***NON-POLITICAL COVID-19 Discussion Thread***

[JakeF]

A couple of reminders...

Originally Posted by Bwana

Once again, don't come in this thread with some kind of political agenda, or you will be shown the door. If you want to go that route, there is a thread about this in DC.

Originally Posted by Dartgod

People, there is a lot of good information in this thread, let's try to keep the petty bickering to a minimum.

We all have varying opinions about the impact of this, the numbers, etc. We will all never agree with each other. But we can all keep it civil.

Thanks!

Click here for the original OP:

Spoiler!

Apparently the CoronaVirus can survive on a inanimate objects, such as door knobs, for 9 days.

California coronavirus case could be first spread within U.S. community, CDC says
By SOUMYA KARLAMANGLA, JACLYN COSGROVE
FEB. 26, 2020 8:04 PM

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating what could be the first case of novel coronavirus in the United States involving a patient in California who neither recently traveled out of the country nor was in contact with someone who did.

“At this time, the patient’s exposure is unknown. It’s possible this could be an instance of community spread of COVID-19, which would be the first time this has happened in the United States,” the CDC said in a statement. “Community spread means spread of an illness for which the source of infection is unknown. It’s also possible, however, that the patient may have been exposed to a returned traveler who was infected.”

The individual is a resident of Solano County and is receiving medical care in Sacramento County, according to the state Department of Public Health.

The CDC said the “case was detected through the U.S. public health system — picked up by astute clinicians.”

Officials at UC Davis Medical Center expanded on what the federal agency might have meant by that in an email sent Wednesday, as reported by the Davis Enterprise newspaper.

The patient arrived at UC Davis Medical Center from another hospital Feb. 19 and “had already been intubated, was on a ventilator, and given droplet protection orders because of an undiagnosed and suspected viral condition,” according to an email sent by UC Davis officials that was obtained by the Davis Enterprise.

The staff at UC Davis requested COVID-19 testing by the CDC, but because the patient didn’t fit the CDC’s existing criteria for the virus, a test wasn’t immediately administered, according to the email. The CDC then ordered the test Sunday, and results were announced Wednesday. Hospital administrators reportedly said in the email that despite these issues, there has been minimal exposure at the hospital because of safety protocols they have in place.

A UC Davis Health spokesperson declined Wednesday evening to share the email with The Times.

Since Feb. 2, more than 8,400 returning travelers from China have entered California, according to the state health department. They have been advised to self-quarantine for 14 days and limit interactions with others as much as possible, officials said.

“This is a new virus, and while we are still learning about it, there is a lot we already know,” Dr. Sonia Angell, director of the California Department of Public Health, said in a statement. “We have been anticipating the potential for such a case in the U.S., and given our close familial, social and business relationships with China, it is not unexpected that the first case in the U.S. would be in California.”

It is not clear how the person became infected, but public health workers could not identify any contacts with people who had traveled to China or other areas where the virus is widespread. That raises concern that the virus is spreading in the United States, creating a challenge for public health officials, experts say.

“It’s the first signal that we could be having silent transmission in the community,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law. “It probably means there are many more cases out there, and it probably means this individual has infected others, and now it’s a race to try to find out who that person has infected.”

On Tuesday, the CDC offered its most serious warning to date that the United States should expect and prepare for the coronavirus to become a more widespread health issue.

“Ultimately, we expect we will see coronavirus spread in this country,” said Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. “It’s not so much a question of if, but a question of when.”

According to the CDC’s latest count Wednesday morning, 59 U.S. residents have tested positive for the new strain of coronavirus — 42 of whom are repatriated citizens from a Diamond Princess cruise. That number has grown by two since Messonnier’s last count Tuesday, although the CDC was not immediately available to offer details on the additional cases.

More than 82,000 cases of coronavirus have been reported globally, and more than 2,700 people have died, with the majority in mainland China, the epicenter of the outbreak.

But public health leaders have repeatedly reminded residents that the health risk from the novel coronavirus to the general public remains low.

“While COVID-19 has a high transmission rate, it has a low mortality rate,” the state Department of Public Health said in a statement Wednesday. “From the international data we have, of those who have tested positive for COVID-19, approximately 80% do not exhibit symptoms that would require hospitalization. There have been no confirmed deaths related to COVID-19 in the United States to date.”

CDC officials have also warned that although the virus is likely to spread in U.S. communities, the flu still poses a greater risk.

Gostin said the news of potential silent transmission does not eliminate the possibility of containing the virus in the U.S. and preventing an outbreak.

“There are few enough cases that we should at least try,” he said. “Most of us are not optimistic that that will be successful, but we’re still in the position to try.”

[Lzen]

Originally Posted by Lzen

Not trying to be political as I have no idea who are these people. Two of our Kansas legislators. Notice anything strange?

I really didn't come in here to get into a pile on. My original intent was to see who can tell me who are these 2 KS legislators and what they are not doing correctly.

