COVID-19 virus thread (formerly Wuhan coronavirus)

[Valka D'Ur]

millions of kids at home
no work
no sports

welcome to hell

Do kids not play board games anymore? Do jigsaw puzzles? Card games? Read? Color? No LEGO? Surely most will have some kind of homework or online schoolwork to do.

I don't need to worry about isolating so far (and hopefully it doesn't happen), but if it did, I have plenty to occupy myself.

Like right now, I'm watching the most amazing concert on PBS. It's not as good as Yanni (in my opinion), but it's doing its job of lifting my mood.

Saw a YouTube video that raised a good point. That point being how quickly people are willing to give up their rights in the event of a crisis. For example, bans on public gatherings over a certain size is 100% a violation of the 1st Amendment right to peaceably assemble. The 1st Amendment is widely regarded as the most important of the Bill of Rights and considered to be the very core of what makes the US the US. And yet now we are seeing the government blatantly strip us of that right while the people just let it happen as they cower in fear of a virus they most likey won't catch, and extremely unlikely to die from.

It's truly shameful how people in this country are acting right now. Letting fear and hysteria get the better of them.

I'm sure that when it's your time, you can just wave a copy of your country's constitution in the air and you'll become immortal.

Of course, you might point out most of these deaths were old people, not any human life.

WHAT?!

Can we charge Trump with murder of the people who die of COVID-19 because of inadequate

Did you mean to say "inadequate testing"? In a just universe, I'd support it. But just as any sleazy Canadian politician with the title of "Right Honourable" gets away with crimes that would land anyone else in prison (I'm referring to Mulroney and Harper, and let's add in Jason Kenney's blatant electoral fraud; we have an illegitimate premier in my province), I would suppose it's likely the same in the U.S. The higher they are on the totem pole, the worse things they get away with.

I want to also point out that a lot of the people freaking out in this thread are the exact same people who have routinely complained about government shortsightedness in the past, yet now fail to see the shortsightedness in the current response to this virus.

Keep in mind that the people posting in this thread are not only Americans. There are several Canadians, plus people from Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and elsewhere. We're an international community here, and some of us are worried for reasons that apply to our own countries'/provinces' situations. In short: IT'S NOT ALL ABOUT YOU.

Kids stay home from school for 2.5 weeks (odd in WI the closing of schools starts on Wednesday, so kids still gotta go back 2 days next week), gotta stock up on food.

Walmart-alot of stuff was 50-80% empty (estimates). Soups was empty, milk was 90% empty, eggs 80%, Bread empty except the odd ones like triple fiber, brown potatoes-gone (still some red potatoes), orange juice 80% gone, water 70%, meat 50%, frozen pizza 75%, breakfast cereals 60%. Don't know how this compares to a normal Friday night, never go at that time.

Daughter brought up one solution for those without toilet paper (besides leaves and fingers), use the paper towels but put in garbage instead of toilet.

I'm glad I stocked up on most basics last fall, in my usual plan to have enough to get through the winter - and I still have enough for a couple of months. It's just the perishable stuff and topping up things I was nearly out of that I've bought recently. As mentioned before, my only remaining concern is pharmacy-related.

I'm not going to do it, but not for that reason either - more just because I'm not morally willing to steal from my employer and profit from said theft. I'm confident enough in avoiding legal trouble that I'd think the risk would be worth it, simply because of the large volume of people doing similar things at a larger scale than I would. I'd be clear in the description about exactly what it was, including that no organization had approved it for use as hand sanitizer, and it's truly incredible what is sold in the US with very little but "This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.”

Of course I could be wrong and it would give me some pause, but my order-of-magnitude estimate for the odds of ending up in serious legal trouble is around that of my dying of this disease. No more than a factor of 10 higher.

