Are you hunkering down?

Once achieved, herd immunity, I'm sure we can agree, is a good and necessary thing. The question is how do we achieve it.

Are we to be treated like an animal herd where the strong and lucky survive and the weak, susceptible and unlucky die? Is that okay because their deaths help the rest of us get back to normal sooner?

Or do we follow the "experts" advise and guidelines and wait until this is under control thru testing and eventually a vaccine.

I prefer the expert route.

The economy is repairable, death is not.

The economy can be re-opened with data obtained from testing and observing guidelines. Herd immunity must be achieved with the vaccine.
 
Even after all the disease trauma in Seattle by sometime next month only 2% of us will have contracted the virus. Herd immunity is likely not possible until a vaccine is widely available.
 
We all are worried both about the devastation of the CV19 and the effect of economic shutdown. When we get a rapid and reliable antibody test (and confirm that this gives at least good temporary immunity), then it will be "safe" to allow at least those people back to work under "normal" circumstances.

What we don't know now is the number of asymptomatic or low symptom individuals who have immunity (show the antibody for CV19).. There are some pretty good studies suggesting that the virus has circulated for longer than initially realized in asymptomatic or low symptom carriers. My guess that immunity is far greater than 2%. These tests are available, and there should shortly be mass testing.

From John Hopkins web site:

Rapid diagnostic test (RDT) 10-30 minutes
Pro: The presence or absence (qualitative) of antibodies against the virus present in patient serum.

Cond:The quantifiable amount of antibodies in the patient serum, or if these antibodies are able to protect against future infection

Enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) 1-5 hours

Pro: The presence or absence (quantitative) of antibodies against the virus present in patient serum.

Con: If the antibodies are able to protect against future infection.


Neutralization assay 3-5 days

Pro: The presence of active antibodies in patient serum that are able to inhibit virus growth ex vivo, in a cell culture system. Indicates if the patient is protected against future infection.

Con: It may miss antibodies to viral proteins that are not involved in replication.
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There are new tests being developed. Currently there is only one (RTD) which is approved for US. It is already shipping to research institutes. There are over half a dozen approved for research and clinical trials in other countries, and under consideration here--some are available now elsewhere.

There are several dozen more in the "pipeline"--and will be approved at some point in the future.

Many of the tests were developed in China. They have had a huge lead time over the US. Many of our research instituted were working on the problem in mid to late January. China began work in early to mid Dec (Or before???)

So it still remains a time line game....but decisions will need to be made soon for at least partial return to work. Here in Pensacola, we have auto repair shops open, We just had a new fence put in. Houses locally are being built or re-modeled. We also see many who are not wearing masks or gloves and crowding in some stores--other stores there is order and all have masks on. It depends on the state and local governments.

My son was at his boat in Dana Point, CA yesterday to check it out after heavy rains. The launch ramp was still open; he talked to the marina office and they were considering shutting the ramp down because there were social distance and number of people on the boat violations..
 
kennharriet":33428pzd said:
Not arguing with anyone.
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.......a chance to uplift your spirit and well-being in the enjoyment of this beautiful world our Allah has created.

Allah designed us better than that.

Allah bless you all and Allah bless the America I want back TODAY.
 
RobLL":3evsx3kz said:
This article is based on a number of high level academics and researchers from the U of WA, Hutchinson Cancer center and others. Easy read but fairly technical.
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I agree with all, but the "modeling of 2%"--and that most likely neglects the theory that there is more wide spread asymptotic carriers. That does not mean she is wrong, but she may or may not have a defective model....We see this every day. The article is based on what the writer perceives that the academics and researchers believe or have written.

One might take the word of another newspaper the LA Times:

The result suggested that 8% of people walking into the urgent care centers carried the novel coronavirus, an infection rate that mirrored the 5% infection rate at a Los Angeles medical center, the CDC said in a report published Friday.
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The CDC Report

or Stanford University:

Direct report here.

Remember that newspaper "science editors" job is to sell newspapers. I learned that lesson many years ago when seated next to the local newspaper's Scientific Editor. I asked Ben, why he put in some items as facts that were not proven or even misleading. His response: "My job is to sell newspapers, yours is to heal patients...." :D
 
It's not just the wide open spaces of rural America that are perfect for getting out and enjoying some sunlight. I live in Los Angeles County and have been able to go for long walks or bike rides nearly every day this year.

Traffic is way down so I feel safer in the streets without bike lanes. Most people are staying home, so the only time I'm near a crowd is at the grocery store. I ride 40-80 miles per day and the only people I see on the streets are others out exercising and a few selling masks on the street corners.

The only downside I've found is that the local politicians who seem to really be enjoying this sudden power they have accumulated. Mayors and Governors deem it necessary to hold daily televised gab fests even when no new information is available. They have shut down sidewalks and bike paths along the beach because they believe the virus will jump from one person to the next if they are within six feet of each other.

I can't watch the news any longer, because there is no news. They no longer report crime, political news, traffic, or the number of people who have died from other causes including the flu.

I'm fortunate to have my boat in a slip. I've been able to get out a few times between storms. The only thing I haven't been able to do in the past two months is buy toilet paper. Hoarders have emptied the shelves. I bought a multi-pack in January and have enough left for a few more weeks. If this madness isn't over by then, I'll have to use some of the biodegradable paper we have on the boat.
 
Foggy":3bl0sqhr said:
Seems to make some sense, Greg Buenger, except:

Not everyone lives in the "wide open spaces". The key to stopping spread "is" to
isolate and avoid contact w/others especially in areas of high population density.
This is where a novel virus replicates easiest. These are the current world's "hot
spots", not the open rolling hills of cattle country. Simply fact.

