PlagueWatch 2020-23 - Coronavirus

[devildeac]

But wait*, dogs can be infected also...

What if they lose their sense of smell?



*I kid because I'm bored.

"1st man: My dog's got no nose.
2nd man: How does he smell?
1st man: Awful."

Funniest joke in the world; you'll die laughing.

(Old Monty Python skit. Will link after work today.)

Apologies.

[duke79]

https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/2020...fight-covid-19

Interesting study that implies that taking zinc supplements MAY help to fight off the Covid-19 virus, if you become infected.

I read somewhere too that Dr. Fauci is recommending that people take vitamins D and C supplements, also to try to boost your immune system.

Do any of the experts on this board have any thoughts about this?

[JasonEvans]

https://www.axios.com/viral-load-dos...VmOb8djtuzKxfU

RThomas, you are a good poster and I hate to call you out but what you did here is one of my real pet peeves on the boards.

Posting links without any context or explanation for what the link contains is just really bad form. In fact, it is technically against DBR rules:

Note on Bald Links:

With the rise in popularity of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other social media outlets, we've noticed an increase in posts that consist solely of a link to another site or the text of a tweet or status. DBR prides itself on being a forum where every post strives to advance the conversation. Should you want to post a link or retweet, please include your opinion as to why the item is relevant (and in the case of a link, let us know why it's worth the reader's time to click on it).

Put your post in context by including your rationale for including the link, tweet, or quote. Otherwise, it might be considered a needless post.

I am making this comment in public in the hope others will see it and work to correct this problem in their own posts as RThomas is certainly not the only person to fall into this trap.

[rsvman]

"1st man: My dog's got no nose.
2nd man: How does he smell?
1st man: Awful."

Funniest joke in the world; you'll die laughing.

(Old Monty Python skit. Will link after work today.)

Apologies.

[fake German accent] One..was..a.salted...........peanut...[/fake German accent]

[rsvman]

https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/2020...fight-covid-19

Interesting study that implies that taking zinc supplements MAY help to fight off the Covid-19 virus, if you become infected.

I read somewhere too that Dr. Fauci is recommending that people take vitamins D and C supplements, also to try to boost your immune system.

Do any of the experts on this board have any thoughts about this?

Zinc actually inhibits the coronavirus polymerase; this has been known for at least a decade. Zinc supplementation is one of the very few things that has ever been shown to shorten the duration of a common cold (fair warning, though: in doses high enough to really be effective, zinc side effects for many people in the trials were actually worse than the disease they were treating). Zinc may also play a role in downregulation of the over-active immune reaction to SARS-CoV-2, although I don't really know a lot about that or what its mechanism might be.

The study they were talking about was actually not a cause-effect study, but rather an ecological study. What the researchers found was that patients who had lower zinc levels at the time they came into the hospital with COVID-19 were more likely to have severe disease and more likely to die from the infection. That doesn't necessarily mean that taking zinc and raising your levels of zinc would be protective, but it is suggestive, certainly.

Another recent study showed the same finding with regard to vitamin D levels. As far as vitamin C goes, I'm not sure whether it would have any benefit. Some people think it has a general effect on helping to decrease respiratory viral infections, but studies have shown inconsistent results. There was a recent study just published in August that showed that, in one center, about 90% of patients admitted to the hospital with severe COVID-19 had undetectable levels of vitamin C in their blood. There was no control group, and it is not clear from the study whether low vitamin C levels caused patients to be more susceptible or predisposed them to worse infection, or whether, perhaps, vitamin C levels are adversely affected by infection with SARS-CoV-2. There are some bench-top studies that suggest some degree of protection from rapid replication in a chick embyo cell monolayer. It also, in general, has some mild anti-inflammatory effects. Since vitamin C is a water-soluble vitamin, you can take a bunch of it without fear of a hypervitaminosis; your body will just excrete what it doesn't need. That isn't to say that it doesn't have side effects; high doses of vitamin C cause a lot of people to have gastrointestinal distress.

Bottom line of all this? Do I think supplementation with any/all of these is worthwhile? Here are my thoughts:

Vitamin D
1) If you have had vitamin D levels drawn in the past, and know that you are vitamin D deficient, you should supplement and get your vitamin D levels into the normal range. Supplementation for low vitamin D levels can be done in many ways; you should contact your doctor to see if a really high-dose prescription vitamin D that is taken once a week would be of potential use for you.
2) If you have had vitamin D levels drawn and know your levels are good, you probably do not need to take high-dose supplements. Taking a "one-a-day" type of over-the-counter multivitamin (not the kind with megadoses of everything) is probably not a bad idea.
3) If you have never had a vitamin D level drawn, and thus have no idea whether you have adequate vitamin D levels or not, you should probably get your doctor to order a level for you, so you can see whether supplementation would be worthwhile/required.
4) If you don't know, but have no desire to be tested, taking a regular OTC multivitamin to boost levels is probably not a bad idea, as a fair proportion of the US population has low-ish vitamin D levels.

Vitamin C
1) I don't know if it would help, but it probably/certainly wouldn't hurt to have enough vitamin C in your blood. Supplementation of vitamin C, if your stomach can tolerate it, is probably not a bad idea. I don't see any role for mega-doses of vitamin C of the type advocated by Dr. Linus Pauling, but boosting your vitamin C is not going to be harmful to you.

Zinc
1) About 12% of the US population is said to be zinc deficient, with that number going up to maybe 35% among the elderly. So zinc deficiency is nowhere near as common as vitamin D deficiency. Zinc supplementation can fairly easily be overdone. Zinc supplementation causes a lot of gastric upset, cramping, diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting in many people. High levels of zinc lower your HDL (the good cholesterol). High levels of zinc can also interfere with copper metabolism. If you feel like you want to supplement your zinc levels, you should do it carefully. Adults only need about 11-12 mgs a day. Given the risks and side effects of zinc supplementation, if you decide to do zinc in any form other than just a daily multi-vitamin, you should probably discuss it with your doctor before starting, particularly if you have high cholesterol.
2) Whatever you do, do NOT use the "zinc swabs" that you inoculate directly into your nose ("Zicam"). These swabs have no proven benefit in any respiratory viral infection and carry the potential to cause anosmia (yes, loss of smell). You can see how this might cause confusion and problems in the midst of a pandemic caused by a virus that often induces anosmia as a consequence of infection. Unlike the anosmia caused by the virus, the anosmia linked to Zicam swabs has often been irreversible. This is a "drug" that has absolutely ZERO scientific evidence of efficacy, but has the potential for lifelong side effects.

[sagegrouse]

https://www.axios.com/viral-load-dos...VmOb8djtuzKxfU

It goes on from here:

How sick a person gets from a virus can depend on how much of the pathogen that person was exposed to and how much virus is replicating in their body — questions that are still open for the novel coronavirus.

[aimo]

https://abc11.com/health/florida-lif...pread/6561359/

Plans are to head down there next weekend for two weeks. We generally stay to ourselves down there, anyway, and had already planned to not eat out, just get takeout. But the thought of people just freely walking around taking no precautions scares the crap out of me. Hopefully, the local governments will still mandate masks regardless of the governor's stupidity.

[duke79]

Zinc actually inhibits the coronavirus polymerase; this has been known for at least a decade. Zinc supplementation is one of the very few things that has ever been shown to shorten the duration of a common cold (fair warning, though: in doses high enough to really be effective, zinc side effects for many people in the trials were actually worse than the disease they were treating). Zinc may also play a role in downregulation of the over-active immune reaction to SARS-CoV-2, although I don't really know a lot about that or what its mechanism might be.

The study they were talking about was actually not a cause-effect study, but rather an ecological study. What the researchers found was that patients who had lower zinc levels at the time they came into the hospital with COVID-19 were more likely to have severe disease and more likely to die from the infection. That doesn't necessarily mean that taking zinc and raising your levels of zinc would be protective, but it is suggestive, certainly.

Another recent study showed the same finding with regard to vitamin D levels. As far as vitamin C goes, I'm not sure whether it would have any benefit. Some people think it has a general effect on helping to decrease respiratory viral infections, but studies have shown inconsistent results. There was a recent study just published in August that showed that, in one center, about 90% of patients admitted to the hospital with severe COVID-19 had undetectable levels of vitamin C in their blood. There was no control group, and it is not clear from the study whether low vitamin C levels caused patients to be more susceptible or predisposed them to worse infection, or whether, perhaps, vitamin C levels are adversely affected by infection with SARS-CoV-2. There are some bench-top studies that suggest some degree of protection from rapid replication in a chick embyo cell monolayer. It also, in general, has some mild anti-inflammatory effects. Since vitamin C is a water-soluble vitamin, you can take a bunch of it without fear of a hypervitaminosis; your body will just excrete what it doesn't need. That isn't to say that it doesn't have side effects; high doses of vitamin C cause a lot of people to have gastrointestinal distress.

Bottom line of all this? Do I think supplementation with any/all of these is worthwhile? Here are my thoughts:

Vitamin D
1) If you have had vitamin D levels drawn in the past, and know that you are vitamin D deficient, you should supplement and get your vitamin D levels into the normal range. Supplementation for low vitamin D levels can be done in many ways; you should contact your doctor to see if a really high-dose prescription vitamin D that is taken once a week would be of potential use for you.
2) If you have had vitamin D levels drawn and know your levels are good, you probably do not need to take high-dose supplements. Taking a "one-a-day" type of over-the-counter multivitamin (not the kind with megadoses of everything) is probably not a bad idea.
3) If you have never had a vitamin D level drawn, and thus have no idea whether you have adequate vitamin D levels or not, you should probably get your doctor to order a level for you, so you can see whether supplementation would be worthwhile/required.
4) If you don't know, but have no desire to be tested, taking a regular OTC multivitamin to boost levels is probably not a bad idea, as a fair proportion of the US population has low-ish vitamin D levels.

Vitamin C
1) I don't know if it would help, but it probably/certainly wouldn't hurt to have enough vitamin C in your blood. Supplementation of vitamin C, if your stomach can tolerate it, is probably not a bad idea. I don't see any role for mega-doses of vitamin C of the type advocated by Dr. Linus Pauling, but boosting your vitamin C is not going to be harmful to you.

Zinc
1) About 12% of the US population is said to be zinc deficient, with that number going up to maybe 35% among the elderly. So zinc deficiency is nowhere near as common as vitamin D deficiency. Zinc supplementation can fairly easily be overdone. Zinc supplementation causes a lot of gastric upset, cramping, diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting in many people. High levels of zinc lower your HDL (the good cholesterol). High levels of zinc can also interfere with copper metabolism. If you feel like you want to supplement your zinc levels, you should do it carefully. Adults only need about 11-12 mgs a day. Given the risks and side effects of zinc supplementation, if you decide to do zinc in any form other than just a daily multi-vitamin, you should probably discuss it with your doctor before starting, particularly if you have high cholesterol.
2) Whatever you do, do NOT use the "zinc swabs" that you inoculate directly into your nose ("Zicam"). These swabs have no proven benefit in any respiratory viral infection and carry the potential to cause anosmia (yes, loss of smell). You can see how this might cause confusion and problems in the midst of a pandemic caused by a virus that often induces anosmia as a consequence of infection. Unlike the anosmia caused by the virus, the anosmia linked to Zicam swabs has often been irreversible. This is a "drug" that has absolutely ZERO scientific evidence of efficacy, but has the potential for lifelong side effects.

As always, Dr. rsvman, thank you for your words of wisdom on the many issues involving Covid-19!

[MChambers]

An article in Politico, of all places, summarizing the views of some knowledgeable folks about how this pandemic ends. Seems to my non-expert eye to be pretty well reasoned:

"They agree there’s a lot of fog left in the Covid-19 crystal ball, but most accept several likelihoods: At least one effective vaccine—hopefully several—will be approved in the U.S. by early next year. Producing and distributing a vaccine will take months, with the average American not receiving their dose (or doses) until at least mid- or late 2021. And while widespread inoculation will play a large role in bringing life back to normal, getting the shot will not be your cue to take off your mask and run free into a crowded bar. The end of the pandemic will be an evolution, not a revolution, the vaccine just another powerful tool in that process."

https://www.politico.com/news/magazi...ic-ends-421122

Similar article from Stat.com, also seems well reasoned:

So much depends on when vaccines are authorized and how quickly they can be deployed. But most experts say that even if a vaccine campaign gets rolling at the beginning of 2021, certain precautions like masks might be our future until at least 2022. “Normal” won’t just arrive one day. We’ll work our way toward it.

“We will have to, as societies around the world, learn to live with this infection,” said Jeremy Farrar, the director of the Wellcome Trust. “Manage it. Reduce its impact through vaccination, treatment, and diagnostics as we do with other infections.”

“This is with us for a very long time — with a vaccine or without a vaccine,” he added.

https://www.statnews.com/feature/cor...hs-and-beyond/

[Bostondevil]

Quote from one of my plays: "Yes, I'm consistent. It's like taking zinc for a cold. The only consistent result is that it tastes bad."

[YmoBeThere]

Texas A&M was allowed 25% of their stadium capacity at last night's game. When factoring in players, coaches, support staff, that meant approximately 25k fans at the stadium. Hope it went well.

(A&M beat Vandy 17-12)

[budwom]

Florida opens up bars and restaurants all the way, 16,000 attend a football game, let's see how this turns out.

[Bluedog]

Florida opens up bars and restaurants all the way, 16,000 attend a football game, let's see how this turns out.

The thing that is odd to me is Florida was peaking and accelerating fast in July and no additional precautions were handed down by the governor - in fact, he was and continues to loosen standards. And with all that the counts have gone DOWN since then. Why? I have no idea.

Note that I'm not suggesting we shouldn't take precautions or that crowds can't spread it, just that it's for some reason not always what you expect and hard to predict case counts/patterns.

[YmoBeThere]

The thing that is odd to me is Florida was peaking and accelerating fast in July and no additional precautions were handed down by the governor - in fact, he was and continues to loosen standards. And with all that the counts have gone DOWN since then. Why? I have no idea

What happened between mid-July and now? Nearly 400k more people tested positive and almost 10,000 people died. In Florida. In two months and a some days. At some point, people adjust behavior regardless of guidance given.

[tbyers11]

The thing that is odd to me is Florida was peaking and accelerating fast in July and no additional precautions were handed down by the governor - in fact, he was and continues to loosen standards. And with all that the counts have gone DOWN since then. Why? I have no idea.

Note that I'm not suggesting we shouldn't take precautions or that crowds can't spread it, just that it's for some reason not always what you expect and hard to predict case counts/patterns.

The governor of FL has never imposed state wide restrictions on masks. Counties (at least ones in the more populated areas) started doing so in late June in response to cases spiking in early June. Most counties had no fines associated with enforcement, but the combinations of businesses requiring masks and general acceptance by most of the population that it was a good idea led to masks being worn. Also, bars were closed after the spike. Cases went down.

Now that the governor has declared 100% open season for bars and restaurants and insisted that fines for not wearing masks would not be enforced (not that they ever were) we will see what happens.

[budwom]

Meanwhile, the Virginia Hokies, who had 23 players out of action on Saturday due to The Corvid, wander down to Wallace Wade next Saturday. I'm sure there will be rationalizations on why this is a jolly good idea.

[Green Wave Dukie]

Meanwhile, the Virginia Hokies, who had 23 players out of action on Saturday due to The Corvid, wander down to Wallace Wade next Saturday. I'm sure there will be rationalizations on why this is a jolly good idea.

TECHnically, not really the Virginia Hokies.

[budwom]

TECHnically, not really the Virginia Hokies.

"The Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University" rolleth neither off my tongue nor keyboard! Can all the kids who go there recite the full name?

[jimsumner]

"The Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University" rolleth neither off my tongue nor keyboard! Can all the kids who go there recite the full name?

Perhaps not. But they sure don't call it Virginia.

[camion]

Perhaps not. But they sure don't call it Virginia.

I suppose North Carolina Wolfpack is also off the table.