Covid-19 #15 : It Ain't Over Until It's Over

[Zorral]

46 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Italian Physicians are warning the World that the virus is not merely a respiratory infection but something much worse that systemically attacks and degrades multiple organs, motor function and neurological function

This has been written about since at least April, and then it went away -- until this month when it could no longer be denied that the young demo gets it too, and can get it very hard -- and even two of us here described their personal experiences which were terrifying and nearly lethal, one for a relative and one for himself.  I wonder why this was dropped from the coverage for so long?

~~~~~~~~~~~

BTW, mask wearing, some more?  Very poor Cuba, as soon as the power structure saw / admitted covid-19 was a real thing (like everyone else, they should have acted eaerlier, in their case about 10 days earlier), EVERYBODY got masks, and masks were mandated, and lockdown was imposed.  Health teams went door-to-door checking on everyone every single day and administering immune system boosters, and seeing that everybody was getting some food.

The result was quite under 100 deaths and under 2500 cases.

Then they locked it all down again, to truly eradicate the virus from the population.

The consequences are that as of now they are very cautiously re-opening the social world.  They are going to have a school year in the fall.

They still refuse entry from anywhere else, though perhaps in the fall, a limited number, who must prove they are free of the virus, be tested, taken under police escort to an island off the coast -- which has splendid beaches, and that's that.

There are a lot of elderly in the population and with severe medical conditions as are found in every elderly population, particularly those who have done a huge amount of very hard physical labor much of their lives, and certainly prior to the revolution didn't get an adequate diet. Small communities in many places never had any cases at all.

Yes, this is an island.  But yes, if the people in charge sincerely determine to do the most for the safety of their people, and DO IT, i.e. have plans and organization and competence, it can be done.

But in the US the corps and DCC prefer to drive drunk and kill our nation's children's future, so corps can kill even more people to keep making money and so witless jerks can drink in a bar without masks and eat burgers. But they will catch it, or someone close to them will, and they still can't go to movies in a theater or hear live music or go to a museum or do frackin' anything except get good and drunk (and those who try it do get infected it is proven -- and so do the performers, as ballet dancers who performed together in a single space for a televised fund raiser).

Yah, a minority of the more favored can take long walks in nature and see no other human beings, but they are definitely the minority.  But they can't hear live music either.

~~~~~~

So far, as that favored unicorns of herd immunity and vaccines is concerned, this piece seems to round it all up -- alas limited clix:

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/07/herd-immunity-coronavirus/614035/

 

 

 

[rotting sea cow]

41 minutes ago, Zorral said:

This has been written about since at least April, and then it went away -- until this month when it could no longer be denied that the young demo gets it too, and can get it very hard -- and even two of us here described their personal experiences which were terrifying and nearly lethal, one for a relative and one for himself.  I wonder why this was dropped from the coverage for so long?

Pretty much. There are some that now argue that the virus shouldn't be named SARS.

 

