alpha0ne (12-08-20)
Late tonight, New Zealand recorded its first cases in 102 days. Four members of one family have contracted COVID-19 and the original source is unknown.
Tasmania recorded one new case, which will be counted in tomorrow's statistics according to the Federal Government.
Landytrack (12-08-20),mtv (11-08-20),wotnot (11-08-20)
The confirmed number of coronavirus cases in the world has reached 20 million, and its spread has accelerated.
It took almost six months to reach 10 million cases, but just 43 days to double that tally.
And the figures, from Johns Hopkins University, may not give us the full picture of the pandemic's reach.
Health officials believe the actual number of cases across the world is much higher, due to testing limitations and the fact that as many as 40 per cent of those who are infected show no symptoms.
The respiratory disease has infected at least four times the average number of people struck down with severe influenza illnesses annually, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The death toll from COVID-19, meanwhile, at more than 734,000, has outpaced the upper range of annual deaths from the flu.
The US, Brazil and India have together accounted for nearly two thirds of all cases since the world reached 15 million infections on July 22.
Along with Russia and South Africa, they make up the top five worst-hit countries.
Nothing is working for us Victorians...
Victoria has recorded 410 new cases of coronavirus and 21 deaths, making it the nation's deadliest day of the pandemic.
SPUTNIK V - a rather witty name if it really ends up working:
Many don't want to wait any longer and Duterte even wants to try it on himself right now and also have it manufactured in the Philippines.
If I were living in an age 'care' centre I would be trying it myself to rather than awaiting my otherwise accelerated certain death.
Update: A deletion of features that work well and ain't broke but are deemed outdated in order to add things that are up to date and broken.
Compatibility: A word soon to be deleted from our dictionaries as it is outdated.
Humans: Entities that are not only outdated but broken... AI-self-learning-update-error...terminate...terminate...
I hope it works! If I were in an 'at risk' group in Victoria I'd be rushing to try it.
, it's as good anywhere.
Last edited by lsemmens; 12-08-20 at 12:34 PM.
I'm out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message...
Uncle Fester (12-08-20)
I will dare to voice my opinion about how I see the vaccine situation in the hope that this specific topic will not be hijacked and end up in the usual dirt bin.
Russia has the winning concept of enabling access of their vaccine to everybody, including the poorest in the world.
It is exactly that target group that gives them very quick mass testing abilities and deliver results, good or bad.
Europe and Australia will always stay behind because of arguably overzealous caution and red tape.
For Trumpamerica it is all about ensuring that the rich get richer and that will be their achilles heel. He was the one who claimed that Russia
was 'stealing' their research, which indicates that Trump does not want to share it with the rest of the world.
I am pretty sure any direct side effects from Sputnik V would already have shown in the initial trials.
Generally you experience side effects hours, days and maybe weeks after the injection but not months.
The only question is therefore will it actually work?
So the risk is here seems fairly minimal and as so many agreed to mass testing and if it is provided in heavily infected countries like South America
you will see actual results fast while if it doesn't work, it doesn't work, but more likely it will work somewhat.
My only concern is if a vaccine is even possible, it is not clear that antibodies for this virus survive long enough for permanent protection.
In this case booster vaccinations might be required every 6 months but better than waiting 5 years until a permanent solution might become available.
However the whole concept of double blindsided placebo testing I call BS here.
If you give it to EVERYBODY in a nursing home where lets say 20 people die each day and suddenly many don't die after the known time from infection to death,
then what is the point of giving half of them a placebo and watch those die?
Update: A deletion of features that work well and ain't broke but are deemed outdated in order to add things that are up to date and broken.
Compatibility: A word soon to be deleted from our dictionaries as it is outdated.
Humans: Entities that are not only outdated but broken... AI-self-learning-update-error...terminate...terminate...
There is differing opinion from russia.
source;Russia’s domestically produced Covid-19 vaccine could be dangerous and even cause infection if improperly designed, says Alexander Chepurnov, the former lab head at the Vector State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology.
A rapidly produced vaccine has already been completed and trialed in Russia, and will soon be registered and undergo mass production. The country is just one of many in the race to produce an effective immunization against the disease. According to Chepurnov, if the vaccinated person already has specific antibodies, coronavirus could actually intensify after receiving the vaccine.
“That is why research on vaccine prototypes is needed,” he said. “When people work on vaccines in some countries, they publish their results immediately and it’s clear what we are dealing with. And here I don’t see any publications.”
There is also another direction being taken, to disable the virus, rather than create an immune response that creates antibodies, as in traditional vaccines.
Source;Northwestern University researchers have uncovered a new vulnerability in the novel coronavirus' infamous spike protein—illuminating a relatively simple, potential treatment pathway.
The spike protein contains the virus' binding site, which adheres to host cells and enables the virus to enter and infect the body. Using nanometer-level simulations, the researchers discovered a positively charged site (known as the polybasic cleavage site) located 10 nanometers from the actual binding site on the spike protein. The positively charged site allows strong bonding between the virus protein and the negatively charged human-cell receptors.
Leveraging this discovery, the researchers designed a negatively charged molecule to bind to the positively charged cleavage site. Blocking this site inhibits the virus from bonding to the host cell.
"Our work indicates that blocking this cleavage site may act as a viable prophylactic treatment that decreases the virus' ability to infect humans," said Northwestern's Monica Olvera de la Cruz, who led the work. "Our results explain experimental studies showing that mutations of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein affected the virus transmissibility."
The research was published online last week in the journal ACS Nano.
Olvera de la Cruz is the Lawyer Taylor Professor of Materials Science and Engineering in Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering. Baofu Qiao, a research assistant professor in Olvera de la Cruz's research group, is the paper's first author.
