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Re: New Covid-19 Thread
It's clear to Don Henderson and that trumps you on your best day, doctor. Take a look at his paper, Disease Mitigation Measures in the Control of Pandemic Influenza (2006). That and his eradication of smallpox leaves you with a pair of 2s and a pair of 7s to his royal flush. Some key points from Henderson's paper:Originally posted by jk View Post
Of course, an old school med-epi like Henderson doesn't play cards like some big swinging d*ck private practice MD. He did science, went where the data took him, and avoided politics.Large-Scale Quarantine Measures
There are no historical observations or scientific studies that support the confinement by quarantine of groups of possibly infected people for extended periods in order to slow the spread of influenza. A World Health Organization (WHO) Writing Group, after reviewing the literature and considering contemporary international experience, concluded that “forced isolation and quarantine are ineffective and impractical.” Despite this recommendation by experts, mandatory large-scale quarantine continues to be considered as an option by some authorities and government officials. The interest in quarantine reflects the views and conditions prevalent more than 50 years ago, when much less was known about the epidemiology of infectious diseases and when there was far less international and domestic travel in a less densely populated world. It is difficult to identify circumstances in the past half-century when large-scale quarantine has been effectively used in the control of any disease. The negative consequences of large-scale quarantine are so extreme (forced confinement of sick people with the well; complete restriction of movement of large populations; difficulty in getting critical supplies, medicines, and food to people inside the quarantine zone) that this mitigation measure should be eliminated from serious consideration.
Home Quarantine
Even if home quarantine were generally acceptable to the community, individuals may not have the economic resources to stay at home. Few employers currently have provisions for paid absence unless the workers themselves are ill. For those who are hourly workers or who are self-employed, the potential loss of wages as a result of having to stay home simply because an individual had had contact with sick people might not be acceptable or feasible. Home quarantine also raises ethical questions. Implementation of home quarantine could result in healthy, uninfected people being placed at risk of infection from sick household members. Practices to reduce the chance of transmission (hand-washing, maintaining a distance of 3 feet from infected people, etc.) could be recommended, but a policy imposing home quarantine would preclude, for example, sending healthy children to stay with relatives when a family member becomes ill. Such a policy would also be particularly hard on and dangerous to people living in close quarters, where the risk of infection would be heightened.
Travel Restrictions
Travel restrictions, such as closing airports and screening travelers at borders, have historically been ineffective. The World Health Organization Writing Group concluded that “screening and quarantining entering travelers at international borders did not substantially delay virus introduction in past pandemics . . . and will likely be even less effective in the modern era.” Similar conclusions were reached by public health authorities involved in the international efforts to control
SARS. Canadian health authorities report that “available screening measures for SARS were limited in their effectiveness in detecting SARS among inbound or outbound passengers from SARS-affected areas.” A review by a WHO Working Group on SARS also concluded that “entry screening of travelers through health declarations or thermal scanning at international borders had little documented effect on detecting SARS cases.” The authors have concluded in a previous analysis that screening individuals on domestic interstate flights for symptoms of flu, as has been proposed in revisions to the Federal Quarantine Rule (42 CFR Parts 70 and 71) would not be effective and would have serious adverse
consequences. It is reasonable to assume that the economic costs of shutting down air or train travel would be very high, and the societal costs involved in interrupting all air or train travel would be extreme. Shutting down public transportation for an extended period is not an option in many cities. In New York City, an average of 4.7 million people ride the subway each weekday;49 the Los Angeles Metro averages 1.3 million riders daily.
Prohibition of Social Gatherings
During seasonal influenza epidemics, public events with an expected large attendance have sometimes been cancelled or postponed, the rationale being to decrease the number of contacts with those who might be contagious. There are, however, no certain indications that these actions have had any definitive effect on the severity or duration of an epidemic. Were consideration to be given to doing this on a more extensive scale and for an extended period, questions immediately arise as to how many such events would be affected. There are many social gatherings that involve close contacts among people, and this prohibition might include church services, athletic events, perhaps all meetings of more than 100 people. It might mean closing theaters, restaurants, malls, large stores, and bars. Implementing such measures would have seriously disruptive consequences for a community if extended through the 8-week period of an epidemic in a municipal area, let alone if it were to be extended through the nation’s experience with a pandemic (perhaps 8 months). In the event of a pandemic, attendance at public events or social gatherings could well decrease because people were fearful of becoming infected, and some events might be cancelled because of local concerns. But a policy calling for communitywide cancellation of public events seems inadvisable.
