Good old common sense we're relying on at work here
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
Again, this is where common sense comes in. But a lot of people don’t seem to realise that the message is now “stay alert” not “stay at home”
Common sense isn’t all that common.
I think we'll see another wave in the winter and perhaps this has some seasonality to it. Might also help when people drop their guard down.
Right now with different behaviour, low levels of infected people I don't see a big surge very soon from protests or outside events and general easing up while people are remaining cautious, everything down to less talking on buses. This virus also takes some time despite being contagious, under old behaviour it took 2-3 months to see and hopefully each country can zero in on areas of super spreading and technology can help inform of recurrences.
Right now with different behaviour, low levels of infected people I don't see a big surge very soon from protests or outside events and general easing up while people are remaining cautious, everything down to less talking on buses. This virus also takes some time despite being contagious, under old behaviour it took 2-3 months to see and hopefully each country can zero in on areas of super spreading and technology can help inform of recurrences.
Last edited:
Also in the second wave camp, although I think it will be lower in terms of cases hospitalised and deaths at any one time and will be flatter than before
Its just the natural course of this disease I think from the point of spread, infection to its manifestation takes 2 week or so, but I think aggregate effect of a significant amount of people making little behavioural changes with more people working from home, gatherings being not as frequent etc it will have an effect hopefully.
And I think any flattening of the curve will be attributable to those things rather than the virus being less virulent/infective
That said number of new cases (which I think still is a huge underestimation due to only symptomatic people going for it, and many of the milder ones probably arent even doing so) is still a worry.
Its just the natural course of this disease I think from the point of spread, infection to its manifestation takes 2 week or so, but I think aggregate effect of a significant amount of people making little behavioural changes with more people working from home, gatherings being not as frequent etc it will have an effect hopefully.
And I think any flattening of the curve will be attributable to those things rather than the virus being less virulent/infective
That said number of new cases (which I think still is a huge underestimation due to only symptomatic people going for it, and many of the milder ones probably arent even doing so) is still a worry.
The conversation jumped around a fair bit and things might have gotten a bit muddled, so I'll try and put it a different way. I definitely wasn't ruling out a second wave occuring at any point.I was thinking about this discussion again just now. Something else I should have pointed out was the graph of previous pandemics. You get a spike, followed by a flat line, then another spike. With usually at least a couple of months on the flat line. What you never see is two spikes, side by side, bases touching.
Now, to be honest, I’m not entirely sure what causes that flat line but I do know that countries not experiencing an immediate rebound coming out of lockdown shouldn’t provide us with much reassurance. Not until those countries are at least a month out or two out of lockdown. Which is still several weeks away.
Spanish flu mortality:
A lot of people worried about a near-instant spike in cases after relaxing lockdown measures. Two weeks after so and so happened, people worried whether there might be a spike. It was mentioned a lot in here but there were a lot of sensible medical experts that openly worried relaxing all sorts of measures, across various countries, would cause a very sudden spike. That was one reason not to re-open the economy quickly, and it was one argument used very commonly on here to shame people. I'm not making any grander statements than simply saying that hasn't happened, that initial fear hasn't been proven true, and so that provides legitimacy for people questioning the other fears. It at the very least reinforces the fact that there's still a lot of uncertainty here, so the people who are saying x will lead to y, with any degree of certainty, are fooling themselves. At which point it becomes a question of judgement, more so than it was before.
You're saying now that you would never see two spikes side-by-side, but that wasn't what many people were saying just a month ago. It was a legitimate fear. While it didn't happen globally for the Spanish flu (I assume that's the graph?), at a more local level that was something seen during the 1918 pandemic so it presumably is something that could happen at a national level. There was an uptick in deaths just a couple of weeks after restrictions were relaxed in multiple major US cities.
