Are You Scared/Worried About Coronavirus?

[RandoEFC+]

4 hours ago, Rab said:

Naw, went to a gig on Sunday night with 11000 other people.

Live life. You could walk outside your house tomorrow and get hit by a car. Shit happens.

Except getting hit by a car doesn't also carry the risk of you inflicting the same consequences on people around you.

I'm all for making my own choice if I'm risking my own health, smoking for example. However, if I'm like yeah whatevs I'm going to a gig this weekend even though it isn't advisable and then I catch the virus, pass it on to 10 people on the bus home, and then 3 of them, a nurse, a teacher and a lawyer, have to self isolate from work for a month, and two others have elderly relatives with underlying health issues that they have to avoid for 6 weeks when they rely on them for shopping and getting about and picking up their prescriptions, then suddenly I start feeling like a bit of a selfish cunt (no offence).

I'm worried about it, not scared. When people are dying, even if I don't know who they are, I wouldn't think twice about doing what I can to prevent it getting worse.

The days of calling it "scare mongering" and "panic" are gone. This is as serious as people are saying, an entire developed European country is on full lock down because of this thing now and I'll be amazed at this point if the UK doesn't follow suit shortly. Being scared doesn't help but acknowledging the scale of this threat to human life this virus actually presents and considering changes to our day to day lives is surely necessary now. If you take risks then you arent just chancing it yourself, you're chancing it for everyone else you could come into contact with.

For me personally, the only mentality that makes sense now is better safe than sorry. 

[Tommy]

Not really. I hear that 80% of the effected people don't even have any or just slight symptoms. I do worry about the elderly and sick people of course, but I think it's being handled relatively well now. Of course I'm sad that I can't go to Fortuna Düsseldorf on Friday, but I do understand the reasons. 

[Rick]

My attitude is “take precaution” but I’m not worried or scared for myself. My mam has diabetes, so my worry is only for her and my young niece. 

[Machado]

I'm not worried about my personal well being, but I won't be selfish to the point of not caring if I get it, as I can easily spread it to older people who can die from it, and that'd be fucked up.

Slightly worried about the economy though.

[Bluewolf]

No, all good here... 

[Toinho]

It’s stopped Perth Glory hosting their first Asian Champions leagues games, thrown that competition into disarray and wouldn’t surprise me if the  Olympics are canned. 

That’s from a selfish level. But I’m at home today unwell, there’s a bit going around at the moment so I’m trying not to worry too much about my own predicament as it’s likely only a cold as I’d have no clue how I’d have contracted this due to no cases in WA that have come from within the state.

I don’t think it’ll be long before Australia gets hit worse though, particularly in the lead up to winter? But I’m not scared, a little worried due to work and the contact I have with students and people from 20+ nationalities on a daily basis - and I don’t know where their families have visited. 

[El Profesor]

9 hours ago, nudge said:

I'd like to point out that some people are seemingly confusing a vaccine with a cure. The former is supposed to prevent healthy people from getting infected by providing acquired immunity whereas the latter is supposed to treat the already infected; it's not the same thing. We don't have either at the moment although there are numerous companies around the globe working on both. In terms of a "cure", remdesivir seems to be the most promising antiviral drug to treat this at the moment; trials are currently underway in the US and China.

As for the topic in question - of course life goes on and panic or fear are pointless. People have to go to work and provide for their families, buy groceries, have other appointments; it's unavoidable. Stressing too much over things that are out of your control anyway is not good for anyone either. However, so many people not being willing to even slightly adjust their habits and lifestyles for a while baffles me a bit. It's not just about you - there's also such thing as social responsibility. The main point of the containment measures (bans on public events, quarantines, social distancing etc.) is to contain the spread as much as possible in order to protect the most vulnerable groups of society first and foremost; in this particular case the elderly and people with underlying health conditions. 

I do worry for my parents if the virus keeps spreading. I'm also annoyed because it screwed most of my plans already so I hope it does fuck off as soon as possible.

 

Drug repurposing is the shot for a cure in the short-term, right? 

I´m worried because of my parents and also because my sister is a doctor. So it´s like my family is really at a risky spot once it inevitally hits had Southern Brazil. The place where I live is really cold in the winter, despite what people tend to think about Brazil, it gets cold here, and there is a large elder population living in the small town where I live.

