Child Slavery A Persecution of the Poor and Helpless: SPEAKING CAN SPREAD COVID-19 NEW EVIDENCE SUGGESTS

Thursday, 16 April 2020

SPEAKING CAN SPREAD COVID-19 NEW EVIDENCE SUGGESTS

UPDATED LINKS: There's new evidence to suggest that speaking and not just coughing and sneezing can spread Covid-19. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine has found tiny droplets that come out of the mouth while speaking are infectious. Professor of Immunology at Trinity College Dublin Luke O’Neill says the research proves everyone should be wearing a mask. Jack Lambert, professor in Infectious Diseases at the Mater and Rotunda hospitals and UCD school of medicine has warned against the lifting of restrictions in relation to Covid-19. It is too soon to “unlock the lockdown” as there are too many community clusters such as the homeless, drug users and student populations where the virus that when walking to work in the Mater hospital he passes houses where there are groups of people sitting out on porches not practicing social or physical distancing. “It’s a cluster thing, you can’t do anything (about lifting restrictions) until you address that. We need action, boots on the ground, not talk.”

Prof Lambert said it was an “embarrassment” the lack of sanitary conditions in some shops. "I've walked around time going to and from work and other situations... It's an embarrassment the kind of facilities that are there," he said. "People are doing what they can, but is it the responsibility of a little shop to ensure they have all the hand sanitisers and so on in place? "They need directions, supervisions and support. None of that's in place." Post offices were doing “absolutely nothing” with no hand sanitizer, doors that had to be pushed to open. Show can you lift the lockdown when you don’t have plans in place for that,” he added. Efforts by Dublin Bike to clean handlebars with baby wipes were not good enough, he said. “They need to do better- baby wipes are not good enough.” The situation in nursing homes was chaotic, he said. There needed to be better testing, better education about PPE and more PPE. - Plans for nursing homes should have been developed two to three weeks ago, he said.

ADDITIONAL TEXT:

There's new evidence to suggest that speaking and not just coughing and sneezing can spread Covid-19. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine https://www.nejm.org/recently-published has found tiny droplets that come out of the mouth while speaking are infectious. Professor of Immunology at Trinity College Dublin Luke O’Neill says the research proves everyone should be wearing a mask. "The original idea was that you'd protect the other person from coughing. But now the fact that you can breathe the stuff out... "You've got to wear a mask. This science supports that. We need a scientific basis for claiming things and that's why I think these studies are so good."

University of San Francisco data scientist Jeremy Howard recently led a review panel with 18 other experts from around the globe on the effectiveness of masks in warding off the virus. He said: “It actually looks a lot like (wearing masks) could be one of our most important tools." Mr Howard cited World Health Organisation assistant director-general David Heymann’s comment that masks were equally or more effective in combating the spread of Covid-19 than social distancing and said the situation in Taiwan provided further proof. “The entire country of Taiwan has five deaths. Now here’s an example of a great country that is distributing masks to everybody,” Mr Howard said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-spread-graphic/how-coronavirus-hitched-a-ride-through-china-idUSKCN21Y17B

https://www.reuters.com/news/world
https://www.rte.ie/news/2020/0416/1130864-greece-migrants-coronavirus/
https://www2.hse.ie/conditions/coronavirus/coronavirus-treatment.html

He added: Most scientific evidence points in the same direction: keep your droplets to yourself – wear a mask. “Our team’s review of the literature found substantial evidence in favour of widespread mask use to reduce community transmission, based on droplet dynamics, mask material analysis, efficacy studies, and behavioural studies. “The key insight is that most discussions assume that the purpose of the mask is to protect the wearer, since this is what all doctors learn about in medical school. But, actually masks work far better at blocking the infection at the source. This is called ‘source control’.”

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