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

Davros said:
Covid-19 vaccine 'to be trialled on people' from Thursday,
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Wait the MERS version was published about a little more than a week ago ... now a covid-19 version is already available? Something seems wrong here.

Why would you start testing straight on humans instead of apes and monkeys for a novel vaccine?
 
MfA said:
Wait the MERS version was published about a little more than a week ago ... now a covid-19 version is already available? Something seems wrong here.

Why would you start testing straight on humans instead of apes and monkeys for a novel vaccine?
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They've started already on animals, they're just hurrying up and ignoring normal length of various testing phases because it's considered too big of a threat.
(Also developing a vaccine for a close relative of the virus is easier than ground up new, which helps)
 
MfA said:
Wait the MERS version was published about a little more than a week ago ... now a covid-19 version is already available? Something seems wrong here.

Why would you start testing straight on humans instead of apes and monkeys for a novel vaccine?
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It is certainly odd. For years no vaccine or treatment has ever been found for MERS or SARS. These have significantly higher death rates. Suddenly there is one?
 
Nesh said:
It is certainly odd. For years no vaccine or treatment has ever been found for MERS or SARS. These have significantly higher death rates. Suddenly there is one?
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It's early days and the press is seizing upon whatever news they can find.
Once MERS and SARS dropped off the news cycle, a fair amount of follow-through didn't materialize.
There were attempts at SARS vaccines, I think at least some of the failed vaccines had problems with producing sufficient immunity, or produced damaging immune responses.
Part of what we should be cautious about is recognizing that some of the candidate vaccines are using the same methods that didn't work last time. This is a try-anything phase of the effort, prior to at least 12-18 months if we are fortunate to find something.
Some of the speed is due to rapid-response technologies for manufacturing protein or RNA-targeted antigens based on computational analysis of the genome China published in February. However, I recall the news story on one of the vendors, and in addition to being one of the first to create a vaccine the company has a history of no successes.
 
Nesh said:
It is certainly odd. For years no vaccine or treatment has ever been found for MERS or SARS. These have significantly higher death rates. Suddenly there is one?
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I'm not sure what level of testing they ever got as no case has emerged since 2004 there really hasn't been a need and less than 10k people ever got infected Dr. Fauci actually mentioned there was a cdc developed vaccine for sars in the US stockpile.

There are a number of vaccines into animal trials and a few moving to human trials for COVID-19. And there are dozens more in development.
 
MERS has popped up occasionally in the Middle East. The virus is apparently not very contagious person to person, but has found a reservoir in camels that allows it to be reintroduced.
From the wiki, it seems American COVID19 protesters aren't the only example of people defying health directives in the face of a deadly virus:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East_respiratory_syndrome

The Saudi Ministry of Agriculture has advised people to avoid contact with camels or wear breathing masks when around them. In response "some people have refused to listen to the government's advice" and kiss their camels in defiance of their government's advice.
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2019 Novel Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19) for Dallas County Texas
https://www.dallascounty.org/departments/dchhs/2019-novel-coronavirus.php

April 21, 2020 - 2,602 confirmed cases - 64 deaths

2,602 confirmed cases up 90 over yesterday and four new deaths
those 90 new cases represent a 3.6% increase over the last day

Increases (by percent) over the last 26 days:
21.0%, 19.6%, 11.1%, 12.5%, 14.9%, 15.8%, 13.7%,
10.8%, 10.2%, 9.6%, 3.9%, 9.2%, 5.0%, 8.2%,
7.3%, 7.0%, 4.8%, 3.8%, 5.0%, 5.8%, 4.0%,
6.0%, 6.1%, 4.5%, 3.5% and now 3.6%

Increases (by count) over the last 26 days:
+64, +72, +49, +61, +82, +100, +100,
+90, +94, +97, +43, +106, +63, +108,
+105, +107, +79, +65, +89, +109, +80,
+124, +134, +104, +84 and now +90

As of 1:00 pm April 21, 2020, Dallas County Health and Human Services is reporting 90 additional positive cases of 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19), bringing the total case count in Dallas County to 2,602, including 64 deaths.

The four additional deaths being reported today include:

  • A man in his 60's who was a resident of the City of Mesquite and had been critically ill in an area hospital
  • A man in his 70's who was a resident of the City of Duncanville and had been critically ill in an area hospital.
  • A woman in her 50's who was a resident of the City of Mesquite and had been critically ill in an area hospital.
  • A woman in her 90's who was a resident of the City of Mesquite and had been critically ill in an area hospital.
Of cases requiring hospitalization, most have been either over 60 years of age or have had at least one known high-risk chronic health condition. Diabetes has been an underlying high-risk health condition reported in about a third of all hospitalized patients with COVID-19. Of the 64 total deaths reported to date, over a third have been associated with long-term care facilities.
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More deaths, no benefit from malaria drug in VA virus study

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/othe...om-malaria-drug-in-va-virus-study/ar-BB12Zbz3
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/othe...om-malaria-drug-in-va-virus-study/ar-BB12Zbz3
A malaria drug widely touted by President Donald Trump for treating the new coronavirus showed no benefit in a large analysis of its use in U.S. veterans hospitals. There were more deaths among those given hydroxychloroquine versus standard care, researchers reported.

