Coronavirus General Discussion (no politics, no flamewars!)

soeren wrote in post #19050525
I still believe in herd immunity more than i believe in WHO right now. It's the strategy in Sweden and many danish virologist still find immunity from infection more possible.

Who has been the victim of a smear campaign and they have gone to great pains to demonstrate how they gave warnings based on the information they were given from Chinese authorities.

You might want to check what the WHO figures for Sweden are right now. They went through the roof.
According the the WHO report for 20th April:
https://www.who.int …-19.pdf?sfvrsn=fcf0670b​_4

Sweden (with a population of 10.23million) has 14,384 cases about 500 of which are new cases and 1540 deaths: that's a mortality rate of about 10.7%, which is very high despite having an advanced health care system.

Their delay in recognizing the need for countermeasures also impacted their testing program, which is very limited (their status on community transmission is "Pending" - i.e. they have no idea) , thus it is likely that there are many unreported cases and levels of community transmission yet to surface or be reported - if much more testing is done it may well reveal the missing cases and return the mortality rates to the more normal 3-4% of infections. To reach a state of control they will need an extremely strict lock-down policy for some time, and have a massive increase in critical care capability and testing.

NZ's scientists did an early analysis of the scenarios, for example seeking herd immunity through no significant lockdown (alert level 1 - based on herd immunity) compared to a strict and early intervention and isolation (alert Level 4).

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Tronhard wrote in post #19050653
What I struggle to understand is the resistance to isolation calls. If one's doctor told an individual to stay home because they were sick, I would expect that the average person, even in the US, would do so. When the medical, health and scientific community say the population should stay at home for a period to reduce the risks and not overload medical resources - both of which save lives - it seems to be viewed as an attack on human rights and becomes a political issue.

It might be simply explained as the inherent resistance to being cooped up cannot be overcome with logic in some.

It might simply be explained as reflecting the fact that half the population is below the median on the intelligence scale.

Or something in between.

I personally have no issue with being cooped up to protect myself, and that I lose some liberties during these days when no vaccine exists. However, I also struggle with the fact that the world economy is in a slit trench of a toilet by doing so.

Wilt wrote in post #19050633
I was not trying to debate you, I was trying to augment your comment, with the suggestion that social distancing might be one of the strategies to help manage the endless cycle of re-infection. As to social distancing being effective, the SF Bay area counties are indeed successful in keeping case counts well below hospital capacity; in comparison LA county has 14000 cases compared to SF bay area counties' 6000 cases, 230% more cases in spite of the fact that LA county population is only about 28% greater! So it shows that the same social distancing practices as SF Bay area do not work as well in LA.

In today's news, we find that Singapoore's apparent success in managing the virus spread is in fact NOT WORKING sufficiently, so they have adopted the wearing of masks. They now have 8000 cases, in spite of their efforts to do contact tracking. Singapore, population 5.6 Million, compared to SF Bay area population 7.8 Million (40% more in SF Bay), Singapore now has 33% greater case count than SF Bay area. So the Singapore experience goes counter to the developing sentiment of opening up that we are hearing about in protests around the US.

I brought up HIV as an example of the lack of any developed vaccine, so we now are 'living with it' now approaching 40 years. So there is a reliance only upon behavior mofication to keep its spread somewhat in check.

I still muse about finding a better solution. It is better to wonder and question that to accept with complacency, if a better solution can be invented, compared to what we have.

Hehe ok. We've already had a couple of cases of countries trying to achieve 'herd immunity' (UK and Netherlands) and they are badly hit right now. Thank you for sharing some stuff on Singapore.

I still don't think that HIV is a proper comparison for this, but I get what you're saying.

Analogies are seldom perfect, but they can be useful for illustrating certain principles that apply to both, in spite of some fundamental differences.

