Viruses love liberty – they can breed more.

25 comments on “Viruses love liberty – they can breed more. ”

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1. Dennis Frank 1

   14 May 2020 at 1:00 pm

   We're all lucky it isn't more infectious than it currently seems to be. The big unknown is the proportion of the populace who are unwitting carriers, right? Symptomless.

   I wonder what the ratio is that creates the tipping point. Perhaps still unknown to science, eh? News this morning of another wave of re-infection overseas is the signal we ought to heed in public policy development.

   "Bats hanging around with no social distancing have far better immune systems than humans. Which means that this zoonotic disease, once it jumps to humans, is like a whole of species experiment to the virus as it adapts to live in us."

   Yeah, that's the guts. One big science experiment happening globally. Darwinism in action! I hope our bodies are naturally fine-tuning our immune system into optimal response mode – in reaction to tiny doses of the virus breathed in. That's what ought to happen. Nature doing effortlessly what vaccination helps us to do. But if the input is greater than homeopathic scales of activity and our immune systems are already sub-optimal then nature can't cope.
   • lprent 1.1

     14 May 2020 at 1:46 pm

     We're all lucky it isn't more infectious than it currently seems to be. The big unknown is the proportion of the populace who are unwitting carriers, right? Symptomless.

     Yes and no. It does mean that we have very little idea about how many people in any global (or NZ) population have had it already.

     Darwinism in action! I hope our bodies are naturally fine-tuning our immune system into optimal response mode – in reaction to tiny doses of the virus breathed in.

     I'm waiting for the report that say for a reasonable sized sample that the known symptomless infected (ie from swabs) always show specific antibodies or at least a sizeable percentage do. So far the indications seem to pointing to a low percentage. If that is the case then :-

     Darwinism in action! I hope our bodies are naturally fine-tuning our immune system into optimal response mode – in reaction to tiny doses of the virus breathed in.

     …won't happen. It would mean that small viral loads in the environment will be handled by the first line generic immune responses and that you'd have to get a large dose to trigger the secondary auto-immune 'learned' responses.

     But generally swab testing hasn't been that wide and the antibody tests look pretty cowboy for false positives and false negative. Which is probably why no-one is putting out that info yet

     News this morning of another wave of re-infection overseas is the signal we ought to heed in public policy development

     Haven't seen that yet – went straight from writing this post to working this morning without the morning news read.
     • Dennis Frank 1.1.1

       14 May 2020 at 3:06 pm

       "Lebanon on Tuesday became the latest country to reimpose restrictions after experiencing a surge of infections, almost exactly two weeks after it appeared to have contained the spread of the virus and began easing up. Authorities ordered a four-day, near-complete lockdown to allow officials time to assess the rise in numbers."

       "The reemergence of coronavirus cases in many parts of Asia is also prompting a return to closures in places that had claimed success in battling the disease or appeared to have eradicated it altogether, including South Korea, regarded as one of the continent’s top success stories." https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/as-some-countries-ease-up-others-are-reimposing-lockdowns-amid-a-resurgence-of-coronavirus-infections/2020/05/12/6373cf6a-9455-11ea-87a3-22d324235636_story.html

       Also: “In the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the pandemic first emerged, authorities on Tuesday ordered the testing of all 11 million inhabitants after a cluster of six new infections emerged, five weeks after the city had apparently rid itself of the disease.”

       Also: “Iran, the epicenter of the disease in the Middle East, with more than 110,000 reported cases, has ordered a county in the southwestern province of Khuzestan to reimpose a lockdown after cases spiked there. But the government is still planning to proceed with the reopening of schools later this week, despite a marked jump in new infections since restrictions were eased in late April.”

       Which leads us to a tug-of-war between the people & the health authorities. “India and Russia eased their restrictions Tuesday even as the number of infections in both countries continued to soar.” Russian roulette & Indian roulette.
       • lprent 1.1.1.1

         14 May 2020 at 5:20 pm

         Yep. In no particular order…

         • Could be a pool of asymptomatic bouncing around somewhere.
         • Could be an original reservoir source got reactivated (pet bat or pangolin perhaps).
         • Could be that there may be longer periods of virus shedding.
         • Could be stealth style virus.
         • or something else.

         The more you look at this particular virus and read about the bat colonies, the more you realise that this is an old virus. At 30k base pairs and with a high stability in its self-correction code, I suspect that it has multiple different strategies. It doesn't need to play the mutation game to look for a different identity.
         • Dukeofurl 1.1.1.1.1

           14 May 2020 at 6:35 pm

           The rate of change in the virus may be small , on average. We are at 4.4 mill known cases, likely lots more.

