***NON-POLITICAL COVID-19 Discussion Thread***

[JakeF]

A couple of reminders...

Originally Posted by Bwana

Once again, don't come in this thread with some kind of political agenda, or you will be shown the door. If you want to go that route, there is a thread about this in DC.

Originally Posted by Dartgod

People, there is a lot of good information in this thread, let's try to keep the petty bickering to a minimum.

We all have varying opinions about the impact of this, the numbers, etc. We will all never agree with each other. But we can all keep it civil.

Thanks!

Click here for the original OP:

Spoiler!

Apparently the CoronaVirus can survive on a inanimate objects, such as door knobs, for 9 days.

California coronavirus case could be first spread within U.S. community, CDC says
By SOUMYA KARLAMANGLA, JACLYN COSGROVE
FEB. 26, 2020 8:04 PM

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating what could be the first case of novel coronavirus in the United States involving a patient in California who neither recently traveled out of the country nor was in contact with someone who did.

“At this time, the patient’s exposure is unknown. It’s possible this could be an instance of community spread of COVID-19, which would be the first time this has happened in the United States,” the CDC said in a statement. “Community spread means spread of an illness for which the source of infection is unknown. It’s also possible, however, that the patient may have been exposed to a returned traveler who was infected.”

The individual is a resident of Solano County and is receiving medical care in Sacramento County, according to the state Department of Public Health.

The CDC said the “case was detected through the U.S. public health system — picked up by astute clinicians.”

Officials at UC Davis Medical Center expanded on what the federal agency might have meant by that in an email sent Wednesday, as reported by the Davis Enterprise newspaper.

The patient arrived at UC Davis Medical Center from another hospital Feb. 19 and “had already been intubated, was on a ventilator, and given droplet protection orders because of an undiagnosed and suspected viral condition,” according to an email sent by UC Davis officials that was obtained by the Davis Enterprise.

The staff at UC Davis requested COVID-19 testing by the CDC, but because the patient didn’t fit the CDC’s existing criteria for the virus, a test wasn’t immediately administered, according to the email. The CDC then ordered the test Sunday, and results were announced Wednesday. Hospital administrators reportedly said in the email that despite these issues, there has been minimal exposure at the hospital because of safety protocols they have in place.

A UC Davis Health spokesperson declined Wednesday evening to share the email with The Times.

Since Feb. 2, more than 8,400 returning travelers from China have entered California, according to the state health department. They have been advised to self-quarantine for 14 days and limit interactions with others as much as possible, officials said.

“This is a new virus, and while we are still learning about it, there is a lot we already know,” Dr. Sonia Angell, director of the California Department of Public Health, said in a statement. “We have been anticipating the potential for such a case in the U.S., and given our close familial, social and business relationships with China, it is not unexpected that the first case in the U.S. would be in California.”

It is not clear how the person became infected, but public health workers could not identify any contacts with people who had traveled to China or other areas where the virus is widespread. That raises concern that the virus is spreading in the United States, creating a challenge for public health officials, experts say.

“It’s the first signal that we could be having silent transmission in the community,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law. “It probably means there are many more cases out there, and it probably means this individual has infected others, and now it’s a race to try to find out who that person has infected.”

On Tuesday, the CDC offered its most serious warning to date that the United States should expect and prepare for the coronavirus to become a more widespread health issue.

“Ultimately, we expect we will see coronavirus spread in this country,” said Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. “It’s not so much a question of if, but a question of when.”

According to the CDC’s latest count Wednesday morning, 59 U.S. residents have tested positive for the new strain of coronavirus — 42 of whom are repatriated citizens from a Diamond Princess cruise. That number has grown by two since Messonnier’s last count Tuesday, although the CDC was not immediately available to offer details on the additional cases.

More than 82,000 cases of coronavirus have been reported globally, and more than 2,700 people have died, with the majority in mainland China, the epicenter of the outbreak.

But public health leaders have repeatedly reminded residents that the health risk from the novel coronavirus to the general public remains low.

“While COVID-19 has a high transmission rate, it has a low mortality rate,” the state Department of Public Health said in a statement Wednesday. “From the international data we have, of those who have tested positive for COVID-19, approximately 80% do not exhibit symptoms that would require hospitalization. There have been no confirmed deaths related to COVID-19 in the United States to date.”

CDC officials have also warned that although the virus is likely to spread in U.S. communities, the flu still poses a greater risk.

Gostin said the news of potential silent transmission does not eliminate the possibility of containing the virus in the U.S. and preventing an outbreak.

“There are few enough cases that we should at least try,” he said. “Most of us are not optimistic that that will be successful, but we’re still in the position to try.”

[O.city]

Originally Posted by Go Royals

I've seen you post a couple of these serology things - forgive my ignorance, but what exactly is this data showing?

It’s blood tests that show antibodies of who has been infected and recovered

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by Donger

What was left off that clip:

LaPook, March 8: There’s a lot of confusion among people, and misinformation, surrounding face masks. Can you discuss that?

Fauci: The masks are important for someone who’s infected to prevent them from infecting someone else… Right now in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks.

