Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • March 14, 2020 9:40 AM

@ SpaceLifeForm,

I did not know there was such a thing as weak Everclear, but, anyway...

The much older non trade name was "Polish Spirit" or "Genovese liquor" and various states in the US and some nation states have laws about what proof such spirits can be.

Speaking of Polish Spirit and online recipes, courtesy of a friend,

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=avbOwmbWE28

That said, "if and only if" (iff) you are making "hand sanitizer" you can use what in the US is called Denatured alcohol[1], though be carefull which one you pick[2].

I've not checked but I have been told that the fuel used for "alcohol stoves" is probably safest because food preperation is going to happen around it and cross contamination due to spills, cleaning and wiping up are consequently highly likely thus the poison used (methanol) evaporates away at about the same rate as the alcohol (ethonol) thus if the food gets close to boiling during cooking it will be gone.

That said the use of any alcohol is going to cause the skin to dry thus eventually crack. What happens when methanol or other poison gets in skin cracks or cuts I have no idea. I know that in times past "clear methylated spirits"[1] used to be in first aid kits to clean small cuts and grazes, these days it's not which might be a warning, any way I'm not volunteering to be a guinea pig to find out.

Any way, I don't recommend hand sanitizers when hand hot water and hard soap are available. This is because hand sanitizers are very very rarely used propperly thus effectively, whilst the use of soap and running hand hot water is way more effective.

In part this is because hand sanitizers do not "wash off" anything that's on your hands so any virus that was on your hands before you used it is still going to be on your hands after you use it. The hope is that the virus RNA strand has been in sufficient contact with the alcohol and for sufficient time that the virus has been weakened to the point it is nolonger viable...

With soap and water however the soap renders the natural sebum on your hands a lot less "sticky", thus it and any virus attached to it viable or not gets washed down the plug hole, and away from anywhere it can cause you or those around you harm.

Pays your money and takes your choice, indoors on my own for a few weeks looks good to me (in the unlikely event we actually get the virus under control, which only the Chinese and South Koreans appear to be taking any real steps towards).

[1] Also called "denatured rectified spirit" in some places or "methylated spirits" in the likes of the UK and it's old commenwealth nations (ie Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, etc)

[2] Basically poisons and foul tasting chemicals and dyes are added to stop you drinking it. Hence the names like "rot gut" and "blind mans water". The reason being "excise duty" is something like 95% of the cost of the contents of a bottle of spirits is "income for the treasury" for you government to use for buying votes. Many but not all of the "poisons" are only poison if you drink the stuff and evaporate as fast or nearly as fast as the alcohol does.

Clive Robinson • March 14, 2020 10:27 PM

@ SpaceLifeForm, ALL,

Apparently, DoD really is paying attention.

Not realy suprising, also the "local leave only".

People should understand that,

The military especially soldiers are the "insurance of last resort" for a nation in any national emergancy.

It takes a little while to get your head around the implications of that statment, because of the depth to which they go. Specifically that they are there for "the good of the nation" not "the good of the citizens".

Even though soldiers are poorly payed they are highly valued as a "National Resource" at such times. Like any other "force multiplying tool" they are effectively agnostic to use, including their own survival. They are there to serve the whims and wishes of "the directing mind" who ever or what ever that may be.

That is why two things are important,

1, Obayance without question to the chain of command.
2, Preserve above all others the chain of command.

When you see things through these two rules you will understand why those orders have been issued in the way they have.

@ Curious, ALL,

With regards,

"Here’s How The National Security Agency Will Protect Itself During A Pandemic"

Err nothing realy new there since my days back last century, when providing for "stay behind in place/situ" or "prepared place".

It's also why a couple of weeks ago I was talking about "90 days" of ready to eat food that does not require cooking or rehydration and is heavy in fats and protein.

I Also gave the rational for such a length of time in a pandemic which is three to five times the time for longest virus surface viability incubation and infectious time[1]

But basically for "in place/situ" your calorific and dietary needs are less so you need 1kg of such no cook no rehydrate (basically canned) food per person per day. Preferably these foods should be high in fat and protein as these reduce appetite or high in micro nutrients such as canned tomatoes spinich. You also need vitimin D supplements as you won't see sunlight in issolation, and some zinc and vitimin C, along with "brewers yeast extract" (marmite) for Vitamin B-3 / niacin, which can also be found in lesser quantaties in peanut butter, and beer, which stops the development of pellagara or "share croppers disease". There are other micro nutrients but there are some "whole foods" that cover many of them such as potatoes and avocados

But food alone is not the only thing you have to worry about in a pandemic. Two things come in from infrastructure which is energy and water and two things go out human waste and garbage. You need to also prepare for the loss of these, because most involve humans for them to run effectively, and they too could be sick or in quarantine, thus these services can and eventually will fail.

Starting with water, as you die in 3-7days without it. You need 2kg of safe pottable/white water to survive "in situ" which when you multiply it out for a family of four is 4 x 2 x 90 ~= 720kg or ~3/4ths of a ton as a bare minimum for nothing else other than drinking.

However the CDC indicates you need upto another 2kg of pottable/white water per person as a minimum. This is for two basic reasons, the first is if you are going to rehydrate foods like rice and beans or flour and cook them to make them safely edible (which also requires the storage of considerable fuel). The second is if you are going to do hard physical labour or be in a non temperate zone you will need an extra 1-2kg per person a day. Which is why the CDC talk about 1 US gallon (~3.8kg) per person per day minimum or 4x3.8x90=1368kg or 4/3rds of a ton.

But you also have to have pottable water left over for cleaning cookware and eating utensils around 1kg per day for a family of four (90kg). If you add in minimal personal hygine of a flannel wash every day at 0.25kg and a minimal "navy shower" at 2kg once a week you are looking at 193kg say 300kg for both.

So say with a spillage alowance 1.1x(1400+300)=1870kg of pottable water for a family of four for 90days. Or nine 55gallon (210ltr) drums/barrels or if using a 1000kg tote/bowser two of them, just for the very basics of living.

However there is little point in cleaning your body if your clothes are in an unsanitary condition for various reasons. Unfortunatly cloths washing is very water and energy consuming... Even very small load portable/camping washing machines need around 20-30kg of water and 46watt hours of energy peaking at 250-300watts.

With the portable / camping washing machines you can actually recycle much of the water. That is rinse water can become wash water and light wash water can become heavy soiling first wash water. However a "load" for such a machine is about 4 sets of teeshirts, undies and socks. so 140-210kg of water a week unless you recycle the water. Importantly water for washing cloths does not need to be pottable or even fully clear, just filtered and lightly steralised (few drops of bleach an hour or so before use). As drying kills bacteria as does sunlight and time for viruses.

Also if you add a small quantity of bleach to the waste cloths wash water to kill any bacteria etc, you can store it in "settle" tanks and "filter" it back to almost potabble water with the resulting water either being used to wash clothes again or flush toilets, or feed a solar still. It can also be used to spray plants as an insecticide if you wash cloths with "soap" not "detergents".

Further in times past people wore loose natural fiber clothing especially underware such that you could wash them rather less often. Outer clothing if hung to air and rotated daily can go 10-50 wearings befor they need to be washed, certain natural fibers such as wool can be much less frequently washed (some all wool jackets etc made from the likes of Harris Tweed never get washed neither did blankets etc). Some fully synthetics can be washed with very little water as they do not absorb sweat thus hold smells or pathogens. In the case of socks heavy wool socks can be worn over very light poly-cotton socks, with the poly-cotton being changed/washed daily and the wool only occasionaly. In some armed forces in the past recruits were taught how to use their wooly socks as a flannel to wash their bodies with when having a "navy shower" and also tread wash their underwear in the water that ends up in the container they stand in, whilst I would not suggest anyone go to those extreams it does show how water can be recycled with a little thought.

As for water in it's also used for flushing human waste out very inefficiently. That is you need between 6 and 9kg of water per flush which is over twice your other daily water usage. Most of this water is actually used not in the house but as a "hydrolic bolus" which acts like a plunger or ram to drive the waste down pipes with small incline and transport it miles away. Which is why you need to think about the use of non potable or grey water (rain water and waste washing water) instead as well as significantly reducing the number of flushes... (the old "if it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down" saying).

