[QuickTidal]

Macros, on 22 May 2020 - 05:38 PM, said:

40 people arrested in Belfast for having a fucking party at Obel towers this week.

Don't worry QT, there are fucking morons everywhere

Fecking hell. Why tho?

Mentalist, on 22 May 2020 - 05:49 PM, said:

I'm living with a frontline worker who doesn't see it as serious and is still planning a September vacation overseas.

You get used to it.

It's messed up tho. The only reason I think my respiratory therapist friends co-workers are talking it down are because they aren't in the ICU or in the Resp. wing to see it...but should you not pause if someone who works in the direct wing of health that is dealign with this tells you it's serious? Like fuck. We are 400+ cases a day in Ontario...and that's WITH a lockdown and social distancing.

Cause, on 22 May 2020 - 05:52 PM, said:

Yip I was saying to someone the other day. I find it amazing that in a world of internet and Netflix, limitless entertainment, food deliveries, running water, heat, air con etc people still can’t apparently survive being in their homes for two months.

I mean, yeah I'm sick of being inside all the time too, my kids are going absolutely bananas....but FFS we don't have it remotely hard beyond that cabin fever here in Canada. The selfishness is so high.

[Gorefest]

Well, to be fair, I have been working through this whole thing in our academic hospital and social distancing is non-existent on the front line. We have Estates workers coming in to check our ventilation etc, without any protection or attempt at social distancing. To collect the blood and saliva samples from frontline workers (nurses, doctors, domestic services staff) which we currently use in a clinical trial, I have to walk through a narrow corridor (maybe like a metre wide) with phlebotomy rooms on each side with nurses chatting away with each other, half of them not wearing masks. We have domestic services staff and engineers smoking on the side of the building in groups of 4-6 people, trundling around the corridor and coming into our office to have a chat, etc etc.

We are testing samples from frontline workers who say that they have had no symptoms whatsoever. So far around 20-25% of them tested positive. I honestly dont see how you can contain this. The only way forward as I can see it is to ringfence the truly vulnerable members of our society and let the rest go for herd immunity until we have a vaccine.

[amphibian]

How the heck do we "ringfence" the truly vulnerable when we cannot fully supply PPE and accurate testing to those who need it? Do the workers at the facilities being fenced in have to move onto the grounds? You may be talking about nursing homes, which is good, but what about prisons? Meat packing plants? Public transit workers? Do we warehouse the vulnerable in new facilities?

Or you could look at South Korea, which is probably the country that has best managed to not have a cataclysm, and copy pretty much every thing they do to deal with this. They aren't silo'ing up "the truly vulnerable" and letting everyone else gun for this herd immunity.

This post has been edited by amphibian: 22 May 2020 - 07:32 PM

[Gorefest]

Oh, I agree, it is nigh on impossible. But social distancing, at least in the UK, is a lost cause in my opinion. It is just completely counter to the British mentality. People do not like to tell other people off for not following distancing rules out of some form of politeness or embarrassment. If they go on a bus wearing a face mask and see others not wearing a face mask, they will not wear one the next day either because they dont want to look out of place. And because the government is not putting any rule enforcement in place at all - merely some vague guidance which they then push all responsibility for maintaining off to local authorities and employers so they can deny any culpability - in practice nothing sticks. Where in the US people deliberately seem to be breaking the rules because it supposedly curtails their god given right to personal freedom, in the UK the main driving force seems to be embarrassment and not wanting to make a fuss. The end result is the same though.

This post has been edited by Gorefest: 22 May 2020 - 07:50 PM

[Macros]

other success stories are sengeal and ghana. Same idea, hella high contact tracing runs.

[Macros]

and also yeah

fuck the British and Irish mentality.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'Crowd-favorite Magnolia Bakery is gearing up to welcome customers by adding new ultraviolet lights that reportedly kill off airborne virus particles

[...] new technology that's been developed by Columbia University's Center for Radiological Research. While the research team is still testing how effective it is in killing the strain of the virus that causes COVID-19, the research center's head David Brenner says the results are "encouraging," [...]

