Coronavirus Goes Fourth

[Gfted1]

Initial Report Suggests COVID-19 Immunity Could Last for Years. 

[rjshae]

19 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Certainly could be faulty, it's very much a presumption.

I'd expect even most non intensive care hospital types to have been exposed though, no matter the precautions, too much covid about for general patients not to get it with the variable symptoms and the tests not 100% reliable especially when the symptoms aren't severe. But that is very much supposition, as is it being the reason why there's some, uh, resistance to the vaccine among them. There'd certainly be some general distrust of a vaccine that has not been subject to the same length of scrutiny as would normally happen.

The thing is, this attitude is true of influenza vaccines as well.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2810172/

[Hiro Protagonist]

2 Gorillas In California Contract The Coronavirus

https://www.npr.org/2021/01/11/955782284/two-gorillas-in-california-contract-the-coronavirus

[Gorth]

1 hour ago, Hiro Protagonist said:

2 Gorillas In California Contract The Coronavirus

https://www.npr.org/2021/01/11/955782284/two-gorillas-in-california-contract-the-coronavirus

The Oxford/AstraZenica vaccine is based on chimp DNA. Time to vaccinate the zoo gorillas?

 

[Zoraptor]

That probably would work, certainly not a silly suggestion at all.

(It's not actually based on chimp DNA it's based on a adenovirus that attacks chimps, cf Sputnik which uses 2 human targeting adenovirus viruses as its base)

1 hour ago, rjshae said:

The thing is, this attitude is true of influenza vaccines as well.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2810172/

Flu vaccine is a bit of a special case in many respects though, much as flu as a virus is a bit of a special case. Even if you take it every year it still isn't (comparatively) very effective.

(Personally it's the only vaccine I've ever had an adverse reaction to. Fine for five minutes, then a really weird feeling followed by a 10 second black out, then fine again. Does reinforce why they make you stay in the waiting room for 15 minutes after getting it. Also, won't stop me taking it again)

Edited January 12, 2021 by Zoraptor

[213374U]

On 1/10/2021 at 1:51 PM, Boeroer said:

I also want to come back to that thread from Feb. when Merkel said something along the lines of "This will be the greatest challenge since WWII" and I agreed but several forum users expressed doubt (fair enough) or even ridiculed me. I'm too lazy to dig out the quotes but still:


  

So 375k deaths over the course of a year in a region with 440M+ inhabitants, and that's the greatest challenge since WWII. Because the prospect of a few thousand Soviet tanks rolling up the Fulda Gap and nuclear war was a Sunday picnic. And let's not talk about the potentially catastrophic consequences of climate change either, which threatens to be a cause for as many deaths as all infectious diseases combined by 2100... from heat alone. Nothing compared to a respiratory disease that has a ~1% mortality rate and which threatens overwhelmingly the elderly and vulnerable, apparently.

And now you're coming here to double down on that, when not even Merkel has. After all, if something hasn't happened, it clearly couldn't happen, and it's not going to happen, right?

[Boeroer]

Where the hell did I say that climate change wouldn't be an even bigger challenge? I strongly believe that it will be. Severly worse than this no doubt. But we are not talking about a bigger challenge that will come but the biggest challenge since WWII so far.
At the moment the challenge of climate change is to prevent hitting +1.5 degrees (or +2 degrees). That isn't actually that big of a challenge if the government and economy would be inclined to get serious about it. Had we lowered our CO2 emmisons by only 4% per year since the 80s we would already be there. Done. We didn't and that makes this thing more and more challenging with every year - but we're not there yet. It will be a huge challenge if we sleep on it any longer. And if we don't succeed at all it will be impossible and a challenge we will not be able to master. So about climate change I'm on your side, you can stop clutching your pearls now.

Yet some prospect isn't a real challenge for society. Nothing rolled up the Fulda Gap. Maybe it was a challenge for the military and the government at that time - but for citizens it didn't really come over as a big challenge. I don't really remember it and it hasn't imprinted itself into the memory of my parents like Chernobyl has for example. Also a giant meteorite didn't hit earth - although the prospect of one doing so might be terrifying. And David Hasselhoff didn't get the Nobel Peace Price for singing down the Berlin Wall. Phew. 

