wuhan - coronavirus

[Guest]

Extremely tangential, but does anyone know if Boris Johnson received HCQ while he was sick with COVID? I haven’t followed anything about his case and don’t know if getting sick changed anything about his approach to the virus. 

[Laura Corin]

28 minutes ago, Quill said:

Extremely tangential, but does anyone know if Boris Johnson received HCQ while he was sick with COVID? I haven’t followed anything about his case and don’t know if getting sick changed anything about his approach to the virus. 

As far as I know not.  I don't think it was standard treatment.  I think the only thing that was made public was that he received oxygen via a face mask and was not ventilated.

His attitude to obesity has changed following his illness: several colleagues were infected but had mild cases - he is/was obese and is convinced that this was a contributor to his bad case.

Edited July 30, 2020 by Laura Corin

[Ausmumof3]

This is a tweet from an ENT doctor.  Something to be aware of if you’ve had surgery on the nasal area etc, throat swab may be a better option.

“I did write a note to say that a patient should only be swabbed by an ENT doc. She had resection of the septum, sinuses and cribiform plate. The roof of the nose is replaced by tensor fascia lata from the thigh. The mid face is an empty cave & brain is on a fascia trampoline

[RootAnn]

I don't know how official this is, but the rumor is that the doctors in my small town are using an ingenious way to screen for COVID. According to rumors at dh's work, they have some salt & some lemon juice. If you can't taste either and you normally can, they assume you have COVID. (Rumors don't say if you are given an official PCR test after that or not.)

The outbreak is finally in my tiny rural county. We've gone from 5 cumulative cases to 17 in the past two weeks. Ten of those since Friday. DH's work has had 3 cases confirmed since Monday. School starts a week from tomorrow.

[Pen]

8 hours ago, JennyD said:

Israel has socialized medicine, a very low death rate, and lots of previously imported HCQ sitting in warehouses.  Doctors haven't been using it for months.  In fact, there was a report a while back that Israel donated a bunch of HCQ to Florida, because DeSantis wanted it and hospitals here were no longer interested in the drug.

OTOH, the country has  in recent weeks gone to considerable lengths to import more remdesevir, and Israeli hospitals were treating covid patients with dexamethasone well before the studies came out.  I am sure there are a lot of other treatments being tried as well, but I don't know what they are.  

I too do not at all understand the strange attachment to HCQ as a potential magic bullet.  Of course it would have been great if a cheap, readily available drug could help us resolve this terrible catastrophe.  Too bad this one can't.  Onward.

 

 

I do not believe it is a “magic bullet.”   

I think characterizing and dismissing people like myself who are pro-HCQ as believing in magic May make it impossible to understand why someone like me would want to be able to use it. 

 

And I think describing it as “a magic bullet” sets up a straw man argument.  

 

[Pen]

2 hours ago, RootAnn said:

I don't know how official this is, but the rumor is that the doctors in my small town are using an ingenious way to screen for COVID. According to rumors at dh's work, they have some salt & some lemon juice. If you can't taste either and you normally can, they assume you have COVID. (Rumors don't say if you are given an official PCR test after that or not.)

The outbreak is finally in my tiny rural county. We've gone from 5 cumulative cases to 17 in the past two weeks. Ten of those since Friday. DH's work has had 3 cases confirmed since Monday. School starts a week from tomorrow.

 

To clarify- I was liking the lemon and salt info, not that your area has an outbreak. 

[RootAnn]

I think the lemon/salt  (or some other smell/taste) is a better screening than temp. Like have a few choices each day so people can be self-aware. People can cheat/lie, but it is a good idea as a self-awareness tool. Like, if you can't taste/smell these things (and you normally can), head home for the day & self-monitor for other symptoms.

[Pen]

2 minutes ago, RootAnn said:

I think the lemon/salt  (or some other smell/taste) is a better screening than temp. Like have a few choices each day so people can be self-aware. People can cheat/lie, but it is a good idea as a self-awareness tool. Like, if you can't taste/smell these things (and you normally can), head home for the day & self-monitor for other symptoms.

 

It would be helpful if there were two substances  with similar feel and appearance so as not readily distinguished or guessed at (or even where imagination and memory might fill in a taste or scent).  

Perhaps a drop of lemon water versus a drop of salt water.  

I may try to set up a self tester set in dropper bottles where I can hide labels from myself. 

I had been trying to test myself on similar spices, like can I tell the oregano from the basil by scent. But I like the lemon vs salt idea. 

[Joker]

4 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

This is a tweet from an ENT doctor.  Something to be aware of if you’ve had surgery on the nasal area etc, throat swab may be a better option.

“I did write a note to say that a patient should only be swabbed by an ENT doc. She had resection of the septum, sinuses and cribiform plate. The roof of the nose is replaced by tensor fascia lata from the thigh. The mid face is an empty cave & brain is on a fascia trampoline

Is it much different than a flu swab? Does anyone know?

