Capitol Hill Blue Forums Science and Technology Health, Medicine & the healing Sciences Coronavirus: The Plague of The 21st Century?

Last night there was a story about a variety of Universities, throughout the nation, that started up and are pleading with their students to NOT go home! This is especially true of those schools who take covid-19 serious, are continuously testing their students, make everybody wear masks, pay attention, etc.

It will be interesting, especially if the kids to go back home for Labor Day and infect the rest of their family, or go home and get infected themselves and then go back to school and infect everybody. Two way street on this one.

Even if a University had all the students lock down in their dorm rooms, and do everything remotely. they still have to eat! I doubt said Universities have the staff to deliver ready-to-eat meals to every room.

Unfortunately, their plans for student needs are being made by administrators with zero training in epidemiology. This is common throughout almost all "school reopening" plans. Reality is a bitch, especially when you are a Republican. Remember: "Alternate facts" are not facts at all.

On the bright side...the more of this younger generation who are hurt by the fascist capitalists in charge, the more they will trend towards socialism as the Boomers die off.

About returning to school.

In Norway, they early on (May-ish) started allowing pre-school through 4th Grade to return to school after following simple protocols:
1) Child and whole family test negative
2) All teachers and other employees test negative
3) Everybody commits to following the government's distancing (2, later 1 meter) and occupancy guidelines
4) Everyone has their temperature taken daily upon arrival at the school
5) Everyone commits to staying home if they feel ill and reporting to the school and the health authorities if they exhibit known covid-19 symptoms.

It went off with nary a hitch.

Later, they allowed high school seniors to resume graduation festivities (a national tradition beyond proms and sprees) with predictable results.

Now colleges and universities have started back up with partial in-person instruction. Which, of course, draws the students back to their dorms where they congregate, drink, eat, have sex and, naturally, give each other covid-19.

Nothing could have had higher odds.

Those Norwegian safety measures are useless: Lots of people are totally asymptomatic, meaning no fever, they never feel sick, etc. But they still spread the virus.

The viral infection actually has few if any symptoms. After your viral peak, when the innate immune system starts deactivating virus, you might get autoimmune symptoms. This basic misunderstanding of how the virus works has caused all sorts of idiotic decisions.

People are very infectious before any symptoms appear. Then for a few days more. After that they may have more and more severe symptoms but they probably are not shedding enough intact virus to be contagious.

Well, the safety measures for the youngsters were implemented when the entire country was in lockdown, so, the people testing negative likely were without the virus and continuing with the lockdown other than early age schooling probably made that opening successful.

Relaxing the lockdown, especially allowing international travel and indoor dining and drinking, combined with the general disregard for danger and rules by young adults undoubtably accounts for the blooming of cases in that demographic.

Interestingly, though there has been a significant jump in cases the last month or so, there has not been the expected jump in deaths. Deaths remain at or near zero for the last 4 months.

I have often wondered about the temperature thing. White Covid-19 when does one start to get a temperature. Do those who have no indication of being infected often have a temperature?

Only about 30% of victims have fevers, and those may last as short as one day. True asymptomatic cases have no symptoms at all. But they still shed as much virus as people who later develop symptoms. This is because the viral infection causes no symptoms at all. All the symptoms come after the viral replication phase, when the victim's innate immune system starts attacking the virus. One of the first responses is for Natural Killer T-cells to see foreign protein on the surface of cells, and release some poisons to kill those cells. These poisons (besides killing the infected cell) cause fever and attract more white cells to the area.

Of course, one NK T-cell killing one infected cell is not going to cause a fever. It takes a lot of that to make one. It's a race: If you have a small viral inoculum, your immune system can take care of it and you never know. But you still spread the virus, because that's what evolution has created in the virus. Spreading is it's sole "purpose in life". The virus sees no benefit in killing you, or even making you sick other than sneezing or coughing.

Your body, on the other hand, will kill you eventually. It's designed to expire once it can no longer breed.

If you don't kill it first.

As predicted, the Sturgis event spread the virus far and wide. leading to outbreaks all over the country:

Sturgis Superspreader Motorcycle Event

They could have saved a lot of money by buying every single one of them a new Harley Heritage Classic to stay home.

Harley Models and Prices