Coronavirus

[Evil Sports]

It appears case [HASH=93]#s[/HASH] are down across the country, but what I want to know is of the current cases how many are people in peril. Have a positive vs being gravely ill are 2 hugely different circumstances. Is it possible it has mutated into a still contagious but lesser dangerous strain?

 

[GTBRMC]

It appears case [HASH=93]#s[/HASH] are down across the country, but what I want to know is of the current cases how many are people in peril. Have a positive vs being gravely ill are 2 hugely different circumstances. Is it possible it has mutated into a still contagious but lesser dangerous strain?

Strongly suggest you look at the daily reports from the COVID Tracking Project:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1306003062146752512

Their daily snapshot provides a solid, summary look at most of the important data (uodates approx 7:00 pm ET, daily):

 

[Bluewater272]

Can you explain why you say this? Honestly looking for an expert perspective.

The core of scientific research and communication is peer review, which this obviously isn't subject to. Anyone can publish anything on Zenodo - I could print this thread to PDF and title it "Coalescion of marine experts' review of existing data related to COVID-19 and US Pandemic Response" and it would be published.

The point about this not being research is this: its not research. She and her colleagues are simply musing about the ways in which this could be accomplished in a lab, whereas actual reviews of the sequence of the virus have clearly shown that effects of manipulation are not present within its genome. People making claims such as this would actually demonstrate the methods involved and the resulting sequence modifications that would yield an identical code absent the markers of manipulations.

In the time frame they specified they could have accomplished many of these tasks independently, if not as a whole, and offered a synthetically derived version of SARS-CoV-2 either in its entirety or in part. Peers would then review the methods and attempt to replicate. It's the underpinning of science. Moreover, you'll note the absolute dearth of references to the claims they make. One of the points key to the central thesis of why this could not be naturally occurring is the the ACE2 inhibitor is not sufficiently conserved between bats and humans, so therefore the spike protein could never have naturally occurred with a high enough affinity to the receptor binding domain for human infection, never mind the fact that this already occurred in our recent history, and has been demonstrated in other coronaviruses in the bat population that emerged prior to SARS. She purports that much of this manipulation can be done with basic restriction enzyme digestion and recombination with EcoR1, shit that I did in high school nearly 20 years ago, and yet this would not be perceptible by the all of the peer-reviewed work that's been published to date? Even the language of the article is frankly laughable compared to the norms of research. I think I lost count of how many times I came across astonishingly, conveniently, and strikingly (and a littany of other adverbs), alongside the big underlined smoking gun.

Bias matters. Look at who wrote it, what they have to gain by it, who published it and what they have to gain by it, and you're left with a bucket of pseudoscience that puts some things in clear language that will serve only to distract and divide, while the meat of it in language that the vast majority of readers will have no fundamental (let alone technical) understanding of, and its primed for a misinformation campaign and soundbites to fly through social media - which not astonishingly, has gone like wildfire.

Expert?? Good luck with that

Cute. I'm not an expert by any means, but I'd wager I have the education, training, and experience to understand more of that text than most folks here.

_____________________
Edit for Julian: BTW, my general tone is not directed at you, at all.

 

[tabbibus]

The core of scientific research and communication is peer review, which this obviously isn't subject to. Anyone can publish anything on Zenodo - I could print this thread to PDF and title it "Coalescion of marine experts' review of existing data related to COVID-19 and US Pandemic Response" and it would be published.

The point about this not being research is this: its not research. She and her colleagues are simply musing about the ways in which this could be accomplished in a lab, whereas actual reviews of the sequence of the virus have clearly shown that effects of manipulation are not present within its genome. People making claims such as this would actually demonstrate the methods involved and the resulting sequence modifications that would yield an identical code absent the markers of manipulations.

In the time frame they specified they could have accomplished many of these tasks independently, if not as a whole, and offered a synthetically derived version of SARS-CoV-2 either in its entirety or in part. Peers would then review the methods and attempt to replicate. It's the underpinning of science. Moreover, you'll note the absolute dearth of references to the claims they make. One of the points key to the central thesis of why this could not be naturally occurring is the the ACE2 inhibitor is not sufficiently conserved between bats and humans, so therefore the spike protein could never have naturally occurred with a high enough affinity to the receptor binding domain for human infection, never mind the fact that this already occurred in our recent history, and has been demonstrated in other coronaviruses in the bat population that emerged prior to SARS. She purports that much of this manipulation can be done with basic restriction enzyme digestion and recombination with EcoR1, shit that I did in high school nearly 20 years ago, and yet this would not be perceptible by the all of the peer-reviewed work that's been published to date? Even the language of the article is frankly laughable compared to the norms of research. I think I lost count of how many times I came across astonishingly, conveniently, and strikingly (and a littany of other adverbs), alongside the big underlined smoking gun.

Bias matters. Look at who wrote it, what they have to gain by it, who published it and what they have to gain by it, and you're left with a bucket of pseudoscience that puts some things in clear language that will serve only to distract and divide, while the meat of it in language that the vast majority of readers will have no fundamental (let alone technical) understanding of, and its primed for a misinformation campaign and soundbites to fly through social media - which not astonishingly, has gone like wildfire.



