Offside Chat Archives (2014-2021)

Michelle Palmer6 said:We actually have a vaccine for the flu, but the real headache is how quickly it mutates seasonally—something you don't typically see with the coronavirus

Edited.

I wasn't talking about a vaccine. I was talking about a medication.

Because whether you say vaccine or medication, it matters.

There are actually medications out there that work quite effectively if you take them during the early stages of the flu. Right now, researchers are testing various existing drugs developed for Ebola, HIV, or malaria to see if they can be repurposed for the flu, with varying degrees of success...

My big concern with all of this is that once this Corona virus finally settles down, everyone is going to act like we just won a massive, historic victory. On the flip side, we’re going to completely overlook other infectious and non-communicable diseases that are actually much bigger global issues, even if they aren't quite as acute as Corona. Every year, around 900,000 people worldwide die prematurely due to Hepatitis B infections. And the numbers get even more depressing when you look at non-communicable diseases; half the population in America is overweight, and up to 20,000 people die every year in the US alone from metabolic syndrome complications. These issues are—and will continue to be—a far greater economic burden than a month or two of quarantine due to Corona. That phase will pass, but these problems remain.

urbanhawk17 said:Of course not.

But I guess you do.

Like how it's somehow thirty times more lethal, too.

That’s all I’ve got. Believe me, I just don't care anymore.

Great, then shut up.

urbanhawk17 said:Can hepatitis B actually leave the body after treatment?

What about HIV?

It isn't a guaranteed win for everyone, but yes! In fact, right in the middle of everything going on, a second case of a total HIV cure was just recorded over at Verizon.

Michelle Palmer6 said:It isn't a guaranteed win for everyone, but yes! In fact, right in the middle of everything going on, a second case of a total HIV cure was just recorded over at Verizon.

Yeah, I know. It involves transplanting stem cells from someone who's immune to the CDC virus. As far as I understand, it's still mostly in the experimental phase.

I also think there's a pill for the CDC virus that keeps it from progressing to AIDS.

wiredfalcon2 said:Great, then shut up.

🙄

Paul Martinez73 said:I’m not here to lecture anyone or play teacher; I just genuinely enjoy a solid debate. I want an actual argument where we can challenge each other—where you might actually convince me I'm wrong, or at least leave me questioning my own stance... But engaging with people who think they're the only geniuses in a world full of idiots? That's just a waste of breath.

The biggest issue here is that people just don't get the point of quarantine. The whole idea is to stay isolated for fourteen days because that’s how long the virus lingers in your system. Think about it—if you take 100 infected people and put them in quarantine for two weeks, theoretically they should all be recovered by the end, and you wouldn't see any new cases popping up. Plus, if new ones do show up, you actually have a functioning system in place to handle them. But we aren't talking about isolating a hundred people; we're trying to halt an entire country to stop the spread, so you don't accidentally pass it to your family only for them to suffer through it at home. The real headache is that some individuals are just plain idiots and refuse to follow the rules, but you also can't exactly shut down the entire United States for two weeks since certain industries have to stay operational... and then there's the medical staff, who are constantly exposed to crowds, making them the easiest way for the virus to jump from person to person...

All of this should ultimately slow down the expansion, giving us a good two to four weeks to let things settle back into a functional groove...

They’re also scrambling to repurpose existing medications, since some drugs are already being tested against the Coronavirus—not exactly seeing massive breakthroughs yet, but more and more treatments already on the market are being tweaked to see if they can fight Corona...
Vaccines are essentially the "new kid on the block," which means they won't be widely available for another year or two... But an actual cure? That could be hitting the scene much sooner, maybe in just a few months. It probably won't be some magic bullet that works 100% of the time, but then again, what ever is?

I’ll say it again: none of us are smarter than the entire scientific community combined. We’re talking about the people who actually discover cures for diseases, engineer spacecraft, and map out gene cloning... so if Ashley Bailey6 or urbanhawk17 really think they have a better handle on things than the global powers running the show, then honestly, they're beyond help. It isn't exactly rocket science to just stay home for fifteen or thirty days. You aren't even under house arrest—you can go for a stroll, sit on a bench in the park, whatever; you just shouldn't be having physical contact or hanging out close to people for that window. You have one simple job: stay home. But apparently, that's too much to ask because everyone is acting like it's some unbearable tragedy that they "can't go out" or "can't socialize"... please. If you catch the flu and need two weeks to recover, what do you do? Wander around the neighborhood sipping coffee? No, you stay home, get over it, and stop whining all over Reddit and Facebook...

