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COVID-2019 in America, effect on politics and economy
We're looking at the wrong side of a Great Depression, and a lot of states and localities have limited fiscal capacity. I'm not really sure how IL and Chicago are going to come out of this financially, even if the US government has practically unlimited borrowing capacity at the moment.
Flu hundred years back killed more but the depression was not linked to it and came well over a decade later.
In an era of fiat currency there are more options than were available back then.
Politicians are elected to serve...far too many don't see it that way - Albany Rifles! || Loyalty to country always. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it - Mark Twain! || I am a far left millennial!
I would have never expected anything less from Dr. Kevin Nunes, MS, PhD in bullshit.
On the radio just now, in a roundtable discussion the CEO of the large network of stations referred to Nunes as a fool. Someone else in the discussion said that was an insult to fools. Can't say that I would disagree with that.
US, Italy are 1st world countries. Top-notch specialised medical facilities. Why are so many people dying there? What don't I understand? It's really scary to think of what might happen, if shit hits the fan here in India.
Politicians are elected to serve...far too many don't see it that way - Albany Rifles! || Loyalty to country always. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it - Mark Twain! || I am a far left millennial!
US, Italy are 1st world countries. Top-notch specialised medical facilities. Why are so many people dying there? What don't I understand? It's really scary to think of what might happen, if shit hits the fan here in India.
It already has but you record deaths differently. Unless you know directly it's COVID-19 (how could you unless you have an extreme concentration like Wuhan, too many people, not enough test kits), you would classify them as pnemonia, influenza, bacterial, etc.
Statstically speaking, Italian and American COVID-19 deaths are not extreme. 20,000 Americans died of influenza last year. 100 extremely regrettable deaths is not even a statistical blip.
As to why people are dying. We got to them too late. COVID-19 has weakened the body too much to fight off the 2ndary infections that were truly the real killers, not COVID-19.
It already has but you record deaths differently. Unless you know directly it's COVID-19 (how could you unless you have an extreme concentration like Wuhan, too many people, not enough test kits), you would classify them as pnemonia, influenza, bacterial, etc.
Makes sense. I had fever, cold, cough like 15 days back. Even now, I have like mild fever and cough and cold. Could it be, that I am also suffering from Coronavirus?
A week back, I went to my mom's room and held her while she was sleeping, then she got cold from me. But she is okay now.
Statstically speaking, Italian and American COVID-19 deaths are not extreme. 20,000 Americans died of influenza last year. 100 extremely regrettable deaths is not even a statistical blip.
But, people don't die of influenza anymore, how come 20K Americans died of it. Or maybe I am thinking it all wrong.
As to why people are dying. We got to them too late. COVID-19 has weakened the body too much to fight off the 2ndary infections that were truly the real killers, not COVID-19.
Hmmm, yes. Like how HIV+ patients die because of TB etc.
Politicians are elected to serve...far too many don't see it that way - Albany Rifles! || Loyalty to country always. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it - Mark Twain! || I am a far left millennial!
But, people don't die of influenza anymore, how come 20K Americans died of it. Or maybe I am thinking it all wrong.
Same reason why we will all die. The body is too weak to accept any available help. Look, son, there is no cure to death. Anything we do is a mere delaying action. When it's your time, it's your time and there is nothing anyone can do about that.
US, Italy are 1st world countries. Top-notch specialised medical facilities. Why are so many people dying there? What don't I understand? It's really scary to think of what might happen, if shit hits the fan here in India.
Here read this which goes into the whys of what transpires among the elderly. It involves our diminishing immune system over the years and underlying chronic illnesses. You will note that the main action of the virus is inflammation leading to inflammatory pneumonia. The article shows a graph with the death rate per age group. We have all heard 1% but that is the average only as 20-29 is 0.09% and over 80 is 18%. That age group, well for that matter past 65, is where you find chronic lung issues and cardiovascular issues. Italy is hit so bad precisely because it has a very large population that is elderly rather than young.
