Coronavirus

[powertoold]

are we talking about the same drug? i.e. hydroxychloroquine

Probably talking about tocilizumab

 

[Fact Checking]

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.

I'd ignore that old, 1 month old NYpost article.

There's no data to suggest that Covid-19 is latent (can reinfect), and there's good reasons believe that it cannot: its molecular structure is reasonably mutation resistant, and MERS antibodies have been demonstrated to be active for at least 3 years.

Furthermore it's a respiratory disease, which are generally not latent. (They don't attack an organ or part of the body where they can hide.)

Finally, the Chinese cases of "reinfection" were traced back to bad testing: patients thought to have recovered in reality were still infected.

Suggesting it's latent is bad science.

 

[ev-enthusiast]

Numbers in Europe getting scary.

 

[N5329K]

are we talking about the same drug? i.e. hydroxychloroquine

As I understand it, hydroxychloroquine mainly serves to open the cellular gates to let zinc in, and it’s the additional zinc that stops replication of viral RNA. A good thing.
Robin

 

[Lessmog]

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.

My guess as a ranking amateur is that we must now expect WW spread of this pandemic.

What we can hope for is 1) the peak will be low and slow, so as to not overwhelm the medics; 2) some meaningful immunity effect. And of course 3) that the countermeasures do not counter the population instead of the disease!

EDIT: of course I mean reeking amateur!

 

[marvinat0rz]

A follow-up to my previous comment: I misquoted the Norwegian newspaper article, which was admittedly unclear. Norway is closing its airports and ports indefinitely, to foreign visitors that don't have a pressing need to enter the country. This is in a different league than a blanket ban on travel for a month. It is expected that the measures will be re-evaluated soon.

Regarding your comments and questions of the future, Fact Checking: My guess at this point is that most countries will let the pandemic run its course over the next year or two, but at different speeds, proportional to the measures taken to slow down the spread. Lots of deaths along the way, maybe 0.1% of the diseased in a relatively optimistic case. Probably some more catastrophes like Italy. Then herd immunity will be established, due to previously infected persons having a lower probability of catching the disease again. This will inhibit future outbreaks from turning into full-scale epidemics, and we will have a future that largely looks like today, but with a massively increased respect for the chaos and risk of a pandemic.

No strong opinion on the effects on the economy, it might trigger a financial crisis. Or not.

If any countries are able/willing to contain the spread to such a degree that only a minority of the population will have caught the disease, they will have to keep extreme vigilance indefinitely, or at least until a vaccine is available. My guess is that the patience for such strict measures will eventually wear out, and they will gradually join the first group. Or vaccinate everyone, with the same result.

Such vigilance would necessarily impact trading, and especially tourism, massively.

 

[Fact Checking]

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 believe most reports of reinfection are based on those preliminary reports from China that later turned out to be "still infected" persons declared falsely recovered via mouth swabs.

Those early reports, without the context of the later clarification, then became ever living zombie fake news, to be repeated uncritically.

At the moment there's no good reason to believe that Covid-19 can be latent and can reinfect.

 

[bkp_duke]

are we talking about the same drug? i.e. hydroxychloroquine

Remicaid is what I was referring to that had been reported. My apologies I didn't know you were referring to hydroxychloroquine.

Hydroxychloroquine - it has only showed in vitro antiviral activity (i.e. test tubes) against COVID-19. As a word of caution, many compounds show antiviral activity in vitro, but it doesn't pan out to in vivo (i.e. a person) for a multitude of factors. Here is the relevant study I believe where this is all coming from:
In Vitro Antiviral Activity and Projection of Optimized Dosing Design of Hydroxychloroquine for the Treatment of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome ... - PubMed - NCBI

The few anecdotal papers I found for in vivo usage were all just that: anecdotal. They would grade out on the scientific grading scale as a D or F in terms of "supporting evidence".

