wuhan - coronavirus

[Ausmumof3]

“#UAE’s Phase III COVID-19 inactivated vaccine trial achieves milestone of 15,000 vaccinated volunteers from 107 Nationalities. 
The UAE Nation Thanks You.
The World Thanks You.
We Thank You For Joining #4Humanity”

from UAEs health department.  I hadn’t heard about this trial.  Good to see another one getting closer.
 

[JennyD]

The Israeli press tends to breathlessly report domestic scientific advances, and three patients are three patients, but this is encouraging nonetheless.  Bodes well for those monoclonal antibody products under development as well.  

 

 

[Ausmumof3]

On 8/12/2020 at 9:50 PM, TCB said:

I think the worrying thing for me is that a number of people taking months to recover, or at least having problems months later as we don’t know enough to know about actually recovering, are people who weren’t severely ill initially and were not hospitalized. My cousin’s friend, mid 20s, wasn’t severely ill with it, didn’t have to even go to the ER, now has sats down to 84% when she exercises. It is a really weird disease.

Now that we are trying not to intubate people I think that in some ways it is more difficult for them, although fantastic that they survive. They sit there for days, coughing and breathing with optiflow tubing stuck up their nose, getting very little sleep because of all the coughing and breathing etc. It is unlike anything I’ve seen before.

I really appreciate your perspective.

[TracyP]

12 hours ago, Pen said:

 

I’d already messed up anyway as I saw it as if it were a .08  I am sure it can’t be 80%!   (But .87% hospitalizations  is lower than figures I have seen.) 

 

An article I saw had:

“The CDC cautions that most reports of coronavirus cases among children are incomplete, which adds uncertainty to the report's specific numbers.

Relatively few children with COVID-19 ended up in the hospital, and fewer still required intensive care. But hospitalization status was known in only 29% of cases involving children. 

Based on the partial data analyzed in this study, between 5.7% and 20% of sick children end up in the hospital, and 2% or fewer end up in intensive care, the paper says. For adults ages 18-64, the proportion hospitalized was between 10% and 33%, and 1.4% to 4.5% required intensive care. “

MN numbers are a lot lower than this too. 2.9% of under 20 yo cases are hospitalized. 0.5% have needed care in ICU. 

[kbutton]

13 hours ago, kdsuomi said:

So far, here .87% of confirmed cases in under 18s has been hospitalized. 

 

13 hours ago, CuriousMomof3 said:

There's a factor of 10 there.

8% would be close to .087 if they're meaning it as a decimal.  Or if it's .87% it would be close to 0.8%.

I think all of that was corrected before I read the replies, but I am nearly positive the local guy said 8% and that he prefaced it moments earlier with a mention of "nearly 10%" or something like that.

12 hours ago, Pen said:

An article I saw had:

“The CDC cautions that most reports of coronavirus cases among children are incomplete, which adds uncertainty to the report's specific numbers.

Relatively few children with COVID-19 ended up in the hospital, and fewer still required intensive care. But hospitalization status was known in only 29% of cases involving children. 

Based on the partial data analyzed in this study, between 5.7% and 20% of sick children end up in the hospital, and 2% or fewer end up in intensive care, the paper says. For adults ages 18-64, the proportion hospitalized was between 10% and 33%, and 1.4% to 4.5% required intensive care. “

The local children's hospital guy said that their cases are also likely incomplete, but he feels it's a decent number based on who/why they test. He went through the various profiles of kids who get tested, and it includes presumably healthy kids who are having surgery to find asymptomatic cases (and possibly other invasive procedures--I can't remember). These hospitals do a lot of surgery ranging from heart stuff to removing teeth. 

[Pen]

2 hours ago, TracyP said:

MN numbers are a lot lower than this too. 2.9% of under 20 yo cases are hospitalized. 0.5% have needed care in ICU. 

