Took an antibody test last week because I've been exposed literally hundreds if not a thousand or more times through my job at a retail wine and spirits store in an Orthodox Jewish community.
I've taken modest precautions for most of this time - wearing a mask at work, washing my hands 5 or more times during my 6-8 hour work shifts, and avoiding bringing my hands to my face at all times that I am conscious of them.
I don't wear gloves at all since I figure I can carry the virus in a water droplet from a wine bottle touched (or coughed on) by a customer to my face just as easily on a glove as on my bare skin...
I am reasonably knowledgeable about germs, microbes, viruses, disease spread as well as aseptic technique... I've taken college level undergrad or grad level courses in viruses and microbiology both and did well in those courses...
I dont have antibodies, and I've never had any sign of infection of the virus, none whatsoever.
So how easily is this bug transmitted, really?
Later I will go into some historical comparison between the current Covid-19 pandemic and the 1918 H1N1 malaise... So far this current pandemic is honestly weak sauce compared to that one... So far.
That pandemic killed anywhere from 10% to 30% of the world's population, in a world where far fewer people were 65+ years old, the primary mortality target of this current pandemic. I'd throw out the wild guess that we will have a vaccine against Covid-19 well before it reaches the staggering proportion of the 1918 Spanish flu.
Any thoughts appreciated, but let's keep this wholly apolitical, please. Comments from MDs or other healthcare pros especially appreciated in advance.
I have also seen a simple experiment that shows that masks do prevent spread through talking, sneezing and coughing.
Is there a plexiglass barrier between you and them at all times?
What is your blood type? (A is reported to be more susceptible)
Today China warned that imported chicken wings from Brazil were reported to have traces of the virus. However, I thought we we told that you can't get it through the digestive track?
My wife has the antibodies from a sickness in late December and my daugther is a charge nurse at the ICU...
We need figure out how to protect 5-10% of population....the rest of us need to get back to normal life.
Still a ton of unknowns....which has people freaked....i hope vaccine calms them down.
I am not too concern though.....as my wife would be highest risk and all our parents are deceased.
From research out there it seems there may be some people who for whatever reason aren't as susceptible to it as others, which is just 1 thing on a very long list of things not yet fully understood.
1 thing that should be pretty well understood by now is that despite unprecedented global mitigation efforts it took only a few months for this thing to be the leading cause of death here. Which is pretty remarkably fast for something that only came into existence 8-9 months ago.
Inhalation is how this is infecting. One important factor that doesn’t get stressed enough is that dosage matters. Inhaling 1 molecule is not going to cause an infection to take hold. So, the likelihood of getting infected depends on a few factors:
1) How long are you exposed to an infected person
2) How confined is the space
3) How good is the ventilation
4) How much talking/yelling/singing is going on
5) Mask wearing
I haven’t spent a lot of time around Orthodox Jews, but they haven’t struck me as very chatty in public. If there’s not a lot of loitering and talking going on, your exposure may be fairly low.
Today China warned that imported chicken wings from Brazil were reported to have traces of the virus. However, I thought we we told that you can't get it through the digestive track?
Just don't lick or stick the raw chicken in your eyes and you should be good.
It seems pretty obvious that moderate measures can keep the level of contagion under control. Too bad so many people are unwilling to cooperate.
The current situation is the unknown and the scary thing at least to me is the nonchalant attitude many people have towards being inconvenienced. I have been on furlough since mid-March and sick and tired of it but when I think that so many families have not been able to say goodbye to loved ones let alone have a proper service for them, I temper my frustrations. I can’t imagine not having the opportunity to say goodbye to a loved one.
And when it’s all said and done better to safe than sorry for you, family and friends.
Here are some thoughts I've been gathering over the last few months:
1. I suspect we will learn that most people are not that infectious, but rather there are "superspreaders" who for whatever reason infect a lot of people. So, if you avoid a superspreader event your risks are low.
