COVID-19: People on the internet are judging me for going outside. It used to be the reverse.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > COVID-19: People on the internet are judging me for going outside. It used to be the reverse.

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Total:	188 votes

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Computer Serf: May 14, 2005; Buglord

Petey posted:

Three things:

1) if your covid caution is more important to you than your marginal dollar, and you have a lot of disposable cash, then you can have an at-home PCR-equivalent exam that turns around results in 20 minutes via https://shop.cuehealth.com/pages/memberships. It used to be only available via institutions (e.g., NBA players, certain Google employees), but now you can get it at home.

2) In related news, there are no Binax tests available within an 80 mile radius of me, according to every pharmacy/walmart/etc I called today. Can't tell if this is good news or bad news.

3) I have been playing around with https://gabgoh.github.io/COVID/index.html today, just trying to get a sense of the scale of the health system stress over the next month or two. For the major variables, I put in:

* .2% as the CFR of delta in vaccinated persons (which is what I found in some studies)
* a hospitalization rate of .8% (which is what Denmark, a highly vaccinated population, has been ballparking in the early days for Omicron)
* an R0 of 6, which is my read of where Trevor Bedford estimates it to be for Omicron (could be a bit lower, could be 2x higher, in his projections)

Obviously, these are rough numbers. My guess is that they are somewhat optimistic, because this doesn't factor in an increased CFR from inadequate care, and the CFR among the unvaccinated will be higher than .2%, I suspect. On the other hand, it doesn't involve any of the homeostatic reaction of people undertaking NPIs themselves out of caution. But it would have to be quite a bit rosier than this to avoid the projections of the model, which top out around 120k new hospitalizations a day and 15k deaths a day sometime around late January.

(epistemic confidence: i'm just some guy plugging numbers into calculators)

how do we factor in the covid cheese defense perimeter

# ? Dec 20, 2021 20:18

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# ? May 24, 2024 13:12

smoobles: Sep 4, 2014

So if I cover my face with a dozen slices of cheese, I'm safe from covid? This is an NPI I can get behind...

# ? Dec 20, 2021 20:25

haveblue: Aug 15, 2005; Toilet Rascal

smoobles posted:

So if I cover my face with a dozen slices of cheese, I'm safe from covid? This is an NPI I can get behind...

Only if your friends can slap cheese slices onto your face faster than the rats crawling on your face can eat them, if I'm understanding that diagram right

# ? Dec 20, 2021 21:01

Wang Commander: Dec 27, 2003; by sebmojo

Computer Serf posted:

how do we factor in the covid cheese defense perimeter

wait do the holes in swiss cheese come from mice

# ? Dec 20, 2021 21:11

smoobles: Sep 4, 2014

Wang Commander posted:

wait do the holes in swiss cheese come from mice

the mice in the graphic represent Republican elected officials

# ? Dec 20, 2021 21:27

Judakel: Jul 29, 2004; Can't post for 9 years!

https://twitter.com/Tuliodna/status...genumber%3D3066

# ? Dec 20, 2021 21:29

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

dwarf74 posted:

Currently with available data on Omicron it's either (a) vax and/or previous exposure help a ton with severity, or (b) it's inherently less deadly. It's one of those two. The weight of existing data does not support the hypothesis it's equally bad on breakthroughs.

Option C) is that the interferon genetic adaptation plays a larger role than we think/everyone susceptible already died in SA, and it's going to scythe through Denmark and the UK (and then everywhere else in Europe/US).

# ? Dec 20, 2021 22:11

Slow News Day: Jul 4, 2007

Out of an abundance of caution, I ended up postponing my London trip to end of April. Hoping things have improved by then!

# ? Dec 20, 2021 22:13

Toaster Beef: Jan 23, 2007; that's not nature's way

Petey posted:

Option C) is that the interferon genetic adaptation plays a larger role than we think/everyone susceptible already died in SA, and it's going to scythe through Denmark and the UK (and then everywhere else in Europe/US).

Would we not already be seeing the early rumblings of this in Ontario, where omicron took over as the dominant strain in no time flat?

