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18 hours ago, frogger said:

Ah yes, we are neighbors. 🙂That is frustrating that they wouldn't fill the prescription. I wonder if they were low. I've had friends with RA unable to fill their prescriptions because shortage issues now that Covid patients are using it.

 

It is strange that everyone I know has had an extremely mild case and yet my sisters only known cases were two children that were hospitalized and another friend knows only 5 people. 3 died and one is still wheel chair bound. I think part of it was 4 of them (not the wheelchair bound one) was from the same family so genetics played a factor. The wheel chair bound one (got sick this spring) was only 30 and had no risk factors. So it is really hard to say. Older people are more likely to have trouble but then you here of an 80 year old who didn't know they had it. It really makes me wonder if we tested everyone for flu or cold virus' , what we'd discover about who was actually carrying it around unknown. 

 

Are you and sisters in same geographical area / know similar demographics of people? 

 

Do you know anything about what the 5 people - especially 3 dead and one still in wheelchair—were doing in terms of any prevention or viral lowering attempts such as mask use, medical protocols used, etc? Risk factors? location? How they got sick? Timing in the pandemic?  Location issues? 

 

 

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49 minutes ago, Pen said:

 

Are you and sisters in same geographical area / know similar demographics of people? 

 

Do you know anything about what the 5 people - especially 3 dead and one still in wheelchair—were doing in terms of any prevention or viral lowering attempts such as mask use, medical protocols used, etc? Risk factors? location? How they got sick? Timing in the pandemic?  Location issues? 

 

 

No, I didn't inquire into a friend's friends lives other than she said her healthy friend who was 30 years old had no known health risks and I didn't poke about how he ended up in a wheel chair. Clotting damage? Fatigue issues? I was just being an understanding friend. She has a stronger risk adversion to this than I do but it is obvious why.  

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25 minutes ago, frogger said:

No, I didn't inquire into a friend's friends lives other than she said her healthy friend who was 30 years old had no known health risks and I didn't poke about how he ended up in a wheel chair. Clotting damage? Fatigue issues? I was just being an understanding friend. She has a stronger risk adversion to this than I do but it is obvious why.  

 

I guess I have been more pushy in the course of trying to learn things that might anecdotally be helpful 🤔

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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-australia-idUSKBN26K04P?taid=5f72d49ffeacf300010ebaec&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter
 

Ship off Western Australia has an outbreak.  17 of 21 crew positive so far.  ADF troops are being sent to manage the situation.  I think this somewhat rules out the idea that some people already have some kind of innate immunity that prevents them catching it?  Although it could be a regional thing.

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6 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-australia-idUSKBN26K04P?taid=5f72d49ffeacf300010ebaec&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter
 

Ship off Western Australia has an outbreak.  17 of 21 crew positive so far.  ADF troops are being sent to manage the situation.  I think this somewhat rules out the idea that some people already have some kind of innate immunity that prevents them catching it?  Although it could be a regional thing.

 

Some words issues: “prevention” may be a misnomer by and large. Barriers like masks, PPE, skin, mucus, may actually “prevent” infection.  For a virus, much of the immune system (both innate and adaptive) is involved in fighting off an infection after it has already been caught, after it has already entered the body and possibly already entered cells. 

 

“Innate immunity” has a specific immunology meaning and also is used in loose casual conversation with different meaning. 

 

In the immunological sense, “innate” immunity is the immediate bodily capacity to resist infection without requiring development of antibodies that recognize it. (Antibody development is part of the “adaptive” immunity arm of the immune system, not the “innate” arm.)  “Innate” immunity covers systems from ones that tend to stop infection coming in at all to very early responses the immune system can apply to many intruding foreign bodies or microbes or diseased cells to get rid of them. Afaik, Everyone who is alive and not confined to some special bubble for people without immunity has some innate immunity. Some people have much more innate immunity than others. Some things can tend to help strengthen innate immunity and others tend to weaken it. But enough of an assault against body will result in illness. 

It could be analogized to skin as a first line of defense helping prevent infection. And in fact skin is one part of many in the innate immune system. If nothing gets through the skin, for example, maybe there’s a light encounter with an infection carrying sharp object but that doesn’t break the skin, there won’t be an infection in that way.  But if a dirty germ laden nail breaks the skin barrier to outside world there may be resulting infection.   If the person is involved in something that causes multiple deep dirty cuts like bayonet fighting, infection is even more likely.  If a person is involved in something that weakens the protection (perhaps standing in filthy water during trench warfare, or in an area with many biting insects, or having thinner dry skin that is cracking) there might be an infection without even an obvious puncture or cut. 

