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Made in gb
Ruthless Interrogator





The hills above Belfast

To the Glory of God and in proud and affectionate remembrance of the men of County Antrim who fell in the Great War. This memorial is erected by their grateful county.

Then it has a quote from a hymn that says

'Nobly you fought, your knightly virtue proved,
your memory hallowed in the land you loved'

There’s a smaller plaque below the main one which was added to include the Second World War and also our soldiers who died in Northern Ireland fighting terrorism.

EAT - SLEEP - FARM - REPEAT  
   
Made in us
Blackclad Wayfarer





Philadelphia

This quarantine has been really healthy for me mentally and financially

Saved a few grand these past two months by not travelling to work or going out. I didnt waste 3+ hours a day on a commute for a job that I can do much faster at home, and finally getting some good hobby time in working on my own projects. Girlfriend is home as well.

My dog also loves this. Normally I take him out around 6-7am and I get home around 8pm and take him out again - but its dark out already at this point. He's hype I'm there all week and doesnt have the same issues with whining/separation he used to have when no one was home for 12 hours a day. Pup is lonely not seeing other dogs at the park every weekend but he seems me throughout the day.

Smoking a bit too much when painting now that I'm inside but I havent bothered to drink in a few weeks so overall I'm feeling 10/10 health wise


It's not this way for everyone - but this was a nice breather in my life to reset the constant work work work. Doing a 55-60 hour work week is now fine mentally since I can mix painting in with it and I dont have to only be really home one day to relax and paint.


Not sure if I want to get tested - it's $280 to get it done locally if I want to do the antibody thing but honestly I havent really left my place is 5-6 weeks

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2020/04/28 18:01:30


   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut





 Knockagh wrote:
. The council yesterday blocked the circle with large rocks. Which cyclists are using to park their bikes. See photo. Also photo from tractor today for distance to water.


That's not a lot of bikes though. Even the number of cars is relatively low. I'm not sure I really see the issue here as they are still following government guidelines.

"Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. " - V

I've just supported the Permanent European Union Citizenship initiative. Please do the same and spread the word!

"It's not a problem if you don't look up." - Dakka's approach to politics 
   
Made in gb
Ruthless Interrogator





The hills above Belfast

 Whirlwind wrote:
 Knockagh wrote:
. The council yesterday blocked the circle with large rocks. Which cyclists are using to park their bikes. See photo. Also photo from tractor today for distance to water.


That's not a lot of bikes though. Even the number of cars is relatively low. I'm not sure I really see the issue here as they are still following government guidelines.


It was a few demonstration pics. Haven’t got my camera out all day. Anyway I can’t convince everyone to stay round home. It’s obvious the forum like the country is divided on this.
Surely though in time of national emergency we should collectively obey national guidance? Regardless if we think we are smarter or cleverer than those in authority. Everyone today appears to be far too smart.

@stevefamine Do you think people will be allowed to work from home more when this is over? My wife just got a new laptop from her work today. She always had a desktop until now, they have given these new laptops to all the accountants in her department. Can’t see them going to that expense just to go back to normal in a few weeks/months. Although she works for the civil service and they have been known to waste money.....from time to time....

EAT - SLEEP - FARM - REPEAT  
   
Made in ca
[DCM]
Dankhold Troggoth






Shadeglass Maze

That's what I think folks on both sides of the discussion are saying, though - people need to follow guidelines, and some of the behavior you described violates those. But it's also possible for people to exercise outdoors without violating social distancing / government guidelines. That's what folks need to stick to!

Regarding working from home - I definitely hope working remotely, at least some of the time, becomes more common after this! My wife and her whole team have been more effective now than when they were in the office, similar to what Stevefamine described

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2020/04/28 19:01:33


 
   
Made in us
Blackclad Wayfarer





Philadelphia

My job would hate to let us work from home. My long commute has tolls - but since the company pays for that expensive nice building they'll want to have us in there. The offices are easily what I'd call "over the top/TRUMP hotel aesthetics". It's an expensive HQ buildings with a huge waterfall / daily catering companies come in for buffets / and huge photo OP/video stuff over where I work.

