I think RJ had something to say about this a long time ago, like dont regulate the pharmaceutical industry too much because that might hinder the development of new drugs that could help him as he gets older.

Your instincts do get more conservative as you get older.

The Gov of NYS just announced that 21% of adult NYC residents sampled have Covid-19 antibodies. I was sick as a dog in early Feb.

How do I get myself a test?? I want to go out and breath the air! Feel the sun!

Call the NY state hotline at (888) 364-3065 and see how you can get antibody testing.

I keep hearing about contact tracing...but how is that viable when in Iceland (which has been testing by far the highest percentage of population) 50% of people test positive without symtons?

I wrote on March 18:

"Like if you could test everyone every day, certify they are ok so they can go out (maybe you could have scanners people would check into with their phones when they enter a building--if you have a negative test you can go in ). I just heard that an Orange County lab got processing down to an hour. I know this is an absurd, impossible idea, but maybe someone could figure how to do this. Or a self-test you could do at home, the results that are immediately sent out to a processing place. You could log in on video to make sure it's done correctly and the result verified. Something.".

So, we now have a test that you can do at home and send to a lab (apparently, it has been shown that the deep swab is not necessary for accuracy) and Bill Gates mentioned that there is a self-test where you can do the results at home by seeing if there is a color change. Obviously, you would need an enormous number of tests (and reagents used in these tests are in short supply and ability to scale up testing has been limited so far). But the real-time knowledge about a person's virus status is at least theorectically possible at this point. And that is the gold standard. I would not think it would be too much trouble to upload those results so that a person could have a green light on their phone that could be shown/scanned when they entered a public building. Maybe thermometer reading done at the same time. And you can priortize who gets the tests by need. And of course you want redundancy (people still wear masks, social distancing, limited number of tables in restaurants, spacing at work, people who can work at home, etc.).

It seems what's optimal is to know who has the virus with people that are going into work/retail buildings. THEN contact tracing via cell phone proximity and isolation can nip an outbreak in the bud. Right now, by the time you find a positive test the person could have spread it all over the place.

I think RJ had something to say about this a long time ago, like dont regulate the pharmaceutical industry too much because that might hinder the development of new drugs that could help him as he gets older.

here's what happens when you lower standards because of pressure from the industry or politicians.And perhaps the biggest cop out is relying upon manufacturers to validate themselves. I mean there's no liklihood they might fudge things in order to make more money? (The oil and gas industry made a big push to do their own safety tests under Bush. That lead directly to the Deepwater Hoirizon. Learn? never)

The FDA waived its typical quality checks to help antibody tests reach the market quickly, instead allowing companies to self-evaluate the accuracy of their products. Researchers have begun issuing evidence that many of the tests are falling short of typical accuracy standards, producing false positives that could lead people to believe they've developed protection against the virus

.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/2 ... sts-218806

Tests that were self evaluated are falling far short of the reliability and accuracy required to be really useful. (98%)
Which is complicating the issue of testing to determine spread and immunity... When a test is only 75% reliable its pretty close to useless.

I am getting pessimistic about our ability to really restart the economy. And I'm not talking about the near-term but for many months. How is retail going to come back? How are factories--like food processing plants--going to operate without becoming breeding grounds for the virus? How are you going to reopen schools without kids maybe getting seriously sick or more likely taking the virus home and infecting family members? And this could go for 12-18 months? Or more? And it is depressing to hear the nonense from Trump, Pence and Jared Kushner. These would be incredibly difficult problems to solve if the federal government was intelligently trying to solve them, but that is clearly not happening.

I suspect it is going to take an enormous, enormous effort for us to get to know who has the virus in almost real-time. Restaurants cannot survive at 25% capacity or on take--out (well, maybe pizza places can). You need to get people back into retail and that can only happen if it's safe and people psychologically do not fear getting sick. And that can only happen if people have confidence that people around them are not sick. And with up to 50% of people with the virus being asymptomatic, this talk about tracing positive cases is nonsense if youre allowing all these asymptomatic people to run around. LA County is offering tests to anyone which is what is needed--we'll see whether they can back that offer up. But I think that is on the right track.

We can reopen soon in a limited way. But the economy is going to continue to tank until people can feel safe going out (that's the psychological component) and actually be safe so we dont get a resurgence. And I dont know how we do that unless we pretty much know that people we see in public dont have the virus. And thats going to take a massive upgrade in testing. And we're just sort of hoping that things will work out. By the way, Wuhan has not at all bounced back economically. Germany is having problems with reopening. So we have a very difficult challenge ahead.

