Covid-19 News

I will just point out that in Sweden kids has been going to school and not much social distancing has been done to the between kids interactions. We know from statistics

that teachers have been less infected then other categories so I think that closing the school is not needed. It's strange as I would expect schools all over the map to have

problem with corona, After this time we just had a handful problematic cases and there it is unknown if it was due to the kids. Kids has also interacted freely between them

after school.

Quote from oldguy

But we already know that late stage use does little. The study was on those hospitalized.

I thought the issue was early application of HCQ to decrease the replication of the virus at the early stages. not to repair damage already done. My understanding (as limited as it is) is that HCQ is claimed to help Zn interfere with replication to decrease the viral load early to limit damage and having lots of those nasty little things in you. That is keep the numbers down so your body can "do its thing".

HCQ without zinc has no significant preventive effects on Covid development.

Quote from Alan Smith

The CDC website has information about 'waves' of deaths in the 1918 pandemic. Second was worse than first.

I believe this is characteristic of influenza. It intensifies in the fall and winter. I do not know why. But indications are that COVID-19 is not seasonal. It seems to be spreading equally fast in the northern and southern hemispheres.

Also, as the website you pointed to says, in the fall of 1918 many U.S. doctors were absent, being in the Army.

Quote from stefan

This will end with higher taxes, better elderly care and I hope a study trip to Japan for the experts.

Korea would be a better destination. They are doing a better job. They had a much larger burst of cases initially, before they could launch their tracking program, so their accomplishment was more impressive. They are using more hi-tech tools, especially cell phone apps. A U.S. reporter who went to Korea says that at the airport, they took his cell phone and installed the tracking app. They did not give him a choice. There are no nationwide cell phone apps in Japan as far as I know. At this point, they don't need one.

Cell phone apps have been controversial in the EU and the U.S. They are considered an invasion of privacy. I do not know if that issue has come up in Japan. Because, as I said, they no longer need apps. For now, anyway. Another invasion of privacy issue has arisen in Japan. They have publicly available databases listing every patient, linked to other patients. The patients are anonymous. No names, but age, sex, zip code and so on, which makes it easy to identify the person if you happen to know him or her. Some gay people who wish to remain in the closet are upset about this, because they say you can suss out who they are living with.

I think a cell phone app in the U.S. might be a big help. The phone companies are tracking everyone's cell phone anyway, and selling the database to anyone who wants it and has the money. The New York Times got a copy of one database dump and was able to trace the movements of many people, including president Trump. The published a long article about this on Dec. 19, 2019, "One Nation Tracked:"

https://www.nytimes.com/intera…-tracking-cell-phone.html

If you carry a cell phone, you are living in a goldfish bowl. Hundreds of major corporations have a permanent record of where you have been every hour of every day, including visits to illicit lovers, drug dealers, or who-knows-what. Giving the info to public health agencies would hardly violate privacy more than it is violated already. They would probably protect it better than the corporations which use it to target you with advertisements. They would certainly protect it better than the phone companies, which sell to anyone whose money is green. They don't protect it at all!

If you want the phone company to stop snooping . . . too bad for you. It's all in the small print User Agreement, which you did not read.

Quote from JedRothwell

I believe this is characteristic of influenza. It intensifies in the fall and winter. I do not know why. But indications are that COVID-19 is not seasonal. It seems to be spreading equally fast in the northern and southern hemispheres.

Also, as the website you pointed to says, in the fall of 1918 many U.S. doctors were absent, being in the Army.

I definitely thought it was a risky move to reopen the economy here in the U.S. in the middle of May. It felt a bit early to do it, especially in Georgia. But things appear to be ok so far. Not great, but no major spike or second wave yet. I think if we see R get to 1.1 or 1.2 for more than a couple of days then there should be reason for concern. And that could happen at any time.

Even though weather doesn't appear to be a big factor with Covid, it seems that as more people start crowding indoor spaces when it gets cold again, combined with some people getting more lax with social distancing, that could be a bad combo. So perhaps we are looking at a low simmer of cases here for the summer and then a possible uptick in the Fall. It's just impossible to know, but I don't think the general population is anywhere near herd immunity, and the virus is still out there. We will be in a waiting game until we get to a vaccine - hopefully next year.

