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CoronaVirus Updates

Elvia1023

AnaSCI VET / Donating Member
Oct 28, 2007
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I figure this forum should have a thread just about new info anyone reads about or experiences for themselves. Has anyone been tested positive on here yet? I realize it's all over the place and many are probably annoyed with it all. But most of us are stuck at home and this stuff does interest me so I figured I would start posting info I find relevant. If anyone wants to add to the thread that would be great because I think even though info is everywhere we still know very little about the virus.

I know most of us would be fine if we caught it but it's not just about us. I even went on holiday to a hot spot earlier on as I figured I don't care if I catch it and figured if I get it I will just self isolate. Now more and more info has come out and whilst I still think I would be totally fine I would hate to pass it onto anyone else.

Many people are ignoring the rules because they think it's not even bad but new info suggests it's a lot worst than many think. Deaths are getting younger and younger but sure the majority of deaths are very old people. However they are warning young people it can cause permanent damage to your lungs so it's not something you want to catch so be smart and follow the guildlines/rules.

I have read little about the damage to the lungs the virus creates. It's permanent damage as well and it's one of the reasons they are saying to young people yes you will recover but you need to be concerned about the damage the virus can cause. I read about one young guy in the UK was told his lungs were perfomring at 20% less capacity and it could basically be compared to a person who had smoked 30 per day for 20 years (he had never smoked before so should have 99-100% capacity but was at 80%). I just done a quick Google search and the 1st thing to come up is this which illustrates the damage excellently...

https://www.wvlt.tv/content/news/-V...ve-damage-the-virus-can-cause--569053331.html
 

bbuck

Registered User
Dec 28, 2007
189
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It still seems that there is little definitely known about this disease. And most things I see are just supposition. I don't suppose we will have any real facts for some time. From the 10's of thousands of cases in the US a handful of people have damaged lungs but we don't know what there history was. If they had an undiagnosed condition, smoked vaped etc. The last I resd the other day WHO expected a fatality rate of just over 1%. With that mostly all coming from older people. As most people that catch it will probably never be officially diagnosed with it we we never know for sure the real numbers.
 

*Bio*

Super Moderator
Oct 30, 2012
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I live in the Bay Area and they just started drive through testing in Hayward on Monday at a local Fire Department. They're doing the tests every day. On day one, Monday, 54 people out of 207 tested positive. More than 25%. You had to be symptomatic and have a minimum 100 degree fever to be tested. It will be interesting to see what the results for the week are! Those results don't account for those who have the disease, are contagious, but aren't symptomatic. Obviously the number of those infected and spreading it is much higher.

https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/54-people-test-positive-on-1st-day-of-haywards-free-coronavirus-testing/
 

*Bio*

Super Moderator
Oct 30, 2012
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Rex Feral over at PM posted this.

Copy and paste from my email..........

An online meeting was held last evening with Dr. Wen Hong Zhang discussing the China experience with COVID-19.

There were ~7000 attendees, mostly from the United States.

The following are notes provided to me (I was not on the call):

-Predicted number of cases in Shanghai with exponential growth was calculated to be nearly one million by March 1, but social distancing avoided this.

-Cases went down to zero or near zero by late-Feb, and there is now a small second wave from imported cases.

-Key to mitigating spread in Shanghai was doing diagnostic COVID test on every suspected case.

-All patients with positive COVID PCR were admitted to a designated COVID hospital regardless of their level of illness.

-Coinfection was very common with other respiratory bacteria and common cold viruses, and >50% patients were positive for a co-infection with a respiratory organism.

-False negative rate of COVID PCR even with two serial swabs was 10-30%! Next Generation Sequencing for COVID was used as the gold standard.

-RSV, Mycoplasma and Parainfluenza virus also caused similar bilateral CT findings to COVID. Molecular diagnostics was needed, and even two negative PCRs, for suspected cases on CT - they sent Next Gen Sequencing, a PCR to National Lab, a 3rd local PCR, and local PCR in another swab location (e.g. anal) (e.g. sent all 4) before they would r/o COVID.

-Mean incubation was 6.4 days, and patients were quarantined mean 5.5 days from symptom onset, with this approach the "curve" was 1 month in duration.

-Hydroxychloroquine is in a multicenter RCT in China and will be published "very soon".

-LDH and D-Dimer was associated with development of ARDS.

-He felt there is a narrow window between positive CT findings and deterioration to ARDS, where corticosteroids have been helpful and further studies are required to investigate this.

-Approximately 5% of patients will need ICU level care, and mortality depends on availability of ICU.

-How to protect medical personnel - China protocol:

1) Standardized process in terms of patient care areas and flow.

