Coronavirus Epidemic. Is this it? Are we screwed?

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+


Ellen Höfer @ellenjoelle | Twitter

[High Lord Tolkien]

A few things

1. I read today that a woman who was infected with the virus recovered then became reinfected. Thats a problem.

This is crazy scary.
And it's from Japan so it's a little more believable (as compared to an anecdote from China).
Here's the link:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chin ... SKCN20L0BI

[Skyweir]

Yup thats the one.

But that baby huh? Thats gotta be heartening.

[High Lord Tolkien]

So far there's no good news. The more we learn the more horrible it becomes.

I have a horrible feeling (just me) that once a patient recovers initially this virus will remain in the body forever and stay dormant. Then, when the body is weakened from fighting another illness or injury the body will be too weak to fight it.



https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/f ... le/2762452


All 4 patients were exposed to the novel 2019 coronavirus through work as medical professionals. Two were male and the age range was 30 to 36 years. Among 3 of the patients, fever, cough, or both occurred at onset. One patient was initially asymptomatic and underwent thin-section CT due to exposure to infected patients. All patients had positive RT-PCR test results and CT imaging showed ground-glass opacification or mixed ground-glass opacification and consolidation. The severity of disease was mild to moderate.

Antiviral treatment (75 mg of oseltamivir taken orally every 12 hours) was provided for the 4 patients. For 3 of the patients, all clinical symptoms and CT imaging abnormalities had resolved. The CT imaging for the fourth patient showed delicate patches of ground-glass opacity. All 4 patients had 2 consecutive negative RT-PCR test results. The time from symptom onset to recovery ranged from 12 to 32 days.

After hospital discharge or discontinuation of quarantine, the patients were asked to continue the quarantine protocol at home for 5 days. The RT-PCR tests were repeated 5 to 13 days later and all were positive. All patients had 3 repeat RT-PCR tests performed over the next 4 to 5 days and all were positive. An additional RT-PCR test was performed using a kit from a different manufacturer and the results were also positive for all patients. The patients continued to be asymptomatic by clinician examination and chest CT findings showed no change from previous images. They did not report contact with any person with respiratory symptoms. No family member was infected.

Four patients with COVID-19 who met criteria for hospital discharge or discontinuation of quarantine in China (absence of clinical symptoms and radiological abnormalities and 2 negative RT-PCR test results) had positive RT-PCR test results 5 to 13 days later. These findings suggest that at least a proportion of recovered patients still may be virus carriers. Although no family members were infected, all reported patients were medical professionals and took special care during home quarantine. Current criteria for hospital discharge or discontinuation of quarantine and continued patient management may need to be reevaluated. Although false-negative RT-PCR test results could have occurred as suggested by a previous study,6 2 consecutively negative RT-PCR test results plus evidence from clinical characteristics and chest CT findings suggested that the 4 patients qualified for hospital discharge or discontinuation of quarantine.

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+


We Need A Cure! (The Simpsons) [YouTube: < 1 min]

[Skyweir]

[Skyweir]

Scientists may have found one bright side to the coronavirus "pandemic?" Several groups have just discovered that a critical portion of the coronavirus, the receptor binding domain or RBD, appears to have jumped into a bat coronavirus from pangolins infected with a closely related virus. The RBD is the bit that sticks out of the virus and is critical for binding the virus to our cells.

Pangolins are the most trafficked mammal in the world and are largely extinct in China. Maybe the Chinese government will finally get really serious about the illegal trade in wild animals.


https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/opin ... olins.html

[Rigel]

BTW, before someone else brings it up, I'll go ahead and eat crow:

This is a lot worse than I expected. I was completely wrong about the impact it would have on us.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

BTW, before someone else brings it up, I'll go ahead and eat crow:

This is a lot worse than I expected. I was completely wrong about the impact it would have on us.

My initial assessment was pretty damned far off-base, as well. I blame China--if they had done what they should have done from the start, namely tell the truth, allow foreign doctors/international agencies to deal with the situation at its center, and stopped all travel, then we would not be where we are now. They were more interested in not having Xi or the Party lose face and they were not going to shut down travel for the Chinese New Year season (the largest migration of humans every year--recall that many of our early cases were "students coming back from overseas trips to see their families").

The virus itself will subside over the next 2 or 3 months, except for random seasonal outbreaks but the social and economic costs of the overreactions will be with us for years. Some small businesses will disappear forever--they won't come back after the lockdowns are over--and some people who lost their jobs, ultimately losing everything, will turn to alcohol, drugs, or suicide to deal with it.

[wayfriend]

No.

Perfect quarantine is impossible. And exposure spreads exponentially. Which means that if China had stopped 99.9% of what it did not .... The pandemic would only happen two weeks later.

Had it started in the US, would we have done better? Without the authoritarian, draconian measures? Americans are actually bitching about the collapse of society because of social separation!

The Blame-China bandwagon is being driven by Trump and running on racist feul.

Trump failed us. And he never takes the blame. Scapegoat time!

[Rigel]

There's plenty of blame to go around. Everybody should have been better prepared. Everyone should have responded more quickly. If only we had started testing earlier... If only we had implemented travel restrictions earlier... If only the pandemic response team hadn't been fired and not replaced... If only, if only, if only...

The frustrating part is where testing is concerned. Quarantine is only necessary in an inverse proportion to how much testing we are doing; essentially, we've tested a minuscule portion of the population, and so we have to quarantine the majority of them. Theoretically, if we increase the amount of testing (and the speed at which we get results), social distancing could be made completely unnecessary.

And while there's talk of a vaccine 12-18 months out (which would be a great deal faster than the average, which is something like 7-10 years), guessing about future medical treatments is difficult at best. What if the vaccine isn't effective? What if it ends up being unsafe? What if it works, it's completely safe, and it's prohibitively expensive?

What if we just end up with this new virus a part of our seasonal flu outbreaks, and need to scale up our healthcare industry to deal with it? Personally I'd love it if we cut the military budget in half and funneled that money into healthcare instead, but this isn't the way I wanted to see that happen. But maybe we just need to increase the capacity of our healthcare system by a factor of 10 to survive in the new normal.

[Skyweir]

Yeah I did not think it would turn out to be as critical as it has either.

Theres plenty of crow to go around methinks

I absolutely agree the US military budget could survive a generous slashing and your health system and general public should be prime beneficiaries.