Corona Virus

[45catfan]

To achieve heard immunity we need the folks who are responsible for the current spike to continue to get it...the younger segment of the population.  As long as the elderly/pre-existing conditions folks wear their masks, social distance and limit their exposure as much as possible, that's what we need to be concerned with.  If we limit the exposure of the young and healthy, how do we achieve heard immunity?  All we do is drag it out.

We have 3 scenarios to get trough this:

-The virus burns itself out

-We achieve effective heard immunity

-A viable vaccine is developed

Waiting on a vaccine isn't the answer because it is at best 6 months away.  While the virus keeps mutating to an increasing milder form, how long until it's deemed no worse than the common cold?  A combination of the first two scenarios is the best answer to get through this.  I have no doubt this thing is here to stay, just like influenza A and B, but hopefully a vaccine can help us get past the next outbreak sometime beyond this year.  It isn't the answer to get us through the current situation.

[Proudiddy]

15 minutes ago, LinvilleGorge said:

Yeah, what I've seen indicates the antibodies fade fairly quickly but immune resistance if not outright immunity will likely continue beyond the antibodies being undetectable.

I very likely had it in late January after a trip to Seattle. My antibody test in late April came back inconclusive. Antibodies were present, but not enough to meet the baseline for a positive test. The re-test came back negative.

TBH, I'm starting to think the testing itself is unreliable, both for the antibodies and the virus itself.  My wife is a therapist and staff supervisor at a skilled nursing facility and they had the virus rip through there starting somewhere around March.  Obviously with the patient demographics, they had quite a few patient deaths.  But interestingly enough, just about the entire staff got it as well, and despite quite a few having preexisting conditions such as BP, obesity, older age, etc., all fully recovered within 2 weeks or so.  They got it under control there now...  all that being said, my wife directly spoke with, made contact with, and sat in rooms with patients and other therapists who were confirmed to have it within the incubation time period after their interaction, and yet, my wife has been tested multiple times and they have all came back negative.  She then volunteered for an antibody study and also came up negative for that.  I just find it almost impossible that she and our family havent already had it, considering.  Even the lab techs told her they recently switched their tests because the ones they were using before were turning up "too many" positives - which I'm assuming they meant false positives.  I also have a friend who is an ER nurse in one of the five boroughs in NY, and all his tests have been negative, but he thought he already had it as well.

I just wonder if the virus is so new, the test manufacturers are still working out the kinks themselves in what they're trying to detect.  Idk, just thinking out loud...  it's the only sense I can make of situations like that and seeing stories of even pro athletes testing positive then negative, then positive again weeks apart while being asymptomatic. 

Also, as an aside, I recently read that certain strains of corona that cause the common cold were shown to give people who recovered from it some degree of immunity to COVID-19.  So, I wonder if that also plays into what these tests are hitting and missing on?

[Devil Doc]

1 minute ago, LinvilleGorge said:

Yeah, what I've seen indicates the antibodies fade fairly quickly but immune resistance if not outright immunity will likely continue beyond the antibodies being undetectable.

I very likely had it in late January after a trip to Seattle. My antibody test in late April came back inconclusive. Antibodies were present, but not enough to meet the baseline for a positive test. The re-test came back negative.

So testing for anti-bodies is probably not a good indication of Herd Immunity probability? 

[LinvilleGorge]

Just now, Devil Doc said:

So testing for anti-bodies is probably not a good indication of Herd Immunity probability? 

It's the best we have. I mean, the virus has been around for well under a year. We really don't know if long-term immunity is a reality or not.

[Wes21]

22 minutes ago, Proudiddy said:

TBH, I'm starting to think the testing itself is unreliable, both for the antibodies and the virus itself.  My wife is a therapist and staff supervisor at a skilled nursing facility and they had the virus rip through there starting somewhere around March.  Obviously with the patient demographics, they had quite a few patient deaths.  But interestingly enough, just about the entire staff got it as well, and despite quite a few having preexisting conditions such as BP, obesity, older age, etc., all fully recovered within 2 weeks or so.  They got it under control there now...  all that being said, my wife directly spoke with, made contact with, and sat in rooms with patients and other therapists who were confirmed to have it within the incubation time period after their interaction, and yet, my wife has been tested multiple times and they have all came back negative.  She then volunteered for an antibody study and also came up negative for that.  I just find it almost impossible that she and our family havent already had it, considering.  Even the lab techs told her they recently switched their tests because the ones they were using before were turning up "too many" positives - which I'm assuming they meant false positives.  I also have a friend who is an ER nurse in one of the five boroughs in NY, and all his tests have been negative, but he thought he already had it as well.