 

I have friends in medicine fields in some different places (not MN), but talking with them it seems like very different situations and experiences exist in different places.  I think it is mostly a matter of who is in hotspots or hospitals dealing more with CV  (or also field of work) versus not, but there may be more than that — like additional host internal environment or external factors that make things different and that have not yet been identified. 

 

ETA: 

I don’t know if you can use your local situation as fitting perhaps for your own area’s risk to children when making personal decisions or would be better off considering figures from elsewhere as a warning of not to let guard down because your area could become like _____ .   

 

We don’t even have any way I know of to have information on whether enough people have caught on to things like Vitamin D, zinc and ionophores, and/or degree of mask wearing, etc in some localities and if there are self help actions that could be making some difference in severity of cases and hospitalization. 

Edited August 13, 2020 by Pen

[Pen]

3 hours ago, TracyP said:

MN numbers are a lot lower than this too. 2.9% of under 20 yo cases are hospitalized. 0.5% have needed care in ICU. 

 

2 hours ago, kbutton said:

 

I think all of that was corrected before I read the replies, but I am nearly positive the local guy said 8% and that he prefaced it moments earlier with a mention of "nearly 10%" or something like that.

The local children's hospital guy said that their cases are also likely incomplete, but he feels it's a decent number based on who/why they test. He went through the various profiles of kids who get tested, and it includes presumably healthy kids who are having surgery to find asymptomatic cases (and possibly other invasive procedures--I can't remember). These hospitals do a lot of surgery ranging from heart stuff to removing teeth. 

 

OK.

Let’s assume that both figures are correct.

 

Can you two compare what you know of local area and practices and perhaps that would lead to some potential ideas of why the one area apparently has children doing so very very much better if they get sick than the other area? 

 

[TracyP]

13 minutes ago, Pen said:

 

I have friends in medicine fields in some different places (not MN), but talking with them it seems like very different situations and experiences exist in different places.  I think it is mostly a matter of who is in hotspots or hospitals dealing more with CV  (or also field of work) versus not, but there may be more than that — like additional host internal environment or external factors that make things different and that have not yet been identified. 

 

 

It really does seem like there can be vast differences depending on location. My own theory is that the big difference is testing. I think these low numbers 0.87% - 2.9% reflect what it looks like when you are finding say 30-50% of the cases. I think in hotspots that number looks more like finding 10-20% of cases at best, and that really skews the numbers.

[TracyP]

2 minutes ago, Pen said:

 

 

OK.

Let’s assume that both figures are correct.

 

Can you two compare what you know of local area and practices and perhaps that would lead to some potential ideas of why the one area apparently has children doing so very very much better if they get sick than the other area? 

 

To expand on what I just posted, we are doing a lot of testing in MN. Pretty much every location that has a healthcare facility has testing. The state has a site that lets people know each location's guidelines, about half of the sites test symptomatic people. The other half tests both symptomatic and anyone asymptomatic with suspected exposure. It seems like most people get results in 3-5 days and we have decent contact tracing as far as I can tell. 

[Pen]

20 minutes ago, TracyP said:

To expand on what I just posted, we are doing a lot of testing in MN. Pretty much every location that has a healthcare facility has testing. The state has a site that lets people know each location's guidelines, about half of the sites test symptomatic people. The other half tests both symptomatic and anyone asymptomatic with suspected exposure. It seems like most people get results in 3-5 days and we have decent contact tracing as far as I can tell. 

 

Maybe it just hasn’t been enough time yet from increase in children infected for cases to turn more serious?

https://www.startribune.com/children-teens-fuel-minnesota-covid-19-case-growth/572076732/

 

My impression has been that older people seem to be more like to get very very sick and die more quickly or even to be dead before CV19 was realized.  With children there seems to be a much longer time from infection... maybe even a huge gap to a later possibly related MIS

I wish though that it would turn out that MN is actively doing something that helps and that elsewhere could copy. 

Edited August 13, 2020 by Pen

[BeachGal]

A 24-hour T cell test is in the works. That would be helpful.