Cute. I'm not an expert by any means, but I'd wager I have the education, training, and experience to understand more of that text than most folks here.

Yo. God bless you for taking the time to write all that. I’ve given up on tons of conversations already. And yeah. I agree with you. And that’s all I have to say about that.

 

[Evil Sports]

Sorry Sean but you get no points for being the smartest guy on the message board, even if you did whats that get you.
I must live in a fantasy world as the numbers here are not so staggering.

• Baystate Franklin Medical Center: 1 patient, 1 ICU

Hampden County:

• Baystate Medical Center: 24 patients, 2 ICU
• Baystate Noble Hospital: 1 patient
• Baystate Wing Hospital: 2 patients
• Holyoke Hospital: 4 patients
• Mercy Medical Center: 4 patients, 1 ICU

Hampshire County:

• Cooley Dickinson Hospital: 0

 

[Dean P]

Sorry Sean but you get no points for being the smartest guy on the message board, even if you did whats that get you.
I must live in a fantasy world as the numbers here are not so staggering.

• Baystate Franklin Medical Center: 1 patient, 1 ICU

Hampden County:

• Baystate Medical Center: 24 patients, 2 ICU
• Baystate Noble Hospital: 1 patient
• Baystate Wing Hospital: 2 patients
• Holyoke Hospital: 4 patients
• Mercy Medical Center: 4 patients, 1 ICU

Hampshire County:

• Cooley Dickinson Hospital: 0

Thank God, you're not one of them.

 

[Bluewater272]

Sorry Sean but you get no points for being the smartest guy on the message board, even if you did whats that get you.

Nice. I'm not, nor do I claim to be. I'd like to point out when people are sharing obvious bullshit. Don't care to know? You do you, boo.

I must live in a fantasy world as the numbers here are not so staggering.

• Baystate Franklin Medical Center: 1 patient, 1 ICU

Hampden County:

• Baystate Medical Center: 24 patients, 2 ICU
• Baystate Noble Hospital: 1 patient
• Baystate Wing Hospital: 2 patients
• Holyoke Hospital: 4 patients
• Mercy Medical Center: 4 patients, 1 ICU

Hampshire County:

• Cooley Dickinson Hospital: 0

*gasp* Do you mean that not every area is impacted in the same way at the same time? No way. Fake news. China Virus is a Faux Virus!

 

[Evil Sports]

and you sell yourself as the smart guy?

 

[Julian]

and you sell yourself as the smart guy?

No, he's actually said he's not. Let's keep it civil and not about personal stuff.

I appreciate someone who knows more about the science than I do, giving me their opinion. And it is just that....his opinion.

 

[Ronnie]

So my Son’s good friend (18 years old) just tested positive after a week of being sick. As a result my Son, Wife and I Maybe getting tested. I say maybe because we have to be interviewed by phone separately first to determine if we will be tested. Since we are 6 months into this I expected my healthcare provider who is also my employer to simply give me an address to be tested at on a walk in basis. I assumed that getting tested would be easy, clearly my assumption is incorrect.

 

[J-RAD]

My sister had an interesting situation happen with her coworker. Her coworker's daughter who lives at home became ill and ended up testing positive. The coworker was supposed to quarantine at home home for 2 weeks due to her potential exposure. My sister was surprised when she returned to work to see her coworker there after only 1 week. She was a little upset because she works directly with the woman. After further inquiry, she found out that the woman's daughter went and was tested at 2 other testing facilities and the results of the 2 subsequent tests came back as negative... so did she have it or not?

Same sister had another coworker she'd been in direct contact with become ill and test positive last month. A couple days later my sister ends up ill with flu-like symptoms. She went was tested and the results were negative. Were they really?

This whole scenario we have ourselves in is so frustratingly fickle, who knows what's really going on. I don't doubt the reality of a pandemic virus, but I thought we had this testing thing fairly figured out. Maybe everyone needs to be tested 3 times and best out if 3 wins? ?

 

[Ronnie]

My wife, Son and I just got tested, it was a first time for all of us. We drove up at our appointment time, showed our IDs and membership cards, rolled down our windows as/when instructed and got our tongues and both nostrils swabbed . It was uncomfortable but no more so than a flu shot. I estimate the total procedure time for me was between 15 to 30 seconds. Results should be available / sent to us via email within 48 to 96 hours (2 to 4 days) of the procedure.

After having the experience I feel for the techs that have to administer the tests. By the nature of their jobs they are at highe risk of contracting COVID 19 but they also have to consict the tests in bad weather sometimes. The weather is nice today but a few weeks ago we were in a heat wave. It had to suck doing a shift in a tent/carport set up on an asphalt parking lot where 66% of the test time is spent Picking the nose of the person being tested. I don’t know what techs get paid but I doubt it is enough for me. Thankfully someone else is willing to do the job.

 

[Robconn]

If you don’t want to wear a mask, come to work with me
Ditto

 

[Ronnie]

Check this out.

Coronavirus detected in lake water, researchers find. Experts say don't panic.

