Coronavirus COVID-19 - Global Health Pandemic #54

[asyousay]

Which airlines are blocking middle seats?

List of airlines that are blocking middle seats on flights.

I am wondering how many airlines will go bankrupt.

Keeping the middle seat free isn’t going to reassure the majority of people.


I know for a fact if I’m gonna catch a bug it’s going to be on a plane as they are germ ridden. So now we have a pandemic and even with the middle seat free look at how close the person is behind you and in front of you all breathing in the same air. I think a lot of people are just not going to fly for the foreseeable future until we get a vaccine.

 

[otto]

I was on a national conference call this morning with university and college administrators and legal experts regarding potential lawsuits against colleges and universities in fall 2020 from students and employees (faculty and staff). Apparently there is a bill in Congress right now (as mentioned in the above post) that would protect universities from lawsuits if a student or employee contracted COVID-19 while on campus (think residence halls, classrooms, etc.). Universities would have to have measures like social distancing and other mitigation practices in place. But suppose a student went to an off-campus party and was infected there, and brought the infection back to his residence hall, and other examples of how difficult it would be to enforce the safety measures. So universities might support this legislation through their national advocacy groups in Washington. No decision to support or not support has been made yet.

EBM grammatical edit

I think the best way for post-secondary institutions to protect themselves against potential lawsuits related to contracting the virus is to permit work and learn from home until the virus has passed. One institution here is looking at expanding learn from home tools, such as proctoring virtual exams using encrypted video observation during online exams. It seems very invasive, but with some exams, like medicine, it's critical to ensure exam integrity.

 

[Herat]

May 5, 2020

This new test uses blood drawn from a vein rather than from a finger prick, as others do.

Swiss biotech company Roche Holdings said it has devised a test that is 100% accurate at detecting coronavirus antibodies and 99.8% accurate at ruling them out.

Roche expects to be producing millions of the tests this month and 100 million a month later this year, the company said Sunday. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has cleared the diagnostic tool for use. The antibody test, Elecsys Anti-SARS-CoV-2, produces a false positive in only one in 500 tests, according to Roche. The test runs on an instrument that can create a single result in 18 minutes and up to 300 in an hour.

The FDA on Monday said companies making COVID-19 antibody tests must apply for authorization by the agency within 10 days of releasing their products. It also specified what's needed for tests to receive regulatory clearance.

Roche said serology tests can determine whether a person has gained immunity against a pathogen such as the coronavirus. Of the more than 200 antibody tests that have flooded the market, the FDA has granted emergency use authorization to only 12 tests. Most tests now in use were not reviewed by the agency.

"We unfortunately see unscrupulous actors marketing fraudulent test kits and using the pandemic as an opportunity to take advantage of Americans' anxiety," the FDA said in a statement.

The tests are viewed as a crucial part of reopening the economy, but some have been troubled by accuracy concerns in the rush to get to market. The White House last week acknowledged the issue, advising that multiple antibody tests should be used to access the spread of the virus, which has infected more than a million Americans and killed nearly 69,000.

Roche gets approval for COVID-19 antibody test as FDA vows closer oversight

This is the RIGHT kind of antibody test to be doing.

But we still do not yet know what level of immunity the antibodies produce, and how long it lasts for.

Just having a positive antibody test does not mean you are recovered, or you cannot get infected again, or that you can’t be infected by another mutant form of SARS-Cov-2.

I still wouldn’t be trusting my life, my family’s lives, or the lives of friends, colleagues, or strangers without knowing the significance of the findings

 

[sallye818]

That's exactly how I read it. I have no idea why they made this change. I read it aloud to a couple of people just now (one with a background in statistics) and they both thought that's what it meant and wondered how that could be an actual quote.

Don't worry, @raysgirl1126 and others. None of us here in Virginia understand it. (And I watched the actual press conference where he said this Friday.)

 

[asyousay]

This is the RIGHT kind of antibody test to be doing.

But we still do not yet know what level of immunity the antibodies produce, and how long it lasts for.

Just having a positive antibody test does not mean you are recovered, or you cannot get infected again, or that you can’t be infected by another mutant form of SARS-Cov-2.

I still wouldn’t be trusting my life, my family’s lives, or the lives of friends, colleagues, or strangers without knowing the significance of the findings

So true as I’m positive I had this at the end of January but when I do finally get a antibody test it’s not like it will mean much because it does seem like you can get it again. So it doesn’t feel like i gain that much even if I have had it before.

 

[otto]

So true as I’m positive I had this at the end of January but when I do finally get a antibody test it’s not like it will mean much because it does seem like you can get it again. So it doesn’t feel like i gain that much even if I have had it before.

