The Coronavirus

[OftenWrong]

5 minutes ago, Rue said:

Excellent debate between Ow and Bog. What can I say. Yah to both.

I think OW this virus may not go away so finding a way to live with it ain't gonna be easy. Professional sports must be worried. They depend on large crowds. TV revenue alone would radically alter their business model. So many businesses are struggling. Small business especially.

Like any mass change some will make money out of it others will be permanently  displaced. Forced retirement for many..with no savings.. well it's as challenge...there always are...I prefer to stay matter of fact about it and piss in my cereal over important things like Trudeau's hair cut. Unacceptable. This Covid prevents me from a hair cut look is his handlers decided on  trying to make him look like one of us is a joke. Hah.  One of us. Bah. I shave my head. All the tough guys do. Me, Rue Paul, Jeremy Statham, the Rock.

Thanks Rue. It is hard to rationalize why things are opening so fast. Although the virus is statistically "in decline" in Canada, it's still dong well out there. It is out there. Yet we are told to go out, open phase 2, restaurants and gyms. No masks needed, not mandatory in our shops. In reality this has been the case for at about one month.

Ontario is not counting the virus as well as in the US, the US data is the most thorough. Ontario is under-counting the virus, and we know that. We allow that.

Because not counting the virus very well is another way to make it go away. As a wise man once said, "The only way to make the virus go away, is stop looking at it." I believe that is what we are seeing now.

Officials are starting to believe the virus is not as deadly as first thought and are now easing restrictions all the while the virus runs rampant. World data shows infection rate is still increasing, globally.

Since the cost of the shutdown is so painful, and the virus persists, didn't go away nicely in just two weeks like they thought/ hoped it might, it's not possible to wait it out. Given the low reported death rate, the current attitude is to consider it another bad flu making its rounds. People need to get the virus, get immune. Let 'er rip.

[Boges]

1 minute ago, OftenWrong said:

Thanks Rue. It is hard to rationalize why things are opening so fast. Although the virus is statistically "in decline" in Canada, it's still dong well out there. It is out there. Yet we are told to go out, open phase 2, restaurants and gyms. No masks needed, not mandatory in our shops. In reality this has been the case for at about one month.

Ontario is not counting the virus as well as in the US, the US data is the most thorough. Ontario is under-counting the virus, and we know that. We allow that.

Because not counting the virus very well is another way to make it go away. As a wise man once said, "The only way to make the virus go away, is stop looking at it." I believe that is what we are seeing now.

Officials are starting to believe the virus is not as deadly as first thought and are now easing restrictions all the while the virus runs rampant. World data shows infection rate is still increasing, globally.

Since the cost of the shutdown is so painful, and the virus persists, didn't go away nicely in just two weeks like they thought/ hoped it might, it's not possible to wait it out. Given the low reported death rate, the current attitude is to consider it another bad flu making its rounds. People need to get the virus, get immune. Let 'er rip.

How is Ontario undercounting the virus? 

https://www.ontario.ca/page/how-ontario-is-responding-covid-19

They release daily figures that include a myriad of demographics. 

They are now doing well over 20,000 tests a day and they've reached a point where people can get tested for shits and giggles. You don't need symptoms or have traveled recently. 

[OftenWrong]

1 minute ago, Boges said:

How is Ontario undercounting the virus? 

https://www.ontario.ca/page/how-ontario-is-responding-covid-19

They release daily figures that include a myriad of demographics. 

They are now doing well over 20,000 tests a day and they've reached a point where people can get tested for shits and giggles. You don't need symptoms or have traveled recently. 

The government web site sure likes to say how well things are being done. But there have been many comments by ON government and news that Ontario is struggling to get more tests.

Ontario fails to meet its own COVID-19 testing target for 4th straight day, Ford pledges more random testing
 

Quote

In his daily briefing Thursday, Premier Doug Ford fielded pointed questions around the province's testing struggles and pledged to improve the system.

"That's what I want and I'm confident it's going to happen," he said. "Believe me, it's frustrating."

In addition to expanded testing, Ford also said he wants to introduce more random testing, which he said will give the province a more accurate account of COVID-19's presence in Ontario. He listed truckers, taxi drivers, auto workers and food supply workers as people in critical industries in need of more thorough testing.

I am not advocating more testing, btw. I don't think it's necessary at all. But pointing out how the data gets skewed by poor sampling.

Any rate, so what? There is no spike in the data for Ontario, despite the lack of discipline in maintaining a quarantine. Nothing major has happened. Even if more people get the virus (they will!), the level of concern has dropped.

Now the hard part is to allow the virus to run its course after having scared the heck out of everyone, and get them to understand it's ok. The virus is not a deadly killer. Go get some virus, folks. the new message is a certain level of death is to be expected, and is both normal and tolerable.