I just wonder if the virus is so new, the test manufacturers are still working out the kinks themselves in what they're trying to detect.  Idk, just thinking out loud...  it's the only sense I can make of situations like that and seeing stories of even pro athletes testing positive then negative, then positive again weeks apart while being asymptomatic. 

Also, as an aside, I recently read that certain strains of corona that cause the common cold were shown to give people who recovered from it some degree of immunity to COVID-19.  So, I wonder if that also plays into what these tests are hitting and missing on?

Its weird but not impossible, particularly if your wife never had symptoms.  My wife has a friend in Chicago who had it.  He had it BAD, as in several weeks in a hospital type bad.  But before that, he had no idea what he had...he just thought he was regular sick.  He spent time with his wife and a bunch of time with his daughter, taking her to school and what not while he was home sick (before the trip to the hospital).  The wife and daughter were tested and were negative, and never had any symptoms.

[LinvilleGorge]

It's no different than any other communicable disease. Exposure doesn't necessarily equal infection. When my wife or I get a cold, the other often also gets it but not always. The odds of contracting this disease is likely higher due to less immunological resistance compared to common colds and flus, but still, it's pretty common to find that not everyone in a household gets it despite living under the same roof as someone who is positive.

[45catfan]

"A few weeks ago, the Lombardy region in Italy appeared to be on track to obtain herd immunity. Health officials said this week that of the nearly 10,000 residents in the city of Bergamo who had blood tests done between April 23 and June 3, about 57 percent had antibodies, indicating they had come into contact with the virus."

Are antibody tests accurate?

This article cited the same antibody findings in Spain, but also noted local antibody findings in Italy.  So which one is correct?  Are the findings cherry-picked?  Are they using the same antibody tests?  How accurate are the tests? Is local testing a better indicator than on a national scale?

[45catfan]

33 minutes ago, Devil Doc said:

So testing for anti-bodies is probably not a good indication of Herd Immunity probability? 

Not until a universal, reliable test is available.  It seems the Spanish study is probably not detecting enough of the prior infected and the Italian one probably had too many false positives.  The true answer is probably somewhere in the middle.

[Peon Awesome]

1 hour ago, 45catfan said:

To achieve heard immunity we need the folks who are responsible for the current spike to continue to get it...the younger segment of the population.  As long as the elderly/pre-existing conditions folks wear their masks, social distance and limit their exposure as much as possible, that's what we need to be concerned with.  If we limit the exposure of the young and healthy, how do we achieve heard immunity?  All we do is drag it out.

We have 3 scenarios to get trough this:

-The virus burns itself out

-We achieve effective heard immunity

-A viable vaccine is developed

Waiting on a vaccine isn't the answer because it is at best 6 months away.  While the virus keeps mutating to an increasing milder form, how long until it's deemed no worse than the common cold?  A combination of the first two scenarios is the best answer to get through this.  I have no doubt this thing is here to stay, just like influenza A and B, but hopefully a vaccine can help us get past the next outbreak sometime beyond this year.  It isn't the answer to get us through the current situation.

In theory you could argue for this but in practice this isn't feasible or advisable for several reasons.

1) How do you ensure only young people get infected? They'd be congregating in groves, spreading the virus everywhere except where any elderly people might be? Elderly people wearing masks isn't going to protect them. The young people need to be wearing the masks for the elderly to avoid infection and then that would reduce your herd immunity plan. And elderly people are going to have a tough time avoiding all young people; at grocery stores, pharmacies, both other shoppers and the people at the register would pose a risk.

2. People are still forgetting that no one can say definitively that exposure = long-lasting immunity. It's possible people could fully recover from the infection and get infected again fairly quickly (although this seems less likely). But what's highly possible is they could recover from one infection and then 6 months later, the virus has undergone enough antigenic shift for them to get reinfected again by a slightly different version. So instead of having 1 huge peak, you have 2. And then you've also gotten a couple hundred million people infected with little benefit.

3. While young people are less likely to have severe disease, they're not immune from it. According to the CDC's latest published numbers, there are about 1,000 people under the age of 35 who have died from COVID in the US. Extend the age range to 44 and younger and it becomes 3,000 people. And that's highly unlikely to be enough to achieve herd immunity. Plus are you going to tell a 50 year old executive at his company to bunker down for 6 months? Cause add those 54 and younger and you're approaching 10,000 deaths. Now multiply those numbers by 10 since perhaps at most 10% of people have been infected so far. Now you'll have something close to 100,000 dead. And since a much higher percentage need hospitalization, let's say you've got 2 million or more hospitalized. Also recall that it's the 30 year olds who often are uninsured, no longer qualifying for their parents insurance, now many unemployed due to COVID without employer insurance or choose not to pay the high premiums since they've always been healthy. Now you've doomed hundreds of thousands of people to financial ruin with their insane hospital bills, stifling their economic contribution for decades.

