wuhan - coronavirus

[Ausmumof3]

I’m also wondering about something with the German study.  It looks like they sent a letter out asking people to volunteer.  I suspect people who suspected they’d had the virus and wanted to check might be more likely to volunteer than those who didn’t?  Im not sure if there was some way they controlled for that.  Sorry I keep thinking of new things hence the million short posts!

[Arcadia]

@Ausmumof3@square_25

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/04/world/europe/italy-coronavirus-antibodies.html

“Nowhere in Italy is the pursuit of the antibody strategy more intense than in Veneto. With its wealth of resources, high-profile consultants and biotech presence, it may now be uniquely positioned to influence the global conversation and provide insights for the rest of the world.

The region sits adjacent to the hard-hit Lombardy region, and one of its towns, Vo’, had Italy’s first fatality from the virus and was one of the first towns in the country to be quarantined.

Vo’ also has a relatively homogeneous genetic pool, which may facilitate research, and it has been widely tested. After the outbreak, officials there took the extraordinary step of swab-testing the entire population of 3,000, including people without symptoms.

That helped eliminate an outbreak, and now officials plan to carry out antibody testing and genome sequencing on the entire population to try to detect patterns in who was and was not susceptible to the virus.

Those results, expected in three or four months, perhaps could shed light on why some remained asymptomatic while others got sick, whether those who didn’t get infected already had antibodies and whether children had something that helped them avoid sickness.

“Italy has at the moment, of course, one of the largest pools of infected people that have recovered from the infection,” said Andrea Crisanti, the top scientific consultant on the virus in Veneto and a professor of microbiology at the University of Padua. He added that it was “a unique and valuable set of information and data.”

...

Scientists in Italy said the virus resulted in two types of antibodies, a first that usually appears within five to six days after exposure to the virus, and which fades after 20 days. As a person heals, that antibody, which indirectly shows contagion, is slowly replaced by another antibody, which indirectly shows that a person has had the virus.

When only the second antibody is detected, it means the person is probably no longer infected.

“You are most likely a healthy person that either survived the infection or you were asymptomatic and you have developed antibodies,” Dr. Crisanti said.

Giuliano Martini, the mayor of Vo’, said that he and the people in his town were grateful for the aggressive testing, which potentially saved hundreds of lives.

Once the central government in Rome lifted an initial quarantine on Vo’ in the beginning of March, Mr. Martini said, the comprehensive testing identified people who were infected but asymptomatic and kept them from spreading the disease.

Putting the town at the disposal of researchers looking to learn more about the virus and its antibodies is “the least we can do,” he said.

“We have to recognize this effort done for us by making ourselves available for future tests,” he said, adding that the town continued to be a gold standard in Italy for active surveillance, and that “we know the name and surname” of all the people who remain in quarantine.

...

Because Italy was further along in cases, researchers are able to track many patients over a long period of time to determine if immunity had developed.

“We find ourselves being a bit of a laboratory,” she said.”

[Pen]

2 hours ago, square_25 said:

Question: anyone know the death rate in Vo, Italy? The town where they tested all 3,300 residents? I'm finding lots of stories about the town but am having trouble figuring out the number of deaths, lol. Or was it just the single person who died there first that died? 

 

Supposedly just the one death 

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/home-italian-town-fought-coronavirus-200326110756424.html

indicates 100 % recovery rate other than that first death.  

And as long as borders are closed even though it is just one little town , it seems they can keep “eradicated” status for the town

[Arcadia]

@mathnerd

Santa Clara County updated their dashboard (ETA: Morgan Hill seems to be lumped with Gilroy on the dashboard map)https://www.sccgov.org/sites/phd/DiseaseInformation/novel-coronavirus/Pages/dashboard.aspx

Edited April 10, 2020 by Arcadia

[TravelingChris]

On 3/30/2020 at 10:08 PM, Katy said:

 

The only thing I've seen that's a potential negative is that it may cause heart damage or failure as a rare side effect.

That would be the azithromycin

[SeaConquest]

1 hour ago, MissLemon said:

 

No, Rackspace.  I was surprised and relieved at how fast they shut everything down.  In early March, they were still talking about sending people on business trips and I thought it was a bad idea.  As far as I know, there have not been any other positive cases among Rackspace employees since they sent everyone home. Rackspace's hq in San Antonio is a converted shopping mall with thousands of employees, so COVID-19 could have easily and rapidly spread through that place. I'm so grateful their leadership was decisive because it likely saved many people. 

And oh yeah, I am super glad SXSW was cancelled! That would have been a disaster!!! 

 

Omg, can you imagine how many lives were saved with that one decision? And I remember they were waffling about it because it was such a huge decision. I read that Wimbledon has been buying pandemic insurance for the last 17 years, paying $2 million per year for it.  The event was cancelled this year and so they will receive $141 million from the policy. I am 45 years old, not a scientist, and have been reading about why humanity will most certainly face an existential pandemic in the near term since I was in college. It boggles my mind that a tennis tournament was more prepared for this so very foreseeable event than our federal government. It's just so disheartening for a nation that supposedly so great as ours.

[lewelma]

24 minutes ago, square_25 said:

Having now gotten more comprehensive testing in various parts of the country, it's REALLY clear that the different parts of the country are at very different stages of the exponential growth. Which, again, is the problem with the model where we don't test at first -- we have no idea what's really happening where. 

