Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19) (SARS-CoV-2) [2020]

WaPo has a story of an Italian family who decided to have a birthday party for a 14-year old. Among the people at the party was the 83-year old grandfather.

Several got sick and the grandpa didn't make it. Grandma was also in hospital but she recovered.

Pandemic fatigue over there too.
 
https://www.axios.com/youtube-tempo...ann-420e8ea9-66c1-4eab-9754-6e3b708483c9.html

YouTube has barred One America News Network from posting new videos for a week and stripped it of its ability to make money off existing content after the Trump-friendly channel uploaded a video promoting a phony cure for COVID-19, YouTube spokesperson Ivy Choi tells Axios.

Why it matters: YouTube has been criticized for allowing OANN to spread misinformation using its platform, particularly around coronavirus and the election. This marks the Google-owned service's first crackdown against OANN.

Details: OANN's one-week suspension from posting new videos or livestreams is the result of a "strike" YouTube issued for violating its COVID-19 misinformation policy, which prohibits saying there is a guaranteed cure to the virus. YouTube took down the video that triggered the strike.
  • OANN is also suspended from the YouTube Partner Program, which means if it wants to monetize its videos again, it will have to re-apply.
  • YouTube has a three-strikes policy before an account is terminated. This is OANN's first strike, but it has violated the platform's COVID-19 misinformation policy before, meaning it gets no more warnings if it breaks the rules again — just additional strikes.
  • YouTube says it does not consider OANN an authoritative news source.
...
 
FDA clears a 'new generation' of Covid antibody test designed to tell how well someone is protected against the virus

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/me...ne-is-protected-against-the-virus/ar-BB1blG1a

  • The FDA authorized one of the first Covid-19 tests designed to measure the specific amount of antibodies produced by the body's immune system after infection or vaccination.
  • Unlike many previously authorized Covid antibody tests that read a positive or negative, the new test, called COVID-SeroKlir, measures the specific levels of Covid-19 neutralizing antibodies.
  • Kantaro said the test produces accurate positive results 98.8% of the time and accurate negative results 99.6% of the time.
The FDA on Wednesday authorized one of the first Covid-19 tests that measures the amount of neutralizing antibodies produced by the body's immune system after exposure to the virus — a "new generation" of coronavirus test that is designed to tell how well someone is protected against infection.

The body's immune system produces antibodies to combat viruses and other foreign pathogens that invade the body. When it comes to Covid-19, it remains unclear how much protection antibodies provide and how long that might last, but this test could help researchers better understand the role of Covid antibodies in immune protection.

Unlike many previously authorized Covid antibody tests that can tell if you've had the virus or not, the COVID-SeroKlir test measures your specific levels of Covid-19 neutralizing antibodies. The Food and Drug Administration has previously authorized some tests that estimate the level of antibodies, but not specifically for neutralizing antibodies.

The FDA cautioned that much remains unknown about the nature of Covid-19 neutralizing antibodies in humans and that a high level of antibodies does not necessarily guarantee immunity against the virus.

But the new test is important because it can be used by researchers to further study the relationship between Covid-19 antibodies and protection against the virus. That's relevant for protection generated by both previous Covid-19 exposure and by a vaccine, once one is distributed, which could be next month in the U.S.

The test was developed by Kantaro Biosciences, a joint venture between the Mt. Sinai Health System and Renalytix, a diagnostics start-up that went public earlier this year. Through a partnership with Bio-Techne, which has a valuation of $11.7 billion, the companies are now manufacturing about 10 million tests per month, Chief Commercial Innovation Officer at Mt. Sinai Erik Lium said in a phone interview.

"It's going to broadly enable studies of immunity and the relationship between immunity and the level of antibodies that an individual has," Lium said, adding that the technology is already being used in studies. "A second use of this test is in vaccination."

Lium said the test could be used to determine who already has high levels of neutralizing antibodies due to previous exposure, and may not immediately need the vaccine. Lium said he'd "defer to public health officials" on decisions of how to allocate the limited doses, but added that it would "not be unreasonable to focus efforts on those who have no antibodies to Covid-19."

Lium said it also gives patients and clinicians more information about immunity to the virus whether someone recovers from an infection or gets immunized. For example, he said, it could be used to evaluate the effect of a vaccine and whether it provoked a robust immune response in someone, he said.

"As we understand the relationship between the amount of antibodies that an individual has to these key components of the virus and immunity, a test like this can really start to provide peace of mind once we understand that relationship in the coming months," he said.

Kantaro said the test has demonstrated 98.8% sensitivity and 99.6% specificity for detecting Covid-19 antibodies against two virus antigens, the full-length spike protein and its receptor-binding domain, two key elements of this virus. That means 98.8% of all positive diagnoses are accurate and 99.6% of all negative diagnoses are correct.

"We think that our test is really one of the first in a new generation of antibody tests that provide much more meaningful information to individuals and clinicians on whether an individual's been infected and developed an immune response," Lium said, "and then what's the level of antibodies that they have."
 
Ohio is still sitting on over 6K positive COVID-19 cases that have not been entered into the system.

From what was newly allowed to be entered into the system, Ohio has 10835 new cases from 52080 tests leading to a 20.8% Positivity Rate. The death toll is starting to show from the huge surge starting a few weeks ago. The numbers for Cuyahoga County are 1175 new cases. Truly staggering.

