The Coronavirus Thread

In Germany, after the first official CV-19 outbreak near Munich in late January, similar stories surfaced about a strange flu in November/Dezember 2019 that seemed to point to an earlier unrecognized outbreak.

Virologists took these reports seriously, identified the individuals and performed antibody tests. However, they were unable to confirm that any of these people had been exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

In the absence of reliable data, I'd be careful to jump to conclusions regarding this strange flu, particularly since people who've been through it might wrongly think they're now immune to catching CV-19.

 

We have the same and are desperately hoping that the TB vaccinations do indeed help in resisting this virus in the townships (slums).

 

We have also conducted such research. In fact, a group of random people was caught in Moscow and tested for antibodies. The result was that about 5% of people already had antibodies. So we already had the coronavirus.

PS I found a very convincing speech by the chief of police of Uganda

https://s01.yapfiles.ru/files/23617...12da437f.mp4?token=MDIzNjE3MTktMTU4NjM0OTEwOA

 

My wife and I got sick the first week of February. She wasn't too bad but I felt like hammered snot. I rarely get sick and when I do I'm better in 24-36 hours. This time I had a 102-103 fever for 3 days and when I sneezed/coughed my lungs hurt extremely bad. The doctor tested for Flu and strep, both came back negative so we aren't sure what it was. We've been thinking maybe we had the virus, but we will just have to wait till it dies down and get tested for antibodies.

 

I try to take news reports with a suitable amount of NaCl, but if this report is correct, and this virus was already spreading rapidly enough in China in November that intelligence agencies took note, then it is entirely likely it was "in the wild" in many parts of the world by December. Given the known incubation period, the likelihood that the Chinese recognized the problem before anyone infected had traveled outside of China seems remote to me.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/int...isis-early-november-sources/story?id=70031273

 

Let's just revisit this statement for a second. If you're going to step into this thread like this, recognize that, depending on who you're talking to and the experience they've had, this could land in a super fucked up way. This was something to drop a few weeks ago when shit was more remote and we weren't losing grandparents. Like maybe. You can have your opinions or whatever, but some of us are not living opinions anymore. And then to come for Thenewerguy009 with this "chill, dude" stuff? We're better than our government. Jesus, I hope we are.

 

W/ regards to numbers, I'd just like to throw out there that it seems like every nation has or initially had very different criteria for counting. IIRC Russia, China, and many others only counted hospital cases and some other countries, US included, had caveats of similar measures, etc. Lots of people dying at home of "other stuff or unknown", fudged causes of death, fudged numbers, lack of tests, etc. Not saying the numbers aren't an indicator though.

I also believe it's possible that Russia (+ USA and many others) got the virus as early as November. Lots of flights between the 2 places, this is just based on going to a few of the big airports in China (the ones that handle most international flights) and looking at the number of flights between Russia and China. Not to mention trains, etc. However, with only 1 or 2 infected people per flight, no symptoms, new type of sickness, etc. - who knows. Compound that with the fact that 2019 and 2020 normal cold/flu season were already supposed to be worse than normal (and turned out to be, even excluding covid) so this covid could have easily been buried in the increased flu/cold noise initially.

 

That's the point. Any Lieutenant of military medicine is able to conduct quarantine and sorting activities quietly and calmly. This will stop the explosive growth of the disease and provide full-fledged care for the sick, which can save the lives of many elderly people. Young people usually get over it without consequences. No one has held these events except China. Instead, I see fear and panic being whipped up in the world's media.
As Alain Bombard said, " it wasn't the sea that killed you, it wasn't hunger that killed you, it wasn't thirst that killed you! Rocking on the waves to the plaintive cries of gulls, you died of fear.“
I have a big question: who needs a pandemic of horror and fear and why?

 

If you are touched directly by the worst case of Coronavirus, which is the death of a person close to you, it is pointless and heartless to think about the models and the numbers.
At the same time we cannot possibly figure out our way out of it by refusing to look critically at the data.
Those two views are entirely incompatible, and cannot be reconciled in terms of human experience. We should keep them separately in our own psyche, and in this thread. At least we should try

 

I appreciate your contextualizing your previous remarks. Yes, I think the media profits from fear and is motivated to perpetuate it and that it, too, is lethal. And it's a big problem. My intent is only to raise some awareness that there are a multiplicity of experiences in this thread and to be careful with our language. You can certainly own the 20-80 for yourself but there needs to be room for someone else to claim 100-0. There's very suddenly no farce in losing a loved one.

I appreciate the brain power in this thread and don't want to squelch it in the least. But I reject the notion that data (and other kinds of) analysis is necessarily objectifying. It just takes more work to hold the human in our conversations. And we should be capable of that.

 

I'd like to ask for some context/clarification here. Mainly as bit of a sidetrack because I find differences in key systems between countries interesting.

Are you saying that over there, there are a good number of people (Lieutenant of military medicine) who can just call snap quarantines where in localised areas, and if they do so, it's not a big deal?

