Author Topic: Coronavirus  (Read 239619 times)

Enki

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Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #4225 on: May 05, 2021, 02:44:21 PM »
Thanks guys for discussing the India situation.

Yes...it is a bad situation.  The authorities did not anticipate the accelerated spike that has taken place.  They probably thought.... even if a second wave comes around it would be similar to the first. But the second wave is several times more  infectious and deadly than the first.  It is catching on by leaps and bounds.

Oxygen, Remdesivir, ventilators and even hospital beds are in short supply.....similar to the situation Italy faced last year.

Vaccinations were planned when the pandemic was at a low....sometime in November. It was a slow, long term, leisurely plan.  But the second wave has now made vaccinations an urgency......and there is short supply.

Anyway the front line warriors are holding up...and the graph appears to be peaking. 

Hoping for the best.

One plus is that many Indians are rejecting superstitious beliefs and swamis and such people.  Faith in science is growing.  :)

Hi Sriram,

Glad to see you are alright. We've had our own major problems with coronovirus in the UK as you no doubt know. My sister caught it and died, so I can only imagine the distress and heartache present in so many Indian families at the moment. I can only hope that our country, along with other countries, increase their assistance in what looks like an emergency situation. Stay safe.
                  Enki
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Nearly Sane

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Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #4226 on: May 05, 2021, 02:59:32 PM »
India cases
Updated 5 May at 13:51 local
Confirmed
20,698,476

Deaths
226,578

Recovered
16,967,189

 
 United Kingdom
Coronavirus Cases:
4,423,796

Deaths:
127,543

Recovered:
4,234,772

UK Population
68,562,151

India Population
1,393,409,038
And?

SteveH

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Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #4227 on: May 05, 2021, 11:41:15 PM »
And?
The conclusion I draw is that India is actually doing better than Britain, proportional to their population sizes. That's not to trivialise the situation in India. It's probably very bad in certain regions of India. (That's assuming that Vlad's figures are accurate, of course.)
When conspiracy nuts start spouting their bollocks, the best answer is "That's what they want you to think".

Sriram

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Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #4228 on: May 06, 2021, 06:23:19 AM »
Hi Sriram,

Glad to see you are alright. We've had our own major problems with coronovirus in the UK as you no doubt know. My sister caught it and died, so I can only imagine the distress and heartache present in so many Indian families at the moment. I can only hope that our country, along with other countries, increase their assistance in what looks like an emergency situation. Stay safe.
                  Enki



Thanks a lot Enki. Very sorry to hear of your sister!

Yes...the situation is very heart rending....more so because many more younger people are dying this time around as compared to the first wave. And it seems to speed up suddenly. A person has a mild bad throat one day and the next day he is struggling for oxygen and the third day he is dead..... :(

They say some kind of a double mutant is responsible for the surge...







 
« Last Edit: May 06, 2021, 06:55:49 AM by Sriram »

SusanDoris

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Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #4229 on: May 06, 2021, 06:39:37 AM »
Thanks guys for discussing the India situation.

Yes...it is a bad situation.  The authorities did not anticipate the accelerated spike that has taken place.  They probably thought.... even if a second wave comes around it would be similar to the first. But the second wave is several times more  infectious and deadly than the first.  It is catching on by leaps and bounds.

Oxygen, Remdesivir, ventilators and even hospital beds are in short supply.....similar to the situation Italy faced last year.

Vaccinations were planned when the pandemic was at a low....sometime in November. It was a slow, long term, leisurely plan.  But the second wave has now made vaccinations an urgency......and there is short supply.

Anyway the front line warriors are holding up...and the graph appears to be peaking. 

Hoping for the best.

One plus is that many Indians are rejecting superstitious beliefs and swamis and such people.  Faith in science is growing.  :)
That last sentence is most certinly a very promising sign for the future.
« Last Edit: May 06, 2021, 07:42:05 AM by Gordon »
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jeremyp

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Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #4230 on: May 07, 2021, 01:36:20 PM »
The conclusion I draw is that India is actually doing better than Britain, proportional to their population sizes. That's not to trivialise the situation in India. It's probably very bad in certain regions of India. (That's assuming that Vlad's figures are accurate, of course.)

