COVID-19 - READ THE RULES BEFORE REPLYING

[lewdicrous]

Some grains of salt may be needed; only skimmed through the article. 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/14/japan-suicides-fall-sharply-as-covid-19-lockdown-causes-shift-in-stress-factors?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

[PhantomJaguarr]

Quote

Sorrento Therapeutics of San Diego said Friday that an antibody it has been developing proved highly effective in blocking the novel coronavirus in laboratory experiments — a possible first step in the creation of a drug cocktail to battle COVID-19. 
 

The antibody, known as STI-1499, performed well even though it was used at a concentration 10- to 100-fold lower than antibodies used to treat other diseases, the company said.
 

The recent finding, based on measuring infection of cells in the lab, will need to be confirmed in animal studies. The company plans to test whether STI-1499 prevents infection in monkeys and possibly ferrets — two species that are susceptible to the virus. If all goes well, Sorrento Therapeutics could begin testing the antibody in clinical trials of severe COVID-19 patients by mid-July, Ji says.

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/biotech/story/2020-05-15/sorrento-therapeutics-says-antibody-shows-early-promise-in-fighting-covid-19

Stock prices of that company rose by over 200%. I invested in the wrong one. This one’s much closer to home. 
 

And the total amount of Covid-19 cases in my county now are over 5,000. Feels like a week ago they were at ~3,000. But I heard LA county has roughly half the cases in CA. 

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-15/california-coronavirus-cases-top-75-000-and-nearly-half-are-in-l-a-county

 

Edited May 15, 2020 by PhantomJaguar77

[lewdicrous]

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-05/b-fed051420.php

Quote

The anti-inflammatory drug hydroxychloroquine does not significantly reduce admission to intensive care or death in patients hospitalised with pneumonia due to covid-19, finds a study from France published by The BMJ today.

A randomised clinical trial from China also published today shows that hospitalised patients with mild to moderate persistent covid-19 who received hydroxychloroquine did not clear the virus more quickly than those receiving standard care. Adverse events were higher in those who received hydroxychloroquine.

 

[lewdicrous]

 

[lewdicrous]

Debunking the myth.

[PhantomJaguarr]

I’m getting lack of human empathy in my own household now, saying we should just let everyone out like Arizona and Wisconsin have now done. And not reopen in phases like California is currently. I tried to give them a simple visualization. Imagine a fully sold out Petco Park Baseball stadium and multiple that by 2. That’s how many fellow Americans have passed away because of Covid 19. Nope, fell on deaf ears. Survival of the fitness to them.

[Commodus]

1 hour ago, PhantomJaguar77 said:

I’m getting lack of human empathy in my own household now, saying we should just let everyone out like Arizona and Wisconsin have now done. And not reopen in phases like California is currently. I tried to give them a simple visualization. Imagine a fully sold out Petco Park Baseball stadium and multiple that by 2. That’s how many fellow Americans have passed away because of Covid 19. Nope, fell on deaf ears. Survival of the fitness to them.

I tend to use this math: imagine if you went to that stadium for a baseball game and it was statistically likely that a few people who attended each game would die due to the virus, and considerably more would have to go to the hospital.  Most of the dead or hospitalized would be under 50, but there'd be one or two younger ones.  Do you want to play that Russian roulette and hope you're not one of them?  Even if you're not, would it be acceptable to you to sacrifice a couple of people every time you want to see some baseball?

[atxcyclist]

4 hours ago, Commodus said:

Again, no one here is suggesting indefinite lockdowns.  You keep falling back on that straw man because you don't have a strong argument against those of us who simply want a responsible lockdown period.  There's no conspiracy here; it's just about keeping hospital capacities in check and minimizing deaths (not to mention irreparable damage) until there's a treatment or vaccine.

