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Discussion thread VI - COVID-19 (new coronavirus)

All of the numbers are "less accurate". All numbers should be seen as trend indicators - not as absolute. I agree that hospitalizations and deaths are in a time lag following infection but they give an idea how dangerous the situation is. Raw case numbers do not tell us anything about that. And besides - everyone should assume that in "cold and flu season" in the northern hemisphere COVID-19 case numbers will escalate. High case numbers just tell us what we already know. No surprise.
 
soo ... this is nothing unusual ?

I'm interested, how the American public and media perceive this.
Europe is far away, as Wuhan was far away in Jan ?!
Cases in IL etc. are going up, but not more than usual ?
The election is more important than the October-surge ? (mainly in Europe so far)
 

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Hi Everyone. While we are not posting our content we will have some messages.

First of all - We wish all of you the very best.

We are very sorry everyone is going through a hard time.

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Of course, it is "cold and flu season" in the northern hemisphere. You know what that is. Unfortunately this year's cold is COVID-19.

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So no matter what your political beliefs are - please take care of yourself and your vulnerable near ones against this year's cold.

Some ideas here:
https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/personal-family-professional-emergency-preparedness…

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We think of all of you everyday.

As you know we can no longer support big monopoly social medias by posting our content.

Please see us at our main site.

We are still with you.

Take care.

love,

The Team at FluTrackers
 
I have never heard of a loss of cold chain integrity causing fatalities before - a potential loss of efficacy, yes, but not mortalities.
 
Those who have read my posts on this SNP in the past will know I have been very dismissive of the claims made for it having a phenotype leading to either increased severity or transmission. This is because there was no data to determine if the cause was a founder effect of due to the change. Now we have some better data and, while not a slam-dunk, it is does add weight to the argument it is playing some part. Various animal model have shown some increase in something, but not always the same something. The point may now be moot anyway as S variant has been dominant in the the countries responsible for most of the cases, and spread, for a while leaving D as an 'also ran'.
 
Charite has 544 German sequences now,
36 from October , all with the D614G mutation
https://civnb.info/sequences/

the most frequent mutations from October are :

36,C3037T,C241T,C14408T,A23403G
14,G28883C,14,G28882A,14,G28881A

10,G21255C
9,T445C
9,G29645T
9,G25563T
9,C6286T
9,C28932T
9,C22227T
8,G27870T
8,C6040T
8,C27944T
8,C26801T
8,C21614T
7,C28854T


27 (10 from October) are the new Spanish strain "20A.EU1" from this paper :
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.25.20219063v1.full.pdf
mutation picture : http://magictour.free.fr/sars2de5.GIF
 
The ‘very, very bad look’ of remdesivir, the first FDA-approved COVID-19 drug

By Jon Cohen, Kai Kupferschmidt Oct. 27, 2020 , 7:05 PM

October was a good month for Gilead Sciences, the giant manufacturer of antivirals headquartered in Foster City, California. On 8 October, the company inked an agreement to supply the European Union with its drug remdesivir as a treatment for COVID-19—a deal potentially worth more than $1 billion. Two weeks later, on 22 October, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved remdesivir for use against the pandemic coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 in the United States—the first drug to receive that status. The EU and U.S. decisions pave the way for Gilead’s drug into two major markets, both with soaring COVID-19 cases.

But both decisions baffled scientists who have closely watched the clinical trials of remdesivir unfold over the past 6 months—and who have many questions about remdesivir's worth. At best, one large, well-designed study found remdesivir modestly reduced the time to recover from COVID-19 in hospitalized patients with severe illness. A few smaller studies found no impact of treatment on the disease whatsoever. Then, on 15 October—in this month’s decidedly unfavorable news for Gilead— the fourth and largest controlled study delivered what some believed was a coup de gr?ce: The World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) Solidarity trial showed that remdesivir does not reduce mortality or the time COVID-19 patients take to recover.

Science has learned that both FDA’s decision and the EU deal came about under unusual circumstances that gave the company important advantages.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/202...k-remdesivir-first-fda-approved-covid-19-drug
 
It may work to some extent but the trials have been giving it to patients far too late in the disease progression. This, like Oseltamivir, needs to be given as soon as the patient detects symptoms, not weeks later when hospitalised. Until it is made available as a tablet, not IV, then I can not see how it can be gainfully deployed.
 
Re: earlier discussion of possible environmental transmission factors, this study from Bangladesh found links to humidity and rainfall. I suspect that the real driving factor is whatever makes people gather together in indoor spaces - so heat and high humidity which makes people shelter indoors in AC environments, wet conditions (as per this study) and/or cold weather. Other studies have indicated that survival of the virus in high UV conditions is short-lived, and high levels of pollution may have a contributory effect to transmission rates, but apart from that, the major drivers of infection rates would seem to me to be human behaviours which facilitate airborne and droplet transmission.

Are meteorological factors enhancing COVID-19 transmission in Bangladesh? Novel findings from a compound Poisson generalized linear modeling approach

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11356-020-11273-2
 
It may be time to reset expectations on when we’ll get a Covid-19 vaccine

By HELEN BRANSWELL
OCTOBER 29, 2020

The ambitious drive to produce Covid-19 vaccine at warp speed seems to be running up against reality. We all probably need to reset our expectations about how quickly we’re going to be able to be vaccinated.

