COVID-19 Coronavirus Thread

[Nigel]

She come a long way that mechanic

Indeed,

From changing tyres:

To rebuilding engines:

To driving ambulances:

To Commodore:

To the cavalry:

To queen,

And still going...

 

[Nigel]

Boris didn't meet him at the door, put him in the garden for an outdoor socially distanced meeting!

The Foreign Office held their meeting inside, with distancing instead of masks, and microphones so that they can hear the other side across the huge gap:

Mask back on to reenter USA territory and on to Denmark:

His reason for coming appears to have been to start a war with the WHO and with China!

Mike Pompeo: WHO chief ‘killed British coronavirus victims’

Lucy Fisher, Defence EditorBritain has been handed intelligence from the US about who to target with sanctions over Chinese human rights abuses against the Uighur Muslims, Mike Pompeo said yesterday [TUES].The US secretary of state told hawkish MPs during a meeting in London that evidence against Ch

www.thetimes.co.uk

The US secretary of state Mike Pompeo launched an extraordinary attack on the World Health Organization during a private meeting in the UK, accusing it of being in the pocket of China and responsible for “dead Britons” who passed away during the pandemic.
Pompeo told those present that he believed the WHO was “political not a science-based organisation” and accused its current director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of being too close to Beijing.

Boris still admiring his efforts to make the US secretary feel uncomfortable, I'm sure the choice of chair was intentional

 

[Nigel]

Seems the mask is mandatory in his aeroplane, but nowhere else, it came off again as he stepped onto Danish soil, apparently so that he could shake hands, or at least try to!

Pompeo tried to shake hands with a bunch of foreign leaders. They all turned him down.

The latest Speed Read,/speed-reads,,speed-reads, breaking news, comment, reviews and features from the experts at The Week

theweek.com

 

[Nigel]

Bill Gates being diplomatic about the current USA situation, then moves on to vaccines:

Moderna vaccine side effects - "Yea, but some of that is not dramatic, where, you know, it is not super painful.", while holding his shoulder as though it is super painful!

Multiple vaccine doses could be necessary to protect from coronavirus, Bill Gates says

"None of the vaccines at this point appear like they'll work with a single dose," Gates said.

www.cbsnews.com

Don't understand why he and Fauci are concentrating on and prioritising the Moderna vaccine over others, especially when it seems to have recieved the least funding, almost seems like their pet project that they want to win, even though the delays in testing other vaccines that have resulted mean that they will all now be tested during declining infection numbers, it takes 28 days for the vaccine to generate immunity, so when the testing starts in August, it will only be effective against the virus in September for Moderna and October for the others, and by then the number of infections will be too low for a good test!

And an update on USA progress, seem to have reached a new peak, and with reasonable immunity in most states now, the numbers should decline, although there are a few of the smaller states left to go up the climb:

 

[SawMaster]

4 vaccines out of the 24 currently being worked on have passed the preliminary safety and effectiveness tests, and those 4 all have similar side effects and rates of occurrence. Only one tried a single-big-dose approach and that also increased the severity of side-effects but not their rate of occurrence, and it wasn't different in effectiveness compared to the 2 dose regimen, so it was decided to drop it. Doses were given 20 to 28 days apart and all took that time-span to reach a level where they think they will be effective in disease prevention. So it looks like this will be a 2-dose vaccine across the board at this time, and needing a few weeks+ to be effective it will be September to October before the general public will have a chance at immunity through vaccine.

Of these 4 leading vaccines, there are two basic approaches being taken for them to get into the body. Moderna is one taking the known and usual approach while Oxford is taking the new path of delivering the vaccine to target via DNA/RNA. So far neither has shown an advantage, but if the latter works as they hope, it will make it possible for more tightly focused vaccines in the future which should reduce side-effects. There is only around a 90% assured effectiveness level with the Moderna method same as with previous flu vaccines, and the Oxford method seems to be roughly equal, but based on what we learn from it's novel approach there is a potential for this method to be able to achieve near 100% effectiveness in future vaccines by fine tuning them to each individual instead of the 'one-size-fits-all' approach we've used in the past.

