coronavirus

[DonaldD]

Interesting: Foxnews: Coronavirus: Compliance with social distancing during early stages linked to working memory, study finds

A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences claims compliance in America with social distancing during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic is linked to working memory.

The study, “Working memory capacity predicts individual differences in social-distancing compliance during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States”, assessed the working memory, personality, mood and fluid intelligence of test subjects; the researchers surveyed 850 U.S. residents between March 13 and March 25.

The study found a link between working memory and social distancing, and subjects -- noting more benefits than costs -- with higher levels of fluid intelligence, fairness and agreeableness followed the new rules of social distancing compliance, the study found.

[DonaldD]

An interesting graphic

[DonaldD]

And now for some seriously bad (if not completely unexpected news): Longitudinal evaluation and decline of antibody responses in SARS-CoV-2 infection

Basically, the human body is unlikely to maintain COVID-19 antibodies for long periods of time, so reinfection is a real possibility.  This is similar to how the body responds to other coronaviruses (think of the common cold, with which people are reinfected annually)

[TheDeamon]

That's actually showing as little as a month and a half in one case. Although a few get close to 3 months.

That means very bad news for vaccine developers, and for others it becomes a genetic lottery on if your genetics lands you in the group that will be barely impacted by Covid or one of the people who will either have their vascular system shredded, or their lungs.

[DonaldD]

Yup - and that's hoping that the people who are only slightly affected in their first infection continue to respond well in future infections... as opposed to being just lucky the first time with their response, and getting unlucky for their second...

[TheDeamon]

I'm reasonably comfortable in the belief that most of what we're seeing for variability in responses being in large part a derivative of underlying genetics for the person/family involved. Now there are always going to be the people who are going to be borderline on that front, genetic predispositions towards resiliency doesn't mean they can't do other (behavioral) things that result in weakening their system enough that it manages to do damage, at which point they move down the "death spiral" that you're indirectly alluding to as they continue to get re-infected over time.

[LetterRip]

I'm reasonably comfortable in the belief that most of what we're seeing for variability in responses being in large part a derivative of underlying genetics for the person/family involved.

That is possible, but another major factor will be dose related.  The larger the the initial number of viral particles when infected, generally the worse the outcome.

[DonaldD]

Another day with roughly 66,000 new daily cases, but we're also starting to see daily deaths increase as well; the 7-Day average is now back up to what it was over a month ago. We will see over the next week whether the rate of deaths continues to increase...

[TheDrake]

I'm just waiting for the next level of excuses as we watch the death toll spike. They were going to die anyway, herd immunity, blah blah blah. They just keep falling back to another defense of why we should just open all businesses.

[DonaldD]

But they seem to be playing 1-dimensional chess, here... People are getting most of their information independently of the administration and its lackeys, and those that have supported the president's messaging, acting rashly despite the advice of medical experts, are now seen to have done so at the expense of their own citizens (hello Governor DeSantis). The president doesn't just have a trust deficit - it's gotten to the point that people actually believe him to be willing to lie about anything if he thinks it might benefit himself.

And many people, even some at financial risk, will choose not to become martyrs to the economy. It's easy to imagine that those people will make up a critical mass, economically; and words from this president just aren't going to sway those people who believe he has their worst interests at heart.

[DonaldD]

I'm reasonably comfortable in the belief that most of what we're seeing for variability in responses being in large part a derivative of underlying genetics for the person/family involved.

That is possible, but another major factor will be dose related.  The larger the the initial number of viral particles when infected, generally the worse the outcome.

Here's another perspective: there have been ~140,000 deaths so far reported - but many more have been seriously ill, some of whom have been recovering for weeks or months, and some of whom now suffer from chronic after effects.

Many of those if re-infected will likely succumb.  And many whose recovery was difficult will be further damaged by re-infection. They're both coronaviruses, but COVID-19 is not the common cold.

[DonaldD]

... or if it is the common cold, it is the common cold before it pruned off the genetic branches of humanity in any way fatally susceptible to the disease...

[TheDeamon]

... or if it is the common cold, it is the common cold before it pruned off the genetic branches of humanity in any way fatally susceptible to the disease...

Very possible, only further amplified in a lot of the (1st) world because our medical systems have allowed certain "branches" of the human tree to exist that wouldn't have managed to live to reproduce otherwise.

Hopefully we get a vaccine developed to help those at moderate to high risk and possibly get a solid handle on which genetic markers are decisive risk factors with it for the rest of us.

Although it should be pointed out that even the common cold manages to kill people.

From another angle however, given what some of the negative health outcomes seem to be for many Covid19 patients. There now is a significantly increased market for therapeutics for vascular systems and lungs in particular. Given how much more we understand about our biology compared to even 10 years ago, there is potential for a lot of medical therapies that would have been science fiction 20 years ago seeing large scale deployment in the next 5 to 10 as a very direct consequence of this.

