Coronavirus: How dangerous a threat?

[Unchained]

Again,and again the word conservative or liberal used in a thread that mulls over the effects of a virus.is there a left or right way to combat a pandemic of course not. Yaco's response to my post on an Australian antidote is undoubtedly and unfortunately 1000% correct.
there is no sound argument for infecting others,especially if it is done intentionally. Unforgivable at any level.
As a person who has been on two wheels before my 4th birthday,I have been flocking w birds of similar feathers since. Arizona,a Covid cauldron is also where many of my views on two wheels were nurtured. Arizona,which all are aware is pretty hot and sunny most of the time in more than half the state. The laws about motorcycle safety are unique because of the climates,both from government and nature. Basically in Arizona you can ride a motorcycle( scooter,moped for the young) without a helmet,and w flip flops being adequate footwear..
there was always,and it remains today a few tired mantras.. "Straight pipes save lives" ..and the rebel bad guy chant.. "Let those ride decide"
The pipe slogan is a stupid idea that having no muffler and your bike,often a Harley producing 1 billion decibel levels that make it so nobody can hear anything,including sirens for emergency vehicles.
But the other is about helmet use, the group believing the slogan,think that the only person that could possibly be harmed or killed or way worse is the rider..the person deciding to wear or not to wear a helmet.
There are head injury support groups worldwide,w sadness in spades as loved ones are damaged to different degrees,some of the more serious requiring 24 hour a day professionals to help them live. So the only conclusion you can draw if you know about the situation is this..you should have to prove financial responsibility..above @10 million dollars in order to operate a motorcycle wo a helmet. If you fall off and become a vegetable..your insurance,no matter how good will be exhausted and you will on some level become a ward of the state. Nobody has enough money to pay for a life of evolving expensive medical equipment and care for 40-60 years..
With Covid..if a person is effected in their 30's and can't function until death..no matter the duration,until 60-70 years old..
Who is going to pay for that?
So the overall message to a person not wearing a mask is complicated for sure..but if you infect that one in 500000 unlucky person, your actions may not be immediately apparent, but in the end we will all pay..Japan and Korea both had stories a guy or gal that made the rounds in bars and nightclubs after the first ebb came in the virus spread..obvious party professionals,they single handedly infected dozens..in the US one evening out for margaritas or a tasty beer leaves an unworkable ratio of infected folks..
The math could get ugly fast..go out for a @5 dollar brew..or .99¢ Big Gulp maskless and leave behind a half million dollar medical wake..
So we can keep the debate on mask use alive and often at an inferno burn rate..but the only real debate should be how are we going to pay for this, who and how will ok actions be paid for in the future..

Support Groups | LIHIA

Support Groups Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Support Groups To someone who has experienced a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), as well as their loved ones, no words are more comforting than "Hope and Healing." That's what TBI Support Groups bring to attendees.

headinjuryassoc.org

 

[Sciatic]

