When the Black Death hit the world in the 14th Century it was incredibly deadly. In some regions the death toll exceeded 50% of the population. It literally changed the history of Europe. What made it so deadly was the profound ignorance of the population, and governments, about what caused and spread it. Modern medicine generally fares much better, but the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 was still one of the deadliest in history, though the mortality rate was "only" about 10%.
The Coronavirus (COVID-19) has created a worldwide concern, affected the markets, and sown panic in certain areas. Yet, the mortality rate is much lower (so far) than the annual flu, which clocks in at around 14 per 100,000. Why the panic?
There seem to be two reasons: it is unique, and it is unknown. Unique, because, while the virus is known (even common), this strain is behaving differently. Similarly, the Spanish flu virus was believed to have been a strain of the H1N1 virus, but was particularly deadly. (Swine flu was another H1N1 strain.) Unknown, because its spread and mechanisms of infection and morbidity are not fully understood. Nor, is there yet a "cure". The unknown is scary.
The question is: is this outbreak more like the annual flu, or more like the Spanish flu? Until we know that answer, the concern seems warranted.
When the Black Death hit the world in the 14th Century it was incredibly deadly. In some regions the death toll exceeded 50% of the population. It literally changed the history of Europe.
I believe the Black Death was partially responsible for the Little Ice Age. Something similar today could be the "cure" for the climate crisis...
I do think it likely that at some point (perhaps in our lifetimes) a deadly contagion will destroy a significant portion of the world population. There is evidence that it has happened in our prehistory as well. Our mistreatment of our planet is likely to either cause or exacerbate the problem.
I can't see any possible causation between the Black Death and the Little Ice Age. However, I could believe that the Little Ice Age caused more rodents to move inside houses and thus had closer contact between rodent fleas and humans. That could have been causative. Wild rodents are the natural pool for Bubonic Plague. We have it in the rodents living in the Sierras. Every year somebody comes back from hiking the mountain trails and comes down with it. Fortunately, very few of those are pneumonic-phase infections but CDC still tracks down everybody who was on an airplane with them and has them checked out. Very few of these people have rodent infested houses, so the normal-phase of spread is not possible.
I guess I might have a problem with Covid19 because I'm immune-suppressed. I have to balance infections against brain lesions. Doing pretty well so far. I heal pretty well and actually rarely get the histamine reactions when I get a cold. So my system seems to still be able to fight off viruses.
Coronavirus Has 'Pandemic Potential' But Isn't There Yet, WHO Says (npr). My biggest concern, frankly, is that it may become established in some countries with less sophisticated medical and social systems, like North Korea and Iran, then re- contaminate the region outside of there.
However, I could believe that the Little Ice Age caused more rodents to move inside houses and thus had closer contact between rodent fleas and humans.
Global warming is rearranging things a bit too. And I'm right on the borderline. I've been fighting a rat infestation for weeks. 40 years here and I've never seen a rat. Exterminator has taken out two dozen or more from my garage and back porch. Walking the dog a couple weeks ago I felt a familiar sting and itch...no-see-ums. Never had those here before. The ex just called and asked what to do with a Cuban tree frog. Put it in a bag and freeze it. Same with Cuban cane toads. It's just a matter of a few years until the first python shows up around here, Another friend has flocks of Whistling Ducks. They don't winter this far north. I see landscapers planting Royal palms around town. Mango and avocado trees are thriving here, couldn't plant them 20 years ago, they'd freeze before they got old enough to bear fruit. Old peach trees no longer bear fruit because there's not enough chill time.
Things are changing. That ^permafrost^ thing is real too. While I remain optimistic about the future of our species I estimate that we'll lose at least a billion lives in the next century. The world will witness devastation such as it has never witnessed before.
There will be plagues, there will be wars, and there will be starvation. There will be fires, there will be floods. Hurricanes and blizzards such as we've never seen before.
I hate to find myself in this position but the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are upon us.
As I said...I'm optimistic about the future. It could be far worse, another Trump term would probably guarantee a death toll in the next century of four billion or more lives.
My biggest concern, frankly, is that it may become established in some countries with less sophisticated medical and social systems, like North Korea and Iran,
It'll be a mess if it gets loose in North Korea or some of the other genuinely backwards areas. Hopefully that vaccine will be along soon.
There is a pandemic that’s been going on for some time with little attention. I don’t know how one illness gets elevated in the media vs. another. There are 400k infections of the one I’m thinking of on this country alone. That number is considered low as the testing for it is spotty at best. It’s spread by migratory birds, rodents and has accelerated with the increased range of its vector hosts due to climate change.
I think it’s going to take bleeding from orifices before the popular culture pays attention. Yeah, climate change is going to have a lot of surprises in store for us on the microbiology front. Can’t see our health care businesses being much good at combating the rising threats.
I can't see any possible causation between the Black Death and the Little Ice Age.
Wikipedia:
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Scientists have tentatively identified seven possible causes of the Little Ice Age: orbital cycles; decreased solar activity; increased volcanic activity; altered ocean current flows; fluctuations in the human population in different parts of the world causing reforestation, or deforestation; and the inherent variability of global climate.
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The Black Death is estimated to have killed 30% to 60% of Europe's population. In total, the plague may have reduced the world population from an estimated 475 million to 350–375 million in the 14th century. It took 200 years for the world population to recover to its previous level. William Ruddiman proposed that these large population reductions in Europe, East Asia, and the Middle East caused a decrease in agricultural activity. Ruddiman suggests reforestation took place, allowing more carbon dioxide uptake from the atmosphere, which may have been a factor in the cooling noted during the Little Ice Age. Ruddiman further hypothesized that a reduced population in the Americas after European contact in the 16th century could have had a similar effect. Other researchers supported depopulation in the Americas as a factor, asserting that humans had cleared considerable amounts of forest to support agriculture in the Americas before the arrival of Europeans brought on a population collapse. Richard Nevle, Robert Dull and colleagues further suggested that not only anthropogenic forest clearance played a role in reducing the amount of carbon sequestered in Neotropical forests, but that human-set fires played a central role in reducing biomass in Amazonian and Central American forests before the arrival of Europeans and the concomitant spread of diseases during the Columbian exchange. Dull and Nevle calculated that reforestation in the tropical biomes of the Americas alone from 1500 to 1650 accounted for net carbon sequestration of 2-5 Pg. Brierley conjectured that European arrival in the Americas caused mass deaths from epidemic disease, which caused much abandonment of farmland, which caused much return of forest, which sequestered greater levels of carbon dioxide. A study of sediment cores and soil samples further suggests that carbon dioxide uptake via reforestation in the Americas could have contributed to the Little Ice Age. The depopulation is linked to a drop in carbon dioxide levels observed at Law Dome, Antarctica. A 2011 study by the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology asserts that the Mongol invasions and conquests, which lasted almost two centuries, contributed to global cooling by depopulating vast regions and allowing for the return of carbon absorbing forest over cultivated land.
How is the corona virus any different than SARS virus in the early 2000s that we all survived? In fact, from what what I am being informed by various media outlets, this virus is less severe than SARS.
It's a lot more contagious and people can be infectious for a while before symptoms appear. That makes a huge difference. Lethality actually makes a pandemic LESS likely because people die quickly before they can spread it. The fact that isolated pockets are popping up here and there around the world means it has been out there in the air-traveling public for longer than we think. It probably had a few months jump on the people trying to isolate it. It also can infect people with minor or no symptoms. That's very bad news from an epidemology viewpoint.
It is less lethal than SARS, but a lot more people are likely to catch it. When I read about the decision process for that plane containing infected and non-infected people, the fact that the state department overruled the CDC said it all: America's response is being run by idiots. We are screwed.
Public Health requires doing hard things based on science, and the Trump administration has never been one to do hard things or pay attention to experts. They think they create reality. Good luck with that.
How is the corona virus any different than SARS virus in the early 2000s that we all survived? In fact, from what what I am being informed by various media outlets, this virus is less severe than SARS.
But it has a MUCH longer incubation period, in which a person is also contagious.
When I read about the decision process for that plane containing infected and non-infected people, the fact that the state department overruled the CDC said it all: America's response is being run by idiots. We are screwed.
Trump is also taking 16% of the CDC's funding away.
This one is pretty interesting. Seems that we don't have a test nor a virus! Either one needs to get passed by the DEA before they can be used. Apparently that may take years and, again apparently, gov is waaay behind on this one. So, basically, we have no idea how many are infected. Better yet. The death rate for this one has been set at about 3.2%. I know, don't sound like many until those who got it start in the multiple thousands. Now throw in that Trump is cutting science and health agencies by multiple billions per agency. You know, like National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (kinda makes your heart beat a bit faster?)
Now, for the kicker, according to the talking heads of tv. Seems that the Dems have, pretty much, ignored ALL of the above and people are beginning to wonder. To me it just seems that its yet another indication that the dems are completely uninterested in doing much else than beat up on each other as per our current group of contenders. One can wonder what, exactly, they think they are contending over. Perhaps, eventually, they might even let us know. https://www.washingtonpost.com/scie...4-4c2d-11ea-b721-9f4cdc90bc1c_story.html
Please note, I have not gone after Bernie on this one but he does warrant some thought. One great thing about Bernie. He is GREAT when it comes to fairy tales.
Oh, on the good side Trump has valiantly claimed that Coronavirus has been taken care of and there is nothing to worry about.
I heard a disturbing point today, by an epidemiologist: most of the prescription meds and supplies we use (e.g, masks, gloves, disposable protective clothing) to combat the problem are produced ...in China, and the factories ate closed. We're undersupplied at present. And the supply chain is disrupted. At least it's not as if China might need these things...
I heard a disturbing point today, by an epidemiologist: most of the prescription meds and supplies we use (e.g, masks, gloves, disposable protective clothing) to combat the problem are produced ...in China, and the factories ate closed.
That's a nice mask because it has eye protection. But the problem is that you need some way to sterilize yourself if you are near anybody who is infected once you leave that area. You might have virus on your clothes, your hands, the outside of the mask, etc. You go home and get virus all over your car. Then you shed the mask and introduce the virus into your nose by touching it. Bam. You just got infected.
Or virus gets on the bottom of your shoes, then your car, then your hands, then your face...
Protection requires keeping your safe area uncontaminated by using full body plastic suits with a disinfection treatment of your whole suit any time you return to the safe area.
There just are not enough such suits, or even masks. But I worry more that there are not enough ventilators to keep everybody alive if they get seriously ill. Not enough food to keep us fed until there is a vaccine. Remember, there are people all along the food chain that could be infectious.
I suspect a lot of people (including me) are going to die.
Never thought of that. Stopping the flow of air is a perfect way to prevent breathing in the virus. Are there any drawbacks to that?
Nope! I am offering free assistance to my Regressive friends for using this "novel" protection strategy. No more disease, EVER!! I'm hoping it will go viral on Twitter.
I figger I'll just hole up here in the swamp until this all blows over. I can easily go a month without going to town and with some minimal preparation I could go twice that long.
There are a couple of problems. The first is that nobody is quite sure just how the disease transmits. Whilst the Chinese claim its going down there nobody really knows, and all anybody seems to know is that you can catch it but there may be no evidence of it on the person you supposedly got it from. Add in that there is still no test for it in the United States and it will take over a year for the FDA to ok it even if we have one right now. Remember too that this one was changing as it was ripping through China. There is also no reason to assume it can't do that again. There is also no cure and no shot.
I guess the main problem is that nobody really knows that much about corona virus. This tends to convince me that there is, really, no idea of how we should guard against something nobody knows much about in the first place. The best idea, therefore, is to believe our dear leader, Donald the Horrible when he tells us that HE has it all under control and not to worry but buy stock now.
You might pass the word as the Dems, in their infinite wisdom have chosen to beat the hell out of each other rather than pointing out just how incredibly incompetent Trump actually is. Then, of course, we all get to die............
That's what a lot of people are thinking. What's most disturbing is the notion that TrumpCo probably wants to use it as an excuse to postpone or cancel the election.
Never thought of that. Stopping the flow of air is a perfect way to prevent breathing in the virus. Are there any drawbacks to that?
Nope! I am offering free assistance to my Regressive friends for using this "novel" protection strategy. No more disease, EVER!! I'm hoping it will go viral on Twitter.
Anybody have any good contacts at Fox News?
Another good selling point, it is better than drinking bleach...
Moderna Therapeutics, a biotech company based in Cambridge, Mass., has shipped the first batches of its COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine was created just 42 days after the genetic sequence of the COVID_19 virus, called SARS-CoV-2, was released by Chinese researchers in mid-January. The first vials were sent to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, MD, which will ready the vaccine for human testing as early as April.
They are short-circuiting the usual method for making vaccines by using the virus gene sequence and building mRNA specific for the virus:
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Moderna’s vaccine against COVID-19 was developed in record time because it’s based on a relatively new genetic method that does not require growing huge amounts of virus. Instead, the vaccine is packed with mRNA, the genetic material that comes from DNA and makes proteins. Moderna loads its vaccine with mRNA that codes for the right coronavirus proteins which then get injected into the body. Immune cells in the lymph nodes can process that mRNA and start making the protein in just the right way for other immune cells to recognize and mark them for destruction.
Another company has an anti-viral drug called Remdesivir that shows activity against SARS and MERS (also Corona viruses) and trials will start with some of the people shipped here after the cruise ship fiasco.
Even if either or both of these are successful, the big challenge will be to keep the virus contained until enough people have the vaccine.
Moderna’s vaccine against COVID-19 was developed in record time because it’s based on a relatively new genetic method that does not require growing huge amounts of virus. Instead, the vaccine is packed with mRNA, the genetic material that comes from DNA and makes proteins.
Moderna’s vaccine against COVID-19 was developed in record time because it’s based on a relatively new genetic method that does not require growing huge amounts of virus. Instead, the vaccine is packed with mRNA, the genetic material that comes from DNA and makes proteins.
Of course they both do, but they can short circuit clinical trials if people are dying. That really only applies to the anti-viral drug: If they are dying anyway, might as well try it. The first study is designed as a classic blind study where some people get the drug and others get placebo. But if they get a good response to the drug, they then give the placebo folks the drug later for humanitarian reasons.
The vaccine is a bit trickier. You need to give it to a limited bunch of people to see if it is safe first. As long as nobody in that group starts making antibodies against their own cells and nobody has an acute allergic reaction, it is deemed safe. Then you want to check for effectiveness. There is already a great place to do that: Wuhan, China. Vaccinate 100,000 people and see if anybody comes down with the disease. Even if it just makes the disease less lethal, that is a win.
By the way, even if one or both of these work, the effort to get ahead of the virus spread is going to cause major economic disruption. The latest market loss are nowhere near finished.
Moderna’s vaccine against COVID-19 was developed in record time because it’s based on a relatively new genetic method that does not require growing huge amounts of virus. Instead, the vaccine is packed with mRNA, the genetic material that comes from DNA and makes proteins.
What could possibly go wrong?
Dame Emma Thompson - Comedic actress.
Sneaky, had to wait till the end...
With human trials at least we'll know the end is coming...
This entire thing seems very strange. You can catch it from somebody with no symptoms. We don't have a way to test for it but then we do, then maybe we do The death rate seems to be 3% but, according to others that may be true Nobody has ever explain just, exactly, what it does. I think it has something to do with the lungs - not sure. We have a cure, we don't have a cure, we have one but its not tested, we have one that is brand new technology. We will have a test ready - sometime....... We have invented a cure but not sure it works.
This stuff goes on and on. There are a LOT of maybe, perhaps, pretty soon, new tech, kills but not really, kills a lot, kills, but not a lot. It just goes on and on and on. My suspicion is that it will all level off once we are actually dealing with it. I watched one guy, yesterday, I think. Who was supposed to be an expert. He said; "we have no tests", "we do have tests but they need to be tested", "we are trying to import test pacs", it will be a couple of months to test the test pacs before we really start making test pacs.
When you add it all up I am no longer convinced that anybody really knows what the hell is going on. its kinda like a terrible thing that is coming and we need to be prepared for it but we just don't know what it is. This sounds a bit like folks talking about them pesky aliens that come and go?
Worst thing I read today: I guess the CDC boys who know all about deadly viruses and plastic suits have told the Trump administration to go screw themselves after the State Department overruled them and flew infected people and uninfected people back from Japan in the same plane. HHS sent workers to handle the infected people with no training and no protective equipment. Sounds like this was setup by a Trump appointee!
So, the worst spreaders of Covid in the US will probably be Health and Human Services government employees! Hopefully, some of them have made it back to DC to report to Trump...
This is what happens when you have a government that fires all the experts, retaliates against people who point out problems, and tries to construct an "alternate reality". Actual reality has a nasty habit of sneaking around back and biting them on the ass.
I haven't been around my local Trump supporters in a week but this is my prediction .... they will conclude it is a liberal hoax ergo there is nothing to worry about ... the stock market is fine ... nobody has died ... and they continue to love their cult leader
"It's going to disappear. One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear," Trump said at the White House Thursday as the virus marched across Asia and Europe after US officials said the US should brace for severe disruption to everyday life.
The President also warned that things could "get worse before it gets better," but he added it could "maybe go away. We'll see what happens. Nobody really knows."
There are two reasons to be legitimately concerned about the COVID-19 (COrona VIrus Disease 2019) virus: its mortality rate and its incubation period. You’re Likely to Get the Coronavirus (Atlantic). Because it is novel, the actual mortality rate is presently unknown (although in the vicinity of 2% - in contrast to influenza, which is typically 0.1-.2% ). The tests for determining exposure are not particularly robust or widespread, which is a worldwide problem. That is why the case in California was so alarming. That patient was undiagnosed for a week after exhibiting severe symptoms.
Influenza typically hits between 9 and 14 million Americans annually (3-4% of the population), and 12-56,000 Americans die from it annually. And that is with a robust and relatively effective inoculation program. It has an incubation period of 1-4 days. More than 80 percent of infections result in mild to no symptoms, which is why it spreads so widely.
The coronavirus incubation period appears to be between 14-22 days. So, COVID-19 is 10-20 times more virulent than influenza, and has 3-20 times the incubation period. To put that in perspective given the spread rate of influenza in the population,
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within the coming year, some 40 to 70 percent of people around the world will be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19. But, [Harvard epidemiology professor Marc Lipsitch] clarifies emphatically, this does not mean that all will have severe illnesses. “It’s likely that many will have mild disease, or may be asymptomatic,” he said. As with influenza, which is often life-threatening to people with chronic health conditions and of older age, most cases pass without medical care. (Overall, about 14 percent of people with influenza have no symptoms.)
All of this is to explain why this pandemic is so alarming to epidemiologists. When you map it out, it is, conservatively, perhaps 10 times as deadly as influenza, and can be 10-15 times more widespread. And, there is no vaccine (nor likely to be one this year). Extrapolating it out, that would be (again, conservatively), 132 million American infections, and 2.64 million deaths. That is a sobering picture. Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) (CDC):
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Outbreaks of novel virus infections among people are always of public health concern. The risk from these outbreaks depends on characteristics of the virus, including how well it spreads between people, the severity of resulting illness, and the medical or other measures available to control the impact of the virus (for example, vaccine or treatment medications). The fact that this disease has caused illness, including illness resulting in death, and sustained person-to-person spread is concerning. These factors meet two of the criteria of a pandemic. As community spread is detected in more and more countries, the world moves closer toward meeting the third criteria, worldwide spread of the new virus.
The potential public health threat posed by COVID-19 is high, both globally and to the United States.
"It's going to disappear. One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear," Trump said at the White House Thursday as the virus marched across Asia and Europe after US officials said the US should brace for severe disruption to everyday life.
The President also warned that things could "get worse before it gets better," but he added it could "maybe go away. We'll see what happens. Nobody really knows."
I'm imagining Trump in 1345... which is where, I think, his head is at. "It's all a Chinese hoax. There's no risk with this 'bubo-plague' thing. God will provide." Meanwhile Pence will be conducting "pray the disease away" days with his fellow flagellants.
I'm imagining Trump in 1345... which is where, I think, his head is at. "It's all a Chinese hoax. There's no risk with this 'bubo-plague' thing. God will provide." Meanwhile Pence will be conducting "pray the disease away" days with his fellow flagellants.
I am praying for novel ways to increase the severity of said flagellation. This is a job for the producers of Fear Factor and Mythbusters. They need to get together to invent a method of flagellation that is capable of concentrating the collective pain of the proles onto the backs of the flagellants the way a thermal solar focusing mirror array concentrates sunlight.
Oh wait, maybe we could just construct a "Holy Tower" that they climb while steeped in prayer, then when they are all huddled and on their knees, we just open the barn doors and "Let God's pure and holy sunligtht in"..."to cleanse them", of course.
Then we can pay people to sweep up the ashes and use them to make construction materials for homeless shelters.
My wife went out and bought a pile of face masks yesterday. She likes to be ready.
The simple facts have not changed. The United States, working under jackass Trump, is so far behind the curve its a wonder to behold. We have actually tested, maybe, two hundred people. South Korea is testing 5000 a day! I also read that they have offered to send us 10,000 test kits but we have chosen to do that on our own. The guy in charge figures they can roll out tests in, maybe, two months. It will be interesting. By that time I suspect they will find people in trouble all over the place! The important thing about that is that our genius idiot president Trump has already set it all up so that we will never know.
Its really amazing, our dear leader thinks he can make sure that we will never learn the facts by putting the anti-science guy vice president Mike Pense in charge to make sure of that. I also find it interesting that the Democrats, in their infinite wisdom, have apparently decided to never mention Trump's clever hand in this mess. They hold firm to the Hillary plan (she has been raked over with lies and innuendos for over 30 years and never fought back even once - the woman is a modern saint!) of never rocking the boat and say a mean thing about the opposition. I think the only one to say anything is Bloomberg the hated billionaire who is trying to buy the presidency (basically doing exactly what all the other candidates are doing but is paying for it all himself thereby making sure he will not be beholden to anybody).
It will be very interesting when all of this is over. The market is tanking bigtime, we are being threatened with a world wide epidemic, the Democratic elections for this week and next are, arguably the most important for the Democrats, and a bunch of Shrinks have released a book explaining that Trump is going publicly insane. I think this may qualify as being, perhaps, one of the more entertaining and interesting periods? https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40698138-the-dangerous-case-of-donald-trump
One can only guess the what the variety of outcomes will result in all of this. It will, however, be a miracle if something just doesn't melt down. As usual, and in the fullness of time .....
Did anyone get the feeling Mr Trump's response is similar to Pres Bush's response in Iraq when Senor dissolved the Iraqi army which precipitated the militia wars?
The World Health Organization (WHO) has shipped testing kits to 57 countries. China had five commercial tests on the market 1 month ago and can now do up to 1.6 million tests a week; South Korea has tested 65,000 people so far. The U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in contrast, has done only 459 tests since the epidemic began. The rollout of a CDC-designed test kit to state and local labs has become a fiasco because it contained a faulty reagent. Labs around the country eager to test more suspected cases—and test them faster—have been unable to do so. No commercial or state labs have the approval to use their own tests.
Frank Wucinski and his 3-year-old daughter, Annabel, are among the dozens of Americans the government has flown back to the country from Wuhan, China, and put under quarantine to check for signs of coronavirus.
Now they are among what could become a growing number of families hit with surprise medical bills related to government-mandated actions.
The government demanded that he submit to quarantine. Now his source of funding to pay for it might well be...GoFundMe?
Yeah, we're soooooo ready to deal with this crisis, said NO ONE EVER.
I posted this elsewhere, but a) the tests should be free (public health, b) quarantine should result in an immediate payment of unemployment insurance to compensate for lost pay, and c) guaranteed reemployment protection to prevent employers from discriminating against "sick" employees. The employment issue may prove a serious financial crisis.
I posted this elsewhere, but a) the tests should be free (public health, b) quarantine should result in an immediate payment of unemployment insurance to compensate for lost pay, and c) guaranteed reemployment protection to prevent employers from discriminating against "sick" employees. The employment issue may prove a serious financial crisis.
Sounds like Soshulizm!! Only poosies need safety nets - this Amerka, gol-durn it!
Other than that, those sound like good and considerate ideas...
the feds have now allowed private labs to start producing test kits. Pretty soon, after they really figure out how to make them, the big drug folks will descend to produce them. It will probably cost them about 3 bucks to do that so the price, to the american consumer won't be much more than 50/60.00 each.
I am not sure where the FDA figures in all of this. Last I heard they figured they could certify a test kit in about 2 months. Well, I think that was before the CDC screwed up their test kits so they didn't work.
As you say, China, and South Korea can produce these kits and are shipping world wide, except for the united states. I wonder what they are getting for them.
This is recent which means that we still don't really have test kits that work and our gov is insisting we work it out instead of using the standards of the World health organization. Kinda odd I think?
I just learned something that probably everybody but me knows about.
If you are searching with google you can goto tools, the click on any time then click on last hour. That will get you the latest posting for, say united states corona test kits (which gets pretty interesting)
Oh, the CDC just sent out a plea for everybody to stop buying face masks as the supply is going away and hospital workers, etc can no longer buy them and they really need them.
People would stop buying masks if they realized masks only keep you from spreading your infection to others. They do very little to protect you if you are around somebody with the virus. In that case you get virus on your shoes, clothes, and even the outside of your mask! Then touch any of those and you are infected.
the feds have now allowed private labs to start producing test kits. Pretty soon, after they really figure out how to make them, the big drug folks will descend to produce them. It will probably cost them about 3 bucks to do that so the price, to the american consumer won't be much more than 50/60.00 each.
A vial of insulin costs $2.28 to manufacture. You see what they charge for that?
the feds have now allowed private labs to start producing test kits. Pretty soon, after they really figure out how to make them, the big drug folks will descend to produce them. It will probably cost them about 3 bucks to do that so the price, to the american consumer won't be much more than 50/60.00 each.
A vial of insulin costs $2.28 to manufacture. You see what they charge for that?
This is the kind of thing that needs to be unf*cked. This is the kind of thing that, when it begins to happen across the board (not just insulin, but pretty much everything that is essential for just staying alive) that's when it eventually reaches a point where people either just give up or get extremely violent.
The problem with it being insulin is, it's only the diabetics right now, the rest of the boiling frogs think it's just a nice dip in the jacuzzi, so why are those whiners complaining about their insulin...after all they're diabetic because they "made poor life choices".
I think California has decided to produce their own insulin and sell it at cost. Since the patent was released years ago I think they can pull that one off. If they do then I wonder what that will do to the price? This is especially true of they produce a LOT of insulin?
this is, incidentally, something i thought somebody should have done a very long time ago! There is some evidence that California may not stop at just insulin. Its two bad that several states couldn't gather together and REALLY get this done! I know, another tax payer supported service, but a good one!
I think California has decided to produce their own insulin and sell it at cost. Since the patent was released years ago I think they can pull that one off. If they do then I wonder what that will do to the price? This is especially true of they produce a LOT of insulin?
this is, incidentally, something i thought somebody should have done a very long time ago! There is some evidence that California may not stop at just insulin. Its two bad that several states couldn't gather together and REALLY get this done! I know, another tax payer supported service, but a good one!
I just heard, on the radio, about the development of the coronavirus vaccine. Somebody asked one of the developers if it will be affordable. They said it was out of their hands and dependent on what it costs to develop and manufacture. Then the question became "are you developing this or are our universities" and, apparently, the interview kinda went away. What that was all about was that our tax dollars support and create a lot of our drugs and vaccines. Then the drug companies get to claim it as theirs, for a minimal amount, price it and sell it and get richer so they can afford their lobbyists to keep it going.
I just heard, on the radio, about the development of the coronavirus vaccine. Somebody asked one of the developers if it will be affordable. They said it was out of their hands and dependent on what it costs to develop and manufacture. Then the question became "are you developing this or are our universities" and, apparently, the interview kinda went away. What that was all about was that our tax dollars support and create a lot of our drugs and vaccines. Then the drug companies get to claim it as theirs, for a minimal amount, price it and sell it and get richer so they can afford their lobbyists to keep it going.
Just another example of why we should not trust our own government!
You're acting as if this is playing in the government's favor? I vigorously suggest that you might be 180 degrees out of phase with that assertion, and I am arguing that the lobby groups and special interests are forcing the government's hand in the process and getting one over on Uncle Sam repeatedly instead.
They've been getting away with it for so long that they now not only feel entitled, they have an army of Grover Norquists drowning the government in the bathtub specifically so that nothing will be done in the way of pushback. If these agencies want their funding messed with, just piss off the wrong congress critter who is beholden to Big Pharma.
For something like this quick vaccine development, a university lab may figure out how to make it but they have no idea how to produce it en masse, deliver it, etc. We are talking about several BILLION doses! Big pharma are the only people who have the equipment and expertise.
But if you want fairer prices, they could award the manufacturing rights to several companies. If you can prevent price fixing, that could keep the price down.
Part of the Corona bill was $800M allocated for research and development of vaccine. I would think, based on reports on costing vaccine development, that is a huge part of the costs of finding a viable vaccine ... so I would also think pricing should be reduced to manufacturing, distribution, plus a small margin.
Here is an update on the California plan to have its own drug label. I also wonder. What would happen if states, like California, decided to add drugs discovered in their own universities to their own, non profit, label?
CNBC editor Rick Santelli sparked anger after suggesting on live television that “we’d just be better off” if everyone were deliberately infected with the coronavirus “and then in a month it would be over.”
Just 11 million people dead, but he's thinking of the beneficial effect on the stock markets. This is what happens when you let libertarians have air time on TV.
If we just made fertilizer out of all the old, non-productive people...
My wife has an interesting theory: Why do less developed countries like China, Korea, and Italy have virus test kits galore, and we don't? She's convinced that is purposeful. The Trump administration wants test kits slow walked to give the appearance we don't have many cases here in the US. This actually fits with Trump's many tweets about the virus being just like flu, how people should just go to work with corona virus, etc.
I think we may find out some in the administration think this is a serendipitous way to kill off a lot of the elderly. See my previous post. That was from the guy who sparked formulation of the Tea Party. Maybe he's just getting administration talking points out there.
We don't have test kits because OUR president, the jackass, " in 2018, the Trump administration fired the government’s entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure. ". After that he reduced the funding of our healthcare agencies like HSS and CSS. Then he decided that we should not use the tests that the rest of the world has tested and been using. Then he refused any thought that other countries might send us test kits even though they offered. Then he lied about it all and gaslighted the whole thing (he is REALLY expert in that which is, basically, so confusing an issue that nobody has a clue as to the truth).
One would think, if the Dems really want to beat Trump they might run a couple of ads about the above paragraph. Obviously I am wrong as nobody has said much other than suggest so as not to offend the Republicans. Hopefully Bloomberg will come through with some ads since the Dems themselves just can't seem to bring themselves to upset the other side?
The above has now been going on for over 3 weeks. We still don't have the tests we need so any suggestions as to how many people have contracted corona virus, how many people have died of the carona virus (covid 19), etc. is simply bullshit and speculation - no matter where that info is coming from.
The last I heard, this morning, was that, depending who is saying what, gov was delivering millions of tests, millions of test will soon be delivered, we have had tests for a long time, etc, etc., etc. The basic fact is, however, WE DO NOT HAVE ANY TESTS FOR COVID-19. That is the simple truth. Oh, we did have some tests but they turned out to be completely useless although, I am sure, tax dollars were wasted on it.
On the good side there are now several places that are trying to develop a vaccine and have put up notices for those who would sign up to test their efforts. My daughter's health care provider is offering 1,100.00 for anybody willing to test, for instance (forget the name). Some are saying that they are using the latest technology and may get it done in 6 months or less. Since this is coming from the companies involved, and not the government or lying president I tend to believe them.
Anyway, as far as I can tell, that is about it.
Its also of interest that there are things getting shut down all over the nation. Texas shut down their music thing that they made over 350 million on every year. Seattle has shut down the ComicCom, etc. This, I suspect, when all over will certainly effect the economy. The next unemployment report is going to be a doozy!
Its also of interest that there are things getting shut down all over the nation. Texas shut down their music thing that they made over 350 million on every year. Seattle has shut down the ComicCom, etc. This, I suspect, when all over will certainly effect the economy. The next unemployment report is going to be a doozy!
A statement from the ACU said that the unnamed individual had “no interaction” with either Trump, or Vice President Mike Pence, who also attended CPAC, along with scores of other high-profile conservative politicians. The person also did not attend any events in the main hall, according to ACU, which drew the largest crowds. Some 19,000 people attended last year’s event.
The individual’s exposure to coronavirus occurred before the four-day conference that began Feb. 26, according to the ACU.
So he or she may have been to the shedding virus stage, contaminating hallways, entrances, the parking garage, food and drink service aeas, etc. Nobody knows yet how many people they infected.
The current CDC estimate is that roughly 4.5% of COVID-19 cases result in fatalities. 4.5 % of 330,000,000 is 14,850,000. Fourteen and a half million dead.
Anyone who thinks fourteen and a half million dead Americans won't be a big deal has lost all rational sense.
I think politician may be the most dangerous occupation right now: Unlike health care workers, they can't wear protective gear and they have to be meeting with lots of people who meet with lots of other people. Their "contagion network" is huge. If they meet with 20 people per day, who have also met with 20 other people, and those people have met with 20 others, all within the pre-symptom period, then their chance of exposure is about 8000 times mine (as a retired stay-at-homer).
That doesn't count such things as rallies, CPAC, airplane flights many of those people took, etc. There is a reason why several members of Iran's leadership has it.
two people who tested positive for the new coronavirus died in Florida, marking the first known deaths on the East Coast. The two people who died were in their 70s and had traveled overseas, according to officials. These two deaths bring the U.S. death toll from covid-19 to 17, of which 14 were in the state of Washington and one in California. Health officials also said two older male patients in Broward County, Florida had tested positive for the new coronavirus. Later in the day, Washington state said two more people had died, raising the state’s total toll to 16, and the country’s to 19.
1) [T]here were 8,098 reported cases of SARS and 774 deaths. Infections were primarily through person-to-person transmissions. Mortality rate: 9.63% 2) [T]here have been 2,494 reported cases of MERS, and 858 deaths from the virus. Infections occurred primarily from close human-to-human contact. Mortality rate: 34.45% 3) COVID-19: 106,212 cases, 3,600 deaths (numbers are not up to date). 4) CDC Influenza numbers are preliminary.
For six weeks behind the scenes, and now increasingly in public, Trump has undermined his administration’s own efforts to fight the coronavirus outbreak — resisting attempts to plan for worst-case scenarios, overturning a public-health plan upon request from political allies and repeating only the warnings that he chose to hear.
The White House overruled health officials who wanted to recommend that elderly and physically fragile Americans be advised not to fly on commercial airlines because of the new coronavirus, a federal official told The Associated Press. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention submitted the plan this week as a way of trying to control the virus, but White House officials ordered the air travel recommendation be removed, said the official who had direct knowledge of the plan.
I think you are saying that I think that the capitalist raping on drug prices are somehow good for government. That would be a really wrong interpretation of the situation.
There are still no test kits although I saw one guy, today, say that tomorrow there will be 5 million test kits. In lieu of test kits we have labs that can test for the virus. The problem with that one is that they are not standard and labs have been known to make mistakes and they simply don't have the capacity to do the job (not their fault).
The Fault remains exactly the same, ie: We don't have test kits because OUR president, the jackass, " in 2018, the Trump administration fired the government’s entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure. ". After that he reduced the funding of our healthcare agencies like HSS and CSS. Then he decided that we should not use the tests that the rest of the world has tested and been using. Then he refused any thought that other countries might send us test kits even though they offered. Then he lied about it all and gaslighted the whole thing (he is REALLY expert in that which is, basically, so confusing an issue that nobody has a clue as to the truth).
The reason is because the Seattle news people have now changed their description of test to: "Assumptive Test Results" because nobody really knows. If gov ever does decide to actaully release standardized and verified testing kits, in their millions the results should be really interesting really quick.
This whole thing is on Trump, pure and simple. I would have thought the Dems would be pointing that one out with some consistency. Instead, I think they have decided that everybody knows so there is no need to say that. What the hell is wrong with these people! The Republicans have proven, time after time, that repeating something regularly and often makes it a fact and, sofar, what I am talking is not a fact but something denied from on high.
Sen. Ted Cruz announced Sunday that he will self-quarantine after finding out he interacted with an individual at last month’s Conservative Political Action Conference who later tested positive for the coronavirus.
“Last night, I was informed that 10 days ago at CPAC I briefly interacted with an individual who is currently symptomatic and has tested positive for COVID-19,” which is the disease caused by the virus, the Texas Republican said in a statement, adding that the interaction involved a handshake and a “brief conversation.”
So Ted is a vector, even if he does not show any symptoms. How many people has Ted interacted with, shaken hands with, etc. over the last 10 days? Many of them will be vectors as well. How many of them interacted with Trump? How many with Mitch? How many with Lindsey? I predict a massive outbreak in the Senate.
Two updates: covid-19 has reached my neck of the woods. Only one case, but in our little burg (4 in the County). My wife, who is severely compromised, is in a full panic, with good reason. Rubbing alcohol, which we use on our medical devices, is unavailable because of the panic, and our supply of masks is limited. We're scheduled to take a trip next week, and I'm trying to convince her it's actually safer (no Coronavirus there, and we'll be using our RV, which we have full control over.)
Second, the Republicans in Congress are at higher risk because they're mostly old white men with bad health habits. Is Karma contagious?
Tampa's the closest to me so far. An hour's drive away. All the cases here(12 with 2 deaths) are on the coasts. I'm surprised Orlando hasn't been hit yet with all the travel to Disney World.
For the next month, if I need anything, I'll have it delivered. Not a perfect solution, but better than going out among people.
Online retailers still have most of the things everyone needs, including alcohol.
I couple of things. The first is that everybody I know are, pretty much, encouraged by Trump's ability to continue to hold rallies, shaking hands, etc. Not a real good idea but for those who want him gone.............
We now have covid-19 in Port Angeles. Somebody went up to Seattle to visit a family member in a retirement center. Turns out its the same place that started all the dying around Seattle. Now she has it and, before realization set in, shared it with a few friends.
As far as I can tell gov has yet to start the distribution of the promised millions of testing kits. I also notice that, now, most of tv has moved on to peculiar naming of test results that are not really.
It ALL remains the fault of our dear leader, the jackass in charge, Trump the Terrible.
Time to go hermit. I'm 68 AND immunosuppressed, so if I get it I'll probably die. That's the perfect storm of susceptibility, according to everything I'm hearing. So no more Thursday lunches at the food court with my old friends for a while. No more going out to eat. No more spontaneous shopping trips. Maybe even order staple food via amazon, and then let it sit untouched for several days.
I think this is going to be possible. We live in the middle of a 10 acre parcel, fully fenced, with a locked gate.
Sen. Ted Cruz announced Sunday that he will self-quarantine after finding out he interacted with an individual at last month’s Conservative Political Action Conference who later tested positive for the coronavirus.
“Last night, I was informed that 10 days ago at CPAC I briefly interacted with an individual who is currently symptomatic and has tested positive for COVID-19,” which is the disease caused by the virus, the Texas Republican said in a statement, adding that the interaction involved a handshake and a “brief conversation.”
So Ted is a vector, even if he does not show any symptoms. How many people has Ted interacted with, shaken hands with, etc. over the last 10 days? Many of them will be vectors as well. How many of them interacted with Trump? How many with Mitch? How many with Lindsey? I predict a massive outbreak in the Senate.
Well, I was sort of hoping for something along these lines...
...because it's more entertaining, but I'll settle for a slow motion plague that picks them off one by one.
Very much worth watching, at least the first part. The whole thing is very interesting, if a bit repetitive. It's about a study of studies across many different experiments with Vitamin D supplements. It offers substantial protection from respiratory infections like the ones that Covid-19 gives seriously ill and dying patients.
A lot of the deaths occur not so much because of the virus, but because of the immune response that fills the lungs with fluid. Vitamin D mutes that response. It actually mutes a lot of different inflammatory responses, so it is useful for all sorts of autoimmune diseases. I'm taking about 8000 iu/day for my MS. The doctor blogging is taking about 1000 iu/day. You all should be too!
He says a lot of us are D deficient, and by taking supplements it decreases your respiratory infections by 70%! (But don't go crazy with it: Too much is not healthy.)
Very much worth watching, at least the first part. The whole thing is very interesting, if a bit repetitive. It's about a study of studies across many different experiments with Vitamin D supplements. It offers substantial protection from respiratory infections like the ones that Covid-19 gives seriously ill and dying patients.
A lot of the deaths occur not so much because of the virus, but because of the immune response that fills the lungs with fluid. Vitamin D mutes that response. It actually mutes a lot of different inflammatory responses, so it is useful for all sorts of autoimmune diseases. I'm taking about 8000 iu/day for my MS. The doctor blogging is taking about 1000 iu/day. You all should be too!
He says a lot of us are D deficient, and by taking supplements it decreases your respiratory infections by 70%! (But don't go crazy with it: Too much is not healthy.)
Same here. I do not remember the IU of the ones I take but it's pretty good, and I take two a day in the morning, maybe they are the 800 IU pills. Unfortunately Karen can't take super-dose levels of Vit D because it makes her kidney start making extra crud so she can only take a single 800 IU every other day. Fortunately, the VA is giving them to her as a prescription, same with the Vitamin C and the Potassium pills.
Unfortunately, this vitamin D trend isn't all blue skies. Some people are overdoing it with supplements. Researchers looking at national survey data gathered between 1999 and 2014 found a 2.8% uptick in the number of people taking potentially unsafe amounts of vitamin D — that is, more than 4,000 international units (IU) per day, according to a research letter published in the June 20 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). And during the same time period there was nearly an 18% increase in the number of people taking 1,000 IU or more of vitamin D daily, which is also beyond the dose of 600 to 800 IU recommended for most people.
You won't piss out Vitamin D overdoses. It's fat soluble so if you're fat you store in in your fat cells. If you're skinny you store it in your blood. A most unfortunate circumstance as blood isn't really designed for this and becomes over-calcified. Vitamin D's job is not to prevent inflamation or viruses, it is to make calcium absorbable in your blood. The excess calcium then deposits itself on the walls of your veins and arteries and overtaxes the organs which have to remove it.
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The main consequence of vitamin D toxicity is a buildup of calcium in your blood (hypercalcemia), which can cause nausea and vomiting, weakness, and frequent urination. Symptoms might progress to bone pain and kidney problems, such as the formation of calcium stones.
So knock yourselves out with your supplement pills. I'll have a serving of salmon, some eggs, a glass of milk or some cheese. Go for a walk in the sun, your body will make its own!
As I said in my earlier post: Don't go nuts on the Vitamin D. Nobody is going to overdose on 1000-2000 iu per day. Doctors give people 200,000 - 600,000 iu shots on a yearly basis sometimes! I'm a special case because I have MS, so I try to keep my blood Vitamin D level in the 70-80 range (100 is the upper limit of "normal"). I get tested every couple of months and adjust my intake. It used to be 10,000 iu / day but that put me right at 100, so I cut back. If you are going to take a high dose, you have to get tested regularly because Vitamin D overdose is very very bad.
The first thing we found out about Vitamin D is that is regulates Calcium. But we have found out lots more. This is not unusual. Most vitamins and drugs have multiple effects because of conservation of useful genetic code. That means when some gene code is useful for one thing in the body, you often find that same code in other genes that do other things. We also find a whole lot of common code across species. If some code was useful for a tiny nematode, that code survived mostly intact through evolution into other species.
Anyway, one thing we have found out about D is that it modulates inflammatory response. An aspect of that is that high-normal levels (like mine) are just about as effective as any current MS drug. These are not opinions. These are observed facts from multiple peer-reviewed scientific papers. The link I posted is a British doctor's blog. The study he references is a study of multiple studies, all peer-reviewed, with N in the thousands and p < 0.05. For you non-statisticians, that means the findings are very very solid.
Sorry about Karen, Jeff, but it's good they are giving her some. As for just getting a lot of sun, in Florida that could work especially if you are White and a nudist. Otherwise you might want to have your doctor check your level. A lot of people are Vitamin D deficient, especially in northern latitudes who get very little sun. Lack of Vitamin D from the sun is probably why MS is prevalent in northern parts of the world.
Whenever something like megadoses of vitamin C D E B12 Zinc or whatever rolls around you have a lot of folks who buy the 50K IU supplements and take them daily. Prescribing your own medications from blurbs on the internet can be harmful or fatal. Some are drinking bleach, hundreds just died in Iran from methanol poisoning and Iranian clerics say you can cure it by putting essential oil on your anus.
My neighbor just told me that mushrooms will cure it and since no one else knows that it wont be all bought out. She's going in to town today to stock up! Asked me if I needed any...
So people are running their vitamin D blood levels up into the thousands, storing it away in fat for the next hundred years and they don't even have the virus and it's gunking up their kidneys. Some supplement companies are selling them food waste sludge formed into tablets for more than the cost of gold and they're going in debt to buy it. Might be vitamin D...might not. The herd rushes around from one miracle cure to another.
The neighbor with the mushrooms...I see her often when I walk my dog. If I tell her tonight that vitamin D should be supplemented she'll go online and see that it's true. Then start feeding her 92 year old husband with bad kidneys megadoses of it. Because more is always better.
I'm not arguing about the vitamin D thing I'm pointing out what's gonna happen when word gets out.
>nudist: Excellent idea! As for not so pretty, that's other people's problem, not yours. But in an indecent exposure trial, I think I would go with "freedom of religion" instead of "Seeking good health".
Some vitamins you just piss out any excess. I suppose too much Vitamin C could give you heartburn, but that would be several grams per day. Vitamins A and D are not like that. Beyond a certain point, more is bad, and way more is deadly. For example, humans can't eat much polar bear liver without dying from Vitamin A poisoning.
That doc who's blog I linked had a very interesting theory: When humans migrated North from Africa, they turned White. Why? Probably because the Black kids died from lack of Vitamin D. The lighter ones got enough and lived through epidemics. He couldn't think of any other evolutionary advantage of losing melanin. Of course some biologist looking at brightly-colored tropical birds found that being more attractive to potential mates can be a selective advantage. But the Vitamin D theory is a little more compelling than "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes".
The Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium says that the frequency of a particular gene in a population will remain stable unless there is some strong pressure to get rid of it. This is why we have different blood types, different eye color, etc. There has to be some very strong pressure for there to be essentially zero Black people in Nordic populations before we started traveling about in modern times. If it was weaker, you would expect a HW equilibrium point higher that zero.
One thing that struck me while watching a documentary about the 1918 flu pandemic was that certain classes of people think their position will protect them from infection. For example, some Kansas lads from the flu point of origin joined the army for the WWI effort. They carried the virus into an army camp. It was cold, so the commander had them packed like sardines in the barracks. The infection spread exponentially, and because it was a novel flu there was a massive die off. But here's the kicker: A bunch of officers left the camp on horseback and moved to another camp to escape the disease. They carried the virus to the other camp and most of the soldiers there died as well! Then soldiers got on a train and spread flu over many states at every point the train stopped.
We are seeing the same problem. In some countries they have shut down everything and kept people isolated. Those efforts are quite successful! China, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan are all doing that and the number of new cases is dropping. They also have massive testing.
In our country, this administration sees this as a political problem. They are spreading lies, gagging experts, telling us to go to work sick, etc. And all the while assuming that because they are important they will not be infected. COVID-19 DOES NOT CARE IF YOU ARE RICH OR IMPORTANT! In fact, it is more likely to strike rich people who travel by air, go to meetings, mix with other rich people, and so forth, rather than poor people who stay home and minimize contacts with others.
These are not really tests. These are test submission kits. Labs still run the tests. There is no simple "the test strip turns blue" test for a virus. In fact, to determine if a specific virus is present in a sample, antibodies have to lock onto some exposed viral antigen with some kind of observable microscopic indicator. Or a segment of RNA has to lock onto some viral RNA with a similar indicator.
A couple, from my town, went over to the Seattle area to check on an elderly family member. Seems that member was in the place that 19 victims have already died in. When they got back home they were sick. They did the right thing and self quarantined and then called the hospital about a test. They are sick and coughing and have temperatures. they were told they weren't sick enough to be tested.
They are in their 60's and have children. If something bad happens I suspect the children will end up owning the hospital.
I seem to be doing a LOT of wondering these days..............
He is not ready to admit that he's stymied by it. He has only had one or two public "Paper Towel Photo Ops" and that is not nearly enough. One more rally and the Real Trump will return full force, blaming it on Obama or the Democrats again.
He never will be ready to admit he is beaten by this, and if our ("Trump's federal") response to this pandemic continues to be as monotone and petulant as Trump's teleprompter speech tonight, this nation will witness and be forced to accept the unthinkable. What "final solution" will we hear about that will be defended by his cronies in the GOP Congress? We already heard the voice of the free markets, Rick Santelli, suggesting that everyone be purposely infected with it.
Trump is highly suggestible. All Santelli has to do is contribute to his campaign and Trump will try to revisit that suggestion seriously. Maybe it will be ultimately shot down, but how sure are we? How sure are we that Trump won't suggest it, and how sure are we that Mitch McConnell won't be ready and willing to be the tip of the spear? How sure are we that we have any patriots left in the GOP Senate who will push back hard enough?
If this gets really bad, don't expect Morgan Freeman to sing America a lullaby. In the real COVID-19 "movie", we don't get Morgan Freeman farewells on a great national tragedy, nor do we get the bookend where we come out resilient on the other side, with Morgan ready to lead us to our salvation, like in Deep Impact.
We get a raging madman, acting out The Poseidon Adventure only he invited the Tidy Bowl Man to come and watch instead of the Pandemic Response Team, which he FIRED.
Last night the TV revealed that the CDC processed a total of 8 (eight!) tests yesterday! 8! We are, obviously, well on our way to understanding, and fixing the entire problem! Especially after having been assured, by our dear leader the jackass Trump, that things are just dandy.
I am 85 years old, and I have COPD. I also, fortunately, have a bipap machine which will help me breath when covid-19 comes calling. Bit concerned about getting an available ventilator. Maybe I should buy myself one.
One can only wonder why them backward countries, like South Korea, are actually testing hundreds of thousands!
North Korea is the backwards one. South Korea is a manufacturing juggernaut. They can manufacture test kits and machines to process them. We have to buy ours from China. When South Korea has more than they need they might sell us some. Or since they don't like Trump they can sell their excess to other countries...we're pretty much just fecked.
Trump and Pence have so far had three exposures to people who tested positive shortly after the contact, at least. Hopefully, Speaker Pelosi is holing up in a secure location so she can step in as President.
In China public health authorities watched surveillance video of a public bus to see the interactions between people who contracted the virus. One person sitting 4.5 meters behind the vector got it. One person who entered the bus 30 minutes after the vector left got it. This tells you that the 2.5 meter "safety" distance is inadequate. It also tells you public transit is very dangerous because the virus circulates in the enclosed air and remains on surfaces. That would include trains and airplanes.
The most obvious control measure is to shut down flights immediately, and have everybody isolates in place. Some countries did that. US and UK did not.
CNN reports that Trump is worried about the last exposure, when the Brazilan President and his infected spokesman were in a room at Mir-A-Lago with Trump and Pence for quite a while. Lindsey Graham and some other Republican congressmen were there as well.
I hope Nancy Pelosi stays isolated. We need somebody to fill that seat who can actually be a leader, and not be blinded by their need to be reelected or to keep the 1% happy. If she has to be sworn in and do her presidential duties by tele-commute, that's fine. Everybody who can possibly work at home needs to do that now.
Actually, it turns out, the testing kits were incomplete and useless, for the most part. the UofW seem to have a good handle on it. I was told, however, that to get their test you have to wait, 4 hours, before you can be tested. They said that a steady 10% of those being tested are positive for Covid-19. Last time I checked they are now testing more than 1000 a day (now shooting for 2500 per day). Seems pretty popular.
Oh, my daughter works at a legal firm in Bellevue. The girl who worked behind her went home sick, and died. Seems she may have had Covid-19 My Daughter is not a happy camper)
"telemedicine is a new thing of the not too distant past.."..."were not gonna talk about the rest of the world"..... ummm, it's incredible what they're doing, this telehealth, Roche is driving the market up, because we don't need to test everyone, only those with certain symptoms, simply obsolete with comparison to...a tremendous amount has been learned"
any narrative that attempts to pin all of the blame on Trump for the coronavirus is simply unfair. The temptation among the president’s critics to use the pandemic to get back at Trump for every bad thing he’s done should be resisted, and schadenfreude is never a good look. That said, the president and his administration are responsible for grave, costly errors, most especially the epic manufacturing failures in diagnostic testing, the decision to test too few people, the delay in expanding testing to labs outside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and problems in the supply chain. These mistakes have left us blind and badly behind the curve, and, for a few crucial weeks, they created a false sense of security. What we now know is that the coronavirus silently spread for several weeks, without us being aware of it and while we were doing nothing to stop it. Containment and mitigation efforts could have significantly slowed its spread at an early, critical point, but we frittered away that opportunity. .... The coronavirus is quite likely to be the Trump presidency’s inflection point, when everything changed, when the bluster and ignorance and shallowness of America’s 45th president became undeniable, an empirical reality, as indisputable as the laws of science or a mathematical equation.
The current virus that is disrupting our lives so profoundly is not as deadly as the black death or Spanish flu, but it is scary enough and has exposed many faults in our modern existence. We, as a species, learn lessons slowly and sometimes not at all. If we did (or, through sheer incompetence, do) nothing at all, eventually the majority of the population will be exposed and contract COVID-19. Given the state of our resources, upwards of 2% of the population will die therefrom, mostly the elderly and infirm (which, I think, describes most of us here at RR). This is not hyperbole or fearmongering. It just describes reality.
I don't think we'll get there, because the competent will force themselves into the fray and take measures. That is already happening despite the administration's efforts to undermine them. I think the vast majority of the voting population has now gotten an object lesson in the reality of Trump's incompetence and the dangers imposed therefrom. Whether that lesson will carry forward to the fall is still to be learned. Significant and largely irreparable damage has already been done, and will reverberate for a generation.
I expect, like 9/11 and the crashes of 1987 and 2008, we'll "get over it," eventually, and learn virtually nothing from it. We'll return to our bad habits of thinking and behavior and be as unprepared for the next crisis as this one. It's the human (and, particularly, the American) condition. Eventually, though hopefully not in my lifetime, it will prove the end of us as a species. See how optimistic I remain?
That's not very much information. Perhaps you can DM me with more.
It's a link to a private Facebook page, directed to an audience I am not a member of. Lot's of people on Facebook share their content only with "Friends". Lot's of Facebook Groups are "members only" and their content cannot be shared outside the group. Facebook links are generally unreliable outside of Facebook, you can't lift images or videos successfully and are generally required to find a different source when sharing Facebook links outside of Facebook. People who aren't members of Facebook cannot see any Facebook link. And yes, they do exist. LOGTROLL!
However, if you want to steal an image or meme, you can simply click on it in your feed, then, when it loads, "save image as" down to your machine then use imgur or whatever to reblog it somewhere else(like here). That's probably too much information.
If anyone here wants to "Friend" me my name is Mark Kyle and I'm probably searchable on Facebook. I won't spam your newsfeed and usually share several clever memes each day.
Republicans are accusing Democrats of loading up their Corona response bill with left-wing agenda items, but everything in the bill is a reasonable comprehensive public health measure.
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These are all imminently sensible responses to the crisis at hand, which has shown that paid sick leave is an absolutely essential public health precaution. You want people to be able to get tested for this virus. You do not want them going to work and spreading an infection because they need to support themselves. You want people to be able to eat. You do not want consumer spending to crater.
Yet, Republicans are calling this some sort of radical, leftist plot, suggesting they still have no understanding of what it will take to address this crisis or prevent ones like it down the line.
I think I probably have it, by the way. Very mild so far, but we shall see. My immunosuppression supposedly does not harm my ability to react to new viruses, and indeed I have been recovering very quickly from colds (other corona viruses?) for a couple of years. They say I react slower to flu shots, but I do develop immunity. I tend not to have typical histamine reactions like drippy eyes or nose, with this immunosuppression. I can feel it in my chest, and have rails when I listen closely. No fever and my oxygen saturation is still about 95.
I have very good isolation, on our 10 acre ranch. Not going out anywhere. We assume my wife has it if I do, though she has no symptoms at all. If tests were available, I would take one. But not really necessary because I am isolating as if I am positive.
I can speak as someone that's been afflicted with and now volunteers for a support group for multiple diseases being spread thru climate change.
Most of those afflicted consider the CDC to be fully captured by capital interests. It's infuriating to see new victims coming in for information and reassurance that they are not going bat sh!t crazy about their doctor or for profit health insurance. You get used to the pattern but your hatred grows for the politics and economics of our KenTacoHut health care industry and idiots that support this vicious system, politically and economically speaking.
The medical industry is completely commodified at this point so good luck with your technocratic competency coming in to assert itself. One wonders how much liberal means testing would be involved before the patient decides it would be easier to just succomb to the darkness than fill out another form, income verification, residency status etc that is so cherished by that class of people.
Without any foundational apparatus of public health and the intense consolidation and competition between regional market healthco turf's I don't see a timeline sufficient to meet the health challenges and economic shocks that are expected to rapidly grow in the coming weeks.
I do see much opportunity for Klien's disaster capitalism though. Good time to be in cash.
I think I probably have it, by the way. Very mild so far, but we shall see. My immunosuppression supposedly does not harm my ability to react to new viruses, and indeed I have been recovering very quickly from colds (other corona viruses?) for a couple of years. They say I react slower to flu shots, but I do develop immunity. I tend not to have typical histamine reactions like drippy eyes or nose, with this immunosuppression. I can feel it in my chest, and have rails when I listen closely. No fever and my oxygen saturation is still about 95.
I have very good isolation, on our 10 acre ranch. Not going out anywhere. We assume my wife has it if I do, though she has no symptoms at all. If tests were available, I would take one. But not really necessary because I am isolating as if I am positive.
Sh!t...so sorry to hear this news. I hope that you can get tested and that the results come back negative. Blessings on you and your lovely wife.
Thanks, but we all knew it would get to the elderly and immunosuppressed pretty damned quick. I just hope my mom and all the other old folks at her assisted living place make it through. This has the potential to burn through those places. A few of our neighbors are older and frail, too. Hate to see them go.
That's the saving grace here. I may die, but at least everything is in cash.
Yikes! I hope your wrong about what your dealing with. My sister in law was suffering from sore throat, headaches cough but it passed and is feeling much better now. Don’t know if it was Covid or the usual seasonal afflictions. I’m hoping it’s just the usual for you PIA.
Don’t forget to air out your house daily. Stay away from sugar and inflammatory food. Drink lemon with hot water. Keep us posted on how your doing. Fingers crossed.
Seems like we have pestilence and plague happening. Guessing an economic crash could lead to famine. Looking at Ireland as a reference.
A month after being acquitted in the Senate of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, Trump was notified of the coronavirus in China and he and his administration did nothing, while the disease silently spread in the U.S.
When WHO started sounding the alarm on February 1, 2020, Trump sat with his thumb up his lazy ass and did nothing but plan a trip to India and took his entire grifting family with him..
Trump administration's John Bolton dismantled the National Security Council’s global-health office, whose purpose was to address global pandemics immediately upon getting on the Security Council in April 2018 "to save money."
Who offered the United States the test they developed for China and the Trump administration turned down the WHO's testing methods to gotheir own way. It took six weeks to develop a new US test and wasted valuable time.
...and here we are today with major domestic airlines cutting 75% of their flights, businesses shutting down for a month, schools closed for 4-6 weeks depending on the District, people are being ask the ed to stay home to keep the virus from spreading aka "social distancing" and orange idiot in the Oval is still Tweeting about Hillary's emails even today.
Schools and business's closing for 4-6 weeks is just the start. They needed some sort of end date, but there is no reason to think they will not continue to stay closed after that. Assuming Covid-19's infectability is about 2.5 (people the average patient infects), we need at least 60% of the population to be immune before new infections start to drop. Then most active corona patients will infect less than 1.0 other people. But that's just statistical data. It doesn't help you if you are one of the non-immune! You go out and interact with a crowd of random people, and you WILL get infected. But of course, we could then reopen schools but just for people with proven immunity. So 60% of normal attendance.
What everybody is trying to do now by isolating, cleaning, and social distance is to flatten the curve, so when that 2% gets to the hospitals they don't run out of respirators.
There are all sorts of problems with covid-19 One is that everybody is kinda ignorant and folks are still learning about it. They do not know, for instance, whether you can catch it again or not. For instance, if you have the flu you can catch it again. They are not the same but nobody knows if you can get it again.
there remains the testing problem. millions have been promised, many have been delivered, and most have been found flawed one way or another. Now the capitalists are involved to supply and, maybe, they will, nobody really knows (a hell of a lot about covid-19) Most of the rules coming down are specs and just in case - nobody seems to really know anything! All that seems to be known, right now, is that people are getting this and its not a good thing to get, even if you are young. Inspite of that, however, if you are over 75, and get it, you have a serious problem and belong to the largest group dying from it.
All that being said virtually every university in the United States are working on this thing. That means, to me, that eventually we are going to know a lot more about this one. Once that happens I fully expect to see solutions to the problem. I do know that there are several companies, right now, trying to develop a cure. If you google "covid-19 cure" you will see there are a LOT of companies, universities, etc. working on this one. The total, in Washington state is now over 790 and climbing. they think they can get up to 5000 tests a day! Here is a link to the University of Washington covid-19 test efforts: https://khn.org/news/how-intrepid-seattle-scientists-ramped-up-tests-as-coronavirus-closed-in/
Most if not all of the failures in our hobbled response to COVID-19 are almost directly traceable to Republican efforts to dismantle Obamacare, dismantle the social safety net, dismantle the public sector...in a nutshell - - DECONSTRUCT (a fancy word for "dismantle") the administrative state.
And if we have a single brain between all of us in this godforsaken land, it would behoove us to hold them ACCOUNTABLE.
How many of you have seen the Little Caesar's commercial about "Sliced Bread"?
Suddenly Little Caesar's pizza delivery is now "the best thing since sliced bread" and stocks in "Sliced Bread" take a massive tumble....prompting the above scenario.
Now picture...oh I dunno, the Trump White House, GOP House, GOP Senate?
Just got tested. Takes about three days to get results. Spent about 4 hours in the ER and various isolation tents leading to the ER. Tomorrow, my medical group will have drive-by kiosks by appointment, but the appointment nurse told me to go to the ER today because of my high-risk status so they could look for other stuff too. Had a chest xray: Clear Had Flu A+B tests: Negative. Some blood work: results unknown so far. On physical exam, the doc did hear some junk in my lungs. So now I wait...
I think you and me are in the 10% mortality rate group. So the good news is there's a 90% chance you'll live. I went on lock down early and there have been some minor breaches. The neighbors though...they seem determined to catch it and give it to me.
Lo Han Kuo beverage soothes and moisturizes the lungs. Might be sold out by now though.**nope, plenty of that sh*t, get some**
I think you and me are in the 10% mortality rate group. So the good news is there's a 90% chance you'll live. I went on lock down early and there have been some minor breaches. The neighbors though...they seem determined to catch it and give it to me.
Lo Han Kuo beverage soothes and moisturizes the lungs. Might be sold out by now though.**nope, plenty of that sh*t, get some**
Good luck and godspeed.
I went and got sommuh dat sheeit based on your earlier suggestion and it's in the cupboard. But I am not a tea drinker, not normally. Can you tell me, does it taste crappy or is it yummy?
I suppose I'll make some anyway...I just hope it doesn't taste like horse piss.
Greger, I just went and looked at the back for instructions. They're all in Chinese. Can you please tell this idiot how to make it? Is it just "dump a packet in hot water" or is there a right way and wrong way to make this stuff?
Has it crossed anyone's mind that terrorists or enemy states do not have to develop lethal weapons to completely disrupt America. All they have to do is ensure an infected person makes it to any international airport and spreads the happiness.
Imagine, a low tech solution for the poor man's war against America.
Covid-19 is a very crappy bioweapon. Just kills old non-productive people, and is just as likely to infect your own people.
The More You Learn: Just viewed a Youtube video on ACE II and high blood pressure meds. Seems SARS and Covid-19 both get into cells via the receptor site involved with the angiotensin pathway for regulating blood pressure. There are two popular hypertension drug classes called ARBs and ACE inhibitors. Mouse models suggest that ARBs clamp a key molecule into the receptor site, keeping the virus from getting in. ACE inhibitors do not. So there is a bit of evidence that very sick humans on ARBs do better in the ICU. ARBs usually end in "an", like losartan (the ARB I have been on for a few years). ACE inhibitors usually end in "pril", like lisinopril. (The drug I was on that gave me diarrhea for a month before I switched.)
Now one other interesting thing I heard in the video is that these receptors are present in lung tissue, but they are also present in your GI tract. This could explain why so many Wuhan victims reported strong diarrhea for several days as their first symptom. (Me too!) American doctors are pretty much ignoring diarrhea as a covid-19 symptom, and think you must have another flu virus. So the fact that you have the virus receptors in your gut means that take-out restaurant food is dangerous, but canned food is very safe. Especially if you wash your hands and the outside of the cans when you get them home from the store with hot soapy water.
My point was it is not necessary to just kill the enemy. Incapacitate the enemy with a tsunami of infrastructure failure. Hospitals pouring out into the streets is the least of it. If there is no effective containment, think of half of the work force quarantined ... half the military ... half of the government ... work stoppages ... logistics failures ... food shortages.
And the point of the attack would not be to conquer a country outright, but to cripple it. Think of repeated attacks.
We are obviously not prepared for such a scenario, and I am not sure if there could be a viable program developed which would address such low probability scenarios ... just spitballing
Far fetched? maybe ... but if I thought of it (or maybe I am channeling the movie "Outbreak" where the US military was the bad guy), I know there are some very cleaver bad folks thinking of it
Greger, I just went and looked at the back for instructions. They're all in Chinese. Can you please tell this idiot how to make it? Is it just "dump a packet in hot water" or is there a right way and wrong way to make this stuff?
Pour hot water over the cubes and stir. The little cubes can be broken in half for a tea cup or the whole thing makes a 12 oz coffee mug. It's very sweet, pretty yummy at first, more like brown sugar in water than anything else, after you've been drinking 3-4 cups a day for a while it gets a little old though, you can add lemon or cloves or a splash of orange juice or rum or whatever to make it more exciting.
If your lungs are still achy and coughy from your illness this will help them feel better.
Now one other interesting thing I heard in the video is that these receptors are present in lung tissue, but they are also present in your GI tract. This could explain why so many Wuhan victims reported strong diarrhea for several days as their first symptom. (Me too!)
Oh geez...I DID HAVE the hot burning "yellow" diarrhea for about four days prior to developing my acute respiratory distress. At this point I am about 95% sure I caught the COVID-19 but still, I am NOT a doctor, so there's still that five percent doubt.
But this did not feel like ANY pneumonia or bronchitis I've EVER had in the past...it was a zillion times worse.
Greger, I just went and looked at the back for instructions. They're all in Chinese. Can you please tell this idiot how to make it? Is it just "dump a packet in hot water" or is there a right way and wrong way to make this stuff?
Pour hot water over the cubes and stir. The little cubes can be broken in half for a tea cup or the whole thing makes a 12 oz coffee mug. It's very sweet, pretty yummy at first, more like brown sugar in water than anything else, after you've been drinking 3-4 cups a day for a while it gets a little old though, you can add lemon or cloves or a splash of orange juice or rum or whatever to make it more exciting.
If your lungs are still achy and coughy from your illness this will help them feel better.
Thank you! At least now I know what "pour hot water over cubes and stir" looks like when written in Mandarin!
Has it crossed anyone's mind that terrorists or enemy states do not have to develop lethal weapons to completely disrupt America. All they have to do is ensure an infected person makes it to any international airport and spreads the happiness.
Imagine, a low tech solution for the poor man's war against America.
Developing new viruses is not a poor man's game. Weapons might be easier and cheaper.
But the Billionaire class has every reason to want about half the population of the earth wiped out. They can afford to develop new viruses and have the means to introduce them into populations.
They used to use wars to reduce the numbers of the poor, but most of the world has generally abandoned war as a means of population control. The cannon fodder wised up to their tricks...except Americans and Saudis.
Developed in private labs, released in China for testing, convinced Americans that barbaric Chinese peasants were forced to eat bats for sustenance in the Communist regime and everyone knows that bats carry diseases...add snakes to memorandom because that's just gross.
Of course Trump isn't worried about catching it. He got the vaccination early.
"In not embracing march-in rights, Biden is aligned with the pharmaceutical industry, which launched a coalition led by two of its top lobbying groups, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) and The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), to push back against calls for using the authority...
...The pharmaceutical industry has given Biden far more campaign money than anyone else who has run for president this cycle, including President Trump. Joe Biden’s campaign and the outside groups backing him have taken over $1.34 million from the pharmaceuticals and health products industry, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. For context, Trump has received about $752,000 from the industry this cycle, while Sanders has received about $422,000. "
who said anything about setting up a research facility, etc etc .... COVID-19 found in nature and it's free ... all you need is one infected person and an international airport
L.A. County just announced that it is now enforcing a "lockdown order", according to The L.A. Times.
Closed All movie theaters, live performance venues, bowling alleys and arcades All gyms and fitness centers All bars and nightclubs that do not serve food All private social clubs In addition, all restaurants and retail food facilities will be prohibited from serving food to dine-in customers.
Exceptions Restaurants, as well as bars and nightclubs that serve food, may continue to prepare and offer food to customers via delivery service or takeout.
Houses of worship are urged to limit large gatherings on their premises and to explore and implement ways to practice their respective faiths while observing “social distancing” practices. Cafeterias in hospitals, nursing homes or similar facilities will be allowed to continue operations. Grocery stores, pharmacies and food banks will also be allowed to continue operations.
Schools • All Los Angeles Unified School District campuses -- and many other around the region -- are closed.
