2019-nCoV / Corona virus Pt 2

[dudalb]

Yesterday the last of the major US Movie chains announced they were closing.
Makes business sense, really. With the fear factor and no new movies coming out, might as well shut down and save money on operating expenses.

 

[dudalb]

Not independently verified, but this just crossed my Twitter feed:

[qimg]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49673438057_bd88d499f2.jpg[/qimg]

Time to activate the National Defense Act and require manafauctures to focus on making Venilators,retooling if necessary.

 

[Giordano]

Not independently verified, but this just crossed my Twitter feed:

[qimg]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49673438057_bd88d499f2.jpg[/qimg]

I am concerned about the spread of these classical types of panicky rumors. I cannot rule out anything but it has all the hallmarks of a hoax. A re-Tweet from an unknown person from an unknown person from an unknown doctor in an unidentified hospital. Two patients on one ventilator would be unprecedented as far as I know. Googling it calls up only some hypothetical considerations (keeping airflow correct for two people is very difficult) and some animal tests. Certainly not approved medically. High risk of cross contamination. Unlikely the number of seriously ill people have yet to overwhelm resources to this extent at this point in time.

Again - impossible? Who can say how crazy some unidentified hospital personnel might be. But very, very unlikely to my understanding.

 

[Giordano]

I don't understand. Are people who drive to a store, walk directly into the store, do their shopping, and leave more or less likely to sneeze or cough while they are in the store than people who stand outside for hours before going into the store? Are they more or less likely to have touched something that had viruses on it?

1. The less time they are in the store the less they will cough or sneeze in the store. Coughing or sneezing in the close conditions inside the store is much more risky than in the open air outside the store.

2. More room for people to keep their distances outside than in.

3. Fewer surfaces outside the store for people to touch or sneeze on than inside the store.

4. The wait outside the store should be no longer than if everyone was allowed inside the store at once. People per minute per cash register should be the same.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Vaccines are being tested in several nations. The consensus is that they are still at least a year away from being publicly available.

I do not see in any of those links that human tests are being conducted..

 

[jadebox]

1. Coughing or sneezing in the close conditions inside the store is much more risky than in the open air outside the store.

2. More room for people to keep their distances outside than in.

3. Fewer surfaces outside the store for people to touch or sneeze on than inside the store.

4. The wait outside the store should be no longer than if everyone was allowed inside the store. People per minute per cash register should be the same.

5. Entry can be scheduled. People can wait at home or in their car until the scheduled time or they get a text message.

 

[Meadmaker]

Time to activate the National Defense Act and require manafauctures to focus on making Venilators,retooling if necessary.

Our failing, non-proactive governor was pushing the feds to do that earlier, and meanwhile pushing local manufacturers to furnish medical supplies, hospital gowns were mentioned in the article, within the limits of the leverage and resources available.

The Trump administration's response was that such drastic measures weren't necessary yet.

 

[Kings Full]

I am concerned about the spread of these classical types of panicky rumors. I cannot rule out anything but it has all the hallmarks of a hoax. A re-Tweet from an unknown person from an unknown person from an unknown doctor in an unidentified hospital. Two patients on one ventilator would be unprecedented as far as I know. Googling it calls up only some hypothetical considerations (keeping airflow correct for two people is very difficult) and some animal tests. Certainly not approved medically. High risk of cross contamination. Unlikely the number of seriously ill people have yet to overwhelm resources to this extent at this point in time.

Again - impossible? Who can say how crazy some unidentified hospital personnel might be. But very, very unlikely to my understanding.

This.

That has hoax written all over it.

 

[The Atheist]

It seems that more than half the critical cases in France are under 60.

That can't be emphasised enough.

While the mortality rate is terrible for oldies, it's going to kill lots of younger people through the sheer weight of numbers.

(Not to mention how many young people's operations will be unable to take place - how many liver transplant patients alone will die waiting for hospitals to have the capacity to do the transplant?)

I have not read this thread at all yet, so I apologise profusely ...

So you should - you're supposed to be in the rugby thread.

Oh wait, there's no rugby.

But do give us a ground report from jolly old RSA - I imagine social distancing in the townships could be a little dodgy.

From Johns Hopkins:

That's been noted all the way through - I believe 5 April is D-Day for interim results. I already have my chloroquine on order, but don't forget, it't the phosphate and not the sulphate form.

I'm impressed by the number of virologists and public health experts we have on this forum.

So you damned well should be - this thread has been in front of the curve since the outbreak became news, and if countries had followed the advice in it, we'd be a lot fewer cases and deaths right now. NZ, for instance, would have no cases at all had the government followed my advice and wouldn't need to be spending $12.1 billion (US equivalent would be $1.2 trillion) to keep wage earners afloat.

And yes, I did even pick the sharemarket crash, and did so before anyone else.

Thanks - please keep following: the advice in here might save your, or a family member's life.

China's are dropping too. Is it possible that there is a small, finite section of the population that is susceptible, and those two countries have hit them all? Aren't they using two different strategies?

No, they're using identical strategies, only China's are a bit more enforced, while SK's are highly co-operative.

Test, isolate, trace.

It's that simple.

A sort of goodbye, spread over a post or three ...

