Posted on 04/01/2020 1:15:03 AM PDT by wastoute
How may virus particles (visions) does it take to start an infection?
I dont think anyone knows for sure but over the decades, at times like this, one ponders these things. My thoughts go along these lines, some things are known, much not. A lot of information is proprietary.
If one viral particle (virion) is inhaled and lands on a nasal epithelium cell, on a specific receptor, it can...
Should we wear masks? Absolutely. It is hypocritical for doctors to say no to us wearing them, even saying that we are more likely to get sick wearing them, while they use them for protection when interacting with us. Granted there is a shortage of masks at the moment, but I imagine that will solve itself shortly and the more people that wear masks, the slower the China Coronavirus spread.
Measles comes to mind. In the days before negative pressure rooms I remember reading about a patient who arrived in Germany IIRC and quickly became ill with measles. He was medically arrested against his wishes and placed in a hospital room until he got well to avoid infecting the others. Quickly they had an outbreak in the hospital. In those days hospital air was not heavily filtered. As the outbreak occurred they began to realize there were patients that were on the other end of the hospital, floors away, who got measles. They realized the viral particles had bee aerosolized and transmitted widely through the building. IIRC he infected 28 new cases.
And of course you are correct. There really are good reasons people should wear respirators in public. I have posted that I believe they are starting to realize there can be significant aerosolized transmission of this virus. But you have to realize, these masks were never intended to be used medically. Outside a negative pressure room. By people who are trained in their use. Dumping 330 Million masks on an uneducated public wont be 100% successful.
I recall on one of these threads where a freeper made a color chart of all sorts of disinfectants, the amount of time needed, and the “decrease in infectivity”. And that that decrease met certain guidelines.
So I’m guessing that means that if you can reduce the load by “this much” that is good enough - and allows for some amount of virons to remain?
There was also the thread (yesterday?) that talked about higher loads received may correlate to more severe symptoms.
There was a controversy that upset me a little during the AIDS epidemic. Prior to that if you were staff at a hospital one assumed catching a disease from a patient was like a workplace accident. The healthcare industry realized just a few such cases opened them up to a liability they couldnt survive. So they lobbied, got some laws and created what has been Industry Policy for 4 decades. Universal Precautions. In their favor they concurrently applied a system of protecting staff that was highly effective but in the fine print they were indemnified from liability. Now there were fool proof infrastructure, trading (highly documented), and policies in place if you got infected in their building it was YOUR fault. I remember it well because that was when I really started to hate politicians.
You may have seen a post of mine.
Another thought as I read your comments again. They say this virus is so bad because it gets into the lower lung, which they think is due to the small particles getting sucked in so deep.
The larger droplets may get stuck in the throat or upper lungs.
In reading about the standard flu they studied large and small particles, and thought that the smaller particles weren’t as viable as the larger, but it was difficult to determine. So perhaps this Covid-19 has more viable smaller particles for some reason. This would allow it to spread farther and infect easier (observed), and also to get deep into the lungs as observed.
And that, my friends, is how German measles was invented.
The fact that size of inoculumm makes a difference has long been known for some disease. That was what the unethical experiments the Japanese did on our POWs was all about. How much Salmonella could you inject without producing disease. War Crime. So you can imagine this kind research is controversial.
Try the veal.
I found it! This one was from daniel1212:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3828447/posts?page=46#28
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#WellBeHereAllWeek
To understand the question it helps to understand a little about the airway, how it functions. Your airway is much more than a pipe. As a molecule of air is inhaled it encounters 25 forks in the road before it finally gets to the alveoli, little sacks where gas exchange occurs. This has several implications. To get the air to flow through all these areas of high resistance it needs a little help because you may recall from physics resistance means more work, the effort of breathing. The air flow in the airway is laminar flow to reduce viscosity but this also does some filtering, l;Amina flow filtering. Each inhaled particle is progressively pushed to the side like a cohoe drifting in a river will eventually find the beach.
So. Are you starting to see how this works? Any way as the inhaled junk gets pushed to the curb by laminar flow there is a sticky substance on the wall of the airway that traps just about everything inhaled that you dont want. Down to 5 microns which is respectable dust that does reach the alveolus. This sticky mucus is propelled toward the back of the throat which is why after a night of lying motionless for the most part when you wake up the first thing you do is cough and swallow.
LOL. Gotta keep your sense of humor. It helps keep your head when all around you...
Ragnarok will have a laugh track.
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For two decades I have been happy to be just another anonymous freeper. Recently I have answered your question but reluctantly because the immediate response is Appeal to Authority! You loose!
Yes. I practiced clinical medicine for 40 years before retiring a few years ago. Initially I did a residency in Neurosurgery and in 2005 started a Family Practice Residency.
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