lbeltrame

This response is not sustainable when applied to entire populations for extended periods of time. Not only for the economy, but also for the mental well being of people: you can't build a society without contact (if you think this is too much, I've seen already people distancing from the elderly that might require aid for getting into a bus, for example, as if they were plagued).

Secondly, vaccines work, but people forget pharmacological treatments, which can make a terrible disease manageable. As someone with a background in pharmacology, it baffles me when these options are never considered (like a post, probably trolling, which I saw on HN once, "The drugs don't work. Enjoy your 24 months quarantine").

Secondly, the "2+ years off" depends on the estimates. These are estimates made with previous experience, where one could afford waiting, if need be. This is not the case.

"We can't wait 18-24 months", said at one point CanSino's CEO. I agree with him. Drugs or vaccines should, if the tests allow it (and despite the popular thinking, the current vaccines aren't rushed, the speed is mainly done because a lot of money has been poured into recruitment and monitoring) make sure that the situation is it at least lessened before that.

Because if not, people will start blatantly ignoring any recommendations from authorities (and that would also mean governments becoming even more heavy-handed than today, which is already worrying).

> The T-Cell immunity research shows there may be more people who are immune than we think

As far as I understand from the currently-available data, at best, cross-reactive T cells may lessen the disease, but not prevent it. However, the data are not definitive.

> People not being selfish idiots would help one hell of a lot to speed the process and lower risks

In my opinion, not quite. What it highlights is that non-pharmaceutical interventions like quarantines and lockdowns are at best tools (very blunt tools) to slow down the virus. But you can't win against it with them alone.

In this case, negligence, but you can imagine that errors can and will be made simply because we aren't perfect. And the spread will start again.

It is a completely unsustainable strategy on the long run, and that's why countries (at least the ones which can afford that) should look more into pharmaceutical development and therapeutic options.

To be honest - it proved to be useful, but ordering was stressful, at least for groceries.

I remember staying up until midnight to hit the Prime Now delivery windows within the first 3 minutes (and the service would often collapse under the load). That is until Amazon started opening slots at random during the day. Then it became better.

It's not that you couldn't go to the supermarket: but with the restrictions in place, you could spend an hour, an hour and a half queuing before you could get inside.

Interesting, but I wonder if cellular immunity played a role in the patient for having a less severe infection than before. This is absolutely not touched in the paper, not even in the discussion, but should be at least investigated, IMO.

I'm not saying that masks don't work. But whether they are effective at reducing transmission and, if so, in what measure are open questions. The literature is at this point inconclusive[1]. Even the latest Lancet paper on masks and distancing attracted some criticism[2].

Of course,I agree that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. But, as the BMJ post I quoted earlier says, instead of just saying "wear a mask", the best idea would also promote trials to verify their effectiveness (like the Danish trial). It's done all the time for drugs, why not masks?

[1] https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/masking-lack-of-evidence-with-...

[2] https://pubpeer.com/publications/6AF113CE946CABB0FBB811697E5...

There is yet no evidence that explicitly ties the use of a face mask to lower rates of SARS-CoV-2 transmission. A lot of the published evidence is either inconsistent, or indirect (measurement of droplets, but that doesn't take physical barriers like nose and mouth, or the viral load required to overcome the non adaptive immune system). In fact, it has been argued that non pharmacological interventions should be evaluated with better evidence [1].

A Danish clinical trial enrolling 3000 people will probably give some more concrete answers.

OTOH, hand washing and distance are definitely useful to reduce spread.

P.S. Feel free to state your disagreement explicitly instead of downvoting.

[1] https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/08/28/margaret-mccartney-we-n...

Yes, but other, non coronavirus infections can cause similar problems. The novelty is that it's a coronavirus causing this.

As far as I remember, the Amiga version did not have that bug. In fact some missions were quite hard at regular difficulty levels.

That changed once you had access to psionics and the blaster as weapon. It became a large shoot 'em up afterwards (probably not at higher difficulties).

The PCR test is akin to a companion diagnostic test: it makes much sense to do it alone in presence of something suspicious (like symptoms). If you're asymptomatic, it can be close to useless, because it does not mean there's infectious virus in your throat[1]. That is because you could be either presymptomatic (in this case, there would be infectious virus), or have cleared the infection already (in this case, not). In the latter case, presence of RNA does not equate to live virus automatically.

For asymptomatic people, antigen tests (especially the rapid kind, assuming they're sensitive enough) are a much better deal, despite their lower sensitivity, because they detect virus proteins, which are much likely indication of an infectious virus.

[1] https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/infectious-positive-pcr-test-r...

I think it's a possibility, but I don't think that explains all. Personally, but this is just a hunch without any hard data to back up, I think March/April were an exceptional event, and the "regular" way the virus infects and kills is what we're seeing now.

