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

[Gordo]

ABBOTT'S FAST, $5, 15-MINUTE, EASY-TO-USE COVID-19 ANTIGEN TEST RECEIVES FDA EMERGENCY USE AUTHORIZATION; MOBILE APP DISPLAYS TEST RESULTS TO HELP OUR RETURN TO DAILY LIFE; RAMPING PRODUCTION TO 50 MILLION TESTS A MONTH

- Abbott's BinaxNOW™ COVID-19 Ag Card is a rapid, reliable, highly portable, and affordable tool for detecting active coronavirus infections at massive scale

- Test delivers results in just 15 minutes with no instrumentation, using proven lateral flow technology with demonstrated sensitivity of 97.1% and specificity of 98.5% in clinical study

- Abbott to offer a no-charge complementary phone app, which allows people to display their BinaxNOW test results when asked by organizations where people gather, such as workplaces and schools

- Company will ship tens of millions of tests in September, ramping to 50 million tests a month at the beginning of October

[Gordo]

22 hours ago, Ron Put said:

Covid-19 has just surpassed 800,000 deaths worldwide, which is still lower than the estimated death toll of 1 to 1.2 million from the 2017-2018 flu season.

Right, but I do wonder what the death toll would be if we all just ignored it completely and there was no one reporting infections and deaths and no one really knew it was spreading in their communities. Do you think the hysteria will end after the vaccines are released en masse?  

[AlPater]

On 8/26/2020 at 11:07 AM, Ron Put said:

I don't understand how people became convinced that this coronavirus is significantly different than the other coronaviruses which currently circulate and are collectively lumped in under the term "flu."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus#Infection_in_humans

The common cold is not the flu.  You have also compared COVID-19 to the flu previously and you should be comparing the coronaviruses on a level playing field.

Edited August 28, 2020 by AlPater

[Mike41]

On 8/27/2020 at 11:39 AM, Gordo said:

Right, but I do wonder what the death toll would be if we all just ignored it completely and there was no one reporting infections and deaths and no one really knew it was spreading in their communities. Do you think the hysteria will end after the vaccines are released en masse?  

It’s a lot about perspective for sure. Can you imagine what the politics of this would be like if these were dark skinned terrorists killing 180,000 Americans rather than an invisible virus! 

[Ron Put]

On 8/27/2020 at 8:39 AM, Gordo said:

Right, but I do wonder what the death toll would be if we all just ignored it completely and there was no one reporting infections and deaths and no one really knew it was spreading in their communities. Do you think the hysteria will end after the vaccines are released en masse?  

Probably roughly the same.  There is absolutely no evidence that lockdowns made any difference, other than freak people out, divide the society, and potentially cause more deaths from other causes.  If lockdowns worked, New York and the UK would be coronavirus-free, while Belarus and Sweden, or Iowa, would be giant cemeteries.  And as repeatedly noted, heart attack, stroke and cancer visits are way down, close to 40%, which is likely to increase fatalities from such causes.  

As Tedros from WHO noted, we don't do anything to try and prevent the spread of the flu even though it kills hundreds of thousands in an average season because it is highly transmissible and attempts at containment are pointless.  No country counts the number of flu deaths, again because it doesn't do any good and it is pointless.  The 1 to 1.2 million deaths in 2017-2018 is an estimate, and the criteria is much more stringent than the criteria for the current Covid-19 count, which includes anyone who has had the virus within close proximity of death, regardless of the primary cause, which is most often comorbidity (or, as in the recently publicized cases in the UK, car accidents 🙂.

The mass hysteria will end after the election, IMO.  Even if a vaccine is approved before then (highly unlikely), the Left and the media will claim that it is rushed (which would likely be the case) and will not trust it.  After the elections, if the Democrats win, they will approve a vaccine and claim credit for saving the nation.  I wouldn't even be surprised if the major Democratic states make us wear masks until the election, to keep the troops energized, even if deaths drop to normal.

