
Outbreak of common colds at Antarctic base after 17 weeks of isolation (1973) - yasp
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2130424/
======
avar
It's interesting that the "Environment" section mentions this in passing:

> Food comes mainly from packets or tins [...] There is a daily bread bake,
> and special occasions merit the thawing of a small amount of meat from a -20
> C. freezer or from an ice cave in the nearby glacier.

Then in the "Discussion" section:

> The occurrence of a common cold during isolation, when the chances of
> introduction of new infection from the outside are virtually nil, implies
> that in some way virus persisted, either in the environment or in the men

It then goes on to suggest animal reservoirs as a potential cause, as well as
inanimate objects and that a virus "might have persisted in the respiratory
tract of one or more men".

But one of these packets of meat being opened and thawed isn't mentioned as a
potential cause. I could find a couple of papers claiming that viruses survive
for months or even years in food. Mystery most likely solved without the need
for hitherto unknown or unlikely transmission vectors.

That seems to me to obviously be the most likely cause. Someone sneezed on or
otherwise contaminated a packet of meat that was then frozen and thawed months
later.

These people aren't truly "isolated" in the sense that they're going through a
continual process of opening time frozen time capsules from the past.

One of the papers that cite this one (published in the same year) discusses
such "time capsule" effects, although not with food, but from opening presents
kept in storage, unpacking stored clothing etc.[1]

1\. [https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-
core/c...](https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-
core/content/view/B2473CA4D9EB915221145A1480743FD9/S0022172400022919a.pdf/common_colds_in_antarctica.pdf)

~~~
cj
> Someone sneezed on...

Sanjay Gupta was talking on CNN (I know, not the most reputable source) and at
one point flat out said "If a cook in the kitchen of a restauraunt you're
ordering from has covid19 and sneezes on your food, it won't get passed on to
you, since this is not a food borne illness".

I was quite shocked to hear that.

I'd be very curious to see what actual science says about food as an infection
vector.

~~~
dessant
I have recently watched two of Gupta's videos about grocery shopping and
disinfecting groceries, and they were light entertainment, with very little
practical value.

There can be little difference between the virus reaching your lips by coming
in contact with recently handled food or your hands. Restaurant food is
absolutely an infection vector, we're just in the phase where we pretend it
not to be for economic reasons.

Wipe or wash groceries properly, not like in his videos, and stay away from
food that was recently in contact with people outside your household and that
cannot be properly cleaned, such as fast food.

Here are the videos:

[https://edition.cnn.com/videos/health/2020/04/03/sanjay-
gupt...](https://edition.cnn.com/videos/health/2020/04/03/sanjay-gupta-wiping-
cleaning-groceries-demo-town-hall-vpx.cnn)

[https://edition.cnn.com/videos/health/2020/05/08/cnn-town-
ha...](https://edition.cnn.com/videos/health/2020/05/08/cnn-town-hall-grocery-
store-safety-coronavirus-gupta-sot-vpx.cnn)

~~~
nradov
Please stop spreading misinformation about a serious topic.

"Currently there is no evidence of food or food packaging being associated
with transmission of COVID-19.”

[https://www.fda.gov/food/food-safety-during-
emergencies/food...](https://www.fda.gov/food/food-safety-during-
emergencies/food-safety-and-coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19)

~~~
RcouF1uZ4gsC
I for one hate this “no evidence” phrase that people are using.

Sure, there are no double blind, placebo controlled randomized studies looking
at that.

Also, because of the respiratory nature of the spread of coronavirus, it would
be really hard to tease out someone who got it from food or food packaging.

However, Corona virus isn’t the only virus that we no about. We know Hepatitis
A can spread in the food. We know Norovirus can spread in the food. Talk about
how coronavirus is different that makes you think that spread is unlikely.
Also, If you don’t have any idea, say “we don’t know”.

But scientists and doctors use “currently we do t have evidence of” to avoid
making a call. Then when lay people see that statement, 9 times out of 10 they
take it to mean that “scientists think that you can’t get coronavirus from
food.” When the statement is saying no such thing.

But “currently, there is no evidence of” needs to go. Experts need to step up
to the plate and give their expert opinion. If there are no direct studies say
so and then use your knowledge of various viral protein and related viruses
and food conditions, etc to give an actionable recommendation.

I saw this with the question of masks. Experts hid behind “no evidence that
masks prevent infection”. Yes the double, blind placebo co trolled studies are
lacking, but medical knowledge suggests that reducing the number and spread of
infected dropplets is probably a good thing, and given that wearing a mask is
a very safe intervention unlikely to cause side-effects, masks should probably
have been recommended from the start. The Asian cities where wearing masks is
more cultural seemed to have fared a lot better.

