COVID-19

[Bo Deadly]

Does anyone know what happens if you get the virus but then recover from it? Do you get sick again with new exposure? If you recover,  are you then still a carrier that can infect other people?

Once you get it you have some immunity. You can get it again but you'll shake it off like a bad movie.

I'm surprised people haven't been discussing what seems obvious to me which is that we're all going to get it. I've heard people say "... 50% of the population could get it ....". That doesn't make sense to me. It's not like it's just going to go away. It's here to stay. Forever. You might not get it this year or next or in 10 years. But eventually you will get it. Even if there was a vaccine or antivirals or whatever, anything short of a total cure isn't going to guarantee that you won't get it. Would you rather get it now or in 10 years when you're not quite as heathy? It's just a matter of time before people realize that the morbid mathematical reality is that we should actually LET PEOPLE GET IT up to the capacity of the local medical support system. In the US there are ~70k ventilators. That could be ramped up to at least 100k. If 10% of people needed a ventilator (which is a crazy conservative number), that means 1 million people could have COVID-19 at any moment and then we throttle at that level or whatever the support system is confortable. We could screen people for health issues and them actually give it to them on purpose. After a few weeks they can take a cheap cruise in the Caribbean.

 

[dogears]

you can’t just control the spread. If you go over capacity of ventilators then people who need them die. See: Italy right now.

Containment is the difference between Hubei province / Lombardy and the rest of China’s mortality figures.

This site has some really good info about spread.

https://cmmid.github.io/topics/covid19/current-patterns-transmission/global-time-varying-transmission.html

 

[Bo Deadly]

Sure you can. The dynamics will naturally throttle. If people know their local system is at capacity, they'll try not to get it and socially isolate. If they have capacity, they'll allow themselves to get it.

But hopefully people will listen to heath authorities and only get it when they're ready. Then we can prioritize. We start with heath care workers. They go first. Then teachers. Then the kids can go back to school. Then we do younger people 20-40, then 40-60. We screen people for ailments that can be remedied like smoking, drinking, weight problems, etc.

 

[Whoops]

Does anyone know what happens if you get the virus but then recover from it? Do you get sick again with new exposure? If you recover,  are you then still a carrier that can infect other people?

In Theory no.

But there's accounts of people getting reinfected, very very few cases.
It's also not clear of the reinfection was from a mutation of the original virus.

It seems there are already 2 mutations of the Covid 19, but at the moment information is not clear

 

[Whoops]

May become important in the next few days.

That's highly important at the moment.

That's some of the reasons why:

1) Germany although having 2745 confirmed cases only had 6 deaths. And also why in Germany most of the population is not worried or gives to much credit do the situation
(France has 2800 cases and 61 deaths, 10 times more than Germany)

2) also the reason why Portugal even though it only has 78 confirmed cases and no deaths at the moment, the Government today closed all Schools/Universities in the country, and considered "Public Crisis". It might seem to early but it's not.
The reason is that there's only 4 Critical beds per 100.000 pop

I'm from Portugal, if it continues to grow, Hospitals around here will not be able to deal with everyone sick at the same moment
We actually need some imposed quarantine measures in my opinion. It will happen anyway
Better earlier on than in the middle of the Hospital's outbreak

 

[iomegaman]

Does anyone know what happens if you get the virus but then recover from it? Do you get sick again with new exposure? If you recover,  are you then still a carrier that can infect other people?

Specific scientific information on this is varied.

What people are NOT aware of is that this is not like the flu in that you recover and there are no real after effects...evidence is coming out that in stage 3 cases permanent lung and immune system compromises are happening to some people...

Most healthy people will not experience stage 3 respiratory failure, which is a byproduct of the immune system going overboard to fight the infection...those that do though generally suffer permanent lung damage because the immune system overloads the lungs with immune cells which destroy healthy tissue as well as virus...

 

[boji]

lungs with immune cells which destroy healthy tissue as well as virus...

Yes, and not to scare folks, but if too many cells die while fighting off the infection in the lower respiratory tract, sepsis can occur. Basically lower alveoli get covered in junk, and instead of filtering oxygen into bloodstream, the capillaries that surround the supersaturated alveoli instead pump dead cells and pus into bloodstream.  Yuck.

