Covid-19 News

    Quote from stefan

    In all it was a huge unnecessary risk to take but I do not agree with experts claiming it was a sure mistake.


    There was only one mistake. The US did finance illegal, world wide ostracized work in Wuhan, albeit they knew for sure that the lab-safety was not conform.


    Mr. Fauci the founder of the Wuhan illegal virus enhancement work will soon overtake the US leader position (>500'000 death) in the historical ranking for man slaughtering with the help of bio weapons. Very likely the damage from Agent Orange has already been surpassed now!

    Quote from JulianBianchi

    JedRothwellagain and again, you base your numbers on the RT-PCR and serological tests whereas it is now proven that the latter miss most cases exposed to the virus.


    First, that wasn't me. I may have quoted some others but as I said, I have not read enough about the serological tests to reach any conclusions. Experts in Japan and Korea say these tests have revealed few hidden cases, but I do not know the details.


    Second, "most cases"? "Now proven"? Who now proved that? Where did you get that information? I haven't read much, but nobody says that as far as I know. There is nothing about that in Japanese mass media. The experts in Japan are light years ahead of experts in the U.S., and their data is better, because they have a functioning Federal government, not like our Clown Car Act.


    Quote from JulianBianchi

    So no: Korea and China don't know how many cases they missed. Nobody knows exactly.


    Says who? You? I'll bet they know better than you do. The documents you linked to are not available at present. Anyway, unless you can point to some experts who are familiar with the situation in Korea and Japan, I doubt you have a valid point.

    This would be great if they can implement it!


    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/0…on/coronavirus-tests.html

    A Cheap, Simple Way to Control the Coronavirus

    With easy-to-use tests, everyone can check themselves every day.


    By Laurence J. Kotlikoff and Michael Mina

    Mr. Kotlikoff is a professor of economics at Boston University and Dr. Mina is an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.


    Simple at-home tests for the coronavirus, some that involve spitting into a small tube of solution, could be the key to expanding testing and impeding the spread of the pandemic. The Food and Drug Administration should encourage their development and then fast track approval.


    One variety, paper-strip tests, are inexpensive and easy enough to make that Americans could test themselves every day. You’ would simply spit into a tube of saline solution and insert a small piece of paper embedded with a strip of protein. If you are infected with enough of the virus, the strip will change color within 15 minutes.


    Your next step would be to self-quarantine, notify your doctor and confirm the result with a standard swab test — the polymerase chain reaction nasal swab. Confirmation would give public health officials key information on the virus’s spread and confirm that you should remain in quarantine until your daily test turned negative. . . .


    I agree with most of this, and your final statement. I'd caution against too strong an interpretation of it, unless you have additional evidence I'm not aware of.


    We now know that many people who survive COVID have immunity (for at least 6 months). We have no longer test subjects yet, obviously, so can't be sure beyond that,


    Those who are asymptomatic or nearly so may stop the virus because of "near miss" cold coronavirus antibodies. Or innate immune response. Or a bit of both. It is not clear how much those effects acting to suppress the virus will then lead to an enhanced immune response next time round. We don't know.


    Also, for asymptomatic COVID, we don't know another exposure will also be asymptomatic. A higher loading exposure may get through the initial immune response and develop into severe COVID.


    Finally lots of cold CV immunity giving near miss immune reaction may be bad if it does not deal with the virus quickly. Cross-immunity has been known to make infection more severe by preventing the formation of a (better) immunity with more closely fitting antibodies.


    So good news: new (specific to COVID) antibody response often exists and can provide immunity for at least 6 months.


    Bad news, it often is not present, in which case the situation re immunity is not well understood.

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    Science is all about uncertainty. You don't get definite answers from scientists. And you certainly don't get political decisions. Those can go different ways on the same evidence.


    But leaders, to gain my respect, need to show that they understand the main factual issues and act in accordance with that understanding.


    I'm not informed enough about US politics to know are the democrats or republicans more to blame in this way.


    Republicans are much more to blame. Not the politicians; the voters. Compared to Democrats they are poorly educated, they know less science, they are generally more ignorant, poorer, more obese and in bad health, and much more dependent on government handouts. They tend to elect leaders with these same qualities. It is a tragic situation.


    Proving this is a little complicated. You have to look closely at social science stats. So-called Democratic Blue States have the following charactoristics compared to Red Republican states. They are more wealthy on average. They contribute more to the Federal government than they take, whereas Republican states are on the dole. They devote more money to healthcare, so their population is healthier. They devote more money per capita to education, even adjusting for the higher local cost of living. Many more people in the population graduate from high school and go to college. Their educational attainments overall, the number of college grads per capita and so on are higher, so they tend to know more about science.