Random hype / sales/ awards and loud clappers and bells does not help the work environment. I do like wearing a suit though


In the future - people should be allowed to work from home more. Instead of burning PTO calling out sick I'd easily just work from home those days instead of infecting people at work and having my nose run and coughing to come in for a half day and being told to spend two hours getting home after I bothered to show up. I do have some 30+ pto days a year so I'm not complaining but it would be lovely to just have the option to work - but not show.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2020/04/28 19:09:40


   
Made in us
Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba




The Great State of New Jersey

 Grey Templar wrote:
 Yodhrin wrote:


But yeah, if someone's pitting a modest drop in standard of living(oh noes, poor middle class people won't be able to take a foreign holiday every single year sometimes twice? i weep ) against hundreds of thousands of lives, I consider them to be a sociopath.


We're not talking about a modest drop in living standards. We're talking hundreds of millions of people losing their jobs and being unable to afford basic needs. Needs which the government could never afford because nobody can pay any taxes, plus collapse of agriculture leading to worldwide food shortages. A situation which could lead to not just hundreds of thousands of lives lost, but hundreds of millions of lives lost. Which would be a combination of economic collapse, famine, and violence stemming from those 2 previous causes.

It is infinitely better to take a known risk(maybe a few hundred thousand dead worldwide) vs the possibility of worldwide collapse that would lead the millions of dead.

Maybe you'd save your grandfather from dying to COVID, but its not worth it if it means millions of people starving to death fighting for scraps and recovery that could last over a century.


Like many, you seem to have discounted the economic chilling effects that result from deaths. Various think tanks, economists, universities, etc. have done the math on this ad almost unanimously (including some of the most conservative and pro-business think tanks like the American Enteriprise Institute) they agree that the economic hit from an estimated 1-2 million Americans dying is far worse than the economic impact of the shutdown.

"We're going to lose $500 billion dollars from this mistake and that is going to be bad for a lot of people", then they absolutely are thinking about your neighbour. And also your daughter, and your postman and your cat. They're thinking of far more people than you are.


Thinking about a lot of people doesn't mean they are thinking about it well. I have yet to see anyone following this line of thinking make a compelling or reasonable argument that factors in the dollar costs of lives lost - its an nth order consequence and people are terrible at taking those into consideration, but they exist.

People are also failing to consider the more direct economic harm that premature reopening will lead to - business interruption insurance no longer applies if the government reopens the economy and you're allowed to resume operations, which means that a business has to reopen regardless of whether or not it is practical for them to do so - if you run a sit-down restaurant and 80% of your customers are still too fearful to patronize your establishment because there isn't yet a vaccine then you're going to take a financial hit. That financial hit means you have to lay off personnel, up until now your staff was furloughed so they at least they had health insurance and the state was kind enough to cover the tab for you, but now their insurance is most likely gone unless they can afford the higher premium COBRA coverage and they have to go through a marketplace plan (assuming they can afford it) or try to get coverage through MEDICAID, and you're also covering the unemployment costs associated with that layoff instead of the state footing the bill (and if the economy is forced to close down again because of a second wave, they remain on your tab even while you're forced to re-close your business). Because you can resume business your landlord is now also expecting rent in full or you will be evicted for failure to pay (some states have already got ahead of this one, but not all).

I'm really tempted to say that if you're pushing for a reopening, you probably *aren't* really thinking about people at all, not really, not in a meaningful way that really considers what the consequences of that reopening actually are - especially when you consider that reopening is most harmful to those PEOPLE who are already most vulnerable working low-income service industry jobs. If you were really thinking about people, you'd be pushing to keep the economy closed and push a freeze on the economy instead - freeze rents, freeze credit card payments, freeze loan/mortgage repayments, etc. Ban layoffs/only allow furloughs, bail out those industries effected by the economic freeze with interest-free loans (credit card companies, landlords, etc.) so that they retain staff on payroll, etc. and basically keep everything paused on the "status quo ante" on life support up until a vaccine is rolled out and then hit go again, at which point you hand out stimulus checks to every American to get them spending again. The only way the economy comes back in any manner even approaching what it was before this is if people and industry still have jobs when all this is over, for everyone to have jobs requires everyone to have money to spend to keep volume of business/cash flows up.

