How to make it safe for children to go to school

Our schools and other education centres are opening up. 

That led me to ask why they were closed in the first place and what is the risk of Covid-19 spreading with the students going back. 

In other words, how do we make it safe for the students to go back to school?

 

We certainly have our share of cases that are linked to schools.

• Our Tahfiz school cluster has about 600 odd cases.  But I think this grouping the Tahfiz schools from all over the country.

• Do you remember the Malaysian students returning from Indonesia who fell sick – we have 40 odd from Tembero and also about 300 from the Pesantran clusters.  I hate to think of what is happening to the schools in Indonesia

But these all happened during the MCO period and/or the other alphabetic variations of the MCO eg CMCO, RMCO.

I wanted to know whether there were student centres and/or school clusters during the period before any shutdown.  

But I was surprised when I surfed the net for this - there was hardly any news about students clusters during the shutdown or before the shutdown (apart from Malaysia cos of Tahfiz) 

 

Yes, there was news about students being infected, but not when in schools.

Maybe this is because most countries also shut down the schools during the country lockdown.  Some even closed the schools first before the rest of the economy.

The rationale for closing schools is that these are places where people spend a large portion of their time in close quarters with large groups of people (classrooms, canteen, libraries, school field).

 

So according to the Covid-19 equation, we should not be surprised that these are seen as high-risk areas and should be closed.

OK today everyone had flattened the curve (OK, maybe only less than half of the world based on my earlier post) and now we are re-opening the schools.

What is the international experience with regards to Covid-19 when schools were re-opened?

Well, there are lots more news about infections in schools when school re-opened.  To get a sense of whether the opening was well thought out, I triangulated the news with

• the number of Covid-19 cases in the respective country for 2 weeks before the news report (from Worldodometer) 

• The Oxford Stringency index on the day of the news.  This index ranged from 0 to 100 (with 100 as the best) to reflect the govt action in handling Covid-19.

So we have an anecdotal way to see whether schools can open safely.  

The results are tabulated below

Date of report	News reports of cases on re-opening of schools	No of cases for 2 weeks	Oxford Index
18 May	Just one week after a third of French schoolchildren went back to school, a worrying flareup of about 70 COVID-19 cases have been linked to schools	11,040	76.85
20 May	The discovery of new coronavirus cases in two students marred the reopening of South Korean schools on Wednesday, forcing 75 high schools to turn pupils away.	304	39.81
26 May	Two schools located just 2km apart in Sydney have closed after a student at each tested positive for coronavirus. The news comes one day after all students across the state returned to the classroom full-time.	169	62.5
3 June	Two weeks after Israel fully reopened schools, a COVID-19 outbreak — including at least 130 cases at a single school — has led officials to close dozens of schools where students and staff were infected.	710	75.00
23 Jun	At least 17 Ohio, USA high school students tested positive for coronavirus after a recent trip to Myrtle Beach, when they returned to a county that had previously reduced infection rates to zero.	6,994	72.69
23 Jun	More than 180 students in the Eastern Cape province tested positive for COVID-19. Schools started reopening in South Africa on June 8	53,117	76.85

I can't imagine what the govt in some countries were thinking of when they re-opened the schools given the severity of the cases. Look at South Africa, France and Ohio.

It would appear that it is not about SOP.

If the number of cases in the country is still high, no amount of SOP is going to make it safe to go back to schools.

Even in places like Australia and South Korea where the number of cases is low, there are cases of infection. We can say that for South Korea the govt has relaxed the measures (look at the low Oxford Index), but we cannot say the same for Australia.

What about Malaysia. The schools are to reopen on 15 Jul for those not taking the exams

So what is our comparative positions

• We have 125 cases for the past 2 weeks
• On 14 Jun, our Oxford Stringency index was 63.89

When we look at the table, the country that comes close to Malaysia is Australia.

Anecdotally, there is some risk.

At least in Malaysia, when the school re-opens in 2 weeks' time, the number of cases should have come down further. What I hope is the Oxford Index does not drop.