Quote from JedRothwell

Korea would be a better destination. They are doing a better job. They had a much larger burst of cases initially, before they could launch their tracking program, so their accomplishment was more impressive. They are using more hi-tech tools, especially cell phone apps. A U.S. reporter who went to Korea says that at the airport, they took his cell phone and installed the tracking app. They did not give him a choice. There are no nationwide cell phone apps in Japan as far as I know. At this point, they don't need one.

Cell phone apps have been controversial in the EU and the U.S. They are considered an invasion of privacy. I do not know if that issue has come up in Japan. Because, as I said, they no longer need apps. For now, anyway. Another invasion of privacy issue has arisen in Japan. They have publicly available databases listing every patient, linked to other patients. The patients are anonymous. No names, but age, sex, zip code and so on, which makes it easy to identify the person if you happen to know him or her. Some gay people who wish to remain in the closet are upset about this, because they say you can suss out who they are living with.

I think a cell phone app in the U.S. might be a big help. The phone companies are tracking everyone's cell phone anyway, and selling the database to anyone who wants it and has the money. The New York Times got a copy of one database dump and was able to trace the movements of many people, including president Trump. The published a long article about this on Dec. 19, 2019, "One Nation Tracked:"

https://www.nytimes.com/intera…-tracking-cell-phone.html

If you carry a cell phone, you are living in a goldfish bowl. Hundreds of major corporations have a permanent record of where you have been every hour of every day, including visits to illicit lovers, drug dealers, or who-knows-what. Giving the info to public health agencies would hardly violate privacy more than it is violated already. They would probably protect it better than the corporations which use it to target you with advertisements. They would certainly protect it better than the phone companies, which sell to anyone whose money is green. They don't protect it at all!

If you want the phone company to stop snooping . . . too bad for you. It's all in the small print User Agreement, which you did not read.

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The frivoulous tracing done in america is scary. It probably is a gold mine for criminals as dataminining it for black mailing oppertunities and what not. But in sweden any record needs an approvement and you typically have very strict rules but then everybody in Sweden has a number and we are known for maintaining many complete medical databases although getting hold on that data is protected by ethical jurys. Anyway I will change the narrative to South Korea. thx.

Quote from Deleo

I definitely thought it was a risky move to reopen the economy here in the U.S. in the middle of May. It felt a bit early to do it, especially in Georgia. But things appear to be ok so far.

Things are okay in Georgia because it is not really open. When I last checked, the airport had 5% of last year's traffic. The airport is the biggest in the world, so that is a large part of Atlanta's economy and the single most crowded place in the state, with 275,000 people per day, mainly over 12-hours, going through a few narrow hallways and riding an underground train. You would have to be crazy to go there unless you had no choice but to travel. Road traffic is still down. Many people are still telecommuting. Restaurants are still well below capacity. In the U.S. as a whole restaurants are down ~70%. (https://www.opentable.com/state-of-industry)

Here is an article listing possible reasons why Georgia has not seen an upsurge:

https://www.vox.com/2020/6/4/2…c-covid-cases-deaths-data

The low numbers are partly due to creative data diddling, and ignoring large numbers of dead people, as described in the article. Here are the Georgia stats:

https://www.ajc.com/news/coron…d/jvoLBozRtBSVSNQDDAuZxH/

There has been no upsurge, but cases per day and deaths are about the same as they were a month ago. The R0 is stuck at one. ~600 people a day are getting sick. From my point of view, compared to Japan, this is a disaster. Thousands more people will die for no reason, and tens of thousands will probably suffer long term damage. There shouldn't be more than 100 cases in the whole U.S.

Quote from Deleo

Not great, but no major spike or second wave yet. I think if we see R get to 1.1 or 1.2 for more than a couple of days then there should be reason for concern.

An R0 of 1 is totally unacceptable. Totally preventable. It means thousands of people are suffering and thousands more will die, for no reason.

Quote from Deleo

It's just impossible to know, but I don't think the general population is anywhere near herd immunity, and the virus is still out there. We will be in a waiting game until we get to a vaccine - hopefully next year.

