Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • March 25, 2020 6:01 AM

@ Phaete,

Please elucidate clive, i am yearning for your viewpoint of the horizon on these inflicted quarantine days.
Even more so on the EM spectrum, i hope you are feeling well.

The good news is that the two people I was worried about on the Diamond Princess are safe and well. However my son and his mother are now in 14day quarantine as she being a healthcare worker in very close proximity to one of the few infectious wards in London has all the symptoms. But she like most of her key worker colleagues in her department have been told to “stay at home” thus won’t be tested (so won’t count) on the UK numbers[1]…

But I must apologize for my late reply, I’ve kind of been busy looking at research papers as we have no real experience to fall back on as the virus is “novel”.

However even this old dog gets to learn new tricks. I was vaguely aware from a head injury back in late 2000 that upper respiritory infections could effect your ability to “smell” and as a consequence “taste”. This viral anosmia is a little more general than I realized. Apparently Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) sprcialists have seen a significant up swing in cases of what appeared to be viral anosmia. Turns out it’s another likely indicator of COVID-19, as those that got tested showed up as having the virus. Importantly most did not go on and show other symptoms, even though they would have been “shedding virus” thus infectious[2].

So if people start loosing their sense of smell or taste for no other apparent reason, it’s probably better to keep your self issolated from others so you don’t become a “super spreader”.

Other notes of interest, from European data it appears that,

1, Twice the number of men.
2, BMI over ~25 (~7 in 10 cases).

Are showing up in those requiring hospital support and getting more serious complications.

These two may not be unrelated. Men tend more to “internal” and belly fat than women do. Internal fat reduces the ability for you to take deep breaths in normal times, so it’s certainly not going to help when you have a respiritory disease. Speaking of which men get more non-communicable respiritory diseases than women do, and yes they do tend to snore more and get the likes of sleep apnea.

As for me, well I appear to be well, but as I had contact with my son and his mum during their possibly infectious stages, I’ve decided “to be nice to others” and self quarantine for now. Which means I will probably get that “Issolate your self for 17weeks” notice from the UK Gov that they are sending out to the old, the infirm, and those cantankerous types with comorbidities (of which I am apparently one according to the pill and plunger pushers, why they don’t just say “lovable rouge” or “old git” I don’t know 😉

Any way I hope this missive finds you both hale and hearty and I hope you and all others stay that way. Just remember to practice saying “Hugger hoft” loudly in the mirror each day and repeat as necessary when people come into your new expanded “personal space”. If you are not sure stick your arm out straight to wards them waving your walking stick, if it hits them they are “to close” 0:)

Remember that one of the best pieces of advice is “always be chearful and helpful to others”, but apparently not for the “kill joys”. For it is they that have decided I’m not supposed to hand out that useful walking stick advice, even though it is a realy good ready reckoner for the 6ft seperation they insist on. It realy is like them to take away what little fun you can find in an otherwise gloomy situation. Oh apparently my second suggestion of “In that case I guess you could always stick a yellow flashing light on your head” was equally not well received, maybe they thought I was being personal (the third suggestion I was thinking certainly was[3] 😉

[1] As for what are very clearly “massaged figures” in the UK, it appears the political arm of the NHS the Department of Health has missed a trick. It they test her and her colleagues as the come back, it takes the “clear figures” up in the “tested” numbers, but they also kind of become eligable to be slipped in the “recovered” figures as well… Maybe that’s one statistical trick they know they could not get away with even in a relatively short time.

[2] In the not to distant past we would have used the word “contagious” not “infectious”, contagion being felt to be a better word for community spreading diseases (atleast better than the older plague). I wonder if the old word will come back…

[3] It involved redeploying an otherwise normally recumbrant member of the genus anatidae for a proceadure that PR experise of the medical variety might be required.