Cont: 2019-nCoV / Corona virus Pt 3

[Skeptic Ginger]

This is like some sort of jazz free-form association stream-of-consciousness of random ideas.

Seems like a reasonable explanation.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I find it more interesting that almost 80% were not infected.

It would be nice to know what is going on there.

The virus hasn't reached them yet. It's not like it's raining a deluge of virus droplets. They still need to pass from person to person.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

I agree. Not just wanting something, maybe Fauci thinks he can be a better messenger if he stays in Trump's good graces.

But I think it's more than that. I think even Fauci is star struck. It seems impossible given you'd think Fauci was smarter than that. Maybe he likes being in the limelight or being so welcomed in the White House. I don't know exactly what, but I think something like that is at play here.


Pisses me off Fauci is claiming we have 'new' information about asymptomatic spread when the info is absolutely not new at all. Rationalizing his bad recommendations will not be missed in the history of these current events.

Fauci is a politician, and like all politicians, he is foremost star struck with himself.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

This is an excellent analogy. I would add opaque, authoritarian Country C, which is probably lying about diagnostics, metrics, and results.

The US?

 

[Skeptical Greg]

The virus hasn't reached them yet. It's not like it's raining a deluge of virus droplets. They still need to pass from person to person.

Hasn't? You mean " didn't " in the confines of the ship?

Aside from the fact that you are ignoring the aerosol effect, my point was that they were all confined to a relatively small living space.

Out of 80%, surely many of them were exposed, yet did not become infected. That's a big number, but I realize it's not logistically possible to dig too deep in that direction.

 

[Samson]

Are any countries actually over the hump? Do we actually know there is a 'other side' of this thing? Looks like Korea sort of is, but things still don't look good.

Despite Atheist's pessimism this is seen as an important day for New Zealand, April 6 was a named day at the start of the lockdown 12 days ago.
So New Zealand is worth watching closely. We are a high compliance nation.

eta I missed Atheist update before posting.

 

[Doghouse Reilly]

Curious about what you all think about people not only like Peter Hitchens, but also like the person he quoted in this interview. Do you think they're all fools, like you think I am? Or do you think that it's possible you're not as right as you think you are? Some of these people are eminent scientists in their own right.

"The other point is one made by the extraordinary Professor Sucharit Bhakdi of Mainz University in Germany, an absolute genius in the microbiological method, who is utterly against these measures. He has said, what about the healthy old now they have been deprived of all the things that make life worth living? He reckons that this shutting down of their lives will be catastrophic, and almost certainly cause large numbers of deaths. So you can’t just say, ‘Oh, you don’t care about people dying’. That’s not what the argument is about. I care about people dying unnecessarily as much as anybody else, and my motives are as good as anybody else’s. It is just that my emotions are also driven by more intelligent thought, more reason and a better grasp of the facts."

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/04/03/the-alleged-cure-is-immensely-worse-than-the-disease/

ETA: I'm not so much interested in specific rebuttals or analyses of the arguments in that interview, as in your thoughts on the reality that there are MANY scientists and epidemiologists who aren't considered "fringe" or "cranks" who are against all of this and who say the virus isn't what it's being made out to be. But when I read them and agree with them, you act as though I'm a wacko. Do you think they're all wackos, too?

 

[Planigale]

Thanks.


What is it about/in blood that destroys the viral particles?

Are all coronaviruses alike in this regard?

It has more to do with how viruses function. Remember viruses are entirely passive. Probably only one in a million viruses you shed end up finding a home. The virus has to get in contact with a cell with the right protein receptor. Only if the virus comes in to contact with that protein can it bind and inject its RNA and enzymes into the cell. It then hijacks the cells protein manufacturing systems to make more viruses that are then shed and have to find a new cell to infect. So what limits the location of viruses in the body is the presence of the protein allowing the virus to bind and reproduce. The receptor protein ACE2 is found on airways cells, lung cells and in the mouth and gut (also hear kidneys and bladder). It is not found in blood cells. So blood cells will not be infected. Predominantly the virus will be in the airways and gut, and will spread within these organs. Low levels of virus might escape into blood particularly near death when tissue break down occurs, but virus isn't particularly blood borne.

 

[pipelineaudio]

Curious about what you all think about people not only like Peter Hitchens, but also like the person he quoted in this interview. Do you think they're all fools, like you think I am? Or do you think that it's possible you're not as right as you think you are? Some of these people are eminent scientists in their own right.

Yeah, it sucks for old people to be stuck in their houses

It sucks for me I can't go to the skatepark

It sucks for me that I had to shut my business down

But since I'm not a selfish peckerhead, I realize that these are sacrifices I have to make for others...and i'm about as libertarian as it gets around here

 

[Giordano]

Fauci is a politician, and like all politicians, he is foremost star struck with himself.

WTF? I’m sorry, but what is your evidence for this statement? I suspect Dr. Fauci must be very, very good as a organizer, resource manager, advocate, public spokesperson, etc. as well as an excellent virologist and epidemiologist. He needed these skills throughout his career and also delivered multiple times when we in the USA needed him in particularly desperate times.

Certainly I hope you were referring to the high goals of politicians,achieving great things, rather than intending a sneering reference. If he has had a “political” agenda at all it appears to have been to protect the American public from disease and death. If he has some level of pride in his accomplishments he deserves it. My own understanding from having met him once and more importantly from his colleagues is that he is pretty modest.

So no need to pee on him. He is a rather admirable guy.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Great!