• Los Angeles school officials were racing Sunday to organize the complex logistics of opening 20 meal pickup sites and 40 family resource centers to serve students who will be displaced from campuses beginning Monday in an unprecedented shutdown to limit the spread of the coronavirus.
Sure sounds similar to me, though my respiratory distress was pretty mild. I still have rales in my lungs and my SpO2 is running around 94. (98 is optimal function.) I got an antigen test yesterday. That will tell us if I have the virus present. I heard we will have an antibody test soon, which will tell you if you had it and recovered or are fighting it.
I think the Chinese may either have an aversion to mentioning diarrhea or it is so common there they don't consider it a symptom. Some authorities report the symptoms from Wuhan include about 4% having diarrhea, others report 50%. There has to be some reason for that disparity.
I have been reading some GI scientific papers and reports and the simple fact that the same ACE II receptors the virus uses to get into your lungs are also present in your gut, means you can get it via food or drink. So restaurant take out food is not totally safe, but canned food should be.
I think my minimal respiratory distress was because of two things: I keep my vitamin D level around 70, and I take losartan every day. Just a theory but both have some evidence discussed in peer-reviewed journal papers.
It's being reported that some chain stores, including a bunch of fast food places, are NOT offering their employees paid sick leave. That means lots of their workers are going to come to work and prepare food sick. Smart people will not eat there.
Note that Costco and Home Depot are offering paid sick leave. Safer establishments to patronize. Still, you should try to minimize shopping trips and maintain distance from other patrons. We are still shopping for food at Costco (pending my Covid test results, of course) but we try to keep it down to once every two weeks at most.
I wonder if there will be some sort of "covid immune" badge or something to identify those who have recovered. They could be paid a premium to be workers who face the public. Or even to be helpers at nursing homes, etc.
At the Scripp's ER screening tents yesterday, the nurses were going through protective gloves, masks with eye shields, and paper gowns like they were water. Seems like they did about 95% of their time putting on and taking off this gear and typing on their computers, versus about 5% of their time actually doing something with a patient. They need to streamline some of that stuff or they are going to get crushed.
Beautiful brand new ER though, if they let you inside. Very nice big TVs with free HBO and Showtime while you wait for hours for them to get around to discharging you.
Nobody is sure that those who have 'recovered' can get it again. Nobody knows if the 'recovered' can continue to pass on the virus either. The stuff not known is staggering!
I watched our dear leader, the Traitor Trump, this morning. I noticed that, still, nobody calls him on flat out lies. He spent a lot of time, this morning lying. The man is determined to lie - even when the truth is better! Three weeks ago he started promising millions of test kits. He continues with that now old canard with no break. At the same time he throws in things like its the Chinese Virus and did get called on that. He explained that it is the Chinese Virus and all their fault. Not once did anybody point out that he had over 2 weeks to start doing something and he didn't and isn't.
Nobody is sure that those who have 'recovered' can get it again. Nobody knows if the 'recovered' can continue to pass on the virus either. The stuff not known is staggering!
I watched our dear leader, the Traitor Trump, this morning. I noticed that, still, nobody calls him on flat out lies. He spent a lot of time, this morning lying. The man is determined to lie - even when the truth is better! Three weeks ago he started promising millions of test kits. He continues with that now old canard with no break. At the same time he throws in things like its the Chinese Virus and did get called on that. He explained that it is the Chinese Virus and all their fault. Not once did anybody point out that he had over 2 weeks to start doing something and he didn't and isn't.
Weeks? The guy was told about this crisis TWO MONTHS AGO.
Trump’s response to the coronavirus epidemic:
January 22: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. It’s going to be just fine.” February 2: “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.” February 24: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA… Stock Market starting to look very good to me!” February 25: “CDC and my Administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus.” February 25: “I think that's a problem that’s going to go away… They have studied it. They know very much. In fact, we’re very close to a vaccine.” February 26: “The 15 (cases in the US) within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.” February 26: “We're going very substantially down, not up.” February 27: “One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.” February 28: “We're ordering a lot of supplies. We're ordering a lot of, uh, elements that frankly we wouldn't be ordering unless it was something like this. But we're ordering a lot of different elements of medical.” March 2: “You take a solid flu vaccine, you don't think that could have an impact, or much of an impact, on corona?” March 2: “A lot of things are happening, a lot of very exciting things are happening and they’re happening very rapidly.” March 4: “If we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work — some of them go to work, but they get better.” March 5: “I NEVER said people that are feeling sick should go to work.” March 5: “The United States… has, as of now, only 129 cases… and 11 deaths. We are working very hard to keep these numbers as low as possible!” March 6: “I think we’re doing a really good job in this country at keeping it down… a tremendous job at keeping it down.” March 6: “Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. They’re there. And the tests are beautiful…. the tests are all perfect like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. Right? This was not as perfect as that but pretty good.” March 6: “I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it… Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.” March 6: “I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn't our fault.” March 8: “We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House for our attack on CoronaVirus.” March 9: “This blindsided the world.” March 12: “When you lose 27,000 people a year [to the flu], nobody knew that – I didn’t know that.” March 13: "telemedicine is a new thing of the not too distant past...we're not gonna talk about the rest of the world ...ummm, it's incredible what they're doing, this telehealth, Roche is driving the market up, because we don't need to test everyone, only those with certain symptoms, simply obsolete with comparison to...a tremendous amount has been learned..."
Feel free to add to/update
---And if you feel like thanking somebody, this lady is who you should start with:
Nice, but not a significant path of infection. If every surface was covered in copper, that might help, but most transmission seems to be by droplets or even exhaled air. Cholera usually comes from contaminated drinking water, so just maybe those coppersmiths had water vessels made from copper! That could sterilize the water if it sits in the vessels for long enough. Maybe they even had cisterns made out of copper! You can do the same water trick with silver.
Interesting development: Some news of chloroquine and even quinine letting zinc into cells. (Without such help, zinc does not get in.) So you need both zinc ions outside the cell and one of these zinc-helpers present. Zinc inside the cell interferes with virus RNA replication. I assume it would not be 100% effective, or it would have been discovered a long time ago. Still, it might give your immune system time to mount an antibody response. News flash: They are using this in China.
Chloroquine is an old, dirt cheap prescription drug for malaria. There is some talk about azithromycin killing Covid-19 as well. If this works, it could mean we never reach the point that we run out of ventilators.
There is some talk about azithromycin killing Covid-19 as well.
Originally Posted by www.drugs.com
Azithromycin is an antibiotic that fights bacteria. Azithromycin is used to treat many different types of infections caused by bacteria, such as respiratory infections, skin infections, ear infections, eye infections, and sexually transmitted diseases.
I didn't find any source which would state an antibiotic would cure any virus. Perhaps the talk is effective against secondary associated bacterial infections.
It was a very small study, but they did seem to find:
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the combination of hydroxychloroquine, a popular anti-malaria drug known under the trade name Plaqenuil, and antibiotic azithromycin (aka Zithromax or Azithrocin) could be especially effective in treating the COVID-19 coronavirus and reducing the duration of the virus in patients.
The anti-malarial by itself was not as effective. Note that the chloroquine treatments are all about shortening the duration of the infection so patients are no longer shedding virus.
Okay, this may seem like a joke, but you can actually try this treatment with stuff you may already have at home. Quinine may be as effective as Chloroquine at letting zinc into cells.
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Quinine and its derivatives are acting on a variety of ion channels
Do you have tonic water, AKA quinine water at home? Do you have some of those zinc lozenges that are supposed to help fight colds? I do, so I am drinking tonic water and sucking on a zinc lozenge as I type. You could even make some gin and tonics to help with the boredom of isolation!
Coronavirus coming home: My younger son, who lives with us, is now in isolation in the basement. He developed symptoms Monday night. Fortunately, no fever, but he was coughing Tuesday and has shortness of breath. It did not follow the usual pattern of a cold, with sniffles and runny nose, but went straight to his lungs.
We have investigated testing protocols, but so far, he is not "eligible" with no fever, although my wife is at extreme risk. The advice from Health authorities is remain in place and use extreme caution. The social isolation from even his family (AND his dog) is taking a toll in just a few days, but he's being very conscientious, and anticipates 14 days of it (only 10 to go!).
He'll be the last employee furloughed from his shop, as he has the most seniority and can work from home, but the business is going to be shuttered for a couple of weeks anyway, as no customers are coming in.
Wife is panicked about finances (and I haven't looked at any statements) and the threat of infection. Our grocery delivery had more "unavailable" items than delivered ones - even the soda! We decided Wednesday to take a day trip in the RV, which really lifted our spirits. At some point I need to fill the tank, as it is our bugout vehicle, and the water tank is empty.
Coronavirus coming home: My younger son, who lives with us, is now in isolation in the basement. He developed symptoms Monday night. Fortunately, no fever, but he was coughing Tuesday and has shortness of breath. It did not follow the usual pattern of a cold, with sniffles and runny nose, but went straight to his lungs.
We have investigated testing protocols, but so far, he is not "eligible" with no fever, although my wife is at extreme risk. The advice from Health authorities is remain in place and use extreme caution. The social isolation from even his family (AND his dog) is taking a toll in just a few days, but he's being very conscientious, and anticipates 14 days of it (only 10 to go!).
He'll be the last employee furloughed from his shop, as he has the most seniority and can work from home, but the business is going to be shuttered for a couple of weeks anyway, as no customers are coming in.
Wife is panicked about finances (and I haven't looked at any statements) and the threat of infection. Our grocery delivery had more "unavailable" items than delivered ones - even the soda! We decided Wednesday to take a day trip in the RV, which really lifted our spirits. At some point I need to fill the tank, as it is our bugout vehicle, and the water tank is empty.
Other than that, the play was pretty good...
I am so sorry this has hit you and your family. I think we are finally out of the woods here but I'll never forget this as long as I live.
I hope you guys get past this and I hope your wife finds comfort, too.
The worrisome thing is that no matter how well you self-isolate at home, it can still creep in. Are you still shopping? Still getting deliveries? Pumping gas?
All I can suggest is to let deliveries sit for about five days before you open them so any virus on the surface or inside will die. (I would not have any perishables delivered, unless your porch is 40 F.) Wear a mask if you go out and stick it in the clothes dryer on hot for 30 minutes after you come back. Wash your hands with hot soapy water as soon as you touch anything suspect, BEFORE touching your face. 70% alcohol hand sanitizer after touching gas pumps. Sanitize your credit card after sticking it in the reader. DO NOT have take-out delivered or pick it up. Canned food is very safe if you wash the outside of the cans with hot soapy water.
I got an amazon package the other day. It's sitting unopened in the car until we need it.
On a happier note: Lou Dobbs Quarentined He doesn't seem to have figured out how to work from home, so his steady stream of toxic misinformation has been shut down for now.
OK that might work. But remember the “good old Ludes“ Quaaludes? Sopors? Methaqualone?
It was originally developed as an anti-malarial drug! (wtf?) by two Indian scientists. Perhaps we might need a slew of them now to ease our current anxieties over this “novel coronavirus”
Almost three weeks since I ventured out of the swamp, there's been some deliveries and will be more, but contact will be minimal. I'm scared to death of it. My daughter has forbidden me to go to town in no uncertain terms so I'll get weed and groceries delivered soon then slam the door shut again. We've had only one case in the county so far and I'm feeling pretty good about my chances.
New York State is now some kind of declared disaster area. 10k cases and rising. Army corp and governor are scoping out temporary hospital sites. All nonessential workers are ordered to stay home. Unfortunately, construction is considered essential so I’ll be continuing to work. I’ve been involved in a multi million dollar resort development and their not looking to slow down from what the C of W tells me. ‘If someone gets sick we get someone else’ is the word. I’m expecting a delivery of a unit of plywood this coming week. I’ve told them I won’t accept the load if the drivers not masked. We’ll see. Also not cutting plywood for at least three days and will be staying the hell away from it in the shop as it’s coming out of Rochester that is having spiking cases. A good friend of mine just went over the road to some Gold Coast community in Mass. where he’s to begin demo/construction on a commercial job. Expects to be out for 3 months. I’m glad all the bullsh!t jobs are at least becoming visible. Sucks that construction, as it relates to retail or hospitality, is considered essential. As a contractor it is not very clear there will be any assistance from the fed. Just opportunities for loans Heard the banks are going to get a trillion/day to make sure they’ll come thru. People, not so much.
My wife and I have three modest rental properties we bought over a lifetime of work for our retirement income. We have always had the policy not to ever raise the rent on people because tenants move out often enough. Now I'm going to have to tell our management company not to evict tenants if they can't pay the rent.
The Trump Administration was warned as early as January 2017 about the dangers of a pandemic when the Obama Administration briefed them as part of handing over the keys. In October 2019 a report was issued by members of this administration about the lack of equipment. In January 2020, intel reports warned about the dangers of the coronavirus.
The Trump Administration did nothing for way too long.
a good article, cutting thru the idea of a two party system with each party trying desperately to blame the other for a decades long bipartison market oriented politics.
'More broadly, through the self-serving mythology of rugged individualism, capitalism has been used to shape and reshape social relations. This makes its dependence on serial bailouts both ridiculous and pathetic. Conceived several centuries ago to shift power from Aristocrats to a burgeoning business class, without a large and intrusive government to prevent consolidation and self-dealing, it quickly creates a new Aristocracy to close the door behind it. What is left is the privileged, remote and self-dealing oligarchy that now stands before us.
During ‘normal’ times, when this oligarchy isn’t acting to destroy other nations and the world, malgovernance for its own benefit is made the ordinary working of government. For instance, the U.S. military is wildly overfunded while the healthcare system is structured to let the people die at a politically acceptable pace. During ‘not normal’ times, a hierarchy of privilege is set in motion. First, save the wealth of the rich through bailouts. Second, secure the rights of corporations to profit from catastrophe. Last, let the people die at a politically acceptable pace.'
Trump knew an epidemic was coming two months ago. Instead of preparing, he lied and told people to not worry. Some Americans went out and spread this virus based upon Trump's lies.
Now Trump Admin goons continue to lie. Trump has done everything to make this epidemic worse. Doctors and nurses are telling us that they have no supplies.
Idiot Trump replaced competent government workers with anti science morons. Why does South Korea test 200,000 people a day and we have tested only 20,000 people all together. Ever country that has solid leadership is testing, but America is not testing?
Trump knew an epidemic was coming two months ago. Instead of preparing, he lied and told people to not worry. Some Americans went out and spread this virus based upon Trump's lies.
Now Trump Admin goons continue to lie. Trump has done everything to make this epidemic worse. Doctors and nurses are telling us that they have no supplies.
Idiot Trump replaced competent government workers with anti science morons. Why does South Korea test 200,000 people a day and we have tested only 20,000 people all together. Ever country that has solid leadership is testing, but America is not testing?
Gee,I dunno Rick. Why does every developed country have some kind of universal public healthcare while the US does not?
Trump do that too? How many people will be dying as a result of the way we have organized health ‘access’ in this country,
Before it gets all Jim Jones level of binary political world view, I loath Trump as much as I loath neoliberals.
Trumps greed and incompetence is only adding to an inhumane system that had already existed and is being currently defended.
"The virus wasn’t where it was today at the beginning either." - Drunk Skank Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham who has never held a new presser
Revealing, not just the Trump administrations' utter lack of understanding for the nature of pandemics, but their stubborn refusal to believe scientists over their own "gut feelings."
Then there's the petulant envy by Trump and the RW that led them to destroy the pandemic team Obama Admin put in place.
I’m of the belief that we get to vote on what the party decides, not the other way around.
Trump will no doubt add to the rising mortalities. The overarching state of our medical economy was in place long before Trump got here. One of Trumps campaign promises was to fix healthcare. About as honest as Obama’s pledges in his first presidential campaign.
I hear smoking and obesity are going to be big factors for patient survival rates. As we’re the most obese nation on earth, I’m assuming that will contribute to the mortality rates in a significant way.
I’m bracing for both political parties resolving to make our situation a result of the other faction’s shortcomings while ignoring the broader scientific evidence.
I’m of the belief that we get to vote on what the party decides, not the other way around.
Trump will no doubt add to the rising mortalities. The overarching state of our medical economy was in place long before Trump got here. One of Trumps campaign promises was to fix healthcare. About as honest as Obama’s pledges in his first presidential campaign.
I hear smoking and obesity are going to be big factors for patient survival rates. As we’re the most obese nation on earth, I’m assuming that will contribute to the mortality rates in a significant way.
I’m bracing for both political parties resolving to make our situation a result of the other faction’s shortcomings while ignoring the broader scientific evidence.
I'm of the same mindset. That both parties will try to make political hay over this in order to gain some political advantages. Although we're seeing some cooperation. So there may be some hope. But I'm use to each party blaming the other for anything and everything that goes wrong or that isn't ideal.
Yeah, we get to vote after the fact on what a political party does or doesn't do. We basically have no say in what a party decides to do or not. All we can do is hope that the party we put back in control isn't as bad as the party we kicked out.
My wife and I have three modest rental properties we bought over a lifetime of work for our retirement income. We have always had the policy not to ever raise the rent on people because tenants move out often enough. Now I'm going to have to tell our management company not to evict tenants if they can't pay the rent.
The three of us brothers own one modest condo each as part of a family LLC, and I am bracing for a tenant that won't be able to pay as well. Ever since being put out to pasture in my job due to failing eyesight and hearing, I depend on that monthly payment, so when it dries up, it's going to hurt.
The Trump Administration was warned as early as January 2017 about the dangers of a pandemic when the Obama Administration briefed them as part of handing over the keys. In October 2019 a report was issued by members of this administration about the lack of equipment. In January 2020, intel reports warned about the dangers of the coronavirus.
The Trump Administration did nothing for way too long.
It's the "bin Laden determined to attack US targets" thing all over again, which is why I smell the biggest Trump power grab in history all over again.
Can't wait to hear the jackboots clicking, cue Enabling Act in three - two - one...
But her emails, but Biden has blood on his hands...and most damning of all..."Bernie isn't electable".
Sigh, it's going to be a very long seventy years. Thank God I won't be around for all of them. But my kids, that's another story
That seems like a quote from me. See Jeff, I don't think as you do and when some corporate ass hat has voted to take us to war on phony intelligence, obvious to any but the willfully obtuse, I believe that should count.
You, apparently, act like it means nothing. Odd for a self described lefty but I'm also on record saying your statements have often been incoherent to me.
As we’re the most obese nation on earth, I’m assuming that will contribute to the mortality rates in a significant way.
You might be surprised on that. Certainly, morbid WalMart-shopper level obesity is a serious health risk, but being overweight may actually help patients get through an acute illness. I did some work with a PhD in Nutrition a while back and he had real data and journal papers on fattening up patients before surgery to get lower mortality. Obese people often do not heal well following surgery because you can't suture fat layers together, so they get infected pockets with low blood flow. That means poor access for the immune system. But nobody gets surgery for Covid-19.
The justice Department is supporting 20 states seeking a Supreme Court ruling ACA is unconstitutional, but:
Quote
The Trump administration is considering opening up a special enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act to help uninsured Americans during the coronavirus crisis, Politico and The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.
I suspect within a couple of weeks the Justice Department will drop out, and then the states will start dropping out too.
The trick, of course, is to start hammering Terrible Trump, RIGHT NOW! The ex-republican group, the Lincoln Project is having no problem with ads but the Dems? Not so much, so far (I am hoping!)
The key is to get Twitter to enforce their "no Covid Misinformation" policy, including from Trump. Then get the FTC to enforce "Covid misinformation equals fraud" over broadcast TV, radio, and the internet". Of course, that might actually help Trump get reelected, in effect gluing his mouth shut so we are not reminded every day what a jerk he is.
Maybe we could extend that to Trump officials, like those who told us last week to go buy stocks. I hope Trump's supporters did!
Is it a hoax that the Trump campaign was surrounded by and stumbling over Russians all connected to Putin? Is it true Mr Trump even in public asked for the Russians to hack the emails of Sec Clinton? Is it a hoax the campaign had contacts with Assange who dumped Russian hacked emails? Is it a hoax the Trump campaign insisted on lifting Russian sanctions? Is it a hoax the Trump administration never asked for increased sanctions and in fact when Congress pass bills with increased sanctions the Trump administration balked?
What Mueller did not prove was a criminal conspiracy.
It is not a hoax the Trump administration was and continues to be cozy with the Russians.
get the FTC to enforce "Covid misinformation equals fraud" over broadcast TV, radio, and the internet"
The problem, and it is always the problem when considering thus with right wing nuttery, is they will contend it is their cogent BELIEF what they say is true and valid, not that it is accurately and correctly factual.
I just took delivery on a container load of Chinese crystal balls (I'm gonna send Greger a new one, since his is cracked). I tried one out and it said that Trump is going to adopt Medicare For All into his platform. Sayonara Joe...
Why is Fatass Trump hijacking the Head of the Corona Virus Task Force - Mike Pence - pressers every day? Is this Trump's work-around for his Klan rallies limelight that he so desperately misses?
1. Trump denied the available WHO coronavirus test kits. 2. The 12-week delay cost American lives. 3. After this delay, Oscar Health launches its testing center locator. 4. Oscar Health is a Kushner company.
Investigate the s*** out of this crime family. Benghazi style, please.
My wife and I have three modest rental properties we bought over a lifetime of work for our retirement income. We have always had the policy not to ever raise the rent on people because tenants move out often enough. Now I'm going to have to tell our management company not to evict tenants if they can't pay the rent.
This is good of you. Taking care of the tenant is never a bad thing. If you have a good tenant, they are more likely to stay because of these actions. The wife and I owned some property in Ocean City MD and had to do the same a couple of times. We kept those tenants for years. The last lady, just before we sold the place, stayed for 6 years and would have stayed longer.
The key is to get Twitter to enforce their "no Covid Misinformation" policy, including from Trump. Then get the FTC to enforce "Covid misinformation equals fraud" over broadcast TV, radio, and the internet". Of course, that might actually help Trump get reelected, in effect gluing his mouth shut so we are not reminded every day what a jerk he is.
Maybe we could extend that to Trump officials, like those who told us last week to go buy stocks. I hope Trump's supporters did!
Nothing will glue Trump's mouth shut, I'll just paste some raw links to give you a preview of his soon-to-crack mental state. He's teetering on the edge of a total psychotic break, and even the Republicans are growing weary, and even scared.
I predict that Dr. Fauci will be fired before the end of April, if he doesn't fall victim to COVID19 first. And with Fauci's exit goes the very last shred of any credibility that the Trump administration might have had, except with his loyal followers, of course.
Have you seen Joe Bidens online address? Not inspiring either.
Sanders has been giving constant town halls by the way. He's turned his campaign apparatus into a health emergency campaign.
There's rising protests to release the refugees from their cages. I'm not sure if that goes into coke or pepsi bad column.
Ditto with our large prison system and world beating incarceration rates. If there's a tragedy that unfolds in our human caging facilities I'm not sure who will get the blame there either. It was Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton's 'super predator' crime bill that ballooned that population of americans..
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump A great early result from a drug that will start tomorrow in New York and other places! #COVID19
That's just one reported case, and I hold Trump personally responsible for every domestic community transmission related COVID-19 death now and in the future, because of his refusal to listen to early warnings.
The moment Trump goes on cable news with a press conference, I will be turning the TV set off or switching channels. I will not watch one more Trump Rally masquerading as a coronavirus update. I urge you to do the same and maybe, let the channels know your intentions, too.
The moment Trump goes on cable news with a press conference, I will be turning the TV set off or switching channels. I will not watch one more Trump Rally masquerading as a coronavirus update. I urge you to do the same and maybe, let the channels know your intentions, too
.
I don't have a television and have never heard Trump speak.
I read something about the poisoned couple consuming aquarium cleaner that contained chloroquine. So it may have not been the chlorquine that killed him and hospitalized her. Here's a few basic facts about it:
Chloroquine is not available in the US: They use hydroxychloroquine, which is supposed to better tolerated. For malaria, the adult dose is 400-500 mg daily. Twice that can be lethal by cardiac arrest, so DO NOT DIY with non-doctor supervised treatment. You may not need anywhere near the malaria dose to stop the Covid-19 virus. Dose still unknown. Quinine (as in tonic water) may be just as effective. Unknown All of these quinines work as zinc ionophores. They let extracellular zinc into cells through a ion-specific channel. Zinc inside the cell disrupts virus replication. If you want to read the papers on this, you can Google "zinc chloroquine virus ionophore".
Nobody claims this is a magic cure: All they have claimed so far is that victims have shorter infections. If it slows down virus replication, that would give your own immune system time to make some antibodies.
Here's an interesting quote from the NY Times:
Quote
The University of Minnesota is conducting three studies, including one on remdesivir for seriously ill patients. A second study will give hydroxychloroquine to people who have been exposed to the coronavirus, because they live in the same household as patients, to see if the drug can prevent them from becoming infected.
The third study will use an old, safe drug called losartan, normally given to treat high blood pressure, to find out whether it can prevent mild coronavirus infections from turning more serious. The drug blocks the receptor that the virus uses to get into cells, so researchers think it might stop or slow the illness.
I am a case study of N=1 (AKA anecdotal): I am a 68 year old MS patient on immunosuppression, so a pretty damned high risk. I take a lot of Vitamin D3 for the MS and I take losartan for blood pressure. I had a very mild case over the course of about 15 days. I did stop taking the immunosuppressant drug as soon as I got the infection.
One way out there theory I think might have helped is that the MS immune system modifier I take (Tecfidera) might have stopped any cytokine storm syndrome. That's what actually kills a lot of flu victims: The body's own immune cells release a lot of killer chemicals that go wild and attack host cells. One treatment is a similar drug. Totally unknown and I doubt anybody is looking at this.
The moment Trump goes on cable news with a press conference, I will be turning the TV set off or switching channels. I will not watch one more Trump Rally masquerading as a coronavirus update. I urge you to do the same and maybe, let the channels know your intentions, too
.
I don't have a television and have never heard Trump speak.
It took 67 days to reach a hundred thousand cases of COVID, it took another two weeks to hit the next hundred thousand, another four days to reach 300,000 and two days to reach 400 thousand.
This virus is taking off like a rocket thanks to inaction on the part of governments worldwide, and Trump is the poster child for not only inaction but WRONG ACTION.
To date, the CDC has tested 352. Other agencies have tested plenty more but the CDC has only SUCCESSFULLY tested 352, and meanwhile we're grasping at AZT and a variant of fish tank cleaner after ignoring the pandemic threat for almost two months.
Oh, but the stock market is gonna come roaring back!!!
Trump’s talent for disruption through cavalierly sowing chaos, one of his most appealing qualities to his followers, does not seem to be well-suited to managing the current state of things.
Sure alot of ranters have seen this doozy by now. Wonder if it's just another moron stuffed in a republican suit or is it a signal of a full on nationalism embrace now coming from the fascist camp. No sacrifice for the fatherland is too great, the economic health of the country must be preserved, etc... A huge break from radical individualism and the right to starve to be sure. If only there was someone making the case of the system being rigged for workers.
I expect the Democrats, as usual, to be slightly to the left of Patrick's Dow Jones death cult and want means testing to those getting sacrificed. They seem content on letting the Republicans define the left right borders.
Which plan do YOU think is better? That's what the big kerfuffle is about...that's what Mitch McConnell's big hissy fit is about. Don't let ANYONE tell ANYONE otherwise.
No doubt, Democrats seem to be bucking a decades long trend and I'm glad for it. I hope they can withstand the coming Republican hectoring and framing so we'll see. History has not been good here.
The last Democratic package was a Turd , only covering what? 20% of workers? Having a bigger Turd being introduced from republicans makes your turd smaller and more easily swallowed I guess. That's triangulation, no?
Here's a handy video of the math from a guy with a British accent:
Knowing this rate of infection spread projection, it will be interesting to compare with any package that comes out of both houses.
I enjoy this new crop of left/right media. They seem less caught up in old propaganda conditioning and framing that the old guard is unable to escape from.
This was a pretty fair assessment of both parties lousy performance so far and goes beyond a screen capture for ANYONE!
Sager is the conservative on the show, in case your not familiar.
The front page of the magazine, in reference to this drug, and on its front cover: "We've unintentionally POISONED an entire generation of veterans". Seems that it has serious and disturbing psychological side effects which include things like murder and mayhem.
Just thought I would pass this one on in case somebody wants to try it (its not real good for you)
The moment Trump goes on cable news with a press conference, I will be turning the TV set off or switching channels...
. I don't have a television and have never heard Trump speak.
I don't need that kind of negativity in my life.
You've never seen him on YouTube?
There's no way in f*ck I'd ever click on anything that moron was in or on. My sound is always turned off unless there is something I need to hear. Anything I need to know, I read. Anything I want to say, I write.
Nothing Trump has ever said has been worth listening to.
Which plan do YOU think is better? That's what the big kerfuffle is about...that's what Mitch McConnell's big hissy fit is about. Don't let ANYONE tell ANYONE otherwise.
Republicans are really big on bloc grants, ergo the money to states and localities.
Biden's in a meat locker. The Ibogaine hit he got for the last debate has clearly worn off. Sanders has suspended his campaign to raise money for relief.
Conservatives and liberals are starting to float getting people back out to work. The market is demanding it as the alternative is more unthinkable. Any form of planned social distribution that would collide with market fealty, I suppose.
He's reassuring Americans that this will soon be over and everything will quickly be back to normal.
I think what you meant to type is, he says this will be over soon etc etc. There is nothing reassuring about what he is saying. I can very easily see a dystopian future from the actions he has taken and is considering.
People make fun of me mentioning the prospects of the walking dead ... remember ... for every 1000 confirmed cases of corona there are upwards of another 2000 potential cases waiting to be detected
No bill congress passes will have much effect. The important information is in the spreadsheet model above. Considering the relatively poor quarantine we have so far, I suspect we will have nearly 100% infection in about 20 days. Trump can only make that worse. The good news is that by about 14 days after that, we are all either recovered or dead. No more virus in America! Of course, about 6 million or so dead because hospitals will run out of ventilators shortly.
So will people remember Trump's crappy response, resulting in about the same number of Jews killed by Hitler? His main concern, the stock market, is going to fall drastically from where it is now as people panic. We are seeing dead cat bounces from his deluded fans buying. If those Trump fans buy now and panic sell at the bottom, will they blame Trump for having their retirement savings wiped out? Are a lot of Trump voters going to decide "owning the libs" by installing a sociopath as President was a bad idea in November? Are a lot of elderly Trump voters going to be dead?
Life is getting complicated at home. My son has been in isolation for 10 days. Today my wife has started exhibiting symptoms (fever, so far low grade), and dry cough (which is hard, when you have a trach) and tight chest. She is the one we've been isolating our son to protect. The local testing location has shuttered because the exhausted their testing supplies. Fortunately, we have three bedrooms and three bathrooms, plus the RV. But trying to keep the three of us separated AND keep tabs on her progress will be difficult. It may just be the season, but given current conditions, we're not taking chances. Plus, who keeps the dogs?
Life is getting complicated at home. My son has been in isolation for 10 days. Today my wife has started exhibiting symptoms (fever, so far low grade), and dry cough (which is hard, when you have a trach) and tight chest. She is the one we've been isolating our son to protect. The local testing location has shuttered because the exhausted their testing supplies. Fortunately, we have three bedrooms and three bathrooms, plus the RV. But trying to keep the three of us separated AND keep tabs on her progress will be difficult. It may just be the season, but given current conditions, we're not taking chances. Plus, who keeps the dogs?
OMG praying for you John... Hate this helpless feeling, is there anything you need?
Patience. I need lots of patience. I'm not a very passive individual, so this is maddening. I want information. I want to do, not sit. I was planning on donating blood tomorrow, and that now seems foolish.
I just finished cancelling the family reunion, yesterday. That was painful -I've spent a year setting it up. But the safety of the family is paramount. I'd rather we all be here for it next year. But, this is more painful.
It is insane that we can't get her a test to know one way or another. She's extremely high risk. But, she won't even call her doctor, because she's afraid they'll take her to a hospital, and she has good reason to hate hospitals. I just want to KNOW, even if we follow the same protocols either way.
I mentioned it here because you guys know me, and we're already "socially distant". I trust you all, and I need to vent.
Patience. I need lots of patience. I'm not a very passive individual, so this is maddening. I want information. I want to do, not sit. I was planning on donating blood tomorrow, and that now seems foolish.
I just finished cancelling the family reunion, yesterday. That was painful -I've spent a year setting it up. But the safety of the family is paramount. I'd rather we all be here for it next year. But, this is more painful.
It is insane that we can't get her a test to know one way or another. She's extremely high risk. But, she won't even call her doctor, because she's afraid they'll take her to a hospital, and she has good reason to hate hospitals. I just want to KNOW, even if we follow the same protocols either way.
I mentioned it here because you guys know me, and we're already "socially distant". I trust you all, and I need to vent.
I know, and she should not only qualify but she should qualify for drive-through testing...but the tests just simply aren't there yet.
Have you noticed that Trump is now threatening to withhold aid to states that "aren't nice to him?"
And he's beginning to demand that Americans go shopping again, like NOW!
Republicans are very well known for ordering people to go shopping, and having hissy fits when they don't obey.
The thing is, maybe they are RIGHT when they voice fears that we might scuttle the economy in order to win. And that is a damn shame...but not for the reason you might think. It's a damn shame that we've become so powerless as a society that we're reduced to the point where that really IS the only power that we have remaining.
What are they going to do, arrest people if they DON'T go shopping? Do we really have to do a counter-move to the ultimate Trump hostage taking drama? Maybe we do. As much as it hurts, maybe we do, because no matter what, we are going to get [censored] and badly.
PS: After hearing the new martyrdom request from Lt. Gov Dan Patrick, I never want to hear another Trump even utter "ALL LIVES MATTER" or the term "PRO-LIFE".
PS: Amazon is asking the public for donations to fund extra sick leave for their employees. Amazon is a trillion dollar company.
I went to Arby's today on my way back from the bank and bought a sack of sandwiches from the drive through. I figure that they will refrigerate well, and can be microwaved to be palatable.
We ordered groceries last week, but literally only got half (or a little less) of the order. We are due for another delivery Thursday. We usually alternate ordering groceries and going to the store. Now we're being much more conscientious about not going out, but you are right, delivery is not as reliable as in the past. I've got 16 rolls of TP, 10 boxes of Kleenex, but only two more rolls of paper towels. I hope that will be good for the month.
I’m getting our troybilt tiller fired up for the garden and have a source for seeds. Food security may become a thing and I’m guessing there will be plenty of time to garden this year. If you have the capacity to do so, a small victory style garden might be a prudent hedge.
Given all the time I have on my hands... It occurred to me that Trump may get an advantage out of this crisis that hasn't already been addressed (e.g., crisis presidents) - and that is crisis fatigue. Trump may be remarkably impatient, but two-three weeks of isolation and there will be a lot of sympathy for that impatience. People are feeling desperate, and desperate people do strange things.
I feel like we've all been signed up for a new religion that demands daily rounds of human sacrifice, like where each day a group of people are selected to be forced to jump into the COVID19 "volcano" to satisfy the Great Orange God of Anger and Business.
I predict that the covid-19 relief bill will be the straw that finally causes King Kon’s psychotic break.
I know why Trump is irrationally claiming that America will be open for business by Easter. It’s because his nonessential business (which he isn’t supposed to be running while he’s president) is losing money faster than a chemo patient loses hair. It must totally frack his greedy and selfish little brain that the two trillion dollar relief bill explicitly denies him any of that money.
Trump’s weekly Cabinet Bible study leader blames coronavirus on gay people and environmentalists, two of Gawd’s most reviled creations. Alternet (thanks, Hal)
Quote
Among the participants in Drollinger’s bible studies are Mike Pompeo, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, and Health Secretary Alex Azar (who, along with Carson, are members of the coronavirus task force). Other participants include 52 GOP lawmakers.
I guess when you drain the swamp you need to be vigilant about what sort of creatures move in to fill the void.
Additionally, if borrowers are more than 31 days delinquent on their federal loans as of March 13, their payments are now suspended. According to ED, more than 3.2 million federal student loans are more than 31 days delinquent. 7.7 million are in default.
Sounds pretty good to me. Those goddamn Democrats!
Additionally, if borrowers are more than 31 days delinquent on their federal loans as of March 13, their payments are now suspended. According to ED, more than 3.2 million federal student loans are more than 31 days delinquent. 7.7 million are in default.
Sounds pretty good to me. Those goddamn Democrats!
And you're okay with the concessions they made to get that? Who needs sick leave during a pandemic, eh? Student loans aren't going to eat anybody up, mortgages, rent, car payments, insurance, credit card debt etc. ad infinitum are going to drive the working class into the dirt. But they're just the uneducated masses and they really don't count.
Wonder why Trump is not sick yet? I am just waiting for it. Any day now.
I see Trump is making calls to his Evangelical supporter's groups urging them to fill their churches on Easter and then go back to work. The church part could do a lot of good, in terms of ending Evangelical support for Trump after a bunch of their elderly members die, but the younger ones might have a hard time going back to work. Many business that have shut down won't be anxious to have a mixed bag of the quick and the dead contaminating their workplaces.
We obviously need those antibody tests now! You only get to go back to work if you have a positive antibody test. That way even people still shedding some virus won't be able to infect their coworkers.
On another note: Individual isolation probably does not work unless your family has totally separate apartments. If you have pets moving between rooms, it won't work. This virus is SO contagious it gets transferred on the bottom of your shoes when you walk in common areas. You would have to be wearing full medical hazmat suits and following disinfection procedures when you enter another room to prevent cross infection. One benefit of family quarantine is that members with mild or asymptomatic cases can help care for people who are sicker.
Additionally, if borrowers are more than 31 days delinquent on their federal loans as of March 13, their payments are now suspended. According to ED, more than 3.2 million federal student loans are more than 31 days delinquent. 7.7 million are in default.
Sounds pretty good to me. Those goddamn Democrats!
And you're okay with the concessions they made to get that? Who needs sick leave during a pandemic, eh? Student loans aren't going to eat anybody up, mortgages, rent, car payments, insurance, credit card debt etc. ad infinitum are going to drive the working class into the dirt. But they're just the uneducated masses and they really don't count.
Why are you asking if I am happy with it when we are getting clobbered by rants about Trump winning if the Dems don't take action soon? Of course I'd be a lot happier with a better bill. You saw what I put up earlier, asking which one you thought was better. I'm sure you are familiar with our old pals who like to say NO? They're beating everyone at the messaging game as usual.
Sounds pretty good to me. Those goddamn Democrats!
That's why. It sounds pretty good to you and I/we should be ashamed of ourselves for saying anything bad about Democrats.
Tell you what would be a really good idea, cancel student debt for every doctor and nurse currently working the COVID crisis, and any doctor or nurse about to GO to work on the crisis.
"What we have lost will never be returned to us. A land will not heal - too much blood. My heart will not heal. All we can do is make peace with the past, and try to learn from it." - Ada
At our current level of quarantine, most Americans will be infected by about April 15th. By April 30th, most of those will be either recovered or dead. The ratio of fatalities if good treatment is available can be seen in the Korean data: It's about 1.4% fatality overall. But in America, we are already over the numbers of infected for most people to get good treatment. When you run out of ventilators, the fatality rate jumps to over 5%. So instead of 4.6 million dead, we will have more like 16 million. Most of these will be old people, but it will affect every age group.
Clamping down the quarantines today could lower that number, but I think we already have too many people infected to get everybody who needs a ventilator to have one. But flattening the curve can help it be closer to the lower number dead.
One reason almost everybody will get infected is we have a very leaky quarantine. For example, one researcher found that 50% of Wuhan victims reported extreme diarrhea as their first symptom. Most information sources are ignoring this, but it is very good evidence that infection through food is possible. A lot of the media are promoting take-out food, but a single asymptomatic food service worker in a restaurant kitchen could contaminate every take-out order. And who works in restaurant kitchens? A lot of young people who come to work even if they are mildly sick.
So Trump gets his wish: Mostly it will be over by April 30th. But a lot of us will not be here.
I have now moved into the RV. I woke this morning at 1 am with a persistent cough. I did not want to spread it within the house, so... we've got the internet set up, I have my own bed, bathroom, etc. I will need to stock the fridge, but we got an advantage most people don't have - someplace to quarantine me. No fever, thankfully.
I have now moved into the RV. I woke this morning at 1 am with a persistent cough. I did not want to spread it within the house, so... we've got the internet set up, I have my own bed, bathroom, etc. I will need to stock the fridge, but we got an advantage most people don't have - someplace to quarantine me. No fever, thankfully.
Did you have digestive upsets like bloating and the runs, fiery hot lave style as a first symptom?
Coming SOON to US life insurance companies, count on it. In fact, given who runs things here right now, count on Republicans to GRANT life insurance companies special exemptions to get away with this.
I think it might be an advantage to get GI symptoms first, so you start making antibodies before it gets in your lungs. Just a theory. It could also be that people on high-dose Vitamin D daily don't get very severe lung infections from Covid-19. High D versus insufficient D (<25) yields a 70% protective effect against respiratory tract infections. This is based on a peer-reviewed British medical journal paper analyzing multiple good double blind studies with a total N of over 10,000 patients. This is the real thing folks, not tabloid or Vitamin nut propaganda.
When you do get lung symptoms, it's very good to have a pulse oximeter available. They sold a few weeks ago on Amazon for $15-$20, but they may not have any left. If your SpO2 drops below 90, you are in trouble. If it gets much lower and is heading down, you need oxygen. Call your medical group's nurse or covid hotline and tell them your pO2 to ask for instructions.
I see Doctor Trump's expert gut is telling him New York needs way fewer ventilators than Cuomo asked for. This would be the 16 million die-off plan, for getting rid of a lot of old unproductive folks. Honestly, we need about 16 million respirators nation-wide to handle the peak load. Now doctors are talking about doubling up or even putting four patients on each ventilator. Then we will just need about 4 million! We have maybe 100,000? they are all peeing into an empty swimming pool, and expecting the level to rise enough to notice. New York state alone needs about 800,000, or 200,000 if they go four to a ventilator. Cuomo asked for 30,000. Trump is sending 4000.
Some other developed countries have more ventilators per capita, but they are in a similar situation. In the rest of the world, deaths will be in the 5% to 15% range.
My wife and I have come to the conclusion that EVERYBODY will eventually have to deal with Covid-19. The only real question is WHEN? There are a LOT of people working on Covid-19, worldwide, and our hope is that we can last long enough to be able to have better medicine available when our time comes.
If said better medicine comes from outside America I also hope that whoever is in charge here will allow that medicine into the country. (unlike, for instance, the tests that we decided not to use but make ourselves (which was not exactly a great idea, I think).
So far the drugs that look promising are all drugs you can get in the US, however we probably do not have near enough to treat everybody who could use them. Some of the generic drug makers and some drug companies in India say they are ramping up production. (US drug companies actually get a LOT of their drugs from India.) But if they said hydroxychloroquine was the key, it would be almost impossible to get near enough made and in the hands of everyone who needs it in the US in time with the big peak around April 15th. They might have larger stockpiles in tropical countries, since it is cheap and still used to treat malaria but they might just want to keep their supply for their own people. Unless it is controlled by the rich who decide to sell it to the US and screw their own people!
A recent study shows that digestive issues might be an early symptom for people who have contracted COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. CBS News reported that researchers in China found that half of coronavirus patients analyzed experienced digestive symptoms during early onset of the illness.
There are a lot of different causes for GI symptoms, like flu, but if you have them and then a few days later get respiratory tract symptoms you should suspect Covid-19. Also suspect you were contagious for a few days before the first GI problems.
Here's another interesting finding: Adequate sleep in a very dark room is helpful. We have T-cells that kill infected cells and the binding mechanism has all been worked out. The T-cells have a receptor that is activated by neuro-hormones like adrenaline and serotonin that are elevated when you are awake. This receptor makes a substance that turns off the T-cell binding to infected cells. This means the T-cell protective mechanism works a lot more when you are asleep. Like twice as well, according to a recent peer-reviewed paper.
This T-cell attack is the first line defense against corona viruses. They tested subjects response to a mild virus placed in their noses, and the subjects with adequate sleep were three times more resistant to infection. This is huge. These neuro-hormones are also elevated by the fight/flight response to panic, so not watching TV shows that induce panic and remaining calm might help, too.
Researchers noticed a long time ago that in cancer experiments any light at all, even red light, in the animal's room during sleep increased their susceptibility to cancer. So they went to very dark rooms during the "night" period. Note that it has nothing to do with the position of the sun. Night shift workers can benefit from very good curtains or even just a piece of cardboard stuck in their window while they sleep. I just saw this study and I'm cutting some cardboard to make our bedroom very dark while we sleep.
We have hundreds of times more wealth and resources than tiny South Korea, and yet our official response to this crisis isn't even as capable as Iran. And we have squandered valuable time by listening to despots peddling disinformation, the way Russia has been doing. How almost half the country can interpret that as Trump "doing a good job" is beyond me, I just don't recognize this country anymore.
Hydroxychloroquine is a zinc ionophore that lets zinc into cells. This zinc can block viral replication, which is why researchers are investigating it. But hydroxychloroquine is an available prescription drug in the US because chloroquine had some obnoxious side effect. There is no reason to think that chloroquine and quinine don't act in the same manner. There are also lots of other zinc ionophores that are being investigated. Two of those are quercetin (QCT) and epigallocatechin-gallate.
The interesting thing is that one or both of these are found in green tea and to a lesser extent in black tea, red onions, broccoli, red raspberries, black grapes, and red wine!
Amazon is still taking orders for EGCG green tea extract.
Is it the political faction that detests universal healthcare or is it the one that is committed to the idea of universal healthcare in a realistic, incremental implementation that leaves millions uninsured and leaves costs at over twice the price of its peer nations?
Is it the political faction that detests universal healthcare or is it the one that is committed to the idea of universal healthcare in a realistic, incremental implementation that leaves millions uninsured and leaves costs at over twice the price of its peer nations?
Your refusal to include all of the factions is duly noted.
If you bother to read that story, the urgent care could not treat him (probably because urgent care is not setup for Covid-19, heart attacks, respiratory arrest, strokes, etc.) and sent him to an ER that was prepared to treat him. He died on the way, and I bet that was in an ambulance with EMTs.
Supermarkets and auto supply stores don't treat medical emergencies, either. It's not Republicans or Democrats that are responsible for his death. Even with full-on single payer, urgent care would send him to an ER.
Job site shut down yesterday. NYS's 'Essential Workers' was revised and now any construction projects not connected to medical, state or Fed contracting is effectively shut down. Gates will be open Monday for crews to pull their tools off the job.
I had ordered a tool trailer last month with a half down deposit. Called the dealer earlier this week and was told nothing was allowed on the road in Indiana without meeting the same requirements as the updated NY essential requirements. Somehow the factory was able to get it's last shipment out, under the wire, and I got informed my trailer made it to NY yesterday. Good deal! I'll still be going as I'm a fabricator and contracts are still valid.
People watching reefer's backed up to hospital loading docks in NYC has created a foreboding broodiness even here in upstate.
I'm lucky to have work and won't need any unemployment benefits. Not really sure how the freelance (gig) workers are going to get any benefits such as myself and the other Sub's on the job. Trillions spent so far, no money getting into anybody's hands except the parasite portion of the economy. No freight is moving on the road around me.
In my personal resistance struggle against the Trumpvirus, I have collected all the ingredients to start making my own tonic again. Mamma and I are now referring to gin and tonics as "medicine", due to the quinine dose.
Why wouldn't Jackass Trump's numbers be going up? He gets to hold a tv rally every morning! Media at its best! If anybody looks into it they will find that a LOT of folks watch that crap every morning. If its got a lot of viewers its not gonna go away! Media needs the bucks! I did notice, the other night, that CNN at least gave Biden an hour to try. Media also likes the Governor of New York so he will get time until his audience lessens.
I wonder what would happen if media decided to give Biden the same amount of exposure as they are gifting to Trump. Then, I suspect, things might change a bit. The unfortunate thing is that is not going to happen. If the Dems to actually win the next election I would hope that they would go after the media and how/way they give one side more exposure than the other with consistency. It is, as far as I am concerned, really time for the media to be regulated, insofar as fairness in free exposure is concerned. Right now we get a minimum of one hour of Trump lying his head off with NOBODY calling him on those lies. Especially not calling him AT THE TIME HE DOES IT! (They could do this easily with one of them moving lines on the bottom of the tv screen). I would, however, be a lot better to simply give the democratic candidate the same opportunity to blow his horn.
Remember, we have Trump because of the media. THEY gave him, we are told, something like 5 billion dollars worth of free exposure! The Dems got little or none. This was not the fault of Corporations, big money, etc. This was the fault of the greed of TV media because Trump was a big draw and people actually paid extra for ads wherein there was Trump, ie. pure, righteous, greed on the part of the TV Industry. If you google; "trump given free exposure in 2016" you can read a lot about what happened.
I'm breaking quarantine Monday to see a physical therapist. My dog stopped me from walking this morning and made me go back home, I think he could sense the pain. I'm fast-tracking the wheelchair. It's stupid to keep pretending I can walk.
Someone will do my grocery shopping for me and load it in the car while I'm in town and I'll spritz it all off with Lysol before I touch it.
My county hasn't locked down and I hear folks are out enjoying themselves. City had to put tape around the pavilions and basketball courts. The weather is fabulous right now and lots of folks are off work so they're doing just what you'd expect.
In my self-imposed isolation state, I have been Coronobsessed. I've read a number of papers outlining forecasting models (there's a really good one from the University of Washington) and done a bit of my own calculations. I put my numbers up against the models and got depressed again. [The whole point of the exercise was to get emotional distance from the pandemic!]
It turns out the models were too modest. The next 10 days are going to be very dark unless the trend changes drastically in the next 48 hours. By my calculations, we'll pass China's death toll by Monday night, and Spain's by week's end. God, I wish we had a President with half a brain.
NWP, I would take a President with any sized brain at all over what we have right now.
For the past several weeks I have been keeping informal track of the death rate. Globally, hovering around 4.5% and up. While the US, and this seems very odd, is holding around 1.5% to 1.7%. Italy is 10.8%, Spain is 8.2% and the start of it all, China is 4.0%, make me question of China's reported numbers are correct.
So yea, by the numbers we are in no way half-way through this. Using China's numbers we can see 4,988 dead, I do not want to look at it using Italy's percentage...
I think our numbers are going to skyrocket, with the US possible surpassing Italy's numbers.
There's been a legitimate discussion among journalism ethicists about covering the daily coronavirus briefings live. Information (not given by Trump) from those briefings is important for the public, and he is the President, but he's using those appearances to substitute for his campaign rallies, and it is showing. Journalists know it is deliberate and are chafing.
Much of what he says is actually wrong (and even dangerous) and requires others to correct the record on the spot (thanks, Dr. Fauci). What value is there, then, in airing the briefings live?
last year I was coming out of a store and a guy came in riding an electric chair. I asked him how much does he get on a recharge and he said about 3 hours. It was quick, didn't take up much room, folded up, etc. I think he also said it didn't cost much. I looked them up on ebay and they are really not all that expensive. What I really liked about it, however, is that it wasn't as big as a full blowed wheel chair or electric wheel chair. there is also the marketplace in facebook where I have noted them for sale and close to where I live. If you are next to a population center there will be a lot of them around you.
If you go that route, in ebay, make sure there are no shipping charges, if you don't you REALLY have to watch out for those as some will seriously overcharge on freight.
I'd check for used scooters from local vendors. They won't have business going on right now and a number have small ones that break down handily. Wife has had one for 6 years now. Batteries need replacement every 18 months or so, though. Hers goes 9 hours or more on a charge. Be wary online, though. My wife got scammed.
That's why I prefer ebay or facebook marketplace. Both are pretty good and you can see what you get. I like ebay because the sellers are all rated based on those who have done business with them. If somebody has several thousand transactions, and has a 99% good reviews I feel pretty safe. The facebook thing is good because they will list stuff close to you.
And I think most will be. Certainly everybody who gets social security is supposed to be using direct deposit and they say the checks will use that SS data. Besides, the checks will probably come at about the peak of the Covid-19 infection. Going to the bank and standing in line should be avoided!
Lots of different death rates for different countries have been published, but most are crap: They compare deaths to confirmed cases, but the number of real cases is generally unknown. The very best info we have right now is from South Korea where they have tested a lot and are well past their peak. Their death rate is 1.5%.
If we could flatten the curve and keep medical resources available, we could have 1.5%. About 5% of patients need ventilators. If we run out, the overflow death rate jumps to 5%. 15% need ICU space. If we run out of ICU beds, that overflow rate jumps to 15%. Of course, just having ventilators is not enough. We need qualified respiratory therapists, ICU nurses, and anesthesiologists to supervise them. We need syringe pumps to keep feeding the patients drugs. We need those drugs! And we need medical workers who are not quarantined with the virus.
Getting another million ventilators from GM in June misses the huge peak in April.
The models are grim, but based on the best numbers available. Americans are not very good at taking orders, so I think the models are correct. Trump gets his wish: We get it over with quickly, but millions die. Trump will be known as the Holocaust President. ICU workers who survive are going to be in therapy for PTSD for years.
I think I mentioned that I have been doing my own calculations. I use a combination of Johns Hopkins and Worldometer for most of my data. I didn't bring my programmable calculator (if I can even remember the proper formulae) when I went into isolation, so I am putting it all on a spreadsheet. I then compare my calculations and projections against the forecasting model used by the University of Washington and their website.
The best model I have seen actually uses the death numbers to feed back into things like R0 and the real number of infected. We know the death numbers for many days, and we can make the assumption the death rate is fairly constant. The most important thing we get out of the models is that R0 (the number of people an average victim infects) is partly set by the transmissability of the virus but also by our behavior. We can knock that down to zero if we actually decide to all do that. But that is not usual human behavior and especially not American behavior. There are still people claiming this is a hoax, a Democratic plot against Trump, quarantines a violation of our constitutional rights, etc.
I was please to read that a prominent preacher in Virginia who claimed the virus was a hoax was one of the first people in the state to die from it. Very fitting. Sometimes your greatest purpose in life is to serve as a bad example for others.
I'd be careful with those scooters. Don't get addicted too quick. If you can still get around with a walker, do it just to keep the ability to stand. My mom had both broken hips replaced and she never made the effort to get back on her feet. Got a motorized wheelchair and never walked again. Now she can't stand up so the health workers have to pick her up to do chair transfers and such. She also slides right out of her motorized recliner now and then.
I don't really need a power chair, there's nothing wrong with me from the hips up. What I'm after is a custom fitted lightweight manual chair. This is the one I've got my eye on...
It weighs about 12 pounds, the frame is rigid and doesn't fold up but I'll be able to toss it in the back of my SUV and go anywhere. It's made of titanium and costs as much as my hearing aids. But as I understand it Medicare will pay 80%. I'll be moving into town soon, to the neighborhood where I grew up. It's wheelchair friendly because there's a school nearby so I'll be able to roam around historic downtown Clermont. Several restaurants and a brew pub nearby. I think it'll be fun.
The best model I have seen actually uses the death numbers to feed back into things like R0 and the real number of infected. We know the death numbers for many days, and we can make the assumption the death rate is fairly constant. The most important thing we get out of the models is that R0 (the number of people an average victim infects) is partly set by the transmissability of the virus but also by our behavior. We can knock that down to zero if we actually decide to all do that. But that is not usual human behavior and especially not American behavior. There are still people claiming this is a hoax, a Democratic plot against Trump, quarantines a violation of our constitutional rights, etc.
I have done a number of lengthy posts on that other site (and fought a lot of idiots over them), and I may bring some of those posts here (if I can). My main takeaways are these: 1) The confirmed cases and fatalities are progressing at roughly the same rate, which indicates that there is a correlation (even though I think there is a substantial undiagnosed population) between them. I think that is because the confirmed cases are probably mostly symptomatic, if not hospitalized. 2) The progression rate seems to be consistent at about a 25% daily growth rate (*1.25), although daily counts can vary significantly. My projections line up with actual experience about every 3 days. 3) The fatality rate in the United States seems to be between 1.7 and 1.8% to date. That may change if hospital resources get overwhelmed, which seems likely. 4) In the absence of significant deviation from the current experience, we will probably exceed China's fatality experience by tomorrow, and Spain's by next weekend. My projections to date indicate we'll have between 160,000 to 250,000 fatalities. Very sobering.
Originally Posted by pondering_it_all
I was please to read that a prominent preacher in Virginia who claimed the virus was a hoax was one of the first people in the state to die from it. Very fitting. Sometimes your greatest purpose in life is to serve as a bad example for others.
Gives me faith that there may, indeed, be a god, and they have a sense of humor.
I don't really need a power chair, there's nothing wrong with me from the hips up. What I'm after is a custom fitted lightweight manual chair. This is the one I've got my eye on...
It weighs about 12 pounds, the frame is rigid and doesn't fold up but I'll be able to toss it in the back of my SUV and go anywhere. It's made of titanium and costs as much as my hearing aids. But as I understand it Medicare will pay 80%. I'll be moving into town soon, to the neighborhood where I grew up. It's wheelchair friendly because there's a school nearby so I'll be able to roam around historic downtown Clermont. Several restaurants and a brew pub nearby. I think it'll be fun.
You and Sarah can race! This is almost exactly the chair that my son's friend, "Speedy" used. He earned the nickname.
I'd be careful with those scooters. Don't get addicted too quick. If you can still get around with a walker, do it just to keep the ability to stand. My mom had both broken hips replaced and she never made the effort to get back on her feet. Got a motorized wheelchair and never walked again. Now she can't stand up so the health workers have to pick her up to do chair transfers and such. She also slides right out of her motorized recliner now and then.
We use a lift at home because Karen cannot walk or stand and hasn't been able to even stand for about eight years. It's a motorized lift built into the bedroom ceiling and we use a sling.
You have to be trained to operate it properly, it has a lot of torque, the kind that can cause injury if you mess up.
I'd check for used scooters from local vendors. They won't have business going on right now and a number have small ones that break down handily. Wife has had one for 6 years now. Batteries need replacement every 18 months or so, though. Hers goes 9 hours or more on a charge. Be wary online, though. My wife got scammed.
Gosh, we've never had to replace a battery pack. The scooter (or now, the power chair) always wears out before that happens, about every four years. Thankfully the VA gives Karen a new one and we start all over again. She'll be up for another new one in about another year.
So you are predicting only about 15 million people get infected? I think it may be more like 80% of the population or 264 million. I don't think our quarantines are that good, because people keep on going food shopping, getting take-out food, and immediately opening mail. When the mailman has an asymptomatic case, he can infect everybody on his route. And then there's all the people still working at those essential liquor stores, Home Depots, etc. in a lot of states with Republican Governors. I think there is at least one state that has deemed every business "essential". If a lot of people break quarantine to go to Easter services like Trump wants, essentially all of them could be infected right there.
I think that there might be 20% who are being so careful, or so OCD, they won't catch it.
We self-quarantined at the cabin again today, just 1/4 mile from the Gila Wilderness to the north. Nothing but roadless National Forest for 20 miles to the south. Very low human density. Got some more tung oil on the floor and started hooking up the wood stove. So far I’m not suffering from the pandemic.
Loggy: That's good. I hope you can stay there for the next month and you didn't bring it in with you. Things are going to get VERY bad. Did you bring enough beans & rice? Enough canned food? Flour and yeast so you can bake bread? That's the thing we forgot, and it sucks. Ran out of bread a week ago. And of course we have a perfectly good bread machine, just nothing to put in it. Still have lots of crackers and corn tortillas. Lots of canned chile, corned beef hash, and soup. I'm already losing weight. I will probably wind up in better shape than I have been in for years.
The Party of Trump is insisting that a fetus is a person. Therefore, every expectant mother in the country should be applying for an extra 500 bucks for their fetus. If the administration refuses to pay the extra 500 bucks, I believe that sets a legal precedent for the Federal Government admitting that a fetus is NOT a person, thus setting up an upset in any pending case to overturn Roe v. Wade, yes?
“The analysis also found that Insurers, employers and individuals are expected to pay anywhere from $34 billion to $251 billion in additional costs for testing and treating COVID-19. A liberal estimation would boost the about $1.2 trillion costs per year by 20 percent or more, potentially leading to a 40 percent increase in premiums.
Covered California's analysis applies to the commercial insurance market that represents coverage offered to 170 million workers and individuals through private health plans but not to Medicare and Medicaid.”
Back on February 7, the World Health Organization sounded alarm bells about "the limited stock of PPE," noting demand was 100 times higher than normal for this equipment. Yet the same day as the WHO warning, the Trump administration announced that it was transporting to China nearly 17.8 tons (more than 35,000 pounds) of "masks, gowns, gauze, respirators, and other vital materials." As Secretary of State Mike Pompeo noted in the press release announcing this shipment, "These donations are a testament to the generosity of the American people."
SOME VERY PRACTICAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE VIRUS The following is from an Asst. Prof in infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins University:
* The virus is not a living organism, but a protein molecule (DNA) covered by a protective layer of lipid (fat), which, when absorbed by the cells of the ocular, nasal or buccal mucosa, changes their genetic code. (mutation) and convert them into aggressor and multiplier cells.
* Since the virus is not a living organism but a protein molecule, it is not killed, but decays on its own. The disintegration time depends on the temperature, humidity and type of material where it lies.
* The virus is very fragile; the only thing that protects it is a thin outer layer of fat. That is why any soap or detergent is the best remedy, because the foam CUTS the FAT (that is why you have to rub so much: for 20 seconds or more, to make a lot of foam).
By dissolving the fat layer, the protein molecule disperses and breaks down on its own.
* HEAT melts fat; this is why it is so good to use water above 77 degrees Fahrenheit for washing hands, clothes and everything. In addition, hot water makes more foam and that makes it even more useful.
* Alcohol or any mixture with alcohol over 65% DISSOLVES ANY FAT, especially the external lipid layer of the virus.
* Any mix with 1 part bleach and 5 parts water directly dissolves the protein, breaks it down from the inside.
* Oxygenated water helps long after soap, alcohol and chlorine, because peroxide dissolves the virus protein, but you have to use it pure and it hurts your skin.
* NO BACTERICIDE OR ANTIBIOTIC SERVES. The virus is not a living organism like bacteria; antibodies cannot kill what is not alive.
* NEVER shake used or unused clothing, sheets or cloth. While it is glued to a porous surface, it is very inert and disintegrates only -between 3 hours (fabric and porous), -4 hours (copper and wood) -24 hours (cardboard), - 42 hours (metal) and -72 hours (plastic).
But if you shake it or use a feather duster, the virus molecules float in the air for up to 3 hours, and can lodge in your nose.
* The virus molecules remain very stable in external cold, or artificial as air conditioners in houses and cars.
They also need moisture to stay stable, and especially darkness. Therefore, dehumidified, dry, warm and bright environments will degrade it faster.
* UV LIGHT on any object that may contain it breaks down the virus protein. For example, to disinfect and reuse a mask is perfect. Be careful, it also breaks down collagen (which is protein) in the skin.
* The virus CANNOT go through healthy skin.
* Vinegar is NOT useful because it does not break down the protective layer of fat.
* NO SPIRITS, NOR VODKA, serve. The strongest vodka is 40% alcohol, and you need 65%.
* LISTERINE IF IT SERVES! It is 65% alcohol.
* The more confined the space, the more concentration of the virus there can be. The more open or naturally ventilated, the less.
* You have to wash your hands before and after touching mucosa, food, locks, knobs, switches, remote control, cell phone, watches, computers, desks, TV, etc. And when using the bathroom.
* You have to Moisturize dry hands from so much washing them, because the molecules can hide in the micro cracks. The thicker the moisturizer, the better.
* Also keep your NAILS SHORT so that the virus does not hide there.
Loggy: That's good. I hope you can stay there for the next month and you didn't bring it in with you. Things are going to get VERY bad. Did you bring enough beans & rice? Enough canned food? Flour and yeast so you can bake bread?
Didn't intend to mislead - we aren't staying at the cabin, it's just one of the activities that we can do without exposing ourselves to the virus. Our answer to "cabin fever", if you will.
In general, our exposure is pretty small compared to big city living. The town we are in has fewer than 10,000 people and is off the beaten track (nearest interstate highway is 45 miles away); the county only has 27,000 people spread over 4000 square miles; and it was already a pretty sleepy place. The local government took practical steps at first notice, and the state in general, while usually near the bottom of comparative performance measures like education and poverty, currently has a progressive administration and a flush budget due to the recent years of oil and gas production (that will have ended).
Costco is 200 miles away, so we are used to stocking up for 3 or 4 months at a time. We do have several grocery stores, including a Super Walmart, and they have been short-stocked recently, but nobody is driving here from other towns because they ran out where they live.
Generally low humidity, higher temps about to be here, and lots of sunshine should mean a less healthy environment for the virus (see the practical info I posted earlier). So far, no reported cases closer than 100 miles and only five within 200 miles.
I'm learning to be compulsive about cleaning. I'm generally, by nature, a lazy slob. But, I recognize that while my personal risk may be low, my Honey's risk is severe.
I had to service my RV yesterday (I've been isolated there this week), dumping the tanks and fueling up, and it was remarkable, even for a Sunday, how quiet it was. The burgeoning strip of car, furniture, and RV dealerships, the casino, mall and SportCo parking lots were vacant. The trip was an hour (30 minutes less than usual), and I was conscious of every surface I touched, wearing gloves and slathering everything with hand sanitizer on top of that.
Notwithstanding all of that, she insisted I come inside and live in the guest room. The social distancing is wearing on her. So, I'm confining myself mostly to two adjoining rooms, and the bathroom (we each have one), wearing a mask and nitrile gloves when in any common areas (kitchen and hallways) and cleaning incessantly. The two common activities requiring contact are cooking and caring for the dogs. I'm hopeful that our routine will be enough.
And, log, thanks for the COVID tips. (BTW, the trip to NM has been postponed. )
I'm learning to be compulsive about cleaning. I'm generally, by nature, a lazy slob. But, I recognize that while my personal risk may be low, my Honey's risk is severe.
I had to service my RV yesterday (I've been isolated there this week), dumping the tanks and fueling up, and it was remarkable, even for a Sunday, how quiet it was. The burgeoning strip of car, furniture, and RV dealerships, the casino, mall and SportCo parking lots were vacant. The trip was an hour (30 minutes less than usual), and I was conscious of every surface I touched, wearing gloves and slathering everything with hand sanitizer on top of that.
Notwithstanding all of that, she insisted I come inside and live in the guest room. The social distancing is wearing on her. So, I'm confining myself mostly to two adjoining rooms, and the bathroom (we each have one), wearing a mask and nitrile gloves when in any common areas (kitchen and hallways) and cleaning incessantly. The two common activities requiring contact are cooking and caring for the dogs. I'm hopeful that our routine will be enough.
And, log, thanks for the COVID tips. (BTW, the trip to NM has been postponed. )
We are all praying that all of you make a complete recovery, and especially your dear wife. We are fellow travelers, you and I.
I am not sure when I will be able to "exhale" but I am yearning for that day.
My family is very humorous. My wife was musing about archaeologists 1000 years from now, researching an obscure President who's name has been removed from all of the monuments. My son pointed out that there won't be any existing record of him having existed at all. I objected, and said, "there will be references in the histories - 'well, he was a terrible person, but at least he was no Trump.'"
Okay, maybe that's not the reason. Come when you can, if we're still all around and haven't sacrificed arselfs to Gawd Mammon at the behest of King Kon.
I went into town today, probably took a few chances I shouldn't have but this is like day 28 of lockdown for me. Sat on the porch with the ex for a while then visited my sister. Lots of boats and jet skis on the lakes. Not much traffic, gasoline was $1.82. Word has it that the local hospital is quiet.
Wheelchair evaluation went well and the therapist will handle the insurance claim. Next I see the medical supply people and they will set me up with a loaner to zero in on what I want when they order the chair for me.
I went into town today, probably took a few chances I shouldn't have but this is like day 28 of lockdown for me. Sat on the porch with the ex for a while then visited my sister. Lots of boats and jet skis on the lakes. Not much traffic, gasoline was $1.82. Word has it that the local hospital is quiet.
Wheelchair evaluation went well and the therapist will handle the insurance claim. Next I see the medical supply people and they will set me up with a loaner to zero in on what I want when they order the chair for me.
You sure you won't need tippers, what with being out in the boonies and all? Of course, if you have great trunk muscles and good balance you probably won't need anti-tip wheels.
Update on Trump’s job performances. His overall job performance disapproval is still below 50% and has been since 24 Mar. Currently nationwide, Trump job approval is at 47.3%, still a record high for him, Disapprove 49.3%.
Still very partisan with 84% of Democrats stating Trump has done an awful job, 89% of Republicans stating Trump’s response has been excellent. Independents, the non-affiliated and less partisan, 47% approve, 43% disapprove.
You sure you won't need tippers, what with being out in the boonies and all?
Out here the chair is strictly for indoor use. I spend about 12-14 hours a day in this desk chair. Sometimes I move to a recliner for gaming. I'll get the tippers for while I'm learning to drive the chair so I don't go over backwards, once I've mastered wheelies and gained control of the thing I'll remove them. You can't go down a curb with them on the back or you'll wind up on your face. Custom manual chairs are extremely tipsy and have a really short wheelbase so they can have a tight turning radius. They aren't like those transport chairs for invalids. My upper body is fine, my arms and shoulders are strong. If I could just stop falling down even my back might heal. The legs aint coming back though.
Hey con-tards, how's that "government drowned in the bathtub" stuff holdin' up for ya?
Quote
The Trump administration acted far less expeditiously. When China began confining many millions of people to their homes in January, the U.S. government should have gotten the message that this was serious, the Yale sociologist and physician Nicholas Christakis told me. “We lost six weeks” in the United States to prepare—“to build ventilators, get protective equipment, organize our ICUs, get tests ready, prepare the public for what was going to happen so that our economy didn’t tank as badly. None of this was done adequately by our leaders.” The U.S. response, by contrast, has been hobbled in part by low levels of trust in government and high levels of partisanship, reflected in how even the concept of social distancing has become politicized.
