wuhan - coronavirus

[Laura Corin]

Voluntary lockdown at a Scottish University this weekend. Scottish positivity rate around 4%.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-54209452

[Ausmumof3]

2 hours ago, lewelma said:

A record 4979 covid tests were processed at MIT medical in one day on Wednesday, and they found zero cases. This is for 1100 undergrads living on campus, plus grad students, faculty, and staff. This is 2 weeks after all the students returned from all over the country. They started with 15 cases in the 1100 undergrads in the first few days, and have driven down the numbers though behavior and contract tracing. 

Well done MIT!

[Ausmumof3]

Down to 21 cases for Vic today.  7 day rolling average is still at around 39 but definitely getting better day by day.  Finally fit testing for masks is being done in the COVID wards so hopefully that will help to get on top of the hospital problems.

[Ausmumof3]

thread on how Pfizer are calculating efficacy rates on their vaccines for anyone interested in the math stat side of things.  I need to read it again really really slowly.

[Ausmumof3]

12 minutes ago, square_25 said:

Thanks!! I’d have to do some calculations to make full sense of the first 5 tweets, since this isn’t what I do for a living. And I’m really not that familiar with the beta binomial thing...

Lol well if you can shed any light on it feel free to share.  I read it again and I’m still scratching my head a bit.

[Pen]

2 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

thread on how Pfizer are calculating efficacy rates on their vaccines for anyone interested in the math stat side of things.  I need to read it again really really slowly.

 

7 days after the last dose is the follow up assessment period? Am I reading that right?

I know there isn’t time to see if it seems to give immunity for 6 months or a year.  But 7 days seems    Very      short

[Pen]

3 hours ago, Florimell said:

Meanwhile, Wisconsin, moved up to #4 for new cases in the country yesterday (with just over 2500). We have had a record day almost every day this week with far fewer tests than were being done in early August (high of 18k vs. a high of 13k). Our 14 day average for the state is nearly 15%. Our county has a 14 day average of 27% with record numbers of cases. A local district lost its first teacher this week due to Covid (the school will be returning to in-person classes on Monday) and several other districts/schools are shutting down for two weeks because too many people are out sick/quarantined (all but the very largest districts opened for in-person teaching in some form).

The Hispanic community is begging for a free testing site (there were three that were quickly set up during the big meat plant outbreaks), and the request was denied on the grounds that the local HMOs are providing sufficient testing (which they are being told they have to pay for, refusing to provide translators, and require an ID/SSN to access). Two of our state colleges have had in-person classes suspended (UW Madison has had over 7% of its undergraduates test positive), but closing the colleges is off the table. WI has seven or eight of the top 20 spots on the NYT list of cities with growing trouble (#cases/population). A local doctor said the average hospital stay is 2-3 weeks, and that they haven't seen any weakening in the severity of the virus.

There is no sense of concern or urgency anywhere among anyone (with very, very few isolated exceptions). People are generally wearing masks when required (though often poorly), but there is no distancing at all. The college kids are being villainized as the cause, although everyone I know (right up to my 90-year-old grandma) is participating in frequent unmasked social gatherings, often in small indoor places, and the general population is going about its business as usual. We remain the only people I know who aren't ready just to accept this virus as part of our reality and to get on with our lives (for which we have been heavily criticized). 

 

Thank you for this update.

 

I think it helps to know what probably makes a difference in reducing case severity in my area to have a comparison like that. 

 

I am sorry you are being criticized.  But do keep yourselves safe.  

[Pen]

9 minutes ago, Florimell said:

I think, from what I'm seeing and hearing, there are several factors at play:

1. Most people don't know anyone who has had it.
2. Many people genuinely believe it cannot be transmitted via asymptomatic/presymptomatic people.
3. The political landscape is highly charged here....
4. Many people genuinely believe it is no worse than the flu, but if it happens to be so, they have good insurance so it will be okay.
5. Many people are failing to see their own risk factors.
6. Many people are critical of the behavior of others and  blind to the ways in which their own behavior is problematic (this is the main one, for sure, and crosses political lines).

 

That sounds like a good analysis.  

 

 

9 minutes ago, Florimell said:

We are continuing to be safe, but I feel like we are among the only ones left standing on the cliff, and even my mom is saying "JUMP!"

 

 

 

I am sorry you are dealing with that.  

 

And another factor that probably should be added to the numbered ones would be the influence of other people and that it is hard to do different than what other people are doing.  