For that reason, antibody tests are not allowed in Canada. Not only are they up to 30% unreliable, but they may give the false sense of immunity. Antibody tests are quite pointless, as the WHO has said for some time.

 

[tresir2012]

This is the RIGHT kind of antibody test to be doing.

But we still do not yet know what level of immunity the antibodies produce, and how long it lasts for.

Just having a positive antibody test does not mean you are recovered, or you cannot get infected again, or that you can’t be infected by another mutant form of SARS-Cov-2.

I still wouldn’t be trusting my life, my family’s lives, or the lives of friends, colleagues, or strangers without knowing the significance of the findings

I agree. If this is similar to the cold virus, which they have never been able to cure, then it will just constantly change to survive and no vaccine will help in the long run. I hope it mutates to be weaker if possible. MOO.

 

[Inthedetails]

@cass523
It takes a person who has high standards and moral integrity to do that.

And someone who is able to risk giving up a paycheck. Some people can and others cannot. Some employees might have high standards to be a whistleblower, but perhaps also a family dependent on that paycheck. Could be a very hard choice, if it means risking your roof and food.

mo

 

[jjenny]

White House coronavirus task force to be wound down around Memorial Day - CNNPolitics

All righty then.

 

[Inthedetails]

It sure feels like a way to inflate the numbers? I personally would like to see # of people tested, # of positive results, # of negative results, and # of inconclusive results...

Exactly. Report all the numbers, clearly labeled as to what they are. I sometimes think apples are compared to oranges....or individuals apples are compared to a peck of apples - when we haven't even counted the apples on the trees. (well, ykwim, I hope).

jmo

 

[dixiegirl1035]

April 28, 2020

A new study by Chinese scientists has found that the mutation ability of the new coronavirus has been severely underestimated and could affect the deadliness of the strains, leading to the disease creating different impacts across various parts of the world.

Scientists from Zhejiang University (Zhejiang, China) who studied a small pool of patients found many mutations that have not been previously reported and included such rare changes that scientists had never even thought they could occur. The scientists also offered laboratory evidence to show that certain mutations could create strains deadlier than others. The study provides the first hard evidence that mutation can affect how severely the virus can cause disease or damage in its host.

In order to investigate the virus mutation, the scientists analyzed the viral strains isolated from 11 randomly chosen COVID-19 patients from Hangzhou in the eastern province of Zhejiang, and then tested how efficiently they could infect and kill cells. Using the sophisticated ultra-deep sequencing method, the scientists read each building block of the virus genome more than 100 times, allowing them to see changes that could have been overlooked by using the standard approach. The scientists detected more than 30 mutations, out of which 19 mutations, or about 60%, were new.

The scientists also found that some of the mutations could cause functional changes in the virus’ spike protein, a unique structure over the viral envelope that allows the coronavirus to bind with human cells. Upon infecting the cells with strains carrying different mutations, the scientists fund that the most aggressive strains could generate 270 times more viral load than the weakest strain and also killed the cells the fastest.

The deadliest mutations in the Zhejiang patients had also been found in a majority of the patients in Europe, while the milder strains were found predominantly across the US. The findings could explain the differences in regional mortality with the pandemic’s infection and death rates varying across different countries.

Coronavirus Could Have Mutated into More Than 30 Deadlier Strains, Finds Study

@Henry2326 - should we expect more of this once main stream media gets hold of what we have been following for months with NextStrain, as to clauds and genotype tracing and misinterprets for headlines?

 

[Inthedetails]

White House coronavirus task force to be wound down around Memorial Day - CNNPolitics

Clear as mud. From the link:

"The official said the task force 'will be phased down around Memorial Day. We will continue to have key medical experts advising (President Donald Trump) daily and accessible to press throughout the coming months ahead.'"

 

[Inthedetails]

Is there an icecream stage?

That's where I am.

 

[mickey2942]

The coronavirus has mutated and appears to be more contagious now, new study finds

This explains a lot of why the United States has been inundated.

 

[dixiegirl1035]

May 5, 2020

An Italian pharmacology scholar has claimed that COVID-19 damages the hemoglobin, thus impairing the ability of red blood cells to transport oxygen throughout the body, affecting the lungs and leading to Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS).

In an explanation of her thesis to The Jerusalem Post, Annalisa Chiusolo said that her theory provides the answers to several questions about the novel coronavirus, including the higher vulnerability demonstrated by men, particularly diabetics, to becoming seriously ill from the virus, as well as the lower rate of COVID-19 infection among pregnant women and children. Chiusolo believes that understanding this mechanism can pave the way for a quicker discovery of highly effective drugs for treating the virus.