When the dates keep moving further away for opening stuff up, that's the definition of indefinite. At the beginning it was 5 weeks, then two months; I'm into month 3 now. You expect everyone is going to wait until there's a solid treatment or a vaccine? Like, wait a year or more? What's a responsible amount of time? Millions are not yet getting their unemployment because the systems are being over-extended, and the $1200 those people may have gotten as stimulus won't be keeping them fed and a roof over their heads for long. What do you expect them to do? If your life is cushy enough you can sit back at your desk for a year and armchair quarterback everyone else's needs, go for it; Millions of people are not that lucky. 

[Rakanoth]

"The Lockdown Skeptic They Couldn’t Silence - Targeted for censorship in March, Aaron Ginn is becoming an influential voice in cities, states and Washington.":

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-lockdown-skeptic-they-couldnt-silence-11589566245

 

Data is data. Our focus here isn’t treatments but numbers. You don’t need a special degree to understand what the data says and doesn’t say. Numbers are universal. Everybody was claiming "durr ur not an epidemiologist" when I said it's delusional to expect not to eventually catch a disease with a relatively high R0 and ridiculous to worry so much about a disease with such a low IFR. Anybody who can do arithmetic could see the obvious folly in both those ideas. But how can you believe me if I don’t have a PhD in addition? Umm, like you hear what I am saying, but my comment is not peer reviewed. 

 

I posted Ginn's original Medium article on Facebook (I almost never use FB, but I thought some of my friends who generally respect my judgment would be interested). I even prefaced the post with "it is a bit controversial and I don't really agree with all the conclusions", but I praised the open-minded style and analysis that considers the big picture. Well, there was a chorus of outrage from my highly-educated work colleagues, and then the article disappeared from Medium. I'd been thinking for the past few days that this was another example of censorship that we shouldn't forget.

 

And my question is: Why is the idea of "no guaranteed immunity" so heavily pushed in any coronavirus discourse? 

 

Everywhere you go on the internet that mentions anything about antibodies or any sort of immunity you'll find doomers in the comments claiming "antibodies don't guarantee any immunity, reinfections are proven, there is no evidence that anyone can become immune" thus creating this fear that if the virus doesn't get you the first time round, it will get you eventually and that's why we need lockdown til vaccine.

 

This has me skeptical because surely we would be seeing a lot more evidence of reinfection, people recovering and then dying but this doesn't seem to be the case. I've been thinking about why this "no guarantee of immunity" idea is being pushed so widely by people when scientists like Neil Ferguson said “I acted in the belief that I was immune, having tested positive for coronavirus, and completely isolated myself for almost two weeks after developing symptoms." after he broke the lockdown he pioneered.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/may/05/uk-coronavirus-adviser-prof-neil-ferguson-resigns-after-breaking-lockdown-rules

 

Neil Ferguson was on the committee of scientists advising the UK government. If a government scientist working with other leading epidemiologists to advise the government with access to all the latest data and information claims he has immunity because he had the virus then surely there must be some scientific and governmental belief in immunity that the public isn't allowed to know for certain yet. I mean if you're willing to destroy your economy and society on the word of big expert Neil Ferguson, why does the idea of immunity that he clearly believes in be any less valid.

 

I'm assuming that the idea about not being transparent with the public about any sort of immunity is because they fear the concept of guaranteed immunity would encourage people to seek out the virus, potentially risking themselves or vulnerable groups. You can see this with how quickly immunity passports were dismissed by the WHO and the experts for the possibility that people may seek out the virus thus prompting all the claims that there is no evidence of guaranteed immunity.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/25/who-warns-against-coronavirus-immunity-passports

 

This leads me to believe that all the fear mongering about immunity you may see on other subreddits or the media is a social control designed to stop people seeking out infection. I wouldn't even call this a conspiracy theory as its pretty clear government slogans and advice aims to socially control behaviour to limit the spread of the virus. You can argue that this is not inherently bad if the aim is to not have any infections but seeing as a vaccine could be years away and coronavirus is probably here to stay I think the fearmongering over lack of immunity is dangerous as it exaggerates the risk to those unlikely to suffer a severe case of covid by suggesting "if you don't die from it this time, it will get you eventually" which contributes to the mass hysteria you see in healthy and relatively safe individuals.

