We are waiting for this pandemic and it ain't happening? We have a hand full of suspected cases and no one I know is afflicted?

No outbreak in any of the shanty towns and the bars are overflowing with customers.

The government is probably not going to lockdown and will monitor the situation.

I just wonder if we have already had this virus in the past? The deaths attributed to AIDS or Malaria?

Apparently being Chinese, it does not like the heat!

I wish the same applies to the people too, so they can stay home there!

The virus is fragile and easily destroyed by soap and water. Its passed via droplets and heat, dry season will quickly dry it out.

And yes there will be many deaths attributed to covid but there is underlying disease. My folks lost a friend last week to C-19, and it will be put down as C-19 death but she had stage4 bowel
Cancer.

The scary ones are the 50 something males who burn the candle at both ends, probably don’t exercise enough, are a bit overweight and probably drink a bit too much. And for these they are seeing plenty getting the disease, thinking they are over it, not taking the rest and then it takes hold of the lungs causing pneumonia. Then its serious.

At the heart of who lives/who dies I'm starting to believe a healthy immune system makes the call. If you aren't already gut compromised by processed foods and lots of meds, don't have access to sugar, and are mostly vegetarian, maybe the body simply handles CV-19 as a very bad "bug?"

AIDS wiped out Africa's vulnerable already, maybe?

Along with the China thing, I think Big Money has seen an opportunity to get a better balance sheet by aggressively weeding out those who have prior conditions, elderly, etc.

My RSA friends have remarked how fast their retired workers fade, because it's all sugar and crisps with them. Meat and exercise goes away because they aren't hunting/tracking anymore, and eating what the clients won't.

Rural Chinese must have massive antibodies built up eating whatever moves and not being clean. (Japanese are fanatical about hygiene, at least by comparison.)

2 cents

video about covid, explaining exponential growth

Although it seems that the stage where you know a few people are sick can be quite long, maybe restrictions are effective? I know several people who have it (including a healthy male without overweight who has been down with it for almost 4 weeks now).

quote:

Originally posted by BushPeter:
video about covid, explaining exponential growth

Although it seems that the stage where you know a few people are sick can be quite long, maybe restrictions are effective? I know several people who have it (including a healthy male without overweight who has been down with it for almost 4 weeks now).

Whereabouts?

Several countries in Europe. Actually just today, through old friends, I got to hear from people they had it too, family and colleagues in IC (healthy European police officers), and grantparents dying. The way it's described in the first min or so in the video, is exactly what I see happening around me right now. First nothing, nothing, everything is fine, then one or two cases, but all good, and now quite a few cases.
But I'm just N=1, so could be coincidence. What I fear might be happening in many African countries is that cases will go undetected until people come to clinics and hospitals while they are already very sick.

Andrew, we,in SA have a fairly low infection rate as well. There is a theory doing the rounds that this is due to the mandatory TB inoculation we administer to all kids. Maybe it is the same for you in Zambia?

quote:

Originally posted by Jazman:
Andrew, we,in SA have a fairly low infection rate as well. There is a theory doing the rounds that this is due to the mandatory TB inoculation we administer to all kids. Maybe it is the same for you in Zambia?

Maybe because we are hardass

quote:

Originally posted by fairgame:

quote:

Originally posted by Jazman:
Andrew, we,in SA have a fairly low infection rate as well. There is a theory doing the rounds that this is due to the mandatory TB inoculation we administer to all kids. Maybe it is the same for you in Zambia?

Maybe because we are hardass

probably.

Keep well, my friend !

quote:

Originally posted by scruffy:
Keep well, my friend !

And you mate

There is something to be said for the idea that the devil doesn't want to put up with us, and we are too far over the line for God to accept us. Stay well, my friends.

@Heym SR20:your last sentence should cover the vast majority of AR members.

quote:

Originally posted by BushPeter:
video about covid, explaining exponential growth

This is what happens when you don't follow the info in the first video.


https://youtu.be/UDY5COg2P2c

Well:

My sis and bil both have CV.
He got it at work in Denver.
Just about got it whipped and she
has it now.
Plus, he's going to have surgery
on his leg for cellulitis tomorrow noon. Bill is 75, never
had health problems much til this.
he's had lots of spine and nerve problems for years, 74 now.

