Coronavirus: How dangerous a threat?

[Koronin]

This might be the case in the US, but in Spain for example masks have been legally mandatory pretty much everywhere (even outdoors in most cases) since late July, and their use was widespread long before that (by May the vast majority of people reported using them). This means that masks were widely worn during the lowest point of the pandemic in Spain.

I do think masks work, and even if their effect was minimal I believe the current situation makes them a good idea even in the absence of more specific scientific studies, since it's a relatively unobtrusive safety measure. And there are certainly many other factors at play and other ways in which Spain is screwing up. But as probably the most heavily hit country in the world, I believe the Spanish case should be of particular interest.

I've heard from friends in Murcia that the Spanish govt is ready to call another state of emergency and put the restrictions into the hands of each province. From what they are saying the Murcian govt is warning citizens that if they don't start helping by being more careful stricter measures will be put back into effect, although they don't think a full lock down will be put back into effect.

 

[hrotha]

Knowing the problems some people have with basic hand washing after visiting the bathroom even in the pre pandemic days makes me think that mask wearing guidelines are not being adhered to by a certain percentage of people. How many people wear the same mask continuously without washing it ? How many also wash their hands regularly especially when going out and returning home ? The mask wearing protocols are only effective when a bit of commonsense is used and the guidelines are adhered to.

Sure, but how high can that percentage really be? Spaniards are probably not uniquely stupid.

 

[movingtarget]

Sure, but how high can that percentage really be? Spaniards are probably not uniquely stupid.

I'm talking about people in general not Spanish people. Now people are protesting in the streets about further lockdowns, so much for social distancing. Why would anyone want to go to a political rally at the moment ?

 

[Unchained]

I'm talking about people in general not Spanish people. Now people are protesting in the streets about further lockdowns, so much for social distancing. Why would anyone want to go to a political rally at the moment ?

That can't be answered. Political rallies in the US,like masks,social distancing..all represent so,so much more than just a couple of issues.
I think the comments about Spanish,wearing or not wearing masks are super important. Given the levels of infection,death and economic destruction..the real problem is when people throw up their hands after an awesome effort and say look..we did everything,we shut down,wore masks,observed best practices and still we have another outbreak..so what's the use?!! I ain't wearin no pesky mask and I am going to my friends house to get drunk and watch football..The hardest message to me is not the masks and other BS it's the fatigue..the motivation not to give up..and for this CN group..bonking..cracking..abandoning..sitting up..taking the broom wagon to the hospital or graveyard

 

[Cookster15]

The hardest message to me is not the masks and other BS it's the fatigue..the motivation not to give up..and for this CN group..bonking..cracking..abandoning..sitting up..taking the broom wagon to the hospital or graveyard

You are 100% correct but it is a conundrum. Restrictions can't be sustained indefinitely yet if we relax them or become complacent the virus will come roaring back. What we all need is for a tested and safe vaccine to become available.

 

[movingtarget]

Trump aide admits 'we're not going to control pandemic' as Pence staff test positive

Senior aide Marc Short has virus but Pence will still campaign as US comes close to new daily record for coronavirus cases

www.theguardian.com

 

[movingtarget]

Global report: Spain declares Covid state of emergency as Italians urged to stay home

Spanish government imposes nationwide curfew after country hits 1m cases

www.theguardian.com

 

[Koronin]

Global report: Spain declares Covid state of emergency as Italians urged to stay home

Spanish government imposes nationwide curfew after country hits 1m cases

www.theguardian.com

The Spaniards I know were expecting this. The way it's worded it also allows for sporting events to continue without fans. It will allow provinces to put strict gathering numbers in place, but still allow sports without fans, and thus also allow for athletes to continue to practice.

 

[movingtarget]

The Spaniards I know were expecting this. The way it's worded it also allows for sporting events to continue without fans. It will allow provinces to put strict gathering numbers in place, but still allow sports without fans, and thus also allow for athletes to continue to practice.

Do you think the Vuelta will make it to the finish ? The Giro and Tour organizers got lucky.

 

[Koronin]

Do you think the Vuelta will make it to the finish ? The Giro and Tour organizers got lucky.

I think most stages will get raced. As for Covid I think the last stage was always in question as Madrid has had high levels of Covid to start with. As for the other stages I think the weather is still the bigger issue that could cancel or shorten or change stages. The way they did this state of emergency doesn't automatically cancel any sporting event. It sounds like Madrid and Barcelona are the most likely to put in the strictest of restrictions. La Vuelta and the Spanish Govt had already put in very strict restrictions for la Vuelta to begin and the way the Spanish Govt did this, they their order puts things to local and provincial governments so the Spanish Govt its self won't be cancelling the Vuelta. Now it's possible they may need to reroute something. I think it gets most of it's stages. That's partly due to where they are racing. The only major city they're going into is Madrid. I think that helps.

 

[yaco]

Do you think the Vuelta will make it to the finish ? The Giro and Tour organizers got lucky.