I was an early mask wearer in my area (already sometimes wore them due to other health issues), and it felt very awkward until many more people were wearing them too. 

[Pen]

7 minutes ago, square_25 said:

Although it’s much longer after the first dose!

 

How long? 30 days or so? 

Maybe only one dose is needed...   are there trials of one dose versus two? 

 

Or do you mean it’s been much longer since the first phase 1 doses were given? 

[Ausmumof3]

10 hours ago, square_25 said:

It requires a fair amount of stats. Do you know how they calculate p values in general?

Yeah... no.  I have nothing beyond high school math and the stat part of that was extremely light plus being over 20 years ago.  I have some very vague memories.  I did try starting an Ed Ex course a while back but didn’t really follow it, I needed a step down (and maybe a different instructor).  I still want to do something about that before ds hits it.  Or I’ll learn with him I guess.

[Ausmumof3]

14 cases and 5 deaths today for Vic.  7 day rolling average is around 36 I think.

[Ausmumof3]

9 hours ago, Pen said:

 

7 days after the last dose is the follow up assessment period? Am I reading that right?

I know there isn’t time to see if it seems to give immunity for 6 months or a year.  But 7 days seems    Very      short

I assumed I was misunderstanding something because that didn’t make sense. 

[Pen]

52 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

I assumed I was misunderstanding something because that didn’t make sense. 

 

I skimmed through the study design pdf.  It looks like they follow up participants for longer, but “vaccine effectiveness” seems at least in large part to be based on a 7 day after second dose follow up.  

 

Some is possibly related to whether antibodies are being produced (or some other lab based indication of immunity - I don’t recall exactly what I read earlier) , as well as how many people have gotten CV19 on vaccine vs placebo and how many have gotten severe CV19 on vaccine vs placebo. 

I have never read a vaccine study protocol before so I don’t know how normal that is.

I know people want statistics, but I would like some anecdotes from early trial participants who have subsequently been exposed to CV19 to know how they did.   Statistics based on 7 days don’t seem very useful to me, especially if participants aren’t getting challenge exposures in that week after dose 2 to test the vaccine. 

Edited September 20, 2020 by Pen

[lewelma]

Bad news.  A person did the full 14 day quarantine, returned 2 negative tests (day 3 and 12), went home and infected 2 of his family members. He tested positive on day 21 so well outside the standard incubation period of the virus. Looks like he got it from the flight to NZ as it matches the genome sequences of 2 other people on the flight.  

"The case reported yesterday is a recent returnee who arrived in New Zealand from India on August 27 and completed managed isolation, returning two negative tests at the facility in Christchurch, before returning home to Auckland on September 11."

Yesterday's case was tested again after developing symptoms five days later, and returned a positive result.

"He and his household contacts self-isolated when he developed symptoms. They were all moved into the Auckland quarantine facility on September 18, when the first case returned a positive result."

The Health Ministry said all identified close contacts have been isolated and tested.

It said while the source of the infection was still under investigation, genome sequencing was consistent with two confirmed cases from the same flight from India that landed on 27 August.

"It is possible that this case was infected during that flight and has had an extremely long incubation period - there is evidence that in rare instances the incubation period can be up to 24 days. This person developed symptoms 21 days after he arrived in New Zealand. If this is the case, it sits well outside the standard incubation period of the virus.

Edited September 20, 2020 by lewelma

[Pen]

36 minutes ago, square_25 said:

I don’t know, but if they are doing doses, it’s longer than 7 days since the first one 🙂 . Any idea how they are spacing it?

 

Usually I think dose 2 is supposed to be around 21 days after dose 1.  There were things about spacing out farther, or using lower dose if there were reactions to dose 1 iirc. 

 

So total time is about 30 days in most cases probably. 

 

 

32 minutes ago, square_25 said:

I should read the document, but do you know how many people they are following? 

 

I don’t recall it saying in the paper, but from news reports I think it is supposed to be thousands for phase 3, in more than one country.  30,000 total iirc.   And I think they already have the needed volunteers 

I hope a lot of the volunteers will be people with lots of contacts and chances for infection and that other things like mask wearing will be kept equivalent for vaccine recipients and placebo recipients.  It is using saline as placebo according to paper, so likely participants can guess from local reaction.  Or lack of any. 

 

 

 

[Ausmumof3]

3 hours ago, Pen said:

 

I skimmed through the study design pdf.  It looks like they follow up participants for longer, but “vaccine effectiveness” seems at least in large part to be based on a 7 day after second dose follow up.  