There are important reasons why this probably isn't true.

Firstly, the chances of the Indian figures being anything close to reality are pretty low. Secondly, India's healthcare resources per capita are woeful compared to hours. It was touch and go, but our health service was never overwhelmed.

Thirdly, the situation in India is getting worse and there's no prospect of a turn around anytime soon.
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Sriram

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Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #4231 on: May 08, 2021, 07:23:41 AM »

There seems to be some sort of a turn around already in some states.  It is at least flattening somewhat. We are grateful to UK and other countries for their timely help.

The authorities were pretty slow in reacting to the spike.....and the spike was really steep this time. That was the problem. If they had reacted just 15 days earlier and also avoided election rallies and stuff....things might have been in control.

On the positive side, the number of cases and even deaths as a percentage (per 100K) of the population is relatively low even now...

https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2020/health/coronavirus-maps-and-cases/






« Last Edit: May 08, 2021, 07:40:23 AM by Sriram »


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Nearly Sane

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Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #4234 on: May 10, 2021, 09:26:36 PM »
Have you read the comments? Hilarious.
I think the comments are brutal about the Guardian's sad ineptitude but since many of them are about people's deaths, 'Hilarious' seems misapplied.
« Last Edit: May 10, 2021, 09:34:23 PM by Nearly Sane »

Nearly Sane

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Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #4235 on: May 10, 2021, 11:07:53 PM »
Unconvinced by the Olympics too


https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/57062008

jeremyp

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Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #4236 on: May 11, 2021, 08:45:11 AM »
I think the comments are brutal about the Guardian's sad ineptitude but since many of them are about people's deaths, 'Hilarious' seems misapplied.
A few of them are about people dying, but quite a lot of them are hilarious.
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Walt Zingmatilder

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Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #4237 on: May 11, 2021, 11:02:54 AM »
That last sentence is most certinly a very promising sign for the future.
But I think we have seen Science increasingly overruled by politics and economics during the pandemic and that isn't a promising sign.


Spud

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Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #4239 on: May 14, 2021, 10:22:51 AM »
I see his point but what is the alternative?

Stranger

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Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #4240 on: May 14, 2021, 12:22:41 PM »
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Nearly Sane

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Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #4241 on: May 14, 2021, 05:07:48 PM »

Spud

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Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #4242 on: May 14, 2021, 07:39:14 PM »
He doesn't have a point, it's nonsense.

AFP Fact Check - Mass Covid-19 vaccination will not lead to ‘out of control’ variants.
Thanks for this, I hadn't (yet) thought to fact check it. If he hasn't got a point, why have the government been so worried about the emerging variants?
« Last Edit: May 14, 2021, 07:49:06 PM by Spud »

Stranger

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Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #4243 on: May 14, 2021, 08:21:21 PM »
Thanks for this, I hadn't (yet) thought to fact check it. If he hasn't got a point, why have the government been so worried about the emerging variants?

Variants are inevitable with any virus and some of them will be worrying because they either spread faster or the current vaccines may not work as well on them. The way to prevent even more variants is to limit its spread by vaccination. As it said in the fact check article:

Joe Grove, a virologist at the Institute of Immunity and Transplantation at University College London, explained that even though vaccination could drive some virus changes, “it is not credible that widespread immunity will drive the emergence of a monster virus.”

“If we’re worried about the Covid-19 becoming some ‘super-virus,’ the best way to stop that is to stop it from replicating and the best way to do that is vaccines,” he added.

This was also confirmed by Scott Halperin, director of the Canadian Centre for Vaccinology.

“If we rapidly achieve high levels of population immunity through vaccination, the risk of variant emergence is decreased because there are insufficient numbers of susceptible individuals to continue the propagation of the virus and spread through the community,” he said.


