Flattening the Curve: Overrated?

[Netpackrat]

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/04/2 ... ing-lives/

Premise is completely asinine. Since we don’t know what percentage of survivors actually have any immunity, we don’t know if achieving herd immunity is even possible. But we do know that intentionally infecting people in the attempt is going to get people killed.

[Vonz90]

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/04/2 ... ing-lives/

Premise is completely asinine. Since we don’t know what percentage of survivors actually have any immunity, we don’t know if achieving herd immunity is even possible. But we do know that intentionally infecting people in the attempt is going to get people killed.

It is not asinine at all, and he is by far not the only prominent Epidemiologist saying the same thing (as per the other links I have been posting.)

The answer to the first question is close to 100% (I don't have a link, but the speculation that some were recatching it has been disproved.)

The answer to the second question is intentional or not, it not makes no difference. It WILL go around until we have herd immunity. That is how this always works with every rapidly communicable virus. The curve flattening always assumed this too; the area under the curve is always roughly the same.

You can slow it down, you can protect the vulnerable, but you cannot stop it. The only caveat is that of course a vaccine can achieve herd immunity too, but we have no time table for that. And of course while we hunker down and wait for a vaccine, it is still spreading, at best more slowly but probably not by much if at all.

[BDK]

Vaccines, can kill a certain percentage as well. Most notably, smallpox and yellow fever vaccine’s. It’s a matter of being worth the reduction in risk.

Deliberately infecting low risk populations actually does make sense

[Fill]

Vaccines, can kill a certain percentage as well. Most notably, smallpox and yellow fever vaccine’s. It’s a matter of being worth the reduction in risk.

Deliberately infecting low risk populations actually does make sense

i don't think we know the long-term damage or risks associated with low-mortality infections.
seems to be a pretty complicated disease that has more than one way to get in to the cells, and causes damage all over...heart, lungs, kidneys.
I'm pretty much angling to be the last person to get it.

[g-man]

Deliberately infecting low risk populations actually does make sense

No. And here's why (it's what I've been arguing here with regard to Army personnel and 'resumption of training'): The low risk population is indeed low risk, but we're not infecting them to build herd immunity in a vacuum. They still have interactions with the general population, and given the percentage of asymptomatic infections with this, it WILL escape the supposed containment of the low risk population. And we're off to the races again. Does that mean we stay completely locked down? There's definitely a way to go forward and begin to relax restrictions, but as we have seen in multiple locations: relaxed official standards will be further relaxed in actual practice, and we get another spike (see China, central TX, etc.).

My argument for the Army has been, and remains: We were the vector for the 1918 'Spanish' Flu. It'd be great if we could NOT do that again...

[EDIT] Thought I should elaborate. The right answer is a reduction (probably not 'elimination') of activity, with the understanding that we need to be very careful about interacting with people not following appropriate guidelines. But the answer has been "More, harder, faster", as is the typical Army (over)reaction to pretty much everything. Words have meanings, and we throw around things like 'Quarantine' without actually then discussing things remotely definable as proper quarantine. David Geffen was an idiotic asshole for putting up pics about quarantining on his superyacht, but I'm still envious of his situation: on a boat with enough supplies to wait everything out. Even a small boat with 'just enough' supplies would be great. Also, I wouldn't be a dick about it. I'd just be chillin on a boat. [EDIT]


Speculation, RE: re-catching it - Every story I've seen where this occurs has been 'Guy drops dead after recovering from COVID'. Might be confirmation bias, but I haven't seen this as a thing with females. Additionally, one of the issues with COVID is that it enters cells through ACE2 proteins, which are prevalent in testes, but not in ovaries. The testes being essentially walled off from the immune system leaves a reservoir of the virus which takes the body longer to clear. Guy feels better, thinks he's over it, but it's not all gone yet... and the secondary spike within the individual kills him dead. Again, just a SWAG, but not implausible.

