Coronavirus

[TLS Guy]

Perhaps this is redundant, but I haven't seen this report posted in this thread yet:

WHO-convened global study of origins of SARS-CoV-2: China Part

Joint WHO-China study: 14 January - 10 February 2021

www.who.int

The origin of Covid-19 is a mystery. The scientists, especially those from the UK, who were part of the WHO delegation, feel that they did not have unfettered access.

In the UK, I would say there is more support in the scientific community to believe this virus was lab created and not natural. The fact is though, the origins of this virus are still unknown. However, it did start in Wuhan, and the Chinese assertion that it came from outside the country in frozen food holds no water at all.

Wuhan has two viral labs, one of which is suspect and lost accreditation. As long as the Chinese refuse full cooperation and unfettered access to scientists to investigate the origin of this pandemic, suspicions will not go away. I think however that WHO report, increased suspicions of malfeasance rather then allayed them. Also Chinese false claims about the origin only increase suspicion about their activities.

Here are a couple of articles.

Article 2

 

[Swerd]

I ran across an article at wired.com about vaccine statistics and relative risk reduction (RRR) vs absolute risk reduction (ARR) …

Am I missing something here?

The Statistical Secrets of Covid-19 Vaccines

They’re really very good, and they’re the only way out of the pandemic. But a tour through the numbers could bring the vaccine-hesitant into the tent.

www.wired.com

No, you're not missing anything. Comparing clinical trial results expressed as relative risk reduction (RRR) vs. absolute risk reduction (ARR) is a bad as comparing apples vs. oranges.

That Wired article was pretty good. The author, Adam Rogers has a good understanding of the kind of statistical analyses done in large clinical trials, not only of vaccines, but also with anti-cancer drugs, probably most other large trials. The people in the FDA call it 'efficacy', but relative risk reduction works. And, they insist that this kind of relative risk reduction must be the way that large trials are designed. That way, trial results may be crudely compared. Rogers is correct when he says that the efficacy of the different vaccines cannot be directly compared from the results of all those clinical trials. That can be done only if they were different arms of one large trial – done with the identical patient population. However, these 'head-to-head' trials would have only taken more time.

In previous posts here, I've sometimes alluded to all this, efficacy vs. absolute risk reduction, but Rogers does a better job explaining it than I can. I often complained that the popular press fails to understand this as they report on the results of these clinical trials. I'm glad to see that Rogers and the Wired does. The general press and news media aren't the only ones who don't get statistics, many MDs who actually propose these clinical trials also don't get statistics. That's why the FDA insists that the groups who do run these trials also include proper statisticians.

 

[Swerd]

The origin of Covid-19 is a mystery. The scientists, especially those from the UK, who were part of the WHO delegation, feel that they did not have unfettered access.

In the UK, I would say there is more support in the scientific community to believe this virus was lab created and not natural. The fact is though, the origins of this virus are still unknown. However, it did start in Wuhan, and the Chinese assertion that it came from outside the country in frozen food holds no water at all.

Yes, the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus are a mystery. One that we've not likely to easily find now. Back in January 2020 it was clear that the Chinese were less than honest about what happened.

However, it is now clear that roughly 100 (?) people in Italy were infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus as early as the late summer of 2019, months before the so-called outbreak in December 2019. Enough people suffered from an unidentified viral disease that blood samples taken at the time of their infections were frozen away. These archived samples were later shown to contain SARS-CoV-2 and not some other related corona virus.

These infected people were in northern Italy. It is suspected that these people were either in direct or indirect contact with the Italian textile industry. This same industry has frequent import/export contacts with textile producers in China. What is not known is if there were similar infections in China during the summer of 2019, or earlier. And it is not known if the virus traveled from China to Italy – or the reverse. Trying to blame the outbreak on leaks in Chinese state-run virus labs in Wuhan are unlikely to help discover the real history of this virus's origins.

 

[Mr._Clark]

Unless the US and other vaccine development countries can figure out a way to legally force vaccine development companies to give up so-called trade secrets, and it would have to include criminal penalties (or how would you ever know you got it all), the more I think about it the more I think this waiver is a non-event for fighting the pandemic in the near term. By the time anyone figures how to replicate the current vaccine production without deep assistance, the next generation vaccines will be available, and they'll have to start all over again. In fact, it would seem the wisest move for (what I'm going to call) a forger would be to wait until the next generation IP is available and start there. If I were the drugs companies doing the basic development I might consider not filing patents at all. That way everything is a trade secret. I wonder how easy it is to detect patent infringement in this field?