Anywhere I am familiar with, it's a big deal. Here in HK, for people returning from overseas who were supposed to quarantine, it was a huge news issue. Nobody knew how to do it properly, the government guidelines were a joke (household members were told to stay >1M apart at all times, typically with 4 person families in 500 square foot apartments), nobody knew how to enforce quarantine- it's effectively voluntary, and people just wander out at will.

 

Exactly, all the internet/telephone tough guys please STFU!!! If you haven't dealt directly with blood, loss of life, and mayhem... shhhhushhhhhhhhh...

 

It is difficult for me to speak about other countries, I can only speak for my country.
In my country, there are two modes of life for the population.
1. Mode a peaceful life.
2. The mode of war or emergency

In the mode of peaceful life, all the laws adopted apply.
In the state of martial law, the laws of wartime apply. In the case of quarantine, it means that the population of the quarantine zone is surrounded by roadblocks, and there is a curfew and access control inside the zone. Management of the zone is transferred from the civil authority to the zone commandant and his staff.
And most importantly, it will probably be the main one. Food supply and maintenance of the quarantine zone is transferred to state funding. The payment of taxes, utility bills , and other vital services is stopped . Most companies and businesses do not pay salaries and taxes.
Probably, it was the reluctance to support the population at the expense of the budget that was the reason why the full-fledged quarantine measures were not carried out.

 

I hope and pray not, to that last statement!

Back to our original question/answer:

"Something is going on that we haven't quite found out yet," said Victor Davis Hanson a senior fellow with Stanford's Hoover Institute.
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Study-investigates-if-COVID-19-came-to-Calif-in-15187085.php

Besides the issue of when it started spreading (or in addition to it), there is something going on with California/Washington that is more than social distancing … and more people are beginning to look into it. It could be that your family is already immune - I hope so, anyway.

I was convinced I caught H1N1 back during that outbreak. My Dr.'s office gave me a "general" flu test (definitely positive). I asked if this meant I had H1N1 and they said, "We could give you an actual H1N1 test, but that'll cost $150, take a few days and we wouldn't give you any different treatment anyway." I told them to never mind. Then they said, "Go home, get lots of rest and try not to touch anything or anybody on your way out."

 

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet, I just heard about it today:

https://healthweather.us/?mode=Atypical

Edit: in case folks don't know what we're looking at here, it's a potentially correlated 2-ish week leading indicator of COVID-19 spread. We'll only know post hoc how well correlated the trend data are, but this is fascinating.

 

Article has since been removed from what I gather. Hanson is a military historian who showed up on the Limbaugh show recently, after which a Salinas reporter wrote the story without sourcing the scientific community in any substantive way. I’ll wait for the lab coats to weigh in.

 

He may not have been a scientist, but I don't think he was saying something that many of them are not thinking.

“This was the first-of-a-kind, large attempt to measure how many people in a large county have been infected,” said Eran Bendavid, a specialist in infectious disease and professor at the Stanford Health Policy program, who is leading the project in conjunction with the county public health office.

The first round of results, which have been collected but not yet published, makes clear that many people have been infected and are not showing symptoms, Bendavid said.

https://www.latimes.com/california/...navirus-antibodies-testing-los-angeles-county

 

Have not heard from @Gaspasser in a while, assume he is too busy at work to join in. Hope he is also OK.

Trump wanting to open the country again prematurely at the end of April is asinine. I can only pray that Dr. Fauci is persuasive enough to keep us locked down at least until the end of May or June. Otherwise we could see a second wave of infections and deaths that wipes out the gains we have been able to achieve by social distancing.

SARS-CoV-2 does not care about the economy and you need to make decisions driven by the data as the virus is calling the shots now no matter how badly Trump wants to rewrite history and start having his businesses make money again.

The governor of my state is a Trump loyalist and is actually talking about re-opening schools so kids can graduate. He has made patently false public statements like claiming there have been no deaths from COVID-19 for those under 25. I believe the mayor where I live has enough common sense to keep my county locked down, just as most state governors will ignore Trump and do what is necessary to keep their residents safe.

History will not be kind to Trump.

Andrew Cuomo of New York is the most reasoned voice apart from Dr. Fauci I have been listening to on CNN. He gets the science and has publicly stated that key to reopening the economy is having widespread testing for COVID-19 in place first. It is a shame he has made it clear he has no Presidential aspirations. IMO we would be a lot better off with him in the White House than Trump or perhaps even Biden.

 

I think the favorability of your commentary will go the way of my rant re: Trump’s Easter timeline. Personally, I don’t care what history makes of him; I care more about the deer-in-headlights right now.

This week, I’m trying not to stroke out about this: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-04-07/hospitals-washington-seize-coronavirus-supplies?_amp=true

Addendum: Realizing there is a pay wall in my LA Times link. Basically, it's about the alleged fed "seizure" or "redirection" (or use your own semantics) or state-procured med supplies. It's all over the Internet.