Just curious, anyone have a plan, or preps for global pandemic?

[Mike41]

Melatonin may partly explain the higher risk faced by the elderly

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmed.2020.00226/full

[Saul]

19 hours ago, Mike41 said:

Melatonin may partly explain the higher risk faced by the elderly

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmed.2020.00226/full

I'm skeptical

[Saul]

19 hours ago, Mike41 said:

could nicotine be effective in preventing cytokines from going bonkers??

Interesting.

Maybe??

  --  Saul

[Ron Put]

On 8/5/2020 at 10:47 PM, Sibiriak said:

Ron, I posted that study link and excerpt previously here.

The study only looked at the comparative effectiveness of N95 respirators vs medical masks, in the health care context described,  and provided evidence that they were both equally effective.

Or, equally ineffective 🙂

"2371 completed the study.... There were 1556 acute respiratory illness events in the respirator group vs 1711 in the mask group...."

 

I didn't see that you posted it earlier, thanks.  Here is another study I just came across:

“Exercise with facemask; Are we handling a devil's sword?” – A physiological hypothesis

Though WHO supports facemasks only for Covid-19 patients, healthy “social exercisers” too exercise strenuously with customized facemasks or N95 which hypothesized to pose more significant health risks and tax various physiological systems especially pulmonary, circulatory and immune systems. Exercising with facemasks may reduce available Oxygen and increase air trapping preventing substantial carbon dioxide exchange. The hypercapnic hypoxia may potentially increase acidic environment, cardiac overload, anaerobic metabolism and renal overload, which may substantially aggravate the underlying pathology of established chronic diseases. Further contrary to the earlier thought, no evidence exists to claim the facemasks during exercise offer additional protection from the droplet transfer of the virus. Hence, we recommend social distancing is better than facemasks during exercise and optimal utilization rather than exploitation of facemasks during exercise. ...

Though the respirator masks are perceived to be the barriers for preventing aerosol depositions to the respiratory tract, the bitter reality is that masks increase the risk of more in-depth respiratory tract infections. As quoted by Perencevich et al. 2020, “The average healthy person shouldn't be wearing masks as it creates a false sense of security and people tend to touch their face more often when compared to not wearing masks” ^[27]. The surgical masks are debated to trap the droplets containing the virus inside, increasing rather than reducing the risk of infection.

[Ron Put]

On 8/7/2020 at 5:45 PM, corybroo said:

An appeal for a new lockdown by the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota and the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

Osterholm loves publicity and gets it with the direst predictions -- he pushed the 2.2 million Covid-19 US deaths narrative relentlessly until a couple of months ago.

It's amazing that despite all the gross errors and outright nonsense coming from him and a few others, they are still the anointed "experts" in the mainstream media, while those who gave us much more sensible and accurate models early on, like Stanford's Ioannidis, were attacked or at best, ignored.

Here is a way, way pre-Covid-19 article about Osterholm's earlier crazy predictions, which found much less fertile ground in the press back then:

Chicken Little

-----

 

On 8/6/2020 at 5:15 AM, corybroo said:

Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other institutions recently published a study which estimated that the true number of people infected by COVID-19 could be six to 24 times higher than the number of confirmed cases. 

Yes, this jives well with the Penn study I posted weeks ago, which estimated 25x higher number of actual infections.

But guess what it means?  That the mortality rate would be lower, less than half of the recently raised CDC estimate. Getting closer to the mortality rate from the flu.  But with a destroyed economy because of the lockdowns and the continuously stoked fear.  Does anyone notice that the news is not mentioning mortality rates anymore? 🙂
 

[Ron Put]

Speaking of death rates, there is a new article in The Nation about Cuomo's forcing nursing homes to accept Covid-19 patients, which likely greatly contributed to the NY death toll among the elderly, as well as about the nonsensical counting of certain deaths in NY:

Cuomo’s Administration Faces Questioning Over Its Handling of Nursing Home Covid Deaths

"Cuomo has demanded privately that the Centers for Disease Control not report New York City’s probable count and use the state government’s confirmed tally instead, according to a state source familiar with the situation. Currently, the CDC does not list either a statewide “probable” or “confirmed” tally on its website for New York and many other states, including Texas, Florida, and California.

Accurate case and death counts matter because they can be used to examine whether state policy played a role in exacerbating the crisis—and Cuomo’s directive, issued in a time of extreme distress, warrants examination, given how nursing homes have been ravaged during the pandemic. Such examination could help New York respond better in a second wave.