It is nowhere near herd immunity anywhere in the world, except perhaps a few low income neighborhoods in New York city. In Georgia, the official stats show that only 0.5% of the population has been infected. Assuming that is wrong by a factor of 10 (which I think is an exaggeration), that means we would have to have 12 times more cases to reach herd immunity. Which means ~26,000 more people would die, and hundreds of thousands more would be disabled for months or for the rest of their lives.

Quote from axil

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HCQ without zinc has no significant preventive effects on Covid development.

An interesting study that appears to be unbiased.

But related is the Mumbai police study, showing HCQ given prophylactically before exposure seems to work well. Refer to --

"Toll climbs to 9, cops on HCQS spared the worst"

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/75845670.cms

- given the large sample size (10,000), it may have better predictive power than the study in the NEJM paper.

Also in the NEJM study, it is unfortunate that folate was the placebo, since folate is speculated to be anti-Covid ---

"In silico virtual screening-based study of nutraceuticals predicts the therapeutic potentials of

folic acid and its derivatives against COVID-19"

https://assets.researchsquare.…6cc-879d-c0166cf34e69.pdf

Quote from JedRothwell

Things are okay in Georgia because it is not really open. When I last checked, the airport had 5% of last year's traffic. The airport is the biggest in the world, so that is a large part of Atlanta's economy and the single most crowded place in the state, with 275,000 people per day, mainly over 12-hours, going through a few narrow hallways and riding an underground train. You would have to be crazy to go there unless you had no choice but to travel. Road traffic is still down. Many people are still telecommuting. Restaurants are still well below capacity. In the U.S. as a whole restaurants are down ~70%. (https://www.opentable.com/state-of-industry)

Here is an article listing possible reasons why Georgia has not seen an upsurge:

https://www.vox.com/2020/6/4/2…c-covid-cases-deaths-data

The low numbers are partly due to creative data diddling, and ignoring large numbers of dead people, as described in the article. Here are the Georgia stats:

https://www.ajc.com/news/coron…d/jvoLBozRtBSVSNQDDAuZxH/

There has been no upsurge, but cases per day and deaths are about the same as they were a month ago. The R0 is stuck at one. ~600 people a day are getting sick. From my point of view, compared to Japan, this is a disaster. Thousands more people will die for no reason, and tens of thousands will probably suffer long term damage. There shouldn't be more than 100 cases in the whole U.S.

An R0 of 1 is totally unacceptable. Totally preventable. It means thousands of people are suffering and thousands more will die, for no reason.

It is nowhere near herd immunity anywhere in the world, except perhaps a few low income neighborhoods in New York city. In Georgia, the official stats show that only 0.5% of the population has been infected. Assuming that is wrong by a factor of 10 (which I think is an exaggeration), that means we would have to have 12 times more cases to reach herd immunity. Which means ~26,000 more people would die, and hundreds of thousands more would be disabled for months or for the rest of their lives.

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Death per million 200

Number if infected 0,5% of 1000.000 = 5000

5000*ifr=200 => ifr = 2/50=4/100 = 4%

That looks crazy high, did you mean 5% infected?

Costa Rica.Hoy

It still has the pure life and only 10 deathcount

and is resuming HCQ treatment..after the surgi-WHO silliness

apparently all suspected cases of Covid get dosed with HCQ..

according to this wimpish writer

" The nostril-prodding examination was incredibly uncomfortable and brought tears to my eyes

. After the irritating experience, I was given hydroxychloroquine (the controversial treatmen..and asked to quarantine for two weeks.

I panicked: a dual Spanish-American citizen, I was alone in San Jose and had no one to care for me."

https://www.marketwatch.com/st…in-covid-cases-2020-06-08

"

Quote from Lou Pagnucco

An interesting study that appears to be unbiased.

But related is the Mumbai police study, showing HCQ given prophylactically before exposure seems to work well. Refer to --

"Toll climbs to 9, cops on HCQS spared the worst"

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/75845670.cms

- given the large sample size (10,000), it may have better predictive power than the study in the NEJM paper.

