COVID-19

[JohnRoberts]

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Saturday that there was currently "no evidence" that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second coronavirus infection. In a statement, the United Nations agency warned against issuing "immunity passports

There are reports from several countries claiming that patients who had recovered from COVID19 and tested negative, tested positive again sometime later.

There are different speculations about this.Unclear if they were reinfected, or a dormant virus re-awakened (immune system failed).

JR

PS: Isn't that exactly how vaccines work?? 

 

[Tubetec]

Not really anything surprising about this article ,but probably worth a read all the same ,

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200427-how-air-pollution-exacerbates-covid-19

 

[JohnRoberts]

https://nypost.com/2020/04/29/gilead-sciences-says-remdesivir-shows-positive-signs-in-treatment/

Met primary endpoint in study (helping sick patients recover faster).  Time for more testing, but optimistic news..  Hopefully another tool to help us prevent deaths before we reach herd immunity.
===
Coincidentally China recently stopped a study of the same drug early claiming difficulty recruiting patients (?).
https://www.reuters.com/article/brief-the-lancet-says-as-china-study-was-idUSFWN2CH1S5

I am finding it harder to trust WHO, and never trusted China....  kind of a he said, Xi said....  :

JR

 

[Script]

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200427-how-air-pollution-exacerbates-covid-19

Thanks for that link. Had read about both aspects independently already:
- air pollution as detrimental to underlying health and
- air pollution as carrier for virus to catch air rides.

What I like about the article:
I'm very sceptical we will overcome dependency on oil quickly. But the idea of starting right now to make everything cleaner/greener is a very good one. Not only might it turn out to be healthier. It also keeps people / companies busy.  As for financing: prime all those that have nothing else to do right now, but in particular those receiving state subsidies
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On a different note,
hay fever season starts when ?

 

[Bo Deadly]

Someone please explain to me how exactly testing is going to help with relaxing restrictions and opening places up? I mean walk me through it step by step.

So lets say you test a bunch of people and use contact tracing to give people an idea of who has it and where. We're already in lock-down. So if someone is positive it doesn't really change anything. And there are a significant number of false negatives so you're not going to catch everyone and, more important, the false negative just encourages that individual to go out and infect others. Testing only tells you if someone had corona at that moment. Conventional lab test results takes time (days still?). They could have contracted corona the day of test. Contact tracing only works if you have small numbers (the US has 20K+ new cases daily) and, again, we're already isolating so it doesn't help that much.

Now what about people who are true negative? How exactly does this help with relaxing restrictions? Do people think that corona knows we can see it and so it ducks behind a tree? It doesn't care if we can see it coming. Corona is super contagious. If you relax restrictions it will come back. Germany is seeing a rise. Even South Korea is seeing a new wave. So the idea that testing somehow allows us to control the spread is just false.

Testing is being waaay over-played. The only thing that will drive down Re is social distancing and herd immunity. If those are the two tools in the toolbox that work then the solution should be clear: you relax a small amount, wait two weeks, monitor new cases, adjust a small amount, wait two weeks, etc. We throttle new cases to stay below what the healthcare system can handle. That's it. After a while, we get herd immunity, Re drops below 1 and then it peters out (although presumably it will not be below 1 everywhere all of the time and so it will persist).

So someone please explain to me what I'm missing here? Why are people are just transfixed with testing like it's some kind of "solution"? It's not a solution. It's just a vague measure of infections at a particular moment.

 

[Script]

Why are people are just transfixed with testing like it's some kind of "solution"?

Among all people who we see and who talk to us via media, who do you think is transfixed with this idea in particular ?

Someone please explain to me how exactly testing is going to help with relaxing restrictions and opening places up? [...Testing is] just a vague measure of infections at a particular moment

Exactly. And I think, you gave the answer yourself. Testing is for monitoring:
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ADDED:

social distancing and herd immunity. If those are the two tools in the toolbox

Pills etc are a tool (medical realm)
Social distancing is a tool (behavioral realm)
Herd immunity is NOT a tool. Primarily, it's an outcome.

 

[Bo Deadly]

Among all people who we see and who talk to us via media, who do you think is transfixed with this idea in particular ?

Everyone pretty much (except idionuts selected for presentations on Fox News of course). There are occasional exceptions. One hospital administrator (holy name in NJ I think it was) said testing was being "overplayed". He said his son was tested 4 times, got all negatives but, because he could see he had all the symptoms, they did an antibody test and got a positive.

