"Coronavirus and the US" or "We are all going to die!!!!"

[Worldtraveller]

I asked a virologist on another forum some of these questions. Here are his answers:
How good will a vaccine be compared to the flu vaccine?

There's no way to know right now, but I'm optimistic.
It's not a slam dunk - there are viruses people have been working intensively for decades to produce a (safe and) effective vaccine against and still have not succeeded. HIV and RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) come to mind. But there are unusual biological details at play there.
There are "common cold" coronaviruses out there, and there are mixed reports on the nature of immunity against them. For at least one of them, it seems that having antibodies after getting infected does not give you good protection against getting re-infected. So that's a concern. In animal studies, though, it looks like antibodies against the SARS(1) virus are protective.

wrt flu vaccine being hit or miss:
That's because there isn't just one flu virus - there's a whole zoo of them, and they're constantly changing. Every year the epidemiologists monitor what's going around, and try to formulate a combination vaccine that covers the most likely strains to be an upcoming threat. But it's an inexact science. That does not appear to be the case with SARS-CoV-2. It's a single serotype, and hasn't changed all that much in its explosive spread. Partly - mainly - this is down to a fundamental difference between influenza and coronavirus. The influenza genome consists of 8 segments - like "mini chromosomes". They are continuously re-assorting themselves out there in the wild when two different strains manage to infect the same animal, and you can wind up with a virus that inherited ability to do well in humans from one "parent", and a completely novel surface protein from an animal-oriented "parent". In which case, antibodies against all the influenza viruses that humanity is collectively immune to are not protective. Coronavirus has a single genome; it can't do that.

Comparison between this virus (Covid 19 aka SARS-COV-19) and SARS-1:

wrt SARS(1) vaccine:
Multiple researchers developed them, and at least some looked good in animal studies, but they were never deployed because SARS(1) did, in fact, "burn itself out" - with the help of extremely aggressive testing, contact tracing and patient isolation. I think, in retrospect, that might have been a lot easier in that case because there was not a lot of asymptomatic transmission. At least some of the candidate vaccines for COVID19 are just these SARS vaccines, taken off the shelf and tweaked to produce the CoV2 surface protein rather than the SARS version of it. The two are very similar.

I hope this helps. If anyone has other specific questions, I'd be happy to pass them on and relay the answers here.

 

[lpetrich]

WHO says coronavirus originated in bats, denies it was 'manipulated or constructed' in a lab | Fox News

“All available evidence suggests the virus has an animal origin and is not manipulated or constructed virus in a lab or somewhere else,” WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said in comments obtained by Fox News.

Few have actually publicly claimed the virus was bioengineered, however. Rather, sources have told Fox News that there is increasing confidence the naturally occurring virus was being studied in a Wuhan lab and escaped – as opposed to claims it originated instead in a nearby wet market. WHO’s statement does not appear to settle the question of whether that scenario is plausible, amid ongoing investigations into the origin.

Detection of novel coronaviruses in bats in Myanmar

The recent emergence of bat-borne zoonotic viruses warrants vigilant surveillance in their natural hosts. Of particular concern is the family of coronaviruses, which includes the causative agents of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), and most recently, Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), an epidemic of acute respiratory illness originating from Wuhan, China in December 2019. Viral detection, discovery, and surveillance activities were undertaken in Myanmar to identify viruses in animals at high risk contact interfaces with people. Free-ranging bats were captured, and rectal and oral swabs and guano samples collected for coronaviral screening using broadly reactive consensus conventional polymerase chain reaction. Sequences from positives were compared to known coronaviruses. Three novel alphacoronaviruses, three novel betacoronaviruses, and one known alphacoronavirus previously identified in other southeast Asian countries were detected for the first time in bats in Myanmar. Ongoing land use change remains a prominent driver of zoonotic disease emergence in Myanmar, bringing humans into ever closer contact with wildlife, and justifying continued surveillance and vigilance at broad scales.

