OT: Corona virus

[Chickenboy]

@CaptBeefheart-many thanks for your ongoing observations. I really appreciate the perspective-we are not privy to that over here as everyone is too wrapped up in their 'own thing' still. So it's a very helpful insight to see how Japan and Korea have managed their way through this quite well using these approaches.

[MakeeLearn]

ORIGINAL: Cap Mandrake

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

Interesting, easy to read

The full coronavirus genome and the proteins it encodes are shown below.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... otein.html

Fascinating article...although the headline is technically incorrect. Some viruses have full protein envelopes. The Corona viruses have a lipid bilayer envelope with some proteins "floating" in the lipid sea. It's basically a beach ball of fat with the water-loving surfaces pointing inside and out. Probably a hearkening back to the first organisms on the planet except that the first organisms had to have the additional cellular machinery that the virus lacks. You can't have a virus unless you first have a more complete host. The God-damned thing is so ruthlessly efficient it is hard not to evoke the concept of evil.

The virus has 30K nucleotides. Mammalian genomes have 3 billion base pairs. That is 3x10**4 vs 3x10**9. We have a 100,000 x "advantage" in nuclear material IN EVERY CELL and the damned thing has provoked a global recession.

Mmmmm... Primordial Soup!

[MakeeLearn]

ORIGINAL: fcooke

Mine are mostly short medium types - and clearly are not hunting dogs.

I see all the pillows, where are the dogs? [;)]

[MakeeLearn]

Whose coronavirus strategy worked best? Scientists hunt most effective policies
Researchers sift through data to compare nations’ vastly different containment measures.
27 April 2020


https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01248-1


"The trackers lay bare the vast range of policies deployed in different nations. The Vienna team has captured details of around 170 interventions in 52 countries, ranging from small measures such as floor stickers that mark a two-metre separation to major, restrictive policies such as school closures. They are also following some countries’ recent efforts to restart daily life and measures that go with them, including making the wearing of face masks mandatory. "

[MakeeLearn]

Sweden publishes new statistics on coronavirus death toll
Updated:27 April 2020


https://www.thelocal.se/20200427/sweden ... death-toll



"These figures show that up until April 23rd, around 1,700 deaths (1,684) occurred in Sweden where Covid-19 was the cause of death. Around 90 percent of the deceased were aged over 70, just one percent were younger than 50, and the majority had one or more known risk factors."

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

Coronavirus “Why are so many healthcare workers dying?”
27 April 2020

https://williambowles.info/2020/04/27/c ... ers-dying/



"Media reports paint a picture of healthcare workers being hit very hard by the pandemic, but the statistics suggest otherwise"

"The deaths of doctors, nurses and other medical workers has been a major talking point since the pandemic began.

It started in Italy, where a website was set up listing the deaths of doctors who “died on the frontlines”.

Despite being billed as “frontline” doctors, fifteen of the names are dentists. There are also surgeons, psychiatrists, paediatricians and other specialists who obviously would not have been “on the frontlines” treating Covid19 patients."

"When Swiss Propaganda Research noted that many of them were retired, and that average age was over sixty-nine, the dates of birth were removed."

https://off-guardian.org/2020/04/27/cor ... ers-dying/

---

From the off-guardian report on NHS workers:

Finally, let’s put these numbers in some context:

The NHS is the biggest single employer in the UK. NHS England, NHS Scotland and NHS Wales employ roughly 1.5 million people (Wikipedia estimates over 1.7 million). That’s over 4% of the 38 million working-age adults, or 2.5% of the entire population of the UK.

As such, you would expect roughly 2.5% of the Covid19 victims to be NHS employees (assuming proportionate distribution).

However, the 106 NHS employees represent only 0.58% of the UK’s 18,200 total Covid19 casualties as of April 22nd.

In summary: In direct contradiction of the media coverage, healthcare workers are NOT being disproportionately affected by Covid19. They are actually substantially under-represented.

---

This is interesting.The fact-checker needs some fact checking though. It omits ages when talking about the NHS who have died. Many have been very young.

This is a study of NHS workers who have died. It omitted those retired or those not working currently for other reasons.

https://www.hsj.co.uk/exclusive-deaths- ... 71.article

As shown in the chart below, there are unusually high ranges of mortality for middle and younger age groups. Working aged people are obviously more often under 70, so you'd likely see more in this range, but I think this is the surprising part not fleshed out by the off-guardian report. You'd really also have to look at ages of people working in the NHS.

UK mortality figures show 12.7% of deaths are in the under 65 age group. So although it's a low percentage of the total UK figures, it's actually a higher percentage, about 4%, of the total deaths for under 65 age groups.

