COVID-19 Thread [V2.0]

[Machu Peach]

The goal of this study is it attempts to identify which factors are are associated with COVID infection and which are not. That is, they are trying to determine which behaviors or factors are associated with increased risk.

 

The biggest factors are lack of a chronic medical condition(s), visiting a restaurant, having an infected family member, and having a close contact with an infected individual. Interestingly, things like infected friends, infected coworkers, going to the gym, going to church, going to an office, going to a salon, going shopping, taking public transportation, etc are not associated with increased infection.

 

Notably, race/ethnicity and education also play a large role (sex and age do not) and they account for that in their odds ratio.

[tmwiese55]

 

Why is the viral load dropping?

 

This happens with many viruses as they mutate/evolve in order to survive - they essentially become more contagious but wind up causing less severe symptomatic responses/death. I recall reading something in Houston indicating that's what they were seeing with the virus during their big spike as well. It's likely the main reason why New York still has over 2X the COVID-related deaths in the US compared to any other state even though states like CA, TX, and FL now have had many more confirmed cases (aside from the fact we've mostly stopped intentionally sending infected patients into nursing homes to recover). NY had it's initial major outbreak occur with the virus when it was causing higher viral loads in infected people, leading to a higher percentage of worse outcomes.

 

Another thing that I wish would be better understood is how high the US' PCR testing cycle threshold is compared to that of other countries - many US labs have cycle thresholds in the upper 30's or even 40, while countries like Germany and Korea normally cut off their PCR testing after 32 cycles. More cycles leads to more positive COVID tests based on dead virus RNA fragments from a previous unknown infection that aren't capable of transmission/infection - along with false positives simply due to equipment sensitivity and lab contamination issues. Because of that, simply comparing confirmed cases between many countries becomes apples-oranges.

 

I saw that Johnson & Johnson just had to pause their vaccine trial to sort out an unexplained illness in a participant - I think the biggest problem big pharma is going to have with a COVID-19 vaccine is that by the time it's approved and ready for widespread distribution, it's not going to have the impact of preventing infection to the point of satisfying people who are looking to stop the virus' spread by a one-time vaccine alone. There is too much evidence that indicates COVID antibodies don't remain indefinitely, meaning a COVID vaccine will need to be seasonally or routinely administered - and people around the world will continue getting infected with COVID even if there are widespread vaccinations. If that's the case and we are dealing with a virus that is already at a diminished potency based on mutations and expected evolution, a vaccine becomes less effective overall.

 

A safe vaccine will help attain herd immunity faster than not having one at all - but then again the term 'herd immunity' doesn't mean infections and occasional death with COVID will stop. Herd immunity is essentially a point where the potential for exponential/uncontrolled virus spread doesn't happen - It's encouraging that the case spikes across the US this summer and fall have not come close to resulting in the number of severe hospitalizations/deaths that would have been projected based on what happened in the northeast US in March-April. For example if you look at the flu year in/year out, one could say the US, which has reasonably high percentage of its population that gets vaccinated has herd immunity any given winter - but seasonal flu deaths still range from ~15K-50K any given year depending on many factors. Could we lower that number each winter by always taking the measures currently in place for COVID? Sure, but we wouldn't have a society anymore and everyone would eventually go insane - that's the point of people in the WHO currently saying lockdowns and intentional economic/societal shutdowns can't be the indefinite answer until a vaccine shows up.

 

With regard to the whole 85% of people who get infected always wear mask...honestly I think I see more than 85+% of people with masks on in public indoor spaces where I live, so I'm not surprised by that number at all - masks don't prevent you from getting infected with the virus, they help prevent people who already have the virus from being superspreaders out in public IF they properly wear one. Even without superspreaders, infections will inevitably happen - wearing a piece of fabric that would've been destined for the Tshirt factory last fall isn't going to prevent COVID transmission for whoever's wearing it if there are COVID particles in the air they are breathing.

