This site is purty good on the basics, Invader. At least thats what I’ve been told. See the actual link. I just cut and pasted a bit of it.
Its ‘mutating’ btw. Two distinct strains as of now, from what i read from a Doc on a message board.

link:https://emcrit.org/ibcc/covid19/

basics

COVID-19 is a non-segmented, positive sense RNA virus.
COVID-19 is part of the family of coronaviruses. This contains:
(i) Four coronaviruses which are widely distributed and usually cause the common cold (but can cause viral pneumonia in patients with comorbidities).
(ii) SARS and MERS – these caused epidemics with high mortality which are somewhat similar to COVID-19. COVID-19 is most closely related to SARS.
It binds via the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor located on type II alveolar cells and intestinal epithelia (Hamming 2004).
This is the same receptor as used by SARS (hence the technical name for the COVID-19, “SARS-CoV-2”).
When considering possible therapies, SARS (a.k.a. “SARS-CoV-1”) is the most closely related virus to COVID-19.
COVID-19 is mutating, which may complicate matters even further (figure below). Virulence and transmission will shift over times, in ways which we cannot predict. New evidence suggests that there are roughly two different groups of COVID-19. This explains why initial reports from Wuhan described a higher mortality than some more recent case series (Tang et al. 2020; Xu et al 2020).
(Ongoing phylogenetic mapping of new strains can be found here.)
———–

stages of illness ??

There seem to be different stages of illness that patients may move through.
(#1) Replicative stage – Viral replication occurs over a period of several days. An innate immune response occurs, but this response fails to contain the virus. Relatively mild symptoms may occur due to direct viral cytopathic effect and innate immune responses.
(#2) Adaptive immunity stage – An adaptive immune response eventually kicks into gear. This leads to falling titers of virus. However, it may also increase levels of inflammatory cytokines and lead to tissue damage – causing clinical deterioration. There is a suggestion that this could lead to virus-induced hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH)(Mehta et al.). More discussion about this entity and possible therapy here.
This progression may explain the clinical phenomenon wherein patients are relatively OK for several days, but then suddenly deteriorate when they enter the adaptive immunity stage (e.g. Young et al. 3/3/2020).
This has potentially important clinical implications:
Initial clinical symptoms aren’t necessarily predictive of future deterioration. Sophisticated strategies may be required to guide risk-stratification and disposition (see below section on prognosis).
Anti-viral therapies might need to be deployed early to work optimally (during the replicative stage).
Immunosuppressive therapy (e.g. low-dose steroid) might be best initiated during the adaptive immune stage (with a goal of blunting this immunopathologic response slightly, in the sickest patients). But this is purely speculative.

transmission

(back to contents)
large droplet transmission

COVID-19 transmission can occur via large droplet transmission (with a risk limited to ~6 feet from the patient)(Carlos del Rio 2/28).
This is typical for respiratory viruses such as influenza.
Transmission via large droplet transmission can be prevented by using a standard surgical-style mask.

airborne transmission ??

It’s controversial whether COVID19 can be transmitted via an airborne route (small particles which remain aloft in the air for longer periods of time). Airborne transmission would imply the need for N95 masks (“FFP2” in Europe), rather than surgical masks. This controversy is explored further in Shiu et al 2019.
Airborne precautions started being used with MERS and SARS out of an abundance of caution (rather than any clear evidence that coronaviruses are transmitted via an airborne route). This practice has often been carried down to COVID19.
Guidelines disagree about whether to use airborne precautions:
The Canadian Guidelines and World Health Organization guidelines both recommend using only droplet precautions for routine care of COVID19 patients. However, both of these guidelines recommend airborne precautions for procedures which generate aerosols (e.g. intubation, noninvasive ventilation, CPR, bag-mask ventilation, and bronchoscopy).
The United States CDC recommends using airborne precautions all the time when managing COVID19 patients.
Using airborne precautions for all patients who are definitely or potentially infected with COVID19 will likely result in rapid depletion of N95 masks. This will leave healthcare providers unprotected when they actually need these masks for aerosol-generating procedures.
In the context of a pandemic, the Canadian and WHO guidelines may be more sensible in countries with finite resources (i.e. most locales). However, infection control is ultimately local, so be sure to follow your hospital’s guidance regarding this.

contact transmission (“fomite-to-face”)