What might have a sudden, dramatic effect is the collective will for social distancing disappearing and young folks socialising like normal, as hinted at by what happened in Seoul. Or as we move into winter we could see that sudden spike in other viruses and a lot more time spend indoors with friends and family. Or it might be a slow burner that's been started by the relaxation of these measures, but it's just hard to detect. There's a tiny minority that have completely ruled out a second wave because they seem intent on only reading stories that make them feel good. I don't think anyone in power has taken that position, or that the political will is leaning that way.
In any case it isn't clear what the right choice is in this scenario, there's a lot of uncertainty. Locking down was a no-brainer, and unfortunately our political leaders decided to disengage their brains at that early point. There's much more room to make choices now, with a vast range of uncertain outcomes. The main disconnect in comparisons between the Spanish flu and now is how slowly things have declined after that peak. We might not see a second peak but see a much, much longer tail, which could both cause more death in the process and be even harder to link to the lockdown measures. As things are opening up and the declines continue, we're still missing that counterfactual - would things have dropped off a cliff if we just enforced a harsh lockdown for a few weeks longer? We'll never know.
Superspreading events are the catalyst for the major covid-19 infections hubs. There was a German report on this somewhere in this mega-post. I myself do not believe the virus has weakened, at least, there is no evidence, but rather we have implemented enough changes in our behaviour (washing hands, staying apart etc) that the virus can not get a good enough foothold. But we will see then, during June/July what comes of this. I fear the worst and hope for the best. If we look at sweden, they have a rather steady pace in the infections and deaths with medium regulations on society. It does not seem to have "stopped" there. I can not see anything that suggest the virus can not do another Bergamo unless there is huge amounts of antibodies in the population. What worries me most is that the demonstrations and other people gatherings at beaches etc goes on day after day and the exponential growth the virus has shown to have. But time will show. I do hope I am wrong.
I do not know if this has been debated earlier as I have not read so much lately here, but if anyone is interested:
A Norwegian vaccine researcher, Birger Sørensen, claims Covid-19 has not been made naturally.
He says the so-called Spike-proteins within the virus seems to have been placed there artificially. He worked together with british professor Angus Dalgliesh and a study has been released and can be found here :
Cambridge study
The original interview in the Norwegian newspaper is here :
Article in Norwegian newspaper VG
Google translate from article :
Norwegian researches on the coronavirus: - Not created by natural development
The coronavirus has not originated naturally, but was probably developed by Chinese and American scientists, according to a Norwegian vaccine scientist.
Vaccine researcher Birger Sørensen shows in a study that the virus's so-called spike protein contains sequences that appear to be inserted artificially, writes NRK.
Sørensen has collaborated with British professor Angus Dalgliesh, and the recent study is published in the journal Quarterly Review of Biophysics.
- When we technically describe the virus, we see that it has not come about in a natural development. It's done by Americans and Chinese, as part of what's called "gain of function" studies. It is done all over the world. You say you don't, but it happens all the time in advanced labs, says Sørensen.
The study points out that the corona virus has almost not mutated since it started transmitting between humans, which may indicate that the virus was already adapted to humans. Sørensen emphasizes that it is uncommon for viruses when they cross species barriers.
----
There was also an article in The Telegraph about this subject :
Article in the Telegraph
A Norwegian vaccine researcher, Birger Sørensen, claims Covid-19 has not been made naturally.
He says the so-called Spike-proteins within the virus seems to have been placed there artificially. He worked together with british professor Angus Dalgliesh and a study has been released and can be found here :
Cambridge study
The original interview in the Norwegian newspaper is here :
Article in Norwegian newspaper VG
Google translate from article :
Norwegian researches on the coronavirus: - Not created by natural development
The coronavirus has not originated naturally, but was probably developed by Chinese and American scientists, according to a Norwegian vaccine scientist.
Vaccine researcher Birger Sørensen shows in a study that the virus's so-called spike protein contains sequences that appear to be inserted artificially, writes NRK.
Sørensen has collaborated with British professor Angus Dalgliesh, and the recent study is published in the journal Quarterly Review of Biophysics.
