Oddworld Forums - COVID-19

Woah lots of responses, and we thought the forums were dead :D
Time for me to talk, even if I'm very late to this big party.

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Then Italy erupted in cases and I rolled my eyes saying "of course the Italians are the ones that slip up. Never mind, we have better government here, we'll just wait it out".

Wow thanks for the trust :fuzemb: but even if our country is honestly not one of the best in all Europe, the health system that we have here is one that we can be proud of... at least that's what I'd said before the virus began to spread everywhere.
Health care from the state to the people is taken here as a primary right and duty, so it's also free when it's necessarely needed to prevent any danger to the life of the patient. An article of the constitution (n°32) also says:

The Republic protects health as a fundamental right of the individual and the interest of the community, and guarantees free medical care to the indigent. Nobody can be obliged to a specific health treatment except by law.

This is by far one of the best and good things about health care in Italy. The state has the duty to take care of its people regarding their own health.
Plus, according to a WHO research dating back to 2000, Italy had the second best health system in the world in terms of spending efficiency and access to public care for citizens, after France.
In 2014, according to a ranking prepared by Bloomberg, it was third in the world for spending efficiency.

When the virus started to spread in all Europe I thought "Okay, we will fight this virus, even if it can be difficult, and defeat it in half-year".
Appearently I was very wrong, and I was very surprised. And it still doesn't seem right: we have the best virologists here along France, and the COVID virus family was already well known since the beginning of the century. The structure of this virus wasn't even that complex and neither that different from other COVID family members. So how the hell did this happen?
Did it mutate? No. Does it work in a completely different way? Not really, it has some differences but nothing that theorically experts couldn't handle.

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It is a big stretch to call the pandemic a sham, but its death toll (at 812,758 in the time of writing this) is currently lower than any of the following:
- Yearly death toll of smoking ( approx. 7 000 000 )
- Yearly death toll of alcohol ( approx. 3 000 000 )
- Yearly death toll of driving accidents ( approx. 1 350 000 )

Of course, the year has not yet ended, and Coronavirus will take more lives, might unfortunately double, I'm guessing. While I do understand media's burning desire to gain viewership by broadcasting about the virus because it's trendier than to talk about the "usual" causes of death people don't want to hear about, I don't think we should ignore this one.

In fact, why don't we try to avoid all of those death causes? That would be nice.

Currently the death toll is 994K, it has risen by more than 100k, almost 200k. If this virus is this serious and more lethal than the death causes you listed, the toll should've been way higher by now. The year has almost ended and according to the numbers the death toll won't probably double (unless we get another surprise...)

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you can't compare the fatalities of covid with that of cigarettes and alcohol, that makes no sense. people willingly smoke and drink, and both are addictive. of course their death tolls are going to be higher. people aren't willingly contracting corona. if there was 7 million people dying from covid i think we would be royally fucked.

You don't understand Varrok's point (like many didn't apperently, I'm not answering to all of you about that because it would take too much time and characters xD): if it's a pandemic then the death toll should've indeed been higher than these simple (yet bad ofc) death causes.

Yet, since most of you don't like smoke death - covid death comparision (and it's understandable), let's compare it with the seasonal flu: The death toll (per year) of COVID-19 is not even higher than the seasonal flu which is from 9 million to 45 million. Do the math and you might consider why people have serious doubts.

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In theory, if enough people have immunity to a virus, it means that any time the virus enters the population, it'll hit a dead end of people who are immune and thus won't be able to pass it on. So then, if there are people who don't have immunity they won't catch it because the virus is unlikely to reach them.

Details vary for virus to virus. But to give an example, if 90-95% of the population have the measles vaccine, it's very unlikely that the remaining 5-10% of the population will catch it. If everyone who could take the vaccine had it, that 5-10% would be made up only of people who are immunocompromised and thus can't take the vaccine, as well as the small percentage of people who receive the vaccine but don't gain immunity.

It's not a sharp target number though. The larger the percentage of people who have immunity, the less the virus will spread. It's just that a certain point it becomes almost an impossibility.

But that's just context on the concept of herd immunity. In the case of COVID-19, anyone who suggests we should aim for herd immunity right now is willfully ignorant and dangerous. The fact is, we don't yet know that catching COVID-19 even grants you significant levels of immunity, and if it does, how long that lasts. What we do know is that other coronaviruses tend to only have immune responses that last for months, which is not enough to give any real protection. In the case of COVID-19, we know that not everyone who catches it has a measurable immune response; people who have been tested positive while they were sick were then given antibody tests later and came up negative. It is also thought that the many asymptomatic carriers of the virus are less likely to have a measurable immune response, which may mean that they could then catch it again and again and pass it around multiple times.