I wonder if the right thing sometime soon would be to have some states open up, continuing the high volume of testing (if that's possible)? Because I'm worried about what will happen in places that don't have a serious outbreak anywhere near them and have to remain shuttered anyway :-/. I'm afraid people will get tired of staying at home (and economically, it's also pretty dire). And then what happens when they are actually hit by the outbreak? 

I see it as a big problem that the US is large enough that the outbreaks will happen at different times in different places.  So when NYC's numbers finally go down, if they come out of lock down, they could be reinfected again by regions who are delayed by a month in their outbreak.  Because NYC locked down, they restricted the number of people that got it, so there will not be herd immunity.  I see there being constant reinfections and new outbreaks until either herd immunity is acquired or a vaccine is found. The only solution I can see is to stop all transport between states, which I don't know is even possible. 

[Arcadia]

San Jose, California https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2020/04/09/coronavirus-new-outbreak-reported-san-jose-nursing-home-27-people-infected/

“SAN JOSE (CBS SF) — Officials at a San Jose nursing home on Thursday confirmed a new COVID-19 outbreak that has infected 27 people, including half of the facility’s long-term residents.

The Ridge Post-Acute nursing home — formerly known as the Mt. Pleasant Nursing Center — is located at 1355 Clayton Road in San Jose. The facility is reporting a total of 27 cases of COVID-19 infecting 17 residents and 10 employees, according to facility administrator Christin Marcheschi.

The outbreak has forced administrators at the nursing home to put a call out to other facilities in an appeal for workers to fill in for sick staff members, Marcheschi said.

The administrator said an additional nine coronavirus tests were pending. So far, none of the residents have become ill enough to require transfer to a hospital for treatment and none of the cases have been fatal.

The outbreak is the latest to hit a Bay Area nursing home or senior care facility. There have been several similar outbreaks at nursing homes in Orinda, Castro Valley and Hayward.”

[lewelma]

1 minute ago, square_25 said:

Yeah, it's a problem. But I think it's more surmountable with lots of testing. 

How? Tests must be connected to some sort of action to be useful.  What do you envision?

[lewelma]

3 minutes ago, square_25 said:

Well, quarantining, obviously. And serious contact tracing to extinguish outbreaks. 

It would really change NY, I know. I am not sure how workable it is. But I don't know what else there is. 

Oh, they are talking about doing lots of antibody testing here, too, to see who can go back to work safely. That does actually seem like a good idea, since the German study does suggest that we have many more people than we think who've had the virus. Not enough for herd immunity, but probably a significant percentage for sure. 

So, yes continued lockdown, that is my fear. I just can't see people agreeing to stay locked down for 6 months or a year or some such until mass production of a vaccine. Plus, obviously the economic impact is unthinkable, even with confirmed immune people out working as I assume that will be only a fraction of the population like 30%.   But I'm not sure you can do decent contact tracing in a city the size of NYC -- life there is just full of crowds.  

NZ is looking at Singapore's app for tracking all people you come within 2m each day. Sounds like we will be asked to voluntarily download it and only release the data if we are tested positive, or if one of our contacts is positive.  Still sounds overwhelming in a crowded large city. 

[Arcadia]

Long news article  How the biggest companies in the world are preparing to bring back their workforce

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/09/how-businesses-are-planning-to-bring-workers-back-after-coronavirus.html

“At some point, the biggest American companies are going to tell their employees it’s time to leave home and return to work. 

That decision will be fraught with risk without widespread testing for the COVID-19 virus. For some industries, such as Wall Street banks, ubiquitous testing is essential to bringing back their workforce to offices around the globe. For other industries, such as automakers, plans are already being made to open factories in a few weeks, with Fiat Chrysler and Tesla both saying they expect to begin production again on May 4.

Other industries, especially retail, are looking to China for guidance. China’s economy has been slowly coming back online in recent weeks as the government lifts lockdown orders. As people begin shopping there again, retailers like Levi Strauss said they’ll be looking at consumer habits and adapt accordingly once stores open in the U.S. Other retailers are expecting an acceleration of the shift to online shopping as people are forced to order goods online during the lockdown. That’s bad news for malls and other brick-and-mortar stores that will have to adapt to lower foot traffic.

How the U.S. will go from widespread quarantine to some semblance of normal is still a giant unknown. But returning to work will almost certainly happen in waves, driven by consumer demand and employer desperation, said Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. 

“For some things demand will snap back immediately,” said Gordon. “Those jobs — dentists, health care, barber shops — there’s a backlog of demand. Then there’s a similar category, like restaurants and bars, where people may be cooped up for so long that they’re desperate to go out to eat or get a drink. For other industries, the same urgency may not exist. It’s going to take a while for people to start buying new cars and new homes. And for some industries, like retail and airlines, things may never get back to normal.”

Employers’ back-to-work plans will also depend on geography, according to Peter Cappelli, a professor of management and director of The Wharton School’s Center of Human Resources at the University of Pennsylvania. Employers in rural areas and suburbs that saw fewer confirmed cases of coronavirus and resulting deaths will have an easier time convincing workers it’s safe to return to the office than cities such as New York and New Orleans, he said.

The close quarters of city offices may add another barrier to urban employers whose workspaces are not built for social distancing.

“If you drum it into everybody’s heads that they should be six feet away from each other and then you go back to an office and you’re in the cubicles or an open office plan, in particular, that will be creepy for people,” he said.