I completely agree, until there is a medical intervention, I just don't see it happening. Yesterday was the highest day of deaths in the USA at 2700. Hard to conceive reopening when deaths are still increasing.

And it's not just USA, we're only now seeing big increases in Brazil, India, and other developing nations. Apparently, Ecuador is a disaster, and these places don't have the infrastructure to deal with it. Of course, it may mean that they just take it on the chin, lose 100s of thousands, or millions of citizens, and get out of this sooner than the rest of us.

But I've got cabin fever. The idea of losing the summer is just so depressing. I can't even . . .

How is herd immunity ever achieved unless people get the virus?

I am all for people making the decisions to open their business or not. I am all for people having the choice to go out or not.

If a person CHOOSES to not interact and avoid the virus, well, they have that choice.

#boyintheplasticbubble

Herd immunity was an option from the start...but that would only be achieved after a projected 2 million dead and a health care system that would be in shambles. But then after 6 months and 50-60% of the country has gotten it, then things would return to normal.

It is interesting the reaction to the coronavirus depends on one's political views. For me 60,000 dead in a month with the entire country on lockdown says this virus is much more serious than the flu...

bbauska wrote:How is herd immunity ever achieved unless people get the virus?

With a vaccine.

One issue with the aim of getting herd immunity without one is that it relies on immunity being achievable from getting the disease. It may be that it is not guaranteed. It may also be that the disease mutates enough (like its cousins influenza and the common cold) that you can't be immune to all strains from having had one of them.

And one major factor in the speed of mutation is how many people get infected - because that's how viruses mutate, when they replicate in a host, and using genetic material in the host. The more people infected, and the greater genetic variation the virus encounters, the bigger the chance of mutations that are viable and distinct.

I am all for people making the decisions to open their business or not. I am all for people having the choice to go out or not.

If a person CHOOSES to not interact and avoid the virus, well, they have that choice.

This is all very well, but of course the risk is not evenly distributed. Those at greatest risk include the healthcare workers who have to deal with those who fall seriously ill. If too many people 'choose' to get infected, hospitals will be overwhelmed and be unable to cope with Covid 19 patients and with others who need care.

Yeah, lockdown sucks, but it is gambling with lives to undo it. Not just yours, but those around you.

Heh. Boy in the Bubble.

bbauska wrote:If a person CHOOSES to not interact and avoid the virus, well, they have that choice.

I don't see THAT many people making that choice, when there are still thousands of Americans still dying every day; not if people understand that they're not only putting themselves at risk, but others. I think many would be OK with taking risking our own lives, but could we live with ourselves if we ended up hurting others because of our selfishness? In a pandemic individual choices can have wide consequences. If people understand that, I just don't see opening happening at large-scale.

Maybe if we have good medical interventions or a better understanding of what protections antibodies provide, but hard to see on April 30th.

danivon wrote:Yeah, lockdown sucks, but it is gambling with lives to undo it. Not just yours, but those around you.

Good to "see" you daivon. Hope you're making out OK.

That's an interesting point about mutations, Danivon. My understanding is that one reason that there is some confidence that an effective vaccine might be developed is that there hadnt been much variation in the strains seen so far. But the worse the outbreak the more chance that will happen I suppose.

bbauska

How is herd immunity ever achieved unless people get the virus?

GENEVA — The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Saturday that there was currently “no .evidence” that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second coronavirus infection.
In a scientific brief, the United Nations agency warned governments against issuing “immunity passports” or “risk-free certificates” to people who have been infected as their accuracy could not be guaranteed

https://canoe.com/news/world/no-evidenc ... fected-who

Meanwhile, the leading American researcher Peter Daszak, has been cut off...

President Donald Trump's administration abruptly cut funding to a non-profit conducting research on virus transmission between bats and humans, over unfounded rumors linking it to a research institute in Wuhan, Politico reported.

EcoHealth Alliance, a New York-based infectious-diseases research group, had all its future government funding cut to its five-year-long study on bat-to-human virus transmission, Politico reported.

The cut came after rumors groundlessly accused EcoHealth Alliance of sending its $3.7 million grant received from the US government to fund the Wuhan Institute of Virology — the Chinese research lab which conspiracy theorists have, without evidence, accused of spreading the novel coronavirus to the public.

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-c ... ico-2020-4