All things CoronaVirus

[Brooklyn]

203,000+ Americans dead:


https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/



Thank you traitor tRUMP.

[RedFromMI]

Maybe someone should explain to PB that to get to herd immunity in Florida would mean upping the infection rates big time...

They are NOWHERE close to herd immunity (60% to 80% necessary). They are not close to passing New York, which might be at 25% or so now...

You are assuming there is no cross reactivity in Memory T cells from previous corona virus infections. A assumption that is currently being challenged with data that suggests otherwise.

But that is not going to lower "herd immunity" to well under 20%...

Nowhere close.

[MDlaxfan76]

Maybe someone should explain to PB that to get to herd immunity in Florida would mean upping the infection rates big time...

They are NOWHERE close to herd immunity (60% to 80% necessary). They are not close to passing New York, which might be at 25% or so now...

You are assuming there is no cross reactivity in Memory T cells from previous corona virus infections. A assumption that is currently being challenged with data that suggests otherwise.

I must have missed this explanation, would you explain it again.

Are you saying that there have been prior corona virus infections (pre-COVID-19) in some of our population that provides them with immunity from this one, from being a spreader to others?

Evidence of such ?

[youthathletics]

Maybe someone should explain to PB that to get to herd immunity in Florida would mean upping the infection rates big time...

They are NOWHERE close to herd immunity (60% to 80% necessary). They are not close to passing New York, which might be at 25% or so now...

You are assuming there is no cross reactivity in Memory T cells from previous corona virus infections. A assumption that is currently being challenged with data that suggests otherwise.

I must have missed this explanation, would you explain it again.

Are you saying that there have been prior corona virus infections (pre-COVID-19) in some of our population that provides them with immunity from this one, from being a spreader to others?

Evidence of such ?

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-res ... .%E2%80%9D

[Bart]

Maybe someone should explain to PB that to get to herd immunity in Florida would mean upping the infection rates big time...

They are NOWHERE close to herd immunity (60% to 80% necessary). They are not close to passing New York, which might be at 25% or so now...

You are assuming there is no cross reactivity in Memory T cells from previous corona virus infections. A assumption that is currently being challenged with data that suggests otherwise.

But that is not going to lower "herd immunity" to well under 20%...

Nowhere close.

You you may be right. But it may lower it well below the 60-80% threshold everyone throw's around as a 100% done deal. You do not know, neither do I for that matter.

[Bart]

Maybe someone should explain to PB that to get to herd immunity in Florida would mean upping the infection rates big time...

They are NOWHERE close to herd immunity (60% to 80% necessary). They are not close to passing New York, which might be at 25% or so now...

You are assuming there is no cross reactivity in Memory T cells from previous corona virus infections. A assumption that is currently being challenged with data that suggests otherwise.

I must have missed this explanation, would you explain it again.

Are you saying that there have been prior corona virus infections (pre-COVID-19) in some of our population that provides them with immunity from this one, from being a spreader to others?

Evidence of such ?

Yes.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32473127/

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... f_ipsecsha (preprint)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577- ... -z----this is an interesting read

Remember, "immunity" may not keep a person from absolutely not getting the virus. It may men a systemic response that does not lead to really adverse effects.

[Peter Brown]

Maybe someone should explain to PB that to get to herd immunity in Florida would mean upping the infection rates big time...

They are NOWHERE close to herd immunity (60% to 80% necessary). They are not close to passing New York, which might be at 25% or so now...

You are assuming there is no cross reactivity in Memory T cells from previous corona virus infections. A assumption that is currently being challenged with data that suggests otherwise.

But that is not going to lower "herd immunity" to well under 20%...

Nowhere close.

You you may be right. But it may lower it well below the 60-80% threshold everyone throw's around as a 100% done deal. You do not know, neither do I for that matter.

+1

[Typical Lax Dad]

Maybe someone should explain to PB that to get to herd immunity in Florida would mean upping the infection rates big time...

They are NOWHERE close to herd immunity (60% to 80% necessary). They are not close to passing New York, which might be at 25% or so now...

You are assuming there is no cross reactivity in Memory T cells from previous corona virus infections. A assumption that is currently being challenged with data that suggests otherwise.

But that is not going to lower "herd immunity" to well under 20%...

Nowhere close.

You you may be right. But it may lower it well below the 60-80% threshold everyone throw's around as a 100% done deal. You do not know, neither do I for that matter.

+1

It’s not 20%.

[MDlaxfan76]

Maybe someone should explain to PB that to get to herd immunity in Florida would mean upping the infection rates big time...

