Coronavirus

[SageBrush]

If there was air conditioning they were exposed.

If the index case was not wearing a mask inside, he was exposing people.

 

[SageBrush]

Simple question: who were the "exposed Dems"?

Simple answer: everyone who was in a closed space with the index case while he was not wearing a mask.

That the senior Repub leadership decided to keep the exposure secret is unbelievable negligence. That the Repub senior leadership decided to manipulate the exposure for political gain while endangering the lives of political opponents demands impeachment and then jail.

Are you so brainwashed that you cannot see why poisoning political enemies must be squashed ?

 

[MXLRplus]

All I know is I'm not voting for SARS-CoV-2 in November. But I hear they are getting 5 million preprinted mail-in ballots ready with it's name filled in so it will probably win.

But the real question is whether Biden will be Covid's running mate. If so, when Covid wins that will guarantee nobody will want to kill Covid.

 

[gene]

Today I drove by an intersection that had a red light that had been flickering for a couple of days.
There was a city maintenance truck there with 5 or 6 orange cones and a guy on a cherry picker swapping out the light.
One guy. One truck. Outside in 95F heat. No one within 100 ft. (except me in my car stopped at the light watching)
He had on a black face mask.
Why? What scientific study says this is needed?
City politics? Union rules? Personal preference?

(I wear a mask everywhere I go when near people, such as at stores and restaurant pickups)

My son works as an engineer for the City of Santa Barbara. The city requires that masks are worn at all times including when driving alone in a city vehicle. I believe the city is rightly making a statement about "wear the mask people" as even here in California, the majority of the people I see walk around in public without a mask. I have seen in Whole Foods, even though there is someone at the door handing out masks, groups of people will walk past and into the store without masks.

 

[golfcart]

Study of a cruise ship where everyone was tested. Obviously the sample size is small but the group isolation and thorough testing makes it an interesting read and useful datapoint. Y'all can come to your own conclusions about the results...

Cruise Study

 

[Daniel in SD]

Japan ends state of emergency.

Then, whereas much of the rest of the world built its response to the pandemic on widespread contact tracing, isolation, and testing, Japan adopted a “quite different” strategy, Oshitani says. “We try to identify the clusters and [determine] their common characteristics.”

Not surprisingly, they found that most clusters originated in gyms, pubs, live music venues, karaoke rooms, and similar establishments where people gather, eat and drink, chat, sing, and work out or dance, rubbing shoulders for relatively extended periods of time. They also concluded that most of the primary cases that touched off large clusters were either asymptomatic or had very mild symptoms. “It is impossible to stop the emergence of clusters just by testing many people,” Oshitani says. This led them to urge people to avoid what they dubbed the “three Cs”—closed spaces, crowds, and close-contact settings in which people are talking face-to-face. It sounds simple. But, “This has been the most important component of the strategy,” Oshitani says.

(Reassuringly, they did not trace any clusters to Japan’s notoriously packed commuter trains. Oshitani says riders are usually alone and not talking to other passengers. And lately, they are all wearing masks. “An infected individual can infect others in such an environment, but it must be rare,” he says. He says Japan would have seen large outbreaks traced to trains if airborne transmission of the virus was possible.)

Japan ends its COVID-19 state of emergency
Seems pretty simple.

 

[pgaudio]

Hi everyone, just a thought about the inter connectivity of life here on our planet. About every 780 thousand years or so there is an extinction event. Has to do with the magnetic core of our planet. Noticed how many species have been have mass die off events lately (last 10-15 years?) yeah might think of one simple item, we can fight amongst our selves or we can over come what’s about to truly get real. Corona is just one little blip. Just a thought! I’m going to enjoy my M3 while I can.

 

[SageBrush]

Japan ends its COVID-19 state of emergency
Seems pretty simple.

Yes indeed.
Behavior matters. A LOT

Japan is ~ 0.4 the population of USA and Japan has an elderly demographic. It has 858 Covid-19 related deaths thus far. Trumperland is over 100,000.

 

[Daniel in SD]

Study of a cruise ship where everyone was tested. Obviously the sample size is small but the group isolation and thorough testing makes it an interesting read and useful datapoint. Y'all can come to your own conclusions about the results...

Cruise Study

It blows my mind that people are signing up for summer cruises. That really doesn't sound like a good time (I guess they did get a lot of free extra days though).
I wish these studies finding a very large percentage of asymptomatic cases would clarify whether that number is at the time of testing or whether they followed up later too. Everyone will test positive before they show symptoms.

