COVID-19 is not going away soon or ever

[Fat is a type of crazy]

I concur that health professionals should have put a higher priority on getting people to take personal responsibility with their health - to save lives from covid, and in general, there could be govt advertising getting people to lose weight, get fit, eat better. 

I  disagree with the argument that because passing on disease is part of life that the same personal responsibility applies when there is a pandemic. If you have an awareness that there are steps you can take to save lives, and disregard them, and this leads to death then you should feel somewhat responsible because you are. Pretty obvious I would have thought. 

[Bluetongue]

On 11/1/2020 at 2:37 PM, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

oh ya, lots of "green shoots"...

 

Per Johns Hopkins Oct. 30 COVID update:

 

 

France

On Tuesday October 27, 33,000 new cases were confirmed in France, at their highest level since April. French President Emmanuel Macron announced that the entire country will be re-entering a nationwide lockdown beginning today, October 30, and lasting until December 1.

 

Germany

Similar to France’s actions, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that Germany would be entering a nationwide partial lockdown. The lockdown period is set to begin on November 2 and end on November 30.

 

RUSSIA MASK MANDATE AND VACCINE The Russian government issued an order, effective Wednesday, mandating that masks be worn in all public spaces or where more than 50 people may gather.

 

etc etc etc.

And now a break from the hysteria of everyone with a different view being accused of Covid denier, that heinous crime of attempted murder, merely for discussing ideas on a forum.

 

But anyway I can understand why any American would prefer to be negative this year, up to now at least. And I wouldn't bother arguing with your Johns Hopkins quotes, I have no problem with that. Contrast to the mostly different situation across most of Asia, Oceania, even India and Africa and other places. Well and truly more than half the population of the world. Also research, treatment, and  public health methods are a moving picture. I will retain hope thanks and remain positive, the alternative has not been doing me any favours mentally. 

Edited November 3, 2020 by Bluetongue

[Jeffr2]

1 hour ago, PatrickC said:

 

So what, you expect us to take responsibility for other people's health? Seriously? Why?

 

Why should someone else's junk food habit impact me?

 

Doesn't work that way buddy. If you eat junk food and get a pre-existing condition, that is your fault.

 

Simple solution: eat healthy, cut the sugar out of your diet, stop drinking, don't smoke. Problem solved.

You are a heartless and selfish person.  You admit that if you crashed a car and caused someone else harm, you'd be responsible.  But if you don't wear a mask, and cause another to become sick because you are infected with CV19, then you are blameless.

 

Seriously?  Wow...stunning admission.

 

What's junk food got to do with this?  Terrible deflection.

[Jeffr2]

1 hour ago, PatrickC said:

 

So what, you expect us to take responsibility for other people's health? Seriously? Why?

 

Why should someone else's junk food habit impact me?

 

Doesn't work that way buddy. If you eat junk food and get a pre-existing condition, that is your fault.

 

Simple solution: eat healthy, cut the sugar out of your diet, stop drinking, don't smoke. Problem solved.

For @scammed also.  Worth a read, if you can. ????

 

https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/pandemic-deniers-what-s-with-them

 

https://www.newsweek.com/how-talk-covid-deniers-1525496

 

https://www.businessinsider.com/experts-explain-why-virus-deniers-ignore-covid-19-warnings-2020-9

[placnx]

5 hours ago, PatrickC said:

 

Precisely - 12 months for an effective vaccine to be rolled out is a pipedream. Not going to happen.

 

We can't stop the world turning for 3 years while this all falls into place.

I said:

"It will take years for vaccinations to circle the world and reach remote locations. By that time we will be giving boosters to the first vaccinees."

 

You say 12 months. From when? Now?

 

By saying that it will take years for vaccination to reach remote locations, that does not apply to Thailand, most of Asia/Oceania, Europe, and the Western Hemisphere. In this more connected part of the World, it's possible that vaccinations for those who want could be done by the end of next year. This is a public health struggle, but we can't gave up!

