The Next Pandemic: SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19

[Buffalo_Gal]

The WHO investigation will be 60-90 days.

[SoCal Deek]

1 hour ago, OldTimeAFLGuy said:

 

...with ALL lottery proceeds going for EDUCATION, how dare you???..............

Lottery proceeds are not allowed to be used for ongoing operational costs of a school district. In other words, they cannot be used for salaries, etc. 

[Uncle Joe]

1 hour ago, 3rdnlng said:

Some states places can't survive without keeping the sale of lottery tickets going. 

 

[Uncle Joe]

53 minutes ago, Buffalo_Gal said:

Trump up

Mnuchin reached an agreement with the major airlines for a payroll support program.

Instructing his administration to halt funding to WHO!

Sounds like they are gonna look into WHO for full accountability.

He's hammering WHO on how they responded to the coronavirus and listened to China.

 

WHO was not timely, accurate, or transparent.

 

47 minutes ago, Buffalo_Gal said:

WHO failed in the basic duty to tell the truth. They failed to investigate Wuhan sources that conflicted with China.

WHO parroted and endorsed that there was not human-to-human transfer.

WHO did not get scientific samples from China.

The world received all sorts of false info from WHO.
The doctors that disappeared in China is very concerning.

Had the WHO done its job to get (something) into China, it could have saved thousands of lives, and prevented economic damage. They took China at face value.
(Note: all this is paraphrased, he's reading off notes and so going fast)

Like any nefarious corporation that get caught cheating, WHO will resort to a name  and acronym change.

[Buffalo_Gal]

Trump: will not pressure any state to reopen.

 

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

9 minutes ago, Buffalo_Gal said:

Trump: will not pressure any state to reopen.

 

 

What a tyrant.

[LSHMEAB]

Since I chimed in on Trump's poor "performance" yesterday, it's only fair to point out that he was very good in this regard today. Always slays the one dude who kept talking.

 

Not a fan. Didn't vote for. Won't vote for him.

 

But that was Trump being Trump. Figured he'd bounce back from yesterday's dud.

[SoCal Deek]

11 minutes ago, Buffalo_Gal said:

Trump: will not pressure any state to reopen.

 

The man has incredible patience! The press are all a bunch of useless gossip hounds. 

[3rdnlng]

1 hour ago, ALF said:

 

Of course they are not the same , just a statement of fact 

A statement of fact without context? You obviously were comparing the two. For what purpose? Again, which virus would you choose to have if you had to have one?

[GG]

Need another reason to be suspicious of China?  For yesterday, Singapore reported 4x as many Wuhan virus infections in the second wave than all of China.

[TPS]

5 hours ago, GG said:

 

 Speaking of the Singaporean myth, especially in applying it to the US ....
 

Had a chat with a colleague there this morning, and she gave a quick recap.

 

The city-state had stellar precautions with a hard & fast response early on.  Those efforts worked initially, and the city wasn't totally clamped down.   However, a second wave just hit, largely from foreigners and the city is on full lock down now, when it wasn't for the first wave.  New case growth is double digits after they thought it was contained.  Now the border is shut completely, everyone is required to wear a mask, no group gatherings are allowed and the extreme contact tracking is in force.   She said that life was fairly normal there until a week ago.  

 

Sounds more like a lesson than a myth. 

[Tiberius]

Quote

 

"China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus," Trump tweeted on January 24, "The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!"

Speaking on Fox News on January 30, Trump said China was "working very hard" to stop the coronavirus outbreak.

"And we are in great shape," he said. "China is not in great shape right now, unfortunately. But they're working very hard. We'll see what happens. But we're working very closely with China and other countries."

 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/25/politics/trump-coronavirus-china/index.html

[GG]

2 minutes ago, TPS said:

Sounds more like a lesson than a myth. 

 

Of course it's a lesson.  The myth is that Singapore conquered the virus.

[GG]

25 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

The man has incredible patience! The press are all a bunch of useless gossip hounds. 

 

Of course they are, and with Trump it's a lethal mixture because neither can effectively knock each other out.

 

Trump had the perfect opportunity to put the final nail into China and WHO, he missed wildly and hit his thumb.  So now they have an opening that he is blaming WHO for his failures.