You sure you won't need tippers, what with being out in the boonies and all?
Out here the chair is strictly for indoor use. I spend about 12-14 hours a day in this desk chair. Sometimes I move to a recliner for gaming. I'll get the tippers for while I'm learning to drive the chair so I don't go over backwards, once I've mastered wheelies and gained control of the thing I'll remove them. You can't go down a curb with them on the back or you'll wind up on your face. Custom manual chairs are extremely tipsy and have a really short wheelbase so they can have a tight turning radius. They aren't like those transport chairs for invalids. My upper body is fine, my arms and shoulders are strong. If I could just stop falling down even my back might heal. The legs aint coming back though.
Oh I understand. Believe me, after twenty-two years and almost a dozen and a half different chairs, we have definitely learned about them.
Right now Karen has a manual chair which she hardly ever uses now that pressure sores are an issue, an older "retired" power chair as a backup, and her current power chair which is her primary.
But for the first twelve or thirteen years, she refused a power chair altogether, before her rotator cuff started yelling at her. That's when the doctors told her it might be time to get a power chair.
I'll never forget her convo with her PT lady:
"But I can't give up my manual chair, that's my physical therapy."
"No, your manual chair is your MOBILITY, your physical therapy is your physical therapy, and that's why your shoulder is giving you problems now. You've been ignoring your PT too long."
"Ohhhhh...."
Of course now she's been very good about going to her PT, at least up till the recent crisis.
There's also a power chair waiting for me in the house I'm moving to. They bought Nick a nice new power chair and remodeled his house for him after his injury, sadly he never made it out of rehab. I'm also looking for an electric cargo trike to get me a little more range. I'll be quite the sight! Auld longbeard hauling his wheelchair around town on a tricycle...
May I conclude that if Republicans love Mr Trump's response to the corona, then they would have loved Pres Obama's response to H1N1?
You're missing the whole partisanship angle. Democrats hate Trump's response, Republicans love it. If Obama had done the same thing, provided the same response to H1N1, Democrats would have loved it, Republicans hated it.
It's all about the R and the D behind the name. Not the response. It's all about who proposes something, anything proposed by Republicans is automatically opposed by Democrats and vice versa. Anything proposed by democrats is automatically opposed by Republicans.
Such is the nature of the political era we have entered today. Polarization, ultra high partisanship and divisiveness.
This matches Dr. John Campbell's observation that in Italy, doctors do everything they can to reduce fever often using Ibuprofen. He thought that may have contributed to the very high death rate. The video points out that ERs are telling Covid patients to go home and come back once they have pneumonia. But they have no suggestions to prevent those patients from getting pneumonia to begin with. So here's what doctors did to prevent Spanish Flu victims from getting pneumonia. He actually has some numbers.
Sen. Chuck Schumer on Sunday* urged federal officials to declare coronavirus a public health emergency in the US, so millions more in funds could be made available to fight the deadly bug.
The senator appealed to the Department of Health and Human Services to make the declaration in order for the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention to access $85 million that is allocated to fight infectious disease.
“Should the outbreak get worse they’re going to need immediate access to critical federal funds that at present they can’t access,” Schumer told reporters at his Manhattan office.
The CDC issued its first warning on January 8th. Trump held campaign rallies on the 9th, 14th, 28th, 30th, Feb 10th, 19th, 20th, 21st and 28th.
He GOLFED on Jan 18th, 19th, Fev 1st, 15th, Mar 7th and 8th.
During this entire time he continually called the whole thing a hoax, the flu, the common cold, he said we'd be done in a week, it would be a miracle, etc etc. The first time he admitted it might be a crisis was March 13th.
Please defend this for us all, Perotista. Tell us where the PARTISANSHIP IS in HATING this response which has killed untold numbers of Americans. I say partisanship my rosy red ass...the man is a lunatic.
And it doesn't have a damn thing to do with him being a Republican and it doesn't have a damn thing to do with partisanship.
Maybe that's all true, Jeff, but the partisan republican response is that Trump is doing a great job!
Democrats think he's doing an awful job.
That's a big partisan divide. There IS a partisan angle and it's important. Once again Democrats are underestimating Trump, thinking this will surely bring him down. Blood on his hands...yada yada yada.
Maybe that's all true, Jeff, but the partisan republican response is that Trump is doing a great job!
Democrats think he's doing an awful job.
That's a big partisan divide. There IS a partisan angle and it's important. Once again Democrats are underestimating Trump, thinking this will surely bring him down. Blood on his hands...yada yada yada.
The states where most people are ignoring the warnings, where most think it's all media hype, are on the cusp of some very medieval sh!t in the next few weeks.
Check back then and see how well all our comments have aged.
So you're saying that in a few weeks Trump supporters will turn against him because a bunch of people are going to die? I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say nope. They will continue to love and adore him while blaming Pelosi for everything. That's how partisanship works.
Democrats will continue to hate him. Just as Democrats continued to love Obama as he sat on his duff and let the banks take away their homes.
Just as Democrats continued to love Obama as he sat on his duff and let the banks take away their homes.
Do you even remember the congressional fight over the CFPB and McConnell blocking almost every attempt to make the banks accountable? Do you remember the fight over Dodd-Frank, or the lengths to which Republicans went to prevent even the most basic borrower protections against --- OMG never mind, this is just absurd.
You really don't even remember what we went through, it seems. Moreso, you don't seem to remember what the Rethuglicans put Bamz through.
So you're saying that in a few weeks Trump supporters will turn against him because a bunch of people are going to die? I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say nope. They will continue to love and adore him while blaming Pelosi for everything. That's how partisanship works.
Democrats will continue to hate him. Just as Democrats continued to love Obama as he sat on his duff and let the banks take away their homes.
Our politics may be different, but we seem to be kindred spirits in the way we look at things. You're correct, those who love Trump will continue to love him no matter what he does or doesn't do. Those who hate him will always hate him, again regardless of what he does or doesn't do. I suppose one can substitute Democrat for anti-Trumpers and Republicans for pro-Trumpers. At least around 85% of each party.
I tend to gloss over both major parties and go to independents, the less partisan and non-affiliate folks. I study independents as they will generally let you know who wins an election or what those folks who aren't all that partisan think about issues, policy and legislation.
You have a good chunk of this group that are persuadable. That can swing wildly between parties from one election to the next. It's these folks one must convince to vote against Trump. Trumpers never will. On the other side, Trump and company must persuade this group to vote for him as anti-trumpers never will.
Trying to convince Trump supporters to leave him won't work. Just like trying to convince Obama supporters to desert him, didn't happen. But that group in the middle is up for grabs. Concentrate on that group, not the hard core Republicans, Trumpers or democrats, anti-Trumpers.
I think we are just now witnessing the amnesia that comes with three and a half years of stress at this level. People, even smart people, seem to be forgetting what life was really even like prior to Trump's ascent to near dictatorship.
Sure, dictatorship by proxy if you want to call it that, it's something of a cultlike power grab. Trump is on record openly talking about how he could crash the economy if he felt like it (2014) and so it's become so off the scale absurd that it should be funny.
I guess three and a half years has begun to normalize the brand so much that everything that happened in the recent past now seems a century ago.
The brand...yes...Trump has a brand. He has always had a brand, and it's always been the same brand. It's how he has always conducted business, and this is not much different a formula, only magnified, and his methods have the astonishing ability to instill a nationwide case of battered wife syndrome. Don the Pimp has convinced many of us that the guy we had before was a no account shiftless no good [censored].
"Chris, I saw what you do, and we want to help," Whitesides said, according to Austin. "Whatever it takes."
Austin told him he needed more machines to manufacture the devices but didn't have the cash to pay for them. Later that day, Austin got a call from his New Jersey-based supplier.
"Somebody just paid your bill," Austin said he was told. "They'll be shipping tomorrow."
Trump officials have decided against reopening Obamacare enrollment to uninsured Americans during the coronavirus pandemic, defying calls from health insurers and Dems to create a special sign-up window amid the health crisis
Great news for those guys in Texas, but really how many helmet ventilators can they make and get to ICUs in two weeks? Because that's when their ventilator stock gets depleted in Texas (and every nearby state where people went to Mardi Gras).
Different topic: We need those antibody tests and we need them right now, by the millions. Here's why: People with antibodies who have had no symptoms or recovered a few weeks from mild symptoms can go back to work, getting a start on reviving the economy and filling in for all the people sick or in quarantine. They can also donate antibodies to give besieged health care workers some protection. Blood banks need to start offering those with antibodies a suitable bounty ($500?) for donating one unit of blood. If they test and then centrifuge that blood, it is very easy to separate out the plasma from the red cells. They desperately need the red cells for transfusions, but they can also purify Covid-19 antiserum from the plasma. This antiserum can give passive immunity to people that receive it. In particular, health care workers who are inevitably going to be exposed at work. You don't have to give it to health care workers who already have antibodies, which is another reason we need those tests.
Hilarious BS: Trump and all his cronies are claiming his response to Covid-19 was delayed by impeachment.
Problem is that he was acquitted by the Senate on February 5th. February 11th it got named Covid-19 by WHO. February 29th saw America's first recorded corona virus death. All that time he was holding rallies and playing golf like mad. Obviously, it wasn't impeachment that "distracted" him. It was his busy entertainment schedule.
At the same time, and right up until last week, he was denying it existed, claiming it was a Democratic plot to bring him down, claiming it was like flu, telling staff not to talk to governors who failed to kiss his butt, etc. This wasn't about distraction. This was denial of the facts every expert was telling him. This is the heavy price America has to pay for electing a totally unfit liar as President.
Now they are claiming that there was actually nothing to reply to as there is no evidence that there was any Covid-19. Basically, Trump was neither ignorant OR late with his response.
Now he has nothing left but "the Devil made me do it". If that one doesn't fly I wonder if there are any bets out there about what the next lie that explains Trump Gross Incompetence is going to be?
Oh, Fauci was in on that one which was almost interesting. This would mean that trump sent 150 tons of medical 'stuff' to China just for the hell of it as nothing was going on there.
I starts to get almost interesting when they can't even keep their lies straight.
They have never been able to keep their lies straight. It's like the defense attorney who I heard claim mistaken identity and "the victim's statement is not what actually happened" in two sentences, one right after the other! The jury was supposed to believe one or the other I suppose, since both could not exist together. It was almost like he said: "Okay, now I'm going to tell you a lie," and then proceeded with his summation. We convicted.
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – A train engineer at the Port of Los Angeles was arrested Wednesday for allegedly derailing a locomotive at full speed near the USNS Mercy hospital ship being used to ease hospital beds during the coronavirus pandemic.
During an initial interview with port police, prosecutors say Moreno admitted crashing the train, saying he was suspicious of the Mercy and believed it had an alternate purpose related to COVID-19, such as a “government takeover”.
---Three guesses as to this lunatic's political alignment.
Kind of like the nutcases threatening Dr Fauchi's life for telling us actual facts that don't agree with Trump's wish-list. I think we need to round these guys up and fulfill their fantasy by locking them away where they can't harm anybody. We need that involuntary commitment law back. Not all the nutcases are harmless. In particular, I would interview everybody who rushed out to be guns before the pandemic.
Then there are all the people attacking Asians or people wearing masks. Do you think maybe somebody should explain that if you think somebody has Covid-19 you need to stay 10 feet away from them? Not punch them in the face. That's a sure way to get it. And also that masks are to keep the mask wearer from spreading his infection? He is doing you a favor! They are not great at saving you from getting it, if you are wearing one.
OK ... it struck me a little uneasily when DNC pushed convention and states are talking about postponing primaries ... what if Mr Trump decides to postpone election due to the unsafe conditions of voting? or what if he "allows" the election and he wins because people are afraid to vote in unsafe conditions? What if ...
just spitballing because we have an unstable person at the helm
The primaries scheduled for 4 Apr have been cancelled by their governor and push backed to sometime in June. Wisconsin scheduled primary on the 7th is still a go last I heard with Wisconsin's governor calling out the National Guard to serve as poll watchers.
Trump has refused to cancel the Republican Convention as of yet and is being hit hard by Democrats for not doing so. Although the Democrats have rescheduled their for 17-20 August instead of in July. The GOP convention is scheduled for 24-27 August.
I do think it premature to be talking about cancelling or rescheduling the November general elections at this time. I think the best thing is to give this time to see what exactly is happening as we get closer to the remaining primaries and the convention along with the general election.
What if's rarely happen. But if it does, time will tell. As for the remaining primaries, cancelling them wouldn't change who's going to win the nomination. Biden is 300 delegates ahead and is leading in every remaining state poll in the states that haven't held their primary yet. With the proportional system of awarding delegates, Biden 300 delegate lead might as well be 3,000. Sanders would need to win every primary with 65% of the vote the rest of the way to beat Biden and that isn't about to happen.
As for the conventions, they're just a media show case with everything decided by the time they convene. The general is 7 months away, give it time and we'll see what the situation is in four or five months and go from there.
There is still time for the states to set up absentee voting for everyone. There is money for this in the virus bill, but Republicans do not want to do this. It seems that absentee voting screws up all voter suppression efforts by the GOP and Democratic votes would be overwhelming.
Yes ... mail-in voting would be Republican's nightmare and dream. Let me explain.
Mail-in would, as several Republicans have noted, kill their chances of ever winning anything. What they are not considering however is the opportunity to tie up an election forever in the courts and thus pushing the election to the SC (ahhh .... 2000). Anyone want to guess who wins that???
I do think it premature to be talking about cancelling or rescheduling the November general elections at this time
Let's see ...
It is unknown what the effects will be for the next couple of months. By June 1 we should have a better idea where this is going. But then as Dr Faucci says we will get the whiplash effect of a return in the fall. Still no vaccine, but maybe an effective treatment, but will we still employ social distancing as the best and most effective prophylactic? If so November voting will be compromised unless an effective alternative is found.
I like being prepared by considering situations which appear probable.
Yes ... mail-in voting would be Republican's nightmare and dream. Let me explain.
Mail-in would, as several Republicans have noted, kill their chances of ever winning anything. What they are not considering however is the opportunity to tie up an election forever in the courts and thus pushing the election to the SC (ahhh .... 2000). Anyone want to guess who wins that???
That would possibly set off something of a revolution and here's why. By that time, people will have become accustomed to dealing with an economic crisis, and a ham handed toss to the SCOTUS to pick a pre-ordained and selected "winner" for the second time in 20 years (based on a SCOTUS vote only) would just be one more angle to the ongoing crisis, and as a result, I think we might see a hardened social and economic response, which would ricochet across the economy.
It wouldn't have to be much either, because by that time, the golden goose may already be on life support anyway.
I was watching the governor cuomo report this morning. The Navy sent the Comfort to New York to handle hospital patients that do NOT have Covid-19. The reasoning is that the Navy figures they simply don't have the ability to disinfect the Covid-19 from the ship after its done with Covid-19. There is, however, a problem. Seems that New York doesn't have all that many no-Covid-19 problems. This is pretty interesting. I live in a small town of 19,000 We have the county hospital here. We also, at the present time, have 8 people with Covid-19 (as far as anybody knows and all 8 are currently not in the hospital). The hospital is expecting Covid-19 patients but they are not here yet and the hospital is not reducing staff because they knows its coming. Oh, as far as I know 7 of those infected came from outside the area and only one is from spread) The problem is that they don't have all that many patients! (they stopped all non-necessary operations, etc).
This is a problem and, I suspect, its a problem nationwide (except for those states not doing the distance thing thereby guaranteeing that they will have a Covid-19 disaster on their hands pretty soon)
I wonder if they should return to doing non-necessary operations?
I see Gov. Kim Reynolds (R-IA) will not issue a stay in place order because she believes Dr Fauci does not have all the information. So, I have to wonder what information she has which Dr Fauci does not have????
I recommend the family of anyone living in IA who dies from the corona to file a wrongful death suit by negligent homicide against this moron.
Governor Reynolds is a moron and unfit to judge anybody smarter. That's the problem with democratic elections: All the morons are just as likely to vote for a moron as for a smart person, if the moron has a nice speaking voice and looks good on TV. (And she does.) Politicians should not be making medical or epidemiology decisions, unless they actually are MDs or qualified epidemiologists. This is Trump's lack of respect for expertise biting us in the ass.
Dr. Fauci understands the simple fact that when a virus doubles infections every three days, a few scattered cases of asymptomatic infection turn into Italy withing a few weeks. He wants to spare Iowa that experience. Well, it's Governor Reynolds' political funeral if that's what she wants.
She is simply saying that he is as ignorant as she is so why would she listen to him? These people revel in being flat out ignorant. Its their thing - top down ignorance and everything in between.
AND THEY GLORY IN IT!
If the Dems can't take out these jackasses....... They have not, if memory serves, ever had the opposition working so hard to prove their ignorance and ability to toady to their lord and master. The problem is, obviously, that they are actually killing people!
I also agree about going after them in the courts as people WILL be dying! The only real problem is that the Dems seem to be having a really hard time actually saying that out loud (must have something to do with their obvious scheme to lose the election everyplace they can)
Just dawned on me. The Democrats have decided that the election doesn't start until after their convention, whenever that is (nobody really knows how or when)
They have not, if memory serves, ever had the opposition working so hard to prove their ignorance and ability to toady to their lord and master. The problem is, obviously, that they are actually killing people!
If memory serves, you have just described the situation in 2004 when Bush was re-elected.
Democrats should be putting together a virtual on-line convention right now. Start getting delegates certified with passwords and encrypted VPNs. This can be done. Many corporations have been holding virtual meetings for a long time. This is actually a Party function, not a government function. The Party can do this, if they want. They should and they can have a website with every delegate's vote for every ballot, so anybody can check the votes were not jiggered.
Democrats should be putting together a virtual on-line convention right now. Start getting delegates certified with passwords and encrypted VPNs. This can be done. Many corporations have been holding virtual meetings for a long time. This is actually a Party function, not a government function. The Party can do this, if they want. They should and they can have a website with every delegate's vote for every ballot, so anybody can check the votes were not jiggered.
We are seeing Covid-19 turn into a very selective disease in the South and Midwest. It's going to kill a lot of stupid people who did not heed the isolation warnings. They are going to supply herd immunity for all the smart people who are staying indoors. But at a huge cost when they overwhelm the very sparse supply of ICU beds and ventilators in their areas. It's already happening in a parish just South of Baton Rouge with ZERO ICU beds: The have the fastest growing infection rate in the country. It's friggin' Italy down there!
Mardi Gras had a huge attendance with a lot of close contact, and then people scattered to all points of the compass, carrying virus with them.
Trump fans are following his every word no matter how stupid. I wonder if this is going to turn some swing states Blue, just from selective mortality.
Mardi Gras had a huge attendance with a lot of close contact, and then people scattered to all points of the compass, carrying virus with them.
True, however, social-distancing was not a thing on February 25, 2020. That was a failure of the Trump Administration not to recognize that Covid-19 was going to become major in the U.S. in spite of the Intel Community and the medical community telling Trump who doesn't read daily briefings, Covid-19 was going to be big in the U.S.
It seems a lot of people are putting off going to the doctor due to being sacred of getting the coronavirus in their schedule appointments at the doctor office or normal appointments at hospitals. They're not going.
TV is reporting that there are, now, a plethora of antibody tests available. As far as I can tell there is only one that has been authorized, so far. Its kinda interesting. I went on to ebay and check for antibody tests. They have a pile of them for HIV but nothing for covid-19 or coronavirus. I also did a google search with little success. So, if they are out there they are not yet, I think, ready?
I also noticed that the market was going up with some strength which I took to mean that things may be getting better.
It also appears that dogs are safe from covid-19 there are instances that they have gotten it from humans but it was pretty benign
Amazingly Kudlow said, who could have known how fast it would spread? I have to conclude he is either a dumbazz or stupid as every epidemiologists knew how it was going to spread and how fast the potential was.
Mr Trump thinks he did great by shutting down Chinese travel and then did nothing. The fox was in the hen house, he closed the door behind the fox and then did nothing. Great plan Mr very stable genius.
Now career health officials are being warned not to contradict Trump on his new favorite unproven drug, hydroxychloroquine, in the fight against COVID-19.
The top manufacturer of hydroxychloroquine is Novartis. Back in early 2017, soon after the inauguration, Novartis agreed to pay Michael Cohen, Trump’s former attorney-slash-fixer, $100,000 per month for lobbying access to the new president. The cash payouts were sent to Cohen’s shell company, Essential Consultants, which was also a reputed slush fund for Trump. You might recall that the president used Essential Consultants as an intermediary for alleged hush-money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Indeed, some of those checks were signed by Trump while in the White House.
And no, this isn’t some kooky conspiracy to frame Trump. Novartis executives admitted to lobbying Trump with cash payments after they, along with AT&T and several others, were exposed publicly.
And that might explain his latest physical tic...
Quote
"...his hands were flapping back and forth as if to squeeze an invisible accordion to the tune of a dissonant polka played at half speed."
I'm sure you've all seen it by now...the Trump Accordion player tic.
Quote
We learned the other day that the Trumps are laying off 1,500 workers, an unemployment bloodbath, while closing 17 locations — mainly hotels and restaurants. Likewise, the Trumps are desperately begging their creditors to back off, creditors that include Deutsche Bank and Palm Beach County, to whom the Trump Organization owes a pile of money.
The man is a cult leader, he shows ALL the classical signs of it. When will our BALLS DROP as a society again, as Americans with minds of our own? What the [censored] is the PAYOFF for backing the cult, aside from a cup of cyanide laced Kool-Aid when it all finally falls apart?
Can't we just figure out a way to finally bankrupt him down to his last penny and then just leave him flailing his accordion player arms in a prison cell?
I guess one could say it is a tic, especially since he suffers NPD. When I studied mathematics as a youth professors would have students present proofs of theorems at the blackboard. The one telltale sign the student did not prove anything was when they started waving and gesticulating their hands. I guess it was an effort at legerdemain, hoping the audience and professor would be distracted and believe your presentation. I think that is what Mr Trump does ... believe me because I can wave my hands which exaggerates and corroborates the truth of what I am saying (otherwise you would know I am lying)
he would have been laughed out of those classrooms with a closing message as he went through the door ... try politics
Cats, ALL cats, have no defense against covid-19 (sorry, should have added that. I have 2 daughters with cats, told them and didn't here - apologies (again)).
the question becomes; "Can the Jackass Trump go bankrupt whilst being the President of the United States?" and "How much money is the Jackass Trump going to claim against the 'small' business bailout as passed by congress?"
given now he has previously behaved I vote for both!
Can't we just figure out a way to finally bankrupt him down to his last penny and then just leave him flailing his accordion player arms in a prison cell?
Easy peasy, but first we have to get him re-elected and flip the senate at the same time. After that we've got him by the short hairs. Democrats will be able to slowly flay him alive then have him drawn and quartered. I go to sleep peacefully each night imagining his screams.
"How much money is the Jackass Trump going to claim against the 'small' business bailout as passed by congress?"
His organization wasn't included in the first wave of bailouts but I wouldn't worry too much about him being completely passed over. He's got a certain amount of pull within the Republican Party.
Now career health officials are being warned not to contradict Trump on his new favorite unproven drug, hydroxychloroquine, in the fight against COVID-19.
Fatboy did stop Dr. Fauci from answering the question yesterday.
..."How much money is the Jackass Trump going to claim against the 'small' business bailout as passed by congress?"
Welp, Trump replaced the IG that was supposed to oversee the money for corporations from the Covid-19 bill and replaced the IG with someone more to his liking.
I think there could be 2 interpretations. 1. the obvious ... Mr Trump is in on the cash 2. Mr Trump is looking for someone who will sing paeans of the greatness of Mr Trump instead of doing their fracking job
the IG's mentioned in recent history all danced to a different drummer ... one Mr trump did not like as they were critical of Mr Trump ... can't have that ... after all he is the greatest human to have ever lived now or in the future
Cats, ALL cats, have no defense against covid-19 (sorry, should have added that. I have 2 daughters with cats, told them and didn't here - apologies (again)).
I'm wondering what's next. Maybe Trump will wake up at 3:00 AM this morning and decide that he knows more than the physicists and demand that nuclear power plant operators take directions from him, and the word from the DoE will go out, warning career professionals not to contradict Trump's orders or speak out against them. And in the ensuing fire and ash of a nuclear accident worse than Chernobyl, we'll hear Trump speaking from Air Force One (on the way to Moscow) blaming it all on the Obama administration, and demanding that his followers avenge him so that he can return safely to the Presidential CoG bunker and become President for Life....because "the Democrats did this to us".
If that's the case, then either the cats gave it to us or we gave it to our cats, so we will not be euthanizing Fiona or Maggie anytime soon. And they are strictly indoor cats anyway.
It would appear the NY cases came from Europe not China. Mr Trump closed the wrong door. The fox was trapped in the hen house in Seattle while the door was open in NY.
So several hospital organizations have reported that their shipments of PPE and masks have been seized by the feds without a word. Funny thing, though: No hospitals are reporting those shipments have suddenly shown up on their loading docks unexpectedly. So the question is: Where are they going? The feds have not said, or even let those victims of highjacking know the crime has happened. Okay, somebody in congress needs to bring this up on the floor and they need to start an investigation.
FEMA has sent exactly the same number of masks to all 50 states. Cool if you live in Maine. Not so cool if you live in Texas! Plus they only sent out <1% of the number HHS said we need.
Another interesting thing: Canada has a huge number of unemployment claims on line. Exceeding the Great Depression. They all get checks deposited into their bank accounts by today or tomorrow. Trump is going to send you $1200 around September...
Interesting drug finding: Ivermectin is used to treat parasite infestation for a wide variety of animals, including humans. One paper that was presented on Med-Cram today said it decreased SARS-Cov2 virus in vivo (inside cells) by 100,000 times in four days. It is available by prescription in the US and is used to control things like scabies. One more interesting thing is that you may actually have some! It's usually the only active ingredient in things like Heartguard or mange medicines for dogs.
The usual human dose is 9 mg/100 lbs, but that is for a single dose. It's half life is only 12 hours, so the dosage for 4 days has to be less. DO NOT take any unless you get it approved by your doctor. The last thing we need is another aquarium cleaner fiasco. This would be for treatment of patients with acute Covid-19. Not as a prophylactic. Long term use may be very bad.
INFORMATIONAL ONLY: DO NOT TAKE Hydroxychloroquin might be promising as well, but it kills people by cardiac QT lengthening and arrest.
The one drug therapy that seems very safe is several cups of green tea per day with zinc supplements or lozenges.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson late Thursday was moved out of an intensive care unit as he recovers from COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus.
Downing Street said in a statement that Johnson would move to London's St. Thomas Hospital ward, "where he will receive close monitoring during the early phase of his recovery."
---And as soon as he is recovered he will go back to doing his best to invite Trump to take over and dismantle the British NHS and privatize it so that British subjects will get to learn a two word phrase that never before entered their lexicon:
“If Gawd didn’t want us to catch the coronavirus, then He wouldn’ta put it on earth. We have a goldurned right to catch it if’n we want!!” Ammon Bundy, famous dumbass
Here is a report on the county I live in: COVID-19 in Clallam County # of tested in Clallam County 623 # of negative 561 # of positive 11 # of pending 51 # of recovered **Updated weekly** 6
As you can see we are, now, all the way up to 11, 6 of which are recovered. This is, I suspect, a really good place to be right now. I always knew there was a good reason to be living in a somewhat isolated place. Our hospital is in trouble because they can't do regular operations and are considering laying off some of the hired help. I am also not sure why when they have a lot of space!
Years ago I remember when there were battles going on over Canadian healthcare and American healthcare. This included a bunch of stories about how the Canadians were flooding down here for their healthcare (all bogus). Anyway, our hospital board, in their infinite wisdom, decided they wanted a bit of that business so they changed the name of the hospital, added even more beds, and started advertising in Victoria. They never were able to entice a single Canadian down here (we have a ferry that goes to Victoria, BC every day (except now, and has been shut down due to Covid-19). I am writing this as an example of how baloney can find homes in the darnedest places. (if it can happen here it can happen anywhere?)
"And it wasn’t only ventilators. Porter says her team “found that in February 2020, the value of U.S. mask exports to China was 1,094% higher than the 2019 monthly average."
Lake County distillery shifts production from moonshine to hand sanitizer Yalaha Bootlegging Company utilizes blueberries to produce alcohol neededLink
Lake County distillery shifts production from moonshine to hand sanitizer Yalaha Bootlegging Company utilizes blueberries to produce alcohol neededLink
By the time this is over, rural areas will be in greater danger than urban centers, for the obvious reason: Resources are concentrated in the urban areas. Hell, that's why humans build cities in the first place.
Did you hear about the suspected Covid-19 male patient lying in bed in the hospital, wearing an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose.
A young student female nurse appears and begins to give him a partial sponge bath. "Nurse,"' he mumbles from behind the mask, "are my testicles black?" Embarrassed, the young nurse replies, "I don't know, Sir. I'm only here to wash your upper body and feet."
He struggles to ask again, "Nurse, please check for me. Are my testicles black?" Concerned that he might elevate his blood pressure and heart rate from worrying about his testicles, she overcomes her embarrassment and pulls back the covers.
She raises his gown, holds his manhood in one hand and his testicles gently in the other. She looks very closely and says, "There's nothing wrong with them, Sir. They look fine."
The man slowly pulls off his oxygen mask, smiles at her, and says very slowly, "Thank you very much. That was wonderful. Now listen very, very, closely:
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.
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.
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".
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.
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...
I love the new term: Covidiocy. It is prevalent in certain places, especially red ones. The whole Michigan outbreak of it seems eerily reminiscent of the astro-turfy "TEA Party".
Yeah, just google Actemra and cytokine storm. This is actually pretty encouraging, since ICU docs and nurses are talking about the hopeless situation with ARDS patients, with no treatment available. And it doesn't even need any FDA approval, since Actemra is already approved as safe. Docs can prescribe drugs for "off label" use when they are effective. They just need to know about them.
Cuomo Press Conference on corona virus. From minute 23, when a reporter tells Cuomo Trump is watching, Cuomo precedes to tear Trump a new arsehole for all his dereliction of duty and criticisms of New York actions and requests based on CDC projections. Cuomo goes into dates and numbers, thanks Trump repeatedly for doing his job. ("What should I do, send a bouquet?") Talks about the constitutional power of governors to open their own states on their own timeline. Asks for state funding for testing and federal help in getting tests.
It's Cuomo finally getting tired of kissing Trump's butt to get help.
It's Cuomo finally getting tired of kissing Trump's butt to get help.
It's also Cuomo making it crystal clear to Trump that if New York and NYC fall, so falls the nation, because NYC is perhaps one of the biggest financial hubs in the world and certainly in the USA.
And Trump toying with the fate of the Big Apple may just be the final fatal mistake that finally turns his Republican support in Congress against him.
trump's base is roughly 35%, mostly white supremist IMHO. I'll wager moderate republicans will hold their nose and vote for Joe just like conservative democrats did for trump in 16- they just couldn't pull the trigger for Hillary. I'm a Tennessean, heard too many repubs say as much...
Trump's base and the owners and operators of the Republican Party are two entirely different groups. The real owners find Trump and his base useful, or not so much if Trump tries to purposefully damage New York City and all the 1% who live or work there. If that was ever the case, Trump would find himself in an assassin's crosshairs immediately. That's always been the penalty for screwing with the 1%.
According to CNN exit polls 89% of democrats voted for Hillary, 88% of Republicans for Trump. That is right close to the historical average of 90% which Republicans and Democrats vote for their party's nominee regardless of who it is. The party faithful or the base of each party didn't cross over to the other party's nominee. At least no more than in presidential election.
Trump won because of the swing voters, the independents. They went to Trump 46-42 over Hillary with 12% voting third party against both major party candidates. Independents really disliked both major party candidates and many refused to choose between them. Many independents or swing voters stayed home refusing to choose. This is shown as independents made up 40% of the electorate in Nov 2016, but only 31% of those who actually voted. 54% of all independents disliked and didn't want neither Trump nor Clinton to become the next president. In fact 25% of all Americans disliked both Trump and Clinton.
To put this into context how much both major candidate were despised, there is the historical favorable/unfavorable's of all major party candidates going back to Eisenhower. Take a look and see who is at the bottom. This makes 2016 a most unique election as the people had to choose between two unwanted candidates. At least Barry Goldwater can rest in peace now as he no longer holds the record for the lowest favorable and highest unfavorable. Trump and Clinton has that distinctions now.
Highest to lowest favorable/unfavorable ratings of each major party presidential candidate. Favorable/unfavorable 1956 Eisenhower 84/12% 1964 LBJ 81/13% 1976 Carter 81/16% 1960 JFK 80/14% 1960 Nixon 79/16% 1968 Nixon 79/22% 1976 Ford 79/20% 1972 Nixon 76/21% 1968 Humphrey 72/28% 1984 Reagan 70/30% 1980 Carter 68/32% 1984 Mondale 66/34% 1980 Reagan 64/31% 1992 Bill Clinton 64/33% 2008 Obama 62/35% 2012 Obama 62/37% 1956 Stevenson 61/31% 2004 G.W. Bush 61/39% 2008 McCain 60/35% 1992 G.H.W. Bush 59/40% 2000 G.W. Bush 58/38% 2004 Kerry 57/40% 1996 Bill Clinton 56/42% 1988 G.H.W. Bush 56/39% 2000 Gore 55/45% 2012 Romney 55/43% 1972 McGovern 55/41% 1996 Dole 54/45% 1988 Dukakis 50/45% 1964 Goldwater 43/47% 2016 Hillary Clinton 38/56% 2016 Donald Trump 36/60%
Pastor Tony Spell, who leads Life Tabernacle Church in the suburbs of Baton Rouge, has been openly defying his state’s ban on large public gatherings, drawing hundreds to in-person worship services while insisting that “true Christians do not mind dying.” Well one of them did, and now a lawyer hired to represent Life Tabernacle Church in its fight to ignore Louisiana’s stay-at-home order has also fallen ill from the virus and has been hospitalized since Tuesday. This is the tip of the iceberg. Bet a lot more of his flock end up dead. Tony's problem is soon going to be, if they are all dead, who's going to give him money?
I believe there are fundamental problems with your analysis. While the frequency stats are probably correct, you have neglected many variables which may not explain your conclusion.
Examples are if 90% are voting party line who did the other 10% vote for? was it the other party of someone else? This may make independent voters irrelevant. Suppose 75% of Democrats vote and only 60% of Republicans .... I should conclude it doesn't matter how independents voted, which points out one of the most important stats .... how many of each party voted. And most important of course is the electoral votes, not the national stats.
Trump's base and the owners and operators of the Republican Party are two entirely different groups. The real owners find Trump and his base useful, or not so much if Trump tries to purposefully damage New York City and all the 1% who live or work there. If that was ever the case, Trump would find himself in an assassin's crosshairs immediately. That's always been the penalty for screwing with the 1%.
See: "Bernie Madoff"...or "Cuba". And that was just a little bit of screwing, by comparison Trump would be committing grand larceny on just about every single member of the New York City cognoscenti.
I believe there are fundamental problems with your analysis. While the frequency stats are probably correct, you have neglected many variables which may not explain your conclusion.
Examples are if 90% are voting party line who did the other 10% vote for? was it the other party of someone else? This may make independent voters irrelevant. Suppose 75% of Democrats vote and only 60% of Republicans .... I should conclude it doesn't matter how independents voted, which points out one of the most important stats .... how many of each party voted. And most important of course is the electoral votes, not the national stats.
in 2016 89% of Democrats vote for Hillary, 8% for Trump 3% for third party which the Democratic vote made up 36% of the electorate. Republicans voted for Trump 88-8 over Hillary with 4% voting third party, Republicans made up 33% of the voting electorate. Independents voted Trump over Hillary 46-42 with 12% voting third party, Independents made up 31% of those who voted in 2016.
2012 92% of Democrats voted for Obama, 6% for Romney, 2% third party. democrats made up 36% of those who voted. Republicans voted 93-6 Romney over Obama with 1% voting third party. Republicans made up 32% of the electorate who voted. Independents voted 50-45 Romney over Obama with 5% voting third party. Independents made up 29% of the voting electorate.
If you take these averages back in time, they average out to 90% of those who identify with the major parties voting for their candidates.
Let's look at the 3 deciding states and Florida for the 2016 election.
Wisconsin democrats voted 91-7 Hillary over Trump, 2% third party. Democrats made up 35% of those who voted. Republicans voted 90-6 Trump over Hillary with 4% voting third party. Republicans made up 34% of Wisconsin's electorate. Independents voted 50-40 Trump over Hillary with 10% voting third party. Independents made up 30% of the voting electorate.
Michigan Democrats voted 88-9 Hillary over Trump, 3% voting third party. Democrats made up 40% of all of those who voted. Republicans voted 90-7 Trump over Clinton, 3% voting third party, Republicans made up only 31% of those who voted. Independents voted 52-35 Trump over Hillary with 13% voting third party. Independents made up 29% of the voting electorate in Michigan.
Pennsylvania Democrats voted 87-11 Hillary over Trump with 2% voting third party. Democrats made up 42% of the voting electorate. Republicans voted 89-9 Trump over Hillary with 2% voting third party. Republicans made up 39% of those who voted. Independents voted 48-41 Trump over Hillary with 11% voting third party against both candidates. Independents made up 20% of the voting electorate.
And finally Florida. democrats voted 90-8 Hillary over Trump with 2% voting third party. Democrats made up 32% of the those who voted. Republicans voted 89-8 Trump over Hillary with 3% voting third party. Republicans made up 33% of the electorate in Florida this election. Independents voted 47-43 Trump over Clinton with 10% voting third party. Independents made up 34% of the Florida electorate.
Interesting thing about Florida among those who voted is Independents were the largest voting block. Not by much 34% independent, 33% Republican, 32% Democratic.
Fact is the independent vote was decisive in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and in Florida. This is especially true in Michigan were among those who voted, turnout, Democrats had a 40-31 advantage, but independents by their huge margin for Trump 52-35 negated that numerical advantage.
One last thing, the 6% who voted third party was the largest number of voters who voted for third party candidates since 1996 when a well funded Ross Perot ran. Compare that 6% to 2012 when 1.5% voted third party, to 2008 when 1.2% voted third party and to 2004 when 1.0% voted third party.
In 2016 Hillary raised and spent 1.191 billion to Trump's 646.8 million to all third party candidates of just 6 million dollars. Third party candidates were out spent almost 2 billion to 6 million, yet managed 6% of the vote. I wonder if the spending was fairly equal what would have happened?
when Perot received 9% of the vote in 1996 he and other third party candidates spent 41 million, Bill Clinton spent 298 million, Dole 195 million.
Gerald O. Glenn, a Virginia bishop who defied his state’s social distancing recommendations and boasted about his church’s packed pews amid the coronavirus pandemic, died over the weekend of complications from the virus, his church announced on Facebook on Sunday.
Glenn’s wife also tested positive for the illness, known as COVID-19.
There's not going to be any shortage of these, folks. Trump is urging his supporters to go protest governor's lockdowns, and the result is going to inevitable. Oh well, the penalty for stupidity has always been death. Natural Selection in action.
I'm wondering if some right-wing radio hosts could be charged with manslaughter because they urged listeners to defy lockdown rules.
Wow, interesting explanation of the roles of Vitamin D in the immune system. You can skip the bone stuff at the beginning. He explains exactly how Vit D affects the Innate immune system and how it steers the Acquired immune system toward the anti-inflammatory direction. Without it, the Acquired immune system can generate cytokine storm that is killing a lot of seriously ill patients. I knew Vitamin D was helpful, but I had no idea it prevents cytokine storm!
I just volunteered for a Scripps Research Foundation / UCSD Medicine study looking for recovered Covid-19 patients. Probably won't get a response until Monday, but they said they are looking for blood from people about a month after recovery. So I may be one of the first volunteers to qualify.
They have been taking blood from survivors for at least 2 weeks, now. I am not real sure but it seems they have two paths. The first is for the antibodies that directly fight the Covid-19 (and plasma, I think), and the other is for continued research for treatment and shots?
One can only wonder how many gallons of blood they have gone through so far. At least we know that there are a lot of folks working on this one.
I suspect its another "in the fullness of time" things. I wonder what will happen if they actually get a cure. THEN the circus will REALLY start! (with claims, by Trump, that he did it all on his own and we should all be grateful for his genius and hard work. I wonder if its possible for a President to award himself the Congressional Medal of Honor?)
I just volunteered for a Scripps Research Foundation / UCSD Medicine study looking for recovered Covid-19 patients. Probably won't get a response until Monday, but they said they are looking for blood from people about a month after recovery. So I may be one of the first volunteers to qualify.
So you ARE recovered now? How about your family? Thank God you're doing better. I hope you're doing better?
Doing much better. I was actually getting better a month ago. My wife got it a few days after I did, but she had milder symptoms. Sorry, thought I mentioned that. We have been in tight quarantine just because we can be. Mail and packages sit unopened for several days. Shopping is by internet with no contact pickup. The food sits in the back of the truck for several days, except for things that need refrigeration. Those get wiped down with vinegar.
Doing much better. I was actually getting better a month ago. My wife got it a few days after I did, but she had milder symptoms. Sorry, thought I mentioned that. We have been in tight quarantine just because we can be. Mail and packages sit unopened for several days. Shopping is by internet with no contact pickup. The food sits in the back of the truck for several days, except for things that need refrigeration. Those get wiped down with vinegar.
I am afraid I don't remember if you got tested or now. Did you get either a test or an antibody test?
I'm not being quite that careful because I don't think I need to be. Nobody around here has it, nobody knows anybody that has had it, the hospital has had a few cases and probably a few deaths, but it aint like it's "something that's going around" and everybody's getting it. Y'know? It's dangerous still but I'm hoping the curve remains flat in my little town.
My brother and his wife have been here twice to deliver groceries and I've had a handful of physical therapy people here and a wheelchair specialist. I haven't taken any special precautions and most were happy I asked them to remove their masks. I'm pretty deaf and even with my hearing aids I've gotta see your mouth before I can tell what you're saying.
They say it's a problem everywhere, nobody knows what anybody's saying so everybody's pulling their masks aside to be understood. First thing they do when they walk in is ask how you feel and take your temperature.
Did you know that it takes 16-20 weeks for Medicare to approve a wheelchair? I needed this wheelchair last October. I'm a stubborn stubborn man and by the time I admitted I couldn't walk I really couldn't walk. I'm still doing it but these legs are trying to kill me.
Yes, but the test didn't pickup any virus. That was the very first day of testing by my health care provider, and I was already feeling a bit better. So it's quite possible there was no virus left in my nose. Early on PCR tests were running 30-40% false negatives. They have to really dig in to get a good sample. Now they say if the patient isn't crying, you didn't go far enough in.
I had some symptoms the doc thought were not Covid-19 at the time. Now we know better. My symptoms were a common set for some patients.
No antibody test so far. If they want me for this study, I think that would be the first thing they do.
Yes, but the test didn't pickup any virus. That was the very first day of testing by my health care provider, and I was already feeling a bit better. So it's quite possible there was no virus left in my nose. Early on PCR tests were running 30-40% false negatives. They have to really dig in to get a good sample. Now they say if the patient isn't crying, you didn't go far enough in.
I had some symptoms the doc thought were not Covid-19 at the time. Now we know better. My symptoms were a common set for some patients.
No antibody test so far. If they want me for this study, I think that would be the first thing they do.
ArcPoint Labs in Santa Fe Springs did my antibody test and I think it returned a false negative. I really have had pneumonia, flu, bronchitis quite a few times in the last decade or so and what I went through was unlike anything I've ever had in my entire life.
I am not prepared to spend another eighty-five bucks to get another test though. I am not broke but we can use the money for other stuff, and I am still following all the precautions and staying home other than to go to the gas station where I get everything through the window with gloves and a mask on, and I am wiping stuff down before opening anything.
In order for my badly screwed up nose to let me breathe at night, I have to jam my nose drops on a cotton swab almost all the way back to my naso-pharynx anyway, so I know of what they speak when they talk about how uncomfortable the swab test is.
I don't have a sleep apnea airway constriction problem, I have a nose problem! My nose hates me.
My wife of 35 years is scared to death of this virus. She broke down last night trying to describe her feelings. She has a permanent trache as a result of a combination of a congenital condition, a lifetime of bronchial problems and a botched intubation. She has been on a ventilator three times and has PTSD as a result of those experiences, experiencing all the post-ICU conditions described in medical journals. Her greatest fear is being ventilated and alone and never wants to go through that again. That is why I have such a low tolerance for Covidiots who deny the seriousness of this and risk other people's lives to score political points. [censored] them all with a broomstick. They are the lowest form of semi-life on earth in my book. And that includes the current White-wash House occupant.
Interesting idea: What to do when the only antibody test available has a 5% false result rate, meaning a 5% chance the test says you have antibodies but you don't, or it says you don't have them but you do?
Take the test twice, either a few days apart or test both people of a couple. If you get a consistent result, the false result value should drop to 1 in 400. Which is one quarter of the P=0.01 result that usually is quoted in scientific papers. Or if you have a family that was in close contact, test everybody. It's very safe to assume everybody caught it if anybody had it. If everybody tests positive or everybody tests negative for antibodies, the false result level drops exponentially depending on the number of tests.
It gets a little more complicated when repeated tests have different results. This might show an increase or decrease of antibodies over time. Or it might show a very low level of antibodies that is near the threshold of the test. In any event, repeating the test filters out the random element in test failure.
Coroners are doing SARS-COV2 testing an people who died and in Santa Clara, California they have found bodies of people who died on February 6th and February 17th with virus present. If you think about the reported case fatality rate reports recently, this means there were at least several hundred cases in California at the time. It would be interesting if coroners all over California could test the remains of everybody who died during February, so we had a better picture.
In other news, Missouri has filed a lawsuit against China for doing exactly what Trump has done. It's just "excite-the-base" fodder, since Republicans are now trying to cast blame on China to obscure the failings of the Trump Administration. But it would be hilarious if the defense called Trump as a witness in the International Court, to talk about how China's actions differed from his. The real difference is they tried covering it up and discounting it's serious nature for a few weeks, while Trump is still doing that.
Coroners are doing SARS-COV2 testing an people who died and in Santa Clara, California they have found bodies of people who died on February 6th and February 17th with virus present. If you think about the reported case fatality rate reports recently, this means there were at least several hundred cases in California at the time. It would be interesting if coroners all over California could test the remains of everybody who died during February, so we had a better picture.
In other news, Missouri has filed a lawsuit against China for doing exactly what Trump has done. It's just "excite-the-base" fodder, since Republicans are now trying to cast blame on China to obscure the failings of the Trump Administration. But it would be hilarious if the defense called Trump as a witness in the International Court, to talk about how China's actions differed from his. The real difference is they tried covering it up and discounting it's serious nature for a few weeks, while Trump is still doing that.
The Russians also tried covering it up and discounting Chernobyl's serious nature for a few weeks. But at least Chernobyl could be evacuated and closed off. This is like a moveable Chernobyl. And our president is STILL doing exactly what they did only he's intent on extending his denials all the way till Election Day and opening up our moveable Chernobyl so it can tour the country over and over again, and he has a lot of help from his faithful minions at the state level all through the South.
If Georgia lifts all restrictions and keeps everything open, the potential infectees to the herd immunity point are (70-23)% * 10 million population. That's 4.7 million people. If just 1% of them die, that's 47,000 people. The economic impact of that would be about 470 billion dollars. Can Georgia afford that?
I don't think so. So I predict an opening, a surge in infections and deaths, and then another closure. This will happen in every state that "reopens", because most people are idiots who will go nuts and party, eat out, and hookup with strangers like mad as soon as their state opens. It's going to be like an "all clear" siren that gets everybody out in the street just before the bombs start falling.
States could reopen without that fiasco, but it would require everybody to wear masks whenever out, maintain distance, be very careful with anything that could be contaminated, etc. I think most people will fail miserably at that.
I have found the preliminary testing results from New York and the Theodore Roosevelt intriguing. With lockdowns in place, but exposure inevitable, the infection rate is around 16-18%. The implications are profound. It is estimated that 80% of those that are infected are asymptomatic (although, there may be some overlap in that data). If that were true, this is a 20% infection. 20% are susceptible, 20% are symptomatic, 20% of those are hospitalized, and 20% of those require ICU intervention. That implies an upper end of the disaster in the range of 523,000 ICU beds over the course of the pandemic, and 100,000 deaths. Pretty close to where we're heading. (If we are currently at the peak at 50,000 deaths, we can anticipate another 50,000.)
The new infection rate, R0, is determined by the virus's communicability times our own behavior. If our lockdown was perfect, there would be NO new cases. That is R0 = 0. But our lockdown is far from perfect. In New York City, we are getting it down to R0 = 0.8 or so. That's why new cases are declining. But it's entirely determined by our behavior.
Idiots are already protesting about "Muh Freedom", and Governors are being pressured to open stuff back up. That means R0 > 1, so increased new cases. I'm thinking sensible behavior based on science is just not in the majority of Americans' character. It would be interesting if Trump's base went with Freedumb and 20% of them died when the hospitals get overwhelmed, and the majority of Democrats remain sheltered. That might have a major effect on elections in 2020 and well beyond.
I can see history and civics classes in future decades talking about the poor results of believing "alternate facts" and rejecting expertise.
Interesting video on Youtube today. The Peak Prosperity pathologist looked at the actual risk of hydroxychloroquine, and he found nothing but a lot of hype. No data at all. No risk numbers to make an informed decision on. What he did find is tons of pre-covid19 web pages promoting the use of hydroxychloroquine for malaria control. Including FDA recommendations that never mention anything about heart problems. We've been using chloroquine for over 70 years now, in the millions of doses. You'd think somebody would notice if people were dropping dead on it. Maybe put a little note on the "common side effects" list!
I think we are being hornswaggled here by Big Pharma again. Nobody can make a dime off a 70 year old drug that costs a few pennies. Somebody needs to publish real QT elongation data, and somebody needs to do a real double-blind random drug trial that gives patients hydroxychloroquine and zinc versus placebo tablets, as soon as they detect any symptoms. And please, leave out the azithromycin: That is known to cause QT elongation and lists hydroxychloroquine as a known drug interaction risk.
In fact hydroxychloroquine has been used so much for so long that I suspect more danger of heart problems comes from azithromycin and Covod-19 than from hydroxychloroquine.
Trump may be wrong about almost everything, but even a blind pig finds an acorn now and then. I am happy to care more about what works than partisanship.
From pre-covid19 World Health Organization retrospective paper:
Quote
Despite hundreds of millions of doses administered in the treatment of malaria, there have been no reports of sudden unexplained death associated with quinine, chloroquine, or amodiaquine, although each drug causes QT/QTc interval prolongation.
Interesting video on Youtube today. The Peak Prosperity pathologist looked at the actual risk of hydroxychloroquine, and he found nothing but a lot of hype. No data at all. No risk numbers to make an informed decision on. What he did find is tons of pre-covid19 web pages promoting the use of hydroxychloroquine for malaria control. Including FDA recommendations that never mention anything about heart problems. We've been using chloroquine for over 70 years now, in the millions of doses. You'd think somebody would notice if people were dropping dead on it. Maybe put a little note on the "common side effects" list!
I think we are being hornswaggled here by Big Pharma again. Nobody can make a dime off a 70 year old drug that costs a few pennies. Somebody needs to publish real QT elongation data, and somebody needs to do a real double-blind random drug trial that gives patients hydroxychloroquine and zinc versus placebo tablets, as soon as they detect any symptoms. And please, leave out the azithromycin: That is known to cause QT elongation and lists hydroxychloroquine as a known drug interaction risk.
In fact hydroxychloroquine has been used so much for so long that I suspect more danger of heart problems comes from azithromycin and Covod-19 than from hydroxychloroquine.
I saw a discussion about it in Military Times, I believe it was. I should have bookmarked it because VA was saying that some vets who used it reported some bad side effects, not all having to do with heart issues either.
Almost every peace corps volunteer in the tropics was on it for all their time in-country. I bet a lot of soldiers in Vietnam were, too. I suspect some of the "bad side effect" reports now may be Covid-19 symptoms, not adverse drug reactions.
You can actually just walk into a drug store in India and buy it over the counter. And I bet lots of people do to fight malaria.
Almost every peace corps volunteer in the tropics was on it for all their time in-country. I bet a lot of soldiers in Vietnam were, too. I suspect some of the "bad side effect" reports now may be Covid-19 symptoms, not adverse drug reactions.
You can actually just walk into a drug store in India and buy it over the counter. And I bet lots of people do to fight malaria.
No no, the vets were speaking about adverse reactions during their service in Nam, back in the day. Still hunting for the article.
Yes, there are side effects. I read about ringing in the ears, nausea, and diarrhea. People who take it long term have to have their retinas checked every so often and report any eye problems immediately. But rheumatologists have been proscribing it for patients for years. And that's years for each patient, not short-term for a bunch patients. The typical Covid-19 treatment is for 5 days!
Singapore did a massively stupid thing: They had a very tight lockdown, everybody wears masks, etc. So they had a few hundred cases. But they just completely forgot about their foreign workers! I guess they were invisible, so nobody thought about them. They all live in very crowded dorms, take jammed buses and trucks to get to work, etc.
“This reflects the deliberate invisibilization of the foreign worker; the whole machinery of state operates as though they don’t exist,” Alex Au, vice president of TWC2, told the Washington Post.
Singapore’s outbreak serves as a cautionary tale for neglecting marginalized communities during a pandemic. It’s hard not to see parallels between Singapore’s migrant workers and the U.S.’s underclass of essential workers who labor without the necessary safety protections, or our undocumented farmworkers who are somehow considered both “essential” and “illegal” (and are even being detained on the job).
Singapore did a massively stupid thing: They had a very tight lockdown, everybody wears masks, etc. So they had a few hundred cases. But they just completely forgot about their foreign workers! I guess they were invisible, so nobody thought about them.
Now swap "foreign workers in Singapore" with "Democrats and other libtards in Murrica" and you have the Trumpian Wet Dream. We are not his voters, so it is safe to assume he'd just as soon we all die, the sooner the better. As to views on Trumpers doing themselves in, they are doing it TO themselves with absolutely no intervention from the Left.
They do that at all the Aldi stores. But if you go ask the cashier, they will give you a quarter. I guess it's a test of character if you go give her the quarter when you chain the cart back up.
The dosage for chloroquine for other uses is much, much lower than "suggested" for COVID. It's kinda like the difference between taking a week to drink two bottles of wine or chugging them both in one sitting. Seriously different effects.
I went to Ace Hardware this morning, hadn't been in while. But I needed some Japan drier for the linseed oil we'll be putting on the cabin logs tomorrow. The place was the most crowded I've seen in a long time, I suppose folks are doing a lot more projects around the home.
While we don't have a face mask order here, it is a strong recommendation - the idea being that the cloth masks are good for you not spreading the virus if you have it (which nobody actually knows until becoming symptomatic), but unless it is an N95 it doesn't offer much personal protection. This was my first foray into a crowded public place and was the first time I wore my cloth mask (I have a couple of N95's because some of the work I do is in hazardous breathing environments). I felt a little awkward at first and quickly noticed that only about 25% of the Ace shoppers had masks on. I reminded myself that wearing one is out of consideration for others, and for slowing down the spread of infection, so I kept it on.
I live in a pretty "western" town where there is a large representation of cowboy types, miners, and redneck leaning cultural groups, though the county is heavily Democratic politically. We all generally costume up to some degree according to our cultural affinity, so stereotyping folks according to appearance is probably 75-80% accurate. I would say that 80% of the people who were not wearing masks (many with their kids in tow) were of the redneck culture.
The dosage is a lot lower for malaria prophylaxis. But for RA and Lupus treatment it's actually about the same as doctors are using for covid-19, and they have been prescribing this for years:
Quote
COVID-19: 400 mg (=310 mg base) q12h for 2 doses, followed by 200 mg (=155 base) q12h for 5 days has been suggested by in vitro study (PBPK model) OR 200 mg q8h has been used in one small study without a loading dose[1]. Rheumatologic diseases Lupus erythematosus: 400 mg once or twice daily for several weeks to months, depending on patient response. Maintenance therapy is usually 200-400 mg daily to minimize toxicity. Rheumatoid arthritis: 400 to 600 mg daily. After 5-10 days increase the dose gradually to the optimum response level. When a good response is obtained, the dosage should be reduced to 200 to 400 mg daily.
Essentially, those mask-less hardware store patrons are trying to kill you. I would tell the owners they need a "masks required" sign on the door. That's like patrons spitting their tobacco juice on the floor, or just pissing anyplace that strikes their fancy.
They will find out why they needed masks soon. Major outbreaks are happening right now in Mid-West and rural towns that are not quarantining well (or at all). Just stay away from them. Maybe you can go to that store at a different time or day of the week.
Or wear one of your N95 masks to go to that store and then shower off afterwards and put your mask someplace safe for 24 hours to let the virus on it die.
If need be, you can replace the elastic with four 18" lengths of 1/8" cord or long sewn fabric strips. But clothes driers typically run at 140 F, so 150 F probably will not hurt the elastic.
My wife was burning little swaths of all her fabric pieces last night, to see what was natural and what was synthetic. Natural fabrics work better for catching droplets. They burn like paper. Synthetics burn more vigorously and leave little beads of melted plastic. She got some very simple mask patterns off the internet. I managed to print it out for her before I screwed up my printer. It pulled in the pulse oximeter cord, and I pulled it out. Now it says it has a paper jam, but it feeds paper perfectly.
Got my blood drawn today for a very high quality antibody test. Used HealthLabs.com, because they supply their own doctor to order it. They claim to use the FDA-approved Abbott test with 100% specificity. I have no reason to think they aren't since they are BBB A+ and have very high BBB customer ratings. They sent me to a local Quest Diagnostics for the sample, and the tech drawing the blood said Quest has their own patient-ordered antibody tests now, for a bit less money. Problem with that is they use the Abbott test and another pretty crappy one.
If you do go through HealthLabs.com, beware: Their site faxed my test order in and sent me to a closed Quest location. I had to go back to their website to see some other lab locations, verify that a different one was open, and have my test order faxed to them. Quest was great: Everybody there masked. They won't even let you in without a mask. No waiting at all, since no customers there. Blood draw was quick and painless. Very professional.
Bathed in hand sanitizer back at my car, wore my mask home, then dumped my clothes in the washer and took a hot shower. Now I wait to see if I'm one of the privileged few or one of the high-risk protectees for when California starts to reopen over the next few months.
I mentioned a while back that Trump may have been right about hydroxychloroquine, but actually he wasn't. He was promoting it as if it could cure the seriously ill. It can't. Like EVERY OTHER ANTIVIRAL ON EARTH it has to be given as early as possible. Instead of ERs sending Covod-19 patients home until they develop pneumonia, they should be sending those patents home with hydroxychloroquine and zinc. I bet a lot fewer would come back to the hospital with pneumonia.
They have some good antivirals for influenza, and they act the same way. Given as early as possible, fewer serious cases. Given late after the virus has already replicated like crazy, they do nothing. None of them are anti-virus. They interfere with viral replication. Once a new virus is assembled, the drug has no effect on it.
This is very different from antibiotics. Bacteria are alive and have all sorts of critical processes that have to happen or they die. Every one of those is a potential weak spot some antibiotic could attack. Viruses are not really alive: They just replicate, like a computer worm that does nothing but send out more worms. The only weak spots are stages in that replication.
The dosage for chloroquine for other uses is much, much lower than "suggested" for COVID. It's kinda like the difference between taking a week to drink two bottles of wine or chugging them both in one sitting. Seriously different effects.
Even the Lupus dose and malaria dose are a fraction of what CV19 patients have received, which sounds suspiciously like what is sometimes known as a "shock dose". Shock dose regimens have their use, like in the early times treatment of some STD's. A guy gets the ordinary case of The Clap, the doc puts fourteen Penicillin in his hand and tells him to take them all at once, then follow up with one a day for the next five days.
But CV19 is not The Clap, nor is it even a bacterial infection. I shudder to think who may have even come up with the notion of a shock dose of an antiviral medication. Since I am not a doctor, I have no earthly idea if the mechanism of action is the same.
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Vice-President Mike Pence has started wearing a mask after Anthony Fauci told him that it will protect him from women, Fauci has confirmed.
After seeing video of a maskless Pence touring the Mayo Clinic, on Tuesday, Fauci said, “I knew I had to come up with something fast” to get through to Pence.
Fauci immediately got on the phone with the Vice-President and informed him that “clinical research” had demonstrated that a mask is “an effective female-repellent.”
“I told him that wearing a mask would protect him from 99.99 per cent of all women,” Fauci said. “He seemed very impressed.”
In an official statement, the Vice-President thanked Fauci for his excellent advice and indicated that he would start wearing a mask at all times, including at home.
Got my results back today: NEGATIVE Which means either I had something awfully flu-like, but not influenza A or B. Or I did have a mild case of Covid-19 but didn't make any IgG antibodies. This is the phenomenon called "failed to seroconvert" by some researchers. Either way, I get to hide out until we have a vaccine. Once I get vaccinated and wait a month, I can try again and see if I make any IgG.
Dr. Fauci was on CBS today, to tell us they did see some difference in a big remdesivir trial. It shortened recovery time by a few days, but with p < 0.001. That's gold-standard. So it does do some good, for some people. Now the big questions are how much does it cost and how much can they make quickly?
We should have some decent trials on hydroxychloroquine + zinc, ivermectin, and pepcid soon. They do have the advantage of being very cheap and highly available. If the 10 cent generic works as well as the $$$$ remdesivir, then it would be very nice. Especially for people in the Third World.
One thing to keep in mind: Antivirals only work if you give it early as possible. So they would have to give it to EVERYONE who has any symptoms, even if most would not need it.
Got my results back today: NEGATIVE Which means either I had something awfully flu-like, but not influenza A or B. Or I did have a mild case of Covid-19 but didn't make any IgG antibodies. This is the phenomenon called "failed to seroconvert" by some researchers. Either way, I get to hide out until we have a vaccine. Once I get vaccinated and wait a month, I can try again and see if I make any IgG.
Dr. Fauci was on CBS today, to tell us they did see some difference in a big remdesivir trial. It shortened recovery time by a few days, but with p < 0.001. That's gold-standard. So it does do some good, for some people. Now the big questions are how much does it cost and how much can they make quickly?
We should have some decent trials on hydroxychloroquine + zinc, ivermectin, and pepcid soon. They do have the advantage of being very cheap and highly available. If the 10 cent generic works as well as the $$$$ remdesivir, then it would be very nice. Especially for people in the Third World.
One thing to keep in mind: Antivirals only work if you give it early as possible. So they would have to give it to EVERYONE who has any symptoms, even if most would not need it.
In order for it to work it must simply be made universally available, at no cost to most people, certainly those impacted...which IS "most people" now, let's face it.
Got my results back today: NEGATIVE Which means either I had something awfully flu-like, but not influenza A or B. Or I did have a mild case of Covid-19 but didn't make any IgG antibodies. This is the phenomenon called "failed to seroconvert" by some researchers. Either way, I get to hide out until we have a vaccine. Once I get vaccinated and wait a month, I can try again and see if I make any IgG.
Dr. Fauci was on CBS today, to tell us they did see some difference in a big remdesivir trial. It shortened recovery time by a few days, but with p < 0.001. That's gold-standard. So it does do some good, for some people. Now the big questions are how much does it cost and how much can they make quickly?
We should have some decent trials on hydroxychloroquine + zinc, ivermectin, and pepcid soon. They do have the advantage of being very cheap and highly available. If the 10 cent generic works as well as the $$$$ remdesivir, then it would be very nice. Especially for people in the Third World.
One thing to keep in mind: Antivirals only work if you give it early as possible. So they would have to give it to EVERYONE who has any symptoms, even if most would not need it.
First, a Pasteur study which has been narrowly reported elsewhere, identified a 4th relative of the COVID-19 circulating in France prior to the outbreak, and non-Wuhan sourced (as far as they can tell). That shows the not-surprising reality that there are other coronavirus relatives circulating around the world that also have the potential to become outbreaks. I wonder if what you got was one of those, but too distant a relative to show up on the test. Some of these relatives are known to be more gastro-centric rather than pneumo.
Second, I have been researching and perseverating about the population that doesn't produce IgG antibodies, as you note "This is the phenomenon called "failed to seroconvert" by some researchers." How big is this population? We need to know that. Testing, testing, testing.
Finally, I am excited about the remdesivir results. It will probably only be a stop-gap until a better, more specific anti-viral is developed.
Finally, I am excited about the remdesivir results. It will probably only be a stop-gap until a better, more specific anti-viral is developed.
I am experiencing a mixture of hopefulness and despair, hopefulness because Remdesivir might be promising, and despair because it may turn out that CV19 is just the first in a large FAMILY of new virii, each of which want to take a whack at the human race.
Maybe Mother Earth has decided she's had enough of us and this is just the first hit, with a fusillade of hits to come.
The SARS family of coronavirii are not new, but it's possible that this is the shining moment where SARS decided it likes us too much to just let us go.
What would have been the effect of a nationwide shutdown for 4 weeks starting on Feb 1? Would that have contained the virus? I suspect it would take a synchronized global effort.
The one thing which makes me think is, when a person dies, they don't come back, when an economy dies, it can be rebooted.
Be patient. One of the new vaccines shows it generates lots of anti-corona virus antibodies that neutralize the virus. It still needs the usual human trials to make sure it's safe, but at least it looks like it works. Three or four of the vaccines are at this stage or further along.
Yes a Feb 1 shutdown would have saved thousands of lives. We needed time to develop tests. It's almost impossible to do the usual contact tracing when you have so much asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic spread. A tight quarantine would have knocked it down with R0 << 1.
One thing we need to seriously think about is what kind of behavior is needed to open state quarantines, without massive failures and reinstatement of quarantines. One of those will be that everybody will have to wear masks in public. This is going to have to have some very compelling incentives. We have some people who see this as a freedom issue, but masks don't protect you. They prevent you from spreading the virus to other people. So these are not brave freedom fighters, as they see themselves. They are actually sociopaths trying to kill you!
Stores could be extremely safe places, if EVERYBODY wore masks at all times. That includes stockers working graveyard shift. Virus on surfaces degrades within a few days, so grocery items could auto-decontaminate just by sitting in a warehouse and then on store shelves. But stores will need to have a strict MASKED ONLY policy, with real teeth. Like immediately kicking people out if they don't have masks or they drop their masks. People who see masks as fascism could just take their business elsewhere, but then change their behavior when they find that no stores will let them in without a mask. Hunger is a strong incentive.
Looking at protesters in the news, the fact that they are not wearing masks is great evidence that the state is not ready to eliminate their restrictions. Everybody out in public spaces has to be wearing a mask. Then and only then can that state open back up. If that takes state laws or public health arrests, then that's what we need. Otherwise the infection rate is going to shoot back up again.
We need a big experiment: Some states will require masks and some won't. When the unmasked state rates rise exponentially, it will be clear. Not wearing a mask fits the legal definition of manslaughter.
Interesting video on Youtube today. The Peak Prosperity pathologist looked at the actual risk of hydroxychloroquine, and he found nothing but a lot of hype. No data at all. No risk numbers to make an informed decision on. What he did find is tons of pre-covid19 web pages promoting the use of hydroxychloroquine for malaria control. Including FDA recommendations that never mention anything about heart problems. We've been using chloroquine for over 70 years now, in the millions of doses. You'd think somebody would notice if people were dropping dead on it. Maybe put a little note on the "common side effects" list!
I think we are being hornswaggled here by Big Pharma again. Nobody can make a dime off a 70 year old drug that costs a few pennies. Somebody needs to publish real QT elongation data, and somebody needs to do a real double-blind random drug trial that gives patients hydroxychloroquine and zinc versus placebo tablets, as soon as they detect any symptoms. And please, leave out the azithromycin: That is known to cause QT elongation and lists hydroxychloroquine as a known drug interaction risk.
In fact hydroxychloroquine has been used so much for so long that I suspect more danger of heart problems comes from azithromycin and Covod-19 than from hydroxychloroquine.
I don't know why you are under the impression that the cardiac toxicity of hydroxychloroquine hadn't been reported before. This is from the official FDA monograph on HCQ:
"Cardiac Effects, including Cardiomyopathy and QT prolongation: Postmarketing cases of life-threatening and fatal cardiomyopathy have been reported with use of hydroxychloroquine sulfate as well as with use of chloroquine. Patients may present with atrioventricular block, pulmonary hypertension, sick sinus syndrome or with cardiac complications. ECG findings may include atrioventricular, right or left bundle branch block. Signs or symptoms of cardiac compromise have appeared during acute and chronic treatment. Clinical monitoring for signs and symptoms of cardiomyopathy is advised, including use of appropriate diagnostic tools such as ECG to monitor patients for cardiomyopathy during hydroxychloroquine sulfate therapy. Chronic toxicity should be considered when conduction disorders (bundle branch block/atrio-ventricular heart block) or biventricular hypertrophy are diagnosed. If cardiotoxicity is suspected, prompt discontinuation of hydroxychloroquine sulfate may prevent life-threatening complications.
Hydroxychloroquine sulfate prolongs the QT interval. Ventricular arrhythmias and torsades de pointes have been reported in patients taking hydroxychloroquine sulfate. Therefore, hydroxychloroquine sulfate should not be administered with other drugs that have the potential to prolong the QT interval."
And you are correct that the combination with azithromycin makes it worse (given that AZ also prolongs QTc, exactly the situation the FDA is warning about). Also, the SARS-CoV-2 causes myocarditis, which makes the problem worse too, which is why we are seeing WAY MORE cardiac toxicity with HCQ+AZ in COVID-19 than with malaria.
