Also while we were at alert level 4 more people were dying, (19 so far), there seemed to be more of a sense of urgency. So we moved to 3 and it's "O goody we can have takeaways."
At level 4 you didn't have takeaway food? 36 people have died in my city of less than half a million, and we've had both takeaway and delivery for food (and a bunch of other things) the whole time. Exhibit #2908432 that the U.S. is demonstrably nuts.
Yes, I keep puzzling over that. NZ seems to show that you can drive numbers down to zero, but could the UK do that?
While nothing is impossible there are very significant differences that would suggest that driving number down to zero won't happen in the UK.
The biggest differences are the nature of UK and NZ geography and population.
One of the interesting features shared by some of the most effective countries at suppressing COVID-19 (New Zealand, Australia, South Korea) is the fact that they're effectively islands. Yes, South Korea isn't literally an island, but since the Korean DMZ isn't a traversable land border by any reasonable definition of the phrase it's effectively an island as far as human movements are concerned. This makes COVID-19 something that can be made into a largely domestic problem, assuming a willingness to control air travel. The U.K. is not quite an island, sharing a land border with the Republic of Ireland, the closing of which would create a whole bunch of other issues.
Of course I don't think it was the border with Ireland that caused the containment plan to fail.
In good news, our medical team is reporting no new covid-19 symptoms in the last 2 weeks so if it did make it here we may have squashed it.
This is just me, a non-scientist, muttering aloud. (Polite!) comment is welcome, but not required.
--The spikes on the virus make me think of a burr from a plant--the kind of prickly mass that catches on your socks when you're hiking, probably trying to go off and start a new plant. (See the pics at the end of Method #3, "Methods of Dispersal of Fruits and Seeds: 4 Methods".)And some bit of news, weeks ago, said something to the effect that those spikes catch onto cells.
So might there be a way to somehow coat the spikes so they don't catch onto cells? And/or do something to coat our cells so the spikes don't catch as much? Or even (fanciful) do something very, very tiny to dispel a teeny, tiny bit of static, to keep cell and virus apart?
--FYI: I saw something on TV about work on a vaccine, and there was a representation of the virus having a lipid enclosure, finding a way to penetrate that, and bending/breaking the spikes. That's all I remember. Was probably on PBS.
If anyone feels inclined to laugh, kindly do it within your COVID mask and not in my face. Thx.
You can sort of do this, it's not a vaccine but an anti-viral; the idea (IANOMB*) is to create a molecule which either competes with the virus for places on the cell by binding to the same surface proteins, or competes with the cells by binding onto the receptors on the virus.
*I am not a molecular biologist.
Also, IANOMB. But, something that binds to the receptors on human cells would almost certainly have significant side-effects. Because those receptors must be there to do something, a something the proposed drug will interfere with. Which probably makes such an anti-viral drug something you're not going to use widely, but may be very useful where the benefit of shutting down viral replication exceeds the costs of the side effects (where that balance point is going to depend on what exactly the targeted receptor does and the effects of blocking that are).
I am certinly not a molecular biologist, but an anti-viral that "competes with the cells by binding onto the receptors on the virus" sounds a better bet. Is it more feasible than producing a vaccine?
I am certinly not a molecular biologist, but an anti-viral that "competes with the cells by binding onto the receptors on the virus" sounds a better bet. Is it more feasible than producing a vaccine?
It's been a long while since I finished studying microbiology at university (it was an elective module in my first year), but binding to the receptors on the virus is pretty much what antibodies do. Vaccines work by letting the body know what those receptors look like in advance, so that it can be ready to produce the antibodies in bulk if and when necessary.
I am certinly not a molecular biologist, but an anti-viral that "competes with the cells by binding onto the receptors on the virus" sounds a better bet. Is it more feasible than producing a vaccine?
Not really, for a number of reasons. Firstly, anti-virals only work if you're already infected. it's nice to avoid it in the first place, which a vaccine will do. Anti virals are also less well understood.
Based on an article in the Guardian, creating an antibody that binds to the receptors on the virus is exactly what our immune system does to deal with viruses. Well, our immune system has lots of tricks at its disposal but that's one of its then. So at least some of the vaccines under development are basically showing the immune system some virus receptors and telling it to make antibodies to block them.
Based on an article in the Guardian, creating an antibody that binds to the receptors on the virus is exactly what our immune system does to deal with viruses. Well, our immune system has lots of tricks at its disposal but that's one of its then. So at least some of the vaccines under development are basically showing the immune system some virus receptors and telling it to make antibodies to block them.
Yes.
To use a somewhat simplified analogy, think of the immune system as being like a factory manufacturing the antibodies that block viruses. If it doesn't know what the virus receptors will look like until the virus is actually in the body then it needs to spend time designing the antibody and setting up the production line before the virus can be blocked, by which time it's already made you ill. A vaccine lets it do that initial setup without an active virus being in the body, which means that if and when the real virus shows up the production line can be put into action straight away, and the virus doesn't have time to make you ill.
