Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19) (SARS-CoV-2) [2020]

At least 5 people in Pence's orbit, including chief of staff Marc Short, are positive for coronavirus

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/poli...ve-for-coronavirus/ar-BB1amMhU?ocid=Peregrine

At least five people in Vice President Mike Pence's orbit have tested positive for coronavirus in recent days, including chief of staff Marc Short and outside adviser Marty Obst, a source familiar with the situation told CNN.

There are concerns that more people within Pence's inner circle will test positive in the coming days, the source said. "They're scared," the source said of staffers in the vice president's office.

Pence's office announced Saturday evening that Short had been diagnosed with Covid-19. Sources told CNN that Obst, who is a senior political adviser to Pence but is not a government employee, and at least three staffers in Pence's office have also tested positive for the virus.

Despite the slew of coronavirus cases around him, Pence -- who is the head of the White House's coronavirus task force -- is not quarantining, as per US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines. Instead, he plans to continue traveling and campaigning in the final stretch to Election Day.

The vice president's office has declined to comment on the total number of Pence aides to test positive for coronavirus in recent days. The New York Times was the first to report on the Pence aides.

The developments raise new questions about safety protocols and transparency within the White House as the pandemic has killed more than 224,000 Americans.

The news comes just over a week before Election Day amid a blitz of campaign stops for Pence, who leads the White House coronavirus task force, including the vice president's trips to Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire in the last week.

Pence, who is known to rarely wear a mask while flying on Air Force Two, traveled on Saturday to Florida for campaign rallies in Lakeland and Tallahassee. The vice president walked across the tarmac from Marine Two in a mask and boarded Air Force Two about an hour behind schedule.

Pence emerged maskless from Air Force Two in Florida, running down the steps and jogging across the tarmac, fist pumping as he approached the podium. The vice president's office released the statement on Short moments after Pence landed back at Andrews Air Force Base.

"Today, Marc Short, Chief of Staff to the Vice President, tested positive for COVID-19, began quarantine and assisting in the contact tracing process," Pence's press secretary Devin O'Malley said in a statement Saturday. "Vice President Pence and Mrs. Pence both tested negative for COVID-19 today, and remain in good health."

On Saturday, a source familiar with the matter told CNN that Obst tested positive for coronavirus earlier this week. Despite Obst recently traveling with Pence, the White House did not disclose or confirm the information about his positive test several days ago, another source familiar with the situation told CNN.

Short has been seen on the campaign trail actively eschewing the use of masks for months, including earlier this week traveling aboard Air Force Two. Neither Pence nor Short wore a mask on Pence's trip on Thursday and Friday.
 
It's all pretty much just guesswork at present. It seems that convalescent plasma and at least some of the monoclonal antibodies in testing don't have any positive effect on hospitalised patients as hoped/expected so it's going to be fingers-crossed that the various vaccines are of some use. If not, back to square one. Would be nice to have a more successful treatment available than dexamethasone if this proved to be the case.

The Phase III trials of vaccines are being so rushed in comparison to what normally happens, we're still going to be guessing exactly how effective they are for another year or two regardless. If they provide partial or short-term protection, we're going to have to work out better ways to deal with the virus in future years because the 'new normal' with social distancing really isn't sustainable longer-term for a virus which isn't particularly deadly in historical terms. It might be that better testing will end up being the only way forward either through techniques suggested by Michael Mina or other advancement in technology. I see a good amount of media coverage about dogs being trained to identify those infected with Covid-19 pretty accurately due to their 'smell' but, if this is correct, surely technology could be used to do something similar?

Most of the eggs to deal with the virus are in the vaccine basket at the moment so it's a pity that we won't be seeing any 'Operation Warp Speed' for other ways of dealing with the pandemic.
 
Fauci reportedly said today that he doesn't expect vaccines, at least the first ones, to prevent infection. The goal is to prevent infections from getting serious and needing hospital care, including eventually ICU.

Reason would be that any neutralizing antibodies which they cause the body to generate either do not reach the upper respiratory tract or if they do, they don't last long enough to kill the virus there and prevent it from spreading to the rest of the body, including the lungs.

But once they reach other parts of the body, the antibodies would be able to slow or stop replication.


It's not understood yet but the the viral load seems to be a factor in how badly one gets sick. Some researchers have been tracking viral load of those infected for months and the good news is that it's decreasing, which may be due to distancing and mask usage or some other factors that they don't know about.

A team of physicians and researchers led by Pranatharthi Chandrasekar, M.D., Wayne State University School of Medicine professor of Internal Medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, found that the viral load in nasopharyngeal samples in patients with COVID-19 decreased as the pandemic continued, and that the decline was associated with a decrease in the rate of death from the disease.