To summarise; given the number of things we don't know about COVID-19, and given the few things we do know about it, it is clear that the concept of herd immunity through widespread natural infection is likely impossible, and anyone who suggests it is, as I said before, willfully ignorant and dangerous.

And to add to that that anyone who says 'It'll just be a couple of old people who die' is really, completely full of shit. Plenty of young folk have died. And even if the death rate were low (which it isn't), the number of people who have long-term, serious side effects is seriously worrying.

Herd immunity is something that we'll reach presumably at the end of the pandemic. Like you said, it is too soon to reach this.
Yet, by looking at COVID-19 virus structure, most of the people immunity system should've kicked the virus away already: it is different from other viruses like the seasonal flu, but it kicks with the same power and therefore if you catch it there's an high chance that your body gives a reasonable immune response, which is fever, cough and/or sneeze (the usual response your body gives to the presence of new pathogens). The difference would be the length of our body response, which means the fever could last longer than excepted.
But are things like fever bad? No, actually it's a good sign: it means your body is trying to kill off the virus (if some of you guys didn't know this, you should, look it up).

Returning to the main topics you were talking about:

Once we reach for example the 95% of immune people to the virus, yes the virus won't be able to spread like now anymore. Yet it will still exist, nobody has reached the power to totally kill off a virus (and by kill off I mean ceasing its existence), so there will be always a chance for a few people (the 5%) to get it and even die for it. But, it's obvious that the immune people procreate more than the ones that aren't immune. As population grows, the higher will be the percentage of people who are immune. How? With the antibodies we are going to generate. This is the herd immunity, and we'd all say it is too soon to reach but it won't be impossible to reach in the future. But honestly, we should've reached it already or at least a similiar state worldwide (so not with a 95 percentage, but still a high and valid one)
Regarding the young folk dying too, we should wonder what are the medical histories of these young people dying.
It is obvious that old people are less capable of generating quickly antibodies to win the first fight their immune system encounter with the virus and gain total wins in the future in case they get the virus again. When it comes to young people... it's a different matter;
First we should know what were the health and immunity conditions of the mother shortly before their child was born (even when the mother got pregnant):
Passive immunity is the first form of immunity that a newborn acquires, before and just after birth. The mother's immune system produces antibodies during pregnancy and these, through the placenta, reach the fetus. These antibodies are the immunoglobulins G, and are the only ones that pass through the placenta allowing the transfer of the immune state from the mother to the fetus. It is important to specify that a mother cannot transfer a protection that she does not have: if she has never contracted a certain disease or has not been vaccinated she will not be able to pass specific antibodies regarding that disease to the fetus. And the immunoglobulins I talked disappear after 6-8 months from the birth of the baby, so there's also that.
So, if for example the mother doesn't easily fights yet seasonal flu (or never did), the baby won't fight it easily either. If the mother wasn't vaccined for a certain disease, the chances of the child to get that disease are very high.
I presumed when this pandemic started that the first victims of the COVID-19 would be infants and old people.
My point is: it's reasonable for infants to get infencted at some point. But it becomes complex to understand when it comes to children and teens (so let's say, from 1 year to 16 years old) getting infected. Young people got infected and killed by this virus, we know that. But we have no idea how this happened. Is it because of the weak immunity the young folk had? Or is it for something else that can be extremely revelant to the structure of the virus? We have no clue. And we should've from the medical history of these young people... but we didn't.

We don't have much info regarding the medical history of the patients that were hospitalized during this pandemic and this led to some serious doubts against the medical institutions that took care of this pandemic.
At the end of May, some experts have sent a petition to the goverment in which they ask for an awareness of the resolutions in the light of the evidence on the epidemic which has turned out to be "a form of flu no more serious than other coronaviruses".
A question that they asked themselves without finding answers is why the autopsy examinations were prevented, which turned out, when carried out, to be an irreplaceable source of invaluable information and which made it possible to discover that the main cause of deaths was not the virulence of the disease, but its incorrect treatment.
These experts said: "we trust, in a spirit of sincere collaboration, to receive an answer to our observations, which will allow us to put an end to the dangerous speculations of those who, in the face of so much amateurism, raise the doubt that Covid-19 is being used. for ulterior motives". In case the government and other authorities consulted didn't give an answer within the terms established by law, the doctors said that they would proceed with a complaint. One month later of total silence they did, and I heard no more news from them.

