COVID-19 | science, damage limitation, NO POLITICS

[LesPalenik]

Don't be ridiculous, Bart! Did you you read the links? One theory is that 5G is linked to coronavirus, in the sense that it weakens immune system. At least two civilized states are looking into it (among other health concerns) and temporarily halting it. Also, remember the chart i posted pages ago which shows Switzerland as having the most registered cases per capita?

I am not saying the theory is true or not true. That is why I posted the opposing link at the same time. But it is worth noting that two civilized states are at least looking into it. There are so many things that the current state of science doesn't know for sure when it comes to coronavirus.

It could be an indirect effect of using phones. It is likely, that the 5G users are more prolific in using their phones for many hours during the day and night, and thus get less sleep and more stimulation through the screen. With less sleep, the immune system is compromised. 

Reducing Sleep
Many of these activities may prompt a compulsive desire to continue refreshing, checking, responding, reading, scrolling, posting, clicking, or playing. It feels good and there is a limitless opportunity for additional stimulation. It may be tough to stop and put the device away. This alone may lead to a delay in bedtime and reduced total sleep time. This may contribute to sleep deprivation if the needed hours of sleep to feel rested are not obtained.1 The stimulation may make it hard to shut down and fall asleep. The mind may be overly excited or activated.

Light
In addition, the light from phone, tablet, or computer screens may impact the ability to fall asleep.1 Small amounts of artificial light from the screens may cause a delay in the circadian rhythm. This may be especially impactful on night owls with a naturally delayed sleep phase. If morning sunlight is not obtained to counteract these effects, insomnia and morning sleepiness may result.

https://www.verywellhealth.com/reasons-why-you-should-not-sleep-with-your-cell-phone-4140997

[Robert Roaldi]

Bart, Some foxhole humor in trying times is important.  It helps lighten the load.  In reminds us all we're not in charge. In any case, we're not scientists and this isn;t a scientific discourse at Harvard.  We're all just a bunch of photographers dumping our thoughts, opinions and feelings.  Lighten up.

I agree with the sentiment, but there is a humour thread and you can always start another thread about the lighter side or how people are coping. If this thread begins to have pages of back and forth, no matter how benign or entertaining, it will make it difficult to find the more informative bits or questions. I'm with Bart on this one.

[Alan Klein]

If they test primarily suspected C19 carriers, it is not surprising that the positivity rate is high. When they extend the testing to general population or random samples, the positivity rate should drop.

Exactly.  So all the arguments of who's doing worse or better, especially when the numbers are close, have no meaning at this point.  Everyone seems to be testing differently and at different test rates.  Most testing is of patient or suspected patients. Nobody's knocked on my door to test me. Japan's basically stopped testing.  Who really knows what China is doing? So there's no relationship among the various results.  Arguing one country is doing better than the other is silly.   It's like discussing which fighter has the most points in the 5th round of a 12 round fight.

[Alan Klein]

It has been stated many times that the tests are not available yet in large numbers so they probably can't do so at this time. Not in all countries yet anyway.

Presumably hospitals test so they know what to do with patients. The kind of random widespread testing you're referring to has a different purpose and will be done elsewhere than in hospitals, is my understanding.

But officials aren't making that clear.  They keep talking about infection (and death) rates as if they're testing the general public. They're not. They're testing suspected infectees. So the statistics may be raising more fear than the real infection rate would cause. 

If after this is all over, we're told that the real infection rate was a fraction of what they told us, there's going to be a lot of angry people and hell to pay.  Did we shut down the economies of the world based on distorted statistics? Why didn't the powers to be tell us what the figures really meant?  Why didn't they test differently?  Did I lose my job unnecessarily and can't feed my family because of it.  Heads will swing.

I'm not saying these deaths are not terrible.  They are.  But the impression is it's a lot worse than it may turn out to be could cause us to make policy decisions that are wrong.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

A task force to plan economic recovery in the US after this is over has been recommended.  Here is an extract from the article. What are other countries doing to address this issue?  America is throwing huge amounts of money at the problem?  But there's no specific plan.  There should be.  How are business owners doing here?

"....according to a recent poll 24 percent of small business owners who have seen their shops closed by the nearly nationwide shutdown expect they will never be able to reopen for business.

What is required and what has been sorely lacking is an effort to balance the medical and economic impact of this crisis. In far too many cases those who even attempt to address the immediate and potentially generational harmful impact this crisis could have on American workers and businesses have been portrayed as heartless ghouls who only care about the stock market, not human lives. But this is not the case.

In fact, the myriad potential for disastrous effects that a second great depression could have on our nation are an emergency in their own right which requires just as much attention as the pandemic itself. Entire communities are poised to be plunged into a nightmare of joblessness, empty storefronts, addiction and even suicide if we do not find a way to get America back working soon..."
https://thefederalist.com/2020/04/04/we-need-a-white-house-task-force-on-reopening-the-economy/

Alan, this will get political pretty fast. Not something for this thread.

