Fear and Loathing, a Rat Flu Odyssey

[SkiBall]

https://twitter.com/Nightline/status...436087809?s=20

Suspicious cyberactivity targeting HHS tied to coronavirus response, sources say

Has this been brought up?

[old goat]

The main thing is based on what we know right now—things could change but that's a bad bet—is the math just doesn't care. The only way to slow the rate of exponential growth before the disease tops out somewhere around 70% of the population is to implement wide-scale testing and social distancing.

Won't social distancing just delay reaching that level, not reduce it? I've never studied the dynamics of epidemics; I assume that in the absence of immunity in the community or some environmental or intrinsic factor in the virus that makes it go away (SARS?) most people will become infected, maybe the first time, maybe the nth time they're exposed, until the number of actively infected people dwindles as people recover until eventually the number of active cases is low enough that remaining people naive to the virus never run into a carrier. Is that about right or do I have it wrong. If I understand it correctly would that mean that the percent who get infected is roughly the same from epidemic to epidemic given enough time. We're like the Native Americans encountering smallpox, although the mortality of COVID is much lower.

[powdork]

Some optimism for this thread:

https://virologyj.biomedcentral.com/...422X-2-69#Fig2

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/6...reatments/amp/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/kfor.co...tion-says/amp/

that first article, 2005. Chloroquine has been shown to stop a number of viruses in vitro but not in animals. China has studied it's use and said "results from more than 100 patients have demonstrated that chloroquine phosphate is superior to the control treatment in inhibiting the exacerbation of pneumonia, improving lung imaging findings, promoting a virus negative conversion, and shortening the disease course"
However they have released no results of the studies, so they are in doubt. And it does come with side effects, specifically for some of the at risk groups for covid. Sounds like it could help though

https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...66354220301145

[KQ]

Jesus, there is no win. I wash my hands 10 times a day but when I get home from the store I question if the stock boy had dirty hands.


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I know, right?

[AK47bp]

Jesus, there is no win. I wash my hands 10 times a day but when I get home from the store I question if the stock boy had dirty hands.


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Think of your phone as your 3rd hand. So many people scrub and scrub their hands raw, then just pick their phone right back up and recontaminate their hands.

Clean your phones.


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[Spats]

For context, here are my posts from earlier in this thread, or the other Covid thread.
Lots of information contained here.
Feel free to judge me on completeness and credibility, especially in contrast to the lazy half-ass replies!
Do your own due diligence and make your own decisions.

Apparently the viral copypasta I've seen multiple times on here, about Seattle ERs being overwhelmed with Covid-19 cases, is bullshit.
https://www.tetongravity.com/forums/...t=#post5925939

Meanwhile, if anyone wants to know who to blame for the slow test rollout in the USA, it's a combination of Washington State and a career CDC bureaucrat who's been there since at least 2011.
https://www.tetongravity.com/forums/...t=#post5926131

Also, we can bust yet another viral rumor: Text message rumors of a national #quarantine are FAKE.
https://www.tetongravity.com/forums/...t=#post5926132

The nations that have dealt best with the problem were those that isolated themselves right away, like Russia and Japan...while the WHO and our news media was still calling that "racist."
January 30: "There is no reason for measures that unnecessarily interfere with intl. travel & trade."
https://www.tetongravity.com/forums/...t=#post5926157

A few important pieces of information, some new, some from posts in the other thread.
https://www.tetongravity.com/forums/...t=#post5926872

How accurate is Covid-19 testing, and how much difference does it really make?
https://www.tetongravity.com/forums/...49#post5927049

Some more facts, and some speculation based on them
https://www.tetongravity.com/forums/...t=#post5927019

Once again, be smart. Old people, particularly with compromised lung function, appear to be at substantial risk from Covid-19. This season's flu has already killed perhaps 20,000 people, and you should probably be at least as worried about it as you are about the Wuhan coronavirus. Don't panic - but take care of yourself and your family.

===

I guess we're all lucky the guy "not saying 'hurr durr it's just the flu bro'" isn't speculating it's "no worse than the seasonal flu." And we're especially lucky the guy urging calm in the face of rumor this time around wasn't the main H1N1 "conspiracy" guy the last time around:

Congratulations! You dug up an 11 year old thread, lied about what was in it, omitted half of what I said - and didn't link to it so people wouldn't find out. (Bonus: insulting me for speculating in a section I labeled "**** SPECULATION FOLLOWS ****") In a way, I'm flattered that my steadily growing crew of jealous stalkers cares so much!

Here's the original thread. From 2009.
https://www.tetongravity.com/forums/...highlight=H1N1

Here's what I was objecting to: (Emphasis mine)

The Department has determined that it is necessary to quarantine your movement to a specific facility to prevent further spread of this disease. The Department has determined that quarantine in your home and other less restrictive alternatives are not acceptable because [insert the reason home quarantine is not acceptable, the person violated a previously issued home quarantine order, the person does not have an appropriate home setting conducive to home quarantine, etc.] The Department is therefore ordering you to comply with the following provisions during the entire period of quarantine:

1. Terms of confinement. You are ordered to remain at the quarantine facility ...

In other words, "we are imprisoning you without recourse or due process. We can do this for any reason or no reason at all, even if you don't test positive, have symptoms, or have a history of close contact with the infected."