 

[SageBrush]

I have seen in Whole Foods, even though there is someone at the door handing out masks, groups of people will walk past and into the store without masks.

It is time to have designated stores for morons.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Children and SARS2. Numbers are small so significance is low and error bars are high (as they say). And children seeking medical care may not be representative of children in general, of course:

Bloom Lab on Twitter

Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 among children visiting a hospital during the initial Seattle outbreak

 

[SageBrush]

The PA GOP that orchestrated the cover-up of their infected member are saying that they followed CDC guidance in regards to notifications. That is BS.

The index case has to be considered infectious for ~ 2 weeks leading up to his symptoms. The only possible reasonable action would have been to make the index case public as soon as it was diagnosed, and likewise for every contact who subsequently became infected.

Criminal actions by trumpers at high echelons of government.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

It is time to have designated stores for morons.

In PA you can't go into any store without a mask. Even in my North Philly beer distributor, that also sometimes sells cocaine, you can't set foot in there without a mask and need to wait until there's 6 or less other shoppers.

As annoying and misguided as the PA lockdown has been, I'm impressed with our small business response to guidelines. We usually don't comply so well.

 

[SageBrush]

Yes indeed.
Behavior matters. A LOT

Japan is ~ 0.4 the population of USA and Japan has an elderly demographic. It has 858 Covid-19 related deaths thus far. Trumperland is over 100,000.

More on Japan

Japan: coronavirus patients distribution by age and state of health 2020 | Statista

As of May 4, 60 deaths in the under 70 years old cohort, or ~ 1 per 2 million. Today no new confirmed cases in Japan.
No draconian measures, no police state, no massive TTQ. Just smart behavior, meaning no religious idiocy and no trumperism.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

I wish these studies finding a very large percentage of asymptomatic cases would clarify whether that number is at the time of testing or whether they followed up later too. Everyone will test positive before they show symptoms.

Yeah it is infuriating. It would just take one extra sentence to clarify what the actual situation was (even if they don’t know how many people eventually became symptomatic, for whatever reason). Does not sound like this was a young population where very high asymptomatic rates would be (perhaps) expected.

 

[bkp_duke]

. . . that also sometimes sells cocaine . .

 

[KenC]

More on Japan

Japan: coronavirus patients distribution by age and state of health 2020 | Statista

As of May 4, 60 deaths in the under 70 years old cohort, or ~ 1 per 2 million. Today no new confirmed cases in Japan.
No draconian measures, no police state, no massive TTQ. Just smart behavior, meaning no religious idiocy and no trumperism.

So, according to Worldometers, Japan's rate was 7 deaths/Million, and Taiwan's was 0.3 deaths/Million. Japan was an order of magnitude worse than Taiwan, what's their excuse?

Japan looks amazing compared to the US, but terrible compared to Taiwan. Asia, as a whole, did far far better than other regions, in particular, Western Europe and North America. The differences are vast. How is it that the best performing European nations still did worse than the worst-performing East Asian nations?

I wish the answer were as simple as smart behavior, but I think the answer has to be far more complex.

 

[SageBrush]

So, according to Worldometers, Japan's rate was 7 deaths/Million, and Taiwan's was 0.3 deaths/Million. Japan was an order of magnitude worse than Taiwan, what's their excuse?

Taiwan is Japan + early border controls + aggressive TTQ.

As far as your superficial look at mortality stats goes, you have to correct for differences in age demographics. The important lesson we should take from Japan is that Covid-19 severe morbidity and death is not (as the trumpers say) a trade-off between massive death and police state. 95 - 98% of the human toll can be avoided by smart behavior.

 

[dfwatt]

So, according to Worldometers, Japan's rate was 7 deaths/Million, and Taiwan's was 0.3 deaths/Million. Japan was an order of magnitude worse than Taiwan, what's their excuse?

Japan looks amazing compared to the US, but terrible compared to Taiwan. Asia, as a whole, did far far better than other regions, in particular, Western Europe and North America. The differences are vast. How is it that the best performing European nations still did worse than the worst-performing East Asian nations?

I wish the answer were as simple as smart behavior, but I think the answer has to be far more complex.

