I know you are too stupid to get simple facts - but you do know the coronavirus was caused by eating meat, right? If China was vegan this outbreak never would have happened. Meat is the culprit, not the savior here. Anyway, carry on, you simple minded fool.
Stay safe & healthy! Here's some information i encountered created by a Genome Sciences PhD candidate in Seattle who is closely tied in with the incredible people performing surveillance testing and genetic analysis on circulating viral strains here in Seattle. Heads up; it was posted on FB on March, 9th.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The info and recommendations summarized below come from researchers at the front lines in the fight against this global (and local) pandemic.
Terminology:
Coronavirus/SARS-CoV2: the name of the virus itself
COVID-19 : the illness caused by the virus
Are coronavirus outbreaks limited to just a few US cities?
Seattle may appear to have been hit the worst by the outbreak, but this is almost certainly due to a much higher level of testing here than anywhere else in the US. Some amazing academic researchers took it upon themselves to develop or adapt platforms for high throughput coronavirus testing and worked with local government officials to be able to do so in an official capacity. This article summarizes the work being done by various (truly amazing) groups:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00676-3
The big takeaway here is that Seattle only appears to have been hit the worst because we have massively scaled up testing. Until only a few days ago, only those who had direct contact w/ an infected patient or history of travel were able to be tested. Though the federal government has lifted these restrictions (
https://www.nytimes.com/…/politics/trump-us-coronavirus.html
), tests are still in short supply, leaving the choice of who gets tested up to state & local officials (I am not sure what role healthcare professionals play here).
The second big takeaway is that if you live in a major city, an outbreak is very likely already underway. This is summarized amazing well in this thread (
https://twitter.com/ScottGottlie…/status/1236473220783636481
), by Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former FDA Commissioner. A few remarkable points: “In the last 10 days Italy diagnosed 95% of total cases they now report; South Korea 85%. 2 weeks ago, Italy had just 9 cases. 7 weeks ago, China reported 50 cases. The point: once the epidemics are discovered, they’ve been underway.”
Think about that. 2 weeks ago, Italy had reported 9 cases. Since then, 366 people have died, 133 of them today. Total number of infections is at 7,375. There were many, many more than 9 people infected in Italy 2 weeks ago. Today, Italy enacted emergency laws banning travel in and out of Lombardy and other major provinces, including Milan and Venice. They banned large gatherings including weddings & funerals, and closed museums, gyms, pubs, etc. (
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51793619
)
The point is, there are many more cases than have yet been reported in every major city, and it is NOT too early to act. Strict quarantine measures have been effective at curbing the spread in China, and had they been enacted earlier, many lives could have been spared, and the undoubtedly massive economic impact of this pandemic could have been reduced.
How widespread is the outbreak within US cities?
Our best estimates come from Seattle, where researchers have been sequencing the genomes of the viruses from infected individuals to understand how the virus has been spreading. This work is led by Dr. Trevor Bedford, who has done a phenomenal job of communicating these findings to the public (
https://bedford.io/blog/ncov-cryptic-transmission/
). To summarize, viral genomes (analogous to our DNA) acquire mutations (changes in sequence) quickly. These mutations are unlikely to impact viral behavior (it likely won’t become more deadly, for example), but they make it possible to track chains of infection (who got the virus from whom). The virus sampled from the second person (WA2) to test positive in Washington was genetically similar to the virus sampled from the first confirmed infected individual in the state (WA1), strongly suggesting that the WA2 virus was a descendant of WA1. What was alarming about this is that the second case emerged 6 weeks after the first one: this means that person 2 was not directly infected by person 1 -- the virus had been circulating in the community for 6 weeks undetected! The latest estimates based on projections from these sequences and others put the total number of predicted infections in Washington states in the high hundreds (
https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1236096904678633472
). As is shown clearly in this Twitter thread, exponential growth predicts the number of cases exploding over the next few days if steps are not taken to limit contact between individuals.
wtfbbq wrote:
This virus has NOT been around in humans since 2003. Earliest estimates place it at December 2019 in humans.
That's total nonsense. The truth is that you have no idea when it started.
It could have been here for centuries for all that you know.
Dwightarm wrote:
The whole argument of 'it's only killed 4,000 people vs the flu which such-and-such amount' is REALLY missing the point: This is a NEW virus. It hasn't reached everywhere yet. And it is multiplying x10 every 15-20 days. I
Yes, it pretty much has reached everywhere, and no, it's not on running away on some crazy exponential curve.
Matter of fact, global growth % has been declining consistently since the end of February, and is on track to level off somewhere around 100k for non-China cases within a few weeks.
