General COVID-19 Topic

[Vinsk]

32 minutes ago, CarlSpackler said:

. Antibody test could prove that we have already had, and survived, the surge.

But the tests aren’t certain. The false positives remain a considerable factor. Even if True Positive, we don’t know if that means ‘immunity’. That’s part of the problem.

[CarlSpackler]

1 minute ago, Vinsk said:

But the tests aren’t certain. The false positives remain a considerable factor. Even if True Positive, we don’t know if that means ‘immunity’. That’s part of the problem.

Got it. They said that it was in Ohio in early January at least, and there are A LOT of people who had symptoms that were dead on anywhere from Jan. to Feb. I guess we will see.

[DeadMan]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

1%?!?!

We are nearly at half a percent of confirmed cases already.

1% was to make the math easy. But antibody studies have significant limitations if the tests have even what seems like a small rate of false positives and/or false negatives. For example, that study of antibodies in Santa Clara may have only found false positives:

Why experts are questioning two hyped antibody studies in coronavirus hotspots | World news | The Guardian

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Investigations at California universities highlight challenges of research under pressure to provide quick answers

 It’s a real life application of Bayes Theorem. Even a false positive rate of 1% can make the test significantly less valuable. This article does a good job of describing it, and it has an good graph that shows what I’m talking about:

Why even a super-accurate Covid-19 test can fail

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It’s hard to find a disease that’s rare.

So the antibody studies aren’t that meaningful until over, maybe, 5% of the population has had the virus. Depending on how good the test is.

[Double Mocha Man]

Hurry up that vaccine!  Make like Usain Bolt.  I want to get back to the restaurants and bars, just like before.  Oh, and make that vaccine 100% effective.

[CarlSpackler]

1 hour ago, Double Mocha Man said:

Hurry up that vaccine!  Make like Usain Bolt.  I want to get back to the restaurants and bars, just like before.  Oh, and make that vaccine 100% effective.

I’m not getting one. 

[iacas]

The Risks - Know Them - Avoid Them

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Please read this link to learn about the author and background to these posts. It seems many people are breathing some relief, and I’m not sure why. An epidemic curve has a relatively predictable upslope and once the...

There's very little chance of getting coronavirus outdoors.

[CarlSpackler]

28 minutes ago, iacas said:

There's very little chance of getting coronavirus outdoors.

Does this mean we can lose the pool noodles in the cups and pull the flag stick again?

[iacas]

38 minutes ago, CarlSpackler said:

Does this mean we can lose the pool noodles in the cups and pull the flag stick again?

It should, but since people won't read this article before making assumptions and such, we'll probably be dealing with pool noodles and the like for quite some time.

[gbogey]

1 hour ago, CarlSpackler said:

Does this mean we can lose the pool noodles in the cups and pull the flag stick again?

If done properly, I LIKE the swim noodles.  Eventually you'll get old or creaky enough to like them.

[Double Mocha Man]

40 minutes ago, iacas said:

It should, but since people won't read this article before making assumptions and such, we'll probably be dealing with pool noodles and the like for quite some time.

I read the article... very informative.  Thanks for supplying it.  I think the fresh air aspect of it had more to do with the dispersion of virus-infected air droplets from others' mouths than it did with the virus remaining on the hard surface of a flagstick, cup or rake handle.

Edited May 13, 2020 by Double Mocha Man

[CarlSpackler]

2 hours ago, gbogey said:

If done properly, I LIKE the swim noodles.  Eventually you'll get old or creaky enough to like them.

I’m definitely old and creaky, and the longer they keep my gym closed, I get weaker and fatter. 

[dennyjones]

13 hours ago, iacas said:

The Risks - Know Them - Avoid Them

---

Please read this link to learn about the author and background to these posts. It seems many people are breathing some relief, and I’m not sure why. An epidemic curve has a relatively predictable upslope and once the...

There's very little chance of getting coronavirus outdoors.

Very good article.   This is good "should be" common sense.  

My wife is a dental hygienist.  She's debating the merits of returning to work.    Her dentist has suggested that they won't get extra time per patient and they will have to wear another mask over the N95 and under the face shield.  It will be very difficult to breath with all of that on your face.   My thought..what are they doing to protect the patients?  I don't want to sit in a dental chair where aerosol is more common than any other medical profession.    For her, it's a wait and see what the CDC recommends but they've been very slow with any recommendations about returning to work.  

