Fear and Loathing, a Rat Flu Odyssey

[MultiVerse]

"A second of passing through infected droplets on a sidewalk is enough as well, not to mention those mists floating through store or office HVAC systems."

HVAC systems, yes. A second of passing through infected droplets on a sidewalk... maybe, but undocumented.

The virus does not appear to be aerosolized except during medical procedures so sitting in a restaurant where there's an infected person is not so much the problem as sitting in close proximity with an infected person or sitting directly in line with HVAC spreading droplets.


For example, ten people, out of 91 potential, in a restaurant were infected if they sat at the same table as an infectious person or sat at tables directly in line with AC ducts spreading larger droplets. None of the staff or people sitting at other tables were infected by small aerosolized droplets: https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0764_article

[Buster Highmen]

OK, go get sneezed on by someone with covid-19 and report back.

Sheesh.

Cuomo should not be surprised that people avoiding public transit get infected via other means and should realize, given his position, how that's going to get spun by nitwits.

[Diamond Joe]

All it takes is some bullshit like this to make you question who to believe? Are you an idiot?

I have been questioning who to believe LONG before that video. With a pathological liar as our leader, "news" networks that all have agendas, and greedy and corrupt politicians and public organizations, its hard to filter the truth out of all the bullshit.

and yes I am kind of an idiot

[Deebased]

There are a lot of unknowns but the evidence suggests drawing the opposite conclusions. It's not density and momentary proximity per se, instead it's prolonged contact indoors. Dosage appears to matter. It's sitting in a restaurant or an office building or a meat packing plant or a nursing home and then becoming infected after several minutes of exposure to expectorated droplets. There are other transmission routes too, like fomites, but droplets spread indoors appear to be the primary mechanism.

As you've noted it comes down to extended interpersonal contact.

It's good to see the data come back to rational answers.

Remember when Cuomo said you couldn't transmit without kissing (paraphrase)?

Clearly an overstatement but far more accurate than the stupidity of transmission via a cough an aisle or two over in the grocery store.

But seriously let's get back to fear mongering, budgets are literally exploding while people plan for the next funding bill.

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/...89/428/a01.gif

[MultiVerse]

^ Yeah, the bummer about wearing masks is it's not so much about protecting yourself from aerosolized droplets as is it is stopping infectious people from spreading droplets. In other words, for masks to work there needs to be a high percentage of wearers because it's mostly about preventing the spread not protecting from the spread, if that makes sense.

[Buster Highmen]

And some experts believe the 6-foot rule is based on outdated information.

"6 feet is probably not safe enough. The 3-6 foot rule is based on a few studies from the 1930s and 1940s, which have since been shown to be wrong — droplets can travel farther than 6 feet," said Raina MacIntyre, a principal research fellow and professor of global biosecurity, who heads the Biosecurity Program at the Kirby Institute, in Australia. "Yet hospital infection control experts continue to believe this rule. It's like the flat Earth theory — anyone who tries to discuss the actual evidence is shouted down by a chorus of believers.
…

In order for the virus to be spread without being coughed or sneezed in large drops of mucus, it has to somehow be able to suspend in the air for long enough to infect passersby. And that’s another complicating factor in figuring out transmission: People emit virus particles in a range of sizes, and some are small enough to be considered aerosols, or fine particles that can stay suspended in the air for hours and can travel with air currents across tens of feet. A study published March 17 in the New England Journal of Medicine found that virus particles that were aerosolized could remain viable for up to 3 hours.

https://www.livescience.com/how-covi...on-routes.html

[El Chupacabra]

If you want to freak yourself out, Contagion is now streaming on HBO.

[Core Shot]

30 more days in the hole

Known as New Jersey.

Karen is the governor there.

June fucking 6th. Fuck that sucks.

[Deebased]

And some experts believe the 6-foot rule is based on outdated information.

"6 feet is probably not safe enough. The 3-6 foot rule is based on a few studies from the 1930s and 1940s, which have since been shown to be wrong — droplets can travel farther than 6 feet," said Raina MacIntyre, a principal research fellow and professor of global biosecurity, who heads the Biosecurity Program at the Kirby Institute, in Australia. "Yet hospital infection control experts continue to believe this rule. It's like the flat Earth theory — anyone who tries to discuss the actual evidence is shouted down by a chorus of believers.
…

In order for the virus to be spread without being coughed or sneezed in large drops of mucus, it has to somehow be able to suspend in the air for long enough to infect passersby. And that’s another complicating factor in figuring out transmission: People emit virus particles in a range of sizes, and some are small enough to be considered aerosols, or fine particles that can stay suspended in the air for hours and can travel with air currents across tens of feet. A study published March 17 in the New England Journal of Medicine found that virus particles that were aerosolized could remain viable for up to 3 hours.

https://www.livescience.com/how-covi...on-routes.html

For absolute personal safety 30' is the rule of thumb.

That works great for those with 2-3 kitchens in the house, but not so well for those stuck in high density shitsville

[LeeLau]

Heh. Kinda funny that Skicougs just has to pop out of the woodwork somewhere to uber trigger you. I can just picture some neckbeard screaming Reeeeee! Nazi! While spittle flies from your mouth and covers your monitor and your entire face turns red.