As I've said before 2020 is going to be a very significant year in the annals of history in numerous ways. We live in very interesting times indeed

Phil

 

[Dashmellow]

Nigel, ever since your fearless leader Boris Johnson initially advocated the tragically ill-advised herd immunity approach to the cornavirus pandemic that has now resulted in more than 45,500 deaths in the UK, which is the second highest death rate per million people in the entire world, far exceeding that of even the USA, you have continued to pound the table championing the case for herd immunity on the premise that the more people who die, and the faster that happens the greater the herd immunity will be in a given nation. "Get it over with" you advocate! Unfortunately, as some virologists cautioned early on, evidence for wide herd immunity with COVID-19 was very slim and now apparently is turning out to be a complete myth!

On July 6th, The Lancet published an important study conducted in Spain that showed only an average of 5% herd immunity across the entire country, which is woefully minuscule considering the infection rate there.
Now that we have more data immunity from COVID-19 the concept of herd immunity is now being characterized as "unachievable".

"In light of these findings, any proposed approach to achieve herd immunity through natural infection is not only highly unethical, but also unachievable," said the Lancet's commentary authors, Isabella Eckerle, head of the Geneva Centre for Emerging Viral Diseases, and Benjamin Meyer, a virologist at the University of Geneva."

For this reason, it is still not clear how long immunity from a vaccine may endure. SARS-CoV-2 has proven itself to be a puzzling and vexing virus, confounding even the world's leading experts who have dedicated their careers to the study of virology and epidemiology. Of course, then we get amateurs on the internet like you who think they know more than the experts.

The Lancet: Prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in Spain (ENE-COVID): a nationwide, population-based seroepidemiological study

PDF: https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736(20)31483-5



https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/06/health/spain-coronavirus-antibody-study-lancet-intl/index.html

 

[SawMaster]

Even the current vaccines can't promise long immunity; all that is known for sure is that they seem to be effective over the time-spans where theyve been tested, essentially a few months. This is going to be the most focused-on area of the expanded testing which is now beginning.

As far as built-up immunity the only good thing they've found in that is the second round of the disease is usually milder in symptoms and duration though that isn't a given; there have been reinfection deaths too. Those who get it a second time are apparently as contagious as the first round.

The only thing we can be sure of is that we're still not sure about almost everything this disease does, and getting over that hurdle will be a long time coming.

Phil

 

[Nigel]

Herd immunity from COVID-19 has now been described as "unachievable".

If people didn't become immune then they would die, most people are not dying, therefore some level of herd immunity must exist.

All around the world we are seeing countries with no immunity get hit with a spike of infections, gain some immunity, and then the cases reduce again.

Even the USA, which has been doing its best to avoid doing anything to reduce infection rates has reached its peak and will see steady reductions from now on, although I suspect they will be quite slow reductions.

Countries that have tried to avoid the inevitable are struggling to avoid building immunity, Australia is currently spiking even with a massive effort to track and trace every infection, and even while using their mobile phone app to help! While countries with high immunity like Sweden are maintaining low figures without any lockdown, without closing schools and without significant effort.

Any level of herd immunity helps to keep the virus under control, even 5%, although that was not the level of immunity, only the level of people who had a positive antibody test, and those are two very different things.

 

[SawMaster]

If people didn't become immune then they would die

Really? Then I guess I and the rest of the world are wrong when we think that a lack of immunity only means that you can catch the disease, not that you're going to die from it.

Phil

 

[Dashmellow]

If people didn't become immune then they would die, most people are not dying, therefore some level of herd immunity must exist.

Yes, some level, 5% apparently.

Any level of herd immunity helps to keep the virus under control, even 5%, although that was not the level of immunity, only the level of people who had a positive antibody test, and those are two very different things.

So what are you trying to say? You appear to be claiming that people without positive antibodies have immunity. How could that be?

You know, Nigel, the level of rationalization you are engaging in here is rather astonishing. 5% is hardly "herd immunity".

What always strikes me about your insistence on community COVID transmission to establish herd immunity is your staggering lack of concern for how many people would die in the process. (Always assuming you would not be one of the victims, of course.)

Personally, I'll put my faith in the career virology and epidemiology professionals who conducted the study published in The Lancet rather than the rantings of an internet "know-it-all".

To quote directly from the concluding paragraph of the Lancet clinical study:

"Despite the high impact of COVID-19 in Spain, prevalence estimates remain low and are clearly insufficient to provide herd immunity. This cannot be achieved without accepting the collateral damage of many deaths in the susceptible population and overburdening of health systems."

