I have a friend who’s a nice enough lady, but not the sharpest knife. She posted a meme today saying the lying media controls the medical profession and scientists. Brain numbing to say the least.
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So I guess having a curiosity about the moon landing makes me a 9/11 denier. Anyway, I see I’ve triggered you. Actually the broadcasting of all this live is another thing that skeptics point to and have to say again that broadcasting in more or less realtime from outer space with technology of the time was a remarkable almost unbelievable feat.
And again, hypothetically, it makes no sense to start from the assumption that everyone knew and everyone was in on it.
I will say that you lose me a bit with your brave men argument. You wont convince me that I’m obligated to believe it because of all the brave men and women that work for the federal government and the military industrial complex. They’ve shown us time and again that they will do whatever it takes for whatever crusade they are on, truth be damned. That said, I am skeptical that they could keep it covered up. But on other hand, nasa is the smartest part of the military industrial complex, so if anyone could, it would be them.
From my local paper today, The Oregonian: Link to the article is here.
The coronavirus turns deadly when it leads to ‘cytokine storm’; identifying this immune response is key to patient’s survival: report
March 13, 2020
By Douglas Perry | The Oregonian/OregonLive
Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus that has swept across the globe, is not like a bad case of the flu.
For one thing, a new study indicates that Covid-19 triggers in some people something called a cytokine storm, where one’s own immune system goes berserk. This “virus-activated” immune response can be deadly, causing severe respiratory distress and the subsequent shutdown of multiple organs.
Indeed, how one’s immune system reacts appears to be central to Covid-19′s severity.
“The virus matters, but the host response matters at least as much, and probably more,” University of Iowa virologist Stanley Perlman told The Scientist magazine last month.
For some people whose immune systems are compromised by age or for subtle genetic or environmental reasons, the normal immune response doesn’t retreat when it should. It goes into overdrive, leading to “a flood of immune cells into the lung.” This has a rapid cascading effect in the body.
Key to the patient’s survival is their doctors quickly recognizing this is happening. Dr. Randy Q. Cron, in a report for Vox, wrote that –
All Covid-19 patients sick enough for hospitalization should be given a cheap, quick, and readily available serum ferritin blood test. Indeed, elevated serum ferritin values have recently been reported in Chinese hospitalized patients with Covid-19. This is a good first screening tool for the possibility of a cytokine storm syndrome in sick patients with high fevers.
The question then remains how best to treat a cytokine storm syndrome once it is identified. The treating physician is often placed between a rock and a hard place. Corticosteroids can be powerfully broad immunosuppressive agents, and they are inexpensive and readily available throughout the world. However, it can be frightening for a physician to treat a severely ill, infected individual with such powerful and wide-ranging immune suppression.
He pointed out that there are other, more targeted drugs available as well, though trials will be needed to figure out which ones work best for Covid-19.
In China, Covid-19 patients exhibiting signs of cytokine storm reportedly are being treated with the anti-inflammation drug Actemra (tocilizumab). Actemra is used in the U.S. to treat rheumatoid arthritis.
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I’m trying to help do some debunking. There’s a viral post going around on email and Facebook claiming to be from a “board member“ at Stanford. It contains false information. Here’s what Stanford Medicine says about that:
Note: A widely distributed email about COVID-19 that is attributed to a “Stanford Hospital board member” contains inaccurate information. It did not come from Stanford Medicine.
What Stanford Medicine really says, in the same post, about COVID-19:
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Based on what is happening in my community, a lot of self-quarantining is going on. Yes, the store shelves are getting bare. But also traffic is a lot lighter. We attend two churches here, both have suspended services. The Senior Center where we have gone to exercise has shuttered for now. All concerts are cancelled. All schools have closed beginning Monday. We have decided to stay at home. The two events we were going to in the Central Coast of California were both cancelled yesterday. Friends have cancelled cruises. People are going into lockdown to some degree.
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This is a fairly long read, but worth the time. If you’re not convinced about the need for social distancing now, you will be after you read here:
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great info here, worth the 2 mins to watch
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Finally!
These are the things intelligent responsible adults were waiting to hear. We’ll see how it plays out, but this is what we needed and not conspiracy theories and lunacy of how people were trying to blame Trump for the virus.