They are NOWHERE close to herd immunity (60% to 80% necessary). They are not close to passing New York, which might be at 25% or so now...

You are assuming there is no cross reactivity in Memory T cells from previous corona virus infections. A assumption that is currently being challenged with data that suggests otherwise.

I must have missed this explanation, would you explain it again.

Are you saying that there have been prior corona virus infections (pre-COVID-19) in some of our population that provides them with immunity from this one, from being a spreader to others?

Evidence of such ?

Yes.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32473127/

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... f_ipsecsha (preprint)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577- ... -z----this is an interesting read

Remember, "immunity" may not keep a person from absolutely not getting the virus. It may men a systemic response that does not lead to really adverse effects.

Right, perhaps lower response...but this doesn't mean they are not infected and spreading to others, which is what is necessary for 'herd immunity' to slow transmission rates to then burn out.

But would perhaps explain why some who are infected have minimal impact upon them. Maybe.

But that's not a herd immunity factor, right?

Unless we're also saying that those with low reactions to the virus don't spread (or spread much less)...and we know that asymptomatics do spread...

[Peter Brown]

Maybe someone should explain to PB that to get to herd immunity in Florida would mean upping the infection rates big time...

They are NOWHERE close to herd immunity (60% to 80% necessary). They are not close to passing New York, which might be at 25% or so now...

You are assuming there is no cross reactivity in Memory T cells from previous corona virus infections. A assumption that is currently being challenged with data that suggests otherwise.

But that is not going to lower "herd immunity" to well under 20%...

Nowhere close.

You you may be right. But it may lower it well below the 60-80% threshold everyone throw's around as a 100% done deal. You do not know, neither do I for that matter.

+1

It’s not 20%.

It's "not", or you don't want it to be?

[Typical Lax Dad]

Maybe someone should explain to PB that to get to herd immunity in Florida would mean upping the infection rates big time...

They are NOWHERE close to herd immunity (60% to 80% necessary). They are not close to passing New York, which might be at 25% or so now...

You are assuming there is no cross reactivity in Memory T cells from previous corona virus infections. A assumption that is currently being challenged with data that suggests otherwise.

But that is not going to lower "herd immunity" to well under 20%...

Nowhere close.

You you may be right. But it may lower it well below the 60-80% threshold everyone throw's around as a 100% done deal. You do not know, neither do I for that matter.

+1

It’s not 20%.

It's "not", or you don't want it to be?

Want has nothing to do with science.

[Peter Brown]

Maybe someone should explain to PB that to get to herd immunity in Florida would mean upping the infection rates big time...

They are NOWHERE close to herd immunity (60% to 80% necessary). They are not close to passing New York, which might be at 25% or so now...

You are assuming there is no cross reactivity in Memory T cells from previous corona virus infections. A assumption that is currently being challenged with data that suggests otherwise.

But that is not going to lower "herd immunity" to well under 20%...

Nowhere close.

You you may be right. But it may lower it well below the 60-80% threshold everyone throw's around as a 100% done deal. You do not know, neither do I for that matter.

+1

It’s not 20%.

It's "not", or you don't want it to be?

Want has nothing to do with science.

Sounds like you have deep qualifications as both an epidemiologist and statistician and we need to listen.

Please educate!

[Typical Lax Dad]

Maybe someone should explain to PB that to get to herd immunity in Florida would mean upping the infection rates big time...

They are NOWHERE close to herd immunity (60% to 80% necessary). They are not close to passing New York, which might be at 25% or so now...

You are assuming there is no cross reactivity in Memory T cells from previous corona virus infections. A assumption that is currently being challenged with data that suggests otherwise.

But that is not going to lower "herd immunity" to well under 20%...

Nowhere close.

You you may be right. But it may lower it well below the 60-80% threshold everyone throw's around as a 100% done deal. You do not know, neither do I for that matter.

+1

It’s not 20%.

It's "not", or you don't want it to be?

Want has nothing to do with science.

Sounds like you have deep qualifications as both an epidemiologist and statistician and we need to listen.

Please educate!

Sounds like you don’t.

[Peter Brown]

Maybe someone should explain to PB that to get to herd immunity in Florida would mean upping the infection rates big time...

They are NOWHERE close to herd immunity (60% to 80% necessary). They are not close to passing New York, which might be at 25% or so now...

You are assuming there is no cross reactivity in Memory T cells from previous corona virus infections. A assumption that is currently being challenged with data that suggests otherwise.

