Thread by @ArmonRaE

A dog in #HongKong tested positive for the #COVID19 virus.
As a precaution, the government declared cats & dogs whose owners test positive would be collected & delivered to a “designated animal keeping facility for quarantine & veterinary surveillance.
cnbc.com/2020/02/28/a-d…

Hong Kong declared cats & dogs whose owners test positive for #COVID19 would be collected & delivered to a “designated animal keeping” facility.
CDC suggests restricting contact with pets if the owner is infected, including “petting, snuggling, being kissed, & sharing food.”

If you get the flu, do what people have done throughout history. Avoid being around others, except for your pets, & don’t allow anyone around you who has authority to haul you off to a pathogen-infested concentration camp.
You’ll get well sooner.
worldometers.info/coronavirus/co… #COVID19

China’s government ensured greater spread of the latest rare variety of human-transmissable #coronavirus by compelling highly-stressed, vulnerable citizens to risk unnecessary close contact waiting in lines for ineffective masks.
abcnews.go.com/Health/wireSto… #WorseThanCOVID19

China’s government ensured greater spread of the latest rare variety of human-transmissable #coronavirus by warehousing patients in facilities where they are exposed to dozens of other life-threatening pathogens.
nytimes.com/2020/02/11/hea… #WorseThanCOVID19

People in a shelter who may have a misdiagnosis of #coronavirus infection — when they had the flu — are in a particularly paradoxical situation. They would have been far safer from coronavirus at home than in a large open ward, cheek to cheek with the infected.
#WorseThanCOVID19

That the Chinese government can lock millions of people into cities with almost no advance notice should not be considered anything other than terrifying. The residents of Wuhan had no time to buy food, medicine, or other essentials.
theguardian.com/world/2020/feb… #WorseThanCOVID19

Enlightening excerpts about the 1918 influenza pandemic
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_f…
Most influenza outbreaks kill the very young & the very old, with a higher survival rate for those in between; but the #SpanishFlu pandemic resulted in a higher mortality rate for young adults.

To maintain morale, wartime censors minimized reports of illness & mortality in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, & the U.S.
Freedom to report the epidemic's effects in neutral Spain created a false impression Spain was especially hard hit, giving rise to the name #SpanishFlu.

Some analyses have shown the virus to be particularly deadly because it triggers a cytokine storm, which ravages the stronger immune system of young adults. In contrast, a 2007 analysis found that the viral infection was no more aggressive than previous influenza strains.

Instead, malnourishment, overcrowded medical camps and hospitals, and poor hygiene promoted bacterial superinfection. This superinfection killed most of the victims, typically after a somewhat prolonged death bed.

The major troop staging and hospital camp in Étaples, France, was identified by researchers as being at the center of the #SpanishFlu. The overcrowded camp and hospital was an ideal site for the spreading of a respiratory virus.

The hospital treated thousands of victims of chemical attacks, and other casualties of war. 100,000 soldiers were in transit through the camp every day. It also was home to a live piggery, and poultry was regularly brought in for food supplies from surrounding villages.

One of the few regions of the world that were seemingly less affected by the 1918 #SpanishFlu pandemic was China, where there may have been a comparatively mild flu season in 1918. There were relatively few deaths from the flu in China compared to other regions of the world.

This has led to speculation that the 1918 flu pandemic originated from China. The relatively mild flu season and lower rates of flu mortality in China in 1918 may be explained due to the fact that the Chinese population had already possessed acquired immunity to the flu virus.

Mobilization of 96,000 Chinese laborers to work behind the British & French lines might have been the source of the pandemic. A respiratory illness that struck northern China in November 1917 was identified a year later by Chinese health officials as identical to the #SpanishFlu.

When an infected person sneezes or coughs, more than half a million virus particles can spread to those nearby. The close quarters and massive troop movements of World War I hastened the pandemic, and probably both increased transmission and augmented mutation.

The war may also have increased the lethality of the virus. Some speculate the soldiers' immune systems were weakened by malnourishment, as well as the stresses of combat and chemical attacks, increasing their susceptibility.

A large factor in the worldwide occurrence of this flu was increased travel. Modern transportation systems made it easier for soldiers, sailors, and civilian travelers to spread the disease.

The huge death toll resulted from extreme severity of the symptoms, initially causing influenza to be misdiagnosed as dengue, cholera, or typhoid.
One of the most striking of the complications was hemorrhage from mucous membranes, especially from the nose, stomach, & intestine.

Bleeding from the ears and petechial hemorrhages in the skin also occurred.
The majority of deaths were from #BacterialPneumonia, a common secondary infection associated with influenza. The virus also killed people directly by causing massive hemorrhages and edema in the lungs.

The pandemic mostly killed young adults. 99% of pandemic influenza deaths in the U.S. occurred in people under 65, & nearly half in young adults 20 to 40 years old.
Influenza is typically most deadly to weak individuals; infants under two, adults over 70, & the immunocompromised.

In civilian life, those who get very ill stay home; the mildly ill continue with their lives, spreading the mild strain.
Soldiers with a mild strain stayed where they were; the severely ill were sent on crowded trains to crowded field hospitals, spreading the deadlier virus.

So many adults were incapacitated, some communities closed all stores. Healthcare workers could not tend the sick nor the gravediggers bury the dead because they too were ill. Mass graves were dug by steam shovel & bodies buried without coffins in some places.

