COVID-19

[stormie]

I CAN'T READ THIS THREAD IF YOU KEEP TALKING OBSCENITIES!
Oxi was concerned about swearing. The real obscenity is the goddamn motherfucking cunt who took over the Presidency. I cannot abide such language, which is why I avoid even Colbert, and cannot believe the lengths to which you foul-mouth bitches will go. The number of times y'all used the T-word alone is shameful.

Imma say some positive things. The CDC was finally able to jump in and do what they do, despite being quashed by the Administration. The CDC had to address the pandemic with an incompetent prezidential appointment for a director, a slashed budget, fewer staff, and complete opposition by the prez. And yet, they have affected the spread of the disease. The staff are driven, they will work toward public health, treatment, and vaccine solutions to the end.
Fauci is in the public eye and will continue to be believed even if he is fired. His pressure has been critical in generating any reasonable parts of the administrative response. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases will continue the work they are doing on COVID antibodies and clinical trials of potential treatments.
Private individuals and unmandated companies are making medical safety equipment. Physicians are taking individual action to spread accurate information about disease process and prevention. The vast majority of residents are taking these precautions seriously.
Some of us, including the administration, are toddlers running in fear swearing they didn't start the fire.
Most of us are firemen.

[Pencil]

sorry

I just thought that we were talking about all the consequences of C19. I never even mentioned 45.

[stormie]

true; I was using in the British sense, but there is no excuse

[Glazer]

The curve in my county is starting to steepen. We had been at a 25% increase week over week. Now it's jumped to nearly 30% new cases.

[AuntiePam]

The model says that Iowa needs to stay "closed" until June 26. New York can open before us. Weird.

Probably because we're not really closed. The only places closed are schools, parks, bars, restaurants, theaters, salons. Most stores are still open, and the only "restriction" is setting aside the first hour for senior citizens.

[Sputnik]

Originally Posted by AuntiePam

The model says that Iowa needs to stay "closed" until June 26. New York can open before us. Weird.

Probably because we're not really closed. The only places closed are schools, parks, bars, restaurants, theaters, salons. Most stores are still open, and the only "restriction" is setting aside the first hour for senior citizens.

Even in CA where we're on day #37 of lockdown, that's really all that was closed. Stores are still open for food and liquor, and green medicine. It's loosening a little now, parks, beaches will open shortly, but no gathering, loitering or partying. Still can't get a haircut or go to a movie, just stuff like that closed.

[Glazer]

That's the thing. The more you flatten the curve the longer it takes. You're trading time for lives. New York had significant spread before anyone knew about it. So their curve is much steeper. And needed stronger measures to try and dampen the outbreak. If you can implement measures before the virus gets a foothold in your community, the lower your overall outbreak will be. But the longer you will need them for the outbreak to burn out. If you stop your remediation measures too soon. Then the virus will take advantage and spread like there were no measures taken to begin with.

That is until you have the testing capability to do contact tracing of all confirmed cases. And only isolate those with exposure.

[Sputnik]

Now the WHO is saying those who have had the disease can probably get it again. If you think about that, it may mean making a vaccine is going to be a real problem.

I think I'll just keep hiding from the virus.

[Glazer]

I didn't hear anything about probably. Just that they can't confirm immunity and it's too early to assume so. Do you have a link? I'd like to see more viewpoints of this.

[Sputnik]

It might be a poor choice of words on may part, but here's the latest on immunity as a defense against CV-19

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronav...mmune-who-says

[stormie]

In my part of CA, the city is trying to do More to discourage group hanging out rather than less, on account of our high population of young immortals. Masks & distance are supposedly required, but no-one is enforcing. Instead places people still congregate are being identified and taped off, brought in, or otherwise eliminated. Groceries and bodegas stay open, restaurants can stay open for takeout or delivery. Many of those places are voluntarily requiring masks and all have distance and number of patrons limit enforcement.
and yes are open and their business is booming.
My mom lives in one of the places that had an outbreak of public stupid that was organized on fb, so I get to mock almost as much as when her teams are losing. The city easily identified the person who started organizing it and is considering pressing (misdemeanor) charges.

