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Graph showing level of Covid, flu and RSV in US wastewater systems, by city

publichealth.verily.com

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Re: Graph showing level of Covid, flu and RSV in US wastewater systems, by city

#101

Post by timr »

ampersandy wrote: post #100
timr wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The post holiday gathering spike is rather obvious. Not just for COVID but for everything. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. It's not a "holiday gathering spike". It's literally the same respiratory pathogen pattern we've seen for as long as we've bothered to look: in the winter, as we go inside and the air becomes cool and dry, respiratory infections go up. The viruses evolved to work this way, because it's a great surv…

What about staying inside with cool/dry air causes these infections? Genuinely curious.

Staying inside should be obvious by now. These pathogens evolved to exploit the fact that people get together in close quarters and breathe together.

Cold/dry air: most respiratory viruses we've looked at survive for longer in cold, dry, dark air.

Re: Graph showing level of Covid, flu and RSV in US wastewater systems, by city

#102

Post by rajup »

neilv wrote: post #93
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #13

I am continually surprised at how many people don’t wear masks at places like the grocery store even as cases are rising. I got covid over the summer and it was horrible! I lost two weeks of work which was a lot of money to lose, missed multiple dates with my partner I would have really enjoyed and felt totally isolated. Then I felt fatigue and brain fog for months afterwards. Afterwards I got the bivalent vaccine so…

I think an additional benefit of the masks is that they signal something about the person's Covid conscientiousness -- which I suspect affects how likely they are to be a carrier, and how likely they are to be careful about spreading it if they are. (Though that signal didn't help me in Trader Joe's the other day, when one of the few employees wearing a mask (only surgical), turned out to have a phlegmy cough. In tha…

An additional way to virtue signal is a benefit? Weird world we live in…

Re: Graph showing level of Covid, flu and RSV in US wastewater systems, by city

#103

Post by rajup »

Diederich wrote: post #54
dxhdr wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How would you characterize the costs associated with wearing a mask most of the time when in public? I tried it for a year and it's dehumanizing. Not sure how you'd rate that vs the unknown chance of long covid but I've made my choice.

I suppose it's a matter of perspective. My wife, son and I have been masking with 100% consistency since April 2020 (in indoor/crowded outdoor places) and we haven't felt 'dehumanized' to the slightest degree. It's not quite free; the bridge of my nose sometimes experiences some irritation, and we've had to deal with more than a hand full of hateful/snarky in person comments, but that's no biggie.

Great and if it makes you comfortable by all means keep masking. Just keep folks who do find it annoying and dehumanizing out of it. Thanks.

Re: Graph showing level of Covid, flu and RSV in US wastewater systems, by city

#104

Post by jandrewrogers »

kjksf wrote: post #71
Diederich wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being sick two weeks is a very clear cost. Less clear are the long-term costs associated with long-covid. How would you characterize the costs associated with wearing a mask most of the time when in public?

Being killed by a falling brick is a very clear cost. How would you characterize the costs associated with wearing a hard hat most of the time when in public? Talking about cost without normalizing for probability of prevention is meaningless yet you want to frame the discussion to be purely about (low) cost of wearing masks. We had a year of a pretty tough lockdown, most people wearing masks, distancing in grocery s…

Interestingly, traumatic brain injury is responsible for more deaths than influenza. If we all wore helmets it would save a lot of lives.

Re: Graph showing level of Covid, flu and RSV in US wastewater systems, by city

#105

Post by hcknwscommenter »

adrianmonk wrote: post #26

> What is PMMoV normalization? > In addition to the pathogens it tests for, WastewaterSCAN measures an extremely common, harmless plant virus that is consumed when people eat. It is called pepper mild mottle virus (or PMMoV). By measuring the concentration of PMMoV genetic markers per dry weight gram of wastewater solids, WastewaterSCAN can account for how much viral material is recovered from each sample and changes…

I think a lot is being lost in the translation here. I mean, Verily's analysis is a laboratory *determined* COVID-19 incidence rate in the sewersheds right? How is it any different from the laboratory *confirmed* incidence rate they compare to? As far as proportional, I think you are right. When laboratory confirmed goes up, both Verily concentrations also go up. When laboratory confirmed goes down, both Verily concentrations also go down. I doubt there is a constant scale factor operating here unless the laboratory confirmed is using a similar method of normalization (i.e., they all start with copies per gram dry weight).

Re: Graph showing level of Covid, flu and RSV in US wastewater systems, by city

#106

Post by fullmoon »

jeffbee wrote: post #81
fullmoon wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Austria has mandated N95s for months. No improvement in comparison to neighboring countries could be demonstrated. Mostly because it was pure theater and no attempt at proof was even made.

