Covid-19 News

Quote from Director

I tend to think vaccination is both a good thing and a bad thing. There's a clear connection to a range of disorders and autism,

No, there isn't. That was disproved.

This is like saying "cold fusion clearly did not work." You cannot just ignore the weight of scientific evidence. You can't make stuff up.

Quote from seven_of_twenty

I don't understand. If you had few or no symptoms, the vaccination worked.

I believe most vaccinations work 100% or not at all. Smallpox was eradicated because virtually no one who was vaccinated got it. You didn't get a mild case. The protection against rabies, tetanus, polio and other diseases is also complete. Whereas influenza, it seems, has so many variations and such rapid evolution, the vaccine sometime works only partially, reducing the symptoms. The doctor said he often sees very mild cases in people who were vaccinated.

Needless to say, the vaccine is a blessing even if you get a mild case. Full blown influenza is horrible, and sometimes fatal. I had it several times before vaccines were invented. The only time I ever spent in the hospital was after a bad case caused pneumonia.

Quote

There's a clear connection to a range of disorders and autism, potentially due to the hyperstimulation of the immune system.

No there is not. The data that supposedly showed this was faked and the author of the paper had his medical license revoked. This is the Wikipedia version:

Quote

Andrew Jeremy Wakefield (born 1957)[1][2] is a discredited British ex-physician who became an anti-vaccine activist. As a gastroenterologist at the Royal Free Hospital in London, he published a 1998 paper in The Lancet claiming a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism. Other researchers were unable to reproduce Wakefield's findings,[3][4] and a 2004 investigation by Sunday Times reporter Brian Deer identified undisclosed financial conflicts of interest on Wakefield's part.[5] Most of Wakefield's co-authors then withdrew their support for the study's interpretations.[6]

The British General Medical Council (GMC) conducted an inquiry into allegations of misconduct against Wakefield and two former colleagues,[7] focusing on Deer's findings.[8] In 2010, the GMC found that Wakefield had been dishonest in his research, had acted against his patients' best interests and mistreated developmentally delayed children,[9] and had "failed in his duties as a responsible consultant".[10][11][12] The Lancet fully retracted Wakefield's 1998 publication on the basis of the GMC's findings, noting that elements of the manuscript had been falsified and that the journal had been "deceived" by Wakefield.[13][14] Three months later, Wakefield was struck off the UK medical register, due in part to his deliberate falsification of research published in The Lancet,[15] and was barred from practising medicine in the UK.[16] In a related legal decision, a British court held that "[t]here is now no respectable body of opinion which supports [Dr. Wakefield's] hypothesis, that MMR vaccine and autism/enterocolitis are causally linked".[17]

The British Medical Journal described Wakefield's work as an "elaborate fraud".[18][19][20] Subsequent reporting by Deer revealed that Wakefield had planned to capitalize on the MMR vaccination scare provoked by his paper by forming a corporation that would profit from "litigation-driven testing"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield

The reason that to some there seemed to be a correlation between vaccination rates and autism rates is that in modern times, autism is better diagnosed and therefore appears to be more common than it used to be. It's a complex condition with differing levels of impairments along a "spectrum"-- look that up if you're interested.

Quote

I tend to think vaccination is both a good thing and a bad thing.

That's a virtually meaningless statement. Here is a brief summary of the facts. Vaccination, starting with Edward Jenner (around 1796) and Louis Pasteur (around 1897) is one of the greatest discoveries ever made in medicine and health care. It has eliminated diseases which used to cripple and kill millions, including children. It has attenuated other diseases. And vaccination has led to the field of immunology which makes possible monoclonal antibodies which treat a wide variety of diseases and immunology makes possible organ transplants and all sort of other wonders. It is bordering on insane to consider vaccination a bad thing. https://www.immune.org.nz/vacc…brief-history-vaccination

Now it is true that vaccines can have side effects. Usually these are minor and short lived but in extremely rare cases, vaccines can cause serious and even fatal side effects. Most vaccine side effects can be successfully treated. The benefit to risk ratio of vaccination is overwhelmingly in favor of vaccination, both for the individual and also for the population at large (look up herd protection by vaccination.)

I am amazed by how it is still possible for even educated people in 2020 not to know the actual facts of vaccination. It makes me wonder how much additional bullsh*t their brains are saddled with.

Quote

I had it several times before vaccines were invented.

