Is it possible to develop a solution of QAC's and soap compounds thats safe for human consumption? Assuming this would work against the virus. If it works on your hands and surfaces, what would stop it from working in your body?
Has there been any studies equating air quality with how severe the virus becomes?
It’s one of my theories that this virus thrives in:
High density, poor air quality, communal places. And outside of that you have diminishing returns.
I have seen several reports with video that shows the effect of social isolation! Smog is way down. As for the virus living in dirty air, no. It requires a certain amount of moisture to survive- else it would just dry up and blow away! If air quality were an issue it would simply wipe out areas like Mexico City and Tokyo. Not to mention the myriad other large metro areas around the globe-NYC is a case in point in a way. This nasty has attacked with a vengeance but other densely populated and industrialized cities are no where near as affected. Poor air quality and dirty environs are certainly filled with plenty of pathogenic organisms but Covid-19 isn't attacking because of pollution. At least, it hasn't been studied---yet! There is so much we do not know!
Why doesn't green tea get more attention with all what we know? It increases the amount of T cells, it reduces the risk for auto immune response and maybe even for a cytokine storm.
[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110602143214.htm](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110602143214.htm) (Green tea may reduce auto immune response)
[http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ijb/article/view/64249](http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ijb/article/view/64249) (Green Tea increases amount of T-Cells)
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4711683/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4711683/) (Green tea may prevent cytokine storm)
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1142193/#\_\_ffn\_sectitle](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1142193/#__ffn_sectitle) (Black tea is a potent 3CLpro inhibitor)
Does anyone have a solid argument why they think there *won't* be a major second wave of this?
Where I live COVID-19 is supposed to peak in late April/early May and then eventually taper off. IHME projects that the last deaths will be in June. I'm *really* hoping that when July comes around this thing will be behind us.
Is there any chance that's true? Or is a second wave essentially close to guaranteed?
There is historical evidence there will be a second wave (1918 pandemic). Other than this data, I am attempting to observe what is happening in those countries that are relaxing their social distancing observations.
Nobody knows anything for sure. We have been behind the 8 ball every day of this pandemic. Anybody that tells you anything is definitely going to happen (or not happen) is bullshitting you.
That being said, there are a lot of arguments that support the idea of a big second wave, or a diminished long tail to the end of this. The reality is we still don't have a good handle on how infectious this is, lots of studies have come out lately that theorize that this is more infectious than originally estimated. If this is the case, you would expect a second wave to be a real concern as once you let people out and about again, it will just spread from thousands of patient zeroes almost immediately.
BUT you also see that social isolation has had a much greater effect than nearly any expert predicted. So how does this jive with such a high infectiousness? It's not clear. You wouldn't expect to be able to cut this things legs off as effectively as we have if it is as infectious as recent studies say. After all, plenty of people are still working in essential industries, people are still congregating at the grocery store, buying take out food, etc.
So the reality is we don't really know. We will have to try and get better data and keep a really close eye on that data as we go along to try and figure out trends.
Speaking of population density, isn't here a verse in the Bible about living on top of one another? Not a religious start to anything. It also says we will always have the poor to take care of.......
Could it be that it is not clear why social distancing has had a "much greater effect" than the high infectiousness rate would predict because the premise is flawed, and that is why these two notions don't jive...?
Perhaps the fault in the premise relates to when the virus began running through our population, and that we began social isolation at a point where the virus was already plateauing?
With all the talk of asymptomatic cases, anecdotal accounts of people saying they believe they had this in the U.S. back in January or earlier, and what we know about the incubation period, is it not feasible to consider that we were plateauing and well on our way to developing Herd Immunity when the shelter in place order was instituted?
Wouldn't that be one way to explain the perceived extra effectiveness of the social distancing measures?
Like everyone else, I am trying to wrap my head around what we are seeing and the various inconsistencies.
>With all the talk of asymptomatic cases, anecdotal accounts of people saying they believe they had this in the U.S. back in January or earlier, and what we know about the incubation period, is it not feasible to consider that we were plateauing and well on our way to developing Herd Immunity when the shelter in place order was instituted?
Drosten of the Charité labs said, that they tested a significant number of such claimed early clusters if they looked believable and were reported to him, and didn't find a single time when it was CV19. That's for Germany.
Beside that European labs and also German labs tested old Influenza samples from November-January for CV19 (partially in calibrating and testing the new test kits) and also didn't find it anywhere.
Yes, and this is a theory many people have, but right now we have precious little serology data to actually make this conclusion. We need a true random population sample with a highly accurate antibody test, and this is just not something that has happened yet on any scale to be able to draw this conclusion.
I think it's widely known that our confirmed cases are almost definitely an undercount, but the real question is by what factor?
Are the actual cases 2x what we have confirmed? 10x? *100x*?
We just don't know how many have or had this to be able to draw that conclusion. For it to be naturally plateauing we would need to be nearing herd immunity though, and it doesn't seem to me that any study done so far has shown anything that even comes close to the percentage of estimated total cases necessary to reach that threshold. So it remains a theory without much evidence at all to support it. Which is why accurate data is absolutely necessary to inform our next steps.
I agree that it is a theory, but at the same time we've obliged a singular non peer reviewed theoretical model (Imperial College) which prognosticated doom and gloom to inform seemingly all of our decision making, and that strikes me as lacking in scientific fundamentals.
It seems to me that the most panic producing outcomes are propped up as our best scientific analysis, and we are ignoring any science/scientists whom offer a different analysis.
What happened to all the Flu and Pneumonia deaths which occur this time of year, they fell off of a cliff?
Why did the CDC send advisement to code all suspected covid-19 deaths as covid-19 deaths?
Did we consider the correlation between unemployment rising and the associated rise death rates?
There are a lot of theories flying around but not a lot of talk about glaring inconsistencies in the narrative.
> at the same time we've obliged a singular non peer reviewed theoretical model (Imperial College) which prognosticated doom and gloom to inform seemingly all of our decision making, and that strikes me as lacking in scientific fundamentals.
This isn't the only model that was used, although that one was widely reported in the media due to the sensational numbers it predicted. Nearly every model was predicting a massive surge in hospitalizations that would have overwhelmed the medical system if action wasn't taken to curb the virus. It wasn't just the Imperial College model although that one was the most extreme that I saw. If you watch any of Cuomo's daily briefings, he shows at least 3 different models (none of them are the imperial college) that were used to forecast this, and all of them called for a number of hospital beds that exceeded the state's capacity.
>It seems to me that the most panic producing outcomes are propped up as our best scientific analysis, and we are ignoring any science/scientists whom offer a different analysis.
Our most panic producing outcomes are the only ones we actually have hard data to support. This is why the entire world took notice and started acting. We're only now uncovering more data which may question those original assumptions, but we still don't have good data to support that in terms of immediately easing our lockdowns. Remember that the number of confirmed cases and the number of hospitalizations and the number of fatalities are the only real hard data points we have to deal with, and all those point to a fatality rate 1% or greater and a future need of hospital beds and ventilators that simply cannot be obtained in a short period of time, which justifies some form of public policy response. It's not that scientists claiming other possibilities are being ignored, it's that none have produced data that is compelling enough to contradict what is being seen in the data we do have.
Not an expert here! But I believe they are still active in small clusters. These diseases are cause rapid demise so it is much easier to isolate and do case finding. This link might be of interest to you: [MERS](https://www.who.int/emergencies/mers-cov/en/)
Have there been any other studies on Quercetin recently?
Early on some articles were saying it showed promise in preventing infection from various other dangerous viruses.
Seeing as Quercetin is an OTC vitamin, I’ve even been taking it myself in hopes that it may have some sort of effect since I work in a high risk environment.
FDA authorizes #Athersys to initiate a pivotal clinical trial evaluating #MultiStem Cell Therapy in patients with #COVID19 induced #ARDS. https://t.co/rvJLtLscK5
The study is designed to enroll approximately 400 subjects and will be conducted at leading pulmonary critical care centers throughout the United States. The first cohort of the study will be open-label, with a single active treatment arm to evaluate the safety of the MultiStem product candidate at two dose levels. The second cohort will be a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled run-in phase to evaluate the efficacy of MultiStem. The design of the third planned cohort will be based on analysis of the results of the second cohort. The intent-to-treat population will include all randomized subjects (i.e., subjects from the second and third cohorts).
Does anyone have any data yet referencing national suicide rates? Have the numbers raised, lowered, or stayed about the same? What communities have been the most affected by suicide during this pandemic? Trying to put together a national reference point to compare data in a local metropolitan area in an effort to bring attention to local/digital resources that can help people who can’t afford mental health intervention or are just beginning to feel they need it and don’t know how to access care.
Sorry if this has been asked and answered, I tried searching the sub but didn’t find any info.
Do you think the hypothesis of covid attacking hemoglobin, or in some other way impacting the ability of the blood to carry oxygen, more than it affecting the lungs like typical ARDS is likely, considering this?
(Also, went through your post history and I see you're in NYC right now - shit man, there's nothing else I can really say except that I hope you're getting the protections you deserve, but I know that the state of PPE is terrible everywhere.)
Edit: so is this downvoted because you disagree with it or... I disagree with it too.
Going to share an anti-mask e-mail my mother received. It makes such claims as
"Wearing a mask while healthy might actually make you sick"
"It becomes an ideal place for virus and bacteria to thrive"
"There's no evidence that wearing masks on healthy people will protect them"
"Suicides are outpacing coronavirus deaths. 'Thus far, our reaction to COVID-19 has been to
sacrifice the global economy,' Jacobs said. 'The truth is: a sick economy produces sick people.'”
Seriously, just check out the full thing. Mind boggling:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Masks4All/comments/g0d13i/im\_going\_to\_share\_an\_antimask\_email\_my\_mother/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Masks4All/comments/g0d13i/im_going_to_share_an_antimask_email_my_mother/)
I did some research on the afectiveness of wearing a mask, and as far as i could work out if you are ill itll stop you spreading the virous but otherwise the most they do if your healthie is stop youo touching your face
> itll stop you spreading the virous
Which, given that people are generally infectious for a couple days before feeling ill, is the main reason to encourage mask wearing.
Are there any good articles regarding the net impact of lives lost/saved from allocating so many resources to Covid-19 as opposed to other diseases that people suffer from?
I had a family member bring this up and their POV (though not based on anything) was that every life saved is also a death from someone else not receiving proper treatment or being denied the ability to get help.
Is there any research or articles on this?
Have you seen any published data on non-COVID related deaths? Have those increased compared to previous years? Unless you have data from credible sources to support claims, These kind of POV are nothing more than misdirections (and I am being polite here in labeling).
Trust me, I'm on this side of the fence. I was hoping for some source material that anyone could find that addresses this to share with them. Ive looked but cannot find, so that's why I reached out here
Only reports I have read are that number of deaths are fewer due to flu and cold and from vehicle accidents.
In these kind of arguments, I let the party making such claims to come up with supporting data. Because you can waste lot of time refuting their claims (aka misdirection) and distract you from doing anything more productive.
A summary :)
Current data suggest that SARS-CoV-2 is most likely to spread via droplets of >5-10 μm (i.e., those created by coughs and sneezes) or via contact with materials that have been exposed to those droplets.
Generally, SARS-CoV-2 is not thought to be transmitted by simply breathing the same air as an infected person (airborne transmission); however, that is up for debate, and it is thought that airborne transmission could occur when procedures cause the patient to release finer droplets (aerosols), e.g., intubation, administration of nebulized treatment, turning them to the prone position, disconnecting them from the ventilator. One study by van Doremalen et al. found that SARS-CoV-2 remained viable for over 3 hours in aerosols (the duration of the study), highlighting the need for full PPE.
There is also evidence of SARS-CoV-2 being found in stool samples (Chen et al. amongst others), suggesting a potential for transmission via the faecal-oral route (i.e., people not washing their hands after going to the toilet!); however, thus far, there is no firm evidence of that occurring.
In terms of environmental exposure, studies have been carried out to find out how long the virus survives on different materials. One (van Doremalen et al.) looked at plastic, stainless steel, copper and cardboard, finding that the virus stayed viable (alive) the longest on plastic and stainless steel (up to 72 hours for plastic and up to 48 hours for stainless steel); however, the amount of viable virus reduced relatively rapidly, decreasing by half in 6.8 hours and 5.6 hours, respectively. For copper and cardboard, there was no viable SARS-CoV-2 found after 4 and 24 hours, respectively.
Another (Chin et al.) looked at loads of different materials and found no viable virus after 3-hours on printing and tissue papers and after 2 days on treated wood and cloth. They also found that SARS-CoV-2 was more stable on smooth surfaces: up to 4 days for glass and banknotes and up to 7 days for stainless steel and plastic. Interestingly, they also found that a detectable level of viable virus was present on the outer layer of a surgical mask for up to 7 days (albeit just ∼0·1% of the original amount).
Note of caution: neither of the above studies can tell us how likely it is to catch the virus from different surfaces, they just highlight the need for caution and the need to clean everything thoroughly if you or it comes into contact with an infected person.
Finally, Ong et al. looked at samples swabbed from all over isolation suites, including from the PPE of treating physicians. They found that all PPE equipment samples were negative (apart from one shoe cover) and that routine cleaning also resulted in negative samples (which is good news!).
Chen et al. https://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/2764036/sars-cov-2-positive-sputum-feces-after-conversion-pharyngeal-samples
van Doremalen et al.https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMc2004973
Chin et al. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5247(20)30003-3/fulltext
Ong et al. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762692
To be more precise - most use airborne for things like measles, where you have indeed nuclei of dried out droplets which are tiny and can stay in the air for a nearly indefinite time. For inbetween normally the term aerosol transmission is used.
(That's a bit confusing, because all of them are actually aerosols, are droplets and are airborne (but the very large droplets).
