Coronavirus pandemic

[Rothman]

Well...

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/08/asymptomatic-coronavirus-patients-arent-spreading-new-infections-who-says.html

So we just locked ourselves at home and wore masks to Kroger for 3 months for nothing?

No.  It's called being careful until science figures it out.

It sounds to me like they just figured it out.

Um...exactly.

[Max Rockatansky]

Well...

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/08/asymptomatic-coronavirus-patients-arent-spreading-new-infections-who-says.html

So we just locked ourselves at home and wore masks to Kroger for 3 months for nothing?

No.  It's called being careful until science figures it out.

It sounds to me like they just figured it out.

Um...exactly.

Which more or less what has been happening since the lockdowns started.  Ergo what was discussed upthread about the amount of knowledge about the Virus increasing massively since the beginning of the year.   Question is now, will the CDC and other health officials agree with the WHO?  I suspect many will in time but I wouldn't expect mask requirements to disappear overnight.

[oscar]

^ Wouldn't the mask requirements still be useful, to deal with people who (a) are symptomatic but don't recognize the symptoms (especially in their early stages), or (b) are jerks who know or suspect they're symptomatic but don't give a crap, but can be shamed or forced into wearing masks anyway?

The governor where I live was late to the game in imposing mask requirements. That's consistent with his overall, sometimes infuriatingly cautious approach, including his being slow to remove requirements (which I expect to include this one).

Today's Washington Post (print edition) has an article on how nudists are responding to facemask requirements. One of them joked that they'll have tan lines, just not in the usual places. Others, who work hard to acquire perfect tans with no tan lines, might push back harder against mask requirements now that there's (not terribly conclusive, IMO) evidence against such requirements.

[Max Rockatansky]

^ Wouldn't the mask requirements still be useful, to deal with people who (a) are symptomatic but don't recognize the symptoms (especially in their early stages), or (b) are jerks who know or suspect they're symptomatic but don't give a crap?

The governor where I live was late to the game in imposing mask requirements. That's consistent with his overall, sometimes infuriatingly cautious approach, including his being slow to remove requirements (which I expect to include this one).

Today's Washington Post (print edition) has an article on how nudists are responding to facemask requirements. One of them joked that they'll have tan lines, just not in the usual places. Others, who work hard to acquire perfect tans with no tan lines, might push back harder against mask requirements now that there's (not terribly conclusive, IMO) evidence against such requirements.

Quite possibly, but I suspect with the people who don't care they simply aren't going to wear a mask anyways.  Personally having people who aren't feeling well stay home remains the biggest priority in my view.  Most employers I deal with have strict rules right now that relax things like call-outs/attendance policies for not feeling well and sometimes increased sick leave. 

[kalvado]

Well...

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/08/asymptomatic-coronavirus-patients-arent-spreading-new-infections-who-says.html

So we just locked ourselves at home and wore masks to Kroger for 3 months for nothing?

Kind of what I thought from the beginning.

From the article:

"From the data we have, it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual,"  Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, head of WHO's emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, said at a news briefing from the United Nations agency's Geneva headquarters. "It's very rare."

"We have a number of reports from countries who are doing very detailed contact tracing,"  she said. "They're following asymptomatic cases. They're following contacts. And they're not finding secondary transmission onward. It's very rare."

If asymptomatic spread proves to not be a main driver of coronavirus transmission, the policy implications could be tremendous. A report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published on April 1 cited the "potential for presymptomatic transmission"  as a reason for the importance of social distancing.

There may be some fine line between "no symptoms" and "no symptoms yet". But given that virus seems to be nested deep in lungs, coughing may be a big part of transmission. Fine print - cough from dust or allergies may still be enough to bring that deep infection to the surface.

[wanderer2575]

Yeah, well, they also once said that "if excessive smoking actually plays a role in the production of lung cancer, it seems to be a minor one" (W.C. Heuper, National Cancer Institute, 1954).  So who knows?

[Max Rockatansky]

Yeah, well, they also once said that "if excessive smoking actually plays a role in the production of lung cancer, it seems to be a minor one" (W.C. Heuper, National Cancer Institute, 1954).  So who knows?

