Coronavirus

[madodel]

Trump knew he was exposed to and possibly infected with COVID-19 when he went to a fundraiser in Bedminster, NJ on Thursday.
White House Knew of Trump's Exposure Before He Traveled to New Jersey

 

[madodel]

Quite a COVID Hoedown at the White House this week.
Kellyanne Conway announces she tested positive for coronavirus - CNNPolitics

 

[dfwatt]

Quite a COVID Hoedown at the White House this week.
Kellyanne Conway announces she tested positive for coronavirus - CNNPolitics

That's surprising because she's been in the Crypt for the last two months! Who knew that covid-19 penetrating that?

 

[renim]

Regeneron's REGN-COV2 Antibody Cocktail Reduced Viral Levels and Improved Symptoms in Non-Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients | Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Fwiw,

• Serological status highly correlated with baseline viral load (p<0.0001). Seropositive patients had much lower levels of virus at baseline, and rapidly achieved viral loads approaching lowest levels quantifiable (LLQ), even without treatment. In contrast, seronegative patients had substantially higher viral levels at baseline, and cleared virus more slowly in the absence of treatment.

• Patients with increasingly higher baseline viral levels had correspondingly greater reductions in viral load at Day 7 with REGN-COV2 treatment. The mean log10 copies/mL reduction in viral load compared to placebo were as follows:
  - Viral load higher than 10^5 copies/mL: high dose (-0.93); low dose (-0.86) (p=0.03 for both); approximately 50-60% reduction compared to placebo
  - Viral load higher than 10^6 copies/mL: high dose (-1.55); low dose (-1.65) (p<0.002 for both); approximately 95% reduction compared to placebo
  - Viral load higher than 10^7 copies/mL: high dose (-1.79); low dose (-2.00) (p<0.0015 for both); approximately 99% reduction compared to placebo

 

[renim]

A more generic question, why chase a vacinne if a cure will 'do the trick'?

 

[30seconds]

To me it looks like the use of the Regeneron drug is something of a "well it probably can't hurt (much)" choice. The study that Regeneron issued their news release on was in a much younger population (which is kind of odd) so it is hard to translate any efficacy other than a reduction in viral load.

What we know is that the virus affects older individuals (e.g., over 60) much more severely than those in the 30-50 range (the Regeneron study population).

But having him take in a closely supervised medical setting is definitely the right choice, even if the underlying choice to use it is based on very limited data.

 

[30seconds]

A more generic question, why chase a vacinne if a cure will 'do the trick'?

"Cures" are like vaccines, only partially effective - they work for some but not all. Plus at that point you are usually very sick and maybe already hospitalized. Plus they won't reverse any long term effect of getting the virus (if there are any - we don't know yet). Plus they tend to be higher doses and more active compounds with worse side effect profiles vs. vaccines.

Basically if you are worried about the safety of a vaccine you really won't like what happens if you get this and then need to be treated with a cure.

 

[renim]

.....(the Regeneron study population).

But having him take in a closely supervised medical setting is definitely the right choice, even if the underlying choice to use it is based on very limited data.

Why wouldnt the best option have limited data? Time is of the essence.

 

[30seconds]

usually our best options have a lot, and I mean A LOT, more data before use like this.

Now they are giving him a novel, anti-viral. Use of an unapproved agent + one just approved is pretty speculative at best. Scientifically they should be complementary to each other, and the mechanisms are different enough that they should be OK but it is crazy that probably the first person (or close to it) they are trying this on is the president of the United States.

 

[scottf200]

Quite a COVID Hoedown at the White House this week.
Kellyanne Conway announces she tested positive for coronavirus - CNNPolitics

Her daughter outted her (and lied) and then Kellyanne fessed up.

Various Twitter post showing her daughters TikTok post.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

https://twitter.com/timinhonolulu/status/1311883569086623744?s=21

The E-6B’s are in the air off the West and East Coasts, so at least someone is taking this seriously. (These planes trail a 5-mile-long wire so they can communicate with the boomers (nuclear submarines), using VLF.) This is a deterrent.

This may have been bulls**t (they fly all the time, nearly every day, since they have to be ready at any time), however, I still suspect they flew them at that specific time (30 minutes prior to the announcement) just to make sure everyone knew we weren't sleeping.

Worth a reminder in any case that at any moment we are ready to launch ~1000 nuclear weapons at targets all over the world. But there is really no change in posture.

 

[ReddyLeaf]

There were a bunch of staffers flying on the helicopter with Hope on Wednesday. This is just a total sh**show.

However, we actually don't know directionality yet. As @Daniel in SD said, Trump could be the asymptomatic super spreader. I doubt he is tested every day (even if he says he is).

As we all know, it's very possible even for symptomatic people to show symptoms AFTER a person they infect shows symptoms. It's not an unlikely scenario - it has happened many times before.

It will be interesting to see if they dive into studying the directionality here with RNA sequencing (not holding my breath). If you know the contact tree/web, and you have virus samples from everyone infected, you can potentially use mutations to deduce the most likely direction of spread. It's not a guarantee, but minor mutations do persist.

