OT: Corona virus

[Canoerebel]

We don't know how this is going to turn out yet, but I'm more persuaded by the informed opinions of Chickenboy than most of what I'm seeing through the media. It's hard for laymen to pick the news apart, finding the occasional nugget of truth amidst 50 stories of "the World is ending!" That's all that people are seeing now; it's all they are responding to. You and I know better - we know how to pick apart - but most folks just hear/read the sensational and accept it as gospel. Hysteria feeds itself.

It's always better to react using good information than bad. That's not happening here and it will get worse. Hysteria isn't a good thing. It'll add to woes.

And there are interesting parallels between this and other crises. This too has been politicized. It's crazy.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

It's always better to react using good information than bad.

warspite1

That is true, but as any student of military history (for example) knows only too well; knowing what is the good information and what is bad can be half the battle for those responsible for making the key decisions.

And the problems particularly come where two 'experts' in their field have diametrically opposite or even substantially differing views on what the data is telling them, or what should be done next, or vested interests cloud judgement etc.

Reacting to good information? Yes but life ain't always that simple [:(]

[Canoerebel]

But we can improve the odds by maximizing the reliable and the informed, and minimizing the biased and unhinged. It'll still be challenging, and we may still get it wrong, but I'd rather make informed decisions than not. Just like in this crazy game we love. Information is everything.

[witpqs]

Here's one perspective from yesterday, contains links to official sources.

https://fabiusmaximus.com/2020/02/29/us-fights-covid-19/

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

But we can improve the odds by maximizing the reliable and the informed, and minimizing the biased and unhinged. It'll still be challenging, and we may still get it wrong, but I'd rather make informed decisions than not. Just like in this crazy game we love. Information is everything.

warspite1

But I would hope the unhinged would be easy to spot - the biased less so, depending on who is presenting, what they are presenting and how obvious any vested interest may be (not to mention that the fact its biased may not necessarily make it wrong!).

One example. In the British press there was anger that the British response to the problem a few weeks back, with regard China, was woeful; "look at Italy, they've banned direct flights to China - while we've done nothing". So whose approach was right? Which country in Europe has the worst infection/death position? This is no smug dig at Italy (they may have just been unlucky and the UK may be Italy in waiting right now). But what it does illuminate, is how difficult it is to know which of one or more options is best - and I am not talking about the unhinged and the obviously biased. Information was available to all. Different routes taken. If we knew what was good information there would be much less of a problem [;)]

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

Here's one perspective from yesterday, contains links to official sources.

No link, dude. [:-]

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy
Designing RT-PCR primer sets that are specific to COVID-19 and only that virus (so as to not yield related viral false positives) is hard work and fraught with difficulty. Considering the fact that they've had the virus for what-one month?-I think they're doing the best they can in a difficult environment and time.

I would believe that, except that every other developed country got it done at capacity before us. In addition, it turns out that declaring an emergency here actually prevented everyone but CDC on moving forward with their own tests, which was somehow considered a good idea in a health emergency. [8|]

As a "Blood Sucking Creature"* once said, a crisis is too good too waste, or something like that. It is a way for the administrators to get more money, hence more power.

That said, there is nothing wrong with forgoing handshaking, especially if that person did not wash their hands in a rest room. In fact, saying it loud enough so that everyone can hear without repeating it, "No, I will not shake you hand. You do not wash them after using the rest room!"

There is also nothing wrong with having a week or two weeks worth of readily available food to eat without having to even warm it up. If you heat it up, people who are hungry might be able to detect it and then decide that they need it more than you do. Also, some water stored plus plain bleach to decontaminate water if needed.

*You get many together and they are Polytics! [:@]

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

My reading of the tea leaves, so to speak, is that testing will not stop worldwide spread of COVID-19, it will help with identifying those who catch it and are most vulnerable, thereby can benefit from most aggressive treatment.

Most of what I've heard about vaccines is a year is about the best case, usually a couple of years. Maybe some of the recent advances plus the priority of this situation will allow them to do it more quickly in this case. But, it's also my understanding that some viruses have simply never had a successful vaccine created against them.

I think we can do better than one year. During the Ebola outbreak, worldwide Level 4 labs began researching ways to deal with it. Winnipeg Federal Lab came up with one of the first, partially effective vaccines in about two months. The testing period was waived as the need was dire, so the site of the outbreak became the testing ground and quickly returned results indicating the vaccine greatly reduced mortality among those who subsequently contracted the disease - i.e., they had higher resistance.
To be fair, the lab had been working on Ebola and Marburg viruses for years so they had some idea of how to produce a vaccine targeting that sort of virus. The COVID-19 is "new" in it's detail, but still based on the Coronavirus family which we have seen before. We are not starting from absolute 0 in our research.

