Boris Johnson's case of Covid is getting worse. He has been taken to the hospital. Whoa...
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/05/brit...-symptoms.html
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
That article is now almost two weeks old - a lot has changed. I'm not going to argue statistics with you because I frankly find these discussions to be really pointless (lies, damn lies, statistics). But I think at this point the contrarian argument of "it's not that bad" or "these people would have died anyway" has been debunked. People of all ages are getting sick and dying from this. And a lot of that is the second order effect of doctors, nurses, cops, etc. The whole thing might seem very imaginary for those in less hard hit areas of the country, but here in New York, it is very real and scary (I write as I hear yet another set of ambulance sirens go by my apartment and reply to a text from a fairly healthy 30-year old mother of three who is like family to me who thinks she has it and is awaiting testing).
Mass producing a vaccine is a much bigger project because hundreds of millions of doses have to be created. It would seem that the situation with a monoclonal antibody would be different since it only gives eight to ten weeks of protection and so probably would find the greatest use with those who are already infected.
Prior to the development of a vaccine, if 86% of those who become infected have minor or no symptoms those people should probably be left to develop their own immunity naturally and it’s only the remainder who would benefit from monoclonal antibody treatment. As far as large-scale production is concerned there are a number of different methods but the time it would take would start at six weeks for a relatively small amount. More info is available at the Distributed Bio website.
Yep. Even with social distancing assumed through May, the expected COVID death toll in NY state is around 16,000 (they are already over 4,000). In other words, about half the ANNUAL death toll for the flu... for the entire US. And it will achieve that within a single month, rather than the 6-month flu season. The combination of lack of immunity and a more severe virus has made this a VERY big deal. There is a reason pretty much every country with significant number of cases has gone on lockdown.
My only point is that when people look back in the history books at the number of deaths attributable to Covid-19 the number they see there will be calculated the same way flu deaths are calculated. If the death rate is fairly constant at X per year and the year of Covid-19 the number of deaths is X+Y, then Y is the number that will be attributed to Covid-19. Granted, it’s a little more complicated than that but I think that’s basically how they do it. The result is to exclude from the Covid-19 total the number who would have died that year anyway.
Best wishes to Boris Johnson. The 55-YO prime minister tested positive for coronavirus ten days ago. Today (April 5) he was admitted to the hospital for "tests." I hope so, but the progression of the disease seems to be that the second week brings the lung and respiratory problems and potentially grave consequences. We'll doubtless hear more on this subject from the ever-watchful UK media.
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
This definitely isn’t how they do it in the US. The CDC website lays out how they do it for flu. It is a series of calculations based off of flu hospitalizations (to estimate hospitalized deaths due to the flu) and death certificates (to estimate nonhospitalized flu deaths). So the death counts you are seeing now for the US are almost certainly underestimates (because we probably don’t have all the nonhospitalized deaths) and not overestimates.
It also isn’t how the WHO does it. The approach you have outlined may be true for the UK, but I don’t think it is how most places do it. Especially not for the flu, which happens every year. So if they used this approach to estimate annual flu deaths, there would be by definition years in which the flu kills a negative number of people.
Lions and tigers and... oh my! Even the big cats at the Bronx zoo caught the virus.
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/04/05/u...rnd/index.html
“Coach said no 3s.” - Zion on The Block
Duke is also initiating a clinical trial (HERO-HCQ) to assess hydroxychloroquine for prophylaxis in healthcare workers.
Yes, the timeline for initiating HCQ tx has been a prominent feature from the start. Personally, I view it as unconscionable and inexcusable that some powers-that-be have now limited its use to only hospitalized cases and that some parties have revoked clinician's ability to prescribe it off-label...this one medicine, not even other potential COVID treatments, just this. [smh]
If anyone, including non-healthcare workers, is exposed to a COVID+ contact and wants to take HCQ, there is a chance. Univ of Minnesota has an HCQ prophylaxis trial (COVID-PEP) in which anyone in the US can volunteer to participate. But, you need to enroll within the first 4 days of COVID-19 exposure or positive test result. Progress updates will be found here.
It's hard to guess how HCQ is going to end up faring; the new bounty of experiential reports & unpublished data from around the world have mixed findings. A couple more notable examples:
Another story interesting to me is that Michel Chrétien, a scientist brother to former Canadian PM Jean Chrétien, believes the supplement quercetin can be used for prophylaxis or treatment, and he has initial funding and infrastructure to start a small trial in China.
- A glowing report of clinical experience w/ early initiation of HCQ, with particular relevance to the elderly population, will be added from São Paulo probably by the end of this week.
- On the other hand, a potentially trustworthy source, Univ of Mich, states,
I say "potentially trustworthy source" because there's also this interesting addendumWe haven’t seen any clear evidence of benefit so we aren’t going to use hydroxychloroquine routinely anymore,” Chopra says. “We were initially recommending it to both inpatients and outpatients, but we’re no longer doing that routinely. That’s based upon the fact that we’ve been prescribing hydroxychloroquine for a few weeks, did not see therapeutic benefit, but did see adverse effectsChopra notes that use of chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine could also exclude a patient from being allowed to join other COVID-19-related clinical trials, so it’s important to consider all of these factors before prescribing the drug
Finally, let's go even cheaper and more fun (but w/ minimal hope from me). Misr Univ in Egypt is conducting a trial of honey to treat COVID-19. For those of you coming out of hibernation, the dose appears to be 1 gram of honey per kilogram of weight per day, in divided doses.
Got an email from a second of our healthcare providers saying someone on staff got the thing. We hadn’t been in any time to be exposed but it’s been enough that we’ve started requesting teledoc for all our appointments next few months.
This could be unconstitutional, as the Privileges and Immunities Clause bars many forms of state government discrimination against non-residents. The Courts have typically looked unfavorably at economic discrimination against non-residents, but have sometimes allowed it where no fundamental rights are at issue--for instance, they held in 1978 that elk hunting is a privilege, not a right, so non-residents could be charged more for a license.
In other words, the key question for whether this is constitutional: do we have a fundamental right to buy alcohol?
I was waiting in court for my hearing to be called a few years ago, and this hotshot lawyer from out of town came in to argue a motion before mine was reached. He was going on and on about all of the support for his position from United States Supreme Court decisions (it was a criminal motion). Our senior judge finally leaned forward and said "Son, you got any Georgia law?"
We are having our own inter-state squabble here, with the Governor opening all beaches and the mayor of Tybee Island trying to ignore the order.