SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

Regulus Arcturus Black said:
They utterly fecked up this small test study by the way, some research gimp is defo getting the sack.
The person who collected the samples didn’t realise that some now healthy Covid-19 survivors were also in there as they have donated plasma.
Shouldn’t be possible, but happened. Now they have to do the test all over again after going out to the World with the results. One of the top medical research universities in the World.
You’d almost laugh if it wasn’t so serious.
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I know you're holding your hand up here, but I think I remember you using their repute as an appeal to authority in arguments in this thread. Thanks for bringing this info too and maybe be cautious on using rep like that in the future.
 
unchanged_lineup said:
I know you're holding your hand up here, but I think I remember you using their repute as an appeal to authority in arguments in this thread. Thanks for bringing this info too and maybe be cautious on using rep like that in the future.
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To be fair to him the Karolinska Institute is the real deal. This sort of shoddy research is completely unexpected from a place with their reputation.
 
0le said:
Perhaps the headline could have been worded better. The initial headline was:
"Warning after infection rate rises in Germany as lockdown measures eased "

Maybe it could have said this:
"Increase in infection rate to be expected after lockdown measures relaxed"

The first title makes it sound as if this was something unexpected and has come as a surprise. The second title makes is clear it was expected and does not come as a surprise.
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It seems obvious that people rather want to read reassuring messages, but the facts are that RKI reported a jump in infection rate from 0.7 to 0.9, when the goverments target is "somewhere below 1.0" and their models suggest that 1.1 would overwhelm hospitals by October. And those easment measures have only partly been implemented on Monday, so they don't even fully really register in the data yet. I think it's absolutely something to be concerened about and people get warned all the time not to relax one bit.
 
0le said:
Perhaps the headline could have been worded better. The initial headline was:
"Warning after infection rate rises in Germany as lockdown measures eased "

Maybe it could have said this:
"Increase in infection rate to be expected after lockdown measures relaxed"

The first title makes it sound as if this was something unexpected and has come as a surprise. The second title makes is clear it was expected and does not come as a surprise.
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Exactly this, you've explained my stance better than I could have. Bad news sells. Headlines are often decked out with harsher language or wording to grab people's attention more, I consider that to be scare-mongering personally.




11101 said:
It's not really a repatriation situation. You just need a real reason to travel between the two countries - essential work, health or extenuating circumstances are the three accepted. In theory i could use my British passport, Italian residency and Swiss work to travel between the three places as much as i like.
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Fair enough, got you.
 
Classical Mechanic said:
Also they could just be overconfident because they are high achievers at the top of their game buoyed by the prospect of producing career defining work.
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Yes, there may be some truth in that.

I obviously can't speak for those researchers personally, but the people (professors, post docs, phd students, technicians etc) I encountered in research were quite reserved and humble. Certainly confident, but not what I would call arrogant at all. I do think many professors I encountered in particular have some degree of stubborness and cynicism, which can be good or bad depending on the situation. I also think the professors I came across genuinely had a passion for their work and weren't so interested in acclaim, but rather just ensuring they produce high quality work out of pride and also to ensure future funding is more easily secured.

Regulus Arcturus Black said:
They utterly fecked up this small test study by the way, some research gimp is defo getting the sack.
The person who collected the samples didn’t realise that some now healthy Covid-19 survivors were also in there as they have donated plasma.
Shouldn’t be possible, but happened. Now they have to do the test all over again after going out to the World with the results. One of the top medical research universities in the World.
You’d almost laugh if it wasn’t so serious.
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People make mistakes, it happens. It is extremely easy to sit at home and criticise people who design and carry out experiments. Just because something appears obvious in hindsight, does not mean it was obvious at the point in time. People can also become forgetful, it may well have been obvious to them at the time, but they just forgot because there was so much to consider in a short time frame. At a guess, I imagine there is also an additional pressure to produce results because of the ongoing crisis.

I don't know the situation here but occassionally a mistake or error doesn't impact the main conclusions of a piece of work. It may also be that the rest of the work is still of high quality, that it actually helps lead to the correct answer in the future. The latter can be the case in mathematics, see for example a historical discussion on the development of the proof for Fermat's Last Theorem [article].
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
They utterly fecked up this small test study by the way, some research gimp is defo getting the sack.
The person who collected the samples didn’t realise that some now healthy Covid-19 survivors were also in there as they have donated plasma.
Shouldn’t be possible, but happened. Now they have to do the test all over again after going out to the World with the results. One of the top medical research universities in the World.
You’d almost laugh if it wasn’t so serious.
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I'm sorry you lost your job pal. Better luck next time eh.
 
