Covid-19 - Emerging treatment news thread (no politics, no tin foil hats)

[Paul in Idaho]

Dr. Seheult illustrates the possible mechanism of the medication Ivermectin for a potential treatment for COVID-19 and discusses recent articles about the possible impact of coronavirus on hemoglobin. Interesting projections and data from the USA, Nordic Countries, and New Zealand is also discussed.

 

[LWC55]

Setting the title of this article aside, it does lay out some emerging clinical differences between covid-19 and traditional seasonal flu.

Why Doesn’t Flu Tank Economy Like Covid-19?

Early comparisons between the two diseases—based on infections and deaths—missed a range of differences.

www.wsj.com

Not to start a big argument, but the WSJ article doesn't jive with the CDC guidelines as of March 24, 2020 in regards to the reported death figures.
From WSJ article:

In comparison, more than 450,000 have been diagnosed with Covid-19, according to Johns Hopkins University, and more than 16,000 have died.

But the numbers don’t tell the whole story.

For starters, the flu tallies are estimates of total flu burden, while the Covid-19 figures are confirmed cases only.

From the CDC:

Should “COVID-19” be reported on the death certificate only with a confirmed test?
COVID-19 should be reported on the death certificate for all decedents where the disease caused or is assumed to have caused or contributed to death.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/coronavirus/Alert-2-New-ICD-code-introduced-for-COVID-19-deaths.pdf

 

[ImBillT]

Setting the title of this article aside, it does lay out some emerging clinical differences between covid-19 and traditional seasonal flu.

Why Doesn’t Flu Tank Economy Like Covid-19?

Early comparisons between the two diseases—based on infections and deaths—missed a range of differences.

www.wsj.com

If you only use lab confirmed flu cases all the percentages go up. They’re dividing flu deaths by estimated cases. Confirmed cases is MUCH lower, which would make the percentages go up.

Near the end of the 2017/2018 flu season, the CDC had only about 41k reported positive flu tests, then estimated 80K deaths and many many millions of cases. If they took actually deaths and hospitalizations and divided by 41K positive test results the the death rate, percent hospitalized etc. would skyrocket, and those flu vs corona graphs wouldn’t be so different.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/weeklyarchives2018-2019/Week18.htm

It would take me a long time to dig it up, but to come up with those numbers they had something along the lines of 7200 P&I deaths to go with those 41k positive flu tests. 7200/41000=17.6% death rate.

 

[VikingsGuy]

And now I broke the thread. I posted the article because it raised info about treatment types and duration that I thought was relevant. Yup, it referenced death stats but then immediately noted that we won’t be able to compare until broader population testing is done.

I then asked folks to please stay away from the modeling angle and focus on clinical and treatment stuff on this thread. But sadly some of you just can’t control yourselves.

I get it, two of you don’t believe the models. I am happy for you and in 3 years we can all be proven right or wrong. But most of don’t care about that argument right now. Please show some basic respect to others and stick to clinical treatment posts on this one thread.
If you still want to flog your views on modeling please start your own thread - which frankly I will not participate in.

 

[LWC55]

You posted the clearly flawed and slanted article but then berate anyone for discussing it. My apologies.

 

[Jape]

And now I broke the thread. I posted the article because it raised info about treatment types and duration that I thought was relevant. Yup, it referenced death stats but then immediately noted that we won’t be able to compare until broader population testing is done.

I then asked folks to please stay away from the modeling angle and focus on clinical and treatment stuff on this thread. But sadly some of you just can’t control yourselves.

I get it, two of you don’t believe the models. I am happy for you and in 3 years we can all be proven right or wrong. But most of don’t care about that argument right now. Please show some basic respect to others and stick to clinical treatment posts on this one thread.
If you still want to flog your views on modeling please start your own thread - which frankly I will not participate in.

Also apologize for any role I played in that. I posted mine to highlight the treatment portion not devolve into an flu/economic fight.

 

[ImBillT]

I’ll delete my post if you like.

 

[VikingsGuy]

Also apologize for any role I played in that. I posted mine to highlight the treatment portion not devolve into an flu/economic fight.

No worries. I did the same thing, trusting folks could read mixed info and not derail - that’s on them, not you.

 

[VikingsGuy]

I’ll delete my post if you like.

No need, let’s just stick to treatment going forward.

 

[88man]

webcram is worth watching

 

[LWC55]

A potential coronavirus vaccine funded by Bill Gates is set to begin testing in people, with the first patient expected to get it today

 

[3855WIN]

Short of a cure, we want to build up herd immunity. A mild dose of a virus means a milder case for a person. If that’s true for 19, wouldn’t we want healthy, younger people to get a mild dose so we could build up herd immunity? It would be a bit like the flu shot.

