COVID-19

[thrifty++]

The new deaths in Iceland really deflated my bubble.

71 new cases in NZ bringing total to 868 cases.

still only 1 death.

Now only 1 person in intensive care, so the other one must have recovered.

2000 lab tests a day have been done. Almost 30,000 tests conducted so far.

Capacity is now 5400 tests a day.

[Bankai]

The problem with quarantining the most at risk is 1) How do you decide who is quarantined and who isn't? Do people on the margin get to sue? & 2) What do you do with people who should quarantine but don't want to and people who want to quarantine but aren't categorized as high risk?

It's fairly straightforward really. In the UK, 1.5m 'at high risk' people were identified by their GPs/hospitals and lettered with a strong suggestion not to leave home for 3 months. They get food parcels for free from the government and are visited by volunteers to keep them sane.

As for borderline cases, it could be a matter of identifying the second group of 'at medium risk' individuals and maybe giving them a choice whether they want to self-isolate or not.

[slsdly]

A potentially important factor to also consider is how many people get permanent lung damage from COVID, which apparently is one of the possibilities. I mean, sure, you aren't dead, but if you will have trouble breathing for the rest of your life, that is probably an outcome one should take into account. It would certainly impact my life. I have no idea what the numbers are on this.

[George the original one]

Half of the households contain a single person. I assume the vast majority of couples <40 live either alone or with their kids only. There are of course families where one partner is older, or someone is at higher risk or living with grandparents, but these should be a minority - haven't looked up stats but Imagine <20% and possibly <10% which would be covered by the 10% highest risk to exclude.

USA: 63% are single or two-person households and about half of those are over age 55. Of 3+ person households, 67% have someone age 35-54 and 96% have someone under age 18. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2 ... 160-years/

[CS]

Some possible really good news.
https://www.med.ubc.ca/news/ubc-led-stu ... n-tissues/

ACE2 — a protein on the surface of the cell membrane — is now at centre-stage in this outbreak as the key receptor for the spike of glycoprotein found in SARS-CoV-2. In earlier work, Penninger and colleagues at the University of Toronto and the Institute of Molecular Biology in Vienna first identified ACE2, and found that in living organisms, ACE2 is the key receptor for SARS, the viral respiratory illness recognized as a global threat in 2003. His laboratory also went on to link the protein to both cardiovascular disease and lung failure.

While the COVID-19 outbreak continues to spread around the globe, the absence of a clinically proven antiviral therapy or a treatment specifically targeting the critical SARS-CoV-2 receptor ACE2 on a molecular level has meant an empty arsenal for health care providers struggling to treat severe cases of COVID-19.

“Our new study provides direct evidence that a drug — called APN01 (human recombinant soluble angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 – hrsACE2) — soon to be tested in clinical trials by the European biotech company Apeiron Biologics, is useful as an antiviral therapy for COVID-19,” says Dr. Art Slutsky, a scientist at the Keenan Research Centre for Biomedical Science of St. Michael’s Hospital and professor at the University of Toronto who is a collaborator on the study.

In cell cultures analyzed in the current study, hrsACE2 inhibited the coronavirus load by a factor of 1,000-5,000. In engineered replicas of human blood vessel and kidneys — organoids grown from human stem cells — the researchers demonstrated that the virus can directly infect and duplicate itself in these tissues. This provides important information on the development of the disease and the fact that severe cases of COVID-19 present with multi-organ failure and evidence of cardiovascular damage. Clinical grade hrsACE2 also reduced the SARS-CoV-2 infection in these engineered human tissues.

[CS]

That mortality chart also is not broke down by sex.

If the risk for men in an age group is twice that for women, do you want the women to work and not the men? Socially, there might be a few problems with that, beyond splitting up families.

[Bankai]

Every year, about 600,000 people in the UK die. And the frail and elderly are most at risk, just as they are if they have coronavirus.

Nearly 10% of people aged over 80 will die in the next year, Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter, at the University of Cambridge, points out, and the risk of them dying if infected with coronavirus is almost exactly the same.

That does not mean there will be no extra deaths - but, Sir David says, there will be "a substantial overlap".

"Many people who die of Covid [the disease caused by coronavirus] would have died anyway within a short period," he says.

Knowing exactly how many is impossible to tell at this stage.

Prof Neil Ferguson, the lead modeller at Imperial College London, has suggested it could be up to two-thirds.

Newest science puts estimated COVID-19 mortality at 0.66%. Considering 50% of the population gets the virus, 0.33% will die. Now, if 66% of them would've died anyway this year, this takes the number down to 0.11%. Not that far away from flu.

The lockdown, itself, however could cost lives.

Prof Robert Dinwall, from Nottingham Trent University, says "the collateral damage to society and the economy" could include:

mental health problems and suicides linked to self-isolation
heart problems from lack of activity
the impact on health from increased unemployment and reduced living standards

Others have also pointed to the health cost from steps such as delaying routine operations and cancer screening.

Meanwhile, University of Bristol researchers say the benefit of a long-term lockdown in reducing premature deaths could be outweighed by the lost life expectancy from a prolonged economic dip.

And the tipping point, they say, is a 6.4% decline in the size of the economy - on a par with what happened following the 2008 financial crash.

It would see a loss of three months of life on average across the population because of factors from declining living standards to poorer health care.