Bad Wigins wrote:
Dwightarm wrote:
The whole argument of 'it's only killed 4,000 people vs the flu which such-and-such amount' is REALLY missing the point: This is a NEW virus. It hasn't reached everywhere yet. And it is multiplying x10 every 15-20 days. I
Yes, it pretty much has reached everywhere, and no, it's not on running away on some crazy exponential curve.
Matter of fact, global growth % has been declining consistently since the end of February, and is on track to level off somewhere around 100k for non-China cases within a few weeks.
I hope you're right. Furthermore, I hope you have been right all along.
Bad Wigins wrote:
Dwightarm wrote:
The whole argument of 'it's only killed 4,000 people vs the flu which such-and-such amount' is REALLY missing the point: This is a NEW virus. It hasn't reached everywhere yet. And it is multiplying x10 every 15-20 days. I
Yes, it pretty much has reached everywhere, and no, it's not on running away on some crazy exponential curve.
Matter of fact, global growth % has been declining consistently since the end of February, and is on track to level off somewhere around 100k for non-China cases within a few weeks.
B-But the websites that sell MREs tell me that 170 million people will have this by next week!!!!1
it’s caused by meat wrote:
I know you are too stupid to get simple facts - but you do know the coronavirus was caused by eating meat, right? If China was vegan this outbreak never would have happened. Meat is the culprit, not the savior here. Anyway, carry on, you simple minded fool.
Back when I was foolish enough to buy into the meatless, vegatard "WFPB" diet, I was subject to chest infections EVERY winter that would become chronic pneumonia or bronchitis that would drag on for months and ruined my health, not to mention my running. Since going keto five years ago, and now as a carnivore, I have not had as much as a sniffle, much less the debilitating fever, coughing and phlegm I used to experience as an inevitable Winter/Spring gauntlet on the "healthy" plant-based diet. Illness is caused by an immune system weakened by malnutrition and hyperinsulemia, not eating healthful, wholesome ruminant meat, fish and eggs. Enjoy your NWO pandemic, globalist vegan virtue-signalling morons, I've done my time in Plant-Based Hell!
wejo wrote:
I'm generally an optimist so instead of predicting doom and gloom for corona I thought it would be better to try and figure out why some places with outbreaks are doing so much better than others and why some places aren't getting the outbreaks.
Seems to me that South Korea is having a very different experience with Corona than Italy. Same with Hong Kong. Well Hong Kong is a different situation as the virus just isn't spreading very fast there.
Are there things we can learn from these places?
Why is Italy so much worse? Or is it just a matter of the testing being better in Korea than Italy so mild cases are being detected in Korea and not Italy?
But I've heard anything from kissing on the cheeks in Italy, to an older population, to the flu killing more people in Italy nearly every year.
Some swear by the masks in Hong Kong.
they have testing so people suspected of having the virus can be appropriately quarantined. we don't have testing. even people at high risk don't know if they have it and are very well walking around spreading it.
we don't have testing because our orange president blocked testing and did not accept test kits from germany and the who to artificially reduce the number of diagnosed cases, allowing undiagnosed cases to exponentiate.
it wasn't a political issue until our orange president made a political issue by basing his decisions on what was best for his politcal campaign and not the lives and safety of the people he is sworn to protect.
Profits over people wrote:
Posting from another thread. Below is why. Also, in your spare time look into the Heathcare systems in HK and SK (are they "pure free market" systems"? or perhaps something else...).
Lab Testing in USA is a Commodity used by MBAs and bad MDs for $ wrote:
OP,
Several reasons....
1) we have allowed medical laboratory testing to become a commodity in the US used by MBAs, MHAs, JDs, and bad MDs to profit
2) most MDs who engage in the unscrupulous behavior of using loopholes in Stark Laws to profit off of labs don’t actually understand lab testing—in other words, the non-laboratory physicians doing this don’t even understand basics of lab methodology, test validation, proper controls, proper QA / QC procedures, specimen requirements, specimen rejection criteria, etc
3) the laboratory aspects of clinical care are no longer taught in medical schools as they have largely moved away from course based curriculum to “systems based” or “organ based” curriculum. The result is the younger generation of docs is easily fooled by unscrupulous labs selling bunk tests / technology (see Theranos as the poster child) and, thus, laboratory aspects of medicine are an after thought even though 80% of medical decisions are based on laboratory testing.
The above combined with mass closing of rural healthcare centers / hospitals in the last’s 3 years as the ACA and CDC have been gutted = a horrible situation.
