Where's the petri dish thread?

[seahawk]

Birx: You can't tell who has the virus and many people don't show symptoms.

Also Birx: People who don't feel well won't go to church.

I've said it since the beginning of the "task force", Fauci and Birx are brilliant and yet they say and do stupid things. I know that's pretty much true of every "brilliant" person.
That was something I started to let sink in way too late in my life, that it's possible for people who are a lot smarter than me - to be dumber than me in many ways too.

Reading through the lines about Birx's background, I'm guessing that Birx's "brilliance" is largely based in her evangelical based efforts in Africa to ensure that women don't get contraception or abortions and that young African women are taught that Abstinence Only is necessary and that condoms are bad.

[Deleted User 289]

Base it on whatever you choose. I'll admit to my being intrigued by her. Not because of the topic she speaks about so much as it's because I can't figure out her accent. It's a mix of eastern USA, southern USA, California valley girl, and Jewish American princess. Two of those things have nothing to do with her background.

[ousdahl]

what's a Jewish American princess sound like?

[HouseDivided]

what's a Jewish American princess sound like?

[DCHawk1]

I wonder why some people hate veterans so much.

[Shirley]

As protests against coronavirus restrictions continue, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum made an emotional plea for people not to "mask shame" others who chose to wear them...

[Mjl]

I fear we are going to see some ugly numbers in about 12-20 days

We want the numbers to go slightly up though, right?

Is the end goal to prevent as many people from getting it as possible until there's a vaccine, or is it to not overwhelm the healthcare system?

The current plan in most states seems to be when the numbers dip a bit, open more stuff, wait a few weeks, and open more if they dip again. That seems to make sense.

I dont think we should ever want the numbers to go up. We might expect them top but i dont see a benefit of rising numbers.

Depends on the goal. If it's minimum cases until there's a vaccine then I agree. But if it's to flatten the curve, I would think we'd want to get through this as fast as possible without overwhelming the healthcare system, and from my understanding (could be wrong), the healthcare system is quite a bit under capacity right now.

[Deleted User 289]

I wonder why some people hate veterans so much.

Not sure if that was directed at me or in general.
Speaking for myself, I don't hate Dr. Birx. I respect her for "serving".
I respect the bikers who were at the White House yesterday who have "served".
I respect anyone/everyone who "served" - for "serving".
That being said, there are some veterans who are assholes and who have done some really shitty things. Just like people from all walks of life.

[DCHawk1]

Not you, Gutter

[japhy]

I hope this doesn't interrupt the internal website bickering too much, but it seemed like a good place to put this. Our Saturday morning coffee group got together outside today on some benches and we had an out of town visitor join us. Turns out he is a doctor and distinguished professor of molecular microbiology at a midwestern research hospital, he had just moved here from Cambridge and had been teaching at Harvard and researches viral-host cell interaction whatever the hell that is. So we asked him about Covid cuz he might know sumthin. First off he is very in favor of wearing masks and says that is our best preventative move until there is a vaccine. He is a Brit and was thoroughly baffled by the uproar over the wearing of them. We asked about vaccines and he told us that the coronaviruses as we know them now, all seem to come from a progenitor virus that emerged they think about 300 years ago. MERS, SARS and Covid 19 all came from this single ancestal virus. The ultimate intent is to develop a vaccine that will combat the ancestral virus and then it can provide at least limited immunity to all of the coronavirus including the ones that have not jumped from animals to humans yet. He says there are many other viruses in this family which will someday make the same jump from animal to human and we will go through this again. We asked about the Moderna vaccine. He winced a bit and said he has seen the data that has been released. The information for the 8 patients that showed positive results were very encouraging. What we was troubled by was that there were 27 more patients in the test and Moderna has not released any data on them. He found that unusual and troubling. He thinks we are still at least a year away from a readily available covid vaccine. There may be some antibody treatments (I have no idea what the difference is) that may come about sooner but the production will be limited and it will go to front line hospital workers and high risk populations and it will be awhile before those are available to us little people. We all agreed that the almond croissants from Ibis Bakery are really good. If you wish to disagree on that you are just fucking wrong.....carry on.

