CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk

[DDD Dad 14339]

18 minutes ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

I went and looked this up to be certain and this is incorrect. The vaccine protects against types of bacterial infection. Prevnar was what the doctor has given me; it seems there is more than one. Although I receive a flu shot every year, for some strange reason even a URI can leave me with pneumonia. Probably because I had pneumonia when I was young after a bout with the flu (no vaccine back then). The vaccine does not mean one won't get pneumonia, but it is a safeguard that is worthwhile for certain populations IMO. I don't know how it relates to COVID-19 and I haven't been able to get in for my yearly so I guess when I can, I will ask my GP.

 

I also have suffered pneumonia several times; the first when I was in college (and it was a nasty bout).  Major reason why I want to avoid this thing at all costs.

[4th&Five 41558]

Oh?

 

[Grandioso 2592]

 

[babysdaddy 2725]

36 minutes ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

I went and looked this up to be certain and this is incorrect. The vaccine protects against types of bacterial infection. Prevnar was what the doctor has given me; it seems there is more than one. Although I receive a flu shot every year, for some strange reason even a URI can leave me with pneumonia. Probably because I had pneumonia when I was young after a bout with the flu (no vaccine back then). The vaccine does not mean one won't get pneumonia, but it is a safeguard that is worthwhile for certain populations IMO. I don't know how it relates to COVID-19 and I haven't been able to get in for my yearly so I guess when I can, I will ask my GP.

 

Sorry, was typing shorthand.  Bacterial vaccine will be less effective as bacteria mutate and become more exposed to overuse of antibiotics.  Increased antibiotic resistance will be a result of Covid.  

[Pig Bellmont 8719]

20 minutes ago, 4th&Five said:

Oh?

 

The boldness of the lying still shocks me. It shouldn’t, but it does 

[TwiceHorn 31493]

Just now, Pig Bellmont said:

The boldness of the lying still shocks me. It shouldn’t, but it does 

That's not really a lie, but it is one hell of a non sequitur.  And it's one of hundreds.

They are pretty staggering.

[Anastasis 23475]

6 hours ago, RayDog said:

So finding out where the PRRA sequence came from could be key to understanding where the virus came from.

There is a pretty compelling argument made by a microbiologist from LSU school of medicine that the furin cleavage site was the result of a copy-choice recombination, resulting from a mixed infection of bat coronaviruses from bats with an overlapping range near Yunnan China.

If that is the case, the real question would then be how it got from Yunnan to Wuhan. Maybe an animal vector, maybe a lab sample accidentally released from  the Wuhan lab, or simply an asymptomatic human carrier. But there aren't many people who are actually extremely knowledgeable of the subject pimping the "virus was engineered" angle.  That is mostly the realm of crackpots that can get away with extremely specious scientific reasoning on their youtube channels. I wonder if that dude has figured out what a propensity score is yet. 

Edited May 5, 2020 by Anastasis

[Longhorn_Fan68 33874]

1 hour ago, Grandioso said:

 

wow, still peddling his bullshit despite being sick. fuck him.

Edited May 5, 2020 by Longhorn_Fan68

[bolverk 29683]

Welp...I hope this isn't the next evolution in this seemingly confounding virus. /not_a_doc

N.Y. doctors warn about a mysterious illness affecting children that might be related.

Fifteen children, many of whom had fallen ill the virus, have recently been hospitalized in New York City with a mysterious syndrome that doctors do not yet fully understand but that has also been reported in several European countries, health officials announced on Monday night.

Many of the children, ages 2 to 15, have shown symptoms associated with toxic shock or Kawasaki disease, a rare illness in children that involves inflammation of the blood vessels, including coronary arteries, the city’s health department said.

None of the New York City patients with the syndrome have died, according to a bulletin from the Health Department, which described the illness as a “multisystem inflammatory syndrome potentially associated with Covid-19,” the disease caused by the virus.

Reached late Monday night, the state health commissioner, Dr. Howard A. Zucker, said state officials were also investigating the unexplained malady.

The syndrome has received growing attention in recent weeks as cases have begun appearing in European countries hit hard by the virus.

Spoiler

 

Last week, an alert was sent to general practitioners in London warning that “there has been an apparent rise in the number of children of all ages presenting with a multisystem inflammatory state requiring intensive care across London and also in other regions of the U.K.”

The chief medical officer for England, Chris Whitty, told reporters that a link with the virus was “certainly plausible.”