 

Some is possibly related to whether antibodies are being produced (or some other lab based indication of immunity - I don’t recall exactly what I read earlier) , as well as how many people have gotten CV19 on vaccine vs placebo and how many have gotten severe CV19 on vaccine vs placebo. 

I have never read a vaccine study protocol before so I don’t know how normal that is.

I know people want statistics, but I would like some anecdotes from early trial participants who have subsequently been exposed to CV19 to know how they did.   Statistics based on 7 days don’t seem very useful to me, especially if participants aren’t getting challenge exposures in that week after dose 2 to test the vaccine. 

I thought from what I read it was 1 - a ratio based on the number of infections in the unvacced group divided by the number in the vaxxed group but adjusted to 1000 person years.  But yeah it’s all over my head so I maybe got that wrong.  I didn’t see anything about antibodies.

[Ausmumof3]

@Pen@square_25

https://news.yahoo.com/amphtml/pfizer-says-stage-coronavirus-vaccine-180625294.html?__twitter_impression=true

 

this says they are aiming for 45,000 currently they have enrolled 29,000 and 12,000 are on their second dose.  So I guess depending on how many had the placebo somewhere under 12,000 people on the second dose.  They are mostly reporting mild to moderate side effects.  I imagine they will be watching fairly nervously for the next couple of weeks because the astra Zeneca thing (which may be unrelated) happened 14 days after the second dose.  
 

they said

"We do believe - given the very robust immune profile and also the preclinical profile ... that vaccine efficacy is likely to be 60% or more," Pfizer's Chief Scientific Officer Mikael Dolsten said.

 

unfortunately 60 pc effective may mean it’s not enough for herd immunity without 100pc compliance.  I also saw elsewhere suggestions that immunity from the vaccine may last a year which means you’d really struggle to get herd immunity.  Obviously it will still be helpful for aged care and health care settings though.

[Ausmumof3]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/19/health/astrazeneca-vaccine-safety-blueprints.html#click=https://t.co/aGtoyfbIPT
 

more astra Zeneca concerns (still the original two incidents just more detail and discussion around them) and they have released their blueprint for their trial as Pfizer and Moderna have already done.  This is the one that Aus has secured and they have just invested another 6million in local vaccines so I think they are working on finding alternatives just in case.

[Ausmumof3]

From the article

”

“The communication around it has been horrible and unacceptable,” said Dr. Peter Jay Hotez, a virologist with Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. “This is not how the American people should be hearing about this.”

Dr. Hotez also criticized obtuse statements released by government officials, including U.K. regulators who he said failed to supply a rationale for resuming their trials.

“Tell us why you came to that decision,” he said.

Dr. Paul Offit, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the F.D.A.’s advisory committee on vaccines, said that it’s unclear how the company — or the U.K. government — determined that the second case was not related to the vaccine.

He and other experts noted that transverse myelitis is rare, diagnosed in only about one in 236,000 Americans a year. The trial in Britain involved only about 8,000 volunteers, a spokesman for the Oxford researchers said last month.“

[Ausmumof3]

Sorry about the screenshot of a photo of a slide but this was shared by Ian Mackay one of the Aus doctors.  Quite a lot of people are arguing that increases in Europe are just better detection of cases and cases in young people.  But looks like in uk hospitalisations are increasing as well.

[Pen]

7 hours ago, kdsuomi said:

Other European countries are having higher hospitalizations and deaths, too.

 

Higher hospitalizations and deaths total? Or higher rates compared to cases (cfr or estimated ifr)?  

[Pen]

12 hours ago, lewelma said:

Bad news.  A person did the full 14 day quarantine, returned 2 negative tests (day 3 and 12), went home and infected 2 of his family members. He tested positive on day 21 so well outside the standard incubation period of the virus. Looks like he got it from the flight to NZ as it matches the genome sequences of 2 other people on the flight.  

"The case reported yesterday is a recent returnee who arrived in New Zealand from India on August 27 and completed managed isolation, returning two negative tests at the facility in Christchurch, before returning home to Auckland on September 11."

Yesterday's case was tested again after developing symptoms five days later, and returned a positive result.

"He and his household contacts self-isolated when he developed symptoms. They were all moved into the Auckland quarantine facility on September 18, when the first case returned a positive result."

The Health Ministry said all identified close contacts have been isolated and tested.

