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COVID-19 Pandemic: Transmissions, Deaths, Treatments, Vaccines, Interventions and More...

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What are you talking about.

I was able to get an antibody test scheduled for a few day’s after my call to summit medical group (lab Corp was similar as was my kids pediatrician).

Rite aid in PARSIPPANY has a drive through no Rx needed covid 19 test. Not sure where you live.

testing seems abundantly available here in N.J.

List of where you can get anti-body test in NJ:

https://www.nj.com/coronavirus/2020/04/where-can-i-get-an-antibody-test-in-new-jersey.html
 
Anecdotal but be worth a look.

https://medicaldialogues.in/medicin...may-be-new-effective-covid-19-treatment-65868

We have got astounding results. Out of 60 COVID-19 patients, all recovered as the combination of the two drugs were applied, said Professor Dr Md Tarek Alam, the head of medicine department at private Bangladesh Medical College Hospital (BMCH).

Alam, a reputed clinician in Bangladesh, said a frequently used antiprotozoal medicine called Ivermectin in a single dose with Doxycycline, an antibiotic, yielded virtually the near-miraculous result in curing the patients with COVID-19. A
 
I also got an antibody test scheduled for Thursday at an oncology clinic in Edison and I called yesterday. Took a couple minutes on the phone. Also called my insurance company to verify it was covered, which it was.

I had several coworkers get the antibody test as well in Union County. Got appointments easily. Separately, Middlesex County is now, effective today, offering the COVID test for asymptomatic people, including the saliva test right in Edison. Scheduling is readily available online, also offered in New Brunswick and I believe South Brunswick. Slots are always open.
 
Brazil has seen their Tuesday new deaths reporting be pretty representative of the rest of the midweek reporting.

Two weeks ago they reported 578 on Tuesday and averaged somewhere in the 600's.

Las Tuesday they reported 779 on Tuesday and averaged right around 800 for the week.

Yesterday they reported 1130 new deaths.

Their new cases have been climbing at a high rate as well and yesterday the reported a new high of 16,517.

I'm not confident they are anywhere near their peaks either.
 
Anecdotal but be worth a look.

https://medicaldialogues.in/medicin...may-be-new-effective-covid-19-treatment-65868

We have got astounding results. Out of 60 COVID-19 patients, all recovered as the combination of the two drugs were applied, said Professor Dr Md Tarek Alam, the head of medicine department at private Bangladesh Medical College Hospital (BMCH).

Alam, a reputed clinician in Bangladesh, said a frequently used antiprotozoal medicine called Ivermectin in a single dose with Doxycycline, an antibiotic, yielded virtually the near-miraculous result in curing the patients with COVID-19. A

Some back up on Ivermectin

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166354220302011
 
Got a negative result on my antibody test along with my gf.

Seems like the majority of people who had “that bug” back in Dec-Feb were not coronavirus positive after all which is interesting. Wonder what the actual virus was going around concurrent to Corona? I know people hospitalized on that unknown bug which was negative for covid and flu.
 
Got a negative result on my antibody test along with my gf.

Seems like the majority of people who had “that bug” back in Dec-Feb were not coronavirus positive after all which is interesting. Wonder what the actual virus was going around concurrent to Corona? I know people hospitalized on that unknown bug which was negative for covid and flu.
I was retrospectively kinda hoping that the bug that was going around and kept me home for over a week was COVID19...sounds like it may have been something else, since multiple people have said the same thing as you...
 
What are you talking about.

I was able to get an antibody test scheduled for a few day’s after my call to summit medical group (lab Corp was similar as was my kids pediatrician).

Rite aid in PARSIPPANY has a drive through no Rx needed covid 19 test. Not sure where you live.

testing seems abundantly available here in N.J.
What kind of test is administered at Rite Aid, and when did you get it? It appears Rite Aid and CVS now do drive up testing as of this week. Prior to that, it was by appointment or if you present with symptoms. And as far as I can tell, it is the swab your nasal cavity test.
 
