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


Gordo

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1 hour ago, Todd Allen said:

There could be other explanations but it looks to me as if the virus in Italy is of a nastier flavor than the virus in South Korea.  If so, it would be curious to see if South Korean covid-19 provides protection against Italian covid-19.

It maybe, so far I heard no convincing explanations for the Italian anomalous mortality ratio. Unless reporting procedures vary wildly across countries.

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2 hours ago, Gordo said:

I did notice parades and large sporting/concert type events being suspended

 

But not necessarily to reduce the spread of the virus:
 

Quote

Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has announced a ban on gatherings of more than 500 people in Scotland

[...]The government wasn’t making this move because the science has told them it would have a significant impact on the spread of the virus, Sturgeon said, instead she explained she was keen to reduce the impact on policing and frontline health services during the outbreak.

 

WHO says risk of infection appears to be high at small gatherings in indoor venues

Quote

[...]There was a particular risk for gatherings in locations with poor ventilation, said Dr David Nabarro, one of the WHO’s six special envoys on coronavirus, who made a plea for people to follow “cough etiquette” in public.

“We are operating on the basic assumption that the home is a primary place where transmission has been occurring, but something else we are also really picking up on is that in places where ventilation is poor, or if there is ventilation but a lack of proper filtration, then that can also be seriously bad...

 

Edited by Sibiriak
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I thought the consensus was that the higher mortality in Italy is due to the fact that most people affected there are the elderly and hence the higher death rate is not due to teh virus profile but to the patient profile.

At this point, it seems a serious economic impact is inevitable. I have an important work related trip to Germany coming up this summer - I wonder if that will have to be cancelled... if so, it can affect my finances in a major way. So perhaps at first only freelancers will be affected, but with time, I would not be surprised if all kinds of businesses are affected, with crowd-dependent ones the first to go (restaurants etc.). But Amazon and online stores might even benefit. As usual, there will be a lot of losers but some winners. 

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1 hour ago, TomBAvoider said:

most people affected there  are the elderly

High number of elderly + comorbidities + shortage of hospital beds and respiratory equipment -- those facts have to be a big part of the explanation. 😷

 

Germany:

Quote

 [...] the number of people with coronavirus has risen to 2,527. The fourth death was announced this morning, of a 67-year-old man from the south western state of Baden-Württemberg, and this afternoon, the fifth death, of an 80-year-old man, in the southern state of Bavaria.

In Berlin an emergency meeting is taking place of the leaders of all of Germany’s 16 states to discuss what measures are needed to be taken next, to dampen the spread of the virus. A press conference is expected when the meeting concludes.

Lars Schaade, the vice president of the Robert Koch Institute, the leading government advice body for public health, said that the virus was spreading “very fast” in Germany. He said virologists would be closely observing developments over the next days and weeks looking for any indication as to when the virus might start to “level off”.

He warned that young people, and those in good health were at risk of not taking the illness seriously.   "They don’t belong to the risk group. But globally there have been cases of young people whose illnesses have developed into something more serious. "Younger people also had to show solidarity towards older members of society, he said, by curbing their activities so as not to contribute to the spread of the virus."

Germany’s president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who has cancelled almost all of his non-urgent appointments, appealed to Germans to help each other, and show solidarity particularly towards the elderly and sick by not undertaking any necessary journeys or activities that might help spread the virus. Steinmeier said: "We need to change our daily lives, not gradually, but immediately. This is all about gaining time, so that the hospitals are not overwhelmed and there’s more chance to develop a vaccination."

As increasing numbers of events are being cancelled across the country and schools and kindergartens being closed where there are confirmed persons with coronavirus, the Christian Democratic Union party announced its conference at the end of April, which was due to elect a new leader, will now not take place [...]

 

Note:  Patrick Vallance , Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government ,  stated  that the peak of the epidemic in the UK is "probably 10 to 14 weeks away, maybe longer.

"Vallance said he thought the actual number of people infected in the UK at the moment could be between 5,000 and 10,000. The official number of confirmed cases is 596."

Edited by Sibiriak
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2 hours ago, TomBAvoider said:

I thought the consensus was that the higher mortality in Italy is due to the fact that most people affected there are the elderly and hence the higher death rate is not due to teh virus profile but to the patient profile.