On March 25, the New York State Department of Health ordered homes and facilities to readmit residents who had tested positive for the coronavirus, in part to ensure that hospitals had enough capacity for new patients. Cuomo reversed course in May and rescinded the directive, which some have blamed for contributing to the spread of the virus in nursing homes."

The article doesn't address the dramatically lower (40% or so) number of heart attack, stroke, and cancer deaths among those who died at home, which likely skews the death tally significantly, although not so much among nursing home residents.

 

 

Edited August 10, 2020 by Ron Put

[Gordo]

On 8/8/2020 at 2:41 PM, AlPater said:

Gordo, I do not know where your data comes from, but https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ says there were ~13,000 less cases/day from the peak in about July 23 to date.  Adding all your red numbers puts the amount down a lot more.  Maybe your data are bona fide, but they sure distort the picture.

Al it was a 7 day lookback delta (to match "day of week" reporting anomalies), and you can clearly see the same trend (decine in new cases) on worldometer:

 

In other news, there was some really interesting thoughts in today's Medcram vid regarding antibodies and asymptomatic cases:

He talks about antibodies vs. T Cell Immunity.  He also mentions that it is possible that asymptomatic cases are sharply rising possibly due to mask wearing (related to viral load upon exposure).  There is some evidence to back up this idea.  He also cites 3 studies that showed >80% of infected being asymptomatic, and compares cruise ship data where no masks were given vs. masks for all.

 

[corybroo]

Vanderbilt has released a report comparing hospitalizations by county in Tennessee.  Masking Requirements and Hospitalizations in Tennessee

[AlPater]

Dozens of public health officials across the U.S. have resigned or been fired amid COVID-19

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-health-officials-quit-fired-coronavirus-outbreak-1.5681040

[Sibiriak]

23 hours ago, Ron Put said:

Or, equally ineffective

Ron,  it may be the case (extremely unlikely) that  both  N95 respirators and medical masks are completely ineffective in preventing "laboratory-confirmed influenza among [healthcare workers] routinely exposed to respiratory illnesses",  but that study  certainly does not  show that. 

It only looks at the question of whether N95 respirators are more effective than medical masks.  It does not compare mask wearing with no mask wearing.

Quote

...neither N95 respirators nor medical masks were more effective in preventing laboratory-confirmed influenza or other viral respiratory infection or illness among participants when worn in a fashion consistent with current US clinical practice.

Respiratory viruses are primarily transmitted by large droplets. Because a fraction of respiratory viruses may be transmitted by aerosol, N95 respirators have been presumed to provide better protection than medical masks against viral respiratory infections in health care settings.² However, definitive evidence of greater clinical effectiveness of N95 respirators is lacking. A well-designed trial⁶ found the effectiveness of medical masks to be noninferior to N95 respirators, but the trial was stopped prematurely and was limited by small sample size.

Two additional studies^3,4   (and a pooled analysis¹²)concluded that N95 respirators may be more effective than medical masks; however, these studies were limited by uncertain clinical significance of end points.²⁴

The current study was undertaken because of remaining uncertainty based on previous studies, which made it challenging for infection control clinicians to effectively implement respiratory protection programs in health care settings. 

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2749214

Would you advise healthcare  workers routinely exposed to respiratory illnesses to NOT bother wearing any kind of mask or respirator as  recommended in current evidence-based clinical practice?    Seriously?

In any case,  that study deals only with hospital/healthcare settings and tells us almost nothing about  population-wide mask wearing (facial coverings) during this Covid-19 pandemic.

I actually think a lot of that mask-wearing IS entirely ineffective,  if not worse.

Personally,  if  I have to go into a situation were social distancing is impossible,  I wear a properly fitted and handled single-use N95 type mask.  Based on all the evidence I've looked at,  I am convinced that will provide me with at least some degree of protection, combined with hand washing etc.,  as well as some protection to others if I were to have contracted the virus.

But I see a lot of other  people wearing surgical masks or  flimsy face coverings in highly problematic ways-- reusing them over and over,   taking them on and off with out any care to how they are touching them etc.  (Maybe it's better in the US.)

 

 

Edited August 11, 2020 by Sibiriak

[Mike41]

21 hours ago, Gordo said:

Al it was a 7 day lookback delta (to match "day of week" reporting anomalies), and you can clearly see the same trend (decine in new cases) on worldometer:

 

In other news, there was some really interesting thoughts in today's Medcram vid regarding antibodies and asymptomatic cases:

He talks about antibodies vs. T Cell Immunity.  He also mentions that it is possible that asymptomatic cases are sharply rising possibly due to mask wearing (related to viral load upon exposure).  There is some evidence to back up this idea.  He also cites 3 studies that showed >80% of infected being asymptomatic, and compares cruise ship data where no masks were given vs. masks for all.