@AuntiePam, a video I will try to find was posted that explains what seems to be weird policies, although it is still all projections. It would be nice if people were given work-from-home options for a while after lockdown is ended.

[Sputnik]

You knew this was coming.

An unusually high number of New Yorkers contacted city health authorities over fears that they had ingested bleach or other household cleaners in the 18 hours that followed President Trump’s bogus claim that injecting such products could cure coronavirus, the Daily News has learned.

The Poison Control Center, a subagency of the city’s Health Department, managed a total of 30 cases of possible exposure to disinfectants between 9 p.m. Thursday and 3 p.m. Friday, a spokesman said

Desperate people will do desperate things. This is sad.

http://www.nydailynews.com/coronavir...a5m-story.html

[stormie]

In re: reinfection, WHO is really, really conservative about the interpretation of available data and information. What they are saying is that the possibility of reinfection or immunity is unknown. They hold that view about a wide variety of COVID19 topics. I am disappointed that NPR covered that in particular when they know the public will take any news and run with it.

It is sad. Those people do not have to be desperate. You know where the blame lies.

[Glazer]

Originally Posted by Sputnik

It might be a poor choice of words on may part, but here's the latest on immunity as a defense against CV-19

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronav...mmune-who-says

That was the same article I had seen. Thanks.

Fun video on the impact of false positives.

[AuntiePam]

So -- people who had it and survived are donating plasma, supposedly with antibodies, and the plasma is being used to treat infected people. So if the antibodies can help someone who is sick, why don't the antibodies prevent someone from catching it again?

Sorry for the clumsy wording of my question.

[Glazer]

They might. Nobody knows yet.

[Jaglavak]

They do for awhile. But not for long because antibody levels slowly taper off over time, and the virus never stops mutating. Current evidence indicates high levels of immunity for a couple months and then decreasing protection over the next several months. Then you could catch it all over again.

[Dragonlady]

What Jag said.

It's the same reason that you need a flu shot every year - mutation.

[Glazer]

And the sample sizes of people that seem to reaquire Covid are still within the margins of error in testing.

[CarnalJ]

Originally Posted by AuntiePam

So -- people who had it and survived are donating plasma, supposedly with antibodies, and the plasma is being used to treat infected people. So if the antibodies can help someone who is sick, why don't the antibodies prevent someone from catching it again?.

Because the antibodies only hang around in the donee a short while, basically like a drug. They don't teach the body how to make the antibodies.

This treatment you're talking about isn't happening in any real sense. They're testing methods. The WHO isn't promising infection=immunity even now. If the plasma therapy was already running, they would be.

Eta: and it has nothing to do with mutations in the virus.

[Dragonlady]

https://www.healthline.com/health-ne...n-and-covid-19

Some people would disagree.

[CarnalJ]

That doesn't disagree with me.

I was really responding to the plasma therapy question. We have no idea at this point how long immunity lasts for this disease in people who recover from it.

[Glazer]

Originally Posted by CarnalJ

Because the antibodies only hang around in the donee a short while, basically like a drug. They don't teach the body how to make the antibodies.

Actually they do teach the body to make antibodies. That's how they work.

This treatment you're talking about isn't happening in any real sense. They're testing methods. The WHO isn't promising infection=immunity even now. If the plasma therapy was already running, they would be.

The plasma therapy is being used to the extent that plasma is available. It is helping people to form their own antibodies to help fight off the virus. You are correct that this is no guarantee of immunity. It's beginning to look like antibodies are only part of the immune response to fight off Covid. How long the antibodies continue to protect against reinfection if at all is still unknown.

Eta: and it has nothing to do with mutations in the virus.

So far the virus isn't showing signs of significant mutation. But it will mutate. If the mutation affects the protein jacket used to enter the cell it will effect how antibodies respond.

[CarnalJ]

Originally Posted by Glazer

Actually they do teach the body to make antibodies. That's how they work..

No, it's not. They are a donation of antibodies that last for a while so the donee gets a short period of immune defense.

