OT: Information on Coronavirus from the Far East

[nfreeman]

4 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

A great illustration of how easy it is for even educated, professional people to fall into the trap. You fell for the style of writing and the fact there's "published" text on your screen. We have an inherent bias to believe things that are printed, probably because at one time if something was printed, it meant it had been vetted.

It's too bad. We live in an era some have dubbed "The end of expertise." We can't believe science, government, politicians, media, Jason Botterill. So just like so many on here have decided to manage the team themselves, now we're being asked to be professional virologists. @5th line wingnutt how in the world would I go about critiquing that blog? It might all be true, but the signs should lead people to be very suspicious. Call me naive, but I'm going to rely mainly on what the CDC says about this thing.

Meanwhile, the bugs are feasting on us by the trillions right now and they're going to have their way with our remains. Have a great weekend! The sun is out in WNY/WPA!

I don't think I "fell" for anything.  I simply disagreed with you and @Weave reflexively disregarding someone's analysis seemingly for the sole reason that it was posted on someone's blog and not on a more well-known/"official" outlet.

While it's certainly possible that the post is full of holes, biased or otherwise unreliable, this shouldn't be the default assumption simply because it wasn't on XYZ "reputable" website.  There is a ton of ill-considered and scientifically unsound crap that is published on those websites, and there is a ton of well-written and sound analysis that is published on smaller blogs like this one. 

If you want to wait for the CDC or other government outlet to give you the official word on something before coming to any conclusions, that is of course up to you.  I certainly would not choose that approach.  I would read a bunch of stuff and try to figure it out.

As for the end of expertise, as I've said here many times, a group of distinguished SabreSpace posters would have done a better job running the team over the last decade than the "experts" who have held the jobs (and been paid millions of dollars to do so).

[5th line wingnutt]

7 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

I don't think I "fell" for anything.  I simply disagreed with you and @Weave reflexively disregarding someone's analysis seemingly for the sole reason that it was posted on someone's blog and not on a more well-known/"official" outlet.

While it's certainly possible that the post is full of holes, biased or otherwise unreliable, this shouldn't be the default assumption simply because it wasn't on XYZ "reputable" website.  There is a ton of ill-considered and scientifically unsound crap that is published on those websites, and there is a ton of well-written and sound analysis that is published on smaller blogs like this one. 

If you want to wait for the CDC or other government outlet to give you the official word on something before coming to any conclusions, that is of course up to you.  I certainly would not choose that approach.  I would read a bunch of stuff and try to figure it out.

As for the end of expertise, as I've said here many times, a group of distinguished SabreSpace posters would have done a better job running the team over the last decade than the "experts" who have held the jobs (and been paid millions of dollars to do so).

I read @Weave's post and it took me about 5 minutes to find the broken links.  Links that were working when I read the story.

[Weave]

19 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

Well, those articles may have been moved to  different pages by the WHO and NEJM.  In any case, the NEJM article s now here, and it says what the writer says it says:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001191?query=featured_home

I think this is the WHO article he was referring to (but it's long and I didn't read it):  https://www.who.int/csr/sars/WHOconsensus.pdf?ua=1

I don't think he threw in those links in an attempt to mislead anyone.

 

Well, right below "guest blogger", the name of the author is stated.

And there are many, many blogs that include "donate" buttons -- not unlike how most newspaper/magazine sites include "subscribe now" buttons.

That seems too convenient to be coincidental.  As PA mentions, red flag city.  And given that site’s overwhelming reporting of “science” counter to everything that actual scientific organizations are publishing, Id propose that if you aren’t approaching that site with a large dose of skepticism, it is a site that is probably pandering to you.

[Weave]

15 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

Fair enough. Can we agree that at times of crisis that the best shot we have at accurate, reliable information is going to be from our government? Should we really run around the Internet trying to find out what's really going on?

 

11 minutes ago, LTS said:

I wouldn't agree to that, ever.  The government has been proven to distort truth and outright lie.  

I trust US governmental information as much as I would a stock tip from a homeless guy.

I also wouldn't look at this article and the end all be all.  The truth, as always, is usually somewhere in between.  You have to look at the prevailing commentary and begin to decipher the patterns of information that are coming out.  Weigh each one, and then decide which way you want to be swayed.

Very few sources of information are not subject to marketing or spin or at least an unconcious or conscious bias.

I think our governments reporting should be viewed with skepticism, but not on a scale that this website warrants.  Although, with the way our executive branch is changing the scientific based government agencies we do have, it won’t be long before our government is about as trustworthy for this kind of i fo as that blog site.

Give me a site that ends in .edu and I’ll trust that one first.

[Eleven]

5 minutes ago, Weave said:

 

I think our governments reporting should be viewed with skepticism, but not on a scale that this website warrants.  Although, with the way our executive branch is changing the scientific based government agencies we do have, it won’t be long before our government is about as trustworthy for this kind of i fo as that blog site.