[placnx]

5 minutes ago, PatrickC said:

 

To say people who want to move on with life are giving up is a misinterpretation of events. It is the opposite. We simply want to move on with life and accept that it is what it is. We're not interested in the constant victimhood of worrying about covid all the time. When a vaccine comes along, great. Until it does, not worth stopping life. It is about not being a victim, accepting what has happened, and getting on with life.

 

By saying we're giving up you're also making it out as an ongoing fight. It is not a fight. The virus has spread globally so has already won. Fight is over. There is nothing to give up on. Covid won the fight months ago. This is like walking around a town that has been wiped out by a tsunami and saying we need to prepare a tsunami warning system. It is a done deal. Just move on.

Being laid back is great, but it makes a great difference whether people follow good practices such as wearing masks and social distancing. Things could be a lot worse if people did not take care. As it is, hospitals in sparsely populated parts of the US are about to be overwhelmed. In these areas a lot of people drank the Trump Kool-aid and lived care free. Now what?  I doubt that Biden (if elected) could change these mentalities. We are in for a sad Winter. 

 

Theoretically, there is liability if someone consciously infects others, whether by AIDS or Covid, but with asymptomatic Covid it would be difficult to prove that it wasn't someone else who was responsible. Anyway, I hope that Biden's people will take expert advice and start wide-spread antigen testing to break the transmission chain. There are definitely things that we can do in addition to vaccines.

[balo]

There is a new explosion of infections in Sweden so the herd immunity they were looking for did not work.

Since 10 days ago there has been a big increase of COVID-19 patients submitted to  hospital , and many of them in intensive care.  Especially the bigger cities like Stockholm have a big increase of cases.
 
Not looking good at all.
 
"COVID-19 cases have increased 70 percent in one week in Sweden"

Edited November 3, 2020 by balo

[rabas]

10 hours ago, balo said:

There is a new explosion of infections in Sweden so the herd immunity they were looking for did not work.

Since 10 days ago there has been a big increase of COVID-19 patients submitted to  hospital , and many of them in intensive care.  Especially the bigger cities like Stockholm have a big increase of cases.
 
Not looking good at all.
 
"COVID-19 cases have increased 70 percent in one week in Sweden"

Clearly something is going on, but deaths are not rising yet.  Many second waves in the EU are starting with younger people.

 

 

Edited November 4, 2020 by rabas

[thaibeachlovers]

23 hours ago, placnx said:

I said:

"It will take years for vaccinations to circle the world and reach remote locations. By that time we will be giving boosters to the first vaccinees."

 

You say 12 months. From when? Now?

 

By saying that it will take years for vaccination to reach remote locations, that does not apply to Thailand, most of Asia/Oceania, Europe, and the Western Hemisphere. In this more connected part of the World, it's possible that vaccinations for those who want could be done by the end of next year. This is a public health struggle, but we can't gave up!

In this more connected part of the World, it's possible that vaccinations for those who want could be done by the end of next year.

 

Those that want to take the vaccine can do so, but many of us will refuse till it's been proven to be harmless.

[onthedarkside]

A long series of off-topic posts and replies generally on the issue of euthanasia have been removed, along with numerous posts by one member minimizing and trolling on the issue of COVID.

[tlock]

5 hours ago, rabas said:

Clearly something is going on, but deaths are not rising yet.  Many second waves in the EU are starting with younger people.

 

 

 

I have noticed this, and am closely monitoring the daily death rate.  It does look like Sweden didn't achieve "herd immunity".  I realize there is a 2-4 week window after spikes to see mortality, but if cases spike but the death rate remains relatively unchanged, that would indicate either the virus is weakening or our treatments are becoming more efficacious.  

 

Or letting the young and healthy get infected is a reasonable approach.  

 

I know we're all going in circles, but do people really think there is no health cost to the massive economic damage we're causing?  Is this just about inconvenience vs. granny killing? 

