Tracking the next pandemic: Avian Flu Talk |
Type of exposure and initial viral load? |
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DeepThinker
V.I.P. Member Joined: September 26 2015 Location: So. California Status: Offline Points: 3245 |
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Posted: April 04 2020 at 10:30am |
Does how you are exposed to the virus make a difference in outcome? I have a theory that I think helps explain the wide variance in outcomes among individuals and also from one geographic region and the next. If you are exposed by your hands touching your face... I think you are likely to have the infection start in your eye or nose. If it starts there I think your immune system has time to react to it before it settles into the lungs. If you are exposed by aerosol I think the infection would start in the lungs, and by the time your immune system reacts.... there is already significant damage. I also think that you then become a vector for aerosol infection for others. In some instances I think toliet flushing also leads to aerosols, and this helps explain why nursing homes are so bad. Also think if you are only exposed to a few virus particles, they may not be particularly hardy, or not well adapted to your body. However if you are exposed to a large number, you are much more likely to get a stronger more well adapted virus strain. I think in areas where you have a low levels of virus spread, when you are exposed it is more likely a very small contact exposure. However when the virus starts spreading well, you get more severe infections, that leads to more and more other severe infections. So maybe by just slowing the spread.... the people that do get sick will get less sick. To the experts out there do my thoughts have any validity? |
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ViQueen24
Adviser Group Joined: May 14 2013 Location: Verona, PA Status: Offline Points: 12270 |
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I don't know for sure, DT, but on the off-chance of that being true, I do a nasal wash after I have been out. |
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Flubergasted
V.I.P. Member Joined: February 04 2020 Location: USA Status: Offline Points: 2130 |
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I had similar thoughts when we heard about young doctors in China dying from it. It just didn't make sense that these young healthy doctors were dying, when we were told most of the dying were old and sick. I wondered then if it was the amount of virus they were encountering, that their bodies just could not combat the deluge of insult. One of the doctors that died made the comment he thought he was exposed through his eyes. It is hard to say, and I think most experts are baffled by the behavior of this virus. |
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Technophobe
Assistant Admin Joined: January 16 2014 Location: Scotland Status: Offline Points: 88450 |
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Conventional wisdom says that the number of viral particles you are originally infected with helps determine the outcome of an infection. A few particles and you get immunity before the infection overruns everything. Tens of thousands and your body is overwhelmed before your immune system has time to catch up. The patients in intensive care units are huge viral factories. I see no reason why your theory should interfere with that. They could both be true. |
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How do you tell if a politician is lying?
His lips or pen are moving. |
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CRS, DrPH
Expert Level Adviser Joined: January 20 2014 Location: Arizona Status: Offline Points: 26660 |
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You are thinking like a clinical virologist, good job! Higher dose nearly always results in more fulminant infection, although some viruses are so evil that only a few are enough to cause disease. Our HC workers really get it in the face when dealing with sick patients....ventilated patients exude vast quantities of lung fluids & other infectious debris which can contaminate the entire room. Please see this article: A key goal of such policies is to decrease the encounters between infected individuals and susceptible individuals and decelerate the rate of transmission. Although such social distancing strategies are critical in the current time of pandemic, it may seem surprising that the current understanding of the routes of host-to-host transmission in respiratory infectious diseases are predicated on a model of disease transmission developed in the 1930s that, by modern standards, seems overly simplified. Implementing public health recommendations based on these older models may limit the effectiveness of the proposed interventions. |
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CRS, DrPH
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Hazelpad
Adviser Group Joined: September 09 2014 Status: Offline Points: 6910 |
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They do get it in the face and the eyes trouble me. The eye as a point of viral enter is not somewhere I would like to get this virus. The eye is an immunoprivilege site. You do not get strong immune responses in the eye ( you can put foreign grafts in eye without rejection). The eye immune response is made up mostly of mechanical defences, not the usual cellular. So mostly just defended by blinking, tearing up etc. This immune privilege property is an adaption to stop harmful inflammatory responses taking out our sight in the wild. There are a few other privileged sites like the CNS and fetus, testicles, and hair follicles. While it's TRUE that some foreign pathogens entering the eye can elicit responses via the gut and mucosal pathways, unfortunately this only occurs if the antigen actually punctures the eye. So in effect the virus may enter the eye unseen, undetected. Imagine someone trying to break into Buckingham Palace by the front gate, they have to go past all the guards and gates....now imagine there was a secret tunnel straight in unguarded....that secret tunnel is the eye. One of the first Chinese doctors that died was an infectious disease specialist that warned everyone about guarding their eyes because he hadnt. I would like to see if there is a difference in outcomes between those that get gut symptoms to those that dont. The gut and respiratory system are connected via the mucosal pathway. Priming of an immune response in the gut can give protection in the respiratory tract. So little known about this virus. Hz x |
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pheasant
Admin Group Joined: May 20 2006 Location: Florida Status: Offline Points: 9851 |
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well said |
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The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself......FDR
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FluMom
Adviser Group Valued Member Since 2006 Joined: February 03 2020 Location: Colorado Status: Offline Points: 14695 |
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I thin Deep Thinker can be correct as anyone on this. I think it is going through the duct systems in apartments like Legionaries did in the past. Why NYC is so screwed and the virus will not go away any time soon with all those people in NYC. At this time our guesses about spread is as good as any doctor now. |
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