On a busy Philly weekend night for crime, I shoved a shooting victim into my police car and raced him to Jefferson Hospital. (We don’t wait for ambulances with shooting and stabbing victims. We can usually get the victim to the hospital in our car before the ambulance even arrives at the crime scene.) Anyway, the emergency room has three trauma bays. When I arrived nurses and security guards loaded my victim onto a gurney and rushed him to the trauma bays with me in hot pursuit. All three bays were full with 3 other shooting victims! My guy had to wait while being examined by a triage nurse. The hospital went on “divert” status so police would take shooting victims to other hospitals which meant a longer, life-threatening ride to a more distant hospital. Every critical service is run as close to full as possible for economic reasons. There’s precious little slack for a major event. You should’ve seen what a zoo the city was when an Amtrak train derailed at speed in the city. 100’s injured very hard to even reach and waaay too few medical resources. The same is true of police and fire resources in a big city. They’re designed be able to just barely keep up with a moderate level of need. Easily overwhelmed. But the budget can’t handle more.
This CNN story documents the suppression of the outbreak of the coronavirus. I have a Chinese friend with daily contacts in China. Her friends told her that people who die at home are transported to a crematorium without testing. No one in China believes the government.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/03/asia/coronavirus-doctor-whistle-blower-intl-hnk/index.html
- Like the story about the resume for the weapons lab job is why Twitter has trimmed the Hedge
The problem with this and death rate is that its all predicted early being that people have treatment. If you take away the ability to get treatment AND this causes ARDS so its treatement is mechanical ventilation. So, yeah, good luck on that when the numbers get above threshold. The real deal is the count as of this post is 20655 infected 427 dead. and here is the scary number 2750 critical. I say only 60% of those wil survive even with intense treatment - without 10%… so now you know this is 10% fatal easily. I really am seeing a much bigger issue. Do not know how to not panic. I ran the numbers a million time and said that man kind will be fine. But with this, you will have lots of other people die from all other causes because medical is overwhelmed… so its going to cascade.
what if Ncov can circle back continuously through people re-infecting again and again like the common cold? Does that mean a continuous 3% death rate? (if it doesn’t get you first time around how bout the 3rd…4th…7th…)
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-coronavirus-risk-of-reinfection-2020-2%3Famp
The US markets make sense to me, at least for now. Are central banks not still creating massive amounts of credit? Is that free money not still looking for maximum return and/or safety? Wouldn’t the US markets appear to be a “safe haven” during any international crisis, but especially in one grossly affecting the economic activity in one of our biggest rivals? Sure, it will eventually dawn on everyone that our “rival” is also the major supplier of the stuff that makes a big part of our economy run. But it still remains that their markets, and every other market on Earth, is a competitor for investment dollars.
So I guess the question is whether the markets will look at it one way or the other. Or whether market sentiment might be volatile on this measure. Perhaps Friday it looked one way, today, not so much. I decided a long time ago that it was all a rigged game, and the only way to win against a rigged game is to not play.
As to the effects on our major rival/partner, I am curious as to why so many of the more whacko conspiracy sources out there seem to be pointing to China as the source of a weaponized virus. “Escaped” they say, from the bioweapons labs. But why would China be developing a weapon designed to have maximum impact on their own predominate race? It would make a lot more sense to me to cast a wary eye at the two superpowers most capable of supporting such a program that also happen to have populations that are either predominately Caucasian, or whose historic governing elite is Caucasian. Just saying.
I recently had elective major surgery a top hospital, out of state. My surgeon was the best but not supportive/ educated in pre or post surgery diet and supplements. I was put in a recovery center, but I basically broke out of there at the minimum time of two weeks. Mainly because I couldn’t obtain the nutrition I wanted. I was given a multi vitamin, but also on high dose antibiotics. I begged my vitamin C but couldn’t get probiotics to stop the antibiotic caused diarrhea, or the higher dose magnesium I need. Three months and my gut is still recovering. I sent them my supplement list pre surgery, but obviously ignored. Hopefully, you have an aggressive health advocate. For me, I will do everything to stay out of the hospital.
SO, be sure you have a primary care person who is on the same page with you who can order
Immune (gamma) globulin injections have been used to fight virus infections. In 1960, Chile had a major earthquake, and Peace Corps volunteers were sent. Many of the volunteers were given immune globulin injections, and not one of them became infected with hepatitis A. Most of the non-injected volunteers became infected.
