The Spreading (And Potentially Deadly) Coronavirus Epidemic....

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,013]

1 hour ago, fcgamer said:

On another note, I get sick and tired of people always mentioning how the states handled things, what about Sweden? Smaller death rate? Did they handle things better, or is it because of differences in population size?

Sweden has a lot of social factors that play against fast community spread of disease. They're a very wealth country by international standards and have a population that waits to have kids and then doesn't have a ton of them, keeping household numbers down. That wealth also has very few families living in small, multigenerational households. Most adult sweds live alone or with their spouses only. Working conditions for the average swed is different as most average americans either work retail or in large warehouses if they work outside of the public sector and healthcare. 

Sweds are very reserved people. They don't pride themselves on being loud and affectionate. They're basically the complete opposite of itaily, a least the south, which got gang raped by COVID.

I read a piece examining why Sweden has factors going for it by their culture and economic status and I was swayed. I wish I could find it but it was literally months ago.

I've said it for a long time tho that I think as a society, we're too touchy feely. We often break the 3 ft bubble and talk right in people's faces. If a person takes a step by during conversation we find it distasteful and off putting, like maybe we smell lol idk 

This virus, unfortunately is a talking, signing, hollering, laughing virus. Not just a coughing and sneezing virus. And Americans are those who talk loud, holler and laugh with basically every interaction that is worth having. Sweds are fish out of water in most American circles and that reserved nature may help them defeat COVID easier.

[Brickman | 3,986]

1 hour ago, fcgamer said:

Just read the news article posted. Umm yeah, sure the Trump administration might not support masks, but initially, neither did the WHO. The WHO made other blunders as well, going against doctor experts, just because the doctors were from Taiwan (I.e they made it political before it even came to the USA)

The WHO are a bunch of muppets that have no idea what is going on and continually flip flop on everything they say. Now they’re saying there shouldn’t be lockdowns. I’m glad my country aren’t listening to these clowns.

1 hour ago, fcgamer said:

On another note, I get sick and tired of people always mentioning how the states handled things, what about Sweden? Smaller death rate? Did they handle things better, or is it because of differences in population size?

I haven’t checked recently but isn’t Sweden death rate like 8%? I think they have handled it badly, I’d hate to be living there right now. They aren’t a “success story” and I wish reporters would stop quoting it. Success stories are countries like South Korea, Taiwan, NZ, Australia, Japan, Vietnam. 

Watch this space as the Northern hemisphere goes into Winter. Europe was talking about living with the virus a month ago. They’ll be in lockdown next month or I’ll eat my hat haha.

[fcgamer | 4,723]

@RegularGuyGamer: I'm not sure I agree totally with everything you stated, though I can respect such discourse as we are having, and I think these are the kinds of talks that everyone should be having, rather than pointing fingers immediately at the left or right.

Compared to the Hispanic countries and Italy, I honestly don't think America comes anywhere near in terms of touchy feely, or even in terms of standing proximity to each other. I'd personally rank us as more moderate in these regards, but that could just be me.

Similarly, in many Asian countries (Taiwan is like this, for example) , everyone is always in everyone else's personal space, there are definitely multi generational households, and for the uninitiated, when two Taiwanense normally speak, you'd think they are having a heated argument about someone sleeping with the other's wife or something.

But anyways, I think the whole circumstances on every country's success, failure, or whatever with covid-19 is so much more complex than the political lines that are being drawn, but failing to recognise such will just make it so much harder to solve the problem.

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,013]

1 hour ago, fcgamer said:

Compared to the Hispanic countries and Italy, I honestly don't think America comes anywhere near in terms of touchy feely, or even in terms of standing proximity to each other. I'd personally rank us as more moderate in these regards, but that could just be me.

I definitely agree with you there. I wish I could find the article as they made several arguments for each country and they're response to the virus. 

In South Africa overall deaths are actually down from past years bc the virus has scared people out of behavior that would normally risk lives! I just think it's interesting that there is this sociological impact that also effects a cultures susceptibility to viruses and pandemics. 

[Doctornick | 419]

8 hours ago, Link said:

are we still at the point where we can’t talk about politics ITT? cause... lol

 

I gave up on that awhile ago in here.  At least I found out I'm negative for Covid, and positive for freaking pneumonia.

[fcgamer | 4,723]

1 hour ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

 

In South Africa overall deaths are actually down from past years bc the virus has scared people out of behavior that would normally risk lives! I just think it's interesting that there is this sociological impact that also effects a cultures susceptibility to viruses and pandemics. 

That's really interesting

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,013]

11 minutes ago, Doctornick said:

I gave up on that awhile ago in here.  At least I found out I'm negative for Covid, and positive for freaking pneumonia.

Damn dude! I am sorry to hear that. I genuinely don't know which would be worse. Hopefully you make a speedy recovery. 

[Link | 2,710]

Sweden has universal healthcare. I would like cons to stop citing it in one part and not the other.

[Doctornick | 419]

2 hours ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

Damn dude! I am sorry to hear that. I genuinely don't know which would be worse. Hopefully you make a speedy recovery. 