I had nose surgery when I was 12 but I’ve had a flu test with no issues. Doctor didn’t ask about prior surgery before it either. Just curious in case I end up needing a test.

[JennyD]

3 hours ago, Pen said:

 

I do not believe it is a “magic bullet.”   

I think characterizing and dismissing people like myself who are pro-HCQ as believing in magic May make it impossible to understand why someone like me would want to be able to use it.

 

 

Oh, I wasn't specifically thinking of you, or any posters in this thread, actually.  More some of the public discourse.   In fact, I did not realize that you yourself would want to take hydroxychloroquine if G-d forbid you came down with corona.  Yes, I don't really understand why you or anyone else would want to take this particular drug for this particular disease.  

Today's episode of This Week In Virology got into this issue a bit. Around the 30 minute mark they discussed a couple of interesting papers about HCQ, one of which found that the drug does not inhibit infection of human lung cells.  It does inhibit infection of human kidney cells, which was why it was thought to be so promising at first, but alas, not the lung cells.  There are a number of possibly useful links in the show notes.

[Pen]

1 hour ago, JennyD said:

 

Oh, I wasn't specifically thinking of you, or any posters in this thread, actually.  More some of the public discourse.   In fact, I did not realize that you yourself would want to take hydroxychloroquine if G-d forbid you came down with corona.  Yes, I don't really understand why you or anyone else would want to take this particular drug for this particular disease.  

Today's episode of This Week In Virology got into this issue a bit. Around the 30 minute mark they discussed a couple of interesting papers about HCQ, one of which found that the drug does not inhibit infection of human lung cells.  It does inhibit infection of human kidney cells, which was why it was thought to be so promising at first, but alas, not the lung cells.  There are a number of possibly useful links in the show notes.

 

 

I want to be able to take HCQ along with zinc as a prophylactic medication.

 

I acknowledge dexamethasone, but I don’t want to have to be at the point of needing something that is at its best when already on a ventilator.  (And that might make things worse used before need for supplemental O2)

 

“In the dexamethasone group, the incidence of death was lower than that in the usual care group among patients receiving invasive mechanical ventilation (29.3% vs. 41.4%; rate ratio, 0.64; 95% CI, 0.51 to 0.81) and among those receiving oxygen without invasive mechanical ventilation (23.3% vs. 26.2%; rate ratio, 0.82; 95% CI, 0.72 to 0.94) but not among those who were receiving no respiratory support at randomization (17.8% vs. 14.0%; rate ratio, 1.19; 95% CI, 0.91 to 1.55”

 

HCQ works on innate immune system level (next level after things like masks and hygiene) which needs to be ready before infection.

 

“HCQ and chloroquine are cellular autophagy modulators that interfere with the pH-dependent steps of endosome-mediated viral entry and late stages of replication of enveloped viruses such as retroviruses, flaviviruses, and coronaviruses (Savarino and others 2003; Vincent and others 2005). “

 

In addition, afaik it is a known effective zinc ionophore , while only one study has shown Quercitin to be one. 

 

Edited July 30, 2020 by Pen

Media now reports that former presidential candidate Herman Cain has died of Covid, after four weeks in the hospital, and five weeks after attending the Tulsa rally, unmasked.  Obviously, it is impossible to prove where he got the disease.

Without getting into politics, I feel it was in very poor taste to have his team continually sending out new tweets under his name until the moments before his death was announced, without mentioning his illness at all, many denouncing a potential covid vaccine.

6 minutes ago, Dotwithaperiod said:

His twitter account was putting out multiple nasty, angry tweets daily the past month, with no mention of his health. That’s very sad that those in charge of his account acted that way.

 

Maybe this is naive on my part, but it makes me wonder how many twitter or other social media accounts are written by their supposed owners.  What, exactly, does that blue check mark mean?

Edited July 30, 2020 by GGardner

[Pawz4me]

23 minutes ago, GGardner said:

 

Maybe this is naive on my part, but it makes me wonder how many twitter or other social media accounts are written by their supposed owners.  What, exactly, does that blue check mark mean?

A blue check mark means that the account has been verified. It's not someone pretending to be someone else.

[mlktwins]

If this is true, it is depressing 😞 

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/osterholm-americans-will-be-living-with-the-coronavirus-for-decades-2020-07-30?siteid=yhoof2

2 hours ago, Pawz4me said:

A blue check mark means that the account has been verified. It's not someone pretending to be someone else.

 

Roger Ebert has been dead for almost 10 years and still there are tweets from that account with a blue check mark.

