COVID19

[Donny osmond]

The figures for the UK on that down tick aren't a full 24 hours figures... dubiety clarified



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[Which Tyler]

"The town of Nembro, near Bergamo, had 158 deaths so far this year Vs 35 on average in the recent past.

Only 31 deaths were attributed to Covid-19"


Of course, some of those will be undiagnosed COVID deaths, and some secondary as equipment and care isn't available for others when capacity is taken up with COVID.

[Son of Mathonwy]

It's a pretty good start. Just not gold standard. Follow it up with the PCR test and be sure. At least it will help apportion resources somewhat more efficiently. They could encourage participation by offering a packet of fags and a bottle of vodka for every positive result followed up.

Careful - people would deliberately infect themselves*.

* I think this is a joke

[Son of Mathonwy]

The biggest/riskiest assumption is that the specific antibody/antigen that this hypothetical study will actually be inactivating.

Can we assume that for a person to recover, at least one type of antibody they produced is inactivating?

Alternatively, if none of them are inactivating, does this mean:
1) they would not be immune to a second infection,
or
2) it's impossible - they would not recover in this case?

Another point - what can be gained from a comparison between the serum of a recovered person and an uninfected person? Can the antibodies be detected, or are they simply too small, or the situation too complex for them to be identified?

Any foreign body will raise antibodies as part of the normal immune response. If that response is inefficient, then some virus will get through a second time. The antibody response is designed to stop foreign objects from getting on or in a cell, so the response will inactivate at some level (prevent the viral capsid from binding). It's a complex biological response that has correspondingly complex sampling issues. As an example, there is a naturally occurring non-pathogenic virus in humans, AAV, that piggybacks on the life cycle of another virus that causes the common cold. AAV is used in gene therapy applications in humans and so the inactivating antibody question has been comprehensively studied for AAV. About 90% of the human population are seropositive for AAV antibodies, but less than half of these individuals have inactivating antibodies. The ability to distinguish inactivating antibodies from non in seropositive individuals is the result of decades of studying the bijebus out of AAV, which is a naturally replication-deficient entity. Can't replicate, so not much mutation going on. Contrast this with the influenza virus, which is able to replicate, and does so at a rate of 10s of thousands of copies per day. Every little error during replication of the viral genome introduces an ocassional change in sequence coding for capsid proteins that your seropositive individuals have antibodies to. This is antigenic drift. The higher the rate of replication, the greater the chance of of drift in the capsid protein antigen. This is why flu shots change from year to year. Influenza has an infectious period of 4-7 days and usually burns itself out. Corona virus has an infectious period of at least 14 days (probably longer), which give twice the time to replicate and shift antigens, and is why it's such a virulent little mother. Add to this rosy picture the fact that the current coronavirus has jumped from animals to humans, so there is a dramatically different antigen profile confronting the human immune system (antigenic shift) that it is utterly powerless against. This is why flu vaccines will not work on coronavirus. Given the longer infectivity time, the corresponding increase in replication rate (1 into 2, 2 into 4, 4 into 8, and so on over time) and the radical antigenic shift presented by coronavirus, how will the immune system keep up with a). the initial overwhelming infection, and b). the inevitable antigenic drift that will be going on. It's an evolution by mutation beast. Even if you by some chance found an inactivating species of antibody in a recovered person, there are almost half a million people world wide that are infected, and counting. That inactivating serum could be rendered redundant within a matter of weeks, and so recovered patient becomes susceptible patient once more once they come into contact with cousin fuckface on the overnight flight from wherever. The more we allow this to spread, the greater the replicating, mutating population of virus becomes, and the harder it will be to apply any treatment or vaccine breakthrough.

Viruses don't do much but inject nucleic acid into cells and make more viruses, but by fuck they are good at countering any attempt by the body to stop that process from marching on. The day health authorities recognised zoonotic animal to human transmission, a big red PANDEMIC communication should have gone out to every country on the globe.