Detecting patent infringement of method claims can be difficult. It depends on the claims and the product made by the process. For example, if someone were to invent a new way to produce pure oxygen, it would be difficult to determine if the oxygen was made by an infringing process. Typically, protecting the process as a trade secret makes sense in this situation because the process cannot be reverse engineered and a patent would be difficult to enforce.

As a general matter, I am frequently surprised how often technical experts in a given field can either detect infringement or make a pretty good guess that it’s occurring. I do not have specific knowledge of the vaccine manufacturing process, but I suspect that some of the processes are very specific and require very specialized equipment that may only be available from one or two sources. If another company were to start producing products it might be possible to infer that the company is likely infringing.

In some cases it is very difficult to determine with certainty if infringement is occurring. During litigation a patent owner can file a discovery motion asking the court to order the defendant to disclose the process (this type of motion is very common, and lawyers typically spend a great deal of time arguing to the court about discovery requests). The problem is that if a patent owner files an infringement lawsuit without having a reasonable basis to believe that infringement is occurring they risk getting hit with sanctions. It can be a catch-22.

Drafting claims to avoid enforcement issues can be a challenge. With a couple exceptions, infringing activity normally needs to occur in the U.S. in order to infringe a U.S. patent. I’ve drafted applications covering spacecraft orbital control and applications related to spacecraft reentry. Writing claims that cover the structures and processes in a way that can be both detected and enforced can be a challenge.

 

[TLS Guy]

Yes, the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus are a mystery. One that we've not likely to easily find now. Back in January 2020 it was clear that the Chinese were less than honest about what happened.

However, it is now clear that roughly 100 (?) people in Italy were infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus as early as the late summer of 2019, months before the so-called outbreak in December 2019. Enough people suffered from an unidentified viral disease that blood samples taken at the time of their infections were frozen away. These archived samples were later shown to contain SARS-CoV-2 and not some other related corona virus.

These infected people were in northern Italy. It is suspected that these people were either in direct or indirect contact with the Italian textile industry. This same industry has frequent import/export contacts with textile producers in China. What is not known is if there were similar infections in China during the summer of 2019, or earlier. And it is not known if the virus traveled from China to Italy – or the reverse. Trying to blame the outbreak on leaks in Chinese state-run virus labs in Wuhan are unlikely to help discover the real history of this virus's origins.

According to UK intelligence, there was a strange illness in Wuhan China starting around the end of August 2019. That would fit for the timeline for this disease to go from sentinel cases to a torrent of cases.

 

[Mr._Clark]

I just found this really interesting interview with Dr. Racaniello from Columbia University, a professor of virology. He touches on the vaccines only having the spike protein:

>>>I must say that early in the outbreak last year, when the vaccine development was just ramping up, we talked a lot about this idea that, should they really only be focusing on spike? Shouldn't they be putting some other viral proteins on, and in retrospect it was a good decision to get vaccines out in less than a year, because otherwise it might've been more complicated. But that's partly why all the variants are arising now, because we have only the spike epitopes in there. And so it's easy for the virus to get around that. So, it's two ways, that story. So those are the things that we've talked about. . . . Now for SARS-CoV-2, yes, having other proteins in the mix is a good idea. I think it depends on the severity of the disease. We did a paper 6 months ago which studied people who had died from COVID. So this was a very serious disease. And their lymph nodes had no germinal centers, which means no memory B cells to SARS-CoV-2. Even though they had antibodies, they had very low affinity antibodies. . . . So, on the one hand, yes, you make a lot of viral proteins and those are great epitopes for mainly T cells because I think most of the antibodies that are going to block infection are going to be spike directed. But any other viral protein could in theory be a T-cell target. So you'll get more epitopes.<<<

The discussion of T cells is also interesting:

>>>I think the T-cell immunity is substantial and really has been ignored. And the reason is, it's very easy to look for antibodies that block infection. You do a neutralization assay with virus in the lab and it's pretty straightforward. [You do a] T-cell assay if you want to know, do infected or vaccinated people make virus-specific T cells? It's harder. . . . And as I said earlier, the variants do not have changes in T-cell epitopes because -- and this is very interesting -- when you are infected and you make a variant that evades an antibody, that variant can go to someone else and evade their antibody too. So it spreads through the population. If you happen to make a variant that evades a T cell, it's not going to make a difference in the next person because everybody's T-cell epitopes are different. And so T-cell variants of viruses generally take many, many, many years to emerge. So it's not an issue. And so I think the T-cell immunity -- the last defense against an infection, right? To kill the infected cells. That can protect a lot of people in the face of even low antibody response. There are some agammaglobulinemic people who don't make antibodies who have been infected with a virus, and they don't have an unusually severe course, because I think the T cells are actually detecting them.

