Coronavirus **personal experiences** thread

[Joshk]

It appears what that “IPAK 2019 Vaxxed vs Unvaxxed Study” actually discovered was that parents that skip vaccinations also skip doctors visits.

[hank]

Ew! People !!!

Oral hygiene habits and possible transmission of COVID-19 among cohabitants -...

Background: To find out whether misuse of dental hygiene, in terms of certain dental habits, may facilitate the spread of COVID-19 among cohabiting individuals.

Methods: 302 COVID-19 infected (PCR +) subjects cohabiting with someone else at home were selected for an observational cross-sectional study. An anonymous online questionnaire was developed using Google forms to avoid person-to-person contact. The structured questionnaire consisted of questions covering several areas: sociodemographic data, cross transmission to another person living together, oral hygiene habits during confinement, care and disinfection control behaviours in the dental environment like sharing toothbrush, sharing toothbrush container, sharing toothpaste, placing brush vertically, placing cap with hole for brush, disinfecting brush with bleach, closing toilet lid before flushing.

[hank]

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/12/05/943009477/extraordinary-acceleration-takeaways-from-the-pandemic-this-week

EXCERPT

Forget hot spots. “We are way beyond that,” says Siegel. The country is now averaging nearly 180,000 new cases per day. So many places have raging outbreaks that it’s difficult to point to one region that is particularly bad. Rhode Island has now outpaced South Dakota with new cases per capita; New Mexico rivals Wisconsin, which previously had among the worst rates in the country

On the West Coast and in the Northeast, states that had successfully kept the virus in check are under siege. “The coasts are beginning to see the same kind of uptick as the Midwest,” says Dr. William Miller, an epidemiologist at Ohio State University. Cases are growing in every region, with the South leading.

[hank]

This page was cited in the NPR article I linked above.

It explains the little dip and rise seen on the charts around Thanksgiving, which caused VP Pence to tell the CDC things were improving.

https://covidtracking.com/blog/daily-covid-19-data-is-about-to-get-weird [Written around Thanksgiving Day]

EXCERPT
all three metrics will flatten out or drop, probably for several days. This decrease will make it look like things are getting better at the national level. Then, in the week following the holiday, our test, case, and death numbers will spike, which will look like a confirmation that Thanksgiving is causing outbreaks to worsen. But neither of these expected movements in the data will necessarily mean anything about the state of the pandemic itself. Holidays, like weekends, cause testing and reporting to go down and then, a few days later, to “catch up.” So the data we see early next week will reflect not only actual increases in cases, test, and deaths, but also the potentially very large backlog from the holiday.

Further down on that long page, this:

… The actual case increases from Thanksgiving exposures—people who got COVID-19 during the holiday weekend—probably won’t start showing up in the data until the second week of December. Succeeding waves of infections from holiday gatherings will roll in for weeks. From what we’ve seen so far, the virus can spread with remarkable speed, but there are delays at every step in tracing and reporting its spread: It takes time to get tested, time to get and report a result, time to trace close contacts—and to start the process over again with a new circle of exposures.

Consider the now infamous Millinocket, Maine wedding superspreading event this summer: The day after the wedding, the “index case” wedding guest developed COVID-19 symptoms, according to reporting from the Los Angeles Times and a CDC report—though this person wouldn’t receive the results of their PCR test until six days after the wedding. Three days later, a worker at a long-term-care facility who hadn’t attended the wedding, but whose child had, began showing symptoms. The test for the LTC worker didn’t come back until 11 days after the wedding, by which time they had worked multiple days in the facility while ill. …

[bushmaster]

So……we got that to look forward to……

[hank]

December 4 coronavirus news

Mask use can reduce the number of new Covid-19 infections by close to 50%, study finds

From CNN’s Shelby Lin Erdman

Mandatory mask usage in parts of Germany last spring helped significantly reduce the number of new Covid-19 infections, a team of German researchers reported in a new analysis.

The team used public data on coronavirus cases to compare regions with and without mandatory mask policies last April.

“Depending on the region we consider, we find that face masks reduced the number of newly registered severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infections between 15% and 75% over a period of 20 days after their mandatory introduction,” researchers wrote. “Assessing the credibility of the various estimates, we conclude that face masks reduce the daily growth rate of reported infections by around 47%.”

