Board 8 > Coronavirus Topic 8

(+) Yeah! (+)

CoolCly posted...

did i read that post wrong or is ulti personally cooking up a coronavirus vaccine for us?

This is not the case at all. When you work in a lab that does animal testing, there is the research side and the veterinarian side. I work on the vet side and take care of the medical needs of the animals, and I have no hand or say in the research. That's all done by the principle investigator.

I am however allowed to be privy to the study and the data being collected. Currently, we have human lung tissue from recently deceased cadavers transplanted into mice, and those mice are injected with live coronavirus. When infection is confirmed, they are then injected with various forms of a vaccine that the lab is testing; they're trying to find the best efficacy and safety concurrently. This is going on all over the world right now.

People love to hate on animal models, but they're the reason you have almost 100% of the medicine you currently have. Thank pigs for diabetes medication and advances in heart surgery. Thank chimpanzees for the polio vaccine. And thank mice for the coronavirus vaccine. Just based on what I've seen, it'll probably be here quicker than people think, and that is very good news.

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This is a small N hamster study, but it suggests that masks are quite effective:

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3084779/coronavirus-hamster-research-proof-effectiveness

I've seen this framed as a 75% decrease in transmission, but the error bars are huge here (and then there are presumably differences between hamsters and humans, and human mask usage (with error)/not always maintaining distance/etc vs fixing mask material on a cage. But if masks really are nearly this effective, universal usage might be able to get us most of the way to where we need to go.

(Naively blocking 75% of new infections would drop R below 1, but the effect should be somewhat diminished by the fact that very close contacts (e.g. family members) would often have multiple times that they would have been infected, but they can only actually be infected once).

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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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Lich_Sandro posted...

Blaming the government for the spread of coronavirus is idiotic. We know by now that people will blame Trump for literally anything, but this is entirely on the people. Containing the virus would have been near impossible anyway, but it certainly hasn't been helped by the average American. This virus has revealed the utter and near unbelievable stupidity of a lot of people.

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So youre saying people need a strong authoritarian hand to guide them
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SavageInTheBox posted...

Blaming the government for the spread of coronavirus is idiotic. We know by now that people will blame Trump for literally anything, but this is entirely on the people. Containing the virus would have been near impossible anyway, but it certainly hasn't been helped by the average American. This virus has revealed the utter and near unbelievable stupidity of a lot of people.

For comparison, I'd say New Zealand, Taiwan, South Korea and mayyybe Singapore are counterexamples. Which means that only about like 2% of all countries seem to have dealt with it well (way more if you only count first world countries, since they're probably the only ones rich enough to even consider having programs in place). If people think America is *exceptionally* bad they're going have to give concretely bad things. (The FDA must be destroyed)

And IIRC only two... types(?) of organizations have been ahead of this: International Tennis Tournaments and Furry Conventions have both purchased pandemic insurance after they saw SARS was a thing.

Jakyl25 posted...

So youre saying people need a strong authoritarian hand to guide them

Have you ever met the average person

Iceland seems to have done a good job too. Everyone keeps talking about Sweden, but Iceland has also kept a lot of things open as well. The difference is that Iceland has institued a massive testing regimen.

I know it's "a lot of work," but we already know how testing people works, and building up the capacity to test the entire population every two weeks or so is, IMO the least invasive, most straightforward way to bring things back to a sense of normalcy until a vaccine or treatment arrives.

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the netherlands drops another spot on the list of countries with the most cases, from #19 to #20. pakistan takes the #19 spot.


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Mr Lasastryke posted...

the netherlands drops another spot on the list of countries with the most cases, from #19 to #20. pakistan takes the #19 spot.

Curious why you keep posting these lol

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because i live in the netherlands. i'm trying to keep you guys updated on all the covid-related stuff that goes on here, not just where we are on the list of countries with the most cases (which is why i also mention stuff like barbers and elementary schools opening).

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also, personally i think it's interesting to keep track of what countries are climbing up the list.

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Yesmar_ posted...

Iceland seems to have done a good job too. Everyone keeps talking about Sweden, but Iceland has also kept a lot of things open as well. The difference is that Iceland has institued a massive testing regimen.

I know it's "a lot of work," but we already know how testing people works, and building up the capacity to test the entire population every two weeks or so is, IMO the least invasive, most straightforward way to bring things back to a sense of normalcy until a vaccine or treatment arrives.

