SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus (COVID-19)

I'm not close enough to that to help with an explainer. Some medical professionals and similar here (iplug?) ought to be much better suited. And it looks like Salamander has already given a start.

 

That's certainly a big number.
But the top 10 (known) supercomputers are ~half of that by themselves

link : November 2019 | TOP500 Supercomputer Sites

Next year the biggest supercomputer is expected to be 1.5 Exaflops by itself
link: Cray, AMD Tag Team On 1.5 Exaflops “Frontier” Supercomputer

Mike

 

I saw a video from a medical person and they made a good point. They are not the front line. The goal is to avoid the need for hospitalization.
WE are the front line of defense by modifying our behavior. The medical teams are the LAST line of defense.

 

On the Folding@Home front, they just added a new large batch of work units to determine which molecules will be targeted for therapies against Covid-19. Yes, they're getting closer.

Some of this work is processed by CPU's rather than just GPU's. Gamers have machines perfectly suited for much of the work going on. One of the gaming magazines issued a challenge to the very competitive game crowd and it's estimated nearly 450,000 gamers jumped in to work on the project.

Anyone can do this, Windoz, macOS, Linux.

 

Antibody testing maybe needed for broad examination of population for epidemiological study, but it may not be a game changer.
Will a home antibody test for covid-19 really be a game changer? | New Scientist

 

FYI, I can't access that link from my IP address for some reason.

The research team at the University of OK has started doing antibody testing this week.

 

'several french officials accuse u.s. of buying french contracted ppe by bringing cash and upping the purchase price 2 to 3 times the amount france agreed to pay.'

 

Oh, thanks. I pasted the link from my computer which is currently connected via VPN. I corrected the link URL for general access. It should work now.

 

That did it!

 

ny times article (sorry bob) but i thought it made sense: symptom severity of coronavirus may be partially subject to viral loading. and that may be due to how you caught the virus. touching an infected surface then your face, breathing in some that's in the air or being subject to someone else's full on droplets.

not data or scientific back up, but it seems to make sense.

 

i would like to see death statistics of people between 20 and 40, with no underlying health issues, compared to seasonal flu

 

dr. fauci calls for shutdown of 'wet markets'

 

It certainly won't be a game changer when applied to things that it wasn't really meant for.

But as the article notes: "Widespread antibody testing will also reveal whether large numbers of mild infections have gone unnoticed. It would be great news if this is the case, allowing many to return to work and meaning that the infection fatality rate is lower than thought."

 

Unfortunately, at present no one knows about the relationship between SARS-CoV2 specific antibody titer and individual's immunity against COVID-19. Just because the test shows the presence of positive antibodies, it does not mean it is a guarantee for full immunity. There have been reported cases of COVID-19 patients who have tested positive earlier, then pronounced "recovered" have tested positive again. In light of the uncertainty surrounding full immunity against this virus, more studies are needed before relying on the positive antibody test result to set free everyone back to work.
Can you catch the coronavirus twice? We don’t know yet | New Scientist

 

And what is hunting?

Yes, there is "deer wasting disease" and I've seen parasites depart from game I've harvested. Field dressing is not pleasant and having helped butcher a beef, it is why my meats are one step away from charcoal.

Bob Wilson

 

good question, but we don get (m)any zoonotic virus, do we?

 

Not contagious virus, but Rabies virus.
And there is no reason to believe no new zoonotic virus will appear from animals in the US.

 

does that double negative mean dr. fauci should call for a ban on hunting?

 

May be a challenging task. A cursory but accurate understanding of such requires some basic understanding of genetics, immunology, enzymes, proteins, etc.

Tried searching for things like ...PCR...antibody testing...for dummies...basic principals..., and seems the only things smaller than textbook chapters are several pages long and still would not be quite readable without the prerequisite background. Just looking at rtPCR, too many things to have to get spun up on like differences between RNA and DNA, complementary DNA, what this guy reverse transcriptase is and how it works, what messenger RNA is, what's a primer...

Job security?

 

I don't hunt, but I may have to stop having chickens in our back yard... Bird Flu Influenza A virus subtype H5N1