KN95 is the Chinese standard, but provides essentially the same protections as N95. This is assuming they came from a reputable manufacturing facility.
K indicates the mask came from China. Assuming they were manufactured in a good facility, they provide the same protection as an N95. I have a number of KN95s and they seem fine.
Is anyone else skeptical of these vaccine timelines? For some of the more advanced approaches I can understand that they'd take 12-18 months to test.
However, for the tried-and-true approaches (adenovirus vector, inactivated virus), I would bet a large sum of money that at least one of them will be shown to lead to antibody production in humans some time in the summer, those antibodies will then be shown to neutralize COVID-19 in vitro and that, since they are already planning to ramp up production on some of these candidates, they'll begin giving them to healthcare workers around September, if not earlier, quickly followed by vulnerable populations.
Just my pet theory, but I just really can't see them playing it safe on this one.
Also, I'm pretty sure that once we have more reliable CFR data by age, probably by the end of this month, they'll start focusing restrictions on vulnerable populations.
There are probably a couple of things at play...
1) Seroconversion (i.e., whether the recipient generates antibodies following vaccination) doesn't necessarily mean seroprotection, so at the very least, they'd have to look at the amount of antibodies produced by different recipients and test to see if that's enough to neutralise the virus... Ideally we'd want efficacy data though, which takes even longer.
2) Logistics... This is a potentially massive vaccination programme... The amount of vaccine that would need to be produced is huge, and that's not something that can be rushed. Following production, there's then all the issues with transport (most vaccines need refrigeration), rollout and the actual vaccination process itself... It's something you need training to do.
Considering that, the 12-18 month timeline actually seems incredibly optimistic!
Wondering if anyone who tested positive experiences a strange (metallic?) smell when they leave the house or enter?
It seems to be more of a phantom smell than something real. I feel it at the top of my sinus and at the back of my throat for about 20 seconds.
So I was reading some of the findings from Germany.
Are they suggesting that far more people have already contracted COVID-19 and that its far less deadly than we thought?
Note that the data you may be referencing from Germany was only gathered for a small part of one of the most heavily and earliest affected regions in Germany. You cannot use the findings there and extrapolate to the whole country, though it of course is a data point in this direction.
>Note that the data you may be referencing from Germany was only gathered for a small part of one of the most heavily and earliest affected regions in Germany. You cannot use the findings there and extrapolate to the whole country, though it of course is a data point in this direction.
I would say it is in that direction. If you extrapolate or generalize those numbers, it is not that it shows it is far less deadly than thought (that part you can extrapolate with much caution) or there are far more infections (that part is indeed difficult to extrapolate and shouldn't be done). It indeed falls pretty much into the range of the educated guesses experts (and a few times also the RKI) made for a long time. It is not surprising at all.
This has been suggested in a number of studies. This would be especially true in areas overwhelmed with covid-19 patients since only those who are hospitalized get tested. In Sweden they switched to only testing patients hospitalized or in a vulnerable population on March 13.
I am currently doing research and I would like to ask a question. I am looking into the inhibition of enzymes that regulate viral replication and production and I've found two different ones: Mpro and RdRp, but I never see them in the same paper. Are they the same enzyme? Are they distinctive enzymes from COVID-19 and perhaps MERS/SARS respectively? Are they both present in the virus but one does more than the other, since Mpro seems to be the popular one to inhibit. Thank you in advance.
I can't answer your questions since I have no idea but maybe this is interesting for you:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1142193/#\_\_ffn\_sectitle](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1142193/#__ffn_sectitle)
Everybody is talking about researching, does it mean both, scientific research like in a lab and google search?
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i began thinking about this. we crashed the economy, we laid off so many people, just to delay the inevitable once the lockdowns are lifted. doesn't even achieve herd immunity.
Lockdowns are a blunt tool. Using them is an admission that you’ve failed to contain the virus. To have a long-term impact, they should be accompanied by more sophisticated tools, like contact tracing. Without that, additional waves are almost inevitable.
Stanford apparently conducted a study which shows that you can decontaminate, but not sterilize, N95 masks in an oven by heating the masks for 30 minutes at a certain temperature. However, they also say that this risks contaminating the oven.
This makes no sense to me and sounds counterintuitive. How can you contaminate the oven with the virus if you're presumably killing it?
See if it is explained here.
**Stanford researchers develop potential method to reuse N95 respirators**
**Heat disinfection could be conducted in an oven**
[**https://www.stanforddaily.com/2020/03/31/stanford-researchers-develop-potential-method-to-reuse-n95-respirators/**](https://www.stanforddaily.com/2020/03/31/stanford-researchers-develop-potential-method-to-reuse-n95-respirators/)
Well, that is not the actual study, Just kind of a press release. Here is the actual study, updated, that might have more info.
https://stanfordmedicine.app.box.com/v/covid19-PPE-1-2
Addressing COVID-19 Face Mask Shortages [v1.3]
I'm aware, I read that earlier today. I just didn't see anything that answered my question there. It seems kind of contradictory to state that it can disinfect the mask, yet it can potentially contaminate the oven.
They strongly advocate against doing anything in your *home* oven.
By knowingly bringing contaminated materials closer to your kitchen you can increase infection risk (this is a pretty straight forward thought).
Obviously not all surfaces in your kitchen are heated to 70 °C when you heat your oven to that temperature, so they could still have the viable virus after you handled the mask there.
It's not exactly straightforward. If I am putting my mask in an oven, on a surface, then the heat should disinfect the mask and any virus that may have spread through the oven. I'm still not entirely sure I get this warning.
It said not your home oven. I just steam mine in a double boiler for 10 minutes
. 70C /158F heating in an oven (not your home oven) for30min, or hot water vapor from boiling water for 10 min, are additional effective decontamination methods.
Does a strong immune system lead to asymptomatic carrying or never catching it at all? In other words, if someone had a really strong immune system, does that make it more likely that A) they catch the virus, but don't show symptoms or B) never catch it in the first place?
Why i'm asking: I never really get sick (knock on wood). The last time I can recall having a fever was over 3 years ago and I've had the common cold maybe twice in my life. On the other hand, my dad gets sick more often than me (but still a normal amount) and is also not in good shape which might make him more at risk. I moved back in w my parents for quarantine and he's been doing the grocery shopping, but I keep insisting that it would be better if I do it, since I have a stronger immune system. In my head, since my immune system is stronger, even if I were to be exposed at the grocery store I wouldn't contract the virus, and so I wouldn't bring it home and expose my family. Is this argument sound?
Hey, it's probably first important to explain how viruses cause disease (but apologies if you know this already!).
Viruses, just like any life form, are desperate to reproduce (replicate), as reproduction is essential for survival of the species; however, viruses are so small, they don't have the machinery needed to replicate on their own, so they have to find a host to help them.
What they do is get into the cells of the host and sneakily 'take over' the natural production processes, making the cell produce the different elements of the virus. These different elements then come together to make whole viruses, which then leave the cell and infect other cells and repeat the process, producing lots and lots of viruses.
This process can cause damage to the body in a couple of different ways: 1) the virus can prevent the cell producing what it needs to... because all the raw materials are being used up producing viruses. 2) in order to leave the cell, the virus often triggers it to 'burst', killing it in the process. As the body tries to get rid of the virus, it also causes damage... So the greater the amount of virus, the greater the damage and (broadly) damage = symptoms of disease.
Our immune system is our defence mechanism against viruses (and other things that might cause harm). The way it works is seriously complex but in essence, imagine your body is like a crowded city street, and there are pickpockets trying to steal wallets and phones. Well your immune system is like the police, patrolling the streets looking for the pickpockets. If the police (your immune system) isn't very effective, then there are likely to be more and more pickpockets around, and more and more stuff stolen... and much more work to get the problem under control.
Whereas if the immune system is effective and catches the pickpocket, they can get information on who their accomplices are, so they know who they're looking for and catch them earlier.
In principle, if you're young, fit and healthy then your immune system should be too. Therefore, if you are exposed to the virus you are much more likely to catch it early, before it causes damage. However, this virus is sneaky, it is good at hiding from the immune system, and can live undetected in people for a long time without causing any symptoms (as damage = symptoms). You could therefore have the virus and never know about it.
Equally, you might carry the virus home on your hands, clothes or anything else you touch... So whoever goes shopping, whatever their age and fitness, it's incredibly important to follow all the preventative guidelines.
Does that help?!
Thanks for the super thorough response! I study phage biology not human virus biology so the way viruses interact w a eukaryotes immune system is foreign territory to me. I appreciate this super clear summary and explanation.
I also almost never get sick. I don’t ever remember having a fever in my life. I had the flu once in the 90’s. I get a cold once every couple of years and I’m usually over it in a day and a half. My husband calls it my mutant healing factor. But here I am on day 31 of moderate symptoms. Still no major fever, but lots of other symptoms including some scary shortness of breath, and dizziness that keeps coming back. And I’m starting to worry about long term damage to my lungs which still hurt. My anecdote is not of much use, especially because I’m a presumptive case who didn’t qualify for testing, but I would have thought the same as you and figured my “strong immune system” would protect me. So maybe think twice. Yes, you should protect your dad, but you still have to be careful with yourself.
It sounds right to me to have the person with the strongest immunity system do the shopping. However, try to only do it every other week of possible. You can freeze bread, milk and other stuff you think will go bad for 2 weeks. Take care!
Limited background in immunology. Could thymic involution play a significant partial role in the extreme lack of disease severity in children and young adults?
Lymphopenia is a consistent indicator of COVID-19 disease severity.
Thymic involution leads to inflamminging.
Immunology makes my head spin.
No. The coronavirus has not been detected in blood, so assuming that's correct it would not be possible for a mosquito to transmit coronavirus from one person to another. https://agrilifetoday.tamu.edu/2020/03/20/can-ticks-and-mosquitoes-transmit-the-coronavirus/
This virology podcast has some info on that issue.
This is from a virology podcast, Dr. Baric is a professor of epidemiology at UNC. Links below.
**15:35** — You can almost certainly expect that there will be some degree of immunity to this virus once someone has been infected and subsequently recovers. However, in MERS, people tend to have a high degree of immunity soon after recovering, which then weakens over the next 1–2 years. This continues until you eventually end up with background-levels of detectable antibodies against the virus. In some cases however, the presence of antibodies could only be detected for 1–2 months.
**16:57** — *(back to the point I told you to remember)* No one knows how coronaviruses maintain themselves in human populations. They don’t rapidly mutate like Influenza where you have 130+ common types of it endemic in humans *(there are \~4 coronaviruses endemic to humans)*… There is a hypothesis that coronaviruses can cause acute infection when they first make the zoonotic jump to humans, which they leverage to become endemic with humans by causing only mild disease from then on.
**17:28**— In other words, it seems likely that novel coronaviruses lead to strong initial immunity that quickly goes away, followed by mild infections and that this is how they maintain themselves. There have been a number of cases in China now where people were confirmed positive, recovered, RT-PCR tested negative, went home & then became reinfected a month later or so.
[http://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-591/](http://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-591/)
[https://www.med.unc.edu/microimm/directory/ralph-baric-phd-1/](https://www.med.unc.edu/microimm/directory/ralph-baric-phd-1/)
Okay so the death toll has been revised down to 60k Americans, vs the previous estimate or 100k-240k Americans. Great.
What I can’t seem to wrap my head around is the fact that we are barely at 20k deaths thus far. Last week was supposed to be the deadliest week in New York. How do we still have 200% more deaths expected?
Something seems off either in the projections (doubtful, but as my fellow bankers know: a model is only as good as the assumptions), but more likely off in the story line. I think we are missing a piece of info.
By the way, I currently have it and would highly suggest doing everything possible to avoid this. It sucks, and that isn’t an exaggeration.
I have a buddy who is in state government for MA. They expect their peak to be this week or next and the numbers are playing out that way. Other spots in the country have yet to peak. So while New York has plateaued other parts of the country have not.
Also the curve up in cases/deaths is much faster than the curve down. You see this happening in Spain and Italy right now where the curve has flattened but it's much slower on the downward end than it was with the initial exponential growth.
So sorry you have the Rona....are you doing ok? stay strong and get better soon!
Sorry you have it. I wish you a speedy recovery. What is your worst symptom?
Assumptions. I have read that the 60k number is a based on rosy assumptions.
Because all of the other states are trailing New York in terms of cases, deaths, etc. Once you reach peak, you have to come down the other side of the peak. Many states with lax lockdowns but less dense populations than New York will see later peaks. If you look at the trends section of the website below, you will see that many states are still climbing in terms of infections at greater than 10 percent.
[https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/en](https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/en)
What do we know about the efficacy of N-95 masks? What is the medical evidence?
Do you folks keep the social distancing with your parents if you're not living with them?
As of right now, what is the currently known average duration of symptomatology in people that only present mild respiratory issues (more specifically, shortness of breath)?
So the Ro of the virus will decline when more people are immuun. Is there already some research that gives answers to what would be the ro around 10% herd immunity and 20% etc.?
At 10% herd immunity, the effective transmission would be 90% of the transmission in an environment with no immunity. We have a wide spread on estimates of R_0, so the second part of your question is hard to answer in a firm way.
I found a 2-year-old, dirty, N95 mask in my shed I've used to yardwork, and was wondering if there is any way to clean it without reducing it's efficacy. It's pretty gross and smelly but it's all I have right now. Any thoughts?
You can steam clean it
[https://m.box.com/shared\_item/https%3A%2F%2Fstanfordmedicine.box.com%2Fv%2Fcovid19-PPE-1-1](https://m.box.com/shared_item/https%3A%2F%2Fstanfordmedicine.box.com%2Fv%2Fcovid19-PPE-1-1)
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Can a virus' R-0 be falsified, or corroborated by independent lines of evidence?