Again,and again the word conservative or liberal used in a thread that mulls over the effects of a virus.is there a left or right way to combat a pandemic of course not. Yaco's response to my post on an Australian antidote is undoubtedly and unfortunately 1000% correct.
there is no sound argument for infecting others,especially if it is done intentionally. Unforgivable at any level.
As a person who has been on two wheels before my 4th birthday,I have been flocking w birds of similar feathers since. Arizona,a Covid cauldron is also where many of my views on two wheels were nurtured. Arizona,which all are aware is pretty hot and sunny most of the time in more than half the state. The laws about motorcycle safety are unique because of the climates,both from government and nature. Basically in Arizona you can ride a motorcycle( scooter,moped for the young) without a helmet,and w flip flops being adequate footwear..
there was always,and it remains today a few tired mantras.. "Straight pipes save lives" ..and the rebel bad guy chant.. "Let those ride decide"
The pipe slogan is a stupid idea that having no muffler and your bike,often a Harley producing 1 billion decibel levels that make it so nobody can hear anything,including sirens for emergency vehicles.
But the other is about helmet use, the group believing the slogan,think that the only person that could possibly be harmed or killed or way worse is the rider..the person deciding to wear or not to wear a helmet.
There are head injury support groups worldwide,w sadness in spades as loved ones are damaged to different degrees,some of the more serious requiring 24 hour a day professionals to help them live. So the only conclusion you can draw if you know about the situation is this..you should have to prove financial responsibility..above @10 million dollars in order to operate a motorcycle wo a helmet. If you fall off and become a vegetable..your insurance,no matter how good will be exhausted and you will on some level become a ward of the state. Nobody has enough money to pay for a life of evolving expensive medical equipment and care for 40-60 years..
With Covid..if a person is effected in their 30's and can't function until death..no matter the duration,until 60-70 years old..
Who is going to pay for that?
So the overall message to a person not wearing a mask is complicated for sure..but if you infect that one in 500000 unlucky person, your actions may not be immediately apparent, but in the end we will all pay..Japan and Korea both had stories a guy or gal that made the rounds in bars and nightclubs after the first ebb came in the virus spread..obvious party professionals,they single handedly infected dozens..in the US one evening out for margaritas or a tasty beer leaves an unworkable ratio of infected folks..
The math could get ugly fast..go out for a @5 dollar brew..or .99¢ Big Gulp maskless and leave behind a half million dollar medical wake..
So we can keep the debate on mask use alive and often at an inferno burn rate..but the only real debate should be how are we going to pay for this, who and how will ok actions be paid for in the future..

Support Groups | LIHIA

Support Groups Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Support Groups To someone who has experienced a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), as well as their loved ones, no words are more comforting than "Hope and Healing." That's what TBI Support Groups bring to attendees.

headinjuryassoc.org

Unchained, this is an excellent explanation about how the effects from illness or accident are often spread much more widely that the individual gets sick/crashed. I couldn’t agree more. My former wife, an RN, worked for two years in the head trauma unit of our region’s primary trauma hospital. Often, 90 % of the beds were men in their 20s and 30s with severe brain injuries from motorcycle accidents. She was witness to (and shared with me almost every day) the broad impact beyond the individuals—on their families, on hospital health care personnel, on the hospital’s finite resources, and then on society needing to care for them afterwards, I am ambivalent about helmet laws (I’d rather people take personal responsibility) but get quite angry to hear “it’s my life I’m risking, why should you care” or “it would only affect me, not anyone else,” which are incredibly naive and thoughtless statements.

 

[Unchained]

Sciatic,I can only imagine what your wife has observed not only in the patients themselves,but in the periphery with grieving families and friends of the injured.
Covid-19 w it's brief history is unfolding in ugly ways that even a couple of months ago were unknown. Brain and other major organ functions dramatically damaged,and currently it's unknown if that is permanent. Respiratory distress may also be forever.
in the US the payment process is just beginning and the cost of those asked to pay for treatment will be staggering..people who do not have money or insurance,which in the US is millions of people will receive emergency life saving care and the cost will be averaged into the system as part of overhead expenses. The billions spent so far are a tiny fraction of the real cost. In the fall when hospitals anticipate seasonal disease that affects the population as we spend more time indoors, having 2 or 3 serious national health issues will demand serious and expensive modifications to the hospital models in the US.
In America we have professionals and software that predicts available hospital beds w small margins for overflow. Beds are designed to be full w a paying patient, and empty bed is lost revenue in our system. Having extra beds is something that will have to be rethought if something to quell the pandemic doesn't become a reality..
In my area patients have been transported to available beds in San Diego and Lo s Angeles but in many places the distance and costs make that impossible.
Our President announced yesterday that he still does not think masks are a major component to help reduce the spread of the virus. Many quotes from top U.S. Health officials are not aging well. In March many discouraged mask use,w the major factor at the time,lack of supply. The officials asked the civilian population not to purchase or hoard masks and other protective gear because it would negatively impact front line workers,EMT's,doctors and nurses..they didn't and still don't have supplies. The thinking from health officials at the time was to instill calm and the supply chain would stabilize..for the most part that was also incorrect.
As of today,testing supplies are in short supply nationwide.
Currently the advice of disease experts and the U.S. Surgeon general given back in March and April is being recalled out of context in July to reinforce that mask use is subjective to ineffective..
Most experts worldwide have seen make use as an inexpensive and effective curb to virus spread.
It is unclear at this date why American officials do not want to use these proven techniques.

