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COVID-19 Pandemic: Transmissions, Deaths, Treatments, Vaccines, Interventions and More...

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awful they are doing this and seeing reports that people are going into get tested, filled out paperwork but never tested and then receiving positive test results in the mail...are these stories fake
 


awful they are doing this and seeing reports that people are going into get tested, filled out paperwork but never tested and then receiving positive test results in the mail...are these stories fake
Seems like people are confusing social media posts for news again. Which states specifically is this referring to?
 
So, if it is up to the states to determine its own path, then why the interference regarding school openings, mask requirements, phased economic reopening? Either you have jurisdiction or not. It's not only when it's convenient and to feed red meat to your base. The mixed messages causes confusion and chaos regarding state measures, resulting in governors flip-flopping on interventions whenever the president feels like putting his two cents in.
Because there are federal charges along some of the lines.. stuff in the Constitution... responsibilities of the Federal government.

There are always overlaps... and there are always conflicts of who has what power. But one thing we have always been cautious of is the executive over-stepping their bounds. Obama issued executive orders like crazy. Often getting slapped down by SCOTUS. Trump tries similar things and gets slapped down any old judge... and sometimes, eventually, SCOTUS.

You think Trump didn't want to send troops into the cities? Would have won him the election to stop the rioting and looting even if he got slapped down. It would have broken a precedent.. a good precedent.. a legal precedent.. about having to be invited in.

Same thing on so many issues. But this topic is more and more political the more you get into it... and it gets further and further away from discussing CoVid.

Political needs are competing with prudence... whether you are discussing pushing to return to normal or doubling down on masks and social distancing and hiding in quarantine. The same thing is true for the offered solutions and aid packages.. things wanted for political needs seem to be more important than just sticking to handling the crisis.

Of the two sides (or however many sides there really are) I think Trump has the more valid claim. The Dems are in conflict when they want protest crowds.. but no crowds for churches, political rallies, for people to go vote, etc. That is an obvious choice of political need over a logical argument. It could be Trump's argument for opening back up purely political.. but it could be argued that it is not so... and there is no obvious inconsistency.
 
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Same can be said for GOP. No BLM protests, but anti-lockdown and anti-mask protests are OK, Trump rallies are ok. Gov Kemp sues Mayor Bottoms and the city council of ATL over mask requirement, but leaves Athens, Savannah, and other GA mayors who have imposed the same mandate out of it. Everyone has given up on the scientists when it comes to public health, but listen to a bunch of politicians instead? This is all insanity.
No.. the same cannot be said. Don't you see the difference? The GOP has no issues with peaceful protests. They oppose the rioting and looting and destruction. That is CONSISTENT and LOGICAL with the stance on political rallies and anti-lockdown protests.

As for the lawsuit.. you win one case you win them all... PRECEDENT

And the "SCIENTISTS" have been all over the map.. they explain away their inconsistencies now as basically admitting to lying to us for our own benefit (don't buy masks)... but they could have simply said that then. That wasn't science.. that was lying. And there are scientists who disagree when Dr. Fauci says cloth masks are fine.
 


awful they are doing this and seeing reports that people are going into get tested, filled out paperwork but never tested and then receiving positive test results in the mail...are these stories fake

It was outrageous news when we had 50k cases. If 50% of that number are then being double counted, leading to 75k total cases (which most likely isn’t the case), it doesn’t change the big picture: we have too many people with Covid 19.

So what’s your point of view here?
 