[DonaldD]

Having the common cold twice a year is an annoyance.

Getting COVID-19 twice a year requiring breathing assistance or hospitalization, and weeks or months of convalescence, is not.

[yossarian22c]

Having the common cold twice a year is an annoyance.

Getting COVID-19 twice a year requiring breathing assistance or hospitalization, and weeks or months of convalescence, is not.

Getting COVID-19 vaccine boosters 4 times a year is an annoyance as well. It also increases the odds for potential adverse reactions to the vaccine. All said, a vaccine even with a 3 month window of efficacy is better than no vaccine. But this is going to be a long term problem we need to deal with.

[TheDeamon]

Which is why we hopefully get a vaccine on the market. Although if their trial period is one year, and the actual Covid19 cohort only retains immunity for 45 to 60 days... Chances are not good that any vaccine is going to make it through the trial period. Unless they have expressly provisioned for regular booster shots as part of their trial.

[TheDeamon]

Having the common cold twice a year is an annoyance.

Getting COVID-19 twice a year requiring breathing assistance or hospitalization, and weeks or months of convalescence, is not.

Getting COVID-19 vaccine boosters 4 times a year is an annoyance as well. It also increases the odds for potential adverse reactions to the vaccine. All said, a vaccine even with a 3 month window of efficacy is better than no vaccine. But this is going to be a long term problem we need to deal with.

And getting many people to even get a vaccine shot which requires frequent boosters is going to be worse than herding cats. The Anti-vaxxers are bad enough, but add in a fast-tracked approval process and the need for frequent boosters. And yeah, that's not going to play out well.

[NobleHunter]

I think they would have some people getting boosters during the trial. Especially with the data regarding the duration of the immune response.

Though if there's no reservoir of the virus outside humans, it might still be possible to eradicate it with a combination of vaccination and quarantine. Though I doubt we're up to the organizational challenge.

[DonaldD]

You would need to organize billions of inoculations followed by billions of people self isolating for weeks on end in order to eradicate pools of infections... maybe something could also be done with grey water virus testing, because there would also need to be quick responses to any outbreaks, and testing billions of people regularly is not going to happen.

Not to mention that enforced vaccinations is a non-starter.  people won't wear masks, because... LIBURTY!!

[NobleHunter]

You would need to organize billions of inoculations followed by billions of people self isolating for weeks on end in order to eradicate pools of infections... maybe something could also be done with grey water virus testing, because there would also need to be quick responses to any outbreaks, and testing billions of people regularly is not going to happen.

Not to mention that enforced vaccinations is a non-starter.  people won't wear masks, because... LIBURTY!!

I was thinking going region by region. Pick an area where you can vaccinate almost everyone in a month, do that and then quarantine it against people from non-vaccinated regions. Repeat. It is possible to contain the virus, as New Zealand proved. Once you've got an area vaccinated they can go about their daily lives.

[DonaldD]

It's easy if you're an island... I don't think we can schedule tectonic shifts with sufficient accuracy so as to island-ize, Georgia and Florida and Texas and California...

[DonaldD]

It's now been 36 days straight where the 7-day average has increased over the previous day's 7-day average.  That's consistency.

Today also saw the highest number of reported deaths since June 9 - that's also 36 days.

[rightleft22]

Things will get better soon now that the Trump administration is taking over the data collection on COVID-19.

[DonaldD]

Right - the corollary to "if we simply tested fewer people..."

[rightleft22]

If we don't see it, it isn't happening.  We stopped paying attention older people suffering and dying long ago so staying in our happy place by looking away works.
If that changes and others demographic start suffering maybe we might have to take a look?

Watched that video of the anti-mask guy passionately telling his city counsel how he would die for that flag though he should wouldn't wear a mask for it. What happened to us

[yossarian22c]

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is overruling local government mandates requiring people to wear masks in public to stop the spread of COVID-19, insisting that the state's less-stringent guidelines take precedence.
...
Georgia on Wednesday reported its second-highest new coronavirus case count to date, with 3,871 new confirmed cases and 37 COVID-19 deaths.

Wow, just wow. If he weren't sucking up to Trump it would be believable he's trying to make things worse for Trump.

[rightleft22]

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is overruling local government mandates requiring people to wear masks in public to stop the spread of COVID-19, insisting that the state's less-stringent guidelines take precedence.
...
Georgia on Wednesday reported its second-highest new coronavirus case count to date, with 3,871 new confirmed cases and 37 COVID-19 deaths.

Wow, just wow. If he weren't sucking up to Trump it would be believable he's trying to make things worse for Trump.

It boggles the mind. I personally don't believe wearing a mask will protect me however it is proving to stop the more dangerous larger droplets when I cough which I think protects others. I've never been a great at the cough into my elbow timing. I also appropriate those serving me wearing a mask so it would be hypocritical of me to spit in their face.