That includes services like nail salon, restarunts and tattoo parlors... so, long as those businesses observe proper PPE and social distancing.


Its not possible to observe social distancing in two of those scenarios (nail salons, tattoo parlors), and the other one its not possible to observe proper PPE wear (explain to me how you eat and drink in a restaurant through a mask).

 Grey Templar wrote:
The middle ground is a shutdown lasting for 6-8 weeks tops, which in my area has already gone way past that. With a gradual opening starting at week 6 and working up to full reopening maybe 12 weeks. Anything longer than that is going to not just cripple the economy. Its going to annihilate it.


Hardly. American Enterprise Institute (again, highly pro-business very coservative economic think tank) recommended (as of revision on April 24th) that the optimal lockdown period should last an additional 10-19 weeks: https://www.aei.org/research-products/working-paper/determining-the-optimal-duration-of-the-covid-19-suppression-policy-a-cost-benefit-analysis/

Earlier studies by AEI determined that the best case most optimistic scenario for an effective lockdown was 8-12 weeks total, but found that 16-24 weeks was more realistic as the 8-12 week scenario was not, in their words, well grounded in reality, and that we could go up to something like 32-37 weeks before the cost of the lockdown became more economically harmful than the resultant harm from the likely number of deaths attributable to the virus. The study also finds that the cost of lifting lockdown too soon and having to re-impose lockdown measures again later (or intentionally "riding the wave" and repeatedly lockding down, reopening, and locking down again) is substantially greater than just a single long-duration lockdown.

Seriously, please inform yourself a bit before you go off on an alarmist "total socio-economic collapse" rant that is wholly unsupported by facts, reality, or highly-biased think tanks that would generally support your line of thinking.

 RiTides wrote:
Antibody testing from NYC just showed an infection rate of 20% in a sample population. Needs lots of follow up and confirmation but it would imply both that the virus was more widespread and contagious than previously thought, but also less deadly (0.5% fatality rate - still high but lower than previously indicated):

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/23/nyregion/coronavirus-new-york-update.html

Not something to jump to conclusions over but let's see if it gets confirmed in follow ups....


 RiTides wrote:
Well this got a bit drowned out by several pages of reacting to you-know-who . But can non-subscribers see this NYT article?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/23/nyregion/coronavirus-new-york-update.html

Hoping so (if their coronavirus coverage is free like many places)? It is showing a just over 20% infection rate in a sample test population from NYC, which would also indicate a 0.5% mortality rate. So scary in the sense that it's more contagious and widespread than we realized, but also less deadly. All of this is preliminary and needs more testing to verify, but really interesting...



20% of NYC was found to have antibodies, BUT only 3.6% of those tested upstate came back positive. I.E. - no, rather it implies the opposite, its *not* that widespread outside of some densely populated hotspots that had huge flareups (this also means that NYC would be good for at least another 12-15k dead before herd immunity kicks in, assuming that herd immunity is a thing with COVID-19, which scientists still seem somewhat undecided on).

And the fastest vaccine development ever -- mumps -- took 4 years. *IF* a vaccine is achievable, there's reason to think it won't need to be that long


Wouldn't seasonal flu vaccines be faster? If they have to pump out a new version of it every year in response to recent mutations, you would think that they don't exactly have a 4 year lead time....

Immediate difference?

Sweden, 198 deaths per million population.
Denmark, 67 deaths per million population.


The numbers coming out of Sweden are encouraging only because Sweden has a small population and is not densely populated. 2200 dead is an easy number to shrug off, especially for the general public who don't really know how to connect the different relevant data points together in a meaningful way.

This article has some good relevant data: https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/28/europe/sweden-coronavirus-lockdown-strategy-intl/index.html

Denmark seems to be the best performing of the Scandinavian nations, 7 deaths per 100k residents (22 for sweden), with half the population but 5x the population density. Had Denmark taken the swedish approach, I would expect that Denmark would have been absolutely devastated. Personally, I think Sweden is overly optimistic about all this, they are estimating that they are weeks away from achieving herd immunity, etc. I saw one report suggest that for every positive case of coronavirus there are another 999 that were too mild to be identified - a claim which it seems they have since backtracked, and for good reason. At 19-20k confirmed cases in the country that would put the number of cases in sweden total at about 2x the national population.