These are one that they have identified, and there are likely more to be found.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Another study from China.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-04-smokers-vapers-special-danger-coronavirus.html

An early study from China looked at 78 hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Researchers found those with a history of smoking had 14 times the risk of needing a higher level care, requiring a ventilator, and/or dying.

I find the number "14 times" hard to believe. I mean it were true then, excluding older folk, dead would have to be almost exclusively smokers. That would be hard to miss. And based of 78 cases? why can't they make it bigger?

Yeah, I've seen that smoking number before and I have my doubts. Given the small sample size chance certainly could be altering the ratio.

 

[skepticalbip]

Another study from China.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-04-smokers-vapers-special-danger-coronavirus.html

An early study from China looked at 78 hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Researchers found those with a history of smoking had 14 times the risk of needing a higher level care, requiring a ventilator, and/or dying.

I find the number "14 times" hard to believe. I mean it were true then, excluding older folk, dead would have to be almost exclusively smokers. That would be hard to miss. And based of 78 cases? why can't they make it bigger?

Yeah, I've seen that smoking number before and I have my doubts. Given the small sample size chance certainly could be altering the ratio.

Also they seem to be implying that correlation equals causation. Could it be that there is a much greater percentage of older people that are smokers? Statistics show that older people tend to have more severe symptoms that require hospitalization. So if the older are much more likely smokers then it would be more likely that age rather than the smoking is the causal relationship.

 

[Toni]

Some, if not most, asymptomatic survivors had symptoms. They did not match the serious-case criteria. Mild fever, a bit of a cough, and a little fatigue.
We need #antibodytesting. However, so far no antibody test is accurate. Too many false-positives (perhaps detecting antibodies to unrelated coronavirae).
Getting some back to work, which will happen soon, will surely begin a new wave. Mostly "asymptomatic" I hope. Yah, scary.

Where are you getting your information about antibody tests for COVID 19? Because I don't think your statement about 'too many positive' results is accurate.

 

[Toni]

Yeah, I've seen that smoking number before and I have my doubts. Given the small sample size chance certainly could be altering the ratio.

Also they seem to be implying that correlation equals causation. Could it be that there is a much greater percentage of older people that are smokers? Statistics show that older people tend to have more severe symptoms that require hospitalization. So if the older are much more likely smokers then it would be more likely that age rather than the smoking is the causal relationship.

No, there is no implication that correlation equals causation. The viral agent that causes COVID 19 has been identified. It is not smoking tobacco.

It is known that smoking tobacco makes one more vulnerable to a host of other respiratory diseases and infections. This is not the same thing as causation.

 

[barbos]

Yeah, I've seen that smoking number before and I have my doubts. Given the small sample size chance certainly could be altering the ratio.

Also they seem to be implying that correlation equals causation. Could it be that there is a much greater percentage of older people that are smokers? Statistics show that older people tend to have more severe symptoms that require hospitalization. So if the older are much more likely smokers then it would be more likely that age rather than the smoking is the causal relationship.

No, there is no implication that correlation equals causation. The viral agent that causes COVID 19 has been identified. It is not smoking tobacco.

It is known that smoking tobacco makes one more vulnerable to a host of other respiratory diseases and infections. This is not the same thing as causation.

The study is not about infection rates it's about death/severity rates among people who are infected already.

 

[Jokodo]

Some, if not most, asymptomatic survivors had symptoms. They did not match the serious-case criteria. Mild fever, a bit of a cough, and a little fatigue.
We need #antibodytesting. However, so far no antibody test is accurate. Too many false-positives (perhaps detecting antibodies to unrelated coronavirae).
Getting some back to work, which will happen soon, will surely begin a new wave. Mostly "asymptomatic" I hope. Yah, scary.

Where are you getting your information about antibody tests for COVID 19? Because I don't think your statement about 'too many positive' results is accurate.