 

23 hours ago, AlPater said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus#Infection_in_humans

The common cold is not the flu.  You have also compared COVID-19 to the flu previously and you should be comparing the coronaviruses on a level playing field.

With all due respect, repeating meaningless media slogans and citing Wikipedia is not a great argument. But you are right,, coronaviruses are not the flu.  Technically, they are simpler and considerably more stable, while the influenza is complex and unpredictable, which is why we still do not have a vaccine and why it periodically kills millions, like in 1969 and to a lesser extent in 2018.

My point was that there is a partially politically-motivated fear cycle that thrives on click-bait headlines then amplified through social media, creating the sense that this coronavirus is somehow supposed to behave in a unique way, unlike other viruses.  Many of the posts here are linking headlines about freak deaths among children, or lung or cardio issues, or the most recent one which prompted my reaction, reinfection.  Without placing these into perspective, they sound very scary, but the fact is that they are common across viruses and virtually all are found during flu epidemics.  Including reinfection -- it is relatively common across viruses and it is why you may still get sick even if you get the right flu shot.  But it is highly likely that your suffering and symptoms will be reduced.

Yesterday on my run I listened to the latest interview with Michael Levitt where he addressed exactly these issues, including the flu and the way Covid-19 deaths are counted.  It's an informative interview:

 

The bottom line is, we should be able to discuss such issues without immediately painting those who disagree as inherently "evil" and major public policies should not be undertaken without such discussions.

[corybroo]

The Economist has some interesting charts at Tracking covid-19 excess deaths across countries

It is interesting to compare this year with flu season for previous years:

 

[corybroo]

11 hours ago, Ron Put said:

The bottom line is, we should be able to discuss such issues without immediately painting those who disagree as inherently "evil" and major public policies should not be undertaken without such discussions.

I think we all want a reality based discussion.  Unfortunately, many in this society no longer agree on reality.  e.g.,  All the President’s Lies About the Coronavirus.  One of the good things about this forum is that we each bring a different perspective and recommend different sources of information.  Hopefully, the positive aspects of this conversation will continue.

[KHashmi317]

17 hours ago, Ron Put said:

Yesterday on my run I listened to the latest interview with Michael Levitt where he addressed exactly these issues, including the flu and the way Covid-19 deaths are counted.  It's an informative interview:

 

 

I was just going to mentions this video in one of my repetitive "PSSSSST ..... it ain't that bad, folks" posts 😉

[KHashmi317]

HXQ+ (Zn + Azithromycin) ... or, even better ... Ivermectin Triple Therapy . Of course, these are too cheap to be of any use 😉

 

[Ron Put]

10 hours ago, corybroo said:

The Economist has some interesting charts at Tracking covid-19 excess deaths across countries

It is interesting to compare this year with flu season for previous years:

Yep, "interesting" indeed.  But let me pick the periods.... 😉

On the other hand, the excess mortality table you cite shows what many have already pointed out as part of the reason for the high mortality in some areas: the 208-2019 flu season was unusually mild and deaths from the flu were dramatically lower in much of the world, which meant that a lot of "vulnerable" people were spared and became easy prey for this year's pandemic.  

For instance, Italy, which imposed one of the most stringent lockdowns in the West, has been cited as an example (and BTW, their 35k+ deaths attributed to the coronavirus are significant, but not all that different than earlier but still recent flu epidemics, where about 30k Italians died.  Without a lockdown and the corresponding increase in other deaths, of course.  See this excess mortality table:

10 hours ago, corybroo said:

Unfortunately, many in this society no longer agree on reality.  e.g.,  All the President’s Lies About the Coronavirus.

There is quite a bit of likely unintended irony in this post and the included link....

 

5 hours ago, KHashmi317 said:

I was just going to mentions this video in one of my repetitive "PSSSSST ..... it ain't that bad, folks" posts 😉

You still can 🙂  I rather enjoy those.

