COVID .... The Risks - Know Them - Avoid Them, by a Comparative Immunologist and Dartmouth Professor of Biology (specializing in Immunology)

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

If you're anything like me, you're probably really, really, like, REALLY tired of articles bout COVID-19, and opinions offered up by everyone from the guy behind the counter at a dry cleaners, posting on Facebook, to the many conspiracy theorists posting pretty much everywhere.

Here's some interesting and compelling input about how to be, if not as safe as houses, as least as safe as we can hope for in this strange, bewildering, upside-down, left-is-right-and-right-is-wrong world we suddenly find ourselves paddling our already challenged little canoes through ....

It's written by Prof. Erin Bromage, a Professor of Biology at the U of M, Dartmouth and a Comparative Immunologist, so she knows a little something about communicable diseases generally, and how viruses spread specifically.

Worth a browse:

The Risks - Know Them - Avoid Them
https://www.erinbromage.com/post/the-risks-know-them-avoid-them
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[PatJ]

That's an interesting and informative article. The examples of how people were infected in various environments were very useful, especially the restaurant where the air current influenced the infection of people eating at table that was down wind; and the choir that took many precautions but still shared air in an enclosed space, while singing, and had 45 of 60 participants get infected, with two dead.

The "dose and time" way of looking at infection risk is useful as well.

 

[pattismith]

interesting that public transports are not among risky places listed in the article.
In Paris were the epidemic hit badly, subway and other public transports have probably played a role in the spreading of the virus.
They are just reopening but masks are obligatory and markers of the epidemic are closely watched.

 

[Juanita Vee]

Very interesting! I think this info could help more safely bring people back to work in certain capacities. Personally, I don't think it sounds like restaurants should open to the public, and I also think getting as many people to work from home as possible is a good idea, although I do realize there is then the question of what to do about child care. I would assume places like call centres could be modified for employees to do calls from home, but that's just me assuming.

I also think we need a healthy balance of minimizing outbreak and maintaining other areas of health for people (mental, social, spiritual), and I'm really appreciating the different ways people are figuring out how to do this virtually and other ways.

... thinking on the positive side, wouldn't it be nice if, on the bright side coming out of all this, the importance of outdoor plazas and meeting places were once again reimplemented? Pretty ones, with lots of plants to enforce social distancing.

 

[andyguitar]

The author of the blog is a specialist in infectious disease in animals. The basis used for what the infectious dose would be is based on other corona viruses not this one. Author says "Unlike sneezing and coughing which release huge amounts of virus material the respiritory droplets released from breathing only contain low levels of virus. We dont have a number for SARS-CoV2 yet but we can use influenza as a guide" No you can't. And you can't use other corona viruses to calculate the infectious dose for covid 19.

 

[andyguitar]

Well he certainly knows a lot about salmon. And rainbow trout. Has published research about them. WOW!

 

[andyguitar]

Ah. He describes himself as a vaccine advocate.

 

[Juanita Vee]

Interesting, thanks for that extra info, Andy!

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

We dont have a number for SARS-CoV2 yet but we can use influenza as a guide" No you can't. And you can't use other corona viruses to calculate the infectious dose for covid 19.

This leaves absolutely no other comparatives, therefore no jumping off place fro which to start hypotheses and research. Unless we compare COVID-19 to .... uh..... COVID-19 ...

What else would ya'll suggest as a starting point?

The basis used for what the infectious dose would be is based on other corona viruses not this one.

Not sure what your beef with this is, since it's the metric that most researchers have had to start out with in their lengthy quest for more info and deeper understanding of this novel virus ....

Ah. He describes himself as a vaccine advocate.

It sounds like you don;t approve.

Not sure what the problem with this is, since the entire world and nearly every scientist and pharma company in it is frantically trying to develop a vaccine against this potentially lethal virus ....

Well he certainly knows a lot about salmon. And rainbow trout. Has published research about them. WOW!

This feels a little .... snipey. Why you sniping AxeMan??? Everyone's gotta be an expert on something .... I guess Bromage chose viruses, and, you know ..... fish.

I'm confused by all of the above. Please help .....

 

[andyguitar]

How come someone who is an expert in salmon and trout gets to be interviewed on tv and the us national newspapers about covid and has his blog viewed millions of times?

This leaves absolutely no other comparatives, therefore no jumping off place fro which to start hypotheses and research. Unless we compare COVID-19 to .... uh..... COVID-19 ...

The problem is that comparing covid to flu gives a false picture of what is going on and what the current and future risk is. As there have been millions infected by covid there is enough data about covid. Nobody needs to confuse things further by adding flu to the mix of statistics. Using data from "other corona viruses" is not going to help. SARS and MERS are corona viruses. Check out the mortality rate from them. No comparison to covid.

 

[Juanita Vee]

That is actually something I'm confused about, I've heard the recovery for COVID-19 is 98%. I believe I was listening to the podcast "Sawbones." I thought that was a very good recovery percentage. There were a lot of statistics mentioned in the show. I couldn't listen to the whole podcast, I was too tired and confused. If anyone else listens to Sawbones and knows the episode and what they were talking about, please PM me!

I'm just doing my best to live safely (but have a life!) and promote plazas! C'mon, no one is interested in my plazas idea?? Just kidding!