SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...cise-uk-government-over-following-the-science
The language of Science and expertise has been abused for so long and to such a degree - not least by both sides of Brexit - that nothing seems to mean anything anymore. And now, when serious communication and veracity are needed more than ever, all we seem to be capable of processing are memes and Trumpisms.

Also Cummings involved with formation of the scientific advise, wow:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...secret-scientific-advisory-group-for-covid-19
Sage participants told the Guardian the Downing Street advisers were not merely observing the advisory meetings, but actively participating in discussions about the formation of advice.
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Cardboard elk said:
Yes I just watched a video on this. They can quicky scale up to producing 300k tests per day. They use magnetic spheres to separate RNA for the testing machines. Still, one has to produce enough swabs etc to be able to test, but this method does not rely on rare chemicals or reagents that are hard to come by. If we can get the swabs etc. produced in high numbers, then we can test as much as we need every day.
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I think it was mentioned in the article from NRK that we have enough of everything to test on the scale mentioned, swabs included. Interesting stuff, with nano particles and whatnot.
 
dumbo said:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...cise-uk-government-over-following-the-science
The language of Science and expertise has been abused for so long and to such a degree - not least by both sides of Brexit - that nothing seems to mean anything anymore. And now, when serious communication and veracity are needed more than ever, all we seem to be capable of processing are memes and Trumpisms.

Also Cummings involved with formation of the scientific advise, wow:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...secret-scientific-advisory-group-for-covid-19
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Both sides?
 
Sparky Rhiwabon said:
Wales

Fed up of waiting for Westminster to stop dithering, the Welsh Government have published a framework for relaxing the lockdown and life back to a semblance of normality

https://gov.wales/sites/default/fil...ing-wales-out-of-the-coronavirus-pandemic.pdf
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I think in 2wks we'll be the first part of the UK to move. Scotland and NI close behind, then parts of England. It's tough to hear but London will be locked down much longer than everywhere else seen as though it's easily the epicentre of the UK.
 
Alabaster Codify7 said:
I think in 2wks we'll be the first part of the UK to move. Scotland and NI close behind, then parts of England. It's tough to hear but London will be locked down much longer than everywhere else seen as though it's easily the epicentre of the UK.
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Leading the way.

Londoners won't like it if they're held back for longer than the rest of England. Would be difficult to implement I'd imagine
 
Sparky Rhiwabon said:
Leading the way.

Londoners won't like it if they're held back for longer than the rest of England. Would be difficult to implement I'd imagine
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Christ no. But their numbers are what is holding the Rest of England back minus the odd city. It's completely understandable that London has been the worst hit, it's usually the capital......unless you're China, of course......
 
FlawlessThaw said:
Are the media doing the right thing or on what? Making grammatical errors? In your example yeah sure it's not right. Bit of a small hill to die on when you compare to the lionisation of Johnson.
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Toryies make a fatal arse of it and a minor typo is the thing to worry about?
 
Anustart89 said:
I think that anyone working in the field is reluctant to put people on ventilators, since the weaning process is an absolute bitch. It's a tough decision though.

How long do you leave someone with a saturation of 80-85% despite treating them with 100% oxygen on a high flow nasal cannula in a semi-prone position before accepting that they won't turn it around? I reckon a few will turn it around if you refrain from intubating for a day or two longer than you normally would, but some will also get kidney failure (among other organ failures) from sustained hypoxia, so how do you predict who's likely to turn it around without mechanical ventilation and who won't? That's the main issue and something that we won't get an answer to until we retrospectively analyse the outcomes for mechanically ventilated/non-ventilated patients, if we ever do that.
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Yeah. A lot of guesswork. Fascinating how so many intensivists talk about this as something they’ve never seen before. Really compliant lungs and people dropping their sats to their boots without realising it. I’ve also never heard proning talked up this much.
 
Skills said:
What do you think of this breathing aid that mercedes were manufacturing? It sounds a lot less invasive

https://www.itv.com/news/central/20...rthampton-hospital-in-fight-against-covid-19/
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They’re not really ventilators. CPAP would be the next best thing to being intubated but are a bit controversial. Opinions differ on how much they help and they generate a lot of aerosol. Which is dangerous to anyone around them.