Further think about fully seperating liquid and solid waste. The U-bend in a toilet holds about twenty times the amount of clean water a urinal does and the U-bends real purpose is as a vapour or gas trap. likewise when you look at the design of earlier urinals they were often just a funnel at the end of a pipe into a soil trap that alowed the liquid to drain into a "wet" cess pit, the only water used was when they were cleaned daily with a chlorine or caustic solution, and there was a reason those old outside toilets were called "thunder boxes" as all they were was a box with a hole in the top over a "dry" cess pit which actually barely smells if you add a couple of handfulls of sawdust or compost over what you have produced. The modern equivalent which has been developed for third world countries is "Humanure" systems, which are entirely waterless and I will let people look them up if they are interested... You can also look up the US army field medical handbook that has all sorts of usefull information about hygine and waste from all aspects of an encampment of soldiers "living in the field"...

Which tells us that for each soldier the combined waste average is about 100lb a day... Which sounds like a lot but includes all sorts of "garbage" that needs disposing of including from vehicle repairs etc. Most household garbage is clean and can be stored away as it does not attract vermin. However food containers will attract vermin if they are not cleaned. It was pointed out to me years ago that if you make a meal from tins, you can using a little hand hot water, clean one tin into another tin and so on and the resulting liquid go into the cooking pot where you could thicken it with a little flour or a crushed up digestive or similar biscuit. This advice was not for "cleaning the tins" but in part a simple measurment system for recipies but also getting maximum flavour/nutrition from the tins in times of hardship and making the food feal more than it was to go that little bit further. However the result is clean tins, which with a little squirt of diluted bleach and then air drying will not attract vermin when bashed flat and stored.

This leaves the issue of energy, which is a complex issue in it's own right. Lets put it this way you don't want to be storing flamable fuels indoors especially those that are gasses or volatile liquids. Also you don't want to burn fuels in modern homes that lack suitable ventilation to deal with combustion products like carbon monoxide. Even candles and oil lamps for emergancy lighting represent real dangers, cooking considerably more and as for heating just scream and run out of the room atleast you will be alive in the morning... If you must do cooking and heating either install a proper stove and flu or build a rocket stove or similar outside and put a long coil in it's upper chimney to heat water in a propper storage tank that can then be close circuit pumped or gravity pumped into radiators. Yes there are ways you can use "in tent camping wood stoves" indoors but they have short flues which can have real spark and creosote issues over and above the fact the flues get hot enough to set things on fire, so unless you realy know what you are doing don't go there. Also "space heating" your home is very inefficient you get better effect with a blanket or duvet and a hot water bottle or two even when sitting in a chair. A rocket stove running on twigs can heat a litre or two of water in just eight or twelve minutes put that in hot water bottles in bed will keep you warm all night even if the inside temprature is below the freezing point of water. When winter camping I found hot water bottles and a good nights sleep much preferable to getting up every couple of hours just to put more wood in a small wood burning stove, abd that was before you factored in finding dry wood cutting and chopping it etc. That "wood warms you twice" saying is much over rated, trust me on that one.

Oh the reason I give measurments by weight rather than by volume especially for water is "storage" two tons of water and nearly half a ton of canned food is quite a weight, that you can not just "put in the spare room" you need carefull thought about not just reinforcing floors for structural strength but how you access things thus the weight of shelving and stacking boxes etc, then there is light, temprature, humidity and most importantly pest control. These were all things our great grandparents and grand parents implicitly understood back in WWII and their parents and grandparents lived by as "pantry living" when there was no universal refrigeration back over a century ago when we had our last world wide pandemic.

So diging out a 1900 or earlier "Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management" or later "garden to kitchen" manuals and reading them will give you an idea of just how "convenient" our modern food, water and energy infrastructure has become in just under a century and a half.

[1] We need to note that this is a virus with characteristics we have not seen befor and breaks the 21day or less virus/bacteria behaviours we most frequently see and have previously planned for.

Currently we think for SARS-CoV-2 the time for longest virus surface viability, incubation and infectious but not syptomatic, and symptomatic untill recovery or death times are 9, 27 and 28 days. So with full medical care a maximum of 36 days in community prior to 14-28 days medical issolation. However without medical care we beleive the 95 percentile times are 7, 7-12.5 non symptomatic and 7-14 days symptomatic which gives 21-32.5days. Either way gives a minimum of 98-108days issolation or if things drag out for various mismanagment reasons a max of 180days, by which time in situ issolation becomes untenable. However the max very very rarely happens and if it does normally a "second infection wave" will get cut short very hard and quite brutally. More importantly is the question of "resupply" in all but an existential threat senario --in which case it does not matter-- the governing forces will have stabilised re-supply or re-location to those it deems "of worth". So 3months or 90days is likely the longest in situ for those "of worth". If however you know you are not "of worth" or are planning for existential type threat issolation then you are looking at a minimum of four families and 2 years with half a year at 2kg of food per "working person" a day as you will be digging around four acres of ground and planting seed, tending crops and praying hard there is both a harvest and no predation by creatures or marauders (so guard duty as well). Oh and get used to the idea your protien source will be rodents and larger predating vermin because they will come to you and you can trap/snare/cote them rather than you wasting calories hunting larger game...

Clive Robinson • March 14, 2020 11:37 PM

@ SpaceLifeForm,

See any new side channels?

Where would you like me to start on this "Oscar Sierra"[1] plan.

I know lets talk about efficiency.

In electrical circuit theory there are two things you can do with energy,

1, Disipate as heat in a resistance.
2, Store it in a reactance (inductor or capacitor).

The idea with a SMPSU is to turn your AC input wave form by rectification into a DC voltage on a capacitor as efficiently as possible. Thus you use a rectifier with very low impedence and very low turn on voltage, and you use a capacitor with a very minimal ESR (effective series resistance). You can get this up to some quite high efficiences, and the higher the AC voltage the more efficient it is (as the turn on voltage is proportionally less). Likewise the less current you draw the more efficient it is as there is less voltage drop and dissipation in the impedece of both the rectifier and capacitance. So far so easy...

Now to generate another voltage what you do is pulse width modulate this DC voltage into an integration circuit which is basically an inductor and capacitor as a lowpass filter. This is effectively the same as a "Class D amplifer output".

Now without going into lots of mathmatics the higher the frequency you switch at the more efficient the lowpass filter is, however as the switch has a finite switching time the higher the frequency less efficient it is (it's the same as with CMOS logic gates in the CPU chip the power disipated thus the heat and inefficiency goes up with frequency).

Thus there is a "technology sweet spot" which gives a frequency window for optimum efficiency.

However there is a secondary issue which is what happens when the "load" on the PSU output changes?

Well that is dependent on several things, one of which is the nature of the load in terms of impedence and more importantly it's effective reactance. But the upshot is "the higher the loop bandwidth" in the PSU output the more efficient it is.

Now a high loop bandwidth makes the the the output switching more transparant backwards towards that capacitor and rectifier.

Which means the SMPSU on the motherboard close to the CPU will put much more of the CPU noise on the power supply line and at much increased frequency and rich in harmonics. So the track on the motherboard back to the connector will act as a better antenna to such signals and their harmonics.

So yes, I expect there to be,

1, Higher bandwidth.
2, Higher frequencies.
3, Greater harmonics.
4, Much more efficient rasiation
5, Much greater cross talk.

All of which means "more noise", but this is not "random noise" but "determanistic noise" that carries significant information about the running process.

So yes I expect to see Technion University in Israel making their "Pita Bread loop" work at a much greater range. So I predict yet another paper comming from there, as well as lots of "compromising eminations" comming from Intel's new "Oscar Sierra" technology designed into new motherboards, with a focuss on greater efficiency".

It's now over a third of a century since I started warbing about the big issue of "Efficiency -v- Security" I guess somebody did not get the memo ;-)

[1] Oscar Sierra, is the international phonetic alphabet saying of "OS" however in the armed forces it's a short hand euphemism for "Oh 5h1t" used as a "portent of doom". So why Intel included the "Oscar" might well be a portent in it's own right ;-)

Clive Robinson • March 15, 2020 12:22 AM

@ Curious,

With regards,

I wonder what a "pre-pandemic" vaccine could be (shown in a slide). I wonder if there is such a thing, as a partially effective vaccine.

