wuhan - coronavirus

[Pen]

2 hours ago, square_25 said:

 

So you're saying some of them were "hardier" and didn't get infected enough to develop antibodies despite getting exposed? 

 

I don’t know.  🤷‍♀️ I think it is possible.  

Or have medical professionals been given a different more specific test than other people?

PPE seems like it would be part of the answer, but not sure if all of it. 

I would tend to think There almost certainly would have been some exposures for medical workers even before they knew to wear PPE.  For example, Similar to China as with ophthalmologists thinking they were dealing with well patients (in NYC maybe in February-early March or so, maybe even back in January) but encountering some Asymptomatic carriers...and doing fairly close face to face exams for more than a moment or two.  Ophthalmologists often don’t wear PPE.  

Dentists and dental hygienists also would likely have had a good bit of up close and personal exposure—but do more often wear masks IME. 

[Pen]

58 minutes ago, Terabith said:

@Pen, nobody has said BCG prevents anyone from contracting covid.  There have been some studies that it may reduce the likelihood of contracting infection, but the main argument is that it seems to reduce the rate of hospitalization/ death.  Not to zero, but one article (I can't remember where; it was about a month back) said by about a factor of 10.  

 

Oh. Well reducing hospitalization and death by around a factor of 10 would be good.  

I was not expecting a reduction to zero. 

But I thought the way it seemed to be being gone after by some (Gates?) as a possible vaccine for SARS2, that it would be expected to have much better than just a reduction by factor of 10. 

I think usually vaccines are expected to do better than that. 

 

 

[Terabith]

1 minute ago, Pen said:

 

Oh. Well reducing hospitalization and death by around a factor of 10 would be good.  

I was not expecting a reduction to zero. 

But I thought the way it seemed to be being gone after by some (Gates?) as a possible vaccine for SARS2, that it would be expected to have much better than just a reduction by factor of 10. 

I think usually vaccines are expected to do better than that. 

 

 

I don't think Gates was suggesting that it would be a vaccine for SARS2 but that this is a vaccine that is already in existence and that deploying it more universally might reduce both infection and serious illness/ hospitalization/ help prevent hospital overwhelm.  I called both my GP and the kids' pediatrician to see if we could get it, but it's not given in the US.  Not a replacement for a vaccine for covid but something that could be useful NOW.

[Pen]

11 minutes ago, Terabith said:

I don't think Gates was suggesting that it would be a vaccine for SARS2 but that this is a vaccine that is already in existence and that deploying it more universally might reduce both infection and serious illness/ hospitalization/ help prevent hospital overwhelm.  I called both my GP and the kids' pediatrician to see if we could get it, but it's not given in the US.  Not a replacement for a vaccine for covid but something that could be useful NOW.

 

It has been in short supply even before CV19.  If they think it will help,  production will need to ramp up. 

[Terabith]

2 minutes ago, Pen said:

 

It has been in short supply even before CV19.  If they think it will help,  production will need to ramp up. 

I'm sure it would.  But I would think it would still be a worthwhile stop gap in the interim, since it's already been approved and tested and they know how to develop it?  It might even be worthwhile to deploy it only to certain populations, like health care workers or people who work/ live in crowded conditions.  

[Pen]

BCG possibly of interest @Terabith others

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2792660/

[Pen]

BCG: adverse events—

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BCG_disease_outbreak_in_Finland_in_the_2000s

 

[Storygirl]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/07/health/coronavirus-semen-china-health/index.html

I don't think I've seen this posted yet. Possible transmission through semen presents a new set of potential issues.

[Pen]

14 minutes ago, Dreamergal said:

In India, there is a form of the polio vaccine that will cause a "vaccine" polio if given to malnourished children (very sure about this). I think even BCG cannot prevent TB if the child is malnourished (I am not sure about this). So BCG is not a magic vaccine. In a big population and targeted vaccination, it makes a difference especially in the death rate. I do not know of anyone dying of TB in two generations of my family or even having it when it devastated my grandparents generation and we had the vaccine. But it is not fool proof. It always has it's side effects and the most impacted with them based on what I know from anecdotal and what I read. Neither TB nor Polio are eliminated in India. We still have new cases every year.

