Scary Peer Reviewed Science - Trigger Warning

[ClimbDad]

Taking Mumsnet HQ’s suggestion on board, this thread is for those who want scientific information about COVID-19. It is clearly advertised as scary, and has a trigger warning, so no complaints from anyone complaining they didn’t know what they were stumbling into.

I’ll only be sharing peer reviewed papers from respected journals and would advise anyone else who wants to share anything to use the same criteria.

The thread isn’t actually designed to scare. It’s designed to inform, so that people can make a decent assessment of risk and lobby decision makers when appropriate. Don’t assume government knows more than you. They’ve been behind the curve on everything.

I’ll start. The Guardian wrote a good article about the progress of respiratory viruses through autumn and how we don’t know whether SARS-COV-2 will compete with flu.

www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jul/19/what-happens-when-flu-meets-covid-19

The theory of viral competition suggests COVID19 might be kept at bay by flu. In other words infection by other respiratory viruses might help reduce the impact of a second wave.

However this peer reviewed study published in the Journal of Medical Virology suggests flu and COVID19 don’t compete, and coexist simultaneously.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jmv.26364

The inference is that having SARS-COV-2 circulating at the same time as influenza will cause more serious infection. It doesn’t seem that viral competition will make things better.

Practically what does this mean? I believe it means it is prudent to be even more cautious during flu season than we were in spring, and to do everything possible to reduce transmission. That is going to be particularly relevant to schools. Even if one refuses to accept schools play a role in COVID19 transmission, it is established science that schools are the engines behind influenza transmission every year, so precautionary measures make sense even if just to reduce spread of flu.

@Hearhoovesthinkzebras

I agree I have never said we shouldnt proceed with caution. I think we should. We are without immunity to this making it very very dangerous.

What I am trying to say is that we have long since underestimated the power of viruses as a whole and become wholly complacent about the vast majority of them to the point where measles has started to make a comeback because people fear the vaccine more than they fear measles. Given actually what the research at the top is highlighting the danger of COVID and Flu together we should be making it clear the dangers of all viruses

When I say scale I mean we need to really focus on the fact that a lack of immunity means it is incredibly contagious and that is why we need to do the social distancing and mask wearing.

@climbdad that is interesting because actually it shows that the age that we arent asking to wear masks (the under 5s) carry more of the viral nucleic acid that the other groups. Although it does say that doesnt necessarily equal infectious virus

@ClimbDad That is interesting. Particularly as the governments of Wales and Scotland have now said under 11s so not need to social distance outside. I’m trying to find the data that they have used to come to that conclusion.

Also I posted this before but wondered if you would please clarify on to what level you would like masks in schools? Year groups etc. Primary and secondary?

My original post was ‘@ClimbDad May I ask how widely you feel that masks should be worn in schools? All classes? All year groups?
What about care givers in nursery’s? (children under 2 and some argue 3 shouldn’t wear masks due to small airways hence my focus on the care givers in that setting). I ask as the question regarding the use of masks in school is not as simple as saying it reduces spread. There are likely to be consequences to widespread mask use in child development, child’s mental health etc, just as there are with continued lockdown and closure of schools. Of course a balance needs to be struck between Covid but also the actions we are taking to mitigate the disease. There is already emerging evidence of the negative impact of lockdown on children’s mental health: jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2765196
Of note this article is limited by its small data set, short duration, not fully applicable to UK setting due to style of lockdown being harsher but it does raise issues.’

Australia saw a huge drop in flu during their winter this year due to social distancing

jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2764787

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jmv.26364

25% of deaths in Iran and California were found to have a co infection, mainly flu

I’ll be showing this to my health and safety union rep so we get to WFH forever!

[quote Bluebellpainting]**@ClimbDad That is interesting. Particularly as the governments of Wales and Scotland have now said under 11s so not need to social distance outside. I’m trying to find the data that they have used to come to that conclusion.

Also I posted this before but wondered if you would please clarify on to what level you would like masks in schools? Year groups etc. Primary and secondary?

My original post was ‘@ClimbDad May I ask how widely you feel that masks should be worn in schools? All classes? All year groups?
What about care givers in nursery’s? (children under 2 and some argue 3 shouldn’t wear masks due to small airways hence my focus on the care givers in that setting). I ask as the question regarding the use of masks in school is not as simple as saying it reduces spread. There are likely to be consequences to widespread mask use in child development, child’s mental health etc, just as there are with continued lockdown and closure of schools. Of course a balance needs to be struck between Covid but also the actions we are taking to mitigate the disease. There is already emerging evidence of the negative impact of lockdown on children’s mental health: jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2765196
Of note this article is limited by its small data set, short duration, not fully applicable to UK setting due to style of lockdown being harsher but it does raise issues.’[/quote]
@Bluebellpainting Sorry, missed your question.

It's difficult, because masks are unsuitable for young children, those with learning difficulties etc. The key thing to recognise is that if schools open, the risk will never be zero, but what we want to do is get it as low as possible. Everyone who wears a mask reduces the risk slightly, so a class with 28 unmasked children will be far greater risk than a class with 14, or a class with 4 unmasked children (assuming the same spread in the community in all scenarios).

