Coronavirus: Risk & Reality + Misinformation

[John1574]

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Don't Minimize the threat from Pandemic: Practice Social Distancing: Protect Yourself & Others

There was a thread on the forum that the moderators shut down because people were arguing, and the OP (original poster) could not stand people disagreeing with her. The OP and others harangued the moderators until they closed the thread. This was the only thread that really focused on the dangers of the pandemic. The Mods should have closed it for spreading misinformation and attempting to minimize the danger of the pandemic.

That thread was called "Coronavirus: Fear vs reality"  ( see link below). What began a a well-intentioned attempt to allay people's fears ended up spreading false information and encouraging people to go on as usual: go out, support the local economy, that the "majority of people" won't have anything to worry about, that those who do get it will only have mild cold, or flu like symptoms, and that the young have really nothing to worry about.

That thread was began on Saturday the 14th and was shut down on Monday morning the 16th.

Re-reading it now, it is cringe-worthy. It is so wrong-headed and some of the arguments made in  the course of the thread read like Fox News before the truth finally dawned on them. I was attacked and ridiculed for standing my ground that the info was wrong-headed, that the danger should not be minimized and should be taken with the utmost seriousness.

Some other posters/members backed me up, but they also seemed a bit cowed by the vitriolic attack on anyone in disagreement with the OP's original statement.  Now, several members have posted requests to start a thread just on Covid-19, and here it is.

It's now the 18th, four days after a member tried to assuage your fears and minimize the dangers of the pandemic. Bars and restaurants are closed. People are sheltering in place in some parts of the country. Younger generations are ignoring the common sense suggestions to avoid gatherings and to practice social distancing. A comment in the WP comments dubbed the coronavirus, THE BOOMER REMOVER, in a hateful diatribe against older people. The 3rd Reich would have loved him: that had a plan for that.

What is it people don't understand about what is going on and why thing are being done the way they are being done?

But if you believe that the Pandemic is all overblown, a hoax, a conspiracy, not worse than the flue, then you need to start your own thread and argue with people who agree with you: it's easy, all you need is a little initiative, the ability to wrote a coherent sentence and to research every idea you express to see if it can stand on it's own. I even have a title for you: call it, Don't Worry About the Cornoavirus Pandemic: It's all BS! Lol

This Pandemic will be a life changing event for the country and for many people.

Understand this: There will be no economic recovery, there can be no economic recovery, until the virus is somewhat contained.

The fewer people practicing distancing, the longer the pandemic will go on, the more people will be sick and the economy will take years to recover.

Right now we are looking at 18 months of this or longer because of the lack of cooperation from the population due to dis-information, misinformation, and fake-news planted by intel agencies of political competitors to undermine the US economy. But it looks like Americans are doing a good job of it without their help.

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https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/Coronavirus-fear-vs-reality/td-p/1258181

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[Giedre-and-Andre0]

A Flu can't be a serious "problem"? Hmmmm?
People: just put in google search line:
Spanish Flu
This happened not tooooo long ago!

[Giedre-and-Andre0]

Q:
Why for example Ebola with a fatality rate of 50 to 70% was not this big of a deal?

A:

Because Ebola "killed itself" by destroiing the "host" in a very short time!

- Short incubation time and high mortality rate is much less dangerous

than

- Long incubation time and mortality rate of around 5%
(In this case, infected people can widespread the virus)

Few more potential devastating dynamics:

- Are infected people able to transfer a virus during the incubation period to others?
- How can the virus be transferred? Air? Surface? Touching?  Body fluids? Blood?
- Will a recovered person be immune or go through same risk if re-infected?
- How long a vaccination will take? (remember HIV is a virus and NO vaccination for 30 years)
- Will the virus develop mutations?

We all hope for the best, in this current case, social distancing is mandatory and smart!

[Mika8]

@John1574... luckily, the lethality of COVID-19 is not that high .. but, the problem is, that many sick people needs air intubation and our health care systems do not have that many ressources (machines and also people) .. that's why social distancing is an absolute must to slow down the infection rate, that the hospitals are not overwhelmed. ... otherwise the letality rate will rise, not due to the virus, due to the fact, that we could not help all the infected people (in Italy doctors have to decide who gets the necessary treatments, that's horrible).

@Giedre-and-Andre0... as said luckily the lethality is not 5 % (but this could be with overwhelmed health care) .. and mortality is even lower.

