CharonY

I cannot see a way where he can directly do that, I would think that it is in direct conflict with the first Amendment. That being said, there indirect ways which could achieve similar goals, such as de-legitimization of outlets, creating news monopolies and so on. Another route specifically for social media could make unattainable demands or to remove means of monetization.

In water sciences alkalinity typically refers to overall buffer capacity rather than pH itself, which is a measure of proton concentration. So if you have low alkalinity, small addition of acid would rapidly decrease pH for example. The main buffer in most environmental systems (and our body) is bicarbonate but other dissolved species can also contribute.

There is a lot being said here regarding getting to know a prof, but I think that this is not the key issue here. The main challenge is that the pitch it unclear and as a researcher I would not see an immediate actionable beneficial path. Ultimately, academics are busy and I would need to know why I should invest time into something incredibly vague. Considering that the pitch is very broad it is not clear what precisely the provided expertise is, who is going to pay for materials and so on. Basically OP is proposing a rough idea and hopes that folks buy into it. But that is generally not going to happen. One will need to make at least some headway into demonstrating that whatever one provides has the potential to be useful and make the investment from the researcher worthwhile. Ultimately, commitment to a collaboration is an investment of time and time is the most limited resource we have. It would help immensely if OP could outline specifics so that folks can look at it and see whether there is potential for them or not. It would also help to inform oneself on already commercialized automations. For example, pipetting robots are very helpful for high-throughput analyses. But they require high precision and are therefore very expensive. Other folks (myself included) also occasionally develop new analytical schemes. We often buy, say pumps, PMTs and so on and try to make them play nice via labview or similar. What new would OP bring to the table in that area, for example? A cold call is in its essence a sales pitch. You are trying to get folks interested in something and considering the time constraints you always need to make it pretty clear what is in for them and what is the expected investment. If you want skills you need be specific in what they are and what you can deliver, for example. The way OP is phrased it basically reads like "I have certain skills, please outline a project to which I could apply them for- I will work on it and at some point (?) we might commercialize it". This is not a very attractive pitch as it does not have a scope or even an outline how one might imagine a collaboration to work. There are various ways to create interest, and I usually only respond when I see at least some way forward. The same will be for most other folks, our inboxes are overflowing and we literally only have a few seconds to deal with such requests otherwise we will never get to the end of the list (and honestly more than a few get lost in the process).

I wished that was true, but there are other groups (typically, but not exclusively on the right fringe) that share rather weird ideas and conspiracy theories regarding the pandemic.

There are different measures of death rates that are often used interchangeably in the press. However, the calculations are different (and it does not help that the lingo is often mixed in different disciplines). But first with regard to the last flu season, the numbers are not fully in it and the 0.1% are "typical" values. However, estimates are not even fully done for the season before last and this season there are still only estimates, which will be heavily confounded by the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g. due to stress on the health system in many countries). The 0.1% you have seen are based on overall estimates, not specific seasons, there are some which are worse, others which are better. Going back to the estimates. What is often mixed up are the following terms: Infection fatality rate. This is what you probably think about and which is ratio of death based on total infected folks. The problem is that these values are only ever estimated as infections are missed or not systematically tracked. The other more commonly used one is the case-fatality rate which is based on diagnosed cases only. The latter will have a higher fatality rate than the former. Making it more complicated, flu is often not verified by laboratory testing but based on symptoms. This skews that data further and we get what is often called the symptomatic case-fatality rate. I.e. the proportion of symptomatic patients that eventually die. I.e. non-symptomatic patients would not be counted here. Based on the estimates of asymptomatic influenza carrier the infection fatality rate is estimated to be half to down to a quarter of the case-fatality (i.e. 0.025-0.05%). Then we also have the crude fatality count, which dominated much of the press reporting, which is just taking what actually have been measured so far. But as we know, there is a lot of undertesting which results in yet higher fatality rates (i.e. the 2% and higher you might have seen). There are different papers out there modeling the infection fatality rate for COVID-19 and I have seen values ranging from 0.3-1.6%. Now what is only half of the story when we talk about disease burden. The other half is understanding how many folks are actually at risk getting sick. Due to immunity within the population and availability of vaccines as well as properties of the virus itself about 3-11% of the population (using US-estimates) each year are usually sickened by influenza. Due to lack of immunity the number folks that may get COVID-19 (without barriers in place) is estimated to be between 50-80% (assuming folks that get sick develop immunity and do not get sick again). So taking together based on current estimates (which by no means are final) the difference is at least sixfold if we only consider infection fatalities rather than mixing) and we have got an about 10-fold higher pool of susceptible folks. I.e. serious as the flu is, COVID-19 has clearly the potential to become worse without protective measures as countries, including the US are finding out.

