triplehorn

Trump: "Nobody could have foreseen coronavirus"

Better than taking fish tank cleaner or drinking ispropyl alcohol. Presumably the prescriptions as written are safe dosages and each person's history has been considered before prescribing, and they've given informed consent. That done, the overall risks are low and there's reason to believe it helps. And Re the French researcher above, I haven't dug into the claims in that tweet, but they should probably be verified before tossing out the recent HCHQ/Azithromycin study. The study design itself has limitations, but that doesn't mean it's faked. Bad info can cut both ways. edit: and per Mrs. W above, could be non-covid rx's being filled out of fear of shortages. That's not clear.

True, and activation of the Defense Production Act would reduce those crisis demand profits.

As of last year, we'd already spent over a quarter of that on Trump playing golf. And he was playing golf even just 3 weeks ago, the same time he was still calling covid a hoax.

Fingers crossed. Everything hinges on testing. Without it we're flying blind. Our health care system is getting crashed into May regardless. How long that goes on remains to be seen.

re: "HR2P, spanning residues 1251–1286 in the HR2 domain, with low or no toxic effect in vitro" - HR2P is a synthetic peptide (small molecule made of a short sequence of amino acids) designed to interact like a puzzle piece with a specific segment of viral protein (a much larger molecule also comprised of a sequence of amino acids) that is essential for host cell recognition/fusion. The domain 1251-1286, which spans 35 amino acids, is a small but key segment of a large surface protein on healthy human respiratory cells that needs to be exposed for a virus to dock like a puzzle piece on the surface of a healthy cell for entry. HR2P resembles a key portion of a healthy cell's "viral docking site" and chemically fits and binds to viruses' domain needed for cell infection. The HR2P-M2 is just a further synthetically modified peptide where they introduced an additional amino acid (Glu, Lys, or Arg) into the peptide sequence. Doing that slightly altered the chemical properties of the peptide to make it more chemically stable and soluble for use as a storable and deployable "medication" that can be administered. Probably more importantly the stability modification probably allows it to "hang around" longer waiting for a virus to show up before it degrades, and to be more soluble which helps it get to and be where viral targets will arrive after administration. This approach is opposite the drug "camostat mesylate", which we heard about a couple weeks ago that blocks the ACE2 receptor, the viral docking site on the surface of human cells. So instead of gumming up the surface receptors of our healthy cells, the HR2P-M2 peptide only gums up the viruses' docking receptors, which seem like a better approach. However a combination of the two approaches could further inhibit cell infection.

It's a perfect storm of unpreparedness (mentally and materially), incompetence and lack of leadership at the top to recognize and act as a nation, and sheer size of our population. On a positive note in that thread:

The frank lack of testing availability combined with prolonged turnaround for results will probably pin the US as having the worst CFR's among advanced nations, all told. Uncoupled from average case age or relative population health, I expect that countries like Germany and SoKo will have the best CFR's due to mass testing with rapid results turnaround and early initiation of treatment. Germany was slower than expected to shut it all down, but they quickly ramped up testing and may have jumped fast with meds application. Again want to know more about the existence of GER rapid/early diagnosis linked to medication intervention. We know SoKo has done a really good job with their testing program in every respect and they had med cocktails going from the jump likely due to learning what China was attempting through early collaboration. Too soon to know, but watch for this. Our national testing debacle is beyond deadly.

This front line med staff just got brutally slammed.

I wonder if you look more closely, if lower CFR is due to rapid early detection/diagnosis and medication cocktail initiation. Germany seems like they'd be all over the medication application side of this. I've considered from the start of this that early treatment before complications form (pneumonia) is likely key to better outcomes. I'd really like to see if there's a difference with GER there.

Couple things to consider: I believe we reached 65k faster than Italy (if you count number of days starting after each had 100 cases). Also, given that the avg age of Italian deaths is older than US, younger complicated cases may simply be living longer with ventilation before succumbing even though final death rates may be more comparable. That's a morbid thought, but there's ongoing timeline overlap. Also on 3/12, Italy had cumulative deaths of 827, with 196 dying on 3/12. The US today has cumulative deaths of 801, with 211 dying today. So very comparable Today,13 days later, Italy has 6820 cumulative deaths, and added 743 deaths today.

The Governor of NY specifically called for antibody tests two days ago in a presser in order to start to get people out and about. The Surgeon General may have also mentioned it. Just can't happen fast enough.

"The incubation period from exposure to onset of symptoms is between four and six days; and if you want to cover 95–98 percent of the cases it is between three and 10 days. It's pretty rare to have an incubation period outside of that range." "After a person recovers from the virus, how long are they still contagious? That's a very important question. We're not sure; one individual in China was shown to have persistent virus shedding for over a month. But typically, we're looking at a three-week period from onset of symptoms. Renowned Virologist David Ho

It depends on how you define outcome measures, ie deaths or crashing our health care system. Deaths don't crash the health care system, hospitalizations do.

circling back to Russia, on March 22, they reported 302 cases. So far today they're at 495 with 57 new and 5 day case double time.

Also keep in mind the French study results suggest combining with Azithromycin may augment results compared HCHQ alone. One proposed antiviral mechanism for Azith is that it stimulates interferon production within an active/ongoing immune response. Interestingly, news is coming out now about successful application of a treatment initially engineered in Cuba - Interferon Alpha-2B: Cuban ‘wonder drug’ being used worldwide: officialThe drug, called Interferon Alpha-2B Recombinant (IFNrec), is jointly developed by scientists from Cuba and China

Also note that Chinese study dosed at 400mg/d HCHQ while the recent French study dosed at 600mg/d HCHQ. The saying goes, "the dose makes the poison." Or the response, as it may be.

Clinical features and chest CT findings of coronavirus disease 2019 in infants and young children

Am J Med. A cured patient with 2019-nCoV pneumonia moxifloxacin and oseltamivir

Good review of studies that need to be done - NEJM: Defining the Epidemiology of Covid-19 — Studies Needed

siap: re DIY mask materials What Are The Best Materials for Making DIY Masks?

I got my balaclava out last night and combine with some second layer. Not quite there yet. Giving it a few more days.

Best explanation of the rationale for Trump's lack of initiation of the Defense Production Act. As one comment notes, it would be on brand.

wonder what the "human antidote" is up to these days