Covid 19 may be airborne or spread via aerosols - scientists

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From Science Alert

For quite a while we believed in both the droplets and fomite theory of spread of the virus and perhaps our efforts to control the virus  were misdirected.

Under the fomite theory we view the virus not much differently from germs and use disenfection tents foot wash, taking showers every time we get out,  wearing globes.

Under microdroplets theory, it is to be emphasized that we get the virus only when there are persons together:   close personal contact, prolonged period and is engaged in talking, singing laughing or singing.    Thus are spread in closed environment like churches, offices, restaurants, and other
enclosed spaces; even trains and buses

Church leaders were emotional about not letting them hold services and masses.  But churches in USA closed their churches after people got sick and died attending church services.

From NY times - resurgence emerging from bars, strip clubs and churches

The mere act of breathing creates aerosols that stay for hours even up to distance of 10 meters (not 2 meters as is commonly thought)

Also many spreaders are asymptomatic  - do not cough have sore throats or febrile

     1. Thus it was it was useless  to screen pedestrians or entrants to a establishment, or check points
          with temperature scanner.  Roughly half of the spreaders are asysmptomatic

    2.  The foot bath and the  showers are useless because the virus dies when exposed  to the sun, nor
          can streets be reservoirs of the virus.

    3.  It is wrong to lockdown people in their homes.  and yet allow them to congregate in closed
        spaces as mall for SAP distribution

   4.  The lifting of liquor ban which spans parties and gatherings should have not happened
         The superspreaders started in parties fueled by liquor..

The govt was in a hurry to lift the ECQ to give way to revival of economy despite the fact that number were rising.    And the first to be opened are places were people gather together or mass together for virus spread.

    1.   At construction site, there were about 700 workers found to be positive.  What is the science
         behind this?   Workers are in an enclosed space and they constantly shout

    2.  A number of train workers tested positive.  Why they come into contact with thousands of
         passenger daily.  And just one carrier....

   3.  Some towns are booming in number of infections... why are they transmitting may be the
        rapid testing give false negative results.  Dapat talaga PCR test.     Natural kung hindi pa incu-
        bated ang virus mag negative.  When they incubate that is the time they spread.    Despite
        the objection of OFW for quarantine after negative for test, dapat talaga may quarantine.

Tragedy of errors in Philippine Govt handling of Covid Pandemic

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From the Diplomat - Philippine govt handling of pandemic

Written by an freelance Journalist Michael Beltran

1.   Late response to stem Chinese entry into the country

2.  Deficient testing facility and contract tracing

3.  Militaristic approach in handling the purely health crisis. 

4.  Misunderstanding of the physiopathology of the virus.

Victory has a thousand fathers, defeat is an orphan

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From Good reads - from JFK - Victory  has a thousand fathers, defeat is an orphan


Remembering this, as we grew and as businessmen, we tried very hard to survive, thrive and win.  Knowing that if we lose or fail, the government, the public will not mourn for us nor even help us get up.   While the govt rakes in 44% of your revenues, the people there will not even blink nor miss you if you close or go bankrupt.  That is the reality.

That is why you try your very best not to fail.

If the business is closed, we pay the separation pay and probably we help workers get a new job.  There is nothing weird about a Senator saying that workers should look for a new job.   It happens to everyone, not only to the media giant. 

Here we see a giant media company, having failed to get govt nod, or even assistance, muster public support to get them to have a franchise again.  What used to be a private affair, a private business, becomes a public domain and becomes a political issue.   What are they trying to do.

We were talking to someone whose neighbor are from the media giant.  The culture of better than thou, or more powerful than  you is commonly observed

And the thing is they have their plan A to D in place    They are now broadcasting, using various digital means:    FB, You tube etc. 

We are sure they have capable management to steer them through their crisis.   That is part of doing business -  the legal environment can put you out of business that is why it is paramount for every business to be compliant.  Every business student knows that.  Unless you think you have all legal aspects all sewed up and are at the tip of fingers.

Upsurge in numberr of cases of Covid 19

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We have heard these horror stories with regards to covid19

1.  It is common to hear that the daily number of cases are in low 1,000 or high 2,500

2.  There was news that in a construction site, 500 workers tested positive.

3.  That for the trains most of the workers in maintenance and those who are ticketing tested positive

4.  In our local areas there  is a noticeable climb in the number of cases

5.  In churches in USA (which demanded early opening) they are closed again because of the high number of cases emanating from church rites and services...

6.  In a balikbayan ...pi (celebration, painom, tsibugan) two died in a village, and 18 others were infected.  Hence  the liquor ban

This post emphasizes the 3Cs as factor in spread of infection:  closed spaces, close personal contact, and crowds. 

     In a construction site, there is crowding, prolonged contact among workers and they constantly
     shout.  The shouting causes the micro droplets to float and infect each other

     In a church, people are in close contact, there is a crowd, and people sing pray and talk.  These
     activities emit microdroplets which float in the air. and give each one a minimum infection dose


Turbulent gas clouds and respiratory disease transmission

    From Infection Control today.CHURCHES COULD BE THE DEADLIEST PLACE DURING THE PANDEMIC

Almost a victim of love scams

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Have you ever experienced friend requests from beautiful ladies posing as:    infantry soldiers or marine officers Then offering that they will visit your country and share some fortunes, and they will send them to you ahead of time?

But you note that their soc media accounts are devoid of pictures and posts?

The latest tells of the lady conducting a raid in an Asian country where they got wealth and her share was $1.5 million deposited in a security agency and she will send this to me via diplomatic pouch and she was asking for my cellphone number my name and address I nearly fell for it because I was assured it was going to be safe and risk free.