Current usage of any of these would be categorized as "compassionate use" only. I.e. we would give it in hopes it might help, and we think it is not going to make things worse, but the data to support such a conclusion is lacking.

Just my professional opinion, take it for what that's worth and make your own conclusions.

 

[bkp_duke]

I believe most reports of reinfection are based on those preliminary reports that later turned out to be "still infected" persons declared falsely recovered via mouth swabs.

Those early reports, without the context of the later clarification, then became ever living zombie fake news, to be repeated uncritically.

Agreed. A significant number of people it appears are showing difficulty fully clearing this infection.

 

[Lessmog]

A follow-up to my previous comment: I misquoted the Norwegian newspaper article, which was admittedly unclear. Norway is closing its airports and ports indefinitely, to foreign visitors that don't have a pressing need to enter the country. This is in a different league than a blanket ban on travel for a month. It is expected that the measures will be re-evaluated soon.

Regarding your comments and questions of the future, Fact Checking: My guess at this point is that most countries will let the pandemic run its course over the next year or two, but at different speeds, proportional to the measures taken to slow down the spread. Lots of deaths along the way, maybe 0.1% of the diseased in a relatively optimistic case. Probably some more catastrophes like Italy. Then herd immunity will be established, due to previously infected persons having a lower probability of catching the disease again. This will inhibit future outbreaks from turning into full-scale epidemics, and we will have a future that largely looks like today, but with a massively increased respect for the chaos and risk of a pandemic.

No strong opinion on the effects on the economy, it might trigger a financial crisis. Or not.

If any countries are able/willing to contain the spread to such a degree that only a minority of the population will have caught the disease, they will have to keep extreme vigilance indefinitely, or at least until a vaccine is available. My guess is that the patience for such strict measures will eventually wear out, and they will gradually join the first group. Or vaccinate everyone, with the same result.

Such vigilance would necessarily impact trading, and especially tourism, massively.

As you say, Norway, and also Denmark, have closed most borders (temporarily). This is very bad for airlines and travel organizers, and some hotel and restaurant chains are signalling 50% of employees being let go. Swedish government made noises about keeping stressed businesses afloat by various means such as a respite paying VAT or bankrolling the payroll for affected personel.

We shall see.

 

[ghostdance]

If any1 needs a good netflix show during all this craziness, check out the Kindness Diaries

 

[UnknownSoldier]

Numbers in Europe getting scary.

Just a preview of America when we finally get working tests in quantity.

 

[kyzhk]

As I understand it, hydroxychloroquine mainly serves to open the cellular gates to let zinc in, and it’s the additional zinc that stops replication of viral RNA. A good thing.
Robin

Any references? I was reading on mechanism of action in
Hydroxychloroquine - Wikipedia

Hydroxychloroquine increases[22] lysosomal pH in antigen-presenting cells. In inflammatory conditions, it blocks toll-like receptors on plasmacytoid dendritic cells (PDCs).[citation needed] Hydroxychloroquine, by decreasing TLR signaling, reduces the activation of dendritic cells and the inflammatory process. Toll-like receptor 9 (TLR 9) recognizes DNA-containing immune complexes and leads to the production of interferon and causes the dendritic cells to mature and present antigen to T cells, therefore reducing anti-DNA auto-inflammatory process.

 

[Doggydogworld]

I suspect the MOST serious problem in their supply chain is that no one is buying their cars right now. Auto sales crash during periods like this.

Which is why Tesla, of all car companies, is sitting pretty. They have a huge backlog of Model Y sales to deliver in the US, as well as Model 3 in China.

Ferrari has no problem selling cars even today. They operate in different air.

Tesla started showing inventory growth in Europe a week or so ago. Now it's mostly gone. I'm not sure what to think about that. Visible US inventory has grown a lot starting ~2 weeks ago. They just switched Custom Order wait time in my zip code from 2-3 weeks to 8-12 weeks, strongly steering my area to shop inventory.