 

I was living in NYC during a TB outbreak in late 1980s- early 1990s.  It tended to affect less well nourished people and not so much the more well nourished, even without any vaccine.  There was another NYC TB spike a couple of years ago—possibly also in Queens similar area to  that hard hit by CV19 recently. 

BCG has very mixed results in re preventing TB—maybe nutrition is related idk. 

 

still, BCG disease is quite serious and afaik the Finnish children  (iirc mostly a pediatric issue after infant vaccination ?) who had a number of deaths from BCG Disease were not malnourished 

[Matryoshka]

1 minute ago, Storygirl said:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/07/health/coronavirus-semen-china-health/index.html

I don't think I've seen this posted yet. Possible transmission through semen presents a new set of potential issues.

It got posted on another of the many covid threads, and I'll repeat my reaction here... meh.  If you're close enough to someone with coronavirus be having sex, there are a zillion other ways you are going to catch it from them anyway, unless you're going at it in full hazmat gear with convenient access panels... 

[Pen]

3 minutes ago, Matryoshka said:

It got posted on another of the many covid threads, and I'll repeat my reaction here... meh.  If you're close enough to someone with coronavirus be having sex, there are a zillion other ways you are going to catch it from them anyway, unless you're going at it in full hazmat gear with convenient access panels... 

 

You might end up with a different manifestation, such as I mentioned above in relationship to TB, that it can be a pelvic / genital / uterine disease ...   and that might become another way to miss recognizing infections. 

And if true, virus ability to be hiding out in testes might well be a significant problem. 

[Matryoshka]

6 minutes ago, Pen said:

 

You might end up with a different manifestation, such as I mentioned above in relationship to TB, that it can be a pelvic / genital / uterine disease ...   and that might become another way to miss recognizing infections. 

And if true, virus ability to be hiding out in testes might well be a significant problem. 

Ewww, and you could be right - I wasn't thinking about the possibility of post-obvious disease, long-term issues. Nasty stinking sneaky virus. 

[Melissa in Australia]

3 hours ago, Dreamergal said:

What do you suggest they do ? Tell them, reason with them, beg them ? These are not children, but grown adults, mostly young men who think they are so smart they can get away from the police like a game. I

do not believe in spanking children, I believe in teaching them. But adults who behave like children and put others in dangers due to insensitive behavior will not get a pass from me. A gun used against them will kill them, a cane will give them pain for a brief minute, possibly a scar. It will scare them though and that is the object. I am ok with that.

I agree with you. 

I think it a lot more humane than a tazer

[Ausmumof3]

3 hours ago, StellaM said:

A survey by the Transport Workers Union of over 850 Qantas workers, has drawn heated denials from Qantas management, highlighting the gulf between staff and management over the airline’s handling of the Covid-19 crisis.

The survey showed 81% said Qantas did not put appropriate safety measures in place to deal with the risk of infection and 93% were concerned about their own and others safety at work.

The union says Qantas has had one of the worst workplace clusters during the pandemic with at least 60 people infected nationally across the Qantas Group, including 34 in South Australia centring on the Qantas baggage room at Adelaide airport. 750 Qantas staff went into quarantine as a result of the outbreak.

The survey also revealed that 47% of workers said they don’t feel they can raise safety issues at work, with the vast majority saying this was because they didn’t believe it would make a difference.

Didn’t one of the staff members lose their jobs for complaining about safety issues before the outbreak?

[Ausmumof3]

8 minutes ago, Melissa in Australia said:

I agree with you. 

I think it a lot more humane than a tazer

This was my thought.  Not a fan of beatings but a taser must be worse . But I think they have to fill out paperwork after using a taser to prove it was justified hopefully to prevent abuse.

[Ausmumof3]

1 hour ago, Pen said:

 

You might end up with a different manifestation, such as I mentioned above in relationship to TB, that it can be a pelvic / genital / uterine disease ...   and that might become another way to miss recognizing infections. 

