2019-nCoV / Corona virus Pt 2

[TellyKNeasuss]

There are genetic variables to immunities. 23&Me data tells me I am immune to Norwalk Norovirus and Crutchfield-Jacob Prion disease. Virus susceptibility has to do with receptors for something else being used by the virus. Maybe my bad Insulin Receptor Substrate helps by making a bad recpetor elsewhere? And in a couple observed cohorts, not everybody gets Covid.

There is some preliminary data showing a possible correlation between blood type and probability of becoming seriously ill:

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/ar...-risk#Conclusion-might-be-purely-coincidental

In the sample population, type A's were the most over-represented among hospitalized victims while type O's were under-represented.

 

[Doghouse Reilly]

Here's one: updated post by Tomas Pueyo making the argument for acting strongly now.

That guy is ignorant about a lot. He's an engineer, not a medical expert. For example, he acts like there's a grave risk of the virus mutating into an even worse form when every expert I've heard discuss the issue says that that almost never, if ever, happens.

 

[casebro]

It's a safe bet that they were from the wealthier part of the population, but they wouldn't have to be that wealthy, either. Upper middle class is quite enough to afford a trip to Austria or Italy. We certainly do have enough ski resorts, but I suspect that those are a bit out of fashion with the younger generation. You want to go somewhere fashionable so you can get those selfies that not everybody have. If it was just an urge to go skiing then they could have done that almost everywhere in Norway.

The thing that really irks me about that group is that many of them were health care personnel from Rikshospitalet (main nationwide hospital). Why in the blue hills didn't anyone stop them? Somebody should have known better!

The Hygiene Theory? Too clean, too healthy. People who routinely get their hands dirty build immunity to all kinds of diseases.

 

[Ulf Nereng]

The Hygiene Theory? Too clean, too healthy. People who routinely get their hands dirty build immunity to all kinds of diseases.

No... I think it was just common thoughtlessness. Perhaps coupled with that sense of invulnerability young people have. A bit like those spring break youngsters on the beaches in Florida.

 

[Giordano]

That guy is ignorant about a lot. He's an engineer, not a medical expert. For example, he acts like there's a grave risk of the virus mutating into an even worse form when every expert I've heard discuss the issue says that that almost never, if ever, happens.

Actually he is by no means ignorant about anything. He obtains his data from reliable sources and his interpretations from medical experts. In reading it through I don’t see anything outrageous or even very questionable. It is written as an advocacy article and with a strong intended sense of urgency, so it is not impartial. But I can’t find much that is incorrect and his point of view is that of many experts.

There is no question that the virus mutates. That is a fact. It already has. The real question is if a mutation will make it more deadly or harder to control. Which no one knows for certain about this particular virus.

 

[Giordano]

The quickest start is to just look at other nations and copy them. South Korea, Germany, and other nations have been testing far larger proportions of their populations than the U.S. has - for months now. Like 10x more tests per capita.

For months.

How the hell did the U.S. get so far behind the curve? We are failing our citizens, it is shameful. If other nations can do it, then why don't we just copy them? Why didn't we do that months ago?

I absolutely agree with this entire post. We know exactly what to do and what not to do from the examples of other countries. We allowed weeks to pass without ramping up even the simple stuff, such as masks. Test kits might be a bit harder to manufacture but come on, these other countries were able to ramp up after they were caught flat footed, yet with all that advance warning the USA is still amazingly behind. The question is not even why we didn’t do it months ago... why aren’t we doing it now?

 

[Dr.Sid]

Hm. What if the age distribution is not result of the virus itself, but treatment ? When there is shortage of equipment, usually younger (well, less old) people will get priority. And that alone would lead to age distribution being shifted toward the oldest cases.

 

[Darat]

Hmmm....I don't know about everybody, but you could massively ramp up testing and you could take those millions of tests that Trump told us they have, and combine them with something really American like....ummm...how about a drive-thru?

Unrealistic? Yeah, probably. I bet such a thing has never been done before and is impossible.