Over in FiveThirtyEight, founder Nate Silver gives a similar, longer explanation: Coronavirus Case Counts Are Meaningless*

The * is a sub-title: "Unless you know something about testing. And even then, it gets complicated."

Note to thread: SG has been shouting this since the beginning of the thread until she gave up bothering.

 

[pipelineaudio]

These still seem rather extremely optimistic to me. https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Thanks.


What is it about/in blood that destroys the viral particles?

Are all coronaviruses alike in this regard?

Here's the simple version:

No, that's not what is going on. Not every infection results in viremia (virus in sufficient quantities in the blood). It has to have a place for replication to do that: liver, bone marrow, white blood cells, etc. Blood cells, once they leave the bone marrow, don't have a nucleus the virus needs to replicate.

While there might be a rare case of COVID viremia, blood doesn't represent a significant source of spread.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Hasn't? You mean " didn't " in the confines of the ship?

Aside from the fact that you are ignoring the aerosol effect, my point was that they were all confined to a relatively small living space.

Out of 80%, surely many of them were exposed, yet did not become infected. That's a big number, but I realize it's not logistically possible to dig too deep in that direction.

I am not ignoring aerosol or asymptomatic spread.

It takes a sufficient dose, a route of entry, and a susceptible host. There may turn out to be some people who are not susceptible hosts, but more than likely, given what we've been observing re spread, very few people seem to not be susceptible.

So also more than likely, not all the men on the ship had yet come in contact with an infected person who spread a sufficient dose to them.

It takes time. It's not instantaneous.

 

[Doghouse Reilly]

Yeah, it sucks for old people to be stuck in their houses

It sucks for me I can't go to the skatepark

It sucks for me that I had to shut my business down

But since I'm not a selfish peckerhead, I realize that these are sacrifices I have to make for others...and i'm about as libertarian as it gets around here

You ignored the actual point of my question. Second of all, your argument of selfishness is completely invalid if one thinks all of this will cost more lives than it saves. For the sake of this post, I am neither making nor denying that argument. But you can't call Hitchens or the scientist "selfish" if they believe that to be the case. Do you think that scientist has less information than you and is less intelligent? Do you think he's a fool?

 

[Scopedog]

WTF? I’m sorry, but what is your evidence for this statement? I suspect Dr. Fauci must be very, very good as a organizer, resource manager, advocate, public spokesperson, etc. as well as an excellent virologist and epidemiologist. He needed these skills throughout his career and also delivered multiple times when we in the USA needed him in particularly desperate times.

Certainly I hope you were referring to the high goals of politicians,achieving great things, rather than intending a sneering reference. If he has had a “political” agenda at all it appears to have been to protect the American public from disease and death. If he has some level of pride in his accomplishments he deserves it. My own understanding from having met him once and more importantly from his colleagues is that he is pretty modest.

So no need to pee on him. He is a rather admirable guy.

21 January 2020
"Watch Dr. Fauci In January Say You Don't Need To Worry About Coronavirus"

https://710wor.iheart.com/featured/...say-you-dont-need-to-worry-about-coronavirus/

19 February 2020
"Top disease official: Risk of coronavirus in USA is 'minuscule'; skip mask and wash hands"

Fauci doesn't want people to worry about coronavirus, the danger of which is "just minuscule." But he does want them to take precautions against the "influenza outbreak, which is having its second wave."

https://www.usatoday.com/amp/4787209002

 

[Doghouse Reilly]

These still seem rather extremely optimistic to me. https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections

They seem perfectly reasonable to me.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

WTF? I’m sorry, but what is your evidence for this statement? I suspect Dr. Fauci must be very, very good as a organizer, resource manager, advocate, public spokesperson, etc. as well as an excellent virologist and epidemiologist. He needed these skills throughout his career and also delivered multiple times when we in the USA needed him in particularly desperate times.

Certainly I hope you were referring to the high goals of politicians,achieving great things, rather than intending a sneering reference. If he has had a “political” agenda at all it appears to have been to protect the American public from disease and death. If he has some level of pride in his accomplishments he deserves it. My own understanding from having met him once and more importantly from his colleagues is that he is pretty modest.

So no need to pee on him. He is a rather admirable guy.

Explain then why he denied aerosol and asymptomatic spread for weeks and now claims there is now evidence when the evidence was available weeks ago?

Why did he insist there was so little asymptomatic spread we need not worry about it rather than say the evidence was incomplete?

Why did he make a ridiculous pantomime that the only way aerosolized spread would go further than 6 feet was if a person had a huge forceful cough when the evidence says regardless of what it takes to get into the air, it can stay there for several hours? And IIRC, researchers looked at spread from people who did not have induced coughing.

If the man is such an expert why is he now admitting all this? Note to thread: SG has been shouting in the thread about airborne and asymptomatic spread for a couple weeks.

 

[novaphile]

Those numbers are representative of a combination of:

1) The amount of testing done in those regions.

2) The amount of people infected in those regions.

Sweden has 10% more people test positive than Australia, it doesn't mean it has 10% more infections.

What do those numbers really tell us about the number of people in Australia and Sweden who are actually carrying the virus?

After Australia had performed 100,000 tests, we'd achieved an approximately 5% positive rate.

 

[TellyKNeasuss]

These still seem rather extremely optimistic to me. https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections

One things that seems strange to me is that their prediction of the peak in Washington, DC is 2 weeks before the peak in Maryland and about 6 weeks before the peak in Virginia. I don't understand why Virginia would lag that far behind its neighbors, especially since 35 percent of Virginians live in the DC metro area (though during rush hour it can seem like it takes a month to get from Virginia to DC or Maryland).