The challenge of the COVID pandemic however isn't just because of death by virus. It's that, too - but on top of that comes the medical, political, economic, ethical, social an cultural distortions. Not only in Germany but in also in Europe. Look at the fragility the EU displays atm. We had to close borders despite our open-border policy in the Schengen area. I was in Romania when the first wave hit and they did a hard lockdown immediately which impacted the life of citizens severely. When I look around I strongly believe that the vast majority of Europeans (especially Spain, Italy, Belgium and Netherlands which got hit esp. hard in the first wave and the UK which gets pummeled now) would agree that this pandemic IS the biggest challenge Germany and Europe have faced since WWII.

Not that it's anywhere near as bad as WWII itself, of course not. Claiming that would be ridiculous - and nobody did. But since WWII we didn't have anything that caused such upheaval in all parts of our society. "Reichsbürger" together with hippies and esoterics try to storm the Reichstag - because they fear that Germany will become a dictatorship (bc. of some soft lockdowns). Wow - never did we see such turmoil since WWII.

As for the ridiculous "~1% mortality rate" nonsense: You realize that in Germany alone we are nearly 90 million people and that 1% would mean nearly 1 million dead people on top of the normal death toll if we just let it happen? Also the mortality rate would go up like crazy because the medical system would collapse. And what is "which threatens overwhelmingly the elderly and vulnerable" supposed to mean? It doesn't matter who dies - unless you want to impute less value to the life of old or sick people - which I hope you don't want to do.

Look at the situation in the UK: the NHS is about to collapse because of the new mutant that is spreading so fast that they need to do a hard lockdown now. 

Here's the cumulated deaths in Europe so far:
https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps
As you can see there's two significant spikes since the virus hit. And that's DESPITE of all the efforts that were taken. You can also see that it's not only the eldery but people at 45+ who die a lot more often than in the years before despite the nasty influenza season we had in 2018. Also check out the graphs for excess mortality down below and keep in mind that is WITH countermeasures - which then have a huge impact on civil life and the economy. Would the situation be better if we did nothing? All serious scientists (economics included) agree that the problems would be a lot worse if we just let covid sweep over us.  

So yes, I double down on Merkel's claim that the Covid pandemic is the greatest challenge for Germany and Europe since WWII - and so did Merkel already in June (when cases where dropping but she was convinced that a second wave would hit in winter). And she would do so now since the situation is much worse - would you ask her directly. She doesn't mention it anymore because nobody except looney conspiracy ideologists really question that statement anymore. And rightfully so.  

Edited January 12, 2021 by Boeroer

[213374U]

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Where the hell did I say that climate change wouldn't be an even bigger challenge? I strongly believe that it will be. Severly worse than this no doubt. But we are not talking about a bigger challenge that will come but the biggest challenge since WWII so far.

So climate change is not a challenge we face now, no -- despite the fact that we're hearing about its dangers since the 1970's, and we've been failing to enact sufficient reforms to prevent it for decades. It'll be a challenge... later, after this one is over, right? Because Merkel said this one is the greatest, so logically we cannot have a bigger one concurrently. We're reasoning backwards from this conclusion we need to reach, so this is how we're contorting logic so as not to raise an eyebrow at Merkel's hyperbolic nonsense.

 

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Yet some prospect isn't a real challenge for society. Nothing rolled up the Fulda Gap. Maybe it was a challenge for the military and the government at that time - but for citizens it didn't really come over as a big challenge. I don't really remember it and it hasn't imprinted itself into the memory of my parents like Chernobyl has for example. Also a giant meteorite didn't hit earth - although the prospect of one doing so might be terrifying. And David Hasselhoff didn't get the Nobel Peace Price for singing down the Berlin Wall. Phew. 

The challenge was dodging the bullet that would have been the Cold War going hot, and without rolling over for the Soviets. The espionage, the arms and space races, the propaganda efforts and hysteria, the soft and hard power applications on a global scale by the two blocs. That it all went over your head (and Merkel's, apparently) is immaterial. Pretty sure that the hundreds of thousands who died in Cold War conflicts would disagree with your assessment that COVID is anywhere near the same league as that. It's through a combination of skillful politics and blind luck that Europe didn't directly see (much of) that. But it didn't happen in your backyard, so not only it wasn't a problem, it couldn't have been one!

