outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

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.

My friend in NYC found this too.

How the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally may have spread coronavirus across the Upper Midwest

Within weeks of the gathering that drew nearly half a million bikers, the Dakotas, along with Wyoming, Minnesota and Montana, were leading the nation in new coronavirus infections per capita.

--

It had been a long ride back from Sturgis, S.D., so when he first felt an ache at the back of his throat, Kenny Cervantes figured he was just tired. He’d traveled the 400-some miles on his Harley, rumbling through wide-open farm and prairie land on his way home to Riverdale, Neb., where his girlfriend was waiting.

A lifelong motorcycle enthusiast, the 50-year-old construction worker and father of five had been determined to go to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, a holy grail for bikers. Even when his girlfriend, Angie Balcom, decided to stay back because she was worried about being around so many people during a pandemic, Cervantes was adamant about going.

“I don’t think there was nothing that was going to stop me,” he said.

Back home, Cervantes took Tylenol for his throat and went to bed early. But he woke up the next morning coughing so hard he struggled to catch his breath. Over the next few days, the pain in his chest made him fear that his heart might stop, and a test later confirmed he had the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease covid-19. He was admitted to the hospital 11 days later, on Aug. 27. Soon, his girlfriend and his sister were sick, and Cervantes was going over everything he did and every place he visited in Sturgis, wondering where the virus had found him.

Within weeks of the gathering, the Dakotas, along with Wyoming, Minnesota and Montana, were leading the nation in new coronavirus infections per capita. The surge was especially pronounced in North and South Dakota, where cases and hospitalization rates continued their juggernaut rise into October. Experts say they will never be able to determine how many of those cases originated at the 10-day rally, given the failure of state and local health officials to identify and monitor attendees returning home, or to trace chains of transmission after people got sick. Some, however, believe the nearly 500,000-person gathering played a role in the outbreak now consuming the Upper Midwest.

https://i.imgur.com/I6bLA2H.jpg

Of course it did, and most of those arseholes are big on freedumb.

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.

This sounds encouraging to me... like the spike indicated she had been exposed a second time and her body knew how to respond.

i think this is maybe the thread has ever gone without being bumped?

well anyway, here's the US midwest

https://i.imgur.com/8oLsoUL.png

and here's wonderwall

a v-shaped recovery

i believe that with time and a continued lack of leadership, that v will become a w

some analysts are calling it a vwv\M/W\mwv-shaped recovery

others simply say that there's no point in trying, because that would be bad for someone's political campaign, and would be stressful for public leaders

\m/._. \m/

YMMV

lol?

*treated with placebo
*of COVID-19 https://t.co/jYZFAEHWnE

— Amy Schellenbaum (@acsbaum) October 21, 2020

kind of what drives me nuts about some fellow COVID trial participants I know who are bragging about how they're gonna go back to livin' it up after they get stuck. a) you don't know if you're getting the vax or the placebo and b) you have no idea what level of protection you will get, if any, if you do get the vax.

(not that this volunteer did anything wrong, that's tragic - just illustrates why I get mad at irresponsible panelists).

Thank you for your service, Neanderthal

so FL numbers I am watching nervously as they haven't crept back up significantly yet but if they do, I fear a return to the horrific summer totals we endured earlier with little to no closures by Desantis (other than like...bars only, which he did last time)

kind of what drives me nuts about some fellow COVID trial participants I know who are bragging about how they're gonna go back to livin' it up after they get stuck. a) you don't know if you're getting the vax or the placebo and b) you have no idea what level of protection you will get, if any, if you do get the vax

if the vaccine reaches the minimum threshold for effectiveness the FDA is going to require for approval (50%) and there's two treatments in the trial, there's a 75% chance they have no immunity!

(same calculation tells you why a vaccine isn't going to change things quickly: it's effective ~half the time, and only about half of americans are going to get it, so it's going to take us from ~5% population immunity to ... 30%? a big jump that will save lives, but nowhere near the levels required for herd immunity.)

yeah I think I read the article that stated that, as well as this one: https://news.northeastern.edu/2020/10/19/a-covid-19-vaccine-wont-mean-a-swift-end-for-wearing-masks-or-social-distancing/

my hope has been dwindling as a result

Boston-area COVID (as-measured-by-poop-sampling) numbers just went exponential: pic.twitter.com/D4Gpvlar1g

— Itamar Turner-Trauring (@itamarst) October 21, 2020

*throws "(Welcome Home) Sanitarium" on repeat*

I'm so glad I got my medical marijuana card, y'all. I'm going to be spending a lot of time this winter getting high as giraffe balls and writing weird poetry

I mean, given these numbers, that's what I see in my future

I'm so glad I got my medical marijuana card, y'all. I'm going to be spending a lot of time this winter getting high as giraffe balls and writing weird poetry

― healthy cocaine off perfect butts (the table is the table), Thursday, October 22, 2020 5:10 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

"ppl who have figured out how to live" thread

So much we don't know..

