Lurker > Esuriat

Oh I know, that's why I was emphasizing how we've been through this a bunch already and each time it's been shown that they weren't actual reinfections. But the distance between these alleged "second positives" is longer than the ones that were discussed before (3 months vs. 6-8 weeks for the first time around) which is why I'm entertaining the possibility.

The unfortunate other side to this is that if they aren't reinfections it reinforces just how persistent the symptoms and effects can be for some people.

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Essy

There seem to be another wave of stories about reinfection going around. Reading through them I see nothing to differentiate them from the earlier stories from South Korea, Israel, Italy and the reports of it happening on the USS Theodore Roosevelt. Still something to keep an eye on, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are a few outliers for whom it could be true.

My own theory for it is that degrees of exposure to the virus at different times may be enough to "overwhelm" the diminished antibody presence and allow for symptoms to reemerge. I would highly doubt any of these cases would become severe because of the presence of the memory T and B cells.

Or, again, this could just be inactive viral RNA fragments setting off PCR tests like every past incidence.

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Essy

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2022483?query=featured_home

NEJM article detailing the findings of the Phase I study, btw

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Essy

There are, but I'm not one of them. I just like relaying information that I find since I've been pretty absorbed in all of this since January.

Coronavirus has been a weird journey for me since I've been disabled with OCD for years. It's the exact kind of thing that should be my worst nightmare. But I've found it therapeutic to not shy away from learning about it and makes me feel less helpless.

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Essy

colliding posted...

I'm obviously not a scientist and I'm not expecting people here to be, but if there are multiple strains of the virus is this still cause for optimism? Serious question.

Since the S-protein of the virus is what's targeted with antibodies, mutations related to that protein are important for conferring immunity. There was a significant one that likely happened very early on referred to as 'D614G' which is theorized to make it spread more easily but so far neutralizing antibodies seem to attack it as successfully as it does antigens of the original sequencing. So yes, it's cause for optimism as long as the antibodies still successfully neutralize the virus.

It's definitely still an area of concern, though, but so far it seems unlikely to be an immediate one. I imagine it could mutate sometime later in a way that requires new vaccines adapted for new strains.

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Essy

11 stone

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Essy

ShatteredElysium posted...

This is the thing that surprised me. When I had it my SpO2 level never dropped below 97% and I was taking readings every hour. It was practically always at 99% with maybe 1-2 reading a day giving 97 or 98.

I actually get more 97-98 readings now than when I had it.

That's pretty good to hear, most likely. What I'm most curious about now is if asymptomatic and symptomatic people who never have decreases in SpO2 correlate with not developing the opacities in lung CT scans

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Essy

I've been keeping an eye out for studies on long-term effects and so far the only one I've seen was one out of Hong Kong from back in May on a 10 week follow up of patients with radiologically confirmed lung damage. It indicated profound recovery in lung CT scans both of released hospitalized patients and those who were asymptomatic. I don't believe any patients in the study were ones who were placed on a ventilator at any point.

But yeah, the presence of damage in asymptomatic patients is still a big concern. There have also been reports of potential for brain effects on asymptomatic patients. One of the main things to remember is that asymptomatic does not mean that there are no signs. I would be willing to bet that if people regularly had their blood oxygen saturation checked that these people would largely get flagged by mild decreases in SpO2 to the low 90s.

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Essy

Kazooie, Tooie and DKR

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Essy

It's a combination of knowing how the disease progresses and what testing infrastructure was through March. Symptoms begin 2-14 days after contracting it, and then infection turns severe (if it does) at around the 7-10 day mark. Then in the hospital there's a huge variability in how long it takes for things to go downhill. Some patients who die have heart attacks within days of admission, others will be vented for up to months before dying.

The initial rise in cases in New York and elsewhere saw severely limited testing so the cases that were getting reported were already far along the path in the disease. New York City for a time had an awful policy where tests were only being conducted on those getting admitted to the hospital. Their positive test rate in late March was even worse than you saw with Arizona just recently which peaked at around 33%. Extremely high positive test rates mean there's larger proportions of undetected spread.

