***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.”

[TLO]

Originally Posted by BWillie

If the IFR is really around 0.6% then around 35M to even 40M Americans have had Covid-19. Which would be about 11% of the population. How far will that go to curbing the spread since 1 out of 10 Americans have at least some protection or antibodies? How long after recovery from the virus is one USUALLY immune?

I was going to try and dig into this and give you an in-depth answer, but it's extremely complicated. Here's my short answer.

My take is that the populations immunity is much further reaching than what antibody tests show. This is widely accepted thinking, for the most part.

Estimating how many infections have actually occurred is virtually impossible.

We have no true scientific data to rely on that shows how long someone is immune after infection with this particular virus. All we have to go off of is what we know about other coronaviruses.

Add all of that up and you get ??????? relating to your specific questions.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by BWillie

If the IFR is really around 0.6% then around 35M to even 40M Americans have had Covid-19. Which would be about 11% of the population. How far will that go to curbing the spread since 1 out of 10 Americans have at least some protection or antibodies? How long after recovery from the virus is one USUALLY immune?

I think you're conflating IFR with total number of infections/cases?

[suzzer99]

Originally Posted by BWillie

If the IFR is really around 0.6% then around 35M to even 40M Americans have had Covid-19. Which would be about 11% of the population. How far will that go to curbing the spread since 1 out of 10 Americans have at least some protection or antibodies? How long after recovery from the virus is one USUALLY immune?

Well there's about a million variables.

For one thing if you get it and have no symptoms, it's likely you don't have antibodies, or the memory of how to quickly produce more. So you might be just as well a covid virgin.

https://www.statnews.com/2020/08/25/...y-to-covid-19/

“If you generate a response to clear the virus, I think you will maintain that immunity long term,” Menachery added, though he raised a question about people who have had symptom-free or mildly symptomatic infections. “For people with mild or asymptomatic infection, it may not be lost immunity, but rather no immunity generated.”

So you almost have to look at people who at least got partially sick. Not extrapolate IFR out to include asymptomatic people.

But still - antibody studies suggest places like NYC have 20% penetration. And that's developing antibodies - which means they can do it again - hence they shouldn't get as sick the second time.

Waning infection, the third scenario, is a variation of functional immunity. In this scenario, people who have been infected or vaccinated would lose their protection over time. But even if immunity wanes, reinfections would be less severe, Menachery said.

“You will never get as sick as you were the first time,” he said.

Under this scenario, people whose immune systems have been primed to recognize and fight the virus — whether through infection or vaccination — could contract it again in the future. But these infections would be cut short as the immune system’s defenses kick into gear. People infected might not develop symptoms or might have a mild, cold-like infection.

However - the million dollar question is how infectious will these functional immunity people be if they get it a second time? I haven't read anything even speculating on that. If it's not very infectious, then you can take 20% of the pop out of the high-density areas - which would seem to blunt (but not kill) the effects of a winter second wave.

Also common sense would suggest the first wave of people who got sick were the easiest to infect - IE front-line workers who can't work from home, and especially when those people live with older relatives in multi-generational housing. If the second wave doesn't have that kind of low-hanging fruit to plow into, it could be much less deadly.

And of course nursing homes are better prepared now, treatments are better, and masks make a huge difference. There's some speculation that masks lower the initial viral load so much that it's often like vaccinating yourself if you do catch it. You get a mild dose which means mild infection, and now you have some immunity.

But working against all this is back to school, college kids coming back home for breaks, general quarantine fatigue/complacency, and colder weather. I'm convinced from everything I've read that the virus thrives in colder, drier air.

Colder air holds much less water vapor at the same relative humidity. It's the presence of water vapor that degrades the virus quicker. Also sunlight and maybe even vitamin D from sunlight helps. I am worried about colder air and less sunlight making this thing last in the air and on surfaces longer - which will make it more infectious, and lead to higher initial viral loads - which equals more severe infections.

Like I said - there are a shit ton of variables.

[suzzer99]

Originally Posted by Donger

I think you're conflating IFR with total number of infections/cases?

You use IFR of .6% to extrapolate total # of infections. It's probably better than using CFR since testing is so all over the map.