The [URL='https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.16.20065920v1.full.pdf']study was posted on an online site for researchers and has been submitted to the New England Journal of Medicine, but has not been reviewed by other scientists. Grants from the National Institutes of Health and the University of Virginia paid for the work.

Researchers analyzed medical records of 368 male veterans hospitalized with confirmed coronavirus infection at Veterans Health Administration medical centers who died or were discharged by April 11.

About 28% who were given hydroxychloroquine plus usual care died, versus 11% of those getting routine care alone. About 22% of those getting the drug plus azithromycin died too, but the difference between that group and usual care was not considered large enough to rule out other factors that could have affected survival.

Hydroxychloroquine made no difference in the need for a breathing machine, either.

Researchers did not track side effects, but noted hints that hydroxychloroquine might have damaged other organs. The drug has long been known to have potentially serious side effects, including altering the heartbeat in a way that could lead to sudden death.[/URL]
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Study Raises Questions About False Negatives From Quick COVID-19 Test
The fastest test being used to diagnose people infected with the coronavirus appears to be the least accurate test now in common use, according to new research obtained by NPR.

Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic tested 239 specimens known to contain the coronavirus using five of the most commonly used coronavirus tests, including the Abbott ID NOW. The ID NOW has generated widespread excitement because it can produce results in less than 15 minutes.

But the ID NOW only detected the virus in 85.2% of the samples, meaning it had a false-negative rate of 14.8 percent, according to Dr. Gary Procop, who heads COVID-19 testing at the Cleveland Clinic and led the study.

"So that means if you had 100 patients that were positive, 15% of those patients would be falsely called negative. They'd be told that they're negative for COVID when they're really positive," Procop told NPR in an interview. "That's not too good."

Procop says a test should be at least 95% reliable.

Procop, who plans to publish the study soon, chairs the Commission of Science, Technology and Policy for the American Society for Clinical Pathology.

Although the paper has not yet gone through the traditional peer-review process, Procop says the findings have been carefully reviewed at his hospital and he is confident in the results.

...

The Cleveland Clinic plans to rely on other tests that performed better in the study, Procop said. That includes the test developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which detected 100% of positive samples. Another test, made by Roche, detected 96.5% of positive samples. The fifth test in the study, made by Cepheid, detected 98.2% of infected samples, Procop said. The Cepheid test produces results in less than an hour.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health...bout-false-negatives-from-quick-covid-19-test
 
3dilettante said:
I'm not sure if it's being applied the same across all contexts. The way the term asymptomatic is used by some of the pandemic experts is that an individual exhibits no symptoms. This is distinct from pre-symptomatic, where there's a period of time before symptoms manifest. There are apparently instances where patients were infectious for days to weeks prior to showing any signs, but once they developed symptoms they wouldn't fall in the asymptomatic category.
Because that usage of asymptomatic means it's not known until after the fact, it's been harder to verify it is happening. The cruise ship and other physically contained outbreaks would have been some of the first opportunities to study known exposed patients, particularly since testing in the early was still evolving.

Mild in the reports I've seen discussed doesn't mean the same thing as the colloquial usage. Public health discussions defined "mild" as not requiring hospitalization, which from most everyday experiences can have a very wide range between feeling somewhat unwell to being just short of requiring acute care.
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Yes thanks I looked into it more and yes technically asymptomatic means having no symptoms whatssoever, even the slightest symptom even if the person doesnt notice is enough to put that person in the mild camp.
And from what I read mild is anyone not in a hospital

Heres a paper about the covid strain in Europe and east coast USA being more dangerous than the one in Asia/West Coast USA
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20060160v1
 
BRiT said:
"So that means if you had 100 patients that were positive, 15% of those patients would be falsely called negative. They'd be told that they're negative for COVID when they're really positive," Procop told NPR in an interview. "That's not too good."
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That’s such a delicious understatement.

But it also reminds us that Covid-19 is seriously big business. The profits, losses, bribes and so on involved are bound to be substantial. All the more reason to view results and statements with a healthy dose of scepticism and more than a sprinkling of cross checking.
 
I read this report on that paper the other day:

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/sci...tions-affect-deadliness-strains-chinese-study

With such a limited sampling, it must surely be difficult to come to any real conclusions, especially when some people are likely to remain asymptomatic, regardless of the minor mutations to the virus which infects them. I'd still guess it is a genetic or immune system issue which makes some people so much more susceptible than others.
 
Nesh said:
It is certainly odd. For years no vaccine or treatment has ever been found for MERS or SARS. These have significantly higher death rates. Suddenly there is one?
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They've been working on MERS/SARS vaccines for years and getting close. They've repurposed that research for a cousin of those viruses. Also, investmen tin those vaccines wasn't that plentiful as they weren't going concerns. Now people are throwing money at solutions for Covid19. Necessity is the mother of invention...
 
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/sci...tions-affect-deadliness-strains-chinese-study
According to a chinese study (waiting for peer review):
  • We've grossly underestimated the viruses ability to mutate (and the ways it mutates)
    • They found over 30 mutations of which 19 were completely new
  • There's plenty of different strains going around
  • Worst they found produced 270 times the viral load compared to mildest one
  • Even the mild ones can get one hospitalized
 
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