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Some posters here like to falsely, and probably intentionally, present a false choice for the world -- it's either let the virus run rampant and inflict whatever damage it will killing granny OR resort to those horrible, freedom and economy destroying lockdowns.

 

I think they like to present that false choice because they really don't want to have to acknowledge that most lockdowns probably can/could be avoided if people, a large majority of people, would simply follow the common sense precautionary steps that health authorities have long been recommending, but too many virus denying citizens have been ignoring.

 

To wit: wear a mask when away from home where you're going to be in close contact with others, maintain social distancing and avoid areas of crowds, especially indoors, practice good hand cleaning hygiene, and avoid unnecessarily touching your hands to your face/eyes/nose, mouth, etc.

 

But no, it's easier to ignore all those things as too many people are doing even in high infection parts of the world, and then wail and complain about Big Brother government hurting the economies and impinging on personal freedoms... And all of that, in large part, because those same people complaining couldn't exercise enough common sense and concern for the health of themselves and those around them to prevent the lockdowns from being necessary.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

On 11/3/2020 at 4:43 PM, PatrickC said:

It is not a fight. The virus has spread globally so has already won. Fight is over. There is nothing to give up on. Covid won the fight months ago. This is like walking around a town that has been wiped out by a tsunami and saying we need to prepare a tsunami warning system. It is a done deal. Just move on.

 

It's nowhere close to being over or a done deal.

 

Even in the U.S., which has more CV cases than any other country in the world and one of the top dozen highest per capita rates, estimates are that only about 10% of the population as of recently has been exposed to the virus based on serology testing, and that relatively small share already has accounted for more than 230,000 deaths.

 

Do nothing, and let the virus continue to spread and infect more widely, and there's still the vast majority of the country's population that have yet to be touched by the virus. Meaning lots more people who can be exposed, and lots more people who could face hospitalization and ultimately death, with the U.S. currently running about a 2.4% case fatality rate (meaning about 2.4% of the people confirmed to have the virus end up dying overall).

 

Either people begin to protect themselves individually, governments enforce it thru lockdowns, or the virus toll is going to continue spiraling upward. So the fight is not even close to being over, by any means.

 

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/09/less-10-us-population-has-covid-19-antibodies-data-show

 

Quote

 

Less than 10% of a nationally representative sample of US dialysis patients had antibodies against COVID-19, showing that herd immunity will remain out of reach for quite some time, according to a study published late last week in The Lancet.

Researchers from Stanford University and Ascend Clinical Laboratories tested the serum of 28,503 patients receiving treatment at 1,300 dialysis centers in 1,013 counties (32% of all US counties) in 46 states in July to estimate how many had been exposed to COVID-19.

 

They found that 8.2% to 9.4% of the sample had COVID-19 antibodies, indicating exposure to the virus. After comparing the estimates with case counts from Johns Hopkins University, the researchers calculated that about 9.3% of the US population had been infected, with regional variation ranging from less than 5% in the West to more than 25% in the Northeast.

 

 

And that relatively small share of the population has already produced this:

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/?CDC_AA_refVal=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fcoronavirus%2F2019-ncov%2Fcases-updates%2Fcases-in-us.html#cases_casesper100klast7days

 

[balo]

7 hours ago, tlock said:

but if cases spike but the death rate remains relatively unchanged, that would indicate either the virus is weakening or our treatments are becoming more efficacious.  

Or maybe the elderly population are more protected today then back in March - April -May when 5000 people over the age of 70 died in Sweden. 

Also the hospitals are better prepared to treat the patients.  

Edited November 4, 2020 by balo

[onebir]

8 hours ago, tlock said:

I realize there is a 2-4 week window after spikes to see mortality, but if cases spike but the death rate remains relatively unchanged, that would indicate either the virus is weakening or our treatments are becoming more efficacious.

1> Sweden's cases started to pick up (initially more gradually) from the start of Sept; that 'should be' plenty of time to work through to deaths.