It's more likely they will make it to the finish than not - The Vuelta has Government support and by extension the health authorities - How did the Giro or TDF get lucky ? They had a strong set of protocols which worked as well as expected - The fact is that all sports have suffered positive cases and then they follow the health protocols- We have to realise that Europeans take a different attitude to living with the virus - The more pertinent thing is that Australia has to be more flexible to get their international sporting events organised for the first quarter of 2021 - If we look at cycling, only a few Aussies are returning home because of quarantine requirements and passenger caps on planes - Realistically, Australia with its low number of cases should be the first port of call for international sporting events - For example, the major co-sanctioned Golf tournaments have been cancelled, the TDU is a 50/50 chance, while the Aus Open tennis is still negotiating quarantine rules, while the F1 is no certainty.

 

[djpbaltimore]

Something brought up earlier in the thread, but worth remembering. If you don't get really sick, you are probably not going to have the most robust antibody response. This has relevance to vaccination, re-infection, and seroprevalence analyses.

Using sequential serum samples collected up to 94 d post onset of symptoms (POS) from 65 individuals with real-time quantitative PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, we show seroconversion (immunoglobulin (Ig)M, IgA, IgG) in >95% of cases and neutralizing antibody responses when sampled beyond 8 d POS. We show that the kinetics of the neutralizing antibody response is typical of an acute viral infection, with declining neutralizing antibody titres observed after an initial peak, and that the magnitude of this peak is dependent on disease severity.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1320715644669628424

View: https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1320715644669628424

 

[movingtarget]

Survey uncovers widespread belief in 'dangerous' Covid conspiracy theories

False claims that pandemic is a hoax or was started deliberately attracting adherents around world

www.theguardian.com

 

[Jagartrott]

Something brought up earlier in the thread, but worth remembering. If you don't get really sick, you are probably not going to have the most robust antibody response. This has relevance to vaccination, re-infection, and seroprevalence analyses.

The follow-up question would be: if you had mild symptoms in a first infection, will you have mild symptoms in subsequent infections as well? And how come some people are able to fight off the virus without a significant antibody response?

 

[yaco]

I have a question for those scientifically minded ? I am wondering that with the emergence of re-infections - Could it be the case that if someone has symptoms and tests positive for a second time that in some cases they don't actually have COVID. Due to the sensitivity of the test could it be another virus and the positive is in effect dead cells ? I suppose genomic testing of both samples could provide a definitive answer.

 

[djpbaltimore]

The follow-up question would be: if you had mild symptoms in a first infection, will you have mild symptoms in subsequent infections as well? And how come some people are able to fight off the virus without a significant antibody response?

Agreed. These are big open questions. I think dose is a bigger variable than is being widely talked about. All exposures are not created equal. I think that people who get a much higher dose on the second round can get worse sickness. The worrying possibility is whether waning antibodies contribute to the worse second infection like Dengue. The pathogenesis is different, so I would lean towards 'no' on that. The CD8 T cells peak about a week before B cells and antibody, so I think there is probably a window where they clear the virus prior to the antibody response fully developing in some people.

ETA. For reference.

COVID-19 and the Path to Immunity

This Viewpoint reviews what is known about acute and long-term B-cell, antibody, and T-cell responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection and explains how each are implicated in vaccine candidates likely to be effective and durably protective again COVID-19.

jamanetwork.com

On a separate note, Larry the cable guy arguing with public health professionals about wearing masks to combat covid is the most 2020 madlibs thing that I can even imagine. And yet....

https://twitter.com/x/status/1320554385848479744

View: https://twitter.com/meganranney/status/1320554385848479744

 

[Oldermanish]

Do you think the Vuelta will make it to the finish ? The Giro and Tour organizers got lucky.

If TV images are an indication of the Spanish public restraint they may have done a good enough job to continue. Fans are absent or largely respectably masked and distant, aside from a few incidents. That in itself would seem to serve the purpose of entertainment that may keep people at home watching rather than on the streets. If they are in bars with large groups; not so much. Generally it looks like the riders are not at risk and we haven't heard the complaints that came from the Giro.

 

[Oldermanish]

Agreed. These are big open questions. I think dose is a bigger variable than is being widely talked about. All exposures are not created equal. I think that people who get a much higher dose on the second round can get worse sickness. The worrying possibility is whether waning antibodies contribute to the worse second infection like Dengue. The pathogenesis is different, so I would lean towards 'no' on that. The CD8 T cells peak about a week before B cells and antibody, so I think there is probably a window where they clear the virus prior to the antibody response fully developing in some people.

On a separate note, Larry the cable guy arguing with public health professionals about wearing masks to combat covid is the most 2020 madlibs thing that I can even imagine. And yet....

https://twitter.com/x/status/1320554385848479744

View: https://twitter.com/meganranney/status/1320554385848479744

Larry is echoing the mantra of our WH Coronavirus Chief's staff. That's VP Mike Pence's and his immediate surrounding workers have spent time denigrating the effectiveness of mask wearing and other protocols. Oh yeah; five of them have been found to have C19 in the last two days. Meanwhile the President's WH spokespeople finally threw in the towel and declared "we aren't going to control the virus...we'll defeat it with vaccines." The same group that emphasized herd immunity is supporting the continued campaign tours by Pence because he is an "essential worker" based on their convenient interpretation of CDC guidelines that they also categorically ignore. There has to be a special place in Pence's afterlife for everyone involved in the scorched earth campaign of denial leading to our election.
No wonder Larry the Cable Guy is given any attention as some kind of authority.
At this rate the US could end up with 50% of the World's C19 related deaths.