That's been the most commonly offered explanation.

Currently the reported death rate in Italy is ~6.7% while in South Korea it is ~0.8%.  It seems unlikely the modest difference in demographics between the two countries explains the massive difference in mortality.  Maybe South Korea has been more aggressive in testing and is finding a much larger number of mild cases among the young.  But the percentage of population infected in Italy is higher despite being farther from the center of outbreak and the rate of new infections has been growing faster suggesting the virus is more contagious in Italy.  Which could be due to societal and environmental factors but in combination with the high mortality rate I speculate the virus itself is part of the difference.  Considering China has identified a second strain it seems possible that the South Korean outbreak began with a milder strain while Italy's outbreak began with a nasty one.

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Well, if the virus mutates, that's bad news, because it means you cannot rely on developed immunity and like with the flu even if a vaccine is produced it might need to be modified every year or for every strain. That makes it more likely that it will become endemic, and if indeed the mortality levels are substantially higher than the flu, it's bad news all around. So maybe it's back to prevention and certain measures becoming the new normal, like great attention paid to hand washing, touching of surfaces and avoiding crowds. If avoiding crowds persists as a long and indefinite term recommendation, what does that mean for how the world works? How are restaurants staying in business, if this is not just a blip? It seems like developing masks that are both convenient and effective will become a necessity. If this thing doesn't simmer down soon, the world might look very different from how we imagined things would be going forward - it's not more of the same... welcome to the brave new world!

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Here is a summary explanation about Italy:

Why are deaths from coronavirus so high in Italy?

"Given Italy's older population, "you would expect their mortality rate to be higher on average, all else being held equal," compared with a country with a younger population, Gordon told Live Science.

In addition, as people age, the chances of developing at least one condition that weakens their immune system — such as cancer or diabetes — increases, said Krys Johnson, an epidemiologist at the Temple University College of Public Health. Such conditions also make people more susceptible to severe illness from coronavirus, she said.

Another issue may be the number of people in a given area who require medical care — having a lot of severely ill people in a single region could potentially overwhelm the medical system, Gordon said. She noted that this was likely the case in Wuhan, China, where the coronavirus outbreak began and which saw the majority of COVID-19 cases in China. A recent report from WHO found that the fatality rate was 5.8% in Wuhan, compared with 0.7% in the rest of the country, Live Science previously reported.

Finally, the country may not be catching many of the mild cases of COVID-19. Often, as testing expands within a community, more mild cases are found, which lowers the overall death rate, Gordon said. This was the case in South Korea, which conducted more than 140,000 tests and found a fatality rate of 0.6%, according to Business Insider.

"We probably don't know how many people have actually become infected," Johnson said. People with more mild symptoms, or those who are younger, may not be going to get tested, she said. Johnson suspects that the true fatality rate in Italy is closer to the global fatality rate of 3.4%.

Italy has conducted a substantial number of tests — more than 42,000 as of Saturday (March 7), according to Al Jazeera. However there is likely "quite a sizeable outbreak" in the area, which would need even more testing to identify, Gordon said."

Also, Salvini is close to Trump's personality and both revel in acting as "Duce Savior" of their respective nations, with bold, but not necessarily wise moves (wait for Putin, who has been quiet so far, to one up them...). Of course, the respective opposition parties blaming and goading for largely political reasons don't help, either. We are in the era of populism.

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19 minutes ago, Ron Put said:

Another issue may be the number of people in a given area who require medical care — having a lot of severely ill people in a single region could potentially overwhelm the medical system, Gordon said. She noted that this was likely the case in Wuhan, China, where the coronavirus outbreak began and which saw the majority of COVID-19 cases in China. A recent report from WHO found that the fatality rate was 5.8% in Wuhan, compared with 0.7% in the rest of the country, Live Science previously reported.

This would appear the most plausible explanation among those cited, more people dying because they cannot be cured adequately.

Presently there are 2 anomalies in Europe and US: very high mortality in Italy, extremely low in Germany. The age percentiles cannot explain such differences at all. In this case, there is maybe some very different counting protocol (for example, those who died with Covid-19 but had previously serious illnesses like cancer or others are not counted among the ones dead of the Covid). But this is just a  possible guess.