Implying that opposing this is the same as opposing laws that apply equally to everyone for a defined timeframe - such as immigration controls and restrictions on public assemblies - is trash-tier bullshit.

===

Too many people here are desperately thirsty to see mass deaths in order to prove their own political biases correct, and attack anyone who dares to even THEORIZE that it's POSSIBLE we might not all be completely fucked.

Wishing for that, to the point that you're digging up and deliberately misrepresenting 11 year old posts, makes you an incredibly sad, fucked-up, shitty person. MultiVerse, and the rest of my stalkers, you need to seriously re-evaluate your lives.

No, I won't apologize to the tone police. This is fucked up.

===

Also, here's the rest of what I said in that post. Feel free to assume anything you want about my politics based on it.

The problem with the Left is that they believe hugely powerful, autocratic, hierarchical corporations are bad, but hugely powerful, autocratic, hierarchical government is good.
The problem with the Right is that they believe hugely powerful, autocratic, hierarchical corporations are good, but hugely powerful, autocratic, hierarchical government is bad.
In reality, hugely powerful, autocratic, hierarchical organizations always take your freedoms -- no matter what they're called.

[Kevo]

My dad is the COO at a major food processing and manufacturing company. He has worked in that industry for his entire life, working at companies that are household names.

I asked him how long it takes to go from food processing/packaging to store shelves. Depending on the distance between manufacturing plant and store, it's 1-4 days.

I asked him whether his company or his industry was taking precaution to make sure infected employees didn't spread the virus onto food packaging or the food itself. He said that the employees get their temperatures checked and wear gloves and hair nets, but there are no surgical masks and they couldn't get them even if they wanted to.

It's going to spread throughout the food supply before long.

[powdork]

Video emerges showing Trump talking about cutting pandemic team in 2018, despite saying last week 'I didn't know about it'

- Video appears to contradict president's claim of ignorance about the cuts

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-a9405191.html

"I didn't cut them! But I can bring them back in. I mean I never let them go - but we can get them back when we need them. I'm sure they are just sitting at home doing nothing awaiting my call. And when I call they can't refuse - they have to come back. Again, I'm talking about the team we didn't cut."

and right there in the article is why he cut it.

The unit had been established by the previous White House administration in 2014 after the outbreak of Ebola.

[bennymac]

Who woulda guessed a virus from China would be Trump's downfall?

My friend is an ER doctor. He said at this point they assume anyone with symptoms has it. They don't have the ability to test everyone (he tested 3 out of a possible 15 symptomatic patients today) - too few swabs, too much burden on the lab, and it doesn't change the outcome - people are told to go home and self isolate regardless. He said as a result the reported numbers are meaningless at this point.

He says they are being told everyone will get it. Not everyone will show symptoms. Most hospitals will be overwhelmed at one point or another. The number of ventilators available will make a difference in the unlucky but otherwise healthy adults that get their ass kicked by this.

[Spats]

Won't social distancing just delay reaching that level, not reduce it?

Yes*

* = Unless, as with the flu, warmer weather makes you much less likely to catch it. Unless not being around lots of other sick people makes its course less severe, or lets you develop immunity instead of becoming sick. Unless no one finds dirt-cheap, readily available drugs like chloroquine that help treat it, and no one develops a vaccine.

Also, even if you assume none of that ever happens, a slower infection curve means hospitals don't get overwhelmed with cases, people receive better care, and more of them survive.

We're like the Native Americans encountering smallpox, although the mortality of COVID is much lower.

Actually the smallpox problem is different. The founding population of the Americas is very, very small - basically a couple waves of Siberian nomads - and not genetically diverse. It turns out that the HLA alleles (building blocks of the immune system, which are shuffled and recombined until something reacts to the antigen) in that founding population simply don't recombine in any ways that effectively fight smallpox...which is why smallpox ravaged the Americas over and over and over again. Unlike the rest of the world, where there was enough genetic diversity to foster a population that, while not immune by any means, didn't lose 90% of its population to each wave of infection.

[Spats]

Who woulda guessed a virus from China would be Trump's downfall?

Only literal psychotics like you who are cheering on an epidemic and an economic crash to own #orangeman - and who can ignore that the entirety of Europe is doing far worse than we are, because he literally went against the advice of the WHO and the entire might of the news media to ban travel from Wuhan. Remind me of who had to ban travel from Europe again? For proof, the links I posted here:
https://www.tetongravity.com/forums/...t=#post5926157

[bennymac]

Dude seriously you have derailed. Your whole post is the definition of triggered.

Criticizing the government does not equate to cheering on an epidemic, wishing ill health or death or people, or cheering on an economic meltdown. That is the weak bullshit arguments idiot automatons bring out when they can't get their peanut sized brainstems to stop feeling threatened. And saying Europe is doing worse is some potent whataboutism but it earns you no points amongst those of us with critical thinking skills greater than a 5 year old.