Looks like we might be back to BAU after 12 weeks of lockdown (already a stretch) and flattening the curve with maybe some light form of social distancing and wfh where possible if this feeds into the government strategy and I don't see why not since it's along the lines of the original plan of doing 'not much'.

[7Wannabe5]

Death statistics out of Michigan thus far:

417 dead

Median age-73
Age Range-20-107

Male-62%
Female-38%

% of deaths by age
20-29-1%
30-39-2%
40-49-7%
50-59-12%
60-69-20%
70-79-25%
80+-34%

[bostonimproper]

After telling the state to find their own vendors and actively outbidding the state for medical supplies, the federal government has seized 3 million masks at the Port of New York en route to Massachusetts. No mention of which agency or why. In order to get masks in, Gov. Baker borrowed the Patriots' private plane to bring supplies directly to the state as a "humanitarian mission." (via WCVB 5)

[Bankai]

If history has proven anything, there is single mother who has just named her baby daughter "Corona" assuring that the supply chain remains in tact.

Welcome to the world, Corona and Covid

- these are the names of newborn twins in India's Raipur city.

The boy and girl were born amid a three-week lockdown in India. Their parents say they gave them the names as a reminder of obstacles overcome during trying times that have disrupted life across the world.

In an interview with local media, the mother said it was a "difficult" delivery. "We faced many challenges and me and my husband wanted to make the day memorable," she said, adding that she went into labour on 26 March.

"The virus is dangerous but its outbreak has made people focus on hygiene and inculcate other good habits. So we thought about these names,” she explained.

Hospital staff started calling the twins as Corona and Covid soon after they were born - which helped the parents make their decision.

[Jason]

I don't know about Corona, but Covid is going full Joker in 2039.

[chenda]

Awwww...twins are so cute...

[Ego]

A step in the right direction...

The UK plans to issue coronavirus 'immunity passports' so people can leave the lockdown early
https://www.businessinsider.com/uk-plan ... own-2020-4

The UK plans to roll out "immunity passports" to people who have already contracted COVID-19 to allow them to return to "normal life," the Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Thursday.

"We are looking at an immunity certificate," Hancock said at a Downing Street press conference.

"People who have had the disease have got the antibodies and then have immunity can show that and therefore get back as much as possible to normal life."

He added: "That is something we will be doing and will look at, but it is too early in the science … to be able to put clarity around that."

The UK has already ordered millions of antibody tests. However, the tests have so far proven ineffective, and the government has yet to approve them for use.

and

A positive test could allow the person to leave the lockdown while many positive tests could allow governments to ease restrictions in areas with "herd immunity."

I've read elsewhere that antibody blood tests are not as cut and dry as a pregnancy test, and usually require multiple samples tested to determine results. In other words, not very simple.

[jacob]

Next question: How will states evacuate from a hurricane during shelter-in-place due to coronavirus?

Based on higher than normal ocean surface temperatures, four major hurricanes are predicted for the 2020 season.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/02/weather/ ... index.html

[Ego]

Invert.

Would it make sense for healthy people to purposely expose themselves to it now, assuming they have the reserves to fight it and build immunity for a future where they might otherwise be less able to fight off an initial infection? I also wonder how strong the non-specific effects of infection will be.

Time to start licking handrails and door knobs?

Some are now suggesting this as the only viable solution. Well, not exactly.... and I am not suggesting anyone should lick handrails. Or elevator buttons. Or door handles.

Variolation. Apparently it saved George Washington's troops from smallpox at Valley Forge, so it is patriotic. Can you hear the fife & drum? It is kind of like hormesis or innoculation....

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2020/03/v ... 3-30x.html

[jacob]

It would be difficult and generally unethical to run the experiment though. Variolation doesn't work for every infectious disease. It obviously doesn't work for Ebola where exposure to even a few (literally) virus particles is enough to cause a deadly infection. Even smallpox variolation (which has been known since practically forever) was not exactly safe and the vaccination did kill people. (I forget the percentage.) Thus the human pox was eventually replaced with cow pox which is sufficiently similar/different to trigger the immune response but not the disease.

[7Wannabe5]

It seems to me it would make much more sense to simply greatly expand current vaccine trials.

[EMJ]

It seems to me it would make much more sense to simply greatly expand current vaccine trials.

Assuming no side effects of vaccinations?

[Jason]

I just watched a documentary on the 1918 influenza. They never discovered a vaccine. It came, snuffed/debilitated its victims, and disappeared when it ran out of prey. Is that not happening now? A healthy person would have to consider they may just be immune before becoming a guinea pig in a trial.

Most solutions outside of vaccination or the virus naturally running its course i.e. segregation of young vs. old is highly dystopian. Exerting such control is a reaction to having no control. Yes, it's a methodology but what makes one sure it's a solution? The impulse to do something is often just that, an impulse. It's amazing to me how quickly people embrace Orwellian tactics when faced with uncertainty. I turn 55 and all of sudden I got to go sit in the woods with the old people and let Jared Kushner and his college buddies take over the world? There's a lot of holes in that argument.

[George the original one]

Covidtrends shows Australia and Spain have also fallen off the COVID trajectory. Austria is even taking the sharp turn of decreasing new cases that China & South Korea exhibited.

https://aatishb.com/covidtrends/?locati ... ocation=US