 

When they were badgering him on why he was praising China in January and February for their openness, the perfect response would have been to throw it back at China and WHO, by saying that "We believed they were being honest with us and that's what set much of our early policy response.  Instead, we found out they lied and now we have 10s of thousands people who died unnecessarily, because they didn't tell us the truth until it was too late."

 

Now imagine how powerful that response would have been from a POTUS.  The press would have no choice but to cover what China and WHO did in January & February.

 

Instead he pivoted to the great trade deal he made with China.  WTF?

[TPS]

6 hours ago, Troll Toll said:

Wall Street was getting hit hard in the middle of February.

You can read the Trump Economy thread beginning the first week of March to see the timeline...

[Troll Toll]

18 minutes ago, TPS said:

You can read the Trump Economy thread beginning the first week of March to see the timeline...

I’m in the market, I was there, it started falling fast around February 20th.

 

Furthermore, the reason it started to fall then was because it wasn’t until the middle of February that China looked to be approaching large numbers of infections. The market was concerned with the interruption to supply chains in China.

Edited April 15, 2020 by Troll Toll

[Buffalo_Gal]

Michigan:
 

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer facing lawsuit over stay at home order

"We need the courts to step in and say this is not okay.”
 

A lawsuit was filed against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Tuesday over her stay at home order, which has kept Michiganders at home except for completing tasks necessary to sustain life. The orders have been put into place to help curb the spread of COVID-19.
 

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court in Detroit by David C. Helm of Helm Law; it names five plaintiffs who are seeking damages, but primarily want to get the order lifted or revised. The main argument is that the fundamental rights of each of those involved were violated by the executive order.
 

</snip>
 

This legal action against Whitmer makes it clear that it is not contending the decision to issue the executive orders or if they were within her authority to issue.
 

"This suit accepts as fact that Governor Whitmer took action for a public purpose," the lawsuit says. But it argues that the plaintiffs' constitutional rights were violated by mandating them to stay home.
 

The primary argument being made by Helm is that the executive order are illegally taking people's property without compensation, which violates the fifth amendment takings clause.
 

The lawsuit says that because Martinko was not allowed to access his company property under the order and because Contender's Tree and Lawn Specialists was not allowed to operate, his rights were infringed upon.
 

</snip>
 

While only a couple weeks remain on the existing order, Helm said it's unlikely they'll be able to get it overturned before it expires. But he said the main goal in filing the lawsuit was to ensure that moving forward, this doesn't lay the groundwork for any governor to take sweeping actions. He argues the state should create a targeted approach to rein in the virus, saying "they can't use a sledge hammer to kill an ant."
 

A jury trial was requested for this case.
 

</snip>

[Buffalo_Gal]

There are a lot of reopenXX state Facebook groups that have popped up this past week. People lasted longer than I thought they would in lock down.

 

 

[shoshin]

2400+ dead today. Really big jump. the highest before today was just over 2000. 
 

I hope this is the peak for this wave. I doubt it’s the peak for us as a country because I don’t see that we have the will to do what needs to be done to keep the economy rolling and manage this at the same time.
 

Trying to remain optimistic but the will for people to do what’s needed seems lacking. People want their cell phones free of apps. People want to walk the beach. People want to go to church in groups. If nothing gives on this, we all give. 

Edited April 15, 2020 by shoshin

[billsfan1959]

52 minutes ago, Troll Toll said:

I’m in the market, I was there, it started falling fast around February 20th.

 

Furthermore, the reason it started to fall then was because it wasn’t until the middle of February that China looked to be approaching large numbers of infections. The market was concerned with the interruption to supply chains in China.

 

Yep. Dropped 4000 points that last week of February.

[shoshin]

1 minute ago, billsfan1959 said:

 

Yep. Dropped 4000 points that last week of February.

More to come. 

[billsfan1959]

1 minute ago, shoshin said:

More to come. 

 

I would have thought already. Surprisingly, it is holding fairly steady

6 minutes ago, shoshin said:

2400+ dead today. Really big jump. the highest before today was just over 2000. 
 

I hope this is the peak for this wave. I doubt it’s the peak for us as a country because I don’t see that we have the will to do what needs to be done to keep the economy rolling and manage this at the same time.
 