To your questions (as far as we know meanwhile - I work for the institut of Virology in Zurich

- it seems that asymptomatic people could also spread the virus (there are some infections, where this seems to be the case)

- Virus could not live to long without a host, but they could survive on surfaces for a distinct time (exact time vary from surface (on hard suface they survide longer), from temperature/humidity, from media (for examples they are more protected when they are surrounded with some human fluids, like when you sneeze), viral load ... there are papers, speaking from up to 9 days, whereas 3 days is more realistic, but as said, with optimal conditions it could be longer. Sars-CoV-2 has an envelopped virion, which is less stable then virions with only a capsid. 70 % alcohol is a good mean to destroy them.

The main transfection route of Sars-CoV-2 seems to be surface and air (whereas surface is only a problem, when you go into your face (mouth/nose/eye) with your hand .. our skin is a good barrier against viruses)

- A recovered person (with 'normal' immun system) should be immun against Sars-CoV-2, but of course probably not against a mutated version of Sars-CoV-2

- As far as I know in Wuhan (the only Chinese level 4 biosafety lab) was working on a vaccine for Sars and already had some prototypes, but as Sars was no longer a problem, they did not go further with it .. but hopefully it is not that difficult like against HIV ..

- Of course also this virus will (has already) develop mutations. But as long that a (newly developed) vaccine is not against a mutated region, that doesn't matter.

[John1574]

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@Mika8 @Giedre-and-Andre0 

Why the White House Changed its Tune on the Pandemic: From Minimizing to Maximizing in One Fell Swoop

On Monday, the 16th, the Trump administration and the entire Federal government took a sudden and sharp turn and began taking the Coronavirus with deadly seriousness.  

What led to this sea change?

A report from the Imperial College of London complied by the renowned Niall Ferguson.

"Asked at a news conference with President Trump about what had led to the change in thinking by a White House task force, Dr. Deborah Birx, one of the task force leaders, said new information had come from a model developed in Britain."

"Dr. Birx’s description of the findings were consistent with those in the report, released on Monday by an epidemic modeling group at Imperial College London. The lead author of the study, Neil Ferguson, an epidemiology professor, said in an interview that his group had shared their projections with the White House task force about a week ago and that an early copy of the report was sent over the weekend."

You can read the report by clicking on the blue link.

Doctors Fauci and Prix, of President's Trump's team,  convinced him to take the Cornavirus Pandemic seriously based on the tragic findings of the UK computer modelling that showed a potential catastrophe if drastic action were not taken immediately.

The model showed that with the current lassiex faire approach of casually doing very little to prevent the spread causalities in the UK could exceed 550 thousand and in the US 2,200,000 (two million two hundred thousand. That's a lot of death.

If you're wondering why things changed so fast in the U.S. wonder no more.

Here is the link from the NYTs.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/us/coronavirus-fatality-rate-white-house.html

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[Mika8]

@John1574... I'm sorry, but here in Europe, we only laugh about the stupidity of Trump (already long before corona)

[John1574]

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@Mika8 

I'm sorry too, MIka. I don't know why you would send me such an inflammatory and insulting political statement on the Community Center. Perhaps you should limit our discussion to the Cronavirus.

Your ignorant comment did nothing to address the issues raised in this thread.

I don't know why any Europeans would be laughing at anyone anywhere else in the world. Look at Italy and how the Chinese, rather than their European neighbors, had to come to their aid. But given the history of Europe, snide remarks muttered behind someone's back seem to be very popular there.

My post definitely was not about President Trump. Why you responded with an insult is more telling about what kind of person you are than anything else.

Given your background, I'd be more interested to hear you write about the pandemic than about your political opinions.

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[Mika8]

@John1574.. sorry, if this statement offended you .. but it is what the majority here is thinking (I did not even tell, if I think that) and I don't think we/they do this behind someones back, no, we stand to it ;).

And especially the actions of Trump during the beginning of this crisis .. handshaking everywhere again and again and even if people told him, that he was in contact with an infected person, he refuses to do a test. Only as the pressure was higher he opted to test ..  also what we get here from Trumps Twitter Account is more like a late night show than from a politician.

I did not like to insult you (it was absolutely not my intention, but I know that my English is far away from good), why you think now to know, what kind of person I am, tells more about you than me .. no, just joking ... but do you see??

However, you don't need me for any info .. look at China .. look at Europe .. without social distancing this virus will bring your health system in enormous troubles .. do it now and take it serious!

Nevertheless, if you have any concrete question, I'm happy to answer .. however, my field is research in virus for gentherapy reason .. but of course, we all have a huge knowledge about virus life cycles and their behaviour in general.

[Juley0]

A lot of us laughed at first, but it simply isn't funny anymore. Trump has caused too many deaths by his utter lack of leadership. I'll leave it at that. I just hope that people will read FACTS from reliable sources instead of strange conspiracy theories on FB written by anyone who cares to do so.