Coronavirus

[eevee-fan]

Humans have some of the narrowest genetic diversity of all animals.
Largest yet survey of human genetic diversity : Nature News

All explained in this short video...

 

[SMAlset]

Different viruses manifest differently in different age groups, sexes, etc. It's just one of those "givens" we accept in biology. We just observe it, catalog it, and move on.

What I've noted here on TMC is that we have a lot of "engineering minded" people. Specifically, that people think in a binary mode and want to attribute something with essentially 1s and 0s or yes's and no's.

Biology is more of a spectrum, and even symptoms are in a spectrum. While children are showing the presention with spots on the feet, hearing that one or more adults has it also would not surprise me, although I don't think it is reported as a majority. It's just one of those things we observe, and move on.

Hilariously - the most common disease in adults to present on the hands and feet is . . . syphilis. That one is "pathognomonic".

While we seem to have a few medical field members on here posting, please remember that the general membership comes here too and questions we might ask or things posted are because we would like to understand them better. And even if the skin rashes are something affecting a small percentage of adults, I think if someone wakes up with something like this when coronavirus is widespread, they might see this and think to ask their doctor about it having some linkage. If it turns out they are CV19 positive without other symptoms, better to learn about it sooner than later.

While biologist might observe, catalog and move on, I'm glad we have researchers that look at cases like this and see if there is a pattern and look to the why. Just like people were seeing the loss of smell and taste being recognized as a possible symptom and research has gone into that. The original ABC7 news video/article did say that cases like this were prompting additional research by some doctors and guidance by the American Academy of Dermatology so I don't think asking if there was more out there than what was in the news story was frivolous.

If you are not a statistician or in the medical field, this thread which once started out with lots of useful information on COVID19 has kind of devolved into mainly statistics and specific medical info along with a long debate/conversation with an individual on the value of life and literal cost of living. While interesting to some degree, battling over numbers that have no way of being ascertained for accuracy at this point seems rather pointless. I get wanting to stay on top of trending cases/deaths/etc however and those in the medical field would be keenly interested. The treatment/possible vaccine info is more interesting to me, and for the rest, well there's ignore especially when posts are mostly met with disagree.

 

[EinSV]

All explained in this short video...

One of my favorite documentaries.

 

[Norbert]

Once the overall number of cases drops to a relatively low level, contact tracing will become possible. But any contact tracing done now is only being done for research purposes. It does nothing to protect the population.

Testing and contact tracing capacity will require time and experience to build up. The time to start is now. Actually day before yesterday.

If we want to open up as much as possible, there is no alternative. The better it works, the more we can open up. The worse it works, the more we have to stay closed. Unless you accept millions of deaths. Why would you?

 

[dfwatt]

Seems like there are tests that are becoming available that are sufficiently accurate to get a general sense of the level of infections, especially in highly infected places like New York. It will probably be hard to get a truly random sample so maybe we'll still be able to fight about that.

The antibody tests are unfortunately the Wild Wild West. They are not FDA-approved, the stats released about them are potentially grossly inflated and therefore nobody truly knows what they are looking at

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Learned something new today about herd immunity. I guess it is obvious, but I hadn't thought about it. The herd immunity point assumes you are starting from that point with 1 infection. If you have many infections at that point, the head of steam the epidemic will have will push you far beyond the herd immunity point in terms of proportion of the population infected. (Something like 90% in the case of this virus, based on what we know about the dynamics.)

Carl T. Bergstrom on Twitter

So practically speaking, it's pretty likely nearly everyone would be infected if you just let it rip. There's a mistake in tweet #9 (corrected later, missing a minus sign).

 

[Daniel in SD]

The antibody tests are unfortunately the Wild Wild West. They are not FDA-approved, the stats released about them are potentially grossly inflated and therefore nobody truly knows what they are looking at

The good news is that the FDA is going to start evaluating these tests themselves.
Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update: Serological Test Validation and Education Efforts

 

[EinSV]

The antibody tests are unfortunately the Wild Wild West. They are not FDA-approved, the stats released about them are potentially grossly inflated and therefore nobody truly knows what they are looking at

The University of Washington independently validated Abbott's antibody test, which the company's own testing (1200 samples) rated as 99.6% specific, 100% selective.