41 minutes ago, Zorral said:

~~~~~~~~~~~

BTW, mask wearing, some more?  Very poor Cuba, as soon as the power structure saw / admitted covid-19 was a real thing (like everyone else, they should have acted eaerlier, in their case about 10 days earlier), EVERYBODY got masks, and masks were mandated, and lockdown was imposed.  Health teams went door-to-door checking on everyone every single day and administering immune system boosters, and seeing that everybody was getting some food.

The result was quite under 100 deaths and under 2500 cases.

Then they locked it all down again, to truly eradicate the virus from the population.

Just a small correction. According to the articles I've seen they didn't locked down.

They did all the other things you mention. Contact tracing, isolation of suspicious cases, immunity boosters, a cocktail of drugs (including the much maligned chloriquine) applied early to any confirmed case. Etc.

 

41 minutes ago, Zorral said:

The consequences are that as of now they are very cautiously re-opening the social world.  They are going to have a school year in the fall.

They still refuse entry from anywhere else, though perhaps in the fall, a limited number, who must prove they are free of the virus, be tested, taken under police escort to an island off the coast -- which has splendid beaches, and that's that.

There are a lot of elderly in the population and with severe medical conditions as are found in every elderly population, particularly those who have done a huge amount of very hard physical labor much of their lives, and certainly prior to the revolution didn't get an adequate diet. Small communities in many places never had any cases at all.

Yes, this is an island.

It's an island with one the best organized health system in the world.

[The Monkey]

Speaking of masks, from what I gather almost no one in Denmark, Norway and Finland is wearing them? Is that correct? Those countries have done a fine job suppressing the virus, so perhaps mandatory masks isn't as vital as claimed (or at least other measures are more important)? I'm not saying people should avoid masks, just asking questions.

(No one is wearing masks in Sweden either, but seeing as how our death rate is higher than most other countries, it's probably not the best example.)

[Luzifer's right hand]

3 hours ago, The Monkey said:

Speaking of masks, from what I gather almost no one in Denmark, Norway and Finland is wearing them? Is that correct? Those countries have done a fine job suppressing the virus, so perhaps mandatory masks isn't as vital as claimed (or at least other measures are more important)? I'm not saying people should avoid masks, just asking questions.

(No one is wearing masks in Sweden either, but seeing as how our death rate is higher than most other countries, it's probably not the best example.)

Well it least in Finland behavior that would be considered social distancing in many other places is pretty much the norm in my limited experince and personal space bubbles are bigger when it comes to people not considered friends.

[Ran]

All the Nordics have more personal space than some other countries, but yes, Finland is often seen as an extreme. It's absolutely true that mask usage in the Nordic countries is very low, and that they have all succeeded in reducing without them (Sweden included; cases have been falling precipitously with nary a mask to be seen). The problem for the U.S. is that people don't seem to have socially distanced effectively.

[Tywin et al.]

33 minutes ago, Ran said:

All the Nordics have more personal space than some other countries, but yes, Finland is often seen as an extreme. It's absolutely true that mask usage in the Nordic countries is very low, and that they have all succeeded in reducing without them (Sweden included; cases have been falling precipitously with nary a mask to be seen). The problem for the U.S. is that people don't seem to have socially distanced effectively.

Probably because we're the only Western country to have many people see a giant beach party and wish they were there even under the current circumstances.

Freedumb!!!!!!!!!!!

[Zorral]

4 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

Just a small correction. According to the articles I've seen they didn't locked down.

The articles then are incorrect.  I am in communication with Cubans nearly daily, and sometimes more often than once a day.  They were in lockdown.  The exceptions, of course, came for people out looking for food supplies.

We kept our people's fone access topped up so they could communicate with each other when necessary.  Our closest person on the ground there, whom we've known for over 30 years now, her husband is a doctors and he was at the hospital 24/7.  Our daily phone calls were what kept her from going crazy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Happy Bastille Day! to US all who can't even get out of the country and nobody will let us in either.

As Paul Krugman says, Keep drinking away your children's future, Murica!

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/13/opinion/coronavirus-schools-bars.html?

Quote

 

Quote:
[....]But that was the road not taken. Instead, many states not only rushed to reopen, they reopened stupidly. Instead of being treated as a cheap, effective way to fight contagion, face masks became a front in the culture war. Activities that posed an obvious risk of feeding the pandemic went unchecked: Large gatherings were permitted, bars reopened.

And the cost of those parties and open bars extends beyond the thousands of Americans who will be killed or suffer permanent health damage as a result of Covid-19’s resurgence. The botched reopening has also endangered something that, unlike drinking in groups, can’t be suspended without doing long-run damage: in-person education.[....]

And the reason we’re in this position is that states, cheered on by the Trump administration, rushed to allow large parties and reopen bars. In a real sense America drank away its children’s future.[....]

 

And ain't this fun boyz and girls DCC wants the National Guard to go into all the hospitals and gather all the personal information on those being treated and give it to ....

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/07/13/trump-administration-recommend-national-guard-an-option-help-hospitals-report-covid-19-data/

[Kalbear]

Choose wisely

 

 

[Guest]

So is there anyone here who is seriously considering becoming an early adopter of any coronavirus vaccine produced this year? 

I'm extremely skeptical that all these pharmaceutical giants are all managing to thread the needle and all make positive forward progress in development of a vaccine in one-fourth the time that it has taken to develop any other vaccine that's ever been developed. It seems far more likely that they're all cherry-picking data to release in order to goose their stock prices.