[TracyP]

1 hour ago, Pen said:

 

Maybe it just hasn’t been enough time yet from increase in children infected for cases to turn more serious?

https://www.startribune.com/children-teens-fuel-minnesota-covid-19-case-growth/572076732/

I don't think that is it. That increase has been going on since June. 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.fox9.com/news/covid-19-cases-among-minnesota-children-and-young-people-surged-in-june.amp

Quote

 

My impression has been that older people seem to be more like to get very very sick and die more quickly or even to be dead before CV19 was realized.  With children there seems to be a much longer time from infection... maybe even a huge gap to a later possibly related MIS

There can definitely be a gap when MIS becomes an issue. This could become an issue going forward. Otherwise, I've heard that cases in young people often become severe more quickly than older people. This was due to cytokine storm causing more issues in younger people and pneumonia impacting older people. I don't remember where I heard that so feel free to correct me if you have a source for the opposite being true.

Quote

I wish though that it would turn out that MN is actively doing something that helps and that elsewhere could copy. 

Yeah, that'd be great but I don't think that's the case. I definitely could be wrong, but I suspect that places with these lower rates will eventually be shown to be much closer to accurate. It comes back to the number problem we have always had - we just aren't working with a good denominator yet. When places not experiencing outbreaks are doing a decent job on testing we start to get a clearer picture.

Edited August 13, 2020 by TracyP
Removed info that was really beside the point

[Pen]

24 minutes ago, TracyP said:

I don't think that is it. That increase has been going on since June. 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.fox9.com/news/covid-19-cases-among-minnesota-children-and-young-people-surged-in-june.amp

Also while more cases would cause the raw numbers to increase, the percentage being hospitalized should remain steady assuming there is consistency in the percentage of cases you are testing/finding.

There can definitely be a gap when MIS becomes an issue. This could become an issue going forward. Otherwise, I've heard that cases in young people often become severe more quickly than older people. This was due to cytokine storm causing more issues in younger people and pneumonia impacting older people. I don't remember where I heard that so feel free to correct me if you have a source for the opposite being true.

Yeah, that'd be great but I don't think that's the case. I definitely could be wrong, but I suspect that places with these lower rates will eventually be shown to be much closer to accurate. It comes back to the number problem we have always had - we just aren't working with a good denominator yet. When places not experiencing outbreaks are doing a decent job on testing we start to get a clearer picture.

 

Could there be an ethnic/racial aspect?  

 

For example, Does MN have a large percentage of Native American, Hispanic, Black, or South Asian or even perhaps darker skinned Mediterranean descent people? 

 

Hispanic children seem to need to be hospitalized at ~8 times rate for white children. So if MN has a low Hispanic population that itself might largely account for low pediatric hospitalization rates.

 

 

Do you know an MN CV19 hospitalization rate for children per population of children which could remove some of the testing and tracing aspect?

Edited August 13, 2020 by Pen

[Corraleno]

9 hours ago, Laura Corin said:

Excess deaths are useful but don't necessary show Covid deaths only.  People with other illnesses who don't go to hospital because they fear Covid would also be included, for example.

Yes, of course the excess deaths aren't only Covid deaths, but that is a huge number of deaths that are unaccounted for. Worldometer lists 150,000 US Covid deaths as of 7/25, but the true excess death count was nearly 70,000 higher than that. 

It is a widespread talking point in certain US political circles that the Covid death count is vastly inflated, and that the disease is not nearly as dangerous as scientists claim. If that were true then the excess death count should be close to the official Covid count, or even below it, because a lot of non-Covid deaths would have been falsely included in the Covid count. Instead there have been nearly 70,000 more deaths, which certainly suggests that we are undercounting Covid deaths, not inflating them.

[Pen]

 

 

“Members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) COVID-19-Associated Hospitalization Surveillance Network analyzed data on 576 children under age 18 years from 14 states who were hospitalized for COVID-19 between March 1 and July 25, 2020.