# ? Dec 20, 2021 22:13

How are u: May 19, 2005; by Azathoth

Really glad to see that the Moderna booster is great against omicron. Big relief, feeling better about going out to a bar last night. Great burger!

# ? Dec 20, 2021 22:14

Rust Martialis: May 8, 2007; At night, Bavovnyatko quietly comes to the occupiers’ bases, depots, airfields, oil refineries and other places full of flammable items and starts playing with fire there

Denmark isn't exploding *yet* anyhow. Its higher than ever but not markedly worsening right now

Cases
Dec 20 10,082
Dec 19 8,212
Dec 18 8,594
Dec 17 11,194
Dec 16 9,999
Dec 15 8,773

# ? Dec 20, 2021 22:21

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

How are u posted:

Really glad to see that the Moderna booster is great against omicron. Big relief, feeling better about going out to a bar last night. Great burger!

Yet again, the booster bandits that went out and got the full-fat Moderna shot back in September appear to have made a prescient decision. It's nice to know the booster-grade Moderna is also protective though.

# ? Dec 20, 2021 22:28

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

How are u posted:

Really glad to see that the Moderna booster is great against omicron. Big relief, feeling better about going out to a bar last night. Great burger!

That was an unwise thing to do, in my opinion. Get a salad next time instead of the burger, I wouldn�t want you keeling over from a heart attack!

# ? Dec 20, 2021 22:32

Fritz the Horse: Dec 26, 2019; ... of course!

Petey posted:

Option C) is that the interferon genetic adaptation plays a larger role than we think/everyone susceptible already died in SA, and it's going to scythe through Denmark and the UK (and then everywhere else in Europe/US).

This is APOBEC3? It's been mentioned indirectly a few times itt, from glancing around the literature seems pretty tentative how significant it is for SARS-CoV-2. There's been a lot of research done on its role in HIV.

It seems pretty unlikely that a more active variant of one enzyme with antiviral activity is going to have a dramatic population-level effect that we haven't already seen.

These are a couple of relevant publications I skimmed a while back:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0042682220302658
https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/13/7/1366/pdf

# ? Dec 20, 2021 22:32

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

Wonder if they have some team moderna window stickers you can get for your car like those Pokemon go team stickers that were all the rage a couple years ago.

# ? Dec 20, 2021 22:33

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

Fritz the Horse posted:

This is APOBEC3? It's been mentioned indirectly a few times itt, from glancing around the literature seems pretty tentative how significant it is for SARS-CoV-2. There's been a lot of research done on its role in HIV.

It seems pretty unlikely that a more active variant of one enzyme with antiviral activity is going to have a dramatic population-level effect that we haven't already seen.

These are a couple of relevant publications I skimmed a while back:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0042682220302658
https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/13/7/1366/pdf

https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1442882787191578629

# ? Dec 20, 2021 22:48

Bashez: Jul 19, 2004

Judakel posted:

https://twitter.com/Tuliodna/status...genumber%3D3066

Can someone explain to me in extremely small words what the purpose of using a log scale on a percentage is?

# ? Dec 20, 2021 22:57

cant cook creole bream: Aug 15, 2011; I think Fahrenheit is better for weather

Petey posted:

https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1442882787191578629

I know we're not supposed to share opinions of twitter randos, but this here here raises a lot of questions.
https://twitter.com/MGuru2020/status/1442887265357860865
Like, is that a real thing, or just random gibberish? There might be something significant there, but to me it reads like he's trying to debug a code by spouting hex values. It's always weird seeing people on twitter with really deep specific knowledge throwing it around, like everyone would know that.

Bashez posted:

Can someone explain to me in extremely small words what the purpose of using a log scale on a percentage is?