I'm not a big fan of the cougs, but fully support his continued posting so we can watch your reactions and laugh.

Trigger is a strong word. Begging your pardon, next time I will use the descriptive "advocate for genocide". Will that meet your emotional requirements?

One may assume a lot from message board postings; that's your prerogative of course. Nazis meet their end. Everybody has their uses.

[MultiVerse]

And some experts believe the 6-foot rule is based on outdated information.

"6 feet is probably not safe enough. The 3-6 foot rule is based on a few studies from the 1930s and 1940s, which have since been shown to be wrong — droplets can travel farther than 6 feet," said Raina MacIntyre, a principal research fellow and professor of global biosecurity, who heads the Biosecurity Program at the Kirby Institute, in Australia. "Yet hospital infection control experts continue to believe this rule. It's like the flat Earth theory — anyone who tries to discuss the actual evidence is shouted down by a chorus of believers.
…

In order for the virus to be spread without being coughed or sneezed in large drops of mucus, it has to somehow be able to suspend in the air for long enough to infect passersby. And that’s another complicating factor in figuring out transmission: People emit virus particles in a range of sizes, and some are small enough to be considered aerosols, or fine particles that can stay suspended in the air for hours and can travel with air currents across tens of feet. A study published March 17 in the New England Journal of Medicine found that virus particles that were aerosolized could remain viable for up to 3 hours.

https://www.livescience.com/how-covi...on-routes.html

It's a good article. Nobody is saying there aren't multiple modes of transmission. It's more about ranking risk from high to low. A strategy doesn't have to be perfect to work, it just has to be good enough to drop R0 < 1.


Some more excerpts:

"To my knowledge, there is no definitive evidence of transmission where aerosol was the only possible route,"

The fact that so many seemingly innocuous activities can transmit the virus can be scary. And it can be even scarier not knowing the actual risks associated with each transmission route — without that information, how can we take the right steps to protect ourselves?

But ultimately, there's some reassurance in the data as well.

"What is true is that persons who have a member of their household infected with the virus have a higher probability of getting infected with COVID than people who do not have a member of their household infected. This tells us a lot. This tells us that close contact is the most important factor," Martin said.

Briefly passing a person on the street, at a distance of 6 feet, is likely to pose a low risk of infection, Martin said. Chatting at a distance of 6 feet with that same person for a few hours will be higher risk, he said.

Ultimately, social distancing is a powerful tool to cut all the hypothesized routes of transmission, experts said.

"If the other person is shedding virus into the air, the longer you stand near them, the greater the chance you have to be exposed to the virus,"

[The AD]

"What is true is that persons who have a member of their household infected with the virus have a higher probability of getting infected with COVID than people who do not have a member of their household infected. This tells us a lot. This tells us that close contact is the most important factor," Martin said.

This seems like a ridiculously short-sighted conclusion to me. In fact it seems straight out of the Book of Duh that if you live with an infected person you have a better chance of being infected yourself, especially when people are limiting their contact with those outside the household.

[Ted Striker]

Dr. Pangloss

Such a perfect burn.

[MultiVerse]

This seems like a ridiculously short-sighted conclusion to me. In fact it seems straight out of the Book of Duh that if you live with an infected person you have a better chance of being infected yourself, especially when people are limiting their contact with those outside the household.

It is out the Book of Duh, now. Even so, it has significant implications in terms of slowing or stopping the spread because it suggests close contact matters most. It's obvious now, it wasn't obvious when this started. Looking back, household transmission was the main mode even before people became aware of the virus and changed their behavior.

It suggests "lockdown” isn't necessarily the optimal policy and that safety protocols can work just as well.

The probability of infection is likely a function of not only distance but time and incidences.

In denser environments, even though sufficient proximity may be momentary, there's enough instances to increase the probability. Avoiding public transit is not sufficient to lower the probability in a place like NYC.

From Buster's post below. Yeah, I think we're almost on the same page. Time and dosage matters. There's clearly a nosocomial (acquired in a hospital) aspect to the spread so if you want to think of that as instances then that's definitely a thing.

I'm not sure though if NYC fits the instances category overall because Manhattan has more people but The Bronx has higher infection rates. It's the difference between a single person or single family versus a multigenerational family living under one roof.

[Buster Highmen]

The probability of infection is likely a function of not only distance but time and incidences.

In denser environments, even though sufficient proximity may be momentary, there's enough instances to increase the probability. Avoiding public transit is not sufficient to lower the probability in a place like NYC.

[Pow4Brains]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=share&v=QcUAG6t5aN8

Sent from my SM-G960U1 using TGR Forums mobile app

[old goat]

[FONT=Helvetica]Well yeah, some of your earlier points about oncologists could be just as easy to generalize in re: vascular surgeons as far as overtreating/practicing conflict-of-interest medicine. As you well know the medical community is like any other, with both good and bad practitioners. I think we would both agree it needs plenty of shaking up, at least here in the US, in order to better serve patients. And yes, that includes practitioners better learning how to walk that fine line in discussing risks and benefits of any intervention.