(The most likely thing to be caught for would probably be HAZMAT shipping regulations on flammables. I've bought enough crazy stuff from people who were definitely not following those and still remained in business for long periods of time to know the odds are not super high. )



I guess I would have to ask - if I purchased the alcohol legitimately, can you make a moral argument against putting more sanitizer on the market at prevailing prices? Or to use aimee's argument and sell somewhat below current ebay prices? Not all alcohol currently on the market is being used for disinfectant, so the total available supply of disinfectant to the public would be increased on net. And rationing by shortage doesn't seem to be all that different to my mind than rationing by price - some people are deprived of it either way. Now it's a different story if I were to buy up all available alcohol I could find that was already being marketed for disinfectant and reselling it at a large markup.

I'm pretty sure Etsy wouldn't let you get away with it. Ebay and Amazon probably would, as long as they didn't receive specific complaints. But keep in mind that you have an FBI file as a mad chemist, and it's just possible they might have people assigned to watch out for activity like this.

I carry gloves with me away from home now, because I'm someone who cannot use hand sanitizer due to allergies. I haven't worn them yet, but would if people started freaking out if they noticed I wasn't using sanitizer.

To stop a recession that will undoubtedly lead to thousands of layoffs. Try explaining to a 23 year old why they have to potentially risk losing their job to prevent some 80 year old crone from getting sick. It's the quarantine measures that are the threat to the poor since they are the ones who are going to feel the pinch from the economic damage those measures cause. And they will continue to feel that pinch long after this virus has become nothing more than an afterthought.

What an absolutely disgusting thing to say.

You're going to be 80 yourself some day.

It is encouraging that SARS was eliminated despite ~8000 known cases, so maybe a couple tens of thousands of total cases if some of them were not as severe. Affected areas did put in place quarantines, restrictions on gatherings, and other public health measures, which reduced its https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number]basic reproduction number[/url] (R0) below 1. Apparently it remained that way for long enough to kill it off almost entirely by the summer of 2003, so that only a few scattered cases occurred from then to early 2004 after which it died off entirely. I find it remarkable that the disease was successfully contained after that many cases occurred, although it appears there were no more than 1000 at any given time. SARS outbreak wiki article link.

I'd like to learn more about the dynamics of diseases. Do the odds of the disease becoming endemic and never fully exterminated despite public health measures increase dramatically between ~10,000 cases and ~1,000,000 cases, especially when it goes truly global like the current situation? My intuition says that it probably does, which is why I'm guessing a high proportion of the world becomes infected within the next year and it stays endemic after that, although probably less lethal partly for virus evolution reasons (like how the 1918 flu didn't return with the same mortality the next year). But perhaps inno and hobbs are right, and a disease really can be stopped by measures similar to the ones used for SARS despite a global spread and a huge number of cases. It certainly does appear possible locally, given the fact that China has greatly reduced new cases, but I don't see how the number of cases doesn't increase again (R0 goes back above 1) once the measures end and the economy gets moving again, unless they were in place so long that the virus went extinct entirely.

SARS is something distant for me - literally. To me it's something that happened in Toronto and Vancouver, and I didn't have to worry about it.

This is something else. At least so far in Alberta all the cases are related to travel.

 

[Truthy]

WHAT?!

Lmaoooo

Ok, I see that the way you read this:

Of course, you might point out most of these deaths were old people, not any human life.

was a grammatically valid interpretation. But what I meant was "not just any human life." I.e., the deaths are skewed towards the elderly, not uniformly across the population.

 

[H4run]

I get this (hoax?) info from whatsapp group, this is from an Indonesian Chinese who work in Singapore, so I think the information can be sourced from one of the three country.

edit: I'm unable to trace back the news source

 

[Kaitzilla]

It must be good news.

The stock market closes at 4pm for the weekend right?

From 3:30 until the close at 4, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rocketed up 1000 points to close the day up +2000 points or +10%.

Perfectly planned stock market bump by Trump's address to the nation.

Terrible news would have been at 4PM, after the stock market and newspapers were done until Monday.

Keep in mind that the people posting in this thread are not only Americans. There are several Canadians, plus people from Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and elsewhere. We're an international community here, and some of us are worried for reasons that apply to our own countries'/provinces' situations. In short: IT'S NOT ALL ABOUT YOU.

Right.

 

[Zelig]

Daughter brought up one solution for those without toilet paper (besides leaves and fingers), use the paper towels but put in garbage instead of toilet.

