Will somebody explain like I'm 74? News is the virus has mutated

[raccoon]

And is on fire in Europe.

Would it help anything to ban travelers from Europe from coming to the United States?

[mucifer]

1. no one from Europe wants to come here with all our covid

[GoCubsGo]

5. Yep, even though they're having another wave,

it's still nothing compared to what is happening here.

[DFW]

27. Unfortunately, yes it is

On Friday, France alone had over 49,000 new infections. Their population is a fifth the size of the USA, so that is the equivalent of 245,000 new cases in the USA.

We are going into partial to total lockdown staring tomorrow. I have urgent work I have to do in France and Belgium, probably the Netherlands, too, not to mention here in Germany. I'll be lucky if I get permission to do half of it by the end of next week. This coming week, I can probably forget altogether.

[JI7]

2. We aren't doing anything to control the virus here so it wont make a difference

most people are getting it from other americans here .

[DonaldsRump]

3. The US response is non-response

Other than BS public relations that were consistently wrong, waiting for a mythical vaccine, and Donald's "therapeutics" and bleach-ingestion suggestions, there is no national pandemic plan.

I am deeply thankful that we live in a state like CA that has a mature governor like Gavin Newsom. He's taken a lot of heat, but things don't seem out of control here. Governor Newsom led in the absence of leadership of Trump.

Trump's other monumental failure is INTERNATIONALLY. The lack of international cooperation to stem the pandemic is another catastrophic failure of nationalistic authoritarians like Trump, Putin, Bolsinaro, etc. If there is any silver lining, the pandemic, along with a strong US leader like Joe Biden, will greatly help contain this other virus of fascism that we are dealing with. The pandemic proves that a "go-it-alone" strategy does not work in a global economy. All countries need to cooperate at so many different levels to make things work. These buffoons shattered the world in just 4-6 years (starting with the annexation of Crimea by the Russians in 2014, to Brexit, to Trump: there is a clearly logical progression of how the world descended into madness).

[GoCubsGo]

4. As far as I know, the previous ban hasn't really been lifted.

Not many people are traveling back and forth. Not that it matters anyway. The virus occurring here can still mutate into further strains, and probably has already done so at least once. As long as people keep gathering in groups, not covering their faces and keeping their diseases to themselves, and not social0distancing, all the travel bans in the world will not matter.

[Klaralven]

6. International travel should be banned completely except for cargo ship and freighter aircraft crews

All of the viruses are said to mutate as they proceed and spread throughout different populations. There are reportedly a few hundreds of different types of SARS-CoV-2, the virus allegedly caused COVID-19 that is currently circulating throughout Europe.

However, according to the story by The Daily Mail, there have only been a few of the said variants that spread just as successfully and have become just as prevalent as the recently-identified strain.

The team of scientists hailing from Switzerland as well as Spain, who have been sounding the alarm about 20A.EU1 are now rapidly trying to work out and understand if this virus is even more deadly and if it is more infectious in comparison to the previous variants. It was said that it is possible that a brand new strain contains a particular mutation located in the spike protein Sars-CoV-2 and uses it to invade the human cells making the whole process much easier. Nextstrain.org also gives more information about the 20A.EU1 and how it has spread.

https://www.techtimes.com/articles/253749/20201030/covid-19-mutated-europes-second-wave-20a-eu1-spanish-mutation.htm

Since it has become the dominant strain, it almost certainly is more contagious. Natural selection works to select viruses that reproduce more successfully, just like for any other organisms.

However, it is not necessarily advantageous for reproduction for a virus to be more lethal.

[Blue_true]

13. If a virus can rapidly hop from person to person and still infect uninfected people,

there is no natural reason why it would become less lethal. My back of the mind calculation, reading the infection and death numbers from the last month and a half, is that the current dominant strain here is slightly more lethal than the previous dominate strain, by around 20% (~1.0% versus the old ~0.8%). Since lots of people are being idiots, the current strain has lots of people to jump to.

[Renew Deal]

7. Was the previous EU ban of Americans ever lifted?

I’m not sure there is much travel from Europe right now.