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19 minutes ago, Ron Put said:

Also, Salvini is close to Trump's personality and both revel in acting as "Duce Savior" of their respective nations, with bold, but not necessarily wise moves (wait for Putin, who has been quiet so far, to one up them...). Of course, the respective opposition parties blaming and goading for largely political reasons don't help, either. We are in the era of populism.

???? Why are you citing Salvini?? He's not in the government presently, he's in the opposition since August, although he's still backed by the majority of voters, about 33%.

Conte is the prime minister but I don't know how to define him, not a populist, maybe a typical verbose lawyer. 

 

Edited by mccoy
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12 minutes ago, mccoy said:

...

???? Why are you citing Salvini?? He's not in the government presently, he's in the opposition since August....

 

Slip of the tongue, apologies. I had just read this:

https://time.com/5789666/italy-coronavirus-far-right-salvini/

In my brain, he is still the force driving Italian politics....

Edited by Ron Put
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Ah, yes, there have been strong quarrels between Salvini and Conte at the beginning of the epidemic, but not without reason. Main cause of the frictions: they want to get rid of Salvini by means of the courtrooms.

Presently, the shutdown strongly suggested by the 'right' coalition has been mostly implemented and there is a little more agreement between the opposing political forces. Salvini still would like a more stringent lockdown. In this I disagree, maybe out of selfishness. But he has a strong point, since the example of Wuhan and the most recent one in Lodi, Italy, would tend to show. SARS-COV-2 is so contagious that apparently only extraordinarily rigorous measures are able to slow down or reverse the increasing trend of infected cases.

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17 minutes ago, Ron Put said:

In my brain, he is still the force driving Italian politics....

He used to be. He gambled in August, to take full power, but lost. He's still the most powerful (followed) politician, but presently the force driving Italian politics is fear: fear of the elections,  fear of Salvini, since the parties at the government, who are in constant disagreement, have not the numbers to win, and this compels them to agree to something even though they hate each other.

It is as complicated as it sounds. I'm actually surprised that I'm able to understand something of the Italian political situation, but this at the expense of many hours of listening to domestic podcasts and reasoning about the events.

Edited by mccoy
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Today the Italian stock exchange, Piazza Affari in Milan, closed at minus 17%. Other markets did very bad either. The virus, a wrong public declaration of the president of the European federal reserve, Trump's decision to close flights from Europe did the trick.

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In Italy the biggest shame and disgrace and complete disgust in politics is the biggest loser of them all - Beppe and M5S. Such high hopes, so many people looking for hope everywhere and decided to take a chance on this one that was not supposed to be politics as usual, they put their hearts in M5S, and look what a result! M5S is the worst political outcome in Italy since WWII.

Now Italy needs to put politics aside and unite to face this threat. Same all over the world, including the U.S. - I'm not a Trump fan, but I think we need to face this together without trying to play politics and get some political advantage from this terrible pandemic.

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Yep, panic. Although, the markets were at absurd levels, driven by few major company stocks, lack of other commonly available investment opportunities and pure hope. So while the virus, the ensuing panic, the global concentration of manufacturing in China and some wacky political decisions are the immediate cause, it was bound to happen....

These infrastructure numbers may explain part of why Italy's death rate is higher than Germany's:

Number of hospital beds per 100 thousand inhabitants:

Italy: 262.5
Germany: 601.5

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Healthcare_resource_statistics_-_beds

Edited by Ron Put
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Its finally feeling "real" in my area, a cluster of confirmed infections led to the governor closing the schools, which caused a lot of people to rush out and clear grocery store shelves.  Never seen anything like this, my wife said the grocery store was a mad house, no toilet paper, oats, peanut butter, bread, produce, etc.  I'm sure they will restock daily but still, pretty wild...