Exactly. And I think, you gave the answer yourself. Testing is for monitoring:

Right. Testing is for monitoring. But just monitoring something doesn't make it stop / go away.

I cannot help but feel like testing is just being used as a sort of pacifier for the public who are screaming "do something!". I appreciate that people are scared but doing something for the sake of doing something is just going to waste PPE.

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ADDEDills etc are a tool (medical realm)
Social distancing is a tool (behavioral realm)
Herd immunity is NOT a tool. Primarily, it's an outcome.

There's really not much in a way of medical treatments right now. Hydroxychloroquine and ventilators have both largely turned out to be fails. Fortunately social distancing works pretty well. Herd immunity is a tool of sorts because it's something that you can seek out and acquire.

 

[cyrano]

The "second wave" of infections appears to be a faulty test in a lot of cases. Reports aren't in yet, but results show errors in a lot of cases.

EDIT:

First news I came across:

https://m-en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20200429007051320

 

[manulaudic]

Hydroxychloroquine and ventilators have both largely turned out to be fails. Fortunately social distancing works pretty well. Herd immunity is a tool of sorts because it's something that you can seek out and acquire.

where did you read that Hydroxychloroquine turned out to be a fail? If you search around it is still the most used way to treat patients and the results are far better than anything else apart from plasma, if taken when first symptoms appear and along azithromycin. more than 50% of doctors use it to treat their patients.

Germany has also had great results also with Vitamin C, Ozone and other non approved treatments.

 

[Script]

when first symptoms appear

I too think this is pretty much the key to it for now. Start treatment as early as possible. Once symptoms get worse ( viral overload ), treatment becomes ever more complicated.

And in order to be able to do this, for now you need three things:
- extensive monitoring to detect cases as early as possible ( strict quarantine till test results come in )
- enough facilities and medication for treatment
- people to stop running around too much, further spreading it uncontrollably ( and irresponsibly, some we clearly hear say ).

 

[Script]

Meanwhile, about a week ago, the French have suggested nicotine could help.
Actually, they are handing out nicotine patches to nurses (and patients), it seems. Damn and I had just quit

Mention in English on website here:

http://www.rfi.fr/en/science-and-technology/20200423-french-researchers-suggest-nicotine-could-protect-against-covid-19

Original press release in French (doc file):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L5abPF52S3awVriYhupQrvdPaM3jXNdF/view

 

[Bo Deadly]

where did you read that Hydroxychloroquine turned out to be a fail? If you search around it is still the most used way to treat patients and the results are far better than anything else apart from plasma, if taken when first symptoms appear and along azithromycin. more than 50% of doctors use it to treat their patients.

Germany has also had great results also with Vitamin C, Ozone and other non approved treatments.

The Food and Drug Administration, which is the US federal agency on all things consumable, has recommended against it:

  https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/fda-cautions-against-use-hydroxychloroquine-or-chloroquine-covid-19-outside-hospital-setting-or

They cancelled a major study because of problems. So I don't think it's being used much.

Do you have proper citations showing "great results" for Vitamin C and Ozone?

 

[manulaudic]

The Food and Drug Administration, which is the US federal agency on all things consumable, has recommended against it:

  https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/fda-cautions-against-use-hydroxychloroquine-or-chloroquine-covid-19-outside-hospital-setting-or

They cancelled a major study because of problems. So I don't think it's being used much.

Do you have proper citations showing "great results" for Vitamin C and Ozone?

First of all the FDA is clearly financed by the pharmaceutical industry, they are also responsible for high prices on certain drugs.
One example why their allegation doesn't apply is that within the hospital or Dr Raoult in Marseilles where they treated with Hydroxycloroquine they have had 0 case of cardiac problems. The thing to remember too is that this drug has been available for 50+ years and is the second most taken drug in the world. If they were real concerns with it's side effects then the people responsible for letting it being used for so many years should get trialed.
This is an old research and it's known benefits : https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(03)00806-5/fulltext

Regarding the Vitamin C, here are some studies and results : http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v16n13.shtml
Regarding Ozone therapy here is one interesting study from 2011 : https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3312702/ it shows its use in every previous coronavirus, sars etc... Great results.
There is also this report : https://app.sermo.com/covid19-barometer?utm_campaign=wwwsermo_covid19 you can see that in over 20% of the cases, vitamin C is used to fight Covid19.

 

[Bo Deadly]

Regarding the Vitamin C, here are some studies and results : http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v16n13.shtml
Regarding Ozone therapy here is one interesting study from 2011 : https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3312702/ it shows its use in every previous coronavirus, sars etc... Great results.
There is also this report : https://app.sermo.com/covid19-barometer?utm_campaign=wwwsermo_covid19 you can see that in over 20% of the cases, vitamin C is used to fight Covid19.

