Coronavirus : Country readiness

[Azdeus]

3 people + one boss called in sick this morning, meaning more than half the dayshift is home sick. It's going to be an awful day.

 

Edit; Oh, right, the on-topic stuff that I forgot because of my whinging.

Since the medcare officials decided that no hospitals should have a stock of equipment but be served by a central storage "at need" we're running really low on equipment, and since many borders are closing, stuff we've ordered years in advance "for contingencies" has been seized by the government of the country where they were produced. Really clever idea that. The **** were they thinking with this "plan"?!

Edited March 16, 2020 by Azdeus

[Chilloutman]

if there is any positive effect of this pandemic, its that each country should produce its own necessary stuff and not outsource everything to China

[majestic]

Whee, fun, there it is. We just got our papers exempting us from any current and future lockdown measures - for the purpose of showing up at work obviously.

[Gorgon]

Tons of bog roll here, no more people in the shops than normal, but then we actually have faith that what the government tells us is true.

A lot of people's jobs are up in the air though. That's inevitable. 

[Boeroer]

Romania is doing pretty good - better than my homecountry Germany. A clichee is that Germans are so disciplined. Well in this case they are not. Most of all they are stubborn - insisting on doing the same things the Italians told us not to do.

Romanians took pretty drastic measures right away (like closing all schools and childcare) when there were only few cases. After several days we're still under 150 cases despite the 40k Romanians that fled northern Italy when they went into lockdown. The increase per day is very moderate. At the same time Germany rides the exponential curve right up into the sky... 

Interestingly (and shockingly): if you compare infection numbers and -rate of France and Germany they are somewhat on par, but France has ten times more death cases than Germany...? Why is that? 

[Gorgon]

That's the thing about exponential though, it doesn't look like much at first.

 

I think the German hospitals are just very good and smooth running. Nothing to base that on other than that they are usually held up as a model.

[Gorth]

34 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

A clichee is that Germans are so disciplined. Well in this case they are not. Most of all they are stubborn

You don't say, I lived a year in Germany, within spitting distance of the Brandenburg "Airport"

 

Talk about a project that should have been scrapped years ago

 

[Elerond]

12 hours ago, 213374U said:

Do you have a source on this? Because I've read that there are two types (S and L) of the SARS-CoV-2 rather than "multiple", and I have seen no reports that patients can be infected independently by each type -- which is to be expected seeing as how it's a new development. Likewise, I have not seen any rigorous reports that people can indeed be infected again after recovering, but a study in macaques seems to indicate the opposite. In fact, a potential vaccine strategy seems to be aiming at common features shared by SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 that are likely to trigger an immune response, resulting in a vaccine that is effective against both -- I doubt different different strains of the current virus would be more different from each other than from the SARS virus.

There has been reports from Japan and China people getting testing positive again after recovered from the infection

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-japan/japanese-woman-confirmed-as-coronavirus-case-for-2nd-time-weeks-after-initial-recovery-idUSKCN20L0BI

Although there isn't consensus if these case are actual reinfection or failures in tests. 

 

National Science Review says that more severe L strain mutated from original S strain, but it seems that human intervention has prevented L strain spreading as far as original S strain. Chinese study also suggest that it seems currently both strains are mutating towards direction where they cause less severe symptoms, but spread faster. It is possible that virus mutates fast considering that S strain jumped for first time from animal to human in end of November or start of December 2019 and month later more aggressive strain L, although it is typical that viruses evolve faster when they first jump from one species to another as they try to adapt new host type. But if we let virus spread freely to population in hopes to gain herd immunity against it it is more than likely that it will develop more strains as more host virus have it has more changes to pick up new material to evolve

https://www.contagionlive.com/news/investigators-identify-2-circulating-sarscov2-strains

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/covid-19-2-strains-1.5487672

 

