***NON-POLITICAL COVID-19 Discussion Thread***

[JakeF]

A couple of reminders...

Originally Posted by Bwana

Once again, don't come in this thread with some kind of political agenda, or you will be shown the door. If you want to go that route, there is a thread about this in DC.

Originally Posted by Dartgod

People, there is a lot of good information in this thread, let's try to keep the petty bickering to a minimum.

We all have varying opinions about the impact of this, the numbers, etc. We will all never agree with each other. But we can all keep it civil.

Thanks!

Click here for the original OP:

Spoiler!

Apparently the CoronaVirus can survive on a inanimate objects, such as door knobs, for 9 days.

California coronavirus case could be first spread within U.S. community, CDC says
By SOUMYA KARLAMANGLA, JACLYN COSGROVE
FEB. 26, 2020 8:04 PM

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating what could be the first case of novel coronavirus in the United States involving a patient in California who neither recently traveled out of the country nor was in contact with someone who did.

“At this time, the patient’s exposure is unknown. It’s possible this could be an instance of community spread of COVID-19, which would be the first time this has happened in the United States,” the CDC said in a statement. “Community spread means spread of an illness for which the source of infection is unknown. It’s also possible, however, that the patient may have been exposed to a returned traveler who was infected.”

The individual is a resident of Solano County and is receiving medical care in Sacramento County, according to the state Department of Public Health.

The CDC said the “case was detected through the U.S. public health system — picked up by astute clinicians.”

Officials at UC Davis Medical Center expanded on what the federal agency might have meant by that in an email sent Wednesday, as reported by the Davis Enterprise newspaper.

The patient arrived at UC Davis Medical Center from another hospital Feb. 19 and “had already been intubated, was on a ventilator, and given droplet protection orders because of an undiagnosed and suspected viral condition,” according to an email sent by UC Davis officials that was obtained by the Davis Enterprise.

The staff at UC Davis requested COVID-19 testing by the CDC, but because the patient didn’t fit the CDC’s existing criteria for the virus, a test wasn’t immediately administered, according to the email. The CDC then ordered the test Sunday, and results were announced Wednesday. Hospital administrators reportedly said in the email that despite these issues, there has been minimal exposure at the hospital because of safety protocols they have in place.

A UC Davis Health spokesperson declined Wednesday evening to share the email with The Times.

Since Feb. 2, more than 8,400 returning travelers from China have entered California, according to the state health department. They have been advised to self-quarantine for 14 days and limit interactions with others as much as possible, officials said.

“This is a new virus, and while we are still learning about it, there is a lot we already know,” Dr. Sonia Angell, director of the California Department of Public Health, said in a statement. “We have been anticipating the potential for such a case in the U.S., and given our close familial, social and business relationships with China, it is not unexpected that the first case in the U.S. would be in California.”

It is not clear how the person became infected, but public health workers could not identify any contacts with people who had traveled to China or other areas where the virus is widespread. That raises concern that the virus is spreading in the United States, creating a challenge for public health officials, experts say.

“It’s the first signal that we could be having silent transmission in the community,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law. “It probably means there are many more cases out there, and it probably means this individual has infected others, and now it’s a race to try to find out who that person has infected.”

On Tuesday, the CDC offered its most serious warning to date that the United States should expect and prepare for the coronavirus to become a more widespread health issue.

“Ultimately, we expect we will see coronavirus spread in this country,” said Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. “It’s not so much a question of if, but a question of when.”

According to the CDC’s latest count Wednesday morning, 59 U.S. residents have tested positive for the new strain of coronavirus — 42 of whom are repatriated citizens from a Diamond Princess cruise. That number has grown by two since Messonnier’s last count Tuesday, although the CDC was not immediately available to offer details on the additional cases.

More than 82,000 cases of coronavirus have been reported globally, and more than 2,700 people have died, with the majority in mainland China, the epicenter of the outbreak.

But public health leaders have repeatedly reminded residents that the health risk from the novel coronavirus to the general public remains low.

