OT: Coronavirus 2, the No Politics Version

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Mortality continues to decline in the US and in Georgia and in most of the other states. In the US, the 7-day rolling average is at 560, almost exactly 25% of peak levels in late April.

I know it's going to turn, because so many smart people say so. I mean that mostly seriously. (If sarcasm were the real aim, I'd say "all the smart people.") I keep waiting...and waiting...and waiting. But nothing about this critter is very predictable.

Discussion I saw this evening on TV about the mortality rate opined that the young people are the ones currently getting the new cases of the virus but at some point, they fear, it will be spread back into the older populations through work or business/customer contacts. At that point the mortality rate may rise, but the older generations seem to be more willing to go back into lockdown to avoid getting the virus.

We may end up with and all-young-people economy! [:'(]

[Canoerebel]

Yeah, that seems to be a possibility. On the other hand, the cases have been rising in Georgia for a long time without a shift in mortality. I think the key is that its been largely kept out of nursing homes. So, yes, younger people affected but not in such a way that the older folks can't be protected (maybe).

I think there's a chance this will keep moving around, so that any state or country or region will have flair ups, until many of them have roughly similar positives/herd immunity. Mortality might fluctuate pretty widely, based upon whether a jurisdiction was overwhelmed for a time (Italy, NYC, etc.) or had a more modest caseload that didn't tax resources.

I wonder if the virus could be mutating, so that the current outbreaks are less lethal. I've been wondering that awhile and Nomad's post, early today, including a link to a story which refers to that. I don't know if it's credible - I'm not familiar with the source. If it really is possible, I'd like to see a lot more.

I really like the way my state and county has handled things, given the uncertainties and tough balancing needed. We may simply be lucky or they may have been more to it than that. There's complete dissonance between life here and what's being showed on the media. I think most places in rural America are just like here, but that's just a hunch.

All of us have tales to tell about 2020. It's been a ride.

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Sammy5IsAlive

ORIGINAL: obvert



Here in the UK Imperial also predicted that easing could go very wrong quickly and small areas might have to be closed to contain outbreaks. It seems that's happening already as the city of Leicester has had a lockdown imposed. I hope that opening bars and restaurants on July 4 will not have similar consequences to what happened in many states. The Rt here is meant to be just below 1 in most places, and slightly lower in London, from what I can tell.

On this, Sky are reporting that 36 other boroughs are at risk of needing to re-impose lockdown measures similar to Leicester

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus- ... s-12018594

Saw that yes. Saw Wandsworth is on there. It would suck for us if our borough or the one where our nursery is (Hackney) had to close down again. It's felt pretty good and not too rowdy around where I've been, so fingers crossed.

[sPzAbt653]

COVID-19 patients experience neurological symptoms

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articl ... l-symptoms

Confusion, impaired consciousness, uncoordinated muscle movements, altered mental state.

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

COVID-19 patients experience neurological symptoms

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articl ... l-symptoms

Confusion, impaired consciousness, uncoordinated muscle movements, altered mental state.

There may be a treatment for that:

https://www.genengnews.com/news/reversi ... t-neurons/

[JohnDillworth]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

COVID-19 patients experience neurological symptoms

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articl ... l-symptoms

Confusion, impaired consciousness, uncoordinated muscle movements, altered mental state.

One of my coworkers had Covid and was out 6 weeks. His worst symptom was a loss of balance. He could barely stand with support and could not walk at all. I had a long, technical conversation the week before he came back to work. A week later he had no recollection of the conversation or speaking to me at all. He seemed fine on the phone. He is close to 100% now and regaining some of he weight he lost (he also lost his sense of taste and smell, supposedly Covid destroys stem cells and it takes a long time to fully grow back). I mention this because It seemed incongruousness with the other cases we had at work. This thing is so strange and we are still finding things out about it.

[Nomad]

Here is an article that says that many ( most?) people who had covid-19 and lost their sense of smell and or taste are getting it back.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaot ... erm=070220

[BBfanboy]

On the BBC news this morning they interviewed a gene scientist at "23 and Me", the company that does DNA analysis - mostly for ancestry but also for medical vulnerabilities. They ask their 12.5 million customers if they would be willing to participate in gene research in the future and 80% said yes. So they started a study of the COVID19 virus and asked their entire pool of willing customers to describe their experience with COVID, if any. They got replies back from a huge number of them and they analyzed their info on cases, symptoms, hospitalization, etc.

They ran that info against the genetic info from the same customers and determined that having Type O blood correlates with a 20% lower severity of illness (mostly based on hospital and ICU cases). The study was done in California - should be something in the news there.

I have type O blood. I put the resistance down to cantankerousness keeping people and the virus at bay ...[:)]

[Canoerebel]

In Florida, the number of new cases is up 10x since June 1 (from about 700/day to about 7,000)….but mortality is holding steady at about 38/day (that's down from the peak of about 50 in early May).

Saw and heard a few more reports today addressing this oddity, with most tying it to the fact that most new case are younger than the first wave in March/April. Didn't hear any speculation that the virus may be mutating to a weaker form, but I'll continue scanning reports.

[Canoerebel]

Nationally, mortality remained level (7-day rolling average). My state was down again. As for my community, no new mortalities since around May 26; however, hospitalizations have crept up from 7 to 15 over the past couple of weeks.

It's interesting to follow the efforts of the professional and major college sports trying to make things work. Right now, they seem to be vigorously swimming against a strong tide.