Also in the NEJM study, it is unfortunate that folate was the placebo, since folate is speculated to be anti-Covid ---

"In silico virtual screening-based study of nutraceuticals predicts the therapeutic potentials of

folic acid and its derivatives against COVID-19"

https://assets.researchsquare.…6cc-879d-c0166cf34e69.pdf

Display More

In india, 10000 is infected each day, integerate 20 days and we are at 200.000 the fraction is 200.000 / 1000.000.000 = 0.02%

So from 10000 polices we expect a handful of cases and very few deaths. Does not look from this calculation that this study

is strong. Perhaps the fiigures are too sketchy, but you see the analysis needed to judge the study.

Quote from stefan

Death per million 200

Number if infected 0,5% of 1000.000 = 5000

5000*ifr=200 => ifr = 2/50=4/100 = 4%

That looks crazy high, did you mean 5% infected?

I meant the Worldmeters stats for Georgia show 52,497 cases, 2,208 deaths, and 4,944 total cases/1 M population. The latter number, 0.5%, is probably too low. People say it might be too low by a factor of ten. I kind of doubt that, but assume it is. In that case, actual total cases are 5% of the population. Herd immunity starts at about 60%, which is 12 times more than we now have in Georgia. The death rate per case is not improving, so if 12 times more people are infected, it is likely that 12 times more will die. 2,208 * 12 = 26,496.

Quote from RobertBryant

" The nostril-prodding examination was incredibly uncomfortable and brought tears to my eyes

I have heard it is painful. Fortunately, in Georgia they just started a test that uses a cheek swipe.

Quote from JedRothwell

I have heard it is painful

No worries ..

I had a bilateral nasal pronging already..no worse than a pressurised sinus rinse..with clove flavoured saline..

Quote from stefan

In india, 10000 is infected each day, integerate 20 days and we are at 200.000 the fraction is 200.000 / 1000.000.000 = 0.02%

So from 10000 polices we expect a handful of cases and very few deaths. Does not look from this calculation that this study

is strong. Perhaps the fiigures are too sketchy, but you see the analysis needed to judge the study.

Stefan,

Assume there was no HCQ effect at all in the Mumbai police force.

Then the probability of Covid related death would be exactly the same for those using HCQ and those who are not.

So the probability that all 9 Covid deaths would be in the non-user group is (1/2)⁹ - quite unlikely.

(Correction - Based on the fraction of non-compliant, the probability is (0.55)⁹=0.0046)

Also the NEJM study did not indicate what the end disease severity outcomes were - seems strange.

Quote from JedRothwell

An R0 of 1 is totally unacceptable. Totally preventable.

The Western countries like US, not yet sure who else but possibly UK, who accept a high infection rate to unlock a bit sooner are making I think a false economy. And dangerous because keeping R ~ 1 in winter may be a lot more difficult.

If you get infection rate right down, and then implement proper track and trace, you can live life mostly as normal.

Otherwise, you not only have a lot of people dying, you have necessary half-lockdown to keep R ~ 1.

The R ~ 1 strategy would not be too bad if we have an effective and safe vaccine available in October. There is a decent chance we will have effective vaccines by then which are not obviously killing people. We won't have time for long-term safety tests. What happens? I just don't know. Maybe politicians will take a gamble, overrule doctors, and roll out a probably but not completely safe vaccine? It will go to essential workers first, using them as guineas pigs, and then the population (but I'd guess excluding pregnant women).

This is one of the big unknowns - how much do we risk vaccine safety to get a vaccine faster? I think it is not discussed because it depends on too many factors, like which vaccine (some have better safety expectations than others), the state of the epidemic then, and politics.

Certainly if the Oxford vaccine ChAdOx1 is effective and apparently safe it will have enough production for essential + at high risk people in UK in September. Amazing. But, by then, it will never have complete safety established even though the regulators seem to think it is based on technology that has previously a good safety record. Effectiveness by the way is never guaranteed, a virus strain change could reduce it. But even partially effective vaccines are equivalent to halving R number, and therefore allowing much more unlocking.

So wait for the vax antivax arguments in September.

It also looks as though Brazil may be used as a guinea pig? I'd bet some countries will have more aggressive "roll out vaccine" inclinations than others...

The news comes after researchers producing the vaccine, ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 got approvals to start mid-scale trials in Brazil, which is one of the worst affected countries in the world.