Horowitz: If the panicmongers were consistent, we’d close the schools every flu season

https://www.conservativereview.com/...onsistent-wed-close-schools-every-flu-season/

Horowitz continues to write inaccurate, slanted articles. He mentions that the CDC estimated 600 pediatric deaths during the 2017-2018 flu season, but ignores the fact that the CDC actually has true flu death counts for those 0-17 (not just very complex model estimates, which is all we have for the general population), since those have had to be reported by every state to the CDC since 2004. Those actual reported flu deaths have ranged from 37 (2011-2012 season) to 185 deaths (2017-2018 season, not 600), as per the link below, with an average number of age 0-17 flu deaths being about 120 per season.

https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/fluview/pedfludeath.html

For COVID, we're likely around 90-100 deaths, so far, for 0-17 (CDC data are from 0-14, then 15-24, so hard to tell exactly), so a little less than an average flu season right now, but we're not done yet, unfortunately. Plus, we know that COVID has a fast-growing problem with MIS-C (multi-system inflammatory syndrome), so it's not all just about deaths. I agree, though, that simply based on risks to children, relative to the flu, there's no reason we should close schools.

https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Death-Counts-by-Sex-Age-and-S/9bhg-hcku

https://rutgers.forums.rivals.com/t...entions-and-more.191275/page-217#post-4621137

What he misses though is the potential risk to teachers, staff, and parents, especially via asymptomatic/mildly symptomatic (especially in flu season) spread of the virus, especially with a very slanted inaccurate statement of, "Finally, we already know that children almost always get the virus from adults and that the primary location for transmission is at home." We don't "know" that nearly so well. It's true that as of now, children appear to get infected a fair amount less than adults and are sources of transmission in much lower percentages.

However, it's also very possible those numbers are skewed heavily due to the fact that schools were shut down quickly and for months and kids have remained at home, while far more adults have gone back to work, some in risky occupations, so it's very possible transmission rates from children to adults would be significantly greater in a world where they were in schools while the virus was highly prevalent. A recent Swiss study, just published in the CDC Emergency Infectious Diseases Journal, showed that the small number of infected children they saw did have similar viral loads to adults, which is certainly disconcerting for transmission - we definitely need more data on this.

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/10/20-2403_article

Our data show that viral load at diagnosis is comparable to that of adults (6,7) and that symptomatic children of all ages shed infectious virus in early acute illness, a prerequisite for further transmission. Isolation of infectious virus was largely comparable with that of adults, although 2 specimens yielded an isolate at lower viral load (1.2 × 104 and 1.4 × 105 copies/mL) (6).

Also, with regard to numbers of children infected being very low, so far, the data from Florida recently is at odds with that, as they've had over 1000 kids infected per day (nearly 10% of the total) for several days, which is much greater than earlier data). So, while I think areas like NY/NJ, if we maintain fairly low transmission rates, can probably safely reopen schools in-person (with masks/distancing/less density and other controls), along with some on-line components, I don't think reopening schools in areas with major outbreaks would be a good idea. As I said about a week ago, if our son were still in school, with his and my wife's underlying conditions, I'm pretty sure we'd opt to home-school him (which helps decrease density at the school), to keep our risks acceptable to us, but not everyone has that luxury. It's not an easy call for teachers or parents.

https://www.wfla.com/news/florida/coronavirus-cases-jump-among-children-in-florida/
 
No.. the same cannot be said. Don't you see the difference? The GOP has no issues with peaceful protests. They oppose the rioting and looting and destruction. That is CONSISTENT and LOGICAL with the stance on political rallies and anti-lockdown protests.

As for the lawsuit.. you win one case you win them all... PRECEDENT

And the "SCIENTISTS" have been all over the map.. they explain away their inconsistencies now as basically admitting to lying to us for our own benefit (don't buy masks)... but they could have simply said that then. That wasn't science.. that was lying. And there are scientists who disagree when Dr. Fauci says cloth masks are fine.
Yes, the difference is that you are on the side of the GOP. The stance on protests is purely political. But less on that, since it's CE material.

As for Covid...

When it comes to interventions, we have scientists who are telling us that distancing and masks work. And there is ample evidence from around the world where those interventions worked. All you need is eyes, ears, and logic to see that the science behind that is sound. Those same countries who see flare ups happening and have scientists telling them that normal school days aren't safe and are heeding the advice of the scientists. They are also mandating masks, they are shutting things back down in areas that are hotspots. They will have their case load stay manageable, unlike us. Instead, we have a runaway train raging thru the country because a certain set of politicians won't follow the advice of these scientists and the example set by much of the rest of the world.

