My preciousssssssssss.......

[DrPhill]

I also want to ask anyone if the virus spreads thru contamination and the populace is guided to avoid touching especially face, eyes, nose, and mouth because virus moves on the water droplets... can the virus carry on thru fog or rain (droplets)?

I am not a scientist - not the right sort anyway - but I think wording is important here.

I think the virus travels in droplets not between droplets. So when a person with covid coughs or breathes the small droplets expelled contain covid and these droplets can then infect someone else.

I find it hard to imagine that the virus can jump between water droplets (rain, mist, fog), and even harder to imagine that they could do so faster than rain droplets fall.....
It might be possible that the increased humidity associated with rain, mist and fog would help the virus survive longer outside a host.

Take this with the caveat that my inability to imagine it does not define the reality.

[ytliek]

I also want to ask anyone if the virus spreads thru contamination and the populace is guided to avoid touching especially face, eyes, nose, and mouth because virus moves on the water droplets... can the virus carry on thru fog or rain (droplets)?

I think the virus travels in droplets not between droplets. So when a person with covid coughs or breathes the small droplets expelled contain covid and these droplets can then infect someone else.

I'm not a scientist. I'm just imagining the contaminated droplets from mist or fog bouncing into each other colliding and somehow air currents, wind, clouds moving the droplets causing the wide spread of infection. Its planet Earth infected.

I find it hard to imagine that the virus can jump between water droplets (rain, mist, fog), and even harder to imagine that they could do so faster than rain droplets fall.....

I can have a vivid imagination at times. The Amazon jungle remote as it is has seen the Yanomami tribe experience it's first death due to coronavirus. And other remote areas as well that have contracted the virus. The transmission or transfer method of the virus seems quite efficient however its done. To my thought process the virus may spread beyond direct human to human contact possibly thru animal(s) which I've mentioned earlier in thread at least as a possibility until proven otherwise.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/10/world/ya ... index.html

[Nanohedron]

The Amazon jungle remote as it is has seen the Yanomami tribe experience it's first death due to coronavirus. And other remote areas as well that have contracted the virus.

Holy crap. That puts it into a whole new perspective for me.

[benhall.1]

The Amazon jungle remote as it is has seen the Yanomami tribe experience it's first death due to coronavirus. And other remote areas as well that have contracted the virus.

Holy crap. That puts it into a whole new perspective for me.

Mod comment - Right. Let's not promote or disseminate fake news. If you do, I will stamp on it.

From available sources, it does not appear that the boy is dead - please correct me if I'm wrong. He is, however, the first case amongst his tribe. He caught the virus whilst away at school, at long way from home, elsewhere in Brazil. The virus did not mysteriously appear in some remote tribe without being brought there, from elsewhere, by a human. Please take care with the truth, people. It's very important in these times.

[Nanohedron]

Point taken. In no way did I assume it to mean that the virus appeared mysteriously; I took it as showing that so long as there's a trail of human contact, everyone, no matter how remote, is at risk. And being away from home, especially at school, is a different matter entirely. It is a gross error of logic to conclude that just because an incident happens to a member of a group, then it must have happened among them.

One may opt to withhold one's confidence in scientific findings, but I for one accept the studies that show that animal transmission of coronaviruses to humans appears, overall, not to be the case.

[ytliek]

Yes, point taken Ben, however, different news sources report news differently whether fake or not. I didn't realize that CNN is fake news. The article states the boy died Thursday.

I was just curious whether the coronavirus could possibly spread by other means than human to human. I'll step away from the curiosity.

[PB+J]

Family went on a long hike today. Saw a bald Eagle nesting and watched an Osprey diving for fish. Many people wearing masks, lots of people giving each other space in a genial and friendly way.

One of the remarkable things about the virus, at least around here, has been watching people voluntarily acting for the public good.

[DrPhill]

From available sources, it does not appear that the boy is dead - please correct me if I'm wrong. He is, however, the first case amongst his tribe. He caught the virus whilst away at school, at long way from home, elsewhere in Brazil. The virus did not mysteriously appear in some remote tribe without being brought there, from elsewhere, by a human.

Thanks for chasing that down Ben. It sounded wrong to me, but I got distracted from fact checking and then forgot.

Please take care with the truth, people. It's very important in these times.

[benhall.1]

The Amazon jungle remote as it is has seen the Yanomami tribe experience it's first death due to coronavirus. And other remote areas as well that have contracted the virus.