Edited August 29, 2020 by Ron Put

[corybroo]

Fair point Ron – the expected deaths would vary with the starting and ending year selected.  I guess we’d agree that whatever years are selected, they need to be continuous, i.e., no gaps.  😉

It is reasonable that a mild severity flu year followed by an average severity could result in an above average fatality rate from weaker survivors (i.e., those who would have died in an average year) not being eliminated.  For sake of argument, we have to assume these people live at least another year, they are as susceptible to new strain of flu, that they’ve done nothing to change their health during the year, etc.  So the best we can do is speculate on its magnitude.

2 hours ago, Ron Put said:

  12 hours ago, corybroo said:

    Unfortunately, many in this society no longer agree on reality.  e.g.,  All the President’s Lies About the Coronavirus.

There is quite a bit of likely unintended irony in this post and the included link....

.

You're right, there was no intended irony.  My hope was to emphasize that everyone in this discussion is making an honest effort to fully understand this disease and what are the best actions to take for ourselves and our families.  We see many revisions as more is learned whille not seeing challenfes dismissed by appealing to alternative facts.    

[AlPater]

Pandemic has brought Canadians together, pushed Americans apart, poll suggests
88% of Canadians said they approved of country's response to COVID-19
The Canadian Press · Posted: Aug 27, 2020
https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/covid19-pandemic-pew-countries-1.5702522

[AlPater]

Interferon β-1b in treatment of severe COVID-19: A randomized clinical trial.
Rahmani H, Davoudi-Monfared E, Nourian A, Khalili H, Hajizadeh N, Jalalabadi NZ, Fazeli MR, Ghazaeian M, Yekaninejad MS.
Int Immunopharmacol. 2020 Aug 24;88:106903. doi: 10.1016/j.intimp.2020.106903. Online ahead of print.
PMID: 32862111
Abstract
In this study, efficacy and safety of interferon (IFN) β-1b in the treatment of patients with severe COVID-19 were evaluated. Among an open-label, randomized clinical trial, adult patients (≥18 years old) with severe COVID-19 were randomly assigned (1:1) to the IFN group or the control group. Patients in the IFN group received IFN β-1b (250 mcg subcutaneously every other day for two consecutive weeks) along with the national protocol medications while in the control group, patients received only the national protocol medications (lopinavir/ritonavir or atazanavir/ritonavir plus hydroxychloroquine for 7-10 days). The primary outcome of the study was time to clinical improvement. Secondary outcomes were in-hospital complications and 28-daymortality. Between April 20 and May 20, 2020, 80 patients were enrolled and finally 33 patients in each group completed the study. Time to clinical improvment in the IFN group was significantly shorter than the control group ([9(6-10) vs. 11(9-15) days respectively, p = 0.002, HR = 2.30; 95% CI: 1.33-3.39]). At day 14, the percentage of discharged patients was 78.79% and 54.55% in the IFN and control groups respectively (OR = 3.09; 95% CI: 1.05-9.11, p = 0.03). ICU admission rate in the control group was significantly higher than the IFN group (66.66% vs. 42.42%, p = 0.04). The duration of hospitalization and ICU stay were not significantly different between the groups All-cause 28-day mortality was 6.06% and 18.18% in the IFN and control groups respectively (p = 0.12). IFN β-1b was effective in shortening the time to clinical improvement without serious adverse events in patients with severe COVID-19. Furthermore, admission in ICU and need for invasive mechanical ventilation decreased following administration of IFN β-1b. Although 28-day mortality was lower in the IFN group, further randomized clinical trials with large sample size are needed for exact estimation of survival benefit of IFN β-1b.
Keywords: COVID19; Interferon β; Iran; SARS-COV-2.