The discussion of antiviral drugs is also interesting:

>>>So this [molnupiravir] is what we would call a nucleoside analog. So it's a building block for the RNA of the virus and it inhibits the polymerase basically. And this is a great target because cells don't have such an enzyme. So it should be relatively low toxicity. I think molnupiravir is fabulous. It was shown to work really well at preventing transmission in ferrets last year, and now in the phase II [trial]. And this is exactly the drug we need because it's orally available. You just take a pill, and at your first positive test, you could take this and probably completely alter the course of not just disease, but also shedding. . . . And, of course, the other hand is we're going to get resistance to that drug immediately. So one drug is not enough. Nevertheless, I am very excited about it and I just hope we have some others, cause what we've learned from HIV antiviral therapy, one drug isn't enough. Two is not enough. Three is the magic number that you need to treat people with. . . . Now there are a lot of other drugs in the pipeline ... molnupiravir is a drug that existed before. But there are others that are being made that are purposefully selected for SARS-CoV-2. And I think it's important to push those forward in case we need to quell outbreaks and so forth. And we need to have a few of them. If we could make them more broadly acting, [that] would be great. Make an RNA inhibitor like molnupiravir that could inhibit many coronaviruses so that when the next one comes out of bats into people, which is going to happen probably in 10, 20 years, we'll be ready to take care of that. <<<

https://www.medpagetoday.com/blogs/marty-makary/92434

 

[Mr._Clark]

According to the NY Times, the CDC's statement that “less than 10 percent” of Covid-19 transmission was occurring outdoors is misleading because the actual number is undoubtedly much lower.

>>>That benchmark [10%] “seems to be a huge exaggeration,” as Dr. Muge Cevik, a virologist at the University of St. Andrews, said. In truth, the share of transmission that has occurred outdoors seems to be below 1 percent and may be below 0.1 percent, multiple epidemiologists told me. The rare outdoor transmission that has happened almost all seems to have involved crowded places or close conversation.<<<

Is the CDC exaggerating the risk of outdoor COVID-19 transmission?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's official stance is that "less than 10 percent" of COVID-19 transmission has occurred outdoors, but The New York Times' David Leonhardt wrote Tuesday that that's like saying "sharks attack fewer than 20,000 swimmers a year." Sharks actually only...

www.yahoo.com

 

[Gmoney]

Hope it’s not too bad …

Well as of today All's good! Actually the first shot was umm like a happy shot. it helps boosts your W-Cell T count up high! After a few day's to about 2 weeks into the 1st shot felt like I was full of Piss and Vinegar again. Think like a person still in the 30s. Than started clearing up with Head cold sinus drip. The 2nd shot took a few days to kick in with Symptoms Cold Flu like Aching bones chill low grade fever, umm than after umm about two weeks into the 3rd week felt like Sh$t!! really hit me me hard with bad leg cramps umm Diarrhea, umm some memory loss not to bad. So there you go my take on the, Double CDC Gov shot thing.

 

[Mr._Clark]

Well as of today All's good! Actually the first shot was umm like a happy shot. it helps boosts your W-Cell T count up high! After a few day's to about 2 weeks into the 1st shot felt like I was full of Piss and Vinegar again. Think like a person still in the 30s. Than started clearing up with Head cold sinus drip. The 2nd shot took a few days to kick in with Symptoms Cold Flu like Aching bones chill low grade fever, umm than after umm about two weeks into the 3rd week felt like Sh$t!! really hit me me hard with bad leg cramps umm Diarrhea, umm some memory loss not to bad. So there you go my take on the, Double CDC Gov shot thing.

Interesting. I've never heard of symptoms kicking in that long after the 2nd jab. A friend who had COVID late last year then got the jabs felt a little sick the day after the 2nd jab, but he was fine the next day.

 

[Gmoney]

Interesting. I've never heard of symptoms kicking in that long after the 2nd jab. A friend who had COVID late last year then got the jabs felt a little sick the day after the 2nd jab, but he was fine the next day.