Trying to remain optimistic but the will for people to do what’s needed seems lacking. People want their cell phones free of apps. People want to walk the beach. People want to go to church in groups. If nothing gives on this, we all give. 

 

People don't like living in fear.

[Taro T]

2 hours ago, Buffalo_Gal said:

Adam (somebody) working on a program to allow hospitals to lend ventilators when needed. He's naming some big places (like Cleveland clinic, mayo clinic). This is a virtual reserve, along with the federal reserve, will ensure no American who needs a ventilator is without one.
 

Trump: met with leaders of hospitals and hospital associations. Partnering for the ventilator reserve (what the Adam-guy did).

Dynamic Ventilator Reserve Program

He's got some big name heads of hospitals up there now.

 

At least in NYS hospitals already HAD such agreements to loan equipment to hospitals that have shortages if others had spare capacity.  Which makes the Friday Cuomo press conference a week back saying he was calling in the National Guard so confounding.  Of course, maybe somebody explained that to him over that weekend which would explain his about face on that Monday.

[shoshin]

9 minutes ago, billsfan1959 said:

 

I would have thought already. Surprisingly, it is holding fairly steady

 

 

It won’t if we don’t get back to work very soon. The July August talk is a bomb. 
 

Quote

 

People don't like living in fear.

 

I like a working economy. The virus is what it is. This was a good shutdown if we act in a way that makes it a single event in one wave. It is a debacle if we open early and the cases jump and surpass our current peak. 
 

I hope the politicians make the right call. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. 

Edited April 15, 2020 by shoshin

[Troll Toll]

9 minutes ago, shoshin said:

2400+ dead today. Really big jump. the highest before today was just over 2000. 
 

I hope this is the peak for this wave. I doubt it’s the peak for us as a country because I don’t see that we have the will to do what needs to be done to keep the economy rolling and manage this at the same time.
 

Trying to remain optimistic but the will for people to do what’s needed seems lacking. People want their cell phones free of apps. People want to walk the beach. People want to go to church in groups. If nothing gives on this, we all give. 

It isn’t going to be easy, but look at it this way: 

 

1. We will have far better testing for future waves

2. We will have way more of the necessary medical equipment available

3. Employers will be putting in policies to help mitigate transmissions in the work place.

4. We have some promising medical treatments whereas initially we were flying blind

 

I know people find Fauci polarizing, and some would probably see it as CYA when he says we are so far below the model estimates because of how well we have followed the guidelines. I actually find this to be a genuine sentiment from him. You see pictures of NYC where there are no cars and no people. 
 

Due to the nature of NYC, I don’t know how long it will take to clean up the mess. I think most of the country will do well though.

[Doc Brown]

20 minutes ago, shoshin said:

2400+ dead today. Really big jump. the highest before today was just over 2000. 
 

I hope this is the peak for this wave. I doubt it’s the peak for us as a country because I don’t see that we have the will to do what needs to be done to keep the economy rolling and manage this at the same time.
 

Trying to remain optimistic but the will for people to do what’s needed seems lacking. People want their cell phones free of apps. People want to walk the beach. People want to go to church in groups. If nothing gives on this, we all give. 

Tuesday effect.  Saw a similar spike last Tuesday as hospitals are slow to report over the weekend.  I'd be shocked if the last couple of days weren't are peak.

[shoshin]

3 minutes ago, Doc Brown said:

Tuesday effect.  Saw a similar spike last Tuesday as hospitals are slow to report over the weekend.  I'd be shocked if the last couple of days weren't are peak.

The highest day before was 5 days ago. And the big leap before that was not on a Tuesday. 
 

The last time it jumped on a Tuesday and you said this, the total stayed high, so that really doesn’t stand up. It only would make sense if Tuesdays were big leaps and then the number dropped. 

[GG]

Here we go

 

"Although the the U.S. intelligence community early on dismissed the notion that the coronavirus is a synthesized bioweapon, it is still weighing the possibility that the pandemic might have been touched off by an accident at a research facility rather than by an infection from a live-animal market, according to nine current and former intelligence and national security officials familiar with ongoing investigations."

[SydneyBillsFan]

3 hours ago, Buffalo_Gal said:

The WHO investigation will be 60-90 days.

 

I expect nothing less than a full root and branch investigation, Trump style.

