***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.”

[lawrenceRaider]

The scientific establishment created a false narrative about whether coronavirus leaked from a Chinese lab, and dismissed critics as “conspiracy theorists”, experts have claimed.

In a new documentary for Channel 4 looking into whether the virus escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan, scientists said that a small vocal group had “stepped way out beyond” the evidence.

Last February, a group of 27 scientists, including Sir Jeremy Farrar, president of the Wellcome Trust, wrote a letter in The Lancet stating: “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that Covid-19 does not have a natural origin.”

However, it later emerged that one of the key people behind the letter was Peter Daszak, who had worked closely with Wuhan scientists researching Sars-related coronaviruses in bats. An addendum to The Lancet letter setting out his links to the Chinese lab was not published until June this year.

A further article published in Nature Medicine also claimed there was no evidence to suggest that the virus had been manipulated. But scientists told filmmakers it was wrong to draw such conclusions based on the available evidence.

David Relman, professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford University, a member of President Joe Biden’s intelligence team, said: “I was a little perplexed and a little bit upset with five very good scientists, some of whom I know well, who I thought stepped way out beyond what they should have been saying, based on the data available to all of us.”

Richard Ebright, professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University, added: “These were not scientific papers, they did not present scientific evidence, they did not analyse and support scientific data, they were presenting opinion, they did not belong in scientific journals.

“A small group of scientists, aided by journalists, established and enforced a false narrative that science showed Sars-Cov-2 was a natural zoonotic spillover and a further false narrative that this was the scientific consensus.”

The documentary shows how a disparate group of scientists had been forced to launch their own investigation into the origins of Covid-19. They discovered that the Wuhan team had been working with a virus in 2013 that is the closest ever found to Sars-Cov-2.

That virus had been discovered in horseshoe bats living in a mineshaft in Mojiang, Yunnan, China, in 2013. The same mineshaft was also associated with a severe pneumonia-like illness in miners in 2012, which killed three people.

Professor Nikolai Petrovsky, director of endocrinology at Flinders Medical Centre in Australia, told filmmakers he had established that Covid-19 had emerged already perfectly adapted to infect humans.

His team used computer models to test which species the virus bound to most strongly, and found it was humans. He believes the ancestor of the virus may have been grown in human cells or humanised mice and over multiple generations evolved to infect humans, before escaping.

Prof Petrovsky said that the way coronavirus spread so quickly around the world, without initially needing to mutate, was highly unusual.

https://news.yahoo.com/scientists-cr...194944359.html

[wazu]

Originally Posted by DaFace

That's a little disingenuous, but sure, if you want to play semantics. There's a pretty big difference between "this is conditionally approved because we're 99% sure it works but need more data to be 100% sure" and "we shouldn't have to tell people not to take horse pills," though.

I'm very curious if the full approval is truly the reason some people are hesitating. I'm pretty skeptical, but I guess we'll see what happens after Monday's (probable) approval.

I’ve had friends state they were waiting on full approval. Delta convinced at least one to remove that requirement.

[Saulbadguy]

Originally Posted by loochy

Oh yeah, that will really work.

Listen, the number of people that haven't gotten a vaccine because they lack access is astoundingly small. The people that aren't vaccinated aren't vaccinated because they don't want to be.

I actually have met several people who claim “they haven’t gotten around to doing it.” They say they aren’t against getting it, just hadn’t had the motivation or know how to schedule an appointment.

I suppose they could be lying to not sound like an idiot, but I tend to think they are just lazy.

[O.city]

https://twitter.com/apsmunro/status/...261322759?s=21

[loochy]

Originally Posted by Saulbadguy

I actually have met several people who claim “they haven’t gotten around to doing it.” They say they aren’t against getting it, just hadn’t had the motivation or know how to schedule an appointment.

I suppose they could be lying to not sound like an idiot, but I tend to think they are just lazy.

I suspect they are full of crap and they're using that as their excuse.

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by Saulbadguy

I actually have met several people who claim “they haven’t gotten around to doing it.” They say they aren’t against getting it, just hadn’t had the motivation or know how to schedule an appointment.

I suppose they could be lying to not sound like an idiot, but I tend to think they are just lazy.