NinthMusketeer wrote:Another factor could be that people of European descent tend to be more resistant to disease, due to the black plague(s) and general Dark Ages sanitation doing a significant degree of natural selection.


Umm what? Thats not even remotely true, and you're discounting the fact that on the whole tropical disease like those found in Asia, Africa, and Central/South America tend to be the most deadly and debilitating (and those of European descent are particularly susceptible to them). Besides that, it doesn't work that way, surviving black/bubonic plague doesn't suddenly make you more resistant to Typhoid or the flu.

Quick google searches confirm that there isn't much to back this claim:

https://www.researchgate.net/blog/post/how-women-navigate-depends-on-their-menstrual-cycles

Whilst I expect it to be a bit too early to say that, I'm very jealous of the way NZ have handled this.


Im just generally jealous of NZ. Jacinda Ardern is a dime, extremely intelligent, very eloquent, and a natural leader. Geographically and climatically NZ is gorgeous, and historically I think NZ has done best by its indigenous populations of all the former British colonies (which isn't to say that its perfect), etc.

 Grey Templar wrote:



Yes, we have a lot of deaths. However that graph is misleading because it just shows total deaths and isn't per capita. The US has a lower per capita death rate than Spain, Italy, France, Belgium and the UK, and less deaths than all of Europe combined.

The US should never be compared 1 on 1 with other countries, especially in Europe. Its misleading.


Its even more misleading to ignore population density, once you normalize for density, the US is actually doing pretty awfully:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-19-death-rate-vs-population-density

Generally, the closer you are to the top left of that chart, the worse you have performed in containing the virus. Only Sweden is really performing any worse than the US is at present, but thats misleading because most of the Swedish population is clustered into a relatively small area of the nation. In this situation per capita gives a very incomplete picture of whats going on and can lull you into a false sense of success, as population density is a hugely determinant factor in transmission rates for the virus. Look at Norway and Singapore for example - roughly the same population, but Singapore occupies an area slightly greater than Oslo, Norway. You would expect to see a much larger case count in Singapore than in Norway as a result, as its logically easier to transmit the disease in Singapore than it is in Norway.

Prestor Jon wrote:You'd be guessing wrong. New York City and New York State are the municipal and state areas that have been the hardest hit by coronavirus. NYC has a population density of 22,000/km2 with a total population over 8 million. New York state has a population density of 421/mile2 with a total population 20 million spread over an area of 47,000 square miles. New York state is larger and more densely populated than Hungary and has worse covid19 statistics. That information isn't readily apparent when you compare Hungary and the USA as nations. Hence why it's not a useful comparison.


If by wrong you mean right - you just made steelmages point for him - a place with a higher population density will be hit harder. In your own words, New York state has a higher population density than Hungary, and also harder hit by coronavirus, ergo exactly what he said. Mind you, there are a number of problems with this example, as Hungary is likely under/mis-reporting its statistics, and the numbers you gave for New York State *also* include New York City, which is such a massive statistical outlier within the state that it is skewing the data. Unless you were responding to the "guess not" bit, which I think was meant as sarcasm (or he knows something I/we dont).

Population density by country isn't a useful predictor, because you get large variations. Population density by region (or locality, in the case of major cities) is more relevant. I wouldn't expect all that many cases in eastern Hungary or Montana. But it could be useful to compare Budapest and Miami, as metropolitan areas that have around 2-3 million people. [When assessed properly. Officially 'Miami' has less than 500,000 people, but the Miami-Dade County has 2.7 million. Some states do city accounting in weird ways for other reasons (like voting districts), so South Miami, Miami Springs, Miami Shores and Miami Beach are all their own entities distinct from 'Miami,' despite being adjacent]. I don't remember if Buda and Pest are still technically the separate cities that they were at one time, but it'd be silly to treat them separately for virus statistics... unless there was a real divergence in virus cases between the two.


The data is largely normalized/regional variations are smoothed out when you're comparing one nation to another on the subject of density, especially when it comes to nations like the Europe and those in Western and parts of Eastern Europe which have roughly proportional population distributions to the US that smooth out outlier effects from places like New York City. You start to go awry when you include very large nations like Canada and Russia, sparsely populated nations/nations with uneven distributions like Scandinavia or Australia, or small micronations like Singapore, etc.


