More interesting data regarding Covid

[MscleLovr]

It’s also worth noting that, despite how it’s reported in the media, the experts have said reinfection is unlikely. What is likelier is infection resurgence after a patient appeared to have recovered. A patient’s viral count may be too low to register and they appear well, only to have the infection resurge. If reinfection were happening, the vaccine becomes moot.

 

Very interesting point @xyz48B That seems to be what is happening in Barcelona right now - a resurgence of cases, often involving people who had been infected (some hospitalised) and recovered some time ago, now displaying some odd effects

[+ keroscenefire]

[quote="xyz48B, post: 1945930, member: 21441"

 

Researcher from Oxford on MSNBC stated the vaccine seems to also create “double immunity” – humoral and cellular response.

 

Yes, the Oxford vaccine is looking very promising. I am hopeful that we'll have some much better treatments and possibly even a vaccine in 2021.

[RealAvalon]

Yes, the Oxford vaccine is looking very promising. I am hopeful that we'll have some much better treatments and possibly even a vaccine in 2021.

There is an explanation of the Oxford vaccine on the Netflix three part series on corona virus.

[RealAvalon]

I'd place the lion's share on the WH/Executive Branch. The Congress is primarily responsible for funding, but the Executive Branch has to adopt the measures and request any additional funding. Instead of doing so, we've seen the agencies (CDC notably) doing their thing, while the WH downplays the issue and engages in sniping over the measures taken by the states. Where the Congress IS at fault is the Senate's lack of interest in funding the states to make up for their additional costs due to the virus.

Executive orders were issued to compel meat manufacturers to keep open, with penalties for workers that didn't come into work (excluded by some States from unemployment insurance); but no executive orders under the Defense Production Act to compel the production of PPE.

 

Trump/GOP: "Let them eat meat" (and so not in any sort of fun gay way)

[Guest]

The New York Times reported this graph yesterday. Although I would, of course, question the statistics reported by some countries (China, India, etc.), I'm not sure I can explain why the US in general, and California in particular, are doing so much worse than countries which have opened up far more. Is it because a lot of people are insisting on the "freedom" not to wear a mask? I haven't seen this discussed much by the experts, at least not in the press that I've been following:

Well, Australia is obvious because of the low burden to start out with, but Europe (excluding Russia and Turkey) and South Korea?

[xyz48B]

I posit a socio-political answer for S. Korea – a general sense of responsibility toward the common good. Rugged individualism isn’t a virtue in Eastern cultures the way it is for the first generational countries of the Enlightenment.

[former lurker]

The New York Times reported this graph yesterday. Although I would, of course, question the statistics reported by some countries (China, India, etc.), I'm not sure I can explain why the US in general, and California in particular, are doing so much worse than countries which have opened up far more. Is it because a lot of people are insisting on the "freedom" not to wear a mask? I haven't seen this discussed much by the experts, at least not in the press that I've been following:

Well, Australia is obvious because of the low burden to start out with, but Europe (excluding Russia and Turkey) and South Korea?

 

There's a lot going on in the various countries to explain their numbers. It would be more instructive if they broke out the trends (when the virus hit each country and the fatality rates over time). My suspicion is that the UK, Spain and Italy have such high fatality rates because of the rapid spread early on and that the rates there are much lower than they are currently in the U.S. Sweden is an interesting point -- it likely has to do with it's botched approached to senior citizens and I'd bet that the rates there started off lower and grew over time. I saw another graph that suggested most of the European countries have had diminishing new cases and new deaths over time while the U.S. continues to experience record new cases and concommitent deaths.

 

Part of the issue with the U.S. is legal/cultural (and, of course, political). We divide government and authority among states and the feds, and we tend to resist top-down imposition of rules. And our overall medical system is a patchwork of private and public insurance, medical institutions, etc, that are loosely integrated.

[+ keroscenefire]

I know there has been conflicting information on exactly what COVID immunity means. But a new study of nearly 20,000 patients recovered from COVID in NYC does show that immunity from the disease lasts at least 3 months. More than 90 percent of those patients who tested COVID positive and reported mild or moderate COVID symptoms seroconverted with significant neutralizing antibodies that were stable for three months after antibodies were first detected. In other words, it appears that most people who get COVID do get immunity to the disease for at least a few months. I know other studies have shown other things, but this one is very large. Of course, it's a preprint study so it needs to be peer reviewed. I am hopeful that this means a good vaccine, new effective treatments and natural immunity will combine to give us all a time in the not-to-distant future when COVID will be a thing of the past. Maybe it won't go away entirely, but it will likely be a much less serious disease.

