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Covid-19: The T Cell Story

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Re: Covid-19: The T Cell Story

#41
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Massachusetts (where we have been hit pretty hard by C19) we're trending downwards in a significant way and have been for a few weeks now. But I see more human activity out and about than ever (at least compared to March/April and mask wearing / social distancing is has been pretty obviously in decline for a number weeks now). The state is now well into it's re-opening phase 2 and even with the recent protests, th…

I think what you’re seeing is exponential growth. Meaning, after crushing the curve, things start all over again with slow growth and then pick up again in 2 months. We are beginning to see the exponential growth explode in Arizona, Texas and Florida now I think.

> We are beginning to see the exponential growth explode in Arizona, Texas and Florida now I think.

We will see, I would not bet on it but that is certainly possible.

Re: Covid-19: The T Cell Story

#42
post #36
post #9

> And wherever we look, infections level off before 10%-20% of the population is infected. This is somewhat mysterious. This is not really true. Bergamo had a 58% infection rate as of last month: https://bergamo.corriere.it/notizie/cronaca/20_maggio_22/ber... Several prisons have seen infection rates in the 70-80% range: https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0... The USS Theodore Roosevelt had an…

In Massachusetts (where we have been hit pretty hard by C19) we're trending downwards in a significant way and have been for a few weeks now. But I see more human activity out and about than ever (at least compared to March/April and mask wearing / social distancing is has been pretty obviously in decline for a number weeks now). The state is now well into it's re-opening phase 2 and even with the recent protests, th…

It’s my understanding that Massachusetts testing has been way down recently which could account for the lower number of positive tests.

Re: Covid-19: The T Cell Story

#43
post #35
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like that's already been done, and there are tightly packed groups where the infection rate was 70-100%, as mentioned above. So, no existing immunity at all, probably. That was the claim in the original article, but the data does not bear it out.

Finding densely connected subgroups in special populations (prisons, cruise ships) with high infection rates doesn't mean that that specifies the equilibrium herd immunity threshold in other populations.

Similarly, the plural of anecdote is not data. You are completely right, and nobody has a good rebuttal.

Re: Covid-19: The T Cell Story

#44
> Does this mean that if you recently had a Coronavirus that caused a head cold that you have a measure of protection?

Apparently, no, as there are no observed differences in the percentages of infected when the people who have children or work with children are compared with those who don't. If the stated assumption were true, those that were more exposed to other coronaviruses (which would be expected among those having or being close to kids) would be as a group less prone to be infected. That was apparently not observed.

So the "slowdowns" are just the humans adapting their behavior to reduce their chances of getting infected. When Rt is 1 the growth is linear, as simple as that. Less of such changes in the population behavior, more people are getting infected, faster.

Source: translated transcript of the podcast of Christian Drosten. Hint: also, don't believe what most of the media says that "he said" -- I've seen a lot of "editorialized" reporting of what he says, to the point of the end product being completely opposite of what he actually said. It's that bad. One really has to go to the source and read. Unfortunately, it's a lot of work, as the podcasts are long. So the people who don't read the source tend to have completely wrong idea what he actually said -- that's also why I'm not giving the specific link: if one doesn't invest really a lot of energy and find and carefully the sources, one has more chance to acquire completely wrong conclusions as "highlights."

Re: Covid-19: The T Cell Story

#45
post #36
post #9

> And wherever we look, infections level off before 10%-20% of the population is infected. This is somewhat mysterious. This is not really true. Bergamo had a 58% infection rate as of last month: https://bergamo.corriere.it/notizie/cronaca/20_maggio_22/ber... Several prisons have seen infection rates in the 70-80% range: https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0... The USS Theodore Roosevelt had an…

In Massachusetts (where we have been hit pretty hard by C19) we're trending downwards in a significant way and have been for a few weeks now. But I see more human activity out and about than ever (at least compared to March/April and mask wearing / social distancing is has been pretty obviously in decline for a number weeks now). The state is now well into it's re-opening phase 2 and even with the recent protests, th…

> In Massachusetts (where we have been hit pretty hard by C19) we're trending downwards in a significant way and have been for a few weeks now.

Same in California - corona is a health care non-issue here, aside from our governor running for President soon, so it's a political issue. So we'll be the last to leave lockdown, and it's looking like Jan. 2022 now.

By non-issue, I mean hospitalizations and deaths according to the official data have been at the same low rate for months, basically flat. California never had a ventilator or ICU shortage at all. (Last time I checked, we had 58 total deaths in SF/Santa Clara County with millions of pre-lockdown arrivals from China.)

