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[#] Tue Nov 24 2020 08:10:22 EST from ParanoidDelusions

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And later, as it is revealed that they had their information wrong - that the shutdowns and economic impact and mental impact was all unnecessary - the argument will be, 

"How could we have known that? We didn't know that. We had to make decisions based on the information available to us at the time, to save lives. Even if it didn't save lives, even if it cost us more lives - we operated in good faith and a desire to save lives - and that is what really matters. The opposition might have made better choices that actually saved lives - but they made those decisions with a callous disregard for the potential to cause more death. Ultimately, as always, we did the wrong thing for the right reasons, and our opposition did the right thing for the wrong ones." 

Reasons matter more than results. 

 



[#] Tue Nov 24 2020 09:07:34 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

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I don't disagree but we're trying to keep this discussion focused on the epidemiology rather than the politics.

[#] Tue Nov 24 2020 09:29:42 EST from ParanoidDelusions

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Tue Nov 24 2020 09:07:34 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

I don't disagree but we're trying to keep this discussion focused on the epidemiology rather than the politics.

Noted. Unfortunately, the epidemiology and the politics have been inseparable with this particular virus - and as we've seen in this discussion - people are still divided on *facts* because of this. 

It is a disturbing trend that a pandemic should be so politically divisive - because from the start, I've been willing to wear a mask, to socially isolate, or to face it head on, depending on what non-partisan expert authorities believe is the best course of action to deal with this pandemic. 

Sadly that has been made impossible by a media repeating a certain narrative they are partial with and ultra-partisan opposition taking the complete 180 degree position on general principle. 

I just want the data - and I've been arguing from the start that it is all guesswork - we didn't know enough about the virus at the start, and we know precious little more now. We're getting a handle on it - just like we did with AIDs - which was arguably a much more dangerous, devastating and difficult virus. 

I had an argument several months ago with a "pro-vaper" about the "harm-reduction" of vaping. I said, "We don't know yet, and we won't know for certain until 20 years from now." 

People are so pro or anti whatever issue these days, that reason too often is unwelcome. I vape, because it seems like the safer alternative - and because my wife nags less about vaping than smoking because she has that perception too. 

But I understand I am gambling that it is in fact harm reduction. It could cause long term complications a lot worse. 

 



[#] Tue Nov 24 2020 12:09:33 EST from nonservator

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https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19802-w?error=cookies_not_supported&code=71122153-f378-4e9e-82ce-073f193051d4

 

"Compared with symptomatic patients, asymptomatic infected persons generally have low quantity of viral loads and a short duration of viral shedding, which decrease the transmission risk of SARS-CoV-2. In the present study, virus culture was carried out on samples from asymptomatic positive cases, and found no viable SARS-CoV-2 virus. All close contacts of the asymptomatic positive cases tested negative, indicating that the asymptomatic positive cases detected in this study were unlikely to be infectious."



[#] Tue Nov 24 2020 13:08:21 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

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More interesting is the curve for asymptotic patients, for which the distance between the curve and the line approaches zero but never quite gets there.

[#] Tue Nov 24 2020 14:01:01 EST from LoanShark

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We're not talking about "lifelong experiments". We're talking about

It really depends on the specific gene and how well-understood it is. The guy who tampered with the receptors that HIV uses to enter a cell? Probably didn't really understand the long term consequences of what he was doing. You risk causing lifelong suffering to a human subject.

At the other end of the spectrum is just fixing genes that have known "bad" mutations; I might not have a huge problem with just editing that gene to look like the functional version you see in the 99% of healthy individuals.

[#] Tue Nov 24 2020 17:22:28 EST from ParanoidDelusions

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Tue Nov 24 2020 14:01:01 EST from LoanShark
We're not talking about "lifelong experiments". We're talking about

It really depends on the specific gene and how well-understood it is. The guy who tampered with the receptors that HIV uses to enter a cell? Probably didn't really understand the long term consequences of what he was doing. You risk causing lifelong suffering to a human subject.

At the other end of the spectrum is just fixing genes that have known "bad" mutations; I might not have a huge problem with just editing that gene to look like the functional version you see in the 99% of healthy individuals.

It is a very conservative view that we risk hurricanes from butterfly wings when we tamper with the way the genetic sequence works. Not that this is a bad thing. But at some point, someone drilled into someone's skull not sure what the long term affects were going to be - and if we didn't take that first step, we wouldn't be where we are today. 

We saw this early on with Covid - with fears about HCQ... and other experimental Covid tests. 

"It might kill them..." 

Yeah... so the solution is, "let's just sit by and watch them die, because that is more ethical." 

And clearly, you illustrate we have benchmarks on what is more ethically risky and what is less. Messing with receptors to prevent HIV is greater risk than fixing a known bad gene to resemble a functional version of it. At least, hypothetically. 

Maybe there is a reason those genes break in that person, that we don't realize is related, and when we fix the defective gene without fixing the underlying cause... 

Oh shit... we're back to hurricanes from butterfly wings - and now we've unleashed the walking dead on humanity! 
Complex networks are complex. 

