Emergence of a Deadly Coronavirus

Post Reply New Topic

It was about 75 in NYC yesterday.

Indoor dining—but no movies.

About a 2% positivity rate here.

Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine proves 90% effective in latest trials

U.S. drugmaker and partner BioNTech could ask FDA to permit wide use of vaccine for the new coronavirus by end of November.

Aspirin

COVID-19 virus can attack the heart. IMHO it can cause the heart to beat irregularly. If palpitations are due to conditions in the upper chambers of the heart producing a quiver instead of beating properly; blood can pool and cause blood clots to form. Blood clots can quickly produce death. When a blood clot forms in an artery or vein, it can lead to heart attack, stroke, or a life-threatening clot in the lungs or leg, causing venous thromboembolism (VTE).

One of the ways to treat blood clots is using a blood thinner. One of the most common blood thinners which is available over the counter is Aspirin. So in my opinion it might be a prudent to start taking aspirin immediately if one develops the symptoms of the coronavirus.

The British Government has spun off a study to explore this treatment option. UK trial to assess aspirin as coronavirus treatment option

The RECOVERY trial will attempt to assess a range of treatment options, including low-dose dexamethasone, azithromycin, convalescent plasma, and aspirin, among others, according to the trial’s website. The focus on aspirin will determine whether aspirin might help reduce the risk of blood clots in people suffering from COVID-19, Reuters reported. Patients infected with the virus suffer a greater chance of blood clots due to hyper-reactive platelets, and aspirin is an antiplatelet agent.

If this vaccine formula kills the virus, we can all be optimistic.
But it usually takes a seriously long time to test people’s allergies/sensitivities.
That is the scary part for me.

Europe and the Second Wave

Intensive care is the last line of defense for severely ill coronavirus patients and Europe is running out — of beds and the doctors and nurses to staff them. In country after country, the intensive care burden of COVID-19 patients is nearing and sometimes surpassing levels seen at last spring’s peak. Health officials, many advocating a return to stricter lockdowns, warn that adding beds will do no good because there aren’t enough doctors and nurses trained to staff them. In Italy lines of ambulances park outside hospitals awaiting beds, and in France the government coronavirus tracking app prominently displays the intensive care capacity taken up by COVID-19 patients: 92.5% and rising. In the ICU in Barcelona, there is no end in sight for the doctors and nurses who endured this once already. Patients from France, Belgium and the Netherlands are being evacuated to German intensive care units, but German doctors say they are watching the number of free beds dwindle quickly.

Much of Eastern Europe, spared the harrowing wave last spring, is in the same position. Hungary warned its ICU would run out of space by December under the worst-case scenario, and hospitalizations in Poland have risen to three times the levels seen in the spring. Late last month, American National Guard troops with medical training headed to the Czech Republic to work alongside doctors there, and the mayor of Prague took shifts at a hospital.

Source: As coronavirus spikes, Europe runs low on ICU beds, hospital staff

Is a Second Wave Starting in N.Y.C.?

Therapeutics

The medical community has been working on a wide variety of new medicines to treat the coronavirus. Many of these therapeutics appear to be effective if caught in the early stages of the disease. But they are ineffective if administered when one is at death's door. One of these new therapeutics has just been approved. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Monday gave emergency approval to Eli Lilly's investigational monoclonal antibody treatment for coronavirus.

When President Trump came down with the coronavirus, one of the therapeutics he was given was REGN-COV2 which is a combination of two antibodies directed against a key protein of the virus that causes COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2. They bind to a region on the main surface spike protein that helps the virus attach to a receptor on human cells called angiotensin-converting enzyme 2. [See page 434 of this thread - 6 Oct 2020, 2:06 pm] So I would expect this new Eli Lilly therapeutic to work along the same lines.

------------------------------------------------------

The therapy called bamlanivimab, given via one IV infusion, was authorized for patients over 12 at high risk for hospitalization or a severe course of COVID-19. This includes patients older than 65 with serious underlying health conditions. "This emergency authorization allows us to make bamlanivimab available as a COVID-19 treatment for recently diagnosed, high-risk patients – adding a valuable tool for doctors fighting the now-increasing burden of this global pandemic," said David A. Ricks, chairman and CEO of Eli Lilly, in a company news release. Lilly officials said the treatment should be given to patients as soon as possible after a positive diagnosis, and within about 10 days of symptoms, per the release. [So if administered in the early stages, it can be effective.] The therapy isn’t approved for hospitalized coronavirus patients or those requiring oxygen due to the disease; it is approved for those with a mild to moderate course of the disease.

Source: Lilly's coronavirus antibody treatment gets FDA emergency approval

Early Signs of a Second Wave in the U.S.

One of the early signs of the return of the pandemic, the second wave, is panic buying. It has started.

Major grocery store chains are imposing another round of purchasing restrictions on essential items as a COVID-19 cases continue to reach new records. Many stores are taking preventive steps. Starting Monday, Kroger will enforce limits on key items like bath tissue, paper towels, disinfecting wipes and hand soap.

Last week, Publix implemented customer purchase limits on paper towels and bath tissue due to much higher customer demand. Like many other retailers, the chain is on allocation from other supplies and stained by its supply chains.

