charlie hebdoToo bad our government wants to pretend there is no problem.
https://www.newsweek.com/californias-democrat-governor-praises-trumps-coronavirus-response-every-single-thing-he-said-1491294
"He [Trump] said everything I could have hoped for," the governor asserted. "And we had a very long conversation and every single thing he said, they followed through on," he noted.
https://abc14news.com/2020/03/08/inslee-on-trump-coronavirus-feud-i-dont-care-what-donald-trump-thinks-of-me/
“We are very pleased with the federal government helping us right now,” [Washington Governor] Inslee said, during an interview on CBS’ “Face The Nation.”
York1 John
He said positives under threat of retaliation by withholding help. Earlier the occupant called Inslee a snake. More important is what actual researchers (not political admins) at CDC say.
charlie hebdoHe said positives under threat of retaliation by withholding help.
Were you listening in on the phone call?
Insiders' info from several of his staff. Conservatives aren't privy.
charlie hebdo Earlier he called Inslee a snake.
How 'presidential'.
Overmod Flintlock76 While I believe coronavirus is a cause for concern, I don't believe it's a cause for panic, and a lot of this strikes me as bordering on panic. What do you think? It strikes me that this is like a common thing for a great many groups to pile onto, to cause the same kind of crisis in the general economy that breaking the Reading Combine did in the United States after 1892. Remember all those discussions we had about the 'recession' that never quite seemed to arrive on schedule after the tariffs? Now we have a worldwide 'reduction of trade' that in various ways is chalked up to the "coronavirus" in some ultimately vague way, presumably tied to its terrible potential for 'lethality' if it were ever to establish itself a la Captain Trips... or whatever. Meanwhile, it seems to me that almost everywhere there has been an outbreak, the 'result' has been a short cluster of relatively high lethality, followed by a relative explosion of cases but few additional deaths. While I won't claim cause-and-effect, the kinetics are exactly those mirroring a prompt response to infection with proper 3CLpro inhibitors -- as with FIP. Presumably some of those high-paid people at CDC got hold of the original Chinese sequencing results of the original ultra-infectious clone, and have been tracking the point differences in clones of all the reported outbreaks since then. If they have, they will be getting an increasingly good idea of whether the regions that govern protease-inhibition treatment are more or less labile, or more or less conserved, than those that likely have provided the higher 'infectiousness' (cf the PNAS paper that Jones1945 provided the reference for, on the hemagglutinin gene, now several months old). I repeat that the 3CLpro inhibitor production, in China, for the demonstrably similar coronavirus clone that produces symptoms of FIP in cats, has been in volume production for over a year, and that identification of the 'susceptible' regions in the viral genome has really been 'settled science' for quite some time, verifiable even in 'free access' papers. Note how little the 'official' press coverage has addressed this (aside from the usual National Inquirer-type stories about "the Chinese engineered the coronavirus to ruin the American economy in response to Trump's tariff nightmare" or whatever). I notice that the 'origin story' about bats can't apparently even keep the difference with Ebola straight. Perhaps there are studies by now about how a fundamentally feline virus could get into rodents (rather than the 'other way round' through predation). But note how the 'exotic meat market' in Wuhan seems to have disappeared entirely from news reports as the 'ground zero' source of the initial crossover. This too is a remarkably 'uranium-235-shaped hole' in the coverage to me. None of this is meant to cheapen the probably very real enhanced transmissibility and short induction period reported for current 'dangerous' clones of this virus, nor the danger it may pose to certain cohorts of people. Be careful to distinguish the death rate from 'bacterial coinfection' (and prompt treatment of it, and prophylaxis therefor) from that of the far more dangerous induced immune-system effects that were the true horror in the 1918 influenza 'waves', as well as taking care to make a 'usual' correction for issues in the elderly and very young, and in immunocompromised people of various kinds. In many historic epidemics, there are sensible measures that could be taken, and there is hysterical or 'feel-good' response. Presumably the idea of suspending the Acela trains is based on the idea that the people who can afford the agio are also the people most likely to have the affluence to visit China recently. Combined with the relative inability to determine whether specific passengers have traveled to likely infection areas before they board a train. One suspects this is the product of some cogitation on the part of Amtrak and other governmental personnel, not just a knee-jerk me-too pile-on effort to make the virus more effective as the biological equivalent of one of those hysterical winter-weather advisories. But I'm not a Christian Scientist, so the appendicitis just hurts.