Each country will take the measures that are supposed to benefit the economy of that specific country. Different countries, different ways to optimize. What works for one, doesn't have to work for others. And some governments are more clever, or better prepared for financial/economical setbacks than others.

In general, it seems like a good idea to ramp up serum testing, i.e. determining the presence and amount of antibodies. Those who are (probably) immune to the virus, and are (probably) not contagious anymore, are the first to get back to work on the economy.

But there are still a number of issues with that.
1. The peak has not been reached yet, in almost any country.
2. With limited serum test capacity, healthcare workers need to get priority.
3. Once 1 and 2 are solved, there is still a risk of secondary contamination (touching contaminated surfaces and spreading it to new patients).
4. It is likely, but not yet proven, that people with anti-bodies are unable to get reinfected (and again contagious). The amount of antibodies may also play a role.
5. This is a new virus, so a lot is not yet fully understood, and we're learning as we go.

A daily newsflash was just issued in my country, 115 more dead people have been reported yesterday, but that's fewer than the day before. So the curve is flattening. But in the heaviest hit region, there was a sudden increase. So it is still a tricky situation that could grow worse if our attention weakens and people start breaking protocol too fast.

[Alan Klein]

 

It could be an indirect effect of using phones. It is likely, that the 5G users are more prolific in using their phones for many hours during the day and night, and thus get less sleep and more stimulation through the screen. With less sleep, the immune system is compromised. 

https://www.verywellhealth.com/reasons-why-you-should-not-sleep-with-your-cell-phone-4140997

It's not 5G that's causing it.  Rather it's photography forums keeping us up at night and weakening our immune systems. 

[Alan Klein]

I agree with the sentiment, but there is a humour thread and you can always start another thread about the lighter side or how people are coping. If this thread begins to have pages of back and forth, no matter how benign or entertaining, it will make it difficult to find the more informative bits or questions. I'm with Bart on this one.

I enjoy wry humor so I will keep doing it.  Being able to laugh at oneself makes us human. In any case, some people like Canons and others like Nikons. Nothing personal. 

[Alan Klein]

Alan, this will get political pretty fast. Not something for this thread.

Each country will take the measures that are supposed to benefit the economy of that specific country. Different countries, different ways to optimize. What works for one, doesn't have to work for others. And some governments are more clever, or better prepared for financial/economical setbacks than others.

In general, it seems like a good idea to ramp up serum testing, i.e. determining the presence and amount of antibodies. Those who are (probably) immune to the virus, and are (probably) not contagious anymore, are the first to get back to work on the economy.

But there are still a number of issues with that.
1. The peak has not been reached yet, in almost any country.
2. With limited serum test capacity, healthcare workers need to get priority.
3. Once 1 and 2 are solved, there is still a risk of secondary contamination (touching contaminated surfaces and spreading it to new patients).
4. It is likely, but not yet proven, that people with anti-bodies are unable to get reinfected (and again contagious). The amount of antibodies may also play a role.
5. This is a new virus, so a lot is not yet fully understood, and we're learning as we go.

A daily newsflash was just issued in my country, 115 more dead people have been reported yesterday, but that's fewer than the day before. So the curve is flattening. But in the heaviest hit region, there was a sudden increase. So it is still a tricky situation that could grow worse if our attention weakens and people start breaking protocol too fast.

There you go trying to shut people up who you disagree with what they're saying.  Don't you ever stop? Then you go on to answer my points with a couple of hundred words of response.  Make up your mind. Either my point is worthy of discussion or it isn't.  If it isn;t then why respond with a treatise?

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

But officials aren't making that clear.  They keep talking about infection (and death) rates as if they're testing the general public.

Not in my country. They have been crystal clear and consistent in pointing out that different reporting streams are not in sync, and that increasing the numbers of tested people will change some outcomes in absolute ratios/numbers.

Scientists are, and have been totally transparent about that. Reproduction numbers were not available in the beginning, so all they had to go on was the Chinese input. As more information became available locally, the local numbers started to dominate the calculations, but always with the caveat that not everybody was being tested. However, there were also parallel systems of reporting available, and their results started to converge to the same numbers. Last week the Reproduction rate in my country was around 1.0 and the trend was going down. Mortalities lag by 2-5 weeks, because people first have to become ill, then some deteriorate and are hospitalized, and then some of those patients die.

This is all common knowledge, and as said, reporting is transparent (including the inaccuracies). Following the Scientific consensus benefits all, consistent information with few surprises, and a consistent approach going forward to manage the situation.

[Alan Klein]

Not in my country. They have been crystal clear and consistent in pointing out that different reporting streams are not in sync, and that increasing the numbers of tested people will change some outcomes in absolute ratios/numbers.