[Corraleno]

59 minutes ago, mlktwins said:

If this is true, it is depressing 😞 

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/osterholm-americans-will-be-living-with-the-coronavirus-for-decades-2020-07-30?siteid=yhoof2

I guess if people were expecting that a vaccine for CV would provide lifelong immunity, then this seems like bad news. But I think a lot of people have always assumed this would be more like the flu, with annual vaccines needed. Although so far this seems to be less prone to rapid mutation than the flu, so maybe a vaccine (or natural immunity) would last longer than a year, even if it doesn't last a lifetime. Of course some people who get an annual flu shot still get sick, but generally they're less ill and less likely to die, so even if a vaccine does nothing but reduce the severity of illness and reduce the risk of dying, that will still have a huge impact.

[matrips]

Someone mentioned India earlier.  I haven’t tracked the deaths for what timeframe or location and such, but this story seemed successful. They used hcq if someone may have been exposed, not after they already sick with covid.

https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/this-indian-slum-contained-a-possible-covid-19-disaster-with-hydroxychloroquine

[Pen]

10 minutes ago, matrips said:

Someone mentioned India earlier.  I haven’t tracked the deaths for what timeframe or location and such, but this story seemed successful. They used hcq if someone may have been exposed, not after they already sick with covid.

https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/this-indian-slum-contained-a-possible-covid-19-disaster-with-hydroxychloroquine

 

Yes.  I mentioned India.  

India, ICMR, said it found HCQ to have some benefit as CV19 prophylaxis (and perhaps early treatment) and they have continued to use it.  

I had not heard of the Dharavi use though.  Thank you for the link.  

I sm happy for them.  It sounds like HCQ was one of seversl strategies to help avert a disaster. 

 

[Ausmumof3]

6 hours ago, Joker said:

Is it much different than a flu swab? Does anyone know?

I had nose surgery when I was 12 but I’ve had a flu test with no issues. Doctor didn’t ask about prior surgery before it either. Just curious in case I end up needing a test.

I can’t answer that but I’ll link you to the guy on Twitter because he posts a lot about it.  He recommends getting an ENT to do the swab if you’re in doubt.  If you’re in Twitter he’s reasonable responsive so if you asked he might even let you know.

[Ausmumof3]

3 minutes ago, Pen said:

 

Yes.  I mentioned India.  

India, ICMR, said it found HCQ to have some benefit as CV19 prophylaxis (and perhaps early treatment) and they have continued to use it.  

I had not heard of the Dharavi use though.  Thank you for the link.  

I sm happy for them.  It sounds like HCQ was one of seversl strategies to help avert a disaster. 

 

I hope you’re right but their cases Are escalating rapidly now.  Deaths are following cases a couple of weeks behind. On the other hand I wouldn’t say that’s a definite no for HCQ either because who knows how adequate distribution is.  But I really hope they can turn their curve around.
 

[matrips]

14 minutes ago, Pen said:

 

Yes.  I mentioned India.  

India, ICMR, said it found HCQ to have some benefit as CV19 prophylaxis (and perhaps early treatment) and they have continued to use it.  

I had not heard of the Dharavi use though.  Thank you for the link.  

I sm happy for them.  It sounds like HCQ was one of seversl strategies to help avert a disaster. 

 

From more searching, it seems they found hcq most helpful in this type of scenario, giving it at first exposure, not at first diagnosis.  But of course, then someone will say maybe they would have never gotten covid. I think of it like when I get a sore throat- if I gargle faithfully with salt water and take vitamins at the first sign of a sore throat, the sore throat disappears by the next day.  So would it have disappeared on its own?  Or did the treatments help the virus from taking hold and getting worse? Anecdotal versus scientific research.

Once someone is admitted to a hospital, they pursue other medicines, like the remdesivir  and steroids.  

One doctor was saying the first 10 days after exposure is when the virus replicates, the next 10 days is when you have the infection and symptoms.  Or something to that effect. 

Edited July 30, 2020 by matrips
Spelling

[Ausmumof3]

https://7news.com.au/sunrise/on-the-show/australian-coronavirus-vaccine-clears-first-phase-of-human-trials-c-1207226.amp?__twitter_impression=true

this is good news ... one more vaccine through first stage human trials 

[Pen]

13 minutes ago, matrips said:

From more searching, it seems they found hcq most helpful in this type of scenario, giving it at first exposure, not at first diagnosis.  But of course, then someone will say maybe they would have never gotten covid. I think of it like when I get a sore throat- if I gargle faithfully with salt water and take vitamins at the first sign of a sore throat, the sore throat disappears by the next day.  So would it have disappeared on its own?  Or did the treatments help the virus from taking hold and getting worse? Anecdotal versus scientific research.

Once someone is admitted to a hospital, they pursue other medicines, like the remdesivir  and steroids.  

One doctor was saying the first 10 days after exposure is when the virus replicates, the next 10 days is when you have the infection and symptoms.  Or something to that effect. 

 

BBC I heard  said slum dwellers have lower death rate than Mumbai as whole.  And I expect slum dwellers are less likely to be given remdesivir.  Though idk .  Maybe they get access to same care as the more wealthy. 