What you see now is testing catching a much larger proportion of people in the early days of their infections so the lag will appear a lot more of what it truly is.

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Essy

That slight blip was a backlog of suspected deaths on June 26 from New Jersey, about 1,900.

Anyway, it's usually a two to three week lag so you'd be looking at June 27-July 4 for the rise to really begin. Also note that the states that were rising in cases the most (Arizona, Florida, Texas, California, Georgia, etc.) were actually seeing their deaths trend upward by that point. Other states were seeing declining rates so the two factors combined for a period of stability in the trend on the national level.

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Essy

I suspected today would be the day to indicate an upward trend in deaths nationally, and today has been the highest total in nearly a month. There's some backlog reporting from the weekend of course, but we'll see if this increases toward the end of the week. Tuesdays, and occasionally Wednesdays, have tended to be the worst of any given week.

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Essy

He's claiming to be treated with HCQ too, so that'll be "lovely" seeing him claim it saved his life. Especially if the truth is an actual efficacious treatment like convalescent plasma is what really pulls him through.

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Essy

Bolsonaro tested positive for real this time.

I remember back sometime around late March when a big Brazilian media group claimed he tested positive and then it was later rescinded. I think it was because of a contaminated initial test.

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Essy

Corrik7 posted...

Me either, but it was front page CNN. A 41 year old Broadway actor.

He was focused on because his battle with the disease was relayed by his wife through video updates. There was also the factor of him being perfectly healthy prior to contracting it. But yeah, he received ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) which caused clots in his right leg, consequently needing amputation. He eventually recovered enough to come off ECMO but was still in a coma for a while longer. He regained consciousness sometime in May. Then a week ago it was announced that his lungs were basically destroyed and he needed a double transplant.

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Essy

A few of the long-lasting effects of some people who recover from COVID-19 aren't unique to the virus, but a few of them definitely aren't. Stuff like chronic fatigue and instigation of type-1 diabetes can happen with other severe viral infections. But when you have the sheer number of people getting infected like is happening now, even a small fraction can amount to a very large number of people.

The damage to lungs and other organs likely from endothelial dysfunction and clotting are clearly the major difference. I expect that given enough time the vast majority will fully recover from these problems, but there's the awful risk of someone recovering and still being killed by a pulmonary embolism months later.

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Essy

Croatia had gotten down to just 8 active cases nine days ago and now today they've added 95.

I wonder how much of this is Djokovic's fault.

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Essy

Yeah, the memory B cell (as well as memory T cells) are one of the most interesting aspects in this. They leave open the possibility that seropositivity studies for antibodies aren't revealing the true number of infected people. So you could have individuals for whom antibodies fade quickly, but immunity could still be conferred by these lymphocytes.

Unfortunately it's still in the realm of speculation, but it's one of the things I've personally believed as an explanation for instances where one infected housemate doesn't spread it to others despite repeated exposure.

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Essy

I figure a beak is analogous enough

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Essy

Falco

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Essy

Haste_2 posted...

Oatmeal.

My brother and I liked thinking this too

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Essy

My county added no cases today for the first time since April 6. Virginia in general has been on a pretty good trend lately.

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Essy

Parmesan in general, but if I'm having the cheese by itself, either pepper jack or smoked gouda

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Essy

Po' boy

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Essy

VintageGin posted...

Would ask for clarification, but if I were just assuming

Next Monday = Two days from now

The Monday after next = Nine days from now

This

I've had this assumption screw me up a couple of times. If it's getting to the end of the week I'm far more likely to say either "this Monday" or "the Monday after next"

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Essy

I mean, in addition you have stuff like this:

https://twitter.com/ArashMarkazi/status/1269169419998990336


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Essy

Seginustemple posted...

Tyrian

Great shooter, though I think I only played a shareware version of the Tyrian 2000 version in 2000. I remember it was a download and it wasn't the full game.

