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Forums - General Discussion - Coronavirus (COVID-19) Discussion Thread

JRPGfan on 02 April 2020

Fountains of Wayne's lead singer Adam Schlesinger passed away due to virus, he was 52 years old.

Man back in the 90s Staceys Mom's was like a cultural phenomenon, due to the American Pie movies.
This sucks.



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SvennoJ on 02 April 2020
Lafiel said:
newwil7l said:
Eating bats needs to be banned and, offenders should be charged with biological terrorism. How many outbreaks need to happen to get this lesson through people's heads? Bats carry more pathogens than any other species.

the thing is, while bats are very likely the reservoir host of this disease and many others, they are unlikely to be the host the virus jumped to us from

for SARS it's highly likely that pigs were the host we got infected by, as they traced an infection route back to a pig farm that contained banana-trees infected fruit bats were eating from

edit: assuming SARS-CoV-2 did originate in bats it would for example be super interesting to know whether or not it can even infect the species of bats it came from anymore in it's current human transmissible form

The latest research suggests SARS-CoV-2 is a combination of two different strains
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/coronavirus-origins-genome-analysis-covid19-data-science-bats-pangolins/

On February 7, 2020, we learned that a virus even closer to SARS-CoV-2 had been discovered in pangolin. With 99% of genomic concordance reported, this suggested a more likely reservoir than bats. However, a recent study under review shows that the genome of the coronavirus isolated from the Malaysian pangolin (Manis javanica) is less similar to SARS-Cov-2, with only 90% of genomic concordance. This would indicate that the virus isolated in the pangolin is not responsible for the COVID-19 epidemic currently raging.

However, the coronavirus isolated from pangolin is similar at 99% in a specific region of the S protein, which corresponds to the 74 amino acids involved in the ACE (Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2) receptor binding domain, the one that allows the virus to enter human cells to infect them. By contrast, the virus RaTG13 isolated from bat R. affinis is highly divergent in this specific region (only 77 % of similarity). This means that the coronavirus isolated from pangolin is capable of entering human cells whereas the one isolated from bat R. affinis is not.

In addition, these genomic comparisons suggest that the SARS-Cov-2 virus is the result of a recombination between two different viruses, one close to RaTG13 and the other closer to the pangolin virus. In other words, it is a chimera between two pre-existing viruses.

This recombination mechanism had already been described in coronaviruses, in particular to explain the origin of SARS-CoV. It is important to know that recombination results in a new virus potentially capable of infecting a new host species. For recombination to occur, the two divergent viruses must have infected the same organism simultaneously.

Two questions remain unanswered: in which organism did this recombination occur? (a bat, a pangolin or another species?) And above all, under what conditions did this recombination take place?


Previous versions that jumped to humans via an intermediate species could not re-infect bats afaik.



SvennoJ on 02 April 2020
vivster said:

Obesity isn't a health issue, it's a lifestyle choice. In fact, obese people are actually healthier than fit people because they can fit a lot more health in them than those string bean fat shamers.

For some, not for all. It's like saying cancer is a lifestyle choice.

Obesity is generally not healthy, obesity starts at a bmi of 30 and over. There are exceptions, sumo wrestlers have a BMI of 56, eat 5,000 calories a day and train all day, until they don't:

Japanese sumo wrestlers are often used as a popular example of metabolically healthy obese. They are morbidly obese and yet due to their high level of activity have very little visceral fat accumulation, tons of muscle mass, and a healthy metabolic profile—until they stop training, that is. Once their activity drops off, so does their fitness, and they begin to accumulate excess fat in deleterious locations, matched by a worsening in their metabolic profile.

It seems one in 3 obese people are still healthy, but still die earlier like other obese people. But dying earlier can be a lifestyle choice as well.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/can-you-be-both-obese-and-healthy/

But true, string bean fat shamers are miserable people! Underweight people suffer more in the immune system as well. Yet also being underweight is not always a lifestyle choice!

It would be better if people stopped caring about what other people look like.



last92 on 02 April 2020
SvennoJ said:

For some, not for all. It's like saying cancer is a lifestyle choice.

Obesity is generally not healthy, obesity starts at a bmi of 30 and over. There are exceptions, sumo wrestlers have a BMI of 56, eat 5,000 calories a day and train all day, until they don't:

Japanese sumo wrestlers are often used as a popular example of metabolically healthy obese. They are morbidly obese and yet due to their high level of activity have very little visceral fat accumulation, tons of muscle mass, and a healthy metabolic profile—until they stop training, that is. Once their activity drops off, so does their fitness, and they begin to accumulate excess fat in deleterious locations, matched by a worsening in their metabolic profile.

It seems one in 3 obese people are still healthy, but still die earlier like other obese people. But dying earlier can be a lifestyle choice as well.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/can-you-be-both-obese-and-healthy/

But true, string bean fat shamers are miserable people! Underweight people suffer more in the immune system as well. Yet also being underweight is not always a lifestyle choice!

It would be better if people stopped caring about what other people look like.

Well, waist circumference and BMI are both very good predictors of mortality, so I'd say being lean is a good choice, not necessarily because it makes you look better, but because it makes you healthier.

This is especially important in those countries with a universal healthcare system.



SvennoJ on 02 April 2020
last92 said:
SvennoJ said:

For some, not for all. It's like saying cancer is a lifestyle choice.

Obesity is generally not healthy, obesity starts at a bmi of 30 and over. There are exceptions, sumo wrestlers have a BMI of 56, eat 5,000 calories a day and train all day, until they don't:

Japanese sumo wrestlers are often used as a popular example of metabolically healthy obese. They are morbidly obese and yet due to their high level of activity have very little visceral fat accumulation, tons of muscle mass, and a healthy metabolic profile—until they stop training, that is. Once their activity drops off, so does their fitness, and they begin to accumulate excess fat in deleterious locations, matched by a worsening in their metabolic profile.