Opinion | These Coronavirus Exposures Might Be the Most Dangerous (Published 2020)

As with any other poison, viruses are usually deadlier in larger amounts.

www.nytimes.com

 

[VikingsGuy]

Short of a cure, we want to build up herd immunity. A mild dose of a virus means a milder case for a person. If that’s true for 19, wouldn’t we want healthy, younger people to get a mild dose so we could build up herd immunity? It would be a bit like the flu shot.

Opinion | These Coronavirus Exposures Might Be the Most Dangerous (Published 2020)

As with any other poison, viruses are usually deadlier in larger amounts.

www.nytimes.com

SARS-CoV-2 viral load and the severity of COVID-19 - The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine

The relationship of viral load and severity of the disease in SARs, SARs-CoV-2 and Influenza, and a summary of the sources on healthcare workers mortality.

www.cebm.net

 

[3855WIN]

The best I can tell, the Navy has tested around 5,000 sailors. They’ve had 5 hospitalized. These numbers indicate that our young Americans will do fine with -19 and might be better off getting a mild dose and building immunity.

Theodore Roosevelt sailor in ICU after being found unresponsive in Guam

The sailor tested positive for COVID-19 10 days ago and was in isolation

www.sandiegouniontribune.com

 

[Hunting Wife]

Short of a cure, we want to build up herd immunity. A mild dose of a virus means a milder case for a person. If that’s true for 19, wouldn’t we want healthy, younger people to get a mild dose so we could build up herd immunity? It would be a bit like the flu shot.

Opinion | These Coronavirus Exposures Might Be the Most Dangerous (Published 2020)

As with any other poison, viruses are usually deadlier in larger amounts.

www.nytimes.com

Yes, with the huge caveat/assumption that prior infection confers immunity. We don’t know that yet. If that is not true, all of this goes out the window.

The problem though is it’s hard to control a dosage “in the wild”, particularly if you don’t know who is infected. Much different than a vaccine, where you can provide a precise dosage to stimulate a protective level of antibody production. But in the wild, if people are reaching peak viral shedding before they show symptoms, as some of the research @VikingsGuy posted suggests, it would be easy to get a whomping dose before you even realized you were exposed.

The take homes to me from this are that the lack of PPE for medical professionals is a significant threat not only to their health and safety, but potentially for our entire health care system if we lose significant numbers of medical professionals. Also if we want to allow people to start getting back to their lives, we need much better testing capacity to identify and isolate people early in the disease course before they are walking around shedding maximum viral loads into the community.

 

[LWC55]

Dr. Katz of Yale has been saying this from the beginning. We should really listen and start to use some common sense to respond c-19, both medically and socially. He has some good plans to actually treat the vulnerable and get the economy reopened. Gov Cuomo cites his studies in his press conferences. Lots of good health info in the link below.

Coronavirus: Information and Resources – David L. Katz

davidkatzmd.com

 

[VikingsGuy]

Accuracy of COVID-19 tests coming to market uncertain

Asked how well the new tests work, Mayo Clinic internist and biostatistician Dr. Colin West said: "The most honest answer is, we don't really know."

www.startribune.com

 

[LWC55]

Stanford's Dr. Ioannidis: Reliable Data Can End the COVID-19 Lockdown

- The National Herald

www.thenationalherald.com

 

[LWC55]

48 hour results for right now. 24 for shipping, 24 for processing. If demand skyrockets I'm not sure of the volume the lab can handle.

jryoung, how is the testing going? Anything you can tell us yet?

 

[MTGomer]

This isn’t an emerging treatment, just a bit of anecdotal information...
I got tested on Sunday April 5th after getting sick with all the symptoms on the 4th, after being in contact (living with) someone that is in direct contact with Covid patients at work. I was told it would take 5-7 days.
I got my results (negative) yesterday, the 13th.
8 days which seemed slow, but only a day longer than they’d said... Then they told me that they actually had them on the 6th but forgot to call me.
I felt fine by the 7th.
On the 8th my company spent thousands of dollars to clean the entire office because I had been in there for a few minutes on Friday the 3rd.
The three coworkers that I was around Friday the 3rd all isolated away from their families for 8 days and all of us took 1 week of ‘quarantine pay’ (extra vacation our company provides for this) waiting for results.
Now if we actually get it, we have used half of our quarantine hours. I’m not really complaining about this specific part because I realize I’m fortunate to even have this, considering nurses have to use their own vacation.

Perhaps, as testing and treatments evolve, notifying people of their test results in a timely manner could be a priority, both to keep the sick away from the healthy and the healthy working as a productive part of society.