Any return to work effort will be a gradual process rather than setting a national “go back to the office” day, said Gordon. Still, many companies are already in a hurry to get employees back to work, Cappelli said. Corporate eagerness has only grown as companies see employees’ productivity dropping and their businesses “bleeding money like crazy.”

“When the restrictions are lifted, if the states ever say ‘the quarantine is over,’ I don’t think we’re going to have a big problem with people sitting on their hands,” Cappelli said. “We weren’t set up to do distance working. In most places, we just sent people home and hoped for the best.”

Several obvious hurdles

One major limitation on any reopening will be child care. Parents can’t go back to work if schools and day cares aren’t open. Many educational facilities have already proactively cancelled through the month of April, if not longer. With all schools making independent decisions on reopening, it’s nearly impossible to have a coordinated effort in the near term that’s not on a case-by-case, employee-by-employee basis. 

Another is simply having enough knowledge about the spread of the disease, which comes down to testing as many people as possible. 

“We have to start planning, restarting life,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said this week at a news conference. “We’re not there yet, but this is not a light switch that we can just flick one day and everything goes back to normal. We’re going to have to restart that economy. We’re going to have to restart a lot of systems that we shut down abruptly and we need to start to plan for that. My personal opinion: It’s going to come down to how good we are with testing.”

Several state governors talked Tuesday with Scott Gottlieb, the former head of the Food and Drug Administration, about plans to get people back to work, The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week.

“I’m worried we don’t have the systems in place to carefully reopen the economy,” Gottlieb told the Journal. “You need to be able to identify people who are sick and have the tools to enforce their isolation and [tracing of people they contact]. You have to have it at a scale we’ve never done before. We need leadership.”

Former Wells Fargo CEO Dick Kovacevich told CNBC employees should start returning after cities “bend the curve” on new cases. Kovacevich said when there’s evidence new cases are going down rather than up, sick people should stay quarantined while people who have recovered from the virus and others under 55 should go back to work if they’re comfortable with it. Social distancing in restaurants and in the workplace should continue, he said, but the country should “see what kind of response we get” and assess the results.

But simply getting beyond the peak of cases shouldn’t be enough to get people back to work, said Gordon. Rather, new cases will have to drop to nearly zero for the public to be comfortable returning to work and begin patronizing bars and restaurants, said Gordon. 

Legally OK, reputationally questionable

The tension between getting up and running as soon as possible versus taking chances with the health of employees is both a moral and a legal quandry. Employers have a relatively low legal risk, but a high reputational one, if they rush people back to the office, said Jonathan Segal, an employment attorney at law firm Duane Morris who specializes in human resources and minimizing companies’ legal and business risks.

Employers have a duty under the Occupational Safety and Health Act to make sure they provide a safe workplace. But it will be hard for an employee, client or customer to prove they were exposed to COVID-19 at the workplace, rather than the dry cleaner or grocery store, Segal said.

In addition to certain industries reopening before others, companies will also likely introduce employees slowly back to the workplace, rather than bringing everyone back at once, Segal said. A gradual return would help maintain social distancing in early days and would also give companies time to require employees to fill out health assessments or get tested, he said. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued guidance in mid-March, saying it’s legal for companies to ask employees if they have symptoms of COVID-19, such as a cough or shortness of breath, and take their temperature.”

[Arcadia]

@TCB@mathnerd San Francisco, California 
 

https://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/top-hospital-accused-of-putting-patients-in-danger/2270374/
“Four operating room staffers from California Pacific Medical Center Davies Campus told NBC Bay Area a plastic surgeon was doing elective breast reconstruction surgeries during the COVID-19 crisis, defying government orders.

The staffers spoke with NBC Bay Area anonymously - for fear of retaliation.

“We were very concerned that we were having to come in and spend many hours in the operating room doing cases that probably could be delayed,” adding “We were, all the nurses and scrub techs and staff, very surprised.” To make sure hospitals are prepared for a possible surge in COVID-19 patients, the American College of Surgeons and the San Francisco Department of Public Health have called for a moratorium on elective surgeries, which are procedures that are scheduled ahead of time and can be postponed.  SF Public Health warns that “Failure to comply…constitutes an imminent threat and creates an immediate menace to public health...and failure to comply is punishable by fine, imprisonment, or both.”

...

Last month, the organization stated all breast procedures, including for cancer patients, should be deferred. 

Upon reviewing a list of the procedures performed recently at CPMC, Dr. Levin said none of the procedures sounded like a necessary surgery that should be done during the COVID-19 crisis, due to the risk of infection.  

The Centers for Disease Control warns that by doing elective surgeries, hospitals put patients and staff at unnecessary risk of getting the virus. Staffers at the CPMC Davies campus told the Investigative Unit that an operating room person has already tested positive for COVID-19.

“We knew that there was exposure to us in the operating room, because one of us had been tested positive,” said one staffer. 
...

Dr. Levin underscored the potential for spreading the virus in a hospital.  “Let's just assume an elective patient comes in and is COVID-19 positive and hasn't been tested,” he said. “In an average surgery, even an outpatient surgery...that patient will probably touch on a health care system, 40 or 50 people within a few hours.”

When asked why a hospital would take that risk, Dr. Levin said, “Well, you know, there are financial rewards for health systems.”

