The Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) is not related to or a form of the flu (Influenza), it is part of the family of Coronaviruses which includes MERS and SARS. It has proved far more infectious and caused far more deaths than those two diseases. Thanks to multiple failures of the EU, Europe is now the epicentre of the disease. European nation states now ignore EU control.
There is a world wide frantic search for a vaccine but in fact an experimental anti-viral drug Remdesivir, has already cured a critically ill patient at the University of California Davis Medical Center. A further 14 Americans from the Diamond Princess cruise ship with average ages of 75 were critically ill in a Japanese hospital. They were treated and more than half of them have recovered. https://unredacted.co.uk/2020/03/15/experimental-antiviral-drug-saved-a-coronavirus-patient-in-critical-condition/
The coronavirus outbreak started in China and it is now probably in its final phases there with 56.2 cases per million population and as of 17/3/2020 there have been 3,200 deaths. In South Korea there have been 160 cases per million population with only 75 deaths.
If the UK has the same pattern as China then there should be 3,752 cases and 146 deaths. But at the moment the UK infection rate is 28.7 cases per million – nowhere near the Chinese rate because we are very much at the beginning of the curve and that curve for the UK is looking very like the far worse Spanish and Italian curves at our stage of development of the virus.
The UK is close to what is now the epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic – continental Europe – where the complete failure to control either internal migration nor external immigration has caused this virus to run riot.
Germany has 95 cases per million population
France has 101 cases per million
Spain has 241 cases per million
Norway has 261 cases per million
Switzerland (which has a particularly open border with Italy) has 272 cases per million
and the complete disaster Italy has 462 cases per million, because Chinese official and illegal immigration into the north of Italy to provide cheap labour for the textile and fashion industries has been a potent transmitter of the virus.
CHEAP CHINESE LABOUR IN NORTHERN ITALY
The first hub for Chinese workers in Italy was in Prato (today 6.3% Chinese) in the 1990s where mills and workshops made clothes and leather goods for the main fashion houses. Like the British Health Service in the 1950s and the British textile industry in the 1960s cheap labour was the “solution” to outdated production and management and financial failure. Thanks to the disastrous Euro the Italian economy has hardly grown at all over the last 20 years. Like every other industry in a country which could not devalue its external currency the Italian fashion industry had to “devalue” the internal costs – hence cheap Chinese labour.
The Chinese gradually moved from contract work for Italian workshops to owning their own workshops – today supplying firms like Gucci and Prada. Chinese came officially and stayed. Some came as tourists and stayed. Thousands came illegally and stayed. People smuggling is rife.
Hundreds of thousands of Chinese now live in Italy many having traveled on direct flights from Wuhan the centre of the Coronavirus outbreak in China.
At one point the Italian authorities did not understand why there were hardly any Chinese deaths registered. It was because smuggling gangs disposed of the bodies and re-used the passports to legitimise more immigrants. ttps://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/16/the-chinese-workers-who-assemble-designer-bags-in-tuscany/amp
Like all other immigrants who arrive in a foreign country in massive numbers the Chinese were able to set up their own economic, social and financial systems independent of the local population and not contributing to the Italian system.
“The under-the-table cash economy of Prato’s Chinese factories means widespread tax evasion. Last year, as the result of an investigation by the Italian finance ministry into five billion dollars’ worth of questionable money transfers, the Bank of China, whose Milan branch had reportedly been used for half of them, paid a settlement of more than twenty million dollars.” The New Yorker
This totally criminal, uncontrolled, EU austerity promoted mass migration is the explanation for much of the Coronavirus crisis in Italy which is spreading so quickly to other EU states. Something similar is undoubtedly also the explanation for the first appearance of the virus on the west coast of the USA, open as it has been for years to legal and illegal Chinese migration. Iran, with the third highest number of coronavirus deaths has for years had close political and industrial ties with China. 50% of Iran’s total trade is with China.
