Covid 19 Sci/med discussions only

[Warg]

I understood, it was just value added intel to the topic.



I believe Dr Joyal addressed that in his comments. While the data strongly supports the value of healthy 25(OH)-vitamin D levels (enough so i personally take D3 and generally recommend testing 25(OH)-vitamin D levels and supplementing if appropriate based on levels) on the innate and adaptive immune system, there's no direct clinical evidence that vitamin D supplementation has a beneficial effect on Covid19. Studies are in the works:

https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04334005

I knew you did, just making sure the point wasn't lost on others. Thanks for the link, I'll do a little digging. At first glance the reference to concomitant scripts of ACE/ARBs and TZDs seems a bit odd as does lack of positive test for COVID-19 in the inclusion criteria (symptoms can and do overlap with other Dz, namely influenza).

[WillBrink]

I knew you did, just making sure the point wasn't lost on others. Thanks for the link, I'll do a little digging. At first glance the reference to concomitant scripts of ACE/ARBs and TZDs seems a bit odd as does lack of positive test for COVID-19 in the inclusion criteria (symptoms can and do overlap with other Dz, namely influenza).

There's a number of papers linked at my dedicated thread for possible adjuvant therapy such as:

http://imj.ie/optimisation-of-vitami...inst-covid-19/

[zibby43]

That assumes both that the rate of infection and fatalities remain constant after Covid burns out in New England. The rest of the country was simply not hit as hard, at least not yet. New cases of Covid is a pretty sketchy number. We don't know how many people have Covid, we just know the number who were sick enough, rich enough, or well connected enough to be tested and show positive.

We continue build models on insufficient data. 500,000 people are not going to die of Covid 19 in the U.S. in 2020.

Andy

Yes, I was assuming a constant trend similar to what we've been seeing over the past few weeks. It assumed things didn't get better, or worse.

Based on what I've seen several experts say, there's a chance that this initial wave will get much worse now that may states are pulling the plug on several mandatory social distancing measures. There already appears to be a rise in the number of new infections in areas around the country that had civil unrest/protests 10-14 days ago.

I also think that the number of infections/deaths we're seeing now will pale in comparison to what happens in the teeth of flu season in Oct/Nov/Dec. I'm guessing the initial projections of 200,000 (or more) deaths in 2020 will end up being fairly accurate, sadly.

On a side note, Australia has managed the COVID-19 crises incredibly well. They're up there with New Zealand.

In AUS, they have approximately 6,801 cases for a population of ~25m with only 95 deaths. They have better per capita testing than the UK.

Anyone have any thoughts as to why they've made other Western countries' responses look third-world by comparison?

[Arik]

Anyone have any thoughts as to why they've made other Western countries' responses look third-world by comparison?

P O L I T I C S !!!!

Can't speak for them all but here....

Not the only reason but a major one. Just take a look at the worst hit city. A few days before the lockdown the mayor and Pelosi were on TV telling people Trump is a racist and the only way to not be a racist is to go out and mingle because coronavirus isn't something to worry about

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

Anyone here with some experience and insight on the testing? There was an economist on CNN who is saying that we need to do is just test everyone in the US every two weeks and then separate out the infected. Putting aside what “setting aside the infected” means, where are we now on Testing and the ability to ramp up to something like 25 million tests a day. One of the fat guy said that that is a pipe dream and can’t happen. The economist said that there are people out there that say it can be done. The economist was unclear if he was talking about antibody testing or testing for active infections. I assume as time goes on the testing requirements go down as people test positive for antibodies. Assuming antibodies actually are a protective from being reinfected, and being infective to other people.

Is it possible? What would it take relative to what we are doing now.

[Caduceus]

Or was it really a bad season? Seems fudging numbers is an annual racket with the CDC....

https://news.yahoo.com/flu-deaths-we...053449918.html

I can't speak to their statistics, but anecdotally, yes, it was a bad flu season (in total numbers, I can't speak to deaths)
My kids' school at one point at 20% of their kids out with it. I work in 2 different ERs, and would diagnose 5-10 per shift at one of them.

[AKDoug]

Anyone here with some experience and insight on the testing? There was an economist on CNN who is saying that we need to do is just test everyone in the US every two weeks and then separate out the infected. Putting aside what “setting aside the infected” means, where are we now on Testing and the ability to ramp up to something like 25 million tests a day. One of the fat guy said that that is a pipe dream and can’t happen. The economist said that there are people out there that say it can be done. The economist was unclear if he was talking about antibody testing or testing for active infections. I assume as time goes on the testing requirements go down as people test positive for antibodies. Assuming antibodies actually are a protective from being reinfected, and being infective to other people.

Is it possible? What would it take relative to what we are doing now.

Do the math.. Testing everyone every two weeks cannot happen with current testing methods. Even with the fast testing machines, it would take a single person a minimum of 1/2 hour to test one person (10 minutes to properly document the test(could be sped up), 5 minutes to do the swab, 13 min. to get a negative from current machines). Until we have reliable self administered testing, complete testing of everyone is not going to happen.

[AKDoug]

Yes, I was assuming a constant trend similar to what we've been seeing over the past few weeks. It assumed things didn't get better, or worse.

Based on what I've seen several experts say, there's a chance that this initial wave will get much worse now that may states are pulling the plug on several mandatory social distancing measures. There already appears to be a rise in the number of new infections in areas around the country that had civil unrest/protests 10-14 days ago.

I also think that the number of infections/deaths we're seeing now will pale in comparison to what happens in the teeth of flu season in Oct/Nov/Dec. I'm guessing the initial projections of 200,000 (or more) deaths in 2020 will end up being fairly accurate, sadly.

On a side note, Australia has managed the COVID-19 crises incredibly well. They're up there with New Zealand.

In AUS, they have approximately 6,801 cases for a population of ~25m with only 95 deaths. They have better per capita testing than the UK.

Anyone have any thoughts as to why they've made other Western countries' responses look third-world by comparison?

Australia is an anomaly that should be studied (I'm sure scientists already are). They have a little bit better testing than us, about 10% more per million people. That little bit shouldn't make that enormous difference in deaths. They do have a significantly less dense population and a political system that is more centralized than ours. Currently Australia has less restrictions than many of our states as far as businesses being closed. Some beaches are still open, schools are actually still open, and they still allow haircuts. It's a big question marks as to why they've been so successful. New Zealand is easy. It's small and isolated, they can slam it shut quickly.

[WillBrink]

Australia is an anomaly that should be studied (I'm sure scientists already are). They have a little bit better testing than us, about 10% more per million people. That little bit shouldn't make that enormous difference in deaths. They do have a significantly less dense population and a political system that is more centralized than ours. Currently Australia has less restrictions than many of our states as far as businesses being closed. Some beaches are still open, schools are actually still open, and they still allow haircuts. It's a big question marks as to why they've been so successful. New Zealand is easy. It's small and isolated, they can slam it shut quickly.

So similar approach to the Swiss? Why are the Swiss getting all the attention and the Ausis are not?

[chuckman]

I can't speak to their statistics, but anecdotally, yes, it was a bad flu season (in total numbers, I can't speak to deaths)
My kids' school at one point at 20% of their kids out with it. I work in 2 different ERs, and would diagnose 5-10 per shift at one of them.

Anecdotally, I agree. But I think the bigger issue (and point of the article) is that there is fuzzy math in determining numbers; we think it's "just" related to COVID, but it's also applied to the flu. Which makes the flu:COVID comparisons even worse.