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

[RU848789]

Guys, let me say that I love the insights and facts. Several of you're clearly really smart....but when your post 2000 word jornal entries you lose most folks.

You're all smart enough to be able to make your points in 25% of that. I love reading your stuff but just like politicians and other technical presentations...I stop after 2 paragraphs.

Fwiw. Carry on.

I'll assume you're counting me as one of the smart, but overly verbose guys, lol. I get it, but the problem is that these are highly complex issues with high uncertainty and multiple outcomes (not unlike the weather, lol) and it's really hard to get all of this across in a very concise manner, without explaining the subtleties and nuances involved - and I'd rather provide more details than necessary than not enough, but that's my bias. Although, if I'm going to post something very long, I might think about starting with a "summary" like I often do with my weather posts...

 

[RU4Real]

A King County (Washington) hospital system is urging people to adopt "social distancing".

I think we've just learned a new term that we're going to hear a lot of.

That same HCP has just issued an instruction for all non-clinical employees to work from home.

In other news my oldest daughter, who is a clinical OT at NYU Langone, informs me that NYU Health has instructed employees to completely eliminate out of area travel.

 

[newell138]

The governor of Pennsylvania just asked everyone to stay out Philadelphia because you have a better chance of being shot there than catching the virus

 

[rutgersguy1]

From CNN:


14 min ago
Mount Vernon, New York is closing all schools and offices


All schools and offices in Mount Vernon, New York, are closing until March 9, according to a news release from the school district.

This comes after two of their students and their families were placed under quarantine, the release says.

School officials are working to clean all of their schools and offices during this time.

Mount Vernon is only a few miles from New Rochelle -- where two families have tested positive for the coronavirus.

 

[DennisHajekRC84]

I'll assume you're counting me as one of the smart, but overly verbose guys, lol. I get it, but the problem is that these are highly complex issues with high uncertainty and multiple outcomes (not unlike the weather, lol) and it's really hard to get all of this across in a very concise manner, without explaining the subtleties and nuances involved - and I'd rather provide more details than necessary than not enough, but that's my bias. Although, if I'm going to post something very long, I might think about starting with a "summary" like I often do with my weather posts...

You are and I love ya man. But you're not alone lol. You and a few others are some of my favs but I just can't read long technical stuff. I'm personally between the Play by Play guy AND the color comentator ( as far as what I enjoy reading and listening to. And that is just ! guy's opinion).

Thanks for not taking my feedback in a bad way. Oh and the "Executive Summary". I like that. .

 

[RU848789]

A King County (Washington) hospital system is urging people to adopt "social distancing".

I think we've just learned a new term that we're going to hear a lot of.

That same HCP has just issued an instruction for all non-clinical employees to work from home.

In other news my oldest daughter, who is a clinical OT at NYU Langone, informs me that NYU Health has instructed employees to completely eliminate out of area travel.

We instituted social distancing this past weekend, lol, after the Melody Reunion, of course. Our son is a bit spooked by all of this and doesn't want to get us sick (old people) or himself, as he has low immunoglobulin levels, so he moved out of his bioburden infested NB flophouse apartment with 6 roommates, who don't really care about the virus and moved back in with us temporarily. He's taking 3 classes at RU, finishing up his master's (information science) and two are on-line and the prof just made the 3rd available on-line, so he basically doesn't "have" to leave the house and largely plans not to, except to places with few people.

He brought home some 40-pound bags of rice and a bunch of other non-perishable food that is good at room temp (mostly canned) and we have a ton of other household/decon items. Plus, he was annoyed I went to the RU game last night amongst the great unwashed infected, which I kind of get, so I did limit interactions, arrived early and stayed late, washed up well before I went home and even washed my clothes and took a shower when I got home. And I have a lot less human contact since retirement even with the 8 hr/wk gig, which I can mostly do from home, plus we're going to scale back going out to eat and large social gatherings. I think it's overkill, but he's happy about it and it's easy to do.