I'm not a young man, so maybe just maybe other health issues where Present. I know of one person who took both shots and Died. Within 2 weeks of the 2nd shot. Lived across the street from one of my Sons. So there you go. Now that's what I was told can I prove that, nope not a doctor or corner of this city. Hearsay take with Salt. Also you gotta remember there's that oh but wait, the 1% ers That Can Die from anything and everything. Never forget with anything Man made there is always a chance you die! Drink some water from your Kitchen faucet and get Poisoned. Dam the bad luck huh.

 

[Speedskater]

I think that 'outdoors' is a rather undefined situations. Lots of people at a sports event, rally or protest is very different than lots of people on the beach.
The FDA & CDC are very cautious, slow moving bureaucracies. The fact that in some situations the rate may be 1% or 0.1% doesn't make their under 10% wrong.

 

[Mr._Clark]

I think that 'outdoors' is a rather undefined situations. Lots of people at a sports event, rally or protest is very different than lots of people on the beach.
The FDA & CDC are very cautious, slow moving bureaucracies. The fact that in some situations the rate may be 1% or 0.1% doesn't make their under 10% wrong.

The issue is that under almost any definition of "outdoors" the evidence points to less than 1%.

There's no doubt that some transmission does occur outdoors. I'm not sure I'd be comfortable in a crowded stadium if the local infection rate was high.

Anecdotally, I heard a second hand account of a couple who had a group of friends over for dinner and they ate outside. Apparently one person was infected but presymptomatic and several other people were infected. What's not clear to me is if the people also spent time indoors.

 

[Mr._Clark]

Here's another anecdotal report, for what it's worth. A guy I know was infected about a month ago. He's not 100% sure how he got it, but he was seated right next to a guy for about 3 hours on an airline flight who was coughing constantly. He developed symptoms shortly after that, so he strongly suspects the guy on the flight was source. He was (is?) a COVID skeptic of sorts, and he decided not to get vaccinated even though he could have gotten a jab a couple weeks before the flight in question (he thought the risks of COVID were greatly overblown by the media and basically agreed with the so-called "Great Barrington Declaration")(and voiced his opinion ("it's just the flu!") frequently).

Fortunately, he had relatively mild symptoms. Initially, he stated repeatedly that the symptoms were not that bad at all. However, he still has a mild but persistent cough despite testing negative for the virus roughly 10-12 days ago (he's around 50 years old). He doesn't say much about COVID being overblown, etc. now. His choices do not make much sense to me, but, so it goes ( I will give him credit for staying home and self-isolating while he was sick).

Another guy I know in his mid 40s was infected last summer. He had a fever/chills/cough for about 7-10 days, but he mostly recovered after that. He apparently still has some lingering issues (fatigue, digestive tract)(I didn't press him on details!).

 

[Swerd]

Here's another anecdotal report, for what it's worth …

I can't say what those two guys really deserve for being such ignoramuses. But I think both got off easy. As for it being "just the flu!" I am quite tired of hearing this lame comment. Tell your acquaintance to stop watching Faux News.

In the last year or so, more than 500,000 people in the USA died from Covid-19. And that was just counting deaths from confirmed Covid-19. Reasonable estimates suggest that as many as twice that number of deaths actually occurred. How many died from the flu last year?

During the 2020/21 flu season, there were a bit more than 2,000 cases of 'just the flu' in the USA – a very low number due to the shut-down, social distancing, and wearing masks. Compare that to the very large number (which I can't remember*) of Covid-19 cases in the USA during the same time.

* I just looked it up. As of 10 May 2021, in the USA, there were 32,779,262 confirmed cases of Covid-19, and 582,845 deaths confirmed as due to Covid-19. So, 2,000 flu infections vs. nearly 33 million Covid-19 cases. That's 1 flu case for every 16,000 Covid-19 cases.

 

[Trell]

I'm not sure what those two guys deserve for being such ignoramuses. But I think both got off easy.

In Sweden going to work with clear symptoms of possible Covid-19 infections is cause for immediate dismissal, and in media there have been several reports of such dismissals.

 

[Irvrobinson]

In the last year or so, more than 500,000 people in the USA died from Covid-19. And that was just counting deaths from confirmed Covid-19. Reasonable estimates suggest that as many as twice that number of deaths actually occurred. How many died from the flu last year?