In 1973, I traveled overland from Europe to India and Nepal. I had heard that overlanders were vulnerable to hep A, so when I was in Athens, I went to a pharmacy and got an injection. A few weeks later, I got a second injection in New Dehli, also at a pharmacy. When I was in Kathmandu, I had bronchitis and went to a hospital run by husband and wife doctors from San Francisco, my home town. I asked about the prevalence of hep A among overlanders, and was told that a third were infected!
I found a reference indicating that a type of globulin was effective for SARS. From Nature: Developing high titers of anti-SARS hyperimmune globulin to provide an alternative pathway for emergent future prevention and treatment of SARS.
If I think I have been exposed to the coronavirus, I will ask my doctor for an immune globulin injection. Perhaps Kaiser may have the anti-SARS hyperimmune globulin.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.26.919985v1.full
“We also noticed that the only Asian donor (male) has a much higher ACE2-expressing cell ratio than white and African American donors (2.50% vs. 0.47% of all cells). This might explain the observation that the new Coronavirus pandemic and previous SARS-Cov pandemic are concentrated in the Asian area.”
Yesterday in Denver it was 74 degrees … yes on February 2. I heard we tied a record set in 1934 so I guess it’s not unheard of.
Today the high was 30, I think, and we’re expecting 7 - 14" of snow … much more seasonal and, since I’m from here, comforting to me (it’s a water thing, and I like winter).
The reason any of that is topical is today I was reminded of why winter has become so unpleasant - Mag Chloride or MgCl2 and other products which contain CaCl2 (I think used commercially as a desiccant) get sprayed all over the streets before and as it snows. This is to “make things better”.
Sea spray would be one thing with mostly NaCl in lower concentrations (we don’t have that here) but after a month of fall-like weather and the splashy conditions driving to work this morning, I feel it in my whole airway. My nose has a mildly burning dryness. (This goes away with nasal irrigation - I like a netti pot myself.) My throat feels kind of dry even though it is not and I have the faintest rattle right below my trachea but little bit of a dry cough.
This is a familiar pattern established over many years of paying at least cursory attention to my body and discussing with others. This is how I and a lot of people I know live when the roads are bad. For me, it lasts until another snow-pack covers it up or a spring rain washes it away.
I assume the rest of the US that has winter uses similar products on the roads. So I wonder - do other people experience low-grade, chronic respiratory irritation they can correlate with weather and maybe with products related to weather? And what impact does that have on the immune system? (like I could imagine all kinds of problems and I can imagine a perverse benefit of drying out the nasal passage would make it inhospitable to pathogens.)
If such respiratory irritation occurs in the US, how does that interact with infectious respiratory diseases? Make them more infections? More serious in an individual? No effect? Other?
My overall impression of the interview is that he made some very serious claims based on mostly opinion.
Here is the Shenzhen daily report, just released:
Shenzhen confirmed another 43 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) infection cases on Feb. 3, adding the total number of confirmed cases in the city to 269, according to the latest figures released by the Health Commission of Shenzhen Municipality today. Of the confirmed cases, 129 are male and 140 are female. In terms of district distribution, 54 cases were reported in Futian District, 52 in Nanshan District, 41 in Longgang District, 33 in Bao'an District, 30 in Longhua District, 19 in Luohu District, 8 in Guangming District, 6 in Pingshan District, 3 in Yantian District, and 2 in Dapeng New District. Another21 cases were detected upon entry to the city (from the airport, bus stations, ferry terminals, checkpoints and roadblocks etc.). Currently, 10 patients are in critical condition, 19 in severe condition and 10 have been discharged from hospital. There has been no death report so far. All 259 patients are being treated at Shenzhen No. 3 People's Hospital. 904 people in close contact with the patients are under medical observation.Still very, very quiet. Street sweepers operating 24/7 but with very little fluid, I'm really not sure what or why they are doing this. All traffic into our apartment complex is being stopped at the gate, residents are temperature tested and allowed to enter. I was questioned about my location over the past 2 weeks; was I outside of Shenzhen? All very friendly however! Today all foreign pilots at several major Chinese airlines were put on immediate leave without pay. We are expecting the same announcement at my cargo airline soon, but our contract and Chinese labor law prevent immediate contract termination without pay. That Chinese attorney I put on retainer 2 years ago has suddenly become quite valuable and is working diligently for me..
Good find. I saw this study but ignored it when i saw the sample size. Still i missed that these numbers where mentioned.