You are naive.

The first link is nutritional remedy quack science. The "news" is just that China shipped a bunch of Vitamin C to Wuhan. Big whoopty doo. That site is pumping up Vitamin C in general with a lot of "more is better" claims. That noise been thoroughly debunked. Linus Pauling ruined his reputation over it.

The second link is largely more nonsense. Ozonated water has been used as a disinfectant (my dentist uses it as an oral rinse) but ozonating blood is a dubious proposition and again, despite going through an nih.gov citation service, the origin of that paper is one MD who apparently specializes into hypnosis therapy.

The third link does say 28% of physicians used Vitamin C to treat patients for corona outside of a hospital. Right after C are Vitamin D and Zinc. So they're giving people vitamins. How do you equate that to it being effective against corona? I have heard zero evidence to suggest that it's effective in the treatment of corona. It sounds like doctors are just trying to make sure people are not deficient in vitamins. Or maybe they're just pacifying worried patients looking for a magic pill.

 

[Script]

Of coure, once you have made up your mind, you can doubt everything  :

Google vitamin C therapy in intensive care.

Doctors worldwide are in a steep learning process here and often resort to tried-and-tested approaches first. Intraveneous vitamin C treatment* is not that uncommon at all, especially in cases of severe inflammation.

As such, high doses of vitamin C sure don't make Covid-19 magically go away. But neither does oxygen when administered through the nose...
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* Note: Please, nobody start heating up their needles now to shot citricultural juices. It will kill you 

 

[manulaudic]

You are naive.

The first link is nutritional remedy quack science. The "news" is just that China shipped a bunch of Vitamin C to Wuhan. Big whoopty doo. That site is pumping up Vitamin C in general with a lot of "more is better" claims. That noise been thoroughly debunked. Linus Pauling ruined his reputation over it.

The second link is largely more nonsense. Ozonated water has been used as a disinfectant (my dentist uses it as an oral rinse) but ozonating blood is a dubious proposition and again, despite going through an nih.gov citation service, the origin of that paper is one MD who apparently specializes into hypnosis therapy.

The third link does say 28% of physicians used Vitamin C to treat patients for corona outside of a hospital. Right after C are Vitamin D and Zinc. So they're giving people vitamins. How do you equate that to it being effective against corona? I have heard zero evidence to suggest that it's effective in the treatment of corona. It sounds like doctors are just trying to make sure people are not deficient in vitamins. Or maybe they're just pacifying worried patients looking for a magic pill.

You could see the use of the shipment however you like, i could also spend my day looking through the data i've been sent regarding vitamin C use.
Here is another example : https://researchportal.helsinki.fi/en/publications/vitamin-c-and-sars-coronavirus
Here is another one : https://www.nutraingredients.com/Article/2020/03/25/Hospital-turns-to-high-dose-vitamin-C-to-fight-coronavirus

The thing is, Covid19's deaths are all linked to people with known diseases, (99%), so the use of Vitamin C to boost the immune system is not uncommon, so yes in Germany, they are using it.

And what you are saying makes sense : Giving a boost of vitamins, but if that vitamin boost including C vitamin, helps the patient de recover, then isn't it being used to treat covid19 patients? Patients over 60year old are often vitamin D deficient too... the list goes on. A sick body needs more treatment.

Where am i naive?
There isn't a simple way to cure somethings like SARS, every individual will react differently depending on their immune system and previous illnesses, now treating it early on works, Vitamin C is used by 28% or the outside hospitals doctors but 22% in hospitals.

Ozone therapy results in Italy : https://www.repubblica.it/salute/medicina-e-ricerca/2020/04/06/news/coronavirus_l_ozonoterapia_evita_la_terapia_intensiva-253290022/?refresh_ce
in spain : https://theibizan.com/ozone-therapy-proving-successful-in-covid-19-patients/

 

[Script]

There isn't a simple way [...] every individual will react differently depending on their immune system and previous illnesses

This article -- a bit old by now (April 17, 2020) -- looks at what the virus can do in and to the human body. Quite long and highly interesting (at least to me). No need to get scared by all the medical lingo, but it definitely is not a description of a common flu !