An analysis of more than one million Medicare cases by George Washington University shows just how important elective surgeries are to hospital revenue.  For each patient receiving an elective surgery, the hospital receives an average of 700 dollars more than for a patient admitted through the emergency department.  Sutter Health tax filings for 2019 show the hospital group made 11.4 billion dollars in patient revenue in 2019.  Treating patients for coronavirus typically does not require surgery, so hospitals could lose billions of dollars during the outbreak.”

Edited April 10, 2020 by Arcadia

[Corraleno]

3 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

https://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/top-hospital-accused-of-putting-patients-in-danger/2270374/
“Four operating room staffers from California Pacific Medical Center Davies Campus told NBC Bay Area a plastic surgeon was doing elective breast reconstruction surgeries during the COVID-19 crisis, defying government orders.

I do think hospitals in areas that have not been hit hard yet should be allowed to proceed with cancer surgeries, which I wouldn't exactly consider "elective." The fact that they are doing breast implants, while postponing much more critical surgeries, is just despicable. 🤬

[Ausmumof3]

Bno - Over the past 24 hours, the U.S. reported 35,147 new cases of coronavirus and 1,863 new deaths, raising total to 467,846 cases and 16,632 dead

[Ausmumof3]

First case reported in Yemen 

😞 

[Ausmumof3]

11 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

I do think hospitals in areas that have not been hit hard yet should be allowed to proceed with cancer surgeries, which I wouldn't exactly consider "elective." The fact that they are doing breast implants, while postponing much more critical surgeries, is just despicable. 🤬

I wonder if it’s due to concern for what happens if someone does contract it mid cancer treatment. 

[Corraleno]

1 minute ago, Ausmumof3 said:

I wonder if it’s due to concern for what happens if someone does contract it mid cancer treatment. 

But assuming this virus is going to be around for a while, postponing treatment for months might be an even bigger risk. ☹️ 

I was (mis)diagnosed with breast cancer when my son was an infant, and the two week wait between the misdiagnosis and the biopsy was the most traumatic period of my life. I can't even imagine the fear and anxiety I would feel if I were to be diagnosed now, and then told that I couldn't have the necessary surgery, possibly for months, because of coronavirus. 😥

[Terabith]

I'm seeing a number of articles stating that people who have recovered from the disease do not have sufficient antibodies to fight off the disease again.  It makes me wonder:  Is a vaccine a realistic option for this?  

[Corraleno]

18 minutes ago, Terabith said:

I'm seeing a number of articles stating that people who have recovered from the disease do not have sufficient antibodies to fight off the disease again.  It makes me wonder:  Is a vaccine a realistic option for this?  

I think that's really worrying. And it seems like it's older people with more severe cases who do develop some immunity, while younger healthier people with mild cases don't. If that's true, then the whole idea of letting young, healthy people catch it and go back to work, while building population-wide herd immunity, also goes out the window. 😕 

[ElizabethB]

The Idaho ski county, Blaine County, has one of the highest case rates in the country on a per capita basis.  They are going to do some antibody testing there to see how much of the population was actually infected, as well as study a few other things, the article is interesting.

https://idahonews.com/news/coronavirus/blaine-county-to-start-testing-study-residents-for-covid-19-antibodies

[Ausmumof3]

https://news.trust.org/item/20200409114121-6tjeh
 

267 cases in Singapore.  Appears to be related to a cluster in migrant worker accommodation.

[Corraleno]

British doctor explaining exactly how Covid kills people. I know there was a discussion on myocarditis a few pages back — this doctor says that is actually the leading cause of death in most of the CV patients they see.

 

[Pippen]

Awesome ad by Ohio's Dept of Health

[TracyP]

43 minutes ago, Happymomof1 said:

Once again, I am NOT saying open up.  I am mourning what will become of the hospitals and docs.  They are going to die (literally).  Their practices will die.  Hospitals will die.  I know this is what we have to do for a year or more...  Because as long as hot spots are creeping up all over the nation, which is what is going to happen.  NYC will finally get back to normal and San Antonio will flare up.  So hospitals will need to stay somewhat ready.  It might come back to NYC.  So how in the world will you be able to do elective cases for the next 2 years? I don't know.  I don't see an answer and it really scares me.

I do not have high hopes for herd immunity. The cost to get to that level of immunity seems too high unless we learn that you get immunity for several years. That is not looking likely.

I do not have high hopes for a vaccine. Maybe at some point, but I think we are looking at 2-4 years at a minimum. 

I do, however, have high hopes for a treatment. We are only *weeks* into this and new info is flooding in. Cloroquine might show some promise, but a doc I heard the other day said that is only one of 6 drugs that are being tried. The world has never had this kind of motivation to find a treatment and I absolutely believe we will. That, to me, is our way out of this and I think we will know so much more in just a few months.

Edited April 10, 2020 by TracyP

10 hours ago, lewelma said:

So, yes continued lockdown, that is my fear. I just can't see people agreeing to stay locked down for 6 months or a year or some such until mass production of a vaccine. Plus, obviously the economic impact is unthinkable, even with confirmed immune people out working as I assume that will be only a fraction of the population like 30%.   But I'm not sure you can do decent contact tracing in a city the size of NYC -- life there is just full of crowds.  

NZ is looking at Singapore's app for tracking all people you come within 2m each day. Sounds like we will be asked to voluntarily download it and only release the data if we are tested positive, or if one of our contacts is positive.  Still sounds overwhelming in a crowded large city. 