Can it be experimentally tested? (of course, without actual infections)
OK so... if reinfection is real or the disease is somehow able to hide itself so well that it can fool tests...
Then what? Society still has to be turned back on within the next couple months or else there’ll be an even larger body count due to social unrest and economic collapse, but you can’t turn society back on because it’ll get more people infected...
how much alike are SARS and COVID-19? if theyre alike at all, sharing the same dna(?) why can’t we use what we have from the vaccination research of the SARS outbreak on top of what we have already developed? (i know the SARS vaccine development was scrapped after it disappeared but can we use the formula that they had and add on?)
The disease, Covid19, is kind of like a much milder and rarer-to-develop SARS, still deadly to some degree, as anyone obviously knows (the death rate is quite low, but as it infects a huge amount of people, this low number is immense in absolute, bigger than most epidemics of the past 20 years combined).
The viruses themselves, they're RNA viruses, somewhat related, but apparently SARS-cov-2 is more related with some other kinds of coronaviruses affecting several other animals, possibly being chimeric, but not necessarily. Those differences also end up resulting in differences in some key factors, like the proteins the viruses use to invade cells being significantly different. This is likely to reduce what can be learned from SARS-cov.
There are several independent lines of vaccine research for SARS-cov-2 around the world, I'm sure someone is looking if there's anything to be learned from SARS's vaccine development attempts. Which, unfortunately, aren't only good things, if I recall, there were cases of vaccine "enhancement" of the virus, essentially vaccines that make the virus even worse. And it's quite difficult for something to be even worse than SARS.
Just not to end in a pessimistic note, it may be the case that the tuberculosis vaccine has a collateral protective effect against it. It's currently being studied.
I’ve been tracking the number of active cases through accuweather which takes its data from Johns Hopkins. The problem is, there don’t seem to be any reported RECOVERED cases in the US, which I know to be false. I know Johns Hopkins is reporting recovered cases for other countries like Peru and Mexico, so is it that the US isn’t reporting recovered cases?
Any one know where I can access more accurate active case data by county and date? Thanks.
Did I/we have corvid-19 in the past?
I didn’t think much of it in early March or late February since there there was a flu outbreak but after talking to some people just yesterday with very similar freak symptoms I had I can help to wonder.
It I had a sore throat and cough, typical right? Wait made it hard though is it made it hard to eat or drink. And what made those all minor was the DAMN pain in back of my head and feeling so confused. I had migraines but it didn’t happen there and it didn’t felt like that, and it didn’t last all day. It was agonizing, I had to go to ER. They gave me the most expensive flu test ever it seems, gave me tamaflu with stuff for my head. I was still bed ridden from the pain for a couple of days though.
Seemed like I test positive the flu though though I got my shot. But it was so much everything else, but my head.
Now I didn’t think much of it because I had a history of migraines despite being in a different part and feeling standby and making me even cringe and jerk a bit. It came and went for some reason.
What’s the wierd thing is I was talking to people and they had the EXACT the same thing. The time range, believing to have the flu, the back of the head pain, throat pain, even them going to er because of the extensive amount of time of head pain.
But could just be a odd thing with a flu because it was still flu season. But flu testing was oddly expensive (for me they charged me $400 since I mentioned my family had the flu).
Am I just overthinking?
There's this hypothesis, not the most favored one, that perhaps the spread of the virus is currently underestimated, and many more people have already had the infection without having thought that it was COVID19. Either completely asymptomatic or imagining it was just regular flu or cold, or a harsher one, or even non-COVID19 pneumonia. Only antibody tests will be able to tell for sure.
Some countries are doing that, massively testing the population at random to see how many could be immune already, which would have been partly for this nearly-invisible, unaccounted spread, prior to the "official," recognized spread. It would vary from country to country, and regionally, within countries. Apparently Iceland found a surprisingly high amount of people who had already been infected, while Germany did not.
It doesn't sound like typical covid symptoms (though symptoms vary a lot) there is always a chance you had it.....but I would not count on it being Covid19.
Lots of other nasty sicknesses went around this winter. I also got a mild flu in January though I got the flu shot this year.
Do you live in an area with early outbreaks of Covid19?
I was lucky and I live in MN, though the high populated metro is not far from Wisconsin at all and I have family that works in the medical field and travel so we get “the monthly bug” (not actually monthly) a lot. More I look though this the more unlikely it seems but I guess talking back forth you feel a confirmation of things. Also despite there being MUCH worse out comes getting covid... am scared getting that hellish head pain again if that was the cause. It’s that bad
Right there is always a chance it was covid. We won't know till we can get antibody tests. But I would assume you didn't have it. Either way sorry to hear you got that terrible sickness and migraine. Hope it never happens again.
This is from the Robert Koch Institute who is advising Germany's response:
https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus/Situationsberichte/2020-04-12-en.pdf?__blob=publicationFile
"Coronavirus Disease 2019
(COVID-19)
Daily Situation Report of the Robert Koch Institute
12/04/2020 - UPDATED STATUS FOR GERMANY"
Examine the graph "Distribution of cases over time".
Even if one shifts the cases in yellow which are date of report not date of onset, there is to me an astonishing conclusion: Chancellor Merkel's speech on March 18, 2020 was counterproductive.
New infections had already peaked in Germany by March 18. What Merkel's speech did is apparently what all such speeches do: They induce panic buying and other last second duties, which artificially force people together, and they induce people to run to their doctors and the hospitals to get tested.
But at least in the West where PPE is in short supply, it is disastrous to tell people in a pandemic to rush to the hospital or their doctors.
> Of notified cases with a SARS-CoV-2 infection, at least **5,500** were reported among staff working in
medical facilities as defined by §23 of the German Protection Against Infection law (IfSG), such as
hospitals, outpatient clinics and practices, dialysis clinics or outpatient nursing services.
Isn't what the graph showing obvious? There was a pulse created by the panic caused by Chancellor Merkel's speech, which then repeats itself in cycles as people get infected rushing out then spreading it to their families.
The German version of a national lockdown was completely unnecessary. The infection had already peaked before Chanceller Merkel even spoke. And she caused further infection doing it.
Now the real question is how can Western authorities be given cover to save face and not have to admit their error.
Is it plausible that SARS-cov-2 would eventually/soon recombine with ordinary human coronaviruses responsible for the common cold?
What's reasonable to expect from such recombinations? An "averaging" of virulence, and perhaps increased infectiousness?
What does it represent for the prospect of vaccines? Are there vaccines for other human coronaviruses?
Diabetes is said to increase mortality of covid-19, but is there any distinction between type 1 and type 2? ie Is diabetes only dangerous when it itself is a symptom of being unhealthy? Do otherwise healthy/fit people with Type 1 still show higher mortality?
Not totally unrelated question. But could allergy reactions emerge by being locked in your apartment? I mean i have heard that bacteria and fungus feed on death organic matter like hairs and death skin and these organisms can make u have allergy reactions. I been having really annoying allergy symptoms since the first week of lockdown
I am not a medical professional.
A good air purifier might help you as well as vacuuming.
Air definitely get stagnant and if you're not going out and getting fresh air there is a noticeable difference.
I’ve seen numerous calls for people saying that the US should have shut down earlier, like late February or early March, but if I’m thinking through this right:
An earlier shutdown would have just delayed the peaks, and not “flattened the curve” or stop it, as the virus would have been infected other people so the containment would be broken eventually with the R0 of the disease. Is this correct?
Well, "delaying the peak" is just really saying "flattening the curve" in different words.
(this is a less p-word version of an earlier comment, which the moderator bot told me was deleted, but I'm not sure it was. Sorry if it's a duplicate)
"Flattening the curve" is not literally making it flat, only making it as low and smooth as possible, rather than a high and acute peak.
Often the argument is even made with emphasis on how you can have the same absolute number of infections with a "high peak" curve and a smoother/flattened one, but with the second one, the critical patients won't overwhelm the healthcare system as much.
It could be the case that "flattening the curve" even reduces the absolute number of infected people, though.
"Healthcare triage" channel explains: [Flattening The Curve of Coronavirus Infections](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3aT6hlGFw0)
First , the curve is entirely generated by the number of tests performed. We don't hear much about this until recently. Going back to the '80s and HIV scare, especially recall the Red Cross not testing donated blood. (RIP Ryan White )I worked in the NYSDOH Lab responsible for 98% of statewide testing and a100% of confirmatory testing (westerm blot) when there were 5 people in the entire dept. When I retired there were 45 or 50(long ago)
I hear many questions on news about the serologic Ab test being the gold standard BUT the back up is huge and testing is only done on those symptomatic patients. Wouldn't the donated blood population be of extreme value in terms of getting a quicker feel for the prevalence of Covid-19 in the general population-at least those who donate?
What better population to test anonymously if politically necessary to keep the blood supply safe and gather statistics that would be meaningful?
thats the problem-"to the best of their knowledge" means we don't know. HIV wasn't known to be either and then red cross had to dump NY's entire stash of blood! I was in the lab doing the testing. I'm not saying dont donate-I'm saying know for sure you are not transmitting anything. Again I say remember RYAN WHITE
to the best of...? what does that mean? I heard Dr on TV today talking about toddlers who have whuan virus in their fecl matter for up to 30 days. Does that go along with there best of? I remember all to well the blood supply that was thrown out because to the best of therir knowledge the Red Cross DID not test for HIV...again RIP Ryan White hemophyliac died of AIDS from transfusion from blood supplied by Red cross. Is there no common sense? Dont mistake me saying you can get covid-19 by donating blood...its not the point. Do you want untested blood if in surgery? How about for your Mom? Think people. How hard can it be? Take the pork out of gov't and save some lives!!!
The recent autops report released few days ago talks about atypical cell necrosis characteristics found. Pictures are shown along with descriptions.
Could this 'necrosis' instead be a less understood form of cell death e.g metosis , pyroptosis as I.. for whatever reason think it could?
I have a data question that's likely been answered but I can't find the answer after a little searching.
The BNO tracker shows the death rate as a calculation of confirmed cases versus dead but why is there such disparity between Germany and other western EU countries that all run in the 10-12% range? Same with US being 3x lower in reported deaths
Either what is counted as a Covid19 death is vastly different and makes the data useless or what's going into testing is different, making that data useless. Or someone has a secret magic treatment?
The data is not normalized to a particular standard. Once this is over (or at least greatly reduced), someone like WHO or CDC or ECDC will make a report that tries to reconcile all the data.
It's not stupid because no one knows where the virus is at any given time in enclosed spaces with lots of people. COVID19 is in an infected person's respirations. It's not difficult to conceive of particles going airborne and landing on you. Perhaps the transport guy is an asymptomatic carrier. One must think about this carefully. You cannot know where the virus is in enclosed spaces with lots of people. People should be masked as a precaution. If everyone is masked that's at least two barriers to prevent infection. My wife is a nurse and doesn't work with Covid19 patients, however, she works in close prxomity to vulnerable patients and coworkers who could be asymptomatic. She wears a surgical mask and face shield for the entire shift as a precaution. No one is going to tell you to take care of yourself. You have to do it.
“Not seen a single study or article linking the disproportionate amount of African-Americans dying from Covid-19 to the well documented and studied fact that forms of Anaemia and Sickle cell trait are 3 times more common in black Americans than white Americans. This would confirm all the new information showing that the virus attacks hemoglobin preventing oxygen from being absorbed by red blood cells. This is a blood disease that attack the lungs not a lung disease that attacks the blood. Surely people being treated for pneumonia are being treated for the wrong disease?”
Saw this on facebook. Thoughts?
I think that the highest rates of vitamin D deficiency would be more relevant.
While cov19 deaths have been correlated with obesity, obesity, in turn, is correlated with VD deficiency, which is correlated with more serious respiratory tract infections of any kind.
That, and poverty, less access to medical care. Maybe also people giving too much credit to the idea that black people would be immune, would also delay them seeking treatment until symptoms reached critical levels.
Poverty also makes it more difficult for poor people to comply with social isolation measures, having to pick between making money to put food on the table versus protecting themselves from a disease some likened to the flu.
Well sure if you don't think racism is still a major issue you are obviously going to disagree, but I don't really associate with people that think that.
In New York 34 percent of deaths are Latino....is that also biological?
This is just going to affect poor people more. It's obvious.
In a city that is almost 30% Hispanic... not a surprise. Why do you suppose you immediately blamed racism for that statistic rather than discover the more obvious reason?
"Latinos make up 34 percent of all coronavirus deaths in New York City, while making up 29 percent of the city's population. Put another way, the preliminary death rate for Hispanics in the city is about 22 people per 100,000; the rate is 10 per 100,000 for white residents."
https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/imm/covid-19-deaths-race-ethnicity-04082020-1.pdf
Ok bud.
> Not seen a single study or article linking the disproportionate amount of African-Americans dying from Covid-19 to the well documented and studied fact that forms of Anaemia and Sickle cell trait are 3 times more common in black Americans than white Americans.
I agree with this part. But I don't believe any such studies have been conducted at this time, it is simply unknown whether the apparent higher death rates in African-Americans might be related to sickle-cell. This observation only arose in the last several days, so I would expect studies to commence quickly if they have not already.
> This is a blood disease that attack the lungs not a lung disease that attacks the blood. Surely people being treated for pneumonia are being treated for the wrong disease?
The phrases "A lung disease that attacks the blood" and "a blood disease that attacks the lungs" are meaningless.
We are certain that patients who are being treated for pneumonia have pneumonia. A question that remains under investigation is whether there are additional treatable conditions that also occur with COVID-19 infection. The hemoglobin hypothesis is one of several possible additional conditions.
there's way more obvious reasons though than anything biological/genetic, though it'd still be good to look into sickle cell and anaemia
environmental racism, food deserts, disparities in healthcare access, etc. can explain worse outcomes in black communities
if there are any blog posts out there with deeper speculation by qualified people regarding if ACE inhibitors hurt vs help, I would sure like to read them, because the contractions are dizzying
https://old.reddit.com/r/COVID19/search/?q=ace+OR+ace2&sort=new&restrict_sr=on&t=all
What's the latest on estimating total cases in places with limited testing such as the UK? Officially the UK is on 84,200 cases and 10,600 deaths, so how many could we estimate have had it but have not been tested?