Going from 1% to 2% is a more significant increase than going from 50% to 60%, but on a regular scale, the former would be nearly flat while the later would happen in a day and look vertical. The logscale basically just zooms closer to the small numbers so that you have a finer view over that.
Basically, the rule is, if something is growing exponentially, it will look best on a log scale. Of course these percentages only grow logistically, up to a value of 1, but for the earlier times that's pretty much the same thing., In fact, the rate of active infections also has an upper limit of all people on earth. But if I would make a graph of the percentage of sick people that would also look best on a log scale. It's just the usual graphs divided by a sort of constant.

cant cook creole bream fucked around with this message at 23:10 on Dec 20, 2021

# ? Dec 20, 2021 23:02

Charles 2 of Spain: Nov 7, 2017

cant cook creole bream posted:

It's always weird seeing people on twitter with really deep specific knowledge throwing it around, like everyone would know that.

My guess is that Meme_Guru2020 read it on some other account and doesn't actually understand what it means.

# ? Dec 20, 2021 23:17

cant cook creole bream: Aug 15, 2011; I think Fahrenheit is better for weather

Charles 2 of Spain posted:

My guess is that Meme_Guru2020 read it on some other account and doesn't actually understand what it means.

Might be.

# ? Dec 20, 2021 23:22

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

Has anyone found any good supply chain strategies for finding BinaxNow tests in stores? Like when they tend to be restocked at CVS/Walgreens?

The websites will tell you where they think they are in stock but I've found if you call they will just laugh.

# ? Dec 20, 2021 23:38

Bashez: Jul 19, 2004

cant cook creole bream posted:

Going from 1% to 2% is a more significant increase than going from 50% to 60%, but on a regular scale, the former would be nearly flat while the later would happen in a day and look vertical.

The log scale appears, to me, to only serve to push other variants closer to delta graphically. It seems like hijinks to try to show 10% as that high in the graph.

# ? Dec 20, 2021 23:43

nexous: Jan 14, 2003; I just want to be pure

Petey posted:

Has anyone found any good supply chain strategies for finding BinaxNow tests in stores? Like when they tend to be restocked at CVS/Walgreens?

The websites will tell you where they think they are in stock but I've found if you call they will just laugh.

Someone suggested watching slickdeals to me and in came in handy. It gets posted any times there�s a bunch in stock at a reasonable price

# ? Dec 20, 2021 23:52

Professor Beetus: Apr 12, 2007; They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

cant cook creole bream posted:

I know we're not supposed to share opinions of twitter randos, but this here here raises a lot of questions.
https://twitter.com/MGuru2020/status/1442887265357860865
Like, is that a real thing, or just random gibberish? There might be something significant there, but to me it reads like he's trying to debug a code by spouting hex values. It's always weird seeing people on twitter with really deep specific knowledge throwing it around, like everyone would know that.

Going from 1% to 2% is a more significant increase than going from 50% to 60%, but on a regular scale, the former would be nearly flat while the later would happen in a day and look vertical. The logscale basically just zooms closer to the small numbers so that you have a finer view over that.
Basically, the rule is, if something is growing exponentially, it will look best on a log scale. Of course these percentages only grow logistically, up to a value of 1, but for the earlier times that's pretty much the same thing., In fact, the rate of active infections also has an upper limit of all people on earth. But if I would make a graph of the percentage of sick people that would also look best on a log scale. It's just the usual graphs divided by a sort of constant.

I think asking questions is fine, it's people dropping rando tweets and going "yikes" or treating random twitter accounts as the authority on covid that I'm trying to crack down on.

# ? Dec 20, 2021 23:55

Main Paineframe: Oct 27, 2010

cant cook creole bream posted:

I know we're not supposed to share opinions of twitter randos, but this here here raises a lot of questions.
https://twitter.com/MGuru2020/status/1442887265357860865
Like, is that a real thing, or just random gibberish? There might be something significant there, but to me it reads like he's trying to debug a code by spouting hex values. It's always weird seeing people on twitter with really deep specific knowledge throwing it around, like everyone would know that.

Going from 1% to 2% is a more significant increase than going from 50% to 60%, but on a regular scale, the former would be nearly flat while the later would happen in a day and look vertical. The logscale basically just zooms closer to the small numbers so that you have a finer view over that.
Basically, the rule is, if something is growing exponentially, it will look best on a log scale. Of course these percentages only grow logistically, up to a value of 1, but for the earlier times that's pretty much the same thing., In fact, the rate of active infections also has an upper limit of all people on earth. But if I would make a graph of the percentage of sick people that would also look best on a log scale. It's just the usual graphs divided by a sort of constant.