 

WOW!!! WEAR A MASK!!! 

[Sibiriak]

Evidence is growing, but what will it take to prove masks slow the spread of COVID-19?

[Saul]

I'm in the second half of the Phase 3 Tests for the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine!  Had my first intermuscular injection on Tuesday, Aug 11, at Rochester General Hospital.

The first part of the phase 3 study of the vaccine divided volunteers into three groups.  Two of the groups received a slightly different version of the Pfizer vaccine; the third group received saline.  From testing blood samples of the volunteers, Pfizer determined which of the two versions was best.   That vaccine was chosen for the second part of the phase 3 study.

The second part ot the phase 3 study divided a much larger set of volunteers into two groups of equal size.  One of the groups got a shot of the vaccine; the other group got a shot of saline.

I had my shot on Monday.  After the shot, I was unusually tired.  That has never happened  to me with any injection -- including intermuscular injections, such as my two shots of the shingrix vaccine.  I was tired for over a day, slowly getting less tired.  This convinces me that I almost certainly was injected with the vaccine, and not just saline.

The Pfizer protocol calls for two injections with the vaccine, 3 weeks apart.  My next shot will be on September 1, also at Rochester General Hospital.  I should be fully immunized against the disease by then (or slightly afterward).

Having had a reaction to the first shot, I'm convinced that, had I not gotten vaccinated, I might have had a hard time with Covid-19, when and if it got to me.

Like the moderna vaccine, the Pfizer vaccine is an mrna vaccine, requiring two shots.

To all who are concerned about health risks from the virus:   Volunteer for a (good) vaccine study; you may help yourself, and you will help others.

  --  Saul

[Dean Pomerleau]

56 minutes ago, Saul said:

I'm in the second half of the Phase 3 Tests for the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine!

Congrats Saul! Thanks for the description of your experience. From your reaction it sounds like you may have gotten the vaccine rather than the placebo, as you suggest. From the reports I've seen from the other vaccine trials, it seems moderate adverse reactions are pretty common, verging on universal.

This would seem to pretty much unblind the trial and I wonder what impact this unblinding might have on the behavior of the participants, and therefore on the outcome of the trial. For example, I can easily imagine people like yourself (who are pretty sure they received the vaccine rather than the placebo) being more risk tolerant in their behavior, and visa-versa for those who think they got the placebo. If these behavior adjustments were the case, it would tend to underestimate the effectiveness of the vaccine, since fewer people in the placebo group would contract the virus due to their relatively greater risk aversion.

56 minutes ago, Saul said:

To all who are concerned about health risks from the virus:   Volunteer for a (good) vaccine study; you may help yourself, and you will help others.

I would, but they haven't called me despite having part of the Moderna trial being conducted in Pittsburgh. I bet you were picked due to your advanced age relative to other volunteers, and your increased potential exposure due to working at a university.

Please do keep us posted on your experience, especially when you get the next shot. As discussed in this post, the reported side effects were significantly worse after the second injection at least for the Moderna mRNA vaccine. Hopefully it won't be the case for you!

--Dean

[Saul]

7 minutes ago, Dean Pomerleau said:

Please do keep us posted on your experience, especially when you get the next shot. As discussed in this post, the reported side effects were significantly worse after the second injection at least for the Moderna mRNA vaccine. Hopefully it won't be the case for you!

I'm in the second half of the Phase 3 Tests for the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine!  Had my first intermuscular injection on Tuesday, Aug 11, at Rochester General Hospital.

The first part of the phase 3 study of the vaccine divided volunteers into three groups.  Two of the groups received a slightly different version of the Pfizer vaccine; the third group received saline.  From testing blood samples of the volunteers, Pfizer determined which of the two versions was best.   That vaccine was chosen for the second part of the phase 3 study.

The second part ot the phase 3 study divided a much larger set of volunteers into two groups of equal size.  One of the groups got a shot of the vaccine; the other group got a shot of saline.

I had my shot on Monday.  After the shot, I was unusually tired.  That has never happened  to me with any injection -- including intermuscular injections, such as my two shots of the shingrix vaccine.  I was tired for over a day, slowly getting less tired.  This convinces me that I almost certainly was injected with the vaccine, and not just saline.

The Pfizer protocol calls for two injections with the vaccine, 3 weeks apart.  My next shot will be on September 1, also at Rochester General Hospital.  I should be fully immunized against the disease by then (or slightly afterward).

