Cont: 2019-nCoV / Corona virus Pt 3

[Skeptic Ginger]

Washington Post: Bodies lie in the streets in Guayaquil, Ecuador, the emerging epicenter of the coronavirus in Latin America.

I've been watching DW and NHK news sources and the images across the world they are broadcasting are frightening. There is just no way to implement social isolation in large sections of the world. They are wall to wall overcrowded and have no access to hand washing, let alone masks or hand sanitizer.

And medical care? That will amount to mass graves.

You can expect mass riots in 3...2...1...

Right now early rioting has been to stop police from preventing gatherings at mosques and other places of worship. I wonder how long that is going to last?

I am reminded of the images from WWZ where the infected force their way past barriers meant to keep them out.

Refugee camps rioting and storming border fences in 3...2...1...

Poor people rioting for food and supplies in 3...2...1...

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

New York Times: Governor Cuomo allows State of New York to seize vital equipment.

He's trying to redistribute resources.

That doesn't bother me nearly as much as incompetrumpetty getting the military deeper and deeper involved. So far it's having them describe what they are doing at these daily press conferences. They were there again today but I didn't watch any of it.

 

[The Atheist]

Are we going to hit a point where it really turns and society goes *******? So far most people have been fair about following guidelines and such, and I haven't heard about massive looting of stores or rioting, even in countries other than the U.S. Will there be one event that sets everything off?

I'd say it's not too far away.

India is pretty close to boiling point after a week, while USA is the bug in the salad. They aren't even close to either containment or preventive behaviour and if enforcement is tried, it will end badly.

Philippines is already seeing riots, driven by lack of food, and that's something that's always a good spark. Wasn't the entire Syria mess down to drought & famine?

It's not just to escape the disease that lots of billionaires have retreated to their bunkers in NZ.

 

[The Atheist]

How about this one then?

https://globalnews.ca/news/6772049/coronavirus-trial-drug-ubc-covid-19/

Led by UBC’s Dr. Josef Penninger, the team published peer-reviewed findings on April 2 in the journal Cell, saying the trial drug, called APN01, can “significantly block early stages” of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Ok, that is promising.

I give no weight to things that stop the virus in vitro, and only slightly more to when it works in mice, but working on engineered human tissue should be likely to replicate in humans.

Two months to wait isn't too bad - let's hope it works.

 

[Planigale]

How about this one then?

https://globalnews.ca/news/6772049/coronavirus-trial-drug-ubc-covid-19/

Led by UBC’s Dr. Josef Penninger, the team published peer-reviewed findings on April 2 in the journal Cell, saying the trial drug, called APN01, can “significantly block early stages” of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

The problem with this is that the cells were pre treated with the drug prior to infection and the drug reduced subsequent levels of infection. The drug is a protein, and there are issues about how you would administer it, it would have to be given as an intravenous infusion, so would not be easy to use as a preventative agent.

It might slow replication of virus given after the infection was established but this study does not demonstrate this. There is always a worry about giving synthetic proteins and the development of auto immune antibodies. If you developed antibodies against this drug it could have very serious consequences as we know knock out mice that lack this protein are very susceptible to respiratory disease.

 

[Planigale]

I've been watching DW and NHK news sources and the images across the world they are broadcasting are frightening. There is just no way to implement social isolation in large sections of the world. They are wall to wall overcrowded and have no access to hand washing, let alone masks or hand sanitizer.

And medical care? That will amount to mass graves.

You can expect mass riots in 3...2...1...

Right now early rioting has been to stop police from preventing gatherings at mosques and other places of worship. I wonder how long that is going to last?

I am reminded of the images from WWZ where the infected force their way past barriers meant to keep them out.

Refugee camps rioting and storming border fences in 3...2...1...