Kind of like the "Where's Waldo?" picture books. There's a character named Waldo who looks and dresses a certain way. Each pic is a two-page spread, with *lots* going on. There are hordes of people, and many of them look at least somewhat like Waldo. The reader's task is to find the one, true Waldo.
Idaho has started its phased lifting of its restrictions. As of today 90% of the businesses in Idaho can reopen as well as churches, schools and youth summer camps. As long as they can provide for social distancing. The one camp I am affiliated with, though, has opted to wait at least another month before it begins to open. Many of its campers come from Washington State so I am thinking they are opting to follow Washington's guidelines.
Also, voluntary quarantine requirements for out of state visitors are being lifted. This one is huge since it was out of state visitors coming into the Sun Valley Ski Resort area was the epicenter for Idaho's infection.
The only businesses not allowed to open yet are restaurants, bars and gyms. They will likely be reopened in later stages.
Washington State Gov. Inslee is expected to continue our quarantine for another month. He is using a dial back approach and is gradually allowing more things to open. Outdoor construction, day use of state parks, and recreational fishing is opening up this weekend.
The COVID 19 predictive models through the University of Washington is suggesting the infection rate will be close to 0% by May 31 in Washington State and the death rate will be close to 0% by the end of June.
The COVID 19 predictive models through the University of Washington is suggesting the infection rate will be close to 0% by May 31 in Washington State and the death rate will be close to 0% by the end of June.
The IHME model? I'm rather afraid that I think that model is rather optimistic, particularly on the down side. I've been watching its evolution for several mid-west states, and it's not tracking well. In these parts, our death rate has been more or less constant for the last 3 weeks, and the number of new positive cases tracks the number of tests performed. So there's plenty of evidence that we've avoided explosive exponential growth, but no evidence that things have started to get better yet. This is consistent with the anecdata that I get from my friends who are nurses.
The IHME model? I'm rather afraid that I think that model is rather optimistic, particularly on the down side. I've been watching its evolution for several mid-west states, and it's not tracking well.
Here's an interesting Twitter thread that's probably relevant to the spread of COVID-19 in the mid-west. A couple samples:
The 10 biggest clusters of infection in the US are not high-flying international gatherings. The 10 biggest clusters are not rich people going to Europe. The 10 biggest clusters are not from airplanes or conferences or fancy birthday parties. They are NOT from outsiders.
Top 10 Coronavirus clusters in the US? Prisons, meat packing plants, a Navy battleship. Next 10? Prisons, meat packing plants, nursing homes. Next 10? And the 10 after that? Prisons, meat packing plants and nursing homes....
That Biogen conference in Boston? 88th on the list (and an outlier). Cruises? Diamond Princess is 99th on the list.
Remember: prisons, meat packing plants and nursing homes.
<snip>
Superclusters in the US are in prisons, meat packing plants and nursing homes.
They all have are low-paid jobs. But in many places (like my Kentucky hometown) they can be a community's most reliable source of work. For many people, these jobs are the best among their options.
South Dakota began reporting race & ethnicity data today. In a 90% white state, almost 70% of cases are people of color because of meatpacking outbreaks.
As Ms. Neff notes, this also seems to be what torpedoed Singapore's efforts to contain COVID-19, which appeared to be initially successful; the Singaporean willingness to ignore the spread among it's migrant workers.
Meat processing appears to be risky in other places too. I've not yet read an explanation of why - is meat a substrate on which the virus can live for longer outside the body, for example?
Also while we were at alert level 4 more people were dying, (19 so far), there seemed to be more of a sense of urgency. So we moved to 3 and it's "O goody we can have takeaways."
At level 4 you didn't have takeaway food? 36 people have died in my city of less than half a million, and we've had both takeaway and delivery for food (and a bunch of other things) the whole time. Exhibit #2908432 that the U.S. is demonstrably nuts.
It's not just a US thing - we've had takeout and delivery for all sorts of things in Canada as well. I don't know why NZ went all the way up to level 4 - but perhaps because they thought they actually had a chance of driving the numbers to zero, which is definitely a ship that has sailed long ago in our part of the world. And if zero is not an available number then arguably the risk-benefit balancing in allowing more things stay open changes - especially considering that one way or another, people need to eat.
Washington State Gov. Inslee has extended the stay at home order until 31 May, but he has introduced the phases on how we are going to open. Story here. There will be three weeks between phases; however, Inslee has said that counties may explore moving faster.
Meat processing appears to be risky in other places too. I've not yet read an explanation of why - is meat a substrate on which the virus can live for longer outside the body, for example?