Innate immunity tends to be better in children, but can also be made better —or worse! — by environmental factors of various sorts (including probably better by things like good levels of Vitamin D, C, A, zinc, Selenium, iodine, nitric oxide, status etc etc —and also very probably by some medicines such as HCQ in combination— probably worse by stress, poor nutrition, poor sleep, lack of hydration, sugar...) 

 

In the casual use sense where what might be meant is that some people could already have adaptive immunity antibodies that are cross reactive to SARS2, the percent of population that has that is probably too low (or too dependent on past infection in that area with something that might have conferred past cross reactive immunity to SARS2) to necessarily show up in a 21 person ship sample.   And even then there may be a dose and virulence vs degree of potential immune reaction where ship quarters contact could be too much for the immune response (both innate and adaptive antibodies or preexisting cross reactive antibodies).   Having antibodies that react to a virus,  and having a robust swift neutralizing antibody reaction that eliminates the virus, and does so without starting a negative immune system cascade aren’t necessarily the same things.  

 

For SARS2, “sickness” seems to frequently be the manifestation of the bodily immune response to the infection—not a situation where it is completely “prevented” such as where a sharp object did not penetrate the skin at all, or similar actions in the innate immune system, for example, perhaps mucus washed the SARS2 virus out of nose before any virions ever penetrated a cell, ,etc etc etc., but where it has gotten past first complete “prevention” barriers and is being fought by immune system. And “severe” Covid sickness seems to frequently be from immune system over reaction.   (And probably generally the “severe” sickness seems to be from overreaction coming from the adaptive arm of the immune system not the innate arm.) 

So having antibodies does not necessarily mean not getting sick — or even perhaps very sick if they act and then the situation touches off an immune system over reaction (cytokine storm, bradykinin storm, ...) 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Pen said:

 

Some words issues: “prevention” may be a misnomer by and large. Barriers like masks, PPE, skin, mucus, may actually “prevent” infection.  For a virus, much of the immune system (both innate and adaptive) is involved in fighting off an infection after it has already been caught, after it has already entered the body and possibly already entered cells. 

 

“Innate immunity” has a specific immunology meaning and also is used in loose casual conversation with different meaning. 

 

In the immunological sense, “innate” immunity is the immediate bodily capacity to resist infection without requiring development of antibodies that recognize it. (Antibody development is part of the “adaptive” immunity arm of the immune system, not the “innate” arm.)  “Innate” immunity covers systems from ones that tend to stop infection coming in at all to very early responses the immune system can apply to many intruding foreign bodies or microbes or diseased cells to get rid of them. Afaik, Everyone who is alive and not confined to some special bubble for people without immunity has some innate immunity. Some people have much more innate immunity than others. Some things can tend to help strengthen innate immunity and others tend to weaken it. But enough of an assault against body will result in illness. 

It could be analogized to skin as a first line of defense helping prevent infection. And in fact skin is one part of many in the innate immune system. If nothing gets through the skin, for example, maybe there’s a light encounter with an infection carrying sharp object but that doesn’t break the skin, there won’t be an infection in that way.  But if a dirty germ laden nail breaks the skin barrier to outside world there may be resulting infection.   If the person is involved in something that causes multiple deep dirty cuts like bayonet fighting, infection is even more likely.  If a person is involved in something that weakens the protection (perhaps standing in filthy water during trench warfare, or in an area with many biting insects, or having thinner dry skin that is cracking) there might be an infection without even an obvious puncture or cut. 

Innate immunity tends to be better in children, but can also be made better —or worse! — by environmental factors of various sorts (including probably better by things like good levels of Vitamin D, C, A, zinc, Selenium, iodine, nitric oxide, status etc etc —and also very probably by some medicines such as HCQ in combination— probably worse by stress, poor nutrition, poor sleep, lack of hydration, sugar...) 

 

In the casual use sense where what might be meant is that some people could already have adaptive immunity antibodies that are cross reactive to SARS2, the percent of population that has that is probably too low (or too dependent on past infection in that area with something that might have conferred past cross reactive immunity to SARS2) to necessarily show up in a 21 person ship sample.   And even then there may be a dose and virulence vs degree of potential immune reaction where ship quarters contact could be too much for the immune response (both innate and adaptive antibodies or preexisting cross reactive antibodies).   Having antibodies that react to a virus,  and having a robust swift neutralizing antibody reaction that eliminates the virus, and does so without starting a negative immune system cascade aren’t necessarily the same things.  