I inadvertently guilted a family member into it the other day and they apparently scheduled and received their first shot already.... and I say 'inadvertently' because I was just giving them a hard time about how "I haven't gotten around to it" wasn't a good enough answer 8 months later.

[wazu]

It was around April or May that I finally decided to go ahead just because Hy-Vee started offering them and it was now ridiculously easy to get it done. This was before Delta, so my motivation had been pretty low, just not in any hurry. After I got the first shot I began seeing what was going on in India due to my job and it changed my opinion about the urgency. I can completely believe there are plenty who don't follow the news, and the latest noise just sounds like the over-exaggerated risks being broadcast a year ago.

[TLO]

I guarantee that you will not see a more important Ontario chart this weekend, courtesy Science Table and Globe and Mail. Recommend this be shared widely with those still hesitant. #vaccines #vaccineswork #vaccinessavelives pic.twitter.com/mtq0PdzijP

— Bill Comeau (@Billius27) August 21, 2021

[Pablo]

Originally Posted by WhawhaWhat

Kawasaki disease is the scariest! Seriously, this is what I talk about when I say I do risk assessment. I have a very low risk of A) getting COVID, and B) dying of it if I do. Why would I risk getting heart attack or paralysis by getting the vaccine?

— Phil Valentine (@ValentineShow) December 8, 2020

Lol phil got wrekt

[Saulbadguy]

Originally Posted by loochy

I suspect they are full of crap and they're using that as their excuse.

Perhaps. I do think there are people that just don’t care, or follow the news enough to have an opinion one way or another. Still idiots, but at least they aren’t actively spreading disinformation.

[KCUnited]

I have a suspicion that my mother and father in law have been vaccinated but are keeping it on the downlow or flat out denying it due to my anti-vaxx BIL that they worship as their golden child. They're in their late 70s and talk to their doctor all the time due to various medical issues that make them even more at risk, so its hard to believe they haven't been vaxxed. I think they're fronting for some silly optics reason.

At least that's what I tell myself as I'm done asking them about it.

[Fish]

Originally Posted by jdubya

Or maybe they are still trying to gather more info to find what is best for them. I don't think yelling or shaming people to get vaxed is very effective....in fact likely quite the opposite. Just encourage all to have a discussion with their PMD`s and go from there.

I respect whatever choice one makes. It's a personal decision.

I have several family members who have seen 5+ doctors this year, just to find one that will agree with their opinion of the vaccine. One cousin is driving over 2 hrs across KS to see the one quack that agreed with her hesitancy regarding the vaccine. The doctors that told her the vaccines were safe and she should get it, well those doctors were "Paid for" in her opinion and she couldn't trust them. She's on Facebook encouraging her other nutty friends to go see Dr. X, because he knows his stuff and told her she's right about her fears.

Some people don't want facts, they only want someone to agree with their beliefs.

[Pitt Gorilla]

Originally Posted by Fish

I have several family members who have seen 5+ doctors this year, just to find one that will agree with their opinion of the vaccine. One cousin is driving over 2 hrs across KS to see the one quack that agreed with her hesitancy regarding the vaccine. The doctors that told her the vaccines were safe and she should get it, well those doctors were "Paid for" in her opinion and she couldn't trust them. She's on Facebook encouraging her other nutty friends to go see Dr. X, because he knows his stuff and told her she's right about her fears.

Some people don't want facts, they only want someone to agree with their beliefs.

That's a BIG part of the problem.

[Chiefnj2]

Originally Posted by TLO

I guarantee that you will not see a more important Ontario chart this weekend, courtesy Science Table and Globe and Mail. Recommend this be shared widely with those still hesitant. #vaccines #vaccineswork #vaccinessavelives pic.twitter.com/mtq0PdzijP

— Bill Comeau (@Billius27) August 21, 2021

Less than 110 cases per million people in the unvaccinated group?

Am I reading that correctly? Seems hard to catch the Delta variant.

[Chief Roundup]

Originally Posted by Chiefnj2

Less than 110 cases per million people in the unvaccinated group?

Am I reading that correctly? Seems hard to catch the Delta variant.

Yeah, then why are hospitals reporting higher numbers than with Alpha?