I personally wouldn’t trust them to not release the data or for it not to be hacked.  Maybe it would go over fine in NZ, but I would envision a huge uproar over tracking people’s every movement.  Also, I envision issues with creating divides in society with a registry because you have a pass to work and someone else doesn’t.  All that seems likely to do is cause people to intentionally get themselves infected so they can get to work to be able to feed their families.  I think in the USA at least, we need to start learning to live with the disease.  Allow companies to get some workers in to allow others to work from home more than they were.  If my husband could get into work for a couple of hours to change over some testing, twenty people in his group could work from home for two weeks, but our governor has deemed it nonessential so no one can enter the building.  The transition won’t be pretty and will require some creative solutions and it won’t be where we were for awhile, but what we are doing right now is not sustainable.  The “slow the spread”, or “flatten the curve” stay at home orders in my mind were to give hospitals time to prepare and get the needed equipment, not lock us in our homes or crush our civil liberties until no one was going to die of Coronavirus.  Believe me, even if we do people both of those people will start dying in undeniable numbers from Coronavirus that have nothing to do with actual infection if we don’t come up with a plan soon.  Covid 19 might not be on their death certificate, but it will be a direct consequence.  Maybe China can do the extended lockdown - people are conditioned to know they will disappear if they don’t behave, Singapore seems conditioned enough to comply as well, but I get the sense here in the Midwest we are nearing the end of people’s willingness to simply comply with emergency orders without making a fuss.  

[Ausmumof3]

17 minutes ago, Mom2mthj said:

I personally wouldn’t trust them to not release the data or for it not to be hacked.  Maybe it would go over fine in NZ, but I would envision a huge uproar over tracking people’s every movement.  Also, I envision issues with creating divides in society with a registry because you have a pass to work and someone else doesn’t.  All that seems likely to do is cause people to intentionally get themselves infected so they can get to work to be able to feed their families.  I think in the USA at least, we need to start learning to live with the disease.  Allow companies to get some workers in to allow others to work from home more than they were.  If my husband could get into work for a couple of hours to change over some testing, twenty people in his group could work from home for two weeks, but our governor has deemed it nonessential so no one can enter the building.  The transition won’t be pretty and will require some creative solutions and it won’t be where we were for awhile, but what we are doing right now is not sustainable.  The “slow the spread”, or “flatten the curve” stay at home orders in my mind were to give hospitals time to prepare and get the needed equipment, not lock us in our homes or crush our civil liberties until no one was going to die of Coronavirus.  Believe me, even if we do people both of those people will start dying in undeniable numbers from Coronavirus that have nothing to do with actual infection if we don’t come up with a plan soon.  Covid 19 might not be on their death certificate, but it will be a direct consequence.  Maybe China can do the extended lockdown - people are conditioned to know they will disappear if they don’t behave, Singapore seems conditioned enough to comply as well, but I get the sense here in the Midwest we are nearing the end of people’s willingness to simply comply with emergency orders without making a fuss.  

I hadn’t thought of that but that’s almost certainly a risk with giving people and out once they have antibodies.

[Ausmumof3]

2 hours ago, Happymomof1 said:

I know.  I hate this virus.  I see absolutely no way out of this for years.  Who knows what life will look like by then.  My poor college senior and graduate school kid...  It all looks so incredibly hopeless.

I don’t think it’s that hopeless.  Testing shows that people develop antibodies we just don’t know how long they last.  We know some people have a higher Immune response than others.  Figuring out why will help with developing a vaccine:  there are companies all over the world working on getting a vaccine.  Yes there are some concerns about reinfection but it’s occurred in 50 cases or so out of the first 80,000.  It’s most likely something odd or specific to those individual people’s immune systems.  We may not get long lasting immunity but even if we can get 12 months it’s no worse than a flu shot.  

[Acadie]

1 hour ago, TracyP said:

I do, however, have high hopes for a treatment. We are only *weeks* into this and new info is flooding in. Cloroquine might show some promise, but a doc I heard the other day said that is only one of 6 drugs that are being tried. The world has never had this kind of motivation to find a treatment and I absolutely believe we will. That, to me, is our way out of this and I think we will know so much more in just a few months.

 

I'm also hopeful that new treatments + extensive testing will allow us to identify and treat new cases as they pop up, to prevent people from moving into the advanced stages of the illness. There are so many people working on this, from different angles. Something is going to make a difference. Not necessarily a miracle cure, but something that combined with continuing public health efforts like massive testing campaigns will change for the better how we live with this for the next year or two.

I do have some hope for a vaccine, but I think it's a long way off, and that before that we'll find other ways to move stepwise to a somewhat more sustainable place. 

Edited April 10, 2020 by Acadie

[HeartString]

I find it discouraging that our hopes are all pinned on a vaccine, but they’ve never succeeded in a vaccine for a Corona virus before.  Lots of time and money will be poured into developing one yes, but not everything can be vaccinated against.  Completely different, but the same principle, we don’t have an HIV vaccine yet and time and money have been poured into that for 40 years. 

[Slache]

I assumed by cancer patients they meant those who had had masectomies and needed implants. Not everyone gets those at the same time, unfortunately.

[matrips]

Would someone repost the post and link that talked about covid targeting the red blood cells?  It was within the past week.  I want to send to a medical researcher friend in NY to ask her about it.

[Pawz4me]

1 hour ago, Happymomof1 said:

I have a friend whose father-in-law died from Covid and got it by going in for cancer treatments.  It was the only place he had been out of the house. He was from New Orleans.