 

For SARS2, “sickness” seems to frequently be the manifestation of the bodily immune response to the infection—not a situation where it is completely “prevented” such as where a sharp object did not penetrate the skin at all, or similar actions in the innate immune system, for example, perhaps mucus washed the SARS2 virus out of nose before any virions ever penetrated a cell, ,etc etc etc., but where it has gotten past first complete “prevention” barriers and is being fought by immune system. And “severe” Covid sickness seems to frequently be from immune system over reaction.   (And probably generally the “severe” sickness seems to be from overreaction coming from the adaptive arm of the immune system not the innate arm.) 

So having antibodies does not necessarily mean not getting sick — or even perhaps very sick if they act and then the situation touches off an immune system over reaction (cytokine storm, bradykinin storm, ...) 

 

 

Oh yes I see what you’re saying!  I’m not sure what the correct phrasing is then.  Some cross immunity from a ore exisiting infection?  I’m talking about the idea that we don’t need 60pc infected for herd immunity because some people are already somehow immune.  The “immunological dark matter” or something one scientist called it although they were called out for imprecise language over that.

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1 hour ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Oh yes I see what you’re saying!  I’m not sure what the correct phrasing is then.  Some cross immunity from a ore exisiting infection?  I’m talking about the idea that we don’t need 60pc infected for herd immunity because some people are already somehow immune.  The “immunological dark matter” or something one scientist called it although they were called out for imprecise language over that.

 

I am not sure we can conclude anything about that from the ship situation.

I have no reason to believe that the Philippines has reached any sort of herd immunity, whether that would take 60% or only 25% of population to achieve it.  

I have no reason to think that “herd immunity “ to a coronavirus would necessarily mean complete “prevention” as distinct from people just getting mild illness without long term problems with rare exceptions.  More Like common colds. 

 

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4 hours ago, Pen said:

 

I am not sure we can conclude anything about that from the ship situation.

I have no reason to believe that the Philippines has reached any sort of herd immunity, whether that would take 60% or only 25% of population to achieve it.  

I have no reason to think that “herd immunity “ to a coronavirus would necessarily mean complete “prevention” as distinct from people just getting mild illness without long term problems with rare exceptions.  More Like common colds. 

 

I’m talking about those who believe that cases start declining at about 20pc infections and that there some kind of mysterious mechanism that makes herd immunity kick in at around that level.  But I agree it’s probably to few people and too intense an environment to conclude anything certain.

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1 minute ago, Ausmumof3 said:

I’m talking about those who believe that cases start declining at about 20pc infections and that there some kind of mysterious mechanism that makes herd immunity kick in at around that level.  But I agree it’s probably to few people and too intense an environment to conclude anything certain.

 

IDK.  

Were you thinking that 17/21 means around ~15% could have had some immunity?  But the ones who didn’t get sick on the ship probably represent the whole of the “mysterious mechanism” group with at least more immunity than those who succumbed early.  (Unless it was lack of contact, two different work shifts or something.) 

I think the 20% idea is that 20% with established official immunity may be joined by another 20% or more with hidden immunity from asymptomatic cases or some cross immunity on adaptive immunity side and another 10-20% with high innate immunity.   Not specific on numbers, just idea that known counted cases (or people with test established antibodies) etc may not reflect totals. 

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3 minutes ago, Pen said:

 

IDK.  

Were you thinking that 17/21 means around ~15% could have had some immunity?  But the ones who didn’t get sick on the ship probably represent the whole of the “mysterious mechanism” group with at least more immunity than those who succumbed early.  (Unless it was lack of contact, two different work shifts or something.) 

I think the 20% idea is that 20% with established official immunity may be joined by another 20% or more with hidden immunity from asymptomatic cases or some cross immunity on adaptive immunity side and another 10-20% with high innate immunity.   Not specific on numbers, just idea that known counted cases (or people with test established antibodies) etc may not reflect totals. 

No I was thinking it shows this infection doesn’t stop at 20pc which seems to be the implication some have made based on New York and other harder hit areas. These aren’t epidemiologists or anything just something that keeps coming up for whatever reason.  I don’t know where the idea has originally come from at all. 

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4 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

No I was thinking it shows this infection doesn’t stop at 20pc which seems to be the implication some have made based on New York and other harder hit areas. These aren’t epidemiologists or anything just something that keeps coming up for whatever reason.  I don’t know where the idea has originally come from at all. 

 

Oh. 