[corybroo]

From MedicalXpress, This summer, only the most aggressive responses stopped COVID's spread

In the United States, there has not been a COVID-19 response so much as a multitude of micro-responses. With no comprehensive national plan to unify them, local and state governments have deployed an assortment of measures—some aggressive, others less restrictive—in various combinations

the heterogeneity of U.S. responses and outcomes does have one upside: It's helping researchers learn which strategies worked

analysts sifted through data from all 3,142 U.S. counties and the District of Columbia, testing for relationships between the timing of control policies in place between January and May and the resulting number of COVID-19 cases and deaths during that time. 

A striking detail is that only the most aggressive control measures, such as stay-at-home orders and mask mandates, produced across-the-board reductions in both COVID-19 cases and deaths. Researchers categorized response policies into four tiers of increasing rigidity, with soft measures like emergency declarations at the bottom and stay-at-home orders at the top. Counties that adopted policies in the highest tier saw a 50% decline in new daily cases within an average of six days, and death rates declined by 15% for each day the measures were imposed.

The top tier was also the only one to produce declines in cases and deaths in every region of the country.  … the death rate declined by 25.5% in New England and Middle Atlantic states, but only 5.5% in North Central states. 

The article has not been peer reviewed.  They were not able to evaluate compliance.

[Ron Put]

10 hours ago, corybroo said:

 

 

 

9 hours ago, corybroo said:

A striking detail is that only the most aggressive control measures, such as stay-at-home orders and mask mandates, produced across-the-board reductions in both COVID-19 cases and deaths

LOL. Really?!  So, New York and New Jersey "produced across-the-board reductions in both COVID-19 cases and deaths?!"  It must be because the rest of us don't know how to count. This is just like the Oxford "study" which claimed that they saved 3.5 million people in the EU.

Now the CDC quietly noted that in fact, only 6% of the deaths are due directly to the virus, while the rest include severe comorbidities, 2.6 for the average death case:

CDC Finds Only 6% Of Coronavirus Deaths Are Solely From COVID-19

Of course, lot's of "explanations" are offered by those who like the inflated numbers, like "oh, but we knew that the morbidly obese are vulnerable", but the fact is that the list of comorbidities includes not just cardiac arrest, stroke, cancer, and renal failure (which will kill one on their own and are not generally included in the flu estimates), but also codes for stuff like suicide.

Then there is this new advice on testing:

"If you have symptoms of COVID-19 and want to get tested, call your healthcare provider first. Most people will have mild illness and can recover at home without medical care and may not need to be tested."

Ah, just like the flu.

Professor Michael Levitt pointed out that if flu deaths were counted in the manner in which Covid-19 deaths are counted in the US and the UK, the number would be at least comparable.

The mortality rate has not been mentioned much lately and one has to wonder why?  Likely because the CDC announced three weeks ago that actual infections are likely to be 24 times the official number, which is close to what the Pennsylvania study claimed 4 months ago and Stanford's Ionides suggested even earlier. Which in turn means that the mortality rate is pretty damned close to that of the flu. Oops! But Europe (with the notable exception of Sweden) has largely entered a recession and the US's economy is down 9.5% (a little better than most of the EU and way better than the UK, which is down by 20.4%)  

China, on the other hand, which never really shut down the bulk of its economy, will likely surpass the US to become the world's largest economy in the near future.  Guess what this means for military expenditures and geopolitical projection..., (not that Trump's primitive isolationism has helped, either).  And we haven't even seen yet the real ramifications in the West from the crazy lockdowns and the Left's fearmongering.

Phew!  I'll go to watch the riots now.

[corybroo]

Fortunately we have volunteers testing whether precautions work.  Coronavirus Surge in Tulsa ‘More Than Likely’ Linked to Trump Rally and Trump’s Golfing and Rallies Causing Covid Outbreaks Among Secret Service. 

[Mike41]

17 hours ago, Ron Put said:

LOL. Really?!  So, New York and New Jersey "produced across-the-board reductions in both COVID-19 cases and deaths?!"  It must be because the rest of us don't know how to count. This is just like the Oxford "study" which claimed that they saved 3.5 million people in the EU.

