Cont: The One Covid-19 Science and Medicine Thread Part 3

[marting]

Continuation from: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=344976

Posted By: Darat

Another Ivermectin study. Small randomized clinical trial but with rather strong positive benefits.

https://icite.od.nih.gov/covid19/search/#record:recordId=rs-109670

Ivermectin as an adjunct treatment for hospitalized adult COVID-19 patients: A randomized multi-center clinical trial

Abstract
Background: It appears that ivermectin can potentially act against COVID-19 infection. Today, it is an urgent need to evaluate the efficacy and safety of ivermectin. The effect of ivermectin therapy on mild to severe COVID-19 patients was investigated.

Methods: A 45-days randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter, phase 2 clinical trial was designed at five hospitals. A total number of 180 mild to severe hospitalized patients with confirmed PCR and chest image tests were enrolled. The radiographic findings, hospitalization and low O2 saturation duration, and clinical outcomes such as mortality and variables of blood samples were analyzed using standard statistical analyses in SPSS (V20).

Results: Average age of the participants was 56 years (45-67) and 50% were women. The primary and secondary results showed significant changes between day zero and day five of admission (∆ 0/5) in terms of ΔALC5/0, ΔPLT5/0, ΔESR5/0, ΔCRP5/0, duration of low O2 saturation, and duration of hospitalization (CI = 95% ). Risk of mortality was also decreased significantly in the study groups.

Conclusion: Ivermectin as an adjunct reduced the rate of mortality, low O2 duration, and duration of hospitalization in adult COVID 19 patients. The improvement of other clinical parameters showed that the ivermectin, with a wide margin of safety, had a high therapeutic effect on COVID-19.

 

[The Atheist]

Another Ivermectin study. Small randomized clinical trial but with rather strong positive benefits.

That's more excellent news.

A little ironic the HCQ people were on the right track with an anti-parasitic drug, just the wrong one. And a much safer one!

 

[Orphia Nay]

Dr Mobeen Syed (whose video on Vitamin D I posted quite a while back) posted another video about Ivermectin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEO7Adv3tVI



This one's about how Ivermectin helps against SARS-COV-2 via its

De-worming mechanism and cellular effect (@ 7:40)
Antiviral effect (@ 13 min) (it occupies the importins so the virus can't enter the nuclei and the cell can release interferons)
Antiinflammatory mechanism (@ 18.22).

 

[Orphia Nay]

Dr Mobeen Syed (whose video on Vitamin D I posted quite a while back) posted another video about Ivermectin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEO7Adv3tVI



This one's about how Ivermectin helps against SARS-COV-2 via its

-De-worming mechanism and cellular effect (@ 7:40)

-Antiviral effect (@ 13 min) (it occupies the importins so the virus can't enter the nuclei and the cell can release interferons)

-Anti-inflammatory mechanism (@ 18.22).

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Addressing again how COVID 19 is spread.

From the Sweden thread:

Yes, they're describing aerosol transmission indoors, and "long distances or times" is a relative term. True airborne transmission where the bloody thing blows on the wind and can be caught hundreds of metres away downwind in the open air is thankfully not an issue with this one.

That is simply not true. Tuberculosis is airborne yet you won't catch it outside in the wind. You have to breathe in a concentrated amount of droplet nuclei (not to be confused with droplets in droplet spread) in order for enough of the TB bacillus to make it to the alveoli which has the conditions it requires to start an infection.

More than a few professionals who should know better are still unwilling to call COVID airborne. They bought into the droplet spread the same way some of them bought into no asymptomatic spread and they just can't let go.

They took my temperature today at the clinic I went to for an MRI. Even the bank had sense enough to ask some standard questions about one's potential exposure before they let me in. But clinics and the airport are still screening people for fever like this was SARS 1 and fever was a reliable means of screening people. Not to mention I take acetaminophen every day for chronic pain. It would mask a fever if I had one. No one who has taken my temperature has asked if I were on any antipyretics.

And now here we are again ignoring the science that has documented COVID 19 being airborne spread. Instead of going by the science, people are clinging to their initial information that it was droplet spread.

Use caution interpreting all those guidelines that ignore airborne spread or papers that simply say 'some airborne but only sometimes'. Pathogens can be airborne and droplet spread. They need not be one or the other.

Tuberculosis for anyone curious is never droplet spread. Put it on your hands and into your mouth and it won't grow.

