Covid-19 in OKC (coronavirus)

[Mr. Blue Sky]

.....
Eventually, natural selection will become a real things.....

This is interesting. Do you mean actual natural selection in real-time within a short timeframe? The proof of science concepts show that it was actually natural selection that ruled out the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 was engineered in a laboratory. That was of initial paramount importance. There is no natural selection taking place in the passage of this virus in humans. Many people think something like that is occurring -- it's not. But, it has almost certainly taken place in cell culture over time as the "mother virus" (SARS-CoV) has been in labs, and in the wild, for many years. It's that change and its Var 2 relationship to receptor ACE2 that is so interesting and confirmative of the the virus in a natural, selected, state.

Malayan pangolins (Manis javanica) illegally imported into Guangdong province contain coronaviruses similar to SARS-CoV-2²¹. Although the RaTG13 bat virus remains the closest to SARS-CoV-2 across the genome¹, some pangolin coronaviruses exhibit strong similarity to SARS-CoV-2 in the RBD, including all six key RBD residues²¹ (Fig. 1). This clearly shows that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein optimized for binding to human-like ACE2 is the result of natural selection.

(Andersen, K.G., Rambaut, A., Lipkin, W.I. et al. The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2. Nat Med (2020).)

Are you interested in evolutionary biology? If so, you need to read the entire correspondence from researchers to NatureM.

It's an excellent early take.
Here is the link.

[soonerguru]

This is interesting. Do you mean actual natural selection in real-time within a short timeframe? The proof of science concepts show that it was actually natural selection that ruled out the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 was engineered in a laboratory. That was of initial paramount importance. There is no natural selection taking place in the passage of this virus in humans. Many people think something like that is occurring -- it's not. But, it has almost certainly taken place in cell culture over time as the "mother virus" (SARS-CoV) has been in labs, and in the wild, for many years. It's that change and its Var 2 relationship to receptor ACE2 that is so interesting and confirmative of the the virus in a natural, selected, state.

Malayan pangolins (Manis javanica) illegally imported into Guangdong province contain coronaviruses similar to SARS-CoV-2²¹. Although the RaTG13 bat virus remains the closest to SARS-CoV-2 across the genome¹, some pangolin coronaviruses exhibit strong similarity to SARS-CoV-2 in the RBD, including all six key RBD residues²¹ (Fig. 1). This clearly shows that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein optimized for binding to human-like ACE2 is the result of natural selection.

(Andersen, K.G., Rambaut, A., Lipkin, W.I. et al. The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2. Nat Med (2020).)

Are you interested in evolutionary biology? If so, you need to read the entire correspondence from researchers to NatureM.

It's an excellent early take.
Here is the link.

No. I'm quite sure you know what I mean in this context, but I appreciate your scholarship.

[soonerguru]

Great points above, and reasons for cautious optimism. It's clear this began spreading in Oklahoma in late February / First week of March. It seems we have probably cycled through most of those initial transmissions. Now we are dealing with the cave people still crowding stores shoulder to shoulder and having their underground gatherings.

Eventually, natural selection will become a real thing.

Because our media have been ravaged by layoffs, it's a shame we don't have more reporting. For example, I would love to understand how Greer County in SW Oklahoma, which has no air force base or large installation or even sizable community (Mangum?), has like 46 cases and four deaths. What happened there?

Now that testing is more widely available, we can feel somewhat greater confidence in the numbers we are seeing.

One wonders what will happen when we 'open everything up' in the coming days, weeks, months.

Well, nothing from the Oklahoman or the Tulsa World, but MSN reported on Greer County. A shame we cannot get any inquiry into this from Oklahoma journalists (what is left of them).

Here is the article from MSN.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/co...ak/ar-BB12lNJ2

[Mr. Blue Sky]

No. I'm quite sure you know what I mean in this context, but I appreciate your scholarship.

Actually, I had no idea what context you meant it in. That’s why I asked. I guess I tipped off one of the things that give me purpose to get up each morning. It’s a topic that never comes up here, so I saw the one-off reference from you and ran with it.

[Pete]

[OKC Guy]

^^ the newest numbers and trend is encouraging. I think we have to start opening some things back up.

[mkjeeves]

Well, nothing from the Oklahoman or the Tulsa World, but MSN reported on Greer County. A shame we cannot get any inquiry into this from Oklahoma journalists (what is left of them).

Here is the article from MSN.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/co...ak/ar-BB12lNJ2

FWIW...It was reported in the Lawton Constitution. Tulsa preacher was the first person in the state to die from Covid 19 and may have been the person to start the outbreak in Mangum.

https://www.swoknews.com/news/mangum...d12b131d1.html

[soonerguru]

FWIW...It was reported in the Lawton Constitution. Tulsa preacher was the first person in the state to die from Covid 19 and may have been the person to start the outbreak in Mangum.

https://www.swoknews.com/news/mangum...d12b131d1.html

Thank you! I miss the “like” feature here. Some posts seem caustic but may actually be genuine. It’s hard to read tone.

[mkjeeves]

It's always good to see a regional newspaper doing their job.

[mkjeeves]

Fauci says US could see a 'rolling' reopen starting next month but warns of a 'rebound' in outbreaks later this year

Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday that the country could begin reopening in some aspects as early as next month, but the response will be different across the country.

Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and one of the top experts on President Donald Trump's coronavirus task force, appeared on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday after what many officials cast as the worst week yet in the US coronavirus outbreak, saying he had noticed reasons for "cautious optimism."

"[We knew] this was going to be a really bad week with regard to deaths," Fauci said, adding that despite record-high death counts in hard-hit places like New York City, there were indications that part of the outbreak had begun to "level off" from statistics like hospitalizations and intubations that are "starting to turn the corner."

