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Coronavirus
- Thread starter Wenche
- Start date
Doggydogworld
Active Member
Just to reiterate what Karen and others say, you can't learn much from crude fatality rate math (deaths/confirmed cases). This is especially true in ridiculously under-tested places like Italy (and, ahem, the US).
In addition to their main coronavirus page, Worldometers has sub-pages for some major countries including Italy. It shows 21,157 cases today. Two weeks ago it was 1128. That's mostly increased testing. They're still way behind, actual cases in Italy are probably 100-200k.
They've done this in some Asian countries. China is the most draconian - at least in some areas you must have your phone with the app to leave your house. You are geofenced (e.g. 1.5 km radius from home) and you get clearances to use public transport, etc. is based on need to get to work or whatever. And this is for healthy people - if sick they use to app to make sure you stay quarantined.
Even South Korea used apps to help maintain "quarantine at home" cases. No one thinks that can happen here. We'll see.
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A paper from 2012 about 4 different sars vaccines tested on animals:
Immunization with SARS Coronavirus Vaccines Leads to Pulmonary Immunopathology on Challenge with the SARS Virus
They found that the vaccines worked as intended i.e. exposure to the virus after vaccination trigger antibodies production as expected. However, they also found that the vaccinated animals immune system becomes hypersensitive when exposed to the virus leading to cytokine storm (and therefore severe inflammation specifically in the lung tissues)
Pure speculation:
Risk of severe symptoms increases with age because the older you are, the more likely you would have contracted a similar enough virus in your lifetime to cause hypersensitivity. From what I see the leading cause of death are due to pneumonia, suggesting that this could be caused by a hypersensitive immune system induced by exposure to the coronavirus, which leads to cytokine storm and therefore severe pneumonia.
There has also been reports on China and Italy using arthritis drug on covid19 patient with good outcome. This seems to suggest that suppressing your immune system when they become hypersensitive (i.e. prevent cytokine storm) is one likely treatment for the disease.
i.e. patients dying from the disease are killed by their own immune system reacting too strongly to the virus.
This would be very problematic if re-exposure to the same virus triggers hypersensitivity in people who have previously recovered from the disease. So far I don't see any evidence suggesting this is the case yet, so hopefully the findings from the sars vaccine paper does not apply in this case.
I haven't been able to find any papers on mechanisms of how certain viruses seem to trigger immune system hypersensitivity more often.
Immunization with SARS Coronavirus Vaccines Leads to Pulmonary Immunopathology on Challenge with the SARS Virus
They found that the vaccines worked as intended i.e. exposure to the virus after vaccination trigger antibodies production as expected. However, they also found that the vaccinated animals immune system becomes hypersensitive when exposed to the virus leading to cytokine storm (and therefore severe inflammation specifically in the lung tissues)
Pure speculation:
Risk of severe symptoms increases with age because the older you are, the more likely you would have contracted a similar enough virus in your lifetime to cause hypersensitivity. From what I see the leading cause of death are due to pneumonia, suggesting that this could be caused by a hypersensitive immune system induced by exposure to the coronavirus, which leads to cytokine storm and therefore severe pneumonia.
There has also been reports on China and Italy using arthritis drug on covid19 patient with good outcome. This seems to suggest that suppressing your immune system when they become hypersensitive (i.e. prevent cytokine storm) is one likely treatment for the disease.
i.e. patients dying from the disease are killed by their own immune system reacting too strongly to the virus.
This would be very problematic if re-exposure to the same virus triggers hypersensitivity in people who have previously recovered from the disease. So far I don't see any evidence suggesting this is the case yet, so hopefully the findings from the sars vaccine paper does not apply in this case.
I haven't been able to find any papers on mechanisms of how certain viruses seem to trigger immune system hypersensitivity more often.
Borrowed from Third Row Podcast:
Third Row Podcast Retweetade
Downtown Josh Brown
@ReformedBroker
·
3h
Trump took the COVID-19 test. Highest score ever.
From what I’ve been seeing internationally/nationally/locally I have to say I’ve underestimated the impact of c19. While I’ve taken the spread of it seriously, and am personally in a higher target group, even after the handling by China of their infected, I know now I hadn’t taken into account the ways it is affecting everyday life here now and will in the foreseeable future. With no sports being played, TV networks cancelling production of shows, food supply shortages, difficulty for many WFH, food source replenishment issues (farm workers through processing and shipping out), smaller businesses not getting customers in and eventually needing to layoff workers and/or close up, it’s hitting home mentally now. Of course a big unknown is for how long? With a huge country we have plusses and minuses to that—maybe longer periods of infection as it keeps spreading to many areas still unaffected and on the other hand uneffected/less affected areas having the ability to bear the brunt until others can come back online. The lack of ability to test and even the questions of how reliable the testing has been, huge underlying issues. Think at one time heard maybe 70% of population will be infected with it. Seemed unrealistic to me back then.