No, it definitely isn't especially when it comes to parking lots. Without fail, I always end up with someone parked next to me when I park in the furthest part of the lot even when it's otherwise empty.


The smartest statement I have ever seen posted on dakka is that "people are (fething) weird about parking".


CoALabaer wrote:
Wargamers hate two things: the state of the game and change.
 
   
Made in us
Ollanius Pius - Savior of the Emperor






Gathering the Informations.

I think you're welcome, Chaos?
   
Made in us
Humming Great Unclean One of Nurgle






chaos0xomega wrote:
NinthMusketeer wrote:Another factor could be that people of European descent tend to be more resistant to disease, due to the black plague(s) and general Dark Ages sanitation doing a significant degree of natural selection.


Umm what? Thats not even remotely true, and you're discounting the fact that on the whole tropical disease like those found in Asia, Africa, and Central/South America tend to be the most deadly and debilitating (and those of European descent are particularly susceptible to them). Besides that, it doesn't work that way, surviving black/bubonic plague doesn't suddenly make you more resistant to Typhoid or the flu.

Quick google searches confirm that there isn't much to back this claim:

https://www.researchgate.net/blog/post/how-women-navigate-depends-on-their-menstrual-cycles
I am unsure how that article relates at all...

At any rate, that is how natural selection works. Those of the population most susceptible to disease are the ones that die off, removing them from the future gene pool. Africans have this with their resistance to malaria.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/10/161020142948.htm
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/02/black-death-left-mark-human-genome#
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-03/uol-bdw031005.php

Racial heritage is certainly relevant to disease (beyond disparity of treatment).

Road to Renown! It's like classic Path to Glory, but repaired, remastered, expanded! https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/778170.page

I chose an avatar I feel best represents the quality of my post history.

I try to view Warhammer as more of a toolbox with examples than fully complete games. 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut



Glasgow

Some more detail on current (by which we mean two week old) England and Wales figures. They were higher two weeks ago (22,351) than the government stated they were today (21,678). On the ONS cutoff date (17.04) they were underreported by 52%. Note: France and Italy include care home deaths, Spain is trying but struggling to compile all data. As such, there is a reasonable chance the UK is the second worst effected state on the planet in teens of total fatalities.

There have been 29,751 excess deaths (UK-wide and compared to five-year average) over the period of corona fatality in the UK.

Fatalities are MUCH higher than the daily totals announced at press briefings that ignore deaths outside hospital. A conservative estimate puts them above 40k today. Depressing graph here https://twitter.com/chrisgiles_/status/1255186934806319104?s=21

Hancock claimed that domestic and care home deaths would be included in the figures as of tomorrow, but DHSC have subsequently clarified that this will only acknowledge fatalities where there has been a positive test carried out, so will still seek to sweep non-hospital deaths under the carpet.

   
Made in us
Pragmatic Primus Commanding Cult Forces






Southeastern PA, USA

chaos0xomega wrote:
And the fastest vaccine development ever -- mumps -- took 4 years. *IF* a vaccine is achievable, there's reason to think it won't need to be that long


Wouldn't seasonal flu vaccines be faster? If they have to pump out a new version of it every year in response to recent mutations, you would think that they don't exactly have a 4 year lead time....


Those aren’t really new vaccines. The shots we get are mixes of existing vaccines for Influenza A and B, based on the forecasts for which strains of A and B will emerge each winter. Some years they get a good match, other years they don’t. But it’s also ultimately all A and B, so whatever we get will probably give us some level of resistance.

COVID-19 is a novel bug, not a strain of some existing virus.

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The Great State of New Jersey

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
chaos0xomega wrote:
NinthMusketeer wrote:Another factor could be that people of European descent tend to be more resistant to disease, due to the black plague(s) and general Dark Ages sanitation doing a significant degree of natural selection.


Umm what? Thats not even remotely true, and you're discounting the fact that on the whole tropical disease like those found in Asia, Africa, and Central/South America tend to be the most deadly and debilitating (and those of European descent are particularly susceptible to them). Besides that, it doesn't work that way, surviving black/bubonic plague doesn't suddenly make you more resistant to Typhoid or the flu.