“It’s highly unlikely that SARS-CoV-2 can survive in a body of water for very long,” one expert tells Yahoo Life.

www.yahoo.com

 

[ripler]

Check this out.

Coronavirus detected in lake water, researchers find. Experts say don't panic.

“It’s highly unlikely that SARS-CoV-2 can survive in a body of water for very long,” one expert tells Yahoo Life.

www.yahoo.com

This is crazy, they are saying the virus don't last long in water but it's lasting long enough for them to detect it? They are contributing it to people not wiping their ass? How many people not wiping their ass does it take to create enough concentration to show up on tests? I boat on a river and I've wondered about the virus getting into the river because water treatment plants dump treated water into the river.

 

[AZMark]

This is crazy, they are saying the virus don't last long in water but it's lasting long enough for them to detect it? They are contributing it to people not wiping their ass? How many people not wiping their ass does it take to create enough concentration to show up on tests? I boat on a river and I've wondered about the virus getting into the river because water treatment plants dump treated water into the river.

Apparently not much, saw this a while back and was shocked that they found enough virus from a couple people in a whole dorm’s worth of wastewater.

University of Arizona wastewater testing finds virus at dorm, prevents outbreak

Researchers at the school have looked for traces of the virus in wastewater samples taken from the greater Tucson area since March.

www.azcentral.com

We’ll get closures of certain beach areas of lakes and streams here in the summer that are popular for swimming due to too much “waste” in the water when they test it. I think it’s from kids. So gross.

 

[msavold]

Work's been nuts these past couple of weeks so I've lost track of this thread so I don't know if there's a link to this on the previous pages...
This is from The Atlantic: This Overlooked Variable Is the Key to the Pandemic
About possible reasons why some places were hit so much harder than others. (Eg he gives: northern Italy vs the rest of the same country)

 

[Ronnie]

I will preface this post by stating that although I don’t like wearing a mask it has become a habit for me to check that I have it on and have a spare with me when I leave the house. Both my parents are registered nurses and I have many medical professionals in my family. I. Short I’m a believer that masks help slow the spread of COVID 19. However, this weekend My wife and I spontaneously stopped at an Indian Casino on the way home from a weekend trip (we had driven by it many times before). While there I took tof how the gambling tables are now set up. Moreover, I could not ignore the body oder of a gambler sitting at least 10’ behind me which begs the questions, if I can smell this guy 10’ away is the mask really protecting me at all? Is it just protecting others from me exposing them if I have the virus? Put another way, if the guy with BO had the virus and I can smell him over 6’ away is the fact that he is wearing a mask (everyone including I was at the time) really protecting anyone around him? Don’t get me wrong, I’m going to continue wearing a mask and advocate that others do the same but my recent experience at the Casino has me scratching my head about Non N95 mask efficacy.

 

[Julian]

I will preface this post by stating that although I don’t like wearing a mask it has become a habit for me to check that I have it on and have a spare with me when I leave the house. Both my parents are registered nurses and I have many medical professionals in my family. I. Short I’m a believer that masks help slow the spread of COVID 19. However, this weekend My wife and I spontaneously stopped at an Indian Casino on the way home from a weekend trip (we had driven by it many times before). While there I took tof how the gambling tables are now set up. Moreover, I could not ignore the body oder of a gambler sitting at least 10’ behind me which begs the questions, if I can smell this guy 10’ away is the mask really protecting me at all? Is it just protecting others from me exposing them if I have the virus? Put another way, if the guy with BO had the virus and I can smell him over 6’ away is the fact that he is wearing a mask (everyone including I was at the time) really protecting anyone around him? Don’t get me wrong, I’m going to continue wearing a mask and advocate that others do the same but my recent experience at the Casino has me scratching my head about Non N95 mask efficacy.
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The masks help but don't prevent the spread. I look at it this way....if there was something that improved my odds of winning the lottery by 25% would I do it every time I played....no kidding I would!!! So if a mask reduces the chance by 25% that I get or don't spread the virus...I'll do it.

 

[AZMark]

I will preface this post by stating that although I don’t like wearing a mask it has become a habit for me to check that I have it on and have a spare with me when I leave the house. Both my parents are registered nurses and I have many medical professionals in my family. I. Short I’m a believer that masks help slow the spread of COVID 19. However, this weekend My wife and I spontaneously stopped at an Indian Casino on the way home from a weekend trip (we had driven by it many times before). While there I took tof how the gambling tables are now set up. Moreover, I could not ignore the body oder of a gambler sitting at least 10’ behind me which begs the questions, if I can smell this guy 10’ away is the mask really protecting me at all? Is it just protecting others from me exposing them if I have the virus? Put another way, if the guy with BO had the virus and I can smell him over 6’ away is the fact that he is wearing a mask (everyone including I was at the time) really protecting anyone around him? Don’t get me wrong, I’m going to continue wearing a mask and advocate that others do the same but my recent experience at the Casino has me scratching my head about Non N95 mask efficacy.
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That dude must have really smelled.
Newer/nicer casinos like that one (Graton?) generally have really good air filtration systems for all the smoke.