Ongoing coronavirus happenings

Be careful with those cleaning products! (And don’t drink bleach.)

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Hey all, if you’ve seen the quotes Mark pulled from Paul Romer’s webpage and my post below, you might be interested how this turned out:

I pointed out to the family that this asshat is a right-winger, AfD supporter, and generally not to be considered a valid source for anything. Also, I pointed to some bullshit he claims and referred to sources which explain why he is wrong.

This was a LONG week ago. Today, I got a message that a MP (and virologist), Karl Lauterbach, wrote a reply published today in the same paper. Was told he didn’t reply as hard in tone as I had, but firm in the matter.

I went online, and I’m livid again. First of all, it’s not published as an opinion piece, but a Gastbeitrag (guest contribution). Also, contrary to the bloody opinion piece, it is hidden behind a fucking paywall.
The Rheinische Post shall burn in hell, and I’ll happily try to convince everyone who ever agreed to pay money to those bloody morons to cancel their subscriptions.

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Utterly fucking enraging.

The range of views within the movement on the current pandemic was on display last week at the “Health Freedom Summit,” where Wakefield and Kennedy spoke. The virtual conference, portions of which were viewed by The Washington Post, featured dozens of speakers and devoted one full day to the coronavirus. Limited access to the seminars and materials was offered free, with full access for $69.

Alana Newman, who hosted the online summit, said in an interview that she organized it with a friend using her savings and that outside groups or funders were not involved. She said she became concerned that the coronavirus case numbers were being exaggerated by the news media and that the virus may have been designed and released in order to benefit vaccine makers.

“We’re just trying to do what’s best for our kids,” said Newman, who lives in southwest Louisiana. “We’re not making a billion dollars off this. ”

Some speakers promoted unproven treatments or preventive measures, such as zinc, vitamin supplements and sun exposure. Others speculated that the symptoms attributed to the virus could have other causes, such as plutonium falling to earth from destroyed satellites. Still, others warned without evidence of forcible inoculations of unwilling Americans with an eventual coronavirus vaccine.

How is Andrew Wakefield not in jail? Or better yet, dead? And seriously, plutonium exposure is what’s causing the coronavirus symptoms? The stupidity is so corrosive that it is dissolving every thought in my head and leaving behind a black pool of despair and hatred.

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I’m really interested to see how this will turn out.

I hope I’m not being a nuisance to everybody by bringing up the podcast with Christian Drosten continuously, but it’s a invaluable source of info for us.

Quick and dirty translation, edited for language:

In reply to a question regarding the timing of the first infections in the Podcast of Feb. 28th:

Several laboratories in Europe have already tested their old flu sample collections, which date back to November and December. And there were no hits. So it doesn’t look as if we had unrecognized cases of this virus in Europe two or three months ago.

Another question, on the 27th of March:

It is actually really ruled out that it wasn’t the virus after all existed in Europe and Germany for a long time?

Reply, slightly edited for clarity:

Recently, we have been getting a lot of inquiries. [In some cases, when justified], we have to take a closer look. […] We test [their serum samples]. And we have never found any clue - with all of these anecdotal investigations we so far have made in Germany. It also doesn’t really look as if it something has already been entered into Europe before mid-January when we look at the virus [genetic] sequences . I am still open to this possibility, that must I also say right away. I don’t want that now exclude [this possibiltiy]. But we, and others of whom we know, have not found any clues so far.

Expanding a bit on genetic sequences, prior to the above on 5th of March:

But how long has the virus been circulating in Italy? In this case, I have to answer this question that I would think: probably since January. In the few sequences that are known from Italy so far, two different clades have already been identified. A clade is a group of viruses in the phylogenetic family tree, i.e. in genetic sequencing analysis. We have a look at which [infection] is related to which. [We lookfor] group[s] that are connected with each other, i.e. a direct family, a clade. [The analysis shows] that in very few samples known currently, there is already a clear indication that the virus was introduced to Italy at least twice. If [researchers will look at] even more sequences in the near future, we will [surely] find that there have been multiple introductions.

It’s going to be interesting, and I just hope the results aren’t going to cause bickering in public and credibility crisis for researchers and health professionals.

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I still got the letter. God it’s annoying.

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There is literally no indication that warm weather would help in regard to the virus and the infection itself. The only factor, which already surely was helpful here in Germany during a really, really long spell of warm weather (different problem, but we are already under draught conditions, AGAIN) is that people can disperse outdoors.

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It’s damn shameful this happened in my town.

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“Bing was on the verge of making very significant findings toward understanding the cellular mechanisms that underlie SARS-CoV-2 infection and the cellular basis of the following complications. We will make an effort to complete what he started in an effort to pay homage to his scientific excellence,” the department said on its website.

“His loss will be felt throughout the entire scientific community. Please keep his family, friends, and colleagues in your thoughts. Thank you,” the department added.

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Goddamnit.

FUCK TODAY

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My wife heard recently from a cousin in Italy that the cousin’s son, who is working in London, has just had a positive test for Covid antibodies. His only recent health issue was what he’d thought was a severe flu last fall. I don’t know why he was tested this time.

If it turns out that Covid was in the community earlier than previously thought, that might explain why the disease is so bad in some European countries, as it would mean that isolation measures came later in the spread. It would also help explain why Norway (for example) is doing so much better than neighbors with more severe measures: most likely the disease was mainly introduced here from Tyrol after a national skiing holiday at the end of February, so only a couple of weeks before the lockdown.

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Oh fuck, this reads as another un-informed comparison with influenza.

Shame on this outlet, if not the people who they interviewed.

Long story short re:influenza is that children aren’t immunocompetent for an influenza virus. They are immuno-naive. Adults, OTH, are not, since they had previous contact to various influenza strains. Because they are immunologically naive, the influenza virus concentration children spill out of nearly every orifice is much, much (much!) higher than that of adults. Because of THAT, they become super-spreaders.

Right now, with SARS-CoV-2, we all are naive.

Also, that bloody CBC piece didn’t even bother to set the correct link to the report.
FTFY:

http://ncirs.org.au/sites/default/files/2020-04/NCIRS%20NSW%20Schools%20COVID_Summary_FINAL%20public_26%20April%202020.pdf

Additionally, it is a report. Not a scientific study. And I would volunteer they have low numbers of cases to come to a conclusion like that bloody CBC piece. Twelve index cases in high schools, six in primary schools. Oh, and primary school cases have ONE case where the index patient was a child, the rest was staff. Are you kidding me? And again that report relates their conclusions to influenza.

Fuck. I was hoping for good news. This is not good news.

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Also in the news, McDonalds still has a massive supply of the stuff they make their hamburger patties from.

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Most likely explanation: he had the flu. The positive antibody test could be due to an asymptomatic exposure in the interim (or perhaps a faulty test, though that gets into a whole other bag of worms about the reliability of the various testing methods deployed across the globe)

Until there are multiple confirmed studies showing an earlier introduction, January remains the time of the first European exposures.

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Nonsense, well be at zero by May 15th.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/covid-36000

His is a DC GOP think tank (sinecured) economist who has generally paid no professional or reputational price for being wrong about virtually everything for decades. The decision to put such a person in charge of creating a predictive epidemiological model in the midst of a national crisis based on no professional or academic expertise whatsoever defies all logic. But then, who are we kidding? The President put his son-in-law, who’s only professional accomplishment was nearly bankrupting his real estate family after he took the reins after his father went to prison, in charge of epidemic crisis response.

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Put a dubious economist who knows how to find the ‘make a graph’ assistant in MS Excel in charge of crafting the crisis response to the worst pandemic in a hundred years. Yeah, that’ll work out just dandy.

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Wendy’s promotes that they use only fresh beef, not frozen, for their burgers. McDonalds felt enough pressure from that to change their standards and made the Quarter pounder fresh-only. I wonder if Mickey D’s is short of Quarter Pounders?

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Their new head chef, Alex Jones, has turned them on to some new meat sources.

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My library starts “curb-side” pick-up today, actually from a table set up out front that you get out of your car to reach. Personally I’m sticking with the digital collection.

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Don’t think it would be a massive surprise to find earlier than the ski infections in February

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