Then if we have fewer cases among the public and still have good govt measures, we don’t have to worry too much about the SOP.

The good news is that the number of current cases seems to be from imported ones and foreign workers. I would like to think that there would be minimal exposure to the children from these groups and hopefully reducing the risk further.

Moral of the story – Big picture is more important. SOP only makes sense if the cases among the community are very low.

We already know that the US is a gone case. But the French and South African govt got some explantation to do.

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PS: This blog is for me to better understand COVID 19 as this will impact my investments. If you are also into equities, follow me at i4value.asia.

Disclaimer:  I am not an epidemiologist, healthcare worker, pharmacist, or staff in the Ministry of Health, but rather is someone with a strong interest in numerical analysis.  The content is an attempt to understand what is happening in the battle against COVID 19 from a data-based perspective. The opinions expressed here are based on information extracted from readily available public sources but I do not warrant its completeness or accuracy and should not be relied on as such. 

How can you tell we are free (of Covid-19)

We had a record day on 1 Jul when there was no case among the people in the country. There was one case but it was imported

So are we back to normal?

The chart below shows the weekly number of cases since the end of Feb.

You can see that the number of cases is coming down but it was not a direct decline as there was a reversal in the latter part of May. 

There is no guarantee that just because it is now going down, it won't go sideways or even rise again. 

 

The risk is because not all the economy has opened up and as we open up schools and relax public gathering, we are introducing new ways to spread the virus.

 

BTW, my interpretation of the chart in the context of an epidemiological model is that if a group of infected people spread it to a smaller group (because the infected ones are isolated in time from the healthy people), then you will have a reducing pattern like what we are having in Malaysia.

The reverse is happening in the US ie a group of infected people is spreading it to a larger group, (what the epidemiologist refers to as R0 > 1 scenario).

But to come back to my question.  How do you tell that we have reached a “normal” or safe situation? 

The table below shows the number of cases for the last 2 weeks of Jan, Feb and June (I chose 2 weeks to peg it to the incubation period).  

           Total cases for the last 2 weeks

Jan                8  all cases

Feb               8  all cases

Jun            101  cases excluding imported

If you look at the current cases, it is nowhere near the 8 cases per 2 weeks for Jan and Feb of this year.

Do you remember that Jan and Feb was a time that while we kept hearing of cases in the country, we all went about our lives without worrying too much about it? 

 

I think this should be the “standard” we should strive for. 

When we have less than 10 cases continuously for a 2 week period, then I am ready to celebrate.

BTW New Zealand had 24 cases during the last 2 weeks of Jun.   Remember that the NZ PM had announced that they have eliminated the virus after about 3 weeks without any cases.  Then a day or two after the announcement they had 2 imported cases.

Not so easy.  

So in my mind, we have still some time to go.  And to reach this, we have to continue to cut off the source of infection. 

If you look at what is happening there are two sources of infection

• Imported cases
• Local transmission

I discussed yesterday how most of the world still have cases going up and so if we want to eliminate the imported source of infection,  we should continue to either ban travel (to and fro) for these countries or have mandatory quarantine for such places.

 

The self-quarantine should only be for those countries where the number of daily cases is going down.

As for the local transmission, I think that if we are going to relax public gathering, we must make masks part of the conditions.  

SOP without having mandatory wearing of masks is not the way to go

We seem to have 2 SOP focus currently – to help contact tracing (eg registering people, downloading the apps) and preventing the spread (social distance, public hygiene).

If we are going to have public gathering then we need to tighten the prevention part - we are introducing risk (crowds, enclosed places, spending a long time together) so where is the counterbalancing measure?  

Washing hands and social distancing is not sufficient.  I think that wearing a mask has to be mandatory for gathering.

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PS: This blog is for me to better understand COVID 19 as this will impact my investments. If you are also into equities, follow me at i4value.asia.