But that is not going to lower "herd immunity" to well under 20%...

Nowhere close.

You you may be right. But it may lower it well below the 60-80% threshold everyone throw's around as a 100% done deal. You do not know, neither do I for that matter.

+1

It’s not 20%.

It's "not", or you don't want it to be?

Want has nothing to do with science.

Sounds like you have deep qualifications as both an epidemiologist and statistician and we need to listen.

Please educate!

Sounds like you don’t.

Well that lesson was short!

Maybe you don't. Oh well.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Maybe someone should explain to PB that to get to herd immunity in Florida would mean upping the infection rates big time...

They are NOWHERE close to herd immunity (60% to 80% necessary). They are not close to passing New York, which might be at 25% or so now...

You are assuming there is no cross reactivity in Memory T cells from previous corona virus infections. A assumption that is currently being challenged with data that suggests otherwise.

But that is not going to lower "herd immunity" to well under 20%...

Nowhere close.

You you may be right. But it may lower it well below the 60-80% threshold everyone throw's around as a 100% done deal. You do not know, neither do I for that matter.

+1

It’s not 20%.

It's "not", or you don't want it to be?

Want has nothing to do with science.

Sounds like you have deep qualifications as both an epidemiologist and statistician and we need to listen.

Please educate!

Sounds like you don’t.

Well that lesson was short!

Maybe you don't. Oh well.

Best to keep it that way with you. “Know your audience”.

[Peter Brown]

Maybe someone should explain to PB that to get to herd immunity in Florida would mean upping the infection rates big time...

They are NOWHERE close to herd immunity (60% to 80% necessary). They are not close to passing New York, which might be at 25% or so now...

You are assuming there is no cross reactivity in Memory T cells from previous corona virus infections. A assumption that is currently being challenged with data that suggests otherwise.

But that is not going to lower "herd immunity" to well under 20%...

Nowhere close.

You you may be right. But it may lower it well below the 60-80% threshold everyone throw's around as a 100% done deal. You do not know, neither do I for that matter.

+1

It’s not 20%.

It's "not", or you don't want it to be?

Want has nothing to do with science.

Sounds like you have deep qualifications as both an epidemiologist and statistician and we need to listen.

Please educate!

Sounds like you don’t.

Well that lesson was short!

Maybe you don't. Oh well.

Best to keep it that way with you. “Know your audience”.

I’d say ‘know your limitations’ is more apt.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Maybe someone should explain to PB that to get to herd immunity in Florida would mean upping the infection rates big time...

They are NOWHERE close to herd immunity (60% to 80% necessary). They are not close to passing New York, which might be at 25% or so now...

You are assuming there is no cross reactivity in Memory T cells from previous corona virus infections. A assumption that is currently being challenged with data that suggests otherwise.

But that is not going to lower "herd immunity" to well under 20%...

Nowhere close.

You you may be right. But it may lower it well below the 60-80% threshold everyone throw's around as a 100% done deal. You do not know, neither do I for that matter.

+1

It’s not 20%.

It's "not", or you don't want it to be?

Want has nothing to do with science.

Sounds like you have deep qualifications as both an epidemiologist and statistician and we need to listen.

Please educate!

Sounds like you don’t.

Well that lesson was short!

Maybe you don't. Oh well.

Best to keep it that way with you. “Know your audience”.

I’d say ‘know your limitations’ is more apt.

Yes. Know your audience’s limitations. Enjoy your Sunday.

[RedFromMI]

Herd immunity is a fantasy

Opinion by William Haseltine

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/18/opinions ... index.html

William Haseltine, PhD, is chair and president of the global health think tank, ACCESS Health International. He is author of numerous books, including the recently released, "A Family Guide to Covid: Questions and Answers for Parents, Grandparents and Children." The views expressed in this commentary are his own.

(from 9/18/2020)

Despite what science or the failed coronavirus strategy in Sweden tell us, people continue to entertain herd immunity as a possible strategy for ending the Covid-19 pandemic.

During ABC's town hall meeting with voters on Tuesday, President Donald Trump said the coronavirus would "go away," even without a vaccine. "You'll develop — you'll develop herd — like a herd mentality. It's going to be — it's going to be herd-developed, and that's going to happen. That will all happen," he said.

It seems Trump meant herd immunity, rather than "herd mentality," but no matter — the line of thinking he was apparently trying to invoke goes like this: if Americans let SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, run amok, then eventually enough people will be immune (around 70 to 90%) that the virus will no longer pose a threat to the population.