My plan was to use somebody elses name, cp number and email.

However things turned out for the worse:

1.  The assignee I chose told me that several attempts to bring dirty money in the Philippines through the said diplomatic pouch have been intercepted by NBI and BoC and arrests have been made, and so he backed out

2.  There was a news feature at the TV because of alleged love scams.  There were no such beautiful ladies only male goons who placed pictures of lovely ladies and then posted love notes.  That is why I am wondering why:

      1.  The script are the same;  and they all will fall in love with you even if you say you are old
            you are married;

      2.   They are not responsive to your questions like where are you, how are you.  What weapons
             do you use.   You send them videos.   And they say they have not viewed this.   And that
             it is prohibited in the army camp to use cp or internet.

Great God.  I refused to answer anymore the sexy lady army sergeant and she too stopped after I posted the news  about #2

A variant of the Kenyan scam.   The sting is when you are customs somebody demands money which will be paid to an unknown party and not to BoC.  And then they disappear.

FB love scams

Illogical arguments and campaigns

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The current campaigns and propaganda has convinced people to believe in lies and eventually get scammed.  Like everything that is is soc media is true . So they are likely to believe in those messages like:    Prepayments before delivery,  give me your pin, we will make you rich in __trading.

        Because messages like this which are illogical are being passed off as true:

       1.  2 policemen rapes a 15 year old girl,  then murders them, ;  therefore all PNP personnel
            and  PNP is bad.

      2.  9 policemen shoots at and kill 4 AFP intelligence operatives.  Therefore, the Anti Terror Bill
           will be bad for every body.  How foolish!.  Sec. Lorenzana says "Ang layo?!"  How can the
           authors of such statement break this with nary a hesitation.

     3.  Non non regranting of franchise to a media company is a blow to press freedom.  Re granting
          is.... How?  Where is the relation.  The business side of a media company is very different
          from the  content which can be muzzled.

     4.  A case lost by a soc media in lower courts which could have been solved by the organization
          is a blow to press freedom.   A case involving a private person and the media company - how
          could that be?

How intelligent those people can be employing flaws in logical and critical thinking

Common guys let us think and not swallow the lies fodder that is being fed to us at soc and regular media lately. That is why they are being attacked or bad karma is coming their way. 

Exercise more critical thinking.

Government of (frat) brods

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One of the damning statements regarding one senior official in the govt, is that he is the brod of the brod of the top guy in the govt.  That is why maybe, he cant be let go despite criticisms on his performance. 

This post learned that many of govt offices are controlled by mafias of brods in frat.  That is why some offices which are very technical in nature are headed by individuals who are not technically educated.   Being appointed not on basis of merit but because  they are part of the school network.  A brod.

Government of brods

"No one was prepared for the Covid19"

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No one was prepared for the pandemic

That was the defense for the embattled health chief amidst calls for his resignation by Senators and other critics.   Andyan na iyan

But Taiwan handled this well - no harsh lockdown, the economy continued humming. It used  science and lesson learned from SARS.  Its VP is also an epidmiologist, the luxury our country did not have. It also acted swiftly to close its borders, do contact tracing manufacture face masks.

Compared this with our  belated response despite the death of a Chinese national in February and infected individuals in the Moslem prayer site at Greenhills.   Veeruz lang yan.  As they did in UK, and USA

Our country deserved someone better.   Yes its correct, despite being 1/3 the size of US, we only have 1,000 plus deaths vs 100,000+ in US and millions infected

Many foolish statements on presser and newsfeed re Covid 19

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One of the important lessons this post learned in Post Graduate course and in teaching graduate courses is the train everyone in logical and critical thinking.

Thus it pains me that certain statements border on lack of thinking and  outright stupidity.  Even decisions that are being made.

1.  We are winning the war vs Covid 19.  Whoaa it is not going down, It is not zero.   While the deaths are declining the number of infections arent.  What;s wrong with our data analysis and that numbers tell a story.   It sometimes tantamount fooling people if not outright insult to intelligence of many. 

2.  We can resume classes masses, or mall operation, or resto.   But these places events are superspreader.  The change in CQ classification ran against the stats.   Furthermore, the history of Covid19 spread shows that they take place in crowded space, where there close personal contact and closed spaces.  And we tempting the virus by doing all of these.   Contrary to science and  logic

3.  Fighting covid with guns, and armored personnel carrier and strict military rule.    As if the enemy virus are visible soldiers of war, and  germs. 

The disinfectant the street spray would seem to indicate that roads are reservoir of the virus.  Covid is spread via drop infection.    That means being infected by aerosol droplets generated by shouting talking, laughing  aside from coughing and sneezing.   Many advertise the misting solutions as antiviral.  We know this to be untrue.    Hence we unwittingly killled a doctor with disinfectant mist. 

We are not ready for school opening

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After listening and reading many stories about school reopening,  that it will be conducted  via distance learning I am convinced that we are not ready:

1.   The school authorities and even senior leadership could not decide nor determine the exact mode, medium of instruction:  TV, transistor radio, internet.  There is a wide variance on availability of internet signal and facilities nationwide

2.  Are they ready with the materials - videos, syllabus exercises?   Will they have enough time to train the professors, teachers instructors?  When I attempted to conduct instruction via social media, I had to spend a great deal of time preparing ppt and other research.  Is this being done

3.  Will this be effective?  In one TV forum, the President of a School council expressed his doubts on this online instruction.  It will take a great deal of effort on the  part of the instructor to get the student attention glued to the computer.  O a great deal of TV direction

I understand many parents wont take the risk of sending children to school, or what could amount to total waste of time and money

Many quarters would like to see school reopen because a great deal of money would be lost by schools and their personnel.  Billions probably.