The Covid19 thread

[mad_gater]

I'm aware that "the flu" is really a virus, but colloquially, all of those variations have been tagged as flu, while this, SARS, HIV and others have been colloquially tagged as "viruses".

Vaccines work by showing the body a sample of the virus or bug it's expected to fight, the body's immune system learns to recognize it, and is from then on able to strike at a matching invader nearly instantly, preventing it from getting a foothold. As far as I understand it, for a vaccine to be effective, the sample must be identical or very nearly identical to what you want to vaccinate against. This is why some years the flu vaccine is effective, other years it is nearly useless; the health authorities make an educated guess as to the specific strain or strains that they expect to be prevalent that year. Sometimes their guess is spot on, other years, not so much.

I know how vaccines work....learned all about the human body in my massage therapy classes....I was just saying that since we've dealt with coronaviruses before that we should have a good enough idea of how they behave and have had a semi-workable vaccine already

[Womble]

I know how vaccines work....learned all about the human body in my massage therapy classes....I was just saying that since we've dealt with coronaviruses before that we should have a good enough idea of how they behave and have had a semi-workable vaccine already

Yes, we've dealt with coronaviruses before. They are notoriously hard to fight. Four of these viruses cause a disease known as the common cold, and there is no vaccine. SARS - no vaccine. MERS - no vaccine. There are vaccines developed for avian coronavirus diseases, but to my knowledge not for coronaviruses in mammals like dogs, cats, ferrets and pigs.

[Falcon Horus]

Is it a flu or is it virus? It's been tagged as a "virus", but the origin is conveniently missing.

SARS-Cov-2
Factsheet this way by Sciensano (27 pages) *

The cliff-note version by Thomas Michiels, researcher Molecular Virology at the Duve Institute and Professor at UCLouvain *

* Neither article contain the conspiricy theory the virus originated from a lab.

There you go... origin defined. It's a member of the SARS-virus family.
Also, has already mutated since it's first confirmed case in Wuhan, which it quite easy to follow around the world.

what we colloquially call "stomach flu" isn't really the flu as it's not caused by any strain of influenza but mostly by a family of viruses called noroviruses (some stomach illnesses might have bacterial causes)

Oh... bad memories... that roadtrip around Dingle is not remembered for its beautiful landscapes.

Baby booms after major sequestered events are quite common. After major storms or blizzards there is often a small baby boom 9 months later - as said in the original post, males, females, nothing but time...nature takes its course.

Yeah no... apparently that's a myth which has been debunked several times already.

Many who look to tie a jump in the number of births to a power outage or devastating snowstorm nine months earlier are guilty of the selective application of patterns, focusing on the data that fit their hypotheses and ignoring the rest. Because variances in birth rate are an ordinary phenomenon, spikes in the number of births will occasionally coincide with a newsworthy event that took place three-quarters of a year earlier. Those who cling to the belief in blackout babies fail to accept that the same communities they point to as proof of the theory saw even greater leaps in number of births in years that weren’t preceded by memorable events. Blackouts, snowstorms, and the like are more usually followed by perfectly ordinary birth rates nine months afterwards, but because human nature is what it is, we tend to remember only the events that fit the pattern we’re determined to see and unconsciously discard all the rest...

I'm aware that "the flu" is really a virus, but colloquially, all of those variations have been tagged as flu, while this, SARS, HIV and others have been colloquially tagged as "viruses".

Then let's call this the Bat Flu, or Pangolin Flu, like the Bird Flu and the Swine Flu.

Vaccines work by showing the body a sample of the virus or bug it's expected to fight, the body's immune system learns to recognize it, and is from then on able to strike at a matching invader nearly instantly, preventing it from getting a foothold. As far as I understand it, for a vaccine to be effective, the sample must be identical or very nearly identical to what you want to vaccinate against. This is why some years the flu vaccine is effective, other years it is nearly useless; the health authorities make an educated guess as to the specific strain or strains that they expect to be prevalent that year. Sometimes their guess is spot on, other years, not so much.