United Arab Emirates - 13,038 (10,384 / 2,543 / 111)
Romania - 12,567 (7,495 / 4,328 / 744)
Ukraine - 10,861 (9,176 / 1,413 / 272)
South Korea - 10,780 (1,407 / 9,123 / 250) 2.7%
Indonesia - 10,551 (8,160 / 1,591 / 800)
The listings are in the format:
X. Country - [# of known cases] ([active] / [recovered] / [dead]) [%fatality rate]
Fatality rates are only listed for countries where the number of resolved cases (recovered + dead) exceeds the number of known active cases by a ratio of at least 2:1. Italics indicate authoritarian countries whose official statistics are suspect. Other country's statistics are suspect if their testing regimes are substandard.
If American states were treated as individual countries twenty of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #2, between "everywhere in the U.S. except New York" (#1) and Spain (#3). New Jersey would be between Turkey and Russia.
No countries have joined the 10,000 case club since the last compilation.
Sorry if this has been covered, country death rates per million of significant national populations:
Belgium 665
Spain 531
Italy 467
UK 405
France 377
Netherlands 286
Sweden 263
Ireland 256
Switzerland 203
USA 199
…
Germany 80
…
Iran 73
...
Turkey 39
...
World 31
…
Russia 8
China 3
Indonesia 3
India 0.9...
Nigeria 0.3...
We're 4th highest in the world. In a remarkable cluster of W. European nations. Mainly due to aging population and social inequality I infer and the way the virus affects people with over-experienced immune systems. I wouldn't trust Russia to tell me the time of day, but Germany, S. Korea? China?? Not that one can trust developing world figures as much. Even so.
I wonder when the CIA level analysis will come out? With deaths statistically compensated for deaths outside hospitals and misreporting.
It would be interesting to try an analysis of variance that including average population density, average gdp (as a proxy for business and travel), average population age and and average temperature in the first quarter of the year. But only if you could clearly specify your dependent variable, covid tested hospital deaths perhaps.
Strictly speaking, it's not being old that increases Clovis susceptibility, but presumably illness that go along with being old. However, this could be tested by ident
On the subject of post-exposure immunity I just want to reproduce this in full as it's an important clarification from the World Health Organisation (and others)
WHO Immunity Clarification
The World Health Organisation issued a clarification after it tweeted about antibody tests and 'immunity passports': "There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection.”
It took down the old tweet and instead said: "Earlier today we tweeted about a new WHO scientific brief on 'immunity passports'. The thread caused some concern & we would like to clarify: We expect that most people who are infected with #COVID19 will develop an antibody response that will provide some level of protection.”
Experts have commented via the Science Media Centre:
Prof Babak Javid, principal investigator, Tsinghua University School of Medicine, Beijing, and consultant in infectious diseases at Cambridge University Hospitals, said: "The initial WHO statement was very confusing and highlights how technically precise language such as ‘no evidence to support’ can have very different meanings to scientists and the general public. In the clarification, the WHO acknowledges that although it is true that we just don't know whether natural infection provides long-lasting immunity, or to what degree of protection (ie. 'no evidence'), this does NOT mean they do not expect some degree of immunity to be afforded by natural infection, quite the opposite."
Dr Tom Wingfield, senior clinical lecturer and honorary consultant physician, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, said: "People who were infected with other coronaviruses like SARS and MERS produced antibodies against these illnesses following infection, for up to 3 years in some cases. However, it is not clear whether the presence of these antibodies means that a person is immune to a repeat infection."
Dr Simon Clarke, associate professor in cellular microbiology, University of Reading, said: "It's reasonable to expect that some of the immune response generated during an episode of COVID-19 will persist for some time after the infection has been resolved, giving protection against re-infection. At this stage, nobody knows for sure whether this is indeed the case or for how long it will protect someone, it could be weeks, months or years and it would be unwise to make predictions that are not based on any evidence. It's worth remembering that we've only known about this disease for about 4 months, so cannot at this stage have any knowledge about whether immunity lasts beyond this rather limited time frame."
I bet they sleep fine on their super-king-sized memory foam mattresses in their ensuite master bedrooms in their ranch-style homes in their gated communities. It's nice and quiet at night at the moment, too.
So if it turns our that permanent immunity is impossible, does that mean we’ll have to keep social distancing forever?
The devil, as they say, will be in the detail. The details include how long immunity will persist, and whether it gives almost total protection from infection or just a much higher resistance. Also, whether a vaccine, or combination of vaccines, produces a different response from naturally acquired immunity (which is all we have to study at the moment, for any of the coronaviruses we know of).
If a vaccine/naturally acquired immunity is sufficiently persistent and effective enough then it may be that this will keep replication rate significantly below 1 for several years without social distancing if enough of the population is vaccinated; that could largely eliminate the disease (we'll still need to maintain capability to test and track outbreaks, as these will occur, to stop small local outbreaks bursting out into new epidemics).