Kopral Jono said:
Thanks for these, but let's take the worst outcome and assume a vaccine is very hard to find in practice. Should all resources be redirected to the development of a drug that actually cures those who are infected instead? Genuine question, as you can see I'm rather clueless on this.
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A drug that cures the disease is equally hard to find and possibly very expensive to make (especially if its antivirals). Hence, they are looking at re-purposing old drugs such as hydroxychloroquine and Remdesivir. They are already regulatory approved and have readily set up manufacturing infrastructure to do the kind of mass production this world needs.

The cost of buying or producing the cure/vaccine is very important. If it is too expensive, NICE/NHS may not be able to subsidise it fully so not everybody may have access to this cure equally.

Health economics is a bastard.
 
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Kopral Jono said:
Whenever news on corona vaccine comes out I tend to get a bit confused. The Oxford people are rather confident that one could be ready by autumn, some are saying we'll have one by summer or late next year whilst others are of the opinion that vaccines for coronaviruses are incredibly hard to develop and that there may not be a vaccine at all.

Could someone who knows a bit about this explain why there have been differences in opinion even amongst the best experts out there?
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I would guess that Oxford people know best about the sort of work they have done and the possible obstacles. All of the others (not directly familiar with the work done) are merely speculating and making educated guesses based on what they think is true regarding the virus.

Once again, I am interested in knowing how can a rando on the internet be certain that there will not be a vaccine ready in 2+ years if there is a team of scientists thinking that it will be in six months? Ok, it genuinely being six months would be too-good-to-be-true news, but how arrogant must you be to write it off outright?

At the same time, we are unsure even regarding basic things, such as the death rate and if one can get reinfected. This is also another reason why opinions difer - no hard data means more room for speculation.
 
A good article on the BBC about reinfection today. Most interesting is the answer to those who questioned why there are no antibodies in the blood of some recovered patients. They didn't need them.

It would seem that those people were able to neutralise the infection without the need to develop antibodies, either because their innate immune response or the T cells in their adaptive immune response, or a combination of both, were sufficient.
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https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200421-will-we-ever-be-immune-to-covid-19
 
Kopral Jono said:
Whenever news on corona vaccine comes out I tend to get a bit confused. The Oxford people are rather confident that one could be ready by autumn, some are saying we'll have one by summer or late next year whilst others are of the opinion that vaccines for coronaviruses are incredibly hard to develop and that there may not be a vaccine at all.

Could someone who knows a bit about this explain why there have been differences in opinion even amongst the best experts out there?
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They've got a vaccine ready for its first series of human clinical trials. That trial is scheduled to run for 6 months (with a follow-up at 12 months). If the trial goes as planned, with immunity being demonstrated in the immunised group and no significant side-effects, they can say, "we've got a vaccine." That would be in the autumn.

That wouldn't mean the whole country could then be vaccinated though. The trial is limited to the generally healthy, not-pregnant, between 18-55 etc - in effect the highest risk groups aren't there. Issues of interactions with other drugs, impact of comorbidities etc, effectiveness (and safety) in older age groups won't be available at that stage. Nor will they know if there are any side-effects that take longer than 6 months to appear, or indeed how long the vaccine is effective for.

So yes, autumn if things go well, but even if things go well, it won't be ready for everyone (even if the factories can make it that fast). Maybe it will be ready for a more targeted campaign like for care/health and some other workers who can't readily adopt social distancing.
 
11101 said:
A good article on the BBC about reinfection today. Most interesting is the answer to those who questioned why there are no antibodies in the blood of some recovered patients. They didn't need them.



https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200421-will-we-ever-be-immune-to-covid-19
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That’s a good article. The possibility of being immune without producing antibodies makes a lot of sense. We’ve always thought kids must get asymptomatic illness but the serology data out of Iceland is finding no kids producing antibodies at all. So it’s possible they’re being exposed but not seroconverting. Cell mediated immunity can fight off infections without the need for antibodies. So sars-cov2 might be particularly vulnerable to the type of cell mediated immunity that is more active in kids than adults.

The whole thing is really kind of fascinating. Even though it’s also horrifying!
 
