Mega-Thread: Coronavirus Pandemic

[Forogil]

This "new" information doesn't change anything, we already knew this.

I think you should read the following quote, as you obviously didn't or don't include WHO or science journal's Nature in that "we".

Except that it wasn't that simple - as both were considered (even for surgical masks):

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02801-8
Contains:"In a review of observational studies, an international research team estimates that surgical and comparable cloth masks are 67% effective in protecting the wearer."


WHO's guidelines https://www.who.int/publications/i/i...ncov)-outbreak indicates that the actual support for face masks is sparse for both protecting the wearer and others from infected but still says:
"WHO recommends that health workers providing direct care to COVID-19 patients, should wear a medical mask (in addition to other PPE that are part of droplet and contact precautions);"

and includes a line with "medical masks" for protection of vulnerable populations in their recommendations for the general population.

[Forogil]

"Facebook accused of forcing staff back to offices
More than 200 Facebook workers from around the world have accused the firm of forcing its content moderators back to the office despite the risks of contracting coronavirus."
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54995797

[Edge-]

"Facebook accused of forcing staff back to offices
More than 200 Facebook workers from around the world have accused the firm of forcing its content moderators back to the office despite the risks of contracting coronavirus."
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54995797

Ah, but those content moderators are working through third party vendors who Facebook contracts out to so that they can treat their employees like shit while Facebook gets to say, "Not our fault!"

[Katchii]

I think you should read the following quote, as you obviously didn't or don't include WHO or science journal's Nature in that "we".

My fault. I skimmed it and didn't see the details and misinterpreted what you were trying to say or inferring.

This supports the claim even more, people should where masks because it does BOTH; protects the wearer and those around them.

[Corvus]

Just an update on the situation in Australia - we keep appearing to have it under control but given how slippery it is, nothing is certain.

Following the second wave in Victoria, there are fears for one in South Australia now, though the authorities there have jumped hard and fast to try and contain it.

South Australia has gone months prior to this without a single case of community transmission, only for it to rear its ugly head. As in Victoria, it escaped into the public from a hotel being used to quarantine returned overseas travellers undergoing mandatory quarantine.

So in both situations, infected travellers were being housed in hotels in the middle of cities, with locals being used as workers/cleaners/guards and the hope being they wouldn't pick it up and spread it. Twice now it has failed, which isn't good.

The big problem here is that the strain of the virus in South Australia appears to be one that spreads very, very fast. As in it has an incubation period of 24 hours or less.

[Omega10]

Just an update on the situation in Australia - we keep appearing to have it under control but given how slippery it is, nothing is certain.

Following the second wave in Victoria, there are fears for one in South Australia now, though the authorities there have jumped hard and fast to try and contain it.

South Australia has gone months prior to this without a single case of community transmission, only for it to rear its ugly head. As in Victoria, it escaped into the public from a hotel being used to quarantine returned overseas travellers undergoing mandatory quarantine.

So in both situations, infected travellers were being housed in hotels in the middle of cities, with locals being used as workers/cleaners/guards and the hope being they wouldn't pick it up and spread it. Twice now it has failed, which isn't good.

The big problem here is that the strain of the virus in South Australia appears to be one that spreads very, very fast. As in it has an incubation period of 24 hours or less.

This is why I am skeptical about how good a vaccine will do. It might work well against the virus we have NOW, but what about the virus we will have when it is finally deployed on a massive scale?

The virus seems to have gone through a lot of changes.

mid 2019 - medium transmission rate, low damage
late 2019 - higher transmission rate, higher damage
early 2020 - high transmission rate, very high damage
mid 2020 - even higher transmission rate, moderate damage

and now in Australia it seems to be increasing its transmission rate by quite a bit.

The virus is in it to win it, and I don't think vaccines will be much more than temporary relief. Of course, any relief is good relief. And this will be very good from an economic standpoint because there will be lots of jobs created maintaining and distributing various versions of the vaccines.

[PhaelixWW]

This is why I am skeptical about how good a vaccine will do. It might work well against the virus we have NOW, but what about the virus we will have when it is finally deployed on a massive scale?

The virus seems to have gone through a lot of changes.

That's not really true, though. What we've seen so far are small changes, and small changes aren't typically enough to allow the virus to evade antibodies made by the vaccine.

In fact, the most major mutation to the SARS-CoV-2 virus is the D614G variant. The D614G variant replicates more quickly and transmits more easily than the original strain which has made it almost completely take over as the dominant variant. But it did that a long time ago, during the first wave. It has long since been the dominant strain throughout the world.