[2nd edit] Can you tell I need a vacation?[edit]

[Fill]

Deliberately infecting low risk populations actually does make sense

No. And here's why (it's what I've been arguing here with regard to Army personnel and 'resumption of training'): The low risk population is indeed low risk, but we're not infecting them to build herd immunity in a vacuum. They still have interactions with the general population, and given the percentage of asymptomatic infections with this, it WILL escape the supposed containment of the low risk population. And we're off to the races again. Does that mean we stay completely locked down? There's definitely a way to go forward and begin to relax restrictions, but as we have seen in multiple locations: relaxed official standards will be further relaxed in actual practice, and we get another spike (see China, central TX, etc.).

My argument for the Army has been, and remains: We were the vector for the 1918 'Spanish' Flu. It'd be great if we could NOT do that again...

[EDIT] Thought I should elaborate. The right answer is a reduction (probably not 'elimination') of activity, with the understanding that we need to be very careful about interacting with people not following appropriate guidelines. But the answer has been "More, harder, faster", as is the typical Army (over)reaction to pretty much everything. Words have meanings, and we throw around things like 'Quarantine' without actually then discussing things remotely definable as proper quarantine. David Geffen was an idiotic asshole for putting up pics about quarantining on his superyacht, but I'm still envious of his situation: on a boat with enough supplies to wait everything out. Even a small boat with 'just enough' supplies would be great. Also, I wouldn't be a dick about it. I'd just be chillin on a boat. [EDIT]


Speculation, RE: re-catching it - Every story I've seen where this occurs has been 'Guy drops dead after recovering from COVID'. Might be confirmation bias, but I haven't seen this as a thing with females. Additionally, one of the issues with COVID is that it enters cells through ACE2 proteins, which are prevalent in testes, but not in ovaries. The testes being essentially walled off from the immune system leaves a reservoir of the virus which takes the body longer to clear. Guy feels better, thinks he's over it, but it's not all gone yet... and the secondary spike within the individual kills him dead. Again, just a SWAG, but not implausible.

[2nd edit] Can you tell I need a vacation?[edit]

i've seen where the study out of SKorea has identified a problem with false positives in the test kits which led to the 're-infection' results.

[blackeagle603]

WSJ

New Data Suggest the Coronavirus Isn’t as Deadly as We Thought

Talks first about the Stanford study that has been resisted and argued fiercely.

Then...

Outside California as well, preliminary data are emerging to support a more hopeful picture. In New York City, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine examined 215 women entering two hospitals to give birth between March 22 and April 4. These patients had a Covid-19 infection rate over 15%. Of expectant mothers who tested positive for active infections, 88% were asymptomatic at the time of admission. That infection rate is about 10 times the rate of known cases in the city as a whole as of April 17—and New Yorkers have been tested for Covid-19 far more extensively than residents of other states.

This study looked only at active infections, not past infections as in Santa Clara County. So in that population of pregnant women, 15% infected is a lower bound. Many others may have had a past infection only detectable on serologic tests for antibodies against the virus.

if policy makers were aware from the outset that the Covid-19 death toll would be closer to that of seasonal flu than the millions of American deaths predicted by early models dependent on inputs that now look inaccurate, would they have risked tens of millions of jobs and livelihoods? The science to support better modeling and decision making is rapidly becoming available. One hopes that it will inform better policy decisions.

Mr. Bogan, a molecular biologist, is managing member of Bogan Associates LLC and a co-author of the Santa Clara study.

RTWT

[Netpackrat]

The answer to the first question is close to 100% (I don't have a link, but the speculation that some were recatching it has been disproved.)

Where did you see that it has been disproved, anyway? I have not found anything like that.

[Vonz90]

The answer to the first question is close to 100% (I don't have a link, but the speculation that some were recatching it has been disproved.)

Where did you see that it has been disproved, anyway? I have not found anything like that.

https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus ... tives.html

This is not where I read it, but same info.

[Netpackrat]

A lot of guessing in that article. What I get from that and the other articles I can find, is that they just don't know.