Scientists are, and have been totally transparent about that. Reproduction numbers were not available in the beginning, so all they had to go on was the Chinese input. As more information became available locally, the local numbers started to dominate the calculations, but always with the caveat that not everybody was being tested. However, there were also parallel systems of reporting available, and their results started to converge to the same numbers. Last week the Reproduction rate in my country was around 1.0 and the trend was going down. Mortalities lag by 2-5 weeks, because people first have to become ill, then some deteriorate and are hospitalized, and then some of those patients die.

This is all common knowledge, and as said, reporting is transparent (including the inaccuracies). Following the Scientific consensus benefits all, consistent information with few surprises, and a consistent approach going forward to manage the situation.

Well, that's good that it's being clarified.  But if the final numbers show an infection rate a tenth of what's being published now, people won;t remember the qualifications the government gave. People will complain the government was feeding us bad information that made us react too strongly causing us to destroy our economy.  So that's why am I out of a job.  Because of government incompetence and lying.

This reminds me of the snow forecasts we get in the US all the time.  Weathermen threaten huge amounts of snow too often never happens.  I love it because no one is driving so I go out to drive in two inches of snow when there were suppose to be 12 inches.  Same things with hurricanes and other disasters.  Often, it seems that government has become too cautious.  It may be an unfair assessment. But it's there.  I suspect there's going to be a lot of recrimination about the economy when this is over.  There's going to be hell to pay because of it. 

[Alan Klein]

Let me add that in addition to bad statistics, many people have been saying that we should shut everything down; damn the economy.  After the dead are buried, no one will remember them except their families.  The rest of the people will be worried about their next meal.  Memories are short.  Those who demanded the shutdown are going to be blamed for a sinking economy.  Leaders who wanted to go slow, are going to seem like the smart ones.

[Alan Goldhammer]

There seems to be a lot of hope that we will have a working vaccine for COVID-19 in the next 12/18 months. How so? After 40 years of research we still do not have a vaccine for AIDS. And no vaccine for SARS, MERS, EBOLA etc.

Vaccine research is difficult and 'if' a vaccine is to be given to large numbers of people who are otherwise healthy, safety studies require a large clinical trial.  It is not uncommon for new vaccines to be tested on more than 50,000 people to gauge if it is safe or not.  The correct proteins must be chosen for the vaccine to make sure the body produces the right antibodies to the infectious agent.  Some retroviruses such as HIV have proven to be recalcitrant to vaccine development.  Since control of HIV is well known and "easy" to implement (practice safe sex), on 'might' question whether all the money and effort was well spent.  There were vaccines developed for SARS but not pursued since it quickly disappeared.  there are approved Ebola vaccines but their full efficacy is not known as outbreaks are sporadic.  A number of vaccines were developed against Zika virus once that outbreak was documented.  IMO, more should have been done to pre-test some new vaccine platform technologies so that we would not be doing first in human studies against SARS-CoV-2 right now as is being done.

Johnson & Johnson will be starting a large trial shortly of their vaccine and are building up manufacturing capacity to produce 1 billion doses a year.  Other companies are stepping up to the plate as is the Gates Foundation.

[Alan Goldhammer]

Don't be ridiculous, Bart! Did you you read the links? One theory is that 5G is linked to coronavirus, in the sense that it weakens immune system. At least two civilized states are looking into it (among other health concerns) and temporarily halting it. Also, remember the chart i posted pages ago which shows Switzerland as having the most registered cases per capita?

I am not saying the theory is true or not true. That is why I posted the opposing link at the same time. But it is worth noting that two civilized states are at least looking into it. There are so many things that the current state of science doesn't know for sure when it comes to coronavirus.

Let's debunk this once and for all.  The advent of cell phones brought about a lot of conjecture about low energy radiation and it's impact on humans.  All kinds of concerns were raised.  However, when one looked at the data, there was no evidence at all for adverse health effects.  The proximity of cell phones to one's brain, raised the weird concern about possible brain cancer.  However, when one looked at the actual mortality data, there was a small decrease in brain cancer mortality and an enormous increase in cell phone usage. 

[Alan Klein]

Vaccine research is difficult and 'if' a vaccine is to be given to large numbers of people who are otherwise healthy, safety studies require a large clinical trial.  It is not uncommon for new vaccines to be tested on more than 50,000 people to gauge if it is safe or not.  The correct proteins must be chosen for the vaccine to make sure the body produces the right antibodies to the infectious agent.  Some retroviruses such as HIV have proven to be recalcitrant to vaccine development.  Since control of HIV is well known and "easy" to implement (practice safe sex), on 'might' question whether all the money and effort was well spent.  There were vaccines developed for SARS but not pursued since it quickly disappeared.  there are approved Ebola vaccines but their full efficacy is not known as outbreaks are sporadic.  A number of vaccines were developed against Zika virus once that outbreak was documented.  IMO, more should have been done to pre-test some new vaccine platform technologies so that we would not be doing first in human studies against SARS-CoV-2 right now as is being done.