Holy crap. That puts it into a whole new perspective for me.

Mod comment - Right. Let's not promote or disseminate fake news. If you do, I will stamp on it.

From available sources, it does not appear that the boy is dead - please correct me if I'm wrong. He is, however, the first case amongst his tribe. He caught the virus whilst away at school, at long way from home, elsewhere in Brazil. The virus did not mysteriously appear in some remote tribe without being brought there, from elsewhere, by a human. Please take care with the truth, people. It's very important in these times.

I was wrong in one respect, and right in another.

Anyway, folks, I was way over the top, so I apologise for that.

The bit I was right about is that the virus was taken to the tribes by human to human contact, not carried over the winds hundreds of miles. Sadly, it seems there have now been several deaths amongst the tribes, and there are worries that the virus will now spread amongst the tribes. Carried by humans, though, not the wind.

[benhall.1]

By the way, folks, I'm also, quite obviously, way more wound up by this situation than I had realised ...

[Nanohedron]

No worries. I'm guessing a lot of people are more stressed over this than they even let on.

It's hard to get together with my siblings because we're so scattered, but yesterday we video conferenced over the computer using Zoom. It was a first for me; up to then I hadn't even used Skype yet. I'm really a n00b at these things. In its way it was pretty much like any other reunion, but it allowed us to be socially distanced at the same time, only without the existential awkwardness of maintaining good distance in the flesh. Since it felt as if we were practically elbow-to-elbow, it was actually rather fun, and since I don't do Facebook, it beats group texting by a long shot. Free Zoom allots you around half an hour's usage per session, so as the time appointed approached I asked, "So how do I get out of this thing? I mean, let's say you guys piss me off and I want to go, how do I do it?" "Just hit the little X at top right of the screen." "Oh. That's easy. Okay, you guys have pissed me off, so I'm going now." "*laughter* 'Bye. Take care." *click*

Looks like these computers are good for something after all. In the late 1960s there was a TV program called The 21st Century that heralded technology to come; it was one of my favorite shows because it fired my youthful imagination about what the future could hold. The idea that you would one day be able to easily phone someone from your own home and see who you were talking to as a matter of course was a bit outlandish, though, because although the technology existed at the time, it persisted in having only very limited application for a number of reasons, and IIRC the show speculated that owing to that, videotelephony for all probably wasn't coming any time soon - but back then the internet and PCs weren't even a dream yet. And now here we are.

[ytliek]

Today, 4/22/2020 scarier and scarier - New York pets test positive - "The two cats live in different parts of the state; the USDA and CDC wouldn’t say where specifically."

https://www.wtnh.com/news/national/ap-e ... for-virus/

[Nanohedron]

Well, it's to be expected. Even though we know that cats can catch the virus, let me point out a couple of things: First, we know that it's uncommon for them to catch it even so, and secondly, indications still are that for some reason, apparently cats can only pass on the virus to each other. It's worth keeping in mind. Human-to-human transmission is the real threat.

Do these two cats imply a greater number of human cases than known of? Not at all; they both got it from their owners, so the line is direct. Any other outside factors, statistics or possibilities have no bearing on it; venturing otherwise is misreason, and that is no good for anyone. Also remember that one of those cats has a companion, and it's not showing symptoms. Until the experts make sense of it, wild speculation from the bleachers does more harm than good.

People are abandoning their pets out of fear. How wrongful that is. How utterly selfish and inhumane. How can we eye our animals with suspicion when at the same time we clamor to end the quarantine, and probably violate it anyway? Idiocy.

[an seanduine]

My understanding is that cats, catus domesticus, and the whole order of felis, share one immune system, the ACE system, with humans. Given enough contact with us, and I mean close contact, your cat can get enough of a viral load to test positive. Sometimes, this will manifest itself as the characteristic dry hacking cough. I have yet to hear of any full-blown presentation of the covid-19 disease.
The virus has not yet shown the ability to ´jump´ the inter-species gap back to humans. But time will tell. What has me wondering is how Nadia the Tigress got a positive. None of her caretakers have tested positive. Go figure.

Bob

[Nanohedron]

What has me wondering is how Nadia the Tigress got a positive. None of her caretakers have tested positive. Go figure.

This raises the ugly specter of the bugbear of airborne transmission. Problem is, the boffins haven't been able to pin it down, yet. For my part, I'm going to err on the side of caution and assume that like other coronaviruses, it'll be transmittable that way too.