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Covid Your Mouth When You Sneeze (Corona Virus/Covid-19 # 2)


Mlle. Zabzie

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32 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Italy-

But if they have caught most of the cases and the CFR really is 5%+ then that means there's something very concerning about the disease in Italy. Whether it's some demographic element that makes the Italian population more likely to get seriously ill, or the health system unable to cope with the number of cases needing intense treatment

Couple of things.  One of the big reasons that the death toll in Italy is higher is because Italy has a very old population, significantly older than the US or Europe as a whole.  Secondly, the fatality rate for Corona goes way up when hospitals are overwhelmed, which is what happened in Wuhan and is why death rates there were so much higher than the rest of China.  If that is happening in Italy then things are gonna be bad because they lack the resources that China employed to build hospitals and enforce statewide quarantine.

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5 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

That said, believe it or not, there will come a time, in the not too distant future, when all headlines are not corona-related.

But the novelcorona related economic crash for millions of individuals will be with us forever -- or as long as forever is in the days of climate catastrophe.  Plus, it's likely to come back for a while in waves every year, like the plague, the sweating sickness and the so-called Spanish Influenza.  Since we have no immunity in our bodies to this pathogen.

In the meantime the rethugs think is a perfect time to reduce funding even more for SS and Medicaid and Medicare as an epidemic economic relief measure.  Payroll tax -- get rid of it!  It will stimulate the economy!  Except, of course, people aren't working and they are not going out.  These utter economic assholes just don't get it -- or probably that's the point.

~~~~~

As for Italy, it's impossible even here in NYC for Italians not to touch, kiss, hug all the time.  They just don't believe in this no touching thing.  And while I know otherwise, and won't let them kiss or hug me, I still love Italians for that attitude.

 

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8 minutes ago, Zorral said:

But the novelcorona related economic crash for millions of individuals will be with us forever -- or as long as forever is in the days of climate catastrophe.  Plus, it's likely to come back for a while in waves every year, like the plague, the sweating sickness and the so-called Spanish Influenza.  Since we have no immunity in our bodies to this pathogen.

In the meantime the rethugs think is a perfect time to reduce funding even more for SS and Medicaid and Medicare as an epidemic economic relief measure.  Payroll tax -- get rid of it!  It will stimulate the economy!  Except, of course, people aren't working and they are not going out.  These utter economic assholes just don't get it -- or probably that's the point.

~~~~~

As for Italy, it's impossible even here in NYC for Italians not to touch, kiss, hug all the time.  They just don't believe in this no touching thing.  And while I know otherwise, and won't let them kiss or hug me, I still love Italians for that attitude.

 

A recession was coming one way or another.  Covid-19 simply lit the match and poured accelerant on it.  I don't mean to make light of the fact that people will be economically hurting over the next 2-3 years - quite the contrary.  But to simply say that Covid-19 is the cause here is to ignore the systemic issues that have been with us for about 18 months (or more!) and were irresponsibly masked by unnecessary stimulus measures from our bankrupt leadership.  Also, while I agree that it is likely that there will be a second wave this fall/winter, again, I have some hope that a vaccination will be ready and available within 2 years.  It's also not known whether and to what extent prior exposure grants immunity and how fast the virus is mutating.  I've read lots of different things on the subject, but the most responsible things I have read begin with "this is speculation based on limited available data" and end with "we just don't know yet."  I do agree that the "plan" put forth by the White House is so much garbage.  What sounds like might be coming out of the House sounds better.  I guess we'll have to see.

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3 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

  But to simply say that Covid-19 is the cause here is to ignore the systemic issues that have been with us for about 18 months (or more!) and were irresponsibly masked by unnecessary stimulus measures from our bankrupt leadership. 

:agree:

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12 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

 I don't mean to make light of the fact that people will be economically hurting over the next 2-3 years - quite the contrary.  But to simply say that Covid-19 is the cause here is to ignore the systemic issues that have been with us for about 18 months (or more!) and were irresponsibly masked by unnecessary stimulus measures from our bankrupt leadership. 

I think the biggest issue here isn't so much about things like house debt levels or whether the stock market is over priced. It really is about the government, to include the FED, not telling the public what it intends to do when the next recession hits. The authorities really need to set expectations. But, it won't happen most likely.

