The biology of a pandemic is the least important part

[Bootsie]

2 hours ago, Corraleno said:

Here is the full quote from the transcript:

"The biology of a pandemic organism is almost the least important part of the pandemic. Lots of different organisms can cause pandemics, it's human behaviour that causes a pandemic. It's the way we live, the way we act, the way politics works, the way international travel works, that's what creates a pandemic."

 

Thanks for the quote.  A would be more likely to agree with this than the way the statement was originally posed.  

This same line or reasoning could be used for many things.  Much of the destruction, for example, from an earthquake is not due to the physical properties of the earthquake; the destruction is due to the way we live and the way we act.  We build buildings to live in and bridges to drive on which fall on people during an earthquake.  We run gas lines to homes which cause fires during an earthquake.  

We build cities near coastlines.  We live near water sources.  We build port cities for international trade.  That creates destruction when a hurricane occurs.  

 

[Ausmumof3]

Apologies.  The original statement I post was from his Friday podcast, the second link was from Wednesday.  I realised that the shorter version he said on Friday was probably a little short to convey everything he meant in the original podcast so to be fair went back and found the original link with more detail.  I thought the whole concept was interesting and have been turning it over.  I appreciate the Hives input to help clarify my thoughts on it.

[TravelingChris]

15 hours ago, Corraleno said:

Zika and West Nile have never been considered pandemics. I don't know about dengue fever. But I think it was pretty clear that Swann was talking about pandemic diseases with human-human transmission, not diseases that cannot be transmitted without an animal vector. 

Pandemic designation is political, not scientific.  Not that WHO didn;t declare Coronavirus a pandemic until March.

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, TravelingChris said:

Pandemic designation is political, not scientific.  Not that WHO didn;t declare Coronavirus a pandemic until March.

Well, it's not a precise definition, anyway. But I don't know if that makes it political. 

[Ausmumof3]

51 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

Thanks for the quote.  A would be more likely to agree with this than the way the statement was originally posed.  

This same line or reasoning could be used for many things.  Much of the destruction, for example, from an earthquake is not due to the physical properties of the earthquake; the destruction is due to the way we live and the way we act.  We build buildings to live in and bridges to drive on which fall on people during an earthquake.  We run gas lines to homes which cause fires during an earthquake.  

We build cities near coastlines.  We live near water sources.  We build port cities for international trade.  That creates destruction when a hurricane occurs.  

 

Also true for bushfires.  Etc.  natural disasters happen but planning, preparedness, practices responses can make a huge difference.

[TravelingChris]

15 hours ago, Spy Car said:

The FDA has warned people not to take hydroxychloroquine and pushing it on this forum is reckless and irresponsible IMO.

Bill

Where in that post did I say for people who aren't prescribed Hydroxychloroquine to go and demand it.  I mentioned that I take a number of drugs that have been used to treat COVID so are you saying that you know what I am taking and for what reason?????  I am not taking anything to prevent COVID and except for urging people to get their VItamin D tested and supplemented, haven't been urging anyone to take Plaquenil  and absolutely nothing I said in this thread was about what medications I think should or should not be used in the treatment of COVID. 

You are totally out of line here.

[TravelingChris]

10 hours ago, Pawz4me said:

@TravelingChrismay be referring to something other than HCQ. Other medications that are used to treat autoimmune inflammatory conditions have shown promise in reducing the severity of Covid, particularly in preventing the development of cytokine storms. TNF inhibitors are one example; there may be others. My rheumatologist, who is a careful, sane practitioner and who was very much against the HCQ fiasco, believes that the studies on TNF inhibitors show promise.

I am taking at least 6 drugs that have been used or are being used-- Only one is Plaquenil and I take 5 for autoimmune reasons and 1 for partially genetic and partially autoimmune reasons.  And I was not telling anyone to take anything.

[TravelingChris]

14 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Another factor where I think human behaviour maybe came in to it was in the initial stages where the virus appears to have got started and distributed due to it being covered up in Wuhan.  And presumably the initial jump from animal species was in some way driven by human behaviour although we still don’t know how of course.

