Covid-19 News

    Quote from oldguy

    More people died of suicide in Japan in one month than the entire coronavirus pandemic

    That is because very few people in Japan have died from the pandemic. Only 2042 so far. The number of suicides has not increased, as far as I know. On the contrary, in recent years, roughly 30,000 people in Japan commit suicide, so the rate may have fallen this year.


    That rate is a little lower than the U.S. Experts say suicide is more common in the U.S. because guns are widely available.


    Your comparison is meaningless. 3,000 people in Japan died last year in automobile accidents, but that has no connection with COVID-19, and comparing it is comparing apples to oranges.

    Quote from Shane D.

    Looks like that study has become a casualty of the cancel culture:


    https://www.jhunewsletter.com/…-s-deaths-due-to-covid-19

    Not exactly cancelled. As noted in the article you linked to, the paper is still available here:


    https://drive.google.com/file/…kNDkDmM3L4zNNY0X-Xw5/view


    I think they wanted to make it clear they no longer approve of it. I do not think "cancel culture" means putting something elsewhere on the internet and then linking to it.

    Quote from oldguy

    It is not my comparison, it is the article. That is why it is in quotes.... duh

    Okay, not your comparison. Still, it is meaningless. The number of suicides has not increased. The price of bananas is not correlated with suicides either. The number of automobile deaths is also not correlated with COVID-19. There are any number of statistics not correlated with COVID-19.


    There is no evidence that COVID-19 has triggered a significant increased suicide in Japan. Granted, there have been some news reports of COVID driving people to suicide. There are a few cases.

    Quote from Zeus46

    The 'fools' I referred to are the politicians, not the people in nursing homes, although that was unclear in my post.


    But if you want to argue that "it has nothing to do with red/blue, or politics", you need to come up with a good alternative explanation for these two charts:

    If you want to debate personal behavior, and political decisions from a red/blue perspective, I am just not interested. Take it on a case by case basis, state by state, country by country, or culture by culture, then I may be. Hard to be objective when starting from a political bias.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    The number of suicides has not increased.

    Please give your source for such a wild claim. Or is it just a Jed says so number. It sure isn't the information that I find from multiple sources using recent (since Oct) numbers.


    "Suicides in Japan rose for the fourth month in a row, according to police data. After the four month run up to October, the number of suicides are now at the highest level in the country in over five years." https://www.wionews.com/world/…ated-economic-woes-342143


    "The number of suicides in Japan has increased significantly over recent months." https://www.dw.com/en/suicide-japan/a-55250637


    even recent news from CNN

    "The Covid-19 pandemic is driving a spike in suicides in Japan"

    In Japan, more people died from suicide last month than from Covid in all of 2020 - CNN


    And Reuters

    "Japan suicides rise as economic impact of coronavirus hits home" https://news.trust.org/item/20201110125214-qgcpp

    This was a political response.


    Briand also claimed in her analysis that deaths due to heart diseases, respiratory diseases, influenza and pneumonia may be incorrectly categorized as COVID-19-related deaths. However, COVID-19 disproportionately affects those with preexisting conditions, so those with those underlying conditions are statistically more likely to be severely affected and die from the virus.


    translation--> People who normally would die of heart disease may have died from Covid, so we don't like that cause it misses the link that they are susceptible to being knocked off by Covid and sounds like a conspiracy...so err ya we must delete this.


    Viruses don't make heart attacks go away. If those people would have died from Covid - then thats a reclassification. If Covid got to them first, it indicates Covid is a substitution death or Covid is a misclassification.

    The plot thickens re immunity conferred through prior seasonal cold coronavirus infections.


    https://www.medrxiv.org/conten…101/2020.11.06.20227215v1


    Here, we quantified levels of SARS-CoV-2-reactive antibodies and hCoV-reactive antibodies in serum samples collected from 204 humans before the COVID-19 pandemic. We then quantified pre-pandemic antibody levels in serum from a separate cohort of 252 individuals who became PCR-confirmed infected with SARS-CoV-2. Finally, we longitudinally measured hCoV and SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in the serum of hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Our studies indicate that most individuals possessed hCoV-reactive antibodies before the COVID-19 pandemic. We determined that ∼23% of these individuals possessed non-neutralizing antibodies that cross-reacted with SARS-CoV-2 spike and nucleocapsid proteins. These antibodies were not associated with protection against SARS-CoV-2 infections or hospitalizations, but paradoxically these hCoV cross-reactive antibodies were boosted upon SARS-CoV-2 infection.

    Quote from Navid

    Viruses don't make heart attacks go away. If those people would have died from Covid - then thats a reclassification. If Covid got to them first, it indicates Covid is a substitution death or Covid is a misclassification.

    Navid. I'm sorry that your analysis of medicine is so black and white. That is not the way it works.


    Sure, people with (some) prior conditions are more likely to die if they catch CV. That is expected.


    You then spin this as "anyone with a prior condition who dies CV-positive is a substitution death or a misclassification".


    Really? I agree there is the possibility of misclassification where somone dying anyway of a heat attack has coincidentally also got COVID. But that effect would be expected to be a small proportion of overall COVID cases. It could be larger if COVID is rampant in hospitals so that a large fraction of those in hospitals (some of whom are likely to die anyway) are infected by COVID.


