Thread on testing & treatment research for COVID-19
- Thread starter dailybuck777
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So here we have Todaro once again pointing to another retrospective study:
And Zelenko (looks like a duck, walks like a duck....) pointing to a retrospective study that Todaro did last week, the objective of which had nothing to do with HQCL:
And Zelenko (looks like a duck, walks like a duck....) pointing to a retrospective study that Todaro did last week, the objective of which had nothing to do with HQCL:
If I already posted this, please delete. I couldn’t find it In the thread but may have missed it. Statins may protect against COVID-19’s most damaging effects - namely inflammation:
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/could-statins-reduce-the-severity-of-covid-19--67629
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/could-statins-reduce-the-severity-of-covid-19--67629
my personal opinion is that the level of cross immunity or people that just don't get Corona (and don't form any Covid 19 antibodies specifically to be found) might be at much higher levels than people think. Seeing a lot of spouses and kids of adults that had covid and are in the same house and yet don't test positive for antibodies. If that number is in the 25-40% range, than add in the antibody numbers in spain and you do get close to herd immunity in the harder hit spots.
When the NY times questions the narrative...
Agree, it's the most tantalizing theory out there for me. I don't know how anybody could confirm it though.
What if recent exposure to other coronaviruses (i.e. colds) ends up being a really big factor in covid-19 disease severity?
If true, it would help why age is such a big risk factor for severe disease -- older people don't get out as much, don't get exposed to young people as much, and haven't had colds recently. But children, teenagers, young adults, young parents, they get colds constantly.
It might also explain why there's no second wave in Italy or in New York, even though they're nowhere near herd immunity.
I can't even imagine how you'd answer the question though. There's a covid19 antibody test but there's no test for general immune system preparedness for covid19.
It would be interesting if, say, elementary school teachers or pediatricians or day care workers end up with lower covid19 fatality rates.
Didn't 5hey report bogu
Lancet has no credibility. They made up fake data. They were caught in a lie when they listed more deaths in Australia than the entire country had listed. Australian officials asked them for their source and the Lancet refused. Eventually Lancet had to retract their bogus story. They were more interested in politics than science.
It's the same fvcking article. The Lancet didn't "make up" data. They didn't withhold the source. The source, Surgisphere, was disclosed in the erroneous article.
FWIW, Michael Osterholm seems to be saying COVID will become more virulent during fall and winter.
Some of this prediction seems to arise from previous influenza pandemics following this pattern. This is obviously not influenza. Human behavior over fall and winter might raise risks for more severe disease - - less Vitamin D, poorer ventilation, less interpersonal space. Some doctors treating COVID in certain areas believe the virus is becoming tamer. Osterholm does not seem to accept this possibility at least this early.
I hope he’s wrong about this.
Some of this prediction seems to arise from previous influenza pandemics following this pattern. This is obviously not influenza. Human behavior over fall and winter might raise risks for more severe disease - - less Vitamin D, poorer ventilation, less interpersonal space. Some doctors treating COVID in certain areas believe the virus is becoming tamer. Osterholm does not seem to accept this possibility at least this early.
I hope he’s wrong about this.
Lancet might not have written the article but they absolutely completed no diligence in reviewing the article for legitimacy which is 100% their job. Lancet is NOT supposed to be twitter in that you can post everything and anything, it is supposed to be a respected medical journal that only prints articles that are of the highest quality. They completely bypassed their own systems to put this in the their journal as somebody either paid them off or they wanted the HCQ is a failure politics out there. Either way, their credibility as a medical journal should be dirt either way. THe fact they did not write the article means nothing, their job is to do the research and due diligence to ensure the articles they publish have medical credibility and are of the utmost scientific thought, they completely failed in that regard and to date, we have had ZERO reason how and why that happened.
There was a publication from a few years back that concluded that infections associated with the human beta coronavirus OC 43, which is relatively common and causes cold symptoms, results in antibody reactions with the original SARS antigens 77% of the time. The question is whether these antibodies might offer some protection from SARS CoV - 2 in some instances.
Why don't you give us a description of The Lancet's "systems" that were bypassed?
i assume since you post here you have the internet. simple due diligence search in google should provide you plenty of reading. maybe you should start with what a medical journal is supposed to do as that is pretty easy to find also. so either you don't understand how to use the internet or you have an agenda.
What about that study is a negative to the scientific concept of herd immunity, or it's application to this coronavirus?
For those who need/want to be tested for Covid, Geisinger has developed their own in-house testing capability. You get results in 3 to 24 hours! No doctors note required and they take most insurance policies as full payment. You will have to report some symptoms such as fever and aches, but that is all.
"Due diligence" is a very broad term. How it's performed varies by subject, industry, and organization. Since you are so confident in your knowledge of The Lancet's shortcomings, perhaps you would share.
Herd immunity is not an appealing strategy for an infectious disease unless that immunity is achieved through vaccination.
Natural herd immunity without vaccination means that 70 - 90% of the susceptible people have to get the infection before the spread is controlled. That’s not really much of a preventative since people actually had to get sick. So relying on natural herd immunity or hoping we get there sooner is a pretty defeatist idea.
The serological study cited show about 5.0% of Spaniards had immunity so you need another 65% or so to achieve herd immunity. I don’t think anyone wants the consequences coming with a >10x increase in cases. If it showed 50 or 60% had immunity, than at least the worst would be in the rear-view mirror. This study clearly shows that the worst would be in the future with respect to herd immunity sans vaccination.