Fighting a pandemic virus is about lots of small measures combining to reduce risk at every step of the way. The only 'magic bullet' is a total lockdown, which cuts all transmission events. But that isn't practical, so we have to do as much as possible to put barriers in the virus's way.

Some masks is better than no masks.

I agree about the paediatric mental health issues. Unfortunately, I don't think there's an easy way to avoid this. Sending children to school and pretending everything is OK will cause mental health issues too. I think showing kids in other countries wearing masks, and normalising it as a protective measure might help.

@ClimbDad

And that is the real catch22 here.

As your link showed the age group that carried more virus was the under 5s. The ones for whom masks are unsuitable and the age group for which you need childcare for to restart the economy.

And then you get what masks - some work far more effectively than others (and we arent even saying masks at the moment merely face coverings)

At the moment though our guidance is so oxymoronic its not even funny

@Quartz2208 absolutely.

Then the Prime Minister makes off the cuff remarks about how things will be back to normal by Christmas, and people get angry at those of us who know better, because the PM should be trustworthy. In normal times one should be able to believe the word of a nation's leader more than an anonymus Mumsnet account.

I hope the PM will learn from his mistakes and stop making such harmful statements. Let the scientists make estimations about the future. I also hope he's going to pay more attention to what they're saying, because they're seeing all the papers that I've shared on here.

Sending children to school and pretending everything is OK will cause mental health issues too

This is an important point

@ClimbDad Thank you for replying. Yes I agree the only way to eradicate is a much longer, harsher lockdown but you do have to balance the impact of that on mental health etc. I can see a role for face masks in secondary and upper years of primary but are very wary of the idea in infant schools and early years settings. The difficulty is we know young children rely on seeing faces for learning to speak etc but there is no research that I could find regarding masks and child development including in countries where masks are more widespread before Covid. I have no experience of living there but imagine they were not widely used in a school setting before Covid, just more on public transport, in the street but would love to know from someone who has experienced this.

Interesting questions @Bluebellpainting

I don't think masks were widely used in school settings in South Korea and Japan etc before COVID-19, but am not an expert. Anyone else know?

If masks aren't used in schools, I'm not sure how they will be able to reopen safely without significantly reducing class sizes (essentially rolling over the limited schooling that's been provided to the children of essential workers and the vulnerable).

The government always hopes for the best and fails to plan for the worst, when we need them to do the reverse. They should assume transmission will be high in winter and figure out how they would deliver education in those circumstances.

Parents will not forgive those in charge if their children are vectors for widespread and serious illness in families. We know too much about how this virus transmits for the government to plead ignorance a second time.

@Climbdad the problem though with using masks in school is you would need proper effective masks and masks use in order for it to be effective. Otherwise you are just adding further complications in.

If you could get all the pupils to use masks properly at all times (and proper effective masks half of what I see around pays lipservice to masks) it would be exactly the right thing to do.

First off I think you would need schools to provide at least some masks, then give proper instructions for those who are buying

It may work in the more rule following countries I cant see it working effectively here

Personally I would say two long school days plus a day inbetween to clean then work to do at home may well be the better option. And one I would be happy with.

@climbdad I think you must have missed my previous post, can you give some further information around your comment that we should expect some good news soon?

[quote OutwardBound2016]@climbdad I think you must have missed my previous post, can you give some further information around your comment that we should expect some good news soon?[/quote]
I’m pretty confident there will be news on a promising treatment soon.

Any idea how soon @ClimbDad? I could really use some hope

@climbdad, that’s interesting, do you work in the field? Is this treatment one of those already being used or completely new?

Study from the US Centre For Disease Control:

"This investigation adds to the body of evidence demonstrating that children of all ages are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection and, contrary to early reports, might play an important role in transmission"

www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6931e1.htm

I’m not sure why anyone would be surprised. I can’t think of any respiratory viruses that aren’t amplified by children. Just like “no danger from mass public events” or “mild” or “14 day recovery”, the public have been told comforting lies.

Opening schools with normal class sizes, without masks will put lives at risk. Not sure how much evidence people need, but we’re very likely to have a lot of practical evidence by October. Then what? More sickness, more death. Knee jerk closures, anger, panic.

Plan the alternative now.

[quote OutwardBound2016]@climbdad, that’s interesting, do you work in the field? Is this treatment one of those already being used or completely new?[/quote]
Yes. Completely new.

@climbdad, this is encouraging! Presumably you work in the field or is this information available to the public? If the latter would be interested in a source.

Thank god we have got you Climbdad

[quote OutwardBound2016]@climbdad, this is encouraging! Presumably you work in the field or is this information available to the public? If the latter would be interested in a source.[/quote]
Not public yet. Expect it will be so soon.

@Climbdad, do you work within the field?

[quote OutwardBound2016]@Climbdad, do you work within the field?[/quote]
He's already said on other threads that he does.

Sorry @RhubarbTea, I’ll have a search through! Thought it was a quick question to answer

@Jrobhatch29

jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2764787

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jmv.26364

25% of deaths in Iran and California were found to have a co infection, mainly flu

Interesting

What it does not examine is what impact co-infection has on severity of the disease.

Do you know if anyone has tried to look into that? Maybe in the Southern Hemisphere, where it is winter now?