Give me a site that ends in .edu and I’ll trust that one first.

My seminary has a site that ends in .edu but it's not very trustworthy right now.

But it's still probably better than some weird alt-right climate change denial blog.

Edited February 15, 2020 by Eleven

[5th line wingnutt]

@Weave and @PASabreFan

I posted a link to an article I found interesting.  I did not endorse it.  I take pretty much everything I read with a healthy dash of skepticism.  When something new, like the Wuhan strain of coronavirus shows up there is bound to be confusion and misinformation flying around.  Most of the misinformation is unintentional.  There will even be disagreement among experts.  There will even be, gasp!, broken hyperlinks.  I think the post I linked to was informative and sincere.  Is it 100% correct?  I doubt it.  I have found WUWT to be more reliable than the people it critiques.  Remember that science is not done by consensus or arguments that appeal to authority.

[5th line wingnutt]

9 minutes ago, Eleven said:

My seminary has a site that ends in .edu but it's not very trustworthy right now.

But it's still probably better than some weird alt-right climate change denial blog.

This is about science.  If you want to make it about politics there is a place for that.

[Weave]

2 minutes ago, 5th line wingnutt said:

@Weave and @PASabreFan

I posted a link to an article I found interesting.  I did not endorse it.  I take pretty much everything I read with a healthy dash of skepticism.  When something new, like the Wuhan strain of coronavirus shows up there is bound to be confusion and misinformation flying around.  Most of the misinformation is unintentional.  There will even be disagreement among experts.  There will even be, gasp!, broken hyperlinks.  I think the post I linked to was informative and sincere.  Is it 100% correct?  I doubt it.  I have found WUWT to be more reliable than the people it critiques.  Remember that science is not done by consensus or arguments that appeal to authority.

Real science requires peer review, which does entail consensus. 

We'll disagree on the lieklihood of sincerity on that site.

[Claude_Verret]

On 2/13/2020 at 12:29 PM, GASabresIUFAN said:

@Claude_Verret Maybe you can tell us how long it takes for a virus like this to show up in a blood test? 

It would seem to me that it would show up rather quickly even if it takes two weeks for the patient to get sick.

My question is if the virus doesn’t shows in a blood tests taken over a week or two, at some point don’t you have to let people with clean blood out of quarantine?

Sorry for the delay. Diagnostic tests for respiratory viruses are typically performed on nasal/throat swab samples. The CDC recently fast tracked a coronavirus RT-PCR kit around the typical FDA approval process. PCR based kits are very sensitive as they amplify genetic material (RNA in this case) specific to markers in the coronavirus genome. I'm not familiar with the life cycle of coronavirus, but if as reported there is a long asymptomatic latency period, this highly sensitive test will continue to keep asymptomatic patients under quarantine. 

I imagine that the Chinese have a test based on the same PCR technology, but I have heard reports that supplies are running low.

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/p0206-coronavirus-diagnostic-test-kits.html

Edit: Googling around a bit more about these tests it seems that the tests are suffering from quite a bit of false negative results. There could be several explanations for this, but in my experience developing PCR tests for flu, poor sample collection technique, specimen collection media or non optimized primers would be the first things I'd look at. Especially with a test that was fast tracked and not quite ready for prime time. The primers would be the first thing I'd look at, these are short nucleic acid sequences that flank either side or the viral genetic code that you wish to amplify. The amplified material when present above a certain threshold is used to call positive patient samples.  Quite often these will work fine in the lab, but in a real world scenario performance can suffer.  Thus its not surprising there are issues with a test that was not put through the normal regulatory paces.

Edited February 15, 2020 by Claude_Verret

[Eleven]

34 minutes ago, 5th line wingnutt said:

This is about science.  If you want to make it about politics there is a place for that.

There is the same place for alt-right climate change denial blogs.  You put that link here, not me.  That site has nothing to do with science.

Edited February 15, 2020 by Eleven

[nfreeman]

5 minutes ago, Eleven said:

There is the same place for alt-right climate change denial blogs.  You put that link here, not me.  That site has nothing to do with science.

OK, but this post was specifically about coronavirus.  Let's try not to sling unrelated mud around so the thread doesn't get derailed please.

[SDS]

19 hours ago, sabresparaavida said:

The Chinese students here at U of R would all have been back before the outbreak really got bad, you have to remember that there are a billion people in China, and there are only around a 1000 Chinese students at UR, and some wouldn't have gone home for the break.

 

Are you a Yellowjacket?

[SwampD]

1 hour ago, nfreeman said:

Well, those articles may have been moved to  different pages by the WHO and NEJM.  In any case, the NEJM article s now here, and it says what the writer says it says:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001191?query=featured_home

I think this is the WHO article he was referring to (but it's long and I didn't read it):  https://www.who.int/csr/sars/WHOconsensus.pdf?ua=1

I don't think he threw in those links in an attempt to mislead anyone.