[Mecca]

Originally Posted by Lzen

Just because one is educated in a field does not necessarily make them smarter. Nor does it make them not biased.

Study about the benefits of Hydroxychloroquine that suggests that it may work on COVID-19 if used early and in combination with zinc(?) he puts down. But some of these people have been considered experts, international experts even.
But he promotes the study that was not done correctly and arrogantly predicts that people will knock the study because it wasn't done early enough as though that is not a legitimate knock. The bias is obvious.

This seems pretty straight forward to me...

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipelin...enough-already

"96,032 patients were registered in these hospitals with the coronavirus during the study period (December 20, 2019 to April 14, 2020); this is a large data set. The mean age of the patients was just under 54 years, 54/46 male/female. 14,888 of them were in the treatment sets defined above: 1868 got straight chloroquine, 3783 got chloroquine with a macrolide, 3016 received hydroxychloroquine by itself, and another 6221 got HCQ with a macrolide). That leaves 81,144 patients as a control group getting other standard of care. Let’s note at the start that the authors controlled for a number of confounding factors (such as age, sex, race or ethnicity, body-mass index, cardiovascular disease and risk factors, diabetes, lung disease, smoking, immunosuppressed condition, and overall disease severity). How’d it go?"

"Judge for yourself. The mortality in the control group was 9.3%. The mortality in the chloroquine group was 16.4%. The mortality in the chloroquine plus macrolide group was 22.2%. The mortality in the hydroxychloroquine group was 18%. And the mortality in the hydroxychloroquine plus macrolide group was 23.8%."

"Let’s look at cardiac arrhythmia. The 0.3% of the control group developed new arrhythmias during their hospitalization. But 4.3% of the chloroquine treatment group did. And 6.5% of the chloroquine plus macrolide group. As did 6.1% of the hydroxychloroquine group. And 8.1% of the hydroxychlorquine plus macrolide group."

If anyone reads that and wants to take that, more power to you I guess.

[petegz28]

Originally Posted by Donger

Pete ran away, so I'll ask the group:

Masks are being recommended because they have the ability to reduce at least some droplet spread, yes?

It's almost like you don't read...

WHO does recommend special masks (N95 masks or equivalent) plus other protection for health-care workers working with people who have, or are suspected to have, COVID-19.

By contrast, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States has recently recommended everyone wear a (cloth) mask. However, this is to prevent infected people passing on the infection, not to prevent the wearer getting infected.

[staylor26]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

Well, the inflation of numbers can be checked against mortality data and the state of Florida recently stopped censoring data from medical examiners.

I'm not surprised that some people feel that way. One thing this thread has reinforced is that there are a lot of really stupid people that post on here who think that a Google search from a preferred news site or a few hours of talk radio is equivalent to a medical degree.

I really hope you aren’t referring to me because I’ve made it very clear that I have no clue about this kind of shit. I’m just observing for the most part.

I might come off like a know-it-all when arguing football, but I know football, I don’t know this stuff.

[petegz28]

Everyone knew this until yesterday.....

Why don't masks protect the wearer?
There are several possible reasons why masks don't offer significant protection. First, masks may not do much without eye protection. We know from animal and laboratory experiments that influenza or other coronaviruses can enter the eyes and travel to the nose and into the respiratory system.

While standard and special masks provide incomplete protection, special masks combined with goggles appear to provide complete protection in laboratory experiments. However, there are no studies in real-world situations measuring the results of combined mask and eyewear.

The apparent minimal impact of wearing masks might also be because people didn't use them properly. For example, one study found less than half of the participants wore them "most of the time". People may also wear masks inappropriately, or touch a contaminated part of the mask when removing it and transfer the virus to their hand, then their eyes and thus to the nose.

Masks may also provide a false sense of security, meaning wearers might do riskier things such as going into crowded spaces and places.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by POND_OF_RED

I tried to get his idea of when he would be comfortable with the research for a vaccine to trust the NNT NNH and Fatality rate %’s enough to get the vaccine himself. He answered all the questions like a politician running for office using his medical terminology to go right over most peoples heads. I’m not oblivious to what he’s saying. The most we could ever get out of him is that this fall would be too early. You would think a pharmacist would be happy to share there input on a timeline needed for a safe vaccine. Most pharmacists I work with have told me they wouldn’t want to see one rushed before next fall so I was wondering if he felt the same way. He can’t just answer in simple terms how he feels about the timeline?
.

This is just horseshit.

When you asked me about getting the vaccine and what I would do:

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

Post-marketing surveillance will bring forth rare issues you won't see in even large RCT. However, it's pretty simple to me: number needed to treat vs number needed to harm vs the fatality rate of the disease.

If the NNT is lower than NNH and the NNH translates to a lower percentage than the fatality rate for my cohort, I'd get the vaccine.

When you asked about how soon it would be available:

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

I have no better idea than you do. I don't think fall is reasonable just from a scale perspective. Oxford isn't even in human trials yet.

Correction: Oxford is now in Phase I trials.