It depends on what you define a vaccine as... Various people have different interpretations and to some it's anything injected to ward off an infection before you get it.

Traditionly a vaccine is a defanged version of the pathogen, that looks the same or nearly the same to your bodies immune system but does not have the virulant pathology. Thus your bodies immune system builds antibodies to the defanged pathogen such that when the real virulant pathogen enters your body you already have effective antibodies to it and thus you are not a viable host to it and you are thus immune to it.

However there is something else that can work a similar way. Lets say I've been infected and recovered my blood is full of antibodies. Now if I can transplant my antibodies to you they will kill the virulent pathogen in your system. The problem is there is no guarantee that my antibodies will get your immune system to make more of the same antibodies. Worse your body might see my antibodies as a pathogen in their own right and turn on them. However it's known that Chinies sirologists are investigating taking out recovered peoples blood, seperating out the plasma and returning the red blood cells. They then process the blood plasma and sepetate out the likely antibiodies for injecting into other people who are seriously ill with the disease.

But there is another way to boost your immune system for a while and that is an injection of Immunoglobulin / Gamma Globulin,

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_globulin

They used to be given to people going to certain countries to help ward of some forms of hepatitis. However they do boost the immune systems in other ways, the downside as with injecting harvested antibodies is "what else goes with it" which can include as yet unrecognized or unscreenable disease (hep-C HIV etc).

Lastly your immune system can be boosted in other ways. One of the problems of our more indoor lifestyle other than short sightedness is lack of vitimin D which our immune system needs to function. Obviously in "lock down" you are not going to see any sunshine thus vitimin D will drop. Also vitimin B3 can drop due to reduced dietry vitimins.

Thus a bolus injection of vitimins can pep up a flagging immune system quickly. It was once thought that such an injection had percistance, well more modern evidence suggests three days to a week maybe for vitimin D whilst the taking of tablets however is many times more effective but take a little while to start to work.

So it could mean any or all of the above. But currently we don't have a vaccine propper for SARS-CoV-2 we have some computer models and a lot of scientists beavering away. But even if a viable candidate appeared today, it has a long road of tests ahead which will be a year to a year and a half in duration and might not produce anything worth while or it might have significant side effects like clinical shock followed by sepsis or organ failure.

The problem we also have is that we also do not yet have an antibody test which makes quite a few medical procedures more complicated and of higher risk.

Clive Robinson • March 15, 2020 7:02 AM

@ Sherman Jay, SpaceLifeForm,

Neither of those seem to generate much noise.

The noise we are talking avout, is not from the regulator it's selfe but from the Intel CPU which unlike the Broadcom chip in the Pi is a realy thirsty beast with excessive power swings.

It's why I said "determanistic noise" rather than "random noise"

The passive solution to "noise problems" is use a very low series impeadence capacitance across the EM band "From DC to near daylight"[1] as close to the noise source as possible, and feed it through a low impedence inductance from the power input side. Thus if you draw up the effective reactive impedences at any given frequency as resistors you see what is a simple pi attenuator from the signal source (CPU) going back to the bulk low impedance capacitance just after the rectifier.

However on computer mother boards designers are pushed for space which means any effective passive filtering components will be kept as small as they can or actually smaller thus active techniques are used as well, which causes other problems[3] for security.

All of these problems are made worse because Intel make power hungry CPU's with all their "go faster stripe" marketing specmanship circuits that have to run at the same speed as the ALU. These "go faster stripe" circuits are the very same circuits that cause the likes of Meltdown and Spector, that either can not be fixed, or only partly fixed by partially turning off the go faster stripe technology. Either way the result is you loose the marginal performance gains but not so much of the power consumption.

Bringing in "stringent higher efficiency" legislation is actually a bad move, because after a certain point you are "just moving the problem" from power consumption during use to more power consumption in manufacturing.

A point legislators realy don't care about because it takes the problem out of their "back yard" and dumps it in somebody elses back yard... It's the same issue as poor EPA legislation causing toxic waste problems in third world and other nations.

[1] A sensible RF design engineer going back a few decades would actually use several capacitors of different types, a low ESR electrolytic, a polycarbonate, a silva mica and ceramic were used their values chosen to give filtering across the bottom GHz or so of the EM spectrum. This is because all capacitors are imperfect and have internal inductance thus are in effect tuned circuits and past resonance look inductive, so you need a lower value of capacitance to compensate and so on.

[2] Whilst design engineers still try to do passive filtering where they can, they are constrained by size and price. In surface mount devices some capacitors are more expensive than chips likewise inductors... Thus when it comes to price sensitive "Fast Moving Consumer Electronics" (FMCE) they are very much built to use the minimum of passive components... So to get below the regulatory "noise masks" for EMC compatability they resort to "cheating the test" by using spread spectrum clocking of primary oscillators that spread or "whiten" the harmonics and subharmonics across the band[3] thus reducing the power density at any given frequency over a period of time rather than actually reduce the peak RF energy.

[3] As I've explained in the past the use of spread spectrum, might bring the peak RF energy down at any given frequency, it is a reversable process if you know the "chipping sequence" and can synchronize to it. If you do use spread spectrum whitening you are in effect turning the signal source into a Low Probability of Intercept (LPI) transmitter which used to be used for "covert transmissions" to "hide the signal below the noise floor". The thing is "whitening" uses a very short well known "chipping sequence" from a Linear Feedback Shift Register (LFSR) which is very easy to synchronise to. The net result is you actually make the range of any "covert side channels" considerably greater, and the old trick of hiding the privacy sensitive computer in amongst non sensitive computers not work any longer.

Clive Robinson • March 15, 2020 4:46 PM

@ Sancho_P,

So what about recovery, what does it mean? Immune?

It's a good question and needs to be looked at from two angles at least,

1, In terms of the patient.
2, In terms of those around the patient.

With a fly in the ointment called "mutation" into a new strain (which we know has already happened in china which is why there is what is assumed to be the original "S" strain and later "L" strain which is may be both more virulent and more transmissible).

If we look at the patient for each virus they go through a number of stagest from infection to either death or recovery. With a "novel" or "new to you" virus you have absloutly no defence except by very small chance of genetics. Therefore in most cases your immune system has to recognize there even is a pathogen this starts happening as the replicating virus starts destroying cells in your body, the process is a little involved but you end up with an antibody system, which as part of it's process causes cytokine to be produced which in turn effects the hypothalamus which is your bodies regulator, it signals for more white blood cells to be produced and also for your body temorature to rise, the way it does this as I know only to well is first you get the chills and even rigor which causes your body temprature to rise as even a slightly elevated temprature has a disproportionate effect on the viability of a virus.

Part of this process is the virus replication. Initially when a virus replicates it remains in the host as there are sufficient cells for the virus strands to invade. Eventually there is so much replicated virus it comes out of the hosts body via a process called "virus sheding" and this is when you become infectious to others. When this happens is variable with SARS-CoV-1 it was as you developed a fever thus you were easy to spot and contain thus get on top off before it became a serious problem. However with SARS-CoV-2 you are infectious before you develop a fever or any symptoms at all, worse your symptoms might be so mild you may not notice them. The question thus arises as to when does the virus replication inside you slow and stop as this obviously changes hou infectious you are, as far as I'm aware this is still a bit of an unknow.

But eventialy the antibodies you develop will attach to the virus and drag it to white blood cells that scavenge it, at some point there is no more virus inside you and any fresh infection gets scavanged before replication causes any issues. At this point you are immune and you are also not infectious.

There is a complicated series of formulars that predict how many uninfected hosts can exist in a population of people that are a mix of,

1, Uninfected thus viable hosts. 2, Infected and thus infecting.
3, immune thus nolonger infective

Without becoming infected. As they do not get reached by an infectious person. From various models this appears to be between 15% and 40% of the general population "in year one"

This is supposadly the notion behind "herd immunity" which some totaly moronic politicians think is the way to go as it does not involve them making decisions that involve diverting resources "to the social good" rather than to "the effective criminal benifit of the few".

Thus from other figures we know that such behaviour will neither contain or delay the spread of the virus.

But these models assume only a single strain, and we know there are atleast two strains in China... Which is where things get both complicated and unknown...

