D&D and the rising pandemic

[briggart]

I’ll just remind everyone of this:



To paraphrase, subsequent studies have revealed Covid-19 was circulating in Europe 9 months before the Wuhan outbreak occurred. We don’t know why it wasn’t causing problems like it has since then, but unless there was a significant mutation unique to the Wuhan outbreak that made it more dangerous, C19 was already circulating in humans. IOW, the pandemic itself was probably inevitable regardless of how China reacted.

(Maybe not as BAD a pandemic, but still unavoidable.)

Here’s the Reuters article referenced in the Yahoo report.

Coronavirus traces found in March 2019 sewage sample, Spanish study shows

Spanish virologists have found traces of the novel coronavirus in a sample of Barcelona waste water collected in March 2019, nine months before the COVID-19 disease was identified in China, the University of Barcelona said on Friday.

www.reuters.com

My understanding is that there's a lot of uncertainty regarding the Spanish study. While it's now clear that the virus was circulating outside of China already in November-December 2019, the Spanish results seems incompatible with a lot of evidence for the virus having originated in Fall 2019. Still this doesn't change the overall point that already by the time China realized that a new virus was going around, that virus had already spread internationally.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

My understanding is that there's a lot of uncertainty regarding the Spanish study. While it's now clear that the virus was circulating outside of China already in November-December 2019, the Spanish results seems incompatible with a lot of evidence for the virus having originated in Fall 2019. Still this doesn't change the overall point that already by the time China realized that a new virus was going around, that virus had already spread internationally.

I haven’t seen much pushback on the Spanish findings. (Not saying they don’t exist.)

There have been a couple of observational studies claiming there were spikes in anomalous patterns of what we now know to be C19 symptoms in places like Los Angeles in December 2019. The researchers themselves admit they have no evidence beyond the medical records, though- any samples taken were not kept.

 

[briggart]

I haven’t seen much pushback on the Spanish findings. (Not saying they don’t exist.)

There have been a couple of observational studies claiming there were spikes in anomalous patterns of what we now know to be C19 symptoms in places like Los Angeles in December 2019. The researchers themselves admit they have no evidence beyond the medical records, though- any samples taken were not kept.

The Spanish study came out a couple of weeks after a similar Italian study which found covid traces in wastewater in December 2019, but not in samples before that going back a couple of years. I asked to a biologist friend if it was possible that also in Italy covid was circulating back in spring 2019 and we missed it. He said that these tests look for specific portion of DNA from a virus, not the full DNA sequence. Given that DNA traces are small, they first need to artificially replicate any such DNA, and this process introduces some errors, so there is always the possibility that what was found comes from a related virus that is compatible with sars-cov-2 within the uncertainty given by these replication errors. Combined with the fact that similar studies show it took 1-2 months between traces of virus starting to appear in wastewater and large scale epidemic, he found unlikely that the virus stayed dormant in Spain for almost a year without either leaving traces in the environment or in the medical history of patients.

But I don't have any background in biology, so any gross error in the above is likely me misunderstanding/misremembering what I was told.

 

[Garthanos]

When Trump disbanded the pandemic response team it was not a US "only" thing but an international one, he undermined global ability to proactively fend off pandemics in 2018. We obviously cannot know the full degree that this might have helped but it really was not just the US that his actions harmed but everyone. Ebola was being fought before it reached our shores.

 

[Umbran]

The contrast between this world-wide pandemic and the West African outbreak of Ebola - another very spreadable disease - is striking.

Ebola has an R0 of 1.5 to 1.9, fairly comparable to common influenza at 0.9 to 2.

Common colds typically have an R0 of 2 to 3

Covid-19, however, has an R0 of 2 to 6.

Measels, mumps, and chicken pox, by comparison, have an R0 of 10 or higher. So, no, ebola isn't highly spreadable, as these things go. It is at the lower end of the range of spreadability - which is good, because if it were not, we'd be dead.

Ebola is very, very dangerous to an individual - if you get it, you have like a 50% chance of dying (the death rate varies widely, outbreak to outbreak, but 50% is in the middle of the range). Case mortality rate for covid-19 is more like 3%.

So, individuals are more scared of ebola. However, because it spreads much more, covid-19 is far more deadly to a population.

Again, I note - China did not have the benefit of foreknowledge. Covid-19 has spread in Wuhan before anyone knew it existed. So, they had issues controlling it. Everyone else in the world had warning. And still they couldn't/didn't control it.

And remember - most of the Covid-19 in the US didn't come directly from China. It came through Europe. So, there's lots of folks in-between us and the source.

I understand that folks want someone to blame, especially someone other than themselves. But trying to blame China, when we have had even worse management of it, is hardly fair.

 

[MoonSong]

Ebola has an R0 of 1.5 to 1.9, fairly comparable to common influenza at 0.9 to 2.

Common colds typically have an R0 of 2 to 3

Covid-19, however, has an R0 of 2 to 6.

Measels, mumps, and chicken pox, by comparison, have an R0 of 10 or higher. So, no, ebola isn't highly spreadable, as these things go. It is at the lower end of the range of spreadability - which is good, because if it were not, we'd be dead.

Ebola is very, very dangerous to an individual - if you get it, you have like a 50% chance of dying (the death rate varies widely, outbreak to outbreak, but 50% is in the middle of the range). Case mortality rate for covid-19 is more like 3%.

So, individuals are more scared of ebola. However, because it spreads much more, covid-19 is far more deadly to a population.

Again, I note - China did not have the benefit of foreknowledge. Covid-19 has spread in Wuhan before anyone knew it existed. So, they had issues controlling it. Everyone else in the world had warning. And still they couldn't/didn't control it.

And remember - most of the Covid-19 in the US didn't come directly from China. It came through Europe. So, there's lots of folks in-between us and the source.

I understand that folks want someone to blame, especially someone other than themselves. But trying to blame China, when we have had even worse management of it, is hardly fair.

I'm sorry, but actively suppressing information about the virus while stockpiling vital PPE and other medical supplies is not exactly what I'd call mismanagement.

 

[Deset Gled]

I'm sorry, but actively suppressing information about the virus while stockpiling vital PPE and other medical supplies is not exactly what I'd call mismanagement.

I honestly don't know if you're being critical of China, the USA, or both.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I honestly don't know if you're being critical of China, the USA, or both.

 

[Umbran]

I'm sorry, but actively suppressing information about the virus while stockpiling vital PPE and other medical supplies is not exactly what I'd call mismanagement.

Yeah. This is a "people who live in glass houses should not throw stones" thing.

 

[ccs]

Recklessness or negligence more than attempted murder ... but times the tens of millions of cases (and counting) worldwide. There are plenty of people with reason to think dark thoughts at the Chinese leadership.

Speaking of the reckless & negligent....

'Interesting journey': Donald Trump drives by supporters outside Walter Reed, claims progress in another video

WTF is wrong with this guy? 100% certain that he has a very contagious & potentially lethal virus and STILL intentionally having contact with more than the minimum # people required....