Convalescent plasma, also called passive antibody therapy, is a type of passive immunity. It can provide antibodies immediately, but the proteins will last only for a short amount of time, weeks to possibly a few months.

“We’re using the antibody-rich plasma from the convalescent patient … to prevent infection or treat infection in another patient,” says Jeffrey Henderson, an infectious disease physician and scientist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/...nts-treat-sick

Nobody is talking about recovered people's antibodies giving lengthy immunity [eta:to other people]

[stormie]

Originally Posted by AuntiePam

So -- people who had it and survived are donating plasma, supposedly with antibodies, and the plasma is being used to treat infected people. So if the antibodies can help someone who is sick, why don't the antibodies prevent someone from catching it again?

They probably do, based on information from other strains of COVIDs. The thing is, a conclusion without evidence is a guess. Maybe a good guess, an informed guess, but still a guess. How likely should it be that the guess is right before people say it is? How likely to be wrong does it have to be before you don't believe it? Those are the basic questions of statistics, which depends on data. There is no data. Everything we are doing now is on a 'try it and see' basis. The amount of risk of trying something is balanced with the amount of risk of not trying it. The risk of giving someone carefully matched, clean plasma is low, to the best of our knowledge from other infectious diseases, while the risk of a person sick with COVID-19 is high. The scale falls toward trying the plasma infusion.

[Jaglavak]

The virus is mutating on fast forward, like most do.

Also, it is beginning to look like about half the fatalities are due to secondary infections and pre existing conditions. So the medics are starting to screen for a whole bunch of stuff when they can, to get a better read on what to look out for.

[Glazer]

Originally Posted by CarnalJ

No, it's not. They are a donation of antibodies that last for a while so the donee gets a short period of immune defense.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/...nts-treat-sick

Nobody is talking about recovered people's antibodies giving lengthy immunity.

Thanks. I was under the impression that the antibody treatment was to kickstart the recipient's immune response.

[stormie]

“We’re using the antibody-rich plasma from the convalescent patient … to prevent infection or treat infection in another patient,” . . . because we are desperate and will try anything that is unlikely to make the patient sicker. It's important to understand that.

Huh. The Scientific American article is a no-brainer for practitioners. Remember when Oxi's son got antibiotics? It's because wet lungs are bacteria-friendly. (Also fungi-friendly, but can you really take that phrase seriously?) Asymptomatic people don't need tested for bacteria or fungi as they have normal lungs. Anyone with any type of pneumonia does. I don't get why that is worth an article.

I can see why there's an article about the mutation thing, though it's not news. It's saying that so far what little data there is suggests that COVID-19 acts like other COVIDs when it comes to mutations. The good part of that is that, since there is no treatment for COVID-19, it is not mutating to be treatment resistant. It's random mutation. When something at an extreme changes randomly, it is more likely to become less extreme. This is straight-up statistics, based on other viruses - otherwise known as a good guess.

I would like people to straight-up say "We don't know what's going on, but we are doing are best to find out, and to take care of patients. We don't have masks, we don't have information, we don't have time, and we're not giving up."
I'd like articles explaining why each person should assume that they and everyone they interact with has asymptomatic COVID-19, and what the effect of that assumption would be.
And then I would like information, as would we all.

[CarnalJ]

Originally Posted by Glazer

Thanks. I was under the impression that the antibody treatment was to kickstart the recipient's immune response.

Welcome. That fact is one of the reasons Outbreak was so stupid.

They finally catch the immune monkey spreading the disease and within a half hour in the mobile lab, they have an injection to cure Rene Russo

[Glazer]

Preliminary antibody studies in LA County estimate the actual spread in Corona virus is 28 to 55 times the number of confirmed cases.

[Glazer]

Originally Posted by CarnalJ

Welcome. That fact is one of the reasons Outbreak was so stupid.

I was conflating how vaccines work with anybody treatment.

[Sputnik]

Originally Posted by Glazer

Preliminary antibody studies in LA County estimate the actual spread in Corona virus is 28 to 55 times the number of confirmed cases.