It seems one in 3 obese people are still healthy, but still die earlier like other obese people. But dying earlier can be a lifestyle choice as well.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/can-you-be-both-obese-and-healthy/

But true, string bean fat shamers are miserable people! Underweight people suffer more in the immune system as well. Yet also being underweight is not always a lifestyle choice!

It would be better if people stopped caring about what other people look like.

Well, waist circumference and BMI are both very good predictors of mortality, so I'd say being lean is a good choice, not necessarily because it makes you look better, but because it makes you healthier.

This is especially important in those countries with a universal healthcare system.

Being active is a good choice to stay healthy. Lean can be achieved in very unhealthy ways. Smoking can keep you lean!

Of course eating healthy is the first step. You can eat junk food while exercising to stay lean. One healthy action probably doesn't negate all the negative effects of the other. I'm glad schools have started to pay attention to the food they offer.



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last92 on 02 April 2020
SvennoJ said:

Being active is a good choice to stay healthy. Lean can be achieved in very unhealthy ways. Smoking can keep you lean!

Of course eating healthy is the first step. You can eat junk food while exercising to stay lean. One healthy action probably doesn't negate all the negative effects of the other. I'm glad schools have started to pay attention to the food they offer.

Well...there's a popular saying in the fitness industry: you can't outrun a bad diet. If you eat unhealthy, it's very hard to stay lean. By lean I mean low percentage of body fat. You may look lean and have a lot of visceral fat. Activity is only one part of the equation. High body fat is still bad, even if you exercise, especially because in the West it's linked to excessive sugar consumption, which by itself is very disruptive for the body in the long run.

Of course I agree that choosing what you put into your body wisely is necessary, too bad there's so much misinformation about what's good and what's bad.



AsGryffynn on 02 April 2020
SvennoJ said:
vivster said:

Obesity isn't a health issue, it's a lifestyle choice. In fact, obese people are actually healthier than fit people because they can fit a lot more health in them than those string bean fat shamers.

For some, not for all. It's like saying cancer is a lifestyle choice.

Obesity is generally not healthy, obesity starts at a bmi of 30 and over. There are exceptions, sumo wrestlers have a BMI of 56, eat 5,000 calories a day and train all day, until they don't:

Japanese sumo wrestlers are often used as a popular example of metabolically healthy obese. They are morbidly obese and yet due to their high level of activity have very little visceral fat accumulation, tons of muscle mass, and a healthy metabolic profile—until they stop training, that is. Once their activity drops off, so does their fitness, and they begin to accumulate excess fat in deleterious locations, matched by a worsening in their metabolic profile.

It seems one in 3 obese people are still healthy, but still die earlier like other obese people. But dying earlier can be a lifestyle choice as well.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/can-you-be-both-obese-and-healthy/

But true, string bean fat shamers are miserable people! Underweight people suffer more in the immune system as well. Yet also being underweight is not always a lifestyle choice!

It would be better if people stopped caring about what other people look like.

There is a different between "morbidly obese", obese and overweight. The latter two can be healthy if, as in the sumo example, is being burnt or used or managed in some way. 

It's when the threshold leads to an excess buildup of visceral fat that things go wrong. Someone pudgy can be healthier than a fairly normal person. Someone morbidly obese couldn't possibly be. 



PortisheadBiscuit on 02 April 2020

I love how people associate being "fit" with being healthy, when there's plenty of "fit" people doing unhealthy things. Like taking ungodly amounts of creatine, whey protein, BCAAs, pre workout, energy drinks, steroids, human growth hormone and other things thar arent the best for your liver and kidneys. Lifting, pressing, squatting, and curling extremely heavy weights, putting unnatural pressure on joints. But nope Andre over there has an 8 pack and 22" biceps, he's healthy as a fiddle.

Like someone mentioned previously, I think it's time to stop looking at others and trying to determine what's best for them etc; I've known people who lived a "healthy" lifestyle and still had health problems and have seen obese people live into their 90's-100's.

I agree America's food system is terrible, so it's kind odd when I hear people suggest obese people should just flip a switch and change their lifestyle. And calling people whales is just a whole 'nother level of ignorance and child like behavior.



PortisheadBiscuit on 02 April 2020
John2290 said:
PortisheadBiscuit said:
I love how people associate being "fit" with being healthy, when there's plenty of "fit" people doing unhealthy things. Like taking ungodly amounts of creatine, whey protein, BCAAs, pre workout, energy drinks, steroids, human growth hormone and other things thar arent the best for your liver and kidneys. Lifting, pressing, squatting, and curling extremely heavy weights, putting unnatural pressure on joints. But nope Andre over there has an 8 pack and 22" biceps, he's healthy as a fiddle.

Like someone mentioned previously, I think it's time to stop looking at others and trying to determine what's best for them etc; I've known people who lived a "healthy" lifestyle and still had health problems and have seen obese people live into their 90's-100's.

I agree America's food system is terrible, so it's kind odd when I hear people suggest obese people should just flip a switch and change their lifestyle. And calling people whales is just a whole 'nother level of ignorance and child like behavior.

Covid 19 won't look at obese people any differently, not a time to put the head in the sand and imagine it as some social issue. Look at reality. Look at New Orleans...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN21K1B0

I mean calling the state of Texas whales didn't seem too pertinent to COVID-19 yet you said it. Probably should've just stuck to the topic instead of interjecting your own personal bias into it. But I digress 



jason1637 on 02 April 2020

21k cases in the US and its not even 2pm yet.