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Scientists traced a mysterious Covid case back to six toilets

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Re: Scientists traced a mysterious Covid case back to six toilets

#51

Post by rain_iwakura »

nradov wrote: post #22
rain_iwakura wrote: post #12

I'm honestly of the opinion that all of the ethical questions that arose during this search are fairly minuscule compared to the potential findings that could help us end this never-ending outbreak altogether. (At least by developing better targets for drugs like Paxlovid, if their hypothesis about GI tract replication turns out to be correct.) Of them all the potential to reveal that the patient X is hiding their HI…

There is nothing that can help us "end" the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) outbreak. A highly infectious respiratory virus with multiple animal reservoirs can't be eradicated or even really contained. At this point it's just one more of several endemic human coronaviruses and will always be around in some variants, much like HCoV-OC43.

I think you misread what I said. I said "could help us" which just implies it's a distant possibility. I am aware that it's an extremely low probability event, but not an impossible one, for example in 200 years they might find a universal beta coronavirus vaccine based on a general stem and not on a variant specific spike.

More information in this case is better outcomes regardless. We can't just accept the current state of affairs and do nothing if there are still avenues of improvement that don't involve pretending like COVID is a mild disease or forcing quarantines whenever some worse variants shows up.

Whether it will jump back from deer or dogs (two animals aside from minks who i remember testing positive for sars-cov-2) back to humans is a huge if (hasn't happened so far as far as I remember, or if it did, it couldn't have been more than ballpark ~5 cases), but I don't disagree that it might happen once more, since I'm not a lab leak guy.

Re: Scientists traced a mysterious Covid case back to six toilets

#53

Post by animal531 »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #34

I must be missing something. There was only one line back to the restroom? Shouldn't there be another trail back to their residence? Or is there a person who only poops at work?

Pooping only at work (or at home) is perfectly reasonable for people with regular bowel movements that go at roughly the same time every day.

Re: Scientists traced a mysterious Covid case back to six toilets

#54

Post by Izkata »

bugglebeetle wrote: post #45
Izkata wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's comparing to no infection and doesn't answer their question.

Your comment doesn’t make any sense because how would the absence of an infection ever arrive at a debilitating outcome and thus be a point of comparison? The parent claimed COVID doesn’t cause debilitating outcomes. I provided evidence it does, including specific use of the exact term by medical researchers. When they couldn’t refute that, they made an ambiguous appeal to other infections to distract from being wron…

> Your comment doesn’t make any sense because how would the absence of an infection ever arrive at a debilitating outcome and thus be a point of comparison?

Base rate in the population in general, which would be a mix of various infections and not. For the no-infection part: those particular ones, for example, could be caused by aging.

> When they couldn’t refute that, they made an ambiguous appeal to other infections to distract from being wrong

Those were two different people.

Re: Scientists traced a mysterious Covid case back to six toilets

#55

Post by bugglebeetle »

Izkata wrote: post #54
bugglebeetle wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment doesn’t make any sense because how would the absence of an infection ever arrive at a debilitating outcome and thus be a point of comparison? The parent claimed COVID doesn’t cause debilitating outcomes. I provided evidence it does, including specific use of the exact term by medical researchers. When they couldn’t refute that, they made an ambiguous appeal to other infections to distract from being wron…

> Your comment doesn’t make any sense because how would the absence of an infection ever arrive at a debilitating outcome and thus be a point of comparison? Base rate in the population in general, which would be a mix of various infections and not. For the no-infection part: those particular ones, for example, could be caused by aging. > When they couldn’t refute that, they made an ambiguous appeal to other infection…

This is controlled for by the NOS ranking of the studies in the meta analysis, but since you didn’t actually read it and are arguing from your priors, I guess you wouldn’t have observed that.

Re: Scientists traced a mysterious Covid case back to six toilets

#56

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway22032 wrote: post #35
mschuster91 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Covid is supposedly a respiratory tract infection, so who'd be expecting it to only show up in the gut? That's the thing with SARS-CoV-2. It's primarily transmitted by aerosols, but it has also been shown to be transmitted via smearing. It's primarily a respiratory tract infection, but it has also been shown to have intestinal, cardiovascular and neurological impact as well as persistence in these tissues [1]. And…

7 million people is 0.1% of the population. Approximately 1% of the population die per year. You think that's a big number, but it's not. People die.

[deleted]

Re: Scientists traced a mysterious Covid case back to six toilets

#57

Post by fragmede »

throwaway22032 wrote: post #35
mschuster91 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Covid is supposedly a respiratory tract infection, so who'd be expecting it to only show up in the gut? That's the thing with SARS-CoV-2. It's primarily transmitted by aerosols, but it has also been shown to be transmitted via smearing. It's primarily a respiratory tract infection, but it has also been shown to have intestinal, cardiovascular and neurological impact as well as persistence in these tissues [1]. And…

7 million people is 0.1% of the population. Approximately 1% of the population die per year. You think that's a big number, but it's not. People die.

Death is a much easier statistic to track than dehabiltiation. The tens of millions of people who have long covid are statistically significant over the fewer dead.

Re: Scientists traced a mysterious Covid case back to six toilets

#58

Post by Izkata »

bugglebeetle wrote: post #55
Izkata wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your comment doesn’t make any sense because how would the absence of an infection ever arrive at a debilitating outcome and thus be a point of comparison? Base rate in the population in general, which would be a mix of various infections and not. For the no-infection part: those particular ones, for example, could be caused by aging. > When they couldn’t refute that, they made an ambiguous appeal to other infection…

This is controlled for by the NOS ranking of the studies in the meta analysis, but since you didn’t actually read it and are arguing from your priors, I guess you wouldn’t have observed that.

Yeah, I responded to what you quoted, which isn't comparing to other viruses. Which is why I said it doesn't answer their question.

Re: Scientists traced a mysterious Covid case back to six toilets

#59

Post by bugglebeetle »

Izkata wrote: post #58
bugglebeetle wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is controlled for by the NOS ranking of the studies in the meta analysis, but since you didn’t actually read it and are arguing from your priors, I guess you wouldn’t have observed that.

Yeah, I responded to what you quoted, which isn't comparing to other viruses. Which is why I said it doesn't answer their question.

And as I said, the comparison to other viruses is irrelevant and does not pertain to the original claim.

Re: Scientists traced a mysterious Covid case back to six toilets

#60

Post by arp242 »

bugglebeetle wrote: post #59
Izkata wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I responded to what you quoted, which isn't comparing to other viruses. Which is why I said it doesn't answer their question.

And as I said, the comparison to other viruses is irrelevant and does not pertain to the original claim.

Of course it's not. "Flu causes exactly the same symptoms" is a radically different scenario than "flu doesn't cause any of these symptoms", which is different again than "Covid causes 20% more symptoms than flu". As far as i know, it's mostly likely that last one(?) But I'm not really sure, which is why I asked.

Regardless, it's important to put these figures in context.

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