Well, in a population where the majority of people are true negatives, even an unbiased not very accurate test (with the same rate of false negatives and false positives) is going to result in a lot of false positives.

Say 2% of the population are true negatives, and the test has an 98% accuracy with errors in both directions. In that case, 2% of 2% will be false negatives, but 2% of 98% false positives - and the number of people tested positive will be almost twice the number of true positives, even though the test itself is unbiased.

 

[Jokodo]

Another study from China.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-04-smokers-vapers-special-danger-coronavirus.html

An early study from China looked at 78 hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Researchers found those with a history of smoking had 14 times the risk of needing a higher level care, requiring a ventilator, and/or dying.

I find the number "14 times" hard to believe. I mean it were true then, excluding older folk, dead would have to be almost exclusively smokers. That would be hard to miss. And based of 78 cases? why can't they make it bigger?

Yeah, I've seen that smoking number before and I have my doubts. Given the small sample size chance certainly could be altering the ratio.

Also if true, the ratio between male and female death rates should be much higher than what we see for China. It is claimed that in China every other man but only a low-single-digit percentage of women smoke (e.g. here https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6546632/). If it's true that smokers have 14 times the risk, it would seem to follow that males should have at least 5 times the risk - not nearly twice the risk as has been reported.

 

[southernhybrid]

Blood Clots!

I think anyone can read this link because most newspapers are making articles about COVID-19 free to anyone. Apparently, the experts still have a lot to learn about the damaging complications of this virus.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/04/22/coronavirus-blood-clots/

Craig Coopersmith was up early that morning as usual and typed his daily inquiry into his phone. “Good morning, Team Covid,” he wrote, asking for updates from the ICU team leaders working across 10 hospitals in the Emory University health system in Atlanta.
One doctor replied that one of his patients had a strange blood problem. Despite receiving anticoagulants, the patient was still developing clots. A second said she’d seen something similar. And a third. Soon, every person on the text chat had reported the same thing.
“That’s when we knew we had a huge problem,” said Coopersmith, a critical-care surgeon. As he checked with his counterparts at other medical centers, he became increasingly alarmed: “It was in as many as 20, 30 or 40 percent of their patients.”
One month ago, as the country went into lockdown to prepare for the first wave of coronavirus cases, many doctors felt confident they knew what they were dealing with. Based on early reports, covid-19 appeared to be a standard variety respiratory virus, albeit a contagious and lethal one with no vaccine and no treatment. But they’ve since become increasingly convinced covid-19 attacks not only the lungs, but also the kidneys, heart, intestines, liver and brain.

Many doctors also are reporting bizarre, unsettling cases that don’t seem to follow the textbooks they’ve trained on. They describe patients with startlingly low oxygen levels — so low that they would normally be unconscious or near death — talking and swiping on their phones. Asymptomatic pregnant women suddenly in cardiac arrest. Patients who by all conventional measures seem to have mild disease deteriorating within minutes and dying at home.
With no clear patterns in terms of age or chronic conditions, some scientists hypothesize that at least some of these abnormalities may be explained by severe changes in patients’ blood.

The concern is so acute some doctor groups have raised the controversial possibility of giving preventive blood thinners to everyone with covid-19 — even those well enough to endure their illness at home.

Shit!

 

[ronburgundy]

Yeah, I've seen that smoking number before and I have my doubts. Given the small sample size chance certainly could be altering the ratio.

Also they seem to be implying that correlation equals causation. Could it be that there is a much greater percentage of older people that are smokers? Statistics show that older people tend to have more severe symptoms that require hospitalization. So if the older are much more likely smokers then it would be more likely that age rather than the smoking is the causal relationship.

No, there is no implication that correlation equals causation. The viral agent that causes COVID 19 has been identified. It is not smoking tobacco.

It is known that smoking tobacco makes one more vulnerable to a host of other respiratory diseases and infections. This is not the same thing as causation.