And maybe the virus itself will become diluted, interacting with other viruses to make it much less potent. My guess is that the 1918-1919 flu virus did something like that.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

ORIGINAL: witpqs

My reading of the tea leaves, so to speak, is that testing will not stop worldwide spread of COVID-19, it will help with identifying those who catch it and are most vulnerable, thereby can benefit from most aggressive treatment.

Most of what I've heard about vaccines is a year is about the best case, usually a couple of years. Maybe some of the recent advances plus the priority of this situation will allow them to do it more quickly in this case. But, it's also my understanding that some viruses have simply never had a successful vaccine created against them.

I think we can do better than one year. During the Ebola outbreak, worldwide Level 4 labs began researching ways to deal with it. Winnipeg Federal Lab came up with one of the first, partially effective vaccines in about two months. The testing period was waived as the need was dire, so the site of the outbreak became the testing ground and quickly returned results indicating the vaccine greatly reduced mortality among those who subsequently contracted the disease - i.e., they had higher resistance.
To be fair, the lab had been working on Ebola and Marburg viruses for years so they had some idea of how to produce a vaccine targeting that sort of virus. The COVID-19 is "new" in it's detail, but still based on the Coronavirus family which we have seen before. We are not starting from absolute 0 in our research.

And maybe the virus itself will become diluted, interacting with other viruses to make it much less potent. My guess is that the 1918-1919 flu virus did something like that.

warspite1

I thought the second attack was stronger than the first? Or did I remember wrong?

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

ORIGINAL: witpqs

My reading of the tea leaves, so to speak, is that testing will not stop worldwide spread of COVID-19, it will help with identifying those who catch it and are most vulnerable, thereby can benefit from most aggressive treatment.

Most of what I've heard about vaccines is a year is about the best case, usually a couple of years. Maybe some of the recent advances plus the priority of this situation will allow them to do it more quickly in this case. But, it's also my understanding that some viruses have simply never had a successful vaccine created against them.

I think we can do better than one year. During the Ebola outbreak, worldwide Level 4 labs began researching ways to deal with it. Winnipeg Federal Lab came up with one of the first, partially effective vaccines in about two months. The testing period was waived as the need was dire, so the site of the outbreak became the testing ground and quickly returned results indicating the vaccine greatly reduced mortality among those who subsequently contracted the disease - i.e., they had higher resistance.
To be fair, the lab had been working on Ebola and Marburg viruses for years so they had some idea of how to produce a vaccine targeting that sort of virus. The COVID-19 is "new" in it's detail, but still based on the Coronavirus family which we have seen before. We are not starting from absolute 0 in our research.

And maybe the virus itself will become diluted, interacting with other viruses to make it much less potent. My guess is that the 1918-1919 flu virus did something like that.

warspite1

I thought the second attack was stronger than the first? Or did I remember wrong?

It was - I watched a TV documentary on that flu last night. But after late 1919 it suddenly waned and disappeared. They did not suggest the dilution theory, but it was all I could think of for that result.
The interesting theory in the documentary (supported by lots of correlational evidence around times and places) was that the flu started in rural Kansas in 1916 from wild sources. A local doctor noted the high mortality rate for this flu and wrote letters to the appropriate authorities but they were ignored. Because people didn't travel much at that time it remained local until 1917 when the US Army had to raise an army to send to France and built a Camp nearby for training recruits. Contact with the local populace resulted in the Camp also being affected - as many as a third of the recruits were sick and many died.

Alarms were sent to Washington about this but the first drafts of recruits were already on troop ships headed for France. Troop ships are great environments for spreading disease so there were a lot of sick troops discharged onto French soil and hurried to the front. Woodrow Wilson had to decide whether to continue sending troops but he had sketchy and contradictory information, so he continued to send them.

Meanwhile a new agency had been set up to coordinate War propaganda in the US and it decided the news about the virus in the US would hurt recruiting so it suppressed it, going so far as to threaten one newspaper editor with treason charges for printing a story about the outbreak. Since Spain was not involved in the war it was one of the few countries that printed factual information about the flu. This is when the rumor started that the virus was Spanish in origin. It's not hard to see how secrecy and misinformation helped spread the problem.

[RangerJoe]

All that they have to do is get an immune response to just part of the virus. In fact, there is work on a universal flu vaccine. I don't know if the pigs and birds will be willing line up to get shot, however.

[spence]

I thought the second attack was stronger than the first? Or did I remember wrong?

You are not mistaken. I thought so too so I checked quickly. The above is from Wiki.