[Boges]

3 minutes ago, OftenWrong said:

The government web site sure likes to say how well things are being done. But there have been many comments by ON government and news that Ontario is struggling to get more tests.

Ontario fails to meet its own COVID-19 testing target for 4th straight day, Ford pledges more random testing
 

I am not advocating more testing, btw. I don't think it's necessary at all. But pointing out how the data gets skewed by poor sampling.

Any rate, so what? There is no spike in the data for Ontario, despite the lack of discipline in maintaining a quarantine. Nothing major has happened. Even if more people get the virus (they will!), the level of concern has dropped.

Now the hard part is to allow the virus to run its course after having scared the heck out of everyone, and get them to understand it's ok. The virus is not a deadly killer. Go get some virus, folks. the new message is a certain level of death is to be expected, and is both normal and tolerable.

The testing has actually increased impressively. DoFo said anyone can get testing. Is that even a reality in all of the US? 

But as you say, unless you make testing mandatory it's always just a snapshot of the people that decide to go get tested. 

[OftenWrong]

2 minutes ago, Boges said:

The testing has actually increased impressively.

Well, that's good to know but you are constantly asking me for a cite so now I will ask you to do likewise. I couldn't find anything showing recent testing levels.

Ford was almost begging people to get tested even if they don't have symptoms. I guess all those testing kits Ontario bought are due to expire soon, wouldn't want it to go to waste. Now soliciting for people to come get a Covid-19 test... come one come all.

[Boges]

1 minute ago, OftenWrong said:

Well, that's good to know but you are constantly asking me for a cite so now I will ask you to do likewise. I couldn't find anything showing recent testing levels.

Ford was almost begging people to get tested even if they don't have symptoms. I guess all those testing kits Ontario bought are due to expire soon, wouldn't want it to go to waste. Now soliciting for people to come get a Covid-19 test... come one come all.

From the most recent stats I linked earlier. 

Quote

 

Testing - Ontario, January 15, 2020 to June 10, 2020

Testin	Number
Total tests completed footnote 8[8]	924,680
Total tests completed in the previous day footnote 9[9]	24,341
Currently under investigation footnote 10[10]	16,359

 

 

24,341 is huge. 

Edited June 12, 2020 by Boges

[OftenWrong]

8 minutes ago, Boges said:

From the most recent stats I liked earlier. 

Testing - Ontario, January 15, 2020 to June 10, 2020

Testin	Number
Total tests completed footnote 8[8]	924,680
Total tests completed in the previous day footnote 9[9]	24,341
Currently under investigation footnote 10[10]	16,359

 

24,341 is huge. 

Very good. The virus is still out there, although social distancing rules are easing. Yet it is in decline in Canada. It seems like the decline has little to do with our actions to fight it. It's just dying out. I know many viruses do that once the warm weather comes. It looks like the virus has gone south.

That is why I think the social distancing is only good to a point. Beyond this we are in the realm of diminishing returns, just killing ourselves.

Edited June 12, 2020 by OftenWrong

[Boges]

4 minutes ago, OftenWrong said:

Very good. The virus is still out there, although social distancing rules are easing. Yet it is in decline in Canada. It seems like the decline has little to do with our actions to fight it. It's just dying out. I know many viruses do that once the warm weather comes. It looks like the virus has gone south.

That is why I think the social distancing is only good to a point. Beyond this we are in the realm of diminishing returns. Killing ourselves.

I don't agree. Everyone is keenly aware of what they touch in public and when they touch their face. Workplaces are taking hygiene seriously. And people can't crowd into grocery and departments stores. 

The weather contributes to it, but some of the Sunbelt states are the ones that have cases spiking in the US. Brazil is in a bad spot right now. I think a lot of that is because of derelict government. 

I would be surprised if we see a spike in the summer. The key is how society weathers a "Second Wave" in the fall. 

I think our economy would be absolutely destroyed if we have to endure all this again during a Holiday Season. 

Edited June 12, 2020 by Boges

[Boges]

I'll go so far as to say that with this "New Normal". Cold and Flu season will be greatly impacted and hospitalization due to other communicable diseases might drop. 

[OftenWrong]

7 minutes ago, Boges said:

I don't agree. Everyone is keenly aware of what they touch in public and when they touch their face. Workplaces are taking hygiene seriously. And people can't crowd into grocery and departments stores. 

The weather contributes to it, but some of the Sunbelt states are the ones that have cases spiking in the US. Brazil is in a bad spot right now. I think a lot of that is because of derelict government. 

I would be surprised if we see a spike in the summer. The key is how society weathers a "Second Wave" in the fall.