Its Iceland though so they probably got all the 500 people together and said ok no one leave the island for a minute and we good

Mr Lasastryke posted...

also, personally i think it's interesting to keep track of what countries are climbing up the list.

I am sure we will be right back on top at the rate we're going.

"I just wanna enjoy the summer" ugh.
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But I DO just wanna enjoy the summer

Safely

If only I could count on other Americans not being idiots. I don't mean like I wanna be riding roller coasters in the same cart as strangers, but it would be really nice to get my hair trimmed or dine in 6+ feet apart from anyone else so I don't have to cook all the damn time.

I hate 2020. This should have been the happiest year of my life and so far it's in the running for the most miserable.

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GenesisSaga posted...

But I DO just wanna enjoy the summer

Safely

If only I could count on other Americans not being idiots

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Whiskey_Nick posted...

It still amazes me that China went 'we beat Coronavirus, everyone! No new cases I swear' and every other country just went 'yeah sure I believe you'

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JFC

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/05/cdc-and-states-are-misreporting-covid-19-test-data-pennsylvania-georgia-texas/611935/

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Jakyl25 posted...

So youre saying people need a strong authoritarian hand to guide them

What they need are brains

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Well, Georgia's testing has actually improved recently, I think (our positive cases per tests was over 20% for a while and now even with the removal it's still like 12% - not sure exactly how reliable that statistic is in fairness though since it doesn't account for people getting tested multiple times). Though data here's also been kind of annoying to track since an increasing number of positive cases have an "unknown" county of residence and I'd rather not assume anything about a distribution there.

Good news is that new cases here haven't really been spiking (yet?) despite partially re-opening, though they're also not really going down (yet?) either.

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Depressing thread about Brazil

https://twitter.com/aslavitt/status/1263628261470461955?s=21

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LordoftheMorons posted...

Depressing thread about Brazil

https://twitter.com/aslavitt/status/1263628261470461955?s=21

People who post long Twitter threads are the worst

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Youre welcome to not read it

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LordoftheMorons posted...

Youre welcome to not read it

His whole point is that people shouldn't be ignoring it though!

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PA is having a press conference at 4pm to announce more countries going yellow phase and possibly counties going green phase.

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17 countries announced as green on the 29th. All counties in red (all of Philadelphia area) will be yellow by June 6th.

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Stuff has started opening here in the past 2 weeks

we have of course seen our 2 weeks straight of trending down erased and spiked right back up.

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Ugh I was looking at Berkeley's daily coronavirus tracker and it looks like we just had our largest cluster yet (8 and then 5 new cases in the past two days).

Hopefully they caught everything; we otherwise seem to have been doing very well (85 total cases so far, with no more than 1 case per day for a few weeks before this).

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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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https://twitter.com/Nick_Rizzuto/status/1264255839134760961?s=20

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California is moving into stage 3. Which is not even a month from when California announced stage 3 would be months and months away.

https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/california/newsom-ca-days-away-from-plan-to-reopen-barbershops-salons-churches/2295305/?amp

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https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/22/dr-anthony-fauci-says-staying-closed-for-too-long-could-cause-irreparable-damage.html

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Corrik7 posted...

California is moving into stage 3. Which is not even a month from when California announced stage 3 would be months and months away.

https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/california/newsom-ca-days-away-from-plan-to-reopen-barbershops-salons-churches/2295305/?amp

Sure why not, and nevermind that our daily numbers haven't really even started going down yet...

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/california/

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mnkboy907 posted...

Sure why not, and nevermind that our daily numbers haven't really even started going down yet...

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/california/

You probably should look at total cases for the curve flattening instead new cases. Which it doesn't seem like California is going down in new cases but it does seem like its relatively stable.

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I want to again reiterate how shitty Florida Unemployment is.

Furloughed April 10th. Applied for Unemployment April 11th. I still haven't received anything from them. No money, no request for extra information, nothing to say they are even processing my claim.

Application site still says 'Pending - Submitted'. Main site still gives me virtually no information whatsoever. When I speak to them on the phone, they can't help me either. I know of 2 other people who applied same day as me in the exact same situation and have heard zero back.

I also know of 2 other people who applied the day before and day after who received varying payments. 1 got fully backdated unemployment and received 2x $600 PUA checks so far (eligible for them all. So 6? 7?). The other has received 2 weeks pay of $275 with nothing backdated and 1 PUA check for $600 (eligible for 5)

Also keep in mind that Florida unemployment is already super shitty. You get $275 a week normally. One of my fiances's friends say she gets over double that in a different state.