If wearing a mask is what it takes to keep people working and feeling safe enough to start spending again then its really not that much to ask.   My G_d we are willing to sacrifice our children in wars and such but ware a mask that is to much. Shame on us all.

[Wayward Son]

And then we have this chart showing how much better Canada is doing compared to us.

[yossarian22c]

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/07/16/891997539/georgia-hospital-worker-sounds-alarm-i-have-never-ever-seen-anything-like-this

This week, there was no room. Desperate, the health care worker said, administrators began checking available hospitals in Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida.

The distance stretched more than 850 miles north to south, from Louisville, Ky., down to Orlando, Fla.

"When you have to start shipping patients out of state, it's bad," the worker said. "When the hospitals are full, that's when it becomes really dangerous for everybody."

The Navicent employee approached GPB News late Wednesday, saying hospital systems are not providing an accurate reflection of what staffers are seeing inside the walls of medical centers overrun with patients. The employee spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of getting fired, and NPR is not identifying the Navicent hospital where the employee works to maintain that person's anonymity.

Hospitals are full and the governor is fighting with localities about requiring masks! Not a second shut down but simply an additional garment. This is literally the least invasive containment strategy.

[TheDrake]

Everything's bigger in Texas. We now have crossed 100 deaths per day in moving average, and 3 day sustained peaks over 130. The pre-covid leading cause of death was heart disease.

In Texas, heart disease accounts for 45,346 deaths annually, which works out to 124 deaths per day.

[DonaldD]

As of yesterday in Florida, 6 of the past 8 days show more daily deaths than any other day since the beginning of the pandemic.

4 of those days had more than 100 daily deaths (the other 2 being above 90) and yesterday spiked to more than 150 daily deaths.

[msquared]

Well the lady who was sent home on Wednesday for possible Covid-19 just tested positive. They are going to see who in the office spent 15 minutes or more in close proximity to her (with in 6') and have those people self isolate for 2 weeks. That means her husband and probably a few others.  I wonder if they are going to test every one in the office and plant. One of the higher ups was saying he does not think she got it here at the office so why should we have to pay for testing?  I mean, what?  I am not blaming the company. She probably did not catch it here. But she has exposed most of the people here would be my guess and I would think they should test every one in the office and plant at the company's expense.

[DonaldD]

Sad.  Maybe it's a reflex action, everything is so politicized today, maybe the "higher up" person thought that the request was not made in good faith, but still... take a breath, be seen to be taking care of your people, and reap the benefits of being a good boss (that is, if your first thought is not "we should do the right thing" of course)

[msquared]

I am not a boss and it is a small office ( less than 20 people in the office itself on 2 floors).

what I would like to see is that they let us work from home for the next 2 weeks, so that those who are sick now but not showing symptoms will not expose the rest of us. We worked from home for 6 weeks in March/April and it worked fine. This would only need to be for 2 weeks.

[DonaldD]

Yeah, it was clear you weren't a boss

My city was an epicentre for a while (Montréal) but we're now doing better than most large cities in the USA... And I just received a "reopening plan" for my office that targets September 1.

For context - the province of Québec has a population of about 9,000,000.  There were 141 confirmed new cases yesterday.  There was 1 confirmed death.

[DonaldD]

CEOs of major retail companies call for all USA governors to mandate masks in stores.

[DonaldD]

It's now been 40 days straight where the 7-day average has increased over the previous day's 7-day average.

[TheDrake]

CEOs of major retail companies call for all USA governors to mandate masks in stores.

Maybe they should lead by mandating mask wearing in their own stores, like Costco and Walmart among many others.

Most of us in retail require our employees to wear a mask when working. We do it because it's the right thing to do: keeping our colleagues, our customers and our communities safe. To our customers who do the same, we say thank you. To those who do not, we ask that you consider not just your own safety, but the well-being of our employees and your fellow customers when entering our stores.

Powerful stuff, if each of those CEOs had already exercised their absolute power to deny service to customers who refuse to wear masks.

[DonaldD]

CEOs of major retail companies call for all USA governors to mandate masks in stores.

Maybe they should lead by mandating mask wearing in their own stores, like Costco and Walmart among many others.

Most of us in retail require our employees to wear a mask when working. We do it because it's the right thing to do: keeping our colleagues, our customers and our communities safe. To our customers who do the same, we say thank you. To those who do not, we ask that you consider not just your own safety, but the well-being of our employees and your fellow customers when entering our stores.

Powerful stuff, if each of those CEOs had already exercised their absolute power to deny service to customers who refuse to wear masks.