    Measuring educational attainment is tricky because people often use the college entrance (SAT) exams. The average SAT score in a small, poor, low population GOP state may well be higher than the best educated states such as New York and Massachusettes. This is because more students drop out in the poor states, and fewer apply to college. So, only the elite, best students take the test, whereas a larger percent take it in places like New York. Alabama has the highest SAT scores in the U.S. because only 7% of their high school graduates take the test, and ~28% of their kids drop out of high school even before they even get to that point. Whereas New York is #33, even though they spend far more on education than Alabama, because 79% of the their students take the test and go to college, and only 7.5% drop out. Many right wing critics have the mistaken impression that New York's average educational attainment is lower than GOP states because their average SAT scores are lower. The critics say this proves that spending more on education does not work. Those critics themselves are poorly educated.


    https://blog.prepscholar.com/a…ores-by-state-most-recent


    Dropout rates are also tricky. The rate in New York is 7.5%. In Georgia it is 18%. In Alabama it supposedly fell from 28% to 11%, but they probably lied about that to exaggerate the numbers. See:


    https://www.npr.org/sections/e…duation-rate-was-inflated



    The difference in attitudes toward science in Blue States and Red States has never been more pronounced than in the present day, in the response to the pandemic. Blue states other than California have the situation under control. Or, they did until a few weeks ago. They are applying scientific methods, and listening to advice from scientists, doctors, and experts in other countries. Red states such as Georgia, Florida and Texas are doing nothing. Or they are making the epidemic worse, such as the governor of Georgia who has overruled local officials and will not allow them to mandate masks. This will kill roughly 1,000 more people in Georgia by October 1. The gap between rational, educated, scientific people and ignorant idiots has never been more pronounced in the U.S. Hundreds of thousands of people will die unnecessarily because of this ignorance. The anti-science, anti-intellectual leaders in the Federal government and the Senate are also to blame for the catastrophe.



    The only U.S. anomaly regarding education and science compared to Europe and Japan is that U.S. liberal Democrats tend to be more religiously observant than Republicans. Especially wealthy people in the U.S. are more observant. In Republican states, more people say they are religious, and the leaders pay lip service to religion, but the actual participation rate in organized religion tends to be lower among Republicans. Black southern Americans are very religious, and they skew the numbers in Republican states such as Georgia, but they are mostly Democrats. Anyway, this is the opposite from most first-world countries, in which education correlates with atheism. I do not know whether poor Americans are actually more religious than wealthy Americans, but there is no doubt that wealthy people in the U.S. tend to go to church more, and they take their children. On the other hand, professional scientists and others who well versed in science (but not so much engineering) tend to be atheists. See:


    https://www.pewforum.org/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/

    Quote from JedRothwell

    Republicans are much more to blame. Not the politicians; the voters. Compared to Democrats they are poorly educated, they know less science, they are generally more ignorant, poorer, more obese and in bad health, and much more dependent on government handouts. They tend to elect leaders with these same qualities. It is a tragic situation.


    It is also weird, from a UK POV.


    Generally we'd expect right wing voters to be the privileged, and left-wing to be the less privileged. Ok, that is not simply true, but it worked for many years in the UK.


    Now we seem to have an inversion of that? I thought the old GOP included most of those with wealth, and surely the (old) Democrat voters included a fair slice of the less privileged?


    I realise this is politics but I'm not being political, just observing the lacunae of how 2020's democracy's seem to be working. important to us all and relevant to COVID response.


    You could normalise SATS scores by multiplying them by proportion of population taking them (though that would not be correct, and not fair!).

    dark humor?

    sign of the times,


    The Phoenix, Ariz., second hand shop, Antique Sugar, has posted a sign outside its building advising customers they must wear a mask while inside. However, it’s the sarcastic ultimatum at the end that has people talking.


    "If you choose not to wear a mask, we respectfully ask that you postpone your visit,” the sign reads. “We will be happy to debate the efficacy of masks with you when this is all over and you come in to sell your dead grandmother's clothes."

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    Not wearing a mask? You kill others. People you have never met. The old, those with chronic disease, and because it strikes randomly a few who are young and healthy. In addition, because all this death is difficult for countries, you increase the level of lockdown and the disruption to the economy.


    Personal freedom? Sure, a good thing. We live with others, and when with others (not socially distanced) our freedom is somone else's death.




    What language! If any average, decent human being actually believed he had a reasonable chance that he would "kill" someone by not wearing a mask, he would wear a mask.

    But most people realize they have no reasonable chance of endangering another person's life by not wearing a mask.

    When will you, THH, stop wearing a mask in public? When there are only 1000 new cases per day in the UK? 100? 10? 1? 0? If you have had a positive antibody test? If you have received a vaccine? When your public health official tells you it's OK not to wear one?