That's frighteningly complicated (in other times it would be interestingly complicated).

This is crazy. The number of deaths due to the virus in a similarly sized country, Italy, is about 14x what we have in the UK and still growing at ~9% per day. This suggests that we are far from reaching anything like 50% infected. As you say, the hypothesis of mild, widespread infection is not something to be distracted by.

The Chinese are beating this thing. We need to employ their methods right now. If this was a war we'd do it.

[Stom]

"The town of Nembro, near Bergamo, had 158 deaths so far this year Vs 35 on average in the recent past.

Only 31 deaths were attributed to Covid-19"


Of course, some of those will be undiagnosed COVID deaths, and some secondary as equipment and care isn't available for others when capacity is taken up with COVID.

That is 100% the case over here.

[Donny osmond]

The figures for the UK on that down tick aren't a full 24 hours figures... dubiety clarified



Sent from my CPH1951 using Tapatalk

And its ticked right back up again

Sent from my CPH1951 using Tapatalk

[morepork]

Can we assume that for a person to recover, at least one type of antibody they produced is inactivating?

Alternatively, if none of them are inactivating, does this mean:
1) they would not be immune to a second infection,
or
2) it's impossible - they would not recover in this case?

Another point - what can be gained from a comparison between the serum of a recovered person and an uninfected person? Can the antibodies be detected, or are they simply too small, or the situation too complex for them to be identified?

Any foreign body will raise antibodies as part of the normal immune response. If that response is inefficient, then some virus will get through a second time. The antibody response is designed to stop foreign objects from getting on or in a cell, so the response will inactivate at some level (prevent the viral capsid from binding). It's a complex biological response that has correspondingly complex sampling issues. As an example, there is a naturally occurring non-pathogenic virus in humans, AAV, that piggybacks on the life cycle of another virus that causes the common cold. AAV is used in gene therapy applications in humans and so the inactivating antibody question has been comprehensively studied for AAV. About 90% of the human population are seropositive for AAV antibodies, but less than half of these individuals have inactivating antibodies. The ability to distinguish inactivating antibodies from non in seropositive individuals is the result of decades of studying the bijebus out of AAV, which is a naturally replication-deficient entity. Can't replicate, so not much mutation going on. Contrast this with the influenza virus, which is able to replicate, and does so at a rate of 10s of thousands of copies per day. Every little error during replication of the viral genome introduces an ocassional change in sequence coding for capsid proteins that your seropositive individuals have antibodies to. This is antigenic drift. The higher the rate of replication, the greater the chance of of drift in the capsid protein antigen. This is why flu shots change from year to year. Influenza has an infectious period of 4-7 days and usually burns itself out. Corona virus has an infectious period of at least 14 days (probably longer), which give twice the time to replicate and shift antigens, and is why it's such a virulent little mother. Add to this rosy picture the fact that the current coronavirus has jumped from animals to humans, so there is a dramatically different antigen profile confronting the human immune system (antigenic shift) that it is utterly powerless against. This is why flu vaccines will not work on coronavirus. Given the longer infectivity time, the corresponding increase in replication rate (1 into 2, 2 into 4, 4 into 8, and so on over time) and the radical antigenic shift presented by coronavirus, how will the immune system keep up with a). the initial overwhelming infection, and b). the inevitable antigenic drift that will be going on. It's an evolution by mutation beast. Even if you by some chance found an inactivating species of antibody in a recovered person, there are almost half a million people world wide that are infected, and counting. That inactivating serum could be rendered redundant within a matter of weeks, and so recovered patient becomes susceptible patient once more once they come into contact with cousin fuckface on the overnight flight from wherever. The more we allow this to spread, the greater the replicating, mutating population of virus becomes, and the harder it will be to apply any treatment or vaccine breakthrough.

Viruses don't do much but inject nucleic acid into cells and make more viruses, but by fuck they are good at countering any attempt by the body to stop that process from marching on. The day health authorities recognised zoonotic animal to human transmission, a big red PANDEMIC communication should have gone out to every country on the globe.

