outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

I got rid of my cable. It’s all opinion anyway, so I’d rather come up with my own

if they've been watching fox, that's not wrong. the line between opinion and "news" has been porous for a long time there. a long-time fox viewer who somehow manages to catch onto that might think that all the other options must be like that too

I agree that this particular six-person get-together may have been higher risk than others, but I brought it up because it's something I can see happening a lot over the holidays. My house has been fairly careful, but most of us have been talking about finding ways to visit family at Christmas, and one of my housemates is talking about doing Thanksgiving with her parents and sister as well. Her parents take COVID seriously, but her sister's husband doesn't at all. And it just takes one COVID denier to bring it in.

Basically, I just meant: this guy sounds like an idiot, but I see this as a cautionary tale for everyone, not just COVID deniers. Let's not assume we're immune to making the same kind of bad decision out of pure COVID fatigue and the desire to see family.

Let's not assume we're immune to making the same kind of bad decision

By happenstance I ran into my sister's family last Friday while we were both at the same small town at the Oregon coast, so we arranged a flying visit, outdoors, on the deck of the house where they were staying. It took a lot of willpower to not exchange hugs with everyone, as we normally would.

I actually asked my mom if she was interested in visiting for Thanksgiving, and she flat out said no. She cited reports that the airports were getting more crowded, and said the one time she's had to fly was weird and disconcerting enough.

we're postponing return to daycare until the new year (at the earliest) on the basis that thanksgiving and christmas are going to result in a pretty big spike.

i don't blame anyone for trying to make plans, i guess, but i feel very much the same way that i felt in late february: i think making travel plans in the near future is bonkers

illinois as a whole is back to 4.3% 7-day positivity rate, which is only good when you compare it to the rest of the united states. anywhere else in the world, that is a very alarming number.

anywhere else in the world, that is a very alarming number.

Oh hi

Scottish numbers: 12 October 2020
Summary
961 new cases of COVID-19 reported; this is 17.1%* of newly tested individuals

wtf is going on in the UK?

London palladium last night hahahahahahaahha i cant be assed pic.twitter.com/FYHWRkU5aA

— Tony Carroll (@tonycarroll14) October 12, 2020

Oh hi

and yep, that's alarming, as it should be!

I can't find it now and I really wish I could, but I saw a couple people recently giving kudos to some film nerd's weird twitter rant insisting that, somehow, a movie theater is the absolute safest indoor environment to be in right now and how baffled they were that they are still mostly closed. Essentially I believe their argument came down to "social distancing is easy with lots of seats!" and "most theaters have really good HVAC systems!".

The onscreen faces, while quite large and unmasked, are highly unlikely to transmit the virus to audience members!

yeah here in France I think our 7-day positivity rate is now 9.7%, and that's nationwide, here in Paris it's higher though I'm not finding numbers at the moment. anyway fucked

ok it's 17% in the Île-de-France, fuck

& the national rate jumped to 11,8 % today

I'm gonna say it again

fuck

But how much of that is serious illness or hospitalization vs., say, young people with mild or no symptoms?

positivity rate is a leading metric because people take tests days or weeks before they go to hospital. so ... wait and see, but it's probably not good news.

hospitalization rates are rising too, yes, don't have the number at hand but I'll find it eventually over the next few days at least

This says it all. pic.twitter.com/q3KwGrZaPD

— Really American 🇺🇸 (@ReallyAmerican1) October 12, 2020

.

it doesn't really say it all. yes red states have responded badly, but that's also a graph that shows blue states got it first.

that graph appears to show states in the south doing badly in the summer

https://cepr.net/waiting-for-a-vaccine-killing-for-inequality/

Another week goes by where excess deaths at home are up again, as they have been in every single week of the pandemic. It’s a terrible silent crisis. pic.twitter.com/aHp45OSWRw

— Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) October 13, 2020

This morning it was reported in a few UK outlets, including the Today programme, that a Nevada man was reinfected, and the second time was more severe. What I don’t understand is why this is being reported now, when this news is several weeks old?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/17/nevada-reinfection-case-highlights-mysteries-covid-19

Maybe because various respectable clowns are getting air time with herd immunity bollocks again.

