Re: Coronavirus data and events as they come in

[The Wizard Joseph]

  Well... apparently it pays the bills.

[Cramulus]

right, like I once wrote a 1000 page dissertation about the history of dog vomit,
which (*looks down over his glasses*) is in the library of congress, by the way,
here's my opinion about vaccines

[The Wizard Joseph]

right, like I once wrote a 1000 page dissertation about the history of dog vomit,
which (*looks down over his glasses*) is in the library of congress, by the way,
here's my opinion about vaccines

retroviral vaccines are bleeding edge experimental tech and we're hoping for an effective, safe one in a year...

[chaotic neutral observer]

i was sent this by a very dear friend who is among the most intelligent folks I know.

... but he's a bit dogmatic...

How can someone be intelligent and dogmatic?

Intelligence is adaptability.  Dogma is inflexibility.

[The Wizard Joseph]

i was sent this by a very dear friend who is among the most intelligent folks I know.

... but he's a bit dogmatic...

How can someone be intelligent and dogmatic?

Intelligence is adaptability.  Dogma is inflexibility.

You might say that rather he has great intellectual capacity, but a head full of some unfortunate memes.

BTW I thought about what to short the dollar against and I'm thinking the Swiss franc. I have not done the dilligence nor looked at the current numbers, but the swissie is a commonly held reserve currency that has direct ties to the value of the Euro and is often seen as similar to gold as a stable investment in emergency situations. They also are unlikeley to need to hyper inflate to shore up their economy because they hold SO MUCH raw capital in their banking systems. you might start there as a point of further research.

[Doktor Howl]

i was sent this by a very dear friend who is among the most intelligent folks I know.

... but he's a bit dogmatic...

How can someone be intelligent and dogmatic?

Intelligence is adaptability.  Dogma is inflexibility.

He collects bad signal in a flexible, dynamic way.

[The Wizard Joseph]

i was sent this by a very dear friend who is among the most intelligent folks I know.

... but he's a bit dogmatic...

How can someone be intelligent and dogmatic?

Intelligence is adaptability.  Dogma is inflexibility.

He collects bad signal in a flexible, dynamic way.

Actually... that's pretty accurate. I have known him since early childhood and have ever been a counterpoint to that tendency.

[The Wizard Joseph]

I posted this to the Trump thread too, but think it should also be here. I didn't start research in earnest until the end of February. They had projections not unlike my own well before that. Trump tacitly claims negligence, probably just a straight up lie. Both are federal crimes, one is treason.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-adviser-warned-of-millions-of-coronavirus-deaths-back-in-january-trump-says-he-only-saw-the-memo-this-week-005304311.html

[chaotic neutral observer]

The Canadian Public Health Agency has released a report, including some modelling.  The best case scenario is that the epidemic here continues until mid-late summer.

https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/phac-aspc/documents/services/diseases/2019-novel-coronavirus-infection/using-data-modelling-inform-eng.pdf

[The Wizard Joseph]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/coronavirus-patient-believes-life-saved-030301908.html

This video was very difficult to watch because it sent my nearly seraphic shit sniffer into overdrive. The combination of an anti-paracitic and an antibiotic will have precisely ZERO effect upon viral infection and is unlikely to even slightly treat symptoms. To the contrary the side effects of hydroxychloroquine taken even in proper dosage can GREATLY exacerbate Covid symptoms, particularly if you get the nasty diarrhea/nausea combo that prevents you from drinking water while massively and swiftly dehydrating you.

This asshat is claiming a belief he admits is based on speculation about the timing of the dose and his break from symptoms. The "15 pills" he took was a negligible dose therapeutically. This was all carefully scripted to avoid statements of "fact" that would be rather actionable. I have occasionally been razzed about using Yahoo for sourcing info, but I do it in part because it often brings up articles from outright liars that I would like to hear for the sake of knowing what shit is currently popping up into a mainstream sector of the internet. They're going to make A LOT of money by seriously harming already sick people by selling a rather venomous snake oil indeed, and this vid was basically an instructive, deviously suggestive infomercial for it.

now... excuse me for a sec...

