@thevfmaddict
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Anyone interested in the actual pathology of Covid-19 will find this latest piece from the Lancet enlightening.
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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.
I wasn’t familiar with Artemisinin so had to do a little research. Its mode of action against the malaria parasite is very different from that of Chloroquine. Therefore it seems unlikely it would have the same incidental effect on ACE2 receptors that Chloroquine has and which appears almost by chance to be antagonistic to SARS-CoV2 binding at those receptors.
I expect you may have read about ACE2 receptors being the attack vector for SARS- CoV2. Usually the topic crops up during the argument that because the Far East races have more ACE2 receptors than other races Covid-19 death rates may be higher in those races than we would see in other races. I’m not wholly convinced by that argument because higher numbers of ACE2 receptors are not usually of significant import in most other areas of medicine. However, only time will tell as this pandemic blossoms.
In your case, using Chloroquine early during an infection or suspected infection doesn’t seem appropriate. But were you ever critical due to Covid-19 then Chloroquine’s side effects, no matter how bad they might be, would probably be better than simply letting the Grime Reaper have his way. A fighting chance last resort weapon, a bit like calling friendly fire down on your own position despite its risks, is surely better I would argue than just waiting to be fatally overrun.
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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.
As far back as 2005 it was found that the standard anti-malarial drug Chloroquine Phosphate, due to its mode of action, appeared to be a potent inhibitor of the original SARS virus in primates. See here.
This led many to suspect that it might also be of some use in the fight against SARS-CoV2 the virus that causes Covid-19. Well, early clinical usage has provided enough evidence for it within the last couple of hours be recommend as part of the standard package for fighting SARS-CoV2. A word of caution; there is no reason to consider it a total cure as such. Rather it seems to inhibit the virus enough to give patients’ own immune systems a far better chance of winning the battle. Fingers crossed folks.
Ed, it seems my earlier PM to you was on the right track.
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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.
BTW despite all of North Korea’s bad points it has a 30 day quarantine period for suspected Covid-19 infections not the stupidly short 14 days most states have. 30 days seems about the right time to me.
Returning back to the Diamond Princess note that one ship has almost as many in a day as China are reporting they are having in the whole of China a day outside Hubei. Yeah.. right !!!
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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.
The Petri Dish ( i.e. the Diamond Princess) numbers explode again. 99, yes, 99, new positives meaning there are now 454 positives. WTF are you doing Japan? Empty this boat ASAP.
Can’t help but feel though that such numbers are child’s play compared to what London Underground could produce in a single rush hour once it is fully here.
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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.
Shutting the gate after the horse has bolted………………almost certainly !
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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.
Agree totally with you both re medication coughs especially with ACE Inhibitors in my experience not only are they simply ‘common’ witrhe ACE inhibitors as studies suggest but are pretty damn likely. Certainly in the first month or two although they often resolve over time.
As regards your sinus problems and lung infections, Richard, I can’t help but wonder if you have a latent infection of some kind. Latent infections are typically viruses that never totally resolve. The virus retreats from one’s immune system to specific sites such that it will not be picked up in normal blood tests only to flare up at some later date. Often these flare-ups do not cause significant lower respiratory pneumonia of their own right (although on occasion they can) but usually weaken one’s immune system such that one is then vulnerable to a secondary bacterial infection that does cause a significant lower respiratory infection and which does require antibiotics. The cycle of retreat and flare-ups repeats over time but on a random and entirely unpredictable schedule.
Latent adenoviruses in particular can be harboured in the sinuses and being viruses rather than bacteria are extremely difficult to ever ever clear totally although IIRC some can be eradicated with some of the newer antiviral medications. Flare-ups of adenoviruses quite commonly result in acute respiratory or gastrointestinal infections. Given the pattern of symptoms and infections you describe my money would be on such as the likely guilty party.
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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.
That’s why you are the owner and they are staff. You appear the only one with any brains in your establishment…………..
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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.
Looks live Petri Dish 2 might possibly have been inadvertently prepared. Plus, for good measure possibly also a plane load of 144 Corona Converts to boot. Oh
HappyCrappy Days._______________________________________________________________________________________
During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.
Spot on, Ed. No symptoms so infect your friends and relatives and then send them shopping for you so that they too can unknowingly and stealthily evangelise this virus. Cue Private Frazer.
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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.
You can’t beat a bit of black humour now and then. A round of applause to the Sunday Times for this banner headline.
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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.
Another 70 cases on the Diamond Princess overnight !!! But again the BBC News Website still not even mentioning the day before’s 67 let alone this new 70. HMG pressure ???