There are other possible reasons for better mortality rate tan just HCQ however. For example older more vulnerable people might have already died.  They may not have enough food for obesity risk factor.  Etc. 

 

[Ausmumof3]

8 minutes ago, Pen said:

 

BBC I heard  said slum dwellers have lower death rate than Mumbai as whole.  And I expect slum dwellers are less likely to be given remdesivir.  Though idk .  Maybe they get access to same care as the more wealthy. 

There are other possible reasons for better mortality rate tan just HCQ however. For example older more vulnerable people might have already died.  They may not have enough food for obesity risk factor.  Etc. 

 

Yes I read they had almost 50pc infection rate but I agree with obesity etc being less of an issue.  However on the flip side less access to good medical care.  
 

edited to add there’s also the potential for some T cell immune response caused by another virus that works for COVID that we’ve talked about here.  A bit like the cow pox small pox thing.

Edited July 30, 2020 by Ausmumof3

[Ausmumof3]

23 minutes ago, matrips said:

From more searching, it seems they found hcq most helpful in this type of scenario, giving it at first exposure, not at first diagnosis.  But of course, then someone will say maybe they would have never gotten covid. I think of it like when I get a sore throat- if I gargle faithfully with salt water and take vitamins at the first sign of a sore throat, the sore throat disappears by the next day.  So would it have disappeared on its own?  Or did the treatments help the virus from taking hold and getting worse? Anecdotal versus scientific research.

Once someone is admitted to a hospital, they pursue other medicines, like the remdesivir  and steroids.  

One doctor was saying the first 10 days after exposure is when the virus replicates, the next 10 days is when you have the infection and symptoms.  Or something to that effect. 

This would be super hard to measure with COVID because of the way it sometimes seems to spread widely to a lot of people and other times no spread at all with seemingly similar circumstances.  You’d have to do quite a large study.

and I know what you mean I swear by Sambucol with zinc but it might just be the times I’ve used it I had a really mild bug anyway.

[Pen]

1 minute ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Yes I read they had almost 50pc infection rate but I agree with obesity etc being less of an issue.  However on the flip side less access to good medical care.  

 

I don’t (on basis of science of what HCQ mode of action is) expect HCQ to stop infection.

I expect it to allow the immune system to function better and be able to cope with infection so that illness is less severe than it would otherwise be.  Probably also as a zinc ionophore to kill some virus and decrease amount and speed of replication so that activated innate immune system is both better able to cope and coping with a lower viral load. 

[Pen]

14 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

This would be super hard to measure with COVID because of the way it sometimes seems to spread widely to a lot of people and other times no spread at all with seemingly similar circumstances.  You’d have to do quite a large study.

and I know what you mean I swear by Sambucol with zinc but it might just be the times I’ve used it I had a really mild bug anyway.

 

Elderberry should have antiviral benefits that are beyond your imagination.

biggest problem I see in re CV19 is that elderberry may overly rev immune system up in a way that causes increase of immune system overreaction: overreaction and blood clots seem to be what’s mainly causing damage and sometimes death. (It is not proven that Elderberry would increase cytokine storm, but some other herbs are better thought to be balancer. Rightly or wrongly. Btw, I would personally probably go ahead and take elderberry syrup if feeling sick. )

HCQ should be more of an immune modulator and balancer.  

There are a few herbs that also may tend to be balanced and immunodulators. 

Edited July 30, 2020 by Pen

[BeachGal]

@matrips I get logged out when I try to quote, but regarding the Marketwatch interview with Osterholm, he said: “One challenge that is yet to really be understood is just what kind of durable immunity we get from infection and vaccine.” We just don’t fully know yet. Scientists, including virologists and vaccine developers, from other boards where I lurk are more optimistic. However, there are some people who seem to be getting reinfections but that’s not definitely known yet.

[melmichigan]

4 minutes ago, Pen said:

 

Elderberry should have antiviral benefits that are beyond your imagination.

biggest problem I see in re CV19 is that elderberry may overly rev immune system up in a way that causes increase of immune system overreaction: overreaction and blood clots seem to be what’s mainly causing damage and sometimes death. 

 

 

There have been a few articles with regards to covid and Sambucol.  Those that I have read support it prophylactically if someone has been exposed, but not once someone is ill with what may be covid.  I don't have time today, but you may want to search and see what you find.  DH and I take it anytime we are doing the dance waiting for co-workers to get test results.

[Acadie]

Why we've never had adequate testing--

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/07/how-jared-kushners-secret-testing-plan-went-poof-into-thin-air?fbclid=IwAR1k7trOfNRYNulfuvM6t74WFjUyU8fcUOIzoQGodP-3bX20q_WCz_zqc0E

Edited July 31, 2020 by Acadie

[Guest]

Which of the following statements is the more accurate description of the risk of COVID in people with darker skin tones:

1) People with more melanin are more likely than lighter skinned people to contract COVID; or

2) People with more melanin are more likely than lighter skinned people to have a serious case of COVID? 

