Will SARS make a come back?

[kato]

News
German attack on journalists to be investigated for political motives

A day after an attack on a camera crew in Berlin, police have announced that state security are looking into the political background of the suspected assailants. Protesters in Berlin also injured 20 police officers.

Authorities confirmed on Saturday that they are investigating the political motives behind an attack on the camera team of popular German satirical news show the heute-show.

While filming on May Day, several members of the crew were attacked while filming in Berlin. Four [note: actually six] members of the team sustained injuries severe enough to be sent to hospital. Five men and one woman were arrested.

The German Journalists' Association described the event as an attack on the freedom of the press, although the motives of the assailants remain unclear.

German state security is now investigating the crime, Berlin Chief of Police Barbara Slowik told German broadcaster RBB on Saturday morning. She described the attack as "cowardly" and said federal investigators were looking into the political backgrounds of the assailants.

One of the suspects will appear before a judge on Saturday, she confirmed.

'Not a peaceful May Day'

May Day is a traditional day for protests in Germany, but they were curtailed by restrictions put in place to counter the coronavirus pandemic.

Police allowed several small-scale protests to take place in the German capital, but thousands defied the bans and took to the streets in the district of Kreuzberg in the evening to take part in demonstrations for Labor Day.

The German police union said that almost 20 officers were injured during the course of Friday night when scuffles and small-scale riots emerged from the protests. "It was not a peaceful May Day," the union added.

Nearly 350 people were arrested or had their details noted, with police confirming the presence of right-wing activists and conspiracy theorists.

The heute-show went ahead as usual on Friday night on German TV station ZDF, with the production team condemning the attack.

https://www.dw.com/en/german-attack-...ves/a-53311058

[Double Edge]

What can we do differently this time?
I don’t have the expertise to know the answers, but it seems that putting all our eggs in the vaccine basket isn’t the smartest strategy. When HIV/AIDS emerged, we learned to test blood and use condoms. We changed our behavior to better protect ourselves, and that new behavior seems to have stuck with us.

During SARS, people in Hong Kong wore masks (which were not very effective against that particular bug). That made it more difficult to spit on the street, to cough in someone’s face, or to otherwise blatantly spread germs. We also made it easier to stay at home when one is sick, without being considered a slacker. In the first decade after SARS, the bad behavior faded, but then it began to come back.

Today, we are again wearing masks and covering our mouths when we cough. We also clean commonly touched surfaces frequently, and are learning to keep our distance whenever possible. In London, buses are free, because the drivers need to be protected from coming into close contact with so many people during the course of a shift (we enter and exit by the side- or back-door). We are asked to pay with a contactless credit or debit card, rather than cash. Deliveries are far more common than a couple of months ago.

But, we still have with us the idiots who insist that Mother Nature wouldn’t try to kill us off after the lovely way we treated Planet Earth.

Your experience with SARS won't matter with COVID because SARS was not as infectious. It seems HK is going to do exactly what you said as they think they will beat it like SARS.

HK model is every one wears face masks. HK is only little less dense than NYC but the infection rate was no where close. So HK is an idea that can be used in any densely populated city.

Will HK challenge Giesecke's understanding ? wonder what Gabriel Leung makes of all he said. Only after a year we will know

What you do differently this time according to Giesecke is

Herd immunity + soft restrictions = Swedish model

We are all going to end up at that spot. The soft restrictions are to keep casualties overwhelming the health system. Hence not a herd immunity strategy which implies we continue as before with no restrictions.

We cannot protect the vulnerable. Germany, Portugal & Japan's initial wins are unsustainable as it only takes one infected worker to sink an entire nursing home. Just as it took one or more infected crewmen to disable aircraft carriers.

Those that are weaker or with co-morbidities will pass.

The reality is this is a mild disease that will have to run its course without a vaccine.

American & Euro size stats are the norm, not the exception. The ones that do not conform as yet are the exception. Their wins are temporary because they are unsustainable.

[Oracle]

Booze flows, and chaos follows

Lol.

[DOR]

Herd immunity ... did someone prove that one cannot be infected twice?
I must have missed that confirmation, which would be required for herd immunity to be anything but a disaster.

[Double Edge]

Herd immunity ... did someone prove that one cannot be infected twice?
I must have missed that confirmation, which would be required for herd immunity to be anything but a disaster.