[DFW]

28. There is some, but not much

Diplomats, medical research teams, urgent family matters, things like that will get you a permit. If you are on one end and have citizenship and/or residence in the other, you will be allowed to travel on an intercontinental flight.

This summer, my wife was allowed to accompany me on our usual July trip to Massachusetts, since the spouses of US citizens were allowed to accompany their US citizen spouses. But they were extremely strict at the airport in Frankfurt, and demanded to see documented proof that we were married before letting us on the plane. Before we left, my wife thought I was being paranoid, but gaped when they actually demanded documents proving we were married. Fortunately, I brought both copies of our marriage certificate (Virginia, 1982) along with the German registration of it. Without that, we would have been denied boarding.

[Hortensis]

8. :) 37 or 74, don't fuss the scare stories.

There are thousands of different mutations grouped in reportedly six different strains, some worse, some better, but averaging to mutating to less dangerous overall. One being discussed in Europe doesn't seem more dangerous but may be more easily spread. For now,

Isolating from what's going around our areas isolates from all.

I was interested to read that SARS-CoV-2 mutates every few days on average. This, turns out, is a really good rate for tracing its spread. One of the few breaks this one has given us. That's because some viruses mutate every day, making it impossible to use mutations to trace spread from person to person. Others mutate much more slowly, also making it effectively impossible to use mutated forms to trace the paths of spread since everyone has the same one.

Btw, just read in the LA Times that 18 Trump rallies are believed to have ultimately lead to 700 deaths, or 38 deaths per rally. No figure for those who'll be sick for weeks and months, or for those whose health will be permanently damaged, some gravely.

[shrike3]

11. Yes, I read that, too, re the Trump rallies. Should be lead story on the news. n/t

[Hortensis]

14. It hit Free Republic, generating angry denial AND

also revealing the depraved indifference to life that underlies willingness to obey their leaders' orders to spread lethal disease into a holocaust. This as deaths already include more and more younger people and are expected to rise to 2000 a day before long.

I copied in a couple of despicably revealing posts about lives that don't matter here: https://democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=14405695

[shrike3]

16. Their attitudes go along with what I've read and heard elsewhere.

As I told someone, if I have diabetes and heart issues and die of cancer, I still died of the cancer.

[Hortensis]

18. BUT, if you have "2.6 comorbidities" wouldn't cancer be

doing society a favor?

Schools need to teach what fascistic thinking is so its big red flags aren't invisible. These guys have no idea what they're revealing or capable of supporting.

[shrike3]

20. Our educational system has failed us miserably. And I'm not talking about the kids.

People my age -- I'm sixty -- know nothing from nothing. Unbelievable.

[Hortensis]

24. Fwiw, we didn't understand and apply psychological/personality

factors we're still learning about. We now know many people are basically wired to disregard or discard all information that doesn't fit the picture they were raised to accept. Many people don't think, never question, never connect the dots, just accept what fits and discard what doesn't.

I'd say less that our educational system has "failed" than that it has to find ways to change education to use what they're learning.

I no longer believe that all children are fully educable to the standards society needs, no matter how well they may do on tests. Just look at what the appalling attitudes and statements of some who've risen to the top on the right reveal out the power of personality. No more enlightened than many who've lived in very small worlds spouting their ignorance with their second beer.

Not that a world of information isn't available to everyone now. How to teach people who'll otherwise grow up to search out satisfying lies instead of knowledge?

[shrike3]

25. Different way of looking at it, I guess. I'm constantly appalled at how little people my age know

And how uninterested they are in broadening their horizons and learning something new. Disheartening.

[Hortensis]

26. Oh, me too, including me. Listening to the news itself promotes ignorance

if it's not used as merely a starting point. You have to become somewhat informed just to start realizing how uninformed you are, and always will be.

Lack of interest in learning is just intrinsic to some people, though, so they end up in their 70s knowing very little more than they did at 40. Just the way they're wired, no matter how excellent their teachers.

I remember the first time I realized some people could be very interested in their own small worlds but mostly indifferent to what's beyond. It was when our neighbor's 17-year-old son turned down an offer to spend 6 weeks in Greece as an exchange student. I was surprised, but he looked at me and asked with total sincerity, "Why would I want to?" Literally stunned me to realize he really meant it. NO interest.