Asked about the British reports, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, a World Health Organization scientist, told reporters last week that the inflammatory syndrome “seems to be rare.”

“There are some recent rare descriptions of children in some European countries that have had this inflammatory syndrome, which is similar to the Kawasaki syndrome, but it seems to be very rare,” she said.

Pediatricians in France, Italy and Spain have also reported dozens of cases of children presenting symptoms of toxic shock or Kawasaki syndrome, but doctors have said that it is too early to link them.

In the northern Italian town of Bergamo, one hospital saw 20 cases in April alone, and in four Parisian hospitals, 20 children have been hospitalized with inflammatory heart conditions. Spain has recorded a few dozen cases, and Switzerland and Belgium have reported a handful.

No deaths have been recorded as yet.

The New York City health commissioner, Dr. Oxiris Barbot, said in a statement: “Even though the relationship of this syndrome to Covid-19 is not yet defined, and not all of these cases have tested positive for Covid-19 by either DNA test or serology, the clinical nature of this virus is such that we are asking all providers to contact us immediately if they see patients who meet the criteria we’ve outlined.”

“And to parents,” she added, “if your child has symptoms like fever, rash, abdominal pain or vomiting, call your doctor right away.”

 

 

[gmr548 16580]

Well, this sounds like we are fucked.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-05/mutant-coronavirus-has-emerged-more-contagious-than-original

 
A mutant coronavirus has emerged, even more contagious than the original, study says
By RALPH VARTABEDIAN
MAY 5, 20204 AM
Scientists have identified a new strain of the coronavirus that has become dominant worldwide and appears to be more contagious than the versions that spread in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new study led by scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The new strain appeared in February in Europe, migrated quickly to the East Coast of the United States and has been the dominant strain across the world since mid-March, the scientists wrote.
In addition to spreading faster, it may make people vulnerable to a second infection after a first bout with the disease, the report warned.
The 33-page report was posted Thursday on BioRxiv, a website that researchers use to share their work before it is peer reviewed, an effort to speed up collaborations with scientists working on COVID-19 vaccines or treatments. That research has been largely based on the genetic sequence of earlier strains and might not be effective against the new one.
The mutation identified in the new report affects the now infamous spikes on the exterior of the coronavirus, which allow it to enter human respiratory cells. The report’s authors said they felt an “urgent need for an early warning” so that vaccines and drugs under development around the world will be effective against the mutated strain.
Wherever the new strain appeared, it quickly infected far more people than the earlier strains that came out of Wuhan, China, and within weeks it was the only strain that was prevalent in some nations, according to the report. The new strain’s dominance over its predecessors demonstrates that it is more infectious, according to the report, though exactly why is not yet known.
The coronavirus, known to scientists as SARS-CoV-2, has infected more than 3.5 million people around the world and caused more than 250,000 COVID-19 deaths since its discovery late last year.
The report was based on a computational analysis of more than 6,000 coronavirus sequences from around the world, collected by the Global Initiative for Sharing All Influenza Data, a public-private organization in Germany. Time and again, the analysis found the new version was transitioning to become dominant.
The Los Alamos team, assisted by scientists at Duke University and the University of Sheffield in England, identified 14 mutations. Those mutations occurred among the nearly 30,000 base pairs of RNA that other scientists say make up the coronavirus’s genome. The report authors focused on a mutation called D614G, which is responsible for the change in the virus’ spikes.
“The story is worrying, as we see a mutated form of the virus very rapidly emerging, and over the month of March becoming the dominant pandemic form,” study leader Bette Korber, a computational biologist at Los Alamos, wrote on her Facebook page. “When viruses with this mutation enter a population, they rapidly begin to take over the local epidemic, thus they are more transmissible.”
While the Los Alamos report is highly technical and dispassionate, Korber expressed some deep personal feelings about the implications of the finding in her Facebook post.
“This is hard news,” wrote Korber, “but please don’t only be disheartened by it. Our team at LANL was able to document this mutation and its impact on transmission only because of a massive global effort of clinical people and experimental groups, who make new sequences of the virus (SARS-CoV-2) in their local communities available as quickly as they possibly can.”
Korber, a graduate of Cal State Long Beach who went on to earn a PhD in chemistry at Caltech, joined the lab in 1990 and focused much of her work on an HIV vaccine. In 2004, she won the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award, the U.S. Department of Energy’s highest recognition for scientific achievement. She contributed a portion of the financial prize to help establish an orphanage for young AIDS victims in South Africa.
The report contains regional breakdowns of when the new strain of virus first emerged and how long it took to become dominant.
Italy was one of the first countries to see the new virus in the last week of February, almost at the same time that the original strain appeared. Washington was among the first states to get hit with the original strain in late February, but by March 15 the mutated strain dominated. New York was hit by the original virus around March 15, but within days the mutant strain took over. The team did not report results for California.
Scientists at major organizations working on a vaccine or drugs have told The Times that they are pinning their hopes on initial evidence that the virus is stable and not likely to mutate the way influenza virus does, requiring a new vaccine every year. The Los Alamos report could upend that assumption.
If the pandemic fails to wane seasonally as the weather warms, the study warns, the virus could undergo further mutations even as research organizations prepare the first medical treatments and vaccines. Without getting on top of the risk now, the effectiveness of vaccines could be limited. Some of the compounds in development are supposed to latch onto the spike or interrupt its action. If they were designed based on the original version of the spike, they might not be effective against the new coronavirus strain, the study’s authors warned.
“We cannot afford to be blindsided as we move vaccines and antibodies into clinical testing,” Korber wrote on Facebook. “Please be encouraged by knowing the global scientific community is on this, and we are cooperating with each other in ways I have never seen … in my 30 years as a scientist.”
David Montefiori, a Duke University scientist who worked on the report said it is the first to document a mutation in the coronavirus that appears to make it more infectious.
Although the researchers don’t yet know the details about how the mutated spike behaves inside the body, it’s clearly doing something that gives it an evolutionary advantage over its predecessor and is fueling its rapid spread. One scientist called it a “classic case of Darwinian evolution.”
“D614G is increasing in frequency at an alarming rate, indicating a fitness advantage relative to the original Wuhan strain that enables more rapid spread,” the study said.
Still unknown is whether this mutant virus could account for regional variations in how hard COVID-19 is hitting different parts of the world.
In the United States, doctors had begun to independently question whether new strains of the virus could account for the differences in how it has infected, sickened and killed people, said Alan Wu, a UC San Francisco professor who runs the clinical chemistry and toxicology laboratories at San Francisco General Hospital.
Medical experts have speculated in recent weeks that they were seeing at least two strains of the virus in the U.S., one prevalent on the East Coast and another on the West Coast, according to Wu.
“We are looking to identify the mutation,” he said, noting that his hospital has had only a few deaths out of the hundreds of cases it has treated, which is “quite a different story than we are hearing from New York.”
 

