Topic: Coronavirus outbreak

@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!

@dharmajones93 Ouch. I would say "stay safe" but that, at this point is similar to saying "avoid the suppression fire!"

@Heavyarms55 Yeah, there's less than zero chance of kids adhering to safety protocols and anyone that thinks they will should probably be institutionalized, and not allowed within 150ft of children, ever. Worse, kids that have parents that actively ridicule safety protocols (or rules in general, who teach kids, as I said, effectively "rules are for losers" and to push the limits.)

As for someone who worked government administrative jobs only due to a rich family....describes most bureaucrats, doesn't it? We really have a new Feaudal system. The nobleborn are destined for noble lives, groomed for noble jobs in noble circles, and are leaders by birthright. Everyone else can fend for themselves, and double points if they can fight each other along easily divided lines, goaded by the nobleborn.

The fact that the Department of Education exists at all is probably part of the problem though. Lets take things back, 3/4 century. There was no Department of Education. There was no national school system, or public school system. It was right after another plague. It was the depression, kids had to figure out life through trial and error. Many places had one room school houses. Many didn't even have that....maybe just parents teaching kids....and some not even that...they just lived "on the street" and figured it out. Those kids fought a world war, suppressed an invasion of Europe, halted Japan's invasion of the Pacific, cowed the Soviets, started small businesses by the hundreds, ran a functioning society, expanded the middle class into the standard class, and earned the name "The Greatest Generation." Then we got a Department of Education and standardized public schools and we ended up with kids that think Pewdiepie is the greatest thing ever, can't figure out a mask blocks germs, thinks going to bars in a plague is a national imperative, and has generally brought civilization to near collapse. And we have 2.5 generations of those now.

Ultimately the real problem is deeper than schools of course. The real problem is the entire structure and way of life. The real problem is that what was once a stable family structure of a home maker and caretaker of family and a bread winner got broken when "women's lib" instead of addressing "why is it that women are consigned to that role?" Made the argument "Why is anybody doing that role when a corporation and government cooperative can raise our families so we don't have to?" Instead of fixing a gender role assignment issue, the role of home maker and caretaker was entirely eliminated, and thus the concept of stable family structure was eliminated entirely - the lifeblood of the way of life, rather than making it "gender neutral". That broke just about everything for anyone that couldn't import a minimum wage pseudo-slave to do the job. We change an economy to one that demanded no such thing as family, just productivity. And the public schools inevitably became a babysitter to dump kids you really don't want or have time to raise. (And then from there the schools became platforms for implanting agendas into each generation, only the revolutionaries that run the schools can't actually agree on their agenda so each half generation ends up living in a completely different reality with completely different perceptions of the past, present, and values than the half generations on either side of them.....then they all fight each other in cancel culture wars and collide in monetary realities.)

Basically we have a bout 5 half-generations that are entirely different civilizations with entirely different histories, perspectives, goals, and values from each other....each about as foreign to each other as if they were from different hemispheres, and we have the schools that regionally and generationally program them with those different "realities." Meanwhile only the wealthy kids have "stable family structures" guiding them from outside that chaos. And they're largely in private schools anyway.

What could possibly go wrong?

I don't think most of the public thinks it's a "hoax" but as Jax described earlier, they look at the statistics and think "I'll almost certainly be fine, so who cares." It's a mix of denial, and largely selfishness, albeit, stupid selfishness because they're in denial of what bad is and how unpredicatable it is. Statistically, it's true, most people are just fine. Jax got something milder than most colds. People look at that and say "why are we hiding and not doing what we want? Screw it." And the Media has played their role over 15, 20 years as well.....they've gotten people so used to "be afraid of everything even when it's nothing" people are looking at this, and seeing it as more of the same old same old, but with public overreaction.

In large degree, what's happening with people ignoring it isn't just current government goading to ignore it on left/right lines. It's a bed that was made 15, 20 years ago, and the pillows have been fluffed annually. Now that the real crisis is here, nobody cares about anyone crying wolf anymore. It's "ALWAYS a hoax...always has been!" They've been well trained that it's always much ado about nothing. In that sense it's hard to blame them for feeling that way. Even you and I thought that's what was going on when this first started. We realized it was real this time fast....but most people don't have deep thoughtful geopolitical conversations on a daily basis....they're not going to break that first impression as fast as we did, if at all unless it breaks them.