 

[dogears]

Things to think about when looking at numbers in your area. They are only the cases that have been tested. Depending on the screening criteria that could be representative of the scale or not.

But! People being tested unless it’s from contact tracing will be symptomatic and presenting for treatment.  That means they got infected 4-7 days before. You’re always seeing the cases at a lag.

The disease has been spreading without social distancing measures at 30% per day. So if you go backwards from one case, that means you likely have 4-6 cases that you won’t see for a few days.

And if the mortality is ~1% under normal conditions, one death means you likely have 100 cases. This is compounded because median death from onset of symptoms has been reported as around 15 days. So that means you may have had 100 cases 15 days ago, and you’re seeing the 1 that died.

Obviously sample size adversely affects this and these are really basic / bad models.

But just because you see 1000 cases and 10 deaths doesn’t mean at all that there are only 1000 infected people.

This got out of hand fast.

 

[dogears]

Sure you can. The dynamics will naturally throttle. If people know their local system is at capacity, they'll try not to get it and socially isolate. If they have capacity, they'll allow themselves to get it.

But hopefully people will listen to heath authorities and only get it when they're ready. Then we can prioritize. We start with heath care workers. They go first. Then teachers. Then the kids can go back to school. Then we do younger people 20-40, then 40-60. We screen people for ailments that can be remedied like smoking, drinking, weight problems, etc.

Man if we could control the spread, none of this would be an issue. The point is we can’t, people move and contact too much and the time where you are infectious and asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic is too long.

 

[Matador]

None of you are discussing the real story here, which is how all of this is the fault of Obama and Adam Schiff!

 

[fazer]

None of you are discussing the real story here, which is how all of this is the fault of Obama and Adam Schiff!

And I want to thank everybody for that. ;D

 

[JohnRoberts]

None of you are discussing the real story here, which is how all of this is the fault of Obama and Adam Schiff!

There has been a steady drip, drip drip, of criticism from the opposition, and campaigns. Unfortunately that is the nature of career politicians.  I am reminded of the fable about the frog carrying a scorpion across the river on his back. Half way across the scorpion stings the frog, dooming them both. The frog asks the scorpion why he did that, and he answered it is his nature.  :

Just yesterday a chinese government official blamed the US for causing the covid-19 outbreak.  The democrats have not gone that far, but they are not very calming to the public with their constant hyperbolic criticism.

It was a little jarring to hear Gov Newsome (CA) being complimentary about the administration's handling of this wrt CA.  ;D



=====

actually on topic, I saw a news report of Colo starting free roadside testing, they clearly copied this idea from South Korea, but nothing wrong with copying good ideas.  8)

JR

 

[Bo Deadly]

Man if we could control the spread, none of this would be an issue. The point is we can’t, people move and contact too much and the time where you are infectious and asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic is too long.

Well I don't know about other parts of the world. I suppose I have been selfish and focused on the US. But we don't have that many infections here yet. At 2x every 3 days its going to be 2 months before we get to 1M. And personally I think the rate is going to slow as testing starts to match reality. If it's more like 2x every 5 days it will be 3 months to get to 1M. And a large number of those will be already be recovered. So of 700K maybe 5% or 35K need full-monty treatment. Hopefully the curve starts to flatten for us there. If so, I think we can get to 1% mortality (or whatever "low" is going to end up being). Obviously some places are just going to rough-it and loose millions unnecessarily (Bangladesh). Nature is pushing back.

 

[Whoops]

Man if we could control the spread, none of this would be an issue. The point is we can’t, people move and contact too much and the time where you are infectious and asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic is too long.

I had all my gigs for this month canceled last week.

My teaching classes stopped today as Portuguese government ordered all schools to close until 9th of April.
I have food for 2/3 weeks, I will do my civic responsibility of staying at home and not going out. Thats the only way to reduce the spread and not having everyone sick at the Hospitals at the same time.

My friends are also all doing the same, but younger (University) people don't understand the isolation concept yep.

My Parents are over 70 years old, and my father has diabetes so they are in the biggest risk group, Im worried and afraid for them and for everyone else that will need medical care and will not be able to get it.