Usually you either have atibodies to a particular strain or you don't, which is what the models are for. If however there are two or more strains the following can apply,

1, You have no immunity to second strain, thus you become infected and infecting just like any person who has not been infected by either strain.

2, Your antibodies work effectively against the new strain so you do not become infected or infecting.

3, Your antibodies only work partially against the second strain and the white blood cells get coopted into replication, thus your immune system fails horribly

Look again at option three, this means that people who had no, few or minnor symptoms the first time go directly to "critical medical support" which means the "at risk group" expands to all those that have already been infected by the first strain. Thus rather than the 17% that need hospital care with the first strain it may well rise to more than 50% for those that then get the second strain...

So appart from the "unknown" factor this potential for a now wastly increased CFR is making people extreamly cautious of making comment.

But the current pressumed single strain figures are also making people less than honest about the potential outcomes... To see why consider the following,

With an expected 17% to +20% of those infected requiring medical support for "oxygen therepy" that can only be given in hospital, the hospitals will quickly become saturated. The result of which is the Case Fataliry Rate, or if you prefer the numbers "at risk of dying who do die" will rise rapidly. That is with timely medical intervention for all, the CFR is likely to be significantly below 1% of hospitalized population. However without medical intervention it's going to be higher than 5% possibly north of 10% if the figures from Italy are anything to go by, and most of those who do die will be in those over 45 with the bulk of deaths being 55-65 year range.

So with some saying 80% of the population are expected to get infected, of which 20% are expected to need medical intervention of which 10% will die...

Thats 0.8 x 0.2 x 0.1 = 1.6% of the general population mainly in the upper 20% age range of the population dying. So 16,000per million. Or a little under a million deaths in the UK and probably 5.28million in the US.

However some people are saying that the infection rate in the US will be higher due to,

1, People fearing job loss if they take time off sick.
2, The cost of a Dr's visit being a day or mores take home wages.
3, An ER visit being upto a third of what they earn in a year.
4, To get a COVID test the FDA requires all other potential illnesses to be ruled out first.
5, The cost of these ruling out tests the patient has to pay for.

Even though the COVID test might be free according to some politicians. Compare that to South Korea where you just go to a "drive in" and get the results within 48hours resulting in a very low CFR.

Now I don't live in the US and I don't work in a "zero hour gig" minimum wage or less job that has no healthcare etc. Likewise living in a nation with a National Health Service "for all citizens" I can not tell if the above barriers to healthcare are accurate or not. But if they are I pitty everyone that lives there the next three to six months are going to be rough realy rough.

Because look at it this way that 1.6% of total population is realy 8% of the 20% of the population over ~45 years old irrespective of income or healthcare plan...

I don't know how the older readers on this blog feel about that but that's what the information we have so far is telling us... Hence the reticence by many to say what it is we know, and cross their fingers that some existing drug is found to work against SARS-CoV-2 or that the drugs companies rather than hold out their hands for Government money before they get into vacine testing will just get on with it (which I realy think they will not when they can hold out for a big tax funded pay day...).

Clive Robinson • March 16, 2020 2:16 AM

@ JonKnowsNothing,

Is there any connection with sudden death from heart related issues and the virus?

There are no peer reviewed or other papers to my knowledge even discussing let alone attributing heart problems with the virus. But then I would not expect there to be as it's "novel" to humans and has only been around for a very short time.

But one thing to remember is that long prior to the viruses existance sudden death by heart ceasing to function is not exactly unknown. That is something like 40% of near fatal and fatal heart attacks have no attributable cause... and happen in otherwise healthy people. A friend who is a bit of a fitness and proper eating nut and has been since their early teens and did long distance running and cycling as hobbies had their first full on heart attack in their mid twenties and has had two subsequently. Despite extensive tests no attributable cause.

Which brings us to,

I recall reports of people falling over in the middle of the streets, people who were supposed to be healthy otherwise. I remember some MSM images purporting to be of folks that keeled over with no warning.

That's something that you could say is "close to my heart"...

I used to be very physically active walking 20miles a day or cycling a hundred and more at weekends, as well as playing a couple of very active sports I had thigh measurments of 29inches each which was more than my then lady friends waist measurment of 20 inches. When I was in my early twenties I collapsed for no apparent reason I was fine one moment and less than thirty seconds later deeply unconcious on the floor, finally waking when an ambulance crew arived. When having a significant Medical a couple of years later, on the excercise bike I was bending and breaking, my heart rate went up from a resting 45bpm as expected to around 80 then as I carried on giving it everything the Drs were supprised to see my heart "shift gears" down to just 40bpm and then climb back to around 48 as I continued to put ever increasing amounts of power into the bike, my breathing also changed becoming slower and much much deeper (I had a very large lung capacity and actually broke an expensive piece of medical measuring eqyipment...). The Drs considered it "odd, but one of those things". Not much happened untill my mid thirties when very early one saturday morning in a hurry to get a report out I'd been working on over night, suddenly it felt like my heart was "break dancing" it's way out of my chest. I tried to stand but instead colapsed over the computer keyboard, I got myself to hospital much later that morning where blood enzimes suggested I might have had a "cardiac event" (or damaged a muscle excercising). Another decade passed and I passed out again, this was the start of an increasing in frequency series of such events. Which with other medical complications due to a damaged immunes system, I was spending one week in five in hospital. All sorts of tests came up negative, they put in a set of stents and six months later another set of stents. They did "tilt table tests" and all sorts of neurological tests including sticking near 200volts across my body. Still they had no clue and things carried on. Eventually unbeknown to all the heart must have started to deteriorate. I actuall passed out in hospital on one occasion but due to somebody not setting the equipment up correctly for me and the design engineers of the equipment screwing up, the data for the eppisode was lost, all they knew was that my heart rate dropped below fourty and my blood preasure likewise fell to very low values all below "alarm values" unfortunatly a software error ment that what was logged was not the actual values but the alarm values... Another half decade passed and I ended up face down in my local supermarket, an ambulance arived and I was hooked up to an ECG that showed I had AF which is a potential killer which I had demonstrated to me in the hospital resuscitation section of A&E where I had two "cardiac events" in very quick order. I can assure you that being concious when you "crash" is a somewhat interesting event I was just joking about not being a horse with the consultant when they were about to inject me with ketimin prior to trying an inversion when the beeps stopped and that flat line wail came from the machine by my head. I tried to sit up but having the bed smash out flat and drop a foot or so in free fall, then being pushed flat hard and having a fist smashed into my chest chest by a consultant in her thirties whilst shouting at nurses to inject various drugs into the IV line was shall we say a bit memorable. I had kind of recovered my composure and said I desperatly needed to go to the toilet when the beep beep stopped again and we all looked at the machine as that flat line wail started again... This time my heart just started again by it's self having stopped for ten seconds or so... The consultant decided to stabalise me and call in the big guns, whilst I was still alive. I ended up on the cardiac critical ward wired up like some chicken in a crazy lab experiment about five yards from the nursing station, each heart beat was skipping and jumping in my ears and it was like a mad house Chinese water tourture and everybody waited to see what would happen... Nothing very much did, the drugs and vitimin supliments got the heart managable. The result I've still got AF and that break dance pulse rate but at the time they stuck a "reveal device" in my chest, and I decided that "taking it easy" was my number one priority. Then one day there was an urgent message to get my carcus upto the hospital as fast as I could. The reveal device that talked to the hospital via mobile phone had recorded a series of cardiac events. Put simply my heart just stopped for 5-12 seconds and then started again for no apparent reason and did this several times. Anyway I presented myself to the hospital around lunch time I was immediatly admited and the following morning it was down to theater to have a pace maker fitted that kicks my heart if it trys to go below 60bpm... And no they still have no idea why my heart behaves this way... The joke I have with the medical techs is which is going to last longer me or the battery, their money is on the battery :-(

Any way as an RF design engineer having a pace maker fitted realy realy limits what you can do... As the likes of a 1kW transmitter with a slow pulse output down below the MF band can get into the pace maker likewise so can just a few watts from a GSM base station antenna... Just as well I've got communications security design as a second string to my bow. The idea of "early retirment" or retirment at all horrifies me, because in my head I still feel like I'm in my twenties...

The point is such events happen rather more frequently than most people are aware of.