Johnson & Johnson will be starting a large trial shortly of their vaccine and are building up manufacturing capacity to produce 1 billion doses a year.  Other companies are stepping up to the plate as is the Gates Foundation.

Is the coronavirus similar to these?  Do they expect the coronavirus to mutate annually causing additional problems next year like recurrent seasonal flu?

[Alan Klein]

Let's debunk this once and for all.  The advent of cell phones brought about a lot of conjecture about low energy radiation and it's impact on humans.  All kinds of concerns were raised.  However, when one looked at the data, there was no evidence at all for adverse health effects.  The proximity of cell phones to one's brain, raised the weird concern about possible brain cancer.  However, when one looked at the actual mortality data, there was a small decrease in brain cancer mortality and an enormous increase in cell phone usage. 

It may not hurt my brain.  But every time I put it within a foot of my desktop keyboard, I get static on the computer's speakers.  It would be nice instead of the noise I hear, it would say something meaningful.  Like, Buy Apple, or Sell Exxon.

[Alan Goldhammer]

The whole testing procedure is pretty much useless because it's not random.  Without it, there's minimal way to tell the infection rate of the general public.  Why isn't random testing going on?

There are not enough genetic tests.  Abbott Labs got approval recently for their quick ID test that runs on a small analyzer.  However, they have only shipped 5500 cassettes as of the end of last week and are projecting 50,000 kits per week being shipped.  there are 18,000 analyzers deployed in the US (this is commonly used for strep tests and other quick diagnostic stuff).  You can do the math and see how few kits there are for each analyzer.  Abbott are one of the biggest diagnostic test companies in the world.  The absence of a large scale deployable blood test is also a problem.  there are over 50 such tests developed overseas that have been registered with the FDA.  These are self-validated by the company and not by the FDA.  Only one test has been reviewed and given emergency approval by the FDA.  The type of research needed to validate these tests so that they are accurate is not hard once the right reagents are available.  Labs in the US and The Netherlands have already outlined approaches (there may be more but those are the two papers I've read).  This is the type of project that needs to be undertaken ASAP so that tests can be manufactured at scale and deployed.  The US policy folks are again letting us down.

[Alan Goldhammer]

Is the coronavirus similar to these?  Do they expect the coronavirus to mutate annually causing additional problems next year like recurrent seasonal flu?

Every virus and bacteria disease require its own vaccine.  Right now there is no evidence of mutation in the major surface proteins of the virus have mutated so a vaccine should work.  Seasonal flu vaccines mutate because it can be hosted in animals other than humans which is conducive to genetic changes.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Is the coronavirus similar to these?  Do they expect the coronavirus to mutate annually causing additional problems next year like recurrent seasonal flu?

In all likelihood, yes similar, and yes it mutates (but there is no experience yet how much).

But when a large portion of the population has developed antibodies (group immunization), there will be fewer infections and those who do get infected will probably be hit less hard. A vaccine will probably not become available in adequate quantities in time. Johnson & Johnson are close to having a vaccine in January 2021 (but there's a 90% chance they may fail, there are no tests done on humans yet), two months after the vaccinations for the regular flu season.

[Manoli]

I enjoy wry humor so I will keep doing it.

Not in this thread.

13 posts in 2 hours, coming hard on your >100 posts in 24 hours in the now, thankfully, closed thread. This is a forum not a chat room. You wanna chat ? go on Facebook or Messenger. Don't swamp the content, particularly as you habitually ignore the subject under discussion and wander off on your own myopic agenda.

Engage constructively and all will be well.
You wanna do your Trumpette bit ? open another thread, pretty please.

Edit:

... there is a humour thread and you can always start another thread about the lighter side or how people are coping. If this thread begins to have pages of back and forth, no matter how benign or entertaining, it will make it difficult to find the more informative bits or questions.

This ^^ 10 times over.

[Alan Goldhammer]

In all likelihood, yes similar, and yes it mutates (but there is no experience yet how much).

But when a large portion of the population has developed antibodies (group immunization), there will be fewer infections and those who do get infected will probably be hit less hard. A vaccine will probably not become available in adequate quantities in time. Johnson & Johnson are close to having a vaccine in January 2021 (but there's a 90% chance they may fail, there are no tests done on humans yet), two months after the vaccinations for the regular flu season.

I think this is too pessimistic.  Unlike HIV, these types of viral infections are susceptible to a vaccine approach.  There is a UK group that is looking at a similar approach and they developed a MERS vaccine several years ago that elicited a strong immune response.