The paper is out now (well yesterday): https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31208-3/fulltext

How US-centric can one get? Jeez.

This question is actually quite tricky when it comes to humans. The reason being that it is difficult to associated specific bacteria (or even communities) with overall better outcomes. There are often so many confounding factors that makes it difficult to pinpoint benefits of particular bacteria. In addition, it is possible that much of the benefits is based on community actions, which might further be influenced by interactions with the host and diet. To the best of my knowledge we basically have a set of bacteria that we know to be common gut bacteria with little pathogenic potential and there is the assumption that that they at least confer passive benefits (e.g. inhibiting pathogenic bacteria). There are some suggestions based on a specific conditions (e.g. looking at the gut community of folks with certain health issues or by extrapolating known metabolic activities that could be beneficial). However, so far we do not actually have a good grip in understanding what gut flora is actually really healthy and how to get it. The effects of pre- and probiotics are not very reproducible, for example.

In the early days (i.e. a few months ago) antibiotics were commonly administered as the damages in the lungs seemed to favour bacterial infections. Now, recommendation seem to be monitoring for co-infections and administer as needed. There is indeed no special consideration regarding viral co-infections that I am aware of (which does not mean much).

I took your comment as the assumption that folks in those times died well before they reached 60 years of age. However, after childhood, folks actually did get older. However, it would be true that there would be fewer persons of higher age (but it is just not true that folks barely reached 60). So that is another possible misconception. The health effects are not entirely age based, and certainly not "not a huge deal" for younger folks. Even among below 60 years old plenty of folks required modern treatment, ranging from antibiotics to ventilators. Without those, the fatality rate would go up significantly. But then there are other factors that appear to influence susceptibility. Lung and cardiovascular health seems to be a big one, and theoretically folks could be healthier in that regard. But that would be difficult to tell. And on the not a huge deal part, I should add that there is now significant evidence that even folks that recover from COVID-19 often show evidence of lung tissue scarring. There were expected reductions in lung performance, but so far it is not clear how much folks will recover. Also, it is not what precisely impacts the pathophysiology of the disease. But so far there are no strong indications of host factors that would help. In contrast, much evidence points to access to healthcare as a bigger determinant.

I think that goes a bit far. Horizontal gene transfer does indeed make certain things complicated, but there are conserved elements that can be used to re-create relationships somewhat reliably, even among prokaryotes. The issue is only there if you want to figure the history of a specific locus, rather than that of the whole organism. I.e. you can still construct neat (i.e. reconstruct relationship) if you want. The part that is probably the most problematic ones are likely the transition to eukaryotes. The high likelihood of endosymptiotic events makes their history quite messy at that point.

1) is a misunderstanding. Prior to the the bubonic plague folks that reached adulthood were expected to live well above 60 years. 2) yes that is a big one. But note that even if take a disease from modern times, such as the Hong Kong flu- in the US an estimated 100,000 folks died. For COVID-19 the US is at over 93k now. So responses are also a factor (I think some would also argue for population size, but in case of disease spread it is less of an issue, as folks do not stochastically become sick, they need to be in contact, which goes back to isolation measures). When it comes to the value of the graph, to me it says that despite all the tools of modernity at hand, we are still struggling with disease outbreaks. Not sure what else one could read from that, considering the pandemic is not even over yet.

Well they found a few more clusters in Wuhan, but in response they want to test everyone. If they do, there is good chance for further containment.

