faetal on 25/7/2020 at 15:18
Quote Posted by SubJeff
I think SD thinks that enough people have had it now, and the number of active infections is so low, that infection from normal activities amongst the general population is now unlikely.
And by vulnerable he means people who are likely to die, not the entire pool of people who can still get it. The whole "under 50" thing being based on the age groups that are at risk of death.
Is this correct SD?
Doesn't really matter what SD thinks. You need around 70% immunity to get a viral illness this infectious to behave like a seasonal flu. As it stands, we can't even confirm if immunity is complete and sustained after contracting the virus. So as leaps of logic go, assuming that the virus is just going to go away, is a pretty big one. Certainly too big to be delivering with the confidence appropriate to be telling scientists to "read up on viruses".
faetal on 25/7/2020 at 15:36
Quote Posted by SD
No previous exposure to this virus, but plenty of previous exposure to other coronaviruses. Which is why most people have a degree of cross immunity and why more than three quarters of cases are asymptomatic. We've already seen that T-cell response is more important than antibodies in fighting off SARS-CoV-2.
Do I really need to explain the concept of herd immunity to someone with such dizzying qualifications? Really?
I hate to break this to you, but you are delivering these statements with inappropriate confidence.
You genuinely believe I am unaware of immune cross-reactivity and herd immunity? That you, a super smart guy has figured this out with just the right amount of internet?
This all seems simple / self-evident to you and reason for that is that your understanding of the subject matter is not deep / detailed enough for you to understand or even have access to the complicated version.
If you are delivering statements at odds with the scientific consensus, with the understanding that you can't believe you are having to explain simple concepts to scientists, isn't it more likely that they just already considered that and know something you don't?
For starters - based on
the science can you tell me what the expected portion of ordinary public immunity is expected to cross-react with COVID-19 to the extent that would confer an inherent or even partial immunity? Can you also layer that onto what the observed antibody and t-cell responses for this virus are and how long those responses remain effective?
I mean, for starters (and this is remedial stuff you don't need a biology education for), you can look at the initial rate of infection. If centuries of coronavirus exposure rendered the population partially immune to this virus, then why would the initial rate be so fast and then slow down over the duration of THIS infection? Are you saying that this infection is somehow having an effect on this latent immunity to coronaviruses in general? The initial rate is THE rate basically. The slowdown we are seeing is from massive society-wide changes in behaviour which have removed one of the key factors in virus transmission - namely human contact and proximity. This lasts a while and even has its own inertia because a smaller pool of carriers takes time to reamp up to earlier infection levels again. And it won't happen with the same dynamics because people have an understanding they didn't have in January / February, so even without restrictions, people are being more careful than previously.
So can you explain how your presumed partial immunity to this virus via historical coronavirus exposure didn't protect us against the initial wave of infection? Why would it only kick in later?
Sulphur on 25/7/2020 at 15:57
Quote Posted by SD
You obviously didn't look at the paper I mentioned in my post.
I did, actually, and the only reason why you'd work backwards from deaths, a limited population sample, is if your testing data is insufficient and/or inaccurate. Having said that, assuming these numbers are correct, the correct conclusion to be made is that social distancing was working as intended.
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This is getting quite ridiculous now. You make it sound like I'm wanting to sacrifice people.
I'm not making it sound like anything. You're the one invoking grandma's six month term in a care home, 'limited vulnerability', and low hanging fruit.
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How is anyone going to die from anything I do? This is preposterous and offensively stupid nonsense.
I'm going to assume from your indignation that you are, then, actively
not breathing and talking in the vicinity of people in public without so much as a cloth mask around your face.
SD on 25/7/2020 at 17:02
Quote Posted by faetal
Doesn't really matter what SD thinks. You need around 70% immunity to get a viral illness this infectious to behave like a seasonal flu. As it stands, we can't even confirm if immunity is complete and sustained after contracting the virus. So as leaps of logic go, assuming that the virus is just going to go away, is a pretty big one. Certainly too big to be delivering with the confidence appropriate to be telling scientists to "read up on viruses".
No, you are over-pessimistic. It is not a huge leap of logic to suppose that this coronavirus behaves like the ones that preceded it.
Coronavirus is not behaving like a seasonal endemic flu. Its behaviour is akin to a pandemic flu.
We were told early on that herd immunity in the UK required 60% of the population to catch the virus. Recent work eg the Oxford University study and modelling by Strathclyde University have shown that nowhere near that level will be required.