Assuming your region has industrial scale composting, not garbage.

 

[Takhisis]

You're entitled to your opinion. I'm going to continue going out & having a social life.

Aren't you the same fellow who wanted age of consent not be required when having sexual intercourse with minors a few years ago?

 

[Takhisis]

I get this (hoax?) info from whatsapp group, this is from an Indonesian Chinese who work in Singapore, so I think the information can be sourced from one of the three country.

edit: I'm unable to trace back the news source

I've just gone over to Newsweek and the NYT and neither of them said anything of the sort.
I did find the following in the latter though:

Days after being exposed, Mr. Trump said he would be tested for the virus. Later, his doctor said otherwise.​

tl;dr Trump will be tested ‘soon’; at first he said he didn't need to be tested because he wasn't sick.
So if he hasn't been tested then he cannot test positive.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Aren't you the same fellow who wanted age of consent not be required when having sexual intercourse with minors a few years ago?

I think he's also the one who took old antibiotics for a cold

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Who the Hell Wants Another Four Years of This?

Great op-ed.

Is this enough? Truly, is this enough for the country that looked at itself after eight years of a competent presidency and decided to hand things over to a vulgar talking yam? Are the vacant airports and deserted subways enough? Will the empty arenas and ballparks be enough? Is the plunging stock market enough? When the ambulances start hauling away the old folks down the block, will that be enough? How in god’s name can anyone vote for four more years of this, four more years of a choleric fatburg of a man who calls a press conference about a global health emergency and asks a reporter for Fox News how the ratings were for his last town hall? How does that man carry a precinct, let alone a state, let alone the country? Christ, even Ted Cruz is doing the right thing here.

Instead, we have scientists standing around him at the CDC, nodding in unison at the president*’s idiocies. We have the surgeon general on television, telling an astonished George Stephanopoulos that the president* is in better shape than he is, despite the obvious fact that the president* is entering Mr. Creosote territory. There are rising calls now for the declaration of a national emergency. Which raises a terrifying question: do you want this president* and this executive branch declaring a national emergency, with all the special powers that entails? Hand sanitizer and fist-bumps seem a lot safer.

 

[Zardnaar]

Rice and canned foods taken a hit. Still in stock though.

About $3.20 USD approx.

Late Saturday night.

 

[Birdjaguar]

The US government dumped billions of dollars into stock market. I think they can afford health care and unemployment insurance for all the citizens. But they're just the bottom of the rung so they don't matter not like the rich people.

Actually, they didn't. The money was used to help bank liquidity and was used to shuffle Government assets around. It did not go into the stock market.

To stop a recession that will undoubtedly lead to thousands of layoffs. Try explaining to a 23 year old why they have to potentially risk losing their job to prevent some 80 year old crone from getting sick. It's the quarantine measures that are the threat to the poor since they are the ones who are going to feel the pinch from the economic damage those measures cause. And they will continue to feel that pinch long after this virus has become nothing more than an afterthought.

Your compassion is something to behold. If your company is unwilling to take care of its workers, shame on your company. The ongoing fed use of cash and bonds to maintain bank liquidity has been going on periodically for many months. It will not stop a recession. It is not going to pump up GDP which is how we measure recessions. 70% of the US GDP is consumer driven spending. The only way to preserve GDP is for people to go out and spend money. And they have to want to spend the money. Right now they don't want to do so. And for health reasons governments are shutting down many of those opportunities. Tourism is a huge part of GDP and much of that is spent by old people. Why would any old person want to resume traveling to places if going there might kill them?

A prolonged recession will be tough on folks. We can hope that Congress will be helpful to those who lose jobs or who are forced to take sick leave. I suggest that you do your part and go shopping very day, eat out at local restaurants, attend movies, and visit the elderly who are lonely in their nursing homes. If you become a carrier of the virus you can even kill a few of those worthless souls while you do your good deeds.