The Czech death rate at the moment is really astonishing - twice as high per capita as basically anywhere else in Europe. Not yet ofc at the double-figure levels in the worst-affected countries in March/April. pic.twitter.com/2Od55bBpAg

— Mike Bird (@Birdyword) October 23, 2020

they had this really smug video back in April about how low their rates were because of mandatory mask wearing

It's a mystery though. Does it mean that masks don't work? I'd say it needs more reporting but every now and then you get the sense everyone is fumbling around in the dark.

The government stopped enforcing the rules ahead of the election.

Lol it's just horrible but hope it worked out for them.

The UK data from yesterday looks very concerning, unless there's a quirk in the way it's being reported. New cases up about 10% on this time last week but hospitalisations up nearly 50%.

In France too the data is bad. 40000+ new cases yesterday. So far hospitalisations remain relatively low but there's been a point of inflection upward there too. Many new départements were put under curfew starting Saturday, and more are expected to be added next week. There's also talk of extending our curfew in Paris to 7pm, rather than 9pm as it is now. So far that's just rumor though.

Hospitalisations tend to lag cases by a couple of weeks at least so I'd expect that curve to go up even further. Probably also a result of the virus crossing over from younger, and more socially active people, into more vulnerable groups as well.

I no longer have any idea where this ends.

I'd say it needs more reporting but every now and then you get the sense everyone is fumbling around in the dark

The scary scenario is that a lot of this might be down to sheer luck. Super-spreader events have a really disproportionate impact on progression, and there was a Tufecki article recently positing that they might explain the dramatic differences between areas in Italy, for example. It could be that sheer bad luck meant some bad outbreaks blew past the first-line Czech protections and they didn't have a second-line ready and now it's out of control.

I'm no expert but my sense is that masks help, especially when combined with social distancing and particularly partial lockdowns (no indoor bars, restaurants, or schools). See what NY and Italy did. The second you open up, no amount of mask wearing alone is going to stem the tide (though please wear masks).

New cases up about 10% on this time last week but hospitalisations up nearly 50%.

I think this means testing is levelling out but no-ome told the virus.

The virus is much more widespread and firmly entrenched in all populations around the globe today than it was in April. In the USA, for example, the interior of the continent had not yet seen any major outbreaks and populations were mostly virus-free. Now 99% of the USA population is probably living, working and breathing within a couple of miles of someone who is currently infectious.

Much as we'd prefer not to admit it, we're still in the stage where all that can be done is to flatten the curve and wait for new tools to arrive. The best way to flatten the curve is to do what we all knew to do in early April: limit social contacts as much as humanly possible, wash your hands, wear a mask, create a 'safe' bubble in your living space and be aware of whatever enters it from the outside. And with the virus so widespread, it is even more important now than it was in April.

Aimless, we agree!

Plus governments need to develop robust test and tra- oh.

I was jarred reading aimless's post because I think it has been months since I heard anyone use the phrase 'flatten the curve'. It's fucked up how, in the uk at least, the conversation has changed so much even tho the situation and our understanding of it really haven't (not to anything like the same degree anyway). Like the need for a second lockdown in the winter to pinch off cases in time for flu season was a given IN MARCH, and yet it feels so much like everyone is arguing from some earlier prelapsarian point before we knew anything about anything. All this pissing around with tier 2.5 local lockdown when our tracing system has imploded just reinforces something someone said a while ago: we've just given up here. It's dispiriting.

It really is.
I was expecting a more coherent and consistent testing system by now, back in the Spring.
This was initially spreading because we don't know who has it - it's now spreading partly because even if you think there might be a possibility of you having it there aren't many incentives in place to do the right thing if this inconveniences/impoverishes you.

Cases per million people in the Midwest have surpassed both the early peak in the Northeast and the summer surge in the South. pic.twitter.com/MiHF4GBu9o

— The COVID Tracking Project (@COVID19Tracking) October 24, 2020

Ohio has a set a daily record for new cases everyday this week.

Holy shit that's some very frightening stuff.

Epidemiology twitter is starting to make noise that if an infection gets wildly uncontrolled then vaccines aren't much use, which is a frightening scenario.

MEADOWS: We're not going to control the pandemic

TAPPER: Why not?

M: Because it's a contagious virus

T: Why not make efforts to contain it?

M: What we need to do is make sure we have the proper mitigation factors to make sure people don't die pic.twitter.com/0DYgk4rB3T

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 25, 2020

Ghouls.

If it was a bacterial infection, we'd be all over this shit like 99 clowns in a tiny car

Epidemiology twitter is starting to make noise that if an infection gets wildly uncontrolled then vaccines aren't much use, which is a frightening scenario.