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2 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

No I was thinking it shows this infection doesn’t stop at 20pc which seems to be the implication some have made based on New York and other harder hit areas. These aren’t epidemiologists or anything just something that keeps coming up for whatever reason.  I don’t know where the idea has originally come from at all. 

 

I tried to find what you meant and came up with this article with a quoted part in italics below: 

https://www.businessinsider.com/us-states-unintentional-herd-immunity-strategy-curbed-covid-spread-2020-8?amp

 

some research has suggested that if 10-20% of a population gets infected, that could bring about some level of herd immunity, since the virus would mostly have spread among people who have the most contact with others.

Many researchers think the herd immunity threshold is therefore somewhere between 20% and 70%, and that it will vary for different populations.

"I think data we have now (that is robust) indicates it is >25%," Marm Kilpatrick, a disease ecologist and biostatistician at the University of California Santa Cruz, told Business Insider. "But it could be as low as 30%. It might be as high as 50% in some [populations]."

 

I think that probably does not mean that during an outbreak on a ship with small population that it would stop when a certain percent is infected because it’s racing through the ship population (or same could be for dorms or military barracks or nursing homes) — but rather that when ___ ?% of some larger population has gotten sick and recovered and gotten immune (or otherwise gotten immunity) then the immune percent can help to slow down infection in general because the virus can’t spread to those people. So maybe if 40% of people in a restaurant already had it and are immune, then maybe one carrier isn’t as much a problem there than when only 1% had immunity...   something like that ... 

Or, say, when my father’s home HCW recovers fully as will probably be the case, if he is then immune, he will no  longer be likely to catch it again and spread it to the 20 or so clients he visits or their families - or at least probably not this winter.  So that’s an example of a real life person with lots of high risk contacts where the one person becoming immune may stop a lot of subsequent outbreak being spawned.   Because of his work his one immunity may be worth relatively more than average in breaking spread patterns.  And emergency room doctor or high school teacher who becomes immune might be an interruption point to even more potential spread. 

 

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1 hour ago, Pen said:

 

I tried to find what you meant and came up with this article with a quoted part in italics below: 

https://www.businessinsider.com/us-states-unintentional-herd-immunity-strategy-curbed-covid-spread-2020-8?amp

 

some research has suggested that if 10-20% of a population gets infected, that could bring about some level of herd immunity, since the virus would mostly have spread among people who have the most contact with others.

Many researchers think the herd immunity threshold is therefore somewhere between 20% and 70%, and that it will vary for different populations.

"I think data we have now (that is robust) indicates it is >25%," Marm Kilpatrick, a disease ecologist and biostatistician at the University of California Santa Cruz, told Business Insider. "But it could be as low as 30%. It might be as high as 50% in some [populations]."

 

I think that probably does not mean that during an outbreak on a ship with small population that it would stop when a certain percent is infected because it’s racing through the ship population (or same could be for dorms or military barracks or nursing homes) — but rather that when ___ ?% of some larger population has gotten sick and recovered and gotten immune (or otherwise gotten immunity) then the immune percent can help to slow down infection in general because the virus can’t spread to those people. So maybe if 40% of people in a restaurant already had it and are immune, then maybe one carrier isn’t as much a problem there than when only 1% had immunity...   something like that ... 

Or, say, when my father’s home HCW recovers fully as will probably be the case, if he is then immune, he will no  longer be likely to catch it again and spread it to the 20 or so clients he visits or their families - or at least probably not this winter.  So that’s an example of a real life person with lots of high risk contacts where the one person becoming immune may stop a lot of subsequent outbreak being spawned.   Because of his work his one immunity may be worth relatively more than average in breaking spread patterns.  And emergency room doctor or high school teacher who becomes immune might be an interruption point to even more potential spread. 

 

Yes the idea of asymptomatic spread based on different contact patterns.  I think it was more around the idea of some pre existing cross immunity due to previous common cold coronavirus infections.  It was a while ago.  

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1 hour ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Yes the idea of asymptomatic spread based on different contact patterns.  I think it was more around the idea of some pre existing cross immunity due to previous common cold coronavirus infections.  It was a while ago.  

 

I think maybe also some speculation that there might be some cross immunity in some places like somewhere in Germany due to some animal coronavirus.  Or recently here we had the post about maybe areas hit by Dengue.  Some people thought maybe BCG vaccine gave a bit of an advantage...   

 

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44 minutes ago, WahM said:

I know masks are a hot button topic for most on both sides of it, but I’m interested in everyone’s thoughts on these studies: 

https://aapsonline.org/mask-facts/
 

https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577

Many of these studies mentioned in the links have been discussed in the previous mask threads so you could look there. I’m sorry but I don’t know how to link them.