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QALCysaqwXU

 

[Cookster15]

I get that masks work. But in Australia, until July, we had great success flattening the curve without relying on masks which were worn primarily by the elderly and Asian communities. The current "second wave" is not related to wearing of masks although perhaps that time is drawing nearer due to the situation in the Australian state of Victoria. Nobody can be complacent with COVID-19. The proven techniques that work are social isolation and closing borders. Masks are a secondary technique.

 

[djpbaltimore]

The article in NYT really puts Birx in a poor light. It seems like she became the scientist everybody was looking at because she was telling them what they wanted to hear. Basically, saying that the threat was passing. That message did not age well.

The Times also has analysis from S Korea case tracking that kids over 10 are pretty good spreaders.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1284569640723767299

View: https://mobile.twitter.com/apoorva_nyc/status/1284569640723767299

 

[jmdirt]

This article is not that groundbreaking, what is amazing, is that it is on Fox News! If Fox gets behind mask use, the self absorbed, anti-science, low IQ crowd will only have the voices in their heads to listen to (LI, SH, TC, RL are the voices in some masengill's heads though).

https://www.foxnews.com/health/wearing-mask-cuts-own-risk-novel-coronavirus-65-percent-experts-say

 

[jmdirt]

The article in NYT really puts Birx in a poor light. It seems like she became the scientist everybody was looking at because she was telling them what they wanted to hear. Basically, saying that the threat was passing. That message did not age well.

The Times also has analysis from S Korea case tracking that kids over 10 are pretty good spreaders.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1284569640723767299

View: https://mobile.twitter.com/apoorva_nyc/status/1284569640723767299

This tweet is absolutely wrong based on the lectures that I've received on here.

 

[Koronin]

Here's this saying the virus hasn't mutated in any meaningful way. This would lead to the hope of a vaccine or at least a preventative working short term (a few months).

No, the coronavirus isn't becoming more contagious or less deadly — it's already 'very successful at what it's doing,' a geneticist says

Ten doctors in Italy said the coronavirus is becoming less dangerous. Experts say that's not true — the virus hasn't mutated to become weaker.

www.yahoo.com

 

[movingtarget]

I get that masks work. But in Australia, until July, we had great success flattening the curve without relying on masks which were worn primarily by the elderly and Asian communities. The current "second wave" is not related to wearing of masks although perhaps that time is drawing nearer due to the situation in the Australian state of Victoria. Nobody can be complacent with COVID-19. The proven techniques that work are social isolation and closing borders. Masks are a secondary technique.

There was little community transmission in Australia before, now there is especially in Victoria. The government has just urged everyone in Melbourne metro and Mitchell Shire to wear a mask otherwise they cop a $200.00 fine.

 

[Cookster15]

There was little community transmission in Australia before, now there is especially in Victoria. The government has just urged everyone in Melbourne metro and Mitchell Shire to wear a mask otherwise they cop a $200.00 fine.

Yes, I just caught up with this news. So community transmission means we need to wear masks. Sadly I think only a matter of time before Sydney too, many people I see in public there seem complacent now, unlike March and April. I was wearing a mask to shops in the last lockdown in NSW.

 

[movingtarget]

Yes, I just caught up with this news. So community transmission means we need to wear masks. Sadly I think only a matter of time before Sydney too, many people I see in public there seem complacent now, unlike March and April. I was wearing a mask to shops in the last lockdown in NSW.

Especially when some people are holding raves and parties and then getting violent when the police start fining them ! Idiocy never goes out of fashion I suppose.................

 

[Unchained]

I don't think masks are the solution,but a component to a strategy to quell the virus to manageable levels. Australia is the same land mass size as the US and has a population smaller than California..and like the American pie crust, Aussies live on the edge and not so much pie filling. Domestic travel and international travel is also a problem for the US..in some countries specific,personal cell phone details are used for the abatement strategy. In the United States,the government and citizens have uniformly rejected using the cell phone for tracing \ tracking the virus. However, aggregate measurements are taken by cell phone companies and show ,overall movements of people during different phases of the virus ' spread,a dramatic increase in everything as soon as restrictions are eased. Also gasoline purchases are a huge indication of increased movement..