Presented virtually at the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Conference on Coronavirus Disease Sept. 23-25, the study showed that the decline in the viral load was associated with a decrease in the death rate of those infected with COVID-19 during the period between April 4 and June 5.

“A decline in the initial viral load on presentation may represent a decrease in the exposure to the virus after widespread implementation of social distancing measures and use of facemasks in public,” said Said El Zein, M.D., junior chief medical resident in the Wayne State University Deparatment of Internal Medicine, who presented the study. “A link between viral load and mortality has been suggested in multiple studies, therefore, this decline in viral load may reflect a decrease in mortality from the virus. In our study, we noticed that a declining viral load was associated in a linear fashion with decreasing death rates, however, an association between viral load and mortality cannot be assumed because we did not account for confounding variables.”

While the exact reason for the decrease in the initial viral load are unclear, Dr. El Zein said, the decreasing trend in the initial viral load could represent a reduction in the severity of the pandemic, with trends over time serving as a marker to assess the progress of the pandemic. He again stressed that rapid implementation of lockdown, social distancing and the widespread use of masks may have contributed to a decrease in exposures.
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https://today.wayne.edu/medicine/new...ogressed-40736

But it's important research, to try to understand the dose or thresholds which causes infection and which may determine how sick someone becomes.
 
I think the indications are that masking helps a lot by reducing the viral load. The large outbreaks found in food processing and meat packing plants where masking is required and enforced tend to end up with mostly asymptomatic infections.

Would be somewhat helpful if these mild, asymptomatic cases provided long-lasting protection from the virus!

That said, infections are really exploding once again in most countries. 367 deaths reported in the UK yesterday which is the highest number since back in late May. Certainly wouldn't indicate that it is becoming less dangerous for those most vulnerable.
 
There was an article on NPR. Death rates on both sides of the Atlantic are about 15% lower since the spring.

Doctors have become better at treating it, even though there are no bullet-proof drugs. The current infections are mostly of younger populations first before they migrate to older age groups. And maybe distancing and masks are helping at the margins.
 
Arnold Beckenbauer said:
Yesterday France had twice as many deaths on monday (523 vs. 257).
Click to expand...
That figure has been corrected: it's 288 daily deaths in hospitals plus 235 deaths over 4 days in "social" structures (such as houses for elder people) (link in French).

I'm afraid we'll likely get strict lockdown announced this evening by Macron.

EDIT: lockdown confirmed until at least Dec 1st.
 
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The weird thing? Even though the numbers are going off the charts where I'm at and all the places around me people are STILL not following social distancing/mask wearing common sense and are doing chin diapers and still planning on trick or treating this Saturday.

I literally feel like the world around me has gone mad and me and my family are some of the few sane ones, although I know that's not true and it's not really THAT bad...but it sure feels like it at times.

Forgive me, I went to Costco today. Just observing people convinced me we're REALLY gonna get nailed soon and the sky rocketing numbers of today are gonna seem like the good old days in a month or so. :(
 

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information control in covid case is crazy.
a politician was taken in a hospital, confirmed as covid. but no news at all.
a few days before this, he was campaigning and singing without wearing mask (so those people around him probably are in high risk of contagion).
 
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2026913
As SARS-CoV-2 continues its global spread, it’s possible that one of the pillars of Covid-19 pandemic control — universal facial masking — might help reduce the severity of disease and ensure that a greater proportion of new infections are asymptomatic. If this hypothesis is borne out, universal masking could become a form of “variolation” that would generate immunity and thereby slow the spread of the virus in the United States and elsewhere, as we await a vaccine.
 
https://twitter.com/x/status/1323310979858325509

From the PDF: COVID-19 Artificial Intelligence Diagnosis using only Cough Recordings
"AI techniques can produce a free, non-invasive, real-time, any-time, instantly distributable, large-scale COVID-19 asymptomatic screening tool to augment current approaches in containing the spread of COVID-19. Practical use cases could be for daily screening of students, workers, and public as schools, jobs, and transport reopen, or for pool testing to quickly alert of outbreaks in groups."
 
yes I read about that, seems too good to be true, success rate higher than the typical methods of detection.
But would be brilliant if it pans out
 
I have (had?) the virus. My father got sick at around the same time my youngest (who goes to daycare) got a runny nose, so we don't which one got it first. Then my mother got symptoms then me, then my wife aaand it all went to shit pretty fast about a week and a half ago. We're all fine now though. AMA about the sickness if you want.

In general, 0/10 would recommend, especially if you're sick with the virus while having to care for a 5 year-old and a 14 month-old.
Loss of smell is great for changing diapers but terrible for cooking.
 
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