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1 hour ago, WahM said:

I know masks are a hot button topic for most on both sides of it, but I’m interested in everyone’s thoughts on these studies: 

https://aapsonline.org/mask-facts/
 

https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577

 

I think they were already discussed upthread.  

 

The mask facts one is interesting and I think certainly worth realizing that it is conceivable that a bad material like the neck jersey could maybe make droplets transmission worse. 

 

MacIntyre study used masks that only blocked 3% of particles apparently. If you do some research you will see that many cloth masks apparently can reduce particle penetration by much more than that (the mask facts one supports that, and some places have shown even better for more than one fabric layer used or fabric with filters etc)  Some combinations even doing in same range as N95 respirators as to filtration (fit being a whole other issue). 

The MacIntyre study seemed to have chosen remarkably poor cloth masks for their study! 

And of course cloth masks (better ones) were a standard for medical use before non-woven respirators became available standard for HCW PPE. 

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3 hours ago, WahM said:

I know masks are a hot button topic for most on both sides of it, but I’m interested in everyone’s thoughts on these studies: 

https://aapsonline.org/mask-facts/
 

https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577

RE the Vietnamese study in the second link: Yes, of course simple cotton masks that have to be hand washed every night by healthcare workers will not protect as well as brand new medical-grade N95 masks — no one would claim otherwise. What that study does NOT say is that cloth masks are worse than no masks, as is often claimed by anti-maskers. The "control group" in that study was NOT "no mask," it was "wear whatever mask you normally wear." The "whatever you normally wear" group included a mix of N95s and cloth masks, so it's hardly surprising that the group where each HCW had 2 new N95s per day had the fewest infections, the group using a mix of N95 & cloth was in the middle, and the ones who had to reuse and rewear simple cotton masks every day were the least protected. 

RE the first link: The "AAPS" organization that published the list of "facts"  is actually a far-right political group masquerading as a legitimate medical organization by using a similar name. They support numerous discredited theories — e.g. that vaccines cause autism, HIV does not cause AIDS, homosexuality shortens life expectancy, abortion causes cancer, global warming is not caused by human activity and is actually beneficial for humans, illegal immigrants are causing an epidemic of leprosy, the FDA and Medicare are unconstitutional, etc.

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9 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

RE the Vietnamese study in the second link: Yes, of course simple cotton masks that have to be hand washed every night by healthcare workers will not protect as well as brand new medical-grade N95 masks — no one would claim otherwise. What that study does NOT say is that cloth masks are worse than no masks, as is often claimed by anti-maskers. The "control group" in that study was NOT "no mask," it was "wear whatever mask you normally wear." The "whatever you normally wear" group included a mix of N95s and cloth masks, so it's hardly surprising that the group where each HCW had 2 new N95s per day had the fewest infections, the group using a mix of N95 & cloth was in the middle, and the ones who had to reuse and rewear simple cotton masks every day were the least protected. 

RE the first link: The "AAPS" organization that published the list of "facts"  is actually a far-right political group masquerading as a legitimate medical organization by using a similar name. They support numerous discredited theories — e.g. that vaccines cause autism, HIV does not cause AIDS, homosexuality shortens life expectancy, abortion causes cancer, global warming is not caused by human activity and is actually beneficial for humans, illegal immigrants are causing an epidemic of leprosy, the FDA and Medicare are unconstitutional, etc.

I think this is similar to why you can't prove that parachutes work: it would be unethical to have a control group. Same for masks in a healthcare setting.

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32 minutes ago, frogger said:

Guess we will never know if parachutes work. 

 

Sarcasm/joking to be clear that I don’t actually mean this: And since RCT is the gold standard they should not be used till an excellent large RCT proves efficacy.  🤣🙃

 

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The studies that show HCWs being protected by wearing a mask and the study below do make me feel better.  If others aren't wearing a face covering or are wearing one that has a low efficacy rate for blocking particles, wearing my face covering gives me a high amount of protection. 

"All types of masks provided a much higher degree of exposure protection against inward transmission of particles, then in preventing outward transmission by a mechanical head as a proxy for an infected patient exposing the environment." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2440799/#pone.0002618-Bootsma1

And this paper reminds me keep my hands away from my face and wash my hands often: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jpc.14936

"During the pandemics caused by swine flu and by the coronaviruses which caused SARS and MERS, many people in Asia and elsewhere walked around wearing surgical or homemade cotton masks to protect themselves. One danger of doing this is the illusion of protection. Surgical facemasks are designed to be discarded after single use. As they become moist they become porous and no longer protect. Indeed, experiments have shown that surgical and cotton masks do not trap the SARS‐CoV‐2 (COVID‐19) virus, which can be detected on the outer surface of the masks for up to 7 days.78  Thus, a pre‐symptomatic or mildly infected person wearing a facemask for hours without changing it and without washing hands every time they touched the mask could paradoxically increase the risk of infecting others."