If the vaccine/naturally acquired immunity is less effective or persists for only a year or two (or, we don't vaccinate sufficient numbers of people) then social distancing of some form will need to be maintained much longer. Whether that needs to be as restrictive as we now have to prevent further epidemic scale outbreaks seems unlikely - but, without an effective, persistent and globally administered vaccine much of what we currently think of as "normal" will need to change.
I think the discoveries of remedial therapies for the worst cases will make a difference. For older people with breathing issues like me (moderate but well controlled asthma) winter flu has been a trial for a number of years. But not a life threatener,
Coronavurus presents me with a much more significant risk. That will reduce considerably as remedies for severe breathing complications become available.
Flu jabs have helped, but more some winters than others. It seems to depend on how well the vaccine works against the current strain. So an early effective COVID-19 vaccine would be a great comfort. I might have to self isolate, practise safe distancing, for good while yet. But I can see some light on the horizon.
CNN had an investigatory report on this feature - just watched it. There may be an innocent explanation. Apparently CDC reporting guidelines require States to report deaths of State residents to avoid double counting, whereas the MEC records deaths in the State regardless of State residency. The Florida Department of Health released a list to CNN of non State residents who had died in Florida and so were not included in the Florida count. I'm not sure if it explains all of the discrepancy but CNN now has evidence that it explains at least some of it.
No, there is no innocent explanation. Sure, you could argue that the records of medical examiners might include out-of-state visitors or some other discrepancy from the "official figures" and that's at least arguable. (Given the loose residency laws of most states this is a questionable call. Do Florida traffic death statistics also exclude out-of-staters killed on Florida's highways?) But that doesn't explain entirely withholding that data from the public. As the article points out, these are public records and suppressing them reeks of a cover-up.
Is it something along the lines of direct/contributory factors? UK death certificates list both what directly killed someone and any other health conditions they had that would have contributed. If you're only reporting cases where Covid is in the first category then the figures would be lower than if you include anyone who had Covid-19 when they died, and the state may be insisting on the former when the MEC is reporting the latter.
If a vaccine/naturally acquired immunity is sufficiently persistent and effective enough then it may be that this will keep replication rate significantly below 1 for several years without social distancing if enough of the population is vaccinated; that could largely eliminate the disease (we'll still need to maintain capability to test and track outbreaks, as these will occur, to stop small local outbreaks bursting out into new epidemics).
Which puts it in the same category as such nasties as measles and whooping cough.
I believe that part of the problem with recovery is we're not really counting confirmed community cases, just anyone who is an inpatient and discharged, which is lower numbers. The really poorly people are staying on ICU for several weeks, and although most are on normal wards, they're not exactly rushing out of the doors either. NHS hospitals, and probably elsewhere are now having the challenge of trying to get back to some form of running normal services whilst creating parallel 'positive' and 'negative' routes.
I think the discoveries of remedial therapies for the worst cases will make a difference. For older people with breathing issues like me (moderate but well controlled asthma) winter flu has been a trial for a number of years. But not a life threatener,
Coronavurus presents me with a much more significant risk. That will reduce considerably as remedies for severe breathing complications become available.
Flu jabs have helped, but more some winters than others. It seems to depend on how well the vaccine works against the current strain. So an early effective COVID-19 vaccine would be a great comfort. I might have to self isolate, practise safe distancing, for good while yet. But I can see some light on the horizon.
It also seems to depend on how far down you can drive the virus. Greece and S. Africa seem to have done this, the latter presumably because of its good local health system, arising out of AIDS epidemics. Then any hot spots can be tracked and isolated. Whether the UK govt has the competence to do this, dunno. I think local health has been "cut", and I guess nobody expected a bug of this virulence..
I think the discoveries of remedial therapies for the worst cases will make a difference. For older people with breathing issues like me (moderate but well controlled asthma) winter flu has been a trial for a number of years. But not a life threatener,
Coronavurus presents me with a much more significant risk. That will reduce considerably as remedies for severe breathing complications become available.
Flu jabs have helped, but more some winters than others. It seems to depend on how well the vaccine works against the current strain. So an early effective COVID-19 vaccine would be a great comfort. I might have to self isolate, practise safe distancing, for good while yet. But I can see some light on the horizon.
It also seems to depend on how far down you can drive the virus. Greece and S. Africa seem to have done this, the latter presumably because of its good local health system, arising out of AIDS epidemics. Then any hot spots can be tracked and isolated. Whether the UK govt has the competence to do this, dunno. I think local health has been "cut", and I guess nobody expected a bug of this virulence..
Apart from the people doing pandemic planning who the government chose to ignore. The UK has had decent plans since SARS but the capacity to implement and resource them has been hacked back since 2010.
Whether the UK govt has the competence to do this, dunno. I think local health has been "cut", and I guess nobody expected a bug of this virulence..
Well, nobody except the UK government that wargamed this exact scenario a few years back and are busy blocking the release of the report that came out it.