Quick google searches confirm that there isn't much to back this claim:

https://www.researchgate.net/blog/post/how-women-navigate-depends-on-their-menstrual-cycles
I am unsure how that article relates at all...


LOL my mistake, dont know how that happened, here is the correct one: https://www.researchgate.net/blog/post/europeans-have-weaker-immune-systems-than-africans-in-part-because-of-neanderthal-dna

At any rate, that is how natural selection works. Those of the population most susceptible to disease are the ones that die off, removing them from the future gene pool. Africans have this with their resistance to malaria.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/10/161020142948.htm
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/02/black-death-left-mark-human-genome#
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-03/uol-bdw031005.php

Racial heritage is certainly relevant to disease (beyond disparity of treatment).


Diseases attack the body in different ways. Having a population survive the bubonic plague does not make them generally more disease resistant, it only makes them more resistant to specific diseases that are specifically similar to bubonic plague. Having strands of genetic code that prove more effective at combating the bacteria responsible for the plague doesn't really do anything in terms of combating a virus like COVID or influenza, etc. Bacterium and viruses are two entirely different types of microbes that trigger entirely different immune responses.Your third link points this out directly, and clarifies that its believed that aside from the black death the plagues that europe experienced were largely viral haemorrhagic fevers which might explain the reduced susceptibility to HIV amongst certain parts of the European diaspora.

You also seem to have confused the meaning of the first article you linked (which corroborates the info corrected link earlier in this post):

As a result, according to the new evidence, people of African ancestry generally show stronger immune responses than Europeans do.


Showing a stronger immune response means they (Africans) have a stronger immune system, and are therefore generally less susceptible to disease.

Those aren’t really new vaccines. The shots we get are mixes of existing vaccines for Influenza A and B, based on the forecasts for which strains of A and B will emerge each winter. Some years they get a good match, other years they don’t. But it’s also ultimately all A and B, so whatever we get will probably give us some level of resistance.

COVID-19 is a novel bug, not a strain of some existing virus.


Fair nuff/good point, also didn't realize the dynamics involved with the annual flu vaccine being based on pre-existing strains.

CoALabaer wrote:
Wargamers hate two things: the state of the game and change.
 
   
Made in us
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Spoiler:
chaos0xomega wrote:
 NinthMusketeer wrote:
chaos0xomega wrote:
NinthMusketeer wrote:Another factor could be that people of European descent tend to be more resistant to disease, due to the black plague(s) and general Dark Ages sanitation doing a significant degree of natural selection.


Umm what? Thats not even remotely true, and you're discounting the fact that on the whole tropical disease like those found in Asia, Africa, and Central/South America tend to be the most deadly and debilitating (and those of European descent are particularly susceptible to them). Besides that, it doesn't work that way, surviving black/bubonic plague doesn't suddenly make you more resistant to Typhoid or the flu.

Quick google searches confirm that there isn't much to back this claim:

https://www.researchgate.net/blog/post/how-women-navigate-depends-on-their-menstrual-cycles
I am unsure how that article relates at all...


LOL my mistake, dont know how that happened, here is the correct one: https://www.researchgate.net/blog/post/europeans-have-weaker-immune-systems-than-africans-in-part-because-of-neanderthal-dna

At any rate, that is how natural selection works. Those of the population most susceptible to disease are the ones that die off, removing them from the future gene pool. Africans have this with their resistance to malaria.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/10/161020142948.htm
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/02/black-death-left-mark-human-genome#
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-03/uol-bdw031005.php

Racial heritage is certainly relevant to disease (beyond disparity of treatment).


Diseases attack the body in different ways. Having a population survive the bubonic plague does not make them generally more disease resistant, it only makes them more resistant to specific diseases that are specifically similar to bubonic plague. Having strands of genetic code that prove more effective at combating the bacteria responsible for the plague doesn't really do anything in terms of combating a virus like COVID or influenza, etc. Bacterium and viruses are two entirely different types of microbes that trigger entirely different immune responses.Your third link points this out directly, and clarifies that its believed that aside from the black death the plagues that europe experienced were largely viral haemorrhagic fevers which might explain the reduced susceptibility to HIV amongst certain parts of the European diaspora.