 

Basically, what I'm trying to say, all these social control policies that use fear to try and limit the spread of the virus are short sighted, and has instilled such a level of fear in the population I'm worried that coronaphobia and health related anxiety are gonna impact behaviour for years to come.

 

I think it is all based in ignorance, since the media went and ran with a WHO tweet that said there is no proof the antibodies grant long-term immunity. Sure, but then if there is no sort of immunity why are we bothering with a vaccine? People are simply ignorant. Our lizard brains just see fear-mongering everywhere, taking it all in.

 

It’s really just a great card to play to scare people. Not only will this lockdown be here a year from now, it’ll be here forever! #TheNewNormal

 

There was a doctor on Good Morning Britain this morning, touting the idea that there is no guaranteed immunity just because you have antibodies. In the following sentence, he said "you know, when we get a virus, we get antibodies that grant us immunity from several years to a lifetime. But there's no guarantee of that with this virus."

 

So, in one breath he tells us to be afraid of the lack of evidence of immunity, then highlights that with almost every other disease we come in contact with, if it doesn't kill us, we become immune to it. But this new virus might act completely differently than to how every other virus is observed to behave.

 

Utter madness!

 

The best one was yesterday, though. Skynews was running a headline saying "20% of brits at risk from coronavirus". The expert they had on was saying about the elderly, those with comorbidities, etc are at risk of suffering with this disease. His words? "8 million, or about 20%" of people have these comorbidities.

 

Go away! The UK has a population of around 65 million people. 8 million is near enough 12%. So, about 1 in 8, not one in five. That's a sixty percent difference.

 

I hate this fear campaign so much.

[lewdicrous]

Here's a neat site.

https://seethespread.com/

[NumLock21]

4 hours ago, PhantomJaguar77 said:

I’m getting lack of human empathy in my own household now, saying we should just let everyone out like Arizona and Wisconsin have now done. And not reopen in phases like California is currently. I tried to give them a simple visualization. Imagine a fully sold out Petco Park Baseball stadium and multiple that by 2. That’s how many fellow Americans have passed away because of Covid 19. Nope, fell on deaf ears. Survival of the fitness to them.

Some people will never understand until they get it themselves, and by the time a tube is shoved down their throats, it's already too late. I've warned others to take this seriously, and they don't seem to absorb anything, as if it doesn't apply to them, so I gave up.

[Commodus]

6 minutes ago, atxcyclist said:

When the dates keep moving further away for opening stuff up, that's the definition of indefinite. At the beginning it was 5 weeks, then two months; I'm into month 3 now. You expect everyone is going to wait until there's a solid treatment or a vaccine? Like, wait a year or more? What's a responsible amount of time? Millions are not yet getting their unemployment because the systems are being over-extended, and the $1200 those people may have gotten as stimulus won't be keeping them fed and a roof over their heads for long. What do you expect them to do? If your life is cushy enough you can sit back at your desk for a year and armchair quarterback everyone else's needs, go for it; Millions of people are not that lucky. 

That's because the timing depends on the data... you know, crazy things like "observable evidence."  The definition of folly is setting an arbitrary date and opening no matter what the facts indicate.  That's not good policy or good science; the virus doesn't care what you'd rather be doing right now, it'll happily sicken you and your family.

 

Please stop attacking straw men.  I haven't seen a single person here arguing that we should stay in lockdown until there's a treatment/vaccine.  A reasonable amount of time is when infections have declined sharply enough that there isn't a strong likelihood of a major resurgence -- nothing more, nothing less.  And that means accepting that reopenings may not happen on a tidy schedule, or that they may come in phases as experts gauge the effectiveness of earlier decisions.

 

Yes, there are quite a few people struggling financially right now.  But do you really think they're going to thank you for insisting they risk their lives simply because you don't want to wait a few more weeks?  And what if a premature opening leads to a spike (as modelling suggests)?  I'd argue that it's more financially ruinous to lift restrictions prematurely and risk the need for another lockdown -- or, for that matter, to get sick and risk spending weeks out of commission when you need to provide for your family (which probably also got sick).  All the talk of "we have to reopen the economy now now now now now now" strikes me as utterly short-sighted, not to mention callous to workers who stand a high risk of being infected in a given job.