Action Required
The Sunday Telegraph (“ST”) reports that the NHS’s Covid-19 daily testing capacity is already heading towards full stretch. The NHS can conduct 1,000 tests a day and on Thursday alone tested 763. It seems plans are to not really bother to test once there are over 100 cases in the UK with no clear link to a known source.
The ST also reports that self-isolation will be the dicta/demand from HMG after that 100 case limit is breached. So folks – Make sure you have at the very least a couple of weeks of supplies. Sainsbury’s have own brand good old powered milk at very low prices and I’d grab plenty if I were you before it starts going into v.short supply; so at least your good old cuppa will be protected. Now is the time to act. I expect panic buying to slowly begin at all venues near you from this weekend; and that will only exponentially accelerate over the coming weeks. Pasta, Noodles and good old powdered mashed potatoes are not that expensive and are well worth having. Tesco’s powdered mash is very inexpensive. But you’ll need milk to make it so don’t forget the powdered milk.
Remember that as this develops everything may go into short supply because many supply chain workers will have self-isolated – Even fuel tanker drivers. So don’t forget to try to keep the tanks in your vehicles at least half full if there’s any chance you will or may need to travel. Think all your preparations through carefully from today and start actioning then pdq. Surely it is starting to dawn on all that this is not a drill !!!
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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.
Oh as regards draconian measures I think the big difference between London, the likely site of the first major and I stress major outbreak, and Wuhan is that London relies for its life blood on the main arteries that are its underground lines. Draconian measures would be pointless if that hotbed of infection remained in action sharing infections inwards in the mornings and distributing them to the suburbs and south east in the evenings. So in essence any draconian measures would have to close the Underground to work but closing it would hence effectively close London. There are not many countries that are as reliant as we are on one single city. London is the essential heart of our financial services reliant economy. Shut it then to all intents and purposes you totally shut down the economy. So HMG would be in a real fix. Damned if it did, damned if it didn’t. Not sure I can see an easy way out.
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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.
We are almost certainly over two months behind Wuhan/China in our exponential curve, although with infected feeds likely to flow in from numerous states we might reach the same levels as China has reached a little more quickly. That said I can’t see numbers even if manipulated by HMG being of sufficient volume to allow the introduction of draconian measures for at least a month. So we all have time to prepare before panic buying etc gets into full flow; although FFP2 and FFP3 masks are increasing getting harder to source and more expensive. All outlets I know of are reporting very high demand already.
Tests have shown that in practice filtration by valved, FFP2 and FFP3 masks varies little even though FFP3 is meant to be better. Selco, the (mainly) trade builders supplier appear to have stocks while the mainly domestic B&Q seem to be running low very rapidly. At least that’s the state of play in both my local stores. If one wants to go full blown half face dual cartridge masks rated P2 (good enough) will cost about £25 with extras cartridge pairs about £14. If I had to keep on working and go out most days during this I’d go for those delivering the filtration needed but with less breathing resistance than with basic valved, FFP2 or FFP3 masks; so more comfortable for long term use. However, to my mind no point using a mask if one leaves one’s eyes open to invasion so goggles I personally believe are a must or if preferred a full visor. For the paranoid, and I am cautious but not paranoid, disposable coveralls are reasonably priced at Selco. But as they breath might not offer much more protection that a hoodie that is hot washed after each use. Those suits are mainly designed to protect from the likes of asbestos which are far, far larger particles than we are talking about here.
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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.
Pretty much cast iron proof today that the BBC are now suppressing bad Covid-19 news. There were almost 70 new cases on the Diamond Princess over night but not a mention of it on the BBC news website. That still reports 218 cases when the current count is well over 280.
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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.
BTW this is a terrific one-stop resource for information about numbers, latest assessments re incubation periods, age of victims, deaths data, etc.
The Updates towards the bottom of the page also keep one up to date.
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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.
That was exactly the point I made above – Stealth Outbreaks. The asymptomatic infected each starting cascades which will only be picked up on once someone in a cascade (and it could be more than one generation before it happens) is ill enough to seek help.
This makes this virus very dangerous. Because identification before there is significant duplication will quite often be unlikely. Heaven knows now we don’t just need to check incomers from the Far East. Infected individuals can now come from France, Spain, Germany, Finland, the USA, Egypt, etc. Anyone who thinks that there are not already or will not soon be multiple cascades in the UK has surely lost the plot. China has seeded the world with this one and it is beginning to proliferate exponentially just like bindweed in every direction.
I would direct Richard to the date of opening post in this thread – 23 January. Right then there were only 239 cases and I said I felt it would get a lot worse. Of course to Richard I am, as he titled me, “Paranoid VFM”. But here we are three weeks or so later with over 70K cases spread across 30 countries. Clearly there is an embryonic pandemic here getting stronger by the day and with no chance it can be contained because many spreaders will be invisible.