And if true, virus ability to be hiding out in testes might well be a significant problem. 

There has already been concerns over long term effects on fertility - I wonder if that’s linked.  

[Arcadia]

Santa Clara County. People are upset  

https://abc7news.com/health/santa-clara-co-prohibits-drive-by-celebrations-causing-confusion-for-police-community/6161675/
“SANTA CLARA COUNTY, Calif. (KGO) -- Driveby parades are the new way of celebrating during the coronavirus shelter-in-place, but they are actually not technically allowed in Santa Clara County.

...

The county released the below statement regarding these new community celebrations:

"The rule has been in place since the first March 16 order. The order is aimed at having people shelter in place at home, minimizing going out for anything that is not an essential function. Car parades were never envisioned as something that would be allowed, because from a public health perspective, you want to minimize public gatherings."

...

This instantly drew criticism, including from the county's biggest police department.

"Since this began, it seems like the goalposts have not just been moving for our community, but for law enforcement," San Jose Police Department Chief Eddie Garcia said. "I don't know how any police chief in this county can look at their community in the face and say while people are being released out of jail with zero bail, serious criminals, that now we are going to stop people from holding signs, driving around and wishing individuals happy birthday's or happy graduations."
...

The County says that enforcement of the rules falls on police departments

But Chief Garcia said his department will do what they think is appropriate.

"These enforcement decisions have never taken place with any input from any of the police chiefs," Chief Garcia said. "So the enforcement that we're going to do will be warnings to our community."”

[Ausmumof3]

Looks like potentially passing 4million cases in the next couple of days

US cases were back up to 29,000 yesterday although that might be increased testing 

[EmseB]

Can I ask a possibly obtuse question?

Are we, the whole world, everyone, just uncritically accepting that China is having no new cases? Just...nothing? I don't understand this phenomenon. Is there any real information out there about what is happening in China?

[Ausmumof3]

Well we have our roadmap

i must admit I’m nervous about it 

[Ausmumof3]

11 minutes ago, EmseB said:

Can I ask a possibly obtuse question?

Are we, the whole world, everyone, just uncritically accepting that China is having no new cases? Just...nothing? I don't understand this phenomenon. Is there any real information out there about what is happening in China?

I don’t think so.  But realistically we were mostly interesting in watching China to figure out how bad it was and now we have our own data.  Search Harbin or Suifenhei 

Ive also seem at least one mention of an area in Beijing being put on higher alert due to cases at a water park.  
 

but I think they have clamped down pretty hard on information so like with Russia etc unless you speak Chinese it’s pretty hard to know.

[Ausmumof3]

“Chaoyang district in Beijing on high alert- higher than Suifenhe (Russia border town) & Guangzhou (where #China authorities fear surge in #coronavirus cases.) Social media talk is a case confirmed at a water park. So sports venues incl. indoor gyms shut. (Notice at gym near me.)”

just a random tweet so not verified but can’t see what the motivation would be for making it up 

[Jean in Newcastle]

Apparently future cruises are being booked up. 
 

https://apple.news/Ae3HXtJv7RPa62t3sOgBxRQ

[Ausmumof3]

Global Times: “#Beijing's #Chaoyang district is found to be the only district in China with a "high risk" of #COVID19 infection, according to official categorization, after an imported case from the #US caused infection to his three family members.  bit.ly/2RTQJLA“

 

this is from 20th April.  Most likely an indicator that something’s happening there

[EmseB]

Just now, Ausmumof3 said:

I don’t think so.  But realistically we were mostly interesting in watching China to figure out how bad it was and now we have our own data.  Search Harbin or Suifenhei 

Ive also seem at least one mention of an area in Beijing being put on higher alert due to cases at a water park.  
 

but I think they have clamped down pretty hard on information so like with Russia etc unless you speak Chinese it’s pretty hard to know.

