COVID-19

[SlickAg]

More and more evidence in support of pre-existing T cell immunity. My favorite part is that he’s been speculating about this for months but hasn’t been able to find a wide audience.

Ultimately, I hope one of the big takeaways from all of this will be how so much of academia seemed to disfavor anything that didn’t jive with the more widely reported doomsday mainstream narrative.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1281181037071085575

Robust T cell immunity in convalescent individuals with asymptomatic or mild COVID-19

SARS-CoV-2-specific memory T cells will likely prove critical for long-term immune protection against COVID-19. We systematically mapped the functional and phenotypic landscape of SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell responses in a large cohort of unexposed individuals as well as exposed family members...

www.biorxiv.org

 

[FrankTheTank]

I almost feel that if Covid-19 were deadlier, we'd have fewer deaths. We'd have done what it took to drive it to zero immediately. Instead, it's a slow bleed.

It’s a virus! It‘s never going to be zero!

 

[taxi1]

It’s a virus! It‘s never going to be zero!

Not true. If R0 < 1 then it must go to zero, or so small you just contact trace it. It just takes patience and persistence.

Spanish Flu went to zero without infecting everyone in the country.

 

[taxi1]

Ultimately, I hope one of the big takeaways from all of this will be how so much of academia seemed to disfavor anything that didn’t jive with the more widely reported doomsday mainstream narrative.

I would hope the big takeaway is that a lot fewer people will get sick, and the virus will go away sooner.

But no way does this constitute actionable results that you would build your public policy response around. Yet. Hope and a single small data set is not a strategy.

They should keep digging and researching.

 

[SlickAg]

I would hope the big takeaway is that a lot fewer people will get sick, and the virus will go away sooner.

But no way does this constitute actionable results that you would build your public policy response around. Yet. Hope and a single small data set is not a strategy.

They should keep digging and researching.

I don't think they’re going to stop. Quite the opposite actually. My point was that cool, calm, collected, and objective voices were tossed aside in favor of those that were not. I’d encourage you to watch this. If you haven’t already. Again, a Nobel laureate saying that his fellow academics failed.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1278005626581499914

Speaking of places where “the virus will go away sooner”...like oh I don’t know, Sweden.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1281238375681257472

And another post from him, this time comparing the deaths compared to last year compared to mobility. His theory is that states that locked down more actually had MORE people die so far this year. Is the data perfect? No. Could it change? Yes. But it certainly is interesting. And remember, the whole original reason for the lockdowns was to “not overwhelm the hospitals”. No hospitals got overwhelmed, yet it’s possible more people died?

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1281364895783514112

Again, I’ll wear a mask when I need to. Whatever. But isn’t it curious that a state (California) that has a had mandatory mask order since June 18th is STILL having an massive spike in number of cases?

 

[taxi1]

I don't think they’re going to stop. Quite the opposite actually. My point was that cool, calm, collected, and objective voices were tossed aside in favor of those that were not.

I don’t think they were tossed aside, they just didn’t have data to back them up. It was opinion.

With a pandemic, the probability distribution of outcomes has fat tails, where in the absence of good data, the really terrible, unacceptable outcomes have an intolerably high probability. You have to act with those outcomes in mind. When you learn about new drugs and potentially inherent immunity that bound the severity, you adjust, but not before.

Regarding Sweden (and ourselves) if a vaccine hits this Fall, think of the tens of thousands of citizens that died that could still be alive if we’d had more patience. Note the log scale on the vertical axis.

 

[Treetop Flyer]

I don’t think they were tossed aside, they just didn’t have data to back them up. It was opinion.

With a pandemic, the probability distribution of outcomes has fat tails, where in the absence of good data, the really terrible, unacceptable outcomes have an intolerably high probability. You have to act with those outcomes in mind. When you learn about new drugs and potentially inherent immunity that bound the severity, you adjust, but not before.

Regarding Sweden (and ourselves) if a vaccine hits this Fall, think of the tens of thousands of citizens that died that could still be alive if we’d had more patience. Note the log scale on the vertical axis.

IF a vaccine hits. Good Lord

 

[SlickAg]

I don’t think they were tossed aside, they just didn’t have data to back them up. It was opinion.

With a pandemic, the probability distribution of outcomes has fat tails, where in the absence of good data, the really terrible, unacceptable outcomes have an intolerably high probability. You have to act with those outcomes in mind. When you learn about new drugs and potentially inherent immunity that bound the severity, you adjust, but not before.

Regarding Sweden (and ourselves) if a vaccine hits this Fall, think of the tens of thousands of citizens that died that could still be alive if we’d had more patience. Note the log scale on the vertical axis.