The second wave of the 1918 pandemic was much deadlier than the first. The first wave had resembled typical flu epidemics; those most at risk were the sick and elderly, while younger, healthier people recovered easily. By August, when the second wave began in France, Sierra Leone, and the United States,[88] the virus had mutated to a much deadlier form. October 1918 was the deadliest month of the whole pandemic.[89]

As just a piece of DNA/RNA in a protein shell whose main purpose seems to be replication the main danger from a virus is that it will mutate randomly into a more deadly form during any one of its billions/trillions of replications. All the wars in history contributed a drop in the bucket of human deaths when compared to those caused by diseases.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy




I think we can do better than one year. During the Ebola outbreak, worldwide Level 4 labs began researching ways to deal with it. Winnipeg Federal Lab came up with one of the first, partially effective vaccines in about two months. The testing period was waived as the need was dire, so the site of the outbreak became the testing ground and quickly returned results indicating the vaccine greatly reduced mortality among those who subsequently contracted the disease - i.e., they had higher resistance.
To be fair, the lab had been working on Ebola and Marburg viruses for years so they had some idea of how to produce a vaccine targeting that sort of virus. The COVID-19 is "new" in it's detail, but still based on the Coronavirus family which we have seen before. We are not starting from absolute 0 in our research.

And maybe the virus itself will become diluted, interacting with other viruses to make it much less potent. My guess is that the 1918-1919 flu virus did something like that.

warspite1

I thought the second attack was stronger than the first? Or did I remember wrong?

It was - I watched a TV documentary on that flu last night. But after late 1919 it suddenly waned and disappeared. They did not suggest the dilution theory, but it was all I could think of for that result.
The interesting theory in the documentary (supported by lots of correlational evidence around times and places) was that the flu started in rural Kansas in 1916 from wild sources. A local doctor noted the high mortality rate for this flu and wrote letters to the appropriate authorities but they were ignored. Because people didn't travel much at that time it remained local until 1917 when the US Army had to raise an army to send to France and built a Camp nearby for training recruits. Contact with the local populace resulted in the Camp also being affected - as many as a third of the recruits were sick and many died.

Alarms were sent to Washington about this but the first drafts of recruits were already on troop ships headed for France. Troop ships are great environments for spreading disease so there were a lot of sick troops discharged onto French soil and hurried to the front. Woodrow Wilson had to decide whether to continue sending troops but he had sketchy and contradictory information, so he continued to send them.

Meanwhile a new agency had been set up to coordinate War propaganda in the US and it decided the news about the virus in the US would hurt recruiting so it suppressed it, going so far as to threaten one newspaper editor with treason charges for printing a story about the outbreak. Since Spain was not involved in the war it was one of the few countries that printed factual information about the flu. This is when the rumor started that the virus was Spanish in origin. It's not hard to see how secrecy and misinformation helped spread the problem.

warspite1

Sounds like the program I saw back in 2018. The flu that killed 50 million or something like that - and narrated by the excellent Christopher Eccleston. Don't know how much was true but it was bloody interesting to watch [:)]

[JohnDillworth]

As expected this is beginning to spread. I learned today that the United States has 95,000 critical care beds in the entire country. A large percentage of those are already in use. I believe this is something we can increase with modest effort. There are many recently shuttered or downsized hospitals that can expand. Medical professionals can be brought out of retirement and other repurposed (my podiatrist is actually part of the county office of emergency management, in a disaster he stops being podiatrist and becomes and emergency room doctor). I think one of the hard limited is ventilators. There are not enough of those for what might come and it is hard to increase the number quickly. I heard on the radio that a hospital in Connecticut is putting some recently decommissioned ones back in service.
As for the financial markets? Hard to get a handle on this. The Dow Jones index is just a number but the markets are definitely spooked. Interest rates are already pretty low so the Fed can only cut so much. Tax cuts and fed cuts are tools that could be used to goose the stock market but most of he tools we have are really not good at dealing with major supply chain disruptions. The French have banned kissing, the Iranians have cancelled Friday prayers and the Japanese have stopped going to school. Getting interesting

[RangerJoe]

The French have banned kissing, . . . and the Japanese have stopped going to school. Getting interesting

The world must be ending if those two things are happening! [X(]

[JohnDillworth]

The world must be ending if those two things are happening!

I do believe Germans are still drinking beer so there is still hope

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

The world must be ending if those two things are happening!

I do believe Germans are still drinking beer so there is still hope

Alcohol is an antiseptic!

German bier is usually excellent, especially Bavarian bier.

[Scott_USN]

Beer staves off Corona! Or err wait...

[Canoerebel]

Here's a map showing tallies in the World as a whole, as of 3/1/20 (see upper right) and USA (left).

I've been following this map since a Forumite posted a link to it two or three days back.

Two days ago, the USA had 40-something cases and no deaths. Yesterday it was 60-something and 1 death. Today 71 and 1 death.

That is a linear rather than geometric progression, if I'm using the terms correctly. If that's true, that's encouraging! But we don't know yet if the testing is accurate or thorough or if many new cases are missed. If so, we could see geometric increases, as time goes on.

Let's hope it remains linear.

[Scott_USN]

Italy is surprising. I was suspecting it to get lose in more countries with less medical care such as parts of Africa.