"Coronavirus and the US" or "We are all going to die!!!!"

[Loren Pechtel]

How can they tease out organ damage from asymptomatic Covid-19 versus damage from just living in our industrial disease society (life sucks) via long term hypertension, (pre)-diabetes and so on?

Compare the incidence in those who have had Covid vs those who haven't.

 

[skepticalbip]

How can they tease out organ damage from asymptomatic Covid-19 versus damage from just living in our industrial disease society (life sucks) via long term hypertension, (pre)-diabetes and so on?

Compare the incidence in those who have had Covid vs those who haven't.

But if someone was asymptomatic (but had Covid) they wouldn't know they had been infected so how could organ damage be blamed on Covid rather than normal problems of living?

 

[bilby]

How can they tease out organ damage from asymptomatic Covid-19 versus damage from just living in our industrial disease society (life sucks) via long term hypertension, (pre)-diabetes and so on?

Compare the incidence in those who have had Covid vs those who haven't.

But if someone was asymptomatic (but had Covid) they wouldn't know they had been infected so how could organ damage be blamed on Covid rather than normal problems of living?

There are plenty of ways to determine whether someone has, or has had, COVID.

Symptoms might inspire people to be tested, but there's nothing that prevents the testing of those without any symptoms - indeed this is very widespread indeed amongst people who suspect that they might have been exposed.

 

[spikepipsqueak]

How can they tease out organ damage from asymptomatic Covid-19 versus damage from just living in our industrial disease society (life sucks) via long term hypertension, (pre)-diabetes and so on?

Compare the incidence in those who have had Covid vs those who haven't.

But if someone was asymptomatic (but had Covid) they wouldn't know they had been infected so how could organ damage be blamed on Covid rather than normal problems of living?

When anyone goes into hospital, for any reason, I would be gobsmacked if the very first test wasn't for COVID. And they test for antibodies and active virus.

 

[skepticalbip]

But if someone was asymptomatic (but had Covid) they wouldn't know they had been infected so how could organ damage be blamed on Covid rather than normal problems of living?

When anyone goes into hospital, for any reason, I would be gobsmacked if the very first test wasn't for COVID. And they test for antibodies and active virus.

Someone who is asymptomatic wouldn't experience effects of possible organ damage for maybe decades. I doubt that they would be tested for Covid twenty or thirty years from now when being admitted to a hospital. Is it even possible to detect that someone had been infected with Covid after that length of time? Last I heard was that there was debate over how long there would be antibodies... some think as short as six months.

So my question was, if someone who never had symptoms of Covid (possibly had it but were asymptomatic) is found to have organ damage decades from now how could it be determined if it was caused by Covid or other life's problems.

 

[Angry Floof]

Just curious, do we have any health professionals chiming in here who deal with actual COVID patients ?

 

[bilby]

But if someone was asymptomatic (but had Covid) they wouldn't know they had been infected so how could organ damage be blamed on Covid rather than normal problems of living?

When anyone goes into hospital, for any reason, I would be gobsmacked if the very first test wasn't for COVID. And they test for antibodies and active virus.

Someone who is asymptomatic wouldn't experience effects of possible organ damage for maybe decades. I doubt that they would be tested for Covid twenty or thirty years from now when being admitted to a hospital. Is it even possible to detect that someone had been infected with Covid after that length of time? Last I heard was that there was debate over how long there would be antibodies... some think as short as six months.

So my question was, if someone who never had symptoms of Covid (possibly had it but were asymptomatic) is found to have organ damage decades from now how could it be determined if it was caused by Covid or other life's problems.

Statistically.

From a public health perspective, it's not particularly important to know for sure the specific situation of each individual patient; Statistical medicine is very valuable, despite being practically useless to lawyers and litigants.

Not everyone is obsessed by the American cult of the individual; Some of us are aware that society is bigger than the sum of its parts.

It's also quite possible that a test might be available in the future that can make the determination on an individual basis - certainly it's far too early to rule that out as a possibility, and any such development would render your hypothetical moot.

 

[James Brown]

Not everyone is obsessed by the American cult of the individual; Some of us are aware that society is bigger than the sum of its parts.

"What's good for the hive is good for the bee."

--Marcus Aurelius

 

[skepticalbip]

Someone who is asymptomatic wouldn't experience effects of possible organ damage for maybe decades. I doubt that they would be tested for Covid twenty or thirty years from now when being admitted to a hospital. Is it even possible to detect that someone had been infected with Covid after that length of time? Last I heard was that there was debate over how long there would be antibodies... some think as short as six months.

So my question was, if someone who never had symptoms of Covid (possibly had it but were asymptomatic) is found to have organ damage decades from now how could it be determined if it was caused by Covid or other life's problems.

Statistically.

Statistics are indeed damned useful but compiling statistics requires compiling a statistically significant number of individual known cases. In this case, there would be a lot of people who were known to have had Covid who had organ damage. There would also be a lot of people who have organ damage who are not known to have had Covid. So the question is how can the cause of the organ damage be determined for the ones that are not known to have had Covid but do have organ damage? To just assume the damage was caused by Covid is piss poor science and, logically, be a case of assuming the conclusion or begging the question.