I agree with you, the last has worried me for sometime. I am surprised it has not already happened.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Abbott offered us a deal: commit to purchasing X number of tests and the machine is free. They sent us 15 machines. We are ready to test a good chunk of patients as soon as they release the test. That probably won’t be until at least a month, according to McKesson because they are prioritizing hotspots. They did halt all production of Flu,RSV and Strep tests in order to make as much Covid as possible, so maybe it’ll be soon.

Well that's good to hear. How much are they charging for the consumables (ie the tests)? They stand to make a mint giving the machines out and billing for the test strips. I forgot about that form of profit-making.

Your medical staff can decide, obviously, but were it me, I'd recommend using double testing to assess the sensitivity of the machines for a period of time.

I don't know anything about how 3rd party payers are dealing with the tests given the government has directed no patient costs for the tests. A lot of the testing being done in King County is being funded with public heath dollars.

If insurers are going to pick up the tab they will just pass the costs on in our insurance premiums.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

Missouri Governor finally issuing a stay-at-home order (we had the most cases for a state with no shelter order).

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Then they go on to claim this:Well d'uh. One goes to a soccer game once or twice a year compared to all the contacts one has the rest of the year, ergo go the game.

Stopping spectator sports would have little direct effect on the number of cases if nobody was taking any other precautions. It may well be that attending a soccer game is less risky than being in a crowded pub, train, or supermarket. So just targeting sports events would probably have little impact if the situation was otherwise 'business as usual' (ie. everybody was getting infected at other places anyway). But it's not, so saying 'go to the game' now is very foolish advice.

Most people accept that they will get 'normal' viral infections from time to time, and think nothing of it. But that's changing now. Many of us will continue to practice 'social distancing' long after this pandemic is over. Covid-19 has has taught us that we don't have to put up with it!

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Are we going to hit a point where it really turns and society goes *******? So far most people have been fair about following guidelines and such, and I haven't heard about massive looting of stores or rioting, even in countries other than the U.S. Will there be one event that sets everything off?

Not massive in the US yet but looters gonna loot: Example of looters breaking in to unoccupied businesses.

Fox News: Italy has lowest daily coronavirus infections in 2 weeks — but risks losing control in south with fear of riots, looting

Meanwhile, in the underdeveloped southern half of the Italian peninsula -- a macroregion known the Mezzogiorno -- many poorer Italians are facing economic hardship as the country enters the fourth week of a nationwide lockdown.

Police have been deployed to the streets of Palermo, the capital of Sicily, amid concerns gangs were using social media to plan attacks on local grocery stores, Bloomberg reported. Meanwhile, the ferry company that shuttles people, as well as food and medicine, to and from the island went bankrupt. And Italian officials fear the mafia will intervene during a period of civic unrest.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I agree with you, the last has worried me for sometime. I am surprised it has not already happened.

It's because COVID is only now starting to infect people in the camps. Give it a week.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Stopping spectator sports would have little direct effect on the number of cases if nobody was taking any other precautions. It may well be that attending a soccer game is less risky than being in a crowded pub, train, or supermarket. So just targeting sports events would probably have little impact if the situation was otherwise 'business as usual' (ie. everybody was getting infected at other places anyway). But it's not, so saying 'go to the game' now is very foolish advice.

Most people accept that they will get 'normal' viral infections from time to time, and think nothing of it. But that's changing now. Many of us will continue to practice 'social distancing' long after this pandemic is over. Covid-19 has has taught us that we don't have to put up with it!

I revised my post after re-reading the paper. They were claiming going to the game or not you would have contact with 5 people in either case. It's not a reasonable estimate of how many people you have contact with in a sports stadium. And if one goes to the game, don't a lot of people take mass transit to get there?

 

[a_unique_person]

I agree with that entirely, being the drum I've been beating for weeks.



But, it only takes one super-spreader to potentially hit hundreds in a crowd, so do we bother taking the unlikely but known risk for the sake of a game?



I'd vote no, but I imagine fans must be going through severe withdrawal by now.







Yeah, that too!

We know from Australia that attending a party or wedding caused significant infections from that one event.

 

[Solitaire]

Wow!