(Actually, pretty much every disease expert had already predicted a virulent pandemic to happen at some point - it's something they teach and get their students to game. Miss Tor did a similar thing for her Zoology degree, ffs.)
What is this thing called 'competent government', of which some of you seem to speak?
It is, I think, alien to this country. Is it some form of extra-terrestrial life? Though they do seem to have something along these lines in other places, like France, Germany, Scotland, New Zealand etc. etc.
Strictly speaking, it's not being old that increases Clovid susceptibility, but presumably illness that go along with being old.
Yes and no. (Probably).
Ask me in a year and we'll know the answer to this one. However aging per se (i.e. without noted comorbidities) does have significant effects on cells that could be important in terms of the molecular biology. Which in turn is the key to understanding why some people have no symptoms and some have many and severe illness. From the data I've seen, co-existing diseases are more important than age itself but age seems to be an independent risk-factor as well. Hence the I may be 75 but I'm a fit as a fiddle argument is flawed.
As I said, we don't know yet, but I suspect when we have the data, it will turn out that a 75 year old in very good health is still more at risk than a 30 year old in average health.
Whether the UK govt has the competence to do this, dunno. I think local health has been "cut", and I guess nobody expected a bug of this virulence..
Well, nobody except the UK government that wargamed this exact scenario a few years back and are busy blocking the release of the report that came out it.
(Actually, pretty much every disease expert had already predicted a virulent pandemic to happen at some point - it's something they teach and get their students to game. Miss Tor did a similar thing for her Zoology degree, ffs.)
This cannot be said enough. Every virologist (in the world, I suspect) knew that we would get a pandemic it was just a question of what and when. SARS was a big wake-up call to the medical profession and we probably got lucky. There's plenty of literature since warning of the risk of a SARS-like disease... oh look!
What is so unforgivable to my mind is the government poncing around claiming success when they know, they know what the epidemic / pandemic exercises showed and they know we were nowhere near as prepared as we could have been. And because of the nature of pandemics, you can do pretty good mathematical estimates of the effects of such an ill-judged policy. There'll be some margin of error, of course, but the majority of lives lost would have been avoided. The majority.
UK readers might find Fig 5 of this ONS document interesting - 2 weeks in the past, as these stats are, but rather more specific by area than most of the data we look at. It's notable how deaths in single or low 2-digit numbers add up to a national picture of 20k or more lives lost.
Is it something along the lines of direct/contributory factors? UK death certificates list both what directly killed someone and any other health conditions they had that would have contributed. If you're only reporting cases where Covid is in the first category then the figures would be lower than if you include anyone who had Covid-19 when they died, and the state may be insisting on the former when the MEC is reporting the latter.
Blaming "other health conditions" or "contributory factors" conceals a lot. Most of the "contributory factors" are things that are very manageable absent COVID-19. Things like high blood pressure or diabetes. A 67 year old with high blood pressure may live another ten or fifteen years if the condition is properly managed. Her odds aren't as good as a 67 year old without high blood pressure, but the condition isn't the kind of immediate death sentence that a lot of folks going on about (the suspiciously generic terms) "contributory factors" or "underlying conditions" want you to conclude. Given all this, I find it disingenuous to blame otherwise manageable conditions for deaths that occur when, for example, someone with high blood pressure contracts a viral infection that causes blood clotting. Absent COVID-19, most people with diabetes, high blood pressure, etc. aren't going to drop dead within the next two weeks.
On the subject of post-exposure immunity I just want to reproduce this in full as it's an important clarification from the World Health Organisation (and others)
WHO Immunity Clarification
The World Health Organisation issued a clarification after it tweeted about antibody tests and 'immunity passports': "There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection.”
It took down the old tweet and instead said: "Earlier today we tweeted about a new WHO scientific brief on 'immunity passports'. The thread caused some concern & we would like to clarify: We expect that most people who are infected with #COVID19 will develop an antibody response that will provide some level of protection.”
Experts have commented via the Science Media Centre:
Prof Babak Javid, principal investigator, Tsinghua University School of Medicine, Beijing, and consultant in infectious diseases at Cambridge University Hospitals, said: "The initial WHO statement was very confusing and highlights how technically precise language such as ‘no evidence to support’ can have very different meanings to scientists and the general public. In the clarification, the WHO acknowledges that although it is true that we just don't know whether natural infection provides long-lasting immunity, or to what degree of protection (ie. 'no evidence'), this does NOT mean they do not expect some degree of immunity to be afforded by natural infection, quite the opposite."
Dr Tom Wingfield, senior clinical lecturer and honorary consultant physician, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, said: "People who were infected with other coronaviruses like SARS and MERS produced antibodies against these illnesses following infection, for up to 3 years in some cases. However, it is not clear whether the presence of these antibodies means that a person is immune to a repeat infection."