2) PPE - double-layer gloves, double-layer shoe covers, isolation gown, masks, goggles, etc. "The most important is to cover the head"

3) Positive pressure masks - for aerosol generating procedures.



Q&A:

-Time window until infection and test positive? 3d by PCR, and 7d by Serological.

-Who did you test? They abandoned risk factor criteria quickly and just tested anyone with symptoms.

-What is the best test? PCR is better than Antibody test for sensitivity. But the Antibody test is helpful, as PCR can have false negative by week 3. Antibody test is helpful to see the overall population prevalence in terms of patients with mild or no symptoms.

-Does viral RNA degradation of samples happen? Tests are done within 4 hours in China, or frozen at -20C otherwise there is increased false negative.

-What is risk for pregnant women? These cases were mild, and no severe/intubated cases were seen so far in Shanghai (no Wuhan data presented).

-What is the underlying medical conditions that are high risk? Heart disease do the worst - the virus causes myocarditis as well.

-What percentage of patients have antibodies? Every recovered patient tested have found to have antibodies on testing but it is unclear if these are actually protective.

-What is the dosage for hydroxychloroquine? 400mg bid x1d, 400mg po qd. They did not treat with azithromycin due to hepatotoxicity observed.

-What is the risk to health care workers? There were none of his colleagues who went to Wuhan to help that became infected with COVID, and this is attributed to PPE.

-What is the outcome of COVID survivors? Lung fibrosis is definitely less than SARS and most patients had a good long-term outcome.

Rex.



The false positive rate is shocking! They were using two serial swabs. Now they're swabbing a lot more. In the article I posted before this, the Fire Chief explained that get tested is not pleasant...

Hayward Fire Department Captain Don Nichelson described what to expect during the testing procedure

“I want make sure everybody knows that this is an uncomfortable procedure. There is a nasal swab that goes to the back of the nose,” Nichelson said. “They’re going to swab that 10 or 20 times, each nostril. There is another swab to the back of the throat 10 or 20 times.”
 
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Elvia1023

AnaSCI VET / Donating Member
Oct 28, 2007
5,816
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I live in the Bay Area and they just started drive through testing in Hayward on Monday at a local Fire Department. They're doing the tests every day. On day one, Monday, 54 people out of 207 tested positive. More than 25%. You had to be symptomatic and have a minimum 100 degree fever to be tested. It will be interesting to see what the results for the week are! Those results don't account for those who have the disease, are contagious, but aren't symptomatic. Obviously the number of those infected and spreading it is much higher.

https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/54-people-test-positive-on-1st-day-of-haywards-free-coronavirus-testing/

Yes it appears loads of people are infected and many don't even know. Boris Johnson the UK prime minister also has Covid-19. That is the equivalent of Donald Trump getting it in the US. Boris Johnson, Prince Charles and the UK health minister have all come out in the last few days as being infected. They travel a lot and are constantly around people but to me it adds weight to the reports that possibly millions are walking around with the virus. These people in a position of power are getting tested whereas most others aren't so have no idea if they have the virus or not.
 

Elvia1023

AnaSCI VET / Donating Member
Oct 28, 2007
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It still seems that there is little definitely known about this disease. And most things I see are just supposition. I don't suppose we will have any real facts for some time. From the 10's of thousands of cases in the US a handful of people have damaged lungs but we don't know what there history was. If they had an undiagnosed condition, smoked vaped etc. The last I resd the other day WHO expected a fatality rate of just over 1%. With that mostly all coming from older people. As most people that catch it will probably never be officially diagnosed with it we we never know for sure the real numbers.

The death rates are fairly low especially in younger people but once the health service is bombarded with infected people they will increase. Look at Italy and the death rate was up to 10% at one time and the numbers of deaths in younger people started to increase daily.

In most countries the death rate is currently at approx 5%. Granted testing is minimal so there are probably thousands (maybe millions) in every country walking around infected and don't even know it. For many it could just be a bad case of flu but for some the effects seem to be devastating. I do agree most y healthy young people can get through this easily and it shouldn't be a major issue.

Now some people always go on about underlying health issues but they are actually very common in large numbers of the population. This virus attacks the lungs amongst other areas and more than 25 million people in the USA suffer from asthma so that is a lot of people who are extremely vulnerable.
 

*Bio*

Super Moderator
Oct 30, 2012
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The United States now has more coroanvirus cases than any other country with over 82,400, according to Johns Hopkins University.

There were more than 81,700 known cases in China and 80,500 in Italy.

Considering Italy's population is just over 60 million, they are in the worst shape. In the US, California has almost 40 million and New York has almost 20 million.
 
