PlagueWatch 2020-23 - Coronavirus

[Lord Ash]

So aren't HEPA filters of varying sizes, so certain ones wouldn't capture a particle that others might? Like I think the recommended is 13 or 18 (been a while since I read this stuff...)

[mph]

So aren't HEPA filters of varying sizes, so certain ones wouldn't capture a particle that others might? Like I think the recommended is 13 or 18 (been a while since I read this stuff...)

I think you might be thinking of the MERV rating on air return filters. That’s distinct from a HEPA filter which is requires a uniform standard.

[rsvman]

From the NYT:

This is also overlooking a pretty obvious point that people seem to routinely miss, and that is that the virus is shed from the respiratory system in droplets, not as naked virus. Therefore, the size of the actual virus is not really the target size of particles that need to be filtered, but the size of the respiratory droplets containing the virus.

[Lord Ash]

I think you might be thinking of the MERV rating on air return filters. That’s distinct from a HEPA filter which is requires a uniform standard.

Ah you are totally right, confused my abbreviations

[Skydog]

This is also overlooking a pretty obvious point that people seem to routinely miss, and that is that the virus is shed from the respiratory system in droplets, not as naked virus. Therefore, the size of the actual virus is not really the target size of particles that need to be filtered, but the size of the respiratory droplets containing the virus.

Good, and significant, point.

[Rich]

Apologies if this is behind a paywall (NY Times)

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/12/h...e=articleShare

Some things never change, I guess.

As soon as Edward Jenner introduced the first smallpox vaccine in 1798, posters appeared in England showing humans who had been vaccinated “sprouting horns and hooves,” Dr. Snowden said.

“In 19th-century Britain, the largest single movement was the anti-vaccine movement,” he added. And with vaccine resisters holding out, diseases that should have been tamed persisted.

But the difference between vaccine skeptics and pandemic misinformation then and now, historians said, is the rise of social media, which amplifies debates and falsehoods in a truly new way.

...

With H.I.V., Dr. Brandt said, “there were conspiracy theories and a lot of misinformation, but it never had a broadcast system like Covid-19.”

Other pandemics, like this one, were hobbled by what Dr. Snowden calls “overweening hubris,” prideful certainties from experts that add to the frustrations of understanding how and when it will dwindle away.

With Covid, prominent experts declared at first that masks did not help prevent infection, only to reverse themselves later. Epidemiologists confidently published models of how the pandemic would progress and what it would take to reach herd immunity, only to be proved wrong. Investigators said the virus was transmitted on surfaces, then later said that, no, it was spread through tiny droplets in the air. They said the virus was unlikely to transform in a substantial way, then warned of the Delta variant’s greater transmissibility.

“We paid a heavy price for that,” Dr. Snowden said. Many people lost trust in officials amid ever-changing directives and strategies that weakened the effort to control the virus.

[Bluedog]

Rate of hospitalization for VACCINATED 65+ is 3x the rate of hospitalization for unvaccinated <18 according to Washington (state) data. UK data shows under 12 have lower risk than vaccinated people 40+! (Even a bit lower than vaccinated 30+. Chart below shows that age grouped through 18 though, so you can't see it there.)

Charts:
unnamed.jpg
unnamed (1).jpg

-Courtesy: NY Times

My question is why? Have we seen other diseases that have such a HUGE age skew for severe cases? Did MERS/SARS show this? Which are, as I recall, deadlier but must less contagious/transmissable. The flu has SOME skew, but nowhere even close to the same level. In fact, I thought very young children are typically hit harder than younger healthy adults.

[JStuart]

And who would have thought we'd get to 900 pages when all this started...and all for a 'hoax' of a virus!
Hoping the boosters for JJ and Moderna are approved soon.

[Lord Ash]

And who would have thought we'd get to 900 pages when all this started...and all for a 'hoax' of a virus!
Hoping the boosters for JJ and Moderna are approved soon.

I can't be the only one who sometimes looks back at the start of the thread and shakes me head, right...?

[Bluedog]

I can't be the only one who sometimes looks back at the start of the thread and shakes me head, right...?

Well, Troublemaker may have been right in the first post that this was the last thread he ever created. (Haven't actually confirmed that, but about right...).