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17 minutes ago, hopeallgoeswell said:

The studies that show HCWs being protected by wearing a mask and the study below do make me feel better.  If others aren't wearing a face covering or are wearing one that has a low efficacy rate for blocking particles, wearing my face covering gives me a high amount of protection. 

"All types of masks provided a much higher degree of exposure protection against inward transmission of particles, then in preventing outward transmission by a mechanical head as a proxy for an infected patient exposing the environment." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2440799/#pone.0002618-Bootsma1

And this paper reminds me keep my hands away from my face and wash my hands often: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jpc.14936

"During the pandemics caused by swine flu and by the coronaviruses which caused SARS and MERS, many people in Asia and elsewhere walked around wearing surgical or homemade cotton masks to protect themselves. One danger of doing this is the illusion of protection. Surgical facemasks are designed to be discarded after single use. As they become moist they become porous and no longer protect. Indeed, experiments have shown that surgical and cotton masks do not trap the SARS‐CoV‐2 (COVID‐19) virus, which can be detected on the outer surface of the masks for up to 7 days.78  Thus, a pre‐symptomatic or mildly infected person wearing a facemask for hours without changing it and without washing hands every time they touched the mask could paradoxically increase the risk of infecting others."

 

I think it is important to be aware that even if not obviously made of lace panties draped over someone’s ear, some masks may not be very protective even if they look like they are.  (And Vice versa!) 

I still think the preponderance of evidence is that it will help generally to reduce transmission. 

In re bolder- Masks don’t need to block all individual SARS2 virions to help reduce viral load.  

Depending on fabric and aspects like electrostatics, virus on outside may tend to stay on the fabric via electrostatic clinging or even fabric being Velcro-like for the particles, rather than traveling to others. Even if people don’t wash, rotate, sun, ozonate, UV,  put in hot oven, or otherwise try to clean their masks much of virus that was within larger droplets may be caught on inside of mask not outside (better no doubt with multiple layer and filtered masks, but probably still true for many single layer ones —even T-shirt alone seems to give ~10% reduction, denser weave cotton is better even in single layer...  

It appears that reducing viral load reduces catching illness and reduces severity of illness if caught.   So IMO reducing is good and be part of why we have been having rising cases, but not similar steep rise in deaths recently. 

 

Cloth and other materials holding onto virus for 7 days etc is also potentially an issue for if people cough into their coat sleeves, toss a used tissue into a waste basket, etc.  

IMO Not wearing masks would increase droplet spray going from one person to another and would not solve virus particles clinging to coats and shoes (or on cleaning cloths of people wiping down surfaces in stores, schools etc ) for days.   

I think the issue would be better solved by using better filtering masks and cleaning them or rotating them, not by giving them up.  Not letting imperfection stop the partially helpful. 

 

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An 8-week study (double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled) of 125 participants did not find any  prophylactic benefit for HCQ in healthcare workers. All participants worked at one of two hospitals (U Penn Medicine or Penn Presbyterian), and the majority were doctors or nurses working in the ER or Covid wards. Four participants in each group tested positive for Covid during the study. The full article can be downloaded here:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2771265.

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41 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

An 8-week study (double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled) of 125 participants did not find any  prophylactic benefit for HCQ in healthcare workers. All participants worked at one of two hospitals (U Penn Medicine or Penn Presbyterian), and the majority were doctors or nurses working in the ER or Covid wards. Four participants in each group tested positive for Covid during the study. The full article can be downloaded here:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2771265.

Isn't it actually zinc that goes into the cell and prevents virus replication?  Since people don't readily absorb it, HCQ or another zinc ionophore, like quercetin, is needed to open the cell and allow the zinc to go in and do it's work. I'm not on here often enough to read through everything that gets posted, so this might have been covered already :). 

Edited by hopeallgoeswell
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https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.29.20203869v1
 

Pre-print meta-analysis on HCQ as prophylaxis shows some benefit.  I haven’t read the study or checked into it  sorry, but thought some would be interested.

 

from comments around it the confidence interval may make this meaningless but could still be grounds enough for further studies.