[Cramulus]

A friend of mine (who is a doctor and works at a hospital) reccommended following a pathologist who debunks popular media claims about covid. I'll share my friend's endorsement, then the latest article from the person:

One of the most frustrating things about knowledge sharing in the time of coronavirus is how easy it is to spread info that is premised in flawed conceptions of science, or that is blatantly false. Doctors and research scientists are not always the most compelling storytellers so better writers with shoddy grasps of medicine step in to fill the void and end up seeding misinformation. Luckily, here is an account of an actual doctor (a pathologist with training in viral epidemiology) who is a smart and savvy writer and puts out daily posts debunking popular media claims about covid, and gives updates on how to interpret projections and testing data. Follow her! You might even start to feel like it's ok to breathe (behind a mask. And wash your hands.)

https://www.facebook.com/jenniferkastenmd/posts/120574959595451




1) Critiquing the "Belgian-Dutch Study: Why in times of COVID-19 you should not walk/run/bike close to each other" (what's the infectious dose for COVID anyway); 2) How that idea of infectious dose dictates how we can interact with the world/food/people/mail/things other people have touched.

There was an ominous-sounding blog post stating that any form of outdoor exercise where you pass within 30 feet of another person will lead to transmission of COVID-19. It was written by Jurgen Thoelen, a Belgian expat in Russia who works in cloud computing, and who also founded a sports training agency. He got the information from an interview given to a Brussels newspaper by Bert Blocken, an engineering researcher interested in wind tunnels and the aerodynamics of sports (involving concepts like athletes drafting off each other).

Bert Blocken, wind tunnel sports guy, decided to get into experimental virology and then decided his conclusions were too important to submit for publication or any form of peer review, so immediately posted them on twitter and contacted a newspaper for an interview. [Since the Medium piece, he has submitted a pre-print]. He did not consult a virologist, clinical physician, or epidemiologist in his research. Since we're all used to only having vetted, peer-reviewed research put out in the public square like this, readers- including Thoelen- took it as scientific fact.

Even though Thoelen didn't have it available to him, let's look at the Blocken pre-print (non-peer-reviewed) paper. He made a wind tunnel and installed some spray nozzles, with the holes in the nozzles set to sizes which somewhat line up with human droplet and droplet nuclei particles. He set different temperatures, and different levels of humidity, and different windspeeds. He decided that whether or not the particles evaporated was a good proxy for whether or not they're infectious. And he simulated runners and cyclists side-by-side / behind each other /diagonally, and calculated how many non-evaporated droplets hit them. He concluded if ANY droplets hit the trailing athlete, they'd get infected; and came up with the 30-feet rule, implying all of the guidance on social distancing was laughably ineffective.

Several immediate problems are obvious:
- Humans aren't spray nozzles generating a continuous mist of droplets under steady pressure
- Droplets are infectious if they contain live virus, and denaturation occurs prior to complete evaporation. A LOT OF PARTICLES ARE DEFECTIVE IN HUMAN RESPIRATORY VIRUSES- the particles "fail to infect" (this in virology is called the particle-to-PFU ratio, and the coronaviruses make a bunch of useless ones).
- No attempt to use SARS-CoV-2-specific infectious particle size was made
- Unless you're heading straight into a gale, particles from a cough/sneeze spread out in front of you and disperse laterally
- MOST IMPORTANTLY BY FAR: there was no attempt made to simulate an appropriate infectious dose. How many virions do we need to inhale in order to reliably become infected? How much virus does an infected person generate, anyway?

The answer is: we don't exactly know (unless you want to volunteer for a controlled experiment snorting different concentrations of virus up your nose and waiting to see when you become infected, we might have to rely on mice). But we DO know, definitely, it's more than 1, AND:
-We know asymptomatic people have very high concentrations of virus in their respiratory tree and nasopharynx, on the order of 700 million viruses per 1000 cells-- BUT they aren't successful at getting all that virus out in the world.
- At 8 inches away infected people generate only about 6000 copies/ mL (from that facemask study yesterday).
- The infectious dose of the MERS coronavirus is between 1000-10,000 virions, to produce symptoms. Estimates are SARS-CoV-2 will be in the high 100s/low1000s.

SO: At 8 inches, you'll get 2-3x the infectious dose, with a dispersion effect showing very rapid trail off-after that. 6 feet = 72 inches = 9 separate iterations of "trail-off," taking our 8 inches-from-the-face Petri dish as a standard unit. That's a lot.

We also know most everyone out exercising has an innate immune system, too. So run like the wind, everyone, Inhale some virus, you can still beat it.

