Emergence of a Deadly Coronavirus

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The Worldometer is really lagging. At 11:15 pm et it is saying +384 new cases and +19 new deaths for today. Either it is falling way behind or the virus is over with.

O/T

I had a look at the symptoms of sepsis.
I was in a situation where the flu went bad to the point of delirium and much worse.
The symptoms I was experiencing, at the time, might suggest this is what happened to me.

It could explain why I passed away from a garden variety flu, too.
Talking from the grave here.

A “new day” starts at 8 PM Eastern Daylight Time, or 0:00 UTC. That’s 5 PM PDT.

I mean 7 EDT, 4 PDT, and Midnight Greenwich Mean Time.

Last edited by kraftiekortie on 03 Apr 2020, 9:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Ah ha so that's the way they're doing it.

Overreaction of the immune response is what causes most of the problems. Having fever or lung inflammation is a sign of your immune system overreacting. You do want your immune system to respond, but in a controlled manner.



There is conflicting information regarding bacteria.

https://www.consumerreports.org/coronavirus/understanding-pneumonia-a-dangerous-coronavirus-complication/
Bacteria, fungal infections, and viruses such as the coronavirus can all lead to pneumonia, although the way it develops can vary. For instance, viruses can cause pneumonia directly. But in some cases, if a viral respiratory infection is severe enough, it can damage the lungs and leave them vulnerable to a secondary infection: bacterial pneumonia. This is common with flu, though scientists aren’t exactly sure how often it occurs.

So, bacterial pneumonia can happen with COVID-19. The usage of antibiotics would help with those cases. However, it seems like the main purpose of antibiotic is to tone down the side effects of hydroxychloroquine.

Drug development is based on statistics. It is not exact science.

Even for some of the most basic drugs, like Pepto-bismol, it is not entirely clear what action of bismuth helps. Bismuth is element 83, heavier than lead (Pb, element 82). So you are swallowing a heavy metal compound. Even though we don't really understand how it works, we use Pepto-bismol for tummy issues, because it works, and because apparently the side effects are minor and/or rare. That's all that matters.

The usage of the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin for COVID-19 is pretty much the same idea: it seems to work, and the side effects usually are not bad enough in most people. At this point in time, that's all what matters. Right?

The article I linked discusses this in more detail, but I'll repost it.



Not all studies even support the notion that hydroxychloroquine is an effective treatment.



I wouldn't be getting my hopes up too much yet.

It's not about hope or no hope. I tell you one thing: I read Chinese. I read news from Taiwan. So I get to know some developments earlier than many other people.

A lot of people have died in the world in the last few days due to self-administration of chloroquine (related to hydrochlorquine, but a different compound). So, it's not something for people to try on their own.

That being said, hydroxychlorquine has been tried on patients in Taiwan, too. The preliminary result is that fever decreased fairly fast. It also worked out pretty well in some Japanese patients. In fact, I first learned about hydroxychloroquine from the Japanese trial, than from the French paper with Chinese patients that Trump/Fauci have referred to. However, in other parts of the world, doctors are finding out that hydroxchloroquine may not help at all if the patient is already at an advanced stage of COVID-19. The other drug Remdesivir has been tried on one patient in Taiwan, and it worked OK. I also know a patient in Czech Republic has had good result with Remdesivir (the poor guy actually went through ECMO, so it was a very severe case ... but they used Remdesivir on him after he already came out of ECMO, so doctors are not sure how important Remdesivir was). However, for a number of patients in China, Remdesivir wasn't particularly effective.

No miracle drugs. At this point in time, there is more good news about hydroxychloroquine plus azythromycin, than good news for Remdesivir. All in all, they are just some more tools in the arsenal of doctors. These drugs are not everything. Doctors have many more choices for treatment.

One development that people in the Western world still largely don't know about is the following device. Frankly, considering that R0 of COVID-19 is only 3, I think we have enough tools (e.g. rapid testing, antibody testing, social distancing, hand cleaning, masks, treatment drugs, cell phone tracking) for people to go back to work. The device in the video is dirty cheap: US$25 to make. It means everyone can be screened every day. The only thing preventing everyone from going back to work is just red tape.

This video shows how to construct a simple face mask, similar to the ones my wife makes.

The original recommendation of CDC against common folks from wearing masks came from this JAMA paper:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/articlepdf/2762694/jama_desai_2020_pg_200013.pdf
... . Face masks should not be worn by healthy individuals to protect themselves from acquiring respiratory infection because there is no evidence to suggest that face masks worn by healthy individuals are effective in preventing people from becoming ill.

One of the authors was Dr. Preeti Mehrotra, from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. He has since become the butt of jokes. Why?

https://www.boston25news.com/news/local/more-than-500-massachusetts-healthcare-workers-test-positive-covid-19/2B5BNFQTHJFXBGD7VNBBPFVDSU/
More than 850 Massachusetts hospital workers test positive for COVID-19
... Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center: 98 (as of 4/3 at 8 a.m.)

Yep. So the so-called expert on masks, has 98 healthcare workers infected in his own hospital. Embarrassing. You can be sure the public will come after him after this COVID-19 thing is settled. He has blood in his hands.

An interesting diagnosis device. What do they call it? Everything needs a name and in this case an acronym. For example ILHAD - Instantaneous Lung Health Assessment Device.

Thank you for the information. Now how many of those do we need to order?

I'm curious how countries that hesitated even longer than the US will fair. The Netherlands and Mexico have both taken a fairly 'hands off' approach so far which might amount to little more than allowing a bigger beachhead.

People are either going to wear masks or they aren't no matter what all the studies and reports say about it. Pretty much the same as there are those who fasten their seat belts and those who don't. There could be laws made to enforce it. But it would probably specify particular manufactured masks that have been approved for coronavirus. I doubt homemade masks would qualify any more than homemade seat belts would. But then again I'm no expert on the matter.

You're spot-on with the first set of observations and I'm also curious about how they'll view these homemade masks since they're not being inspected and homologated** by some standard.


**I think that word works there, I'm mostly familiar with it in the context of motorsports

Me too. I was thinking about things that have to be DOT approved.

The world is changing a bit, for the better. Since yesterday, the WorldOMeters data started to include ... Taiwan.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Yep, as unbelievable as it may seem, Taiwan was never included in the list of "countries" in this data set. It was invisible. It simply did not exist. It's just sad that people had to play politics, even for simple things such as numerical data sets. Sad.