That might have changed recently, mind you. Best practice seems to change every few days.
 
Drawfull said:
Unhelpful headlines in the MSM are starting to bug me.

New story on Guardian: Needs an 'a' before coronavirus

Revealed: UK ministers were warned last year of risks of coronavirus pandemic

Needs an 'a' before coronavirus regardless of its validity.

It's just one of many. Are the media doing the right thing or?

(disclosure, Tory reading Guardian as I prefer it to the more right-wing press. I pay for access to the Telegraph, but theit site is shite)
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It's not a grammatical error, it's Headlinese.
 
person-phil-prettygoodphil-trump-supporters-tonight-clorox-oncentrated-splash-less

The worst thing is some morons propably will try it killing themselves in the process.
Makes you wonder what is the next thing that comes out of that stupid fecks big mouth.
 
Russian scientist Peter Chumakov says Wuhan Lab Chinese scientists created "variants of the virus without malicious intent", possibly aiming for an HIV vaccine.
Scientists at the Wuhan Laboratory, he said, have been actively involved in the development of various coronavirus variants for over 10 years.
"Moreover, they did this, supposedly not with the aim of creating pathogenic variants, but to study their pathogenicity," he said.

https://www.sciencetimes.com/articl...ngs-study-covid-19-russian-microbiologist.htm

Really makes you wonder.
 
Cardboard elk said:
Russian scientist Peter Chumakov says Wuhan Lab Chinese scientists created "variants of the virus without malicious intent", possibly aiming for an HIV vaccine.
Scientists at the Wuhan Laboratory, he said, have been actively involved in the development of various coronavirus variants for over 10 years.
"Moreover, they did this, supposedly not with the aim of creating pathogenic variants, but to study their pathogenicity," he said.

https://www.sciencetimes.com/articl...ngs-study-covid-19-russian-microbiologist.htm

Really makes you wonder.
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The accompanying photo, lack of clear indication who makes up their editorial board and sourcing from the Daily Mail are what really makes me wonder about that article.

coronavirus-disease-2019.jpg
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Yeah. A lot of guesswork. Fascinating how so many intensivists talk about this as something they’ve never seen before. Really compliant lungs and people dropping their sats to their boots without realising it. I’ve also never heard proning talked up this much.
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To be honest, it's not that shocking from a physiological point of view. Shortness of breath and distress mainly hinges on accumulation of CO2 and a high work of breathing. We don't see these patients with abnormal PCO2 levels. They can get rid of that, albeit with a high required effort. Hypoxia usually causes respiratory distress if you're already accustomed to elevated PCO2 levels. I mean, you already know this so I'm not looking to educate you, just saying that it makes sense in a way.

Proning is a cornerstone in classic ARDS treatment, just that it's rare enough to have patients with such severe cases of ARDS since there's an underlying disorder that is treatable. Usually, the ARDS clears before you've exhausted all supine treatment options. In my ICU, I'd say that we have (ballpark figure) 15 patients in a year that require proning.

In moderate to severe ARDS, it halved the mortality from 32% to 16% in one RCT, which is quite a lot better than many other ICU treatments. The "two phenotypes of Covid-19" might be a thing or it may just be two phases of the same disorder, but in the ARDS-like state, it makes a lot of sense to prone the patients to improve ventilation/perfusion matching.

But yeah, regarding your main point, it's a weird fecking disease. I mean, we see people with the flu getting this bad but by the time you tube them the infection's already getting better so you only need to ride it out and let them recover from the effort of breathing. We've had patients in our ICU for nigh on three weeks now that look the same on their CXR as they did when they arrived.
 
Dwazza Gunnar Solskjær said:
The accompanying photo, lack of clear indication who makes up their editorial board and sourcing from the Daily Mail are what really makes me wonder about that article.
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From dubious sources maybe, yes. I will try and be more cautious in the future. What is true, I do not know. These are the statements of some people. Hopefully investigations into this will shed light on what went on in that lab. I would not rule out anything or conclude myself. There was this other dude, a french nobel prize winner named Montagnier that put forth some similar views earlier, claiming there were elements of aids in the genome of the corona virus. His nobel prize was for aids research. But he was critized for the statements by other "experts" which claimed he had fallen downhill the last years and attacked his credibility. There was a podcast and an article in Le Parisien about this. Anyways, disregard that article, it was too dubious in hindsight :)

Edit : China has rejected calls for an independent international investigation into the origin of the coronavirus. No transparancy there. Just contributes to conspiracy theories that they refuse international investigations.
 
