A Virus-Hunter Falls Prey To a Virus He Underestimated (nytimes.com) 61
Peter Piot, 71, one of the giants of Ebola and AIDS research, is still battling a coronavirus infection that hit him "like a bus" in March. From a report:"This is the revenge of the viruses," said Dr. Peter Piot, the director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. "I've made their lives difficult. Now they're trying to get me." Dr. Piot, 71 years old, is a legend in the battles against Ebola and AIDS. But Covid-19 almost killed him. "A week ago, I couldn't have done this interview," he said, speaking recently by Skype from his London dining room, a painting of calla lilies behind him. "I was still short of breath after 10 minutes." Looking back, ruefully, on being brought down by a virus after a life as a virus-hunter, Dr. Piot said he had misjudged his prey and had become the hunted.
"I underestimated this one -- how fast it would spread. My mistake was to think it was like SARS, which was pretty limited in scope. Or that it was like influenza. But it's neither." In 1976, as a graduate student in virology at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium, Dr. Piot was part of the international team that investigated a mysterious viral hemorrhagic fever in Yambuku, Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo. To avoid stigmatizing the town, team members named the virus "Ebola" after a nearby river. Later, in the 1980s, he was one of the scientists who proved that the wasting disease known as "slim" in Africa was caused by the same virus that was killing young gay men elsewhere. From 1991 to 1994, he was president of the International AIDS Society, and then the first director of U.N.AIDS, the United Nations' anti-H.I.V. program.
"I underestimated this one -- how fast it would spread. My mistake was to think it was like SARS, which was pretty limited in scope. Or that it was like influenza. But it's neither." In 1976, as a graduate student in virology at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium, Dr. Piot was part of the international team that investigated a mysterious viral hemorrhagic fever in Yambuku, Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo. To avoid stigmatizing the town, team members named the virus "Ebola" after a nearby river. Later, in the 1980s, he was one of the scientists who proved that the wasting disease known as "slim" in Africa was caused by the same virus that was killing young gay men elsewhere. From 1991 to 1994, he was president of the International AIDS Society, and then the first director of U.N.AIDS, the United Nations' anti-H.I.V. program.
When did AIDS become a virus? (Score:1)
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Dude, it's worse.
"I've made their lives difficult. Now they're trying to get me."
The viruses now have thoughts and feelings and engage in purposeful action.
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The viruses now have thoughts and feelings and engage in purposeful action.
Just like Republicans?
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Alright but don't let me catch you talking about the "COVID-19 virus".
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Covid-19 ... is that like the freshman 15?
Asking for a friend.
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The same time autism was discovered.
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So, technically, AIDS is the name of the condition caused by HIV, a virus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
More proof (Score:2, Insightful)
Thank God is he in recovery. A truly great man. But this is more proof that people need to take COVID-19 seriously. Stay inside. Work from home. Only venture out when you have to, and then always wear a mask. Follow safe distancing guidelines. Have deplorables deliver your food and other necessities to you. It is of utmost importance that YOU survive so we can defeat Trump in November and bring this country back from insanity.
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It is more proof that doctors and researchers are cavalier and think they are invincible. This should still be a Biosafety Level 4 type of virus. The researchers should be following procedures wearing full face P100 masks and decontaminating suits when dealing with infected patients and areas.
In my state something like 17% of the cases are healthcare workers, and I would assume a few more are family members of those healthcare workers.
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Re:Just goes to show (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you're speaking bullshit. Virologists can get it wrong, of course, as this one did, but in general, they are the best we've got. In the early stages, before we knew how virulent this strain was, it was perfectly reasonable to use SARS and MERS as proxies. Just because something turned out to be wrong, doesn't mean it wasn't a reasonable assumption early on.
The problem here is that most people, and you apparently included, don't understand the provisional nature of science. We aren't just going to magically know everything there is to know about a novel virus in just a few weeks or months. Heck, the suggestions of continued circulatory problems and long-term lung damage are just coming into sharper focus now.
My advice to you is to go back to your high school science teacher and tell him or her that they badly informed you as to the nature of science. Clearly they failed you as a learner. Or perhaps they did try, but you're just too arrogant to teach. Only you and they can answer that.
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Specialists get things wrong, just not as often as everyone else.
But that shouldn't stop us from questioning everything all the time. We should. Accepted truths have turned out to be not quite right more often than they ought to be. .
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Questioning is fine, it's good in fact, providing you have sufficient knowledge of the discipline of the expert you're questioning. Too many times in specialist fields you have laypeople asking pretty daft questions, often rather leading, because, ultimately, they have problems with the field of research. I remember ye olden days of the Internet, when you had a pretty steady stream of netkooks who fancied themselves unsung geniuses who would go on expert Usenet forums making all kinds of grand declarations,
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I don't disagree with you.
