Covid-19 NON DANCE debate

[Warren J. Dew]

Only if we don't develop a vaccine or serum. Phase I of testing for a vacinne started today

First coronavirus vaccine trial begins as Seattle volunteer receives shot

Scientists kicked off testing the first experimental coronavirus vaccine on human volunteers Monday, administering a shot that was a milestone in the race to protect the world from the mounting pan…

nypost.com

Yes, I saw that. If it's successful, it will only be a year or two. The only reason I'm uncertain is that nobody has successfully developed a vaccine for a coronavirus before; I guess they mutate too fast. Still, I hope it works.

Our mayor has closed all parks and said all kids should stay indoors. I'm having visions of a generation of children who never see the sun or feel the breeze in their hair. And they aren't even at risk!

 

[lucia_l]

I guess they mutate too fast.

That factor also means there will never be 1 peak. We'd have repeat peaks, one for each mutation.

But, it's also the case that some the bodies antibodies may sometimes protect against a particular strain and the mutation. Other times it won't. So then "coronas" will eventually be endemic the same way influenza are. Each year, there are slightly different strains, people making vaccines try to incorporate protection on the currently circulating strains in the vaccine, and (some) people get the vaccine.

Meanwhile, at most times, some people have good immunity to a new "mutation" because they have antibodies against a past version and those either stop or slow the current mutation.

At least, I think it works that way.

I think progress with a vaccine against the current strain is hopeful. (I also think some political roadblocks to approval may be lowered under the circumstances which change the risk/benefit ratio.)

 

[Warren J. Dew]

I agree it's hopeful. I agree regulatory issues will be accelerated, but it still takes time to run a trial, so I'd be extremely surprised if it's less than six months away.

Coronaviruses that cause the common cold are already endemic, and some people might lucky enough to have immunity to a highly conserved part of the virus coat from a previous cold and may be immune to Covid-19 already. Most immunity is to various places on the little mushroom shaped appendages, though, and the protein sequences there can mutate easily without causing the virus to be inviable, which is why it's so hard to develop a vaccine to the common cold.

Of course, as Covid-19 mutates, it's likely to become less dangerous, since viruses that don't kill or incapacitate their hosts outreproduce those that do. This is yet another reason to self quarantine instead of going to the doctor if you feel particularly miserable, and a reason not to go in to the clinic or ER and expose people there unless you really need to. We don't want to promote a strain that makes you sick enough to want to go to the hospital, then specializes in infecting people in the hospital.

 

[Joe]

So...will the spike of children born in December 2020 and January 2021 be called...Coronials?

 

[lucia_l]

I agree it's hopeful. I agree regulatory issues will be accelerated, but it still takes time to run a trial, so I'd be extremely surprised if it's less than six months away.

Yes, but my six months is a lot less than the 10 years you mentioned Yesterday at 2:44 PM. Even 2 years with a normal process is less. And it's possible people might also come up with serums based on antibodies fro the infected. That's my point about the vaccine or serums.

Of course, as Covid-19 mutates, it's likely to become less dangerous, since viruses that don't kill or incapacitate their hosts outreproduce those that do.

In which case, there may be no urgent need for a follow-on vaccine to the mutations. We need vaccines for the forms that are deadly and contagious; those mutated to be neither: not so much.

I don't know how bad this is going to get. But I am hopeful that treatments and vaccines will be available in much less than 10 years. We'll see.

 

[Warren J. Dew]

The 10 years is definitely a worst case. My concern is that the reaction becomes a societal norm. For example, we may end up going on lockdown for the entire flu season, every flu season; that might make as much sense as what we're doing now.

 

[David_In_CA]

When you substitute in generally accepted numbers, flattening the curve will require that any restrictions remain in place for 10 years:


Not sure I agree with his solution of even stricter restrictions that will remain in place even longer, but it's good to see what we're looking at if we put in actual numbers.

The red curve does not contain all cases of COVID-19, but only those 6% that will die if we cannot put them on a ventilator for something like four weeks. In this scenario, it means that the maximum number of cases needing care on the same day, without any kind of mitigation, is around 3 million!

Per that article, without affecting the curve, at the peak there would be 3M people needing hospitalization to survive and under 300k available slots.
That's not even looking at the area under the curve, just one vertical slice.

 

[Warren J. Dew]

Yes. If we really believe that we're identifying all the cases - the big assumption behind that analysis, but one which recent second wave breakouts in the Pacific Rim suggest may not be far from the truth - what would really be benficial would be a more refined strategy that perhaps has recommendations that differ depending on vulnerability. Ideally we would try to develop herd immunity in the young, healthy groups that aren't at significant risk from getting the disease, while temporarily limiting interactions of the vulnerable population, preferably voluntarily, until that herd immunity is developed. To get buy in, though, there would need to be predictable time lines and solid analysis behind it.

 

[lucia_l]

Warren,
I would be very surprised if lockdown for everything became the societal norm. With some luck, societal normal will involve more diligent hand washing, and fewer anti-vaxers so that we reduce deaths from other contagious diseases.