 

That part of human behavior I do agree could be the main cause.  But still it is a combo of biology- a bat virus that I believe was probably enhanced by humans (so yes, human behavior) and then it spread.  But a lot of the spread, especially early on, was not based on any changed human behavior since no one knew what was going on.

And we still don't know very much.  A study came out last week that it is the asymptomatic kids who spread the most and I don't know if that is also true of asymptomatic adults.  And since many people have no idea they came in contact with anyone who had it and particularly if the person was asymptomatic, they do not quarantine,  Cause how are you going to know that a person in line at grocery store or pharmacy is actually asymptomatic (and they are wearing an inadequate mask) and you are also wearing an inadequate mask though maybe more adequate than the asymptomatic person, and you get coronavirus 6 days later.  You may have well been in several places in the potential infection timespread and since that person wasn't coughing, wasn't looking like death warmed over, etc, you will have no idea that they spread it.  And that asymptomatic person has no idea either,  After all, currently it is almost only symptomatic people being tested except some professions (sports, for example, who get very frequent tests), some college students and staff, and some people for travel or work.  But there are always shortages of the test and many tests are totally unreliable.

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, TravelingChris said:

A study came out last week that it is the asymptomatic kids who spread the most and I don't know if that is also true of asymptomatic adults. 

I don't think it's supposed to be true of asymptomatic adults. Mind linking the one about kids? I thought practically all kids were close to asymptomatic, anyway? 

[Ausmumof3]

4 minutes ago, TravelingChris said:

That part of human behavior I do agree could be the main cause.  But still it is a combo of biology- a bat virus that I believe was probably enhanced by humans (so yes, human behavior) and then it spread.  But a lot of the spread, especially early on, was not based on any changed human behavior since no one knew what was going on.

And we still don't know very much.  A study came out last week that it is the asymptomatic kids who spread the most and I don't know if that is also true of asymptomatic adults.  And since many people have no idea they came in contact with anyone who had it and particularly if the person was asymptomatic, they do not quarantine,  Cause how are you going to know that a person in line at grocery store or pharmacy is actually asymptomatic (and they are wearing an inadequate mask) and you are also wearing an inadequate mask though maybe more adequate than the asymptomatic person, and you get coronavirus 6 days later.  You may have well been in several places in the potential infection timespread and since that person wasn't coughing, wasn't looking like death warmed over, etc, you will have no idea that they spread it.  And that asymptomatic person has no idea either,  After all, currently it is almost only symptomatic people being tested except some professions (sports, for example, who get very frequent tests), some college students and staff, and some people for travel or work.  But there are always shortages of the test and many tests are totally unreliable.

I think we have more idea down here because they test contacts and close contacts etc so they can map actual spread patterns, which is hard when you have more community transmission going on.  

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, Ausmumof3 said:

I think we have more idea down here because they test contacts and close contacts etc so they can map actual spread patterns, which is hard when you have more community transmission going on.  

Yeah, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea have been the places I've gotten data from. They have much better data than the US, which is failing at contact tracing its massive outbreak. 

[Corraleno]

39 minutes ago, TravelingChris said:

Pandemic designation is political, not scientific.  Not that WHO didn;t declare Coronavirus a pandemic until March.

WHO is not the sole arbiter of what does or doesn't count as a pandemic. The timing of WHO's announcement may or may not have been political, but there were certainly scientists and epidemiologists calling it that before WHO did. I like this definition of pandemic:

"A pandemic describes an infectious disease where we see significant and ongoing person-to-person spread in multiple countries around the world at the same time. Pandemics are more likely if a virus is brand new, able to infect people easily, and can spread from person-to-person in an efficient and sustained way."

The reason Zika, West Nile, and even malaria are not, and have never been, considered pandemics is because they are endemic to certain areas and they rely on a specific animal vector for transmission, so they cannot spread rapidly world-wide via human-to-human contact. 

[TravelingChris]

19 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Yeah, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea have been the places I've gotten data from. They have much better data than the US, which is failing at contact tracing its massive outbreak. 