Alex Greninger, the [University of Washington's] Virology Lab’s assistant director, said his team has run about 400 blood specimens through Abbott’s instruments, including samples that were stored from pre-COVID-19 blood tests. None of those old blood samples came back positive, but the test correctly identified people who were known to have had the virus.​

According to the article I posted, Abbott plans to ship almost 1 million tests this week, 4 million tests this month and 20 million tests in June. There are many other companies and reputable academic labs that have developed their own tests but independently validated, high volume testing from a reputable company is on the way.

Univ. of Washington ramps up Abbott Labs’ ‘fantastic’ test for COVID-19 antibodies

 

[dfwatt]

The University of Washington independently validated Abbott's antibody test, which the company's own testing (1200 samples) rated at 99.6% specific, 100% selective.

Alex Greninger, the [University of Washington's] Virology Lab’s assistant director, said his team has run about 400 blood specimens through Abbott’s instruments, including samples that were stored from pre-COVID-19 blood tests. None of those old blood samples came back positive, but the test correctly identified people who were known to have had the virus.​

According to the article I posted, Abbott plans to ship almost 1 million tests this week, 4 million tests this month and 20 million tests in June. There are many other companies and reputable academic labs that have developed their own tests but independently validated, high volume testing from a reputable company is on the way.

Univ. of Washington ramps up Abbott Labs’ ‘fantastic’ test for COVID-19 antibodies

They're apparently dozens of them floating around - that sounds like it might be the best of the group. I'll wait until somebody else verifies those extremely impressive numbers. But if they hold up they are obviously the Elite Test.

 

[SVMike]

You can get this thing if you walk through a droplet cloud left by someone who passed through that spot and sneezed or coughed a few minutes ago. One droplet simulation I saw showed someone coughing in a supermarket and infect someone on the next aisle.

I do not think this is true. I saw that simulation (probably the same one). I saw nothing in the description that led me to believe that this was based on the real physics of droplets large enough to contain the viral load required to infect someone. It was just as accurate as the physics done in game engines for movies...an artists conception.

The entire basis for the 6 foot separation guideline is that a coughed or sneezed droplet large enough to infect someone will fall to the ground at the 6 foot distance. Yes, some smaller droplets could get carried farther by a breeze...but they would not have enough surviving virus load to infect you.

Now maybe the 6 foot guideline is not exact. And maybe there is a 1% chance that in some situations a strong sneezer in the right humidity with the optimal breeze it should be 7.25 feet.
But that simulation is, IMO, not based on fact nor the idea that you can walk through a droplet cloud a minute later and get infected...based on CDC and WHO guidelines.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

The University of Washington independently validated Abbott's antibody test, which the company's own testing (1200 samples) rated at 99.6% specific, 100% selective.

Alex Greninger, the [University of Washington's] Virology Lab’s assistant director, said his team has run about 400 blood specimens through Abbott’s instruments, including samples that were stored from pre-COVID-19 blood tests. None of those old blood samples came back positive, but the test correctly identified people who were known to have had the virus.​

According to the article I posted, Abbott plans to ship almost 1 million tests this week, 4 million tests this month and 20 million tests in June. There are many other companies and reputable academic labs that have developed their own tests but independently validated, high volume testing from a reputable company is on the way.

Univ. of Washington ramps up Abbott Labs’ ‘fantastic’ test for COVID-19 antibodies

I wonder how many samples each they ran for known positive and negative samples (200 of each?). Now, in New York, assuming a properly designed random sample, we should be able to get a good idea of prevalence. Still would be a bit problematic in terms of obtaining an accurate result in Santa Clara and similar locations across the country with likely low prevalance (most places, in fact!).

Anyway, worth testing in multiple places to see what they get. In New York, the results can be trusted, but in many other places the results could be off by a factor of two or more (assuming we get what we expect and obtain a number like 1%). It's just a lot more noisy at the low levels assuming they do end up on the low end at 1% - if they end up higher, the test noise is not a problem.

So, it may still lead to a relatively large uncertainty, but with a sufficiently large random sample and follow up with gold-standard ELISA testing in those low prevalence places, we should be able to get an idea for the variation in prevalence across the country, as well.

