OT: I know we all seem obsessed with bad CoVID19 news around here...
... but maybe some good news for a change should be brought up
Two companies are making progress on Coronavirus Treatments
It's not a miracle cure, but it's good news, and a step in the right direction.
If you're going to stay informed on CO-VID19, that's fine, but make sure you report the GOOD news as well as the bad, alright?
Another link for those interested in positive news.
Gates Foundation Backed Project Close on Home Tests
Also... this.
For summary's sake: the companies named in the article have treatments that are showing positive effects on early tests.
It's still a bit soon to make it available to the public, but it's doing some good.
Keep it up. The public is in a state of mass hysteria right now. This is all going to get as bad as we all tell ourselves it is so any positive news for public consumption is a step in the right direction.
Not the public I know. It's only people glued to the media reports that are worked up. The rest of us are going about our daily lives.
Every university in the state is closing. I’m pretty sure that counts as “the public.”
I'm in my 60s and won't be retiring for about another year, so yes, though I'm still going about my daily life, I do realize I have that elevated risk factor to worry about.
How worried am I? Not enough to skip going to Yost Ice Arena last Saturday to watch us end the season for FYS. And I am planning yet to go to Little Caesars for the Frozen Four if the opportunity presents itself in a few weeks.
OTOH, I plan on continuing to monitor the situation and change my approach as needed as the COVID-19 story continues to evolve.
The panic is truly incredible. The normal flu has killed 14,000 this year and we're essentially in a state of absolute panic about another nasty flu virus that has thus far taken 32 lives domestically. Those who died from Covid-19 average 76 years old. At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy nut, I think there are those in positions of power who want to keep the fear alive to further their own agendas.
The average age is 76 because it ripped through one nursing home in WA killing 19. And the death count is low because it's not as widespread as the flu normally is just yet, but the mortality rate is 10x that of the flu if you believe the NIAID Director.
It is also ripping thru Italy, where the average age for mortality is 81.
Everything is a positive step but there is nothing that can be made available to the public without going through at LEAST FDA Phase I (toxicity/safety) and Phase II (efficacy on small cohort) even if you get a waiver on Phase III (large cohort) because of the urgent public interest.
Phase I is several months, Phase II would be several more, so much like a vaccine timeline we're most likely looking at next year.
For what it's worth, I did legal work for Regeneron way back when and I found them to be a very well run company. Went to their HQ in Tarrytown NY and met the scientists. It's a good, innovative environment.
How about the number of people who have already recovered from this virus?
Mortality rate has dropped from 3.4% to near 1% as well; and trending lower.
While I believe the true mortality rate is lower than the official figure (because of numerous untested mild cases), the official figure has not, in fact, gone down. Officially there have been 125,670 cases and 4,607 deaths (3.7%).
One thing that has changed - for the better - is the proportion of official cases that are "mild." Now, 89% of all active cases are categorized that way.
Keep in mind that number includes the nearly 70,000 who have recovered and are cured as well.
No, 1% is the number Fauci believes we are trending towards--we're still in the 3+% range. Plus that trend is based largely on the fact that far more people will be contracting the coronavirus--so as the % of deaths decrease, the total number will increase.
How many people have shared with you that the Flu kills more people than Coronavirus? I think I'm up to about 50 people via Facebook and about 25 in person.
double post
The ratio of that to friends that like InfoWars on Facebook is 1:1.
If only the experts agreed with that assessment.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-11/fauci-warns-coronavirus-far-more-lethal-than-seasonal-
The novel coronavirus spreading across the globe is “10 times more lethal than the seasonal flu,” the government’s top infectious disease official told a House hearing, where he warned the U.S. must take serious mitigation efforts now.
“Bottom line: It’s going to get worse,” National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci told the House Oversight and Reform Committee. “If we don’t do very serious mitigation now, what’s going to happen is we’re going to be weeks behind” in containing the spread.
Pretty sure he was making light of the 'Facebook friend experts' who are saying that the flu is just as bad as covid-19.
Yeeeup. My response has been "more people die every from the common flu than from AIDS too -- would you like to have some AIDS with your Corona?"
It's all good news--it's a dry run.
Fair, balanced, and unafraid!
You're making the assumption that it will be priced reasonably. And as someone else pointed out there is no fast track for this kind of stuff. At least 12 months of testing minimum before a vaccine could be distributed to the public.
There is a fast track and this is it. The non-fast track is 5-10 years for approval depending on the indication/novelty of the drug substance and drug product.
I don't think it's so much that we're "obsessed" with bad news as well . . . what else are we going to talk about regarding this thing?
With the primaries nearly over the media is going to dial back the fear mongering and mass hysteria causing "reporting" theyre currently engaged in.
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
Pretty cool dashboard for you data hounds out there.
The sovereign state of Cruise Ship is just behind the US in number of confirmed cases.
The US is less infected than Europe and the Middle East
So what’s your fucking point?
We may not be less infected. We’ve tested far fewer people.