Edited by Ausmumof3
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Finally, a study that includes the zinc element but it's open label. 😒  That couldn't be a problem in this enviroment.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306987720306435

 

Anyway, still curious how it turns out. I'm not holding my breath since it would seem to me that it would still work without zinc unless a majority of your patients were zinc deficient. It seems like if only some were zinc deficient results would still show up but would be less dramatic. Although, if your body is using more zinc during it's battle then it might make a bigger difference.   ??

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1 hour ago, Corraleno said:

An 8-week study (double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled) of 125 participants did not find any  prophylactic benefit for HCQ in healthcare workers. All participants worked at one of two hospitals (U Penn Medicine or Penn Presbyterian), and the majority were doctors or nurses working in the ER or Covid wards. Four participants in each group tested positive for Covid during the study. The full article can be downloaded here:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2771265.

 

Did not read whole thing. My immediate reaction is that 600mg per day for 8 weeks is too high a dosage for too long  and that it needs Zinc along with the HCQ. 

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13 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.29.20203869v1
 

Pre-print meta-analysis on HCQ as prophylaxis shows some benefit.  I haven’t read the study or checked into it  sorry, but thought some would be interested.

 

from comments around it the confidence interval may make this meaningless but could still be grounds enough for further studies.

So they're taking three completely different studies, none of which showed statistically significant benefits, and they're saying that if you average the "risk ratios" as if they were all one big study, then suddenly there are statistically significant benefits? 

Is that normal practice? It seems like that kind of makes the whole concept if statistical significance meaningless if you can add several studies that show no benefit together to produce one that shows significant benefits.

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1 hour ago, hopeallgoeswell said:

Isn't it actually zinc that goes into the cell and prevents virus replication?  Since people don't readily absorb it, HCQ or another zinc ionophore, like quercetin, is needed to open the cell and allow the zinc to go in and do it's work. I'm not on here often enough to read through everything that gets posted, so this might have been covered already :). 

 

Yes. There are some things that HCQ can do beyond Quercitin as well, and HCQ is more definitely proven as a zinc ionophore.

Plus  Quercitin itself doesn’t absorb well so that one ends up trying to add bromelain or to take some special much more expensive formulation of Quercitin (like EMIQ) to get the ionophore itself to be absorbed enough so that hopefully the zinc can get where it’s needed. 

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1 hour ago, Corraleno said:

So they're taking three completely different studies, none of which showed statistically significant benefits, and they're saying that if you average the "risk ratios" as if they were all one big study, then suddenly there are statistically significant benefits? 

Is that normal practice? It seems like that kind of makes the whole concept if statistical significance meaningless if you can add several studies that show no benefit together to produce one that shows significant benefits.

here’s one of the study authors here, there’s a few interesting comments.  Sorry I’m just posting in between bits today so not much time for depth.  
 

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10 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

here’s one of the study authors here, there’s a few interesting comments.  Sorry I’m just posting in between bits today so not much time for depth.  
 

 

I’m interested in Zelenko’s new experiments with nebulized HCQ — it greatly reduces HCQ amount which should further help reduce possible side effects and also not be taking HCQ away from arthritis patients if just a portion of a tablet worth is needed weekly to be the zinc ionophore. Possibly something like ~ 14   200 mg tablets would be a whole year worth.  It is already only supposed to be one 200mg tablet per week after the loading dose. Not 600mg per day and no zinc like in a study above.   

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If they want to do a scientific study to try to replicate under more rigorous conditions what someone reported as giving excellent clinical results in practice, they should at least try to as exactly as possible replicate the actual protocol — not use only a part of the supposedly useful “cocktail” and much too high amounts of a single substance. 

Sheeeesh. 

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17 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

https://sports.yahoo.com/amphtml/covid19-detected-lake-water-dont-panic-191828650.html?__twitter_impression=true
 

SARS cov 2 detected in lake water in Lake Superior.  Apparently not likely to be infectious or a risk but more an indication of the extent of the outbreak in the area.

 

And maybe so much for people saying that peeing, coughing, etc in a lake worth of water is negligible. 

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15 cases 2 deaths for Vic today.  I can see it staying at that level for a while unfortunately.  Nsw stayed at that level for quite a long time before finally getting on top of it.  Nsw and wa both had cases in quarantine today.  Here in my state we are now going to be allowed to have “vertical drinking” and dancing... needless to say there’s a few jokes going around about the horizontal drinking and dancing that must have been happening before.  None of that really impacts me personally I don’t think.  
 

also Singapore will open borders to Australia with the exception of Victoria from the 8th of October assuming all stays well.  We haven’t said we'll open to Singapore yet but I believe there’s plans to being international students from there in.  There’s also talk from the PM of home quarantine rather than hotel for new arrivals although that makes me nervous as it’s clearly not 100pc trustworthy.  