This is also why we need to be concerned to get vaccines to as many people in the whole world as we possibly can because if there are unvaccinated populations anywhere, that increases the potential for variants to emerge
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Spud

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Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #4244 on: May 15, 2021, 11:48:44 AM »
Variants are inevitable with any virus and some of them will be worrying because they either spread faster or the current vaccines may not work as well on them. The way to prevent even more variants is to limit its spread by vaccination. As it said in the fact check article:

Joe Grove, a virologist at the Institute of Immunity and Transplantation at University College London, explained that even though vaccination could drive some virus changes, “it is not credible that widespread immunity will drive the emergence of a monster virus.”

Geert pointed out that the 1918 flu pandemic had few strains and was over in a year, with no vaccination. He also said the problem with mass vaccination is that however fast it's done, there is still a time lag while the body is developing specific antibodies, which is enough time for mutants to become predominant.

He doesn't say anything about a monster virus during the interview (almost 2 hours).

From what I can understand, he is putting a lot of emphasis on the importance of the innate (unspecific) immune system and worrying that this could in future, when you have new variants, be rendered ineffective by the acquired antibodies to the vaccines.

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Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #4245 on: May 15, 2021, 12:19:48 PM »
Geert pointed out that the 1918 flu pandemic had few strains and was over in a year, with no vaccination.

Since genomic sequencing wasn't actually a thing in 1918, one has to wonder how he knows how many variants there were. Also, 50 million people died (according to the CDC).

From what I can understand, he is putting a lot of emphasis on the importance of the innate (unspecific) immune system and worrying that this could in future, when you have new variants, be rendered ineffective by the acquired antibodies to the vaccines.

I really don't see how this makes the slightest bit of sense. The vaccine is designed to stimulate the an immune response in the same way as getting the decease does. I don't see how this sort of thing can be usefully discussed (unless we have any well informed virologists here). I'm not an expert so I'd rather go with what they say rather than some maverick vet.

We also know, from extensive experience, that vaccines are effective.
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jeremyp

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Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #4246 on: May 15, 2021, 04:19:15 PM »
Geert pointed out that the 1918 flu pandemic had few strains and was over in a year, with no vaccination. He also said the problem with mass vaccination is that however fast it's done, there is still a time lag while the body is developing specific antibodies, which is enough time for mutants to become predominant.

He doesn't say anything about a monster virus during the interview (almost 2 hours).

From what I can understand, he is putting a lot of emphasis on the importance of the innate (unspecific) immune system and worrying that this could in future, when you have new variants, be rendered ineffective by the acquired antibodies to the vaccines.

If we had done nothing about COVID19, maybe the worst would be over now but so would the lives of hundreds of millions of people.

Spanish flu wasn't over in a year, by the way. The pandemic lasted for more than two years.
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Nearly Sane

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jeremyp

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Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #4248 on: May 15, 2021, 06:45:44 PM »
Get drinking


https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/brits-drink-124-pints-each-struggling-pubs-covid-lockdown-b935186.html

Ha. I think I may have done that last Sunday. I went to a fundraiser for the Bag of Nails and drank far too much beer, especially since the previous time I had been to a pub was the Bag of Nails just before the last full lockdown.
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Spud

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Re: Coronavirus
« Reply #4249 on: May 17, 2021, 08:01:09 PM »

I really don't see how this makes the slightest bit of sense. The vaccine is designed to stimulate the an immune response in the same way as getting the decease does. I don't see how this sort of thing can be usefully discussed (unless we have any well informed virologists here). I'm not an expert so I'd rather go with what they say rather than some maverick vet.

We also know, from extensive experience, that vaccines are effective.
I'm not sure that I got that right. There do seem to be professionals asking questions about the safety of the vaccines, and because I can understand quite a bit of it I am interested. The Belgian vet is quite hard to follow due to his accent, and having looked again at the interview I can't see how his argument takes into account the success of the vaccines that is being demonstrated.