I am told that is the by product of the Swedish model. But they will not agree that their strategy should be labelled as herd immunity. As that implies do nothing ie no restrictions. The Swedes do have some but they aren't stringent. They have health workers that go around bars & resturants and if they find violations they shut the establishment down. No body can stand, for example, only sitting. No gatherings of 50 allowed. 49 is ok.

Herd immunity does not work if the virus mutates. This is why flu shots are reformulated each winter.

The lock downs are slowly easing across the world. When does the second wave come ? nothing showed up in China yet for over a month. They had just one county locked down in the province north of Hubei where there was an outbreak.

Which means winter as the likely time for resurgence if nothing happens before.

In the mean time infections will level off as will death rates and eventually drop.

[Double Edge]

Back to Gangelt

German virologist: Covid-19 is less deadly than feared | UNherd | May 05 2020

Streeck says some surprising things here.

18:30 Apparently in Switzerland they found no evidence of a child infecting an adult so its ok to open the schools. Very few children in Gangelt were infected. They thought the school was the super spreader but then discovered there was a night club with people very close. Children are not vectors for this disease. So its ok to open the schools.

From my experience with kids they are the worst germ carriers around. But not with C19 apparently !!!

15:43 The other thing he said which i found odd is they did not find infected people infected their families to the extent the whole household was infected. No cluster ring in the family. How. This did happen in China from what i heard.

21:17 he says we went into lock down too fast. We should have waited and tried smaller measures. Cancel gatherings or big events. Enforce hygiene. Was it necessary to shut down all the stores and shops. In effect he is saying the UK and by extension the US went into lock down too soon. This is a very interesting statement since one looks at the infections, deaths and concludes the opposite.

We had no clue back then. We saw the numbers rising and had to do something. These ideas are only coming out now after research. The thing about lock downs is the tighter they are the longer it takes to unwind. This unwinding part can be problematic. What if the cases surge, people panic, govt locks down again. Then the problem restarts. Ya, like Merkel said we're at the beginning : (

23:14 he has some ideas about immunity but its not confirmed yet whether there is full immunity, partial or no immunity. If C19 is like other corona viruses then the immunity is partial. Meaning its for 2 or 3 years and if you get it again the infection won't be as severe as the first attack.

He says we might have to live with this disease in the short to medium term until a vaccine is developed. We cannot expect one soon as there are no vaccines to treat other coronavrus infections and still none for AIDS or Hep C. Wait and see. There is a much bigger effort going into C19 vaccine than those diseases.

He says we cannot continue with suppression indefinitely. Suppression will not defeat this virus.

Seems to have in some countries but the counter is how will they allow travel. Forcing every one into 14 day quarantine on arrival isn't desirable which means those countries that have no new infections for long will start to get them again. Imported cases as China calls them. Far better to have a reliable, fast test at boarding and then no quarantine will be necessary. Such a test kit does not exist.

He seems to suggest a regime of social distancing, hygiene, face masks over a period of time and then study how people fare. Should people get infected the viral load will be low and they will recover. They will become asymptomatic. Over time more people will go through this assuming no vaccine comes through.

We assume C19 will go away like SARS, he is suggesting it might be with us longer given how widespread the infection is. It will become endemic in the population. We have to find a way to live with it such that people are not dying from it and we can have some sort of normality.

Partial protection, not herd immunity. We will not eradicate this virus without a vaccine so prepare to live with it.

a representative sample population within Germany was tested and examined in great detail to determine what percentage had already been infected with Covid-19.

The headline result is that 15% of that population was infected, which implies an Infection Fatality Rate of 0.36%. This would put him somewhat in the middle of the previous experts we have spoken to. Professor Streeck was keen to point out, however, that he still believes this is a conservative estimate, and thinks it may be closer to 0.24-0.26% and may come down further still as we know more. He published the higher number to err on the side of caution: “it is more important to have the most conservative estimate and see the virus as more dangerous than it is,” he said.

To show just how significant every percentage point difference makes, if the 0.36% is correct for the UK, and we have had 30,000 Covid-19 deaths, that would mean around 8.3 million people have been infected, or 12.5% of the population — not enough to start feeling confident of much immunity in the community.

If the lower estimate is correct, 0.24%, and there has actually been closer to 50,000 Covid-19 deaths (as per the FT’s speculations) then that figure suddenly rises to over 20 million, which at around a third of the population would fundamentally change the calculus of how bold we can be coming out of lockdown.