LaPook: You’re sure of it? Because people are listening really closely to this.

Fauci: …There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.

LaPook: And can you get some schmutz, sort of staying inside there?

Fauci: Of course, of course. But, when you think masks, you should think of health care providers needing them and people who are ill. The people who, when you look at the films of foreign countries and you see 85% of the people wearing masks — that’s fine, that’s fine. I’m not against it. If you want to do it, that’s fine.

LaPook: But it can lead to a shortage of masks?

Fauci: Exactly, that’s the point. It could lead to a shortage of masks for the people who really need it.

Yeah, given NYC was still a week or two away from shit hitting the fan, and still being in the early stages of figuring out how contagious it was, and dumbasses hoarding toilet paper.... they didn't want the dumbasses to hoard masks, too.

That said, I don't like the bolded comment at all. He's perfectly on point by saying "it's not providing the perfect protection that people think it is", in this black and white world. Like someone posted last night, masks aren't perfect, social distancing isn't perfect, etc... but, there's at least some value in each of those things.

Saying there's no reason and it's not perfect is just as black and white as most people make things out to be, so you're giving people with black & white reasoning some black & white reasons not to do something, instead of a little education on how a mask could help, but perhaps isn't required at the time.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

Yeah, given NYC was still a week or two away from shit hitting the fan, and still being in the early stages of figuring out how contagious it was, and dumbasses hoarding toilet paper.... they didn't want the dumbasses to hoard masks, too.

That said, I don't like the bolded comment at all. He's perfectly on point by saying "it's not providing the perfect protection that people think it is", in this black and white world. Like someone posted last night, masks aren't perfect, social distancing isn't perfect, etc... but, there's at least some value in each of those things.

Saying there's no reason and it's not perfect is just as black and white as most people make things out to be, so you're giving black & white people black & white reasons not to do something.

The "there's no reason" comment is linked to the time and situation we were in when he said it. We weren't in a pandemic yet. But there's also no doubt that he was also thinking about the lack of PPE for health care workers:

But Fauci said he has no regrets about not telling Americans to wear masks early in the pandemic.

"At that time, there was a paucity of equipment that our health care providers needed -- who put themselves daily in harm's way of taking care of people who are ill," he said.

"We did not want to divert masks and PPE (personal protective equipment) away from them, to be used by the people." But now, Fauci said, "we have enough."

Shitty situation and decision for them to be in, really.

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by Donger

The "there's no reason" comment is linked to the time and situation we were in when he said it. We weren't in a pandemic yet. But there's also no doubt that he was also thinking about the lack of PPE for health care workers:

But Fauci said he has no regrets about not telling Americans to wear masks early in the pandemic.

"At that time, there was a paucity of equipment that our health care providers needed -- who put themselves daily in harm's way of taking care of people who are ill," he said.

"We did not want to divert masks and PPE (personal protective equipment) away from them, to be used by the people." But now, Fauci said, "we have enough."

Shitty situation and decision for them to be in, really.

Sure, but the messaging of "they won't help you anyway, but they do help the healthcare workers who need them" just didn't work well, IMO.

Say they're effective, and people hoard. Say "save them for the healthcare workers", people hoard. Say they aren't effective, the people who don't want to wear them will cling to the statement for eternity.

Maybe something along the lines of "right now, there are several other ways to prevent the spread, which are just as effective... social distancing, no large groups, etc" ...maybe that would have gotten the point across without the contradiction.

But, that's all in hindsight, of course... trying to get the point across perfectly to 300 million people in order to do the right thing at the time, but another right thing later, all with limited and ever-changing information, isn't easy.

[neech]

Originally Posted by NewChief

My wife runs a business that involves working closely with individuals or small groups on design choices (wedding invites). They require masks during appointments. A lady told my wife she needed to take her mask off because they're uncomfortable and she has a hard time breathing with it on. She then sneezed on my wife within a minute of having it off.

People have sneezed for centuries, nothing new.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

Sure, but the messaging of "they won't help you anyway, but they do help the healthcare workers who need them" just didn't work well, IMO.

Say they're effective, and people hoard. Say "save them for the healthcare workers", people hoard. Say they aren't effective, the people who don't want to wear them will cling to the statement for eternity.

Maybe something along the lines of "right now, there are several other ways to prevent the spread, which are just as effective... social distancing, no large groups, etc" ...maybe that would have gotten the point across without the contradiction.

But, that's all in hindsight, of course... trying to get the point across perfectly to 300 million people in order to do the right thing at the time, but another right thing later, all with limited and ever-changing information, isn't easy.

I don't disagree.

[Monticore]

Originally Posted by petegz28

Or maybe you are just being a dick because I pointed out a glaring and most obvious fact about his (stump's) statement and you don't like it?

Your post wasn’t as big a gotcha as you think it was .

Sometimes adults say things in a way that will seem like a lie because things were omitted for the purpose of getting the desired results at the time , and people who don’t understand the big picture can tend to fixate that small aspect over and over missing the whole ****ing point.

[neech]

Originally Posted by Donger

You'll notice that he said "right now." At that time, we had not witnessed confirmed community spread. So, yes, I agree.

