Coronavirus

[Cosmacelf]

FYI, another White House coronavirus task force press briefing on going now at WH YouTube channel.

I didn’t listen to the whole thing, just a couple of items at the beginning

Fed drops rate to 0% - 0.25%. An entire 1% drop.

Trump relays notice from the nations biggest suppliers and retailers (Cargill, Sysco, Kroger, Albertsons, etc. ) that they are working around the clock and there is no need to hoard. Suppliers and retailers say they will continue supply.

 

[Yuri_G]

Do go on. I just have a hard time understanding his recent tweets and emails in any other way. I'm interested in alternative interpretations.

If you think EM does this for money you've misunderstood him all along. It's always been about trying to create the most positive sustainable impact in the least amount of time. Of course this is going to slow things down and he doesn't want that, but he'll find a way to keep progress going as quickly as humanly possible during such a time when most people are running around trying to secure tp.

 

[Paracelsus]

Part of Germany getting army ready for medical support of people. Sounds strange but no joke is reality.

This is a great post because it emphasizes how problematic it has been in the US for the last 3 Administrations to dedicate the US National Guard for overseas 'conflict' instead of have them available here at home for just such emergencies. The impact of war-profiteering for fossil fuels on our National Guard effects us here at home in ways the decision-makers hope won't be visible.........until they are.....such as post-hurricane relief, Deepwater Horizon oil spill clean up needs, earthquake response, pandemic response, etc. The US hasn't had a full compliment of National Guard troops since the Gulf War.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

I try to avoid second-hand information but this looks credible.

tl;dr -- if accurate Seattle is rapidly approaching Lombardy-like conditions, is out of ICU beds, clinicians are short of sleep and some hospitals have equipment shortages.

Scott Mintzer on Twitter

A severe flu season is stretching hospitals thin. That is a very bad omen - STAT

 

[UnknownSoldier]

I try to avoid second-hand information but this looks credible.

tl;dr -- if accurate Seattle is rapidly approaching Lombardy-like conditions, is out of ICU beds, clinicians are short of sleep and some hospitals have equipment shortages.

Scott Mintzer on Twitter

Someone mentioned that entirety of NYC has only 600 ICU beds. I still am not sure if this is an accurate count or not, if it is then really we have been asking for even the smallest thing to completely overwhelm our health care system for years now.

 

[renim]

I try to avoid second-hand information but this looks credible.

tl;dr -- if accurate Seattle is rapidly approaching Lombardy-like conditions, is out of ICU beds, clinicians are short of sleep and some hospitals have equipment shortages.

Scott Mintzer on Twitter

The BMI less than 25 is an actionable target for most people, just eat less, particularly refined Carbs and sugars.

After initial water loss, the next 10-15 kg weight loss tends to from fixing up the fatty liver. A very good action.

Covid 19, uses the ACE2 receptors, Cryo-EM structure of the 2019-nCoV spike in the prefusion conformation

Ace2 is not just with lung cells, (sars article but still relevant Error - Cookies Turned Off)

 

[Sean Wagner]

Top news on German public radio [et al.] is that the Trump administration has been trying to buy exclusive access to a vaccine being developed by a local company. They publicly and summarily refused, reiterating it is meant "for the world".

I am only relaying the information, but the reporting and comments here intimate a "public relations" disaster that will be remembered by all who lived through the present travails.

 

[eevee-fan]

Top news on German public radio [et al.] is that the Trump administration has been trying to buy exclusive access to a vaccine being developed by a local company. They publicly and summarily refused, reiterating it is meant "for the world".

I am only relaying the information, but the reporting and comments here intimate a "public relations" disaster that will be remembered by all who lived through the present travails.

Way to have the whole world turn their back on the USA. Meanwhile, President Putin lowered gas prices world wide.

 

[traxila]

Someone mentioned that entirety of NYC has only 600 ICU beds. I still am not sure if this is an accurate count or not, if it is then really we have been asking for even the smallest thing to completely overwhelm our health care system for years now.

NYC

600 ICU beds open.

20% vacancy on 3000 available.

 

[MXLRplus]

Everything since WWII has always been the USA's fault. It's a given. We either don't do enough, do too much, or do it wrong. We even blew up the World Trade Center according to the French and stole all the oil in the middle east in the process.
America is the only tree in the Planet of the Dogs.

 

[Sean Wagner]

Way to have the whole world turn their back on the USA.

The stupidity is beyond my comprehension. Even if it's just absence of mind.

Edit: verbatim, a "vaccine exclusively for America".
This would not have happened to any other administration - people would simply not have believed it.

See for instance Aktuelle Nachrichten online - FAZ.NET

 

[UnknownSoldier]

The rural health care system in the US has been in a state of collapse for years now. This might drive the final nail in the coffin.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/well-improvise-a-resource-starved-rural-hospital-steels-itself-for-coronaviruss-arrival/2020/03/14/a724d1ac-6604-11ea-acca-80c22bbee96f_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_virusruralhospital-503am-duplicate:homepage/story-ans&itid=hp_hp-top-table-main_virusruralhospital-503am-duplicate:homepage/story-ans

(I hate WaPo links.)

 

[bhzmark]

I was thinking of something like chloroquine and zinc as an anti-viral.

good idea. Others in china and Korea had this idea too.

Anti-virals of the type you are thinking of do not have a glorious history in medicine.

They have a very recent good history in China and korea.

Neither of those are antivirals with any shown in vivo activity.

keep an open mind.

You need some way of getting the zinc inside the cell. That's why they've been studying hydroxychloroquine.

bingo.

