COVID19

[Capslock]

13 minutes ago, nateX said:

From what I have heard, students in other countries have had some hilarious encounters during their online classes, for example, the teacher just showing off a PowerPoint for 5 minutes, wishing everyone good luck and leaving the call.

Quite the thing that happened to me, not during online videocalls but still. My english teacher(I am studying languages and lingustic mediation, that's why it should be important) does that thing though. She makes videos where she just reads from some PowerPoint slides and that's kinda shit. During the videocall the connection is shit too, they do not have good internet so it lags, audio is bad af, sometimes there's an unsopportable echo and stuff.

Other teachers just posted slides with some PDF documents with explanation and that's all. To think that I should have five exams between May and June and this happens.

[nateX]

3 minutes ago, Capslock said:

Quite the thing that happened to me, not during online videocalls but still. My english teacher(I am studying languages and lingustic mediation, that's why it should be important) does that thing though. She makes videos where she just reads from some PowerPoint slides and that's kinda shit. During the videocall the connection is shit too, they do not have good internet so it lags, audio is bad af, sometimes there's an unsopportable echo and stuff.

Other teachers just posted slides with some PDF documents with explanation and that's all. To think that I should have five exams between May and June and this happens.

Yeah lmao some teachers just tell us ''Read page 52-83 in the book and answer the questions'' expecting us to even have the book when in reality all our 12 people in class just use 1 guys book. Poor fella.

 

[Capslock]

3 minutes ago, nateX said:

Yeah lmao some teachers just tell us ''Read page 52-83 in the book and answer the questions'' expecting us to even have the book when in reality all our 12 people in class just use 1 guys book. Poor fella.

 

Same here lol. People either don't have the damn books, or, like a friend of mine, he forgot it in the city where our university is (we rent an apartment there while we live many kilometers away). Some teachers don't even rely on books, they just tell us to study from the material they give us, and that's kinda okay even though live explanation in class is better

[Midsummer Night's Dream]

On 3/27/2020 at 9:11 AM, cracked said:

YES. And they aren't sure, if there are 2 strains of this specific virus, or if there's 1. However it doesn't matter, as export of the "dangerous" strain they're theorizing, not stating, that there might be hasn't been widespread (according to the study), now, for people asking me for a source? Did you even read what I wrote in my first post? Have you never got the flu? Flu is short for influenza. All types of influenza viruses are viruses that you become infected with, beat (or die), and then you are immune to said virus. That's just how it is. There are absolutely no variations here. This is how an influenza virus works.

 

On 3/27/2020 at 9:40 AM, eTaylor said:

You're kidding me right? If you're done with your superficial unsourced armchair virology and immunology, could you actually back your up your statements instead of spreading misinformation? SARS-CoV-2 is NOT the Influenza virus, and COVID-19 is NOT the flu. Coronaviridae have nothing to do with Orthomyxoviridae nor are they even remotely near the same order. Unless you know something that the world scientists don't, I'd really like to see your source. 

 

On 3/27/2020 at 9:52 AM, cracked said:

ok ok chill bud, didn't need to pull your degree out of your ass for this lmao

im not claiming to be an expert, just following common sense

cuz im tired of the panicking that saying things like "it can infect twice" etc causes

 

Cracked is right.

 

What Taylor talking about is called antigenic drift and the similar antigenic shift.  But it’s too early to say whether this virus is capable of antigenic shift or drift like the influenza viruses.

 

So Cracked is right in saying that once you contract the virus, and your immune system develops antibodies, those antibodies will give you immunity.  Whether or not the virus will undergo drift to negate this immunity remains to be seen. 
 

Of course, as someone else alluded to, there was the one case reported in China where a patient did contract it again.  This is not conclusive because — as with most things — there will be outliers.  That one case out of China was very likely an outlier.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 29, 2020 by Midsummer Night's Dream

[eTaylor]

13 minutes ago, Midsummer Night's Dream said:

 

 

 

Cracked is right.

 

What Taylor talking about is called antigenic drift and the similar antigenic shift.  But it’s too early to say whether this virus is capable of antigenic drift like the influenza viruses.

