COVID-19

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Dream of Freedom
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by Dream of Freedom »

Well, in the past the conspiracy theorists would blame witches, poisoners, the devil, or the wrath of gods. Now they blame any number of organizations that could have released the disease. That doesn't mean it couldn't of happened, but the more things change the more they stay the same.

Dream of Freedom
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by Dream of Freedom »

;) OTOH conspiracies aren't just about the origen of the virus. China has a tight control over it's citizens speech. The number of infected could be under reported and those 4 hospitals could be more akin to lazarettos. I guess some of them are more plausible than others.

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Ego
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by Ego »

AnalyticalEngine wrote:
Sat Feb 08, 2020 10:08 am
I wouldn't put any stock in herbs saving you.
Agreed. Nor would I. But a lot of people will be looking for things to buy online that will ease their anxiety. I wish I had a truckload of this right now. The media has begun to demonize my entrepreneurial spirit. Fortunately the case of masks I bought are expired (why do surgical masks expire?) so I don't feel too bad. I did a lot of searching today and didn't see any oils or pills made from herbs that claim antiviral activity.

Dream of Freedom
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by Dream of Freedom »

Ego wrote:
Sat Feb 08, 2020 7:23 pm
I did a lot of searching today and didn't see any oils or pills made from herbs that claim antiviral activity.
Just for fun I googled it.
There are no specific treatments for CoV infection and preventive vaccines are still being explored. Thus, the situation reflects the need to develop effective antivirals for prophylaxis and treatment of CoV infection. We have previously reported that saikosaponins (A, B2, C, and D), which are naturally occurring triterpene glycosides isolated from medicinal plants such as Bupleurum spp. (柴胡 Chái Hú), Heteromorpha spp., and Scrophularia scorodonia (玄參 Xuán Shēn), exert antiviral activity against HCoV-22E9.[14] Upon co-challenge with the virus, these natural compounds effectively prevent the early stage of HCoV-22E9 infection, including viral attachment and penetration. Extracts from Lycoris radiata (石蒜 Shí Suàn), Artemisia annua (黃花蒿 Huáng Huā Hāo), Pyrrosia lingua (石葦 Shí Wěi), and Lindera aggregata (烏藥 Wū Yào) have also been documented to display anti–SARS-CoV effect from a screening analysis using hundreds of Chinese medicinal herbs.[15] Natural inhibitors against the SARS-CoV enzymes, such as the nsP13 helicase and 3CL protease, have been identified as well and include myricetin, scutellarein, and phenolic compounds from Isatis indigotica (板藍根 Bǎn Lán Gēn) and Torreya nucifera (榧 Fěi).[16,17,18] Other anti-CoV natural medicines include the water extract from Houttuynia cordata (魚腥草 Yú Xīng Cǎo), which has been observed to exhibit several antiviral mechanisms against SARS-CoV, such as inhibiting the viral 3CL protease and blocking the viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase activity.[19
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4032839/

Of course that is about sars coronavirus not the current version.

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Ego
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by Ego »

@DoF, Ah, I meant to say I searched with my regular suppliers. I spent the morning digging through boxes of Costco, CVS, Whole Foods and Walmart shelf pulls. There is one guy who I see on Sundays who fills a box with what he calls "new age crap", scratch and dents items from Amazon and Whole Foods. I have high hopes that some of your Traditional Chinese Medicine items will be in there.

thrifty++
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by thrifty++ »

After seeing the death toll has now surpassed SARS and the number of infections are well in excess I caved in and bought a n95 mask. On visiting a couple of pharmacies I discovered they were sold out, so obviously a number of people are concerned about it. I had to go online to purchase some. I notice that NZ's equivalent of e-bay is filled with opportunistic shit bags trying to resell masks they bought probably quite recently. People who have shit trader history or no trader history at all. So I didn't buy from any of them. There was only one reputable trader to buy from, which is unusual. So I bought from them

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Ego
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by Ego »

Demand at Wuhan hospitals for oxygen is 10X capacity.