Now you can get TB when it is aerosolized by the bone saw in surgery or in an autopsy. And you can get it from a dirty needle in which case it develops an abscess. But you probably won't get miliary TB (disseminated) by using a dirty needle. The number of organisms injected are too few to really get a start.

My point is, pathogens do not always fall neatly into the categories we put them in. COVID 19 is droplet spread and airborne. There is no reason to fuss over it. I can't imagine putting up an isolation sign on a patient's room that said: DROPLET PRECAUTIONS and sometimes AIRBORNE PRECAUTIONS. See the nurses for an explanation.

The same with teaching or recommending isolation policy, it's not useful if I had to say droplet spread then go into a paragraph long caveat.

It is droplet spread and yes, it is also airborne. And if our CDC hadn't been trashed by having the leadership (including Fauci) completely politicized, it wouldn't even be an issue. It would have been designated airborne and droplet spread last March which is when I read the first reports that it was clearly airborne.

 

[Rolfe]

Sure.

 

[portlandatheist]

I apologize if this has already been posted. the MMR vaccine is thought to provide cross-immunity to Covid
Original Paper
Dr. John Campell explains:

 

[The Atheist]

I apologize if this has already been posted. the MMR vaccine is thought to provide cross-immunity to Covid .

Yep, that's about the fourth time in this thread.

It certainly looks likely, but can't be proven.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Again a spillover from the Sweden thread:

It is absolutely true. I stated that this coronavirus does not spread long distances outdoors on the wind. It doesn't. Unless you know something nobody else does.

You said it wasn't airborne because it wasn't spread outdoors in the wind.

I said you don't need outdoor long distance spread to define a pathogen as airborne—thus the example of TB which is airborne.

If you agree COVID 19 can be spread via aerosols and quit claiming it is not airborne then we have no disagreement.

You can say, 'less often airborne' or 'airborne in enclosed spaces with poor ventilation'. But it is not true to claim it isn't really airborne.

 

[The Atheist]

More on the long-term damage in long Covid sufferers.

May well be permanent. Small study, but one to watch.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55017301

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

You can't address the routes of transmission without addressing the inherent bias one finds when searching for scientific studies.

CIDRAP: Yet more data support COVID-19 aerosol transmission

CIDRAP, Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, is a respected source and is not under the authority of any political body.

Two studies published late last week in Clinical Infectious Diseases highlight the role of airborne spread of COVID-19 and the importance of efficient ventilation systems. One study found that patients can exhale millions of viral RNA particles per hour in the early stages of disease, and the second tied an outbreak affecting 81% of residents and 50% of healthcare workers at a Dutch nursing home to inadequate ventilation.

One study:

The findings support previous studies that concluded that COVID-19 is mostly likely spread by aerosols rather than large respiratory droplets or contaminated surfaces, the researchers said. Such studies have documented airborne spread in semi-enclosed environments such as a choir practice in Washington state and a restaurant in Guangzhou, China.

"Though we did not study infectivity or transmission probability and other virus releasing activities such as talking and singing, our study demonstrates that exhaled breath emission plays an important role in SARS-CoV-2 emission into the air, which could have contributed greatly to the observed airborne cluster infections and the ongoing pandemic," the authors wrote.

Study 2:

Suspecting that the ventilation system of the affected ward could have contributed to the outbreak, investigators found that an energy-efficient system had been installed in which indoor air was refreshed only when indoor carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations detected elevated levels. If CO2 levels didn't exceed a certain threshold, unfiltered indoor air was simply recirculated throughout the ward. In contrast, the six unaffected wards were refreshed regularly with outside air....

"We advise that prevention of COVID-19 transmission should take into account the possibility of aerosol transmission in healthcare facilities and other buildings where ventilation systems recirculate unfiltered inside air," the authors of the Aug 28 study wrote.

The issue wasn't spread > 6 feet within a room. Rather the issue was the aerosols being spread through the ventilation system.

 

[Puppycow]

Can someone please explain this to me?

https://www.news.com.au/world/coron...e/news-story/7b94e83a5491b6a76964d9bddfcb495d

Since the 1960s, cell lines from aborted foetuses have been used to manufacture vaccines, including current vaccines against rubella, chickenpox, hepatitis A, and shingles to treat haemophilia, rheumatoid arthritis, and cystic fibrosis.