Or is that not known yet? I corrected someone who said it the second way, but afterwards I wondered if my understanding was correct. 

Edited July 31, 2020 by Quill
Grammar

[Corraleno]

1 hour ago, Acadie said:

Why we've never had adequate testing--

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/07/how-jared-kushners-secret-testing-plan-went-poof-into-thin-air?fbclid=IwAR1k7trOfNRYNulfuvM6t74WFjUyU8fcUOIzoQGodP-3bX20q_WCz_zqc0E

From the article:

Kushner’s team hammered out a detailed plan, which Vanity Fair obtained. It stated, “Current challenges that need to be resolved include uneven testing capacity and supplies throughout the US, both between and within regions, significant delays in reporting results (4-11 days), and national supply chain constraints, such as PPE, swabs, and certain testing reagents.”

The plan called for the federal government to coordinate distribution of test kits, so they could be surged to heavily affected areas, and oversee a national contact-tracing infrastructure. It also proposed lifting contract restrictions on where doctors and hospitals send tests, allowing any laboratory with capacity to test any sample. It proposed a massive scale-up of antibody testing to facilitate a return to work. It called for mandating that all COVID-19 test results from any kind of testing, taken anywhere, be reported to a national repository as well as to state and local health departments.

And it proposed establishing “a national Sentinel Surveillance System” with “real-time intelligence capabilities to understand leading indicators where hot spots are arising and where the risks are high vs. where people can get back to work.”

By early April, some who worked on the plan were given the strong impression that it would soon be shared with President Trump and announced by the White House. The plan, though imperfect, was a starting point. Simply working together as a nation on it “would have put us in a fundamentally different place,” said the participant.

But the effort ran headlong into shifting sentiment at the White House. ... Worried about the stock market and his reelection prospects, Trump also feared that more testing would only lead to higher case counts and more bad publicity. Meanwhile, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, was reportedly sharing models with senior staff that optimistically—and erroneously, it would turn out—predicted the virus would soon fade away.

Against that background, the prospect of launching a large-scale national plan was losing favor, said one public health expert in frequent contact with the White House’s official coronavirus task force.

Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner’s team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. “The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy,” said the expert.

 

[ElizabethB]

21 minutes ago, Quill said:

Which of the following statements is the more accurate description of the risk of COVID in people with darker skin tones:

1) People with more melanin are more likely than lighter skinned people to contract COVID; or

2) People with more melanin are more likely than lighter skinned people to have a serious case of COVID? 

Or is that not known yet? I corrected someone who said it the second way, but afterwards I wondered if my understanding was correct. 

I think both, and both are likely correlated with lower vitamin D; the 2nd is likely also correlated with higher rates of diabetes, heart conditions, etc.  I was tracking the data but haven't for a while.

Here is a LinkedIn Article I wrote about it in April.

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

Edited July 31, 2020 by ElizabethB

[Corraleno]

18 minutes ago, Quill said:

Which of the following statements is the more accurate description of the risk of COVID in people with darker skin tones:

1) People with more melanin are more likely than lighter skinned people to contract COVID; or

2) People with more melanin are more likely than lighter skinned people to have a serious case of COVID? 

Or is that not known yet? I corrected someone who said it the second way, but afterwards I wondered if my understanding was correct. 

With the possible exception of a connection to lower Vit D levels, I don't think skin color has anything to do with either the susceptibility to the virus or the severity of illness.

There are economic and cultural factors that may make POC higher risk for contracting the disease (more likely to live in poverty, more likely to live in urban or crowded conditions, more likely to live in multi-generational households, etc.) and there are medical issues that tend to be more common in POC, particularly African-Americans, such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, that increase the chances of severe illness. But unless Vitamin D is an issue, I have not read anything to suggest that melanin itself has any physiological effect on the virus.

[Laura Corin]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53602362

Targeted reduction in social contact in hotspots - England.

Edited July 31, 2020 by Laura Corin

[Guest]

7 hours ago, Corraleno said:

With the possible exception of a connection to lower Vit D levels, I don't think skin color has anything to do with either the susceptibility to the virus or the severity of illness.

There are economic and cultural factors that may make POC higher risk for contracting the disease (more likely to live in poverty, more likely to live in urban or crowded conditions, more likely to live in multi-generational households, etc.) and there are medical issues that tend to be more common in POC, particularly African-Americans, such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, that increase the chances of severe illness. But unless Vitamin D is an issue, I have not read anything to suggest that melanin itself has any physiological effect on the virus.

That is one possibility, but this data also holds for countries where dark-skinned people are the majority. Like Brazil vs. Denmark. 

Vitamin D may be the issue, right? I think that is important if it is the case, because supplementing Vit D is easy and available to everyone. It’s much easier to repair than, say, Latinx people living in multi-generational housing. 