Sure it was opinion. But that’s allowed, right? That’s why we as a society are willing to listen to and believe “experts” and the opinions of REALLY smart people. When there’s no data to act on, you have to do something. I get it. But now that we have data that shows that this isn’t the unstoppable killer virus that people thought, maybe we can dial back the rhetoric, interpret the data that we have, and make some reasonable decisions.

So we’re all pretty much at the same spot on the x-axis. Right?

So how come all of those other countries have essentially opened up, the European ones don’t require wearing masks, schools are open or never closed and even Canadian public health policy experts are advocating for an end to major restrictions!

Please explain to me why those countries are 1) so different from us and 2) if I’m understanding you correctly, you believe that the US is willfully committing murder by opening up instead of remaining locked down while waiting for a vaccine for a coronavirus?

 

[RedFive]

think of the tens of thousands of citizens that died that could still be alive if we’d had more patience

If you're going to bring up theoretical deaths of people who haven't yet perished on account of COVID19, you have to also discuss the deaths caused by lockdown -- poverty, depression, drugs, alcohol, suicide, etc. Yes, the lockdown causes death. I said it.

 

[Jim123]

If you're going to bring up theoretical deaths of people who haven't yet perished on account of COVID19, you have to also discuss the deaths caused by lockdown -- poverty, depression, drugs, alcohol, suicide, etc. Yes, the lockdown causes death. I said it.

It's sure contributed to the unrest. Some good will come of this year's protests in the long run, hopefully even a lot of good, but the lockdown has not been good for a lot of people's mental health. Most of us on these forums have it pretty good in terms of personal financial security and physical health... it's easy to not appreciate how good we have it compared to a lot of our fellow citizens and residents. I don't mean that in a judgmental or moralistic way, it's just a matter-of-fact observation.

 

[Treetop Flyer]

If you're going to bring up theoretical deaths of people who haven't yet perished on account of COVID19, you have to also discuss the deaths caused by lockdown -- poverty, depression, drugs, alcohol, suicide, etc. Yes, the lockdown causes death. I said it.

And that a significant percentage of the deaths attributed to COVID have been people on deaths door. Nursing home residents, cancer patients, overwhelmingly the oldest and the sickest.

 

[SlickAg]

And that a significant percentage of the deaths attributed to COVID have been people on deaths door. Nursing home residents, cancer patients, overwhelmingly the oldest and the sickest.

 

[taxi1]

More and more evidence in support of pre-existing T cell immunity.

I read the cited paper, that’s not what it says.

 

[SlickAg]

I read the cited paper, that’s not what it says.

Did you at least watch the video?

 

[SlickAg]

I would hope the big takeaway is that a lot fewer people will get sick, and the virus will go away sooner.

But no way does this constitute actionable results that you would build your public policy response around. Yet. Hope and a single small data set is not a strategy.

They should keep digging and researching.

This is precisely what I was alluding to in my earlier post about academics shutting out dissenting voices.

“As the country awoke to an unprecedented economic lockdown in the middle of March, John Ioannidis, professor of epidemiology at Stanford University and one of the most cited physician scientists who practically invented “metaresearch”, questioned the lockdown and wondered if we might cause more harm than good in trying to control coronavirus. What would normally pass for skepticism in the midst of uncertainty of a novel virus became tinder in the social media outrage fire.

Ioannidis was likened to the discredited anti-vax doctor, Andrew Wakefield. His colleagues in epidemiology could barely contain their disgust, which ranged from visceral disappointment – the sort one feels when their gifted child has lost their way in college, to deep anger. He was accused of misunderstanding risk, misunderstanding statistics, and cherry picking data to prove his point.

The pushback was partly a testament to the stature of Ioannidis, whose skepticism could have weakened the resoluteness with which people complied with the lockdown. Some academics defended him, or rather defended the need for a contrarian voice like his. The conservative media lauded him.

In this pandemic, where we have learnt as much about ourselves as we have about the virus, understanding the pushback to Ioannidis is critical to understanding how academic discourse shapes public’s perception of public policy.”

This is how the interview with Dr. Ioannidis ends:

“I welcome academic discourse and disagreement. I have no doubt that I know very little and that I make mistakes, but I am just trying to learn a bit more and to make fewer mistakes, if possible. I consider that people who criticize me with valid scientific arguments are my greatest benefactors. But the outrage propagated by social media is a force of its own, and destroys any intelligent discourse, civil or uncivil. Once the outrage gets going, platforms for academic discourse censor and the discourse just doesn’t happen. I was unable to publish my essay about nosocomial spread of COVID-19 in nursing homes and hospitals. I submitted to many outlets. I suspect the editors feared social media backlash against my raising an uncomfortable issue. Fear isn’t healthy for science.”

A Conversation with John Ioannidis – The Health Care Blog