- When we technically describe the virus, we see that it has not come about in a natural development. It's done by Americans and Chinese, as part of what's called "gain of function" studies. It is done all over the world. You say you don't, but it happens all the time in advanced labs, says Sørensen.
The study points out that the corona virus has almost not mutated since it started transmitting between humans, which may indicate that the virus was already adapted to humans. Sørensen emphasizes that it is uncommon for viruses when they cross species barriers.
----
There was also an article in The Telegraph about this subject :
Article in the Telegraph
Two weeks after Memorial Day in the US and cases are spiking. No way we’re past this yet. People are taking the piss again with social distancing and it’s going to come home to roost.
Ruled out by peer reviewed studies. It started in Wuhan with the outbreak probably diffusing through wet markets, with the initial jump from what was most likely bats taking place there or possibly happening rurally in the Hubei province which then traveled to the markets.
This study ruled out by which studies? All I see is your words vs. researchers that are developing vaccines and have done a lot of research - so links would help. And your origin theories are just theories. "possible" and "propably" is not factual but theoretical maybes, what I want to know if these guys can be correct in that the Spike-Protein sequence is un-natural.
As for the started in Wuhan theory - the Chinese has still not identified patient zero, neither can anyone prove the virus originated in the fishmarkets. The Chinese and many others believe it did not. https://www.sciencealert.com/chines...market-was-the-site-of-a-super-spreader-event
edit: I do not know anything myself, but I keep all possibilities open in my mind. There is a lot of politics in this so maybe we will never really know.
This is like global warming. It’s always possible to find some research, or some scientists, who have opinions that disagree with the overwhelming consensus of all other scientists. The problem with taking them seriously is that the scientific consensus is almost always correct. About everything.
That is not always the case early in studying something. At the same time scientists say "we still do not know much about this virus" - all the answers are clear regarding this topic? How many respected scientists are on one side vs how many on the other side of this? Is there any known numbers for that? Especially when the answer is tough politically as well as against the wishes of people, then maybe not all researchers dare say what they believe either. Like you say, consesus is almost always correct. Almost.
Yeah, I mean it's not like cases across the world are hitting new highs on an almost daily basis.
The pandemic is getting worse not better, it's just in countries you dont care about now.
I assume that’s places where they are earlier in their “curve” though?
This has been my worry for some time. We manage to get it under control here in Europe, wich is great of course, but then its ”africas problem” or ”South americas problem” and we stop caring.
Yes mostly, but it illustrates that the virus is far from on it's way out. If we get complacent it will come back, that's not really up for discussion.
And it’s not always possible to find the holes in the contradictory studies, unless you’re a climatologist. Or in this case, a virologist/epidemiologist/something-gist.
Indeed. What countries in particular are getting worse? I see little news coverage on African countries or South America (Brazil aside)
It's getting bad across all of South America now, and a lot of the Middle East/India.
If it remains prevalent elsewhere in the world there will always be a risk of it coming back to Europe.
Mexico seems to be one of the countries also which it is rising quite quickly even after some restrictions have been lifted.
Should be in the ‘Stupid Questions’ thread... but how hard is it to make Oxygen for hospitals, at scale?As I was writing it I kept thinking “too morbid?” but got up a head of steam and had to see it through.
It's getting bad in India alright. To make matters worse, tomorrow we will be opening up malls and religious places etc. Schools will be following shortly. The summer is nearly on its way out with the monsoon beginning to set in. I really fear the worst over the next 2 months.
See the update from Ian Reus a few pages back: Peru is a disaster zone, and much of Latin America is struggling. The numbers are small so far because it got there late, but Yemen and Syria may have a rough go of it. The Subcontinent including Rohingya refugee camps will also see numbers rising.
The daily positive cases from India+Pakistan+Bangladesh are already the highest globally and this is with relatively far less testing. India individually will likely be topping that chart in 2 weeks time.