Blocking direct data reporting to the CDC, blocking CDC officials from speaking to Congress or the public, threatening the withholding of funds that are sorely needed to prepare schools for reopening because they won't reopen the way the party wants them to reopen... those are all political moves, not interventions that are helpful in guiding responsible decision making regarding Covid response.

Scientists certainly aren't infallible, but you learn from your mistakes and adapt. Not double down on ignorance and hope it all turns out OK.
 
Scientists certainly aren't infallible, but you learn from your mistakes and adapt. Not double down on ignorance and hope it all turns out OK.

Wish I could like this ten times. The vast majority of non-scientists simply have no clue that science means, at its core: put forth a hypothesis, then design, run and analyze an experiment, and determine if the hypothesis was correct (or correct to what level, since many experiments are statistically based, like treatment or mask effectiveness) or not. And if one is wrong, try to figure out why, if you can, but realize you've learned something and move on. Science is data driven, not opinion driven.
 
Time for an update on everyone's favorite topic - T-cell responses and immunity! Lots of talk the past couple of days about the various vaccines and the dawning realization that the immune response is not just about producing the right antibodies, but likely also depends greatly on producing the right T-cell response. In addition, T-cell responses also can have "memory" years after exposure to a virus and can even have responses to viruses never before encountered by that person, i.e., people never exposed to SARS-CoV-2 can have T-cells that have an immune response (in cell cultures) to the novel coronavirus in a phenomenon known as "cross reactivity."

Just as in the quoted post, I'm going back to the well, citing Derek Lowe's In the Pipeline blog and the paper that came out today in Nature, which he discusses/reviews (easier than reading the paper sometimes). Both are linked below. As I often do, especially with immunology, which I'm no expert on, I'm excerpting part of Lowe's blog, which explains things better than I could. Maybe our own @UMRU can stop by and comment, too.

Now comes a new paper in press at Nature. It confirms that convalescent patients from the current epidemic show T-cell responses (mostly CD4+ but some CD8+ as well) to various epitopes of the N (nucleocapsid) protein, which the earlier paper had identified as one of the main antigens as well (along with the Spike and M proteins, among others, with differences between the CD4+ and CD8+ responses as well). Turning to patients who had caught SARS back in 2003 and recovered, it is already known (and worried about) that their antibody responses faded within two or three years. But this paper shows that these patients still have (17 years later!) a robust T-cell response to the original SARS coronavirus’s N protein, which extends an earlier report of such responses going out to 11 years. This new work finds that these cross-react with the new SARS CoV-2 N protein as well. This makes one think, as many have been wondering, that T-cell driven immunity is perhaps the way to reconcile the apparent paradox between (1) antibody responses that seem to be dropping week by week in convalescent patients but (2) few (if any) reliable reports of actual re-infection. That would be good news indeed.

And turning to patients who have never been exposed to either SARS or the latest SARS CoV-2, this new work confirms that there are people who nonetheless have T cells that are reactive to protein antigens from the new virus. As in the earlier paper, these cells have a different pattern of reactivity compared to people who have recovered from the current pandemic (which also serves to confirm that they truly have not been infected this time around). Recognition of the nsp7 and nsp13 proteins is prominent, as well as the N protein. And when they looked at that nsp7 response, it turns out that the T cells are recognizing particular protein regions that have low homology to those found in the “common cold” coronaviruses – but do have very high homology to various animal coronaviruses.

Very interesting indeed! That would argue that there has been past zoonotic coronavirus transmission in humans, unknown viruses that apparently did not lead to serious disease, which have provided some people with a level of T-cell based protection to the current pandemic. This could potentially help to resolve another gap in our knowledge, as mentioned in that recent post: when antibody surveys come back saying that (say) 95% of a given population does not appear to have been exposed to the current virus, does that mean that all 95% of them are vulnerable – or not? I’ll reiterate the point of that post here: antibody profiling (while very important) is not the whole story, and we need to know what we’re missing.

