Covid-19 #14 - Are We Done Yet?

[rotting sea cow]

1 hour ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Why do I keep seeing articles from Italian or UK (for example) infectious disease experts saying that it seems like the virus is becoming less deadly based on what seems to be nothing more than anecdotal evidence?

Here is the latest example I've seen. 

I've seen at least 4 or 5 articles like this in the past week. I honestly haven't paid enough attention until now to say if it is the same experts talking to different news outlets or not.

But isn't the most likely explanation that the virus took the low-hanging fruit when we were unprepared, and that rising caseloads and rising hospitalizations in the U.S. belie this hypothesis? And even if that's not the most likely explanation, shouldn't we be operating as if it is, until we know more? This just seems to be incredibly irresponsible behavior on the part of these doctors.

Maybe it's just serum Vitamin D levels. At the end of the winter they are the lowest. This hypothesis has been put forward as one of the main drivers of COVID-19 severity.

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, rotting sea cow said:

Maybe it's just serum Vitamin D levels. At the end of the winter they are the lowest. This hypothesis has been put forward as one of the main drivers of COVID-19 severity.

This isn't bourne out by the evidence though. Hospitalizations would be trending the opposite of case numbers in the U.S. if that were the case.

[rotting sea cow]

22 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

This isn't bourne out by the evidence though. Hospitalizations would be trending the opposite of case numbers in the U.S. if that were the case.

If infection numbers are increasing you should get a respective raise in hospitalizations. Is it at the expected rate? Possibly difficult to say. But deaths are are hard to hide, so in one or two weeks we should know.

But you might be right. There might be a fraction of the population who are highly susceptible to the virus. This might explain why we still don't see any upward trend in Europe nor in heavily affected states in US. It's like the virus needs to run through some vulnerable populations.

Of course this speculation may be BS and there are other reasons, but we still need to explain these observations.

 

[Guest]

Hospitalizations here are up nearly 26% since last Thursday; after Trump's rally, I shudder to think what it's going to be like 5-6 weeks from now.

[Luzifer's right hand]

21 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

If infection numbers are increasing you should get a respective raise in hospitalizations. Is it at the expected rate? Possibly difficult to say. But deaths are are hard to hide, so in one or two weeks we should know.

But you might be right. There might be a fraction of the population who are highly susceptible to the virus. This might explain why we still don't see any upward trend in Europe nor in heavily affected states in US. It's like the virus needs to run through some vulnerable populations.

Of course this speculation may be BS and there are other reasons, but we still need to explain these observations.

 

At least here in Austria we seem to be taking the Trump approach. No testing of at risk groups is really good for statistics. When asked about testing of workers in meat factories they said they might start testing in July (because of the 2000+ cases they found among the workers of a plant in Germany). Because of such things I would take europaean numbers with a grain of salt. 

[Isabel]

4 minutes ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

At least here in Austria we seem to be taking the Trump approach. No testing of at risk groups is really good for statistics. When asked about testing of workers in meat factories they said they might start testing in July (because of the 2000+ cases they found among the workers of a plant in Germany). Because of such things I would take europaean numbers with a grain of salt. 

In the netherlands everyone can get a test since 1 june if you have some symptoms.

[Luzifer's right hand]

2 minutes ago, Isabel said:

In the netherlands everyone can get a test since 1 june if you have some symptoms.

In theory it is the same here afaik. It took 4 weeks for a friend of mine who is a caretaker for the elderly to get a test. He was back at work by that point. Goverment line and reality has next to nothing to do with each other as far as I can tell. You can get tested here quickly if you pay for it yourself though. 

[Isabel]

10 hours ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

In theory it is the same here afaik. It took 4 weeks for a friend of mine who is a caretaker for the elderly to get a test. He was back at work by that point. Goverment line and reality has next to nothing to do with each other as far as I can tell. You can get tested here quickly if you pay for it yourself though. 

Here i could a test the same day or next day. Although it took 55 hour before getting the testresults.

[BigFatCoward]

1 hour ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Hospitalizations here are up nearly 26% since last Thursday; after Trump's rally, I shudder to think what it's going to be like 5-6 weeks from now.

There was a lot of space to be fair. 

[rotting sea cow]

55 minutes ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

At least here in Austria we seem to be taking the Trump approach. No testing of at risk groups is really good for statistics. When asked about testing of workers in meat factories they said they might start testing in July (because of the 2000+ cases they found among the workers of a plant in Germany). Because of such things I would take europaean numbers with a grain of salt. 

But your government claims more than 5000 tests/day according to ORF, only less than 1% come back positive. After the Postcalypse, there haven't seem to be large superspreading events.

It is unclear of course if the virus is spreading silently with mild symptoms among the populace to only emerge in full force again very soon.

[Luzifer's right hand]

3 minutes ago, rotting sea cow said:

But your government claims more than 5000 tests/day according to ORF, only less than 1% come back positive. After the Postcalypse, there haven't seem to be large superspreading events.