It is estimated that there are over 300,000 Chinese in Italy with many thousands more illegals.The Italian Cities with significant Chinese populations are virtually all in the North, the centre of the outbreak:
•Milan 18,918
•Rome 12,013
•Prato 11,882 (6.32%)
•Turin 5,437
•Florence 3,890
•Campi Bisenzio 3,018 (6.87%)
•Reggio Emilia 2,925
•Bologna 2,654
•Naples 2,456
•Brescia 2,394
•Venice 2,163
•Empoli 1,759 (3.67%)
•Genoa 1,637
•Forlì 1,607
•Padua 1,571
•Fucecchio 1,502 (6.39%)
EU DISASTER:
As the EU president Ursula von der Leyen was announcing that the internal borders of the EU must remain open her own German Government was closing them! This was symptomatic of the disastrous role of the EU in this crisis. Having deserted the internal national borders in the pursuit of a “single market” and a “country called Europe” the EU has failed miserably to protect that “EU country” from external threats and uncontrolled migration the Middle East, Africa, China (as above) and even Turkey has put unbararable economic, social and now medical strain on the nation states.
Even as the EU addressed the present deadly crisis they could not help promoting their political and economic agenda:
To ensure the necessary supplies to our health systems by preserving the integrity of the Single Market!!!
But now those states are fighting back. Because the nations have acted the EU has had to concede:
- the end of the Schengen Agreement borderless EU
- the end of State aid rules
- Member States have taken unilateral action on travel
- the suspension of rules on corporation tax, VAT, NI
- EU’s “CE” mark abandoned for health products
When Italy appealed for urgent medical and other supplies from the EU neither the Eu nor the other member states responded! But on the 12th March a Chinese aircraft landed in Rome carrying nine medical experts and 31 tons of medical supplies including intensive care unit equipment, medical protective equipment, and antiviral drugs. Around the same time, a Chinese truck arrived in Italy bringing more than 230 boxes of medical equipment. More supplies are on their way.
ADVICE, TREATMENT AND INFECTION
POST INFECTION CONTAGION?
A Chinese study suggests that the new coronavirus can persist in the body for at least two weeks after symptoms of the disease clear up. It is not clear whether those patients can still pass on the virus although they are thought not to be very contagious! So maybe any infected but recovered person should remain away from others for 14 days after recovery.
Krys Johnson, an epidemiologist at Temple University’s College of Public Health says this is no bad thing because the viruses that tend to hang around in people’s systems also tend to be the viruses that the body develops a strong immune response against.
INFECTION ON SURFACES
Like so much else about this virus there are no definitive measurements of how long infections can last on different surfaces. A new (non peer reviewed) analysis found that the virus can remain viable in the air for up to 3 hours, on copper for up to 4 hours, on cardboard up to 24 hours and on plastic and stainless steel up to 2 to 3 days.
Another study looking at other coronarviruses indicated that it could stay on metal, glass or plastic for as long as 9 days (compared to flu at 48 hours). But they can be wiped away by household disinfectants with 62-71% ethanol, 0.5% hydrogen peroxide or 0.1% sodium hypochlorite (bleach).
The most common cause of transmission is believed to be close contact and respiratory droplets from coughs and sneezes.
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.livescience.com/amp/how-long-coronavirus-last-surfaces.html
DRUGS, VACCINE
Private laboratories throughout the world are cometic and co-operating to produce a vaccine and a US Biotech firm has developed an experimental drug Remdesivir which has proved remarkably effective. One woman near death has completely reconered and 14 US passengers on the cruise ship Diamond Princess in hospital in Japan have responded well with over half already recovering after taking the drug.
The drug Chloroquine, available as an anti malarial drug over the counter at chemists is also apparently effective.
A vaccine has also been developed – mRNA-1273 – which is not made from the virus that causes Covid-19 (the usual approach to vaccines) but it includes a short segment of genetic code copied from the virus that scientists have been able to make in a laboratory which they hope will prime the body’s own immune system to fight off the real infection.
For those who contract the virus the French health Minister Olivier Veran has said:
“The taking of anti-inflammatories (ibuprofane, cortisone) could be a factor in aggravating
the infection.”
and Jean-Louis Montastruc, Head of Pharmacology at Toulouse Hospital said that:
“Anti-inflammatory drugs (like Aspirin, Ibuprofen, Naproxen, Diclofenac, Advil, Motrin) increase the risk of complications when there is a fever or infection”
But Paracetamol, Acetaminophen, Tylenol, reduce fever. French authorities are advising to take these to reduce fever, but others say:
your immune system works better at 39C and is a natural “febrile adaptive response” to fight off the infection, so advice from elsewhere is saying don’t take these either. Let your fever work for you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuWo5lmWuZI
I hope, as a non expert, I have provided ideas that can at least be bounced off your doctor!