[grad_devil]

I can't be the only one who sometimes looks back at the start of the thread and shakes me head, right...?

I read this in my head with an Irish accent.

[Lord Ash]

I read this in my head with an Irish accent.

Hah!

[OldPhiKap]

I read it as a pirate.

[ClemmonsDevil]

I read it as a pirate.

Yes. But you always read things in a pirate voice.

[OldPhiKap]

Yes. But you always read things in a pirate voice.

That actually is true.

[Dr. Rosenrosen]

Rate of hospitalization for VACCINATED 65+ is 3x the rate of hospitalization for unvaccinated <18 according to Washington (state) data. UK data shows under 12 have lower risk than vaccinated people 40+! (Even a bit lower than vaccinated 30+. Chart below shows that age grouped through 18 though, so you can't see it there.)

Charts:
unnamed.jpg
unnamed (1).jpg

-Courtesy: NY Times

My question is why? Have we seen other diseases that have such a HUGE age skew for severe cases? Did MERS/SARS show this? Which are, as I recall, deadlier but must less contagious/transmissable. The flu has SOME skew, but nowhere even close to the same level. In fact, I thought very young children are typically hit harder than younger healthy adults.

Don’t know why this would be a surprise. It’s not really valid to make comparisons across age groups, especially at the extreme opposite ends of the age continuum. Older people will naturally have vastly greater prevalence of complicating risk factors, which likely has a significant impact on hospitalization rates.

[Bluedog]

Don’t know why this would be a surprise. It’s not really valid to make comparisons across age groups, especially at the extreme opposite ends of the age continuum. Older people will naturally have vastly greater prevalence of complicating risk factors, which likely has a significant impact on hospitalization rates.

But that's not the case (to this extreme) for other respiratory diseases. Not even influenza. Yes, there is SOME age skew there, but it's like 25x. COVID is like 350x. And influenza hits babies/toddlers decently hard. I don't know how the COVID age skew compares to MERS/SARS. What's so different about COVID and our immune responses that children would be fairly protected/elderly soooooo not protected (again, relative to other similar infections)? Those complicating risk factors exist regardless of the disease attained and many have similar risk factors.

[Bostondevil]

But that's not the case (to this extreme) for other respiratory diseases. Not even influenza. Yes, there is SOME age skew there, but it's like 25x. COVID is like 350x. And influenza hits babies/toddlers decently hard. I don't know how the COVID age skew compares to MERS/SARS. What's so different about COVID and our immune responses that children would be fairly protected/elderly soooooo not protected (again, relative to other similar infections)? Those complicating risk factors exist regardless of the disease attained and many have similar risk factors.

Pre-pandemic, people over 65 were roughly 3 times more likely to be hospitalized in a given year than people aged 18-44, roughly 10x more likely to be hospitalized than children aged 12-17, and back down to about 3x more likely to be hospitalized than children under 12, give or take with yearly fluctuations.

All kids are less likely to be hospitalized than grandma, all the time, forever and ever.

Covid is not a respiratory disease, it's a cardiovascular/neurological/respiratory disease, maybe more.

[Bluedog]

Pre-pandemic, people over 65 were roughly 3 times more likely to be hospitalized in a given year than people aged 18-44, roughly 10x more likely to be hospitalized than children aged 12-17, and back down to about 3x more likely to be hospitalized than children under 12, give or take with yearly fluctuations.

All kids are less likely to be hospitalized than grandma, all the time, forever and ever.

Covid is not a respiratory disease, it's a cardiovascular/neurological/respiratory disease, maybe more.

Maybe that label is the difference. It somehow magnifies the age difference discrepancy. Again I recognize that grandma is always more likely than kids to be hospitalized but it's the degree/magnitude in this case that I don't see replicated by other diseases. Am I wrong?

[Bostondevil]

Maybe that label is the difference. It somehow magnifies the age difference discrepancy. Again I recognize that grandma is always more likely than kids to be hospitalized but it's the degree/magnitude in this case that I don't see replicated by other diseases. Am I wrong?

OK, I'll preface this by reminding you that you did ask - yes, you are wrong.