2020-21 Schedule

[The Mad Hatter]

For those who apparently think that they have a clear grasp on the disease, how it works, and who it is a danger to:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/we-still-dont-know-how-the-coronavirus-is-killing-us.html

[MikeKennedyRulZ]

For those who apparently think that they have a clear grasp on the disease, how it works, and who it is a danger to:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020...illing-us.html

HAA! Not sure I would quote that liberal rag as some sort of definitive source on the subject.

[The Mad Hatter]

HAA! Not sure I would quote that liberal rag as some sort of definitive source on the subject.

If that is the extent of your ability to do assessment of information accuracy or engage in substantive discussion over issues, then it is pretty clear that I would be wasting my time talking to you. For those actually interested, the article is not making partisan claims and does a really good job at looking at the clinical unknowns of the virus, which has not always gotten as much attention as the other issues around the disease.

[1979Shocker]

Unless something unexpected happens, it's not likely that there will be a 2020-2021 basketball season.

There's a trial out of Oxford University (England) that is in human trials for a vaccine that they think will be effective. If EVERYTHING turns out with the best possible result, they will have a vaccine available by September, but there will be billions of people wanting that vaccine and they don't know the quantities they can produce.

To play games, players would have to take a test with a short result turnaround (15 - 30 minutes) before every game. Right now, Kansas is testing about .5% of the population and there are many anecdotal comments about the inability of people with significant symptoms to be tested, possibly due to a shortage of tests.

Tests could be used to isolate those infected or to allow basketball games to be played in empty gyms unless something major happens between now and November. I doubt that on-campus classes will start this year. Will basketball practice be allowed? Basketball doesn't work well with 6' separation between players.

The players wouldn't need to be 6 feet apart, but they would have to wear masks while on the court and probably when they're on the bench, They might need to wear some of those disposable vinyl gloves, too.

[pie n eye]

For those who apparently think that they have a clear grasp on the disease, how it works, and who it is a danger to:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020...illing-us.html

I’ve been an advocate of the stay at home measures as a way to avoid overwhelming the health care system while we learn more about covid, build up resources, and prepare a plan to move forward.

I’m not a medical doctor so, no, I don’t have a clear grasp on the disease.

Reading the above article, which overachieves its goal of scaring the **** out of me, convinces me even more we need to strategically start to reopen society in as safe a manner as possible.

If everything in that article is true, and I question certain things but haven’t the knowledge to refute any of it, we aren’t going to see a treatment let alone a vaccine anytime soon. Like 5+ years. If it kills every person in a different way and is mutating that fast (and doesn’t follow the normal pattern of weakening with each mutation) then it’s unlikely we’ll ever find a cure or vaccine.

So, what are we going to do, just sit in our house and wait for a vaccine or cure that may or may not ever come?

[Aargh]

For those who apparently think that they have a clear grasp on the disease, how it works, and who it is a danger to:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020...illing-us.html

This article is in basic agreement with about all I've read, and I've read quite a few. I've run across a complete genome breakdown of the various proteins that make up the virus, and the role of those proteins in how the vitrus invades host cells, fights off immune responses, steals the host cell's replication capabilities and use them with the virus's RNA, and even a protein that is thought to induce suicide in he host cell.

I doubt the scientific community is distributing exaggerated articles for some political agenda. That isn't the way science works.

[The Mad Hatter]

I’ve been an advocate of the stay at home measures as a way to avoid overwhelming the health care system while we learn more about covid, build up resources, and prepare a plan to move forward.

I’m not a medical doctor so, no, I don’t have a clear grasp on the disease.

Reading the above article, which overachieves its goal of scaring the **** out of me, convinces me even more we need to strategically start to reopen society in as safe a manner as possible.

If everything in that article is true, and I question certain things but haven’t the knowledge to refute any of it, we aren’t going to see a treatment let alone a vaccine anytime soon. Like 5+ years. If it kills every person in a different way and is mutating that fast (and doesn’t follow the normal pattern of weakening with each mutation) then it’s unlikely we’ll ever find a cure or vaccine.

So, what are we going to do, just sit in our house and wait for a vaccine or cure that may or may not ever come?

For the record, the clinical issues we have in understanding how the disease works may or may not affect how quickly a vaccine can be developed or whether herd immunity will in fact form. It just means that there is still a lot of unknowns on the clinical side.

One central truth is that more and better testing will enable us to get better answers to both the clinical issues and the public policy issues.

More than anything, however, would be the importance of not settling in too firmly to a single answer given all the unknowns. I fear that too many will decide right now what policies they approve of (in a variety of directions), and then defend those policies regardless of what answers we get to all of the still unanswered questions. A willingness to acknowledge what we don't know and adjust as we get better information is critical. As a side note, I think that the commission of Sedgwick county doctors advising 1 week extension of restrictions was wise if for no other reason than their listed objective of having a chance to see the impacts of opening up elsewhere before doing so here.

To that point, on the issue of the basketball season, I think that it is way too early to know what will be happening. There are plenty of scenarios on the table from no sports in the fall, to sports without crowds, to sports with crowds and which of these is both most likely and wisest hinges on evidence that is yet to be clearly established.

[MikeKennedyRulZ]

I’ve been an advocate of the stay at home measures as a way to avoid overwhelming the health care system while we learn more about covid, build up resources, and prepare a plan to move forward.

I’m not a medical doctor so, no, I don’t have a clear grasp on the disease.

Reading the above article, which overachieves its goal of scaring the **** out of me, convinces me even more we need to strategically start to reopen society in as safe a manner as possible.