I'll miss your contributions & questions.

All the best from the bottom of the planet!

 

[crescent]

I do not see in any of those links that human tests are being conducted..

True - but I still don't see anything to show that vaccines are any closer than a year away from public deployment. One of the links I posted mentions three phases of human trails prior to approval, we seem to be in the first phase.

Do you have sources that have shorter deployment timeframes?

 

[Capsid]

Vaccines are being tested in several nations. The consensus is that they are still at least a year away from being publicly available.

Containing 2019-nCoV (Wuhan) coronavirus


Priorities for the US Health Community Responding to COVID-19


The SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine Pipeline: an Overview

The Seattle vaccine was injected into a volunteer's arm. I can't recall if it was posted here.

 

[Belz...]

A sort of goodbye, spread over a post or three ...

Wait, what? Don't go!

 

[Capsid]

I do not see in any of those links that human tests are being conducted..

You spotted correctly that human volunteers are being immunised in Seattle. That is very rapid progress but based on a platform that has been tested before in preclinical models so some data comes with it.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

The Seattle vaccine was injected into a volunteer's arm. I can't recall if it was posted here.

My link provided that information..

A Seattle man known as "Patient Number 2" is speaking out after receiving a dose of the new coronavirus vaccine as part of standard testing that will be done ahead of its release to the general public.

 

[Capsid]

My link provided that information..

I meant whether it had been posted earlier in this thread.

 

[crescent]

The Seattle vaccine was injected into a volunteer's arm. I can't recall if it was posted here.

Yes, I know. Several human volunteers. I think they have also tested other vaccines on humans in other nations.

That does not mean that it is close to being publicly available. That does not mean the timeline has gotten noticeably shortened. My impression of a 12-18 month timeline prior to PUBLIC deployment has not changed. I am open to sources proving me wrong. I would LOVE to be wrong. I have elderly parents, many of their friends are elderly. I would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to see a vaccine developed sooner rather than later.

But I don't see that happening. Human testing is just starting, that needs to go through several phases and takes time to determine efficacy, to determine adverse affects (if any). It is not close.

 

[Capsid]

Yes, I know. Several human volunteers. I think they have also tested other vaccines on humans in other nations.

That does not mean that it is close to being publicly available. That does not mean the timeline has gotten noticeably shortened. My impression of a 12-18 month timeline prior to PUBLIC deployment has not changed. I am open to sources proving me wrong. I would LOVE to be wrong. I have elderly parents, many of their friends are elderly. I would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to see a vaccine developed sooner rather than later.

But I don't see that happening. Human testing is just starting, that needs to go through several phases and takes time to determine efficacy, to determine adverse affects (if any). It is not close.

Yes, still looking at 12+ months. This is phase I safety testing in humans, then there is phase II with safety and immune response analysis. Sometimes a license can be given then but usually large scale phase III efficacy testing is needed.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The immune response to SARS CoV 2 appears similar to that to flu.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0819-2
This suggests that immunity should be long lasting (flu mutates to avoid the immune response as opposed to some viruses that evade the immune system and so fail to generate long lasting immunity).

There is research that found antibodies were not long lasting. I posted it upthread. I'll go find it again.

 

[Giordano]

I’ve been surprised by posts in this thread that suggest we are doomed to have everyone, or virtually everyone, eventually infected by COVID-19 and we can only control how long that will take. That is not how real diseases work in the real world and that is not how the modeling should be interpreted.

1. Just to present one extreme for your thinking: image a perfect quarantine: everyone stays hunkered down for 6 to 8 weeks. There is no further spread of the disease and the virus cannot persist outside of a host. The disease burns itself out in the percent of the population already infected and it is over.

2. A perfect quarantine is unlikely of course, but do people think that the very next step up, one person re-initiates the disease after quarantine, means that everyone must then eventually get the disease? No, even an inefficient quarantine will knock the numbers of newly infected cases way down, rewind the epidemic tape weeks or months, and give us another shot at beating the disease as if it was just beginning. People can then be widely tested because sufficient tests will have been manufactured. Hospitals will be much better prepared. People still with the disease can be identified and isolation/treatment can be focused on them (instead of the huge numbers that would occur in the absence of any quarantine). Some drug therapies may already be available at that point. We would be that much closer to a vaccine.

3. Look at other deadly diseases. Have you been infected by each one that has appeared on the planet? Bubonic plague has been endemic in the USA for a hundred years. Have we all been infected by it despite none of us being immune? Influenza periodically sweeps through the world and kills a lot of people, but are we all infected by every new strain -even if we have not been vaccinated? Polio, for a long time an untreatable virus, would infect a certain number of people every year, but did everyone end up infected by polio? No. The spread of each disease is constrained by complex dynamics and diseases almost never spread through an entire population. There is herd immunity of course, but there are many other factors that limit spread once the number of infected hosts declines. A virus needs to find another host before its current host is cured. Spreading out the length of time that takes can interrupt the spread entirely.

4. Plus as discussed upthread spreading out the curve avoids overwhelming the health care system itself.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

You are correct. However I wonder if we're doing maybe a bit too much.

A bit too much what?

Look how fast it spreads then think again.