My bet is that if you ask any of your doctor friends that work in clinical areas (surgeons, internal medicine, family practice, oncology, OB) they will not be able to explain how a Coronavirus test even works, why such a test would need to be validated, what proper controls for such a test would be, and why proper QA/QC needs to be done.
^This is very accurate. I will add that part of the reason we are where we are right now with lab testing has to do with the corporations, MBAs, and the "unscrupulous" (to use your word) non-laboratory based physicians often run clinical labs with skeleton crews to maximize their profits. This inhibits the ability to ramp up in times of crisis. This profit over patient mentality actually puts peoples lives at risk everyday but most of the time it goes un-nocticed....until the sh!t really hits the fan as it is right now.
Your point re: the education of physicians--well all physicians with the exception of pathologists--about laboratory testing is spot on though. The level of understanding of basic laboratory medicine by most medical specialties is analgous to what most LRCers say docs know about sports injuries and nutrition--they know almost nothing.
It is shocking because, as you accurately state, most treatment decisions in medicine are based on lab results. But basic science and--lab science specifically--have been de-emphasized in medical school curriculum for the past 20 years or so. FFS, they just decided to make the USMLE step I pass / fail--this is f@#king medical school not elementry school. The dumbing down of medical education in the US is truly appaling. Ultimately, this has resulted in a YUGE knowledge gap for most docs, marginalization and commoditization of laboratory services / practicioners, and concomitant decrease in people pursuing medical lab sceinces as a career.
This COVID-19 situation makes all of this very apparent to anyone in medicine paying attention. It is also why companies like Theranos can get a 9 billion dollar valuation and Holmes can appear in TED talks and on the cover of TIME--because the people who knew she was full of sh!t are now so marginalized in medicine that they are ignored (read Bad Blood for more details) partially because people want to make $$$ and partially because most docs don't really understand how basic labs work.
Finally, this crisis and Theranos are not the only medical laboratory atrocties being levied on the population--molecular testing in oncology is a HUGE scam right now. Listen to Vinay Prasad's podcast (UCSF Oncologist) about such topics. The FDA has been approving very, very expensive drugs based on very, very expensive tests left and right partially based on misinterpretation (or misue) of these tests and bad statistical analysis / bogus endpoints (like progression free survival rather than overall survival). See the recent JCO article about oncotype testing in prostate cancer as an example--that test costs ~$3000, has been in use for years, and they *just* figured out it doesn't work at all....but it is still on the market and be ordered ALL the time by Urologist. Heck given the male predominance on this site I wouldn't be surprised if some LRCers haven't been conned into getting this test done.
So basically, the root cause of this IS the idea that free market principles should be applied to any aspect of medicine--here it is laboratory services and tests. When one does that one gets fragmented, understaffed, poorly run labs that cannot handle a public health crisis.
x1,000,000 The most informed, thoughtful post I have ever read on Letsrun.
no , i was never in STC. I lived north of boston for 25 years and now north of the seattle area. I was lucky to have joined a small club of 6 or so runners in central ohio in the late 70s that was really more of a XC club. they really helped me improve as they were quite a bit faster (one qualified for olympic trials). Of course at that time everyone focused on qualifying for the BAA marathon so i ran boston marathons more than any other but never had a easy race no matter how often i ran those hills in training.
good luck, are you still running?
zzzz wrote:
wejo, this article explains what you want to know in very good detail, with very interesting charts.
Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, and Hong Kong learned from SARS and were prepared. Places in China outside of Hubei were locked down by China, so their cases did not go exponential like Italy, Iran, and South Korea.
https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca
I've seen that article a bunch of places. I'd like him to update stuff past 3/7. Guy has no background in diseases or anything so it's interested how his article has taken off.
Also should we be suspicious of Chinese numbers? Why should we trust their numbers?
China, always, has really benefited from military rule enforcing quarantine in big cities.
You can't do that in America.
Dril wrote:
they have testing so people suspected of having the virus can be appropriately quarantined
#1- The virus is already everywhere, so quarantining people doesn't help anything;
#2- Quarantining takes away people's options, and prevents them from taking the best care of themselves;
#3- Thus, quarantining people makes it MORE LIKELY that the quarantined people will die;
#4- Especially if the quarantined people are forced to take dangerous and toxic vaccinations and drugs;
#5- Testing does nothing either, because anyone who is not positive can still be positive the next day!
#6- Testing itself is dangerous because it exposes the subjects to inhumane conditions and toxic substances.