I mean, I've been against the strict measures from the start but it isn't my choice to not be working right now. The company I work for is actually deemed essential but made the decision to go to skeleton crew so they didn't hemorrhage money. Sad part of it is, May is apparently on track to be one of the most profitable months in the companies history according to the VP of Operations (he's a good friend of mine so I still find out what is going on)

This is the only time I have not been working since I was 15 years old (I'm in my mid 30s now) and the only time I have ever tried to claim benefits. I've literally never gone a week without a job before this. Believe me I would much rather have been working all this time than sat at home.

ShatteredElysium posted...

I mean, I've been against the strict measures from the start but it isn't my choice to not be working right now. The company I work for is actually deemed essential but made the decision to go to skeleton crew so they didn't hemorrhage money. Sad part of it is, May is apparently on track to be one of the most profitable months in the companies history according to the VP of Operations (he's a good friend of mine so I still find out what is going on)

This is the only time I have not been working since I was 15 years old (I'm in my mid 30s now) and the only time I have ever tried to claim benefits. I've literally never gone a week without a job before this. Believe me I would much rather have been working all this time than sat at home.

Imagine being the vp of operations buddy and not being able to get him to hire you on again.

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Japan has ended the state of emergency. Let's hope there isn't a second wave

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Corrik7 posted...

Imagine being the vp of operations buddy and not being able to get him to hire you on again.

Office politics. He can't just bring back whoever he wants whenever he wants. The CFO is the one who ultimately signs off on what positions can come back and when.

The VP of Ops never wanted to scale back at all, he just wanted to follow correct procedures and operate as normal (we are a medical company). However, he doesn't see eye to eye or communicate well with the person who runs sales . Sales made sweeping cuts when the pandemic started and so everyone else was forced to follow suit. Now he can't bring people back on until sales climb back to an acceptable level which is at the whim of how quickly sales bring back staff and how much they want to spend on marketing.

Our sales are usually $3m to 3.2m a week. After sales cut ~75% of the workforce, they dropped to $1.2-1.3m. They have steadily climbed back to about $1.8m a week but the company doesn't want to start bringing people back until we are at least in the $2m to $2.5m region.

Loyalty to the VP of Operations is the only thing that has kept me from leaving in recent years where office politics have gotten to bullshit levels where they are actively hampering the company. I've worked there for 15 years and have known the VP for 7 (Started in Feb 2005, transferred from the UK HQ to the US office in Jan 2013).

I've been thinking about leaving for the last 1-2 years but I'd feel like I betrayed him if I left. Just knowing what he has to deal with and the sacrifices he makes, I'd struggle to do it. I'd have to have a conversation with him first for sure.

I was headhunted a few years back by Mitsubishi Hitachi but turned it down (which he knows about), that would have been my best out probably.

ShatteredElysium posted...

Office politics. He can't just bring back whoever he wants whenever he wants. The CFO is the one who ultimately signs off on what positions can come back and when.

The VP of Ops never wanted to scale back at all, he just wanted to follow correct procedures and operate as normal (we are a medical company). However, he doesn't see eye to eye or communicate well with the person who runs sales . Sales made sweeping cuts when the pandemic started and so everyone else was forced to follow suit. Now he can't bring people back on until sales climb back to an acceptable level which is at the whim of how quickly sales bring back staff and how much they want to spend on marketing.

Our sales are usually $3m to 3.2m a week. After sales cut ~75% of the workforce, they dropped to $1.2-1.3m. They have steadily climbed back to about $1.8m a week but the company doesn't want to start bringing back non sales people back until we are at least in the $2m to $2.5m region. Due to my position, I'll be on the backend of the people brought back.

Sucks they are saying they are so profitable now and having people laid off.

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Was pretty predictable to be honest. I've seen what the company has been like throughout the years and it has been obvious for years that the sales floor has been badly run.

We drastically expanded in 2016 and sales numbers didn't increase at the same level as staffing/marketing did. Sales staffing more than tripled (70 > 265), sales numbers increased by about 50% ($2m > $3m). Hopefully this will open the owners eyes and he will do something about it. Especially as our product should have been pandemic proof (if anything, the pandemic increases the need for it)

Our company was in the news today about our current clinical trial. This is for treatment/prevention not a vaccine.

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/like-hand-sanitizer-for-your-nose-vancouver-scientists-test-new-covid-treatment-1.4954429

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the netherlands drops another spot on the list of countries with the most cases, from #20 to #21. qatar takes the #20 spot.

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