Pandemic threat? Anyone else concerned?

Arjun

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The problem is the youth. Young adults are sipping beer on the streets grinding against each other and engaging in mouth-to-mouth contact, oh the list goes on. Its very disturbing.

Another thing I'm also noticing is that delivery carriers are not wearing masks either.

And Andrew Cuomo will then start calling it the Florida virus...
 

Parley

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NPR: Antibody Tests Point To Lower Death Rate For The Coronavirus Than First Thought

Mounting evidence suggests the coronavirus is more common and less deadly than it first appeared.

The evidence comes from tests that detect antibodies to the coronavirus in a person's blood rather than the virus itself.

The tests are finding large numbers of people in the U.S. who were infected but never became seriously ill. And when these mild infections are included in coronavirus statistics, the virus appears less dangerous.

"The current best estimates for the infection fatality risk are between 0.5% and 1%," says Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

That's in contrast with death rates of 5% or more based on calculations that included only people who got sick enough to be diagnosed with tests that detect the presence of virus in a person's body.

And the revised estimates support an early prediction by Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a leading member of the White House coronavirus task force. In an editorial published in late March in The New England Journal of Medicine, Fauci and colleagues wrote that the case fatality rate for COVID-19 "may be considerably less than 1%."

But even a virus with a fatality rate less than 1% presents a formidable threat, Rivers says. "That is many times more deadly than seasonal influenza," she says.

The new evidence is coming from places such as Indiana, which completed the first phase of a massive testing effort early in May.

 

mat200

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NPR: Antibody Tests Point To Lower Death Rate For The Coronavirus Than First Thought

Mounting evidence suggests the coronavirus is more common and less deadly than it first appeared.

The evidence comes from tests that detect antibodies to the coronavirus in a person's blood rather than the virus itself.

The tests are finding large numbers of people in the U.S. who were infected but never became seriously ill. And when these mild infections are included in coronavirus statistics, the virus appears less dangerous.

"The current best estimates for the infection fatality risk are between 0.5% and 1%," says Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

That's in contrast with death rates of 5% or more based on calculations that included only people who got sick enough to be diagnosed with tests that detect the presence of virus in a person's body.

And the revised estimates support an early prediction by Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a leading member of the White House coronavirus task force. In an editorial published in late March in The New England Journal of Medicine, Fauci and colleagues wrote that the case fatality rate for COVID-19 "may be considerably less than 1%."

But even a virus with a fatality rate less than 1% presents a formidable threat, Rivers says. "That is many times more deadly than seasonal influenza," she says.

The new evidence is coming from places such as Indiana, which completed the first phase of a massive testing effort early in May.

FYI - death rate...

Issue, as we also experience here in this thread is people not fully understanding: CFR vs IFR

CFR - Case Fatality Rate
IFR - Infection Fatality Rate

Too often people have argued mixing up the 2.

For a long time now the IFR has been known to be significantly less than the CFR, with estimates of about 0.6-0.7 considered a reasonable estimate for IFR.

Also even these rates will change as we learn to treat the disease better, and lower the viral load with face masks, and perhaps even having the virus mutate to be less dangerous ( possible - have to wait

Thus I actually take issue with NPR's title "NPR: Antibody Tests Point To Lower Death Rate For The Coronavirus Than First Thought" - because I believe anyone paying attention already knew this.
 

Arjun

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May be its still too soon to tell. Some states are considering not reopening schools in the Fall for in-person classes
 

Frankenscript

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Oh, one more note about that AAPS lawsuit. I was in a rush yesterday but meant to point out that AAPS is the lunatic fringe of the medical community. It's a small group, and they believe or at least promote nutty things. They are also super-anti-government. These are people that keep trying to link vaccines to autism, denying that HIV causes AIDS, and probably promote Apollo conspiracies and flat-earther ideas for all I know. They are nutbags that as an organization are ostracized by the greater medical community. It's not just a left/right thing... these folks are beyond the pale.
 

Arjun

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The earth is neither flat nor round, :lmao: ;)

Oh, one more note about that AAPS lawsuit. I was in a rush yesterday but meant to point out that AAPS is the lunatic fringe of the medical community. It's a small group, and they believe or at least promote nutty things. They are also super-anti-government. These are people that keep trying to link vaccines to autism, denying that HIV causes AIDS, and probably promote Apollo conspiracies and flat-earther ideas for all I know. They are nutbags that as an organization are ostracized by the greater medical community. It's not just a left/right thing... these folks are beyond the pale.
 

Parley

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NYC’s coronavirus contact tracers told not to ask if individual attended protests

Mayor de Blasio has expressed concern that the George Floyd protests could boost the coronavirus pandemic just as New Yorkers have finally gained the upper hand — but City Hall doesn’t seem too interested in finding out for sure. Workers for the city’s contact tracing program are told not to ask those who’ve tested positive for the bug whether they’ve taken part in the demonstrations, instead relying on them to cough up the information themselves, officials said. “We’re doing everything we can to keep New Yorkers safe while respecting individual privacy,” said de Blasio spokeswoman Avery Cohen. “Over the course of their interview with a tracer, a person may be asked if they were in a large crowd or event in recent weeks, with full confidence that any information they share will be protected under the fullest extent of the law.” While there is no specific directive barring tracers from asking about protest participation, Cohen separately told The City, which first reported the indirect approach, that people won’t be asked. So far, the city has not seen a significant spike since the protests, as some had feared, which experts have attributed to a high percentage of mask usage among participants and the open air. But both City Councilmembers and health professionals said that the question should still be asked.

