Topic: Coronavirus outbreak

@Xyphon22, I'm not sure when it goes into effect, but they were mentioning it on the news this morning.

@Xyphon22 That's surreal. At this point, China wants to nuke us, Russia wants to nuke us, I say go ahead, just nuke us, get it over with. It's not like it gets worse.

@RR529 Oh dear......

@JaxonH Be careful. It is not confirmed that there is any real immunity, and there is strong evidence, so far suggesting there is not long term immunity. The research is early, but several unrelated studies have so far shown a lack of antibodies after infection, showing that the antibodies last days to weeks and then in the plurality of patients are gone. Without durable immunity it means it's going to keep circulating (and mutating) among the same people over and over.

Further, some of the research was showing that the people that had the strongest antibody counts are the ones that were in ICU or dead, indicating that immunity at this point might be undesirable - an immune system producer a stronger, longer immunity is the one that gets people in trouble.

The point is, while none of that is confirmed, all of you should assume you are definitely NOT immune beyond a week or two out and that ALL of you can continuously keep getting it. Again that's not fully confirmed research, none is at this point, but it's a pattern that's appeared in multiple non-related studies, so it's a safe be there's something there. Fauci also commented on the lack of durability in immunity with vaccines.

The promoters who were going to be doing a series of drive in gigs in the UK have just cancelled the entire thing. They are stating it’s due to lockdown measures but the whole point of it being a drive in is that it’s keeps to the lockdown measures.

I’ve not been to a gig in months and I was really looking forward to this.

@JaxonH Eh. Unless you know something I don't, there hasn't been any confirmation on how widespread immunity to the virus is after infection, or how long that immunity lasts, so don't count on that. Glad you're feeling good.

@RR529 ...they're going to cook the books. I don't see any other reasonable conclusion to draw from this.

I've got a kid in infant school. They started back at school, I dunno, maybe 4 weeks ago. The deal was that they get grouped into 'bubbles' that supposedly don't mix with other bubbles. Then if anyone in a bubble gets symptoms the whole bubble bursts and stays home. I was confident it would burst within a week - they're always bringing coughs home - but no, still going strong.

@NEStalgia @Ralizah
Ya ya, I know the whole "immunity isnt confirmed". It was just a half hearted joke. Hence the smiley.

That said, it may not be confirmed but if its anything like most other viruses, you'll probably develop antibodies. Which means immunity is likely to be similar how it works for the annual cold or flu. We havent seen any mass reports of people getting it twice yet, so there's that.

@JaxonH @NEStalgia Looking into it a bit, it seems like, if people are protected against the virus after infection, it probably doesn't last very long.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/13/health/covid-immunity-antibody...

Of course, you can't draw firm conclusions from one study, but a lot of data, as the article points out, seems to be pointing that same direction.

I hope your colleagues handle their infections as well as you have, Jax.

@JaxonH Well that was the whole point of those findings in the studies I was referring to. There weren't antibodies, at least in any meaningful concentrations or activity levels in a significant portion of recovered cases.

The one primary test I'm thinking of was a joint study with some Chinese organization and a univeristy in Texas (can't recall which one.) They tested various medical workers in Wuhan in a sample rate of the worst exposure (early on before anyone even knew what it was) with an estimated 30%+ infection rate....and only something like 8% or so had any, or any meaningful quantity of antibodies. A few later studies echoed similar findings, but that was the first one I recall seeing. I.E. There's a chance you get long-term antibodies and develop a form of resistance, but based on that it's more likely that the antibodies generated to dispose of the disese are not long-lasting, and are gone after the disease is removed from the body.

They also found the highest antibody concentrations in corpses, or near-death samples, suggesting a possible correlation between the bodies that produce the strongest/most antibodies also being the ones killed by their immune system. I.E. Not being dead or nearly dead means your're less likely to have long term antibodies and some immunity than someone that is, but of course at that point the damage is done so it doesn't matter much.

Put simply, of course you develop antibodies otherwise you couldn't recover, but what matters if if the antibodies are long-term or a temporary reaction, and those studies suggest it's just a temporary reaction unlike, say influenza immunities that are durable long term (for that strain.)