There are still major gaps in our knowledge: how many people have such unknown-coronavirus-induced T-cells? How protective are they? How long-lasting is the T-cell response in people who have been infected with the current SARS CoV-2 virus, and how protective is it in the declining-antibody situation that seems to be common? What sorts of T cell responses will be induced by the various vaccine candidates? We just don’t know yet. But we’re going to find out.


https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/07/15/new-data-on-t-cells-and-the-coronavirus

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2550-z_reference.pdf

I will add a short passage from the Nature paper's abstract, which kind of says it all, especially the last sentence. Is this cross-reactivity at least partly responsible for the vast majority of confirmed positive cases (80-85%) being mild to asymptomatic? And is it possibly responsible for even more, i.e., some % of the population simply never getting infected in any measurable way (and maybe not even showing antibodies? About 50% of the 37 unexposed donors had a T-cell immune response (in cell cultures) to SARS-CoV-2.

Epitope characterization of NSP7-specifc T cells showed recognition of protein fragments with low homology to “common cold” human coronaviruses but conserved amongst animal betacoranaviruses. Thus, infection with betacoronaviruses induces multispecifc and long-lasting T cell immunity to the structural protein NP. Understanding how pre-existing NP- and ORF1-specifc T cells present in the general population impact susceptibility and pathogenesis of SARS-CoV-2 infection is of paramount importance for the management of the current COVID-19 pandemic.

While the above post was mostly on T-cells, there was a nugget in there about how some recent small scale studies have shown patient antibody levels decreasing over time significantly, including one in China with 37 recovered patients who had mild or asymptomatic infections. Well, today Dr. Krammer's group from Mt. Sinai, published a preprint of a paper where they've analyzed antibodies in nearly 20,000 mildly to moderately ill COVID patients (lots of infections in NYC!) and had this wonderfully pithy one sentence summary of the work, which is great news, particularly the part about antibody responses being stable for at least 3 months (the full abstract is below that). While this doesn't "guarantee" 3-month+ immunity in recovered patients or in vaccinated patients who achieve similar antibody levels, it's the way to bet.

One Sentence Summary: Antibody responses induced by natural mild-to-moderate SARS27 CoV-2 infection are robust, neutralizing and are stable for at least 3 months.

Abstract: SARS-CoV-2 has caused a global pandemic with millions infected and numerous fatalities. Questions regarding the robustness, functionality and longevity of the antibody response to the virus remain unanswered. Here we report that the vast majority of infected individuals with mild to-moderate COVID-19 experience robust IgG antibody responses against the viral spike protein, based on a dataset of 19,860 individuals screened at Mount Sinai Health System in New York City. We also show that titers are stable for at least a period approximating three months, and that anti-spike binding titers significantly correlate with neutralization of authentic SARS-CoV-2. Our data suggests that more than 90% of seroconverters make detectible neutralizing antibody responses and that these titers are stable for at least the near-term future.

Conclusion: Our data reveal that individuals who have recovered from mild COVID-19 experience robust antibody responses. Antibody binding titers to the spike protein correlate significantly with neutralization with authentic SARS-CoV-2 virus, and the vast majority of individuals with antibody titers of 1:320 or higher show neutralizing activity in their serum. Consistent with data for human coronaviruses, SARS-CoV-1 and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome-CoV (23), we also find stable antibody titers over a period of at least 3 months, and we plan to follow this cohort over longer intervals of time. While this cannot provide conclusive evidence that these antibody responses protect from re-infection, we believe it is very likely that they will decrease the odds ratio of getting re-infected, and may attenuate disease in the case of breakthrough infection.


https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.14.20151126v1.full.pdf
 
CVS Covid-19 Test Results Are Taking Longer Than Customers Have Been Told https://www.wsj.com/articles/cvs-co...ger-than-customers-have-been-told-11595007356

Story on testing delays at CVS.
I had a test done on the 10th and still have not received the results. I feeling fine now but on the 9th I had nausea and chills but no fever. I took the test on the 10th, It went away by the 12th. So I dont think I have it but I still havent heard anything from CVS

Think the Keto eggplant parmagiana went bad on me.
 