A lot of experts are still talking about the likelihood of hundreds of millions of infections (including the guy on that joe rogan podcast above which I enjoyed listening to)  but if that's really the path we are on, why does it not appear that way with the numbers we've been seeing from countries that have been dealing with this the longest - China and South Korea?  I get that no one trusts the numbers from China and they also went around literally nailing and welding shut people's doors so they couldn't go out, haha.  But South Korea - is not even remotely close to exponential growth anymore:

ADKymqnh0EGBc2rHwHDf2d7Ty1nV9IDN_MVhvBBA

Note that on the 12th (not shown) there was another decline below 200.  Are we to believe this is the calm before the storm and it's going to go parabolic again?  South Korea has been doing more testing than any other country, I doubt there is some huge group of uncounted infections we don't know about.  Don't get me wrong, I think the panic and hysteria might actually help stop the spread which would be a good thing, but if we end up with a curve like we are seeing in South Korea, it seems a bit nuts that there is so much hysteria (also they have only reported 67 grand total deaths, I'm pretty sure more people die from accidentally falling down stairs than that).

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I think the answer is simply some countries are doing an incredibly better job at dealing with this than others. The badly failing countries have a lot to learn. The countries that do well can get it under control. The ones that can't, well we're going to see, I remain unsure myself how bad it could get. I read an article today on the contact tracing "technology" used in my state, they are simply phone calling people and trying to get them to recall where they were in past two weeks.. tracing all the contacts for a single Covid case can easily eat up an entire day for one tracing worker. Compare to South Korea's tech. Also: masks. Masks ubiquitous now in the countries that seem to have a handle on it, whereas in Europe and the US people still get made fun of for wearing one in public... that attitude has to change. Here's an article:

 

Special Report: Italy and South Korea virus outbreaks reveal disparity in deaths and tactics

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-response-specialre/italy-and-south-korea-virus-outbreaks-reveal-disparity-in-deaths-and-tactics-idUSKBN20Z27P

Edited by BrianA
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I often feel the FDA holds things back waaaay too much. Seems to be the case here again, also they seem to have been involved in slowing down the CDC's initial testing effort. Both of these agencies seem to be creating huge roadblocks to what we need right now: speed.

 

How this South Korean company created coronavirus test kits in three weeks

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/12/asia/coronavirus-south-korea-testing-intl-hnk/index.html

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More interesting information on zinc supplements, zinc ionophores, and Quercetin.

Part of the protocol for treating the virus in South Korea is to use zinc ionophores like hydroxychloroquine. 

 

Edited by Matt
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Coronavirus: Top 35 Treatments in Development (March 2)

Chloroquine  included in the descriptions.

 

Treatment Strategies for Reducing Damages to Lungs In Patients with Coronavirus and Other Infections

Abstract quoted in previous post.  Full pdf available. Worth a read.  What  do people think about such "holistic" approaches?

Edited by Sibiriak
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1 hour ago, Matt said:

More interesting information on zinc supplements, zinc ionophores, and Quercetin.

With zinc, apparently it is  just a matter of not being deficient.  A while back I analyzed my dietary intake and started supplementing modestly (10 mg/d or so zinc citrate).

Chloroquine  is interesting,  but are we talking about treatment for serious cases only where you  may need to be hospitalized anyway and be subject to hospital protocols?

Quercetin:   ultra-mega doses being discussed:  3-7 grams.   Be aware that such doses carry potential dangers:

 

Polyphenols as dietary supplements: A double-edged sword

Quote

Based on compelling evidence regarding the health effects of polyphenol-rich foods, new dietary supplements and polyphenol-rich foods are being developed for public use. Consumption of such products can increase dietary polyphenol intake and subsequently plasma concentrations beyond expected levels associated with dietary consumption and potentially confer additional health benefits. Furthermore, bioavailability can be modified to further increase absorption and ultimately plasma concentrations of polyphenols.

However, the upper limit for plasma concentrations of polyphenols before the elaboration of adverse effects is unknown for many polyphenols. Moreover, a considerable amount of evidence is accumulating which supports the hypothesis that high-dose polyphenols can mechanistically cause adverse effects through pro-oxidative action. Thus, polyphenol-rich dietary supplements can potentially confer additional benefits but high-doses may elicit toxicity thereby establishing a double-edge sword in supplement use.