 

Most to blame for this debacle: GOLD - China....SILVER - W.H.O.....BRONZE - Leftist media

 

I expect Trump to do the following - no stone left unturned, no individual spared from merciless scrutiny, 100% unfiltered accountability. You can bank on it!!

 

Trump's 2016 election victory is proving to be the political equivalent of the guy who invested all his money in Microsoft shares the day before Bill Gates launched Windows 95. Its the investment that keeps on giving!

Edited April 15, 2020 by SydneyBillsFan

[Doc Brown]

47 minutes ago, shoshin said:

The highest day before was 5 days ago. And the big leap before that was not on a Tuesday. 
 

The last time it jumped on a Tuesday and you said this, the total stayed high, so that really doesn’t stand up. It only would make sense if Tuesdays were big leaps and then the number dropped. 

I'm not saying it's not bad.  It's just that you saw a significant spike in the last three Tuesday's so take today's numbers with a grain of salt.

 

 

 

 

 

[Buffalo Bills Fan]

 

Researchers have identified microscopic features that could make the pathogen more infectious than the SARS virus — and serve as drug targets.

 

Smriti Mallapaty

 

•  
•  

• Why does the coronavirus spread so easily between people?

 PDF version

An image of the new coronavirus taken with an electron microscope.Credit: U.S. National Institutes of Health/AP/Shutterstock

As the number of coronavirus infections approaches 100,000 people worldwide, researchers are racing to understand what makes it spread so easily.

A handful of genetic and structural analyses have identified a key feature of the virus — a protein on its surface — that might explain why it infects human cells so readily.

Other groups are investigating the doorway through which the new coronavirus enters human tissues — a receptor on cell membranes. Both the cell receptor and the virus protein offer potential targets for drugs to block the pathogen, but researchers say it is too early to be sure.

“Understanding transmission of the virus is key to its containment and future prevention,” says David Veesler, a structural virologist at the University of Washington in Seattle, who posted his team’s findings about the virus protein on the biomedical preprint server bioRxiv on 20 February¹.

The new virus spreads much more readily than the one that caused severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS (also a coronavirus), and has infected more than ten times the number of people who contracted SARS.

Spiky invader

To infect a cell, coronaviruses use a ‘spike’ protein that binds to the cell membrane, a process that's activated by specific cell enzymes. Genomic analyses of the new coronavirus have revealed that its spike protein differs from those of close relatives, and suggest that the protein has a site on it which is activated by a host-cell enzyme called furin.

This is significant because furin is found in lots of human tissues, including the lungs, liver and small intestines, which means that the virus has the potential to attack multiple organs, says Li Hua, a structural biologist at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, where the outbreak began. The finding could explain some of the symptoms observed in people with the coronavirus, such as liver failure, says Li, who co-authored a genetic analysis of the virus that was posted on the ChinaXiv preprint server on 23 February². SARS and other coronaviruses in the same genus as the new virus don't have furin activation sites, he says.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00660-x

 

 

More covid19 can get into. Furin, ACE2 and CD147.

[Gene Frenkle]

9 hours ago, GG said:

 

Are liquor stores or pot dispensaries?  Heck, there's a dollar store that's still open nearby.

 

Yeah, I guess you're right. It's about the same thing.

[MILFHUNTER#518]

Apparently,  this is mutating in a way that could make it super tough to make a vaccine for....

 

https://nypost.com/2020/04/14/newly-found-coronavirus-mutation-could-threaten-vaccine-race-study-says/

[shoshin]

1 hour ago, MILFHUNTER#518 said:

Apparently,  this is mutating in a way that could make it super tough to make a vaccine for....

 

https://nypost.com/2020/04/14/newly-found-coronavirus-mutation-could-threaten-vaccine-race-study-says/

Your summary is not what the scientists in the article say.

 

Negative headlines get eyeballs though. 
 

Here’s an alternative accurate summary. 
 

Virus mutates to less harmful variant. Vaccines may be adapted in future, similar to flu. 
 

RNA replication is sloppy. Mutations are expected. 

Edited April 15, 2020 by shoshin

[Magox]

It appears New York is going to count all deaths  from people who were never tested to be positive for CoronaVirus but suspected to have it.

 

I certainly understand that it's important for families of wanting to know the true reasons why they passed away, but without doubt there will be many people who may have had flu symptoms but had other underlying conditions that passed away to something aside from CoronaVirus.