Probably not effective but we don't know. We do know that in vitro zinc plus some way to get it intracellularly interrupts the ribosome factories that create the virus. The problem is getting an ion through cellular membranes . . . which requires specialized Transit receptor, or ION transporter because normally this is very tightly regulated and blocked. Part of the interest in chloroquine is that in vitro but again this is not been proven in Vivo chloroquine actually opens up cellular membranes so as to allow the zinc ions into the cell where it can disrupt the transcription/translation process that's necessary for the virus to make copies of itself. I can't tell you how many in-vitro therapies have either bombed or proven to be toxic in Vivo but the list runs into the tens of thousands. So at this point it's just a promising lead. It'll have to be chased down and tested out like all kinds of other promising ideas, most, maybe 99%, of which end up on the scientific scrapheap. Frustrating, but that's the way it works

exactly.

Check out:

and

And even just started an RCT for prophylaxis

 

[goinfraftw]

This is good.

The next outbreak? We're not ready

 

[linux-works]

And even just started an RCT for prophylaxis

hey, this is a family-friendly site! watch your language.

(reported)

 

[Fobble]

Everything since WWII has always been the USA's fault. It's a given. We either don't do enough, do too much, or do it wrong. We even blew up the World Trade Center according to the French and stole all the oil in the middle east in the process.

Don't forget we planted covid-19 in Wuhan too ....

 

[dhanson865]

The BMI less than 25 is an actionable target for most people, just eat less, particularly refined Carbs and sugars.

After initial water loss, the next 10-15 kg weight loss tends to from fixing up the fatty liver. A very good action.

Covid 19, uses the ACE2 receptors, Cryo-EM structure of the 2019-nCoV spike in the prefusion conformation

Ace2 is not just with lung cells, (sars article but still relevant Error - Cookies Turned Off)

I've always found BMI to be a misleading stat.

I'm 6' 0" and about 185 pounds that puts me just above 25 BMI. But I can spend an hour on an elliptical like it's nothing and I can bench press my body weight.

Body density does not equal fat percentage. I see it as a lazy metric if you assume everyone at that BMI has the same athletic ability or body build/type.

In the past when I didn't exercise as much and had less muscle I had a lower BMI. Before I started exercising regularly I had a weight around 165 but couldn't work out hard aerobically or strength training wise (like I couldn't bench 1/3 of my body weight then vs being able to bench 4 times as much now).

Seriously which is healthier 22 to 23 BMI and can't bench 50 pounds and can't do any serious cardio or 25 bmi and can bench 200 and can do cardo as much as I want?

The only way I can move my BMI down without losing strength is to do more cardio or go on a restrictive diet (lower carbs, holding protein and fat steady)

Well if I end up quarantined at home I can at least spend more time exercising and less time sitting at a desk. Maybe I can move down the BMI chart a line by burning more calories. But if I don't get quarantined I'm likely to stay around 25 BMI.

 

[Cosmacelf]

I try to avoid second-hand information but this looks credible.

tl;dr -- if accurate Seattle is rapidly approaching Lombardy-like conditions, is out of ICU beds, clinicians are short of sleep and some hospitals have equipment shortages.

Scott Mintzer on Twitter

The very first follow on of his says: “First of all regarding the clinicians. None are sleeping more than a couple hrs a night. Everyone is utterly exhausted. My colleague has seen so many people die as to have become totally numb”

Has there been a spike of deaths we aren’t aware of? It isn’t in any of the numbers I’ve seen?

Update: the original tweeter is slowly posting new info that contradicts his tweets. He is retracting.

 

[bkp_duke]

good idea. Others in china and Korea had this idea too.


They have a very recent good history in China and korea.



keep an open mind.



bingo.
View attachment 522160



exactly.

Check out:

View attachment 522159


and View attachment 522163

View attachment 522164

View attachment 522167

And even just started an RCT for prophylaxis

View attachment 522169

Oh my, where to start . . . first, I have a very open mind on this stuff. I did research for almost 10 years, and that is a very humbling experience (to repeat an experiment 100+ times with failure before a positive).

The issue here with all the data you present is these are all IN VITRO (test tube) research reports. The ones that are not talking about in vitro results are just proposals for "let's try this and see how things go" and report back papers - they don't actually present any results.

Historically, about 1 in 100 to 1000 in vitro results translate to in vivo (in life) results. There are many many many reasons for this (clearance of the drug by the liver or kidneys before it reaches the target, toxicity - i.e. you need 100X as much as the body can tolerate to get the desired effect).

I've prescribed chloroquine for malaria prophylaxis. It does reasonably well int that limited usage, but malaria is a parasite, not a virus, and the mode of action is very different to treat that versus a virus.

Next point - none of these papers presented are randomized control trials (they are not even proper Phase 1 efficacy trials). The clinicaltrials.gov link you made - NOTE THAT IT IS NOT RECRUITING YET - that means it has not received approval for one reason or another by the institutional review board. If it stays that way, that means it is a big red flag for members of the board having safety concerns based upon existing data.

I applaud your hope that this will become a therapy, but it is wreckless and premature to be advocating that it should be used NOW as a treatment. There simply is not the data to support efficacy.

Additionally, chloroquine is not a very safe drug, in terms for the side effect profile -
Chloroquine Side Effects: Common, Severe, Long Term - Drugs.com
(OK, that was putting it mildly, it's just flat out toxic a lot of the time).

Thank goodness it is a controlled substance and people just cannot go buy it off the shelf, or there would be people in the ER by now with blood in their urine and stools.

 

[bhzmark]

The issue here with all the data you present is these are all IN VITRO (test tube) research reports.

False. Read the Clinicaltrialsarena post again -- or rather for the first time since you obviously missed it.


Coronavirus Covid-19: Chloroquine data; Japan to trial HIV drug