In the midst of a pandemic, I think for a lot of questions the null hypothesis
should be that corona virus can be transmitted by this, and I should have
evidence with 95% confidence that it cannot be.

Thus, a phrase “no evidence of” makes we worried about whatever they are
discussing.

~~~
SiVal
Yes, the citation of "currently no evidence of X" as if it meant "good
evidence of NOT_X" is just the sort of thing that demonstrates that those who
support policies of silencing "misinformation" are no better informed that the
rest of us.

------
didgeoridoo
Reactivation of latent[0] adenovirus infection due to the stress of Antarctic
living?

[0]:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3142679/#S2titl...](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3142679/#S2title)

------
jawns
Whenever I see a paper from this long ago, I immediately check to see how
often it's been referenced in the literature.

Google Scholar says this study has been cited by a measly 16 papers since it
was published in 1973:

[https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=1453678737796934715...](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=14536787377969347156&as_sdt=10005&sciodt=0,8&hl=en)

Without any other context, I would assume that the relative lack of studies
that reference this paper suggests that there might be issues with
reputability.

But who knows? Maybe it's a gem that never got the attention it deserved.

~~~
Buttons840
"There have been many experiments running rats through all kinds of mazes, and
so on--with little clear result. But in 1937 a man named Young did a very
interesting one. He had a long corridor with doors all along one side where
the rats came in, and doors along the other side where the food was. He wanted
to see if he could train the rats to go in at the third door down from
wherever he started them off. No. The rats went immediately to the door where
the food had been the time before.

"The question was, how did the rats know, because the corridor was so
beautifully built and so uniform, that this was the same door as before?
Obviously there was something about the door that was different from the other
doors. So he painted the doors very carefully, arranging the textures on the
faces of the doors exactly the same. Still the rats could tell. Then he
thought maybe the rats were smelling the food, so he used chemicals to change
the smell after each run. Still the rats could tell. Then he realized the rats
might be able to tell by seeing the lights and the arrangement in the
laboratory like any commonsense person. So he covered the corridor, and still
the rats could tell.

"He finally found that they could tell by the way the floor sounded when they
ran over it. And he could only fix that by putting his corridor in sand. So he
covered one after another of all possible clues and finally was able to fool
the rats so that they had to learn to go in the third door. If he relaxed any
of his conditions, the rats could tell.

"Now, from a scientific standpoint, that is an A-number-one experiment. That
is the experiment that makes rat-running experiments sensible, because it
uncovers that clues that the rat is really using-- not what you think it's
using. And that is the experiment that tells exactly what conditions you have
to use in order to be careful and control everything in an experiment with
rat-running.

"I looked up the subsequent history of this research. The next experiment, and
the one after that, never referred to Mr. Young. They never used any of his
criteria of putting the corridor on sand, or being very careful. They just
went right on running the rats in the same old way, and paid no attention to
the great discoveries of Mr. Young, and his papers are not referred to,
because he didn't discover anything about the rats. In fact, he discovered all
the things you have to do to discover something about rats. But not paying
attention to experiments like that is a characteristic example of cargo cult
science."

\- Richard Feynman

[http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~ravenben/cargocult.html](http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~ravenben/cargocult.html)

Maybe it's one of those papers that, by a less charitable interpretation than
Feynman, invalidates an entire field of study and undercuts it's central
assumptions, so it just gets ignored.

~~~
michrassena
I've tried to find this paper, but I can't. There's a Paul Thomas Young, who
did study rats in that timeframe.
[https://www.jstor.org/stable/1421573?seq=1](https://www.jstor.org/stable/1421573?seq=1)

~~~
Cactus2018
I've look too. Couldn't find.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Cargo_cult_science#Rat-
ru...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Cargo_cult_science#Rat-running)

[https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/02/the_rat_experi...](https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/02/the_rat_experiment_you_dont_know_about_but_should.html)

~~~
LolWolf
Indeed, the closest things I've been able to find have been these two studies
[0, 1] which investigate a large number of different possible incidental
stimuli (from lights all the way to the placement of the assistants during the
experiment). Neither of these mention sand as far as I can tell nor were they
written by a "Young". There is a paper that _does_ , though, found here [2],
which used it in the walls of the maze, but it does not mention a reason for
doing this.

For fun, I also found this 1938 paper as I was looking around that I haven't
read. It's interesting what random things scientists were doing during this
time and what debates were had [3].

\-----

[0] "The effect of incidental stimuli on maze learning with the white rat"
[https://doi.org/10.1037/h0071189](https://doi.org/10.1037/h0071189)

[1] "Further studies of the effect of incidental stimuli on maze learning with
the white rat"
[https://doi.org/10.1037/h0075810](https://doi.org/10.1037/h0075810)

[2] "Correlations between conditioning and maze learning in the white rat"
[https://doi.org/10.1037/h0053662](https://doi.org/10.1037/h0053662)

[3] "The effect of a native Mexican diet on learning and reasoning in white
rats" [https://doi.org/10.1037/h0061906](https://doi.org/10.1037/h0061906)
(The study found that the rats had less body mass, but did not find a
statistically significant difference in maze solving ability.)

------
sjg007
I noticed this in my own family of four. We've been in isolation for 2 months
and we've all had colds for a week. You'd expect after 4 weeks for it to stop
but nope. We've been social distancing and only one person goes out to pick up
groceries curb side. We've been wiping stuff down too. I think this is one
reason they say sars-cov-2 aka covid-19 is inevitable..