Having had a reaction to the first shot, I'm convinced that, had I not gotten vaccinated, I might have had a hard time with Covid-19, when and if it got to me.

Like the moderna vaccine, the Pfizer vaccine is an mrna vaccine, requiring two shots.

To all who are concerned about health risks from the virus:   Volunteer for a (good) vaccine study; you may help yourself, and you will help others.

  --  Saul

[Saul]

Hi Dean!

I'd rate the side effect of tiredness as being miild -- especially the second day.  The first day, though tired, I had no trouble getting back to my car and driving home.  I'd rate that as mild (at most moderate); no other side effects.  I never had problems with intermuscular injections, no matter with what (e.g., shingrix, which everyone claims causes pain, redness, swelling at the injection site -- not for either of my two shingrix shots, or this Pfizer shot).

The description of the procedure in this second part of Phase 3 of the study indicates that the second shot will be identical to the first.

I think, from your description of the Moderna vaccine, I think that the Moderna study that you're referring to resembles (maybe) the first part of the Pfizer phase three study -- in the first part of phase three, there were two versions of the Pfizer vaccine.  The participants were divided into three groups -- 1/3 getting the first vaccine version, one third the second, and 1/3 placebo.  The version that was better was chosen for the second part of phase three -- a much larger group of volunteered were enrolled in that study.  I am one of them.

The participants were divided into two groups of equal size.  One group received the vaccine, the other received placebo.

I've had my first shot.  I'm sure that it was the vaccine -- since I became very tired the day of the injection, and somewhat tired the next day (but I still did my usual vigorous exercise on that day)..

I've never had such a side effect from any vaccine or other shot that I've ever had -- and I didn't know that fatigue is one of the most prevalent side effect of the virus.

So I'm sure that I got the vaccine.  My second shot will be on September 1.  I will almost certainly then be immune to this vicious pathogen.

 

--  Although from your description perhaps the three Moderna vaccines may have been identical, differing only in dosage.

The bottom line:  They're different studies; both are two shot vaccines with the effective ingredient being a snippet of the mrna produced bu human cells infected by the virus -- almost certainly containing instructions how to build all or a portion of the spike protein of the virus.

  --  Saul

Edited August 15, 2020 by Saul
Fix presentation errors

[KHashmi317]

This is it!

Or is it?

UCSF's ‘AeroNabs’ Promise Powerful, Inhalable Protection Against COVID-19

https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/08/418241/aeronabs-promise-powerful-inhalable-protection-against-covid-19

 

[Saul]

17 hours ago, Saul said:

the effective ingredient being a peptide of viral mnra -- or maybe an artificial peptide that binds to a viral mnra peptide, I don't know which.

my description of the mrna and how it works in the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines is technically wrong:  There's no such thing as a "peptide" of mrna:  A "peptide" is a piece of a protein; mrna is not a protein.  Here's an accurate summary of what goes on:  When an rna virus (such as Covid-19) enters a cell, it injects its rna into the cell.  The rna joins the nucleus of the cell and inserts a dna version of itself into cell's dna.  The cells dna then creates mnra, which is broken up into pieces, each of which goes to the ribosome in the cytoplasm of the cell, which make proteins.  One of these pieces makes new versions of the attacking virus (e.g. Covid-19) and releases the viruses into the body.  Both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are snippets of that piece of the human generated mrna:  the snippets chosen by both Moderna and Pfizer are different portions that include pieces of the genetic instructions to manufacture the crucial spike protein of Covid-19, that enables the virus to enter cells via ACE2 receptors, which are all over the body.

  --  Saul

[Sibiriak]

Frontline Physicians' Open Letter To Dr. Anthony Fauci Regarding The Use Of Hydroxychloroquine, Zinc, and Azithromycin/doxycycline for Treating COVID-19

[Gordo]

On 8/13/2020 at 7:54 PM, KHashmi317 said:

AeroNabs

Sounds intriguing, but you have to wonder, what is the potential harm from inhaling these things, we might not find out about the downsides right away, and how often would they need to be inhaled?  I like that other approaches are being explored though.

Saul - that's great that you have already gotten 1/2 vaccine.  Keep us updated.  It will also be interesting to find out if the antibody response to the vaccine is weaker in older people, I'm sure Pfizer is looking at that.  I did not receive any response to the vaccine trials I volunteered for.

FYI: My son did take the covid-19 antibody test and it came back NEGATIVE.  I was almost certain he had covid, and maybe he did but just didn't generate antibodies, or maybe the test isn't accurate, but for now I guess I go by the assumption he had something else - I was really surprised because he was so sick and for so long (2 weeks) with high fever and all... 

