OT - NO POLITICS Local COVID-19 Discussion IV

[Buffaloed]

The purpose of this thread is to discuss and provide COVID-19 information of local interest

For more expansive discussion use COVID 19 - The Coronavirus Outbreak

You may critique the response of government but don't make it political.
Posts attributing motives because it involves this or that political party/politician/ideology will not be tolerated.

Click to read more...

 

[Old Navy Goat]

We're waiting to hear new info on quarantine status tomorrow as the current rules expire at midnight. We're expecting Cebu to remain locked down as they're still inundated. Manila has had a recent surge so might tighten a bit especially as the 3 best hospitals in the city are maxed out on covid beds.
Some of the rest of the country has reopened to travel between cities, restaurants have on-site dining at 30% capacity, and hotels are also reopening. The bad thing about the travel is that the gf now wants her brother, wife and kid to come here ie take a 4hr crowded bus ride, hour in jeepneys to come infect me or unleash the locust plague on my pantry

 

[Gras]

We're waiting to hear new info on quarantine status tomorrow as the current rules expire at midnight. We're expecting Cebu to remain locked down as they're still inundated. Manila has had a recent surge so might tighten a bit especially as the 3 best hospitals in the city are maxed out on covid beds.
Some of the rest of the country has reopened to travel between cities, restaurants have on-site dining at 30% capacity, and hotels are also reopening. The bad thing about the travel is that the gf now wants her brother, wife and kid to come here ie take a 4hr crowded bus ride, hour in jeepneys to come infect me or unleash the locust plague on my pantry

Seems like that GF is more trouble than she's worth sometimes.

 

[Old Navy Goat]

Seems like that GF is more trouble than she's worth sometimes.

Aren't they all. She just worries as they've been out of work since this started and the local gov't doesn't give benefits to non-birth residents of the city so I've been supporting them.

 

[Dubi Doo]

Round 2...Fight!

 

[Dubi Doo]

Texas receiving reinforcements from the military to help their healthcare workers. They must be completely overwhelmed. Only a matter of time before Houston has a stay at home order (or one that mirrors it a bit)


Governor Abbott Announces Additional Department Of Defense Resources To Mitigate COVID-19 | Office of the Texas Governor | Greg Abbott


On the plus side, we are kicking ass here in the finger lakes region. As of yesterday, our 7-day percent positive rate is at 1.3%. A slight uptick from .8% in mid-June. This was to be expected as we started indoor dining on June 10th. The fact we still have the virus under control after having indoor dining at bars open for over a month is really good stuff. As long as the community stays diligent then we should be good. Of course, we have to worry about people vacationing to those southern states and bringing the virus home.


Also, schools will be open in NY if they meet these guidelines:

- The area is in phase four of reopening
-the 14-day positive percent rate is less than 5%
-7-day average does NOT hit 9%

Parents have the option to keep their kids home and do online learning.

 

[Husko]

Can we subtitle this “let’s try this again” ? Please and thank you.

 

[Husko]

Texas receiving reinforcements from the military to help their healthcare workers. They must be completely overwhelmed. Only a matter of time before Houston has a stay at home order (or one that mirrors it a bit)


Governor Abbott Announces Additional Department Of Defense Resources To Mitigate COVID-19 | Office of the Texas Governor | Greg Abbott


On the plus side, we are kicking ass here in the finger lakes region. As of yesterday, our 7-day percent positive rate is at 1.3%. A slight uptick from .8% in mid-June. This was to be expected as we started indoor dining on June 10th. The fact we still have the virus under control after having indoor dining at bars open for over a month is really good stuff. As long as the community stays diligent then we should be good. Of course, we have to worry about people vacationing to those southern states and bringing the virus home.


Also, schools will be open in NY if they meet these guidelines:

- The area is in phase four of reopening
-the 14-day positive percent rate is less than 5%
-7-day average does NOT hit 9%

Parents have the option to keep their kids home and do online learning.

