DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Outbreak: COVID-19: The Hot Zone

Clem hope your well.. IR light is a Infrared Illuminator

Black light. It won't kill a virus, but they'll look cool when your high.

Can we trust ANY media anymore?

Sad thing is, the ones that screw up - sorry, have "an editing mistake" - are only making their own credibility sink.

Doing OK, DD
Stay safe, bro.
Come check out a concert when we get the "All clear," mkay?

j/c:

Reading all the new posts left me adjective happy.

Sobering
Alarming
Revolting
Concerning
Disgusting
Depressing

Here's a positive thought to everyone on a thread that only generates despair, sadness and doom.

Think of the population explosion 8, 9, 10, 11 months from now. They say it can happen after times like these.....



Comparatively speaking, populationwise vs populationwise from years past, percentagewise, we'll set the USA record for any 3 year span..... and Vegas will have odds on it.

Murica!!!

However, as a hedge, all bets are off if the 6 foot rule applies at home as well.

Nah. Nevermind. Book it!

Yes. I knew it wasn't right when I typed it, but my brain was drawing a blank and I was in the middle of doing something else.

It's an odd event that kills off the Baby Boomers and creates a baby boom.

True and the news making headlines of % of increased cases is mis-leading as well, as more and more tests are becoming available, hence the larger increases.

I have heard our neighbors discussing the increases like its the end of civilization, they are extrapolating those, to the point they seem to believe that by next week there will be 10m a day infected. and we'll all be infected or dead by the end of the month.

It would be nice to know the number of tests given and the positive and negative result numbers.

Well since there is no vaccine, we have to reach herd immunity to slow or stop this thing. I was reading the article below and it says you need 70% infected and recovered to do that. That's over 200 million people!

Here's Why Herd Immunity Won't Save Us From The COVID-19 Pandemic

It's hard to predict things in a pandemic. The situation changes so much on a daily basis that everything you thought you knew last week is wrong by the end of the day. Things are changing so fast that even the solid certainties that we thought we were sure of – the reproductive rate, the symptoms of the infection, the key to making a good quarantine – are suspect and need to be re-evaluated.

But among all this uncertainty, I can say for sure that there is one thing that I would never have seen coming: the discussion about herd immunity. It is so out of the blue that the first time a journalist asked my opinion on whether it was effective for the coronavirus, I literally laughed out loud because I assumed they were joking.

And yet, here we are. Countless articles and think-pieces on the COVID-19 virus are making the argument that, albeit potentially risky, achieving herd immunity could be one response to our crisis. Many of them frame herd immunity as a preventive strategy that may stall the tidal wave of disease so many are predicting.

All of this is simply nonsense. Herd immunity without a vaccine is by definition not a preventative measure.

Let me explain.

Herd immunity is an epidemiological concept that describes the state where a population – usually of people – is sufficiently immune to a disease that the infection will not spread within that group. In other words, enough people can't get the disease – either through vaccination or natural immunity – that the people who are vulnerable are protected.

For example, let's think about mumps. Mumps is a very infectious disease that, while relatively benign, is very uncomfortable and sometimes causes nasty life-long complications. It's also vaccine-preventable, with a highly effective vaccine that has made the disease incredibly rare in the modern age.

Mumps has a basic reproductive rate (R0) of 10-12, which means that in a population which is entirely susceptible – meaning no one is immune to the virus – every person who is infected will pass the disease on to 10-12 people.

This means that without vaccination roughly 95 percent of the population gets infected over time. But even with something that is this infectious, there are still some people – 5 percent of the population – who don't get sick, because once everyone else is immune there's no one to catch the disease from.

We can increase that number by vaccinating, because vaccination makes people immune to infection, but it also stops infected people passing on the disease to everyone that they otherwise would. If we can get enough people immune to the disease, then it will stop spreading in the population.

And that's herd immunity, in a nutshell.

For mumps, you need 92 percent of the population to be immune for the disease to stop spreading entirely. This is what's known as the herd immunity threshold. COVID-19 is, fortunately, much less infectious than mumps, with an estimated R0 of roughly 3.

With this number, the proportion of people who need to be infected is lower but still high, sitting at around 70 percent of the entire population.

Which brings us to why herd immunity could never be considered a preventative measure.