2> Some other possiblilities:

- they've increased their testing rate (massively, eg 10x)

- this wave is mainly a weaker strain (rather than the virus weakening generally)

- the vulnerable groups are better protected/protecting themselves

- the most vulnerable died in the first wave

(Obviously I hope the reasons you suggested are correct...)

[onebir]

4 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Do nothing, and let the virus continue to spread and infect more widely, and there's still the vast majority of the country's population that have yet to be touched by the virus. Meaning lots more people who can be exposed, and lots more people who could face hospitalization and ultimately death, with the U.S. currently running about a 2.4% case fatality rate (meaning about 2.4% of the people confirmed to have the virus end up dying overall).

There is some fairly credible research suggesting that the herd immunity threshold for Covid could be as low as 20% of the population (due to variations in the probability of exposure & susceptibility). As for the US CFR, it's shockingly high for one of the richest countries in the world. But that's the average over the whole period: I'd hope it's come down a lot for recent case (eg because treatment is improving &/ more testing is being done).

 

Antibody data from a very specific group (eg dialysis patients, who presumably have been trying their best to avoid exposure) may not be very representative.

 

(This isn't intended as a justification for a 'let it rip' herd immunity approach, but there's a lack of nuance in the media.)

[Jeffr2]

7 hours ago, onebir said:

There is some fairly credible research suggesting that the herd immunity threshold for Covid could be as low as 20% of the population (due to variations in the probability of exposure & susceptibility). As for the US CFR, it's shockingly high for one of the richest countries in the world. But that's the average over the whole period: I'd hope it's come down a lot for recent case (eg because treatment is improving &/ more testing is being done).

 

Antibody data from a very specific group (eg dialysis patients, who presumably have been trying their best to avoid exposure) may not be very representative.

 

(This isn't intended as a justification for a 'let it rip' herd immunity approach, but there's a lack of nuance in the media.)

I read Sweden's herd immunity was at some 10%.  I'll try to find the article, but this lays out why their strategy failed.  An interesting read.

 

https://time.com/5899432/sweden-coronovirus-disaster/

The Swedish COVID-19 Response Is a Disaster. It Shouldn’t Be a Model for the Rest of the World

[rabas]

13 hours ago, onebir said:

There is some fairly credible research suggesting that the herd immunity threshold for Covid could be as low as 20% of the population (due to variations in the probability of exposure & susceptibility). As for the US CFR, it's shockingly high for one of the richest countries in the world. But that's the average over the whole period: I'd hope it's come down a lot for recent case (eg because treatment is improving &/ more testing is being done).

 

Antibody data from a very specific group (eg dialysis patients, who presumably have been trying their best to avoid exposure) may not be very representative.

 

(This isn't intended as a justification for a 'let it rip' herd immunity approach, but there's a lack of nuance in the media.)

 

I would not characterize US case fatality rates that way, see graph, or that money is the main factor. In general, the earlier a region was hit by SARS2 the higher the CFR, simply because little was known about the disease (see China). Clotting, cytosine storms, overuse of intubation because oxygen levels were not understood are just a few factors. The US was never the top CFR country. 

 

Also note that the formula for CFR means its graph will drop over time as it over estimates in the beginning.

 

Edited November 5, 2020 by rabas

[onthedarkside]

26 minutes ago, rabas said:

 

I would not characterize US case fatality rates that way, see graph, or that money is the main factor. In general, the earlier a region was hit by SARS2 the higher the CFR, simply because little was known about the disease (see China). Clotting, cytosine storms, overuse of intubation because oxygen levels were not understood are just a few factors. The US was never the top CFR country. 

 

Also note that the formula for CFR means its graph will drop over time as it over estimates in the beginning.

 

 

The U.S. has the most CV cases of any country, the most CV deaths of any country (both in part due to its large population), and is usually around 12th or so among countries based on its number of CV deaths per capita.

 

But, the U.S. is nowhere near the worst among countries in terms of its CV case fatality rate (the share of those people who have confirmed CV infections that end up dying). And that official CFR rate for the U.S. has gone down over the course of the pandemic to about 2.5% at present.