Yikes, man! Uh... I knew you ... had some years on you ... but vaccines were invented in Western culture in 1796! That makes you at least 224 years old.

Quote

The only time I ever spent in the hospital was after a bad case caused pneumonia.

One of the difficulties with deciding how to treat influenza is that the basic cause is, of course, a virus and viruses don't respond at all to antibiotics. There are now some modestly useful antivirals but that's another topic. So when an influenza patient develops breathing problems, some practitioners assume it's due to the virus and forego early use of antibiotics. A better way to proceed is to evaluate the patient's overall condition from such things as level of fever, blood count, fatigue, chest X-ray or, better, CT scan and other objective parameters. If the patient does not do well, it is best to give antibiotics early. The reason is that bacterial infections of the lungs and bronchi (bacterial bronchopneumonia) are common in influenza patients. In some patients, it is essentially impossible to distinguish between pneumonia from the virus and pneumonia from bacteria infecting "over" the virus (superinfection). The risk/benefit of giving an antibiotic in such situations is in favor of giving it. Of course I don't know if JedRothwell had a bacterial "superinfection" and/or received antibiotics.

Now here is the scary part. I just read this for corona virus but it is also true for some cases of influenza virus. Some patients simply don't respond and don't recover. In one Chinese case I read about (*shudder*) a patient was treated with all possible supportive measures (intubation, IV fluids, etc) and high dose steroids. The treatment included two of the best antibiotics. He was given antivirals including acyclovir, oseltamovir and several of the newest HIV antivirals. Nothing worked and the patient died. There is obviously much yet to be learned.

There is one thing that was not mentioned. That would be giving the patient immune globulin ("serum") from an individual who had a bad case of the disease and recovered. I believe this was done for ebola virus with occasional successes. I don't have time to look it up.

ETA: more bad news. For those of you able to access the New York Times:

New Report on 138 Coronavirus Cases Reveals Disturbing Details

Quote from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/health/coronavirus-patients.html

A highly contagious patient, virus transmission inside a hospital and unexpected turns for the worse have emerged as part of the epidemic in China. ...

...

One patient, admitted to a hospital in Wuhan, China, infected at least 10 health care workers and four other patients with the coronavirus that has sickened more than 34,000 people, killed 700 and reached two dozen other countries...

The case was just one disturbing detail in a new report on 138 patients in Wuhan that helps explain how the illness progresses and how it spreads...

Reporting on Friday in JAMA, the authors said their data suggested that rapid person-to-person spread of the virus had occurred among their cases. That was in part because of patients like the one admitted to the surgical department, whose symptoms misled doctors into suspecting other illnesses and failing to take precautions to prevent spread of the virus until it was too late...

The data on the patients shows that the illness caused pneumonia and a systemic viral infection that set off a powerful inflammatory response in the body, Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University, said in an interview.

“There are biochemical indicators that a number of the body’s organ systems are likely affected and you have an inflammatory response that is disrupting their function to some extent,” Dr. Schaffner said.

The lungs, heart, liver, kidneys and the systems that control blood clotting are all affected, Dr. Schaffner said, though it is not clear that the virus itself infects organs other than the lungs.

Display More

Quote from JedRothwell

If there is any silver lining to this dreadful cloud, it may be that the anti-vaccination idiots shut up for a few years.

There is very useful vaccination like measles or hepatitis etc...

But the flu vaccination is very dangerous as up to 3% of people with camphylobacter in their body - thats most people eating cheap chicken - will develop a Guillaume Barre syndrome.

I had once in my live a flu vaccination and guess what I got: The worst flue I had ever ... 3 days flat. Flu i sonly recommend for people that are in a sever medical situation or people that treat such people.

Quote from Director

I tend to think vaccination is both a good thing and a bad thing. There's a clear connection to a range of disorders and autism, potentially due to the hyperstimulation of the immune system. Remember, children are getting more vaccines than EVER before.

Just remind you of the golf war syndrome that left way more than 10'000 US soldiers with a live long damage. One reason was scalen use to improve the power of the vaccination or the capitalistic way: To make it cheaper....

what should be noted is

- there are several flu virus versions around. The vaccines may or may not cover all virus versions. Therefore you may still get the flu Even after vaccination.

- flu virus versions evolves and changes from year to year. That is why your protection weakens from year to year after you have had the flu.

- vaccines changes from year to year to keep up with changes in the flu viruses.

