Coronavirus and Pandemics

Here is a link to an interesting article.
How is Covid19 Spread?

Edited by Admin, : Correct typo.

I realize that the flu shot does not in any way protect you from covid19. I am curious though, if there have been any studies whether it is possible because of the effect of the flu shot on our own natural anti-bodies, that if and when you get the virus it would have a more severe impact.

Interestingly in Canada we have had about 1300 deaths from Covid 19 vs about 33,000 in the US. Over half the deaths in Canada have been in Quebec. Our population is about 10% of that of the US so the relationship percentage wise is about 33 to 13.

At least from watching the news Quebec had a more cavalier attitude to social distancing than the rest of the country and I think that the US had a more cavalier attitude than Canada apart from Quebec.

It does appear to me that social distancing does appear to be saving lives.

dwise1 writes: When I was stationed in North Dakota I would sometimes listen in the car to a radio station in "The Peg". I heard them refer to Canada as "Big Lonely".

Apparently there are people that live in the "Peg" (Winnipeg) on purpose but I don't understand it. I was based there for 2 months when I was in the air force and I found that to be sufficient.

I always heard that Winnipeg had two seasons - winter and mosquito.

We're going to be in trouble with management soon for being off topic but hopefully as we are able to be community, and are maintaining social distancing Percy won't be too hard on us.

You're right about the population of Canada being close to the border. 90% of the population live within 100 miles of the border. I grew up in Alberta where we would often experience -40 although that doesn't seem to happen as much anymore. Lived in Montreal for 15 years where it it gets cold but it was the snow that did you in. Then had 8 years just outside Toronto which was pretty easy, particularly as the town I was in, (Oakville) was on Lake Ontario and wasn't too bad for snow.

While we were in Toronto we had a small place in Ft Myers Fla. and we figured that when I retired we would summer in Oakville and winter in Ft. Myers. However we eventually concluded that we wanted to put down roots in one place where we could be more solidly established in our community and church. We picked the Saanich Peninsula on Vancouver Island and moved to where we are now. It meant commuting to Vancouver for work for 8 years until I aged out at 60 and had to retire.

The climate here is great. It spends very little time below freezing in the winter with only a relatively rare snow fall which usually melts in a day or two. In the summer it rarely goes above 85 deg F. Summers are very dry and we do get a fair bit of rain in the winter months but that doesn't require shifting it around.

My wife is from the Boston area but I rescued her and brought her up here, but she had adapted quite nicely.

New Zealand cracked down hard and early and hind sight shows they were right.

New Zealand Covid19 Report

There is a low rate of infection in India for unknown reasons.
Covid19 in India

AbE I wonder if it is because in so much of the rest of the world we have our flu shots and our use of anti-biotics to the degree that we do has weakened our auto-immune systems.

Edited by GDR, : No reason given.

AZPaul3 writes: Vaccines don't weaken our immune systems, they strengthen it. They cause the immune system to develop antibodies for the pathogen in a less hostile manner then a full infection by the bacteria or virus would produce. Misuse of antibiotics doesn't weaken our immune systems but strengthens the evolutionary development of the bacteria's antibiotic resistance which leads to our immune systems having to adapt to yet another strain of the bacteria in a full out infection which is often too strong to avoid the most severe symptoms. Antibiotics have to do with bacteria only and have no effect on a virus like SARS-CoV-2 at all. Neither of these explains the India situation vis-a-vis the rest of the world.

As usual I am discussing this from a position of ignorance but the vaccines strengthen our immune systems for a certain set of viruses. However, might not that weaken our resistance to other viruses such as Covid19?

Also I don't think that there is much doubt that we have over used anti-biotics and the bacteria has simply mutated, (one of the more rapid examples of evolution as I understand it), so that the anti-biotics are less effective than they would be if they weren't used so much.

Interesting article on Covid
Don't compare Covid to the Flu