Man...tobacco is really one of those situations where it is hard not to look back and understand how people in the general populace couldn't figure out that they were harming themselves willingly (at least at first). 

[US71]

Yeah, well, they also once said that "if excessive smoking actually plays a role in the production of lung cancer, it seems to be a minor one" (W.C. Heuper, National Cancer Institute, 1954).  So who knows?

Man...tobacco is really one of those situations where it is hard not to look back and understand how people in the general populace couldn't figure out that they were harming themselves willingly (at least at first). 

Thalidomide was prescribed in the 1950's for pregnant women for nausea, but caused serious birth defects.

[Max Rockatansky]

Yeah, well, they also once said that "if excessive smoking actually plays a role in the production of lung cancer, it seems to be a minor one" (W.C. Heuper, National Cancer Institute, 1954).  So who knows?

Man...tobacco is really one of those situations where it is hard not to look back and understand how people in the general populace couldn't figure out that they were harming themselves willingly (at least at first). 

Thalidomide was prescribed in the 1950's for pregnant women for nausea, but caused serious birth defects.

My personal favorites are giving Cocaine for pain/aches and opium for headaches (Old West Style).   

[vdeane]

Well...

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/08/asymptomatic-coronavirus-patients-arent-spreading-new-infections-who-says.html

So we just locked ourselves at home and wore masks to Kroger for 3 months for nothing?

Kind of what I thought from the beginning.

From the article:

"From the data we have, it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual,"  Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, head of WHO's emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, said at a news briefing from the United Nations agency's Geneva headquarters. "It's very rare."

"We have a number of reports from countries who are doing very detailed contact tracing,"  she said. "They're following asymptomatic cases. They're following contacts. And they're not finding secondary transmission onward. It's very rare."

If asymptomatic spread proves to not be a main driver of coronavirus transmission, the policy implications could be tremendous. A report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published on April 1 cited the "potential for presymptomatic transmission"  as a reason for the importance of social distancing.

There may be some fine line between "no symptoms" and "no symptoms yet". But given that virus seems to be nested deep in lungs, coughing may be a big part of transmission. Fine print - cough from dust or allergies may still be enough to bring that deep infection to the surface.

Yeah, all of this.  If someone has symptoms, but they're mild enough that they don't realize they're sick, does the "not really asymptomatic" distinction really matter to anyone who isn't an epidemiologist?  I would say no.  Plus "rare" is not "never".  In any case, if simply isolating those with symptoms and their contacts is all that needs to be done, one would think that the countries in East Asia wouldn't be seeing second waves right now.  The point is, there may be a lot less asymptomatic transmission than we thought (certainly good news), but we must not let our guard down because of that.

Given that the revelations about how easily the virus spreads in the air and how surface transmission isn't nearly as big a factor as the "experts" thought (which I think is a rather "well, duh" moment due to how it was spreading) haven't led to policy changes, I'm not sure I would expect this to, either.

[webny99]

Yeah, not so fast about the to-do being pointless:

https://twitter.com/ashishkjha/status/1270069131652427776

[Max Rockatansky]

Yeah, not so fast about the to-do being pointless:

https://twitter.com/ashishkjha/status/1270069131652427776

Who's that?  Some epidemiologist I assume?

[webny99]

I guess. I got it from a retweet. I had no idea you could just copy the link and the tweet would automatically display.
If you click on it he goes into some additional detail about PRE-symptomatic vs. asymptomatic.

Basically, you can have the virus, not know it, and spread it before you have symptoms. Your symptoms may show up after you've already spread it to others. So, that's why saying "asymptomatic spread is rare" is confusing, problematic, and probably not as positive as it sounds.

[Max Rockatansky]

I guess. I got it from a retweet. I had no idea you could just copy the link and the tweet would automatically display.
If you click on it he goes into some additional detail about PRE-symptomatic vs. asymptomatic.

Basically, you can have the virus, not know it, and spread it before you have symptoms. Your symptoms may show up after you've already spread it to others. So, that's why saying "asymptomatic spread is rare" is confusing, problematic, and probably not as positive as it sounds.

Yeah, but it would be nice to know who the person saying it is.  For all I know that's just some random Twitter person when I could be someone who holds qualifications.  Twitter doesn't really leave any meat on the bone to glean really any real information. 