School Closures
In previous influenza epidemics, the impact of school closings on illness rates has been mixed...Schools are often closed for 1–2 weeks early in the development of seasonal community outbreaks of influenza primarily because of high absentee rates, especially in elementary schools, and because of illness among teachers. This would seem reasonable on practical grounds. However, to close schools for longer periods is not only impracticable but carries the possibility of a serious adverse outcome. For example, for working parents, school serves as a form of day care and, in some areas, a source of nutritional meals for children from lower-income families. In 2005, some 29.5 million children were fedthrough the National School Lunch Program; 9.3 million children received meals as part of the School Breakfast Program. A portion of America’s workforce would be unable to go to work as long as children were out of schools. Heightened absentee rates could cripple essential service industries. Teachers might not be paid and a great many hourly workers (mall and fast-food employees; school janitorial, security, and kitchen staff; bus drivers) would face particular financial hardship.
Maintaining Personal Distance
It has been recommended that individuals maintain a distance of 3 feet or more during a pandemic so as to diminish the number of contacts with people who may be infected. The efficacy of this measure is unknown. It is typically assumed that transmission of droplet-spread diseases, such as influenza, is limited to “close contacts”—that is, being within 3–6 feet of an infected person.4 Keeping a space of 3 feet between individuals might be possible in some work environments, but it is difficult to imagine how bus, rail, or air travelers could stay 3 feet apart from each other throughout an epidemic. And such a recommendation would greatly complicate normal daily tasks like grocery shopping, banking, and the like.
Use of Masks and Personal Protective Equipment
Masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE) are essential for controlling transmission of influenza in hospitals... But studies have shown that the ordinary surgical mask does little to prevent inhalation of small droplets bearing influenza virus. The pores in the mask become blocked by moisture from breathing, and the air stream simply diverts around the mask. There are few data available to support the efficacy of N95 or surgical masks outside a healthcare setting. N95 masks need to be fit-tested to be efficacious and are uncomfortable to wear for more than an hour or two. More important, the supplies of such masks are too limited to even ensure that hospitals will have necessary reserves.
Comment
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Re: New Covid-19 Thread
https://www.healio.com/rheumatology/infection/news/online/%7Bb6d0d61c-7278-4018-aec6-c22feb9f9da5%7D/flood-of-new-data-may-hold-answers-to-covid-19-virology
https://www.healio.com/primary-care/infection-control/news/online/%7B23359036-d90d-4aa6-ab43-819c12f24f86%7D/cdc-releases-watered-down-national-reopening-guidance
https://www.healio.com/cardiology/practice-management/news/print/cardiology-today/%7Be1f6ce13-e57b-442f-b14e-ee4d02e017e0%7D/covid-19-and-the-heart-knowledge-evolving-by-the-hour
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Re: New Covid-19 Thread
It looks like most of the research is going to be focused on drug treatments (potentially expensive for patients and profitable for Big Pharma) while apparently still ignoring avenues of investigation that involve nutritional deficiencies. I place the blame for this scientific myopia on a medical school model that focuses almost entirely on pharmaceutical interventions with minimal, rudimentary instruction on nutritional factors for disease. Nutritional approaches will be considered "unproven" (because no one wants to spend millions of dollars on studies if the results can't be patented by Big Pharma) and physicians that recommend such things as zinc and selenium will be called "quacks."https://www.healio.com/rheumatology/...t=137168292320
As to why the infection is asymptomatic in some patients and fatal in others, Matloubian offered some insight. “It might depend on [an] individual’s genetic factors, magnitude and type of immune response,” he said.