You can't do a study that way. People do or do not wear masks based on emergent social acceptance, regardless of government actions. If you want to do a discontinuity study you have to evaluate actual mask usage in the real world and discover a boundary discontinuity. You can't just do it by jurisdiction and assume that the government proclamations work. People wear masks when they aren't required, and they may not w…

I’m well aware.

Yet we’ve been hearing since the beginning of 2021 that they’ve been proven to have been much more efficient by the coalition parliament which has come up with this idea.

Re: Graph showing level of Covid, flu and RSV in US wastewater systems, by city

#107

Post by throwaway290 »

timr wrote: post #83
jeffbee wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are pants and shirts also symbols of fear and control?

If you're forced to wear them on your face, yes. Covering your face , as a primate, is not a natural thing to do. Our brains have huge areas dedicated to recognition of subtle differences in facial features. We're literally wired for facial recognition. More than almost any other feature of our bodies, our faces define us as individuals. Assuming that obscuring the face has zero cost is clearly wrong. I honestly can'…

You still need to clarify how having to wear pants and shirts is not an instance of control over you. Because it is, and you only don't mind that control because you agree that you should do it. Use the same principle here.

Btw idk about others but I wear a mask indoors with strangers, like in public transport or shops. I get to see all the faces I want to see and show mine outdoors or when video calling or if they are close friends or cohabitants.

Wearing a mask in public has only one cost for healthy people: a dirty mask can make you sick so you must have a clean mask, and that costs either money or time spent washing (and chance of washing it wrong)

Re: Graph showing level of Covid, flu and RSV in US wastewater systems, by city

#108

Post by rayiner »

tshaddox wrote: post #97
dxhdr wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How would you characterize the costs associated with wearing a mask most of the time when in public? I tried it for a year and it's dehumanizing. Not sure how you'd rate that vs the unknown chance of long covid but I've made my choice.

Why do you describe it as dehumanizing? Would you also describe mask-wearing among dentists, surgeons, painters, etc. as dehumanizing?

It’s literally dehumanizing. Humans rely on being able to see each other’s faces for a wide range of non-verbal communications reasons. Learning to recognize faces and facial expressions is one of the first skills baby humans learn how to do.

Being from the south, we smile when we pass each other on the street. You can’t do that in a mask. Maybe you folks from NYC and SF don’t miss that—after all you can still glare at people with hostility wearing a mask—but it’s a major loss in quality of life for the rest of us.

Professionals wearing masks in specific contexts is different than advocating for ordinary people to wear masks in public settings.

Re: Graph showing level of Covid, flu and RSV in US wastewater systems, by city

#109

Post by gernb »

timr wrote: post #98
mjevans wrote: post #85

The post holiday gathering spike is rather obvious. Not just for COVID but for everything. We really should have test kits, and people should test BEFORE travel. A national level policy of full refunds if tested positive (for any illness / disease) could help prevent the needless spread of illness.

> The post holiday gathering spike is rather obvious. Not just for COVID but for everything. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. It's not a "holiday gathering spike". It's literally the same respiratory pathogen pattern we've seen for as long as we've bothered to look: in the winter, as we go inside and the air becomes cool and dry, respiratory infections go up. The viruses evolved to work this way, because it's a great surv…

> in the winter, as we go inside and the air becomes cool and dry, respiratory infections go up.

This winter is the cause the please explain Japan which had it's biggest spikes in summer

Re: Graph showing level of Covid, flu and RSV in US wastewater systems, by city

#110

Post by Diederich »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #92
kjksf wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being killed by a falling brick is a very clear cost. How would you characterize the costs associated with wearing a hard hat most of the time when in public? Talking about cost without normalizing for probability of prevention is meaningless yet you want to frame the discussion to be purely about (low) cost of wearing masks. We had a year of a pretty tough lockdown, most people wearing masks, distancing in grocery s…

Also, imagine if said hard hat caused unknown long-term effects by itself. We know, for a fact, that some plastic fibers from masks end up in the lungs permanently. What happens when they go there? Nobody knows. How many of them are there in the average person? Nobody knows. What are the long term effects? Nobody knows. How does it affect lung development in both short-term and long-term, particularly in young people…

How would you compare these cited risks associated with mask wear with the risks associated with more likely C19 infections, and perhaps more important with the emergent recognition of risks associated with long covid?

My wife works with long covid people most of the day every day. Included are young, healthy, active, fully vaccinated people who can hardly walk up a flight of stairs...six months after a very mild C19 infection. Or senior technical members of silicon valley companies you've heard of that are so brain fogged that they are incapable of doing anything like the work they did previously.

Yes, the prior paragraph is anecdotal, strong as it may be. Fortunately scientific studies are starting to gain some understanding of long covid.

Compare all this to the risks associated with wearing masks.

There have been cohorts of people wearing masks all day every day for many decades now. Has there been any evidence of the effects you outlined?

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