When you asked if I was worried.

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

The studies will have a follow up period. In the case of a dose of an inactivated virus, I'm not terribly concerned. Were it attenuated, a short follow-up would be sufficient as long as cGMP were followed in its production.

It's not a chronic medication and vaccines are remarkably safe for inactivated viruses. Assuming there is nothing novel in its synthesis, the RCT data will give you sufficient info.

In no way is that answering like a politician. That's pretty damned clear.

[kgrund]

Originally Posted by Mecca

This seems pretty straight forward to me...

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipelin...enough-already

"96,032 patients were registered in these hospitals with the coronavirus during the study period (December 20, 2019 to April 14, 2020); this is a large data set. The mean age of the patients was just under 54 years, 54/46 male/female. 14,888 of them were in the treatment sets defined above: 1868 got straight chloroquine, 3783 got chloroquine with a macrolide, 3016 received hydroxychloroquine by itself, and another 6221 got HCQ with a macrolide). That leaves 81,144 patients as a control group getting other standard of care. Let’s note at the start that the authors controlled for a number of confounding factors (such as age, sex, race or ethnicity, body-mass index, cardiovascular disease and risk factors, diabetes, lung disease, smoking, immunosuppressed condition, and overall disease severity). How’d it go?"

"Judge for yourself. The mortality in the control group was 9.3%. The mortality in the chloroquine group was 16.4%. The mortality in the chloroquine plus macrolide group was 22.2%. The mortality in the hydroxychloroquine group was 18%. And the mortality in the hydroxychloroquine plus macrolide group was 23.8%."

"Let’s look at cardiac arrhythmia. The 0.3% of the control group developed new arrhythmias during their hospitalization. But 4.3% of the chloroquine treatment group did. And 6.5% of the chloroquine plus macrolide group. As did 6.1% of the hydroxychloroquine group. And 8.1% of the hydroxychlorquine plus macrolide group."

If anyone reads that and wants to take that, more power to you I guess.

Do not have a side on the HQ debate, but one thing that does not help end the debate is the "point-in-time" that the drug is given and tested. The largest supporters of using the drug indicates it must be given early at a fairly large dose. However when tested, it seems the overwhelming amount of tests are done once the virus has significantly progressed. It seems like the possibility could still exist that both sides are correct due primarily to the point in time in which the therapy starts. It seems like a bit of apples and oranges is going on IMO.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by staylor26

I really hope you aren’t referring to me because I’ve made it very clear that I have no clue about this kind of shit. I’m just observing for the most part.

I might come off like a know-it-all when arguing football, but I know football, I don’t know this stuff.

I'd have more respect for this point of view if you weren't talking shit about caseloads in Florida 15 minutes ago and laughing about people moving the goalposts when the data showed the opposite.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by petegz28

It's almost like you don't read...

I'm well-aware of that.

Now, it seems you agree that masks can stop droplet spread from the wearer. Is that correct?

[Monticore]

Originally Posted by Lzen

Just because one is educated in a field does not necessarily make them smarter. Nor does it make them not biased.

Study about the benefits of Hydroxychloroquine that suggests that it may work on COVID-19 if used early and in combination with zinc(?) he puts down. But some of these people have been considered experts, international experts even.
But he promotes the study that was not done correctly and arrogantly predicts that people will knock the study because it wasn't done early enough as though that is not a legitimate knock. The bias is obvious.

If Vlad would ya e posted his data on CNN and Democratic would have touted its benefits Hamas would have destroyed the trial equally

[Lzen]

Originally Posted by kgrund

Do not have a side on the HQ debate, but one thing that does not help end the debate is the "point-in-time" that the drug is given and tested. The largest supporters of using the drug indicates it must be given early at a fairly large dose. However when tested, it seems the overwhelming amount of tests are done once the virus has significantly progressed. It seems like the possibility could still exist that both sides are correct due primarily to the point in time in which the therapy starts. It seems like a bit of apples and oranges is going on IMO.

This was my point but I guess he must have missed it.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by petegz28

Everyone knew this until yesterday.....

There you go, pete. You're getting there.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by Lzen

My understanding is that the guy in France was an expert. But then the study was knocked because it wasn't done properly. I think some people just don't want to believe that it is possible simply because Trump promoted it.

Why might it be important to conduct a study with proper, established methodology?

Again, what bad studies have I promoted?

[staylor26]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

I'd have more respect for this point of view if you weren't talking shit about caseloads in Florida 15 minutes ago and laughing about people moving the goalposts when the data showed the opposite.

People haven’t moved the goalposts on Florida?



It’s been “just wait 2 weeks” for 8. Now it’s because of the heat (straight from Mecca’s post). How the **** is that not moving goalposts?

[petegz28]

Originally Posted by Lzen

This was my point but I guess he must have missed it.

There are several doctors that continue with the HCQ as they see fit. I am not about to call this some kind of a conspiracy theory but I would never, ever put anything past big pharma.