Of course, as with everything with this "we know nothing" is the only thing we know, and those studies may have pulled incorrect conclusions by testing the wrong things or testing the wrong way, etc.

There may be a stronger reason to believe it's true in that, if that study pans out correct, people may well be getting it twice often, but they may be asymptomatic or mild case people that never got tested at all the first time they got it (still safe to presume that accounts for the majority of cases), but if they get it again and it's bad might get tested and get diagnosed as "first time." And/or if the people the most severely affected have the most antibodies/durable antibodies and are also therefore the people most likely to have been confirmed positive due to severe symptoms, those would also be the people least likely to get it again as they're the ones with the stronger antibody reaction.

@Ralizah That's very possible....but again it could also be the people tracked had the stronger reactions to begin with. The study in wuhan didn't just test confirmed positive patients, which is important, because that's the only way to account for asymptomatic and mild case. It tested a concentration of exposed people (unprotected medical workers) of which a high infection rate can be presumed (which included a mix of confirmed and non-confirmed people.) And the postive antibody results were well below the confirmed positive and WAY below the presumed positive numbers. If that means a milder second infectin or not, though, I don't think that's been covered by other studies other than what you found.

Still....recirculating the thing over and over so it can become more resistant isn't a fun prospect in a country with exploding infection rates.

@Ralizah
He sounded way worse than me or Avery got it. But he convinced himself it was the flu (or maybe it was wishful thinking) due to a girl in the fluoroscope Dept next to us getting the flu (he had no contact with her though really, hence the wishful thinking imo). Told'm it sounded like Covid.

At the rate our lab is spreading it, we'll probably be finding out first hand if any of us get it again.

@dharmajones93 well I'm guessing they're screening specifically for antibodies. The other studies do show people do have antibodies but also show it may be a minority of recovered patients that do, not a majority. The donations still make sense. It's just that they may not have a large sample pool to use from it.

@NEStalgia The cynic in me, ashamed of his home state of Michigan, wants to blame Betsy DeVos - from my home state - the single least qualified person ever to serve in a US administration. She's never worked a real job. Only sat on various boards and political councils of which she got by virtue of the wealth she inherited and amplified when she married.

But I know better, as most problems with US schools long predate her. She's making everything worse, but most of the problems were already there.

She literally said on air that schools must open, but that it was up to local districts to deal with safety concerns and she and the administration didn't even have general outlines for them to follow but if they choose not to open - then their federal funding will be cut! (just ignore that only Congress can legally do that!)

I've taught for 5 years. I don't care what rules you put in place - masks, social distancing, whatever. Kids cannot and will not follow them. You can't fill a room full of children and tell them never to touch each other, to stay far apart and to keep their masks on. It doesn't work.

MAYBE big maybe, you can do it in high school. But not jr. high and certainly not elementary. But most adults I've seen have issues following these rules.

@Xyphon22 Honestly that sounds exactly like what I've been hearing. There's still massive swaths of the public who think this is all nonsense or a hoax or just not worth worrying about. The responses range from:
It's a democratic hoax
It's real but people die everyday anyway so who cares it's less than 1%
The economic damage is worse than the people actually dying so we need to care more about that - if a few thousand people a month need to be sacrificed to the god of capitalism, then so be it!

Obviously I paraphrase.

Also, about 6 years ago I worked at a hotel right outside Michigan International Speedway. I've seen how those events are. It will be a breeding ground for viral spread. If only one person has it at the start - I imagine 20% or more will have it by the end.

@Heavyarms55 Exactly. As much as I hate the current government, especially the one at the top, I cannot blame him/them for this. They can reopen all that they want, it doesn't mean that you have to go. I have not stepped foot anyplace other than my house and my mom's house since March, and if everybody else had done that, too, this would probably be gone by now. The general public just selfishly refuses to listen to anything that goes against their personal best interest, and now the rest of us have to pay for it. I don't know how much stupid you have to have in your brain to even think about going to Disney World or a NASCAR race now, but tens of thousands are doing it just because they can with absolutely no thought for anybody but themselves.

@Xyphon22 It's not even stupidity really. It's lies and manipulation. Coming from people that people think/thought they could trust. These people live in bubbles where they are fed lies nonstop. So they believe insane things like 5G and Bill Gates are working with the Illuminati who rules the world via the UN deep state which controls 98% of all the world's scientists and medical professionals to fake this pandemic as part of a plot to pave the way for the one world government and the rise of the anti-Christ.