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I wrote this post on a Facebook group about the infection. It’s been shared thousands of times over 2 days:
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Although COVID-19 shows a higher mortality rate for individuals >60 years old and it skyrockets at ages >80, the mortality rate for individuals under that age is not zero, it is still statistically significant. And we should care about everyone who is at risk of death from this disease.
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The mortality rate is not the only factor that matters. The average rate of hospitalization for this disease is around 20%, and many of those individuals need to be on respirators in the ICU.
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Irrespective of age, there are numerous comorbidities (that is, health conditions that can make COVID-19 serious for those who are younger). These include chronic diseases like type 1 or 2 diabetes, AIDS, cancer, smoking (including vaping), and immunosuppression. Being young does not make one immortal.
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Even if you are asymptomatic or just have minor symptoms, you can easily pass the virus to others who may be harmed by the disease. Maybe you visit your mother and give her the virus, and then she ends up in the ICU.
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COVID-19 is highly infectious probably 2X higher than the seasonal flu. During 2017-18 (the last season with solid data), over 44 million Americans contracted the flu, and 61,000 deaths. The numbers of infected individuals could be double that (if not triple), with hundreds of thousands of deaths with COVID-19.
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Healthcare capacity is limited (not just in the USA, but the whole world). There aren’t an infinite number of ICU beds in any community. There aren’t an infinite number of respirators. Even if only “elderly” contract the disease, they will take up ICU beds. What if that hospital has to take in patients from a massive accident on the freeway? Will the hospital have to tell you that they’re taking your mother off of a respirator to save the mother of two young children? That’s what scares those of us in public health. Modern healthcare systems (and this isn’t a US problem, so spare me that dumb argument) aren’t built for epidemics. In the 1950s and 60s, there were infectious disease “wings” of hospitals. We don’t have those because of vaccines.
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Real public health officials (not Trump and Pence) know that the pandemic is real and will grow fast. They’re doing their best to limit the size of it (called flattening the curve), so that hospital capacity isn’t taxed. It may be too late. That’s why it’s troubling that many of you think that because you’re amazingly fit young Marvel superheroes, you can carry the disease to others. Besides, those Marvel superheroes are fictional and you do not have some magical resistance to serious complications.
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There is no vaccine for COVID-19. None. We might have one in mid to late 2021 IF everything goes right. And that just means FDA approval, not full manufacturing. And no, stop with the crap myths that Big Pharma is lazy about this, at least 8 companies have major efforts to develop a vaccine.
I am not an epidemiologist. I am not an employee of the CDC. But I am a scientist, and I can read the stats and the expert analyses, and it’s clear that it’s too late to stop the progress of this disease.
What we can do is try to control it locally, and that means that you understand that this disease affects everyone, no matter your age. And that no one is immune to the disease.
And here’s a handy guide on coronavirus vaccine development.
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We are going back and forth between two related threads. Delete them. Thanks for letting me know.
Please share some of the FB reactions from your post. I am not on any social media save for this site and UteHub.
Known cases. The janitor at our church as had the symptoms for several days. He cannot be tested because there are not available test kits. He is now quarantined.
We have 450+ lawyers in our firm and I don’t know how many support staff. We’ve all been asked to work from home until further notice (I already sent my team of 10 home). Except for a skeleton administrative crew, no one will be there. I hope lots of people are doing this.
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Spring football practice cancelled.
A little humor, anyone?
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Yep, I think we may have 10 to 20 cases in Bend, but we won’t know that until next week. Then when we have 10, the likely number will be 60 to 90. And so on…
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The Wall Street Journal today published an extensive special section article or handbook really on dealing with CorVid19. The handbook is entitled, “How to Navigate the Corona Virus.”
Excellent article. Not so much charts, more on what to do for the short-term, medium-term and long-term. The sections are like 1) Who’s Most at Risk, 2) the Virus and Work: What Bosses Can and Can’t Make You Do, 3) Do’s and Don’ts Of Washing Hands, 4) Protection Without Getting Fleeced, etc., etc.
One of my favorite engineering professors, Sam Drake, worked on the Apollo project as a grad student. He worked on the design of control systems. He had a computer from a lunar module in his office. Fascinating stuff.
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So he said 