 

I'm not sure I agree with this policy.

[Taro T]

58 minutes ago, Magox said:

It appears New York is going to count all deaths  from people who were never tested to be positive for CoronaVirus but suspected to have it.

 

I certainly understand that it's important for families of wanting to know the true reasons why they passed away, but without doubt there will be many people who may have had flu symptoms but had other underlying conditions that passed away to something aside from CoronaVirus.

 

I'm not sure I agree with this policy.

 

IF this is how they've reported suspected deaths from flu and other illnesses then don't have a huge issue with it, but doubt that's the case.

 

Every year, when the CDC reports flu deaths they provide a count but also report the upper and lower confidence intervals for that range.  On the surface, it seems this new policy will cause the reported deaths to be extremely close to the high end of that confidence interval.

 

Will have to look back through the CARES Act and see how the sections on medical aid determine how that is allocated.  Expecting that it's based on total cases and this way NY is goosing the total cases.  It'd also make NY's cardiologists and pulmonary care Drs. appear to be miracle workers as they'll've somehow reduced deaths from heart attacks and diseases such as emphysema and pneumonia down to record lows.  Win - win.  The state gets more CARES Act cash and also gets higher Medicaid/Medicare reimbursement rates as outcomes are improved.

Edited April 15, 2020 by Taro T

[GG]

7 minutes ago, Taro T said:

 

IF this is how they've reported suspected deaths from flu and other illnesses then don't have a huge issue with it, but doubt that's the case.

 

Every year, when the CDC reports flu deaths they provide a count but also report the upper and lower confidence intervals for that range.  On the surface, it seems this new policy will cause the reported deaths to be extremely close to the high end of that confidence interval.

 

Will have to look back through the CARES Act and see how the sections on medical aid determine how that is allocated.  Expecting that it's based on total cases and this way NY is goosing the total cases.  It'd also make NY's cardiologists and pulmonary care Drs. appear to be miracle workers as they'll've somehow reduced deaths from heart attacks and diseases such as emphysema and pneumonia down to record lows.  Win - win.  The state gets more CARES Act cash and also gets higher Medicaid/Medicare reimbursement rates as outcomes are improved.

 

1 hour ago, Magox said:

It appears New York is going to count all deaths  from people who were never tested to be positive for CoronaVirus but suspected to have it.

 

I certainly understand that it's important for families of wanting to know the true reasons why they passed away, but without doubt there will be many people who may have had flu symptoms but had other underlying conditions that passed away to something aside from CoronaVirus.

 

I'm not sure I agree with this policy.

 

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.  These were the cases where the deceased never went into the hospital, died at home and were never tested.  Don't know the certainty of the cause, but according to EMTs they were making up to 5x the number of these pick ups than normal.

[Foxx]

11 hours ago, shoshin said:

2400+ dead today. Really big jump. the highest before today was just over 2000. 
 

I hope this is the peak for this wave. I doubt it’s the peak for us as a country because I don’t see that we have the will to do what needs to be done to keep the economy rolling and manage this at the same time.
 

Trying to remain optimistic but the will for people to do what’s needed seems lacking. People want their cell phones free of apps. People want to walk the beach. People want to go to church in groups. If nothing gives on this, we all give. 

[Taro T]

1 minute ago, GG said:

 

 

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.  These were the cases where the deceased never went into the hospital, died at home and were never tested.  Don't know the certainty of the cause, but according to EMTs they were making up to 5x the number of these pick ups than normal.

 

As NY had already said last week it would start following this policy, curious if that accounts for at least some of the spike in reported deaths we saw yesterday.  If people that did a month ago are getting added to the daily totals, we're going to see elevated death tolls until they've gone through the entire list.

[SoCal Deek]

I read through page after page of commentary on the virus, number of cases, deaths, etc

 

If you haven’t already, I urge all of you to go to a site called worldometer.com and you’ll see the daily updates on all the key statistics for both the US (state by state) and the world (country by country).
 

It’s an eye opener and really highlights the truly NYC centric nature of this problem. There are entire regions of the country where the virus has had little to no impact. For example, California is something like 1/20th of the cases and that fraction would be significantly smaller if you remove NYC from New York State.