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Coronavirus in the UK

Discussion in 'Health and Fitness' started by aposhark, Mar 4, 2020.

  1. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    The reusable masks that a great many people are wearing are little better than cloth they are only stopping sneezes and coughs only stopping droplets, they are not stopping aerosols, I don't know what a Burka is made of but I imagine it is cloth, if it were tight fitting over the nose and mouth I would say no they don't need a mask as well, they would be no different to the useless reusable cloth face masks.

    However looking at some pictures of loose fitting Burka garments with a very thin mesh over the eyes and sometimes the rest of the face, anything with that construction would be dangerous and that person should have a face mask on under there as they will be exhaling and any infection will be escaping easily to the surroundings.
  2. Jim
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    Jim Well-Known Member Trusted Member

  3. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    Jim, these kind of masks do not protect you they protect everyone else, when everyone is wearing them the reach of coughs and sneezes is reduced greatly, but these masks don't stop the virus passing through, the virus is far too small to be stopped this way.

    If you have ten people in a large room, nine are wearing surgical masks, one person is not wearing a mask, all nine people are at risk from that one person if they happen to be infected, that one guy not wearing the mask however is well protected from everyone else in the room.

    Masks reduce the inertia of the exhaled breath reducing the distance that breath travels.

    So not wearing a mask when everyone else is wearing them is very selfish, it's literally the I'm all right jack mentality.

    All these idiots in the US and elsewhere saying I can look after myself I am healthy I don't need to wear a mask are selfish pricks.

    The only mask that will stop most of the virus is an FFP3 like this, this one stops 99.98% of particles as small as viruses, they are not cheap and they are really unpleasant to wear for any prolonged period, I know I have a small supply of these, you can reuse each of these up to 16 hours in total but they are not fun to wear after a few hours of use even if that use is spread over several days.

    upload_2020-9-25_12-37-50.png


    This video shows the range of exhalation of a normal human being doing normal things, I've seen examples like this where a cough can go 3 or 4 metres in moments.

    Best to view this full screen hard to see the details at the start when it is small.

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  4. Jim
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    Jim Well-Known Member Trusted Member

    That's what I meant by stopping the virus! I said this 4 or 5 months back. protecting others and not the person wearing one.
    Last edited: Sep 26, 2020
  5. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    Sorry Jim, I wasn't getting at you, I'm a bit on edge at the moment.
  6. Jim
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    Jim Well-Known Member Trusted Member

    No worries.
  7. Anon220806
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    Anon220806 Well-Known Member

  8. one world
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    one world Active Member Trusted Member

  9. Mattecube
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    Mattecube face the sunshine so shadows fall behind you Trusted Member

  10. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    I am still taking Vitamin D, however recent studies are claiming no effect regards Covid-19.

    It is not clear if these are studies relating to using Vitamin D as a treatment which I would not expect to work anyway or if they are studies of outcomes in patients with appropriate levels of vitamin D, I rather suspect that someone did a study of the clinical outcomes of prescribing Vitamin D after a person was known to be infected and that of course is far too late.

    One thing that bothers me greatly is that there does not appear to be any co-ordinated effort to record key data from those infected who later recover, people are being told to self isolate at home and only go to hospital if they start to get really ill, all those who recover we have no data on them, is Covid even on their medical record, I've had 3 tests in hospital and one outside hospital there is only one test result on my medical record.

    Without accurate data and the ability to cross reference to people's medical history you can't do accurate science.

    My use of vitamin D is still only based on the study that showed a general improvement in respiratory illness events, that study is ten years old, I make no connection to Covid-19 it just seems like a generally good thing to have sufficient levels of vitamin D in my body.
  11. Anon220806
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    Anon220806 Well-Known Member

    That is where yer Oirish Fella comes in. He gathers what data is available and tries to make sense of it where no one else is bothering. As you know he has done a lot of work on Covid 19 and vitamin D and publishes his findings for anyone and everyone.

    For me, I prefer to acquire my vitamin d naturally and only use supplements as a top up.

    But there are a number of commentaries which highlight the benefits of sufficient vitamin d:

    Here is one:

    https://news.sky.com/story/coronavi...-and-impact-of-covid-19-studies-find-12081132

    No doubt we can search the internet and find stuff to the contrary. In my case I am comfortable with what I am seeing and hearing that encourages ensuring vitamin d levels are adequate.
    Last edited: Sep 26, 2020
  12. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    Yes the Irish bloke's work is good and I hope at least that there is something in the results he is sharing.

    For me I simply can't get enough sun to build up my vitamin D levels and food can't provide anything near what sunlight creates, we are talking orders of magnitude difference and of course the winter makes it all a lot harder 25 microgram is quite a low dose but I have switched back to that dosage recently .
  13. Anon220806
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    Anon220806 Well-Known Member

    There are many reports on the benefits of vitamin d in relation to the immune system. I see new ones every day.
    Here is one from back in June:



    This one from Doctor David Grimes was particularly with reference to the so called BAME community.

