Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Coronavirus epidemic and piano practice/teaching/performing

Well I guess it'll be the Sears-Roebuck catalog down by the crick.

The C virus is here in North Vancouver. Perhaps I shall stop teaching altogether ,I just do not know what else to do ?

The virus becomes progressively more serious the older we are—- read everything you can from legitimate sources and decide. If I were over 60 and teaching, I would personally cancel lessons for awhile and limit exposure to others.

This is a big topic of conversation in the movie theatre business too. The new James Bond movie has been moved to the fall and while nothing else has been moved (other than the Trolls movie that's going to move into the weekend that James Bond had originally planned to be in) everything seems to be a bit up in the air as far as what's going to happen in the future.

We live in interesting times.....

I hope our fellow PWers who are travelling can get home safely.

You're misunderstanding my message, which is about your own self-preservation. You need to change your personal habits right now. Don't touch your face except with tissue paper etc.

The message is: Don't touch your face with unwashed hands. It's on the NHS website.

If you live like a hermit and don't ever leave your home, and nobody - not even your own family - is allowed in, you can disinfect everything in your home before you touch it. Are you going to go around with your spray disinfecting the doors of every building you walk in, and everything you have to use that isn't your own, each and every time before you touch it? What happens if someone is allergic to the stuff in your spray? Can you remember to wash your hands thoroughly every time before you touch your face?

I thought it was only the uptight Poms who would panic buy, but it seems that laid-back Aussies are not so laid-back after all........

In case my neck of the woods goes into lockdown like northern Italy, I already have enough provisions in my home to survive for one year (not!) - which is how long the pandemic would last with the most optimistic AI modelling.

No, we understand your message. We just question how realistic it is to think that people will actually be able to follow your advice. It's a bit like saying: "Playing the Hammerklavier sonata is actually quite easy. You just need to make sure not to play too slowly and not to play any wrong notes."

I think cleaning a surface that you are about to touch for a prolonged time, and that you know that other people have touched before you for a prolonged time, and before which those other people sat in perfect sneezing and coughing distance for a prolonged time too (i.e. keyboard of a practice room piano) is a sensible precaution. Because it is almost guaranteed (for normal mortals at least) that you *will* touch your face before the practice session is over.

You are not the first to give this "don't touch your face" advice, and check out how well it worked for the others:

You might want to read this from the Daily Mail. ‘There is no evidence this is effective against coronavirus

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/...uhan-coronavirus-finally-reached-UK.html

Even Dettol admits it is ineffective
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10870648/dettol-coronavirus-wuhan-label/

I suggest you check out what to use from a legitimate government site

As you know, I never give advice which I don't - or can't - follow myself. I never ever touch my face with unwashed hands, without a clean tissue or hanky.

Because of my job, I myself have changed my personal habits several decades ago, and have adhered to what I am advising everyone in PW now, as have most others in my profession. I can shake hands etc with no problems because I don't touch my face. ("Elbowing" - or whatever it's called - as an alternative is frankly silly.... ).

BTW, 'cleaning' surfaces is not the same as sterilizing them. Don't rely on whatever you're using.....unless maybe if it's 100% alcohol.

We're not just talking about coughs and colds anymore.........

About the best example of viral marketing and getting your message out for free I can imagine. As long as you don't value being embarrassed very highly.

I can easily imagine myself as that poor woman. The more I try and think about not touching my face the more I seem to do exactly that. I don't know if I'm just noticing something I've always been doing or whether trying not to just results in me doing.

It is the sort of behaviour change I'll only achieve over months of consciously catching myself out when I do it.

In the meantime I'll need to do less effective measure as well.

Just a note about the mortality figures for COVID-19: currently they are almost certainly overestimates because there are no reliable figures yet about the total number infected. Since some cases are mild or asymptomatic (especially among young people), this is hard to determine. It will be a while before we have studies of sample populations testing for antibodies to find the full number exposed.

The epidemic is still concerning, of course, but it's good to be aware of the limits of our knowledge.

Don’t forget cell phones. Medical professionals have judged that cleaning cell phones may prove a more important health measure than wearing facemasks.

All the major phone-makers warn against cleaning your phone with alcohol, hand sanitizer, or sterilizing wipes because it can damage the protective coating on the screen.

Damaging this layer could make it easier for germs to stick to the device.

Modern phones tend to be water-resistant, so you could clean your phone with regular soap and water and a single-use paper towel. But verify your phone is water resistant beforehand.

I use Optico brand lens cleaning wipes for cleaning my phone as well as computer monitors and the lenses in my movie projector and even my glasses.

I get them at Costco.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberammergau

Anyone going? I know people who were planning to go.

A likely more accurate number comes from South Korea, which has an aggressive testing regime. As of a few days ago, there were 50 deaths from 7313 infections, giving a mortality rate of 0.68%.

However, if you study the ingredients, it has Anionic Surfactants - and this does kill enveloped viruses. There's no reason why the novel coronavirus will not be killed (deactivated) by a chemical which kills other coronaviruses.

The current death rate estimates will also be underestimates in another direction, which is time. Most of the cases are not resolved yet, so a lot of the deaths are lagging the diagnoses.

Amazing that the manufacturer says it doesn’t work. Glad you’re satisfied

There have been other estimates in that range, however, I think there is a systematic problem here. From an article on Friday or Saturday:

Something I think one should consider is that if the fatality rate of COVID-19 is really only from 0.1% to 1%, then with the 366 people that have been confirmed to have died in Italy, this would suggest that from 36,600 people (1% death rate) to 366,000 people (0.1% death rate) actually have COVID-19 in Italy.

Furthermore, 3,892 people have died worldwide form COVID-19 as of this moment. Does it make it better to think that from 389,200 - 3,892,000 people actually have COVID-19 right now? Because only 111,362 cases have been reported as of this moment, which would mean that if Dr. Giroir is right, there are from 277,838 - 3,780,638 more cases that have not been reported. If he is right, this would also mean that from 71.3% - 97.1% of all COVID-19 cases are actually going unreported so far.

It comes down to this: Would you rather believe that the death rate is higher, or that there are more people unreported people are sick? Because the former is scary, but the if you think about it, the latter is far scarier!