 
1.) Could partially explain why the west coast initially fared better than the northeast, though the former was also much more proactive in terms of mitigation.

2.) If that's the case it's probably been the dominant strain here for a while so I'm not sure it makes the outlook that much worse?

3.) My admittedly limited understanding is that if a virus mutates and becomes more contagious, that there would be a decrease in severity/morality if any impact at all. People have to be up and moving to spread. Any of our doctors please correct me if wrong

[MC Fresh Breath 4074]

3 minutes ago, gmr548 said:

 
1.) Could partially explain why the west coast initially fared better than the northeast, though the former was also much more proactive in terms of mitigation.

2.) If that's the case it's probably been the dominant strain here for a while so I'm not sure it makes the outlook that much worse?

3.) My admittedly limited understanding is that if a virus mutates and becomes more contagious, that there would be a decrease in severity/morality if any impact at all. People have to be up and moving to spread. Any of our doctors please correct me if wrong

 

I've been wondering about different strains/variations for a while now.  As you note, why certain sections of the US seem to fare worse than others.  Does that mean the strain that say, is hurting NY eventually works its way West and starts killing more there?

 

Also, this is the part that spooks me:

Quote

In addition to spreading faster, it may make people vulnerable to a second infection after a first bout with the disease, the report warned.

 

Obviously, plenty of caveats in that statement.  But we already don't know the long term effects on survivors.  So assuming it doesn't kill you the first go round, what happens to you on the second infection?  Again, assuming you survive it, how is your quality of life in the long term?  And if it mutates multiple times, uh...

 

[DDD Dad 14339]

7 minutes ago, gmr548 said:

 
1.) Could partially explain why the west coast initially fared better than the northeast, though the former was also much more proactive in terms of mitigation.

2.) If that's the case it's probably been the dominant strain here for a while so I'm not sure it makes the outlook that much worse?

3.) My admittedly limited understanding is that if a virus mutates and becomes more contagious, that there would be a decrease in severity/morality if any impact at all. People have to be up and moving to spread. Any of our doctors please correct me if wrong

Generally I think this would be true except that this virus seems to be contagious before symptoms appear, which gives you the double whammy of contagion and severity.