Nah, you can only do that in make believe countries, such as Narnia or South Korea.

 

[Sherkeu]

The quickest start is to just look at other nations and copy them. South Korea, Germany, and other nations have been testing far larger proportions of their populations than the U.S. has - for months now. Like 10x more tests per capita.

For months.

How the hell did the U.S. get so far behind the curve? We are failing our citizens, it is shameful. If other nations can do it, then why don't we just copy them? Why didn't we do that months ago?

It's timing.

We lost our ability to copy them because we did not foresee the shortage of reagents needed. It is needed to extract the RNA and is usually seen as a common chemical. CDC developed a faulty kit using it, and then lost more time having to do it again. By then the reagents were very back ordered.

From what I have read, there was one main supplier, based in Spain/Netherlands (Qiagen)- patent had run out but they were still within 'trade secret' territory so hard to copy. The first countries and all the labs racing to develop a vaccine ordered mass amounts. US Gov't did not.

Just last week they approved Roche to do the test who have their own reagent but supply there is also low. Roche is a Swiss company.

Now other places are trying to test in different ways. US is just late to the game. Many labs and hospitals are each trying to develop their own. That's great, but they are all hoarding these reagents to do it!

Using less tests for same outcome:
One idea that seems to work but is not done is 'pooling samples'. Israeli scientists showed it was accurate to rule out entire groups of samples up to 64 at a time.
This could be useful right now for nursing homes or health teams. You could clear 'blocks' of people and retest the positives. Just means more swabs.

I have also read there is sometimes a lack of swabs or other components of the test. People in government didn't properly order with a fully spec'd out Bill of Materials (BOM) for a functional kit. They ordered the wrong parts or crucial pieces were missing.
(2/3 of the Grand Princess cruisers refused testing after delays, with CDC blessing, after it seemed it would go well past their 14-day 'no symptom' quarantine.)

 

[casebro]

Or maybe it's just cold on the ski slopes, so they don't like to get their hands wet. Less hand washing = more spread of virus. Plus rental ski poles?

 

[The Atheist]

Here's how we had the first large outbreak in Norway: Group of young people go to Austria for skiing and general good times. After-ski you go to the bar and there's a flute you can blow on when you want to pay the next round for everybody. Woohoo! Funs! Most of them blew on the flute, of course!

Well, the thought of the much-deadlier meningococcal disease doesn't bother them, so a little Covid won't slow them down.

Hm. What if the age distribution is not result of the virus itself, but treatment ? When there is shortage of equipment, usually younger (well, less old) people will get priority. And that alone would lead to age distribution being shifted toward the oldest cases.

There's definitely some of that going on, but there's no doubt it's a disease whose symptoms are more likely to be severe the older you are.
___________________________________

Meanwhile it looks like the billionaire US preppers have begun their escape to New Zealand, with a large number of private jets landing here in the past couple of days.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

How would you suggest we go about testing everyone, regardless of symptoms or possible exposure?

It's a bit confusing to parse this double negative Politifact report:

Donald Trump falsely says WHO coronavirus test 'was a bad test'

A persistent but inaccurate talking point is that the United States turned down coronavirus testing kits from the World Health Organization. We found that WHO never offered kits to the United States, and when a reporter asked President Donald Trump if that was true, he confirmed, and took it a step further.

"No. 1, nothing was offered," Trump said March 17. "No. 2, it was a bad test."

There is zero evidence that the WHO’s preferred test is unreliable

True the test wasn't offered by WHO to the US. False it was a bad test.

The US refused to buy the German tests, or any other tests from China or elsewhere:

Before Trump spoke, top officials explained that the United States wanted a test that came through American commercial vendors and had been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

The United States badly bungled coronavirus testing—but things may soon improve

The World Health Organization (WHO) has shipped testing kits to 57 countries. China had five commercial tests on the market 1 month ago and can now do up to 1.6 million tests a week; South Korea has tested 65,000 people so far. The U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in contrast, has done only 459 tests since the epidemic began. The rollout of a CDC-designed test kit to state and local labs has become a fiasco because it contained a faulty reagent. Labs around the country eager to test more suspected cases—and test them faster—have been unable to do so. No commercial or state labs have the approval to use their own tests.