The hospitalization rate for children was eight per 100,000 compared to 164.5 per 100,000 for adults, according to a new Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

The weekly rate of pediatric hospitalizations rose throughout the study period.

Overall, the rate was highest for children under age 2 years at 25 per 100,000 children, compared to four per 100,000 for ages 2-4 years and six per 100,000 for ages 5-17 years.

Medical chart reviews for 208 patients showed the median hospital stay was 2.5 days. About 33% were admitted to the ICU and 6% required invasive mechanical ventilation compared to 32% and 19%, respectively for adults. One child with multiple underlying conditions died.

About 42% of the hospitalized children had an underlying condition, most commonly obesity, chronic lung disease or prematurity, according to the study.

The rate of hospitalization for Hispanic children was eight times higher than White children, and the rate for Black children was five times higher than White children. 

“

 

[lewelma]

15 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Just saw that NZ had another 13 cases linked to the 4 so 17 in total!  I’m sure they are glad they locked down so fast.

4 workers at the cold transport company and 10 of their family members (including 3 kids at 3 different schools).  2 at a financial agency where one of the cold storage family members worked. 1 friend. = 17 people in the cluster. All will be moved into the quarantine facilities.  No other cases in any other clusters have yet been found with 10K tests from yesterday. We will get more info from the next 10K tests this morning, and hopefully the genomic testing. 

One thing we get right is that we can turn on a dime.  One day everything open including a 43,000 person rugby match, next day all schools and workplaces closed and roadblocks set up.  The decision was made 6 hours after the positive test was found, and the lockdown was implemented overnight.

Edited August 13, 2020 by lewelma

[melmichigan]

Cases in those ages <19 have doubled in the last two weeks in our area.  The big push for testing of school aged kids before the start of school in a month began earlier this week, and I'm told it's being attempted by health departments statewide.  Coincidentally, our state cases today were double what they were yesterday at 1,121.  Our local representatives said it will take a week to begin to see the test results in our county from these school testing sites.

[kbutton]

4 hours ago, Pen said:

OK.

Let’s assume that both figures are correct.

Can you two compare what you know of local area and practices and perhaps that would lead to some potential ideas of why the one area apparently has children doing so very very much better if they get sick than the other area? 

I am really wondering about what I heard since the other numbers look different, but Ohio, particularly SW Ohio has some die-hard anti-mask groups, and there are plenty of people who have had kids out and about all summer.

2 hours ago, Pen said:

Could there be an ethnic/racial aspect?  

For example, Does MN have a large percentage of Native American, Hispanic, Black, or South Asian or even perhaps darker skinned Mediterranean descent people? 

Hispanic children seem to need to be hospitalized at ~8 times rate for white children. So if MN has a low Hispanic population that itself might largely account for low pediatric hospitalization rates.

Racial disparities (more cases and more severe cases among minority groups) were addressed by the various hospital directors in the press conference, but that's not the same as knowing what percentage of the sampled population is made up of individuals from minority groups affected by the disparity. 

I do know they feel that they are close to a random sampling as we could get in our state because they test both symptomatic and asymptomatic kids. 

2 hours ago, Pen said:

“Members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) COVID-19-Associated Hospitalization Surveillance Network analyzed data on 576 children under age 18 years from 14 states who were hospitalized for COVID-19 between March 1 and July 25, 2020.

The hospitalization rate for children was eight per 100,000 compared to 164.5 per 100,000 for adults, according to a new Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

The weekly rate of pediatric hospitalizations rose throughout the study period.

Overall, the rate was highest for children under age 2 years at 25 per 100,000 children, compared to four per 100,000 for ages 2-4 years and six per 100,000 for ages 5-17 years.

Medical chart reviews for 208 patients showed the median hospital stay was 2.5 days. About 33% were admitted to the ICU and 6% required invasive mechanical ventilation compared to 32% and 19%, respectively for adults. One child with multiple underlying conditions died.