If that person had the domain knowledge needed to actually understand what those numbers meant, they'd have the domain knowledge necessary to click the link to the study and read the conclusions themselves instead of asking the poster to figure it out and summarize for them.

# ? Dec 21, 2021 00:33

Raere: Dec 13, 2007

Petey posted:

Has anyone found any good supply chain strategies for finding BinaxNow tests in stores? Like when they tend to be restocked at CVS/Walgreens?

The websites will tell you where they think they are in stock but I've found if you call they will just laugh.

Why not just buy tests online? I've had no trouble getting some from CVS and Walgreens and had them shipped to me.

# ? Dec 21, 2021 00:49

Fritz the Horse: Dec 26, 2019; ... of course!

Petey posted:

https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1442882787191578629

This is neat but it's pretty speculative to posit Omicron "scything" through Europe and the US on the basis of this one gene variant being even more relevant than the study actually shows.

If you look at the full article, you'll see that the distribution of the allele is rougly 35% in European populations sampled compared to a little over 60% on average in African populations and the odds ratio for severe disease was 1.58 (CI = 1.08 to 2.30) for those without the allele (death frequency was not statistically significant). So the study suggests that populations of European ancestry might have about 25% of people roughly 50% more likely to end up with severe disease, which is certainly significant.

It just feels like pretty wild speculation to assume this allele is actually more important than we have any evidence for, and that there's a reasonably possible scenario where on the basis of this allele alone Omicron might "scythe" through Europe and the US. Any more than it's already going to.

edit: like my napkin math works out to about a 12% increase in severe disease (CI 2% to 21%) from difference in distribution of that allele between African and European populations, based on the data in that study. Which is still very significant.

Fritz the Horse fucked around with this message at 01:04 on Dec 21, 2021

# ? Dec 21, 2021 00:54

brugroffil: Nov 30, 2015

Are binax tests better than any of the other OTC rapid tests

# ? Dec 21, 2021 01:13

Owlofcreamcheese: May 22, 2005; Can't post for 9 years!; Buglord

Everyone knows that Johannesburg is the whitest city in africa, right? This is still common knowledge and everyone is just joking around, right? This fact was a whole big thing once.

Like it's still a majority black city. But it's whiter than detroit. It's got like 30% as many white people as denmark does. The idea that the virus isn't touching it because everyone there is being protected by "african genetics" and it'll spark off the second it meets europeans and "scythe" people is a claim that really isn't going to work when applied specifically to south African then specifically to Johannesburg.

# ? Dec 21, 2021 01:27

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

I think genetic racism is the only spot on the bad science bingo card I was missing.

# ? Dec 21, 2021 02:06

Fritz the Horse: Dec 26, 2019; ... of course!

Also it's worth noting that Africa has the greatest human genetic diversity on the planet, and the African groups included in that study were:

quote:

The populations considered were AFR (Africa), AMR (American), EAS (East Asian), EUR (European), and SAS (South Asian). These populations were further subdivided into ASW (African ancestry in SW USA), ACB (African Caribbean in Barbados), BEB (Bengali in Bangladesh), GBR (British from England and Scotland), CDX (Chinese Dai in Xishuangbanna, China), CLM (Colombian in Medell�n, Colombia), ESN (Esan in Nigeria), FIN (Finnish in Finland), GWD (Gambian in Western Division � Mandinka), GIH (Gujarati Indians in Houston, Texas, United States), CHB (Han Chinese in Beijing, China), CHS (Han Chinese South, China), IBS (Iberian populations in Spain), ITU (Indian Telugu in the UK) JPT (Japanese in Tokyo, Japan), KHV (Kinh in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam), LWK (Luhya in Webuye, Kenya), MSL (Mende in Sierra Leone), MXL (Mexican Ancestry in Los Angeles CA United States), PEL (Peruvian in Lima, Peru), PUR (Puerto Rican in Puerto Rico), PJL (Punjabi in Lahore, Pakistan), STU (Sri Lankan Tamil in the UK), TSI (Toscani in Italia), YRI (Yoruba in Ibadan, Nigeria), and CEU (Utah residents with Northern and Western European ancestry from the CEPH collection).