Note what happens with Covid-19 is the same that happens with influenza when your defenses are compromised.
New study says 'high temperature and high relative humidity significantly reduce' spread of COVID-19
A transmission electron micrograph of SARS-CoV-2 virus particles, isolated from a patient. The image was captured and color-enhanced at the NIAID Integrated Research Facility in Fort Detrick, Maryland. SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes COVID-19. (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH)
A team of researchers unveiled the results of a new study last week that looked at how temperature and humidity may affect the transmission of COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus.
According to the researchers' findings, "High temperature and high relative humidity significantly reduce the transmission of COVID-19." An increase of just one degree Celsius and 1% relative humidity increase substantially lower the virus's transmission, according to the data analyzed by the researchers.
The study is the latest in a limited but growing body of research, not all of which has been peer-reviewed, that examines the effect of weather on the spread of the SARS-Cov-2 virus, which causes the COVID-19 illness.
The researchers studied 100 different Chinese cities that each had more than 40 cases of COVID-19 from Jan. 21 to 23. According to AccuWeather Senior Weather Editor and Meteorologist Jesse Ferrell, the decision to study transmission on those dates was critical because that time period was before China intervened on Jan. 24 to stop the spread of the virus. Analyzing that timeframe allowed researchers to observe the natural spread of the virus before public health measures, which have since helped reduce the spread drastically in China, were implemented.
That step was one of several sound methods taken by authors Jingyuan Wang, Kai Feng, Weifeng Lv of Beihang University, and Ke Tang from Tsinghua University, according to Ferrell. He also commended the authors' accounting for GDP per capita, which normalized the differences in health care facilities, and the normalizations for population density.
The paper showed that the direct impacts of air temperatures and humidity levels could be seen plainly in the severity of outbreaks during the earlier stages of the virus spread.
"In the early dates of the outbreaks, countries with relatively lower air temperature and lower humidity (e.g. Korea, Japan and Iran) saw severe outbreaks than warmer and more humid countries (e.g. Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand) do," the researchers wrote.
"Considering the natural log of the average number of cases per day from February 8 to 29 as a rough measure of the severity of the COVID-19 outbreaks," the researchers continued, "we show that the severity is negatively related to temperature and relative humidity using 14 countries with more than 20 new cases during this period."
Using the value R to represent the transmission, the paper also found that cities in northern China, where temperatures and relative humidity were lower, had larger transmission values than cities along the country's southeast coast.
The scientists' findings align with what some experts have suspected about weather's impact, including Hong Kong University pathology professor John Nicholls, who told AccuWeather that research on a lab-grown copy of SARS-CoV-2, "in cold environments, there is longer virus survival than warm ones."
Other infectious disease experts have voiced skepticism that warmer weather will help curb the spread of COVID-19. Marc Lipsitch, a professor of epidemiology at Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said earlier this month that warm weather will "probably not" slow down the spread, at least not significantly.
When contacted by AccuWeather this week, Lipsitch said in an email that he had nothing to add to his earlier analysis.
In applying the paper's findings to the forecast temperatures and humidity, the authors concluded that the arrival of summer and rainy seasons in the Northern Hemisphere can "effectively reduce the transmission of COVID-19," while the risk for the continued spread of the illness will remain in some countries in the Southern Hemisphere.
The authors even added that normal summer temperatures and relative humidity in Tokyo suggest that the transmission would be significantly reduced in time for the 2020 Summer Olympics, currently scheduled to be kick off on July 24. According to their findings, by July, Tokyo's "estimated R value decreases from 1.914 to 0.992, a 48% drop!" The International Olympic Committee, even as the crisis has escalated in recent days, remained steadfast this week that the games will go on as planned this summer.
Some experts are also pointing to the increased amount of UV rays from the sun the Northern Hemisphere will be subject to this time of year as a factor that could slow the virus.