[TracyP]

13 hours ago, mlktwins said:

If this is true, it is depressing 😞 

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/osterholm-americans-will-be-living-with-the-coronavirus-for-decades-2020-07-30?siteid=yhoof2

 

It is depressing on some level, but I'm so glad Osterholm is saying it. He has been my most trusted source of information during this pandemic. Like he said, it will get easier to live with over time. We will continue to get better treatments and vaccines will come along. But I hear about the things we have to do "until this is over" so often and I wonder why people keep saying that.

I like his lightswitch analogy - a vaccine will not be like flipping an on/off switch but more like slowly moving a dimmer switch. He didn't say it here, but I have heard 10 years as an estimate for how long it will take to get a handle on this and even then it will probably never completely go away. As hard as that is to hear, I think it needs to be acknowledged so that we can think realistically about how to move forward.

[Ausmumof3]

1 hour ago, TracyP said:

It is depressing on some level, but I'm so glad Osterholm is saying it. He has been my most trusted source of information during this pandemic. Like he said, it will get easier to live with over time. We will continue to get better treatments and vaccines will come along. But I hear about the things we have to do "until this is over" so often and I wonder why people keep saying that.

I like his lightswitch analogy - a vaccine will not be like flipping an on/off switch but more like slowly moving a dimmer switch. He didn't say it here, but I have heard 10 years as an estimate for how long it will take to get a handle on this and even then it will probably never completely go away. As hard as that is to hear, I think it needs to be acknowledged so that we can think realistically about how to move forward.

But surely not at the levels it is now?  It feels like every other country is slowly getting on top of it.  I hope not anyway.

I have to admit things feel weird here just because they’re so normal.  And 1000km away we know all the stuff they’re dealing with.  

[Teaching3bears]

I read this (Osterholm) and think we are going to be wearing masks for the rest of our lives.

And social distancing ... How will human relationships happen with social distancing over the long-term? There is a difference between months and years and years and years. That is why I feel we should be much more aggressive with quarantine/ social distancing in the short-term so we can eradicate the virus and go back to normal living.

[Guest]

10 hours ago, Corraleno said:

Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner’s team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. “The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy,” said the expert.

In my more cynical moments, I did think something like this; that Trump cared less because blue states were suffering more severely at that point. And he thought heat and humidity would curb the virus (though I never did think that made sense globally), so I presume he thought Florida et. al. would remain low. 

[Innisfree]

11 hours ago, Acadie said:

Why we've never had adequate testing--

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/07/how-jared-kushners-secret-testing-plan-went-poof-into-thin-air?fbclid=IwAR1k7trOfNRYNulfuvM6t74WFjUyU8fcUOIzoQGodP-3bX20q_WCz_zqc0E

This whole article is appalling. Very worthwhile reading, though. Thanks for linking it.

[Innisfree]

2 hours ago, TracyP said:

I like his lightswitch analogy - a vaccine will not be like flipping an on/off switch but more like slowly moving a dimmer switch. He didn't say it here, but I have heard 10 years as an estimate for how long it will take to get a handle on this and even then it will probably never completely go away.

 

1 hour ago, Ausmumof3 said:

But surely not at the levels it is now?  It feels like every other country is slowly getting on top of it.  I hope not anyway.

I have to admit things feel weird here just because they’re so normal.  And 1000km away we know all the stuff they’re dealing with.  

The dimmer switch analogy seems to describe what's happening in Australia pretty well, though. Or he also mentions embers... There's a low level that doesn't go away, and you have to stay alert and vigilant, or else the flames break out again. At that point, they spread rapidly.

 

[Pen]

10 hours ago, Quill said:

Which of the following statements is the more accurate description of the risk of COVID in people with darker skin tones:

1) People with more melanin are more likely than lighter skinned people to contract COVID; or

2) People with more melanin are more likely than lighter skinned people to have a serious case of COVID? 

Or is that not known yet? I corrected someone who said it the second way, but afterwards I wondered if my understanding was correct. 

 

Number 2 seemed to be true in UK where doctors with more melanin were first ones to die of CV19 even though there is universal health care and doctors do not tend to be living in significant socio-economic disadvantage.  

I would suspect Vitamin D status to be significant. 

I do not know if number 1 is generally true.  Statistics I saw Seemed to indicate numbers of cases in people to be more or less following the distribution of race / ethnicity in the location with the outbreak— except that Native Americans in US may be more likely to be infected even when looking separate from large outbreaks particularly affecting Native Americans . (On a Navajo reservation people tend to be Navajo and that may skew over all numbers), but it looks like maybe even in mixed race outbreak situations there could still be more of a number 1 situation —  perhaps even more significant if many have O blood type which is supposed to have less susceptibility .