Disclaimer:  I am not an epidemiologist, healthcare worker, pharmacist, or staff in the Ministry of Health, but rather is someone with a strong interest in numerical analysis.  The content is an attempt to understand what is happening in the battle against COVID 19 from a data-based perspective. The opinions expressed here are based on information extracted from readily available public sources but I do not warrant its completeness or accuracy and should not be relied on as such. 

There is a new meaning to crowd puller

The governors of California and Texas have said that they regretted opening the bars recently implying that bars have led to the increase in cases. 

I think that they are missing the picture.

The current upswing in the US is not caused by one particular type of activity, but rather by large groups of people affecting larger groups of people.  Otherwise, there would not be this double-digit growth in cases

Just look at the YouGov survey about avoiding crowded public places in the US compared to Malaysia and Singapore. 

Source: YouGov

The survey shows that Malaysians and Singaporeans are less likely to go to crowded places. 

If you accept the logic that exponential growth occurs when a crowd of infected people spread to a bigger crowd (what epidemiologists called R0 > 1), then there is no such thing as the wisdom of the crowd.

Rather when crowd forms, we have a new meaning of crowd-puller – the crowd pulls up the infection numbers. 

But to come back to pubs, bars and nightclubs. 

I am not suggesting these are not risky places when it comes to Covid-19.   In fact, there have been many stories about the Covid-19 than can be traced to bars/nightclubs

• In mid-May, after the new case numbers dwindled to just a few a day in South Korea, dozens of new cases have been confirmed nearly all of them linked to nightclubs in the Itaewon district of Seoul.

• In Mac, a Japanese man who was asymptomatic decided to visit two bars in the small coastal city after telling a family member: “I am going to spread the virus.”

• In Singapore, Hero’s bar in the Boat Quay area has been identified as a cluster, with five confirmed coronavirus cases linked to it

• In Malaysia, we have one large cluster caused by lawyers of the bar.  Ok, I am being facetious.

Remember the Covid-19 equation

Infection = Exposure X Time

Well in bars, pubs and nightclubs, you have both exposure and time.  They are generally enclosed and probably air-cond places and you can imagine people taking off masks (if they were wearing one, to begin with) to drink.

Then there is the close conversation as this is about the only way you can talk.  And think of the time spent there.

So it is not surprising that many Western countries target the bars.  

Even in Malaysia, our bars are still not allowed to operate.  I think our authorities are a bit confused.  

They say that under the RMCO, activities that are prohibited are activities in pubs and nightclubs, except for restaurant business in pubs and nightclubs.

Don’t they realize that if you follow the logic of the Covid-19 equation, it makes no sense?

Oh well, at least they did not confuse bar with barbers.

It is interesting to note that it is not just the govt who are worried about pubs and nightclubs.  It seems the public in some countries is worried as well. 

• Canada, Angus Reid survey in early June.   52 % of the people questioned said they intend to avoid restaurants in the coming months to protect their own health.

• UK May, British Foodservice Sentiment Study by The NPD Group.  Almost six out of 10 respondents said restaurants and bars are the riskiest places to be infected

• Australia,10 May survey by Vox Pop Labs in collaboration with the ABC showed that less than half of the people surveyed would be comfortable going to a bar or restaurant

So is it safe to go to pubs and restaurants in Malaysia?

For starters, I have not seen any clusters involving such places.  OK maybe they have been closed

But for Covid-19 to spread 2 conditions must apply

• Some of the staff are asymptomatic
• Some of the customers are symptomatic

The Covid-19 equation only applies if there are such sources

  

So if our current cases are imported ones, foreign workers in construction sites/chicken factories and Tahfiz clusters, I am pretty confident that our pubs and non-halal restaurants are unlikely to have people from such clusters meaning that the risks of infection from going to pubs and non-halal restaurants are very low. 

 

I am just following the science.  Or unless you think that my logic is faulty. 

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PS: This blog is for me to better understand COVID 19 as this will impact my investments. If you are also into equities, follow me at i4value.asia.