Safety is disease-specific. A medication (or even worse, a combination of medications) can be helpful and harmless in patients with one condition, and ineffective and harmful in patients with a different condition.
This is why when a new indication is proposed for an existing drug, the FDA requires NEW safety and efficacy tests in THAT population before the indication is granted. Assuming that because it is safe and effective for malaria, it is safe and effective for COVID-19, is a grave mistake.
Regardless of what your YouTube is saying, yes, there's been very clear-cut reports of cardiac toxicity with AZ + HCQ or CQ in COVID-19, including a study in which so many subjects dropped dead of cardiac arrest that the Data and Safety Monitoring Board ordered the study terminated.
Be patient. One of the new vaccines shows it generates lots of anti-corona virus antibodies that neutralize the virus. It still needs the usual human trials to make sure it's safe, but at least it looks like it works. Three or four of the vaccines are at this stage or further along.
Yes a Feb 1 shutdown would have saved thousands of lives. We needed time to develop tests. It's almost impossible to do the usual contact tracing when you have so much asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic spread. A tight quarantine would have knocked it down with R0 << 1.
Further along? Which one is further along? That I know, there is no vaccine that has progressed beyond barely scratching the Phase I trials.
Yes, we took too long to lockdown.
In Mississipi, the governor is getting cold feet. A surge in cases and deaths on Friday has him reconsidering the reopening there. Which is interesting because there is always a gap between infection and diagnosis, and diagnosis and death. So if it's surging now, it relates to a surge that happened before the reopening. But I'll take it, because I do think that it is premature to open up, from the epidemiological standpoint.
First, a Pasteur study which has been narrowly reported elsewhere, identified a 4th relative of the COVID-19 circulating in France prior to the outbreak, and non-Wuhan sourced (as far as they can tell). That shows the not-surprising reality that there are other coronavirus relatives circulating around the world that also have the potential to become outbreaks. I wonder if what you got was one of those, but too distant a relative to show up on the test. Some of these relatives are known to be more gastro-centric rather than pneumo.
Interesting. A friend of mine, medical doctor, had to quarantine out of work for two weeks, as he developed fever, malaise, muscle aches, and a GI syndrome. We were all thinking that he had caught COVID-19 from a patient, but he ended up testing negative. Maybe he was one of the ones you're referring to.
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Vice-President Mike Pence has started wearing a mask after Anthony Fauci told him that it will protect him from women, Fauci has confirmed.
After seeing video of a maskless Pence touring the Mayo Clinic, on Tuesday, Fauci said, “I knew I had to come up with something fast” to get through to Pence.
Fauci immediately got on the phone with the Vice-President and informed him that “clinical research” had demonstrated that a mask is “an effective female-repellent.”
“I told him that wearing a mask would protect him from 99.99 per cent of all women,” Fauci said. “He seemed very impressed.”
In an official statement, the Vice-President thanked Fauci for his excellent advice and indicated that he would start wearing a mask at all times, including at home.
Another comedian said, Pence just wanted to be able to tell barefaced lies.
Singapore did a massively stupid thing: They had a very tight lockdown, everybody wears masks, etc. So they had a few hundred cases. But they just completely forgot about their foreign workers! I guess they were invisible, so nobody thought about them. They all live in very crowded dorms, take jammed buses and trucks to get to work, etc.
“This reflects the deliberate invisibilization of the foreign worker; the whole machinery of state operates as though they don’t exist,” Alex Au, vice president of TWC2, told the Washington Post.
Singapore’s outbreak serves as a cautionary tale for neglecting marginalized communities during a pandemic. It’s hard not to see parallels between Singapore’s migrant workers and the U.S.’s underclass of essential workers who labor without the necessary safety protections, or our undocumented farmworkers who are somehow considered both “essential” and “illegal” (and are even being detained on the job).
Oh wow. I admire Singapore as a rational country in which the government listens to scientists... and they still managed to screw up royally. Darn!
Finally, I am excited about the remdesivir results. It will probably only be a stop-gap until a better, more specific anti-viral is developed.
I am experiencing a mixture of hopefulness and despair, hopefulness because Remdesivir might be promising, and despair because it may turn out that CV19 is just the first in a large FAMILY of new virii, each of which want to take a whack at the human race.
Maybe Mother Earth has decided she's had enough of us and this is just the first hit, with a fusillade of hits to come.
The SARS family of coronavirii are not new, but it's possible that this is the shining moment where SARS decided it likes us too much to just let us go.
Hopefully we will emerge from this a bit better prepared for the next one (and hopefully with a better president).
but unless it is an N95 it doesn't offer much personal protection.
That is actually not true. It is what was said when the pandemic was starting, and in my opinion it was a calculated lie, to avoid a run to masks, so that healthcare workers would have them. Masks that are not N95 still deliver some significant protection. Procedure masks (a.k.a. surgical masks when they are sterile, or simply the hospital-grade facemasks, those usually yellow or blue with ear loops), if they are properly fit, that is, worn tight and with the nose clip well-positioned, confer above 90% of protection to the healthy individual wearing them. It still doesn't compare to the N95 which with a proper seal, exceeds 99% of protection. But it's not like the facemask is useless for the healthy person like officials initially insisted. Cloth homemade masks, though, offer a lot less protection than procedure masks. They depend on the material (high thread count bed sheets being the best one). The ones with pouches for a filter help more if you insert a HEPA vacuum cleaner filter, but still, the protection drops significantly from the one provided by a procedure mask, especially for small particles like the SARS-CoV-2 (better for large particles like the influenza virus). Apparently shop towels are second best after vacuum cleaner filters, but again, better for large particles. Scarves deliver almost no protection whatsoever (unlike Trump said), like 2%. This information comes from a study of some 20 different masks and materials all the way up to hospital-grade procedure masks and N95 masks, with small and large particles, which I linked to in another site (sorry, currently I don't have the link on me).
Anyway, the take home lesson is, if you don't have an N95 mask (with a proper seal), at least try to get hospital-grade procedure masks and wear them tightly. If you can't get them, then make homemade masks with high thread count bed sheets, double-layered with a pocket, and insert a HEPA vacuum filter. That's the best you can do.
Me, I do have both N95s and procedure masks, so I'm not wearing homemade masks, but that's the best advice I can give, based on that study. That was an industry study using a device to blow particles of different size onto the various masks. I also saw a real scientific study blowing actual viruses into simulated faces (mannequins) and comparing procedure masks poorly fit, procedure masks tightly fit, N95 masks poorly fit without a seal, and N95 masks tightly fit with a seal. While, again, obviously the N95 with a seal beat all other options, a procedure mask tightly fit still beat an N95 poorly fit. So, no, they are absolutely not useless like health officials wanted the population to believe, at first.
If Georgia lifts all restrictions and keeps everything open, the potential infectees to the herd immunity point are (70-23)% * 10 million population. That's 4.7 million people. If just 1% of them die, that's 47,000 people. The economic impact of that would be about 470 billion dollars. Can Georgia afford that?
I don't think so. So I predict an opening, a surge in infections and deaths, and then another closure. This will happen in every state that "reopens", because most people are idiots who will go nuts and party, eat out, and hookup with strangers like mad as soon as their state opens. It's going to be like an "all clear" siren that gets everybody out in the street just before the bombs start falling.
States could reopen without that fiasco, but it would require everybody to wear masks whenever out, maintain distance, be very careful with anything that could be contaminated, etc. I think most people will fail miserably at that.
Agreed, 100%, except for one thing: if the spontaneous R0 (without containment measures) of this virus is 5.7 like some updated estimates propose, then the percentage of the population necessary for herd immunity is 82.5%. That would increase the number of dead people in Georgia above what you calculated, if they didn't exercise any containment measure whatsoever.
I also read that 150 degrees in the oven for 15 minutes will do the trick. Not sure what it will do to the elastic after repeated heatings.
I don't see an advantage in doing that if you have a few masks to rotate. Put each of then in a separate, labeled paper bag. If you have 5 masks, use one a day and repeat mask #1 in day 6, and no SARS-CoV-2 will be active and infectious on the surface of the mask 5 days later.
I also read that 150 degrees in the oven for 15 minutes will do the trick. Not sure what it will do to the elastic after repeated heatings.
I don't see an advantage in doing that if you have a few masks to rotate. Put each of then in a separate, labeled paper bag. If you have 5 masks, use one a day and repeat mask #1 in day 6, and no SARS-CoV-2 will be active and infectious on the surface of the mask 5 days later.
I've been using a UV-C light to sanitize them. It's a fairly strong unit. That plus we have about a dozen of them, so there's always at least four available at any given time.
Waiting on a 100 pack to arrive, so we won't have to do this much longer. What I am fed up with is the fact that alcohol, simple alcohol, is now unobtanium. I will not pay 20 bucks for a liter of isopropyl, I refuse on principle. So I am about to embark on trying to make my own ethanol.
Here's a question: Donald Trump is a huge admirer of Brazil's hardcore right wing president, Javier Bolsonaro, yes? Brazil’s total 2019 ethanol production is estimated at 34.45 billion liters, an increase of four percent compared to the revised figure for 2018. Total domestic demand for ethanol (fuel and other uses) for calendar year 2019 is estimated at 33.93 billion liters. That's 9,100,727,203 gallons, a little bit over 9 billion gallons. Clearly Brazil has the ability to produce a lot of ethanol and...you'd think Trump would want to strike some kind of a deal with Brazil so we could pay them to produce some surplus.
So...why no deal, from the guy who published "The Art of the Deal"? Why aren't we sourcing extra ethanol from Brazil to make up for the drastic domestic shortfall? (REPORT: USDA Foreign Agricultural Service)
Here's a question: Donald Trump is a huge admirer of Brazil's hardcore right wing president, Javier Bolsonaro, yes? Brazil’s total 2019 ethanol production is estimated at 34.45 billion liters, an increase of four percent compared to the revised figure for 2018. Total domestic demand for ethanol (fuel and other uses) for calendar year 2019 is estimated at 33.93 billion liters. That's 9,100,727,203 gallons, a little bit over 9 billion gallons. Clearly Brazil has the ability to produce a lot of ethanol and...you'd think Trump would want to strike some kind of a deal with Brazil so we could pay them to produce some surplus.
So...why no deal, from the guy who published "The Art of the Deal"? Why aren't we sourcing extra ethanol from Brazil to make up for the drastic domestic shortfall? (REPORT: USDA Foreign Agricultural Service)
His name is Jair, not Javier (which would be a Hispanic name; Brazilians are of Lusitanian culture and speak Portuguese).
Regarding your point, I'd suppose that if we want the alcohol to use for hand sanitizers, Brazil would probably not be highly interested in selling it to foreign countries, given that they have a huge epicenter of the pandemic, themselves.
R0 really has a fixed "infectability factor" from the virus, times a behavior factor. If we all had a perfect quarantine, R0 would be 0. If we had everything wide open it could be 5.7 or even higher. It's up to us which one we want.
As for the adverse cardiac events, Rheumatologists have prescribed billions of doses of hydroxychloroquine for their RA and lupus patients for years, at exactly the same dosage used for Covid-19 patients. And Covid-19 patients only get it for a few weeks. Those RA and lupus patients get it for years and years because their disease is chronic. They do see QT elongation, but it never results in cardiac arrest at that dose. A Brazilian study with chloroquine and more than double the dosage did see some cardiac events, but chloroquine is 5 times stronger than hydroxychloroquine. So that was like 10 times the usual dosage. As far as I know, hydroxychloroquine is still the standard of care for RA, lupus, and malaria.
Doctors have also found that Covid-19 is actually a disease of the endothelium (lining of blood vessels) rather than the lungs. Those cells also have ACE II receptors. That's why people still have compliant lungs but hypoxia: The capillaries in their lungs are screwed up. But so are their blood vessels everywhere. In the heart, the liver, the kidneys, the brain, the gut. That's why they get strokes. That's why they get massive clotting. So acute cardiac events in very sick Covid-19 patients probably have more to do with embolisms than QT elongation.
But that aside, very sick Covid-19 patients are not going to be helped by hydroxychloroquine, and very probably by remdesivir. You have to give them as soon as you think somebody has the virus, instead of just sending them home to see if they get sick enough to need oxygen in the hospital. The idea is to prevent the virus from replicating any more. As virus invade cells they are consumed by the replication process. If replication fails, they "die out". If you save your limited supply just for the sickest patients, retrospectively it will look like it makes things worse compared to no antiviral treatment. That's exactly what they did in that VA study. It didn't make it worse, they just gave it to dying patients.
R0 really has a fixed "infectability factor" from the virus, times a behavior factor. If we all had a perfect quarantine, R0 would be 0. If we had everything wide open it could be 5.7 or even higher. It's up to us which one we want.
As for the adverse cardiac events, Rheumatologists have prescribed billions of doses of hydroxychloroquine for their RA and lupus patients for years, at exactly the same dosage used for Covid-19 patients. And Covid-19 patients only get it for a few weeks. Those RA and lupus patients get it for years and years because their disease is chronic. They do see QT elongation, but it never results in cardiac arrest at that dose. A Brazilian study with chloroquine and more than double the dosage did see some cardiac events, but chloroquine is 5 times stronger than hydroxychloroquine. So that was like 10 times the usual dosage. As far as I know, hydroxychloroquine is still the standard of care for RA, lupus, and malaria.
Doctors have also found that Covid-19 is actually a disease of the endothelium (lining of blood vessels) rather than the lungs. Those cells also have ACE II receptors. That's why people still have compliant lungs but hypoxia: The capillaries in their lungs are screwed up. But so are their blood vessels everywhere. In the heart, the liver, the kidneys, the brain, the gut. That's why they get strokes. That's why they get massive clotting. So acute cardiac events in very sick Covid-19 patients probably have more to do with embolisms than QT elongation.
But that aside, very sick Covid-19 patients are not going to be helped by hydroxychloroquine, and very probably by remdesivir. You have to give them as soon as you think somebody has the virus, instead of just sending them home to see if they get sick enough to need oxygen in the hospital. The idea is to prevent the virus from replicating any more. As virus invade cells they are consumed by the replication process. If replication fails, they "die out". If you save your limited supply just for the sickest patients, retrospectively it will look like it makes things worse compared to no antiviral treatment. That's exactly what they did in that VA study. It didn't make it worse, they just gave it to dying patients.
These are attractive ways of thinking but some of what you're saying is contradicted by some of the data. Like I said, there's been studies of HCQ in milder cases, equally useless, and the VA study continued to show disadvantage for the treated arm even after adjustments for severity of illness.
As for the use of HCQ for 70 years with no big problems for malaria, RA, and lupus, I continue to strongly disagree with you that this anticipates safety for use in COVID-19. Like I said a number of times already, safety is disease-specific. I don't doubt that HCQ is safe for malaria, RA, and lupus patients, but I do doubt that it is safe for COVID-19 patients, as it adds cardiac toxicity to an already banged-up heart, given that the virus causes severe myocarditis, which is not the case for malaria, lupus, and RA.
It would help to be a biologist familiar with gene sequences and virus family maps to understand it all, but what it comes down to is a particular gene sequence found in SARS-COV2 that is not found in any of it's close virus relatives and makes it especially infective. He shows several journal papers in which virologists inserted this kind of sequence into viruses for experimental purposes, so it is known technology.
This has nothing to with the silly conspiracy theories about bioweapons. But this is the type of research that the Wuhan lab was doing, in conjunction with American scientists on an NIH grant. It also has little to do with the political blame game, when China and the US are partners at this lab. Lab accidents happen...
I agree that giving HCQ to a very sick patient is a very bad idea, because his heart is already going to be in bad shape. But the protocol that would be useful, would be to give it to him long before he had any such bad effects. If it does work, he would never get to that stage. The stage in which it might work, would be from first symptom to hospitalization. This is what some doctors are calling stage 2: When they would normally send patients home and tell them to come back if they have shortness of breath.
I've looked at an analysis of the VA study, and it appears to be completely useless: The HCQ arm of the study was only the sickest patients, while the no-HCQ arm was patients who did not get that sick. Of course it looked like HCQ did harm: When you just give an antiviral drug to the sickest patients it has no effect, but they were the high-fatality patients, drug or no drug! I doubt you can get valid patients-to-treat or patient-to-harm numbers from that mess.
I've looked at an analysis of the VA study, and it appears to be completely useless: The HCQ arm of the study was only the sickest patients, while the no-HCQ arm was patients who did not get that sick. Of course it looked like HCQ did harm: When you just give an antiviral drug to the sickest patients it has no effect, but they were the high-fatality patients, drug or no drug! I doubt you can get valid patients-to-treat or patient-to-harm numbers from that mess.
To Republicans, please bear this in mind next time a report surfaces of sick veterans dying before getting a timely appointment.
I cannot even BEGIN to tell you what my wife and I see every time we go to the Long Beach VA, or the times we used to go to the Dallas VA, or even the Minneapolis VA, or the West Los Angeles VA.
What do we see? We see thousands of old men who spent a lifetime partaking in every single bad health habit imaginable. Many of them had already received grave insults to their bodies because of their service but they compounded it by a lifetime of hardcore smoking, hardcore drinking, horrible diet, refusal to exercise in any fashion whatsoever.
If you want to see a collection of super-sized extra wide wheelchairs, no better place to see them than your local VA hospital. I've even seen something I didn't think existed, super-sized TOILETS...toilets that are almost twice the size of a normal toilet, because they must accommodate persons who weigh 350, 450, even 500 or 600 pounds!
If you want to see a collection of lower extremities that have begun to turn purple or gangrenous, visit the VA. If you want to see diabetes so bad that the patient has to take up to ten or fifteen injections of insulin every day, the VA has these unfortunates.
My point is, there is a large contingent of sailors, soldiers, airmen and marines who absolutely refuse to maintain their health and refuse to see a doctor until their health has reached the point where they are circling the drain and the final countdown has begun in earnest.
This is the reason the VA has one of the worst "NO-SHOW" records in the entire healthcare industry. This is the reason why veterans make up one of the largest groups of homeless in the country. There's just something about the veteran mindset...many have tried to put their finger on it.
And unfortunately it is all too easy to just point the finger and claim that the VA isn't doing a good job. But when a man spends thirty or forty years letting his health go, and suddenly shows up in the ER with chest pains and purple extremities, and gets a referral to his VA cardiologist, and dies waiting, it's not always the fault of the VA. Sometimes they simply were too sick to save, and there was nothing anyone could have done.
Covid-19′s R0 has been estimated between 1.4 and 5.7 in various studies — but CIDRAP noted a rating was difficult to establish due to variations in identifying and testing infected people between regions.
The R0 for COVID-19 is a median of 5.7, according to a study published online in Emerging Infectious Diseases. That’s about double an earlier R0 estimate of 2.2 to 2.7
both articles contain links to other source materials.
That's what I thought until I saw the video about the polybasic furin cleavage site PRRA somehow getting into the Sars-COV2 gene sequence. The facts that this kind of enhanced ability to jump into humans was exactly what they were seeking at the Wuhan lab, and that inserting that sequence for that reason has been reported in several journal papers over the last few years, is just to much of a coincidence.
Virologists are claiming we don't have the ability, when we clearly do, and claiming accidents never happen when they clearly do, makes me fairly suspicious. I think this might be similar to what happened in Singapore, where they seemed to have everything under tight lockdown but ignored all their foreign workers living in crowded dorms and using public transit to keep on going to work every day.
I bet no leak occurred by the virologists and other techs working in the lab, but their cage-cleaners are just not that highly trained.
That's what I thought until I saw the video about the polybasic furin cleavage site PRRA somehow getting into the Sars-COV2 gene sequence. The facts that this kind of enhanced ability to jump into humans was exactly what they were seeking at the Wuhan lab, and that inserting that sequence for that reason has been reported in several journal papers over the last few years, is just to much of a coincidence.
Virologists are claiming we don't have the ability, when we clearly do, and claiming accidents never happen when they clearly do, makes me fairly suspicious. I think this might be similar to what happened in Singapore, where they seemed to have everything under tight lockdown but ignored all their foreign workers living in crowded dorms and using public transit to keep on going to work every day.
I bet no leak occurred by the virologists and other techs working in the lab, but their cage-cleaners are just not that highly trained.
I suppose it's possible. But it's more likely this is just another new virus, like HIV and Ebola.
That's what I thought until I saw the video about the polybasic furin cleavage site PRRA somehow getting into the Sars-COV2 gene sequence. The facts that this kind of enhanced ability to jump into humans was exactly what they were seeking at the Wuhan lab, and that inserting that sequence for that reason has been reported in several journal papers over the last few years, is just to much of a coincidence.
Virologists are claiming we don't have the ability, when we clearly do, and claiming accidents never happen when they clearly do, makes me fairly suspicious.
Question: Why WOULDN'T the world want to know the why and how when it comes to gain of function studies on zoonotic virii transmission to humans? Whether we do the research ourselves, or the Chinese do it, or they do it with our help, or without, research like that IS going to be done, somewhere, by someone anyway.
I agree that giving HCQ to a very sick patient is a very bad idea, because his heart is already going to be in bad shape. But the protocol that would be useful, would be to give it to him long before he had any such bad effects. If it does work, he would never get to that stage. The stage in which it might work, would be from first symptom to hospitalization. This is what some doctors are calling stage 2: When they would normally send patients home and tell them to come back if they have shortness of breath.
I've looked at an analysis of the VA study, and it appears to be completely useless: The HCQ arm of the study was only the sickest patients, while the no-HCQ arm was patients who did not get that sick. Of course it looked like HCQ did harm: When you just give an antiviral drug to the sickest patients it has no effect, but they were the high-fatality patients, drug or no drug! I doubt you can get valid patients-to-treat or patient-to-harm numbers from that mess.
It has not at all been proven that HCQ works even in mild/initial cases.
Again, while I didn't read the VA study, I read a report that the disadvantage of the treated arm remains, after you apply adjustments to the severity degree.
What I said about number-to-treat and number-to-harm came from other studies that I did read, not the VA study.
I need to read the VA study at some point to form an opinion, because what I'm saying is hearsay so you may be right.
Covid-19′s R0 has been estimated between 1.4 and 5.7 in various studies — but CIDRAP noted a rating was difficult to establish due to variations in identifying and testing infected people between regions.
The R0 for COVID-19 is a median of 5.7, according to a study published online in Emerging Infectious Diseases. That’s about double an earlier R0 estimate of 2.2 to 2.7
both articles contain links to other source materials.
Thanks. Today I saw an article (lay press, not a scientific paper) saying that the virus has already mutated and the new strain is the one with the high R0. Whether this is true or not I don't know because I didn't explore the source, and again, it was a lay press article and the lay press often misinterprets scientific papers.
Finally, I am excited about the remdesivir results. It will probably only be a stop-gap until a better, more specific anti-viral is developed.
I am experiencing a mixture of hopefulness and despair, hopefulness because Remdesivir might be promising, and despair because it may turn out that CV19 is just the first in a large FAMILY of new virii, each of which want to take a whack at the human race.
Maybe Mother Earth has decided she's had enough of us and this is just the first hit, with a fusillade of hits to come.
The SARS family of coronavirii are not new, but it's possible that this is the shining moment where SARS decided it likes us too much to just let us go.
I, too, experience this cycle of hope and despair. And anger. I am mightily angry that the current circumstance has come to pass because of endemic short-sightedness. We've known the risk of a SARS-related pandemic for decades - DECADES - and steps were initially taken to mitigate the potential catastrophe we are experiencing.
After the H1N1 epidemic of 2009, which WAS so contained, our national leadership (read: Republicans) simply lost the thread. The budget was slashed, requiring Hobson's choices for the Obama Administration about what to restock in the National Stockpile - unfortunately making some of the wrong choices. But those understandable choices were exacerbated by the completely insane choices of the current administration. Disbanding the Pandemic Response Team, demoting experts that issued warnings about the potential catastrophe that was looming (sounds like China's response, actually), stubbornly refusing to take steps to mitigate the impact - with warnings, restocking, or planning, and pushing the response to the State and local level - for a NATIONAL epidemic. That is inexcusable. Until the leadership is reorganized (removed), I fear the worst.
because of the novelty of this virus the research will be fast and furious and until we get a chance to catch our breathe, the results of research will be all over the place.
What I am fed up with is the fact that alcohol, simple alcohol, is now unobtanium. I will not pay 20 bucks for a liter of isopropyl, I refuse on principle. So I am about to embark on trying to make my own ethanol.
If your State allows it, find 190 proof Everclear. It has been more available than most other sources. Ethanol is actually more effective for viruses than isopropyl. At 190 proof, it can even be slightly diluted and still be effective.
We were pretty well-stocked before this event - except with Kleenex - because my wife has a longstanding condition that requires high levels of cleanliness and disinfection, but our supply of hand sanitizer and gloves is dwindling.
What I am fed up with is the fact that alcohol, simple alcohol, is now unobtanium. I will not pay 20 bucks for a liter of isopropyl, I refuse on principle. So I am about to embark on trying to make my own ethanol.
If your State allows it, find 190 proof Everclear. It has been more available than most other sources. Ethanol is actually more effective for viruses than isopropyl. At 190 proof, it can even be slightly diluted and still be effective.
We were pretty well-stocked before this event - except with Kleenex - because my wife has a longstanding condition that requires high levels of cleanliness and disinfection, but our supply of hand sanitizer and gloves is dwindling.
Not just stock but PRICE! We can get the Everclear and we may just go ahead and get it but I think the price is now at the point where it's a lot cheaper for me to just brew my own, seeing as I don't intend to drink it.
I think I'll try to see if local liquor stores have it cheaper, but I hate going out right now.
"Today I saw an article (lay press, not a scientific paper) saying that the virus has already mutated and the new strain is the one with the high R0."
Yes, virus mutate quickly, COVID-19 splint into two strains the Asian and the European (my terms). The European strain is what hit the US east coast and the Asian hit the west coast. There is some concern the European strain may not be affected by the current drugs undergoing testing and it also may be unaffected by the vaccine.
You can substitute those Rubber Maid kitchen gloves and they can take an Everclear bath, or wash them on your hands in HOT water and soap.
We are not short on disposable gloves. We are sanitizing our masks with a strong UV-C light every night. No, the light is not visible to us at any time because it's on a timer and it's used in a storage room we seldom go into and if needed, we can wait the timer out and the light is off when we do go in.
We need the alcohol for my wife's personal care, which is her catheters and her irrigation gear.
We don't need a lot but we do need "enough" to get the job done every day.
Alcohol is a necessary component for us as well. My wife has a tracheostomy, which requires twice daily treatments lasting a half hour plus (weather plays an amazingly potent role in the process) and weekly trache tube changes, all of which have to be done in a sterile environment. Local pharmacies do not reserve supplies for those at high need, so (like the States competing for PPE supplies against all comers) getting them tends to be luck of the draw. It's infuriating.
Alcohol is a necessary component for us as well. My wife has a tracheostomy, which requires twice daily treatments lasting a half hour plus (weather plays an amazingly potent role in the process) and weekly trache tube changes, all of which have to be done in a sterile environment. Local pharmacies do not reserve supplies for those at high need, so (like the States competing for PPE supplies against all comers) getting them tends to be luck of the draw. It's infuriating.
It IS infuriating. Prior to the pandemic, anything medical that we needed, the VA could send it to us almost immediately, no questions asked. They can't even send us any alcohol.
That's pretty awful. I went ahead and placed ONE order for a thirty dollar liter bottle of 200 proof but I intend to get the still up and running ASAP.
This is a direct violation of the most basic and essential needs for survival and it points directly to "providing for the Defence and general Welfare" especially as it pertains to disabled veterans, and certainly to all persons living inside our borders as well.
The Federal Government has a duty to respond to the best of its ability to these shortages. They should not exist in the wealthiest country on Earth for any reason whatsoever.
Trump is acting like The Hunt Brothers when they attempted to corner the market on precious metals, only Trump is succeeding.
What I am fed up with is the fact that alcohol, simple alcohol, is now unobtanium. I will not pay 20 bucks for a liter of isopropyl, I refuse on principle. So I am about to embark on trying to make my own ethanol.
If your State allows it, find 190 proof Everclear. It has been more available than most other sources. Ethanol is actually more effective for viruses than isopropyl. At 190 proof, it can even be slightly diluted and still be effective.
We were pretty well-stocked before this event - except with Kleenex - because my wife has a longstanding condition that requires high levels of cleanliness and disinfection, but our supply of hand sanitizer and gloves is dwindling.
Can't you appeal to her doctor and/or the local health department to see if an exception is granted and they provide her with more cleaning and disinfection supplies?
I wonder if paint or home improvement stores have any alcohol? I don't think the denaturing agents are harmful to bare skin. Any combination of methanol, ethanol, or isopropanol is going to work. It's a pain in the ass, but you can distill your own moonshine if you have something that can be fermented, some yeast, and some sugar.
One thing I have found, is I don't bother with gloves much. I just touch packages or the mail and such, and then either hand sanitize or wash my hands with hot water and dish detergent. You are not going to get the virus by touching it, just from then touching your face or other things in you house or car before you sanitize them. And you can accidentally do that with gloves on. I worked in an OR for a while when I was young, so I have a very good knowledge of sterile procedure. I know when one or both hands are contaminated, and act accordingly.
It's funny, but my wife is a retired vet and pathologist who worked with stuff like possibly rabid dog carcasses. She is a lot more casual about this stuff. The other day she took some keys from another person we should have kept at a distance, who was not wearing a mask. Then she stuck her hand in her purse!
What I am fed up with is the fact that alcohol, simple alcohol, is now unobtanium. I will not pay 20 bucks for a liter of isopropyl, I refuse on principle. So I am about to embark on trying to make my own ethanol.
If your State allows it, find 190 proof Everclear. It has been more available than most other sources. Ethanol is actually more effective for viruses than isopropyl. At 190 proof, it can even be slightly diluted and still be effective.
We were pretty well-stocked before this event - except with Kleenex - because my wife has a longstanding condition that requires high levels of cleanliness and disinfection, but our supply of hand sanitizer and gloves is dwindling.
Can't you appeal to her doctor and/or the local health department to see if an exception is granted and they provide her with more cleaning and disinfection supplies?
They don't have enough to spare right now. DHS and FEMA (Trump version) are playing Keep Away with their supplies as well.
It's a pain in the ass, but you can distill your own moonshine if you have something that can be fermented, some yeast, and some sugar.
The only thing I need to do yet, is to construct the lid with the standpipe coming out of it and the copper coils for the condensation. I already have all the other hardware and ingeredients for the fermentation. In fact, once I coil my copper pipes, I'll put a pull-pull computer fan on each end to speed the cooling process. Pull-pull because that way the air has to come in through the coils instead of being pulled and pushed through them instead.
I wonder if paint or home improvement stores have any alcohol? I don't think the denaturing agents are harmful to bare skin. Any combination of methanol, ethanol, or isopropanol is going to work. It's a pain in the ass, but you can distill your own moonshine if you have something that can be fermented, some yeast, and some sugar.
One thing I have found, is I don't bother with gloves much. I just touch packages or the mail and such, and then either hand sanitize or wash my hands with hot water and dish detergent. You are not going to get the virus by touching it, just from then touching your face or other things in you house or car before you sanitize them. And you can accidentally do that with gloves on. I worked in an OR for a while when I was young, so I have a very good knowledge of sterile procedure. I know when one or both hands are contaminated, and act accordingly.
It's funny, but my wife is a retired vet and pathologist who worked with stuff like possibly rabid dog carcasses. She is a lot more casual about this stuff. The other day she took some keys from another person we should have kept at a distance, who was not wearing a mask. Then she stuck her hand in her purse!
Yes, gloves can actually backfire because they aren't as easily sanitized as bare hands, and the person can then acquire a false sense of security. Also, gloves are known to deteriorate after 2 hours with micro-holes.
This is how I use gloves: if I go to a grocery store I wear one glove in one hand so that I can touch the self-service pads that hundreds of people touch, to pay for my purchase. I then discard it before I get back to the car, and get my 2oz hand sanitizer and disinfect both hands, the one that didn't have a glove and the one that did. Same with gas pumps. I'll have one glove to handle the pump and punch in the credit card numbers, then I discard it too before going back into the car.
So basically I only use gloves to touch the most heavily trafficked surfaces and just for that specific and short purpose then I discard them.
I wonder if paint or home improvement stores have any alcohol? I don't think the denaturing agents are harmful to bare skin. Any combination of methanol, ethanol, or isopropanol is going to work. It's a pain in the ass, but you can distill your own moonshine if you have something that can be fermented, some yeast, and some sugar.
One thing I have found, is I don't bother with gloves much. I just touch packages or the mail and such, and then either hand sanitize or wash my hands with hot water and dish detergent. You are not going to get the virus by touching it, just from then touching your face or other things in you house or car before you sanitize them. And you can accidentally do that with gloves on. I worked in an OR for a while when I was young, so I have a very good knowledge of sterile procedure. I know when one or both hands are contaminated, and act accordingly.
It's funny, but my wife is a retired vet and pathologist who worked with stuff like possibly rabid dog carcasses. She is a lot more casual about this stuff. The other day she took some keys from another person we should have kept at a distance, who was not wearing a mask. Then she stuck her hand in her purse!
Yes, gloves can actually backfire because they aren't as easily sanitized as bare hands, and the person can then acquire a false sense of security. Also, gloves are known to deteriorate after 2 hours with micro-holes.
This is how I use gloves: if I go to a grocery store I wear one glove in one hand so that I can touch the self-service pads that hundreds of people touch, to pay for my purchase. I then discard it before I get back to the car, and get my 2oz hand sanitizer and disinfect both hands, the one that didn't have a glove and the one that did. Same with gas pumps. I'll have one glove to handle the pump and punch in the credit card numbers, then I discard it too before going back into the car.
So basically I only use gloves to touch the most heavily trafficked surfaces and just for that specific and short purpose then I discard them.
I just disinfect the car surfaces regularly, steering wheel, dash, door handles, buttons, etc and then I disinfect the house doorknobs. Coming into the house the gloves get taken off immediately and disposed, then the doorknobs get sanitized.
I wonder if paint or home improvement stores have any alcohol? I don't think the denaturing agents are harmful to bare skin. Any combination of methanol, ethanol, or isopropanol is going to work. It's a pain in the ass, but you can distill your own moonshine if you have something that can be fermented, some yeast, and some sugar.
One thing I have found, is I don't bother with gloves much. I just touch packages or the mail and such, and then either hand sanitize or wash my hands with hot water and dish detergent. You are not going to get the virus by touching it, just from then touching your face or other things in you house or car before you sanitize them. And you can accidentally do that with gloves on. I worked in an OR for a while when I was young, so I have a very good knowledge of sterile procedure. I know when one or both hands are contaminated, and act accordingly.
It's funny, but my wife is a retired vet and pathologist who worked with stuff like possibly rabid dog carcasses. She is a lot more casual about this stuff. The other day she took some keys from another person we should have kept at a distance, who was not wearing a mask. Then she stuck her hand in her purse!
Yes, gloves can actually backfire because they aren't as easily sanitized as bare hands, and the person can then acquire a false sense of security. Also, gloves are known to deteriorate after 2 hours with micro-holes.
This is how I use gloves: if I go to a grocery store I wear one glove in one hand so that I can touch the self-service pads that hundreds of people touch, to pay for my purchase. I then discard it before I get back to the car, and get my 2oz hand sanitizer and disinfect both hands, the one that didn't have a glove and the one that did. Same with gas pumps. I'll have one glove to handle the pump and punch in the credit card numbers, then I discard it too before going back into the car.
So basically I only use gloves to touch the most heavily trafficked surfaces and just for that specific and short purpose then I discard them.
I just disinfect the car surfaces regularly, steering wheel, dash, door handles, buttons, etc and then I disinfect the house doorknobs. Coming into the house the gloves get taken off immediately and disposed, then the doorknobs get sanitized.
Works too, as long as you remember not to touch your mouth or nose or eyes with your gloved hands.
Disinfecting with Ozone. You can get a pretty good ozone generator for less than 20.00 on ebay. Add a fan and a big cardboard box and you can sanitize the hell out of just about anything. The trick is to have a place to do it as ozone is not real good to breath. Takes about 20 minutes, in a cardboard box to get the job done and it will work on just about anything.
I had a friend, now gone, who owned an auto rebuild place for years. He once told me that ozone was one of the only things he ever found that would destroy the stink left in a car when somebody died in it, and was in the car for a couple of weeks before found. Ozone will destroy any organic based odors, viruses, bacteria, fungus, mold, etc.
I have COPD and us a bipap machine at night. I spent 20.00 to buy an bipap/cpap cleaner (this does exactly the same thing as the 300+ dollar machine). I just put the bipap machine into a cardboard box then hook it up to the little ozone cleaner with the tube and the cleaner forces ozone through the tubing into the box which cleans up the bipap machine. Works good for anything that will fit in the box and is timed to 20 minutes and shuts itself off.
I just disinfect the car surfaces regularly, steering wheel, dash, door handles, buttons, etc and then I disinfect the house doorknobs. Coming into the house the gloves get taken off immediately and disposed, then the doorknobs get sanitized.
Works too, as long as you remember not to touch your mouth or nose or eyes with your gloved hands.
Never ever ever. Eyes, nose, mouth, verboten. I never bothered carrying around Kleenex before but we keep a box in all the cars now.
I have the routine down and I've drummed it into everyone else.
Disinfecting with Ozone. You can get a pretty good ozone generator for less than 20.00 on ebay. Add a fan and a big cardboard box and you can sanitize the hell out of just about anything. The trick is to have a place to do it as ozone is not real good to breath. Takes about 20 minutes, in a cardboard box to get the job done and it will work on just about anything.
I had a friend, now gone, who owned an auto rebuild place for years. He once told me that ozone was one of the only things he ever found that would destroy the stink left in a car when somebody died in it, and was in the car for a couple of weeks before found. Ozone will destroy any organic based odors, viruses, bacteria, fungus, mold, etc.
I have COPD and us a bipap machine at night. I spent 20.00 to buy an bipap/cpap cleaner (this does exactly the same thing as the 300+ dollar machine). I just put the bipap machine into a cardboard box then hook it up to the little ozone cleaner with the tube and the cleaner forces ozone through the tubing into the box which cleans up the bipap machine. Works good for anything that will fit in the box and is timed to 20 minutes and shuts itself off.
I got mine on ebay. I will send you 2 links. The first will be from ebay and the second amazon. All the ebay is from the United states and are freight free. There is litle difference between the US and China (which is odd). these have gone up since I bought mine are are now around 30.00 (amazon want more - an interesting aside is that when you buy from ebay it usually ships through amazon which is interesting. I have a friend who sell through Amazon and he explained to me but I still don't get it)
I got mine on ebay. I will send you 2 links. The first will be from ebay and the second amazon. All the ebay is from the United states and are freight free. There is litle difference between the US and China (which is odd). these have gone up since I bought mine are are now around 30.00 (amazon want more - an interesting aside is that when you buy from ebay it usually ships through amazon which is interesting. I have a friend who sell through Amazon and he explained to me but I still don't get it)
Oh, amazon sells the ozone thing and the bag together for around 70 bucks They are both separate and together and cheaper on ebay.
Thanks a lot. I've ordered one of these.
Amazon has marketplace vendors who often offer the same products for cheaper price. Maybe the ebay seller is also a member of the amazon marketplace program.
I don't think any of us here are actual physicians, but the first couple of stages could be useful to know. That's actually a lot of zinc. You might want to keep it down to 40 mg/day until you have some kind of exposure.
I don't think any of us here are actual physicians, but the first couple of stages could be useful to know. That's actually a lot of zinc. You might want to keep it down to 40 mg/day until you have some kind of exposure.
Dietary zinc is readily available in all sorts of foods, meat; eggs, dairy, beans, nuts, grains, etc. As long as you eat a balanced diet you should get all the zinc you need without supplements.
And there is the gut microbiome to consider. The healthier it is the better your immune system is going to be. Dumping excessive amounts of a metal that is known to kill microbiota into your gut seems like a stupid thing to do. Diarrhea is often the result of over-consumption of zinc, which tells me that you've probably just wrecked you gut bacteria. Gut bacteria is 85% of your immune system.
I'm always suspicious of supplementation, especially when the body has whatever it is in abundant supply already. Just because you put it into your stomach does not mean your body will absorb it and use it the way you want it to.
Dietary zinc is readily available in all sorts of foods, meat; eggs, dairy, beans, nuts, grains, etc. As long as you eat a balanced diet you should get all the zinc you need without supplements.
And there is the gut microbiome to consider. The healthier it is the better your immune system is going to be. Dumping excessive amounts of a metal that is known to kill microbiota into your gut seems like a stupid thing to do. Diarrhea is often the result of over-consumption of zinc, which tells me that you've probably just wrecked you gut bacteria. Gut bacteria is 85% of your immune system.
I'm always suspicious of supplementation, especially when the body has whatever it is in abundant supply already. Just because you put it into your stomach does not mean your body will absorb it and use it the way you want it to.
I wouldn't subscribe to these notions. It's not that we should be taking huge amounts of Zinc forever. It's that it does seem to have some replication inhibition properties regarding viruses, and if there is a hugely dangerous virus going around, it seems to be a good time to beef up the Zinc level.
85% of the immune system is due to intestinal bacteria? Not even close. You are clearly overestimating that role.
In any case, I do NOT eat a balanced diet, unfortunately... so, yes, I'll be taking some Zinc supplements for now, and when this danger is over, I'll stop. But I didn't go for the mega-doses. I ordered 30mg capsules, exactly to avoid side effects like diarrhea and metallic taste.
And no, the body doesn't always have an abundance of some oligoelements and some vitamins.
Take vitamin D, for example. Its demonstrable deficiency is very wide-spread in the population. I need a supplement. I don't even drink milk (which in most brands comes with some vitamin D). I barely get any sun rays as I actually dislike the outdoors (I know, weird, right? I could go on and explain why at some other point) and in this time of stay-at-home orders I'm catching even fewer rays.
It's common for people to have low vitamin B12 and folate and develop some degree of macrocytic anemia. Sure, people who eat lots of fruits and leafy vegetables aren't those, but again, unfortunately I don't eat lots of fruits and leafy vegetables...
So, sure, eating a balanced diet is ideal... but those unreasonable schmucks like me who don't do that, do have a role for supplements.
And then, yes, there are supplement formulations that are perfectly absorbed, which can be clinically demonstrated.
Take a person with low vitamin D and low folate as proven by blood tests, give them by-the-mouth supplementation of Vitamin D capsules and Folate tablets for two months, take another blood sample and measure the levels again, and they will be up.
So, I get the feeling that you are generalizing... you have a sort of ideological antagonism to supplements, and you are extending this to this advice that is strictly related to COVID-19. No, this advice from the Eastern Virginia Medical School does seem sound to me and I intend to follow it, while the pandemic lasts.
So, I get the feeling that you are generalizing...
I reckon if you take enough pills you don't really need food at all.
And it's surely far healthier since perfect control can be achieved.
You wanna beef up your zinc? Eat more beef.
Hey, beef is in short supply! They are rationing it in grocery stores near me!
Zinc capsules are the next best thing.
For someone who has just literally consumed a bag of Doritos Spicy Nacho-flavored chips washed down with a hefty dose of scotch whisky on the rocks, I'd say that in the midst of all this unwise feeding practice, it's kind of wise to swallow a few supplements too.
But no, I'm not generalizing. I'm perfectly aware that I should say to people, "do what I say, not what I do." I'm not a healthy eater. And yes, of course I should be doing better.
But what I'm saying is that taking some zinc (which does have virus replicating inhibition properties) in the middle of a freaking dangerous viral pandemic makes sense.
Like I said, this wouldn't be valid outside of the pandemic, so, no, it's not a generalization.
It's much more of a generalization to say "85% of immunity comes from gut bacteria, supplements aren't absorbed, and you can get everything from your balanced food" which are statements that are all three, sorry, just not true.
85% of your immunity comes from gut bacteria = preposterous. A small role is played by gut bacteria against other bacteria; good intestinal flora prevents pathogens from running wild and causing diarrhea, but from that to assume that it's 85% of all the immune system which acts against very different bacteria, viruses, cancers, etc., sorry, but it is utterly preposterous.
Supplements aren't absorbed = not true. Rising blood levels prove that they are.
You can get everything from a balanced diet = not true. Vitamin D, for example, is not absorbed through diet but rather through the effect of sunlight on the skin.
All that because I forgot to put the generalizing sentence in quotes.
My bad, sorry.
Even those Doritos might deliver some zinc. It's that easy to come by nutritionally. I'm about to cook up some carrots and kale and make Auntie Fee's chicken wings. All of which will deliver zinc, While I'm cooking it I'll snack on Fritos dipped in Dukes Mayonaise.
You're taking a healthy(ish) dose of zinc but you can rest assured than many will be taking megadoses in the belief that more is better. I remember when megadoses of vitamin C were the go to whenever you got a cold, then somebody said it was zinc, we all got on the zinc bandwagon. The president said drink bleach and they did! They injected fish tank cleaner and died. Everything that boosts immunity and treats other vial infections is being thrown at Covid. Nothing yet has proven effective. Even this latest one is no magic bullet.
I'm taking 30 mg of zinc per day, myself, and I'm pretty big on prophylaxis against SARS-COV2. Eastern Virginia says take a lot more. I will if I get exposed. Greger has the advantage of having a functional vegetable garden. Good idea!
Warning: It's over 90 minutes, but some of it is pretty amazing if you have the background to understand what they are talking about. Some of the specialized stuff was over my head. One thing I got from it was the former head of infectious disease at a big pharma company and professor emeritus saying Remdesivir was useless once people get hospitalized. (Like I've been saying.) That's inflammatory response time and most viral replication is over. The work they did on identifying useful existing drugs was just incredible.
The fun fact was that patients dump a LOT of viral RNA into the sewage system, though it is not infectious for some reason. In Spain they monitored each neighborhood's sewage to identify where they needed to hunt for outbreaks!
All that because I forgot to put the generalizing sentence in quotes.
My bad, sorry.
Even those Doritos might deliver some zinc. It's that easy to come by nutritionally. I'm about to cook up some carrots and kale and make Auntie Fee's chicken wings. All of which will deliver zinc, While I'm cooking it I'll snack on Fritos dipped in Dukes Mayonaise.
You're taking a healthy(ish) dose of zinc but you can rest assured than many will be taking megadoses in the belief that more is better. I remember when megadoses of vitamin C were the go to whenever you got a cold, then somebody said it was zinc, we all got on the zinc bandwagon. The president said drink bleach and they did! They injected fish tank cleaner and died. Everything that boosts immunity and treats other vial infections is being thrown at Covid. Nothing yet has proven effective. Even this latest one is no magic bullet.
OK, but have you read the 13-page protocol? The author doesn't say it's proven; he says there is a chance that it might make some difference. He says in any case it is harmless (unlike Trump's Lysol IV injections), cheap, and wildly available. And it's not Dr. Donald J. Trump, it is actually a chief of service in a bona fide American medical school, who wrote up this protocol that makes a lot of sense, based on the latest research (I've been following part of it, and what he says does make sense).
This is hardly bleach in your veins and UV lights up your butt by Dr. Trump. This is a complete, phase-by-phase treatment recommendation based on the little scientific evidence that is already in, by a Critical Care chief of service. This is not some quack doctor or some "stable genius" who thinks he knows better but has no clue. This is a real clinician with advanced expertise.
Yes, I do trust this information.
No, more is not better, and you can see that I'm not a subscriber to more is better, by the fact that I mentioned to pondering_it_all that Vitamin D above a level of 75 increases calcium deposit in arteries, and by the way, increases overall mortality. Vitamins A, D, E, and K are the ones that can be toxic in excessive doses.
he says there is a chance that it might make some difference
I think it's what they are actually doing right now, and it has changed as they got more information and they adjusted the protocol to save the most patients. It's a lot different from "It's ARDS, put everybody on a ventilator." like in the early days. (A month ago!)
"SARS" isn't even correct anymore! It's more an endothelial inflammation problem than an acute respiratory disease. When doctors started using heparin to anti-coagulate the sickest people that told us it wasn't pneumonia making the blood hypoxic. It was capillaries not functioning in the lungs.
he says there is a chance that it might make some difference
I think it's what they are actually doing right now, and it has changed as they got more information and they adjusted the protocol to save the most patients. It's a lot different from "It's ARDS, put everybody on a ventilator." like in the early days. (A month ago!)
"SARS" isn't even correct anymore! It's more an endothelial inflammation problem than an acute respiratory disease. When doctors started using heparin to anti-coagulate the sickest people that told us it wasn't pneumonia making the blood hypoxic. It was capillaries not functioning in the lungs.
Yes, it makes sense. Which is why this is so much worse than the flu, while some covidiots kept saying (and some still say it today) that it is just like the flu.
By the way, the University of Washington model has just upgraded the expected death toll to 138,000.
Look at 10 minutes in for "How do we return to our lives?" Masks, masks, masks among other things. Around 12 minutes in he shows a big comparison chart of countries that are doing sensible things versus the UK, America, and Russia. The difference is stunning. Dozens of countries have it almost beat, and what they have done is not that hard. But they don't have leaders going on TV telling people not to wear masks.
I've found the back and forth over supplements (particularly zinc) both uninformative, and unpersuasive. Ha!
Here's why: each of us has a unique body makeup which includes metabolism, absorption and retention profiles, etc., etc., etc. And, I acknowledge that there have been several caveats, provisos, and addenda mentioned, for example regarding lab testing. But, that's the main point! For everything we put in or do to our bodies, there is a complex chain of actions, reactions, and ancillary effects. Some have been mentioned - gut bacteria, for instance - but many have not.
Each of us has a unique health profile, and the blood levels of various elements, chemicals, and other factors play a big role in our health. What may be good for you might be fatal to me. For instance, I take a medication that causes a potassium deficiency, so I take another medication that improves potassium retention. My wife takes calcium retention medication to fight osteoporosis. That same medication would complicate my calcium retention because I have too much in my system. There is some evidence that hyperferritinemia is associated with COVID-19 complications, and also that blood thinners may help alleviate others.
The upshot of all of this is that one-size-fits-all solutions discussed above may not only not be inapplicable to some, but may, indeed, be harmful. I do take supplements, in small doses. I know my eating habits are not good (except when I visit greger), but I'm very cognizant of those interactions, because some of them (Niacin, for example, to which I have a sensitivity) could be detrimental. I may not be consuming disinfectants, but I pay attention to, and get tested for, what goes into my body and how it affects me. Everyone should. Especially at our ages - whatever they are.
Greger has the advantage of having a functional vegetable garden. Good idea!
No I don't. I don't even like vegetables and I've been too crippled up to garden for years. But I eat them. It isn't hard to chop them up and cook them. Add enough butter and cream, herbs and spices and even vegetables are tolerable. They offer textural variations and different flavor profiles to make meals interesting even when you must always dine alone. A "balanced diet" means you serve every meal with a protein, a starch, and a vegetable. Eat salads for the fiber. Eat living things! Eat fermented foods! Eat eggs for christ's sake, they are glorious little bundles of nutrition! Is it that freaking hard to eat some fruits, nuts, greens, tomatoes, beans,and whole grains?
Vitamin D? Increase your dairy! Even fake dairy made from soaking your nuts in water has vitamin D added, Lactose intolerant? Use Lactaid or Fairlife. Eat cheese, even a cheap slice of processed sandwich cheese has vitamin D. Eggs have vitamin D. A daily walk or cup of tea on the lanai has vitamin D. Get your ass outside.
Too busy to worry about your health? Fine, I honestly don't give a f*ck whether YOU live or die, but I take good care of myself and eat properly. I plan to live a very long time despite genetic health issues.
The amount of Vitamin D in "fortified" milk is enough to keep kids from having rickets. Usually 400 iu per serving. As an adult, that's enough to get your blood 25-D level up to 4 ng/ml. It's pitiful. They don't add it to anything but milk. It's not present in your diet, unless you eat oily fish. The way most people got enough was they made it from sun exposure. 20 minutes in strong sun with your shirt off gives you about 10,000 iu! Life guards average about 70 ng/ml blood levels. All sorts of diseases are much improved at 40 ng/ml and some like MS at 70 ng/ml.
Unfortunately, most Americans don't get enough sun or eat enough oily fish. Or they go out in the sun slathered in sunblocker which prevents Vitamin D synthesis. Deficiencies are very common, and extreme deficiencies are common in Black people. Seasonal deficiencies are why we get flu in the winter.
Of course, living in Florida, you can easily get enough sun to stay healthy. It worked at sanitariums before they had antibiotics. It worked in 1918. Still works.
The outdoors are vastly overrated! Think of it: our species is thriving on this hostile planet exactly because wisely, we built artificial habitats to live in and keep the predators outside.
The outdoors have mosquitoes, the biggest killer of humans in the entire humankind history, and still today, more than all the wars put together. Humans are the second biggest cause of death of other humans. The first one is mosquitoes (malaria, yellow fever, hemorrhagic dengue, etc. etc.).
The outdoors have snakes, scorpions, spiders, and now even murder hornets!
The outdoors have coronaviruses. Recently a task force found the SARS-CoV-2 lurking in various outdoor locations (handrails, benches, etc.).
The outdoors have crocodiles. They eat babies. They drag grown people under water to drown.
The outdoors have rabid bats and squirrels and dogs.
The outdoors have grizzly bears and cougars and mountain lions. They eat you.
The outdoors have UV-As and UV-Bs that damage the DNA in skin cells and make them susceptible to bad, bad skin cancers that will kill ya. Oh well, they help with Vitamin D, but you can order a nice big bottle of Vitamin D from Amazon and they'll deliver it to your porch so you don't even need to go expose yourself to the evil UV-As and UV-Bs to get the package. Thank you, Amazon!
The outdoors have pebbles and rocks and puddles for you to slip or trip and fall and break bones. Breaking a femur is not fun.
The outdoors have cars, buses, and trucks that can run you over. That will kill you too. Not to forget, you'll be breathing their diesel fumes. It's pretty nasty.
The outdoors have extremes of temperature. Too hot, too cold; not fun. It's too humid sometimes. Or too dry.
There is rain outdoors. Rain is so annoying. Not to forget, there is also lightning. That can kill ya too.
The outdoors have bad people who mug you. If you're a woman they can even rape you.
The outdoors have pollen that causes seasonal allergies. Runny noses and constant sneezing; thanks, but no thanks. And other irritants include poison ivy!
Pigeons can s*** on your head if you go outdoors.
Cops and park rangers can arrest you and/or fine you if you openly drink alcohol on the streets or national parks.
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Now, think of the fabulous world known as indoors.
With a good central AC/heating system and a smart thermostat, you can have a comfortably constant and ideal temperature, and the best systems control the degree of humidity too, to a perfect level.
You are protected from the evil UV-As and UV-Bs. No skin cancer for you. You'll have fewer wrinkles, too. And should I remind you of sunburn? Do you care for looking like a lobster???
All predators are kept outside. Great. No snakes, scorpions, spiders, murder hornets, mosquitoes, crocodiles, grizzly bears, cougars, mountain lions, muggers, and rapists. And no pigeon will s*** on you.
The floor is flat and void of pebbles and rocks and puddles. You can keep your femurs intact.
For the most part if your house is not too close to the street, cars and trucks and buses don't come crashing into it.
You can have nice HEPA filters with activated carbon that will keep your indoors pollen free and without polluting odors. No poison ivy.
If you stay put and you don't let other people into your home, your indoors will be SARS-CoV-2 free.
The indoors are protected with lightening rods, and it doesn't rain indoors unless there is a leak from upstairs.
You don't get arrested or fined for drinking alcohol indoors. Or whatever other substance you fancy.
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OK, I do acknowledge that the outdoors can be pretty, sometimes. But there's a solution for that. Get a huge large-screen TV, like 85 inches, one of the thin ones you hang on a wall, ultra HD, and you can have all the outdoors beauty you need from the National Geographic channel, Travel channel, some BBC specials on nature, etc. You get all the beautiful imagery without the mosquitoes, the UV-As and UV-Bs, the bad smells, etc.
Oh, there are good smells outdoors, too? Certainly. But you can get those from aromatherapy candles and sticks you can have indoors. There, another apparent advantage of the outdoors goes away.
Yeah, yeah, there's the ocean, right? The ocean is pretty neat, I agree. But there are sharks, stingy jellyfish, venomous medusae, and dangerous currents. The oceans can eat you and sting you and drown you. You want the oceans? Maybe you can get another large screen HDTV with ocean documentaries installed next to a jacuzzi. There you go, and the jacuzzi's water is at a nicer temperature than the ocean's water.
Some crazy people might like the feeling of raindrops on their skin. I don't. But in any case, the indoors have showers.
Sports, you say? Another very, very dangerous activity. People break bones and tear ACLs and get concussions. Come on, sports are much more fun to watch than to play; certainly, much safer to watch than to play. If you have a nice lazy boy chair with a cup holder and a nice HDTV you can get your fix of sports much better indoors, and cold beer is just a few yards away in your fridge, and your clean and nice-smelling bathroom is right there. No comparison to waiting in long lines to get beer from a concession stand and to get to a filthy and smelly restroom, not to forget the traffic jam in and out of the stadium and the outrageous parking fees. Oh no, sports are much better indoors.
Flowers, herb gardens, and you love nature's animals? Call a florist for home delivery. Hydroponic herb gardens. Get pets. Preferably the ones you don't need to walk outdoors with, so cats rather than dogs, and gold fish. Birds, creek sounds? You can have caged birds indoors (so that they don't s*** on your head), and a white sound machine. Alexa will play for you any outdoorsy sounds you may possibly want.
Cabin fever? Go for a ride in your car, hopefully with good AC/heating and cabin HEPA filter. Get to a drive-in movie theater. As soon as the cabin fever dissipates, rush rush, drive back to the safety and comfort of your indoors.
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Have you seen those headhunter messages when one is trying to recruit you to some job? They will tout the location of the new job, and some will say "great outdoors activities." Translation = middle of nowhere.
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I think I've thoroughly demonstrated the vast superiority of the indoors over the outdoors, and how to simulate indoors the few and rare advantages of outdoor living. Going outside is folly. Folly, I'll tell ya. That's stuff for crazy and imprudent people.
Well, Wednesday I will AGAIN go in for serologic testing, only this time it's an APPROVED test administered by L.A. County, not a private lab.
I guess if it comes up negative this time, I will be amazed but I will have to accept the accuracy of the results and spend the rest of my life wondering just what the hell I did catch at the end of February. My first antibody test basically said “failed to seroconvert” which is “negative” but it’s not a hard negative, it just means the test did not detect anything useful. The good news is, if it turns out I do have CV19 antibodies, I will be donating blood to the Red Cross. They are seeking survivor blood donations to help CV19 patients recover. And if I am negative, I'll donate blood anyway.
Funny thing is, the last time I ever donated, I fell over like a ton of bricks. Nurses woke me up with a little glass of orange juice and a couple of cookies. I was so embarrassed but they thought it was hilarious and assured me that they get LOTS of big macho guys who faint when they get blood drawn and it's just a physiological issue having nothing to do with any macho bravery or anything. So okay, as long as they have the little glass of OJ and a couple of cookies, I'll take the chance and maybe this time I won't plotz like a wussy.
And again, I actually do hope I caught and recovered from CV19 because at least KNOWING what I had is better than not knowing if I am at serious risk. I harbor no illusions about any notion of an "immunity passport" and I'll still wear a mask and gloves when out and about, but I will have at least some peace of mind.
If you are in L.A. County and want an antibody test OR a diagnostic test, go HERE. .
I used to give blood with some regularity. The last time they got me ready and then left me laying on a table for 4 hours. I finally got up and asked what was going on. A bunch of them taking blood where having a long discussion about football so I asked them how much longer it would take and they said; "we will be with you in a bit".
That's part of the charm: No more macho way to go for a surfer. Drowning or getting smashed on rocks, means you are unskilled. If a shark eats you, then you become one with the sea.
That "failure to seroconvert" only means you did not develop IgG antibodies. You might have had some short term IgM antibodies. I would say no IgG means you need to be careful because you could catch it again, if you did have it. I'm pretty sure I'm in the same boat.
I showed up today expecting to get the antibody test, in accordance with my scheduled appointment and they told me that they were not doing antibody tests at that location. So why did they even give me an appointment? Anyway, I was given the swab test, the diagnostic one. Waste of time, unless it turns out I have the mildest symptoms ever recorded, because I feel okay and have felt okay for six weeks now.
That's part of the charm: No more macho way to go for a surfer. Drowning or getting smashed on rocks, means you are unskilled. If a shark eats you, then you become one with the sea.
Thanks, but no, thanks. I prefer to be one with my wife in our bedroom rather than being one with the sea by being eaten by a shark.
HealthLabs dot com ran my antibody test, but they sent me to a Quest Diagnostics location to get the blood drawn. The sign on their door said "Closed: Visit one of our other locations".
I went home, looked up other Quest locations, and found one nearby that would do it. I just had to go back on the Health Labs website to get them to send my order to the new location. The new location was actually closer, had no waiting, and the blood draw took about three minutes.
Thirteen sailors aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt have tested positive again for Covid-19 after recovering from the disease and returning to the ship, which has been stranded in Guam since late March after an outbreak of the virus, according to two U.S. defense officials.
This is so not good. The implications are multifold: 1) 14 days is not long enough for isolation; or, 2) the disease can rebound after recovery; or, 3) the testing protocol is inaccurate/inadequate, or 4) one can be reinfected.
Quote
"This week, a small number of TR Sailors who previously tested COVID positive and met rigorous recovery criteria have retested positive," said Navy spokesperson Cmdr. Myers Vasquez. "These protocols resulted in a small number of close contacts who were also removed from the ship, quarantined and tested.
Moreover,
Quote
Some of the sailors who returned to the ship showed expanded symptoms, including body aches and headaches, according to one official. This has slowed the move back onto the ship, as all sailors who return must have been symptom-free for three days and have tested negative twice, as well as completed their isolation period.
This is definitely not good due to them having symptoms again. Scientists need to look at the genome of their original positive results material (hoping it was saved; doubt it was) and the new one.
So far, recurrence of positive results was thought to be due to either faulty tests or people still shedding dead virus particles. But symptoms again? That's a first.
Thirteen sailors aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt have tested positive again for Covid-19 after recovering from the disease and returning to the ship, which has been stranded in Guam since late March after an outbreak of the virus, according to two U.S. defense officials.
This is so not good. The implications are multifold: 1) 14 days is not long enough for isolation; or, 2) the disease can rebound after recovery; or, 3) the testing protocol is inaccurate/inadequate, or 4) one can be reinfected.
There are two things are going on here:
1. Previously tested negative sailors are now testing positive. 2. Those who had Covid and are back and testing positive.
Let's take one. Who is to say that the sailors who previously tested negative didn't come into contact with someone else off the ship who is positive in-between tests? (A foodworker prepping the food then consumed, etc)
Two: I didn't read in the article that those who recovered got the symptoms again - they simply tested positive which they will due to having the antibodies in their immune system.
they simply tested positive which they will due to having the antibodies in their immune system.
You seem to be mixing up antigen and antibody tests.
Antigen tests like the PCR indicate acute, current infection. Antibody tests indicate past infection. A person who recovered from the disease should have a negative antigen test and a positive antibody test. -------- I hadn't read the article, just reacted to the posting. Now I did. It doesn't seem like the people who retested positive after recovery were the same ones who presented with new symptoms.
So, this could be what has been described elsewhere: antigen tests still pick up dead virus materials being eliminated by recovered people. If that's what it is, then it isn't scary.
The article is poorly written and ambiguous. Whoever wrote it doesn't seem to understand the issues either.
--------
This is likely to be a better article on the issue of re-infection, but it's behind a paywall, for me too. If someone here has a subscription to The Wall Street Journal, the person might read it and tell us what it says:
This is definitely not good due to them having symptoms again. Scientists need to look at the genome of their original positive results material (hoping it was saved; doubt it was) and the new one.
So far, recurrence of positive results was thought to be due to either faulty tests or people still shedding dead virus particles. But symptoms again? That's a first.
That is exactly the concern I have - is it reinfection or rebound? Were the tests defective?
I read a number of articles, but only posted the one that had universal access. I have some subscriptions, but not WSJ. I'll try to link some others and quote as liberally as I can. I am a Mod, after all.
I wonder if some of these sailors are young enough to get the Kawasaki-like Disease some kids are having a few weeks after recovery. We are also seeing fairly young people having mild cases or even asymptomatic cases and then dropping dead a few weeks later from a stroke or throwing an embolism into their lungs.
This (and Kawasaki) are probably all the same thing: Inflammation of the endothelium following an immune system reaction to a virus. Doctors have hypothesized that about Kawasaki for a long time. In fact, the virus could have been one of the similar corona viruses that have circulated as common colds for years. Even if the virus doesn't do that much damage, it's the immune response that kills you.
Maybe docs need to start giving recovered people just a little prednisolone for a couple of weeks to avoid this stuff.
Very interesting thing: Trump says he is taking hydroxychloroquine and zinc. (Not remdesivir? That's funny.) That can only mean one thing: No doctor is going to give him hydroxychloroquine, unless he's tested positive for SARS-COV2. I though it might be about time for him to test positive, considering the timing of all the White House cases.
I bet everybody at the White House told him to keep it a secret, but he can't help himself when it comes to bragging.
they simply tested positive which they will due to having the antibodies in their immune system.
You seem to be mixing up antigen and antibody tests.
Antigen tests like the PCR indicate acute, current infection. Antibody tests indicate past infection. A person who recovered from the disease should have a negative antigen test and a positive antibody test.
I was speaking to the positive of an antibody test. I never mentioned antigen tests at all: "...tested positive which they will due to having the antibodies in their immune system...."
they simply tested positive which they will due to having the antibodies in their immune system.
You seem to be mixing up antigen and antibody tests.
Antigen tests like the PCR indicate acute, current infection. Antibody tests indicate past infection. A person who recovered from the disease should have a negative antigen test and a positive antibody test.
I was speaking to the positive of an antibody test. I never mentioned antigen tests at all: "...tested positive which they will due to having the antibodies in their immune system...."
But testing positive for antibodies for a recovered person is not at all a reason for concern, much the opposite, and has nothing to do with the spirit of this article which seems to indicated that some sailors who had previously recovered and tested negative for antigens, retested positive for antigens.
There continues to be these claims of re-infections but they are very few and far between. One can only suspect that one of the tests are flawed rather than the re-infections as they are so few. Just a guess but it seems to make sense to me - may also be just plain wishful thinking at which I am an expert.
If ... and that is a big bold capital if ... he is taking hydroxychloroquine, he talked his doctor into giving it to him as a prophylactic. So it begs the question ... what credentials does Cmd Conley have? Assuredly he is incompetent or corrupt.
I feel like that's the case with most viruses. Also I don't much care from a personal standpoint. My goal is to not catch it the first time.
If I should survive the first episode I'll have a look at those odds...
I'm hoping that THC and Caffeine in moderate doses will prevent the virus from thriving within my system, and burning sage and sweetgrass will expel any malevolent intruders from the spiritual realm.
they simply tested positive which they will due to having the antibodies in their immune system.
You seem to be mixing up antigen and antibody tests.
Antigen tests like the PCR indicate acute, current infection. Antibody tests indicate past infection. A person who recovered from the disease should have a negative antigen test and a positive antibody test.
I was speaking to the positive of an antibody test. I never mentioned antigen tests at all: "...tested positive which they will due to having the antibodies in their immune system...."
But testing positive for antibodies for a recovered person is not at all a reason for concern...
Exactly my point.
re: Testing positive for antigens a second time. I couldn't find in the article that those testing positive for antigens a second time showed symptoms.
PNW was concerned that one could be reinfected and that seems not to be the case. Correct?
re: Testing positive for antigens a second time. I couldn't find in the article that those testing positive for antigens a second time showed symptoms.
PNW was concerned that one could be reinfected and that seems not to be the case. Correct?
Yes, I already said the article seems poorly written and the article's author seems to misunderstand the issues. When you read the article it doesn't seem like he is talking about the same people. Some sailors caught it for the first time and showed symptoms. Some other sailors recovered and turned positive (for antigens, I assume) a second time (likely a testing issue rather than true re-infection).
I have always been amazed at how we, as a nation, has dealt with Covid-19 It seemed so simple! There would be two tests. The first to tell if you had it or able to pass it. The second tells whether you have had it and have the anti-bodies to prove it. If you were infected go home and hole up, if you are sick get to a hospital. If you didn't have it then get tested every week. In all cases wear a face mask.
Then EVERYBODY gets tested. Since these test were modern and give virtually immediate results everybody would know whether they have had it and were safe or they either had it or didn't have it. Each would be treated differently. The first has been covered. The Second means you are really unlikely to be infected again and you have the antibody to prove it. You can now do whatever you want. You can no longer pass it on (give it to somebody else) and you can't get it again. So you can goto work, goto a bar for a drink, whatever.
What we did was, first, make sure nobody could get any tests. If any tests were available they might, or might not, work. In all tests there is a little problem - takes anywhere from a week to months to get the results of your test (at which point you will need another, especially if its the one to tell if you are infected (I think the second, blood dependent test will tell you that too). In any case make sure that there is ALWAYS a shortage of tests so that all the rest will not work, thereby destroying any real capacity to deal with Covid-19 with any degree of competence and efficiency. This is, pretty much, where we are now at.
It may be of passing interest that our county health department has reserved our movie theater parking lot to setup public testing. The only problem is that our county health department doesn't have any tests to test with. All tests reside at the hospital so that anybody that needs a test gets one. Them that just want to know their status, whether they have been infected and have antibodies, and whether they can goto work and get on with their lives, cannot get tested for that as that is reserved for the ill (I think).
My county now has 21 cases, 19 of which survived. I think we have 3 new ones in the last couple of weeks and they were all infected outside the county.