Enabling factors are causes. Most causes are neither neccessary nor sufficient. They merely increase the probability of an outcome, in combination with other factors. If a lifetime of smoking does something to the lungs to make complications more likely, then smoking is a causal contributor of the complications, and of some of the deaths. Only if smoking plays no role at all and is just incidentally related to age (like holding conservative beliefs) is it merely correlation and non-causal.

 

[southernhybrid]

I have been trying to find information as to why some people experience cytokine storms and I finally found a little something.

https://www.today.com/health/what-cytokine-storm-exaggerated-immune-system-response-coronavirus-covid-19-t179072

It happens when the pro-inflammatory cytokines get out of control in abundance. Normally, if you get sick, your immune system mounts a response to clear the infection and then shuts itself down. But that’s not happening in this case.

“It’s not from having a super good immune system. It’s from having a subtle defect in the ability of the immune system to do its job,” Cron said.

“It gets overly activated and that exuberance of these pro-inflammatory cytokines is what leads to multi-organ failure and potentially death,” Cron said.

More than 100 different organisms — mostly viruses, including the new coronavirus — can trigger a storm. They include certain strains of influenza like H1N1 in 2009, hemorrhagic fever viruses like dengue fever and herpes viruses like Epstein-Barr, Cron said.

But not all people are affected, even if they get the same bug. About 10-20% of the general population may have a genetic risk factor that gives them the subtle defect in their immune response that puts them at risk for a cytokine storm with certain infections, he noted.

The mortality rate can range from 40-80% in adults for other cytokine storms.

Can a cytokine storm be treated?

Yes. Drugs have been given to stop cytokine storms caused by other conditions.

“People can survive it. If you treat it early enough and sometimes even late, you can get through it all,” Cron said. “For other cytokine storms, you can essentially come out of it unscathed.”

When it comes to COVID-19, clinical trials are under way to find out what truly works to treat a storm, he noted.

I just hope that the doctors who are caring for the victims of this virus, understand cytokine storms. I sort of doubt that the average doctor who doesn't have experience in this specialized field is going to recognize what's going on, know how to test for it or how to treat it. The more I read about this virus, the more I want to hibernate.

 

[blastula]

There are trials using anti IL-6 drugs, but too soon to tell if they are working.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yeah, I've seen that smoking number before and I have my doubts. Given the small sample size chance certainly could be altering the ratio.

Also they seem to be implying that correlation equals causation. Could it be that there is a much greater percentage of older people that are smokers? Statistics show that older people tend to have more severe symptoms that require hospitalization. So if the older are much more likely smokers then it would be more likely that age rather than the smoking is the causal relationship.

No, there is no implication that correlation equals causation. The viral agent that causes COVID 19 has been identified. It is not smoking tobacco.

It is known that smoking tobacco makes one more vulnerable to a host of other respiratory diseases and infections. This is not the same thing as causation.

He's not saying it is a cause. Rather, he's questioning whether smoking might be a proxy for age--and it's not an unreasonable question. I strongly suspect the gender difference we see is a proxy for smoking.

I do think it's wrong because this hits old women hard, also, and they weren't often smokers.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yeah, I've seen that smoking number before and I have my doubts. Given the small sample size chance certainly could be altering the ratio.

Also if true, the ratio between male and female death rates should be much higher than what we see for China. It is claimed that in China every other man but only a low-single-digit percentage of women smoke (e.g. here https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6546632/). If it's true that smokers have 14 times the risk, it would seem to follow that males should have at least 5 times the risk - not nearly twice the risk as has been reported.

I can't confirm the percentages but they seem reasonable from my experience--smoking males are very common, smoking females are very rare over there.

 

[barbos]

Looks like it's blood clots, it explains everything including loss of smell.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-04-tiny-blood-clots-covid-lethal.html
It could be possible to correct these symptoms.
of course blood clots themselves could be result of cytokine storm.
I think decent treatment is close, much closer than vaccine.