I get this (hoax?) info from whatsapp group, this is from an Indonesian Chinese who work in Singapore, so I think the information can be sourced from one of the three country.

edit: I'm unable to trace back the news source

View attachment 548926

I was asked about that by a friend in China yesterday. It has been floating around there for 36 hours at least.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I've been getting emails all day from various online retailers I've ordered from at some time or other, reassuring me that they take the virus very seriously, have stepped up their efforts to keep everything clean and sanitary, hand sanitizer will be available, and everything is perfectly safe, please continue to shop there... everything from Chapters (book store) to Petland (where I occasionally purchase litter box supplies) to Skip the Dishes (no more cash payments accepted; payment has to be by plastic, everything will be tightly sealed, and you can request the food be left outside your door so you don't even have to have any contact with the driver). It's been years since I last shopped at some of these places, whether in person or online, but it's nice to see they're trying to be reassuring to the customers.

That said, Petland is a store where they do need to be extremely careful since they sell live animals there, hold adoption events, and allow pets to accompany their humans when shopping.

 

[Hrothbern]

Some good news
Our scientists are all working hard
It turned out that one antibody developed against SARS-1 seems to work against Covid-19

'Erasmus MC and Utrecht University find antibody against Corona'
A group of ten scientists from the Erasmus Medical Center and Utrecht University say they have found an antibody against the coronavirus, reports Erasmus Magazine.

"To our knowledge, this is the very first antibody that we know blocks the infection and there is a good chance that it will also become a drug on the market," said Professor of Cell Biology Frank Grosveld.
It has yet to be tested on humans, which takes months.

The publication about the find is at the discretion of colleagues, after which it may be published in the leading trade journal Nature.

"Prevention is better than cure, of course," says Grosveld. "A real solution is therefore a vaccine, others are working on that.
https://nos.nl/liveblog/2327065-inr...landse-wetenschappers-vinden-antilichaam.html

Here some more from a magazine of that Erasmus University (Rotterdam, NL):

“Together with the Viroscience department above and the Virology Veterinary Medicine department at Utrecht University, we ended up in a European project: ZAPI (Zoonosex Anticipation and Preparedness Initiative, ed.). The aim was to develop antibodies against MERS, SARS and another Hong Kong coronavirus (OC-43). In that project, we found antibodies that cross-reacted with those three different viruses to keep them from infecting. “But those viruses have already been contained, we are now dealing with a different corona virus. From the previous study we still had untested antibodies in the refrigerator that did not react with all three mutations, but with SARS1.

When the current crisis - SARS2 - broke out, we immediately tested whether the antibodies that reacted with SARS1 also respond to SARS2 and found the antibody that has now been published. ”
https://www.erasmusmagazine.nl/2020/03/13/unieke-vondst-in-erasmus-mc-antilichaam-tegen-corona/

And here the article as presented to Nature:
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.11.987958v1.full.pdf

102 In conclusion, this is the first report on a (human) monoclonal antibody that
103 neutralizes SARS-CoV-2. 47D11 binds a conserved epitope on the spike receptor
104 binding domain explaining its ability to cross-neutralize SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2,
105 using a mechanism that is independent of receptor binding inhibition. This antibody will 106 be useful for development of antigen detection tests and serological assays targeting
107 SARS-CoV-2. Neutralizing antibodies can alter the course of infection in the infected
108 host supporting virus clearance or protect an uninfected host that is exposed to the virus4 109 . Hence, this antibody offers the potential to prevent and/or treat COVID-19, and
110 possibly also other future emerging diseases in humans caused by viruses from the
111 Sarbecovirus subgenus.

With all the negative news
We are making progress, not only against this specific virus or the related family, but also in general.
Do mind that Homo Sapiens is heaping up over time an increasing load of endemic virus families. (because we do not easily die as a species).
We are not that far distanced to kill off a lot of them with our improving insights and mass production of effective substances.
Time to exterminate that big cause of annoying sickness rates and protecting the weak.

 

[Sofista]

@Valka, pets don't carry the virus. In fact, taking your dog for a walk is one of very few chances one has to legitimately leave home here - it has become a coveted thing to do. One of my colleagues posts in our whatsapp chat that her dog is enthusiastic about being taken to the park by all family members in turn (you can't do that in groups, or even pairs).