DH's cancer treatment has been suspended for awhile, until we see how this plays out. Even though he's stage IV his cancer has been relatively indolent. His oncologist was more concerned about his increased risk of contracting Covid 19 from coming into the infusion center or possibly developing a side effect from treatment that would require hospitalization, than he is about the cancer at the moment. As far as anxiety for those who are newly diagnosed or seeking to get diagosed--I feel tremendous sympathy. I remember those days well. It's easier to deal with treatment delays when you've been dealing with it for awhile and cancer has become a part of your normal landscape. But two things really convinced me what a truly big deal the Covid 19 risk is--the first was when the big tech companies in Silicon Valley issued mandatory work from home orders. I assumed they had access to top notch health experts and weren't making their decisions lightly. The second was when DH's oncologist recommended taking a treatment break.

[TravelingChris]

On 4/6/2020 at 10:21 PM, EmseB said:

I am not against people using supplements where the amount of said supplement is clearly labeled on the packaging. 2x is not just another unit of measurement that I don't understand and is not equivalent to 13mg in all cases. If the package says 13mg, that is something entirely different. If I have to figure out how much (if any) zinc is actually in the thing by getting it tested in a lab, no thanks.

Again, homeopathy is a specific thing. Homeopathy promises that like cures like and diluting a substance precisely so that it is undetectable in a solution makes said substance more potent. If we're talking about taking 13mg of zinc per day, that is not homeopathy.

You are completely right.  It is not homeopathy.  But I have noticed a trend in the last few years-  a number of supplement companies are using "homeopathy" labels when there produicts are not homeopathic at all.  Nor is there any reason for the homeopathy because these are not dangerous supplements or poisons but actually herbs or minerals that are useful.

[Arcadia]

7 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

https://news.trust.org/item/20200409114121-6tjeh
267 cases in Singapore.  Appears to be related to a cluster in migrant worker accommodation.

That was a day ago. Clusters in many foreign worker dormitories.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/covid-19-new-clusters-ica-nuh-dormitory-death-coronavirus-12630852

“SINGAPORE: Singapore reported another death linked to COVID-19 and 198 new cases on Friday (Apr 10), taking the total number of cases to 2,108..

... In total, seven people have passed away from complications due to COVID-19 infection.”

[SKL]

1 hour ago, Ausmumof3 said:

I don’t think it’s that hopeless.  Testing shows that people develop antibodies we just don’t know how long they last.  We know some people have a higher Immune response than others.  Figuring out why will help with developing a vaccine:  there are companies all over the world working on getting a vaccine.  Yes there are some concerns about reinfection but it’s occurred in 50 cases or so out of the first 80,000.  It’s most likely something odd or specific to those individual people’s immune systems.  We may not get long lasting immunity but even if we can get 12 months it’s no worse than a flu shot.  

Good point - there are some people who for whatever reason don't develop long-lasting immunity to things.  People who have had chickenpox multiple times for instance.  If the number of cases is very low, that is not a reason to doubt the general concept of acquired immunity.

This is another case where partial / sensational reporting can do damage.  If they are going to report re-infection cases, then shouldn't they also, at the same time, report that this is very rare afatk?  You can see people despairing or getting depressed over the partial info.

[Arcadia]

16 minutes ago, matrips said:

Would someone repost the post and link that talked about covid targeting the red blood cells?  It was within the past week.  I want to send to a medical researcher friend in NY to ask her about it.

@TCB posted a summary. (ETA: around Tuesday)
I posted the link to the paper

https://chemrxiv.org/articles/COVID-19_Disease_ORF8_and_Surface_Glycoprotein_Inhibit_Heme_Metabolism_by_Binding_to_Porphyrin/11938173
“COVID-19: Attacks the 1-Beta Chain of Hemoglobin and Captures the Porphyrin to Inhibit Human Heme Metabolism”

ETA:

The twitter feed summarizing https://mobile.twitter.com/davidasinclair/status/1238972082756648960

Edited April 10, 2020 by Arcadia

[Ausmumof3]

16 minutes ago, matrips said:

Would someone repost the post and link that talked about covid targeting the red blood cells?  It was within the past week.  I want to send to a medical researcher friend in NY to ask her about it.

https://chemrxiv.org/articles/COVID-19_Disease_ORF8_and_Surface_Glycoprotein_Inhibit_Heme_Metabolism_by_Binding_to_Porphyrin/11938173
 

https://mobile.twitter.com/davidasinclair/status/1238972089614438401

 

I think there was another more recent one someone else might know?

 

[Pen]

2 hours ago, Mom2mthj said:

I personally wouldn’t trust them to not release the data or for it not to be hacked.  Maybe it would go over fine in NZ, but I would envision a huge uproar over tracking people’s every movement.  Also, I envision issues with creating divides in society with a registry because you have a pass to work and someone else doesn’t.  All that seems likely to do is cause people to intentionally get themselves infected so they can get to work to be able to feed their families.  I think in the USA at least, we need to start learning to live with the disease.  Allow companies to get some workers in to allow others to work from home more than they were.  If my husband could get into work for a couple of hours to change over some testing, twenty people in his group could work from home for two weeks, but our governor has deemed it nonessential so no one can enter the building.  The transition won’t be pretty and will require some creative solutions and it won’t be where we were for awhile, but what we are doing right now is not sustainable.  The “slow the spread”, or “flatten the curve” stay at home orders in my mind were to give hospitals time to prepare and get the needed equipment, not lock us in our homes or crush our civil liberties until no one was going to die of Coronavirus.  Believe me, even if we do people both of those people will start dying in undeniable numbers from Coronavirus that have nothing to do with actual infection if we don’t come up with a plan soon.  Covid 19 might not be on their death certificate, but it will be a direct consequence.  Maybe China can do the extended lockdown - people are conditioned to know they will disappear if they don’t behave, Singapore seems conditioned enough to comply as well, but I get the sense here in the Midwest we are nearing the end of people’s willingness to simply comply with emergency orders without making a fuss.  

