Seen on the street in Kyiv.

Words of Advice:

"If Something Seems To Be Too Good To Be True, It's Best To Shoot It, Just In Case." -- Fiona Glenanne

“The Mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” -- The TOFF *

"Foreign Relations Boil Down to Two Things: Talking With People or Killing Them." -- Unknown

“Speed is a poor substitute for accuracy.” -- Real, no-shit, fortune from a fortune cookie

"Thou Shalt Get Sidetracked by Bullshit, Every Goddamned Time." -- The Ghoul

"If you believe that you are talking to G-d, you can justify anything.” — my Dad

"Colt .45s; putting bad guys in the ground since 1873." -- Unknown

"Stay Strapped or Get Clapped." -- probably not Mr. Rogers

"The Dildo of Karma rarely comes lubed." -- Unknown

"Eck!" -- George the Cat

* "TOFF" = Treasonous Orange Fat Fuck,
"FOFF" = Felonious Old Fat Fuck,
"COFF" = Convicted Old Felonious Fool,
A/K/A Commandante (or Cadet) Bone Spurs,
A/K/A El Caudillo de Mar-a-Lago, A/K/A the Asset,
A/K/A P01135809, A/K/A Dementia Donnie, A/K/A Felon^34,
A/K/A Dolt-45, A/K/A Don Snoreleone

Sunday, March 22, 2020

COVID-19 and H1N1

A physician was asked whether COVID-19 was reallly no worse than H1N1. This is a screenshot of his response:


There was a cohort of people who were largely immune to H1N1 in 2009. That's not true this time. Nobody seems to be immune.
Posted by on or about 16:45
Labels: ,

17 comments:

DTWND said...

I amazes me that when I read other websites and the comments, how many people question the danger of the Covid-19 virus in comparison with H1N1. When presented with the statistics, they state that there isn't enough evidence or that the stats are slewed.

Let's try this exercise. Think of your 100 closest family and friends. Now take 100 Skittles candies. Select any percentage of death that you have heard associated with Covid-19. That is the number of Skittles that will kill. Now, are you comfortable giving out one Skittle to your Grandmother, Grandfather, Mom, Dad, Brothers, Sisters, Aunts, Uncles, Nieces, Nephews, Cousins, In-laws, Neighbors and best friends until all 100 are gone? Which one(s) are you hoping avoid the toxic Skittles, and which ones are you willing to lose?

Me? I'd rather everyone that is close to me avoid the Skittles and stay alive. If that means staying indoors for 2, 3, 4, weeks or months, then I think its worth it.

Dale

3/22/2020 5:19 PM
B said...

Yer gonna get expose, one way or another.

The question is when and how many of your fellow citizens will be exposed at the same time.

The only thing that the current "Social Distancing" is going to do is to prevent a sudden jump in cases.

That is the whole idea behind "flatten the curve".

Even if (and SO FAR the stats don't show this) it were three times as easily transmitted (or virulent) as other flus, then it still won't cause mass deaths or hospitalizations as predicted in worst case scenarios.
Someone you know, in the next 6 months, will be handing out those skittles. Probably more than one person.

3/22/2020 8:08 PM
Dark Avenger said...

It’s more virulent than any flu on record except for the Spanish Flu, B. You don’t source your statistics, because they are non-existent.

3/22/2020 9:08 PM
BadTux said...

The point of flattening the curve is to avoid running out of ventilators, B. And no flu since 1918 has ever had so many patients dying of untreatable viral pneumonia.

On the immunity front, human bodies don't fight this one off as well as they fight the flu off because it's not related to any other virus that afflicts humans. The flu virus is similar from year to year, it mutates enough to spread but doesn't mutate enough to be utterly foreign to the human immune system, which swiftly (within a week or so) marshalls its resources and starts swatting it down. It is rare that the flu lasts more than a couple of weeks, and when it does, it's usually in people who are already debilitated like the elderly. But this thing is swatting down otherwise healthy people like flies. Just like the 1918 flu epidemic, which similarly was a virus that hopped from another species to human beings and to which no humans had any immunity at the time.

We're seeing a doubling of cases every three days now. If this continues, within a few weeks there's going to be hundreds of people dying per day because there's no ventilators. We'll probably see 40% to 60% of people infected sooner or later.... but if we don't want the 1.8 million Americans to die who would die if the death rate were the same as the 1918 flu epidemic, we'd better make that later, rather than sooner. If we drag it out long enough, maybe the horse will learn to sing -- or at least maybe they'll figure out a treatment for this thing that actually works, anyhow.

3/23/2020 12:11 AM
Comrade Misfit said...

If we drag it out long enough, maybe the horse will learn to sing -- or at least maybe they'll figure out a treatment for this thing that actually works, anyhow.

Not to mention lessen the number of people in the hospital at any one time. That will reduce the number of people who are set aside to die because there are no ventilators to use on them.

3/23/2020 8:23 AM
B said...

DA: Please don;t start that "source your numbers" shit again. You can't be so inept that you are unable to use Google. You may be misguided and blindly partisan, but you can't be that stupid.

But ok, start HERE with data from Johns Hopkins (here's a hint, this has been splashed ALL OVER the internet for the past few days)
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

I will leave you to do your own research on how much the "normal" seasonal flu kills, you can go to the Swine Flu as well if you care to. I'd do that for you but you reject anything I source as "partisan" if you don't like the data , so look for yourself.