About 42% of the hospitalized children had an underlying condition, most commonly obesity, chronic lung disease or prematurity, according to the study.

The rate of hospitalization for Hispanic children was eight times higher than White children, and the rate for Black children was five times higher than White children. “

So are these rates the number of hospitalized kids out of 100,000 kids who have COVID or 100,000 kids total, some of whom may not have COVID (so just 8/100,000 kids)? The numbers I heard were 8% of kids who have COVID are hospitalized. So, say the hospitalization rate of kids for COVID is 8 of 100,000 kids, not all of whom have COVID, that could still be in line with 8% of kids who have COVID, right? The stats I heard were for kids 18 and under, BTW, not broken down by age group.

[TracyP]

2 hours ago, Pen said:

 

Could there be an ethnic/racial aspect?  

 

For example, Does MN have a large percentage of Native American, Hispanic, Black, or South Asian or even perhaps darker skinned Mediterranean descent people? 

 

Hispanic children seem to need to be hospitalized at ~8 times rate for white children. So if MN has a low Hispanic population that itself might largely account for low pediatric hospitalization rates.

MN is 83% white yet around 50% of our cases are in people of color. Hispanic and Black Minnesotans have been hit particularly hard by covid. (This gets a lot of news coverage here because that is such a huge disparity.) So I would say no, that does not seem to explain the difference

2 hours ago, Pen said:

 

 

Do you know an MN CV19 hospitalization rate for children per population of children which could remove some of the testing and tracing aspect?

Sorry, not sure what you're asking here.

[TracyP]

17 minutes ago, kbutton said:

I am really wondering about what I heard since the other numbers look different, but Ohio, particularly SW Ohio has some die-hard anti-mask groups, and there are plenty of people who have had kids out and about all summer.

 

It looks like you guys have really good testing so I started digging into Ohio's numbers. I'm thinking maybe something got lost in translation. The overall hospitalization rate for your state is 11%. I found 235 hospitalizations for under 18yo there. I can't find the number of cases for this group. I found a newspaper article that said 13% of cases were from this group, but I couldn't tell if that was cumulative or for the month of July. Anyway if I go with 10% to be safe, that gives us 10,500. 235/10500 gives a 2.2% hospitalization rate in the under 18 crowd. That makes it really close to the 2.9% MN is seeing. 

Of course, I can't be sure. Maybe they meant 8% because they are seeing a new trend or something. Hopefully that's not the case...

[Pen]

20 minutes ago, TracyP said:

MN is 83% white yet around 50% of our cases are in people of color. 

Why do you say that would make no difference?

as compared to a state that is less than 40% white [people] and perhaps a higher Hispanic population than MN’s entire non-white population? 

 

 

20 minutes ago, TracyP said:

Hispanic and Black Minnesotans have been hit particularly hard by covid. (This gets a lot of news coverage here because that is such a huge disparity.) So I would say no, that does not seem to explain the difference

Sorry, not sure what you're asking here.

 

Some places publish hospitalization or other such statistics on a per population basis—in addition to a per case basis 

[kbutton]

1 minute ago, TracyP said:

It looks like you guys have really good testing so I started digging into Ohio's numbers. I'm thinking maybe something got lost in translation. The overall hospitalization rate for your state is 11%. I found 235 hospitalizations for under 18yo there. I can't find the number of cases for this group. I found a newspaper article that said 13% of cases were from this group, but I couldn't tell if that was cumulative or for the month of July. Anyway if I go with 10% to be safe, that gives us 10,500. 235/10500 gives a 2.2% hospitalization rate in the under 18 crowd. That makes it really close to the 2.9% MN is seeing. 

Of course, I can't be sure. Maybe they meant 8% because they are seeing a new trend or something. Hopefully that's not the case...

Thanks!

Our testing is decent--there are still people who struggle to get timely results or have some quirky things happen, but the state has tried really hard to shunt the testing to where it's most needed via pop-up sites that anyone can access. 

