Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[froot loops]

As long as they get the vaccines out before they expire a lot of the hand wringing will be a waste of time, but the start off hasn't been promising. A lot of what is being promoted as federalism is really an executive branch that's really lazy headed by a guy who is only interested in finding a way to overturn the results.

On a side note, find someone in your life who loves you like Jeff luvs mini-Trump Ronald DeSantis or Lineygoblie loooves Donald Trump.

[lineygoblue]

From the FWIW department:
I gave blood early in December and found out I had the COVID antibodies. I didn't have them in July when I last gave platelets.I will give blood again in early Feb and see if I still have them. I am curious to see how long they show up in my system. My wife went shortly after and she had them too. She went for a test. Rapid test was negative, but the three-day test was positive. That seems to be happening a lot around here, btw. My daughter came home from NYU about the same time. She got a notice that her roommate tested positive so she went to test. She got the three day test, and they fucking lost it so she had to go back a week later and do it again. She finally got her results a couple days ago and was negative.

In hind sight, we think my wife, son and I had it around the last two weeks in November. We all had cold symptoms, sinus headaches, mild coughs, and probably a loss of sense of smell, but it seemed to be kind of routine. We wife and I were exhausted and needed to sleep quite a bit. We thought it was just because we are old and the time change kicked our asses longer than it usually does. None of us ran a fever that we know of. Thinking that we had a seasonal cold, we fought it off with OTC meds and we continued our daily routines. The symptoms lasted about a week- ten days or so. My wife had no symptoms when she had the positive test. None of us had breathing issues.
My son is on the high school basketball team. He had a couple of rough practices where he had no energy and felt terrible. I think his entire team have all had it and and I think that the vast majority of the kids in his school have had it, all with mild or no symptoms. One kid on the basketball team lost his sense of taste and smell and tested positive (negative rapid test, positive three day)


I really don't know what this means other than a lot of people are probably walking around with this shit and don't even know it. At the same time we have friends and know of people that are extremely sick and others who have died, not all of them are old. So it is still a crap-shoot. Hopefully the vaccine roll out will go smoothly.

My wife, my son who lives with us, and I all had a similar situation back in late November 2019. We were sick, with headaches, low grade fevers, and we had that 'loss of taste" symptom as well. I haven't had the antibody test, but I've tested negative three times since May for Covid. I'm wondering if we were in on that leading infection of Covid, and were fortunate enough to have mild cases. We weren't even thinking of Covid at that time. I tallied my symptoms up to a regular flu shot that I had received about a week earlier.

We will get the vaccine as soon as its offered and available to us, but the more information that comes out on this makes it more curious with each passing day

[lineygoblue]

On a side note, find someone in your life who loves you like Jeff luvs mini-Trump Ronald DeSantis or Lineygoblie loooves Donald Trump.

No, Mr. Trump already has enough people who love him.

I'm saving all my love for you, .. you big lug.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Liney...I assume you as an 85 year old was first in line for the vaccine?

[CGVT]

My wife, my son who lives with us, and I all had a similar situation back in late November 2019. We were sick, with headaches, low grade fevers, and we had that 'loss of taste" symptom as well. I haven't had the antibody test, but I've tested negative three times since May for Covid. I'm wondering if we were in on that leading infection of Covid, and were fortunate enough to have mild cases. We weren't even thinking of Covid at that time. I tallied my symptoms up to a regular flu shot that I had received about a week earlier.

We will get the vaccine as soon as its offered and available to us, but the more information that comes out on this makes it more curious with each passing day

They do the antibody test when you give blood. I will probably set up a time to give plasma now that I know. I imagine that is the purpose of them testing.

[lineygoblue]

Liney...I assume you as an 85 year old was first in line for the vaccine?

I assume you need to refocus your strength and energies on siring male offspring.

Either that, or aim for making the 5th best wings in Nebraska.

Your choice.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Wizard's critters are swimming in a circle bro...which is good news for Mrs. Liney...

[Jeff Buchanan]

OK, these personal stories are good.

First, there is the distinct possibility that SARS-COV-2 globally was circulating as early as August, 2019 but reliable sources have not confirmed this. There is a shit-ton of anecdotal evidence that it was circulating a lot earlier than the Chicoms first reported it in December/January.

Since COVID, if you received an RT/PCR test for COVID using an orpharyngeal swab (the deep one) that requires lab processing, it is considered 100% accurate ..... if it was administered, sample collected and processed correctly AND, the virus had a high prevalence rate in your community. There's room for error here but if you tested positive or negative with that test, its overall 97% accurate with 100% accuracy for a positive result and 95% accuracy for a negative result. IOW, it's not a slam-dunk that you were either positive or negative for COVID. Anitbody tests should not be administered to determine if you are COVID positive.