This mode of transmission has a tendency to get overlooked, but it may be incredibly important. This is how it works:
(i) Someone with coronavirus coughs, emitting large droplets containing the virus. Droplets settle on surfaces in the room, creating a thin film of coronavirus. The virus may be shed in nasal secretions as well, which could be transmitted to the environment.
(ii) The virus persists on fomites in the environment. Human coronaviruses can survive on surfaces for up to about a week (Kampf et al 2020). It’s unknown how long COVID-19 can survive in the environment, but it might be even longer (some animal coronaviruses can survive for weeks!).
(iii) Someone else touches the contaminated the surface hours or days later, transferring the virus to their hands.
(iv) If the hands touch a mucous membrane (eyes, nose, or mouth), this may transmit the infection.
Any effort to limit spread of the virus must block contact transmission. The above chain of events can be disrupted in a variety of ways:
(a) Regular cleaning of environmental surfaces (e.g. using 70% ethanol or 0.5% sodium hypochlorite solutions; for details see Kampf et al 2020 and CDC guidelines).
(b) Hand hygiene (high concentration ethanol neutralizes the virus and is easy to perform, so this might be preferable if hands aren’t visibly soiled)(Kampf 2017).
(c) Avoidance of touching your face. This is nearly impossible, as we unconsciously touch our faces constantly. The main benefit of wearing a surgical mask could be that the mask acts as a physical barrier to prevent touching the mouth or nose.
Any medical equipment could become contaminated with COVID-19 and potentially transfer virus to providers (e.g. stethoscope earpieces and shoes). A recent study found widespread deposition of COVID-19 in one patient’s room, but fortunately this seems to be removable by cleaning with sodium dichloroisocyanurate (Ong et al 2020).

when can transmission occur?

(#1) Asymptomatic transmission (in people with no or minimal symptoms) appears to be possible (Carlos del Rio 2/28).
(#2) Transmission appears to occur over roughly ~8 days following the initiation of illness.
Patients may continue to have positive pharyngeal PCR for weeks after convalescence (Lan 2/27). However, virus culture methods are unable to recover viable virus after ~8 days of clinical illness (Wolfel 2020). This implies that prolonged PCR positivity probably doesn’t correlate with clinical virus transmission. However, all subjects in Wolfel et al. had mild illness, so it remains possible that prolonged transmission could occur in more severe cases.
CDC guidance is vague on how long patients with known COVID-19 should be isolated. It may be advisable to obtain two paired RT-PCR tests (one of the nasopharynx and one of the pharynx), with each pair collected >24 hours apart, prior to discontinuing precautions.

R⌀

R⌀ is the average number of people that an infected person transmits the virus to.
If R⌀ is <1, the epidemic will burn out.
If R⌀ = 1, then epidemic will continue at a steady pace.
If R⌀ >1, the epidemic will increase exponentially.
Current estimates put R⌀ at ~2.5-2.9 (Peng PWH et al, 2/28). This is a bit higher than seasonal influenza.
R⌀ is a reflection of both the virus and also human behavior. Interventions such as social distancing and improved hygiene will decrease R⌀.
Control of spread of COVID-19 in China proves that R⌀ is a modifiable number that can be reduced by effective public health interventions.
The R⌀ on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship was 15 – illustrating that cramped quarters with inadequate hygiene will increase R⌀ (Rocklov 2/28).

Right.

And Dem Voters prefer the guy who doesnt want Medicare For ALL.

Biden-Voters are lucky that I am not GOD.

w
v

Mackeyser wrote:

Forming an actual progressive if not fully left third party. Not sure if it should be the Progressive Party, the People’s Party or something else. It’s worth the effort because the Dems will NEVER give an inch to the left or even move back just to the center. They’re a center right corporate neolib neocon party and as long as they have corporate backers so that they don’t have to answer to the people, they won’t.

====================

Thanks for posting, Mack. I know the site is super-slow, etc, but itz all we got 🙂

At any rate, we already got a progressive party. The one Jill Stein and Ralph Nader ran on — Green Party.

Now, what would happen if, instead of getting the usual 2 percent of the vote, the Green Party was able to command 7 or 8 percent. Or somethin like that. It wouldnt take that many Dem-Progressives to do that.

That would mean the Progressives would have some clout. The Dems would HAVE to make deals if they wanted to win these close elections with the Thugs.

Now maybe its not the time for that. Maybe voting for the Imperalist-mass-murderer-Biden, and thus beating the Biosphere-murderer-Trump is more important this time around. I dont know. But I for one, would LOVE to see Prog-Dems start a dialogue WITH the Green Party and at the very least THREATEN to join. Start a movement. Make the switch. Get millions to switch. Whats the fucking down side to that? None. The greens could always still do the lesser evil thing in the general election if they wanted to.