Conventional UV light is known for killing viruses, but it's also harmful to humans. The technology developed at Columbia, however, involves a wavelength of UV light called far-UVC, which in low doses can kill viruses and bacteria without endangering humans, the university's research shows.

At the UWS location, customers will pass through slimmer versions of metal detectors or "cleanse portals," as they're called by the company producing them, and be asked to turn 360 degrees as they stand under this far-UVC light for 20 seconds. The store's recessed lighting, along with the one at the West Village shop, will also be replaced by far-UVC light'

https://ny.eater.com...irus-technology

... can they effectively rule out a significantly increased risk of skin cancer?...

Given the '20 seconds' I'd guess the UV probably doesn't kill the virus quickly enough to stop face-to-face transmission?...

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 22 May 2020 - 08:06 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Looking at the Columbia UVC study, it seems they only tested an exposure time of 30 minutes:

'after running through the irradiation chamber for 30 minutes'

https://www.nature.c...598-018-21058-w

[Mentalist]

QuickTidal, on 22 May 2020 - 06:24 PM, said:

Macros, on 22 May 2020 - 05:38 PM, said:

40 people arrested in Belfast for having a fucking party at Obel towers this week.

Don't worry QT, there are fucking morons everywhere

Fecking hell. Why tho?

Mentalist, on 22 May 2020 - 05:49 PM, said:

I'm living with a frontline worker who doesn't see it as serious and is still planning a September vacation overseas.

You get used to it.

It's messed up tho. The only reason I think my respiratory therapist friends co-workers are talking it down are because they aren't in the ICU or in the Resp. wing to see it...but should you not pause if someone who works in the direct wing of health that is dealign with this tells you it's serious? Like fuck. We are 400+ cases a day in Ontario...and that's WITH a lockdown and social distancing.

Cause, on 22 May 2020 - 05:52 PM, said:

Yip I was saying to someone the other day. I find it amazing that in a world of internet and Netflix, limitless entertainment, food deliveries, running water, heat, air con etc people still can’t apparently survive being in their homes for two months.

I mean, yeah I'm sick of being inside all the time too, my kids are going absolutely bananas....but FFS we don't have it remotely hard beyond that cabin fever here in Canada. The selfishness is so high.

Her hospital system (trinity, so St Mike's, St Joseph's, and one other) have no cases. Her friend is an Ultrasound tech in William Osler and they have less than 20. Therefore, it's not serious.

*shrug*

I also go insane after 4 days indoors. I work in front of a screen, and relying on a screen for most of my entertainment/free time can get a bit much. There are days when I finish work and just lie down for a few hours just to get away from screens.

But, once again, 'Sauga's sensible, parks are open for traffic and most people keep their distance and are sensible (occasionally you see kids on playgrounds, using the swings'n'such, though). On weekends, weather permitting, I can grab my bike and go ride for a few hours, encountering less than a few dozen people. And worst comes to worst, we have a sizeable backyard, so I'd be able to get my fresh air there (my dad practically lives in the garden, since his work's gotten much slower and he's home 70% of the time).

Yeah, I miss chilling with people. First chance I get once it's legal, we'd probably all get together and get epically wasted; but as long as rules are in place, you gotta follow them.

Probably gonna start making time for going to a nearby school and kicking the ball at a wall once the weather becomes stable. No soccer this summer, and that along with swimming is how I normally take my mind off life, so I need to find some substitutes that don't involve gaming, watching stuff or reading (because all that also takes brain effort).

*shrug*

[Slow Ben]

My state representative got kicked out of state assembly for refusing to wear a mask this week.

I swear, I live in the Republican fucking armpit of America.

[Tsundoku]

@Ment
Maybe your body could use the rest? An uninjured summer would be a new record.

@SB
If not the armpit, then perhaps some other bodily region also at the join of two areas, with hair, sweat and odours ... ?
Which is why it just makes sense to emigrate here. We have our own idiots, but there is far less of them and in general they're much less harmful.

