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That percentage from the Karolinska University Hospital study is almost exactly what antibody tests in Florida show. We managed to achieve the worst of both worlds, a shutdown and a run-away pandemic that still falls far short of any kind of "herd immunity". Today we found out about another...

While trying to keep track of what's going on in Florida, I found an account that is unfortunately behind a paywall with a hefty cost. (I've been spending a great deal on subscriptions this year.) It gave Governor DeSantis credit for instituting a policy that patients hospitalized for COVID-19...

Sweden also had a high mortality rate for a first-world country, and this was definitely because of outbreaks in care homes. Florida has had close to half its deaths in long-term care facilities, and officials didn't want to admit it was running wild in places with inadequate testing and PPE...

I'm still not convinced those were actually multiple infections. Way too many viruses can hide out in physiological compartments which are hard to test. The classic example is chickenpox and shingles. That is a DNA virus which survives for years, but an RNA virus could last for months, as we...

I don't think anyone on this forum will have trouble understanding this opinion piece from Fiona Lowenstein. One might hope there will be wider understanding of our predicament as a result. One might despair if reading those unimpressed by her story. Incidentally, what I said to Snow Leopard...

Here's what one expert in military planning for pandemics thinks about the current situation in Texas. Having been in the U.S. Army, I doubt the word he originally used was "trouble". Vox's German Lopez has an account of what Florida did to end up with more COVID-19 cases than any other state...

One more brief update from Florida, which has been doing a great deal wrong. "A ship on the shore is a lighthouse to the sea." The current estimate of the mortality rate is 1.44%, significantly worse than I used above. The state has reported 709 deaths in the last week, though these may have...

Your last point seems related to the risk of a cytokine storm, which is separate from questions about infection. It is clear people who are not flattened by a cytokine storm are transmitting the disease. The cases I'm talking about do not seem to have antibodies prior to exposure, and I don't...

Here's a scathing article on Arizona's response to the pandemic, from a source with a definite political bias. What it says in objective terms remains reasonable. Arizona is still less lunatic than a state which opened theme parks, etc. when important measures showed substantial epidemic...

There is another possibility, if you remember the Diamond Princess. Because early response was based on symptoms, everyone on that ship was exposed before tests were widely available. Asymptomatic crew members could not be well isolated while dealing with passengers, and crew accommodations did...

You mean the survivors will. Don't worry, the numbers will go up. This is the magic of exponential increase. The problem is that mortality will also go up, and that is delayed by weeks. Before successful immunization or fully effective treatment, we will have about 1% mortality if hospitals...

A purely anecdotal report: Orange County, Florida is still trying to reopen schools with face-to-face classes and no masks. (Why? Because no money has been allocated for anything else. This also applies to Jonathan Edward's proposal to build new hospitals. ) There was a contentious school...

Another report from Florida, where officials apparently don't realize the virus is out of control. Predictably, Florida had 13,965 new cases today. Unfortunately, we also set a record of 156 reported deaths in a day. Here in Orange County (Orlando/Disney World) we had 1,390 new cases...

Whatever you do in the U.K. make sure it is different from what Florida has done. Today's news just showed the state reported 10,161 new cases and 112 deaths. The deaths were naturally caused by infections that typically started weeks ago. There is usually a weekly dip in reporting new cases. I...

Moved from the Worldwide spread and control thread. As if we didn't have enough to worry about, there are now multiple reports that COVID-19 inflammatory syndrome sometimes occurs in adults.

We went through a similar wrestling match over data here in Florida, with bad consequences. We only started to get official data on hospitalizations last Friday. There were months of lawsuits before the state published data from long-term care facilities, where half the deaths took place. We...

This is not an antigen-antibody complex, but only the antigen, and I'm pretty sure you don't count T-cells as antigen-presenting cells. If it depended on preexisting antibodies, that would defeat the purpose of immunization. If I read current research correctly, RBCs are passing virions as...

Does anyone with less pressing concerns know of any other research on the idea that human erythrocytes/RBCs can act as antigen-presenting cells without being eaten by phagocytes?

As I recall New Zealand is a nation, and as I just learned it is the only part of the continent Zealandia above water. You, and a bunch of Aussies, have little to freak out about. Florida, which was not a separate nation or continent last time I checked, had 15,300 new cases on Sunday, to add...

Thought you were beginning to understand how human immune systems worked? Ever consider the role of erythrocytes/RBCs as antigen-presenting cells? https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-vaccines-blood.html I'll try to check back, but I can't promise to stay active. I'm busy with other...