[Wanker Bob 379]

3 hours ago, GRHorn said:

It feels like you’re new here, but I have to say your alarmist/Anti-all things R game is on point. I feel like you would really thrived during Mueller mania. Kudos  

You’re gonna fit in nicely.  

 

Still waiting for you to back up your claim that people in this thread are advocating pushing through vaccines without proper trials. 

I don't know you but it seems you like pushing out false information which is precisely one of the main issues I have with republicans. That and claiming to be conservative while giving away trillions to billionaires. And not only failing to do their job but actively covering up for a criminal president and administration who at many times violates the Constitution, laws, and treats the office like his own personal atm. And now failing to react at all to a pandemic while actively encouraging dangerous disobedience to basic safety protocols that are getting more and more people killed. What is surely, if considering undocumented deaths due to zero testing of dead found outside of hospitals, over 100k Americans in only 2 months. 

You promote a propaganda culture that used to be massively annoying and destructive but now is downright dangerous and is getting people killed. I don't know if you are actually the doctor you claim to be, but if you are your direct support of this is a violation of your Hippocratic oath. 

 

[4th&Five 41558]

12 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Welp...I hope this isn't the next evolution in this seemingly confounding virus. /not_a_doc

N.Y. doctors warn about a mysterious illness affecting children that might be related.

Fifteen children, many of whom had fallen ill the virus, have recently been hospitalized in New York City with a mysterious syndrome that doctors do not yet fully understand but that has also been reported in several European countries, health officials announced on Monday night.

Many of the children, ages 2 to 15, have shown symptoms associated with toxic shock or Kawasaki disease, a rare illness in children that involves inflammation of the blood vessels, including coronary arteries, the city’s health department said.

None of the New York City patients with the syndrome have died, according to a bulletin from the Health Department, which described the illness as a “multisystem inflammatory syndrome potentially associated with Covid-19,” the disease caused by the virus.

Reached late Monday night, the state health commissioner, Dr. Howard A. Zucker, said state officials were also investigating the unexplained malady.

The syndrome has received growing attention in recent weeks as cases have begun appearing in European countries hit hard by the virus.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Last week, an alert was sent to general practitioners in London warning that “there has been an apparent rise in the number of children of all ages presenting with a multisystem inflammatory state requiring intensive care across London and also in other regions of the U.K.”

The chief medical officer for England, Chris Whitty, told reporters that a link with the virus was “certainly plausible.”

Asked about the British reports, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, a World Health Organization scientist, told reporters last week that the inflammatory syndrome “seems to be rare.”

“There are some recent rare descriptions of children in some European countries that have had this inflammatory syndrome, which is similar to the Kawasaki syndrome, but it seems to be very rare,” she said.

Pediatricians in France, Italy and Spain have also reported dozens of cases of children presenting symptoms of toxic shock or Kawasaki syndrome, but doctors have said that it is too early to link them.

In the northern Italian town of Bergamo, one hospital saw 20 cases in April alone, and in four Parisian hospitals, 20 children have been hospitalized with inflammatory heart conditions. Spain has recorded a few dozen cases, and Switzerland and Belgium have reported a handful.

No deaths have been recorded as yet.

The New York City health commissioner, Dr. Oxiris Barbot, said in a statement: “Even though the relationship of this syndrome to Covid-19 is not yet defined, and not all of these cases have tested positive for Covid-19 by either DNA test or serology, the clinical nature of this virus is such that we are asking all providers to contact us immediately if they see patients who meet the criteria we’ve outlined.”

“And to parents,” she added, “if your child has symptoms like fever, rash, abdominal pain or vomiting, call your doctor right away.”

 

 

It is also causing cardiac arrest in some kids.  This thing is full of fun and surprises.

[jimmyjazz 45970]

So what's the reason for enhanced concern over this information about the mutation?  Pretty much all CV19 in the US is this mutant strain.

I understand that it's worrisome when viruses show an easy ability to mutate, but in this case, I'm not sure it indicates a 2nd wave will be worse than the first.  Educate me, please.

[Bullneck 19127]

4 hours ago, RPM said:

Hey lay off Shemp. He was an original Stooge and gave up a successful solo career to fill in for his brother when Curly got sick. It's not proper to mention him when speaking about a selfish cunt like Trump.

I'm trying to think but nothing happens!