Oxygen concentrators can be had on craigslist right now for 2-5% of the retail price.

thrifty++
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by thrifty++ »

@ego - why would you want one of those?

classical_Liberal
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by classical_Liberal »

Providing supplemental O2 for certain types of at risk people, who'd probably be hard hit with a respiratory infection, can actually decrease or completely eliminate their drive to breath due to chronic elevated Co2 levels in their blood. So, just be careful how you use medical equipment when choosing to "prep".

https://www.ausmed.com/cpd/articles/hypoxic-drive

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Seppia
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by Seppia »

I certainly do not trust official Chinese numbers, but I certainly trust “alternative sources” even less.
I’m trying to tune out all the noise and focus on what I genuinely believe to be accurate depictions of reality.
For example, this is encouraging

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/ ... links-more

“During Friday's press conference National Development Minister Lawrence Wong pointed out that the mortality rate of the disease is much lower outside of Hubei.
While it is 2 per cent in Hubei, the epicentre of the disease, it is 0.2 per cent elsewhere, he noted.”

Also, in general terms, news from places I trust seem not to be so dramatic as well

ertyu
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by ertyu »

The progression of the disease seems to be slow, that's what's making me think we'll see the mortality rate rise. People simply haven't been infected for long enough. It took between 1 and 3 months (Dec-Feb) for the doctor to die. I say give it time.

tonyedgecombe
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by tonyedgecombe »

Seppia wrote:
Sun Feb 09, 2020 3:03 am

“During Friday's press conference National Development Minister Lawrence Wong pointed out that the mortality rate of the disease is much lower outside of Hubei.
While it is 2 per cent in Hubei, the epicentre of the disease, it is 0.2 per cent elsewhere, he noted.”
I wonder if that's because the health care systems in Hubei have become overwhelmed.

niemand
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by niemand »

Singapore’s Prime Minister addressing the nation re. the virus: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oNw1pyksKHo

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

It's been about two weeks, and so far we haven't seen an explosion of new cases outside of China. I'm starting to become hesitately hopeful that they're actually able to isolate the cases and reduce the spread. (Or its just spreading undetected...) If another place starts to have sustaining H2H spread, I'm guessing it will be HK, Singapore, or Japan.

WHO's biggest worry is it gets out and gets into a country with limited healthcare infrastructure. If that happens, it's basically guaranteed to spread everywhere else. :shock:

ertyu
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by ertyu »

they just announced it spreads by arosol (you only need to breathe the same air as an infected person). keep hoping.

"a country with limited health care infrastructure" - like, say, India? Or all those countries that are not reporting any cases ("testing limitations") e.g in south america, africa, eastern europe.

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Sclass
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by Sclass »

AnalyticalEngine wrote:
Sun Feb 09, 2020 8:34 am
It's been about two weeks, and so far we haven't seen an explosion of new cases outside of China. I'm starting to become hesitately hopeful that they're actually able to isolate the cases and reduce the spread. (Or its just spreading undetected...) If another place starts to have sustaining H2H spread, I'm guessing it will be HK, Singapore, or Japan.

WHO's biggest worry is it gets out and gets into a country with limited healthcare infrastructure. If that happens, it's basically guaranteed to spread everywhere else. :shock:
Right this is good info. It is reassuring to see that the cases in Southern California haven’t blown up into a h2h spread. Given the spread seen in China and the amount of traffic we get back and forth it is shocking how well it has been controlled. I’m not sure exactly what environmental differences helped things along there versus here. At the beginning it always starts with a single case. As far as “modern healthcare” goes the difference seems to be a belief in the germ theory of disease and detection.

I have another theory. It seems it’s wrong to come up with our own ideas and not quote from vetted news but here goes. Perhaps this thing isn’t very deadly while at the same time being very contagious. The current Chinese number of infections has been mathematically proven to be underestimated. Maybe it means there are millions infected now and a <1% fatality rate? I mean they can hide the infections by scaring people to stay home but it gets hard to hide the body bags...and the smell of death coming out of high rise apartments. Just a crazy thought. A hopeful thought.

We will learn more with every passing day.

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

ertyu wrote:
Sun Feb 09, 2020 9:01 am
they just announced it spreads by arosol (you only need to breathe the same air as an infected person). keep hoping.
This is a simplification of what aerosol spread means, and the distinction is important. What it means is when you cough or sneeze, it creates a bunch of tiny aerosol droplets. These are particles of the virus mixed with the water in the air/your breath. When you inhale those aerosolized droplets, you can contract the disease.