[SirBillybob]

The New York Times reported this graph yesterday. Although I would, of course, question the statistics reported by some countries (China, India, etc.), I'm not sure I can explain why the US in general, and California in particular, are doing so much worse than countries which have opened up far more. Is it because a lot of people are insisting on the "freedom" not to wear a mask? I haven't seen this discussed much by the experts, at least not in the press that I've been following:

Well, Australia is obvious because of the low burden to start out with, but Europe (excluding Russia and Turkey) and South Korea?

I am not sure whether you refer to better/worse deaths per capita or number of cases per capita. California ranks 28th and 24th, respectively for USA. The USA cases:deaths ratio is 28:1 and California is 52:1 due to extreme variability in this metric to date, comparing all states. This variability among states is no less pronounced than national comparisons.

 

To confound matters, several states peaked and dropped and held in case incidence trajectory, many states started to climb later and continue to do so while not yet peaking, and yet another group rather gradually climbed from early on and have not peaked. Finally, about 20% are demonstrating a 2nd peak within the first wave; they were evidently getting control then weren’t: CO, HI, IN, IA, LA, MD, MN, ND, OH, VA.

[mike carey]

[RealAvalon]

The Canada Day long weekend (beginning of July) coincided with the easing of a number of restrictions as we moved into Phase 3 of reopening. Kelowna is a small city of 250,000 in the interior in lake country. The Okanagan lake system stretches down through BC and into Washington State, remnants of what was a massive lake during the last Ice Age. From a single social gathering there emerged first right COVID cases, and then eventually 30 COVID cases.

 

For people that don't know what contact tracing is, and why a systematically planned out and coordinated contract tracing strategy is important, consider this. From those 30 cases, there are now 1,000 people who are in 14 day self-isolation/quarantine. That's how the virus is contained from community spread.

[Guest]

The Canada Day long weekend (beginning of July) coincided with the easing of a number of restrictions as we moved into Phase 3 of reopening. Kelowna is a small city of 250,000 in the interior in lake country. The Okanagan lake system stretches down through BC and into Washington State, remnants of what was a massive lake during the last Ice Age. From a single social gathering there emerged first right COVID cases, and then eventually 30 COVID cases.

 

For people that don't know what contact tracing is, and why a systematically planned out and coordinated contract tracing strategy is important, consider this. From those 30 cases, there are now 1,000 people who are in 14 day self-isolation/quarantine. That's how the virus is contained from community spread.

That's wonderful that Canada has had such a low rate of infection and well-organized healthcare system that you guys have been able to contain the spread. Unfortunately here in the US, over 4 million have been infected that we know about, probably millions more that we don't. Our healthcare delivery system is fractured, and testing in such short supply that results, at least here in the SF Bay Area have been taking 10 days (rendering the testing almost useless except for statistical purposes). So that strategy can't work here. The best we can hope for is flattening the curve until the vaccine becomes available. It would be interesting to know what percentage of the population has already been infected and recovered.

[former lurker]

That's wonderful that Canada has had such a low rate of infection and well-organized healthcare system that you guys have been able to contain the spread. Unfortunately here in the US, over 4 million have been infected that we know about, probably millions more that we don't. Our healthcare delivery system is fractured, and testing in such short supply that results, at least here in the SF Bay Area have been taking 10 days (rendering the testing almost useless except for statistical purposes). So that strategy can't work here. The best we can hope for is flattening the curve until the vaccine becomes available. It would be interesting to know what percentage of the population has already been infected and recovered.

 

I just want to highlight one important point you've made -- our health care system is a fractured patchwork and not readily adapted and/or scaled to manage a novel disease crisis like corona. That point should be remembered the next time we have a national debate about reforming health care coverage and delivery. We tend not to focus on systemic limitations and think of them as too remote to factor into our approach. Perhaps corona will cause some change in that calculation.

[+ sync]

I just want to highlight one important point you've made -- our health care system is a fractured patchwork and not readily adapted and/or scaled to manage a novel disease crisis like corona. That point should be remembered the next time we have a national debate about reforming health care coverage and delivery. We tend not to focus on systemic limitations and think of them as too remote to factor into our approach. Perhaps corona will cause some change in that calculation.

I agree with your evaluation, however, the failure of a managed U.S. response to C19 was self-inflicted by the Trump administration. One of the first actions of the Trump administration was to dismantle the pandemic response system, hobble the CDC, and evict the FDA from Washington, DC., which rendered the U.S. defenseless against a pandemic. The failure was/is augmented by the Trump administration's denial of C19 and related data.

[former lurker]

I agree with your evaluation, however, the failure of a managed U.S. response to C19 was self-inflicted by the Trump administration. One of the first actions of the Trump administration was to dismantle the pandemic response system, hobble the CDC, and evict the FDA from Washington, DC., which rendered the U.S. defenseless against a pandemic. The failure was/is augmented by the Trump administration's denial of C19 and related data.