It said while the source of the infection was still under investigation, genome sequencing was consistent with two confirmed cases from the same flight from India that landed on 27 August.

"It is possible that this case was infected during that flight and has had an extremely long incubation period - there is evidence that in rare instances the incubation period can be up to 24 days. This person developed symptoms 21 days after he arrived in New Zealand. If this is the case, it sits well outside the standard incubation period of the virus.

 

😞

 

Do you have links to more info on this?  

I guess we already knew that standard quarantine period was designed to catch most cases, but that a few have had longer incubation periods.  Maybe because it is NZ where he can not be likely to have had an exposure to someone else at day 16 this helps to confirm that.  In lots of other places this is probably happening but there are so many cases that there is no way to know for sure. 

Will NZ change approach? 

 

It is also important to keep in mind for any travelers, students, business conference meeting attendees, etc. 

 

 

[Pen]

10 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Sorry about the screenshot of a photo of a slide but this was shared by Ian Mackay one of the Aus doctors.  Quite a lot of people are arguing that increases in Europe are just better detection of cases and cases in young people.  But looks like in uk hospitalisations are increasing as well.

 

From John Campbell videos I gather that lots of people in UK are not using masks etc.    

Reproduction rate is around 1.4 and without masks etc or other means to reduce it, viral load would probably be high.  

US charts seem to show that hospitalizations and deaths are rising but nowhere near like case rise and nowhere near like they had been when things were at worst in spring.   The colors represent age groups, Black is over all age groups. And pretty much US hospitalizations are going down - not rising.   Link to graph is in the info stuff on today’s Campbell video. 

 

Also could there be a be a difference between hospital admissions due to sick because of CV19 versus admitted due to something else entirely  and  testing positive for CV19? 

 

And, unfortunately, I think there may also be human response to charts like these where people see one, decide when there’s what looks like a trough or decline that every thing is fine and stop taking precautions so then it goes up. 

 

 

[Pen]

 

Btw I take screenshots from time to time so that I can look again and see revisions in “preliminary data” that lag a few weeks.    I don’t expect what looks like substantial decline to hold up as more data arrives, but also don’t expect that it will turn into a significant upward line graph. 

[Pen]

 

I found Yesterday’s John Campbell interesting:

https://youtu.be/LYJOhIzCIxc

https://youtu.be/LYJOhIzCIxc

 

@Ausmumof3 I watch / or listen to while doing other things  nearly every DrBeen video (sometimes get to them some time after the making though) and maybe about 50% of John Campbell ones, and only suggest them here if they seemed of particular interest .

 

@ElizabethB Did you catch that Fauci apparently actually takes 6,000 IU of D daily himself while originally not mentioning it or suggesting RDA type doses to the people?   Idk if that’s accurate or not.  Campbell asked if anyone knew and someone said that, but Idk source.  Would not surprise me at all however. 

Edited September 20, 2020 by Pen

[Pen]

2 minutes ago, kdsuomi said:

The multiple articles I've looked at haven't differentiated. When cases here started going up no one wanted to accept that it was just because of increased testing, though, so why should the case for Europe be different? They re-opened things, too, and cases have gone up. Shocking. (The numbers I'm seeing are strange, though. One source has Spain at over 14,000 new cases for 9/18, and Worldometer has them at less than 5,000 for that day. That's a ridiculously huge discrepancy.)

 

OurWorldinData can also be a good source to check things. 

I have relatives who live in Spain. Personal communication is that Things ***have*** gotten worse there— though not nearly as bad as when very bad.  And particularly worse by comparison with in many ways similar Italy.

 Part may be due to opening Spanish tourism back up. And return to more “marcha” party going lifestyles.

Italy didn’t open tourism back up is still using more precautions—like masks are becoming part of fashion—and are using contact tracing apps.

 

[ElizabethB]

59 minutes ago, Pen said:

 

@ElizabethB Did you catch that Fauci apparently actually takes 6,000 IU of D daily himself while originally not mentioning it or suggesting RDA type doses to the people?   Idk if that’s accurate or not.  Campbell asked if anyone knew and someone said that, but Idk source.  Would not surprise me at all however. 

I heard that.  Sad if true.

My location is now in a time of the year where you cannot make vitamin D from the sun anymore, I checked to make sure my husband was taking a winter load of vitamin D. Basically all of Canada and the Northern part of the US is now in that zone.

[Pen]

24 minutes ago, ElizabethB said:

I heard that.  Sad if true.