Which looks like mostly West African groups and one from Kenya. I don't believe any South African ethnicities are represented in the study?

# ? Dec 21, 2021 02:16

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

How much do rapid tests cost in other countries? It was $50 for 5 tests here but those packs have sold out at the pharmacies and I just shelled out 30 bucks for a mere 2 tests at the supermarket.

# ? Dec 21, 2021 02:27

Petey: Nov 26, 2005; For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

Raere posted:

Why not just buy tests online? I've had no trouble getting some from CVS and Walgreens and had them shipped to me.

When was the last time you tried to buy? Because their websites have all been out of stock for a bit now, as is every physical store nearby.

freebooter posted:

How much do rapid tests cost in other countries? It was $50 for 5 tests here but those packs have sold out at the pharmacies and I just shelled out 30 bucks for a mere 2 tests at the supermarket.

~$25+ for 2 Binax tests is the standard in the States.

# ? Dec 21, 2021 02:33

brugroffil: Nov 30, 2015

If you can find them at Walmart, the binax tests have been running $16/two tests. Good luck finding supply though.

CVS had some quickvue tests for $24/2 pack so I bought those recently. Limit two boxes per customer though.

# ? Dec 21, 2021 02:41

I AM GRANDO: Aug 20, 2006

Is binax better than other brands? It�s like with kn-95s: I have no idea what�s good and what�s trash or a scam.

# ? Dec 21, 2021 02:49

Charles 2 of Spain: Nov 7, 2017

According to my virologist friend, they're good.

# ? Dec 21, 2021 03:26

Mr Luxury Yacht: Apr 16, 2012

freebooter posted:

How much do rapid tests cost in other countries? It was $50 for 5 tests here but those packs have sold out at the pharmacies and I just shelled out 30 bucks for a mere 2 tests at the supermarket.

It varied here in Ontario. For a while you could only really get them at our giant pharmacy chain (Shoppers Drug Mart), for $40 apiece and they would insist on doing the test there themselves and wouldn't let you just buy the tests alone. Eventually Costco undercut them and started offering them for $17 but there's far less Costcos and not exactly any in any sort of built up area so it didn't cause Shoppers to drop their prices.

Then a bunch of online stores popped up selling them. It varied by test, with the Abbot Panbio ones going for...$15 a test on average? But since you could only buy the whole box you had to buy 25 at once. The BTNX ones are around $10-12 a test depending on where you can find them and can usually buy them in packs of 5 or less plus shipping (ordered by parents a bunch of those). Only online as far as I know, heard of them being available for purchase in any physical stores.

Theoretically they're supposed to be distributed for free now at the LCBO (government liquor store) and pop up distribution points but I haven't heard of any having anything since they ran through their initial 2 million test supply on the first day. People were reselling them on Kijiji for $80+ per test the next day. Fuckers.

Mr Luxury Yacht fucked around with this message at 04:22 on Dec 21, 2021

# ? Dec 21, 2021 03:28

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

If you want a good laugh at how divided Australia's states have become: in South Australia and Western Australia the sale and use of rapid tests is illegal.

# ? Dec 21, 2021 03:38

Raere: Dec 13, 2007

Petey posted:

When was the last time you tried to buy? Because their websites have all been out of stock for a bit now, as is every physical store nearby.

2 weeks ago from Walgreens, and last week from CVS. I guess I got lucky or something.

# ? Dec 21, 2021 03:52

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# ? May 24, 2024 13:12

Oracle: Oct 9, 2004

Huge shipment apparently came in to the states. Sams club was selling binax 2 packs for 14.99 each. A few dozen left when I picked up some at closing.

# ? Dec 21, 2021 06:36

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > COVID-19: People on the internet are judging me for going outside. It used to be the reverse.

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