At least I haven't been exposed to them as they love in Loveland, CO.

George

quote:

Originally posted by fairgame:

quote:

Originally posted by Jazman:
Andrew, we,in SA have a fairly low infection rate as well. There is a theory doing the rounds that this is due to the mandatory TB inoculation we administer to all kids. Maybe it is the same for you in Zambia?

Maybe because we are hardass

A week or two ago someone mentioned that "Africa with it's lack of health care will be hammered by the CV."

I just shook my head. Africa and Africans(both black and white) are still dealing with natural selection at a level that the first world has not seen is many generations.

How many Africans alive today have not survived malaria?

I was told by a doctor that most Africans who come to the US don't need to be vaccinated for hepatitis because they have already built up antibodies due to low level exposure.

quote:

Originally posted by jaegerfrank:
@Heym SR20:your last sentence should cover the vast majority of AR members.

One of my lib friends pointed out that Covid is killing US blacks far higher than Africans. I pointed out that African Americans suffer from obesity, hypertension, and diabetes at a rate far higher than whites. He then said it was due to lack of access to health care.

I pointed out blacks in Africa are definitely not obese (at least not the ones I have seen) and I would guess don't suffer from hypertension or diabetes (which both seem to occur with obesity). African Americans who are poor are apparently rich enough to live unhealthy lifestyles (80% of females are overweight with over half the population clinically obese).

quote:

Originally posted by AnotherAZWriter:

African Americans who are poor are apparently rich enough to live unhealthy lifestyles (80% of females are overweight with over half the population clinically obese).

But that has more to do with the quality of the food that's affordable then being able to eat anything and everything.

I'm glad to hear that this is not sweeping the whole of Zambia. I love the people of Zambia, and I wish they would get a pandemic that would kill all the damn (spl) Testse flies! Now that would be worth causing!
...……...……………………………. MacD37

Mac

Unfortunately the testes are what keep the bush wild. Imagine what the goats and cattle would do to the Luangwa.

Mark

quote:

Unfortunately the testes are what keep the bush wild

Did you mean the "bushmen" .. ?

Dang spellcheck. Tsetse. Testes. Tsotsis. Tzitzit. (Tata.)

quote:

Unfortunately the testes are what keep the bush wild. Imagine what the goats and cattle would do to the Luangwa.

Without "testes" their specie would die out.

So what exactly are the limitations on travel to/within Zambia? Seems that if the bars are full, there is no restriction?

Tsetses are the salvation to what is left of Africa. Hate 'em/Love 'em.

quote:

Originally posted by Russ Gould:
So what exactly are the limitations on travel to/within Zambia? Seems that if the bars are full, there is no restriction?

Zambia has not initiated a lockdown as there are only 40 odd cases recorded. Separating a Zambian from his beer is a fate worse than death

It was announced by WHO that Zambia now has fewer cases due to the recovery rate!

quote:

Originally posted by lavaca:
Tsetses are the salvation to what is left of Africa. Hate 'em/Love 'em.

I don't hate them, I just don't like feeding them!

...………………………………….. MacD37

A few more cases a few days ago, in Kafue town, including some who locally contracted it. I understand they put Kafue town under lockdown and are doing contact screening. I hope this would contain it.

I would suspect Zambia will get C-19 to a degree but it won't sweep through the country.

Here in the UK, like much of the west we have created the perfect conditions for a Virus like C-19.

1) Very low interest rates has meant

a) housing has become much more affordable, and if you are earning well then the size of mortgage can be huge so house prices have gone up staggering amounts, and

b) low interest rates means that those who have cash can get no earnings on their money so there has been a huge growth in people investing property just for capital gain - further fueling prices, and

c) we have no restricitions on overseas buyers buying residential property so huge swathes - especially in central London of residential property owned despots and oligarchs who are using property to sink Zim Dollars, Roubles etc etc into hard currency. Most of such property stands empty.