So are we as a country incompetent? Or is this the result of another incompetrump ball dropped?

May improve? That was a month ago and things have barely improved. Not to mention this is yet another meaningless gesture of closing the barn door after the horses are out.

In what is already an infamous snafu, CDC initially refused a request to test a patient in Northern California who turned out to be the first probable COVID19 case without known links to an infected person.

The CDC or whomever produced the tests bungled them at the onset.

CDC finally started to send kits to state and local health labs on 5 February. But on 12 February, it revealed that several labs had difficulty validating the test because of a problem with one of the reagents.

I hope you are paying attention to how much death and economic destruction in the US really can be blamed directly on incompetrump.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Hmmm....I don't know about everybody, but you could massively ramp up testing and you could take those millions of tests that Trump told us they have, and combine them with something really American like....ummm...how about a drive-thru?

Unrealistic? Yeah, probably. I bet such a thing has never been done before and is impossible.

Except this is another lie.

 

[Ulf Nereng]

Nah, you can only do that in make believe countries, such as Narnia or South Korea.

The real reason is that the US health care system "isn't geared to do that". Meaning it isn't geared to optimize health outcomes for its citizens. Instead it's geared to optimize profits for Big Pharma, the insurance industry and the hospitals. Having too many of any type of medical supply just lowers the value of that supply, making it less profitable.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

There is some preliminary data showing a possible correlation between blood type and probability of becoming seriously ill:

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/ar...-risk#Conclusion-might-be-purely-coincidental

In the sample population, type A's were the most over-represented among hospitalized victims while type O's were under-represented.

Meaningless without more information on the denominators.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The Hygiene Theory? Too clean, too healthy. People who routinely get their hands dirty build immunity to all kinds of diseases.

Debunked, I hope you know.

 

[marting]

Actually he is by no means ignorant about anything. He obtains his data from reliable sources and his interpretations from medical experts. In reading it through I don’t see anything outrageous or even very questionable. It is written as an advocacy article and with a strong intended sense of urgency, so it is not impartial. But I can’t find much that is incorrect and his point of view is that of many experts.

There is no question that the virus mutates. That is a fact. It already has. The real question is if a mutation will make it more deadly or harder to control. Which no one knows for certain about this particular virus.

I also read his piece. I think it's one of the best I've seen. The guy has a good understanding of the statistics involved and the interplay of testing/reporting.

Further, his points about mutations are in respect to the possibility that a vaccine may not be sufficiently effective in the future and the virus will become endemic. He is not fear mongering. He also understands the tradeoff between attempted eradication and severe consequences of attempting that. He strongly supports efforts of getting more information (testing expansion) so the tradeoff decisions can be made more objectively. I find his analysis compelling.

 

[TellyKNeasuss]

There is some preliminary data showing a possible correlation between blood type and probability of becoming seriously ill:

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/ar...-risk#Conclusion-might-be-purely-coincidental

In the sample population, type A's were the most over-represented among hospitalized victims while type O's were under-represented.

I finally found their preliminary draft:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.11.20031096v1.full.pdf

 

[Sherkeu]

China and Russia have sent medical teams and supplies to Italy.

I think it's time the US calls in our close allies in S. Korea now that their numbers have dropped significantly. The U.S. military there should come home with teams of them and their tests. NOW.

de Blasio wants the US military medics in NYC, but maybe he should ask for the Koreans instead. No matter how good US doctors are, we just do not have S. Korea's unique experience dealing with this.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Or maybe it's just cold on the ski slopes, so they don't like to get their hands wet. Less hand washing = more spread of virus. Plus rental ski poles?

There is always the lodge where people go after skiing for food and drink. It's not like you go from your room/hotel/cabin to the slopes and back.