I'd be very curious to see US stats on this and those form Italy and elsewhere. Does virus load at time of infection play a part? Is it stress and low immune system function that puts more younger people at risk in healthcare? What is it?

As a teacher I could be going back in at some point to a high virus load environment without PPE (if infections break out in the teen population and are largely asymptomatic) and I for one would like to know more.

[fcooke]

I did fess up they were small - but there is power in numbers! Though they are cruddy swimmers. For some reason every dog that has been part of the family has been 'swimming adverse'. I guess I can't blame them when most have had no snout to speak of......

[fcooke]

I had a copper roof put on the barn a few years ago - should I go sunbathe on it????? [8D]

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: fcooke

I had a copper roof put on the barn a few years ago - should I go sunbathe on it????? [8D]

Just rub it really hard and hope some comes off onto your hands. [:D]

Or cut a few finger pads out of it and tape them on for trips to the ATM and grocery store.

[Macclan5]

ORIGINAL: Alfred

ORIGINAL: fcooke

whoever came up with the term 'excess deaths' should not ever go into a marketing or communications job. crikey.

Would

"Pearly Gate tickets"

appeal more?

Alfred

LMAO - very amusing.

I have a self developed expression (?? perhaps or found / heard in the past)

"I feel sad that I will not see my family in heaven in the afterlife - but its good to know I will have all my close friends with me none the less [;)] "

[Wuffer]

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn

Coronavirus “Why are so many healthcare workers dying?”
27 April 2020

https://williambowles.info/2020/04/27/c ... ers-dying/



"Media reports paint a picture of healthcare workers being hit very hard by the pandemic, but the statistics suggest otherwise"

"The deaths of doctors, nurses and other medical workers has been a major talking point since the pandemic began.

It started in Italy, where a website was set up listing the deaths of doctors who “died on the frontlines”.

Despite being billed as “frontline” doctors, fifteen of the names are dentists. There are also surgeons, psychiatrists, paediatricians and other specialists who obviously would not have been “on the frontlines” treating Covid19 patients."

"When Swiss Propaganda Research noted that many of them were retired, and that average age was over sixty-nine, the dates of birth were removed."

https://off-guardian.org/2020/04/27/cor ... ers-dying/

---

From the off-guardian report on NHS workers:

Finally, let’s put these numbers in some context:

The NHS is the biggest single employer in the UK. NHS England, NHS Scotland and NHS Wales employ roughly 1.5 million people (Wikipedia estimates over 1.7 million). That’s over 4% of the 38 million working-age adults, or 2.5% of the entire population of the UK.

As such, you would expect roughly 2.5% of the Covid19 victims to be NHS employees (assuming proportionate distribution).

However, the 106 NHS employees represent only 0.58% of the UK’s 18,200 total Covid19 casualties as of April 22nd.

In summary: In direct contradiction of the media coverage, healthcare workers are NOT being disproportionately affected by Covid19. They are actually substantially under-represented.

---

This is interesting.The fact-checker needs some fact checking though. It omits ages when talking about the NHS who have died. Many have been very young.

This is a study of NHS workers who have died. It omitted those retired or those not working currently for other reasons.

https://www.hsj.co.uk/exclusive-deaths- ... 71.article

As shown in the chart below, there are unusually high ranges of mortality for middle and younger age groups. Working aged people are obviously more often under 70, so you'd likely see more in this range, but I think this is the surprising part not fleshed out by the off-guardian report. You'd really also have to look at ages of people working in the NHS.

UK mortality figures show 12.7% of deaths are in the under 65 age group. So although it's a low percentage of the total UK figures, it's actually a higher percentage, about 4%, of the total deaths for under 65 age groups.

I'd be very curious to see US stats on this and those form Italy and elsewhere. Does virus load at time of infection play a part? Is it stress and low immune system function that puts more younger people at risk in healthcare? What is it?

As a teacher I could be going back in at some point to a high virus load environment without PPE (if infections break out in the teen population and are largely asymptomatic) and I for one would like to know more.

Couldn't find it right now, but there was a paper on exactly this topic - I _think_ it was on medrix
Basically stress, not enough sleep, probably horrible working conditions (dehydratipn) and of course full loads of germs right in the face together with improper PPE.
And suicides.

[Wuffer]

Second(!) Russian doctor fells from roof...

https://nypost.com/2020/04/27/russian-d ... -to-death/

"It was unclear whether the “patient zero” had any contact with cosmonauts who have since traveled to the International Space Station."
Three carriers, maybe four with the Chinese one (several weeks ago they reported to sail home because of a 'fire' on board) and now maybe the orbit.