It is unclear of course if the virus is spreading silently with mild symptoms among the populace to only emerge in full force again very soon.

All people I know personally that got tested were only tested long after they recovered or went back to work after a 14 day quarantine phase. Testing is done but in a very weird way. The Postcalypse only went puplic because the local goverment made sure tests were made and they were attacked by the federal goverment for it.

[Fragile Bird]

Man oh man, those US numbers - California with 5,528, Texas with 5,112, Arizona with 2,196, Florida with 2,926, No wonder the EU won't let Americans travel to Europe. Canadians want the border to stay closed too. Sucks for the tourist industry, but dying sucks worse. Or even getting sick and suffering permanent health effects.

I heard a story about the rise in RV sales and rentals, Americans are going to travel across the country. Yikes.

[williamjm]

2 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Man oh man, those US numbers - California with 5,528, Texas with 5,112, Arizona with 2,196, Florida with 2,926, No wonder the EU won't let Americans travel to Europe.

It looks like there are 4 US states that individually have more new cases today than the entire EU does.

[Zorral]

Who is spreading the virus:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/22/opinions/20-and-30-year-olds-spreading-covid-19-bromage/index.html

 

[Which Tyler]

7 hours ago, williamjm said:

It looks like there are 4 US states that individually have more new cases today than the entire EU does.

 

[Ormond]

Here is a report from a local Omaha TV station on the death of a 71 year old from Covid-19 complications. I am posting it because of the report that the man was very healthy for 71 before contracting the virus, and that he died fully two and a half months after being hospitalized after he actually tested negative for the virus in his system, because of the severe damage to multiple organ systems in his body. I had not heard of that as a possibility before.

https://www.ketv.com/article/ming-wang-of-mings-restaurant-passes-away-after-fight-with-covid-19/32939518

Note also that this man caught the virus while on a cruise ship, and his children attribute the fact that their mother never contracted it to the fact that their father immediately wore a mask 24 hours a day after developing symptoms. Another data point on masks working, too.

[JoannaL]

Mhn, well, a lot was said about the superior competence in handling the disease in my country, but in the last few days you could get some doubts (if you did not have them before). About ten days ago the problems in the meat factory in the county of Gütersloh emerged. Until now there are about 1800 infection confirmed (out of the 7000 employees, which were all tested). It took two days (7 days ago) to start some measures (school closures, quarantine for said workers) which is all good, BUT it took until yesterday for this county (and the neigbouring county of Warendorf) to go into lock down. this  is because somehow the politicans thought that these (mostly foreign ) workers never used a bus or go to the supermarket? Now (also ten days to late) they start testing the population and look: there are major queues before the testing stations (who could have known and prepared?) But the worst are the politicians like the governor of Northrhine-Westphalia which actually said : The worst thing now would be to discriminate against the people of Gütersloh (This is also his reason to not quarantine the counties). so this weekend the summer holidays will start in the state and if no one lets him see reason, the good people of Gütersloh (who you should not dicriminate against) will be all over Europe.

[Fez]

Has this study (not peer reviewed) been talked about yet?

 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.21.20132449v1

Quote

Background. In the background of the current COVID-19 pandemic, serological tests are being used to assess past infection and immunity against SARS-CoV-2. This knowledge is paramount to determine the transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 through the post pandemic period. Several individuals belonging to households with an index COVID-19 patient, reported symptoms of COVID-19 but discrepant serology results. Methods. Here we investigated the humoral and cellular immune responses against SARS-CoV-2 in seven families, including nine index patients and eight contacts, who had evidence of serological discordances within the households. Ten unexposed healthy donors were enrolled as controls. Results. All index patients recovered from a mild COVID-19. They all developed anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies and a significant T cell response detectable up to 69 days after symptom onset. Six of the eight contacts reported COVID-19 symptoms within 1 to 7 days after the index patients but all were SARS-CoV-2 seronegative. Six out of eight contacts developed a SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell response against structural and/or accessory proteins that lasts up to 80 days post symptom onset suggesting a past SARS-CoV-2 infection. Conclusion. Exposure to SARS-CoV-2 can induce virus-specific T cell responses without seroconversion. T cell responses may be more sensitive indicators of SARS-Co-V-2 exposure than antibodies. Our results indicate that epidemiological data relying only on the detection of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies may lead to a substantial underestimation of prior exposure to the virus

If borne out, it would suggest that the virus may be much more prevalent than previously thought and we may actually be getting close to herd immunity levels in places like New York City.

[Kalbear]

Shockingly, Trump wasn't kidding about reducing testing:

 

[Altherion]

Revenge is a dish best served cold:

Quote

New York, New Jersey and Connecticut issued a travel advisory Wednesday that requires people arriving from states with high coronavirus rates to quarantine for 14 days.

...

As of Wednesday, the advisory applies to Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Washington, Utah and Texas. It begins tonight at midnight.

I think Cuomo really wanted to do this for Florida, but he had to make the criteria objective so a bunch of other states got caught as well.