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pitshack

Registered User
Dec 10, 2014
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You can bet your ass that the numbers coming out of China are inaccurate. I find it hard to believe that China, with its massive population, has less cases than Italy, a country with a much smaller populace.
 

bbuck

Registered User
Dec 28, 2007
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I live in the Seattle area and a few weeks ago I got the worst cold that I can remember ever having which turned into a slight respiratory infection. I saw my TRT Dr during that time and he said let him know if it got worse. So who knows if I was one of the uncounted ones. Personally I figure more people haven't been diagnosed then have been. So the death rate would be much lower then 5%. You look at Germany and their case rate is very low. Italy's is high. It will be a long time till we have a handle on that. So far zero people under 30 have died in Italy. Just for a point of reference I looked up the stats for Flu in this country. The mid number for hospitalizations according to the CDC is over 500,000 for the flu and about 40,000 died from the flu. Since they really don't track it since it is every year. I figure this wave will peak in the next 2-3 weeks from what I read. And then the next wave will be weeks later with hopefully a lower totals. It could be a year or more till "herd immunity" sets in.
 

Elvia1023

AnaSCI VET / Donating Member
Oct 28, 2007
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You can bet your ass that the numbers coming out of China are inaccurate. I find it hard to believe that China, with its massive population, has less cases than Italy, a country with a much smaller populace.

I agree. Wuhan city has a population of 11 million. The province of Hubei is at about 59 million and the whole of china a massive 1.4 billion. Granted they took extreme measures. Measures very few other countries could do because they have no human rights whatsoever. So that is a massive factor but I am sure numbers are much higher than they have stated. I am sure they are hiding certain things from the rest of the world.

Italy is also very different from many other countries. It is a very densely populated country and it's average age is much higher than many other countries. It's health service is also poor especially when compared to the likes of China and the USA.

Even in the likes of India you have police beating people with sticks because they are found walking outside now. Jordan has some of the most extreme measures regarding lockdown which they have now eased off. They banned all driving in the country and even supermarkets and pharmacies were closed.

The issue with this virus is it's so contagious so we are going to see numbers continue to shoot up. NYC is looking really bad right now. I am the last person to exaggerate and make this something it's not but when I see ICU's in certain hospitals in video and a giant refrigerated truck to store dead bodes outside NYC hospital it's clear this is not something to take lightly.
 

Viking

Registered User
Nov 11, 2011
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I wasn't too concerned at first but things are starting to get much worse. I saw a video about NYC and it looked really bad.
 

*Bio*

Super Moderator
Oct 30, 2012
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The United States now has more coroanvirus cases than any other country with over 82,400, according to Johns Hopkins University.

There were more than 81,700 known cases in China and 80,500 in Italy.

Considering Italy's population is just over 60 million, they are in the worst shape. In the US, California has almost 40 million and New York has almost 20 million.

When I posted that yesterday, it had already jumped to over 100,000+. I just checked the number now and it's 122,666. Italy is now 92,472.

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
 

Elvia1023

AnaSCI VET / Donating Member
Oct 28, 2007
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The video doesn't show up on the page but just wanted to quote this again to state it's a great video and really worth watching. The guy is very informal and explains exactly what the virus does inside the human body and how it kills. How it is much different to the "flu" because many seem to think they are the same. He would make a great teacher.
 

Elvia1023

AnaSCI VET / Donating Member
Oct 28, 2007
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Considering my country is 2nd in the world for deaths per 1 million population quite a lot of people are relaxed about it. I am relaxed as well but I stay away from people but I just worry about my parents. My brother still lives at home and works in a supermarket (on the till daily) so the chances of him catching it are high and it could be a death sentence if my dad caught it (lot's of health issues and smoked for 50 years). I take Flex out in the day for walks and I see people together and some were even having a pinic with about 10 people (adults and small childeren) all together. Most are taking it serious though and many have masks on. Weirdly I saw a few places (turkish kebab and bakery etc) open but they must have asked for permission as you don't risk it over here as the government is very strict. Things are starting to climb in the UK now. They have just cancelled Wimbledon tennis tournament that was due to take place on June 29-July 12.
 

*Bio*

Super Moderator
Oct 30, 2012
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An interesting statistic came out a couple of days ago. I believe this is a US statistic, 40% of the people hospitalized are between the ages of 20 and 54.
 

Elvia1023

AnaSCI VET / Donating Member
Oct 28, 2007
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This guy is a bit out there but when he starts going into coronavirus remedies and he really knows his stuff. I know my supplements and this guy impresses me a lot. He mentions a lot of the things that have been discussed but has some really interesting tips. Definitely worth watching...

BOOSTING IMMUNITY FOR BODYBUILDERS! - YouTube