I agree with you Ken. I think there is a good possibility of an unknown but variable expression of risk factors/modulators both for infection and for severity of infection across cultures. We've already identified vitamin D which surprisingly is low in Spain and Italy and better in northern European countries (despite the unfavorable Sun incidence due to more vit D food supplementation) but also in Asian countries on average although definitive date on that latter point is lacking. And vitamin D is both involved in ensuring immunocompetence but also in restraining the immune system, two variables that we know are intimately linked to outcome in covid-19 infection.

But I suspect that's just one of what may be many moderating variables that influence the trajectory of covid-19 both in terms of vulnerability to infection in the first place then in terms of how severe that trajectory turns out to be. We know for example that Japan has some of the best longevity in the world, and so do the number of Asian countries, they eat an anti-inflammatory diet, they also consume significant polyphenols particularly EGCG (a known zinc ionophore) and although data is lacking it's entirely possible that some cultures buffer or modify the declining adaptive immunity seen in aging more than others, as we know that the tail end of viral infection response and subsequent downstream immunity is conferred by activation of the Adaptive immune system and the learning of antigen pathogen relationships. We know starting about a week or so after presentation of a virus that there is a beginning of a handoff so to speak between the innate immune system that starts the initial defense and the Adaptive immune system which is both more targeted, more effective against viruses, and generates less bystander damage and less inflammation even. I'm just throwing these out as possible chips on the table so to speak but I think it's a really good/open question. And I think we have to start by confessing that we don't really understand this question of differential severity well at all in relationship covid-19. It's highly probable although again unproven that the asymptomatic folks actually have a partial recognition of the virus from their immune systems from prior encounter with another Coronavirus.

But the differential 'ramp' of infection severity in this illness is impressive from literally nothing to fatal levels of inflammation and cytokine release syndrome. And while we know something about the variables that land people on different places on that gradient (including many age related diseases and conditions) it's safe to say we don't know that much, particularly in terms of the fine mechanistic details of how those various conditions and age-related change impact immunocompetence in covid-19. Age per se is not a definitive explainer of this differential manifestation, although Advanced age is impressively correlated with risk. I think age may be a proxy for other things in this case I suspect it's at least in part a proxy for declining adaptive immunity and disinhibition of innate immunity. Again these are just educated hunches but I think you've opened up a very important topic. And for sure the first step enabling any kind of scientific progress is to admit that we don't understand something very well.

 

[FreshPrince]

I agree with you Ken. I think there is a good possibility of an unknown but variable expression of risk factors/modulators both for infection and for severity of infection across cultures. We've already identified vitamin D which surprisingly is low in Spain and Italy and better in northern European countries (despite the unfavorable Sun incidence due to more vit D food supplementation) but also in Asian countries on average although definitive date on that latter point is lacking. And vitamin D is both involved in ensuring immunocompetence but also in restraining the immune system, two variables that we know are intimately linked outcome in covid-19 infection.

But I suspect that's just one of what may be many moderating variables that influence the trajectory of covid-19 both in terms of vulnerability to infection in the first place then in terms of how severe that trajectory turns out to be. We know for example that Japan has some of the best longevity in the world, and so do the number of Asian countries, they eat an anti-inflammatory diet, they also consume significant polyphenols particularly EGCG (a known zinc ionophhore) and although data is lacking it's entirely possible that some cultures buffer or modify the declining adaptive immunity seen in aging more than others, as we lnow that the tail end of viral infection response and subsequent downstream immunity is conferred by activation of the Adaptive immune system and the learning of antigen pathogen relationships. I'm just throwing these out as possible chips on the table so to speak but I think it's a really good/open question. And I think we have to start by confessing that we don't really understand this question of differential severity well at all in relationship covid-19. It's highly probable although again unproven that the asymptomatic folks actually have a partial recognition of the virus from their immune systems from prior encounter with another Coronavirus.

But the differential 'ramp' of infection severity in this illness is impressive from literally nothing to fatal levels of inflammation and cytokine release syndrome. And while we know something about the variables that land people on different places on that gradient it's safe to say we don't know that much. Age per se is not a definitive explainer of this differential manifestation. I think age is a proxy for other things in this case I suspect it's at least in part a proxy for declining adaptive immunity and disinhibition of innate immunity. Again these are just educated hunches but I think you've opened up a very important topic. And for sure the first step enabling any kind of scientific progress is to admit that we don't understand something very well.

There's also a theory that people vaccinated against Tuberculosis have lower infection rate.
EDIT: personally, I think TB vaccination might be protecting a patient from secondary infection (TB), especially when intubated.