Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[artyboy]

I guess this will be there the first piece of news on GS for awhile. I will try and keep this update as much as I can.

WHO warns about dangers of premature lifting of COVID-19 restrictions

GENEVA/ZURICH, April 10 (Reuters) - The World Health Organization (WHO) warned countries on Friday to be cautious about lifting restrictions introduced to curb the spread of the new coronavirus.
The WHO would like to see an easing, but at the same time “lifting restrictions could lead to a deadly resurgence,” Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press conference.
He said there had been a “welcome slowing” of epidemics in some European countries - Italy, Germany, Spain and France - but there had been an “alarming acceleration” in other countries including community transmission in 16 countries of Africa.
Reporting by John Revill and Stephanie Nebehey
Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.



https://uk.reuters.com/article/health-co...KZ8N2AZ02D

[InbetweenDreams]

I got a feeling Trump is going to try to reduce the number of people being tested in order to artificially lower the number of new cases as an excuse to "open the economy"

The other thing I think he may have rolled up his sleeve is trying to prevent people from voting, since he's against mail-in ballots unless its him. So, this is how we end up with 4 more years of him.

[Insertnamehere]

@InbetweenDreams  About 99% of people think the same thing about our government. 

In any case, given the varying protocols for when people should be tested for the virus and the availability of tests, I think most countries are seriously under-reporting their cases.  






Ok, for anyone interested I managed to do a little summary, with links to papers if you want to spend your quarantine time reading about it hehe. 

About this pre-apocalyptic 2020: it seems, we should have known SARS-CoV 2 was coming eventually. 


The story starts back in late 2002 when a novel coronavirus was isolated from people with atypical pneumonia cases that started in the Guangdong province, China. It later named Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). The virus was SARS-CoV.

The new virus was unrelated to other previously known human coronaviruses (Rota et al., 2003) 

The virus has several almost identical relatives that were isolated from various animals (Guan et al., 2003)

Bats are reservoirs of many highly mutable SARS-Cov-like viruses (Li et al., 2005) (Lau et al., 2005).

A review draws some conclusions based on previous evidence and summarizes the main points on SARS-Cov (Wang et al., 2006)

Namely, the evidence points out to a likely zoonotic event in which a bat SARS-CoV-like virus made the jump to humans via intermediary animals such as civets. These animals came in contact with humans in food markets in China where they are commercialized.




Then came MERS-CoV in 2012. Serious pneumonia cases were reported in Saudi Arabia which where soon found to be due to yet another novel coronavirus.

Serological and immunological evidence indicates that camel populations in the Middle East had been exposed to/infected by the MERS virus or a very closely related virus. (Reusken et al., 2013)

While a direct ancestor to MERS-CoV remained elusive, again, genetic evidence points out to bat populations as the initial reservoir of closely related viruses. (Wang et al., 2014).

These are but two of many similar studies, but the idea remains the same. A zoonotic event, or several, took place. From bat to an animal species widely in contact with human populations. 



Now Mr SARS-CoV 2 is repeating the story, as far as studies have shown. Bats --> animals --> humans.



So what are we learning about this?
 
Nothing new. Domesticating and breeding cattle, poultry, swine and others, has historically given us measles, smallpox, influenza, etc, etc.

HIV made the jump to humans from the SIV infecting closely related primates in Africa.

And so on. 


The thing is, these events, except for various strains of influenza, are limited. Measles, for instance, made the jump in the XII century and the current infecting strain has been around since the early XX century. (Furuse et al., 2010)


In the past 20 years, however, there have been 3 different but related coronaviruses which have most likely come from reservoirs in bats due to contact with, for example bat feces and animals that are in turn either consumed or used by human populations. These viral stocks in bat are highly mutable which would explain the frequency of these events. And while both SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV had higher mortality rates, they didn't spread nearly as much as SARS-CoV 2 has, and because of that it has killed orders of magnitude more people than the previous two. 

So:

1) 3 zoonotic events ( or more) in 20 years for closely related viruses from it would seem a common source is way too frequent. 

2) It wasn't a good idea to cut funding for a SARS vaccine because "hey thanks but we don't need it anymore". We could have been one or two steps ahead. 

3) It's time to further study bat populations and animals commercialized in food markets and otherwise animals in close contact with human groups, in China and all neighbours, as China seems to be a hotbed for zoonosis of coronaviruses.

Even a small sample size on a couple limited studies could give an idea of coronaviruses closely related to SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and SARS-Cov 2 circulating in animal populations, which might help to be a few miles ahead of the next zoonotic event that is bound to happen no matter what we do.

