COVID-19

[dogears]

You misunderstand. The "assessement" used control groups. So they used people they knew had it and knew did not. So there are four possible outcomes: true negative, true positive, false negative and false positive. You want to get all true negative and true positive. They got a small number of false negative and no false positive.

Their 118 sample size test for specificity is going to be called out. The manufacturer has a specificity rating of 99.5% meaning you don’t necessarily see one below 200 samples.

That plus them grossing up the raw prevalence number by demographic adjustment *before* they applied the specificity and sensitivity numbers. That nearly doubled their raw prevalence.

If you look at the mfg info for the the test, the 95% confidence interval for sensitivity and specificity means they could have had 50/50 false positives.

I think 1.2-1.4% estimated prevalence makes the most sense given the test information. Their 5% number is a stretch.

 

[cyrano]

True. So there is one virus that we don't have immunity to. You got me there.

Actually, there are dozens of virii out there that don't give lasting immunity after infection. That's why you need to renew some vaccines after a while to stay immune. It's not always clear why; there's still a lot we don't understand about virii. And then there's the mere fact that every infection is different because of mutations. The reason why flu vaccines aren't really useful to healthy people. And the same goes for bacterial vaccines.

But HIV is unique because it specifically targets immune system. I'm not aware of any viruses other than HIV that target the immune system. There might be but I've never heard of one.

Corona viruses all target the immune system. Probably others do too.

Among those who die from Corona infection, a lot don't die from the virus directly, but from other, related infections. And an important number die from wounds suffered when being intubated, due to the lack of experienced ventilator operators. That's why the number of deaths reported can't be compared to other regions. Reporting differs wildly. Over here, it seems ALL deaths in care homes have been reported as caused by Corona. Obviously, they're not. Some people died of natural cause (old age).

The fact that the virus effectively disables one of our immune systems defenses is the reason for other infections. Some of the pneumonia cases, fi, are from bacterial infection.

People see microbes as temporal. That's a major mistake. Bacteria, funghi  and virii are always omnipresent. Some are beneficial, others are dangerous, most don't matter to us.

Recently, fi, one fungus has hit amphibians all over the world very, very hard. Some species have been eradicated. Yet a lot of species have survived, because of sheer luck, particular resistance to the fungus, or "toughness".

We'll only know in a few years which species have disappeared from the Earth and which are still around. In the mean time, you'll probably see a lot less amphibians in the wild.

 

[DaveP]

I worked as a volunteer at a hospital in the Congo  from 75-77.  ( it was called Zaire then)

There was no plastic PPE back then, but plenty of cotton gowns and masks that were sterilised in high pressure boilers powered by paraffin and then re-used.  I guess this was not too far removed from what happened back in 1918.

The problems we are suffering today are two-fold:-

1)  Over reliance on a throwaway plastic culture.

2)  Over reliance on Chinese manufacturing.

I hope the West wakes up to this and maintains some strategic manufacturing in-house in future.  I always thought it was a short term fix to buy cheap from China, now look where we are :'(

DaveP

 

[Bo Deadly]

Corona viruses all target the immune system.
...
The fact that the virus effectively disables one of our immune systems defenses is the reason for other infections.

Well that is interesting. I'm guessing that SARS-CoV-2 infects T lymphocytes through its spike protein-mediated membrane fusion is what you're talking about. Although there is obviously a significant difference between this and HIV which is that it does not universally occur to the point where it becomes a factor in a host with SARS-CoV-2. When it does, they die. So from a threat perspective, it seems to be somewhat non sequitur. There is zero evidence that it's something that could suddenly pop up in a host that seemed to have fully recovered. Millions of people have had SARS-CoV-2 and totally recovered at this point. If there were lasting effects, I think we would have started to see that a while ago. Most people don't even know they had it.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I just saw a report about south korean patients who had recovered from covid19, testing positive again (over 100). I originally speculated about test errors, but they have to test negative two times to get released, so unlikely(?) that many test errors.

Reportedly they didn't infect any others (some were still in quarantine), and it doesn't appear to be a new infection but resurgence of the original infection after immune response subsided.

JR

 

[cyrano]

COVID-19 is a slow virus, meaning it is far too soon to draw conclusions, especially based on non-standardised numbers.

My vet sent me an email, to tell me our pets can't get it. Yet there are two reports from Asia that dogs were infected. One of those is verified. According to the newspaper, a tiger in the NY zoo tested positive and here in Belgium there was a report about an infected cat.

When I called my vet, they seemed blissfully unaware about those reports, except for the cat, which they attributed to contaminated samples.

When we look at what we know (and not what we believe), there is no reason at all to think some animals wouldn't be infected. After all, we know the path previous SARS infections took to get to human hosts. From bats via armadillo and a feline to man.

I expect better from my vet!

 

[cyrano]

Interesting read about past pandemics:

https://www.history.com/news/1957-flu-pandemic-vaccine-hilleman

 

[Tubetec]

Video link didnt work for me , but it seems like a browser issue .
I'll see if I can view it on another pc later .

 

[boji]

Risk analyzer Daniel Schmachtenberger on 'predatory opportunism' re: Covid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G70qtM66iY8

 

[Tubetec]

Thanks for digging that out Scott,
And guess who shows up at the end of that clip spewing a big load of butt-kiss to the good old boys ,
none other than Hillary Clinton 

 

[JohnRoberts]

One of the young men in my neighborhood (a neighbor's college age grandson) was infected with COVID19... he had childhood asthma so it could have been pretty serious but he fully recovered AFAIK.