~~~
marktangotango
Same here, two weeks in 3 of 4 in our family had mild fevers (99<100) this was
end of March. Last week the wife had another bout of 99+ (but less than 100)
for a few days. Drive through windows and me going to the store have been our
only exposures.

I also discovered my temp is generally 96-97, rarely goes up to "normal".

~~~
lurquer
>Drive through windows and me going to the store have been our only exposures.

Let me reword this for you: "interacting with a teenager who deals with about
a thousand people a day, and going to a facility that is frequented by tens of
thousands of people a week, has been my only exposure."

~~~
sushid
Seriously, how is this not comprehensible to people? If you or your family
members are going outside, you HAVE NOT been in isolation. You've been
interacting with people outside and bringing in germs from your visits.

~~~
lurquer
As Jeff Goldblum would say, "Life finds a way."

I'm avoiding Covid conversations as my self-esteem is too fragile to tolerate
downvotes. ;) But, if I were opining on the subject, I'd say that masks,
social distancing, lock-downs, etc. are absolutely and utterly worthless and
unecessary. But, if it makes some people feel virtuous to wear their placebo
masks while cowering in the apartments, so be it. As for me, I'll be at the
river this weekend tubing with several hundred others, drinking a Corona, and
thinking of you all.

~~~
sushid
Is the irony not lost on you? You're not really avoiding a COVID conversation
in your comment...

------
jansan
Does anybody else here have tonsilloliths? By their awful smell I assume that
they may contain all kinds of bacteria or virii. Is it possible that they can
survive in there and reactivate several months later again?

Warning: You will need a strong stomach if you intend to search for
"tonsilloliths" on Google or Youtube.

~~~
knicholes
Yeah, I hock one up every couple months. I know I shouldn't, but something
inside me makes me squish and smell it. It's always as disgusting as I know it
will be, yet here we are.

~~~
jansan
Why shouldn't you? I have been removing them with water (syringe with plastic
tip) for quite a while and haven't seen any negative effects. I also feel more
confident that I do not have a bad breath.

~~~
knicholes
No, I'm saying I should not squish and smell them because it's always gross.

------
ck2
Viruses can linger in the body and "hide" waiting for immune system to weaken.

This is how people get shingles many decades later after chicken-pox, it's the
same virus, just hid in nerve cells and spinal cord.

~~~
dharma1
Some can stay latent for a long time - herpes viruses, retroviruses like HIV,
Epstein-Barr, shingles like you said - but most viruses don't, as far as we
know

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus_latency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus_latency)

~~~
derekp7
> Epstein-Barr

Am I the only one who had to look this up, thinking it was a hidden commentary
on current political items?

------
Zealotux
Amusingly, I currently have a flu and can't focus for more than 5 minutes,
could someone give me a summary of the findings (if there are any)?

~~~
wolco
By far the strangest comment.

The first comment sums it up well.

------
nazca
I wonder if after 17 weeks of isolation their immune systems atrophied due to
limited exposure to pathogens, making them more susceptible to relatively a
'small' initial exposure?

Are there implications for the millions of folks isolating and reducing their
daily exposure to pathogens?

~~~
didgeoridoo
Atrophy, yes, but not from lack of challenge. More likely due to limited
exercise, highly attenuated sunlight, and questionable diet.

~~~
ceejayoz
No worse than your average winter in the northern US. We get that for 4-5
months at a time in upstate NY.

------
buescher
There's a lot we don't know about infectious disease.

------
schoen
(1973)

~~~
yasp
Would have added it but the title was too long

~~~
airstrike
The (1973) is probably the most important part of the title...

~~~
tensor
Why do you feel that? Being old doesn't somehow invalidate results.

~~~
noodlenotes
You don't see that someone might read the title and infer there's a current
outbreak of Covid-19 in Antarctica? The title seems like deliberate clickbait
without a year.

~~~
yasp
Didn't make that connection but it's obvious in hindsight. sigh

------
aszantu
there was one article about how viruses are involved in sheep fetuses, when
they took out the viruses, the eggs and sperm wouldn't turn into a fetus or
something