 

What that above means, to me, is the U.S. has done a horrible job at preventing the spread of the coronavirus among its population. But once people get sick with the CV there, there are a lot of other countries where you'd have a greater chance of dying. Which shouldn't be any great surprise, considering the spending in the U.S. on medical care and its expertise in critical case medicine.

 

 

Below is the list of the countries with the highest CV CFRs, with the UK being further down on the list than shown below, but still much worse than the U.S. at 4.4%.

 

 

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus

 

[placnx]

15 hours ago, onebir said:

There is some fairly credible research suggesting that the herd immunity threshold for Covid could be as low as 20% of the population (due to variations in the probability of exposure & susceptibility). As for the US CFR, it's shockingly high for one of the richest countries in the world. But that's the average over the whole period: I'd hope it's come down a lot for recent case (eg because treatment is improving &/ more testing is being done).

 

Antibody data from a very specific group (eg dialysis patients, who presumably have been trying their best to avoid exposure) may not be very representative.

 

(This isn't intended as a justification for a 'let it rip' herd immunity approach, but there's a lack of nuance in the media.)

I believe that 20% research comes from epidemiologist Gupta at Oxford. She is one of the three who put out the Great Barrington Declaration which suggested that the young should go about their lives, whatever. There was a storm of scientists who objected, and about 30 published a letter in The Lancet to refute the Barrington crowd pretty definitively. Note that Barrington has a White House connection through a far-right think tank which brought the three together.

[GroveHillWanderer]

On 11/5/2020 at 12:48 AM, onebir said:

There is some fairly credible research suggesting that the herd immunity threshold for Covid could be as low as 20% of the population (due to variations in the probability of exposure & susceptibility). 

As others have said, that 20% figure has been disputed by many other reputable scientists.

 

According to the article linked to below, it requires a bunch of assumptions, especially about the nature of "super spreaders," that are not necessarily supported.

 

As Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore, and Kristian Andersen, an immunologist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California say in the piece, one thing mitigating against the idea of herd immunity from natural infection is the possible short duration of naturally-acquired immunity, and the fact is that herd immunity has never been achieved this way before:

Quote

If the people who are infected become susceptible again in a year, then basically you’ll never reach herd immunity” through natural transmission, Rivers says.

 

“There’s no magic wand we can use here,” Andersen says. “We have to face reality — never before have we reached herd immunity via natural infection with a novel virus, and SARS-CoV-2 is unfortunately no different.” Vaccination is the only ethical path to herd immunity ...

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02948-4

 

[onebir]

2 hours ago, GroveHillWanderer said:

As others have said, that 20% figure has been disputed by many other reputable scientists.

Yeah, I wasn't proposing the 'let everyone get infected' approach. But the 1-1/r estimate of the herd immunity threshold derived from the SIR model is just one estimate, and models with different assumptions can give very different estimates. So before doing anything drastic, policymakers in places where there's evidence that a substantial proportion of the population has been infected should, at least, be open to the possibility that the region could be approaching the herd immunity threshold, if there's data pointing in that direction.

 

3 hours ago, GroveHillWanderer said:

As Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore, and Kristian Andersen, an immunologist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California say in the piece, one thing mitigating against the idea of herd immunity from natural infection is the possible short duration of naturally-acquired immunity, and the fact is that herd immunity has never been achieved this way before:

That's a remarkable claim, given that various plagues failed to wipe out humanity long before vaccination was invented.

[Solinvictus]

On 10/16/2020 at 5:29 PM, roquefort said:

Ready and waiting. The problem is the sheeple have no capacity to analyse, rationalise or question any of the garbage their governments and the MSM feed them.

You talking to the neo-liberal dem audience or the Christian right? They both be victims of the TV.

 

Nice.

Edited November 11, 2020 by Solinvictus

[Solinvictus]

Just now, Solinvictus said:

You talking to the neo-liberal dem audience or the Christian right. They both be victims of the TV?

 

Nice.

