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How does Coronavirus Ever End?
Amathe
Member LegendaryPosts: 7,630
After seeing the E3 closure, I got to thinking. Does coronavirus:
A. Just keep spreading like wildfire, so long as there is combustible material (i.e., vulnerable people);
B. Keeps going until some force of nature, like temperature, stops it;
C. Keeps going until time stops it; and/or
D. Keeps going until someone finds a cure or a vaccine.
I am asking only about the science of this disease, not anyone's politics or blame, please.
A. Just keep spreading like wildfire, so long as there is combustible material (i.e., vulnerable people);
B. Keeps going until some force of nature, like temperature, stops it;
C. Keeps going until time stops it; and/or
D. Keeps going until someone finds a cure or a vaccine.
I am asking only about the science of this disease, not anyone's politics or blame, please.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
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I wonder if the fear will outweigh the disease.
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That can lead to spikes where a huge number of people get the disease all at once. If half of society were to get the new coronavirus, but it was spread out evenly over the course of a decade, that wouldn't be that big of a deal. If half of society gets the new coronavirus all in the same week, that will overwhelm the medical system and a lot of people will die who would have been fine if the resources to get proper treatment were available.
I don't see it being quickly wiped out the way that SARS or MERS were. It's spreading too far, too fast, and isn't practical to contain at this point.
It could end up being kind of like chicken pox. That used to be a childhood disease that most people would get as a kid, and it wasn't that big of a deal, provided that you got it while young. Once you had it once, you were mostly immune to it for the rest of your life. Then eventually they figured out how to make a vaccine for it.
It could also end up being kind of like the flu, which mutates enough that having had the flu before gives you some partial immunity against other flu viruses, but not necessarily enough to prevent you from getting the flu again. That will likely get less bad as people build up some degree of immunity from a combination of having had it before and whatever they can do for immunizations.
Of course "kind of like the flu" doesn't mean "exactly as bad as the flu". It could end up being much worse than the flu, or much milder. Remember that the flu is as bad as it is today after decades of work in trying to figure out how to combat it. We don't have decades of experience with COVID-19 yet.
But ultimately, the answer is that we really don't know. We don't know if warming temperatures will help to contain the virus as it does with the flu. Thus far, only about 0.1% of the known deaths have been in the southern hemisphere (where it is now summer), which is a good sign, but also explainable by the virus just not spreading there early.
We also don't know if catching it once means you're immune for life, or if it will evolve enough that you could catch it again every year. We don't know how practical it is to vaccinate against it. We know that it hits older people much, much harder than young people, but we don't know why.
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This suggests that in a pandemic, the high number of cases in many countries around the world could enable continued transmission of the virus throughout the summer, overcoming any seasonal variability that would be seen in smaller epidemics."
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AC2 Player RIP Final Death Jan 31st 2017
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Eventually, humanity will adapt. Even in the quite bad (and rather unlikely) case where high volumes of people catch the new virus forever without its dangerousness dropping as people gain immunity, we'll eventually build more hospitals and have more doctors specialize in dealing with it.
https://www.pnas.org/content/104/18/7588.full
https://www.mic.com/p/what-is-social-distancing-can-it-help-stop-the-spread-of-infectious-disease-21770552
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-12/coronavirus-pandemic-social-distancing-loneliness
https://www.nj.com/coronavirus/2020/03/what-is-social-distancing-does-it-actually-work-against-coronavirus.html
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/ask-an-expert-will-quarantines-make-the-coronavirus-worse#1
New research from Umea University in Sweden shows that the quarantine aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan actually caused the coronavirus to spread much more intensely than it would have if passengers were allowed off the ship.
Dr. Anne Rimoin: Quarantines are designed to prevent disease transmission by restricting the movements of individuals who have been, or might have been, exposed to a contagious pathogen until they’re out of the window of developing disease.
It’s difficult to properly execute any quarantine, and the realities of a cruise ship, where space is limited and people are existing together in such close quarters, is an ideal situation for spread of disease.
A mass quarantine can put people at greater risk of infection if you can’t identify and isolate those who are ill from those who are well.
What’s your take on travel bans to/from high-risk areas — do they actually work?
Travel bans are complicated and often counterproductive.
It has been established that COVID-19 can present with mild or no symptoms at all. As a result, it can spread before someone knows that they are ill.
YET
What’s the most effective way to limit the spread, or is it a combination of different measures?
Limiting the spread of SARS-CoV-2 will be based on a combination of measures.
https://www.mic.com/p/what-is-social-distancing-can-it-help-stop-the-spread-of-infectious-disease-21770552
Taking larger-scale social distancing measures here in the US probably won’t be necessary, unless infections surface so fast that a municipality or hospital can’t keep up, a situation known as sustained community transmission, Ashish Jha, a public health researcher at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told STAT. The emergence of the virus in schools and daycare, where many viruses are routinely spread, could also signal a need for greater social distancing.