Quote

 

Quercetin is a plant-derived flavonoid, viz, a flavanol,  used as a dietary supplement purportedly possessing antiinflammatory and antioxidant properties.12,25 Low molecular  weight, presumably better absorbed quercetin, was fed for two years to male and female F344/N rats at concentrations of 2% (20 g/kg diet) and 4% (40 g/kg diet). The estimated dose delivered was ∼40–1,900 mg/kg body weight/day. There were no quercetin-associated adverse effects on survival and no clinical signs of toxicity although histological examination revealed chronic nephropathy at these doses.70

Quercetin significantly inhibited metabolism of substrates prone to redox cycling and increased pro-oxidant formation leading to high, toxic levels in organs and tissues.71 In this study, four-week-old male hamsters were fed diet with 3% (30 g/kg diet) quercetin for two weeks and 6.5 months. Plasma levels were similar in both studies and reached ∼0.22 μmol/L (74.4 ng/mL).

Average daily intake of quercetin is ∼25 mg. Studies with caffeic acid (2% of diet) support these findings since administration induces forestomach and kidney tumors in rodents at normal dietary levels presumably by interruption  of metabolism of estrogenic substrates. Furthermore, it has been reported in a review by Mennen and colleagues that tissues rich in oxidative enzymes may be especially vulnerable to pro-oxidant toxicity by quercetin.30

Polyphenols and DNA Damage: A Mixed Blessing

Quote

Abstract

Polyphenols are a very broad group of chemicals, widely distributed in plant foods, and endowed with antioxidant activity by virtue of their numerous phenol groups. They are widely studied as putative cancer-protective agents, potentially contributing to the cancer preventive properties of fruits and vegetables. We review recent publications relating to human trials, animal experiments and cell culture, grouping them according to whether polyphenols are investigated in whole foods and drinks, in plant extracts, or as individual compounds.

A variety of assays are in use to study genetic damage endpoints. Human trials, of which there are rather few, tend to show decreases in endogenous DNA damage and protection against DNA damage induced ex vivo in blood cells. Most animal experiments have investigated the effects of polyphenols (often at high doses) in combination with known DNA-damaging agents, and generally they show protection. High concentrations can themselves induce DNA damage, as demonstrated in numerous cell culture experiments; low concentrations, on the other hand, tend to decrease DNA damage.

 

Quote

[...]With such a wide-ranging set of phytochemicals, not to mention the variety of test systems, experimental designs and assays applied in their study, it is difficult to generalise. However, high concentrations are likely to show DNA-damaging effects, while also in many cases protecting cells against damaging effects of other agents, apparently acting as pro-oxidants when present alone, but as anti-oxidants in combination. This is not a novel observation: many years ago, Duthie et al. reported DNA-damaging effects of quercetin at 50 μM [103] alongside an ability to protect cells against H2O2-induced DNA damage at concentrations of 10–50 μM [104]. Low concentrations are generally protective, in some cases even decreasing the already low background level of cellular DNA damage.

To summarise, results reported in the recent literature, on the whole, lend support to the hypothesis that dietary polyphenols protect the body against the effects of reactive oxygen species on DNA integrity, but do so reliably only when present at low concentrations.

 

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To reinforce the info posted by Sibiriak, we all know that polyphenols are simply phytotoxins and that they exhibit an hormetic behaviour as far as the effects on the human biological system go. At small dosages, they tend to provide benefits. At higher dosages, they display their real nature of toxic substances. As we've been discussing in many previous threads, the threshold of toxicity varies across individuals, also in relation to present and ancestral exposure to the specific toxins. 

Xenhormesis is a fascinating phenomenon, discussed at first by Dave Sinclair about the stilbene molecule resveratrol.

 

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9 hours ago, TomBAvoider said:

In Italy the biggest shame and disgrace and complete disgust in politics is the biggest loser of them all - Beppe and M5S. Such high hopes, so many people looking for hope everywhere and decided to take a chance on this one that was not supposed to be politics as usual, they put their hearts in M5S, and look what a result! M5S is the worst political outcome in Italy since WWII.

Tomb, exactly so, the aboutface of Beppe Grillo was simply stunning. That caused his M5s a huge loss of supporters. They are now walking deads, zombie politicians who are governing but know well that they'll be finished at the next polls.

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