triplehorn

As a follow-up to the Manila Bulletin article I posted above about Russia offering the Philippines a medical cure for Covid-19, I asked "why in the hell would Putin be approaching PH about offering this cure as a first step? In my wildest imagination, what could possibly motivate that?" My first hit: PH holds USD 26.3-T untapped oil deposits

Not sure if fake news, but look at this shit: Russia offers PH cure for COVID-19

I wish someone had followed up w the POTUS on the subject of availability of masks and recommended usage policy.

not even a pep talk. detached from reality

uh, that's not using an abundance of caution. Affected people are reportedly highly contagious for 2-3 days before any symptoms appear. If you don't reduce your social contacts by 80% and use a high level of caution...you do the math.

Pretty certain I've been infected with this bug for a week and haven't developed pneumonia so far. Yesterday I learned testing is rationed where I am for those possibly needing hospitalization. So it's not confirmed, but it all fits. Don't want to count my chickens yet, but I'm looking ahead and feel ready to help every way I can. Very few of us in the country have yet to come out the other side of the psychological unknowns of personal infection. I'm certain many already have or are in the process of it right now but haven't realized it yet. It is early but it is happening now - as numbers of us join the post-infection herd and are ok, we need to start anticipating today how those in the growing herd can best be used to maximize help through every kind of service. On that last note, this is another reason we need testing on a mass scale - to help coordinate mobilization of those who are past riding the exponential curve into a hospital. Confirmation you have/had it and are ok will shift the outlook and behavior of growing millions on a weekly basis. We need to capitalize on that asap.

curve is going logarithmic right now

Study: COVID-19 Is Also Spread by Fecal-Oral Route— Also new: Like SARS, COVID-19 may induce liver damage "New research from China indicates that the novel coronavirus is also spread by fecal-oral transmission, not just by respiratory droplets or environmental contact. Hong Shan, MD, PhD, of Fifth Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, and colleagues noted that the gastrointestinal tract is a welcoming environment for the virus, also known as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) CoV-2. "Our immunofluorescent data showed that the ACE2 protein, which has been proved to be a cell receptor for SARS-CoV-2, is abundantly expressed in the glandular cells of gastric, duodenal, and rectal epithelia, supporting the entry of SARS-CoV-2 into the host cell," the team wrote. New research from China indicates that the novel coronavirus is also spread by fecal-oral transmission, not just by respiratory droplets or environmental contact. Hong Shan, MD, PhD, of Fifth Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, and colleagues noted that the gastrointestinal tract is a welcoming environment for the virus, also known as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) CoV-2. "Our immunofluorescent data showed that the ACE2 protein, which has been proved to be a cell receptor for SARS-CoV-2, is abundantly expressed in the glandular cells of gastric, duodenal, and rectal epithelia, supporting the entry of SARS-CoV-2 into the host cell," the team wrote. Among the key findings of the study, published online in Gastroenterology: A significant portion of coronavirus patients experience diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, and/or abdominal discomfort before the onset of respiratory symptoms Viral RNA is detectable in fecal samples from suspected cases, indicating that the virus sheds into the stool Viral gastrointestinal infection and potential fecal-oral transmission can last even after viral clearance from the respiratory tract The study looked at 73 patients hospitalized for possible COVID-19 and tested from February 1 to 14, 2020. Testing included serum, nasopharyngeal, and oropharyngeal swabs, as well as urine, stool, and tissue samples in accordance with China Disease Control and Prevention guidelines. A total of 39 patients (53.4%; 25 males and 14 females), tested positive for fecal SARS-CoV-2 RNA. The age of patients with positive RNA in stool ranged from 10 months to 78 years, and the duration of stool positivity ranged from 1 to 12 days. Furthermore, the stool of 17 patients (23.3%) remained positive even after respiratory samples tested negative. cont." ^^^ That first bullet point above is what happened to me. Single episode of diarrhea out of the blue end of last week, followed by onset of upper airway resistance to breathing starting in back of throat down my trachea and a sense of pressure or heaviness further down in center area my lungs early this week. Last two days it's more noticeable a 3-4/10. If it were to turn up to a 7/10, I could see it feeling like I couldn't breathe or have to work for every breath. If it holds right here I'm good. Called my PCP office a bit ago and they said since I didn't meet criteria a test wasn't available. wow. The fecal-oral route, if this is what it is, had to come from wrestling with my kid. Those grubby hands on my face and covering my mouth is pretty routine.

"I used to cough to coverup my farts, now I fart to cover up my coughs."

Russia had 15 cases to start the week. 50 now? It's there. Unless they're all vaccinated per the diabolical plan, there will be bodies. Someone should just confirm the bodies don't all belong to journalists.

fwiw, late last week I had a single episode of obvious diarrhea out of the blue. Nothing else. It crossed my mind wondering if it was a sentinel symptom of something, and did see that mild or minimal diarrhea can be associated with this coronavirus. Over the past 3-4 days, last two days for sure, I've had mild upper airway restriction which I can't recall the last time I had, slight runny nose, a minimal cough, and a vague sensation of pressure or heaviness deeper in the middle of my chest. No real obvious fever but the last 3 nights sleep has only been 5 hours and waking up with my legs feeling hot. Kiddo has had something as well this week and I've been lobbying to keep him home from school all week (not at school today going forward). The teacher has been out with sickness since Tuesday, no word on her condition. Covid-19 is here in the community and around the state. Part of me hopes this is a milder covid-19 infection and I can join the herd. Who the hell knows. I'd go get a test right now if it didn't inconvenience anyone. Also I shifted all work to virtual Monday this week thinking I needed to protect myself. Could be it was the other way around. Been loading on Zinc since last weekend as well.