I've previously written about how reckless and ineffective this line of thinking is, and many experts have agreed. The strategy would cause a catastrophic number of deaths in the US. And Sweden, which took a lax approach to coronavirus restrictions, is still far from the herd immunity threshold. Thanks to researchers using genomic sequencing techniques, we now know that people can be reinfected with Covid-19 — a fact that should be the final nail in the coffin of any ill-conceived hopes for herd immunity.

Human coronaviruses in general have not been known to engender herd immunity. They've infected us like clockwork for decades — many of us many times over the course of our lives. Until recently, it was unclear whether this would be the case for SARS-CoV-2. Scientific case studies of two patients reinfected with Covid-19 — one in Hong Kong and the other in the United States (which is still undergoing peer review) — have since answered that question. The only one that remains is how often reinfection occurs.

What might shed some light on this issue is a collaborative, multiyear study led by researchers from the Netherlands and Kenya on the human coronavirus NL63 (HCoV-NL63), a member of the coronavirus family that isn't lethal but is endemic to populations worldwide. Like other nonlethal human coronaviruses, which likely infect us all at least once in our lifetime, HCoV-NL63 causes what we'd call a common cold. Three key findings from this study, which was published in 2018, can help inform our understanding of the Covid-19 virus SARS-CoV-2 and its ability to reinfect us.

The study was carried out across homes and hospitals in Kilifi County, Kenya, where researchers tracked the circulation of multiple coronaviruses throughout the community over a span of six years. The first relevant finding was that some patients weren't reinfected just once, but twice. One person even contracted the virus four times. This tells us that immunity to HCoV-NL63 was short-lived — so much so that some were reinfected within as little as three months.

The second significant finding was that a surprising number of patients had higher viral loads upon reinfection than they did during primary infection. For most people, both the amount of virus in their body and the severity of their symptoms decreased from one infection to the next. But for some patients in the NL63 study, the opposite was true. This seems to be the case for the 25-year-old man in Nevada who was reinfected with Covid-19.
In fact, researchers in the NL63 study postulated that the high antibody levels in some of the Kenya patients increased the likelihood of infection rather than preventing or mitigating it — an outcome that defies the more general expectation that a strong immune response would mean greater protection from reinfection. These cases suggest that no one who contracts a coronavirus, regardless of the nature of their primary infection, is totally safe from reinfection.

The third significant finding is that in six years, herd immunity to HCoV-NL63 was never acquired, and the virus continued to persist for the entire duration of the study. Granted, endemic human coronaviruses aren't as contagious as SARS-CoV-2, but they've been infecting people around the world for decades and always manage to come back. Even if SARS-CoV-2 does become an endemic human coronavirus like HCoV-NL63, we won't be rid of the dangers it presents to vulnerable populations — unless we have a widely used vaccine that can give us the protection our natural immune response cannot.

It is in our best interest to acknowledge the risk of reinfection — rather than holding out hope for herd immunity — when thinking of the scientific and public health interventions we'll need in the months and years to come. We must place the bulk of our efforts on developing and equitably distributing a vaccine that is not only safe and effective, but attendant to the possibility of reinfection. We must redouble our efforts to stage evidence-based public health interventions until a vaccine is available. Otherwise, it will be a long time before we've seen the last of Covid-19 — and not long at all before we're bested by another lethal coronavirus once more.

[Peter Brown]

Maybe someone should explain to PB that to get to herd immunity in Florida would mean upping the infection rates big time...

They are NOWHERE close to herd immunity (60% to 80% necessary). They are not close to passing New York, which might be at 25% or so now...

You are assuming there is no cross reactivity in Memory T cells from previous corona virus infections. A assumption that is currently being challenged with data that suggests otherwise.

But that is not going to lower "herd immunity" to well under 20%...

Nowhere close.

You you may be right. But it may lower it well below the 60-80% threshold everyone throw's around as a 100% done deal. You do not know, neither do I for that matter.

+1

It’s not 20%.

It's "not", or you don't want it to be?

Want has nothing to do with science.

Sounds like you have deep qualifications as both an epidemiologist and statistician and we need to listen.

Please educate!

Sounds like you don’t.

Well that lesson was short!

Maybe you don't. Oh well.

Best to keep it that way with you. “Know your audience”.

I’d say ‘know your limitations’ is more apt.

Yes. Know your audience’s limitations. Enjoy your Sunday.