Pretty much. As the lockdown has reduced the number of active cases, an increase will be slower than before. Especially with heightened awareness. There are isolated reports of some local increase in cases, though. But if contact tracing can be maintained, it might be controlled.

I think I have mentioned that before but in order for a seroconversion to happen, you'd need a signficant amount of exposure (most commonly during actual infection). Or at least strong exposure to inactivated viruses. Licking body fluids form recovered folks does not seem prudent.

Well, yes we could discuss those, but ultimately the increase of cases starting January was what ultimately solidified concerns of human to human spread. The fear was also driven by the upcoming Chinese New Year which would have had massive consequences, which were at least somewhat mitigated (luckily). But again, starting January there were more cases which could indicate transmission of it, but as it could not be diagnosed clearly it was still suspicion at that point. The correct (in hindsight) reaction would have been to assume transmission, unless proved otherwise, rather than doing the opposite. I have yet to see hard evidence that should have forced the WHO to change its stance at that point. Unless, of course we can agree on stopping criticizing the WHO when they make calls for caution that do not turn into predicted disasters. I.e. if we allow them to make more cautionary calls. But I think a lot of countries (not only China) would not agree to that, either. And that goes to my previous post, which level (without the luxury of hindsight) of caution can we agree to?

I think the first article at least references a similar timeline as the one that I have seen. So roughly having first evidence around 15th of January. But perhaps taking a step back, this is an issue which epidemiologists, medical professionals and microbiologists are facing. At which point do we make a call? Is circumstantial evidence enough? But if you are wrong there is a chance that you are considered an alarmist and with enough backlash it could sink your career. This is especially problematic if you live in an authoritarian regime, of course. But even elsewhere, if you piss of the folks from granting agencies or those you rely on to conduct your research, it may kill your future chances. Or just say something after you have ironclad evidence? But then it may be too late and folks may consider yourself incompetent. There is a huge pressure for not being wrong (and I think partially that also explains the sluggish response in many countries) and in this case it came to bite us. Hard.

While I agree with the general sentiment (though Taiwan's status was always problematic, and it was always in a state of "we do not want to talk about it"; things may change now that there finally movement from Taiwan to drop the one China view- i.e. claiming to be the "real" but no acknowledged China so to say. Mainland China will still block it, but at least it would make it easier for other countries to support Taiwan.). But I think you got the timeline wrong. Taiwan did not issue any warnings in December 2019. On the 31st Taiwan only sent a request for more information to Beijing and the WHO. Only on Jan 13-15th did a Taiwanese team arrive in Wuhan and there they found a family that appears to be indicative of human to human transmission. It took until the 20th for Chinese researchers to publicly state that there were human-to human transmission and WHO followed suit two days later. So while Taiwan may have been suspicious, they were not sure, either. It is true that China should have engaged more aggressively (or truthfully) inf figuring the risk of human-human transmission rather than sitting on the fence on it. In fact even while sitting on the fence they should erred on the side of caution. And that bit is where the Taiwanese criticism came from: The text of the mail from Taiwan was as follows: The bit they are now highlighting is the fact that folks were put in isolation- a good precaution, but the question is whether that is also indicative of risk of human-human transmission. I.e. if folks were careful about that, why was it not announced as such more broadly? The flipside of course is if folks claimed transmission resulting in lockdowns and it turns out not to be true, there would likely also be unpleasant consequences. Now, from the viewpoint of the WHO, unless there were more unreported exchanges, I can see why the mail itself would not be sufficient to change the narrative. Assuming that they were informed regarding the thoughts on the Taiwanese team (which included folks from Macau and Hong Kong) there was a delay of about a week. But I have not found reports on further exchanges so far. Also, it should go without saying, but during that time there was obviously no way to accurately diagnose COVID-19. The genome was published January 11 (I think) first tests were developed about a week after? The only thing to go on were pulmonary disease that was not flu. So while initial response was botched, it is difficult (without insider information) to figure out how much was actually known at any given point. Prior to mid-end January.