           Who knows that person with the 7th mill case has a small mutation that means the virus attacks the health of younger people more easily …. those older people dying quickly without passing on arent a good evolutionary path.
           • lprent 1.1.1.1.1.1

             15 May 2020 at 10:40 am

             Yep.

             But it looks like it is attacking younger people already – but at a lower probaility.
2. Sanctuary 2

   14 May 2020 at 1:27 pm

   Most of the criticism of the legislation came in the form of low information social media reckons from the same usual suspects who were all suddenly epidemiology experts as well for the last month.

   It was clear to me that these entitled dimwits had no clue as to the powers the government currently had under a state of emergency – despite being parked on their arse for four weeks at home with time on their hands and an all to obvious internet connection with which to favour us with their musings – but that didn't stop half-arsed social media hysteria that really was a poster child for a definition of fake news.
   • lprent 2.1

     14 May 2020 at 1:56 pm

     Yeah. I haven't bothered looking at the usual morons in the media – after all there is only so much stupidity from hosking or heather watshername or soper et al that I can stand.

     I was getting this third hand over the last couple of days from my partner reading from people she knows on facebook and querying me about it. They were obviously getting it from people who knew fuckall about reserve powers in legislation and what a state of emergency or a fighting a disease actually entailed. Not that I know that much. Just army medic, a few history papers touching on it, and a lot of general history and civics reading.

     Eventually she irritated me enough to look up the original bill and the (mostly) resulting act to answer her questions on the detail. And motivate me to write this post to point out why this legislation needed to be put in place in a hurry.

     After all the only real alternative was to remain in a state of emergency with limited safeguards and oversight.

     We just didn't have a good transition state out of SOE built into epidemic handling legislation.
3. barry 3

   14 May 2020 at 2:37 pm

   So we have 3 months with this legislation, and then we can either roll it back if not needed, or (more likely) rewrite the problematic parts to reflect the developing situation.

   I agree that warrants do not provide much protection. The important part is the reporting, so we can judge whether the powers are used appropriately.

   A problem is that you don't know what powers you need until you need them. In the end the legislation is only as safe as the police force enforcing it. In general we are happy for the police to have powers so long as they are not used against us.
   • lprent 3.1

     14 May 2020 at 5:21 pm

     With a max automatic chop out time of 2 years.
4. ianmac 4

   14 May 2020 at 3:39 pm

   Entry into houses. Surely it would be used only if there are obviously a crowd inside. No doubt entry would be preceded by a knock on the door. But police knowing that they had further powers if needed would not leave them dangling impotently?
5. Dukeofurl 5

   14 May 2020 at 6:25 pm

   Do we really want Graeme Edgeler to be the most vocal public advocate on what is is not legal.

   This is his most recent case.

   New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, s 26

   BETWEEN CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF THE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS Applicant AND MARK DAVID CHISNALL Respondent

   [1] Mr Chisnall applies for declarations of inconsistency with various rights affirmed by the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 (BORA) in respect of the extended supervision order (ESO) and public protection order (PPO) regimes.1 These regimes enable the detention of persons who have committed serious sexual or violence offences after the completion of their sentences for that offending. The application does not relate to any specific ESO or PPO. <b>Rather, Mr Chisnall seeks to impugn the powers enabling such orders…</b>

   [6] Mr Chisnall has multiple convictions for very serious sexual offending. He was due for release on 27 April 2016, having served a full 11-year sentence for two counts of sexual violation by rape. On 15 April 2016, the Chief Executive Officer applied for a PPO or, in the alternative, an ESO.violence offences after the completion of their sentences for that offending.

   The PPO or ESO or extended Supervision Order is only made after application to the High Court.

   This case already went to Appeal and Supreme court and is using a new angle .

   Edgeler wants to let the House burn down rather than have a procedural process by the Fire Brigade go unchallenged.

   This Chisnal case and his post parole provisions have produced a slew of court cases

   https://forms.justice.govt.nz/jdo/Search.jsp#/search and appearance by Edgeler
6. Treetop 6

   15 May 2020 at 10:38 am

   I have been giving the reason for why blood clots show up in Covid-19 some thought.

   It might be helpful for a ANA to be done to measure the level of antibodies which is done for an autoimmune. Also a full ENA panel to be done to see what the autoimmune condition is.

   There is a condition seen in systemic limited scleroderma called GAVE or watermelon stomach which dilates blood vessels and they can ooze like a grazed knee or worse. A person can become blood transfusion dependent and low iron levels were the only symptom I had even though I had off the chart ANA and the ENA panel for systemic limited scleroderma.

