covid-19

[SkyDekker 1,465]

1 minute ago, Westerly said:

Whatever it is, pretty sure it's not worse than COVID. So what, just dont get vaccinated and get COVID instead? is that the plan? 

Not at all. I suggest people do get vaccinated. But it is a bit of a flyer.

[gowlerk 2,193]

4 minutes ago, Westerly said:

Whatever it is, pretty sure it's not worse than COVID. So what, just dont get vaccinated and get COVID instead? is that the plan? 

That is how I feel. The risk of the vaccine is a fraction of the risk of the virus. I am all in based on the information we have so far. My sleeve will be rolled up in a heartbeat.

[nwt 131]

17 minutes ago, mistercwood said:

I read something months ago and I have no idea if it's remotely medically accurate, so make of it what you will. But the general gist was that we shouldn't be thinking of Covid as a respiratory disease, but instead as a vascular disease that primarily enters via the lungs.

I'm familiar.

17 minutes ago, mistercwood said:

It explains the longer term effects much better.

I'm talking about years and decades after. We won't understand that until it's happening.

14 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

That is how I feel. The risk of the vaccine is a fraction of the risk of the virus. I am all in based on the information we have so far. My sleeve will be rolled up in a heartbeat.

Absolutely same here.

[wmw999 2,447]

Here' s a good article that came up in my feed on a large well-prepared midwestern hospital. They're worried about the very near future.

University of Nebraska Medical Center

That whole social distancing thing really sucks (link to cute youtube video that nails it). But it does seem to work better than not social distancing.

Wendy P.

[airdvr 210]

Facebook friend sent pics of her vacation in Key West.  Large crowds...very few masks.  All those folks will be hopping on an airplane. 

[gowlerk 2,193]

12 minutes ago, wmw999 said:

That whole social distancing thing really sucks (link to cute youtube video that nails it). But it does seem to work better than not social distancing.

I was in Nebraska last week. No masks at all in the place I went to. NE has one of those ideologue right wing governors who insist that freedom from responsibility is a god given right.

Here is a powerful quote from the piece Wendy linked to:

It means that some of the people who get infected over Thanksgiving will struggle to enter packed hospitals by the middle of December, and be in the ground by Christmas.

There is something to think about.
 

Edited November 25, 2020 by gowlerk

[wmw999 2,447]

4 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

I was in Nebraska last week. No masks at all in the place I went to. NE has one of those ideologue right wing governors who insist that freedom from responsibility is a god given right.

Yeah; they quote him in the article as saying "just because the government lets you do it doesn't mean it's a good idea." He's right, but sometimes there are exigent circumstances.

Wendy P.

[JerryBaumchen 1,363]

2 hours ago, wmw999 said:

Yeah; they quote him in the article as saying "just because the government lets you do it doesn't mean it's a good idea." He's right, but sometimes there are exigent circumstances.

Wendy P.

Hi Wendy,

Re:  'He's right'

IMO it depends upon context.  He is not right about wearing masks, etc.

Re:  'but sometimes there are exigent circumstances.'

And sometimes it is simply that people can be stupid.

I despise wearing a mask; however, I want to live a little longer & I want my family & friends to live also.

Jerry Baumchen

 

 

[JerryBaumchen 1,363]

Hi folks,

And another Trumper has it:  'a member of Trump’s campaign legal team, Boris Epshteyn, announced Wednesday he had tested positive'

The Latest: Trump won't be at Giuliani election fight event (apnews.com)

Jerry Baumchen

 

[Westerly 61]

so what are we going to get up to after the holiday weekend? 200k by next week?

[gowlerk 2,193]

7 hours ago, Westerly said:

so what are we going to get up to after the holiday weekend? 200k by next week?

The latest estimates I see are that up to about 25% of the US population may have already been exposed and infected. If exponential growth were to happen you could be mostly finished with the dying by the time vaccinations can happen. However it now looks like a large number of people may have long term effects. Including many who are young and had few or even no symptoms.

[Westerly 61]

12 hours ago, gowlerk said:

The latest estimates I see are that up to about 25% of the US population may have already been exposed and infected. If exponential growth were to happen you could be mostly finished with the dying by the time vaccinations can happen. However it now looks like a large number of people may have long term effects. Including many who are young and had few or even no symptoms.

Where is the evidence that asymptomatic people are suffering long term organ damage? How would you even know the damage is caused by the virus if they were never tested and never sick? There is no way to medically link those together. I find it hard to believe that an infection can be minor enough to not cause any symptoms but somehow cause end state organ damage. There are no other viruses capable of that and coronaviruses are quite common--having infected many humans overtime. It's just that this one is NEW, but it's not largely different than the other ones that have existed. At some point all the other ones were new too. As far as causing damage to people who got very sick, that's easily believable. ANY infection of any virus can cause organ damage if you spend several days in the ICU. That's not new news at all.