I think the critique on the code quality was wrong and right at the same time:

- Wrong, because the model may have other problems (it has been criticized because it did not reflect reality in some situations, for example when applied to Sweden) which aren't related to code at all;

- Wrong, because it would have been far more important to discuss on the merits and demerits of the model, rather than its implementation;

- Correct, because bad code in academia is a known and widespread problem (I am guilty of it, too).

Note that while this page says "facts", some of the facts presented are editorialized to match the writer's expectations. Example: the infection fatality rate estimate only mentions the lower bound of the confidence interval.

Another example: the part on the Oxford vaccine completely misrepresents what the publication on the macaques experiment says.

So, there might be useful information there, but I suggest reading cum grano salis, and often check the sources instead of trusting what's written blindly.

A major problem with testing in Italy is when one is positive and then recovers from the disease. It is one of the few countries in the world that requires a double negative test to let you go out of isolation (2 negative tests within 24 hours).

As the evidence now is clear that presence of RNA does not equate necessarily to infectious virus (good correlation until 7 days from symptom onset, the declining, and over 15 days here is no more correlation: in people with milder symptoms this happens earlier), and that people with milder symptoms usually clear viral RNA very slowly from their throats, this causes (and caused) a lot of people to be stuck in isolation for weeks, or months (the negative record is a 4 year old child who was confined for almost three months).

The expert panel of the government won't change their guideline out of "precaution", despite the scientific evidence saying something different.

The repository provides no reasons that brought the need for a fork. Can someone provide additional information?

The incidence of these effects can be a reason. Unfortunately there are no reliable data on how they are prevalent.

The problem with aggregate numbers like that 6% is that they assume a uniform distribution of the virus within the population, which is not the case: some areas are far more hit than others. I think this should always be kept into account.

You mean like other viral infections, or bacterial pneumonia? As grave as the effects are, they are absolutely not unique to SARS-CoV-2.

That's why most trials take a look at the Th1 vs Th2 response to see if there's any indication of ADE. The currently available data do not seem to point to that.

Thanks for the context.

There is documented cross-reactivity in T-cell responses: individuals who had not come in contact with SARS-CoV-2 developed an immune reaction (T-cell based) against it.

Whether this prevents infection (unlikely) or lessens the symptoms is still an open question. But the phenomenon exists.

However, these companies got a lot of money to ramp up production ahead of approval ("at-risk manufacturing") often by governments. If the vaccine is a fluke, they might be in trouble.

The FDA has published a detailed guideline on how to handle vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2. Among these, the minimum requirement of a 50% efficacy and mandatory monitoring of the trial participants for at least one year after the trial end (which will not be when authorization requests will be made, in case it works, but later on).

The principal investigator of the trial knows who got placebo and who did not, although neither the people working on the data nor the clinical staff know.

It's likely that the participant will be "unmasked" to see why the adverse event occurred.

Yet one more reason to push for antigen testing for asymptomatic people. Those will detect a likely live virus, albeit with lower sensitivity than the PCR test.

> And any vaccine would need some period of widespread testing

That's what the current Phase III trials are doing (30K people for Pfizer, 30K people for Moderna, ~12K people for Oxford/AstraZeneca). This should be enough to check for efficacy, while probably not enough for potential long-term effects.

Reinfections are, so far, a minuscule number compared to the total cases (2 properly documented cases), so I expect immunity to last at least a year, basing on the current data. Time will tell if I'm wrong, of course.

Thanks.

Note that the JAMA editorial acknowledges the need for further studies, because the numbers are very small (compared to the known number of patients):

> We wish not to generate additional anxiety but rather to incite other investigators to carefully examine existing and prospectively collect new data in other populations to confirm or refute these findings.

Which is AFAICS the crux of the matter. No one knows how widespread these problems are.

> a few months later everyone can come out and play.

I'm not so sure. Governments can't admit that fighting such a contagious virus with non-pharmaceutical interventions is extremely difficult on the long run. You're just buying time for a cure (not necessarily a vaccine: drugs work, too).

Regarding the so called long term effects: is there any research that tells us how prevalent they are?

A lot of people mention cases like these, I'd like to see some figures, also taking into account that pulmonary problems and fatigue, for one, are common to other diseases (even treatable ones).

To be clear: I have no interest in downplaying severe effects of this infection. But I want to look at the whole picture.

I think the OP referred to the pneumonia-like consequences (weakened immune system, issues with lungs that can last for months), effects common with certain strong viral infections (chronic fatigue) and other effects (circulatory problems, thrombosis).

Note that the first two categories are not exclusive to this virus at all: treatable diseases like "regular" pneumonia can cause them.

The actual incidence of these effects, which can range from small to very severe, is unknown (given that a lot of cases are still missed). I've never heard about the 9% before, though.