 

[dogears]

Well I don't know about other parts of the world. I suppose I have been selfish and focused on the US. But we don't have that many infections here yet. At 2x every 3 days its going to be 2 months before we get to 1M. And personally I think the rate is going to slow as testing starts to match reality. If it's more like 2x every 5 days it will be 3 months to get to 1M. And a large number of those will be already be recovered. So of 700K maybe 5% or 35K need full-monty treatment. Hopefully the curve starts to flatten for us there. If so, I think we can get to 1% mortality (or whatever "low" is going to end up being). Obviously some places are just going to rough-it and loose millions unnecessarily (Bangladesh). Nature is pushing back.

We don't have that many identified infections. But the CDC / FDA has dropped the ball badly on the testing. Maybe good reasons, but this is what they're for and they failed.

We have insufficient testing. Houston has one of the largest medical centers in the world and we can do 25. Dallas says they can do 20. Research labs in Washington state had to openly defy / ignore CDC to do tests because they weren't "clinical" facilities vs research. Guess what, that was the only reason we even found the community spread going on!

Use very round numbers. If you have 1 case identified / symptomatic today that means that person got infected 4-7+ days ago. Add days for testing (3+ days to confirm!) that means it was at least a week. Every case you see right now represents at least 8 in the wild that are not symptomatic yet - at minimum.

Every death probably represents at least 100 cases.  The challenge isn't the whole US, it's localized hotspots.

Seems like - much like the flu - this thing doesn't like high temps and high humidity. There was a paper published (not peer reviewed so grain of salt) yesterday out of China that showed a significant drop in R0 for every degree C up and every % relative humidity up. So that's good for a lot of poorer nations along the equator.

 

[living sounds]

There has been a steady drip, drip drip, of criticism from the opposition, and campaigns. Unfortunately that is the nature of career politicians.  I am reminded of the fable about the frog carrying a scorpion across the river on his back. Half way across the scorpion stings the frog, dooming them both. The frog asks the scorpion why he did that, and he answered it is his nature.  :

That's a total non-sequitor. You never fail to sneak in your ideology through the backdoor, John.

The truth here is, that incompetent anti-government, anti-science/-fact and anti-meritocracy people are in charge at the federal level and they - predictably - badly botched the response. They are not responsible for the virus, but they have to answer for the woefully inadequate actions they took as well as for actions they didn't take, which made a bad situation so much worse. They deserve every bit of (factual) criticism and the opposition has every right to voice it.

 

[dogears]

That's a total non-sequitor. You never fail to sneak in your ideology through the backdoor, John.

The truth here is, that incompetent anti-government, anti-science/-fact and anti-meritocracy people are in charge at the federal level and they - predictably - badly botched the response. They are not responsible for the virus, but they have to answer for the woefully inadequate actions they took as well as for actions they didn't take, which made a bad situation so much worse. They deserve every bit of (factual) criticism and the opposition has every right to voice it.

CDC and FDA are career bureaucrats who were there before the current administration and will be there after. The failure is at all levels. Anti-meritocracy is pretty rich.

I suggest you look to your own nation at this point in time. I have zero doubt in my mind that there is no better place in the world to be during a pandemic than the USA, incompetent government response included. Thank God those same people aren't in charge of our healthcare system writ large.

 

[living sounds]

Anti-meritocracy is pretty rich.

It's an administration that gave posts to loyalists, showpersons, family members etc. - but certainly not experts. "The best people"?

 

[JohnRoberts]

It's an administration that gave posts to loyalists, showpersons, family members etc. - but certainly not experts. "The best people"?

Thanks for providing a fresh example of the typical cliched partisan criticism I referred too...

In my judgement that world view is not reality, but I do not expect to change your mind, so won't waste my time, or forum bandwidth trying.

JR

PS: I used the front door and clearly stated what I perceived.

 

[Matador]

I have zero doubt in my mind that there is no better place in the world to be during a pandemic than the USA, incompetent government response included. Thank God those same people aren't in charge of our healthcare system writ large.

Let's put a pin in this for later:  because once we have news of people a) losing jobs because they have to take care of children due to closing schools, b) losing their jobs because they cannot work, or c) going into medical bankruptcy due to COVID-19 or related modalities...you know, stuff that just doesn't happen in Germany to the common person)...

Then we'll discuss where the best place was to be during all of this.