If 70 percent of your population is infected with a disease, it is by definition not prevention. How can it be? Most of the people in your country are sick! And the hopeful nonsense that you can reach that 70 percent by just infecting young people is simply absurd. If only young people are immune, you'd have clusters of older people with no immunity at all, making it incredibly risky for anyone over a certain age to leave their house lest they get infected, forever.

It's also worth thinking about the repercussions of this disastrous scenario – the best estimates put COVID-19 infection fatality rate at around 0.5-1 percent. If 70 percent of an entire population gets sick, that means that between 0.35-0.7 percent of everyone in a country could die, which is a catastrophic outcome.

With something like 10 percent of all infections needing to be hospitalised, you'd also see an enormous number of people very sick, which has huge implications for the country as well.

The sad fact is that herd immunity just isn't a solution to our pandemic woes. Yes, it may eventually happen anyway, but hoping that it will save us all is just not realistic. The time to discuss herd immunity is when we have a vaccine developed, and not one second earlier, because at that point we will be able to really stop the epidemic in its tracks.

Until we have a vaccine, anyone talking about herd immunity as a preventative strategy for COVID-19 is simply wrong. Fortunately, there are other ways of preventing infections from spreading, which all boil down to avoiding people who are sick.

So stay home, stay safe, and practice physical distancing as much as possible.

Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz is an epidemiologist working in chronic disease in Sydney, Australia. He writes a regular health blog covering science communication, public health, and what that new study you've read about actually means.

Opinions expressed in this article don't necessarily reflect the views of ScienceAlert editorial staff.

https://www.sciencealert.com/why-herd-immunity-will-not-save-us-from-the-covid-19-pandemic

I have seen several STUPID people at walmart. I have got there with the other old geezers before 6 am, and watched several of them grab carts outside the store while standing in line with their dirty paws all over the carts. Then they run to the wipes inside the store to wipe down the top of the carts handle. HELLO you didn't wipe the underside or any other part of the cart, plus your hands have already been all over the cart while standing in line (plus various other body parts, arms, hips, stomachs)

Kroger had two employees doing nothing but spraying carts with disinfectant yesterday. They wiped the handles down then sprayed the cart.

Yup. Herd immunity is definitely not a strategy; it's an end-game. Vaccines are definitely not likely to be available rapidly enough to help us get there, so we'll end up getting there the old fashioned way. The one and only goal is to get there in a way that doesn't completely crush our healthcare system.

And unlike what we're being told by some, it looks like we may be losing that battle.

If that requires 70 percent of the population to eventually become infected and a .3% fatality rate in 70% of 325 million people is 682,500 deaths... how are they coming up with 100-200K? And how can this possible be over in a couple of months with a 70% infection rate required for the vulnerable to be relatively safe? Things are not adding up and that makes me suspicious as hell...

I won't pretend to actually know the answer to any of that, but maybe they are banking on treatments coming available, or perhaps they are using a number other than .3%, or perhaps it is simply a case where there are too many unknowns and too much variability to nail down a specific range with certainty?

I do recall Dr. Fauci saying that he couldn't be more specific than 100,000 to 200,000; as in, there was no way of knowing which it would be closer to, and he was described as being a VERY PRECISE man.

Next door neighbor was rushed to the hospital 2 days ago.

Spoke with his wife, he tested positive.

I hear footsteps.

The U.S. is too large for that to be universally applied.
I think that there will be areas where we absolutely win the battle and plenty of areas where we lose. Some will lose the battle more epically than others.

NYC, Detroit, Louisiana... these places are not doing well. Ohio, as a whole, is actually doing rather well.... but, not only is it still early, but how long can we really keep this up?

I hope you spoke with her from a distance of more than 6 feet!

Stay safe. Stay away from peopl.

I must disagree with you. Many rural areas have seen local hospitals close and I have seen several reports of rural hospitals being overwhelmed already.

I won't clutter the thread with all of the sources I've seen that address this concern. But just let me say that when it hits rural areas even harder, and I think we both agree that it will, we will all see just how unprepared the system is to handle it.

j/c...

Looks like Gov. DeWine's restrictions are working to flatten the curve and this is getting pushed out even further now. I'll be curious to see what Dr. Acton says today. I know they have been using both the Cleveland Clinic and Ohio State's Wexner Medical Center for models.