[Pen]

2 minutes ago, TracyP said:

It looks like you guys have really good testing so I started digging into Ohio's numbers. I'm thinking maybe something got lost in translation. The overall hospitalization rate for your state is 11%. I found 235 hospitalizations for under 18yo there. I can't find the number of cases for this group. I found a newspaper article that said 13% of cases were from this group, but I couldn't tell if that was cumulative or for the month of July. Anyway if I go with 10% to be safe, that gives us 10,500. 235/10500 gives a 2.2% hospitalization rate in the under 18 crowd. That makes it really close to the 2.9% MN is seeing. 

Of course, I can't be sure. Maybe they meant 8% because they are seeing a new trend or something. Hopefully that's not the case...

 

Oh wait.  I thought you said .87% - extremely unusually low. 

[TracyP]

 

4 minutes ago, Pen said:

 

Oh wait.  I thought you said .87% - extremely unusually low. 

No, that was @kdsuomi

[Ausmumof3]

372 cases for Vic.  14 deaths including one man in his 20s.

seems like the downward trend is continuing.  I hope vic manage to keep with it.

[Ausmumof3]

https://amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/aug/14/ants-crawling-from-wound-horrifying-scenes-at-coronavirus-hit-aged-care-home-in-melbourne?__twitter_impression=true
 

too sad ☹️ 

[Ausmumof3]

NZ said the virus genome is different showing its a new strain that’s re-entered.  I guess this is good news that there’s no silent community transmission.  Now I’m kind of hoping it’s quarantine breach not frozen food because it seems like to that will be easier to fix . If it’s coming in on frozen goods I’ll be back to disinfecting groceries!

[Matryoshka]

3 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

NZ said the virus genome is different showing its a new strain that’s re-entered.  I guess this is good news that there’s no silent community transmission.  Now I’m kind of hoping it’s quarantine breach not frozen food because it seems like to that will be easier to fix . If it’s coming in on frozen goods I’ll be back to disinfecting groceries!

I have to say after hearing about this I'm glad we never quit wiping down stuff before it goes in the fridge/freezer...  the other stuff I just let sit for a couple of days...

[lewelma]

There is no wide community spread.  28,000 tests from the community in 48 hours returned 0 positive cases.  The 38 positive cases are all close contacts of what appears to be the index case, the person who worked at the cold storage international shipping co. All 38 cases have a genome linked to a single source. They have not stated it is definitely surface transmission, but there is currently no other source that has been found. The index case genome does not link to any quarantine genomes. 

Auckland in 12 day additional lockdown. Rest of country in just a 'be careful' mode for those 12 days. There is no spread outside of Auckland. 

Edited August 14, 2020 by lewelma

[Ausmumof3]

https://apple.news/AShDCPzbDR-OhPDy2oSN7qw
 

Dubai airport are using coronavirus sniffer dogs 

[Meriwether]

Someone on Facebook shared a link to this picture. I feel like I am missing something. Masks mostly help others, not the wearers, so how is it okay to blow air out through an instrument?

[Pen]

17 hours ago, kdsuomi said:

Yes, it was me that said .87%. That's the number for our county, and most of the cases in children aren't extremely recent. A lot of the children who are positive here were tested because the entire family was tested after one person tested positive. (For a long time our county officials said that is the reason we've always had more children test positive than other places. According to them, other areas weren't testing everyone in the household just telling them to presume they're positive.)

 

Afaik most people in many multiple person households don’t in fact test positive and I wish some extra investigation would be done to try to figure out why not.  Not just children, but spouses who have been in same bed don’t always catch it from each other. And it doesn’t seem to be known yet whether this is entirely due to some infected people being very low viral shedders, or if some people are fairly immune, or combination. 