Those numbers he’s setting are quite high. Clearly geared towards opening schools and keeping them open. Consider that pretty much the entire state is at 1% right now.

 

[Jim Bob]

Those numbers he’s setting are quite high. Clearly geared towards opening schools and keeping them open. Consider that pretty much the entire state is at 1% right now.

The bigger issue is a lack of funding to cover things that will be needed like how to pay for fewer kids per bus and increased cleaning costs and stuff.

Lots of districts are having COVID induced budget issues and re-opening safely will increase costs.

And I can't wait to see what districts say the plan will be when a student or a teacher need to quarantine.

 

[Dubi Doo]

Those numbers he’s setting are quite high. Clearly geared towards opening schools and keeping them open. Consider that pretty much the entire state is at 1% right now.

The bigger issue is a lack of funding to cover things that will be needed like how to pay for fewer kids per bus and increased cleaning costs and stuff.

Lots of districts are having COVID induced budget issues and re-opening safely will increase costs.

And I can't wait to see what districts say the plan will be when a student or a teacher need to quarantine.

It's such a fine line to walk because education is incredibly important but we also need to think about the safety of the kids and teachers, obviously. Also, how can we expect parents to stay home with their kids if we can't send them to school?
There's a ton of planning that needs to be done all around.

9% positive rate for the 7-day average seems very high to me. From what I've read, under 5% is where you want to be.

 

[Gras]

Researchers find dominant coronavirus strain in Arizona

Researchers in Flagstaff have identified a coronavirus mutation that's affecting thousands of Arizonans right now.
Scientists at TGen are looking at how the novel coronavirus is mutating in Arizona. "We look at these changes, these mutations in the genomes that tell us maybe the story is changing a little bit," said Dr. David Engelthaler.
Dr. Engelthaler heads researchers at TGen's infectious disease branch in Flagstaff. A sample gets sent there from every positive COVID-19 test in Arizona. Dr. Engelthaler said one strain, D614G is in 90% of all cases in the state.
Initially, it mutated in Europe, and this strain he said is more contagious, but it's too early to tell how severe it is.
"We don't know what's causing it to be less severe, although we are seeing drops in fatality rates," said Dr. Engelthaler. "That's the good news; the bad news is that we are still seeing a large number of fatalities, we can't forget how deadly this virus is and who's most at risk."

Strain of COVID-19 that may spread more, be less deadly linked to most of Arizona's cases

PHOENIX — Scientists are finding a particular strain of COVID-19 is likely more easily spread from person-to-person and might be less deadly. Arizona researchers say many of the cases in the state are linked to it.
“The story of this virus is really written in the genome and those mutations can act like plot twists,” Dr. David Engelthaler, director of TGen North, said.

The mutation is called D614G, and unlike strains out of China, it appears to spread more easily.
“Which seems to have, you know, in many cases, cause really large outbreaks,” Engelthaler said.
Engelthaler said the virus appears to be trying to adapt to its host: people.
“Hopefully this virus is starting to act like other human coronaviruses, maybe it becomes more transmissible, but maybe less virulent and less deadly,” Engelthaler said.
While Arizona has been experiencing a surge in COVID-19 cases, Engelthaler said it’s too early to tell if the D614G is impacting the increased cases.
“It’s probably too early to say all the cases, the large increase of cases that we’re having in Arizona, has to do with specific mutations that are occurring,” Engelthaler said.

 

[vcv]

Researchers find dominant coronavirus strain in Arizona


Strain of COVID-19 that may spread more, be less deadly linked to most of Arizona's cases

It's real f***ing scary when a virus takes so long to try to understand and get a handle on, then it goes and mutates so quickly and in ways that makes understanding it broadly nigh impossible.

 

[Jim Bob]

It's such a fine line to walk because education is incredibly important but we also need to think about the safety of the kids and teachers, obviously. Also, how can we expect parents to stay home with their kids if we can't send them to school?
There's a ton of planning that needs to be done all around.