 



[#] Tue Nov 24 2020 17:32:08 EST from ParanoidDelusions

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Tue Nov 24 2020 12:09:33 EST from nonservator

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19802-w?error=cookies_not_supported&code=71122153-f378-4e9e-82ce-073f193051d4

 

"Compared with symptomatic patients, asymptomatic infected persons generally have low quantity of viral loads and a short duration of viral shedding, which decrease the transmission risk of SARS-CoV-2. In the present study, virus culture was carried out on samples from asymptomatic positive cases, and found no viable SARS-CoV-2 virus. All close contacts of the asymptomatic positive cases tested negative, indicating that the asymptomatic positive cases detected in this study were unlikely to be infectious."



Ah, I saw this one before. It was in relation to the idea that we're seeing more people who are testing positive with no or very mild symptoms, and that is related to viral loads going down. The question is, it is the virus naturally weakening before disappearing, the way we saw with the last Corona virus, or is it because of social isolation? Thanks for the link. 



[#] Tue Nov 24 2020 22:30:26 EST from LoanShark

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Maybe there is a reason those genes break in that person, that we
don't realize is related, and when we fix the defective gene without
fixing the underlying cause... 

Oh shit... we're back to hurricanes from butterfly wings - and now
we've unleashed the walking dead on humanity! 
Complex networks are complex. 

I'm not sure what you're actually saying anymore. First you said you're in favor of genetic enhancement, now you're saying it's ineffably risky.

[#] Tue Nov 24 2020 22:33:51 EST from LoanShark

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You forgot to mention pre-symptomatic transmission. More importantly though, "is it because of social isolation?" is a non sequitur: we've been seeing evidence of pre-symptomatic or asymtomatic transmission right since the beginning of the plague, far before "social distancing" was a thing.

[#] Tue Nov 24 2020 22:48:08 EST from ParanoidDelusions

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Tue Nov 24 2020 22:30:26 EST from LoanShark
I'm not sure what you're actually saying anymore. First you said you're in favor of genetic enhancement, now you're saying it's ineffably risky.

No, it sounds like you understood me perfectly. 



[#] Tue Nov 24 2020 22:55:11 EST from ParanoidDelusions

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Tue Nov 24 2020 22:33:51 EST from LoanShark

You forgot to mention pre-symptomatic transmission. More importantly though, "is it because of social isolation?" is a non sequitur: we've been seeing evidence of pre-symptomatic or asymtomatic transmission right since the beginning of the plague, far before "social distancing" was a thing.

We haven't been able to agree on that right since the beginning. We *think* we've been seeing it. We also keep thinking that maybe mouthwash and nicotine prevent infection. We were so confused in the beginning, and have been in reactive mode ever since, that I don't think we have a very clear idea of what was happening right at the beginning. 

And, China absolutely got it in control when they started practicing *severe* social isolation. That much was pretty well documented. We were paying a lot of attention by that point. 

 




[#] Wed Nov 25 2020 09:19:38 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

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More interesting is the curve for asymptotic patients, for which the
distance between the curve and the line approaches zero but never quite

gets there.

I'm going to keep posting this until someone gets it.

[#] Wed Nov 25 2020 10:00:47 EST from LoanShark

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IG, I got it, but my response was asymptotically small.

[#] Wed Nov 25 2020 10:16:02 EST from LoanShark

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We haven't been able to agree on that right since the beginning. We
*think* we've been seeing it. We also keep thinking that maybe
mouthwash and nicotine prevent infection. We were so confused in the

beginning, and have been in reactive mode ever since, that I don't
think we have a very clear idea of what was happening right at the
beginning. 

And, China absolutely got it in control when they started practicing

*severe* social isolation. That much was pretty well documented. We
were paying a lot of attention by that point. 

Asymptomatic transmission is a tricky thing to pin down. By its very nature, you're talking about cases with lower viral loads, and the disease can be quite hard to transmit in individual symptomatic cases. R-nought is less than 2, I think, even for people with a lot contacts--so that means the vast majority of symptomatic exposures do not result in transmission. Obviously however R-nought is nonetheless large enough for exponential growth, and we see a lot of heterogeneity in who spreads the disease and who doesn't; the majority of transmission comes from a minority of people.

So, to me, it stands to reason that there are going to be conflicting studies, especially the ones that look directly at individual cases to find direct evidence of asymptomatic transmission. But the broad aggregate data that I've seen points to asymptomatic transmissin pretty strongly; for example the fact that the serial interval appears to be shorter than the incubation period.



Off topic but yes there was actually a clinical trial that found evidence that OTC cetylpyridium chloride mouthwashes can kill the virus. This is probably one of those "true but useless" statements. I'd still be infected other than in my saliva, and look at that saliva again an hour later... know what I mean? My reaction was "why the fuck are these people wasting time and money on this particular study"

There's definitely a culturally-driven difference in the way East Asian and Oceania governments, as a group, have responded. I don't believe everything I'm hearing from China; they're lying about how well they doing, and I bet some of the rural regions are suffering and just being neglected by the CPC. But I do believe what I'm hearing from Japan and others. These are responses that are probably only possible in countries with a higher degree of social cohesion and social trust than the good old U S of A. It also helps to not have a loosely federal form of central government. (No, I'm not arguing in favor of outright authoritarianism, which I loathe.)