But where is the WHO and anyone demanding to know the course of disease spread and all that? I mean, wouldn't that be helpful to our efforts in studying and fighting this? How do they get to just pass on data sharing because China? It makes a difference right? We can't just keep hand waving this away by saying their numbers are crap oh well, right? We have our own data based on when things started in our respective countries, but they have data that's weeks or months ahead in the timeline.

I just truly don't understand why there isn't international pressure on them given that their obfuscation is what caused all this in the first place. We've just collectively thrown up our hands and said oh well, no matter?

[Ausmumof3]

8 minutes ago, EmseB said:

But where is the WHO and anyone demanding to know the course of disease spread and all that? I mean, wouldn't that be helpful to our efforts in studying and fighting this? How do they get to just pass on data sharing because China? It makes a difference right? We can't just keep hand waving this away by saying their numbers are crap oh well, right? We have our own data based on when things started in our respective countries, but they have data that's weeks or months ahead in the timeline.

I just truly don't understand why there isn't international pressure on them given that their obfuscation is what caused all this in the first place. We've just collectively thrown up our hands and said oh well, no matter?

I think Sweden just added their voice to the call for inquiry into the origin of the virus.  So there’s not no pressure/response.  But at the end of the day aside from asking what else do you do?  

[EmseB]

Just now, Ausmumof3 said:

I think Sweden just added their voice to the call for inquiry into the origin of the virus.  So there’s not no pressure/response.  But at the end of the day aside from asking what else do you do?  

I don't know, I guess I just don't hear a ton of people asking in any kind of way.

[Ausmumof3]

1 minute ago, EmseB said:

I don't know, I guess I just don't hear a ton of people asking in any kind of way.

Yeah the media has gone a bit quiet on it.

[Jean in Newcastle]

31 minutes ago, EmseB said:

But where is the WHO and anyone demanding to know the course of disease spread and all that? I mean, wouldn't that be helpful to our efforts in studying and fighting this? How do they get to just pass on data sharing because China? It makes a difference right? We can't just keep hand waving this away by saying their numbers are crap oh well, right? We have our own data based on when things started in our respective countries, but they have data that's weeks or months ahead in the timeline.

I just truly don't understand why there isn't international pressure on them given that their obfuscation is what caused all this in the first place. We've just collectively thrown up our hands and said oh well, no matter?

They have shared some information including studies and medicines and other treatments.  The medicines and treatments are ones that are being used even now in the West (and are having their own studies done).  The numbers themselves aren't so important any more on predicting the spread in the US or other countries.  I do think that it would be helpful to know if there is a second wave going on but we're going to see that soon enough here in the US anyway because the US doesn't want to hold off on opening up anyway. 

[EmseB]

31 minutes ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

They have shared some information including studies and medicines and other treatments.  The medicines and treatments are ones that are being used even now in the West (and are having their own studies done).  The numbers themselves aren't so important any more on predicting the spread in the US or other countries.  I do think that it would be helpful to know if there is a second wave going on but we're going to see that soon enough here in the US anyway because the US doesn't want to hold off on opening up anyway. 

Maybe not important for predicting spread, but to have a better idea of CFR and IFR? How many are they testing? How many are asymptomatic? They are weeks/months ahead of the world on knowing all those things. 

I have a hard time accepting any of the science coming out of there in any case since their interest clearly isn't in transparency or publishing complete info...in other words I don't think it's just a numbers issue.

I guess I'd rather not derail this into yet another debate about rate and variables of opening up in different states since there are so many other threads that go that way.

[Ausmumof3]

12 minutes ago, EmseB said:

Maybe not important for predicting spread, but to have a better idea of CFR and IFR? How many are they testing? How many are asymptomatic? They are weeks/months ahead of the world on knowing all those things. 

I have a hard time accepting any of the science coming out of there in any case since their interest clearly isn't in transparency or publishing complete info...in other words I don't think it's just a numbers issue.

I guess I'd rather not derail this into yet another debate about rate and variables of opening up in different states since there are so many other threads that go that way.