2. The worst scenario for spread is inside, poorly circulated air. Seems to be very little risk being outside, especially if warm and breezy.
3. It's not just anti-bodies. Recent studies show there may be T-cell immunity in upwards of 20-50% of any population.
4. In my hospital, 0 / 200 ER staff have been infected symptomatically despite only wearing surgical masks and n95s for aerosolizing procedures only (ie., intubations). Even with known COVID patients, people were just wearing regular surgical masks.
There is no "back to normal life" while protecting the 5-10%. We're all too integrated and connected.
This is the new normal for the next 12-18 months, or longer.
Get back to me when lightening becomes contagious.
Can we compare to deaths by torn ACL while we are at it?
Uh, no. 27 people on average die of lightning strikes per year in the US. Over 150K are dead in 6 months of Covid.
The illness doesn't transmit well if basic precautions are taken and if serious lockdowns occur in tandem with robust tracing.
Most hospitals that handle CoVid cases haven't had staff breakouts, because hospitals take it deadly seriously, enforce and follow strict rules, ensuring proper distancing, partitioning, masks, etc...
This is why we let our son go back to work at a Binghamton hospital. Local hospitals have ZERO cases of employees coming down with CoVid while the local defense contractor I work at has had several.
All that said, the one friend I have (Leonia, NJ) who came down with it has NO IDEA how he caught it. He and his wife max telework, barely interact outside the house - he wound up with a month long battle resulting in a scarred lung. Thankfully, didn't spread to wife or kids.
It's an easy illness to beat, but only if the entire population works together.
And we aren't going to work together. :(
I have 4 stores in MA and 24 employees, we have never been busier and NONE of my employees have contracted covid yet. Some have been tested because of contact with others outside of work. We wear masks when dealing with customers but we do not enforce a mask policy for our customers and we do not use plexi-glass barriers.
As it relates to the 5-10% — how does that correspond with the 15% of Americans over 65?
Some recent studies indicate that past infections with some non-Covid coronaviruses may confer some protection.
The illness doesn't transmit well if basic precautions are taken and if serious lockdowns occur in tandem with robust tracing.
Most hospitals that handle CoVid cases haven't had staff breakouts, because hospitals take it deadly seriously, enforce and follow strict rules, ensuring proper distancing, partitioning, masks, etc...
This is why we let our son go back to work at a Binghamton hospital. Local hospitals have ZERO cases of employees coming down with CoVid while the local defense contractor I work at has had several.
All that said, the one friend I have (Leonia, NJ) who came down with it has NO IDEA how he caught it. He and his wife max telework, barely interact outside the house - he wound up with a month long battle resulting in a scarred lung. Thankfully, didn't spread to wife or kids.
It's an easy illness to beat, but only if the entire population works together.
And we aren't going to work together. :(
I disagree with this. Lock downs seem to delay but not prevent deaths. If you look at the data, it seems the most likely answer is that the virus needs to burn itself through a community, hit about 20% of the population, and then a "herd immunity" sets in. The numbers of 60-70% required for herd immunity are likely off given that there seems to be an innate immunity amongst 20-50% of the population due to T-cell cross reactivity with other viruses.
If you look at Sweden, they got burned quickly but have basically normalized now without any significant lock down or mask strategy (I'm not anti-mask, just saying).
Similarly, if you look at surges in Louisiana it seems to burn thru two counties there that have not seen surges since despite widely divergent lock down and mask policies. New surges are typically in communities that haven't seen it yet.
I think 5-10 years from now we're going to realize - if we're being honest and avoiding politics - that lock downs were probably the wrong thing. The best thing is probably isolating the nursing home, testing their staff regularly, and getting on with out lives. My 2c.
Haha that was my first thought right away when reading the OP. Some good info on this thread regarding the virus that I didn’t know.
So I would be very hesitant to say that 20% is the adequate threshold for herd immunity, given the wide variability in 20%-50% of T-cell reactions.
The "European" version of COVID-19 had a much higher infection rate than the initial version, and who knows how much further the virus has mutated (if at all).