We are a group here that is highly vulnerable to this nasty little thing due to our age, gender and/or pre-existing co-morbidities. All I have been trying to do is make sure fellow Forumites recognise that this is for real and start preparing to give themselves and those close to them the best chance of surviving until a vaccine or effective treatment is found. Waiting until the mass panic begins will make preparations far harder if not impossible. Those of us here who are retired can with a little thought and preparation ensure we have all we need such that we will only need to leave home once or at most twice a week and if we source good PPE (masks, goggles, gloves, etc.) and adopt best practices when using them and when returning home we can ensure that such trips are relatively low risk. True, risk cannot be totally eliminated but this girl’s story regarding Ebola, even without proper PPE, is surely inspiring.
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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.
Yep, Ed, 80% of deaths have been in the 60+ age group but for us chaps the news is even worse because 75% of that group have been male !!! While a cull of the old might help the public finances I’m not sure that the Tories would desire it because it would vastly disproportionately kill more of their voters than Labour voters.
Moving to Covid-19 epidemic progressions directly the doubling rate seems consistently to be in the 4 to 6 day range. So 5 days is par for the course. This being so, two un-tracked cases in the UK today would not result in over 100 cases for 30 days and even many of that number may have such mild symptoms they never seek help. However, even deaths that do occur do not occur the second one is infected. Deaths lag a week or more behind. So given that the CFR (Case Fatality Rate) is 1% only by about day 37 would the first death in the UK be mathematically more likely than not to have occurred.
I think Richard expects that were Covid-19 a serious threat then we would be seeing lots of diagnosed cases and deaths here already. That is simply not so. Of course even by day 30 and with 100 confirmed cases but with as yet not a single death some folks will still say Covid-19 is less of a problem than normal flu or RTA’s.
Less though will hang on to that flawed logic by day 60 by which time there will be over 8,200 cases and hence by day 67 (approx) will have been about 82 deaths. However, the doubling will continue such that by day 90 there will have been over 500,000 infected in the UK and hence by about day 97 over 5,000 deaths. I don’t see anyone leaving their heads in the sand at that point; unless literally because they are of the mind set that such is the best available face mask. Of course just 10 days after that (i.e. two further doublings) we are up to over 2 million infected and a week after that there will have been so far over 20,000 deaths. That will be a wake-up call nobody will have been able to ignore.
The UK epidemic, given the R0 of 2.6 (approx) which SAR2Cov has, will mean it will only finally run out of steam when there are too few susceptible patients for it to attack due to most having been infected and survived hence having developed immunity. This would occur once around 60% to 65% of the UK population had been infected. Hitting that number will take around 5 months and the 1% of that number (i.e. the number of souls that will have perished) will be well over 400,000. Certainly a significant cull of the House of Lords will have occurred within such
Many medical experts you hear on the airways or read in other MSM seem at first glance to be quite delusional appearing to believe we can maintain Fortress UK against this threat and identify/contain all infected individuals the second they arrive in the UK such as to thwart any real outbreak. That’s nuts and I can’t see that they truly believe such. Many infected from around the world will not even be clearly infected on entry, just as the London woman was not. Not all of the infected will even seek help as quickly as she did. Coming from China she had cause to suspect her ills were Covid-19 but would someone from France, Spain or Germany automatically assume they had Covid-19? Moreover once it gets into the illegal immigrant populations in Europe things become even worse. I can’t see them running rapidly to medics, can you. It is hence simply inevitable, as any rational person must surely see, that we will suffer an epidemic because it is certain to breach our perimeter often initially unseen.
You have hit the nail on the head, Ed, many times. Currently too many in the Government and frankly also in the medical profession are more frightened of carrying the can for having started a panic to ever sufficiently inform the public such that they will adequately prepare. Right now people and businesses should all be preparing highly detailed plans to reduce person to person contact the very second the first un-trackable and hence uncontained outbreak gives even the slightest glimpse of itself. Waiting until it occurs before planning will be too late. And with no plans already in place the panic at that point will be ten times worse.
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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.
Richard, normal flu and colds are communicable via the airborne route. It is far from remote that SARS2CoV will also be. Yes, the other routes are more likely to be the infection vector for any given individual shown to have Covid-19, just as you are more likely to die of a heart attack than a road accident; but does that mean, the law aside, no need to wear a seat belt?
This epidemic will blossom in part because folks think it can’t be Covid-19 I have. Its just normal flu. So they carry on as normal and for them it self resolves. However they infect others. Of the generations they spawn not all will be as lucky.
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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.
This is what I was talking about above, Stealth Outbreaks. Note also when reading that article how often taxi’s are implicated; which is what I was suggesting in an earlier post. Anyone in a cab with an infected person seems at very high risk of contracting Covid-19.
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During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.
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