 

[dhanson865]

Inventor of N95 masks comes out of retirement to upgrade them

I'm not a fan of the click bait headline but the article is higher quality than the headline.

alternate source

N95 Mask Shortage Brings Inventor Out Of Retirement In Search Of Safe Reuse Method

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Jan 31st quote from the thread's first page....

First estimates about the mortality rate of the current strain of the coronavirus by age demographic are in, by a leading Chinese epidemiologist:

吳尊友：新型冠狀病毒肺炎死亡主要發生在高齡人群​

Of the 7,000+ cases documented so far:

• no one under 30 has died,
• case mortality rate for 40-59 year olds is 0.2%,
• case mortality rate for 80+ year olds is 18%

I.e. it appears to be much milder than feared and in case you distrust the Chinese data, it matches the severity data from the 100+ international cases as well.

Funny how the flood of information and data morphed the story here in the US long after we had a pretty clear picture of what was going on.

The danger groups were pretty accurately noted above and we needed testing. We decided to light the curtains on fire first.

 

[wdolson]

All explained in this short video...

Way too much from that movie has already come true for comfort. But the real explanation for our lack of genetic diversity is probably the eruption of Toba about 75,000 years ago. Toba is a super volcano (like Yellowstone) on Sumatra, Indonesia. It almost caused homo sapiens to go extinct.

Toba catastrophe theory - Wikipedia

Testing and contact tracing capacity will require time and experience to build up. The time to start is now. Actually day before yesterday.

If we want to open up as much as possible, there is no alternative. The better it works, the more we can open up. The worse it works, the more we have to stay closed. Unless you accept millions of deaths. Why would you?

There is what is wise to do and what the government is doing. The problem in a large country with land borders is already much more difficult than an island with a smaller population (or a peninsula with only one, unfriendly neighbor like South Korea). The political will in the US doesn't exist to do everything needed to contain the virus, so it's going to run loose and be a worse and worse outbreak until the political will is there.

Because the political will is not there, all these ideas are just pipe dreams. We need to live with the reality that social isolation is going to be the only thing we have until we either reach herd immunity or the political will changes very, very dramatically and universally throughout the country.

I do not think this is true. I saw that simulation (probably the same one). I saw nothing in the description that led me to believe that this was based on the real physics of droplets large enough to contain the viral load required to infect someone. It was just as accurate as the physics done in game engines for movies...an artists conception.

The entire basis for the 6 foot separation guideline is that a coughed or sneezed droplet large enough to infect someone will fall to the ground at the 6 foot distance. Yes, some smaller droplets could get carried farther by a breeze...but they would not have enough surviving virus load to infect you.

Now maybe the 6 foot guideline is not exact. And maybe there is a 1% chance that in some situations a strong sneezer in the right humidity with the optimal breeze it should be 7.25 feet.
But that simulation is, IMO, not based on fact nor the idea that you can walk through a droplet cloud a minute later and get infected...based on CDC and WHO guidelines.

Even if that isn't a common transmission path, studies have also shown the virus can live on metal and plastic surfaces up to 72 hours and on cardboard for 24. There have been news stories of workers in places like Amazon getting sick. Also while cooking kills the virus, most food is packaged in plastic of some kind. How many people in the public were infected through the outbreak at the Smithfield packing plant? How many other food processing facilities have outbreaks we don't know about yet?

Chances are my SO and I had it back in February. I had the loss of smell with clear sinuses and had what I thought was a 2 week asthma attack. My SO had symptoms very much inline with a mild case and she got sick the day after I got over it. We can't get the antibody test yet, but we're in line with our doctor. She's trying to get a batch of them.

I have no idea where I got it. We ate out a couple of times in the 2 weeks before I got sick. We also did shopping and other errands. I could have touched a door handle someone with it had touched and then touched my face. We are all more aware of the way this transmits now, but many people have commented that not touching their face is a habit that is touch to break.