 

 

Good post. One thing I thought of in terms of your discussion between deathrates in NY at the beginning vs now to maybe factor in would be the actual case counts in NYC area were probably multiple times higher than the positive test back show. So few people were being tested before mid march and for the heart of that crisis only certain people were tested due to the limited amount. Don't think that contradicts anything you're getting as those trends should still be happening, but it might be something to factor in as well and the %s might not be as drastic of difference.

[homer]

Why is the viral load dropping?

 

With regard to the whole 85% of people who get infected always wear mask...honestly I think I see more than 85+% of people with masks on in public indoor spaces where I live, so I'm not surprised by that number at all - masks don't prevent you from getting infected with the virus, they help prevent people who already have the virus from being superspreaders out in public IF they properly wear one. Even without superspreaders, infections will inevitably happen - wearing a piece of fabric that would've been destined for the Tshirt factory last fall isn't going to prevent COVID transmission for whoever's wearing it if there are COVID particles in the air they are breathing.

 

Masks can potentially reduce viral load.

 

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.13.20193508v2

[PeaveyFury]

The goal of this study is it attempts to identify which factors are are associated with COVID infection and which are not. That is, they are trying to determine which behaviors or factors are associated with increased risk.

 

The biggest factors are lack of a chronic medical condition(s), visiting a restaurant, having an infected family member, and having a close contact with an infected individual. Interestingly, things like infected friends, infected coworkers, going to the gym, going to church, going to an office, going to a salon, going shopping, taking public transportation, etc are not associated with increased infection.

 

Notably, race/ethnicity and education also play a large role (sex and age do not) and they account for that in their odds ratio.

 

Indeed. It will be interesting to see if the factors stay consistent in future studies as re-openings become more widespread.

 

I think that this data and these types of studies will be vital to preventing a massive lockdown-type event again as we can now better target where the risks actually are. Unfortunately, it appears that a lot of the hardest-hit businesses (restaurants/bars/hospitality) are likely to face increasing restrictions based on the data.

 

Lost in the debate/push-back regarding the initial 'flatten the curve'/stay at home period earlier this year is that the initial restrictions really had the goal of 1)preventing an overwhelming of the hospital/medical system 2)buying time for development of a vaccine 3) buying time to determine a better treatment plan than the on-the-fly nature of the early case treatment, and 4)to allow actual research like these studies to offer better insights on what we're actually dealing with here and how to mitigate risk in a more targeted way going forward.

[FVBrewerFan]

Lost in the debate/push-back regarding the initial 'flatten the curve'/stay at home period earlier this year is that the initial restrictions really had the goal of 1)preventing an overwhelming of the hospital/medical system 2)buying time for development of a vaccine 3) buying time to determine a better treatment plan than the on-the-fly nature of the early case treatment, and 4)to allow actual research like these studies to offer better insights on what we're actually dealing with here and how to mitigate risk in a more targeted way going forward.

 

Source?

 

The only reason given I remember is #1. It was initially 15 days, so there's no way anyone expected the other 3 items to be resolved.

[FVBrewerFan]

I've been reading some interesting studies on viral load and how it's been steadily decreasing in positive tests as the pandemic has gone on. The amount of virus you have could be a predictor as to how sick you get (e.g. need to go to an ICU) or if you die. As the death rate per case seems to be dropping as well, and as I understand it is not 100% correlated with the younger people testing positive, some are thinking this lower viral load per positive case is a factor.

 

Why is the viral load dropping? Could be the virus itself is changing (a virus doesn't want to kill too many people or it will cease to exist) or that masks and social distancing are doing enough to not stop the spread of positivity but they are doing enough to drop the viral load that people are exposed to.

 

Also, is this dropping viral load a blip or a trend? Time will tell.

 

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/09/falling-covid-19-viral-loads-may-explain-lower-rates-icu-use-deaths

 

I will let Machu speak for himself, but I believe this is what he predicted a while back.

[PeaveyFury]

 

Source?

 

The only reason given I remember is #1. It was initially 15 days, so there's no way anyone expected the other 3 items to be resolved.