[seahawk]

Interesting stuff, japhy.

[Deleted User 310]

Yes. Interesting stuff. My wifes cousin worked in a lab that was involved in creating vaccines for many years and shes been a good source of info for me during this time as far as how the vaccine testing process goes..

They had a good bit on CNN last night about the difference between having antibodies and having antibodies that will protect you from infection...it sounds like the moderna vaccine has some promising results of antibodies that prevent infection....but i think everyone is still skeptical about the ability to safely rush this thru AND have it be highly effective. Especially against a coronavirus that we have historically been ineffective at producing vaccines for. Not to mention if it begins to mutate then that hurts the chances of an effective vaccine.

[HouseDivided]

Yes. Interesting stuff. My wifes cousin worked in a lab that was involved in creating vaccines for many years and shes been a good source of info for me during this time as far as how the vaccine testing process goes..

They had a good bit on CNN last night about the difference between having antibodies and having antibodies that will protect you from infection...it sounds like the moderna vaccine has some promising results of antibodies that prevent infection....but i think everyone is still skeptical about the ability to safely rush this thru AND have it be highly effective. Especially against a coronavirus that we have historically been ineffective at producing vaccines for. Not to mention if it begins to mutate then that hurts the chances of an effective vaccine.

Plus, we have almost six more months until the election, so it has to be dragged out considerably longer.

[Shirley]

Tomorrow morning's New York Times front page.

Important to remember that the numbers have names. The names have loved ones. Here are the names:

[Deleted User 62]

Yes. Interesting stuff. My wifes cousin worked in a lab that was involved in creating vaccines for many years and shes been a good source of info for me during this time as far as how the vaccine testing process goes..

They had a good bit on CNN last night about the difference between having antibodies and having antibodies that will protect you from infection...it sounds like the moderna vaccine has some promising results of antibodies that prevent infection....but i think everyone is still skeptical about the ability to safely rush this thru AND have it be highly effective. Especially against a coronavirus that we have historically been ineffective at producing vaccines for. Not to mention if it begins to mutate then that hurts the chances of an effective vaccine.

Plus, we have almost six more months until the election, so it has to be dragged out considerably longer.

If the smartest guy in the world can't save us....then who?

[HouseDivided]

Yes. Interesting stuff. My wifes cousin worked in a lab that was involved in creating vaccines for many years and shes been a good source of info for me during this time as far as how the vaccine testing process goes..

They had a good bit on CNN last night about the difference between having antibodies and having antibodies that will protect you from infection...it sounds like the moderna vaccine has some promising results of antibodies that prevent infection....but i think everyone is still skeptical about the ability to safely rush this thru AND have it be highly effective. Especially against a coronavirus that we have historically been ineffective at producing vaccines for. Not to mention if it begins to mutate then that hurts the chances of an effective vaccine.

Plus, we have almost six more months until the election, so it has to be dragged out considerably longer.

If the smartest guy in the world can't save us....then who?

To whom are you referring?

[Deleted User 62]

Plus, we have almost six more months until the election, so it has to be dragged out considerably longer.

If the smartest guy in the world can't save us....then who?

To whom are you referring?

Duh, Dear Leader

[HouseDivided]

If the smartest guy in the world can't save us....then who?

To whom are you referring?

Duh, Dear Leader

Well, there’s your first mistake: expecting the government to save you.

[Deleted User 62]

To whom are you referring?

Duh, Dear Leader

Well, there’s your first mistake: expecting the government to save you.

If I were counting on anything from anyone, it wouldn't be that fucking idiot.

[HouseDivided]

Duh, Dear Leader

Well, there’s your first mistake: expecting the government to save you.

If I were counting on anything from anyone, it wouldn't be that fucking idiot.

Really? I had no idea you felt that way.