Peer-reviewed retrospective study out of China

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11427-020-1732-2.pdf

The levels of inflammatory cytokine IL-6 were significantly reduced from 22.2 (8.3–118.9) pg mL–1 at the beginning of the treatment to 5.2 (3.0–23.4) pg mL–1 (P<0.05) at the end of the treatment in the HCQ group but there is no change in the NHCQ group. These data demonstrate that addition of HCQ on top of the basic treatments is highly effective in reducing the fatality of critically ill patients of COVID-19 through attenuation of inflammatory cytokine storm. Therefore, HCQ should be prescribed as a part of treatment for critically ill COVID-19 patients, with possible outcome of saving lives.
 

The biggest positive for Florida is that from their data it appears that only 3.5% of tests are currently coming back positive.

Would be good to see the Florida current hospitalization numbers though.

For Georgia, they really should count (or at least release) confirmed and suspected Covid patients when giving hospital data, as that is the best way to get a full snapshot.

Hopefully, things continue to trend positive in those places.
 
The biggest positive for Florida is that from their data it appears that only 3.5% of tests are currently coming back positive.

Would be good to see the Florida current hospitalization numbers though.

For Georgia, they really should count (or at least release) confirmed and suspected Covid patients when giving hospital data, as that is the best way to get a full snapshot.

Hopefully, things continue to trend positive in those places.
Florida
NewHosp5019.jpg
 
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The biggest positive for Florida is that from their data it appears that only 3.5% of tests are currently coming back positive.

Would be good to see the Florida current hospitalization numbers though.

For Georgia, they really should count (or at least release) confirmed and suspected Covid patients when giving hospital data, as that is the best way to get a full snapshot.

Hopefully, things continue to trend positive in those places.
Not sure I agree with reported suspected cases (or at least report them separately).
 
A bit odd when you consider the mortality rate for the young & R#'s suggestion to promote herd immunity among the younger set. Granted, since they are not quarantined within the school, they would still be disease vectors for their elders.
Your last sentence answered why it’s not odd. Korean elders typically stay with family rather than LTC’s
 
Speaking of LTCs @T2Kplus10

https://www.nj.com/coronavirus/2020...crisis-rampaged-through-nj-nursing-homes.html

But, an investigation by NJ Advance Media for NJ.com based on internal department records and statements by officials, as well as interviews with players behind the scenes, points to major missteps and negligence by the state.


Facing the biggest public health crisis in more than a century, New Jersey failed to react fast enough or take forceful, aggressive actions to slow the rampage in nursing homes as the virus preyed on the state’s most vulnerable patients, according to more than a dozen public health experts, industry officials, family members and advocates.

Consider:


  • Knowing nursing home residents were at grave risk, state inspectors did not begin making on-site inspections until April 16, according to officials — 36 days after New Jersey reported its first death and not until reports surfaced that one nursing facility was storing 17 bodies in a makeshift morgue. Asked why teams were not sent earlier, state Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said in mid-April they did not have proper-fitting masks. She later said the state gave hospitals first dibs on protective equipment, leaving a short supply of ill-fitting masks for nursing home inspectors.
  • Nursing homes were short-changed for weeks on deliveries of protective masks and other equipment, known as PPE, which state and nursing home officials concede remains in critically short supply at dozens of facilities — increasing the chances of viral spread from resident to resident, according to nursing home operators and industry officials. “We were told flat-out, ‘No PPE for you, just hospitals,’” said the president of the state’s long-term care industry association.
  • When nursing home operators urgently called for staffing help, they said they received little assistance. Unlike other states, the Murphy administration did not move to deploy the National Guard into nursing homes until early May, and Guard members did not arrive until May 7 — weeks after at least six other states and more than two months after the first death in New Jersey.
  • The state Health Department did not announce until earlier this month it would conduct widespread testing of nursing home residents, even as an increasing share of the coronavirus deaths were coming from long-term care facilities. Nursing home operators said they desperately needed test kits, but said the state failed to respond to repeated requests.
  • The Health Department refused to publish a list of positive COVID-19 cases and deaths by facility until three weeks after families — prevented from visiting their loved ones since March 14 — pleaded with officials to force operators to let them know what was going on inside the nursing homes.Families desperate for information claimed in many cases, the first word they got was after a loved one was already critically ill.
  • A startling number of nursing home workers have succumbed to the virus. State data compiled by the Department of Health provided to NJ Advance Media show as of May 11 at least 89 nursing home employees have died from the coronavirus. Nearly 9,000 have tested positive for COVID-19.
 