"The sun angle changes significantly from the equinox to the solstice," AccuWeather meteorologist and Astronomy blogger Dave Samuhel explained. "That means a significant additional amount of solar radiation, or insolation, reaches the ground."
UV light has been proven to kill other strains from the coronavirus family, like SARS and MERS, but there isn't research yet showing the same is true for SARS-CoV-2.
Ferrell pointed out one key weakness in the study, which is the authors used temperature and relative humidity from 2019. Typically, meteorologists will use a broader data range, such as the 30-year normals. But Ferrell said in this case, a long-range weather forecast could be even more helpful than historical data.
Projected temperature increases over the next few months are expected to align favorably for U.S. residents if the findings of the published paper prove true. With much of the U.S. forecast to see higher-than-normal temperatures in March and April, according to AccuWeather meteorologists, there is a chance that the virus could eventually "burn itself out," as Nicholls first suggested during a private conference call in early February.
"Although it will also, of course, depend on other factors like each country's place on 'the curve' of cases and the success of their response, Ferrell said, adding that an outbreak "could also re-emerge in the fall, as past epidemics have."
"The good news would seem to be: At least the weather is not working against us for a few months," Ferrell said.
If such temperature increases do occur, the paper's R value findings suggest that the U.S. will see a far lower transmission rate by the summer than the country is currently seeing in March. Early in March, the number of U.S. confirmed cases tallied in the dozens. By March 18, thanks to a notable increase in testing, that number had soared past 7,300.
However, as the papers' authors, Nicholls, Ferrell, and a host of other health experts have noted, there are many factors that could influence the transmission of COVID-19, including public health policies, like social distancing, that have been enforced and the population's ability to carry those methods out. Even the virus' propensity for surviving on surfaces could be a complicating factor.
While the weather may not be the ultimate factor in how devastating the pandemic becomes, researchers may now have a new tool to use in piecing together the puzzle.
"The transmission of viruses can be affected by a number of factors, including climate conditions (such as temperature and humidity), population density and medical care quality," the researchers said. "Therefore, understanding the relationship between weather and the transmission of COVID-19 is key to forecast the intensity and end time of this epidemic."
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First time I've ever prayed for the infamous Florida summer to arrive early and arrive everywhere else as well.
“He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”
The president’s misinformation and mendacity about the coronavirus are head-snapping. … He claimed that a vaccine would be available in months; Fauci says it will not be available for a year or more.
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It was reported Monday that there has been some progress on the vaccine development. I expect Fauci knows what he is talking about, so it may take a year or more to bring the vaccine to market. I did not see this in the thread, may have missed it, and so am including the NIH press release quoted in this post below.
Originally posted by National_Institutes_of_Health
Monday, March 16, 2020
National Institutes of Health
Study enrolling Seattle-based healthy adult volunteers.
The study is evaluating different doses of the experimental vaccine for safety and its ability to induce an immune response in participants. This is the first of multiple steps in the clinical trial process for evaluating the potential benefit of the vaccine.
The vaccine is called mRNA-1273 and was developed by NIAID scientists and their collaborators at the biotechnology company Moderna, Inc., based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) supported the manufacturing of the vaccine candidate for the Phase 1 clinical trial.
“Finding a safe and effective vaccine to prevent infection with SARS-CoV-2 is an urgent public health priority,” said NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. “This Phase 1 study, launched in record speed, is an important first step toward achieving that goal.”
Infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, can cause a mild to severe respiratory illness and include symptoms of fever, cough and shortness of breath. COVID-19 cases were first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. As of March 15, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) has reported 153,517 cases of COVID-19 and 5,735 deaths worldwide. More than 2,800 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 58 deaths have been reported in the United States as of March 15, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Currently, no approved vaccines exist to prevent infection with SARS-CoV-2.