Also it clearly points at subtypes of patients -- something that I read about also just yesterday as having been observed in several emergency departments.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/how-does-coronavirus-kill-clinicians-trace-ferocious-rampage-through-body-brain-toes

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Seriously, I would really like to also read more detailled medical observations and studies on recovered patients. Do people who recovered from it have long-term or lasting medical impairments, yes or no ? And such overview needs to include mild cases.

 

[JohnRoberts]

where did you read that Hydroxychloroquine turned out to be a fail? If you search around it is still the most used way to treat patients and the results are far better than anything else apart from plasma, if taken when first symptoms appear and along azithromycin. more than 50% of doctors use it to treat their patients.

Germany has also had great results also with Vitamin C, Ozone and other non approved treatments.

I suspect if President trump said that Hydroxychloroquine doesn't work, the opposition media would be arguing for it's merits. 

It is not a silver bullet, but in combination with other drugs it has shown statistical merit in reducing the duration of the viral infection and improving outcomes (people get well days sooner).  [edit- caveat lector I may be conflating Hydroxychloroquine results with Gilead's remdesivir, also showing promise /edit]

I haven't heard anything new about Vit C but think Zinc may be supplemented along with Hydroxychloroquine (Of course I am not a medical expert like so many here). 

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Yes tests are all over the place....  The FDA opened the floodgates with summary approval for many new tests that haven't been fully vetted like under normal circumstances.  There is Covid testing available today in the next town over from me, but I have no urgency to test right now, (no symptoms and little chance of exposure).

JR

PS: Not sure if numbers are final, or accurate but looks like this years flu season is less deadly than last year. Perhaps the hand cleaning and social distancing gave us an unexpected bonus.

 

[Bo Deadly]

Where am i naive?
..
in spain : dontbother://theibizan.com/ozone-therapy-proving-successful-in-covid-19-patients/

Your last link is a good example of why you are naive. From "The Ibizan" (yes, the beautiful island vacation getaway), they described miraculous results from one patient who received ozone therapy (without even stating what ozone therapy is) and present meager percentage improvements with no real citations. And of course the give-away is always at the end where the source says "Full of pride, we will make our human and technical resources and our experience with Ozone therapy available to those who request it." So it's basically an advertisement disguised as medical news. Please stop re-posting whatever click-bait you run into searching about corona.

 

[sr1200]

Gonna throw a hat into the ring here, i've been working on helping our health dept and emergency management office (county and state, NY) since Feb.  I've seen almost every report thats being distributed internally (not to the public) and Im going to say that pretty much NO ONE knows what the hell is going on. 

There are too many variables at play, two statistically identical people (age, weight, sex, medical history) get the virus, one dies, one lives and has NO symptoms at all.  Human physiology is a complex system, nothing is one size fits all.  So people are throwing ideas against the wall and seeing if anything sticks.  Unfortunately, one treatment for one person may SEEM to work, (meanwhile it may have just been the body's natural reaction and healing, completely not tied to treatment "X") and irresponsible "doctors" are making announcements of their success before any kind of real data is vetted. 

Antibody tests seem to be completely useless since the rate of false results is just ridiculously high (how it was ever "approved" seems to be beyond a lot of the doctors i come in contact with).

Since the incubation period can be so long... AND the fact that people that test positive can have absolutely NO symptoms, best strategy right now is to stay away from everyone else you can, and limit your exposure.  And thats not for YOUR safety, its for OTHERS safety, since you DONT know if you have it or not and others immune system may not handle it like you do. 

My dad, works at one of the largest hospitals out here, got the virus (72 years old).  Kicked his ass for a week.  He was misdiagnosed with pneumonia and towards the end of it was forced to test, and came back positive, as did his wife.  He beat it and is back to work piling bodies up in refrigerated trucks and his wife is back to work (also in the healthcare industry but more office oriented). 

My gripe is people that start spreading these un-vetted, anecdotal, coincidental "news" articles as if they're the answer.  I get that people want hope and need something positive, but until theres some SOLID evidence of success for more than 62% of cases, leave it on the shelf and dont stress over it.  One of our top people at the DoH's advice was "don't even turn on the news...".  And I have to agree... nothing on there is going to save me and with the atmosphere of political bullsh*terry, its all loaded crap designed to get you either angry or hopeful without any substance. 

These are my opinions and opinions of those whom have spent their lives in the medical field and whose opinions I trust.  Take it with a grain of salt.  But no reason to fight in here folks, lets do our best to not spread rumors and keep ourselves and our families safe.  Best wishes to the community, I wish I had more time to hang out on here and I REALLY want to get back in my studio (its locked down), but it is what it is.  Stay safe everyone!