(
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-herd-immunity-second-wave-oxford-study-boris-johnson-a9623791.html)
For diseases where a vaccine is available, herd immunity is often calculated with the assumption that everybody has the same level of immunity - known as a homogenous model.
But, as with the Oxford researchers, Dr Gomes has been studying what are known as heterogeneous models - which operate on the basis that there are vastly differing levels of immunity within the population.
The two models can have vastly different results. “There doesn't need to be a lot of variation in a population for epidemics to slow down quite drastically,” Dr Gomes told The Atlantic this week.
“The outbreaks look similar at the beginning. But in the heterogeneous population, individuals are not infected at random.
“The highly susceptible people are more likely to get infected first. As a result, the average susceptibility gets lower and lower over time.”So, exactly what I've been saying.
Quote Posted by faetal
So can you explain how your presumed partial immunity to this virus via historical coronavirus exposure didn't protect us against the initial wave of infection? Why would it only kick in later?
Explained above. "The outbreaks look similar at the beginning".
SD on 25/7/2020 at 17:07
Quote Posted by Sulphur
I did, actually, and the only reason why you'd work backwards from deaths, a limited population sample, is if your testing data is insufficient and/or inaccurate. Having said that, assuming these numbers are correct, the correct conclusion to be made is that social distancing was working as intended.
If social distancing was working as intended, this hardly harms my argument that masks and full lockdown were unnecessary, does it. How thoroughly bizarre.
Quote Posted by Sulphur
I'm not making it sound like anything. You're the one invoking grandma's six month term in a care home, 'limited vulnerability', and low hanging fruit.
Pointing out that elderly people have a comparatively high mortality is not the same as willing old people to die.
Quote Posted by Sulphur
I'm going to assume from your indignation that you are, then, actively
not breathing and talking in the vicinity of people in public without so much as a cloth mask around your face.
I'm obliged to wear a mask on public transport and in shops.
But since there is no evidence that cloth masks work to prevent infection, the idea that anyone, let alone a person without the disease, is killing people by not wearing one, is fanciful at best.
Sulphur on 25/7/2020 at 17:17
Quote Posted by SD
If social distancing was working as intended, this hardly harms my argument that masks and full lockdown were unnecessary, does it. How thoroughly bizarre.
As opposed to the virus simply petering out for no reason? If you're arguing that social distancing was enough, clearly enough of the planet doesn't think so because it isn't exactly something you can force people to do -- as witnessed by, well, the rest of the planet.
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Pointing out that elderly people have a comparatively high mortality is not the same as willing old people to die.
You don't get to play semantic footsie, SD. Your extremely clear argument was that it was putting their lives above the economy.
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I'm obliged to wear a mask on public transport and in shops.
Good. At least social obligation has one victory to its credit.
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But since there is no evidence that cloth masks work to prevent infection, the idea that anyone, let alone a person without the disease, is killing people by not wearing one, is fanciful at best.
Your indignation over your rights to wear or not wear a mask are the clear origination point for this farcical debate in the first place, so why don't you just lead off with that instead of wasting time with ineffective distractions like whether cloth masks can in fact prevent respiratory droplets from splattering someone near you and vice-versa?
faetal on 25/7/2020 at 17:52
Quote Posted by SD
No, you are over-pessimistic. It is not a huge leap of logic to suppose that this coronavirus behaves like the ones that preceded it.
Actually, it is a huge leap of logic. We don't know what the immune kinetics are for this virus. Coronavirus is a huge class of viruses.
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Coronavirus is not behaving like a seasonal endemic flu. Its behaviour is akin to a pandemic flu.
YOu misunderstood what I said. For a virus with this level of infectiousness to have a similar sustained profile to a seasonal flu, you need to have upwards of 70% of people who are immune and can not catch it. Otherwise you have something more like what we are actually seeing.
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We were told early on that herd immunity in the UK required 60% of the population to catch the virus.
60% / 70% - different models will tell you different numbers, and it's pretty approximate.
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Recent work eg the Oxford University study and modelling by Strathclyde University have shown that nowhere near that level will be required.
Which recent work? Also, what level are we currently at? Is immunity confirmed after an infection? Is it long lasting enough to maintain a constant level of her immunity? These are the questions scientists are deliberating & researching, and dilettantes like yourself find uninteresting or "pessimistic" whatever.