Yeah, I am very optimistic about that.

 

[repoman]

What a bizarre op-ed, not wanting the British to be the ones who make a vaccine. Any potential vaccine looks like it will be weak and short lasting because of the nature of virus anyway. This loony leftist is a nice book end to the crackpot right.

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/coronavirus-vaccine_uk_5ea067f2c5b6b2e5b83ba372?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly90LmNvL0FhRk1wS3pNQmY&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAAOsKexOEWvHIX7YrZQT5nciWklPjD7Mpl5TEU5tXmpwAdBqDaStB7z3BhX0q52KXEa68SX4ZtU4qKZlaru6dchCwn4JmiBs-XJxQjZ5eS1wEYzYxDgDKJxuKQq-XNyT6duKKD2FVRpioGCS85vul_KBBcMUYJ29WV79uKHyla93&guccounter=2

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Yeah, I've seen that smoking number before and I have my doubts. Given the small sample size chance certainly could be altering the ratio.

Also if true, the ratio between male and female death rates should be much higher than what we see for China. It is claimed that in China every other man but only a low-single-digit percentage of women smoke (e.g. here https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6546632/). If it's true that smokers have 14 times the risk, it would seem to follow that males should have at least 5 times the risk - not nearly twice the risk as has been reported.

I can't confirm the percentages but they seem reasonable from my experience--smoking males are very common, smoking females are very rare over there.

Secondary exposure certainly can't help. Living in close proximity to a smoker is not good for long term lung health, nor for general health.

 

[southernhybrid]

No, there is no implication that correlation equals causation. The viral agent that causes COVID 19 has been identified. It is not smoking tobacco.

It is known that smoking tobacco makes one more vulnerable to a host of other respiratory diseases and infections. This is not the same thing as causation.

He's not saying it is a cause. Rather, he's questioning whether smoking might be a proxy for age--and it's not an unreasonable question. I strongly suspect the gender difference we see is a proxy for smoking.

I do think it's wrong because this hits old women hard, also, and they weren't often smokers.

And, I strongly suspect that you are wrong.

I think I'v posted the evidence before that we women have stronger immune system compared to men. That doesn't mean that we aren't going to have complications or die from COVID-19. It simply means that we are less likely to die or have serious complications. I strongly suspect that this is why fewer women are dying from the virus compared to men.



One more time:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110927192352.htm

As anyone familiar with the phrase 'man-flu' will know women consider themselves to be the more robust side of the species when it comes to health and illness. Now new research, published in BioEssays, seems to support the idea. The research focuses on the role of MicroRNAs encoded on the X chromosome to explain why women have stronger immune systems to men and are less likely to develop cancer.

The research, led by Dr Claude Libert from Ghent University in Belgium, focused on MicroRNA, tiny strains of ribonucleic acid which alongside DNA and proteins, make up the three major macromolecules that are essential for all known forms of life.

"Statistics show that in humans, as with other mammals, females live longer than males and are more able to fight off shock episodes from sepsis, infection or trauma," said Libert. "We believe this is due to the X chromosome which in humans contains 10% of all microRNAs detected so far in the genome. The roles of many remain unknown, but several X chromosome-located strands of microRNA have important functions in immunity and cancer."

More research needs to be done, but scientists have been trying to figure out for a long time why females on average live longer than males. So far, the findings have nothing to do with lifestyle. They are based on biological reasons.

 

[DBT]

Apparently the current overall death rate in England and Wales is at a five year low:


Fewer deaths than average

In the 56 days from January 11 to March 6, the total number of people who died in England and Wales was recorded as being 90,940, only one of whom was known to have tested positive for COVID-19. Others who died may possibly have had the disease, but not been tested for it. However, it’s unlikely that the virus was widespread in England and Wales in the first few months of 2020. That’s because the 90,940 deaths was 5,023 people lower than the average in the same eight-week period over the previous five years, which was 95,963.