By using "Chinese Virus" for COVID-19, you demonstrate divisiveness rather than
unity which is a poor prescription, doctor, promoting further misunderstanding
and intolerance of those perhaps unlike yourself. Hardly what this country needs
on top of a pandemic.

We are all in this one together; one species, one planet.

Aye.
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Agreed. The use of the term "China Virus" (when this could just as easily have come out of Houston or Winnipeg etc.) probably tells us all we need to know about the veiled political intent of the post.

It's a bizarre post anyway, though. Let's see: I want advice on dealing with the most severe pandemic to strike the human population in 100 years; who should I turn to for advice? The extremely strong consensus of the global population of epidemiologists and crisis responders? Or... a single veterinarian?

I mean.... what??
 
Pacificcoast101":22awsfw2 said:
Viruses have been named for centuries for the place they were originally found. I guess we can no longer say words like German Measles or the Hong Kong Flu.
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Where was the Spanish Flu from?
 
Where was the Spanish Flu from?
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There have been statements that the epidemic originated in the United States. Historian Alfred W. Crosby stated in 2003 that the flu originated in Kansas,[25] and popular author John M. Barry described a January 1918 outbreak in Haskell County, Kansas, as the point of origin in his 2004 article.[5]

The above statement comes out of Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu

In WWI, Spain was neutral and thus its papers were free to report the flu, thus it was able to get the naming rights. Kansas lost out on the publicity value because of the war. Not that I would want a pandemic named after my home.
 
Then there's the point that many of these bugs seem to surface simultaneously in multiple parts of the world, making their true origin a mystery. Which is of course the whole reason why we stopped naming diseases for regions quite a while ago... until a politician decides he needs a scapegoat, I guess. But when did we start letting politicians name diseases anyway? Seems like Covid-19 might be a more precise name for the virus caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2.
 
NORO LIM":r2tmvubx said:
Where was the Spanish Flu from?
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It is unknown. But the first reported case was at Fort Riley, Kansas on March 4 1918. The virus is probably of avian origin, and transferred to mammals sometime in the several preceding years. China, Briton and France have also been suspect. There were studies done on lungs of indigenous people in AK where 72 or 80 in a small isolated village died in Sept. 1918. There is suspicion that the virus came across the Bering straits, and inflected this village. The virus RNA was discovered in the frozen lung tissue of one of the victims buried in 1918 not too long ago.

The one soldier at Fort Riley infected hundreds more, who were sent to the European war theater during March 1918. The pandemic spread from there. By May 1918 it had spread to neutral Spain. The allied powers governments had surpassed the severity of the flu on the fighting forces (and civilian population) for moral and tactical reasons. But Spain was not subject to censorship, and when the "News of the sickness first made headlines in Madrid in late-May 1918, and coverage only increased after the Spanish King Alfonso XIII". It was then labeled the "Spanish Flu".

It was an H1N1 virus, very similar to the "Swine Flu of 2009".

I'll let you draw your own conclusions where the virus left the wild world and entered the human.
 
We bounce between pointed terms like “China virus “, and the bizarre suggestion that the current deadly Coronavirus spontaneously sprung forth from multiple points on the earth....

I think we got cabin fever

Probably time to get some fresh air, keeping safe distance from others.
 
westward":35kxdx72 said:
We bounce between pointed terms like “China virus “, and the bizarre suggestion that the current deadly Coronavirus spontaneously sprung forth from multiple points on the earth....

I think we got cabin fever

Probably time to get some fresh air, keeping safe distance from others.
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:thup :thup
 
Sensitivity to the term "Chinese Virus", recently used by the white house, is a
sort of hangover from the damage caused by terms used in the early 1980s
AIDS scare. "Gay Plague" and "Gay-Related Immune Deficiency" ("GRID")
apparently demonized the gay community causing a great deal of harm.
So much so, the CDC in 1982 renamed the disease "Acquired Immuno-
deficiency Syndrome" (AIDS") attempting to remove the damage.

Politicians renaming COVID-19 Chinese Virus, calling this term technically
correct, has created the same fear and stigma of Asian Americans as did the
terms used of gays in the 1980s.

Words matter.

Aye.
 
I have a cousin whose wife came from Singapore when she was a child. She has been afraid to come out in public (San Francisco area) since the middle of January because of fear of Asians and discrimination. There was an article in the New York Times about assaults against Chinese Americans in early March. The perception is in the public mind without a tag.
 
The demarcation of this as "Chinese" flu has more to do with the fact that China exists in a closed world with the tacit support of most NGOs/multi-nationals as well as, surprise, the WHOl. Despicable what the WHO was saying through this entire process, when they absolutely new better.

This is a location issue - not a racial issue - unless you believe that Americans of Chinese decent are - not Amereican - or are "more loyal" to China. That comes from your own personal bias I suppose.

I don't think anyone believes that to be the case.

In fact, China has likely hidden true death rates and, as always, wants to present China as the "perfect society". Calling them out on this is perfectly appropriate, even if it conflating a technical name with location of origin - which has always been the case historically.

And, there are many liberal organizations and news media taking the WHO to task as well. COVID-19 is fine with me - but don't lose site how this mess started and some transparency would have saved a number of lives. But we would rather be more concerned with "naming" this than to really figure out what best to do in the future. Which may mean more focus from our supposed "intelligence agencies" to actually ... get ... data? :)
 
westward":3jchjbqs said:
We bounce between pointed terms like “China virus “, and the bizarre suggestion that the current deadly Coronavirus spontaneously sprung forth from multiple points on the earth....

I think we got cabin fever

Probably time to get some fresh air, keeping safe distance from others.
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Don't misunderstand, I'm not saying that new diseases DO emerge simultaneously in multiple locations; they certainly have an origin. My point is exactly what was explained about the 1918 flu - clusters of it popped up in multiple locations around the same time, making it difficult to determine where it REALLY started.
 
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