 

[RU848789]

You are and I love ya man. But you're not alone lol. You and a few others are some of my favs but I just can't read long technical stuff. I'm personally between the Play by Play guy AND the color comentator ( as far as what I enjoy reading and listening to. And that is just ! guy's opinion).

Thanks for not taking my feedback in a bad way. Oh and the "Executive Summary". I like that. .

No offense taken - I've gotten a fair amount of that feedback from my weather email and Facebook crowd too, which is why I now start those posts or emails with a summary, which people seem to like. I do that sometimes here on weather posts, but not usually not on other technical posts.

 

[DJ Spanky]

I think THE chance of death after age 80 is about 15% anyway ..

No, I'm pretty sure it's 100%!

 

[DJ Spanky]

A King County (Washington) hospital system is urging people to adopt "social distancing".

I think we've just learned a new term that we're going to hear a lot of.

I thought that's what smart phones had already accomplished.

 

[Wolv RU]

Show your work.

Seriously - this is meant to be as much a fact-based discussion as possible. You're busy being the reason why threads get moved. Your entire post was completely baseless.

I think this is a source worth considering

Author: Jeremy Samuel Faust is an emergency medicine physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, faculty in its division of health policy and public health, and an instructor at Harvard Medical School.
Article: https://slate.com/technology/2020/03/coronavirus-mortality-rate-lower-than-we-think.html

 

[Myrtleknight]

Listen I agree that the mortality rates are lower than being reported but it’s very dangerous to be implying that this is like the flu.

In real terms you have a 1 in a 1,000 chance of dying from the flu and much less than that if you get the flu shot and are otherwise healthy.

A 1% mortality rate, is 1 in 100 of dying from COVID-19.

Even though those numbers skew much higher to the elderly and those with preexisting conditions, for those over 65 and with some type of condition the number may be higher than 1 in 10.

By all measures this appears to be significantly more contagious than the flu and the common cold. Everyone needs to think about how a cold can be passed around the office or a school or a family. This is likely 2x to 10x as contagious as that.

The world can’t shut down over this, but caution and media attention is warranted.

 

[Knight Shift]

We instituted social distancing this past weekend, lol, after the Melody Reunion, of course. Our son is a bit spooked by all of this and doesn't want to get us sick (old people) or himself, as he has low immunoglobulin levels, so he moved out of his bioburden infested NB flophouse apartment with 6 roommates, who don't really care about the virus and moved back in with us temporarily. He's taking 3 classes at RU, finishing up his master's (information science) and two are on-line and the prof just made the 3rd available on-line, so he basically doesn't "have" to leave the house and largely plans not to, except to places with few people.

He brought home some 40-pound bags of rice and a bunch of other non-perishable food that is good at room temp (mostly canned) and we have a ton of other household/decon items. Plus, he was annoyed I went to the RU game last night amongst the great unwashed infected, which I kind of get, so I did limit interactions, arrived early and stayed late, washed up well before I went home and even washed my clothes and took a shower when I got home. And I have a lot less human contact since retirement even with the 8 hr/wk gig, which I can mostly do from home, plus we're going to scale back going out to eat and large social gatherings. I think it's overkill, but he's happy about it and it's easy to do.

Two questions. Your son's IG levels--can anything be done to address that? Asking for a friend (seriously). If not, will he and others with low IG be forever compromised and live in fear of infection?

Second question. I elected to fly to Phoenix on personal business Thursday into Friday next week. I'm healthy. I plan to bring a small supply of neoprene gloves and disinfectant wipes to clean my area. Took a window seat, which is statistically the safest place to sit on a plane. Will not accept any served food or drinks, and will not leave my seat for the flight. Safe enough, or cancel the flight? The business item is somewhat urgent, but could wait, however, would rather not wait.

 

[RU848789]

I think this is a source worth considering

Author: Jeremy Samuel Faust is an emergency medicine physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, faculty in its division of health policy and public health, and an instructor at Harvard Medical School.
Article: https://slate.com/technology/2020/03/coronavirus-mortality-rate-lower-than-we-think.html

Great find, thanks! The article confirms what I was thinking when I started this thread - that COVID-19 is a serious disease with serious impacts for the elderly, but is not as serious as originally thought, with regard to mortality rates, especially for people under 65 and that the focus should be on preventing transmission to the elderly, as per his closing paragraph, below - he makes a compelling case and let's hope he is correct.