No.. the same cannot be said. Don't you see the difference? The GOP has no issues with peaceful protests. They oppose the rioting and looting and destruction. That is CONSISTENT and LOGICAL with the stance on political rallies and anti-lockdown protests.

As for the lawsuit.. you win one case you win them all... PRECEDENT

And the "SCIENTISTS" have been all over the map.. they explain away their inconsistencies now as basically admitting to lying to us for our own benefit (don't buy masks)... but they could have simply said that then. That wasn't science.. that was lying. And there are scientists who disagree when Dr. Fauci says cloth masks are fine.
:Laughing:Laughing
 
But how about when you are a scientist and are wrong again and again and again and again and again and again? When do you become a bad scientist?
We aren't taking any one particular scientist, but the scientific community as a whole. You trust the oompa loompa more than the scientists at large?
 
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While the above post was mostly on T-cells, there was a nugget in there about how some recent small scale studies have shown patient antibody levels decreasing over time significantly, including one in China with 37 recovered patients who had mild or asymptomatic infections. Well, today Dr. Krammer's group from Mt. Sinai, published a preprint of a paper where they've analyzed antibodies in nearly 20,000 mildly to moderately ill COVID patients (lots of infections in NYC!) and had this wonderfully pithy one sentence summary of the work, which is great news, particularly the part about antibody responses being stable for at least 3 months (the full abstract is below that). While this doesn't "guarantee" 3-month+ immunity in recovered patients or in vaccinated patients who achieve similar antibody levels, it's the way to bet.

One Sentence Summary: Antibody responses induced by natural mild-to-moderate SARS27 CoV-2 infection are robust, neutralizing and are stable for at least 3 months.

Abstract: SARS-CoV-2 has caused a global pandemic with millions infected and numerous fatalities. Questions regarding the robustness, functionality and longevity of the antibody response to the virus remain unanswered. Here we report that the vast majority of infected individuals with mild to-moderate COVID-19 experience robust IgG antibody responses against the viral spike protein, based on a dataset of 19,860 individuals screened at Mount Sinai Health System in New York City. We also show that titers are stable for at least a period approximating three months, and that anti-spike binding titers significantly correlate with neutralization of authentic SARS-CoV-2. Our data suggests that more than 90% of seroconverters make detectible neutralizing antibody responses and that these titers are stable for at least the near-term future.

Conclusion: Our data reveal that individuals who have recovered from mild COVID-19 experience robust antibody responses. Antibody binding titers to the spike protein correlate significantly with neutralization with authentic SARS-CoV-2 virus, and the vast majority of individuals with antibody titers of 1:320 or higher show neutralizing activity in their serum. Consistent with data for human coronaviruses, SARS-CoV-1 and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome-CoV (23), we also find stable antibody titers over a period of at least 3 months, and we plan to follow this cohort over longer intervals of time. While this cannot provide conclusive evidence that these antibody responses protect from re-infection, we believe it is very likely that they will decrease the odds ratio of getting re-infected, and may attenuate disease in the case of breakthrough infection.


https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.14.20151126v1.full.pdf

I’ve also read that decreasing antibody levels isn’t necessarily a bad thing and is normal. B Cells play an important role at remembering the virus, and should re-create the necessary antibodies when being activated by the virus. I’m probably over simplifying.
 