You also seem to have confused the meaning of the first article you linked (which corroborates the info corrected link earlier in this post):

As a result, according to the new evidence, people of African ancestry generally show stronger immune responses than Europeans do.


Showing a stronger immune response means they (Africans) have a stronger immune system, and are therefore generally less susceptible to disease.

A response would require explaining out a lot of biology and genetics information that I do not feel is particularly on-topic, so agree to disagree.

Mod edit - Spoiler tags

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/04/29 05:45:11


Road to Renown! It's like classic Path to Glory, but repaired, remastered, expanded! https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/778170.page

I chose an avatar I feel best represents the quality of my post history.

I try to view Warhammer as more of a toolbox with examples than fully complete games. 
   
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 NinthMusketeer wrote:


At any rate, that is how natural selection works. Those of the population most susceptible to disease are the ones that die off, removing them from the future gene pool. Africans have this with their resistance to malaria.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/10/161020142948.htm
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/02/black-death-left-mark-human-genome#
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-03/uol-bdw031005.php

Racial heritage is certainly relevant to disease (beyond disparity of treatment).


PArtly true. Those of the population that are resistant to a specific disease pass on those genes giving their population resistance (very rarely full immunity) to that particular disease. For other diseases, all bets are off. Africans' resistance to malaria is actually a good example. Europeans when they came to Africa didn't have that resistance, so they died in droves from it. Native americans and smallpox (which Europeans were more resistant to due having grown up with it) are another good example. So racial heritage is relevant to specific diseases, not diseases in general.

And I very much suspect that African people having generally stronger immune responses is much more due to the unsanitary living conditions across most of the continent giving their existing immune system a constant workout than inherent genetics. If Europeans lived in similar conditions, their overall immune system would be a lot stronger, too.
   
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Bodt

I'm not so sure on that last point Bd, europe had pretty unsanitary conditions up until about the victorian period and the installation of proper sewerage systems. If that was the case those people should've been much more resilient, but diseases were still rampant. I'd say genetic resistance is more likely to be the cause of things like resistance to malaria, than the environmental conditions they are in.

However I do hold the opinion that humans should be exposed to quantities of germs in order to maintain a healthy immune system. We are often guilty of over sanitisation and avoidance of dirt and the like in modern culture.

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 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I'm not so sure on that last point Bd, europe had pretty unsanitary conditions up until about the victorian period and the installation of proper sewerage systems. If that was the case those people should've been much more resilient, but diseases were still rampant.


Much more resilient than which baseline? What are you comparing them to?
   
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Bodt

nfe wrote:
 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I'm not so sure on that last point Bd, europe had pretty unsanitary conditions up until about the victorian period and the installation of proper sewerage systems. If that was the case those people should've been much more resilient, but diseases were still rampant.


Much more resilient than which baseline? What are you comparing them to?


I'm not comparing anything. the premise is that unsanitary conditions lead to hardier immune systems, which would extend to a premise of , the more unsanitary the conditions, the hardier the immune systems would be I'm saying that that isnt explicitly true because of the living conditions and the diseases that were rampant during that period which suffered from unsanitary conditions.

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 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I'm not so sure on that last point Bd, europe had pretty unsanitary conditions up until about the victorian period and the installation of proper sewerage systems. If that was the case those people should've been much more resilient, but diseases were still rampant. I'd say genetic resistance is more likely to be the cause of things like resistance to malaria, than the environmental conditions they are in.

However I do hold the opinion that humans should be exposed to quantities of germs in order to maintain a healthy immune system. We are often guilty of over sanitisation and avoidance of dirt and the like in modern culture.


Re: resistance to malaria: That was my point? Genetic resistance is to a specific disease - africans to malaria, which killed europeans, and europeans to smallpox which killed entire tribes of native americans, not diseases in general.
The latter can be a consequence of giving your immune system a good workout. Other factors help too, though. Diet, for instance. Clean air and other living conditions. And if conditions are unsanitary enough, even a strong immune system can be overwhelmed. And yes, genetics too - up to a point. Some people's baseline resistance is higher than other's.