I could go on 🙂

Btw, most of us around here are fucking OLD. Some of us might not make it thru this Pandemic. Let us be grateful for the time we have spent ranting about injustice, together 🙂 Carry on, All.

w
v

Governement Virus-policies will help the wealthy more than the poor,
naturally.

Mark Mane La Flare@BossmanJiggetts
Rest of the NBA season got cancelled so I went downstairs and talked to my family. They seem like nice people.

==============

LoL.

w
v

zn wrote:

So you don’t have to worry about people here making an “ideological choice” against a guy they otherwise know to be a solid candidate. Far from it. That is not what’s happening.

…

========================

I think Biden can beat Trump. It would be very close. Biden has the backing of the National-Security-State and all the usual Banks and Corporations and various parts of the Corporate-Capitalist Death-Machine. Absolutely, he can win. He just needs a few more votes than his counterpart, Hillary. And he should get them, if more Blacks turn out this time.

His Mental Deterioration will not bother Older voters, i dont think. Heck they might find it endearing, the way voters found Bush’s stupidity endearing.

If he does lose, it will be because Progressives just couldnt vote for another mass-murderer. 🙂 Will Progressives vote for him in numbers? He’s already giving lip-service to progressives and bernie etc. Biden’s people know who they need. I ‘think’ enough progressives will vote for him that he will win. (I wont be voting for a mass-murderer myself, but blah blah blah)

So, yeah Biden will beat Trump, I think.

I also think Bernie could beat Trump. But Biden will be the nominee now as we all know.

Centrists can label a vote a “statement” vote whatever that means, but thats just the centrist-mindset at work. I vote my conscience. I wont vote for a mass-murderer. Biden was part of Obama’s Drone-murder scheme, etc. Either murder matters or it doesnt.

w
v

Italy:https://internationalliving.com/countries/italy/health-care-in-italy/

Overview of Italian Healthcare

Italy ranks among the World Health Organization’s top 10 countries for quality health services (by contrast, the U.S. only holds 37th place, despite being the highest spender). However, although medical facilities are considered to be adequate for any emergencies, some public hospitals are reportedly overcrowded and under-funded.

Of course, you don’t have to rely solely on public health facilities. Like many Italians, you can avail of the parallel private medical service—known as the assicurazione sulla salute—that caters for patients covered by private medical insurance.

However, in some small towns, particularly in the south, you will only be able to access the public health system—private doctors and hospitals congregate in bigger cities where residents are more likely to have private medical insurance.

According to rankings, the best medical care, especially in an emergency situation, is likely to be found in the northern hospitals in cities like Milan and in central Italy near or in Rome. Reportedly, English-speaking doctors are particularly easy to come by in Rome and Milan as well.
Italian Health Insurance

Italy has a national health plan (Servizio Sanitario Nazionale), which provides for hospital and medical benefits. In Italy, healthcare is considered a right and the national health plan is designed to provide for all Italian citizens and residents, including U.S. and Canadian citizens who are legal residents of Italy.

With the Servizio Sanitario Nazionale most care is free or low-cost, including consults with a general physician, hospital visits, lab work, and medications. However, each region is responsible for managing its own care, so expect differences between regions and carefully research the specific region you want to retire in.
Healthcare Costs in Italy

Though costs vary based on a number of factors including region and whether you have private insurance or not, expats report costs as reasonable. One expat couple based in the south reports paying just $236 per year to cover their health insurance. And hospital visits are reportedly free in urgent cases. In non-urgent cases, a small co-pay may be expected.
Pharmacies and Medication

For over-the-counter medications in Italy, you’ll need to visit a pharmacy. These are standalone shops and unlike in the US, you won’t find them in grocery stores. Look for the large green cross (often lit up) and you’ll find your nearest pharmacy. Pharmacists in Italy are used to consulting with patients, so if you aren’t sure what kind of medication you need or what the equivalent of an American brand is here in Italy, ask the pharmacist. In general, you’ll find many of them speak English very well.

Facebook437
Twitter
Resources

Centrist after Hillary Lost to the Idiot: “It was BERNIES fault. He didnt support Hillary enough. Dam Progressives.
————-

Centrist after Biden Loses to the Idiot: “It was BERNIES fault. He didnt support Biden enough. Dam Progressives. Whats wrong with THEM…

Oh, and “The Russians, it was the Russians, again…”

Etc,

w
v