Search

critical thresholds – being human sometimes is difficult…

Dear readers,

Do you feel the same? Do you feel a bit tired of the current situation and the ‘pandemic’ topic, since it is affecting all everyday activities?

Take a break! We took a few days off and spent time in the sun in our garden. It was wonderful.

Now, we feel better, our batteries were recharged, and we are looking for action again. First, we are attending to our blog. This is the momentary situation:

Today, September 26, 2020, we are counting over 32.5 million infected people globally, with close to 1 million deaths. In Germany, we had 283,000 infections (source: Johns Hopkins University).

As a reminder: 10 days ago, globally there were 30 million infections, in Germany close to 270,000, with 9400 deaths.

That means in Germany there have been just 0.3 % of the population tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. Even when taking a dark figure of unidentified cases, of say 3-fold, only one percent of the people will have been infected.

The reverse conclusion is that the largest part of Germans have NOT seen the virus yet.

What if we are firing up the pandemic in fall, resulting in a domino effect, an exponential/logarithmic growth, leading to a domino effect in all directions?

Do you remember the example of the water lily pond?

Imagine a pond with a single water lily. This water lily decided to duplicate once a day. Tomorrow there will be 2 water lilies, the day after tomorrow there will be 4, and another day will bring us 8 water lilies, and so forth. The pond will be covered with water lilies after 30 days. Now, here is the question: On which day did the water lilies cover the pond halfway?

Should your answer be day 15, you would be wrong. The correct answer is 29. What a great example of logarithmic/exponential growth.

How far would you think the spread of water lilies would have been on day 20? On day 20 the water lilies would have covered 0.098 % of the pond. Who would have thought that 10 days later the pond were covered entirely?

At this time, only 1/1000 of the pond was covered.

In this situation we are finding ourselves yet again with SARS-CoV-2.

The full blog post of March 15 is found on: https://www.sajo-innovation.de/blog/r0-and-the-meaning-of-logarithm-in-music/

No one knows the threshold at which the pandemic will become explosively visible. We know, however, once the threshold is reached, the pandemic is surfacing with its ugly face with infections, sick, and dead people. This is not the case yet.

Do you remember the cruel pictures from Bergamo, Great Britain, Manhattan, or Brazil?

What if this happened to Germany? Why should we be the one big exception? Up to now, we had luck and a population who by and large had contributed to the protective measures through their behavior. We are observing that this seems to change gradually.

Please imagine this situation: Think about how you would deal with this situation. Think about the consequences of you becoming ill – medium or heavy disease, or a weak latent chronic course with long-term consequences. What if you switch sides from healthy to sick from one day to the next?  How do you deal with your life, your job, your family?

With this virus we cannot depend on luck alone. The virus is hideous, for its spread it uses all the behavior, desires, and interactions that makes us humans.

What are our possibilities to deal with this threatening, upcoming situation, with a population who is “tired” and in parts ignorant, in order not to forfeit the previous success and the luck?

Do we have to remind of the protective measures? Of course, and everywhere! Physical distance, face masks and thorough hand hygiene! There is nothing easier than that, everyone can do it, and with time we have become accustomed to it. The more habituation, the easier the daily application is becoming routine. Practice makes perfect.

Here it is about the reduction of the risk to infect yourself and others. Here, stochastics comes into play. Specifically, this means that with a growing number of people the risk of one infected person being present is increasing as well. Thus, everyone needs to decide if it is wise to attend an event with 20 people or with 2000. Additional factors would be the chance of physical distancing and the air current in the location.

In every case, if 6 feet distance cannot be maintained, face masks should be made mandatory – indoors and outdoors. As a positive side effect, this is also protecting from influenza, and co-infections. In the fall, this procedure makes sense. We are relying on your voluntary cooperation.

Every weakening of the protective measures is giving the virus new room to play. Hence, a balancing of risks and human desires needs to be made. Every weakening of the protective measures, for whatever reason, will result in increased case numbers.

Everyone may calculate the individual risk. Not everything that is not prohibited needs to be done. Remember that it may strike somebody among your family or friends. Do you want to be the one to carry the virus to your loved ones?

To us it is a pity to see how time is lost, which needs to be used in this pandemic.

For our drug development we are facing a critical threshold as well: We are seeking follow-up funding to identify and develop new drugs. We are open for investments from abroad, in Germany things are pretty limited. We are hoping for strong partners with a long-term vision for our endeavor. We are sure to make a difference in the pandemic. Should you want to join, please contact us uncomplicatedly, since this is what we are: down-to-earth and uncomplicated.

We are looking forward to you!

Yours, Sabine and Jörg

SAJO is consulting all around infectious diseases. We are applying our know-how, that we have acquired in more than 20 years. We are developing safety concepts for establishments and companies, that are tailored individually to the premises. We do what we can to fight this pandemic. We are also consulting scientifically our colleagues of the medical faculty.

SAJO – for a healthy world and better future!

To our delight our blog is receiving a lot of acceptance, we love to share our knowledge. Single posts and contents are being adopted by others, also in media. We have learned how to correctly make a citation; this we would wish from others in return as well. Please feel free to share the link.

End of August we had published our 100th blog post. The current blog post is marking no. 107 in German and no. 108 in English. We are thanking our readers and say CHEERS!

If you like our blog and do find it helpful, please feel free to support the blog: SAJO, IBAN: DE19 7016 9464 0000 5444 50, BIC: GENODEF1M07, Re: sajo blog

Your contribution will provide support for our colleagues who are working behind the scenes of the blog. Sabine and Jörg continue to work on this pro bono.

If you want to award a contract to SAJO, or if you want to have us consult you, please get in touch.

Would you like to have SAJO antivirals and antibacterials?

If you want to support drug development, please feel free to contribute as much as you feel happy to: SAJO, IBAN: DE19 7016 9464 0000 5444 50, BIC: GENODEF1M07, Re: sajo drug development

The amount will be used for SAJO drug development.

Note: The company SAJO up to now has been funded by private means by Sabine and Jörg. More than € 500,000 were put into the development of the SAJO key technology. To take the next step, to develop SAJO drugs – antivirals and antibacterials – we are asking for R&D contracts and support.