But I do remember the details of a couple of the Chinese medical staff deaths. Due to a lack of PPE they were not eating or drinking on shift and working twenty hour shifts with only a few hours rest in between for days on end. It's entirely possible that they got dehydrated and this caused clinical shock and blood clots in organs.

As a side note, atleast on researcher is putting together evidence about the high death rates in Iran and Italy. Their hypothosis is the use of Steroids and NSAIDs respectively to do "fever managment" is alowing the virus to behave much more aggressively.

If the hypothesis is valid, then it might be the deaths in some Chinese health care works might also involve the use of NSAID drugs as well. As I've mentioned in the past few weeks I've been wanting to know what advice there is over "anti-inflamatories". Especially as none has been comming forward it was becomming a concern. It might be that my concerns over some anti-inflamatories and the effects they have on the heart and blood supply have been validated...

Clive Robinson • March 16, 2020 9:52 AM

@ Bruce, ALL,

One of the problems with a "stressor" like COVID-19 is it quickly shows up systems and processes that lack resiliance,

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/16/21181300/microsoft-teams-down-outage-europe-remote-working-coronavirus

Put simply the underlying issue is the same mentality behind "JIT" and "LEAN" in physical supply lines (which back all ICT systems).

The upshot of this is if the "cloud" and similar systems you rely on for your "Plan B" or "Plan C" become stressed then your "emergency plans" become only so much ink on pieces of paper, or worse bits in a "bag of bits" system you can nolonger access.

As I've pointed out several times in the past and more so currently "Nature has been around for many millennium prior to mankind, and in that time overly efficient system have become extinct" it's a lesson MBA courses should teach Wanabe C-suite types.

What I have also pointed out in the past many times is that puting vital infrastructure systems into lowest cost mode to maximise short term profit is a very bad idea.

I know as do several others that many "social distancing" plans by companies to get staff "home working" just to keep the company on "life support" let alone functioning are all based on the likes of Microsoft "teams" and equivalents from AWS and Google.

Those who designed these plans made several assumptions,

1, The claimed performance of such systems are not resilient under sudden changes of use, so SLA's are worthless under stress.

2,The providers of such systems are 100% dependent on very long "supply chains".

3, The providers of such systems have "optomized their work force to the bone".

Thus the suppliers can not respond to a step change in loading or other stress. But it goes further.

4, The suppliers of such services are aware of their potential legal liability to their staff, so they to have been switching over to "home working".

5, The limit of responsability of such service providers is the "demarc" in their communications suppliers box in the basement.

6, The communications supplier is in exactly the same state as the likes of the service provider.

7, Both of those are dependent on the supply of energy.

8, Whilst a service provider and comms supplier might have back up systems, the likes of fuel, for generators etc has it's own long and complex supply chains.

9, Nearly all these supply chanes are dependent on communications service providers to keep the chain running.

10, Due to depressed oil prices what might have been "spare capacity" to up the resilience of the supply chain in bulk transport tankers, has been leased out to oil producers as emergancy storage capacity so they can keep oil pipelines and refineries functioning (they effectively die if they stop).

I could go on but you can see a "perfect" "thousand year storm" building...

The only ways to stop this storm are,

A, Remove the stressor.
B, Go on a "war footing" to ensure the right things happen in the right way at the right time.

Untill a week or two ago only China and South Korea took anything close to the necessary steps to stop the stressor. With one being a "dictatorship" and the other a "democracy" it kind of proves the point it is not a "political ideology" issue but one of "competant command" The US, UK, and most of Europe were lementably absent from the "field of battle" against SARS-CoV-2 and containment did not happen when it should have. In essence the political structures abdicated on their duty of care and responsability to lead, and protect their nation states. Some European Nations have now switched up their responses but still too few are behaving reactively not proactively. As for the US and UK I don't think that the respective political leaders know how to lead and show direction, just "in-fight". Thus this pandemic will almost certainly become endemic this year, not just in the third world but the first and second worlds as well, because unless you can contain the virus to rob it of hosts it will just carry on "oportunisticaly" crossing any and all boarders physical, economic or mental.

Further I realy don't think a vaccine will be forth comming unless the major industrialised nations do go on a war footing. Because the drugs companies know making vaccines is a long expensive process with very little profit in it unless a disease is endemic. So it's in the drugs companies interests to "hold out" for very large slices of the tax take and alow the virus to well and truley become endemic (think about flu shots). I'm also sure BigPharma would think a vaccine should be between 100-200USD per dose if it's not likely to become endemic. Hiwever what they would rather do thoug is develop not a cure like a vaccine but drugs that boost the immune system as we see with HIV. So letting SARS-CoV-2 become endemic and having 30% of the Western population pay 200USD/month or more for five to twenty five years would be way more profit, thus a better option for them.

That's the joy of a "free market" view point, and realistically the only way to do what is required is legislatively, with a "war footing" being the way most likely to stop SARS-CoV-2 for those in "young middle age" and older.

Clive Robinson • March 16, 2020 8:24 PM

@ SpaceLifeForm,

How about those planes?

First of they do not need to be baked in the sun or have UV-C emitters draged through them. All viruses have only a short period of viability when above the freezing point of water. SARS-CoV-1 analogs cease to be viable around nine days after being dropplet sprayed onto a stailess steel surface at 5C, and around twelve hours at room temprature. We don't have any real reason to believe that SARS-CoV-2 S/L are any more robust.

The real reason "ghost planes" are flown is take of and landing slots. If an airline uses it's slots less than 80% of the time it looses them and they then become "up for grabs" by other airlines. A side effect of this is that a lot lot less airline staff have been made jobless than if the rule did not exist. Needless to say airlines are petitioning for this rule to be suspended over COVID-19, if they do then 75-95% of frontline and maintainence staff will be laid off --most with prejudice-- immediately. Also the likes of Boeing would almost certainly lay off staff immediately as well and so on back through their suppliers like specialist engineering firms like Rolls Royce. This will also have effects in the likes of Imarsat, who legaly may have to deorbit some of their comms satellites and burn them up in the earths atmosphere... You would be supprised at just how far the airline business tenticles reach.

@ Chris, ALL,

Littlebit curious about why Italy was hit so bad with this virus thingy, and found out that there is a big chinese community in the area, so that could be the explanation.

Unlikely, as other countries have similar issues but not Chinese communities.

I've been asking a question about "anti-inflamitories" and several researchers and the French Health minister who is highly qualifed in related research have come out and said,

Do not use NSAID's or Steroid Anti-inflamitories as they have a significant negative outcome on COVID-19 patients including a significant raising of the Case Fatality Rate (ie number of people who die).

The significant use of NSAID's in Italy (infered from sales) is thus a significant contributor in their near 10% CFR (lack of testing also contributes to the raised percentage). Likewise Iran because of US sanctions is known to be a significant user of steroid anti-inflammatories that would also cause a significantly raised CFR.

Whilst having a fever might make you feel like "death warmed over with a blow torch" it's a significant factor in the bodies fight against viral and bacterial infections. Bringing a fever down with anti-inflammatories just gives the SARS-CoV-2 virus more chance to "run riot" in your respiratory system causing significantly more fluid build up in the lungs causing significant worsening of gas exchange thus, clinical shock, sepsis organ failure, DIC and death.

Remember both Italy and Iran's CFR is more than ten times that of South Korea which has some of the best medical fascilities for a nation of it's size in the world.

But importantly in France there is a significant problem nobody is sure why it is happening. The rate at which the number of patients double was 6-8days in China. In France it appears to be 3days or less, which is frankly very scary as it appears the virus is "burning through France like wildfire". We can only wait on epidemiologists and researchers to give us answers as to why.

Clive Robinson • March 17, 2020 11:09 AM

@ myliit,

Facebook’s former chief security officer, Alex Stamos, who oversaw the social media giant’s investigation of the disinformation campaign, said he was disappointed by the Justice Department’s decision.

Well he's I guess he's "had a conversion/crissis of faith", become delusional or he's being "economical with the truth".

Colour me not at all surprised, this has happened nor will I be when the rest of it flys out of the court room window.

The reason, these DoJ cases against Russia and China are just vacuous publicity stunts started for political reasons, nothing more nothing less.