    So it depends on circumstance, probabilities, perceived safety, trust in public figures, etc. Lots of people like myself realize I have a better chance of winning a million dollar lottery than 'killing' someone by not wearing a mask. My area of Toronto has had about 25 reported CoVid cases and no fatalities. If I was in another part of Toronto that was somehow exploding with cases and deaths, yes, I would probably be wearing a mask in a crowded public area. As it is, I've worn a mask only on a few occasions.


    Let's not forget the words of Antony Fauci, or the Surgeon General and many others, in March. They were saying that masks (excluding properly fitted N95 masks of course) are not as effective as people think, and that they can actually increase risk of infection if not handled properly, and that they were not really necessary. Was old fox Fauci counselling us in the "killing" of tens of thousands of people? Personally I'll give him a pass on that one. (Not for other things though.)

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    It is also weird, from a UK POV.


    Generally we'd expect right wing voters to be the privileged, and left-wing to be the less privileged. Ok, that is not simply true, but it worked for many years in the UK.


    Now we seem to have an inversion of that?


    Exactly. This is an inversion. It began in 1965 when the Voting Rights act passed, giving southern black people the vote for the first time since the 1870s (Reconstruction in the Confederacy). When pres. Johnson signed it he said, "now we [Democrats] have lost the South for a generation." It turned out, they lost it for 57 years and counting. He was a southerner, so he understood the politics. He knew that poor and working class white people in the south would vote against their own interests, which they do to this day, opposing Obamacare, for example. He said: "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."


    Quote from THHuxleynew

    I thought the old GOP included most of those with wealth, and surely the (old) Democrat voters included a fair slice of the less privileged?


    Wealthy people tend to be Republicans. They have been since the Civil War. From the end of the Civil War to 1932, northern black people (who were allowed to vote) were generally Republican. The Democratic party in south imposed the Jim Crow reign of terror, and put up statues of Confederates, which are only now coming down. From 1932 with the election of FDR, black people and most other less privileged people were in a coalition with the Democrats. An uneasy coalition in the south. White voters in the south were mainly Democrats. (There were no other voters, as I said, but if black people could have voted, they would have been Republicans, although FDR was winning them over.) Then in 1965 the voting rights act gave black people the vote, and the two races abruptly changed sides. Within a few years, most white southerners were Republican, and nearly all blacks were Democrats. That's how things stand today.


    They are not Republican in the original ideological sense. They are the opposite! The party was formed in opposition to slavery and "states rights" (anti-Federalism), whereas modern Republicans oppose the federal government, and many such as Trump are in favor of the "lost cause" mythology celebrated by statues and the movie "Gone with the Wind."


    In the south people often say, "not all Republicans are racist, but all racists are Republicans." I think that is generally true. I know plenty of southern Republicans who are not a bit racist, including some black and Asian ones. Rare but not unheard of. They happen to be conservative people, and it is a conservative party, after all. That is also why most wealthy people are Republicans. They tend to be conservative.


    Quote from THHuxleynew

    You could normalise SATS scores by multiplying them by proportion of population taking them (though that would not be correct, and not fair!).


    That is an interesting statistic. As you say, it is not "fair" in the sense that you cannot use it to compare state educational attainments, but it is interesting.


    Beware of complicated social science statistics. They often seem to mean one thing but they actually mean another.

    https://www.foxnews.com/politi…ed-save-coronavirus-study


    Treatment with Hydroxychloroquine Cut Death Rate Significantly in COVID-19 Patients, Henry Ford Health System Study Shows

    https://www.henryford.com/news/2020/07/hydro-treatment-study

    "analysis of 2,541 patients hospitalized between March 10 and May 2, 2020 across the system’s six hospitals, the study found 13% of those treated with hydroxychloroquine alone died compared to 26.4% not treated with hydroxychloroquine."


    "The vast majority received the drug soon after admission; 82% within 24 hours and 91% within 48 hours of admission. All patients in the study were 18 or over with a median age of 64 years; 51% were men and 56% African American."

    Masks have problems. I think that for USA they should be mandatory in public and crowded places, they work if managed correctly. If masks makes sick people go to work, you may be worse off than with asking people to stay home if sick and enable them to stay home without loosing money. The problem is people touching the mask and get contaminated and then spread it via contact spreading. I do not know what to think personally. A lot of experts and folks on both side here.

    • Official Post
    Quote from oldguy

    Treatment with Hydroxychloroquine Cut Death Rate Significantly in COVID-19 Patients


    Odd. Using HCQ alone, only 13% died, while 20% died when HCQ was combined with a Z-pack (Az):


    "The analysis found 22.4% of those treated only with azithromycin died, and 20.1% treated with a combination of azithromycin and hydroxychloroquine died, compared to 26.4% of patients dying who were not treated with either medication."