Flintlock76 While I believe coronavirus is a cause for concern, I don't believe it's a cause for panic, and a lot of this strikes me as bordering on panic. What do you think?
It strikes me that this is like a common thing for a great many groups to pile onto, to cause the same kind of crisis in the general economy that breaking the Reading Combine did in the United States after 1892.
Remember all those discussions we had about the 'recession' that never quite seemed to arrive on schedule after the tariffs? Now we have a worldwide 'reduction of trade' that in various ways is chalked up to the "coronavirus" in some ultimately vague way, presumably tied to its terrible potential for 'lethality' if it were ever to establish itself a la Captain Trips... or whatever.
Meanwhile, it seems to me that almost everywhere there has been an outbreak, the 'result' has been a short cluster of relatively high lethality, followed by a relative explosion of cases but few additional deaths. While I won't claim cause-and-effect, the kinetics are exactly those mirroring a prompt response to infection with proper 3CLpro inhibitors -- as with FIP.
Presumably some of those high-paid people at CDC got hold of the original Chinese sequencing results of the original ultra-infectious clone, and have been tracking the point differences in clones of all the reported outbreaks since then. If they have, they will be getting an increasingly good idea of whether the regions that govern protease-inhibition treatment are more or less labile, or more or less conserved, than those that likely have provided the higher 'infectiousness' (cf the PNAS paper that Jones1945 provided the reference for, on the hemagglutinin gene, now several months old).
I repeat that the 3CLpro inhibitor production, in China, for the demonstrably similar coronavirus clone that produces symptoms of FIP in cats, has been in volume production for over a year, and that identification of the 'susceptible' regions in the viral genome has really been 'settled science' for quite some time, verifiable even in 'free access' papers. Note how little the 'official' press coverage has addressed this (aside from the usual National Inquirer-type stories about "the Chinese engineered the coronavirus to ruin the American economy in response to Trump's tariff nightmare" or whatever).
I notice that the 'origin story' about bats can't apparently even keep the difference with Ebola straight. Perhaps there are studies by now about how a fundamentally feline virus could get into rodents (rather than the 'other way round' through predation). But note how the 'exotic meat market' in Wuhan seems to have disappeared entirely from news reports as the 'ground zero' source of the initial crossover. This too is a remarkably 'uranium-235-shaped hole' in the coverage to me.
None of this is meant to cheapen the probably very real enhanced transmissibility and short induction period reported for current 'dangerous' clones of this virus, nor the danger it may pose to certain cohorts of people. Be careful to distinguish the death rate from 'bacterial coinfection' (and prompt treatment of it, and prophylaxis therefor) from that of the far more dangerous induced immune-system effects that were the true horror in the 1918 influenza 'waves', as well as taking care to make a 'usual' correction for issues in the elderly and very young, and in immunocompromised people of various kinds.
In many historic epidemics, there are sensible measures that could be taken, and there is hysterical or 'feel-good' response. Presumably the idea of suspending the Acela trains is based on the idea that the people who can afford the agio are also the people most likely to have the affluence to visit China recently. Combined with the relative inability to determine whether specific passengers have traveled to likely infection areas before they board a train. One suspects this is the product of some cogitation on the part of Amtrak and other governmental personnel, not just a knee-jerk me-too pile-on effort to make the virus more effective as the biological equivalent of one of those hysterical winter-weather advisories. But I'm not a Christian Scientist, so the appendicitis just hurts.
I don't have your broad expertise in many fields that I am interested in, so please be patient (excuse the pun)
Are you saying this thing could be like Michael Crichton's fictional "Andromeda Strain" in that it is mutating so rapidly (RNA virus susceptiple to mutation because RNA is fragile), that it is starting out as the killer plague that clots a persons blood in seconds from attacking their blood vessel walls, and then it mutates into an organism harmless to humans apart from it attacking the silicone seals in a fighter jet, killing is pilot from hypoxia from losing his oxygen system and then crashing?
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Overmod charlie hebdo Certain political figures appear to want to minimize the expert opinions for their own personal benefit. SAFETY FIRST! That is very true, and I add the emphasis for agreement. My problem is that there are many more figures, political and otherwise, who appear to want to maximize, or indeed overexaggerate or outright fake, actual 'expert opinions' for their own benefit ... be that personal, corporate, or otherwise. (I would also mention that I have had considerable, firsthand experience with 'politically' related academic research in the biomedical sciences, and the variety of issues and problems produced thereby even by people with spotless technical credentials. I consequently remain firmly in the 'trust, but verify' group when it comes to science as reported in media or without hard documentation -- without requiring that anyone else share my opinions or even be persuaded by them.) Some more evidence of those superior credentials: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/how-many-americans-have-been-tested-coronavirus/607597/ Of course some people will claim this is all Trump meddling, or something like that.
charlie hebdo Certain political figures appear to want to minimize the expert opinions for their own personal benefit. SAFETY FIRST!
That is very true, and I add the emphasis for agreement.
My problem is that there are many more figures, political and otherwise, who appear to want to maximize, or indeed overexaggerate or outright fake, actual 'expert opinions' for their own benefit ... be that personal, corporate, or otherwise.
(I would also mention that I have had considerable, firsthand experience with 'politically' related academic research in the biomedical sciences, and the variety of issues and problems produced thereby even by people with spotless technical credentials. I consequently remain firmly in the 'trust, but verify' group when it comes to science as reported in media or without hard documentation -- without requiring that anyone else share my opinions or even be persuaded by them.)
Some more evidence of those superior credentials:
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/how-many-americans-have-been-tested-coronavirus/607597/
Of course some people will claim this is all Trump meddling, or something like that.
It's pretty obvious that the WH thought this would not be serious so hid the ball two months. Thus we are not prepared
According to a former official, many of our hospitals will be overwhelmed in 10 days.
Paul M: The pattern with many viruses is to become less deadly over time. Considering the purpose of a virus is the use a host to increase it's numbers, killing the host is counter-productive. Hence that directionality of mutation.
This just in from NJ.com.
This is from a medical man. Please listen to what he has to say.
https://www.nj.com/opinion/2020/03/mass-panic-may-be-worse-than-the-coronavirus-itself-opinion.html
This should be posted in every news outlet from Maine to California.
Flintlock76This should be posted in every news outlet from Maine to California.
+1
I will have to admit to being a victim of this latest panic, I was very disillusioned to learn that the official definition of "elderly" as the warnings have been framed, is 60+ years of age.
Good grief! I'm "elderly"? Game over!! (shucks).
Well, I'm just glad that I got to live a majority of my life while this country was still free, and whatever comes after,.... I'm prepared to face. Been telling my friends for years that I am not afraid to die, so I guess it's time to "man up" and walk the walk.
I had looked forward to attaching the ol siphon hose to social security for a few years first, we'll see how that plays out. Could this whole thing be a conspiracy to balance the books on the Grande Ponzi SScheme?
Perhaps that explains the government's indifference?
Flintlock76This just in from NJ.com. This is from a medical man. Please listen to what he has to say. https://www.nj.com/opinion/2020/03/mass-panic-may-be-worse-than-the-coronavirus-itself-opinion.html This should be posted in every news outlet from Maine to California.
The panic is about what IS NOT KNOWN about the virus. The Flu and its various strains we know about and have treatments that are known to work against it. The Covid-19 we don't have anything to treat it and we have to learn what is required to treat it.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
In my travels during my 43 working years I've met a number of medical professionals. When the subject came up they all told me the same, there is no cure for a virus. The common cold, for example, is caused by a virus, that's why there's no cure for it. Not that people aren't working on it.
The typical method of treatment for a virus is to prescribe various medications to relieve the symptoms and let the disease run its course. If the weakened state of the patient leads to a bacterial infection that can be treated with antibiotics, but the virus itself, no.
Remember AIDS? A doctor told me "If they come up with cure for the AIDS virus, it's be the first cure for a virus in history."
I haven't heard that anything's changed in that respect. I could be wrong, but I don't think so.
Flintlock76 Remember AIDS? A doctor told me "If they come up with cure for the AIDS virus, it's be the first cure for a virus in history." I haven't heard that anything's changed in that respect. I could be wrong, but I don't think so.
While there is still no cure for HIV/AIDS, modern antiretroviral drugs have made it possible for those with the virus to live normal lives, and have a life expectancy approaching that of a uninfected person. Over time, the patient's viral load can be supressed to the point where transmission to another person is unlikely.
Of course, that's if one has access to the drugs. Which is not the case in so many parts of the world.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
BaltACDThe panic is about what IS NOT KNOWN about the virus. The Flu and its various strains we know about and have treatments that are known to work against it.
That, in a nutshell, is what is wrong with the Chicken Little responses.