[nicolas wieder]

9 hours ago, CarlSpackler said:

I’m definitely old and creaky, and the longer they keep my gym closed, I get weaker and fatter. 

me too. been doing well with 30 min of stretching and 100 pushups a day. 

not perfect but has maintainded some tone

[TN94z]

14 hours ago, iacas said:

The Risks - Know Them - Avoid Them

---

Please read this link to learn about the author and background to these posts. It seems many people are breathing some relief, and I’m not sure...

There's very little chance of getting coronavirus outdoors.

Very good read. That article needs to be seen by many more people. A coworker and I were actually discussing things very similar to this article (without the data to back it up obviously) last week.

Edited May 13, 2020 by TN94z

[Braivo]

15 hours ago, iacas said:

The Risks - Know Them - Avoid Them

---

Please read this link to learn about the author and background to these posts. It seems many people are breathing some relief, and I’m not sure why. An epidemic curve has a relatively predictable upslope and once the...

There's very little chance of getting coronavirus outdoors.

And almost none from touching shared surfaces. The whole "we sanitized everything" is just theater. Same with pool noodles in the cups. Chances of catching the virus from touching a rake someone used 15 minutes before you? Essentially zero. 

[saevel25]

4 minutes ago, Braivo said:

And almost none from touching shared surfaces. The whole "we sanitized everything" is just theater. Same with pool noodles in the cups. Chances of catching the virus from touching a rake someone used 15 minutes before you? Essentially zero. 

Actually, I believe you are wrong. The article is primarily about airborn transmission. The article does say this, 

Quote

Infection could occur, through 1000 infectious viral particles you receive in one breath or from one eye-rub, or 100 viral particles inhaled with each breath over 10 breaths, or 10 viral particles with 100 breaths. Each of these situations can lead to an infection.

Also this,

Quote

A Bathroom: Bathrooms have a lot of high touch surfaces, door handles, faucets, stall doors. So fomite transfer risk in this environment can be high. We still do not know whether a person releases infectious material in feces or just fragmented virus, but we do know that toilet flushing does aerosolize many droplets. Treat public bathrooms with extra caution (surface and air), until we know more about the risk.

 

[Braivo]

7 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

Actually, I believe you are wrong. The article is primarily about airborn transmission. The article does say this, 

Also this,

 

Speculation. There is little data to show people getting infected from surfaces. Almost all cases can be traced back to gatherings in close quarters. Like that call center example, almost no one on the opposite side of the floor go the virus, despite sharing bathrooms, elevators, break rooms, etc. 

Given they've shown that sun also breaks the virus down, and the absolute remote possibility that someone in a group ahead of me a) has the virus, b) coughs or sneezes enough then touches the rake, c) I happen to touch the exact same rake at the exact same spot within a few minutes, and d) I then touch my face with that same hand. Plus, all of this assumes that there's enough viral load on a surface to get a person sick (which hasn't been show to be true). 

Additionally, we have moved the goalposts. The initial measures were put in place to "flatten the curve" to avoid hospital overrun, not "eliminate all cases". The goal of "zero cases" is driving an insane amount of measures that wouldn't be necessary if we had kept the "flatten the curve" standard. 

[saevel25]

29 minutes ago, Braivo said:

peculation. There is little data to show people getting infected from surfaces. Almost all cases can be traced back to gatherings in close quarters. Like that call center example, almost no one on the opposite side of the floor go the virus, despite sharing bathrooms, elevators, break rooms, etc. 

Fair, but it's not that big of a deal to have a better habit of cleaning your house ;). On the plus side, a lot of people will not be contracting other illnesses from bacterial sources. 

30 minutes ago, Braivo said:

Plus, all of this assumes that there's enough viral load on a surface to get a person sick (which hasn't been show to be true). 

Which hasn't shown to be false either. I agree, the probability is low. Every instance is not a binary situation. It's all about what people's risk aversion is for this sort of thing. 

31 minutes ago, Braivo said:

Additionally, we have moved the goalposts. The initial measures were put in place to "flatten the curve" to avoid hospital overrun, not "eliminate all cases". The goal of "zero cases" is driving an insane amount of measures that wouldn't be necessary if we had kept the "flatten the curve" standard. 

At least in Ohio, it has always been around flattening the curve. That is why after our projected peak we are moving forward with systematically opening businesses.