    Even then the (amplification) effect is bounded by the fraction of COVID cases acquired in hospitals, and by the fact that most people in hospitals recover.


    I'm happy for you to make this argument about COVID miscategorisation. It is what any careful person would consider. In order to do this you need much more than an erroneous boolean analysis in which all coincident prior condition and COVID deaths are assumed to be "substituted". You need carefully argued numbers. Naively you would expect such miscategorisations to be small because although >50% of the US has "some previous condition" if you count obesity such conditions are not often fatal.


    Taking the rhetorical argument you make to its extreme - we are all going to die - COVID just substitutes whatever our other death would have been. So who cares? That way lies the folly of Trump super-spreader events.

    Oregon mink farm has COVID-19 outbreak after advocates warned of danger in state


    https://news.google.com/articl…=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen


    Outbreaks in farmed mink have been reported in several U.S. states and countries. Earlier this month Denmark announced it would kill all 17 million of the mink raised there after confirmation that 12 people had been infected with a mutated strain of COVID-19 that had spread from mink to humans. That strain has not been found elsewhere.

    What the heck is "cancel culture"?

    No! Looks like political censorship!

    a little off topic but interesting


    EU fines drug makers for keeping cheap medicine off market


    https://apnews.com/article/bus…63e932355b7e6e716339b4de3


    EU antitrust commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, said that Teva pharmaceuticals and Cephalon, a company it later acquired, must pay 60.5 million euros ($72 million) for agreeing between themselves to delay for years the launch of Teva’s cheaper version of Cephalon’s blockbuster Modafinil. In return for the delay, Teva got beneficial side deals and some payments.

    Safety and efficacy of inhaled nebulised interferon beta-1a (SNG001) for treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infection: a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase 2 trial


    https://www.thelancet.com/jour…-2600(20)30511-7/fulltext


    Patients who received SNG001 had greater odds of improvement and recovered more rapidly from SARS-CoV-2 infection than patients who received placebo, providing a strong rationale for further trials.

    Ethnicity and clinical outcomes in COVID-19: A systematic review and mmeta-analysis


    https://www.thelancet.com/jour…-5370(20)30374-6/fulltext


    Individuals of Black and Asian ethnicity are at increased risk of COVID-19 infection compared to White individuals; Asians may be at higher risk of ITU admission and death. These findings are of critical public health importance in informing interventions to reduce morbidity and mortality amongst ethnic minority groups.


    Maybe a vitamin D deficenccy???

    Quote from Mark U

    Why oh why does the chart start at June?


    ....Here is the death rate with covid per capita in various states, with numbers from the beginning of the outbreak:


    ...The red / blue status looks a bit different now doesn't it?


    From the creator of the graphic:


    • Why aren't all the charts color-coded for partisanship? None of them were supposed to be color-coded by partisanship, but I just noticed a pattern of partisanship in new cases starting in June and made a chart to represent that. Partisanship really didn't play a role in the cases before June, so it would be misleading to color charts going back that far by the CVPI.


    Quote from Mark U

    PS I don't know why Jed keeps referring to Canada as an example of how to minimize Covid19. Our Covid19 related deaths per capita is almost 40 percent of that in the US. Nothing to write home about.


    Did I really just read that? ...I can't believe that us Brits say you lot don't do sarcasm!

    Covid Drugs From Lilly, Regeneron Raise Access, Timing Concerns


    https://www.bloomberg.com/news…se-access-timing-concerns


    Though the U.S. has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to snap up the antibody treatments, they will be rationed due to limited supplies. Officials are working to establish sites to infuse the medications to patients with mild to moderate disease who had until recently been advised to stay home during an unprecedented surge in cases.

    Quote from Navid

    I'd like to see the original data.

    Each region has its own data. Here Switzerland CoV-19 has no influence on the overall mortality as average age of deaths is 84 > average age! But a high load of CoV-19 works like a catalyst and pre-dates the live of the "weak". This sudden peek then is broadly misinterpreted as a strong killing pandemic what CoV-19 definitively is not. Even excess mortality is lying as there is always a follow up "very low" mortality phase.


    The Spanish flue mostly killed people at age between 20..30! This was a dangerous and deadly disease.


    There is one open issue of concern. This virus is lab made with the adding of the full AIDS virus strong ACE2 fitting spikes. So we don't know what this means for people that can not get fully rid of the virus. For me the true risk are the yet unknown long time issues!


    For people that like to play the blue/read (black and white) game. This is limbic (age of saurians brain stage) behavior and not worth and deep comment. Also the blue vulnerable will die. Just a few months later - a more regular way...)

    Doc Richard will like this


    Nigella sativa study for covid treatment


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    Nigella sativa L. (Black Cumin): A Promising Natural Remedy for Wide Range of Illnesses



    https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/2019/1528635/


    Oxidative stress and an intensification in the levels of free radicals are amongst the foremost central markers associated with several progressive pathological conditions, including neurological disorder, cancer, aging, and endocrine illness [36]. To date, there has been a growing importance in the therapeutic option of medicinal plants as natural antioxidants. Among the various naturally occurring medicinal plants, N. sativa has been reported for its effective antioxidant activities of in- vivo and in- vitro studies [37]


    Maybe a treatment for long hualers