[Anastasis 23475]

7 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

So what's the reason for enhanced concern over this information about the mutation?  Pretty much all CV19 in the US is this mutant strain.

I understand that it's worrisome when viruses show an easy ability to mutate, but in this case, I'm not sure it indicates a 2nd wave will be worse than the first.  Educate me, please.

I think it would be two potential issues:

1. West coast cases may be susceptible to re-infection.

2. If vax development is targeting the original spike protein, potential that the vax development has been barking up the wrong protein. (I am not clear exactly what protein targets are being used in vax development, so would need to follow-up on that). 

 

ETA: The second point is why it is a very very good thing that we have multiple threads of vax development occurring in parallel. 

Edited May 5, 2020 by Anastasis

[4th&Five 41558]

 

[Captainant 27680]

3 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

I think it would be two potential issues:

1. West coast cases may be susceptible to re-infection.

2. If vax development is targeting the original spike protein, potential that the vax development has been barking up the wrong protein. (I am not clear exactly what protein targets are being used in vax development, so would need to follow-up on that). 

 

ETA: The second point is why it is a very very good thing that we have multiple threads of vax development occurring in parallel. 

As someone who is super knowledgeable in the field, what's the turnaround time for a drug or vaccine manufacturing process to change from one treatment to another, if needed? The concern that comes to my mind is the ability to rapidly scale up production, and the ability to pivot in case of mutation or lack of efficacy

[Anastasis 23475]

5 minutes ago, Captainant said:

As someone who is super knowledgeable in the field, what's the turnaround time for a drug or vaccine manufacturing process to change from one treatment to another, if needed? The concern that comes to my mind is the ability to rapidly scale up production, and the ability to pivot in case of mutation or lack of efficacy

No idea what would be involved from the manufacturing and supply chain perspective to shift over. I would assume that it would vary depending on the vaccine type that was being geared up to produce.  There are lots of irons in the fire.  You got adenovirus vectors, mrna, dna, live inactivated vax types all in play.  I would hope that everyone is contingency planning to optimize mass production. 

Here's a summary from a while back (most appear to be targeting the spike protein mentioned earlier as a mutation site). 

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/04/23/a-close-look-at-the-frontrunning-coronavirus-vaccines-as-of-april-23

 

 

[DixonHur 11337]

18 minutes ago, 4th&Five said:

 

Wonder if he knows you have to choose the countries you want listed.  

Narrator:  he doesn't

[freyguy 4277]

the random articles I have read is the manufacturers of the flu vaccine start their annual planning 6mos prior to flu season.  So I would imagine that the COVID planners will do something similar once they get good at it.

[Native Horn 3504]

5 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

Wonder if he knows you have to choose the countries you want listed.  

Narrator:  he doesn't

Wonder if he knows the populations of these countries.

Narrator:  he doesn't

[hayden_horn 11362]

8 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

Wonder if he knows you have to choose the countries you want listed.  

Narrator:  he doesn't

 

3 minutes ago, Native Horn said:

Wonder if he knows the populations of these countries.

Narrator:  he doesn't

he's clearly trying to juke the numbers to make himself and his administration's response better by focusing on total tests instead of per capita tests. it will work on a lot of people.

[jimmyjazz 45970]

31 minutes ago, freyguy said:

the random articles I have read is the manufacturers of the flu vaccine start their annual planning 6mos prior to flu season.  So I would imagine that the COVID planners will do something similar once they get good at it.

I believe that is due in part to the fact that the prevalent strains show up across the globe (Australia, etc.) long before they crop up here.

[TwiceHorn 31493]

7 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

 

he's clearly trying to juke the numbers to make himself and his administration's response better by focusing on total tests instead of per capita tests. it will work on a lot of people.

In a way, gross number of tests is a useful metric.  I don't think test production or acquisition is dependent upon population, at least in any direct way (I certainly think the US should have advantages over the rest of the world in production, if not acquisition, but that's a function of something other than population).

As far as epidemiology goes, gross number of tests is useless.  All it shows is progress toward a meaningful number of tests.

In other words, timing issues aside, a relatively small country like South Korea has an easier job with test production and acquisition to achieve useful epidemiological data because it requires fewer tests.

Gross number of tests also becomes useless if there is a deployment problem, but I don't think we have enough tests to consider any deployment issues.

Just an observation, not a defense of Trump.  His test production and acquisition strategy has been problematic, to say the least.  But it would have been a problem even if he had been competent because of our sheer population.

[henrygandorf 29191]

3 hours ago, 4th&Five said:

Oh?