The study, which was published Thursday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also found that certain age groups benefited more from mask usage.

The researchers looked at data from mask use in Jena, a city in central Germany, after a mandatory mask policy took effect between April 1-10.

[hank]

https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/template/oakv2?campaign_id=154&instance_id=24693&nl=coronavirus-briefing&productCode=CB&regi_id=108526780&segment_id=46030&te=1&uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2F4993a9f9-f373-5ecb-bf03-7b48d1388b87&user_id=574d2e49281da9e6f81a867042569e39

[71k5]

FYI

Tested Positive?? Be Sure to Ask This Question!

Excerpt:

“The lockdowns are based on surging “cases” which are based on positive PCR test results.”

“When it comes to COVID, the presence of viral particles picked up by the PCR technique does not and has not been quantitatively linked to an active “symptomatic” infection. It simply cannot be so, because infection threshold as a result of viral load is different for each patient. It turns out, if you “cycle” over around 25 times, the false positivity of COVID infection starts getting very high.”

[hank]

Korean Study: Indoor SARS-CoV-2 Transmission from 21 Feet Away in Just 5 Minutes

a small study from Korea that has big implications on how we think about transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Scientists traced two cases back to a restaurant and discovered that transmission had occurred over quite a long distance in a very short period of time.

If you just want the results: one person (Case B) infected two other people (case A and C) from a distance away of 6.5 meters (~21 feet) and 4.8m (~15 feet). Case B and case A overlapped for just five minutes at quite a distance away. These people were well beyond the current 6 feet / 2 meter guidelines of CDC and much further than the current 3 feet / one meter distance advocated by the WHO. And they still transmitted the virus.

As Tufekci goes on to explain, the way they figured this out was quite clever: they contact traced, used CCTV footage from the restaurant, recreated the airflow in the space, and verified the transmission chain with genome sequencing.

[Lightbringer]

And that’s what we call an airtight analysis…

[NorthernHarrier]

@71k5

FYI

Tested Positive?? Be Sure to Ask This Question!

Excerpt:

“The lockdowns are based on surging “cases” which are based on positive PCR test results.”

“When it comes to COVID, the presence of viral particles picked up by the PCR technique does not and has not been quantitatively linked to an active “symptomatic” infection. It simply cannot be so, because infection threshold as a result of viral load is different for each patient. It turns out, if you “cycle” over around 25 times, the false positivity of COVID infection starts getting very high.”

Why that’s not true

[Rexlion]

It’s really hilarious when people start telling a law school graduate what the law says and doesn’t say. Especially when the law is not applicable to the point being made, that universities have long tended to be bastions of free speech. No one claimed (the straw man argument) that colleges have a legal obligation to be that way. But they have almost always tended to be that way and have even trumpeted their free speech practices as an ideal; but when the things the students recently were saying didn’t fit the P.C. viewpoint, Johns Hopkins U. showed some hypocrisy.

On another note, today I read a good article in Imprimis by Dr. Jay Bhattacharya M.D., Prof. of Medicine at Stanford.
A Sensible and Compassionate Anti-COVID Strategy
An brief excerpt:

I should say something in conclusion about the idea of herd immunity, which some people mischaracterize as a strategy of letting people die. First, herd immunity is not a strategy—it is a biological fact that applies to most infectious diseases. Even when we come up with a vaccine, we will be relying on herd immunity as an end-point for this epidemic. The vaccine will help, but herd immunity is what will bring it to an end. And second, our strategy is not to let people die, but to protect the vulnerable. We know the people who are vulnerable, and we know the people who are not vulnerable. To continue to act as if we do not know these things makes no sense.

[Rexlion]

@NorthernHarrier

@71k5

FYI

Tested Positive?? Be Sure to Ask This Question!

Excerpt:

“The lockdowns are based on surging “cases” which are based on positive PCR test results.”

“When it comes to COVID, the presence of viral particles picked up by the PCR technique does not and has not been quantitatively linked to an active “symptomatic” infection. It simply cannot be so, because infection threshold as a result of viral load is different for each patient. It turns out, if you “cycle” over around 25 times, the false positivity of COVID infection starts getting very high.”