I expect his hard earned immunity now is a merchantable asset to employers.

I haven't seen him or talked to him since before this happened, but heard from another older than me neighbor that I still talk to.

If an immunity employment premium develops, I could imagine kids trying to gain the benefit having lets catch covid parties. Of course this would be kids who want to work and still believe they are invulnerable to serious symptoms.

JR

PS: Yesterday I rode my bike 5 miles, the police did not hassle me.... but I do not live in Paris (for better and worse).  8)

 

[JohnRoberts]

(good news) random Antibody testing studies are beginning to suggest that far more people have been infected and recovered vastly expanding the denominator making fatality rates much smaller than currently understood.

(bad news) Reportedly human breathing creates aerosols in our lungs that can easily pass through masks.

(good news) Far UVc light using short wavelength (207-222nm) is harmful to microbes while incapable of penetrating dead skin or eye tear layer, making it safe for use in presence of humans. (bad news) not very available. At least one company is pursuing FDA (?) approval. https://sterilray.com (bad news) the ozone layer blocks far UVc from sunlight, (good news) we still have an ozone layer...  8)

(bad news) reportedly two pet house cats, and a handful of zoo big cats tested positive for COVID19.

(VERY BAD NEWS) we are testing f'n house cats.

JR

 

[Matador]

Many people seem to lack an appreciation for exponential growth mixed with asymptomatic carriers.

It's not about letting kids play: it's about preventing those same kids from unwittingly causing the deaths of many other people.

 

[Bo Deadly]

Many people seem to lack an appreciation for exponential growth mixed with asymptomatic carriers.

Yup. The fixation on testing and contact tracing is just wrong. I know people are worried but it won't make a difference. In fact, it could easily result in MORE infections with all of the activity associated with it. And we're just burning PPE. We're already standing on the breaks. What good does contact tracing do you if you pass 10 people on the street on your way to notify someone about contact? You'd think lefties would be a little more sophisticated about science stuff.

It's not about letting kids play: it's about preventing those same kids from unwittingly causing the deaths of many other people.

I was just thinking about this. When the weather gets nice in a month, it's going to be very difficult to stop the kids from going out: "Billy! Where are you?! Um, I'm social distancing at Steve's house." Of course it's not a problem for them. But they're going to bring it home. That's going to cause a noticeable bump.

Otherwise, I think some places actually should open stuff. Just start with small places like shoe stores and meat markets and such. Then wait two weeks and monitor new cases at the hospitals. If they don't go up too much, open a little more, wait two weeks, ... repeat. Throttle.

The sero-prevalences studies are starting to come in and show that the level of infection is 10 to 50 times higher than confirmed cases. But if you run the numbers, it's actually no where near herd-immunity levels. Even NYC is under 20%. We need to get to maybe 40%. So even they're only half way there. In NJ, it's probably only like 10%. And most of that was probably before social distancing. Social distancing is working. It's working so well, it's going to be months before we get to herd-immunity levels.

And I don't think the virus is going to be as seasonal as people are thinking. Because nobody's had it before, it spreads a lot more easily than something like the flu. So I think this is going to be a slow burn all summer with maybe an extra kick in the winter.

 

[kambo]

this aint gonna end before 2021 summer, so better get use to it !

 

[Whoops]

this aint gonna end before 2021 summer, so better get use to it !

+1

 

[Script]

Here"s a report on one of almost 100 vaccine candidates they are working on right now. Interesting read, I found, cos it illustrates the difficulties and the trajectory.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/covid-19-vaccine-protects-monkeys-new-coronavirus-chinese-biotech-reports

Also on sciencemag is an article on a series of recent antibody surveys conducted worldwide, explaining both the hopes they came with and why several of them are most likely flawed.

 

[cyrano]

Our immune system has "memory". That's how it recognises it's target. It's blank at birth, but every sickness that strikes us, gets noted. Even if we ourselves don't even notice that infection.

A fairly recent (2013) study headed by Stanford's Mark Davis found out our immune system also remembers pathogens for diseases we've never had...

https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2013/02/immune-systems-of-healthy-adults-remember-germs-to-which-theyve-never-been-exposed-stanford-study-finds.html

First, have they all gone bonkers at Stanford? How would that work? Some clever data compression that also yields pattern recognition?

Second, it also means we don't know much about the way our immune system works. And about RNA/DNA. It's too soon to draw conclusions about most of the Corona data.

 

[Matador]

It may be we have some immune response to certain pathogens encoded directly in our DNA.  If so, that would be very exciting to learn as it means it's possible to 'program' immunities in future generations.

 

[Script]

The fixation on testing and contact tracing is just wrong[...]

I fail to get the joke in that. Or maybe just a lapse into political territory as the rest, non-quoted part of that paragraph reveals?

Tracing and testing are important for two reasons:
(1) early cluster detection (installing / easing restrictions)
(2) early administration of medication that does reduce viral load and thus helps overall.

Read about Avigan, NHC, maybe Ivermectin etc. But these only seem to help if given in early infection stage before symptoms get too bad, meaning before immune system goes completely berserk.

Give up testing and tracing and we are all completely blind. Anyone who argues in favour of THAT effectively propagates nothing less than 'Survival of the Fittest'.