I wish I were joking about that. But that's a super-short summary of something my aunt sent me.

Once you convince people that facts are fiction and only you know the truth, you can feed them whatever BS you want.

@Xyphon22 @Heavyarms55 Yeah, I've seen people say that masks take away their ''freedom''. And they rather have their ''freedom'' of not wearing mask, even if it means that you're responsible for spreading it as a result. @Ralizah has brought to my attention that one state actually overruled the cities in enforcing masks, essentially banning the enforcement. It's really mind boggling how the virus still manages to progress in to this degree in some countries.

I mean, the Netherlands had an half-arsed lock-down that wasn't even a true lock-down, but I'm glad that our numbers are pretty much zero. I think the key difference was that it happened on a national scale, and it was in place for a good two months, instead of the two weeks in some other places. Then again, we also had measures in place to help businesses survive this period. So the idea that a lock-down would hurt the economy means that the government should help stay businesses alive, instead of not doing it in the first place.

That being said, I've seen reports that numbers in our country are also on the rise again. But we're at a point that they're local bubbles, which makes it easier to track the people that could have been exposed. I just hope it doesn't go back to the March situation now that most of the restrictions have been loosened up.

@Octane The thing about this virus is that even places like the Netherlands or Japan that have avoided major outbreaks or mass infections - are still every bit at risk. The virus hasn't disappeared, people haven't developed any magical immunity to it just because they avoided the problems seen in America and Brazil so far.

It can still happen anywhere as soon as people let their collective guards down. Until we have an effective, safe and trusted vaccine AND that vaccine is successfully distributed to a large portion of the population in a given region, we can't really relax.

And I've seen people saying that too. Another crazy and racist theory I've seen are people claiming these masks and the hoax is all a "first step" toward getting people to bow to sharia law.

@Heavyarms55 Yeah, at this point I don't know what's scarier; the virus or people...

Very true. We won't see a vaccine until early 2021, so we're definitely in it for the long ride. I still try to keep my distance, because every little bit matters I think, but there are definitely people who pretend it doesn't exist anymore, and it kinda annoys me. Especially when you go out of your way to avoid people in the supermarket for example, and all you get is an angry look and they walk right past you anyway.

They're opening up Disney World in Florida it seems. Despite them saying they're gonna enforce greater precautions I can't see it ending in anything more than a disaster. It's crazy that this kind of stuff is happening.

It felt like just a month ago quarantine was in full effect in my area and now so many people are just going about without masks or anything despite the disease being just as bad.

Can't wait for the entertaining videos of people throwing a tantrum over the precautions though!

@NEStalgia The thing with DeVos is far worse than just people born to wealthy families getting good jobs as a result. Far worse. She's never really worked in any sense of the word - even the way the super rich work. She's done nothing but tell people her opinions and donate money here and there to whatever causes she likes to further enrich herself or her friends. If you look at many other cases of powerful families or the super wealthy, often they have actually at least worked as an actual administrator or businessperson. Not so with DeVos. She's very much old school wealth who never had to do anything and gets whatever she wants.

As for the Gates and 5G - I didn't go fully into that cesspool of insanity but there's no truth in it because that idea ties everything from the "fake" moon landing, the Kennedy assassination and the Illuminati to a plan to create a one world government and enable the biblical anti-Christ to take over and start the end of days as the world unites against Israel....

But do I doubt that the wealthy and politically powerful would take advantage of the pandemic for their own benefit? Of course not. Everyone in power is, they wouldn't be in power if they didn't use fear and disasters to their own benefit. That's just how this f***ed up world is.

But I just do not buy into the crazy nonsense people spout about these outrageous conspiracies and anti-Christ and one world government all being tied in with 5G and faked moon landings and blah blah blah blah blah... blah. If there were a powerful enough group out there to be behind all of this then they already rule the world and there's nothing we can do to stop them, it's already over.

I think you've got some good points about America. I've no idea what the future holds and I absolutely dread the fact that I'm returning to it. If I had no family that I cared for still living in America, I'd never go back.