 

I think that it might help for more people to understand the importance of the Physical Distancing and to take that on personally rather than to have to rely on orders.

Afaik orders came (at least in far West) because many of us were Distancing a lot, even isolating, but a reckless group were jeopardizing everyone’s health by congregating in bars and beaches for spring break or similar behaviors. 

 

Edited April 10, 2020 by Pen

[Ausmumof3]

Oops sorry posted at the same time

[matrips]

4 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

https://chemrxiv.org/articles/COVID-19_Disease_ORF8_and_Surface_Glycoprotein_Inhibit_Heme_Metabolism_by_Binding_to_Porphyrin/11938173
 

https://mobile.twitter.com/davidasinclair/status/1238972089614438401

 

I think there was another more recent one someone else might know?

 

Thanks.  Do you know what page or what day that discussion was on?  

 

There was another post as well that mentioned some of the genetics involved.  I want to go back and reread the posts.

[TravelingChris]

On 4/7/2020 at 7:27 PM, EmseB said:

The dude flew halfway around the world to lecture a bunch of sick sailors about doing their duty while calling their former CO whom he fired naive or stupid for letting his letter leak to the media while speaking on the shipwide PA. Gotta at least admire his chutzpah were it not for his lack of self awareness.

I have also noticed that the navy is mighty quiet about who approved or insisted on that port call in Vietnam.

Yes, my dh, who is a retired USAF officer, thought it was really ironic that the Sec of Navy was brought down by the same thing (leaked video vs leaked email) that he fired  Crozier for and called him naive and stupid.

[Ausmumof3]

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.31.018556v1
 

non peer reviewed preprint study - shows potential fatal effects when using metformin and chloroquine together in mice.  

[Arcadia]

San Jose, California https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/coronavirus/south-bay-church-taking-easter-service-to-a-drive-in-movie-theater/2270763/

“Amid the coronavirus pandemic, one South Bay church is still planning to hold massive Easter services thanks to a drive-in movie theater.

Southridge Church of San Jose is slated to take over Capitol Drive-In to hold services at 9 a.m, 10:15 a.m., 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.

The church purchased an FM transmitter so attendees will be able to listen to Easter service from their cars — an act that's in line with social distancing requirements. People interested in attending do need to register in advance.

... The church will have a pop-up pantry and plans to give out 60,000 Easter eggs to children. It’s also offering up to 1,000 fabric masks for people who need them.”

Edited April 10, 2020 by Arcadia

[Ausmumof3]

On 4/8/2020 at 3:49 AM, TCB said:

I saw something interesting on a healthcare FB Covid site - no source, couldn’t get the link to open also so am just going to copy and paste.

Below is a quote - not written by me!

 

 

“A friend sent this to me and it makes SO MUCH SENSE!!  Hypothesizing that covid-19 is a primary hematologic infection rather than respiratory.  This is an analysis done on a computer to study the virus.  A lengthy read but it is what we are seeing in these patients.

"Might not even be a respiratory illness after all and that's just a byproduct of the wreckage it makes in blood haemoglobin (thus making ARDS a symptom not a cause).

I wish this would get more traction because if this computational analysis is correct, this could completely change the way we approach COVID, globally.

I will copy some summaries that explain this paper in layman's terms:

- Using computational analysis (modeling the behavior of a molecule in a computer), they've worked out the probable mechanism by which SARS-nCov-2 wreaks havoc on patients, as well as why chloroquine and favipiravir seem to work.

- Inside our red blood cells, there is a molecule called hemoglobin, which contains heme groups. Each heme group is a molecular "ring" (called a porphyrin) that can hold an iron (Fe) ion inside. Having an iron ion inside is what allows this heme to carry O2 (and CO2) in our blood. This is how our bodies move O2 to our tissues and remove CO2 waste products.

- The paper modeled these and found that the proteins produced when COVID replicates "collaborate" to knock iron ions out of heme groups (HBB) and replace them with one of the proteins. This makes the red blood cell unable to transport O2 and CO2!

- If the computer modeling is right, it shows that the virus hijacks our [red] blood [cells] and makes it unable to carry O2 to a patient's tissues/organs, and likewise unable to carry CO2 out of them. This would lead to organ and tissue death, roughly in the same way as if a patient were being suffocated. Even when a patient can breath (fill lungs with air), the oxygen isn't getting to the cells in their body.

- The inflammation in the lungs results from the lungs not being able to perform the oxygen/CO2 exchange, and would therefore appear to be a SECONDARY result of the hijacking of the blood. The lungs not working is a result of lack of O2 in blood, not the cause of it. Hence the "ground glass opacities".