 

Arjun

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WTF


They better be having some pretty flight attendants roaming the aisles to keep passengers calm.

The question now is,
Was the travel ban for flights to and fro China lifted? And if so, when?

When profits override public safety :facepalm: Doesn't matter if you require passengers to wear a face mask or not; humans are mobile species; there could be passengers coming in contact with carriers of COVID-19 and they won't know. This whole scenario is BS.


Time to prepare ourselves for Wave 2. Its February-March all over again folks.
 
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Arjun

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This rings another WTF in my head. So, if I was a bystander, not participating in the protests, how would I reply to these contact tracers? Nobody is doing any foul play by participating in the protests. They should be upfront with contact tracers. There could potentially hundreds ready to expose others to the virus. Its like a CPU Multiplier. The clock frequency will go up. :facepalm:

NYC’s coronavirus contact tracers told not to ask if individual attended protests

Mayor de Blasio has expressed concern that the George Floyd protests could boost the coronavirus pandemic just as New Yorkers have finally gained the upper hand — but City Hall doesn’t seem too interested in finding out for sure. Workers for the city’s contact tracing program are told not to ask those who’ve tested positive for the bug whether they’ve taken part in the demonstrations, instead relying on them to cough up the information themselves, officials said. “We’re doing everything we can to keep New Yorkers safe while respecting individual privacy,” said de Blasio spokeswoman Avery Cohen. “Over the course of their interview with a tracer, a person may be asked if they were in a large crowd or event in recent weeks, with full confidence that any information they share will be protected under the fullest extent of the law.” While there is no specific directive barring tracers from asking about protest participation, Cohen separately told The City, which first reported the indirect approach, that people won’t be asked. So far, the city has not seen a significant spike since the protests, as some had feared, which experts have attributed to a high percentage of mask usage among participants and the open air. But both City Councilmembers and health professionals said that the question should still be asked.

 

Frankenscript

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WTF


They better be having some pretty flight attendants roaming the aisles to keep passengers calm.

The question now is,
Was the travel ban for flights to and fro China lifted? And if so, when?

When profits override public safety :facepalm: Doesn't matter if you require passengers to wear a face mask or not; humans are mobile species; there could be passengers coming in contact with carriers of COVID-19 and they won't know. This whole scenario is BS.


Time to prepare ourselves for Wave 2. Its February-March all over again folks.
At this point the threat is much more to China than to the US. They have squashed the disease there and are just combatting local flare ups (like Beijing recently) but have the infrastructure in place to manage it. On the other hand our society is doing minimal contact tracing, testing inconsistently, and many over here consider requests to wear masks to be a violation of the constitution. I'm surprised China is allowing inbound flights at all, much less without a serious quarantine before entering the cities.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk
 

NoloC

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Question for @Frankenscript and @Arjun .

You spend a great deal of time posting here. And probably even more time coming up with your posts.

Do you have jobs? And if so, does your employer know how much time you are spending here while billing him/her?

If you say it is on your "off time" , wow are you fucked up.
 

Frankenscript

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Question for @Frankenscript and @Arjun .

You spend a great deal of time posting here. And probably even more time coming up with your posts.

Do you have jobs? And if so, does your employer know how much time you are spending here while billing him/her?

If you say it is on your "off time" , wow are you fucked up.
Yes I have a job; I work about 50 hours a week (not counting time posting here!). Due to the pandemic I'm working from home full time and have a lot of flexibility about when I work and when I take a break. My employer gets more than they are paying for, believe me. Posts that require research or real thought are done during off hours or lunch (timing of my lunch is highly variable due to me working closely with European colleagues who like meetings at 12 noon eastern); snarky quick replies I can do on Tapatalk on my phone. We all have our hobbies... :)
 

Arjun

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This is what I do during my study breaks. I get notification every time something updates on this thread. Anytime I come across something interesting to discuss about, I post it here. My background is in medicine and public health. Distance learning is a challenge, but it definitely pays off as you can correlate current events to what we study in the books. :) Coincidentally, there's no doubt that at this point, public health sector jobs are in demand will continue to be so in the coming years ahead.

Question for @Frankenscript and @Arjun .

You spend a great deal of time posting here. And probably even more time coming up with your posts.

Do you have jobs? And if so, does your employer know how much time you are spending here while billing him/her?

If you say it is on your "off time" , wow are you fucked up.
 

Parley

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At this point the threat is much more to China than to the US. They have squashed the disease there and are just combatting local flare ups (like Beijing recently) but have the infrastructure in place to manage it. On the other hand our society is doing minimal contact tracing, testing inconsistently, and many over here consider requests to wear masks to be a violation of the constitution. I'm surprised China is allowing inbound flights at all, much less without a serious quarantine before entering the cities.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk
Are you kidding? They are well into their 2nd wave. You need to expand you news sources. By the way their crematories are working full blast in China.
 

Arjun

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China doesn't care. Apparently the CCP has other priorities up their sleeves, They're too busy trying to occupy other people's territory.

 
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