Oh, on the interesting side the governor sends me a series of emails, every day. It tells me what they have done, what they might do, and various figures, lists, and graphs. In addition, for no reason I know, I also get a list of state healthcare workers who have lost their licenses for usually drugs, sometimes sex (sometimes VERY strange), failure to have a license, or losing same). There is also always information as to how to tell him your thoughts (which I always thought was a little dangerous and odd)
As everyone knows by now, Trump doesn't want ANYONE tested because the reporting of positive results make him look bad. As with everything in life, it's all about Trump.
I have always been amazed at how we, as a nation, has dealt with Covid-19 It seemed so simple! There would be two tests. The first to tell if you had it or able to pass it. The second tells whether you have had it and have the anti-bodies to prove it.
It's not as simple. We don't even know yet if people who had it can get infected again. Levels of antibodies among those who have recovered, have varied greatly, from almost none to a lot.
And then, tests have false negatives and false positives.
Sure, I'd love to see more tests available... but it's not easy to test 330 million people.
The solutions are not as simple.
The only true solution will be an effective vaccine that confers lasting immunity and still works in case of mutation.
Until then (if we get one), we'll have to live with this new reality, test or no test.
I think there are a lot of things we do know, at a 95% confidence level. Like people who have recovered and have IgG, very likely will have some immunity. Sure, there are exceptions (like me) who were taking immunosuppressives that screwed around with certain white cells. But I fail the antibody test.
Opening back up is going to consist of a lot of bets: Hopefully well-educated bets. Like don't go back to work facing the public unless you are recovered AND have an antibody test that shows you have enough IgG to be safe. That means we need titre tests, not just qualitative. Until we get there, isolation works. Mask wearing in public and maintaining distance works. Countries that have done just those two things have very few new cases.
My thought was that was how it was supposed to be!
My point was that it is NOT! Not even close. Its also incredibly uneven. Some have tests, some don't and some that do have tests that don't work. As far as I can tell there are few antibody tests which, from my point of view, are REALLY necessary to get people moving with some assurance they will not get infected and die. I fear I had little or no ability of prognostication in this but did have a lot of wishful thinking involved.
As far as not knowing whether folks can get re-infected. I think that they cannot and tests to the contrary seem to be for isolated groups and not universal. This one, I suspect, just needs more time for general acceptance.
Well, a nephew in League City Texas has just tested positive for the Covid. He’s an EMT going to nursing school and presently living with his grandmother (my mother-in-law). She’s 93 and has advancing dementia, so he’s been taking care of her in exchange for a place to live while in school. She hasn’t been tested yet, but it’s highly likely she will test positive, too.
Should I thank Trump and Abbott for doing such a great job handling the pandemic?
Sorry to read that, logtroll. Things don't look good for your MIL. That's a very bad situation, what with nobody to take care of her. I'm pretty sure my mother actually died in early April from Covid-19. No testing was done and she was hospitalized with salmonella, but that was a time when nobody was especially careful about SARS-COV2 infection. She was 92.
I say probably, because I think she gave it to me, and then I gave it to my wife. Salmonella doesn't work that way.
If she does get sick, hopefully somebody can take her to get medical care. Or at least call the EMTs.
As far as not knowing whether folks can get re-infected. I think that they cannot
There is one case of a woman that did get reinfected, which sort of proves the general rule that they don't. Usually.
There are way more people who recovered only to find they continue to have problems long-term. I saw two health care workers on UCSF General Rounds (on YouTube) that took months to stop testing positive, and still are in lousy shape. The woman lost her sense of smell and three months later it's back but all she can smell is forest fire smell all the time! She says it's very hard to sleep with that. She's in an online "long haulers" group, and other victims tell her they have the same smell hallucinations.
Sorry to read that, logtroll. Things don't look good for your MIL.
They don't - the family had just decided to move her into an assisted living facility near us two days ago, and the very next day the grandson tested positive, so now she can't be moved anywhere (presumably). Her end was already near and she has been pretty miserable for a couple of years, so her imminent passing is accepted by all. But it would be very sad if she suffers excessively at the very end.
Grandson is not showing any symptoms yet, so maybe he can continue to care for her if she has contracted the virus.
That would be very preferable if she has it, too. My mom was in an assisted living facility and they shut down tight. So no visiting her at the end. She was signed up with hospice, and they did make phone calls for her to relatives. She couldn't talk near the end, but at least they said she heard and understood it was us. But I'm afraid the hospice workers probably all caught it from her.
She wanted a big funeral and even prepaid a mortuary and picked out a casket, a couple of years ago. But with the lockdown the mortuary just picked her up and did a direct burial, with no funeral. All I got to do was specify the headstone legend.
COVID-19 is the problem we are facing now, but scientists have identified more than 1,400 coronavirus in animals, and any one of them has the capability to jump from animal to human at any given time. We should be thankful that
1) COVID-19 is orders of magnitude less deadly than MERS and SARS.
2) It's R naught is only about 3, by contrast, the R naught of measles is about 18.
3) It takes a while to incubate. MERS and SARS stopped pretty quickly because it killed people so fast they didn't have time to pass it on.
It's not too hard to imagine that the next coronavirus to jump from animal to human could have the deadliness of MERS and SARS, the R naught of measles, and having the same incubation period as COVID-19. It would make the Spanish Flu of 1918 look like a walk in the park, and could very easily kill between 1 and 2 billion people. A virus like that can write it's own science fiction novel, but lurking out there might be a virus that is no longer science fiction. A virus like that could become the next dominant life form on planet earth, replacing humans, and that thought is scary as hell.
A virus like that could become the next dominant life form on planet earth, replacing humans, and that thought is scary as hell.
Nope, not possible. Viruses are not even alive, technically. They are more like computer viruses, depending on interconnected computers to reproduce. Without living hosts, viruses can't continue to reproduce or even to maintain viability. Higher organisms like anthrax can form spores and remain viable for years outside of hosts, but that is something a virus can't do.
An important outcome of all the SARS-COV2 research is all the general antiviral things we have discovered. Lots of them are not specific to this virus. Because of conservation of genetic capability, many other virus strains use the same mechanisms as SARS-COV2. (That means that once a particular gene has proved useful for a function, the descendants of that organism keep that gene.)
This means that any non-antibody and non-vaccine treatment for SARS-COV2 will probably be just as useful for any other RNA corona virus. Most will probably be useful against more virus strains, like Vitamin D and NAC for flu. SARS-COV2 is not really that deadly. The main reason people die from it is their own autoimmune response, and we actually know how to deal with that now.
A virus like that could become the next dominant life form on planet earth, replacing humans, and that thought is scary as hell.
Nope, not possible. Viruses are not even alive, technically. They are more like computer viruses, depending on interconnected computers to reproduce. Without living hosts, viruses can't continue to reproduce or even to maintain viability. Higher organisms like anthrax can form spores and remain viable for years outside of hosts, but that is something a virus can't do.
An important outcome of all the SARS-COV2 research is all the general antiviral things we have discovered. Lots of them are not specific to this virus. Because of conservation of genetic capability, many other virus strains use the same mechanisms as SARS-COV2. (That means that once a particular gene has proved useful for a function, the descendants of that organism keep that gene.)
This means that any non-antibody and non-vaccine treatment for SARS-COV2 will probably be just as useful for any other RNA corona virus. Most will probably be useful against more virus strains, like Vitamin D and NAC for flu. SARS-COV2 is not really that deadly. The main reason people die from it is their own autoimmune response, and we actually know how to deal with that now.
The retrovirus that causes the common cold is also a type of coronavirus. No cure or vaccine has ever been found for it, and people have been trying for decades.
Colds actually have many many different strains, but none of them are retroviruses. A retrovirus inserts it's own DNA analog into the host nucleus, so the host cells make more virus RNA. The best example of a retrovirus is HIV. Yes, it's very difficult to make a vaccine for that.
We can make cold vaccines quite easily. It's decades-old technology. And they work fine. BUT (and it's a huge but) they only work against that strain. There are a hundred+ other strains that will cause more colds. In fact we sort of do that, by making antibodies against a strain we catch. Then we can't catch that strain for a while, a few years to a lifetime. So it's not that we can't make such a vaccine: It's just useless and making it would have no return on investment.
One thing I find disturbing is that we have seen a lot of publicity about home "blood-drop" SARS-COV2 antibody tests, but after months of this you still can't buy one. There are some very good antibody tests available but they all require you to go to a doctor's office or a diagnostic center for the sample collection. Going to either of these places is a very bad idea for high-risk individuals.
If you live in a state with an increased case outbreak, it's a really really bad idea! In my case, I suspect my wife and I have both had it, but we have no test confirmation of that. I am in a very high risk group. If we knew my wife is positive for antibodies, we would not worry so much about her food shopping trips endangering me. I think the FDA is creating unnecessary hazards and hardships in this case.
Even if home antibody testing is not perfect, a lot of us could do a much better job of controlling our own exposure risks if we had this information. Instead of that, people just give up and then go out and catch it.
If we were to find out we were positive for Covid-19, even though we never had it and 14 days go by and it doesn't develop into a full-blown sickness, are we good to go at that point? Or is caution still required?
If I was negative and then suddenly developed antibodies, I would watch for inflammation, clotting, stroke, etc. symptoms very carefully for about a month. Those can happen even to people who had asymptomatic cases. After that month, you are really in the clear.
I think a positive antibody test actually does mean you are unlikely to catch it again. Even if your antibody level drops over time, your memory B cells will know how to crank out more antibody very quickly. It would be a good idea to avoid being exposed to heavy viral loads and mutated strains, but I would not hesitate to work in a normal job or go food shopping. Eating in restaurants, probably no. Takeout, probably yes.
One thing you might want to do is to donate plasma to help somebody else. I would still wear a mask in public, just to serve as a good example to others. If I was single, would I hook up with strangers? I think I would restrict that to people with positive antibody tests as well. Kind of like hook-ups in the age of AIDS without PReP.
I am beginning to wonder if there will even be a Republican party when this is all over. They have a leader who is working, really hard, to make sure that happens and a membership determined to screw up by following their leader to complete and utter failure. Our nation has become the laughing stock of the rest of the world and the Dear Leader is, basically, ignored as a genuine living human jackass voted in by an ignorant American voting public.
Those who survive all of this are not going to be kind to the idiots who made us the laughing stock of the entire world.
I see Trump as more of a Jim Jones Death Cult leader than a jackass. Jackasses are actually useful, since they can father mules. And mules are very cool.
Just viewed an interesting YouTube video: "Why Is My Serology Negative But I had Symptoms?"
Apparently very common. There are a lot of people who tested positive by PCR, but never develop antibodies. One theory is that their innate immune system cleared the virus before their adaptive immune system got around to making antibodies. Antibody production actually takes more than 10 days, and if your mild infection only lasts 5 days antibody never happens.
He showed a preprint of a study that found some people with symptoms who had positive PCR tests, and then some of their family members who did get symptoms but were never tested. Hardly any of them had antibodies, but when they tested their T-cells against SARS-COV2 antigens, they were all activated. This is the path in the immune system that is quicker and does not make circulating antibodies. It is also the path that does not lead to memory B-cells.
But their T-cells were still testing as activated by SARS-COV2 80 days after their first symptoms. So this is a form of immunity. Anyway, it seems that people who have mild or asymptomatic infections will often not get a positive antibody test. (Like me.) It's kind of reassuring to know my responses to the virus are not unusual.
Of course, there are complications: Some vaccine guys say a good vaccine will have antibodies against several virus proteins, not just spike protein. Moderna is "spike only". Imperial College is quite like Moderna, but presents four different virus proteins (including spike). And what if you have antibodies against one or more of those other proteins, but not spike? Would you fail a very specific spike antibody test, but still be immune? If some of those other proteins were also in other corona viruses that circulated as common colds, could cold victims have partial immunity to SARS-COV2? Is that why kids usually don't get it, but a few die?
Vaccine production is tricky: Making antibodies against multiple pathogen proteins is good (because of viral mutation), but you have to make sure you don't make antibodies to something that is a normal part of the human body. The result would be an artificial autoimmune disease and possibly death.
I've been waiting for the Tulsa data to come out. Now it has.
The city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, had been enforcing social-distancing rules, and for good reason. From June 1 to June 15, new COVID-19 cases in the state jumped from 67 in a day to 186. In advance of Trump’s rally in Tulsa on June 20, city employees affixed do not sit here please stickers to every other seat in the stadium venue. Trump campaign workers were captured on video removing the stickers so that Trump could cram attendees closer together. On June 26, Oklahoma reported 396 new infections in a single day.
The second Covid-19 spike, in June, is Trump’s own doing. This is Trump’s plague now.
Of course, Trump’s rally does not directly account for all those new cases. But Trump’s elevation of the needs of his own ego over the well-being of even his strongest supporters is profoundly implicated in the virus’s powerful June comeback.
...There are a lot of people who tested positive by PCR, but never develop antibodies. One theory is that their innate immune system cleared the virus before their adaptive immune system got around to making antibodies. Antibody production actually takes more than 10 days, and if your mild infection only lasts 5 days antibody never happens.
He showed a preprint of a study that found some people with symptoms who had positive PCR tests, and then some of their family members who did get symptoms but were never tested. Hardly any of them had antibodies, but when they tested their T-cells against SARS-COV2 antigens, they were all activated. This is the path in the immune system that is quicker and does not make circulating antibodies. It is also the path that does not lead to memory B-cells....
I have never had one childhood disease. Not one. In January 1995, i got the newly developed chicken pox vaccine because I just graduated from college and I was just hired by the Berkeley School District and I was concerned about getting chicken pox as an adult.
Four of five exes developed HIV after we broke up and has since passed away. Still negative on my part.
I often wonder if my own immune system has kept me safe from harm.
You could have the gene for HIV immunity. This is a gene that was in English people who survived the Black Plague. In some small villages the only survivors were people with this gene. They interbred, and the result is pockets in the English countryside of people with a high occurrence of this gene.
HIV uses the same route to get into cells as plague, so the gene protects against both. People with a single copy never get very sick, though they may test positive. People with two copies never test positive. In one case a man with HIV+ got a bone marrow transplant (for another reason) from a donor with two of these genes. His HIV went away, and he started to test negative.
More likely you are just lucky, though. After they broke up with you, they hit the clubs, screwed everyone in sight, and picked up the virus. Exclusive couple sex is a lot safer than random hookups.
More likely you are just lucky, though. After they broke up with you, they hit the clubs, screwed everyone in sight, and picked up the virus. Exclusive couple sex is a lot safer than random hookups.
That was my thinking too. When we were done, they were like MLK, "Free at last. Thank God Almighty...I'm Free At Last" and joined the Someone, Anyone and Everyone Club.
Then again, on my dad's side...we're very English.
My wife (the pathologist) has a theory: We haven't seen a lot of cases of kids getting Covid-19 with symptoms because parents are afraid and isolate well to protect their kids. Send them all to school and we will see massive spikes because maintaining personal protection the whole school day will prove impossible. Wearing masks in class may not be difficult, but what happens when they need to use the bathroom? What happens when they eat lunch?
School cafeterias don't have the room to maintain social distances. Are they going to hire cleaners to sterilize bathrooms after each kid uses it?
When kids start to die, parents will figure out schools are a death trap for the stupid.
Kanakuk Ministries closed its K-2 camp for 13 to 18-year-olds last week after the outbreak was discovered, Stone County Health Department announced on Facebook Monday.
Many of the people who tested positive for COVID-19 did so after leaving the camp and returning home, health officials said.
The problem with things like camps and schools, is that you are trusting all the other parents to isolate their kids with your same vigilance. But some of those parents simply don't. The camp organizers required everybody to self-isolate for two weeks before sending their kids to camp. How naive can you be?
Trump doomed red state reopenings — and now he plans to doom schools nationwide.
Fatass Trump and Milquetoast Mike did nothing to protect your children from being killed at school by gunfire, so do you really think they are going to do anything to protect your child from being killed at school by a virus?
"poors pumping out babies" WOW! You are, obviously, working incredibly hard to get reactions. This one is just plain offensive. The poor actually do produce more babies than the well to do. This has been known for a very long time. They must do this to survive in old age as they cannot afford to even eat without the support of their children. In America this also means, in most cases that they also get lousy healthcare as well. For the poor breeding is the only safety net they have in the end.
There are countries who have overcome this kind of thing - the United States is not one of them. We may be halfway there and history will tell.
The thing that will actually matter is the few children that die who were photogenic and well-documented before their deaths. Celebrity status would help, but simply being a cute, well-mannered, White Christian child, will do. Headlines are "Trump Murdered My Child".
And no: I'm not a racist. I mourn all the lives lost. I am just predicting the tabloid headlines that get schools shutdown. America goes nuts over one cute child killed in some gruesome manner and ignores all the kids who die from easily preventable accidents or childhood illnesses. Not to mention all the kids in the rest of the world who die or are permanently damaged for lack of a tiny bit of prevention.
"poors pumping out babies" WOW! You are, obviously, working incredibly hard to get reactions.
No, it was no work at all and I don't care if anyone reacts or not.
Maybe you haven't heard about the various bans on abortions or the recent SCOTUS ruling that Christians don't need to provide birth control as part of their employees health care packages? Those things fall on the poor y'know. It will be the poor schools where the outbreaks start and the deaths occur. It will be the children who would otherwise have been aborted.
I don't know that rich schools or private schools are any better at maintaining isolation among their students than poor schools. Students with darker skin may not do as well because they don't make much Vitamin D. Easy to fix that: Just give them all Vitamin D every day.
As for the whole Christian employer birth control hoohaw, it's all a pile of crap: Insurance companies WANT their insured to have birth control. Birth control costs them a lot less than pregnancy and 1000s of times less than a problem pregnancy and infant ICU stays. That's why they were willing to supply it for free directly to their insured if Christian employers just signed a form telling they did not want to pay for it. Problem is the cost they had to pay was $0.00. So in spite of these rulings, the insurance companies will just have the insured themselves sign the form! Little Sisters of the Poor and Hobby Lobby can go pound sand. Insurance companies are all about maximising their profits, and fewer pregnancies = higher profits.
Now if these organizations wanted to subsidize unwanted pregnancies, I suppose they could get some insurance company to offer a policy that costs them extra money just so their employees don't get free birth control. But organizations tend to shop around quite a bit for the cheapest policies they can find.
First, what we are talking about is our failed system of healthcare. If you google "who has the best healthcare" there are lists and we are not even close to the top. We live, basically, in a vacuum of our own making. The only excuse is that we continue to elect those that would govern and then - they don't. What we really need is some way to educate our voting public so they have some grasp of what the hell is going on. I think, incidentally, that this is pure wishful thinking and little else. I suspect there may actually be support for that but its just not gonna happen.
We now have (sharing this with Brazil) the worst mess in the world for Covid-19 and its just getting worse. I have watched the Republican Governors (not all but most) claim that what they are doing is based on science. Not true, what they are doing is wishful thinking promulgated by their Lord and Master President Trump. From what I can tell even the most dedicated of Trumpies is starting to get it. They are failing, people are dying, they are running low on supplies and their health front lines are starting to collapse due to exhaustion. The only real question, I suspect, is "Just how bad can it get?" I haven't heard any speculation on that one but its coming.
My hope is that Biden will do as he suggested and find the very best people to start going to work on fixing the nation and one of the top problems is our healthcare. If the Dems win it all we stand a chance at real change based on fact and science, if not ..... I, for instance, heard a woman who is a professor at Harvard talk about how to fix the Covid-19 problem. What she wants to do makes a lot of sense and she could probably do it. We don't lack for minds to do the job but we do seem to lack the will to get it done. Hopefully, before we completely explode or collapse, somebody will gather these people together and save us all.
I suppose they could get some insurance company to offer a policy that costs them extra money just so their employees don't get free birth control.
That's exactly what Hobby Lobby did. Then they don't pay enough for employees to buy their own birth control and the employees have quiverful families just as God has Ordained.
You simply can't use reason or logic with these folks, they're Christians.
And I beg to differ about private schools which have private funding as well as federal funding, smaller enrollments, larger classrooms, and parents with health insurance and jobs. They'll nail the distancing and hygiene and have far fewer cases and deaths than the schools where poors are sent.
I doubt ANY school is going to be able to keep their students from spreading the virus. The amount of isolation required is just not going to happen. Even health care workers with elaborate PPE still get it. Even if they have temperature checks. Even if they test every student every day upon arrival. Only 30% of victims ever have a fever and those that do often only have it for a single day. What if that day is Saturday or Sunday? Most kids are asymptomatic when they catch it, but still spreading. What happens when teachers get sick? When they run out of substitute teachers?
Anybody sending their kid to school is breaking their families isolation, badly. Adult family members will be in a lot more danger than the kids, and seniors who live with them in grave danger. More than anything else, this is Trump's "Everybody Catch It" plan.
Never forget - Americans don't always learn easily. This seems to be particularly true of covid-19 There seems to be a growing acceptance of wearing masks as youth continue to watch friends and families getting sick and many dying. Its only taken something like 130,000 deaths for that to happen. Now we are talking about sending children to school with all sorts of rules and regulations. Its pretty inspiring. Apparently all them for the opening are inferring that the schools have complete control of the children and that the children mind well. Yep inspiring! and, after raising a couple myself, also Stupid!
I expect them to start their learning with the first deaths of families, elders, etc. Then the children start getting infected and, after a bit, the parents start to learn that whilst their children's stint with Covid-19 was easy/peasy it also seems to have hung around and they are not done with it. There is also the scarred lungs. Parents will (those that survive) will get it after either their kids, or the neighbor's get it and they get to deal with it.
I blame a lot of our problems on social media, lies, stupidity, science hate, and an apparent inability to think. Its truly amazing! Children: first they just don't get covid-19, then there are a couple of reports so children still don't get it, they one really does get it and its under 10 years old so that means that only very young people get it and then children 10 to 20 are known to get it so 20 to 40's don't get it.
Now I might have those backwards but the point is that we seem to have a society who wants to, or does, believe that there are some that don't get it and they belong to groups and those groups don't get it and that's just the way it is. The fact seems to be that ANYBODY/EVERYBODY can get it and NOBODY is exempt (except for that wonder Donald Trump, apparently)
Our problem (after all that blather) is that we just don't seem to learn easily.........
A few nice papers released today: One on Vitamin D, but a more interesting one on T-cell immunity to corona viruses. The researchers looked at T-cell activation (a form of immunity) in people who had SARS-COV1, people who had SARS-COV2, and people who had no exposure to either one.
1) People who were exposed and recovered from SARS-COV1 STILL had t-cell activation! That's 17 years! Hooray!
2) People who had SARS-COV2 and recovered all had T-cell activation, even though their antibody levels had faded.
3) Some people with no exposure had t-cell activation to SARS-COV2. They hypothesized that was because their T-cells were activated by one of the other four corona viruses that circulate as common colds. They looked at the RNA sequence for various corona virus proteins the T-cells reacted against and found a huge amount of commonality among all seven known corona viruses. (The three bad ones and the four innocuous ones.)
So my hypothesis about kids being mostly immune because they had colds in the past, has some real science behind it now. (And before you throw cold water on the 17 year immunity, their test was against unique SARS-COV1 proteins.)
Nice interview on Youtube: Dr. Bean with Dr. Pauld Marick. (inventer of the MATH+ Protocol.) Very informative. He explained that hydroxychloroquine is completely taken up by the red blood cells and then leaked very slowly back into the plasma. It takes a very long time to get your plasma level up, which is why it's only useful if you take it at the very first sign of the infection. He also said that most of the HCQ studies so far seemed to be designed to make sure it didn't work or to actually kill patients! You don't hear the head of a service at a major medical school say that very often.
Nice interview on Youtube: Dr. Bean with Dr. Pauld Marick. (inventer of the MATH+ Protocol.) Very informative. He explained that hydroxychloroquine is completely taken up by the red blood cells and then leaked very slowly back into the plasma. It takes a very long time to get your plasma level up, which is why it's only useful if you take it at the very first sign of the infection. He also said that most of the HCQ studies so far seemed to be designed to make sure it didn't work or to actually kill patients! You don't hear the head of a service at a major medical school say that very often.
New scientific evidence proves Kayleigh “Karen” McEnany is a Japanese ‘lying sex toy robot’, model xxx69 modified with the smoke-up-the-ass blowing attachment (not sold in stores):
Here is the model xxx69 gaslighting on how science shows that science shouldn’t “stand in the way” of using schools as a new super-spreader vector for The Covid. It’s incredible watching such a sophisticated robot in action!
He also said that most of the HCQ studies so far seemed to be designed to make sure it didn't work or to actually kill patients!
A new Minnesota study reported on early use of HCQ as Navarro suggested (and I suppose Marik believes) and found no statistical benefit.
I would think this is a favorite intro for conspiracy theorists i.e. the study was self defeating or forces beyond the pale do not want success or maybe Soros hacks the studies and edits.
I read that paper over a month ago, and the word "zinc" was never used once in it. It also had some major defects in that everything was self-reported via the internet and VERY few of the participants ever had confirmed PCR tests. I also read their second paper in which they do use the word zinc, but they present no data about zinc usage and did not supply participants with any zinc supplements. They ended up with one death in the HCQ arm and two deaths in the placebo arm from non-Covid 19 causes. So the study was very weak statistically.
Dr. Marik (and others) have always claimed zinc is the thing that prevents virus replication. HCQ is just the vehicle that gets it into the cells, where the virus is replicating. We already have plenty of studies that showed HCQ late and HCQ early without zinc does nothing. We do have one retrospective study of cases where a significant number of patients did receive HCQ early with zinc, and they showed a 50% reduction in mortality over patients who received treatment late or without zinc.
So probably Trump was actually right. Even a blind pig finds an acorn now and then!
But it also looks like viral replication is not the thing that kills people. It's the cytokine storm causing micro-clots to clog all the organ capillaries. The first visible symptom of this is hypoxia. The lung airways are open and functional, but the capillaries are getting clogged so less oxygen exchange can occur. But the clots are not limited to the lungs. Any venous clotting ends up in the lungs, so it predominates, but it can also occur in any artery and then clog up capillaries in the brain, kidneys, liver, toes, etc. Clogging leads to tissue death and that translates to organ failure or stroke. Not good things.
Blocking viral replication could be a good thing because it might reduce cytokine storm, but individual response to the virus antigens varies widely. Just like allergies. Probably the patient's Vitamin D level has more effect on cytokine storm than any antiviral drug.
Containing 97.5% zinc, all those 1 cent coins I am eating are doing the trick. I do not have The Corona.
I have to wonder what the WHO studies concluded and how they were run. Are medical scientists too stupid to include obvious variables i.e. we are at the mercy of gross stupidity and ignorance?
Years ago when zinc became famous for reducing the duration and effects of the common cold I did my own experiments and noticed not one iota of difference. I was and am a meat eater and so likely got sufficient zinc from my diet to do all the things that zinc is supposed to do when your body is attacked by a virus.
I think it's safe for any medical practitioner to assume that if there are shortages going into a viral attack then remedying them pronto is a good idea. Zinc, vitamin D and a bunch of other nutrients are needed to fight off sickness. The worse your diet...the worse the illness will be.
And old folks often have very poor diets. That may be why a simple cold can put them in the grave. Interesting thing: Back in the height of the industrial revolution, when many inner-city kids were getting rickets for lack of sunshine, doctors found they did not die from broken bones. They died from pneumonia.
There is a strong correlation between good diet and health. That connection may include getting enough zinc and getting enough quercetin from vegetables for the zinc to get into your cells.
New data out shows that kids have a lot more virus than adults in their upper respiratory tract, even if asymptomatic. That means they are all potential superspreaders. Unless a school district adapts cheap saliva-strip testing every day for everybody, I predict a massive failure. Kids will all get infected, as well as teachers, administrators, custodian, cafeteria workers, etc. They will run out of staff, and substitutes are going to stay away because of little benefit for great risk. And those mostly asymptomatic kids will take the virus home to infect parents and grandparents. If they follow post-exposure isolation rules, kids (and their parents) will actually spend more time in isolation than in school. Because every exposure requires 14 days of isolation. Then the kid goes back to school and gets exposed again after a few days. Rinse and repeat...
They followed a bunch of rules, like everybody there had a negative Covid test within 12 days before attending. But all it takes is one teen who does not remain isolated, or even catches it from an essential worker parent, within those 12 days and you have a massive outbreak.
260 staffers and kids positive! This is epidemic 101. With a large group you can not create a safe bubble. You have to still follow all the isolation rules or it spreads throughout the group. I'm afraid most schools are going to have the same experience.
They followed a bunch of rules, like everybody there had a negative Covid test within 12 days before attending. But all it takes is one teen who does not remain isolated, or even catches it from an essential worker parent, within those 12 days and you have a massive outbreak.
260 staffers and kids positive! This is epidemic 101. With a large group you can not create a safe bubble. You have to still follow all the isolation rules or it spreads throughout the group. I'm afraid most schools are going to have the same experience.
The mistake they are making is they assume they can create an isolation "bubble" in which nobody has the virus, so they can act just like they used to. The fallacy is because some large percentage of the population don't take the isolation seriously or even believe the virus exists. That's why so many state's infections are rising exponentially.
If they want to have summer camps, daycare, or open in-person schools they have to follow all the isolation, mask, social distance, hand washing, etc. rules, plus no singing or shouting allowed. In other words, nothing like those spaces used to be. Just the PPE rules plus hand washing may make in-person school impractical. How do they disinfect the bathrooms after every student uses it?
I saw where a university (forget which one) is going to make a run at an isolation "bubble". they are also going to do the 15 minute test on everybody every day, everybody will wear masks, etc. I think we are going to see everything thing tried in every school not going pure internet.
It seems to me that we are going to do this rather than get the virus under some kind of control before we try this stuff on kids. If nothing else its gonna be real educational for a lot of parents. Particularly in places like Georgia, Texas and Florida.
Oh, I also noticed that Trump has also suggested using vaccine before phase three tests are done and before the election. This guy REALLY believes in Hail Mary's and, I am sure, will simply ignore the failures. The shame of it is that, if he had stuck to a reasonable plan, from the getgo, he probably could have had the economy and schools up and running by now. Instead we now have what Pelosi calls the "Trump Virus". The only problem with that is that the regular Democrats never signed on to that and, as far as I know, don't use the phrase, unfortunately.
Short-circuiting Phase 3 trials may actually happen in someplace like Brazil with a rising infection rate. If the trial shows that the vaccine arm never gets infected and the control arm does at the same rate as the rest of the population, the statistics can tell them to end the trial because it's passed the test.
Of course, that does not tell you how long the immunity lasts, but they are hoping for years and nobody wants to wait that long.
I doubt they can make an isolation "bubble". That would mean nobody gets to come or go on campus without 14 day quarantine, and delivery quarantine on everything that comes in. And nobody has to wear masks.
What they can do is create a system that actually follows public health guidelines including masks, quarantine, and contact tracing. What America could have done, with reasonable leadership.
create a system that actually follows public health guidelines including masks, quarantine, and contact tracing. What America could have done, with reasonable leadership.
I dunno about that...leadership can only do so much. Those folks following the leaders need to comply with the rules and apparently there is a worldwide issue with compliance. Even back in the 1918 flu epidemic there were many who simply refused to comply.
For the most part, people simply refuse to do what they are told.
Its even worse than that. This morning they were interviewing city and county medical administrators. Their lives were actually being threatened. Some had quit and others were sticking with it but they were very unhappy. Their homes were also being threatened and staked out. This, apparently, was about their "freedom" to kill their neighbors because its in the constitution.
If nothing else its a great example of the 'magic' of Trump. I saw him in a meeting with his virus group. The only people wearing masks were the doctors - nobody else.
I find this all very strange. If, for instance, everybody had gotten on board when this thing started, paid attention, masked up, etc. our businesses would be up and running, as would our schools. Instead we have these freedom loons that are contributing to the ongoing virus threats and its actually getting worse! New York, that did it right, is now watching its borders for the infected getting in and starting it all over.
Seems we are people with a serious number of sel absorbed loons. OH, the masking thing was ruled on, a long time ago. The law says that masks can be enforced! Goes something like; "You don't have the right to put the lives of your neighbors at risk".
Here are a couple of links to MedCram Youtube videos about a way to improve our public health management of the pandemic. They are specifically about the $1 paper strip saliva tests we could give everybody every day. They are not super sensitive, but they can tell you if you are shedding enough virus to be contagious.
He introduces a concept that might be new to you, which is CT. This is a log number of how much virus you are shedding. When people are at maximum contagion, they shed trillions of times as many viruses as when they are getting better. A CT of 10 would be very dangerous. A CT of 40, not at all. PCR and other high-sensitivity tests will say you are positive down at 40, when there is no chance you could give it to anybody else.
The $1 spit test anybody could run each morning at home detects CTs down to about 30. You are probably not contagious if over 20. So parents could test their kids and decide if they can go to school on a daily basis. If they are CT 31 and getting sick, they would catch it the next day before they have a chance to give it to anybody else.
The PCR tests we are running right now do yield CT numbers, but labs are not allowed to report them! And the average CT for all tests is 37. So this is the tail end of the infection when people are not contagious and quarantine for no reason. We test so little and so late, that it's almost useless. And Dr. Mina thinks it is crazy they can't report the CT number. Because you could see if people were going up or down by repeating the test in a couple of days.
It also eliminates contact tracing, which is next to useless because of all the untested and asymptomatic people, since everybody would just test every morning and self-quarantine if infectious.
This test would be the missing key to opening up the schools again.
And old folks often have very poor diets. That may be why a simple cold can put them in the grave. Interesting thing: Back in the height of the industrial revolution, when many inner-city kids were getting rickets for lack of sunshine, doctors found they did not die from broken bones. They died from pneumonia.
There is a strong correlation between good diet and health. That connection may include getting enough zinc and getting enough quercetin from vegetables for the zinc to get into your cells.
Vitamin C increase iron absorption. So cooking spaghetti sauce with fresh tomatoes in a cast iron skillet is an ideal practice.
The problem, I suspect, is that there is nothing in it for the administration. They rarely support without that little bit. Hopefully others will run with it.
I think I heard that governors are trying to put together something to start a nationwide solution instead of what is going on right now and simply bypass the white house.
And old folks often have very poor diets. That may be why a simple cold can put them in the grave. Interesting thing: Back in the height of the industrial revolution, when many inner-city kids were getting rickets for lack of sunshine, doctors found they did not die from broken bones. They died from pneumonia.
There is a strong correlation between good diet and health. That connection may include getting enough zinc and getting enough quercetin from vegetables for the zinc to get into your cells.
Vitamin C increase iron absorption. So cooking spaghetti sauce with fresh tomatoes in a cast iron skillet is an ideal practice.
Old folks who cook spagetti sauce from scratch probably don't have bad diets. Add some meatballs to it and you don't have to mess up the seasoning on your cast iron cookware with acidic foods. Add some onion and it's loaded with quercetin. Iron is readily available. Zinc is easy to get. Quercetin is in everything except meat.
But the more processed the food is the less nutritious it is. Most of the food in grocery stores today are heavily processed and that's what most of America is eating. About the same as the gruel fed to those child laborers with rickets.
I've really been enjoying a lot of pizza made from scratch lately. All my ingredients can either sit in quarantine for a few days, or be washed with detergent and hot water before going in the fridge. Fresh dough from the bread machine, bottled pasta sauce, pepperoni from Amazon, onions, and mozzarella.
Speaking of pizza (not as good as yours), we have begun making pellets from local woody biomass to be used as feedstock for the pyrolyzer/boilers, and using a Charbecue to test out their energy content. The test consists of "burning" a cylinder load of different pellet formulations at set primary and secondary air settings while cooking a frozen pizza for lunch. We monitor the kettle barbecue temperature and the duration of the burn to assess the energy content of the pellets. Also tracked are bulk density and moisture content.
You are certainly welcome to participate, if you bring some pizzas...
Always good to do real Science, while looking after staff culinary needs. When my wife worked at the County Vets office, chicken farmers would bring in 20 or so birds for herd health checks every month. If they passed (which they always did) the techs had a barbeque out back.
Exactly as I predicted: When they do find cases, those people have been in contact with so many others, they have to quarantine so many students and staff it isn't work keeping the school open. They are out for two weeks, then they all come back. Rinse and repeat, ad infinitum. It would not be nearly as bad if they made everybody wear masks. Also it looks like people wearing masks who do get it, have milder cases because they inhale less virus.
In-person school is not going to work until everybody does those $1 tests every morning. But the big news will be the Sturgis mass extinction event coming to fruition in about three weeks. The good news, is you should be able to get a very good deal on a motorcycle from their executors or heirs.
Exactly as I predicted: When they do find cases, those people have been in contact with so many others, they have to quarantine so many students and staff it isn't work keeping the school open. They are out for two weeks, then they all come back. Rinse and repeat, ad infinitum. It would not be nearly as bad if they made everybody wear masks. Also it looks like people wearing masks who do get it, have milder cases because they inhale less virus.
In-person school is not going to work until everybody does those $1 tests every morning. But the big news will be the Sturgis mass extinction event coming to fruition in about three weeks. The good news, is you should be able to get a very good deal on a motorcycle from their executors or heirs.
The economy will not recover until there is widespread, fast testing. That includes schools.
If Trump actually cared about governing, he could have guaranteed his reelection (god forfend!) if he had taken some simple, relatively cheap, actions in conjunction with his (qualified) advisors. A simple, fast, 80% accurate test, would have been the best thing he could have done. Instead, he has resisted it. Modeling good masking behavior would have saved THOUSANDS of lives.
All he managed to do, instead, was highlight his incompetency and idiocy. For that, may the gods be thanked.
Opening the schools is really a math problem: If the general population has a 5% infection rate, then what are the odds that 1 kid in your child's 30 student class is infected?
0.95 ^ 30 that there is no virus = 0.21 Which means a 79% chance that somebody in the class is infected.
How about 1% in the general population? 26% chance somebody is infected.
This is why every epidemiologist, etc. says keep groups small. Having that size group in a closed space for hours with no masks, means 100% transmission to every susceptible person in the room.
Kemp had to back down and drop his pro-death lawsuit against the mayor of Atlanta, who wanted everybody to wear masks. He previously said he would leave the mask decisions up to local officials. But when she instituted a mask requirement, I think he filed his lawsuit just because she was too "uppity"! Not enough "Respect Mah Authority". Now he just seems pathetic.
It looks as if the FDA is backing down and we may see the advent of cheap at home fast tests in the near future. If true that would be really good news I think!
Third Atlanta suburban High School closed after twenty five found with Covid-19. Also in the Georgia news, a seven year old and a fifteen year old have died from Covid-19. So much for Governor Kemp's voluntary mask rule. They plan to reopen on August 31st. Then the same thing will happen again. If they want school reopening to be something other than a clown car routine, they need mandatory masks on everybody.
The FDA is now moving forward on a ten dollar test that is easily and quickly processed by a LAB. Apparently the AT HOME test is being bypassed in favor of one that will cost 10 times as much. I am finding this very strange indeed. Yet another example of the Trump administration's tendency to support stuff that costs more, delivers less, and makes somebody money.
Perhaps the pressure will continue until they allow the right thing, ie. 1 dollar test with a result within 15 minutes without sending it out to a lab. What they are talking about now is one processed by a lab but simpler to process and really not as helpful as the one for a buck that you can get the result yourself within 15 minutes?
The FDA is now moving forward on a ten dollar test that is easily and quickly processed by a LAB. Apparently the AT HOME test is being bypassed in favor of one that will cost 10 times as much. I am finding this very strange indeed. Yet another example of the Trump administration's tendency to support stuff that costs more, delivers less, and makes somebody money.
Obviously a friend of Trump's stands to make money off of the test that costs 10 times more.
The $1 dollar test in 15 minutes would be a huge game changer. That one could catch asymptomatic cases before the infected person spread it to anyone else. A test you have to send to a lab can't. Knowing you are infectious two days later is moronic. And asymptomatic people would probably never take it, so it continues to spread.
I don't understand why the FDA doesn't waive the lab requirement just like a home pregnancy test. Maybe we need the dicktater-in-chief to get involved. If he wants all the kids back in school, that's what does it.
they are not waiving the requirement because there is no money in it for anybody. If Trump really does go down then I sincerely hope that they investigate just how he is getting his taste from all these money making efforts of his. That is the only thing that makes any sense. Trump, not unlike most mobsters, ALWAYS take a little taste. Its just what they do and have done for a very long time.
Its really pretty interesting. This is the "Yale" test, the other is the "Harvard" test. One can only wonder and hope. The at home one is the one that is the game changer. Its been pretty clear, from the beginning, that Trump is not a big fan of anything that doesn't make money for somebody. Hopefully there will be enough pressure to get the Harvard test. I wonder what would happen if somebody just went ahead and manufactured them anyway claiming that they thought it was alright. Get a few million of them in public hands and, I think, it would be a really serious mistake to withdraw them. The lives saved would justify that.
It's an FDA power play: They say that any test that can affect people's lives has to be performed in a certified lab by certified techs. (But home pregnancy tests don't affect people's lives?)
This is reasonable for diagnostic tests, like the PCR SARS-COV2 test. But the lower sensitivity test strips should be considered a public health tool, and FDA should create another certification strategy for them: So they can be verified as able to detect the ability to infect others reliably. That way, we don't get flooded with a bunch of worthless strips or totally fake strips.
We also need a change so the viral load value gets reported to doctors and public health when somebody does take a PCR or other high-sensitivity test. The labs actually know this right now! They are just forbidden to report it, but it would be a very valuable tool for doctors, public health tracers, and patients. Most PCR tests are performed on the down side of viral load, when people are not contagious anymore. It's crazy to hide the progress of an infection. Maybe even criminal.
The FDA has actually been doing stranger things than those they have been doing for a long time. My own thought is that they do it to make themselves more necessary which, in turn, means that they can increase their bureaucracy which is a known bureaucratic thing. I think it goes something like the more bureaucratic underlings you have the more important you are.
Very good news from papers just published out of Washington state: They tested everybody going on a fishing boat before they left port, and found no active infections and three with antibodies to SARS-COV2. Apparently, somebody was exposed because most of them (over 100) caught it. They had to end the fishing trip prematurely because one person needed to go to the hospital. They tested them, quarantined as needed, and then tested some more. Most all of the infected did develop antibodies or activated T-cells. The very good news: The three who had antibodies before they left did NOT catch it again, even in that highly infective situation.
This is the first proof in humans that antibodies = immunity. It means that most (if not all) the vaccines will work.
That's certainly good news for Trump! Stock market is soaring and the vaccine will be ready any day! Democratic convention got its lowest ratings ever!
I suspect that Brasil is hosting a number of phase 3 vaccine operations. I just checked. China is setting up for testing their vaccine as well as the UK and the United States. I am not sure when they will start to be getting results but I expect we will be hearing something in the next couple of months.
As far as I can tell most universities are testing every student coming in and they are finding quite a few positives and, I think, university football just isn't going to happen.
As far as grades 1 through 12 go most of the Democratic states, and some Republican as well, are just not buying the in class stuff and sticking with the internet. I also have noticed a lowering of whines about education over the internet. I suspect they are getting better at it over time. Where they have sent in the kids its been an ongoing disaster. The problem is that they are simply not talking a whole lot about the long haulers (I think I will post some about that one). Anyway, the results is stuff like parents saying; "Well, my child got it and it was no more than having a cold or the flue". After a few months that is going to go away. Its just plain strange. They are told, over and over, that Covid-19 is not a good thing but they just are not listening. Before this is over there is going to be a LOT of regret and guilt.
That's certainly good news for Trump! Stock market is soaring and the vaccine will be ready any day! Democratic convention got its lowest ratings ever!
Broadcast ratings. What were the online ratings? I’ve been watching on the NYT website to get the whole thing instead of the cut up mess you get on cable/network TV. How many others are watching online for similar or other reasons?
Being a true or pure independent, I refuse to watch the partisan silliness. Pomp and circumstance mean nothing to me. Empty promises and scathing reviews don't sway me. Entreaties to vote blue or red fall(literally) on deaf ears.
But I read a headline that said this years ratings were the lowest ever. Nobody really cares about Joe Biden or his Jamaican/Desi running mate.
Before this is over there is going to be a LOT of regret and guilt.
Particularly when "just-flu-sayers" discover their aspiring high school athlete kids are not up to snuff because of permanent lung scarring. We have a lot of reserve lung capacity, because we started off running our prey animals to exhaustion while hunting. The only time we approach anywhere near our true capacity is in athletic events. They don't notice shortness of breath in day-to-day activities. But the lung damage is there: Researchers CAT scanned a bunch of asymptomatic kids who had Covid-19, and the scans don't lie.
Yep. Apparently we need more idiots getting it and surviving and then becoming the Covid Continuously Ill to act as examples before any of them will get it.
I see that New York now has clinics devoted to Long Haulers. They are now thinking that there are more than 3 million Long Haulers (more to come) and they are all going to need special help in the years to come (they no longer think that those with problems are likely to be all that much better).
This is, I think, just one more reason that our healthcare is going to need a complete overhaul to deal with our healthcare in the future. Hopefully, before any big changes are made, the whole thing gets studied to death and experts stand up to lead the way. I mention this because of what is happening in Seattle. They have a really leftist city council and they decided to just cut the police force by over 100 officers and take the money - no plan, no clue. The mayor stopped it and told them nothing happens before they have a plan!
A plan is good: Maybe they need to plan to demilitarize the police and cut back on SWAT. Make it a firing offense to aim rubber bullets at people's faces, and prosecute those who do. Same with tazing, beating, or kicking people in handcuffs already. Body cameras with continuous cloud upload that can't be shut off.
Been watching a few funny YouTube videos where cops do all sorts of bonehead things. Like arresting lawyers, when they can see the lawyers chuckling over all the lawsuit money they are going to collect.
There have been several police department which have actually replace some police with people trained to deal with specific problems. One is dealing with those with mental problems and another is dealing with family disputes (very dangerous). The cry used to be that police simply had too much on their plates that should be handled with people trained to do that. Some have tried to train the police to deal with this stuff but trying getting the emergency operators to learn who/what to distribute specific calls to seems to be the answer. Making the police responsible for every and all things just isn't fair. For too long have we been sending our insane to prison instead of a place that can help them. The prison solution is to just stick them in a little room and give them food once a day. This, I think, says something about our society as a whole.
The first thing we have to do is to train the emergency operators. This, I think, isn't going to be real easy or fast.
I have a friend who got a job as an emergency operator. He lasted about 3 months and quit. He simply couldn't deal with the pain and suffering. Being an emergency operator, I think, is not a real easy job to do?
He simply couldn't deal with the pain and suffering. Being an emergency operator, I think, is not a real easy job to do?
Being a cop or EMT is a tough job. To do it you've got to be able to turn off any empathy or compassion you have to deal with seemingly impossible circumstances.
I think the Emergency Operators need to send social workers out to answer many calls. With Firemen and EMTs sent to most of the rest. These other folks answering calls would have immediate police backup if needed. Cops are like the Cavalry...they tend to come in with guns blazing.
Dealing with donor's family's pain was a strong incentive to change careers back when I was a transplant coordinator. I wasn't a nurse, so the other coordinators dealt with patients getting a kidney. All I got to see was the cadaver donor candidates. These were all healthy young people who had some tragic accident just days before, and were now brain-dead. Never had any problem seeing the donors, studying their charts. etc. Talking with their families was the hardest thing I've ever done. They were desperate for anything. All I could offer them was a chance their loved one's organs could help save other people. Thin comfort.
Trump is desperate to come up with an October surprise, and is talking about having a vaccine approved for election day. Here are the Phase III trial lengths from Trial Site News:
Pharma Phase 3 COVID-19 Vaccine Study Duration (Start date to Est. Primary Completion) Moderna (mRNA-1273).....................15 months Pfizer/BioNTech (BNT162)................12 months J&J (Janssen) (Ad26.COV2.S).............30 months China National Biotech...................7 months Sinovac (CoronaVac).....................14 months University of Oxford (same as AZ).......15 months AstraZeneca (AZD1222) in USA............3.5 months
Even if AstraZeneca works like crazy, their completion date is December 2, 2020. Trump fan anti-vaxers are going to have a meltdown: Serve as a guinea pig for an untested vaccine, or disobey their orange lord and master.
I think I heard, last night, of one of the vaccines, in phase 3, failing. The problem was that, after 3 months, it stopped doing its job. It went by too fast to get the facts (sometimes, when tv runs, my mind seriously wanders)
Probably they said after three months antibody levels dropped, just like people who had the actual disease. It doesn't say anything about immunity, because those people probably had activated memory T-cells that could get B-cells to crank out antibodies very quickly if exposed to corona virus antigen. Pretty normal. Since that is how people respond to the disease, I would not be surprised if all the vaccines work that way.
I guess the good safe test would be to expose them to a little corona virus antigen and watch their antibody levels over a few days.
Got my 4-strain flu shot yesterday. Two A strains and two B strains, in a high-dose shot for seniors. Hardly felt it. It's going to be very bad if people get Covid and flu at the same time. And with all these morons running around without masks, flu is coming.
Saw a local presentation on YouTube today: ER workers ask people coming in to put on a mask (which is current state rules). Then people swear at them and want to fight. They should just ask them to step into a "treatment room" where they can wait for the police to come take them to jail. A few days in jail could work wonders in their attitude.
I just remembered which tester - China. What is interesting, I think, is that they have now been testing their vaccine for over three months. That means they started sometime back in June. I know they have tests going in both China (their army) and also in Brazil.
Then I found this:https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-24/coronavirus-vaccine-china-s-covid-front-runner-uses-brute-force-approach
It says that it started testing in July which tends to make me question my memory about the 3 month thing <sigh>
Authoritarian countries in which the people serve the state, see drug or vaccine trials a bit different than democratic countries. They are trying to make sure the thing doesn't hurt the state by killing too many people. In some places like China, 10% mortality is actually a feature. So they run their Phase III trials by edict on some captive group in close proximity so their is a viral challenge. The army is perfect!
But note that the Chinese vaccine company says 7 months for their trial. The US is the only place on Earth that is going to try it for 3.5 months, because Trump does not give a rat's ass if people die.
Did we see tearful photos of him at his brother's funeral? No. Because he is a sociopath and it is impossible for him to give a f*ck about anything but himself.
Most importantly is that he has less than three months until the election and even if the vaccine doesn't work, he can claim it does and claim he has ended the pandemic single handedly.
Then he can easily win re-election.
Stock market is already reaching new record highs so the economy is once again booming thanks to his leadership!
CDC leadership has now been subverted: They changed their website to say that not everybody exposed needs to be tested and redefines teachers who have been exposed as "essential workers" who should keep on teaching.
This was NEVER the definition of "essential worker": It meant somebody who should keep on working despite a general lockdown. NEVER somebody who had been exposed, who might spread the disease. These are all Trump's ignorant ideas, that he thinks are going to help him get reelected. But in reality, they will have the opposite effect by spreading the virus and killing more people.
It is true that everybody exposed doesn't need to be tested because some exposure is so complete (like married couples) that the spouse of a known Covid-19 patient, with symptoms, can be safely assumed to be infected. But that person has to go into quarantine, NOT PASS IT TO A BUNCH OF KIDS!
Some people at CDC need to be fired and lose their medical licenses. The Governor of California has already announced the State of California is going to ignore this lethal advice.
As predicted by anybody with half a brain, getting students back to college campuses is proving to be a disaster. North Carolina State University went to all online classes on Monday, and now they have told most students to go home. Apparently they had a bunch of dorm and Greek House parties, and now they are swamped with Covid-19 cases. 325 positive tests in the last 6 days! 24 different clusters!
UNC at Chapel Hill has had similar results, with their student newspaper actually calling the administration's plan "a clusterf#ck".
University of Alabama has announced their total of over 500 cases!
If the plan is to give it to everybody in the US, as Trump has suggested, then it's working great.
Do you suppose Trump will contest his election loss if he is in the hospital on a ventilator, due to having contracted the Covid at his illegally venued superspreader nomination event?
Dr. Fauci: "What did you say, Mr. President?"
Trump: "(cough, cough) It's a hoax, it's all rigged... nobody knew........ (cough)"
Kemp had to back down and drop his pro-death lawsuit against the mayor of Atlanta, who wanted everybody to wear masks. He previously said he would leave the mask decisions up to local officials. But when she instituted a mask requirement, I think he filed his lawsuit just because she was too "uppity"! Not enough "Respect Mah Authority". Now he just seems pathetic.
"If I'm gonna be impotent, I wanna look impotent!"
Once Pence and Trump are out of office, they won't be tested daily and their reckless behavior of non-mask wearing and not social distancing from those around them will catch up to them.
Once Pence and Trump are out of office, they won't be tested daily and their reckless behavior of non-mask wearing and not social distancing from those around them will catch up to them.
Probably not. Because The Fates simply don't play by the rules.
I see where Abbot has now come up with a 5.00 test and the administration has bought just about all of them. I find that pretty interesting. The FDA will not allow the 1.00 test but they will allow this one. Their druthers seem to lean towards those with the bucks involved. I keep wondering about the gov buying all these tests and vaccines, or supporting them. My wonder has to do with what kind of a taste is rebated to trump as I believe that is happening. If he actually leaves I sincerely hope that Trump gets SERIOUSLY investigated!
It takes about a month to die from Covid-19, if you are going to die. From the White House Lawn Mass Extinction Event, that would put him in a box around the end of September. I wonder who the RNC would enlist to run, if they only had a month?
Of course, that's assuming he caught it there. A much more likely scenario is for the virus to bounce around GOP bigwigs for a while before it gets to Trump. It's really really good at that.
I am not convinced that he is not getting regular shots of his wonder Covid fix right now. I have no idea if that would work but, I think, he has skated so far which has made no sense to me.
There actually is a very expensive monoclonal antibody to spike protein that a California biotech has made. I suspect it has been tested very quietly, because the CEO claimed it works perfectly. This would give you passive immunity for a few months. Then you would need another shot.
It has probably not been mentioned much in the press, because nobody wants to admit there is a prevention that works but costs $120,000? per year.
If somebody was getting it on a regular basis, they could be very reckless about catching it. Sound familiar?
I wonder if this is going to be the October Surprise that buries Trump. If they would have announced it months ago, it would be easily justified "to keep the President safe". But then Trump would be open to heavy criticism for letting 180,000 people die while he's safe. Keeping it secret looks better, but the secret revealed after all of Trump's "no responsibility" acts would be devastating for him.
Professors at the University of Alabama's politics department were explicitly told to not tell students if their fellow classmates have been infected with COVID-19 in an email this week
They also are allowing students who test positive to attend classes, as long as they wear a mask. And tough sh$t for the student who sits at that desk for the next class. In short, they are violating every public health pandemic suggestion possible. Sound like all the professors are doomed. This is exactly what happens when you let politicians or administrators make health decisions.
I can see a lot of these institutions being sued massively for wrongful death and personal injury from neglect.
They also are allowing students who test positive to attend classes, as long as they wear a mask. And tough sh$t for the student who sits at that desk for the next class. In short, they are violating every public health pandemic suggestion possible. Sound like all the professors are doomed. This is exactly what happens when you let politicians or administrators make health decisions.
That's rightwing thinking for you.
Originally Posted by pondering_it_all
I can see a lot of these institutions being sued massively for wrongful death and personal injury from neglect.
Why do you think that bitch McConnell wants immunity for employers?
New info from pathologists today: Several autopsies have found very significant damage in testicles. These are in the structures that make sperm, suggesting coming infertility and lower testosterone in victims so affected. I wonder how young Covid partiers and mask protesters will respond to this new information?
See Peak Prosperity post on YouTube, dated 9/1/2020
Most of them don't plan to have kids anyway. If they announced it would make them sterile, the parties would probably increase.
Older Americans also fear that Social Security benefits might be cut...Younger Americans never expect to be able to collect it so they really don't care if that system collapses.
Banana Republicans are simply using the nihilism of youth to attain their authoritarian goals.
Somehow, I bet they wouldn't like the idea of having lowered testosterone. They may not want to ever have kids, but I don't see them lining up en masse for vasectomies!
CDC is telling all 50 states to setup distribution centers for the Oxford vaccine by November 1st. Just one problem: We won't have a vaccine by then. US is having a very short 3.5 month trial (UK same vaccine 10 months) but this vaccine requires two injections 28 days apart, and then antibodies take about 1 month to show up. That would be the beginning of November, but there is no time in there to see of anybody has side effects or even if the vaccine works!
To see if it works, you need some time after the antibodies are developed so both the vaccinated and placebo arms can be exposed naturally. That's going to take a couple of months at least. Unless they march everybody in the trial into a concentration camp, and expose them on purpose, Dr. Mengele-style.
That just happens to be illegal, and any doctor who participated in that would be charged and lose their license forever, even if people volunteered.
Virtually all health folks with any integrity are telling everybody to NOT get that vaccine! Fauci has, I think, publicly broken ranks with Trump, as well. It will be interesting.
Trump, I think, is trying to get somebody to start shots early so he can take credit and hopes nothing disastrous happens until he takes the oath for the next 4 years and then, if there are problems, blame it all on the developer. If they do this I think I won't get that shot for at least 2 months.
Regarding the in-person school and college fiasco: The obvious problem is promoting ANY clusters of people getting together in groups. Even with masks and hand sanitizing, that's a sure way to spread the virus. Sure, the spread rate can be lower than with no masks, or with everybody shaking hands, but it is still spread. All schools just need to remain on-line until we have all students and employees immunized. It's probably only going to be a few more months.
All this chaos and death because Trump is desperate to get reelected. Next thing he's going to try is to rush out a vaccine by election day with no time for the Phase III trial to collect safety or efficacy data. The Oxford vaccine requires two injections 28 days apart, and then it's about a month before antibodies show up. That gets us to November. THEN the actual trial starts. Researchers need to collect data while the trial subjects are immunized. If they collect it before that, the data adds to the "vaccinated but not immune yet" total and makes the vaccine look ineffective. It's going to take a few months of natural spread to see a difference between the immunized and control arms. That's why the UK is running a 10 month trial on the very same vaccine.
Personally, I would not take the Oxford vaccine until about March with very good safety and efficacy numbers. Any earlier than that and you are effectively volunteering to be part of the Phase III trial!
It does make sense for health care workers in the Covid-19 care space to volunteer for the Phase III trial: They are at more risk from occupational exposure than from being in the trial. If they can get some immunity from the vaccine, that is a plus.
I just read one of Pfizer's documents about their Phase III trial: It said they are going to enroll test subjects irrespective of them already having Covid-19. I think that might be a mistake unless they run T-cell activation tests on those people so they know if they had it or not.
It's perfectly valid to include those people in the trial, but randomly assigning them to the vaccine arm may not tell you anything (because they are already immune). Randomly assigning them to the control arm means it requires a longer trial to get enough people in that arm infected, which proves the vaccine works. If researchers know who they are, they can break that group out into two more arms, and show how the vaccine works for people who already had Covid-19.
Of course, how would they know if a test subject had Covid-19? Probably a lot of their subjects DID, but it was asymptomatic. So they would have to run T-cell activation tests on every candidate! I think their test might be quicker if they prescreened subjects and rejected those already immune.
I think we should all consider who is doing what. Drug companies, for instance, tend to be a bit greedy (to say the least). Whoever gets there first is going to make A LOT of money! So, I would not be at all surprised if they wanted to kinda cheat a tiny bit to get there first. Now throw in 8 or 9 other drug companies all in the race as well. Then mix in the Trump way with the CDC and the FDA and it gets even a bit more scary. When all is considered I get a tiny bit wary of the whole thing.
From what I can see I am certainly not alone in the concern thing. March seems a bit right to me. The Chinese, however, have been giving their army shots for a few weeks now and that's just for starters. The good thing about theirs is that they have already said they would produce and share their product with the entire rest of the world. I know of organizations that have said that but China is, I think, the first nation to say that. I also suspect that they won't let theirs go until its right as I am sure they really don't want to kill off the rest of the world?
I think what we will have by December is a bunch of data from Brazil. Vaccine makers are running trials there because it has a very high infection rate. That is very beneficial for testing. What you want to see is nobody vaccinated getting Covid-19, and the control arm getting it at the same rate as the general population. That would be a perfect vaccine, and you could say it works pretty quickly. Less infection means you have to run the trial longer to get enough infections in the control arm.
And from Phase I and II trials, it looks like all the vaccines in Phase III trials will work, more or less. Most of the leading contenders are vaccinating against the same antigens, thanks to the Chinese releasing the virus gene sequence so early. What we actually need from the Phase III trials is to know what are the side effects. We don't want another Swine Flu vaccination that paralyzes people.
And you're suggesting that Americans trust a Chinese vaccine? America...? The land of antivaxxers and Republicans?
Naw...Trump has said we'll go it alone on the vaccine thing and that way he can keep buying every bogus dose produced by companies owned by his donors. And they'll be announcing the good news sometime in October and giving all the credit to Donald Trump's wise leadership on this and many other unfair crises foisted on him by the fake news and radical left democrats.
I have read that Brazil has been experiencing a mysterious lessening of Covid-19 and nobody seems to know why. I just checked postings for the last week. Seems that my initial thought was wrong and Brazil is in serious trouble. They have, however, opened up to anybody who wants to test vaccines. As I understand it there are currently three vaccines being tested, right now, with more to follow.
that Being the case signs should start in a week or two?
I don't think there is ANY vaccine maker that is purely American. Even the Moderna vaccine will be mass produced by their partner Lonza in Switzerland. AstraZeneca is Swedish and is having 20 partners in many countries manufacture it's Oxford vaccine. Biological E, an India company, will manufacture the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. On and on it goes. The one saving grace is that the American front companies will have their reputations on the line if their foreign manufacturers screw up.
Actually, a lot of "American" drugs are manufactured in India these days. In terms of drug trials, the FDA likes to see trials that are run in America by reputable doctors who have too much to lose by faking data. NOT Chinese trials or Russian trials that are hardly even trials at all.
The story headline: Leading US drugmakers will sign a pact to produce a safe coronavirus vaccine amid concerns about shots being rushed to market before the presidential election
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scientists and public-health experts worry about the push to bring a vaccine to market before data clearly shows it's safe and effective.
To assuage these concerns, Moderna and Pfizer — along with US pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson and French pharmaceutical company Sanofi — are preparing to release a joint statement that promises to put safety before speed.
The statement could be released as early as next week, according to the Wall Street Journal, which obtained an early copy. In the draft, the companies pledge to only seek emergency FDA approval for their vaccine candidates after final human trials show "substantial evidence of safety and efficacy."
A sentence from the draft reads: "We believe this pledge will help ensure public confidence in the COVID-19 vaccines that may ultimately be approved and adherence to the rigorous scientific and regulatory process by which they are evaluated."
So I think Trump's October Surprise will be just like his claims: "We have plenty of tests, and anybody who wants one, gets one". He will CLAIM a vaccine is ready, but Phase III trial subjects are the only people getting it. Most experts in vaccine trials think the beginning of 2021 is more realistic. With all the anti-vaxxer fury, they don't want a vaccine safety failure. It would be devastating for their business.
Note: Calcifediol is 25-hydroxy Vitamin D, the substance your liver turns Vitamin D3 and D2 into and is measured in your blood.
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All hospitalized patients received as best available therapy the same standard care, (per hospital protocol), of a combination of hydroxychloroquine (400 mg every 12 hours on the first day, and 200 mg every 12 hours for the following 5 days), azithromycin (500 mg orally for 5 days. Eligible patients were allocated at a 2 calcifediol:1 no calcifediol ratio through electronic randomization on the day of admission to take oral calcifediol (0.532 mg), or not. Patients in the calcifediol treatment group continued with oral calcifediol (0.266 mg) on day 3 and 7, and then weekly until discharge or ICU admission. Outcomes of effectiveness included rate of ICU admission and deaths.
Results Of 50 patients treated with calcifediol, one required admission to the ICU (2%), while of 26 untreated patients, 13 required admission (50%) p value X2 Fischer test p < 0.001. Univariate Risk Estimate Odds Ratio for ICU in patients with Calcifediol treatment versus without Calcifediol treatment: 0.02 (95%CI 0.002-0.17). Multivariate Risk Estimate Odds Ratio for ICU in patients with Calcifediol treatment vs Without Calcifediol treatment ICU (adjusting by Hypertension and T2DM): 0.03 (95%CI: 0.003-0.25). Of the patients treated with calcifediol, none died, and all were discharged, without complications. The 13 patients not treated with calcifediol, who were not admitted to the ICU, were discharged. Of the 13 patients admitted to the ICU, two died and the remaining 11 were discharged.
Those spectacular results were from a large dose of Vitamin D in the form it circulates in the blood, but given orally. It looks like they did not measure the 25-hydroxy Vitamin D levels in the blood (though they measured a LOT of other things). Perhaps they thought that would break their "blindness" in the trial. But just to give you an idea, that's about 106 ng/ml. I used to take about that much D3 every day. I take a bit less now. But that was just the first dose. Their follow up doses are less than I take and given days apart!
Everybody got hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, though these patients were actually too late to benefit from it, and they have now stopped using it.
But these results mean that high-dose (not over-dose) Vitamin D therapy is by far the most effective treatment we have for serious Covid-19.
I have been continuing my analysis of the spread of SARS-CoV-2 through the population (A bit OCD, this one), and the positive and fatality reporting. Short form: 22 days straight of 60,000+ new cases/day from July 14-Aug 3; 13 days 50,000+; then we're in the 17th day of a string of 40,000+ days. Fatalities followed a similar pattern, but delayed by two weeks: Starting July 29, 1000+ fatalities/day for 24 days; 900+ fatalities/day from August 22-Sep 2; and now we've entered a stretch of 800+ fatalities/day.
Each of the last two surges is clearly anchored by a holiday. Memorial Day, May 25, and Independence day, July 4. As we enter the Labor Day weekend, I expect a similar surge beginning about 10 days after the weekend. This period, however, is a bit more complicated because of school reopenings.
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A New York Times survey of more than 1,500 American colleges and universities — including every four-year public institution, every private college that competes in N.C.A.A. sports and others that identified cases — has revealed at least 51,000 cases and at least 60 deaths since the pandemic began.
(NYT, Subscription) - "dozens that have seen spikes in recent weeks as dorms have reopened and classes have started. Many of the metro areas with the most cases per capita in recent days — including Auburn, Ala.; Ames, Iowa; and Statesboro, Ga. — have hundreds of cases at universities." See, e.g., Coronavirus Cases Spike on College Campuses as Students Return: Track Them Here Coronavirus Cases Spike on College Campuses as Students Return: Track Them Here (NBC, local)"Nearly 17,000 cases of coronavirus have been reported at more than 100 colleges and universities in recent weeks as students return to campuses while the pandemic rages on."
Similar results are occurring at public K-12 schools, although I am having a harder time tracking that data (Hmm, wonder why, Betsy DeVos?). Many school districts and universities have already suspended classes and moved to online learning. I expect similar results throughout the fall.
Florida schools recently re-opened but our Trump acolyte governor has decided not to release the school related covid numbers. That will likely change as case numbers rise as we witness a few deaths among teachers and family members and as lawsuits emerge.
Governor DeSantis was at first popular among all Floridians, I once said I would even vote for him next time around if he continued his exemplary leadership on Florida's water issues. Sadly when the 'rona arrived he chose to follow the president's lead and Florida became a Covid laughingstock.
I think the college campus fiasco is because almost all of those young people were living at home, and most of those had their exposure controlled by parental supervision. Then they go off to college and freedom from parental control, and this is what happens. They are thrown together with strangers in dorms, eat communally, attend classes in person often in closed air-conditioned rooms with large groups, and some even throw parties. Totally predictable.
Last night there was a story about a variety of Universities, throughout the nation, that started up and are pleading with their students to NOT go home! This is especially true of those schools who take covid-19 serious, are continuously testing their students, make everybody wear masks, pay attention, etc.
It will be interesting, especially if the kids to go back home for Labor Day and infect the rest of their family, or go home and get infected themselves and then go back to school and infect everybody. Two way street on this one.
Even if a University had all the students lock down in their dorm rooms, and do everything remotely. they still have to eat! I doubt said Universities have the staff to deliver ready-to-eat meals to every room.
Unfortunately, their plans for student needs are being made by administrators with zero training in epidemiology. This is common throughout almost all "school reopening" plans. Reality is a bitch, especially when you are a Republican. Remember: "Alternate facts" are not facts at all.
On the bright side...the more of this younger generation who are hurt by the fascist capitalists in charge, the more they will trend towards socialism as the Boomers die off.
In Norway, they early on (May-ish) started allowing pre-school through 4th Grade to return to school after following simple protocols: 1) Child and whole family test negative 2) All teachers and other employees test negative 3) Everybody commits to following the government's distancing (2, later 1 meter) and occupancy guidelines 4) Everyone has their temperature taken daily upon arrival at the school 5) Everyone commits to staying home if they feel ill and reporting to the school and the health authorities if they exhibit known covid-19 symptoms.
It went off with nary a hitch.
Later, they allowed high school seniors to resume graduation festivities (a national tradition beyond proms and sprees) with predictable results.
Now colleges and universities have started back up with partial in-person instruction. Which, of course, draws the students back to their dorms where they congregate, drink, eat, have sex and, naturally, give each other covid-19.
Those Norwegian safety measures are useless: Lots of people are totally asymptomatic, meaning no fever, they never feel sick, etc. But they still spread the virus.
The viral infection actually has few if any symptoms. After your viral peak, when the innate immune system starts deactivating virus, you might get autoimmune symptoms. This basic misunderstanding of how the virus works has caused all sorts of idiotic decisions.
People are very infectious before any symptoms appear. Then for a few days more. After that they may have more and more severe symptoms but they probably are not shedding enough intact virus to be contagious.
Well, the safety measures for the youngsters were implemented when the entire country was in lockdown, so, the people testing negative likely were without the virus and continuing with the lockdown other than early age schooling probably made that opening successful.