The investigational vaccine was developed using a genetic platform called mRNA (messenger RNA). The investigational vaccine directs the body’s cells to express a virus protein that it is hoped will elicit a robust immune response. The mRNA-1273 vaccine has shown promise in animal models, and this is the first trial to examine it in humans.
Scientists at NIAID’s Vaccine Research Center (VRC) and Moderna were able to quickly develop mRNA-1273 because of prior studies of related coronaviruses that cause severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). Coronaviruses are spherical and have spikes protruding from their surface, giving the particles a crown-like appearance. The spike binds to human cells, allowing the virus to gain entry. VRC and Moderna scientists already were working on an investigational MERS vaccine targeting the spike, which provided a head start for developing a vaccine candidate to protect against COVID-19. Once the genetic information of SARS-CoV-2 became available, the scientists quickly selected a sequence to express the stabilized spike protein of the virus in the existing mRNA platform.
The Phase 1 trial is led by Lisa A. Jackson, M.D., senior investigator at KPWHRI. Study participants will receive two doses of the vaccine via intramuscular injection in the upper arm approximately 28 days apart. Each participant will be assigned to receive a 25 microgram (mcg), 100 mcg or 250 mcg dose at both vaccinations, with 15 people in each dose cohort. The first four participants will receive one injection with the low dose, and the next four participants will receive the 100 mcg dose. Investigators will review safety data before vaccinating the remaining participants in the 25 and 100 mcg dose groups and before participants receive their second vaccinations. Another safety review will be done before participants are enrolled in the 250 mcg cohort.
Participants will be asked to return to the clinic for follow-up visits between vaccinations and for additional visits across the span of a year after the second shot. Clinicians will monitor participants for common vaccination symptoms, such as soreness at the injection site or fever as well as any other medical issues. A protocol team will meet regularly to review safety data, and a safety monitoring committee will also periodically review trial data and advise NIAID. Participants also will be asked to provide blood samples at specified time points, which investigators will test in the laboratory to detect and measure the immune response to the experimental vaccine.
“This work is critical to national efforts to respond to the threat of this emerging virus,” Dr. Jackson said. “We are prepared to conduct this important trial because of our experience as an NIH clinical trials center since 2007.”
Adults in the Seattle area who are interested in joining this study should visit https://corona.kpwashingtonresearch.org. For more information about the study, visit ClinicalTrials.gov and search identifier NCT04283461.
NIAID conducts and supports research — at NIH, throughout the United States, and worldwide — to study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing and treating these illnesses. News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the NIAID website.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
Same reason why we will all die. The body is too weak to accept any available help. Look, son, there is no cure to death. Anything we do is a mere delaying action. When it's your time, it's your time and there is nothing anyone can do about that.
Here read this which goes into the whys of what transpires among the elderly. It involves our diminishing immune system over the years and underlying chronic illnesses. You will note that the main action of the virus is inflammation leading to inflammatory pneumonia. The article shows a graph with the death rate per age group. We have all heard 1% but that is the average only as 20-29 is 0.09% and over 80 is 18%. That age group, well for that matter past 65, is where you find chronic lung issues and cardiovascular issues. Italy is hit so bad precisely because it has a very large population that is elderly rather than young.
Note what happens with Covid-19 is the same that happens with influenza when your defenses are compromised.
Great article. Thanks. I should not hug my mum when I'm sick. Terrible mistake on my part.
Politicians are elected to serve...far too many don't see it that way - Albany Rifles! || Loyalty to country always. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it - Mark Twain! || I am a far left millennial!
They will be monitoring how the outbreak develops.
India does not expect a nation wide outbreak. They expect community spread to occur in pockets which they will then sequester.
Would imagine these CBRN response enterprise guys are going to be enforcing something similar.
In total, there are approximately 18,000 DoD members assigned to 57 CSTs, 17 CERFPs, 10 HRFs, two C2CREs, and the DCRF, prepared to respond to a domestic CBRN incident. Altogether, these organizations make up the DoDs CBRN Response Enterprise (CRE).
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