This still largely comes down to hygiene and isolation. But in particular, we need to focus on the right people and the right places. Nursing homes, not schools. Hospitals, not planes. We need to up the hygienic and isolation ante primarily around the subset of people who can’t simply contract SARS-CoV-2 and ride it out the way healthy people should be able to.

He makes a great case, based on the fantastic "experimental data" we now have from the Diamond Princess cruise ship, for the overall mortality rate being well less than 1% and it being probably on the order of 0.2-0.4% in healthy non-geriatric adults (or even lower).

All 6 deaths on that cruise ship were in people over 70, out of 705 that tested positive for the virus (out of 3711 passengers), for an overall mortality rate of 0.8%, but a rate of 1.1% for those over 70 and 4.9% for those over 80 vs. 0% for those under 70 (which should not be expected to hold for the general population since there are deaths under 70 in China and elsewhere, but at low rates).

This is not that far above the overall mortality rate for most seasonal influenza outbreaks, which is 0.1-0.2% - but it's also important to note that seasonal flu has a mortality rate of 0.02% for those under 50 and about 1% for those over 65 - which may end up being close to the actual mortality rates from COVID-19 when all is said and done if Dr. Faust is correct.

This is where the Diamond Princess data provides important insight. Of the 3,711 people on board, at least 705 have tested positive for the virus (which, considering the confines, conditions, and how contagious this virus appears to be, is surprisingly low). Of those, more than half are asymptomatic, while very few asymptomatic people were detected in China. This alone suggests a halving of the virus’s true fatality rate.

On the Diamond Princess, six deaths have occurred among the passengers, constituting a case fatality rate of 0.85 percent. Unlike the data from China and elsewhere, where sorting out why a patient died is extremely difficult, we can assume that these are excess fatalities—they wouldn’t have occurred but for SARS-CoV-2. The most important insight is that all six fatalities occurred in patients who are more than 70 years old. Not a single Diamond Princess patient under age 70 has died. If the numbers from reports out of China had held, the expected number of deaths in those under 70 should have been around four.

This all suggests that COVID-19 is a relatively benign disease for most young people, and a potentially devastating one for the old and chronically ill, albeit not nearly as risky as reported. Given the low mortality rate among younger patients with coronavirus—zero in children 10 or younger among hundreds of cases in China, and 0.2-0.4 percent in most healthy nongeriatric adults (and this is still before accounting for what is likely to be a high number of undetected asymptomatic cases)—we need to divert our focus away from worrying about preventing systemic spread among healthy people—which is likely either inevitable, or out of our control—and commit most if not all of our resources toward protecting those truly at risk of developing critical illness and even death: everyone over 70, and people who are already at higher risk from this kind of virus.

 

[Knight Shift]

I think this is a source worth considering

Author: Jeremy Samuel Faust is an emergency medicine physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, faculty in its division of health policy and public health, and an instructor at Harvard Medical School.
Article: https://slate.com/technology/2020/03/coronavirus-mortality-rate-lower-than-we-think.html

Thank you. The media hysteria around this is, as usual, disgusting.

 

[RU848789]

Two questions. Your son's IG levels--can anything be done to address that? Asking for a friend (seriously). If not, will he and others with low IG be forever compromised and live in fear of infection?

Second question. I elected to fly to Phoenix on personal business Thursday into Friday next week. I'm healthy. I plan to bring a small supply of neoprene gloves and disinfectant wipes to clean my area. Took a window seat, which is statistically the safest place to sit on a plane. Will not accept any served food or drinks, and will not leave my seat for the flight. Safe enough, or cancel the flight? The business item is somewhat urgent, but could wait, however, would rather not wait.

Thanks, he's on the low end of normal on IG, but his immunologist thought that's why he got a lot of colds and sinus infections growing up, but he's also largely outgrown that since he was about 16-17 - doesn't mean he's not a little overly concerned about this, though - we were told there's not much he can do about the IG levels.