Spain is about to lock down. Norway shutting borders. US pre-positioning military and considering domestic travel restrictions. This is about to get real, backlogs notwithstanding.

 

[aubreymcfato]

I won't discuss the Elon tweets or mail any more: if I'm overracting, in a few weeks I'll be here apologizing for my mistake. I'd be happy to.

I'll just leave you a sobering graph, showing how one of the best European health systems fares when things go really south (the red one is Lombardy fatality rate):

 

[Lessmog]

Ferrari has no problem selling cars even today. They operate in different air.

Tesla started showing inventory growth in Europe a week or so ago. Now it's mostly gone. I'm not sure what to think about that. Visible US inventory has grown a lot starting ~2 weeks ago. They just switched Custom Order wait time in my zip code from 2-3 weeks to 8-12 weeks, strongly steering my area to shop inventory.

Spain is about to lock down. Norway shutting borders. US pre-positioning military and considering domestic travel restrictions. This is about to get real, backlogs notwithstanding.

Uuh, is this really viral? You may need a different thread?

 

[mrmage]

Edit: As luck would have it, a number of posts discussed hydroxychroroquine while I typed this. The links are worth looking at though.
-----------

I'm surprised how little discussion I see on hydroxychloroquine (Plaquenil) with regards to Coronavirus. The drug has been around awhile for malaria and arthritis. Most importantly, it's readily available at pharmacies today, is available at least for now, is cheap, and generic.

If you're using it now (e.g. for rheumatoid arthritis), you may wish to stock up. I know some individuals with high risk factors for CV who have stocked up on it, so it may be in short supply in the near future.

https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa237/5801998

South Korea experts recommend anti-HIV, anti-malaria drugs for COVID-19

Efficacy and Safety of Hydroxychloroquine for Treatment of Pneumonia Caused by 2019-nCoV ( HC-nCoV ) - Full Text View - ClinicalTrials.gov

UK bans parallel export and hoarding of three Covid-19 drugs

 

[UnknownSoldier]

Hydroxychloroquine is such an interesting medication, known about for a long time, with many different uses. Of course no one in the US can get it without a prescription so until you're already dying of COVID-19 you're not likely to get any since it requires you to actually have rheumatoid arthritis or be traveling somewhere with malaria to get some.

Then again, now would be a good time to call the travel nurse and make up some fictitious trip I'm taking to Africa and maybe I can get a prescription for it. Hmm...

 

[MXLRplus]

It will be very interesting to find out why C19 is not resulting in 0-10 age deaths. This might lead to a huge breakthrough in vaccine technology.

Kids are home from the shut down colleges, so we had to go grocery shopping. Wow. Scared people are scary. I've never seen this ever in America. Shelves were empty, hundreds of people in line at a grocery store near us at 6 am this morning.

Prior to the Kuwait invasion, and post 9/11 both saw hoarding but nothing like today. I guess whoever wanted everybody scared to death got their wish. There are no reported deaths in this area, and <10 cases out of 8,000,000 people.

 

[Spacey73]

Italy's high mortality rate from COVID-19 is due to 3 factors (in no particular order):
1) high percentage of the population 65 and older
2) relatively low number of hospital beds per capita
3) delayed response on putting social distancing practices into place

Basically, the perfect storm.

They also have a huge 300,000+ Chinese population working in that area of Italy in the fashion industry. I'm guessing a lot of people went home for new year and then returned. Not a complete stretch of the imagination that 1 or 2 people were unknowingly carrying the virus.

This will be used to pop the financial bubble that has been brewing since we printed tons of QE money in 2007/2008 rather than taking it on the chin. Markets have been overblown overclocked since then, this will be used as the excuse to reset. I just hope it's not as serious as we are being told (Like Y2K) but I fear it is.

Have prepped weeks ago, the oddest thing in my local stores is that along with toilet paper ...Ice Cream has gone also...must be a correlation needing all that toilet paper for the ice cream