I don't remember your handle on this blog from back when the US Executive sanctioned the start of this idiocy but at the time I said it was just a publicity stunt, and so it's proving to be, and almost certainly will continue to do so.

Contrary to what the US Executive might want and the DoJ psychos might think, US legislation is juresdictional not international. Thus a US court has absolutly no legal standing against the people or companies in Russia or China. Once you realise this you can sit back with a bowl of popcorn and enjoy the entertainment...

Because those companies and people can employ US persons to go and tell the US Court and thus the DoJ and the gormers in the Executive to cease and desist with their "Faux news" political propaganda, or get a truckload or two of manure dumped on their doorstep. Which is what the Russians have started to do. But also for some inane reason in the process the Executive is clearly not thinking or apparently capable of thinking one or two steps ahead. So appart from the toe curling embarrassment factor the Russian Companies and people are making the US not just bleed but haemorrhage information as well, and will continue to do so untill the DoJ gives up or the Executive send in a drone strike and percipitate WWIII.

The fact that the Court actually knows this so can see where this is going to end legaly, is why the motion was granted befor the echos of the request had stopped. The court also knows where the rest of this is going and that's in the trash can or a smoking hole that might glow in the dark.

I guess the Executive thought that their publicity stunt for political propaganda would not get challenged --possibly because China just laughed behind the hand and otherwise ignored it-- the Russian's however challenged as I thought they would, and are thus making a mockery out of the process in what is effectively a "bear baiting pit of the US executives own making". I guess the Executive also thought they could push it into the long grass if it became a problem, but they've not even been able to do that, and worse it's starting to smell bad before right before election time, Opps...

At the end of the day these companies and people are in Russian and as their actions were carried out on Russian soil not US soil, and in Russian not US juresdiction where what they were doing is legal and possibly even condoned by the authorities, extradition is not going to happen any time soon if ever.

But it goes a little deeper, and the real problem behind it all is the fight for the protections of "Common Carrier Status" (CCS).

Most public use Telco companies have CCS by default, which in effect absolves them of responsability legaly for the content of the traffic they carry. It goes back to the quaint notion they were not alowed to "peek/evesdrop" so could not know what the contents of a sealed envelop was, thus could not have liability...

But that quaint notion does not fit in with modern electronic communication of a few years back, were traffic was the equivalent of written on a post card, because Governments faught tooth and nail to stop encryption any way they could for years. They no doubt would have fought longer if they had realised "HTTPS For All at All Times" would quickly become a reality.

So the budding Internet companies did not want encryption either because that would upset their business models, but no mater what they did they did not want to be recognised as the "publishers" the likes of Facebook realy were, due to all that established case law.

Which to cut a long story short is why the only part of the Communications Decency Act which remains is §230, which broadly gives the same CCS protection to large Internet Corps rather than treat them as "Publishers" which they realy should be (Facebook for instance is a "subscription newsletter publisher" in any way you care to look at it).

Thus the problem. What the Russian Companies and people were doing was legal in their jurisdiction. The telecos who carried the traffic out of Russia had legal immunity via CCS, so that was legal. Which leavez Facebook and Co whi thought they had legal immunity via CDA §230, which technically they do.

So nobody has done anything illegal or not done something they were legaly or regulatory required to do... Fine if you are either not on the receiving end, or have no power to do anything about it. Which is why we've started to see the likes of civil harrasment and cyber stalking type legislation because it real is not fine. The problem is such legislation is jurisdictional and a legitimate "harm" to an individual or organisation would have to be shown for extradition to have any hope of succeeding, not some abuse of "free speach".

Now because the US Gov and executive has had a taste of what the US IC has been doing to other Nation States for seventy years their nose has been put out of joint, and publically so because they made such a fuss about nothing... Because realistically they can not show any substantive harm to an individual or organisation. The US Representatives in their various forms thought "Exceptionalism" protected them from being hoist by their own petard... But as per normal they were to busy listening to lobyists rather than actually thinking and reflecting on History.

But the greed of those who sent in lobyists and the greed of those who listened to the lobyists without thought made it not just possible but effectively impossible to stop. Yes pause and have a think about that, the US representatives realy did take target practice at their feet, and hit the mark, and now they are trying to blaim everyone else.

It's not as though this had not happened before... Nusance phone calls, scarlet letters, poisoned pen letters, all happened because of CCS and could not be stopped because with the technology of the time it was impossible to have a functioning and affordable post and telephone service if the technology was changed to prevent it. Worse unless CCS or equivalent was seen to be in effect people would not trust those nascent post and phone services, some of which (AT&T) turned into massive monsters that had to be cut down to size.

Thus we see the silly games of Congressional hearings, a bunch of old fart representatives with their noses out of joint trying to look tough... All the while knowing if they did get tough those nice back handers from the lobyists would stop at the very least, and as many of them are "perverts" by comparison to the image of saintlyness they try to portray in public, they know that the very many skeletons they have in cupboards might just "accidently" come out to play in the public arena.

Which might also account for the charlatanism of those behind the EARN-IT Act...

But theres more to it still that the representatives have to consider the US has "bet the farm" on electronic commerce, so even tiny regulatory changes have massive effects on the "digital economy" on which the US is perhapse the nation most dependent on it in very very many ways (some of which CORVID-19 is going to show up),

But not every one needs to be told this, they've already been hit. As some have found out with the current head of the FCC feathering his nest by doing favours to Telco's who have turned themselves into ISP's, by removing net neutrality he has caused US citizens to have a significantly worse Internet service, and pay upto 50% more for it... That's just the first of oh so many cracks to come...

Clive Robinson • March 17, 2020 2:33 PM

@ Anders,

Scary, very scary to me.

And you're not doing it quite right either...

Your figures are in effect for "the known population" which may or may not be representative of the "general population"

Which could be looked at in one of two way.

The First is South Korea that went all in testing the population therefore they numbers of confirmed cases are more representative of the "general population", thus their much lower CFR is because they also caught the 80% of infected people who have mild or none serious or even non symptomatic cases.

The second case is like the UK or US where for political reasons only those that had obviously got COVID-19 by clinical observation got tested and then only some of the patients. Thus the use of the RT-PCR kits was efectively wasted as it told nobody anything they did not already know. This obviously keeps the number of cases low thus Case Fatality Rate was in effect artificially increased.

But there is another issue if you draw your records from the general population then it hides the break down of deaths by age group.

If you live in the West and are in the 45-55year old group your normal probability of dying is a little over 0.6% at 45 and 1.3% at 55. Which actually does not worry most people. However when you consider most deaths happen in that age rang or older ie the 1/5 of elderly patients or these with comorbidities all of a sudden the rates jump up to ~4.6% at 45 and nearer 12% at 55 which does worry people.

There are two reasons for this,

1, COVID-19 pathology gets worse with age.

2, The number of people actually alive in any age group goes down with increasing age.

So as usuall with stats you have to dig abit for valid data.

Clive Robinson • March 17, 2020 2:46 PM

@ SpaceLifeForm,

"Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus."

I think this has been clearly known for around four weeks.

I know this upsets a few people because they look at it the wrong way around...

That is they reason along the lines of,

This is a near perfect bio-weapon, such perfection is unlikely by chance, therefore it has to be man made.

Which is the same problem we have with a lot of forensics, that is they are arguing back from "perceived effect" to their choice of very many causes.

Part of the problem is evelotion is actually not random it favours certain mutations which over a few generations looks like it is being "guided by an unseen hand".

Clive Robinson • March 18, 2020 12:09 AM

@ Anders, ALL,

But even with known reported cases CFR % is slowly but steadily going up.

Yes it is, and as you've mentioned in Italy we are now seeing young people other than the medical proffession appearing in the known cases.

I've been trying to think of a way this might be accounted for, and so far I've only come up with two with the same underlying root cause, which is viral overload, one being in the environment, the other caused by medications

That is if you are virtually swiming in virus loaded air, the amount you breath in is so great your bodies defence systems get overloaded. Or you are "self prescribing" on "over the counter" medicines such as "antipyretics" like NSAIDs.

OK the simplified science is,

1, Normally you get a small amount of virus into your system and it only infects a very very very tiny fraction of your cells.

2, The virus hijacks the cells protein synthesis process and rapidly starts to replicate, and the cells start to release not just the virus but other chemical indicators.