The flu shot isn't a vaccine since it's just a mixture of last year's flu strains, hoping it'll protect again in the new season. If there's a new strain, the old strain is either useless or only half effective.

Same will be true for the Covid-19 shot -- considering its mutations, it's impossible to predict what strain will be next so you can only get the same sort of preventive immunity as when you get a flu shot.

[mad_gater]

Yes, we've dealt with coronaviruses before. They are notoriously hard to fight. Four of these viruses cause a disease known as the common cold, and there is no vaccine. SARS - no vaccine. MERS - no vaccine. There are vaccines developed for avian coronavirus diseases, but to my knowledge not for coronaviruses in mammals like dogs, cats, ferrets and pigs.

actually according to information from my massage therapy classes the common cold (scientific name "nasopharyngitis," or inflammation of the nose and throat passages) is caused by a family of viruses called "rhinoviruses," of which there are 200+ strains

[SoulReaver]

actually according to information from my massage therapy classes the common cold (scientific name "nasopharyngitis," or inflammation of the nose and throat passages) is caused by a family of viruses called "rhinoviruses," of which there are 200+ strains

common cold can be caused by both rhinoviruses & some coronaviruses (for some reason 2 different viruses yet doctors gives the disease the same name, go figure)

so far no effective vaccines against either rhinos or coronas...or influenza
those viruses evolve too fast so vaccines have very limited effect (influenza's the fastest evolving of the bunch apparently)

[Annoyed]

SARS-Cov-2
Factsheet this way by Sciensano (27 pages) *

The cliff-note version by Thomas Michiels, researcher Molecular Virology at the Duve Institute and Professor at UCLouvain *

* Neither article contain the conspiricy theory the virus originated from a lab.

There you go... origin defined. It's a member of the SARS-virus family.
Also, has already mutated since it's first confirmed case in Wuhan, which it quite easy to follow around the world.

Umm.. .If anything needs 27 pages to tell me where something came from, only one thing is clear. You've got 26 3/4 pages of BS. Additionally, NoScript prevented the page from loading for malware reasons.

The short version doesn't state the origin.

In any case, it seems to be generally accepted that CV originated in China. You can sing and dance all you want, but that is a fact, and cannot be changed. Also, it seems that the earlier SARS outbreak originated in China as well. So, why not be honest with yourself? Too politically correct?
Whether or not facts hurt someone's feelings doesn't matter a hoot. Facts are facts. If China doesn't want to be tagged as a major source of viruses, maybe they shouldn't be so careless? (or worse).

Then let's call this the Bat Flu, or Pangolin Flu, like the Bird Flu and the Swine Flu.

See above.

[Falcon Horus]

Nobody has been denying the virus originated from Chinese territory.

I think we all know that to be true. It's where the first cases were recorded.

And my second article did state the origin -- bats and pangolins.
Just not the origin you believe it to be.

[Skydiver]

Another reason to not fuss over a cold vaccine....tons of strains as stated, and, generally, they’re a minor annoyance. Stuffy nose, maybe a low grade fever, cough and sneeze for a couple of days and then you’re better.

In other words, even if they did come up with a vaccine there likely wouldn’t be much call for it since colds are generally seen as a minor annoyance.

The massive amount of time needed to narrow it down would probably never be paid for because not enough people would want the shot. The profit/loss ratio would never measure out.

[Annoyed]

Nobody has been denying the virus originated from Chinese territory.

I think we all know that to be true. It's where the first cases were recorded.

And my second article did state the origin -- bats and pangolins.
Just not the origin you believe it to be.

I don't care if it came from Asian murder hornets. It comes from China, they own it.

Oh, and I can't wait till we figure out how the hornets made it over here and from where.

Maybe it's time for us to become far more self-sufficient in everything we do. How much of this crap are we supposed to put up with? Not only do we have problems with diseases that affect humans, we've got quite the invasive species problem, too.

[Skydiver]

If there is a desire for american to get more self sufficient then folks will have to overcome the giant obstacle of human greed.