Accurate death counts give a better idea of how far and how fast you can open the economy.

He also places great emphasis on the viral load that you are initially exposed to as a determinant of how serious your infection becomes, and has noticed the importance of ‘super-spreading events’ in spreading the disease. These tend to be indoor events with bad circulation, and people dancing or being close together, singing, shouting or (in the case of one of the German carnivals he studied) kissing.

This means that, in Professor Streeck’s view, a more feasible approach than attempting to suppress the virus completely until a vaccine (which he is not confident will arrive), allowing the gradual spread of the disease with lower doses, through continued hygiene measures, could lead to a widespread of partial immunity. This would eventually have the effect of downgrading Covid-19 to just another virus that circulates within the human population but, like influenza and other coronaviruses, is a manageable ongoing threat.

[Double Edge]

my interactions with a Swede

the problem i have with your professor is he speaks the language of surrender. There is no victory possible. Really ?

So whatever China, HK & Taiwan have achieved is just an illusion ?

He is saying that American & Euro style big numbers are the norm, not the exception.

There is no good or bad management. Trump screwed up, Jacinda & Angela did not is pointless discussion.

How can you screw up if there is no win. The win is being few steps ahead of others with no sight of the finish line.

Every one that has low numbers now will have high numbers in a few months more.

He thinks Germany, Portugal & Japan that protected the vulnerable well & early have only got a temporary reprieve.

The most unacceptable for all is we will lose our vulnerable, our elders will go first then those with pre-existing conditions.

No talk of victory only terms of surrender. This is my problem. Show me how to win this fight not lose it.

The politicians tell me how they win. The scientists like Giesicke, i have to treat them like some god say the opposite.

reply

Hello, and thank you for responding to my comment with eloquence and at least some regard for the person who stated it, without any perceivable personal attacks or grievances.

I have absolutely no problem with anyone having problems with 'my' professor and what he speaks of, whether it's surrender or not.

Criticism of any scientist's views or interpretation of scientific data is the norm when it's scientifically justifiable

The problem during this pandemic is that almost nothing is scientifically justifiable, since nobody has the scientific answers yet.

They may be wrong, yes. They may also be right, or just biased by previous knowledge and proven to be wrong later in the case of this very specific pandemic in which nobody really has any previous expertise.

In which case this professor, and hopefully all others, will most likely welcome to be proven wrong as that is the nature of science and scientists. Otherwise they would be politicians and not scientists.

Also, I absolutely agree with you about the situation at this given moment about which countries apparently have done better or worse than others in general, at this moment. However I really don't like to name the top politicians since I sincerely hope that all of them have worked together with their top scientists in the epidemiology field and will not take the credits for themselves regardless of nationality.

I mean, it's evident already in the US this hasn't worked out as it should have, but let's disregard one disparate country and take all others as example instead. (Yes, I am well aware that Sweden is also a disparate country in this pandemic but bear with me.)

Taiwan and NZ (HK to some extent) are of course examples when it comes to limiting the spread before it becomes a community spread. They are also all islands, in which it for obvious reasons becomes easier to contain that spread. South Korea has handled the spread of this fantastically so far.

But of course, we don't actually know yet if any of these countries will be successful in keeping it out for at least a year, which is also what the professor in question says should be when we look at actual numbers in order to see whether any country's strategy has proven to be effective or not.

I obviously don't know if his assessment of that is correct or not, but it does seem logical to look further than a few months to see if the strategy of any given country has been effective or not.

So, when it comes to professor Giesecke, he speaks from experience more than anything. We don't know if this pandemic will end in the same way that others have, but if it behaves in at least any way the same as the last five pandemics, he knows what he's talking about, because he has been in the front line for strategies during all of those. Basically from the early 80's AIDS pandemic and onward. Both in the WHO as well as in Sweden.

So please, anyone who reads this, take care and listen to authorities where you live. I truly hope that any country's strategy is right for them. No country is the same but they are all in this together and they are all handling it the way they think will work best for that country. At least scientists are, listen to them first and foremost.

[kato]

Streeck says some surprising things here.

Streeck, now that he has published his study for peer review, is being heavily attacked by especially statistics scientists for math errors in it. And that's beside the general criticism for it both from epidemologists and for it's professional lobby relations.

