Per Worldometers, there were 81,600 cases on Wednesday, October 28, the worst daily figure yeet for the COVID-19 pandemic. The seven-day average for new cases has reached 74,600, well above the July high of 68,600.
While new deaths have increased over the past week, the seven-day average of 814 is below the summer high of 1,075 that was reached August 13. We'll see what happens in the next 2-3 weeks. The worst seven-day average for the pandemic was 2,208 on April 21. We hope not to see those days again.
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
Disclaimer: I am not an MD
Probiotics have shown some evidence of helping correct the balance between helpful and harmful bacteria in the gut and helped some GI-related ailments.
Probiotics as the name suggest deal with bacteria not viruses. I suppose if you have GI symptoms from a virus infection, probiotics might help those symptoms.
However, I don't see how probiotics would help prevent a viral infection. I am not aware of any direct link (a study with definitive evidence) between probiotics and prevention of viral infections in general or specifically for COVID.
Coach K on Kyle Singler - "What position does he play? ... He plays winner."
"Duke is never the underdog" - Quinn Cook
Last edited by rsvman; 10-29-2020 at 01:08 PM.
"We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us, an effort which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world." --M. Proust
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/27/h...oimmunity.html
The information in this article is from an as-yet unpublished and not peer reviewed study, but researchers are suggesting that they have found autoantibodies developing in some COVID-19 survivors, which actually makes a lot of sense and may be at least a partial (or perhaps even a full) explanation of the phenomenon of so-called long haul patients. This paper will be submitted and reviewed, and then published. It just makes so much sense...
Also, another paper made an association between getting flu shots and a lower risk of symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection. It was an ecological study, so it can't make causative statements. Essentially, hospital workers (in other countries) who got season flu vaccine were about half as likely to have symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 as those who did not get vaccinated. The topic of cross-protection caused by immune stimulation or perhaps similar antigens or a combination has been discussed in this thread before, but I think the most likely reason the people who got flu vaccine were less likely to get SARS-CoV-2 infection is that the kind of person who would take the time to get the flu vaccine is also the type of person who is more likely to wear a mask, avoid crowds, keep social distancing guidelines, and wash their hands.
"We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us, an effort which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world." --M. Proust
https://www.medpagetoday.com/infecti...ly_News_Update
Regeneron is really happy with these trial results in outpatients, that show good reduction in viral load in patients given the antibody cocktail versus those given placebo, but there were no solid clinical endpoints of the study.
Seeing a physician or care provider was their sole clinical outcome measure; the company claims a 57% reduction in visits within 29 days of receiving the product, but the absolute risk reduction was about 3.5%, and the number needed to treat was 27! In other words, 27 people would have to receive the Regeneron cocktail to prevent ONE medical visit (includes even visits to an urgent care center of your primary care doctor; we are not talking about hospitalization here). Given that the therapy costs thousands of dollars, I am not particularly impressed by these data.
There is a reason that we switched from sera to antibiotics and antivirals when they became available.
"We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us, an effort which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world." --M. Proust
Local major hospital network (UVM Medical Center) hit by possible ransomware attack, computer systems down, and we can blame UNC apparently:https://vtdigger.org/2020/10/29/uvm-...t-cyberattack/
Apparently this is happening all over the country...not helpful.
What kills me is how preventable these ransomware attacks are because SO many of them come from a simple phishing email. Just having the discretion to hover over the link and not click it if it looks suspicious would prevent these attacks.
Another concerning aspect is the idea of "backup poisoning" because up until recently, IT folks would just say "our backups are sound, we'll restore if we're hit by ransomware". But now, ransomware will often infect the system and stay dormant for a long time so every backup that's made contains the ransomware as well.
Crooks willing to gamble with human lives for monetary gain makes me sick to my stomach.