Pogue Mahone said:
That’s a good article. The possibility of being immune without producing antibodies makes a lot of sense. We’ve always thought kids must get asymptomatic illness but the serology data out of Iceland is finding no kids producing antibodies at all. So it’s possible they’re being exposed but not seroconverting. Cell mediated immunity can fight off infections without the need for antibodies. So sars-cov2 might be particularly vulnerable to the type of cell mediated immunity that is more active in kids than adults.

The whole thing is really kind of fascinating. Even though it’s also horrifying!
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I know exactly what you mean. I've never shown an interest in virology etc to be honest, but even though most of it goes over my head it's very very interesting stuff despite being scary as well.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
That’s a good article. The possibility of being immune without producing antibodies makes a lot of sense. We’ve always thought kids must get asymptomatic illness but the serology data out of Iceland is finding no kids producing antibodies at all. So it’s possible they’re being exposed but not seroconverting. Cell mediated immunity can fight off infections without the need for antibodies. So sars-cov2 might be particularly vulnerable to the type of cell mediated immunity that is more active in kids than adults.

The whole thing is really kind of fascinating. Even though it’s also horrifying!
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Bugger, that's actually bad news because now it means we can't distinguish between who is still able to transmit covid and who isn't. :(
 
Some countries are trying the BCG vaccine to see if it works. In theory it may work so India, Vietnam and even in UWA in Australia are trying it in trials. Incidentally in some small Asian countries everyone gets a BCG vaccine and a Polio vaccine at birth. Maldives is a good example. It looks like at this moment in time, they have about 86 confirmed cases and half are foreigners and 16 recovered and fortunately at this moment in time no deaths. But this figure is going to rise for sure as more people are tested. The good news maybe no deaths (so far). If and there is a big IF it is the BCG that seems to keep this under control then it is very good news. As far as the information I had from all these who has been tested positive only one man of 80 years is in ICU and he has had past complications of various underlying causes including a stroke and pneumonia too.
Sri Lanka has 310 positive cases and 7 deaths including some foreigners in this 7. From the 310 already 100 have recovered.
 
I watched this again the other night - genuinely chilling how some of the same things are occuring - Those who are dismissing the possibility or impact of a second wave should watch this

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0blmn5l/the-flu-that-killed-50-million

Thankfully our medical support should be more advanced now but I still wince when I see Hospital staff and carers going around with just paper masks.

It's interesting how even now estimates of the death toll of the "spanish Flu" vary between 50 and 100 million people.
 
buchansleftleg said:
I watched this again the other night - genuinely chilling how some of the same things are occuring - Those who are dismissing the possibility or impact of a second wave should watch this

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0blmn5l/the-flu-that-killed-50-million

Thankfully our medical support should be more advanced now but I still wince when I see Hospital staff and carers going around with just paper masks.

It's interesting how even now estimates of the death toll of the "spanish Flu" vary between 50 and 100 million people.
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I have just seen the preview image for that and it has already put me off.
 
Foxbatt said:
Some countries are trying the BCG vaccine to see if it works. In theory it may work so India, Vietnam and even in UWA in Australia are trying it in trials. Incidentally in some small Asian countries everyone gets a BCG vaccine and a Polio vaccine at birth. Maldives is a good example. It looks like at this moment in time, they have about 86 confirmed cases and half are foreigners and 16 recovered and fortunately at this moment in time no deaths. But this figure is going to rise for sure as more people are tested. The good news maybe no deaths (so far). If and there is a big IF it is the BCG that seems to keep this under control then it is very good news. As far as the information I had from all these who has been tested positive only one man of 80 years is in ICU and he has had past complications of various underlying causes including a stroke and pneumonia too.
Sri Lanka has 310 positive cases and 7 deaths including some foreigners in this 7. From the 310 already 100 have recovered.
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We really shouldn't head down that path... There's already a global shortage of BCG even without the COVID-19 demand :lol:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(18)30474-1/fulltext
 
"Just" the 600 odd deaths today. Yesterday was over 800 so that seems promising given the trend seems to be increase of deaths throughout the week if I've been following the trend correctly.
 
spiriticon said:
We really shouldn't head down that path... There's already a global shortage of BCG even without the COVID-19 demand :lol:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(18)30474-1/fulltext
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It is clutching at straws and if it shows it helps then we will go down that path. It is not that BCG is an effective cure but what they are testing is to see if BCG controls the immune system to attack the virus at the right level and not overload the system and control the cytokine that is secreted. I think this overloading by the immune system is what kills most people and not the virus itself. This is what these trials are for.
 