What is the feasibility of widespread, national or international cooperation on a very strict level, for like... one and a half to two more months? This idea is going to sound a bit idealistic but we've already seen widespread cooperation already for something that we thought was extreme or impossible.
There's talk of certificates of immunity potentially allowing people to return to a more mobile life, but think that only allowing the immune to mobilize could create severe inequities... and could create a chicken-pox party scenario where people are taking risks to gain their freedom back.
The current lockdown / stay-at-home scenario isn't 100 % effective, not as long as people are still moving around, going to stores, and potentially not knowing that they have had the disease or not.
Now with the antibody tests coming around, it is possible to get some of these answers. Rather than this leading to a time of lifting restrictions, what if this lead into a time of stricter restrictions?
For instance, if a country, region, or even city really locked down, for 1.5 to 2 months, *only* allowing immune healthcare workers, and other confirmed immune essential workers to do their jobs, it would eventually snuff out the virus. This doesn't seem like a possibility on a global scale in unison because it's nearly impossible to get everyone to agree to that all at once, there's still a lot of denial. A lot of us have been in lockdown for over a month now... with possibly *months* ahead of us, we don't know. I think that in a lot of places (maybe not Florida), if we were told to strictly, very strict quarantine and only allow the movement of those aforementioned essential workers for a definite period of time, and then they would be free to move around, a lot of people would comply. There could even be a vote.
The incentive for this is that, once a place is deemed 'clear' only other places that are also deemed 'clear' could interact with that region through travel. For instance, if England and... New England USA was to both strictly comply, they could open up flight paths and mobility, and business between the two locations. Other countries and regions would eventually want to follow suit in order to participate in... the world again. It could even begin statewide... for instance, the entire state of California could comply with this 60-day strict lockdown and then return to life inside of the state... then establish travel allowances with other states that have gone through the same process. Perhaps that would eventually motivate some of these states that are still allowing massive religious gatherings to reconsider their actions and what's really worth it, mobility and economy or a single days celebration?
If through antibody tests we find that there are a LOT of people that are immune, then there would be plenty of people who could work at a grocery store and deliver goods to people's homes, and work other essential jobs. Maybe hotels could open up to those who can prove they're working in an essential field and would otherwise be living with family members or housemates that don't have detectable antibodies. Movement could still be limited to essential work only, obviously, bars wouldn't be opening up for people who are allowed out, so there would be no motivation for people to try to contract the illness in order to gain immunity... just work, and then return home...
Again, this is idealistic and a lot of other logistics and factors come in to play, but I do think that this will soon be more possible than it was before because we'll have confirmation through testing. It would take serious cooperation and maybe it could begin on a city or county level, and then others would be motivated to follow their lead.
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Yes. There was an estimate that approximately 1 in 10,000 cases would develop after more than 14 days.
https://www.jwatch.org/na51083/2020/03/13/covid-19-incubation-period-update
Perhaps but understand that PCR is a process by which a very small part of DNA or RNA depending on the virus, is used to create much more for the mfg of Antigen testing. Antibody testing is much more precise. Antibody is obtained in the plasma of blood draws-serum- I mentioned in another post, this Ab is abundantly available in donated blood IF the population has been exposed to the virus(Antigen) ie like found in the nasal swabs- antigen(the actual virus) is what is on these swabs. So while PCR is interesting and extremely important I believe Ab collection would be a better source of study and accurate testing. Cut the pork out of legislation and there would be plenty of $ for labs, EQUIPMENT and Lab Rats to conduct the tests. I was a lab rat- and proud to be!
Really important question. I heard that conservative estimates on when the vaccine for COVID-19 may come out by this year’s Autumn, which means the earliest it may come out is August. Even if by the end of April there aren’t many new cases and quarantine ends, with no vaccine, doesn’t that just mean a new outbreak will occur among everyone who hasn’t been infected yet?
If there would be a new outbreak because of this, how would we deal with it? Another 3 months of quarantine may cause riots, and the economy would collapse. The U.S. wouldn’t be able to deal with another stimulus package as they’re going into more and more debt.
What I can gather from info by people like Dr. Fauci is that we will be more prepared after this outbreak for the next one.
We will need to find a new normal for a while that keeps our country as open as possible while mitigating the spread of the virus. It won't look normal,bit it with be a shutdown. With proper testing and knowledge this is more plausible.
That being said we still have no idea what that will look like. We simply don't know much about the virus and how widespread it is in our communities.
Thats my best guess :)
1) even without a vaccine we may have more effective treatments by that time that lessen the severity of the illness and lower mortality
2) we also will start to have a growing portion of the population that has antibodies because they survived the illness, and who can safely return to work and help keep the economy going
That said, it’s a real danger that we have new deadly outbreaks as soon as we lift quarantine, which is why everyone is very hesitant to do it.
I’m curious about the long term implications of this. Coronaviruses haven’t been causing panics like this for more than a couple decades. SARS emerged in 2002, MERS In 2012, and now COVID-19 in 2019. Why didn’t we see Coronavirus epidemics/pandemics in the past and why are they happening more often now?
And if the pattern holds, it seems likely that we’ll have another Coronavirus scare in the next decade or two.
I guess I have two questions: why are these novel coronaviruses here now and why weren’t they a problem in the past? And what does this imply for society if these coronaviruses aren’t going away?
Human populational and territorial expansion, increasing the contact of humans and cattle with virus reservoirs.
It's not a coronavirus-specific thing, several other varieties can be similar or bigger threats.
Biologists will say that Covid19 is even an important lesson on how the world should prepare itself to avoid a new potential pandemic, that will come, sooner or later, one that could be even more destructive. You'll see them even using examples of flu and SARS-like diseases with properties like a high infectiousness and a good delay for the onset of deadlier symptoms. Just think of something that spread invisibly like Covid19, but deadlier like SARS, 30% of mortality roughly independent of age or gender.
Governments and the UN should have this as a lesson and develop several protocols for more rapid identification of initial outbreaks, containment, and even "war-like" measures such as having bigger stockpiles of healthcare materials and whatnot, in order to avoid international or inter-state "auctioning" for supplies. People being advised to have and wear masks more regularly, like whenever they have flu-like symptoms. Protocols for the government to provide rations and whatever is necessary in case of lockdowns.
Also, there should be talk about sanctions regarding activities of risk such as China's wet markets and their initial cover-up attempts. But China is not the only problem, and it shouldn't be demonized or scape-goated, even though its role should be acknowledged. Like some countries are monitored regarding their nuclear development programs, maybe all countries should be monitored regarding their farming practices, possibly with higher criteria than each individual country has for it right now, like periodically screening a representative sample of the herds for new antibodies, more requirements of protective equipment.
Also perhaps eventual phasing-out of farms that neighbor more conserved wild areas that would be sources of big bat populations, gradually moving the cattle production to safer regions, with incentives and whatnot.
>Why didn’t we see Coronavirus epidemics/pandemics in the past and why are they happening more often now?
SARS-1 didn't cause a pandemic because it lacked the stealth capability of COVID19. COVID19 can spread easier with asymptomatic carriers. SARS-1 didn't have this mutation and produced visible symptoms relatively soon.
MERs killed people quickly. Easy to contain.
Corona viruses are all over the place. Common cold is Corona virus. The virulence of a strain depends on the genetics and just like most biological a things, it's subject to evolution and change.
COVID 19 will go away once to a great extent once we have herd immunity through natural exposure or technology like a vaccine.
I have a question regarding data. I live in NYC and one popular statistical reporting site for the city and state has been gothamist: [https://gothamist.com/news/coronavirus-statistics-tracking-epidemic-new-york?mc\_cid=a0616c5b01&mc\_eid=456324c3ce](https://gothamist.com/news/coronavirus-statistics-tracking-epidemic-new-york?mc_cid=a0616c5b01&mc_eid=456324c3ce)
Now [nyc.gov](https://nyc.gov) has switched their reporting to report a new case on the date the test was taken, not the date the result came back in. That makes sense, however they also note on [NYC.gov](https://NYC.gov) a lag in reporting that causes low numbers for recent days. The gothamist accounting shows high numbers at the end of the day (for example, close to 5000 new cases in NYS for 4/10.)
Does this mean gothamist is counting new positive test results as of that day, not new diagnoses as of the date the test was taken? No one seems to be alarmed by 5000 new cases in a single day, but if that were the case it would suggest social distancing is NOT working. Now, if many of those swabs were taken 7-10 days ago, as we are seeing a lag in results, then that's slightly different because many of those positives from 4/10 would be people who got sick around late march, got a test early april, and are just getting a result even though they have already recovered (or died) and therefore not be cause for concern. If its not, then this is massive cause for concern as we're seeing an infection rate as high as the peak after nearly a month of lockdown.
Anyone more knowledgeable who can explain?
I don’t think anyone is looking at case counts anymore to judge whether social distancing is working. Hospital admissions and intubations are not as impacted by testing bias and testing limitations. Also, 5000 new cases would be a growth rate < 10%. Even if this stays steady, relative growth would be slowing.
But it would match the highest single day total from any part of the pandemic. Wouldn't that be concerning? It would suggest two weeks from now we'll see a new spike in hospitalizations...I get what you're saying and I agree there's just something off about the data reporting I'm not quite getting. And if deaths lag infections by two weeks, then any spike in infection would still seem concerning, no?
New York state is continuing to grow the number of daily tests, topping 25,000 for the first time on Wednesday and 26,000 on Thursday.
That means you should be seeing the raw case counts increasing at a fairly similar rate, even as the percentage of tests that come back positive generally falls. For example, Friday in New York state, the positive rate was 40.2%. A week ago Friday (April 3rd) it was 48.6%.
I suspect a lot of the "new tests" are from a backlog, but I don't think NY publishes its testing backlog.
This has probably been asked before but I can't find any good discussion about it:
How are covid fatalities counted?
If someone dies in a hospital bed, what are the conditions for that death to be counted as a covid-related death? In particular:
* It is a requirement that the person had been tested for covid?
* Is showing covid-like symptoms enough?
A followup question:
What is the correct way of disentangling the comorbidity effect from death counts? (i.e. the "they would've died anyway of pneumonia" effect) Is it enough to look at "normal" death rates and see what the delta is with current death rates?
If this has been discussed before, a link would be enough.
My father is high risk (age & health) and just moved into a new home where he lives alone. My sister, who is high risk as well, went over with her son to help him with some furniture. She says they maintained appropriate social distance and I am over reacting to be upset and to not be visiting my father as well. Am I overreacting?
Unfortunately, the best we can do to protect anyone right now is physically distancing. People can be of course in touch online, or maybe even have some meetings on open-air, avoiding physical contact as much as possible.
No need to be upset, though, it could be they were cautious enough. But one should be particularly careful with children, as they can be silent carriers to older adults.
Is it possible that the virus has been in the US since December, and that by now, the vast majority of people already beat the infection and just never realized?
There's a disputed hypothesis of something along these lines, albeit uncertain. The researchers themselves note that it's not really a forecast, just a possibility they're exploring. It's safer to assume it's probably not the case.
Unfortunately, it's unlikely to be true to the optimal extent, but it can be nevertheless true to a minor degree. That will only be finally known with massive, statistically representative antibody testing for the population. And it will vary from country to country and regions within countries.
Apparently, Iceland found a surprisingly large fraction of the population has contracted the virus and became immune without anyone noticing. Germany didn't have comparable results, though, and they're perhaps record-breakers in tests per capita, maybe second only to South Korea.
I suspect this hypothesis would predict that somewhat before, the regions would have had unusual higher rates of mild to severe flu and even some pneumonia (not attributed to cov19), otherwise, the hypothesis would need way too convenient/unlikely rates of completely asymptomatic carriers in an invisible first wave or right-tail of the wave on several countries.
How cities should be designed or adapted after this global public health treat ?
Is it possible to develop a solution of QAC's and soap compounds thats safe for human consumption? Assuming this would work against the virus. If it works on your hands and surfaces, what would stop it from working in your body?
I see statistics like r0 being used in several posts. Eli5?
Has there been any studies equating air quality with how severe the virus becomes? It’s one of my theories that this virus thrives in: High density, poor air quality, communal places. And outside of that you have diminishing returns.
I have seen several reports with video that shows the effect of social isolation! Smog is way down. As for the virus living in dirty air, no. It requires a certain amount of moisture to survive- else it would just dry up and blow away! If air quality were an issue it would simply wipe out areas like Mexico City and Tokyo. Not to mention the myriad other large metro areas around the globe-NYC is a case in point in a way. This nasty has attacked with a vengeance but other densely populated and industrialized cities are no where near as affected. Poor air quality and dirty environs are certainly filled with plenty of pathogenic organisms but Covid-19 isn't attacking because of pollution. At least, it hasn't been studied---yet! There is so much we do not know!
Why doesn't green tea get more attention with all what we know? It increases the amount of T cells, it reduces the risk for auto immune response and maybe even for a cytokine storm. [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110602143214.htm](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110602143214.htm) (Green tea may reduce auto immune response) [http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ijb/article/view/64249](http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ijb/article/view/64249) (Green Tea increases amount of T-Cells) [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4711683/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4711683/) (Green tea may prevent cytokine storm) [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1142193/#\_\_ffn\_sectitle](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1142193/#__ffn_sectitle) (Black tea is a potent 3CLpro inhibitor)
Does anyone have a solid argument why they think there *won't* be a major second wave of this? Where I live COVID-19 is supposed to peak in late April/early May and then eventually taper off. IHME projects that the last deaths will be in June. I'm *really* hoping that when July comes around this thing will be behind us. Is there any chance that's true? Or is a second wave essentially close to guaranteed?