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Your last sentence answered why it’s not odd. Korean elders typically stay with family rather than LTC’s
Many Asian countries are similar and same for the families here to a degree. I had elderly relatives in the household growing up and now as well.

Also saw news that France had 70 children test positive after just opening up schools and some of the schools have closed again for a week. They believe that the children caught it before the schools opened up.
 
The biggest positive for Florida is that from their data it appears that only 3.5% of tests are currently coming back positive.

Would be good to see the Florida current hospitalization numbers though.

For Georgia, they really should count (or at least release) confirmed and suspected Covid patients when giving hospital data, as that is the best way to get a full snapshot.

Hopefully, things continue to trend positive in those places.
I see 3.5% on the dashboard but that is from 5/9. They are supposed to update each week. Are they not posting this past weeks % because it went up? It would align with some other Florida data reporting which has helped suggest the #'s are coming down when that is not necessarily the case.
 
Speaking of LTCs @T2Kplus10

https://www.nj.com/coronavirus/2020...crisis-rampaged-through-nj-nursing-homes.html

But, an investigation by NJ Advance Media for NJ.com based on internal department records and statements by officials, as well as interviews with players behind the scenes, points to major missteps and negligence by the state.


Facing the biggest public health crisis in more than a century, New Jersey failed to react fast enough or take forceful, aggressive actions to slow the rampage in nursing homes as the virus preyed on the state’s most vulnerable patients, according to more than a dozen public health experts, industry officials, family members and advocates.

Consider:


  • Knowing nursing home residents were at grave risk, state inspectors did not begin making on-site inspections until April 16, according to officials — 36 days after New Jersey reported its first death and not until reports surfaced that one nursing facility was storing 17 bodies in a makeshift morgue. Asked why teams were not sent earlier, state Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said in mid-April they did not have proper-fitting masks. She later said the state gave hospitals first dibs on protective equipment, leaving a short supply of ill-fitting masks for nursing home inspectors.
  • Nursing homes were short-changed for weeks on deliveries of protective masks and other equipment, known as PPE, which state and nursing home officials concede remains in critically short supply at dozens of facilities — increasing the chances of viral spread from resident to resident, according to nursing home operators and industry officials. “We were told flat-out, ‘No PPE for you, just hospitals,’” said the president of the state’s long-term care industry association.
  • When nursing home operators urgently called for staffing help, they said they received little assistance. Unlike other states, the Murphy administration did not move to deploy the National Guard into nursing homes until early May, and Guard members did not arrive until May 7 — weeks after at least six other states and more than two months after the first death in New Jersey.
  • The state Health Department did not announce until earlier this month it would conduct widespread testing of nursing home residents, even as an increasing share of the coronavirus deaths were coming from long-term care facilities. Nursing home operators said they desperately needed test kits, but said the state failed to respond to repeated requests.
  • The Health Department refused to publish a list of positive COVID-19 cases and deaths by facility until three weeks after families — prevented from visiting their loved ones since March 14 — pleaded with officials to force operators to let them know what was going on inside the nursing homes.Families desperate for information claimed in many cases, the first word they got was after a loved one was already critically ill.
  • A startling number of nursing home workers have succumbed to the virus. State data compiled by the Department of Health provided to NJ Advance Media show as of May 11 at least 89 nursing home employees have died from the coronavirus. Nearly 9,000 have tested positive for COVID-19.
Certainly NJ could have done better in regards to nursing homes, but like NYC, they were getting hit much harder then everywhere else. So while I think criticism is in order, I don't necessarily see it as a damning critique.
 
Walmart will now start offering self-swab tests in New Jersey, governor says

From CNN's Elizabeth Hartfield

Walmart will now start offering self-administered, self-swabs at several locations across New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy announced Wednesday.

This follows an announcement on Tuesday that CVS would begin offering this same service across the state. Tests will be provided at drive up locations. There will not be any testing inside the stores themselves and results will be available in roughly two days.