It's also quite possible that a test might be available in the future that can make the determination on an individual basis - certainly it's far too early to rule that out as a possibility, and any such development would render your hypothetical moot.

Indeed, it is possible. However appeal to future scientific knowledge is closer to religion than it is to science.

 

[George S]

Not everyone is obsessed by the American cult of the individual; Some of us are aware that society is bigger than the sum of its parts.

"What's good for the hive is good for the bee."

--Marcus Aurelius

What's good for the tribe is good for the gene pool.
Tribalism: Men contribute to the gene pool by having lots of kids. Or preserves his genes by even dying to protect his relatives. Or by leading his tribe out of danger. Women contribute by having lots of kids. Or preserve their gene pool by healing, nursing, and teaching relatives and managing a hearth and home.
Our gene pool is partial to tribalism. The question becomes just who is a relative. Who's in the tribe. In one view, everyone qualifies as "relative." One human gene pool. In another view appearance (race or religion or citizenship or whatever) is the deciding factor.

 

[Jokodo]

Statistics are indeed damned useful but compiling statistics requires compiling a statistically significant number of individual known cases. In this case, there would be a lot of people who were known to have had Covid who had organ damage. There would also be a lot of people who have organ damage who are not known to have had Covid. So the question is how can the cause of the organ damage be determined for the ones that are not known to have had Covid but do have organ damage? To just assume the damage was caused by Covid is piss poor science and, logically, be a case of assuming the conclusion or begging the question.

That's not what anyone has been suggesting. If however, you do a antibody screening of a randomised sample of the general population and find that 0.8%, or 3%, or whatever number is a realistic estimate for how badly your local authorities have fucked up the response, have antibodies, but when you do the same screening on patients with unexplained organ failures, you find 10-20% have antibodies, it is a reasonable conclusion that in the majority of those 10-20%, COVID contributed to the organ failure.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Not everyone is obsessed by the American cult of the individual; Some of us are aware that society is bigger than the sum of its parts.

"What's good for the hive is good for the bee."

--Marcus Aurelius

What's good for the tribe is good for the gene pool.
Tribalism: Men contribute to the gene pool by having lots of kids. Or preserves his genes by even dying to protect his relatives. Or by leading his tribe out of danger. Women contribute by having lots of kids. Or preserve their gene pool by healing, nursing, and teaching relatives and managing a hearth and home.
Our gene pool is partial to tribalism. The question becomes just who is a relative. Who's in the tribe. In one view, everyone qualifies as "relative." One human gene pool. In another view appearance (race or religion or citizenship or whatever) is the deciding factor.

What's good for my country can be very bad for me personally. What's good for me personally can be very bad for my country.

 

[bilby]

Statistics are indeed damned useful but compiling statistics requires compiling a statistically significant number of individual known cases. In this case, there would be a lot of people who were known to have had Covid who had organ damage. There would also be a lot of people who have organ damage who are not known to have had Covid. So the question is how can the cause of the organ damage be determined for the ones that are not known to have had Covid but do have organ damage?

That's easy. Use as your control population people who had organ damage before the middle of 2019.

To just assume the damage was caused by Covid is piss poor science and, logically, be a case of assuming the conclusion or begging the question.

Well it's a good thing that the people who do this stuff aren't as uneducated on the subject, or as unimaginative, as you are, and so won't be doing that, then.

It's also quite possible that a test might be available in the future that can make the determination on an individual basis - certainly it's far too early to rule that out as a possibility, and any such development would render your hypothetical moot.

Indeed, it is possible. However appeal to future scientific knowledge is closer to religion than it is to science.

And appeal to "I don't know how to do something, therefore nobody does and it might be impossible" is just pure Dunning-Kruger syndrome.

Either learn, or trust those who have learned. JAQing off isn't a viable substitute for either.

 

[bilby]

Not everyone is obsessed by the American cult of the individual; Some of us are aware that society is bigger than the sum of its parts.

"What's good for the hive is good for the bee."

--Marcus Aurelius

What's good for the tribe is good for the gene pool.
Tribalism: Men contribute to the gene pool by having lots of kids. Or preserves his genes by even dying to protect his relatives. Or by leading his tribe out of danger. Women contribute by having lots of kids. Or preserve their gene pool by healing, nursing, and teaching relatives and managing a hearth and home.
Our gene pool is partial to tribalism. The question becomes just who is a relative. Who's in the tribe. In one view, everyone qualifies as "relative." One human gene pool. In another view appearance (race or religion or citizenship or whatever) is the deciding factor.

Natural selection no more operates at the level of the 'tribe' than it does at the level of the 'individual'. It's a population phenomenon. And it's demonstrably the exact opposite of true that what is good for the individual or tribe is good for the gene pool.

The evolution of human society differs from that of the human genome, in that the former is subject to the application of intelligence and reasoning, while the latter is blind.

Attempts to alter the gene pool with the application of intelligence or reason have been universally disastrous for society, and it's therefore intelligent and reasonable to not do that.

Gene pools improve via large scale deaths. Societies that have (or inflict) large scale death are generally considered to be in urgent and desperate need of improvement.