I’m finding almost everything the Chinese science has said with regard to spread and mechanism has initially been viewed with skepticism by western scientists then proved right.  However there was a recent law(?) change meaning they can no longer publish any papers about the origin that haven’t been government approved so I would be more skeptical about anything jn the last month or so.  

[Ausmumof3]

https://time.com/5833945/hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus-study/?amp=true&__twitter_impression=true
 

another study not showing good results for hydroxychloroquine 

[Ausmumof3]

SATARA, India (Reuters) - An Indian train killed 14 migrant workers who had fallen asleep on the track on Friday while they were heading back to their home village after losing their jobs in a coronavirus lockdown, police said.

tragic 😞 

[Carrie12345]

I had a hard time deciding which thread to stick this in, lol.

My area of PA is one of the many (most?) counties now extended to June 6th. Next door, NJ is up to June 8th.  I’m finding it interesting seeing how people are shaking out at this point.  No one is *happy, of course, but there are the outraged who add that they realize the virus is bad, but... and then there are the outraged who are joining the conspiracy team, and a lot of them are going the opposite way from what I would expect for them.

I haven’t broken to the point of denying science yet, but I’m emotionally exhausted from discovering how other people think and worrying about how that will impact their actions, which impacts mine.

[freesia]

1 hour ago, Carrie12345 said:

I had a hard time deciding which thread to stick this in, lol.

My area of PA is one of the many (most?) counties now extended to June 6th. Next door, NJ is up to June 8th.  I’m finding it interesting seeing how people are shaking out at this point.  No one is *happy, of course, but there are the outraged who add that they realize the virus is bad, but... and then there are the outraged who are joining the conspiracy team, and a lot of them are going the opposite way from what I would expect for them.

I haven’t broken to the point of denying science yet, but I’m emotionally exhausted from discovering how other people think and worrying about how that will impact their actions, which impacts mine.

Yes, I am exhausted, too. I’ve never spent much time on Facebook, but have enjoyed catching up with old friends during the lockdown. But the past two days knowing how folks think had been too much for me.  I need to take a break—yet, their thought processes and beliefs will impact me as they effect politics, opening up, my kid’s social life... I am right outside NYC, I am baffled at how anyone I know could believe the numbers are inflated. Everyone I know knows multiple people who are infected and some know several who have passed.

 

[Teaching3bears]

I don't know if this was mentioned but there have been big increases in cases in Spain and NorthKorea after numbers were decreasing for a while. Disheartening.

[Ausmumof3]

1 hour ago, square_25 said:

Oh, I didn’t see that about Spain :-(. Anyone know why??

ETA: looks the graph is still declining on Worldometer, so I dunno.

They are beginning to open up too.  I think our health minister said you would start to see the effects of change in measures around 5-7 days.  (Which makes sense.  The longer incubation time is 14 days but presumably many people become symptomatic more quickly.  Although maybe there’d be a lag before they get tested?). 

[Ausmumof3]

1 hour ago, square_25 said:

Oh, I didn’t see that about Spain :-(. Anyone know why??

ETA: looks the graph is still declining on Worldometer, so I dunno.

If you look at the daily cases graph they have about 3 or 4 quite low days and they have gone back up from that but nowhere near as high as they were.  It looks like it will still keep going down but not as fast as it looked like a few days ago?  Maybe 

[Pen]

4 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

https://time.com/5833945/hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus-study/?amp=true&__twitter_impression=true
 

another study not showing good results for hydroxychloroquine 

 

“Of 1446 consecutive patients, 70 patients were intubated, died, or discharged within 24 hours after presentation and were excluded from the analysis. Of the remaining 1376 patients, during a median follow-up of 22.5 days, 811 (58.9%) received hydroxychloroquine (600 mg twice on day 1, then 400 mg daily for a median of 5 days); 45.8% of the patients were treated within 24 hours after presentation to the emergency department, and 85.9% within 48 hours. Hydroxychloroquine-treated patients were more severely ill at baseline than those who did not receive hydroxychloroquine (median ratio of partial pressure of arterial oxygen to the fraction of inspired oxygen, 223 vs. 360)”

 

bold added. 

