Re: The Coronavirus Thread - Part 3

[sportsczy]

You have all these government institutions in the US whose only reason for being is to deal with crisis situations... and they're nowhere to be found whenever there actually is a crisis. Never fails to fail. I say get rid of them all and allocate the money to a disaster relief fund to use when necessary.

We're just throwing money away.

[The Demon of Carthage]

Just checked the number of Sweden after this talk of their partial lockdown strategy.

For all the debate, Sweden has more people dying everyday that Norway, which closed down very early, has in total.

>100 people dying per day in Sweden
3 people dying per day in Norway

It seems quite clear which country has been more successful there.

The Sweden approach will see its benefits in the re-opening phase. Clearly it's worse in terms of mortality, the question is whether the mass unemployment and small business ruin it brings is "worth" the death difference. Not sure how this will ever be determined conclusively.

Human life should always come first.

Dealing with financial problems is tough, almost unbearable even, but it can and will be overcome like many countries have throughout history.

Losing a person is a another story. You lose them forever and you'll never be able to bring them back to life again. It's an irreversible damage.

so yeah based on the numbers that rincon provided, Norway is clearly kicking Sweden's ass on that one.

[BarrileteCosmico]

They're nowhere to be found because Trump defunded them. He got rid of the Pandemic Response Team (or whatever it was named). He refused to service the stockpile of ventilators so now they can't be used. And many other instances. The solution is not to get rid of them, it's to responsibly care for them so they're able to do their job.

[BarrileteCosmico]

Italy, which reports said yesterday, was considering how to unwind the national shutdown, has seen a rise in infections, and is now looking to extend the restrictions. Germany saw the largest increase in new cases in five days.

Thought this was interesting. Lending some credibility to the 2nd wave theory?

[Babun]

There are some very disturbing reports from South Korea and UK about antibodies and immunization: South Korea found "healed" people being tested positive again, UK researchers found that a percentage of people don't develop any antibodies at all after they are healed. It makes developing an antibody test for the exit strategies rather difficult and raises suspicion healed people could be infected again.

Source:
https://news.abs-cbn.com/overseas/04/08/20/51-south-korea-patients-re-diagnosed-with-covid-19-after-recovery-report
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8203725/Antibodies-prove-difficult-detect-Chinese-coronavirus-survivors.html

[Art Morte]

If recovered people don't get immunity even for a few months that's really depressing, actually.

[sportsczy]

There are some very disturbing reports from South Korea and UK about antibodies and immunization: South Korea found "healed" people being tested positive again, UK researchers found that a percentage of people don't develop any antibodies at all after they are healed. It makes developing an antibody test for the exit strategies rather difficult and raises suspicion healed people could be infected again.

Source:
https://news.abs-cbn.com/overseas/04/08/20/51-south-korea-patients-re-diagnosed-with-covid-19-after-recovery-report
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8203725/Antibodies-prove-difficult-detect-Chinese-coronavirus-survivors.html

I heard it depends on age group.  Young people don't develop antibodies (or very little).  The 40+ crowd and older develop triple the antibodies if they survive... I assume this has to do with the body having to fight a lot harder against the virus when you're older.

[BarrileteCosmico]

There are some very disturbing reports from South Korea and UK about antibodies and immunization: South Korea found "healed" people being tested positive again, UK researchers found that a percentage of people don't develop any antibodies at all after they are healed. It makes developing an antibody test for the exit strategies rather difficult and raises suspicion healed people could be infected again.

Source:
https://news.abs-cbn.com/overseas/04/08/20/51-south-korea-patients-re-diagnosed-with-covid-19-after-recovery-report
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8203725/Antibodies-prove-difficult-detect-Chinese-coronavirus-survivors.html

you would make a stronger case for this if you removed the daily mail link as a 'source'

[CBarca]

Italy, which reports said yesterday, was considering how to unwind the national shutdown, has seen a rise in infections, and is now looking to extend the restrictions. Germany saw the largest increase in new cases in five days.

Thought this was interesting. Lending some credibility to the 2nd wave theory?

I think it's a little premature to be talking about new waves. Italy hasn't even ended its restrictions...how could there be a second wave?

How I feel about the Sweden situation too. I'd like to wait until the situation develops a little more before saying it's been a success or failure. Although it admittedly doesn't seem to be doing very well at the moment. When you take out the countries of Andorra, Sint Maarten and San Marino (extremely small populations, relative to others), Sweden is 9th in deaths per 1M population. 8th if you take out Luxembourg which has a pop of just ~600,000.

[The Demon of Carthage]

Fujifilm to begin Avigan trials in US with coronavirus

Japan claims it's effective to treat Covid-19 and up to 20 countries have taken the drug to test it including Turkey and Egypt. Great news if it's True.

[Robespierre]

Yes, CBarca is right.

tbf we're getting a drop of infections, intensive care, deads .. it's been for 5th day in a row

so nothing to do with a 2nd wave. Simply it's not enough this for a gradual opening

[Art Morte]

About those German studies, there was an article in Finnish today that quoted the researchers saying that they couldn't find a single "live" virus on surfaces in a household that had more than one covid-19 patients. This would suggest that the virus dries up quickly on surfaces and becomes inactive.

[sportsczy]

Italy, which reports said yesterday, was considering how to unwind the national shutdown, has seen a rise in infections, and is now looking to extend the restrictions. Germany saw the largest increase in new cases in five days.

Thought this was interesting. Lending some credibility to the 2nd wave theory?

I think it's a little premature to be talking about new waves. Italy hasn't even ended its restrictions...how could there be a second wave?