I am one of those people who don't know enough to ask questions, but then again, why should my reasonable points be ignored simply because of pride and arrogance. Nothing is worse than an arrogant man who is wrong being questioned by someone who has a different perspective. THAT is my complaint, and it is generalized to not point fingers at any one person (Dr Piot here). He made a mistake, and owned up to it.
The points I've made elsewhere in Feb, Mar, April and now mostly through M
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NYC is in draconian lockdown and it hasn't appeared to help much
I think this is false. Just take a look at the graphs of number of cases before/after lockdown. It went from rapid (more or less exponential) growth to decline. A different question is of course the cost/benefit of the actions, but the actions taken clearly did help. The decline is probably not as swift as it could be as many people don't follow the guidelines (if people did, I think the lockdown would have had to be just 3-4 weeks as the cases would have dropped faster).
Life has too many variables, all the time. We have to make the best decisions we can make with partial (and contradictory) information. Not acting until we had better data in this case could have made things far worse than it was.
Japan is likely a more obedient/respectful society than America and so it is likely that government guidelines will be trusted and followed, making any them more effective and hence any lockdowns will have shorter durations.
On a personal level, wear a mask, clean your hands, etc. Masks might not protect you all that much (I can't imagine that they do nothing) but it almost certainly protect others you encounter if you happen to have the virus (and don't yet know it). In New York, first-line responders have a lower rate of disease than the general population despite having more opportunities to get it. Masks work.
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Though a lot of accepted truths did pass a long test of time as very passable models, helpful rules of thumb, or wise words of advice. Or: Newton's theory of gravity; buy low sell high; a penny saved is a penny earned. None of these are perfectly right but definitely leaning more in that direction than not.
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“Never get involved in a land war in Asia” — but only slightly less well-known is this: “Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line” -Vizzini
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We aren't just going to magically know everything there is to know about a novel virus in just a few weeks or months. Heck, the suggestions of continued circulatory problems and long-term lung damage are just coming into sharper focus now.
TBH it's been impressive how quickly we've been able to learn so much about this virus. It's only been a few months and we already have vaccines heading into stage 2 trials. The scientific community has really done well on this one.
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This is some impressive circular BS logic, especially your excuse for posting anonymously. By your logic no scientist can be trusted to speak about what they specialize in. Absurd.
You not speaking truth to power, you are simply revealing your cowardly, arrogant, ignorance.
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The issue here is that this is "unprecedented", meaning we have no idea. Yet we have people guessing (a lot it seems) and not being right more often then they ought to be.
We are making guesses. Which is fine early on. But we should CONSTANTLY re-evaluating based on data, not feelings or hyperbole (i.e. "People are dying!!!!!")
Not to mention the ever moving goalposts ... "Flatten the Curve" (done and done) has become "Stop the Spread" (Impossible).
We're ingenious people who are capable of doing miracles if
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The curve won't remain flat without discipline. It's not like you just magically flatten the curve, and the virus just very politely obliges us. If this virus follows the same patterns as previous upper respiratory viruses, it's going to come storming back in the fall. If we just flip the switch fully on, we'll be right back where we are now, and probably worse, because on top of COVID-19, we'll have the other predictable upper respiratory infections making the rounds. It's not like the only thing people ar
Re: More truth with more power (Score:1)
And before some spaz mods me down for being cold or flame bait, I'm in a high risk category. I'll probably get it, just like all of you, and my odds of death are WAY higher than most of you. But I'm not gunna cry about it. Once it hit the general population it was done, everyon
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The world isn't shut down and never was. There is still plenty of economic activity (less than before admittedly). Many places are reopening, just not necessarily everything all at once. Do you really want to go back to exponential growth? NY was one doubling away from completely overwhelming there hospital system, which probably was less than a week more of normal activity.
I don't think it is a foregone conclusion that everyone will get it. If we can keep R0 1 by social-distancing, etc. it might peter out
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Re: Just goes to show (Score:2)
Solution: always continue to educate yourself. Strive to know what the scientists know. I abide by this. Most do not, because most are lazy and want the answers spoon fed to them in flashy soundbites and YouTube videos. If you refuse to take the time to learn, there is no reason to listen to you. You are insignificant.
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No they don't rely on faith. Ever heard of consensus? It is when instead of relying on one scientist you get the average opinion of the scientists. And the consensus is that this is a real virus with real health consequences that can be mitigated by steps such as wearing a mask. But because we live in the age of people believing all truth is relative we can't recognize a real danger.
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Posting AC as I'm speaking truth to power.
I call bullshit. You're posting anonymously because you know that you've said something incredibly stupid and the people with mod points will exact karmic retribution.
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Two things are not mutually exclusive. Mod Points are not truth or power.