We DO know about this virus. We DO have expedient forms of treatment, and in fact we have seen over and over in the fatality rates that this is so. The initial clone of the virus in the Wuhan outbreak was sequenced within three days of the outbreak, compared against known infectious (and immune-provoking) similarly-sequenced clones of coronavirus, and the various point differences influencing the high transmissivity discussed, in full academic papers, not long thereafter.
The only thing that is 'not known' about the virus is how to retard its high rate of transmission and induction -- and it should not be surprising that we "accomplish" this no better than we have found any effective treatment for common colds.
As far as the initial actual fear in this outbreak -- really, the only real reason for terror -- that it was provoking the kinds of prompt immune-system overreaction that were so deadly in the waves of 'Spanish' influenza at the end of WWI: it was predicted, and the predictions have so far been borne out perfectly, that none of the 'deadly' clones including 2019-nCoV were in any way "resistant" to 3C-like protease inhibition, in fact to the agents the Chinese themselves were ramping up production of for veterinary practice, and therefore that an expedient combination of the 'right' kinds of immunomodulation combined with 3CLpro treatment would shut down any immune-induction deaths relative to an erupting incidence of 'new' infections within days.
Now, it's possible that bacterial coinfections were the source of the spate of deaths at the beginning of the "COVID-19" scare ... and they surely do remain troublesome in the elderly and very young who don't have the ability to form a proper response either to the primary coronavirus or opportunistic things like pneumonia organisms. But these aren't amenable to primary treatment other than some enhanced vaccination program, which has its own sets of potential and real drawbacks, or use of what may be powerful antibiotics (on organisms thought susceptible to them) in precisely the sort of excessive use that breeds additional resistance.
The present problem is that the 2019-nCoV clone is particularly communicable and its induction appears to be fairly short, so anywhere a case is identified it is highly likely there will be 'others' soon -- and these will be similarly likely to infect many others. Therefore, the current problem comes down to preventing initial spread, which is where all the fun with isolation and cutting down on travel of various kinds is concerned. It is something of a red herring to blame the utter failure to provide even critical-at-risk patient testing before now, as the value in widespread testing is comparatively small; I'm concerned that relatively little appears to have been done in augmenting directed immune-system response as a 'national priority' (ideally of the sort conducted for polio after the Sabin vaccine was developed) before, as is likely, "everyone" in this country, and in the developed world as a whole, eventually is infected and the disease 'runs its course'.
Now of course, if we fully trust our credentialed host of scientists at CDC and NIH, we'll have a thorough 'treatment protocol' that's as good a response as our science can make it. You'll pardon me if I'm not terrribly sanguine that their response, in the timeframe that matters, is a bit reminiscent of the first law of consulting.
On the other hand, it might just be that something that was effective against primary induction would also represent a fundamental basis for a "cure" for (or more precisely, a prevention or preclusion of) for the 'common cold.' Wouldn't that be nifty if it were covered by insurance?
Sorry but I trust actual experts at CDC, NIH, and top research universities elsewhere in the world. They research these topics everyday. They are specialists. There is no treatment.
As to panic. When the number of cases in Massachusetts more than doubled in one day, from 41 to 92, the public reaction does not depend on any push from some media. Harvard is closing Friday. The idea that this is just the reaction of a bunch of chicken littles is just denial at its dangerous worst.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm
As of the week ending February 29th, estimates from the CDC.
Influenza cases in the US: 34 million.
Cases resulting in hospitalization: 350,000.
Deaths from influenza: 20,000.
Estimates from the last 10 years of flu seasons in the US.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html
Yet the sky isn't falling over this. And vaccines are available, but many (most?) don't get them.
The good news is that all the precautions for coronavirus also are the precautions for the flu.
Jeff
.
charlie hebdoThere is no treatment.
Name your sources for this statement. (Do it via PM as it isn't a matter for open forum)
As to panic. When the number of cases in Massachusetts more than doubled in one day, from 41 to 92...
How many fatalities? And in what cohorts? Surely that's the criterion of interest, the measure of greatest concern, more than the nominal detection rate (which I expect to rise dramatically ... as the CDC starts getting the lead out and actually testing the thousands of people a day they promised ... starting today. That's more an artifact than proof of eruption of a terrible, unstoppable and untreatable pandemic...)