But the fact that the D614G variant is so dominant actually enhances the effectiveness of a vaccine, as there aren't as many variants to potentially yield further mutations and/or play havoc with the effectiveness of the vaccines.

Also, the very thing that helps make the D614G variant as dominant as it is will also aid in the ability for the antibodies caused by the vaccine to successfully access the virus and neutralize it.

A new study published in Science confirms that SARS-CoV-2 has mutated in a way that's enabled it to spread quickly around the world, but the spike mutation may also make the virus more susceptible to a vaccine:

The new strain of coronavirus, called D614G, emerged in Europe and has become the most common in the world. Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Wisconsin-Madison shows the D614G strain replicates faster and is more transmissible than the virus, originating in China, that spread in the beginning of the pandemic.

There were bright spots in the study findings: While the D614G strain spreads faster, in animal studies it was not associated with more severe disease, and the strain is slightly more sensitive to neutralization by antibody drugs.

The study published Nov. 12 provides some of the first concrete findings about how SARS-CoV-2 is evolving.

"The D614G virus outcompetes and outgrows the ancestral strain by about 10-fold and replicates extremely efficiently in primary nasal epithelial cells, which are a potentially important site for person-to-person transmission," said Ralph Baric, professor of epidemiology at the UNC-Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health and professor of microbiology and immunology at the UNC School of Medicine.

Baric has studied coronaviruses for more than three decades and was integral in the development of remdesivir, the first FDA-approved treatment for COVID-19.

Researchers believe the D614G strain of coronavirus dominates because it increases the spike protein's ability to open cells for the virus to enter. These crown-like spikes give the coronavirus its name.

The D614G mutation causes a flap on the tip of one spike to pop open, allowing the virus to infect cells more efficiently but also creating a pathway to the virus' vulnerable core.

With one flap open, it's easier for antibodies -- like the ones in the vaccines currently being tested -- to infiltrate and disable the virus.

[Granyala]

"Facebook accused of forcing staff back to offices
More than 200 Facebook workers from around the world have accused the firm of forcing its content moderators back to the office despite the risks of contracting coronavirus."
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54995797

I don't see the problem, most people in Germany have to work normally too.

FFS I need to ride the bus 2x a day. These people should stop whining.

[Forogil]

I don't see the problem, most people in Germany have to work normally too.

It depends on the kind of work you are doing.

If you are just looking at a computer screen (as in this case) you might be able to do that as home just as easily. However, content moderation is a bit sensitive so I could understand if some of them don't want to look at that contents at home and thus want to do it at the office, but I don't see why they have to be at the office.

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My fault. I skimmed it and didn't see the details and misinterpreted what you were trying to say or inferring.

This supports the claim even more, people should where masks because it does BOTH; protects the wearer and those around them.

No, it doesn't support that.
The previous message (WHO and Nature) was that it likely protected both - based on fairly weak evidence; and thus there were guidelines for both.

The weak evidence was lab studies, studies of other diseases, studies in hospital settings, or trying to estimate it based on development in different places - which runs into confounding factors. As someone noticed, there have been some more of those, and lots of meta-studies after that but no other actual randomized trials.

The new study (from Denmark) indicates that the protection of the wearer is between weak and non-existent in practice in the general population for medical masks (and cloth masks are not seen as more efficient than medical masks).

[Zantos]

I don’t know why America allows Fox News to air shit like this. It’s seriously harmful to the public to listen to these “news anchors”.

Fox News panel erupts at a liberal guest for saying it's 'not time to joke' about COVID-19 as US deaths near 250,000

Link: https://www.yahoo.com/news/fox-news-...193010647.html

Because there are far too many idiots in this country who still believe its a hoax. They are so convinced of it that they will even deny it on their literal death bed from the virus itself. Add onto it that people are calling one another sheep for listening to the mask mandates and getting tired of restrictions hurting their first world privileges, they just don't care.

I told my uncle about how some hospitals are over capacity and I just got "don't listen to the media fear mongering tactics". I told him that I heard this from the people experiencing the over capacity hospitals themselves and he still said "take it with a grain of salt.". Then he dropped the line of "its not like that will happen here anyway."

People just do not care unless it directly impacts them and fox news knows this. That is why they get away with this type of crap. Because they can and idiots will clap and cheer for more.

[Stelio Kontos]

I have the usual surgical masks and a cloth mask with a filter, I don't have any illusions that they're protecting me all that much.