My location is now in a time of the year where you cannot make vitamin D from the sun anymore, I checked to make sure my husband was taking a winter load of vitamin D. Basically all of Canada and the Northern part of the US is now in that zone.

 

In addition to time of year, for those in smoke region, even if far enough south to theoretically be possible, we probably aren’t out enough and / or the sun is too filtered by smoke.  

Same would be probably true if in rainy region even if quite far South. 

[Guest]

DD's friend died this morning. A lovely woman, a wife, mother, and grandmother, who had was basically an extra grandmother or aunt to my daughter is dead far too early because my area could not take this virus seriously. She'd been careful since March because she wanted to be there for her grand children, and DD has been worried for her this whole time. My kid has been tearing herself up over fear and concern for her older friends and doing everything she can, and it doesn't matter because other people aren't being careful. 

[Starr]

36 minutes ago, dmmetler said:

DD's friend died this morning. A lovely woman, a wife, mother, and grandmother, who had was basically an extra grandmother or aunt to my daughter is dead far too early because my area could not take this virus seriously. She'd been careful since March because she wanted to be there for her grand children, and DD has been worried for her this whole time. My kid has been tearing herself up over fear and concern for her older friends and doing everything she can, and it doesn't matter because other people aren't being careful. 

Im so sorry. The same happened to our grandmother. It went so fast. 😞 Give your dd a big hive hug. 

[TCB]

58 minutes ago, Plum said:

Does anyone have a link to a good article or video that goes in depth into the different vaccines? How each one is different? 

Thanks! 🙂

TWIV did a really good update in one of their podcasts last week. 

[lewelma]

4 hours ago, Pen said:

 

😞

 

Do you have links to more info on this?  

I guess we already knew that standard quarantine period was designed to catch most cases, but that a few have had longer incubation periods.  Maybe because it is NZ where he can not be likely to have had an exposure to someone else at day 16 this helps to confirm that.  In lots of other places this is probably happening but there are so many cases that there is no way to know for sure. 

Will NZ change approach? 

 

It is also important to keep in mind for any travelers, students, business conference meeting attendees, etc. 

 

 

They are currently checking the only other place he could have gotten it from - which was his flight from Auckland to his quarantine facility in Christchurch. So they are testing all those passengers and crew.  But his case links genomically to 2 other cases on the flight from India, so it is likely from that. They will also be checking all the footage from days 1 and 2 in the lower level quarantine before the 2 people who tested positive were moved to a different hotel for the higher quarantine.  I'm sure we will hear more about the investigation as it may impact advice to travelers once they leave quarantine. I doubt they will extend the time to 3 weeks to catch a 1 in 30,000 chance. 

What I quoted was all that I have seen so far. But when there is more info, I'll post the link.

We hear today about dropping down alert levels. We were hoping to have all restrictions removed for the country except Auckland. But we will see. 

[ktgrok]

1 hour ago, Pen said:

 

In addition to time of year, for those in smoke region, even if far enough south to theoretically be possible, we probably aren’t out enough and / or the sun is too filtered by smoke.  

Same would be probably true if in rainy region even if quite far South. 

Yup. Or really, to be realistic, people in the South hibernate in the AC in the summer - I know I do! 

I take minimum 5,000 IU daily. 

[Ausmumof3]

3 hours ago, Pen said:

 

I found Yesterday’s John Campbell interesting:

https://youtu.be/LYJOhIzCIxc

https://youtu.be/LYJOhIzCIxc

 

@Ausmumof3 I watch / or listen to while doing other things  nearly every DrBeen video (sometimes get to them some time after the making though) and maybe about 50% of John Campbell ones, and only suggest them here if they seemed of particular interest .

 

@ElizabethB Did you catch that Fauci apparently actually takes 6,000 IU of D daily himself while originally not mentioning it or suggesting RDA type doses to the people?   Idk if that’s accurate or not.  Campbell asked if anyone knew and someone said that, but Idk source.  Would not surprise me at all however. 

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/09/14/supplements-white-house-advisor-fauci-takes-every-day-to-help-keep-his-immune-system-healthy.html?__twitter_impression=true
 

on Dr Fauci.  I think he would have to be careful recommending large doses to the general public given the risk of overdoing it.  Doing it under medical supervision is one thing but it’s almost guaranteed if he recommended it there would be somewhere out there like the fish tank cleaner people that would overdose.  