The US must have really upped its game as far as testing is concerned.
It has a quarter of a million confirmed cases which is huge but “only”
around 6 or 7 thousand deaths. A big number, but not in the ten percent
mortality rate of Otaly, Spain and the UK.

Well, every practice here has about five doctors and their own laboratory
and the United States has about 1,250,000 doctors, so 250,000 laboratories
in the United States. They can easily do one test a day each, or two weeks
from now doing 16 tests a day.

 

[Doghouse Reilly]

DR, this offer is still on the table, by the way.



I find it odd that you didn't even response, considering you said you were interested in my proposal.

If you aren't confident that the number will be below 75k, I'd be happy to make the bet based on the 100k number that you've mentioned a few times in the thread.

I didn't see it until just now. Let me consider your terms and I shall either accept or propose a modified bet.. Thanks!

 

[pzkpfw]

...

Most people accept that they will get 'normal' viral infections from time to time, and think nothing of it. But that's changing now. Many of us will continue to practice 'social distancing' long after this pandemic is over. Covid-19 has has taught us that we don't have to put up with it!

Yes.

The place where I work has long had flexi-desking. Enough desks for 80% of the staff, on the basis that there's always some on holiday or off sick. As part of that, we're supposed to deliberately choose to sit at a different desk each day. (Which already doesn't work well with the sit with your squad thing.)

They acknowledged the hygiene issue: we've always had antiseptic wipes (that nobody closes properly so they dry out) and hand sanitiser. The idea was before you set up your laptop for the day, you wipe down the desk if you want.

Like most people, I always thought to heck with that, and sat at the same desk each day. The others in my squad did too, most people on the floor.

Now in the last week before the lock down and we all started working from home anyway, management sent out an email suspending flexi-desking. They even started making charts of who was sitting where, to enforce the non-swapping of desks!

Well, duh.

When all this is over, and we're back in the office; if anyone tries to make me sit at a different desk each day ...

 

[TellyKNeasuss]

It may well be that attending a soccer game is less risky than being in a crowded pub, train, or supermarket.

How can you have a proper soccer riot without physical contact?

More seriously, I can think of no place where I've been jammed in with as many people as at a sports arena. And then there's all the high fiving and chest bumping, and even all the yelling and cheering might accentuate the risk of transmission.

 

[Thor 2]

I continue to be puzzled by the statistics I am reading. Having my roots and lots of relations in Sweden I have been looking at the stats from there and comparing to other countries including Australia.

Total Cases. Deaths. Recoveries

Sweden. 6131 358. 205

Australia. 5350. 28. 585



Why is there more than 10 times the death rate in Sweden? The recovery rate would suggest the virus has been in Australia as long or longer than in Sweden.

Just wondering if some other factor is at work here .... higher immunity or a lesser virulent strain in Australia perhaps?

 

[TellyKNeasuss]

Today's ignorant question:
An op-ed writer in the Washington Post once again brought up the possibility that Patient Zero was an employee at a Chinese laboratory who accidentally became infected while studying viruses found in bats. I was under the impression that the predominant thought was that the virus did not jump directly from bats to humans but instead was routed through some other animal (e.g., pangolin). Am I wrong?

 

[EHocking]

I continue to be puzzled by the statistics I am reading. Having my roots and lots of relations in Sweden I have been looking at the stats from there and comparing to other countries including Australia.

Total Cases. Deaths. Recoveries

Sweden. 6131 358. 205

Australia. 5350. 28. 585



Why is there more than 10 times the death rate in Sweden? The recovery rate would suggest the virus has been in Australia as long or longer than in Sweden.

Just wondering if some other factor is at work here .... higher immunity or a lesser virulent strain in Australia perhaps?

Sweden decided to not initiate lockdowns. All services, restaurants, stores etc etc are open for business as usual.

If anyone needed any evidence that social isolation is an effective response to contain/mitigate the spread of COVID-19, just look to Sweden.