Apparently those things do not matter as much as we believe, per the good doctor and head of immunology in Kingston. The article I linked yesterday. Even brief and direct exposures are not going to give enough viral load to become infected. The article explains how that works pretty clearly.

I don't know how things are where you are, but I can assure you that out here. no one has given much of a heck about social distancing for weeks now. People touch food items and put them back all the time. There's no instructions to do anything about it. If the virus were so immediately infectious at small doses the picture would be completely different.

Quote

I think our economy would be absolutely destroyed if we have to endure all this again during a Holiday Season. 

We are already there. We cannot continue this way any longer, virus or no. Perhaps the illustrious leaders thought we could wait it out, but these things last a long time and travel and come back. They don't quickly go away.

[Boges]

10 minutes ago, OftenWrong said:

We are already there. We cannot continue this way any longer, virus or no. Perhaps the illustrious leaders thought we could wait it out, but these things last a long time and travel and come back. They don't quickly go away.

A good percentage of businesses Q4 is where they make most of their hay. 

As much as we think a bad Q2 is, it's still not where a lion's share of retail is done. 

[OftenWrong]

It is frustrating to see things happening that have been warned about right from the onset of the shutdown. Other harms created by the excessive and over-the-top restrictions and closures to public health services, during a pandemic.

An emotional Dr. Bonnie Henry urges family, friends to reach out to drug users after 170 die in May

Quote

Dr. Bonnie Henry was responding to news from the B.C. Coroner's Service earlier in the day that 170 British Columbians had died from using opioids in the month of May — the highest total ever recorded for a single month in provincial history. 

The numbers are essentially double compared to previous years.

Other reports increase in suicides on the order of hundreds more than typical, numbers in domestic violence way up. The emotional toll of the shutdown has not been addressed.

'Pandemic of grief'

These are all things that we should have been aware of at the onset. We should have taken steps to protect people from the impact of the shutdown far more than we have done. Some of the solutions are relatively simple to implement. Yet we did nothing, we assume that the single and most important thing in the whole world is preventing spread of the virus, and all else be damned. Because at the leadership level we are childish, stupid and fear driven.

[eyeball]

1 hour ago, Rue said:

Bah. I shave my head. All the tough guys do. Me, Rue Paul, Jeremy Statham, the Rock.

Me too after cocking up my attempt to cut my hair.  Now I look like Bruce Willis.

  

[OftenWrong]

1 hour ago, OftenWrong said:

This Covid prevents me from a hair cut

I cut my own hair. Have done for many years now, got one of those clippers. It's called being independent of the nanny-state barbers.

[eyeball]

26 minutes ago, OftenWrong said:

These are all things that we should have been aware of at the onset. We should have taken steps to protect people from the impact of the shutdown far more than we have done. Some of the solutions are relatively simple to implement. Yet we did nothing, we assume that the single and most important thing in the whole world is preventing spread of the virus, and all else be damned. Because at the leadership level we are childish, stupid and fear driven.

No, solutions were always easy to implement but we wen't into this crisis so unprepared with things that were usually disdained as a virtue-signalling waste of monies better spent on more important things like tax breaks for rich people and cracking down on druggies.

Edited June 12, 2020 by eyeball

[OftenWrong]

No one is asking for drug users to be arrested, or for tax breaks for the rich.

An example of simple solutions easy to implement is the way Germany allowed people to visit old-age homes, by letting visitors it in a small booth with clear plastic shield. They've been doing that for over a month. What, a genius innovation? Hardly. But a simple example we didn't implement until just starting, this week. There are many other simple things that could be done. Complete shutdown and isolation is an utterly ridiculous idea,  put forth by naive people.

 

[SpankyMcFarland]

It looks like there will be incremental progress against this virus, something that we have seen with HIV and cancer. Here is news of a drug trial to reduce ARDS (often associated with diffuse alveolar damage) and lung thrombi in severe COVID-19 infection. The drug is TRV027, an AT1 receptor selective agonist:

Blood clots targeted in Covid-19 treatment trial

Third of patients develop dangerous blood clots

Here’s some fairly complex background info on ACE2 receptors and COVID-19. They make a fairly important point in the abstract suggesting why patients with diabetes and hypertension may be more vulnerable to a virus like SARS-CoV-2 that targets the ACE2 receptor:
 

Clinical reports of patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 show that several features associated with infection and severity of the disease (i.e., older age, hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease) share a variable degree of ACE2 deficiency. We suggest that ACE2 down-regulation induced by viral invasion may be especially detrimental in people with baseline ACE2 deficiency associated with the above conditions. The additional ACE2 deficiency after viral invasion might amplify the dysregulation between the ‘adverse’ ACE→Angiotensin II→AT1 receptor axis and the ‘protective’ ACE2→Angiotensin1-7→Mas receptor axis. In the lungs, such dysregulation would favor the progression of inflammatory and thrombotic processes triggered by local angiotensin II hyperactivity unopposed by angiotensin1-7. In this setting, recombinant ACE2, angiotensin1-7 and angiotensin II type 1 receptor blockers could be promising therapeutic approaches in patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Click to expand...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 0520301515

Edited June 16, 2020 by SpankyMcFarland

[Boges]

Suck it HDQ!