Disclaimer:  I am not an epidemiologist, healthcare worker, pharmacist, or staff in the Ministry of Health, but rather is someone with a strong interest in numerical analysis.  The content is an attempt to understand what is happening in the battle against COVID 19 from a data-based perspective. The opinions expressed here are based on information extracted from readily available public sources but I do not warrant its completeness or accuracy and should not be relied on as such. 

Our maid are so lucky to be here

The Oxford Dictionary defined a wave as “a large number of people or things suddenly moving or appearing somewhere”

The US is definitely going into another Covid 19 “wave” as the chart of daily infection shows.

 

Source: Worldodometer

The interesting thing is that when I looked at the charts for the top 3 countries in terms of the number of cumulative cases (Source Worldodometer) I found 3 patterns (based on the 7 days moving ave)

• Those like the US with a second wave
• Those like Brazil that is still increasing
• Those like Russia that is declining

Source:  Worldodometer

If you look at the charts you will notice that the number of daily cases in  Brazil never went down while the US is really into another wave.

But surprisingly, the number of daily cases in Russia is trending down. 

So I got curious to see how the top 50 countries (in terms of the cumulative number of Covid 19 cases) were doing in the context of the 3 wave pattern. The results are summarized as follows:

• Including the US, there are 12 countries with a second wave

• Including Brazi, there are 17 countries where the number of cases is still going up ie no sign of any decline yet

• Including Russia, there are 21 countries where the number of cases is declining

I don’t know about you, but I was shocked at the findings as only 42% of the top 50 have a declining number of cases.

Maybe I am biased on what has happened in Malaysia, but after 3 to 4 months into the pandemic, aren’t you shocked that less than half of the world has the virus under control?

The other shocking thing is that about a 1/4 are experiencing the 2nd wave.  So the US is not the only idiot in the world to have wasted their efforts to control the first wave.

I hope that our govt will ban all travel from those countries with the 2nd wave or are still having an increase.  

If this is a good representation of what is happening around the world, almost 2/3 of the nations in the world would be banned from Malaysia.

Finally, I hope the Minister of Transport is doing a similar analysis for all the countries when it decides which countries can MAS fly to.

BTW in the ASEAN context, the Philippines has a second wave.  Bangladesh and Indonesian cases are still going up.

So for those with domestic help and or looking for foreign workers

• Don’t let the maids go back to the home countries. They are more likely to be exposed  to Covid 19 in their home countries than in Malaysia.

• Or if recruiting for new help, I am not sure whether it is wise to get from these countries.

Looking at what is happening in the Philippines and Indonesia, I think many of the maids are very lucky to be in Malaysia. 

The full list is shown below to help those who have foreign workers and/or have business overseas. (The No refer to the countries ranking in terms of the total number of cases by Worldodometer as of 29 Jun)

Those with 2nd wave

Iran – No 10

Turkey – No 13 (just at the start of slight 2nd uptrend)

Saudi Arabia – No 15

UAE – No 31 (just at the start of 2nd wave)

Kuwait – No 33

Ukraine – No 35 (never declined but plateau and 2nd wave started from plateau)

Portugal – No 36 (slow increase after a decline)

Philippines – No 38

Panama – No 40 (never declined but plateau and 2nd wave started from plateau)

Romania – No 45

Israel – No 50

Those with the number of daily cases still increasing

India – No 4

Mexico – No 11

Bangladesh – No 17

South Africa – No 18

Columbia – No 21

Argentina – No 27

Ecuador – No 28 (very slow increase) 

Indonesia – No 29

Iraq – No 32

Oman – No 37

Poland – No 39 (at plateau) 

Bolivia – No 42

Dominican Republic – No 43

Bahrain – No 46

Armenia – No 48

Nigeria – No 49

Those with a decreasing number of daily cases. 