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...you can just look at how different the outcomes are in other countries, what methods work.
The illness doesn't transmit well if basic precautions are taken and if serious lockdowns occur in tandem with robust tracing.
Most hospitals that handle CoVid cases haven't had staff breakouts, because hospitals take it deadly seriously, enforce and follow strict rules, ensuring proper distancing, partitioning, masks, etc...
This is why we let our son go back to work at a Binghamton hospital. Local hospitals have ZERO cases of employees coming down with CoVid while the local defense contractor I work at has had several.
All that said, the one friend I have (Leonia, NJ) who came down with it has NO IDEA how he caught it. He and his wife max telework, barely interact outside the house - he wound up with a month long battle resulting in a scarred lung. Thankfully, didn't spread to wife or kids.
It's an easy illness to beat, but only if the entire population works together.
And we aren't going to work together. :(
I disagree with this. Lock downs seem to delay but not prevent deaths. If you look at the data, it seems the most likely answer is that the virus needs to burn itself through a community, hit about 20% of the population, and then a "herd immunity" sets in. The numbers of 60-70% required for herd immunity are likely off given that there seems to be an innate immunity amongst 20-50% of the population due to T-cell cross reactivity with other viruses.
If you look at Sweden, they got burned quickly but have basically normalized now without any significant lock down or mask strategy (I'm not anti-mask, just saying).
Similarly, if you look at surges in Louisiana it seems to burn thru two counties there that have not seen surges since despite widely divergent lock down and mask policies. New surges are typically in communities that haven't seen it yet.
I think 5-10 years from now we're going to realize - if we're being honest and avoiding politics - that lock downs were probably the wrong thing. The best thing is probably isolating the nursing home, testing their staff regularly, and getting on with out lives. My 2c.
This !!!
The problem now is between the media and politicians they have spread the hysteria to all the corners of the earth. Takes time for people with fear to change.
So I would be very hesitant to say that 20% is the adequate threshold for herd immunity, given the wide variability in 20%-50% of T-cell reactions.
You may be right. But, just looking at the precipitous rises and falls in various communities - Spain, Italy, NYC, Sweden, and even more recently in Texas, Florida and Arizona - it's clear that the virus decreases well before 70% of people have it and it's not lockdowns/masks alone that justify the drop.
Not only that, Spain and France are starting to see localized flare-ups, so we're not really sure if it means we have reached that threshold, if summer environmental factors are coming into play (heat, humidity, etc.), if people have slightly altered their patterns of behavior, etc.
Basically, it's going to be a giant wait and see for several months (when people naturally start to relax and re-open) to see which hypothesis is more correct.
That's really all you need to know.
But to answer the OP's question more specifically:
If a given population starts out healthy and is a homogeneous group where there are few outsiders, or visitors bringing in possible virus contamination, that group ought to remain pretty virus free. I believe that New Zealand is used as an example of that result. A community of orthodox Jews, might also fit into that category.
Indeed.
I think like a military campaign this will be studied for years if not decades with a big TBD.
The northeastern states have had the worst final outcomes and highest death rates. From day one we knew this virus had a bad outcome for the elderly. This is fact.
Seems if you don't follow protocols and go about your business the probability factor comes into play for either you or someone you are in contact with.
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It bothers me when people blindly post crap that is obviously false. Could you imagine over 120,000 Americans getting killed by lightning every year? Holy Crap!! LOL...
It's my right as an American to walk outside in a thunderstorm!!
ZAP
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at Duke seemed to recognize that they are not exactly sure if the immune response is helpful or harmful. Specific T-cells could abort COVID infection, or could actually amplify it.
So I would be very hesitant to say that 20% is the adequate threshold for herd immunity, given the wide variability in 20%-50% of T-cell reactions.
You may be right. But, just looking at the precipitous rises and falls in various communities - Spain, Italy, NYC, Sweden, and even more recently in Texas, Florida and Arizona - it's clear that the virus decreases well before 70% of people have it and it's not lockdowns/masks alone that justify the drop.