Dr Simon Clarke, associate professor in cellular microbiology, University of Reading, said: "It's reasonable to expect that some of the immune response generated during an episode of COVID-19 will persist for some time after the infection has been resolved, giving protection against re-infection. At this stage, nobody knows for sure whether this is indeed the case or for how long it will protect someone, it could be weeks, months or years and it would be unwise to make predictions that are not based on any evidence. It's worth remembering that we've only known about this disease for about 4 months, so cannot at this stage have any knowledge about whether immunity lasts beyond this rather limited time frame."
AFZ
Fuck, there are times I wish I were employed as a writer for WHO. Try this instead of that gobbledygook:
"We're sorry we didn't explain what we meant clearly. If you've had COVID and recovered, you probably have some immunity now. We just can't guarantee it 100%, and we can't tell you how much or for how long. We haven't had enough time to study the virus yet. So, we don't want you to go out and take stupid risks because you think your immunity will save you. Please keep being careful. But to repeat, we DO expect you to get some immunity, and that's good news."
So if it turns our that permanent immunity is impossible, does that mean we’ll have to keep social distancing forever?
I would have thought more likely it would mean regular booster injections of a vaccine, when one becomes available.
It also means that once a vaccine is available, we have a fighting chance of stamping COVID out of the human world, and fairly quickly at that--unless it turns out to have some unexpected hiding place (like chicken pox in the nervous system). If we could vaccinate enough people, that would stop the contagion cycle, and the fire would burn itself out--which would leave COVID safely back in bats, where it belongs. And hopefully it would stay there (though I'd keep the vaccine formulation on ice, just in case somebody decided to have a bat sandwich again).
On the subject of post-exposure immunity I just want to reproduce this in full as it's an important clarification from the World Health Organisation (and others)
WHO Immunity Clarification
The World Health Organisation issued a clarification after it tweeted about antibody tests and 'immunity passports': "There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection.”
It took down the old tweet and instead said: "Earlier today we tweeted about a new WHO scientific brief on 'immunity passports'. The thread caused some concern & we would like to clarify: We expect that most people who are infected with #COVID19 will develop an antibody response that will provide some level of protection.”
Experts have commented via the Science Media Centre:
Prof Babak Javid, principal investigator, Tsinghua University School of Medicine, Beijing, and consultant in infectious diseases at Cambridge University Hospitals, said: "The initial WHO statement was very confusing and highlights how technically precise language such as ‘no evidence to support’ can have very different meanings to scientists and the general public. In the clarification, the WHO acknowledges that although it is true that we just don't know whether natural infection provides long-lasting immunity, or to what degree of protection (ie. 'no evidence'), this does NOT mean they do not expect some degree of immunity to be afforded by natural infection, quite the opposite."
Dr Tom Wingfield, senior clinical lecturer and honorary consultant physician, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, said: "People who were infected with other coronaviruses like SARS and MERS produced antibodies against these illnesses following infection, for up to 3 years in some cases. However, it is not clear whether the presence of these antibodies means that a person is immune to a repeat infection."
Dr Simon Clarke, associate professor in cellular microbiology, University of Reading, said: "It's reasonable to expect that some of the immune response generated during an episode of COVID-19 will persist for some time after the infection has been resolved, giving protection against re-infection. At this stage, nobody knows for sure whether this is indeed the case or for how long it will protect someone, it could be weeks, months or years and it would be unwise to make predictions that are not based on any evidence. It's worth remembering that we've only known about this disease for about 4 months, so cannot at this stage have any knowledge about whether immunity lasts beyond this rather limited time frame."
AFZ
Fuck, there are times I wish I were employed as a writer for WHO. Try this instead of that gobbledygook:
"We're sorry we didn't explain what we meant clearly. If you've had COVID and recovered, you probably have some immunity now. We just can't guarantee it 100%, and we can't tell you how much or for how long. We haven't had enough time to study the virus yet. So, we don't want you to go out and take stupid risks because you think your immunity will save you. Please keep being careful. But to repeat, we DO expect you to get some immunity, and that's good news."
Comments
At level 4 you didn't have takeaway food? 36 people have died in my city of less than half a million, and we've had both takeaway and delivery for food (and a bunch of other things) the whole time. Exhibit #2908432 that the U.S. is demonstrably nuts.
Of course I don't think it was the border with Ireland that caused the containment plan to fail.
In good news, our medical team is reporting no new covid-19 symptoms in the last 2 weeks so if it did make it here we may have squashed it.
Yes, sorry, specifically my own little strip of rock and machair.
It's been a long while since I finished studying microbiology at university (it was an elective module in my first year), but binding to the receptors on the virus is pretty much what antibodies do. Vaccines work by letting the body know what those receptors look like in advance, so that it can be ready to produce the antibodies in bulk if and when necessary.
Not really, for a number of reasons. Firstly, anti-virals only work if you're already infected. it's nice to avoid it in the first place, which a vaccine will do. Anti virals are also less well understood.