Oh and here, plenty of open access material about the new virus here

https://www.nejm.org/coronavirus?cid=DM8...=165326853

[InbetweenDreams]

It just blows my mind...

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/...s-ppe.html

[InbetweenDreams]

Question, those of you who are outside the US are there people protesting the quarantine?

[Cridders88]

Question, those of you who are outside the US are there people protesting the quarantine?

Not here in the UK as far as I am aware. People ignoring the rules in places but no protests.

[InbetweenDreams]

Question, those of you who are outside the US are there people protesting the quarantine?

Not here in the UK as far as I am aware. People ignoring the rules in places but no protests.

I don't know how other countries are handling the shutdown but it seems the UK is giving people who are unemployed 80% of their normal salary. Not that a 20% cut in pay is great but I think people being able to pay their bills and put their food on the table is good motivator not to go protest. Some people here are getting severance pay, others just get furloughed and have to try to file unemployment which is being overwhelmed and it seems that many people who filed over a month ago have yet to receive anything. Some people haven't got the $1,200 they sent out...which sure it's better than nothing but that's not even enough to cover rent for many people.

Our politics are so screwed up in this country. Is there an "Adopt a Poor White American Guy" program over there?

I do think I ought to look into moving out of the country. I just don't see that things will get better in the US when they just put another bought out politician in office over and over again. I think COVID-19 has really put all that is wrong with US politics out on display... I mean it is more than politics but people are more willing to elect people who could care less about the people they're supposed to represent and then get brainwashed by the nonsense. That we just need to reopen the economy. There are people pedaling the idea that UV light can be used to kill viruses in blood... Some people see that it is satire but too many people are sharing it and seeing as truth. It is scary.

That's why I asked if people in other countries are protesting. Is the insanity that I am witnessing here rampant all over the globe, or just here? I mean it would seem like most people are taking the pandemic with some seriousness, but sometimes I wonder, is the majority sharing the same views?

[Bhp91126]

@InbetweenDreams those US protests you saw represent just a small part of the general population and were funded by right wing interest groups. On Saturday I saw the protest in Orlando, barely a dozen people standing in a circle talking to one another, or holding 2 signs up on the side of the road. And no confederate flags in the mix. And those protesting are not the people getting shafted by the state or federal government.

I saw a couple of pictures of people protesting in Germany, probably hundreds violating social distancing rules, protesting about quarantine’s violations of basic human rights.

[CellarDweller]

We had a bulletin on the news earlier in the week about a cluster of Covid-19 cases in NY.

Apparently someone had a house party on June 17th in the West Nyack area.  The host had Covid-19 and was symptomatic, and had the party anyway, and now 8 guests have tested positive for the virus, and there is another test pending.

The eight partygoers were not cooperating with tracers seeking to reach out to anyone they had come in contact with, and face $2,000-a-day fines and subpoenas compelling them to cooperate.  all those that have been tested are in their early 20s.







and, as a follow up


New York county issued subpoenas to force party-goers to speak with coronavirus contact tracers. It worked.

By Eric Levenson and Mirna Alsharif, CNN - Updated 4:06 PM ET, Thu July 2, 2020


Public health officials in Rockland County, New York, issued subpoenas with expensive fines attached to force people connected to a coronavirus cluster to speak with contact tracers.

Rockland County Health Commissioner Dr. Patricia Schnabel Ruppert said county officials issued the subpoenas after the party-goers, all young adults in their 20s, attended a large party in Clarkstown on June 17.   The host of the party had Covid-19 symptoms but held the party anyway, leading to the infection of eight attendees to date, Ruppert said.

After identifying the cluster, contact tracers reached out to those who attended the party to try to get information on who they interacted with and where they have since been in an attempt to stop the virus from spreading. But several party-goers refused to help these efforts, Ruppert said.

"Most people do cooperate with us, but for the smaller number that do not, they have hung up on us. (They have) given us very small amounts of information and then refused to give anything further. (They) have told us they do not want to nor need to provide information," Ruppert told CNN.  "So we got to the point where, since the information is essential, I needed to send eight subpoenas yesterday to obtain the required information for our contact investigations."

The subpoenas were punishable by up to $2,000 in fines per day, she said. All eight recipients have already responded. "It worked," 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/02/us/coronavirus-contact-tracing-subpoena/index.html

[Bhp91126]

I had no idea subpoenas could work!!!

I think Americans themselves are to blame for the recent increase in new infections. It would be too easy just to blame the prez, everyone had plenty of opportunities to educate themselves on what to do and what not.