Perfect test result....most virus count ever found in any human.Borrowed from Third Row Podcast:
Third Row Podcast Retweetade
Downtown Josh Brown
@ReformedBroker
·
3h
Trump took the COVID-19 test. Highest score ever.
Lots of people are saying it is the most amazing test ever done!
willow_hiller
Well-Known Member
If this is the case, could antihistamines be effective to mitigate serious symptoms? Has there been any research on COVID-19 and antihistamines?
bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
I don't agree with this. There are only a few reports of cytokine hyper-responsiveness (I'm not calling this storm, because I've seen that in person, and the few reported cases just don't have all the classic characteristics). Storm is more classic in younger patients with robust immune systems, not older patients that have a natural decline in immune response.
Historically we know that the elderly have less what we as physicians call "medical bioreserve" - i.e. the ability to take an infectious hit and this respiratory virus appears to be significant enough a hit that those with diminished reserves due to age, commodities, etc. cannot adequately fight it off.
Additionally, in the young, particularly those that have not reached physical maturity, they have increased "regenerative capacity" - i.e. the ability to grow and repair damaged tissue. I suspect this is why the 0-9 age group is least impacted by this virus - they can fight it off and repair damaged lung tissue much more easily.
bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
No, antihistamines would not be effective. There is no reported histamine release in COVID-19 patients. Histamine release is not part of the normal response to a virus, only the response to an allergen.
we’ve ordered a few times this week from our favorite local small family run restaurants to pick up and bring home. Helps to support local eateries you’d like to see survive but still when you think about it doesn’t help the waiters they would staff with.
I don’t see gift cards helping anyone but big corporate restaurants though and not necessarily doing anything to support the local eatery in their chain.
bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
That drug is a generalized anti-inflammatory antibody (which presents problems in and of itself - google serum sickness). It could be beneficial in a few cases, but you risk preventing the body from fighting off the virus if you over-treat, and there are no dosage studies for this antibody in coronaviruses (so we really don't know dosing).
The other, and much bigger problem, is this is an antibody (a biologic med we call them). They are extremely difficult to manufacture and would be of little benefit worldwide due to very limited supply.
The testing criteria is rapidly changing, one system will allow testing any person who is at risk of severe illness due to COVID-19 including older adults ( ≥ 65 years) and individuals with chronic medical conditions and/or an immunocompromised state that may put them at higher risk for poor outcomes (e.g., diabetes, heart disease, receiving immunosuppressive medications, chronic lung disease, chronic kidney disease) with fever or signs/symptoms of a lower respiratory illness without alternative explanatory diagnosis (e.g., influenza)
You can test first for the standard viruses and if negative will reflex to COVID-19.
You can test first for the standard viruses and if negative will reflex to COVID-19.
Borrowed from Third Row Podcast:
Third Row Podcast Retweetade
Downtown Josh Brown
@ReformedBroker
·
3h
Trump took the COVID-19 test. Highest score ever.
What’s with the WH saying they’re expecting his results in a couple days. Tests these days can get a result within a day or same day.
I know, not from a high quality news source but they’re reporting from the Taiwan News, that the cases of reinfection are problematic from what’s been observed because some medications used to treat can lead to other issues like damage to the heart and then patient gets worse and suffers fatal heart attack.
Whistleblower doctors say coronavirus reinfection even deadlier
The fact is while Italy has a large aging population, the U.S. has a large baby boomer and older population. By appearances our government and corporate CEOs looks to fit the profile. Saying that reinfections and subsequent fatalities isn’t the norm maybe true at the moment, it’s still worrisome due to the aging. People released from quarantine and having breathing issues walking due to damaged lung or heart tissue could end up having a significant effect on this population of aging people.
Whistleblower doctors say coronavirus reinfection even deadlier
The fact is while Italy has a large aging population, the U.S. has a large baby boomer and older population. By appearances our government and corporate CEOs looks to fit the profile. Saying that reinfections and subsequent fatalities isn’t the norm maybe true at the moment, it’s still worrisome due to the aging. People released from quarantine and having breathing issues walking due to damaged lung or heart tissue could end up having a significant effect on this population of aging people.
Fact Checking
Well-Known Member
I'm wondering what people's thoughts are about the "endgame": how is the post-pandemic world going to look like?
On one side there will be countries with successful containment efforts; China, South Korea, Taiwan, maybe Switzerland and Scandinavian countries.
There will also be other countries with an uncontrolled outbreak: the U.S., U.K.
How will the two sides trade, interact and have a tourism industry? If the infection can linger for months in difficult to test organs, the border closures won't be lifted.
If people can still infect each other there will be pockets of uninfected in each of the pandemic countries.
A SARS vaccine was never developed despite years of trying.
Unless there's total eradication of the virus I don't see how trust in social interactions can return.
Obviously such an outcome would be devastating to the world economy.
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