Edit:  Apparently that's the Dean of Brown University's Public Health division.

[D-Dey65]

One question; Is it safe to go in and out of New Rochelle, New York yet?

[Roadgeekteen]

One question; Is it safe to go in and out of New Rochelle, New York yet?

I mean I've left my town a few times.

[Bruce]

A study from the Imperial College London published in Nature examined the stay-at-home orders and estimates that 60 million coronavirus infections were prevented in the United States by the shutdowns.

Washington Post has a summary: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/06/08/shutdowns-prevented-60-million-coronavirus-infections-us-study-finds/

So yes, the measures did prevent wider spread and they were the right move, even if a bit late. It's better to be overly cautious and trudging through a pandemic without a full-blown system meltdown like Brazil is currently experiencing.

[Duke87]

Yeah, all of this.  If someone has symptoms, but they're mild enough that they don't realize they're sick, does the "not really asymptomatic" distinction really matter to anyone who isn't an epidemiologist?

It's very key here to understand exactly what "asymptomatic" means - it means absolutely no symptoms. It does not mean symptoms sufficiently mild that you don't really notice or think much about them.

Recall the example here of the woman from China who got a few Germans sick on a business trip. The German patients reported that they didn't notice any symptoms from the Chinese woman. The woman herself stated she didn't start feeling sick until she was on the plane back to China. Buuuut CCTV footage showed her coughing while she was in Germany. In other words, she wasn't actually asymptomatic.

So, if this new conclusion from WHO holds any water... it's potentially dangerous if people treat it as permission to live their lives as normal so long as they think they feel fine. Because no, it is not that. If you wake up one day and find yourself occasionally coughing a little, you can't just go out and about your business like you would have in February. You need to assume you might have covid and stay home until the coughing stops or you get a negative test result back. The fact that people weren't staying home unless they felt seriously sick (or in many cases, were not being allowed by their employers to stay home unless they felt seriously sick) is how the initial wave of infections got out of control, and that will happen again if we don't isolate the mild cases along with the severe ones.

[bandit957]

A study from the Imperial College London published in Nature examined the stay-at-home orders and estimates that 60 million coronavirus infections were prevented in the United States by the shutdowns.

Imperial College was the organization that predicted back in March that we'd have an unrealistically high number of deaths. The man behind the March study has been completely discredited now, so I have a very hard time trusting Imperial College.

[jeffandnicole]

One question; Is it safe to go in and out of New Rochelle, New York yet?

Was it safe to be there in the first place?

[kalvado]

A study from the Imperial College London published in Nature examined the stay-at-home orders and estimates that 60 million coronavirus infections were prevented in the United States by the shutdowns.

Imperial College was the organization that predicted back in March that we'd have an unrealistically high number of deaths. The man behind the March study has been completely discredited now, so I have a very hard time trusting Imperial College.

The problem of many catastrofic forecasts is that once people take them seriously they start acting -  and that averts disaster. If there would be no lockdowns and mask orders, those numbers could very well become reality. And of course those who predicted and who acted are now labeled as panic mongers. Well, sort of - they did their job right and things were only that bad.

[webny99]

One question; Is it safe to go in and out of New Rochelle, New York yet?

I mean I've left my town a few times.

Something tells me your town wasn't hit nearly as hard as New Rochelle.

[kphoger]

One question; Is it safe to go in and out of New Rochelle, New York yet?

Was it safe to be there in the first place?

Nope.  It has never been "safe" to be anywhere.  Risk is inherent in the world.

"Until it's safe" means "Never"

[Max Rockatansky]

One question; Is it safe to go in and out of New Rochelle, New York yet?

Was it safe to be there in the first place?

Nope.  It has never been "safe" to be anywhere.  Risk is inherent in the world.

"Until it's safe" means "Never"

And yet somehow we live in the age of "safety."   It's hard not to notice that almost everyone throws that term around though it was a birth right. 

[kphoger]

My wife recently saw a post on social media someone had made.  It included snapshots of their county's restrictions:  gatherings limited to 15 people, and protests limited to 100 people.  So the person announced that there would be a protest held in their back yard; there would be meat from the grill, so please bring toppings you're opposed to and want to protest.