[Double Edge]

Streeck, now that he has published his study for peer review, is being heavily attacked by especially statistics scientists for math errors in it. And that's beside the general criticism for it both from epidemologists and for it's professional lobby relations.

And will there be corrections forthcoming after ? the work isn't going into the bin surely.

Likely they are questioning his IFR findings. This is fine there is every chance it will vary in different areas by demographics.

If he's pro business then he is of use to those in industry who want to get the economy going.

Does any one really disagree on the simple point that without a vaccine we will have to live with this virus ?

I've been fighting that but increasingly i suspect we don't have a choice.

[Double Edge]

An interesting way of representing data if the yellow ball is in front of the red it means the country is adding cases at an increasing rate.

[Oracle]

Migrants in Karnataka go hungry as netas hijack ration kits

When will some of us start behaving like humans? This is why I do not like BJP Karnataka. Full of crooks.

[Ironduke]

German virologist: Covid-19 is less deadly than feared | UNherd | May 05 2020

And he's been proven wrong. 1 out of 300 people in NYC are dead so far this year from COVID-19. If 20% of NYC were infected as suggested by antibody testing, that suggests a fatality rate of 1.5%. Johan Giesecke put the fatality rate at 0.1%, which is so far off base, by a factor of 15. I think it's safe to say that everything he has to say on the matter can be regarded as complete and utter bullshit.

[Officer of Engineers]

It's playing with numbers

https://www.worldometers.info/corona...us-death-rate/

Apparently different methodologies are used to determine specific measurements. Like your BMI is NOT an indicator of your health but it is an indicator of the population's health. I have not figure out why there are so many methodologies and what each specific one means.

[Double Edge]

And he's been proven wrong. 1 out of 300 people in NYC are dead so far this year from COVID-19. If 20% of NYC were infected as suggested by antibody testing, that suggests a fatality rate of 1.5%. Johan Giesecke put the fatality rate at 0.1%, which is so far off base, by a factor of 15. I think it's safe to say that everything he has to say on the matter can be regarded as complete and utter bullshit.

Giesicke wants to be evlauated only after a year has passed. So too early to say anything about his mortality rate estimate.

There is disagreement in German academia with the mortality rate Streeck found. Whether Gangelt is representiative of all of Germany.

But what is wrong with the parts i quoted in #591 ?

Nothing. He is talking about his findings which i found curious & surprising.

The reason i cottoned on this guy is his team tried to cultivate the virus from surfaces and found it was not viable.

And why is it nobody thought to do that before ? their tests detected dead DNA, non viable virus and so i don't have to worry about virus surving on surfaces for days !!!

Your defense guys did a great job clarifying the matter. Since they unlike many DO have access to level 4 labs and can work with this virus.

[Double Edge]

Another from HK, that tiny place with the big shadow.

Coronavirus: hamster research shows effectiveness of masks ‘huge’ in Covid-19 battle, Hong Kong scientists say | SCMP | May 17 2020

Dr, Yuen Kwok-yung also said he had noticed the public becoming less cautious, with the percentage of Hongkongers wearing masks dipping from 97 per cent to less than 90 per cent in recent days.

Residents, he warned, should remain alert, particularly as the virus could have many “silent” transmitters.

“I know wearing masks will be difficult during the summer time. My advice is especially when you are in an indoor or closed environment where there’s no free air exchange, in crowded places or on public transport, you must wear a mask.”

I got this feeling with the videos i saw of HK couple weeks back. They were starting to get complacent. That's how the second wave begins, if there is to be one.

good god is masks still a topic for debate nearing the end of May !!!

3:25 If over 80% of people wore a mask, transmission could be reduced by over 50%, in other words, wearing masks can be as effective as lock downs. Do you want a $1tr lock down or mandate every one wear masks in public places ?

Was checking to see when they made masks mandatory in India, it seems a few places started by the first week of April. Delhi, Bombay & UP. It only became mandatory in my state at the beginning of May. With fines upto $15 (equiv) for the first offence and doubling for the second and subsequent violations. I was wearing one by the time lock down began around Mar 25 and saw most people wearing them around that time. A week earlier on the streets i'd say the number was around 30-40%

What i frequently notice with people in my city is though all wear masks some will pull the mask little lower to expose nostrils as they find it difficult to breathe, i presume, moving around and wearing a surgical mask.

That Viral Mask Study Was Done on Hamsters | Slate | May 20 2020

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