cells. They know lots about it. And it can be stopped by not letting it get on your nose, mouth, or eyes (mucous membranes).

What they are not sure of yet is how weather might affect it. There is evidence that warmer and or more humid conditions do not favor it. May reduce the spread on surfaces for example. But if someone is infected and you get it directly (sneeze, cough, touching) then climate probably won't do anything to slow it.

This all has been determined for many months.

The controversy over how deadly it is is a bit misleading. If we assume there are many undiagnosed cases out there. And that seems to be true most places, then the fatality for it is a lower percentage. But there are a corresponding higher number of people. So. 5% of 100,000 is 500. Or 5% of 10,000 is 500. Either way 500 dead. But if the real number is 100,000 or 10,000 what can and should be done might be a bit different. Once we get to 50 to 70 percent of the total population infected then it starts to go away because the virus doesn't find many victims to keep infecting. But saying that mean we still have a long long way to go. New York city and surrounding greater New York have perhaps 20 million people. At. 8% mortality assuming even 50% get infected that will be 160,000 deaths. Health care systems can't handle all the critical cases that go with that number. So many that could normally be saved will die. That's because it will happen all at once basically. And these are the sorts of numbers they are expecting.

We will be spared that in Canada because we are being fanatical about distancing, quarantines, etc.

[LeyenLouvain]

People still sweat, cough and sneeze without having cold or flu like symptoms.

Apparently speaking spreads droplets as well.

[Judd]

We're going to see most all the densely populated cities be hit with this virus over the next couple of months, then move on to rural cities. The only way we slow it down is a nationwide lock down coupled with mass testing. Otherwise, it's just going to move from one community to the next and continue to disrupt our lives til there's a vaccine. We lost a lot of time down playing the severity of this virus. Like you said, there will be no reason to risk exposing a countries population to this virus by allowing Americans to enter until you can document you don't have it.

I am of the opinion that we will be lucky to be get back into Colombia by June 2021 and I hope I am dead wrong on this.

My prediction is that several Countries will not allow visitors into to their Countries until there is a proven vaccine for the virus, no different than the Yellow Fever Vaccination Certificate required by several Countries now.

Hopefully I am wrong on this, and besides a vaccine a miracle cure would be great as well.

I am planning on the long haul for the time being.

[YippieKayay]

I understand what you are saying, there has been rapid spreading of this virus that cannot be explained by "droplet" contamination because many of the people who contract the disease are not around people who are showing symptoms.

People still sweat, cough and sneeze without having cold or flu like symptoms.

[Mojo Bandit]

I just think we don't have enough awareness. What I should have said is the doctors and scientists know some possible ways it can spread, but they may not know all the methods, including variables like distance, and length of time, that it can spread. If they give advice based on what they know, which is a reasonable thing to do, the advice maybe insufficient because of what they don't know.

By the same token, I think it is a mistake to think this is similar to the first SARS virus and treat it the same way

I understand what you are saying, there has been rapid spreading of this virus that cannot be explained by "droplet" contamination because many of the people who contract the disease are not around people who are showing symptoms.

[Balboa]

Seriously, dude?

Seriously dude! Lol 😅

[Nounce]

Why would they not know how it spreads? It's been studied since late December. They already have experience with the first SARS virus. With all the good information on the Internet why do people seem to insist on absorbing conspiracy theories and kookery?

I just think we don't have enough awareness. What I should have said is the doctors and scientists know some possible ways it can spread, but they may not know all the methods, including variables like distance, and length of time, that it can spread. If they give advice based on what they know, which is a reasonable thing to do, the advice maybe insufficient because of what they don't know.

By the same token, I think it is a mistake to think this is similar to the first SARS virus and treat it the same way

[YippieKayay]

I think there is another problem in that the doctors maybe giving wrong advice on a virus they know very little about. They don't really know how the virus spread but they give advice which maybe insufficient on preventing it.

Why would they not know how it spreads? It's been studied since late December. They already have experience with the first SARS virus. With all the good information on the Internet why do people seem to insist on absorbing conspiracy theories and kookery?