And much, much, much more importantly- we know there is a HUGE difference between "viral RNA detected" on a surface and at a distance, and actual live infectious virus. Bringing us to:

2) It's really *almost* impossible to get COVID from a cereal box or a piece of mail.

Several good, high-quality, peer-reviewed studies have demonstrated that detectable viral RNA is found on various inert surfaces days after virus was first placed there. That cruise ship showed viral RNA weeks after the last people disembarked. That's naturally sparked worries about eating virus (on food), and handling objects which might have been handled by infected people.

Firstly- viruses denature (degrade/fall apart) rapidly in the environment. They need cells to "live" (replicate) and without cells, they're at the mercy of entropy. Their protein coat dissolves and denatures, and eventually, their core RNA is left lying around, like bleached bones in the sun. Although the world is awash with enzymes which digest RNA some sequences will survive to be picked up by an enterprising researcher with PCR. And without that spike protein to dock with a living human cell (via that ACE-2 receptor), SARS-CoV-2 RNA can't do anything. It can't infect a cell and begin replicating. So when experiments based on PCR (which amplifies just the RNA) say they detect viral RNA, they are not necessarily detecting infectious virus. Over very long periods of time- the cruise ship- they almost certainly are not.

And when they say "any infectious virus"-- they mean ANY. Remember the discussion about infectious dose above? On cardboard, in the NEJM paper where they computer-simulated infectious virus by spraying aerosols on surface and modeling the decay (NOT confirmed by PCR), the virus fell below the infectious dose within a couple of hours- even assuming it was 100% viable in each and every particle, which it totally isn't.

Secondly, it's a respiratory virus. It can only dock with certain cells in your body. When you eat live, infectious virus, the enzymes in your saliva start to work- and then, within a few seconds, the virus hits your stomach where the acid environment causes it to fall apart. Although virus has been isolated from stool, good-quality data shows that it was not infective virus, it was mostly denatured and digested virus.

So, the cereal box. Let's say someone spray-sneezes all over your cereal box. The virus has a half-life of 70 minutes, on cardboard, so you'd have to pick it up right away and rush home with it. A small amount of infectious virus is transferred to your hands when you pull it off the shelf (you need a few hundred/thousand to successfully end up in some part of your body with the correct receptors , remember?). The virus cannot burrow into your skin- so, on your hands some will denature further, just hanging out; some will fall off whenever you touch anything else. By the time you accidentally touch your face or wipe your nose, you don't have much left. And then- it's just on your face, close to a mucus membrane, maybe some gets in? Unless you take a deep, fragrant, admiring sniff of your hands, or the cereal box... it's tough.

Bottom line: washing your hands and not touching your face is good. Keep doing that. And if you like bleaching and wearing gloves for the sense of absolute harm reduction and a feeling that you're controlling at least something in this crazy world, by all means continue to do so But- if you have to choose between a mask and the bleach/gloves routine: PLEASE CHOOSE THE MASK. THE MASK IS SIGNIFICANTLY MORE LIKELY TO EFFECTIVELY PREVENT TRANSMISSION.

[The Wizard Joseph]

That was VERY helpful. Thanks Cram! It somewhat put my mind at ease on the virus' quite high, but not abnormal, resistance to desiccation and ability to go airborne for lengthy amounts of time at high susceptibility. I had been disclosed by a microbiologist working directly on the coronavirus research the number 17 days for how long they had detected the virus in those ships' interiors. This was in a secret Zoom meeting to speak privately with several experts that I happened to be invited to by its coordinator.

I've decided to follow this and set it to topload any new stuff into my feed. Will almost certainly share and encourage others to do so as well.

[The Wizard Joseph]

a potentially useful data compiling map.

https://covid19.topos.com/

[Doktor Howl]

I wear a bandana around my face.  It's main purpose is to keep me from touching my face, and also to remind people to keep their distance.

[The Wizard Joseph]

I wear a bandana around my face.  It's main purpose is to keep me from touching my face, and also to remind people to keep their distance.

Also helps capture breath droplets if you're a carrier. everyone needs to be masking up in public. I made these memes for my ex gf by request because as a nurse in rural Wisconsin she HATES seeing how nobody seems to give a shit. She requested Xena and a fire breathing dragon specifically.