 

So Cracked is right in saying that once you contract the virus, and your immune system develops antibodies, those antibodies will give you immunity.  Whether or not the virus will undergo drift to negate this immunity remains to be seen. 
 

Of course, as someone else alluded to, there was the one case reported in China were a patient did contract it again.  This is not conclusive because — as with most things — there will be outliers.  That one case out of China was very likely an outlier.

 

 

 

 

 

Again, some sources would be fantastic. 

[Portz]

On 3/18/2020 at 2:13 AM, Pascal said:

@Maca has it

Does he actually?

[Midsummer Night's Dream]

On 3/27/2020 at 12:43 PM, eTaylor said:

Again, some sources would be fantastic. 

 

There hasn’t been any recent literature — that I’m aware of — looking into the novel Coronavirus causing the current pandemic, but there is on non-SARS coronaviruses, such as this chapter on Coronviruses from the textbook Goldman-Cecil’s Medicine. Non-SARS coronaviruses include: MERS (which causes disease in humans, and jumped to humans from Egyptian cave bats with camels as the intermediary — so a bat-to-camel-to-human route), equine coronavirus (only causes disease in horses, as the name “equine” suggests), bovine coronavirus (causes disease is cattle), canine coronavirus (dogs), and feline coronavirus (cats), among others.

 

That chapter discusses how these non-SARS coronaviruses are error-prone; and, for this reason, the antibodies developed for them do not confer highly protective immunity — highly protective, for example, would be immunity that lasts a lifetime. Errors during viral replication are what are needed to cause antigenic drift and shift.  The fact that those non-SARS coronaviruses are error-prone suggests they are capable of drift/shift, and so the immunity which antibodies confer does not last very long.

 

But, while other non-SARS coronaviruses are error-prone RNA viruses and so have high mutability, this is not evidence that the current novel Coronavirus will be capable of antigenic drift and shift.  Of course the possibility is there, especially because other non-SARS viruses in the same family are error-prone.  But the presumption should be that surviving an infection and developing antibodies will confer protective immunity until, of course, it is shown otherwise; and it has not yet been shown otherwise.  The presumption should not be that there is no immunity or that a virus which has just jumped to humans will frequently undergo drift/shift.  

(I can try looking for more sources, but I don’t have the time right now)

 

In any case, people should not conflate antigenic drift/shift with virulence — or deadliness.  A virus which is error-prone and undergoes drift or shift does not make it a deadly virus which causes serious acute conditions and quick death.  It must be remembered that all viruses need the host to remain alive in order to replicate — a deceased host is useless to any virus — so strains that are deadly will probably be “deselected” (recall natural selection from the theory of evolution) in favour of less virulent virus strains.  

 

My understanding is that the influenza viruses undergo antigenic drift and shift because we allow them to by allowing them to spread and infect hosts in the population.  A virus needs to have a host to replicate, and needs to replicate to undergo antigenic drift or shift (drift/shift are caused by errors or "mutations" during replication). It is impossible for a virus to replicate outside of a host — much like defying the laws of physics.  So, hypothetically speaking, if everyone were hyper-aware, took infection control and personal hygiene seriously, did not mingle with wildlife or were completely isolated from wildlife and from each other, there would be very little influenza virus spread and so no shift or drift.  But we’ve allowed it to become a part of the human condition by being indifferent or complacent (an e.g. of indifference that’s become ingrained is found in the common phrase “it’s just the flu”).  If we treat this novel Coronavirus the same way, it too may become part of the human condition. 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 29, 2020 by Midsummer Night's Dream

[Princess]

Tbh... I'm just praying for relief at this point. I hope everyone's doing well o/

[kerpele]

On 3/26/2020 at 5:18 PM, Frezemis said:

Call the CDC and/or the department of health. They’ll tell you the same thing they told me. They started testing sites so far but still have to get authorization from your doctor and the ER then the department of health.

thats not really giving out source, not gonna believe you on this one. lol

[Giulio17]

Infected Italian here ?