I think there’s a lot of awareness that international students might stick it out for one year but if we can’t figure out a way to get them back in by next year we will probably lose them forever.  

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I feel sad that Australia is starting a big well funded HCQ study - but  apparently of HCQ alone no zinc and daily rather than following the Zelenko weekly after loading dose protocol with it. 

 

It seems like a waste waste of resources — assuming goal

is not deliberately to discredit it. 

Edited by Pen
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57 minutes ago, Pen said:

I feel sad that Australia is starting a big well funded HCQ study - but  apparently of HCQ alone no zinc and daily rather than following the Zelenko weekly after loading dose protocol with it. 

 

It seems like a waste waste of resources — assuming goal

is not deliberately to discredit it. 

There was definitely trials listed with both HCQ alone and HCQ with zinc prior to the retracted lancet study.  I can’t find whether they have been rebooted or not.  I know that Norman Swann here doesn’t really think it’s effective or worth investigating further (though he’s positive about vit D and saying we still need more or better evidence on ivermectin)

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1 hour ago, Pen said:

I feel sad that Australia is starting a big well funded HCQ study - but  apparently of HCQ alone no zinc and daily rather than following the Zelenko weekly after loading dose protocol with it. 

 

It seems like a waste waste of resources — assuming goal

is not deliberately to discredit it. 

“Will zinc be used in the trial?

Hydroxychloroquine is not being tested with a zinc supplement in the COVID SHIELD trial.

In some laboratory studies, it has been concluded that zinc might support the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine in treating patients who have already been infected with SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19). 

Human blood and tissues naturally contain zinc and there is currently no evidence to indicate that supplementation with additional zinc is required for people who are not zinc deficient, when using hydroxychloroquine as a preventative therapy for SARS-CoV-2.

Pre-screening will ensure participants in the COVID SHIELD trial meet certain health criteria, which means they will be less likely to be zinc deficient and therefore will not need to take additional zinc supplements in conjunction with the hydroxychloroquine used in this trial.“
 

it looks like they aren’t supplementing zinc but are hoping that pre screening will mean less chance of zinc deficiency.  It’s a pity they won’t add a third arm with zinc.

https://wehi.edu.au/covid-shield-faqs

 

Edited by Ausmumof3
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8 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

“Will zinc be used in the trial?

Hydroxychloroquine is not being tested with a zinc supplement in the COVID SHIELD trial.

In some laboratory studies, it has been concluded that zinc might support the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine in treating patients who have already been infected with SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19). 

Human blood and tissues naturally contain zinc and there is currently no evidence to indicate that supplementation with additional zinc is required for people who are not zinc deficient, when using hydroxychloroquine as a preventative therapy for SARS-CoV-2.

Pre-screening will ensure participants in the COVID SHIELD trial meet certain health criteria, which means they will be less likely to be zinc deficient and therefore will not need to take additional zinc supplements in conjunction with the hydroxychloroquine used in this trial.“
 

it looks like they aren’t supplementing zinc but are hoping that pre screening will mean less chance of zinc deficiency.  It’s a pity they won’t add a third arm with zinc.

https://wehi.edu.au/covid-shield-faqs

 

Yes it is a shame because it would be great to be able to definitively put this whole issue to rest either way. But as I wrote that I realized that I feel really pessimistic that some people would accept the results if they prove negative. For some it does not seem like a factual information based issue but almost rather like an ideological one. Distrust is so high that I don’t know how you can gain trust.

@Ausmumof3 just wanted to say I always look forward to getting on here in the morning and seeing your posts. Thanks for all the good info you come up with!

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From this article that someone posted on the other thread: 
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/public-health/states-ranked-by-covid-19-test-positivity-rates-july-14.html
I see this statement: "*Texas changed its positivity rate reporting methodology Sept. 14. The state will now rely on a calculation that accounts for the date a test was administered versus the date the health agency receives test results. "

So, to me this means that as it usually takes several days to get test results back, the positivity rate for Texas will be inaccurate for several days - assuming they go back to recalculate the rate for the date the tests were administered. 

Are other states doing this? Or are their rates calculated by # positives test results received today (regardless of when tested)/number of total tests performed today?  Or are other states having one day turnaround on their test results? Or am I just totally confused about all of this? 

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