That's frighteningly complicated (in other times it would be interestingly complicated).

This is crazy. The number of deaths due to the virus in a similarly sized country, Italy, is about 14x what we have in the UK and still growing at ~9% per day. This suggests that we are far from reaching anything like 50% infected. As you say, the hypothesis of mild, widespread infection is not something to be distracted by.

The Chinese are beating this thing. We need to employ their methods right now. If this was a war we'd do it.

It’s actually very simple because of templates provided by existing data and what we know about how the immune system functions.

[Mellsblue]

The figures for the UK on that down tick aren't a full 24 hours figures... dubiety clarified



Sent from my CPH1951 using Tapatalk

And its ticked right back up again

Sent from my CPH1951 using Tapatalk

Yep. Not pretty. Still too early to see whether the latest social distancing measures have had any effect. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

[Mellsblue]

The Chinese are beating this thing. We need to employ their methods right now. If this was a war we'd do it.

Not sure I want to live in a totalitarian, communist state. Their lockdown was two months of people going nowhere. Not sure that’s possible in the UK, either in the short term or the long term. There are already models showing that the financial fallout of tanking the economy will kill more lives than the lockdown will save. An impossible situation.
Also, if the King’s model is correct they aren’t beating this thing, they’re just through the first wave.

[morepork]

The figures for the UK on that down tick aren't a full 24 hours figures... dubiety clarified



Sent from my CPH1951 using Tapatalk

And its ticked right back up again

Sent from my CPH1951 using Tapatalk

Yep. Not pretty. Still too early to see whether the latest social distancing measures have had any effect. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

Those measures buy time for hospitals and facilities working in a vaccine. They won’t stop overall cases in the long term but they give the poor overworked fuckers on the frontline some space in which they can work effectively.

[Mellsblue]

And its ticked right back up again

Sent from my CPH1951 using Tapatalk

Yep. Not pretty. Still too early to see whether the latest social distancing measures have had any effect. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

Those measures buy time for hospitals and facilities working in a vaccine. They won’t stop overall cases in the long term but they give the poor overworked fuckers on the frontline some space in which they can work effectively.

Flatten the curve, baby. Ironically, being stuck inside is only fattening my curve/belly.

[morepork]

Yep. Not pretty. Still too early to see whether the latest social distancing measures have had any effect. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

Those measures buy time for hospitals and facilities working in a vaccine. They won’t stop overall cases in the long term but they give the poor overworked fuckers on the frontline some space in which they can work effectively.

Flatten the curve, baby. Ironically, being stuck inside is only fattening my curve/belly.

It’s rekindled my fondness for whisky.

[Digby]

Yep. Not pretty. Still too early to see whether the latest social distancing measures have had any effect. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

Those measures buy time for hospitals and facilities working in a vaccine. They won’t stop overall cases in the long term but they give the poor overworked fuckers on the frontline some space in which they can work effectively.

Flatten the curve, baby. Ironically, being stuck inside is only fattening my curve/belly.

I suspect I'm losing weight, this is in no way related the missus being home more often supervising more of my eating habits. And this whilst getting less exercise

[Mellsblue]

Those measures buy time for hospitals and facilities working in a vaccine. They won’t stop overall cases in the long term but they give the poor overworked fuckers on the frontline some space in which they can work effectively.

Flatten the curve, baby. Ironically, being stuck inside is only fattening my curve/belly.

It’s rekindled my fondness for whisky.

You are not alone. In a tacit admission that the UK population is predominantly a bunch of alcoholics at even the hint of a stressful event, the govt has now designated off licences and breweries with bottle shops as providers of essential items and they are therefore now allowed to reopen to the public.

[morepork]

Flatten the curve, baby. Ironically, being stuck inside is only fattening my curve/belly.

It’s rekindled my fondness for whisky.

