Coronavirus

[Ludalicious]

"As many as 20 million Americans may have contracted coronavirus rather than 2.3 million, health officials say."

US coronavirus cases may be 10 times higher than data shows: Live

 

[linux-works]

white house cancels research funding for the virus:

White House ordered NIH to cancel coronavirus research funding, Fauci says

The National Institutes of Health abruptly cut off funding to a long-standing, well-regarded research project on bat coronaviruses only after the White House specifically told it to do so, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Fauci made the revelation Tuesday at a Congressional hearing on the federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which is caused by a coronavirus that is genetically linked to those found in bats. Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Texas) asked Fauci why the NIH abruptly canceled funding for the project, which specifically worked to understand the risk of bat coronaviruses jumping to humans and causing devastating disease.
Fauci responded to Veasey saying: “It was cancelled because the NIH was told to cancel it.”
“And why were they told to cancel it?” Veasey pressed.
“I don’t know the reason, but we were told to cancel it,” Fauci said.

 

[mrmage]

That is interesting. I suspect that the workers that work inside buildings without ventilation are the problem, and the solution is to mandate ventilation along with social distancing and mask use. "Asymptomatic" or not is a red herring.

I think people take masks off when it’s uncomfortable or inconvenient.

Had my boiler moved this week in the SF Bay Area. Of the three workers, one didn’t wear a mask, the other two did until they started working. Then they adjusted their masks to cover their chins or neck only.

It’s hot, physical work and as the weather warms up, masks are uncomfortable. Ironically, they breath hardest without masks when they’re closest, trying to lift or shift something together.

Same thing in AZ a few weeks ago. The tech that came inside to install cable internet did not wear a mask. No one working at the Mexican restaurant was wearing one - the kitchen looked hot.

 

[bkp_duke]

here's one for the docs

View attachment 556657

ha!

Funny, and true.

In medicine, we always had a saying: "NEVER get sick in July".

 

[dfwatt]

white house cancels research funding for the virus:

White House ordered NIH to cancel coronavirus research funding, Fauci says

The National Institutes of Health abruptly cut off funding to a long-standing, well-regarded research project on bat coronaviruses only after the White House specifically told it to do so, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Fauci made the revelation Tuesday at a Congressional hearing on the federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which is caused by a coronavirus that is genetically linked to those found in bats. Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Texas) asked Fauci why the NIH abruptly canceled funding for the project, which specifically worked to understand the risk of bat coronaviruses jumping to humans and causing devastating disease.
Fauci responded to Veasey saying: “It was cancelled because the NIH was told to cancel it.”
“And why were they told to cancel it?” Veasey pressed.
“I don’t know the reason, but we were told to cancel it,” Fauci said.

That's just f****** sick! Clearest indication of utter depravity / sociopathy / ludicrous levels of stupidity at the highest levels of our government. It's really hard to tell which is more operative, grotesque incompetence and dismal reality testing or sociopathic disregard for human life. They seem pretty hard to separate.

 

[SageBrush]

"As many as 20 million Americans may have contracted coronavirus rather than 2.3 million, health officials say."

US coronavirus cases may be 10 times higher than data shows: Live

Sounds about right to me; it is the number I have been using in my calculations.

So national history of exposure would be ~ 20/330 = 6%. That matches up well with serology studies thus far.

 

[SageBrush]

That's just f****** sick! Clearest indication of utter depravity / sociopathy / ludicrous levels of stupidity at the highest levels of our government. It's really hard to tell which is more operative, grotesque incompetence and dismal reality testing or sociopathic disregard for human life. They seem pretty hard to separate.

WHEN was it cancelled ?

tuckFrump has been slashing funding for health, environment and science since he was given a pen, and certainly before Covid-19 came along. I would not presume this was in response to Covid-19, but perhaps 'just' gross stupidity in general and obviously inability to backtrack.