It´s still summer here, but next month I´m definitely taking the flu shot. I guess some immunity is better than nothing.

[Berserker]

1 hour ago, El Profesor said:

 

Drug repurposing is the shot for a cure in the short-term, right? 

I´m worried because of my parents and also because my sister is a doctor. So it´s like my family is really at a risky spot once it inevitally hits had Southern Brazil. The place where I live is really cold in the winter, despite what people tend to think about Brazil, it gets cold here, and there is a large elder population living in the small town where I live.

It´s still summer here, but next month I´m definitely taking the flu shot. I guess some immunity is better than nothing.

You're living in Minas Gerais or Mato Grosso do Sur right Ricardinho?, i know Rio Grande do Sur and the provinces around it get cold similarly to Buenos Aires but i'd have thought all the states above Sao Paulo were warm trough all the year.

[Mpache]

1 minute ago, Berserker said:

You're living in Minas Gerais or Mato Grosso do Sur right Ricardinho?, i know Rio Grande do Sur and the provinces below it get cold similarly to Buenos Aires but i'd have thought all the states above Sao Paulo were warm trough all the year.

Parana apparently gets cold too. Curitiba has a record low of -5.4.

[Berserker]

4 minutes ago, Inti Brian said:

Parana apparently gets cold too. Curitiba has a record low of -5.4.

I know, notice in my post i said RGDS, the provinces below it and that i'd have thought the provinces above Sao Paulo would all be warm through the whole year, indirectly implying the ones below do get cold.

[Mpache]

Just now, Berserker said:

I know, notice in my post i said RGDS and the provinces below it.

Surely you're a bit worried too. Buenos Aires I'd imagine gets cold in the winter.

I'm worried about my family here in Peru. Lima gets cold in the winter, usually its only 15 degrees but it always feels like 5.

[El Profesor]

9 minutes ago, Berserker said:

You're living in Minas Gerais or Mato Grosso do Sur right Ricardinho?, i know Rio Grande do Sur and the provinces below it get cold similarly to Buenos Aires but i'd have thought all the states above Sao Paulo were warm trough all the year.

I live in Santa Catarina, in one of the coldest parts in the state, in the west.Not that distant from the argentinean border. The Misiones province is some 150 km from where I live. Negative temperatures are common here in the winter. 

[Berserker]

5 minutes ago, Inti Brian said:

Surely you're a bit worried too. Buenos Aires I'd imagine gets cold in the winter.

I'm worried about my family here in Peru. Lima gets cold in the winter, usually its only 15 degrees but it always feels like 5.

Yeah, mostly because of family, not personally for myself as it's similar to a flu and i'm more than experienced with them.

It does get cold, can get to 0c in the coldest days, maybe even -1 or -2 but it tends to be between 4 and 15c too and yeah, anything below 23c is annoying for me, and around 15c it's really cold as it's really humid here.

[Berserker]

11 minutes ago, El Profesor said:

I live in Santa Catarina, in one of the coldest parts in the state, in the west.Not that distant from the argentinean border. The Misiones province is some 150 km from where I live. Negative temperatures are common here in the winter. 

Oh, nice! Surprised you get temp that lows though, would have thought it was a little warmer than here, where it's not so common to get below 0 temps.

[Azeem]

I'm worried that this might lead to some kind of social collapse like with the economy or people start killing each other over toilet papers.

[Mpache]

I am starting to get worried for my own safety to be honest.

I pray I don't get diabetes this year. I'm due it unless I start having a more healthy lifestyle and I'm not going to until I get back to Canada.

[Harry]

I am definitely worried.

I suspect anyone following this issue closely in the media would be experiencing some level of unease about this.

However I'm drawing comfort from the way south Korea have responded, from an initially very bad outbreak that was slow to be identified, to then throwing a world class first world healthcare system and testing regime into gear and reversing what would otherwise have been an exponential growth trend.

[Mel81x+]

14 hours ago, nudge said:

I'd like to point out that some people are seemingly confusing a vaccine with a cure. The former is supposed to prevent healthy people from getting infected by providing acquired immunity whereas the latter is supposed to treat the already infected; it's not the same thing. We don't have either at the moment although there are numerous companies around the globe working on both. In terms of a "cure", remdesivir seems to be the most promising antiviral drug to treat this at the moment; trials are currently underway in the US and China.