In a statement, its chief executive said that developments are on track, “Our present assumption is that we will have the data by the end of the summer, by August, so in September we should know whether we have an effective vaccine or not.”

https://timesofindia.indiatime…261249.cms?picid=76277193

Now just wait for those antivax comments about Bill Gates wanting to kill all the world's children in a master plan to reduce overpopulation...

https://www.firstpost.com/heal…in-the-works-8443411.html
As schools are starting to reopen in the UK, Oxford University and AstraZeneca are reportedly planning to test the ChAdOx1 vaccine on children between the ages of 5 and 12.

The Oxford team will start recruiting volunteers for the vaccine soon. ChAdOx1 is an adenovirus vector-based vaccine that contains the sequence for the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 virus. The spike protein is what the COVID-19 causing virus uses to latch on to and enter host cells. The vaccine is currently in Phase I clinical trials and has been given to more than 1,000 adults between the ages of 18 and 55, who are now being followed up to study the effects of the vaccine. It will soon enter phase II/III trials, in which about 10,260 people of all ages from five to above 70 years will be included. Even though children are considered to not be at risk of severe disease, they will need to be vaccinated to stop the transmission chain of the virus.

It seems risk is very political. Some risks (dying of COVID from not locking down or testing and tracing) are broadly judged more right-wing acceptable. Some risks (rolling out a probably safe vaccine) are broadly judged more left-wing acceptable. Though it is not simple, the right-wing autocrats (Putin, Bolsinaro, etc) will probably be serenely unworried about both these risks.

I'd guess Trump's instincts also would be to risk a half-tested vaccine, but we will see.

Quote from THHuxleynew

This is one of the big unknowns - how much do we risk vaccine safety to get a vaccine faster? I think it is not discussed because it depends on too many factors, like which vaccine (some have better safety expectations than others), the state of the epidemic then, and politics.

Quote from THHuxleynew

Certainly if the Oxford vaccine ChAdOx1 is effective and apparently safe it will have enough production for essential + at high risk people in UK in September. Amazing. But, by then, it will never have complete safety established even though the regulators seem to think it is based on technology that has previously a good safety record.

The best corona vaccination is to spread the common cold corona virus. Here (Switzerland,Germany) about 60% of the people are more or less immune as the corona antibody do last at least 3 years (20% of all cold are corona based). This immunity also explains why even fully infected care homes have less than 50% death/infections and we here do see a dramatic decrease in infection despite people are not wearing masks.

Corona transmission seem to strongly depend on initial dose too as first studies do show that almost all infections did happen indoor!

Promoting a corona vaccine is nothing more than a very good business case and, with a few exceptions (health personal), an absolute no brainer!

If UK likes to early vaccinate then this certainly will speed up the Brexit decline of the nation as three major banks now start the dislocation from London to central Europe. Nobody with a clear brain will want a vaccination for a cold like (if properly treated) illness.

Quote from Shane D.

"Data do appear to indicate that the virus may be losing its edge. The statistics website Worldometers, for instance, shows an unmistakably lopsided trend: Though the number of confirmed global cases has been increasing since the start of the pandemic, the number of global deaths has been trending downward since mid-April.

Exercise skepticism over this. In the UK we only detect 20% of all infections, but as time goes on testing gets better and we detect more (mild) cases.

So the case number, and hence death/case ratio, is not reliable and will show a reduced ratio as time goes on purely as an artifact.

Quote from Wyttenbach

Promoting a corona vaccine is nothing more than a very good business case and, with a few exceptions (health personal), an absolute no brainer!

If UK likes to early vaccinate then this certainly will speed up the Brexit decline of the nation as three major banks now start the dislocation from London to central Europe. Nobody with a clear brain will want a vaccination for a cold like (if properly treated) illness.

As often here you say things that are just not true.

In the UK the major vaccine projects are all done at cost (and most of the production too).

And most people in the UK want a Flu vaccine. I'd expect most to want a CV vaccine too.

Finally, CV is not a "cold like" disease. Maybe it will become that if attenuated strains come to predominate. At the moment it has an unpleasantly high death rate, and has killed nearly 1 in 1000 of the UK population.