Previous  work SARS-CoV vaccine is used as base for SARS-CoV-2 vaccine because both viruses use ACE2 enzyme to invade human cells, and they tried to find method that inactivates said enzyme (something that your own immune system doesn't do). But as there is no working vaccine for SARS-CoV, it is not necessary fruitful path for working vaccine for SARS-CoV-2. But that is not only research path, others are whole virus vaccine (which is the more traditional approach where person is infected by dead or inactive version of virus in order to let body build immunity against it), then is subuit vaccine which purpose is to make person immunity system sensible towards S-spike protein, which is protein that SARS-CoV-2 uses in its process to intrude ACE2 enzyme. And there are studies for RNA vaccine, which is artificially created RNA that produces similar proteins that mimic proteins from pathogen (in this case SARS-CoV-2 ), so that immunity system will antibodies against pathogen.

[Boeroer]

1 hour ago, Gorth said:

You don't say, I lived a year in Germany, within spitting distance of the Brandenburg "Airport"

 

Talk about a project that should have been scrapped years ago

 

That's Berlin. That's in a different universe altogether.

[Boeroer]

1 hour ago, Gorgon said:

That's the thing about exponential though, it doesn't look like much at first.

Sure, but the percentage increase per day in Romania is much lower than it ever was in Germany (or France or Italy for that matter). The reason most likely is that more drastic measures were applied more early. Last week my wife almost didn't manage to get back home without immediately going into quarantine (after a business trip to Germany).

[Amentep]

No one at work yet...wondering if I didn't get a memo...

[Guard Dog]

State offices are closed. Field visits only when necessary. We are working from home. It's true every cloud has a silver lining.

[Skazz]

33 minutes ago, Amentep said:

No one at work yet...wondering if I didn't get a memo...

That or you're already dead.

[Gfted1]

After today Ill be wfh for the next two weeks, woohoo! My tp game is strong and just as an overabundance of caution, I bought a 600 pack of napkins yesterday. I figure thats got to be good for 200 individual wiping sessions.  With the important stuff taken care of (ass wipe), I then entered a bunker mentality even though my local store shelves were well stocked. Can soup @ $1.49 each? Id be stupid NOT to, even though I havent eaten can soup in YEARS. Another 5 Lb of ground beef? Get in my cart! 10 pork chops? Hells yeah! Canned tuna? 6 cans should hold be over right? My grocery bill was over $100 more than average.

[Amentep]

43 minutes ago, Skazz said:

That or you're already dead.

They finally came in, so I'm probably not dead.  

[Gfted1]

Comparing the COVID-19 Coronavirus to 7 Other Infectious Diseases.

[Mamoulian War]

5 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Sure, but the percentage increase per day in Romania is much lower than it ever was in Germany (or France or Italy for that matter). The reason most likely is that more drastic measures were applied more early. Last week my wife almost didn't manage to get back home without immediately going into quarantine (after a business trip to Germany).

The reason might be most likely to much better testing of population in Germany. e.g. in Slovakia, you are not tested until you have 38 Celsius, even if you had every other symptom. Also it’s almost 1 week after 1st person was detected here, but only today the private labs started testing for Corona. Up until today, only two state labs had tests in stock.

[213374U]

4 hours ago, Elerond said:

There has been reports from Japan and China people getting testing positive again after recovered from the infection

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-japan/japanese-woman-confirmed-as-coronavirus-case-for-2nd-time-weeks-after-initial-recovery-idUSKCN20L0BI

Although there isn't consensus if these case are actual reinfection or failures in tests. 

Yeah, that was discussed earlier. As I said, limited occurrences are most likely a result of faulty testing, misdiagnosis, virus deposits left in people after being discharged or instances of weakened immune systems. Antibodies for SARS remain on people who have fought it off for ~2 years. It's a complex topic so ruling anything out at this point is unwise, but other than some news reports, there is no actual evidence that reinfection is a thing.

 

 

4 hours ago, Elerond said:

But if we let virus spread freely to population in hopes to gain herd immunity against it it is more than likely that it will develop more strains as more host virus have it has more changes to pick up new material to evolve

That's your own addition and unsupported by the literature. A different strain that circumvents immunity could appear tomorrow, in fall, next year or never, because of the large fraction of the population that is expected to get it at some point or another. If other known human coronaviruses are anything to go by, it will become endemic with seasonal fluctuations regardless of control measures as Zoraptor suggested.