If people do live in the cities they live in high density, and those on low incomes are living 6 or 7 in one a bedroom flat (think Grenfell Tower disaster)- such property takes 50% of household income.

2) This now means that people commute long distances to work. I live in Edinburgh as its so much better a place to raise the family, way of life etc, yet to earn a crust I am a a partner in a London and Amsterdam based firm and travel down for several days every two / three weeks.

Every weekday morning and evening Edinburgh Airport has one flight taking off or landing every couple of minutes all rammed solid with people going off to work / business etc. Go into the Train / Tube or Buses and they are rammed with people standing in corridors. Colleagues who do commute in daily to London often have a 2 hour plus commute each way standing in the corridor. Pretty much the same with other major cities.

Trains, aeroplanes, tubes etc are now airconditioned, so the bugs from one individual are effectively spread all the way round very quickly.

You then go into an air conditioned office, where given the price of office rents, people are crammed together for long hours.

3) Add in to all of the above an unhealthy diet of pre-prepared food - no longer do people go out for lunch - they eat sandwiches and other shite at their desks, so much so that the biggest cause of death is now obesity and obesity related illness such as heart, lung, liver, pancreatic and diabetes

4) And infectious disease is so last century - our National Health Service is political football.

You get no points for investing in infectious disease / public health etc. You get huge points for anything to do with Cancer. Infectious disease Clinics are the poor relation and the perception is that just deal with drug addicts and associated HIV and Hepatitis type infections. Truth be told is that infectious disease actually kills a lot of people such as cancer patients etc. But their death is records as from Leukaemia rather than the pneumonia that actually took them over the edge.

So if one person has symptoms of C-19, you can very easily be in very close proximity to a few hundred people, and now because there are self service touch screens and document scanners everywhere (warm and moist and full of bugs) you can leave behind a trail of the virus. And of those few hundred people, most will be travelling on a daily basis over several tens if not hundreds of miles to mix with their family members who in turn travel all over the place.

I other words we have created the perfect conditions to spread disease. Bring along a new mutation that is highly infectious and you have a perfect storm and the people it is really affecting are the 50 something males who overstressed, a bit overweight and not doing enough exercise.


But take Zambia - appreciate I was last there in the 1990's and yes Lusaka has grown, but even in Lusaka suggest most people still probably walk to work, or take the taxi's or buses. Somebody from Petauke is not going to commute on a daily basis to Lusaka - they might go to Lusaka for work but only occasionally return to their village.

And the Zambian population is much younger than western europe and you don't have all the obesity related challenges that we have in an ageing population.

Also Chlorochloroquine type drugs seem to a have a pretty good effect on C-19. These are widely used in central africa for treatment of malaria etc. And anti viral drugs for treatment of HIV are also in wide circulation.

So hopefully for Zambia when it does arrive, it will be a very slow and manageable spread.


Here is the UK average weekly death rate for this time of year is about 12,000 deaths. We currently recording close to 20,000 deaths a week - so nearly double.

The other big challenge is that it takes a good while for treatment - well there is no treatment per se - doctors are managing symptoms and preventing organ failure. A colleague in his late 60's has just come off ventilation - he has been on a ventilator for the last three weeks. He will be in hospital for at least another couple of weeks, and then a long road to recovery.

Zambia is now 48 infected and 2 dead according to latest numbers from John Hopkins.

Based on the experience from Europe the pandemia will increase the numbers of infected and deaths from now on and 2-3 months forward. Expect a total different situation within some weeks.. if any official testing and registration is done and reported. That is one of the issues here ...

Sorry..

Morten

quote:

Originally posted by The Norwegian:
Zambia is now 48 infected and 2 dead according to latest numbers from John Hopkins.

Based on the experience from Europe the pandemia will increase the numbers of infected and deaths from now on and 2-3 months forward. Expect a total different situation within some weeks.. if any official testing and registration is done and reported. That is one of the issues here ...

Sorry..

Morten

WHO is involved. Hospitals are not overloaded and many of the Doctors are expatriates. The only spike we have is in Kafue town which we will monitor. However African Governments can be quite brutal when it comes to enforcing the law.

Let us hope you are correct Andrew !

Morten