With regard to your flight, you are near the age of concern if these latest articles are correct, so you'd probably be fine, but I can't really tell you what decision to make, since there's some very small but non-zero risk for you vs. not flying. Also, there's been lots of focus on handwashing and disinfecting surfaces, which is good, but the much greater risk is if you're within 3-6 feet of someone who has the virus and sneezes/coughs near you, as breathing in virus particles is still a much greater risk than touching them and then touching your mouth/eyes/nose.

 

[RU848789]

Thank you. The media hysteria around this is, as usual, disgusting.

Disagree mostly. The media focus on this, to me, given the lack of data for an early evolution of virus, has been largely appropriate. We also can't know, for sure, yet, that Faust is correct - extrapolating from the cruise ship to the rest of the real world may not be perfect. I think he's largely right, which is why I started this thread based on the Fauci editorial, but until we know a lot more, there are still major concerns about this virus and people shouldn't ignore them.

 

[Knight Shift]

Thanks, he's on the low end of normal on IG, but his immunologist thought that's why he got a lot of colds and sinus infections growing up, but he's also largely outgrown that since he was about 16-17 - doesn't mean he's not a little overly concerned about this, though - we were told there's not much he can do about the IG levels.

With regard to your flight, you are near the age of concern if these latest articles are correct, so you'd probably be fine, but I can't really tell you what decision to make, since there's some very small but non-zero risk for you vs. not flying. Also, there's been lots of focus on handwashing and disinfecting surfaces, which is good, but the much greater risk is if you're within 3-6 feet of someone who has the virus and sneezes/coughs near you, as breathing in virus particles is still a much greater risk than touching them and then touching your mouth/eyes/nose.

Thanks.
I hesitate to post this for fear of invoking the jinx, but I have to guess my IG levels are sky high, as I rarely get sick, and I can't remember the last time I had the flu, despite also not remembering the last time I had a flu shot. I work in a small office of 15 or so people, work remotely 1-2 days per week, and we encourage/demand that when people get sick they stay home.

Think I will take my statistical chances. Have made similar decisions in the past with high chances of mortality. Do not wish to derail this thread, but have spent a lot of time studying the effects of statins and lowering cholesterol on impact of CVD-related deaths, and I just elected to not take a statin even though my cholesterol numbers gave my family doctor a hear attack. CAC test showed zero calcium score, and did not see the benefit vs. the risks of taking a statin. Hell, have been a volunteer firefighter for 35 years, and doing that probably carries a higher risk of death than contracting the COVID-19 on a single plane flight and dying. Or a re-occurence of kidney cancer would kill me first. I don't go to sleep at night in fear of the cancer monster under my bed.

While I understand that a mask may be ineffective. I have a special surgical type mask I purchased when I flew more regularly and there was some other type of virus scare. I may strap that on for the flight.

 

[WhiteBus]

Hearing it's real bad in Iran.

Not a bad thing. Ali Khamenei is 80 and has already lost his top advisor to the Coronavirus. Maybe some real change can come to that country.

 

[bigmatt718]

The governor of Pennsylvania just asked everyone to stay out Philadelphia because you have a better chance of being shot there than catching the virus

With Mayor Kenney, that's actually very true. He's a cancer...Philly is turning into the East Coast Chicago with all the gun violence. Kenney only is waging war on the Mummers.

 

[OTBOTOR]

Bergen County gets NJ's 1st case...

 

[newell138]

Opinion: Vaccine Development: The Ebola Example

New York Times Online, Mar. 4, 2020


Dr. Julie Gerberding of Merck discusses the company’s effort in 2014 to respond to the West Africa outbreak.

To the Editor:

“Big Pharma May Pose an Obstacle to Vaccine Development,” by Gerald Posner (Op-Ed, nytimes.com, March 2), omits some very salient facts and paints a flawed picture of the biopharmaceutical sector’s commitment to global health and what is happening today with the coronavirus.