9% positive rate for the 7-day average seems very high to me. From what I've read, under 5% is where you want to be.

As a parent of a 13yo and a 16yo for whom remote learning doesn't work nearly enough, the best thing for their educations is to re-open in the fall.

I just don't know if it is safe to do so.

That is why this is such a brutal situation to be in.

And the fact that we could have avoided this is what makes it worse.

 

[Montag DP]

I'm lucky that my kids are not yet kindergarten-age and my wife can teach from home anyway. It's gotta be rough on families with both parents working.

 

[Gras]

How schools across the globe are reopening amid the coronavirus pandemic

 

[Gras]

The bigger issue is a lack of funding to cover things that will be needed like how to pay for fewer kids per bus and increased cleaning costs and stuff.

Lots of districts are having COVID induced budget issues and re-opening safely will increase costs.

And I can't wait to see what districts say the plan will be when a student or a teacher need to quarantine.

https://www.utla.net/sites/default/files/samestormdiffboats_final.pdf

LA teachers union says public schools should not reopen unless demands are met

One of the largest teachers unions in the state of California, the United Teachers Los Angeles with 35,000 members, says public schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District should not reopen if certain policies are not implemented on the state and national level, including defunding the police and implementing Medicare for All.
The union called on local authorities to "keep school campuses closed when the semester is scheduled to begin on Aug. 18."
The union’s demands listed in a recently released policy paper include implementing a moratorium on charter schools, defunding the police, increasing taxes on the wealthy, implementing Medicare-for-All, and the U.S. Senate and President Donald Trump approving House Democrats’ HEROES Act, which allocates an additional $116 billion in federal education funding to states.
United Teachers Los Angeles also says in order to reopen schools, students must be sequestered in small groups throughout the school day, students must be provided with facial coverings and other forms of protective equipment, and school layouts must be redesigned to facilitate social distancing.
Jordan Bruneau, with the California Public Policy Center, told the Center Square, “The LA teachers union is shamelessly exploiting COVID-19 and holding children's education hostage to achieve its ultimate goal of banning school choice. Rather than looking at the widespread evidence and expert opinion, including the American Association of Pediatrics, that schools can reopen safely, unions are using kids as pawns for their own benefit.”
United Teachers Los Angeles argues that police violence "is a leading cause of death and trauma for Black people, and is a serious public health and moral issue," and is calling on authorities to "shift the astronomical amount of money devoted to policing to education and other essential needs such as housing and public health."

 

[BloFan4Life]

At sea for 35 days, sailors mysteriously contract coronavirus

I really think there needs to be a distinction made about what strand is spreading. If it is the strand that has been around for decades, then things need to operate it has for decades.

 

[brian_griffin]

It's real f***ing scary when a virus takes so long to try to understand and get a handle on, then it goes and mutates so quickly and in ways that makes understanding it broadly nigh impossible.

Is the inference these viruses should be named after women, in the former manner of naming tropical storms and hurricanes?

Neighbor across the street (I call him the admiral, because he has 3 boats - a johnboat, an 18-20' or so pleasure/skiing boat, and a larger ~40+yo Lyman which was on Erie or Michigan for decades before he brought it here a few years ago and refit it for ocean use) is very likely positive. His office manager was positive ~9 days ago, so he shut down (Dr. of chiropractor) and has been waiting a week for his test results - they are somewhat overwhelmed with the processing here, hence the delay. But he's symptomatic, so it's likely a formality. He's been staying at his office while quarantining. It helps that he owns the building and it was a former ranch-style house on a major road rezoned for O&I, so it's still like a house. Talked to him last night from 30-foot distance while we were taking out our trash and recycling (his family has gone elsewhere on vacation - without him). He didn't go into his house, just in the garage / yard, etc. We're similar age, within a year or two, but I can't remember who is older between us. He should be healthy enough to make it through.