[Ausmumof3]

1 hour ago, Florimell said:

 According to Worldometer, regarding Spain's numbers: Data are provisional and subject to change. From Sept. 15 onward, figures for daily new cases only include cases already validated by the Ministry of Health in the daily PDF report. Since the validation process takes time to complete, additional cases are expected to be added retroactively once the weekly historical dataset revision is released by the Ministry of Health on Friday, Sept. 25. Data up to Sept. 15 reflects the latest release of the official "Historical Series of Cases by Autonomous Community" dataset released by the Ministry of Health. [source] [source]

Bno said they aren’t reporting on spains high number of cases because they are apparently mixing antibody and PCR data so it’s pretty hard to tell what’s actually going on.  

[Pen]

9 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/09/14/supplements-white-house-advisor-fauci-takes-every-day-to-help-keep-his-immune-system-healthy.html?__twitter_impression=true
 

on Dr Fauci.  I think he would have to be careful recommending large doses to the general public given the risk of overdoing it.  Doing it under medical supervision is one thing but it’s almost guaranteed if he recommended it there would be somewhere out there like the fish tank cleaner people that would overdose.  

 

In Spring to June he seemed to be against most people taking it on the grounds that most people in developed world are not “deficient.”   

 

 

He could have said that he supplements himself But to be careful because too much is also dangerous. 

 

Most people in developed world are not “deficient” may be true.  Rickets is probably fairly rare in developed world.  But many people in developed world are lower than is good for other aspects of health besides rickets so not sufficient as different from “deficient” .

 

[Ausmumof3]

14 minutes ago, Pen said:

 

In Spring to June he seemed to be against most people taking it on the grounds that most people in developed world are not “deficient.”   

 

 

He could have said that he supplements himself But to be careful because too much is also dangerous. 

 

Most people in developed world are not “deficient” may be true.  Rickets is probably fairly rare in developed world.  But many people in developed world are lower than is good for other aspects of health besides rickets so not sufficient as different from “deficient” .

 

Hmm I didn’t know he was against it I hadn’t heard that.  I did a quick search and it looks like he’s mentioned taking vit c and d to maintain immune health back in 2016 pre Covid.  
 

there was a study at the beginning of September showing a stronger link between vit d and covid and I think our dr Norman Swan started talking about it.

I guess what I’m trying to say is there seem to be some people implying it’s kind of a conspiracy theory that he was trying to hide a miracle cure from people so they will accept vaccines and lockdowns.  I really don’t buy that.  I realise no one here is saying that but that’s what is being claimed on the extremes.  I think it’s more that as increasing evidence is coming out that vit d works you will see public health people start mentioning it more.  

[Ausmumof3]

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2770157?utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_term=090320
 

the recent vit d study 

[Ausmumof3]

1 minute ago, square_25 said:

Sigh. More observational studies. 

Have there been RCT for D?  
 

one thing I’ve seen is that many of the things that correlate with vit d may be due to more outdoor time etc.   (more exercise, more daylight leads to better sleep).   I’m hedging bets by taking vit d when I remember but really trying to get outdoors whenever we can.  We’re heading into summer here though.  

[Ausmumof3]

Apparently 11 cases and 2 deaths here today.

[lewelma]

32 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Apparently 11 cases and 2 deaths here today.

Wow! going down fast!

[Pen]

1 hour ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Have there been RCT for D?  
 

one thing I’ve seen is that many of the things that correlate with vit d may be due to more outdoor time etc.   (more exercise, more daylight leads to better sleep).   I’m hedging bets by taking vit d when I remember but really trying to get outdoors whenever we can.  We’re heading into summer here though.  

 

Outdoors/daylight/ sun on skin  if it’s an option does a bunch of things positive. Not just D . For example Nitric Oxide also benefits.   

It is hard to do an RCT for daily life use as prophylaxis .

There was an RCT done for people with early CV19 admissions to hospital giving or not giving D in large dose as Calcifediol (can be done more quickly that form rather than slow build methods by oral dosing) right away.  The D group did much better.  I think I Linked it several pages back.  

[TCB]

4 hours ago, Plum said:

I think I’m listening to it right now. The Joy of Vax?

Yes that’s the one!