Life Saving COVID-19 Drug

Quote

 

A cheap and widely available drug can help save the lives of patients seriously ill with coronavirus.

The low-dose steroid treatment dexamethasone is a major breakthrough in the fight against the deadly virus, UK experts say.

The drug is part of the world's biggest trial testing existing treatments to see if they also work for coronavirus.

It cut the risk of death by a third for patients on ventilators. For those on oxygen, it cut deaths by a fifth.

Had the drug had been used to treat patients in the UK from the start of the pandemic, up to 5,000 lives could have been saved, researchers say.

And it could be of huge benefit in poorer countries with high numbers of Covid-19 patients.

 

 

[Iceni warrior]

1 hour ago, Boges said:

Suck it HDQ!

Life Saving COVID-19 Drug

 

A complete course of the drug costs around £5.

Good news for some of the less developed countries which are now starting to see a rise in number of infections.

Probably be hundreds of quid in the US though, got to keep those profit margins up for the insurance companies. 

Edited June 16, 2020 by Iceni warrior

[SpankyMcFarland]

51 minutes ago, Iceni warrior said:

A complete course of the drug costs around £5.

Good news for some of the less developed countries which are now starting to see a rise in number of infections.

Probably be hundreds of quid in the US though, got to keep those profit margins up for the insurance companies. 
 

 

It’s a proper randomized trial and the results are highly impressive:

Quote:

Researchers in England say they have the first evidence that a drug can improve COVID-19 survival: a steroid called dexamethasone reduced deaths by up to one-third in severely ill hospitalized patients.

Results were announced Tuesday and researchers said they would publish them soon. The study is a large, strict test that randomly assigned 2,104 patients to get the drug and compared them with 4,321 patients getting only usual care.

The drug was given either orally or through an IV. It reduced deaths by 35 per cent in patients who needed treatment with breathing machines and by 20 per cent in those only needing supplemental oxygen. It did not appear to help less ill patients.


https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/covid-19 ... -1.5613706

Needless to say, using an immunosuppressant to treat an infection is a tricky business. Still, we now have different drugs to treat the viral replication, thrombi and inflammation of COVID-19 which is excellent progress in a few months.

[New World Disorder]

On 6/12/2020 at 10:41 AM, OftenWrong said:

Well, that's good to know but you are constantly asking me for a cite so now I will ask you to do likewise. I couldn't find anything showing recent testing levels.

Ford was almost begging people to get tested even if they don't have symptoms. I guess all those testing kits Ontario bought are due to expire soon, wouldn't want it to go to waste. Now soliciting for people to come get a Covid-19 test... come one come all.

It's a nice easy way to get everyone's DNA !!!

[OftenWrong]

1 hour ago, New World Disorder said:

It's a nice easy way to get everyone's DNA !!!

I understand they shove a very long stick up your nose with a brush on the end. They push this into your nose. How far up? "All the way up." And both sides too.

No effin thank you. What's the point? Ain't no vaccine, and ain't likely to kill me no how.

[New World Disorder]

18 minutes ago, OftenWrong said:

I understand they shove a very long stick up your nose with a brush on the end. They push this into your nose. How far up? "All the way up." And both sides too.

No effin thank you. What's the point? Ain't no vaccine, and ain't likely to kill me no how.

What a better way to spread the virus by having everyone show up at these test centers.  Hopefully they are doing their due diligence to not spread the virus between people by simply showing up to get tested. Also what were those tests?  Who made them, and how accurate are they?  Questions I have.

[OftenWrong]

The virus is essentially over in Canada. There have been no major outbreaks despite people going outside in large numbers, unprotected, for several weeks.

These protests have been happening daily at Queen's Park since early May:

No one is wearing a mask. The photo is May 16.

Just as grocery clerks did not wear masks throughout this ordeal. Anyone hear of major outbreaks among grocery clerks? No. If that happened, it would have been a screaming headline. Yet they continue to serve us, these grocery clerks, these human guinea-pigs who are in fact now heroes for us.

[OftenWrong]

On 6/12/2020 at 10:05 AM, Rue said:

Excellent debate between Ow and Bog. What can I say.

I don't see any debate at all, sir.