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55 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Also, while I agree that it is likely that there will be a second wave this fall/winter, again, I have some hope that a vaccination will be ready and available within 2 years.  It's also not known whether and to what extent prior exposure grants immunity and how fast the virus is mutating.  I've read lots of different things on the subject, but the most responsible things I have read begin with "this is speculation based on limited available data" and end with "we just don't know yet."  I do agree that the "plan" put forth by the White House is so much garbage.  What sounds like might be coming out of the House sounds better.  I guess we'll have to see.

Pretty much this. Both vaccine development and post infection immunity depend on what in the virus is decently immunogenic, and how critical that antigen is to virus - if it's a core gene which doesn't / can't mutate much we have a decent shot of getting on top of it.

Worth noting even with the flu, a virus which has very well characterized surface antigen reassortment which it seems to have evolved specifically to evade host immune response (as well as being rather poorly immunogenic) there's a degree of cross protective immunity between strains. So there's a good chance that the first COVID-19 season will be by far the worse.

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"Running its course" in the US?
That means 2 mio dead, basically. Unless we're dealing with an anti-social psycho, no one should advocate letting that shit run its course. All efforts should go to wipe out globally and fully eradicate it. Heck, we managed to do it with smallpox.

If Italy attempts national quarantine, it's obviously because they know how massive the casualties would be if the virus is left to its own devices. They're clearly trying to contain it for good before it can run its course. Hopefully, they'll succeed.

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1 hour ago, OldGimletEye said:

I think the biggest issue here isn't so much about things like house debt levels or whether the stock market is over priced. It really is about the government, to include the FED, not telling the public what it intends to do when the next recession hits. The authorities really need to set expectations. But, it won't happen most likely.

Well, and partially this is because all the things they usually did they did when the economy was doing really well.  So, there's that.

2 minutes ago, Clueless Northman said:

"Running its course" in the US?
That means 2 mio dead, basically. Unless we're dealing with an anti-social psycho, no one should advocate letting that shit run its course. All efforts should go to wipe out globally and fully eradicate it. Heck, we managed to do it with smallpox.

If Italy attempts national quarantine, it's obviously because they know how massive the casualties would be if the virus is left to its own devices. They're clearly trying to contain it for good before it can run its course. Hopefully, they'll succeed.

I don't think anyone is ADVOCATING this.  It is more that Italy is probably very close to or beyond a tipping point.  I think the US, given how large the country is, how mobile the country is, and the lack of resources and general social structures for enforcement like some of the Asian countries, we are likely to also cross a tipping point.  Again, "patient zero" in New Rochelle NY did not travel abroad so presumably picked up the virus either in NYC or in his community.  So, think that through for a second.  That means there was enough community spread in the area that he picked it up.  He just happened to be a super-spreader, but it's not like it's not already out there and circulating.  DeBlasio should cancel St. Patrick's day.  We could consider cutting off Manhattan entirely, though do you really want that?  Cutting off other places/enforcing quarantine in the greater metro area isn't really feasible for logistical and resource reasons.  We don't have enough tests - it would be great if we had mobile testing centers generally available.  We don't.  So people don't even have the limited comfort of the testing information that is available elsewhere.  Now, imagine trying to enforce something like this in, e.g, Houston or Atlanta.....

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27 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Well, and partially this is because all the things they usually did they did when the economy was doing really well.  So, there's that.

Well I didn't have a problem with the fiscal expansion part of it. Particularly because we've had a shortage of safe assets problem for quite awhile. That's the reason we're seeing the 10 Year Treasury go below 1%. We needed to get interest rates up a bit. I've been worried for quite awhile, not getting interest rates up would sooner or later bite us in the ass. And it would have been fine to let inflation run a bit over 2% for some time.

My real issue with the fiscal expansion was the means by which it was carried out ie the Corporate Tax cut.

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Side note: I find it kinda interesting I'm getting A LOT of work related covid-19 sales email / spam from all my regular lab reagent suppliers. I could order any number of recombinant covid proteins / predesigned oligos & probes / expression vectors / ELISA kits etc. I haven't seen this kind of response to any infectious disease in the time I've been in research, definitely far larger than the ebola response was a few years ago.

Could be some level of smart marketing and cashing in. But the number of research papers on this thing has also exploded very rapidly. There are seemingly a huge number of people working on this problem, which gives me reassurance.