 

Well, right below "guest blogger", the name of the author is stated.

And there are many, many blogs that include "donate" buttons -- not unlike how most newspaper/magazine sites include "subscribe now" buttons.

Did you actually read those?

The first one says a guy went into the hospital and was sick for about a week, then he got better.

The other one talks about the last SARS outbreak that claimed the lives of only 774 people worldwide. There have been 14000 flu deaths this season in this country alone by comparison.

The disparity in hype between Coronavirus and the flu, I find curious.

Edited February 15, 2020 by SwampD

[Huckleberry]

Pretty sure its already spread all over Europe and the rest of the world, just waiting for the next break out.

But I think in the end we won't see more victims than with the common flu.    But the spread rate is pretty scary.

Edited February 15, 2020 by Huckleberry

[...]

2 hours ago, PASabreFan said:

Fair enough. Can we agree that at times of crisis that the best shot we have at accurate, reliable information is going to be from our government? 

[...]

2 hours ago, Weave said:

I think our governments reporting should be viewed with skepticism, but not on a scale that this website warrants.  Although, with the way our executive branch is changing the scientific based government agencies we do have, it won’t be long before our government is about as trustworthy for this kind of i fo as that blog site.

Give me a site that ends in .edu and I’ll trust that one first.

Bravo on getting in your political commentary, as anti-intellectual as you think it is not.

As the for the "spirit" of your post...

 

 

1 hour ago, 5th line wingnutt said:

@Weave and @PASabreFan

I posted a link to an article I found interesting.  I did not endorse it.  I take pretty much everything I read with a healthy dash of skepticism.  When something new, like the Wuhan strain of coronavirus shows up there is bound to be confusion and misinformation flying around.  Most of the misinformation is unintentional.  There will even be disagreement among experts.  There will even be, gasp!, broken hyperlinks.  I think the post I linked to was informative and sincere.  Is it 100% correct?  I doubt it.  I have found WUWT to be more reliable than the people it critiques.  Remember that science is not done by consensus or arguments that appeal to authority.

Hey man, you tried. Some people like the comfy, cozy feel of a government that is in total control. Imagine that.

[...]

1 hour ago, Eleven said:

There is the same place for alt-right climate change denial blogs.  You put that link here, not me.  That site has nothing to do with science.

[nfreeman]

Let’s chill out in here please.  

[SwampD]

How about conversing like a grownup?

Giffs don’t change anyone’s minds.

[Scottysabres]

On 2/5/2020 at 12:32 AM, SwampD said:

This thread is a crock.

 

On 2/5/2020 at 12:34 AM, SwampD said:

 

Of Sh!t.

You mean, conversing like this here with text only...……….?

Asking for a friend...……..

1 minute ago, SwampD said:

How about conversing like a grownup?

Giffs don’t change anyone’s minds.

 

[nfreeman]

49 minutes ago, SwampD said:

Did you actually read those?

The first one says a guy went into the hospital and was sick for about a week, then he got better.

The other one talks about the last SARS outbreak that claimed the lives of only 774 people worldwide. There have been 14000 flu deaths this season in this country alone by comparison.

The disparity in hype between Coronavirus and the flu, I find curious.

Well, if you read my post, you’d see that I said I didn’t read the WHO document, and that I said the NEJM article says what the author says it says.  But thank you for asking. 

As for the “disparity in hype” — do you think there is some kind of conspiracy afoot?  My understanding is that corona is substantially more lethal than common flu, and that we are nowhere near understanding the overall risk.  

[SwampD]

1 minute ago, Scottysabres said:

 

You mean, conversing like this here with text only...……….?

Asking for a friend...……..

 

I agree. My original post did not further the conversation.

[Scottysabres]

Sorry Swamp, couldn't resist ?

And I understand why you did it, I'm not a medical person by any stretch, when I started the thread, I openly admit I was (and still am by the way) very concerned by what my family friend was telling me what he was witnessing and a part of in Japan with the Cruise Ship.

Still, this one concerns me, I'm a smoker, almost 50, this virus is like the Grim Reeper is coming to get me lol

[SwampD]

2 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

Well, if you read my post, you’d see that I said I didn’t read the WHO document, and that I said the NEJM article says what the author says it says.  But thank you for asking. 

As for the “disparity in hype” — do you think there is some kind of conspiracy afoot?  My understanding is that corona is substantially more lethal than common flu, and that we are nowhere near understanding the overall risk.  

I have worked in TV news for 30 years. I have seen our country get played before. It just has that feel to it for me.

[...]

7 minutes ago, SwampD said:

How about conversing like a grownup?

Giffs don’t change anyone’s minds.

Animated GIFs, however, convey ideas quite effectively and efficiently.