You are not alone. In a tacit admission that the UK population is predominantly a bunch of alcoholics at even the hint of a stressful event, the govt has now designated off licences and breweries with bottle shops as providers of essential items and they are therefore now allowed to reopen to the public.

Same over here.

[hugh_woatmeigh]

WTF are the US playing at? Most cases in the world now and many parts of the US are still continuing as usual. If that keeps spreading and those cases start maturing and turning into deaths... This could be devastating.

[morepork]

WTF are the US playing at? Most cases in the world now and many parts of the US are still continuing as usual. If that keeps spreading and those cases start maturing and turning into deaths... This could be devastating.

No place in the US is continuing as usual.

[hugh_woatmeigh]

WTF are the US playing at? Most cases in the world now and many parts of the US are still continuing as usual. If that keeps spreading and those cases start maturing and turning into deaths... This could be devastating.

No place in the US is continuing as usual.

Friends in Oklahoma, Louisiana & Florida claim otherwise. Some slight restrictions.

[morepork]

WTF are the US playing at? Most cases in the world now and many parts of the US are still continuing as usual. If that keeps spreading and those cases start maturing and turning into deaths... This could be devastating.

No place in the US is continuing as usual.

Friends in Oklahoma, Louisiana & Florida claim otherwise. Some slight restrictions.

Your friends are out of touch. All those states have stay at home orders from governors as of today. The entire Eastern seaboard is shut down. Louisiana is second only to New York in new cases and parishes have started to implement curfews. Kevin Stitt in Oklahoma has done some serious reversing and declared a state of emergency. Florida has had over 1500 new cases since Monday and at least 30 dead. It's about to go beserker in aged comminties, for which Florida is legend. Stay at home orders have been issued in counties. Federal response = an Owen Farrel Hospital pass, but at the local level it's Hamish Watson hitting a ruck. 30th St. Station in Philly is a graveyard because travel to and from New York has all but stopped. Usually sees 30 000 passengers a day. 3.2 million people have registered as unemployed in the US in the past week.

So yeah, not usual.

[Donny osmond]

The NY times has an page full of interesting graphs right here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... untry.html

Dunno how accurate they are but I thought this one is a nicely optimistic way of looking at things... we'll, unless you're in the states in afraid

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[Digby]

Though given testing varies so wildly it's hard to read much into that, even allowing for that testing mostly veering wildly between and not within countries

[Son of Mathonwy]

The NY times has an page full of interesting graphs right here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... untry.html

Dunno how accurate they are but I thought this one is a nicely optimistic way of looking at things... we'll, unless you're in the states in afraid

Not sure it's all that optimistic. The current graph on the nyt link shows the UK daily growth of coronavirus death at approx 23%. I'm assuming this means daily growth rate in cumulative deaths (rather than daily deaths).

578 cumulative UK deaths yesterday means:
711 cumulative deaths today,
354,000 cumulative deaths in a month,
1,000,000 cumulative deaths in 36 days,
66,870,000 cumulative deaths in 56.3 days. That the total UK population.

Yes, I know this can't really kill more than a few percent of the population, but these numbers (whilst falling) are actually terrifying.

[Puja]

3rd March: In an attempt to downplay the risks of Coronavirus, Boris Johnson says that he's not going to stop shaking hands and boasts that he was shaking hands in a hospital where Coronavirus patients were being treated. (https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/…/bori ... and-corona…)

27th March: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52060791

Twat.

Puja

[Son of Mathonwy]

3rd March: In an attempt to downplay the risks of Coronavirus, Boris Johnson says that he's not going to stop shaking hands and boasts that he was shaking hands in a hospital where Coronavirus patients were being treated. (https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/…/bori ... and-corona…)

27th March: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52060791

Twat.

Puja

Is this enough to make him take Covid19 seriously?

Sadly I suspect only a brush with death combined with Dominic Raab as acting PM would be enough.

[Digby]

Worst case Boris would be leaving yet another kid without a father