Now the CDC quietly noted that in fact, only 6% of the deaths are due directly to the virus, while the rest include severe comorbidities, 2.6 for the average death case:

CDC Finds Only 6% Of Coronavirus Deaths Are Solely From COVID-19

Of course, lot's of "explanations" are offered by those who like the inflated numbers, like "oh, but we knew that the morbidly obese are vulnerable", but the fact is that the list of comorbidities includes not just cardiac arrest, stroke, cancer, and renal failure (which will kill one on their own and are not generally included in the flu estimates), but also codes for stuff like suicide.

Then there is this new advice on testing:

"If you have symptoms of COVID-19 and want to get tested, call your healthcare provider first. Most people will have mild illness and can recover at home without medical care and may not need to be tested."

Ah, just like the flu.

Professor Michael Levitt pointed out that if flu deaths were counted in the manner in which Covid-19 deaths are counted in the US and the UK, the number would be at least comparable.

The mortality rate has not been mentioned much lately and one has to wonder why?  Likely because the CDC announced three weeks ago that actual infections are likely to be 24 times the official number, which is close to what the Pennsylvania study claimed 4 months ago and Stanford's Ionides suggested even earlier. Which in turn means that the mortality rate is pretty damned close to that of the flu. Oops! But Europe (with the notable exception of Sweden) has largely entered a recession and the US's economy is down 9.5% (a little better than most of the EU and way better than the UK, which is down by 20.4%)  

China, on the other hand, which never really shut down the bulk of its economy, will likely surpass the US to become the world's largest economy in the near future.  Guess what this means for military expenditures and geopolitical projection..., (not that Trump's primitive isolationism has helped, either).  And we haven't even seen yet the real ramifications in the West from the crazy lockdowns and the Left's fearmongering.

Phew!  I'll go to watch the riots now.

Last week, the U.S.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data that shows 6 percent of coronavirus deaths had COVID-19 listed as the only cause of death. 

Over the weekend, misinformation spread on social media, retweeted by President Donald Trump, misinterpreting the data to mean that only 6 percent of coronavirus deaths were caused by the virus. 

“Like everything else in this pandemic, a lot of it’s been politicized,” Dr. Keith Armitage of University Hospitals in Cleveland said. “I think people, either intentionally or unintentionally, are misinterpreting it or spinning it in a certain way.” 

Though that data shows 94 percent of people who have died from COVID-19 had underlying conditions, they could have lived much longer had they not become infected with the virus, Armitage said. 

“Across the country, we’re seeing people dying of COVID who had 20 or 30 years of life left, 20 or 30 years of supporting their family or being part of their social group,” he said. 

People with diabetes, hypertension and obesity—among other conditions—can live into their 70s and beyond, but Armitage said some of them are now dying much younger because of the coronavirus. 

He is more surprised that the data shows 6 percent of people who died did not also have any underlying conditions. 

Armitage said he has seen data misinterpreted on social media by different political groups. 

“I think it’s important that people try to look at data and really try to look at the pandemic in an apolitical way, trusting public health authorities who really don’t have any agenda, other than explaining empiric reality about what’s happening,” Armitage said.

Edited September 2, 2020 by Mike41

[AlPater]

Steroids cut death rates among critically ill COVID-19 patients, studies suggest
Analysis looked at 7 trials of cheap, available hydrocortisone, dexamethasone, methylprednisolone
Thomson Reuters · Posted: Sep 02, 2020
https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/steroids-covid-19-1.5709073

[BrianA]

A Supercomputer Analyzed Covid-19 — and an Interesting New Theory Has Emerged

https://elemental.medium.com/a-supercomputer-analyzed-covid-19-and-an-interesting-new-theory-has-emerged-31cb8eba9d63

 

Is a Bradykinin Storm Brewing in COVID-19?