3, Some white blood cells recognise the virus as "foreign" and start a chain of events that includes the generation of cytokines that effect the hypothalamus.

4, Importantly the hypothalmus raises the body temprature, which has two effects,

4A, Whilst the adult body can tolerate a rise of one or two degrees C the virus can not and becomes much less viable way faster and also very much more susceptable to the bodies defence systems.

4B, As the body temprature rises other deffence responses in the body become much more efficient.

5, One of the temprature sensitive processes that happens is the release of "interferon" around an infected cell, this has two effects,

5A, The interferon causes adjacent cells to the infected cell to shut down various processes one of which is the protien production mechanism. Thus the adjacent cells become a fire wall to the virus in effect trapping it in place.

5B, The chemicals released cause some of the mobile white cells to move through the body towards the infected cell that "trap and digest" the released virus. Importantly this process works better at higher body tempratures.

From this it can be seen that taking antipyretics like NSAIDs that lower the body temprature actually makes virus replication easier because of 4A favouring the viris and 5B disfavouring the bodies defence mechanisms.

It's why I've been asking about the use of "anti-imflamatory" or "antipyretic" drugs like NSAIDs and Steroids. Put simply whilst taking them might make you feel better, they are mostly "helping the virus at your expense" including getting you into clinical shock, sepsis, organ failure, DIC and death.

But now consider that,

6A, The proceding series of events take time.

6B, The number of white blood cells that digest virii and bacteria are normally kept low for good reason.

Thus there is a "ramp up" in your bodies defence systems against time.

Now ask yourself the question of what happens when you are in an environment rich in virus in the air?

It can be seen that it's possible for the bodies defence systems to not be able to keep up and in effect the replication rate rises K of a chain reaction above one, which means it's become self sustaining or out of control thus "runaway". Either way you die because eventually too many of your cells cease to function the way they should. The only real difference is the speed it happens at.

This is one of the dangers of "issolation" in high density human occupation areas such as "institutions" like hospitals and prisons, and why schools, colleges, universities and if employers are sensible work places as well get shut down[1]. By having "in place issolation" you not only further compress people together you also build a tightly closed "shut in" environment where infection spreads rapidly and uncontrollably even with medical support. In essence you create an ideal situations for "environmental overload" where the unwell who's immune systems are strugling or failing, create a very virus rich probably localy aerosolized environment, where the well even with strong immune systems who are "shut in" with them get overwhelmed and succumb not just to the virus but die themselves.

This is not new thinking by the way, Victorian physician Dr John Snow by fairly rigourous even by todays standards of epidemiology identified water as the source of cholera outbreaks in prisons and confirmed it by changing the supply of waters to the prisons and seeing the cases of cholera change. Whilst this was in opposition to the popular "miasma theory" his careful work ended up convincing people before "germs" had been put on the science map by Louis Pasteur. So why a century and a half later, we still alow such dangerous to public health practices to put in place "still puzzles me" to put it politely.

So for those going into self issolation in the near future, remember that you need to ensure,

1, By well thought out and good ventilation you do not create environmental overload.

2, You don't compromise your immune system with NSAIDs or Micro nutrient deficiency etc.

[1] If you look back to when Business Process Reengineering (BPR) was first being pushed, one of it's consequences was the idea of "Hot desking". What few realise is this was named after a process of "hot bedding" that was used on navy vessels especially submarines over a century ago. One of the downsides of "hot bedding" quickly became apparent which was infections and parasites spread very rapidly through the "community" and even "Cleanliness next to Godliness" was insufficient to stop it. This was pointed out by several people when "Hot Desking" was touted as a "significant reducer of business costs"... Give you one guess as to who the C-Suite types listened to... Put simply "Hot Desking" is a way to kill your employees, and there is no excuse for not knowing this. History has shown us this repeatedly since Dr John Snow took the pump handle off the water pump at the intersection of Broad Street and Cambridge Street in Soho, Westminster London in 1854 and stoped the Golden Square cholera outbreak, which had killed over six hundred people. It was just one of many outbreaks that occurred during the worldwide 1846–1860 cholera pandemic. Whilst Dr Snow's work was initially ignored for ostensibly "old boy network" and financial reasons of big water companies and slum landlords, it eventually gave rise to the significant works of Joseph Bazalgette and the Victorian sewer system in London and the "cathedrals to engineering" that the steam-pump houses became. Oh and a system that has alowed even greater housing and work density in modern London (something that a previous Mayor of London tried to limit, but has since been lobbied out by building Corps etc...).

Clive Robinson • March 18, 2020 1:11 AM

@ Anders, ALL

Regarding perfect bioweapon - this would be COVID infected Syrian refugees bursting towards EU.

Yes, it's something that has been on my mind even befor COVID-19.

Such a humanitarian disaster as the Middle East has become is not just a National Security issue for the nations in conflict but those around them in ever growing circles, stopped only by "insurmountable boarders" be they natural or created by man.

Basically this is why Turkey has upto 4million Syrian Refugees in camps, it does not want and the refugees want to take up "Mummy Merkel's" offer of a good life in Europe (and is one of the causes of Brexit).

It's known that refugee camps like prisons are an almost perfect breeding place for all kinds of communicable diseases. It's a virtual certainty that SARS-CoV-2 will get into those refugee camps, and that at the very least will create panic and hysteria.

Turkey's healthcare system although modern is not realy sufficient at the best of times and various political events have not made that any better. Throw 4 million refugees into the mix and it's a disaster about to happen.

The only real question is "where it will happen?" the EU commission has it's head up it's ass over "free movment" they are trying to close the EU external western boarders so they can keep the schengen zone open. Whilst ignoring what is happening in the south around the Mediterranean...

The Greeks have repeatedly had their requests for assistance to maintain the Greek-Turkey boarder strengthened, turned down by the EU Council of Ministers, who basically want to begger Greece to further "asset strip it". Realistically there are not many ways this idiocy can end, and one of them is with machine guns and mass graves...

It's been reported that Turkish Troops are already shooting at Greek soldiers on boarder patrol. I've no idea if it is true or not but history shows this sort of thing happening quite frequently in many parts of the world.

So yes I can see Syrian Refugees getting infected with SARS-CoV-2, it's almost a certainty.

Yes I can also see panic starting in the Turkish refugee camps.

As for the next couple of steps to infected refugees ending up in Greece or other parts of Europe yes I can see that happening as well. The question is augmented to "How many and where?".

As we now know it would only take a handfull or two of infectious people traveling to have significant infective ability. If you think back to the British man who contracted it in Singapore and spread it in France and Britain he infected atleast eleven people directly. With the "doubling rate" across Europe currently 3-6days in part due to "free movment" it's not difficult to see just how dangerous this can be.

Especially as both the US and Russia are playing the old "proxie war" game in the Middle East creating ever more homeless people thus insanitary conditions with little or no healthcare, people quickly become refugees as the only way to survive thus further fueling the problem.

It may well become the most over-riding security issue of this generation, making any form of ICTsec or Surveillance pale into insignificance. As the Ancient Chinese curse has it,

May you live in interesting times.

This time I don't see us having any choice but to...

Clive Robinson • March 18, 2020 9:57 AM

@ curious,

I guess it was maybe weird that they [the FBI] don't accept emails for soliciting FOIA information, but accepting snail mail instead.

The FBI are clearly exploiting COVID-19 to get out of their statutory duties. Andvas normal they have gone about it in both the most idiotic and indefensable ways possible.

Which means that they are so confident that they will not get pulled up on it they don't even care how blatantly obvious they are being about it...

Clive Robinson • March 19, 2020 1:25 AM

@ Wael,

Nice to here you are still with us and your sense of humour burns bright ;-)

With regards,

Go figure! I mean if you have nothing to eat, you really shouldn't be worried about toilet paper. It's just not how things work!

In your calculation did you include the "fear factor" apparently that can loosen the tightest of control freeks...

But this desire for toilet paper started in "The land gus under". Where the price of a roll was $1.68 AUS in bulk. Now I know the Aussie Dollar is a bit "soft" at ~2AUD =1GBP but even so that's still a high price for asswipe, back in "Pom land" we pay as little as 11pence per roll in bulk packs, and a "branded" six pack would be £2-50 or 42p/roll that's still less than half the Aussie bulk price.