 

[kamkar]

None of my money go towards heard immunity, too many studies seem to indicate that only if you have been hit really hard ( like almost dying ) do you have any protection worth mentioning, and it in turn are fading very fast it seem.
And the people been hit hard, well they have their own set of after effects to deal with, there are talks about some of the hardest hie people, well they might have to put them on early retirement like me, and we are talking bout people in their thirties that after having had the virus are all messed up. ( not all but some do seem to be hit hard with after effects )

Regarding Spain, it seem like they are about to shut some things back down due to resurgence on the damn thing.

 

[Nigel]

Really? Then I guess I and the rest of the world are wrong when we think that a lack of immunity only means that you can catch the disease, not that you're going to die from it.

Phil

Yes, Really, lack of immunity means that you can catch the disease, you then must develop immunity to get better, otherwise...

And you don't need antibodies to be immune, the Oxford vaccine is mainly relying on T-Cells, which are not detected in antibody tests.

Tests for T-Cells are interesting, a lot of people were already immune before the virus arrived:

Most bizarrely of all, when researchers tested blood samples taken years before the pandemic started, they found T cells which were specifically tailored to detect proteins on the surface of Covid-19. This suggests that some people already had a pre-existing degree of resistance against the virus before it ever infected a human. And it appears to be surprisingly prevalent: 40-60% of unexposed individuals had these cells.

The people with hidden immunity against Covid-19

While the latest research suggests that antibodies against Covid-19 could be lost in just three months, a new hope has appeared on the horizon: the enigmatic T cell.

www.bbc.com

 

[Nigel]

Regarding Spain, it seem like they are about to shut some things back down due to resurgence on the damn thing.

That sort of proves my point, the town that has just been locked down is in the region of Spain that has had the lowest number of cases, with the exception of the Canary Islands. Actually slightly less deaths per million than Denmark - they don't have enough immunity yet.

Immunity levels around the world will gradually equalise until a vaccine arrives.

 

[kamkar]

Not trying to start a discussion, everyone should act as they feel are safe and prudent in regard to this pestilence.
My approach are very nonchalant, it have been weeks since i last put alcohol on my hands, where many other almost take daily baths in the stuff. ( never had hand sanitizer at home either )

It would seem like Spain are now acting faster on this than they did at first, so that is a good thing i think.

There are even talks here about focing people to wear masks in some places, but probably as one or more politicians friends or family have a warehouse full of masks they need to offload.
CUZ even before corona my firm belief was / is that the politicians here, well they are not in it for the people, thats just a game they play to get people to vote on them.

 

[SawMaster]

The T-cell vaccines work by causing antibody production on their detecting the disease so there is no difference in how the various vaccines end up fighting the disease, but only in where those antibodies develop from. If the T-cells 'memory' imprint fades with time there will be no response from the body when it encounters the disease, and indeed past virology studies show that this frequently does happen. The antibody vaccines eliminate the need for T-cells to develop a 'memory' of the virus. They too often fade in time or become less able to fully start a response.

So just as they're now reporting there is no clear difference in the vaccines effectiveness, and there isn't nor has there ever been mch evidence to show that 'herd immunity' will develop with this disease even in places where it has had the widest impacts. And while we're here discussing erroneous statements and concepts, let us note that the UK just adopted a public-area mask law save for places where social distancing or other methods are felt to be effective enough.

Funny how you do better by waiting until the facts are in and verified before you make up your mind, isn't it? So at is now generally agreed among the world's medical and scientific professionals to be adequately proven that:
1- Herd immunity isn't going to be an effective defense against this disease as it does not develop to any great degree with this disease like it sometimes does with others.
2- Masks do offer some protection to the wearer, but do offer a very good means of preventing disease transmission through droplets or aerosols when usage is universal.
3- The Oxford vaccine is no better or worse than any other and is using a not-yet-scientifically-proven approach of which no long-term factual knowledge yet exists.
4- Having the disease does not offer anyone long-term immunity to reinfection, possibly not even for short term either. Many reinfections have now been documented.
5- The UK has had the poorest response to the pandemic of any other nation save for the US and Brazil.
6- The earlier a strong and universal response is to Covid-19, the exponentially better the area's infection and death rates are.
7- The best defense against this disease until an effective vaccine is developed is to totally isolate a given area from outsiders so you can best control what's there now.
8- ~40% of the adult diabetics who catch this disease in a significant form will die from it. This is the highest of all single health-related risk factors with Covid-19.
9- ~50% of the people put on ventilators for Covid-19 die, and it has been found that ~50% of the people who were put on ventilators did not actually need them.
10- The best chance of catching Covid-19 from another person is if you are in the close presence of an unmasked infected person; at 15 minutes you have a 50% chance of direct exposure and in an hour you have a 90%+ chance of direct exposure. Direct exposure like this is the most common means of Covid-19 transmission no matter your own personal precautions taken.