 

this is the upside about having zero defining moments or achievements in a presidency.  he can be whatever president he wants to be now!

[GRHorn 105]

1 hour ago, Wanker Bob said:

Still waiting for you to back up your claim that people in this thread are advocating pushing through vaccines without proper trials. 

I don't know you but it seems you like pushing out false information which is precisely one of the main issues I have with republicans. That and claiming to be conservative while giving away trillions to billionaires. And not only failing to do their job but actively covering up for a criminal president and administration who at many times violates the Constitution, laws, and treats the office like his own personal atm. And now failing to react at all to a pandemic while actively encouraging dangerous disobedience to basic safety protocols that are getting more and more people killed. What is surely, if considering undocumented deaths due to zero testing of dead found outside of hospitals, over 100k Americans in only 2 months. 

You promote a propaganda culture that used to be massively annoying and destructive but now is downright dangerous and is getting people killed. I don't know if you are actually the doctor you claim to be, but if you are your direct support of this is a violation of your Hippocratic oath. 

 

Let’s see, you make unfounded claims and blanket assumptions about people because you think you disagree with them. Then you sprinkle in some preachy nonsense. 

Like I said, I think you’re gonna fit in well.  Should get a lot of rep for that post.

 

[Nice Guy Eddie 13515]

20 hours ago, MC Fresh Breath said:

Hey, on the mask 'in public' thing.  Not really a political angle, just asking here as I've given up on the other thread.

Would you personally include "in public" to be things like walking/biking trails?  Or say, skateboarding through the neighborhood? Or is it more just for when I'm going into a store or picking up food?  

Masks where I'm at are more the rarity than the rule, whatever the answer.  Which brings my follow-up--if nobody around me is wearing a mask, and I'm wearing a non-N95 (or what not) mask, am I doing myself any good other than maybe not spreading it *if* I am somehow a carrier?

 

 

If no one is around you, you have zero reason to wear a mask. This is what medical experts say. I would recommend carrying some type of mask with you just in case you find yourself in a crowd.

Now if you have covid-19 or recovering from it, it's probably a bad idea to go out in a public setting anyway.

[bolverk 29683]

54 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

No idea what would be involved from the manufacturing and supply chain perspective to shift over. I would assume that it would vary depending on the vaccine type that was being geared up to produce.  There are lots of irons in the fire.  You got adenovirus vectors, mrna, dna, live inactivated vax types all in play.  I would hope that everyone is contingency planning to optimize mass production. 

Here's a summary from a while back (most appear to be targeting the spike protein mentioned earlier as a mutation site). 

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/04/23/a-close-look-at-the-frontrunning-coronavirus-vaccines-as-of-april-23

 

 

Side note: About ten years ago when I was at my old consulting gig, I did a project in Owensboro, KY, and they had a tobacco research lab that they were setting up to test out vaccines instead of using the old egg culture deal. I can't remember all the specifics, but the two things I recall them saying that gave the tobacco plant an advantage was 1) grows fast and 2) cloned (I think?) plants that provided more consistent results. When talking to them, they felt their facility would eventually be very useful in quickly cranking out vaccines during a pandemic-type of event.

Just did a quick google, and here's a recent story discussing the place and their efforts.

https://www.cspdailynews.com/tobacco/tobacco-firm-making-possible-covid-19-vaccine

I'm not qualified to really judge the efficacy of their approach but I thought you, in particular, would find this interesting.

[babysdaddy 2725]

8 minutes ago, GRHorn said:

Let’s see, you make unfounded claims and blanket assumptions about people because you think you disagree with them. Then you sprinkle in some preachy nonsense. 

Like I said, I think you’re gonna fit in well.  Should get a lot of rep for that post.

 

He's 'been' here since 2018.  Registered in August of 2018, made one post, then showed up in early April on the politics board and hasn't left.  Shenanigans.  

[Guest Lobo]

24 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

this is the upside about having zero defining moments or achievements in a presidency.  he can be whatever president he wants to be now!

I thought he was the Infrastructure President? 

I misheard again,      the Infrared President.  Something about inserting its hot light into the body, or Tuesdays with Ivanka.

Edited May 5, 2020 by Lobo

[Grade of D as in David 13253]

12 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Side note: About ten years ago when I was at my old consulting gig, I did a project in Owensboro, KY, and they had a tobacco research lab that they were setting up to test out vaccines instead of using the old egg culture deal. I can't remember all the specifics, but the two things I recall them saying that gave the tobacco plant an advantage was 1) grows fast and 2) cloned (I think?) plants that provided more consistent results. When talking to them, they felt their facility would eventually be very useful in quickly cranking out vaccines during a pandemic-type of event.