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

On the BBC news this morning they interviewed a gene scientist at "23 and Me", the company that does DNA analysis - mostly for ancestry but also for medical vulnerabilities. They ask their 12.5 million customers if they would be willing to participate in gene research in the future and 80% said yes. So they started a study of the COVID19 virus and asked their entire pool of willing customers to describe their experience with COVID, if any. They got replies back from a huge number of them and they analyzed their info on cases, symptoms, hospitalization, etc.

They ran that info against the genetic info from the same customers and determined that having Type O blood correlates with a 20% lower severity of illness (mostly based on hospital and ICU cases). The study was done in California - should be something in the news there.

I have type O blood. I put the resistance down to cantankerousness keeping people and the virus at bay ...[:)]

But the mosquitoes prefer type O blood, then A, the B, then AB.

I like to say around the ladies, especially the younger pretty ones, that eating garlic keeps the blood sucking creatures away. When the puff up as if to make an angry retort, I point out that only the females mosquitoes suck blood. For some reason, they seem to deflate. I understand it also keep ticks away as well.

[sPzAbt653]

What a coinky-dink, I just ordered some new Type-O t-shirts [;)]

[sPzAbt653]

I have not been tested yet, but if I haven't contracted COVID it may be due to having a slightly boosted immune system due to taking daily vitamins A, C and D, and Chicken Noodle Soup a couple times a week [don't let ChickenBoy know].

[JohnDillworth]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

In Florida, the number of new cases is up 10x since June 1 (from about 700/day to about 7,000)….but mortality is holding steady at about 38/day (that's down from the peak of about 50 in early May).

Saw and heard a few more reports today addressing this oddity, with most tying it to the fact that most new case are younger than the first wave in March/April. Didn't hear any speculation that the virus may be mutating to a weaker form, but I'll continue scanning reports.

There are reports of a new strain but the defining characteristic seems to be it is more infectious than the previous strain. As with all things Covid early information needs lots of corroboration but this is coming from sources with a good pedigree. It would not surprise me if this new strain also was less deadly but there is no evidence, yet, for that. https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... -to-spread

[Lowpe]

Sad story.

My parents senior home is still off limits to visitors...and scammers got to my Father and somehow convinced him to buy five grand of gift certificates to the scammers, install malicious software on his computer, and put at risk all of his online accounts.

Normally, I visit every other day and would have nipped this in the bud. Now I had to have him ship me the computer, and he had to change all his accounts.

Not a fun experience for all involved.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Sad story.

My parents senior home is still off limits to visitors...and scammers got to my Father and somehow convinced him to buy five grand of gift certificates to the scammers, install malicious software on his computer, and put at risk all of his online accounts.

Normally, I visit every other day and would have nipped this in the bud. Now I had to have him ship me the computer, and he had to change all his accounts.

Not a fun experience for all involved.

The scammers were not too active until about two weeks ago when I started to get multiple calls a day from long distance codes all over the world, a lot of them with the line of VPN coding at the end (it starts with a V, so I am guessing it is VPN). I have call display and if I do not recognize the number, I don't pick up the phone. I have heard that just picking up the phone for a long enough period of time will enable some calls to use it to call a toll number that doesn't stop when you hang up again. It can run up thousands of dollars in charges without you knowing about it.
Scammers used to leave a robotic message on my answering machine, but now they seem to detect it and not bother.
Sometimes it is good to be a skeptic!

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

In Florida, the number of new cases is up 10x since June 1 (from about 700/day to about 7,000)….but mortality is holding steady at about 38/day (that's down from the peak of about 50 in early May).

Saw and heard a few more reports today addressing this oddity, with most tying it to the fact that most new case are younger than the first wave in March/April. Didn't hear any speculation that the virus may be mutating to a weaker form, but I'll continue scanning reports.

There are reports of a new strain but the defining characteristic seems to be it is more infectious than the previous strain. As with all things Covid early information needs lots of corroboration but this is coming from sources with a good pedigree. It would not surprise me if this new strain also was less deadly but there is no evidence, yet, for that. https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... -to-spread

Interesting about the viral load being higher in the new strain, but no proof yet that it actually makes it more transmissible?

Until testing moves beyond just testing the 'suspected' cases and starts doing random, statistically significant testing of all the population, I don't see how we can get data that proves or disproves the theory.

[Canoerebel]

Man, Jeff, sorry to hear that. It's got to be infuriating beyond belief.

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Sad story.

My parents senior home is still off limits to visitors...and scammers got to my Father and somehow convinced him to buy five grand of gift certificates to the scammers, install malicious software on his computer, and put at risk all of his online accounts.

Normally, I visit every other day and would have nipped this in the bud. Now I had to have him ship me the computer, and he had to change all his accounts.

Not a fun experience for all involved.

[Canoerebel]

My local newspaper this a.m. noted that hospitalizations are indeed increasing here, as noted yesterday. However, these additional cases (roughly 8 in the past two weeks) haven't required ventilators. Another indication that the increase in positive testing isn't like the March/April situation. No new mortalities here since May 26, and the daily number continues to decline statewide.

Reporting should decrease significantly over the holiday weekend, so there may be an artificial decrease that'll get adjusted with higher reports next week. But, overall, the situation continues to look pretty good around these parts.

[fcooke]

Hopefully not considered political, but the collateral damage on this one will IMO be considerable. Before the shutdown I used to do volunteer tax services. Older folks are very prone to getting scammed. Being locked down makes it harder for people to help them. And the scumbags doing it really are.....scum.