    Quote from Shane D.

    Odd. Using HCQ alone, only 13% died, while 20% died when HCQ was combined with a Z-pack (Az):


    "The analysis found 22.4% of those treated only with azithromycin died, and 20.1% treated with a combination of azithromycin and hydroxychloroquine died, compared to 26.4% of patients dying who were not treated with either medication."


    Not really odd. These observational studies don't mean anything without the details. They must all be factored by the relative severity of the cases given different treatment. Without RCT that is never equal. For example: which cases do you think would be put onto AZT as well?


    :)

    Quote from Mark U

    What language! If any average, decent human being actually believed he had a reasonable chance that he would "kill" someone by not wearing a mask, he would wear a mask.

    But most people realize they have no reasonable chance of endangering another person's life by not wearing a mask.

    When will you, THH, stop wearing a mask in public? When there are only 1000 new cases per day in the UK? 100? 10? 1?


    This is a useful thing to consider.


    You have a chance of killing people when you drive a car. By travelling through cities at the speed linit (30mph) rather than a safer 20mph, you are more likely to kill people. I do this.


    The mask issue is different and more complex. If the epidemic R value > 1 it is very very bad for everyone, not just more deaths, but lockdown. If < 1 then it is good for everyone. By not wearing a mask you are contributing to higher R. Individually a small amount. There is a significant chance, if you go into crowded spaces without a mask, that you pass the disease on to others if you are infected. The changes of you being infected ? Look it up from local statistics. Wearing a mask reduces that chance,. Maybe by 50%? Maybe 20%? I'm not sure anyone knows.


    Anyway there are two harms, going into indoor places full of people place not wearing mask (or even outdoor crowded spaces the same):

    (1) Chance you directly infect another

    (2) All the descendant infections that derive from each person you infect passing it on.


    Mathematically as Rt gets close to 1 this amplifying number from descendant indirect infections increases towards infinity, and is infinite for Rt > 1. Of course it is not really infinity, because population size is limited, and as with a chain letter it must stop, eventually we get herd immunity. But still the total effect of passing the virus on is much more than just the people you immediately infect.


    Of those people who are descendants of your extra mask-free directly infected contacts, some fraction will die. Maybe 1%, depending on many things.


    So, working out probabilities, unless you go to night clubs, pubs, etc and spread a lot, or are in an infection hotspot where chances of you being infected are high, you may kill less than one person. That amplifying factor from Rt close to 1, or > 1 does mean your actions are much more significant than you might imagine, or when Rt < 1.


    So it all depends on Rt. If Rt << 1 your chances of killing anyone are low.


    Rule of thumb: if Rt is close to 1 or larger than 1 do everything possible to reduce transmission. Wearing masks in public (except when outdoors well space) is the easiest and least painful of these things.

    Quote from stefan

    Masks have problems. I think that for USA they should be mandatory in public and crowded places, they work if managed correctly. If masks makes sick people go to work, you may be worse off than with asking people to stay home if sick and enable them to stay home without loosing money. The problem is people touching the mask and get contaminated and then spread it via contact spreading. I do not know what to think personally. A lot of experts and folks on both side here.


    I'd go by WHO advice which generally has been as good as anyone. It is complex because there was an argument that wearing a mask can be harmful. But other arguments that independent of direct effect, the very fact you are wearing a mask, and other people see that, helps everyone's (including your own) behaviour change.


    The mask wearing countries seem to have done better but is that just they have less crazy people (as in US - "our rights mean we must not do what those experts we don't believe say")? There does seem some decent evidence that wearing masks reduces large particle aerosols, and that these are a strong infection route, perhaps via surface contamination as well as direct. But all the behavioural stuff is very difficult to gauge, which is maybe why scientists have been so undecided about it?


    The world is uncertain - we just make informed choices as well as we can.


    A 10% change in Rt could make the difference between disaster and a controlled reducing to 0 epidemic, or could mean 10% more businesses allowed to unlock, etc.

    Quote from Mark U

    Was old fox Fauci counselling us in the "killing" of tens of thousands of people? Personally I'll give him a pass on that one. (Not for other things though.)


    Look at it this way. You are in a war zone, country you don't know, trying to get out alive.


    You have a guide who is also trying to get out alive, and anyway is not an evil person. He knows a bit more than you do about the terrain, where the fighters are likely to be, etc. He gets info via radio so as time goes on his understanding of where you are and local topography gets better. But he may change his mind about the best route.


    What do you do? Reckon because he is an old fox you should do the opposite of what he says?

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