 

[OPRCE]

Taking three European countries with similar populations (~10M) for comparison:

Country..........Confmd.....Dead.....Recovd.....Tests/Mpop......rawCFR......ResolvedCFR...CaseGrowth...DeathGrowth
Sweden...........13’822......1’511............550.............7'387..............10.93%.........73.31%.............4.59%..............7.93%
Austria............14’671.........443.......14'671...........19'902................3.02%...........4.16%..............0.52%..............2.78%
Switzerland....27’404.......1’368.......17'100...........25'566................4.99%...........7.41%.............1.20%..............3.09%

It seems clear that, due to considerably less testing, Swedish cases are being detected later, typically when the patient presents to hospital with severe pneumonia, at which point the death rate is a terrifying 73.3%. Coupled with the very lax social distancing to date, this would also mean undetected community spread is likely much more prevalent, thus a sharply increasing case-load and belated, more persistent lockdown can be expected.

By contrast the latter two countries are well over the hump, the major difference between them being that Austria closed its border to Italy 2..3 days before Switzerland, and did so tighter.

Overall it is looking like Sweden's experiment will prove to be a spectacular failure and false economy.

[data from COVID19INFO.live and Worldometer]

Erratum: Austria recovered should read 10'214 (sorry!)

 

[dhanson865]

The danger groups were pretty accurately noted above and we needed testing. We decided to light the curtains on fire first.

except since then we've seen young children in Florida hospitalized as discussed on page 354

https://floridadisaster.org/globala...id-19-data---daily-report-2020-03-27-1819.pdf

* Alachua 2 year old Female No No FL resident 03/23/20
* Brevard 1 year old Male No No FL resident 03/26/20
* Broward 0 year old Male Unknown Yes FL resident 03/24/20
* Broward 1 year old Female Unknown Yes FL resident 03/24/20
* Dade 3 year old Female Unknown FL resident 03/25/20
* Dade 3 year old Female Unknown FL resident 03/25/20 (not a duplicate, different case number)
* Hillsborough 6 year old Male Unknown Yes FL resident 03/23/20
* Hillsborough 3 year old Male No Yes FL resident 03/24/20
* Hillsborough 6 year old Male No Yes FL resident 03/24/20
* Orange 9 year old Male Unknown No FL resident 03/25/20
* Palm Beach 6 year old Female Unknown Yes FL resident 03/18/20
* Polk 8 Male No Yes FL resident 03/20/20
* Santa Rosa 2 year old Male No No FL resident 03/23/20
* Santa Rosa 0 year old Male No No FL resident 03/26/20

Unless you are saying it's not worth being worried about kids.

 

[Artful Dodger]

I heard on U.S. NBC Nightly News yesterday that Russia is now reporting 5,000 cases of Covid-19 per day. So many questions:

• Is 5K/day close to accurate and/or reliable estimate for new cases?
• How does this rate compare to other European countries on a per capita basis?
• Is Russia early in their exponential curve, or late reporting?
• Does anyone know a good data source which includes Russia?

TIA.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Millions of New Yorkers have been infected and we've seen exactly 3 kids under 17 die, all with significant underlying issues. Are you saying this virus is impacting children vastly differently in Florida than the rest of the country/world?

 

[dhanson865]

Millions of New Yorkers have been infected and we've seen exactly 3 kids under 17 die, all with significant underlying issues. Are you saying this virus is impacting children vastly differently in Florida than the rest of the country/world?

Are you saying death is the only possible negative outcome?

Last I heard if you get hospitalized for Covid19 pneumonia you can have partial lung capacity loss for life. I don't know about you but I'd like to keep my full lung capacity.

How about other organs getting damaged by Covid19, or do you think everyone that comes out of the hospital alive is undamaged in any way?

It's a pretty big straw-man argument to ignore hospitalizations and say "we've seen exactly 3 kids under 17 die".

Also worth noting for those that didn't catch it, the 3 under 17 are for NYC not NY State.

 

[dhanson865]

So how many kids get hospitalized in NYC vs the 3 that died? Hundreds of them, just in the one city. Expand it out to the State or Federal level and you'll find a lot more kids hospitalized for this.

keep in mind the context vs this post from prior that implied people under 30 was basically immune just because no one under 30 died back then.

https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/attachments/upload_2020-4-19_23-42-26-png.534075/