So, I'll bite. The "flu" kills 40-60 thousand people every year on 30 million estimated cases. Note, that 30 million is not "30 million people tested positive for the flu virus". It's an extrapolation based on small populations to the whole population. Hence the low mortality rate. 30 million cases "only" 40,000 deaths, so a bit more than 1/10th of 1%. Those numbers also happen in the face of decades of work to generate and distribute a vaccine.
Covid infection numbers are based on people testing positive, so the 120,000 number is based on something different than the 30,000,000 number for the flu. So doing a straight comparison of a ~.1% mortality rate to a 3% mortality rate is at least Granny Smith to Red Delicious, if not outright apples and oranges.
I'm not saying don't take this thing seriously. What I am saying is that, IMO, we should probably take the flu way more freaking seriously every year, short of shutting society down. Calling people idiots for pointing out that the flu is a serious problem, probably as serious as Covid, is IMO not very smart.
Rob
March 11th, 2020 at 11:42 PM ^
Italy shows pretty definitively that this can, if allowed to hit hard and fast, overwhelm medical capacity in a way that seasonal flu doesn’t. No vaccine and no herd immunity is a bitch.
I have to admit to actually being angry about this entire virus panic. I accept new illnesses that come around from time to time as part of life. But this one is being treated like it's the next bubonic plague or Andromeda Strain. Is this the way all new epidemics/pandemics are going to be handled going forward? Are we going to see 1/4 or more of world wealth wiped out in a week or two? Are we going to see public officials telling us to go climb under a rock and not go near anyone for a few months each time? I and a number of other people have been planning an annual festival for our non-profit group for the last 8 months and have put a ton of time, work, and money into it. But now it's looking more and more likely our event on the 21st will need to be cancelled for one reason or another, now that Michigan has pushed all the panic buttons. All that work could be down the drain and everyone loses IMO. It just makes me mad.
Read what is going on in Lombardy, Italy. It’s really disturbing. That’s why your event might be cancelled, to avoid that happening in this country.
One thing I still can't figure out....if a healthy person under the age of 50 contracts the virus, what is the prognosis? Some are saying symptoms will be like the common cold. Others are suggesting it's potentially deadly. I know the elderly are most at risk as well as those with pre-existing health conditions whereas kids are mostly low risk. But, what about young and middle aged adults that are otherwise healthy? What are the likely symptoms if/when we contract it?
It's not the same for everyone, but for most people, symptoms are fairly similar to the cold or flu. The duration might be longer.
Based on the chinese dataset, about 12% of people under 50 get "severe disease" (meaning pneumonia bad enough to require hospitalization / supplemental oxygen, compared to 25% of people over 80.
(Keep in mind "mild" disease in the Chinese datasets includes pneumonia that wasn't bad enough to cause you to need supplemental oxygen. I've had pneumonia like that once, and can still mess you up.)
But the death rate for people over 80 was ~100x the rate for people under 50.
So basically severe disease is twice as likely in the elderly but the result is far more deadly, for reasons TBD but may be just as simple as they don't have the reserves to handle being critically ill.
I'm glad you're posting positive things and I'm glad that companies like this are scrambling to do everything they can. When H1N1 spread rapidly (and initially caused more panic until it turned out to be pretty mild) they were able to get a vaccine up and running in about a year - and that was with everything going as fast as possible.
What will be most encouraging is if doctors, researchers, and companies start to identify treatments for those infected. There is a slightly more flexibility with treatments as they look for anything that helps. Right now this is so new that even treating the worst infected patients is a work in progress.
Sorry, I know I posted this earlier this week, but shutting down universities and large events is reasonable. The difference between COVID and flu is that COVID might be more easily transmitted. A Biogen conference in Boston had 175 in attendance, and 70+ contracted COVID.
Why is slowing down the spread important? Hospitals have much more limited capacity than you think. To give a sense of scale, a typical major US hospital may have ~100 ventilated patients at once (varies). So if even less than 0.1% of a population got very sick in the same month, there would literally not be enough ventilators (or just as important, resp therapist) to go around, and mortality could go through the roof.
That sums it up as succinctly as possible. If action isn't taken to slow the rate of transmission, then we will overwhelm the system and something like a 1% mortality rate becomes 8% when people can't get oxygen or on a ventilator when needed.
March 11th, 2020 at 11:45 PM ^
It spreads easier, it seems to spread a long time before symptoms show, and it has a much higher chance of causing severe complications requiring hospitalization (higher rate of pneumonia). A very bad flu that no one has antibodies for.
Here's some interesting info.
A credible study (and it's not a new study, but new information to me) in major medical journal that found 20% less respiratory infections of all types for people who take daily vitamin D (like in your multivitamin).
https://youtu.be/W5yVGmfivAk?t=534
Unknown if that would be the same for SARS-2, but, hey, a daily vitamin or daily multivitamin won't hurt you, so if you weren't already doing that, might be good to try during the zombie apocalypse.
Link to the paper: