Coronavirus (No Politics)

Common sense is often not that common.

Well seems we probably have two more years of living like this. Can't wait for the public to lose patience with all the social distancing restrictions. I know I am already.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Well seems we probably have two more years of living like this. Can't wait for the public to lose patience with all the social distancing restrictions. I know I am already.

Where are you getting two years from? It's more like two months if even that.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Where are you getting two years from? It's more like two months if even that.

Depends on what you talk about.
As we will not kill the spread of the virus (much harsher measures are needed for that), and the goal is to keep the spread at about 1.0, where the health systems can take care of it, it will take significantly longer than a couple of months until we reach immunity.
Maybe a few years until natural heard immunity, maybe 6 to 18 months for a vaccine.

Some restrictions might be lifted earlier on, but before that time, we will not be able to go 100% back to before. E.g. mass gatherings before that are unlikely. Germany already banned them till end of August. So the Gamescom end of August will not take place.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Where are you getting two years from? It's more like two months if even that.

Search the internet as new research show this virus isn't going away. It will come back in waves for the next few years. Basically due to no cure yet. So the main goal is to contain and slow future outbreaks.

Which means the country might open up but we will not be going back to business as usual. So social distancing is still required. Mandatory tests and masks for everyone.

Frankly I forsee more future lockdowns again.

Yeah, it's hard to know how long this could go on for. It's important to bear in mind that getting past the "peak" is a somewhat artificial idea - it's only the peak of the period we've engineered through social distancing. But while the virus is still out there, and the bulk of the population with no immunity, it's entirely possible that it takes off again, and creates several peaks.

It's quite likely that social distancing measures will be with us for a good while, scaled up and down according to how the numbers are developing. The true turning point only occurs once a sufficient percentage of the population has immunity, one way or the other.

Originally Posted by Kordanor
Depends on what you talk about.
As we will not kill the spread of the virus (much harsher measures are needed for that), and the goal is to keep the spread at about 1.0, where the health systems can take care of it, it will take significantly longer than a couple of months until we reach immunity.
Maybe a few years until natural heard immunity, maybe 6 to 18 months for a vaccine.

Some restrictions might be lifted earlier on, but before that time, we will not be able to go 100% back to before. E.g. mass gatherings before that are unlikely. Germany already banned them till end of August. So the Gamescom end of August will not take place.

Exactly but new data shows the immunity is not permanent for those infected. It was part of the two year forcast report. Hopefully a vaccine is devolped this year. As some new drugs are entering the test phase for covid viruses.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Search the internet as new research show this virus isn't going away. It will come back in waves for the next few years. Basically due to no cure yet. So the main goal is to contain and slow future outbreaks.

That's the pessimistic scenario. Covid can also simply disappear never to return like SARS. We can't know what will happen, but part of the goal of social distancing in the case it disappears is as less casualities as possible in the meantime.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Exactly but new data shows the immunity is not permanent for those infected. It was part of the two year forcast report. Hopefully a vaccine is devolped this year. As some new drugs are entering the test phase for covid viruses.

That's again a partial info. There are some cases where postdisease people didn't have antibodies any more. It's nothing odd, a certain percentage of people don't react to some vaccine either.
At the same time from others who did, these antibodies are used as serum for others who are still suffering in some countries. If cured ones accept to donate blood of course. Does it help? I have absolutely no idea.

The major problem with COVID is the potentially deadly cytokine storm and is currently unknown how to tone it down. Numerous drugs like tocilizumab and sarilumab are being tested so we might not have a vaccine soon, but there is a possibility we'll have means to turn the virus into nonleathal.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Exactly but new data shows the immunity is not permanent for those infected. It was part of the two year forcast report. Hopefully a vaccine is devolped this year.

Yes, it's thought that immunity will probably be limited, as is the case with other coronaviruses. That would be good enough, though, in terms of stopping the outbreak - if enough people acquire immunity over the next couple of years, the virus runs out of opportunities to spread.

The more worrying question is if/when it becomes endemic, and what that will look like. Whether it becomes something that returns seasonally in more and less aggressive forms.

Originally Posted by Kordanor
Depends on what you talk about.
As we will not kill the spread of the virus (much harsher measures are needed for that), and the goal is to keep the spread at about 1.0, where the health systems can take care of it, it will take significantly longer than a couple of months until we reach immunity.
Maybe a few years until natural heard immunity, maybe 6 to 18 months for a vaccine.

Some restrictions might be lifted earlier on, but before that time, we will not be able to go 100% back to before. E.g. mass gatherings before that are unlikely. Germany already banned them till end of August. So the Gamescom end of August will not take place.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Search the internet as new research show this virus isn't going away. It will come back in waves for the next few years. Basically due to no cure yet. So the main goal is to contain and slow future outbreaks.