[Pen]

17 minutes ago, kdsuomi said:

 

That's fine but not entirely related to what I was saying. According to local officials, we have always been testing a higher proportion of children than surrounding areas and have an extremely low hospitalization rate for that age group. Maybe that's why the listed outcomes are so different, and it wouldn't be 8% if more children were tested? Maybe there's a reason why we continue to have better outcomes than other nearby areas? I'll leave that to the experts to figure out.

 

What are the raw numbers of pediatric cases and pediatric hospitalizations in your locale? 

 

[Pen]

https://youtu.be/bQcS-UWBq4Q

 

John Campbell Africa update ... except for SA,  subsaharan Africa is doing better than expected!

and interesting to think about in re how it is hitting with regard to poverty or skin pigmentation etc.

 

 

Edited August 15, 2020 by Pen

[ElizabethB]

37 minutes ago, Pen said:

https://youtu.be/bQcS-UWBq4Q

 

John Campbell Africa update ... except for SA, doing better than expected!

and interesting to think about in re how it is hitting with regard to poverty or skin pigmentation etc.

 

 

There is likely less obesity and diabetes in most of Africa, also probably outside more getting vitamin D.

It is interesting, though.

[Pen]

15 minutes ago, ElizabethB said:

There is likely less obesity and diabetes in most of Africa, also probably outside more getting vitamin D.

It is interesting, though.

 

There’s a good bit of diabetes (though less than in USA), lots of TB, malaria, HIV, ...     and there’s been a lot of obesity in Africa too as I think consumption of more cheap , low quality processed foods increased - example article at bottom.

 

It may not be one thing that’s responsible, but a group. 

I wonder what the dominant blood type is in most of subsaharan Africa and if it’s any different than SA.

Vitamin D status would be good to know, and  to know if it’s different in SA than rest of subsaharan Africa .  This article suggests that D deficiency pattern may fit the geographic Pattern of CV19 severity: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(19)30457-7/fulltext 

i looked up BCG vaccination  and it looks like SA uses it, so probably not the difference... 

SA has lower malaria and apparently way less River Blindness than other parts of subsaharan Africa so perhaps less Antimalarials and Ivermectin already in prophylactic Use. ...  

 

 

 

 

The Heavy Burden of Obesity in Africa | GBCHealth

Jan 31, 2018 · In fact, the introduction of processed foods combined with economic growth, have caused Africa's obesity rates to soar quickly and intensely. In the ...

 

 

 

[Ausmumof3]

303 cases 4 deaths for Vic.

[Terabith]

This seems like a brilliant idea for testing that actually could make life far more normal.  https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/08/how-to-test-every-american-for-covid-19-every-day/615217/

[BeachGal]

Some African countries are using ozone. Italy has been sending over medical-grade ozone generators but some places have them already because they are used to treat Ebola.

More info about ozone autohemotherapy and IV vitamin C to treat Covid:

https://www.clinicaloncology.com/COVID19/Article/07-20/Two-Synergistic-Adjuvant-Therapies-Help-Fight-COVID19/58703

Quote

 

Ozone Disrupts Coronavirus

As a treatment, ozone attacks the envelope of coronaviruses, according to Dr. Papadakos. “By affecting cysteine, ozone disrupts viral proteins, lipoproteins, lipids and glycolipids in the actual virus. As a result, ozone creates a dysfunctional virus, which cannot replicate.” Ozone therapy also affects certain coagulation parameters (Figures 1 and 2).

 

 

The coagulation parameters that the quote above mentions are d-dimer and ferritin levels.

*******

HIV antivirals might also help prevent severe cases of Covid.

Edited August 15, 2020 by BeachGal

[popmom]

5 hours ago, ElizabethB said:

There is likely less obesity and diabetes in most of Africa, also probably outside more getting vitamin D.

It is interesting, though.

Those with brown skin are at greatest risk of vitamin D deficiency because the more melanin in the skin, the less able the skin is to produce vitamin D from sun exposure. 

