Coronavirus 2020-22

[OH&S]

Originally Posted by Jaden

This expert offers some counter arguments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfN2JWifLCY

Can spend a few trillions on economic shutdown, and give government unlimited powers to buy a few months of time, but can you really call that a solution? Maybe "herd immunity" isn't a solution either, but just the only hope that remains.

Well, if anything it was definitely interesting to hear that opinion. Some things he said raised some eyebrows but I suppose the coming weeks and months will determine if Sweden's strategy is indeed more preferable.

But I guess there's one thing I'm unsure of. What level of restriction are people referring to when they say lockdown?

[EroKing]

Originally Posted by Jaden

This expert offers some counter arguments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfN2JWifLCY

@26:14: He says "This does not hurt children very much, they don't have any symptoms."
Sure... and when asked about data which suggest otherwise he responds with "Influenza kills people too."

>Expert.

Europe is bound to see a second wave and a third wave, with all the talks of easing restrictions and lockdowns in place.

[Yu Ominae]

John Oliver coronavirus coverage:

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by EroKing

Herd immunity was a terrible idea from the start against something this contagious and deadly. Nothing short of suicidal. Many patients in South Korea are testing positive again after recovery,

Well... shit.

[MeoTwister5]

Most of us agree that these are either dead/inactivated viruses, or remaining incompletely disposed viral load. The important take away should always be the presence of antibodies in the form of IgG in a patient, meaning that their immune system memory B cells have developed the ability to fight off future infections by default.

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by EroKing

@26:14: He says "This does not hurt children very much, they don't have any symptoms."
Sure... and when asked about data which suggest otherwise he responds with "Influenza kills people too."

https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-...lished-to-date

But some children do develop severe illness, and 147 of the [over 2,500] patients in the new CDC study were hospitalized, with five sent to intensive care. Three children died.

https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/2020...-from-covid-19

https://www.wtkr.com/news/national/c...19-in-michigan

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by Key Board

if vaccines don't work. You don't get natural herd immunity either.

There is another possibility, that was unthinkable, unfathomable, downright ridiculous a few years ago. But we can all agree that the era of Pax Americana has come to an end, we officially live on a world of "every country/union to themselves".

Remember how Trump was a few weeks ago trying to buy a German company? This would be a waste of tax payer dollars if at the end of the day said vaccine would be manufactured and sold to all countries over the world. Sure, said pharmaceutical company will rack in big bucks, but "the world would be saved".

Enter the new reality, what Trump was trying to do is to get said vaccine ONLY for the USA. From a simple economical standpoint, that makes business sense, since this would give whichever country whose population gets vaccinated first the chance to re-open a 100% their economies and even start selling products to other countries that can no longer produce them at full capacity due to lockdowns.

Trump did this on plain sight for everyone to see; so say Russia, China or other country manages to manufacture a vaccine first, they can talk BS about not being able to produce it fast enough or outright say "Aside from paying for the vials, what else I am getting for selling it to you, you know, MANY countries want it too".

So down the line, it might take years for some countries to get the vaccine. So the "no vaccine scenario" would apply in full force.

[EroKing]

Sweden’s “no lockdown” experiment, currently ranked #14 in the world in terms of number of deaths.


And also, Currently 'no evidence' that COVID-19 survivors have immunity, WHO warns.

[Yu Ominae]

Michigan and North Carolina state governments are sounding the alarm due to the protests against the stay at home orders.

Via ABC:

Two governors facing protests against their stay-at-home orders amid the coronavirus pandemic on Monday asked the White House for help keeping people home, after President Donald Trump had voiced support for the demonstrators.

After Trump both said it was up to governors how and when to implement or lift the orders -- but then criticized governors he said had gone too far -- the governors of Michigan and North Carolina asked Vice President Mike Pence to reiterate the need for social distancing, and Pence agreed to "make a point" to do so.

They made the comments on a videoconference call with Pence focused on testing, according to an audio recording obtained by ABC News.

Several scattered protests around the country have called for governors to pull back stay-at-home orders, as demonstrators say the economic toll of a largely shutdown economy is not worth the public health benefits of slowing the spread of the coronavirus.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, said she understood people in her state were getting frustrated and wanted to "do the wonderful American tradition of dissent and demonstration, but it's just so dangerous to do that." She said she was worried about "spikes" in cases spurned from protesters traveling from demonstrations to other parts of the state with lower infection rates.