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 23 May 2020 - 05:23 AM

[amphibian]

I'm generally of the opinion that economic costs can be borne much, much more readily than having tens of thousands of people die or suffer permanent damage to their health. Right now, what's scaring us in NYC is that dozens of healthy children dying and/or having organ failures due to something like Kawasaki syndrome brought upon them by COVID-19 (https://www.nytimes....e-new-york.html).

Economies can be rebuilt - debt can be incurred, healthcare can be given to all, and so on. Money and stock markets are not worth people's lives and well-being. The people dying now in the US are often from minority groups and lower income groups. William Gibson's famous quote of "the future is already here - it's just not evenly distributed" comes with a savage bite here because whether open or closed, these people are who will take the most harm.

[amphibian]

One note on the Swedish model - the testing seems to suggest that Stockholm has an infection rate of 2.3% - and they've had many deaths (I think because they're able to identify COVID-19 related morbidity better than places like the US). That's a very low prevalence number to have the effects they're having and I'm worried that this means over the next 4 years or so (the amount of time it'd take to get to herd immunity in Sweden), that great amounts of harm will be incurred.

[Mentalist]

Tsundoku, on 23 May 2020 - 05:21 AM, said:

@Ment
Maybe your body could use the rest? An uninjured summer would be a new record.

I'm a 32 y.o. single professional who can't afford to (comfortably) move out into my own place, due to the housing costs (so I'm renting it out instead); the bulk of my daily job is chronicling injured worker's descent into mental illness whilst dealing with worker's comp; then trying to make callous government officials understand it;

I'm a bit of a poster child for the whole "need of escapism" thing. And there's only so much you can achieve when you rotate from one screen (my work laptop) to others (TV, desktop, smartphone). Sports/physical activity is my Zen time.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'Two of biotech company Moderna’s top executives dumped millions in company stocks just as the value peaked by 30 percent on news of early success in clinical trials for a COVID-19 vaccine. But right before medical reviews suggested that the results weren’t as promising as had been hyped, the company’s chief financial officer and chief medical officer sold off $30 million in company shares through an automated system that reads futures on certain volatile stocks. [...] Moderna says that because the sales were executed under a so-called 10b5-1 plan established in advance, they are not suspect. Former Moderna director Moncef Slaoui recently left the company to lead the White House’s vaccine development effort.'

https://www.thedaily...esults?ref=home

[Gust Hubb]

Azath Vitr (D, on 23 May 2020 - 04:16 PM, said:

'Two of biotech company Moderna's top executives dumped millions in company stocks just as the value peaked by 30 percent on news of early success in clinical trials for a COVID-19 vaccine. But right before medical reviews suggested that the results weren't as promising as had been hyped, the company's chief financial officer and chief medical officer sold off $30 million in company shares through an automated system that reads futures on certain volatile stocks. [...] Moderna says that because the sales were executed under a so-called 10b5-1 plan established in advance, they are not suspect. Former Moderna director Moncef Slaoui recently left the company to lead the White House's vaccine development effort.'

https://www.thedaily...esults?ref=home

That is not suspicious at all...

I am still wondering how you can develop a vaccine for something people don't readily remain immune to (or at least as far as I am hearing). This also makes me wonder about the herd immunity mentality. Has anyone seen convincing articles for either consistent immunity or herd immunity yet?

EDIT/Side note: There appear to be plenty articles on the rapid development of IgG and IgM antibodies to COVID. I am wondering how protective these are and how long they last.

This post has been edited by Gust Hubb: 23 May 2020 - 06:04 PM

[Mezla PigDog]

amphibian, on 23 May 2020 - 03:36 PM, said:

I'm generally of the opinion that economic costs can be borne much, much more readily than having tens of thousands of people die or suffer permanent damage to their health.

I generally agree but it's not how humanity works is it. Funny how economic sacrifice feels worth it when it is closer to home. When war, famine and climate change is ravaging other parts of the world we turn a blind eye and close borders. There are so many opportunities for us as a species to do the right thing and sacrifice our own economic prosperity for the sake of others and we just don't. As a species we lost the battle of lives vs economy a long time ago and it's not going to change in the US or UK while we have our current governments and financial structures in place.