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This whole Covid-19 is the worst shit of this year. It has given me anxious disappointed feeling how some people treat it like regular flu fever. This thing may leave you with some permanent problems to lungs if you catch it and depending on how your body can take it.

Hold it right there. The permanent problem it can give to lungs is less likely to happen. And yes, such response depends from your body. But how do the lungs fight off things like a virus?
Lungs fight generally pathogens and other irritants from the respiratory tract with coughing and sneezing. So when you have to do one of these two things, you have to do it. Otherwise you're putting barriers to your body fighting off whatever he's trying to kick off. Of course, don't do it near other people and do it with a hanky, but I bet your parents tought you that.
Anyway, when it comes to organs like the lungs not only the antibodies start to work, but also the complement system starts to do its job.
The complement system attacks the surfaces of foreign cells. It contains over 20 different proteins and is so named for its ability to "complete" the killing of pathogens by antibodies. Complement is the major humoral component of the innate immune response.
It triggers the following immune functions:

Phagocytosis (when a cell ingests a foreign body and destroys it) – by opsonizing antigens.
Inflammation (which causes cough and such) – by attracting macrophages and neutrophils
Membrane attack – by rupturing cell wall of bacteria

This should explain it usually works when foreign pathogens attacks our body. Believe it or not, we get attacked constantly.
But to return to the topic of permanent issues we can get regarding the lungs, the thing that has been noticed the most is the possibility of getting pneumonia, which is characterized by inflammation of the pulmonary alveoli, which, by filling with liquid, hinder the respiratory function. Sounds rough doesn't it? Yet generally, oral antibiotics and simple analgesics, some rest, and fluid intake are sufficient to achieve complete recovery from it. When all of this isn't enough, hospitalization is required and in that case it's very much more likely to cure it.
Regarding COVID-19 situation: The lungs are the organs most affected by it because the virus accesses host cells via the enzyme 2 (ACE2), which is most abundant in type II alveolar cells of the lungs. The virus uses a special surface glycoprotein called peplomer (the spinules that give it its distinctive solar corona shape) to connect to the ACE2 receptor and enter the host cell. The density of ACE2 in each tissue correlates with the severity of disease in that tissue and some have suggested that reducing ACE2 activity might have protective effects, while others say that increasing ACE2 using Angiotensin II receptor antagonist drugs may be protective but these hypotheses have yet to be tested. As alveolar disease progresses, respiratory failure (which gives the permanent issues you were talking) may develop and death may follow.
However, the percentage of chance of getting pneumonia due to COVID-19 is... maximum 14% (there isn't a definitive one since the epidemic is still ongoing). The chance of it getting worse is around 5%.

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Not sure about vaccines that might come here later though. It's just that how much have they tested them before put them public. Some years ago here was vaccines that caused narcolepsy.

Regarding the vaccines... don't except to get them this soon. Or even worse, don't except to get them at all.
The complexity of this virus is like the seasonal flu, which doesn't have a vaccine yet. Therefore it is equally (not totally though!) difficult to create it.
Generally it takes 2 years to create an effective vaccine that gives you total (not always assured, remember this) immunity to a pathogen. And sadly it can take more time when it comes to a virus, because viruses are more complex pathogens that we still don't completely understand today compared to bacteria.

Regarding vaccines being possibly dangerous... heh, this is where things become very though and, may I say, the conspiracy hits.
There were many cases in the past regarding new vaccines causing terrible damage to the young ones. Like you said, there were cases where they caused things like narcolepsy. The vaccines you were probably referring to was the Pandemrix vaccine against the 2009-2010 swine flu. Researches were made regarding this vaccine and it was found out that were indeed risks of getting narcolepsy or other side effects.

There were also cases where vaccines were probably made when they weren't needed, neither used, but were sold anyway and leading some countries to have serious economic and legal problems. One of these cases that was particularly revelant was a pandemic: the swine flu, yes this again. It's a virus of the H1N1 family, the same that caused the terrific spanish flu in 1918.
It generally hitted pigs, but it also caused a pandemic between 2009 and 2010. In theory, it started with the ingestion of pig meat infected with this virus, which then became transmissible from human to human. The virus had a considerable contagiousness which, however, contrasted with a decidedly low health danger. According to the results of statistical analysis, it can be deduced that the simple seasonal flu produces a number of victims far higher than those caused by the H1N1 virus.