I think the challenge here, and we've all seen it now, is that anti-maskers have turned aggressive, and in many cases violent.  Putting such policies in place will put their employees in the line of fire, so to speak - and that is not just "mean" to their employees, it almost certainly opens the companies up to litigation should the predictable backlash cause their employees damage (either emotional or physical), or even if it causes their employees to pre-emptively decide that the workplace has become unsafe because of those policies.

[TheDrake]

I know walmart employees, and yes they aren't happy about having to get customers to put masks back on. I believe they have dedicated security at the front door. I don't know of any who are against the choice, most are relieved because the policy protects their health.

Meanwhile, we issued a statewide mask order and the amount of confrontation did not drop as a result, according to my retail friends. Anti-maskers couldn't care less about what the Governor says.

[DonaldD]

I expect that it will have some small effect on the interactions, if it seems like the poor employees are only following the orders of the state - especially in smaller institutions.

Plus, I expect having the police on board (except where, you know, sheriffs decide otherwise) will make it easier to deal with the situation.

It certainly will not eliminate all conflict, but it would definitely give the corporations better coverage.

[yossarian22c]

I know walmart employees, and yes they aren't happy about having to get customers to put masks back on. I believe they have dedicated security at the front door. I don't know of any who are against the choice, most are relieved because the policy protects their health.

Meanwhile, we issued a statewide mask order and the amount of confrontation did not drop as a result, according to my retail friends. Anti-maskers couldn't care less about what the Governor says.

Statewide plus support from the feds at least makes it government instead of store policy. The stores don't want to be the "bad guys" to the customers.

The anti maskers are f-ing a**holes. If Trump would just flip on this to help the economy reopen then anti-maskers would largely become such a fringe as to not impact public help. As long as Trump tacitly is supporting them and undermining public health policy they are just going to make everything suck for everyone.

[msquared]

Got my test today but am still at work. Test was not as bad as I thought.  I thought the swab would be Q-tip sized and it was much narrower.  Only 10 seconds at the back of the nostril.  It sort of tickled, but in an annoying way.

Talked to my boss about working from home for the next 2 weeks.  My immediate boss (in his early 30's) is open to it but the top higher up on site is old school and does not like the idea.  I mean we worked from home for 6 weeks in Mar/April and things went just fine. And we did not have an active case in the building. But there was a state wide shelter in place.

We no longer have the state wide shelter in place, so he does not have that as back up.

[rightleft22]

I know walmart employees, and yes they aren't happy about having to get customers to put masks back on. I believe they have dedicated security at the front door. I don't know of any who are against the choice, most are relieved because the policy protects their health.

Meanwhile, we issued a statewide mask order and the amount of confrontation did not drop as a result, according to my retail friends. Anti-maskers couldn't care less about what the Governor says.

Statewide plus support from the feds at least makes it government instead of store policy. The stores don't want to be the "bad guys" to the customers.

The anti maskers are f-ing a**holes. If Trump would just flip on this to help the economy reopen then anti-maskers would largely become such a fringe as to not impact public help. As long as Trump tacitly is supporting them and undermining public health policy they are just going to make everything suck for everyone.

Trump goes all in on the malaria pills as nothing to loss but for masks, where there really is nothing to lose, his message is inconsistent and half hearted.

The messaging on the pandemic has turned to crap. The Goal should be to keep as many people safe and working as possible. If masks are the sacrifice we need to make its not so much to ask.

The exercise of freedom is always a exercise of setting boundaries. When it comes to health society tends towards the needs of the many over the needs of the few. Its part of the social contract. Why masks have become a issue of 'freedom' is beyond me and that Trump does not step in to clarify the need to get the economy up and going and how masks might help that is just another example of his poor leadership.

[msquared]

Well I get to work from home for the rest of the week. Assuming a negative test result I have to come back in on Monday July 27.  If the test is positive, we go from there.

I would also expect things to change if someone else in the office comes down with symptoms and tests positive.

[DonaldD]

Sounds like they are listening a bit, so that's good.

[TheDrake]

Remember people making the argument before, "hey it's not that bad if you throw out NY"? Still want to throw out NY now that they are making the numbers look better?

[DonaldD]

Winn-Dixie reverses mask policy for shoppers

Looks like Winn-Dixie (coincidentally, a couple of days after Trump's "patriotic mask" tweet) has changed their policy and will now require customers to wear masks... Imagine if Trump had been all-in on masks even just one month ago...

[msquared]

Negative test result. Assuming no one else in the office is showing symptoms I will return to the office on Monday.

[DonaldD]

Between March 15 and July 11, the CDC estimates there were approximately 180,000 excess deaths, not specifically attributed to the virus, just deaths in excess of what was statistically expected.

As of yesterday, there were a couple of days (Tuesday, Wednesday) with more than 1000 daily deaths attributed to COVID-19, the most daily deaths attributed to the virus since May 29 - almost two months.

On the good news front, Monday was the first day in over 40 days where the 7-day average of daily new cases did not increase over the previous day.