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So I've been looking at the daily deaths and cases and they seem to be a plateue and a small decrease. But were in lockdown and have been for over a month so what is the likelihood of these numbers being not a decrease but a continuous trend based on our crap social distancing measures? Could this be a norm in figures that doesnt fall. As in these numbers will stay the same.
 
Cardboard elk said:
Russian scientist Peter Chumakov says Wuhan Lab Chinese scientists created "variants of the virus without malicious intent", possibly aiming for an HIV vaccine.
Scientists at the Wuhan Laboratory, he said, have been actively involved in the development of various coronavirus variants for over 10 years.
"Moreover, they did this, supposedly not with the aim of creating pathogenic variants, but to study their pathogenicity," he said.

https://www.sciencetimes.com/articl...ngs-study-covid-19-russian-microbiologist.htm

Really makes you wonder.
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> He told Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper: 'There are several inserts, that is, substitutions of the natural sequence of the genome, which gave it special properties.


this is a very testable prediction, it can be tested by any functioning lab in about 2-3 days. if you have the sequence and old bat coronavirus sequences, it wlll not be had to find out if inserts are artifical or not.
 
Alabaster Codify7 said:
Christ no. But their numbers are what is holding the Rest of England back minus the odd city. It's completely understandable that London has been the worst hit, it's usually the capital......unless you're China, of course......
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I know you don't watch the daily pressers @Alabaster Codify7 but you'll be amused to know guy from the Evening standard was pretty much pleading with Chris Whitty yesterday with his question for London to end the lockdown before all the other cities and regions. Think he just saw the deaths falling graph and assumed everything would be alright now so didn't quite intepret it correctly. :lol:
 
Alabaster Codify7 said:
Did not know that! Cool.
I actually opted out of the clapping last night. I think my parents thought I was a cnut but I'm kind of done with it now, it feels too much like an episode of Black Mirror. Our media spends 23hrs a day terrifying people like my parents with doom and gloom news then pressures them into going outside on cue in their pyjamas to clap and smile like a fecking circus animal. Its making me nauseous now. There's plenty of positives from around the globe they could be slightly telling us about to give people some light at the end of the tunnel but no. Not our media.

I now realize why the world calls us whinging Brits. Nothing but negativity 24/7.
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It’s one minute. Show up. Stop whinging.
 
Cardboard elk said:
Russian scientist Peter Chumakov says Wuhan Lab Chinese scientists created "variants of the virus without malicious intent", possibly aiming for an HIV vaccine.
Scientists at the Wuhan Laboratory, he said, have been actively involved in the development of various coronavirus variants for over 10 years.
"Moreover, they did this, supposedly not with the aim of creating pathogenic variants, but to study their pathogenicity," he said.

https://www.sciencetimes.com/articl...ngs-study-covid-19-russian-microbiologist.htm

Really makes you wonder.
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It shouldn't though, because the only difference between that and the older conspiratorial stories is the intent (malicious or not). You either accept the biological/genetic argument or you don't. Personally I don't know enough to have a strong opinion on that, but the sources claiming the genetic composition points towards a natural occurrence seem a lot more credible to me, whilst the only thing "new" this adds to the table is changing their intent from nefarious to noble.
 
Just seen if the UK keep up recording 600-800 dead a day for a week or two more they will be the worse affected country per capita. I seen the US are averaging about 2000+ dead a day but per population would need to be reporting 3800 to match UL.
I’m in Ireland we are nearly as bad as UK but we added 185 probable deaths from nursing homes and are counting all
 
US authorities warn doctors against prescribing hydroxychloroquine
Kenya Evelyn

The US Food and Drug Administration has warned doctors against prescribing the malaria drug Donald Trump has been touting, citing reports of sometimes fatal heart side effects among patients.