FootballHQ said:
"Just" the 600 odd deaths today. Yesterday was over 800 so that seems promising given the trend seems to be increase of deaths throughout the week if I've been following the trend correctly.
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Where do you get your updates from, you seem to be on the ball as BBC havent even mentioned it yet online?
 
Foxbatt said:
Some countries are trying the BCG vaccine to see if it works. In theory it may work so India, Vietnam and even in UWA in Australia are trying it in trials. Incidentally in some small Asian countries everyone gets a BCG vaccine and a Polio vaccine at birth. Maldives is a good example. It looks like at this moment in time, they have about 86 confirmed cases and half are foreigners and 16 recovered and fortunately at this moment in time no deaths. But this figure is going to rise for sure as more people are tested. The good news maybe no deaths (so far). If and there is a big IF it is the BCG that seems to keep this under control then it is very good news. As far as the information I had from all these who has been tested positive only one man of 80 years is in ICU and he has had past complications of various underlying causes including a stroke and pneumonia too.
Sri Lanka has 310 positive cases and 7 deaths including some foreigners in this 7. From the 310 already 100 have recovered.
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Heh. Up until a decade or so ago, it was part of the common child vaccine program in Norway. Nearly everyone got it at around 14. Probably wore off by now, though.
 
Sandikan said:
So certainly subject to a backlog, and you presume gets back updated?
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Yes.

image.png


[Source] [.xlsx doc]
 
Foxbatt said:
It is clutching at straws and if it shows it helps then we will go down that path. It is not that BCG is an effective cure but what they are testing is to see if BCG controls the immune system to attack the virus at the right level and not overload the system and control the cytokine that is secreted. I think this overloading by the immune system is what kills most people and not the virus itself. This is what these trials are for.
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That's interesting. Old people (maybe the 75+ age group) won't have routinely had BCG as teenagers. I had it when I entered nursing and later worked as a midwife in a city where there was active TB. My heaf test mark became prominent more than once, which showed something was reacting to something.
 
FootballHQ said:
It was breaking news on BBC news 24 just now. Don't know if that was just England or whole of U.K though.
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If it is just England, Scotland/Wales/NI don't usually contribute a huge number so you'd expect this to be a total just under 700 or similar. Would be great if we could see another drop tomorrow.
 
nimic said:
Heh. Up until a decade or so ago, it was part of the common child vaccine program in Norway. Nearly everyone got it at around 14. Probably wore off by now, though.
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BCG vaccine is a once a lifetime vaccination according to what I have heard.
 
Ekkie Thump said:
Updated graph of deaths in England by day of death. Reported deaths were 778, 6 fewer than Saturday. Pretty confident we're on the slide now.

Orange is a 5 day trailing average. Last 5-7 days will see large to moderate upward changes:
E5yPjz8.jpg
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Updated graph of deaths in England by day of death. Reported deaths were 665, 113 fewer than yesterday. Orange is a 5 day trailing average. Last 5-7 days will see large to moderate upward changes:
cnDFK8M.jpg
 
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Alabaster Codify7 said:
If it is just England, Scotland/Wales/NI don't usually contribute a huge number so you'd expect this to be a total just under 700 or similar. Would be great if we could see another drop tomorrow.
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Correction it seems now, 759 in UK.
 
SalfordRed18 said:
Actually wouldn't be shocked if the UK extended again after this current extension, with a view of studying how other nations coped with loosened restrictions.
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I agree. Given there's a bank holiday in last week of May I think we'll see another two week extension up to then with perhaps a few more garden shops opened up.

Start of June is the critical point really seeing as the 12 week stay at home message for over 70s will be close to expiring.
 
Foxbatt said:
It is clutching at straws and if it shows it helps then we will go down that path. It is not that BCG is an effective cure but what they are testing is to see if BCG controls the immune system to attack the virus at the right level and not overload the system and control the cytokine that is secreted. I think this overloading by the immune system is what kills most people and not the virus itself. This is what these trials are for.
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Yeah, any research outcomes is useful at this moment I agree. The scientific data obtained could be used as a basis to inform other investigations, even if BCG itself may not provide a viable solution as a cure/vaccine due to its rarity.
 
Alabaster Codify7 said:
Let's hope your right. It's hard not to get demoralised by these high daily numbers, I sometimes lose track of the bigger picture such as this.
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The data in England appears to show there is already a decline (see the post above) so there is light at the end of the tunnel.

EDIT: Fixed link.
 
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