Re: Covid-19: The T Cell Story

#46
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curiously enough, after running some simulations in a supposed realistically connected population model (but much smaller n), I found linear growth occurring soon after the exponential phase. I suspect this might be a topological condition (i.e. the due to the distribution of connections) that limits the growth, in the same way a rope will burn linearly if you set fire to one end of it. Of course, a society is more c…

There are only so many people, so the growth rate can't stay exponential forever. Eventually it must look like an S-curve.

Right. An S-curve starts out looking exponential. Then begins looking rather linear in the vicinity of the inflection point. And later bends over. If you are in the midst of it then it might be hard to predict the shape of the curve.

Re: Covid-19: The T Cell Story

#47
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Massachusetts (where we have been hit pretty hard by C19) we're trending downwards in a significant way and have been for a few weeks now. But I see more human activity out and about than ever (at least compared to March/April and mask wearing / social distancing is has been pretty obviously in decline for a number weeks now). The state is now well into it's re-opening phase 2 and even with the recent protests, th…

> In Massachusetts (where we have been hit pretty hard by C19) we're trending downwards in a significant way and have been for a few weeks now. Same in California - corona is a health care non-issue here, aside from our governor running for President soon, so it's a political issue. So we'll be the last to leave lockdown, and it's looking like Jan. 2022 now. By non-issue, I mean hospitalizations and deaths according…

I'm not sure if you're talking about daily deaths, or in total, but California has had 5,286 deaths as of today, not 58. We also had 81 deaths today specifically.

In a perfect world, the point of a lockdown is to arrest the spread of a disease entirely. Unfortunately, we're well past that point in the US. Having failed at that, the goal is not just to keep health care utilization below capacity, but also to buy time to mitigate the disease, by stockpiling PPE and health care supplies, implementing robust contact tracing, and establishing policies for individuals and businesses.

California has been prudently relaxing restrictions for a month now, and is now in Stage 3 of the reopening plan.

Re: Covid-19: The T Cell Story

#48
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this tells you more about their working and sleeping conditions than it does about how the pandemic will play out on a national scale.

But the article claims it will discuss "How around 50% of us appear to have (some?) Cell Mediated Immunity against COVID-19". If we're seeing farms where every single person falls ill, that suggests that 50% of us aren't immune, though I suppose "(some?)" is a cop out.

So those people in one town did not have enough cell-mediated immunity to clear the viral dose from spending all day in an enclosed space with dozens of coworkers shedding the virus.

This does not in any way suggest that 50% of the general population cannot have enough cell-mediated immunity (or even immunity from a cross-reactive adaptive/antibody response to another coronavirus) to clear e.g. the viral dose from eating at a restaurant.

Re: Covid-19: The T Cell Story

#50
post #36
post #9

> And wherever we look, infections level off before 10%-20% of the population is infected. This is somewhat mysterious. This is not really true. Bergamo had a 58% infection rate as of last month: https://bergamo.corriere.it/notizie/cronaca/20_maggio_22/ber... Several prisons have seen infection rates in the 70-80% range: https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0... The USS Theodore Roosevelt had an…

In Massachusetts (where we have been hit pretty hard by C19) we're trending downwards in a significant way and have been for a few weeks now. But I see more human activity out and about than ever (at least compared to March/April and mask wearing / social distancing is has been pretty obviously in decline for a number weeks now). The state is now well into it's re-opening phase 2 and even with the recent protests, th…

You're either exponentially growing or exponentially shrinking. (some) People are being more careful or wearing masks, which probably has a bigger effect on superspreader events than just "herd immunity". It slows the rise, but that doesn't mean that without intervention you have escaped the pandemic even though it was tamped down quickly.

I agree that CA (especially NorCal) is probably over conservative... but only because there is so much travel that it doesn't matter if they get to zero, when a few travelers form Arizona, Nevada, or LA (ignoring air travel) will bring it all back in a jiffy. What is likely to be the real boom is when kids go back to school... most of them won't get too sick, but most of them have parents or teachers who will. That's your real second wave when everyone is already tired of caring.

Remember, a guy can have unprotected sex with a lot of women before anyone notices they're pregnant. It's probably 3 weeks from infection to ICU and 5 or 6 weeks to death so looking at deaths or even hospitalizations only gives you informations so delayed it's useless when the doubling time can be 3day (and even when it's 10 days). You're up 10x before you know it...

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