 

[mccoy]

My son got tested for serum antibodies after two weeks of living with us. Result negative. I and my wife are most probably negative. Either the tests are not reliable, or the infection is not all around us like some people are hypothesizing. It might be different in northern Italy.

[Todd Allen]

1 hour ago, mccoy said:

Either the tests are not reliable, or the infection is not all around us like some people are hypothesizing.

Maybe both.  I asked my doctor for an antibody test but she said of the ones she could order neither appeared to her to be sufficiently accurate to be actionable.

[Ron Put]

On 8/10/2020 at 8:03 PM, Sibiriak said:

Would you advise healthcare  workers routinely exposed to respiratory illnesses to NOT bother wearing any kind of mask or respirator as  recommended in current evidence-based clinical practice?    Seriously?

In any case,  that study deals only with hospital/healthcare settings and tells us almost nothing about  population-wide mask wearing (facial coverings) during this Covid-19 pandemic.

I actually think a lot of that mask-wearing IS entirely ineffective,  if not worse.

I agree with your last point.  However, extrapolating from surgical masks to healthy people wearing masks on the street is fraught with problems. First, surgical staff wears masks to preserve the sterile environment of the room, not to prevent viral transmissions. Surgical rooms are special environments, where the patient's innards are exposed and every effort is made to avoid contamination.  These are environments with heavy filtration and constant, rapid air exchange, positive pressure, and higher levels of oxygen.  Some of it is for the benefit of the patient, but some of it is for the benefit of the mask wearers.

On the other hand, there is no scientific evidence that cloth masks stop the spread of viruses. On the contrary.  Asymptomatic people who do not sneeze, cough and hack all over others are highly unlikely to spread disease, as both WHO and CDC have always maintained until they were bullied by the Left's and the media's political attacks into changing their recommendations.  There is a lot of really bad "science" which drove the lock-downs that crashed the Western economies and now there is more really bad "science" popping up to support the Left's fear campaign to force healthy people to wear masks.

I don't know if this has been posted before, it gives a nod to the recently imposed dogma, but reiterates what the scientific evidence has repeatedly shown:

Nonpharmaceutical Measures for Pandemic Influenza in Nonhealthcare Settings—Personal Protective and Environmental Measures

Disposable medical masks (also known as surgical masks) are loose-fitting devices that were designed to be worn by medical personnel to protect accidental contamination of patient wounds, and to protect the wearer against splashes or sprays of bodily fluids (36). There is limited evidence for their effectiveness in preventing influenza virus transmission either when worn by the infected person for source control or when worn by uninfected persons to reduce exposure. Our systematic review found no significant effect of face masks on transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza.

[tea]

I don't understand how you can see one study claiming masks have no significant effect on transmission, and argue that that refutes the large body of counter evidence showing that masks do indeed reduce virus transmission. Efficacy of face mask in preventing respiratory virus transmission: A systematic review and meta-analysis

It doesn't take much critical thinking to understand that droplet transmission and inhalation is reduced by covering your mouth - that's not even a debatable topic, so why would it be a bad thing to require masks? And your claims that asymptomatic people are highly unlikely to spread the virus is also unfounded. Do you really believe that there is no droplet or aerosol spray from laughing and talking? Have you ever felt spit hit your face while having a simple conversation with someone? That's a pretty common occurrence. Do you realize that asymptomatic people are also normal humans, prone to sneezing and occasionally coughing, from allergies or photic reflex? 

 

 

 

[Ron Put]

16 minutes ago, tea said:

I don't understand how you can see one study claiming masks have no significant effect on transmission, and argue that that refutes the large body of counter evidence showing that masks do indeed reduce virus transmission. Efficacy of face mask in preventing respiratory virus transmission: A systematic review and meta-analysis

It doesn't take much critical thinking to understand that droplet transmission and inhalation is reduced by covering your mouth - that's not even a debatable topic, so why would it be a bad thing to require masks? And your claims that asymptomatic people are highly unlikely to spread the virus is also unfounded.

Speaking of "critical thinking...".  Are you suggesting that WHO, the CDC and every major medical organization were all in the Dark Ages before the popular media and the Democrats, aided by a handful of laughable "studies" made them modify their public stance?

Did you read any of the studies?  Do you understand how viruses are transmitted, or that "asymptomatic" means someone who is not secreting and spraying fluids, by definition?  It doesn't sound like it.  It is very much a "debatable topic" and only someone ignorant of the evidence would claim that it is not.

 

Edited August 16, 2020 by Ron Put