 

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

The challenge of the COVID pandemic however isn't just because of death by virus. It's that, too - but on top of that comes the medical, political, economic, ethical, social an cultural distortions. Not only in Germany but in also in Europe. Look at the fragility the EU displays atm. We had to close borders despite our open-border policy in the Schengen area. I was in Romania when the first wave hit and they did a hard lockdown immediately which impacted the life of citizens severely. When I look around I strongly believe that the vast majority of Europeans (especially Spain, Italy, Belgium and Netherlands which got hit esp. hard in the first wave and the UK which gets pummeled now) would agree that this pandemic IS the biggest challenge Germany and Europe have faced since WWII.

Sounds to me like that's a problem with the system itself rather than 'rona. It's coming apart at the seams, and we're in agreement on this. But Merkel wasn't referring to that -- she was specifically talking about 'rona, even if she made oblique references to the fragility of the EU. Forest/trees and all that. So where are the deep reforms that are needed to prevent the whole thing from crumbling when the next crisis hits? Presumably, they'll have to wait until this biggest challenge yet is over, much like the whole climate change thing. GOTO 10.

If a 1% mortality rate disease represents a systemic risk, the crash is coming sooner rather than later, because when something really bad like an antibiotic-resistant bacteria comes knocking, this will look like a walk in the park. But going by the logic we're operating under, this hasn't happened so it can't happen so no sense worrying about it.

 

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

As for the ridiculous "~1% mortality rate" nonsense: You realize that in Germany alone we are nearly 90 million people and that 1% would mean nearly 1 million dead people on top of the normal death toll if we just let it happen? Also the mortality rate would go up like crazy because the medical system would collapse. And what is "which threatens overwhelmingly the elderly and vulnerable" supposed to mean? It doesn't matter who dies - unless you want to impute less value to the life of old or sick people - which I hope you don't want to do.

Yeah. You can stop, um, clutching your pearls now. The infection rate wouldn't get to 100% in any case, and fatality rates tend to decrease as the disease spreads. Not that this is important because discussing how many casualties are "acceptable" is a minefield and not the point.

The comment about elderly and vulnerable is about protecting those most at risk, which is easier to do if they are identifiable groups instead of indiscriminate blanket measures that, by your own admission, haven't been very successful at containing the spread while simultaneously causing unprecedented economic damage. So spare me your moral superiority. "Flattening the curve" was never about preventing every grandma from keeling over, it was about minimizing the risk of excess deaths from all causes due to a healthcare collapse, callous as it may sound. And yes, I live with people who are at risk, but the risk to them is going to be multiplied if the social protection network and the economy at large fails. That's the outlook. You've made it abundantly clear that prospects are of no concern to you until they materialize to hit you in the face, but it is what it is.

 

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

So yes, I double down on Merkel's claim that the Covid pandemic is the greatest challenge for Germany and Europe since WWII - and so did Merkel already in June (when cases where dropping but she was convinced that a second wave would hit in winter). And she would do so now since the situation is much worse - would you ask her directly. She doesn't mention it anymore because nobody except looney conspiracy ideologists really question that statement anymore. And rightfully so.  

Psychic much? Merkel said in June that more cooperation and solidarity was needed -- while simultaneously refusing to accept 'rona bonds. Deeds speak louder than words. After the economic damage of just nine months of intermittent lockdowns and restrictions became evident, a deal was reached in December to issue joint EU debt. So perhaps put that mind-reading skill to use instead of doing geopolitical analysis. You couldn't do much worse.

Edited January 12, 2021 by 213374U

[Boeroer]

Lots of bla with intentional misinterpretations of what I said.

Back to the initial statement:

You could just do a survey about what people believe is or was the greatest challenge after WWII was so far. I'll take any bet that the majority of Germans and Europeans would say "the Covid-19 Pandemic".

Original situation was that Merkel's statement was ridiculed. Nobody is laughing about that anymore. Most agree.

What people would laugh about is when you'd tell them the biggest challenge that Europe faced after WWII so far was the Fulda Gap...

I'm not doing geopolitical analysis. My wife does. She's a diplomat with the German foreign ministry and just did this when I told her that the Fulda Gap was a bigger challenge than Covid-19:


The other girl is my french sister-in-law who's working at a public health office.

Here's Merkel after I send her your post:

And that's it from me.

Fulda Gap... 