We are in for an absolute shitshow this winter in the US. So if you believe that we should trust individuals to make the right decisions, then it's still important for individuals to do what they can (within the limits of their economic situation--some don't have many good choices.)

[#] Wed Nov 25 2020 12:46:47 EST from ParanoidDelusions

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Wed Nov 25 2020 10:16:02 EST from LoanShark
Asymptomatic transmission is a tricky thing to pin down. By its very nature, you're talking about cases with lower viral loads, and the disease can be quite hard to transmit in individual symptomatic cases. R-nought is less than 2, I think, even for people with a lot contacts--so that means the vast majority of symptomatic exposures do not result in transmission. Obviously however R-nought is nonetheless large enough for exponential growth, and we see a lot of heterogeneity in who spreads the disease and who doesn't; the majority of transmission comes from a minority of people.

So, to me, it stands to reason that there are going to be conflicting studies, especially the ones that look directly at individual cases to find direct evidence of asymptomatic transmission. But the broad aggregate data that I've seen points to asymptomatic transmissin pretty strongly; for example the fact that the serial interval appears to be shorter than the incubation period.



Off topic but yes there was actually a clinical trial that found evidence that OTC cetylpyridium chloride mouthwashes can kill the virus. This is probably one of those "true but useless" statements. I'd still be infected other than in my saliva, and look at that saliva again an hour later... know what I mean? My reaction was "why the fuck are these people wasting time and money on this particular study"

There's definitely a culturally-driven difference in the way East Asian and Oceania governments, as a group, have responded. I don't believe everything I'm hearing from China; they're lying about how well they doing, and I bet some of the rural regions are suffering and just being neglected by the CPC. But I do believe what I'm hearing from Japan and others. These are responses that are probably only possible in countries with a higher degree of social cohesion and social trust than the good old U S of A. It also helps to not have a loosely federal form of central government. (No, I'm not arguing in favor of outright authoritarianism, which I loathe.)

We are in for an absolute shitshow this winter in the US. So if you believe that we should trust individuals to make the right decisions, then it's still important for individuals to do what they can (within the limits of their economic situation--some don't have many good choices.)

Not really anything I completely disagree with in this response. I'd point to Sweden outside of an East Asian and Oceania government as an example of a nation with very strong social cohesion that approached it far differently but with "better" results. (Although that is still being argued). 

My observation - Covid hits dense urban areas with high density living, lots of diversity, and mass transit harder than anywhere else. It is the perfect pathogen to illustrate everything that is wrong with this kind of social order. It is a social structure that causes tremendous churn and interaction among widely diverse different communities. That doesn't happen in Japan, it doesn't really happen in Sweden, and it doesn't happen in the suburbs and rural parts of the country.  I bet if you found isolated ethnic communities in large urban areas where outsiders do not visit and where the locals do not interact with outsiders often - you would see lower rates of infection and transmission *there* too. I mean, it follows. Think old school East Coast Italian communities from "back in the day". Not sure if there is a modern, urban equivalent to that - but if there is - it would make an interesting case study. 

We *could* be in for an absolute shit show. I think predicting it is an absolute is as risky as predicting that Trump absolutely would not lose the election. 





 



[#] Wed Nov 25 2020 12:49:04 EST from ParanoidDelusions

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TL;DR - "Racism" and "Xenophobia" are natural biological imperatives designed to minimize risk to like groups, communities and societies as much as a learned behavior. Like most nature vs. nurture arguments (social gender constructs vs. biological gender based preferences,) there is a little of both involved. 



[#] Fri Nov 27 2020 18:25:25 EST from IGnatius T Foobar

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We are in for an absolute shitshow this winter in the US.

Quite possibly. By the time the ChinaVirus was in full force in the US in 2020, we were already emerging from cold and flu season. This year it's already here going in.

I wonder what this season would look like if we had let the virus run its course the first time. A lot more people would have been infected, a lot more would have died, but might the survivors have reached a larger scale of immunity by now?

[#] Sat Nov 28 2020 11:33:32 EST from ParanoidDelusions

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Fri Nov 27 2020 18:25:25 EST from IGnatius T Foobar
We are in for an absolute shitshow this winter in the US.

Quite possibly. By the time the ChinaVirus was in full force in the US in 2020, we were already emerging from cold and flu season. This year it's already here going in.

I wonder what this season would look like if we had let the virus run its course the first time. A lot more people would have been infected, a lot more would have died, but might the survivors have reached a larger scale of immunity by now?

I guess next spring we'll compare Sweden to the US and Europe and see who comes out ahead. 



[#] Sat Nov 28 2020 16:33:42 EST from zooer

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Loanshark, You have had Coronavirus, have you installed the NY state COVID-19 app on your phone?  
https://coronavirus.health.ny.gov/covid-alert-ny

Did anyone else install a similar app?

I think the app is a fine idea in theory, but not in practice. My biggest issue with the app is the people that would install the app are washing their hands, wearing masks and practicing social distancing. The people that would install the app are the people you need to worry less about.  

 

 



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