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Horowitz continues to write inaccurate, slanted articles. He mentions that the CDC estimated 600 pediatric deaths during the 2017-2018 flu season, but ignores the fact that the CDC actually has true flu death counts for those 0-17 (not just very complex model estimates, which is all we have for the general population), since those have had to be reported by every state to the CDC since 2004. Those actual reported flu deaths have ranged from 37 (2011-2012 season) to 185 deaths (2017-2018 season, not 600), as per the link below, with an average number of age 0-17 flu deaths being about 120 per season.



"Even though the reported number of deaths during the 2017-2018 flu season was 187, CDC’s mathematical models that account for the underreporting of flu-related deaths in children estimate the actual number was closer to 600."


https://www.cdc.gov/flu/highrisk/children.htm
 
"Even though the reported number of deaths during the 2017-2018 flu season was 187, CDC’s mathematical models that account for the underreporting of flu-related deaths in children estimate the actual number was closer to 600."


https://www.cdc.gov/flu/highrisk/children.htm
Why are you repeating what I said in the post you quoted? Also, if you're going to start believing models over reported data, then I'm sure you'll be fine with the models which will show significantly more COVID deaths than are being reported officially. I'm being sarcastic, but the main point is that models can be useful, when there isn't much real, reported data, as is the case with deaths from flu in adults, although I've seen quite a few epidemiologists questioning the flu death models, as being far too high. But when we have a national system requiring flu deaths in children under 18 to be reported, I'm not sure why you'd tout the model over the actual reports. I can imagine them being a bit higher, but 3-4X higher just sounds unlikely.
 
Wish I could like this ten times. The vast majority of non-scientists simply have no clue that science means, at its core: put forth a hypothesis, then design, run and analyze an experiment, and determine if the hypothesis was correct (or correct to what level, since many experiments are statistically based, like treatment or mask effectiveness) or not. And if one is wrong, try to figure out why, if you can, but realize you've learned something and move on. Science is data driven, not opinion driven.

The two biggest things that are against science were when politicians encouraged protesting during the lockdowns to flatten the curve, and now with not reopening schools when science and data say there is no reason to keep them closed.
 
Geneticist saying she doesn't see any significant difference in COVID with regards to being less deadly or more contagious.

From the article:

Experts continue to throw out conflicting ideas about whether the coronavirus has changed. Some Italian doctors say it's gotten weaker over time. A group of researchers has suggested the opposite: that a mutated version of the virus became dominant worldwide because it's more transmissible than the original.

All viruses, including the coronavirus, change over time by accumulating mutations as they replicate. But according to Emma Hodcroft, a geneticist at the Nextstrain project, there's still no evidence this virus changed in any significant way — not to become less deadly, and not to be more contagious.

The Nextstrain project has been tracking changes in the coronavirus for months. So far, Hodcroft's team has collected and sequenced the genome of thousands of virus samples collected around the world since December 2019.

Geneticists differentiate these samples into five clades — the term for groups of virus samples that have descended from a common ancestor — characterized by mutations that have accumulated over time in one or more of a dozen genes.

But none of those mutations have meaningfully changed how lethal or infectious the coronavirus is, Hodcroft said.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/no-coronavirus-isnt-becoming-more-102800667.html
 
Very bad advice, as usual, and a misleading tweet to boot. Never wash N95 or surgical masks, which can damage the mask construction, rendering them far less effective. Both of these types of masks can be either decontaminated by dry heat (160F for 30-60 minutes) or simply letting them sit for 3 days, as that's the longest documented coronavirus viability on any surface (the reports beyond 3 days are for finding RNA particles that give a positive test, but not for viable virus that can infect), plus transmission from surfaces is extremely low anyway. If one has 3 masks, one can simply rotate them (as long as they don't become grossly contaminated, like can happen with health care workers, which is why they're designed to be disposed of, but we don't have enough masks for everyone to do that). Cloth masks can simply be laundered to deactivate viruses.

https://rutgers.forums.rivals.com/t...entions-and-more.191275/page-158#post-4604010
 
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