   Immunologist certainly have got their work cut out for them in understanding what Covid-19 is doing to the immune system. It is clear to me that Covid-19 is systemic, what I find shocking with it is how rapid the effects of a complication are.
   • lprent 6.1

     15 May 2020 at 10:46 am

     Almost all of the complications (at least that I've read about) appear to be to related to the persons auto-immune responses getting way too enthusiastic.

     It is something that is common with all new diseases jumping species. Over time the two wear together. The virus evolves to reduce excessive responses. People with excessive responses get winnowed out of the population. Medics wind up with specific responses to prevent the response.
     • Treetop 6.1.1

       15 May 2020 at 11:12 am

       When I look at peanut allergy and bee stings some people can have a serious allergic reaction. I know that the body produces histamine to combat the allergic reaction. There are mast cell conditions which have increased histamine and anti histamine is the treatment. A serum tryptase test is done to establish the level of histamine. Some pathologists do a histamine test when a person has died suddenly to exclude an allergic reaction.

       You can have a mast cell condition without having a food or substance allergy.

       A Dr Theoharides is a mast cell expert. I would like to see what he has to say about Covid-19.
       • Treetop 6.1.1.1

         15 May 2020 at 11:39 am

         https://www.webmd.com/allergies/what-are-histamines
       • Incognito 6.1.1.2

         15 May 2020 at 11:47 pm

         I know that the body produces histamine to combat the allergic reaction.

         Nope, histamine is part of the allergic reaction, which is why you take anti-histamines.

         By all accounts, the ‘cytokine storm’ triggered in some patients by COVID-19 is very different from an allergic response although it may involve overlapping parts and components of the immune system(s).
         • lprent 6.1.1.2.1

           16 May 2020 at 4:39 pm

           Yep 40+ years ago I used to be allergic to bee-stings to the point of needing anti-histamines around. Essentially after I got a bee-sting the area would start to swell virtually immediately, and keep swelling. If it was up around the throat (as my first one was) I also started to have problems breathing.

           I just read the histamine page in wikipedia… Yikes..

           Good thing I haven’t haven’t had a bee-sting since my late adolescence.
7. Treetop 7

   16 May 2020 at 9:39 am

   But what are histamines?

   They're chemicals your immune system makes. Histamines act like bouncers at a club. They help your body get rid of something that's bothering you _ _ in this case, an allergy trigger, or "allergen."

   See above link as reference

   I am not disagreeing that histamine is part of the allergic reaction.
   • Incognito 7.1

     16 May 2020 at 12:13 pm

     I disagree. Our body only makes histamine, singular; there are no “histamines” as such.
8. Treetop 8

   16 May 2020 at 1:17 pm

   How do you explain histamine occuring naturally in some food food?

   See above link.
   • Incognito 8.1

     16 May 2020 at 2:27 pm

     I don’t understand what you’re asking me to explain. Histamine, singular, occurs naturally but it is also formed during fermentation and bacterial metabolism in certain fish, as per your link.

     My point is that there is only one natural histamine, called histamine 😉

     Ingested histamine does not necessarily have the same effects as locally released endogenous histamine, after a sting, for example. Inhaling a histamine spray, in a controlled setting, has a direct effect on the airways and they contract (congestion); I had to do this once myself.
9. Treetop 9

   16 May 2020 at 3:42 pm

   I do not think there is a difference between histamine the body produces and histamine produced in food.

   An immunologist told me that most people have histamine levels in the low digits so it is obviously produced in the body. From what I have read there are some foods which are high in histamine which need to be avoided in people who are histamine intolerant which affects about 1% of the population.

   The immunologist also told me to try and control my histamine level by avoiding high histamine food.

   Knowing the cause of the elevated histamine level is what is important. I will not go into the causes.
   • Incognito 9.1

     16 May 2020 at 5:36 pm

     Well, yes, histamine is histamine, obviously. Where it is absorbed or released and where it reaches a certain concentration and which receptors it binds to in which tissues and on what cells is a completely different story though. Water on your skin is fine; water in your lungs is not.

     That article you linked to was misleading in talking about histamines in the plural sense. I still have no idea why they did this and what they meant by it!? There is only one histamine, which is a specific compound. It is not a class of compounds as such, like hormones, benzodiazepines, cannabinoids, or alcohols, for example.
     • Treetop 9.1.1

       16 May 2020 at 6:35 pm

       You might be interested in Dr Theoharides an expert in histamine and mast cells. What he had to say about Covid-19 I found interesting. His treatment would raise a few eyebrows. Whether he is right or not needs to be put to the test.

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