 

My own conclusions/observations on how things have unfolded. I won't speak for the biomedical folks here, but I doubt that anyone on either side of the aisle was willing to go on record in March stating that A)the medical professionals really didn't know how to treat patients that needed hospital care, and B)that the only real way out of this was a vaccine. Time bought them a chance to find better alternatives/drugs/treatment plans vs. what was done initially. Vaccine production was hurried in a remarkable way, and we're all still here buying time until that arrives to be the end of it. I'd guess that no one expected the other three to be resolved at all during the lock down, but it bought more time for each of the three items noted. Problem was, with additional time more could have been done to potentially reduce what we're seeing now. But instead it became a politicized, self-centered/selfish, petulant response from society that rushed into reopening with haphazard guidelines with no enforcement and haphazard adoption. So here we are, as a result.

[PeaveyFury]

Not surprising, WHO and many countries, experts all now saying lockdowns are causing more health risks than Covid.

 

Speaking of links, I'm still interested in reading the source material here, considering that the WHO special envoy's statement didn't add any qualifier to the effect of "causing more health risks than Covid." Is there something more specific that has been released on the subject?

 

Regarding the Special Envoy, here's a direct link to his separate published piece on his 'middle path':

 

https://www.4sd.info/covid-19-narratives/reflections-about-the-middle-path/

 

The frustrating thing seems to be that the consensus is that no one wants 'lock downs' and such, but to get to that path, you have to do/comply with the basic items that people are, for some reason, unwilling to comply with at this point:

 

People are encouraged to adopt all precautions all the time. As Tedros of WHO says: ‘Do it All’: physical distancing, proper face-masking, hand/cough/surface hygiene, self-isolating when ill and shielding those most at risk. There should be no exceptions anywhere. This is best achieved through engaging people and trusting them rather than coercion if at all possible.

 

Sadly, paths other than the last seem implausible at this point....

[TURBO]

Against my better judgement, I needed to grab something quick, so I stopped at Kwik Trip on my way to work. I have not been back since my last rant against them, and was hoping that since the numbers are freakishly high, maybe people were being better about mask wearing.

 

LOL

 

Silly me. Store was filled with selfish, self-indulgent, unwilling to be inconvenienced people not wearing masks. Even if it means putting others at risk, they just aren't going to follow the mandate. I saw 12 people once I entered, 4 of which had masks on.

 

I swear that the people not wearing them look at those of who do, just daring us to say something. That of course would be useless and would only lead to a confrontation.

 

I have zero faith in the general public being able to control this. None.

 

Shame on Kwik Trip for posting the signs on their doors saying MASK REQUIRED, then doing absolutely nothing when people don't.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

Against my better judgement, I needed to grab something quick, so I stopped at Kwik Trip on my way to work. I have not been back since my last rant against them, and was hoping that since the numbers are freakishly high, maybe people were being better about mask wearing.

 

LOL

 

Silly me. Store was filled with selfish, self-indulgent, unwilling to be inconvenienced people not wearing masks. Even if it means putting others at risk, they just aren't going to follow the mandate. I saw 12 people once I entered, 4 of which had masks on.

 

I swear that the people not wearing them look at those of who do, just daring us to say something. That of course would be useless and would only lead to a confrontation.

 

I have zero faith in the general public being able to control this. None.

 

Shame on Kwik Trip for posting the signs on their doors saying MASK REQUIRED, then doing absolutely nothing when people don't.

 

What's the answer, though? Is it in the job description of the guy making $10/hr running the register at Kwik Trip to get in confrontations with the selfish jerks looking for a fight? Non-compliance will be high as long as law enforcement continues to ignore enforcement of the mandate.

[tmwiese55]

I'm really not sure how KT is to blame for this, it's the people themselves. I would presume/hope the employee had a mask on, that's really all they can do. What is kwik trip supposed to do, deploy a security force to every store?

 

Good posts peavy. Yes, that's really not what the WHO statement is getting at in my interpretation.

[TURBO]

Well, other stores don't seem to have the same issues as KT. Look at Menards. They have been making masks required for months, and I think I have seen one person ever not following the rule.

 

It's just too bad that the general average every day person doesn't have the sense to try to get along in society, and follow society rules.

 

I blame KT for acting like they give a crap by posting the signs, then not honoring their own signs in any way at all.