Given the timing of spring break in particular and Easter, I think having restaurants and bars closed in Illinois is a good for us in Illinois. The Roman Catholic church going to online masses is a good thing. (Individual masses tend to hold hundreds of parishioners.)

To some extent, traditional spring-break is 'dispersal' of college students to warm climes where everyone mixes with people from other schools, while often drunk, partying, dancing, not to mention making out and more. Those kids who weren't going to a major spring-break party-fest were going home-- where many would ordinarily go out to a bar and party with high school classmates, get drunk and make out with people. This allows students from different campuses living in different towns and different states to mix a lot, and potentially spread the virus far and wide.

Of course students staying at home with their parents could bring the virus back from school to their homes or vice versa. But at least limiting the gatherings at bars and restaurants should slow this.

Closing dance studios is probably less important. BUT I do think the spring break week is potentially disaterous from the point of view of possible spread.

I'm not a virologist, or medical person. But part of the possible spread is "transport" problem that shares lots of similarities with any engineering "transport" problem.

 

[David_In_CA]

But the graphic does help people grasp the importance of things like isolating the sick, reducing how much people move and so on. (Qualitative information is very useful to decision making though.)

Great explanation (ETA: The entire longer post of yours, I mean)!

As a (somewhat) reformed know-it-all, examples that I can easily knock holes in tend to turn me against whatever argument they're trying to make. I assume I'm not alone in this, and it seems like it's a strong tendency for the conspiracy-theory groups (where I place the antivaxxers).

That's why I would prefer models to either look realistic or have explanations that back them up (better: both). I think it's broadly poor rhetoric not to.

 

[fiesta0618]

That's why I would prefer models to either look realistic or have explanations that back them up (better: both). I think it's broadly poor rhetoric not to.

I think it's only fair to point out that the simulator was quite explicit about its assumptions, initial conditions, and the fact that is is not attempting to model a real disease.

Still, without any measures to slow it down, covid-19 will continue to spread exponentially for months. To understand why, it is instructive to simulate the spread of a fake disease through a population.

We will call our fake disease simulitis. It spreads even more easily than covid-19: whenever a healthy person comes into contact with a sick person, the healthy person becomes sick, too.
...
In real life, of course, people eventually recover. A recovered person can neither transmit simulitis to a healthy person nor become sick again after coming in contact with a sick person.
...
Let’s see what happens when simulitis spreads in a town of 200 people. We will start everyone in town at a random position, moving at a random angle, and we will make one person sick.

The model shows exactly what the authors intended to show, and doesn't claim to do anything more. It would be a mistake to try and force a simplistic conceptual model like this to apply to a real-life situation.

 

[David_In_CA]

The model shows exactly what the authors intended to show, and doesn't claim to do anything more. It would be a mistake to try and force a simplistic conceptual model like this to apply to a real-life situation.

Right -- but the cynical response is that if you build a model to show what you want to show, you're not really demonstrating anything.

 

[fiesta0618]

Right -- but the cynical response is that if you build a model to show what you want to show, you're not really demonstrating anything.

If the assumptions and initial conditions are explained fully, and you then object to what the model shows, it means you are objecting to the initial conditions or assumptions. So, what about those do you object to? Just the fact that it isn't realistic in detail?

>>Teacher hat on
Simple, "un-useful" models like these are just about the best way to introduce an unfamiliar concept to people. Details tend to distract newbies from core concepts. If you already understand the principles of disease transmission via contact, immunity via recovery, quarantine, and social distancing, then you aren't the intended audience for this, that's all.
>>Teacher hat off

 

[David_In_CA]

If the assumptions and initial conditions are explained fully, and you then object to what the model shows, it means you are objecting to the initial conditions or assumptions. So, what about those do you object to? Just the fact that it isn't realistic in detail?

>>Teacher hat on
Simple, "un-useful" models like these are just about the best way to introduce an unfamiliar concept to people. Details tend to distract newbies from core concepts. If you already understand the principles of disease transmission via contact, immunity via recovery, quarantine, and social distancing, then you aren't the intended audience for this, that's all.
>>Teacher hat off

We're not talking about people who think that disease is carried by invisible demons, here. Who is the intended audience for it? WaPo readers? Friends of WaPo readers?

My objections to the simulation are fundamentally that it doesn't appear realistic enough. The simplest argument against the social distancing is along the lines of "my social circle is pretty small and I don't associate with dirty people" (there are obviously more complex arguments). A model that shows everyone more-or-less randomly interacting with each other and perfect transmission is just too easy to ignore.

In particular, I didn't see either of those points discussed in the article. For all I know, particle movement in a frictionless vacuum with perfect COR is a reasonable model for infectious spread, but there's no justification in the article.

 

[Warren J. Dew]

If the assumptions and initial conditions are explained fully, and you then object to what the model shows, it means you are objecting to the initial conditions or assumptions.

The article draws conclusions that aren't actually shown by the model, though. The model does not show that extensive distancing is "better" than moderate distancing; it just shows that extensive distancing pushes more of the sickness off the right edge of the graph, so the journalist can pretend they don't exist.