But, but, but... the conspiracy theorists say that hospitals get paid more for hospitalization COVID-19 deaths than other deaths, so if they really died from some other condition, but they test positive for COVID-19, the death is called a COVID-19 death. Such bullshit, but the stupidity of people who believe broad conspiracies are possible never ceases to amaze me. All that cheating and no whistleblowers? That's very difficult to believe.

During the 2020/21 flu season, there were a bit more than 2,000 cases of 'just the flu' in the USA – a very low number due to the shut-down, social distancing, and wearing masks. Compare that to the very large number (which I can't remember) of Covid-19 cases in the USA during the same time.

I made this same case to a few people I know who are COVID skeptics, and always get the same answer. Silence. The effective lack of a flu season is compelling evidence that reduced crowds, distancing, washing more often, and masks work. Some people just hate when their invalid theories are proven wrong.

 

[Mr._Clark]

I can't say what those two guys really deserve for being such ignoramuses. But I think both got off easy. As for it being "just the flu!" I am quite tired of hearing this lame comment. Tell your acquaintance to stop watching Faux News.

In the last year or so, more than 500,000 people in the USA died from Covid-19. And that was just counting deaths from confirmed Covid-19. Reasonable estimates suggest that as many as twice that number of deaths actually occurred. How many died from the flu last year?

During the 2020/21 flu season, there were a bit more than 2,000 cases of 'just the flu' in the USA – a very low number due to the shut-down, social distancing, and wearing masks. Compare that to the very large number (which I can't remember) of Covid-19 cases in the USA during the same time.

Yeah, I know, the comparisons to the flu are ridiculous. My impression is that quite a few people who say this actually know better, but they apparently view it as a rhetorical technique that places (in their view) the burden on the listener to disprove their assertion. In my experience, taking the bait normally leads to assertions by the proponent of "it's just the flu!" that people are not actually from COVID, they are just dying "with" COVID-19.

The basic problem is that (in my experience) this type of person starts with numerous false statements as way to shift the burden rather than starting with the evidence and drawing conclusions from the evidence.

In fairness, as far as I know, the guy I mentioned who got it last summer was being quite careful, but he apparently caught it anyway.

 

[Mr._Clark]

I made this same case to a few people I know who are COVID skeptics, and always get the same answer. Silence. The effective lack of a flu season is compelling evidence that reduced crowds, distancing, washing more often, and masks work. Some people just hate when their invalid theories are proven wrong.

I mentioned the reduction in the flu this past year to a COVID denier, and his response was "Don't let the government know or they'll make us wear masks forever!" The fallback position seems to be "I don't care about all that science BS, I can do whatever I want and no one can tell me what to do!"

Of course, many of these people complain about footing the bill for healthcare for people who have health problems due to behavioral issues (e.g. being out of shape, smoking, etc.) but these same people expect everyone else to foot the bill if they get COVID and spread it. And, I'm sure that if someone were to drive 90 mph through their neighborhood and kill their child they'd be outraged.

It is also curious how people beat their chest and proudly announce that they are not afraid of the virus, yet many of these same people seem to be terrified of the vaccine, and they also experience significant mental suffering when asked to wear a mask. No storming of the beach at Normandy for this crowd.

 

[panteragstk]

I mentioned the reduction in the flu this past year to a COVID denier, and his response was "Don't let the government know or they'll make us wear masks forever!" The fallback position seems to be "I don't care about all that science BS, I can do whatever I want and no one can tell me what to do!"

Of course, many of these people complain about footing the bill for healthcare for people who have health problems due to behavioral issues (e.g. being out of shape, smoking, etc.) but these same people expect everyone else to foot the bill if they get COVID and spread it. And, I'm sure that if someone were to drive 90 mph through their neighborhood and kill their child they'd be outraged.

It is also curious how people beat their chest and proudly announce that they are not afraid of the virus, yet many of these same people seem to be terrified of the vaccine, and they also experience significant mental suffering when asked to wear a mask. No storming of the beach at Normandy for this crowd.

It's also funny they call people that don't believe the same thing as them sheep. All the while baaaaaaing all the way. The complete lack of self awareness in these people is amazing.

 

[Speedskater]

I mentioned the reduction in the flu this past year to a COVID denier, and his response was "Don't let the government know or they'll make us wear masks forever!" The fallback position seems to be "I don't care about all that science BS, I can do whatever I want and no one can tell me what to do!"

More than one person on news TV have suggested that wearing a mask in the winter might be a good idea for prevention of diseases other than COVID.