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.556.2672&rep=rep1&type=pdf
BIOSECURITY AND BIOTERRORISM: BIODEFENSE STRATEGY, PRACTICE, AND SCIENCE Volume 4, Number 4, 2006 © Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.
School Closures
Maintaining Personal Distance
It has been recommended that individuals maintain a distance of 3 feet or more during a pandemic so as to diminish the number of contacts with people who may be infected.10,54 The efficacy of this measure is unknown. It is typically assumed that transmission of droplet-spread diseases, such as influenza, is limited to “close contacts”—that is, being within 3–6 feet of an infected person.4 Keeping a space of 3 feet between individuals might be possible in some work environments, but it is difficult to imagine how bus, rail, or air travelers could stay 3 feet apart from each other throughout an epidemic. And such a recommendation would greatly complicate normal daily tasks like grocery shopping, banking, and the like.
https://www.pnas.org/content/104/18/7588.full
During the 1918 influenza pandemic, the U.S., unlike Europe, put considerable effort into public health interventions.
The model reproduced the observed epidemic patterns well. In line with theoretical arguments, we found the time-limited interventions used reduced total mortality only moderately (perhaps 10–30%), and that the impact was often very limited because of interventions being introduced too late and lifted too early. San Francisco, St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Kansas City had the most effective interventions, reducing transmission rates by up to 30–50%
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Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Furthermore, if the eventual number of people infected stops at a million, that won't overwhelm health care systems, with the exception of a handful of local problems. If a billion people eventually are infected, including 100 million simultaneously, then it won't be possible to properly treat more than a tiny fraction of them during the big spike. Even if it would have been a 1% death rate with good treatment, if that turns into a 5% death rate when completely untreated, we could be looking at a pandemic that kills more people in a short amount of time than any other in human history.
The big thing is, when someone gets infected, how many others does he infect? If an average patient infects 0.5 other people before recovering (or dying), then half of the people who will ever have it already do, and it's not going to be that bad. If an average patient infects 2 other people, then it's going to keep growing exponentially for quite a while and we could ultimately see most of the people alive get infected.
The optimal precautions are whatever the minimal efforts are required to get that average transmission rate significantly below 1. If you can do that with minimal measures that don't affect most of the population (as happened with SARS and MERS), then you shouldn't go beyond that. That seems to have already failed, though. If it takes quarantines and social distancing to make it happen, then it's worth it.
People need to take the new virus seriously and take appropriate precautions. Cooperate with whatever quarantines or gathering restrictions are imposed as best as you possibly can. If half of the population cooperates with a quarantine and the other half doesn't, and the virus spreads exponentially among the half that doesn't, that's catastrophic.
If handled appropriately, it probably won't be that bad, and the situation will be under control soon enough. It's nothing to panic over. But it does need to be taken seriously, because it's deadly serious.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
That's what fatigues me about all this.
I guess I'm questioning the cost.
Anyhoo, I guess when I run out of the 2 packs of TP I have it's time to go leaf shopping.
I may continue this later.
AC2 Player RIP Final Death Jan 31st 2017
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What's needed here is some price gouging. If stores temporarily triple the prices on things that are in high demand for no good reason, they can take a good bite out of the idiots who are buying way too much, and maybe dissuade some from doing so.
When I asked about it, the doctor said that the masks that the people at the front desk were wearing were basically for show, as they wouldn't do any good. To the extent that they had any effect, it would be to make things worse, as masks that make your face itch will lead to you touching your face far more. And that's why he wasn't going to wear a mask.
The doctor did, however, keep his distance from me. I don't know if it was the recommended six feet, but it was somewhere around there.
Published in 1981
Published in 2008. She passed away in 2013
In Korea they began isolation early and largely stopped the spread. Infection rates were low and hospitals were able to handle the load of ICU cases to limit the death toll. They're not out of the woods yet, but the trend is positive.
In the US... yeah, we're basically doing nothing. Early attempts to close the border were stymied because "muh racism", there's been pushback to social isolation suggestions with idiots still traveling around like there's not a global pandemic, stockpiling of medical supplies by morons has lead to shortages for healthcare professionals who need them, and our partisan political system can't get out of its own way as our moron leaders care more about winning points than solving problems. You would think an outbreak at AIPAC where all of our politicians gather to pander to their biggest fundraisers would have scared them into being reasonable, but we're not that lucky and they're not that smart.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/09/health/toilet-paper-shortages-novel-coronavirus-trnd/index.html
That explains things as well.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/grocers-fail-to-keep-up-with-demand-as-coronavirus-pandemic-spreads/ar-BB11bBJs?ocid=msedgntp
U.S. retailers have experience preparing for surges in demand ahead of natural disasters such as hurricanes and blizzards. This pandemic is unique because it created a similar emergency across the entire country with no clear end, said industry executives including John Ross, CEO of IGA Inc., an association of about 600 U.S. independent grocers.