[Boeroer]

Sorry double post:

There's no doubt that individual european nations had to face bigger challenges than Corona after WWII: The collapse of Yugoslavia, the Greek financial crisis (Greece handles Corona well so far), Nicolae Ceaușescu in Romania... On the other hand the Corona pandemic still isn't over yet. And given how lousy the vaccination goes in most of Europe due to the chicken-hearted purchase orders of the EU I fear it won't go away as soon as I'd hope for. 

[Zoraptor]

Given the limitations the vaccination programs were never going to be anything other than lousy. Distributing a vaccine that has to be stored at -70C is fundamentally difficult and there's huge competition to get limited doses even with that, and same with the more forgiving Moderna variant. There's no point ordering doses that can't be manufactured or delivered effectively, you'd be paying over the odds and getting them delivered when the order of magnitude cheaper and comparatively massively higher volume alternatives come on line.

[Boeroer]

Well, Israel and the UK vaccinate a LOT faster than any EU country at the moment. It's true that it's not only a problem with the numbers of doses but also with the distribution and appliance. In Israel you can get vaccinated via drive-in or drive-through. In Germany that's not possible because you have to fill out more forms and get more intensely lectured about the vaccine than you would have before difficult surgery (this is no joke, I spoke about that to a surgeon a few days ago). I get that they don't want to scare people and inform them very well. But maybe this is too much paperwork in this situation - no idea. My mother in law (70) got a new hip this week. Would have been cool to get vaccinated before that I guess.

Edited January 12, 2021 by Boeroer

[Zoraptor]

UK is currently actively ignoring instructions on vaccine administration though- to whit, deferring boosters. That's doubling the apparent vaccination rate, but at the cost of the vaccinations potentially not being effective.

Israel is very much a special case- very high population density is an inherent advantage when you have to hold vaccine in a big centralised store, and it's in the midst of an election campaign which Bibi is desperate to win. They also have a lot of ready to use infrastructure and admin due to being highly militarised.

Edited January 12, 2021 by Zoraptor

[213374U]

4 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Lots of bla with intentional misinterpretations of what I said.

[...]

What people would laugh about is when you'd tell them the biggest challenge that Europe faced after WWII so far was the Fulda Gap...

Heh. Stick to the memes, you are clearly out of your depth.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

The rona is just part of climate change, with habitats collapsing, factory farming, and pollution we can expect to see all sorts of weird zoonotic diseases rip through populations before we even get to the potential of **** in the ice coming out. It's going to be a real fun century even if the heat doesn't kill you.

[rjshae]

9 minutes ago, KaineParker said:

The rona is just part of climate change, with habitats collapsing, factory farming, and pollution we can expect to see all sorts of weird zoonotic diseases rip through populations before we even get to the potential of **** in the ice coming out. It's going to be a real fun century even if the heat doesn't kill you.

Yeah, this was coming at some point -- it's been predicted for some time; accelerated climate change has just upped the risk. Nations will likely need to set aside a chunk of their defense spending on contagious disease medical technology now. But maybe we'll get some useful advances out of it.

[Zoraptor]

Inevitable at some point, sure.

Not really climate change related though, they just share a common factor- overpopulation. Plus our tendency to be stupid and not learn from mistakes, given we'd had SARS-CoV original as a dry run with almost certainly the same general origin.

[Boeroer]

5 hours ago, 213374U said:

Heh. Stick to the memes, you are clearly out of your depth.

Only if you stick to the Fulda Gap. That's clearly your hobbyhorse.

[Boeroer]

Did you read that they found a potential patient zero - in Italy? From November 2019 which predates the cases in China. 

The article is in Italian. But maybe somebody saw an English one?

 

[Hiro Protagonist]

China's Sinopharm vaccine 'most unsafe in world' with 73 side effects

Side effects of China's vaunted Sinopharm vaccine include loss of vision

 

 

[Zoraptor]

4 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Did you read that they found a potential patient zero - in Italy? From November 2019 which predates the cases in China. 

The article is in Italian. But maybe somebody saw an English one?

There are various english language versions eg. They aren't claiming absolute patient zero though, just that she's the Italian patient zero, and not the child they thought it was earlier. There's a compelling genetic link to the virus ultimately coming from bats from China- quite likely not from the market they originally thought though- and they'd have to find a similar link in Italy to suggest that they had the 'real' patient zero. Occam's Razor is that it was just circulating in and got out of China earlier than believed previous.

Would not personally be surprised if it had been present in humans for years, or crossed species multiple times without being infectious enough to be noticed. Suggestion was that HIV (SIV) crossed the species barrier dozens of different times, for example.