Looking at the broader array of treatments, interleukin (IL)-1 and IL-6-based therapies may have some efficacy in the most severe patients who experience cytokine storm syndrome, according to Matloubian. “But we need more randomized, controlled trials of these drugs,” he said.
Every molecule and tissue in our bodies come from nutrients we consume. Whether it's genes, brain signaling, heart, lung and immune system... their component molecules and cells and how well they function depend in a great part on the macro- and micro-nutrients on which they are built. Zinc, selenium, vitamins C and D have major impact on how a body responds to a respiratory virus, but in the search for a cure these nutrients and others are not being given the same money and attention as drugs. Another opportunity for affordable health care going forward is perhaps being lost.
Just a brief example:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/release...0429105907.htm
Link identified between dietary selenium and outcome of COVID-19 disease
An international team of researchers, led by Professor Margaret Rayman at the University of Surrey, has identified a link between the COVID-19 cure rate and regional selenium status in China.
-----------------------------------
https://research.uncg.edu/spotlight/...d-19-selenium/
Researcher identifies link between Covid-19, selenium
“A role for selenium may also help explain phenomena such as the recently reported blood clotting in COVID-19, because selenium is known to have an anti-clotting effect. There have also been reports of heart problems like myocarditis, which is reminiscent of Keshan disease, which was a viral myocarditis,” said Taylor.
“These findings are particularly significant for myself and Prof. Jinsong Zhang” (who are joint first authors on the new study), he added, “because we had presented research findings at an international symposium on SARS in Beijing in 2003, strongly suggesting that selenium would be a factor in SARS pathogenesis. Many of those observations we made 17 years ago still apply to the SARS-Coronavirus-2, the cause of COVID-19, which is a close relative of the original SARS virus.”
Be kinder than necessary because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.Comment
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Re: New Covid-19 Thread
To counter Big Pharma power, we need equally powerful players. Initiatives such as Nestle's Health Sciences unit are yet to break into the mainstream.Originally posted by shiny! View Post
"The Nestlé Institute of Health Sciences has a mission: develop scientific methods to improve health through nutrition. This scientific research center gives Nestlé Health Science the most advanced information and processes in nutrition and diagnostic science. We strongly believe that the food we consume on a daily basis is the largest single influence on our health."
https://www.nestlehealthscience.com/Comment
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Re: New Covid-19 Thread
Wachowskis Release Cut Of 'The Matrix' Where Neo Just Takes The Blue Pill
May 20th, 2020
BURBANK, CA—In conjunction with Warner Bros. Studios, the Wachowskis have released a new cut of The Matrix where Neo just takes the blue pill.
The revised cut will be approximately 30 minutes long, as Neo will take the blue pill and then just go about his pretend life blissfully unaware of humanity's enslavement in the real world. Credits will roll as Neo wakes back up in his computer-generated existence and lives happily ever after.
"The red pill has been co-opted by the alt-right, and we just needed to set the record straight," said Lilly Wachowski. "Now Neo will no longer take the problematic red pill and will instead support the status quo and not cause any problems. It's much safer this way. Just think about how much happier Neo will be."
The movie ends as Morpheus tells Neo, "You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and you believe whatever you want to believe."
"OK," says Neo. "That sounds great."Comment
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Re: New Covid-19 Thread
Study Suggests Medical Errors Now Third Leading Cause of Death in the U.S.
Doctors Kill More People Than COVID-19
Johns Hopkins Medicine, May 3, 2016
Analyzing medical death rate data over an eight-year period, Johns Hopkins patient safety experts have calculated that more than 250,000 deaths per year are due to medical error in the U.S. Their figure, published May 3 in The BMJ, surpasses the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) third leading cause of death — respiratory disease, which kills close to 150,000 people per year.
According to the CDC, in 2013, 611,105 people died of heart disease, 584,881 died of cancer and 149,205 died of chronic respiratory disease — the top three causes of death in the U.S. The newly calculated figure for medical errors puts this cause of death behind cancer but ahead of respiratory disease.
