Emergence of a Deadly Coronavirus

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Great. Hopefully it will get some results and end the situation faster.

USNS Comfort arrives in New York City

The USNS Comfort arrived in New York on Monday, bringing a massive Navy hospital ship to help relieve city hospitals overwhelmed by coronavirus patients.

The 1,000-bed floating hospital docked Monday at Pier 90 on Manhattan’s West Side, and is set to begin treating patients Tuesday.



https://www.politico.com/states/new-yor ... ty-1269589

This just in: Coronavirus linked to cats eating salad.

^ isn't the cat in Darmok's profile picture a cat eating a salad? Maybe that's how it started

Italy has now surpassed China in Corona cases.

Based on China's seriously dubious reporting.

Every day that goes by with China's bogus numbers standing where they are is a continually renewed testament to their lies about how this virus has affected the citizenry.

MEANS OF TRANSMISSION!

It may be possible for the novel coronavirus to transmit through the air, a new study released over the weekend suggests.

In a joint study by the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC), the National Strategic Research Institute at the University of Nebraska and others, researchers found genetic material from the virus that causes COVID-19 in air samples from both in and outside of confirmed coronavirus patients’ rooms. The findings offer “limited evidence that some potential for airborne transmission exists," researchers said, though they warned that the findings do not confirm airborne spread.

Researchers, looking to better understand viral shedding and how it related to the novel virus, took air and surface samples from 11 patients’ rooms during the initial isolation of 13 people who tested positive for COVID-19. The researchers found virus genetic material on commonly used items such as toilets, but also in air samples, thus indicating that “SARS-CoV-2 is widely disseminated in the environment.” SARS-CoV-2 is the name of the virus that causes COVID-19.

Not only was the virus detected within COVID-19 patients’ rooms, “air samplers from hallways outside of rooms where [the] staff was moving in and out of doors were also positive,” they wrote.

“These findings indicate that disease might be spread through both direct (droplet and person-to-person) as well as indirect contact (contaminated objects and airborne transmission) and suggests airborne isolation precautions could be appropriate,” they concluded, noting that the findings also suggest that COVID-19 patients, even those who are only mildly ill, “may create aerosols of virus and contaminate surfaces that may pose a risk for transmission.”

The study’s authors also said that the results underscore the importance of personal protective equipment or PPEs, and the use of negative air pressure rooms for confirmed COVID-19 patients.

"Our team was already taking airborne precautions with the initial patients we cared for," said James Lawler, an infectious diseases expert and director of the Global Center for Health Security at UNMC, in a statement. "This report reinforces our suspicions. It’s why we have maintained COVID patients in rooms equipped with negative airflow and will continue to make efforts to do so -- even with an increase in the number of patients. Our health care workers providing care will be equipped with the appropriate level of personal protective equipment. Obviously, more research is required to be able to characterize environmental risk."

Scientists are still working to understand how the novel virus transmits, though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that it mainly spreads via person-to-person, such as when an infected person coughs or sneezes. Their respiratory droplets could then land in the noses and mouths of other people close by (hence why officials are urging people to stay at least six feet away from one another when in public.) Touching a contaminated object — recent studies have found the virus can live on surfaces between hours and days — and then touching your eyes, nose or face with dirty hands is also a possibility.

But a recent study also found the virus may transmit through the digestive tract, specifically the fecal-oral route. Scientists from the Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University and the Wuhan Institute of Virology of the Chinese Academy of Science recently discovered virus genetic material in stool samples and rectal swabs from some patients, Chinese state media reported in February.

Source: Coronavirus could be airborne, study suggests

5th Avenue NYC Cam
Hollywood Blvd Cam

This shows how effective various countries have been at 'flattening the curve'.

The chief physician executive at Hackensack Meridian Health in New Jersey discussed how drugs meant to treat other conditions are now being used to help treat COVID-19 patients.

“Anything that might work, it's nice to get out there,” Dr. Daniel Varga said on Monday. “It's great to use it in emergency situations, use it for compassionate use. Even better to get it out in clinical trials.”

Varga made the comments responding to a report where two coronavirus patients in New York City were moved out of the intensive care unit after taking an experimental drug typically used to treat HIV and breast cancer. The patients went from being on ventilators in the ICU to a regular hospital in a matter of days, The Daily Mail reported. Studies reportedly suggest the drug, leronlimab, calms the overly aggressive immune response that could lead to pneumonia and even death.

“I don't know the drug personally, but the studies we're seeing is that, like several drugs we’re trying to use right now in COVID-19, it works predominantly by toning down the immune response that the virus participates in the lung so that the lung doesn't get injured,” Varga said.

On Monday, Dr. Varga described “three big buckets of clinical innovation” during the coronavirus outbreak.

He said the first bucket is figuring out how to optimize standard care.

“One of the things we’re seeing in people who have to get ventilated because of COVID-19 is this use of what’s known as prone ventilation, where you actually lay the patient on their belly while they are ventilated,” Varga said. “What it tends to do is lets the lungs expand more easily so you can get more oxygen down into the lungs and that's been a really big asset in trying to get these folks through their lung injury.”

He noted that the second bucket is clinical trials.

“We’re doing clinical trials right now with some antiviral drugs,” Varga said. “The most common one is remdesivir. We’re using that for both moderate and severe patients. We have enrolled patients in both of those trials. Looking at some other antiviral drugs as well.”

In a press conference earlier this month, President Donald Trump and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn described several approaches under testing, including remdesivir, which is being tried in at least five separate experiments, and chloroquine as well as hydroxychloroquine, drugs used to treat malaria.

Developed by Gilead Sciences, remdesivir is described as an “investigational broad-spectrum antiviral treatment.” Previously, remdesivir was used to treat humans with Ebola.

When host Brian Kilmeade asked Varga how coronavirus patients are responding to remdesivir, he said: “It’s hard to say.”

“We’ve had some folks who’ve been on remdesivir who’ve done well and gone home,” Varga explained. “We have folks who are on it right now that are still intubated and in the ICU.”

Chloroquine and the similar drug, hydroxychloroquine, have shown encouraging signs in small, early tests against the novel coronavirus, but they have yet to be studied during a controlled clinical trial.

President Trump has spoken out about the importance of trying new treatments in hopes that we can learn where there's room for optimism and where there is not. He has touted the drugs used in malaria cases as a possible response to the coronavirus and now the FDA put in place an emergency use authorization to try these drugs despite clear evidence of their effectiveness.

“We are using hydroxychloroquine as an off-label use,” Varga said on Monday. “We use it for our intubated patients for the most part. We’re also using it for some of our nursing home patients because that's a group that you don't want to get sick, don't want to it to spread because they're so vulnerable.”

“And the other trial [third bucket] that we are looking at right now that we hope to get launched later this week, we’ve actually had it fast-tracked up until now, is actually using hydroxychloroquine for what we call chemoprophylaxis or prevention for front-line caregivers,” he added.

Chemoprophylaxis refers to the administration of a medication to prevent the development of a disease, according to Medicinenet.com.

Varga went on to say that there are currently 1,400 coronavirus patients in Hackensack Meridian Health facilities, with more than 300 in the ICU and more than 300 on ventilators.

“We’re probably using the hydroxychloroquine recipe in some way shape or form in about three-quarters of our patients right now,” Varga said.

Source: New Jersey doctor gives update on use of hydroxychloroquine, remdesivir on coronavirus patients