But if I do honestly want to be protected, I do have a 3M full-on mask, this, with the big filter cartridges that go on either side:

[Paranoid Android]

Tyson Foods managers had a "winner-take-all" bet on how many workers would get covid-19, lawsuit alleges https://t.co/Kr7rHeeTGM

https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/s...297449472?s=19

So management at Tyson Foods bet who get sick. These workers here in US were told to work as essential workers.

If you go to Tyson Foods' Twitter you can't even comment. They locked it to only mentions. GREAT way to use social media Tyson.

[Katchii]

It depends on the kind of work you are doing.

If you are just looking at a computer screen (as in this case) you might be able to do that as home just as easily. However, content moderation is a bit sensitive so I could understand if some of them don't want to look at that contents at home and thus want to do it at the office, but I don't see why they have to be at the office.

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No, it doesn't support that.
The previous message (WHO and Nature) was that it likely protected both - based on fairly weak evidence; and thus there were guidelines for both.

The weak evidence was lab studies, studies of other diseases, studies in hospital settings, or trying to estimate it based on development in different places - which runs into confounding factors. As someone noticed, there have been some more of those, and lots of meta-studies after that but no other actual randomized trials.

The new study (from Denmark) indicates that the protection of the wearer is between weak and non-existent in practice in the general population for medical masks (and cloth masks are not seen as more efficient than medical masks).

The recommendations are still the same. Wear a mask....I'm not really understanding what your goal is here. That recommendation hasn't changed. Now there's simply more data presented to differentiate between what type of mask the general public should wear in different situations for "source control" and for "protection." This can all be seen in Table 2, on page 7 of the pdf you linked.

[Granyala]

I told my uncle about how some hospitals are over capacity and I just got "don't listen to the media fear mongering tactics". I told him that I heard this from the people experiencing the over capacity hospitals themselves and he still said "take it with a grain of salt.". Then he dropped the line of "its not like that will happen here anyway."

Well, to be fair: some of your hospitals are also at capacity with normal flu seasons.

[Zan15]

Well, to be fair: some of your hospitals are also at capacity with normal flu seasons.

some hospitals, not the entire states.....and regions

[Zantos]

https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/s...297449472?s=19

So management at Tyson Foods bet who get sick. These workers here in US were told to work as essential workers.

If you go to Tyson Foods' Twitter you can't even comment. They locked it to only mentions. GREAT way to use social media Tyson.

Not surprising. Every company out there doesn't really care if their employees get sick or not. The most I have seen any company do is at least not want a full breakout at their stores. Bad PR that way.

[Orange Joe]

Oh, so a perfectly healthy person who isn't covid positive running around without a mask is adversely impacting others?

How do you know they aren't covid positive when it can take 2 weeks + to show symptoms?

[Granyala]

some hospitals, not the entire states.....and regions

Oof, that bad? Here in old Germany, most hospitals still have capacities.
https://interaktiv.morgenpost.de/cor...us-auslastung/
Red = Covid, Orange = others emergencies, grey = free.

[Milchshake]

Oh FFS. How could anyone thought this was a good idea.

Ritzville wedding with 300 guests becomes COVID-19 super-spreader event.

A wedding near Ritzville that hosted 300 people has become the latest coronavirus superspreading event, leaving dozens of guests infected with COVID-19 in Grant and Adams counties.
Health officials in both counties announced 40 people, and likely more, are sick. They are asking attendees of the Nov. 7 wedding to quarantine through Nov. 21 and to get tested for COVID-19.

[Edge-]

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020...lieve-its-real

Larger piece on how a large number of Americans are living in a world of pure fantasy, rejecting what they see and hear directly around themselves, and even to themselves.

This is why this country is incapable of combating a pandemic. This is why I am genuinely stressed the fuck out and terrified about how this pandemic will continue, and even moreso for the next pandemic.

“I clarified, ‘Now you think differently though?’ He replies, ‘No the same. I should just take vitamins for my immune system. They (news) are making it a big deal.’ … I’m at a loss for words. Here I am basically wrapped in tarp, here he is in a Covid ICU. How can you deny the validity of covid? …Misinformation is literally killing people [en masse].”

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Oh FFS. How could anyone thought this was a good idea.

Fake virus, bro.
It's our special day, the virus won't be a problem, bro.
Who cares if our guests get sick and die, or spread the virus, bro.
IT IS OUR SPECIAL FUCKING DAY AND WE WILL NOT WAIT TO HAVE A LARGE CELEBRATION, BRO.
It's just the flu, bro.
We love negligent homicide, bro.

Take your pick.