 

Agreed. There were built-in limits, but Trump's plainly responsible for both the active dismantling of guard rails and the willful refusal to acknowledge the science and take concerted action to deal with the crisis. He's too focused on how to spin the situation to create political wedges to simply do what is needed.

[mike carey]

I just want to highlight one important point you've made -- our health care system is a fractured patchwork and not readily adapted and/or scaled to manage a novel disease crisis like corona. That point should be remembered the next time we have a national debate about reforming health care coverage and delivery. We tend not to focus on systemic limitations and think of them as too remote to factor into our approach. Perhaps corona will cause some change in that calculation.

One of the things that has been conspicuous here has been the central role that the state public health authorities have played, and with that the role of the local area health services in the detail of the administration. Politicians have deferred to the chief health officers in their media conferences. Early in the pandemic the federal government effectively nationalised the private hospital system so the state public health authorities were able to manage the whole system holistically. Here, the state health systems have managed the pandemic with the federal government playing a coordination and back-stop role, including procurement of equipment and PPE. The feds also coordinated the provision of defence force personnel to support the states. That started out with medical personnel, but it has broadened into logistics and boots on the ground to assist in security and checkpoints on state borders and lock-down area perimeters, and most recently personnel to staff teams with state health department people door-knocking in the contact tracing processes. There have also been medical professionals and academic epidemiologists involved in the public debate reinforcing the health system messages, and the ABC has had medical reporters with long experience in health and medical issues providing informed reporting on the way the pandemic is progressing (I have previously posted some of their reporting in these forums). There have been mistakes made, and the current spike in cases and deaths in Victoria is most likely due to just a few errors in hotel quarantine for overseas arrivals in Melbourne. With that, some of the gloss has come off our previously good performance but so far we are still doing pretty well. (Touch wood.)

[Guest]

...(Touch wood.)

In the US, the expression is "knock on wood." The expression "touch wood" implies something else in our country, just in case you come visit after a vaccine becomes available....

[Guest]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-28/sweden-unveils-promising-covid-19-data-as-new-cases-plunge

 

I'm not suggesting that approach, but the data do seem to offer some hope.

[+ bigjoey]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-28/sweden-unveils-promising-covid-19-data-as-new-cases-plunge

 

I'm not suggesting that approach, but the data do seem to offer some hope.

We will have to wait until the pandemic is over to fully judge if Sweden’s approach was best. They have admitted that part of their approach was wrong: only give the elderly palliative care rather than full medical care.

[xyz48B]

We will have to wait until the pandemic is over to fully judge if Sweden’s approach was best

We will likely have to wait much longer than that to know a lot of things about COVID-19. Just the other day, my secretary was talking about a new complication related to COVID. Very worried. She’s a bit of a worrier. I asked her, “Have you noticed we know with 100% certainty everything bad that happens around COVID is caused by COVID, but anything remotely good is couched in a host of caveats?” She of course hadn’t noticed that. But that’s sort of what I mean we’ll have to wait a while to really know. In Massachusetts they’re reporting confirmed and probable cases and deaths. What classifies as probable is a large category. With time, we’ll be able to narrow that down, but right now we actually don’t know a lot. We know more than we did in March, but there’s not a lot we know with definitude.

[Guest]

According to this article, nearly half (46%) of Covid deaths in California came from residents of senior care facilities. That's where we should concentrate our efforts, IMHO: daily rapid tests for all staff, no visitors (unless they can pay for and submit to a rapid test).

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/07/23/nursing-home-death-toll-rises-in-contra-costa-accounting-for-70-percent-of-the-countys-covid-19-deaths/

[mike carey]

A nicely written piece from the Guardian about Melbourne in its current state of semi-lockdown,

 

'Melbourne winters are meant to be shared. We are not designed for this.'

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/30/every-day-melbourne-wakes-and-waits-for-the-news-its-worse-this-time?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1596083002

[chirob]

I went with a friend to a drive-thru test facility here in Chicago. We were told the wait would be 30 minutes. After 90 minutes we gave up and left. Five days later I got a phone call saying I was covid-19 positive. I laughed at the caller and hung up

[xyz48B]

https://apple.news/AoAkWmmGqQXCZcsv5tNh78g

 

Some things to keep in mind.

[SirBillybob]

I went with a friend to a drive-thru test facility here in Chicago. We were told the wait would be 30 minutes. After 90 minutes we gave up and left. Five days later I got a phone call saying I was covid-19 positive. I laughed at the caller and hung up

At least one positive is now walking around spreading it.