Right, so you are basing your entire stance on one yet to be peer-reviewed paper? You do understand that to get a proper understanding, you need to be reading as many papers as possible on the topic yes?
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For diseases where a vaccine is available, herd immunity is often calculated with the assumption that everybody has the same level of immunity - known as a homogenous model.
But, as with the Oxford researchers, Dr Gomes has been studying what are known as heterogeneous models - which operate on the basis that there are vastly differing levels of immunity within the population.
The two models can have vastly different results. “There doesn't need to be a lot of variation in a population for epidemics to slow down quite drastically,” Dr Gomes told The Atlantic this week.
“The outbreaks look similar at the beginning. But in the heterogeneous population, individuals are not infected at random.
“The highly susceptible people are more likely to get infected first. As a result, the average susceptibility gets lower and lower over time.”So, exactly what I've been saying.
Not exactly what you've been saying. YOu are taking the conclusion of one study and assuming it to be incontrovertible fact. You are not relaying scientific consensus, you are cherry-picking. You somehow have convinced yourself that despite infection and death rates dropping in response to social distancing and lockdown measures, the virus is just slowing to a halt anyway, and that one not yet published paper was all you needed to convince yourself of this. This is what comes from conclusion shopping on google rather than reading the balance of scientific consensus.
Also, if you're going to link research, link the research, not a newspaper article: (
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.15.20154294v1.full.pdf) (Assuming you have read the article and were not, say just looking for a conclusion from a news article to back up your internet rant.)
First up, it is a very short modeling paper, whose main thrust is:
HIT may be greatly reduced if a fraction of the population is unable to transmit the virus due to innate resistance or cross-protection from exposure to seasonal coronaviruses.
So it is far from a broad look at the upcoming risk from coronavirus and the fact that you think it is, to a degree of certainty where you feel comfortable swaggering with it in discussion with someone who has worked in this field for a living, just shows how little you understand about the subject matter. I mean, kudos for dropping a source and all, but it's clear you don't understand how to research. You don't drop the first thing which backs you up, you drop a high quality, peer-reviewed and broad study or studies which show without doubt that your point is representative of scientific consensus. YOu haven't done that here, and if you don't get why, then this goes back to what I said earlier - you don't understand the field enough to know why your argument is a weak one, so you just assume it is good.
Also, if you don't have basic emotional intelligence - fine, not everyone does. But trying to retroactively explain how your earlier comments weren't obviously callous is some bad faith arguin in the extreme. Being blithe about thousands of people dying may make for good edginess, but it doesn't make for a good argument.
zombe on 25/7/2020 at 20:25
Quote Posted by icemann
2. They were explicitly (by their management) told not to wear face masks around those people, and to not get tested for the virus, and also of when testing would be happening (by government) as to how to avoid testing
...
Please say you are making this up, x_x. I have a hard time parsing that - it seems to describe an absolute batshittery. Is it true (ie. are the details settled or is the story a living one at this time)? Any reasons given?
SubJeff on 25/7/2020 at 21:31
Quote Posted by SD
Fatality rate is hardly a cherry-picked or dubious number.
Au contraire.
I shan't bother with the rest of your errors, but merely point out the error in this statement - which is the kind of snafu that runs through many of your view on this.
The cause of death may be collected in the stats, and that may or may not include contributing conditions. Therefore it depends on how an authority records the cause of death - what the rules are - and which aspects they count.
In the UK you might have:
1a. Pnuemonia
1b. Covid-19
1c. COPD
2. Hypertension
So which are you recording? How are they doing it in Germany? Do they only record 1a? Is their death certification process even the same? And if it is and they recording 1 and 2? 1a only? 1b and 1c only if it's an infection that lead to 1a. Etc etc.
Fatality rate is most definitely a dubious number because you have no idea about these subtle differences in the stats collection.
heywood on 25/7/2020 at 22:26
You can argue about how to count the numerator, but the bigger reason why death rate is dubious is that you don't know the denominator. Antibody testing suggests that the number of people who were infected is a lot higher than the number of confirmed cases. But antibody surveys have been small and few in number. Nobody has conducted an antibody study with the kind of broad-based randomized sample that would be needed to properly estimate the denominator.
The overall death rate in pre-pandemic times was under 1% per annum, so people will always look at small percentages and think "I'm safe" even as they engage in or condone risky behavior. Reasonable people will see what's happening to others and adjust their behavior accordingly. The rest require enforcement.