So, two types of the virus are known as opposed to several, and no indication that types are different enough that immunity to one doesn't prevent infection by the other strain, even if simultaneous infections are possible (unclear wording on my part previously).

 

4 hours ago, Elerond said:

vaccine snip

Yes, the approach I mentioned is not the only strategy, but that's beside the point. The point is that researchers believe that the SARS and 2019-nCoV are similar enough that a vaccine targeting immunodominant epitopes common to both is a workable possibility. This would be a non-starter if different types of 2019-nCoV were different enough among themselves to require specific immune responses.

http://www.sci-news.com/medicine/targets-immune-responses-sars-cov-2-coronavirus-08221.html

[Gromnir]

How Did the NBA Push Through 58 Coronavirus Tests When Almost No One Else Can Get Them?

aoc deserves her punching bag status in many/most circumstances. folks over on fox love to point out how ridiculous is progressive liberals in general by highlighting aoc blunders.  currently the talking heads at fox is blasting the n00b member o' Congress by highlighting her claims that rich folks is getting preferential covid-19 testing. point out aoc has no evidence to support her claims.

recognition o' fact multiple nba teams has now tested all their players in spite o' paucity o' available tests may not be proof but is indeed evidence in support o' aoc position.

HA! Good Fun!

 

[Elerond]

25 minutes ago, 213374U said:

Yes, the approach I mentioned is not the only strategy, but that's beside the point. The point is that researchers believe that the SARS and 2019-nCoV are similar enough that a vaccine targeting immunodominant epitopes common to both is a workable possibility. This would be a non-starter if different types of 2019-nCoV were different enough among themselves to require specific immune responses.

http://www.sci-news.com/medicine/targets-immune-responses-sars-cov-2-coronavirus-08221.html

“The fact that we found that many B and T cell epitopes are highly conserved between SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 provides a great starting point for vaccine development,” Professor Sette said.

“Vaccine strategies that specifically target these regions could generate immunity that’s not only cross-protective but also relatively resistant to ongoing virus evolution.”

 

They are hoping that because they found so many similarities between the viruses that it means that it could be possible to develop vaccine that works generally against similar corona viruses and that constant evolution of said viruses will not make vaccine obsolete in couple years. Meaning that they have only working theory for such cure, nothing concrete. But if it works it could work as general vaccine against quite many corona viruses.

[Rubarbarian]

Russia will close off its borders to all foreign citizens from Wednesday for at least six weeks

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/coronavirus-russia-border-close-flights-when-residents-latest-a9405131.html

In our region  shools and majority of jobs switched to remote mode,  public events are canceled, healthcare and military services become high alert, streets and shops are deserted, people prefer stay at home majority of time.

[Guard Dog]

A silver lining for every cloud: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/venice-canals-clear-water-scli-intl/index.html

[Azdeus]

I'll be honest, I'm not certain if I'm happy with my governments "inaction" as it is, they're helping out restaurants, cafe's, bars and whatnot, but it really feels as if it's buisness as usual except that at work 5 out of 8 people stayed at home from work/went home from work.

Then again, I'm not really for a pointless show of force/action from politicians either.

Edited March 16, 2020 by Azdeus

[Gorgon]

Holy crap, curfew in France. As in you are not allowed to go outside. 

:=

Can I just fast forward the next 6 months. 

 

That's meant to be a skull, not a ****.

 

[Volourn]

 Well.. no work for me for next little while. All shut down. Kinda weird in proactiveness. No confirmed cases in my town though the mayor  put himself un lock down because he had been in the same room with someone in some sort of conference a few months ago. Whelp. Fun times.

 

P.S. Any gov't who threatens force and murder over this is EVIL. Period. So far, as I am no fan of Trudeau, but he has done decent considering we in Kanada have been fortunate so far. 

Edited March 16, 2020 by Volourn