There's "cautious optimism that we are seeing that decrease," Fauci said, pointing to other countries that "turned the corner then saw sharp decline" before considering reopening public places.

Any return to normal life in the US would occur in a "gradual" or "rolling" reentry, Fauci said.

"You want to make sure you don't do something prematurely and precipitously at the same time pay attention to need to try and get back to normal," Fauci said. "It's not going to be a light switch that we say, okay it is now June, July, or whatever and the light switch goes back on."

Though the response will not be "one size fits all"," Fauci said that officials were hopeful reopening measures could "probably start at least in some ways next month," depending on the status of the outbreak in different states and cities.

Still, Fauci said despite hopes for a reopen, "there is always the possibility, as we get into next fall and the beginning of early winter, that we could see a rebound."

The resurgence would hopefully be met with reliable testing, surveillance, and responses like effective drugs to make it "a totally different ball game" from the initial outbreak, Fauci said, but it's unclear if activities like voting will be affected by the virus.

https://www.businessinsider.com/fauc...9GL4HsM30g7U8A

[Thomas Vu]

With the symptoms mentioned I think I had it back late November early December.

[Bill Robertson]

With the symptoms mentioned I think I had it back late November early December.

I had a couple of co-workers that had the minor described symptoms around the first of the year. One of them got tested for the flu and was negative. I’ve wondered ever since Feb when COVID became a thing.

[chuck5815]

With the symptoms mentioned I think I had it back late November early December.

Yep, a bunch of folks caught cases in November.
It was flying low-key under the radar.
We have more immunity to this V than we think.

[Jersey Boss]

With the symptoms mentioned I think I had it back late November early December.

With respect, unless you have the antibodies I am somewhat skeptical. Did you or anybody you associate with travel to Wuhan? Being negative for one strain of flu does not make the leap to covid 19.

[mkjeeves]

About those antibody tests...

Fears of ‘Wild West’ as COVID-19 blood tests hit the market

WASHINGTON (AP) — Blood tests for the coronavirus could play a key role in deciding whether millions of Americans can safely return to work and school. But public health officials warn that the current “Wild West” of unregulated tests is creating confusion that could ultimately slow the path to recovery.

More than 70 companies have signed up to sell so-called antibody tests in recent weeks, according to U.S. regulators. Governments around the world hope that the rapid tests, which typically use a finger-prick of blood on a test strip, could soon ease public restrictions by identifying people who have previously had the virus and have developed some immunity to it.

But key questions remain: How accurate are the tests, how much protection is needed and how long will that protection last.

<snip>

With almost no FDA oversight of the tests, “Right now it’s a wild west show out there,” said Eric Blank of the Association for Public Health Laboratories. “It really has created a mess that’s going to take a while to clean up.”

“In the meantime, you’ve got a lot of companies marketing a lot of stuff and nobody has any idea of how good it is,” he said.

https://apnews.com/6f918ac77eefa34beaa381003a7663f9

[Thomas Vu]

With respect, unless you have the antibodies I am somewhat skeptical. Did you or anybody you associate with travel to Wuhan? Being negative for one strain of flu does not make the leap to covid 19.

I cannot say that I know. I was sick with symptoms unlike any I've had before and for a significantly longer than usual.

[d-usa]

It is also worth adding that the rapid flu tests they run at most clinics and offices is pretty dang unreliable and a negative result is really worthless.

I’m pretty sure they only exist because they are something they can bill for.

[OKC Talker]

It's not going to be as simple as flipping the Open sign on the economy:
https://apnews.com/fc3fd61524f39e9fb2962c8db22d00d8

"...
The Oklahoma City Convention and Visitors Bureau estimated the city pulled in $14.4 million from the WCWS last year. This year’s projection ranged between $23.6 million and $27 million.

Sue Hollenbeck, director of sports business for the bureau, said the Bricktown neightborhood will take the biggest hit without fans coming for the championship over the better part of a week.

“They’d eat at all the restaurants, go to the bars, get on the water taxi, do the shopping,” she said. “Anything and everything they could do, they would do when they weren’t at the stadium.”

David Southard, owner of Jazmo’z Bourbon Street Cafe, said his Bricktown restaurant with 70 employees is closed. He said the WCWS has been good for business for the past 20 years but it won’t be part of his plans to reopen this spring.

“It brings a lot of people in from all over the country,” he said. “The hotels are full. Often, we get reservations for large groups, two hours before they come, and it’s 20 people.”
... "

[soonerguru]

As far as Mangum, one of the tv stations had a bit on their website about it. I think someone brought it into a nursing home and it spread around there and from there to the community.

It was an evangelical minister from Tulsa. He brought it to a church and a nursing home. He has since died from the virus. Four people in Mangum have died and nearly 50 have tested positive in Greer County, which has a total population of 6,000.

[Edmond Hausfrau]

Mr. Blue Sky, I am interested in evolutionary biology as well as the history of medicine, so thank you for including that link!

[dankrutka]

Whenever people talk about "opening the economy" it's important to discuss a detailed plan for what that entails. It's going to be interesting to see how this happens on federal, state, and city levels. I thought this Dallas Morning News article did a good job of walking through steps, policies, and plans for changing current policies:

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/publ...be-a-ways-off/

[Pete]

Numbers just updated for Monday:

[OKC Guy]

^^^ Good numbers again!!

[Pete]

The hospitalization rate is encouraging.

[PhiAlpha]

The hospitalization rate is encouraging.

Should be interesting to compare the Monday numbers to last weeks when they come in tomorrow.