We are struggling to find, among the multiple worldwide experiences with COVID-19, a single model which fits all situations...why the difference between LA Co. vs. SF Bay counties which have similarly size populations, when both practice the same fundamental practices put into place statewide by Gov. Newsom?! That's one example of one model not fitting all...instead we have significant differences in case counts.

Wilt wrote in post #19050659
I personally have no issue with being cooped up to protect myself, and that I lose some liberties during these days when no vaccine exists.

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I don't think most people have any trouble being cooped up to protect themselves. . When the trouble starts is when authorities expect us to be cooped up to protect others.

Generally speaking, most people act in their own best interests, and put their own interests way ahead of the interests of others. . This is natural and should not be criticized. . It is the way all other species behave.

If each person protects themselves, then everybody will be protected. . For the few who are unable to protect themselves, then they will be weeded out of the population. . We will be able to repopulate, just as we have always done after pandemics thin our ranks. . It's how nature works.

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Well I'm perfectly fine being cooped up to protect others. Nothing wrong with that.

Tom Reichner wrote in post #19050666
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I don't think most people have any trouble being cooped up to protect themselves. . When the trouble starts is when authorities expect us to be cooped up to protect others.

Generally speaking, most people act in their own best interests, and put their own interests way ahead of the interests of others. . This is natural and should not be criticized. . It is the way all other species behave.

If each person protects themselves, then everybody will be protected. . For the few who are unable to protect themselves, then they will be weeded out of the population. . We will be able to repopulate, just as we have always done after pandemics thin our ranks. . It's how nature works.

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With all due respect Tom, I totally disagree with the idea that people, by purely protecting themselves, will result in everybody being protected. As an individual it would be really, really hard to guarantee protection unless one absolutely cut oneself off from the rest of humanity and its resources, because you don't know what someone has touched, or where they have been before something you bought or bartered for is in your possession.

Really it's the other way round: by everyone being protected you will be. I am also distressed by the ideology that it acceptable for pandemics to "weed out the weak" from the population - that has a smell of Social Darwinism that led to some of the worst ideology of the pre-WWII regime - specifically survival of the fittest, not as a species but as individuals within society.

The disease statistics in the history of pandemics totally contradict that principle - if people who died in droves were (as you suggest) protecting themselves, they did a lousy job of doing so and protecting everybody, as you claim. Again, look at the numbers, they show that the countries with the greatest controls are safer for their populations.

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'No man is an island' ...as a member of society we each contribute in our own way, for the benefit of everyone, and we rely upon others' contributions to meet our own needs, is that not true?

Yes, some make little contribution to society, but neverhetless rely upon society to furnish various compositibles, without them they would not exist...for those who do not grow their own.

Wilt wrote in post #19050662
We are struggling to find, among the multiple worldwide experiences with COVID-19, a single model which fits all situations...why the difference between LA Co. vs. SF Bay counties which have similarly size populations, when both practice the same fundamental practices put into place statewide by Gov. Newsom?!

Didn't our orders to avoid gatherings, stand far apart, close nonessential businesses, and so on precede the orders given down south?

OhLook wrote in post #19050700
Didn't our orders to avoid gatherings, stand far apart, close nonessential businesses, and so on precede the orders given down south?

You are right to identify a difference in timing of effectivity of shelter-in-place...the SF Bay counties were 3 days earlier. March 16 vs. March 19. That might be the difference as LA surpassed SF Bay area somewhere around Mar 20-27 or so (I did not begin to track the SF Bay counties case total until Apr3). LA county surpassed the smaller Santa Clara Co. Mar 20.

Tronhard wrote in post #19050681
I am also distressed by the ideology that it acceptable for pandemics to "weed out the weak" from the population - that has a smell of Social Darwinism that led to some of the worst ideology of the pre-WWII regime - specifically survival of the fittest, not as a species but as individuals within society.

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To me, it seems like biological Darwinism, not social Darwinism.