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2012410?query=main_nav_lg

[Ausmumof3]

Abc: Brazil has registered 10,222 new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus and 751 deaths, the health ministry says.

Friday's daily deaths exceeded the previous record of 615 on Wednesday. Overall, Brazil has registered 145,328 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus and 9,897 deaths.

Meanwhile, auto production in Brazil and Mexico, Latin America's top producers, plunged by an unprecedented 99 per cent in April as a result of the coronavirus crisis, with the two countries building a total of just 5,569 vehicles.

In normal times, Mexico and Brazil produce over half a million cars a month combined. The industry accounts for hundreds of thousands of jobs and several percentage points of their respective countries' gross domestic products.

"The situation is difficult and dramatic," Luiz Carlos Moraes, president of Brazil's automakers association, told reporters.

The statements on production, made on Friday by Mexico's Inegi statistics association and Brazil's Anfavea automakers association, are the first available window into the sheer extent of the crisis for automakers in Latin America.

[Ausmumof3]

Passed 4,000,000 cases today 

[Ausmumof3]

Tweet from bbc correspondent in china

#China’s leader Xi Jinping has said he’s concerned about the #coronavirus situation in #NorthKorea, offering Chinese help to the #DPRK, according to state television here. Gen Sec Xi has reportedly written to Kim Jong-un praising his country’s efforts but offering assistance.

[Ausmumof3]

https://www.newsweek.com/south-korea-hailed-pandemic-response-backtracks-reopening-after-covid-19-cases-jump-1502864?amp=1&__twitter_impression=true
 

not the most reliable source possibly but South Korea have closed bars and nightclubs again after tracking 13 cases back to a single person who went to five different venues in Seoul.

[Ausmumof3]

I don’t know how much truth there is in this I’ll have to do some more digging but someone pointed out that maybe the reason Australia didn’t get the early cases like US is because tourism was down in Jan and Feb due to the bushfires

[Ausmumof3]

More on Vit D

worth reading

https://twitter.com/davidasinclair/status/1258838578584530950?s=21

[Ausmumof3]

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.27.20081893v1.full.pdf+html
 

preprint only study on the impact varying levels of susceptibility to the virus have in the percentage required for herd immunity.  A bit over my head but some might find it interesting  

Edited to add

from what I can understand the basic premise is that super spreaders play a role in the transmission.  It may be that super spreaders catch and spread the virus earlier and more readily than the average person.  Meaning that all the super spreader types may have caught it earlier In an outbreak and be immune which means transmission will start going down.  This might mean we don’t need to hit the number for herd immunity that we’d need to hit if everyone could catch and spread it equally.  

Edited May 9, 2020 by Ausmumof3

[Ausmumof3]

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01403-8?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_content=organic&utm_campaign=NGMT_USG_JC01_GL_Nature
 

one more - interesting article on the blood clotting thing.  20-30pc of serious hospitalised cases are showing this issue.  Some ideas as to what and what kind of treatments are being tried.

[SoCal_Bear]

on warm weather and coronavirus. Article is about a study from University of Toronto discussing why they believe warmer summer weather will not slow down the spread.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/08/health/virus-summer-pandemic.html

Edited May 9, 2020 by calbear

[SoCal_Bear]

Tijuana is emerging as a major hotspot in Mexico which is just across the border from where I am. That is a big concern because normally there's over 100K crossings daily here. Our county numbers look ok, but if you look at the neighborhoods closest to the border, the total cases per 100K increase from around go from around 150 to over 2000. 

https://news.yahoo.com/hidden-toll-mexico-ignores-wave-192622443.html

[Pen]

12 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01403-8?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_content=organic&utm_campaign=NGMT_USG_JC01_GL_Nature
 

one more - interesting article on the blood clotting thing.  20-30pc of serious hospitalised cases are showing this issue.  Some ideas as to what and what kind of treatments are being tried.

 

I wonder if they have checked patients’ other basic nutrient levels that might relate to clotting.  Vitamin E for example.