Pauses in clinical trials to investigate potential safety issues, a slower-than-expected rate of infections among participants in at least one of the trials, and signals that an expert panel advising the Food and Drug Administration may not be comfortable recommending use of vaccines on very limited safety and efficacy data appear to be adding up to a slippage in the estimates of when vaccine will be ready to be deployed.

Asked Wednesday about when he expects the FDA will greenlight use of the first vaccines, Anthony Fauci moved the administration’s stated goalpost.

https://www.statnews.com/2020/10/29...ctations-on-when-well-get-a-covid-19-vaccine/
 
ADA - American Academy of Dermatology Association

COVID TOES, RASHES: HOW THE CORONAVIRUS CAN AFFECT YOUR SKIN

If you’re on the lookout for symptoms of COVID-19, you’re likely watching for a dry cough, fever, and shortness of breath. You may also want to check your skin.

While less common, the coronavirus can affect your skin. For some people, this may be the only sign of a coronavirus infection.

... COVID toes can develop at any age.

Doctors around the world have noticed that some patients who test positive for the coronavirus develop discolored and swollen toes.

The swelling and discoloration can begin on one or several toes or fingers, according to Amy Paller, MD, FAAD, who is a board-certified pediatric dermatologist and Chair of Dermatology at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine. At first, you might see a bright red color that gradually turns to purple. COVID toes can also begin with a purplish color.


COVID toes: One or more toes may swell and turn pink, red, or a purplish color.

https://www.aad.org/public/diseases/coronavirus/covid-toes#
 
Coronavirus ‘hitching a ride on food’ to spread around world, Singapore scientist says
  • While it remains a ‘freakish’ event, the global food trade’s scale means transmission will occur, said infectious disease specialist Dale Fisher
  • The theory has been played down by the World Health Organization and some Western nations – though China has been vocal about it for month
It is possible that contaminated food imports can transfer the virus to workers as well as the environment, said Dale Fisher, an infectious diseases doctor at Singapore’s National University Hospital. Frozen-food markets are thought to be one harbour in the first part of a chain of transmission, he added.

more..

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/sout...avirus-hitching-ride-food-spread-around-world

--------------------------------------

Please see:

China - Screening for COVID-19 coronavirus: Shenzhen takes the lead in setting up a centralized supervision warehouse for imported frozen products in the country - October 24, 2020

China - Beijing CDC: "You can use disposable plastic bags to cover your hands to select frozen chilled food, avoid direct contact with your hands, and wear a mask correctly." - October 21, 2020

China - Frozen import packaging with live SARSCoV2 COVID-19 blamed for Qingdao COVID-19 outbreak says CDC - October 17, 2020

China - Beijing requiring companies to avoid importing frozen food from "key epidemic areas" - September 28, 2020

China - More imported frozen seafood samples test positive for COVID-19 coronavirus - 2 human cases confirmed & asymptomatic - 4,341 contacts being investigated - Qingdao, Shandong province - September 24, 2020

China - Another frozen seafood package tests positive for COVID-19 coronavirus: this time in Fuyu City, Songyuan City, Jilin Province - September 20, 2020

China - Outer packaging of imported seafood tested positive for COVID-19, suspected persons under observation in Changchun, Jilin province - September 20, 2020

China - Persons who ate at a restaurant where COVID-19 was found on frozen shrimp packaging quarantined at home for "isolation control" - Golmud, Qinghai province - August 22, 2020

China - Guangzhou city to halt frozen seafood, meat imports on virus worry
 
Branswell has a history of vaccine-pessimism.
I wonder wwhy this is so.
But meanwhile you better be careful, since she may just want
to justify her previous pessimism.

“By the end of January, we believe we’ll be able to vaccinate all seniors. By the March and
April timeframe, we believe we’ll be able to vaccinate any American who desires a vaccination,”
Mango said.

[#but how long would that take ?]

Alan Azar said :
“We expect that we would have by end of this year enough
vaccine that is FDA-authorized to be able to vaccinate the
most vulnerable individuals,Then, by end of January, we’d
expect we’d have enough to vaccinate all seniors, as well as our
health care workers and first responders.


Paul Mango, deputy chief of staff for policy for Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar,

As for the idea that all Americans will have had a chance to be vaccinated by the early spring,
Osterholm suggested it is going to take longer.
“For many of us, we never thought that that was doable,” he said. “I commend Operation
Warp Speed for what it has accomplished in the time it has, but to have vaccinated the
U.S. population by March in my mind was never a realistic goal.”

Anna Durbin, a vaccine researcher at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,
said the public needs to understand that Covid vaccines may be a bit further off than people
have been led to believe.
“We may see efficacy in one or more trials by the end of 2020, but that doesn’t mean we’re
going to have a vaccine available at the end of 2020,” she said.


https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/...accine-alex-azar-cdc-hhs-timeline/3720278001/

Mertens thinks it's already "quite a challenge" to vaccinate 100000 people per day in Germany
OTOH we know it works well for the yearly flu-vaccination, so why is COVID "harder" to vaccinate ?
 
from toe to head : 8.5 IQ-points lost for vertilation, 7.5 for hospitalization, 1.5 for normal cases
 
just frozen things ? I didn't read that someone became infected by touching things
or eating. ?!
 
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