[Boeroer]

3 hours ago, Hiro Protagonist said:

China's Sinopharm vaccine 'most unsafe in world' with 73 side effects

Side effects of China's vaunted Sinopharm vaccine include loss of vision

 

 

Ouch... happy to get the Biontech one then - unless I'm already immune. I was pretty sick with a devilish cough around christmas and new year's eve but a test came back negative - didn't do an antibody test yet but will do so soon.  

Edited January 13, 2021 by Boeroer

[Boeroer]

1 hour ago, Zoraptor said:

They aren't claiming absolute patient zero though

Yes, that's why I said "potentially". 

[213374U]

6 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Only if you stick to the Fulda Gap. That's clearly your hobbyhorse.

Okay, I'm actually curious now. You see, I'm inclined not to assume malice when ignorance is to blame. In your case, your ignorance is clearly showing, such as when you mentioned "almost one million deaths" if the virus infected 100% of the population -- an impossibility if you know even the basics. So I'm guessing you simply didn't realize that me mentioning the Fulda Gap was a synecdoche for the dangers and challenges of the Cold War at large. This would explain your confusion and the fact that your wife lol'd.

Because, again, the alternative is that you do know that but are simply being an obnoxious prat, your diplomat wife honestly believes that 'rona is worse than nuclear war, and her medical professional sister in law or whatever really thinks that 'rona would ever infect 100% of the population. I suppose that may actually be possible but it's a much stupider world than I'd like to believe.

[Boeroer]

I will just ignore the constant personal attacks from now on. I neither have time to film my rofling wife all the time nor to draw memes of doom avatars on hobbyhorses jumping over Fulda Gaps.

56 minutes ago, 213374U said:

[intentionally misinterpreted stuff]

Doing the calculation (1% of 90 Million) was only to show that "only 1% mortility" can lead to the faulty assumption that 1% isn't much of a big deal.  Sounds rather low. But it is not. Showing the number of 900,000 deaths should give a better impression. Besides that: we are not 90 million in Germany, only 83. And 1% of that also isn't a million - i just rounded generously to get some simple numbers and illustrate my point.

Of course not everybody will get infected. But a lot of people who read or say "just 1%" don't realize that 1% in a densly populated country like Germany would mean nearly 1 million deaths IF everybody would get infected. 
Even if only 50% of the population were infected in a rel. short amount of time (which would be realistic if no countermeasurements were taken given the initial exponential spread) the consequences would be so bad that many more people would die from attendant circumstances. First of all a 1% mortility rate with an unhindered infection spread would crush the otherwise quite solid German health care system in no time, leading to many more deaths originally unrelated to Covid because of lack of health care. Mortility rates would also raise significantly as soon as not every severe case of Covid-19 could be treated properly. Triage would be normal.
1% mortility with a highly infectious disease that transmits over air in spuperspreader events is very bad. Especially now with the UK mutant.
You made it sound like it's not. I believe that is wrong and irresponsible. 

You also made it sound like it's even less of a big deal because the virus mostly kills elderly and those with underlying conditions. If you didn't mean that but rather tht you should just protect vulnerable groups then cool. At least you don't want to imply that some lives are more valuable than others.
Still: I diagree. Protecting the elderly and sick from infection with Covid-19 while the rest of us goes on with their lives doesn't work. Sweden tried that and failed. You can't visit your parrents in homes for the elderly anymore and yet they die from Covid-19.
Besides that the data from Euromomo I presented also shows that a significant part of the dead were between 45 and 65 years old. Those are people who have to go to work. The highest death toll in numbers comes from people between 65 and 85. I wouldn't call people who just retired "elderly" yet.
"Only the elderly and sick" sounds less threatening (especially for the young, healthy and egoistic ones), but I'm already near the age range where lots of people died. I wouldn't call me an elder yet (I'm 44): I have three young kids and a wife of 38. Pretty difficult to protect people like me from infection - especially while my kids still go to school and kindergarden. This will be problem for lots of people with underlying conditions (like asthma) as well who are young and otherwise quite healthy and active.
You made it sound like it's all not that bad. But I - as well as the vast majority of citizens, media, politicians and scientists - do think otherwise.   

And yes, like most people I believe an actual pandemic is worse than a nuclear war that didn't happen.

Edited January 13, 2021 by Boeroer