Think this also has a lot to do with how this virus adapts to its surroundings and changes as well? I don't think we'll get a cure before a vaccine personally speaking. The problems that most countries are trying to solve to help fast-track the search for a vaccine have to be weighed properly because you could inadvertently be exposing your population to something that creates long-term problems for your gen-pop if you don't get the testing done right. 

[nudge]

6 hours ago, Mel81x said:

Think this also has a lot to do with how this virus adapts to its surroundings and changes as well? I don't think we'll get a cure before a vaccine personally speaking. The problems that most countries are trying to solve to help fast-track the search for a vaccine have to be weighed properly because you could inadvertently be exposing your population to something that creates long-term problems for your gen-pop if you don't get the testing done right. 

Depends on how you look at it. A novel compound that is specifically designated for and highly effective in mass-treating covid-19? I agree that's unlikely to happen any time soon (if ever). However, repurposing already existing drugs (as @El Profesor mentioned) could be a much faster way to control the course of the epidemics. There are a few approaches there, for example the use of a broad spectrum antiviral remdesivir is very encouraging as it's already shown to be safe, tested both in vitro and in vivo, and the first clinical evidence is also promising. It's currently in Phase 3 of clinical trials too with the first results expected in April, so if those are successful we might have a treatment which may not be the magical final solution but effective enough to save lives and relieve the strain on healthcare systems, thus controlling the outbreak until the vaccine is ready. Mutations are obviously always a concern with viruses, regardless if it's a vaccine or a treatment - but I believe that's another advantage of remdesivir as its mechanism of action is based on targeting the RNA dependent RNA polymerase (thus inhibiting viral replication) which is standard across all coronaviruses, making it likely to work on different strains of the virus too.

One good thing to come from this already is definitely the free access to all the data and publications related to the virus and disease it causes, haha. 

[Toinho]

4 minutes ago, nudge said:

Depends on how you look at it. A novel compound that is specifically designated for and highly effective in mass-treating covid-19? I agree that's unlikely to happen any time soon (if ever). However, repurposing already existing drugs (as @El Profesor mentioned) could be a much faster way to control the course of the epidemics. There are a few approaches there, for example the use of a broad spectrum antiviral remdesivir is very encouraging as it's already shown to be safe, tested both in vitro and in vivo, and the first clinical evidence is also promising. It's currently in Phase 3 of clinical trials too with the first results expected in April, so if those are successful we might have a treatment which may not be the magical final solution but effective enough to save lives and relieve the strain on healthcare systems, thus controlling the outbreak until the vaccine is ready. Mutations are obviously always a concern with viruses, regardless if it's a vaccine or a treatment - but I believe that's another advantage of remdesivir as its mechanism of action is based on targeting the RNA dependent RNA polymerase (thus inhibiting viral replication) which is standard across all coronaviruses, making it likely to work on different strains of the virus too.

One good thing to come from this already is definitely the free access to all the data and publications related to the virus and disease it causes, haha. 

Not even her first language and knows words I do not. 

[Mpache]

3 minutes ago, Toinho said:

Not even her first language and knows words I do not. 

The Scandinavian and Nordic countries as well as the Netherlands and Germany have better English than most of the Brits themselves 

Kind of like how Spain has the 2nd worst Spanish behind Chile.

[Mel81x+]

7 minutes ago, nudge said:

Depends on how you look at it. A novel compound that is specifically designated for and highly effective in mass-treating covid-19? I agree that's unlikely to happen any time soon (if ever). However, repurposing already existing drugs (as @El Profesor mentioned) could be a much faster way to control the course of the epidemics. There are a few approaches there, for example the use of a broad spectrum antiviral remdesivir is very encouraging as it's already shown to be safe, tested both in vitro and in vivo, and the first clinical evidence is also promising. It's currently in Phase 3 of clinical trials too with the first results expected in April, so if those are successful we might have a treatment which may not be the magical final solution but effective enough to save lives and relieve the strain on healthcare systems, thus controlling the outbreak until the vaccine is ready. Mutations are obviously always a concern with viruses, regardless if it's a vaccine or a treatment - but I believe that's another advantage of remdesivir as its mechanism of action is based on targeting the RNA dependent RNA polymerase (thus inhibiting viral replication) which is standard across all coronaviruses, making it likely to work on different strains of the virus too.