Actually, 14 days is just the incubation period—it's not how long the virus sits in your body. For milder cases, treatment lasts about three weeks, and even then, you'll still have the virus in your nose. We're talking closer to six weeks of presence for patients with light symptoms.

And then you try to talk about arguments when you don't even know the basic facts.🤦

Michelle Palmer6 said:There are actually medications out there that work quite effectively if you take them during the early stages of the flu. Right now, researchers are testing various existing drugs developed for Ebola, HIV, or malaria to see if they can be repurposed for the flu, with varying degrees of success...

My big concern with all of this is that once this Corona virus finally settles down, everyone is going to act like we just won a massive, historic victory. On the flip side, we’re going to completely overlook other infectious and non-communicable diseases that are actually much bigger global issues, even if they aren't quite as acute as Corona. Every year, around 900,000 people worldwide die prematurely due to Hepatitis B infections. And the numbers get even more depressing when you look at non-communicable diseases; half the population in America is overweight, and up to 20,000 people die every year in the US alone from metabolic syndrome complications. These issues are—and will continue to be—a far greater economic burden than a month or two of quarantine due to Corona. That phase will pass, but these problems remain.

Yeah, but obesity is a personal choice in 99% of cases for adults. Same goes for metabolic syndrome; it's what happens when you live an unhealthy lifestyle. As for Hepatitis B, most deaths happen in sub-Saharan Africa and poor parts of Asia. Plus, Hepatitis B is a more acute problem because it affects over 250 million people. If you compare that to the Coronavirus death toll, which would be around 10 million people versus the 900,000 for Hep B, the scale is different. And obviously, we're talking about Western medicine standards here, not the conditions in sub-Saharan Africa.

Anthony Jackson2 said:Actually, 14 days is just the incubation period—it's not how long the virus sits in your body. For milder cases, treatment lasts about three weeks, and even then, you'll still have the virus in your nose. We're talking closer to six weeks of presence for patients with light symptoms.

And then you try to talk about arguments when you don't even know the basic facts.🤦

It likely varies by case. Fourteen days is the upper limit of the incubation period—though some claim it can reach 25 under ideal circumstances, whereas the average is probably five to seven—and it takes approximately three weeks for the body to fight off the virus once infected.

The first recovered patients in America (most likely those from the Champions League match) were infected around February 20th and were declared negative after two tests last week. That means they went from initial infection to a confirmed negative result in about 25 days, give or take.

That is quite a significant duration when compared to known influenza strains or standard viruses.

Trumpinho claims that combining a malaria medication with Tylenol reduces symptom severity and shortens the virus's presence in the body to just six or seven days.

urbanhawk17 said:Yeah, I know. It involves transplanting stem cells from someone who's immune to the CDC virus. As far as I understand, it's still mostly in the experimental phase.

I also think there's a pill for the CDC virus that keeps it from progressing to AIDS.

But honestly, it doesn't even matter; I seriously doubt a single "cure" is going to fix this whole situation. In the best-case scenario, a cure would only be developed after most countries have already weathered the worst of it. This thing will likely just run its natural course, which is exactly what all these interventions are trying to mitigate by flattening the curve. Maybe in the end, all this won't even make a massive dent—who knows? The experts say it's worth the effort, though. That’s actually part of why this is so dangerous: it’s unknown, it’s new, and nobody has built up immunity yet. And once immunity does develop for Coronaviruses, it isn't exactly a quick process either. We don't even know the exact infectivity or prevalence because so many people are asymptomatic, spreading the infection without even realizing they're sick. It carries a heavy mortality rate. It’s not some movie virus that wipes out half the world and turns everyone into zombies, but it definitely kills, both in older populations and in those in their prime without major comorbidities (if I recall correctly, one report suggested about 20% of total deaths in the US were in the 25-50 age range). This isn't just a slightly nasty flu. Even if it were, remember the Spanish Flu? It took 18 million lives in its wake, regardless of the medical capacity or conditions back then.
A cure might not even be super effective, but the pandemic will pass, and the vaccines for this and similar Coronaviruses will likely be developed due to all this massive chaos and hyper-research, protecting us from future waves.