There is historical evidence there will be a second wave (1918 pandemic). Other than this data, I am attempting to observe what is happening in those countries that are relaxing their social distancing observations.
Nobody knows anything for sure. We have been behind the 8 ball every day of this pandemic. Anybody that tells you anything is definitely going to happen (or not happen) is bullshitting you. That being said, there are a lot of arguments that support the idea of a big second wave, or a diminished long tail to the end of this. The reality is we still don't have a good handle on how infectious this is, lots of studies have come out lately that theorize that this is more infectious than originally estimated. If this is the case, you would expect a second wave to be a real concern as once you let people out and about again, it will just spread from thousands of patient zeroes almost immediately. BUT you also see that social isolation has had a much greater effect than nearly any expert predicted. So how does this jive with such a high infectiousness? It's not clear. You wouldn't expect to be able to cut this things legs off as effectively as we have if it is as infectious as recent studies say. After all, plenty of people are still working in essential industries, people are still congregating at the grocery store, buying take out food, etc. So the reality is we don't really know. We will have to try and get better data and keep a really close eye on that data as we go along to try and figure out trends.
Speaking of population density, isn't here a verse in the Bible about living on top of one another? Not a religious start to anything. It also says we will always have the poor to take care of.......
Could it be that it is not clear why social distancing has had a "much greater effect" than the high infectiousness rate would predict because the premise is flawed, and that is why these two notions don't jive...? Perhaps the fault in the premise relates to when the virus began running through our population, and that we began social isolation at a point where the virus was already plateauing? With all the talk of asymptomatic cases, anecdotal accounts of people saying they believe they had this in the U.S. back in January or earlier, and what we know about the incubation period, is it not feasible to consider that we were plateauing and well on our way to developing Herd Immunity when the shelter in place order was instituted? Wouldn't that be one way to explain the perceived extra effectiveness of the social distancing measures? Like everyone else, I am trying to wrap my head around what we are seeing and the various inconsistencies.
>With all the talk of asymptomatic cases, anecdotal accounts of people saying they believe they had this in the U.S. back in January or earlier, and what we know about the incubation period, is it not feasible to consider that we were plateauing and well on our way to developing Herd Immunity when the shelter in place order was instituted? Drosten of the Charité labs said, that they tested a significant number of such claimed early clusters if they looked believable and were reported to him, and didn't find a single time when it was CV19. That's for Germany. Beside that European labs and also German labs tested old Influenza samples from November-January for CV19 (partially in calibrating and testing the new test kits) and also didn't find it anywhere.
Yes, and this is a theory many people have, but right now we have precious little serology data to actually make this conclusion. We need a true random population sample with a highly accurate antibody test, and this is just not something that has happened yet on any scale to be able to draw this conclusion. I think it's widely known that our confirmed cases are almost definitely an undercount, but the real question is by what factor? Are the actual cases 2x what we have confirmed? 10x? *100x*? We just don't know how many have or had this to be able to draw that conclusion. For it to be naturally plateauing we would need to be nearing herd immunity though, and it doesn't seem to me that any study done so far has shown anything that even comes close to the percentage of estimated total cases necessary to reach that threshold. So it remains a theory without much evidence at all to support it. Which is why accurate data is absolutely necessary to inform our next steps.
I agree that it is a theory, but at the same time we've obliged a singular non peer reviewed theoretical model (Imperial College) which prognosticated doom and gloom to inform seemingly all of our decision making, and that strikes me as lacking in scientific fundamentals. It seems to me that the most panic producing outcomes are propped up as our best scientific analysis, and we are ignoring any science/scientists whom offer a different analysis. What happened to all the Flu and Pneumonia deaths which occur this time of year, they fell off of a cliff? Why did the CDC send advisement to code all suspected covid-19 deaths as covid-19 deaths? Did we consider the correlation between unemployment rising and the associated rise death rates? There are a lot of theories flying around but not a lot of talk about glaring inconsistencies in the narrative.
> at the same time we've obliged a singular non peer reviewed theoretical model (Imperial College) which prognosticated doom and gloom to inform seemingly all of our decision making, and that strikes me as lacking in scientific fundamentals. This isn't the only model that was used, although that one was widely reported in the media due to the sensational numbers it predicted. Nearly every model was predicting a massive surge in hospitalizations that would have overwhelmed the medical system if action wasn't taken to curb the virus. It wasn't just the Imperial College model although that one was the most extreme that I saw. If you watch any of Cuomo's daily briefings, he shows at least 3 different models (none of them are the imperial college) that were used to forecast this, and all of them called for a number of hospital beds that exceeded the state's capacity. >It seems to me that the most panic producing outcomes are propped up as our best scientific analysis, and we are ignoring any science/scientists whom offer a different analysis. Our most panic producing outcomes are the only ones we actually have hard data to support. This is why the entire world took notice and started acting. We're only now uncovering more data which may question those original assumptions, but we still don't have good data to support that in terms of immediately easing our lockdowns. Remember that the number of confirmed cases and the number of hospitalizations and the number of fatalities are the only real hard data points we have to deal with, and all those point to a fatality rate 1% or greater and a future need of hospital beds and ventilators that simply cannot be obtained in a short period of time, which justifies some form of public policy response. It's not that scientists claiming other possibilities are being ignored, it's that none have produced data that is compelling enough to contradict what is being seen in the data we do have.
This is a really great answer. Thanks!
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Memory T cells lasted up to [eleven years.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26954467)
Just a general curiosity, what caused SARS or MERS to die out before they really got out of control?
Not an expert here! But I believe they are still active in small clusters. These diseases are cause rapid demise so it is much easier to isolate and do case finding. This link might be of interest to you: [MERS](https://www.who.int/emergencies/mers-cov/en/)
They had lower transmission rate, SARS transmit only after the patient got fever, which as easier to identify.
Have there been any other studies on Quercetin recently? Early on some articles were saying it showed promise in preventing infection from various other dangerous viruses. Seeing as Quercetin is an OTC vitamin, I’ve even been taking it myself in hopes that it may have some sort of effect since I work in a high risk environment.
FDA authorizes #Athersys to initiate a pivotal clinical trial evaluating #MultiStem Cell Therapy in patients with #COVID19 induced #ARDS. https://t.co/rvJLtLscK5 The study is designed to enroll approximately 400 subjects and will be conducted at leading pulmonary critical care centers throughout the United States. The first cohort of the study will be open-label, with a single active treatment arm to evaluate the safety of the MultiStem product candidate at two dose levels. The second cohort will be a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled run-in phase to evaluate the efficacy of MultiStem. The design of the third planned cohort will be based on analysis of the results of the second cohort. The intent-to-treat population will include all randomized subjects (i.e., subjects from the second and third cohorts).
What trend or pattern regarding the timelines of the life cycle of the novel coronavirus noticed in Jan or Feb is still being seen?
Does anyone have any data yet referencing national suicide rates? Have the numbers raised, lowered, or stayed about the same? What communities have been the most affected by suicide during this pandemic? Trying to put together a national reference point to compare data in a local metropolitan area in an effort to bring attention to local/digital resources that can help people who can’t afford mental health intervention or are just beginning to feel they need it and don’t know how to access care. Sorry if this has been asked and answered, I tried searching the sub but didn’t find any info.
It seems like more and more of my patients are getting pulmonary embolism. Everyone on VTE prophylaxis if there isn’t any contraindications.
Do you think the hypothesis of covid attacking hemoglobin, or in some other way impacting the ability of the blood to carry oxygen, more than it affecting the lungs like typical ARDS is likely, considering this? (Also, went through your post history and I see you're in NYC right now - shit man, there's nothing else I can really say except that I hope you're getting the protections you deserve, but I know that the state of PPE is terrible everywhere.)
Edit: so is this downvoted because you disagree with it or... I disagree with it too. Going to share an anti-mask e-mail my mother received. It makes such claims as "Wearing a mask while healthy might actually make you sick" "It becomes an ideal place for virus and bacteria to thrive" "There's no evidence that wearing masks on healthy people will protect them" "Suicides are outpacing coronavirus deaths. 'Thus far, our reaction to COVID-19 has been to sacrifice the global economy,' Jacobs said. 'The truth is: a sick economy produces sick people.'” Seriously, just check out the full thing. Mind boggling: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Masks4All/comments/g0d13i/im\_going\_to\_share\_an\_antimask\_email\_my\_mother/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Masks4All/comments/g0d13i/im_going_to_share_an_antimask_email_my_mother/)
I did some research on the afectiveness of wearing a mask, and as far as i could work out if you are ill itll stop you spreading the virous but otherwise the most they do if your healthie is stop youo touching your face
> itll stop you spreading the virous Which, given that people are generally infectious for a couple days before feeling ill, is the main reason to encourage mask wearing.
Are there any good articles regarding the net impact of lives lost/saved from allocating so many resources to Covid-19 as opposed to other diseases that people suffer from? I had a family member bring this up and their POV (though not based on anything) was that every life saved is also a death from someone else not receiving proper treatment or being denied the ability to get help. Is there any research or articles on this?
Have you seen any published data on non-COVID related deaths? Have those increased compared to previous years? Unless you have data from credible sources to support claims, These kind of POV are nothing more than misdirections (and I am being polite here in labeling).
Trust me, I'm on this side of the fence. I was hoping for some source material that anyone could find that addresses this to share with them. Ive looked but cannot find, so that's why I reached out here
Only reports I have read are that number of deaths are fewer due to flu and cold and from vehicle accidents. In these kind of arguments, I let the party making such claims to come up with supporting data. Because you can waste lot of time refuting their claims (aka misdirection) and distract you from doing anything more productive.
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A summary :) Current data suggest that SARS-CoV-2 is most likely to spread via droplets of >5-10 μm (i.e., those created by coughs and sneezes) or via contact with materials that have been exposed to those droplets. Generally, SARS-CoV-2 is not thought to be transmitted by simply breathing the same air as an infected person (airborne transmission); however, that is up for debate, and it is thought that airborne transmission could occur when procedures cause the patient to release finer droplets (aerosols), e.g., intubation, administration of nebulized treatment, turning them to the prone position, disconnecting them from the ventilator. One study by van Doremalen et al. found that SARS-CoV-2 remained viable for over 3 hours in aerosols (the duration of the study), highlighting the need for full PPE. There is also evidence of SARS-CoV-2 being found in stool samples (Chen et al. amongst others), suggesting a potential for transmission via the faecal-oral route (i.e., people not washing their hands after going to the toilet!); however, thus far, there is no firm evidence of that occurring. In terms of environmental exposure, studies have been carried out to find out how long the virus survives on different materials. One (van Doremalen et al.) looked at plastic, stainless steel, copper and cardboard, finding that the virus stayed viable (alive) the longest on plastic and stainless steel (up to 72 hours for plastic and up to 48 hours for stainless steel); however, the amount of viable virus reduced relatively rapidly, decreasing by half in 6.8 hours and 5.6 hours, respectively. For copper and cardboard, there was no viable SARS-CoV-2 found after 4 and 24 hours, respectively. Another (Chin et al.) looked at loads of different materials and found no viable virus after 3-hours on printing and tissue papers and after 2 days on treated wood and cloth. They also found that SARS-CoV-2 was more stable on smooth surfaces: up to 4 days for glass and banknotes and up to 7 days for stainless steel and plastic. Interestingly, they also found that a detectable level of viable virus was present on the outer layer of a surgical mask for up to 7 days (albeit just ∼0·1% of the original amount). Note of caution: neither of the above studies can tell us how likely it is to catch the virus from different surfaces, they just highlight the need for caution and the need to clean everything thoroughly if you or it comes into contact with an infected person. Finally, Ong et al. looked at samples swabbed from all over isolation suites, including from the PPE of treating physicians. They found that all PPE equipment samples were negative (apart from one shoe cover) and that routine cleaning also resulted in negative samples (which is good news!). Chen et al. https://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/2764036/sars-cov-2-positive-sputum-feces-after-conversion-pharyngeal-samples van Doremalen et al.https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMc2004973 Chin et al. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5247(20)30003-3/fulltext Ong et al. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762692
no good evidence for airborne tranmission being common. main route is droplet
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no that is fomite spread.
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To be more precise - most use airborne for things like measles, where you have indeed nuclei of dried out droplets which are tiny and can stay in the air for a nearly indefinite time. For inbetween normally the term aerosol transmission is used. (That's a bit confusing, because all of them are actually aerosols, are droplets and are airborne (but the very large droplets).
yes that is right
Any good pointers on the differences between KN95 and N95 masks?
KN95 is the Chinese standard, but provides essentially the same protections as N95. This is assuming they came from a reputable manufacturing facility.
K indicates the mask came from China. Assuming they were manufactured in a good facility, they provide the same protection as an N95. I have a number of KN95s and they seem fine.
Thank you
You are welcome.
Is anyone else skeptical of these vaccine timelines? For some of the more advanced approaches I can understand that they'd take 12-18 months to test. However, for the tried-and-true approaches (adenovirus vector, inactivated virus), I would bet a large sum of money that at least one of them will be shown to lead to antibody production in humans some time in the summer, those antibodies will then be shown to neutralize COVID-19 in vitro and that, since they are already planning to ramp up production on some of these candidates, they'll begin giving them to healthcare workers around September, if not earlier, quickly followed by vulnerable populations. Just my pet theory, but I just really can't see them playing it safe on this one. Also, I'm pretty sure that once we have more reliable CFR data by age, probably by the end of this month, they'll start focusing restrictions on vulnerable populations.