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My university is canceling study abroad programs, no events >100 people, and encouraging social distancing. Classes not canceled (well classes are done for the quarter, so it's basically exams over the next week and a half, then spring break) and no mandatory work from home. My advisor is asking if I'd prefer to Skype for our weekly meeting tomorrow, so I think some level of fear is setting in around here. Governor just announced some new cases today, but we're still only at I think 18 for the Chicago area and none near my neighborhood. I expect that's massively underreported, but even so, not panic-inducing.

Personally my routine hasn't changed much, but then again I don't tend to go out a ton anyway. I would probably re-think going to the movies or a show, but I've gone to the store basically every day and still planning to go into my office (which I share with one other person) to work. My boyfriend just left to travel back to Australia, and I am a little concerned for him because he'll be going through O'Hare, LAX, and Sydney airports with an immune system suppressed from stress and lack of sleep. But it's still only a minor concern.

My real concerns are not personal but societal. Even if I and those I know are relatively unscathed, people are already dying, many more people will be in a lot of pain and more deaths, and the economy taking a hit will cause many more adverse effects. I do hope the US government can get some sort of better response mustered to this ASAP.

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A little over 24 hours ago the most up to date number was 722 cases. Now there are at least 1,000 in the US.

Be prepared for a staggering increase in the next week.

With regard to the idea that there are versions of coronavirus out there:

I saw a post on Facebook from Italy, which I shared on my page, for those of you who are friends of mine. According to the information in the post, there are actually 7 kinds of Corona virus. Four of them cause symptoms like those of the common cold. The three dangerous ones are, first, the one that causes SARs, secondly, the one that causes MERs, and thirdly, Covid-19. It has 79% genetic affinity with Sars-CoV and 50% with Mers-CoV. This is the virus that causes acute pneumonia, respiratory failure, septic shock and multiple organ failure.

Recovery takes 2 to 6 weeks. There are no vaccines or anti-viral drugs available, only the symptoms can be treated. There are now almost 700 deaths in Italy. To me it sounds like some carrier of the serious version of the virus visited Italy (or several people) and that's the reason for the high death rate. The person who posted the information reported that 35% of the hospital patients in critical condition, on ventilators, are under the age of 60. That should give you pause. The problem in Italy is that there are so many people needing ventilators that the doctors have to triage the cases, favoring younger people over older people, and having DNR orders on the patients (do not resuscitate).

The idea of being on a ventilator for weeks and weeks, hoping to recover, is brutally awful. The idea of not getting a ventilator because there aren't any and being unable to breath and finally dying of septic shock and organ failure is just brutal beyond words.

So if your friends over the age of 60 tell you they are concerned and are planning on staying at home for a few weeks, please don't tell them they are exagerating the situation. Don't tell them how many people die in car accidents or die of the flu. According to one article I found, the odds of being killed in a car accident are about 1 in 565 or so. If I catch Covid-19 my chance of dying is 5%, 1 in 20. Believe you me, if the odds of my dying while driving were 1 in 20 every time I got in the car, I would sell my car. I know the analogy isn't exact because I would need to catch the nasty version of the virus , but why the hell would I risk it? We don't seem to be in as bad shape as the US seems to be, but that could swiftly change within days.

It also seems to me it is this version of the coronavirus that struck that nursing home in Washington state.

*eta: maybe the post from the guy was bullshit. I don't see the origin of the chart in the post, but nothing it says sounds incorrect. The genetic connection to SARs and MERs is probably the biggest question mark for me, not the fact that the victims are on ventilators, which has been reported elsewhere.

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10 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

I just heard Dublin has cancelled St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. A million people show up. That’s a big blow to the economy. Too much kissing and hugging and sharing beer.

A large beer festival in Liverpool this week has banned sharing of glasses. Would love to know how they plan on enforcing that.

Also seeing a lot of misuse/false confidence in the use of gloves from the non-scientific community. I am spending most of my evenings chatting to bar managers, beer event organisers about this stuff. It's impossible to escape.

