Capitol Hill Blue Forums Science and Technology Health, Medicine & the healing Sciences Coronavirus: The Plague of The 21st Century?

Somebody has opened a corona testing drive-thru at a local junior college parking lot. $125 for a virus RNA test and $75 for an antibody test. I think the antibody test is just the finger-prick little plastic block thingie from China. Not very specific: Like maybe 90%. I read that Stanford has an antibody test that proved 100% specific on a test sample.

Friday I will finally get an antibody test to determine if what I and the family went through really was COVID-19 once and for all.

If what I/we went through (but esp me, because I got the sickest) WAS NOT COVID-19, then I am going to be positively absolutely TERRIFIED.
I say that because I got so sick that I was actually "getting my affairs in order".
I honestly almost didn't make it, and if that was not the dreaded COVID virus then I seriously will not survive it if it is worse than what I had.

So I am actually hoping that what I caught WAS that stupid virus, so I can breathe a sigh of relief knowing I survived it instead of spending the next several months cowering in fear of what might be next. I am sincerely hoping that what we ALL caught WAS this virus so that we can all exhale and know we went through the fire and came out okay.
I have never experienced anything so awful in my life, not in sixty-three years.

So if COVID-19 is worse, I cannot see how I would survive it.
I will be so relieved if I find out that it was.

The test is eighty-five bucks.

From what I've seen, these antibody tests are pretty darned simple. Anybody could do one at home and avoid all the risk of going into a medical setting:

1. wipe finger with alcohol swab
2. prick finger with the little pokie thing
3. pull blood up into capillary tube
4. put one drop of blood in test well, or one drop in each if there are two wells
5. wait 15 minutes
6. look at blue bars on test

I don't see why anybody needs a doctor, nurse, or tech to do that other than they may enter the results in your medical record. These tests are not perfect but even the worst are about 3 times better than the PCR test for the virus!

I think every person who has to fork over money for tests, and every single person who gets clobbered with a monster hospital bill should be reimbursed.
I realize that Trump's personal fortunes will barely cover a few thousand but we should still start with emptying his personal bank accounts and then go from there.

Who knows, maybe he's actually so broke that can only cover "The Original 15".

Anyone else laughing at the idiots in Michigan?

I think they are ready for a YOOGE Trump rally!

This is like when the Texas assembly passed a bill making pi equal to 3. They can protest all they want for the right to kill themselves. Okay, we need an option for Trump fans who are willing to die for no reason. They are welcome to go back to work, as far as I'm concerned because it would improve the country if they were dead.

Now for something completely different: Covid-19 patients who are dying, mostly die from something called cytokine storm. This is when their immune system goes nuts and releases some bad chemicals that do berserker-level damage. Attacks the lungs, heart, liver, kidneys, etc. There is right now a drug trial and many individual cases of doctors giving cytokine storm patients a drug called Actemra. It's a standard Rheumatoid Arthritis immunosuppressive, that apparently blocks interleukin-6 which is the main driver of cytokine storms. It does not interfere with the body's production of antibodies! It's brought several of these patients back from near-death, and their own antibodies then clear the virus.

Makes mathematics simple and easy

1+1= pi

Idiots YES!

Laughing NO!

Wondering how many will contract and get sick and making others sick, YES!

Thinking if they come down with COVID-19, GOOD, serves the idiots right!

P.S. I am a resident of Michigan, and I remember my high school biology lessons among other medical training over the years. Just hoping this is just a thinning out of the shallow end of the gene pool...

pia, got a link on that? Sure would like to read about it.



Never Mind, found it (DOH, just Google Cytokin Storm)