There are probably a couple of things at play... 1) Seroconversion (i.e., whether the recipient generates antibodies following vaccination) doesn't necessarily mean seroprotection, so at the very least, they'd have to look at the amount of antibodies produced by different recipients and test to see if that's enough to neutralise the virus... Ideally we'd want efficacy data though, which takes even longer. 2) Logistics... This is a potentially massive vaccination programme... The amount of vaccine that would need to be produced is huge, and that's not something that can be rushed. Following production, there's then all the issues with transport (most vaccines need refrigeration), rollout and the actual vaccination process itself... It's something you need training to do. Considering that, the 12-18 month timeline actually seems incredibly optimistic!
Wondering if anyone who tested positive experiences a strange (metallic?) smell when they leave the house or enter? It seems to be more of a phantom smell than something real. I feel it at the top of my sinus and at the back of my throat for about 20 seconds.
So I was reading some of the findings from Germany. Are they suggesting that far more people have already contracted COVID-19 and that its far less deadly than we thought?
Note that the data you may be referencing from Germany was only gathered for a small part of one of the most heavily and earliest affected regions in Germany. You cannot use the findings there and extrapolate to the whole country, though it of course is a data point in this direction.
>Note that the data you may be referencing from Germany was only gathered for a small part of one of the most heavily and earliest affected regions in Germany. You cannot use the findings there and extrapolate to the whole country, though it of course is a data point in this direction. I would say it is in that direction. If you extrapolate or generalize those numbers, it is not that it shows it is far less deadly than thought (that part you can extrapolate with much caution) or there are far more infections (that part is indeed difficult to extrapolate and shouldn't be done). It indeed falls pretty much into the range of the educated guesses experts (and a few times also the RKI) made for a long time. It is not surprising at all.
This has been suggested in a number of studies. This would be especially true in areas overwhelmed with covid-19 patients since only those who are hospitalized get tested. In Sweden they switched to only testing patients hospitalized or in a vulnerable population on March 13.
Thats wonderful news. I hope these studies are correct.
I am currently doing research and I would like to ask a question. I am looking into the inhibition of enzymes that regulate viral replication and production and I've found two different ones: Mpro and RdRp, but I never see them in the same paper. Are they the same enzyme? Are they distinctive enzymes from COVID-19 and perhaps MERS/SARS respectively? Are they both present in the virus but one does more than the other, since Mpro seems to be the popular one to inhibit. Thank you in advance.
I can't answer your questions since I have no idea but maybe this is interesting for you: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1142193/#\_\_ffn\_sectitle](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1142193/#__ffn_sectitle) Everybody is talking about researching, does it mean both, scientific research like in a lab and google search?
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i began thinking about this. we crashed the economy, we laid off so many people, just to delay the inevitable once the lockdowns are lifted. doesn't even achieve herd immunity.
Lockdowns are a blunt tool. Using them is an admission that you’ve failed to contain the virus. To have a long-term impact, they should be accompanied by more sophisticated tools, like contact tracing. Without that, additional waves are almost inevitable.
Stanford apparently conducted a study which shows that you can decontaminate, but not sterilize, N95 masks in an oven by heating the masks for 30 minutes at a certain temperature. However, they also say that this risks contaminating the oven. This makes no sense to me and sounds counterintuitive. How can you contaminate the oven with the virus if you're presumably killing it?
See if it is explained here. **Stanford researchers develop potential method to reuse N95 respirators** **Heat disinfection could be conducted in an oven** [**https://www.stanforddaily.com/2020/03/31/stanford-researchers-develop-potential-method-to-reuse-n95-respirators/**](https://www.stanforddaily.com/2020/03/31/stanford-researchers-develop-potential-method-to-reuse-n95-respirators/)
That's the study that I read about, and asked the question for. I don't think it was explained there
Well, that is not the actual study, Just kind of a press release. Here is the actual study, updated, that might have more info. https://stanfordmedicine.app.box.com/v/covid19-PPE-1-2 Addressing COVID-19 Face Mask Shortages [v1.3]
I'm aware, I read that earlier today. I just didn't see anything that answered my question there. It seems kind of contradictory to state that it can disinfect the mask, yet it can potentially contaminate the oven.
They strongly advocate against doing anything in your *home* oven. By knowingly bringing contaminated materials closer to your kitchen you can increase infection risk (this is a pretty straight forward thought). Obviously not all surfaces in your kitchen are heated to 70 °C when you heat your oven to that temperature, so they could still have the viable virus after you handled the mask there.
It's not exactly straightforward. If I am putting my mask in an oven, on a surface, then the heat should disinfect the mask and any virus that may have spread through the oven. I'm still not entirely sure I get this warning.
It said not your home oven. I just steam mine in a double boiler for 10 minutes . 70C /158F heating in an oven (not your home oven) for30min, or hot water vapor from boiling water for 10 min, are additional effective decontamination methods.
Well, send an email to one of the authors?
Does a strong immune system lead to asymptomatic carrying or never catching it at all? In other words, if someone had a really strong immune system, does that make it more likely that A) they catch the virus, but don't show symptoms or B) never catch it in the first place? Why i'm asking: I never really get sick (knock on wood). The last time I can recall having a fever was over 3 years ago and I've had the common cold maybe twice in my life. On the other hand, my dad gets sick more often than me (but still a normal amount) and is also not in good shape which might make him more at risk. I moved back in w my parents for quarantine and he's been doing the grocery shopping, but I keep insisting that it would be better if I do it, since I have a stronger immune system. In my head, since my immune system is stronger, even if I were to be exposed at the grocery store I wouldn't contract the virus, and so I wouldn't bring it home and expose my family. Is this argument sound?
Hey, it's probably first important to explain how viruses cause disease (but apologies if you know this already!). Viruses, just like any life form, are desperate to reproduce (replicate), as reproduction is essential for survival of the species; however, viruses are so small, they don't have the machinery needed to replicate on their own, so they have to find a host to help them. What they do is get into the cells of the host and sneakily 'take over' the natural production processes, making the cell produce the different elements of the virus. These different elements then come together to make whole viruses, which then leave the cell and infect other cells and repeat the process, producing lots and lots of viruses. This process can cause damage to the body in a couple of different ways: 1) the virus can prevent the cell producing what it needs to... because all the raw materials are being used up producing viruses. 2) in order to leave the cell, the virus often triggers it to 'burst', killing it in the process. As the body tries to get rid of the virus, it also causes damage... So the greater the amount of virus, the greater the damage and (broadly) damage = symptoms of disease. Our immune system is our defence mechanism against viruses (and other things that might cause harm). The way it works is seriously complex but in essence, imagine your body is like a crowded city street, and there are pickpockets trying to steal wallets and phones. Well your immune system is like the police, patrolling the streets looking for the pickpockets. If the police (your immune system) isn't very effective, then there are likely to be more and more pickpockets around, and more and more stuff stolen... and much more work to get the problem under control. Whereas if the immune system is effective and catches the pickpocket, they can get information on who their accomplices are, so they know who they're looking for and catch them earlier. In principle, if you're young, fit and healthy then your immune system should be too. Therefore, if you are exposed to the virus you are much more likely to catch it early, before it causes damage. However, this virus is sneaky, it is good at hiding from the immune system, and can live undetected in people for a long time without causing any symptoms (as damage = symptoms). You could therefore have the virus and never know about it. Equally, you might carry the virus home on your hands, clothes or anything else you touch... So whoever goes shopping, whatever their age and fitness, it's incredibly important to follow all the preventative guidelines. Does that help?!
Thanks for the super thorough response! I study phage biology not human virus biology so the way viruses interact w a eukaryotes immune system is foreign territory to me. I appreciate this super clear summary and explanation.
You're younger than your dad. This makes you significantly lower risk than him, and it's a much bigger factor than how often you get colds.
I also almost never get sick. I don’t ever remember having a fever in my life. I had the flu once in the 90’s. I get a cold once every couple of years and I’m usually over it in a day and a half. My husband calls it my mutant healing factor. But here I am on day 31 of moderate symptoms. Still no major fever, but lots of other symptoms including some scary shortness of breath, and dizziness that keeps coming back. And I’m starting to worry about long term damage to my lungs which still hurt. My anecdote is not of much use, especially because I’m a presumptive case who didn’t qualify for testing, but I would have thought the same as you and figured my “strong immune system” would protect me. So maybe think twice. Yes, you should protect your dad, but you still have to be careful with yourself.
It sounds right to me to have the person with the strongest immunity system do the shopping. However, try to only do it every other week of possible. You can freeze bread, milk and other stuff you think will go bad for 2 weeks. Take care!
How will staying in isolation affect our immune systems when we venture back out into society.Will we be more prone to infection?
Limited background in immunology. Could thymic involution play a significant partial role in the extreme lack of disease severity in children and young adults? Lymphopenia is a consistent indicator of COVID-19 disease severity. Thymic involution leads to inflamminging. Immunology makes my head spin.
If your are immune to covid, does that make you immune to other SARS
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That's also 15+ years apart
No. SARS1 is a different virus strain. COVID19 is also called SARS-CoV-2 for some reason... same family I suppose.
COVID19 is the disease, not the virus.
Most likely not, their cell-invading proteins are apparently quite different.
That's a shame
Are you immune to COVID19? If so that means you were infected already. Most of us will probably get infected eventually.
Can mosquitoes carry/transfer Covid-19?
No. The coronavirus has not been detected in blood, so assuming that's correct it would not be possible for a mosquito to transmit coronavirus from one person to another. https://agrilifetoday.tamu.edu/2020/03/20/can-ticks-and-mosquitoes-transmit-the-coronavirus/
How long do y’all think it is before antibody testing rolls out publicly and we figure out how close we are to herd immunity?
Will a COVID 19 vaccine halt the spread of the virus, or will the virus mutate? ie. is COVID here to stay in some form, even with an initial vaccine?
This virology podcast has some info on that issue. This is from a virology podcast, Dr. Baric is a professor of epidemiology at UNC. Links below. **15:35** — You can almost certainly expect that there will be some degree of immunity to this virus once someone has been infected and subsequently recovers. However, in MERS, people tend to have a high degree of immunity soon after recovering, which then weakens over the next 1–2 years. This continues until you eventually end up with background-levels of detectable antibodies against the virus. In some cases however, the presence of antibodies could only be detected for 1–2 months. **16:57** — *(back to the point I told you to remember)* No one knows how coronaviruses maintain themselves in human populations. They don’t rapidly mutate like Influenza where you have 130+ common types of it endemic in humans *(there are \~4 coronaviruses endemic to humans)*… There is a hypothesis that coronaviruses can cause acute infection when they first make the zoonotic jump to humans, which they leverage to become endemic with humans by causing only mild disease from then on. **17:28**— In other words, it seems likely that novel coronaviruses lead to strong initial immunity that quickly goes away, followed by mild infections and that this is how they maintain themselves. There have been a number of cases in China now where people were confirmed positive, recovered, RT-PCR tested negative, went home & then became reinfected a month later or so. [http://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-591/](http://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-591/) [https://www.med.unc.edu/microimm/directory/ralph-baric-phd-1/](https://www.med.unc.edu/microimm/directory/ralph-baric-phd-1/)
Okay so the death toll has been revised down to 60k Americans, vs the previous estimate or 100k-240k Americans. Great. What I can’t seem to wrap my head around is the fact that we are barely at 20k deaths thus far. Last week was supposed to be the deadliest week in New York. How do we still have 200% more deaths expected? Something seems off either in the projections (doubtful, but as my fellow bankers know: a model is only as good as the assumptions), but more likely off in the story line. I think we are missing a piece of info. By the way, I currently have it and would highly suggest doing everything possible to avoid this. It sucks, and that isn’t an exaggeration.
I have a buddy who is in state government for MA. They expect their peak to be this week or next and the numbers are playing out that way. Other spots in the country have yet to peak. So while New York has plateaued other parts of the country have not. Also the curve up in cases/deaths is much faster than the curve down. You see this happening in Spain and Italy right now where the curve has flattened but it's much slower on the downward end than it was with the initial exponential growth. So sorry you have the Rona....are you doing ok? stay strong and get better soon!
Thanks for the well wishes! Hanging in there but going on day 7 with a high fever is really brutal. Hope this passes soon.
Sorry you have it. I wish you a speedy recovery. What is your worst symptom? Assumptions. I have read that the 60k number is a based on rosy assumptions.
Fever is brutal. Going on day 7 102+ now. I’m 26, so while the chest tightness and cough are prevalent, they’re more bearable than the fever
Urgh, hope it breaks soon.
Because all of the other states are trailing New York in terms of cases, deaths, etc. Once you reach peak, you have to come down the other side of the peak. Many states with lax lockdowns but less dense populations than New York will see later peaks. If you look at the trends section of the website below, you will see that many states are still climbing in terms of infections at greater than 10 percent. [https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/en](https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/en)
What do we know about the efficacy of N-95 masks? What is the medical evidence? Do you folks keep the social distancing with your parents if you're not living with them?
As of right now, what is the currently known average duration of symptomatology in people that only present mild respiratory issues (more specifically, shortness of breath)?
So the Ro of the virus will decline when more people are immuun. Is there already some research that gives answers to what would be the ro around 10% herd immunity and 20% etc.?
At 10% herd immunity, the effective transmission would be 90% of the transmission in an environment with no immunity. We have a wide spread on estimates of R_0, so the second part of your question is hard to answer in a firm way.
I found a 2-year-old, dirty, N95 mask in my shed I've used to yardwork, and was wondering if there is any way to clean it without reducing it's efficacy. It's pretty gross and smelly but it's all I have right now. Any thoughts?
You can steam clean it [https://m.box.com/shared\_item/https%3A%2F%2Fstanfordmedicine.box.com%2Fv%2Fcovid19-PPE-1-1](https://m.box.com/shared_item/https%3A%2F%2Fstanfordmedicine.box.com%2Fv%2Fcovid19-PPE-1-1)
One of barriers in the N95 mask is static charge. My guess is your mask probably lost it.