Trump first endorsed protests in Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia on Friday, and said Sunday said the protesters "love our country" and "want to get back to work." A day before, Trump told reporters some governors "are being unreasonable" and that Michigan's governor had put some "crazy" restrictions in place.

"To the extent that there might be some help on the national level to reiterate the importance of staying home until we get these numbers down and we can start to reopen would be incredibly appreciated," Whitmer said.

Pence said that the administration would "make a point today and going forward to continue to reiterate that." He told the governors that they were the ones to decide "when and how" they could start to loosen social distancing guidelines.

"We want to do this in a safe and responsible way," Pence said. "We want people to adhere to state and local leadership and federal guidelines on social distancing until we've reached that criteria."

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, also a Democrat, asked if the administration could let the public know the importance of meeting the minimum criteria set forth in federal recommendations for "reopening" state economies, released by the White House last week.

Suggested guidelines for state and local officials who have largely called the shots, they call for at least two weeks of downward trends in COVID-19 cases, the ability to carry out testing and contact tracing, and providing enough resources for a state's healthcare system to not become overwhelmed.

"One thing that that I would ask, is that the administration do everything that it can to let the public know that it is important for us to reach these minimum thresholds, before we began easing restrictions," Cooper said.

Protesters planned a Tuesday demonstration in North Carolina's capital.

"The administration's encouragement of, say, hey guys, particularly you have a lot of groups who are trying to get us to open up right now -- not encouraging those groups, but to follow the federal guidelines that you have given," Cooper told Pence. "And to do that responsibly."

In response, the vice president reiterated that reopening rested in the governors' hands.

The bulk of the phone call focused on the Trump administration's argument that states are not fully taking advantage of laboratories across the country for COVID-19 testing.

But governors from Texas and North Carolina told the vice president that their states are still having trouble getting access to the medical gear needed to collect samples for the tests.

Pence said fully using those labs would potentially double or triple the number of tests states could process. He said the task force provided the states with a list of labs they encouraged state governments to contact.

The White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, Dr. Deborah Birx, said on ABC's “This Week” on Sunday that the task force had “a team calling every single laboratory” that have various testing platforms throughout the country. “They're calling everyone to work with each state and local authority to ensure that they have everything that they need to turn on full capacity, which will, we believe, double the number of tests that are available for Americans,” she said.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, said on Monday’s call that while there are a large number of facilities in Texas able to process coronavirus tests, “our problem is getting the collection equipment needed to get to those labs.”

Likewise, North Carolina's Cooper said his state had “significant concerns” with the personal protective equipment, or PPE, needed to collect specimens for tests and that “we're having to make tough choices.”

“When you have law enforcement and first responders that you're having to ration PPE, plus needing PPE for testing, that is a significant concern for us,” Cooper said.

Admiral Brett Giroir, a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services official who has taken a lead on testing, noted that the federal government was not seeing any sort of issues with the gear needed – but rather, with labs understanding what supplies are available to them.

"We want to make sure that the labs are -- have all the information to know what the range of supplies are that they could use and get to the commercial market,” he said, “and often we've not seen that happen."

Pence and Giroir explained to Cooper that the PPE needed to collect specimens has shifted as the type of tests have evolved, such as shifting to wider use of a nasal self-swab rather than a more invasive swab by a healthcare worker.

As the federal government made a push for more labs to be used, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said he was already “in contact with every one” listed for his state – and that he wasn’t actually even able to use some of them.

Hogan, a Republican, said certain labs were federally run or controlled by the Department of Defense and had been off limits to the state.

Birx told him the task force had spoken with the defense department and said “there’s a willingness” on its part to open those labs for the states to use.

[Magin]

You know what I would love to see happen, even though it never will (because media ratings)?

For one of these governors to put it bluntly as "You either stay home and keep yourself safe, or come into public and risk not only killing yourself, but killing others as well. So will you choose life or death?" Obviously it's more nuanced than that, but the lat part there provides a perfect soundbite, which would lead into something like this:

Reporter:"Would you choose life or death?"
If they start showing clips of people saying "I choose death", it's all you need to know about Americans now...