If you received a RAPID Antigen Test (has a deep oropharyngeal swab) is processed in a cassette or machine and produces results in under 20m, the sensitivity and specificity of these tests is just a hair below the RT/PCR test. Same caveats apply wrt it being administered, sample collected and processed correctly AND, the virus had a high prevalence rate in your community.

Second, if you get an antibody test, there are two types: A RAPID Antibody test that uses a nasal swab (not the deep one) and is developed in a cassette with results in 15-20m or a Serology based AB test that requires a blood draw and lab processing that often takes 3d to get results. The ones the public has access to are not 100% specific for the IgG (post infection) or IgM (active infection) ABs. They are 100% sensitive ...... but will light off on many coronavirus variants. So, they are considered around 80% specific for SARS-CoV-2 ABs with 100% specificity for any variant of the coronavirus. It's possible you had a bad "cold" as early as August, 2019 and it wasn't from SARS-CoV-2 and you didn't have COVID-19. Context can help clear up the picture of whether or not you actually had COVID-19.

Most clinicians who are knowledgeable about these intricacies of testing and the importance of context will be honest in terms of advising you on whether you have or had the virus. The probability that an asymptomatic person has COVID drops considerably especially in the setting of low prevalence rates in your community. Symptomatics, OTH, have a higher probability of actually being positive for COVID with either a positive RT/PCR or RAPID Antigen test. High prevalence rates in your community bumps up the probability that a positive results is accurate considerably.

The highest probability that you actually had COVID is having symptoms (even mild ones), a positive RT/PCR or RAPID Antigen test and 2 weeks later (not before) had either type of Antibody test show up positive ..... and that's still not a slam-dunk but it's pretty close.

One more kicker. You'll recall I explained the innate and adaptive immune systems. When you get a positive IgG antibody tests, that is your adaptive immune system probably responding to SARS-COV-2 (caveats apply - it could be that you have IgG ABs to other coronavirus variants already. Recent COVID symptoms lower that probability). But it says nothing about your innate immune response to SARS-COV-2. Those involve your T-Cells and the several types of them, e.g., CD4, CD8, NK.

It is believed that people who get infected with SARS-COV-2 and subsequently develop mild COVID-19 symptoms, have strong innate immunity, the adaptive immune system kicks in without over-reacting (cytokine storm) and recovery occurs in 5-7d. BTW, this is > 90% of people who get this shit. It's unfortunate that the virus is really infectious, spreads easily and 10% still get really sick and around 2% die. That's a lot of really sick and dead people when case numbers are as high as they are globally and in the US. But context is still important.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Speaking of batshit crazy theories, Louis Gohmert and some other Republicans have sued Mike Pence trying to force him to reject certain electoral votes Jan 6. Their theory when you get right down to it is that the Vice President has unilateral control over who the next President will be.

This madness will fail and they know it will fail. But that’s no excuse for giving horrible, anti-democratic ideas oxygen

[CGVT]

Ok. Your fancy stats are good.

Blood draw. (3 to 5 day results) lGg: reactive. SARS CoV-2 Antibody, total: reactive

COVID symptoms, albeit mild, a couple weeks before. Wife with positive COVID test. High infection rate in area.

I'm pretty sure I had the shit.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Senate overrides Trump’s veto of the defense bill 81-13. Neither Loeffler nor Perdue voted. Profiles in courage.

[Mike]

Who else didn’t vote?

[Jeff Buchanan]

There's speculative numbers out there about how many people in the US actually have had COVID-19 and now have ABs to it. There's an equal amount of speculation about how long these ABs developed from exposure to the virus last. My take is that there are probably 2x-3x more people that have been exposed to SARS-CoV-2 and would have tested positive for the COVID-19 antigen if they had been tested within the time frame for accurate testing (3-5d after exposure and for most, within 14-21d).

How many of those would have developed an IgG AB response is another story entirely. My reading says that i'ts probably 2X what's been reported That means that before a vaccine its not unreasonable to say that 20 -30% of the US population is now immune (has IgG ABs) to SARS-CoV-2. That's a good start towards herd immunity. Virologist say we need >60%, although they disagree, to stop the spread.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Who else didn’t vote?

Lindsey Graham. Ben Sasse. Doug Jones. Cory Gardner

[CGVT]

Speaking of vetoes... More stupidity from the Orange Moron. Drift gill nets are indiscriminate killers and should be banned world wide.

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-en...mended_content


Trump vetoes bipartisan driftnet fishing bill