I personally think that travel will dramatically increase in S.Cal(and other places) when the school year commences. In my lifetime I have witnessed a total transformation in transportation of school children and pre and post school activities. I can count on my fingers and toes how many times I was driven to and from school by my parents, probably from @5th grade thru high school.
I think the confluence of cars,children,adults and school staff members will be another ground zero for virus transmission and drastic changes will have to be made to avoid it..often in neighborhoods throughout San Diego dropping kids off and picking them up from school mirrors the legendary freeway traffic jams that Southern California is know for..unfortunately..
A few sociologists I have listened to say that the black and brown virus disproportionately affect is also transportation related,with blacks and Latinos less likely to have the ability to do their jobs remotely and a higher use and dependence on public transport..

 

[movingtarget]

I don't think masks are the solution,but a component to a strategy to quell the virus to manageable levels. Australia is the same land mass size as the US and has a population smaller than California..and like the American pie crust, Aussies live on the edge and not so much pie filling. Domestic travel and international travel is also a problem for the US..in some countries specific,personal cell phone details are used for the abatement strategy. In the United States,the government and citizens have uniformly rejected using the cell phone for tracing \ tracking the virus. However, aggregate measurements are taken by cell phone companies and show ,overall movements of people during different phases of the virus ' spread,a dramatic increase in everything as soon as restrictions are eased. Also gasoline purchases are a huge indication of increased movement..

I personally think that travel will dramatically increase in S.Cal(and other places) when the school year commences. In my lifetime I have witnessed a total transformation in transportation of school children and pre and post school activities. I can count on my fingers and toes how many times I was driven to and from school by my parents, probably from @5th grade thru high school.
I think the confluence of cars,children,adults and school staff members will be another ground zero for virus transmission and drastic changes will have to be made to avoid it..often in neighborhoods throughout San Diego dropping kids off and picking them up from school mirrors the legendary freeway traffic jams that Southern California is know for..unfortunately..
A few sociologists I have listened to say that the black and brown virus disproportionately affect is also transportation related,with blacks and Latinos less likely to have the ability to do their jobs remotely and a higher use and dependence on public transport..

You are right about population density in Australia but the two cities currently having issues with community transmissions are Melbourne and Sydney which amount to 10 million people in a country of only 25 million...............

 

[movingtarget]

I was regarded as having a 'mild case' of Covid-19. I had burning lungs and exhaustion for weeks | Anna Poletti

I believe I caught the virus very early, and I can’t tell you how long it takes to recover from it, because I have not recovered

www.theguardian.com

 

[jmdirt]

I was regarded as having a 'mild case' of Covid-19. I had burning lungs and exhaustion for weeks | Anna Poletti

I believe I caught the virus very early, and I can’t tell you how long it takes to recover from it, because I have not recovered

www.theguardian.com

Someone on the news today said that most people just have very mild symptoms, the sniffles...he didn't add that they might have mild symptoms for months or years.

 

[Merckx index]

Someone on the news today said that most people just have very mild symptoms, the sniffles...he didn't add that they might have mild symptoms for months or years.

It's so unpredictable. Golfer Jack Nicklaus just announced that he and his wife, both 80, caught the virus last March. She was asymptomatic, and he had mild symptoms. While 30 year old Freddie Freeman, a MLB player, had a 104 degree fever, and thought he was going to die.

I mentioned upthread the evidence that some people are high particle producers, generating thousands of airborne droplets, while others generate relatively few. I came across one study that found the high particle production could be reduced 70% by inhaling nebulized saline. They believe it increased surface tension of fluid lining the lungs.

 

[movingtarget]

Someone on the news today said that most people just have very mild symptoms, the sniffles...he didn't add that they might have mild symptoms for months or years.

i was on a sports chat today and I was appalled by the level of ignorance and the misinformation that was being peddled. It seems that some people still think it's a hoax ! A summary of some of the comments : hospitals are inflating their figures, it's like a cold, the flu is worse, masks don't work, it's fake news, the NBA and NFL is more important, I don't know anyone who has died, AIDS was a hoax as well, only old people die from it, they aren't fooling me, it's an elitist conspiracy, naive fools are going to ruin the economy for no reason and so on...........some of the many I remember ..............many were much worse............