A friend of mine is a rural doc east of Cleveland and she is in training classes today to learn how to doe-sign death certs by the thousands, if needed, so yeah, it is a very real possibility.

Like I said, though, it will vary from area to area, and so far Ohio is generally doing pretty well.

That may be the disconnect here. I was speaking in general terms and not Ohio specifically.

Here's an interesting article that models spread and flattening the curve using data when certain locales issued stay at home orders and people severely reduced traveling around in their community.

Looking at this. The Southeast is going to get hit hard.

Where Americans Didn't Stay Home Even as the Virus Spread

Our Publix had someone handing out carts after they wiped them down.

What impressed me, was not only was he spraying his rag between each cart cleaning, he was wiping the handle very well, top and bottom, along with the top edge of the basket. He also had a stack of rags, and seemed to be changing out the rag every few carts.

He did this while standing behind a hand sanitizer pump to encourage people to use it before taking a cart.

Then I noticed people in every aisle wiping down shelves and racks and everything. Very impressed.

Where I noticed they failed was their cashier screens. They had the plexiglass barriers, but it was only right in front of the cashiers register, The credit card pin pad is off to the side a bit and where most people stand and wait while their items are being scanned. The plexiglass did not cover that far.

j/c...

Horrible.

France hitting four-digit deaths for the second day in a row with over 1300 yesterday and over 1100 today (last 24 hours). They also now have more critical cases than any other nation despite lagging behind in total case count at under 65,000.

Italy looks like it has leveled off. It isn't growing exponentially any longer, but the number of daily cases and deaths is is holding consistent at about 4500 new cases and about 700-800 deaths each day. They seem to have peaked at about 900+ deaths in a day; hopefully this continues and we don't see another upswing as it spreads/grows in the areas outside Lombardy. Their lockdown might actually be letting them get a handle on things... or, at least keep it from being a runaway engine.

Switzerland's number of cases/1M pop has risen to be second only to Spain, who is also number 2 in total Serious/Critical cases behind France.

This virus and these posts/threads always bring me back to election day, 1976. Every time I read em.

After my father passed away(brain cancer) in 1973, my mother straight up asked me(16yo) and my twin 13.5yo sisters "I'm moving to Florida, where you kids moving to"?

5 days later.....gone.

My sisters were taken in by my aunt and uncle(mothers side). My grandparents(fathers side) didn't know this and after I being homeless for a few(3-4 days) they found out. I moved in with them.

Long story that happened long long ago that I've forgotten about. Or at least.....try not to think about.

My grandfather retired from GE Nela Pk after 35-40 years. Outta boredom he picked up a part time job as an evening watchman(4p-12a), Picker X-Ray. 2-3 days a week. They lived close(15min drive). Wickliffe.

On election day 1976 we(my first time) went and voted and as usual, he left for work at 3:30ish. After his shift was supposed to end and him supposed to be arriving home(12:15a-ish), no grandpa. Waited till 12:30-1a and I called Picker X-Ray on if he was still there.

Guy on the phone: "Who? "OH, YOU MEAN THE GUY THAT JUST HAD THE HEART ATTACK".



Found out where the ambulance took him. Richmond Heights Hospital which was close. My grandmother and I, in a small room 15 feet outside of the Emergency room, listened to the Emergency Department working on him.

Loudly talking/yelling..."HANG IN THERE MR. P. HANG IN THERE!!!

After 15 mins of silence....we were notified of him dying.

No heart attack.

Pulmonary Adema. Lungs filled up with fluid.

Swine Flu complication...

To all.....please be smart/stay safe.

Man, that is such a sad, sad story.

I will bet you grew up strong and able to stand on your own two feet during hard times.

For those that want a laugh and are familiar with Samuel L. Jackson's rendition of a certain bedtime story, he put out another youtube video of a "stay at home verson". Lots of language ala SLJ, but it should be easy enough to search for on youtube.

Their offshoot Fry's is doing the same thing in southern Arizona. A good thing to see.

We had a near by Kroger that had two employees that were infected with the virus and had been at work while sick. Rather than close the store for a cleaning after learning of this, they left the store open, with customers inside while doing the cleaning.

2 Nashville Kroger employees test positive for COVID-19

https://www.newschannel5.com/news/2-bellevue-kroger-employees-test-positive-for-covid-19