It is simply biology doing what it does, without intentional interference one way or the other from humans. . Why are so many okay with this principle at work with other species in the animal kingdom, but horrified at the thought of it happening in the human population? . Are we not a member of the kingdom Animalia?

HUMAN TAXONOMY:
Kingdom: . Animalia
Phylum: . . Chordata
Class: . . . . Mammalia
Order: . . . . Primate
Family: . . . Hominidae
Genus: . . . Homo
Species: . sapiens

Do we somehow think that what we say is best for other species' populations is not good enough for us? . What's up with that kind of thinking, anyway?


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Tom Reichner wrote in post #19050579
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All of this medical and scientific intervention is a relatively new thing in human history.

The vast majority of humans who ever lived never had any such level of medical care or scientific analysis of such viruses. . They didn't even know what a virus was. . They just knew that a lot of people were getting sick and dying. . And yet mankind, as a species, fared quite well and continued to be the most dominant species on the planet.

Is it really so unthinkable to just let the virus run its course, the way viruses and other plagues did for over 99% of mankind's history?

Is no one even considering the option of just letting it take who it may, and refusing to treat those who are infected, so that hospitals will not be over capacity because of COVID patients? . I am not saying that I think we should do this, but it surprises me that I am not even seeing it proposed or discussed. . Just because we have the means to treat and cure people doesn't necessarily mean that we always have to employ those means…….

That is an absolutely horrible and repugnant thought to most people which is why I believe we don't see it discussed or suggested. I feel most humans are compassionate. Most care about their fellow man and a safe, healthy society and want to help others out if it's within their means.

We recovered before from things like the black death because we didn't have cruise ships, jumbo jets or high speed trains that could deliver viruses to every corner of the world in a matter of days. Plus, not every part of the world was populated back then as it is today.

And in reality, the modern medical means we DO have will not be employed everywhere. A good deal of the world is poor and has miserable healthcare or terrible delivery systems for vaccines. So what you propose will happen anyway on its own. Your poor, sickly and weak will die off on their own Tom. I would hate to live in a world where nobody cared about one's neighbor, or decided he/she wasn't pure enough or strong enough to survive. We've already seen that story - it was called WWII, or any number of other events in recent history. That's how I lost half my family.

Put differently, we why would we accept so freely that the gene pool of Homo sapiens is weakened by instead preserving life in those who would naturally die from their ailment?! Some would respond, "because we can"....Is that really a 'good' thing to do, ultimately?
Might that be putting 'for the good of the individual' above the 'for the good of mankind'

Tom Reichner wrote in post #19050709
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To me, it seems like biological Darwinism, not social Darwinism.

It is simply biology doing what it does, without intentional interference one way or the other from humans. . Why are so many okay with this principle at work with other species in the animal kingdom, but horrified at the thought of it happening in the human population? . Are we not a member of the kingdom Animalia?

HUMAN TAXONOMY:
Kingdom: . Animalia
Phylum: . . Chordata
Class: . . . . Mammalia
Order: . . . . Primate
Family: . . . Hominidae
Genus: . . . Homo
Species: . sapiens

Do we somehow think that what we say is best for other species' populations is not good enough for us? . What's up with that kind of thinking, anyway?

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Yes, but unlike all other creatures that preceded us we have the power to manage our environment and ourselves.

So, if you want to go down the line of naturalism, then I would suggest foregoing all the stuff that we, as a society, have engineered for our protection, comfort and enjoyment. We invented these things on the way to being what we are and admit it or not, you are a benefactor of those things, including drugs that make you better and prevent you getting sick or dying, and scientists, academics, researchers, and medics who have at some stage kept you alive and hopefully well. It's rather one-sided to cherry-pick the benefits that being part of a society brings you, yet deny that you have a responsibility to that same society.

The contents of an ethics debate...what is expressed in post 2368 vs. what is expressed in post 2369.

Like ethics debates, the winner may not be in 'the truth' but in how convincingly each side supports its selected position.