UK – No 5

Spain – No 6

Peru – No 7

Chile – No 8

Italy – No 9

Pakistan – No 12

Germany – No 14

France – No 16

Canada – No 19

Qatar – No 20

China – No 22

Egypt – No 23 (just turning the corner to decline)

Sweden – No 24

Belarus – No 25

Belgium – No 26

Netherlands – No 30

Singapore – No 34

Switzerland – No 41

Afghanistan – No 44

Ireland – No 47

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Be fearless to get more to Stay Safe, Share this Blog

PS: This blog is for me to better understand COVID 19 as this will impact my investments. If you are also into equities, follow me at i4value.asia.

Disclaimer:  I am not an epidemiologist, healthcare worker, pharmacist, or staff in the Ministry of Health, but rather is someone with a strong interest in numerical analysis.  The content is an attempt to understand what is happening in the battle against COVID 19 from a data-based perspective. The opinions expressed here are based on information extracted from readily available public sources but I do not warrant its completeness or accuracy and should not be relied on as such. 

A proven way to safe lives - wear masks

Masks have been in the Covid 19 news because of the continued insistence by President Trump not to wear one.

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I saw a TV interview of Dr. Fauci who said that in Mac, he was not very forceful in advocating the wearing of masks in the US because there was a shortage of all types of masks in the US and he did not want to have the public compete with the healthcare workers over them.

He of course now wears masks and recommends one despite what President Trump thinks.

According to the Mayo Clinic, at the start of the pandemic experts didn't yet know the extent to which people with Covid-19 could spread the virus before symptoms appeared. Nor was it known that some people have Covid-19 but don't have any symptoms. Both groups can unknowingly spread the virus to others.

These discoveries led the U.S. CDC to do an about-face (pun intended) and have since updated its guidance to recommend widespread use of simple cloth face coverings.

So how widespread is this wearing of face masks? 

YouGov (Yes, the same company that I featured in my 15 June post had a public opinion survey for 26 countries on wearing masks and the results around the end of May/early June are as follows:

Top 5 countries for wearing masks. 

Country	% of people who say that they wear masks in public places
Singapore	92 %
Hong Kong	87 %
Thailand	86 %
Malaysia	85 %
Italy	85 %

Bottom 5 countries in terms of wearing masks

Country	% of people who say that they wear masks in public places
Denmark	3 %
Sweden	4 %
Norway	5 %
Australia	17 %
UK	21 %

Surprisingly, about 69 % of the population in the US said that they wear masks.  This is very much different from looking at President Trump's rallies. 

The really interesting thing is how the % of Malaysian, Singaporean and even the US  who said that they wear masks have increased over the past few months as can be seen from the chart below

% Wearing mask;  Source YouGov

Of course, I wear a mask when going out not because I have Covid, but hopefully to prevent catching one as we all know that we cannot social distance all the time.

So I hope that in such “forced close contact” situations the mask offers me some protection.

The other reason I wear a mask is to prevent me from touching my face. 

I had a posting some time back about how we can get infected by touching surfaces where the virus has landed. (Refer to my 20 June post.)  So if we touch our eyes, nose, and mouth after touching a contaminated surface, we are at risk of getting infected. 

 

But keeping our hands off our faces is easier said than done. In fact, a recent study found that we touch our eyes, nose, and mouth more than 20 times an hour. 

I saw a medical article to say that we cannot prevent this because

• It starts in the womb. It is also the first sign of sensory nerves developing in the face.
• Touching our faces is a reflex. 
• It is an unconscious habit
• It is a form of communication eg when we’re surprised or scared, we might put our hands over our mouths
• Touching our faces is a calming mechanism that engages the senses. 

So how do you stop, or at least limit this behavior? 

Wearing a mask is one way

Wearing gloves is another way.

But I prefer wearing masks as it is more convenient than gloves.

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Be fearless to get more to Stay Safe, Share this Blog

PS: This blog is for me to better understand COVID 19 as this will impact my investments. If you are also into equities, follow me at i4value.asia.