 

[Zardnaar]

6rh case got tested Thursday, results on Friday.

https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/heal...s-sixth-patient-says-hes-feeling-100-per-cent

Got it in USA.

 

[amadeus]

Some good news
Our scientists are all working hard
It turned out that one antibody developed against SARS-1 seems to work against Covid-19

That’s some good news!

"To our knowledge, this is the very first antibody that we know blocks the infection and there is a good chance that it will also become a drug on the market," said Professor of Cell Biology Frank Grosveld.
It has yet to be tested on humans, which takes months.

The publication about the find is at the discretion of colleagues, after which it may be published in the leading trade journal Nature.

"Prevention is better than cure, of course," says Grosveld. "A real solution is therefore a vaccine, others are working on that.

Concerning the two bolded parts here, what’s an antibody vs. a vaccine? If it blocks the coronavirus, isn’t that the same as a vaccine? Pardon my science pea brain.

 

[wolfigor]

I think that the possibility of wiping out the virus in a few months, with or even without a vaccine being developed, is quite real and should remain the main objective. The world is not living with SARS or MERS, there's no reason it should settle into living with this one.

Stock markets crashing are a consequence of the enormous financial bubble that central banks have been inflating, the virus was only the detonator. Economic activity can perfectly be restarted, that's a matter of organization. Neither many people nor any physical means of production are vanishing, some will just be idle for a while. It's mostly an accounting problem, managing payments and debts, cancelling some of those, to avoid economic failures. This problem was bound to happen soon anyway.

SARS and MERS have some very important differences to the Wuhan Virus.
The affected became contagious after showing symptoms, so it was relatively easy to isolate them before they could infect too many people.
In the Wuhan Virus the affected are contagious several days before showing any symptoms, so it is much more complex to stop the spread.
This mandates large scale containment.
The containment can be done within a democratic framework:
Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Korea did it.
(Korea has huge bad luck due to the super-spreader in than religious community).
It requires:
1. Population that that this seriously
2. Social-financial support
3. Country leadership united against the common enemy
In the case of the above countries, they also had experience from SARS that really helped

 

[Hrothbern]

That’s some good news!


Concerning the two bolded parts here, what’s an antibody vs. a vaccine? If it blocks the coronavirus, isn’t that the same as a vaccine? Pardon my science pea brain.

Your body will produce antibodies to neutralise and kill virusses.
If you give somebody a vaccin against a virus, in effect a weakened version of that virus, and therefore less sickness, your body is still triggered to make the same antibodies and your immune system will remember how to make them when the real virus is there.
Giving patients directly the effective antibodies for a specific virus is a shortcut for someone sick. Like giving fish to hungry people instead of giving fishing nets that they can use to catch their own fish.
Getting the vaccin is therefore the best way to deal with this virus, also because it can be given preventative. But it takes longer time for our scientists to develop.

 

[Hrothbern]

ohh
What I forgot to mention about the goals of the Erasmus University team, is that they think that they can use this antibody also to make a "do it yourself" test kit, for everybody to use. Just like a pregnancy test.

We also want to use the antibody, in addition to development as a medicine, to set up a diagnostic test: one that everyone can do at home, so that people can easily know whether they have an infection or not. ”
https://www.erasmusmagazine.nl/2020/03/13/unieke-vondst-in-erasmus-mc-antilichaam-tegen-corona/

 

[amadeus]

Your body will produce antibodies to neutralise and kill virusses.
If you give somebody a vaccin against a virus, in effect a weakened version of that virus, and therefore less sickness, your body is still triggered to make the same antibodies and your immune system will remember how to make them when the real virus is there.
Giving patients directly the effective antibodies for a specific virus is a shortcut for someone sick. Like giving fish to hungry people instead of giving fishing nets that they can use to catch their own fish.
Getting the vaccin is therefore the best way to deal with this virus, also because it can be given preventative. But it takes longer time for our scientists to develop.

So receiving the antibody would help those infected, but not prevent infection like a vaccine?