How I feel about the Sweden situation too. I'd like to wait until the situation develops a little more before saying it's been a success or failure. Although it admittedly doesn't seem to be doing very well at the moment. When you take out the countries of Andorra, Sint Maarten and San Marino (extremely small populations, relative to others), Sweden is 9th in deaths per 1M population. 8th if you take out Luxembourg which has a pop of just ~600,000.

This is a long play... early poor results are part of the strategy in fact. But you don't have to worry about long term issues theoretically since you've achieved herd immunity.

[BarrileteCosmico]

Seems like just 1 data point?

[Jay29]

Re antibodies. The actual study was more positive than most reported.

https://covidpapers.github.io/posts/neutralizing-antibody-responses-to-sars-cov-2-in-a-covid-19-recovered-1-patient-cohort-and-their-implications/?utm_source=social&utm_medium=reddit_share&utm_campaign=posts

Of the people they tested, most developed plenty of antibodies.

Antibody counts were apparently lower in <40s due to their immune systems working faster.

[Babun]

There are some very disturbing reports from South Korea and UK about antibodies and immunization: South Korea found "healed" people being tested positive again, UK researchers found that a percentage of people don't develop any antibodies at all after they are healed. It makes developing an antibody test for the exit strategies rather difficult and raises suspicion healed people could be infected again.

Source:
https://news.abs-cbn.com/overseas/04/08/20/51-south-korea-patients-re-diagnosed-with-covid-19-after-recovery-report
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8203725/Antibodies-prove-difficult-detect-Chinese-coronavirus-survivors.html

you would make a stronger case for this if you removed the daily mail link as a 'source'

I just picked the first English link. The summary of the study is the same, some people don't get immunized.

[Jay29]

Also weren't there reports that dead virus cells could result in positive tests? And reactiviation seems to be a thing.

[Babun]

@Jay29,
the impotant point is some people don't develop antibodies vs Wuhan virus. It wouldn't be bad if they wouldn't be infected again ( South Korean CDC paper).
The least problem would be we can't considerably ease up social distancing measures if somebody is already "healed". The worst outcome would be a reactivation mecanism similar to HIV, Herpes etc. which inactivly reside in the host until the immune system is weak enough for them to reemerge.
More research is needed..

[CBarca]

https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/04/09/999015/blood-tests-show-15-of-people-are-now-immune-to-covid-19-in-one-town-in-germany/

This is interesting. Claims that Genglet, which is apparently a hard hit region of Germany, did a test and that 15% of individuals had antibodies and that the CFR was 0.37

Not sure what to make of these results, but I do believe it's vital to start surveying areas that have been hit to get a good estimate the # of people who have antibodies and get at least a rough estimate of what it looks like for a community to have x% of people infected.

[sportsczy]

by age group, length of illness, etc. Need to get really granular here.

[Jay29]

King's College London did a survey on how people in the UK were coping with the lockdown. Sample size 2,250 adults.

15% said restrictions were very challenging.

14% said they'll be unable to cope next month.

49% said they felt more depressed and anxious than normal.

38% said they were having trouble sleeping.

22% said they were facing significant financial problems or expect to.

16% of workers said they had already lost their job or expect to.

24% of 16-24 year-olds said they were finding restrictions extremely challenging, whereas only 11% of 45-75 year-olds said that.

19% said they were having more arguments. A similar amount said they were drinking and eating more as well.

60% said they had helped a neighbour and 47% have received some form of community assistance.

41% expect the lockdown to last for another six months and 51% believe it'll be more than a year before life returns to normal. Only 5% of respondents were against the lockdown.

15% thought seasonal flu was deadlier than Covid 19 and 31% believed most people already had it.

25% believe the conspiracy the virus was created in a lab by humans.

12% thought there was too much fuss being made (compared to 55% during the swine flu outbreak in 2009).

58% thought government adapted well to the circumstances, while 42% thought the response was confused and inconsistent.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52228169

[Babun]

Still in preprint status but very interesting paper by an international group of researchers around John Ioannidis from Stanford University:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.05.20054361v1

Mortality rate for people under 65y evaluated without Chinese BS numbers. The results could be of interest for the "exit" strategies.

[El Gunner]

King's College London did a survey on how people in the UK were coping with the lockdown. Sample size 2,250 adults.

15% said restrictions were very challenging.

14% said they'll be unable to cope next month.

49% said they felt more depressed and anxious than normal.

38% said they were having trouble sleeping.

22% said they were facing significant financial problems or expect to.

16% of workers said they had already lost their job or expect to.

24% of 16-24 year-olds said they were finding restrictions extremely challenging, whereas only 11% of 45-75 year-olds said that.

19% said they were having more arguments. A similar amount said they were drinking and eating more as well.

60% said they had helped a neighbour and 47% have received some form of community assistance.

41% expect the lockdown to last for another six months and 51% believe it'll be more than a year before life returns to normal. Only 5% of respondents were against the lockdown.

15% thought seasonal flu was deadlier than Covid 19 and 31% believed most people already had it.

25% believe the conspiracy the virus was created in a lab by humans.

12% thought there was too much fuss being made (compared to 55% during the swine flu outbreak in 2009).

58% thought government adapted well to the circumstances, while 42% thought the response was confused and inconsistent.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52228169

the stats that matter and that should be discussed.

[CBarca]

The stats that should be discussed are cold hard scientific numbers. No politicians or epidemiologists are looking at these numbers and coming up with a plan based on them, so I'm not really sure what you mean. I don't care how many people think this was grown in a lab.

The first couple are very important however and on a personal level I try to keep a line on how my students are coping on an almost daily basis.

[Art Morte]

I do have sympathy for people who have lost their jobs or had to shut down their own enterprise. I don't have sympathy for people who "cannot cope" with a few months of isolation.

[BarrileteCosmico]

Spoken like a true finn

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