 

[movingtarget]

US scientists rebuke Trump over coronavirus response and other affronts

Members of National Academy of Sciences sign open letter as White House seeks to block funding for testing and tracing

www.theguardian.com

way overdue

 

[BlueRoads]

The weird thing for me at this point is how there is no global strategy with a topic that is so global, and also no long-term planning despite the fact that this has been going on for more than 6 months. There are only short-term strategies and a rectified, but diffuse hope for a vaccine next year.
So what if this vaccine exists? Who gets it? It's hardly the world's population that's going to be vaccinated, so how many people need to be vaccinated / immune to consider things "normal"? I don't see any scenarios, no required numbers or circumstances. I hope they exist somewhere in some drawers. But I doubt they are global.
And of course: what if the vaccine does not come by next year?
I know, there are so many unknowns in this, but it would be nice to see some preparations and more developed what-if scenarios.
Also I see a lot of anecdotes and very regional studies, like so and so many people are like that in this town, but no global studies to have a better perspective on how dangerous this actually is. I understand it's hard to find definite medical results, but I don't see the ambition to find out on a global scale. It's all too much "wait and see, be careful, maybe we will know more in autumn or in winter or next year" to me. In the beginning it was all about "flattening the curve" so that hospitals would not be overwhelmed. Now it looks like in Europe it's about erasing it as far as possible. Whatever. I wish they would just say "this is the data, this is our strategy, if this happens we will do A, and if that happens we will do B..."

 

[yaco]

Government's and employers have not helped themselves - You have seafarers and airline crew who are exempt from quarantine crossing international borders BUT yet their employers don't make them do a COVID19 test before flying - HK started testing this cohort on arrival 2 weeks ago and so far 25 have tested positive - What a joke ! Lots of discussion about Aged Care workers working in multiple places - This is not an issue BECAUSE this cohort should be tested twice a week by their employers - Governments and Employers have too many failings.

 

[Merckx index]

A big mystery with the current spike in the U.S. is that the CFR, case fatality rate, is quite low, much lower than it was earlier in the pandemic. The speculation is that younger, less at-risk people are being tested more, and that the delay between infection and death means more deaths will occur later. But there seems to be more than that.

The CFR is much higher for NY, NJ, MA, CT and other NE corridor states that accounted for almost half the cases and deaths earlier in the pandemic than it is for other states, and particularly for those in the south and the west. E.g., the CFR is 5-10% for the NE states, but only 1-2% for FL, TX, AZ and CA. Some western and midwestern states have intermediate levels. So if the difference were due to testing more younger people, one would have to explain why this isn't the case in the NE states. Their CFR have continued to remain high, even during the recent spike.

I pointed out before that there is a strong correlation between population density and case rates for states in the U.S. This makes sense. The greater the PD, the more social interactions that can spread the virus. But it turns out there is also a strong correlation between PD and CFR. States with a high population density tend to have a higher % of deaths from these cases. Why?

One possibility is that in dense communities people are not only more likely to get infected, but to do so with a higher viral load. The current thinking is tending to favor aerosol transmission more than droplets than contaminate surfaces, and it may be that in denser areas, there is a greater likelihood of inhaling larger amounts of virus. A higher viral load, in turn, may result in greater severity of symptoms. None of this has been proven, but it is reasonable speculation.

Another possibility is related to the testing. The southern and western states may be testing a larger proportion of infected people. We know the positivity rate is very high for many communities in these states. This is thought to reflect more cases, but it may also reflect to some extent a greater % of infected people being tested. Antibody tests indicate that roughly ten times as many people have been infected as confirmed cases. If the % of infected people tested increases, so that the ratio of infected to confirmed cases goes down, the result is that the CFR would decrease. I don't know why a greater % of infected people would be tested in these states, and not in the NE corridor, though.