Even with improvements in treatments and therapeutics, Spain would easily eclipse 1 death per 1,000 people until natural herd immunity was achieved. And that’s probably a generous estimate. That’s could be around 300,000 - 400,000 deaths in US or approaching the death toll from WWII. Getting to herd immunity this way is the least desirable outcome and would be a huge disappointment. If it happens out of our control, that is one thing but to hope or advocate for this is pretty unethical.
Getting to herd immunity by vaccination is a exact opposite as you get there without any unnecessary sickness, death, or health system strain. However, this approach should not be confused with getting to herd immunity levels by mass infection.
That premise simply isn't true though. It's not as simple as a single percentage, and none of the percentages are that high.
I’d be interested to know what you think the percentages are then?
I gave a broad range as an estimate not a single percentage. And many minimum herd immunity levels for known contagious diseases are that high and higher. Measles and pertussis are around 90 - 95%. Polio, diphtheria, smallpox, and rubella range from 80 - 86%. Estimates for Covid-19 are around 60 - 80%. Ebola and influenza are lower at 30 - 60%.
If you don’t believe me, here is a paper to read on the subject of herd immunity for COVID-19 including an estimated herd immunity level (67%) and discussion of the potential impact of this without a vaccine. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7236739/
Not at all. I just think we should start walking down the road to where we want to be, because there is a very reasonable chance that the bus everyone is hoping for never comes by.
We can start walking, and still get picked up by the bus if it comes. But if we don't start walking, and instead just stand here (like we are now), and the bus never comes, we wasted all this time that we could have been moving towards where we want to be.
I got off a plane at Dulles last night, and am at my medium-risk in-laws right now. Saturday heading up to visit my very-high-risk parents. We're doing this - we're taking this risk - because of the very short-sighted response to this virus that very well may have us in this same exact state (risk-level) for years to come. There is no end in sight in which we can have any confidence.
They published a fraudulent load of cr*p that they should have known was a load of cr*p. Surgisphere was a nothing company that didn't have the resources to collect the data that they claimed to have collected. People on line with no connection to Surgisphere noted substantial problems within a couple of days. Why couldn't the Lancet have done that.
Wow. That was a fantastic article, as it touched on a lot of the things - reasons why applying the concept of herd immunity is much more complex than just some single percentage value - I would love to put together in a post, but don't have that time.
Thank you for posting this.
In a nutshell though, the R0 value, as the article states, assumes a completely naive population.
The latest "best estimate" from the CDC for the R0 value of this coronavirus is 2.5.
That puts the herd immunity threshold at 60%.
But remember, that assumes a completely naive population (ie taking no precautions).
We could be more precise than this (remember, this is in a nutshell), but we would have three separate populations for the sake of determining our path to herd immunity:
1) Our high-risk group. This group is under partial quarantine, and very strictly utilizing precautions to not contract and/or spread the virus when not quarantined. The Re (effective R0) value in this group is close to 0.
2) Those taking reasonable to steps to not contract and/or spread the disease. This is our "masks and social distancing" population. I don't know what this group's Re value would be, but it would have to be under 1.0 - and likely we'll under 1.0.
3) Then there are the rest of the people. This group isn't really taking precautions, but they're also not completely naive to the virus either. Further, as a society, we have taken steps to lessen their opportunities to spread the virus (ie eliminated big group events, cut social opportunities, and in some cases we force them to temporarily join group #2 [ie requiring them to wear masks in grocery stores]). I don't know what this group's Re value is, but we know it has to be less than the R0 value.
When you calculate the weighted (by population size) average of the herd immunity thresholds of these groups, you come to a value that is considerably less than 60% (if you go with the CDCs current best estimate for the R0) of the overall population - And a very small percentage of the high-risk population that has a fatality rate higher than .0003.
This is waaay less than your 70-90% number. You have to assume older worst case scenario estimations for R0, with a completely naive population, to get anywhere near your 70-90% numbers.
I’d like to see your math and a specific number (or range) that you believe in. It’s fine if you think it is lower, but I cannot fairly debate if you aren’t going to share what you believe is the minimal level for herd immunity.
Beyond that, your use of Re is incorrect. Isolation is not immunity. At best it is could be likened to temporary immunity, but as soon as those people circulate again they can contract it if the virus is presented. This is why Florida, Texas, Arizona etc looked like they had things under control but then lost it when they reopened. The temporary “immunity” vanished as soon as they relaxed or stopped. It’s a false sense of immunity. In other words, we are slowing the spread so it simply extends the time to reach herd immunity but doesn’t decrease the number of the herd that needs immunity before we can simply resume life as it was pre-coronavirus.
Also, if the immunity is not long lasting (ie months not years) then we face another challenge to the herd immunity concept in that people will transition back to a naive or susceptible population.
Finally, some clarity on my numbers. I used 70 - 90% as a wide range in general for herd immunity levels for known infectious diseases but not specifically for COVID-19. In estimating how much more Spain would need to go, I used 10 as the multiplier for the 5% found with immunities, which gets to level of 50%. I intentionally lowballed in my numbers rather than to use the general range of 70 - 90%. Further, Spain is at around 600 deaths per million now so 10x would get to 6000 per million or 6 per 1000. Again, I lowballed this to use 1 death per 1000, which is not even double the current rate although cases would multiply by 10. So the 300,000 - 400,000 deaths in US is a conservative estimate and could easily be closer to 1 million.