Well that’s grossly pedantic...simply assuming your audience has limitations and even if they were eager to learn, they ‘can’t’. Fitting elitism for a Democrat.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Herd immunity is a fantasy

Opinion by William Haseltine

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/18/opinions ... index.html

William Haseltine, PhD, is chair and president of the global health think tank, ACCESS Health International. He is author of numerous books, including the recently released, "A Family Guide to Covid: Questions and Answers for Parents, Grandparents and Children." The views expressed in this commentary are his own.

(from 9/18/2020)

Despite what science or the failed coronavirus strategy in Sweden tell us, people continue to entertain herd immunity as a possible strategy for ending the Covid-19 pandemic.

During ABC's town hall meeting with voters on Tuesday, President Donald Trump said the coronavirus would "go away," even without a vaccine. "You'll develop — you'll develop herd — like a herd mentality. It's going to be — it's going to be herd-developed, and that's going to happen. That will all happen," he said.

It seems Trump meant herd immunity, rather than "herd mentality," but no matter — the line of thinking he was apparently trying to invoke goes like this: if Americans let SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, run amok, then eventually enough people will be immune (around 70 to 90%) that the virus will no longer pose a threat to the population.

I've previously written about how reckless and ineffective this line of thinking is, and many experts have agreed. The strategy would cause a catastrophic number of deaths in the US. And Sweden, which took a lax approach to coronavirus restrictions, is still far from the herd immunity threshold. Thanks to researchers using genomic sequencing techniques, we now know that people can be reinfected with Covid-19 — a fact that should be the final nail in the coffin of any ill-conceived hopes for herd immunity.

Human coronaviruses in general have not been known to engender herd immunity. They've infected us like clockwork for decades — many of us many times over the course of our lives. Until recently, it was unclear whether this would be the case for SARS-CoV-2. Scientific case studies of two patients reinfected with Covid-19 — one in Hong Kong and the other in the United States (which is still undergoing peer review) — have since answered that question. The only one that remains is how often reinfection occurs.

What might shed some light on this issue is a collaborative, multiyear study led by researchers from the Netherlands and Kenya on the human coronavirus NL63 (HCoV-NL63), a member of the coronavirus family that isn't lethal but is endemic to populations worldwide. Like other nonlethal human coronaviruses, which likely infect us all at least once in our lifetime, HCoV-NL63 causes what we'd call a common cold. Three key findings from this study, which was published in 2018, can help inform our understanding of the Covid-19 virus SARS-CoV-2 and its ability to reinfect us.

The study was carried out across homes and hospitals in Kilifi County, Kenya, where researchers tracked the circulation of multiple coronaviruses throughout the community over a span of six years. The first relevant finding was that some patients weren't reinfected just once, but twice. One person even contracted the virus four times. This tells us that immunity to HCoV-NL63 was short-lived — so much so that some were reinfected within as little as three months.

The second significant finding was that a surprising number of patients had higher viral loads upon reinfection than they did during primary infection. For most people, both the amount of virus in their body and the severity of their symptoms decreased from one infection to the next. But for some patients in the NL63 study, the opposite was true. This seems to be the case for the 25-year-old man in Nevada who was reinfected with Covid-19.
In fact, researchers in the NL63 study postulated that the high antibody levels in some of the Kenya patients increased the likelihood of infection rather than preventing or mitigating it — an outcome that defies the more general expectation that a strong immune response would mean greater protection from reinfection. These cases suggest that no one who contracts a coronavirus, regardless of the nature of their primary infection, is totally safe from reinfection.

The third significant finding is that in six years, herd immunity to HCoV-NL63 was never acquired, and the virus continued to persist for the entire duration of the study. Granted, endemic human coronaviruses aren't as contagious as SARS-CoV-2, but they've been infecting people around the world for decades and always manage to come back. Even if SARS-CoV-2 does become an endemic human coronavirus like HCoV-NL63, we won't be rid of the dangers it presents to vulnerable populations — unless we have a widely used vaccine that can give us the protection our natural immune response cannot.

It is in our best interest to acknowledge the risk of reinfection — rather than holding out hope for herd immunity — when thinking of the scientific and public health interventions we'll need in the months and years to come. We must place the bulk of our efforts on developing and equitably distributing a vaccine that is not only safe and effective, but attendant to the possibility of reinfection. We must redouble our efforts to stage evidence-based public health interventions until a vaccine is available. Otherwise, it will be a long time before we've seen the last of Covid-19 — and not long at all before we're bested by another lethal coronavirus once more.

Not enough wishful thinking in that article. Science is better when you are more positive and hopeful.