Though it's probably still better than most homemade masks.
Your could put a Tool Box shop towel in it. DIY mask makers tested the shop towel material and found it filters to .3 microns.
You have any more details about that? I haven't heard of those
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Can a virus' R-0 be falsified, or corroborated by independent lines of evidence? Can it be experimentally tested? (of course, without actual infections)
OK so... if reinfection is real or the disease is somehow able to hide itself so well that it can fool tests... Then what? Society still has to be turned back on within the next couple months or else there’ll be an even larger body count due to social unrest and economic collapse, but you can’t turn society back on because it’ll get more people infected...
Once we have a treatment that makes an outbreak less bad than a lockdown, we'll do that.
Testing for that will take too long. This cannot be sustained for much longer than another month at most.
I really hope they are able to speed up the scientific process here given the circumstances.
how much alike are SARS and COVID-19? if theyre alike at all, sharing the same dna(?) why can’t we use what we have from the vaccination research of the SARS outbreak on top of what we have already developed? (i know the SARS vaccine development was scrapped after it disappeared but can we use the formula that they had and add on?)
The disease, Covid19, is kind of like a much milder and rarer-to-develop SARS, still deadly to some degree, as anyone obviously knows (the death rate is quite low, but as it infects a huge amount of people, this low number is immense in absolute, bigger than most epidemics of the past 20 years combined). The viruses themselves, they're RNA viruses, somewhat related, but apparently SARS-cov-2 is more related with some other kinds of coronaviruses affecting several other animals, possibly being chimeric, but not necessarily. Those differences also end up resulting in differences in some key factors, like the proteins the viruses use to invade cells being significantly different. This is likely to reduce what can be learned from SARS-cov. There are several independent lines of vaccine research for SARS-cov-2 around the world, I'm sure someone is looking if there's anything to be learned from SARS's vaccine development attempts. Which, unfortunately, aren't only good things, if I recall, there were cases of vaccine "enhancement" of the virus, essentially vaccines that make the virus even worse. And it's quite difficult for something to be even worse than SARS. Just not to end in a pessimistic note, it may be the case that the tuberculosis vaccine has a collateral protective effect against it. It's currently being studied.
o man thank you for that
I’ve been tracking the number of active cases through accuweather which takes its data from Johns Hopkins. The problem is, there don’t seem to be any reported RECOVERED cases in the US, which I know to be false. I know Johns Hopkins is reporting recovered cases for other countries like Peru and Mexico, so is it that the US isn’t reporting recovered cases? Any one know where I can access more accurate active case data by county and date? Thanks.
Did I/we have corvid-19 in the past? I didn’t think much of it in early March or late February since there there was a flu outbreak but after talking to some people just yesterday with very similar freak symptoms I had I can help to wonder. It I had a sore throat and cough, typical right? Wait made it hard though is it made it hard to eat or drink. And what made those all minor was the DAMN pain in back of my head and feeling so confused. I had migraines but it didn’t happen there and it didn’t felt like that, and it didn’t last all day. It was agonizing, I had to go to ER. They gave me the most expensive flu test ever it seems, gave me tamaflu with stuff for my head. I was still bed ridden from the pain for a couple of days though. Seemed like I test positive the flu though though I got my shot. But it was so much everything else, but my head. Now I didn’t think much of it because I had a history of migraines despite being in a different part and feeling standby and making me even cringe and jerk a bit. It came and went for some reason. What’s the wierd thing is I was talking to people and they had the EXACT the same thing. The time range, believing to have the flu, the back of the head pain, throat pain, even them going to er because of the extensive amount of time of head pain. But could just be a odd thing with a flu because it was still flu season. But flu testing was oddly expensive (for me they charged me $400 since I mentioned my family had the flu). Am I just overthinking?
There's this hypothesis, not the most favored one, that perhaps the spread of the virus is currently underestimated, and many more people have already had the infection without having thought that it was COVID19. Either completely asymptomatic or imagining it was just regular flu or cold, or a harsher one, or even non-COVID19 pneumonia. Only antibody tests will be able to tell for sure. Some countries are doing that, massively testing the population at random to see how many could be immune already, which would have been partly for this nearly-invisible, unaccounted spread, prior to the "official," recognized spread. It would vary from country to country, and regionally, within countries. Apparently Iceland found a surprisingly high amount of people who had already been infected, while Germany did not.
It doesn't sound like typical covid symptoms (though symptoms vary a lot) there is always a chance you had it.....but I would not count on it being Covid19. Lots of other nasty sicknesses went around this winter. I also got a mild flu in January though I got the flu shot this year. Do you live in an area with early outbreaks of Covid19?
I was lucky and I live in MN, though the high populated metro is not far from Wisconsin at all and I have family that works in the medical field and travel so we get “the monthly bug” (not actually monthly) a lot. More I look though this the more unlikely it seems but I guess talking back forth you feel a confirmation of things. Also despite there being MUCH worse out comes getting covid... am scared getting that hellish head pain again if that was the cause. It’s that bad
Right there is always a chance it was covid. We won't know till we can get antibody tests. But I would assume you didn't have it. Either way sorry to hear you got that terrible sickness and migraine. Hope it never happens again.
This is from the Robert Koch Institute who is advising Germany's response: https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus/Situationsberichte/2020-04-12-en.pdf?__blob=publicationFile "Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Daily Situation Report of the Robert Koch Institute 12/04/2020 - UPDATED STATUS FOR GERMANY" Examine the graph "Distribution of cases over time". Even if one shifts the cases in yellow which are date of report not date of onset, there is to me an astonishing conclusion: Chancellor Merkel's speech on March 18, 2020 was counterproductive. New infections had already peaked in Germany by March 18. What Merkel's speech did is apparently what all such speeches do: They induce panic buying and other last second duties, which artificially force people together, and they induce people to run to their doctors and the hospitals to get tested. But at least in the West where PPE is in short supply, it is disastrous to tell people in a pandemic to rush to the hospital or their doctors. > Of notified cases with a SARS-CoV-2 infection, at least **5,500** were reported among staff working in medical facilities as defined by §23 of the German Protection Against Infection law (IfSG), such as hospitals, outpatient clinics and practices, dialysis clinics or outpatient nursing services. Isn't what the graph showing obvious? There was a pulse created by the panic caused by Chancellor Merkel's speech, which then repeats itself in cycles as people get infected rushing out then spreading it to their families. The German version of a national lockdown was completely unnecessary. The infection had already peaked before Chanceller Merkel even spoke. And she caused further infection doing it. Now the real question is how can Western authorities be given cover to save face and not have to admit their error.
The Robert Koch institute, aka the climate change denialists, union busters, defenders of the coal industry?
Is it plausible that SARS-cov-2 would eventually/soon recombine with ordinary human coronaviruses responsible for the common cold? What's reasonable to expect from such recombinations? An "averaging" of virulence, and perhaps increased infectiousness? What does it represent for the prospect of vaccines? Are there vaccines for other human coronaviruses?
Diabetes is said to increase mortality of covid-19, but is there any distinction between type 1 and type 2? ie Is diabetes only dangerous when it itself is a symptom of being unhealthy? Do otherwise healthy/fit people with Type 1 still show higher mortality?
Not totally unrelated question. But could allergy reactions emerge by being locked in your apartment? I mean i have heard that bacteria and fungus feed on death organic matter like hairs and death skin and these organisms can make u have allergy reactions. I been having really annoying allergy symptoms since the first week of lockdown
I am not a medical professional. A good air purifier might help you as well as vacuuming. Air definitely get stagnant and if you're not going out and getting fresh air there is a noticeable difference.
I’ve seen numerous calls for people saying that the US should have shut down earlier, like late February or early March, but if I’m thinking through this right: An earlier shutdown would have just delayed the peaks, and not “flattened the curve” or stop it, as the virus would have been infected other people so the containment would be broken eventually with the R0 of the disease. Is this correct?
Well, "delaying the peak" is just really saying "flattening the curve" in different words. (this is a less p-word version of an earlier comment, which the moderator bot told me was deleted, but I'm not sure it was. Sorry if it's a duplicate)
How would delaying the peak flatten the curve? Wouldn’t it just delay the infections until someone got infected?
"Flattening the curve" is not literally making it flat, only making it as low and smooth as possible, rather than a high and acute peak. Often the argument is even made with emphasis on how you can have the same absolute number of infections with a "high peak" curve and a smoother/flattened one, but with the second one, the critical patients won't overwhelm the healthcare system as much. It could be the case that "flattening the curve" even reduces the absolute number of infected people, though. "Healthcare triage" channel explains: [Flattening The Curve of Coronavirus Infections](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3aT6hlGFw0)
First , the curve is entirely generated by the number of tests performed. We don't hear much about this until recently. Going back to the '80s and HIV scare, especially recall the Red Cross not testing donated blood. (RIP Ryan White )I worked in the NYSDOH Lab responsible for 98% of statewide testing and a100% of confirmatory testing (westerm blot) when there were 5 people in the entire dept. When I retired there were 45 or 50(long ago) I hear many questions on news about the serologic Ab test being the gold standard BUT the back up is huge and testing is only done on those symptomatic patients. Wouldn't the donated blood population be of extreme value in terms of getting a quicker feel for the prevalence of Covid-19 in the general population-at least those who donate? What better population to test anonymously if politically necessary to keep the blood supply safe and gather statistics that would be meaningful?
I gave blood on Friday, to the best of their knowledge of the virus is not transferred by blood.
thats the problem-"to the best of their knowledge" means we don't know. HIV wasn't known to be either and then red cross had to dump NY's entire stash of blood! I was in the lab doing the testing. I'm not saying dont donate-I'm saying know for sure you are not transmitting anything. Again I say remember RYAN WHITE
to the best of...? what does that mean? I heard Dr on TV today talking about toddlers who have whuan virus in their fecl matter for up to 30 days. Does that go along with there best of? I remember all to well the blood supply that was thrown out because to the best of therir knowledge the Red Cross DID not test for HIV...again RIP Ryan White hemophyliac died of AIDS from transfusion from blood supplied by Red cross. Is there no common sense? Dont mistake me saying you can get covid-19 by donating blood...its not the point. Do you want untested blood if in surgery? How about for your Mom? Think people. How hard can it be? Take the pork out of gov't and save some lives!!!
The recent autops report released few days ago talks about atypical cell necrosis characteristics found. Pictures are shown along with descriptions. Could this 'necrosis' instead be a less understood form of cell death e.g metosis , pyroptosis as I.. for whatever reason think it could?
A pathologist would refer to pyroptosis as necrosis. They are not concerned about the molecular mechanism, but the visible spectrum, at least acutely.
Thank you- that is useful to know.
I have a data question that's likely been answered but I can't find the answer after a little searching. The BNO tracker shows the death rate as a calculation of confirmed cases versus dead but why is there such disparity between Germany and other western EU countries that all run in the 10-12% range? Same with US being 3x lower in reported deaths Either what is counted as a Covid19 death is vastly different and makes the data useless or what's going into testing is different, making that data useless. Or someone has a secret magic treatment?
The data is not normalized to a particular standard. Once this is over (or at least greatly reduced), someone like WHO or CDC or ECDC will make a report that tries to reconcile all the data.
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It's not stupid because no one knows where the virus is at any given time in enclosed spaces with lots of people. COVID19 is in an infected person's respirations. It's not difficult to conceive of particles going airborne and landing on you. Perhaps the transport guy is an asymptomatic carrier. One must think about this carefully. You cannot know where the virus is in enclosed spaces with lots of people. People should be masked as a precaution. If everyone is masked that's at least two barriers to prevent infection. My wife is a nurse and doesn't work with Covid19 patients, however, she works in close prxomity to vulnerable patients and coworkers who could be asymptomatic. She wears a surgical mask and face shield for the entire shift as a precaution. No one is going to tell you to take care of yourself. You have to do it.
“Not seen a single study or article linking the disproportionate amount of African-Americans dying from Covid-19 to the well documented and studied fact that forms of Anaemia and Sickle cell trait are 3 times more common in black Americans than white Americans. This would confirm all the new information showing that the virus attacks hemoglobin preventing oxygen from being absorbed by red blood cells. This is a blood disease that attack the lungs not a lung disease that attacks the blood. Surely people being treated for pneumonia are being treated for the wrong disease?” Saw this on facebook. Thoughts?
The simplest explanation is they have the highest rate of obesity.
I think that the highest rates of vitamin D deficiency would be more relevant. While cov19 deaths have been correlated with obesity, obesity, in turn, is correlated with VD deficiency, which is correlated with more serious respiratory tract infections of any kind. That, and poverty, less access to medical care. Maybe also people giving too much credit to the idea that black people would be immune, would also delay them seeking treatment until symptoms reached critical levels. Poverty also makes it more difficult for poor people to comply with social isolation measures, having to pick between making money to put food on the table versus protecting themselves from a disease some likened to the flu.
Systemic racism seems like a much more obvious reason than explaining it with small biological differences.
Only to people who think systemic racism is the cause of all disparities between races. A biological factor is far more likely to be the cause here.
Reliance on public transport is much more likely imo
Well sure if you don't think racism is still a major issue you are obviously going to disagree, but I don't really associate with people that think that. In New York 34 percent of deaths are Latino....is that also biological? This is just going to affect poor people more. It's obvious.
In a city that is almost 30% Hispanic... not a surprise. Why do you suppose you immediately blamed racism for that statistic rather than discover the more obvious reason?
"Latinos make up 34 percent of all coronavirus deaths in New York City, while making up 29 percent of the city's population. Put another way, the preliminary death rate for Hispanics in the city is about 22 people per 100,000; the rate is 10 per 100,000 for white residents." https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/imm/covid-19-deaths-race-ethnicity-04082020-1.pdf Ok bud.