Technically I don't think this plague broke the US. The US was already entirely broken. Much like the Visigoths didn't break Rome, it was already broken long before they got there..... When you burn a charcoal briquette, fully, and check on it the next day, it's still the exact shame shape and size it was when you lit it! It looks like it's still burnable. But the moment you touch it, it crumbles. It was really powdered ash that held it's shape until jostled. The same theory applies. Everything broken was already broken. This just jostled it a bit and now all the fractures are visible....and it's so deep it can't be fixed without a complete restart from zero.

"e 5G and Bill Gates" The thing is there's shades of truth in all that, which is the real problem. No the pandemic isn't faked.....but in a sense it could be worse. I legitimately would not doubt for a moment the power brokers of the world are manipulating events to make them worse to acquire more power and financial control, because that is consistent with their ongoing behavior and stated views and objectives. The conspiracy people aren't necessarily crazy, or even wrong in their base beliefs. But they somehow extrapolate it into unexpected and impractical directions. Faking a plauge would be next to impossible and logisitically impractical. Helping an actual plague spread as "economically effectively" as possible to consolidate wealth and power further....would be quite easy and exceptionally practical.

@Octane Yeah, that's the problem here. Here, long lockdown means most of all small to medium business goes belly up. In addition to launching worse-than-depression level unemployment, that also means that most of that business will never come back, it was alreay on the decline, and a few dozen megabusinesses would effectively dominate all economy like a socialist oligopoly. There really is a lot to lose by closing business here....but like the above, that's a bed made 20 or more years ago....just cracking now.

Worse, like we see here in the northeast, now that the numbers are down, the public praises the response here (which was really awful even here) as being so effective so now we got it under control here, and it's those other places that didn't do it right. The thinking in the public and the leadership in the northeast is "it's over, we're past it now and moving back to the beforetimes."

@Octane More security theater. Like the schools sanitizing people and opening "3 days a week." Ok, so it's a disease with 2 week incubation and 2-4 week symptoms......so bringing everyone into a room every 5 days makes it safe?! But it's ok because you sanitized surfaces.......which isn't a primary transmission method to begin with......

@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.

Passed by the Weather Channel this afternoon and saw this...

Only in America, lol.

For @-Green- and anyone that wants to see what Disney World is doing. I discovered this youtube channel, Prince Charming Dev when Disney World reopened. First vid shows how a disney resort hotel has changed for reopening. Second video shows how entering and visiting Magic Kingdom has changed for reopening. It's interesting to see. And the second video is also a virtual tour, hitting some famous rides.

Bay Lake Tower hotel: See measures they are taking at the Disney resort hotels

Magic Kingdom Reopened

So not by choice, but I'm leaving Japan tomorrow, and I've had to spend the last couple days at the airport hotel here in Tokyo. And I have to say, airline companies as we know them, the whole industry, I do not see how it is going to survive. This is a facility meant service literally thousands of people at any given time. And Tokyo has two of them. And it's basically deserted.

I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't be doing all we can to fight the pandemic, I actually think we aren't doing enough. (I'm not travelling by choice - had I found a safe way to stay here, I would have) But I think it's only just now that I'm realizing that the pandemic isn't just killing people, it's also warping society.

I no longer think that even if/when we get past this disaster, we will simply return to how things were. I really think society has been fundamentally changed.

I went to a pizza hut just the other day and they weren't enforcing the mask order. Even the employess had their masks basically just barely over their mouths and hanging on their necks not fully covering their nose. There wasn't even a sign on the door that said you must wear a mask to enter the building. I guess they don't feel like running off customers all day or having to put up with violent outburts constantly.

I still feel like this thing has gotten really stupid and people shouldn't be forced or treated like scum for not wearing them. All it's doing is dividing the whole world and the crazy people are making it worse. If people are going to start killing eachother over mask policies maybe it's not saving that many lives after all. Nevermind the economy collapsing.

All i know is i am so glad my school days are long behind me. It's gonna be miserable.

@Zeldafan79 I saw you replied to this thread and I thought to myself that you were going post something about going to get junk food.

The (real, not spoof) New York city guidance of safe sex during the pandemic is amazing. Glory hole, try sexy zoom parties, make sure they are consenting;
https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/imm/covid-sex-g...

@Heavyarms55 Yeah, I always thought that America was just idiots (I still think this) that if we would just lockdown for a month then we could basically wipe it out and move on, but Americans are too proud and focused on their freedoms to do it. But now I'm seeing more and more stories about countries that did do that and seemed to have it under control are now seeing strong re-surges of the virus and having to lockdown again. So who knows? We may be stuck until a vaccine develops, and even then it may not completely help. But we are still a bunch of idiots who should be doing a lot more to control it and we just flat out refuse to do it. I saw in China you can be arrested if you are seen in public without a mask. We should do that. Or at least a very hefty fine.