wiredfalcon2 said:Yeah, but obesity is a personal choice in 99% of cases for adults. Same goes for metabolic syndrome; it's what happens when you live an unhealthy lifestyle. As for Hepatitis B, most deaths happen in sub-Saharan Africa and poor parts of Asia. Plus, Hepatitis B is a more acute problem because it affects over 250 million people. If you compare that to the Coronavirus death toll, which would be around 10 million people versus the 900,000 for Hep B, the scale is different. And obviously, we're talking about Western medicine standards here, not the conditions in sub-Saharan Africa.

Okay.
Congrats, you won an argument that wasn't even happening! 🤷

Michelle Palmer6 said:But honestly, it doesn't even matter; I seriously doubt a single "cure" is going to fix this whole situation. In the best-case scenario, a cure would only be developed after most countries have already weathered the worst of it. This thing will likely just run its natural course, which is exactly what all these interventions are trying to mitigate by flattening the curve. Maybe in the end, all this won't even make a massive dent—who knows? The experts say it's worth the effort, though. That’s actually part of why this is so dangerous: it’s unknown, it’s new, and nobody has built up immunity yet. And once immunity does develop for Coronaviruses, it isn't exactly a quick process either. We don't even know the exact infectivity or prevalence because so many people are asymptomatic, spreading the infection without even realizing they're sick. It carries a heavy mortality rate. It’s not some movie virus that wipes out half the world and turns everyone into zombies, but it definitely kills, both in older populations and in those in their prime without major comorbidities (if I recall correctly, one report suggested about 20% of total deaths in the US were in the 25-50 age range). This isn't just a slightly nasty flu. Even if it were, remember the Spanish Flu? It took 18 million lives in its wake, regardless of the medical capacity or conditions back then.
A cure might not even be super effective, but the pandemic will pass, and the vaccines for this and similar Coronaviruses will likely be developed due to all this massive chaos and hyper-research, protecting us from future waves.

Okay.
Congrats, you won an argument that wasn't even happening! 🤷

Nicely put.👍

Noah Perez2 said:It likely varies by case. Fourteen days is the upper limit of the incubation period—though some claim it can reach 25 under ideal circumstances, whereas the average is probably five to seven—and it takes approximately three weeks for the body to fight off the virus once infected.

The first recovered patients in America (most likely those from the Champions League match) were infected around February 20th and were declared negative after two tests last week. That means they went from initial infection to a confirmed negative result in about 25 days, give or take.

That is quite a significant duration when compared to known influenza strains or standard viruses.

Trumpinho claims that combining a malaria medication with Tylenol reduces symptom severity and shortens the virus's presence in the body to just six or seven days.

This is mostly based on isolated anecdotes and tiny, statistically insignificant studies.
Chloroquine actually showed some potential, but the second there was even a hint that it might help, it was wiped off the shelves of basically every pharmacy in the country!

Michelle Palmer6 said:But honestly, it doesn't even matter; I seriously doubt a single "cure" is going to fix this whole situation. In the best-case scenario, a cure would only be developed after most countries have already weathered the worst of it. This thing will likely just run its natural course, which is exactly what all these interventions are trying to mitigate by flattening the curve. Maybe in the end, all this won't even make a massive dent—who knows? The experts say it's worth the effort, though. That’s actually part of why this is so dangerous: it’s unknown, it’s new, and nobody has built up immunity yet. And once immunity does develop for Coronaviruses, it isn't exactly a quick process either. We don't even know the exact infectivity or prevalence because so many people are asymptomatic, spreading the infection without even realizing they're sick. It carries a heavy mortality rate. It’s not some movie virus that wipes out half the world and turns everyone into zombies, but it definitely kills, both in older populations and in those in their prime without major comorbidities (if I recall correctly, one report suggested about 20% of total deaths in the US were in the 25-50 age range). This isn't just a slightly nasty flu. Even if it were, remember the Spanish Flu? It took 18 million lives in its wake, regardless of the medical capacity or conditions back then.
A cure might not even be super effective, but the pandemic will pass, and the vaccines for this and similar Coronaviruses will likely be developed due to all this massive chaos and hyper-research, protecting us from future waves.