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Essy

Psychic/reality corrupting forces are often good, so I voted for the 2nd. It's close enough to my personal answer of things that literally corrupt reality. Not necessarily a spooky monster or a crazy normal guy, but it definitely can conjure or cause both.

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Essy

Yep. Though it's a little encouraging seeing the death rate continue to decline in general. It's a Tuesday which usually sees some carryover death reports from the weekend, and the US seems like it's coming in under 1k today.

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Essy

Ultrabots (DOS)

Pretty neat mech game from 93. You drop relays to supply power to your mechs to branch out and destroy the enemy base as you pilot an array of mechs. There are only three types of mechs, the Scout, Humanoid and Scorpion and usually you control between 4-7 in a given mission.

Shonen_Bat posted...

Iji

think Undertale but a 2D shooter/platformer, and takes place during a war instead of after one

Back around 2008-2010 there was a user here by the name of Ikon (different from icon) who would often run threads recommending or just talking about free indie games. Iji was one of the most popular here, and definitely one of my favorites.

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Essy

Yoshi's Island > DKC2 > Mario World > Kirby > MMX

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Essy

My county has continued to about 1.2% infected by official numbers. Latinos have been very disproportionately affected. There hasn't been much of a swelling in hospitalizations and no deaths since May 8, likely explained by most of those getting infected here recently have been young. My county's CFR is 0.87%.

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Essy

2014

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Essy

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/why-do-some-covid-19-patients-infect-many-others-whereas-most-don-t-spread-virus-all#

This is a pretty good theory on the disparity of spread/super-spreading events.

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Essy

Corrik7 posted...

How is antibody confirmations inflating numbers?

I'd earlier posted an article from The Atlantic where they talked to Governor Northam's chief of staff about it, and he had admitted to policy including antibody results in the overall state testing numbers. So by "inflating" I mean that it's not giving the clearest picture of the nature of the current spread in my county/the state at large. They say the numbers will be split in the future, but didn't specify when.

I agree with high numbers being "good" in a sense that it indicates better outcomes and fewer people available for infection. I just want more clarity is all.

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Essy

LordoftheMorons posted...

Some good news from South Korea:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-19/covid-patients-testing-positive-after-recovery-aren-t-infectious

I remember this being virtually confirmed before, but it's good to see again especially with news of USS Theodore Roosevelt sailors testing positive again, and it's highly likely it's the same thing there.

On another note, my county is nearly at 1% confirmed infections by the official numbers and I'm strongly suspecting we're one of the ones most inflating our numbers with antibody tests.

Otherwise there's a serious outbreak underway here.

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Essy

Giggsalot posted...

This isn't strictly accurate: https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/05/07/mutations-in-the-coronavirus-spike-protein

(yeah, I know they cite a pre-print, but this one looks fairly solid.)

Ah, I forgot about this, you're right. I think when I initially read about D614G elsewhere last week I misinterpreted it as an early mutation that likely mixed around the globe already because of selective pressure to better bind with ACE2, but that it would mean nothing for antibody binding.

So yeah, this thread from Trevor Bedford is probably the best summation of the situation around it:

https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1257825352660877313

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Essy

Pretty much all reports of distinct strains or "types" within the virus have been speculative and weakly supported with preprints, none of which have ever received sufficient peer review for publishing. One of the most popular ones is the notion that in the US there was a west coast "strain" from Wuhan and an east coast "strain" from Europe with significant differences in virulence, but nothing has truly supported this and the strains would have rapidly recombined anyway.

The key difference with regard to antibody function would have to do with the spike protein anyway, and there's never been a major difference seen there in any sequence.

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Essy

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/t-cells-found-covid-19-patients-bode-well-long-term-immunity#

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Essy

It might be, yeah. The number of cases is disproportionately high for the deaths Virginia has seen so far, at least compared with national average.