Relaxing the lockdown, especially allowing international travel and indoor dining and drinking, combined with the general disregard for danger and rules by young adults undoubtably accounts for the blooming of cases in that demographic.
Interestingly, though there has been a significant jump in cases the last month or so, there has not been the expected jump in deaths. Deaths remain at or near zero for the last 4 months.
I have often wondered about the temperature thing. White Covid-19 when does one start to get a temperature. Do those who have no indication of being infected often have a temperature?
Only about 30% of victims have fevers, and those may last as short as one day. True asymptomatic cases have no symptoms at all. But they still shed as much virus as people who later develop symptoms. This is because the viral infection causes no symptoms at all. All the symptoms come after the viral replication phase, when the victim's innate immune system starts attacking the virus. One of the first responses is for Natural Killer T-cells to see foreign protein on the surface of cells, and release some poisons to kill those cells. These poisons (besides killing the infected cell) cause fever and attract more white cells to the area.
Of course, one NK T-cell killing one infected cell is not going to cause a fever. It takes a lot of that to make one. It's a race: If you have a small viral inoculum, your immune system can take care of it and you never know. But you still spread the virus, because that's what evolution has created in the virus. Spreading is it's sole "purpose in life". The virus sees no benefit in killing you, or even making you sick other than sneezing or coughing.
As predicted, the Sturgis event spread the virus far and wide. leading to outbreaks all over the country:
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The researchers found that the rally, which hosted 462,182 people between Aug. 7 and 16, “generated substantial public health costs,” totaling $12.2 billion. (That calculation is based on figures on health care costs associated with the coronavirus from another IZA study.) The authors note that the cost was “enough to have paid each of the estimated 462,182 rally attendees $26,553.64 not to attend.”
As a species, were are collectively sick of this pandemic.
This isn't a new thing, there were antimaskers in 1918 too.
Norway did everything right up until everyone got sick of the quarantine and starting to let their guard down...the results were inevitable...just like the Sturges motor scooter party.
Just like the wedding reception in Maine. Just like pretty much everywhere in the world. If it were a truly relentless killer we might have been able to stay focused. But it's a sneaky snake, and only kills a few. So most needn't fear it.
I'm not afraid of it at all. But I'm staying the f*ck at home. And taking zinc and vitamin D.
And wearing my mask when I do go out in solidarity with socialists and communists everywhere!
Well, I feel I should point out that nice young thing, the governor of South Dakoda has announced that the Democrats are at it again, and trying to blame her for the Sturges Superspreader which, it turns out, wasn't a Superspreader at all! Sometimes people are so mean to those who are just trying to tell the truth and explain things to the ignorant.
I have a friend who used to go to Sturges every year. He stopped going several years ago. I asked him why and he said, with some vigor, "Them people are not riders. They go to Sturges with their fancy pickups, then park their pickup and roll their bike off the back, put on their costumes and join the parade with the rest of the frauds. I don' want a damn thing to do with them bastids!"
I gave up my own bike years ago. Figured out that if I kept it up I was going to die......
Riding a bike 100 miles on an interstate can be exhausting. Riding a chopper that far is for the young or experienced rider (experienced meaning: it's my ride.). Sounds like your friend has succinctly sized up the crowd.
Yeah, the worst part is that they all got together to spread the virus around, and then road off to all parts of the country to carry it to their own local circle of friends. And I bet very few of them went home and quarantined for two weeks, or put on masks!
But actually $12.2 billion is wrong: It's not like it's going to affect that many people and then stop. That estimate was just by a certain date. It's going to keep on infecting more and more people until the R value is 0, and that may take a couple of years. Even with vaccines that work.
I am beginning to think that nobody actually understands! There is a little town near ours called Sequim. Sequim has a mayor who is also a hair dresser (just trying to put stuff into perspective). He has also proudly announced that he is a follower of QANON (because its all about people deciding things themselves) and also went to Sturges (drove his pickup with his bike in the back, I am sure). Somebody suggested that he should have quarantined himself when he got back. He replied that would have been silly as there is no Covidvirus and he did all the right things anyway and there should be absolutely no problem. When queried as to what those actions might have been he replies something like; "you know, healthy things".
Idiocracy is upon us. If you have not seen the movie, you should. It's eerie that the creator of Beavis and Butthead could be such an accurate prophet. The only thing he got wrong is the movie took place 500 years in the future.
Oh, I forgot. Seems the mayor also sells 'special' vitamins. I know, its not easy to make this stuff up! He is now in a battle, in the local paper letters to the editor, with the woman who told him he should have quarantined himself. Turns out that he is also a Trump supporter (surprise!) Just gets better and better! (Sequim seems to have a large group of rich retired folks who also seem to be constantly upset about one thing or another - all without any real grip on the reality I live in)
Oh, Sequim is a retirement community and there are a LOT of wealth there. Lots of ex military officer corps folks too. Sometimes the wealth part gets interesting. A woman lost her husband and was left with one of those 4500 sq ft houses overlooking everything. What she didn't know is that her husband spend every last dime on the house, didn't quite pay for it and she was broke. I think she ended up with welfare. The interesting part is that she belonged to a group of folks that consistently whined about them damned chiselers on welfare. Sometimes turnabout IS fair play!
The researchers performed cardiac magnetic resonance imaging on 26 competitive athletes referred to the [Ohio State University's] sports medicine clinic after testing for Covid-19 between June and August. The athletes were involved in football, soccer, lacrosse, basketball and track -- and none had illness severe enough to require hospitalization. Only 12 athletes reported having mild symptoms, such as sore throat, shortness of breath or fever, while others did not show any symptoms, according to the study. The cardiac imaging was performed after each athlete quarantined for at least 11 days. The imaging showed that four athletes, or 15%, had findings consistent with myocarditis and eight additional athletes, or 30.8%, had signs of prior myocardial injury. It's unclear from this study if this inflammation will resolve itself or produce lasting damage.
These were all young college student athletes in excellent health before suffering asymptomatic or mild cases of Covid-19. 15% of the total scanned had myocarditis and 30.8 % showed signs of prior heart injury. That's almost 46% of young people who have now had injury to their future athletic endeavors.
Humans are over-engineered so to speak, for everyday activities. We are the species that can run down any prey until it is exhausted, even if it takes days. So our lungs and hearts still make us able to run marathons and such. Usually, the only time we call on that reserve capacity is in athletic events. But sustaining this kind of injury at an early age does not bode well for heart and lung problems when we get older.
Its kinda interesting. I just googled "long haulers" and its moved up in interest quite a lot. I have a check on what's happening by doing searches that have been posted in the last 24 hours and "long haulers" is now one of the winners.
Now hospitals are starting to setup clinics for them. New York has been opening new clinics to help them for over a month. Everybody is saying that nobody really knows how long long haulers are going to be dealing with the results of infection. Lung and heart problems are probably forever. I am not surprised about the college athletes and have fully expected that some professional athletes will not be professional after infection as well. My own thought is that "long haulers" is an appropriate term to use as their problems are going to be life long lasting and its going to effect our healthcare system, and whatever the politicians come up in the future, big time as we are talking about millions with covid-19 problems after they had it and survived.
I just keep on wondering about the Trump true believers and how many of them are going to have to get infected, and either die or have misery results for the rest of their lives before they can actually bring themselves to say, right out loud, that Covid-19 is NOT a hoax. Until that time we are going to have to live with it as they will just keep infecting each other, and others, I guess, to make some kind of point?
There is a very good YouTube post from DrBeen interviewing Paul Marik, the doctor behind the MATH+ protocol and major figure in sepsis therapy. It has a lot of information I have been posting about for a long time, about the "natural history" so to speak of Covid-19. How it's really two different diseases, that each needs to be treated differently. Timing is critical: Give antivirals too late and they do nothing or harm the patient. Give steroids too early, and they make the viral infection last longer. Give steroids too late, or the wrong steroids, or stop them too soon, and some people turn into long-haulers.
He has some advice for long-haulers about how to treat their unregulated immune systems, and how to avoid it to begin with. It would be nice if every doctor treating Covid-19 would watch this video. He has real data to back up everything he has to say.
Interesting new information: Somebody asked Dr. Fauci how much Vitamin D3 he is taking every day. He replied "6000 iu per day", which is actually higher than I have been recommending. The USRDA is 600 iu per day, but is just enough to prevent rickets, which ignores the last 20 years of research that shows Vitamin D interacts with every immune system cell.
New paper in the New England Journal of Medicine that suggests universal mask wearing as a form of variolation. This comes from the centuries-old practice of inoculating people with just a bit of smallpox pus, so they get a mild or asymptomatic case and immunity. Not something anybody would do on purpose with SARS-COV2, but since you have to go food shopping, or to an essential job, you might as well give it a try by wearing a mask all the time when out.
Some have suggested we can end vaccine trials early because of good results:
Efficacy is not the real issue: Most of the vaccines will probably work, because they are based on the spike protein with the RNA sequence published by the Chinese. The real issue is safety. Once people are immunized, how will their immune system react to another exposure? In the case of the toxic shock tampon staph bacteria, menstruating women gained natural immunity during one period and then the next month their immune systems went completely haywire. Most of them developed an autoimmune disease like lupus or MS.
So far two people in the Oxford trial have developed a spinal symptom that is often a part of MS. What happens months later when the vaccinated people are exposed again? This is why Phase III trials take a long time. If you stop it based only on efficacy, you can miss long-term safety problems. It would be horrible if we end up with 30,000 people who are doomed to lupus or MS upon later virus exposure.
Interesting article published in Lancet: Vitamin D for COVID-19: a case to answer?
Discusses the merits of Vitamin D as a tool against Covid-19. Then near the end they call for random blind trials giving 400 - 1000 iu of Vitamin D to the drug arm and none to the control arm. That level of intake will raise most people's 25-hydroxy D blood level by 4 to 10 ng/ml. 30 ng/ml is considered "sufficient" and 40-50 ng/ml is recommended by the American Endocrine Society.
Those trial are certain to "prove" Vitamin D does not protect people from Covid-19, because that low a level of Vitamin D protects nobody from anything but rickets. I don't know what's wrong with these authors. This is like giving 1/10th the usual dose of dexamethasone to people and then saying it doesn't help. And I don't know why Lancet would publish it.
The one random blind Vitamin D drug trial we have that showed it was 25 TIMES as good at keeping patients from needing the ICU used the much higher dose of Vitamin D. A dose that would give most people about the same blood levels as 5000 iu/day.
I have seen this same problem in trial after trial: RECOVERY in the UK gave patients toxic overdoses of hydroxychloroquine, and then stopped the trial because it was harming them. Same thing for a trial in Brazil. Heart problems because they were using something like a 20 fold overdose of chloroquine.
Can all of these researchers not read the literature and do simple math?
Fiasco at Public Health England: Seems they were using an obsolete version of Excell as their database of cases to track. On about September 24th, the number of active cases in the database went over 65535, so Excell just dropped any additions. Somebody just noticed the number had remained at that level for a couple of weeks. They failed to track about 16000 cases. The average number of close contacts per case is three, so about 48,000 potentially exposed people have been merrily wandering around England when they should have been isolated or taking precautions.
I've been perseverating over COVID (well, really since it began) especially since my negative test. Then Trump tested positive. Virtually the entire month has seen a national plateau of 750 deaths/40-45,000+ cases a day. About 10% of the population has been exposed. That means we are not getting rid of this thing any time soon. And Trump is not living in the real world, inviting all of us to join him in unreality. ARGH!
So much of the Republican version of Covid-19 is based on the idea that it's harmless to most people. That is a myth. It may leave most people who have "recovered" with hidden long-term injuries. And not just the "long-haulers". I'm talking about young people who were asymptomatic.
I see the Johnson & Johnson vaccine trials are all halted because one test subject got sick. They have not said what the symptom is yet. More to follow, I suppose.
Oxford vaccine trial is still halted in the US.
So much for a vaccine by election day. I think this is why Eric Trump is now calling the MAB cocktail a "vaccine": So they can tell their followers a "vaccine" is ready. Sure if you have a helicopter to fly you to Walter Reed, and play golf with the Regeneron CEO. And get to ignore FDA approval, of course.
Eli Lilly's monoclonal antibody trial is halted because of a test subject's side effect. I wonder it the Regeneron MAB will have the same side effects in it's trial. Hope it doesn't affect 74 year old fat guys.
There is such a thing as antibody enhanced infection. Basically, an antibody locked onto a virus is ingested by one of the immune cells, and then the virus starts reproducing inside the immune cell. I guess we will see if this happens as these trials progress, and participants get exposed to more virus.
Here are a couple of links on vaccines. The Chinese seem to be well ahead of everybody else. They have had some of their vaccines in phase 3 for 4/5 months worldwide. India is slightly behind but moving right along. There have also been some of these vaccines that have been stopped for one reason or another. There is also indications that some are going public in the near future. Some of the American efforts are covered as well but seem to be in question by many.
Know what would be way more effective than a vaccine? Tell everybody to go out and get enough food and medicine for two weeks. Supply MRE's and drinking water for people too poor or unable to get out to shop. Then have an absolute lockdown for two weeks. No "essential worker" exceptions, other that first responders. All businesses close for two weeks. The only people on the streets are cops, firemen, and utility repair crews.
The pandemic would be over. After that two weeks we could all go back to work, play, bars, restaurants, casual sex, etc. But cops would have to arrest and jail people who evaded quarantine. They also need to do the same in jails and prisons. Segregate people who are contagious using those spit test strips. Same in nursing homes, mental hospitals, and any place where people are forced together.
This is the most comprehensive presentation on Covid-19 out there today. It does get a bit technical, but none of the technical bits are critical to understanding the bigger picture. He talks about the latest research papers, but also throws in a bit of cynicism about the economic and political forces screwing up our response to the pandemic.
Everything in this lecture is true, and he has no hidden agenda or economic ties that influence his work.
I see the US government has ended Eli Lilly's trial of monoclonal antibody for hospitalized patients. Early statistics prove it doesn't work. I'm sure the same use of Regeneron's MAB therapy will have the same problem. The reason is simple: It does no good to beat a dead horse, or in this case a dead virus.
The people designing these trials are ignoring all the work that shows the virus is declining because of innate immune system attack by the time people have symptoms bad enough to be hospitalized. They may not have any "live" virus left by then! The symptoms are all about the immune system over-reacting to the dead virus fragments still in the body. That's the cytokine storm. At that point, the only therapy useful is steroids and anticoagulants.
Lilly is continuing some trials of using their MAB early, before symptoms appear. And preliminary stats show that has promise. If you stop viral replication, that's less dead virus fragments the immune system will have to over-stimulate it.
The big problem is that you have to give people without symptoms MAB, or indeed any anti-viral. The only way you even know they are infected, is to test every day with Dr. Mina's $1 spit test strips. If you catch an infection on the first day of contagion, an antiviral would help. But of course, most of those people will have asymptomatic infections or mild cases so they don't really need a $30,000 MAB or $3000 remdesivir. Maybe the antiviral you should give them is $1 worth of ivermectin?
I think MABs are only useful at this point to give Covid health care workers temporary passive immunity. But that would cost about $120K per worker per year.
Is Dr Mina's 1$ spit test available? I have noticed that ebay, for instance, is selling a test for something like 275.00 or more as is Amazon. I continue to believe Dr. Mina's solution is actually a large part of beating up Covid-19 bigtime so, for some inexplicable reason is not, as far as I know, available.
Several companies could mass produce them, but the FDA does not have an approval procedure for a home test that is insensitive enough to only show "positive" when somebody is contagious. And those are the important features of these strips.
Instead they insist on tests being much more sensitive, which will give positive results on dead virus fragments long after people are no longer contagious. They also want such tests performed in a certified lab by a certified tech. Not at all compatible with Dr. Mina's proposal.
Problems are not technical. They are FDA red tape.
i believe that one but simply don't understand the why of it. I keep thinking about tests like that which could, basically, open it all up for a buck a throw. One would think, for instance, that our national jackass Trump would have pushed that one through on the getgo if he actually wanted the economy to turn on. Oh, I forgot, the economy is one of them things that Trump knows EVERYTHING about! When that happens, as far as I can tell, everything just stops. (sorry, couldn't resist)
I have to re-find it, but a science mag had a good article about the problem with these tests. The gist of which is that the process fails to account for the results, meaning that data is unavailable to the public health system and can't be tracked, thwarting track and trace and hiding hotspots. Also, they create a false sense of security. By the time one is found positive, they're already contagious and the virus has already spread. The White House is a prime example of that problem.
What Dr. Mina proposed is tests strips everybody would use every day before they go out and potentially spread the virus. These strips are sensitive enough to show a positive result before you have enough of a viral load to be contagious. Get a positive result in 15 minutes or less, and go into quarantine. Ideally, all other household members would quarantine as well, but even if those testing negative left the house, the susceptible ones would test positive before becoming contagious within a few days.
Rapid tests that have to be administered by a certified lab can't possibly be taken by everybody every day. So we would wind up having tests only for people with symptoms. Way too little and too late to avoid spreading. The only useful time for tests is between exposure and symptoms, to prevent the spread. Most of our current tests are done now on patients who are no longer contagious!
The UK has a Tracker App for smart phones, and they get very good participation and compliance. If we created state websites with enough capacity, I think people would comply with instructions to report over the internet. Especially if public health authorities immediately delivered food and prophylactic treatment like high-dose 25-hydroxy-Vitamin D. The website URL would be on the test strip box. And the Vitamin D therapy has the tremendous advantage of keeping the ICUs practically empty.
the trick, I think, is that if everybody had a supply of these things, as well as bars, restaurants, barber shops, etc. gave one to anybody who wants to come in then they could all join back up with the good old days. Everybody should probably also still wear face masks but still. Should also test everybody who works too!
The real trick will be to get a regular test if you are positive to find out if you should hide out at home or go into the hospital. This would also give gov what they need to know about covid-19 whilst allowing them who are not infected to get on with their lives.
In a perfect world this should, pretty much, deal with Covid-19 until the wonder vaccine appears (good for a minimum of one entire year, 95% effective, free, works on all age groups, and no side effects)
Important to note: I am GREATLY in favor of widespread rapid testing. But, every action has a reaction, and there are consequences for that, from the public health concerns to the complacency that frequent testing can engender (See Donald Trump, soon-to-be-former President).
Important to note: I am GREATLY in favor of widespread rapid testing. But, every action has a reaction, and there are consequences for that, from the public health concerns to the complacency that frequent testing can engender (See Donald Trump, soon-to-be-former President).
But won't more testing increase the number of cases?
One aspect of widespread daily testing I hadn't thought of, is that testing yourself to make sure you are not going to spread the virus does not mean you won't catch the virus once you leave the house! Maybe everybody who tests negative should wear their negative paper strip on their forehead when they go out in public? Sort of like an "I voted" sticker.
Or maybe it's enough that all daily testers just shun people not wearing masks. Testing changes the whole mask equation: Instead of wearing the mask to protect others from you, people would be wearing the mask to insure they get a low viral load if they do get infected. Looks like that is a real advantage.
The original and perhaps best goal for daily testing is to make schools a "safe bubble" each day. Certainly offices and factories could do the same. It really would open up the economy, so you would think that both sides of the political divide would support it.
I was watching a pretty sophisticated YouTube post today with five virologists zooming. One said lots of people are coming to the hospitals with Covid-19 symptoms but refusing to be tested, because they want to keep on working. Well, we know about half the people in America are sociopaths. This confirms it. This could lead to some interesting lawsuits for reckless negligence when they give it to somebody who then dies.
The one bright point in the coming months until we have available vaccines: Almost all of the people refusing to wear masks or social distance, are Trumptards. I've refrained from using that appellation until now, but refusing to follow simple public health guidelines when infections are spreading like wildfire qualifies them.
I see that the UK Prime Minister is saying the National Health is going to be delivering a 4 month supply of Vitamin D3 to every elderly or very susceptible person in the UK soon. I think it will come in the mail. It will be very interesting to see if their death rate drops quickly over the next month or two.
I think the "control group" will be the US population! Have not found out what dose they will supply. Hope it's enough to make a difference.
This could lead to some interesting lawsuits for reckless negligence when they give it to somebody who then dies.
I don't understand why a large number of people from states such as FL or SD have not filed lawsuits for reckless endangerment and of course ultimately filed against Mr Trump. I mean these characters are actively trying to get people killed with their lack of actions in the face of a known public health risks.
I think their suits would be dismissed immediately. Hard to prove the people filing the suit were not the ones being reckless when they failed to wear a mask at a Trump rally. But people who went to the hospital for their Covid-19 symptoms and then refused to be tested because they didn't want to be inconvenienced, show a much higher degree of reckless negligence.
Ordinary negligence is just a product of stupidity. Reckless negligence shows evil intent.
Pfizer announced their vaccine looks like it is 90% effective. Pence immediately tweeted about Trump's partnership with Pfizer through Operation Warpspeed, and how wonderful his leadership on the pandemic.
The head of Pfizer's Vaccine Development group responded quickly to correct Pence, saying Pfizer was not in Project Warpspeed and had never taken any money from the government!
I see that the government has signed an agreement to buy 75,000 doses of Lilly's monoclonal antibody at $5000 a pop. That seems like a lot to pay for something that works best immediately after exposure and offers maybe three months of passive immunity. If you wait until somebody has symptoms, it does very little. If you wait until you see serious symptoms, it will do nothing at all. Might even make those patients sicker!
Antibodies are great to have before you get exposed: They either prevent infection or make it much milder. But there is a huge difference between a vaccine giving you the ability to make your own antibodies when needed (which may last for years), and monoclonal antibody that makes you immune for three months and does not teach your immune system anything. I see it having value for health care workers who work with Covid-19 patients, but still it would cost a bit. Maybe just give it to those workers once, and hope they get vaccinated before their three months is up.
I suspect 2 cents per day of Vitamin D is a much better solution, because we can afford to give that to everybody in the country. Anybody exposed gets zinc and ivermectin, with a cost of about $1.
This is probably going to help anybody who bought a lot of their stock recently. This one doesn't require taking the drug at all! One can only wonder, might it be possible that somebody, who has, or had, the name Trump a recent big buyer of that stock? Hmmmmmmm.............
I don't think so. Trump is golf buddies with the owner of Regeneron, who gave him their monoclonal antibody product. Lilly is a competitor with their monoclonal antibody product.
The researchers then looked at 300 blood samples collected pre-pandemic, and found that nearly all of those individuals had antibodies that protect against coronaviruses that cause the common cold. (There are many different strains of coronaviruses, some of which cause the common cold.)
In addition, around 5% of the adults had antibodies that would “recognize” SARS-CoV-2 even if they hadn’t had a cold around the time their blood was drawn. And 7% of the adults who had recently come down with a cold had similar antibodies.
Perhaps even more striking: Nearly half of the children in the small study had antibodies that would recognize SARS-CoV-2.
Seems he was pretty good pals with Jeffrey Epstein, until that became a liability. He's still sending Jeffrey's procuress Giselle Maxwell his best wishes.
It is NOT Dr Mina's home test for a buck but something considerably more complex but, still, a home test. It seems that if its cheap its not good and so they come up with others that are not cheap and not as easy. All that being said this one has reagents, a fluids, and vessels, and takes a half an hour to give its results. I wonder if it also has little lights that blink.
I am starting to wonder what Dr. Mina did to Trump to assure that he would never be allowed to produce his test and sell it.
That's a $50 home test, which simply insures that most people will not use it frequently. The key aspect of the test Dr. Mina was promoting is it's so cheap that it could be a daily requirement for attending schools or office work.
The other key is that it would be just sensitive enough that it would tell you if you were contagious that day. So it mostly eliminates spread, while minimizing the time somebody has to quarantine. The FDA is fixated on only authorizing tests that say you might be contagious in a couple of days, and that you are no longer contagious but are coughing up dead virus fragments for a couple of weeks. PCR tests are not useful for public health monitoring because they ignore how this virus spreads.
Of course, the FDA and NIH are so negligent, it's killing thousands of people every day: All they tell doctors is they can treat patients with remdesivir, but only for really sick patients when it's almost totally useless. (It might work as early as possible after exposure, but that is too expensive!) They also ignore a mountain of evidence about Vitamin D and ivermectin, which are very effective against Covid-19 and incredibly cheap. Maybe even more effective than the best vaccine!
The doctors behind the MATH+ protocol are not ignoring them. They have a new prophylactic and early treatment protocol I-MASK+ that stresses masks and ivermectin. And they have terrific Real World Evidence to back that up. In 2016, a new law directed FDA to consider RWE outside of clinical trials, but they are not doing that. If they did, our ICUs would be almost empty instead of bursting at the seams.
What the guy actually said was something like; "the FDA has now approved at home testing kits, some of which may sell for a dollar". Sorry, I should have been more specific as it was the dollar thing that got my attention.
My thought is that if someone tested as infected, with the dollar test, they they would immediately go to one of the testing sites that uses the big time test to make sure. This is what I would do and, I suspect, most everybody else just to make sure. If that is the case it would also take care of the other problem as well.
Given the status of our healthcare one would think that there would be some kind of oversite committee that would note some of this stuff and make it known. Right now, it seems to me, there is a lot of screwups and self importants supposed to be taking care of everything. On the face of it there seems to be more concern about who is doing what to who rather than doing their best to assure that the public can depend on them to do their jobs and tell everybody what is going on.
I am curious. Do you ever let your elected know your thoughts on this stuff? I used to tell mine stuff all the time. The problem is that they started in calling me about this and that which I always thought they should know anyway and finally said that out loud. They don't call me much anymore, which has not broken my heart. I have two female senators. One was a kindergarten teacher and the other was in the computer business. They have both been senators for a long time and I am never quite sure of what they are doing and though I am convinced that they are incredibly important Democratic Senators. I am represented by a nice hometown guy in congress. He works hard and tries.
Its kinda interesting. My dad told me, a very long time ago, that Port Angeles (where I live) was considered to be a community which is known to be average in most things so we got polled a lot. I had forgotten that until we got, I think, re-discovered as a community who had chosen the next president since 1980. I suspect we will now see more polling <sigh> Have no idea why I mentioned this other than something reminded me about it.
I suspect we are going to hear a lot more from Fauci, once he is no longer muzzled. He's taking 6000 iu of Vitamin D3 every day, but NIH and FDA say nothing about it on their medical advice websites. I wonder why he would be taking that much, if it does nothing?
The truly weird thing is that Donald Trump was treated with Vitamin D when he got Covid-19. Did NIH and FDA just forget to mention it? No money for Big Pharma in it, I suppose.
Don't worry about Trump firing him: That's going to be something you want on your resume in the near future. Biden would hire him and several other experts back on Day 1.
The taking of d3 is kinda interesting. I live in a place where the sun is kinda lacking except for the summertime. I have been taking it for a very long time ()prescribed). Seems that is the normal up here. I have no idea what 6000 iu would do (I take 2000)
For most adults, 2000 iu will raise your 25-OH-Vitamin D blood level by 20 ng/ml. If you are not eating lots of oily fish every day, or drinking lots of fortified milk, then your (as a Northerner) blood level sinks down to 20 ng/ml during the winter.
"Sufficient" level is 30 ng/ml. The Endocrine Society says 40-50 ng/ml is "ideal". Without other Vitamin D sources, you would probably need to take 4000-5000 iu per day to reach that level. Dr. Fauci is opting for 60 ng/ml.
USDA has said 400 or 600 iu per day is swell, although we know that would only raise the average person's blood level by 4 or 6 ng/ml. Most doctors heard Vitamin D is dangerous in medical school, and have not kept up with the research. Many research papers say 50-60 ng/ml has a definite protective effect for some cancers. 70 ng/ml has a strong positive effect on MS. (I'm proof!)
I think the USDA's criminally low recommendation is based on a lot of US workers doing field labor and getting a lot of sun, and just never got updated. National Health in the UK is sending Vitamin D3 to everybody in danger, by mail. Unfortunately, they are sending 400 iu which will do absolutely nothing!
Another study of Vitamin D comes to us from India: Blind, randomized, with Vitamin D arm and control arm. They selected patients for their trial with positive PCR tests and deficient Vitamin D levels. They gave the test arm patients 60,000 iu of Vitamin D3, the control arm patients placebo.
The results are much faster virus RNA clearance, and much lower fibrinogen levels. That is an indication of clotting. p < 0.05 for both. They used Vitamin D3 orally, like anybody can buy. This has to be converted by the liver into 25(OH)-Vitamin D in the blood stream, which takes several days. The liver can only do that so fast. They actually measured that conversion, and found 2/3 of their test arm got up to 50 ng/ml within a week. Not so coincidently, that corresponds to when many of their test arm patients were clearing their viral load.
So this study does confirm that normal D3 as widely available is very useful for Covid-19. The previous Spanish study used 25(OH)-Vitamin D, to get the blood level up immediately, with even better results.
It's getting rather suspicious that major peer-reviewed journals are publishing these papers, and WHO, NIH, FDA, CDC, and similar institutions in other countries have failed to even mention this on their web sites.
If you are interested in rapid and frequent testing, AND YOU SHOULD BE, here is an excellent MedCram YouTube video with Dr. Mina, the main cheap tests advocate in the world.
They've done something like this in other countries and seen incredible declines in their spread rates. Dr. Mena has Dr. Fauci on board with the idea now, so we may see some progress soon.
some 40 years ago I took a flu shot and got sick as the proverbial dog. I have not taken a shot since and also have not had the flu (just lucky I guess). I have been a bit hesitant about taking any of the vaccines until I learned about the mRNA vaccines. I believe these will work for me, so am waiting patiently for my turn ... of course I may be on the other side of the 140M people who have compromised health conditions, despite my age. I am patient.
I suspect that all the leading vaccines will work about the same, because they are all based on the virus RNA sequence the Chinese published back in January. Moderna, Pfizer, and Oxford vaccines all makes antibodies to exactly the proteins made from the gene they included. Older techniques, like attenuated or killed virus vaccines, seem quite dangerous in retrospect because they can make antibodies against a lot more proteins. Chances are higher that one of those antibodies might act against something that is part of the human body.
The Oxford vaccine can also make antibodies against the carrier: A chimpanzee adenovirus. But that adenovirus has been modified so it can't reproduce beyond the injected amounts, so the body should make a lot less antibodies to it than to the SARS-COV2 spike protein created in the human cells. Still, the mRNA technique seems a bit cleaner to me.
The concern about making antibodies to human proteins is not groundless: Toxic shock victims were immunized against the pathogen during a period. During their next period, they started cranking out antibodies against the pathogen that cross reacted with human proteins. A lot of them ended up with lupus or MS.
I'm thinking I'll get the Moderna vaccine in a few months, after a few million people get it. But my wife and I are in a very safe and comfortable situation, being retired with steady income and a fenced and gated property. We also may be immune from mild cases in March, and are taking or have everything to treat in-home cases. All we have to do is handle deliveries carefully, and we both know sterile technique. I realize most people are not in that situation.
Dr. Pierre Kory testified today before a Senate committee about his fantastic success treating many hundreds of Covid-19 patients with ivermectin. He really lit into the NIH, FDA, and CDC for ignoring mountains of evidence including random clinical trials with incredible results of both prophylaxis and early treatment. He asked they review his own paper on a preprint server that is being peer reviewed now.
He had one example of a study in Argentina where 800 frontline medical workers took ivermectin and a control group of medical workers did not. ZERO of the ivermectin group got sick. 58% of the control group got sick. That's 100% effective! Better than any of the current vaccines.
This is a link to a Peak Prosperity video where a doctor is talking about his previous day's ivermectin video that got removed by YouTube because it goes against WHO recommendations. He has excerpts of Dr. Kory's testimony.
Researchers from the Pasteur Institute (yes in France) sampled living bats in Southern China and Laos and sequenced all their corona viruses. Just about every segment of SARS-COV2 RNA was found in one or more of those 15 wild viruses. Recombination happens all the time in these bat corona viruses, and they figured out the five recombinations needed to make SARS-COV2. They have not found one bat with SARS-COV2, but they have found all the parts needed to make it. That's probably because they only sampled a few of the millions of bats living there.
TWIV reviewed an interesting paper investigating the origins of the outbreak. It probably happened when an infected racoon-dog was brought to the live animal market. Then it spilled over into a human and went community-wide. Lots of the first found cases were connected to the market, but since so many cases were asymptomatic, the first hospitalized case noticed in early December was not the real spillover case. Or it might have spilled over into a hunter or animal transporter that got it to the market.
Spillovers happen when a human gets infected with an animal virus, and then a small mutation makes the new variant much better adapted to human-to-human transmission. We know corona viruses mutate often because RNA replication is subject to so many errors. I heard it may require over 500 replications just to get a single unmodified copy! That means SARS-COV2 mutates all the time, but almost all new variants are garbage.
It may be a shame we politicized therapeutics for treatment with this bug. No contact tracing, waste water sampling, addressing hvac at a national level in the year since dealing with this, what now appears to be, endemic. Now comes omicron variant and it may well put us back to the begenning. No effective vaccine (not that the mRNA were all that effective in stopping the spread). With Dem Corp doubling down on authoritarian mandates while playing fealty to big Pharma we are in a worse position than when the pandemic began. I hope Omicron is not as deadly and we catch a break but if past performance is indicative of future response, I’m not optimistic. A divide and conquer political strategy by our two rightwing political factions have done a wonderful job of rendering any public institutions impotent with little institutional capacity. That is, any public institutions that haven’t been quasi privatized or captured by private interest. CDC comes to mind here. Hope for the best, plan for the worst as they say. Stay safe everyone. Wish we had a government that had its peoples interest.
It may be a shame we politicized therapeutics for treatment with this bug.
We?!? Pretty sure that Trump and his Rightwing cohorts did that.
Commentary regarding this morning's Fox and Friends Weekend:
Quote
If Fox & Friends is to be taken seriously, then South Africa, the World Health Organization, the Democratic Party, and the Biden administration are all part of a massive conspiracy to keep Democrats in power by routinely introducing new variants of the coronavirus.
It may have enough spike changes to evade the antibodies originally made by the vaccines. That would mean more vaccinated people could get infections. But the vaccines did two things that are going to fight any variant:
1. They made activated T and B-cells that respond to much wider viral epitopes than antibodies. When those T-cells encounter any corona virus (including SARS1 or MERS) they quickly get B-cells cranking out antibodies specific to that new variant. So the race between the virus and the immune system is fixed way in favor of the immune system.
2. If your immune system has a couple of months following vaccination, some "antibody evolution" takes place in the lymph nodes and other germinal centers. You start making all sorts of related, but different, antibodies. Pretty much antibodies against every variant possible. Evolution has selected for us making those related antibodies, just to keep up with virus mutation. That's called "co-evolution" and it's a very real thing.
If Fox & Friends is to be taken seriously, then South Africa, the World Health Organization, the Democratic Party, and the Biden administration are all part of a massive conspiracy to keep Democrats in power by routinely introducing new variants of the coronavirus.
Of course, all of that is Fox BS, but so many Republicans refusing vaccinations might just change the demographics by November 2022 to flip a lot of toss-up races. It's rarely discussed in the media, but the last I heard Republicans are dying at about four times the rate of Democrats. They didn't say anything about Independents. I would guess they might be more vaccine-hesitant than anti-vax, but the result is the same. The virus doesn't care.
Several races around the country were decided by a few thousand votes. A few Republicans actually did vote for dead relatives. I assume all the Republican-sponsored voting restrictions will prevent them doing that next time around. That's besides all the stuff Republicans have been doing recently to make sure no People of Color vote for them, or people who believe in democracy, or people who believe in The Rule of Law, or people who are pissed off about huge tax cuts for the rich.
I should stop posting such off-topic stuff, but I think the most lethal contribution to the Covid death rate has now become the insane politicization of vaccination.
There is a whole series of these book showing all the activities of the Stupid family. It's no wonder we have such a problem. The Stupids dog is named kitty. I searched briefly to see if the Stupids got vaccinated or Covid or both, but it must be too controversial a topic to sell kids book like this nation-wide, except in some states for kindling, not to be judgemental of some populations.
Interesting: The South African doctor who first announced the new Omicron variant of concern, said she and other South African doctors are seeing increases in the infection rate which indicates Omicron may be better at transmitting. BUT those cases tend to be milder than usual, with fatigue and headache the main symptoms. So there is the possibility this variant is "the end" of the pandemic: A variant that infects most of the immunologically naive, but causes few hospitalizations or deaths. A "natural vaccination" variant, so to speak.
When viruses mutate, this is always a possibility. Increased fitness, but decreased virulence, because the former has selective advantage, while the latter does not.
Interesting: The South African doctor who first announced the new Omicron variant of concern, said she and other South African doctors are seeing increases in the infection rate which indicates Omicron may be better at transmitting. BUT those cases tend to be milder than usual, with fatigue and headache the main symptoms. So there is the possibility this variant is "the end" of the pandemic: A variant that infects most of the immunologically naive, but causes few hospitalizations or deaths. A "natural vaccination" variant, so to speak.
When viruses mutate, this is always a possibility. Increased fitness, but decreased virulence, because the former has selective advantage, while the latter does not.
I went back through this thread and noted where we were in February 2020 when I started it. So much has happened since then. It's been a remarkable 2 years. Regarding the initial question: Yes, it has been the plague of the century - so far. (How naïve I was then.)
I, unlike most, have seen this OyMyChron variant as a possibly hopeful sign, and have been waiting on data about the type of clinical disease that it produces. Not only are there mutants of the spike protein, against which vaccines are directed, but there are also several mutations in Furin protease sites. Furin proteases seem to be crucial in determining which cells let the spike bound virus into the cells. So mutation, though more infectious, could well limit which cells allow viral replication, and limit disease to some organs or to lesser degrees of damage. I previously speculated that the protease inhibitor in the Pfizer oral med might promote misreading of the virus leading to increased likelihood of more mutations, but shouldnt be a large problem when only used for 4-5 days in treatment. South Africa is a different situation due to the high prevalence of HIV patients taking various mixtures of protease inhibitors in HAART. This festering milieu is just the sort of situation that would be expected to generate new mutants with the very high number of mutated sites. I'm sure that the South African docs are looking into Covid chronic infections in HIV pts on HAART, to characterize this process.
Viruses prefur not to kill their hosts for self preservation. It may well be that the most infectious newer variants will be less virulent, maybe just giving a cold like disease with decreased tendency to severe or lethal disease. Keep in mind that much Covid is already asymptomatic.
Considering, "on the other hand-ism", it is possible that a new mutant, though less lethal, could produce very high probability of long Covid with various organic brain syndromes, hopefully only in the unvaccinated. This will have to be studied in foreign countries with low vaccination populations with low incidence of organic brain syndromes to be able to do valid statistical analysis of variants ANOVA.
TAT
Quote
As it is established that SARS-CoV-2 shares the same cellular entry receptor as SARS-CoV, the ACE2 binding efficacy of S-protein was observed to be 10–20 fold higher in SARS-CoV-2 in a recent study (Song et al., 2018). It was also observed that human cells expressing ACE2 but not human Dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP4) or Aminopeptidase N (APN) were less susceptible to the human cell entry of SARS-CoV-2 (Letko et al., 2020). The priming of Spike (S) protein following the binding to the ACE2 receptor results in the viral- host cell fusion (Tortorici and Veesler, 2019). The cathepsin L-dependent viral glycoprotein activation via SARS-CoV S-protein cleavage at S1/S2 boundary under low pH conditions and involvement of transmembrane protease serine 2 (TMPRSS2) in triggering the cleavage of trimer S-protein (Simmons et al., 2005; Millet and Whittaker, 2015) opened new avenues to study the role and participation of different proteases in the endocytosis of SARS-CoV-2 into human cells as well as potential for drug targeting and vaccine development. The observed increase in binding efficiency of SARS-CoV-2 S-glycoprotein to the host receptor can be related to the codon mutations observed in the protein sequence, resulting in a plausible increase in the site-specific priming activity of proteases and cathepsins, leading to the highly contagious nature of SARS-CoV-2 as compared to SARS and MERS. Proteases belonging to the proprotein convertase family, including furin and furin-like serine proteases, were analyzed for their ubiquitous role in viral entry and spread. Although produced in the endoplasmic reticulum and role in the viral biosynthesis, these furin and furin-like proteases were found translocated through secretory pathways to access viral S-protein and promote viral entry to host cells (Seidah and Prat, 2012). A recent study presented results supporting the presence of a furin-like cleavage site in the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, which was absent in the other beta coronaviruses (Coutard et al., 2020). It was previously presented that, compared to lower pathogenic forms of the influenza virus, highly pathogenic versions selectively possess a furin-like cleavage site, replaced by a single basic residue cleavage site present in the less pathogenic viruses (Sun et al., 2010; Kido et al., 2012). Another group of researchers correlated the presence of a furin site in the envelope protein to the elevated levels of plasminogen observed in severe COVID-19 patients (Ji et al., 2020). Further research focusing on site-specific binding studies could be an approach to reveal potential druggable targets involving different proteases and specific peptide inhibitors.
I like Sen Paul's approach to the "plague" (hoax to most Republicans). He says natural immunity is the ticket .... full steam ahead, or damn the torpedoes. So if Trump had simply prevented manufacture of vaccines we would have had a light running 5M deaths (using a low estimate of mortality). If Trump had used a warp speed process AND encouraged everyone to get vaccinated we would have had (making assumption vaccine was available prior to first cases) fewer than 50k deaths.
My conclusion is Dr Paul would be better known as Sen Rand "The Kentucky Killer" Paul. Truly a Nazi comparison seems appropriate.
Bill Maher quipped about R&R Paul: The Sh!t doesn't fall far from the Bat! TAT Rand like to make up his own rules for Ophthalmology Certification. snopes on Paul
I think it's actually the mutagen Molnupiravir from Merck that substitutes for some nucleotides during RNA replication and then causes subsequent replication failure. The RNA protease inhibitor Paxlovid from Pfizer does not seem to interact with any human biological process. It just inhibits the SARS-COV2 protease that cuts the big super protein into the smaller functional proteins the virus needs to replicate. Humans don't make a protease that Paxlovid could interact with, and indeed we don't even have the DNA or RNA sequence the SARS-COV2 protease cleaves. Which is the reason Paxlovid is so benign for humans that Pfizer's toxicity test could find no upper limit.
COVID-related American death data shows dramatic differences between Republican and Democratic counties, with the reddest tenth of the nation in October chalking up a death rate six times higher than that of the bluest tenth, NPR reported.
Meanwhile viruses sure are strange creatures. They are neither prokaryotic nor eukaryotic. What are they really? They need host cells to reproduce but I’m not telling certain people “out here†anything they don’t already know.
It’s all good TAT. I don’t mean anything in malice, I just like to respond with a cutting edge as lame as it might appear. It is all I’ve got these days.
You should check out Steven Pastis’s pearls before swine site re: “Wise Ass on a Hill.â€
So Loggy don’t get me going on languages. I used the word malice in my previous post. Mal In Spanish (and the original Latin of course) means bad or something to that effect. Malaria…bad air…Well they had it right sort of course, even if mosquitoes were the vectors the jist of the whole thing was correct.
There is a lot of malaria going on in politics in the US these days….
OK so I was going to shut up (cierra la boca cabron!) but I needed to express this last thought for this evening. In Latin sin means “without†and that is the base for the Catholic word sin. One commits a sin, henceforth existing outside of the godly world. I have never done such as Tat is solely guilty of all of them. And hence absolves me of all of my withouts.
But there is a point I was trying to make here. There are cardinal sins (and I suppose Capital sins) in Catholicism. And in the Philippines a while back there was a literal Cardinal Sin. I’m sorry I cannot make this up so help me Bejezuzzs.
OK so I was going to shut up (cierra la boca cabron!) but I needed to express this last thought for this evening. In Latin sin means “without†and that is the base for the Catholic word sin. One commits a sin, henceforth existing outside of the godly world. I have never done such as Tat is solely guilty of all of them. And hence absolves me of all of my withouts.
But there is a point I was trying to make here. There are cardinal sins (and I suppose Capital sins) in Catholicism. And in the Philippines a while back there was a literal Cardinal Sin. I’m sorry I cannot make this up so help me Bejezuzzs.
I dont really speak Spanish but lived in South America for 2 years. I dont know the meaning of many idioms, but I picked that one up as it was frequently used when I was around??
We do have some good news today! AstraZeneca has a USDA EUA for it's long-acting Monoclonal Antibody Cocktail for prophylaxis in the immune-compromised, right down to 12 years old. This not for people who have active Covid infections. It's for those of us who can't mount an immune response to infection or vaccination, because of disease or immunosuppresive treatment. This is great news for folks who have been hiding in their sealed bubbles for fear they will catch it and die. One IM injection every six months.
We also have an expansion of the Eli Lilly Monoclonal Antibody Cocktail EUA that allows use right down to newborn. Which is great for babies born with active Covid infections, and also for kids with co-morbidities.
New paper out that studied hundreds of thousands of patient records: Vaccinated people who than get infected are 7-10 times less likely to have multiple Long Covid symptoms that the unvaccinated. They also found that people who get infected and then get a vaccine soon after are 4 times less likely to get Long Covid symptoms than people who don't get vaccinated. That last one is a weird thing nobody can explain! They just find that it works for a lot of people.
They also found that people who get infected and then get a vaccine soon after are 4 times less likely to get Long Covid symptoms than people who don't get vaccinated. That last one is a weird thing nobody can explain! They just find that it works for a lot of people.
So, if I hadn't been forced to wait from March 2020 until March 2021 to become fully vaccinated, I wouldn't be such a COVID long-haul zombie now? Great. 🙄
So here we are. It’s been Joe ‘the adults are back in the room’ Biden’s pandemic. And what’s changed to help us with, what looks to be the most transmissible disease of the century? Do they have defenses in depth set up? No, they don’t Do we have any early treatment protocols? Nope Did they shut down international travel? No Have they developed indoor air quality requirements to mitigate viral loads of an air borne disease? Naw. Have they politicized vaccine uptake? Oh yes, to the hilt.
Should the CDC be burned to the ground, metaphorically, and the earth salted? Absolutely!
I only see the corps in charge pushing a ‘vax’ at the expense of doing any competent public health.
I guess we’ll know in the next month how much the press and politico’s were complicit in selling the Hopium of Omicrom’s mildness. Another take would be how complicit our corporate politics have been to underplay what’s coming and salvage the retail holiday that’s upon us.
Hopefully, no one here will be hit with Omicron and need medical services. I hope this post is hyperbolic, when looked at in January. I guess we’ll know then if there’s been any adults in charge.
The doubling rate for Omicron appears to be 2-3 days. That is incredibly fast - 70% faster than Delta. It will be the dominant strain within the month. Let us hope that it proves to be less deadly, because the inoculation rater to reach herd immunity will be >95%. What's worse, is that the level of reinfection is so high.
"The new study from Discovery Health shows that two shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which provided more than 90% protection against the original virus, is only 33% protective against omicron infection.
Full vaccination continues to provide 70% protection against severe disease, which seemed to hold up across high-risk groups, though it declined somewhat in people over 60 and even more in those over 70. .... "Seventy percent is definitely a dropdown. It isn't great," he said. "It was 95% effective severe disease when it was delta variant and then about 85% after six months of waning," he said. ... Other research from Pfizer-BioNTech suggests that a third, booster dose can restore the original levels of protection at least for some period of time. .... People infected in South Africa's first wave early last year, have a 73% chance of reinfection, while those infected with the beta variant have a 60% chance of reinfection and those infected in its most recent delta wave face a 40% risk of reinfection with omicron, the new study showed.
Looking beyond the pharma press releases there’s the rate vs. scale being a kinda numerator with the material conditions of the health care bizness the denominator.
There’s been a lot of strike waves happening and the labor conditions line on the spread sheet has not been good.
As we’re all in on VaxVaxVax this focuses all the reaction to cases reaching hospitals. The availability and bed thruput will be a gulley washer and if services won’t be available all above mentioned numbers will have to be revised upwards. Maybe not..,
An anecdotal bit, my 81 year old retired mother of 40 yrs. nursing, has been getting offers of 6 month contracts at 5k/wk to join contract labor co’s hospitals are desperate to plug gaps with. Did I mention there’s been nursing staff strikes? Woulda been cheaper to give em higher wages maybe?
No prophylactic treatments, no depth of defense. All in on a non-sterilizing vaccine, not to mention some fat bottom lines.
We’re doing D with Z like everyone else, we’re on the cusp of the higher risk zone. I’m doing the providone nasel spray before and after entering public spaces. May gargle too.
What’s Fauci been telling everyone to do for depth of defense?
I think getting your Vitamin D levels up has been a pretty good prophylactic right from the beginning. MABs as theraputics have been around for a very long time, but they do tend to be extremely variant-specific. That's why the original "bam-bam" one from Regeneron was stopped soon after other variants appeared, and replaced by MAB "cocktails". They are generally a single (monoclonal) antibody against one specific part of the virus spike protein. There are three locations on the spike protein receptor binding site they can bind with, and Delta had changes in two of those. Omicron has changes in all three. That's why MABS tend to be much less effective as variants emerge. But if you get the right MAB for your variant, they work pretty well.
Still not as well as the mRNA vaccines. Keep in mind that we only have ONE sterilizing vaccine: HPV. Every other vaccine on Earth is not. They prevent serious illness and death, mostly. The fact that some SARS-COV2 vaccines do prevent almost all symptomatic disease before natural antibody contraction was just gravy. Nobody expected that. Remember, CDC said a 70% effective vaccine would be great. And that's 70% effective at preventing serious illness or death. Instead we got MUCH better vaccines by lucky accident. Antibody level contraction is exactly how the immune system works. It's not a "vaccine problem". It's a natural immune system function. Keeping high levels of circulating antibodies against everything you ever encounter would be lethal.
That's why we have memory T and B cells. Those are another layer of the immune system that remembers antigens, and quickly make new antibodies if they see it. Much quicker than the initial exposure. And they do that for years. People who recovered from SARS1 more than a decade ago still have memory T and B cells for it, and because of a natural evolution of antibody genes they respond to SARS-COV2 as well! The mRNA vaccines elicit a very good T and B cell response, and T cells use a much larger number of epitopes than antibodies, so they are much better at handling variants. Omicron infections in South Africa seem to be very mild, because most everybody already had Delta and their T-cells respond very well to Omicron. If you are triple-vaxxed, you get the same response.
I watched a YouTube video from Laura Walker the other day about making much broader MABs. They started with frozen serum sample from SARS1 patients, isolated antibodies, and ran the evolution in their lab. What they got was antibodies that work against SARS1, SARS-COV2, MERS, and any possible variant. And they are much much stronger than any of the current MABs. They are in clinical 2/3 trials right now. They also modified the antibody stem so it lasts about 6 months. Near the end of her talk, she also mentioned making vaccines against the invariant portion of these viruses that their antibody binds with. Those vaccines would work against every variant, and even against future corona virus spillovers.
I agree 100% with chunkstyle about labor shortages: It's an indictment against our economic system, because we are so far up conservative bungholes, employers can't understand that when people resist doing certain obnoxious jobs, you have to pay them more. That's a heretical concept after decades of wage stagnation. Long Beach port is jammed because no truck drivers? Nursing shortages? "Pay them more? Are you insane? If we pay nurses a living wage, we will have to raise our CEO compensation to a billion dollars a year!"
“ Keep in mind that we only have ONE sterilizing vaccine: HPV. Every other vaccine on Earth is notâ€
A vaccine that prevents significant infection and no transmission is one definition of sterilizing vaccine. Jenners smallpox fits that definition, no?
The best you can say about the mRNA COVID vaccines is they limit severity. They do not prevent infection or spreading of the virus. Hence the stupidity of the vaxvaxvax crowds with no attention to public health mitigation. Going all in on a market solution while ignoring public health options.
We’re not even sending out simple Corsi boxes to every school classroom for crying out loud. The laziness and greed of our politics to deal with the current reality seems only matched by the public’s appetite to swallow it.
I’d have to say, like everything else in murica, this pandemic has been dumped into the culture wars by both rightwing camps cuz markets. A pox on both their houses.
Drive safe, don’t take up risky hobbies. Medcorp may be booked up for some time.
“ a somewhat unexpected obstacle has emerged that deserves attention. Though Congress passed legislation mandating that Covid-19 vaccines be free at the point of use for all U.S. residents, around one-third of unvaccinated people cited fear of cost as a significant reason they’ve yet to get the jab. Even worse, it’s a barrier for people who seem to genuinely want it: a full 45 percent of those stipulating that they hope to get it “as soon as possible,†compared to only 19 percent of those resolutely opposed.â€
around one-third of unvaccinated people cited fear of cost as a significant reason they’ve yet to get the jab
Over 800,000 dead in the US, and they are too lazy to ask anybody where they can get a free vaccine? I don't think so. I think they have other reasons for not wanting to get it, and they use cost as an excuse. There are all sorts of people and institutions they could ask, and be directed to a free vaccine clinic. Hell, their local drug store is probably giving them out for free. But these folks are afraid to ask any drugstore employee? They have to buy food: Around here many supermarkets have pharmacies, and ANY employee of the market would direct you to them for a free vaccine.
I think it's a lot more likely they are afraid. Those "1 case of mild transitory cardiomyopathy per 3,5 million vaccinations" stories in the media have them terrified, even though your chances of getting hit by lightening are seven times higher. These are the folks that are so innumerate they are counting on the lottery for their retirement plan.
And yes, the mRNA vaccines are much more effective than almost any other vaccine ever made. That's not my opinion. It's that of professional virologists and immunologists.
So PIA and I chit you not. I was on my way somewhere this morning and I passed by the Lane County Fairground’s. At the fairgrounds they are administering Covid-19 vaccines daily. Come and get it for free. They had 2 yard signs in the front entrance that were right next to each other. One directing to COVID-19 vaccines and the other advertising the upcoming gun show.
They were touching each other.
I cannot make this stuff up. I wished I had taken a pic…but I didn’t.
BTW the vaccines they are administering (for free) are both mRNA vaccines. The Pfizer-Bio and the Moderna. Take your pick. I had the three Pfizer’s and my neighbor had two Pfizer’s and chased it with the Moderna. His thinking being the Moderna was slightly stronger, so to speak.
Do you have any opinions on the difference twixt the two?
For clarity the vaccines were administered over the recommended periods of time. I nor he did not take them all at once.
Dunno why YouTube vids don’t post for me. All I could do is link out.
The 'editor' method of posting videos doesn't work for me, either, but if I just paste the url directly it comes up as the actual vid in the post.
Your computer may be adding an extra space in-between the last character of the link and the beginning and the end of the code [ ] bar. Take those spaces out and the link will work.
Do you have any opinions on the difference twixt the two?
Moderna seems to perform a bit better, but that may actually be because they waited 4 weeks instead of 3. (My Moderna was 5 weeks because Texas froze and screwed up all the flights.) Immunologist agree: 16 weeks would have been better. But the vaccine makers were in a hurry, and lots of folks dying every day, so they made the interval short. Some immunologists consider them a three shot series, if you get a booster six months after the second one. The immune system creates germinal centers in the lymph nodes, where they evolve the antibody genes to make every possible antibody against all corona viruses (current or future!). That takes time to get going. If you wait the 16 weeks between vaccinations, it's all ready and the second exposure to antigen gives you a lot of antibodies and a lot of kinds of antibodies. So new variants can't escape them very much. Same thing for infection followed later by vaccination: Excellent immunity for people with working immune systems.
Booster brand probably makes little difference. But I would hold out for mRNA if I got J&J before. That rare thrombocytopenia side effect of J&J and AstraZeneca seems to be from the adenovirus they use to carry the spike RNA. mRNA has no adenovirus.
around one-third of unvaccinated people cited fear of cost as a significant reason they’ve yet to get the jab
Over 800,000 dead in the US, and they are too lazy to ask anybody where they can get a free vaccine? I don't think so. I think they have other reasons for not wanting to get it, and they use cost as an excuse. There are all sorts of people and institutions they could ask, and be directed to a free vaccine clinic. Hell, their local drug store is probably giving them out for free. But these folks are afraid to ask any drugstore employee? They have to buy food: Around here many supermarkets have pharmacies, and ANY employee of the market would direct you to them for a free vaccine.
I think it's a lot more likely they are afraid. Those "1 case of mild transitory cardiomyopathy per 3,5 million vaccinations" stories in the media have them terrified, even though your chances of getting hit by lightening are seven times higher. These are the folks that are so innumerate they are counting on the lottery for their retirement plan.
And yes, the mRNA vaccines are much more effective than almost any other vaccine ever made. That's not my opinion. It's that of professional virologists and immunologists.
Won’t comment on your condescension towards vaccine hesitancy. But how can you be taken serious with:
“ And yes, the mRNA vaccines are much more effective than almost any other vaccine ever made. That's not my opinion. It's that of professional virologists and immunologistsâ€
They leak. They allow the virus to be passed to others. They are non-sterilizing and can lead to selective pressure for immune escape. I’m not saying don’t be vaccinated or get boosted but your making some pretty broad claims.
I’d much prefer an early intervention using therapeutics on top of mitigation strategies with vaccines but YMMV.
The level of individual blame on institutional failure is truly off the charts but isn’t that the constant strategy here?
They leak. They allow the virus to be passed to others. They are non-sterilizing and can lead to selective pressure for immune escape. I’m not saying don’t be vaccinated or get boosted but your making some pretty broad claims.
I'm not. My claims are all based on what the professional virologists and immunologists on TWIV have said. Their information is all backed by real peer-reviewed and published papers from scientific journals. These people all have decades of experience each, PhDs in their fields, and regularly get research grants from US government agencies for their projects. They say that the HPV vaccine is the only one ever made that remains sterilizing, but it's only existed for 15 years so far, so they don't know if it will be that effective in the future. Every other vaccine is not. They all permit infection and transmission, but make the illness less severe and cut transmission compared to the non-vaccinated.
There is a lot of misinformation and false or exaggerated claims out on the internet, from totally unqualified people. Unfortunately, many of them are actually MDs who should know better.
If you have a hard time accepting that, here's a chart put out by the Provincial Health Authority of British Columbia:
"Seroconversion" means the patient made antibodies, but says nothing about natural antibody contraction. It also says nothing about the fact that people can make antibodies that don't block cell entry of a virus. An example is the entry for tetanus:
Quote
Tetanus: close to 100% (virtually all people immunized with full primary series achieve protective antitoxin levels)
But antibody contraction is why you have to get a booster every few years.
When’s the last time you got a small pox or measles booster PIA?
When’s the last time you heard about a small pox case?
I’m guessing your on you third booster of COVID ‘vaccine’ in less than as many years. Would you please provide a link to the idea that mRNA vaccines are the most effective vaccines the world has ever known cuz, brudder, this sure ain’t it. At least as far as a Rona virus is concerned. Useful? Yes. the data shows that plain enough.
There’s been very good reporting of disease spread from people who’ve been fully vacced up on mRNA COVID vaccines. Could be due to the difficulty of a fast mutating virus like COVID. Could also be a problem of the mRNA vaccine not being the end all your claiming it is (or repeating what others have claimed, as you say). Those reports were from countries with good sequencing/ contact tracing. I’m guessing those front line workers had a few phd’s in the mix too but that would be speculating.
I’ll always weigh more heavily the front line reports against claims of manufacturers as they are the ones dealing with real world conditions and results.
And so far, these world beating mRNA vaccines leak and there has been terrible information and instruction coming out of our public health institutions, or what passes for public health in this country these days. The numbers of deaths speak for themselves. The politics have helped with em as well.
‘ By fitting an immunological model to population-level vaccine effectiveness data, we estimate that neutralizing antibody titres for Omicron are reduced by 4.5-fold (95% CrI 3.1–7.1) compared to the Delta variant. This is predicted to result in a drop in vaccine efficacy against severe disease (hospitalisation) from 96.5% (95% CrI 96.1%–96.8%) against Delta to 80.1% (95% CrI 76.3%–83.2%) against Omicron for the Pfizer-BioNTech booster by 60 days post boost if NAT decay at the same rate following boosting as following the primary course, and from 97.6% (95% CrI 97.4%-97.9%) against Delta to 85.9% (95% CrI 83.1%-88.3%) against Omicron if NAT decay at half the rate observed after the primary course. Integrating this immunological model within a model of SARS-CoV-2 transmission, we show that booster doses will be critical to mitigate the impact of future Omicron waves in countries with high levels of circulating virus.
The money shot:
“In all scenarios it is likely that health systems will be stretched. It may be essential, therefore, to maintain and/or reintroduce [Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs)] to mitigate the worst impacts of the Omicron variant as it replaces the Delta variant.“
My guess is ‘na gunna happen’ in neoliberal land of the commodified returns on investment. Unless we reach a critical mass of palms getting greased, NPI’s are going to be discouraged and/or mocked by the political factions. More coming from Demcorp at the moment. We saw the disparaging for the prophylactic whose name will not be said but is turning in good results in other countries where it is being used effectively.
Has the CDC acknowledged Rona spreading thru aerosols of exhaled breath of the infected yet? Not droplets or fomites but mainly aerosols? I sure would hate to think that they’ve wasted all this time so far. I’d like to think they’ve come up with mitigation strategies for dealing with aerosol spread. Hard to imagine they would be going all in on a waning vaccine shot.
I hope the ‘Omicron is mild’ hopium the Pfizer funded media has been selling turns out to be true.
I'm not clear on your point. Are you taking on the evils of Capitalism? Does that have something to do with getting a handle on the pandemic using vaccines?
I'm no fan of corporate Capitalists, I hope that's been a clear message in my decade here.
I’m saying we have no mitigation strategies that might have proven useful beyond vaccines. I took it for granted that most all of the decisions surrounding the response to covid has been market driven. Is there another rational I’m not aware of? The rest has been just pushing back on the vax claims of effectiveness. I agree, there really is no point. Looking at Europe and UK for how it’s going to play out with Omicron.
When’s the last time you got a small pox or measles booster PIA? When’s the last time you heard about a small pox case?
I've never got a smallpox vaccination, and neither have you. Very few people EVER got smallpox vaccinations. Dr. Jenner's innovation was to immunize with cowpox, a related virus. Modern vaccinations were actually vaccinia virus. And that vaccination had an initial effectiveness of about 95%. Some vaccinated people DID still get smallpox. It prevented most serious illness and death, EXACTLY like the current Covid vaccinations.
As for measles, I probably have an unmeasurable level of circulating antibodies because antibody level contraction is how the immune system works. But I bet I have memory T and B-cells that remember how to make measles antibodies. Most media is fixated on antibody levels, which always contract. This is not a defect in the vaccinations. It's a normal immune system feature. Evolution has selected for it, because it has positive survival value. It's just a lot easier to measure IgG levels than to run any of the other tests that tell you about a patient's immunity. But that doesn't mean it's the right test. That level just tells you they have some sort of antibody floating around. It may not be effective in binding SARS-COV2. It may not even be against SARS-COV2 at all! They can run binding assays against SARS-COV2, but they are rarely done.
Just like PCR tests telling us somebody has a lot of viral RNA in their nose: It's not measuring live virus, just certain RNA fragments. That may be because a lot of the virus has been destroyed by the immune system, and all that RNA coming out is not contagious. But labs are set up to run PCR tests en masse. It's relatively cheap when you do a lot of them at once. They could run plaque assays for live virus, but no medical labs do because it would be too expensive.
The reason I say mRNA vaccines are better than currently licensed alternatives is because of the rare thrombocytopenia events from adenovirus vaccines like J&J and AstraZeneca. These are not from the immunizing material. They are from the human or chimp adenovirus that carries the spike RNA segment into the cells. There is a clotting protein that can bind to the adenoviruses they used, and can cause some very bad clots. These have actually killed some people, so until they fix those adenoviruses I would not recommend those vaccines when we have mRNA vaccines without that problem. BTW: Some other existing vaccines (IE. Sputnik and Ebola) use adenovirus carriers.
Want to actually learn about viruses and the immune system? Here's the best link ever: microbe.tv They have several blogs, but the ones you need are TWiV and TWiM. This Week in Virology and This Week in Immunology respectively. They have been around quite a while. TWiV is on episode 844 and TWiM is on episode 256. Each episode is one or two hours long. The host, Dr. Racaniello also is teaching a virology course on line. You can take it for free, but do start at the beginning.
We also DO have some non-vaccine drug therapies that work ( a lot better than hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, according to random blind clinical trials). Those are Remdesivir, Molnupiravir, and Paxlovid. The US government has actually supported the development and testing by buying or committing to buy millions of doses. Remdesivir works by jamming RNA replication. Molnupiravir works by making RNA replicating so full of errors the replicated strand can never work. Paxlovid works by binding to the viral protease, preventing it from cutting up a multi-protein amino acid strand into functional proteins the virus needs for replication.
I listed them in order of increasing effectiveness, but they only work when given early while viral replication can be blocked. Ideally, that would be right after exposure. Remdesivir has an EUA. I think Molnupiravir has been approved by the FDA, but doesn't have an EUA yet. Paxlovid is in the approval process.
We also have a whole bunch of Monoclonal Antibodies that have EUAs. They also need to be given very early to be effective, and have the disadvantage of being evaded by new variants. The problem is that these are short or very short term solutions. MABs work for about 3 months (assuming you don't catch another variant that they don't protect against), and the drugs just work for the time you take them. So vaccination is way more effective.
For what it’s worth I got the smallpox vaccine when I was a small kid. The old circular multi pricks into the skin. I still have the marks.
What do you make of the Robert Kennedy Junior’s book on the assumption that Dr .Fauci is the mega devil and it’s not working in the best interests of all of us?
So what should we do? Just sit back and collate all of this nonsense? There is a great war coming. I am trained in firearms and I know how to use them. But perhaps I might be getting a little soft. [censored] you
Ok PIA. I bow to your superior knowledge. You’ve put in the time and watched the correct PhD’s.
Mind you, I’ve had first hand experience getting PCR labs done, fighting chronic infection and going out of network to get competent medical treatments. It is a good way of getting a layman’s education in human immune response. Not recommended but it can accelerate your learning. I was also raised by a battle hardened RN with decades of public health experience but I admit, she didn’t have a PhD or publish papers.
I’m particularly sensitive to the long covid aspects of Delta and will be very interested in the treatment of the sufferers by Healthcorp. I’m hoping the unfortunate numbers of afflicted will not be consigned to an opiate treatment or some other non restorative but financial liability mitigating or remunerative protocols.
So it sounds like we should not have any problems with Omicron just as we didn’t have with Delta in regard to the mRNA vacs. That’s reassuring. Was that how it went with small pox?
I’ve been hearing Omicron has the transmissibility of measles. If the covid mRNA vaccines are, as you wrote, the most effective and they work exactly like smallpox or measles vaccines work, does that imply a similar level of immune response to covid as it did for smallpox or measles. Does the Covid vaccine have similar leakage rates for viral spread thru the vaccinated as do the other mentioned vaccines?
If the effectiveness wanes quickly and transmissibility is high, are you saying that’s exactly how smallpox or measles vaccination protocols played out as well? I thought you wrote that they work exactly the same. Feel free to correct any misinterpretations I’ve made of your descriptions.
Is that why Biden was saying you could stop wearing a mask after getting vacced? Was the rationale that, although there’s no such thing as a sterilizing vaccine, the rate of viral transmission is so low that wearing a mask is mute.
I can’t tell you the number of people I’ve met that think that, because they’re vaccinated, they won’t get infected.
That alone is indicative of a public health failure to me. I can’t imagine where they would have gotten such bad advice.
Long Covid is going to be a major drag on our productivity and health care spending for a long time, unless somebody comes up with a cure. But some aspects of it like ischemic damage to organs may be irreversible short of something like stem cell regrowth of the damaged organs. And even then, growing new kidney cells may be great, but regrowing your damaged brain will change who you are a bit, The very good news is doctors report very few Long Covid cases among the vaccinated who get reinfected. (A very good reason to get vaccinated.)
Corona viruses have been with us since we have existed. Some are adapted to other mammals, some to many mammals. The four that previously infected humans probably were just as lethal to begin with. What changed is not those viruses. It's our immune systems. We have coevolved to respond well to corona virus infections, even new spillovers from other animals and new antibody-resistant variants. SARS-COV2 kills mostly old people, and in the past centuries that did not matter since all those people would have already been dead from other illnesses. We now have antibiotics and vaccines that extend our lifespans beyond their "design parameters".
What will most likely happen is most people will gain enough T and B-cell immunity to be affected by Covid infection as a minor annoyance. Just like the common colds caused by the four other human corona viruses. Probably MERS as well.
As for "super transmission ability" claims for Omicron (and every earlier variant), I doubt them. Those are based on epidemiological data like spread rate, but a major factor in Rt is human behavior. If people decide they are tired of PPE and distancing, and get together in big indoor gatherings, Rt will shoot up. If they all did what they have been told about not spreading the virus. it would drop to zero. Transmissibility among the vaccinated has also been overstated because some studies equated PCR detection of RNA fragments with shedding of infectious virus. Later studies looked for live virus, and found much less for a much shorter period. So vaccination does cut transmission to about 2 days.
Vaccine effectiveness against infection contracts for almost everything (except HPV for some unknown reason), but vaccine effectiveness against serious illness and death does not assuming you have a functional immune system. The problem is that as you age, your immune system degrades. We also have quite a few individuals who are immunosuppressed for various medical reasons. No vaccine can give you antibodies if you have no B-cells. But that's not a death sentence: Even people with no B-cells and thus no antibodies have activated T-Cells from exposure to infection or vaccination.
It's not a public health failure to say you don't have to wear a mask if vaccinated, if the consequence is getting a Corona cold. You should, if you want to avoid that cold. That's why I do, and why I got a booster. I don't want that cold. The best evidence for this idea is all these unvaxxed people who are dying, and all the vaxxed people saying they just tested positive with few or no symptoms.
‘ We have coevolved to respond well to corona virus infections, even new spillovers from other animals and new antibody-resistant variants. SARS-COV2 kills mostly old people, and in the past centuries that did not matter since all those people would have already been dead from other illnesses. We now have antibiotics and vaccines that extend our lifespans beyond their "design parameters".