I'm not saying it isn't prudent to take measures to stay out of contact, at least until we have in fact demonstrated proper response capability. I think it is highly likely that the prediction we will all 'eventually' catch this virus (or be immunized in some way against it before infection) is accurate; I certainly agree with the experts that there is no guarantee the genetic characteristics that have caused the hypercommunicability in 2019-nCoV will 'mutate away' as the virus replicates through multiple hosts. The 'panic' is in things like buying up all the face masks at Home Depot and Lowe's, thinking that does anything at all; in running news stories that make catching the virus sound like some modern Jack London Red Plague; ... in playing up all the ways the economy sky's going to crash as an inevitable result of permanent vigilant quarantine.
... the public reaction does not depend on any push from some media. Harvard is closing Friday.
Would you stay open if parents of any undergraduate who was infected at officially sanctioned classes or events brought suit for negligence? That's almost a no-brainer even if there weren't remaining questions of lethality in improperly-treated college-age cohorts. My daughter is touring University of Chicago tomorrow morning; they don't seem to have gotten the memo at that school that this awful threat of a scourge means they should close down, although I find it hard to believe there are zero emergent cases in all the Chicago area, or that the risk of rapid emergence is at least as great in Illinois as in Massachusetts.
The idea that this is just the reaction of a bunch of chicken littles is just denial at its dangerous worst.
I thought you knew better than to use strawman arguments. The concern I expressed was with Chicken Little 'over-reaction', not that any possible response to the viral threat was automatically 'Chicken Little' activity. To me at least there is an enormous, and critical, difference between those things.
What I don't trust is Politicians trying to muzzle scientists in communications about what is happening and why.
Chicken Little = overreaction in regard to perceived danger. The remark was not directed at you.
At this point, there is no treatment in the sense of a cure.
Chancellor Merkel just announced that 70% of Germans are at risk of contracting Covid-19 because it is an aging population. In Italy the mortality rate is 6.5% because it has an aging populace. I believe our population is also older than China's, so.......
Illinois cases are jumping. It's now outside Cook County and some new cases are community. Proceed with caution. Given that a large number of forum members are over 60, caution should be the byword, not echoing the current occupant's shifting responses to Covid-19 from hoax to fake news to a political maneuver to cause the stock market to crash and cause his reelection plans to crash and burn.
SAFETY FIRST!!
"Given that a large number of Forum members are over 60..."
Yeah, I was afraid of that. This is turning into an exclusive club for retirees and their parents.
Where's young Mr. Harrison now that we need him?
What am I then Wayne, chopped penicillin?
SD70Dude What am I then Wayne, chopped penicillin?
'Dude, you never entered a biography man! How am I suppposed to know you don't use a walker to get out to your SD70? I mean really!
Fair enough, I do like to keep my true identity fairly guarded.
I'm still in my 20s. Not quite at walker age yet, though a few of my co-workers are getting to that point. Fortunately they are full-time Engineers by now.
charlie hebdonot echoing the current occupant's shifting responses to Covid-19 from hoax to fake news to a political maneuver to cause the stock market to crash and cause his reelection plans to crash and burn.
The current occupant's response to the virus was a "hoax"?
What he said: "Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus ... They tried the impeachment hoax. That was on a perfect conversation. They tried anything, they tried it over and over, they’ve been doing it since you got in. It’s all turning, they lost, it’s all turning. Think of it. Think of it. And this is their new hoax."
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-coronavirus-rally-remark/
The current occupant's response to the virus was "fake news"?
What he said: "Saudi Arabia and Russia are arguing over the price and flow of oil. That, and the Fake News, is the reason for the market drop!"
https://www.politicususa.com/2020/03/09/trump-calls-wall-streets-coronavirus-concerns-fake-news-in-monday-morning-tweets.html
His response to Covid-19 was not that it was a hoax.
His response to Covid-19 was not that it was fake news.
It was what he said.
Jones 3D Modeling Club https://www.youtube.com/Jones3DModelingClub
Chancellor Merkel (not given to impulsive reactions, as she has a PhD in physics) stated 70% of the German population might become infected with the novel corona virus.
Fiasco with agencies leading to major delays in testing. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/us/coronavirus-testing-delays.html
Rio Grande Valley, CFI,CFII
York1The current occupant's response to the virus was "fake news"? What he said: "Saudi Arabia and Russia are arguing over the price and flow of oil. That, and the Fake News, is the reason for the market drop!" https://www.politicususa.com/2020/03/09/trump-calls-wall-streets-coronavirus-concerns-fake-news-in-monday-morning-tweets.html His response to Covid-19 was not that it was a hoax. His response to Covid-19 was not that it was fake news.
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