This is why it makes me so mad when people vote for people who are clearly terrible people but somehow convince themselves they can still do the job. Sure in relatively stable conditions we might all survive but when the shit really hits the fan.... Well those fuckers made the bed and we all have to lie in it.

[Mezla PigDog]

Gust Hubb, on 23 May 2020 - 05:55 PM, said:

Azath Vitr (D, on 23 May 2020 - 04:16 PM, said:

'Two of biotech company Moderna's top executives dumped millions in company stocks just as the value peaked by 30 percent on news of early success in clinical trials for a COVID-19 vaccine. But right before medical reviews suggested that the results weren't as promising as had been hyped, the company's chief financial officer and chief medical officer sold off $30 million in company shares through an automated system that reads futures on certain volatile stocks. [...] Moderna says that because the sales were executed under a so-called 10b5-1 plan established in advance, they are not suspect. Former Moderna director Moncef Slaoui recently left the company to lead the White House's vaccine development effort.'

https://www.thedaily...esults?ref=home

That is not suspicious at all...

I am still wondering how you can develop a vaccine for something people don't readily remain immune to (or at least as far as I am hearing). This also makes me wonder about the herd immunity mentality. Has anyone seen convincing articles for either consistent immunity or herd immunity yet?

EDIT/Side note: There appear to be plenty articles on the rapid development of IgG and IgM antibodies to COVID. I am wondering how protective these are and how long they last.

Last I read there is no evidence of neutralising antibodies yet. There is also no evidence that they are NOT produced either. So a vaccine could be a scientific impossibility. Or at least only protect us a bit. Apparently a pre-pandemic coronavirus vaccine study actually worsened peoples outcomes when they did become infected because the immune system was primed for an overreaction so inflammatory symptoms set in faster. Yay.

[Macros]

Chatting last night and somehow the topic got round to changing the world etc, ladyhawk is of the belief that incrementalism and ripple effect can start a change. Which I agreed with, on the premise enough people partake.
More realistically it needs to be torn down, Illy was right all along, end world starvation, eat the rich

[Gust Hubb]

Mezla PigDog, on 23 May 2020 - 06:10 PM, said:

Gust Hubb, on 23 May 2020 - 05:55 PM, said:

Azath Vitr (D, on 23 May 2020 - 04:16 PM, said:

'Two of biotech company Moderna's top executives dumped millions in company stocks just as the value peaked by 30 percent on news of early success in clinical trials for a COVID-19 vaccine. But right before medical reviews suggested that the results weren't as promising as had been hyped, the company's chief financial officer and chief medical officer sold off $30 million in company shares through an automated system that reads futures on certain volatile stocks. [...] Moderna says that because the sales were executed under a so-called 10b5-1 plan established in advance, they are not suspect. Former Moderna director Moncef Slaoui recently left the company to lead the White House's vaccine development effort.'

https://www.thedaily...esults?ref=home

That is not suspicious at all...

I am still wondering how you can develop a vaccine for something people don't readily remain immune to (or at least as far as I am hearing). This also makes me wonder about the herd immunity mentality. Has anyone seen convincing articles for either consistent immunity or herd immunity yet?

EDIT/Side note: There appear to be plenty articles on the rapid development of IgG and IgM antibodies to COVID. I am wondering how protective these are and how long they last.

Last I read there is no evidence of neutralising antibodies yet. There is also no evidence that they are NOT produced either. So a vaccine could be a scientific impossibility. Or at least only protect us a bit. Apparently a pre-pandemic coronavirus vaccine study actually worsened peoples outcomes when they did become infected because the immune system was primed for an overreaction so inflammatory symptoms set in faster. Yay.

Huh, that is horrifically interesting. Yeah, I figured you and some others on the forum would be far more versed in the immunology than I even begin to be . Thank you.