Mr. Posner puts forward the familiar allegation that the pharmaceutical industry’s concern about profits slows down vaccine development for emerging threats, especially for threats in Asia and Africa. That allegation rings particularly hollow at a time when the World Health Organization had this good news about the Ebola virus outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo:


“@DrTedros: “Good news from #DRC; no new Ebola infections in the last two weeks & all currently confirmed patients have completed treatment. This is very encouraging, but the outbreak is not over and we are still in full response mode.”


Mr. Posner saw fit to mention the Ebola virus but didn’t mention the Ebola virus vaccine. In 2014, in the midst of a major outbreak in West Africa, Merck joined with organizations that share a passion for global health to take on the daunting task of accelerating the development of an Ebola virus vaccine.


We licensed a promising investigational vaccine, and then worked hand in hand with many others to complete the countless steps necessary to develop and test the new vaccine in record time, but did so on the front lines of a complex and frightening outbreak.


Thanks to multiple partnerships, nearly 300,000 doses of our vaccine have been administered in Congo and other affected areas, and the vaccine is already licensed in five African countries. And we are not seeking to profit from this vaccine. We believe that it was misleading for Mr. Posner to leave out all of these critical facts.


In reality, the global response to the Ebola virus threat is a case study for what science, partnership and trust in one another as global citizens can accomplish. The collaboration that made progress against Ebola virus disease possible is a shining example of what we are already seeing today with the response to the coronavirus outbreak, and should be celebrated and emulated.


Julie L. Gerberding

Kenilworth, N.J.

The writer, an infectious disease doctor, is chief patient officer at Merck. She was director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2002 to 2009.

 

[newell138]

anyone remember this movie from the 70s?

 

[Salvi's Headband]

Thank you. The media hysteria around this is, as usual, disgusting.

Are you kidding? Did you read it?

 

[Salvi's Headband]

Not a bad thing. Ali Khamenei is 80 and has already lost his top advisor to the Coronavirus. Maybe some real change can come to that country.

You're a sick puppy.

 

[RU4Real]

You're a sick puppy.

@WhiteBus is also 80. :)

 

[DennisHajekRC84]

Thanks.
I hesitate to post this for fear of invoking the jinx, but I have to guess my IG levels are sky high, as I rarely get sick, and I can't remember the last time I had the flu, despite also not remembering the last time I had a flu shot. I work in a small office of 15 or so people, work remotely 1-2 days per week, and we encourage/demand that when people get sick they stay home.

What's an IG level? Something I would like to know about (and no, not for this situation but because my wife keeps telling me I have an Immune deficiency not due to colds but other things).

Wonder if that is on my annual lab work and IF not WHY not (Doc?!). thx.

 

[anon_ivydyf0amkzay]

anyone remember this movie from the 70s?

View embedded media

Great flick...amazing book

 

[FELONIOUSMONK]

We all know about it and will be careful. It will last for a few more news cycles and we will deal with it.I had the Hong Kong flu as a freshman in high school in 69 I lost 25 pounds in 3 weeks. It worked like Keto. But with a fever a cough body ache and hallucinations. All good.. I Survived

 

[RU4Real]

What's an IG level? Something I would like to know about (and no, not for this situation but because my wife keeps telling me I have an Immune deficiency not due to colds but other things).

Wonder if that is on my annual lab work and IF not WHY not (Doc?!). thx.

Immunoglobulin. There are five major types. Most full-panel blood workups will give you (if I remember correctly) IgA and IgE.

What your wife is doing is known as "gaslighting". Now, when you croak under generally mysterious circumstances, it will be widely know that "he did have an immune deficiency, you know...". :)

 

[SouthJerseyRU]

Pretty good AMA on reddit about all things COVID-19 yesterday. Some questions from users and simple easy to distil answers from medical experts working on it. Lots of the same message of wash your hands and stay away from people that we've been seeing here and in other sources, but can't emphasize that enought.

 

[Knight Shift]

What's an IG level? Something I would like to know about (and no, not for this situation but because my wife keeps telling me I have an Immune deficiency not due to colds but other things).