 
One campaign.

EnjFA85VkAMxnUT


EnTXqNyUUAIK4z5
 
Sadly some people need scaring (doesnt scaring spell scar-ing, how the hell do you spell scare-ing?) because they cannot be reasoned with.
 
"This is an amazing form of analysis via correlation. It’s a chart of people complaining about lack of scent on Amazon reviews of scented candles. Maps neatly to 1st & 2nd wave of COVID outbreaks in the U.S. You can guess why."
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1332398737604431874.html

I couldn’t just walk past this Tweet, so here is some fun #dataviz

Scented candles: An unexpected victim of the COVID-19 pandemic 1/n



First, I downloaded a random subsample of US-based customer reviews of the 3 most popular scented candles on Amazon. Between January 2017 and January 2020, the average rating stayed around 4.3/5, but there was a sharp drop between January and November 2020. 2/n


Could it be because of the COVID-related loss of smell? To investigate, I plotted the reviews of the 3 most popular unscented candles on Amazon*, and the difference was quite striking 3/n

*One thing to note: fewer reviews are available for unscented candles than for scented ones


Since the beginning of 2020, customer satisfaction with scented candles has been dropping at a much faster rate compared to unscented candles. 4/n


That’s where things get really interesting. Instead of just looking at ratings, I decided to dig into the content of these reviews, so I wrote a quick function that flagged all reviews that mentioned lack of scent. 5/n

Now, most people were rating their candles without taking the time to write a detailed review, so I expanded my sample to include top 5 scented candles from 4 different brands. 6/n

Since the beginning of this year, the proportion of reviews mentioning lack of scent grew from < 2% in January to close to 6% in November. These numbers may not seem like much, but the trajectory of no-scent reviews over the last 11 months is certainly an interesting one 7/n


So, if you are doing any virtual Black Friday shopping today, and if you still have your sense of smell, maybe buy a scented candle and leave a nice review. And no, I don't work for a candle company. I just like looking at data. 8/n

 
Initial findings from TemPredict study show that data from oura ring can predict getting covid19 days before getting any symptoms. Their initial data/study is ending and they are starting to publish results. They have developed algorithm based on initial study+nightly oura data that can potentially figure out ahead of time if you are getting sick. They will have second study where they enable this algorithm for oura and collect more data/iron out remaining details on getting sick detection.

In initial study there was also all kinds of other stuff involved like antibody tests, self reporting symptoms etc. They had some 65000 people participating the study. Here is paper about first 50 people who were participating in study and were diagnosed with covid19: https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-43914/v1 . This is not peer reviewed yet so take with grain of salt. Also there is more results/papers coming out as they process the data for rest of the people diagnosed with covid19.

I'm happy oura ring user and been contributing my data to their study. I hope I'll get to participate the second study as well. Oura measures every heartbeat during sleep. The analysis is based on heart rate, heart rate variability and body temperature changes. Anecdotally whenever I have gotten common cold it has been visible from oura data about 2nights before getting any symptoms. If they can iron this out into automatic functionality that ring software provides that would be awesome. Basically get notification that it looks like you might be getting common cold/flu/covid19, take proper rest, vitamins etc. and don't push yourself to give your body best chance to fight whatever virus is attacking you. Also just don't go meet people if it looks like you might be getting sick.
 
Last edited:
Rant time

I just come back from a flight exam / practical test thing, and it was a nightmare.

1. Nobody practice social distancing. Even after I told them I came from black city, overloaded hospitals, please stay away from me.

2. About 90% of them didn't wear face mask properly

3. I told them I practice social distancing religiously. I even didn't even go to the barber. (this is a mistake, I think. I should have said that my lil bro directly handles covid patients and I don't want to make all of you infected)

No wonder Indonesia have ridiculous amounts of covid cases.
 
Its dreadfully frightful out there in Ohio, and the weather is bad too!

The only aspect that may slow the spread of Covid19 in the midwest may be the harsh snow storms, until the vaccines are widely distributed to the millions. Ohio is still sitting upon thousands of positive test cases and not entering them into the system.
 
https://abc7ny.com/covid-vaccine-coronavirus-cuomo-delivery-in-ny/8442190/

Governor Andrew Cuomo
gave a date on when the first COVID vaccine doses will be delivered to New York.

On Wednesday, Cuomo said the state will receive the vaccine from Pfizer on December 15 if all safety and efficacy approvals are granted. The doses will be enough for 170,000 New Yorkers.

NY state expects additional doses of the Pfizer vaccine and the Moderna vaccine by the end of this month.

"By the end of December, the administration suggests there will be enough to vaccinate 20 million people [in USA] with two doses, which is 40 million doses," Cuomo said. "That means 6% of Americans. Gives you an idea of where we are going to be going into January, and those 6% will be prioritized, health care workers, seniors in congregate facilities. 6% of Americans having vaccinations by the beginning of January, you see how far we have to go."
 
Meanwhile, Ohio has 7385 new cases out of 34,413 tests for 22.77% positivity rate. They also have 5208 currently hospitalized patients due to COVID19. This is why they're the 7th worst state in the US for the pandemic.

Oh, and the numbers are only that low because of the freaking snowstorm that pretty much shut down a large portion of North Eastern Ohio from Monday night through Wednesday morning.

 
Back
Top