The Atlantic authors never specified the proportion of overalls tests that were serologic and I remember at the start of May there was a jump of some 14,000 tests, way more than usual up to that point. That seems like a likely starting point for the mixing, but thankfully it seemingly isn't an enormous component. It definitely wouldn't surprise me if they're not alone in this, though.

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Essy

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/05/covid-19-tests-combine-virginia/611620/

And here I was feeling better about Virginia's improved testing.

I mean, hospitalizations have declined recently but it's still disconcerting that they're merging antibody tests into the figures since that's just playing a statistical game and missing the point of the testing that gets communicated to the public in the first place.

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Essy

Mauritius is now the country with the greatest number of known infections (322) to be officially clear of COVID-19.

Papua New Guinea is the most populous, but they only reported 8 cases and their capacity to test has been limited.

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Essy

My own county has continued a seeming acceleration of cases, though it may still be from increased testing. Over 10% increase today. It's one of the worst per capita in Virginia now, worse than Fairfax County.

In related news, we've crossed 4 million cases worldwide.

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Essy

Most of them probably still are, but yeah, a few of them may be correct and this retrospective is getting pretty interesting to say the least.

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Essy

Yeah, it happened to me plenty of times. Seemed disproportionately to be DK or Bowser doing it, and they usually were one of my "rivals" for the given cup.

Royal Raceway was the most common course it happened on, too. Kalimari Desert the second most common.

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Essy

LordoftheMorons posted...

Haven't a lot of people in those other supposedly all-asymptomatic clusters later come down with symptoms?

Seems like there are at least two easy explanations that I'd buy way before "almost everybody has had it and is asymptomatic":

There was a superspreader event a day or two before testing, and everyone was in the latency period
Batch of bad tests

I can't speak to the case of the pork processing plant specifically, but there's been a dearth of followup investigation and reporting on outbreaks with large contingents of asymptomatic people. Most of these wind up being snapshots of the situation.

No clue what's come of the NY maternity ward, the Boston homeless, the Marion, Ohio prison (or any of the several prison outbreaks), for examples. Even a breakdown of a pretty well contained incident with testing done on all people like with the USS Theodore Roosevelt or the French carrier, Charles de Gaullle is difficult to find. One of the rare followups I've actually seen was from early April with the nursing home in Wilmington, Massachusetts where like 80% of the residents were asymptomatic. Then 5 days later 7 residents were dead but they were still reporting 60% asymptomatic.

I also learned just yesterday that there was no second survey of passengers who were aboard the Diamond Princess. They just projected Wuhan statistics onto the case figures and didn't follow up, so that's why the claim of asymptomatic population dwindling to 18% happened.

I'm not inclined to believe bad tests are responsible for it either since that's been such a rare thing since March. Maybe more believable than "no one is showing symptoms" but bad testing like that has barely been a thing for like six weeks. But a superspreader event, especially that's increasingly looking like the modus operandi of this disease, is most likely.

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Essy

Other viral infections can affect sense of smell/taste but I don't think those are to the same degree as gets reported with COVID-19.

There's also stuff like focal seizures which would be fleeting and highly unlikely to hit multiple people at once. There's also stroke which is similarly unlikely.

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Essy

Kinglicious posted...

They'll still oppose opening everything up.
But they'll break the rules too. Which, if you just look at the mask practices, was a given.

Completely agreed. There were a few polls conducted that demonstrated a solid majority (70%+) support social distancing guidelines and have great hesitation in socializing like normal. It's just that it seems in practice a lot of people figure it doesn't really need to apply to them specifically and they're betting on others to follow guidelines to make their own breach less of a problem.

Honestly it leaves me despairing with little more to go on or hope for than I really fucking hope the lower IFR estimates are right, that there's some kind of selective pressure making it less dangerous over time and that simple things like vitamin D really are making a huge difference.

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Essy

Almost anything that involves chunks of other desserts thrown in.

But probably anything with brownie chunks most of all.

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Essy

Also, on the ongoing saga regarding reinfection/reactivation potential: https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20200429007051320

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Essy