Maybe give us some more links though? Your recent posts look like the scribbled notebook of a schizophrenic mumbling on the bus while pissing themselves.

[powdork]

There is literally noone else that could have banned travel from Europe, and the one guy who could did it way too late.

[bennymac]

There is literally noone else that could have banned travel from Europe, and the one guy who could did it way too late.

Wait....I handle this one Spats. "HEy! why do you want people to die you traitorous psychotic orangman hating loser? Didn't you hear Italy has it worse? Here's a link I already talked about it."

[LHutz Esq]

I can as well - who banned travel from China? Did you say Italy? Yay you win
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.forb...idnt-work/amp/

[Yonder_River]

My wife is a home-health nurse in Bend. Here’s a text she sent to a friend today.

“Yep, it may be 5 covids in Bend; here we go. We are getting notices every 12 hours. We don’t have enough PPE. I have 4 masks left, and we are now required to use one for every visit. I see 3
or 4 patients a day; this is not sustainable. I have 4 scrub jackets, I change between each patient and will wash them every evening because we don’t have enough gowns. I am swabbing my shoes between visits. ....”

It's ridiculous. The higher ups in my wife's healthcare system are allowing the best equipment to be used with a ton of waste. Suits, N95s, papr masks, etc for non invasive stuff while it should be being saved for intubations and close care. They have a finite supply but many don't seem to be cautious of that and they are just at the beginning of this expected increase.

[Bozo T. Clown]

There are two important numbers:

1. The "basic reproduction number", R₀.
2. The "effective reproduction number", R.

Neither are universal constants, like the speed of light.

"When the [effective] reproduction number falls below 1.0, the epidemic is likely to die out."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/release...0214111519.htm


Basic reproduction number (R₀)
The basic reproduction number (R₀) is used to measure the transmission potential of a disease. It is the average number of secondary infections produced by a typical case of an infection in a population where everyone is susceptible...
The basic reproductive number is affected by several factors:

• The rate of contacts in the host population
• The probability of infection being transmitted during contact
• The duration of infectiousness.

In general, for an epidemic to occur in a susceptible population R₀ must be >1, so the number of cases is increasing.

Effective reproductive number (R)
A population will rarely be totally susceptible to an infection in the real world. Some contacts will be immune, for example due to prior infection which has conferred life-long immunity, or as a result of previous immunisation. Therefore, not all contacts will become infected and the average number of secondary cases per infectious case will be lower than the basic reproduction number. The effective reproductive number (R) is the average number of secondary cases per infectious case in a population made up of both susceptible and non-susceptible hosts. If R>1, the number of cases will increase, such as at the start of an epidemic. Where R=1, the disease is endemic, and where R<1 there will be a decline in the number of cases.

https://www.healthknowledge.org.uk/p...pidemic-theory


"The Deceptively Simple Number Sparking Coronavirus Fears
Here’s what the oft-cited R0 number tells us about the new outbreak—and what it doesn’t."

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/01/how-fast-and-far-will-new-coronavirus-spread/605632/

Note that these numbers are the base used to draw the curves that need to be flattened.
2⁰ = 1, 2¹ = 2, 2² = 4... 2²⁴ = 16777216.
1⁰ = 1, 1¹ = 1, 1² = 1... 1²⁴ = 1.

Which may have been achieved in Singapore while keeping schools and businesses open. But you can't expect Americans to be bothered to cover their mouths and noses when they cough or sneeze. They're badasses. So you need something stronger than basic martial law, like house arrest for millions of people.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/o...-response.html

[beer30]

Just saw a test being administered in the parking lot next to my home. The doc is a shred buddy of mine and he says stay the fuck home or go outside.

[Benny Profane]

Damnit, they banned bicycling in Italy and Spain. If I can't do some rides, I'll go postal.

[Ripzalot]

For those panicking or those who have panicking family members, shut off the tv and internet and sit quietly in the sun. See how calm and relaxing it is? If you just stay like that for a few weeks all will be fine. I'm enjoying this immensely.

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[MontuckyFried]

Won't social distancing just delay reaching that level, not reduce it?

Yes, but see Spats' answer:

Also, even if you assume none of that ever happens, a slower infection curve means hospitals don't get overwhelmed with cases, people receive better care, and more of them survive.

If everyone gets sick now, hospitals can't handle that load. If it's spread out over time, it's MUCH more doable. Overall survival rates should increase dramatically with that slower infection curve Spats' talking about.

[Bobby Stainless]

A vaccine would be pretty valuable. Something everyone in the world wants.

Creating a demand for a product is the first part.



I've been into the quarantine stash pretty heavy this morning.

[skifishbum]

damn the number of deaths and replies in a +200 page thread are close at this time
might as well throw one in
it sure delt that cottonwood red snake an iconic death
thoughts and prayers

[SB]

[riser4]

LOL!! You guys are really bringing it tonight. Thanks for the laffs. Makes up for not being able to find a butternut squash.

How you doing Riser?

Meh. Can't shake this cough. And there was some shitty news yesterday that I don't want to get into until everything's alright, everyone is safely back inside the wire.