That I can answer. These levels of crises generally require somewhat centralized responses. States are not able to track or control international travel, for example. Now we have documented it before, but the big issue with the WH response is not only that they were too late in their response (which to various levels was also the case in other countries). But the problem is that even once the issue was recognized, the WH continued to downplay the risks and contradicting their own experts, which effectively puts folks at risk. And obviously there are federal responses to, say PPE seizure and redistribution that appear to be confusing at best. They might be redistributing them to where they are needed, for example, though the WH says that everyone has enough (thus indicating seizures and redistribution are not needed) whereas local leaders indicate that they are in a bidding war to actually get supplies. So not only being inactive, the actual actions are problematic or at least unexplained. None of which is good in a crisis. In other words, if you are given the power to actually coordinate efforts around the country but cannot make up your mind even within a single interview whether a crisis actually exists, I think it is fair to state that one is not fulfilling ones responsibility. Now going back to the impact, other countries that were hit harder, also had the issue of belated responses. Effectively for most of the Western world Italy was the start signal, rather than China. But the difference is that after that most governments (local and federal) kind of agreed on a strategy, and started implementing them. Meanwhile, the US had a strategy and then they basically said that they are not necessary (including their own guidance, or shelving guidance from the CDC). Yes the US has lower population density overall resulting in less spread in certain areas, similar to, say Canada there are hotspots. But even so death rates are close to much more densely populated areas. But perhaps worse than that, the other countries that have been hit harder, are flattening the curve. New cases are dropping across the board (except perhaps the UK), with levels around 12-15% compared to peak times. The US, is still at around 70%. And it is hard to believe that the political climate in the US is not at at fault for that. The US has some of the finest institutions in the world to deal with these issues- and normally states would be expected to fall in line when the Feds are creating strong responses. Now we have got folks thinking that it is a hoax.

It could be well posted into the other thread as the overall strategy is pretty much the same, regardless whether there is an international crisis or something really unimportant. It is part of a larger effort to remove accountability from their actions. Obviously, if politicians are not accountable for their actions anymore, it will boil down entirely to pundits duking it out in a fact-fee conversation. Fundamentally that will entrench positions into partisan clusters. The fatal bit is that any group that still insists on relying (at least partially) on facts, science and/or reason are likely to be pounded into submission as it is much faster to just make up things than waiting until data comes in. It also has the risk that data does not agree fully with ones position. And we just see that that happening in realtime. Typically, you would expect this only to happen in authoritarian regimes, where the government controls the information. Now it seems that folks have successfully found a way for folks to do it to themselves. Sure it was predicted some time ago, such as during the rise of the Murdoch empire, but back in my mind I had always the thought that actual challenges (say a pandemic...) would bring folks to their senses as the impact could not be talked away by pundits. Obviously, I was wrong.

It is interesting (well, to put it nicely) how many folks actually think that Trump did a good job..

So while the issue with pre-/post-fusion proteins is an issue, I would like to note that in many cases one would frame it more about the conformation of the protein rather than overall energetics. There are several ways to stabilize a particular structure, independent on whether protein is ever part of a virus, or involved in membrane fusion or not. I.e. it is helpful when we think in terms of the dynamics and mechanisms of viral actions (as it needs to be performed within an energy gradient) but it may be less useful when we talk about other things, such as in this case recognition of structures. Specifically, a particular structure is formed in dependence on its milieu, its amino sequence as well as other elements such as chaperones that help in folding the protein a specific way. Perhaps more importantly, recognition of the molecule by the immune system is only dependent on a fairly small part- the epitope. Moving on to RNA vaccines, in other viruses it already has been shown that antibodies raised just by simply introducing the primary sequence has resulted in antibodies that are able to bind pre- as well as post-fusion protein structures. They also stabilized the pre-fusion structure by introducing additional sequences (not dissimilar to the wiki article linked above) but the overall titer did not shift much. This is not to say that this is not an issue with SARS-CoV-2, but it does not seem to be a fundamental issue, at least.

It is like the worst storyline of a badly produced soap opera. Only that folks are dying.

The Moderna vaccine mentioned earlier is almost done with phase I but preliminary results already indicate that some participants developed antibodies. This bodes well for the efficacy test.

Ha yeah. Poisoning ones voter base would seem like a bold move.