And that is why a yearly shot of flu vaccine is a way of reducing the risk getting the flu. But there is no guarantee.

Fact; vaccines are not 100% safe. Neither is electricity or food or water.

Fact; vaccines can be botched, such as the dengvaxia mess in the Philippines.

Fact; nonetheless vaccines are one of the greatest healthcare inventions in human history and have saved may millions of lives.

Fact; repeated studies have found no link from vaccines to autism.

Fact; many people cannot be persuaded by facts.

Fortunately; current generations in the west do not have the experience (as my mother (91) and grandmother) of relatives suffering or dying from tuberculosis, polio, whooping cough etc. But this makes us dangerously complacent.

Unfortunately; the Internet is full of bad advice. Like climate change, or littering, people can say "What one person does (me) won't matter" but when millions opt out then it does matter. Measles is particularly infectious so that herd immunity needs 95% compliance.

I guess we could look at the Chinese central command system as a way to overcome wavering compliance. Infectious control professionals here in the UK have been marvelling at Chinese city level lockdowns and enforced travel bans. Such things would not be possible in the in the West. But then it was the Chinese system that stamped down on Dr Li Wenliang and possibly prevented news of the new corona virus from being picked up earlier.

Anyhoo I am going on a cruise the first week in March. Normally I would be looking forward, but under the circumstances - wish me luck!

Quote from ZenoOfElea

I guess we could look at the Chinese central command system as a way to overcome wavering compliance

Au contraire

I don't think we need a centralised dragon.. which contributed greatly to the coronavirus outbreak

"Over the last several years under the new leadership, China has undergone tremendous consolidation and centralization of political power. And that's what made local governments paralyzed.

They lack autonomy and initiative and shun responsibility. One outcome is that information is filtered or being blocked from one level of governance to another.

Problems arise every day and never make it into media or public attention: there are accidents, crimes, corruption, and people protest, but we never hear of that. The coronavirus outbreak is one extreme case that the authorities simply cannot hide,

and, temporarily, we hear more voices and criticism via social media and other informal channels

Coronavirus Crisis Exposes Fundamental Tension in Governing China, Says Stanford Sociologist and China Expert Xueguang Zhou

https://fsi.stanford.edu/news/…-stanford-sociologist-and

Quote from ZenoOfElea

I guess we could look at the Chinese central command system as a way to overcome wavering compliance. Infectious control professionals here in the UK have been marvelling at Chinese city level lockdowns and enforced travel bans. Such things would not be possible in the in the West.

I just listened to a BCC 1 interview given by a female Cambridge doctor about the corona panic. She was brilliant as somebody with internal knowledge asap understood that China will be completely turned around the next 2 months. She said (according to their models) that the current Wuhan quarantine just gave them 3 more days to organize the country ...

That's exactly what happens if you kill the messenger (arrested and then quieted by central rule and .. died yesterday) in case you don't like the message...

Research Scientist Presents Critical Insights Into Wuhan Coronavirus

info on the gene structure of the virus

http://stateofthenation.co/?p=6737

Quote from oldguy

Research Scientist Presents Critical Insights Into Wuhan Coronavirus

info on the gene structure of the virus

http://stateofthenation.co/?p=6737

A word of caution. It is true that much is unknown about 2019-nCoV. In this situation alt-news guesses thrive, and research scientists can be found to advocate persuasively almost any hypothesis. In this situation news outlets will report stories that seem interesting or in line with their prejudices. So while Lyons-Weller has some expertise, we don't know this is authoritative, and his ratings of the various hypotheses seem like his view, rather than what is likely true.

Quote from Curbina

Alan Smith had already posted sine links, on the first and second page of this thread, to the Indian preprint and Lyons-Weller blog where one can find all the argumentations for this stance. Anyway, With some Googling you will find similar expert opinions that the artificial origin of the nCov2019 is suspected.

to me what is at issue is not the assigning of origin but the identification of the genes that might give clues as to its treatment. There are reports that HIV drugs have some utility in recovery.

The article is completely outdated.

British tourists from Hong Kong/Singapur are the first real spreaders in Europe ( the same path as the cruise ship to Japan). In France it's the first major case with more that 300 people taken in quarantine next follow-ups in Mallorca.

Just be prepared. This corona cannot be contained any more and will spread over the whole world. We all will enjoy globalization and free travel to everywhere!