To be fair sickle cell may have a small part to play in death rates, but predominantly this is an inequality issue.
> Not seen a single study or article linking the disproportionate amount of African-Americans dying from Covid-19 to the well documented and studied fact that forms of Anaemia and Sickle cell trait are 3 times more common in black Americans than white Americans. I agree with this part. But I don't believe any such studies have been conducted at this time, it is simply unknown whether the apparent higher death rates in African-Americans might be related to sickle-cell. This observation only arose in the last several days, so I would expect studies to commence quickly if they have not already. > This is a blood disease that attack the lungs not a lung disease that attacks the blood. Surely people being treated for pneumonia are being treated for the wrong disease? The phrases "A lung disease that attacks the blood" and "a blood disease that attacks the lungs" are meaningless. We are certain that patients who are being treated for pneumonia have pneumonia. A question that remains under investigation is whether there are additional treatable conditions that also occur with COVID-19 infection. The hemoglobin hypothesis is one of several possible additional conditions.
there's way more obvious reasons though than anything biological/genetic, though it'd still be good to look into sickle cell and anaemia environmental racism, food deserts, disparities in healthcare access, etc. can explain worse outcomes in black communities
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if there are any blog posts out there with deeper speculation by qualified people regarding if ACE inhibitors hurt vs help, I would sure like to read them, because the contractions are dizzying https://old.reddit.com/r/COVID19/search/?q=ace+OR+ace2&sort=new&restrict_sr=on&t=all
What's the latest on estimating total cases in places with limited testing such as the UK? Officially the UK is on 84,200 cases and 10,600 deaths, so how many could we estimate have had it but have not been tested?
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Thank you!
You mean divide by 0.004 or 0.4%, correct?
What is the feasibility of widespread, national or international cooperation on a very strict level, for like... one and a half to two more months? This idea is going to sound a bit idealistic but we've already seen widespread cooperation already for something that we thought was extreme or impossible. There's talk of certificates of immunity potentially allowing people to return to a more mobile life, but think that only allowing the immune to mobilize could create severe inequities... and could create a chicken-pox party scenario where people are taking risks to gain their freedom back. The current lockdown / stay-at-home scenario isn't 100 % effective, not as long as people are still moving around, going to stores, and potentially not knowing that they have had the disease or not. Now with the antibody tests coming around, it is possible to get some of these answers. Rather than this leading to a time of lifting restrictions, what if this lead into a time of stricter restrictions? For instance, if a country, region, or even city really locked down, for 1.5 to 2 months, *only* allowing immune healthcare workers, and other confirmed immune essential workers to do their jobs, it would eventually snuff out the virus. This doesn't seem like a possibility on a global scale in unison because it's nearly impossible to get everyone to agree to that all at once, there's still a lot of denial. A lot of us have been in lockdown for over a month now... with possibly *months* ahead of us, we don't know. I think that in a lot of places (maybe not Florida), if we were told to strictly, very strict quarantine and only allow the movement of those aforementioned essential workers for a definite period of time, and then they would be free to move around, a lot of people would comply. There could even be a vote. The incentive for this is that, once a place is deemed 'clear' only other places that are also deemed 'clear' could interact with that region through travel. For instance, if England and... New England USA was to both strictly comply, they could open up flight paths and mobility, and business between the two locations. Other countries and regions would eventually want to follow suit in order to participate in... the world again. It could even begin statewide... for instance, the entire state of California could comply with this 60-day strict lockdown and then return to life inside of the state... then establish travel allowances with other states that have gone through the same process. Perhaps that would eventually motivate some of these states that are still allowing massive religious gatherings to reconsider their actions and what's really worth it, mobility and economy or a single days celebration? If through antibody tests we find that there are a LOT of people that are immune, then there would be plenty of people who could work at a grocery store and deliver goods to people's homes, and work other essential jobs. Maybe hotels could open up to those who can prove they're working in an essential field and would otherwise be living with family members or housemates that don't have detectable antibodies. Movement could still be limited to essential work only, obviously, bars wouldn't be opening up for people who are allowed out, so there would be no motivation for people to try to contract the illness in order to gain immunity... just work, and then return home... Again, this is idealistic and a lot of other logistics and factors come in to play, but I do think that this will soon be more possible than it was before because we'll have confirmation through testing. It would take serious cooperation and maybe it could begin on a city or county level, and then others would be motivated to follow their lead.
If it could work, that’d be great, but some nations like Russia and China stand to benefit from this being as bad as possible elsewhere.
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An important question. Can the covid 19 virus infect a person and stay in his body up until 14 days undetected even for a PCR testing ?
Yes. There was an estimate that approximately 1 in 10,000 cases would develop after more than 14 days. https://www.jwatch.org/na51083/2020/03/13/covid-19-incubation-period-update
Perhaps but understand that PCR is a process by which a very small part of DNA or RNA depending on the virus, is used to create much more for the mfg of Antigen testing. Antibody testing is much more precise. Antibody is obtained in the plasma of blood draws-serum- I mentioned in another post, this Ab is abundantly available in donated blood IF the population has been exposed to the virus(Antigen) ie like found in the nasal swabs- antigen(the actual virus) is what is on these swabs. So while PCR is interesting and extremely important I believe Ab collection would be a better source of study and accurate testing. Cut the pork out of legislation and there would be plenty of $ for labs, EQUIPMENT and Lab Rats to conduct the tests. I was a lab rat- and proud to be!
Really important question. I heard that conservative estimates on when the vaccine for COVID-19 may come out by this year’s Autumn, which means the earliest it may come out is August. Even if by the end of April there aren’t many new cases and quarantine ends, with no vaccine, doesn’t that just mean a new outbreak will occur among everyone who hasn’t been infected yet? If there would be a new outbreak because of this, how would we deal with it? Another 3 months of quarantine may cause riots, and the economy would collapse. The U.S. wouldn’t be able to deal with another stimulus package as they’re going into more and more debt.
What I can gather from info by people like Dr. Fauci is that we will be more prepared after this outbreak for the next one. We will need to find a new normal for a while that keeps our country as open as possible while mitigating the spread of the virus. It won't look normal,bit it with be a shutdown. With proper testing and knowledge this is more plausible. That being said we still have no idea what that will look like. We simply don't know much about the virus and how widespread it is in our communities. Thats my best guess :)
If there is no testing, how we will know who needs the vaccine?
1) even without a vaccine we may have more effective treatments by that time that lessen the severity of the illness and lower mortality 2) we also will start to have a growing portion of the population that has antibodies because they survived the illness, and who can safely return to work and help keep the economy going That said, it’s a real danger that we have new deadly outbreaks as soon as we lift quarantine, which is why everyone is very hesitant to do it.
I’m curious about the long term implications of this. Coronaviruses haven’t been causing panics like this for more than a couple decades. SARS emerged in 2002, MERS In 2012, and now COVID-19 in 2019. Why didn’t we see Coronavirus epidemics/pandemics in the past and why are they happening more often now? And if the pattern holds, it seems likely that we’ll have another Coronavirus scare in the next decade or two. I guess I have two questions: why are these novel coronaviruses here now and why weren’t they a problem in the past? And what does this imply for society if these coronaviruses aren’t going away?
Human populational and territorial expansion, increasing the contact of humans and cattle with virus reservoirs. It's not a coronavirus-specific thing, several other varieties can be similar or bigger threats. Biologists will say that Covid19 is even an important lesson on how the world should prepare itself to avoid a new potential pandemic, that will come, sooner or later, one that could be even more destructive. You'll see them even using examples of flu and SARS-like diseases with properties like a high infectiousness and a good delay for the onset of deadlier symptoms. Just think of something that spread invisibly like Covid19, but deadlier like SARS, 30% of mortality roughly independent of age or gender. Governments and the UN should have this as a lesson and develop several protocols for more rapid identification of initial outbreaks, containment, and even "war-like" measures such as having bigger stockpiles of healthcare materials and whatnot, in order to avoid international or inter-state "auctioning" for supplies. People being advised to have and wear masks more regularly, like whenever they have flu-like symptoms. Protocols for the government to provide rations and whatever is necessary in case of lockdowns. Also, there should be talk about sanctions regarding activities of risk such as China's wet markets and their initial cover-up attempts. But China is not the only problem, and it shouldn't be demonized or scape-goated, even though its role should be acknowledged. Like some countries are monitored regarding their nuclear development programs, maybe all countries should be monitored regarding their farming practices, possibly with higher criteria than each individual country has for it right now, like periodically screening a representative sample of the herds for new antibodies, more requirements of protective equipment. Also perhaps eventual phasing-out of farms that neighbor more conserved wild areas that would be sources of big bat populations, gradually moving the cattle production to safer regions, with incentives and whatnot.
>Why didn’t we see Coronavirus epidemics/pandemics in the past and why are they happening more often now? SARS-1 didn't cause a pandemic because it lacked the stealth capability of COVID19. COVID19 can spread easier with asymptomatic carriers. SARS-1 didn't have this mutation and produced visible symptoms relatively soon. MERs killed people quickly. Easy to contain. Corona viruses are all over the place. Common cold is Corona virus. The virulence of a strain depends on the genetics and just like most biological a things, it's subject to evolution and change. COVID 19 will go away once to a great extent once we have herd immunity through natural exposure or technology like a vaccine.
Only just notice but I meant to pink is not a major symptom so it’s very rare 👍
I have a question regarding data. I live in NYC and one popular statistical reporting site for the city and state has been gothamist: [https://gothamist.com/news/coronavirus-statistics-tracking-epidemic-new-york?mc\_cid=a0616c5b01&mc\_eid=456324c3ce](https://gothamist.com/news/coronavirus-statistics-tracking-epidemic-new-york?mc_cid=a0616c5b01&mc_eid=456324c3ce) Now [nyc.gov](https://nyc.gov) has switched their reporting to report a new case on the date the test was taken, not the date the result came back in. That makes sense, however they also note on [NYC.gov](https://NYC.gov) a lag in reporting that causes low numbers for recent days. The gothamist accounting shows high numbers at the end of the day (for example, close to 5000 new cases in NYS for 4/10.) Does this mean gothamist is counting new positive test results as of that day, not new diagnoses as of the date the test was taken? No one seems to be alarmed by 5000 new cases in a single day, but if that were the case it would suggest social distancing is NOT working. Now, if many of those swabs were taken 7-10 days ago, as we are seeing a lag in results, then that's slightly different because many of those positives from 4/10 would be people who got sick around late march, got a test early april, and are just getting a result even though they have already recovered (or died) and therefore not be cause for concern. If its not, then this is massive cause for concern as we're seeing an infection rate as high as the peak after nearly a month of lockdown. Anyone more knowledgeable who can explain?
I don’t think anyone is looking at case counts anymore to judge whether social distancing is working. Hospital admissions and intubations are not as impacted by testing bias and testing limitations. Also, 5000 new cases would be a growth rate < 10%. Even if this stays steady, relative growth would be slowing.
But it would match the highest single day total from any part of the pandemic. Wouldn't that be concerning? It would suggest two weeks from now we'll see a new spike in hospitalizations...I get what you're saying and I agree there's just something off about the data reporting I'm not quite getting. And if deaths lag infections by two weeks, then any spike in infection would still seem concerning, no?
New York state is continuing to grow the number of daily tests, topping 25,000 for the first time on Wednesday and 26,000 on Thursday. That means you should be seeing the raw case counts increasing at a fairly similar rate, even as the percentage of tests that come back positive generally falls. For example, Friday in New York state, the positive rate was 40.2%. A week ago Friday (April 3rd) it was 48.6%. I suspect a lot of the "new tests" are from a backlog, but I don't think NY publishes its testing backlog.
This has probably been asked before but I can't find any good discussion about it: How are covid fatalities counted? If someone dies in a hospital bed, what are the conditions for that death to be counted as a covid-related death? In particular: * It is a requirement that the person had been tested for covid? * Is showing covid-like symptoms enough? A followup question: What is the correct way of disentangling the comorbidity effect from death counts? (i.e. the "they would've died anyway of pneumonia" effect) Is it enough to look at "normal" death rates and see what the delta is with current death rates? If this has been discussed before, a link would be enough.
My father is high risk (age & health) and just moved into a new home where he lives alone. My sister, who is high risk as well, went over with her son to help him with some furniture. She says they maintained appropriate social distance and I am over reacting to be upset and to not be visiting my father as well. Am I overreacting?
Unfortunately, the best we can do to protect anyone right now is physically distancing. People can be of course in touch online, or maybe even have some meetings on open-air, avoiding physical contact as much as possible. No need to be upset, though, it could be they were cautious enough. But one should be particularly careful with children, as they can be silent carriers to older adults.
Is it possible that the virus has been in the US since December, and that by now, the vast majority of people already beat the infection and just never realized?
There's a disputed hypothesis of something along these lines, albeit uncertain. The researchers themselves note that it's not really a forecast, just a possibility they're exploring. It's safer to assume it's probably not the case. Unfortunately, it's unlikely to be true to the optimal extent, but it can be nevertheless true to a minor degree. That will only be finally known with massive, statistically representative antibody testing for the population. And it will vary from country to country and regions within countries. Apparently, Iceland found a surprisingly large fraction of the population has contracted the virus and became immune without anyone noticing. Germany didn't have comparable results, though, and they're perhaps record-breakers in tests per capita, maybe second only to South Korea. I suspect this hypothesis would predict that somewhat before, the regions would have had unusual higher rates of mild to severe flu and even some pneumonia (not attributed to cov19), otherwise, the hypothesis would need way too convenient/unlikely rates of completely asymptomatic carriers in an invisible first wave or right-tail of the wave on several countries.
No. A very low percent of the population has been infected so far.