[vonfirmath]

I'm not sure where to access the paper, but I saw this. https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/link-between-low-vitamin-d-levels-and-covid-19-researched-by-ferris-polymem-s-dr-linda-benskin-1029600279?fbclid=iwar0cdmhlwcwyhijk7rdqeupna7j0vjxwfub5tkwpaxskexzzahk8vfzann4#

 

[lewelma]

Announcement made!  NZ is going down to its lowest level - so gatherings of any size allowed and no masks or social distancing required.  Auckland will remain at gatherings restricted to 100 people for 2 more weeks. Masks required on public transport for Auckland. 

155,000 tests in the community have been completed in the past 3 weeks, with zero new cases.  There has been zero cases linked to the Auckland cluster for the past 7 days. The others from the prior 2 weeks were family members who had already been put in the quarantine facilities even though they had not yet returned a positive test, so they were not in the community.

The 3 new cases from the person with the 21 day incubation over the weekend have been contained because they were vigilant and got tested ASAP when feeling unwell. So he did not spread it to anyone besides his 2 family members. The PM was very thankful for the family's quick thinking, as it saved us from another outbreak.

So it looks very positive that elimination v2 is in process. 

[Ausmumof3]

1 hour ago, square_25 said:

Here's the randomized Vitamin D study: 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7456194/

If the results are true, it's quite impressive. However, some of the things in this study are very strange. First of all, it's quite small -- big enough if it's really randomized, but small. Second of all, this says that it's a "Parallel pilot randomized open label, double-masked clinical trial." I don't think "open label" can be double-masked, can it? 

Also, the way the qualities distributed between the groups is strange. The number of people with high blood pressure is vastly largely in the untreated group, and that's very unlikely with actual randomization. Having so many people with previous diabetes in the control group is also very unlikely... it's not like they are even reporting on that many statistics, so having so many strangely distributed attributes makes me wonder what in the world they did to randomize. 

Anyway, I would love to see this reproduced. I would guess people must be trying it, now that there's this very strong result.... 

I found this

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-label_trial

so I would think not?  Weird.

[Ausmumof3]

Change with the way HHS signs off on rule changes - all have to be signed off by the HHS secretary from now on.  I’m seeing some people concerned about how this impacts on FDA.   I’m not sure whether it’s that bad or not but figured it’s worth knowing what changes are being made at the moment.

https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2020/09/20/hhs-statement-on-regulatory-process.html

[Ausmumof3]

11 hours ago, Pen said:

 

I found Yesterday’s John Campbell interesting:

https://youtu.be/LYJOhIzCIxc

https://youtu.be/LYJOhIzCIxc

 

@Ausmumof3 I watch / or listen to while doing other things  nearly every DrBeen video (sometimes get to them some time after the making though) and maybe about 50% of John Campbell ones, and only suggest them here if they seemed of particular interest .

 

@ElizabethB Did you catch that Fauci apparently actually takes 6,000 IU of D daily himself while originally not mentioning it or suggesting RDA type doses to the people?   Idk if that’s accurate or not.  Campbell asked if anyone knew and someone said that, but Idk source.  Would not surprise me at all however. 

Thanks.  I’m half way through.  I actually hadn’t realised US was trending back up again I had thought you were still trending down.  Is that likely linked to college and school going back yet or would it be too soon?   The doubling rate in the uk seems worrying.  Re the second part I found a couple of sources.  One was an interview with Jennifer garner where she asked what supplements he recommended and he said c and d but nothing else (not even my beloved elderberry).  In another interview with business insider he clarified that he is taking d because he’s been working extremely long hours indoors and not getting sun exposure and his levels are low.  There was an email with the 6000 figure but it was a screen shot and I have no idea if it was real or fake.  Though if he was using it as a loading dose to get his levels up because they are low after so much time indoors it would make sense.

Edited September 21, 2020 by Ausmumof3

[Pen]

1 minute ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Thanks.  I’m half way through.  I actually hadn’t realised US was trending back up again I had thought you were still trending down.  Is that likely linked to college and school going back yet or would it be too soon?   The doubling rate in the uk seems worrying.

 

I would guess that colleges are a part of it.  A lot of cases were picked up as returning college students were tested.  But there are other sources also continuing.   I am sure the fires and hurricanes situation has not helped. Conditions in shelter facilities and fire fighting camps don’t lend themselves to maintaining good distance, and the smoke probably adds to lung impairment. In my county there have been new outbreaks in senior living facilities also. 

 

[Terabith]

Okay, I should really sift through it all, but what's the recommended vitamin D supplementation?  Assume no benefit from sun.  Level was 46 in April of 2019, and I can't get it updated.