Because the only way we could gave good contact testing is with cell phones 

[Corraleno]

15 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Well true although I always learned that people throwing rubbish in the streets meant more rats and more fleas so arguably human behaviour was a factor.  But my knowledge of that is not in depth, so I may be wrong.

Plague is also transmitted directly from person to person.

[Not_a_Number]

7 minutes ago, TravelingChris said:

Because the only way we could gave good contact testing is with cell phones 

I don't think that's what they are doing (at least not all of it?) They just have smaller numbers. 

Edited December 13, 2020 by Not_a_Number

[SKL]

22 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

I keep thinking about it and I think it states a truth - that behaviour is important.

I kind of understand this view because I grew up like this.  Staying home or resting up when you were sick was seen as a kind of weakness too.  But I wonder if we’d have this discussion if it was bubonic plague for example?  At some point there has to be a threshold.  We don’t go handle wild animals without taking precautions against disease for example.  Is that living in fear?

Clearly behavior is important, but that is not what he said.  I was responding to the quoted words.

[SKL]

1 hour ago, TravelingChris said:

I am taking at least 6 drugs that have been used or are being used-- Only one is Plaquenil and I take 5 for autoimmune reasons and 1 for partially genetic and partially autoimmune reasons.  And I was not telling anyone to take anything. ,

My mom just told me that an antiviral drug she has been taking to ward off further serious eye problems has been found to protect against Covid.  (And it isn't HCQ either.)

[Ausmumof3]

18 minutes ago, SKL said:

Clearly behavior is important, but that is not what he said.  I was responding to the quoted words.

Yeah I think I did a disservice by snipping the quote sorry

[Ausmumof3]

23 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I don't think that's what they are doing (at least not all of it?) They just have smaller numbers. 

 No the COVID safe app was pretty much a failure.  It has all been manual trace and test, interview, advise locations, interview again.  They have brought out the QR code check in but it’s only just started so who knows if it works or not.

 

[Not_a_Number]

13 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

 No the COVID safe app was pretty much a failure.  It has all been manual trace and test, interview, advise locations, interview again.  They have brought out the QR code check in but it’s only just started so who knows if it works or not.

I think Korea is the one that used those a ton. I did download the NY one, but I don't think it gets anywhere near enough use. 

New Zealand had small numbers and lots of testing and tracing. They also do genomic analysis to help trace, I know. Those are all things that only work with a small outbreak, though. 

[Not_a_Number]

19 minutes ago, SKL said:

My mom just told me that an antiviral drug she has been taking to ward off further serious eye problems has been found to protect against Covid.  (And it isn't HCQ either.)

Oh yeah, which one? 

[wathe]

38 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

Plague is also transmitted directly from person to person.

That's really rare though (to the point that human to human transmission by aerosols remains controversial), and low pandemic potential - primary pneumonic plague ((plague acquired by inhaling aerosols from an infected animal or human) victims get sick fast, and die fast.  Plague is almost always spread by fleas, and most pneumonic plague cases are secondary (spread to the lungs inside one's own body after being bitten by and infected flea).

[TravelingChris]

42 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I don't think that's what they are doing (at least not all of it?) They just have smaller numbers. 

Yes. I know they aren't using cell phones because they have such small numbers of people. The only way we could do it fairly effectively is to use cell phones and that just isn't going to happen.  Too many people don't want it.  And while there are a quite a lot of people who do wear masks who object to cell phone tracking I bet there are a lot more people who are anti-maskers who also are anti-cellphone trackers or even against smart phones 

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, TravelingChris said:

Yes. I know they aren't using cell phones because they have such small numbers of people. The only way we could do it fairly effectively is to use cell phones and that just isn't going to happen.  Too many people don't want it.  And while there are a quite a lot of people who do wear masks who object to cell phone tracking I bet there are a lot more people who are anti-maskers who also are anti-cellphone trackers or even against smart phones 

There is no effective way to contact trace an out of control pandemic. The issue isn't "numbers of people." It's "number of cases per population." 

