gasstationwithoutpumps on viral load and COVID-19 models

Comment from 4/11:

Models can include viral doses (see Methods of modelling viral disease dynamics across the within- and between-host scales: the impact of virus dose on host population immunity) but you need more information about how the viral load changes with the course of the infection and how contagious people are at different stages. We don’t have that detailed information about SARS-CoV-2, so simpler models have to be used (and we don’t even have all the data we need to set the parameters of even simpler models, which is one reason the predictions have such wide ranges of possible outcomes).

And see:
Know your enemy
Can lockdown produce herd immunity with fewer deaths?
Social distancing and immunity
gasstationwithoutpumps on viral load and COVID-19 models
Social distancing and the 2nd wave
Viral dose, viral load

Social distancing and immunity – German study

First time I’ve seen a researcher suggest we could achieve milder illness and immunity via lockdown:

By adhering to strict hygiene measures it is to be expected that the virus concentration of an infected individual can be reduced to the point that the illness manifests more mildly, with simultaneous development of an immunity. These favourable conditions are not present in a superspreading event (e.g. Karneval meeting, apres-ski bar in Ischgl, Austria). Hygienic measures are expected to have positive effects on overall mortality.

And see:
Know your enemy
Can lockdown produce herd immunity with fewer deaths?
Social distancing and immunity
gasstationwithoutpumps on viral load and COVID-19 models
Social distancing and the 2nd wave
Viral dose, viral load

Can lockdown produce herd immunity with fewer deaths?

I had no idea that viruses, like poisons, are more dangerous at higher doses.

Higher exposure, higher danger.

Lower exposure, lower danger:

A stewardess’s folk remedy

A few years ago, one of my sisters talked to a stewardess about viruses on planes. 

The stewardess said she and her colleagues fended off viral infections by using a cue tip Q-TIP (thank you, gasstationwithoutpumps!) to apply Ayr Saline Nasal Gel with Soothing Aloe to their nasal passages. My sister has been using that advice for flights ever since.

Our urgent care center told Ed that saline gels help prevent nose bleeds. I have no idea whether it also creates a barrier to viruses–or, if it does, whether it does so for COVID 19 specifically.

But I’m passing it along.

Let’s go to the dictionary

C is coming to stay with us for the duration. We have two bathrooms and an extra bedroom, so he’ll quarantine there for 14 days. 

I’ll feel better having him here, but he’s a big guy and he’s going to need food. 

Uh oh

I was figuring our bread flour would last another month, but now probably not.

Flour is a challenge, seeing as how my King Arthur order seems to be permanently delayed, and Amazon is out of stock. Looking for information, I found this yesterday in the Washington Post:

“I can absolutely and unequivocally say there is no shortage,” said Robb MacKie, the president and CEO of the American Bakers Association, whose members include packaging companies as well as makers of flour and yeast. “What we have is a demand issue.”

People are baking bread like crazy, and now we’re running out of flour and yeast
By Emily Heil – March 24

Too many customers, not enough stuff…. 

When Ed pointed out that too many customers/not enough stuff is the definition of a shortage we both burst out laughing. Supply-and-demand humor: this is the kind of thing we now find hysterically funny!

Just 4 weeks ago I was talking to a neighbor who grew up in the Soviet Union. I had brought her a loaf of bread and she told me stories of not being able to buy or bake bread in the USSR. She has a memory of her mother one day being finding a hard, dry loaf of rye and how happy they all were to have it. 

This morning I’ve heard from a friend who has one friend dying, another with a fever of 104 who is staying home because the hospitals are full.

So … I’m going to follow my new rule of appreciating each day while I have it.

Know your enemy

A virus is “a piece of bad news wrapped up in protein.”

–  Sir Peter Medawar (1915-87)

Cell phones? Did someone say cell phones?

I was planning to write my final post about collecting cell phones in the classroom when coronavirus hit.

Now, mulling the possibility that I may not be in the classroom at all come fall, when the second COVID wave is apparently scheduled to commence, I’m having trouble remembering the urgency I felt on this front before everything changed. Those days when cell-phone saturation was so bad I thought of leaving my job: those were the good days.

It’s not always easy to recognize a good day before it’s gone. 

The one good coronavirus day I’ve had–meaning: a day I knew was a good day while it was happening–was March 14, the first Saturday after NYU sent everyone home. I woke up that morning feeling joy that I was alive and well. 

Joy! 

It was amazing.