 

[Old Navy Goat]

Getting stricter here, police can do house searches to remove covid cases

Philippines to use police in house-to-house searches for Covid-19 cases

 

[Dubi Doo]

We really about to have a vaccine mass produced by early next year. Scientists are bad ass. I'm going to give my wife a fist bump today and tell her "Your people are da bomb"

 

[Old Navy Goat]

We really about to have a vaccine mass produced by early next year. Scientists are bad ass. I'm going to give my wife a fist bump today and tell her "You're people are da bomb"

Hopefully it's not a repeat of the '76 swine flu vaccine

 

[Dubi Doo]

Hopefully it's not a repeat of the '76 swine flu vaccine

Science has come a long way since then. Phase one typically weaves out all the health issues.

Moderna's phase one went very well. The paper was peer reviewed as well. Huge leap for science given it'll be the first mRNA vaccine. Don't get me wrong, I'm a bit iffy on this one since it's such a huge leap. I'll take the Oxford one as soon as it hits the shelves, though.

Per someone who seemingly has way more knowledge than me in this stuff:
"You're thinking about it the right way - the term we use to illustrate what you're getting at here is called safety margin, which is the difference between your effective dose level and toxic dose level. In this case, 250 ug was questionably tolerated, but 25 ug was effective, so we have at least a 10-fold difference.
The stuff I saw that was good news in there:

1. Every dose produced a response in 45/45 patients, and every dose level was tolerated even though 250 ug didn't stick the landing.
2. There were some adverse events, and the list of symptoms of the adverse events are pretty common for an immune response. You tend to get nausea, a slight fever, pain, etc. If we didn't see anything even when the doses got super high, that actually might be a concern that the vaccine isn't really doing anything. It's counter-intuitive, but in a way that's good news.
3. The measured immune response was huge at every dose. They measured for specific antibodies for COVID-19 immunity and reported titer units, and without getting into it too much, a titer unit is the amount the sample could be diluted and still test positive. The 25 ug dose had a titer of 40,000, meaning you could dilute it 40,000x and it would still be positive. The high dose after the second injection was 1.2 million. That's a **** ton of antibodies.
   
   It's worth noting that ADA tests are somewhat variable. I'd take any of those titer numbers with a grain of salt simply because they're so big. That said, they used two different ADA methods, which means they ran the samples two different ways and still got the same results both times. The odds of one test being a false positive are small, but there. The odds of both methods being junk are exponentially smaller.
4. It's also important to show that there is a dose-response curve, that as you increase the dose from 25 to 250 ug, we see a corresponding increase in effect. In this case, we do at all levels, so we can correlate the increased immune response with the safety issues, and set a dose level to get us the highest immune response we can in the safest way we can.

tl;dr I'm very confident this thing works. ET buy this one up.
EDIT: Their stock price closed at $71 and is currently $87 on google's after trade index."

He's a poster on a random forum, so take his opinion with a grain of salt, but given the way he types- he seems to be in the industry or at the very least has a solid foundation of understanding how science works.

 

[Gras]

FOX 35 INVESTIGATES: Florida Department of Health says some labs have not reported negative COVID-19 results

After FOX 35 News noticed errors in the state's report on positivity rates, the Florida Department of Health said that some laboratories have not been reporting negative test result data to the state.
Countless labs have reported a 100 percent positivity rate, which means every single person tested was positive. Other labs had very high positivity rates. FOX 35 News found that testing sites like one local Centra Care reported that 83 people were tested and all tested positive. Then, NCF Diagnostics in Alachua reported 88 percent of tests were positive.
How could that be? FOX 35 News investigated these astronomical numbers, contacting every local location mentioned in the report.
The report showed that Orlando Health had a 98 percent positivity rate. However, when FOX 35 News contacted the hospital, they confirmed errors in the report. Orlando Health's positivity rate is only 9.4 percent, not 98 percent as in the report.