[Spy Car]

15 minutes ago, TravelingChris said:

Yes. I know they aren't using cell phones because they have such small numbers of people. The only way we could do it fairly effectively is to use cell phones and that just isn't going to happen.  Too many people don't want it.  And while there are a quite a lot of people who do wear masks who object to cell phone tracking I bet there are a lot more people who are anti-maskers who also are anti-cellphone trackers or even against smart phones 

Yep. It gets back to behavior issues. 

Anti-maskers, are anti-trackers, and they will likely be anti-vaxers.

Because of their decisions the virus spreads, the economy suffers, and people die needlessly.

We could have largely beaten this virus with far fewer deaths and less economic destruction. But some quarters did everything they could to advance the harm. It is shameful.

Bill

[TravelingChris]

1 hour ago, SKL said:

Clearly behavior is important, but that is not what he said.  I was responding to the quoted words.

Actually South Korea and Taiwan are doing this

[TravelingChris]

1 hour ago, Not_a_Number said:

There is no effective way to contact trace an out of control pandemic. The issue isn't "numbers of people." It's "number of cases per population." 

It isn't fool proof at all but I have a tracker on my phone and so few people have it that it isn't helping much.  Now something they did just do is have interstate agreements now to alert people.  

But some of us, like me, would stay at home if I found out that for example, two days ago I was in a waiting room with a COVID patient.  Now, since I mask with a well fitting N95 and the waiting rooms are actually very well spread apart and even then, I normally am about 12 to `15ft apart, I may not stay at home for 10 to 14 days if I have no symptoms but 6 or 7 days is what I would do since almost all people become symptomatic before 8 or 9 days.  And again, I wear N95 or even N95 along with some other highly rated like Happy Mask and I am not likely to be transmitting.

[Not_a_Number]

1 hour ago, TravelingChris said:

It isn't fool proof at all but I have a tracker on my phone and so few people have it that it isn't helping much.  Now something they did just do is have interstate agreements now to alert people.  

But some of us, like me, would stay at home if I found out that for example, two days ago I was in a waiting room with a COVID patient.  Now, since I mask with a well fitting N95 and the waiting rooms are actually very well spread apart and even then, I normally am about 12 to `15ft apart, I may not stay at home for 10 to 14 days if I have no symptoms but 6 or 7 days is what I would do since almost all people become symptomatic before 8 or 9 days.  And again, I wear N95 or even N95 along with some other highly rated like Happy Mask and I am not likely to be transmitting.

Yeah, I also have a tracker on my phone. But not enough people are using them. 

[TravelingChris]

7 hours ago, Corraleno said:

Here is the full quote from the transcript:

"The biology of a pandemic organism is almost the least important part of the pandemic. Lots of different organisms can cause pandemics, it's human behaviour that causes a pandemic. It's the way we live, the way we act, the way politics works, the way international travel works, that's what creates a pandemic."

 

No, that isn't true. HIV, which I believe was called a pandemic, was a disease almost totally caused by and perpetuated by very distinct human behaviors- originally eating monkeys or chimps, then having sex w infected people with certain acts or having sex w people who had some specific conditions being more dangerous. Blood transfusions, sharing needles, improper cleaning of medical equipment and mothers passing to the children they bear (not a hundred percent chance of it happening)

Now Covid was in bats before humans and was being studied at  Wuhan lab that was trying to be like the CDC lab here which has very strict safety measures and also studies viruses and bacteria. Now did some bats somehow infect through breathing done animals in the wet market or did the sloppy safety measures at thr Chinese lab lead done worker to get it and start the spread or wad it something even more nefarious?  We don't know, for certain. I believe scenario 2 because not only did our intelligence services think this. but some other gvts think so too.  So there is a matter of initial human behavior but most of the people getting it and spreading it there for probably a few months had no idea about what it was and what to do.  That is because of the behavior of the Chinese Communist Government that refused to warn public, stop the spread in any way, and even jailed doctors that tried to warn. That is the behavior of a limited number of people.

Otoh, why I say biology is more important is because if the virus wasn't spread through aerosol means, didn't have a few day period where there are no symptoms but you are infectious, didn't have a large proportion of people being asymptomatic but still being able to spread, and not having the ability to affect some people in a way to make them super spreaders; we wouldn't be having the severe pandemic we have.