Strong eldercide or ‘life not worth living’ Greg Abbot vibe here. Not sure if that was your intent though. I might be misunderstanding your point.
‘ As for "super transmission ability" claims for Omicron (and every earlier variant), I doubt them. Those are based on epidemiological data like spread rate, but a major factor in Rt is human behavior. If people decide they are tired of PPE and distancing, and get together in big indoor gatherings, Rt will shoot up.’
A recent study from a country doing pretty good contact tracing. They seem to have controlled variables so you don’t have to go on your hunch:
‘ Vaccination reduces the risk of delta variant infection and accelerates viral clearance. Nonetheless, fully vaccinated individuals with breakthrough infections have peak viral load similar to unvaccinated cases and can efficiently transmit infection in household settings, including to fully vaccinated contacts. Host–virus interactions early in infection may shape the entire viral trajectory.’
Looking at the infection rates of SA, Denmark and the UK, I think I’ll go with the data here. Assuming behavior hadn’t changed much between the ongoing Delta spread and the emergent Omicron, the acceleration of infection cases would imply a much higher transmissibility of Omicron. I would think with all the heightened news of Omicron you would see behavior change towards a more defensive posture from the public, not less. Just guessing.
‘If they all did what they have been told about not spreading the virus. it would drop to zero.’
Overlooking the scolding authoritarian tone, you realize people can do as they’re told, still get infected, and wind up with serious perhaps lifelong health complications? People can’t control air quality of the buildings they work in. I don’t believe the CDC has a legitimate theory of viral transmission yet. As far as I know they have not copped to the primary path being aerosol spread. Accepting aerosol spread would lead to levels of safety in the workplace requirements (another form of public health..) and that’s going to be a financial cost on employers. Or it’s simply incompetence and gross negligence. Remember meat packers?
There’s vaccine hesitancy for a lot of structural reasons. I don’t see any effective strategy from our political class or the health institutions they oversee to address it. A botched job from the get go. Looks only to get worse. Wasn’t there violent protest thruout vaccine history? As far back as the smallpox vaccine? What excuse would you give for the shoddy performance of our political leadership a as nd the health departments to anticipate and overcome this historic occurrence?
I’m surprised you think it’s ok to have people be told they could ditch the mask if they get the jab, knowing what we know about transmissions from those vaccinated.
Long COVID risk no lower with breakthrough infections
Some interesting weasel words in that article, for example "In people over age 60 with breakthrough infections, vaccines protected against COVID-19 complications only weakly or not at all" Like I said, some elderly people have less effective immune systems. I'm just reporting something Dr. Griffon said on TWIV. He had a conference call with hundreds of doctors in his and other medical groups taking care over 100,000 patients. When he asked if anybody was seeing patients vaccinated before infection with Long Covid, nobody had. Other orders of infection and vaccination may not be so lucky.
And my statement about older people dying in times past is just a fact, not promoting eldercide. I'm elderly myself!
Your Lancet paper contains it's own limitation:
Quote
we did not perform viral culture here—which is a better proxy for infectiousness than RT-PCR
TWIV virologists believe what PCR is detecting in vaccinated people is mostly broken fragments of dead virus, incapable of causing infection. There are indeed many papers out there in respected journals that equate PCR CT values with live virus shedding. Shame on them! Science finds the truth eventually, and even then that is subject to refinement. "Household spread" is a very low bar: When you live with people, unmasked, and care for the sick without any PPE infection is inevitable, vaccinated or not. These people were getting massive exposures.
Quote
‘If they all did what they have been told about not spreading the virus. it would drop to zero.’
You are taking that out of context. I'm not being authoritarian. Just telling the truth. I'm not scolding anybody. Maybe I should have underlined "about not spreading the virus". A lot of different people tell us what to do. You get to choose who to listen to, CDC tells you to mask indoors in crowds. Your governor tells you mask mandates are illegal. Your boss tells you to come to the office where ventilation is minimal. But you could always tell him you either work from home or quit.
Aerosol transmission does occur, but it's rare. And almost always inside in poorly ventilated rooms, in close proximity to infected people. N95 masks will not protect you from that. All they do is prevent your exhaled droplets infecting other people mostly. Vaccines protect you mostly. Antivirals and MABs protect you somewhat if used correctly. Nothing is black and white. Anti-Covid measures are all statistical, not absolute. This is biology, not mechanical design.
I didn’t consider <60 a weasel word. Simply descriptive. In fact, I thought the preprint was very clear about the waning immunity with age. You may be referring to the linked article. A good reason to read the study that’s being reported on.
Agree about N95 masks. One wonders why there not being distributed free to every citizen like other countries have been doing.
Sorry to say but you lost me with aerosol transmission. Aerosol transmission is now widely understood as the main pathway for infection. Anyone living in the north thru winter knows what exhaled breath looks like in the cold. Waaay to much evidence to ignore by now. This debate between the old beards goes back to disease being caused by ‘miasma’ and the emerging field of microbiology. The surface contact goons seem to be ensconced in positions of authority still providing another massive public health failure. Unless you can provide solid evidence of super spreader events caused by surface contacts and/or fomites your missing some key information here.
Are you indicating your you tube channel haven’t understood aerosol transmission of this virus yet?
So the wife got off the phone today with one of our mutual friends. They both tested positive from covid. Guessing Delta though they haven’t been told what strain. According to what they were told, not being told what type of covid hasbeen policy. More likely they aren’t sequencing enough? Dunno. They figured it was from a club venue they went to in Buffalo. My radar went off as there cousin was over at my house last week, pulling some white pine off the property for a project he had coming up. The club venue was not allowing anybody in without proof of vaccination. They thought it would be safe to go and they’ve not been out in two years and hadn’t had a break from work and caring for their very physically handicapped daughter who needs round the clock attention.
So my first thought was ‘why the eff were they in a club in Buffalo?!’. But I know the why.
Second thought was ‘was their cousin with them? ‘
Wife texted and got the answer. Yes he was.
The project he was working on was for a Community Christmas celebration organized by the Rotary. He was a participating craftsman doing live demonstrations of his work, answering people’s questions, doing business.
Wife and I are taking care of both our elderly mothers during this pandemic. Shopping, scheduling, maintaining there homes and cars do they aren’t in harms way by exposure.
I’m not mad at my friends BTW. They thought they were doing everything correct. I believe we’re out of the time frame for symptoms to arrive. I wonder at that Community Christmas event last weekend. It was outdoors so there’s that. We’re in the hot zone of Omicron so we’ve gone back to isolating as much for our parents as for ourselves.
That mask off neoliberal presser with Walensky, Fauci and the other guy, (Neitze or something?) was amazing. A real ‘go F#CK yourself neoliberal moment. They haven’t failed. They can only be failed. Look at their positions and credentials. How could they. And boy did they let people know it.
Never addressing structural issues or institutional rot. The ‘othering’ is really gaining steam.
The event might have been outdoors, but I bet there were organizational group meetings indoors. So they may have thought they were being careful, but they weren't. It happens. Most people don't have a clue how to keep from spreading a virus. They do five things right, and completely miss the sixth. They probably assumed their friends at those meetings "were clean", and the general public at the event was "suspect". That's a very common assumption.
I know from personal experience: I spent some time doing experimental surgery and working in operating rooms in my youth, so I have very good training in maintenance of sterile technique. My wife is a Veterinarian, and her sterile technique has always been a bit haphazard. I think the difference in our training is because lawsuits for nosocomial infections of people are much more expensive and have more serious career repercussions, than such infections of pets. That difference continues to this day, decades later. I am much more careful, quarantining packages and mail, etc. She goes shopping at Costco and buys stuff we can't quarantine or wash.
Unlike existing vaccines, Walter Reed’s SpFN uses a soccer ball-shaped protein with 24 faces for its vaccine, which allows scientists to attach the spikes of multiple coronavirus strains on different faces of the protein
Not really necessary, since the original mRNA vaccines prevent serious illness and death very well, against Omicron as well as every variant so far. But it would be nice to have antibodies against each variant to prevent even a new variant "cold". The problem with this idea is, when they have to go through all the trials to get it approved, another variant will pop up that isn't on the "soccer ball". More fit variants spread very quickly, so their emergence will probably always beat any new vaccine version's trials and approval.
What does work is activated T-cells, that will attack any possible variant and keep the virus numbers down until the B-cells can start cranking out variant-specific antibodies. Anybody with two vaccinations or an infection followed by a vaccination, and a competent immune system, already has that capability.
There is also some work being done to make monoclonal antibodies against invariant portions of the virus, common across all variants. If that works well, somebody will make a vaccine that invokes those antibodies. That would be a universal vaccine against every variant and all future variants. SARS1 and MERS, too.
Here’s some nerd-splaining of the old beards debate on fomites vs. aerosol infection route and it’s relevance to the covids:
“ Such entrenched confusion between these concepts is the root of the neglect of the airborne route of infection in guidelines, despite the mounting casualties of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, similar to the recommendations from the late 1800s, guidance continues to be based largely on empirically observed infection mainly among close contacts, rather than a mechanistic understanding of where, how long and in which environments pathogen-laden droplets can remain airborne and infectious.â€
Chalk it up to overspecialization or turf ware fare, mebbe?
Last I looked, we lopped off the average lifespan of the U.S. by a year or two. Let’s hope the latest wiz bang shot comes into being soon and can be distributed thru a creaky and uneven distribution system in time to make up for a lousy job of public health mitigation strategies and an incompetent politics.
The smart set are using CO2 meters to assess a rooms condition indirectly in order to make the decisions if wether it’s worth entering or not, if it can be avoided. Those millions stuck in buildings with low air refresh rates don’t really have a choice. Viral payload is thought to effect severity, IIRC.
Again, I don’t believe the CDC has a scientific based theory of disease spread. Another public health failure, IMO.
In the last two days, we have both Molnupiravir and Paxlovid approved with EUAs. Their use IS restricted, but fairly sensible. Instead of saying they are only to be used for very sick people (when they would be useless) the FDA has said they should be used for patients who are at high risk for serious disease or death. That would mean mostly the unvaxxed with comorbidities, but vaccinated elders with comorbidities should be able to get them too. They do have to be given as early as possible after exposure, preferably before the patient's oxygen saturation begins to drop. (But I doubt any anti-vaxxers will seek treatment soon enough for these drugs to be used.)
Interesting they approved them so close together. I've heard we could see resistance to antivirals within a few months. This why two or more drugs should be used together: If a virus develops resistance to one of the drugs, the other drug kills it. IE. if resistance develops in 1 out of thousand uses, then resistance to both should be 1 out of a million. Fortunately, these two drugs have completely different modes of operation, so they could be used together. Remdesivir actually has yet another mode, so all three could be used together if necessary. And Paxlovid will always be given with ritonavir, another antiviral drug.
But anybody getting them would be vaxxed as soon as they began treatment, so they would have some protection when the drugs stop. Otherwise they could get infected very quickly, like in days. Or maybe they could get an appropriate MAB, so they would have a few months of protection before needing vaccination.
Getting vaccinated and getting your Vitamin D level up is far far cheaper, and more effective a solution in the long run.
It turns out that even mild cases like many vaxxed peeps are getting affects every organ in the body. (When I got boosted on November 1st, the next day, every organ in my midsection hurt front and back and sides) This is why some people are "long haulers" and some get "brain fog" because the virus crossed the blood-brain barrier.
I just hope this virus gets contained soon and we can go about our normal lives. This March 2022 will be the third COVID March.
...[when] the variant was first identified last month, epidemiologists cautioned to be careful about attributing rapid case growth to either immune evasion or increased transmissibility, in part because, especially before detailed data emerged, the two effects could produce basically the same picture at the population level. But while an early consensus formed that the variant was inarguably more transmissible than Delta, a few newer data points suggest, at least, a more complicated picture. In Denmark, it appears not only that previous infection or vaccination offers less protection against infection with Omicron, but that the new variant is in fact spreading faster among those considered “safe†than those we reflexively consider “vulnerable.†And according to a report published Tuesday by the U.K.’s Office for National Statistics, “Those who have received three doses of a vaccine and test positive for COVID-19 are more likely to be infected with infections compatible with the Omicron variant compared with those who are unvaccinated."
...
...the variant was first identified last month, epidemiologists cautioned to be careful about attributing rapid case growth to either immune evasion or increased transmissibility, in part because, especially before detailed data emerged, the two effects could produce basically the same picture at the population level. But while an early consensus formed that the variant was inarguably more transmissible than Delta, a few newer data points suggest, at least, a more complicated picture. In Denmark, it appears not only that previous infection or vaccination offers less protection against infection with Omicron, but that the new variant is in fact spreading faster among those considered “safe†than those we reflexively consider “vulnerable.†And according to a report published Tuesday by the U.K.’s Office for National Statistics, “Those who have received three doses of a vaccine and test positive for COVID-19 are more likely to be infected with infections compatible with the Omicron variant compared with those who are unvaccinated.â€
That Bloomberg article says they found viral RNA in brains, not whole culturable virus. This is the problem with a lot of these articles about Delta and Omicron. They are measuring RNA fragments that could circulate in the blood after the immune system has deactivated the virus. Just like the studies that said people shed virus more or longer, when all they are doing is finding RNA fragments by PCR. Yes, those RNA fragments could hang around a long time in the body, especially if the person is dead and their body is chilled. There are tests that show the presence of competent virus, but they are more difficult and expensive. For example, to run one of the tests, you need a live culture of a human cell line or Green Monkey cell line, to see if your sample can infect those cells. Not a test a normal clinical lab could run.
The immune system does not react against RNA, be it human or viral, it reacts against proteins made according to the RNA. (Hopefully, it does not react against your own proteins or you get an autoimmune disease.) Vaccines or an infection introduce viral proteins (like spike) that elicit an immune response. Your immune system makes anti-spike antibodies or a lot of other antibodies from an infection. But it also does a bunch of other things, like make cytokines, activate killer T-cells, etc. Some of those kill infected cells, so they are fairly toxic. Continuing production of such things probably contributes to Long Covid. Simple anoxia can actually cause brain damage. That's why drowning victims and people on ventilators are often never quite the same. Anoxia is a common Covid symptom.
You have to parse statements from government and media very carefully. For example:
Quote
“Those who have received three doses of a vaccine and test positive for COVID-19 are more likely to be infected with infections compatible with the Omicron variant compared with those who are unvaccinated.â€
Sounds like big bad Omicron is seeking out the vaccinated. But it doesn't mention that those vaccinated people who get infected are a tiny fraction of people who get infected. Or that triple-vaccinated people may be less careful than the unvaccinated. Or that infections among triple-vaxxed people are generally mild or asymptomatic, no matter what variant. While infections among the unvaxxed are more severe, no matter what variant.
It's really difficult to get any reliable data from infection counts, because human behavior is so unpredictable. It's not like we can lock people up in isolation, and give them uniform virus exposures.
...[or] that infections among triple-vaxxed people are generally mild or asymptomatic, no matter what variant. While infections among the unvaxxed are more severe, no matter what variant.
The Intercept article that I linked to suggests the the unvaxxed are not getting Omicron at all and the Omicron hospitalizations are all vaxxed and booted folks.
I guess it did a pretty good job of misleading you then. Anybody exposed to enough Omicron is getting infected. Almost all triple-vaxxed folks may not even notice or just think it's a cold, because vaccination works. Pfizer even came out with a study the other day that said their vaccine works against Omicron. People who were infected a while back and then vaccinated are in great shape immunity-wise. They typically have broad immunity that protects them from any variant. People who were infected and never got vaccinated are a mixed bag: Some get pretty good long term immunity, and some don't. People who have never been infected or vaccinated are at high risk. They WILL get infected unless they are living in a sealed isolation chamber with sterilized air, food, and water being supplied. There is no actual evidence Omicron is any less virulent that any other variant. There also is no evidence it is any more transmissible than any other variant! There IS evidence a lot more people have gotten tired of taking precautions, so they spread it a lot. As a result, there is evidence there is a lot of virus everywhere.
Highly immune populations like the UK (a lot vaxxed, and most of the rest infected) give you strange data when you look at just hospitalized or deaths. Those deaths or ICU patients tend to be ones with very weak immune systems, like old folks.
...[or] that infections among triple-vaxxed people are generally mild or asymptomatic, no matter what variant. While infections among the unvaxxed are more severe, no matter what variant.
The Intercept article that I linked to suggests the the unvaxxed are not getting Omicron at all and the Omicron hospitalizations are all vaxxed and booted folks.
Said it before and I’ll say it again, I’ll always take the observations of front line workers over the arm chair quarterbacks or research academics. Front line workers deal with the real world results of policies or lack of em. Our currrnt reality, IMO.
Otherwise your liable to go down odd paths of speculation, untethered from the real world and say things like:
“ As for "super transmission ability" claims for Omicron (and every earlier variant), I doubt them. Those are based on epidemiological data like spread rate, but a major factor in Rt is human behavior. If people decide they are tired of PPE and distancing, and get together in big indoor gatherings, Rt will shoot up. If they all did what they have been told about not spreading the virus. it would drop to zero. Transmissibility among the vaccinated has also been overstated because some studies equated PCR detection of RNA fragments with shedding of infectious virus. Later studies looked for live virus, and found much less for a much shorter period. So vaccination does cut transmission to about 2 days. â€
My prediction for the New Years is this quote is going to age like raw fish left on the counter.
As one of my sources, Dr. Daniel Griffon says: "Multiple anecdotes are not data." Reporters like anecdotes because they can be attributed to individuals their readers can relate to. Dr. Griffon personally takes care of Covid patients. He is also in touch with hundreds of other doctors who take care of Covid patients. (He is currently accepting new patients in New York!) So he is in an excellent position to collect anecdotes. Much more so than any average nurse or doctor who is much less connected. But he also has a PhD and understands the difference between reporting anecdotes and real data from real research, with real peer-reviewed papers, published in real scientific journals.
If you want to learn some real stuff about Covid, again I would urge you to watch TWIV on YouTube, The virologists and immunologists on it have many decades of experience, they feel free to call BS on untrue or misleading media reports, and even on physicians who have no experience with either of their life-long specialties making such misleading or untrue statements. They will point out the many times their ideas have been taken up months (or years) later by authorities like the CDC.
I have just a BS in Biology, worked in medical research for 11 years, and have my name on a single journal paper. So I would not presume to present any of my original ideas as anything but an amateur hypothesis. All that stuff in my "raw fish" paragraph you quoted is from those virologists, immunologists, and Dr, Griffin.
All that credential flexing gets easily dismissed with:
“ Aerosol transmission does occur, but it's rare.â€
Again, no public health mitigation strategies ( I admit you need a functioning health system for that. A flaw in my criticism) besides vaxvaxvax and othering those outside the boundaries of acceptable thinking.
I think we do have some public health strategies, but for every sensible suggestion like mask mandates in schools their are people willing to fight them all the way to the Supreme Court. What is Biden supposed to do when opposed by the Trumper death cult? Round them up and put them in concentration camps? Vaccination is by far the best public tool we have, and 1/3 of the country refuses to comply out of sheer oppositional disorder.
Aerosol transmission is indeed rare. So is fomite transmission. It would be pretty useless to spend a lot of money and time on those, when droplet transmission is overwhelmingly common, and can be cut significantly by people wearing masks and getting vaccinated. Classic public health contact tracing does not work well with this virus because most transmission takes place before the spreader has any symptoms (if they ever HAVE any symptoms). "Put on a mask when you feel sick." does not help much. By then they have already spread it to people, who have already started to spread it to even more people. And the spread is not at all uniform: Researchers have found that 80% of the spread is from 20% of those infected, so contact tracers will spend 4/5 of their time tracking people who are not producing infectious levels of virus. And miss the huge number of cases of asymptomatic spread.
Things like the tracer ap in the UK are nice, but most of those actually getting seriously ill don't have smart phones. I don't. Should we issue all of them smart phones? Should we issue all of them GPS location trackers for a government contact database? Good luck getting that through Congress and the Courts! But just look at how that has worked in the UK, and you will realize that it's just theater.
You can’t have a public health mitigation strategy without a scientific theory of disease spread. We don’t have one yet.
You continue in the old beards debate with ‘droplets’. You must live in the warmer winter region and not able to visualize aerosols pumped out of our lungs having transmissibility for a respitory infection. Or read the mountains of evidence.
The vaccines you claim are the most effective? The ones pushed thru with ‘Operation Warp Speed’ by the bad orange man? The program that was politicized by Libs pushing doubt and fear over it and then, after they won elections, proceeded to demand everyone take it or risk getting fired?
Is that your idea of public health mitigation strategy?
Both rightwing parties have been bad faith actors in this and most everything else related to public goods and services. Hell, most rightwing liberals can’t conceive why people would hesitate to use any health care system that is brutal in its costs.
But here we are. Two years in, over 800k dead. The rightwing geriatrics running the government continue to politicize a public health disaster at their peril. We’re sending kids back to school while the pediatric admissions climb and omicron is surging but how’s it go? Don’t let the poifect get in the way of getting the goods? Or something like it?
Isolate, blame and shame. That’s all they got for us. That’s all they know.
A fairly straightforward open letter appearing in the BMJ from over a hundred public health professionals, scientists etc outlining the current problem with ongoing covid strategies and a list of 5 recommendations.
It’s first recommendation:
“ Unequivocally declare SARS-CoV-2 an airborne pathogen and stress the implications for preventing transmission.18 A clear message from the World Health Organisation will help to remove confusion that has been used to justify outdated policiesâ€
Well, there are some good ideas in their statement, that are already being done. But there are some idiotic things in there as well.
Everybody should be told to wear N95 or similar masks. Of course about a third of the US population thinks this is unacceptable as a violation of their freedom. So any idea how to get them to wear them?
It is time to go beyond opening windows and aim for a paradigm shift to ensure all public buildings are optimally designed, built, adapted, and utilised to maximise clean air for occupants—strategies which have been shown to reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission. Building design and construction? Those take quite a long time. NOT a useful strategy for cutting transmission, when you can just put some big fans in all the windows within a few days.
Better contact tracing? I already explained exactly why contact tracing can't work with SARS-COV2 unless you lock everybody in the world up. And then everybody would starve to death. It's a characteristic of the virus that you get lots of asymptomatic cases who can still spread it. Contact tracing is miserable with this virus. Not because tracers don't try, but because they miss 90% of the infections.
Their "solution" is that if we had lower infection rates, it would be easier to deal with: DUH
BTW, did you know Peter Hotez's group at Baylor has just got an Indian EUA for a patent-free protein-based vaccine, and hooked up with an big Indian drug maker to mass produce it. It promises to be even cheaper than the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine to make. Their strategy is to transfer the technology to anybody who can make it.
Everybody should be told to wear N95 or similar masks. Of course about a third of the US population thinks this is unacceptable as a violation of their freedom. So any idea how to get them to wear them?
Maybe start by telling them to wear an N95 mask. NOT by telling them masks aren’t needed, probably does more harm than good, then reverse yourself and saying you had to lie cuz people are children. Last I looked the CDC is still telling people to wear any mask but N95.
Better contact tracing? I already explained exactly why contact tracing can't work with SARS-COV2 unless you lock everybody in the world up. And then everybody would starve to death. It's a characteristic of the virus that you get lots of asymptomatic cases who can still spread it. Contact tracing is miserable with this virus. Not because tracers don't try, but because they miss 90% of the infections
I don’t think you understand the purpose of contact tracing being utilized with a robust public mitigation strategy. Also, how weird to say that it’s an either or proposition? Letting er rip or locking everyone up to starve..
It is time to go beyond opening windows and aim for a paradigm shift to ensure all public buildings are optimally designed, built, adapted, and utilised to maximise clean air for occupants—strategies which have been shown to reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission. Building design and construction? Those take quite a long time. NOT a useful strategy for cutting transmission, when you can just put some big fans in all the windows within a few days.
Uhhhh… you get out much? How many commercial buildings do you see with sash windows? But there’s the rub. It would cost money. Yes, we can provide obscene amounts for the necessities of killing and incarceration, not so much for prevention and mitigation. In the meantime, can we get a simple Corsi box in a class room? By the way, shouldn’t you be arguing that it wouldn’t matter cuz droplets and surfaces?
Yeah, I’ve been following the Texas children’s hospital’s progress. I’m surprised/not surprised the government is caving to pharma’s insistence on profits from patents instead of an all out effort of global suppression/elimination. Have you seen the Cuban governments accomplishments? Not bad, considering they’re under an economic blockade. A good example of what can be done when corrupt lazy flop artists aren’t in control of government and theirs commitments to public goods and services.
You also seem to have a fixation on aerosol virus and N95 masks, as if wearing an N95 would protect you from aerosols. They won't. Aerosol virus goes right through N95 masks. This is why researchers experimenting on competent SARS-COV2 virus have to work in BSL-4 labs. The ones where they have to wear pressurized plastic suits and helmets with an external air supply. Masks block your droplets from escaping and infecting others. They do a pretty good job of that. Not perfect, like most reasonable public health measures, but pretty good.
The US already is "vaccination+". It makes sense to stress the things that make the biggest differences, and the things we can do easily. Yes, there have been some major screw-ups. But most of those were from Trump fighting public health messages coming from the CDC. Sometimes those messages have changed as new data emerges, but that's how science and medicine work. Yes, it would be much nicer and a lot cheaper if we all had single-payer, but the government's response all along has been mostly single-payer! Including the approved vaccines, approved MABs, and approved anti-viral drugs.
The biggest impediment has been politicians: Fighting vaccination mandates. Promoting anti-vax and anti-mask claims for political gain. Promoting "snake-oil" cures. And as a result, one third of the US population sees all efforts to stop the spread of the virus as some sort of Liberal plot to curtail their freedom. Nothing in that open letter addresses this elephant in the room.
Aerosols are the main route of infection. That’s not obsessing, it’s simply stating reality. Again, public health mitigation requires a scientific based theory of disease spread. That’s not me talking but the pros in the field. It does make sense to me as I operate in a world of the 6 P’s. ‘Proper planning prevents piss poor performance.
But don’t take my word for it. Here’s a round robin critique from a recent Politico piece. A sample:
“Rapid tests can stop public super-spreading by keeping very infectious people home. Better indoor air quality and ventilation/air filtration measures can pull infectious aerosols out of the air regardless of what variant they are carrying. And high-filtration masks can stop people who are contagious from exhaling as much virus in the air and prevent uninfected people from inhaling that virus-laden aerosol, regardless of variant.
“It feels like we are caught unprepared again. The CDC still won’t address why respirators aren’t being recommended or provided to the public despite a 2008 mask model by 3M that was meant exactly for a pandemic virus emergency. (I wear a relative of that model daily, and it’s very comfortable.) By putting most eggs in the vaccine basket, we are where we are again.†— Abraar Karan, infectious disease fellow at Stanford University“
Biden’s covid numbers are no better than Trumps. One can make the argument that Trump was more proactive and managed the crises better, in spite of himself, than Biden. It truly reveals the incompetence and fecklessness of the PMC political party.
You still feel confident with this one:
“As for "super transmission ability" claims for Omicron (and every earlier variant), I doubt them.â€
If aerosols were the main route of infection, then countries where everybody wears masks would not have lower infection rates. Because aerosols go right through even N95 masks completely unimpeded. Contact tracers analyzed 75,000 cases of transmission in China, and found zero cases where aerosol transmission occurred. I've read papers where they talk about finding viral RNA floating in the air of hospital rooms, or rooms where workers remove PPE, but they found zero cultural virus! You have to be careful reading such papers because being outside of a droplet and exposed to air denatures competent viruses into RNA fragments that are detected by PCR, but are not infectious. PCR is a lot easier than culturing viruses and running plaque assays, but quite often is not the right assay for what they are investigating.
Certainly aerosol transmission does occur, when superspreaders are inside with poor ventilation and in crowds without masks. I remember one paper talking about an indoor wedding reception where everybody at tables adjacent to a spreader got infected, hardly anybody two tables away, and nobody at the other tables. They were all in there talking, dancing, eating, etc. for hours and if aerosol transmission was significant, more people far away from that spreader would have gotten infected. But the infected were within droplet range.
Quote
Biden’s covid numbers are no better than Trumps. One can make the argument that Trump was more proactive and managed the crises better, in spite of himself, than Biden.
Yes, if one completely ignored exponential spread, the politicization of anti-vax and anti-mask efforts, governors proclaiming public health efforts illegal, people deciding they are tired of being careful, etc. But one would have to be a troll to do that. The one good thing Trump did regarding SARS-COV2 was to see that vaccine development had enough money to remove the risk of doing all required steps in parallel, and that resulted in the vaccines you seem to despise.
Let's apply a little common sense. The vast majority of COVID-19 infections come by way of droplets. How do we know this? "Small aerosols are more susceptible to be inhaled deep into the lung, which causes infection in the alveolar tissues of the lower respiratory tract, while large droplets are trapped in the upper airways (Thomas, 2013). For easy apprehension, aerosols can be defined as suspensions of solid or liquid particles in the air, which can be generated by either natural or anthropogenic phenomena (Judson and Munster, 2019; Tellier, 2009)." Transmission of COVID-19 virus by droplets and aerosols: A critical review on the unresolved dichotomy (ncbi)
"Respiratory particles may often be distinguished to be droplets or aerosols based on the particle size and specifically in terms of the aerodynamic diameter (Hinds, 1999). One could dispute that, unlike larger droplets, aerosols may pose a greater risk of the spread of the COVID-19 disease among many susceptible hosts positioned far from the point of origin. Nevertheless, it has been proven that viral disease outbreaks via aerosol transmission are not as severe as one would think, because of dilution and inactivation of viruses that linger for extended periods in the air (Shiu et al., 2019)."
Since most SARS-CoV-2 infections occur in the upper airways, droplets are the primary culprit. Omicron may be more amenable to airborne transmission, which may be why it is more transmissible, but it could also be because it replicates so much faster.
Masks, especially KN/N95s, reduce all transmission - droplets and aerosols. The better the fit and the better the material, the more reduction. The 95 addresses particles of .3 microns or larger. Aerosols don't become aerosols until their host material evaporates, so if they're trapped before that, they don't aerosolize.
We can have a symantic debate all day between droplets vs aerosol. How about we agree that Covid is airborne and air quality is a major factor for its spread
If you can wrap your head around that, you have public health policy implications. I see very little here other than vaxvaxvax and a few drugs to help with the infection. Not so much for mitigating the chance of infection, My suspicion is not enough profit in that direction.
I know, "profit" is a dirty word. But the people promoting public health policies have very little connection with vaccine makers profits. I think vaxvaxvax because vaccination is the most successful thing we have. In the last two years, people have spent all of maybe 6 hours to get vaccinated two or three times, and it keeps almost all of them from getting seriously ill, from dying, or from getting Long Covid. Nothing else takes less time and is so successful, by far. On the other hand, people get tired of isolating after several thousand hours. They get tired of wearing masks every time they are out of the house, some for hours a day being essential workers. They get tired of staying six feet apart. They get tired of never getting together with family. So they take calculated risks, and sometimes that doesn't work out the way they wanted.
People who are vaccinated can't get tired of that protection and take a risk to do without it. Antibody levels contract naturally, but T and B-cell memory remains.
As for the aerosol vrs droplet question: If smaller aerosol particles travel deep into the lungs, and aerosol is the major route of SARS-COV2 infection, then why are so many infections asymptomatic or occurring in the nose? Simple: Most infections are through droplets, that primarily stop in your nose. Deep lung infections are present in about 1% of SARS-COV2 infections.
Dr. John Campbell says about 15% of the population of the UK now has Covid-19. In the US we have over 1 million active cases. He also showed a graph the other day estimating Rt (the current spread rate) at around 2.
Based on these numbers, I can make certain predictions: (Cassandra time)
1) The UK is within a week or two of every immunologically naive person being infected. The doubling time has to be around five days, so within a week, 15% becomes 30%. After another week, that becomes 60%. Before that happens everybody gets immunity (or goes on to die), through either vaccination or infection.
2) The US currently has 1 million infected. We have somewhere under 100 million naive. Assuming a five day doubling period, it goes 2 million, 4 million, 8 million, 16 million, 32 million, and then 64 million. So within 30 days everybody is immune, through vaccination or infection. Unfortunately, about a million more people die, mostly the unvaccinated. We have a very limited supply of MABs and anti-viral drugs, so those are not going to make any meaningful dent in that number.
Even at 1 million some hospitals are on the verge of collapse. Scripps Hospital in North San Diego County says they have over 700 staff members out with positive tests. I think they are going to have to change their policy, and let positive asymptomatic staff members attend patients who are already positive for Covid. They have tents setup outside their ER, but they will run out of space soon.
The next month is going to be a very dangerous time for the unvaccinated who never were infected. Hospitals are going to be unable to help them, so the death rate might actually be higher. Anybody with a heart attack, broken leg, gall bladder inflammation, appendicitis, etc. is going to be SOL. Anybody unvaccinated, limited protection begins on day 11 after the first vaccination, so you can still do something. For those of us vaccinated, it won't be particularly bad. Just very very sad.
Caveat: My predictions are my own, nobody else's. If we have less than 2 million cases by 1/10/22, then I'm wrong.
The next month is going to be a very dangerous time for the unvaccinated who never were infected. .... Caveat: My predictions are my own, nobody else's. If we have less than 2 million cases by 1/10/22, then I'm wrong.
Excellent post. I'm afraid you're going to be very right.
One thing that constantly astounds me is how scientifically unsophisticated so many people are. Some of these concepts are pretty straightforward. Unvaccinated people are at severe risk, and we have a huge unvaccinated population - nearly 100 million people. The entire populations of many of the comparitor countries - Israel, South Africa, even the UK - are smaller than our vaccine resistant population, much less the anti-maskers. Florida has as many new cases this week as the entire US has averaged each day.
"An average of more than 550,000 Americans are testing positive for COVID every day. About 10% of them are in Florida, where the average number of new cases is higher than it has been since the coronavirus pandemic began.
Hospitalizations in Florida remain well below their highs during the Delta variant surge. But hospitalizations are rising fast: 340% higher in the last two weeks, according to the Florida Hospital Association." (CBS, today)
I know, "profit" is a dirty word. But the people promoting public health policies have very little connection with vaccine makers profits. I think vaxvaxvax because vaccination is the most successful thing we have. In the last two years, people have spent all of maybe 6 hours to get vaccinated two or three times, and it keeps almost all of them from getting seriously ill, from dying, or from getting Long Covid. Nothing else takes less time and is so successful, by far. On the other hand, people get tired of isolating after several thousand hours. They get tired of wearing masks every time they are out of the house, some for hours a day being essential workers. They get tired of staying six feet apart. They get tired of never getting together with family. So they take calculated risks, and sometimes that doesn't work out the way they wanted.
People who are vaccinated can't get tired of that protection and take a risk to do without it. Antibody levels contract naturally, but T and B-cell memory remains.
As for the aerosol vrs droplet question: If smaller aerosol particles travel deep into the lungs, and aerosol is the major route of SARS-COV2 infection, then why are so many infections asymptomatic or occurring in the nose? Simple: Most infections are through droplets, that primarily stop in your nose. Deep lung infections are present in about 1% of SARS-COV2 infections.
Well, first off, the administration did reverse itself from vax plus to vax only. I know it’s memory holed by most upper classes butBiden ran on bringing the pnandemic under control with vaccines, NPI’s and robust testing/tracing. I’m trying to think of anything he hasn’t gone back on since being elected that he ran on. A good roundup of the evolution of The Biden admin:
“ How did we get in a situation where a Democratic president — who ran, in part, against Trump’s horrid pandemic response — is letting the virus rip? How did we get to a point where a key organizer of the Great Barrington Declaration, a right-wing libertarian campaign opposed to public health measures, has stated that Republican and Democratic states alike have adopted policies in line with their philosophy? As hospitals fill up around the country, why are political leaders doing nothing to at least try to ‘flatten the curve’?â€
As far as there being no profit connection between pharma, government and regulatory agencies-GTFOH!
40 years of opiates unleashed on the American public has trashed any thinking on the integrity or morals of institutions that helped facilitate that addiction epidemic. But it was good times for the investor classes in much the same way as it was good times for the east India Co. shareholders during the subjugation and addiction transformation of the Chinese in the late 1800’s.
Hows the stock doing for companies doing the vaccines?
Here’s one answer:
“ While the process of science and the products it yields are noble, science for outrageous profit that costs people their lives is not noble. That is why I can no longer in good conscience be part of Moderna’s trials, and I urge other Moderna trial participants to resign as well. We allowed Moderna to test its experimental vaccine and booster on us in order to help end this pandemic, not to make more pharma billionaires.â€
Breaking it down in simple terms for you: Production of ruling classes produces ruling class ideas which, in turn, produce ruling class policies. We’re a rightwing capitalist society. All policies are in support of that. The two iron answers from neoliberalism are:
1. Cuz markets! 2. Go die!
Soooo. Fluid mechanics are the primary function of where a pathogens point of entry is determined? The virus has no agency in the process and the upper and lower respiratory tracks are the same base line with regard to immune defense? There’s no fit for purpose with the virus’ infection pathology? By that questionable reasoning any plane that hits a mountain has a flight path determined by its impact elevation. If it hits high, it’s flight path duration was always high. If it hits lie, it’s flight path was always low. Ok. It’s a rational I suppose. Still…Omicron seems to be taking up residence in the bronchial airways. If I apply your fluid mechanics, infection site rational, why is it locating there and not moving into the deeper lung tissues?
You also can’t square the circle with well documented super spreading events with droplet theory. The same way you can’t argue the current policies of the administration have done anything to control the virus spread with their vax only policies.
Frankly, the intransigence of the PMC class in its inability to understand reality was well described in this Bourdieusian analysis in their failure to form a coherent strategy towards mitigation. Very similar in the PMC classes politics, it’s about being in charge and having good intentions not about getting results or understanding anything beyond their realm of influence:
“.. with medical scientific orthodoxy which promoted the droplet theory of transmission and considered aerosol transmission unproven or of doubtful relevance. This dominant scientific sub-field centred around the clinical discipline of infectious disease control, in which leading actors were hospital clinicians aligned with the evidence-based medicine movement. Aerosol scientists—typically, chemists, and engineers—representing the heterodoxy were systematically excluded from key decision-making networks and committees. Dominant discourses defined these scientists’ ideas and methodologies as weak, their empirical findings as untrustworthy or insignificant, and their contributions to debate as unhelpful.â€
Dr. John Campbell says about 15% of the population of the UK now has Covid-19. In the US we have over 1 million active cases. He also showed a graph the other day estimating Rt (the current spread rate) at around 2.
Based on these numbers, I can make certain predictions: (Cassandra time)
1) The UK is within a week or two of every immunologically naive person being infected. The doubling time has to be around five days, so within a week, 15% becomes 30%. After another week, that becomes 60%. Before that happens everybody gets immunity (or goes on to die), through either vaccination or infection.
2) The US currently has 1 million infected. We have somewhere under 100 million naive. Assuming a five day doubling period, it goes 2 million, 4 million, 8 million, 16 million, 32 million, and then 64 million. So within 30 days everybody is immune, through vaccination or infection. Unfortunately, about a million more people die, mostly the unvaccinated. We have a very limited supply of MABs and anti-viral drugs, so those are not going to make any meaningful dent in that number.
Even at 1 million some hospitals are on the verge of collapse. Scripps Hospital in North San Diego County says they have over 700 staff members out with positive tests. I think they are going to have to change their policy, and let positive asymptomatic staff members attend patients who are already positive for Covid. They have tents setup outside their ER, but they will run out of space soon.
The next month is going to be a very dangerous time for the unvaccinated who never were infected. Hospitals are going to be unable to help them, so the death rate might actually be higher. Anybody with a heart attack, broken leg, gall bladder inflammation, appendicitis, etc. is going to be SOL. Anybody unvaccinated, limited protection begins on day 11 after the first vaccination, so you can still do something. For those of us vaccinated, it won't be particularly bad. Just very very sad.
Caveat: My predictions are my own, nobody else's. If we have less than 2 million cases by 1/10/22, then I'm wrong.
This you?
‘ “As for "super transmission ability" claims for Omicron (and every earlier variant), I doubt them.â€
I haven't been paying much attention to this stuff for a bit. Its all very odd. The facts seem to be that approximately 30% of the population are clueless, believe absolutely nothing that gov says, including any and all genuine medical folks. This being the case then NOTHING being actually suggested means a damn thing. 30% won't wear masks, get vaccinated, etc. That is, I suspect, a fact. Hell, I have seen people dying, on TV saying, right out loud, "I would rather die than be vaccinated!" Another simple fact is that all these plans, suggesting, orders, etc are not going anyplace. Anybody that thinks any of it will make any kind of difference is, I suspect, a little confused.
I read someplace that the fact is that everybody will, eventually, get infected with covid. The good thing is that there seems to be better and better medicines that can help when that happens. I think it seems to be a fact that if you keep up with your vaccination stuff, including boosts 1 and, probably 2 you will be fine. The longer you put it off the better will be medicines to deal with it. The trick is to put of getting it as long as possible. All this seems true. If I remember correctly there was some talk that the omicron variant was also a bit slow on developing after infection. My main bad thought is that I wonder, if that was true. If true, then I wonder if anybody that is infected may get a bit of surprise sometime in the future.
I am also amazed that everybody seems to spend a lot of time arguing, talking about, etc. what everybody should be doing. Complete waste of time! Due, basically, to our 30% who lack the brain power to understand that hundreds of thousands on non-vaccinated have died and they are continuing on that path. The really bad thing is that so many of them are actually surviving to tell their story about how right they were and how stupid everybody who got vaccinated were and how they are going to die in 2 or 3 years. My own thought is that, perhaps, all of us who are keeping up with their vaccinations might stop wearing masks so that they may help the stupid 30% die off at a more rapid rate thereby giving the rest a better chance of survival.
Sorry, just a mean spirited thought ...............
‘ “As for "super transmission ability" claims for Omicron (and every earlier variant), I doubt them.â€
I doubted those claims when I wrote that, and I still doubt it. All those claims are based on Rt being higher for Omicron (and Delta before that). But Epidemiologists are calculating Rt from the spread rate, so the argument is circular. The popular idea is that it's an inherent property of this variant to spread faster, completely ignoring that human behavior is a huge part of Rt. When people ignore safe behavior "because the pandemic is over" or "it's just our extended family getting together" or "it's just our New Years Eve party", spread shoots up. And when 15% of your population has active infections, the exponential growth curve starts getting real steep.
The popular idea is that Covid symptoms are starting sooner after exposure, not later. And that it's a milder variant, with faster recovery. But I doubt those are because of any inherent property of Omicron. They are exactly what you would expect in a highly immune population: Faster onset of symptoms that tell you people's immune systems know all about SARS-COV2 viruses. Milder cases and faster recoveries for the same reason. Like I've been hypothesizing for a long time: The virus is not changing how it affects us. We are changing as collectively we gain immunity.
‘ “As for "super transmission ability" claims for Omicron (and every earlier variant), I doubt them.â€
I doubted those claims when I wrote that, and I still doubt it. All those claims are based on Rt being higher for Omicron (and Delta before that). But Epidemiologists are calculating Rt from the spread rate, so the argument is circular. The popular idea is that it's an inherent property of this variant to spread faster, completely ignoring that human behavior is a huge part of Rt. When people ignore safe behavior "because the pandemic is over" or "it's just our extended family getting together" or "it's just our New Years Eve party", spread shoots up. And when 15% of your population has active infections, the exponential growth curve starts getting real steep.
The popular idea is that Covid symptoms are starting sooner after exposure, not later. And that it's a milder variant, with faster recovery. But I doubt those are because of any inherent property of Omicron. They are exactly what you would expect in a highly immune population: Faster onset of symptoms that tell you people's immune systems know all about SARS-COV2 viruses. Milder cases and faster recoveries for the same reason. Like I've been hypothesizing for a long time: The virus is not changing how it affects us. We are changing as collectively we gain immunity.
Jeeze, I had no idea Human behavior was so consistent around the world. Wether it’s in sub Saharan Africa in late November, Isreal or Denmark the behaviors must be pretty similar, regardless of climate or social customs and holidays for achieving similar rates of Omicron spread. Got it.
Note that I did not say Omicron isn't spreading faster than other variants. I said I doubt it has anything to do with the inherent characteristics of the variant, because I have not seen any evidence to that effect. Transmissibility studies are very difficult to perform on lab animals, where researchers can control all the variables. They are impossible to perform on people. Comparisons to other variants have differences like weather, population immunity, people's behavior changes over time, the fact that the most susceptible people died from infection by earlier variants, etc.
Omicron less virulent? It turns out 50% of the population in South Africa has some immunity because of previous infection with SARS-COV2. 40% of them are vaccinated. How do those sets overlap? Don't know, so the percentage with some immunity could be anywhere from 50% to 90%. That's going to make infection with a new variant, that has some antibody evasion, seem mild. But antibodies are not the only arm of the immune system. Don't forget, most of those people who recovered or had asymptomatic cases, before the vaccines, did so before they started to make ANY antibodies!
So, was that a long way of saying ‘I don’t know’?
Omicron has spread around the globe in one month. By your logic, that’s a lot of hacking, spitting and surface licking going on that is somehow new from the usual hacking, spitting and surface licking in previous waves.
Looking like lots of kids going to ER with omicron. That’s may be an unfortunate ‘drag on the economy’. Eff em. They shoulda tried harder in school and made the correct life choices!
No public health mitigation, lazy reliance on a vaccines of waning effectiveness over time. A constant ‘but the other side!’ scapegoating to cover their feckless unwillingness to rise to the occasion.
Omicron may alter the trajectory of the pandemic with its suppressive effects of temporary herd immunity. Maybe not. We got a taste of hyper transmissibility. We got lucky it was moderate in its effects and doesn’t appear to like moving into the lower lung regions.
We ought to pray that another, more dangerous, mutation doesn’t emerge cuz we’ll be in a world of hurt with the current ‘everybody’s on their own’ strategy.
So, was that a long way of saying ‘I don’t know’?
No, it's a full explanation of why nobody knows. I'm sorry if this idea is just too complex for you to understand. Repeating the wishful thinking of the mainstream media can do harm: Like convincing unvaccinated and never-infected people to go out and catch Omicron on purpose "because it's the low virulence variant". A lot of people wish that was true, but that doesn't make it true. Like I said, they need to look at a group of people who have never been vaccinated or infected to see how catching Omicron affects them. And they can't be selected just by antibody levels, because antibody levels naturally contract. They have to be selected by the absence of activated T-cells, which is much more expensive and difficult. Nobody has done that study yet.
The fact that some unvaccinated people are dying says that Omicron is not innocuous. One frontline doc wrote he knows more about a new patient just by asking if they were vaccinated, than from everything else in their chart. This is a personal issue for me, because my mother died from covid, and my wife's twin sister refuses to get vaccinated. She works as a dental hygienist and is convinced her N95 mask is going to protect her. Though today she was telling us how her dental office is being affected by quarantines of staff members.
Since the pandemic began in March 2020, the corp office has daily round-ups of how many peeps are not at work because they became exposed for COVID.
The message doesn't name the person (HIPPA), but their building number, floor number, and wing
One Monday 01/03, 32 people were on the list - the most ever. Tuesday 01/04, 47 on the list - the most ever. My manager, my divisional assistant General Manager, my divisional General Manager all out last week due to "COVID protocols." That means they were exposed and are staying away from work for 5-days, but working from home. My manager turned poz yesterday, FR 01/07. He's been double vaxxed + boost. He said he's pretty bad off and would have been ICU if he were not vaxxed.
A whole bunch of different labs, in different countries, infected various mouse and hamster strains with both Delta and Omicron variants. Important findings: The degrees of pathology in their upper respiratory tracts was essentially the same between variants, but Delta deep lung pathology was more severe than Omicron. More severe including death in some cases. Not that Omicron did not cause deaths in certain sets of animals, but Delta caused significantly more. These differences were measured in several different ways, by different labs, and for different animals.
BUT (and it's a pretty big but) some of the most severe pathology was in a transgenic hamster strain that made human ACE2 receptors. And mouse and human immune systems are pretty different. So their conclusions are just about mice and hamsters, not humans. They are doing more work to track down why Omicron is less pathological for mice and hamsters. If we share those same mechanisms with mice and hamsters, then they might be able to say something about the relative pathogenicity of Omicron versus Delta in humans.
This is an excellent illustration of why real research is difficult: They can't do a lot of these experiments in humans. And when they do them in a (necessarily) imperfect animal model, they can't immediately draw conclusions about humans. But if they track down a particular RNA mutation that causes a particular protein change, where we share that affected biochemical activity with the animal model, then they can say how it could affect humans. It's all about determining mechanisms.
Another paper came out recently that said the changes to the spike RNA have nothing to do with virulence. They only affect spike binding and antibody evasion, and thus entry into the cell. Other mutations affect the proteins the virus makes once it's in the cell and has hijacked the replication mechanisms. Those are the culprits. But this may be more information than most of us need!
It's sad when people die from Covid, especially when they didn't have to, but we got billions of humans. There are only a few thousand Snow Leopards left, and this guy's not the first to die from Covid.
Campbell has finally addressed the very real possibility of long run fat tail effects of a pandemic that's allowed to run wild.
Still not able to figure it out when it comes to posting vids. Upshot is I can quit muttering at him about long covid when I tune in to hear what he has to say. As others have been warning about from the beginning, Ya kinda can't let a bug run wild where we develop no lasting immunity for. Especially one that can have accumulating long run effects with each successive wave. A scientific theory of disease spread and robust public health system is handy here, unfortunately for us.
It's interesting to note that there are some countries that are trying elimination strategies and not the current 'living with it' model that our ruling classes are demanding of everyone.
One wonders if the virus will be do to children what scarlet fever did to previous generations of children. Only time will tell I guess. But hey, that spice doesn't mine itself!
Elimination is probably impossible. Some, including Campbell, are saying Omicron probably came back to humans after bouncing around inside a mouse population for months or years. That seems likely when you look at the origin of Omicron in terms of unique mutations. If not mice, then some other population of animals. Wildlife zoonotic disease programs in this country have vaccinated some skunks and racoons against rabies by dropping vaccine-laced bait. I'm sure vaccinating all the mice in the world would be a lot harder than vaccinating all the people.
CORRECTION: We are doubling every 10 days, according the US CDC data. So my prediction for the US is off. Same result, but unless people's behavior changes dramatically (like locking down voluntarily) it will take about two months instead of one. California has doubled in the last six days, so in about 5 weeks it will be mostly over here. My prediction for the UK was based on their Rt values, so it still stands.
Went to get my teeth cleaned today, and got a smog test so I can still drive my car. The dentists office is fully vaccinated and boosted, and I was impressed by their precautions. For example, how many dentists keep their office door wide open with fans running in January? Smog test was essentially outdoors, so that was probably okay too. But my wife is isolating from me for 5 days to see if I show signs of infection. That means sleeping in another room, wearing masks in common areas, etc.
BTW: Everybody getting infected does not mean everybody gets sick. It's bad news for the unvaccinated who were never infected, but for the majority of vaccinated folks it's asymptomatic.
Two vaxxed + boosted people from work have returned to work following their bout with COVID. Both seem fine yesterday. Both said having COVID was really awful: chills, fever, trouble breathing, no visit to the hospital, though. Both said if this is how it was being vaxxed + booted, the peeps not vaxxed must be really, really struggling.
‘Anymore’. The gaslighting continues with the PMC incompetence. The ‘vaccines’ never did stop transmission. Hence the need for public health mitigation efforts based on evidence and not ‘stake holders’.
Aww Jeeze. The CDC is having a bad one. Having to course correct in the face of mounting evidence. One must not discount the damage to the PMC vanity when factoring in the science. Hat trick is to change your protocols without it sounding like you’ve changed your mind.
Probably not a bad idea. It would be very bad if such a worker infected a patient of the hospital, but really, how could anybody tell? Hospitals are very dangerous places right now. Stay away if at all possible.
A guy from my vanpool went to Costa Rica for Christmas and NYE with his wife and kids for the holidays. A friend of his was DJing a set for NYE and he want down for support.
Came back with a sore throat on SU 01/02. Was off from work on MO 01/03 anyway. Came to work TU 01/04 and WE 01/05. Corp told him not to come back to work until he tests negative.
Couldn't get an appointment until SA 01/08.
Stayed home MO 01/10 pending test results. Corp told him to come to work today TU 01/11 without test results. We arrived at work at 06:30 am. The rider came to me at 07:10 am telling me the test was poz.
Corp sent the van home and we're to test on FR 01/14...but we can work from home in the meantime.
I made the poz guy take a taxi home. Corp paid for it
I like to watch an independent truck owner/driver channel on YouTube "JustTrucking". It's usually him booking and driving loads around the Carolinas, but last week he and his hot wife took off for Cancun. They spent the whole time there in a Covid isolation suite because she tested positive. Asymptomatic, but it's nice to know the Planet Hollywood resort and the airlines are following the WHO protocol.
Hopefully, if you do turn up positive Rick, you will have the same results. Unfortunately not in Cancun, but that's your fault for not planning better!
Imagine having rapid test kits delivered for free to the public like other countries. If only their was a federally owned distribution system to deliver parcels to Americans. Maybe even n95 masks could be delivered as well. Oh well. Unicorns and rainbows as the scolds would say.
A group of researchers in Geneva performed the experiments that can actually tell us some facts about Delta and Omicron variants, and about the effect of vaccinations have on them. MSM and even public health agencies have been making a lot of claims, with zero or shoddy evidence.
Quote
In conclusion, this study provides strong evidence for higher infectiousness of the Delta VOC as well as a significantly lower infectiousness and a faster clearance of infectious virus in vaccinated individuals. In addition, we could show that Omicron has similar infectious viral loads than Delta VOC. Furthermore, we show a more detailed picture of viral load assessment in addition to overall virus isolation success, and that quantifying viral loads can give better insights into viral shedding kinetics in acute SARS-CoV-2 infection.
In short: Delta was more infectious than previous variants of concern. Vaccinated people can get infected but they shed very little infectious virus, for a shorter time. PCR is not a reliable measure of infectious virus being shed. (my belief: "killed" virus fragments) Not much difference between Delta and Omicron variants. (my belief: more people have immunity) Five days post symptom onset is probably too short an isolation period. (my belief: eight days would be safer)
The last line of the conclusion from the study you linked to:
“ Omicron vaccine breakthrough infections did not show elevated IVTs compared to Delta, suggesting that other mechanisms than increase VL contribute to the high infectiousness of Omicron.â€
Kinda important, that bit.
So here’s a study that focuses on Omicron shedding that would imply a longer period of isolation for a margin of safety:
“ Since December 3, 2021, the National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID) and the Disease Control and Prevention Center within the National Center for Global Health and Medicine (NCGM/DCC) have jointly initiated an investigation on Omicron cases in collaboration with several medical facilities in Japan. Here, we examined the duration of infectious virus shedding in Omicron cases identified early in this investigation. A total of 83 respiratory specimens from 21 cases (19 vaccinees and 2 unvaccinated cases; 4 asymptomatic and 17 mild cases) were subjected to SARS-CoV-2 RNA quantification using quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction and virus isolation tests. The date of specimen collection for diagnosis or symptom onset was defined as day 0. The amount of viral RNA was highest on 3-6 days after diagnosis or 3-6 days after symptom onset, and then gradually decreased over time, with a marked decrease after 10 days since diagnosis or symptom onset (Figure). The positive virus isolation results showed a similar trend as the viral RNA amount, and no infectious virus in the respiratory samples was detected after 10 days since diagnosis or symptom onset (Table). These findings suggest that vaccinated Omicron cases are unlikely to shed infectious virus 10 days after diagnosis or symptom onset.â€
Looks like 10 days may be a safer period but YMMV.
As far as “ Not much difference between Delta and Omicron variants. (my belief: more people have immunity)â€, not sure what your referring to. It’s severity or transmissibility or both? The jury is pretty much in that it’s more transmissible. One only has to look at the time, numbers of infections and geographic spread.
My understanding of the differences with omicron is that it replicates better than previous variants in cells that have high ACE2. Earlier variants liked having ACE2+TMPRSS2. It replicates worse in cells that have low ACE2. Deep lung tissue has low ACE2. Hence it stays in the bronchial tree and doesn’t go lower, causing the covid pneumonia ventilation and deaths.
Seems like a lucky break with regard to fatalities but we got that there long covid to worry bout. I believe there’s other tissues in the body with high ACE2, no? There’s some numbers out that show a % of asymptomatic cases go on to become long haulers let alone symptomatic cases. Or as a recent report from Finland has expressed:
“There is a threat that Finland will see the emergence of the largest, or one of the largest, new groups of chronic diseases, and that not only too many adults will suffer from a long-term COVID-19, but at worst also children,â€
To me, long covid is the stalking horse in all this. What percentage of infections will result in debilitated lives? Guess we’re gunna find out. Sorta. The economic incentives will certainly be there to not look to hard in some quarters.
Corp just put out a new policy that says if your fly interenational, you have an automatic 10 days off from work no matter what and you're required to show a negative test the day before you're to return to work.
Gee, I wonder what that is response to... ,
That policy should have been in place from the get-go.
other mechanisms than increase VL contribute to the high infectiousness of Omicron
Like human behavior, for example. Large unmasked gatherings like family get togethers for Christmas or New Years Eve parties. As I said before, immune evasion is causing more infections with Omicron, but every infection involves an infected person shedding virus and a victim inhaling enough virus to get infected. Two people behaving in ways that contribute to spread, that they probably could have avoided.
And I agree 100% that Long Covid is going to be a huge expensive long-term public health mess. One point of interest in that topic is that nobody has ever found intact virus in human brain tissue, or even in other nerve tissue. They find RNA fragments from "killed" virus that was floating around in the blood, since brain samples taken at autopsy contain blood vessels. They find intact virus in the physical support cells of the nasal "smell sensors", but not in the nerves of those sensors. One hypothesis for brain injury is anoxia and cytokines. Those might be easier to avoid than actual viral infection of brain cells.
Anecdata fer sure but my local school district is paying 150/day to substitute. Young, wiry, orphans preferred is the vibe. They just need babysitters to sit in classes that are half full. Sign of the times.
A PITA client of mine had been texting me into the evenings over an ongoing remodel. A vice principal of a city school but she and her husband have a vacay home nearby that I’ve been involved with since June. She’s gone radio silent for two weeks now. Out of character. Guessing her plates full with loss of teachers, bus drivers, etc.
I’m not buying your go to of individuals making bad decisions as a rational for omicron spread, PIA. That’s been used as a scapegoat for junk economics, bad governance, etc for decades now. Sounds so much like the isolate, blame and shame that’s been a hallmark of neoliberalism. Show me the proof of uniform behavior around the world that has allowed this variant to spread so quick globally. Different seasons, governments, holidays or no holidays etc.. The Cron is getting everywhere in record breaking time. That’s a lot of spitting and licking your proposing as an admitted fomite/droplet fan.
Conversely, if you could find some evidence of similar global behavior then why has it outpaced/ displaced Delta with amazing speed if they were so similar? Even your referenced Dr. Campbell has noted the reports of it being as much or more transmissible than measles recently. Individual behavior should average out with Delta I would think. The Cron has moved much faster than Delta nonetheless.
It is interesting to note how fast the ‘Omicron is mild’ narrative was pushed in the Anglosphere in the run up to the holiday shopping season. Odd that. Very little data out of S Africa for an immediate conformity of narrative. I’d hate to think that commercial interests in the form of advertising revenue would have had an influence on media messaging.
It is interesting to note how fast the ‘Omicron is mild’ narrative was pushed in the Anglosphere in the run up to the holiday shopping season. Odd that. Very little data out of S Africa for an immediate conformity of narrative. I’d hate to think that commercial interests in the form of advertising revenue would have had an influence on media messaging.
Welp, you can't have two holiday seasons in a row ruined by not having Xmas presents under the tree.
Actually, John Campbell tends to pay an undue amount of attention to MSM and statements from authorities who have no real data to back their claims. For example he's a big ivermectin fan when well designed double blind studies have found it does very little. And recent thinking by just about everybody (including qualified virologists) thinks fomites contribute very little to spread.
I think the holidays did contribute to the quick spread in the West, But also simple precaution exhaustion plays a major part everywhere. And simple math: During most of the Delta time, we were on a less steep portion of the exponential curve. Now we are on a more steep portion. That's just how exponential curves work.
Rick: Your home test (assuming it's on the FDA list of tests that respond to Omicron) will tell you if you are infectious. Your PCR test is more sensitive and may say you have viral RNA present in your upper respiratory tract for weeks after you are no longer infectious. It is vital to get a CT value. Above 30 means you are not infectious.
Actually, John Campbell tends to pay an undue amount of attention to MSM and statements from authorities who have no real data to back their claims. For example he's a big ivermectin fan when well designed double blind studies have found it does very little.
Glenn Beck is about to find out the Herman Cain way.
Glenn has COVID and is only taking the big “I†for treatment.
What is also very amazing is how Kary Mullis discovered how to take small snippets of DNA and replicate them so they made sense. Hence polymerase chain reaction. PCR. Many humans just take it for granted as if it was always there.
I suppose it was always there it just took someone to learn how to replicate it in an amazing fashion;
Reminds me of when your writing crap software that doesn’t work, you control the variables until it does. Is this science? Dunno.
Judging from world maps of cases with countries going for elimination vs. let er rip, I’d say, no, probably not. More likely politics as messaging we’ve come to know and love.
Well, I suppose some will pray Glenn Beck gets to meet Jesus real soon now. He can join the Heavenly Chorus with a lot of his buddies.
I notice that article about Covid brain injury never mentioned viral infection of the brain, just anoxia and bad chemicals like I said. Which is kind of hopeful. Anoxia can be avoided by various medical means, even if the lungs are not working. Bad chemicals might just mean more aggressive use of steroids to avoid them being released, or some other type of treatment. Maybe something as simple as high-dose Vitamin D metabolites to better regulate the immune system?
Understanding the problem is the first step toward solving it. May not help people already brain damaged, but some treatments might help the seriously ill avoid it.
My counties covid dashboard is now restricted to log in only. There’s no mechanism for creating an account. No information on why the county health information has been curtailed. Seems odd to restrict it during the height of Cron spread.
“ Understanding the problem is the first step toward solving it.â€
So close to ‘a scientific theory of disease spread’ yet so far away.
Interesting to read about other countries mitigation efforts. It’s like another world than our technocratic culture war food fight. One side believing nothing can be done to stop the spread while the other side thinks the same thing cept with vax only.
Another heterodox study that does nothing for the pharma and it’s political subsidiaries but might prove useful for mechanical engineers. Not that they’re being consulted in the Anglosphere that much in mitigation.
Meghan Jehn has been doing gods work from the ground up, maneuvering around the old beards debate and convincing groups and organizations of the importance for mitigation, going beyond the narrow focused, post infection debates. As though an ounce of prevention still has market value anymore as opposed to the lucre of cure. Good info that is useful:
COVID being transmitted via aerosol is not in dispute. Not many American buildings have floor-drains sans the occasional restaurant and custodial cleaning closet.
Pretty sure the WH Rose Garden in 2020 did not have a floor drains, but it did have a large group of unmasked people within inches and proximity of everyone' breath aerosols. Nor do I suspect that Herman Cain was sitting over a floor-drain during the Trump rally in Tulsa July 2020.
Interesting paper with good methodology, but It mentions residents coming and going via stairs and the front door. So I guess they were not locked down in their apartments with food being delivered. They probably used the same laundry room as well. I think there are so many other opportunities for transmission that this investigation is rather silly. You can find anything if you look hard enough.
The PCR CT values are going to reflect the fact that infected people shed virus, and that mostly ends up on the floor or other horizontal surfaces as droplets fall. I'm sure infected residents also shed aerosols, since particles of all sizes are exhaled, coughed, sneezed, etc. "Exposure" has been defined as being within six feet of an infected person for 15 minutes in an enclosed space. But these residents were effectively exposed to others' aerosols for several days, probably over 12 hours per day! This is similar to studies of secondary transmission within households: It's a very low bar to get infected from people you are living with in the same enclosed space.
Yes, aerosol transmission is possible, and very likely if you live in the same household as an infected person. From strangers you encounter, masked, in an elevator? Very unlikely. It requires very unusual circumstances, and that's why this paper is pretty unique. But even in this apartment building, they say 14 of the 19 infections were caused by social interaction with one infected individual.
But it is a very good idea to put some water down every sewer trap now and again, since they leak sewer gases into your house and stink.
Wasn’t the point of the post. It was simply injecting other disciplines into the conversation to illuminate other potential avenues of disease spread. Did you think I was arguing drains being the primary route of infection?
I like what you did there with Herman Cain. Polarized infection politically while putting an image of Herman Cain huffing on a sewer pipe in my brain. Good job soldier!
USPS has a pretty good sign up page for four free covid tests:Covid tests
If your fortunate enough to have a doctor practicing medicine and not a cog in a reimbursement model of health delivery it might be worth looking into for taking as a preventative.
This paper is a good example of the conflict between science and ethics, in designing drug trials. The first sentence in their Limitations section:
Quote
Being a prospective observational study that allowed subjects to self-select between treatment vs. non-treatment instead of relying on randomization, important confounders may have been differentially present, which could otherwise explain the differences observed.
This was NOT a random blind trial. People who were taking ivermectin knew they were taking it and not placebo. Human behavior is a large factor in the spread of the virus, and the IVM participants may have just been more careful than the control group. They went to the trouble to get their medication, to take it despite some unpleasant side effects, and to keep that up during the study period. The control group decided not to take a drug that might prevent Covid, a sometimes deadly disease. They may have been equally casual about mask wearing, socializing in large groups, etc.
The conflict here is that "patient choice" is great ethically, but leads to a huge waste of resources scientifically. There is a random blind drug trial that has some results already in Brazil. It called the TOGETHER study. They tried (are continuing to try) various approved drugs to see if they are effective against Covid-19 disease (as opposed to prophylaxis). They have a very nice website. Here is their web page summarizing their results so far:
Hydroxychloroquine - Stopped for futility Ivermectin - Stopped for futility Fluvoxamine - Stopped for superiority
"Stopped for futility" means they reached the point where the statistics said the drug had no effect. "Stopped for superiority" means they reached the point where the statistics said the drug was so beneficial it was unethical to continue the untreated control group.
This is the study that started the flurry of investigation and even recommendations for fluvoxamine. But more important, it is a high-quality random blind drug trial that said hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin are ineffective.
BTW: Ivermectin prescriptions are very difficult to get or to fill in the US. But fluvoxamine is used to treat OCD. Tell your doctor you are obsessed about Covid and want a fluvoxamine prescription. Get it filled at any pharmacy.
Garbage in garbage out. Blind trials have been weapons used by pharma for years now in its ongoing war against off label drug use. I get the credentialed appeal with it’s supposed sanctity among certain classes but it’s not an end all be all of knowledge they would like it to be.
Frankly, I’ve been following the story of the drug that shall not be named long before it was dumped into the political culture war. One of the most absurd, along with anti masking and owning the Libs by catching covid and dying. But here we are now. Domestically, those doctors treating with the drug that shall not be named are reporting significant reductions in infection times and numbers of patients sent to ER. Again reports both nationally and internationally before it became part of the culture war effort.
As someone who blew the Omicron transmissibility call, seems to subscribe to a ‘droplet’ theory of disease spread and now using the same sus arguments of ‘individual behavior’ for any heterodox reporting on covid, I’m going with the front line doctors domestically and around the globe on the efficacy of this one. The numbers speak for themselves whereas credentialing and institutions (not without a whiff of being captured) can moan all they want. Brahmins have a vested interested in discounting native field acquired wisdom.
Ivermectin might be helpful, but it's so little help that real drug trials with thousands of participants just fail to find any statistically significant benefit. It may be that drug trial's following a strict protocol don't make their ivermectin treatments flexible enough to help patients. I've followed Drs. Marik and Kory for quite some time, and they have said a lot about varying their protocol to fit the patient's changing circumstances. I was a big ivermectin advocate during the first year of the pandemic, when we had nothing else. But ever since Dr. Kory admitted that ivermectin was not working so well anymore, and a number of other much better treatments have become available, not so much.
In particular, vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, Paxlovid, and Molnupiravir. I was very impressed by the Spanish studies that showed high-dose Vitamin D metabolites kept most people out of the ICU. I still take quercetin and zinc (better than hydroxychloroquine at getting zinc into cells), lots of Vitamin D, Vitamin K2, Vitamin C, magnesium glycinate, and melatonin. I'm pretty sure I had an Omicron infection last week, and it was less than a cold.
The problem with anecdotes about covid "cures" is that most people fight off the virus in about 5 days with no treatment at all. Even people who get seriously ill, mostly get better with no "cure". But they are not sick from the virus. They are almost all sick from their immune system over-reaction. This is why Dr. Marik's treatments were so much better for seriously ill patients at first. WHO had told doctors NOT to administer steroids. But Dr. Marik pioneered the use of steroids to treat acute shock decades ago. So when his Covid patients exhibited all the signs of high inflammation markers, he gave them methylprednisolone, And they mostly recovered. It was only later when the UK study published their results on the benefit of dexamethasone, that everybody else starting using steroids for the second, inflammatory phase of Covid. Dr. Marik theorized the multiphased nature of Covid progression, and he was right. Now if you look at the FLCCC protocols, they never use exclusively ivermectin and always use steroids during the post-replication inflammatory phase. They have actually deemphasized ivermection during hospital treatment and suggested alternatives.
But right from the start, I thought doctors should be using steroids when simple inflammation blood tests showed they needed them, and anticoagulents when simple coagulation tests showed they needed them. WHO was wrong, and blindly following their bad advice killed a lot of people.