Rude way to describe Dr Bananas imo

Yeah, I saw that Nevada report. It's still super weird and I'm not sure how important it is that there have been five confirmed reinfections out of close to 40 million cases worldwide. You'd think anyone that had it once would be aware enough to recognize if they got it a second time, so it's not like there are thousands of reinfections that have likely fallen through the cracks. Just these ... five.

Heard another report on the radio that indeed, hospitalizations are creeping up in Indiana, surely no coincidence a few weeks after their stupid governor pressed to open everything up again. In less stupid governor news, did we mention that the Wisconsin governor won his latest round against the crazies, with a court backing him (again?) when it comes to mask mandates? Either way, between WI's woes and Indiana's idiocy, things don't bode well for Illinois even if we were being as careful as we could be as long as the neighbors are nuts. Clowns to the left of us, jokers to the right ...

So...problematic interactions with delivery guys with problematic masks...*sigh*

Oh wait, think that's for the other thread.

#OneTooManyThreads

Zero reinfections would be news. Lots would be news. A handful of examples is not surprising and also nothing to worry about.

I feel if it was more widespread you’d hear more about it yeah, but still fucks me up every time I hear about a case. :(

I don't know if it's an accurate analogy but I think of it like chicken pox. Reinfections do occur but not to the extent that it's actively worrisome for those who've had it.

right. immunity isn't a binary thing. (which btw is part of the reason why a 50% effective vaccine that 50% of people choose not to get because of a total collapse in social trust doesn't get us to herd immunity right away.)

cannot recommend "on immunity" by eula biss for more on this btw.

or for a shorter read see https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/07/covid-19-vaccine-reality-check/614566/ (but then read https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/12/health/coronavirus-pandemic-vaccine-optimism.html because that atlantic piece is a huge bummer).

If this works, this will be just as important a development as the vaccine tbh

Oxford scientists develop five-minute COVID-19 antigen test https://t.co/JnGFL7s6rR pic.twitter.com/HyUiffnYRa

— Reuters (@Reuters) October 15, 2020

The university said it hoped to start product development of the testing device in early 2021 and have an approved device available six months afterwards.

The device is able to detect the coronavirus and distinguish it from other viruses with high accuracy, the researchers said in a pre-print study.

"Our method quickly detects intact virus particles," said Professor Achilles Kapanidis, at Oxford's Department of Physics, adding that this meant the test would be "simple, extremely rapid, and cost-effective".

That had a rapid test in the whitehouse. It doesn’t help if people don’t change their behaviour.

What we need is a daily 15-minute test that you take every morning after you brush your teeth. And everybody does that for the next 2-3 years or however long it takes to get a vaccine.

it should only be 70-80% accurate though, to make sure that you keep coming back and brushing your teeth

waht if you have Shane McGowan teeth

you could combine the two so it takes a swab while you're brushing

We need to talk about your teeth brushing method.

not saying there aren't a few problems to solve before getting the Brush'n'Swab to market

phew, I was concerned

I was serious by the way!

> not saying there aren't a few problems to solve before getting the Brush'n'Swab to market

teething problems?

gdamit

ProPublica: Inside the Fall of the CDC

Besides more detail on why the CDC's rtPCR test was a failure through January/February, Kyle McGowan looks like a small hero here, and Michael Caputo like someone personally responsible for tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths.

Confirmed cases in the last 7 days per 100,000 people.
[Source ⁦@BBK_Bund⁩] pic.twitter.com/9q3zwV2Og3

— Max Roser (@MaxCRoser) October 16, 2020

The study of the antibodies I apparently have does not start for another month, but we know someone who has had their antibodies studied for a few months now, and with weird results. After her initial positive antibody test, each subsequent blood draw revealed decreasing antibody levels ... until they didn't. After several months of decline they suddenly spiked back up again. So strange, this covid.