 

Edited November 11, 2020 by Solinvictus
Delete please

[placnx]

9 minutes ago, onebir said:

Yeah, I wasn't proposing the 'let everyone get infected' approach. But the 1-1/r estimate of the herd immunity threshold derived from the SIR model is just one estimate, and models with different assumptions can give very different estimates. So before doing anything drastic, policymakers in places where there's evidence that a substantial proportion of the population has been infected should, at least, be open to the possibility that the region could be approaching the herd immunity threshold, if there's data pointing in that direction.

 

That's a remarkable claim, given that various plagues failed to wipe out humanity long before vaccination was invented.

Plague is less infectious. I don't know the R number for plague, but anyway transmission is not airborne. We cannot keep isolating countries from each other, so the idea of an area having "herd immunity" is wishful thinking. Depend on the size and extent of the subject population, eg India vs Iceland, the time to infect 70% will vary, and we still don't know how long an immunity from natural infection would last.

[onebir]

28 minutes ago, placnx said:

Plague is less infectious. I don't know the R number for plague, but anyway transmission is not airborne.

PlagueS - I meant it as a generic term for epidemics (inc airborne ones like influenza)

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

The U.S. continues to go the wrong way in all kinds of CV indicators:

 

Quote

American Academy of Pediatrics Reports Highest One-Week Increase in Child Cases of COVID-19 Since Onset of Pandemic

The surge in COVID-19 cases across the country is impacting children in unprecedented levels, according to data compiled by the American Academy of Pediatrics and Children’s Hospital Association, which are tracking data reported by state health departments.
 

As of Oct. 29, more than 853,000 children have tested positive for COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic, including nearly 200,000 new cases in children during the month of October. In the one-week period ending Oct. 29, there were 61,000 new cases in children, which is larger than any previous week in the pandemic.

...

“On every measure – new infections, hospitalizations, and deaths – the U.S. is headed in the wrong direction,” [said AAP President Sally Goza, MD, FAAP]. “We urge policymakers to listen to doctors and public health experts rather than level baseless accusations against them."

 

https://services.aap.org/en/news-room/news-releases/aap/2020/american-academy-of-pediatrics-reports-highest-one-week-increase-in-child-cases-of-covid-19-since-onset-of-pandemic/

 

Edited November 11, 2020 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[placnx]

18 hours ago, onebir said:

PlagueS - I meant it as a generic term for epidemics (inc airborne ones like influenza)

Influenza after the 1918 pandemic is not near as serious as Covid for mortality, not to mention other possible complications now being noted. At the same time, influenza mutations help obscure the issue of whether there is any herd immunity after an epidemic. Immunity to cold virus seems to be fairly fleeting. The proposition of having a population acquire herd immunity to Covid by infection has been definitively dismissed by the scientific community. Vaccination is the route to herd immunity.

[thaibeachlovers]

8 minutes ago, placnx said:

Influenza after the 1918 pandemic is not near as serious as Covid for mortality, not to mention other possible complications now being noted. At the same time, influenza mutations help obscure the issue of whether there is any herd immunity after an epidemic. Immunity to cold virus seems to be fairly fleeting. The proposition of having a population acquire herd immunity to Covid by infection has been definitively dismissed by the scientific community. Vaccination is the route to herd immunity.

That would depend on how much it costs. Front line workers should get it free, but they may require others to pay, depending on country.

[Jeffr2]

13 minutes ago, placnx said:

Influenza after the 1918 pandemic is not near as serious as Covid for mortality, not to mention other possible complications now being noted. At the same time, influenza mutations help obscure the issue of whether there is any herd immunity after an epidemic. Immunity to cold virus seems to be fairly fleeting. The proposition of having a population acquire herd immunity to Covid by infection has been definitively dismissed by the scientific community. Vaccination is the route to herd immunity.

The actual numbers for the 1918 pandemic are unknown.  There wasn't enough testing and they still don't know enough about the original strain to understand everything.  And that virus is still with us today.