I'll take pneumonia any day since we don't have to worry about new data, and I shouldn't have any long term effects from it.  Thank you though!  I'll be using this time to dive into my backlog of a few dozen games!

[Brickman | 3,986]

5 hours ago, fcgamer said:

Similarly, in many Asian countries (Taiwan is like this, for example) , everyone is always in everyone else's personal space, there are definitely multi generational households, and for the uninitiated, when two Taiwanense normally speak, you'd think they are having a heated argument about someone sleeping with the other's wife or something.

This made me laugh because it’s so true. There are quite a lot of Taiwanese in Australia so you get to know them.

My wife’s brothers wife is Taiwanese and when she talks to her mum it sounds like a massive argument haha.

[Link | 2,710]

In Sweden, public events cannot include more than 50 people. Anyone who organizes a larger gathering is subject to a fine or up to six months in prison.

If you’ve been following the virus news out of Sweden, this fact may surprise you. Sweden has become notorious for its laissez-faire response. Its leaders refused to impose a lockdown in the spring, insisting that doing so was akin to “using a hammer to kill a fly.” They also actively discouraged mask wearing.

Ever since, people in other countries who favor a more lax approach have held up Sweden as a model. Recently, as new cases have surged in other European countries, some of Sweden’s defenders have claimed vindication.

How are you supposed to make sense of all this? Several readers have asked me that question, and the answers point to some lessons for fighting the virus. I think there are three key ones from Sweden:

1. It is not a success story. Over all, Sweden’s decision to let many activities continue unabated and its hope that growing immunity to the virus would protect people does not look good. The country has suffered more than five times as many deaths per capita as neighboring Denmark and about 10 times as many as Finland or Norway.

“It was a terrible idea to do what they did,” Janet Baseman, an epidemiologist at the University of Washington, told me.

By The New York Times | Sources: Johns Hopkins University, World Bank

2. But Sweden did more than some people realize. It closed schools for students ages 16 and older. It encouraged residents to keep their distance from one another. And it imposed the ban on big gatherings, which looks especially smart now.

Compared with other viruses, this one seems especially likely to spread in clusters. Many infected people don’t infect a single other person, while “as few as 10 to 20 percent of infected people may be responsible for as much as 80 to 90 percent of transmission,” The Atlantic’s Zeynep Tufekci has explained.

Given this, it’s less surprising that Sweden’s recent virus performance looks mediocre rather than horrible.

By The New York Times | Sources: Johns Hopkins University, World Bank

3. Swedish officials have been right to worry about “sustainability.” Strict lockdowns bring their own steep costs for society. With a vaccine at least months away, societies probably need to grapple with how to restart activities while minimizing risk.

Sweden’s leaders do not seem to have found the ideal strategy, but they are asking a reasonable question. “We see a disease that we’re going to have to handle for a long time,” Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s top epidemiologist, told The Financial Times, “and we need to build up systems for doing that.”

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,105]

2 hours ago, Doctornick said:

I'll take pneumonia any day since we don't have to worry about new data, and I shouldn't have any long term effects from it.  Thank you though!  I'll be using this time to dive into my backlog of a few dozen games!

Hang in there and get better soon!

[TrekMD | 1,401]

5 hours ago, Doctornick said:

I gave up on that awhile ago in here.  At least I found out I'm negative for Covid, and positive for freaking pneumonia.

Oh man, glad to see you're COVID negative but I'm sorry about the pneumonia.  Hopefully it is a type of pneumonia that is relatively easy to treat.  Get well soon!

[Doctornick | 419]

2 hours ago, TrekMD said:

Oh man, glad to see you're COVID negative but I'm sorry about the pneumonia.  Hopefully it is a type of pneumonia that is relatively easy to treat.  Get well soon!

Viral sadly, so basically rest and OTC meds other than an inhaler to help keep the lungs clear.  

 

Thank you everyone for the kind words!  Even though I got to face with the ebola scare and countless other diseases, this one shook me a bit when I was possibly positive.  You're all good people, and I really appreciate you all!

[jonebone | 1,307]

13 hours ago, Link said:

 

By The New York Times | Sources: Johns Hopkins University, World Bank

 

 

I haven't really been following Coronavirus much, pretty tired of it at this point.  But all along I figured the "spring season" would be easy and I was worried about the inevitable second peak coming during the Fall Season.  Seems like that's exactly what happening, combined with a Flu season, and people are probably going to be even more of hermits this Winter.  Pretty sad... I'm still expecting to trick or treat but I assume there's no shot of seeing Santa this year with the kiddos.

At some point people have to accept that there is no return to normal, ever, and that COVID or strains of it are probably going to be around for the rest of our lives.  I suspect it'll just be like Flu, recurring every year, we have some vaccine that does maybe 50-60% effectiveness and we just live with it.  Any expectations of a vaccine that magically cures it are woefully unrealistic and  people will need to determine how much "risk" they are willing to live with. 

[fcgamer | 4,723]

Just read that Taiwan inked a deal with a pharmaceutical company in Germany over vaccines, which are in the stage 3 testing phase, they suspect they'll be available (to Taiwan) first quarter of 2021.