What a waste of time and resources, with the net result of taking away people's rights and increasing the deaths.
older runner wrote:
no , i was never in STC. I lived north of boston for 25 years and now north of the seattle area. I was lucky to have joined a small club of 6 or so runners in central ohio in the late 70s that was really more of a XC club. they really helped me improve as they were quite a bit faster (one qualified for olympic trials). Of course at that time everyone focused on qualifying for the BAA marathon so i ran boston marathons more than any other but never had a easy race no matter how often i ran those hills in training.
good luck, are you still running?
Thanks for the details. I ran my best times in Southern California in the late 1970s, then lived near 145th and Aurora in Seattle and ran for the Snohomish TC for 3 years (1980-3), and now live on the California Central Coast. I ran 36 marathons with a 2:35 best on a hilly hot course. Those were the days my friend. I turn 74 in two months, and don't run anymore due to a knee injury, but still work out for an hour or two every morning, mostly on a ski machine and cycling. I'm racing toward a finish that I hope keeps getting farther away.
It is nice to make your acquaintance ~
Very interesting! What did you work on at Bell Labs? Did you ever meet any of the legends like Claude Shannon?
older runner wrote:
we live in northwest washington. our county now has a confirmed case and 19 somewhat likely cases awaiting testing (for over a week). county has to send test swabs of 19 highly likely infected to university washington. cdc is not really relevant. uw lab is overloaded. to the best of my knowledge our flu research lab developed tests from WHO genome. seattle and surrounding area are in crisis so priorities have to be invoked. county is doing great job but they have no way of knowing how many have it and where pockets are located. only protection if you go out is to wear a n95 mask but you cannot buy them. Result of this is that county is in shutdown mode. We go nowhere if we can help it. Don't be stupid. Stock up now. I am almost 75 and have been a runner forever (35 marathons, best time 2:32, not great but i am proud of that and still run a little almost every day). Mortality rate for a heart compromised person over 60 is about 21 times than of someone not compromised (i am fortunate but others are not). don't kid yourself, this is serious. Death rate at least 10 times that of a flu but WHO estimates 30 times a typical flu for numbers they have now. Right number is probably in between or you live in italy. i was not a medical professional but did do math and computer science way back in Bell Lab days. Mathematics in now dictating spread unless there is an immediate intervention like massive testing right now. For those of you making fun of this, you are wrong. The change here in a week is unreal. If you live in other parts of the country, just wait. Good luck and take this seriously. There are healthy people who don't make it including MD's in their 30s. Who knows.
it’s caused by meat wrote:
I know you are too stupid to get simple facts - but you do know the coronavirus was caused by eating meat, right? If China was vegan this outbreak never would have happened. Meat is the culprit, not the savior here. Anyway, carry on, you simple minded fool.
Don't be too hard on YMMV, his brain is gone due too much meat eating.
no i never met him. his brain was way beyond mine. once though i went to a talk in the naperville by the inventors of the transistor. it was exciting but of course i could not appreciate it. there was no ting as computer science then. it was electrical engineering and degrees had this new thing called programming. we programmed on punch cards. the memory cards on a #1 switching system were about 10 x 12 inches made of medal and held 64 bits on them. each bit was a magnet with interconnecting wires spaced about an inch apart. the system i worked on in my early days was the first time division switch. those system still handle a large part of world volume but of course who makes phone calls. probably a lot of data. we had to build or modify our operating systems, compilers, assemblers, and test system. so it was a great learning experience. we used very very early unix and C and modified it as desired because it lacked specific capabilities for different projects. of course today basic Unix is 80% of all major operating system (macos, android, linux, ..) labs was a great place to work. once you got promoted you had to go to another site. i went to ohio and then new england. in the labs you could pretty much make your own hours as compensation was based on what you did, not what you said you did as reviews were by peers. i had a lot of nice long noon hours runs in my career until it started to get so hot and humid in the summer.
good luck
Dwightarm wrote:
As far as I understand it, S. Korea did an amazing job with extremely high #s of testing and quarantining/social distancing.
Italy did not.
The US is more similar to Italy; our testing is abysmal. We are about 12 days behind them so we can see them for our future if we don't change things.
I'm in NYC and there are huge changes happening now, with self-quarantining and being encouraged to work from home.
The whole argument of 'it's only killed 4,000 people vs the flu which such-and-such amount' is REALLY missing the point: This is a NEW virus. It hasn't reached everywhere yet. And it is multiplying x10 every 15-20 days. If we let it continue unabated, it will be a disaster for healthcare systems. At this point, the beginning of May will have hundreds of millions of cases.
Personally, I'd rather extreme quarantining measures be taken preemptively and we say 'that was over reacting' than we suffer massive losses and look back and say 'we under reacted.'
More lies.
SK is lying. Simple as that.