BadTux: Your numbers are wrong. We aren't seeing a doubling of cases every three days. That is flat out wrong (look it up yourself rather than repeat BS). This isn't "But this thing is swatting down otherwise healthy people like flies"..Look at the numbers in the link above. You need to realize that the Media is scaring you. out of 7.5+ BILLION people, 16,371 TOTAL have died.

Do. The. Math.
Or don't and hide under your bed.

3/23/2020 7:54 PM
Dark Avenger said...

You are medically illiterate, B. You’re trying to substitute a snapshot from now for the course of the pandemic.

Tedros said he'll be asking the G20, the international group of government and central bank leaders, to ramp up production of personal protective equipment for doctors and nurses and to avoid placing export bans on the life-saving gear. WHO had already been asking suppliers of protective gear to prioritize sending the equipment to regions most affected by the virus and discouraged stockpiling of protective gear by the general public.

"We need unity among the G20 countries who have more than 80% of the global GDP," he said. "If we don't prioritize protecting health workers, many people will die because the health worker who could have saved their lives is sick."

World health officials estimate more than 26 million health-care workers may end up treating COVID-19 patients. On Friday, WHO officials warned the outbreak could overwhelm health systems around the world in just a few weeks.

"Take one look at what's happening in some health systems around the world. Look at the intensive care units completely overwhelmed. Doctors and nurses utterly exhausted," Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO's emergencies program, said Friday. "This is not normal. This isn't just a bad flu season."

3/23/2020 10:35 PM
B said...

"Mdically Illitereate".

Perhaps.

I notice you have a whole lot of special training and knowledge also.

At least I can look at the numbers and actually understand them.
And I can actually look at past outbreaks and do some simple modeling based upon those.

You, however, only seem to be able to repeat what the Media chooses to tell you, and seem incapable of understanding even that.

3/24/2020 9:56 AM
Dark Avenger said...

B, can you explain the difference between the Coronavirus and the flu virus? Can you tell me what the H and N stand for when talking about a strain like H1N1?

Woman in ICU: "Trump kept saying it was basically pretty much a cure."
NBC: "What would be your message to the American public?"
Woman: "Oh my God. Don't take anything. Don't believe anything. Don’t believe anything that the President says & his people...call your doctor."

https://twitter.com/VaughnHillyard/status/1242253997005664257?s=20

3/24/2020 10:50 AM
B said...

Yeah, eating that was pretty stupid.

Probably Trump's fault that they can't read the label. Fish tank cleaner. Not Malaria drugs.

As for the H and N, that is the characteristic proteins that coat the virus and help it move through the cell wall...essentially a "Key" that unlocks the cell so the virus can get in. Further, the N helps the virus cling to the inside of the Cell that is being infected and allows the virus DNA to replace the DNA of the cell, making the cell create more virii.

I get a little cross eyed as to the exact mechanism of how this works, but it isn't my specialty, after all.

What else would you like to know?

3/24/2020 12:35 PM
Dark Avenger said...

What’s a cytokine storm?

3/24/2020 2:00 PM
B said...

To put it simply and skipping over a bunch of details:
It is essentially an overreaction of the immune response caused by a overproduction of the Cytokine proteins (there are a bunch and they all do slightly different things) that signal an infection from cell to cell characterized by a grossly overdone inflammatory cycle.

Often this leads, in the case of respiratory viruses (apparently like Coronavirus), to the overproduction of mucus and other fluids resulting in the victim being basically drowned by their own lung fluids.

Cytokine issues are also found in such diseases as MS and may be part of other immune system related disease like Lupus and possibly pancreatitis, although not that much research has been done on that. Some research about these suggest that supressing these proteins may lead to lessening of things like some forms of arthritis and even some heart issues.

The "storm" is essentially a miscommunication between cells. A "panic attack" as it were, with the immune system responding in an overly aggressive manner. Sometimes the feedback loop goes out of control.

I'm not gonna play this game with you anymore. Obviously you aren't a doctor (neither am I, BTW). I likely know more than you do, but that isn't saying all that much, is it....? And no, I don't know nor fully understand the minutae of protein interaction among cells and vitrii as much as I would like to.



Again, I can see numbers and understand them. Apparently you cannot....or aren't willing to.


3/24/2020 5:56 PM
Dark Avenger said...

The cytokine storm is how CORVID-19 kills people. Pray it will not be the death of anyone you care about.

3/24/2020 9:00 PM
B said...

Yes, that is one of the ways it kills people.

Effecitvely, their lungs become so inflamed they no longer work to move oxygen and CO2 back and forth. Plus the fluid levels can effectively drown them.

I don't fully understand how the inflammation response causes the "coating" that reduces lung function and efficiency, but it also is a big factor.

3/24/2020 9:54 PM
Dark Avenger said...

I think the head of WHO knows more about this than you do.

3/25/2020 10:11 AM
B said...

Most surely he does.

So? I answered your questions about H1N1 (or H and N) and explained what a cytokine storm is, and how it kills people. Hint: It isn't unique to the C-19 virus.

3/25/2020 2:27 PM
B said...

Oh. and let's not forget:
Dr. Tedros Adhanom made some statements that the data doesn't come close to supporting. Even in Italy and China the rate of death was about a THIRD of his prediction.
(I think he made the assumptions based on the early Chinese data, which was bogus)

Since then, he's not said much except that the WHO needs more money to combat this disease.

3/25/2020 2:31 PM

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