This form of spread is in contrast with large droplet transmission (someone basically needs to cough in your face) and true airborne transmission. The range for aerosol spread (what we see in ncov, other coronaviruses, and the flu) is about 6 to 8 feet from an infected person. After that, gravity pulls the aerosol droplets to the ground.

True airborne transmission, like TB or measles, is where the pathogen can float in the air like dust particles. It notably does not need to be inside a tiny water droplet, so these particles can remain in the air much longer and travel much further. Measles can infect someone up to 100 feet away who just breathed the same air! :shock:

We also basically already knew this spread via aerosol particles because that's how other coronaviruses spread. What is important here, however, is it does not spread like TB/measles. Still concerning, but it's important to remember exactly how this virus spreads.

(This is also why N95 masks are effective for ncov but not TB/measles. All you have to do is filter the droplets and not the impossibly tiny virus particles)
Sclass wrote:I have another theory. It seems it’s wrong to come up with our own ideas and not quote from vetted news but here goes. Perhaps this thing isn’t very deadly while at the same time being very contagious. The current Chinese number of infections has been mathematically proven to be underestimated. Maybe it means there are millions infected now and a <1% fatality rate? I mean they can hide the infections by scaring people to stay home but it gets hard to hide the body bags...and the smell of death coming out of high rise apartments. Just a crazy thought. A hopeful thought.
Paradoxically this would actually be bad news because it means the virus is basically impossible to contain. The reason we were able to stop SARS is by identifying every single case and stopping the spread. If ncov causes mild illness and has ~1% fatality rate, it means that it will spread everywhere before we have any chance of stopping it. It could possibly even involve more fatalities because it infects more people. You actually saw this exact thing with H1N1 flu back in 2009. It wasn't very deadly, but being novel pandemic flu, it infected 10%-20% of the global population and killed 150,000-500,000 people. :shock:

Now luckily, the CDC is screening for communities that suddenly experience a larger than normal rate of pneumonia to detect cases that slipped by. If they can contain these communities when that happens, it might stop/slow the spread.

Even if we can't completely stop ncov, at least slowing it down will save lives and reduce suffering because it gives supply chains/hospitals time to handle cases properly. It also allows researchers time to develop therapeutics properly.

Obviously, things could still go terribly wrong. It is too early to truly tell if this is working. But the reason I am becoming very slightly optimistic is when we compare the cruise ship situation to what we've seen of ncov in the US. That damn cruise ship managed to get 70 people and counting ill. :? The doubling time for this virus is about 5 days, so if we imagine we've had 20 days since first contact on US soil, that's four doubling times. Let's imagine we start with 10 undetected cases. By now, that should mean we have 10 + 20 + 40 + 80 + 160 = 310 cases on the US. That's a high enough number that we would have noticed. They are screening patients who are critically ill with pneumonia now (at least that's what WHO/CDC recommends) in addition to people with contact with others from Wuhan.

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Ego
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by Ego »

97% of all antibiotics used in the US come from China. Much of the raw material stock used in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals comes from China. Most generic drugs are made in India with Chinese raw materials. Those who need regular medications might consider stocking up. The second article has a partial list of drugs that might be in short supply.

https://www.cfr.org/blog/us-dependence- ... ucts-china
https://www.bioworld.com/articles/43292 ... g-supplies

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

Ego has a good point. I was also reading that this is a problem on the plague quarantined cruise ship too. Many of the passengers are dependent on regular medications, and getting refills to 2k+ people has been a logistical nightmare that's resulted in some people not having enough. Really underscores the risk you take in developing chronic conditions from poor lifestyle habits. :shock: Obviously not all conditions for which medication is required are avoidable, but it's certainly inspired me to take my lifestyle habits a bit more seriously. :lol:

2Birds1Stone
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Re: Wuhan Coronavirus

Post by 2Birds1Stone »

Oy vey......I typically try to bury my head in the sand when it comes to these highly hyped up global issues, but as someone who spent almost 2 years planning a round the world trip (set to begin in 4 weeks), it's got me thinking twice about visiting many of the places on our list. Sucks, but I thank you all for the resources and links being shared.

Hypothetically, if you were about to get on a plane to western Europe in early March, from the USA. Would you still go based on the current information available? I'm leaning hard toward "yes" myself, but completely scrapping the idea of the SE Asia portion of our trip, which was slated for end of Sept - March......unless things drastically improve.

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