Yes.
To use a somewhat simplified analogy, think of the immune system as being like a factory manufacturing the antibodies that block viruses. If it doesn't know what the virus receptors will look like until the virus is actually in the body then it needs to spend time designing the antibody and setting up the production line before the virus can be blocked, by which time it's already made you ill. A vaccine lets it do that initial setup without an active virus being in the body, which means that if and when the real virus shows up the production line can be put into action straight away, and the virus doesn't have time to make you ill.
Kind of like the "Where's Waldo?" picture books. There's a character named Waldo who looks and dresses a certain way. Each pic is a two-page spread, with *lots* going on. There are hordes of people, and many of them look at least somewhat like Waldo. The reader's task is to find the one, true Waldo.
Exactly the same thing, just with a different name on the cover.
Also, voluntary quarantine requirements for out of state visitors are being lifted. This one is huge since it was out of state visitors coming into the Sun Valley Ski Resort area was the epicenter for Idaho's infection.
The only businesses not allowed to open yet are restaurants, bars and gyms. They will likely be reopened in later stages.
Washington State Gov. Inslee is expected to continue our quarantine for another month. He is using a dial back approach and is gradually allowing more things to open. Outdoor construction, day use of state parks, and recreational fishing is opening up this weekend.
The COVID 19 predictive models through the University of Washington is suggesting the infection rate will be close to 0% by May 31 in Washington State and the death rate will be close to 0% by the end of June.
Fingers crossed.
The IHME model? I'm rather afraid that I think that model is rather optimistic, particularly on the down side. I've been watching its evolution for several mid-west states, and it's not tracking well. In these parts, our death rate has been more or less constant for the last 3 weeks, and the number of new positive cases tracks the number of tests performed. So there's plenty of evidence that we've avoided explosive exponential growth, but no evidence that things have started to get better yet. This is consistent with the anecdata that I get from my friends who are nurses.
Here's an interesting Twitter thread that's probably relevant to the spread of COVID-19 in the mid-west. A couple samples:
And, of course, the relevant demographic upshot of that:
As Ms. Neff notes, this also seems to be what torpedoed Singapore's efforts to contain COVID-19, which appeared to be initially successful; the Singaporean willingness to ignore the spread among it's migrant workers.
It's not just a US thing - we've had takeout and delivery for all sorts of things in Canada as well. I don't know why NZ went all the way up to level 4 - but perhaps because they thought they actually had a chance of driving the numbers to zero, which is definitely a ship that has sailed long ago in our part of the world. And if zero is not an available number then arguably the risk-benefit balancing in allowing more things stay open changes - especially considering that one way or another, people need to eat.
It's the fact that workers on the meat cutting line are packed in as closely as possible (no social distancing) in cold conditions (low humidity is a factor in the spread of SARS-CoV-2) and the speed of the line doesn't give the workers the chance to cover their mouths if they cough or sneeze. The first and third of these conditions are more a factor of the profit margins of the meat packing industry than physical requirements of the work, strictly speaking.
The listings are in the format:
X. Country - [# of known cases] ([active] / [recovered] / [dead]) [%fatality rate]
Fatality rates are only listed for countries where the number of resolved cases (recovered + dead) exceeds the number of known active cases by a ratio of at least 2:1. Italics indicate authoritarian countries whose official statistics are suspect. Other country's statistics are suspect if their testing regimes are substandard.
If American states were treated as individual countries twenty of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #2, between "everywhere in the U.S. except New York" (#1) and Spain (#3). New Jersey would be between Turkey and Russia.
No countries have joined the 10,000 case club since the last compilation.
We're 4th highest in the world. In a remarkable cluster of W. European nations. Mainly due to aging population and social inequality I infer and the way the virus affects people with over-experienced immune systems. I wouldn't trust Russia to tell me the time of day, but Germany, S. Korea? China?? Not that one can trust developing world figures as much. Even so.
I wonder when the CIA level analysis will come out? With deaths statistically compensated for deaths outside hospitals and misreporting.
Possibly because it was misleading
Second item down here: https://www.bbc.com/news/52487960
AFZ
I would have thought more likely it would mean regular booster injections of a vaccine, when one becomes available.
@Croesos, thanks for those articles on meat plants. I bet the management of those places are all working from home. How do they sleep?
If a vaccine/naturally acquired immunity is sufficiently persistent and effective enough then it may be that this will keep replication rate significantly below 1 for several years without social distancing if enough of the population is vaccinated; that could largely eliminate the disease (we'll still need to maintain capability to test and track outbreaks, as these will occur, to stop small local outbreaks bursting out into new epidemics).
If the vaccine/naturally acquired immunity is less effective or persists for only a year or two (or, we don't vaccinate sufficient numbers of people) then social distancing of some form will need to be maintained much longer. Whether that needs to be as restrictive as we now have to prevent further epidemic scale outbreaks seems unlikely - but, without an effective, persistent and globally administered vaccine much of what we currently think of as "normal" will need to change.
