Why You Must Act Now

[Tom Gardner]

On 20/03/20 14:24, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

We do have a lot of ... Pacific Islanders who are huge. I think they are not
genetically adapted to a European diet, lots of dairy and meat and fat.

Mutton flaps: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35346493

https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/most-obese-countries/

 

On Friday, March 20, 2020 at 10:25:00 AM UTC-4, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Fri, 20 Mar 2020 13:50:18 +0000, Martin Brown
'''newspam'''@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:

I think the healthy adults at most risk are the medics on the front
line. They could potentially get exposed to a lethal dose that is able
to overwhelm their immune system if their PPE containment fails.

Is there a dose-death relationship?

I think the short answer is "yes." Dad said it was a numbers game,
that a certain number of viral particles are statistically necessary
for a given probability of infection. Nurses who get stuck with a
needle full of AIDs blood, for example, rarely get infected.

Perhaps a lucky someone who got a low number of viral particles might
be lucky enough to develop an immune response, without the virus ever
having gotten established.

If viral replication is
exponential inside a body, starting with more viruses just shifts the
time scale a bit. I guess just one virus is all it takes.

For the host, it's a race for survival. The infected person has to
manufacture an immune response faster than the virus replicates.
That's the fever. The fever is your metabolism being diverted to
germ warfare production. Meanwhile, the invader's going exponential.

So yes, if the dose is small, even a slightly faster initial
response will drastically cut your peak viral load.

Practical implications? I've no idea how the statistically
infection-producing dose for SARS-CoV2 compares with the
typical dose people are actually experiencing. Maybe it's
typically a hopeless overload, enough to guarantee infection.
But I've heard that only 20% of the people on the Diamond
Petri^H^H^H^HPrincess were infected, suggesting 80% were
either immune, quickly acquired immunity, or were amazingly lucky.

Cheers,
James Arthur

 

[Martin Brown]

On 20/03/2020 14:24, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Fri, 20 Mar 2020 13:50:18 +0000, Martin Brown
'''newspam'''@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:

On 18/03/2020 23:33, mpm wrote:
On Wednesday, March 18, 2020 at 11:26:15 AM UTC-4,
jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

She said the early data coming out of Korea and China may not have
been sufficient to show younger folks were at lower risk, and then
went on to detail that we've had plenty of cases involving younger
adults.

I think the healthy adults at most risk are the medics on the front
line. They could potentially get exposed to a lethal dose that is able
to overwhelm their immune system if their PPE containment fails.

Is there a dose-death relationship? If viral replication is
exponential inside a body, starting with more viruses just shifts the
time scale a bit. I guess just one virus is all it takes.

The immune system is much better than that - it is a numbers game. ISTR
for most pathogens it takes about a dozen or so tries before one stands
a better than evens chance of delivering its genetic package to a cell
nucleus successfully. Even then there may be other responses that kill
it off. Once the immune system sees something alien it starts to react.
There is then a race for supremacy between the bodies countermeasures
and the virus replication. I'm not a biologist so I will have to wait
until I next see my tame biologist again to get any more.

One of the things I recall was that if you get a large enough hit of an
infective agent you can be unlucky and die from it even when you are
notionally protected. ISTR the example given was someone who got an
enormous number of infected mosquito bites. We got some specialist
training for working on at risk sites after someone got seriously ill.
(it was a very long time ago so my recollection is a little hazy)

Make of it what you will.

I expect that in a nation of junk food addicted couch potatoes the
effect of covid-19 is going to be rather unpleasant.

I don't see many fat people around here. A lot of fit people biking
and running and spending money in gyms. We do have a lot of hispanics
and especially Pacific Islanders who are huge. I think they are not
genetically adapted to a European diet, lots of dairy and meat and
fat. They are not out biking and running.

US population is very bimodal. SF is better than most. Most of the US
tourists I see round here look and weigh about the same as a sumo
wrestler but none of it is muscle.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Saturday, March 21, 2020 at 1:25:00 AM UTC+11, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Fri, 20 Mar 2020 13:50:18 +0000, Martin Brown
'''newspam'''@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:

On 18/03/2020 23:33, mpm wrote:
On Wednesday, March 18, 2020 at 11:26:15 AM UTC-4,
jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

Most people, especially vigorous young people (who are most of the
skiers) get mild or asymptomatic cases of coronavirus.

There was a lady on TV news today claiming the young may not be as
"in the clear" as previously thought.

It may well depend on the general health and fitness of the nation.

In a country like Germany where people are mostly lean and fit they have
had a much lower fatality rate than expected compared on Italy. Almost
all the UK fatalities so far have been of people with underlying health
conditions. The continental habit of kissing as a greeting may partially
explain the steeper rise in cases there than in the UK. The UK isn't
actually shown on this particular graph but its line is about 3/4 of the
gradient of USA and 2.5x the gradient of Japans.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/3/13/21178289/confirmed-coronavirus-cases-us-countries-italy-iran-singapore-hong-kong

The one with the UK on is behind a paywall.

The problem in the USA is that 30% of the population are obese and a
couple of percent with type II diabetes as well so your cohort of youn
gpeople with "underlying health conditions" is very much larger than in
a typical European country. Time will tell how it pans out.

I expect this means that if you are in the at risk group with a health
condition then you are in the same boat as the over 70's in the ROW.

I didn't catch her name, but she's speaking at the Presidential
briefings all the time. I assume she heads some agency, or works for
Johns-Hopkins, or something.

She said the early data coming out of Korea and China may not have
been sufficient to show younger folks were at lower risk, and then
went on to detail that we've had plenty of cases involving younger
adults.

I think the healthy adults at most risk are the medics on the front
line. They could potentially get exposed to a lethal dose that is able
to overwhelm their immune system if their PPE containment fails.

Is there a dose-death relationship? If viral replication is
exponential inside a body, starting with more viruses just shifts the
time scale a bit. I guess just one virus is all it takes.

The viral replication within the body is exponential until the immune system kicks in. The immune system has to be exposed to enough viral particles to start make antibodies that latch onto them. More virus particles get the process going in higher volume, but there is a delay until enough antibodies get churned out to start the process of killing off virus particle and infected cells.

Start the process with enough virus particles and you can be dead before the immune response has a chance to get underway.

Make of it what you will.

I expect that in a nation of junk food addicted couch potatoes the
effect of covid-19 is going to be rather unpleasant.

I don't see many fat people around here. A lot of fit people biking
and running and spending money in gyms. We do have a lot of hispanics
and especially Pacific Islanders who are huge. I think they are not
genetically adapted to a European diet, lots of dairy and meat and
fat. They are not out biking and running.

Fat people don't get around as much as fit people, and are correspondingly less visible.

Pacific Islanders are adapted to the same kind of erratic food supplies that our ancestors had to cope with. Being fat meant that you could survive longer when there wasn't any food around. Our ancestors all had growth rings on their teeth - they got starved at the end of winter every year.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney