The Coronavirus thread

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Poll
2 votes (13.33%)
2 votes (13.33%)
2 votes (13.33%)
1 vote (6.66%)
2 votes (13.33%)
4 votes (26.66%)
No votes (0%)
No votes (0%)
1 vote (6.66%)
1 vote (6.66%)

15 members have voted

February 4th, 2020 at 2:07:45 PM permalink
Evenbob
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 146
Posts: 25010
Quote: Face
0.02%?

I liked rxwine's perspective. I guess you do kinda just have to scare the crap out of people, .


I have just ordered a truckload of
toilet paper from Walmart, I'm in
for the long haul. I have a 20' long
concrete tunnel in my basement
from where the old well used to
be. It's now a bunker as of today.
If you take a risk, you may lose. If you never take a risk, you will always lose.
February 4th, 2020 at 2:17:57 PM permalink
Pacomartin
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 1068
Posts: 12569
Quote: terapined
A lot of people forget that the flu of 1918 was a lot more devastating then World War 1
WWI 18 million deaths
1918 flu 50 million deaths


The ratio of flu deaths to combat deaths was more pronounced in the US.

The USA lost more military personnel to disease (63,114) than to combat (53,402), largely due to the influenza epidemic of 1918.

It is estimated that another 600,000+ civilians died in the US from the flu epidemic, unrelated to the war.

The radiators in my parent's home (built 1928) seem massive, but it was very common up past WWII to tell people to leave windows open in the winter to keep fresh air circulating as a result of the flu epidemic. It was much later that people began to worry about efficiency.

There are scientists that believe that 50 million is a low estimate, as it was virtually impossible to estimate death rates by cause in Africa and the Indian subcontinent.
February 4th, 2020 at 2:19:45 PM permalink
pew
Member since: Jan 8, 2013
Threads: 4
Posts: 1232
Quote: rxwine
Maybe he can absorb it into his body fat like a superhero. He's 75% KFC grease.
He will do what ever he has to do in service of the People Of The United States Of America.
February 4th, 2020 at 2:40:10 PM permalink
Fleastiff
Member since: Oct 27, 2012
Threads: 62
Posts: 7831
General Practitioner in Australia cleared a traveler of contamination by the Coronavirus only to have the man go a very popular nightspot and spread the exposure risk there.
February 6th, 2020 at 8:41:52 AM permalink
odiousgambit
Member since: Oct 28, 2012
Threads: 154
Posts: 5055
It seems interesting that it is not so easy to develop a vaccine for a new virus. 

Vaccination against Rabies and Smallpox became available a long time ago, certainly before anything like modern medical methods were available. Highlighting just how early, and how crude, this could be, in China during the 10th century ... "powdered smallpox scabs were blown up the noses of the healthy" in order to cause a mild case [hopefully] and give immunity*. 

For rabies, in 1885 Pasteur was able to vaccinate with weakened viruses from "an inoculated rabbit which had died of rabies 15 days earlier ... attenuated ... by allowing them to dry for 5 to 10 days" *

However, even though doctors in those earlier times were able to come up with these treatments in those cases, not all viruses have proved to be so easy [if that is the right term]. Polio vaccination in the 1930s with attenuation methods had mixed results, enough to keep them from being much accepted. There is a long history of attempts thereafter which I won't repeat here. Salk's success story was in 1952; it's not clear to me from the Wikipedia page but apparently this was an improvement over work done by a man named Koprowski. "Koprowski's attenuated vaccine was prepared by successive passages through the brains of Swiss albino mice. By the seventh passage, the vaccine strains could no longer infect nervous tissue or cause paralysis. After one to three further passages on rats, the vaccine was deemed safe for human use"*

Influenza vaccines were first developed in the 1940s and this type of virus has given the scientists a lot of trouble. Apparently attenuation methods work using chicken eggs, but it is commonly understood by about everybody that the virus mutates too easily for the vaccination to be sure to even go after the right quarry. 

Since the human immune system is in most cases able to overcome all these viruses after vaccination, it pretty much says the problem is that it needs a prompt; if a person gets infected with one of these viruses and has not "had a shot" then the immune system is too slow to identify and go to work against them. 

Vaccines for the coronaviruses Mers, Sars, nor our new Novel Coronavirus have not been developed. It is hard to get a handle on what is going on with Ebola vaccines, but these are at least in the development stage. It seems to me that for the corona types , they just want to see if they can eradicate them altogether and then be 'ready for the next one' which may be quite different. It may be like influenza, each strain too different to effectively attack with vaccine. 

*see wikipedia pages
I'm Still Standing, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah [it's an old guy chant for me]
February 6th, 2020 at 9:01:43 AM permalink
rxwine
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 188
Posts: 18633
The interesting thing about the deadly 1918 flu, if you had a weak immune system, you had a better chance of surviving it, because it made the immune system react similar to people with severe allergies,
You believe in an invisible god, and dismiss people who say they are trans? Really?
February 7th, 2020 at 7:36:13 AM permalink
odiousgambit
Member since: Oct 28, 2012
Threads: 154
Posts: 5055
It occurs to me that I forgot to look into the HIV virus, so here's that.

Developing an effective vaccine is ongoing but efforts have not produced unqualified success at all, and certainly we can say there is no vaccination program anywhere.
Quote: link
Many factors make the development of an HIV vaccine different from other classic vaccines:

Classic vaccines mimic natural immunity against reinfection as seen in individuals recovered from infection; there are almost no recovered AIDS patients... [I presume the point is that true immunity with viruses generally comes from either a good vaccine or catching the full blown disease and recovering; it's not clear and someone is asking for a reference]

Most vaccines protect against disease, not against infection; HIV infection may remain latent for long periods before causing AIDS.

Most effective vaccines are whole-killed or live-attenuated organisms; killed HIV-1 does not retain antigenicity and the use of a live retrovirus vaccine raises safety issues.
The mutability of the virus is also cited in the article.

Modern notions of fighting difficult or new viruses, given the problems of the vaccine approach, seem to revolve around agents that "interfere" with it. I don't know much about that , maybe someone else can write something.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV_vaccine
I'm Still Standing, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah [it's an old guy chant for me]
February 7th, 2020 at 10:18:39 AM permalink
aceofspades
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 83
Posts: 2019
Returned from Vegas last night - woke up achey with a fever
February 7th, 2020 at 10:39:20 AM permalink
rxwine
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 188
Posts: 18633
Well, if you're determined to catch anything going around, mass transit has always been the way to go.
You believe in an invisible god, and dismiss people who say they are trans? Really?
February 7th, 2020 at 11:03:44 AM permalink
Evenbob
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 146
Posts: 25010
Quote: aceofspades
Returned from Vegas last night - woke up achey with a fever


The old Ace did trip reports
when he was in Vegas. Why
did you murder him.
If you take a risk, you may lose. If you never take a risk, you will always lose.
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