[NumLock21]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8326851/TikTok-star-poured-tub-cereal-milk-NYC-subway-car-investigated-police.html

 

Some prankster purposely spill cereal and then complains no one is helping him clean it up.

[atxcyclist]

36 minutes ago, Commodus said:

That's because the timing depends on the data... you know, crazy things like "observable evidence."  The definition of folly is setting an arbitrary date and opening no matter what the facts indicate.  That's not good policy or good science; the virus doesn't care what you'd rather be doing right now, it'll happily sicken you and your family.

 

Please stop attacking straw men.  I haven't seen a single person here arguing that we should stay in lockdown until there's a treatment/vaccine.  A reasonable amount of time is when infections have declined sharply enough that there isn't a strong likelihood of a major resurgence -- nothing more, nothing less.  And that means accepting that reopenings may not happen on a tidy schedule, or that they may come in phases as experts gauge the effectiveness of earlier decisions.

 

Yes, there are quite a few people struggling financially right now.  But do you really think they're going to thank you for insisting they risk their lives simply because you don't want to wait a few more weeks?  And what if a premature opening leads to a spike (as modelling suggests)?  I'd argue that it's more financially ruinous to lift restrictions prematurely and risk the need for another lockdown -- or, for that matter, to get sick and risk spending weeks out of commission when you need to provide for your family (which probably also got sick).  All the talk of "we have to reopen the economy now now now now now now" strikes me as utterly short-sighted, not to mention callous to workers who stand a high risk of being infected in a given job.

Whether it's a good scientifically-acceptable approach or not, creditors and bill collectors are not waiting. Every single entity I make a monthly payment to has expected me to continually pay them, and I'm sure it's the same situation for everyone else.

 

Maybe not in this thread (although I recall seeing this sentiment here, but I'm not looking through the whole thread for it) but there absolutely are people saying we should stay closed-up entirely, except the very bare-minimum 'essential' category of employees, at least until a treatment is nailed-down. My belief is that those people are in the tech/media sector and take for granted that they can work offsite, and just expect everyone else will be fine with it and capable. Either that or they're ignorant and don't understand what living paycheck to paycheck is like, or I guess they could also be independently wealthy. Whatever the case, working from home is not possible for many people.

 

Those currently unemployed people are the ones actively insisting on going back to work, because they're in a position where they are living paycheck to paycheck. As of right now many people cannot provide for their family as they have zero income, and governmental systems like unemployment and stimulus checks are either not working or not cutting it, so the only option they see is to go back to work. I'm currently fine and employed, but several months down the line as things are now and my situation could be drastically different.

[Rolling2405]

2 hours ago, atxcyclist said:

unemployment and stimulus checks are either not working or not cutting it

It's not meant for anything other than to cover essential things needed for survival. It's not meant for you to go buy a PC game for example. It's only meant for essential  I would think that as long as people spend it only on essential things unemployment and stimulus checks should be enough. I am guessing but, I think it makes sense.

[atxcyclist]

22 minutes ago, Thomas001 said:

It's not meant for anything other than to cover essential things needed for survival. It's not meant for you to go buy a PC game for example. It's only meant for essential  I would think that as long as people spend it only on essential things unemployment and stimulus checks should be enough. I am guessing but, I think it makes sense.

$1200 every 2 months won't even cover rent at the worst public apartments in my city. Unemployment isn't a reality for millions right now either, as the systems are trying to keep up with a huge influx of applications and payments; They were never designed to have this many people apply or utilize them at one time. 

[PhantomJaguarr]

1 hour ago, atxcyclist said:

$1200 every 2 months won't even cover rent at the worst public apartments in my city. Unemployment isn't a reality for millions right now either, as the systems are trying to keep up with a huge influx of applications and payments; They were never designed to have this many people apply or utilize them at one time. 