Around 16% of household cleaning products have remained out of stock across all retail industries in November, a report from market research firm IRI shows. At the same time, 20% of paper products were out of stock during the week ending on November 8, dipping 2 percentage points from the average supply from the previous weeks. Household plastics and storage also remained low in supply over the past month, with an average of 21% of products out of stock.

Source: Grocery store purchase limits are back

So what does jimmy m. recommend. N95 masks have started to appear in stores, such as building supply stores Lowes, Menards. I would recommend that you buy a few. They are designed to protect a person from the coronavirus, especially the aerosol threat. They can be reused provided you do not get them wet. N95's will allow you mobility to go where you want while keeping you safe and alive during the second wave.

Fomite Transmission

One of the transmission infection routes for the coronavirus is fomite, human touch. According to Merriam Webster dictionary: fomite is an object (such as a dish, doorknob, or article of clothing) that may be contaminated with infectious agents (such as bacteria or viruses) and serve in their transmission.

So there was a recent study that looked at fomite transmission. Modeling the stability of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) on skin, currency, and clothing

Skin, currency, and clothing samples were exposed to SARS-CoV-2 under laboratory conditions and incubated at three different temperatures (4°C± 2°C, 22°C± 2°C, and 37°C ± 2°C). SARS-CoV-2 was stable on skin through the duration of the experiment at 4°C (14 days). Virus remained stable on skin for at least 96 hours at 22°C and for at least 8 hours at 37°C. [This can help to explain the coronavirus outbreaks at meat packing facilities.] We report the results of SARS-CoV-2 stability on animal skin as a series of outbreaks have been reported in the United States meat packing industry. Since most meat packing and processing procedures are carried out between 4–8°C, it is likely that any viral shedding from either symptomatic or asymptomatic workers in the absence of appropriate PPE would remain viable for an extended period of time on the surface of meat products or other surfaces. However, even with extensive cleaning, transmission could still occur in the presence of asymptomatic, undiagnosed workers due to both the enhanced stability of the virus and the high viral loads even asymptomatic cases maintain in the nasal passages.

The results in this study demonstrate the continued inverse relationship between virus stability and temperature seen both in the laboratory and in the field when evaluating different transmission rates of SARS-CoV-2 in different parts of the world. While both fomite and aerosol transmission could be significant factors, due to the stability of SARS-CoV-2 on skin, there is a continued need to reinforce proper hand hygiene practices and social distancing guidelines to minimize ongoing transmission potential. Even trained medical students have been observed touching their faces approximately 23 times per hour.

A Second Open Letter to the World Health Organization

Various scientific investigations have warned of the transmission capacity of the coronavirus by aerosols. The evidence is becoming clearer and therefore experts point out the need to take action in this regard. A group of scientists and citizens has come together with this objective and has published a open letter to the World Health Organization (WHO) to act to stop the spread of the virus through the air.

The initiative is called ‘Covid is airborne’ and in it the WHO is requested “to recognize the multiple scientific evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is spread by aerosols.” In addition, the authors of the document ask the United Nations agency to “immediately develop clear and concise recommendations so that people can protect themselves ”.

Those responsible for ‘Covid is airborne’ request in the letter that the WHO undertake the necessary actions as soon as possible, which they are summarized in five aspects:

1. Recognize that the virus is transmitted by aerosols, both in the vicinity and when sharing the air in a room.

2. Urgently develop, in consensus with multidisciplinary experts, a practical guide to reduce the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 through the air.

3. Update technical guides on personal protective equipment (PPE) to be used by high-risk workers, especially in healthcare facilities and nursing homes.

4. Use the WHO platform to communicate these messages clearly and quickly to the public, governments and national and regional health agencies so that they can act immediately to save lives.

5. Exercise diplomatic pressure on governments and national authorities that do not incorporate science-based guidelines into their recommendations.

Source: The open letter to WHO to take action against aerosol transmission

Melatonin

Melatonin could possibly have more use than just aiding in a good night’s sleep. A new study from the Cleveland Clinic suggests the hormone could be a possible treatment option for those infected with the novel coronavirus.

In an analysis of patient data from the Cleveland Clinic's COVID-19 registry, researchers found that melatonin, a hormone that regulates the body’s sleep-wake cycle, was “associated with a nearly 30% reduced likelihood of testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 after adjusting for age, race, smoking history and various disease comorbidities,” according to a news release accompanying the study published in the journal PLOS Biology. (SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes COVID-19.

The findings on melatonin were derived from a “novel artificial intelligence platform developed by Lerner Research Institute researchers to identify possible drugs for COVID-19 repurposing”. For instance, in severe cases, respiratory distress syndrome and sepsis have been identified as two main causes of death in COVID-19 patients. The proteins associated with these two conditions “were highly connected with multiple SARS-CoV-2 proteins,” the researchers found. By the end, the researchers found that autoimmune, pulmonary and neurological diseases “showed significant network proximity to SARS-CoV-2 genes/proteins and identified 34 drugs as repurposing candidates; melatonin chief among them.”

Source: Melatonin eyed as possible coronavirus treatment, study suggests

Melatonin was associated with a nearly 30% reduced likelihood of testing positive for SARS-CoV-2, the researchers found

CDC now says masks protect both the wearers and those around them from Covid-19