 

[SageBrush]

This is TMC, so let's talk Elon for a moment

He piled on a mountain of Covid-19 BS into his tweets that made him look like the most moronic of trumpers, but when he opened his factory he did it the RIGHT way, enforcing SMART behavior.

If trumpers could follow Elon's lead the economy would be on track and the epidemic controlled

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

This is TMC, so let's talk Elon for a moment

He piled on a mountain of Covid-19 BS into his tweets that made him look like the most moronic of trumpers, but when he opened his factory he did it the RIGHT way, enforcing SMART behavior.

If trumpers could follow Elon's lead the economy would be on track and the epidemic controlled

Wouldn't get cocky just yet. There's still a relatively high baseline of community transmission, which will continue to exert pressure on the Tesla factory and its infection controls. Definitely could be controlled in the County and environs, but depends on compliance with local ordinances. In most countries that have effectively eliminated the virus, this level of disease would be unacceptable because it presents a high risk of an explosion. One or two superspreader events away from a bad time.

The case count has been going up primarily due to testing, but the case count has not yet dropped, which is troubling. The more opening up you do, the lower the positivity needs to be to ensure control. With everything fully open, you'd like to see below perhaps 0.1% positivity (not sure exactly what it would be but it needs to be extremely low (and consistently low on a daily basis!) after accounting for surveillance, personal health, and suppression testing).

Alameda County:

 

[omgwtfbyobbq]

WHEN was it cancelled ?

tuckFrump has been slashing funding for health, environment and science since he was given a pen, and certainly before Covid-19 came along. I would not presume this was in response to Covid-19, but perhaps 'just' gross stupidity in general and obviously inability to backtrack.

End of April.

The involvement of the White House is a new wrinkle in a story that has appalled and angered scientists. Since the grant was nixed in late April, scientists had speculated that politics and a conspiracy theory played a role in canceling funding for the research, which was in good scientific standing and seen as critical work. The grant, titled “Understanding the risk of bat coronavirus emergence,” was originally funded by the NIH in 2014 and renewed for another five years in 2019 after receiving an outstanding peer-review score.

The research is run by EcoHealth Alliance Inc., a nonprofit based in New York, but it collaborates with a virologist at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China, who works with bat coronaviruses. The WIV became the center of a conspiracy theory that suggested that the pandemic coronavirus originated in or escaped from a lab at the institute.

On April 17, a reporter brought up that conspiracy theory and EcoHealth’s grant to President Trump during a press conference. The reporter asked: “Why would the US give a grant like that to China?” Trump responded that “We will end that grant very quickly.”

In an email to EcoHealth on April 19—two days later—Dr. Michael Lauer, NIH deputy director for Extramural Research, reportedly wrote:

The scientific community believes that the coronavirus causing COVID-19 jumped from bats to humans likely in Wuhan where the COVID-19 pandemic began. There are now allegations that the current crisis was precipitated by the release from Wuhan Institute of Virology of the coronavirus responsible for COVID-19. Given these concerns, we are pursuing suspension of Wuhan Institute of Virology from participation in federal programs.

The funding was terminated on April 24. In a termination letter to EcoHealth, the NIH wrote: “At this time, NIH does not believe that the current project outcomes align with the program goals and agency priorities.”

 

[SageBrush]

Florida is obviously foo-barred but it is happening even faster that I figured. 8% daily increase in cases is about 8 days to double, and they are already filling up hospital beds at a rate of 1000 per week ... and that rate will soon skyrocket too.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

In the continued clear trend of asymptomatic rates being about 20% in young populations (see Teddy Roosevelt MMWR), there was another release of the MMWR from the CDC this week. The primary limitation of the study that might affect the result: Most students tested just once due to test availability limits.

COVID-19 Outbreak Among College Students After a Spring Break ...

There's been a lot of noise about "very high" asymptomatic rates in recent days, but important to realize that it's likely about 20% in young people (and that kind of number would be consistent with decent disease control in South Korea with their strategy and resulting CFR, etc.).