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9 hours ago, Zorral said:

Again, reiteration, repeat: the washing of hands, limiting public gatherings, and staying home as much as possible isn't as much about protecting yourself, particularly if you're not in the most vulnerable groups to severe illness, as it is to

1) PROTECT those who are within the most vulnerable groups -- and NO! BABIES, SMALL CHILDREN, YOUNG CHILDREN are NOT in those groups -- another big difference from flu;

2) TO SLOW DOWN THE ADVANCE OF THE INFECTION THROUGHOUT THE POPULACE, in order to not overwhelm whatever health resources your community has.  Do not forget other health and medical crises haven't stopped because of this novelvirus.

It's vital that one have the correct information, such as it is available now.  Again, it isn't babies and children who are at risk.  It's people who are already sick with something (and no, not all of them by any means are elderly), and they can catch it easily from someone who is carrying the virus, even if non-symptomatic.
 

That is by no means a universally accepted fact among health officials. Our own chief medical officer went on record, in the media, twice to say that people who are asymptomatic / presymptomatic do not spread the virus so it's one of the significant differences it has with 'flu, other sources (like the CDC website 4 or 5 days ago, which is the last time I checked) say the transmission from these people is possible, but it's not the main means of spread. And then there are sources who say it's a significant aspect of the epidemiology of the virus. Who do you trust when apparently credible sources are contradicting each other?

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4 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Recovery takes 2 to 6 weeks. There are no vaccines or anti-viral drugs available, only the symptoms can be treated. There are now almost 700 deaths in Italy. To me it sounds like some carrier of the serious version of the virus visited Italy (or several people) and that's the reason for the high death rate.

I heard a version that in the fashion industry in Italy work a large fraction of chinese, a good fraction of them illegally. So that might be the source.

There might be other factors too. Given the number of cases popping up worldwide with a relation to Italy, the true number of cases there is possibly much larger and the reported ones just a fraction of them. One of the problems of this virus is it can have an awful long incubation time, which means we are now seeing what actually happened two weeks ago.

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The person who posted the information reported that 35% of the hospital patients in critical condition, on ventilators, are under the age of 60. That should give you pause. The problem in Italy is that there are so many people needing ventilators that the doctors have to triage the cases, favoring younger people over older people, and having DNR orders on the patients (do not resuscitate).

The idea of being on a ventilator for weeks and weeks, hoping to recover, is brutally awful. The idea of not getting a ventilator because there aren't any and being unable to breath and finally dying of septic shock and organ failure is just brutal beyond words.

Yes. This is the real problem. I posted that some pages back too. All the measures being taken in Europe are just to flatten the curve and to not overwhelm the health services. There is an awful large fraction of people that require intensive care. If you think about 10 thousands+ cases in Italy should be nothing compared to the Flu, but it is enough to collapse the health services.

China had to build 14 hospitals in matter of days to deal the tsunami. No other country has that capacity and  they got 80k cases confirmed, whereas with the flu they had certainly had more than 80 millions. These are the scales we are talking about.

Also, apparently being at the ventilator for so long, trigger some fungal infections which are killing patients.

 

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So if your friends over the age of 60 tell you they are concerned and are planning on staying at home for a few weeks, please don't tell them they are exagerating the situation. Don't tell them how many people die in car accidents or die of the flu. According to one article I found, the odds of being killed in a car accident are about 1 in 565 or so. If I catch Covid-19 my chance of dying is 5%, 1 in 20. Believe you me, if the odds of my dying while driving were 1 in 20 every time I got in the car, I would sell my car. I know the analogy isn't exact because I would need to catch the nasty version of the virus , but why the hell would I risk it? We don't seem to be in as bad shape as the US seems to be, but that could swiftly change within days.

Again, the problem is not necessarily dying from it. The problem is you may need intensive care at the same time with other thousands.

I think all of us and our governments too didn't take the reports coming from China seriously enough, blaming "dictatorshipauthoritarian/comunist China, blahblahblah", thinking they are too far away and coming from a city we never heard about. Now it had reached us, we understand.  We see there is no other way than to restrict ourselves to the bare minimum.

 

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Some of the border crossings with Italy are being closed and the traffic is being redirected to bigger border corssings. At those, the crossing into SLO is only going to be allowed to foreigners if they have a medical certificate stating that they do not have the virus. Still, there are plenty of SLO nationals who drive across the border for work every day, a lot of Italian children come to SLO every day to kindergarten/school ... Italy is very close. 36 cases here for now.

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