Look a the offical numbers of Russia and keep in mind they are strict locked down. At least in theory.
As if the rich oligarch's kids partying in Italy would care about a thing like quarantine when flying back home... oh Putin, your system might be in deep trouble.

Didn't want to know what happened right now there in the hospitals. What little ppe they had might used now. Many nurses refused to work regarding to other articles.

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: Macclan5

ORIGINAL: Alfred

ORIGINAL: fcooke

whoever came up with the term 'excess deaths' should not ever go into a marketing or communications job. crikey.

Would

"Pearly Gate tickets"

appeal more?

Alfred

LMAO - very amusing.

I have a self developed expression (?? perhaps or found / heard in the past)

"I feel sad that I will not see my family in heaven in the afterlife - but its good to know I will have all my close friends with me none the less [;)] "

I really like that expression!

[MakeeLearn]

Dog is apparently first in U.S. to test positive for new coronavirus

2 hrs ago

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/dog-i ... li=BBnb7Kz


"The pet dog of a family taking part in a study at Duke University is apparently the first in the U.S. to test positive for the virus that causes COVID-19.

Dr. Chris Woods, the lead investigator of the Molecular and Epidemiological Study of Suspected Infection (MESSI), confirmed in a statement to CBS News that, "To our knowledge, this is the first instance in which the virus has been detected in a dog. Little additional information is known at this time as we work to learn more about the exposure.""

[MakeeLearn]

ORIGINAL: fcooke

I did fess up they were small - but there is power in numbers! Though they are cruddy swimmers. For some reason every dog that has been part of the family has been 'swimming adverse'. I guess I can't blame them when most have had no snout to speak of......

They look fluffy. like pillows.

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Great article and a noble, worthy idea to pursue.

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Here is another Stat article, a good one for all I think.

Scientists who express different views on Covid-19 should be heard, not demonized

https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/27/hea ... tack-them/

I'd like to read the quoted WSJ article but the paywall prevents.

This note sums up nicely how the scientific community could feel toward a range of viewpoints and conclusions. I'd expand and say that'd help a lot in other areas of communication throughout our societies.

We have followed the dialogue about his article from fellow academics on social media, and been concerned with personal attacks and general disparaging comments. While neither of us shares all of Ioannidis’ views on Covid-19, we both believe his voice — and those of other legitimate scientists — is important to consider, even when we ultimately disagree with some of his specific analyses or predictions.

Looked up Ioniddis to see if he'd come up with any new studies. His most recent I can locate seems useful and shows research about risks for under 65s (working age people, thus related to opening up).

People <65 years old and not having any underlying predisposing conditions accounted for only 0.3%, 0.7%, and 1.8% of all COVID-19 deaths in Netherlands, Italy, and New York City. CONCLUSIONS: People <65 years old have very small risks of COVID-19 death even in the hotbeds of the pandemic and deaths for people <65 years without underlying predisposing conditions are remarkably uncommon. Strategies focusing specifically on protecting high-risk elderly individuals should be considered in managing the pandemic.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 20054361v1

[Chickenboy]

For those of you interested in a real dive into the nitty-gritty weeds of this thing, I found this blog to be very interesting:

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/a ... -prospects

Warning: Very technical.

[MakeeLearn]

Latest Computer Model Predicts Between 0 And 12.6 Billion New COVID-19 Deaths By Summer
April 27th, 2020

https://babylonbee.com/news/latest-cdc- ... -by-summer

"U.S.—After several embarrassing and widely divergent revisions to the coronavirus projections of infection, hospitalization, and death rate used by government officials around the world to justify shutting down the global economy, experts at John Hopkins have now deployed a state-of-the-art super-scientific computer model and have now determined that between 0 and 12.6 billion people will contract the disease and be completely dead by summer."

"“It is absolutely vital that no one shake hands ever again. Though after June 1 it won’t matter as much,” he added."

[MakeeLearn]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

For those of you interested in a real dive into the nitty-gritty weeds of this thing, I found this blog to be very interesting:

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/a ... -prospects

Warning: Very technical.

CoVid19 nsp10: "Hold my beer..."

[Canoerebel]

The idea of science not being a "democracy" - of respecting sincerely held minority views - is a noble one seldom accomplished. We don't want to get into climate change here, as that's off-topic and fairly incendiary, but climate-change "skeptics" are not respected. The majority feel that the science is settled and that the matter is too critical to entertain dissenting views. So the skeptics are marginalized, denied tenure, picked on, scorned, etc. by their comrades. There are other fields with similar patterns too. We would do well to learn to tolerate and accommodate but it's hard to avoid going down the "tyranny of the majority" pathway.