Quake3World

Posted: **Fri Mar 20, 2020 4:41 pm**

Κracus wrote:Jee why didn't they just ask Doombrain? he says it's all overblown and too late for all those measures.

Where did I say that? Did I trigger you or something?

Posted: **Fri Mar 20, 2020 5:09 pm**

I'd say authorities didn't act early enough to limit movement/spread from one region into another. But because they were totally unaware of it.
As it seems in europe the alps had a big factor in spreading it. Because the skiing season happended to coincide. So did the one in the US.
2 weeks incubation and sometimes 6 days or later till the first symptoms which are a lot like the common cold or flu didn't give them enought time to make the relation to the "chinese thing".

How could they know?

I don't blame anyone on the authority site really. Only in the aftermath. The last 2 or 3 weeks. In those they could have acted faster imo. In shutting down smaller and smaller regions, limiting movement from one region to the next, and so on.

Posted: **Fri Mar 20, 2020 6:42 pm**

Maybe we shouldn't be helping the weakest in society to recover from a corona infection.
I'm aware saying this will be very unpopular in certain circles, but hear me out.

A severe corona patient can be holed up in IC for three weeks, possibly longer. It's not just the number of people, it's also how long they take to recover.
A hospital can only help X number of people. Should they really throw Y amount of resources at a single 90 year old to help him, or should we use those same resources to help two 65 year old people who recover in half the time or at least have twice the chance to survive as the 90 year old. Any effort put into a person that eventually dies anyway is ultimately a waste of effort.
In an optimal situation (resource management wise) you'd only be helping the people who will be saved with minimal effort but who'd likely die without that help.

I realise that's easier said than done, but the situation in Italy, where doctors have to choose who to save, it's painted as the worst situation imaginable, but maybe we should just accept the fact that this will be the modus operandi all over the world if we want to help as many people through this as possible.

If that means a 90 yo Grandpa is straight out of luck, then that's hard, but a fair reality.

Posted: **Fri Mar 20, 2020 7:05 pm**

I think world leadership needs a complete overhaul. We wouldn't need to choose who lives and dies if we had competent leadership.

Posted: **Fri Mar 20, 2020 7:13 pm**

Eraser wrote:Maybe we shouldn't be helping the weakest in society to recover from a corona infection.
I'm aware saying this will be very unpopular in certain circles, but hear me out.

A severe corona patient can be holed up in IC for three weeks, possibly longer. It's not just the number of people, it's also how long they take to recover.
A hospital can only help X number of people. Should they really throw Y amount of resources at a single 90 year old to help him, or should we use those same resources to help two 65 year old people who recover in half the time or at least have twice the chance to survive as the 90 year old. Any effort put into a person that eventually dies anyway is ultimately a waste of effort.
In an optimal situation (resource management wise) you'd only be helping the people who will be saved with minimal effort but who'd likely die without that help.

I realise that's easier said than done, but the situation in Italy, where doctors have to choose who to save, it's painted as the worst situation imaginable, but maybe we should just accept the fact that this will be the modus operandi all over the world if we want to help as many people through this as possible.

If that means a 90 yo Grandpa is straight out of luck, then that's hard, but a fair reality.

Yeah I'm sure you'd be saying the same if it were your 90-yr old grandpa in ICU because some people like to eat bats and shit.

Posted: **Fri Mar 20, 2020 7:23 pm**

Κracus wrote:I think world leadership needs a complete overhaul. We wouldn't need to choose who lives and dies if we had competent leadership.

What a completely uninsightful statement...

Posted: **Fri Mar 20, 2020 7:34 pm**

Captain Mazda wrote: Yeah I'm sure you'd be saying the same if it were your 90-yr old grandpa in ICU because some people like to eat bats and shit.

Look, I'm not saying it's a situation to aspire to, but it's looking like this thing is becoming bigger than we can handle. Whatever the reason of that is irrelevant. We're in this situation and can't easily get out of it. People need to realize that were gonna have to prioritize sooner or later

It's not really fair to go and make it personal like that either. But still, I can only reply to that by expressing the thought that it would be easier for me to see my 91 year old grandpa die of corona because a young person was saved than see, say, my 36 yo girlfriend die because of a failed attempt to save someone else's 90 yo gramps.

Posted: **Fri Mar 20, 2020 7:38 pm**

Every country now acts accordinlgy to its ressources. Some will fail big time, some won't. Some have saved money, some couldn't because world economics.
It's fucked up in a lot of places.

Posted: **Fri Mar 20, 2020 8:36 pm**

Eraser wrote:Maybe we shouldn't be helping the weakest in society to recover from a corona infection.
I'm aware saying this will be very unpopular in certain circles, but hear me out.