To be clear, this kind of asymptomatic rate in the young is definitely high enough to present huge problems (especially when combined with presymptomatic transmission).

The reports of much lower symptomatic rates are likely tied to incomplete symptom definition - not asking about minor symptoms. It's quite common for people who are mildly symptomatic to not have a fever or cough, for example. So when looking at such studies, be sure to look through to find out what is the definition of "symptomatic."

This is, of course, the danger in so many young people now being identified as carriers of the virus. They are largely mildly symptomatic, visiting bars, parents, vacation spots, etc., spreading the virus around. This is very bad, and makes the prospect of control given the current disease burden increasingly unlikely.

 

[SageBrush]

End of April.

When was it ordered ?

 

[N5329K]

WHEN was it cancelled ?

tuckFrump has been slashing funding for health, environment and science since he was given a pen, and certainly before Covid-19 came along. I would not presume this was in response to Covid-19, but perhaps 'just' gross stupidity in general and obviously inability to backtrack.

No, it was specifically singled out for the ax because it was an Obama-initiated program. Like the ACA, which is also under the gun today (again). Dear Leader has a problem with anything that can be traced back to, or carry the name of, his predecessor.
Robin

 

[TespaceX]

Great effing timing to renew the discussion of giving ACA the boot. Obviously healthcare is not something necessary right now.

 

[TEG]

On the flip side, and this is an honest question - why should we (the public) pay for healthcare for people that blatantly do not want to make any effort and put precautions in place to prevent the spread of this disease?
Honestly, even as a physician, part of me is so upset by some of the flagrancy of the anti-maskers and anti-vaxers that if they get COVID-19, why should society, collectively, foot that bill?

Reminds me of the debates that went into discussions over mandatory helmet laws for motorcycle riders. Motorcycle head injuries put a burden on healthcare and cost taxpayers in various ways.
Also with that there was a contingent of "free to ride without a helmet" ("anti-helmeters") who cried out about "big brother police state" and fought against such regulations.

 

[TEG]

...
I can't think of any way to legally force people to comply; there is too much disagreement in this screwed up country. so, lets go economic - its the only 'language' we seem to want to understand.
lets have stores go full red or full blue. you want a no-mask food buying experience, fine; you are allowed into those stores in your neighborhood that follow that 'deeply held belief' (sigh).
...
its back to the 'two americas' thing again.
we always seem to come to this. the elephant in the room, so to speak.
it was one thing when our two belief systems didn't actually kill each other; but at this point, having a belief system that is caustic to others should be kept confined to those that want to live in that world.
I just don't know how to set all that up. but the current mix we have - its not working! soon, I do expect things to start boiling over and violence to occur between the two camps.

Maybe I am just restating the obvious here, but Trump's game-plan tends to be around "divide and conquer" (among many other "tactics") so everything is supposed to be a polarizing issue for us.
We are expected to get on one side of the masks-are-good vs masks-are-bad camp and take a stance and prepare to fight for our "team."

So sad that "middle ground", and "consensus" seem to be terms from the past.

 

[bkp_duke]

Reminds me of the debates that went into discussions over mandatory helmet laws for motorcycle riders. Motorcycle head injuries put a burden on healthcare and cost taxpayers in various ways.
Also with that there was a contingent of "free to ride without a helmet" ("anti-helmeters") who cried out about "big brother police state" and fought against such regulations.

Yeah, but in defense of that, we (as healthcare) reaped a TON of benefits from motorcyclists that were stupid. We literally nicknamed them "organ donor vehicles".

I see no such benefit for Covid-19 patients (they would not be organ donors for sure).

 

[Daniel in SD]

So sad that "middle ground", and "consensus" seem to be terms from the past.

 

[TEG]

https://vesr.nrs.ucsb.edu/sites/default/files/vesr/COVID-19 Safety Presentation_0.pdf