At least five of the candidate COVID-19 vaccines being trialled on humans use around the world use one of two human foetal cell lines: HEK-293, a kidney cell line widely used in research that comes from a foetus aborted in about 1972; and another cell line known as PER. C6.

Apparently this makes some of the potential vaccine candidates objectionable to some religious people. But I'm just trying to understand the science part. What role do these cell lines play in the manufacture of the vaccine and are they actually contained in the vaccine itself?

 

[Capsid]

Can someone please explain this to me?

https://www.news.com.au/world/coron...e/news-story/7b94e83a5491b6a76964d9bddfcb495d



Apparently this makes some of the potential vaccine candidates objectionable to some religious people. But I'm just trying to understand the science part. What role do these cell lines play in the manufacture of the vaccine and are they actually contained in the vaccine itself?

They are producer cell lines. They make the recombinant proteins or the virus vectors. Both are purified from the cell culture supernatant. So no they are not in the vaccine as a whole cell.

 

[Puppycow]

They are producer cell lines. They make the recombinant proteins or the virus vectors. Both are purified from the cell culture supernatant. So no they are not in the vaccine as a whole cell.

Thanks.

Is there a way, even if there's no logical reason for it, to use cells taken from someone or something other than an aborted fetus to make these vaccines, or is there something special about aborted fetus cells that no other kinds of cells can do?

 

[Capsid]

Thanks.

Is there a way, even if there's no logical reason for it, to use cells taken from someone or something other than an aborted fetus to make these vaccines, or is there something special about aborted fetus cells that no other kinds of cells can do?

There are plenty of other cells. But these are commonly used and have a record of use (and safety) in vaccine production. The main issue is whether the cell lines carry viruses and a lot of work has been done to show that these cells don't have this issue.

 

[The Atheist]

Thanks.

Is there a way, even if there's no logical reason for it, to use cells taken from someone or something other than an aborted fetus to make these vaccines, or is there something special about aborted fetus cells that no other kinds of cells can do?

My mind boggles that that's an issue.

It's like homeopathy for microbiology - 150 bajillion generations ago, the ancestors of these cells were taken from a foetus. Shall we call them 300C cells?

 

[Puppycow]

The funny thing is, it seems they would have no objection if the fetus came from a miscarriage rather than an abortion. It's not the foetus part but the "electively aborted" part that they object to.

“The Commonwealth has chosen to throw its lot in with one that makes use of a cell-line (HEK293) cultured from an electively aborted human foetus,’’ the Archbishop’s letter states.

If they could take foetal stem cells from a naturally aborted (miscarried) foetus and use those for the same purpose, would their objections go away?

It's not an issue for me, but the god-botherers want to make it an issue.

As an aside, I'm leaning toward wanting one of the mRNA vaccines myself for completely different reasons: they just seem to work better. 95% efficacy vs. 70%. But I'll take whatever becomes available to me.

 

[Puppycow]

Coronavirus latest: Antibodies persist for six months, Japan study says

That means at least 6 months. But probably longer.

9:18 a.m. A research team from Japan's Yokohama City University announced Wednesday that most people infected with the novel coronavirus have sufficient antibodies to prevent reinfection, even after six months. The study of 376 people found neutralizing antibodies in 97% of those with mild or asymptomatic infections, and in all of those with moderate or severe infections.

 

[Segnosaur]

Not sure if this has been covered before...

From: Forbes
Testing has found Covid-19 infections in the U.S. in December 2019, according to a study, providing further evidence indicating the coronavirus was spreading globally weeks before the first cases were reported in China. The study published Monday identified 106 infections from 7,389 blood samples collected from donors in nine U.S. states between Dec. 13 and Jan. 17.

So its possible that people were infected in the U.S. only weeks after the first case was detected in China.

 

[Capsid]

Not sure if this has been covered before...

From: Forbes
Testing has found Covid-19 infections in the U.S. in December 2019, according to a study, providing further evidence indicating the coronavirus was spreading globally weeks before the first cases were reported in China. The study published Monday identified 106 infections from 7,389 blood samples collected from donors in nine U.S. states between Dec. 13 and Jan. 17.

So its possible that people were infected in the U.S. only weeks after the first case was detected in China.

Why didn't they test samples before the Dec 13th window? The seropositivity rate may just be a low cross-reactivity of the assays as a result of "sticky" samples.