Just did a quick google, and here's a recent story discussing the place and their efforts.

https://www.cspdailynews.com/tobacco/tobacco-firm-making-possible-covid-19-vaccine

I'm not qualified to really judge the efficacy of their approach but I thought you, in particular, would find this interesting.

[Francisco 2.0 32395]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/us/coronavirus-updates.html?referringSource=articleShare

 

Quote

Trump administration officials are telling members of the coronavirus task force that the White House plans to wind down the operation. It is unclear whether any other group might replace it.

 

 

[Wanker Bob 379]

21 minutes ago, GRHorn said:

Let’s see, you make unfounded claims and blanket assumptions about people because you think you disagree with them. Then you sprinkle in some preachy nonsense. 

Like I said, I think you’re gonna fit in well.  Should get a lot of rep for that post.

 

Still waiting on you to back up your claim, Fake Doc Propaganda. 

So far the only thing you've proven is you have horrifically bad taste in steaks. 

Edited May 5, 2020 by Wanker Bob

[henrygandorf 29191]

18 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

In a way, gross number of tests is a useful metric.  I don't think test production or acquisition is dependent upon population, at least in any direct way (I certainly think the US should have advantages over the rest of the world in production, if not acquisition, but that's a function of something other than population).

As far as epidemiology goes, gross number of tests is useless.  All it shows is progress toward a meaningful number of tests.

In other words, timing issues aside, a relatively small country like South Korea has an easier job with test production and acquisition to achieve useful epidemiological data because it requires fewer tests.

Gross number of tests also becomes useless if there is a deployment problem, but I don't think we have enough tests to consider any deployment issues.

Just an observation, not a defense of Trump.  His test production and acquisition strategy has been problematic, to say the least.  But it would have been a problem even if he had been competent because of our sheer population.

i'm kinda torn on my testing stance right now.  in a perfect world, we would have the supplies and ability to test 3-5mm per day, and literally blanket the country with tests.  symptomatic, asymptomatic, guy walking down the street, random groupings of 500-1000 in different cities and states, etc.  but we do not live in a perfect world, and we're having to get over that.

on last week tonight a couple days ago, john oliver hit on the testing, and did a story we've all seen.  a very sick woman trying to get a test, and she's unable.  and while this is very sad, and fucking embarrassing for the country, her inability to get tested is not really the issue.  she thinks she has it, and since there's no vaccine or treatment, there's nothing she can really do except wait it out, hydrate, and hope she won't need hospital admission/ventilator assistance.  a positive test for her doesn't really help anyone, including her.

but this is the problem.  we don't have enough tests nationwide, so of course the stories that supplement this one fact will look like this.  but they shouldn't.  the stories should highlight the 350 asymptomatic workers who tested positive in a meat-packing plant.  the stories should be about how random testing (for both the disease and the antibodies) can actually help us learn about the disease, where it's been, where it's going, and help establish a timeline to reopen the fucking country.

i'm not mad about the john oliver stories.  i'm a huge fan, and he hasn't really done testing, so it's fine.  but i think it distracts us.  i don't want people at home saying, "god, what a shame, that woman and people like her really should be able to get tested."  that completely misses the point here, which i'm starting to think is not an accident.  the country wants to reopen.  r's and d's alike.  we all do.  but getting sick people tested isn't the key to that.  getting well people tested is.

this is like your kid who wants to play hockey, and you're not so sure, because it's dangerous and he's young and frail.  so instead of waiting til next year while he works on skating skills and gets all the proper equipment, you say fuck it, make him play tomorrow, and on top of that, tell him he has to play in flip flops and no pads, while the other team is the canadian national hockey team.

i don't know how this gets fixed.  i don't even know how to get the focus on this as a news story.  you can't really have a bunch of well people out and about yelling about getting tested.  the only people out and about yelling are carrying long guns and probably wouldn't get tested if you offered it to them for free.

we needed masks, and companies finally made a ton of masks.  we needed ventilators, and i guess we made or purchased or traded (i know newsom sent some east) but we eventually got them.  how in this situation, where we need tests (swabs, reagents, all the pieces) and have companies that can make them, can we not start churning them out?  two months ago, pence said "we would have 6 million tests ready by the end of next week".  that never happened. 

and now the task force isn't even really meeting anymore.  and i'm sure trump doesn't want the numbers to keep going up, which will inevitably happen if/when testing ramps up.  does somebody need to challenge him to get the total tests up to 25 or 50 million?  does pelosi need to go on tv and say he can't get it done?  or is testing slightly more than midsized european countries just the standard now for success?  

it's mind-bottling to me that this is how it's ending.  we're reopening with no skates and no pads.  no tests, and just a wait-and-see, hope-for-the-best attitude.  it's absolutely mind-blowing, except that it isn't.  it's absolutely expected.