Those studies are also being looked at as possible early waning of antibody responses, so it may be more a matter of interpretation (maybe it's not 70% because antibodies have already dropped, leading to an underestimate). Have to say that I am not totally convinced about the antibody waning but that's because we just don't have enough information yet.
ANd kicker's point about T cells is correct. A lot of the most sever outcomes are due to imuunopathology and we don't know how any pre-existing, cross-reactive immunity (to the extent that it exists at all) might contribute negatively.
In the end, the answer to every question is going to be, "it depends".
1) Analyze issues in real time (understandable)
2) Contextualize that outcomes can occur on a spectrum, and don't always have a perfect historical analog
Covid can be less bad than the Spanish flu, and more bad than the seasonal flu. The right answer can be to do more or much more than we do for known threats.
We've taken extraordinary measures -- I often wonder what the death count would be if we had not. Double, triple?
But in crowded cities like NYC, there wasn't a choice. HAD to lock down to get it under control.
What really sucks for America is that the cows are out of the barn - getting a handle on testing/tracing seems impossible at this point.
My sons and their girlfriends have been tested recently so they could spend time together. First pair in July took 3 days to get results. Second took SEVEN days - just got the results 2 days ago, they're camping as I write this.
A 7 day turnaround on testing is a disaster, makes tracing much harder.
We don't need a cure - we need a quick, cheap, self-test.
That's really all you need to know.
But to answer the OP's question more specifically:
If a given population starts out healthy and is a homogeneous group where there are few outsiders, or visitors bringing in possible virus contamination, that group ought to remain pretty virus free. I believe that New Zealand is used as an example of that result. A community of orthodox Jews, might also fit into that category.
I think the first part of your comment is bullshit, the amount of people infected in NY was blowing up for 5 weeks after shutdowns and the state has one of the highest infection rates per capita and the second highest deaths per capita after NJ. Is it possible that it just burned itself out in some areas because so many got infected so quickly?
"Across the United States, at least 200,000 more people have died than usual since March, according to a New York Times analysis of estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is about 60,000 higher than the number of deaths that have been directly linked to the coronavirus.
As the pandemic has moved south and west from its epicenter in New York City, so have the unusual patterns in deaths from all causes. That suggests that the official death counts may be substantially underestimating the overall effects of the virus, as people die from the virus as well as by other causes linked to the pandemic. "
The True Coronavirus Toll in the U.S. Has Already Surpassed 200,000 - ( New Window )
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When steps are taken to reduce physical social contacts as has been done in NY, the rates fall dramatically. When social distancing is not done because of governmental relaxation and the pathetic ignorance or hubris of members of the public, the rates soar.
That's really all you need to know.
But to answer the OP's question more specifically:
If a given population starts out healthy and is a homogeneous group where there are few outsiders, or visitors bringing in possible virus contamination, that group ought to remain pretty virus free. I believe that New Zealand is used as an example of that result. A community of orthodox Jews, might also fit into that category.
I think the first part of your comment is bullshit, the amount of people infected in NY was blowing up for 5 weeks after shutdowns and the state has one of the highest infection rates per capita and the second highest deaths per capita after NJ. Is it possible that it just burned itself out in some areas because so many got infected so quickly?
NYC 'peak' cases and deaths were April 7th, so your '5 week' description is not accurate.
Albany and most of upstate never got hammered like NYC despite same rules early on. Right? We got to open sooner cause our numbers were low.
Reasons are obvious for Downstates horrific results. Crowded spaces are a breeding ground for CoVid. Locking down NYC and enforcing distancing laws turned it around and yes, CoVid is not going to turn on a dime. It took about a month after the lockdown for the numbers to really drop to manageable levels, but the fact is that the lockdown DID cause a near immediate drop in cases.
The NYC lockdown saved lives. The crime is that it didn't begin sooner.