I was just blown away by TWiV 855: "T time with Alessandro Sette" from the La Jolla institute for Immunology. (That's on YouTube.) His lab has done intensive studies of how T-cells work with Covid vaccines and variants. They've looked at how HLA proteins present virus protein fragments on the infected cell surface to yield literally thousands of different T-cell epitopes immune systems can react against. They also looked at how variant mutations can evade those T-cell epitopes. Unlike antibody evasion, T-cell epitope evasion doesn't seem to exhibit any evolutionary pressure: It's random. And it has no benefit to the virus when it gets transmitted to another person, because that person will have different HLA types and different virus protein fragments their T-cells reacted to when they got immunized!
All this is exactly why vaccination is so effective at keeping infected people out of the hospital despite antibody contraction. He also said they looked at immunity following infection versus vaccination. About 10% of those just infected end up with no immunity after some months because natural infection has so many variables. Vaccinated people have much more uniform immune responses, probably because they had a much more uniform exposure to antigen.
The number of experiments required to get all his data is astonishing. These people know a whole lot about this virus.
Ivermectin might be helpful, but it's so little help that real drug trials with thousands of participants just fail to find any statistically significant benefit. It may be that drug trial's following a strict protocol don't make their ivermectin treatments flexible enough to help patients. I've followed Drs. Marik and Kory for quite some time, and they have said a lot about varying their protocol to fit the patient's changing circumstances. I was a big ivermectin advocate during the first year of the pandemic, when we had nothing else. But ever since Dr. Kory admitted that ivermectin was not working so well anymore, and a number of other much better treatments have become available, not so much.
In particular, vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, Paxlovid, and Molnupiravir. I was very impressed by the Spanish studies that showed high-dose Vitamin D metabolites kept most people out of the ICU. I still take quercetin and zinc (better than hydroxychloroquine at getting zinc into cells), lots of Vitamin D, Vitamin K2, Vitamin C, magnesium glycinate, and melatonin. I'm pretty sure I had an Omicron infection last week, and it was less than a cold.
The problem with anecdotes about covid "cures" is that most people fight off the virus in about 5 days with no treatment at all. Even people who get seriously ill, mostly get better with no "cure". But they are not sick from the virus. They are almost all sick from their immune system over-reaction. This is why Dr. Marik's treatments were so much better for seriously ill patients at first. WHO had told doctors NOT to administer steroids. But Dr. Marik pioneered the use of steroids to treat acute shock decades ago. So when his Covid patients exhibited all the signs of high inflammation markers, he gave them methylprednisolone, And they mostly recovered. It was only later when the UK study published their results on the benefit of dexamethasone, that everybody else starting using steroids for the second, inflammatory phase of Covid. Dr. Marik theorized the multiphased nature of Covid progression, and he was right. Now if you look at the FLCCC protocols, they never use exclusively ivermectin and always use steroids during the post-replication inflammatory phase. They have actually deemphasized ivermection during hospital treatment and suggested alternatives.
But right from the start, I thought doctors should be using steroids when simple inflammation blood tests showed they needed them, and anticoagulents when simple coagulation tests showed they needed them. WHO was wrong, and blindly following their bad advice killed a lot of people.
So garbage in/ garbage out. 20mg instead of 200mg, intervals of dosage, time of effectiveness, etc… all play a part in randomized, blind studies. You know what’s another study? Field research and data. I was paying attention to a host of countries that had, still are implementing Ivermectin. I think the data coming back from the front lines was/is credible enough to take into consideration. Same holds true for the Docs I’ve followed long before, what appears to me anyhow, a FUD campaign in major media. You know that type of campaign, wether it be an effort to send a stock price, delegitimating an election, or pushing product. It was interesting to see the media go to war on something of practical purpose.
I’m not going to convince anyone who’s mind is made up, nor do I care to. Just noting another curiosity. Here’s a study that came out as few months before the FUD campaign was in full swing, reviewing much of the field data and clinical trials that were being done at the time:
Meta-analyses based on 18 randomized controlled treatment trials of ivermectin in COVID-19 have found large, statistically significant reductions in mortality, time to clinical recovery, and time to viral clearance. Furthermore, results from numerous controlled prophylaxis trials report significantly reduced risks of contracting COVID-19 with the regular use of ivermectin. Finally, the many examples of ivermectin distribution campaigns leading to rapid population-wide decreases in morbidity and mortality indicate that an oral agent effective in all phases of COVID-19 has been identified.
Vaccine data shows we get pretty good attenuation of symptoms for 10 weeks @ 3 jabs, falling off quickly after that. Quicker with fewer jabs. One wonders, with current vaccines+let er rip strategy, how long we can keep this jabbing up without T cell exhaustion? Maybe we get lucky and no more covids after Cron. Maybe not. Never understand the narrow reasoning of vax only, cept as a never ending stream of virtue signaling thru a consumer choice. Seems lazy as well.
This looks promising for public mitigation strategizing
“ Though it may seem unsavory, collecting human waste can tell us a lot about COVID-19 and give governments a leg up on containing the spread of the virus. Researchers can predict if the coronavirus might attack a community by checking sewers for viral fragments in the community’s poopâ€
Good news for the immunocompromised: Vaccines may not work for you, depending on exactly why your immune system is defective, but the US government has ordered a whole bunch of the new AstraZeneca monoclonal antibody cocktail that is supposed to last for six months. It's is available for use now, and doctors are beginning to administer it prophylactically to their high-risk patients.
Bad news for the never-infected and never-vaccinated: For you, Omicron is not at all a "less virulent" natural way to get the benefits of vaccination. Yes, it's much less serious for the previously infected or vaccinated, but that's because of their T-cell immunity, not any inherent difference in this variant. Almost everybody dying these days is unvaccinated. Going to an "Omicron Party" is essentially the most dangerous vaccine possible. The FDA would NEVER approve a vaccine that had that hospitalization and death rate, not to mention the risk of Long Covid.
NIH has put out a flow chart for physicians treating the high-risk Covid patient who is not hospitalized and not (yet) on oxygen. This is an attempt to disrupt viral replication, in order to prevent progression. In order of preference (subject to contraindications):
1. Paxlovid: 89% reduced risk, prescription filled at certain pharmacies, supply limited 2. Sotrivamab: 87% risk reduction, IV infusion, supply limited 3. Remdesivir: 87% risk reduction, three days of in-office IV infusions (some being done at home) 4. Molnupiravir: 35%? risk reduction, pregnancy test required for all women of child-bearing age
Risk reduction is for hospitalization or death within 28 days. I'm glad they finally figured out the correct timing for Remdesivir. The EUA for it makes it approved only for hospitalized patients on oxygen (when it's pretty useless). So NIH is recommending off-label use! The EUA reflects the FDA's fixation on using "heroic measures" only to save the seriously ill, and ignores the multi-phasic nature of Covid-19.
All of these are going to work better if started early. If I had a positive test and no immunity, I would act immediately to get one of these started.
So here’s the biggest problem with vax only as I see it. Since vaccines are being unevenly distributed thruout the world as a consequence of the hoarding of wealthier nations, we keep getting mutations out of the underdeveloped regions having high immunocompromised populations. As each mutated variant strikes it produces more comorbidities in our population. As CDC director Walensky cheerfully pointed out, sars is hitting those with comorbidities hardest.
In essence, the politicians and CDC seem to have embraced a strategy that is self defeating. Monoclonals are great but access is uneven, as are their effectiveness with different variants, as we learned with the Cron.
Then there’s the notion of treating the infection vs. avoiding the infection altogether. While I see much enthusiasm for pushing of products to treat infection in the hyper capitalized western sphere, avoidance and mitigation has been incompetent and borderline criminality negligent. As I see it, the Anglosphere had taken a market approach (as it does with most everything now, TINA!) that may prove less costly in the short term but will produce profit in the short term for those organizations and individuals championing mitigation avoidance and post infection treatments.
Another look at the long tail effects of letting criminal incompetence fly the plane.
“ With millions of individuals affected, nervous system complications pose public health challenges for rehabilitation and recovery and for disruptions in the workforce due to loss of functional capacity. There is an urgent need to understand the pathophysiology of these disorders and develop disease-modifying therapies.â€
And while the costs of the incompetence of the current PMC will be externalized on the individuals, their families and communities, profits accruing to shareholders (monoclonals are over 2k a pop with the government buying millions of doses. Ivermectin, on the other hand, is dirt cheap) in the long run it will effect the macro of our society. In this, like every other challenge facing our society, IBGYBG will be the guiding philosophy.
Fluvoxamine seems to be a lot more useful for treatment than ivermectin, and I see it online from China for as little as $5 per kilogram. But that's for bulk powder. Any Indian Pharmaceutical company could crank out tons of tablets price competitive with ivermectin. It's completely off patent and generic.
As for "vaccinating the world", the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine was designed from the start to cost about $2 each to make, and has already been technology-transferred to any country that has the infrastructure to make it. That includes detailed instructions and viable cultures. Likewise the Baylor vaccine is being transferred to an Indian vaccine maker, with zero patents or royalties. It too, can be transferred for free to any country that has the infrastructure to make it, and it is done via yeast cultures: So simple any country that can brew beer should be able to make it!
Regarding treatments to avoid Long Covid following infection, I don't think any trials have been done, but Dr. Griffon reports that anecdotal info from the many physicians he talks with (as well as his own Covid patients) shows that vaccination within 30 days after infection seems to reduce your chances of getting Long Covid a lot. 30-60 days, less. And beyond that, not much at all.
Great. Ivermectin’s been dumped into the culture war basket, like lost elections or global warming. So when do we get any phrophylactic kits sent out? Something even third world, underdeveloped countries have been able to do with Ivermectin. If the US is able to buy hundreds of millions of monoclonal doses at over 2k a pop, imagine what could have been done with Ivermectin or any other readily available molecule with similar safety profiles and efficacy?
Nawp, na gunna happen. We got that there profit motive to deal with natch. What’s more, monoclonals (if you can get em and afford to have them administered) are used while an infection is acute. We can’t get it together to send out masks to people, much less prophylactics.
As far as long covid treatments yet to be developed, in a country that’s held on to profit extraction health delivery, who’s going to be getting/ affording those down the road treatments. What world are we living in to hope for treatments from afflictions rather than prevention in the first place? Wall st. World comes to my mind. Shareholder world is also hanging around.
And the the possible challenge of discovering the fountain of youth:
But let’s be honest here, as its only hitting the poor and working classes the hardest (and it is) this will be treated with disaster capitalism as it has been.
I think you are ignoring the fact that all of these prophylactics and Covid treatments, from Paxlovid to MABs, are covered by the federal government. In fact, vaccinations and treatments are a perfect example of single-payer health care. I'm confused: If you don't like the US government paying for this stuff, who do you think should pay for it?
If the US government had sent out billions of ivermectin doses instead, would you be complaining about them sending placebos to keep everybody dumb and happy? Most of the deaths right now are among people who denied the virus existed, then claimed it was just a cold, then refused to get vaccinated, and ignore their Covid symptoms until the antiviral treatment window is closed. They don't take their horse paste prophylactically, and they dismiss their Covid as "just the flu" until they are getting hypoxic. These folks would have thrown their ivermectin kits away, and claimed the government was trying to poison them.
I think you are ignoring the fact that all of these prophylactics and Covid treatments, from Paxlovid to MABs, are covered by the federal government. In fact, vaccinations and treatments are a perfect example of single-payer health care. I'm confused: If you don't like the US government paying for this stuff, who do you think should pay for it?
If the US government had sent out billions of ivermectin doses instead, would you be complaining about them sending placebos to keep everybody dumb and happy? Most of the deaths right now are among people who denied the virus existed, then claimed it was just a cold, then refused to get vaccinated, and ignore their Covid symptoms until the antiviral treatment window is closed. They don't take their horse paste prophylactically, and they dismiss their Covid as "just the flu" until they are getting hypoxic. These folks would have thrown their ivermectin kits away, and claimed the government was trying to poison them.
Your not confused about my points of contention. Your simply trying to confuse them. Let me condense them for you:
-going after herd immunity with the Trump vaccines was a flawed policy based on what we know about the limits of these ‘vaccines’. -Pursuing those policies at the expense of public health mitigation was flawed and will have long tail effects in the population. -As long as those effects are hidden and long term costs externalized by ‘stakeholders’ (Walensky’s word not mine) and are primarily born by essential workers and not the ruling classes, there will be no course correction.
Not sure but I think your referring to Ivermectin as a placebo and belittling my critiques as nothing more than constant complaining. Not sure why you would view my observations that way as I’ve offered studies and published articles from respected medical journals of known quality. Sure, they may not rise to the level of your preferred YouTube outlets but they have standing none the less.
From my point of view so far, you’ve had nothing but resistance to any public health measures of mitigation beyond vaccines and infection treatments. Treatments, BTW, having high costs for the government, administering costs born by the patient and limited effectiveness with the most recent variant, Omicron.
To my mind, your of the treatment of disease for reimbursements stripe, a hallmark of profit driven health care with the assistance of government corporate capture. This will lead to a bad end for a good deal of Americans. But, hey, wether it’s pandemic diseases or war, there’s money to be made and the takings are good right now so I see no end to the criminal incompetence helming our public health institutions or governance.
If past us prologue, here’s a issue being raised by that chronic complaining British medical Journal on past incompetence and corruption of an epidemic to illustrate my point on today’s pandemic:
“ In the pages of The BMJ a decade ago, in the middle of a different pandemic, it came to light that governments around the world had spent billions stockpiling antivirals for influenza that had not been shown to reduce the risk of complications, hospital admissions, or death. The majority of trials that underpinned regulatory approval and government stockpiling of oseltamivir (Tamiflu) were sponsored by the manufacturer; most were unpublished, those that were published were ghostwritten by writers paid by the manufacturer, the people listed as principal authors lacked access to the raw data, and academics who requested access to the data for independent analysis were denied.1234
The Tamiflu saga heralded a decade of unprecedented attention to the importance of sharing clinical trial data.56 Public battles for drug company data,78 transparency campaigns with thousands of signatures,910 strengthened journal data sharing requirements,1112 explicit commitments from companies to share data,13 new data access website portals,8 and landmark transparency policies from medicines regulators1415 all promised a new era in data transparency.
Progress was made, but clearly not enough. The errors of the last pandemic are being repeated. Memories are short. Today, despite the global rollout of covid-19 vaccines and treatments, the anonymised participant level data underlying the trials for these new products remain inaccessible to doctors, researchers, and the public—and are likely to remain that way for years to come.16 This is morally indefensible for all trials, but especially for those involving major public health interventions.â€
It’s almost as if the Journal is implying that studies were done in order to extract profits. Balderdash!!! Who ever heard of such a thing. That sort of behavior would not be going on today!
The TOGETHER study did have one trial using standard dose ivermectin, but then did another study at 400 mcg/kg which is double what the FLCC recommended as their standard dose. The results: High dose ivermectin relative risk ratio = 0.91 fluvoxamine relative risk ratio = 0.69. So it looks like fluvoxamine is three times better than ivermectin.
But even fluvoxamine is not very good compared to vaccination, a MAB that is not immune-evasive by the particular variant, or Paxlovid. And all three of those work at above 90% for Omicron for keeping people out of the hospital and the morgue.
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From my point of view so far, you’ve had nothing but resistance to any public health measures of mitigation beyond vaccines and infection treatments. Treatments, BTW, having high costs for the government, administering costs born by the patient and limited effectiveness with the most recent variant, Omicron.
I only resist spending a lot of time and money on measures of mitigation that don't work. The biggest failure in this pandemic is all the people who refuse to get vaccinated or wear masks when they are needed. Monitoring sewage for viral DNA is nice to get an idea of how prevalent the virus is, but it doesn't actually do anything for anybody. Contact tracing is nice, but it is extremely failure-prone for a virus that is highly contagious days before symptoms appear (and usually they don't). All your "public health mitigations" pale before the lack of vaccinations and masks.
I have nothing against public health measures that work, and public health measures that have the force of the law backing them. Another huge problem is one Party has politicized public health as "anti-freedom" for political gain, to the extent of governors outlawing mask and vaccine mandates, and a Supreme Court that seems like a Death Cult. I would be all for government sending everybody a free Covid-kit, but I would put fluvoxamine in it instead of ivermectin. Also a bunch of high-dose Vitamin D, zinc, N95 masks, etc.
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-going after herd immunity with the Trump vaccines was a flawed policy based on what we know about the limits of these ‘vaccines’.
The "limits" of these vaccines are that they keep most people from getting seriously ill and out of the hospital. That's all any vaccine (besides the HPV vaccine) EVER does. There is no other sterilizing vaccine. Immunity against infection contracts, and that is a natural process. We have evolved this because the most people survived when antibodies contract. Without contraction, we wouldn't have room in our circulating antibody concentration for making new antibodies to new pathogens. But we have also evolved some very good immune memory mechanisms, so we can quickly manufacture those antibodies later when we need them. We have also evolved a mechanism for making diverse antibodies that work against variants. This is why about 95% of the patients in the ICU are unvaccinated.
And vaccinations were and still are absolutely free to anybody: Both essential workers and the ruling class. So I think bringing that into the discussion is just a non-sequitur. I'm all for single-payer, but changing our health care financing system is not really going to help much right now. In fact, I think all the government coverage and support payments handed out, is going to make even more people support single payer.
“ I only resist spending a lot of time and money on measures of mitigation that don't work. The biggest failure in this pandemic is all the people who refuse to get vaccinated or wear masks when they are needed. Monitoring sewage for viral DNA is nice to get an idea of how prevalent the virus is, but it doesn't actually do anything for anybody. Contact tracing is nice, but it is extremely failure-prone for a virus that is highly contagious days before symptoms appear (and usually they don't). All your "public health mitigations" pale before the lack of vaccinations and masks.â€
Ivermectin is cheap. Dirt cheap. The notion of crapping on a readily available, extremely safe drug an opting for very expensive MAB’s in short supply and limited effectiveness across multiple variants is hardly defensible ‘science’. Reads as selective science to me. If other studies of other drugs come along that are as safe, cheap, available and effective for prophylactic use as the horse paste, great!! Get it out to the public then! But that’s not what’s happening. It has t happened throughout the two years of the pandemic.
MAB’s are not intended for prophylactic treatment. MAB’s are for treating the patient after they r been infected. There is no better example of an ounce of prevention costing less than the cure. A prophylactic costing pennies a dose to prevent systemic infection vs. a drug that costs over 2k a dose, is in short supply, is not administered for free, doesn’t sound like sound medicine but does sound like a profit driven model. The government has boughten millions of doses at 2k/dose of MAB’s. They could have stocked every medicine cabinet in America with horse paste (or any other horse paste comparable drug). If Peru could do it and cut mortality by 70% what’s the current administrations excuse? Perhaps Biden’s record of corruption and the appointment of a wall street guy to lead his covid task force might offer clues. But that’s speculation.
Contact tracing can be done right (effective) or wrong (ineffective). As other countries have done it effectively, again, whats the excuse for this sad administration and institutional failure. It looks as though they can’t learn, or won’t, from other countries successes. Again not following the science.
Waste water detection is a leading indicator of where to concentrate resources and activity. Contact tracing would be one of those activities. CO2 level monitoring is an indication of interior air quality. Other countries are using this indicator tool. Corsi boxes are cheap and effective for remediation of viral load. Why are they being ignored?
Vaccines and masks are not going to do it. Not by themselves. A layered approach is the only thing that will and is doing it in other parts of the world. Unfortunately for this country, we have two incompetent right wing political parties that have spent decades cashing in on copper stripping the governments institutions, rendering them incapable of action. The ‘don’t just do something, stand there’ libertarian ideal is now paying harsh dividends for Americans. Especially those deemed essential (though compensation levels for such essential work is inverse to the stated value).
Vaccines, like masks, are a constantly shifting argument. We’ve gone from herd immunity to ‘you won’t get sick and can take off the mask’ to ‘you won’t get sick with a booster and should still wear a mask’ (Rhode Island super spreader breakthrough period) to ‘you’ll get sick but not bad sick with a third jab’ and now, with information out of Israel, ‘fourth jabs aren’t effective help anymore’.
All of which ignores the long tail effects of what a covid infection can do to the individual. Hence my linking to articles showing the evidence of long term organ damage of the vacced and unvaccinated. Or the pesky issue of immune exhaustion and malfunction with repeated jabbing. But it sure sounds like a simple solution.
As far as the class dynamics of this disease, if your wealthy and sitting at home with the means to avoid going out in public and ordering in your treats, your probably fine with jabs and masking. If your not wealthy, have to interact with the public to pay the bills, your probably more exposed to long term tail effects if vax only. But it’s the wealthy classes who keep this virus moving. The poor don’t fly and the virus doesn’t walk across oceans to get here. At over 800k dead and rising, one wonders at the necessity of air travel. As long as the rich fly, this virus will benefit.
Yes, ivermectin is cheap, but so is fluvoxamine, and works three times better.
The AstraZeneca long-lasting MAB WAS specifically created for prophylactic treatment of people with compromised immune systems, who do not respond to vaccination.
Contact tracing can be done right, but I doubt it can be in America. It's very difficult with a virus that spreads with mostly asymptomatic cases, before any symptoms appear, is often mistaken as a cold, with 1/3 of the population denying it exists, refusing to respond to contact tracers, refusing to wear masks, refusing to quarantine, refusing to get vaccinated, etc. In the real world of America, more attempts at contact tracing wouldn't have done much at all with this population, half-assed "lockdowns" that were not really lockdowns, governors and judges that fight public health measures, etc. If government had tried more contact tracing, if would have been fought tooth and nail by all those forces. Want real public health? You are going to have to start with shock treatments for 1/3 of the population, recall some governors, and force some Supreme Court justices to retire. Good luck with that. Seriously, I'd support that completely.
People actually are using wastewater monitoring, improved ventilation, HEPA air filters, etc. Why do you think so many restaurants have outside tables and sell so much take-out food. Indoor dining restrictions are quite effective where anti forces don't get them cancelled.
You blame the political Parties, but those simply reflect the people. Yes, it would be nice if people were more logical. Much better policies would result if so many quit voting against their interests, manipulated by dog-whistle nonsense. Much better if so many people were not so stupid and greedy, too.
Vaccines have always been one thing: Their use has always been to keep most people from getting seriously ill or dying. That's what immunologists and vaccinologists have known for many decades. But it's not what mass media has run with. The "shifting argument" you are complaining about is a product of misrepresentation by media and politicians. The Provincetown event is a case in point: A mass gathering of mostly vaccinated people in close contact indoors resulted in some infections, but very few hospitalizations among the vaccinated. It actually proved the vaccinations were working as expected. But the press freaked out by people getting mildly infected. The CDC over-reacted to the press freak-out and started a booster campaign, because they thought vaccinated people's T-cell response might contract. (They knew antibody levels contract.) But there was zero evidence for their idea at all! Very much later a Canadian study found that boosters at 6 months gave much broader immunity to variants as well as temporarily increasing antibody levels. This was because the initial 3 or 4 week vaccination interval was much too short for good long-lasting immunity. Not to infection, but to hospitalization and death.
The very best prophylactic for Long Covid is vaccination. It even works pretty well if you get vaccinated within a month AFTER a covid infection if you were unvaccinated. Doctors are telling their covid patients this, and some of them listen. Some don't, and they get a lot more Long Covid. But they didn't listen very well before getting infected, either.
Immune exhaustion is something theorized but as yet unseen, Most immunologists are not worried. Same for "immune original sin" and "antibody-dependent enhancement".
I agree with you about rich people spreading the virus. But government attempts to shut down travel have all been way too late. And rich people are not the only travelers. A huge number of poor people travel to find work. For example, Filipinos. There is a reason the First Class sections of commercial airplanes are much smaller than Economy. As for differences between rich and poor folks in exposure, if all those who need to work in high-exposure jobs got vaccinated, they would be much much safer. Health care workers are the best example of "high-exposure" and this is exactly why hospitals want all of their workers vaccinated.
Joe withdrew mandatory vaccine and testing for private companies. It looks like OMICRON did what the mandates couldn't - between those unvaxxed who have survived OMICRON, and the vaxxed + boosted, over 200M Americans have natural or vaccine immunity - for now.
DeathSantis is at it again: His death toll is not high enough yet. He's set up many MAB sites, so they can treat people who could have gotten vaccinated, but didn't. Problem is they are using MABs for anybody, instead of just for the immunocompromised who really need them, and the supply has always been limited. Now to top that off, his suppliers, Lilly and Regeneron have announced their initial MABs are not effective against Omicron (Almost all cases in Florida). A peer-reviewed and published study just recently said Regeneron's MAB is 1000 times less effective and Lilly's 3000 times less effective. Between that and the manufacturer's announcements, the FDA is cancelling their EUAs.
He's blaming Biden for that. He insists it's people's right to get ineffective treatments, which the FDA is specifically tasked with controlling. I suppose he'll want snake-oil and bleeding next. How about "laying on of hands" (or Reiki, it's modern equivalent), or The Power of Positive Thinking, Ron?
MABs are a good idea, but monoclonal antibodies are only effective for variants they match. A few mutations from immune-evasion evolution, and they don't interact with the new variant very well. But I suppose "evolution" is something he denies, as well! Months after vaccination or a suitable natural infection, our germinal centers do something called somatic hypermutation, where thousands of different but closely related mutations occur during antibody maturation, and the results are tested against the viral antigen. This natural process can produce antibodies that are thousands of times better at binding to the antigen! Those "better antibodies" are available for mass production when needed in the event of reinfection. This process can never happen with MABs. Which is one reason why vaccination is so effective against new variants.
You realize your views similar to Desantis, they just differ in form? Desantis is playing to his base and your advocating for the PMC base play.
I read recently that the US spend a little over 3% of overall healthcare spending on public health. The number was predicted to fall just under 3% in the next couple of years.
While you downplay the notion of public health mitigation efforts, insisting that vax and MAB’s are the only way to go, I don’t recall you having much support for little else. The whizbang mRNA vaccines were sold as being quickly tailored to variants in the beginning but, for various reasons, there hasn’t been any adjustments for delta or the Cron. Breakthru’s aplenty with each of those variants, having been extremely lucky that the Cron didn’t go into the lower RT and turn lung tissue into bloody tar like Delta.
MAB’s have a similar story line.
We can play the ‘with/from’ game of the death totals but I think you miss the point that both rightwing political parties have not covered themselves in glory in handling the pandemic. At the moment, I give the edge in effectiveness to the previous administration. Operation warp speed, lock downs, halting air traffic, more financial assistance, etc..
I don’t see what the current dominant right wing government has down to top that list in order to mitigate infections structurally.
I really don't understand the healthcare system and how they handle patients. I have been told, by medical folk, that there is a number of patients, for instance, who insist they don't have any corona virus and want a specific medicine which may, or may not, be available. Basically they are in a hospital and are rejecting their services, taking up a bed that somebody else can actually use, etc. What I don't understand is why the hospital hasn't simply sent that patient away as their services are not wanted and they are wasting their time. I have been told that even after their lives have been saved they remain angry with the hospital, staff, doctors, etc.
I also don't understand why the government is paying the bills of anti vaxxers who are in hospitals because they chose to be there because they wouldn't get a vaccination! They chose to be sick! Some may say that's not true but, I think, EVERYBODY has been told the facts, time after time after time and they refused the advise which is proven virtually every day with statistics on who needs the help and why (anti-vaxxers) They are responsible and my taxes should not pay for their care!
Then there are the parents of children who get covid because the parents didn't allow masks or vaccinations. In that case, if the children survive, they should be taken away from the parents that almost killed them before they do it again!
Its really time that those folks who are all growed up start to take responsibility for their resistance to reality. They are, obviously, not going to do that on their own but the previous thoughts might make, at least, a small dent in that regard.
As far as I can tell the anti-vaxxers and covid deniers, are actually, at least in part, for the ongoing covid mess. That being the case ...........
Desantis is playing to his base and your advocating for the PMC base play.
Does anybody understand what "PMC base play" means? You keep posting jargon that I suppose is quite familiar to you, but is just ignored by everybody here because they don't understand what you are talking about.
The rather huge difference between what I advocate and DeSantis advocates is that I like treatments that work, and DeSantis is promoting some MABs that even their manufacturers and the FDA claim don't work against Omicron. See: Not opinion, but fact!
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While you downplay the notion of public health mitigation efforts, insisting that vax and MAB’s are the only way to go, I don’t recall you having much support for little else. The whizbang mRNA vaccines were sold as being quickly tailored to variants in the beginning but, for various reasons, there hasn’t been any adjustments for delta or the Cron. Breakthru’s aplenty with each of those variants, having been extremely lucky that the Cron didn’t go into the lower RT and turn lung tissue into bloody tar like Delta.
I do not insist that vaccinations and MABs are the only way to go, and never have. I use isolation, masks, hand sterilization, distance, ventilation, etc. extensively. In fact, I have repeatedly pointed out the problems with MABs: They have to be given before symptoms appear to be most effective, and the FDA and medical establish reserve expensive drugs in short supply for seriously ill patients WHEN MABS DON'T WORK! The fact that MABs are very variant-specific is another limitation. In order to be effective, we would have to give them to everybody with a positive test, even though most of them would be fine without the expensive treatment. I have said that is why we need a dirt-cheap small-molecule drug (like ivermection) we can give to everybody before they leave the rapid-testing site. But when the results of the TOGETHER trial came out, I switched to universal distribution of fluvoxamine.
BUT: MABs that work against Omicron are great for identified high-risk patients and the immunocompromised who do not benefit from vaccination.
I have also said nice things about some of the anti-virals like Paxlovid, and lately Remdesivir. But they have the same economic problems as MABs, without being variant-specific. The FDA and medical establishment have tried to limit their use to seriously ill patients, when they have no effect. When given very early, they are fantastically effective.
There haven’t been any vaccine adjustments for recent variants, (except for Pfizer's Omicron-specific vaccine that is in trials right now), mainly because there is no need. The original vaccines are still highly effective against hospitalization and death no matter what the variant, and I've explained why that is the goal and why that happens. I guess you just skim my posts or something.
I've also explained that Omicron, Delta, and every other variant have little difference in their clinical behaviors. That is a popular myth in the mainstream media, but virologists and immunologist mostly agree that the difference is because we have so many people with some humoral immunity now. For people with no immunity, Omicron does go into the lungs and wreck havoc. That's why so many have mild cases and the ICUs are filled with the unvaccinated.
Trump was a raging dumpster-fire when it came to the pandemic. He disassembled pandemic response agencies and public health positions before the pandemic. He ignored it "because it is affecting Blue states", then used every opportunity for political gain including Warp Speed. He was hugely disappointed when vaccinations couldn't start before the election, because that was his "Great Man on the White Horse" play. He even told everybody the virus was nothing to worry about after he almost died from it, which began the politicization of anti-mask and anti-vax. Those have cost America hundreds of thousands of needless deaths. Even now, his supporters in governor offices and courts fight masking and vaccination efforts, and every other sensible public health measure supported by the Biden administration. It's a modern death cult.
If you are interested in an inside story of how the Covid vaccine development was so quick, watch TWIV 858 on YouTube:
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John Mascola joins TWiV to discuss the history and mission of the NIH Vaccine Research Center, how it prepared for devising pandemic vaccines, and development of the COVID-19 vaccines.
They were actually working with Moderna on a Nepa virus vaccine development "drill" to see how fast Moderna could go from gene sequence to vaccine, when the SARS-COV2 RNA sequence was published by the Chinese. (They had already collaborated with Moderna on a Zika vaccine.) So they just plugged the SARS-COV2 sequence into the existing Nepa drill protocol, and had Moderna run with it. The answer was 1 month!
This was with the dual-proline sequence added that fused the spike protein so it could not enter cells through the normal ACE-II receptor. VRC had already figured out how to do that. Essentially, the timing was all perfect. The rest of the time until vaccination launch was all working out mass production, delivery, safety and dosage trials, FDA emergency authorization, etc.
DeathSantis is at it again: His death toll is not high enough yet. He's set up many MAB sites, so they can treat people who could have gotten vaccinated, but didn't. Problem is they are using MABs for anybody, instead of just for the immunocompromised who really need them, and the supply has always been limited. Now to top that off, his suppliers, Lilly and Regeneron have announced their initial MABs are not effective against Omicron (Almost all cases in Florida). A peer-reviewed and published study just recently said Regeneron's MAB is 1000 times less effective and Lilly's 3000 times less effective. Between that and the manufacturer's announcements, the FDA is cancelling their EUAs.[/url]
Flor-i-duh...becoming purple one unvaxxed Rightwinger at a time. Oh well...
NPR said the quick development of the Corona virus vaxx has its genesis in 20 years of HIV vaxx research. THAT may be another reason why Rightwingers don't want the vaxx.
TWIV 860 on YouTube starts with a fundamental paper about recognition of "self RNA" versus "foreign RNA" (bacterial RNA, viral RNA, tRNA, and mitochondrial RNA) by proteins that are specifically in cells to recognize them. These proteins can pour out a cytokine that leads to cellular suicide (apoptosis), that is an important factor in the innate immune system. The authors theorized their results could lead to therapeutic RNA and mRNA vaccines. This paper was published in Immunity in 2005.
I bring it up as a historical point of interest: You need a lot of biochemistry to understand much of it, but I did learn some interesting things. Like the extant that RNA nucleotides are modified. Adenine, guanine, cytosine, & uracil are apparently the "high school version" of what is really going on! But I thought you might be interested because Katalin Karikó et al might just win a Nobel Prize for this.
I would not be surprised if Mikaela Shiffrin's poor performance at the Olympics was Covid-related. I think a lot of athletes are going to find their performance is not up to their pre-pandemic level. Mostly it's from the heart damage even asymptomatic infections can cause. Early in the pandemic, researchers at Ohio State University used MRI to find evidence of recent or active cardiomyopathy in around 40% of student athletes who had mild or asymptomatic infections. This could be unknown by the victims, until they tried to compete in their sport. Then their maximum cardiac output could be just a bit impaired.
Interesting new paper out recently about the effectiveness of wearing masks indoors in public settings. This is real data, finally!
Cloth mask: 56% lower odds of catching the virus Surgical mask: 66% lower odds of catching the virus N95 or KN95 mask: 83% lower odds of catching the virus
Note that this is not about protecting other people from you. This about you protecting your self. So your odds of shopping for food unscathed are much better if you wear a tight-fitting quality mask, covering your mouth and nose. Your nose is your most susceptible part, so wearing a mask with your nose exposed is completely worthless. This kind of effectiveness almost rivals vaccination, so keep wearing those masks folks, even if a store does not require it.
This is for indoor public spaces. Outdoors, with some distance and good hand hygiene they really don't do much.
Ever since March 2021 when Dr. Fauci said to double-mask, I've been doing the blue surgical mask with a black Adidas mask over it, every, single day. When the guy in the vanpool turned out to be C19+, I was only 3' from him for 35 minutes. I was the driver and he was next to me in the passenger seat.
There may be some confounders that were not taken into account in that mask study. First one is it's all based on asking people about their mask-wearing habits. The other is that people using N95s are probably a lot more careful than people wearing cloth masks, and certainly a lot more careful than people who do not wear any mask. So the numbers probably are not just for the masks. But they do reflect the total picture of being careful versus being reckless.
So it would be better to say you can lower your odds of catching the virus by being careful, which includes wearing high-quality masks in indoor public spaces.
The latest salvo directed against public health measures is a "report" by some economists and Libertarians claiming that none of the non-drug interventions work.
A new report that has grabbed headlines on Fox News and other Murdoch-owned news outlets claims that regulations aimed at curtailing spread of the coronavirus through mandatory masking, lockdowns, and school closures in 2020 only reduced deaths from SARS-CoV-2 infections by 0.2 percent. The 62-page study, much-hailed by leading Republican politicians, has grabbed mainstream media headlines, as well. But closer scrutiny reveals that it is an example of motivated reasoning, indulging in scientific cherry-picking to prove a preferred thesis about public health.
Described as a “Johns Hopkins†study, the report was in reality published online by the Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise at Johns Hopkins University, an academic enterprise tightly linked to the libertarian Cato Institute think tank. The institute is separate from the famed medical institution and school of public health affiliated with the university. It is co-directed by one of the authors of the new report, economist Steve Hanke, who also directs the Troubled Currencies Project at the Cato Institute.
Laurie Garrett is a science writer of some renown, a very good writer, and calls it like she sees it. (Unlike some journalists who sacrifice truth to "fairness", presenting nonsense and reality as equally valid viewpoints.)
Why wasn't there an advertising budget built into the COVID vaccines? I know, I know...you're going to say, "They're FREE! Why do they need to be advertised when Uncle Sam picked up the tab?" So what?
Every other vaccine is marketed, every MAB is marketed. Every pet rock and pimple cream is marketed to the public. Geez whiz, we're mumbling drug names that sound like absolute toddler gobbledygook in our sleep!...adalimumab, keysimpta, keytruda, oingo boingo...
Okay, that last one is a band, but you get the point. Think of all the stupid s*** people are convinced to buy and tell me advertising doesn't work. My God, forty years ago the first of my gay friends died of AIDS and now I'm watching happy pretty gay people eating barbecue in slow-mo while pretty ladies stick flowers in their shirt pocket. Madison Avenue managed to PUT A HAPPY FACE ON AIDS!! Can you imagine what would have happened if the government had begun distributing free AIDS medications, and the Moral Majority had decided to pour millions into some scary denier coalition instead? They spent money on full page ads with families wearing masks, so don't say they wouldn't have...they almost did.
So, if the "Mad Men" were able to soothe public hysteria with a few cute ad spots for lifesaving AIDS medications, why didn't they do the same thing for the Rona shots? Instead we ended up spending untold BILLIONS more mitigating the consequences of the monster-sized anti-vaccine movement, when it would have been cheaper to hand Pfizer, Moderna and Jannsen a few hundred million to produce attractive commercial spots for their vaccines with extra money for the airtime purchases. FFS, they could have started advertising the moment the FDA granted approval.
Just because something is free doesn't mean you don't have to market it to people. You HAVE to market it to them, because most Americans are conditioned to look at a free shot from the government with suspicion.
I'm not saying everyone would have responded in a positive fashion but I bet we could have picked up a lot of people who were just on the fence and a little too hesitant, which would be about 25-30 percent of the unvaccinated population. And that would be enough to put a large dent in the anti-vax movement, and enough to put us closer to a good majority of vaccinated persons.
It's no secret the Dems are super bad on messaging.
Rightwingers have NO IDEA that an infastructure bill was signed into law. No joke! They're asking: What legislation has Joe signed? And they're serious!
It's our turn in the barrel: Wife and I both have Covid, and I'm happy to report the vaccines are working exactly as advertised. We were never shedding enough viral protein to get a positive on a Binax home test, but she did manage to shed enough to infect me before I got the tests. I'm about three days behind her. It's about like a bad cold. Totally respiratory, nose throat and lungs. No gastric problems to mention.
Timing and general lack of contact with anyone else says she caught it at Costco, which is ironic because that's where we got our boosters.
Dr. Been on Youtube reports on a paper from Malaysia. N = about 900, half on Ivermectin and half not. Results showed no statistically significant benefit from IVM. It was a decent dose and schedule for the IVM, according to it's promoters. There was a trend in one of their endpoints that was a bit pro-IVM, but for another endpoint anti-IVM. This is why we set significance at p = 0.05. It could be that if N was 9000, they would have got some results, but in the bigger picture I think IVM is minimally effective. Vaccines and Paxlovid, on the other hand, are highly effective.
Just as a reference point, Dr. Been has been a strong IVM promoter and user for his patients, his family, and himself. Looks like clinging to IVM is beating a dead horse at this point.
Not all the way there yet, but we are getting better. Managed 9 hours of sleep last night. Having to wake up constantly to cough and clear out your airway is the worst. Interesting that wife and I have different strategies: I sleep with my nose lower than my lungs so it all drains out. She sleeps sitting up so it all stays down in her lungs. She coughs a lot more through the night.
Sorry, off-topic: TWIV on YouTube just reviewed two new papers that show the relationship between Epstein-Barr virus and Multiple Sclerosis right down to the molecular level! Pretty simple: People have different HLA types (What they match for transplants). These are the molecules that stick out of cells and "present" foreign antigens (like virus epitopes) to the T-cells. T-cells talk to B-cells and convince them to make a bunch of antibodies against the foreign epitopes.
Humans with normal immune systems start out with B-cells that make antibodies against every possible epitope (a series of amino acids the immune system can react against) . They even make antibodies against everything you could possibly be allergic to. These antibodies go through a testing phase, so every antibody against "self" is knocked out. This is why we don't all die as infants of autoimmune diseases.
But when people with the right HLA types get Epstein-Barr virus (which 90% of us have) it can turn on production of a certain antibody. That keeps the EBV in check. But the new antibodies also undergo something called "somatic hypermutation" in which the antibody genes get varied enough to protect us from virus variants we may encounter in the future. One (or a few) of those mutated antibodies cross reacts with a protein used by oligodendrocyctes, the cells that make myelin. They stop or are impaired in making new myelin (nerve cell insulation) and voila: You have MS.
You can go back and read through that again. This will be on the test.
So the interesting question is would an Epsein-Barr vaccine give a bunch of people MS? I think it could, if you used the wrong virus epitope to make the vaccine. The first Pasteur rabies vaccine used rabbit spinal cord to grow the virus before killing the "live" virus, and it did tend to give people autoimmune paralysis when they cross-reacted to the nerve cells..
So Hong Kong is surging, medical experts are saying that OMICRON beta has not hit the US hard - YET - but it's here, and might not hit hard because 80% of us have had C19 or have been vaxxed + boosted.
It sure would be nice to back to normal. I haven't been to the gym in two years. But I'm not going to breathe someone's breathy COVID aerosols, either.
The HIV vaccine is being tested currently in human beings. PrEP has pretty much eliminated sexually active men of a certain marginalized group from getting HIV and/or reduced the viral load so far that it's undetectable now.
PrEP is one thing and an HIV vaccine is another. Paxlovid is the corona virus version of PrEP. They both work by inhibiting their virus's protease, the viral enzyme that cuts the big mega-protein into the functional proteins. If that doesn't happen, the virus can't reproduce. Your immune system cleans up any remaining corona virions, until the infection is gone. But it can't do that with HIV. HIV is a retrovirus, which means it copies it's genome into some infected cells DNA. You can kill off all the "live" virus, and cells with that modified DNA will make new virus. This is why PrEP is a life sentence.
For a corona vaccine to work, it needs to make antibodies and sensitize T-cells that attack most of the virus. For an HIV vaccine to work, it has to "kill" every single HIV virus before it can do it's "retro trick". We don't know how to make vaccines that are perfect yet, and we don't know how to edit the HIV genes out of your DNA.
But there is another approach. People who's ancestors survived the Bubonic Plague may have a gene that denies entry for the Yersinia pestis bacteria into cells. This gene also renders single-gene people resistant to HIV and double-gene people HIV-proof. If we can figure out a way to get this gene into people (or maybe delete the "normal gene") then we might be able to end AIDS. The ironic thing is that HIV may just show us how to insert genes into cellular DNA, while it is "running".
I'm not going to post my email address in public, but TAT and greger know it, and it's in the private message going around. I have some of your's from that thread, and hopefully NWP does setup something for us.
Interesting paper recently from Israel. There has been controversy regarding Vitamin D levels and Covid severity. Many studies have found very low levels in the sickest patients, but critics have claimed the disease depletes your Vitamin D levels. In this study, researchers looked at Covid severity and mortality in patients where they had a Vitamin D level from before they caught the virus. So there is no possibility the disease causes the low Vitamin D level.
They found a very strong correlation between pre-existing Vitamin D levels and disease severity, with a huge relative risk ratio, and probability of error below 0.001. No drug company wants to fund a Vitamin D study, since it is dirt-cheap and not patentable. The take-away from this study is you would be a fool not to keep your Vitamin D level over 40 ng/ml. Cost is pennies a day, and for all the naysayers claiming they get all the Vitamin D they need from sunlight, these researchers pointed out the majority of people in sunny Israel are deficient! And Arab Israelis (with darker skin) are the worst since they make it from sunlight slower than lighter-skinned folks.
Popular discussion: The paper itself: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0263069
So back in the day when everyone was half-naked and in the sun all the time this pandemic would have probably passed un-noticed.
I'm a hell of a lot healthier here toward the end of the pandemic because I started paying really close attention to other nutritional needs as well as vitamin D. Almost everything I eat now has targeted nutritional outcomes.
Exactly. We are evolved to have dark skin and so to make enough Vitamin D for somebody living in Central Africa. When humans moved North, those with darker skin couldn't make enough Vitamin D, so they were selected out. There was selective pressure to have lighter skin, which increased Vitamin D production. Now we have lots of mobility which leads to darker-skinned people living in areas with less sun, and we have clothes, cars, indoor occupations, and skin-cancer warnings. So there are wide-spread deficiencies in places you would never suspect. For example Muslim women in the sunny Middle East have a cultural requirement for extremely modest clothing, which makes them very deficient. In some cultures, lighter skin is associated with class, so people stay out of the sun as much as possible.
Central African tribesmen and lifeguards in Hawaii both top out at about 70 ng/ml. Some of the more liberal medical establishment says 30 ng/ml is fine. Well, you certainly won't get rickets at 30. USRDA is enough to get you to 6 ng/ml with no sun-made Vitamin D. It still assumes we all work on farms, or ride horses all day long.
Has anyone else noticed that, ALL OF A SUDDEN, the tsunami of COVID anti-vax and anti-mask propaganda has slowed to a trickle? Where's all the noise about ivermectin? Seems like only yesterday my news feed (not just social media - -- EVERYWHERE) was almost wall to wall "Frontline Doctors, Joseph Mercola, VAERS hysteria, ivermectin" and the continuing saga of angry truckers.
I guess Putin's propaganda workers and his American BFF's can't walk and chew gum at the same time so now they've redirected their energy and resources into making Ukrainians look like wall to wall Nazis who deserve to lose their country instead...no time for COVID funnies anymore.
Pandemic news and hysteria are winding down with the pandemic. Life returns nearly to normal and then we had a war. You see a lot less talk about Trump these days too, and none of it good.
... You see a lot less talk about Trump these days too,...
Trump is in the news, every single, day - in fact, multiple times. Currrently the stories are about his failed social media platform that launched the week, the Trump investigations, and Trump's continued support of Putin.
In fact, Trump releases media talking points almost daily.
I'm aware, Rick, but when was the last time you heard Ivanka's name or her husband?
Trump still holds some sway with the party but he's not particularly newsworthy.
Covid news still has some sway with the press too and may rise back to the top, but right now the war gives folks something else to think about instead of those tired old stories.
I'm sorry Rick, but the Trumps can't be all the news all the time like they used to be. They still get a few mentions but they are no longer newsworthy.
I'm sorry too that everyone who is going to get vaccinated or natural immunity has pretty much arrived there and taken away much of the covid controversy.
But mostly I'm sorry that Ukraine is under attack by Russia and forcing your favorite topics into the background.
"Pandemic is over" is the latest big lie. People are tired of the pandemic, so they WISH it was over. There are still a lot of infections, and a lot of people dying. Some places in the country are on the downslope. Others are not. Millions of people are still suffering from Long Covid. As I predicted about a month ago, the immunologically naive are almost depleted, so there are fewer opportunities for the virus to wreck havok. But there are still a ton of the immunosuppressed, older folks with co-morbidities, babies who were not passively immunized via breast milk, etc. Immunized people are going to continue to get mostly mild infections, but some will have a more difficult time. Some will die, since vaccination response is not uniform.
The latest news is we are starting to get more Paxlovid. It is reserved for patients with indications they will progress to serious illness, but I think that will change. Even asymptomatic cases can end up with Long Covid! So there is no such thing as "a case that won't progress". Just cases that probably won't progress. The percentage of people who get infected that end up with Long Covid is shocking.
"Pandemic is over" is the latest big lie. People are tired of the pandemic, so they WISH it was over. There are still a lot of infections, and a lot of people dying. Some places in the country are on the downslope. Others are not. Millions of people are still suffering from Long Covid. As I predicted about a month ago, the immunologically naive are almost depleted, so there are fewer opportunities for the virus to wreck havok. But there are still a ton of the immunosuppressed, older folks with co-morbidities, babies who were not passively immunized via breast milk, etc. Immunized people are going to continue to get mostly mild infections, but some will have a more difficult time. Some will die, since vaccination response is not uniform.
The latest news is we are starting to get more Paxlovid. It is reserved for patients with indications they will progress to serious illness, but I think that will change. Even asymptomatic cases can end up with Long Covid! So there is no such thing as "a case that won't progress". Just cases that probably won't progress. The percentage of people who get infected that end up with Long Covid is shocking.
You're looking at a COVID Long Haul Zombie right here. I feel like 50% of what I used to be...brain reduced to mush, heart and lungs that perform like the equivalent of a V8 running on seven cylinders and which hasn't had an oil change in 80 thousand miles, still no sense of smell or...maybe 15% of what it used to be. It's like that scene with Uncle Ellis in "No Country For Old Men"...
"All the time you spend trying to get back what's took from you, more is going out the door. After a while you just try and get a tourniquet on it.â€
The world is going to move on anyway. I see the churches are starting to fill up a bit more. I pass 5 of them on my morning walk. Some wear masks, others don't. Schoolkids at the bus stops are mostly wearing masks.
Nothing seems to be chasing on Omicron's heels and the healthcare system has got a pretty good grip on how to handle the disease these days. They're no longer having to burn the bodies on the outskirts of town and I'll miss the smell of barbecue, but the crisis is over for now and we're mostly in the mop-up stages.
So sorry, Jeff. Yes, it really sucks. I hope they can figure out some good therapies, but prevention looks like the best thing so far. Some Long Covid victims find that getting vaccinated again helps, but that's under 50% of them that try it. Saying it's over and going back to normal condemns lots of people who will get it and have bad outcomes to an early death or poor health for who knows how long.
Many wild animals have contracted it and spread it throughout their populations. (Pigs seem to be the exception, so our valuable barbeque resource remains unthreatened. But they have their own deadly corona viruses.) There is some evidence Omicron spent a long time evolving in mice before spilling back into humans. We have no idea when or where the next spillover event could occur. We (humans) are really doing a piss-poor job of sampling wild animals and keeping an eye on these things. Note I did NOT saw "if": It's a sure thing
We have no idea when or where the next spillover event could occur.
So we should all mask up, stay home and isolate, quit our jobs, stop doing everything and hunker down because it could return at any minute and we shouldn't be sidetracked by silly wars and economic realities. Not when a single case of covid exists in the world!
The world moved on from other plagues and pandemics, it will move on from this one.
The world moved on from other wars and it will move on from this one.
So sorry, Jeff. Yes, it really sucks. I hope they can figure out some good therapies, but prevention looks like the best thing so far. Some Long Covid victims find that getting vaccinated again helps, but that's under 50% of them that try it. Saying it's over and going back to normal condemns lots of people who will get it and have bad outcomes to an early death or poor health for who knows how long.
Many wild animals have contracted it and spread it throughout their populations. (Pigs seem to be the exception, so our valuable barbeque resource remains unthreatened. But they have their own deadly corona viruses.) There is some evidence Omicron spent a long time evolving in mice before spilling back into humans. We have no idea when or where the next spillover event could occur. We (humans) are really doing a piss-poor job of sampling wild animals and keeping an eye on these things. Note I did NOT saw "if": It's a sure thing
Caught COVID, then in March/April 2021 I received both Pfizer shots, then received my booster shot in November 2021. I'm of course open to getting a second booster if they'll allow me, which I think they will. But anyway, so far I am already outfitted with the highest level of immunity possible short of a second booster, although I am aware that some aspects of protection wane after a while, but I am also aware of several sound arguments about the way T-cells and other cells work, as discussed right here on the Rant.
But sure, I can get another booster, I'd already decided to when they first announced it might be possible.
we should all mask up, stay home and isolate, quit our jobs, stop doing everything and hunker down because it could return at any minute and we shouldn't be sidetracked by silly wars and economic realities. Not when a single case of covid exists in the world!
Hey, that's your strawman, not mine. I never said any of that. I said what we need to do is a lot more monitoring of wild animals so we have some advance warning when a spillover is coming. We should also be working on a general purpose polymerase blocker. Like the very successful protease blocker Paxlovid and the HIV proteases, but for a different enzyme that is highly conserved by all corona viruses. (That means it doesn't change much, if ever.) These are things that need government funding, because there is no immediate return on investment for a corporation. The way corporate duties are defined in America, it would actually be illegal for them to do these things! We could have started on that drug back when SARS1 showed up, but everybody just ignored it when standard public health methods contained it. For that matter, we in America need to bring back public health's powers to contain outbreaks early.
For that matter, we in America need to bring back public health's powers to contain outbreaks early.
Yeah, agree wholeheartedly. We cannot go through a repeat of the Putin-fueled Republican funded anti-vax hysteria.
I. just. can't.
It got so bad here for a little while that I actually considered concealed carry to protect my wife. Thankfully I decided I wasn't cut out to be some hyper-vigilant cranked up guy always on alert and trying to take matters into my own hands, but it got so bad that instead we just hunkered down for about a month watching the hysteria.
Public health directives have the force of law, but the problem is, law ENFORCEMENT is decidedly on the side of the anti-vaxxers, so there's no teeth. We cannot afford to go through this crap again...when public health says do something, people better damn well do it. It's like that Army tee shirt:
Some particularly bad news in the form of new papers about how Covid affects the brain: Researchers looked at MRIs of people who had brain scans both before and after Covid. They actually saw shrinkage, and not just in the seriously ill. Another paper said researchers found the onset of dementia is a very common result of serious Covid. Several researchers have found the virus is NOT neuro-invasive: It does not invade neurons in the body, the spine, or the brain. Nobody has found competent virions in nerve tissue. But they have found viral RNA fragments, which indicates they were floating around in the bloodstream after the virus was all "killed" by the immune system. The brain damage is probably a result of the cytokines and other agents that take part in the immune system over-reaction.
These are from TWIV 874 on YouTube. The main presenter, Dr. Griffon, also said a neurologist personally told him loss of smell and taste that has persisted for more than three months will probably never come back.
Many wild animals have contracted it and spread it throughout their populations.
In lower Ontario CA and upper Michigan, deer have been found to have COVID and there is a theory that it jumped to humans via hunters. Which is why Ontario and Michigan kept having surges.
When? Who took care of you? How do you think you got it? How did you isolate from Karen? Did you go to the hospital? Did you have any therapies?
I only know peeps who got Omicron after being vaxxed and boosted - and they say it was pretty bad. I can’t even imagine what getting it before the vax was like and surviving.
Interesting thing: Researchers have looked at the variants in deer, and they closely match the percentage of each variant in the local human population. There is no variant specifically adapted to deer. I can see hunters getting it from deer, but how does the other direction work? Deer hunters don't ever "catch and release". It might be through field mice, if they can pick up the human shed virus from droplets on the ground. Then their feces and respiratory droplets contaminate the grass deer eat. Domesticated deer could catch it directly from their caretakers, but I imagine they have little close contact with wild deer. It may be that deer are highly susceptible, so they can pick it up from objects or surfaces humans have sneezed on.
Lots more Paxlovid is sitting on shelves, not being used. You have to really have somebody advocating for you, to try and get it if you need it. It is totally ineffective if nobody takes it! If they do get it within a few days of symptom onset, it is terrific. People who get it often walk out of the hospital the next day!
There are resources online for locating it. In particular, CVS seems to be stocking it, but you need a prescription to get it. Don't delay if you get a positive test and are old or have comorbidities. It must be given within a few days of symptom onset to do any good.
This happened yesterday and is important information for our age group. especially those of us over 70.
A friend had his 3rd dose of the vaccine - the "booster" at a Pharmacy, after which he began to have blurred vision on the way home. When he did get home, he immediately called the pharmacy for advice about seeing a doctor, or to be hospitalized.
He was told NOT to go to a doctor or a hospital, but to immediately return to the pharmacy and pick up his glasses.
On a different thought. I wonder why china isn't giving everybody a vaccination. I know, theirs wasn't very good but, by now, I suspect they have the capacity to produce one that will actually work?
Seems that would be a lot easier than, literally, shutting down all of china?
On a different thought. I wonder why china isn't giving everybody a vaccination. I know, theirs wasn't very good but, by now, I suspect they have the capacity to produce one that will actually work?
Seems that would be a lot easier than, literally, shutting down all of china?
I'm not so sure that they do have the ability to produce "another" one that will actually work. Why? Because in an environment like modern day China, not all that much has changed since 1949, at least not as far as the unwillingness to inform Premiere Xi that something done on his watch is less than satisfactory. In other words, I suspect no one wants to be the one to tell Xi that his original Sinovax isn't very effective. And thus Sinovax is officially "the best COVID vaccine ever invented and has 100% effectiveness against anything Xi says it does."
When? Who took care of you? How do you think you got it? How did you isolate from Karen? Did you go to the hospital? Did you have any therapies?
I only know peeps who got Omicron after being vaxxed and boosted - and they say it was pretty bad. I can’t even imagine what getting it before the vax was like and surviving.
We all got it (Feb2020) and we're pretty sure it was our daughter who brought it home, as she was working as a men's hair stylist at a very swanky salon that catered to the jet set. We all got it at pretty much the same time. When I went to the hospital I didn't even know what I had and neither did the hospital. I spent eight hours in the ER, no one had masks on where I was, including when I passed out and when I reawakened with an oxygen mask on. They sent me home with a bottle of Prednisone and a pocket full of asthma puffers and I spent the next three weeks on the bedroom sofa wheezing frantically with my O2 saturation hovering in the eighties.
Yes, O2 saturation...with a heart patient for a kid, we do HAVE quite a bit of 'gear' at the house. Surprisingly my son tolerated COVID better than I did, he was very sick, but only for about a week.
I know people who caught Omicron after being vaxxed and boosted, they felt like they caught a cold. We are all doubled vaxxed and boosted and we're planning to get the second booster.
I am definitely one of those "COVID long haul zombies" everyone talks about.
Probably saved your life. One of the keys to successful treatment is NOT to give steroids early on, because they decrease immune response and that can make an infection worse. But by the time you get to the hospital passing out from low oxygen saturation, most of the virus is "dead". Those symptoms are immune system over-reaction which causes almost all Covid deaths. The doctors probably had no idea what you had, but ran some simple blood tests and found a very high C-reactive protein level. That indicates inflammation, and steroids are the best treatment. Fortunately for you, WHO had not told everybody not to give steroids yet.
For most everybody under 70 and with no comorbidities, a fourth shot is unnecessary. You WILL get infected if exposed to the latest variant, but it will just be a "Covid cold" and act as a booster. For people with more things that make it likely to be serious, a fourth vaccine will boost your antibody level for a few months and make even that "Covid cold" less likely. But a fourth shot is very unlikely to cause any harm to anybody who did not have a serious problem with previous Covid vaccinations.
For vaccinated people with a working immune system, there is this thing called "somatic hypermutation" that makes antibodies against a wide variety of variants. Even against SARS1 and MERS, as well as every possible future variant. Not a lot of each antibody type, but enough that you have some that will react against a new variant and start the immune system cranking out new variant-specific antibodies quickly. This is why a new "Covid cold" acts as a booster for most people.
Of course, the real "star of the show" is T-cell and B-cell immunity. Those are much longer lasting and much more resistant to "immune evasion" than antibodies with new variants. Antibodies react to a much smaller region of the virus (an epitope) than T-cells. So a few mutations in a new variant can make the variant evasive to old antibodies, This is why so many monoclonal antibodies are no longer effective. T-cells react to a much much larger viral epitope, so several mutations don't affect them.
Probably saved your life. One of the keys to successful treatment is NOT to give steroids early on, because they decrease immune response and that can make an infection worse. For most everybody under 70 and with no comorbidities, a fourth shot is unnecessary.
I'm going to be 65 in a few days, and my list of comorbidities is Type 2 diabetes, COPD, 35 lbs overweight and fatty liver. So I WILL be seeking out that second booster and so will everyone else in Hacienda del Haas.
Know WHY I threw out the Prednisone? Because it felt way too much like being high on crack cocaine, that's why. I put down the crack pipe twenty-seven years ago, and feeling that overcranked hyperactive crap scared the bejeezus out of me.
You should NEVER cold-turkey steroids. If you tried them and hated it, you can. But if you have been on them for a while, you need to taper slowly.
If they freaked you out, you should have just tried cutting the dose. Or asked your doc for a different one. Dexamethasone was actually the first one found to help people after serious acute Covid to avoid inflammation leading to Long Covid. I'm afraid you shot yourself in the foot there.
But I'm the same way with opiates. Tried one pain pill after I had three buried teeth extracted. I hated it so much I switched to ibuprofen.
Sad news: WHO estimates over 200 million people worldwide have suffered from Long Covid symptoms, the most common being exhaustion and cognitive difficulties. Early on, some victims seemed to benefit from vaccination. Pretty soon some studies of monoclonal antibodies for Long Covid may start, but the problem is which monoclonal? We have a battlefield littered with useless monoclonals as they are quite variant-specific.
Active immunity following vaccinations or multiple infections promote some great things like somatic hypermutation and affinity maturation, which make antibodies against every variant possible and antibodies that are 1000s of times better at neutralizing virus respectfully. Passive immunity (monoclonals) do not. Antivirals and monoclonals are wonderful, but they might actually prevent a robust immune response that can give you T and B-cell immunity that can last for many years. (17 years so far for SARS victims who survived.)
Interesting paper on TWIV 902: Some geneticists were looking for particular genes or immunological anomalies that made people more susceptible to serious Covid. They discovered that a fraction of the general population has auto-immune antibodies against certain of their own interferons. Those people had a 188-fold likelihood of serious or lethal Covid if they were under age 70. If they were over 70, that risk was still unchanged but other comorbidities surpassed it. This doesn't seem to hurt them unless they contract a SARS-COV2 infection. And just to be sure the antibodies were not caused by the infection, they looked at samples from before the pandemic: Same percentage had the antibodies. That risk is huge: That means that 187 out of 188 people under age 70 who died or got severe Covid had this condition!
So now we know why some otherwise healthy young and middle-aged people get serious Covid or die, even though they have no identified co-morbidities. This is actually one of the highest co-morbidities and nobody knew about it. Good news: It is possible to test people for it, and it may be possible to treat the condition.
Moderna has a new multi-variant SARS-COV2 mRNA vaccine that generates about 5 times as many antibodies as their original vaccine. It has some Omicron-specific antigens. They think it might be the basis of a yearly vaccine like we get flu shots. Some groups are also working on mRNA flu vaccines, which could be great since the current flu vaccines are not so good.
Not so much corona virus news, but the same team that created the Pfizer mRNA vaccine has created a promising anticancer mRNA vaccine. Another group has created a monoclonal antibody against rectal cancer. In a small trial, 12 out of 12 stage II or III cancer victims were in total remission a year after receiving the MAB treatment. No sign they ever had the tumors! The researchers had planned surgery and chemo after seeing if the MAB shrunk their tumors. Those treatments were unnecessary since all the cancer was gone.
Interesting how the numbers work out: Very early in the pandemic, researchers, doctors, and public health workers all agreed that a Covid infection was about 1% lethal. About 1/3 of the US population has never been vaccinated, so that would be 110 million people. Let's just say about 100 million at some risk because the young very seldom get a symptomatic infection. 1% of that would be 1 million dead, which just happens to be the current mortality count.
Coincidence? I don't think so. It could be been a lot less if more of us got vaccinated.
A significant handful died before the vaccination was available and before Biden called out the fecking National Guard to get vaccines into as many arms as possible...
And ran up against a strange bipartisan resistance to getting vaccinated...
I only say bi-partisan because I feel like traditional "anti-vaxxers" are a sort of new-age entitled lefty crowd who probably vote for Democrats. Black resistance and vaccine suspicion crossed party lines too.
I think what was the most amazing thing to watch was the way this pandemic reaction played out exactly like the one a century ago. Human nature doesn't change.
I wonder if that pandemic had anything to do with the ensuing economic collapse that led to the Great Depression...and the Second World War?
I only say bi-partisan because I feel like traditional "anti-vaxxers" are a sort of new-age entitled lefty crowd who probably vote for Democrats. Black resistance and vaccine suspicion crossed party lines too.
Care to suss out the percentage of anti-vaxxers and their political leans? I think there's more than a few studies that point out the difference between New Age Jenny McCarthy/Wellness Community anti-vaxxers and the Trumpy crowd.
The chart may be a revelation.
The most astounding part is that the lefty bunch decreased in size while the Trumpy bunch increased by nearly 50 percent.
Bipartisan? Yeah, like the Jan 6 committee is bipartisan.
PS: And that chart is from 2021, shall we check the most recent charts? Trumpy anti-vaxxers may have DOUBLED at this point, except hundreds of thousands of them are DEAD.
Bipartisan? Yeah, like the Jan 6 committee is bipartisan.
That's exactly what I said.
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I only say bi-partisan because I feel like traditional "anti-vaxxers" are a sort of new-age entitled lefty crowd who probably vote for Democrats. Black resistance and vaccine suspicion crossed party lines too.
A few crossed party lines, but not enough to make it genuinely bipartisan.
Interesting Research Letter in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association). This was in a large study of folks that compared the number of SARS-COV2 vaccinations with the occurrence of Long Covid:
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The number of vaccine doses was associated with lower long COVID prevalence: 41.8% (95% CI, 37.0%-46.7%) in unvaccinated patients, 30.0% (95% CI, 6.7%-65.2%) with 1 dose, 17.4% (95% CI, 7.8%-31.4%) with 2 doses, and 16.0% (95% CI, 11.8%-21.0%) with 3 doses.
CI is confidence interval. You can just look at the percentages for the "average" number of people with Long Covid.
Conclusion is simple: Get at least the three vaccinations. Don't be an idiot. Long Covid sucks.
I got my three, but unless there is another truly dangerous wave I probably won't get another.
It's almost two years now since I've been inside a store or restaurant. If I had to be around people I'd likely get another. I sit home, walk the dog, and play shuffleboard. Not much chance of me picking it up on a daily basis.
You are probably fine, if you are not immunosuppressed or have a lot of comorbidities. I'm at three myself. If I do get Covid, I could qualify for Paxlovid, so I'm not worried. Not concerned about monkeypox, either: We have vaccines and an antiviral drug that works. One of the big national labs now offers a monkeypox test, and the feds will give you free treatment. Also transmission is from direct contact which I don't do.
I don't go anywhere you might need to wear a mask. I'm having blood drawn tomorrow and there is a service who comes here and does it...all my groceries, pet supplies, household needs are delivered.
I manage it all right here from this desk. Other than that I 'walk' with the dog in the park or play shuffleboard outdoors and am safely distanced.
Do doctors give them in-house yet? I'd get the 4th if it was that easy.
>Do doctors give them in-house yet? I'd get the 4th if it was that easy.
Try asking around with your local social services people. Being wheelchair-bound I bet you can get a visiting nurse to come give you a vaccination for free.
These days with all our vaccinations and antivirals available, I don't think most people need to mask if they are outside. It's going inside with other people that is dangerous. And for most of us, just a little inconvenient if we do catch it. I still mask-up to go in the grocery store or Home Depot. Most people don't. I still don my mask at drive-up food windows if the server is wearing a mask, just as a courtesy. I don't wear a mask when I pick up parking lot deliveries, but I do distance from the store delivery person.
At the start of the pandemic, Black people were more than three times as likely to die of covid as their White peers. But as 2020 progressed, the death rates narrowed — but not because fewer Black people were dying. White people began dying at increasingly unimaginable numbers, too, the Post analysis found.
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The Post analysis found that Black deaths declined, while White deaths never eased, increasing slowly but steadily, until the mortality gap flipped. From the end of October through the end of December [2021], White people died at a higher rate than Black people did, The Post found.
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“Usually, when we say a health disparity is disappearing, what we mean is that … the worse-off group is getting better,” said Tasleem Padamsee, an assistant professor at Ohio State University who researched vaccine use and was a member of the Ohio Department of Health’s work group on health equity. “We don’t usually mean that the group that had a systematic advantage got worse.”
That’s exactly what happened as the White death rate surpassed that for Black people, even though Black Americans routinely confront stress so corrosive it causes them to age quicker, become sicker and die younger.
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Researchers at the University of Georgia found that White people who assumed the pandemic had a disparate effect on communities of color — or were told that it did — had less fear of being infected with the coronavirus, were less likely to express empathy toward vulnerable populations and were less supportive of safety measures, according to an article in Social Science & Medicine.
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After it became clear that communities of color were being disproportionately affected, racial equity started to become the parlance of the pandemic, in words and deeds. As it did, vaccine access and acceptance within communities of color grew — and so did the belief among some White conservatives, who form the core of the Republican base, that vaccine requirements and mask mandates infringe on personal liberties.
We just got our bivalent boosters, which will be shot #6. Yeah, we're that serious because in Feb 2020 when I caught it the first time I came very close to winding up as 215 pounds of fertilizer. The second time I caught it three months ago it was three days of the sniffles and some fatigue and that's all.
I hope I don't ever catch it again even if it is just the sniffles. My sense of smell is juuuuuuuuuust now beginning to come back a little bit, about 35% of what it used to be pre-COVID.
“ Q: Was that your biggest mistake as chief scientist—not calling SARS-CoV-2 airborne?
A: We should have done it much earlier, based on the available evidence, and it is something that has cost the organization. You can argue that [the criticism of WHO] is unfair, because when it comes to mitigation, we did talk about all the methods, including ventilation and masking. But at the same time, we were not forcefully saying: “This is an airborne virus.” I regret that we didn't do this much, much earlier.
I regret that the lesson learned by the ruling classes is they can kill over a million old and infirm, disable millions more, without any protests so long as they have buy in from the hegemonic PMC servant classes.
‘ According to a report on Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2022, roughly 58 percent of coronavirus deaths in August were people who were vaccinated and/or boosted. ’
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Never thought of that. Stopping the flow of air is a perfect way to prevent breathing in the virus. Are there any drawbacks to that?
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I am a Mod, after all.
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