Disclaimer:  I am not an epidemiologist, healthcare worker, pharmacist, or staff in the Ministry of Health, but rather is someone with a strong interest in numerical analysis.  The content is an attempt to understand what is happening in the battle against COVID 19 from a data-based perspective. The opinions expressed here are based on information extracted from readily available public sources but I do not warrant its completeness or accuracy and should not be relied on as such. 

How to strike the mid-Jul Covid 19 Jackpot

The DG of MOH said that the target is to have zero cases by mid-Jul 2020.

This is a fantastic jackpot to strike.  But what are the odds?

To achieve this

• We should not have any cases immediately from the locals, foreign workers and in-coming visitors
• The number of cases under treatment should also reach zero by mid-Jul

I don’t want to pour cold water over the efforts but to achieve this a couple of things must happen

1)  Starting from today, we must have zero cases.  

Covid 19 has a 14 days incubation period.  To be certain that we are Covid 19 free by mid-Jul, it must mean that there should not be any more cases immediately.

Is this possible?  Remember the story about how New Zealand had almost a 3 week period when there was no case only to be caught by visitors coming into the country.

2) That points to Malaysia's second problem. 

The chart below shows the number of imported Covid 19 cases over the past 2 weeks. 

We seem to have a continuous stream of people entering the country.  

• At first, it was mainly students.  
• A few days ago, MOH reported that some of those infected were foreigners with special work permit

According to MOH, from 10 Jun to 27 Jun, MOH has screened 6,609 individuals at KLIA.  6,573 were found negatives and told to self-quarantine at home. 36 found positives were hospitalized.

It seems that police have conducted checks on 427 home quarantine cases and all complied with the SOP.  

So apart from those found positive at the airport, there are potential cases among those quarantined.

And these are the legitimate travelers.

What about the illegals?  

 

3)  Then we have those still under treatment.  

As of 27th Jun, there are still 187 patients in hospitals.  The numbers have been coming down over the past 14 days as can be seen from the chart below.

But technically, it would not go to zero by mid-Jul.

You can see that while it is declining, it is not a straight line as there are new cases coming in.  So if I project this mathematically at the same compounded rate as the past 14 days, it would take more than a month to get it close to zero.

OK, we can debate whether the decline would be a % rate or some fixed number rate.  But I am very confident that it would not be zero by mid-Jul.

I am not saying that the average number of daily cases would not be reduced further or that the number of people under treatment would not come down.

I am just saying the MOH jackpot target is not supported by the trends.

Covid 19 is one of the few socio-economic (?) phenomenon that mathematical models can give a better picture than just some opinion.

That is why President Trump is doomed to failure in his Covid 19 war.

Short of a miracle vaccine before the end of the year, it would be a miracle if the number of deaths in the US does not touch 200,000.

Without even talking about exponential growth, a simple straight-line projection would show that by mid-Jul the US would touch 70,000 cases per day.

I think a 2-week forecast is pretty safe because no matter what they do tomorrow (and there will not be a lockdown), the effect will take 2 weeks to be felt.

So the next 2 weeks will see the impact of what has happened over the past 2 weeks. 

US currently has a 5 % case mortality.  So in the worst case, I expect that there would be 3,000 odd daily deaths.

I expect the actual numbers to be lower as I believe this round, there are more younger people being infected so that the mortality rate would be lower.

This is the logic of why the mortality rate in Singapore is low.  The majority of those infected are the migrant workers and I would imagine that they are definitely below 50 years old.

Pulling the numbers together

• with about 180 days till the end of the year and 
• assuming 2,000 deaths per day, 
• the US currently has about 125,000 deaths 
• 200,000 deaths by year-end looks very likely

At a time when I thought that I would have run out of any meaningful statistical analysis because the Malaysian cases have come down so low, the US is providing fresh data

Hooray, for President Trump to give hope to all the mathematical modeler a new lease of life.

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Be fearless to get more to Stay Safe, Share this Blog

PS: This blog is for me to better understand COVID 19 as this will impact my investments. If you are also into equities, follow me at i4value.asia.