When Romney ran for president, acquaintances commented that he knew and cared strikingly little about the nations he did business in, beyond factors he had to consider. Bush II was famous at Yale for his astounding ignorance of the giant, broad world he was exposed to as Bush I's son. We can't claim it was due to poor educations, or their upbringings. Many of W's fellow students would have been thrilled to spend even an uneventful day observing that environment.

Btw, all 3 I mention are strongly conservative. I don't know of any liberal examples to match them with.

[Blue_true]

15. It appears that the current dominant US strain is more lethal than the

strain for the previous two spikes. There has been around a 3-4 week delay between infection numbers and death numbers. The latest death numbers that I saw were in the 800-1100 range, the country just topped 100,000 daily infections and over the last month or so, averaged around 80,000 daily infections, such data would imply that the current virus is killing around 1% of the people that it infects, even with medical professionals being better at treating sick people. The previous dominant strain of the second spike appeared to have killed around 0.7-0.8% of the people that it infected.

[Hortensis]

17. Sure hope not. Death rates have been rising and falling

from various factors. Of course, the current spread of disease to rural areas without urban hospitals and other resources would in itself be expected to increase death rates.

I have read that most subtypes have become more infectious. Someone should tell the trumpsters.

[Blue_true]

19. The current strain may appear more lethal because it is predominantly affecting

rural, redder parts of the country that have fewer medical resources. Your observation on that possibility is on point. Maybe it hasn’t truly become more lethal, but if a person just runs numbers without taking into account other factors, it will appear to be more lethal.

[Hortensis]

22. Meanwhile the holocaust is spreading like wildfire, thus

becoming far more lethal by the most basic measure -- deaths expected to rise to 2000 a day...

[doc03]

9. I am surprised Trump isn't pointing at Europe saying how his leadership

defeated the COVID-19 and how bad it is there. Maybe he has I turn him off soon ass he opens his
carplike mouth.

[shrike3]

10. I read a length Huff Post story on East Asia's outbreak. Part of their strategy was closing borders.

No one in or out. Plus, people followed the guidelines and wore masks. Restaurants, bars and other establishments were restricted to 25 people or less occupancy. Plus widespread testing and quarantining of those testing positive. It was just so sensible.

[Blue_true]

12. The virus has likely mutated to a different form here also.

That mutation may be easier to contract and more lethal. Look at the death numbers for the current spike, it appears to be running slightly higher than for the first two spikes, even though medical professionals have experience treating patients now.

So, while imposing a travel ban likely doesn’t hurt, the activity is akin to locking the barn doors and throwing away the keys while inside a burning barn.

[shrike3]

21. Just about everyone I know who has been paying attention says the same thing.

If we'd done it right at the beginning, we'd be in a much better place. But now it's, like you said, akin to locking the barn door while the barn itself is burning.

[Alhena]

23. There already is a travel ban from Europe

[muriel_volestrangler]

29. It can be got round for toadies of the president, eg Nigel Farage

who was allowed in to give Trump a thorough tongue bath.

Ah, the last time Farage broke the travel ban, Trump gave him a "national interest" exemption; this time, the anti-EU Telegraph is pretending he's a "journalist" for them:

At present citizens from the UK, China, Iran, Brazil, and a slew of EU countries are prohibited from entering the country, prompting presenter Charlotte Hawkins to question how he got in.

“I know you’ve been given a national interest exemption from the US travel ban to be able to be there," she said. “What’s going to happen when you get back? Will you be quarantining?”

But shaking his head he said: "No, no, no".

“That is not true. The national interest exemption I got was when I came to Tulsa a few months ago. I have come here on a journalistic visa.

“I have been sponsored by the Daily Telegraph just like any other journalist,” he said, despite appearing on stage to speak and heap praise on the man who called himself "Mr Brexit".
...
But in July he visited a British pub less than two weeks after attending a similar rally in Tulsa, leading to calls for the police to investigate him.

https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/brexit-news/westminster-news/nigel-farage-on-donald-trump-rally-4808902