Honestly, nothing about this story makes any sense. It's a complete disaster and a complete failure of the WH medical team (I don't strictly speaking blame them - Trump corrupts everything around him absolutely and renders everyone incompetent), and I don't think we can trust that they are adhering to any of the protocols.

The timeline is just very mysterious. I am not saying it's a conspiracy, I just think that in general we have been lied to about what has actually been done to prevent coronavirus from infecting our president, and the timeline leading up to this catastrophe.

It particularly relevant, because potentially Joe Biden is also at risk due to the debate 48 hours ago. That guy needs to take shelter in his basement ASAP and stay there until November 3rd, and possibly even until January 20th. This is no joke and it puts the entire world at risk to do otherwise.

Here are some musings:

https://twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/status/1311897572827521025?s=20

IF Trump (and everyone else on the Trump team at the debate) is ACTUALLY being tested daily, and the Trump campaign is not actively trying to infect Biden (this "strategy" would make sense for them), then most likely Biden is at low risk.

How would you like to be in charge of the contact tracing on this one? Uhhhh, just about all of the Republicans in the country.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Bill Stepien (campaign manager) is positive and Trump is on remdesivir, as alluded to above.

Pulling out all the stops. Seems like their strategy is to try everything early, before it gets worse. If it gets worse, at least they know they tried everything!

It does seem like they must be seeing evidence of something that they don’t like, otherwise it seems risky. But who knows. Could be that they are adopting a risky strategy, Hippocratic oath cast aside...

 

[30seconds]

its really quite odd that they didn't given him the approved therapy before the unapproved one

 

[alloverx]

From WP article

White House physician Sean P. Conley said in a memo that Trump had received an eight-gram infusion of a monoclonal antibody made by the company Regeneron. He described the medication as “a precautionary measure.”

The drug, a combination of two monoclonal antibodies, is designed to generate the body’s own disease-fighting force. The experimental shot of lab-produced antibodies imitates the body’s defenses, which is quicker than waiting for human biology to muster its own response.

The drug, called REGN-COV2, is being evaluated in a late-stage clinical trial for both the treatment and prevention of covid-19.

Conley said the president also is taking zinc, vitamin D, famotidine, melatonin and a daily aspirin. Famotidine, which is used to reduce the production of stomach acid, is being studied as a possible therapy for covid-19. Melatonin can be employed as a sleep aid.

 

[ReddyLeaf]

Worst case scenario...POTUS dies...elections are delayed and Pence is POTUS till then.
Wort case scenario 2....POTUS has no symptoms recovers fully..MAGA crowd goes crazy as only the strong survive and he is strong!
trump get's elected....again.

I move to Canada...o wait ...

Interesting thought. Is it too late to change the ballots? Don’t candidates need to submit something by a certain date to be on the ballot? Can a dead person be elected? Strange times indeed. We need an historical constitutional scholar here.

 

[Daniel in SD]

A more generic question, why chase a vacinne if a cure will 'do the trick'?

How many viral diseases have we found cures for?
Tamiflu is barely effective.
The hepatitis c drug is the only miracle cure that I can think of. And of course that’s a virus that the body can’t clear itself. Vaccines seem like a much more likely solution.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Trump’s death pool odds are up to about 10% or so, unfortunately, given that he is now hospitalized (even though the bar for hospitalization is probably lower for him).

It’s also possible that the large initial viral doses, due to lack of masking, are working against these people (a lot of them seem to have symptoms, though I guess we will see).

I suspect the novel therapies are unlikely to have a huge impact here, if Trump happens to be very susceptible. Just whittling around the edges... The fact of the matter is these novel interventions don’t usually work very well!

The real inequity here, and what helps Trump the most, is that he has quick access to the most basic standard medical care. This cannot be said for many people, which drives up mortality substantially. So that access to basic medical care, and improved standard of care due to experience with C19, may be the main factor which results in lower risk than we might estimate.

Thread by @Bob_Wachter on Thread Reader App

 

[nwdiver]

It’s also possible that the large initial viral doses, due to lack of masking, are working against these people (a lot of them seem to have symptoms, though I guess we will see).

You can't fix stupid, but as Darwin 'discovered' it is naturally removed from time to time.

How ironic would it be if the bigot that wanted a wall to preserve the demographics of the US was done in because he refused to use a physical barrier to protect himself....

Masks Do More Than Protect Others During COVID-19: Reducing the Inoculum of SARS-CoV-2 to Protect the Wearer

 

[SageBrush]

From WP article

White House physician Sean P. Conley said in a memo that Trump had received an eight-gram infusion of a monoclonal antibody made by the company Regeneron.

An investigational drug with an unknown risk profile for mild symptoms ?

That would be medical incompetence, which may well be true of Conley but is highly unlikely at Walter Reed. The much more likely explanation is more White House lies about Trump's true condition.