Coronavurus presents me with a much more significant risk. That will reduce considerably as remedies for severe breathing complications become available.
Flu jabs have helped, but more some winters than others. It seems to depend on how well the vaccine works against the current strain. So an early effective COVID-19 vaccine would be a great comfort. I might have to self isolate, practise safe distancing, for good while yet. But I can see some light on the horizon.
Which puts it in the same category as such nasties as measles and whooping cough.
I believe that part of the problem with recovery is we're not really counting confirmed community cases, just anyone who is an inpatient and discharged, which is lower numbers. The really poorly people are staying on ICU for several weeks, and although most are on normal wards, they're not exactly rushing out of the doors either. NHS hospitals, and probably elsewhere are now having the challenge of trying to get back to some form of running normal services whilst creating parallel 'positive' and 'negative' routes.
It also seems to depend on how far down you can drive the virus. Greece and S. Africa seem to have done this, the latter presumably because of its good local health system, arising out of AIDS epidemics. Then any hot spots can be tracked and isolated. Whether the UK govt has the competence to do this, dunno. I think local health has been "cut", and I guess nobody expected a bug of this virulence..
Apart from the people doing pandemic planning who the government chose to ignore. The UK has had decent plans since SARS but the capacity to implement and resource them has been hacked back since 2010.
Well, nobody except the UK government that wargamed this exact scenario a few years back and are busy blocking the release of the report that came out it.
(Actually, pretty much every disease expert had already predicted a virulent pandemic to happen at some point - it's something they teach and get their students to game. Miss Tor did a similar thing for her Zoology degree, ffs.)
It is, I think, alien to this country. Is it some form of extra-terrestrial life? Though they do seem to have something along these lines in other places, like France, Germany, Scotland, New Zealand etc. etc.
Yes and no. (Probably).
Ask me in a year and we'll know the answer to this one. However aging per se (i.e. without noted comorbidities) does have significant effects on cells that could be important in terms of the molecular biology. Which in turn is the key to understanding why some people have no symptoms and some have many and severe illness. From the data I've seen, co-existing diseases are more important than age itself but age seems to be an independent risk-factor as well. Hence the I may be 75 but I'm a fit as a fiddle argument is flawed.
As I said, we don't know yet, but I suspect when we have the data, it will turn out that a 75 year old in very good health is still more at risk than a 30 year old in average health.
This cannot be said enough. Every virologist (in the world, I suspect) knew that we would get a pandemic it was just a question of what and when. SARS was a big wake-up call to the medical profession and we probably got lucky. There's plenty of literature since warning of the risk of a SARS-like disease... oh look!
What is so unforgivable to my mind is the government poncing around claiming success when they know, they know what the epidemic / pandemic exercises showed and they know we were nowhere near as prepared as we could have been. And because of the nature of pandemics, you can do pretty good mathematical estimates of the effects of such an ill-judged policy. There'll be some margin of error, of course, but the majority of lives lost would have been avoided. The majority.
AFZ
But will there be a reckoning? NO.
Curled up like dragons on top of a large pile of money.
Blaming "other health conditions" or "contributory factors" conceals a lot. Most of the "contributory factors" are things that are very manageable absent COVID-19. Things like high blood pressure or diabetes. A 67 year old with high blood pressure may live another ten or fifteen years if the condition is properly managed. Her odds aren't as good as a 67 year old without high blood pressure, but the condition isn't the kind of immediate death sentence that a lot of folks going on about (the suspiciously generic terms) "contributory factors" or "underlying conditions" want you to conclude. Given all this, I find it disingenuous to blame otherwise manageable conditions for deaths that occur when, for example, someone with high blood pressure contracts a viral infection that causes blood clotting. Absent COVID-19, most people with diabetes, high blood pressure, etc. aren't going to drop dead within the next two weeks.
Fuck, there are times I wish I were employed as a writer for WHO. Try this instead of that gobbledygook:
"We're sorry we didn't explain what we meant clearly. If you've had COVID and recovered, you probably have some immunity now. We just can't guarantee it 100%, and we can't tell you how much or for how long. We haven't had enough time to study the virus yet. So, we don't want you to go out and take stupid risks because you think your immunity will save you. Please keep being careful. But to repeat, we DO expect you to get some immunity, and that's good news."
It also means that once a vaccine is available, we have a fighting chance of stamping COVID out of the human world, and fairly quickly at that--unless it turns out to have some unexpected hiding place (like chicken pox in the nervous system). If we could vaccinate enough people, that would stop the contagion cycle, and the fire would burn itself out--which would leave COVID safely back in bats, where it belongs. And hopefully it would stay there (though I'd keep the vaccine formulation on ice, just in case somebody decided to have a bat sandwich again).
Well put.