Professor Kim Woo-Ju, Professor Infectious Diseases, Korea, says that masks are “definitely effective”. “I find it quite odd” that the west people don’t wear masks.” “People wearing a mask have a significantly lower chance of getting infected than those who don’t.” WHO says not to wear masks, he says “I disagree.”
Around the middle of the interview he says that one of the reasons Korea has low rate of infection is because they wear masks — as good as N95 (P2) — this is the same type as what the doctors wear.
He says Korea, and all the South East Asian countries are also experienced because they went through the SARS and MERS outbreaks. They knew what to do, they knew they needed tests fast.
He speaks well. h/t MichaelSmithNews. (via Annie ) and Chiefio somewhere (via Bill in Oz)
“In 30 years of pandemics, Ebola, MERS, Swine Flu … the Covid-19 epidemic is the most challenging”.
- In the 80+ age group the death rate is 11%
- With the largest number of tests anywhere, they find 20% have no symptoms. But it is still not random testing. And the number may be different in other countries due to genes, climate (which affects vitamin D levels) or diet.
- About 30% of cases the patients cannot smell or taste. That can last 5 – 10 days. (It’s good to know their senses come back).
- They are seeing reactivation of cases released from hospital — people who tested negative and have been released. This is occurring a week or later and is very unusual. (5 – 6 minutes)
- At 5 – 10 degrees and 30% humidity the virus can survive a long time at least 5 – 7 days on a table.
- 20% of their new cases in Korea are from flights.
- Anti-virals are the most promising form of treatment, including the anti-HIV and Chloroquine related ones. He didn’t rave about them, but said they are somewhat useful.
Airborne transmission can happen in churches or where people are singing and shouting loudly. The airborne droplets can stay elevated longer, can dry out, and that means people will be infected much further away. This explains why churches or mosques can be the largest sources of infection. Presumably rock concerts would be too.
They use phones to track people in self quarantine and expect them to enter their symptoms daily. (!)
Schools have been delayed, but many young people are still studying at academies at night time and people are still going to night clubs, but 10% of their cases are in their 20-something group.
As I said last week some people are making their own masks
Does anyone here want to make masks and sell them to readers? I’m happy to connect up supply and demand if you know someone with a sewing machine. There must be a way to solve this. If we got people wearing masks and it reduced spread by 50% that means we all get out of this faster…. (and in that last post there was a study of Australian parents looking after kids with influenza and if they wore masks they prevented 3 out of 4 infections in parents.)