    I like his point:

    “Self-preservation is more important than "peer review" if you are on a beach when there is a warning of a tsunami (sorry to repeat the analogy for the second time).“

    This Youtube video goes into detail on vitamin d and other factors. It is quite detailed.



    He makes a salient point that if metabolically healthy then the vitamin d gets put to better use than if metabolically unhealthy. So it isnt as straight forward as stuffing a load of Vit d tablets down our neck.
    Last edited: Sep 26, 2020
  14. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    It was Matt Hancock who replied to an opposition question last week in Parliament stating no observed effect, in the context I mentioned earlier, which as I said I think is in error.

    I'll read those links later.
  15. Anon220806
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    Anon220806 Well-Known Member

    I didn’t know that.

    Matt Hancock’s responses on this side of the equation have been disappointing. I don’t envy him his position though.

    He has been made aware of immunity solutions but he is a politician and politicians don’t always act in the countries best interest. For the time being the government recommendation is to get out and cycle more which clearly isn’t going to be viable. (Cycling all day would work but who will do that?).

    Matt Hancock is talking out of his arse, several clinical trials around the world have had very positive effects using vitamin D. Remember when they said masks make no difference ....don't wait get some vitD and take it regularly.


    F
    ace masks make no difference....
    https://www.politicshome.com/news/a...to-spread-of-disease-insists-uk-medical-chief
    Last edited: Sep 26, 2020
  16. Anon220806
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    Anon220806 Well-Known Member

    You don’t have to search too hard to find a huge reservoir of material on the topic.
  17. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    I watched the exchange live on the tele, he's not technical and would not understand the difference between a prescriptive treatment and the idea that an intrinsic deficit could be harmful, he's replying to the question in the context of, patient arrives in hospital so give them Vitamin D and see what happens, which is utter nonsense and far too late.
  18. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    This is my point in general, technical literacy is sadly lacking at all levels in this country and indeed in many parts of the western world.

    Too many people expect one question to have one answer, so when they get that answer to them that's it, all over done, when in reality the context of the question is everything.

    The science and the technology evolve with the data, that's how we arrived in a world of cars, airplanes, smartphones, computers, internet communications, indoor plumbing, refrigeration and medicine, but everyone wants that absolute one off conclusive answer so they can stop thinking, because they find thinking so hard and a distraction from all the other things they want to do .

    Me, cynical, yes.
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  19. Anon220806
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    Anon220806 Well-Known Member

    “As we face six tough months of curfews, isolation and economic misery, with vaccines a distant hope, testing struggling to control the virus, and the hospitalisation rate once again rising, it’s surely time to try anything reasonable to slow the pandemic down. There is one chemical that is known to be safe, known to be needed by many people anyway, known to have a clinically proven track record of helping people fight off respiratory diseases, and is so cheap no big firm is pushing it: vitamin D. It is not a silver bullet, but growing evidence suggests that it might help prevent Covid turning serious in some people.

    In May, arguments on the link between Vitamin D deficiency and its association with poor Covid outcomes started to gather pace. That month, the Health Secretary’s attention was drawn to two studies showing a strong association between the incidence and severity of Covid-19 with vitamin D deficiencies in the patients. Vadim Backman of Northwestern University, one of the authors of one of those studies, said about healthy levels of vitamin D that “Our analysis shows that it might be as high as cutting the mortality rate in half.”


    When asked to look at the evidence, Matt Hancock perfectly reasonably handed the question to Public Health England to answer. They attempted to analyse the statistical data and came up unconvinced. The problem is that a correlation is not a proof of cause and effect, and a correlation (albeit a very strong one) is all that we had at that point. Or almost all that we had.

    The gold standard of medical research is the randomised controlled trial. Back in May, we had no such test for vitamin D and Covid-19. Now we do. The world’s first randomised control trial on vitamin D and Covid has just been published. The results are clear-cut. The trial, which took place in Spain at the Reina Sofía University Hospital, involved 76 patients suffering from Covid-19. Fifty of those patients were given vitamin D. The remaining 26 were not. Half of those not given Vitamin D became so sick that they needed to be put on intensive care. By comparison, only one person who was given Vitamin D requiring ICU admission.

    Put another way, the use of Vitamin D reduced a patient’s risk of needing intensive care 25-fold. Two patients who did not receive Vitamin D died. And while the sample is too small to conclude that Vitamin D abolishes the risk of death in Covid patients, it is nonetheless an astonishing result, and corresponds with Prof Backman’s assertion that correcting vitamin deficiency might cut mortality by half. The Government should now act on this latest evidence.”

    Quoted from the Telegraph
  20. Anon220806
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    Anon220806 Well-Known Member

    Agreed.
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