“While COVID-19 has a high transmission rate, it has a low mortality rate,” the state Department of Public Health said in a statement Wednesday. “From the international data we have, of those who have tested positive for COVID-19, approximately 80% do not exhibit symptoms that would require hospitalization. There have been no confirmed deaths related to COVID-19 in the United States to date.”

CDC officials have also warned that although the virus is likely to spread in U.S. communities, the flu still poses a greater risk.

Gostin said the news of potential silent transmission does not eliminate the possibility of containing the virus in the U.S. and preventing an outbreak.

“There are few enough cases that we should at least try,” he said. “Most of us are not optimistic that that will be successful, but we’re still in the position to try.”

[notorious]

Originally Posted by sedated

I know exactly one person that hasn't gotten at least one vax shot. All friends, family, and everyone in my office have gotten it. Really surprising how quickly everything moved after the initial logjam.

There are a ton of unvaccinated people out here.

Everything is open to full capacity, mask free.

We haven't had a jump in cases. That's just our little slice of America, though. I think it passed through almost everyone around here (huge "immigrant" population, lots of packing plants) and we've built a natural immunity to it.

[Discuss Thrower]

Originally Posted by TLO

Maybe India should start lobbing nukes at Chy-nuh

Obviously you've never played Civ 3

[Stewie]

2nd Pfizer shot yesterday. Mild aching like the first time. Shoulder pain is more noticeable. Maybe should have gotten it in the arm that didn't get the first one.

[MahomesMagic]

Pre-existing immunity to SARS-CoV-2: the knowns and unknowns
Alessandro Sette & Shane Crotty
Nature Reviews Immunology volume

T cell reactivity against SARS-CoV-2 was observed in unexposed people; however, the source and clinical relevance of the reactivity remains unknown. It is speculated that this reflects T cell memory to circulating ‘common cold’ coronaviruses. It will be important to define specificities of these T cells and assess their association with COVID-19 disease severity and vaccine responses.

As data start to accumulate on the detection and characterization of SARS-CoV-2 T cell responses in humans, a surprising finding has been reported: lymphocytes from 20–50% of unexposed donors display significant reactivity to SARS-CoV-2 antigen peptide pools1,2,3,4.

In a study by Grifoni et al.1, reactivity was detected in 50% of donor blood samples obtained in the USA between 2015 and 2018, before SARS-CoV-2 appeared in the human population. T cell reactivity was highest against proteins other than the coronavirus spike protein, but T cell reactivity was also detected against spike. The SARS-CoV-2 T cell reactivity was mostly associated with CD4+ T cells, with a smaller contribution by CD8+ T cells1. Similarly, in a study of blood donors in the Netherlands, Weiskopf et al.2 detected CD4+ T cell reactivity against SARS-CoV-2 spike peptides in 1 of 10 unexposed subjects and against SARS-CoV-2 non-spike peptides in 2 of 10 unexposed subjects. CD8+ T cell reactivity was observed in 1 of 10 unexposed donors. In a third study, from Germany, Braun et al.3 reported positive T cell responses against spike peptides in 34% of SARS-CoV-2 seronegative healthy donors. Finally, a study of individuals in Singapore, by Le Bert et al.4, reported T cell responses to nucleocapsid protein nsp7 or nsp13 in 50% of subjects with no history of SARS, COVID-19, or contact with patients with SARS or COVID-19. A study by Meckiff using samples from the UK also detected reactivity in unexposed subjects5. Taken together, five studies report evidence of pre-existing T cells that recognize SARS-CoV-2 in a significant fraction of people from diverse geographical locations.

These early reports demonstrate that substantial T cell reactivity exists in many unexposed people; nevertheless, data have not yet demonstrated the source of the T cells or whether they are memory T cells. It has been speculated that the SARS-CoV-2-specific T cells in unexposed individuals might originate from memory T cells derived from exposure to ‘common cold’ coronaviruses (CCCs), such as HCoV-OC43, HCoV-HKU1, HCoV-NL63 and HCoV-229E, which widely circulate in the human population and are responsible for mild self-limiting respiratory symptoms. More than 90% of the human population is seropositive for at least three of the CCCs6. Thiel and colleagues3 reported that the T cell reactivity was highest against a pool of SARS-CoV-2 spike peptides that had homology to CCCs.