Absolutely. I spent a good part of my career fixing things that other surgeons broke and almost invariably the original operation that went bad was unnecessary. Fee for service is one problem--the economic incentive to treat. For surgeons there is a second factor--we love to operate. It's fun. It's why we were put on this earth (the other reason being to keep us in the OR away from polite society). A well known surgeon once said that you don't have to pay surgeons. They will operate out of shear blood lust. To some extent that's true about all doctors--we all want to do what we were trained to do. Plenty of unnecessary stuff gets done at Kaiser, where the docs are all on a salary,

[old goat]

Has this article about children as vectors been shared yet? It’s being used to support opening schools. Thoughts and feelings? I don’t have time to read and digest right now... working a 12+ hr day.

Thx

https://www.rivm.nl/en/novel-coronav...n-and-covid-19

Which do you want? Thoughts or feelings? Can't have both. See Trump.

[The AD]

It is out the Book of Duh, now. Even so, it has significant implications in terms of slowing or stopping the spread because it suggests close contact matters most. It's obvious now, it wasn't obvious when this started. Looking back, household transmission was the main mode even before people became aware of the virus and changed their behavior.

It just seems strange to me that can be concluded. When 90% of your time is being spent with an infected person how can you conclude that "close contact" is the most important factor? You just aren't having other types of contact to rule those out as equally important.

[Timberridge]

The probability of infection is likely a function of not only distance but time and incidences.

This coupled with air flow direction and relative humidity one can use a Lagrangian approach to model the droplet dispersion in a Eulerian path framework. In fact, with a significantly detailed 3 dimensional construction of a sneeze emanating from, say, the bread aisle, one can calculate with fair precision the chances of inhaling the virus in the neighboring frozen food section.

[wooley12]

My vascular surgeon always seems happy to see me. IME. surgeons want to cut, generals want to fight and CFO's want to grow profit with a layoff. Funny how human nature is so predictable.

[Rideski]

NYC kids getting mystery illnesses.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/n...ronavirus.html

[Buster Highmen]

This coupled with air flow direction and relative humidity one can use a Lagrangian approach to model the droplet dispersion in a Eulerian path framework. In fact, with a significantly detailed 3 dimensional construction of a sneeze emanating from the bread aisle, one can calculate with fair precision the chances of inhaling the virus in the neighboring frozen food section.

I'm not sure your anal Isis is complete.

Osiris is in the reeds, or at least his most important part.

You have omitted consideration of the topology and Riemannian manifold category.

Does the space admit a nontriavial everywhere vector field of HVAC paths?

Or is it like a bowling ball where you can't comb the hair without a part or a cowlick?

Is the space sufficiently toroidal? Or is it more of a projective plane or more complex lens space?

[The AD]

I'd like to think the leaders of the country couldn't possibly be this dumb, but...
https://slate.com/business/2020/05/t...irus-dumb.html

A small team led by Kevin Hassett—a former chairman of Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers with no background in infectious diseases—quietly built an econometric model to guide response operations... But this all left an open question: What the hell was this model that Hassett had cooked up, anyway?

Like most things about the Trump administration, the answer to that question has turned out to be stunningly dumb.

On Monday, the Post filled in a bit more detail about Hassett’s handiwork, reporting that he had produced a “cubic model” that showed deaths from the coronavirus dropping to near zero by May 15. You didn’t have to be a math geek to realize that sounded silly: People obviously aren’t going to stop dying from this disease in a couple weeks. But the Post’s revelation was met with slack-jawed disbelief from economists, policy analysts, and pretty much anybody who spends time with spreadsheets. A cubic model is not a sophisticated prediction tool. It takes data and uses it to draw a curve, based on an equation you probably learned in high school algebra (y=ax3+bx2+cx+d). You can literally do it with a button on Excel. It’s not a good way to make forecasts in general, since you’re just stuffing numbers in a rigged formula that’s prone to extrapolate small recent trends forward into implausibly dramatic predictions about the future. It’s not an epidemiology tool, and there’s no reason to think it would be a good way to predict COVID-19 deaths.

[Ottime]

As I observe neighbors and friends I see that people are much more comfortable getting up close and personal with family and friends than with strangers, even though people you know are no less likely to be infected than a stranger, on average. It is true that you know something about people you know--whether they've been going to church or bars or work in a hospital with a lot of covid patients, but people still feel more comfortable with non-strangers even when they have high risk exposure. My wife is much more comfortable letting people into the house, even though she stays home herself.

Interesting observation. I’ve had more co tact with friends recently. I have two friends I ride with, each once per week.

I’ve had a few masked rides with my kid and a friend of his.

During both these types of activities, people are generally six feet apart.

I have a huge deck. Couple hundred square feet. I’ve had a beer with a friend twice back there. Sitting about ten feet apart.

I’ve also watched the neighbors 4 year old once and will do it again next week. His mom broke her elbow and went I for surgery and now PT.

Some of these represent a kissing of personal restrictions. The last is just being a neighbor. Even if my neighbor had family nearby, we would likely still take her kid in these times.


It is sometimes a fine line between keeping socially distant and not being too socially distant.