We all hope these numbers are correct and mean something.
Thank you for your posts. Please stay safe.
There’s a couple of reports on cnbc that are starting to sound a lot more like PP!
This one, which is economically focused, seems to represent a change in the narrative https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/03/el-erian-says-coronavirus-to-paralyze-china-dont-buy-stock-dips.html
Thanks, dtrammel, for your post and link to the article regarding the retraction. I wondered what happened to have it retracted, and so quickly. The article references comments that took issue with the methodology and unscientific language (e.g., “uncanny”) used in the study.
Delving into the comments section of the original study posted by the authors, I found this comment by co-author Prashant Pradhan re: their retraction:
“This is a preliminary study. Considering the grave situation, it was shared in BioRxiv as soon as possible to have creative discussion on the fast evolution of SARS-like corona viruses. It was not our intention to feed into the conspiracy theories and no such claims are made here. While we appreciate the criticisms and comments provided by scientific colleagues at BioRxiv forum and elsewhere, the story has been differently interpreted and shared by social media and news platforms. We have positively received all criticisms and comments. To avoid further misinterpretation and confusions world-over, we have decided to withdraw the current version of the preprint and will get back with a revised version after reanalysis, addressing the comments and concerns. Thank you to all who contributed in this open-review process.
: Authors of the Manuscript”
The comments are worth a read even for those, like me, that are not schooled in bioinfomatics. There’s a lively debate, some very technical, but it is clear that there are those that still feel that the study raises important questions regardless some weaknesses in methodology.
Several commenters questioned why one of the bat coronavirus samples used in the study was collected in 2013 but uploaded into the genetic sequencing database by the Wuhan Institute of Virology days after the article was posted.
(Note: researchers use the NLM/NCBI BLAST program, “BLAST finds regions of similarity between biological sequences. The program compares nucleotide or protein sequences to sequence databases and calculates the statistical significance.” They created a new BLAST database focused on nCoV sequences.)
Commenter “torque”:
“Jason, I took a look at the blast results. The Wuhan seafood market virus does seem to match the bat coronavirus. However, if you click on the Accession (QHR63250.1 and QHR63300.1) you can see that both were submitted on the same day, 27-JAN-2020 by CAS Key Laboratory of Special Pathogens, Wuhan Institute of Virology. There are some subtle differences in “ORIGIN”. It may be instructive to see what those differences are.”
“(For anyone else that was wondering, the notes indicate QHR63300.1 was collected 24-Jul-2013 - fecal swab from bats. But still it was submitted into the system on 27-Jan-2020.)”
Commenter, Anon:
“I noticed that several people have pointed out that QHR63300.1 has all of the same insertions and is from Bat. Can anyone explain why this is the only Bat CoV with these insertions?
If you search for matches to QHR63300.1 the best hit by far is the Wuhan Seafood Market CoV, which infects humans.
It’s also hard to understand why QHR63300.1 was uploaded 4 days ago (Jan 27, 2020) from Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
It is the “spike glycoprotein [Bat coronavirus] GenBank: QHR63300.1” that was uploaded after the study posted.
Honestly, this is a bit out of my skill set and I’m not sure what to make of the above. But I find it curious, and would be interested to hear others’ perhaps better informed take on this.
Note: For those who really want to dig deeper, commenter Alex Crits-Christoph provides a concise step-by-step tutorial on using the BLAST program with the protein sequences in question.
Another supporting article. Nice summary of Ncov designed in a lab theory. Includes references to multiple scientists reaching similar conclusions.
https://www.naturalnews.com/2020-02-03-the-coronavirus-was-engineered-by-scientists-in-a-lab.html
Just so everyone is clear, this Dr Francis Boyle is a Doctor of Philosophy and a law professor. He is an expert in bio-chemical LAW, not a medical expert.
“The real deal is the count as of this post is 20655 infected 427 dead. and here is the scary number 2750 critical. I say only 60% of those wil survive even with intense treatment – without 10%… so now you know this is 10% fatal easily.”
You are forgetting the lag. Cases do not become serious instantly. I have no idea how many days it takes before a case becomes serious, but if we were to use 6 days as the number (and from the Lancet study we have a case doubling rate of 6.4 days) then I expect the CFR to be twice what you are suggesting. I agree this is potentially horrendous.
The other side of the coin is that “serious” is completely undefined. “Serious” might just mean that the case would - in the normal course of events - require hospital admission. And we have some early data that only 17% of those cases develop ARDS.