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/is-a-bradykinin-storm-brewing-in-covid-19--67876

[AlPater]

22 hours ago, AlPater said:

Steroids cut death rates among critically ill COVID-19 patients, studies suggest
Analysis looked at 7 trials of cheap, available hydrocortisone, dexamethasone, methylprednisolone
Thomson Reuters · Posted: Sep 02, 2020
https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/steroids-covid-19-1.5709073

Association Between Administration of Systemic Corticosteroids and Mortality Among Critically Ill Patients With COVID-19: A Meta-analysis.
WHO Rapid Evidence Appraisal for COVID-19 Therapies (REACT) Working Group, Sterne JAC, Murthy S, Diaz JV, Slutsky AS, Villar J, Angus DC, Annane D, Azevedo LCP, Berwanger O, Cavalcanti AB, Dequin PF, Du B, Emberson J, Fisher D, Giraudeau B, Gordon AC, Granholm A, Green C, Haynes R, Heming N, Higgins JPT, Horby P, Jüni P, Landray MJ, Le Gouge A, Leclerc M, Lim WS, Machado FR, McArthur C, Meziani F, Møller MH, Perner A, Petersen MW, Savovic J, Tomazini B, Veiga VC, Webb S, Marshall JC.
JAMA. 2020 Sep 2. doi: 10.1001/jama.2020.17023. Online ahead of print.
PMID: 32876694

Effect of Dexamethasone on Days Alive and Ventilator-Free in Patients With Moderate or Severe Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome and COVID-19: The CoDEX Randomized Clinical Trial.
Tomazini BM, Maia IS, Cavalcanti AB, Berwanger O, Rosa RG, Veiga VC, Avezum A, Lopes RD, Bueno FR, Silva MVAO, Baldassare FP, Costa ELV, Moura RAB, Honorato MO, Costa AN, Damiani LP, Lisboa T, Kawano-Dourado L, Zampieri FG, Olivato GB, Righy C, Amendola CP, Roepke RML, Freitas DHM, Forte DN, Freitas FGR, Fernandes CCF, Melro LMG, Junior GFS, Morais DC, Zung S, Machado FR, Azevedo LCP; COALITION COVID-19 Brazil III Investigators.
JAMA. 2020 Sep 2. doi: 10.1001/jama.2020.17021. Online ahead of print.
PMID: 32876695

[Todd S]

On 9/2/2020 at 9:05 AM, Mike41 said:

Last week, the U.S.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data that shows 6 percent of coronavirus deaths had COVID-19 listed as the only cause of death.

Dr. Seheult explains in Update 106 that he thinks that the death certificates of those 6% were incorrectly filled out -- and that COVID-19 should never be listed as the only cause (or proximal cause) of death.

 

 

[corybroo]

A New Theory Asks: Could a Mask Be a Crude ‘Vaccine’?

Scientists float a provocative — and unproven — idea: that masks expose the wearer to just enough of the virus to spark a protective immune response.

The unproven idea, described in a commentary published Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, is inspired by the age-old concept of variolation, the deliberate exposure to a pathogen to generate a protective immune response. 

masks, by cutting down on the number of viruses that encounter a person’s airway, might reduce the wearer’s chances of getting [severely] sick. And if a small number of pathogens still slip through, the researchers argue, these might prompt the body to produce immune cells

The coronavirus variolation theory hinges on two assumptions that are difficult to prove: that lower doses of the virus lead to less severe disease, and that mild or asymptomatic infections can spur long-term protection against subsequent bouts of sickness.

 

 

[KHashmi317]

Vitamin D: A Powerful Bullet Against COVID????

 

 

[Gordo]

Area under curve is evening out...

But...

From: Anders Tegnell and the Swedish Covid experiment

[BrianA]

Looks like some long term neurological damage in 55% of Covid-recovered individuals in this study from China. They didn't find much correlation between severity of the disease and these results, although my understanding is all of these study participants came from a local hospital, so were hospital-admitted individuals I think.

 

Cerebral Micro-Structural Changes in COVID-19 Patients – An MRI-based 3-month Follow-up Study

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(20)30228-5/fulltext