Disclaimer:  I am not an epidemiologist, healthcare worker, pharmacist, or staff in the Ministry of Health, but rather is someone with a strong interest in numerical analysis.  The content is an attempt to understand what is happening in the battle against COVID 19 from a data-based perspective. The opinions expressed here are based on information extracted from readily available public sources but I do not warrant its completeness or accuracy and should not be relied on as such. 

Do you know that Covid 19 can damage your lungs?

As a non-medical person, I shy away from talking about the medical aspects of Covid 19.

But I recently came across an article about lung scarring due to Covid 19. 

Well, I know about lung scarring. 

A couple of years ago, I had blood clots in my lungs.  What the doctor called pulmonary embolism.  I accidentally found this medical condition when running on the treadmill. 

I used to burn about 430 + kilocalories in my half-hour run and then a few days before Chinese New Year, I found that I could not continue running after about 10 min.

The worst part was that I also do weights so when I had chest pain the next day, I put it down to straining myself with the weights.

To cut a long story short, the chest pain and my inability to run continued for a week. Ya. I still tried to run. 

After the Chinese New Year holidays, I decided to see my heart specialist who arranged for a MRI scan.   

The scan showed I had blood clots in my lungs. 

I was hospitalized for a week with daily dozes of blood thinner. And I was on blood thinner for a year.

 

It is now a few years after that and despite all my efforts on the treadmill, I cannot get past 400 kilocalories.  I inferred that my lungs had been scarred.

The doctor told me that I was lucky to have the treadmill run as it brought up the symptoms.  Many others have died because there are no symptoms and they only find it out when they collapsed.

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So when I saw this BBC news about the tens of thousands of recovered Covid 19 patients who needed to be recalled to check if they have been left with permanent lung damage, I know what it meant. 

Experts are concerned that a significant proportion could be left with lung scarring, known as pulmonary fibrosis. The condition is irreversible and symptoms can include severe shortness of breath, coughing and fatigue.

Sounds very much like what I had then. 

This condition has been reported in various countries around the world

• In a study from China, 66 of 70 patients still had some level of lung damage 

• In a study in Italy, doctors are scanning the lungs of people three months after they fell ill. The University Hospital of Padua estimates that 15 % to 20 % of those treated in intensive care at the hospital for Covid-19 have scarring

After I saw this lung article, I decided to do a web search of blood clots and Covid 19.

I was shocked to find out that a substantial proportion of the patients who died of Covid 19 actually died of blood clot in the vessels in the lungs.

This I can relate. 

One article said that the coronavirus causes blood to become stickier and immobilized patients in critical care have an even higher risk of developing blood clots. 

Between 30 and 50 percent of COVID-19 patients in intensive care are also at a high risk of a potentially fatal pulmonary embolism. 

I am not sure how many saw the Star article about this blood clot

• In a German study that looked into 184 patients admitted to ICU, pulmonary embolism occurred in 25 (14%) patients, catheter-associated thrombosis in two, and one had deep vein thrombosis in the leg.

• A French study that performed screening lower limb ultrasound on Covid-19 patients found a staggering 70% of them with blood clots

• Recent post-mortem reports in Italy, France and Belgium have shown a high incidence of thrombosis in pulmonary arteries in the lungs.

So what we really need is not hydroxychloroquine but Wafarin, Xarelto…yes these were the blood clot medication I took.

I can advise President Trump. 

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PS: This blog is for me to better understand COVID 19 as this will impact my investments. If you are also into equities, follow me at i4value.asia.

Disclaimer:  I am not an epidemiologist, healthcare worker, pharmacist, or staff in the Ministry of Health, but rather is someone with a strong interest in numerical analysis.  The content is an attempt to understand what is happening in the battle against COVID 19 from a data-based perspective. The opinions expressed here are based on information extracted from readily available public sources but I do not warrant its completeness or accuracy and should not be relied on as such.