Edit: damn my thick fingers

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2020/04/29 08:03:30


 
   
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Glasgow

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
nfe wrote:
 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I'm not so sure on that last point Bd, europe had pretty unsanitary conditions up until about the victorian period and the installation of proper sewerage systems. If that was the case those people should've been much more resilient, but diseases were still rampant.


Much more resilient than which baseline? What are you comparing them to?


I'm not comparing anything. the premise is that unsanitary conditions lead to hardier immune systems, which would extend to a premise of , the more unsanitary the conditions, the hardier the immune systems would be I'm saying that that isnt explicitly true because of the living conditions and the diseases that were rampant during that period which suffered from unsanitary conditions.



Your isolated example has no bearing on whether unsanitary conditions lead to stronger immune systems. Strong immune systems can still be beaten and the presence of certain diseases does not prove the absence of strong immune systems. You need a contrasting example to make any kind of argument at all. To make a meaningful one you need demonstrable differences between an unsanitary group and a control group.

Of course, we also know for a fact that high cleanliness does lead to weaker immune systems. So there's that.

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Also, until the vicotiran Era? Like, the romans built aqueducts, bathhouses etc for fun and giggles?

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Glasgow

Everyone outwith post-enlightenment Europe lives in absolute squalor. Pay more attention to your colonial history books.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2020/04/29 09:10:40


 
   
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Bodt

Not Online!!! wrote:
Also, until the vicotiran Era? Like, the romans built aqueducts, bathhouses etc for fun and giggles?




They did, but they weren't for everyone. the general public were still pretty grim for the most part. and especially post roman, through medieval up until victorian times.

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Shadeglass Maze

Let's try to get back on topic - I can see where this tangent started but we're pretty far afield now...

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I'm not being snarky here but apparently it's just possible corona could spread thru gas. Yes, that gas.


https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2020/04/27/can-farts-transmit-covid-19-coronavirus-here-is-what-is-being-said/

Yes, underwear and pants make it extremely unlikely you're going to get corona from someone dropping his guts in front of you, but if you see some moron with his pants hanging way down and exposing any crack, I really would urge you to avoid being anywhere near him from behind even more vigorously than you probably do already. (I know I avoid people like that like a plague -no pun intended, honest- in the best of times.)

More seriously, this is a reason to avoid public bathrooms if at all possible as the covid can apparently live in microscopic particles of gak that tend to float around in bathrooms.

And yes you may once in a while have to use a public restroom. If you do be sure to be a space marine with his helmet and respirator firmly and properly in place and not one of those dumbasses who goes into battle bare headed to look dramatic.

You in a public bathroom:

This.
https://media.criticalhit.net/2017/06/Primaris-Space-Marine.jpg


NOT THIS!
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/ab/0f/5e/ab0f5efbfd1375bdda4564127cd5d777.jpg




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If farts can pass the virus, then I could single-handedly (single-buttedly?) doom the world.

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 Tannhauser42 wrote:
If farts can pass the virus, then I could single-handedly (single-buttedly?) doom the world.


Well, if you walk around with your pants hanging way down and allowing "unfiltered" gas to escape while doing a one man recitation of the campfire scene in blazing saddles, yeah you might increase people's chances of getting infected if you had it. I hope you're not that guy.

On a more serious note, some years ago some towns began banning low hanging pants and imposing arrests and fines for them because it was considered "offensive". These laws were generally struck down and some people sued for false arrest. At the time I opposed such las and cheered their repeal as they were passes bcause some people found low pants offensive, and I do. But because you don;t like X is no reason to arrest and fine people for X if it harms no one else.

Now I would favor these laws passed on an emergency basis to deal with this as, let's face it, people stupid enough to dress like this are probably too stupid to avoid corona. For the duration of this crisis I would support laws banning "crack revealing" pants as these can let unfiltered farts out carrying microgak particles that can spread covid.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/04/29 12:35:37


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Bodt

.. I almost posted a serious reply but I had to stop myself. That has to be trolling.

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Shadeglass Maze

I do think there are probably a lot more... likely... transmission vectors to worry about
   
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Bodt

Although, if we can get all the governments to fixate on that, we might be allowed to go outside...

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/04/29 14:36:34


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