- The paper models the behavior of chloroquine and faviparavir as well, which appear to bind to the non-structural viral proteins that hijack the heme groups, thus inhibiting them from knocking out the iron and wrecking the O2-carrying ability of the red blood cells.

- This also explains the observation made by various ER docs (incl this one in New Orleans) that patients tend to have elevated ferritin: ferritin is used to store excess iron. If a lot of iron is knocked out of heme groups and floating around, the body produces more ferritin

If true, this may mean a few things:

1. Starting drug treatment while symptoms are mild keeps virus from hijacking too much blood, enabling a still-healthy body to mount an immune response. Explains why early drug treatment (first week of symptoms) is often successful.

2. Drug treatment and intubation once patient is critical will rarely work because tissues/organs are already damaged, blood can't carry O2, and the body is too weak to produce new red blood cells able to carry Fe (and thus oxygen/CO2) even if drugs inhibit more hijacking.

3. Thus: start severe patients on drug treatment upon hospital intake to suppress further hijacking of blood by the virus, then give them a blood transfusion of new red blood cells immediately that are unhijacked. If all this is true, we would see rapid patient improvement.

---

The problem is we have not yet had studies testing whether patients will respond well to blood transfusions from people who have not had COVID-19. Right now medical attention is focused on blood transfusions from those who have beat COVID and have antibodies. This needs to be looked at

This research ties in to the fact that weight/age/high blood pressure are such risk factor and why certain blood types are less afflicted than other

NonAfrican malaria risk zones have a population with genetic thalassemia, which would explain the discrepancies in the population affected by CV, this is noted in Italy:" “

Quoting to bring this to the top of the thread 

[Ausmumof3]

15 minutes ago, matrips said:

Thanks.  Do you know what page or what day that discussion was on?  

 

There was another post as well that mentioned some of the genetics involved.  I want to go back and reread the posts.

I think I managed to quote the post you are looking for so it should be a post or two up from this one 

[Arcadia]

😡Howell Township, New Jersey

https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/coronavirus/man-with-covid-19-goes-on-shoplifting-spree-at-nj-lowes-store-police-say/2270102/
“A New Jersey man who knew he had the novel coronavirus went on a shoplifting spree, putting the four officers who arrested him in danger, investigators said. 

Police say the man, who they have not identified due to HIPPA laws, along with two other suspects, stole more than $2,000 in power tools from a Lowe’s store in Howell Township, New Jersey, on Monday around 2 p.m. 

A security officer, two shoppers and four Howell Township Police officers who responded were exposed while trying to detain and arrest the trio, who took no precautions to protect others inside the store, according to investigators.”

[Pen]

2 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

😡Howell Township, New Jersey

https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/coronavirus/man-with-covid-19-goes-on-shoplifting-spree-at-nj-lowes-store-police-say/2270102/
“A New Jersey man who knew he had the novel coronavirus went on a shoplifting spree, putting the four officers who arrested him in danger, investigators said. 

Police say the man, who they have not identified due to HIPPA laws, along with two other suspects, stole more than $2,000 in power tools from a Lowe’s store in Howell Township, New Jersey, on Monday around 2 p.m. 

A security officer, two shoppers and four Howell Township Police officers who responded were exposed while trying to detain and arrest the trio, who took no precautions to protect others inside the store, according to investigators.”

 

That makes me so angry!

 I think penalties should be extremely extremely severe.

 

(Also penalties for arson should be super severe: massive damage and loss of human , animal and plant life can come from it ). 

[TravelingChris]

22 hours ago, ElizabethB said:

Another factor in the difference may also be vitamin D.  I posted earlier about how it may be part of the racial gap, but it may also be some of the difference between NY and CA.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/vitamin-d-coronavirus-gap-liz-brown/

And I found out that there is a genetic cause for some people to have low Vitamin D.  My youngest was diagnosed with juvenile osteoporosis which started when we were living in Florida and she was outside a lot.  Last year, I ran my dh's and my genetics through Promothease and I found out that my dh has a genetic deficiency to producing vitamin D on his own- which I am sure my youngest inherited.    Oh and he has no African roots at all, according to those same genetic tests.   

[mommyoffive]

2 hours ago, Cnew02 said:

I find it discouraging that our hopes are all pinned on a vaccine, but they’ve never succeeded in a vaccine for a Corona virus before.  Lots of time and money will be poured into developing one yes, but not everything can be vaccinated against.  Completely different, but the same principle, we don’t have an HIV vaccine yet and time and money have been poured into that for 40 years. 

 

Yes, but aren't there meds for HIV positive people to be almost undetectable? 

CDC Agrees That Person with Undetectable HIV Cannot Transmit the Virus. The agency has adopted the widely accepted position that an HIV-positive person with an undetectable viral load cannot pass the virus through unprotected sex. If you can't detect it, you can't transmit it

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/cdc-person-with-undetectable-hiv-cannot-transmit-virus

[ElizabethB]

25 minutes ago, TravelingChris said:

And I found out that there is a genetic cause for some people to have low Vitamin D.  My youngest was diagnosed with juvenile osteoporosis which started when we were living in Florida and she was outside a lot.  Last year, I ran my dh's and my genetics through Promothease and I found out that my dh has a genetic deficiency to producing vitamin D on his own- which I am sure my youngest inherited.    Oh and he has no African roots at all, according to those same genetic tests.   

Can they get their levels up adequately with supplements or cod liver oil?  Adequate levels of vitamin D seem to be important for so many different things.