@ any arbitrary chap,

According to the state of our supermarket shelves, the german dish is noodles with toilet paper.

I think that's the "Extra Fibre Speciality dish" at the bottom of Wong Kei's old[1] menu ;-)

The citizens of certain Continental European countries are known to be concerned about their "movments" and it's reflected in the design of their "porcelain"...

[1] Wong Kei's restaurant pronounced as "wonky's" in London's Chinatown used to be famed for it's "rude service" old style almost taty decor but good prices and plentiful Cantonese dishes. Sadly back in 2014 it got taken over and refurbished and it's just not the same...

Clive Robinson • March 19, 2020 4:35 AM

@ Wael,

There's an abundance of worthy newspapers for the task.

And soon to be worthless "paper currency" that no one will want to touch with any part of their body.

Near wortless as the UK bank notes are, they are atleast made of easily sanitized plastic...

Clive Robinson • March 19, 2020 5:01 AM

@ Wael,

I know some bacteria are useful, are there any useful viruses?

The answer is a not surprising yes.

When you turn the question around a bit and consider there are around 10^31 virus types on this planet, it would be probabilisticaly very difficult for all of them not to be usefull in some way...

Consider for instance the bacteriophage, also known by the press as a phage. It is a virus for bacteria. that is it infects and replicates within bacteria and their weirder less known archaea cousins.

As you are aware anti-bacterial drugs are becoming less and less effective with time. In Eastern Europe and Russia during the cold war a lot of research was done into the use of "Phage Therepy" where if a serious bacteria had infected someone they could be given the harmless to them phages, that would attack the bacteria and thus assist our immune systems by killing the bacteria.

It's a subject that goes back more than a lifetime or two, but the Western Big Pharma are not interested in investigating them. Not because they are not safe or not efficatious --in fact they can be more so-- but because there is no profit for them in doing so.

One of the silly assumptions the field of economics makes is that what is good for business is good for society. Well this is just one of many examples where economics is wrong...

Clive Robinson • March 19, 2020 9:39 AM

@ Curious,

With regards,

"Netflix urged to slow down streaming to stop the internet from breaking"

Not at all surprised, you realy don't think "people working from home" for the first time in their lives are realy going to be that disaplined to make a "work" rather than "home" environment for themselves.

Also it's not NetFlix that's "Breaking the Internet"... No it's all those crapy colabaritive working systems designed for LAN's or at best uncontested WAN's that are causing the issues.

Whilst work places might have "contingency plans" they have either never done a full scale test, or if they have it's been when the Internet was quiet.

I've mentioned the issues of the Just In Time (JIT) and LEAN mentality as used by C-Suite types. They have exchanged "resiliance" for "short term profit" "cost and maintainence reduction". Such systems are not in the slightest bit resiliant in their own right, worse any resilience they have is based on verly long supply chains that are now effectively decimated by the close down of international travel. And worse yet the other end of those supply chains are in countries with their own "National Security" considerations and eminent domain[1] laws. We've already seen India do the "Our drugs are for our Hindus" export restrictions, and whilst China has not said they are applying export restrictions they have made it clear that the increased manufacture of Personal Protective Equipment is a necessary requirment to get China back on it's feet. Which in a way is actually a good idea because only when their industry is back to the point where they are producing surplus to their requirments can they go on to supply the rest of the world.

However there is a major major issue that is about to explode all over the place, which is food...

I've been "advised" to go into self quarantine for 120days... Obviously before I or the many others who have been "advised to" on medical or age grounds, need to get 130-150 days of food in call it 21weeks worth.

However as those that saw Donald Trump and his "feel good adjectives" speech should have realised when he urged people not to get more than one weeks food in at a time, there is an issue...

And that issues is what will eventualy be called "the supply line crisis", we just do not have the capacity or the ability to create the capacity for people to effectively self issolate for very long.

Which means "containment" of the virus can nolonger happen even if there was the political will and guard labour to do it. All we can do now is try and "flatten the curve" such that the cases stay within the capacity of the health care system.

The problem is that some places have good health care and others do not, thus there is a very significant incentive for people to migrate as "health refugees". Trying to stop such movments of probably highly infectious people can only happen in two basic ways,

1, Ensure they don't have a reason to emigrate.

2, Total boarder lockdown, enforced by the military with "no mercy" orders.

The first is probably now imposible to do, and the second will stop those long supply chains that keep us alive...

A bit of a Security conundrum without a doubt, hopefully we will all live to see it successfully worked out, but the odds are not good.

[1] Eminent Domain or Sovereign Rights can be best described these days as "Naked theft by Government" always comes into play in emergencies or disasters, sometimes at the point of a gun or other coercive tactics by "Guard Labour". Such things can escalate easily as history shows with the likes of "Water Wars" and we are almost certainly likely to see it, especially when backed by religion or ethnic differences. As the modern saying has it,

When you have nothing left to loose, you loose it.

Which equates to social unrest in the short term and upheaval in the long term with the old hierarchies broken and those who were at their top disposed of. As an older syaing that Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter[2] when he was in France,

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.

[2] The letter written in Nov 1787 has other parts that are equally deserving of being better known, and infact describe the issue of what is and is not known,

[C]an history produce an instance of a rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of it’s motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The past which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive; if they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.

You can read more of the letter at,

https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/105.html

Clive Robinson • March 19, 2020 4:37 PM

@ SpaceLifeForm, ALL,

neil_ferguson tests positive

It's a shame, I hope he only gets it mildly.

As I understand it the Cardiology Dept at the Royal Free Hospital (RFH) North West London has been in effect closed due to the number of staff that are symptomatic. The Cardiology Wards at the RFH are on the floor below the only infectious issolation ward in London...

Oh apparently the policy is that medical staff "are not to be tested" just stay at home with their families... Apparently this is a "command from the Dept Health" or "the political wing of the NHS" so that any sick or dead medical staff won't be added to the UK statistics...

On with the bad news,

The fact that the virus in Thailand is spreading easily, suggests as Thailand is "tropical" that the virus is unlikely to be very seasonal if at all.

By the time you read this World Wide deaths will have crossed the ten thousand mark, and recorded cases will be over the quater of a million mark.

The figures for the US are growing very rapidly and the more than 2500 new cases today bring it up to around 12,000 cases in total. Most experts think this is at best only a 20th of those actually infected. Also scenes of youngish revelers in Florida and California on TV has caused comment from several places and the President has expressed his displeasure.

And some good news,

Cruise liners have become named yet again as "floating Petri dishes" and one that has been rejected by many nations has been alowed to dock in cuba and the passengers flown home. Cuba is a small place but they are known to punch above their weight when it comes to medicine and international emergancies.

In the new world epi-center Italy, China has flown in experienced medical personnel to assist, lets hope they can help Italy get ontop of the infections quickly and get them under control and back within the Italian healthcare systems ability to handle the sick who need medical support.

In Manchester UK hotel owners have got together and cleared their hotels of the public, and they are making their rooms available free of charge to city front line medical staff so that they won't have to travel home each day thus potentialy infect their families or fellow travelers.

And to all those out there giving a helping hand where you can I wish you well and thanks and hope you inspire others to do likewise.

Clive Robinson • March 19, 2020 5:31 PM

@ JonKnows...,

Dry runs of course, worked perfectly...

Ouch a colission of choppers would not be pleasant...

A few years ago a chopper flew into a building site crane in Vauxhall in freezing fog just a very short distance from a major railway interchange and bus station, and MI6's little place at Vauxhall Cross on the south side of the River Thames... The bits went every where and it created chaos in the morning rush hour. It was only that it was just before 8:00AM that more people were not killed or injured.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vauxhall_helicopter_crash

To put it simply helicopters do not play nicely together...

Clive Robinson • March 19, 2020 6:03 PM

@ SpaceLifeForm, ALL,

This might explain the runs on toilet paper.

That gets you a +1,

Not sure if you realy ment to say that or not ;-)

But in the south of the UK "the runs" is a euphemism for the result of various digestive tract infections and other diseases. It came from a time when toilets were not part of the house, being down the bottom of the garden or shared with other homes. The implication being you have to move rather swiftly to get to "your convenience"...