“The difference here is scaling up contingency plans for a national emergency,” he said.
Warehouse workers and drivers are starting to feel the strain. Steven Spinner, chief executive of distributor United Natural Foods Inc., said during an earnings call this week that it has been challenging to meet the rise in demand over the past two weeks. Distributors and retailers are “spending 28 hours a day” to keep the stocks full, he said.
The manufacturers of toilet paper and other items flying off store shelves say they are ramping up production to meet higher demand for their household essentials and long-lasting foods.
John Church, chief supply chain officer at General Mills Inc., said his team is making last-minute changes to where it sends inventory to meet demand. “We have plants running at near capacity,” he said.
Conagra Brands Inc. is devoting more of its factory lines to top-selling items. Campbell Soup Co. Chief Executive Mark Clouse said the company is lining up multiple suppliers for important ingredients, in case factories around the world close.
Michael Kirban, CEO of Vita Coco, said he is ramping up production of his coconut water in Brazil to meet high demand in the U.S. He said weekly sales have spiked 200% at Walmart.com and 60% at Amazon.com.
"No one can prepare for that. Not even Amazon,” Mr. Kirban said.
AC2 Player RIP Final Death Jan 31st 2017
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YET
Dr. James Lawler, an infectious diseases specialist and public health expert at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
Dr. Lawler’s calculations suggested 480,000 deaths, which he said was conservative. By contrast, about 20,000 to 50,000 people have died from flu-related illnesses this season, according to the C.D.C. Unlike with seasonal influenza, the entire population is thought to be susceptible to the new coronavirus.
Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
He said a single targeted step — a school closing, or a limit on mass gatherings — cannot stop an outbreak on its own. But as with Swiss cheese, layering them together can be effective.
This conclusion is backed up by history.
The most lethal pandemic to hit the United States was the 1918 Spanish flu, which was responsible for about 675,000 American deaths, according to estimates cited by the C.D.C.
The Institute for Disease Modeling calculated that the new coronavirus is roughly equally transmissible as the 1918 flu, and just slightly less clinically severe, and it is higher in both transmissibility and severity compared with all other flu viruses in the past century.
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But Professor Medley said the way to combat the virus was through “herd immunity” - meaning humans become immune to virus through infection.
"This virus is going to be with us for a long time, we're going to have an epidemic and then it will become endemic and join in with all the other coronaviruses that we all have all the time, but don't notice,” he continued.
"We're going to have to generate what we call herd immunity. So that's a situation where the majority of the population are immune to the infection.
"And the only way of developing that in the absence of a vaccine is for the majority of the population to become infected.
"Ideally, if I could, what I would like to do is to put all the all the more vulnerable people into the north of Scotland and keep them there, everybody else into Kent and have a nice, big epidemic in Kent, so that everyone becomes immune, and then we can put people back together again.
"But we can't do that. So what we're going to have to try and do ideally is some kind of manage this acquisition of herd immunity and minimise the exposure of people who are vulnerable."
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/marty-makary-on-coronavirus-in-the-us-183558545.html
“Don’t believe the numbers when you see, even on our Johns Hopkins website, that 1,600 Americans have the virus,” he said. “No, that means 1,600 got the test, tested positive. There are probably 25 to 50 people who have the virus for every one person who is confirmed.”
He added: “I think we have between 50,000 and half a million cases right now walking around in the United States.”
Part of the reason the number of cases might be higher without people realizing it is because of the shortage of coronavirus testing kits from the CDC. Between Jan. 18 and March 12, there were 13,624 tests for COVID-19 conducted in the U.S. Meanwhile, South Korea has conducted over 100,000 tests, and the U.K. has tested nearly 25,000 people.
“Look, we’ve got to abandon this idea that this virus is contained,” Makary said. “It is at large, and assume it’s on every door handle and on every car door and with every handshake.”
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/coronavirus-outbreak-likely-annual-virus-134456752.html
Coronavirus outbreak 'likely to be an annual virus', says Government's chief scientific officer
AC2 Player RIP Final Death Jan 31st 2017
Refugee of Auberean
Refugee of Dereth
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/really-toilet-paper-shortage-142257936.html
AC2 Player RIP Final Death Jan 31st 2017
Refugee of Auberean
Refugee of Dereth