Chiusolo who is a graduate of the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Perugia, Italy, and works as a pharmacist in the country has published her theory in some of the leading Italian newspapers. According to Chiusolo, SARS-CoV-2 is dependent upon porphyrins for surviving and possibly for replicating, making it attack hemoglobin, the protein that carries oxygen in the blood, resulting in less oxygen available for the body. As a result of less oxygen, carbon dioxide gets accumulated.

Chiusolo has also evaluated the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat SARS-CoV-2, and has found that in addition to having an antiviral and immunomodulatory effect, the drug binds to the ferriprotoporphyrin of the ecgonine methyl ester (EME), thereby blocking the key enzyme of malaria. Ferriprotoporphyrin is the group responsible for the oxygen binding of hemoglobin. Chiusolo believes that a similar mechanism can be used against SARS-CoV-2. Her theory is supported by a study by a Chinese university demonstrating that SARS-CoV-2 binds to the beta chain of hemoglobin, thereby inhibiting EME metabolism.

According to Chiusolo, hydroxychloroquine could act as a prophylactic, thus preventing or limiting the symptoms of COVID-19 while a vaccine is being formulated that specifically stimulates the body’s antibody response. Chiusolo believes that hydroxychloroquine could make the patient immune to COVID-19 and/or limit its side effects, but admitted that the drug does has some severe side-effects, especially among patients having heart disease.

Researcher Claims COVID-19 Damages Hemoglobin and Hydroxychloroquine Promises Coronavirus Immunity

This report is about a month out of date... and Dr. Campbell, Dr. Seheult have gone past and explained. I'm not sure of this site hospimedica.com you are pulling from... interesting - is this a trade magazine?

 

[otto]

I agree. If this is similar to the cold virus, which they have never been able to cure, then it will just constantly change to survive and no vaccine will help in the long run. I hope it mutates to be weaker if possible. MOO.

The 1918 pandemic ended after 2 years, so I think we can expect that with the correct measures, this will also end.

 

[asyousay]

The 1918 pandemic ended after 2 years, so I think we can expect that with the correct measures, this will also end.

On a lighter note thank god I was not around back then. This has been a hardship and I have all the wonders of technology around me which makes it 99.9% easier and I still hate the restrictions. What did people do back then just stare at the wall I guess .

 

[Inthedetails]

I am wondering how many airlines will go bankrupt.

Keeping the middle seat free isn’t going to reassure the majority of people.


I know for a fact if I’m gonna catch a bug it’s going to be on a plane as they are germ ridden. So now we have a pandemic and even with the middle seat free look at how close the person is behind you and in front of you all breathing in the same air. I think a lot of people are just not going to fly for the foreseeable future until we get a vaccine.

I totally agree. I canceled some summer domestic travel. While I would love a change of scenery and to see some family members on the trip, nobody has the desire to actually travel. It's a time, imo, for staying nearby. We don't need to be jet setters right now.

Not sure how many airlines will survive, however. I would like an airline to make bold changes and make flying fun and comfortable like it used to be. I'm not eager to buy a ticket to be in enclosed space....AND deal with no leg room, no baggage check, etc. Make the process comfortable and virus-safe and people MIGHT be interested in traveling again. But then, staying in a hotel doesn't really appeal to me right now either.

jmo

 

[asyousay]

I totally agree. I canceled some summer domestic travel. While I would love a change of scenery and to see some family members on the trip, nobody has the desire to actually travel. It's a time, imo, for staying nearby. We don't need to be jet setters right now.

Not sure how many airlines will survive, however. I would like an airline to make bold changes and make flying fun and comfortable like it used to be. I'm not eager to buy a ticket to be in enclosed space....AND deal with no leg room, no baggage check, etc. Make the process comfortable and virus-safe and people MIGHT be interested in traveling again. But then, staying in a hotel doesn't really appeal to me right now either.

jmo

I originally couldn’t wait to go on holiday when this was over as I go on 2/3 holidays a year as I love the hot sun and uk weather sucks. But as this has gone on and on I have accepted that’s not gonna happen anytime soon as it’s not worth the risk.


I could holiday in the UK later on in the year but even as a kid we always went abroad as our weather is so unsettled so I am thinking I will just use the money I save and just go on a big holiday when this is over. I think that appeals more than a B&B in some random part of the UK that I have never wanted to see.

 

[CeeCeeCat]

I’m still hunkered down and intend to stay that way, but it’s clear from near-neighbours who have an ever-revolving door of new visitors on a daily basis, and friends who tell me the local shopping centre is as busy as it was pre-pandemic, with almost zero masks and gloves being worn - that many, many people have decided for themselves the lockdown has been lifted. Is life at home really so boring for them that they need get out of the house and run the risk of infection. TBH, I didn’t understand people before the pandemic, now I just don’t get them at all.
I sound grouchy tonight. I’m really not, however I am so incredibly concerned about a second wave that may prove even more lethal than this one.