I have not other than that seen anything to indicate whether more melanin in an outbreak population increased statistical likelihood of getting infected.  The Eastern Oregon church with the large outbreak had a number of people with greater melanin (Pacific Islanders maybe?), but I didn’t see any statistics on whether they had more cases than people with less melanin, for example.  I haven’t seen anything looking at mixed race families where living circumstances would be relatively uniform among the group to see whether infectivity has any relationship to melanin. 

In some reports I saw, Asian Americans  particularly women seemed to do better than “whites” particularly women.  But if melanin (and perhaps D status) has a relationship, “White” May include a very broad range from pale to what is often termed dark olive.  This may also reflect more early adoption of masks etc by  Asian Americans. especially women. 

Btw, Women are statistically seeming to have fewer deaths which may relate to estrogen.  (Anecdotally, women seem to be having more “long hauler” problems. ) 

[Pen]

3 hours ago, Quill said:

That is one possibility, but this data also holds for countries where dark-skinned people are the majority. Like Brazil vs. Denmark. 

Vitamin D may be the issue, right? I think that is important if it is the case, because supplementing Vit D is easy and available to everyone. It’s much easier to repair than, say, Latinx people living in multi-generational housing. 

 

Or at least one very significant and very remediable issue. 

Vitamin D imo should certainly be being brought to optimal levels!

 

So should zinc etc.   

 

 

[BeachGal]

Regarding Osterholm’s interview, he mentioned that durable immunity will determine what happens. Some of the vaccines and treatments are looking very good.

What I’d like to read about is the drug that is showing promise to treat all viruses. It has to be tested for efficacy but  it’s considered a game changer. Here’s a 2017 summary of the more technical Nature article.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170712072807.htm

Quote

 

RMIT University scientists in Melbourne, Australia, have led an international collaboration that potentially unlocks better treatment of viral diseases, including the flu and common cold.

The results are published in the scientific and medical journal Nature Communications.

Each year the flu virus sends 13,500 Australians to hospital and causes more than 3000 deaths among those aged over 50.

The global burden is also staggering, with more than 5 million cases of infection annually with up to 10 per cent resulting in death.

The RMIT senior authors, Dr Stavros Selemidis (ARC Future Fellow) and Dr Eunice To (first author), collaborated with Professor Doug Brooks from University South Australia, Professor John O'Leary from Trinity College Dublin, Monash University's Professor Christopher Porter, and other scientists and clinicians to investigate how viruses cause disease in humans.

The researchers discovered that a 1.5 billion-year-old cell biological process found in plants, fungi and mammals enhances viral disease in mice and highly likely also in humans.

They identified a protein, Nox2 oxidase, that is activated by viruses, including influenza, rhinovirus (the common cold), dengue and HIV.

Once activated, Nox2 oxidase suppresses the body's key antiviral reaction and its ability to fight and clear the viral infection, which in turn results in a stronger or more virulent disease in mice.

The study also investigated a new prototype drug to treat these debilitating viral diseases.

The researchers found that the Nox2 oxidase protein activated by the viruses is located in a cell compartment called endosomes. They carefully modified a chemical that inhibits or restrains the activity of Nox2 oxidase.

Their customised drug was found to be very effective at suppressing disease caused by influenza infection.

Selemidis, head of the Oxidant and Inflammation Biology Group within the Chronic Infectious and Inflammatory Diseases program at RMIT, said: "Current treatment strategies are limited as they specifically target circulating viruses and have either unknown or very little effect against new viruses that enter the human population.

"We have identified a protein of the immune system that contributes to the disease caused by flu viruses irrespective of their strain.

"We also developed a novel drug delivery system to target this protein, which drastically alleviated the burden of viral disease.

"The strength of this work is the multidisciplinary approach taken and the degree of collaboration. It includes researchers and clinicians from eight universities across Australia, the United States and Ireland.

"This work attracted considerable interest at the NADPH Oxidase GORDON conference in the USA last year."

To said: "This work identifies a treatment strategy that has the potential to alleviate the symptoms caused by some of the most devastating viruses worldwide, including the flu."

Professor Calum Drummond, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research and Innovation and Vice-President at RMIT, said the project held immense promise.

"The unique partnership between Dr Selemidis' laboratory at the School of Health and Biomedical Sciences at RMIT and his collaborators continues.

"Dr Selemidis' laboratory and his collaborators are pursuing further research to aid development of novel drugs for further trials and this is showing great potential," Drummond said.

 

 

[BeachGal]

7 minutes ago, Pen said:

 

Or at least one very significant and very remediable issue. 

Vitamin D imo should certainly be being brought to optimal levels!

 

So should zinc etc.   

 

 

 

And selenium, 200 micrograms per day. The sweet spot. Not too much, not too little.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7337667/

 

[Laura Corin]

3 hours ago, Quill said:

That is one possibility, but this data also holds for countries where dark-skinned people are the majority. Like Brazil vs. Denmark. 

Vitamin D may be the issue, right? I think that is important if it is the case, because supplementing Vit D is easy and available to everyone. It’s much easier to repair than, say, Latinx people living in multi-generational housing. 