New Jersey reported 1,670 new cases of Covid-19, bringing the statewide total to 150,399 cases, Murphy said.

The state reported 168 new Covid-19 deaths, bringing the state total to 10,747 deaths.
 
CDC now says coronavirus 'does not spread easily' via contaminated surfaces

https://www.foxnews.com/health/cdc-...s-not-spread-easily-via-contaminated-surfaces

Reading that article, it implies that the CDC just decided to revise their guidance page to downgrade the risk of contaminated surfaces, without any scientific basis for the revision.

I assume there is some basis for the change. But I didn't see any other article which indicated if the basis is that the risk of contaminated surfaces is lower than previously assumed, or if the risk of person-to-person spread is so much greater, that contaminated surface risk just gets lost in the noise.
 
Reading that article, it implies that the CDC just decided to revise their guidance page to downgrade the risk of contaminated surfaces, without any scientific basis for the revision.

I assume there is some basis for the change. But I didn't see any other article which indicated if the basis is that the risk of contaminated surfaces is lower than previously assumed, or if the risk of person-to-person spread is so much greater, that contaminated surface risk just gets lost in the noise.
The risk of spreading corona via surfaces is practically zero. Just like the risk of spreading the virus while outside, practically zero.
 
The risk of spreading corona via surfaces is practically zero. Just like the risk of spreading the virus while outside, practically zero.

Practically zero? The CDC pages linked in the article you posted above indicate that virus spreads easily between people, and advises to "limit close contact with others outside your household in indoor and outdoor spaces." (emphasis is mine)

I guess you're just back to your trolling shtick.
 

You are staking your claim on one state who reported they were fudging the numbers and another state who fired their dashboard designer because she didnt want to fudge the numbers? Sounds plausible.

The risk of spreading corona via surfaces is practically zero. Just like the risk of spreading the virus while outside, practically zero.

Practically zero on both counts? Let's see the studies backing those bold statements.
 
Reading that article, it implies that the CDC just decided to revise their guidance page to downgrade the risk of contaminated surfaces, without any scientific basis for the revision.

I assume there is some basis for the change. But I didn't see any other article which indicated if the basis is that the risk of contaminated surfaces is lower than previously assumed, or if the risk of person-to-person spread is so much greater, that contaminated surface risk just gets lost in the noise.

Exactly. Looked around in all the usual places and no new obvious literature on this. I've been saying 95+% of transmissions were person to person based on what the basic literature says about the fact that it's a respiratory virus and simple math says that most transmissions should be from coughs, sneezes and even breathing, since there are orders of magnitude more virus particles in sneezes/coughs and on infected person's bodies vs. inanimate surfaces.

To me it's no surprise, but the CDC ought to know better and provide an explanation when they modify their guidances - it doesn't look like the words are any different, but the fomite route (from surfaces) is now bundled in with other low risks under a section titled, "the virus does not spread easily in other ways."

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/how-covid-spreads.html
 
https://translate.google.com/transl...oult-le-point-sur-les-connaissances-actuelles


20200519_fs_taux_de_mortalite_3_0.jpg


On the safety of combined hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin treatment

Again, numerous comments and articles in the mainstream media have suggested that this treatment could be dangerous, and we have been witnessing for several weeks a flood of untruths on this subject in the media ( 23 )

Yet there is ample evidence that all of this is wrong.

As many people know, hydroxychloroquine has long been prescribed for malaria and has been used for decades in the majority of patients with Lupus Erythematosus and Rheumatoid Arthritis in doses ranging from 200 to 600mg per day . These treatments are taken by patients over long periods (up to several years). The serious side effects mentioned are rare cases of heart and ophthalmic problems.

In addition, recent figures from the ANSM show that between 2017 and 2019, out of almost 4 million boxes of Plaquenil (Hydroxychloroquine) sold, only 2 deaths have been reported, including one case in the context of drug intoxication in a subject taking 6 psychotropics in addition to hydroxychloroquine. ( 24 )

As early as March 29, the American College of Cardiology made it clear that on the one hand several hundred million chloroquine treatments had been used worldwide - making it one of the most widely used drugs in history - without any report of arrhythmic death under the supervision of the WHO and that, on the other hand, in vivo studies had shown no arrhythmic synergistic effect of azithromycin with or without chloroquine ( 25 ).