Shows how unprepared we were for a pandemic like this. But I’m no expert and I’m not sure how you could prepare a nation like ours with 300+ million people of different income and lifestyles across different types of States. My State is already in a $50 billion deficit. And my city’s economy relies heavily on tourism so we are going to be hurting for a longtime.

[atxcyclist]

1 minute ago, PhantomJaguar77 said:

Shows how unprepared we were for a pandemic like this. But I’m no expert and I’m not sure how you could prepare a nation like ours with 300+ million people of different income and lifestyles across different types of States. My State is already in a $50 billion deficit. And my city’s economy relies heavily on tourism so we are going to be hurting for a longtime.

Austin relies fairly heavily on tourism, in fact one of the first covid19 litmus tests here was the cancellation of South by Southwest, a large annual music festival. People were mad but at the time there was nearly zero info on the virus so it was imperative it was cancelled. Who knows what lies ahead, I hope PPE becomes more available and people actually wear it, and keep socially distancing.

[captain_to_fire]

PSA to everyone: Wearing surgical masks (including N95) for prolonged periods of time DOES NOT cause acidosis or carbon monoxide poisoning. 

 

I’m sharing this as there had been several people sharing shit articles on Facebook that wearing surgical masks can cause CO poisoning. It can be claustrophobic to some people but it won’t kill you. 

[Zodiark1593]

6 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

PSA to everyone: Wearing surgical masks (including N95) for prolonged periods of time DOES NOT cause acidosis or carbon monoxide poisoning. 

 

I’m sharing this as there had been several people sharing shit articles on Facebook that wearing surgical masks can cause CO poisoning. It can be claustrophobic to some people but it won’t kill you. 

For better or worse, keyboards are mightier than guns. (Going off the old saying of the pen being mightier than the sword.) Some false articles (whether born of ignorance or malice) can indirectly do a lot of damage.

[imreloadin]

6 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

but it won’t kill you. 

The mask may not kill people but the idiots who keep going batshit crazy when asked to wear one probably will cause "mUh RiGhTs"...

[atxcyclist]

28 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

PSA to everyone: Wearing surgical masks (including N95) for prolonged periods of time DOES NOT cause acidosis or carbon monoxide poisoning. 

 

I’m sharing this as there had been several people sharing shit articles on Facebook that wearing surgical masks can cause CO poisoning. It can be claustrophobic to some people but it won’t kill you. 

Wait, there are people that believe this? That is as improbable as dying from leaving a fan on while you sleep at night.

[PhantomJaguarr]

1 hour ago, atxcyclist said:

Austin relies fairly heavily on tourism, in fact one of the first covid19 litmus tests here was the cancellation of South by Southwest, a large annual music festival. People were mad but at the time there was nearly zero info on the virus so it was imperative it was cancelled. Who knows what lies ahead, I hope PPE becomes more available and people actually wear it, and keep socially distancing.

Lots were bummed in California when the Coachella music festival was “cancelled” but it’s postponed until October.  Same with EDC in Las Vegas; I wanted to go to that one. Postponed to the same month. Better safe than sorry.

 

I hope people from different counties don’t flock to our beaches and ruin it for the locals like what happened to Orange County. So far when the governor has called out San Diego county it was out of good terms.

[Zodiark1593]

50 minutes ago, PhantomJaguar77 said:

Lots were bummed in California when the Coachella music festival was “cancelled” but it’s postponed until October.  Same with EDC in Las Vegas; I wanted to go to that one. Postponed to the same month. Better safe than sorry.

 

I hope people from different counties don’t flock to our beaches and ruin it for the locals like what happened to Orange County. So far when the governor has called out San Diego county it was out of good terms.

Tbh, unless the Governor wants to go HAM, I don’t think there’s a lot he can do if counties and their respective sheriffs don’t play ball. 

[Nowak]

Boston Pride is canceled this year. Pride's been canceled everywhere, actually.

 

Shame, I was hoping to go to my first Pride this year. Oh well.