 

[blastula]

Fauci, on covid long-haulers.

Well, there are two aspects of that, Bob. A great question. For those people who really get seriously ill, namely they are in an ICU, intubated, on ventilation, even if it isn't COVID-19, anyone that goes through that is not going to feel perfectly normal for a considerable period of time.

But there's something else that's going on with COVID-19, and those are individuals who don't necessarily have had advanced disease. They could have been in the hospital, they could have been home in bed for a few weeks, but they had symptomatic disease. What we are finding is that a certain percentage of them -- and we don't know what that is yet because we're doing a larger cohort study, so we are going to be studying this -- anywhere from 25, maybe 30 percent, we think, have what's called a post- COVID syndrome, namely they no longer have virus in them, they can't infect anybody, but it takes them anywhere from weeks to months, and maybe even beyond, to feel perfectly normal. And they have a constellation of symptoms and signs that seem to be consistent when you talk to different people. It's extreme fatigue. It's shortness of breath, even among people who were athletes and were really very well-conditioned, have trouble going up a flight of stairs. They have temperature control problems. They feel chilly. They feel warm. They have sleep disturbances, and some of them describe what's called "brain fog," which is not a particularly appropriate term. But what they really mean by that is that they have difficulty focusing or concentrating.

So, there are these effects that we are concerned about. We are also going to be doing imaging studies to make sure there's not residual inflammation in places like in the heart or in the central nervous system or things like that.

So, we're learning that once you get rid of the virus, in a certain proportion of people, they still cannot necessarily feel normal for variable periods of time, and we're going to be investigating that.

Transcript: The Path Forward: Combating COVID-19 with Anthony S. Fauci, Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases - The Washington Post

 

[Loren Pechtel]

How can they tease out organ damage from asymptomatic Covid-19 versus damage from just living in our industrial disease society (life sucks) via long term hypertension, (pre)-diabetes and so on?

Compare the incidence in those who have had Covid vs those who haven't.

But if someone was asymptomatic (but had Covid) they wouldn't know they had been infected so how could organ damage be blamed on Covid rather than normal problems of living?

Antibody test.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

But if someone was asymptomatic (but had Covid) they wouldn't know they had been infected so how could organ damage be blamed on Covid rather than normal problems of living?

When anyone goes into hospital, for any reason, I would be gobsmacked if the very first test wasn't for COVID. And they test for antibodies and active virus.

You're assuming the issue isn't already known. I've had multiple encounters with the system recently due to a kidney stone. I was of course always asked about Covid symptoms and exposure, but nobody even suggested a Covid test. I walked in 99.9% sure of the situation, of course the first thing to do is check if my diagnosis was correct rather than hunt for the cause.

 

[repoman]

Has this ever happened before, after vaccinations take effect you are still under this level of restriction? I know this guy is not a government guy but it is on MSNBC staff twitter:

https://twitter.com/MeetThePress/status/1338921746162966529

As one of the first vaccinated people in New Haven is planning on traveling after the second dose, @VinGuptaMD
reacts:

"Just because you get vaccinated after the second dose does not mean you should be traveling. ... You could still get infected and pass it along to others."

"Everything still applies until all of us gets that two-dose regimen. We don't think that'll happen til June or July."

"Right now, we still don't have definitive proof that vaccination protects you from any type of infection, just the severe forms of illness that lead you to the ICU."

Isn't is normal that if an infected person coughs on you even if you had the vaccine or were infected a few months ago you will "infected" by some definition even if you kick the virus fast and are very minimally a spreader because you never get above a minimal load.

I would be fine being around a vaccinated person the day after being exposed to someone sick. Maybe not french kiss though.

 

[crazyfingers]

That has been a puzzle to me about these vaccines. I have read that they don't know yet if the vaccine makes one immune or whether it prevents someone from "getting sick". From what I've read it sounds like the vaccine may not make someone immune but if infected be asymptomatic. So a vaccinated person may still be able to get it and spread it but not know it.

I'd love to be corrected if someone else knows better.

 

[repoman]

That has been a puzzle to me about these vaccines. I have read that they don't know yet if the vaccine makes one immune or whether it prevents someone from "getting sick". From what I've read it sounds like the vaccine may not make someone immune but if infected be asymptomatic. So a vaccinated person may still be able to get it and spread it but not know it.

I'd love to be corrected if someone else knows better.

What would the R-factor for a person for which the vaccine worked? And one for who it did not work?

I am pulling these numbers from air to start a discussion. I have no idea what the real numbers are.
If it is 0.1 for the 95% that have an effective vaccination and 1.5 for the 5% with an ineffective vaccination (same for non vaccinated). Then the weighted r-factor would be 0.17


But will the next goal-post shift be "BUT WE DON'T KNOW WHO THE VACCINE WILL BE EFFECTIVE ON!!!!! SO LET'S DO MORE LOCKDOWNS!!!!!" ?

This is some frog boiling stuff.

People who are not part of Silicon Valley or the Professional Managerial Class need to get back to their lives and if the vaccine gets the total aggregate risk back to even a moderately bad flu season it needs to immediately go back to close to normal.