[4th&Five 41558]

sorry deep south!

 

[henrygandorf 29191]

7 minutes ago, 4th&Five said:

sorry deep south!

 

that'll teach arkansas and kentucky to allow sanctuary cities.

[GRHorn 105]

22 minutes ago, babysdaddy said:

He's 'been' here since 2018.  Registered in August of 2018, made one post, then showed up in early April on the politics board and hasn't left.  Shenanigans.  

Yeah I noticed that. 
He fits right in. Almost too well.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

10 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/us/coronavirus-updates.html?referringSource=articleShare

 

 

 

Trump tried to make Pence walk the plank on this but Donnie couldn’t handle Pence getting all the camera time.  
 

Before Trump floated the success of disinfectants on the lungs, he tried to pimp a fake cure that actually kills more than it saves.  The US now leads the world in easily preventable deaths of their own population.

[Todd Gack 432]

3 hours ago, Grandioso said:

 

"My reaction to this makes me realize I am not as good a person as I should be."  

yep

[Irieguy 1059]

55 minutes ago, GRHorn said:

Let’s see, you make unfounded claims and blanket assumptions about people because you think you disagree with them. Then you sprinkle in some preachy nonsense. 

Like I said, I think you’re gonna fit in well.  Should get a lot of rep for that post.

 

If you hate it so much here, you are free to leave snowflake. 

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

1 hour ago, freyguy said:

the random articles I have read is the manufacturers of the flu vaccine start their annual planning 6mos prior to flu season.  So I would imagine that the COVID planners will do something similar once they get good at it.

Kid you not, on the way home from the doctor today I was using 'scan' on my car radio for fun and it landed on some right wing radio show. I started to let it keep going but heard the bat signal go out: "Fauci" and "economy." Before I could hit the button to hold the station, radio moved on and when I found it again the host was taking calls. Fellow from West Virginia talking like he had a whole mountaineer in his mouth was saying that "he wouldn't be surprised if Fauci and that Bill Gates were sitting on a vaccine for months just so they could control things." He mentioned some doctor that has YouTube videos and asked the host if he has ever watched them. I don't recall the name but by his description it sounded like the MIT grad who has been pumping out videos that someone posted here. The point is that conspiracy theories (or talking points) often have that little element of truth and one thing that is true is the advance planning and forecasting for seasonal non stable viruses to better provide preventative care. It's like the extremist media types and the gullible conspiracy consumers are perfect foils for each other.

Whatever the name of the show, I have no idea other than it wasn't Rush. I would have listened longer for fun, but got home and my husband would think I needed to return to the doctor if I listen to right wing radio. I have to say, after not being out and about, it was like being in a brand new car.

 

[CowboyFred 1151]

insert popcorn.gif

 

 

[Dbeasy 15066]

I am 100% confident that Trump has no idea whatsoever what “per capita” means, nor does he even understand that statistics of different data populations have to be normalized in order to compare them and draw conclusions from the data.

[Hiphopopotamos 20875]

 

 

 

[Ghost of LL 15531]

2 hours ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/us/coronavirus-updates.html?referringSource=articleShare

 

 

 

It's like Trump is actively trying to lose this election.

[The Ace of Aces 5186]

17 hours ago, markstanco said:

 

 

How many in the last 30 days per the cdc? What news channel are you watching?

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm

Note: this is the actual cdc website. I'll understand if you duck away and not reply.

 

My man, you have not responded since others posted correct data. Hope you’ve had a good time ducking.

[Grade of D as in David 13253]

8 minutes ago, The Ace of Aces said:

My man, you have not responded since others posted correct data. Hope you’ve had a good time ducking.

To be fair, he's probably busy trying to get some of that bailout money to save his business.

 

But he'll be back later tonight to talk about how people should pick themselves up by their bootstraps.

[henrygandorf 29191]

2 hours ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/us/coronavirus-updates.html?referringSource=articleShare

 

 

 

"you think february was impressive, wait til you get a load of may..."