From the Associated Press:
The warning comes as doctors at a New York hospital published a report that heart rhythm abnormalities developed in most of 84 coronavirus patients treated with hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic azithromycin, a combo Trump has promoted. Both drugs are known to sometimes alter the heartbeat in dangerous ways, and their safety or ability to help people with COVID-19 is unknown.
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The warning excludes in hospital and research studies. A National Institutes of Health experts panel earlier this week also recommended against taking that drug combo except in a formal study.
 
Cardboard elk said:
Really makes you wonder.
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No it doesn't. The genome of the virus precludes it being man made. It also couldn't have come from the bat virus they have because the virus that was involved in this outbreak had evolved for up to 50 years in a bat or other host since. So it just isn't possible.
 
sun_tzu said:
no doubt a fan of queen troll herself



wheres karma when you need it
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While I don't agree with her general tone/message is it actually true people with lumps aren't getting looked at? Genuinely scandalous if true.
 
Wibble said:
No it doesn't. The genome of the virus precludes it being man made. It also couldn't have come from the bat virus they have because the virus that was involved in this outbreak had evolved for up to 50 years in a bat or other host since. So it just isn't possible.
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Am I missing something here? You are saying that it is impossible that it is man made?. But also are you ruling out the "supposed" origin as the "Bat virus" (your words!).

So, In your opinion, where do you think it came from?

Just curious because you seem to be clued up on this.
 
Dancfc said:
While I don't agree with her general tone/message is it actually true people with lumps aren't getting looked at? Genuinely scandalous if true.
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Putting people without Covid into buildings packed with Covid victims would be a disaster.

The trick is to assume that whatever she thinks the opposite is true.
 
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bri2013 said:
Am I missing something here? You are saying that it is impossible that it is man made?. But also are you ruling out the "supposed" origin as the "Bat virus" (your words!).

So, In your opinion, where do you think it came from?

Just curious because you seem to be clued up on this.
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That is the consensus and virtual certainty. This addresses how SARS-CoV-2 couldn't have come directly from the virus held in the lab.

https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opin...professor-edward-holmes-sars-cov-2-virus.html

The other thing is that an engineered virus has very specific single point changes. This virus genome shows small changes all over it's genome (in the 20-50 years of antigen drift that he is talking about) something that would be impossible to mimic with genetic engineering. The last bit I'm paraphrasing someone on here (I forget who - sorry) who does genetic engineering on bacteria - hopefully I got the gist of it right.

I'm not sure I exactly said supposed bat virus. If I did I wasn't being clear.

The origin of this is a bat virus. That virus then gradually mutated over 20-50 years in bats (separate from the bats who currently have the source virus RaTG13 ) and/or an intermediate host (possibly a pangolin). The next bit is somewhat speculative but won't be far from the truth when we find the intermediate host. At some point relatively recently the slowly evolved virus probably recombines with another virus in the intermediate host, which probably had little or no impact on the host but allowed the virus to be passed more easily to humans (and it happened to be quite dangerous for us). This transmission to humans either a) happened at the Wuhan wet market, b) happened as a different wet market or similar source of animals sold at the wet market and the infected person worked at the Wuhan wet market or c) patient zero got is somewhere else and just visited the Wuhan wet market and infected one or more people who worked there who spread it further. I would be very surprised if the truth is very far away from that scenario.
 
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Wibble said:
Putting people without Covid into buildings packed with Covid victims would be a disaster.

The trick is to assume that whatever she thinks the opposite is true.
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So In other words, someone who potentially has cancer can't get tested and then if need be treated?

There's still other illnesses too!
 
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Wibble said:
That is the consensus and virtual certainty. This addresses how SARS-CoV-2 couldn't have come directly from the virus held in the lab.

https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opin...professor-edward-holmes-sars-cov-2-virus.html

The other thing is that an engineered virus has very specific single point changes. This virus genome shows small changes all over it's genome (in the 20-50 years of antigen drift that he is talking about) something that would be impossible to mimic with genetic engineering. The last bit I'm paraphrasing someone on here (I forget who - sorry) who does genetic engineering on bacteria - hopefully I got the gist of it.
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Are you a virologist or epidemioligist or whatever the correct term is?