If we really are so close to having vaccines available, then I'd personally say we're finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

I agree with Jone, this'll like be a similar situation as the flu, but hopefully once the vaccines are out and available, it is drastically reduced in just how big of a deal it is, allowing everyone to get back to their lives.

[CodysGameRoom | 2,008]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/12/health/johnson-coronavirus-vaccine-pause-bn/index.html

Drugmaker Johnson & Johnson said Monday it has paused the advanced clinical trial of its experimental coronavirus vaccine because of an unexplained illness in one of the volunteers.

Edited October 13, 2020 by CodysGameRoom

[ThePhleo | 2,184]

@jonebone You seem to share a similar feeling I have about this disease.

I fear that we will never find a real cure for Coronavirus much like how there’s no cure for another modern born virus, HIV.

This is our Black Plague and modern medicine is thankfully keeping the death toll low.

At this point I feel the only way to get past it is to have it run it’s course. I don’t think we could have even stopped it at the start either and as much as I dislike Trump, China, and anti-science people in general I can’t wholly blame them for this.

Before modern times diseases like this were just a normal part of life. We’ve enjoyed a nice 100 year streak of fantastic human health thanks to things like penicillin, but even as a kid I remember reading that eventually the microscopic world would adapt and a pandemic would be inevitable.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,526]

7 hours ago, fcgamer said:

Just read that Taiwan inked a deal with a pharmaceutical company in Germany over vaccines, which are in the stage 3 testing phase, they suspect they'll be available (to Taiwan) first quarter of 2021.

If we really are so close to having vaccines available, then I'd personally say we're finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

I agree with Jone, this'll like be a similar situation as the flu, but hopefully once the vaccines are out and available, it is drastically reduced in just how big of a deal it is, allowing everyone to get back to their lives.

Assuming the vaccines actually give lasting protection.

[fcgamer | 4,723]

6 hours ago, CodysGameRoom said:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/12/health/johnson-coronavirus-vaccine-pause-bn/index.html

Drugmaker Johnson & Johnson said Monday it has paused the advanced clinical trial of its experimental coronavirus vaccine because of an unexplained illness in one of the volunteers.

Good for them. J&J wasn't the company I was referring to.

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,013]

8 hours ago, CodysGameRoom said:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/12/health/johnson-coronavirus-vaccine-pause-bn/index.html

Drugmaker Johnson & Johnson said Monday it has paused the advanced clinical trial of its experimental coronavirus vaccine because of an unexplained illness in one of the volunteers.

"Anyone who knows how drug development and clinical trials work will tell you this is common and not to be alarmed. It's standard procedure and could be completely unrelated. Keep in mind these trials have 10's of thousands of participants and every possible side effect regardless how insignificant is reported.

 

With such big patient numbers, there's bound to be participants who develop a significant illness for whatever reason."

 

"The unexplained illness may have nothing to do with the vaccine. When you have a lot of people in a study the odds that someone may develop an unrelated illness go up. People not involved in clinical trials develop illnesses all the time so this illness may just be the normal course of events. Or it may be related to the vaccine.

 

This is what good medicine looks like. Pause, study, attempt to determine the cause of the illness and resume if safe."

[TrekMD | 1,401]

Something similar happened in Europe with the vaccine Oxford is working on and the event was not associated with the vaccine, so the study is continuing.  So, we just have to wait and see what the team working with J&J discovers.

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,013]

12 hours ago, jonebone said:

At some point people have to accept that there is no return to normal, ever, and that COVID or strains of it are probably going to be around for the rest of our lives.  I suspect it'll just be like Flu, recurring every year, we have some vaccine that does maybe 50-60% effectiveness and we just live with it. 

There's just no historical indication that this will be the case. All SARS viruses are not influenza like and do not mutate seasonally. The last two killed their hosts faster than they could spread so they effectively burned out. This virus could very well be eradicated with the right treatment, mitigation and vaccine. 

I share the idea that we need to be in the mind set that we're in this for the long haul but that's 3-8 years not a life time. At least not from what I've read and I ready preprints weekly. 

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,013]

https://www.barrons.com/articles/pfizer-and-biontech-vaccine-could-be-ready-by-the-end-of-november-were-all-winners-51602849358

Pfizer vaccine got approved to enroll teens and children in the trials. They're looking at mid November to get the first batches rolled out to front line workers and a full roll out February / March. Fingers crossed boys but this is looking good. 

Add a vaccine to masking and social distancing, we could see sports stadiums being filled come spring 2022.

[ZeldaFreak | 3,600]

10 minutes ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

https://www.barrons.com/articles/pfizer-and-biontech-vaccine-could-be-ready-by-the-end-of-november-were-all-winners-51602849358

Pfizer vaccine got approved to enroll teens and children in the trials. They're looking at mid November to get the first batches rolled out to front line workers and a full roll out February / March. Fingers crossed boys but this is looking good. 

Add a vaccine to masking and social distancing, we could see sports stadiums being filled come spring 2022.

Yup, I'm optimistic for things turning back to... probably still not completely normal, but like a solid 80-85% of the way there early 2022.