What are the implications of these observations? The potential for pre-existing crossreactivity against COVID-19 in a fraction of the human population has led to extensive speculation. Pre-existing T cell immunity to SARS-CoV-2 could be relevant because it could influence COVID-19 disease severity. It is plausible that people with a high level of pre-existing memory CD4+ T cells that recognize SARS-CoV-2 could mount a faster and stronger immune response upon exposure to SARS-CoV-2 and thereby limit disease severity.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-020-0389-z

[Discuss Thrower]

Misinformation. Reported.

[In58men]

Got my first Moderna shot today, 2nd one in 4 weeks.

In and out at Costco.

[loochy]

Originally Posted by In58men

In and out at Costco.

They put a burger joint inside Costco? Awesome!

[MahomesMagic]

GOOD - SWEDEN STOPS PCR TESTS AS COVID19 DIAGNOSIS.

Legal precedent set.

The Swedish Public Health Agency has developed national criteria for assessing freedom from infection in covid-19.

1-7https://t.co/9zr6rUd55w

— VeronicaM (@_V5M1000) May 8, 2021

[O.city]

Looks like a lot of the Asian countries are getting hit now

India is likely having 20k deaths per day. Maybe even closer to 40k. It’s awful

[C3HIEF3S]

Originally Posted by O.city

Looks like a lot of the Asian countries are getting hit now

India is likely having 20k deaths per day. Maybe even closer to 40k. It’s awful

My coworker, who is in India right now with family, has lost 5 family members in the last month. It’s terrible.

[Rain Man]

Denver is no longer requiring restaurant workers to wear masks as long as 85 percent have been vaccinated.

https://www.thedenverchannel.com/new...-85-vaccinated

[O.city]

Originally Posted by C3HIEF3S

My coworker, who is in India right now with family, has lost 5 family members in the last month. It’s terrible.

Yeah they’re just getting hit hard. The medical system has broken and it’s just getting worse

[Chief Pagan]

Originally Posted by O.city

Yeah they’re just getting hit hard. The medical system has broken and it’s just getting worse

It’s been a hard argument to convince people that if we would have treated it like the flu and carried on as business like normal just how much worse it might have been especially in the early weeks and months when it wasn’t clear what exactly we were up against.

I think you can look at India and realize it could have been so much worse under a business as usual approach.

Sure their health care system isn’t as comparable but a little old flu isn’t supposed to be sending that many to the hospital in the first place. And they have a generally young population at that.

Luckily for us we managed to do enough to avoid a complete collapse of the hospital system and the vaccines are doing a fantastic job even against the new nastier variants.

[notorious]

Let's not compare the US to India when it comes to hygene and cleanliness.

[O.city]

Originally Posted by Chief Pagan

It’s been a hard argument to convince people that if we would have treated it like the flu and carried on as business like normal just how much worse it might have been especially in the early weeks and months when it wasn’t clear what exactly we were up against.

I think you can look at India and realize it could have been so much worse under a business as usual approach.

Sure their health care system isn’t as comparable but a little old flu isn’t supposed to be sending that many to the hospital in the first place. And they have a generally young population at that.

Luckily for us we managed to do enough to avoid a complete collapse of the hospital system and the vaccines are doing a fantastic job even against the new nastier variants.

Really it was always about health system staying afloat. Once we figured out what we could do that would keep that afloat we would be ok. It would still be rough, but as long as it doesn’t collapse, we’ll get thru.

Now we’ve got enough vaccinated and natural immunity I think we’re going great.

We did a bunch of shit we didn’t need to and we didn’t do stuff that could have helped. It wasn’t perfect by any means but we’re gonna survive