The most likely result of mass inoculation of a poorly vetted vaccine is that it makes a lot of people sick and further reinforces anti-vaxxers so that, 10 or so years from now, we will be dealing with all the old pandemic hits like polio and measles.

[Ran]

2 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

So is there anyone here who is seriously considering becoming an early adopter of any coronavirus vaccine produced this year? 

In Sweden, the attitude is largely, "You first!" Can't say I disagree with it. 

2 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

I'm extremely skeptical that all these pharmaceutical giants are all managing to thread the needle and all make positive forward progress in development of a vaccine in one-fourth the time that it has taken to develop any other vaccine that's ever been developed. It seems far more likely that they're all cherry-picking data to release in order to goose their stock prices.

I would not go that far, I don't think it takes any malfeasance from pharma for things to look good in early trials and then go pear-shaped later; Pandemrix, the H1N1 vaccine that ended up making a significant number of people narcoleptic, went through the normal testing process and came out clear, and I don't recall anyone alleging that the company that produced it had somehow failed their due diligence; the result was just rare enough to not be seen reliably in their test group, so they didn't see an issue.

That said, I've realized that I am by nature less cynical than what seems to be the baseline these days, so maybe my opinion is off-base.

 

[Filippa Eilhart]

I'd be happy to be a guinea pig.

[rotting sea cow]

9 hours ago, Zorral said:

The articles then are incorrect.  I am in communication with Cubans nearly daily, and sometimes more often than once a day.  They were in lockdown.  The exceptions, of course, came for people out looking for food supplies.

We kept our people's fone access topped up so they could communicate with each other when necessary.  Our closest person on the ground there, whom we've known for over 30 years now, her husband is a doctors and he was at the hospital 24/7.  Our daily phone calls were what kept her from going crazy.

I stand corrected then. Thanks! Do you know something about the situation in Venezuela? Official stats are still good, although cases are rising rapidly by late. It's hard to find information about the situation there even in the spanish speaking websphere. The only thing I know is that Venezuela ex-pats were flying back in droves as the situation in their host countries deteriorated.

[rotting sea cow]

3 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

So is there anyone here who is seriously considering becoming an early adopter of any coronavirus vaccine produced this year? 

I'm not in a hurry to be honest. As I complained in my last posts, health organizations and authorities (and even scientists) around the world have so messed up the response and giving so many confusing statements (and in some countries straight up lying) that my trust has been greatly reduced.

3 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

I'm extremely skeptical that all these pharmaceutical giants are all managing to thread the needle and all make positive forward progress in development of a vaccine in one-fourth the time that it has taken to develop any other vaccine that's ever been developed. It seems far more likely that they're all cherry-picking data to release in order to goose their stock prices.

Not to mention the political implications of the cold war of vaccines.

3 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

The most likely result of mass inoculation of a poorly vetted vaccine is that it makes a lot of people sick and further reinforces anti-vaxxers so that, 10 or so years from now, we will be dealing with all the old pandemic hits like polio and measles.

To counter that, the only way is to be open regarding information, speak out, explain again and again, be transparent with the data, etc.

I see indications of that as even some news outlets try to do more to reach out their audience regarding what is going on in research.

For example. https://www.dw.com/en/whats-the-science-on-dna-and-rna-vaccines/a-54097063

 

[rotting sea cow]

10 hours ago, Ran said:

All the Nordics have more personal space than some other countries, but yes, Finland is often seen as an extreme. It's absolutely true that mask usage in the Nordic countries is very low, and that they have all succeeded in reducing without them (Sweden included; cases have been falling precipitously with nary a mask to be seen). The problem for the U.S. is that people don't seem to have socially distanced effectively.

We once discussed a bit the situation in schools in Sweden, when I naively thought that COVID-19 should have burned through them like wildfire. It didn't happen as a comparison with Finland shows.

Quote

Covid-19 in schoolchildren – A comparison between Finland and Sweden

https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/publicerat-material/publikationsarkiv/c/covid-19-in-schoolchildren/

This report is a comparison between Finland and Sweden, two in many ways similar countries who applied different measures regarding schools during the covid-19 pandemic. There is no difference in the overall incidence of the laboratory confirmed covid-19 cases in the age group 1-19 years in the two countries and the number of laboratory confirmed cases does not fluctuate with school closure or change in testing policy in Finland. In Sweden, the number of laboratory confirmed cases is affected by change in testing policy. Severe covid-19 disease as measured in ICU admittance is very rare in both countries in this age group and no deaths were reported. Outbreak investigations in Finland has not shown children to be contributing much in terms of transmission and in Sweden a report comparing risk of covid-19 in different professions, showed no increased risk for teachers.

In conclusion, closure or not of schools has had little if any impact on the number of laboratory confirmed cases in school aged children in Finland and Sweden. The negative effects of closing schools must be weighed against the positive effects, if any, it might have on the mitigation of the covid-19 pandemic.

 

[rotting sea cow]

OK. Last post for today. Nature paper on

SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell immunity in cases of COVID-19 and SARS, and uninfected controls

Takeaways:

• Patients who recovered from SARS1 still retain T-cell mediated immunity 17 years after
• Infection with SARS-COV-2 induces creation of virus specific T-cells
• People who contracted SARS1 display T-cell cross-reactivity with SARS2. i.e they should be immune to COVID19
• There is detection of SARS2 specific T-cells in persons without clinical history of COVID19 disease. This is due to infection by other human coronaviruses. I.e. it's possible that having a cold caused by cornovirus makes you less susceptible or even immune to the disease.  This has been speculated for months already, but this seems to be the strongest evidence so far.
