James answers your coronavirus questions thread

[Toilet Fleet]

Finally, some grassroots death cults

[Geeheeb]

Like the tea party, this is astroturf again: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... strictions

Finally, some grassroots death cults

[FVBTVS]

these people view the needs and vulnerabilities of other people as tyranny out of pure psychological projection alone

diaper men, one and all

[Necrometer]

here is a story from another nurse I work with who has been sick at home

{story}

it seems at at least one lib was totally owned!

[Eight Bit Alien]

all cosplay activists should be put in camps

[riley-o]

I love that of all the legitimately tyrannical things that have gone on and are going on, your country being sold to corporations, living in a velvet glove police state with a gameshow host turned emperor, bankruptcy via healthcare; the thing that was finally too much for these brave patriots was.. having to be empathetic.

[FVBTVS]

[spacehamster]

Well, with any luck that lady will get both, so, you know.

[cxwx]

If I was prone to conspiracy theories I’d say maybe the rightwing groups dumping money into these bullshit events actually want it to lead to further infringements on the right to free assembly considering we were already seeing similar legislation with “unmasking antifa” bills ( 60 years in prison for a impending the flow of commerce, what ever the fuck that is defined as) and state governments basically saying it was okay for private security contractors to run over people protesting oil pipelines.

The absolute worst form of useful idiots wearing Paul Revere hats and Guy Fawkes mask.

[Eight Bit Alien]

Thanks for the concern fucktractor

[featherboa]

the mind reels

[FVBTVS]

where was that at?

[featherboa]

Huntington Beach, "Cali"

[FVBTVS]

https://www.facebook.com/alyson.mcclara ... 3098064573

[Necrometer]

I've been meaning to share this for a while, but recently I was surprised to learn that getting exposed to a hefty dose of virus is likely to make you sicker than exposure to a tiny amount of virus. I had totally thought it was binary - either you're infected or you're not, and the way that plays out is totally dependent on your immune system, physiology etc.

I am sharing this in case it provides some solace for people who feel that their precautionary measures (sanitizing, social distancing, masks, etc.) should be all-or-nothing, and being tortured by the knowledge that "all" is unattainable. Middling efforts are still helping! Could make you or a loved one less sick if/when an exposure happens. And we're all getting exposed eventually...

I'm trying to find a great link to back up what I've heard from healthcare ppl up to their neck in this shit, and the best I've got is here. It seems that the best study is on influenza, and there's no specific study for SARS-CoV-2. That article talks about people's viral load, which is a distinct topic and I'm kind of frustrated that they (and others) keep acting like viral load has anything to do with initial exposure.

- - -

I am working with an immunologist clinician guy to test some "booster" (adjuvant) technologies for DNA vaccines, a type of vaccine that's super appealing on paper but has fizzled so far in the real world. I'll paste below his thoughts on traditional vaccines vs. the next-gen RNA/DNA vaccines.

Fun fact: right now the DNA (of the DNA vaccine) is forced into the recipient's immune cells via subcutaneous injection followed by a localized electric shock. The latter part of procedure is so painful that it essentially guarantees that the recipient ends up wailing in agony. 15 seconds of excruciating pain that subsides pretty quickly, I guess. A different guy I talked to (who runs trials on DNA vaccines) said that he has gotten in the habit of finding an excuse not to be in the room when they zap the poor people, haha.

One of my lab's main non-'rona projects (in collaboration with the guy quoted below) is to find ways to get stuff into cells without zapping the cells, so we're planning on porting some of those tricks over to DNA vaccines so that people don't need to be zapped (and so the DNA vaccines actually work!)

Flu is surprisingly simple immunology - antibodies against coat proteins can block infection. This is why flu has to mutate so rapidly. Its taken decades for flu vaccine infrastructure to be built - and it still only covers mostly the rich world. Plus something like over 90% of it are made in chicken eggs, some many hundred million chicken eggs per year because its at the end of the requiring little bioreactors to produce all the modified influenza viruses each year to go into a vaccine. And depending on the strain and the year, i.e. effectiveness of each dose, each egg makes enough vaccine for about 1-2 people. I think 3-4 if paired with an adjuvant. So its easy to produce once you already have that massssssive infrastructure, and you have very cooperative immunology, but its still a huge undertaking each year. And it takes a full year, and sometimes they predict wrong (happened twice in the last 10 years).

Coronavirus (and many of the common cold viruses) have trickier immunology. Antibodies don't necessarily protect against reinfection, or at least not as well as in influenza (which of course isnt perfect). So while coronaviruses don't mutate their surface proteins as much to escape, they also don't need to. And we don't have any infrastructure whatsoever for coronavirus (like.. no egg-adapted strains), and cell cultures are effectively 2D technology with low yield. So how can we massively ramp it up? Plus inactivated virus (or even live virus) doesn't necessarily protect... Hence the use of DNA vaccines for SARS/MERS.

Chances of a vaccine working? I have heard only guesses, but i think quotes vary from 20-80% chance we get a vaccine to work in 1 year time. At least, a traditional vaccine. Nucleic acid vaccines can be much more defined, can try a wider variety of antigens in a shorter period of time, and once you find one or a combination of antigens that work, you can much more rapidly produce gobs of DNA or RNA.

one egg per vaccinated person

[Glub]

I've been meaning to share this for a while, but recently I was surprised to learn that getting exposed to a hefty dose of virus is likely to make you sicker than exposure to a tiny amount of virus.

I can at least verify that this has been shared, anecdotally, on every conference call/webinar/presentation I've been part of over the last few weeks.

[Necrometer]

thanks! might be good to get a warrior priest to weigh in before we put any stock in it, though.

more on eggs... so many eggs

[featherboa]

how can i get a small amount of sars?

[FVBTVS]

[Necrometer]

hahaha that emoticon find

[featherboa]

so from that flu study, it is possible to be somewhat precise with the amount of flu you put in someone's nose

[FVBTVS]

hahaha that emoticon find

[Necrometer]

so from that flu study, it is possible to be somewhat precise with the amount of flu you put in someone's nose

of course! you can count (estimate anyway) viral particles just like anything else

when viral vectors are used in gene therapy, they talk about how many viral genomes are dosed. it's usually trillions of virions per person

[featherboa]

it also says just 18 noroviruseses will give you the shits


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re astroturf
https://www.reddit.com/r/maryland/comme ... e/fnstpyl/

[cxwx]

There’s a lot of old timer dooms day prepers/militia nuts/ separatists and general wack jobs that are more heavily armed than your average gang banger where I live that even if it hadn’t been astro turfed I wouldn’t have been surprised to see things like this.