 

[jmdirt]

Agreed. These are big open questions. I think dose is a bigger variable than is being widely talked about. All exposures are not created equal. I think that people who get a much higher dose on the second round can get worse sickness. The worrying possibility is whether waning antibodies contribute to the worse second infection like Dengue. The pathogenesis is different, so I would lean towards 'no' on that. The CD8 T cells peak about a week before B cells and antibody, so I think there is probably a window where they clear the virus prior to the antibody response fully developing in some people.

ETA. For reference.

COVID-19 and the Path to Immunity

This Viewpoint reviews what is known about acute and long-term B-cell, antibody, and T-cell responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection and explains how each are implicated in vaccine candidates likely to be effective and durably protective again COVID-19.

jamanetwork.com

On a separate note, Larry the cable guy arguing with public health professionals about wearing masks to combat covid is the most 2020 madlibs thing that I can even imagine. And yet....

https://twitter.com/x/status/1320554385848479744

View: https://twitter.com/meganranney/status/1320554385848479744

I always thought that the 'dumb southern redneck' was an act...guess not.

 

[djpbaltimore]

Here is a fascinating case for everyone. Notice how the plane is almost empty and the virus still spread like crazy well beyond the 6 foot radius. There have not been too many COVID-19 case studies associated with air travel, but this one looks persuasive. Also possible that poorly ventilated wait areas could be a problem.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1320811661717131264

View: https://twitter.com/amymaxmen/status/1320811661717131264

 

[jmdirt]

Here is a fascinating case for everyone. Notice how the plane is almost empty and the virus still spread like crazy well beyond the 6 foot radius. There have not been too many COVID-19 case studies associated with air travel, but this one looks persuasive. Also possible that poorly ventilated wait areas could be a problem.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1320811661717131264

View: https://twitter.com/amymaxmen/status/1320811661717131264

The filtration system likely filters most of the virus out IF its operating correctly. The big issue is where are the intake ports for the system? If the system is circulating air, it is actually helping the virus spread (pulling it across multiple rows...more than six feet). The best system would have intake ports at every row, but likely this plane had front, and back. This means that the air (with C19) is being pulled across multiple rows before it enters the filtration system. Since it was seven hours, they likely ate something without their masks on, and that would be the biggest period of C19 concentration and vulnerability. Also "masks required" can be a bit fuzzy, the C19 positive person might have worn their mask improperly for most of the seven hours.

 

[Merckx index]

Here is a fascinating case for everyone.

I'm reposting a link that Chris G posted a while back. The authors show the likely concentrations and paths of air-borne particles from people with or without several types of masks, and in various kinds of environments. Fig. 5 shows the airflow in the passenger cabin of an airplane.

In the flight cabins, because of the densely packed environment, the cough-jet released by a SARS-Cov-2 infected person is expected to break the local airflow, particularly the jet zone, and travels both forward and backward directions in the proximity of the point of exit (Fig. 5b). Since the velocity of exiting the violent expiration (coughs) is around 10 m/s, the droplets may travel four to five seats ahead, and the aerosol-cloud could go even further away (Fig. 5b). However, there is no lateral movement expected except the immediate passenger on either side. In contrast to the forward movement, there is a backward movement of droplets typically by one seat, but the aerosol movement may be more. This phenomenon illustrates that about five to ten people could get infected with the disease with an infected person onboard.

The behavior of virus-laden aerosols resulted from a cough-jet has not yet been aerodynamically modeled with reasonable accuracy; hence, the actual level of impact that a single cough-jet envisages could not be simulated well. However, there exists evidence to showcase a profound risk of COVID-19 being spread in an aircraft when a symptomatic or even asymptomatic patient is on board. Further, the environmental factors such as moderately low relative humidity (50%), low temperature (< 25 °C), and moderate ACH (< 30 per hour) would set the platform for the SARS-CoV-2 to sustain for extended periods within the cabin.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7293495/

 

[movingtarget]

Oxford Covid vaccine works in all ages, trials suggest

Vaccine being trialled by Oxford University and AstraZeneca offers hope for all age groups

www.theguardian.com

 

[djpbaltimore]

Big announcement that Pfizer is not going to hit their interim analysis point by having 32 total events before November. The optimistic take is that the relative slowness might indicate that the vaccine arm is doing really well. But it is all blinded, so nobody should know if there is protection or not until they hit 32 and can look at how those numbers distribute between the groups.

ETA. There was a path where surging diagnostics could've given the country a theoretical exit strategy to COVID. But this slides shows that it was never even attempted. Vaccines or bust....

https://twitter.com/x/status/1321099893298089996

View: https://twitter.com/ScottGottliebMD/status/1321099893298089996

 

[movingtarget]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/27/health/russia-coronavirus-vaccine-sputnik-v-reality-check/index.html