One good thing to come from this already is definitely the free access to all the data and publications related to the virus and disease it causes, haha. 

I guess the hope now is that the testing is enough and yields the results we want. Why do I feel like I have heard the word "remdesivir" somewhere before? Irrelevant anyways (knowing where i've heard it before) as what you're talking about is definitely an attack strategy for inhibiting viral replication and that is definitely more important than eradication considering what its doing right now. What I don't like about this is the same thing you alluded to earlier which is the fact that media outlets are pushing their stories like someone has found a cure when the reality is that its more to do with control than obliteration. I figure we're about two years away from finding something that totally stops it but for now the biggest and most important task is to stop it from spreading. 

Doesn't going after RNA polymerase then raise issues with stopping RNA and DNA replication structures to help the host survive the process and recover? Or does it do that by isolating the virus to the chain and not allowing it to touch other chains? Keep in mind that I am thinking of this as from the angle of a person that has an average understanding of the two replication processes haha. 

[nudge]

36 minutes ago, Mel81x said:

I guess the hope now is that the testing is enough and yields the results we want. Why do I feel like I have heard the word "remdesivir" somewhere before? Irrelevant anyways (knowing where i've heard it before) as what you're talking about is definitely an attack strategy for inhibiting viral replication and that is definitely more important than eradication considering what its doing right now. What I don't like about this is the same thing you alluded to earlier which is the fact that media outlets are pushing their stories like someone has found a cure when the reality is that its more to do with control than obliteration. I figure we're about two years away from finding something that totally stops it but for now the biggest and most important task is to stop it from spreading. 

Doesn't going after RNA polymerase then raise issues with stopping RNA and DNA replication structures to help the host survive the process and recover? Or does it do that by isolating the virus to the chain and not allowing it to touch other chains? Keep in mind that I am thinking of this as from the angle of a person that has an average understanding of the two replication processes haha. 

You definitely heard that name before, it was originally developed as an Ebola drug but wasn't effective enough. Later it was discovered that it performs effectively against SARS and MERS, hence why it was one of the first choice experimental drugs when this outbreak started in China. I'll look for the paper when I'm on my laptop later, first evaluations were pretty good and I believe they already started clinical trials in some other Asian countries as well as in the US. Also agree with your point about the media outlets; most reports are just a mess of convoluted facts with misleading headlines or just pure trash. 

Regarding RNA polymerase: what happens normally when you're infected is that the virus binds to your cell, releases a replicase gene which then translates into numerous proteins, including the aforementioned RNA polymerase, whose main function is making copies of the viral RNA (since coronaviruses are RNA-only, DNA is not involved in the process). That's where remdesivir enters the game - it is a nucleotide analogue, and since nucleotides are the building block of RNA, remdesivir binds to the new RNA strands that are being produced by the RNA polymerase. However, its chemical properties are slightly different from the actual required nucleotides, making those newly created RNA strands become defective and terminate, thus inhibiting the replication process of the virus and stopping it from hijacking more of your cells. Obviously I'm not a microbiologist or virologist so this is just a very basic "in a nutshell" summary of how it's supposed to work haha. 

[Panflute]

I'm not afraid of the virus in the sense that I don't think it would do much damage to me. What I am afraid of is the consequences of an infection, mostly because I don't want to infect either of my parents (or anyone else for that matter).

The situation in general also feels a bit unreal, as the general panic is starting to become more noticeable, especially since Italy went on lockdown. I just try to look at it like a challenge and prepare for the worst (a lockdown in my country) regardless from whether or not it will happen. At the worst I'll be prepared for when something bad does happen. So I stocked up on medicine, non-perishable foods and food/other necessities for my pets, so if need be I can stay inside for 1-2 months and be perfectly fine.

[nudge]

@Mel81x found those papers about the efficacy of remdesivir against coronaviruses:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-13940-6 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41422-020-0282-0

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5567817/