“Top-ranked causes of death as reported by the CDC inform our country’s research funding and public health priorities,” says Makary. “Right now, cancer and heart disease get a ton of attention, but since medical errors don’t appear on the list, the problem doesn’t get the funding and attention it deserves.”Comment
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Re: New Covid-19 Thread
https://www.kob.com/new-mexico-news/navajo-nation-leads-the-nation-in-covid-19-cases-per-capita/5735238/
Navajo Nation leads the nation in COVID-19 cases per capita
Chris Ramirez
Updated: May 20, 2020 06:02 AM
Created: May 19, 2020 06:17 PM
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — New data from Johns Hopkins University shows that the Navajo Nation is now leading the nation in COVID-19 cases per capita.
According to the data, the Navajo Nation has 2,304 cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 people. In comparison, New York has a rate of 1,806 per 100,000. New Jersey follows at 1,668 cases per 100,000.
Much of the Navajo Nation lacks water and electrical utilities. At a time when disinfecting and hyper sanitation is critical to fight the virus, many homes don’t even have the basic infrastructure of running water.
Luckily, communities have been lending a helping hand. The National Guard and other volunteers are helping distribute food and water.
Late last week, several people at the main distribution warehouse in Window Rock, Arizona tested positive for COVID-19.
The warehouse was closed for days, leaving no one to deliver food, water and supplies until everything was properly disinfected.
For the Navajo people, their COVID-19 cases are still climbing, as are their struggles.
To donate to the Navajo Nation COVID-19 relief fund, click here.
Be kinder than necessary because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.Comment
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Re: New Covid-19 Thread
It sure is. If this was 1776 this would be printed and distributed on a Thomas Paine-like pamphlet.Originally posted by Chris Coles View Post
Be kinder than necessary because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.Comment
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Re: New Covid-19 Thread
Shiney! you make an excellent point; we should print it and distribute it as a pamphlet; it is a wonderful example of what one might describe as words with meaning. Many of us can talk the hind leg off the proverbial donkey, yet never make sufficient sense; where this makes perfect sense; a simple description of the entire debate. So now we need Woodsman to allow us to distribute it. In my case, I had written to the editor of the Sunday Times in London, never to get an answer; this is the perfect response to anyone who refuses to listen; all we need to do is change bpr for whomever we wish to target as an audience. So, come on Woody, and of course EJ, as it first appeared here on itulip. Let the printing presses roll . . .Originally posted by shiny! View PostComment
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Re: New Covid-19 Thread
The theory that this was an accidental release from a lab keeps popping up, this time in Sky News Australia. I'm not familiar with Sky News. Are they considered MSM or tabloid? (not that there's much difference between them anymore).
Coronavirus may have been a 'cell-culture experiment' gone wrong
Sharri Markson|24/05/2020
EXCLUSIVE: The coronavirus that has become a world-wide pandemic may have been created in a “cell-culture experiment” in a laboratory, according to prominent scientists who have conducted ground-breaking research into the origins of the virus.
Flinders University Professor Nikolai Petrovsky has completed a scientific study, currently undergoing peer review, in conjunction with La Trobe University in Victoria, which found COVID-19 was uniquely adapted for transmission to humans, far more than any other animal, including bats.
Professor Petrovsky, from the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders University who has spent the past 20 years developing vaccines against pandemic influenza, Ebola and animal SARS, said this highly unusual finding left open the possibility that the virus leaked from a laboratory.
“The two possibilities which I think are both still open is that it was a chance transmission of a virus from an as yet unidentified animal to human. The other possibility is that it was an accidental release of the virus from a laboratory,” he said.
“Certainly we can’t exclude the possibility that this came from a laboratory experiment rather than from an animal. They are both open possibilities.”
Professor Petrovsky, who is the Chairman and Research Director of Vaxine Pty Ltd, said COVID-19 has genetic elements similar to bat coronaviruses as well as other coronaviruses.
The way coronavirus enters human cells is by binding to a protein on the surface of lung-cells called ACE2. The study showed the virus bound more tightly to human-ACE2 than to any of the other animals they tested.
