outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

Martin Shkreli to thread

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-monkeys-escape-with-covid-19-samples-after-attacking-lab-assistant-11996752

Did not have that one on my 2020 dumpster fire bingo card.

come ON

Looks like Trump made good on his threat and is going to pull the US out of the WHO.

They should tell him they need six months’ notice.

so now researchers have figured out how COVID-19 causes so many different symptoms in different organs: It is a disease of the blood vessels. They hope that this will point toward possible treatments.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30937-5/fulltext

Toward the end:

This hypothesis provides a rationale for therapies to stabilise the endothelium while tackling viral replication, particularly with anti-inflammatory anti-cytokine drugs, ACE inhibitors, and statins.

Presumably, since this article was listed as published in late April, this treatment strategy has been attempted in some cases and some preliminary data collected, even if there have not been any trials. I wonder how its going.

people keep touting this blood vessel angle since then but i haven't seen anything really decisive on it (not that i've been paying as much attention the past couple few weeks)

not now ebola

https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/01-06-2020-new-ebola-outbreak-detected-in-northwest-democratic-republic-of-the-congo-who-surge-team-supporting-the-response

USA deaths: after 5 weeks of steady decline, the 7-day moving average is trending positive for the first time since late-April.

what a nightmare

I'm dreading the numbers 4-6 weeks from now

average new cases and hospitalizations have been ticking up in Austin over the last week+

everything plateaued, so they opened things up without letting real decreases happen, genius move

In all fairness, what even is a "plateau"

In this context, I believe it means something like 'when people really really want to start doing normal things again, no seriously like really a lot, do you even know how boring it is being inside all the time'.

Nothing on the top but a bucket and a mop
And an illustrated book about birds

otm

where is charley harper when we need him most

I've hardly thought about COVID all week (and yes, "I'm dreading the numbers 4-6 weeks from now"). Has this been posted on any of the relevant threads?

http://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-06-03-20-intl/h_d9360b4e277953a4490fa5ee17285938

He's always seemed pretty cautious with such pronouncements.

The plan is to manufacture doses of the vaccine even before it is clear whether the vaccines work, making close to 100 million doses by November or December, Fauci said. That’s so if it does work, it can be deployed quickly.

I saw that after I posted--he still sounds optimistic.

“Which tells us, that if the body is capable of making an immune response to clear the virus of natural infection, that’s a pretty good proof of concept,” Fauci said. “Having said that, there is never a guarantee.”

He was a 12-18 months person early on with regards to a vaccine, so early 2021 almost fits that timeline--maybe 2-3 months ahead.

"The US should have 100 million doses of one candidate Covid-19 vaccine by the end of the year, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and a member of the White House coronavirus task force, said Tuesday.

“Then, by the beginning of 2021, we hope to have a couple hundred million doses,” Fauci said during a live question and answer session with the Journal of the American Medical Association.

uh, what happens between the end of this year and the beginning of 2021? do all other objects get doubled as well? might be a good time to put all your money out on the lawn, make a quick profit for the new year

lol

please touch the Orb of Doubling again Mr. President

but the Orb of Doubling carries a 10% chance of losing it all!!

tbh 2020 is the kind of year where you roll the dice anyway

The second one is a quote, and the first is a weird summary of a quote from one of those guys that's always keen to have an argument about how many 'several' is, and you can tell that he wants the answer to be 'seven'

Cases in Texas are on the rise. So is the positive rate. pic.twitter.com/Qa4iGquhWf

— Topher Spiro (@TopherSpiro) June 2, 2020

^ whole state-by-state rundown thread, fyi

Meanwhile, I think I saw (and while the exact numbers may be off the gist remains the same) that after a bunch of contact tracing in Hong Kong, they determined that a small handful of super-spreader events accounted for a huge number of cases, but of those who contracted Covid, 70% did not pass it along. For some reason certain people just spread the fuck out of this.

We don't know if it's the individual or the situation they're in, though. Or some combination.

Like, 25 people all with the same viral load will probably spread a lot differently depending on whether they're sitting home or eating in a crowded restaurant.

I mean just the variation in respiratory physiology and your manner of speaking could explain it. You could be a confident braying firehose of coronavirus vs some other person with gnarled and turbid sinuses that speaks to the floor in whispers.

Elevated levels in TX are definitely worrying me, hoping it's a bump since so many people seem to be doing a good job of sticking to masks and distancing.

a confident braying firehose of coronavirus

lol I needed this, thank you

*You could be a confident braying firehose of coronavirus vs some other person with gnarled and turbid sinuses that speaks to the floor in whispers.*

Being a shoegazer rather than a death metaller finally pays off

I saw Braying Firehose open for the Turbid Sinuses back in '93.

thanking u

I believe it depends on what you're doing and where you are - if you're at a choir or singing in a church or an exercise class or in a loud bar where you have to shout you're much more likely to be blowing it out there. It's not that some individuals are just biologically less likely to spread it.

some details on "superspreader" events here, it does seem possible that it is activity-related:

https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2020/05/22/superspreaders

Being a shoegazer rather than a death metaller finally pays off

scene immunity not herd immunity

A++

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z45yWIXipy8

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/07/brazil-stops-releasing-covid-19-death-toll-and-wipes-data-from-official-site

Fuck Bolsonaro

I hope you weren’t single when the music stopped

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/08/upshot/when-epidemiologists-will-do-everyday-things-coronavirus.html

The situation in Singapore is horrific. They were proudly boasting about no new infections for days on end when it was spreading, untested, in migrant worker dorms. Now they're paying attention, they have 400-600 cases each day, 99.8% of which are in dormitories.

does that mean it's at least semi-contained, or at least they're able to do contact tracing?

also it feels really weird to look at "400-600 cases each day" and think "wow, i can't wait to chicago gets to that point" :(

It is contained in as much as migrant workers aren’t infecting anyone else, not contained when it comes to them infecting each other. The conditions people live in (cramped multiple occupancy spaces, shared bathrooms, etc) mean social distancing is impossible.