How did we react to it?
In June 2009, the WHO declared the pandemic alarm following the developments in the spread of the virus. The alert level was raised to 6, equal to the maximum of the emergency.
This is how we arrived to that: the WHO, after an emergency meeting held on April 27, had decided to bring the level of pandemic risk from 3 to 4 (on a scale ranging from 0 to 6, go check the levels details for better understanding), and then passed it to fifth on April 29.
In the case of a pandemic, the percentage of contagious people is assessed at a very high level. The United States has declared a health emergency.
On 3 June, the WHO announced that it had raised the alert level to 6, which is at the top of the pandemic scale.
On 11 June, the WHO officially declares the pandemic, when there were at that time 28.774 confirmed cases and 144 deaths worldwide.
On July 14, the WHO itself declared it unstoppable, warning that all countries will have to stock up on the vaccine.

So why am I mentioning this virus?
There have been many allegations to the WHO that their declaration of a pandemic status was at least partly influenced by a desire to increase the profits of the pharmaceutical industry. Now let's go the case of Italy:
In that time, there was the Berlusconi IV Cabinet, which decided to provide co-administration of the A/H1N1 influenza vaccine together with the seasonal influenza vaccine. To this end, it entered into a production contract with Novartis (a Swiss multinational company operating in the pharmaceutical sector that had several legal disputes), which was initially kept secret. The contract was signed between the Director General of the Ministry of Health, Fabrizio Oleari, and the CEO of Novartis Vaccines, Francesco Gulli. The text provides for the supply of 24 million doses of the vaccine, at a cost of 184 million euros, including VAT. Euros that were also ours of course.

The contract was judged penalizing by the Court of Auditors, which accused the government of having accepted clauses too favorable to the company, such as the absence of penalties, the acquisition by the ministry of risks and compensation to the multinational for any losses. Among the halter clauses accepted by the Ministry of Health:

Novartis is obliged to produce the vaccine doses and to respect the agreement with the Ministry of Health. But only as long as this is deemed "reasonable";
the government undertakes to compensate for any damage to health caused by the use of the vaccine, keeping Novartis harmless. The multinational is liable only for manufacturing defects;
if the product is not delivered due to failure to obtain the marketing authorization and positive clinical tests, the Ministry will have to compensate the company with a net lump sum of 24 million euros;
the packaging is decided by Novartis, and the Ministry is not authorized to make changes to the packaging or to alter, obscure, remove or tamper with the trademark;
Novartis undertakes to deliver the vaccine by an agreed date, but if it is unable to deliver the product, a communication to the Ministry seven days before the deadline is sufficient to obtain a referral agreed between the parties. And if the ministry is unable to collect the product, Novartis will be able to resell it to other customers or invoice the ministry for what is not collected, with the possibility of reselling it anyway after 90 days;
the parties undertake to maintain absolute confidentiality on confidential information.

The doses actually produced and delivered by Novartis amounted to 10 million, those used to 900.000. Still in March 2010, several ASLs reported the availability in stock of more than half of the vaccines delivered In Lombardy, only 10% of the doses were administered. The Ministry has begun to plan the withdrawal of unused doses, which according to WHO indications will expire in the summer.

Minister Ferruccio Fazio announced that he wanted to open negotiations with Novartis for vaccines ordered but not yet produced, and to consider the possibility of selling 2.5 million vaccines, 10% of the Italian supply, to the World Health Organization. plus any additional supply resulting from vaccines not used by the regions.
In Italy, by mid-November, about 1.5 million people were affected by the virus, with 70 deaths and 160,000 vaccinated. And we lost lots of money. 184 million euros, including VAT, just to remind you.
So we ask ourselves: why the hell did we buy these vaccines? :spin:
I want to remind you that the deaths caused by this virus weren't even that high, they were really low (lower than the seasonal flu, for example). Yet the WHO declared a 6th level pandemic and highly suggested we needed vaccines, letting the pharmaceutical houses to create vaccines easily with the cost of the states.
Don't call me a conspiracy theorist for this, because this really happened :fuzblink:

Regarding the vaccines against COVID-19, like I said the day to get one is still distant. Yet (here in Italy) some people tested sample of work-in-progress vaccines. Some had effective results (yet not definitive healings), others had side effects.
I'd say tho that the iron regarding this topic is not hot yet. I'm not excepting the best results tho, both economically and medically.

There were also news regarding the tampons, used to find out you are infected or not, that were actually infected with the COVID-19. I was a bit shocked and confused by this but it actually happened here in Italy and in other parts of the world.

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They've reopened the pubs too, except you can only drink outside in the cold Autumn air. I'm also presuming Halloween will be cancelled this year too.

Same thing here, but you can also stay inside if you wear a mask the whole time (when you sit down and stay still tho you can take off the masks)

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I'm also presuming Halloween will be cancelled this year too.

You're kidding? Halloween will be awesome thanks to masks.