Which means the country might open up but we will not be going back to business as usual. So social distancing is still required. Mandatory tests and masks for everyone.

Frankly I forsee more future lockdowns again.

I thought he was talking about full lockdown. It's not going to be anywhere near that long.

Originally Posted by joxer
That's the pessimistic scenario. Covid can also simply disappear never to return like SARS. We can't know what will happen, but part of the goal of social distancing is in the case it disappears is as less casualities as possible in the meantime.

See here's the thing this will not go away like the flu. That's already been proven by data. Many hoped this would fade away but it isn't.

Originally Posted by JDR13
I'm talking about full lockdown. It's not going to be anywhere near that long.

Yes and I was talking about the social distancing restrictions & future lockdowns. The current lockdown will end and more will get infected. So let's hope a full lockdown doesn't happen again.

I think, given the size of the crap coronavirus has taken in the money bed, unprecedented efforts are being made to combat it. I think it's quite likely they'll shortcut the usual ethical/safety measures for the development of a vaccine. There's talk of testing it by deliberately infecting volunteers with the virus, which is pretty extreme, but could shave a fair bit of time off the process.

Any conductors of human experiments on prisoners and minorities, historically noone ever answered for when it happened not to mention war criminals who did atrocities were always pardoned or granted postwar immunity, should be annihilated along with their families, their data destroyed and their names deleted from history records.

No, we're not talking about non-consensual experimentation here (I'm sure it still goes on in parts of the world, but that's another conversation). This is about young, fit people with a very low risk profile, who would volunteer to be vaccinated and then infected with the virus, to see if immunity was achieved. Normally that would be considered unacceptable, even when voluntary, but in this case it may be accepted.

Any of it is immoral and the only case of psychopathism where I'm not against the capital punishment.

A researcher experimenting on themself and noone else - that's the only thing that can be acceptable. Any other case, especially abusing the poverty or low intelligence of a subject to get their signature, is an atrocity in line with chopping one's hand then sewing it elsewhere on their body just to see what happens next.
Getting consent even from a suicidal person just because of their current mental problem is plain wrong.

People are not cattle. Governments and WHO should not be led by EA CEO.
I don't care how to get results other ways nor is my job to provide solutions that will protect every single citizen regardless of their background.
Just make sure I never learn someone deliberately infected another human being for sakes of experiment in this century.

Simply put. When people forget people are people, they never offer all of their own children and their parents for experiments. Do you really believe EA's executive "surprise mechanics" kids are allowed to buy lootboxes? Or she suggested buying lootboxes to her mother? Right.

You do realise that every medicine and treatment we have is first tested on volunteers, and that many vaccines involve infecting people with attenuated viruses, which have to be tested first?

There is nothing to realize there, only to change the mindset, and I won't change mine.

Anyone can feel free to offer their own family for experiments like these:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskeg…lis_experiment
Oh wait. They didn't subject own families to it. Whatta surprise.

There's plenty more where that came from.

But the point is that modern medicine relies upon voluntary human experimentation, and it happens every day. Tuskegee and the rest were categorically different, where the subjects did not consent. Many people consent to experimental treatments simply because they consider the risks are outweighed by the potential benefits to them. I know one person personally who was saved from a terminal diagnosis by an experimental treatment. It's all human experimentation, but not all human experimentation is ethically equivalent.

Originally Posted by Ripper
I think, given the size of the crap coronavirus has taken in the money bed, unprecedented efforts are being made to combat it. I think it's quite likely they'll shortcut the usual ethical/safety measures for the development of a vaccine. There's talk of testing it by deliberately infecting volunteers with the virus, which is pretty extreme, but could shave a fair bit of time off the process.

I am a bit in doubt, here. One thing is testing if it works, another thing is evaluating side effects, and a third thing is the number of participants needed. So I think to get reliable results we need the time. Shortcutting will, as I see it, mean that one starts using a vaccine before we really know how useful it is. And, since there are several different approaches going on, which of the vaccination candidates will provide the best protection.

I think that WHO and most responsible medical services and companies will be against it, but some political leaders may try to enforce it (and no, I'm not thinking specifically about anyone and I won't go into any discussion about that).

a pibbur who can't guarantee that he knows what he's talking about.

PS. Experimenting with vaccination and deiberate exposion to infected material has a long, sad, history. In 1796, one of the vacciination pioneers, Edward Jenner (in)famously inoculated an 8 year old boy (the son of Jenner's gardener.) with cowpox pus and later injected him with the real thing. He didn't catch smallpox. DS