Look I don't know the right answer. Ideally we get an effective vaccine in 5 months, get everyone vaccinated over the following 3 months, and attempt to open up fully by next spring. Is that being highly optimistic? Yeah. Is it impossible? There have been no indications thus far that it is. And if there's a chance we can achieve that, we should hold the course until we know for sure that's an impossibility. Cause I'd rather function at 50% capacity with masks for another 8 or 9 months than commit over hundreds of thousands more to death and financial ruin who could otherwise avoid it. And if it becomes clearer a vaccine is not anywhere close, we can pursue other avenues.

[Happy Panther]

22 minutes ago, Peon Awesome said:

In theory you could argue for this but in practice this isn't feasible or advisable for several reasons.

1) How do you ensure only young people get infected? They'd be congregating in groves, spreading the virus everywhere except where any elderly people might be? Elderly people wearing masks isn't going to protect them. The young people need to be wearing the masks for the elderly to avoid infection and then that would reduce your herd immunity plan. And elderly people are going to have a tough time avoiding all young people; at grocery stores, pharmacies, both other shoppers and the people at the register would pose a risk.

2. People are still forgetting that no one can say definitively that exposure = long-lasting immunity. It's possible people could fully recover from the infection and get infected again fairly quickly (although this seems less likely). But what's highly possible is they could recover from one infection and then 6 months later, the virus has undergone enough antigenic shift for them to get reinfected again by a slightly different version. So instead of having 1 huge peak, you have 2. And then you've also gotten a couple hundred million people infected with little benefit.

3. While young people are less likely to have severe disease, they're not immune from it. According to the CDC's latest published numbers, there are about 1,000 people under the age of 35 who have died from COVID in the US. Extend the age range to 44 and younger and it becomes 3,000 people. And that's highly unlikely to be enough to achieve herd immunity. Plus are you going to tell a 50 year old executive at his company to bunker down for 6 months? Cause add those 54 and younger and you're approaching 10,000 deaths. Now multiply those numbers by 10 since perhaps at most 10% of people have been infected so far. Now you'll have something close to 100,000 dead. And since a much higher percentage need hospitalization, let's say you've got 2 million or more hospitalized. Also recall that it's the 30 year olds who often are uninsured, no longer qualifying for their parents insurance, now many unemployed due to COVID without employer insurance or choose not to pay the high premiums since they've always been healthy. Now you've doomed hundreds of thousands of people to financial ruin with their insane hospital bills, stifling their economic contribution for decades.

Look I don't know the right answer. Ideally we get an effective vaccine in 5 months, get everyone vaccinated over the following 3 months, and attempt to open up fully by next spring. Is that being highly optimistic? Yeah. Is it impossible? There have been no indications thus far that it is. And if there's a chance we can achieve that, we should hold the course until we know for sure that's an impossibility. Cause I'd rather function at 50% capacity with masks for another 8 or 9 months than commit over hundreds of thousands more to death and financial ruin who could otherwise avoid it. And if it becomes clearer a vaccine is not anywhere close, we can pursue other avenues.

Yeah the "just quarantine those at risk" is not an option. Cant't trust Americans to wear a simple mask. We are going to trust all young people just to know who is at risk and stay away? Certain states and countries have shown what works. And its fairly simple. Why don't we just do that instead of ignoring it, calling for young people to congregate, calling it a hoax or blaming mass hysteria?

Anyway, SC showing a spike in deaths. Yay.

Edited July 7, 2020 by Happy Panther

[NanuqoftheNorth]

Yikes!

 

 

[Wes21]

22 minutes ago, Happy Panther said:

 

Anyway, SC showing a spike in deaths. Yay.

What are the numbers you are using? 

[Happy Panther]

6 minutes ago, Wes21 said:

What are the numbers you are using? 

https://covid19-projections.com/

Hover over the state for 7 day averages and change. These numbers will change almost daily and it only takes a few deaths to move the needle so I know there isn't a ton of credibility on a daily basis. FL and Arizona have remained red for both cases and deaths though.

[Happy Panther]

On 6/23/2020 at 3:44 PM, CRA said:

hospitalizations are going up in SC

hopefully the pattern doesn't hold.  But generally cases/spread goes up (saw that).  Now hospitalizations are going up.  Then the death count generally follows. 

Magic!