 

People can side with them, and say what are they supposed to do, but not one ounce of effort has been made by them to have their customers follow the mandate.

[Storm]

About ten days ago I was grocery shopping. Wearing a mask and practicing social distancing. As I was waiting to check out I noticed a gentleman with a mask entering the store. Right behind him was a guy without a mask, the masked man held the door closed and shouted he wouldn't let the guy without a mask in. The guy without a mask tried to enter the store through the out door. That ended up being blocked by the masked man. Well the unmasked guy went to his truck and got a mask. Interesting!

[TURBO]

About ten days ago I was grocery shopping. Wearing a mask and practicing social distancing. As I was waiting to check out I noticed a gentleman with a mask entering the store. Right behind him was a guy without a mask, the masked man held the door closed and shouted he wouldn't let the guy without a mask in. The guy without a mask tried to enter the store through the out door. That ended up being blocked by the masked man. Well the unmasked guy went to his truck and got a mask. Interesting!

 

That's pretty awesome!

[stoutdude04]

My class was down 4 students.

 

It's looking more and more lkkely my district makes some more changes. 22 teachers out at the HS today. Though, 15 of those are out because they were at a wedding last weekend.

[wallus]

I subbed for a softball team last night. I didn't realize it was because so many of the players were in quarantine and/or have Covid. I feel like I am pretty much in the middle ground on this (wear masks, social distance, more hygiene but live your life) but was horrified how they talked about it so casually. Basically that getting it was no big deal and it was stupid that they had to quarantine. If this is how people are going to treat this, we are screwed.

 

The team also sucked big time.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Sheboygan is going virtual effective 10/16. There is a rumor Evers has urged all superintendents to do it.

[logan82]

Regarding the mask debate, I guess if you just look at it with simple, common sense - it makes sense.

 

I mean, with a mask on, my spittle isn't flying out of my mouth nearly as much. That just seems pretty basic and straight forward right there.

 

Pre-COVID, when it was the flu season, if you felt sick, you washed your hands a lot, you turned away when you coughed, you didn't shake someone's hand, you kept your distance, you didn't go to work or church, you avoided nursing homes, etc., etc. Again, all this was stuff most people kept in mind during flu season every year. It's common sense.

 

The severity of COVID - and its ability to be asymptomatic - means you are trying to do the same things - and more. Masks seem like the simplest and easiest and least intrusive of all these things.

The huge difference with Covid-19 is and always has been you are highly contagious before you even know you have it.

 

Wear a mask.

[logan82]

I am a mask proponent. I listen to the Drs and Scientists. I trust experts. I socially distance. I "eat out" once or twice a week still but only take out since March...and guess what...I am completely sick and tired of worrying about getting COVID. I will never not where a mask while this pandemic persists, but I am almost to the point where I wouldnt mind getting it, just to get it over with so I can stop worrying about it every time my throat gets mildly sore.

We don't know the long term effects of Covid-19. There is evidence that there are possibly long term effects but we do not know the extent yet.

 

Wear a mask.

[logan82]

Didn't we sort of do this backwards in Wisconsin?

 

Wouldn't March/April have been the right time to say, "Hey, be safe out there. Wear a mask when you go out. Keep your distance from people. "

 

And right now the time to be saying, "Shelter the hell in place, we need to flatten that curve."

 

I feel like we utilized these two strategies in exactly the opposite times from when they were appropriate. We didn't need to shut down Wisconsin in March, and we really shouldn't be traveling unnecessarily at all right now.

Maybe. We don't know what would have happened if everything wasn't shut down. The fact that some of the early deaths were in Fond du Lac and that there was an early case in Bayfield suggests that it was out there. It hit NYC, Seattle, Chicago, and San Francisco first because that is where the most traffic to/from China is and it spread because of population density, but it was in some rural areas.

 

I've always been a fan of giving people choices. I've gone back and forth on whether it would have been a good or bad idea to have said, "you either have to wear a mask or you have to sign something that if you contract COVID you waive your right to get treatment". Give a choice, but let there be consequences for that choice. Don't know how they would have enforced that at hospitals, but it might have made people think twice. In marketing it is called a nudge - create hassles and consequences for not doing what you should do.