The link I read from your post said this at the end.

"In summary, the abundance, diversity and evolution of coronaviruses in wildlife strongly suggests that this virus is of natural origin. However, a greater sampling of animal species in nature, including bats from Hubei province, is needed to resolve the exact origins of SARS-CoV-2."
 
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Dancfc said:
So In other words, someone who potentially has cancer can't get tested and then if need be treated?

There's still other illnesses too!
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There are but you have to solve the pandemic before doing less urgent things. Some people will get worse outcomes but giving them the virus as well is a bad idea on a number of levels. It makes the pandemic worse and spreads the illness in people who have other conditions already.

The way to get other treated is to get on top of SARS-CoV-2 as fast as possible.
 
Wibble said:
There are but you have to solve the pandemic before doing less urgent things. Some people will get worse outcomes but giving them the virus as well is a bad idea on a number of levels. It makes the pandemic worse and spreads the illness in people who have other conditions already.

The way to get other treated is to get on top of SARS-CoV-2 as fast as possible.
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But isn't the whole sell of this lockdown based on saving lives? Imagine following those rules to the letter only to be told that literally nothing is going to be done to save you. Imagine that young terminally ill Sunderland fan (that Defoe had a bond with) going through what he went through at the very end today.
 
bri2013 said:
Are you a virologist or epidemioligist or whatever the correct term is?
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No but used to be an evolutionary biologist. I'm learning lots about it though - not an expert but usually OK at judging how good bad or indifferent information/data sources are. And it isn't easy at the moment because things are moving so fast. The primary literature where there are well designed, well controlled long term studies that are then peer reviewed by numerous experts in the field prior to publication can't be our source of information at the moment and that makes it hard.
 
Dancfc said:
But isn't the whole sell of this lockdown based on saving lives? Imagine following those rules to the letter only to be told that literally nothing is going to be done to save you. Imagine that young terminally ill Sunderland fan (that Defoe had a bond with) going through what he went through at the very end today.
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It is but no matter what we have to balance the risks and the UK isn't locked down very hard despite having huge infection levels. Covid kills now and has to be dealt with now, later detection of things like cancers will cause adverse outcomes but far fewer. I'm not sure if a terminal patient right at the end wouldn't be admitted although i guess it is possible if hospitals are overwhelmed. And that would be truly terrible. But the way to avoid/minimise these sorts of things is to get SARS-CoV-2 under control ASAP.

Australia and (I think) NZ are going to start elective surgery again very soon - possibly next week - as they are close to eliminating the virus from the general population.
 
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Dancfc said:
But isn't the whole sell of this lockdown based on saving lives? Imagine following those rules to the letter only to be told that literally nothing is going to be done to save you. Imagine that young terminally ill Sunderland fan (that Defoe had a bond with) going through what he went through at the very end today.
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Why do you think that fan would have received a lower level of care?
 
giggs-beckham said:
So I've been looking at the daily deaths and cases and they seem to be a plateue and a small decrease. But were in lockdown and have been for over a month so what is the likelihood of these numbers being not a decrease but a continuous trend based on our crap social distancing measures? Could this be a norm in figures that doesnt fall. As in these numbers will stay the same.
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The reporting data is noisy, a few of us have tried smoothing it. My interpretation at the moment:

UK deaths peaked on the 9th-11th April (in terms of reporting).
The UK has declined steadily since then but slower than Spain or Italy. 10 days on from the peak, reporting was at ~80% of the peak (a reduction of ~15 deaths per day).
Continuing that trend linearly (a bad assumption), zero deaths would be reached in another 40-50 days. THIS IS NOT A PREDICTION, it is not accurate, but it does show an appreciable decline currently which is encouraging.
The decline won't be linear. If conditions stay the same, the gradient could increase or decrease in the short term, but in the long term countries are seeing slow exponential decay towards zero.
 
So I know France report suspected cases and care home deaths and so their figures are incomparable to the UK and the UK is obviously much higher.

What about Spain / Italy? What are they reporting?
 
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