China experienced a relatively mild flu season in 1918 compared to other areas of the world. This led to speculation that the 1918 H1N1 strain of flu originated from China; thus, there was greater resistance among the population due to acquired immunity from previous exposure.

Starko proposed that aspirin poisoning contributed substantially to the fatalities. She based this on the reported symptoms in those dying from the flu, as reported in the post mortem reports still available, and also the timing of the big "death spike" in October 1918.

This occurred shortly after the Surgeon General of the U.S. Army & the Journal of the American Medical Association recommended very large doses of 8 to 31 grams of aspirin per day as part of treatment. These levels will produce hyperventilation in patients, as well as lung edema.

Starko suggests the wave of aspirin poisonings was due to a "perfect storm" of events: Bayer's patent on aspirin expired, so many companies rushed in to make a profit & greatly increased the supply. The symptoms of aspirin poisoning were not known at the time.

The "Miraculous" End of the Pandemic
After the lethal second wave struck in late 1918, new cases dropped abruptly – almost to nothing. In Philadelphia 4,597 people died in the week ending October 16, but by November 11, influenza had almost disappeared from the city.
#COVID19

A 2006 study in the Journal of Political Economy found "#CohortsInUtero during the pandemic displayed reduced educational attainment, increased rates of physical disability, lower income, lower socioeconomic status, & higher transfer payments compared with other birth cohorts."

Price-Smith made the argument that the virus helped tip the balance of power towards the Allied cause. The viral waves hit the Central Powers before the Allied powers & both morbidity [illness] & mortality in Germany & Austria were considerably higher than in Britain & France.

There are various theories of why the #SpanishFlu was "forgotten". The rapid pace of the pandemic, which, for example, killed most of its victims in the United States within less than nine months, resulted in limited media coverage.

The outbreak coincided with the deaths & media focus on the First World War. The majority of fatalities, from both the war & the epidemic, were among young adults. When people read the obituaries, they saw the war or postwar deaths and the deaths from the influenza side by side.

The duration of the pandemic and the war could have also played a role. The disease would usually only affect a particular area for a month before leaving. The war, however, had initially been expected to end quickly but lasted for four years by the time the pandemic struck.

In 2010, a team at the Mt Sinai School of Medicine reported the 2009 flu pandemic vaccine provided some cross-protection against the 1918 flu pandemic strain.
One of the few things known for certain about the #SpanishFlu in 1918 was that it was exclusively a disease of humans.

The preceding excerpts about the 1918 #SpanishFlu pandemic & its sudden "miraculous" end in 1919 are from: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_f…

The epidemic continued through the remainder of October, before petering out in November 1918. County residents, like millions of others around the country and across the globe, were left to put the pieces of their lives back together.
wynninghistory.com/2018/09/06/flu…

The virus was not fundamentally different from those in other years.
The high death rate is attributed to crowding in military camps & urban environments, & poor nutrition & sanitation during wartime. Many deaths were due to bacterial pneumonias.
smithsonianmag.com/history/ten-my… #COVID19

#Trump is not ignoring the lessons of the 1918 pandemic. The lessons are being ignored by those who propose unnecessary "railroading" & "warehousing" of victims creating concentrations of pathogens few could survive.
msn.com/en-us/news/us/… #COVID19

Read how #Trump’s presidential record of ending & preventing traditional U.S. warmongering is the best policy for preventing another wartime 1918 pandemic, allowing the current #Coronavirus "pandemic" to end quickly, as the other one did.
threadreaderapp.com/thread/1233589… #TalibanPeaceDeal

Science explains the theory of why the #COVID19 #coronavirus should “miraculously go away” when the northern half of the globe warms up.
Warm, humid weather can make it harder for respiratory droplets to spread viruses.
time.com/5790880/corona… #GlobalWarmingGood

Influenza incidence & seasonality, along with virus survival & transmission, appear to depend partly on humidity. Higher levels of absolute humidity are only possible at higher temperatures, where it is well established that virus decay is more rapid. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

You are safer from the flu in a humid room than in a dry one.
With humidity levels at 43%, just 14% of the virus particles had the ability to infect. Most flu particles became inactive 15 minutes after they were released into the humid air.
livescience.com/27533-flu-tran… #COVID19

One reason flu transmission is thought to be lower during summer months is because of the high humidity.
During the summer months, it's easy for indoor humidity levels to be up to 30 to 40 percent. But during the winter months it's harder because indoor heating dries out the air.

Been waiting for panic-mongering #ClimateAlarmists to blame #coronavirus spread on #GlobalWarming?
Turns out flu viruses spread less easily in air that is warm & humid. Cold, dry air allows virus particles to remain in the air longer & travel farther.
livescience.com/19680-climate-…

Don’t read this #germophobes. You might stop touching things that are far more likely to enhance your immunity to diseases than make you sick.
webmd.com/cold-and-flu/s… #coronaviruses #COVID19

Science explains the theory of why the #COVID19 #coronavirus should “miraculously go away” when the northern half of the globe warms up.
Warm, humid weather can make it harder for respiratory droplets to spread viruses.
time.com/5790880/corona… #GlobalWarmingGood

Panic-mongers ignore the science supporting the theory that this #coronavirus will “miraculously go away” soon.
Higher levels of absolute humidity are only possible at higher temperatures, where it is well established that virus decay is more rapid.
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…