Wonder if that is on my annual lab work and IF not WHY not (Doc?!). thx.

IG=immunoglobulin. Various different types of IGs.

Details:
https://www.racgp.org.au/afp/2013/april/quantitative-serum-immunoglobulin-tests

https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/immunoglobulin-test#1

 

[SouthJerseyRU]

Second question. I elected to fly to Phoenix on personal business Thursday into Friday next week. I'm healthy. I plan to bring a small supply of neoprene gloves and disinfectant wipes to clean my area. Took a window seat, which is statistically the safest place to sit on a plane. Will not accept any served food or drinks, and will not leave my seat for the flight. Safe enough, or cancel the flight? The business item is somewhat urgent, but could wait, however, would rather not wait.

From the AMA I linked above:

What can we do to reduce risk on domestic airline flights and at major airports in affected regions (ATL, SFO, etc.)?

• permalink
• give award
• webmdVerified Specialist[S] 57 points 21 hours ago
  
  The most important thing is to decide if you need to fly. To stay healthy on airline trips, make sure to keep your hands washed, avoid touching your face (especially eyes/nose/mouth after touching surfaces) practice good sneezing and coughing hygiene.
  
  Avoid touching surfaces when possible (use a tissue and then dispose of it, use your elbow to push open doors, etc). When you are sitting at your seat, use a disinfectant wipe to clean surfaces that you will be touching.
  
  Also don’t forget to stay hydrated, eat nutritious meals, and get plenty of rest to keep your immune system optimized.
  
  -Neha Pathak, MD

 

[DJ Spanky]

I think this is a source worth considering

Author: Jeremy Samuel Faust is an emergency medicine physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, faculty in its division of health policy and public health, and an instructor at Harvard Medical School.
Article: https://slate.com/technology/2020/03/coronavirus-mortality-rate-lower-than-we-think.html

Thanks, great read. I shared it with a number of people who were looking for info such as this.

@WhiteBus is also 80. :)

I think you're a little low on that estimate.....

 

[WhiteBus]

You're a sick puppy.

Possibly. But am I wrong??

 

[Salvi's Headband]

Possibly. But am I wrong??

Considering that the vast vast majority of suffering will be amongst innocent people, yes you are wrong that it's "not a bad thing."

 

[rutgersdave]

Thank God it’s not affecting kids at all.

 

[DennisHajekRC84]

Immunoglobulin. There are five major types. Most full-panel blood workups will give you (if I remember correctly) IgA and IgE.

What your wife is doing is known as "gaslighting". Now, when you croak under generally mysterious circumstances, it will be widely know that "he did have an immune deficiency, you know...". :)

Thanks. I just looked at my last Lab tests and none of them include this. Interesting.

As far as the Death by Gaslighting..... I figured if she really wanted to do that she'd just light a match behind a big fart and send me to the moon.

 

[WhiteBus]

Considering that the vast vast majority of suffering will be amongst innocent people, yes you are wrong that it's "not a bad thing."

Innocent 80 year olds in Iran?? Plus I was talking about the current leadership. .

 

[DennisHajekRC84]

IG=immunoglobulin. Various different types of IGs.

Details:
https://www.racgp.org.au/afp/2013/april/quantitative-serum-immunoglobulin-tests

https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/immunoglobulin-test#1

Thanks. Really didn't expect you to do the work for me. I think (the wife) is now mostly off here but the Gout and Arthitis/random inflamation feeds her theory.
On the other hand I respond remarkably well to and and all drugs WHEN I take them.

 

[rutgersdave]

Thanks. Really didn't expect you to do the work for me. I think (the wife) is now mostly off here but the Gout and Arthitis/random inflamation feeds her theory.
On the other hand I respond remarkably well to and and all drugs WHEN I take them.

You sound like you really have some problems. Couple of years ago, I use to have Gout pretty consistently until I really changed my diet with salad for lunch and cutting my drinking. I use to have maybe 3-4 attacks a year and could last for 3-10 days, real difficulty walking. Now, maybe a small gout attack once a year but I could still walk.