Okay.
Congrats, you won an argument that wasn't even happening! 🤷

🤷

Look, this wasn't some big debate and I’m not trying to walk away with a trophy. I'm just pointing out how this virus actually differs from the usual stuff we deal with. Some people—even on this thread—keep acting like this thing isn't a big deal. I'm not saying it's the worst thing to ever hit the planet, but it's definitely not just some mild flu where you cough once and move on with your day.

Anthony Jackson2 said:Actually, 14 days is just the incubation period—it's not how long the virus sits in your body. For milder cases, treatment lasts about three weeks, and even then, you'll still have the virus in your nose. We're talking closer to six weeks of presence for patients with light symptoms.

And then you try to talk about arguments when you don't even know the basic facts.🤦

Six weeks? Are you kidding me... 🤦

So you incubate the virus for 14 days, spend another 21 days getting treated, and then just carry it around like an asymptomatic carrier for another few weeks...?
I honestly can't tell if you're pulling my leg or if you're actually being serious...
Just for some perspective: Arteta tested positive on the 14th, and after nine days, he’s already back to 100%. If you factor in that he probably caught the bug a few days before the actual test, plus whatever extra time he might spend isolating just to be safe... you could argue it’s closer to three weeks total, but trying to claim it takes six weeks is just a reach... 🤦 And that photo is way too blurry... 🤣

Michelle Palmer6 said:This is mostly based on isolated anecdotes and tiny, statistically insignificant studies.
Chloroquine actually showed some potential, but the second there was even a hint that it might help, it was wiped off the shelves of basically every pharmacy in the country!

Still, seeing such a high percentage of people recovering or improving is encouraging, even if the sample size is pretty small.

edit:

Roughly what percentage of Americans get vaccinated before flu season starts? And how many of those are over 60?

Are those numbers even available somewhere?

wiredfalcon2 said:🤷

Look, this wasn't some big debate and I’m not trying to walk away with a trophy. I'm just pointing out how this virus actually differs from the usual stuff we deal with. Some people—even on this thread—keep acting like this thing isn't a big deal. I'm not saying it's the worst thing to ever hit the planet, but it's definitely not just some mild flu where you cough once and move on with your day.

you're claiming it kills 30 times more.

urbanhawk17 said:you're claiming it kills 30 times more.

You said you weren't even down for the debate 🤷

Michelle Palmer6 said:This is mostly based on isolated anecdotes and tiny, statistically insignificant studies.
Chloroquine actually showed some potential, but the second there was even a hint that it might help, it was wiped off the shelves of basically every pharmacy in the country!

Fine. At this stage, any ad-hoc study is somewhat realistic because the virus is new; nothing can truly be considered representative yet. The priority is simply moving toward any solution, even if it only addresses symptoms.

I am also skeptical about the idea of a universal vaccine. It seems to me there are far too many circulating strains varying in both aggressiveness and virulence, to say nothing of the potential for further mutations.

Chloroquine is essentially an antimalarial. If I recall correctly, it is quite inexpensive and widely available, so that shouldn't be an issue. As for Tylenol, I have no idea what the supply situation looks like.

wiredfalcon2 said:You said you weren't even down for the debate 🤷

I'm not even arguing.

urbanhawk17 said:Still, seeing such a high percentage of people recovering or improving is encouraging, even if the sample size is pretty small.

edit:

Roughly what percentage of Americans get vaccinated before flu season starts? And how many of those are over 60?

Are those numbers even available somewhere?

They exist, ☕

But jokes aside, my summer cutting plan is totally trashed; instead of sticking to lean protein and fasting, I’m just sitting here drinking beer and eating a burger, so there goes any chance of fitting into those small S-sized shirts. 🤦