[popmom]

6 hours ago, Pen said:

https://youtu.be/bQcS-UWBq4Q

 

John Campbell Africa update ... except for SA, doing better than expected!

and interesting to think about in re how it is hitting with regard to poverty or skin pigmentation etc.

 

 

very, very interesting video

[vonfirmath]

6 hours ago, Pen said:

https://youtu.be/bQcS-UWBq4Q

 

John Campbell Africa update ... except for SA, doing better than expected!

and interesting to think about in re how it is hitting with regard to poverty or skin pigmentation etc.

 

 

Which explains why Compassion sponsors are starting to get letters from Africa! (none South America yet though 😞 or Central America)

 

I think they are also getting from Indonesia but not the Phillippines.

 

[Ausmumof3]

interesting points about positivity and other things.  

[Innisfree]

Short but interesting thread on why some people have less severe cases, with articles and other threads linked:

https://mobile.twitter.com/VincentRK/status/1294404193294442502

[Pen]

10 hours ago, vonfirmath said:

Which explains why Compassion sponsors are starting to get letters from Africa! (none South America yet though 😞 or Central America)

 

I think they are also getting from Indonesia but not the Phillippines.

 

 

I am not following this. 

What about what you quoted from me explains what? 

[vonfirmath]

44 minutes ago, Pen said:

 

I am not following this. 

What about what you quoted from me explains what? 

Compassion centers have been locked down so no letters have been getting through.  But where possible, the leaders at the centers are trying to keep up with their family, make contacts etc.

But recently I've been getting letters from Burkina Faso, Uganda (lots from Uganda), Rwanda, etc.  Africa doing better than expected explains why we are starting to see letters from these countries but not from others. They are able to make more contacts due to the state of the local pandemic.

 

[Ausmumof3]

17 minutes ago, square_25 said:

I'm still tracking positivity vs. deaths two weeks later in the Coronavirus Spikes. It's still by FAR the most predictive statistic. 

So Texas would expect another spike in deaths in around two weeks?

[Corraleno]

Apologies if this was already linked here. This was a study of 100 patients who had recovered from CV19, of which 67 had cases ranging from asymptomatic (18) to mild/moderate (49), and the other 33 were hospitalized, with 2 on vents. Median age was 49. They were tested 2-3 months after original diagnosis, and the majority of patients had cardiac abnormalities, even if their original symptoms were quite mild. 

"In this study of a cohort of German patients recently recovered from COVID-19 infection, CMR revealed cardiac involvement in 78 patients (78%) and ongoing myocardial inflammation in 60 patients (60%), independent of preexisting conditions, severity and overall course of the acute illness, and time from the original diagnosis."

 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamacardiology/fullarticle/2768916

[Laura Corin]

7 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

Apologies if this was already linked here. This was a study of 100 patients who had recovered from CV19, of which 67 had cases ranging from asymptomatic (18) to mild/moderate (49), and the other 33 were hospitalized, with 2 on vents. Median age was 49. They were tested 2-3 months after original diagnosis, and the majority of patients had cardiac abnormalities, even if their original symptoms were quite mild. 

"In this study of a cohort of German patients recently recovered from COVID-19 infection, CMR revealed cardiac involvement in 78 patients (78%) and ongoing myocardial inflammation in 60 patients (60%), independent of preexisting conditions, severity and overall course of the acute illness, and time from the original diagnosis."

 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamacardiology/fullarticle/2768916

That's.... not good.

[Bootsie]

3 hours ago, square_25 said:

It's hard to say, since something's funny going on with their testing numbers. It's not perfectly predictive like that. 

I was looking at the news reports in Texas about testing numbers and noticed that what was being reported in the media was different than what was on the Texas state site earlier this week.  I sent requests for clarification to two newspapers that reported the numbers, pointing to how they were different than on the Texas site and asking what their source was.  Neither one responded.  

Now, the state is reporting that the numbers have been messed up since a computer upgrade on August 1 and because of coding problems.  These errors lead to the positivity rate being reported as much higher than it probably was.