In theory, it makes sense:

Chloroquine plus zinc may be even more effective at halting or mitigating coronavirus infection when loading is present before actual infection than when started after infection is symptomatic and typically severe.

Random thought: yesterday we started getting glimpses of medication cocktails that SoKo is using which MAY be contributing to their lower CFR relative to similarly affected countries. One of the protocols involves combining the old malaria drug chloroquine with Zinc. Zinc is a 2++ ion that apparently shuts down the RNA polymerase that the virus requires to effect its virulence. The RNA polymerase works inside infected cells. Zinc ion can't easily cross into cells (cytosol). Choroquine is an ionophore that picks up Zinc ions and carries them into the cells where they disrupt the RNA polymerase. Chloroquine apparently increases the cytosolic concentration of Zinc x10 relative to taking Zinc alone. Where I'm going with this is that apart from an acute intervention for very sick patients, could this be a prophylactic strategy for all vulnerable health care staff? Start taking some dose of Chloroquine once or twice or more per week with daily Zinc to have it already waiting there with boosted intracellular levels to disrupt onset of illness and severity, i.e. don't wait until the first wallop from being infected?

i.e, the youngs.

Imagine the exposure to CostCo checkout staffers. no masks, no gloves, no hand sanitizer If at all humanly possible, stay home as much as possible for 10-14 days. This thing multiplies so fast we'll have a better idea of where things stand. It's about to hit us hard.

kids spread it efficiently - they're not known for hygiene and hand washing, they touch everything, infection doesn't slow them down, they pass it around at school. You have to attack the nodes of most rapid sharing of the virus first. It's still a lose/lose, just have to minimize the steepness of the curve. Our hospital healthcare workers will need to do what Italy is attempting - compartmentalize nurses, docs, and staff to coronavirus care or not. And if staff is sick with it but able to stand and breathe, you still work with the coronavirus cases.

Considering we don't really have enough PPE for even our healthcare workers nationwide to sustain the onslaught, what that scale of difference vs our population not having masks suggests:

We need millions of basic face masks to distribute as soon as humanly possible. Having mass community distribution of masks outside of grocery stores would kill 3 birds with one stone - get them on faces, reduce total number of trips, masks on faces before going into crowded grocery stores. We can cancel games and rodeos, but people still have to get food. With extreme social distancing, i.e. limiting social contact by 80%, reserve the outside of home time to food gathering and pharmacy.

Testing is not helpful as of right now. People need to act as if they can be infected or spread it easily and unknowingly. We know from China, SK, HK, Singapore, Japan, Taiwan that a radical shift towards social distancing is the only effective thing we can do to slow this down. The thing about this bug is you're contagious for 2-3 days before you're symptomatic: Because it's so contagious, it's like a flash fire. The doubling time of numbers of affected is about 4 days (early 7 day estimates not supported now) which means the growth rate is exponential. Exponential growth means that every single day that any affected place in the world waits to implement extreme social distancing has a MAJOR impact on outcome: Guess where the US is on that curve today. So conversely, the math also shows that relatively small changes in social behavior have MAJOR changes that help slow the spread. Do not wait another day. Shut it down. Stay home to prevent spread or infection. We'll know a lot more about rates here in less than two weeks. For the general population outside of home, probably the biggest thing we need is face masks for everyone to inhibit rapid spread outside of home, not necessarily as an absolute barrier to prevent infection though it certainly helps reduce risk. And crucially, masks would help inhibit community spread by those who are infected but still asymptomatic.

From the 'wall of words' up the page, those two lines jumped out. This has all happened so fast, and those on the frontline who are further along than the US is in this pandemic have been so overwhelmed that they are just now organizing and getting out their experiences, treatments, and other data. I'm hopeful that we learn more about why SoKo has suppressed their relative CFR. I suspect a medicine cocktail will emerge that SoKo can point to as being clearly a cut above. I first saw some of those protocols linked here this morning with some antiviral drugs but also that oldie chloroquine. Sometimes answers seem to be hiding in plain sight, and appear when repurposed. If we could take their lead and dial it in further, maybe we make some real short to medium term progress reducing illness severity. It's priority one for the whole world, China included. China does not have anything approaching herd immunity and also doesn't want to endure long term pressure to isolate. No one is past this and everyone needs to collaborate as completely as possible.

Reports coming out of Italy that young people are also capable of getting very very sick. Also noted some speculation that while 70+ influences the time to death to be about 2 weeks, younger folks may fight it longer before succumbing, so the data may be skewed at this early stage. Lots of reports of people barely being affected. Reports also of abrupt respiratory arrest and death within a few hours of onset of symptoms. wide range.

Yep. Per the map below, if you could do time lapse over the next 10 days, you're going to see the US get dark in places like Italy is today. In fact, you could probably look back 10-14 days what the number of cases in Italy was and derive a comparable per capita incidence and match it to a color in the US today. That's where chunks of our country will be in that same short amount of time.

Make a personal choice, don't worry about everyone else. They'll be right behind you, believe it. But each and every day matters right now to give you the best chance to steer clear initially until we know more what the best next steps are.

Shut.It.Down