A severe corona patient can be holed up in IC for three weeks, possibly longer. It's not just the number of people, it's also how long they take to recover.
A hospital can only help X number of people. Should they really throw Y amount of resources at a single 90 year old to help him, or should we use those same resources to help two 65 year old people who recover in half the time or at least have twice the chance to survive as the 90 year old. Any effort put into a person that eventually dies anyway is ultimately a waste of effort.
In an optimal situation (resource management wise) you'd only be helping the people who will be saved with minimal effort but who'd likely die without that help.

I realise that's easier said than done, but the situation in Italy, where doctors have to choose who to save, it's painted as the worst situation imaginable, but maybe we should just accept the fact that this will be the modus operandi all over the world if we want to help as many people through this as possible.

If that means a 90 yo Grandpa is straight out of luck, then that's hard, but a fair reality.

This isn't Logans Run... And also why flattening the curve is so important meaning health service capacity is never pushed past the point where ghouls like you decides who lives and dies.......

Posted: **Fri Mar 20, 2020 9:10 pm**

Eraser wrote:Maybe we shouldn't be helping the weakest in society to recover from a corona infection.
I'm aware saying this will be very unpopular in certain circles, but hear me out.

A severe corona patient can be holed up in IC for three weeks, possibly longer. It's not just the number of people, it's also how long they take to recover.
A hospital can only help X number of people. Should they really throw Y amount of resources at a single 90 year old to help him, or should we use those same resources to help two 65 year old people who recover in half the time or at least have twice the chance to survive as the 90 year old. Any effort put into a person that eventually dies anyway is ultimately a waste of effort.
In an optimal situation (resource management wise) you'd only be helping the people who will be saved with minimal effort but who'd likely die without that help.

I realise that's easier said than done, but the situation in Italy, where doctors have to choose who to save, it's painted as the worst situation imaginable, but maybe we should just accept the fact that this will be the modus operandi all over the world if we want to help as many people through this as possible.

If that means a 90 yo Grandpa is straight out of luck, then that's hard, but a fair reality.

Have you ever read about Flattening The Curve? Read up on it now. I tried to tell you days ago.

Posted: **Fri Mar 20, 2020 9:12 pm**

Doombrain wrote:
Eraser wrote:Maybe we shouldn't be helping the weakest in society to recover from a corona infection.
I'm aware saying this will be very unpopular in certain circles, but hear me out.

A severe corona patient can be holed up in IC for three weeks, possibly longer. It's not just the number of people, it's also how long they take to recover.
A hospital can only help X number of people. Should they really throw Y amount of resources at a single 90 year old to help him, or should we use those same resources to help two 65 year old people who recover in half the time or at least have twice the chance to survive as the 90 year old. Any effort put into a person that eventually dies anyway is ultimately a waste of effort.
In an optimal situation (resource management wise) you'd only be helping the people who will be saved with minimal effort but who'd likely die without that help.

I realise that's easier said than done, but the situation in Italy, where doctors have to choose who to save, it's painted as the worst situation imaginable, but maybe we should just accept the fact that this will be the modus operandi all over the world if we want to help as many people through this as possible.

If that means a 90 yo Grandpa is straight out of luck, then that's hard, but a fair reality.
This isn't Logans Run... And also why flattening the curve is so important meaning health service capacity is never pushed past the point where ghouls like you decides who lives and dies.......

Tell that to Italy. And Spain and France are quickly heading in that direction. And the UK is fucked by inaction too.

Posted: **Fri Mar 20, 2020 9:14 pm**

Ferrao10 wrote: Have you ever read about Flattening The Curve? Read up on it now. I tried to tell you days ago.

Jesus, of course I do. But when London Underground is still packed with people, people in Miami keep partying and youngsters in your country keep on doing whatever they do, flattening the curve is a pipe dream.

Also, while capacity is there we should try to help as many people as possible, of course, but when capacity runs out like in Italy, people shouldn't start bitching when doctors decide against helping an astmathic 90 year old in favor of a bunch of relatively healthy 60 year olds. Is all I'm saying.

Posted: **Fri Mar 20, 2020 9:28 pm**

This relatively healthy 60 year old waves

Posted: **Fri Mar 20, 2020 9:47 pm**

Exactly. Wouldn't want to lose Whiskey to COVID-19. Where would Q3W be without him?

Posted: **Fri Mar 20, 2020 9:56 pm**

The pipe dream can be shut down. By authorities, by the government.

Every single day you keep ordinary live happen will kill more people in the end then necessary.
That's what we should have learned from it yet.