Why that’s not true

That link was an interesting read. Glad you posted it.

[Rexlion]

@djmcconn

MtnDon, hank, Northern Harrier. Forgive my ineptitude. I cannot figure out how to link a very interesting article. It is a Nov.30 article in Neuroscience News entitled How Covid-19 Reaches The Brain. I think you guys might enjoy.
David

Is there an article explaining how common sense reaches the brain? :laughing:

[SubLGT]

@Rexlion

On another note, today I read a good article in Imprimis by Dr. Jay Bhattacharya M.D., Prof. of Medicine at Stanford.
A Sensible and Compassionate Anti-COVID Strategy

A good article, but I think thousands of hospital employees would disagree with this assertion from the author:

…The initial rationale for lockdowns was that slowing the spread of the disease would prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed. It became clear before long that this was not a worry: in the U.S. and in most of the world, hospitals were never at risk of being overwhelmed…

[NorthernHarrier]

@SubLGT

@Rexlion

On another note, today I read a good article in Imprimis by Dr. Jay Bhattacharya M.D., Prof. of Medicine at Stanford.
A Sensible and Compassionate Anti-COVID Strategy

A good article, but I think thousands of hospital employees would disagree with this assertion from the author:

…The initial rationale for lockdowns was that slowing the spread of the disease would prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed. It became clear before long that this was not a worry: in the U.S. and in most of the world, hospitals were never at risk of being overwhelmed…

Thousands more would also disagree with the article’s assertion that there is a group in the population that is not vulnerable to Covid-19. Even those who don’t die often have significant long-term health problems as a result of being infected with the virus. If you have other health conditions, that can be severely disabling.

[hank]

Thanks for the fact check, NorthernHarrier

The sanity checks arrive here at BLF faster than they do at most public discussions nowadays. Higher standards, I think, and more respect for facts.

EXCERPT

The false-positive PCR problem is not a problem. There is, however, a crisis in the lack of understanding about a heretofore obscure branch of science that toils in relative obscurity and a tool it relies on; pathology testing and PCR.

But hey, is anyone actually saying there is a problem? Sadly, yes. These are is a couple of the many I’ve read. One is a comment currently in holding, submitted to this blog. The other a tweet at me last night. And yet despite sounding so sure of itself, it isn’t supported by facts and is simply absolute rubbish.

[NorthernHarrier]

Back at ya’, hank!

[71k5]

FYI

Effectiveness of Adding a Mask Recommendation to Other Public Health Measures to Prevent SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Danish Mask Wearers A Randomized Controlled Trial

[71k5]

@hank

Mask use can reduce the number of new Covid-19 infections by close to 50%, study finds

Mask use can reduce the number of new Covid-19 infections by close to 50%, study finds

From CNN’s Shelby Lin Erdman

Mandatory mask usage in parts of Germany last spring helped significantly reduce the number of new Covid-19 infections, a team of German researchers reported in a new analysis.

The team used public data on coronavirus cases to compare regions with and without mandatory mask policies last April.

“Depending on the region we consider, we find that face masks reduced the number of newly registered severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infections between 15% and 75% over a period of 20 days after their mandatory introduction,” researchers wrote. “Assessing the credibility of the various estimates, we conclude that face masks reduce the daily growth rate of reported infections by around 47%.”

The study, which was published Thursday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also found that certain age groups benefited more from mask usage.

The researchers looked at data from mask use in Jena, a city in central Germany, after a mandatory mask policy took effect between April 1-10.

Whenever you use a news resource such as CNN, to re-enforce your narrative, remember these Jeff Zucker/CNN conference calls, to see what they refer to as “news”.
Just one of many conference CNN calls.
“How CNN does ”News”“:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxltlD1NGYY

Find someone with more credibility, to push your narrative, CNN doesn’t have it.
Once you listen to these conference calls, you can see CNN no longer does real news.
They report A story, but it’s not always THE story.

More CNN “News” conference calls can be found here: Jeff Zucker and CNN

More, on future Jeff Zucker/CNN conference calls. Ben Shapiro interviews James Okeefe on future CNN Conference calls

hank, your message may be true, but you might want to use another source to push it.