I have absolutely no idea. A friend of mine was working at the hospital which nearly ran out and learned a few things about it that had never occurred to me. There’s different grades of oxygen. The vast majority is used in construction. Medical grade oxygen is rarer/more expensive. I presume it’s made from water? So probably not too difficult to upscale manufacturing. Just takes a while.
This is absolutely not like global warming. The virus has been known for a few months only, and it's way too early to talk about a scientific consensus. There's no conclusive evidence for one or the other and we should not lock onto a specific train of thought and try to silence debate about it. Keeping an open mind is essential in science.
A consensus can develop quickly. There are loads of important things about SARS-COV2 that the scientific community are already in agreement about.
I’ll admit I haven’t read much of the literature on its origin but was under the impression that the idea it jumped from animal to human was widely accepted by people who have.
Chemist here, and have toured the BOC facility at Thame. Oxygen is made from liquified air. Air is cooled until nitrogen condenses into a liquid which is then bottled or tanked, and the remaining mix of oxygen and a few trace gases are cooled a bit more till the oxygen liquifies and again its bottled or tanked. They do go on to further cool and separate the trace gases as the Argon is valuable.
I was amazed when they tapped off some liquid oxygen to show us and it was bright blue in colour!
I have to admit, I do not know enough on these subjects, being a mechanical engineer and not a virus scientist. But, Can not the jumping from animal to animal AND the virus manipulated be true? Can't a virus be genetically changed in a small sequence, then given to an animal like a bat, and then the bat escapes and spreads the virus to other bats? I don't know. But it does seem plausible from an outsiders view. Or maybe not. Hard to tell for us mere mortals
I'm wearing a face mask now. Damn, you're just breathing all over your face.
Terrible joke, did not create any atmosphere.
Sunetra Gupta (the women quoted on that article) did an interview on unherd not long back and she's convinced the virus is on the way out. I'm not that hopeful but she makes some intresting points, especially about this lockdown weakining immune responses (in layman terms if there is another wave we're actually more vulnerable to it the longer lockdown goes on).
How difficult is it to make lots of it?
It's very, very easy to make lots of it. The raw material is free, everywhere and in plentiful supply.
Storing it on the other hand...
I'm guessing we only have so many tankers lorries, bottles etc. Another consideration is for the guys who drive the lorries. I think they have more qualifications than just a HGV licence but that's a guess.
It needs some mutations to go from a bat host to human host. Assuming we know what these are (I'm not sure we do, but probably yes), and have the technology to make them (almost definitely yes), there is another hurdle.I have to admit, I do not know enough on these subjects, being a mechanical engineer and not a virus scientist. But, Can not the jumping from animal to animal AND the virus manipulated be true? Can't a virus be genetically changed in a small sequence, then given to an animal like a bat, and then the bat escapes and spreads the virus to other bats? I don't know. But it does seem plausible from an outsiders view. Or maybe not. Hard to tell for us mere mortals
Natural mutations are random. Evolution itself is based on these random changes, it is not a directed process. There will be many differences between the bat origin and the eventual human-infecting virus. And most of these differences will have no relevance to the functional difference of the two. So, if we see a human virus sequence identical to a bat virus except for very few key changes, we'll know almost 100% surely that it is engineered in a lab. If this was the case, it would've been exposed by now.
On the other hand, if scientists wanted to make a bunch of other changes to make it look natural, I am not sure if that is technically possible, or that we have the knowledge of viral genomes to direct these changes while also making sure they all do not change the functionality of the virus.
Good news.
New Zealand about to officially call itself Covid free. No outstanding cases, no new cases since24th 22nd May.
Total: 1,504 cases, 1,482 recoveries, 22 deaths.
New Zealand about to officially call itself Covid free. No outstanding cases, no new cases since
Total: 1,504 cases, 1,482 recoveries, 22 deaths.
Last edited: