Mega-Thread: Coronavirus Pandemic

[Crissi]

Civil liberties can absolutely be infringed upon in actual emergencies. Like wtf. And a Pandemic is an emergency.

[Ripster42]

Can we like...start a class action suit against the Republican Party for damages?

Don't think so. I know the president can't be sued for actions taken while in office (settled in nixon's time), but I'm not absolutely sure about members of congress.

- - - Updated - - -

Another disappointment from the boys in Blue. I imagine this won't end well for them. Especially if the story ends up going more main stream. .

It'd be interesting to see if cases like this where the police refuse to do their job could be charged as honest services fraud.
@Kasierith You always seem to have a good handle on these types of questions, any input?

[xenogear3]

56,544 today.

Is this real or just some fake news to make Trump look bad?
Is the hospital full or still empty?
[Infraction]

[Breccia]

Look, I don't ask complete strangers like you guys for much, if anything.

Stay safe this holiday weekend.

It's not just your life that could be made far worse.

[Kasierith]

It'd be interesting to see if cases like this where the police refuse to do their job could be charged as honest services fraud.
@Kasierith You always seem to have a good handle on these types of questions, any input?

Beyond disciplinary action within the department, f they're state the governor should technically have it within her authority to fire the officer for insubordination. Beyond that, unless Mr Boss requested that they leave due to not having a mask on and they refused and used their status as officers to intimidate him, there isn't much in the way of a resolution.

Though it looks like the department has done just that -

“The involved trooper has been placed on administrative leave,” Fox said in a statement. “OSP is early in the investigation, but if found to be true, we are thoroughly disappointed and expect our troopers to follow the governor’s executive orders and be examples in the community.”

As for honest services fraud, it has a specific set of prerequisites centered on mismanagement of money that aren't really present here.

(also as for sueing the Republicans for actions taken as the president or Congress, while operating in such a capacity they have sovereign immunity)

[CostinR]

56,544 today.

Is this real or just some fake news to make Trump look bad?
Is the hospital full or still empty?

It's real, because people are idiots who refuse to wear masks and practice social distancing.

[Breccia]

Oh boy.

Peer-reviewed journal says the following in the summary:

A SARS-CoV-2 variant carrying the Spike protein amino acid change D614G has become the most prevalent form in the global pandemic. Dynamic tracking of variant frequencies revealed a recurrent pattern of G614 increase at multiple geographic levels: national, regional and municipal. The shift occurred even in local epidemics where the original D614 form was well established prior to the introduction of the G614 variant. The consistency of this pattern was highly statistically significant, suggesting that the G614 variant may have a fitness advantage. We found that the G614 variant grows to higher titer as pseudotyped virions. In infected individuals G614 is associated with lower RT-PCR cycle thresholds, suggestive of higher upper respiratory tract viral loads, although not with increased disease severity. These findings illuminate changes important for a mechanistic understanding of the virus, and support continuing surveillance of Spike mutations to aid in the development of immunological interventions.

Well, fuck. The damn thing has us flanked now.

[PhaelixWW]

Oh boy.

Peer-reviewed journal says the following in the summary:

Well, fuck. The damn thing has us flanked now.

This isn't really much of a new cause for alarm, though. We talked about this paper a bit when it was first pre-published about two months ago:

Again, the data doesn't suggest that it's less deadly, just more contagious.

We were concerned that if the D614G mutation can increase transmissibility, it might also impact severity of disease. Because clinical outcome data are not available in GISAID, we focused on a single geographic region, Sheffield, England, where a large data set existed and was made available for an initial exploration of this question. SARS-CoV-2 sequences were generated from 453 individuals presenting with COVID-19 disease at the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Sheffield followed the pattern observed through much of world, starting out with D614, and shifting to predominantlyG614 by the end of March. The Sheffield data included age, gender, date of sampling, cycle threshold (CT) for positive signal in E gene-based RT-PCR(used here as a surrogate for relative levels of viremia)(Corman et al., 2020), and clinical status: outpatient (OP), inpatient (IP, requiring hospitalization), or admittance into the intensive care unit (ICU). Because the numbers admitted into in the ICU were small, and because that information was not readily available for all subjects, we grouped the IP and ICU together for most of the statistical analysis. As anticipated, there was a significant relationship between hospitalization and age (Fig. S5) (Wilcoxon p < 2.2e-16, median age 74, interquartile range (IR) 58-83 for the hospitalized patients, versus a median of age 43 (with IR 31-53) for the outpatients (Dowd et al., 2020; Promislow, 2020). Also, males were hospitalized more often than females (Fisher’s p = 1.95e-13)(Conti and Younes, 2020; Promislow, 2020). Furthermore, fewer PCR cycles were required for detection of virus among individuals who admitted to the hospital, indicating higher viral loads(Fig. S5) (Wilcoxon p = 4.8e-06, median 25, IR 21-28, versus median 19, IR 21-25) (Fig. S5) (Liu et al., 2020). There was, however, no significant correlation found between D614G status and hospitalization status; although the G614 mutation was slightly enriched among the ICU subjects, this was not statistically significant (Fig. 5C).

The more prominent variant has also been the more prevalent one for 3-4 months. In the US, in particular, it's been almost 100% prevalent since the end of March, which is nearly the entirety of our history of COVID. In Italy, it was more prevalent than the initial variant as far back as late February.

Good to know that it's been peer-reviewed now, though.

[Breccia]

Good to know that it's been peer-reviewed now, though.

Oh, was that it? I barely remember that. Thanks!

[Ripster42]

As for honest services fraud, it has a specific set of prerequisites centered on mismanagement of money that aren't really present here.

So nothing like taking pay and refusing to do the job? That wouldn't meet the requirements? I don't see how taking payment for services, and then not performing those services isn't some type of fraud.

[Kasierith]

So nothing like taking pay and refusing to do the job? That wouldn't meet the requirements? I don't see how taking payment for services, and then not performing those services isn't some type of fraud.

Are you referring to them operating in an official capacity, as in they accept money as a part of their employment but are not following through? While they were clearly being insubordinate, and all of them should face disciplinary action, honest services fraud is a very specific charge that is not really open for extrapolation outside of its parameters. Specifically, it has to be fraud or failure to operate in an official capacity in relation to money exchanging hands or a threat of financial harm, bribes and kickbacks and the like. While they are employed by the state, as far as we are aware there was no monetary or fiduciary agreement between them and the coffee shop owner outside of the exchange of cash for coffee at the point of sale. I believe that the supreme court has explicitly found as much, that this avenue of law is not a solution for workplace conduct in and of itself.

[eschatological]

Even Bloomberg News is talking Marxist policies, like how workers can stem the flow of anti-union action because of how COVID is changing the landscape.

It's a horrifying story just getting the background on anti-union efforts in this country since shitheel Reagan busted the air traffic controllers strike in 1981.

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2...erican-worker/

....

All this has left the South Carolina staffers hesitant to speak up about workplace problems, says IAM activist Chris Jones, who’s worked at the plant since 2011. That’s been especially true during the pandemic, because Boeing recently announced plans to cut companywide head count by 10%. The company said in a statement that it makes layoff decisions carefully and fairly.

In Washington, the union *contract dictates that layoffs be conducted based on seniority, and the union says it’s in daily contact with Boeing to hash out Covid safety procedures. In South Carolina, “people are afraid to raise issues or concerns because they feel like that could affect how they’re graded for the layoff,” Jones says. “There’s really no rules other than your manager giving you a score.”

...

Article is much bigger, but just a taste. Boeing's Washington plant is unionized, in SC it isn't. I'm from a Rust Belt city and people are consistently up-in-arms about NAFTA stealing their jobs. When I tell them, "Hey, NAFTA has a net creation of jobs," they always glare at me defiantly and say, "Well, then, where's our jobs?" And I always respond...."Your jobs are in Tennessee, and Texas, and other places where union protections are uncommon as fuck." It's no coincidence that the rise of two working parent households rose with the prevalence of union busting in the 80s.

[Cynep]

That's not what the study meant, though. The people who exhibited T-cell immunity still had and recovered from COVID-19 already. It had just been long enough that the specific antibodies had become undetectable in their blood.

It doesn't mean that people who have not already been exposed to and recovered from COVID are "outright immune".

Going back to the original article,

In the present study, the researchers performed immunological analyses of samples from over 200 people, many of whom had mild or no symptoms of COVID-19. The study included inpatients at Karolinska University Hospital and other patients and their exposed asymptomatic family members who returned to Stockholm after holidaying in the Alps in March. Healthy blood donors who gave blood during 2020 and 2019 (control group) were also included.

“One interesting observation was that it wasn’t just individuals with verified COVID-19 who showed T-cell immunity but also many of their exposed asymptomatic family members,” says Soo Aleman. “Moreover, roughly 30 per cent of the blood donors who’d given blood in May 2020 had COVID-19-specific T cells, a figure that’s much higher than previous antibody tests have shown.”

They claim that many people exposed to Covid just shrug it off without having to get sick, develop antibodies and recover. "Outright immune" on exposure, not before it of course, that's time travel

[PhaelixWW]

They claim that many people exposed to Covid just shrug it off without having to get sick, develop antibodies and recover.

So, in other words, there are lots of people who are exposed to COVID enough to develop T-cells, yet remain asymptomatic or lightly symptomatic.

There's absolutely nothing new about that.

[bmjclark]

Oh hey, the US broke the single day record that Brazil held (which they only got because of a data dump). Can't one up the best country in the world, Brazil!

[breadisfunny]

56,544 today.

Is this real or just some fake news to make Trump look bad?
Is the hospital full or still empty?

correction 57,236. we are getting closer and closer to that 100k cases a day. take that brazil.

[Ripster42]

I believe that the supreme court has explicitly found as much, that this avenue of law is not a solution for workplace conduct in and of itself.

Cool, thanks for clearing that up for me.

[bmjclark]

https://tucson.com/news/local/as-cov...b4112dbe9.html

Plot twist, Mexico does end up paying for the wall but not for the reasons Trump thought.

[Forogil]

So, in other words, there are lots of people who are exposed to COVID enough to develop T-cells, yet remain asymptomatic or lightly symptomatic.

To develop T-cells somewhat specific to Sars-Cov-2, in contrast to earlier studies that looked at cross-immunity due to other corona-viruses. (Note that the body also has other defences against diseases before triggering such specific responses, including sneezing.)

When persons with medical Professors and PhDs find that new I trust them.

It also means that previous studies of infection fatality ratio, that relies on anti-body testing to find the number of infected need to be re-evaluated (as the anti-bodies tests don't capture all infected). But we don't know if this study holds in general - and the ratio between specific T-cells and anti-bodies is not known with any certainty.

[PhaelixWW]

When persons with medical Professors and PhDs find that new I trust them.

It's hardly new. It was expected. Now there's at least one study done confirming what everyone already knew.

It also means that previous studies of infection fatality ratio, that relies on anti-body testing to find the number of infected need to be re-evaluated (as the anti-bodies tests don't capture all infected). But we don't know if this study holds in general - and the ratio between specific T-cells and anti-bodies is not known with any certainty.

The idea is that the people who are exposed create the antibodies and T-cells, but the antibodies fade to undetectable levels much faster. Nothing in this study implies that IFR value estimates are necessarily wrong. Indeed, antibody tests back in late April for Stockholm were around 25%. Now, in one small test, a month later, T-cell prevalence is 30%. And with a supposed 1:2 rate, they only saw 15% with active antibodies.

This makes sense with earlier reports of antibodies lasting around 2-3 months.