But of course so is IFR due to population differences. IFR was much higher in the early days when this thing was running rampant in nursing homes. I've read speculation it's more like about .25% right now - which seems reasonable to me.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by suzzer99

You use IFR of .6% to extrapolate total # of infections. It's probably better than using CFR since testing is so all over the map.

But of course so is IFR due to population differences. IFR was much higher in the early days when this thing was running rampant in nursing homes. I've read speculation it's more like about .25% right now - which seems reasonable to me.

I hadn't seen that before. What does the math look like?

The only thing I've heard until now was that CDC believes that we have 10 times the number of confirmed cases, or ~72,000,000

[O.city]

It’s not all about antibodies and even those will wane and you’ll still have immunity. Last I read even asymptomatic people have memory cells.

Until further notice, id go woth “once you’ve had it, you’re gonna be immune for a while and if you do get it again it’ll be mild” just like other infections

[suzzer99]

Originally Posted by Donger

I hadn't seen that before. What does the math look like?

The only thing I've heard until now was that CDC believes that we have 10 times the number of confirmed cases, or ~72,000,000

Right. But you've seen IFR #s thrown around. .6% is a conservative estimate that might be low for early in the pandemic and high now. Italy was probably over 1%.

NYC has had 23.7k deaths. Divide that by .006 you get = 3.95M people. So wow actually NYC could be at almost 50% prevalence. That's crazy.

If they were more like 1% IFR (most of the deaths early on) - then you get 2.37M people infected - about 25% of the population of NYC which seems a lot more realistic.

[suzzer99]

Originally Posted by O.city

It’s not all about antibodies and even those will wane and you’ll still have immunity. Last I read even asymptomatic people have memory cells.

Until further notice, id go woth “once you’ve had it, you’re gonna be immune for a while and if you do get it again it’ll be mild” just like other infections

Do you have a link for asymptomatic people having memory cells? I haven't seen that yet but it's great news if true.

[O.city]

I read the study recently, will see if I can find it

[lewdog]

Originally Posted by O.city

I read the study recently, will see if I can find it

I've yet to meet someone who's tested positive, been asymptomatic and had antibodies. We tested our entire building for antibodies in early summer, 200 employees and not a single positive/asymptomatic from months early had them. That was when I was positive and asymptomatic in May and took antibodies in June too. And as you know got it with symptoms in July. Wife and I officially have antibodies on both our recent tests.

If you find something on that it would be huge though!

[suzzer99]

Originally Posted by lewdog

I've yet to meet someone who's tested positive, been asymptomatic and had antibodies. We tested our entire building for antibodies in early summer, 200 employees and not a single positive/asymptomatic from months early had them. That was when I was positive and asymptomatic in May and took antibodies in June too. And as you know got it with symptoms in July. Wife and I officially have antibodies on both our recent tests.

If you find something on that it would be huge though!

It's not necessarily having antibodies left, but maybe having the t-cell memory to crank them out sooner next time. Or some other form of remembered immunity. Theoretically.

[lewdog]

Originally Posted by suzzer99

It's not necessarily having antibodies left, but maybe having the t-cell memory to crank them out sooner next time. Or some other form of remembered immunity. Theoretically.

True. And I know those are hard and costly to measure.

[Pasta Little Brioni]

Originally Posted by Donger

That's not very good and it's increasing, unfortunately.

Cases mean jack shit. At minimum 10 times more people would be considered "cases" if everyone was tested.

[suzzer99]

Originally Posted by Pasta Giant Meatball

Cases mean jack shit. At minimum 10 times more people would be considered "cases" if everyone was tested.

Most experts seem to agree that actual cases are generally in the ballpark of 10x confirmed cases. CFR can still be a useful metric to predict hospitalization and death a month into the future.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by Pasta Giant Meatball

Cases mean jack shit. At minimum 10 times more people would be considered "cases" if everyone was tested.

No, cases/infections is where it all starts. This has been covered and explained before, which in and of itself is stunning that it has to be.

No infections, no getting sick. No getting sick, no going to the hospital. And so on.

We've now seen what happens when those "don't mean jack shit" cases rise, twice. As they increase, an increase in deaths follows. Thankfully, last time, deaths weren't as bad as the first increase in cases in March/April.

I understand you don't like that cases appear to be increasing (neither do I), but to say that they mean nothing is either ignorance or lying.