• This has implications for any prospective vaccine.

[The Anti-Targ]

On 7/14/2020 at 11:12 PM, Gorn said:

The problem with WHO is that a scientific organization shouldn't make emphatic, unconditional statements such as "don't wear masks, they're useless" without firm science to back them up. That kind of statement tends to embed itself in public's consciousness, and it's really difficult to backtrack or reverse them.

They never did, they said wear a mask if you are sick, wear a mask if you are caring for someone who is sick. That is the opposite of calling masks useless.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Ran said:

In Sweden, the attitude is largely, "You first!" Can't say I disagree with it. 

I would not go that far, I don't think it takes any malfeasance from pharma for things to look good in early trials and then go pear-shaped later; Pandemrix, the H1N1 vaccine that ended up making a significant number of people narcoleptic, went through the normal testing process and came out clear, and I don't recall anyone alleging that the company that produced it had somehow failed their due diligence; the result was just rare enough to not be seen reliably in their test group, so they didn't see an issue.

That said, I've realized that I am by nature less cynical than what seems to be the baseline these days, so maybe my opinion is off-base.

 

Hey, at least you're not disagreeing with maybe avoiding the vaccine for a while. Your progression into cynicism is coming along nicely!

In all seriousness, I agree that under normal circumstances, my everyday cynicism would suffice. 

But between the vast amounts of cash being thrown at the problem, the slashing of nearly all regulations around developing vaccines (in the U.S., not sure if that's happening elsewhere too), and the economic meltdown that we still haven't fully felt, I think those confluence of factors deserve the best Sunday-goin'-to-meetin' cynicism I can muster.

[Gorn]

27 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

They never did, they said wear a mask if you are sick, wear a mask if you are caring for someone who is sick. That is the opposite of calling masks useless.

Here's the link to their official recommendation from April: https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/331693/WHO-2019-nCov-IPC_Masks-2020.3-eng.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Quote

The use of medical masks in the community may create a false sense of security, with neglect of other essential measures, such as hand hygiene practices and physical distancing, and may lead to touching the face under the masks and under the eyes, result in unnecessary costs, and take  masks away from those in health care who need them most, especially when masks are in short supply.

Quote

As described above, the wide use of masks by healthy people in the community setting is not supported by current evidence and carries uncertainties and critical risks

This wasn't updated until June 6th, and the possibility of pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic spread was completely ignored. Fox News and their kind were quoting WHO to push back against mask-wearing recommendations in late May. Here's some more direct quotes from high-ranking WHO officials:

Quote

Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, an infectious disease epidemiologist with the WHO, also said at Monday's briefing that it is important "we prioritize the use of masks for those who need it most," which would be frontline health care workers.

"In the community, we do not recommend the use of wearing masks unless you yourself are sick and as a measure to prevent onward spread from you if you are ill," Van Kerkhove said.

Quote

“We don’t generally recommend the wearing of masks in public by otherwise well individuals because it has not up to now been associated with any particular benefit,” said Ryan.

 

[Fez]

8 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

So is there anyone here who is seriously considering becoming an early adopter of any coronavirus vaccine produced this year? 

I probably wouldn't be able to get one early on anyway, since I'm not in a high risk group. But if I did have access, it would depend. I unfortunately cannot trust US regulatory agencies at all right now, so I don't care what they say about a vaccine. But if enough other countries say it's safe, particularly ones like New Zealand or Taiwan that aren't as desperate, I'd believe them.

Yes it's an unprecedented speed for a vaccine, but there's are unprecedented times. There's never been this much money and attention around the world all thrown against a single research topic before. If there was every a time for a medical miracle to be feasible, it would be now.

[Ormond]

24 minutes ago, Fez said:

I probably wouldn't be able to get one early on anyway, since I'm not in a high risk group. But if I did have access, it would depend. I unfortunately cannot trust US regulatory agencies at all right now, so I don't care what they say about a vaccine. But if enough other countries say it's safe, particularly ones like New Zealand or Taiwan that aren't as desperate, I'd believe them.

Yes it's an unprecedented speed for a vaccine, but there's are unprecedented times. There's never been this much money and attention around the world all thrown against a single research topic before. If there was every a time for a medical miracle to be feasible, it would be now.

I would volunteer if it was offered and preliminary testing had shown it to be safe.

However, I doubt if they would really want me to be in a test group. Surely the first people they would want to test this on would be people who would be at "high risk" NOT in terms of their age or medical condition, but in terms of their being essential workers who would be likely to be exposed to the virus. I think of myself as being at "moderately high" risk medically because I am 69, male, obese, and have Type A blood. But precisely because of that I am being very cautious. I don't leave my apartment without a mask on and only take it off when I am driving in my car (alone) or doing my daily walk in the Omaha zoo parking lot, where so far it has been incredibly easy to stay way further apart than six feet from anyone. I live alone and have no family in the area, and since the middle of April have had only one instance where I socialized with my two best friends when they were not wearing masks. I am going to keep a dental appointment tomorrow but I trust my dentist to be as safe as possible. So I just don't think I will be exposed enough to the possibility of catching it for my data to be useful. Health care workers, grocery store workers, and other essential people who have to expose themselves to multiple strangers most days of the week should be the people they recruit for a trial as to the effectiveness of any vaccine.