Another possibility is that a different strain of virus is involved, but that doesn't seem to be supported by what we know. A strain of European origin was the origin of most cases in NY and in the NE, whereas a strain directly from Wuhan entered the west coast via Washington. But both strains have been found in other states across the country, and in any case, there doesn't seem to be any evidence that one strain is deadlier than another.

 

[dusty red roads]

Government's and employers have not helped themselves - You have seafarers and airline crew who are exempt from quarantine crossing international borders BUT yet their employers don't make them do a COVID19 test before flying - HK started testing this cohort on arrival 2 weeks ago and so far 25 have tested positive - What a joke ! Lots of discussion about Aged Care workers working in multiple places - This is not an issue BECAUSE this cohort should be tested twice a week by their employers - Governments and Employers have too many failings.

And on top of that there's also spread from military personnel arriving in foreign countries from the US. In Japan there's been an outbreak on at least two US bases in Okinawa (which are now on lockdown).

A couple articles:

Three people with virus flouted quarantine (and lied about their travel plans), flew to Iwakuni base

Three people with virus flouted quarantine, flew to Iwakuni base : The Asahi Shimbun

46 infected U.S. personnel left bases prior to virus diagnosis

46 infected U.S. personnel left bases prior to virus diagnosis : The Asahi Shimbun

 

[Chris Gadsden]

US scientists rebuke Trump over coronavirus response and other affronts

Members of National Academy of Sciences sign open letter as White House seeks to block funding for testing and tracing

www.theguardian.com

way overdue

More piss-poor ”journalism” bordering on outright propaganda .

 

[Chris Gadsden]

And of course: what if the vaccine does not come by next year?

Or ever. Then what?

 

[Chris Gadsden]

A big mystery with the current spike in the U.S. is that the CFR, case fatality rate, is quite low, much lower than it was earlier in the pandemic. The speculation is that younger, less at-risk people are being tested more, and that the delay between infection and death means more deaths will occur later. But there seems to be more than that.

The CFR is much higher for NY, NJ, MA, CT and other NE corridor states that accounted for almost half the cases and deaths earlier in the pandemic than it is for other states, and particularly for those in the south and the west. E.g., the CFR is 5-10% for the NE states, but only 1-2% for FL, TX, AZ and CA. Some western and midwestern states have intermediate levels. So if the difference were due to testing more younger people, one would have to explain why this isn't the case in the NE states. Their CFR have continued to remain high, even during the recent spike.

I pointed out before that there is a strong correlation between population density and case rates for states in the U.S. This makes sense. The greater the PD, the more social interactions that can spread the virus. But it turns out there is also a strong correlation between PD and CFR. States with a high population density tend to have a higher % of deaths from these cases. Why?

One possibility is that in dense communities people are not only more likely to get infected, but to do so with a higher viral load. The current thinking is tending to favor aerosol transmission more than droplets than contaminate surfaces, and it may be that in denser areas, there is a greater likelihood of inhaling larger amounts of virus. A higher viral load, in turn, may result in greater severity of symptoms. None of this has been proven, but it is reasonable speculation.

Another possibility is related to the testing. The southern and western states may be testing a larger proportion of infected people. We know the positivity rate is very high for many communities in these states. This is thought to reflect more cases, but it may also reflect to some extent a greater % of infected people being tested. Antibody tests indicate that roughly ten times as many people have been infected as confirmed cases. If the % of infected people tested increases, so that the ratio of infected to confirmed cases goes down, the result is that the CFR would decrease. I don't know why a greater % of infected people would be tested in these states, and not in the NE corridor, though.

Another possibility is that a different strain of virus is involved, but that doesn't seem to be supported by what we know. A strain of European origin was the origin of most cases in NY and in the NE, whereas a strain directly from Wuhan entered the west coast via Washington. But both strains have been found in other states across the country, and in any case, there doesn't seem to be any evidence that one strain is deadlier than another.

If the virus is aerosol transmitted then cloth masks do absolutely nothing to protect the wearer from anyone or anyone from the wearer. Also, if aerosol transmitted, go in your home, lock the doors and don‘t come out until there‘s a vaccine.