People will bitch when it was them laying on the ventilated intensive bed instead of their dad or mum. That happens in Italy.

Posted: **Fri Mar 20, 2020 10:18 pm**

Eraser wrote:Maybe we shouldn't be helping the weakest in society to recover from a corona infection.
I'm aware saying this will be very unpopular in certain circles, but hear me out.

OK, I'll bite.

Who decides which patients are weakest? The doctors or the government? Are there specific metrics in place to make that determination like an aptitude or cognitive test, or are we eyeballing each case? Is it purely based on physical weakness, or are we making value judgements on who gets the best treatment? If I have a 90-year-old nobel prize winner who needs a ventilator, but so do two 60-year-old roofers, who do I pick? What if a US Senator in his 80s who is already recovering from some other illness gets Covid-19? Does he get the expert treatment every rich person seems to get, or does he go to the back of the line like everybody else?

Is the decision even made up front? If a 90-year-old goes to the ER and gets admitted to the last room, then later a 60-year-old arrives, do we kick out the 90-year-old and take away his ventilator to make room for the other guy? Of do we just not let the 90-year-old into a room in the first place?

Let's entertain the slippery slope fallacy and see how far down the rabbit hole we can to go. Say we enacted some sort of screening process and it ended up working; we lose hundreds of thousands of old and infirm people, but we successfully stop the worst of the pandemic. At some point there will be another global emergency and maybe we have to resort to the same rule of abandoning the weakest, but this time the "weakest" are not measured in age, but in some other way. Maybe a virus more adversely affects people with blue eyes than people with brown eyes. Do we turn away all the blue-eyed people so that the brown-eyed people can live?

Humans have been debating these thought experiments and moral quandaries for ages, and we aren't any closer to a consensus as a society.

Posted: **Fri Mar 20, 2020 10:33 pm**

That decision is world-wide: purely age. Except if you are one very specific inidividual human being. But you ain't.

Posted: **Sat Mar 21, 2020 5:50 am**

Captain Mazda wrote:
Eraser wrote:Maybe we shouldn't be helping the weakest in society to recover from a corona infection.
I'm aware saying this will be very unpopular in certain circles, but hear me out.

A severe corona patient can be holed up in IC for three weeks, possibly longer. It's not just the number of people, it's also how long they take to recover.
A hospital can only help X number of people. Should they really throw Y amount of resources at a single 90 year old to help him, or should we use those same resources to help two 65 year old people who recover in half the time or at least have twice the chance to survive as the 90 year old. Any effort put into a person that eventually dies anyway is ultimately a waste of effort.
In an optimal situation (resource management wise) you'd only be helping the people who will be saved with minimal effort but who'd likely die without that help.

I realise that's easier said than done, but the situation in Italy, where doctors have to choose who to save, it's painted as the worst situation imaginable, but maybe we should just accept the fact that this will be the modus operandi all over the world if we want to help as many people through this as possible.

If that means a 90 yo Grandpa is straight out of luck, then that's hard, but a fair reality.
Yeah I'm sure you'd be saying the same if it were your 90-yr old grandpa in ICU because some people like to eat bats and shit.

:olo: :olo:

Posted: **Sat Mar 21, 2020 6:08 am**

I read a book years ago called the Black Swan, by Tassim Nicholas Taleb. 9/11 was his archetypal example. I think we can call this shit-show another black swan event. An unforeseen event that has far reaching consequences. At the end of the day, the universe is a violent place. I was reading a paper a while ago from Wuhan where scientists were experimenting with splicing HIV genes onto corona viruses. They were using the HIV viruses ability to bypass our immune system and splicing it onto the corona virus to see if the corona virus payload could be delivered with the HIV receptor proteins. Or something like that. I'm not a fucking scientist. Odd timing and location for this outbreak though, innit?

EDIT: For some reason I had it in my head that this was recent but it's actually over a decade old. Anyway, interesting read nonetheless.

https://jvi.asm.org/content/82/4/1899

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is caused by the SARS-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV), which uses angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) as its receptor for cell entry. A group of SARS-like CoVs (SL-CoVs) has been identified in horseshoe bats. SL-CoVs and SARS-CoVs share identical genome organizations and high sequence identities, with the main exception of the N terminus of the spike protein (S), known to be responsible for receptor binding in CoVs. In this study, we investigated the receptor usage of the SL-CoV S by combining a human immunodeficiency virus-based pseudovirus system with cell lines expressing the ACE2 molecules of human, civet, or horseshoe bat. In addition to full-length S of SL-CoV and SARS-CoV, a series of S chimeras was constructed by inserting different sequences of the SARS-CoV S into the SL-CoV S backbone. Several important observations were made from this study. First, the SL-CoV S was unable to use any of the three ACE2 molecules as its receptor. Second, the SARS-CoV S failed to enter cells expressing the bat ACE2. Third, the chimeric S covering the previously defined receptor-binding domain gained its ability to enter cells via human ACE2, albeit with different efficiencies for different constructs. Fourth, a minimal insert region (amino acids 310 to 518) was found to be sufficient to convert the SL-CoV S from non-ACE2 binding to human ACE2 binding, indicating that the SL-CoV S is largely compatible with SARS-CoV S protein both in structure and in function. The significance of these findings in relation to virus origin, virus recombination, and host switching is discussed.