The report also showed that the Orlando Veteran’s Medical Center had a positivity rate of 76 percent. A spokesperson for the VA told FOX 35 News on Tuesday that this does not reflect their numbers and that the positivity rate for the center is actually 6 percent.
FOX 35 News went on to speak with the Florida Department of Health on Tuesday. They confirmed that although private and public laboratories are required to report positive and negative results to the state immediately, some have not. Specifically, they said that some smaller, private labs were not reporting negative test result data to the state.
"The Department immediately began working with those labs to ensure that all results were being reported in order to provide comprehensive and transparent data," a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Health said. "As the state continues to receive results from various labs, the Department will continue educating these labs on proper protocol for reporting COVID-19 test results."

 

[Dubi Doo]

Researchers find dominant coronavirus strain in Arizona

Researchers in Flagstaff have identified a coronavirus mutation that's affecting thousands of Arizonans right now.
Scientists at TGen are looking at how the novel coronavirus is mutating in Arizona. "We look at these changes, these mutations in the genomes that tell us maybe the story is changing a little bit," said Dr. David Engelthaler.
Dr. Engelthaler heads researchers at TGen's infectious disease branch in Flagstaff. A sample gets sent there from every positive COVID-19 test in Arizona. Dr. Engelthaler said one strain, D614G is in 90% of all cases in the state.
Initially, it mutated in Europe, and this strain he said is more contagious, but it's too early to tell how severe it is.
"We don't know what's causing it to be less severe, although we are seeing drops in fatality rates," said Dr. Engelthaler. "That's the good news; the bad news is that we are still seeing a large number of fatalities, we can't forget how deadly this virus is and who's most at risk."

Strain of COVID-19 that may spread more, be less deadly linked to most of Arizona's cases

PHOENIX — Scientists are finding a particular strain of COVID-19 is likely more easily spread from person-to-person and might be less deadly. Arizona researchers say many of the cases in the state are linked to it.
“The story of this virus is really written in the genome and those mutations can act like plot twists,” Dr. David Engelthaler, director of TGen North, said.

The mutation is called D614G, and unlike strains out of China, it appears to spread more easily.
“Which seems to have, you know, in many cases, cause really large outbreaks,” Engelthaler said.
Engelthaler said the virus appears to be trying to adapt to its host: people.
“Hopefully this virus is starting to act like other human coronaviruses, maybe it becomes more transmissible, but maybe less virulent and less deadly,” Engelthaler said.
While Arizona has been experiencing a surge in COVID-19 cases, Engelthaler said it’s too early to tell if the D614G is impacting the increased cases.
“It’s probably too early to say all the cases, the large increase of cases that we’re having in Arizona, has to do with specific mutations that are occurring,” Engelthaler said.

Unfortunately, this is the same strain that dominated Italy and the east coast. It's become way more contagious to the point that any drop in fatality is offset by how much more contagious it is. It becomes the dominant strain in any area it hits.

I think there are other factors effecting the fatality rate mainly increased in testing, better treatment and more of the vulnerable population playing it safe compared to when the pandemic first started.

Mutated coronavirus shows significant boost in infectivity | Scripps Research

“Hopefully this virus is starting to act like other human coronaviruses, maybe it becomes more transmissible, but maybe less virulent and less deadly,” Engelthaler said.

This is the hope. Hopefully the virus just becomes another common cold in time.

 

[Gras]

Some more fuel to the good ole mask debate, enjoy.



Here are links to several studies
2009 [Computer-based epicrisis is the first important step on the way towards surgical quality assurance] - PubMed

2010 Face masks to prevent transmission of influenza virus: a systematic review | Epidemiology & Infection | Cambridge Core

2012 Error - Cookies Turned Off

2015 A cluster randomised trial of cloth masks compared with medical masks in healthcare workers

2016 Effectiveness of N95 respirators versus surgical masks in protecting health care workers from acute respiratory infection: a systematic review and meta-analysis

2017 Effectiveness of Masks and Respirators Against Respiratory Infections in Healthcare Workers: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

2019 N95 Respirators vs Medical Masks for Preventing Laboratory-Confirmed Influenza in Health Care Personnel

2020 Error - Cookies Turned Off