“It was like it was designed to infect humans,” he said.
“One of the possibilities is that an animal host was infected by two coronaviruses at the same time and COVID-19 is the progeny of that interaction between the two viruses.
“The same process can happen in a petri-dish. If you have cells in culture and you have human cells in that culture which the viruses are infecting, then if there are two viruses in that dish, they can swap genetic information and you can accidentally or deliberately create a whole third new virus out of that system.
“In other words COVID-19 could have been created from that recombination event in an animal host or it could have occurred in a cell-culture experiment.”
Professor Petrovsky was originally modelling the virus in January to prepare a vaccine candidate. He then turned his attention to “explore what animal species might have been involved in the transmission to humans” to understand the origins of the virus - and had a “surprising” result when none were well-adapted.
“We found that the COVID-19 virus was particularly well-adapted to bind to human cells and that was far superior to its ability to bind to the cells of any other animal species which is quite unusual because typically when a virus is well-adapted to an animal and then it by chance crosses to a human, typically, you would expect it to have lower-binding to human cells than to the original host animal. We found the opposite so that was a big surprise,” he said.
Scientists worldwide have, to date, overwhelmingly said the virus was more likely originated in a wet-market and was not created in a laboratory.
Even the United States Office of National Intelligence ruled out COVID-19 being created in a laboratory.
Asked why scientists have had this view, Professor Petrovsky said scientists “try not to be political” and do not want their research impacted adversely by tighter laboratory controls.
“We just try to base our findings on facts rather than taking particular political positions but sometimes obviously the alternatives may have unintended consequences,” he said.
“For instance, if it was to turn out that this virus may have come about because of an accidental lab release that would have implications for how we do viral research in laboratories all around the world which could make doing research much harder.
“So I think the inclination of virus researchers would be to presume that it came from an animal until proven otherwise because that would have less ramifications for how we are able to do research in the future. The alternative obviously has quite major implications for science and science on viruses, not just obviously political ramifications which we’re all well aware of.”
Professor Petrovsky said an inquiry needs to start straight away, not when the pandemic is finished.
“The idea of putting it off to the pandemic is over, it would be a mistake,” he said.
“I’m certainly very much in favour of a scientific investigation. It’s only objective should be to get to the bottom of how did this pandemic happen and how do we prevent a future pandemic…. not to have a witch-hunt.”
Be kinder than necessary because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.Comment
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Re: New Covid-19 Thread
What utter bollocks, I'm sure Google - YouTube thought that right up to ISIS started posting recruiting videos. Now we have Flat earther's. anti-vaccinations videos to deal with, The older generation is so stupid they believe that if it is in video that it must by true. My 3 year old has more critical thinking skills than the Boomer generation.Originally posted by Woodsman View Post
This has always been the case, go look up how many of your fellow countrymen let alone the world died of the Spanish Flu (Kansas flu). The media Governments would find it near impossible to cover that up in this day, Communist China would have a hard time.Now some seem entirely at ease with this consistent and accelerating pattern of powerful plutocratic institutions collaborating with the centralized government to control what ideas people around the world are permitted to share with each other. These people seem to believe that authoritarian control over the ideas people are allowed to discuss is somehow less dangerous than the ideas themselves. Instead of asking calmly if something works, or if a response has merit, or questioning certain assumptions about institutions and its leaders, or that they might be off track or oriented toward a particularly sub-optimal outcome, we denounce the questions and the questioner as infamous. Now questions of reliability and authoritativeness are important, certainly. And if one examines which content is always considered “authoritative”, you’ll find a bunch of elite media, corporate, and government outlets who have consistently lied to the world about such items of import as war, peace, wealth, health, and liberty.
There are limits to what everyone should be exposed to.It seems that this has become the dividing line between free men and mere subjects, the smart and the dull. But does a free being in possession of a healthy intellect really need an alliance of plutocrats and government agencies to protect their mind from dangerous ideas? Should a person of intellect, committed to free inquiry, want an alliance of plutocrats and government agencies to exert control over what ideas they are permitted to share and what thoughts they are permitted to think? Is it smart to encourage a paradigm where human communication (and thereby thought) is controlled by vast unaccountable power structures which benefit from the absence of dissent? And is this widespread decline in respect for “experts” among the mass society a problem with the masses or with the experts themselves?