Also the whole 25% of the USA had it is highly suspect. That is a guess at best. There is no way to know that and the estimates are HIGHLY conflicting. For example, one source says that for every 1 confirmed infection there are 10 unconfirmed ones. However, not that long ago the CDC said that only about 25 - 40% of infections are asymptomatic and they have further revised that number to now only about 20% of infections are asymptomatic. All we know is confirmed infections.

Edited November 28, 2020 by Westerly

[gowlerk 2,193]

21 minutes ago, Westerly said:

Also the whole 25% of the USA had it is highly suspect.

All my words were carefully chosen to indicate that these things are possible, not absolute fact. But if you use your Google -fu you will find that there are preliminary indications that these things may be so. Which is all that I said. And also what Dr. Fauci recently said. I did not pull this out of my ass.

[Westerly 61]

58 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

All my words were carefully chosen to indicate that these things are possible, not absolute fact. But if you use your Google -fu you will find that there are preliminary indications that these things may be so. Which is all that I said. And also what Dr. Fauci recently said. I did not pull this out of my ass.

Yea, it's also 'possible' that COVID is an alien weapon sent from another galaxy to soften humans up prior to the arrival of the mother ship. I wont exactly hold my breath on that one. The FACTS at the moment is that there are 13m infections known. Some amount higher than that exists, but to what degree is highly debatable and widely unknown. As I said, the CDC claims that 4 in 5 infections produce symptoms so if you believe the CDC then the whole 25% figure is way off. At best, no one knows how many infections there actually are so it's kind of pointless discussion. It's all just guesswork.

[gowlerk 2,193]

5 minutes ago, Westerly said:

Yea, it's also 'possible' that COVID is an alien weapon sent from another galaxy to soften humans up prior to the arrival of the mother ship. I wont exactly hold my breath on that one. The FACTS at the moment is that there are 13m infections known. Some amount higher than that exists, but to what degree is highly debatable and widely unknown. As I said, the CDC claims that 4 in 5 infections produce symptoms so if you believe the CDC then the whole 25% figure is way off. At best, no one knows how many infections there actually are so it's kind of pointless discussion. It's all just guesswork.

So then, you are not interested in checking for yourself. Thought so.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7462877/

https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/risk-comms-updates/update-36-long-term-symptoms.pdf?sfvrsn=5d3789a6_2

https://newseu.cgtn.com/news/2020-10-28/What-is-causing-long-term-lung-damage-in-asymptomatic-COVID-19-cases--UW4EfTLyYo/index.html

 

Edited November 28, 2020 by gowlerk

[gowlerk 2,193]

Here is a study based on dialysis patients who are tested regularly. It indicates that at the time nearly 10% had antibodies. It is dated Sept 28, so it 8 weeks old and COVID has blossomed quite a bit since then. The 20 to nearly 25% estimate is not unreasonable given the information available.

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/09/less-10-us-population-has-covid-19-antibodies-data-show

[ryoder 1,590]

25 minutes ago, Westerly said:

Yea, it's also 'possible' that COVID is an alien weapon sent from another galaxy to soften humans up prior to the arrival of the mother ship. 

It's a cookbook!!!

[gowlerk 2,193]

11 minutes ago, ryoder said:

It's a cookbook!!!

Humans probably taste better with a little tenderizing. 

[billvon 2,991]

1 hour ago, Westerly said:

Where is the evidence that asymptomatic people are suffering long term organ damage

Mayo clinic lists these reported problems:
 

• Fatigue
• Shortness of breath
• Cough
• Joint pain
• Chest pain
• Muscle pain or headache
• Fast or pounding heartbeat
• Loss of smell or taste
• Memory, concentration or sleep problems
• Rash or hair loss
   
• Heart. Imaging tests taken months after recovery from COVID-19 have shown lasting damage to the heart muscle, even in people who experienced only mild COVID-19 symptoms. This may increase the risk of heart failure or other heart complications in the future.
• Lungs. The type of pneumonia often associated with COVID-19 can cause long-standing damage to the tiny air sacs (alveoli) in the lungs. The resulting scar tissue can lead to long-term breathing problems.
• Brain. Even in young people, COVID-19 can cause strokes, seizures and Guillain-Barre syndrome — a condition that causes temporary paralysis. COVID-19 may also increase the risk of developing Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease.

Quote

How would you even know the damage is caused by the virus if they were never tested and never sick?

By observing that the symptom/pathology appears right after the person has been infected (detected via antibody test.)
 

Quote

I find it hard to believe that an infection can be minor enough to not cause any symptoms but somehow cause end state organ damage

You've never heard of HIV?  Epstein-Barr?