...

In this study, a human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-based pseudovirus system was employed to address these issues. Our results indicated that the SL-CoV S protein is unable to use ACE2 proteins of different species for cell entry and that SARS-CoV S protein also failed to bind the ACE2 molecule of the horseshoe bat, Rhinolophus pearsonii. However, when the RBD of SL-CoV S was replaced with that from the SARS-CoV S, the hybrid S protein was able to use the huACE2 for cell entry, implying that the SL-CoV S proteins are structurally and functionally very similar to the SARS-CoV S. These results suggest that although the SL-CoVs discovered in bats so far are unlikely to infect humans using ACE2 as a receptor, it remains to be seen whether they are able to use other surface molecules of certain human cell types to gain entry. It is also conceivable that these viruses may become infectious to humans if they undergo N-terminal sequence variation, for example, through recombination with other CoVs, which in turn might lead to a productive interaction with ACE2 or other surface proteins on human cells.

Posted: **Sat Mar 21, 2020 1:36 pm**

Why are manufacturers not pumping out ventilators? Every manufacturer in the world that can retrofit their equipment to produce ventilators should be doing it. During WW2 this was happening. Everyone dropped what they were doing and started fabricating war essentials. Why can’t we do that now?

Posted: **Sat Mar 21, 2020 1:53 pm**

Because there's no money in it. Duh.

Edit: to make matters worse, I read about an Italian doctor who 3D printed 100 valves needed for ventilators. Normally these valves supposedly cost 1000s of Euros a piece. The manufacturer couldn't keep up with demand so he 3D printed them for about a dollar a piece.
The manufacturer threatened to sue him if he continued 3D printing the valves.

Edit2: one of the many articles about this incident: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/ ... navirus-so

Posted: **Sat Mar 21, 2020 2:36 pm**

mrd, I believe the genome/bio research on the virus has already ascertained its evolutionary provenance - they can trace that it is natural and not manufactured.

Posted: **Sat Mar 21, 2020 4:47 pm**

Doombrain wrote:
Don Carlos wrote:I wonder how big the positive environmental impact of this whole thing will be...
https://twitter.com/ikaveri/status/1239 ... 89383?s=21

I missed this...very excellent

Posted: **Sat Mar 21, 2020 5:13 pm**

Eraser wrote:Because there's no money in it. Duh.

You’ve become a real cynical dick, you know that?

Posted: **Sat Mar 21, 2020 7:11 pm**

xer0s wrote:
Eraser wrote:Because there's no money in it. Duh.
You’ve become a real cynical dick, you know that?

He is 100% right though.
We're mostly in this mess because senators in the US kept it silent to give them more tine to sell their stock, and because the Chinese government silenced the doctors who discovered the virus in fear of it affecting trade deals.
Stores not putting limits on items being hoarded resulting in uneven distribution of goods, restaurants and bars refusing to adhere the patron limit, businessess forcing workers to come in instead of timely providing remote working conditions.

All of the above is directly tied to fear of losing money.

Ask Bezos what he's doing to help, while Amazon is still running at full force.

Quake3World

no coronavirus thread ?

Re: no coronavirus thread ?

Re: no coronavirus thread ?

Re: no coronavirus thread ?

Re: no coronavirus thread ?

Re: no coronavirus thread ?

Re: no coronavirus thread ?

Re: no coronavirus thread ?

Re: no coronavirus thread ?

Re: no coronavirus thread ?

Re: no coronavirus thread ?

Re: no coronavirus thread ?

Re: no coronavirus thread ?

Re: no coronavirus thread ?

Re: no coronavirus thread ?

Re: no coronavirus thread ?

Re: no coronavirus thread ?

Re: no coronavirus thread ?

Re: no coronavirus thread ?

Re: no coronavirus thread ?

Re: no coronavirus thread ?

Re: no coronavirus thread ?

Re: no coronavirus thread ?

Re: no coronavirus thread ?

Re: no coronavirus thread ?

Re: no coronavirus thread ?