I know people whom worked in the police force whom have been damaged at looking at horrific pornographic images of children for instance, I also think a lot of material will have to be censored from the public as groups get smarter because as tech gets cheaper it is getting cheaper for groups with agenda to pursue/carry out their aims.
The vast majority of laypeople would not even been born if it were not for experts and if born lead more suffering lives, modern society was and still is dependent on experts and the institutions they form, How I wish Carl Sagan was still alive.The vast majority of unlettered laypeople seem smart enough to understand that experts get things wrong for reasons that are innocent (they’ve all been taught the same incorrect thing in school) and less innocent (they have a financial or professional interest in denying the truth). Despite lacking credentials, they have studied the behavior and work products of "authorities” long enough to recognize some important patterns. The mass of people have come to appreciate the untrustworthy nature of authorities, that they have an interest in denying some truths, that insular communities of subject matter experts tend to coalesce around orthodoxies that make them blind, and that as such, they often try to define truth as being whatever they say it is. Maybe it was Vietnam or the WMD fiasco, where experts of military rank and titles presented us false argument and false evidence that led to decades of pointless war? Maybe it was Russiagate, a story fueled by intelligence experts with grand titles who are now proven to have been wrong to a spectacular degree, if not actually criminally liable in pushing a fraud? Maybe it was the Tuskegee Experiment, or Thalidomide, or Vioxx? And maybe the response to COVID-19 was the last straw?
Of course experts get things wrong, they are not Gods. And anyway it is for experts to advise and politicians to to make the final decisions. Though with Trump and Boris in charge I wish we had some expert politicians.
Nothing wrong with discussions.. But your mind seems to be made up already. you and your type think everything is a conspiracy and value money over lives.But the functional impact of censorship enforced by social scolding and finger-wagging of the sort bpr exhibited is to stamp out discussion of things that do actually need to be discussed, like the capture of regulatory and scientific institutions by corporate and financial interests, or institutional figures with lingering questions over their ethics and financial/professional incentives, or when the damage to the economy becomes as significant a threat to the public as the pandemic. We do actually have to talk about this. We can’t not talk about it out of fear of being censored, or because we’re confusing real harm with political harm, or because we fear people who enforce orthodoxy by name calling, insults, and the threat of social isolation.
While I agree that an indefinite lock-down would bring greater harm, Governments were right to stop the virus taking out their health systems.
Hopefully we will have good data so we can form a better response next time, which I have no doubt will be the case because of the economic cost of this crisis.Comment
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Re: New Covid-19 Thread
freedom of the press exists solely for those who own presses. iirc the "fairness doctrine" went away in 1987.
i've seen videos of people screaming about their freedom to refuse to wear masks. for some reason i haven't seen anyone make the obvious response: this store is private property and the freedom of the owners allows them - within the law relating to e.g. racial discrimination - to determine who may enter. if you have no mask the owners may decide that you are not welcome, and if you enter you are trespassing. why does the "freedom" of the mask-refusers allow them the right to enter others private property?
and why does the "freedom" of any individual allow them the right to spread information or communicate at all on someone else's privately owned network?
the alternative is for communication networks to be regulated as utilities. that would stir up its own hornets nest, but would allow for a political "solution."Comment
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Re: New Covid-19 Thread
Chris, you were asking why not publish that post as some sort of samizdat? I'd think not for precisely the reasons demonstrated here by our resident communist and big swingin' d*ck MD.
Captain: "You gonna get used to wearing them chains after a while, Luke. Don't you never stop listening to them clinking, 'cause they gonna remind you what I been saying for your own good."
Luke: "I wish you'd stop being so good to me, Cap'n."
Captain: "Don't you ever talk that way to me. NEVER! NEVER!
"What we've got here is failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach."
Last edited by Woodsman; May 26, 2020, 03:09 PM.Comment
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