Production is sent over seas because american workers have this odd habit of wanting to be paid enough to live on while people over seas are happy to work for a few dollars a day or week. So manufacturing is sent overseas in the name of profit margins and those that do it are so short sighted and greedy that they cannot or will not see that every worker they ship over seas is also a customer they ship over seas.

Not quite sure how that can be changed short of a massive realigning of corporate philosophy.

I don’t disagree but I really don’t know how it can be done. Workers want a living wage. And now a days a living wage is 20+ dollars an hour (that gets you earning somewhere in the 40K range pre tax, which is above poverty but still where day to day life usually requires a pretty tight budget)

[Annoyed]

If there is a desire for american to get more self sufficient then folks will have to overcome the giant obstacle of human greed.

Production is sent over seas because american workers have this odd habit of wanting to be paid enough to live on while people over seas are happy to work for a few dollars a day or week. So manufacturing is sent overseas in the name of profit margins and those that do it are so short sighted and greedy that they cannot or will not see that every worker they ship over seas is also a customer they ship over seas.

Not quite sure how that can be changed short of a massive realigning of corporate philosophy.

I don’t disagree but I really don’t know how it can be done. Workers want a living wage. And now a days a living wage is 20+ dollars an hour (that gets you earning somewhere in the 40K range pre tax, which is above poverty but still where day to day life usually requires a pretty tight budget)

It can be done, quite readily via govt. policy. WIth the "policy" in place here, I don't really want to go into it unless given direct approval to do so, but I've gone into it before in the closed politics threads, if you care to dig. Despite my strong leaning to the right side of the spectrum, trade policy is on of the items I've long disagreed with the folks on the right about.

Regarding wage levels, that is part & parcel of what I consider to be proper trade policy.

[aretood2]

It can be done, quite readily via govt. policy. WIth the "policy" in place here, I don't really want to go into it unless given direct approval to do so, but I've gone into it before in the closed politics threads, if you care to dig. Despite my strong leaning to the right side of the spectrum, trade policy is on of the items I've long disagreed with the folks on the right about.

Regarding wage levels, that is part & parcel of what I consider to be proper trade policy.

I agree, it is easy. First you seize the means of production, then you eliminate the Bourgeoisie, then you establish a proletariat movement and presto. Everyone has a job that pays well because dictating economics always works just as forcing economic growth during a pandemic is easy peasy.

[Gatefan1976]

I agree, it is easy. First you seize the means of production, then you eliminate the Bourgeoisie, then you establish a proletariat movement and presto. Everyone has a job that pays well because dictating economics always works just as forcing economic growth during a pandemic is easy peasy.

Do you honestly think he will understand ANY of that?

[mad_gater]

I don't care if it came from Asian murder hornets. It comes from China, they own it.

Oh, and I can't wait till we figure out how the hornets made it over here and from where.

Maybe it's time for us to become far more self-sufficient in everything we do. How much of this crap are we supposed to put up with? Not only do we have problems with diseases that affect humans, we've got quite the invasive species problem, too.

from what I've read you could apparently just sic praying mantises on them....they apparently consider Asian murder hornets fine dining

[Annoyed]

I agree, it is easy. First you seize the means of production, then you eliminate the Bourgeoisie, then you establish a proletariat movement and presto. Everyone has a job that pays well because dictating economics always works just as forcing economic growth during a pandemic is easy peasy.

Do you honestly think he will understand ANY of that?

This goes deep into politics, so I'll keep it brief.

I understand what Tood is saying, but I don't agree with it. Wage increases are the direct result of the need for workers. Law of supply and demand, like anything else. If consumer demand for grilled cheese sandwich makers is high, manufacturers have to hire more workers to make them. This creates upward pressure on wages, workers earn more, But, if management has a way to get alternate workers, it acts like a pressure relief valve on wages that he has to pay out. So wages don't rise. But, with proper trade policy, that relief valve is gone, so he has to pay more to get more people to make grilled cheese sandwich makers. In either case, the end price of the thing rises, but without the relief valve, all of the increase doesn't go to management.