On a sad note, the US is approaching 55k deaths. Vietnam was 58k dead (US totals). Hiroshima was estimated 70k dead. This virus is really in bad company.

[CarnalJ]

Originally Posted by Sputnik

On a sad note, the US is approaching 55k deaths. Vietnam was 58k dead (US totals). Hiroshima was estimated 70k dead. This virus is really in bad company.

Please don't do that. Comparing random death counts doesn't lend a frigging iota of extra data to the discussion.

[Glazer]

Especially since Vietnam was the better part of a decade. This has only been three months. (So far)

[SmartAleq]

And we're closing in on beating the record flu deaths set in, I think, 2017-2018 and we aren't even halfway through this year. Over a million cases in the US. Motherfucker.

[Glazer]

[CarnalJ]

On the lighter side, I just gave myself a haircut. I'm actually rather happy with it.

[Glazer]

Have you seen it from the back yet?

[CarnalJ]

Yeah, looks ok. The secret is to not push it. Just take a couple inches off the side/back, little less off the top. Shake it out with a towel and see what you missed. Easy if you don't try to be fancy.

[Sputnik]

Originally Posted by CarnalJ

Yeah, looks ok. The secret is to not push it. Just take a couple inches off the side/back, little less off the top. Shake it out with a towel and see what you missed. Easy if you don't try to be fancy.

Please don't do that. Comparing your haircut doesn't lend a frigging iota of extra data to the discussion.

[CarnalJ]

Wut?

[Glazer]

Originally Posted by CarnalJ

Please don't do that. Comparing random death counts doesn't lend a frigging iota of extra data to the discussion.

Chicken butt that's wut.

[Sputnik]

President Donald Trump has said he "can't imagine why" US hotline calls about disinfectant have risen after he suggested injecting the substance to treat coronavirus

When questions about whether he thought his comments led to the extra calls, President Perfect said;

"I can't imagine why," the president said, moving quickly on. "I can't imagine that."

When asked whether he took responsibility at all for the increase in calls, Mr Trump replied: "No, I don't."

Of course not. The buck never stops on his desk.

[stormie]

Originally Posted by Glazer

Preliminary antibody studies in LA County estimate the actual spread in Corona virus is 28 to 55 times the number of confirmed cases.

Where can I read this?
But again.
Confirmed cases means a positive virus or antibody test result, or unmistakable clinical signs confirmed by a doctor/PA/etc. Since most people haven't been tested and many don't see a doctor, that makes sense.

[Glazer]

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...Xs-c3bbKsmiy8d

I heard about it on a news clip. Can't remember which outlet. But this is the first thing that came up on Google.

[Flying Squid with Goggles]

For a long time I was just taking the figures on COVID deaths and multiplying by 100 to get a rough idea of how many cases, and it was always several times the number of confirmed cases.

The antibody tests will hopefully eliminate the need to do that kind of estimate - I also am somewhat glad the fatality rate is probably much less than 1%. But it's so damn infectious. Just hoping we can start to test enough to identify when asymptomatic or presymptomatic cases start to decrease as well.

[teela brown]

The news folks were warning of meat shortages due to cutting back on overcrowded work conditions and absenteeism due to the virus. Today was shopping day, so I bought a batch of assorted meat - chickens, burger, pork shoulder, and chuck roast. I can't stock up too much because I have a dinky freezer. But at least we're set for awhile.

[SmartAleq]

Now is the time to get cuddly with your local halal and kosher butchers, also Asian stores. They tend to get their meat locally and are less affected by interruptions in the CAFO/slaughterhouse supply chain.

[teela brown]

Right? I love to go to Asian and hispanic markets to buy meat and fish. For the duration, Asian markets are off-limits to me because they're all up there in San Jose, the contagion zone. But there are a couple of hispanic markets here in my hometown and I go there often for pork and for thin sliced beef. The latter is cut for carne asada, but I use it to make roll-ups like rouladen.

[3acres]

Originally Posted by teela brown

The news folks were warning of meat shortages

That guarantees shortages.