There are so many other differences between Brazil and Denmark though.  I believe that Brazil has the highest Black population in South America, so maybe a comparison between Brazil and another more-comparable South American country would be more helpful.

21 minutes ago, Pen said:

 

Number 2 seemed to be true in UK where doctors with more melanin were first ones to die of CV19 even though there is universal health care and doctors do not tend to be living in significant socio-economic disadvantage.  

I would suspect Vitamin D status to be significant. 

I do not know if number 1 is generally true.  Statistics I saw Seemed to indicate numbers of cases in people to be more or less following the distribution of race / ethnicity in the location with the outbreak— except that Native Americans in US may be more likely to be infected even when looking separate from large outbreaks particularly affecting Native Americans . (On a Navajo reservation people tend to be Navajo and that may skew over all numbers), but it looks like maybe even in mixed race outbreak situations there could still be more of a number 1 situation —  perhaps even more significant if many have O blood type which is supposed to have less susceptibility .

I have not other than that seen anything to indicate whether more melanin in an outbreak population increased statistical likelihood of getting infected.  The Eastern Oregon church with the large outbreak had a number of people with greater melanin (Pacific Islanders maybe?), but I didn’t see any statistics on whether they had more cases than people with less melanin, for example.  I haven’t seen anything looking at mixed race families where living circumstances would be relatively uniform among the group to see whether infectivity has any relationship to melanin. 

In some reports I saw, Asian Americans  particularly women seemed to do better than “whites” particularly women.  But if melanin (and perhaps D status) has a relationship, “White” May include a very broad range from pale to what is often termed dark olive.  This may also reflect more early adoption of masks etc by  Asian Americans. especially women. 

Btw, Women are statistically seeming to have fewer deaths which may relate to estrogen.  (Anecdotally, women seem to be having more “long hauler” problems. ) 

Two things that might be involved (in addition to any physical differences) in more Black and Asian doctors dying in the UK: a higher likelihood of multi-generational living in Asian families leading to more close contact with more people, and possible differences in the kinds of jobs that Black and Asian doctors have, due to inequality of opportunity.

On women: the Zoe study looked into oestrogen by looking at older women on HRT against those who are not, and couldn't see a correlation between HRT and lower incidence/severity of Covid.  There's a recent observation of a possible susceptibility to Covid due to a genetic quirk - this is less likely in women than in men, as it's associated with the X chromosome, of which women have a spare in case of error.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342449127_ACE2_is_on_the_X_chromosome_could_this_explain_COVID-19_gender_differences

[Pen]

39 minutes ago, BeachGal said:

Regarding Osterholm’s interview, he mentioned that durable immunity will determine what happens. Some of the vaccines and treatments are looking very good.

What I’d like to read about is the drug that is showing promise to treat all viruses. It has to be tested for efficacy but  it’s considered a game changer. Here’s a 2017 summary of the more technical Nature article.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170712072807.htm

 

 

Not the new drug  whatever that is, but:

“Results: HCQ strongly reduces or completely prevents the induction of endosomal NOX by TNFα, IL-1β and aPL in human monocytes and MonoMac1 cells. As a consequence, induction of downstream genes by these stimuli is reduced or abrogated. This effect of HCQ is not mediated by direct interference with the agonists but by inhibiting the translocation of the catalytic subunit of NOX2 (gp91phox) into the endosome. In vivo, HCQ protects mice from aPL-induced and NOX2-mediated thrombus formation.”

😉

 

Green tea and some other natural polyphenols are also probably NOX inhibitors.  

Resveratrol May be. 

Edited July 31, 2020 by Pen

[BeachGal]

23 minutes ago, Pen said:

 

Not the new drug  whatever that is, but:

“Results: HCQ strongly reduces or completely prevents the induction of endosomal NOX by TNFα, IL-1β and aPL in human monocytes and MonoMac1 cells. As a consequence, induction of downstream genes by these stimuli is reduced or abrogated. This effect of HCQ is not mediated by direct interference with the agonists but by inhibiting the translocation of the catalytic subunit of NOX2 (gp91phox) into the endosome. In vivo, HCQ protects mice from aPL-induced and NOX2-mediated thrombus formation.”

😉

 

Green tea and some other natural polyphenols are also probably NOX inhibitors.  

Resveratrol May be. 

 

Well, that is interesting! Where’d you find that? I might try posting it on a different forum to see what they say. I know some MDs did personally stockpile HCQ for themselves to use prophylactically. I don’t know if they’re still using it.

We take resveratrol but it’s the microcrystallized version recommended by David Sinclair. Most of the stuff out there is not good. We’re not taking it to prevent Covid but as an anti-ager. (Still using ozone here which is now being used all over Italy and parts of Africa and other countries. Cuba is the country that uses it the most but it’s hard to find their info. Gotta use Duck Duck Go to find anything.)