Phil

 

[Nigel]

So just as they're now reporting there is no clear difference in the vaccines effectiveness,

Nobody knows that, they haven't been through effectiveness testing yet!

 

[Nigel]

5- The UK has had the poorest response to the pandemic of any other nation save for the US and Brazil.

No idea how you work that out?

Looking at www.worldometers.info, sorted by cases/million population,
UK is in 40th place and dropping - 0.4387% of population.
USA is in 10th place and climbing - 1.2799% of population.
Of course Trump would say that our figures are wrong because we haven't been testing like the USA has, but, from the same source,
UK tests per million population 210,455
USA tests per million population 158,282

Our covid-19 deaths so far this year are less than the 5-year average flu deaths, and the reduced flu deaths due to lockdown cancel out a quarter of the covid-19 deaths, steadily increasing. We have to take both into account because there has been some miscounting of flu as covid and covid as flu with people not needing to be covid-19 positive to get counted as a covid-19 death, in fact they haven't even needed to be ill! Even with reduced flu, the flu for this year will soon overtake the covid-19.

 

[kamkar]

It seem like this thread are just numbers throw left and right.

Almost 10.000 died from this pestilence in the past 24 hours.

O BTW, what ever my viking forefathers brought to your neck of the woods, one thing they also brought was a unknown strain of smallpox.

Vikings had smallpox and may have helped spread the world's deadliest virus

Scientists have discovered extinct strains of smallpox in the teeth of Viking skeletons -- proving for the first time that the killer disease plagued humanity for at least 1400 years.

www.sciencedaily.com

Double O, and those Americans expected to have been around for 15.000 years, well it turn out that humans was in the Americas at least 30.000 years ago, so so much for Clovis being badass trail blazers.

Evidence of human occupation in Mexico around the Last Glacial Maximum - Nature

Chiquihuite Cave (Zacatecas, Mexico) provides evidence of human presence in the Americas between about 33,000–31,000 and 14,000–12,000 years ago, and expands the cultural variability known from sites of this date.

www.nature.com

BTW both those findings Danish genome wizzard eske willerslev had a part in

 

[Dashmellow]

No idea how you work that out?

Looking at www.worldometers.info, sorted by cases/million population,
UK is in 40th place and dropping - 0.4387% of population.
USA is in 10th place and climbing - 1.2799% of population.
Of course Trump would say that our figures are wrong because we haven't been testing like the USA has, but, from the same source,
UK tests per million population 210,455
USA tests per million population 158,282

Our covid-19 deaths so far this year are less than the 5-year average flu deaths, and the reduced flu deaths due to lockdown cancel out a quarter of the covid-19 deaths, steadily increasing. We have to take both into account because there has been some miscounting of flu as covid and covid as flu with people not needing to be covid-19 positive to get counted as a covid-19 death, in fact they haven't even needed to be ill! Even with reduced flu, the flu for this year will soon overtake the covid-19.

View attachment 52743

It is remarkable Nigel how you keep trolling the USA and other nations whilst trying to paint such a rosy, but false picture of the UK.

The facts contradict the alternative universe you claim to live in.

The UK has the second highest rate of deaths per million population of every country in the world except Belgium, far exceeding the USA!

Interesting, how you cherry pick the figures from World-O-Meters. In fact, the excess death rate in the UK suggests it is extreme and apparently the death rates in the UK have have been vastly under-counted according to some sources!



Reuters suggests that the UK death rate is far higher the World-O-Meters is reporting!

 

[Nigel]

The UK has the second highest rate of deaths per million population of every country in the world except Belgium, far exceeding the USA!

To suggest that Belgium is the worst is ridiculous, they are averaging 2 deaths per day, total, not per million, while the USA is 1200 and increasing!