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Neither is posting utter garbage as an AC. First of all, there's not likely anyone in a position of power reading Slashdot to begin with, so the AC is just posting to the regular crowd. Second of all, he isn't even posting truth. His post is utter gibberish.
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It isn't quite "gibberish".
Virologist know the biomechanics of viruses. They are highly specialized and usually in figuring out how the virus performs on a biological host and the results of infection. They may not know much about epidemiology. This isn't necessarily a criticism of virology or epidemiology, just pointing out the two aren't very related fields, but they do work hand in glove with each other in a lot of cases.
Also, see appeal to authority for logical fallacies with "experts". Yes, they are
Re:Just goes to show (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, you have this backwards; Dunning-Kruger ensures that the more you know the *less* certain you are.
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Precisely. But that doesn't prevent experts from making mistakes. As I said above, early on after the virus had been identified, experts and public health officials leaned heavily on data from SARS and MERS to fill in the blanks. If Mr. Piot made any error, it was putting too much weight on those well-known viruses. More cautious researchers were more willing to leave the big question mark in place, but I don't see using these viruses as proxies in models of how virulent COVID-19 would be as doing anything
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You can see the difference in his reaction to finding out he's wrong. Assuming that SARS-CoV-2, which is genetically very similar to SARS-CoV, would also behave like it is not unreasonable, but when it turns out to be different the expert says "Hoo, boy was a I wrong." The amateur would tell you all about how actually he was right all along.
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The more you know, the more you realize that one ought to question everything all the time. It isn't about uncertainty, it is simply knowing most things aren't 100% anything.
Random end user listening to me about some tech problem, "Have you checked the power cord"
Me, "Of course I've .... checked ..... the .... hey what do you know, it was unplugged"
Me thirty years ago, "I don't need to check the power, I'm a professional"
Knowledge is knowing lots of things, wisdom is knowing knowledge lies.
Re:Just goes to show (Score:5, Informative)
Dunning-Kruger is an actual observed effect that deals with metacognition. Generally, more intelligent people are more consciously aware of their own thought processes, and thus they are more consciously aware that they possess imperfect knowledge. Self-doubt is the price of a disciplined mind. Unfortunately, people who lack decent metacognitive abilities are absolutely shit at self-assessment. They're the ones that pontificate on subjects that they really have no idea about, mistaking their ignorance for expertise. It's because they don't have the higher mental faculties to tell the difference.
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I heard it once said this way.
"There is a fine like between self-aware and self-centered. There is also a vast chasm between the two." (or something to that effect)
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The real problem isn't that they mistake their ignorance for expertise, it's that other people do.
The more confidently you present your ideas, the more likely it is that people will believe you and think that you know what you are talking about.
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People love certainty. It makes us feel comfortable and confident. We can react strongly to uncertainty, and yet science is constructed on the provisionality of knowledge, that there will inevitably be gaps. In some fields that is okay because there isn't a practical immediate to have perfect knowledge. I'd like to know if eternal inflation is true, or that Indo-European and Uralic languages descend from a common ancestor language, but no one is going to be harmed if we don't have a solid verifiable answer
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But I know so little I must be the one everyone should take advice from! Even better, I'll make an active attempt to forget what snippets I do know so I can be even less informed. And no, I will not run for office once my knowledge reaches zero.
Title is a little misleading (Score:2)
Seek Treatment (Score:2)
He should have taken a 25gram vitamin C IV. That would knock it out in a day or two.
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He could wash his lungs out with bleach, that would knock the virus out in a couple minutes.
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Or stump water, at midnight on a full moon.
Listen to his Royal Institution talk ... (Score:4, Informative)
Listen to his Royal Institution lecture [youtube.com] from October 2018.
Nothing earth shattering, but very interesting ...
Then listen to the Q&A session [youtube.com] of the same lecture.
take it easy on yourself (Score:1)
"I underestimated this one -- how fast it would spread. My mistake was to think it was like SARS, which was pretty limited in scope. Or that it was like influenza. But it's neither."
Your mistake is because of misrepresented data from China, where authocratic regime needs trump the needs of science.
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+1
It wasn't just the virus that he underestimated...
China lied about all aspects of COVID-19 for many weeks during December 2019 and January 2020. Dr. Piot was likely infected in mid-February, just as the scientific community was realizing the magnitude of the bullsheet coming out of China.
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It was obvious that China went into strict lockdown mode and was concerned about this virus in January. We don't know what the non-public data showed either.
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You do realize that being a cop in the US doesn't even make it into the top 20 most dangerous jobs, don't you? Better off to pick an actually hazardous job, like roofer or commercial fisherman.
Re: Be careful what you look for you just might fi (Score:2)
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They've moved up in the last year or two then.they were lower the last time I looked.
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And the Band Played On (Score:1)
Hmmm. (Score:2)
So the virus-hunter caught his prey. Good on him.
The beauty of this headline (Score:2)