Truths can change I see, you would think masks were only invented this year.

The wall is blue one day and red the next, whatever they tell you it is at the time. Throw your own reasoning aside.

[O.city]

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...06.29.174888v1

[Donger]

The Covid-19 vaccine candidate being developed by US pharmaceutical company Pfizer and German biotechnology company BioNTech has yielded positive data in early tests, according to data released by the companies.

The companies announced these preliminary findings on Wednesday in a pre-print paper that shows participants in a Phase 1/2 study of the vaccine, called BNT162b1, responded to the immunization and it was found to be well tolerated. The Phase 1/2 study is ongoing. The data has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.

"These clinical findings for the BNT162b1 RNA-based vaccine candidate are encouraging and strongly support accelerated clinical development and at-risk manufacturing to maximize the opportunity for the rapid production of a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine to prevent COVID-19 disease," the researchers wrote in the pre-print paper, which was sponsored by BioNTech and designed by Pfizer.

How the study was conducted: For the initial study, 45 participants ages 18 to 55 were randomly assigned to either receive a certain dose of the vaccine or placebo.

Twelve participants received two 10 microgram doses 21 days apart; 12 received two 30 microgram doses 21 days apart; 12 received a single 100 microgram dose on day one; and nine received placebo, according to the study.

In the seven days following injection of the vaccine, some participants who received a dose reported pain in the injection site, fever or sleep disturbances, but "no serious adverse events were reported," according to the paper.

Early results of the study: The researchers found that the vaccine generated antibodies against the coronavirus in all of the participants by 28 days after receiving a single injection of 100 micrograms or seven days after receiving a second dose of either 10 or 30 micrograms.

"These preliminary data are encouraging, showing that BNT162b1 which exploits RBD SARS-CoV-2 as a target antigen is able to produce neutralizing antibody responses in humans at or above the levels observed in convalescent sera – and that it does so at relatively low dose levels. We look forward to providing further data updates on BNT162b1," Dr. Ugur Sahin, CEO and co-founder of BioNTech, said in a company press release on Wednesday.

Pfizer and BioNTech announced on Wednesday that this preliminary data will help them determine a dose level for the vaccine then select which of their multiple vaccine candidates to progress to a larger-scale global Phase 2/3 study, possibly beginning as early as this month.

According to the World Health Organization, there are 17 coronavirus candidate vaccines in clinical evaluation globally.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by neech

Truths can change I see, you would think masks were only invented this year.

The wall is blue one day and red the next, whatever they tell you it is at the time. Throw your own reasoning aside.

No, the truth is that we hadn't seen confirmed community spread when he said that, so we weren't in a pandemic when he said that.

Do you dispute that fact?

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by neech

Truths can change I see, you would think masks were only invented this year.

The wall is blue one day and red the next, whatever they tell you it is at the time. Throw your own reasoning aside.

The truth at the time was the real possibility of mask shortages.

Later on, it wasn't a concern.

I could imagine some outlandish scenario where mask production went into high gear due to a worldwide pandemic and possible shortages.


Another truth at the time was they didn't know how contagious Covid was and as Donger mentioned, hadn't seen it in action in the US yet.
Later on, they learned things, so conclusions changed.

That's generally how the world works.

[petegz28]

Originally Posted by Monticore

Your post wasn’t as big a gotcha as you think it was .

Sometimes adults say things in a way that will seem like a lie because things were omitted for the purpose of getting the desired results at the time , and people who don’t understand the big picture can tend to fixate that small aspect over and over missing the whole ****ing point.

Riiiighhhttt.....he lied. Period. Reasoning aside, he lied.

[Donger]

Yay...

WASHINGTON — An initiative to provide Americans with free face coverings has run out of supplies, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. The shortfall comes as the nation struggles to contain the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed nearly 130,000 people in the United States.

Project: America Strong was initiated by the federal government to distribute “reusable cotton face coverings to critical infrastructure sectors, companies, healthcare facilities, and faith-based and community organizations across the country to help slow the spread of COVID-19,” according to the project’s website.

The project appears to have run out of face masks in recent days. “The demand for the face coverings has exceeded supply. As a result, we are no longer accepting new requests. We are currently assessing requests on hand and prioritizing delivery to support populations most susceptible to the disease,” the website now says.

[Monticore]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

Sure, but the messaging of "they won't help you anyway, but they do help the healthcare workers who need them" just didn't work well, IMO.

Say they're effective, and people hoard. Say "save them for the healthcare workers", people hoard. Say they aren't effective, the people who don't want to wear them will cling to the statement for eternity.

Maybe something along the lines of "right now, there are several other ways to prevent the spread, which are just as effective... social distancing, no large groups, etc" ...maybe that would have gotten the point across without the contradiction.

But, that's all in hindsight, of course... trying to get the point across perfectly to 300 million people in order to do the right thing at the time, but another right thing later, all with limited and ever-changing information, isn't easy.

Research on masks on an individual basis at the time in regards to the viruses we knew about did show that they could cause more harm that good, so it wasn’t completely misleading.