 

Quote

Also the whole 25% of the USA had it is highly suspect.

Not really.  Two weeks ago Florida was reporting that 10% of total antibody tests were positive, with some counties reporting 25%.  And they have less than half the cases of places like South Dakota.

[billvon 2,991]

38 minutes ago, Westerly said:

Yea, it's also 'possible' that COVID is an alien weapon sent from another galaxy to soften humans up prior to the arrival of the mother ship.

If you think that that possibility is similar in likelihood to a ~25% antibody test rate - well, I hear Trump has some openings in the pandemic task force.  Great pay - but probably not long term work.

[Westerly 61]

3 hours ago, billvon said:

Mayo clinic lists these reported problems:
 

• Fatigue
• Shortness of breath
• Cough
• Joint pain
• Chest pain
• Muscle pain or headache
• Fast or pounding heartbeat
• Loss of smell or taste
• Memory, concentration or sleep problems
• Rash or hair loss
   
• Heart. Imaging tests taken months after recovery from COVID-19 have shown lasting damage to the heart muscle, even in people who experienced only mild COVID-19 symptoms. This may increase the risk of heart failure or other heart complications in the future.
• Lungs. The type of pneumonia often associated with COVID-19 can cause long-standing damage to the tiny air sacs (alveoli) in the lungs. The resulting scar tissue can lead to long-term breathing problems.
• Brain. Even in young people, COVID-19 can cause strokes, seizures and Guillain-Barre syndrome — a condition that causes temporary paralysis. COVID-19 may also increase the risk of developing Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease.

By observing that the symptom/pathology appears right after the person has been infected (detected via antibody test.)
 

You've never heard of HIV?  Epstein-Barr?

 

Not really.  Two weeks ago Florida was reporting that 10% of total antibody tests were positive, with some counties reporting 25%.  And they have less than half the cases of places like South Dakota.

But how often are asymptomatic and lightly symptomatic people actually experiencing organ failure? Like what is the percentage of known asymptomatic cases to known long term organ failure? I suspect this is not that common. If the virus only has a fatality rate of 0.02% among those under 40, including ALL known preexisting conditions, it seems unlikely it would cause a lot of damage to that age group as well unless they spent a lot of time in the hospital.

In any case, if what you say is true and 25% of the population did in fact get infected, then it's very reasonable to believe that we will be at 50% by the end of the year or early spring and 75% by the time everyone is fully vaccinated. So at that point there is nothing you can really do about it regardless.

Your example of HIV and Herpies don't apply because those are active infections that never go away. Once you have HIV or herpies, you have it for life because the immune system is not capable of killing those viruses. The immune system is fully capable of killing COVID and once it does so you are no longer infected.

You talk about people having health issues after infection, but what is the percentage of people who DO NOT have any health issues after or during infection? I bet that number is much, much higher than those who do.
 

Edited November 28, 2020 by Westerly

[JoeWeber 2,720]

9 hours ago, billvon said:

• Fatigue
• Shortness of breath
• Cough
• Joint pain
• Chest pain
• Muscle pain or headache
• Fast or pounding heartbeat
• Loss of smell or taste
• Memory, concentration or sleep problems
• Rash or hair loss

Uh-oh. Are you sure this is the correct list?

[gowlerk 2,193]

7 hours ago, Westerly said:

But how often are asymptomatic and lightly symptomatic people actually experiencing organ failure?

Pay attention to what people are saying please. Which is simply that some people seem to be having long term damage, including some who were asymptomatic or had mild symptoms. How you made the leap to "organ failure" is beyond me. We don't know how many. We don't know lots of things. People can have reduced function without having organ failure. People can have damage and still live. And people can have this virus damaging parts of their body without having the respiratory symptoms  that are causing the hospitals to fill up. 

We all would do well to read and understand what each other are saying before jumping to conclusions and sending off replies.

[SkyDekker 1,465]

16 hours ago, Westerly said:

How would you even know the damage is caused by the virus if they were never tested and never sick?

If they have been exposed to the virus, their blood will contain anti-bodies. The patient can generally tell you if they experienced symptoms.

[Westerly 61]

3 hours ago, SkyDekker said:

If they have been exposed to the virus, their blood will contain anti-bodies. The patient can generally tell you if they experienced symptoms.

Sure but correlation doesn't equal causation.

now, if you end up in the ER with covid, have breathing issues in the ER, then have chronic lung issues after--the cause is pretty obvious. But for a lung issue that suddenly just appears randomly (as most medical conditions do), with no symptomatic condition of COVID and nothing other than a positive antibody test, I dont think you can say COVID was the cause just because you happened to have a positive antibody test (which may not even be accurate).

Edited November 28, 2020 by Westerly