More specifically, studies have been done on the safety of the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin in patients with Covid19. In both studies, it was concluded that this treatment was not associated with excess mortality, deploring no "torsade de point" and some cases of QTc prolongation that a simple cessation of treatment resolved. ( 26 , 27 )

So contrary to what circulates on both sides, with medical monitoring, this treatment does not present a risk.


And finally what say the publications which conclude that it is not effective

Recently, the general press highlighted two articles published in the famous British Medical Journal , a Chinese study ( 31 ) and a French study ( 32 ) which concluded that hydroxychloroquine was ineffective. However, these two studies show many biases, never mentioned in the press.

In the study by Tang et al. ( 31 ), the main biases are that in the group with hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) the patients were older, had more comorbidities, and had received almost twice as much HCQ as those recommended. The majority of patients in the groups (including the controls) had also received antivirals (which is annoying to measure the antiviral effect of HCQ versus the control group). The mean duration before treatment was 17 days (far too long for antiviral therapy). Despite these biases, the study shows a positive effect of 4 points *** between the HCQ group and the control group. However, the authors prefer to conclude that there is no efficacy of HCQ .

In the study by Mahévas et al. ( 32), the patients were all in a severe condition (severe acute respiratory syndrome with need for oxygen). Curiously in the control group, 29% of the patients also took azithromycin, while only 18% of the cases took it in the HCQ group. When looking at patients transferred to intensive care (ICU), the HCQ effect is nevertheless visible since 1.5 times less ICU transfer in the HCQ group is observed compared to the control group. But above all, in an extraordinary way, we can see in the details of the study that in the small group of patients taking both HCQ and azithromycin, there were zero deaths and no transfer to ICU. On the other hand, the small control group also taking azithromycin (but no HCQ) had to deplore 6 ICU admissions and 5 deaths.However, the authors also prefer to conclude that hydroxychloroquine is ineffective whilethe study clearly shows the efficacy of the hydroxychloroquine + azithromycin treatment versus the control taking only azithromycin.

Then in the New York study by Rosenberg et al. ( 33 ), not only the hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) patients - supplemented or not with azithromycin (AZT) - are much older, obese and diabetic than the control group (these are major risk factors for mortality under Covid19) but also plus the HCQ + AZT group has very significantly low oxygen saturation, which is again a major factor in predicting mortality in this disease ( 34). As a result, many more patients in the HCQ +/- AZT groups (in 95 to 82% of cases) have abnormal lung X-rays versus the control group (in 55% of cases only). In this study, it is therefore compared groups of older patients, more obese, more diabetic and much more advanced in the disease against a control group where the patients are less at risk and are less advanced in the disease. This does not make sense and it is very open to criticism in a study of this type .

Another retrospective New York study by Geleris et al ( 35 ), show the same biases as the previous one, of patients in the older HCQ group who were mostly already in mild to moderate acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) at the time. that the patients in the control group were not. Yu et al. also point out that in this study the initial dose of HCQ given to these very sick patients was far too high (1200mg on day 1), while this Chinese team had very good results with 400mg / day ( 17). But the most interesting in this study is that the "End-point", that is to say the criterion of evaluation of the effectiveness or not of the treatment, was "intubation OR dead" which is already curious at the base , (it is still very different to be intubated or to be dead). By looking in detail at the deceased and intubated patients, everything changes. The study shows that COVID patients who have developed respiratory distress survive much more when they are treated with HCQ versus the control group (data that can only be found in the study annexes). Nevertheless, the authors forget to raise this point from their study.

Finally, the famous American study on veterans ( 36 ), the Marseille IHU published a response on this subject as this study shows bias in the differences of the groups studied ( 37 ). The groups treated with HCQ + / - AZT (with doses which are never specified in the article) consisted on average of 30% of “dying” patients versus the control group (only 14%) to whom they presumably given the treatment in desperation. In addition, a third of patients in the control group also took azithromycin.
 
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