Made up of amino acids, SARS-CoV-2's polybasic cleavage sites have remained elusive since the COVID-19 outbreak began. But previous research indicates that these mysterious sites are essential for virulence and transmission. Olvera de la Cruz and Qiao discovered that polybasic cleavage site is located 10 nanometers from human cell receptors—a finding that provided unexpected insight.
"We didn't expect to see electrostatic interactions at 10 nanometers," Qiao said. "In physiological conditions, all electrostatic interactions no longer occur at distances longer than 1 nanometer."
"The function of the polybasic cleavage site has remained elusive," Olvera de la Cruz said. "However, it appears to be cleaved by an enzyme (furin) that is abundant in lungs, which suggests the cleavage site is crucial for virus entry into human cells."
With this new information, Olvera de la Cruz and Qiao next plan to work with Northwestern chemists and pharmacologists to design a new drug that could bind to the spike protein.
Last edited by Tiny; 12-08-20 at 06:28 PM.
Cheers, Tiny
"You can lead a person to knowledge, but you can't make them think? If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.
The information is out there; you just have to let it in."
Johnno (12-08-20),Uncle Fester (12-08-20)
I doubt you would want to know how many will die if it were left unchecked. The relatively low numbers are proof that the measures are working.
Flu eventually goes away on it's own, Covid does not and it is surviving the northern hemisphere's summer, which is considered a non flu period.
Update: A deletion of features that work well and ain't broke but are deemed outdated in order to add things that are up to date and broken.
Compatibility: A word soon to be deleted from our dictionaries as it is outdated.
Humans: Entities that are not only outdated but broken... AI-self-learning-update-error...terminate...terminate...
The fact that there's a highway to hell and a stairway to heaven says a lot about the anticipated traffic flow.
yes so then you need to step up to those not doing the right thing like GPS tracking anklets and $5000 fines for people that aren't home when the authorities check. Wuhan Dan could have kept stg3 and implemented strategies like this. Dan said it was going to take 6mths on the current stg3 track so that's why he went for stage4 and the shorter time frame. Costs, in more ways then 1 will be higher imo.
Do people think we can achieve zero cases ever?
I feel once that thing is out it will stay with us from now on. The virus will mutate, will get less virulent but will not disappear.
In fact, it was around for long time, just the new strain affected people.
No lockdowns will fix the problem. It might help to drop numbers to a manageable level so existing system can handle it. I would say we need better system or hope for a vaccine that will create herd immunity.
Interesting to see Sweden "experiment". Really no lockdowns. The highest death rate compare to other Scandinavian countries since April but comparable to let's say US. They had a lot of cases and as well similar recovery rate to other countries with lockdowns. Today's figures look very good in Sweden - almost no new cases, zero death etc.
For sure time will tell if Swedish way was right or not after this is all goes back to more or less normal life.
As I mentioned before - devastating effect on the economy, increased suicide rate, depression etc should be added to the total COVID statistics and then compared between countries. This way we can see the real face of the pandemic and how good is our government with medical advisers.
People are entitled to their opinion. I am the one who obeys all the restrictions imposed to us in Victoria, I have my face mask always on whenever I have to leave house. I work from home and go outside only for 1 hour walk a day. I do this not because I agree with what our government does - not at all. I do this only because I respect others around me and don't want to see fear in their eyes if they see me without the mask coming close to their face.
Again, I do not believe Victoria had to go to the stage 4 if we had responsible leaders not the ones who failed not just Victoria but entire country by allowing this "second" wave to start. Dan readily called this a second wave but this is only ass covering. It has nothing to do with second wave theory of epidemiology. I call this self-inflicted pandemic due to the full incompetence (if not a criminal offence) of Victorian government.
Yes. People DO think that in WA, Qld, SA, NT...they've been scared into thinking that by self centred, politically motivated premiers, who are tearing apart the cohesion of this country.
Victoria is the result of stupidity and carelessness on behalf of it's politicians, it's lazy civil servants, and money grubbing advisors. These failures has been festering for years, it's just that Covid-19 is deadly and easily spread. And far beyond the scope of these people to deal with.
There's an article in the Herald Sun today (it's paywalled so I can't read it) that alleges that the security firms responsible for the hotel debacle are STILL on the payroll FFS. A f*cking joke if true.
The fact that there's a highway to hell and a stairway to heaven says a lot about the anticipated traffic flow.
Johnno (13-08-20)
Fears of a second wave across Europe, with UK, Germany, France and Spain seeing alarming increases in infections.
Germany Health officials announced 1,226 new cases this morning, the highest figure since May 9
Spain with the seven-day average now at 3,357 cases per day compared to 480 a month ago.
France's seven-day average is now at 1,691 new cases per day, the highest level since April and up from just over 500 in mid-July.
UK figure of 1,148 per day have rising to the highest since mid June.
Spahn, the German health minister, also voiced doubts about Vladimir Putin's claims on Tuesday that Russia has developed the world's first coronavirus vaccine. 'I would be pleased if we had an initial, good vaccine but based on everything we know - and that's the fundamental problem, namely that the Russians aren't telling us much - this has not been sufficiently tested.' Spahn added: 'In order to have trust in such a vaccine, I think it is very, very important, even during a pandemic, to properly do studies, the relevant tests and especially to make them public. 'The problem is that we know very little about it as the Russian authorities are not being very transparent.'
Just as my buddies in EU called it would happen a couple of weeks ago ; it's holiday season. The word holiday is dangerous at present =)Fears of a second wave across Europe, with UK, Germany, France and Spain seeing alarming increases in infections.
Al Bundy (17-08-20),alpha0ne (13-08-20),Johnno (13-08-20),LeroyPatrol (14-08-20),wotnot (13-08-20)
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