If everything in that article is true, and I question certain things but haven’t the knowledge to refute any of it, we aren’t going to see a treatment let alone a vaccine anytime soon. Like 5+ years. If it kills every person in a different way and is mutating that fast (and doesn’t follow the normal pattern of weakening with each mutation) then it’s unlikely we’ll ever find a cure or vaccine.

So, what are we going to do, just sit in our house and wait for a vaccine or cure that may or may not ever come?

There is nothing shown or proven that the virus is mutating at all, much less at that fast of a rate. Yes, we need to be cautious and follow the protocols that have been put in place until there are proper and realistic ways to handle the virus. Telling people that we are going to have to stay in our homes and crater the economy until we have a vaccine is nonsense. There are long-term ways to deal with and isolate those who are most at risk to minimize and even contain the virus, much like we have done with the flu.

[pie n eye]

There is nothing shown or proven that the virus is mutating at all, much less at that fast of a rate.

Your statement above reflects the majority of the information that I’ve read but I was basing my comment on what I read in that article which was that the virus had already mutated 30 times.

[MikeKennedyRulZ]

Your statement above reflects the majority of the information that I’ve read but I was basing my comment on what I read in that article which was that the virus had already mutated 30 times.

Which is why I stated earlier that articles like that cannot be relied upon. There are no facts to back it up regardless of what others are saying. There is a lot of misinformation on all sides and scare tactics being employed universally. Best to keep doing what we are doing and evaluate it with an open mind.

[The Mad Hatter]

Your statement above reflects the majority of the information that I’ve read but I was basing my comment on what I read in that article which was that the virus had already mutated 30 times.

For the record, the article wasn't saying that it has mutated 30 times, it just noted that proposals of mutations has been one of the ways that some scientists have tried to explain the variability they are seeing in the disease. The article even noted that the paper that proposed that 30 times number came under criticism.

EDIT: This is also an example of why careful reading of an article matters more than blanket criticism of an entire source of someone's interpretation of that source.

[Aargh]

Which is why I stated earlier that articles like that cannot be relied upon. There are no facts to back it up regardless of what others are saying. There is a lot of misinformation on all sides and scare tactics being employed universally. Best to keep doing what we are doing and evaluate it with an open mind.

The entire genetic structure has been mapped, down to the most basic component. If another researcher runs a complete genetic map and finds different structures or different sequences within the same structures, then the virus has mutated. It's a technical process to do the mapping, but it's not technical to see a pattern of "aacgac" in one section of the genome and "accgac" the next time that section is mapped.

I don't remember the letters used in genetic mapping, so the ones I used may be wrong, but the idea is the same.

[SB Shock]

There is nothing shown or proven that the virus is mutating at all, much less at that fast of a rate.

smh

This should be enough links from all news spectrums (Jpost, NYTIME, Science sites, The Hill, ABC, Sky news, etc) so bias can't be claimed.

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/what-to-know-about-mutation-and-covid-19

https://futurism.com/neoscope/coronavirus-already-mutated-30-strains

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200409085644.htm

https://www.techtimes.com/articles/248823/20200414/new-coronavirus-mutation-strain-found-which-could-potentially-hinder-covid-19-vaccine-development.htm

https://www.abc12.com/content/news/New-strains-of-Covid-19-found-in-Michigan-569705351.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fB8M37gx5xM

https://nypost.com/2020/04/21/coronavirus-has-mutated-into-at-least-30-different-strains-study/

https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/494371-coronavirus-has-mutated-into-more-than-30

https://www.jpost.com/health-science/coronavirus-has-mutated-into-at-least-30-different-strains-new-study-finds-625333

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-has-mutated-into-more-than-30-strains-say-scientists-in-china-11976380

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/us/coronavirus-sequencing.html

[pie n eye]

smh

This should be enough links from all news spectrums (Jpost, NYTIME, Science sites, The Hill, ABC, Sky news, etc) so bias can't be claimed.

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/what-to-know-about-mutation-and-covid-19

https://futurism.com/neoscope/coronavirus-already-mutated-30-strains

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200409085644.htm

https://www.techtimes.com/articles/248823/20200414/new-coronavirus-mutation-strain-found-which-could-potentially-hinder-covid-19-vaccine-development.htm

https://www.abc12.com/content/news/New-strains-of-Covid-19-found-in-Michigan-569705351.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fB8M37gx5xM

https://nypost.com/2020/04/21/coronavirus-has-mutated-into-at-least-30-different-strains-study/

https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/494371-coronavirus-has-mutated-into-more-than-30

https://www.jpost.com/health-science/coronavirus-has-mutated-into-at-least-30-different-strains-new-study-finds-625333

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-has-mutated-into-more-than-30-strains-say-scientists-in-china-11976380

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/us/coronavirus-sequencing.html

I’m not going to read through all of those links so I’m just going to assume that they all say about the same thing as the first one which is that the virus is mutating very slowly and slightly which is good news for vaccine development.

Also that mutations aren’t necessarily bad. Most times as the virus mutates it weakens. Even if it gets worse that can be better for us because it can make people sicker and therefore they stay home or go to the doctor sooner and are less likely to infect others, etc.

[Kung Wu]

Right now, Kansas is testing about .5% of the population and there are many anecdotal comments about the inability of people with significant symptoms to be tested, possibly due to a shortage of tests.

Don't mean to derail this thread but ... it's already derailed!

0.012% of the state's population has been hospitalized for COVID-19.

78 tests have been conducted for every 1 person hospitalized for COVID-19 in the state of Kansas.

Chew on that a bit.

Then get back with me on how much does a test cost, and who pays for it?