Like I said though, it'll never happen... especially since I guess a bunch of people would otherwise say. "I want to go back to work"

[McW]

Can someone confirm this is actually happening? I find it too hard to be true

States and Hospitals Are Essentially Smuggling PPE Because They’re Afraid the Feds Will Seize It

A Snapshot of a System In Breakdown': States Forced to Smuggle PPE Under the Nose of the Feds

[Ithekro]

They are basically going off on the concept of "give me liberty or give me death", proposing that the various governor's orders are starting to strip personal freedoms away.

The other quote I keep seeing is "Those that trade liberty for security deserve neither".

Both sides of the internet extremist are saying that the virus is being used to strip away Liberty in America. They differ on who is doing the stripping and how. Both are point at the coming election though. One side thinks this is a power grab against the President, and the other thinks this is Trump's efforts to become a dictator for life.

[Guardian Enzo]

False equivalency 101.

[kari-no-sugata II]

Little update from the UK:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulat...ing10april2020

Latest data showing all registered deaths - up to 10th April. So this is very much a trailing indication. When the next release is out (in a week) I expect the numbers to be close to flat since the peak seems to have been the 8th April.

In the latest week's data, total deaths are 70% higher than the long term average. 33.6% of all deaths were officially due to COVID-19 - in London it was 53.2%.

Meanwhile, in the most up to date data (hospitals only), I was really happy to see a big fall the last two days, though the media fell over themselves so fast to downplay this as a weekend effect I almost thought they were going to call it "fake news". Sigh. While I'm sure there has been a weekend effect it's still the best results in about three weeks. Anyway, while the death data and hospitalisation data clearly show the UK is past the peak (for now), the new detected cases rate is kinda flat - seems to be purely a side-effect of increased testing but I'm still surprised it hasn't been going down. Rate of testing is still anemic either way though.

[Cosmic Eagle]

Originally Posted by Magin

I'm retreating back online where I have people to talk to in some form. Which means that I'm running across the idiocy even more.

You could just....not talk to people online though? This is an anime forum lol. Would have thought people here are the most well equipped to handle isolation

Originally Posted by MeoTwister5

Most of us agree that these are either dead/inactivated viruses, or remaining incompletely disposed viral load. The important take away should always be the presence of antibodies in the form of IgG in a patient, meaning that their immune system memory B cells have developed the ability to fight off future infections by default.

More to the point, if it were impossible to develop even short term immunity to the virus then how did anyone, including serious cases even recover?

Originally Posted by EroKing

And also, Currently 'no evidence' that COVID-19 survivors have immunity, WHO warns.

They are just saying the serotest is not sufficient to determine immunity not what the headline is claiming

[EroKing]

Originally Posted by Cosmic Eagle

They are just saying the serotest is not sufficient to determine immunity not what the headline is claiming

Just a brief mention of what WHO put out and the article seems to be aimed at people who thought some Immunity certificates after getting some of these antibody tests developed was the path to get back in business.

What WHO said regarding immunity.

“Nobody is sure whether someone with antibodies is fully protected against having the disease or being exposed again. Plus some of the tests have issues of sensitivity; they may give a false negative result and we may actually have someone who believes they are seropositive or they are protected actually in a situation where they may be exposed and in fact they are susceptible to the disease,” he said.

Some new data regarding antibodies.

[MeoTwister5]

Establishing immunity requires years of monitoring. No one can safely conclude that immunity can be established mere months after a disease's first appearance.

[Skulkraken]

The GOP is really going all-in on forcing people to work through the pandemic, no matter how many deaths that results in.

Newsweek - GOP Texas lieutenant governor says we need to take risk to get back to work: "There are more important things than living"

[ramlaen]

Originally Posted by Skulkraken

The GOP is really going all-in on forcing people to work through the pandemic, no matter how many deaths that results in.

Newsweek - GOP Texas lieutenant governor says we need to take risk to get back to work: "There are more important things than living"

Your editorializing doesn't quite match the article you linked my partisan friend.

[Guardian Enzo]

One very bizarre development that I assumed was a joke (in either sense) when I first saw it but have since seen numerical evidence that says it's possible: smokers seem to be getting severely ill at lower rates than non-smokers. It's early days yet but a Google search reveals several bits of incremental evidence (a study in France, numbers from China) suggesting it's at least possible. It's totally counter-intuitive, but it could at least theoretically offer an explanation why some Asian countries (where smoking is more widespread) may be doing better than Western counterparts.