 

What should have happened is that the state health department should have been doing random checks on business and fining them/pulling their license for not abiding by capacity limits and staff not wearing masks. That worked really well in Chicago, as several restaurants/bars lost their license or got big fines. Businesses got in line real quick.

I thought a lot of the early evidence was that many of the infections in NY came in through Europe.

 

Wear a mask.

[logan82]

Last week I met up with my message therapist and she picked my brain, inquiring how much longer the masking and SD thing will go on. I guessed two years - another year to finalize the vaccination and a year to manufacture the serum and develop the supply network.

 

This morning I went to my first annual physical in two years and my primary also brought up the subject. She independently agreed, one year to make the vaccine and another year for the needed 70% of Americans to get the shot.

 

If accurate, and I don't think it's far off, everything we're doing now is a complete waste of time as far as trying to coerce people to comply. Whatever portion is still going along with things now will be significantly smaller in 6 months or a year.

I wouldn't say it is a waste of time to try to limit the spread so we have adequate facilities to treat those who are infected. We are at capacity in the Fox Valley from what I have heard from nurses in the area and other reports.

 

Wear a mask.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

It's a waste of time because it is obvious at this point a ton of people are not going to wear a mask no matter how many times you end a post with "wear a mask." And the longer it legs out, the number of apathetic people will continue to grow. People aren't conditioned to do this for two years. They just get over it eventually.

[adambr2]

Against my better judgement, I needed to grab something quick, so I stopped at Kwik Trip on my way to work. I have not been back since my last rant against them, and was hoping that since the numbers are freakishly high, maybe people were being better about mask wearing.

 

LOL

 

Silly me. Store was filled with selfish, self-indulgent, unwilling to be inconvenienced people not wearing masks. Even if it means putting others at risk, they just aren't going to follow the mandate. I saw 12 people once I entered, 4 of which had masks on.

 

I swear that the people not wearing them look at those of who do, just daring us to say something. That of course would be useless and would only lead to a confrontation.

 

I have zero faith in the general public being able to control this. None.

 

Shame on Kwik Trip for posting the signs on their doors saying MASK REQUIRED, then doing absolutely nothing when people don't.

 

What's the answer, though? Is it in the job description of the guy making $10/hr running the register at Kwik Trip to get in confrontations with the selfish jerks looking for a fight? Non-compliance will be high as long as law enforcement continues to ignore enforcement of the mandate.

 

Nope, you're absolutely right, it's not on the employees, it's on the individual.

 

I feel terrible for any retail employees who already work a crappy job for minimal pay and get asked to enforce the mask mandate on top of this. As far as getting law enforcement involved, in most jurisdictions mask compliance is not a criminal offense where they even could get involved. Even if they could, they are often overburdened with other matters to get involved with enforcing a mask mandate.

 

The issue is cultural-- we are a society that emphasizes personal convenience over any greater good. We see this even in those that don't think they are that way-- even the most stringent mask proponents are often seen in situations where they let their guard down for their own comfort (Evers, Fauci).

 

Mask compliance was probably better a month or two ago shortly after the mandate came out. Now those who didn't want to wear one in the first place have a much better idea of what places will actually enforce it and which won't.

 

You're not going to change an entire culture in a year or two. People ignoring mask policies is what it is and any time and energy spent trying to change that is pretty well pointless.

[homer]

It's a waste of time because it is obvious at this point a ton of people are not going to wear a mask no matter how many times you end a post with "wear a mask." And the longer it legs out, the number of apathetic people will continue to grow. People aren't conditioned to do this for two years. They just get over it eventually.

 

Or it becomes habit to throw on a mask for the four minutes you're inside a Kwik Trip.

[TURBO]

My class was down 4 students.

 

It's looking more and more lkkely my district makes some more changes. 22 teachers out at the HS today. Though, 15 of those are out because they were at a wedding last weekend.

 

 

I bet the district is a little PO'd about their decision making as a group.

 

Everyone knows weddings are super spreaders... geez